Falcon Squadron I, Training Exercices
by
CM Darksaber
«You´re Good, but you are no Dras Hempor»
Dark Hawk´s cheeks still burned at the memory of Commander Darksaber´s
evaluation of his Last Simulation exercise. The line had been a simple comment,
not meant to be cruel nor delivered that way, but it cut deep into Dark Hawk.
«I´ve never tried to suggest I´m That good a Pilot.»
He shook his head. «No, you just wanted it
to be self-evident and easily recognized by everyone around you » Reaching out
he flicked the starter switches for the Skipray Blastboat´s engines. «Falcon 2
has four starts and is go». All around him in the cockpit various switches,
buttons, and monitors flashed to life. «Primary and secondary power is at full»
Ares Hawk, his Droid wingman, reported
similar start-up success in a High-pitched voice. « Falcon 3 is operational »
Falcon II-1 and II-2 checked in, then the
external screens came alive projecting an empty Starfield. Navdata spilled out
over Dark Hawk´s main monitor. He punched a button sending the same coordinates
out to the other pilots in the fight. « Go to Light speed and rendezvous on the
Grey Wolf »
As Dark Hawk engaged the skipray
blastboat´s hyperdrive, the stars elongated themselves into white cylinders,
then snapped back into pinpoints and began to resolve slowly, transforming themselves
into a tunnel of white light. Dark Hawk fought the urge to use the
stick to compensate for the roll. In space, and especially hyperspace, up and
down were relative. How his ship moved through hyperspace didn´t really matter-
as long as it remained on the course calculated and that attained sufficient
velocity before entering hyperspace, he´d arrive intact.
« Flying into a black hole would actually
make this run easier » Every pilot dreaded the Grey Wolf run. The Scenario was
based on a New Republic attack on evacuation ships during the Minos Cluster
Battle. While the Grey Wolf waited for three Medevac shuttles and the Corvette
Irony to dock and off-load wounded, The New Republic Frigate Mariner danced
around the system and dumped out X-wings and added bombers to the mix to do as
much damaged as they could.
The Bombers, with a full load of missiles
could do a lot of damage. All the pilots called the Grey Wolf scenario by
another name: The Requiem Scenario. The Mariner would only deploy four X-wings
and a half-dozen B-wings but it would
do so in a pattern that made it all but impossible for the pilots to save the
Irony.
The corvette was
just one big target, and the B-wings had no trouble unloading all their
missiles into it.
Stellar pinpoints elongated again as the
fighter came out of hyperspace. Off to the port side Dark Hawk saw the Grey
Wolf. The figthers checked in and the first shuttle began it´s docking maneuver
with the Grey Wolf.
« Falcon 2, this is Falcon II-1.»
« Go ahead, Falcon II-1 »
« By the book, or are we doing something
fancy? »
Dark Hawk hesitated before answering. By
the book, Gord Darkonian had refered to the general wisdom about the scenario.
It stated that one pilot should play fleethund and race out to engage the first
New Republic flight while the other three fighters remained in close as backup.
As long as three fighters stayed home it appeared, the Mariner dropped ships
off at a considerable distance distance from the Irony. When they didn´t, it
got bolder and the whole scenario became very bloody.
The problem with going by the book was that
it was not a very good Strategy. It meant one pilot had to deal with five
fighters - 2 X-wings and 3 B-wings. All by himself, then turn around and engage
five more. Even with them coming in waves, the chances of being able to succeed
against those odds were slim. Doing any other way was disastrous.
«By the book,
keep the home fires burning and pick up after me.»
«Done, good
luck.»
«Thanks»
The Irony materialized and moved toward the
Grey Wolf, prompting Dark Hawk to begin his final check. He´d mulled the
scenario over his mind time and time again.
The Mariner
arrived.
Pulling the stick around to the right, Dark
Hawk brought the Skipray Blastboat into a wide turn. At the end of it he
punched the throttle up to full power. « Falcon 2 engaging »
Ruin Doveria´s voice came cool and strong
through the radio. « Be all over them like drool on a Hutt »
« I´ll do my
best, Falcon II-2 » Dark Hawk smiled and waggled the Skipray Blastboat through
the Imperial formation and out toward the Mariner.
