Hades read over the mission again and again. 'One-Vs-Many'.. he would be taking on three X-Wings by himself. He had taken out 3 X-wings in his last simulation, but that had been bigger scale, he had not been the only target. This would be considerably more difficult. Hades had once taken out three X-wings... by himself and in a real TIE-interceptor. He sat in the briefing room, still reading, but his mind drifted off to a different place. Not to dreams of glory, or fame, or even of promotion.. just back to a certain memory..
---Hades was crouched low on the darkened landing pad, his black jumpsuit blending with the shadows. A searchlight shone brightly through the darkness of Nar Shaddaa's night. Although the pad was not lit up, he could see the outlines of four starfighters – three x-wings and one TIE-interceptor. Hades did not concern himself with the better armoured, shielded X-wings – he would need speed and surprise to get out of there alive.
Hades could see the pilots some distance away, sitting around a makeshift table, drinking caf. They had just come down from escorting a load of spice in for the local gangs, and were relaxed after an easy mission. All the better for Hades. He slowly snuck up to the TIE fighter, helmet in hand, still in a low crouch. He froze as he heard a voice shout out... but relaxed when he heard the laughing response of the pilots to the obviously exaggerated tale one of them was telling.
Hades fumbled around in the dark for the cockpit release as he climbed atop the interceptor, glancing up every few seconds to check he had not been spotted. Finally, the hatch popped open and he dropped into the pilot's seat, sealing the compartment behind him. Jarv had given him a briefing on the controls, but it was harder than it looked. He flicked what seemed to be the starter switch, and was greeted with a steady humming, which grew into a quiet howl of the familiar twin ion engines. The fighter hovered off the ground, and Hades pushed it forward as spotlights flickered on, illuminating the offending intruder with their bright light like the glare of an angry wife.
Hades heard alarms blaring and shot off into the distance, away from the anti-aircraft platforms he knew to be stationed around the pirate base. He kept low, skimming the roofs of Nar Shaddaa buildings, climbing to avoid a particularly tall block before nudging his fighter left and narrowly missing an antenna. His proximity alert beeped a warning at him – he was too close to the ground, it said. Hades growled and smacked a red button next to the display, which brought up another display. This display on the other hand, showed three X-wings on his scope.
Hades grinned and cut the engines, stalling his fighter into a hover and dropping several meters behind a tall block of buildings. He kept his fighter stock still, waiting patiently. Suddenly, three X-wings shot overhead in triangular formation. Hades accelerated, climbing to get in behind them. He pressed the button that he thought was lasers – and instead a single warhead launched, impacting the back left X-wing and blowing an entire wing off. As long as it destroyed them, Hades didn't mind. The two X-wings immediately climbed steeply, keeping formation.
Hades followed them, pushing up his speed as he climbed altitude. His lasers flashed and in a sudden explosion, the second X-wing was gone. Now it was just Hades and the last X-wing – which suddenly flipped mid-air and came barreling down toward Hades, red fire spitting from it's wingtips. Hades broke left and felt the heat rise in the cockpit. Too close. Alarms blared and told Hades that the X-wing had a lock. Hades grunted and attempted a roll, slowing his speed, but ending up upside down and skimming altogether too close to the buildings below – above him, now.
Another blast of red flame and Hades' fighter shuddered – he'd been hit. His fighter spiraled, and he fought to regain control. He had almost righted himself when a missile – fired from the ground – shot past him and impacted the X-wing behind him, the concussion wave sending the fighter into a death roll. It spiraled toward the ground as Hades attempted to angle the fighter upward, succeeding only in exacerbating his spin. The proximity alarm beeped for a final time, and everything went dark with collision---..Hades snapped himself out of his memory. This always happened before a mission or test.
“Crewman, you're up” The senior crewman at the door said to him. Hades nodded absentmindedly, stroking his chin. Would his last experience in a real interceptor in similar circumstances affect his performance? Hades hoped not. He wanted this. Badly. He stood up from the cheap chair in the briefing room and exited into the simulation room. A technician stood by a console and gestured to the open cockpit before him.
