“Okay Xanatos, you say the Interceptor is fully operational.” Chief Petty Officer Colm was a grim human with a cybernetic arm and a vicious scar running down his neck, but despite his gruff and unsettling appearance, he had quickly become something of a mentor to the young Mandalorian, currently in his second and last year of Command School. The two were standing on a catwalk high above the floor of the launch hangar, just above a TIE/In Interceptor that Xanatos and his two friends had repaired just over an hour ago.
“Yes sir. The converter was bad, but otherwise, she’s a good fighter. She’ll get the job done.” Xanatos responded, his accent somewhere between the slightly lyrical Mandalorian tone, which stressed the I’s and O’s, and a Belgaroth accent, which dragged out the rest of the vowels. It made for what was apparently a pleasing mix. He stood ramrod-straight, his feet shoulder width apart and his hands clasped loosely behind his back in a perfect parade rest. Proper appearance and etiquette was rammed in home quite quickly in Command School.
The CPO paused to think for a few seconds, his mechanical hand absent-mindedly scratching the scar as he let out a ‘hmmm’, looking down at the small starfighter. Apparently, he was not entirely convinced. He shrugged after a moment, turning his head back to meet his student’s storm-blue eyes with a long stare from his own. Xanatos was a dab hand with mechanics, but recently the question of whether or not he was really cut out for Fleet Command had been brought up by Warrant Officer Koate. Perhaps this was a chance to see if the kid had any other useful talents…
“I won’t clear her for duty until she’s been put through her paces, cadet. Run her through the trench for me – I want to see if that cannon works under stress conditions.”
To his credit, Xanatos didn’t even flinch. The Trench was an obstacle course for starfighters – a canyon carved into the icy surface of Abrae, the moon over which the PLT Cappadocious orbited. It was considered a difficult course, even for qualified pilots, and was used to train TIE/sa Bomber pilots. It had a bit of a vicious reputation, and anyone with half a brain would have the sense to be worried.
Xanatos, however, appeared to take the challenge in his stride. He simply snapped to attention and nodded, the very image of an obedient cadet. That was nothing new – all of the cadets had learned to project an image of competence, confidence and obedience. Colm had seen enough cadets come and go to see past the mask, and noted that his student was, indeed, worried. That was good – but the fact he was not letting his fear paralyse him was even better.
“It will be done, sir.” He responded.
“Good. Dismissed.” Colm spoke with his usual air of authority, and without another word, Cadet/Crewman Xanatos turned and started to descend down the ladder that connected the catwalk to the Interceptor down below. The rookie just seemed to take everything in his stride. Colm could not tell if Xanatos was simply overconfident, if he had faith in his superiors, or if he simply was stoic enough to hide his feelings on the matter. All three were potentially dangerous in their own right.
* * *
Cadet/Crewman Xanatos Bombassa had been in the cockpits of TIE Craft before, performing routine shakedown flights after repair jobs in his first year of instruction at Command School, when he had run through the engineer course. Now a member of Gunnery School, he was being instructed in how to operate capital ship weaponry. One thing was sure, though – the routine shakedown flights had never been tricky. Fly around a little in a wide, open space. Fire off a shot with the lasers, then it was back to base. He had never tackled anything like this before.
His fighter was now flying down towards the surface of Abrae, on an intercept course with the ‘start point’ of the infamous Trench. He was travelling at Full Ahead, around 75% of the craft’s maximum speed, and the standard cruising speed for a TIE Interceptor. Outside of battle, it was about as fast as the craft usually travelled – any faster and the fuel efficiency dropped drastically and it became more difficult to manoeuvre properly. Xanatos did not bother looking at his scanner – already, he could see the massive dark gash in the icy surface below that marked ‘The Trench’s location.
He fought to keep his nerves in check, gritting his teeth. He had enlisted with the Empire, but he had done so in Command School, not the Starfighter Corps. Safe and secure in the knowledge that he would have capital-class shields and meters of thick armour between him and anything that sought to hurt him. In the cockpit of a TIE/In Interceptor, he had mere centimetres of light armour and absolutely no particle shielding at all – only deflectors. Strapped into the pilot’s seat, he felt both exposed and trapped at the same time. It was not a feeling he cherished.
“Xanatos to Mission Control: Now 1 klick from the start point.” He announced over the helmet comm. If there was positive thing he could say about the uniform TIE Pilots were required to wear, the visibility was far more impressive to what the helmet of the Imperial Gunnery Corps permitted. The view, racing above the snow-white surface of Abrae, was nothing short of breathtaking. The snow whipped by, but it was not thick enough to obscure his view of the mirror-sheen of the ice below, carved into natural sculptures by the blistering winds.
