Chapter 7 - Chapter 7

Phantom walks down the corridors of the venator Vigilance and turns into the hangar. All of Gold Squadron is waiting, 20 of the best starship fighter pilots in the Grand Army of the Republic. Phantom couldn't be more proud to be their leader.

The pilots quiet down and form a horseshoe around Phantom as they notice him walk in, eager to hear what he has to say. They're ready to get some training in after sitting idle for so long. Phantom takes his helmet off and looks at them in turn, soaking in their determination.

"Alright, I know you boys are itchin' to to get back out there, but we don't have orders yet and the resupply is taking longer than expected. So we are going to run some training scenarios," Phantom starts with, "we'll start with formation practice just to recondition your skills warm up the starships. I've rounded up some of the venator gunners to deploy training droids to run drills with. This is just practice, but take it seriously. We can't afford to have complacency. Now load up and get those ships running!"

The Squadron replies with a thundering "yes sir!" Then they run off to their respective ships consisting of V-Wings, ARC-170s, and Y-Wings.

The ships start up with humms and take off to meet outside the hangar as Phantom walks over to his own Y-Wing.

A familiar clone runs up and says, "Hey! Sergeant!"

Phantom turns around and faces the trooper, "oh Snake. What is it?"

"I would like to with you and the Squadron"

"You know how to fly?" Phantom says, surprised.

"Yeah, I've had some interesting missions in the past. Had to learn so I could get out of dire situations."

Phantom was intrigued by this but wasn't going to press it. "Alright, I don't see why not. You got a ship?"

Snake points to a beat up headhunter. "Yeah, that one," he replies proudly.

Phantom looks over at the starfighter and becomes skeptical but doesn't want to be rude.

"He flies in that thing?" He thinks to himself.

"Alright. Well, hop in and start it up. We're taking off soon."

"Yes sir!" Snake sound off, running off to his ship to fire it up.

Phantom nods at Snake and walks off to his own starfighter. He climbs in and powers up, the instrument panels lighting up as the ship hums to life. R-6 is loaded into his chamber, beeping and booping excitedly the whole way.

"R-6, run pre-flight checks."

bee-boop-dee-doop.

Phantom closes the cockpit, flips a few switches, and gets ready to take off. The other pilots are already lifting off and flying out of the hangar. He watches as Snake lifts off in his beat up fighter. 'At least it appears to run smooth,' Phantom thinks to himself. Something didn't seem right. Him and Snake had spoken on occasion; he seems cool, but there was always something about him that seemed suspicious. Phantom could never place it; he had other things to worry about. Now with this sketchy looking starship, that for some reason looked familiar, the Gold Squadron commander was deeply concerned about the safety of his pilots. The rugged ship leaves the hangar, lifting into the space above the cruiser.

"I guess we'll just have to keep an eye on him R-6," Phantom says, mainly thinking aloud.

R-6 boops back, a little confused at first, but grasps the situation quickly. He had his own suspicions about Snake; droids talk.

They lift off and fly out of the hangar into the space beyond the confining ship, taking their position in formation as Gold Leader. Phantom leads them in a circle around the venator to warm the ships, the metal planet of Coruscant looming behind them. He then swings them around to venture a ways away from the cruiser. Slowing to a slight coast, Phantom goes on to explain the training.

Through comms he says, "alright, so here's what's going to happen. I was able to get some training droids for us to practice with, use the maneuvers you've learned to disable and destroy the targets. These droids are only able to disable you with ion blasts, but the point of this is to not get hit. In the event that you do, you're considered dead. Move out of the way when you regain power. Any questions?"

The pilots had none, it was pretty straightforward. Snake lurks at a distance away from the group. Phantom gave him the comm channel while they were circling the cruiser so he should have heard everything. Why does it seem like he's sitting there watching, like he's waiting for something? There shouldn't be a reason for all of Phantom's paranoia, but nothing has concerned him this much before. He never had to worry about whether or not he could trust his own brother before, so why now?

Phantom stares at Snake's ship for a moment and decides that he should probably get the training started.

"Alright, listen up. I worked with the higher ups and pulled a couple favors for this. We were able to round up some training droids for this exercise. I'm excited to see how y'all do. Although these droids only have ion cannons made to disable you, treat this as a real battle. But also have fun. This a good team bonding moment. I know that it's not having drinks at the bar, but we are bettering ourselves as a team. So work hard, have fun and do well."

The pilots all respond in compliance to their leader's message. Phantom then begins to lead them around the venator as planned, all the while running checks with R6.

As they round the bridge of the massive cruiser, a row of bays ope on the side of the vemator and the traing droids fly out. The white vultures dart off in every direction, preparing to attack the clones.

There are twelve vultures, outnumbering the clone starships two to one. This a slight challenge for Gold Squadron, whom are used to being at a disadvantage, but Phantom remembers there only being six on the first wave.

"Wait, this isn't right. They must have messed up the count and accidentally doubled the amount of droids they sent out. This isn't actually be better," Phantom says as he works it all out in his head.

The droids form up as they swing around to meet Gold Squadron, opening fire once in range.

"Here we go!" says Gold Two as they all break formation to avoid the incoming ion blasts.

The droids instantly pair up and target a clone ship.

"I need help over here! There's two of on me, I can't shake them!" Gold Six yells through the comms.

"I'm getting double teamed! I can't hang here much longer!" Gold Four says as he makes extravagant maneuvers just to avoid being hit, but as he loops to get away,, he gets hit by one of the blasts and is disabled.

"Damn!"

Phantom banks as his rear gunner nails one of the droids. The second one smacks into the first one and losses control. Phantom swings around and beams the second one.

He then looks around to see the rest of his team getting destroyed. Gold Six eventually got disabled and Three gets hit from four droids as he swings around the cruiser.

"They really brought the heat didn't they R-6?" Phantom chuckles. The droid beeps in return as more droids swarm out of the hangars they were in.

"More already? But everyone is disabled! What are supposed to do? They weren't supposed to be here alre-"

To his horror, the droids started spitting plasma. With all systems down, including shields, Three and Six get torn apart. Phantom swings into action and starts blasting droids, hoping to buy time for their systems to reboot.

"Where's Snake?! I just realized I haven't seen him"

R-6 boops in response, spotting the rugged starfighter gunning for...a clone starship?! No that can't be right. He must be trying to assist and cut off the droids...yeah definitely.

Unfortunately to Phantom's dismay, as Gold Five boots up and swings around to avoid Snake he gets torn up in a flurry of cannon fire from Snake and the droids.