Than Sion never had much fear for A-Wings.  It had a lot to do with the fact that they didn’t have very good shields.  The Interceptor can easily keep up with their speed, so that nulls out their greatest strength, allowing for only weaknesses.  Sion charged the flank of one of the small fighters.  His quad cannon blasted the flimsy thing to pieces.  Yet beneath his satisfaction with the kill was a pocket of dread.  He couldn’t believe that a whole squadron of some of the VEN’s finest were gone.  He could cry at the ceremony that would be held back on Abrae.  Right now he needed to concentrate on the mission or they would be laying flowers on a Kaph memorial as well.

“This is Gamma Leader to Kaph Leader.  We’ve found the fighter, it is intact.”

“That is good news,” replied Sion.  “Now get the thing out of there ASAP before the enemy rips us to pieces.”

“Yeah, only one problem.  None of my boys can figure out how to fly it.”

“I thought you were all trained how to fly it on the sims?  Did you all forget some how so quickly?”

“No, the damn Rebels rigged it with some kind of new, fancy control system.  One of you fly boys should come in here and take a look.”

“Fine, my flight isn’t very bound up right now.  I hate to leave the battle, but all is lost if we can’t get that fighter out of there.  Kaph 2, you’re in charge of the squadron until I get back.  If we plan to actually leave it won’t be long.”

“This is Kaph 1-2, I read you Kaph Leader.”

Sion took a round about route to the northern hanger in order to avoid the enemy’s attention.  He landed his Interceptor beside the Shuttle Colma.  He popped the top hatch and dropped to the ground.  He was greeted by a Commando that had returned to the shuttle to meet him.

“Come on zoomie, we don’t have all day,” said the Stormie like Than was dinking around.

Sion drew his pistol as he followed the Storm Trooper through a set of heavy blast doors within the hanger.  There, among monitoring machines and tool kits, was the TIE Hunter all this fuss had been about.  It was a well engineered machine, too bad its similarity to the X-Wing, most notably its folding wing configuration, brought forth its down fall.

“What seems to be the big problem?” asked Sion.

“Well, maybe you should look for yourself,” said one of the black armored troopers most likely Yale.

Sion climbed up a nice little stairway on wheels and peered through the top hatch.  Immediately he noticed that there was a modified TIE helmet hanging from the end of the seat.  The next thing really shocked him; there was no evidence of a steering yoke, joy stick, nothing.  Not even a place where one looked like it was suppose to go.

“Major, does any of your men know how to fly an Interceptor?” asked Sion.

“Yeah, basically if you fly one TIE you can fly them all,” replied Yale with a grunt.

Sion handed the major his helmet.  “It seems I won’t be needing this, it provides one for me.  Please have whoever flies my fighter out stick my helmet in it.”

He knew the Major wasn’t happy with his last actions, even with the black scout helmet on.  On the other hand he didn’t care.  He closed the hatch behind him after he dropped into the fighter.  It only took him a few seconds to figure out how to power the fighter up with the new controls after strapping in.  He stuck the provided helmet on his head.  All the vital readings for the fighter were displayed within the helmet like they were holograms in his path of sight.  He didn’t understand how the NR expected anybody to fly this.  There were way too little of controls.  Almost looked like you could only turn the thing on and warm it up.  Maybe this was some kind of test control system, not meant to be flown.  He sure hoped that wasn’t the case for this would all be in vain if it was.

Come on you stupid thing, how can I move you forward?  On cue, the TIE moved forward.  No, it can’t be...  The fighter moved forward again.

“Gamma Leader, can you read me?” said Sion over the com system.

“Yeah, are you suppose to be an elite pilot or a teenage driver?” replied Yales.  “Wait, how did you end up on a secure channel so quickly when the enemy gutted out the original controls?”

“I may be going crazy, but I think I can control this fighter with my mind.”

“Don’t bullshit me, zoomie...”

Sion thought his way through the inner blast doors and the outer ones before the Major could finish his sentence.  It was a bit disturbing...but it was also cool.

“This is Kaph Leader to all Imperial Forces, I am currently flying the TIE Hunter out of the research complex.  Objective complete, let’s move out before they smother us...”


(OCC: I’ll explain later why there isn’t a whole fleet’s worth of mind controlled, NR fighters at the end of the story.  Keep up the good work guys.)

