Starlight Squadron

Starlight Squadron was composed of a mix of RZ-1 A-wing interceptors and T-65B X-wing starfighters, that served in the Rebel Alliance's Fourth Division during the Galactic Civil War. The squadron's starfighters were flown by elite Rebel Alliance pilots, led by Lieutenant Shara Bey. Staff officers included Commander Wedge Antilles, Captain L'ulo L'ampar, and Evaan Verlaine. Other members included Mart Mattin and Freyta Smyth. Jedi Commander Luke Skywalker briefly assisted the squadron on a mission to Ab Dalis. The squadron received its orders directly from General Leia Organa. The squadron's starfighters, flight helmets and flight suits were emblazoned with an insignia, which consisted of a red starlight burst, occasionally with a vertical black stripe background.

Following the evacuation of Hoth in 3 ABY, the Rebel Alliance scattered its fleet to secret rendezvous points across the galaxy. The Galactic Empire, however, had cracked Alliance communications because of a signal analysis protocol developed by Commander Ellian Zahra and her forces continued to attack the divided fleet. With no way to communicate with Alliance forces across the galaxy, the Fourth Division's Commander Grek, devised a plan to reassemble the scattered fleet divisions, named Operation Starlight. Shortly after, Starlight Squadron was formed with the most elite pilots available within the division as well as some from the Seventh, and tasked with undertaking dangerous missions on behalf of Operation Starlight.

In 3 ABY, Starlight Squadron took part in their first mission for Operation Starlight, led by Starlight Leader Lieutenant Shara Bey, upon which they were tasked by General Leia Organa with finding the scattered divisions of the Rebel Alliance fleet, to warn them that the Galactic Empire had cracked Alliance communications and to deliver a new Trawak security code that C-3PO and his team had developed. During their search, the squadron discovered wreckage of the Sixth Division near Felucia. Commander Wedge Antilles noticed there were signals all around them, to which someone else noted that they were Imperial signatures. Captain L'ulo L'ampar (Starlight Three) spotted Imperial probe droids waiting nearby and quickly realized they had been setup. The Starlight pilots took evasive action, but the probe droids latched onto the astromech droids of the squadron's X-wings and attempted to access their archives by drilling into their conical domes. Fearing the probe droids might get the coordinates of the other rendezvous points, Antilles suggested shooting them off, however Shara Bey questioned their ability to actually pull it off. Instead, Bey ordered all pilots to set their astromech's self-destruct and eject them, which meant losing their nav data and making it difficult to get back to the fleet. With no other choice, the droids ejected and detonated, saving their valuable data from the Empire.

With no time to catch their breath, the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Tarkin's Will arrived and ambushed the squadron. The Star Destroyer launched TIE fighters, which outnumbered the Rebel starfighters three to one. Mart Mattin (Starlight Four) suggested the A-wings leave while they still had a chance, as there was no way they could coordinate a hyperspace jump during a dogfight without their astromechs. However, Bey made it clear that she was staying to fight. After studying the TIE's tactics, L'ampar noticed the TIEs were not ganging up on individual starfighters, per the Imperial Tactical Manual when outnumbering the enemy, and quickly realized they were being herded. The Tarkin's Will engaged its tractor beams, catching the squadron's starfighters to bring them in for interrogation. Evaan Verlaine and Antilles agreed that using brute force to try to escape would not work. Antilles then suggested a maneuver that the Rebel pilots war-gamed back in Rogue Squadron but was untested. The maneuver involved accelerating full throttle and riding the tractor beam toward the Star Destroyer. As they did this, the Imperials aboard the Tarkin's Will remained unfazed, as the starfighter tactics gave the impression the Rebels were planning to ram the Star Destroyer in a last-ditch suicide mission. As soon as the shields dropped to pull the starfighters in, the squadron targeted the tractor beam projectors and fired their concussion missiles and proton torpedoes, destroying it. With the tractor beam offline, and the Star Destroyer's targeting computers unable to lock on due to their speed, the Starlight starfighters raced into the hangar, and fired upon the TIE fighters and stormtroopers within. This prevented any more TIEs from scrambling from the Tarkin's Will.

Mattin and Verlaine's X-wings stood guard to keep the TIEs that were chasing them, out of the hangar, while L'ampar's A-wing covered the interior access door from stormtroopers. With the hangar temporarily locked down from further Imperial threats, the rest of the pilots landed and disembarked their ships. Getting close to the tractor beam generators had fried the A-wings' navigational memory banks, so Bey and Freyta Smyth scrambled to a group of Imperial astromech droids sitting idle nearby, while Antilles provided cover fire. Smyth sliced into one of the astromechs, and was surprised that it wasn't using tough encryption. Bey ordered Smyth to get the astromech back to an X-wing and start running the hyperspace calculations, while she stayed behind to do something.

Just as L'ampar destroyed an AT-ST walker, more entered the hangar. Antilles urged Bey to hurry as the Imperial astromech in his X-wing had almost finished the nav calculations and all their ships were linked and ready to go. Bey explained that she was able to steal all kinds of valuable intelligence from the other Imperial droids in the hangar, which they could take back to the fleet. As Bey raced back to her A-wing, but it was destroyed by an AT-ST, leaving her stranded. On witnessing this, L'ampar told Bey not to give up, as Starlight would continue to fight the AT-STs and steal her a ship. However, Bey recognised the foolishness of these actions, as staying to help would lose them their only chance to get back to the fleet, and so she issued a direct order to L'ampar to go, along with a request for him to tell her husband, Kes Dameron, that she loved and have him kiss their son, Poe, for her. L'ampar reluctantly acknowledged the order, and the squadron left without her.

