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-
- @BEGIN_FILE_ID.DIZ
- TIE FIGHTER: PREDATOR #12@END_FILE_ID.DIZ
-
-
- We arrived at the wing briefing just in time. The four
- of us in third flight had just sat down when Commander Tannis
- mounted the raised platform and stepped to the podium.
- "Gentlemen," he began, "the information I'm about to reveal
- to you is TOP SECRET. There can be absolutely no breach of
- security on this operation."
- Most of the pilots yawned at this. At least all of us had
- done a secret mission before, and we thought that this would be more of
- the same.
- "As you know, the Predator has rendesvoused with the Apocalypse
- battle group. The ulterior goal of battle group Apocalypse is
- Operation Stellar Fire. Within two weeks, gentlemen -- TWO WEEKS --
- the Apocalypse battle group will launch a covert campaign against
- the water world of Calamari.
- Murmurs of surprise and anticipation swept through the assembled
- squadrons. Most of us had been in combat -- but only skirmishes
- with pirates and a handful of rebels. This, however, sounded like
- a major assault.
- "Remember, men, TOP SECRET. Commander Jenner?"
- Our other wing commander stood up to continue the debriefing.
- "While rebel fighters have hyperdrive abilities, our
- intelligence is certain that their fighters are housed on board
- the rebels' capital ships: the MC cruisers. Our role in Operation
- Stellar Fire will be to destroy the shipyards and any Mon Cal
- starships which are orbiting the planet. This effect of this
- operation, men, will destroy the rebel's supply of capital ships
- and their ability to wage war.
- "So men, for the next fourteen days, we will train every minute
- of every hour preparing for the assault.
- Groans rippled through his audience.
- "Also, we'll be taking on another three squadrons for the assault."
- "Three squads? We don't have room for three squads," whined a
- younger pilot.
- "We'll have to make do, Lieutenant," replied Jenner.
- "What about their TIE fighters ?"
- "Space is a problem, but Captain Jaltha is looking into unloading
- the AT-AT and AT-STs for this mission."
- "If there are no more questions, pilots, let's break into squadrons
- and hit the simulators.
-
- ENTERING SIMULATION
-
- The Predator dropped us from our berths in quick succession.
- Although it was a simulation, the external view and handling
- was very real. The best part, though, was that all thirty-two
- pilots in the simulation were linked up at the same time --
- flying with each other without the harm of flying into each other.
- In moments, my squad had formed up. The Strikers were assigned
- to group Epsilon, Gamma and Iota -- 4 TIE fighters each. For some
- reason, Alpha leader called for us to make three lines abreast,
- which we were in now.
- Looking out the "viewport" I saw the planet in the distance,
- surrounded by nothing but space. The stars, mere pinpoints of
- light, filled every corner of the jet black heavens. To the
- port side of the "Predator" (Sigma 6) was Sigma 2 and 11. To
- the starboard was Sigma 5. This simulation was pretty real!
- "This is Alpha leader to all groups!" crackled the com,
- "I'm reading two capital ships -- two Mon Cal cruisers at
- 340 mark 352."
- "Roger that Alpha leader," came Beta-1.
- "Epsilon-1," said Alpha leader to Cpt. Lears, "send a pair
- of Strikers to identify those ships. Beta, Delta -- begin
- perimeter patrol. Kappa, Lambda and Mu groups -- attack those
- spacedocks!"
- "Roger, Alpha leader," crackled Cpt. Lears, "Gamma 1 and 2:
- identify those ships. Gamma and Iota flights -- hang back until
- they're done. Then we'll begin our attack run."
- "Roger, Epsilon-1," came Nemo.
- Gamma-1 was Lt. Nemo. Gamma-2 was Lt. Med. Both were
- exceptional fighter pilots; as good, if not better than myself.
- I watched the grey hulls of their TIE fighters break off from
- the squadron and head for the cruisers. Lears began turning us into
- a wide loop around the cruisers -- like hawks waiting for the kill.