Dark Hawk tagged the bombers as targets
one, two and three then pushed the shield power full to front and brought his
laser targeting program up on the main monitor. With the left hand he adjusted
the sighting calibration knob on the stick and got the two fighters. « Good,
looks like three klicks between the fighters and the bombers. »
At two klicks the heads-up display painted
a yellow box around the lead X-wing. The box went green as the fighter's image
locked into the HUD´s targeting cross. Dark Hawk´s thumb hit the button,
sending three bursts of laser bolts at the lead fighter.
The first set missed but the second and
third blasted through the cockpit. The S-foils snapped off and spun forward
through space while the engines exploded into an expanding ball of incadescent
gas.
Dark Hawk kicked the Skispray Blastboat up
in a ninety-degree snap roll and sliced through the center of the explosion.
Laser fire from the second fighter lit up his forward shields, making it
impossible for him to get a good visual line on the X-Wing. Dark Hawk hurried a
shot and knew he hit, but the X-Wing flashed past and continued on in at the
Irony.
«Time to write a new chapter for the book
on the Grey Wolf scenario. Dark Hawk throttled back almost all the way to zero
and let the Skipray Blastboat decelerate. Brought up target one. The image of
the first B-Wing filled his monitor. Dark Hawk switched over to proton torpedo
target control. The HUD changed to a larger box.
« Falcon 2, your
velocity is down to one percent. Do you need help? »
« Negative,
Falcon 3 »
« Dark Hawk, what
are you doing? »
« Making the book
a short story. » « I hope »
The HUD went red. Dark Hawk punched the
button and launched the first missile. « Acquire target two ». The HUD flashed
yellow, then red, and the pilot launched the second missile.
Numbers scrolled away to zero as the
missiles streaked in at their targets. Two Kilometers away the first missile
hit, shredding the first B-Wing. Seconds later the second missile hit its
target. A nova-like explosion lit the simulator's cockpit, then melted into the
blackness of space.
«Acquire target
three»
Even as he gave
the order he knew the rate of closure between the bomber and his ship would
make the last missile shot all but impossible. «Cancel three ». Dark Hawk throttled up again as the third bomber
sailed past and brought his ship around. He switched back to laser targeting
and climbed right up on the bomber´s stern.
The B-Wing´s pilot tried to evade him. He
juked the ship to the left, then started a long turn to the right, but Dark
Hawk was of no mind to lose him. He cut his speed, which kept the bomber in
front of him, the followed in its turn. As he leveled out again on it´s tail,
he triggered two laser bursts and the targeting computer reported hull damage.
The bomber´s right wing came up in a roll
and Dark Hawk did the same thing. Had he continued to fly level, the Skispray
Blastboat´s lasers would have passed on either side of the bomber´s fuselage,
giving the bomber a few seconds more of life. Keeping the bomber centered in
his crosshairs, Dark Hawk hit twice more and the bulky craft disintegrated
before him.
Pushing his throttle to full, Dark Hawk
scanned for the fighter he´d missed. He found it two klicks out and going in
toward the Irony. He also found five more fighters coming in from the other
side of the corvette, eighteen kilometers away. « Damn, the bomber took more
time than I had to give it »
He brought the torpedo targeting program
back up and locked on to the remaining fighter. The HUD seemed to take forever
before it went red and acquired a lock. Dark Hawk fired a missile and watched
it blast through the fighter, then turned his attention to the new fighters.
« Falcon 2, do
you want us to engage? »
Dark Hawk shook
his head « Negative, 3. Mariner is still here and could dump another flight »
he sighed « Move to intercept the fighters, but don´t go beyond a klick from
the Irony »
« On it »
«Good, they can
tie the fighters up while I dust these B-Wings » Dark Hawk studied the
navigational data. The Irony, the bombers and his Skipray Blastboat formed a
shrinking triangle. If he flew directly at the bombers he would end up flying
in an arc, which would take more time than he had and let them get close enough
to launch their missiles at the corvette. That would be less than useless as
far as he was concerned.
Using the computer, he plotted an intercept
point six klicks out from the Irony. Steering toward it, Dark Hawk saw he´d
have just over a minute to deal with the bomber before they were in firing
range on the Irony. « Not enough time »
Flicking two switches, Dark Hawk redirected
generator energy from recharging his shields and lasers into the engines. It
took the acceleration compensator a second to cycle up, so the ship´s burst
of speed pushed Dark Hawk back into the padding of his comand seat « This
better work »
« Falcon 2, The
Mariner has hyped. Are we released to engage fighters? »
«
Affirmative,
II-1. Go get them. » Dark Hawk frowned for a second, knowing his fellow pilots
would make short work of the X-Wings. they would deny him a clean sweep, but
he´d willingly trade two X-Wings for the corvette. « Commander Darksaber might
have gotten them all himself, but then he´s the CMDR. » He marked each of the
bombers four, five and six. Range to intercept was three klicks and he added
thrity seconds to his figthing time « Acquire four »
The targeting computer showed him to be
coming in at a forty-five-degree angle to the flight path of his target, which
meant he was way off target. He quickly punched the generator back into
recharging the lasers and shields, then pulled even more energy from his
engines and shunted it into recharging his weapons and shields.
