With a final, perfunctory, “Good luck,” the trainer – a Petty Officer, judging by the not-quite-memorized rank insignia he bore – brought his very brief briefing to an end, leaving newly-initiated Crewman Wyl Trykon and the other cadets and trainees alone.  Instantly, the briefing room was abuzz with the excited whispering of the others, any pretense of proper military decorum dropped with the Petty Officer’s exit, but from his seat near the holo-projector, Crewman Trykon held his silence, dispassionately considering the task at hand.

This would be Trykon’s first mission in the service of the Empire, and his first sortie piloting a starfighter.  It was only a simulator run, of course, so there was no real danger involved.  Still, this was a wide open opportunity to distinguish himself – one way or the other.

Maybe you’re not gonna die, today, Wyl, the new Crewman mused, but when you climb out of that simulated cockpit you’re comin’ out on the fast track to combat and command, or you’re comin’ out a loser.  His brows knit together as he frowned.  “Let’s try for the former, shall we?” he mumbled to himself.

Ignoring the other trainees, Trykon stood up and strode purposefully over to the desk at the front of the room, picked up the datapad the Petty Officer had left behind, and activated the holographic map again.

The highlighted details blinking on the map hadn’t changed, and neither had the mission itself; it was a straightforward training scenario, which offered a simple choice, if not necessarily an easy one.  He’d start the mission separated from his squadron in atmo, and would have to choose between two bad options: a direct approach through enemy forces (fighters and anti-air) to rejoin his flight, or a safer, more circuitous route, which would leave his squadron-mates outnumbered and vulnerable while they tried to complete the mission.  Wyl thought back to the initial telbun training of his youth, which had included a master-class on aerial/space combat maneuvers, and the new Crewman ran through the few battles he'd seen in person since then in his mind.  I should be okay; I know a few maneuvers...  But even as he considered getting fancy with his flying, Trykon had an epiphany, and his frown twisted into a rueful grin.  This mission isn’t a test of piloting ability, he thought, shutting down the holo-map and leaving the pad and desk as he’d found them.  It’s a test of our priorities.  A test of character.

Wyl’s grey-green eyes flitted around the room, taking silent measure of the other trainees.  With an effort, he resisted the urge to make snap-judgments about his new comrades.  Tearing them down wouldn’t actually make him a better pilot, it wouldn’t help him complete the mission, and it wouldn’t help his chances of making friends here, either.  Focus on Self, he told himself, repeating the mantra of his school days.  They are testing you, and only you.  You know the challenge, so what will you do?

He glanced at the chronometer on the far wall, and with a sinking feeling realized that he was out of time to answer that question; he was due in the simulator, and the other trainees were already filing out of the briefing room.  Unbidden, the thoughtful frown returned to his face, as Trykon joined the others in the short walk to the sim room down the corridor.

The mission is the priority, Trykon kept repeating to himself, as he lowered himself into the cramped ball cockpit of the TIE simulator, closed the hatch, and strapped into the seat. The mission is the priority. He checked that the machine’s presets for a VE-standard Interceptor were keyed in, flicked the starter switches for the twin ion engines, and confirmed his comm systems were connected with the control personnel running the exercise: “Raptor Four has two starts and is go.”  The mission is the priority.

“Cleared for launch, Four,” came the reply.  The cockpit was suddenly filled with the familiar whine of the TIE in flight, and the various screens and indicator lights of the craft flickered to life.  A countdown appeared on the simulator’s main viewport: Simulation begins in 5, 4… The mission is the priority. …3, 2… But I can’t help them complete the mission if I’m dead.  …1…

With a flash, the viewport initialized, and Trykon was screaming through the sky of a verdant world, the distant coastline recognizable from the holo-map in the briefing room.  A quick look at the sensor displays confirmed his situation: Trykon’s fighter was several kilometers away from the rest of the squadron, and the New Republic’s anti-aircraft towers were directly between him and the nearest allied craft, which his sensors ID’ed as one of the dropships he was supposed to be covering.  “Great,” Wyl muttered into his helmet, and then he keyed his comm unit.  “Raptor One, this is Four.  I’m on my way back to the engagement area.”