- By this time, Nemo and Med had turned and come up on the Mon Cals
- from the rear.
- "Negative, Epsilon-1," said Nemo to Lears, "Capital-1 is the MCS
- Kittar -- she's a spaceliner, over."
- MCS stood for Mon Calamari Ship. That was intelligence's designation
- for any non-combat ships from Calmari. The other ones we were familiar
- with were CRS (MC Cruisers) and CRL (MC Light Cruisers).
- "This is Med, Capital-2 is...CRS !!! The Phido!" he said exuberantly,
- then "Shit !"
- I looked his way and saw lasers pouring out of the Phido. Med was
- weaving wildly.
- "Epsilon group, Gamma group, Iota group! Destroy the Phido!" barked
- Lears.
- I grinned, and maxxed out my throttle.
- "You with me, Erich ?" I clicked.
- "Right behind you, Fox," crackled Erich.
- "Attack group, break now !" yelled Lears.
- I pulled back on the controls as TIEs broke every which way in front
- of me. The CRS Phido had begun concentrating its 48 turbolasers in
- our direction. I did a roll and turned back towards the Phido.
- As I dived in, I strafed her hull. Erich's dual lasers joined in
- as we shot past her.
- Someone got hit to my port, and his TIE went up in a ball of fire.
- His wingman turned and fired a few shots at the Phido before he joined
- his flight leader.
- "Alpha leader, this is Epsilon-1," crackled Lears, "Better send your
- boys in here."
- "We're already there, Ep-1," came Alpha leader.
- As if there weren't enough TIE fighters flying all over the place,
- Alpha, Beta and Delta groups joined in the fray. Lasers were slinging
- all over the place. I weaved as best as I could in between them,
- hoping I wouldn't get hit or crash into another TIE.
- "Watch your fire !" I yelled, narrowly avoiding someone's green
- laserfire.
- I led Erich out of the fire zone and turned around for another pass.
- This time, we dove at the Phido's bow firing off as many as we could.
- As we descended on the cruisers midsection, I began veering to the right
- to continue my dive. That's when I saw a group of X-wings leaving
- the Phido.
- "Iota-3 to all groups. 6 X-wings launching from the Phido's
- starboard side," I clicked.
- "Alpha, Beta groups," crackled Alpha leader, "Intercept and destroy
- X-wings. All other groups keep up this fire. We've almost got the
- Phido down."
- I checked my readout as a flash from the explosion of another TIE
- being hit lit up the CMD. Phido's shields were at 40% now.
- "Rebels are splitting up, Alpha leader," said someone.
- I banked and weaved my way through heavy friendly fire. I reached
- the edge of the perimeter and turned around to start my third attack
- run on the Phido. Erich caught up and I began the dive.
- I began firing my single fire lasers then cursed. Another TIE
- streaked out of my 2 o'clock high and continued portwards on a diving
- run. I think he took a couple hits from my lasers.
- The Phido was in front of me again, and I fired at it. It began
- firing back so I weaved to the port. Out of the corner of my eye,
- I saw an explosion where I thought Erich's TIE was.
- Diving past the Phido, I saw an X-wing explode, and two others
- being chased by three TIE fighters.
- "How are those X-wings," I clicked.
- "Scratch two," crackled someone, "Watch your six 'cause the other
- one's loose."
- "Yes!!!" shouted someone over the com, "Shields are down -- let's
- blow this fucker out of here."
- I checked the CRS Phido. Yup, shields were down. Reaching the
- edge of the perimeter, I turned around looking for another strafing
- run.
- I began my fourth dive through heavy laserfire. Though a lot of
- the gun turrets on the Phido had been reduced to slag, I still had
- to avoid the remaining guns, plus crossfire from other TIEs.
- "Watch your nine, I-3 !!!" yelled someone.
- I banked and dived as I felt the TIE shudder from a laser hit.