The resource redirection brought his speed
down. Dark Hawk pulled back on the stick, easing the Skipray Blastboat into a
turn that brought him head-on into the bombers. tapping the stick to the left,
he centered the targeting box on the first of the B-Wings.
The HUD started yellow, then quickly went
red. Dark Hawk fired a missile « Acquire five » The HUD started red, he fired a
second missile. « Acquire six »
Dark Hawk looked down at his display.
Scrolling up the screen, sandwiched between the reports of missile hits on the
three bombers, he saw a notation about Falcon 3.
« Falcon 3,
report »
« He´s gone, 2 »
« A fighter got
him? »
« No time to chat
... » The comm call from Ruin Doveria
in Falcon II-2 ended in a hiss of static.
« Gord? »
«Got one, Dark
Hawk, but this last one is good. »
« Hang on »
«I´ll do my best
»
« Acquire six »
The last bomber had already shot past the
intercept point and was bearing in on
the Irony. The pilot had the wide-bodied craft slowly spinning, making it a
difficult for a missile lock. The Irony, being big as it was, would present
large enough of a target that even a rolling ship could get a lock on it.
« And once he has that lock, the Irony is
so much space junk ». Dark Hawk switched back to lasers and pushed his Skipray
Blastboat forward. Even though two klicks separated them, he triggered a couple
of laser blasts. He knew his chances of hitting were not good at that range,
but the light from the bolts would shoot past the B-Wing and give the pilot
something to think about. « And I want him thinking about me, not that
nerf-vette grazing there »
Dark Hawk redirected all power back into
the engines and shot forward. Two more laser blasts caused the B-Wing to shy a
bit, but it had pushed into target acquisitation range. The ship´s roll began
to slow as the pilot fixated on his target, then, as Dark Hawk brought his
lasers to bear, the bomber jinked and cut away to port.
Dark Hawk´s eyes narrowed. « Michael Gutt
has got to be flying that thing. He thinks it´s pay back time » The other
pilot, a human, was - in Dark Hawk´s opinion - the second best pilot in the
training squadron. « He´s going to kill the Irony and I´ll never hear the end
of it. Unless ... »
Dark Hawk pulled his shield energy forward
and left his aft as naked and shieldless. Following Gutt through a barrel roll,
he kept the throttle full forward. As they leveled out again Dark Hawk
triggered a snapshot at the bomber. It caught a piece of one wing, but Gutt
dove beneath the Skipray Blastboat´s line of fire. « Here we go! »
Dark Hawk shoved his stick forward to
follow the bomber´s dive, but because his rate of speed was a good twenty
percent faster than that of Gutt´s ship, the Skipray Blastboat moved into a
broad loop. By the time Dark Hawk inverted to finish the turn off, Gutt´s
bomber came back up and banked in on the Skipray Blastboat´s tail.
Before the bomber could unload a missile or
two into his aft, Dark Hawk broke the fighter hard to port and carved across
the bomber´s line of fire. « Basic maneuver with a basic response ». Without
even glancing at his instruments, Dark Hawk cut engine power back into
recharging his shields. « One more second »
Gutt´s response to Dark Hawk´s break had
been a reverse-throttle hop. By bringing the nose of the bomber up in a steep
climb, then rolling out in the direction of the turn, Gutt managed to stay
inside the arc of the Skipray Blastboat´s turn. As the bomber leveled off, it
closed very quickly with the Skipray Blastboat - « too quickly for a missile
lock, but not a laser lock. »
The B-wing shrieked in at the Skipray
Blastboat. Collision warning klaxons wailed. Dark Hawk could feel Gutt´s excitement as the Skipray Blastboat
loomed larger. He knew the other pilot would snap off a quick shot, then come
around again, angry at having overshot the Skipray Blastboat, but happy to
smoke Dark Hawk before taking the
Irony.