“Mission control to Xanatos: Acknowledged. Move down the trench and engage as many targets of opportunity as possible. Do not fly above the trench for any reason.”
The intent behind that order was clear. Often, the Trench had a physical ‘ceiling’ of ice this time in the winter, and even if it didn’t, the flak defences up there were, unlike those inside the trench, operating at full power and with lethal intent. Only inside the most difficult maze on the moon would he be ‘safe’.
“Acknowledged. Beginning my attack run.” He replied, but he did not have the luxury of time to say any more. Just in front of him, looming ever larger, was the opening to the infamous trench, the start point of what was to be the most dangerous shakedown flight of his career. He reflected, not for the first time today, that he had been a fool to not refuse the order. Still, he was an Imperial, and he would do his duty. Fighting the fear that settled deep into the pit of his gut, Cadet/Crewman Xanatos Bombassa, training for the Imperial Gunnery Corps, pushed the control yoke down and dove right in.
* * *
As his recently repaired TIE/In Interceptor dove into the canyon known only as ‘The Trench’, the horizontal barrier of the ground that rose up towards Xanatos Bombassa was joined by two vertical ones on either side. He was about to pull up when an alarm began to ring in the speakers on either side of his helmet, and the screen on his sensor flashed red, warning him that what appeared to be a Turbolaser cannon was attempting to gain a lock on his vessel. Forcing himself to remain calm through a titanic effort, Xanatos held the dive as his gloved hand pressed a button on the left side of his dashboard, setting his shields to double-front.
His altimeter wound down, and when it read that he was a mere hundred meters above the surface of the icy moon, he pulled back on the joystick. The sudden onset of G-forces pushed him back against his seat at the same time as his rapid deceleration tried to push him forward, almost crushing him in between the two forces as he levelled out at a suicidal eighty meters above the uneven terrain. With his course steady and his shields on double-front, Xanatos had a moment to think, as the turbolaser and flak cannons inside the trench attempted to re-align.
Feeding power into his targeting computer, he ran through some calculations in his head and counted the number and timing of the twin emerald-green turbolaser shots and the rapid-fire quad-cannon blasts that flashed overhead. He was an Imperial Gunner in training, and he had received significant training in the two types of weapons that were being used against him.
Okay Xanatos, how many guns are we dealing with here?” He silently asked himself as he counted the blasts, knowing the cannons themselves were too far out of visual range to actually see yet.
Not to mention those were only the ones before the canyon had some kind of twist or turn.
2…4…2…it keeps alternating. One Turbolaser up front and at low height, and two towers up back. Given the intensity of that quad-gun fire, make it two quads flanking each strongpoint. That gave him something to work with. He knew that the lower to the ground he was, the harder a time the guns would have getting a lock on him…but he would also have more difficulty keeping from crashing into the various ice outcroppings and stalagmites. It was a trade-off.
In the end, he decided to choose the ‘safer’ option, and pulled the control yoke back a little bit. The turbo and quad-laser blasts were simulated: They would not actually kill him if he was hit. Crashing into the surface of Abrae, however, would prove completely fatal. With his shields set to double-front and his targeting computer furiously calculating the position and location of the two nearest quad-laser cannons, the greatest immediate threat, there was nothing more for him to do than lower his speed slightly and stay the course.
He knew that Turbolasers, designed for engaging large, heavily shielded targets from very long range, had significant trouble tracking smaller, closer targets: He would not be under threat from the turbolaser towers. They were there to frighten and intimidate rookie pilots, or to serve as tempting targets for those practising their bombing skills. What he was really worried about were the quad-laser cannons. They were designed to shred small fighter craft exactly like the one he was now flying, and at short range, they were brutally efficient. He pulled back the throttle, buying his targeting computer some more time.
* * *
There! The two quad-laser cannons, flanking a short turbolaser turret just as he had suspected, were built into the sides of the trench wall, slightly higher up than the turbolaser turret in order to make up for their shorter range. Not wanting to use up one of his six Proton Torpedoes on a lightly-armoured target, Xanatos decided to see if the laser cannon was as fixed as he thought it was. An idea came to him, and he eased the control yoke to starboard, and just a little forward, dropping back down and to the right and skimming the edge of the trench, accelerating in order to throw off the quad-guns for a precious moment.