- X-wing Red-5 flew by and did a tight turn looking for me again.
- "Where'd he come from ?" I yelled.
- I turned to port and began jinking as Red-5 slipped in behind
- me. I threw all power to the engines, and put a hand on my
- repulsorlifts to slip or drift.
- "Hang on Dekker. I'll be right there," crackled Vladimar.
- "Hurry up," I yelled as red lasers overshot me. I did a tight
- roll and banked into an even tighter turn.
- Bad move. In the excitement, I forgot where the Phido was.
- She loomed .3 clicks before me as I came out of the turn. Among
- the six or seven turbolasers left, two were pointed straight at
- me. The laserfire filled up my screen as my terminal sparked and
- fizzled and my viewshield cracked.
-
- TIE FIGHTER IOTA-3 DESTROYED. SIMULATION OVER.
- DOWNLOADING FILM....
-
- "Fuck !" I shouted at noone in particular.
- I opened the hatch to my simulator and climbed out. A lot of
- the hatches were open now, as the "dead" pilots had left. Usually
- after sim, we get a half-hour period to review the film. Most pilots
- skipped this since we considered the "maze" enough.
- Erich was there.
- "Erich," I said.
- "You too, huh ?" he grinned.
- "Yeah. The Phido got me," I spat.
- "Me too," he snickered, "Guess we shoulda taken out those gun
- emplacements first."
- I nodded.
- "Or the X-wings. If that rebel hadn't been chasing me, I wouldn't
- have flown into a turbolaser."
- "Wanna go eat ?" he asked.
- "Naw. I'm gonna go watch film."
- Erich rolled his eyes.
- "Can't get enough of death, eh ?"
- "I am death," I joked.
- He laughed.
- "I'll see you in 30, Fox," he waved and headed off.
- I headed for the other door and left the sim room. A small
- tunnel took me directly to the film room.
- When I got there, I checked the log. None of the other pilots
- from Strikers, Lancers or Grim Reapers had checked in. Only two
- other pilots were inside; a Captain Keller and a Captain Dyson.
- I hadn't heard of them before. Maybe one was a replacement for
- someone in the Raiders, Black Knights or Dark Angels. I walked in
- the dimly lit room and sat myself down at a computer terminal.
- The terminals were arranged around a large column with a comfortable
- seat placed before a control panel and a huge screen in front of each
- seat. There were eight such seats at each film column and four
- columns in this chamber. Because the columns are pretty large (eight
- feet across), it is concievable to sit in your chair and not see
- someone else in the room. This was the case. I keyed in my name
- and a list of my saved mission films came up. I chose the most recent
- one and watched as the screen filled with my cockpit view.
- Okay, here's where the squadron broke, here's my first strafing
- run, I mumbled to myself. I hit the pause button and ran through the
- cockpit views of the other ships. I found Romulus's view; somehow
- he had maneuvered himself behind three gun turrets. I put the film
- into slow forward and watched him blast all three to pieces during his
- strafing run. Man, he's good, I thought.
- "Here it is," said someone on the other side of the column,
- "You chased Alpha-2 down and got him, but at the expense of letting
- Beta-1 and his wingman get behind you."
- That was a girl's voice!
- "I thought you were going to trail me 0.4 like we had been in
- practice," replied another girl's voice, then jokingly, "You bitch."
- I leaned over to see who these two were, but the column was too
- big. I considered getting up and walking over, but then said nah to
- myself. It was probably just my imagination, I thought. I went back
- to my film.
- "Now look, you toast Alpha-2, then perform a hard left onto
- Gamma-2," said the first voice, "Right here, you have a perfect
- deflection shot of Iota-3."
- I was Iota-3! I cycled to the X-wing views (which actually were
- TIE fighter instruments in the simulation) and then had the computer
- cycle through all the target locks. I started going through them.
