Terran Alliance: A Jedi and the Hammer Squadron

Chapter 9- Easy Pickings

Chapter 9- Easy Pickings

(June 15, 2026)

As the blue of hyperspace rushes past him, Jonathan runs a final check on his systems as he nears the end of his hyperspace run. Soon enough, they'll be launching the attack on Bastion.

After Jared had informed Jonathan of their new task to attack Bastion, Jonathan had taken the squadron back to Christophsis, where they had been granted access to the intelligence the Alliance had gained about the few Imperial forces stationed at Bastion.

The Imperial forces present at Bastion were relatively small. Only a Star Destroyer and a light cruiser, a small garrison base on the ground, and a number of TIE fighters. For the Hammer Squadron, it should be fairly simple.

"Jonathan, 20 seconds to go," Alex calls from the backseat.

"Alright. Let's get ready to rumble," Jonathan says, resting his hand on the hyperspace throttle, ready to go and counting down the seconds in his head. After a long 20 seconds, Jonathan pulls back sharply on the throttle, and the SF-15 drops out of hyperspace along with the rest of the Squadron.

Jonathan immediately scans his field of view, analyzing the situation. Sure enough, the Star Destroyer and the cruiser outlined in the intelligence report are in orbit above the planet, but no TIE fighters spotted yet.

Within a few seconds, Jonathan has formulated a plan. "Alright. Hammer 2 to Hammer 10, with me! Hammer 11, lead the rest and hit the base on the planet!"

"Copy that," come a series of calls from the squadron.

"Throttle up, and weapons free!" Jonathan calls as he shoves his throttles to full power. The SF-15 quickly accelerates, and the rest of the squadron follows Jonathan as they start their attack runs.

On board the Imperial ships, the crew don't yet realize they're under attack. On the bridge of the Star Destroyer, one of the crew monitoring the ship's detection systems switches his system back on after finishing a brief maintenance on it. Immediately, he spots a series of dots, approaching at high speed.

"Captain, multiple contacts just picked up. They're approaching from the outer parts of the system, coming in fast,' the crewman calls out.

The ship's captain pulls out a set of binocks and goes up to the viewport, looking out into space. After a few seconds, he spots the approaching SF-15s. His blood chills as he recognizes the signature emblem painted on the backs of the fighters of a shield emblazoned with a hammer.

"No! It's the Hammer Squadron! Sound the alarm!" the captain orders.

Immediately, alarms begin sounding throughout the Star Destroyer, and soon enough on board the light cruiser and the base down on the planet. TIE pilots quickly hurry to launch while gunners on the warships try to ready their weapons.

In his cockpit, Jonathan grins a bit as the squadron separates into the two forces, and his group continues straight towards the two ships in orbit as the other group alters course slightly to head for the base on the planet.

As Jonathan's group nears the two warships, Jonathan spots small shapes beginning to peel away from the ships. "And here come the TIEs!" Jonathan smirks.

"Already on it, Jonathan," Alex says from the backseat, already working on locking the fighter's AMRAAMs onto their targets. Soon enough, he gets a lock on two of the approaching TIEs and assigns each one an AMRAAM.

"Got two!" Alex calls out. Jonathan squeezes the trigger, and two AMRAAMs launch. Within seconds, the other nine fighters in his group have launched a dozen more AMRAAMs. Each missile successfully finds its target, downing 14 incoming TIEs. With only a portion of each ship's air wing currently aboard the ships instead of down on the planet, it leaves the Hammers outnumbered about 2 to 1. Easy odds for the Hammer Squadron.

The TIEs and SF-15s merge in a flurry of laser fire, one TIE exploding in the midst of the storm of fire. Both sides then start turning to re-engage each other in a massive dogfight. However, these TIE pilots are far from the cream of the crop, and it quickly begins to show.

Jonathan holds the stick tightly in his gut, turning his SF-15 tightly. Soon enough, a TIE fighter appears off his nose. Jonathan pulls a few degrees tighter and manages to center his laser cannons on the TIE. He squeezes the trigger and fires, blowing the TIE to pieces.

Suddenly, laser bolts go flying past his canopy. Jonathan looks back and sees a TIE on his tail.

Instantly, Jonathan levels himself and then snaps the stick back, pulling his nose up from his current flight path. As he pulls up, Jonathan begins pulling his nose around. Soon enough, despite the TIEs efforts, Jonathan manages to get his nose on the target. Squeezing the trigger, Jonathan blows the TIE to pieces.

Looking around, Jonathan sees that there are only a few TIEs left, the others having already been shot down. As he glances around, Jonathan sees a TIE crossing across his nose. He immediately snaps the stick over, pulling in smoothly behind the TIE. The TIE tries desperate evasive manuevers to escape from Jonathan, but Jonathan easily stays behind his target. Soon enough, he gets enough of a good sight on the TIE and squeezes the trigger. Dozens of laser bolts fly through space all around the fiercely manuevering TIE. After several seconds, one of the laser bolts hits the strut of its right wing and blows the panel clean off of the TIE. The TIE enters a spin before exploding a few seconds later.

Seeing now that all of the TIEs in orbit have been shot down, Jonathan focuses his attention on the much bigger targets directly in front of him, and streaks straight towards the Star Destroyer. The rest of the pilots in orbit start following him, readying their anti-ship weapons.

As Jonathan and the Hammers in orbit ready themselves to attack the two warships, down on the planet, the rest of the Squadron is in the midst of a dogfight of their own. The base on the planet had scrambled the TIEs on the planet, which had managed to intercept the Hammers at about 20,000 feet.

However, like the TIEs in orbit, these TIE pilots are woefully underprepared to face the Hammer Squadron, and over half have already been shot down. As the TIEs are falling from the sky, Hammer 17 and 18, two of the more junior members of the squadron, turn their sights on the base itself.

As the two pilots dive their SF-15s towards the base, they see that it's not a particularly big structure. A single building with the airfield next to it. Hammer 17 analyzes it and quickly surmises that the base won't take much punishment to destroy. "Let's hit it with proton torpedoes. Four weapons each," Hammer 17 calls to his wingman.

The two SF-15s level their noses at the base. The pilots hold steady as their backseaters lock their targeting system onto the structure. Once they the confirmation, both pilots squeeze the triggers, launching two pairs of torpedoes. The first four torpedoes demolish the roof before the last four wreck most of the rest of the structure.

"Boom!" Hammer 17 calls out as the two SF-15s pull up sharply and circle around for another run.

"That base is toast," Hammer 18 calls out.

"Maybe. But let's make sure," Hammer 17 says. The two pilots then proceed to make three strafing passes with their laser cannons, killing the few personnel that survived the torpedo impacts. Once they feel confident that there are no survivors, the two pilots pull up away from the base.

"This is Hammer 17. Base is destroyed," Hammer 17 calls over the radio.

"Copy, Hammer 17. Mission complete. All aircraft, rendezvous in orbit and prepare for jump to hyperspace. Set course for Naboo," Jonathan says over the radio.

The planet-side group returns to orbit, where they discover that Jonathan and his group have destroyed the two warships in orbit. As they rendezvous in orbit, the Squadron all call in that their hyperdrives have been programmed. Once the whole squadron has called in, Jonathan calls for the jump, and the entire Squadron jumps to hyperspace.