Kaph Leader navigated through the asteroid field quickly like it was a maze in a coloring book he was following with his eyes.  He hugged the asteroids at nearly max acceleration.  He had always felt like he was one with his fighter when he got into the zone, but this was something on a completely different level.  He was going so fast, it was certain that the enemy wouldn’t catch up with him.  The asteroids wouldn’t just slow down the NR fighters; the VEN forces would also be way behind him.  According to his map display, Kaph 1 was getting pretty close to the location of the Tiamut.

An eerie voice came over his com set.  “BROTHER!”

Sion’s HUD showed a lone A-Wing on his tail.  How the hell did he get out here, unless... he’s the Ace.  It then struck him why the Ace had been such a pain in the ass earlier, his fighter was mind controlled as well.  Wow, Jaden must be pretty good if he was able to tango with one of these set ups.  Sion knew even before Jaden joined the squadron that Khaar was a better pilot than him.  But he didn’t see this fact as a threat for Sion didn’t have much of an ego.  He saw Jaden’s skills for what they really were, an asset to the squadron.

“I don’ t have any blood brothers,” replied Sion.  “And I’m pretty sure you’re not on the list of people who I would consider to be my brother.”

“I am the first, you are the third,” said the Ace as he kept on Sion’s tail after an evasive maneuver.

“Yeah, then who is Chaos?” Sion found himself saying. 

“That’s an easy question, Chaos is god.”

It was becoming very obvious that the Ace was a kind of idiot savant to dog fighting.  But the man’s reply still shook Sion.  Let’s see if you can keep up with this...  Sion brought the Hunter into a spiral dive.  The enemy didn’t end up over shooting him, though, as he would have hoped, but the Ace wasn’t behind him either.  The move ended up putting them both in a stalemate.  It was back to the all too familiar war of wills known as the turning battle.  It was even more annoying when the two fighters were able both to perform perfect maneuvers.  Sion had at some point put the s-foils into attack position, it seemed that the fighter was taking subconscious commands as well.  A great truth came to him not long into the turning battle, the only way he could beat his enemy was to do something his enemy wouldn’t think of.  He wouldn’t be able to use conventional tactics to beat him.  Luckily Sion was pretty good at thinking out side the box.

Kaph Leader saw his opening and took it.  He broke away from the turning battle and swerved around a bulge on one of the big rocks, the A-Wing was in hot pursuit.  Sion prayed as he tapped on the payload trigger.  Two dummy fired proton torpedoes hit a star ship sized asteroid that was very close to its larger counterpart.  The smaller rock spun into the larger one right after Kaph Leader navigated the gap.  The Ace pulled up hard, barely avoiding being part of the sandwich.  Sion had already brought his fighter into the equivalent of a high G power slide.  His head was light, but he had completely reversed his vector in a very short amount of time.  He got a missile lock on the A-Wing in the confusion, he was slightly to the right of head on with the Ace.  Sion launched the warhead while the Ace was pulling up from the rock collision.  It quickly veered to Sion’s left...right into a mixed burst of ion and cannon fire.  The balls of electricity brought down the shields of the A-Wing, the bolts ended up knocking out one of the engines putting the fighter into a spin.  But the rocket was intercepted by a stray asteroid before it could make purchase.

“You cannot kill me,” stated the Ace.  “It is against the code, it is against destiny!”

“Eject damn it if you know what is good for you,” replied Sion.  “Because if you don’t my ethics will not save you.”

“I cannot do that,” said the Ace.  “The vassal has killed my lord.  The vassal would not accept me back.  I go into the night either way.  So kill me if you wish to damn yourself, but heed my warning.  The second brother will not be as easily made helpless as I was.  But for your own sake as well as mine, don’t kill me brother.”

“SHUT UP, I AM NOT YOUR BROTHER!” Sion gained another missile lock and hit the trigger.  The explosive happily slammed into the target that could not evade its coming.  The A-Wing exploded like a grenade, sending metal fragments outward.  As for the Ace, he was returned to dust.

“This is Beta Leader to Kaph Leader, why the hell are you dinking around out here, you should have been in the hanger long before we got here from they flying I saw!”

“I ran into some trouble, I neutralized the problem though...”


It took all of ten minutes after Sion landed the TIE Hunter in the belly of Kaph 0 for the rest of the fighters and one of the shuttles to load back in.  That’s right, one of the shuttles.  The other was destroyed during the retreat, it took Major Yales and seven other troopers with it.  The speed it took to pack up was not due to drills or organization but the fact that so few actually came back.  Sion was now on the bridge.

