High above the Imperial base, sirens wailed from Audio droids and wall mounted emitters. Below, the base erupted into panic- personnel running in all directions: tank crews trying to push past  pilots, stormtroopers desperately trying to man defensive bastions and move to forward redoubts.

Amid the chaos and sea of distressed faces, a figure pressed his way through the confusion and moved towards the landing area. His lips curled into a snarl as he saw his cadets milling around on the pad. A few stormtroopers were with his young trainees and their animated expressions made it clear they were arguing how to proceed.

Resisting the urge to drag his palms over his face in displeasure, Flight Commander Sors began to organise men who should have known their duty.
Pilots rushed to their cockpits and support personnel took up positions to guide the fighters through VTOL.

'REBEL FORCES HAVE MADE PLANETFALL: REPEAT: REBEL FORCES HAVE MADE PLANETFALL'
The broadcast system contested with Sors' shouting and he had to gesture to get one of his cadets to follow him to the Lambda shuttle. He pushed a storm trooper sergeant to get his attention and motioned towards the ramp.

Sors sat in the cockpit, hearing the engine's rising whine as he powered the systems up. Behind him, armoured boots clomped up the boarding ramp, signaling the arrival of the stormtrooper squad.

Incompetence.
Surrounded by it. Jim Sors had a promising career before a difference with an old bitter officer had lead to his posting here on this backwater refinery. Bandomeer had no orbital defenses- Command had determined the risk of attack to be too minimal to dedicate fleet resources.
What it had was an aging shuttle and a handful of snub fighters for air superiority.
Sors- an ace pilot had been assigned to train new recruits to fly here- the dimmest bunch he'd ever been burdened with.
Jim snapped out of his reverie as a chime from his instruments notified him that the base turbolasers had finally been manned AFTER the rebels had landed on the planet.
Incompetence.

Flight control eventually gave the order to scramble- but the lambda was already in mid air and the fighters were already screaming into the distance, on Sors' command. Another breach of regulations he'd likely be pulled over the coals for. Amateurs.

Jim punched the throttle to full and gritted his teeth as he heard a sickening scream and crunch behind him. One of the troopers had failed to engage his grav harness despite months of drilling. One dead and they hadn't encountered the enemy yet.

On his sensors and in the sky before him, Jim read the unfolding area battle with a veteran's eye. Not good. The rebels were overwhelming his unskilled pilots - but they were at least keeping fighters away from him...

A warning shriek sounded in the cockpit and Jim instinctively jinked. The Lambda took a glancing blow to its upper wing which made the shields glow bright red. Jim turned hard to find the ship that had fired on him amidst the fur ball and was dismayed to see another lambda in the distance, spitting out  laserbolts and coming right at him. His gunners should have seen it coming.

Lambdas could put out a lot of firepower but were extremely well shielded and armoured. An engagement could go on forever. This enemy had likely dropped off it's rebel passengers and was trying to engage his lander in a lengthy dogfight. It was a stalling tactic and Sors didn't have the time. Already the refinery outskirts were being overrun by rebels.

Engines were already at full nominal power. Draining power from the blastercannons, he routed additional power to the thrusters and shunted shield energy double forward.  His lambda raced directly for  the enemy shuttle and the rebel pilot suddenly saw the danger he was in.
The rebel pilot tried to veer and avoid a collision but Jim rolled his ship, throwing his wing out horizontal and catching the rebel ship in the cockpit.

The lights dimmed as the shields collapsed and the impact threw Jim hard against his restraints. The heavily armoured wing had cut through the armourcrys cockpit  and the rebel shuttle was falling, but so was the Imperial ship. The collision had damaged vital repulsors and the shield feedback had fried the guidance systems.

Jim Sors fought for control of the craft as the refinery became larger and larger in the view. He managed take power heading to the broken shield relays and force it to the remaining repulsors. With the ground looming closer and closer he dragged the nose up and allowed the wings to bring them level, before forcing them shut for a crash landing. The damaged ship hit the ground hard, making a deep furrow in the earth. As it came to rest, Jim extended the powerful landing gear , lifting the shuttle off the ground. The crash landing still ringing in his ears, Jim threw off his restraints and turned to grab the ramp controls.

