Chapter Text
Echo of Hope, Resistance Cruiser, 34 ABY
Iolo could feel his stomach clenching the closer they got to Lonera. He hated that Alys was there, she should be at the relative safety of the mobile base on the Echo but the Resistance was spread thin since they were forced to abandon D’Qar, and she and Tannyr had been sent in to extract Senator Vicly’s mate. No messages had got through in the past sixteen hours. Iolo knew it was serious when the General sent both Black and Dagger Squadrons.
Kate, his BB-K8 astromech, signalled they were about to leave hyperspace.
“Evasive maneuvers,” Poe Dameron, Black Leader, shouted over the comms.
They had dropped into planetary orbit and found three light cruisers waiting. Several squadrons of TIE fighters poured out of the nearest ship on attack vectors.
“Dagger Squad form up on me,” Iolo called and sent his x-wing into a climb.
Glancing over he saw Hil’de Cas’cara, Dagger Two, and Zoë Kirans, Dagger Three, on his wingtips. They broke off to engage the first wave of TIEs. It was quickly turning into a heated dogfight.
“To your left Dagger Lead,” Snap Wexley called and took care of the TIE on his tail.
“Thanks Black Two,” Iolo returned and moved to provide covering fire to Dorothea “Doc” Tryd, Dagger Four.
“What are we going to do Poe?” Jessika Pava, Black Three, asked during a lull in the battle. “How are we supposed to know where they are or what ship they’re in?”
“I think those light cruisers are a bigger problem,” Karé Kun, Black Four, muttered.
Iolo switched over to his squad’s private channel. “Think we could run a surface scan?”
“If we could get free of the TIEs,” Dagger Three responded and shot a passing ship.
“Black Leader,” Iolo switched channels and interrupted whatever Poe was in the middle of saying, “if you can keep those fighters occupied we can see what we can learn from a planetary scan.”
“You heard him Black Squad,” Poe said and launched a fresh attack with a whoop.
Iolo and Hil’de provided cover while the rest of Dagger Squad ran their sensors over the planet below. The initial reports weren’t looking good. They weren't picking up any signals from the surface, something was blocking all communications.
“I’m getting a message from the surface,” Snap’s voice had a note of disbelief in it.
“What?” Poe and Karé said at the same time.
“De-ate said he’s getting a linked message, in Dadita. It has to be Alys,” Snap said.
“How can you be sure?” Karé asked.
“Who else would find a way to get a message out?” Jess said and the sounds of explosions filtered through the comms.
Iolo huffed. “What does it say? We’re getting nothing.”
There was a pause while Snap conferred with his droid. “Coordinates. Communication relay.” Snap paused. “It's requesting we destroy whatever is at those coordinates, supposedly to restore communications.”
“What are we waiting for?” Poe asked.
For once Iolo didn't mind his rash decision making. “Daggers, can we see what’s at those coordinates?”
“Negative,” Doc said. “It has to be under where those cruisers are holding orbit.”
Iolo swore. “Let’s hang here.” For the moment, they were in the clear, Black Squad was holding the First Order’s attention. “Maybe we can use our positioning to sneak into atmo.”
“We have to make sure it’s Captain Esme,” Karé said. “It could be a trap. We might be blowing up our own agents.”
“Ask something that only you two would know,” Muran suggested to Snap.
There was a pause and all that Iolo could hear over the comms was the sounds of the battle still raging. He wondered how the messages were getting through and why it was to Snap’s astromech but they had bigger things to worry about than technical details.
“It’s her,” Snap said with confidence.
“What did you ask?” Karé said with a hint of trepidation.
“I asked - behind you Jess - I asked the first time we said ‘I love you,’” Snap said with hesitation.
Karé made a strange garbled noise over the comms. “You couldn’t think of anything else?” She hissed.
Iolo didn’t like it either but it would be something only Snap and Alys knew.
Snap sputtered a couple times. “Babe-”
Muran cut him off. “Jess, do you know that first time Poe and I said ‘I love you?’”
“What? No,” Jess responded. “But can we have this conversation when we’re not being shot at? I don’t care how you know, we just know it’s Alys down there so let’s help her out like we’re supposed to be doing.”
“Right,” Poe said and took command of the situation. “Dagger Leader, we’ve got them busy up here. Can you sneak in and destroy the communication relay?”
“We’re on it Black Leader,” Iolo said. “Black Two, can you let her know we’re on the way?”
As one unit, Iolo and the rest of the Daggers sent their ships into a dive, breaking through the upper atmosphere. They flew over a tranquil countryside, full of hills and small valleys, before screaming over the city. Obvious signs of a ground battle could be seen. Several of the buildings had smoke billowing out of them and peering closely, it looked like there were several stormtrooper transports on the ground but so far their x-wings were unchallenged. He knew it wasn’t going to last long.
