He pushed the throttle in and performed a brake turn to evade his pursuers. They continued to chase him and his TIE Interceptor across the atmosphere of some unknown swampy planet. He then pulled up at a 90 degree angle. His craft climbed higher and higher until suddenly it began to stall. The engines stopped and he dropped like a stone toward the bottom of the planet. He pressed the eject button. Nothing. He pressed it again. Nothing. He tried to turn on the engines. Not a noise. He could see the ground now. Coming closer and closer and...

"Crewman Echelon. Crewman Echelon."

Finbar "Echelon" Bandoran awoke from his dream and sat up in his warm bed. A boy was standing by his bed with a black uniform and a grey hat. He had brown hair and borwn eyes and Echelon guessed he was around 10 years old. He could tell that the boy was a page. Someone who delivered messages when a Com was unnessessary. Echelon was a page for an Army base when he was a kid. His father was a stormtrooper, so he lived on a base his whole childhood.

"Crewman Echelon," the boy said in his semi-high voice, "are you alright? Your sweating."

Echelon wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, "I'm fine. I...I just had a nightmare. What do you want, boy?"

"A secret research facility in Csilla has developed a new prototype TIE Fighter flight suit, and they want several regular pilots to test them out. You were one of the ones that were picked. The shuttle is going to leave in...," the boy looked at his datapad, "30 minutes."

Echelon pulled his soft covers off of him and got out of his bed. "Sure I'll do it," he said as he put his clothes on. His clothes consisted of the standard Vast Imperial uniform showing the medals and awards he had recieved.

"Good," the boy replied, "the shuttle is in shuttle hangar 1A, and the access code is 5288. Thank you sir." With that, the boy swiftly left the Nightshrike squadron barracks. Echelon put on the remainder of his clothing and headed out to a turbolift. As he walked down the hall, he thought casually about his dream.

I wonder: do TIE fighter's stall? I wouldn't think so because they're mainly built for space.

He came to a turbolift and pressed several buttons that would bring him to the hangar. The lift sped down, and several minutes later, with a jolt he stopped. He walked out and came to the hangar door. Echelon enetered the access code and the door slid open. Inside the hangar was one imperial shuttles. He had fixed an Imperial shuttle before.

If it breaks down, I'll be able to fix it.

A shuttle pilot in a black uniform stood outside of the craft, and said, "You must be Echelon. Come on inside." He led Echelon inside the shuttle where three other people sat in the passenger area. They introduced themselves as Tulsk, Eric, and Jen. Tulsk was a small Rodian with a grin on his face. Eric was a large human. He looked like he could eat someone like Echelon for breakfast. Jen looked bland. She had grey hair and didn't smile, but her eyes told Echelon that she didn't care who he was. But for some reason Jen and Eric looked a lot alike.

"Hello everybody," Echelon said kindly. Tulsk and Eric replied with a hello, but Jen stayed silent with her indifferent expression.

The pilot sat in the cockpit and began to work the craft. He flipped several buttons and put on his helmet. In a few minutes he pushed in the throttle and the craft sped out of the hangar.

"So, where you guys from?" Echelon asked casually.

Tulsk said in his Rodian accent, "I'm from Corellia. I moved to Bespin IV when I was 10. Both were nice planets, but I really missed dirt when I was living in Bespin."

Eric replied in a deep voice, "I'm from Corsucant, and so is Jen. We're siblings. Actually we're twins."

"I'm from Corsucant too." Echelon said. Jen's expression still didn't change. Still bland. Still indifferent.

The pilot turned around and said, "We're going into hyperspace."

With a jolt, an infinte amount of streaks of light appeared out the windows of the shuttle, and the craft sped off toward Csilla at the speed of light. Though, the pilots were unaware of the horors about to come.

OOC:

Original Word Count: 550. Current Word Count: 750. I've got a really good plot for this. I think people will enjoy the story when it is finished. I edited the post and added more detail to it.

The man led them through a maze of cave hallways and metal hallways. They passed several labs and control rooms filled with Chiss scientists. They tinkered with strange looking devices that Echelon knew could give the Vast Empire an advantage against their enemies. Several moments later they finally came to a door in a stone hewn wall. It opened showing a small room with strange looking TIE flight suits. There were several scientists working on the suits. One walked over to the group and introduced himself as Proffesor Mawn.

"Come in. I'll show you the suits," he said in a big booming voice. The group walked in, and Mawn grabbed one of the suits. "These suits are designed to withstand extreme conditions whether that be high pressure, low pressure, blistering heat, ice cold, acid, radiation. You name it. The suits also protect the pilot when he or she crashes. These suits are very expensive, but will save lives."

Mawn pressed a button against the wall. The lights dimmed and a holoprojector began to shine. It projected a suit with a dummy in it being burned, shot at, exposed to radiation, dipped in liquid nitrogen, and put in an extremely high pressure room. The suit was unscathed and the dummy was fine. "As you can see, it actually works." The lights came back on and Mawn continued his speech.

"The helmet that comes with the suit has what we call AHUD: Advanced Heads Up Display. The helmets are connected to a small computer in the back of the suit, so the AHUD works when the pilot isn't in his TIE Fighter. The AHUD shows anything we program the computer to show. If we want it to show a diagram of a cheese roll, it will show the diagram of a cheese roll. It will be a revolutionary step in the way pilots operate. So we would like you four to try on the suits and fly with them on."