On the way back to the fleet, L'ampar, now Starlight Two, sent the Fourth Division a transmission, stating the mission was unsuccessful. He mentioned finding the remains of the Sixth Division, and the ambush by the same Star Destroyer that had been hunting them across the galaxy. L'ampar also mentioned the fighting on it that resulted in leaving Starlight Leader behind, which Kes, who was listening in, was sad to hear. L'ampar finished off with the only bit of good news, regarding the capture of an Imperial astromech droid, with its memory banks full of useful navigational data, which was Bey's idea and one that Organa planned to utilize for the operation and in hunting down Zahra by locating the Tarkin's Will.

Later, Bey managed to slip away off the Star Destroyer's hangar deck before she was captured. She managed to find a place to hide somewhere on the big, city-sized starship. She managed to dismantle one of the Imperial astromech droids and raise communications with the Forth Division, where she was able to talk to her husband, much to his relief. Bey told Dameron that she was working on slicing into the Imperial systems and she was going to make herself useful getting more valuable information until such time as a team could be sent to rescue her. Bey then debriefed General Organa on the intelligence she had already gathered while in hiding.

Starlight Squadron started to resume it's search across the unexplored rally points with the help of Antilles' good friend aspiring Jedi and Commander Luke Skywalker since they were down by one member until Lieutenant Bey got off the Tarkin's Will. Their journey's next destination was the planet Ab Dalis. The Eleventh Division was currently in an intense battle against Admiral Kalaxo who was in command of the Imperial Star Destroyer Ultima II and part of Commander Zahra's assault group. His ship was below a dormant volcano which the squadron had reignited using their proton torpedos and died in the blast. Skywalker then told Antilles he had to depart for Jekara to help General Organa and Lando Calrissian save his friend and Organa's lover Captain Han Solo from an auction hosted by Crimson Dawn because he had a vision revealing that his father Sith Lord Darth Vader was coming after the owner of the Millennium Falcon. Antilles understood since he knew how important Solo was to the Rebellion and gave the new Trawak security code to the Eleventh Division. Starlight Squadron had boosted the rebel fleet's strength by fifty percent and brought back two of it's leaders, Chancellor Mon Mothma and Admiral Gial Ackbar.

Sometime after the Battle of Ab Dalis, Bey's cover as a stormtrooper was blown since Warrant Officer Kronauer realized her armor was damaged and Commander Zahra discovered there was a mole onboard the Tarkin's Will due to her second-in-command Lieutenant Gorr pointing out there was no soldier on her ship with the com number TK-510, discovering Bey's coded transmissions, and figured out Bey must have survived the destruction of her ship and was hiding in the damaged part of the Star Destroyer since internal scanners couldn't detect anything there. When Bey's plan to steal a Lambda-class T-4a shuttle went south and was apprehended by Zahra herself, Starlight Squadron and a small group of Pathfinders led by Kes, decided to rescue his wife without permission from Mothma and the other rebel leaders.

After recovering the equipment and intelligence she had stolen as well as learning her story, Commander Zahra demanded Bey tell her about the new transmission code, what the Rebel Fleet's targets are, and who was still alive after the Battle of Hoth or else she would go after Poe and her father. Then Starlight Squadron and the Pathfinders who were aboard a UT-60D U-wing starfighter/support craft dropped out of hyperspace and engaged the swarms of TIE fighters that were launched from the Tarkin's Will to extend the fight. Sergeant Dameron and his team managed to get aboard the battle damaged Star Destroyer but it made the jump to hyperspace when Commander Zahra changed her plans from stopping Starlight Squadron from rescuing Lieutenant Bey to destroying the last division of the Rebel Fleet, the Second Division, at the Battle of Panisia after she received intel on it's location from the Imperial Security Bureau and ordered for the fighters to be left behind since there was no time to get them back onboard and to prevent the Rebel starfighters from escaping again like they did at Felucia considering they were outnumbered and assured Gorr that they would be picked up once they returned but if they were defeated then it would be of no loss as the Empire had zero tolerance for the weak in their forces. However Zahra was lured in a trap as the entire Rebel Fleet showed up to get their last division and finally kill the vengeful Commander once and for all as part of a plan developed by Lady Qi'ra, who was in charge of the criminal syndicate Crimson Dawn, to cause a distraction so her agent Deathstick could grab the Mourner's Wail Syndicate and the Unbroken Clan's heir Cadeliah and in an attempt to gain General Organa and the Alliance's trust to form a partnership with them for her ultimate plan to kill Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine so she can bring an end the Sith and the Empire to make the galaxy an equal playing field for those who want power. Then after defeating the stranded TIE swarms, Starlight Squadron rendezvoused with the Rebel Fleet and had Lieutenant Bey leading them again since Dameron's mission to rescue her was a success but he lost his team since they stayed behind to blow the main reactor on the Tarkin's Will and damage it as well as lower the shields so the Alliance could destroy it. Then Bey led her team into helping General Organa locate Commander Zahra after she survived the crash of her ship and after a brief fight in the cave she was hiding in, Organa emerged and said they would never have to worry about her again.

Starlight Squadron was first mentioned in Star Wars (2020) 6, a comic written by Charles Soule, illustrated by Jesús Saiz, and published by Marvel Comics on September 16, 2020. It later made its first appearance in Star Wars (2020) 10, a comic written by Charles Soule, illustrated by Jan Bazaldua, and published by Marvel Comics on January 6, 2021.

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