Life as a Stormpilot for the Imperial Remnant was not easy, thought Rex Calhoun as he began his third pass on the Rebel ship in his newly issued TIE Interceptor. The Interceptor's typical TIE design coupled with it's jumped up engines and high-powered laser ports made it essentially the fastest, most dangerous and equally agile fighter in the empire's arsenal, but also one of the hardest to control. If it wasn't hard enough being the only guy named 'Rex' in the entire galaxy, Calhoun caught himself thinking, he also had to deal with avoiding speeding his insanely tight-handling craft into the rebel targets, not to mention getting his ass blown to pieces over Endor by a lucky X-wing fighter or a speedy little A-wing.
"Jak, take the left shield generator section on that center ship, and I'll hit the right on my way out," The Fighter Captain ordered his unit members through his headset, "Henry? You come in with Timor after we've knocked out the shields and let 'em have it." The beeps of the commlinks in his ear set told him a second later the unit was behind him, but just as the formation was getting set a transmission cracked through.
"Hey boss?" It was Jak, Rex's second in command and good friend, "Timor just bit the stardust, sir, we're running out of pilots here."
"Damn it!" The Captain swore; they were too close to the Rebel command ship to pull off now without risking serious damage on the way out, so the Pilot changed his plan. "Okay, okay, Jak and me hit the shields, then Henry strafes the visual deck while I circle around to hit the engines. Jak? You cover me on my second run."
"Right, boss." Jak beeped in,
"Real risky business, lead; better hope Jak can cut it!" Henry laughed nervously.
"Cut the chatter, gentlemen; here we go!" Rex hit the Fighter's accelerators and felt the jolt of speed as he let loose with his blasters and strafed the Rebel cruiser's underbelly, watching the brilliant blue flashes of the ship's shield where his blasters made contact, finally hitting home as he rounded the underside and strafed the ship's right shield generator section, seeing in satisfaction the violent explosion caused by his run and the flicker of the shields to none as Jak took out the generator on the other side. Seconds later and just in time the cruiser's observatory deck exploded under Henry's rapid blasters and Rex yanked hard up and to the right on his Fighter's controls to bring him close enough to the failing Rebel vessel's backmost engines. As he squeezed off his last blaster rounds from the Interceptor's four rapid laser cannons the hull seemed to lurch dangerously in space as the bright blue engines erupted into flames. The explosions along the visual deck intensified as the destabilized engines detonated the back sections and the life support systems of the cruiser, culminating in a brilliant explosion which the three TIE Fighters sped from just in the nick of time.
"Good shooting, Jak; thanks for the cut in, Henry …" Rex crowed with pride, "Now let's get to work on those A-wings; our ties can't track their faster engines like we can."
"Sure thing, Boss; and some pretty fancy flying back there." Jak replied happily, his lithe fighter zooming off formation to engage a passing rebel A-wing. As Rex zeroed in on a speeding Rebel fighter he caught a glimpse of the imposing Death Star in the distance, hovering eerily and partially under construction over the Endor moon.
"Sure hope those Rebels brought insurance on their ships," Henry beeped in as his blasters caught an unfortunate A-wing, "Because that Death Star is a bit more operational than we let them on to."
As if on cue, the giant laser crater rumbled to life, the outlets on the rim jetting streams of green light into a bright ball of laser-hot energy over the center cannon.
"Uh oh," Rex was able to say before the center cannon shot through the energizing ball, beading out directly into a Rebel cruiser, annihilating the structure with ease which would otherwise have cost Rex a lot of his unit to bring down. Tearing his eyes away from the incredible display of Imperial might, the pilot swung his sights across the battle scene and picked out an X-wing with Rouge Squadron's insignia. "Get ready to paint me another 'X' on my wing, Jak, I'm on the Rouge!" And he whipped his agile craft after the slower, less maneuverable Rebel fighter. Arching suddenly down from above the Rebel, Rex's blasters tore relentlessly into the back hull, frying the R2 unit and shattering the exposed vitals of the fighter's upper back and engines. The fighter began to flame out erratically, it's pilot no doubt frantically searching his control panel for the coolant valve that wouldn't help with the damage Rex's cannons had done; the disabled craft spun wildly into a loitering Rebel cruiser, penetrating the shields around the visual deck and smashing into the command center, probably rendering the ship useless. "Yeah! Two for one; did you see that, Jak?" the Captain cheered, checking his display for Jak's location. "Jak?" He scanned the monitor again, tapping it absently with his gloved finger, thinking it must be broken; Jak's signal was dormant, meaning he was either landed or …
"Captain?" A voice clicked into his channel, it was Henry, "Captain Jak got clipped by an X-wing just a second ago; I was trying to cover him from up top, but the Rebel cut in from below; I never saw him coming." Henry explained in a pained voice.
"Jak's been … taken out, Ren?" the captain asked another pilot in his unit, not ready to believe his best mate had just ceased living.
"I'm afraid so, Captain." The voice came back to him, "I nabbed the X-wing who got him, but it was too late; his life support systems got fried and he burnt out a second later. We were on private formation channel." Rex's head sunk as he struggled to focus on staying alive himself.
"Boss?" Henry's voice spoke out nervously, "Where're you going, Rex?" He looked up, and indeed he was headed almost directly into the latest flood of X-wings taking off from one of the larger Rebel cruisers. "Talk to me, Captain."
"Relax, Henry," He said quietly into his headset, wringing his hands over his controls and easing up on the throttles, "I'm just going to give Rouge Squadron a little payback, I'll be right back." He zeroed in on the first of the X-Wings, whose four blaster cannons were blazing towards him in a hailstorm of laser-fire.
"Boss don't do this!" Henry told him, "There's a million of them, you'll hit a wall of …" But Rex had switched off his headset, letting loose on the approaching Rouge and feeling the rush of adrenaline as his much faster laser cannons shattered the small window and ripped through the entire front of the Rebel fighter; it exploded instantly. Breaking off to the lower right, Rex targeted the next X-wing, lasering the top two engines and sending the burning ship somersaulting off into space. Just as he was fixing his open sights on another Rouge, a rocking explosion shuddered his hull, throwing his aim off, but still landing a few rounds in two of the X-wings in their tight formation, one of them burning up instantly, and the other winging off wildly and heading back for it's mother-ship due to damage.
"Damn!" Rex cursed, looking wildly up in his cockpit for the fighter who'd clipped him, and checking his ship's damage report at the same time, while his multitasking hands pulled him into expert evasion tactics. His solar panel was hit on his right side, the wide, pointed wing burning freely in space. He'd lost two of his blaster cannons and his right engine was damaged badly, he noticed, as his hand controls began jerking erratically. "Shit, I'm going down!" He said, switching on his commlink again to the cries of his unit.
"What the hell happened, Captain? Where are you?"
"I see him; you're headed for the gravitational field of the Endor moon, boss, I'll come alongside and try and buffer the atmosphere!" Henry's voice reassured him, but they both knew it was useless; the Interceptors of the design they were flying were space-launched and designed, meaning once the ship entered a planet's atmosphere, the engines, (especially a damaged one,) would not be powerful enough to take the weight back out again.
"Hold that thought, Henry;" Rex replied, "I'm screwed, I know, I'll try and crash land near the base and get back up here if they've got any regular units down there, but it's useless to take two of us out; the unit needs you." He said, switching off his commlink again and buckling his extra crash-landing belts. He began making preparations for entering the atmosphere of Endor's wooded moon.