“An enemy task force is dropping out of hyperspace sir,” said someone who Sion didn’t care right now to know the name or position of.  The only thing he cared about was the bed in his quarters.

“They came too late,” stated Willtconq.  “Make the jump to hyperspace.”

It was over as soon as existence turned to a whirl of purple, the enemy knew better than to chase them back to Abrae.  It was also over for the lives of a great many of pilots and several commandos.  So many have died in this damn war...


(OCC: Basically the story is over, done, hooray beer :P.  I may make a dreaded, double post to cover some loose ends.  I would have done it with this post, but it is almost 2:30 AM where I live and my bed to my right looks pretty good right now.  So basically the rest of you need to be thinking about your flight’s plot line in Chapter 8.5 Phase II.)

Jaden laid back in the chair of his temporary office aboard the Tiamut, rethinking the mission and what he could have done better.  It wasn't the best of his fighter piloting, but it was damn good.  He tended to be a bit smug about his skills as a pilot, but then again, he had survived 8 years in the Vast Empire Navy, and he found himself to be one of the best pilots in the Division.

Jaden took a drag off of the cigarette and logged back into his computer.  It was nice to see that much wasn't going on.  He had been going through mission after mission without a break.  He didn't know if there would even be much of a break while he was sitting in his chair, because being a pilot meant he was on call at all hours of every day, all the time.

Jaden was being a bit anti-social after the mission, not bothering to head to the debriefing.  He knew the outcome of the mission.  It was a complete success to all of the leaders around, but Jaden felt a bit guiltly about not being able to get around the Ace pilot that was in the A-wing, but he did congradulate his counterpart Than on a job well done.  The mission seemed to be a success to everybody, and the atmosphere around the Tiamut was one of a party attitude.

After finishing the cigarette, Jaden headed to his bunk to take a quick shower.  Once in the bunk, he let his long dark hair hang loose.  It had been bundled up in the helmet for a long time, and he felt even better after he let it hang.  After showering, Jaden decided to go get a couple of drinks at the bar located aboard the Tiamut.  Surely a couple of the other pilots would be there, and he could get out of the anti-social funk that he had been in since the mission had ended.

**Cantina Aboard Tiamut**

Jaden strode in like he hadn't a problem in the world.  Upon entering the bar area, Jaden sat down and ordered a Corellian Ale.  The smooth taste of the alcoholic beverage gave him goosebumps, and also loosed him up.  It had been a very long time since he had had enough time to sit down and have a drink.  Jaden spotted HellKite and Krius conversing about something in the corner at a booth.  Jaden arose from his seat at the bar and heading over to where they were lounging.

"Ah, job well done guys," said Jaden, "Good Mission overall"

They both looked at him, and then gestured for him to have a seat next to them in the booth.

"You had some incredible flying out there J, its good to have you in the squadron and as a leader here," said Krius, "How long have you been in the Fighter Corps?"

HellKite looked as if he was also intent on hearing about this, so Jaden began to tell them his story about how he joined the Vast Empire and how he got to where he was in his life now...

OOC:

Just some character development, shouldn't hurt much

Max sat alone in the bar aboard the Tiamut. His drink stared back at him. He couldn't shake it from his mind. What he had thought about in the cockpit. He hadn't thought of that for years. Why now, he was beginning to feel confident in himself again..........
 
  "Always the loner Max?" It was the sqaudron commander. "I saw your flyin out there. Wasnt bad." Max took this for a compliment.

  "Thanks,sir."

  "When were not flying, no need for sir. Call me Than." Max lurched forward slightly. "You okay?Have you drunk much?"

  "No, I..... I suppose I'm just a bit tired sir. First day really took it outta me."
  "Okay then, get some sleep. "Than walked off towards where Hellkite, Krius and Jaden were sitting. Max downed his drink and stood up. He walked towards the door. One of the ships crewmen had just lit up a ciggarette.Max grabbed out of his mouth and drew on it. It was the worst thing he had ever tasted, but it managed to calm him down enough to get to his bunk without collapsing. He took a shower, loving the feel of the hot water on his tired skin and clambered back to his bunk. Everyone else was downstairs in the bar so all that he could hear was the gentle hum of the craft as it glided through the void. And as he fell asleep,the last thing he felt was the gentle rocking of the ship.

Tallied here.