“A word of advice – the X-wings are not going to take it easy on you, and they learn from the other trainees – try something new.” The technician winked, and Hades entered the cockpit. He again strapped himself into the chair, the contours of the modified TIE-Interceptor's pilot seat feeling slightly uncomfortable. He shifted in the seat, moving his back to get as comfortable as possible. He was going to be up against three dangerously programmed X-wings, he didn't need an uncomfortable chair bothering him as well.
Hades pressed the green button and heard the electronic voice..
Simulation beginning in 3..... 2..... 1..... the electronic voice – and the blackness that had surrounded the cockpit were replaced by the same green scenery he had seen in the flight-school simulation. Did they never change? Hades grunted. Familiar terrain = advantage. But then, the X-wings would be thousands of times more familiarised than he. After all, they had seen just about all pilots come through here..
Silence was suddenly broken as the sound kicked in, the familiar howl of the TIE interceptor barely audible through his helmet. Hades glanced at his scope, and saw three contacts – the X-wings. His mouth formed a grim line and he steeled himself. The X-wings were directly ahead of him, a few klicks away so still out of firing range – but they were rapidly approaching and he only increased his speed, arming his warheads. He set firing range for 500 meters – the warheads would detonate 500 meters after leaving the tubes. At the speed the X-wings were going, they wouldn't have time to break when they saw the ordnance.
His proximity warning clicked down to 750 meters, and he pressed the firing button. The warheads streaked from his fighter, rocketing ahead of him on their powerful, fast engines, two agents of death ready to engulf the enemy in a flame of high explosives. The X-wings, however, were better than that. They broke left, right and vertically according to position, and the ordnance detonated seconds too late, although the shockwave sent one of the X-wings into an unsteady spin. Hades knew he would right himself soon and so punched his throttle to maximum, honing in on the disoriented X-wing. He was approaching at a 30degree angle, to the rear left of the fighter as it slowly leveled out its spin and when he got in firing range of his linked wing-blasters, he stitched a column of green laser across the path of the X-wing.
The X-wing had seen this coming and broke right – away from Hades' line of fire, but straight where Hades wanted him. Approaching from a diagonal angle meant that if the attacker broke right, Hades would easily follow him with a simple course correction. If the attacker had broken left, Hades would have had to execute a sharp turn and, although the interceptor's AoT was good, it wasn't
that good. Which is why Hades had fired ahead of the x-wing, from the left – to angle the fighter right.
Hades adjusted accordingly and sprayed green death across the X-wing's turn. Several bolts impacted on the fuselage, the shields protecting the vital area of the ship, but they lost out to the energy in his cannons. The shields were down, and one of Hades' shots clipped the wing of the fighter, sending it into a diving roll – a death roll, Hades assumed, with the wing smoking.
Hades heard an alarm go off and red bolts flashed past his wings . While he had been busy with the wingmate, one of the x-wings had gotten on his tail. The other one had been an obvious bait, and Hades had fallen for it. He cursed and broke right – a feint, then left, before inverting and pulling back on the stick, diving toward the ground. He accelerated rapidly, his TIE-fighter much faster than the pursuing X-wing. When he finally leveled out, the X-wing was still in a dive, and Hades executed a vertical quarter loop to bring his lasers to bear on the X-wing's cockpit – which was speeding toward him. Hades fired, and the X-wing's shields flared briefly, before collapsing under the combined strength of his four linked wing-blasters, the cockpit flaring up in flames. Hades rolled left to avoid the rapidly diving wreck, almost clipping one of his curved wing-panels.