The range counted down, but he knew that if he fired too early, he would waste the only shot he was going to get. He angled his craft precisely, making minute movements on the control yoke even as he used his ion rudder to slide his craft from side to side slightly in order to make sure he wasn’t flying right into the quad-blasts that were lancing around on either side of him. His helmet microphones squealed as his deflector shields tapped a blast that had come too close aside, losing a considerable amount of power in the process. His patience was worth it, though – his targeting computer flashed as he reached optimum range.
He let out a quad-linked shot from his laser cannons, and smiled to himself as he saw that all four cannons, including the one he had repaired earlier that day, sent out an emerald burst of laser-fire. The emplacement flashed in a brilliant explosion as the shots tore through one of its energy capacitors and overloaded them, blowing the quad-gun to scrap. Keeping his celebration of his first ever ‘kill’ limited to a slight smile, he shot his fighter out to port, skimming past the turbolaser tower at a precisely-calculated angle in order to give him some cover from the other quad-gun…
…and was rewarded with a scream of laser against metal, as the quad-cannon fire raked along the side of the turbolaser tower, silencing the weapon emplacement and registering as a second ‘kill’ to him. Two out of three targets down from the first strong-point, and he still had all six of his Proton Torpedoes sitting sedately inside their magazines. It was, he decided to himself, an excellent start. Pushing through, he glanced at his scanner to get an idea of the topography of the trench in front of him, and noticed that there was a pair of shockingly tight turns up ahead. Gunnery, not piloting, was his strong suit, and he decided to be cautious.
A dogfighter pilot might have shot through the corners at high speed, pulling a stunning amount of G forces as he did so. Xanatos, instead, pulled back on the control yoke and on the throttle, bleeding off as much speed as he could in order to give him time to navigate the obstacle properly. He was, after all, not a member of the Starfighter Corps. He wasn’t going to take any stupid risks. He rolled his craft over onto its side as the first turn, a tight starboard twist, presented itself, and eased himself around the corner, concentrating in making sure to avoid any outcroppings of rock that he knew might be up ahead.
A shrill warning from his targeting computer jolted his concentration as an outcropping appeared right ahead of him! It was no rock, however, but a massive turbolaser tower that protruded over the edge of the trench, one of the pair that had been slamming long-range fire down at him from the moment he had started his run. Thrown entirely off his stride, he immediately jammed his thumb onto the launch trigger for the torpedo bays, and a pair of high-powered Proton Torpedoes raced from their launch tubes, crossing the short distance between him and the tower even as he yanked his craft to the side to avoid what would have been a fatal collision.
* * *
He saw out of the corner of his eye as the first of the torpedoes missed the target entirely, slamming into the trench wall and gouging out a massive chunk of ice and rock. A second explosion, heard but not seen, signalled the end of the turbolaser tower. He cursed himself – a single torpedo would have done the job: He had just panicked and wasted Imperial resources! For a gunner, it was inexcusable. Vindictively, he swung his craft over to face starboard, now almost at a dead stop, and punched a third torpedo into the turbolaser tower’s twin, taking it and the quad-gun next to it in what he had to admit was a beautiful pyrotechnic display.
He forced himself to calm down, slowing his breathing and trying to get his racing heart to drop back to a more manageable speed, as he corrected his heading just in time to avoid what would have been a nasty head-on collision with the wall and loosened his grip on the control yoke a little. He wasn’t even a quarter of the way down the trench yet, and he only had three missiles left to play with. If he was going to survive this test, he was going to have to manage his resources, speed and strategy very carefully.
The fact that he’d only taken the test to ascertain that the craft was repaired was completely lost on the young cadet. He saw a challenge ahead of him, and the stubborn Mandalorian in him refused to back down. Increasing the throttle, he vowed silently to make up for his prior mistake with a stellar performance, nodding to himself as more turbolaser blasts started to flash all around his tiny Interceptor. Not even looking away from his viewport, he punched data into the targeting computer beside him.
No amount of cannons would get in his way now…
- OOC:
- Word Count: 2,735 Words.
AAR: Ordered to test-fly the TIE Interceptor he recently repaired in what is, unknown to him, an evaluation of his abilities as a Starfighter Pilot, Xanatos Bombassa takes on the ‘Trench Run’ challenge. Combining his iron determination, his knowledge of the TIE/In’s capabilities and half a year of gunnery training gives him an advantage, but he’s no fighter jock, and very nearly gets himself blown up!
Managing to fight through the panic and shock of a surprise ambush, he resolves to finish the course with skill and grace: Something that we both know he will succeed in.
