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[MUN NOTE: Most of the writing is from Star Wars X-Wing: Wraith Squadron. There are some mun-written additions, but Aaron Allston gets most of the credit for this one.]
Twelve X-wing snubfighters roared down into the atmosphere.
This was a dark world with a polluted sky, its atmosphere formed from gases and smoke hurled from hundreds of active volcanoes. Four kilometers ahead, the TIE interceptor, fastest fighter of the Imperial forces, was distantly visible; it stayed well ahead of the X-wings, though the fact that it was not now outrunning them was a clear indication that its engines were damaged. Further evidence were the sparks and gouts of smoke issuing from its engines, too far away to see except with visual sensors; if the engines failed, the pursuing X-wings could catch the interceptor.
Myn Donos toggled his comm system. "Talon Leader to Talon Eight, any change?"
His comm specialist responded, "No, sir. He's not broadcasting. As far as I can tell, he's not homing in on any sort of a signal. And I'm still not picking up any engine emissions, other than his or ours, on the scanners."
"Very well."
The interceptor's speed suddenly dropped and the vehicle began bobbing as if hit by heavy turbulence, veering to starboard toward a cleft between two enormous volcanoes. Myn saw glittering orange threads of lava crawling down the near slope of one of the black, fire-capped mountains. He's running, and it looks like his engines are failing. If we can run him to ground...
"Leader to squad, it looks like he's losing thrust and going low to lose us with terrain-following flying. Don't give him the opportunity. Get close and force him down." He led his squadron in a lazy arc toward the same gap. He watched the numbers changing on his distance-to-target register: three kilometers, two point five; the interceptor was now emerging from the gap on the far side as the X-wings were entering it.
Talon Eight's voice broke, high-pitched and nervous, over the comm system: "Engines powering up, sir! Directly ahead! I count four, seven, thirteen-"
Shavit, we've been had! "S-foils to attack position!" Myn shouted. "Scatter and-"
Shiner, his R2 unit, issued a sharp squeal of alarm. Donos's console echoed it with beeps and indicators showing that someone ahead had a sensor lock on him-two locks-- three locks--
Donos veered sharply to port-directly toward a volcanic flue and the impenetrable stream of gray-black smoke belching from it. As he hit the cloud he pulled back on the stick, rising straight up the concealing smoke. The sensor locks on him disappeared.
He heard explosions, some near, some far, and the excited comm chatter of his pilots: "Five, Five, he's on your tail!"
"Can't get clear, vape him for me, Six-"
"Can't, I've got--I've got--"
"Nine banked into the volcano wall, she's gone--" Another explosion.
Moments later, at two thousand meters Donos angled to starboard, getting clear of the smoke and emerging directly over the gap between volcanoes.
No one was on his tail. He checked the sensor board - didn't believe what it showed him, checked it again.
He and Talon Twelve were the only New Republic forces remaining on the board. He counted twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five Imperial blips. A dozen were veering toward Twelve, the remainder toward Donos.
In a matter of seconds, Talon Squadron had been all but destroyed. In another few seconds, he and Twelve would be vaped, and the destruction would be complete. "Talon Twelve, dive for the surface. Trench Run Defense. Omega Signal. Acknowledge."
"Omega Signal understood. Diving." The sensor register on Talon Twelve showed decreasing altitude. Donos followed suit, standing his X-wing on its nose and blasting toward the ground.
He hadn't even gotten a shot off at the enemy. Ten pilots dead and he had a full rack of proton torpedoes left, laser batteries charged to full. Time to change that.
The sensors showed an ominous cloud of eyeballs pursuing Twelve toward the ground. If she reached the planet's broken surface, pocked with craters and crisscrossed with rifts, she might be able to elude them; there, her piloting skill rather than the relative speeds of the fighters could allow her to lose pursuit, and any pilot who tried to follow her from above would quickly lose sight of her--the classic Trench Run Defense. But for now, Twelve would remain within the enemy's weapons range for long, deadly seconds.
Within moments his sensors indicated that he was coming within range of the weapons of the rising cloud of TIE fighters. He switched his lasers over to dual fire and put the rest of his discretionary power on forward shields, then began firing as quickly as his targeting computer gave him solid locks. He threw his X-wing into a corkscrew, making it harder for him to hit his enemies, but making it much harder for them to hit him.
