Falcon Squadron: Ranger's Doom
CMDR/CPT Darksaber/Falcon/Wing XI/ISD Immortal
(darksaber_mpk@hotmail.com)

     Twelve Gunboat snubfighters roared down into the atmosphere.

     This was a dark world with polluted sky, it´s atmosphere formed from gases and smoke hurled from hundreds of active volcanoes. Four kilometers ahead, the A-wing, fastest fighter of the New Republic forces, was distantly visible; it stayed well ahead of the Gunboats, though the fact that it was not now outrunning them was a clear indication that its engines were damaged. Further evidence were the sparks and gouts of smoke issuing from its engines, too far away to see except with visual sensors; if the engines failed, the pursuing Gunboats could catch the A-Wing.

     Toran Dan, the gunboat Squadron Commander, toggled his comm system " Ranger Leader to Ranger 2, any change? "

His communications specialist answered " No, sir. He´s not broadcasting. As far as I can tell, he´s not homming in on any sort of a signal. And I´m still not picking up any engine emissions, other than his or ours, on the scanners. "

" Very well "

The A-wing´s speed suddently dropped and the vehicle began bobbing as if hit by heavy turbolence. It lost altitude, veering to starboard towards a cleft between two enormous volcanoes. Ranger Leader saw glittering orange threads of Lava crawling down the near slope of one of the black, fire-capped mountains.

"Leader to Squad, it looks like he´s losing thrust and going low to lose us with terrain following flying. Don´t give him the opportunity. Get close and force him down." He led his Squadron in a lazy arc towards the same gap. He watched the numbers changing on his distance-to-target register: three kilometers, two point five; the A-wing was now emerging from the gap on the far side as the Assault Gunboats were entering it.

Ranger 6´s voice broke, high pitched and nervous, over the comm system: "Engines powering up, sir! directly ahead I count four, seven, thirteen.... "

"Attack position!" Toran shouted. " Scatter and .... "

Ranger 10, Gord Darkonian´s console echoed it with beeps and indicatores showing that someone ahead had a sensor lock on him - two locks - three locks.

     Gord veered sharply to port - directly toward a volcanic flue and the impenetrable stream of gray-black smoke belching from it. As he hit the cloud he pulled back on the stick, rising straight up the concealing smoke. The sensor locks on him disapperead.
      He heard explosion, some near, some far, and the excited comm chatter of his SquadronMates. He added to it "Ranger 9, go skyward in the smoke screen; we´ll hit then from above"
No answer
There was other comm traffic: " Five, Five He´s on your tail! " " Can´t get clear, vape him for me, Six " " I can´t, I´ve got .. I´ve got ... " Nine banked into the volcano wall, she´s gone " Another Explosion

     Moments later, at two thousands meters Gord angled to starboard, getting clear of the smoke and emerging directly over the gap between volcanoes.
     No one was on his tail. He checked the sensor board. Didn´t believe what it showed him, checked again.
     He and Ranger 11 were the only Emperor´s Hammer forces remaining on the board. he counted twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five New Republic blips. A dozen were veering towards eleven, the remainder toward Gord.
     In a matter of seconds, Ranger Squadron had been all but destroyed. Glittering pieces of Assault Gunboats were still streaming down toward the planet´s broken surface. In another few seconds, he and eleven would be vaped, and the destruction would be complete.
     Through the sock of it, he said, "Ranger Eleven, dive for the surface. Trench Run Defense. Omega Signal. Acknowledge. "
" Omega Signal understood. Diving "

The sensor register on Ranger Eleven showed decresing altitude. Gord followed suit, standing his Assault Gunboat on its noseand blasting toward the ground.
     He hadn´t even gotten a shot off at the enemy. Ten pilots dead and he had a full rack of proton torpedos left, lasers batteries charged at ful. Time to change that.
     The Sensors showed an ominous cloud of X-Wings, pursuing Eleven toward the ground. If he reached the planet´s broken surface, which was pocked with craters and crisscrossed with rifts, he might be able to elude them; there, his piloting skill rather than the relative speeds of the figthers could allow him to lose pursuit, and any pilot who tried tried to follow her from above would quickly lose sight of her, this was the classic Trench Run Defense used against the first Death Star. A Rebel Maneuver now also used by the Empire. But for now, Eleven would remain within the enemy´s weapons range for long, deadly seconds.
     Within moments his sensors indicated that he was coming within range of the weapons of the rising cloud of X-Wings. He switched his lasers over to dual fire then began firing as quickly as his targeting computer gave him the bracket color changes and pure audible tones of good target locks. He put his Assault Gunboat into a corkscrew descent, making it harder for him to hit his targets, but making it much harder for them to hit him.

