Star Wars: Rebellion and Betrayal

Chapter 2

Twitch brushed off the apology and looked around the ship. "Where is everyone?"

Abie shrugged and began walking toward the front of the ship. "Beats me. We should probably check the bridge first."

Twitch agreed and followed Abie toward the bow. As they approached the door to the bridge, they began to hear voices. Abie paused before opening it and listened in.

At first it was a jumbled mess of voices all talking at once until one voice rose above the rest. "Abie has abandoned us! If she hadn't left to help that bounty hunter we wouldn't be in this mess. I say we vote for a new leader," a man shouted.

Another voice quickly responded. "That's Lady Edge to you! And we can't vote for a new leader. Lady Edge has led us to so many victories. We can't let this one defeat sour our faith in her." This voice Abie recognized to be that of Nina, one of her officers and the medic for the squadron. Abie had finally heard enough of the discussion. She tapped a button on the wall and the door slid open.

Abie strode onto the bridge of their command cruiser. There were four pilot's chairs lined up in front of the viewport with a main command chair behind them. Along the walls were various control panels with chairs positioned in front of each one. In the middle of the room was a large holoprojector. It made for a perfect mobile command center for Cloud Squadron.

The group of people in the room went silent as Abie looked around. She chose not to acknowledge one of her soldier's apparent lack of faith in her. The fear of repercussions would be punishment enough.

Standing by the holoprojector was Nina, one of Abie's three officers. She was short of stature, much like Abie, while sporting similar mismatched armor with a cloud insignia on her pauldron. She was a blue-skinned Twi'lek who wore a white headband that wrapped around her forehead and under the two Lekku dangling from the back of her head. A worried expression could be seen on the woman's freckled face as she seemed to be trying to take on the main leadership role in Abie's absence.

Lounging in one of the pilots' chairs was McCart, the second of Abie's officers. He had short blonde hair and a scar running across his forehead and down over his left eye. He seemed generally unconcerned with the current situation as he watched the events unfolding in the small room.

Twitch, the third of Abie's officers, stood behind their leader, using her body to shield the fact that he was missing an arm.

Abie remained quiet as the room watched her intently. Once she was satisfied with the level of stress she induced on the man that spoke against her, she broke the silence. "Nina, during our job assisting Captain Rhodes, Twitch managed to lose an arm." As she said this, Twitch stepped out from behind her revealing his missing arm. He sported an embarrassed grin on his face as he used his stump to wave at Nina. Abie sighed at her brother's antics before continuing. "Assuming the medical room is still operational, do what you can."

Nina's face was flushed with worry, and she ran over to examine Twitch's injury. "Don't worry Twitch! I'll have you fixed up in no time." Twitch let out a half-hearted cheer as the two left the command room.

All eyes were on Abie as she moved to the projector in the middle of the room. "McCart, brief me on the situation, starting with what in the universe happened..." She looked back to the man who had questioned her leadership, "in the two days I was gone?"

The man in the pilot's chair scrambled to his feet and over to the holoprojector. After tapping a few buttons on the machine, a holographic image appeared showing the Pelta-class frigate they used as their flagship.

"Well, I guess I can start from the beginning of this bantha dropping of a mess," McCart started. His speech was rough with elongated a's and hardly pronounced r's. "A couple days after you left with that bounty hunter fella, we picked up Imperial chatter concerning a large military operation in the area. Before we were able to prepare for a possible attack, scouts picked up bombers being deployed from the capital. They headed straight for us. We made for the ships while the camp itself was bombed. Besides our personal weapons, we lost all our munitions and supplies. Our shipyard was the Empire's next target. As we took off, the bombs dropped. Both of our U-55 load lifter shuttles and our stolen Lambda-class shuttle were hit directly. When they exploded, the shrapnel took out three more A-wing's including Twitch's personal fighter."