Most of his shots hit the ground. One missed his intended target but vaped its wingman. Two more shots hit their intended targets. His assault had its desired effect. The oncoming cloud of TIEs spread out and he shot through the gap in the center of their formation. They wheeled, an angry insect cloud, to follow, but now the TIEs pursuing Twelve into the rugged terrain below were in sight. Donos continued firing, vaping one starfighter before the others knew he was on them; that fighter's wingman, startled by the sudden explosion, reflexively banked rightward, directly into the side of the rift in which they were flying. Two more down. Only about a dozen and a half to go.
Donos dropped into the rift, pulling out of his dive just before he could scrape his keel on the ground. He had stone formations to either side of him, walls close enough to de-wing any TIEs who tried to follow him. "Leader to Twelve, report condition," he said.
"Minor damage to lower port strike foil," she answered. "It's giving me a little vibration, which should go away if we can get out of atmosphere. Some starring on the canopy. Pursuit is hanging back - Wait, here comes one! He's trying to get a lock on me!"
Donos put on more speed, increasing the risk that he would not be able to make some difficult turn ahead. I'll just have to hop over it if it comes to that... He whipped around a bend in the rift and almost slammed into the ion engines of a slow-moving TIE fighter immediately ahead. He snapped off a laser shot out of reflex, saw it lance straight into the starfighter's starboard engine.
The TIE fighter instantly became a glowing fireball of yellow and orange flame and debris. Donos's X-wing rocked as he roared through the fireball; his helmet and hull were barely sufficient to keep the sound of the explosion from deafening him. Then he pulled through. Sithspit, that was close.
One more turn, a tight starboard bank that almost flung him into the rock wall to port, and he had Twelve in sight. Twelve, and the vehicle pursuing her--the interceptor that had led them into this trap. This was the first time Donos had seen it visually, and he fleetingly noted the nonstandard red stripes painted horizontally on the starfighter's wing arrays before something else occurred to him: there were no sparks or smoke plumes emerging from its engines now. Fooled us. They were meant to lead us right into this mess. He banged his head against his pilot seat, and homed in on the deceptive craft.
The interceptor had crept up to within meters of Twelve's aft end and was now skillfully matching all of the X-wing pilot's frantic maneuvers. This was a demonstration of superior flying technique, a show of contempt by one pilot for his enemy, and there was no doubt that the interceptor could begin firing on the defenseless Twelve at any second. I've got to distract him before he vapes her! Maia can't outfly this guy, he's too good!
Myn fired off a desperate snapshot.
At the same moment, the interceptor took its kill shot.
Myn saw his lasers strike and play across the interceptor's main body, slashing across the engines and burning into the cockpit.
The interceptor's lasers intersected at Twelve's X-wing, hitting her aft shields in spite of her desperate maneuvers... and then they penetrated. Both of Twelve's starboard engines flamed out. The starboard strike foils, softened by the lasers' intense heat, began to deform under atmospheric friction.
The interceptor slowed. Sparks and flame, real ones now, issued from the engines. It rose, jumping out of the rocky rift, and was immediately lost to Donos's sight.
Twelve's X-wing began a portward roll.No! Maia, get out of there! Donos's next command was half a shout: "Twelve, bail out! Twelve, eject!"
"Ejecting now! Leader, get out of here!"
Donos watched helplessly as Twelve's cockpit filled with the fire of an ejection thruster, but the canopy failed to open. The ejector seat smashed Twelve into it. Its transparisteel construction kept the canopy in one piece as the X-wing continued to rotate to port. Under continued pressure from the thrust of the ejection seat, the cockpit finally broke away from the X-wing, but Twelve sat limp in the seat as the ejection seat carried her mere meters from the doomed snubfighter, slamming her into the rift wall to port. In a split second she was gone, lost behind Donos, and her X-wing was nosing over to crash into the rift wall below. Is there anything that HASN'T gone wrong with this mission?!?
Donos forced himself to look away, to return his mind to mission parameters.
A few minutes of terrain-following flying and he should be able to jump free of these rifts and head for space. But suddenly the prospect of survival didn't appeal much to him. My whole squad... dead. All of them. Joey, Maia, Torin, Eladrim... I failed them all.
Donos's R2 shrieked at him. Startled back to attention, he looked around, saw that a pair of TIE fighters had gained on him during his reverie.
He could stay and be killed, or flee and describe his failure to his commanders in cruel, humbling detail.
