X-Wing: Pirates Fall
Chapter Two
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Corran grinned. This reminds me of when I was trying for Rogue Squadron.
"You in there, Whistler?" he asked. The green and white astromech droid burbled positively and Corran checked his readouts. All systems are go. He thumbed the comm.
"Green group, this is Lead. Do you copy?"
"Green two reporting in."
"Green three reporting in."
Once Inyri had reported in, the four X-wings split into an escort formation around the Pulsar Skate. Mirax’s voice crackled into life over Corran’s headset.
"Green Lead, I’ve got two flights of Halberd class fighters coming in at attack vectors. That’s eight Birdies."
"We’re on ‘em, Skate." Corran targeted the leading ship and keyed up the schematic of the ship on one of his secondary monitors.
All of fifteen metres long, the Halberd class fighter had two trapezoid wings sprouting from a central core. The three engines mounted on its rear gave it a nifty turn of speed. An extended storage area mounted behind gave the pilot an ability to carry off a large amount of spoils, making it a favourite for many of the pirate groups that operated throughout inhabited space. As well as a shield generator, the fighter carried twin lasers, a nose mounted ion cannon and a pair of concussion missile launchers, making it a fearsome opponent in a dogfight. They were hyperspace capable, but as Corran hadn’t picked them up coming out of hyperspace he couldn’t be sure that there wasn’t a capital ship lurking out of sensor range.
"Lead, this is a training sim, so shall we use our torps?" asked Gavin, breaking in on his thoughts.
"Well, we were given them, so I’d say yes. Give the hopefuls a chance to dogfight, though."
The leading pair suddenly launched two concussion missiles each, the pink projectiles jetting over the cockpits of their launching ships. The second pair followed suit.
Corran set himself to gunning down the missiles. Flipping his lasers over to dual fire, he swept his fire over the missiles, destroying all four before they posed a real threat. Killing his thrust, he quadded up his lasers and programmed a set of microjumps into the navcomputer, keeping a wary eye glued to the sensor board at the same time.
"Whistler, keep those updated so we’ll always end up behind the second flight. Send the co-ordinates to Smiley." The droid complied with a chirp and sent the data stream to Ooryl’s R4 Unit.
"Gavin, you and Inyri take lead." Corran ordered. "Two, on my mark, make the microjumps your astromech is receiving."
"Copy that, Lead." Corran followed the engine glows of Inyri’s ship as she swooped in on the enemy fighters.
Leading Ooryl round in a turn to port, Corran made sure that the X-wing’s nose was pointed directly towards the Pulsar Skate. They must think we are trying to approach the combat from a different angle. He smiled. In essence they are not far wrong.
"Three, Four, keep them busy." He put his hand on the hyperspace lever. "Okay, Ooryl, let’s go. Three, Two, One, Mark!"
Pulling down on the lever, he watched the stars turn into lines and then back to dots as the ship reverted back to real space. Only pausing to check that his wingman was with him, he made the second and third microjumps.
The first jump had taken behind the Pulsar Skate. Although the Halberds knew the direction of the jump, the Skate’s mass meant that trainees had no idea where they had come out of hyperspace. As they swooped round, it meant they would be able to engage the smaller ships in a dogfight where their numerical superiority would give them the advantage. If the microjumps had been a part of a diversion to split the force in half with the X-wings jumping back to combat the other flight on equal terms, then they could complete their mission by destroying Mirax’s freighter.
The second and third jumps put them directly behind the Halberds, right in the point where their engine glow blinded their sensor-screens to the X-wing’s presence.
"Ooryl, use torps. They’ve got a target warning system on these ships, so fire as soon as you get a lock. That should confuse ‘em enough for us to close to dogfighting range."
Flipping over to proton torpedos, he selected single fire. Corran targeted one of the slim fighters, got a lock, and fired. As that ship started evasive manoeuvres, he dropped the crosshairs down and launched a second torpedo at its wingman.
"Mirax, is Liat going to use those lasers or just watch the light-fight?" Corran asked.
"Nah, we thought we thought we’d have a game of sabaac." Corran could visualise the smile in his wife’s voice. "Laser cannons online, Commander Horn sah!"
Changing his weapons back to lasers, he dived down below his wingman’s ship.