Tulsk and Eric were eager to jump into their suits, but Echelon was a little hesitant. If he was on of the first people to actually test it, couldn't some unknown problem cause him to get seriously injured or even killed. He put on the suit anyway, followed by glumy Jen. The suit was tight, but it fit his body well. It was made out of some lightweight rubbery fabric. Suddenly lights flicked on in his helmet, and he saw the amzing interface if AHUD. As he looked around the room the AHUD recongnized the faces of the three pilots and showed what squadron they were in. Then it showed the temperature of the room, the pressure, the radiation level, the map of the facility, and the current objective (which was to go to the TIE hangar).

He followed the AHUD map to the hangar with the rest of the group. When he reached the hangar, the AHUD showed which TIE Fighter he was asigned. He crawled into the TIE Fighter and warmed up the Ion Engines. When they were ready, he pushed in the main ignition and sped out of the hangar and out of the mountain. He looked at the vast amount of mountains below and how amazing they looked. Suddenly Mawn radioed Echelon.

"Stay close to the base. I'll give you a half hour to test the suit. Be careful," Mawn radioed.

Don't worry I'll be safe.

Echelon flew the fighter down to where the three other pilots were and flew with them.

This is nice. Just flying casually. Looking at the scenery.

Then he remembered what had happened to that pilot.

Damn! Nobody else will die today! I can't deal with people dieing!

Suddenly, a huge blast of energy hit the TIE Fighter beside Echelon and it exploded into a ball of technicolor fire.

What the hell?!?!

"Eric!" Jen screamed over the radio. Echelon checked his AHUD and it lit a small rock on one of the mountains ahead of him with the label: HOSTILE PRESENCE! WARNING! Suddenly a stream of energy blasts came towards the pilots. A blast clipped Tulsk causing his fighter to plumet to the earth bellow. Echelon quickly performed a break turn. He turned on his radio to the base and yelled, "Fighter down! There's a hostile-" A huge blast hit his wing causing him to plumet wildly to the snowy earth below. He pulled the eject button. Nothing.

Oh shit!

His craft collided with the snowy ground with massive speed. The exterior was destroyed instantly, and his body was propelled deep into the snow. If it weren't for the suit, he would have been dead. His AHUD some how identified the source of the blasts. It read: HOSTILE: NEW REPUBLIC. The last thing he heard was the sound of a snow speeder heading towards him. Then blackness.

OOC:

Word Count: 804. Oh, I love a good cliff hanger. To be continued.

Run. Just Run.

Those were the words circling around his head as he ran down the hall trying to outrun the New Republic soldiers. The read out on his AHUD said that he was coming closer and closer to where the stormtroopers were. Suddenly the wall to his right exploded. He turned around and the soldier were gaining on him with their rifles raised, and they were firing at him. Echelon bolted down the hall.

Just a little bit more!

Finally he came to a large doorway. It opened automatically and he ran into the room ahead. When the door closed behind him, he shot the control panel assuring that the NR soldiers wouldn't come in. Then he turned around.

He was in the back a large hangar with NR snowspeeders scattered about. At the large enterance of the hangar there were stormtroopers firing upon NR soldiers. The NR soldiers had creating barricades and they were firing back, but Echelon was in danger because he was on the NR side of the battle.

How did I not think of that?!?! I've got to get to that side before I get shot!

Then he looked at one of the snowspeeders in the back of the hangar near him. There was a NR mechanic hiding behind it trying not to get shot. Inside the speeder, a pilot was warming up the engines and preparing to fly out of there. Echelon quickly ran to the mechanic. The mechanic tried to run away, but Echelon grabbed him and covered his mouth. He then picked up the mechanic and awkwardly held the rifle to his head. Echelon walked the mechanic/hostage to the side of the snowspeeder so the pilot could see. When the pilot saw Echelon holding the gun to the man's head, Echelon made a gesture for the pilot to get out of the speeder. The hatch opened up and the pilot jumped out. Echelon dropped the man and the gun and jumped in the speeder. He quickly closed the hatch and gunned the engines.

The speeder accelerated toward the exit of the hangar. Echelon could see the stormtroopers battling the NR soldiers several feet below. Suddenly the speeder jerked and thrashed around. Smoke quickly filled up the cockpit, and Echelon couldn't see. The speeder lost control and just barely made it out of the hangar. It softly crashed into the snow outside the hangar, but in stormtrooper territory. Echelon opened the hatch and climbed out. He saw that he was surrounded by three stormtroopers in their white armor.

One patted Echelon on the back and said, "Sorry I shot you down. Wasn't sure if your were a New Republic coward trying to escape.  But your in friendly territory now. I bet you liked that map readout on your AHUD. We sent that."

Echelon could hear the blaster fire in the hangar behind him. He turned around to see several NR soldiers trying to get out of the hangar via the hallway door, but the door wouldn't open, for Echelon shot the control pannel. Then they raised their hands above their heads and were captured by the stormtroopers. Then a command shuttle landed beside Echelon and Mawn came out.

"Are you okay? Where are the others?" he asked frantically.

Echelon walked with Mawn into the shuttle and told him everything that happened.



A day and a half later, Echelon was back on the Halcyon Warrior playing sabacc with his friends. It turns out that the VE base got the coordinates from the AHUD computer which was active the whole time Echelon was captured. He still didn't get over how Eric, Jen, Tulsk, and the pilot died. It changed him for the rest of his life. But there was one thing that he didn't want to have happen to him again. Being Shot Down!

OOC:

Word Count: 633. Total Word Count: 3,711. I thought this story was a good adventure. Please give me feedback. I would love to hear it.