He'd prefer to die. But the families of eleven good men and women deserved to know how their loved ones had met their fates. With an anguished cry, Donos hit the thrusters again and rounded the next turn.
Twelve X-wing snubfighters roared down into the atmosphere.
This was a dark world with a polluted sky, its atmosphere formed from gases and smoke hurled from hundreds of active volcanoes. Four kilometers ahead, the TIE interceptor, fastest fighter of the Imperial forces, was distantly visible; it stayed well ahead of the X-wings, though the fact that it was not now outrunning them was a clear indication that its engines were damaged. Further evidence were the sparks and gouts of smoke issuing from its engines, too far away to see except with visual sensors; if the engines failed, the pursuing X-wings could catch the interceptor.
Myn Donos toggled his comm system. "Talon Leader to Talon Eight, any change?"
His comm specialist responded, "No, sir. He's not broadcasting. As far as I can tell, he's not homing in on any sort of a signal. And I'm still not picking up any engine emissions, other than his or ours, on the scanners."
"Very well."
The interceptor's speed suddenly dropped and the vehicle began bobbing as if hit by heavy turbulence, veering to starboard toward a cleft between two enormous volcanoes. Myn saw glittering orange threads of lava crawling down the near slope of one of the black, fire-capped mountains. He's running, and it looks like his engines are failing. If we can run him to ground...
"Leader to squad, it looks like he's losing thrust and going low to lose us with terrain-following flying. Don't give him the opportunity. Get close and force him down." He led his squadron in a lazy arc toward the same gap. He watched the numbers changing on his distance-to-target register: three kilometers, two point five; the interceptor was now emerging from the gap on the far side as the X-wings were entering it.
Talon Eight's voice broke, high-pitched and nervous, over the comm system: "Engines powering up, sir! Directly ahead! I count four, seven, thirteen-"
Shavit, we've been had! "S-foils to attack position!" Myn shouted. "Scatter and-"
Shiner, his R2 unit, issued a sharp squeal of alarm. Donos's console echoed it with beeps and indicators showing that someone ahead had a sensor lock on him-two locks-- three locks--
Donos veered sharply to port-directly toward a volcanic flue and the impenetrable stream of gray-black smoke belching from it. As he hit the cloud he pulled back on the stick, rising straight up the concealing smoke. The sensor locks on him disappeared.
He heard explosions, some near, some far, and the excited comm chatter of his pilots: "Five, Five, he's on your tail!"
"Can't get clear, vape him for me, Six-"
"Can't, I've got--I've got--"
"Nine banked into the volcano wall, she's gone--" Another explosion.
Moments later, at two thousand meters Donos angled to starboard, getting clear of the smoke and emerging directly over the gap between volcanoes.
No one was on his tail. He checked the sensor board - didn't believe what it showed him, checked it again.
He and Talon Twelve were the only New Republic forces remaining on the board. He counted twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five Imperial blips. A dozen were veering toward Twelve, the remainder toward Donos.
In a matter of seconds, Talon Squadron had been all but destroyed. In another few seconds, he and Twelve would be vaped, and the destruction would be complete. "Talon Twelve, dive for the surface. Trench Run Defense. Omega Signal. Acknowledge."
"Omega Signal understood. Diving." The sensor register on Talon Twelve showed decreasing altitude. Donos followed suit, standing his X-wing on its nose and blasting toward the ground.
He hadn't even gotten a shot off at the enemy. Ten pilots dead and he had a full rack of proton torpedoes left, laser batteries charged to full. Time to change that.
The sensors showed an ominous cloud of eyeballs pursuing Twelve toward the ground. If she reached the planet's broken surface, pocked with craters and crisscrossed with rifts, she might be able to elude them; there, her piloting skill rather than the relative speeds of the fighters could allow her to lose pursuit, and any pilot who tried to follow her from above would quickly lose sight of her--the classic Trench Run Defense. But for now, Twelve would remain within the enemy's weapons range for long, deadly seconds.
Within moments his sensors indicated that he was coming within range of the weapons of the rising cloud of TIE fighters. He switched his lasers over to dual fire and put the rest of his discretionary power on forward shields, then began firing as quickly as his targeting computer gave him solid locks. He threw his X-wing into a corkscrew, making it harder for him to hit his enemies, but making it much harder for them to hit him.
