It had been a while since the young Squadron Commander had been in a simulation; yet here he was again, this time in the cockpit of a standard TIE-interceptor, preparing to run ‘The Trench’ mission. It was a fairly straightforward mission; eliminate the targets which culminated in an armoured bunker, whilst flying through Abrae’s notorious course known as ‘the trench’. An icy fissure that was around 20 kilometers in length, the trench had multiple twists, turns, tunnels and hazards for even the most experienced pilot. It was without question the VE’s most difficult training mission, as far as flying was concerned.
Settling into the contoured seat, Hades made sure his breathing was even and his eyes were focused on the blackness that was about to become a fully-fledged mission. A quiet artificial tone counted down, breaking into the silence of the simulator. “
Mission begins in 3.. 2.. 1.. Mission start.” The soft tones were designed to lull each pilot into a sense of ease, rather than get them hyped up for battle. It served well in distinguishing the easily distracted pilots from the focused types. Hades was one of the latter, so the tone did little to distract him. At the count of ‘1’, the screen resolved into a white-blue mess of colour, almost like a painting where the painter had forgotten to clean his brush before moving on to different colours – the massive range of whites to light blues was a stunning sight, and the realism of the sim itself was amazing.
Almost simultaneously with the image came the sound – the mission was in-atmosphere and therefore was much louder. The scream of Twin Ion Engines was a beautiful sound.. Almost immediately, the artificial gravity shifted to reflect the proximity to Abrae and Hades had control of the fighter. Pushing the throttle to full, he went into a dive almost immediately and descended into the narrow fissure that was the trench. The first target was already on his HUD – each time a recruit ran the training course, or indeed a veteran, the system changed everything around a bit – just
how far down the trench the mission was, where each of the targets were place and how far apart they were. It also took into account total registered kills. With more than 20 confirmed kills, Hades’ simulation would be somewhat harder than someone with, say, no kills.
Fast approaching, the target grew larger and larger until his sensors could make out what it was. It ended up being a mock turbolaser tower that was known to inhabit this particular training mission. Hades quickly pulled his fighter up and out of the trench, doing a barrel role to get him over the edge and out of sight of the fissure below. Instead of bypassing the turbolaser tower, though, he kept ascending until his fighter was vertically headed toward the atmosphere. Only when the light started flashing at him and said ‘you are now leaving the sim’ did he cut the throttle and turn his fighter the other way. Down he plunged, down toward the unsuspecting Turbolaser tower, which had a limited degree of movement and so could not effectively aim far enough up to hit the now dive-bombing Squadron Commander. Closer and closer he came, before finally releasing a concussion missile at the bottom corner of the structure – the weakest part. In a mock explosion, the turbolaser tower collapsed on itself. The next target popped up on his HUD as Hades reentered the Trench. Mind set on the task at hand, he rocketed toward the highlighted objective. As he brought his Interceptor through a particularly narrow tunnel, though, another yellow objective popped up on his HUD. To gain full points he had to hit all objectives, but to pass only the red highlighted objectives were necessary. This yellow target was an infantry position, equipped with mounted blaster rifles and a missile launcher. A gentle beeping alerted him that he was being targeted, but a quick roll and increase in speed put the position in range of his dual laser cannons. In a flurry of green death, the position was gone, melting into the snow and ice as if part of nature.
Objective destroyed, Hades proceeded to recalibrate his course to the original, red-highlighted objective. It was close too, and Hades could see that it was an open-air skiff – or rather, the wreckage of one, guarded by a similar layout to the ambushing infantry position of earlier. His sensors picked out particular parts of the wreckage, but what Hades was looking for revealed itself pretty quickly – the fuselage. On an open air-skiff, the fuselage was normally well armoured, but given the crash and the time it’d spent in the ground, he doubted it was at full integrity.