"Ooryl, I’m your wing." A proton torpedo had destroyed one of the Halberds, and another had failed to evade the fire from the Pulsar Skate’s turret.
Corran followed the Gand pilot in as Ooryl barrelled in on two other fighters, who were strafing Mirax’s heavily modified Baudo class yacht. The fighters broke off their attack runs and looped round to face the X-wings closing in on them.
Ooryl fired first; his rapid barrage of laser blasts collapsing the Halberd's shields. The pilot out of reflex hit the rudder pedal and spun the ship round to escape destruction. Unfortunately, his turn gave Corran the perfect opportunity.
The Corellian pilot’s shots tore into the already damaged ship, vaporizing a part of the armour plating protecting the connection between the cockpit and the rest of the ship. The pilot was no longer a participant of the battle.
Ooryl chased after the remaining ship. The faster Halberd gained a considerable lead on him, but slowed to avoid the still spinning ship that was the simulator’s latest "kill." One of Ooryl’s shots hit one of the magazines of concussion missiles on the derelict ship.
The resulting explosion ripped the fleeing snubfighter apart. A large chunk of debris shunted past the shields of Ooryl’s X-wing and sliced through the starboard s-foils, reducing them to mangled streamers of ceramate.
"Two, stay there and get Smiley to work on those shields."
"Ooryl complies with your order."
Gands have a very interesting naming structure. They refer to themselves as "Gand" until they are granted their family name when they show themselves to be worthy of it. When they have achieved a feat of learning, they are given their first name.
Only Gands who have done extraordinary deeds are allowed to use personal pronouns. To do this, they must be invited to become janwuine by the Elders of Gand.
There is a ceremony called janwuine-jika. Humans and other species can be made hinwuine, allowing them to say "I" without sounding vulgar or rude to the Gands.
Gands would, if ashamed, only use their family or first names, and if truly mortified, would refer to themselves only as "Gand." As Ooryl had been made janwuine after the squadron’s exploits on the planet Thyferra, the fact that he referred to himself as Ooryl meant that he wasn’t very happy with his performance.
Three, report," Corran ordered. "Three, do you copy?"
"One, this is Four. We vaped two of them, but Gavin got hit by ion fire and had to eject. He’s down."
"I copy, Inyri. I’m incoming."
Pulling back on the joystick, Corran nosed his fighter over the Pulsar Skate, and then down into the dogfight.
The remaining pair of Halberds were using their ion cannons to batter down Inyri’s shields, which had already gone down to fifty percent.
Corran screamed in, his lasers sending scarlet pulses of light in at the two Halberds. They shied away from his guns and then spotted that Mirax had broken away from the fight and was starting to retreat from the engagement. One of them chased after the Skate whilst the other stayed to fight off Corran and Inyri.
The Halberd fired a salvo of ion bolts at Inyri’s ship, collapsed her shield, and fried her ejection circuits, causing her to punch out of her fighter. Her now out-of-control ship jetted forwards and glanced off the shields of the ship that had shot her down. The nose of Inyri’s ship crumbled and bent upon impact, but the less sturdy ship was sent spinning off at an angle.
Corran took it out with a quad blast that melted the cockpit and the extended cargo area behind it.
Whistler squealed loudly.
"The Skate’s been disabled? Well, that Halberd has got to blow it up, so there is still some hope left."
Corran flew in at his wife’s ship. But the final ship was not there.
"Whistler, where is -we’re losing shield power. What the...?" The ship had appeared in his aft arc and disabled him, sending blue ion tendrils snaking over his hull, shutting Whistler down in the process.
All he could do was watch the Halberd cruise in to melt the Skate and think: We’ve lost. He was wrong.
Ooryl‘s lopsided craft slid over the hull of the Pulsar Skate. The Gand launched a proton torpedo at the evidently surprised Halberd, the blue projectile detonating in an explosion that consumed the fighter.
"Scratch one birdie," Ooryl clicked, sounding amused.
Corran popped the canopy of the simulator pod, smiling to himself as he saw a tall, blonde haired woman exit the room. I think I can guess...one of the new Rogues, he thought to himself as he walked over to Mirax and Ooryl.
Copyright 2002 by Anthony Adler.
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