Most of his shots hit the ground. One missed his intended target but vaped its wingman. Two more shots hit their intended targets. His assault had its desired effect. The oncoming cloud of TIEs spread out and he shot through the gap in the center of their formation. They wheeled, an angry insect cloud, to follow, but now the TIEs pursuing Twelve into the rugged terrain below were in sight. Donos continued firing, vaping one starfighter before the others knew he was on them; that fighter's wingman, startled by the sudden explosion, reflexively banked rightward, directly into the side of the rift in which they were flying. Two more down. Only about a dozen and a half to go.
Donos dropped into the rift, pulling out of his dive just before he could scrape his keel on the ground. He had stone formations to either side of him, walls close enough to de-wing any TIEs who tried to follow him. "Leader to Twelve, report condition," he said.
"Minor damage to lower port strike foil," she answered. "It's giving me a little vibration, which should go away if we can get out of atmosphere. Some starring on the canopy. Pursuit is hanging back - Wait, here comes one! He's trying to get a lock on me!"
Donos put on more speed, increasing the risk that he would not be able to make some difficult turn ahead. I'll just have to hop over it if it comes to that... He whipped around a bend in the rift and almost slammed into the ion engines of a slow-moving TIE fighter immediately ahead. He snapped off a laser shot out of reflex, saw it lance straight into the starfighter's starboard engine.
The TIE fighter instantly became a glowing fireball of yellow and orange flame and debris. Donos's X-wing rocked as he roared through the fireball; his helmet and hull were barely sufficient to keep the sound of the explosion from deafening him. Then he pulled through. Sithspit, that was close.
One more turn, a tight starboard bank that almost flung him into the rock wall to port, and he had Twelve in sight. Twelve, and the vehicle pursuing her--the interceptor that had led them into this trap. This was the first time Donos had seen it visually, and he fleetingly noted the nonstandard red stripes painted horizontally on the starfighter's wing arrays before something else occurred to him: there were no sparks or smoke plumes emerging from its engines now. Fooled us. They were meant to lead us right into this mess. He banged his head against his pilot seat, and homed in on the deceptive craft.
The interceptor had crept up to within meters of Twelve's aft end and was now skillfully matching all of the X-wing pilot's frantic maneuvers. This was a demonstration of superior flying technique, a show of contempt by one pilot for his enemy, and there was no doubt that the interceptor could begin firing on the defenseless Twelve at any second. I've got to distract him before he vapes her! Maia can't outfly this guy, he's too good!
Myn fired off a desperate snapshot.
At the same moment, the interceptor took its kill shot.
Myn saw his lasers strike and play across the interceptor's main body, slashing across the engines and burning into the cockpit.
The interceptor's lasers intersected at Twelve's X-wing, hitting her aft shields in spite of her desperate maneuvers... and then they penetrated. Both of Twelve's starboard engines flamed out. The starboard strike foils, softened by the lasers' intense heat, began to deform under atmospheric friction.
The interceptor slowed. Sparks and flame, real ones now, issued from the engines. It rose, jumping out of the rocky rift, and was immediately lost to Donos's sight.
Twelve's X-wing began a portward roll.No! Maia, get out of there! Donos's next command was half a shout: "Twelve, bail out! Twelve, eject!"
"Ejecting now! Leader, get out of here!"
Donos watched helplessly as Twelve's cockpit filled with the fire of an ejection thruster, but the canopy failed to open. The ejector seat smashed Twelve into it. Its transparisteel construction kept the canopy in one piece as the X-wing continued to rotate to port. Under continued pressure from the thrust of the ejection seat, the cockpit finally broke away from the X-wing, but Twelve sat limp in the seat as the ejection seat carried her mere meters from the doomed snubfighter, slamming her into the rift wall to port. In a split second she was gone, lost behind Donos, and her X-wing was nosing over to crash into the rift wall below. Is there anything that HASN'T gone wrong with this mission?!?
Donos forced himself to look away, to return his mind to mission parameters.
A few minutes of terrain-following flying and he should be able to jump free of these rifts and head for space. But suddenly the prospect of survival didn't appeal much to him. My whole squad... dead. All of them. Joey, Maia, Torin, Eladrim... I failed them all.
Donos's R2 shrieked at him. Startled back to attention, he looked around, saw that a pair of TIE fighters had gained on him during his reverie.
He could stay and be killed, or flee and describe his failure to his commanders in cruel, humbling detail.
He'd prefer to die. But the families of eleven good men and women deserved to know how their loved ones had met their fates. With an anguished cry, Donos hit the thrusters again and rounded the next turn.