The Skipray Blastboat pilot hit a switch
and shifted all shield power to aft shields.
The deflector shield materialized as a
demisphere approximately twenty meters behind the Skipray Blastboat. Designed
to dissipate both energy and kinetic weapons, it had no trouble protecting the
fighter from the bomber´s triple laser blasts. Had the bomber used missiles,
the shields could even have handled all the damage they could do, though that
would have been enough to destroy the shields themselfs.
The B-Wing, which massed far more than the
missiles it carried, should have punched throught the shields and might even
have destroyed the fighter, but it hit at an angle and glanced off. The
collision did blast away half the power of the aft shield and bounced the
Skipray Blastboat around, but otherwise left the snubfighter undamaged.
The same could not be said of the bomber.
The impact with the shield was roughly equivalent to a vehicle hitting a
ferrocrate wall at sixty kilometers per hour. While that might not do a land
vehicle much damage, land vehicles are decidedly less delicate than
starfighters. The starboard wing crumbled inward, wrapping itself around the
bomber´s cockpit.
« Falcon
II-1, did you copy that? »
Dark Hawk got no
response « What happened II-1 ? »
« Sithspawn »
Dark Hawk flipped the shield control to equalize things fore and aft « Where is
he ? »
The image of a lone X-Wing making a
strafing run on the Irony appeared in Dark Hawk´s monitor. The clumsy little
craft skiterred along over the corvette´s surface, easily dodging its weak
return fire. « That´s seriously gutsy for a X-Wing pilot » Dark Hawk smiled «
Or arrogant, and time to make him pay for that arrogance »
He brought his proton torpedo targeting
program up and locked on to the X-Wing. It tried to break the lock, but
turbolaser fire from the Irony boxed it in. Dark Hawk´s HUD went red and he
triggered the torpedo « Scratch one »
The missile shot straight in at the
fighter, but the pilot broke hard to port and away, causing the missile to
overshot the target. « Nice Flying! » Dark Hawk brought his Skipray Blastboat
over and started down to loop in behind the X-Wing, but as he did so, the
X-wing vanished from his forward screen and reappeared in his aft arc. Yanking
the stich hard to the right and pulling it back, Dark Hawk wrestled the Skipray
Blastboat up and to starboard, then inverted and rolled out to the left.
A laser shot jolted a tremor through the
simulator´s couch « Lucky thing i had all the shields aft! » Dark Hawk
reinforced them with energy from his lasers, then evened them out fore and aft.
Jinking the fighter right and left, he avoided laser shots coming in from
behind, but they all came in far closer than he liked.
He knew Gutt had been in the bomber, and
Gutt was the only pilot in the unit who could have stayed with him. « Except
for our leader » Dark Hawk smiled broadly « coming to see how good I really am,
Commander Darksaber? Let me give you a clinic »
A snap-roll brought the Skipray Blastboat
up on its pot wing. Pulling back on the stick yanked the fighter´s nose up away
from the original line of flight. The X-Wing stayed with him, then tightened up
on the arc to close distance. Dark Hawk then rolled another ninety degrees and
continued the turn into a dive. throttling back, Dark Hawk hung in the dive for
three seconds, then hauled back hard on the stick and cruised up into the
X-Wing´s aft.
The Skipray Blastboat´s laser fire missed
wide to the right as the X-Wing cut to the left. Dark Hawk kicked his speed up
to full and broke with the X-Wing. He let the Skipray Blastboat rise above the
plane of the break, then put the fighter through a twisting roll that ate up
enough time to bring him again into the X-Wing´s rear. The X-Wing snapped to
the right and Dark Hawk looped out left.
He watched the tracking display as the
distance between them grew to be a kilometer and a half, then slowed. « Fine,
you want to go nose to nose. » He tugged the stick back to his sternum and
rolled out in an inversion loop. « Coming at you! »
The two starfighters closed swiftly. Dark
Hawk centerd his foe in the crosshairs and waited for a dead shot. His HUD flicked green as the X-Wing
juked in and out of the center, then locked green as they closed.
The X-wing started firing at maximum range
and scored hits. At that distance the lasers did no real damage against the
shields, prompting Dark Hawk to wonder why Darksaber was wasting the energy.
Then as the HUD´s green color started to flicker, realization dawned « The
bright bursts in the shields are a distraction to my targeting! I better kill
him now »
Dark Hawk tightened down on the trogger
button, sending red laser needles stabbing out at the closing X-Wing. He
couldn´t tell if he had hit anything. Lights flashed in the cockpit. Dark
Hawk´s main monitor went black, his shields were down, and his weapons controls
were dead.
