What If : The Story Retold

Parting of the Ways.

The last two transports were assending to the sky rapidly and Luke cursed under his breath because it had been difficult enough to defend one ship with all their fighters still intact, trying to defend two at once with their fighters depleted would be a challenge. To add onto that, they were no longer getting support from the ion cannon on the surface so both Maulian war ships were operational again.

The strong formation Luke's squadron had formally adopted had long since caved in and broken ranks as fighters scrabbled aimlessly through space trying their best to avoid death at every corner. Luke just had to trust in the force that everything would fall in place, it was seeming less and less likely but Luke fancied himself more of an optimist unlike his sister.

The energy sheild had been blown up already down at the surface, even visible from where Luke had been in orbit, so the second the transports came into sight, the war ships began to bombard them immediately.

Luke could sense that Leia wasn't aboard either ships and though that worried him deeply since they were the last evacuation ships, he decided to push his worry to the back of his mind. She couldn't be dead, Luke was certain he would have felt some pull of the force of she had, but doubt was easily rooted now. Luckily for him and those around him, he had been trained for situations like these so used his strength of will to avoid the worry within him, he needed to concentrate.

Gunning down some of the enemy fighters in his wake, Luke fell back to the transports, protecting them as well as he could. To his relief, the few fighters they had left followed Luke's lead and formed back up around the evacuation ships; perhaps there was still a chance to salvage this battle, if only to let the transports jump into hyperspace.

Finally, one of the transports disappeared in a flash to lightspeed. With one less liability to worry about, Luke thought it would be easier now but it quickly dawned on him that it was the exact opposite as he was now trying to protect the single last transport from the barrage of both war ships.

To his relief, Luke caught a glimpse of the Millennium Falcon flying away from the planet and he was sure Leia was aboard.

Just as Luke was beginning to think things couldn't get any worse, he saw a new ship disembark from the hanger bay of one of the war ships. This one wasn't a usual fighter, it looked more advanced and more dangerous.

It immediately began to target him and try as he might, he couldn't shake them off his tail. Whoever this was, they clearly were an advanced fighter pilot and the more he tried to dodge and deflect them, the more Luke came to realise that whoever was in control of that fighter had to be force sensitive as no ordinary person had reflexes like them.

With this new ship now evidently only targeting him, Luke decided it would be best for him to lead them away from the transport and his fellow fighters. As he predicted, the fighter followed him and if it hadn't been for his quick maneuvers, he would have been long gone by now.

The last transport finally jumped into lightspeed, which just left him and the remainder of fighters.

"Guys, leave without me, meet back at the rendezvous!" Luke ordered through his Comm as he desperately tried to shake this mystery fighter.

Though they protested at leaving their commander behind, Luke insisted they leave now whilst they had the chance and that as soon as this fighter was dealt with, he would join them.

Doing as they were told, they all made a hasty exit from the battle.

***

The Millennium Falcon was only just holding together when they breached orbit and found themselves trying to navigate the labyrinth of chaos that was the fight above. Leia had to cling onto Han's seat in front of her just to stay upright as they came in contact with the warships.