- Red-1 never had a lock on me, neither did Red-2. Red-3 did
- however. I put it on my viewer. There was Iota-3 and his wingman
- making a strafing run at a Calamari cruiser. Less than 0.2 away
- was TIE fighter Gamma-2 pulling a hard left climb away from Red-3.
- The coincidence was too much. These girls had to be the X-wings
- flying against us in simulation. I got up and walked around the
- column. I wasn't sure whether I'd really find chicks over there
- because I had seen very few women in the Imperial Navy. Sure enough,
- two young women were there. They were in flight suits, both with
- long hair tied back in braids. They looked to be in their very late
- teens or early twenties. I couldn't tell much about their faces since
- it was pretty dark in the room, only that one was vaguely blonde and
- the other had brown hair.
- I stared for a second, shocked. They didn't say a word either.
- They simply stared at me. Then, one looked at the other, then back
- to me. That broke my confusion.
- "...women... ?" I stammered.
- "Yeah," said the brown haired girl.
- "What...what squadron ?" I stammered again.
- "Shadow squadron," replied the other.
- Shadow squadron. That was an elite squadron! One of a select few
- existing throughout the Empire.
- "I..I'm Iota-3," I said more composed.
- The brown haired smiled.
- "You're lucky, Iota-3," she said, "Kristen had a deflection shot at
- you, but missed the opportunity."
- "Laurie," said Kristen with a tinge of disbelief, "I had to keep
- Beta-1 and his wingman in the back of my head AND line up Gamma-2.
- If you had gotten Beta-1 and Beta-2 off my back, I could have made
- that shot.
- Laurie looked back at me and winked.
- "Rookies," she said shaking her head.
- I had to smile at that. Nothing's finer than occupational
- comraderie.
- "Yeah," I laughed, "Rookies."
- Kristen looked at me incredulously. Then she narroed her eyes
- at me as if to say so-you-want-to-play-that-game.
- "Attention, Lieutenant !"
- I glanced quickly at her flightsuit id patch.
- CPT KELLER.
- Fuck. I forgot!
- "Yes, sir !" I yelled as I jumped to attention. Was sir the right
- word to use?
- She rose out of her chair and walked over to me. Even in the dark,
- I could make out her voluptuous body. I saw her smile as she plotted
- the fun she was going to have with me.
- "Exactly which rookies were you talking about, Lieutenant...mmmm?"
- she read my id patch then continued, "Dekker ?"
- I decided to lie.
- "The rookies onboard Imperial Frigates, sir."
- She turned to Laurie, smirked and sat down.
- Laurie giggled, got up and stood before me.
- "Do you consider Captain Keller a rookie, Lieutenant ?" she asked
- coyly.
- "With all due respect, I don't have the experience to know, sir !"
- I barked back.
- "Well, let me tell you, Lieutenant," she grinned, "She been in
- battle, but she hasn't had a kill yet."
- "Liar," said Kristen.
- "What do you think now ?" giggled Laurie.
- "I'd say she was inexperienced, sir," I replied.
- "And what do you TIE pilots call that ?" Laurie inquired.
- I wondered if I should say it or not. These were women after all,
- and, among the Strikers at least, it was our custom to be polite to
- the other gender.
- "Well, Lieutenant ?" asked Laurie.
- "She's...um...," I said stalling, then gave up, "She's a virgin."
- "I AM NOT A VIRGIN," said Kristen standing up, and placing her
- fisted hands on her hips.
- Laurie sat down as Kristen walked over to me.
- "Lieutenant. Say I'm not a virgin."
- Inwardly, I grinned. This game was fun. Outwardly, I didn't react.
- "Lieutenant!" she ordered.
- "See Kristen," toyed Laurie, "Blondes don't have more fun."
- Kristen turned to look at her then looked at me -- analyzing me.
- "Oh yeah ?" she said.
- She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around my neck and kissed me.
- Her lips were soft and felt delicious. Then her tongue was in my
- mouth. I responded and we kissed for three or four seconds before
- she broke it off.
- "Lieutenant ?" she asked.
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