“Leading Crewman Rowds! Your turn. Simulator 6. Get in, strap up, and shut up.”

The newly minted Leading Crewman looked over at the paper pusher handling today’s various simulation assignments with a slight look of contempt at the guy which had probably never even seen the inside of a TIE-class starfighter.

With a deep sigh to prepare himself for the simulation, he stood up and walked over to the simulator. Taking another deep breath, he slipped on his helmet, which completed the flight suit he was wearing. He quietly slipped into the simulator and proceeded to acquaint himself with the controls.

A voice crackled to life on the comm, “Leading Crewman! As you realized when you request to gain a certification to fly a TIE/D Defender, your first step is to show proficiency in a simple TIE/sa Bomber. Your mission objectives are as following. You are first to attack a MC30c frigate. The frigate is badly damaged from a fight with the now destroyed DP20 Frigates Sword and Spear. You are to finish it off. Once that is accomplished, you are to attack a CR-90 Correllian Corvette Gladius, which is in mid-atmosphere with no damage. Lastly, you are to attack a triple-a tower in the middle of a town. Be aware the civilian casualties will not be accepted nor tolerated. You will be escorted to and from these targets by Gamma flight of Reaver squadron, which currently is flying TIE/ln Fighters. After each target, you may return to the Transport Infinite to get your next loadout. Now for your own ship. You are flying TIE/sa Bomber in the Alpha 1 position of the temporary Killer squadron. You will be the only person in your ‘squadron’. Your armament is to consist of four proton bombs for the first target. You will then have eight heavy rockets for the CR-90. For your last target, you will get twelve proton torpedoes. Questions? If no, good job. If yes, I don’t care. Happy hunting.”

The simulator activated, and Rowds found himself in a TIE/sa Bomber, which was currently docked within an unknown class of ship. His comm crackled to life again.

“Killer 1, you are cleared for launch.”

“Copy that, Killer 1 launching.”

The latches holding the TIE Bomber opened up and Rowds eased in throttle, bringing it up to about ten percent until he cleared the hanger. Counting to three, he began to pull up on the stick to gain some ‘altitude’ over the ship. Altitude was not quite the right word, as there was no ‘up’ or ‘down’ in space, but relative to setting of the hanger, it was ‘up’. A collision warning blared. Looking up, Rowds saw that he was about to crash into the ceiling of the hanger and pushed his TIE Bomber down.

Why in the world? I counted to three, set the throttle to ten percent, and...oh, I’m flying a Bomber not an Interceptor. Remember that the Bomber is sloooooooower.

Waiting until he could visually confirm that the Bomber was clear of the hangar, he rechecked his power settings. They were evenly split between engines and lasers. Deciding to slightly increase his speed as he cleared the hangar, he put the lasers on a minimal charge just so that it could hold the current level, which was at full. When he cleared the hangar, he pushed his throttle up to full and pulled ‘above’ the, as he could now see, Imperial Star Destroyer.

“Killer 1, this is Reaver 13. It’s ’bout time you launched. That MC30 has been a pain for all the squadrons currently out here. We can’t proceed to attack it because of the cluster bombs currently on it.”

“Reaver 13, Killer 1.  Did you miss the fact that I’m flying a bomber, which has no shields?”

“Killer 1, your bomber does not have shields but it does have a slightly stronger hull which is hoped, that if you avoid the worst of the bombs, should get you through just fine.”

Biting back a response, Rowds pushed his bomber into a steep ‘dive’, as the MC30 loomed two thousand meters ahead of him and about five hundred meters below him.

“Killer 1, this is Reaver 13. We’re beginning our perimeter patrol around the MC30. Feel free to destroy it.”

“Reaver 13, I’ll make sure to do it.”

The MC30 was leaking atmosphere from approximately fifty different places, most of them on the front of the MC30.  Two burning wrecks, vaguely resembling DP20s, lay off to the side. Checking over the MC30 to find a target to make his first run at, Rowds chose a fairly good-sized three-meter hole near the engines of the MC30. The engines of the MC30 sputtered to life, but they apparently did not have enough power to move the thing. Suddenly, the cluster bombs launched. Knowing he had seconds before the launched bombs went off, he pushed the bomber into a straight dive, hoping to get enough of a distance to allow himself to escape the cluster bombs.

Bang!

The bomber shook as shrapnel hit it. Pulling the bomber ‘up’, Rowds re-found his target and lined up for his run. He flicked the switch so that his bombs were dropped two at a time. At one hundred twenty meters and about one and a half seconds away, Rowds pulled the release for the first two. They struck the inside of the hole and caused an explosion, as the TIE Bomber screamed past MC30. However, the explosions did not stop yet, but instead grew in size and in violence.

Musta have hit something important. Who knows, maybe it was the reactor?

With a brilliant white explosion, the MC30 burst into four pieces, which scattered in different ways.

“Killer 1, this is the Infinite. Transmitting our coordinates and your next target’s coordinates.”

Finding the Infinite on his display, he pulled into a straight line toward it. At about one thousand meters, he pulled the power out and let the bomber glide in under the transport. After a few banging noises and a few muttered curses accidentally spoken over the comms, the transport pulled away and signaled that Rowds could pull away. Pushing his throttle to full, he set up his display on the Gladius and lined the sluggishly acting bomber on the Gladius. He, being used to flying nimble Interceptors, was almost sure that an overweight Hutt could have probably turned faster than the Bomber.

Pushing the throttle up to full and diverting all power from the lasers into the engines, he began a descent into the planetary atmosphere.  The Gladius was approximately seven thousand meters down, at extreme visual range. With a burst from its engines, the Gladius accelerated to its full speed.  Pulling in behind it after thirty seconds, Rowds let two rockets smash the engines. The top engines, being hit directly, cut out. Rowds rolled the TIE Bomber onto its side and pushed the yoke down to keep it from turning, in order to line up for his next shot. The next two rockets smashed into the middle and lower engines causing them to short out. With the C-90 slowing down and falling because it had no power, the TIE bomber screamed by the soon-to-be-a-billion-pieces CR-90.

Rowds pulled up and relined himself on the Infinite. A few minutes later, he was on his way to his final target, with his TIE Bomber fully filled. This time he set his bomber at a leisurely pace, knowing that his target was going nowhere.

Once he had visual confirmation of the city, Rowds pulled in so that he was  one hundred meters above, and let his bomber slow down to the minimal atmospheric speed. The triple-a tower was actually the tallest building in the city, so it wasn’t very hard to line up his torpedo shot. Freezing his emotions, he let one torpedo go, aimed right at the base of the tower. The tower swayed as the TIE Bomber flew past it. Hearing the resounding crash, Rowds knew his mission was complete.

The simulation cut out.

“Congratulations on a good simulation run. Please step out of the simulator, and report to the front desk for your scores,” instructed a bored voice.

Smiling at his excellent run, Rowds pulled himself out of the simulator and walked over to the paper-pusher, who had assigned him earlier.

“Well, how did I do?” asked Rowds.

OOC:

Word Count: 1,396

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