Falcon Squadron I,
Training Exercices
CMDR/CM Darksaber/Falcon/Wing XI/ISD Immortal
(darksaber_mpk@hotmail.com)

"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 sugest 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 sucess 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 hiperdrive, the stars elongated themselfs into white cylinders, then snapped back into pinpoints and began to resolve slowly, transforming themselfs 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 impossivel 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 maeuver 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 figthers 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 figther´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 figther.
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 figthter 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 novalike 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 remaing figther. 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 ploted 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 acceleraration 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? "

" Afirmative, 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 recharching 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 separeted 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 sticked 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 glacing 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. Colision 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 simulatores 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 Lieutnant´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. "

" Apparantly 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 "

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