Dizzily, the remaining stormtroopers stood and grasped weapons. As Jim lowered the ramp, the sergeant gave the order to charge, with a distorted gurgling that Jim suspected indicated he had vomited inside his helmet.

Realising the shuttle wouldn't fly again, Jim drew his heavy sidearm and shouted at his subordinates to evacuate. One gunner complied but the other cowered in his seat , hands cramped around his weapons controls, his face pale.

Jim felt his pistol hand begin to rise to shoot the miscreant but thought better of it and marched down the ramp in disgust.

Outside was a mess. Smoke pouring from the shuttle obscured his view. Ahead he could hear the sounds of blasterfire and make out the dim glow of a portable shield. Keeping low , he headed towards the glow, emerging from the smoke to find the battle had been fought without him.
A shield ring had been hastily erected around the Imperial position. A weaponless rebel officer stood defiant at blasterpoint, Stormtroopers surrounding him and a few of his men. The rebels blasters lay in a pile on the ground, where rebel troopers clutched smoking wounds and an Imperial medic knelt inspecting downed imperials. Corpses from both sides lay where they fell.

The sergeant began to question the rebel officer , punctuating unanswered questions with blows from his unpowered shock baton. A stormtrooper stepped in and stopped a young rebel who moved to intervene with an E11 stock to his face. The rebel clutched his broken nose with both hands and slumped to his knees, shouting obscenities in an obscure language and nasal accent.

Jim hefted the rebel officer's map unit. He frowned as he noted the icons denoting proximity of Rebel forces and the distance of Imperial units. The Imperials had been pushed back , the Rebels had taken control of the communications tower and demolished the barracks They were swarming the freighter landing area now..

Now they were in the rebels rearward, they had an opportunity to strike, but they would need to move fast. Jim still doubted that the base could be saved but what other option did he have?

Jim's mind suddenly registered the rising whine behind him. The shuttle was powering up for takeoff? That idiot cadet- it would never fly... Jim closed his eyes and ran.
Behind him he could hear the groaning of metal and the shouting of troopers as the inexperienced cadet managed to topple the shuttle forwards and boost it along the ground towards the assembled soldiers. Jim felt the static sting of the PSG's shield playing over him as he passed through and a sudden deafening percussive blast threw him to the ground as the shuttle exploded, sending shrapnel and flames washing over a wide area.

He tried to rise but fell down, his head still ringing from the sound and his sense of up and down still failing.
Struggling to his knees, then his feet, he turned to find a handful of rebels picking themselves up on his side of the shield and a sense of panic flooded him. Where were the stormtroopers? Probably shredded by the blast, the dim witted fools.
As if to confirm this, a helmet, blackened by fire, fell from the sky and embedded itself in the ground beside him.

His panic subsided as training and experience reasserted itself. Somehow, he had managed to hold on to his pistol- it was held tightly in his fist and he raised that now, trying not to let his arm waver.

The Rebels stopped and watched him. There was scant few feet between him and the Rebel officer. He kept the Rebels covered as his mind raced- there were five of them. If they rushed, he could probably shoot two before they reached him. Could he fight three?
The Rebel with the broken nose produced a wicked bladed knife from somewhere and snarled menacingly, his face feral and covered with blood.

The Officer raised a hand to warn him to stay back.

'Your move Imperial. I have armoured units inbound and fighters aware of our whereabouts.' The Officer's voice was laboured- he had obviously been injured during his 'interrogation' or the blast. Maybe both.
' If you run now you can still escape. My men are preparing to lift off with the Ionite now. We will be off this world within four hours. We will not pursue you. You have my word.'
Jim had seen the displays. The Officer was not bluffing. But would he really let him go? He had heard official reports of the ruthless honourless rebels- and whispered rumours that denied this.
'If you fight, you will die.'
Jim believed him.
But if he ran from combat, he was as good as dead once Imperial reinforcements arrived. That wasn't much of a choice.

Jim sighed. It was better than staying here. He span his pistol in his hand and held it by the barrel, offering the grip to the Officer.

' I am Flight Commander Jim Sors. I hereby request defection to the Rebel Alliance.'

''Its over. Angel won.''   RSF Gurd