     Most of his shots hit the ground. One missed his intended target but vaped its wingman. Two more shots hit their intended targets, one shearing off a wing and sending the figther spinning into the nearest volcanic mountainside, the other having no immediate effect Gord would see, but the X-Wing ceased all evasive maneuvering, its flight path becoming an easy-to-calculate ballistic curve. Gord almost smiled: it had been a surgical strike, the pilot killed by a beautiful shot straight into the cockpit, leaving the rest of the fighter craft unharmed.
     His assault had its desired effect. The oncoming cloud of X-Wings spread out and he shot through the gap in the center of their formation. They wheeled, an angry insect cloud, to follow, but now the X-Wings pursuing Eleven into the rugged terrain below were in sight. Gord continued firing, vaping one starfigther before the others knew ha was upon them; that figther´s wingman, startled by the sudden explosion, reflexively banked rightward, directly into the side of the rift in which they were flying. His figther also detonated, filling the rift with flame ans shrapnel.

     Gord dropped into the rift, pulling out of his dive just before he could scrape his keel on the ground. He had stone formations to either side of him, black rock so blurry from his speed that he could make out no detail " Ranger 10 to Eleven, report condition " he said

" Minor damage to left wing " He answered. " It´s giving me a little vibration, which should go away if we can get out of atmosphere. Some starring on the canopy. Pursuit is hagging back. Wait, here comes on! He´s trying to get a lock on me! "

     Gord put on more speed, increasing the risk that he would not be able to make some difficult turn ahead. He whipped around a bend in the rift and almost slammed into the engines of a slow-moving X-Wing immediatly ahead. He snapped off a laser shot out of reflex, saw it lance straight into the starfigther´s starboard engine.
     The X-Wing instantly became a glowing fireball of yellow and orange flame and debris. Gord´s Assault Gunboat rocked as he roared throught the fireball; his helmet and hull were barely suffcient to keep the sound of the explosion from deafening him. Then he was through.

     One more turn, a tight starboard bank that almost flung him into the rock wall to port, and he had Eleven in sight. Eleven, and the vehicle pursuing him, the A-Wing that had led them into this trap. This was the first time Gord had seen it visually. Something occurred to him; there were no sparks or smoke plumes emerging from its engines now. With the deception done, all the flase signs of the A-Wing´s weakness had been shut off.
     The A-Wing had crept up to within meters of Eleven´s aft and was skillfully matching all of the Assault Gunboat pilot´s frantic maneuvers. This was a demonstration of superior flying technique, a show of contempt by one pilot for his enemy, and there was no doubt that the A-Wing could begin firing on the defenseless Eleven at any second.
      Gord fired off a desperate snap-shot. At the same moment, the A-Wing took its kill shot.
      Gord saw his lasers strike and play across the A-Wing´s main body, slashing across the engines and burning into the cockpit.
          The A-Wing´s lasers intersected at Eleven´s Assault Gunboat, hitting his aft shields in spite of his deseperate maneuvers ... and they penetrated. Both of Eleven´s starboard engines flamed out. The left wing, softened by the lasers´s intense heat, began to deform under atmospheric friction
           The A-Wing slowed. Sparks and flame, real ones now, issued from the engines. It rose, jumping out of the rocky rift, and was immediatly lost to Gord´s sight.

Eleven´s Assault Gunboatbegan a portward roll. Gord´s next command was half a shout " Eleven, Bail Out! Eleven Eject! "

" Ejecting now! Ten, get out of here! "

Gord watched helplessly as Eleven´s cockpit filled with the fire of an ejection thruster, but the canopy failed to open. The ejector seat smashed Eleven into it. Its transparisteel construction kept the canopy in one piece as the Assault Gunboat continued to rotate to port. Under continued pressure from the thrust of the ejection seat, the cockpit finally broke away from the Assault Gunboat, but Eleven sat limp in the sitas the ejection seat carried him mere meters from the doomed snubfigther, slamming him into the rift wall to port. In a split second she was gone, lost behind Gord, and his Assault Gunboat was nosing over to crash into the rift wall below.

Gord forced himself to look away, to return his mind to mission paraameters

A few minutes of terrain-following flying and he should be able to jump free of this rifts and head to space.

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