Chapter 3: The Battle of Chandrilla
by RSF_Matthias

The briefing room suddenly became quiet as Captain RSF_RS_Bandit briskly walked in. All eyes were on him. The Renegade pilots knew of the dangerous mission that they were about to take. Still formalities had to be in session. As Bandit explained the battle plan to free Chandrila from a large group of outlaws that held the entire planet hostage, the group of pilots became more and more eager to enter combat. As Bandit finished his briefing, all the pilots walked to the docking bay and manned their fighters. As soon as everyone was out, the group jumped into hyperspace en route to Chandrila.

RSF_RS_Specter was the first to arrive there. He scanned around the planet for any enemy forces and found a large group of planetary fighters circleing around the planet's orbit. Then, everyone else emerged from hyperspace and Specter informed the entire squadron of his discoveries. RSF_RS_Danny discovered that the planet had more enemies too. Bandit would lead the fight in space as Danny took RSF_Loosie and RSF_Corran with him to destroy the ground forces. Bandit took Specter as his wingmate and RSF_Matthias teamed up with RSF_Rabidkitten.

As the enemy fighters approached them, the ground unit broke formation and headed for the atmosphere. Bandit quickly locked on to the nearest target and let out a powerful blast of twin lasers. The shot hit the bogey's canopy and the machine exploded into a brilliant fireball burning brightly in contrast to the darkness of space. Then Rabidkitten took out another fighter easily by linking all four lasers of his X-wing. Matthias though picked up an enemy on his tail. During the evasive manuevers that he did, his top left engine failed on him and he was losing control. Luckily Specter flew right behind Matthias's bogey and blew him into a cloud of dust. Bandit looked to his right and noticed that the enemy was down to about a squad or two. That's 12-24 fighters against 4...bad odds...

Meanwhile Danny, Loosie, and Corran met minor resistance on their decending flight to the planet's surface. However, the forces ON the surface was a different matter. There were tanks and landcruisers armed to the teeth everywhere. The worst part was that they had anticipated the three Renegade pilots. Corran was almost immediately hit by a missile but luckily his top notch flying skills were able to save him from destruction. Danny retaliated with a proton torpedo of his own and destroyed the tank along with a couple of landcruisers. Then Loosie picked up something on his sensors. His R2 unit reported that by destroying the tanks, Chandrila's own militia could take down the landcruisers. The problem was that there were over 30 tanks and not enough warheads to take each one out. "This could be a problem," said Danny.

Back in space, Bandit's group had destroyed most of the enemy fighters. There were only 3 left, but everyone in the squad had received heavy damage. Then, Matthias took out another outlaw and that left only 2. As they were turning around for another firing run at Rabidkitten, Specter took the leader out with a proton torpedo. Rabidkitten finished off the last guy on a head to head run. "Nice work guys," said Bandit. Then they flew toward Chandrila to help the ground attack unit.

On the surface, Danny fired his last torpedo on a tank and managed to take two of them down. Unfortunately that wasn't enough. There was still quite a few tanks left. While they were semi-successful in using lasers on the tanks, torpedoes were badly needed. That was when the Bandit's space flight showed up. "Glad to see you guys," said Danny. "We really needed some help down here." The rest of the squad successfully hit most of the remainder of the tanks and Chandrila's militia took down the landcruisers. Then Renegade Squadron left the planet and returned back to base without any incidents. Back on the base, Specter kept bugging Matthias on how he saved his life and at least owed him a dessert. Matthias finally agreed to buy him one and they returned to their barracks for a good night's rest. It was a typical day in Renegade Squadron.