The final X-wing had stayed clear of the fray, but now dove in with all four wingtips blazing, the red energy streaming toward Hades' interceptor from above and behind, attempting to fire in his path. Hades rolled to the right, not slowing himself too much while also altering his flight path from under the lasers of the X-wing. The X-wing was now behind and to the left of him somehow, and Hades broke right, hoping to force the X-wing to overshoot. But, the X-wing would have none of it. The opponent immediately slowed and barrel rolled away from his turn, an offensive barrel roll that would, if successful, leave the x-wing in ideal firing position. Hades thought quickly, throwing his fighter into a steep dive and pushing the throttle to maximum. A lock warning beeped urgently and suddenly another contact appeared on his scope – a torpedo – Hades gritted his teeth as the torpedo closed, the nail-biting anticipation of the wait from the torpedo to get closer was utterly nerve racking.
[i]impact in 3....2....1-[i]Hades dived and stalled his fighter as the torpedo streaked overhead, exploding seconds later. The torpedo had obviously been set to explode when it hit the target and now that it had lost the target, it could only assume the target had been destroyed. The X-wings were smart – torpedoes weren't. Hades knew it would have normally reacquired any target, but the X-wing had obviously set it to simply neutralise current target.
Which brought him back to the x-wing. His fighter was stalling and the engines kicked in, allowing him to execute a 180degree turn and go head to head with the X-wing. The X-wing was gaining speed, descending, whereas Hades was losing it steadily, ascending into the X-wing's flight path. The X-wing broke off, not risking a head to head confrontation. Hades followed the turn easily, stitching another stream of green lasers across the path of the X-wing's flight. Boom. The shields overloaded and Hades' shots struck home. Hades gave a slight whoop in satisfaction, waiting for the simulation to go black.
But it didn't. Instead, Hades' fighter bucked from an impacted laser bolt. His shields almost collapsed when he threw himself into a barrel roll left, then a short dive, before turning right and climbing again. Hades cursed – the fighter he had supposedly eliminated with a shot to the wing had not only been bait – it had been a ploy. And now, it was on Hades' tail. He glanced at his scope again – he hadn't lost it. The fighter blasted away at him again, more near misses as Hades rolled, juked, turned, dived, and climbed. Whatever he could think of.
He was getting desperate. This was the real challenge. Not the other two fighters, the simulation had been designed so the trainees received the most challenge when they least expected it – a clever move on the part of the programmers. But Hades was a quick thinker, and now he was thinking quick. He was calculating angles, descents, ascents, speed loss, gain and one incalculable variable – luck.
He resolved he would get out of this. Not only would he get out of this, he would destroy the X-wing. Hades began to execute his plan. As the next salvo rocked his cockpit, Hades broke left, a feint, and then dived.. seemingly his final maneuver.. but then he threw his fighter into a sharp break, before leveling out into a wide turn. The X-wing sensed he was running out of moves, and so settled in for the kill, following him through the wide turn easily.
Then Hades smiled. Mid-way through the turn, he activated his repulsorlifts, stalling his fighter for a split second – all that was needed. He pulled back on the stick, and his scope showed the X-wing flashing past below him almost 4/5ths of the way through his flip. Hades quickly completed the flip and leveled his fighter, close behind the x-wing. He blasted it with his linked lasers, a quad burst that overwhelmed the already damaged shields. Another blast tore through the fuselage, exploding violently as Hades climbed, knowing that the debris and shrapnel would go only downward. Hades grinned as he climbed further, then leveling out and checking his scope. Three X-wings down.
The cockpit went black, and Hades exhaled jubilantly. A wide grin was on his face as he exited the simulator, drenched in sweat and heartbeat still pounding loudly in his ears. The technician patted him on his back and said something, Hades barely heard it. He suddenly thought back to that time on Nar Shaddaa, and realised it hadn't affected his flying at all. He grinned wider.
All he could do now was wait for a pass or a fail. He was enjoying this regardless.
And he knew he would do it again.
- OOC:
- Word count: 2,377... again, a little long for an ancillary but I really, really enjoyed writing this story.