Another beeping lock warned him just in time to roll, narrowly avoiding a missile that crashed into the fissure wall behind him, sending shards of ice and snow in every direction. More green death spat from his cannons as he targeted the fuselage. Without much ado, the fuselage exploded and took with it the escort it had been protected by. Another
three targets popped up on his HUD at this explosion – one red and two yellow. Hades mirrored the earlier tactic he’d practiced with the turbolaser tower, ascending out of the trench and over the edge, approaching his targets out of their sight. Fortunately, these two infantry positions were close together.
As he came howling over the ridge, he was greeted by a hail of blasterfire. A warning beeped at him – his shields were now at 65%. Hades cursed and did a loop-de-loop to evade yet another hail, coming in from a steep angle to reduce their target size. The scream of his superheated laser bolts overwhelmed that of the engine for a moment as he pressed his finger hard on the trigger, not releasing the hail of emerald death – strangely similar to the colour of his eyes – until the energy had strafed the entire two positions. Doing a fly-by, Hades double-checked that no-one had survived.
Satisfied, a message popped up on his HUD, surprising him.
[
AN ENEMY TANK IS EN-ROUTE TO A REINFORCED POSITION. IF YOU FAIL TO STOP IT, YOU WILL HAVE TO CONTEND WITH A MULTITUDE OF ANTI-AIRCRAFT DEFENSES IN ADDITION TO THE TANK AND AN ENEMY HARDPOINT. ]
Hades smirked – so this was where it got interesting, huh? Hades’ expression turned serious quickly as he shot down the Trench, narrowly missing a falling block of ice. “Shab..” He swore. As the tank came into his sights, he primed his missiles again. The tank had other ideas, though, its revolving turret quickly turning, sending a plethora of blaster bolts at Hades, followed by a blast from its massive laser cannon. Narrowly avoiding the shots by zig-zagging, Hades took aim and fired – but missed! “Damn it!”
The tank took the opportunity to fire again, this time lowering Hades’ shields completely. This was not good.
You’re too damned close, H! the young Ensign cursed himself inwardly. He fired and pulled up simultaneously, narrowly avoiding a collision and the resulting explosion that occurred when the missile impacted the tank. Hades exhaled, letting go of a breath he hdan’t realized he’d been holding.
That was too close.One target left now, but it was coming up pretty damned fast and, considering the young SCO had no shields, it would be a stretch for him to be victorious. He’d try, though. Angling his fighter in such a way that the enemy position – a bunker – would receive his last shot straight through the door, Hades accelerated. Warning alarms went off and his fighter shook; Hades pressed ‘fire’ at the last second and pulled up. An explosion went off, followed by the screen darkening.
[
MISSION FAILED }
“Damnit!” Hades cursed loudly, slamming the console with his glove. Now that it was over he decided he’d better get to doing proper VENA stuff, other than just brushing up his fighter skills. The young pilot keyed the open button and climbed out of the TIE Interceptor, an unhappy expression on his face..
Ensign Demetrius Aita, better known by his callsign 'Hades', was now a busy man. Not only was he a Squadron Commander, but he had been promoted - quite surprisingly - to Chief of Naval Training and was head of an entire VEN Division. At such an early rank - and age - Hades had been stunned. Momentarily, of course, before he'd leapt into action and hit the ground running. He'd made proposals and gotten the lay of the land fairly quickly, but he'd yet to do a tour of all their recently updated simulator systems. Costing a bomb and being the newest technology available, these simulators still required his personal approval to pass. Some of the more jaded Academy personnel had urged him to put his name at the bottom of the document saying he approved. But Hades was not like that. Instead, he'd chosen to test one of each himself. Many of the staff who knew him simply chuckled and shook their heads, others still complained to NHC. None of them, however, affected his position.
"Do you really want to do this, sir?" It was Sam Dunn, his eager, confident and unique second in command. A Warrant Officer and Commander of Chlovi Squadron, Dunny was a veteran that had been in the VEN even longer than Hades, though his long leave of absence had seen Hades rise steadily above him. Even though the current XNT had been a contender for Echelon's recently vacated position, Dunny didn't seem to hold a grudge against the man who'd only recently joined the officer ranks.
