Corbin grunted.
   
“This is Green Three, my engine’s breaking apart!” The voice of one of the rookies, callsign Rook, exclaimed out on the radio before his E-Wing exploded in a brilliant flash of light and fire, bits and pieces from his fighter flying out in all directions. He gasped as he pulled harder on his flight stick, praying to the Force or some sort of God that Rook’s fighter wouldn’t splatter across his cockpit glass. A quick barrel roll and dive proved to be just the trick as he avoided much of the rookie’s wreckage.
   
“This is Green Leader! We’re getting torn to bits!” His words carried through the communication systems as he pulled his craft into an upward spin, avoiding green laser fire as TIE Fighters and Interceptors flew around him and the squadron mates who flew with him. One E-Wing dipped past him and fired its lasers, right across his own fighter.
   
“Lanner here, the enemy does not want to leave the sector.”
   
“No frell, Lanner!” Patriot called back, the female Mon Calamarian yelled, her own fighter outside of Corbin’s view as he brought his E-Wing back to into the middle of the dogfight.
   
“Someone find this goddamn Captain! We take him out and the CC link will be disrupted!” Corbin sounded exasperated, but it was an honest emotion; the TIE force was one of the best that Corbin’s unit had yet to fight against. Considering the Warlord status of the Empire as of 10 ABY, that was speaking a lot as his E-Wing squadron was fighting hard.
   
“Night Eye here; the OCCA craft is in orbit and it’s trying to jam your RADAR systems. I think the TIE commander is flying with it.”
   
Silence the voice, silence the head.
   
“Roger that, Night Eye. Jack, you’re with me!” He commanded, breaking off from the circling chain of destruction above an endless ocean. Somewhere in the middle, another E-Wing took off from it and streaked into the sky following Corbin’s interceptor.
   
“Yeah, gotcha.”
   
The seemingly uncaring tones of brevet Lieutenant Commander Jack Weiss were caught through the comlink system between him and Corbin; ship-to-ship communication was frowned upon, but Corbin understood why. They both spoke the language of battle too well to get it cluttered with the other’s.
   
“Take the OCCA. I’ll distract the flight commander.”
   
“Don’t pull a Termina. This guy ain’t no Cipher.”
   
Corbin only replied with turning off his com completely to his squadron mates, instead switching over to the open com. This was normally taboo for most flights, but Corbin felt the need to vent. He screamed as loud as he could, his battle cry carrying across the sky as he flew towards the Orbital Command and Control Aircraft that was conducting most of the operational commands for the Imperial fighters.
   
The large, sleek aircraft was slowly turning in tune with the planet’s rotating gravity, protected by one lone TIE Defender, arguably the best fighter and pilot of the squadron. Against the backdrop of space, they appeared almost invisible, right up until the HUD picked up the Defender with an orange triangle.
   
“Trip’s mine.” Corbin growled, pulling his E-Wing into a pursuit vector. The Defender, now picking up Corbin on his sensors, pulled his own to meet him.   
   
It was a head-on run.
   
Corbin breathed in, cycling his weapons to primary lasers. The other pilot was doing the same by the energy readouts. The two fighters screamed into space, shooting towards each other with their trigger fingers posed over the switch for death. Corbin was breathing hard, keeping out any sort of doubt.
   
He was going to win this.
   
He gasped, the Defender within range.
   
Corbin fired.
   
The Defender tried to pull away, but the laser blasts from Corbin peppered his shield, forcing Corbin to follow him. The Captain, although good, obviously wasn’t as good as the few pilots Corbin had flown against. All he needed to do was pull his craft into a sharp barrel roll, locking his concussion missiles onto the Defender.
   
“Pixy, angels two!” He spoke through, firing his locked concussion missiles. They shot out of his missile bays like hornets; shooting into space as fast as they could, sharply turning to hit the Defender. They smacked into the Defender’s ION drive and exploded, the craft with it.
   
“Pixy, confirmed kill.”
   
“Night Eye, confirmed kill on the OCCA. The TIEs in the atmosphere are losing their drive.”
   
“I got him Corbin.” Jack confirmed on the ship-to-ship comlink, his craft falling in behind his in a two-ship formation. The two of them slowly lifted up, climbing into the exosphere.
   
