Mission #417

 

--- Part 1 ---

 

by

 

CMDR/COL Astix/Trapper/Wing XIX/SSD Avenger

QUA/SBM Astix/Oriens Obscurum/Arcona

 

 

            A few swift keystrokes on the onboard computer and a short explanation for his absence was in his squadron members' collective inboxes. It read

“All: On brief mission for LC Mouse. Stand by in case needed, apologies for lack of personal briefing; mission urgent. CMDR Astix”.

 

The Cygnus Works Missile Boat was, in Astix' eyes, a miracle of engineering and starfighter development. Faster than most of the competing craft, better armoured, better armed, and when the SLAM system was engaged- faster than anything else in sublight space, the MIS made for an excellent stand-off fighter and assault craft, and Astix loved it. Not quite as much as he adored his old Shadow-Class Y-Wing bomber, but it definitely came close. A flick of a switch and the engines spun up, gently humming to themselves as power started to course through the craft's systems. Further flicks of additional switches, and the fighter's other systems began to come online. Green lights began to blink over the craft's sleek cockpit panels- first life support, then flight controls, the automatic system repair module, the shields, the targeting computer, the four warhead launchers and finally the blaster cannon all came online and reported readiness.

 

Astix took the opportunity, as always before a mission, to look around the hangar. However, this time no racks of TIE Fighters old and new sat hanging from the high ceiling, eagerly awaiting launch. He was unsure why so many fighters weren't in the hangar, and why only his squadron of fighters were sat on the durasteel deck awaiting launch. He savoured the smell of warm rubber, cold alloys and slightly musty flightsuit, then closed his fighter's cockpit. His face-mask dropped with the canopy, enveloping him in its surreal grey-tinted universe. Astix jacked his suit's life support tube into the cabin and blinked as green text scrolled up the inside of his visor explaining that all was well, and then pulled the straps over his shoulders and legs and clipped them into place.

 

Seconds (and a brief conversation with hangar control) later, Astix's missile boat was climbing away from the Avenger's steely grey shape towards his hyperspace jump-off. He hurriedly punched into the surreal blue tunnel of unreal space behind it, anxious to keep his rendezvous in plenty of time.

 

Mestra was a dull sector in the Colonel's opinion- but his superiors wanted him there, and so he was. He sighed as the missile boat popped back into realspace, exiting near a navbouy some eight kilometers from the local customs checkpoint. He could see it a way aways; a platform type two or three- a standard local-space support and control platform. He could also see the two flights of Z-100 “Century” starfighters flying point patrol, along with a pair of System Patrol Craft and a lone Corvette. Nothing really too strenuous, so long as the YT-2000 came out of hyperspace a decent distance away.

 

No sooner was the thought rolling out of Astix's inner voice, when a Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-2000 freighter with civilian IFF tags dropped into the system only two three from the system. The colonel swore; the data he'd dumped into his flight computer stated only one such vessel was due in along here today, and that was it- the one he was supposed to be meeting. Astix watched with grim fascination as a single Z-100 peeled off to inspect it. If the cargo of the freighter was as inflammatory as Mouse Droid had suggested, Astix was going to have about twenty seconds to close the distance between the craft. A millisecond later, the ship's SLAM system was pushing the small ship at over 200 MGLT towards the distant craft, eating up the meters at a tremendous pace. Shield energy was rapidly dumped into the laser system, and the warhead launchers activated as the distance closed to around three thousand meters. A passenger in the missile boat would have seen Astix hunched firmly forwards over his flight controls, staring avidly at the Century fighter that was very very close indeed to becoming within close-sensor range of the freighter. He uncaged his advanced missiles, and let the bip-bip-bip of the “acquiring” tone ring out through the cramped cockpit.

 

 

… to be continued