"I do." He smiled slightly, looking over the schematics on his datapad. "Besides, one of us has to do the paperwork. And it's not going to be me."
Dunny's expression darkened as Hades chuckled, "we'll do it once I'm done. Relax." With that, the unconventional Chief of Naval Training set off down the corridor at a brisk pace, followed closely by his equally unconventional XO.
"I've drafted my proposal for the additional training schemes, sir, all I need is your approval. I also had a thought.” Dunny paused for breath.
“I’d certainly hope you had numerous thoughts, Mr. Dunn.” Hades replied drily. Dunny let out a chuckle.
“But sir, when was the last time we did a fleet-wide exercise?”
Hades frowned as he tried to recall. He couldn’t. “I don’t know, Dunny. It’s certainly been a while.”
“That was my understanding too. We’ve won most of the recent battles, but we haven’t had cooperative training for a long time. What if we organized a Fleet-wide Training action?”
“The VEN’s been busy with the ID lately, Sam.” Hades replied, “Once they’re finished, I think we can talk about such a large coordinated non-combat operation.”
“Understood.” Hades did not regret choosing Dunny as his XNT. The man was efficient, hard-working, creative and always had something up his sleeve for VENA. While he could get a
little over-excited, Dunny was an excellent XO. He’ d probably take Hades’ job one day, too, but the newly promoted Ensign didn’t mind – he knew that if he did one day take the position of CNT, the Vast Empire’s Naval Academy would be in excellent hands.
Dunny began scrolling through his datapad at an amazing rate, enthralled in writing up some proposal or other on the go. So much so that when Hades stopped, Dunny almost walked into him. Casting a wary gaze on the XNT, Hades gestured toward the door. “This is it.”
“Ah. Yes.” Dunny snapped out of his state of concentration and back into his efficient XO state. “It’ll handle just like the real thing, so long as you aren’t completely incompetent it should be a breeze.”
Hades nodded in return and keyed the door release. It slid open quietly, just like all the doors in this gargantuan training facility. Stepping through into the next room, Hades found himself on a platform of sorts. This platform over looked a configuration of 16 simulation pods and was level with a massive holographic display, lined by a plethora of inanely blinking consoles. A small-looking man detached himself from one of the nearest consoles and approached them. The small man stopped around three meters from Hades and snapped off a sharp salute – something Hades now allowed, being an Ensign. The young Chief of Naval Training returned the salute.
“At ease, Petty Officer.” Hades nodded slowly to reaffirm his words. “Are the Avenger simulators up and running yet?”
“Negative sir. They’ve still got a few tweaks to be worked out. The physics of the avenger are difficult to replicate at the best of times, though these new simulators have made it easier.”
“I see.” Hades frowned inwardly. He had hoped to flying an Avenger today. “What about the Defenders?”
“Also a negative.”
“And let me guess, the bombers are in perfect working order?” Hades asked with a cocked brow.
“Uh.. yes sir.” The technician affirmed meekly.
Typical. It was a commonly agreed-upon fact that TIE Bombers were the least fun, most boring TIE variant to fly.
“Perfect.” Hades muttered sarcastically. “Well, better get started.”
“Yes sir. Pod number 3 is ready for you. Down the stairs and to your left.” Hades shot a look at Dunny who, given Hades’ earlier jibe about paperwork, now smiled at his revenge. Hades shook his head with a faint smile as he descended the stairs, chuckling at Dunny’s invention.
So that’s what he was doing on his datapad. Brilliant bastard.. Hades thought in good-humour. The stairs were steep but thankfully few in number and Hades soon reached the bottom of them, turning left and finding the pod marked ‘T-SA-3’, no doubt in reference to the type of TIE he was flying. It was modeled after a TIE Bomber, which actually had two elongated pods, one for the pilot and one for his multi-purpose ordnance launcher..