“Ready to go back into it, Jack?”
   
“You know it, Pixy.”
   
“Heh…”
   
Corbin switched his comlink back to the ship-to-squadron communication interface.
   
“Diving back into the fireworks!”

   
Corbin stood in the front of the briefing room with all of the squadrons under his command present. Sitting in the front of the room were his suboardinate commanders, the other two squadron leaders. The one sitting in front of the K-Wing pilots was Commander Delaac L’sarge. A tall but barrel chested man with the maturity of a thousand year old priest; he was always serious and carried it to his pilots. Scars permeated all over his face and he didn’t carry the look of ‘handsome’ with him. The other pilot, a blonde hair hotshot by the name of Commander Sanjic Hansforth, was almost the complete opposite. He had the mental maturity of a six year old going through puberty. He was still a very good X-Wing jock.
   
Corbin was the combination of them both, and that was one of the reasons why they followed him so easily.
   
“We lost seven men between us. Almost all of them rookies. These short combat mission are not only taking a toll on you…” He began, pointing to the combination of all of the squadron members in the large briefing room, but he didn’t seem to point to one person in particular.
   
“We cannot lose rookies every skirmish. We have to come unscathed with each mission, because this is getting crazy. We…”
   
He continued to speak, but in the back, Green Squadron watched their Captain with interest; he wasn’t acting like himself.
   
“What do you think is wrong?” Altsth Nuukkha, callsign Patriot, asked as she watched Corbin continue about the briefing and talked along the lines of keeping rookies alive. Next to her was a blue skinned female, smoking on a cigarra as she looked over to the Mon Calamarian.
   
“I don’t know. He usually writes off rookie losses and continues…maybe it’s actually starting to affect him?”
   
“That’s surprising. Thought he might be doing what you’re doing.”
   
The Wroonian, Lieutenant Andrera Navth, gave a curious glance at the female Mon Cal.
   
“You know, act all cold and evil and mean and stuff.” She giggled, looking at the Wroonian as the blue skinned Lieutenant shot her a glare.
   
“That last rookie reminded me a lot about Corbin too.” Isaiah Landford spoke up, sitting behind the two as he leaned down, to whisper quieter between the three of them.
   
“It’s starting to take a toll on him…” Lanner commented, the Wroonian taking one more long puff from her cigarra before putting it out on the seat next to her. They brought their full attention back on Corbin, who was listing the Plan of Action for the Day.
   
“Green Squadron, it’s our turn to clean the pilot’s breakroom. Thanks to L’sarge’s Angel Squadron, we are able to just to do minor cleaning duties. Thank you again, K-Wing pilots.” A few murmurs of laughs and nods of consent rippled through the briefing room before Corbin continued.
   
“But in the next few days, we will be busy with the preparation of our performance view, and the reason I actually bring that up is because…the rumor is that Admiral Ackbar himself might do it.”
   
Gasps and slack-jaws jumped into view.
   
“Yes.” Corbin said, taking a quiet moment to breathe in.
   
“We’ll need to practice. So, tomorrow, 0900, we’re trying out parade drill. Commanders L’sarge and Hansforth, I will need your appropriate paperwork. Until then, dismissed.”
   
Lanner leaned back into her chair.
   
“No wonder he’s so tense. He wants us to look good, maybe get a posting on those rumored MC90 destroyer fleets.”
   
Patriot yawned.
   
“Whatever. Like this squadron ever tries to act like it’s the best. We are.” She giggled, stretching.
   
“That’s a matter of opinion, Patriot.” Landford chuckled, roughing her shoulder. The Mon Cal rolled her eyes before standing up.
   
“Hey, Pixy.” Fal Eielson, Green 5 and the squadron’s Operations Officer, spoke up from Landford’s right, waving him over. Corbin, grabbing some datafiles, walked over casually to his squadron.
   
“So, that rumor actually true?”
   
He nodded in consent, looking over to Jack as he rose his hand.
   
“Yeah, Jack?”
   
“We gonna have time for Green Beer Rounds?”
   
Corbin smirked, and so did the squadron.
   
Somethings don’t have to change at all.