Disclaimer: Rogue Squadron belongs to George Lucas and his associated companies. The Power Rangers belong to Saban. Q belongs to Paramount. The ideas for this particular Rogue Squadron belong to me. Ravage Starkiller belongs to me (guess who he's named after and receive a special commendation in the notes of my next story). This particular Q belongs to me. Evil Q belongs to me. Feel free to use any of my characters or situations, but please e-mail me first. I am looking for a co-writer to join me in this series, and any applications would be welcome. Please e-mail me if interested. As of now I have only had one entry in my competition. You know who you are, so e-mail me with your findings of Devastator in popular media before I give out the prize! If no one else does, I will be forced to close out the competition by means of default to the first and only entrant, so please enter! Any questions?
By Adam Safran
Rogue squadron was, simply put, the best fighter squadron in the galaxy, any galaxy, by far. They were composed of the best starfighter pilots the Council of Good had to offer, and they could do the impossible. They couldn't be destroyed. They had faced impossible odds again and again and had pulled out safely. Their squadron's history went back over 3000 years, to the battles against Warlord Grackroane, at the initial formation of the Council of Good and the Alliance of Evil. They were feared and respected throughout the galaxy, and they deserved their reputation. It was a greater honor to be a Rogue Squadron pilot than to be one of Zordon's personal Ranger team. The quality and competition to get in of its applicants was higher too.
"Scans reveal all is quiet in sector 54549-G," Seven reported.
"Acknowledged, Rogue Seven. Prepare for hyperjump to vector 5346 mark 5467 to the Marimba solar system for the final leg of our patrol. Then Eight, and Nine, you two get to finally settle that bet as to who can guzzle more Triforian Fiizzcahol before they pass out." As Rogue Leader said this, there were chuckles admidst the comm-band. "Everyone, make your jump now." The fighters seemed to stretch out as they jumped into hyperspace.
What they found when they reached their jump point wasn't pretty. Twelve yelled,"Enemy fleet off at mark 534 point 765. By Chrolan, Rita must have sent half her fleet. Its a trap!
They heard over the general comm system, in a scratchy voice, "Ah yessss, Rogue Squadron. Right on time as well. We must say that you are punctual. Our message is simple. Surrender and fight for our glorious Empress Rita, or be destroyed. On second thought, I take back the surrender part. We both know that you all will never serve evil, willingly or unwillingly. So lets just skip to the part about your destruction. Fleet, ATTACK!"
"Rogue Squadron, formation Stinger-8. Power up weapons systems and prepare to engage enemy fleet. All they've done is to give us more targets. See you on the other side. Break and attack in elements." Those were Rogue Leaders final instructions before the battle was joined.
On the side of Rita Repulsa, over a quarter of her fleet was destroyed, and over two thirds of their fighters. Many more of her ships were damaged. On the side of the Light, there were twelve losses, actually eleven (We'll get into that in a minute), and those twelve losses could not be replaced. It was said that the Battle of Marimba turned the war around for Zordon. Rita's fleet losses were so terrible that her galaxy wide offensive stalled, and the loss of Rogue Squadron made all of Zordon's forces swear a terrible vengeance. The only question asked by posterity was, who sold out Rogue Squadron to Rita? It was a question that was never answered...
Then Q appeared in a flash of light. None of the Rangers were happy to see him, since he had been there a massive number of pranks and minor systems failures had hit Terra Venture, and all the clues pointed to Q. Q took the hostile looks on their faces nonchalantly, and said, "I came to bring you up to speed on things. Your opponents are preparing to launch a new kind of offensive against you, not a monster one, but an aerial one, one that you will probably will not be able to repel. Since Evil Q interfered personally in your last battle, the Q Council has ruled that I may make one small interference as well. Therefore I am bringing someone who is somewhat of a specialist in spacefighter combat. However, he might need a little attention, for he is somewhat, well, not himself. He has given up on life. Thats all I can tell you. Ta-ta!" Before the Rangers could get a word in otherwise, Q vanished in a flash of white light. And where he had been standing was a figure that appeared to be human. At least, appeared to be human under all the blood smearing all over his body.
Leo immediately yelled into his communicator, "Alpha, emergency teleport to sickbay. We have a critically injured humanoid here brought by Q." He barely heard Alpha's acknowledgement when they were whisked away by teleport.
In the sickbay Alpha was driving all the Rangers crazy with his wailing. "Ayiyiyiyi! I've never seen a human with such massive internal and external body damage still alive. I can't even begin to catalog his injuries. DECA, quickly download all available information on human surgical techniques to my memory banks. There, now Rangers, you're going to be nurses. This could take a while, so go wash your hands and get the sterilized equipment on while I hook our guest onto emergency life support."
Several frenzied hours later, Alpha had finished repairing all of the injuries to the human, and had hooked him up to a machine that would speed up his healing process. Damon looked at the jacket that they had cut off the human, noticing a patch of some kind on it with a twelve-pointed star with some kind of starfighter at each point of the star. He pointed it out to Alpha, and Alpha immediately yelled in surprise, "What in the name of the Grid is this doing here? This is the patch of Rogue Squadron!" Upon hearing the Rangers frenzied questions, Alpha responded, "Rogue Squadron was the greatest starfighter squadron in the history of the universe. They served the Council of Good for thousands of years, before they were wiped out by the villanous Rita Repulsa's space fleet, after taking out a large portion of it. One of the things in the squadron charter said that if there was ever a single engagement where the squadron was ever totally wiped out with no survivors, then the squadron was not to be reformed. The Council let it stand and the squadron has been dead to this day. Several beings have since come forward with plans to reform the squadron, but all of them have been turned down. The squadron was betrayed by someone who had knowledge about their patrol route, and it was theorized that someone within the squadron or a mechanic sold them out. However, the being that did it was never found or brought to justice, and it remains a mystery to this day." Alpha told them more about Rogue Squadron, its history, its battles, its members, and of its death. Then the pilot woke up.
"Dead, they're all dead! Its all my fault. I should've seen the trap coming. It was my responsibility to plot out our patrol route. Its all my fault. Why am I not dead with them? Why I am I being punished?" wailed Ravage Starkiller, the last Rogue. And to his incoherent questions, the Rangers had no answers.
Hey people. Hope you liked the first installment of Rogue Squadron Hunter's Revenge miniseries within my storyline. I haven't decided yet how my next few storylines will be, or how long it will be until Ravage is functional enough to be of use, how he will recover, or when the massive space battle will occur. If you have any suggestions, e-mail me. Until next time, to quote a favorite comic book author and a favorite poem, Excelsior! Adam Lyle Safran, 17