- OOC:
- Sorry if it looks funny. I wrote it in Notepad. I'm never doing that again.
"Let's execute the spear flight pattern once again."
That being said, Echelon engaged the throttle and pushed his TIE fighter to the back of the narrow formation. Being a VENA training officer, it was his job
to train new recruits. Currently he was instructing some of the recruits by having them practice formations in space. It was more dangerous than a
simulation, but it would have to be done sometime. So far everything had been going smoothly except for Beta 3's sporatic flying. So far he had never had
someone killed during training, but it did occasionally happen. He just hoped he wouldn't be there for it.
"Alright Raptor squad. Engage throttle to 600 km. Keep straight until I order."
The fighters in front of him jumped forward, some more smoothly than others. He could see the imperfections better on his sensor's display. He then
remembered that this wasn't a test, and he wouldn't have to mark such errors.
He pushed in his throttle and caught up with the others. So far they were doing fine. So far...
"Alright. Bank starboard at 45 degrees."
The fighters turned in almost perfect unison. Even Beta 3 was doing alright now. Echelon thought he would shake things up a bit.
"Very good. Now pull up and perform a U-Turn."
That was when things went bad. Beta-3's TIE fighter began to pull up, but he tried to bank it at the same time causing him to gain little altitude. Now he
was coming straight toward Echelon.
"Beta-3 pull up!" Echelon yelled into his helmet, but it was too late. Beta-3 had freaked out and ejected into space. It could have been an easily avoidable
disaster, but now Echelon would have to save himself. He jerked on his yoke and engaged the throttle to maximum. His fighter turned at a sharp angle, but the
abandoned fighter was coming in too fast. The two fighters flat wings met, and with a terrible, screeching noise, Echelon's right wing tore in half. The jolt
of the collision shook Echelon, and if it weren't for his crash webbing, he might have been thrown out the cockpit's viewport. The craft began to spin widly
toward the vast emptiness of deep space. Echelon would have to act fast.
In the cockpit, warnings and alarms were blaring in a mess of loud noises. Power Low. Solar Collector Unresponsive. Communications Offline. Echelon located
the engine's display and found that he was had completely lost his ion enginges, but his manuvering drives were still operational. If he could stop the craft
from spinning, he might be able to get his left wing operational. Thus a power supply, and an engine to slow his speed. If he could keep himself from going
deeper into space, help might be able to find him when it arrives.
Distributing what limited power he had to the manuvering drives, he yanked and pulled on the yoke. It was a difficult task, and it took more time than he
wanted it too, but his craft spun less and less until it completely stopped, but he was still travelling a 1,500 km/h in an undesirable direction. He then
realized that there would be no way to repair the damaged wind/solar collector. If he ejected himself, he would be sent in the opposite direction of the
craft. The enterance hole ontop is only one way.
I wonder how many pilots have died because of that fraking oneway door...The only other option, he thought, would be too smash the window open. But what if a shard of glass cut his suit open? He would die. He weighed the choices.
Assured death or unassured death. He went with unassured death. Taking the blaster pistol Echelon always carried with him, he banged on the glass. And
banged. And banged. No luck. He banged harder. Not a crack.
Suddenly he realized something. Holding the pistol properly, he cocked it and shot at the window. With a loud
twong, the window exploded into a
variety of molten glass. Something he would try not to touch. Reaching for the tool box under his seat he found a fusion cutter, and decided he was ready to
go.
With a firm grip, he slowly pulled himself out of the cockpit. Once outside he decided to take a look around. It wasn't everyday that you would be in the
middle of space. The stars were shining brightly, and all he could hear was his own breath. Space was serenity. Too bad serenity could kill you. It was hard
to tell, cross that, it was impossible to tell that he was travelling at an alarmingly fast velocity. The stars he used as reference were millions of
lightyears away.
He slowly worked his way toward the lone wing. Inch by inch. Centimeter by centimeter. He realized he would have to perform the repair with one hand. Not
impossible but difficult. Once at the connection bar between the central ball and the wing he realized what the problem was. The bar had almost been severed
in the collision by sheer vibrations. Several of the power wires had been cut loose. That would explain the lack of power. The wires were a simple fix,
thought it was hard one handed. One arm tightly gripped to the craft, one using a fusion welder to sodder the pieces back together. Eventually he got it
done.
Though something had been bothering him. How did he lose power so fast? Shouldn't of he had aditional power from before?
He soon found the answers to those questions as he returned to the central ball. He checked under the ball and cut open the fuselodge. There he found that
the output power from the reactor had been shorting on a bar of structural metal. The power line's insulation had been damaged from the collision, and the power wasn't routing properly. Echelon realized that he was lucky to get any power at all.
He slowly went back up into his cockpit where he found some insulation tape. He repaired the damaged wire in no time.
Seating himself back into the cockpit he attempted to reboot the system. At first, he had no luck. The screens stayed black, but the second time they booted up, and he congratulated himself for completing such a task. He diverted the power to the engines and slowed the TIE fighter to a halt. Once stopped, he diverted all of his power to communications.
"This is Alpha-1. Do you read me?" he asked into his helmet. "Anyone there. Over."
After a few moments of bleak silence he tried again. Still no luck. Then suddenly, right out of his broken view port he saw an Imperial CR-90 accompanied by several TIE fighters, the ones he had been training.
With a shout of triumph he yelled into the radio, "I'm here! I'm here!"
"Echo base. We've found him. I repeat. We've found him," he heard back.
Finely relaxed, he slumped back in his seat and rested his feet on the consoles.
- OOC:
- Word Count: 1,198. Yes it very far fetched and the writing worsens as it progresses, but I spent a lot of time on this.
