General Triji Boliv wasn't happy. He had specifically said he wanted to be a simple Flight Member again when he turned Typhoon Squadron over to Jagged nearly a year ago. He had enjoyed the freedom from responsibility these last nine months, but then the High Command had pulled not only Jagged, but JKast and Tony too into some secret operation. Suddenly, with the Squadron Commander, and its Executive Officer, AND its Flight Leader all gone Admiral Setzer had forced Triji back into temporary Command. And he had thought Locke was his friend.

The Challenge had been deployed here at Jundaxa for three weeks now and Triji was actively checking his datapad throughout the day, just hoping there would be a message saying Jagged, or any of them, would be coming back from their TDY. Well, he hoped Jagged, and Locke, knew that no matter who was here or not here with the squadron, HE would not be writing any Monthly Squadron Evaluations. Was not going to happen. Maybe he could weasel Prost to do it? Like when they made him be the Commodore of the Challenge way back in the day against his will. He was just starting to type a message to Master to brainstorm this new idea of his when a high priority message came across his datapad.

---

From: AD Setzer

Subject: Report Immediately

All Squadron Commanders, report to the Admiral's conference room for an emergency discussion.

---

Well, Triji's plan to pass the buck will have to wait. Packing up his things he walked the familiar grey corridors of the Challenge to the conference room. He was surprised to find he was the last to arrive, Triji could have sworn he came as soon as he got the message.

"Take a seat, B," Locke said in greeting. "Alright, Fleet Admiral Berkana is convinced that we have all been led down the primrose path into a trap. We only have the Challenge, Warrior, and Hammer here in the Jundaxa System, with most of our forces off testing our secret project. The other Battlegroup Commanders and I, while not wholly agreeing that this is a trap, do agree that our position is vulnerable and steps should be taken to prevent what risk there is."

"The Warfare Officer has recalled some of our forces, but it will take them a few days to get here, even with the Hyperspace lanes we have mapped in the area. In the meantime, each of the Battlegroups will be establishing an around the crono combat patrol and sending out scouting patrols to the surrounding systems."

"I am sending to each of you the duty assignments for the next three days while we wait for our reinforcements to arrive. Up first on the combat patrol will be Firebird, while Typhoon will be our first scouting patrol. Let's get to work."

With that Triji's day had gotten even worse.

---

An hour later Triji was piloting a TIE Advanced along with a wingman on their patrol route. He sure hoped Phoenix was jumping at shadows, but he had a bad feeling about it all, and was afraid the admirals were right.

"Tighten it up, Reece. You're drifting out of formation."

"Roger."

"Get ready for the jump."

"On your wing, General."

Triji pulled back on the hyperdrive levers and sent his fighter rocketing into the blue swirl of hyperspace. He had only a few minutes until the nav computer indicated it was time to drop back into realspace. As the swirl reverted back into the pinpricks of stars and vast nebulae of the Chaos he began to check his scanners for any ships in the area.

"Make sure you are checking your scanners too, Reece."

"Roger, my initial sweep is almost....CONTACTS REAR!"

Triji saw them on his scanner too, but didn't want to believe it. He pitched his fighter up and over into a half loop and saw to his horror that his scanners were in fact NOT BROKEN.

"Kriff....," Triji tuned his hyperspace radio and reported back, "Challenge, this is Patrol Typhoon. We have located what looks to be a sizable First Order fleet. I count at least twenty Resurgent Class Star Destroyers and a mix of escorting cruisers."

"That...is...unfortunate. Collect all the data you can and get out of there. No need to obfuscate your route back, they know where we are."

Triji adjusted himself in his pilot's couch and switched back to the squadron frequency.

"Reece, we have been ordered to collect all the data we can and then GTFO. We are going to do a max speed dash through their formation. You orient your scanners to port and I'll take starboard. Maybe we can get all these ships inspected before they can scramble their fighter cover."

"No such luck, we got company coming out of that lead Destroyer."

"Well, that is not ideal...But nothing for it but to keep our passes to a minimum and evade as best we can. We won't survive if we try to take them all on ourselves."

"No argument here, lead the way, I am ready."

I am getting too old for this...

Triji shoved his throttle forward and arrowed towards the nearest First Order ship. As he got to within a dozen kilometers his radio burst to life.

"Unidentified imperial craft, this is Commander Taron Velasco of the First Order. Power down and prepared to be brought aboard. If you resist we will consider you hostile to the TRUE Empire and you will be dealt with accordingly."

Well, that ain't going to happen...

"Reece, keep that throttle against its stop and follow me in."

"Don't worry, I am flying like I stole it."

Triji guided his fighter in a weaving path between the closest two Destroyers and curved around to fly past another pair.

"Your refusal to surrender has been noted and you have sealed your fate."

Suddenly the Destroyers opened up with their point defenses and the space around them was alarmingly full of verdant turbolaser bolts.

Ok, now this just got interesting.

Triji lost himself in the dance of death they were partaking in and it wasn't until his CMD showed they had finished their last inspection path that he came out of his instinctual piloting and brought his fighter around to line up on their exit vector that he got in trouble. A pair of green bolts struck his port wing pylon and before he knew it he was spinning uncontrollably through space.

"I'm hit!"

Fortunately his shields had taken the brunt of the impact, otherwise his whole wing could have been sheared off. As it was, the impact had knocked out the engine on that side of his fighter and that is what had sent him into his uncontrolled spin. Decades of experience in a TIE craft kicked in and Triji quickly redirected his fighter's power systems and got the engine back on line, and it wasn't a moment too soon. A stream of lasers shot through the space just in front of him and he reflexively threw his fighter into a corkscrewing barrel roll away from the First Order fighters harrying them.

Kriff, I am too old for this poodoo.

"Reece, get this guy off me!"

"Almost in position...break right...now!"

Triji slammed his stick over and his fighter shot off to starboard. Glancing at his rear monitor he saw Reece's quad laser shot lance through the First Order TIE who had been trying to kill Triji, destroying it in a single blast.

"Great shot kid, let's get out of here before his friends catch up."

In just another moment, the two Typhoon fighters came about and leapt into the safety of hyperspace.

Triji checked his readout boards to make sure he would make it back to the Challenge with the damage he took and was relieved to find he would have plenty of power to make the journey. Now just to ponder what they were going to do about that First Order fleet on their doorstep, because there was no two ways around it, Jundaxa was going to fall back into First Order hands, and the TIE Corps was going to take a beating getting the ground personnel back before they could jump away.