“Raptor Four, One.  Mind the towers.”

Pulling back on the control yoke, Trykon felt the simulated gravity push him back into his seat as the bright blue sky filled the viewport.  “I copy, One.  I’m going for altitude.  Should make me a harder target for ‘em.”

“One, Two here,” an animated voice broke in.  “I have new targets!  Enemy fleet just hypered in, and ground-based fighters are scrambling.  So far, two full flights from the northwest corner of the base.”

“Raptors, we’ve got company,” the squadron leader said calmly.  “All fighters are to remain in-atmosphere until further notice.  Alpha flight, on me.  Beta, get ready to back us up if more X-wings launch.  Four, get back ASAP.  Everybody else, protect the dropships.  Go now!”

Trykon leveled out just as the closest anti-aircraft battery fired its first ranging shot in his general direction.  The blaster bolt went wide by almost a hundred meters, but before he could register his relief, Trykon noticed that four of the enemy signals had separated from the main group, and were heading his way.  A sparkling flash in the distance caught his eye: through the viewport, a glint of sunlight reflected off the canopy of the lead X-wing of the flight rising from their base to kill him.

“One, this is Four.  I may be detained a bit.”  Wyl twin-linked his blasters, shunted power to his forward shields, and adjusted his course to fly more or less due south, the enemy fighters rapidly closing the distance somewhere beyond his port wing.

“I see them, Four.  Good luck.”

The X-wings were almost in firing range when Trykon swung his Interceptor around to meet them head on.  The rebels’ sensors wouldn’t be affected by his southerly detour, but with the sun now directly behind him, Wyl hoped their visual scanning would be impaired.  He centered the lead X-wing in his sights, and fired.

The dual green bolts lanced out from his hungry-looking starfighter, and bit into the durasteel of the incoming X-wing.  Half a heartbeat later, an explosion in the snubfighter’s midsection marked where his shots had connected with the enemy’s arsenal of proton torpedoes, and suddenly he was soaring past a cloud of falling debris, the remainder of the enemy flight already circling around behind him.

Exhilaration was abruptly replaced by something close to panic when the TIE fighter was rocked by a direct hit.  His forward shield glowed a menacing blue as it absorbed the blaster fire, and Trykon tracked the shots back to their source: the now much-closer anti-air turret.  He jinked his Interceptor left to avoid the steady stream of bolts coming from the base, just as a second turret opened up on him, and silently thanked the Universe that his shields had been set to maximum front.

You set them to front to guard against the fighters! a voice screamed in his mind, and, as if in response, angry red fire sizzled past his starboard wing.  The X-wings were on his tail, and seemed a bit upset that Trykon had just disintegrated their friend.  Without pausing to think about it, Trykon rerouted power to his rear shield, rolled his Interceptor upside-down, and pulled back hard on the yoke, the ion engines wailing as the spacefighter struggled to dive in the very different medium of atmosphere.  As the green of the forest canopy far below filled the viewport, Trykon watched his rear sensor display.

Sure enough, the overeager enemy pilots flew right into the crossfire of their own ground-based defenses.  With a grim satisfaction, Trykon watched as at least two of the X-wings were buffeted by blaster bolts.  One of the craft leveled out, showing significantly reduced power, and broke formation, heading back to its base, but the other two began to mirror Trykon’s Split-S maneuver, just as an alarm brought his attention back to his rapidly falling altimeter, and the solid plane of vegetation rushing up to meet his viewport.

Cursing, Trykon clutched at the control yoke, pulling up with all his strength.  For tense moments the dive continued unabated, the Interceptor’s control surfaces straining against the immense g-forces, until at last the wingtips began to rise.  Wyl leveled out mere meters above the treetops, as red blaster bolts set fire to the trees on either side of his ship as his pursuers followed him through the dive and recovery.

