"All wings do you copy?" said Ben over the comms as his x-wing climbed.

"We copy you red leader," said gold leader.

"It's good to have you back Solo," said blue leader.

"Blue squadron cover the ground troops," said Ben. "A-wings take out those surface cannons for the bombers. Red and gold on me. We'll provide support as needed.

"Solid copy on all," came the collective reply.

Ben accelerated to attack speed and rejoined his comrades in the air. The goal of this operation wasn't to wipe out the base completely but to cripple its operational effectiveness and buy enough time for the ground forces to extract the prisoners. With Kylo Ren's prizes here they First Order would spare no resources getting reinforcements to Ilum.

As the republics ground forces advanced on the main structures of the base, walkers began to move out to intercept them, halting the advance. Ben swooped down on his x-wing and took one out with a photon torpedo. A Corellian corvette was called in to support the advance, raining down fire on the First Order vehicles pouring out of the base to meet the republics troops in battle.

"Sir we have star destroyers coming out from underground hangers," came a report from the comms.

"Divert bombers and boarding craft to those star destroyers," said Ben. "They will wipe out our fighters and ground forces. We can't let them join the fight."

As transports carrying troops headed towards the ascending star destroyers behind the snowy mountain the base was built into, Ben led a squadron of x-wings to cover them from TIE fighters.

"There's a lot more of them than we thought Solo," said gold leader. "We might lose ground in the long run."

"We don't need to win we just need to buy time for them down below," said Ben. "Focus on doing as much damage to the base or those star destroyers as you can. The Force is with us all!"

Cheers came over the comms and Ben smiled as he dived to make another attack run on First Order forces on the ground.