Despite that, the cockpit was no less cramped than a standard Interceptor cockpit – it seemed each twin-ion-engined craft had been specifically designed to be small inside. The cockpit sealed behind him and he slid easily into his seat, strapping on the buckle to keep him in the seat by force of habit. Dunny’s voice interrupted the silence of the airtight compartment. “You ready, boss?”
“Affirmative. Proceed with simulation,” Hades responded calmly, looking forward at the blackness that would soon resolve into a simulator run. It should have been a basic one, but after the soft “3, 2, 1” countdown, his screen erupted into a ferocious battle. “Dunny, I need a simple simulation not a damned test!”
“Sorry, boss,” Dunny responded, humour in his voice. “Malfunction. I’ll try and make it easy for you,”
Hades didn’t bother responding, instead hurling his bomber into a dive, creating a near-miss occasion with an incoming asteroid. “Blast it..” Hades muttered angrily. Red diamonds began popping up all over his display and he knew, given his previous experience with simulators, that they were objectives he’d be completing if he were using this simulator to test himself. But he wasn’t, he was supposed to be testing the simulator.. which had apparently ‘malfunctioned’, though he very much doubted that.. With a reluctant sigh he thrust the throttle to full, annoyed by the lack of response from the engines – he was used to interceptors, fast and agile, but now thrown into one of these lumbering, ponderous beasts of a spacecraft.
The first objective was closer than he’d first thought and within two minutes (he must have been breaking some speed record or other based around TIE/SA bombers, seeing as how they were so slow) he was coming up on what appeared to be a dead in the water Rebel frigate. His target was the engines, and while there were no lasers flying about him, Hades kept a wary eye out. He brought the bomber down, skimming the hull of this mid-sized frigate until he shot over the edge of the rear end, entering clear space once more. He allowed a few seconds of forward thrust before he cut the engines and pulled up and to the left, reactivating the engines as he reached about a 120 degree turn, leveling out and hurtling back at the frigate’s engines.
A few soft beeps in quick succession told him he had a lock and, pulling up slightly, letting loose with a single proton torpedo. The already damaged frigate could take no more; it had already been listing to the side slightly, with engine integrity down below the fifty percent margin. Hades’ simple torpedo must have pushed its imaginary reactor over the edge, as explosions began to spread along the circumference of the ship as Hades rocketed away, the final explosion sending chunks of the ship hurtling through space end over end. One caused Hades’ proximity warnings to blare insistently. The young ESN ignored them for now, focusing on the next red diamond. It appeared to be another frigate of similar designation to the previous, but not so wounded. It was damaged, no doubt, but it still had power in its engines and a weak sputtering of anti-fighter/bomber weaponry spewing from its poorly maintained auto-turrets.
As Hades got closer, two or three of the weakly firing turrets began to track the ponderous bomber’s progress, though it wasn’t so slow that it failed to evade the outdated systems on the frigate. Hades pushed the bomber down into another dive, taking it under the ship – his target now was the life support systems, a circular object sticking out of the lower half of the ship. It was a dome, really, housing a mass of electronic interfaces and most importantly, a small generator dedicated to powering the life support systems. Granted, they weren’t a critical system if you had full power – you could still rely on the reactor to power standard systems – but if the reactor was not functioning properly, or some similar dilemma, the life support systems were literally the difference between life or death. Cheaper, more poorly manufactured ships would not have them, but this one did – and readouts showed that it was losing power to the main and backup generators due to the strain of keeping the shields up. This wasn’t necessarily a crippling thing for most ships, but one in such bad repair and poor upkeep as this meant that once the life support systems were blown, the crew would freeze to death, experience violent decompression, or even die from lack of oxygen…
Hades rolled his bomber quickly, meaning that he was skimming across the bottom of the hull with the top of his bomber facing out into space. The numerous pockmarks on the dull-coloured ship flitted by with the blurring of excessive speed, and the red diamond grew larger and larger until finally it was in Hades’ sights. Instead of using proton torpedoes this time, he used a short blast of the dual underslung laser cannons to weaken the target’s shields, not letting loose of the trigger until he was almost too close, at which point he switched to concussion missiles and fired two off, immediately pulling up even as he felt the resulting explosion shake the frame of his bomber. The ship didn’t seem to do anything much, other than list lazily to the right. But Hades knew that it’d be defunct in less than twenty standard minutes.