In a flash, he was over the New Republic base, and then just as quickly he was beyond it, though the extra speed from his dive was steadily bleeding away.  The towers around the base had stopped shooting at him for the moment, but his X-wing followers were right behind him, blasting away with a total of eight laser cannons.  Warning klaxons sounded as a shot grazed his rear shield.

“Raptor Four has arrived,” Trykon bit out, starting a barrel roll.  “But so have two more X-wings.”  He spun through the maneuver, but the rebel pilots stuck with him.  “I can’t shake ‘em.”

“Four, One.  Break hard right on 3.  1, 2, 3!”

Trykon didn’t know what the squadron leader was planning, but he knew enough to do what he was told.  He snap-rolled the Interceptor onto its right wing and pulled up as hard as he could.  Before he could even check the displays, One’s voice came back.  “You’re clear, Four.  Welcome to the party.”

But before Trykon could send his thanks, his shields lit up blue again, and the fighter shuddered.  The ground guns were firing again.  Red lights blinked in time with a new alarm as the shields failed, and despite a desperate reverse roll, one final bolt burrowed into his fighter’s unprotected metal skin.

“Four is hit,” Trykon said, as calmly as he could.  The yoke was jumping in his hand, and he had to fight to maintain level flight.  Surprisingly, nothing had shot at him for some seconds.  “I think I’m out of range of the ack-ack, but I can barely maneuver,” he said.

Silence.  Seconds passed, as the damage report scrolled by inexorably on the main monitor.  Shields were gone, and so were sensors.  But communications weren’t damaged.  So why is nobody talking?

“I repeat: Four is hit, and can’t steer.  I’m also blind and naked.  Request instructions.”

Again, none of his squadron-mates answered, and again, the damage report showed no problem with communications.  A quick run-through of the possibilities left one obvious conclusion: Wyl was the last surviving pilot of the entire Imperial strike force.  And he was flying a damaged fighter with no hope in a dogfight.

“Glad it’s a simulation, anyway,” Wyl said to no one in particular.  Tentatively, he tried to ease the battered Interceptor into a turn to port.  The controls were heavy, but he found he could slowly change his heading.  “Okay, at least I have some options other than flying level until they shoot me down,” he mused.

He keyed for the overall Fleet channel: “This is Raptor Four.  I’m hit, and I think the rest of the squadron and the dropships are out of the fight.  Good luck.”

Checking the blaster pistol at his belt, he continued the wide turn back toward the New Republic base.  If he could just stay aloft for long enough…

But just as the nearest turret came into view, the viewport went dark, and the controller’s voice echoed in his helmet.

“Simulation ended, Crewman.  Petty Officer DeepSix will debrief you.”

“What do you mean, ‘Simulation ended’?  Don’t I get to finish?”

The sim’s hatch popped open, and a puzzled technician looked in on him.  “You are finished, pilot.  X-wing got ya.”

Trykon frowned.  “Oh.”  He unstrapped and left the tech to do his job.

In the corridor, Wyl went through the exercise in his mind – one clean kill, another enemy forced to disengage, and two more he’d led into the squadron leader’s ambush – not bad, all told, for his first simulator run.  Besides, he’d managed to rejoin the group in what felt like a timely manner, single-handedly fighting his way through a full enemy flight, and he’d been the last man standing.  And if he’d had a few more seconds, his little kamikaze run might’ve upped his score even more, especially if the computer calculated he would’ve survived the last-minute, low-altitude ejection.

When he walked into the briefing room, only DeepSix was there.  The other trainees were either still in their sims, or long since done.  He idly wondered which.

“Crewman Trykon, reporting for debriefing, sir!” Wyl said, snapping to attention.  The Petty Officer’s expression was unreadable, and for all the pride he felt in his actions, Wyl realized that one fact remained: the mission itself had failed.  Resolutely – almost defiantly – he awaited his first debriefing as a pilot in Imperial service.

OOC:

Revision of an old post and resubmission here, in hopes of qualifying for the Advanced Fighter Maneuvers Ancillary Skill (which requires engaging at least 3 enemy X-wings).  Word Count: 2,280, or thereabouts.