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except a pile of junk, that is. The Millennium Falcon was always breaking down—if it wasn't the particle shields, it was the hyperdrive or the aft sensory array—but Han always claimed the ship had never let him down, and never would. And Han was right about one thing: If you treated her right, she could fly like no ship Luke had ever seen.

Still, it was going to take more than a few good ships to untangle this mess. Luke never felt more at home than when he was behind the controls of a ship. He was able to clear his mind and focus it, all at once, letting himself become one with the machine. He dipped and glided, slipping through the web of Imperial attackers, watching his torpedoes streak through space. They always hit their mark.

But even if he shot down every ship he saw, he was only one pilot—there were hundreds of TIE fighters, maybe thousands of them. The Rebel fleet was barely holding its own.

The comm unit pinged. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" Div asked.

"We need to take out more ships," Luke said, stating the obvious.

"Not to mention stop from getting taken out ourselves," Han chimed in, as another X-wing burst into flame.

"Exactly," Div agreed. "And I've got an idea."

Luke listened as Div laid out his strategy. It was dangerous, and probably crazy.

Which meant it might actually work.

"On my mark!" Div barked into the comm. He pulled his ship into a whiplash turn.

"Mark!" He looped up and around the squadron of TIE fighters, leading them on a wild chase through the battlefield. Han and Luke flanked him on either side, joined by several other Rebel ships. As planned, the Rebels didn't fire—they channeled all their power into the thrusters, narrowly outpacing the TIE pursuers.

"Faster," Div murmured, pushing the engines far past their breaking point. "Come on."

The cloud was nearly in reach. The Mon Calamari cruisers had done their part perfectly. The plasma bombs they'd detonated had expelled a massive cloud of gas. It obscured a thousand meters of space behind an eerie red glow. The cloud would be harmless to ships passing through it, but was poison to navigational instruments, which meant as soon as they entered, they'd be flying blind. Perfect.

Div streaked into the cloud, letting his instincts guide the way, as they always had. He counted off the seconds aloud. "Three, two, one…Now!" he shouted into the comm. He yanked the controls, dropping the ship into a steep dive. Every Rebel ship did exactly the same. But the Imperials had no one to signal them—and no one to remind them that a Star Destroyer hovered on the other side of the cloud.

The squadron of TIE fighters slammed into the side of the ship, ripping a jagged hole in its hull. The massive ship began to list and shudder. Only a few of the TIE fighters peeled off in time, alerted by the explosions and shrapnel that danger lay ahead. Div wasn't about to give any of them a chance to shoot down the fleeing Rebels. As the X-wings followed orders and sped away, Div zoomed into the fray, picking off the TIE fighters one by one.

Dimly, through the comm, he heard Luke and Han urging some of the Rebel transport ships to activate hyperdrives while the Imperials struggled to regroup. The X-wings gave the larger ships cover as they sped out of the system and winked into hyperspace. But Div's attention was laser-focused on the four ships that had survived the sneak attack, all of which were firing on him at once.

He was a good pilot.

The best.

But he couldn't evade missiles from four directions at once. One struck a glancing blow to his forward hull. Another blasted into his rear thrusters. Smoke filled the cabin.

The navigational controls became sluggish…and then stopped responding altogether.

Which meant whether he survived this encounter or not, he'd be of no use to the Rebel fleet. And since the hyperdrive had been blown out with the first missile, it was only a little longer before he'd be of no use to anyone.

But the laser cannons were still operational, and as the TIE fighters moved in for the kill, Div let them approach.