“Hil’de and Zoë, you focus on taking out that relay,” Iolo called. “Doc, let’s see if we can’t clear some of those transports, give our people on the ground a little help.”
Two of the x-wings pulled away to roar across the city. Iolo and Doc each picked a target on the street and began laying ground fire.
He was momentarily distracted by the bright flash of an explosion and watched as a distant tower toppled. Their comms were suddenly inundated with chatter. It seemed knocking out the relay also destroyed any encryption. Flipping through the channels, he was able to determine that the ship-to-ship comms were still private but everything from the surface was open. This meant they might have to still rely on the linked connection to Snap’s astromech.
“Nice of you to join the party,” Agent Tannyr’s voice cut through the chatter. It sounded like he was somewhere that was taking heavy fire.
“What’s the situation Striker?” Iolo called back hoping the use of his codename would be enough to confirm who was talking.
“We’re going to hop a package up to you,” Tannyr replied.
It was obviously a code of some sort. “Can you send coordinates? We don’t want to miss the delivery,” Iolo said.
“Negative. You’ll know it when you see it.”
Snap’s voice came over the private comm channel, giving coordinates, it was a little to the south of where they were. Of course Alys figured out a way to get them the information they needed.
Banking, Iolo saw it. A small starhopper was moving away from the surface and taking fire from ground troops. “That’s our package Daggers. Let’s make sure it gets home safely.” They raced towards it but Iolo felt his stomach drop. A ship that size only had room for a pilot.
“Pumpkin,” Iolo called out using his pet name for Alys, “please tell me you are all in the package.”
“Negative Dagger Leader,” her voice came through faintly. “It was the only way. This could be the spark we need.”
He heard some scuffling in the background and what sounded like blaster fire.
“You have to hold the door,” she shouted and returned blaster fire. “Tooy keep trying to weld it shut.”
“What about you?” Iolo all but shouted.
“We’ll find another way. It was the only option ‘Lo,” she sounded resolute. “Fierfe-” her swear was cut off by the sound of a giant explosion.
Iolo turned as far as he could in the cockpit and saw flames shooting out of a previously clear city sector. “Alys! Alys!” He shouted but got no response. “Tannyr?” Still no response. “Snap, you got anything?” He asked after switching channels.
“De-ate isn’t receiving anything,” came Snap’s pained reply. “Frag it all to hell,” he swore. That summed up the feeling.
“Thanks for the escort,” a high pitched male voice said. “She was the bravest person I ever met.”
“Is,” Iolo said through gritted teeth. “She is the bravest person and she is going to find a way out of there.”
There was a resounding silence from the other pilots. “Daggers,” Poe finally said, “Black Squad is going to hold the TIEs off while you get clear to make the jump. We’ll meet you back at base.”
Iolo stared at the glowing engines of the starhopper floating in hyperspace before him. He ground his teeth together and slammed a fist into the shutoff for the comms before screaming his frustrations out.
He had almost lost Alys in the disaster that had been the evacuation from D’Qar. She was still alive now. He wouldn’t allow himself to think otherwise. She was smart and wouldn’t have stayed behind without a plan but he wished he had said something, anything, to let her know how much he cared.
Thinking back over the battle he came to the conclusion that everything was Karé’s fault. If she hadn’t insisted on making sure it was Alys, they would of had more time. Time to work out a better exit strategy. Time to make sure all of their people made it off the ground.
Maybe this is what Karé wanted. Maybe she thought Alys was still hung up on Snap or more likely Snap was still hung up on Alys. This ridiculous jealousy of Karé’s needed to stop. Iolo trusted Alys. For kriffs sake, all Snap and Alys did was play that horrible Galactic Expansion game; not there had been much time for games lately. He gritted his teeth. This was definitely all Karé’s fault.
Pushing back the helmet back to rub his eyes, he noticed the comm indicator flashing. He didn’t want to listen to the sympathy of the others and took several slow breaths. He had to pull it together, he was in command of the squad, he could fall apart later when they were safe on base. He had to complete the mission, it’s what Alys would want.
“Sorry about the delay Mr. Vicly,” Iolo said in a measured tone. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Are we going to arrive at your base soon? I’m worried the power cells aren’t going to last much longer,” Briv Vicly said in a quiet voice.
Iolo checked the scan Kate ran. “It appears the starhopper has enough fuel to make it to base,” he said with a sigh.
“Not those. The ones keeping my granddaughter alive.”
“What?” How were there were two people in there?
“My granddaughter is very sick. If the machine filtering her blood stops, she will die. She’s only three,” Briv’s voice broke a little.
Iolo swore, as if things weren’t bad enough. “We should be there in ninety minutes,” he said after checking the navcomputer. “I’ll radio ahead to have med staff waiting.”
“Thank you. It’s going to be very close,” Briv said.
Iolo swore again. If only Karé hadn’t wasted so much time, none of this would be happening.