That done, he moved on to his next target. This time he seemed to encounter fighter resistance – that is to say, three TIE fighters saw him and found that he looked quite appetizing as an easy target. Hades growled and spoke into the comm. “I need some cover here!” A few clicks came back in return, and three friendly TIE fighters detached from the main dogfight. It wasn’t quick enough, though, and Hades was still forced to thrust the control stick to the left to avoid an incoming burst of laser bolts. One singed his shields and alarms began to blare in his cockpit. “Alright alright, calm down you overweight bantha..”
The young CNT’s eyes glared out of the viewport as he managed to stay out of the pursuin fighter’s sights. Another fighter decided to do a head-on attack, but the emerald green blaster cannons flashed several times in quick succession and resulted in yet another explosion. He was not so lucky with the remaining two fighters, though, as neither of them would get off his tail. Finally, the friendly AI came to his assistance, blasting one off his tail and pursuing the other. Hades rolled his eyes and continued to his next target. From what he could see in the distance, it was a fairly standard space station; complete with auto-turret defenses and shields. Fortunately, for this simulation the shields were down. That made it no easier, as his target was the hangar bay – surrounded by arm-like extensions of the space station which were dotted with concussion missile launchers and blaster cannons..
Hades did not give it a second though, merely adjusting his throttle to get full speed out of his lumbering bomber and shooting toward the mid-sized space station. Being the only pilot attacking said space station, it was rather hard for him to find an opening – but he did. If he came in from lower down he’d still be exposed, but far less than from above or indeed level, so yet another dive was in order. Pushing the stick forward, Hades pushed the throttle up to maximum to gain momentum, before eventually leveling out. He was just about at the same level as the bottom of the space station, almost shaped like a spinning top now that Hades came to think of it.. As he got closer, warnings began to blare at him insistently – namely the ones that indicated missile lock.
Trying to get rid of the alarm, the CNT wove left and right, but it appeared the lock would not be shaken. Right ahead of him on the bottom tip of the station was an ordnance launcher of some kind that seemed to be tracking his every move. After a few more seconds, it fired, and Hades could see the projectile rocketing toward him. He barely had any time, but delaying until the last moment, he jerked the yoke left, turning his bomber on the side and allowing the missile to skim the bottom of his hull. That was far too close, but he knew it’d be coming around. Doing the sensible thin, he went
closer to the stations, circling the lower end before positioning his fighter, front up toward the top of the station. He proceeded to rocket up that way, weaving around outcroppings of weapon turrets and sensor arrays. Hearing an explosion behind him, he knew the missile had impacted one of the thin sensor modules.
Now able to focus on his target, Hades grinned. That was until he came over the edge of a sort of platform, where at least three laser turrets tracked him from the beginning and began firing almost immediately. There was almost nothing he could do but fire off his last missiles in the general direction of the target, seconds before
another burst of energy ended the simulation, the screen fading.
[
SIMULATOR FAILED. RETRY? Y/N ]
Hades scowled in frustration and designated the ‘no’ option, unstrapping himself from the seat and exiting the training module.. He was off to find an XNT who thought himself a funny man..
- OOC:
- Wordcount: 3,920. Ground Attack is covered in the first section, Top Gun tier one in the second.
AAR: Hades is first brushing up his skills in an interceptor, running the 'Trench' on Abrae but only just failing. The next part deals with some VENA activity and finally Hades going to test the newly purchased simulators.