The pilot looked left and right « Where is
he? »
The monitor in front of him flickered to
life and a diagnostic report began to scroll by. Bloodred bordered the damage
reports « Scanners, out; lasers, out; shields, out; engine; out! I´m a
wallowing Hutt just hanging here in space. »
With the Skipray Blastboat´s scanners being
dead, he couldn´t locate the X-Wing if it was outside. He tried to get the
shields back first. Dark Hawk continued to look around for the X-Wing. «
Letting me stew, are you sir? You´ll finish the Irony then come for me. » The
pilot frowned and felt a cold chill run down his spine, « You´re right, I´m no
Dras Hempor. I´m glad you think I´m not bad, but I want to be the best! »
Suddenly the starfield went black and the
simulator pod hissed as it cracked open. The canopy lift up and the sound of
laughter filled the cockpit. Dark Hawk almost flicked the blast shield down on
his helmet to prevent his three friends from seeing his embarrassed blush. «
Nope, might as well take my punishment. » He stood and doffed his helmet, then
shook his head « At least it´s over »
Gord Darkonian, clapped his hands.
« Such modesty,
Dark Hawk »
« Huh? »
The man next to
the ? beamed up at him « You won the Grey Wolf scenario »
« What? »
The grey-green
droid nodded his head and placed his helmet on the nose of Dark Hawk´s
simulator. « You had nine kills. Gutt is not pleased »
« Thanks for the
good news, Ares, but I still got killed there » Dark Hawk hopped out of the
simulator « The pilot who got you three - Commander Darksaber - he got me too »
Gord Darkonian
shrugged. « He´d been at this a bit longer than I have, so it is not a surprise
he got me »
Ruin shook his
head « The surprise was that he took so long to get us, really. Are you certain
he killed you?»
Dark Hawk frowned
« I don´t think I got a mission end message »
« Clearly you
have too little experience of dying in these simulators because you don´t know
if you did » Ruin laughed lightly « He may have hit you, Dark Hawk, but he
didn´t kill you. You survived and won »
Dark Hawk
blinked, then smiled « And I got Michael before he got the Irony. I´ll take
that »
«As well you
should » man shouldered his way between Ares and Gord « You´re an exceptionally
good pilot »
«Thank you, sir »
The man offered Dark Hawk his hand «Thought
I had you, but when you shot out my engines, your missile caught up with me.
Nice job »
Dark Hawk shook the man´s hand hesitantly.
The man wore a black flight suit with no name or rank insignia on it, though it
did have various Battle tabs sewn on the left sleeve. « You know, you´re one
hot hand in a X-Wing »
« Nice of you to
say, Mr. Dark Hawk, I´m a bit rusty, but I really enjoyed this run » He
released Dark Hawk´s hand « Next time
I´ll give you more of a fight »
A Woman wearing a Lieutenant's uniform
touched the X-Wing pilot on the arm « Admiral Jarak Maldon is ready to see you
now, sir. If you will follow me. »
The X-wing pilot
nodded to the four pilots. « Good flying all of you. Congratulations on winning
the scenario »
Dark Hawk stared
at the man´s retreating back. « I thought Commander Darksaber was in that
X-Wing. I mean it had to be someone as good as him to get you three. »
«
Apparently he
is that good »
Ruin nodded « He
flew circles around me »
«At least you saw
him » The droid drummed his fingers
against the hull of Dark Hawk´s simulator
« Sure, but who
is he? » Dark Hawk frowned « He´s not Dras Hempor, obviously, but he was with
Falcon Squadron »
Ruin looped his
right arm around Dark Hawk´s neck and brought his fist gently under his chin. «
What difference does it make who he is? »
« Ruin, he shot
up three of our best pilots, had me dead in space, and says he´s a bit rusty! I
want to know who he is because he´s decidedly dangerous »
« He is that, but
today he´s not the most dangerous pilot. That´s you » He linked his other arm
through Gord´s right elbow. « So Dark Hawk, let this thing drop. Today we´re
all pilots, we´re all on the same side » He smiled sweetly « and the man who
beat the Grey Wolf scenario is about to make good on all those dinner and
drinks promises he made to talk his wingmates into helping him win »
CMDR/CM
Darksaber/Falcon/Wing XI/ISD Immortal