Damn…He's good.
Wedge Antilles gritted his teeth as pulled back on the control stick, his muscles reacting instinctively to the maneuver. His inertial compensator, as usual, was dialed back to 95% so he could feel his maneuvers. It was all part of situational awareness.
And I need every instinct right now. Laserfire hissed on his aft shield as he touched the etheric rudder pedals and twitched the stick to the left. The X-wing snaprolled out of its climb, leveling out on a reciprocal heading. Dive, climb, roll- a perfect Immelman turn. As he had expected, the TIE Interceptor behind him matched the maneuver perfectly, moving in for the kill.
Wedge smiled. With his left hand he chopped the throttle back to zero, then reversed thrust. The TIE, intent on closing, blasted past him before it could compensate. With another twitch of the stick, he centered the Imperial fighter in his crosshairs and fired.
At point blank range the quad burst shredded the agile fighter; then the twin ion engines exploded and turned the war machine into an incandescent ball of gas.
His momentum took him through the cloud. The fighter shook gently in the explosion's turbulence, but his shield prevented any debris from damaging the X-wing. He emerged into the clear and checked his status board for more targets, but only green icons were present.
"This is Red Two," he announced over the comm. "My scopes are clear."
A gravelly voice answered him. "Stand by, Red Two. More Imperial forces may be entering the area."
"As ordered." Wedge grinned in satisfaction. They'd thrown two wing pairs of Interceptors at him and he'd gotten them all. Clean sweep.
The grin disappeared as a section of space above him flashed white. Amidst a burst of telltale Cronau radiation, the angular form of a Lancer-class frigate emerged from hyperspace.
"Red Two, the third transport hasn't launched yet," the gravelly voice of Control informed him. "We need you to continue covering the escape route."
"Right," Wedge acknowledged, his heart heavy. I'm dead. The Lancer frigates were designed specifically to target starfighters and small craft. Sending a lone X-wing against the frigate was tantamount to suicide.
Even as the first antistarfighter lasers flashed out into space, Wedge was rolling and swinging to dodge. Punching his throttle back up to full, he flew down the length of the frigate, scattering fire along the ridgeline. His shots were absorbed harmlessly by the vessel's own powerful shields.
'Course, it doesn't matter if I survive this run as long as the transports get away. That ironic truth overshadowed what should have been a triumphant day. It also gave him an idea.
Might as well go out with a bang! He smiled at his morbid humor, then switched to proton torpedoes and hauled back on the stick. After his strafing run, he had run out front of the big starship. His loop brought him back around, flying directly towards the frigate's bridge at full military power. His finger tightened down on the trigger, launching two torpedoes. With his rate of closure as high as it was, the torpedoes exploded only a fraction of a second ahead of him.
Although unable to drop the shield, the torpedoes' impact was enough to cause a local breach that persisted for only a couple of seconds. Wedge's X-wing rocketed through the breach directly into the Lancer's bridge. He braced himself unconsciously for impact—
The fighter's canopy went black.
Wedge sighed and hit the button to release his restraints. With a hiss, the simulator canopy opened to expose the beet-red face of Flight-Lieutenant Garven Dreis.
"Antilles!" he roared. "My office. Right now!"
Mentally cringing, the young Rebel pilot nodded and worked quickly to undo the rest of the safety straps. He nearly jumped out of the cockpit and hurried after the squadron's commander. As they entered Dreis' office, the officer whirled on Wedge, sticking a finger into his chest.
"What the hell do you think you were doing?" he demanded.
Antilles straightened to a position almost comparable to military attention and cleared his throat. "Sir, it was my job to make sure the transports could escape," he explained. "My survival was not paramount, and my run on the frigate was in my opinion the most direct way of dealing with the threat it posed.
"Your survival was not paramount?" Dreis echoed incredulously. "So you're telling me that if, tomorrow, you were in that situation for real, you would do the same thing—a suicide dive on a Lancer." Dreis paused menacingly. "Because if that's true, I'm sure as hell not going to let you fly."
"Uh, no, sir," Wedge admitted, his eyes downcast. "I wouldn't do that for real."
"Then why did you do it in simulation!" Dreis demanded. "You know why we fly sims—we're practicing for the real deal! Everything we do in practice is recorded and analyzed so we know our strengths and weaknesses." He threw his hands up. "And you decided to just screw around for no good reason—wasting valuable training time!"
Wedge was caught. There really was no way he could make a reasonable excuse for his action. He was also starting to get angry himself at this treatment.
"You want to know why I did what I did?" he asked angrily. "Fine. I did that little maneuver because I was angry at the sim. I'd just vaped four interceptors—the best anyone had done today. And then you had to throw a whole frigate at me! When I'd already done what I was supposed to do! I knew there was no way out, so I made one."
Wedge was surprised at the defiance in his voice. He was angry, to be sure, but yelling at the squadron commander was unlikely to be beneficial in any way…
Dreis' expression, however, morphed from uncontrolled rage into a grim smile, full of irony. "Finally, I get the truth," he said. The flight-lieutenant gestured to a duraplast box doubling as a chair. "Sit down, Antilles."
Wedge, too surprised at this sudden turn of events to reply, settled wordlessly onto the crate.
Dreis circled around behind his desk and took a seat. Resting his elbows on the makeshift desk, he leaned forward. "Right now you're wondering what the hell just happened," he offered conversationally."
Wedge nodded, words still eluding him.
Dreis sighed. "The truth is what happened, Wedge. You stopped trying to weasel your way out of responsibility and just spoke your damned mind." Abruptly, he leaned back in his chair. "You're right! That sim was completely unfair! There was little you could have done. But—" he raised a finger as Wedge started to relax. "—your actions in response were worrisome for a couple of reasons."
"First of all, son, you gave up." Wedge started to protest but another gesture from Dreis cut him off. "You didn't try to fight the Lancer, or lead it away, or anything inventive. Your kamikaze attack might have worked—and I emphasize might—but you wouldn't be able to make a second go if things didn't work out, would you?"
His eyes bored into Wedge. "Secondly, once you saw that the sim was unfair, you thought to hell with it and decided to treat it as nothing more than a stupid game. You wanted to make your own little protest through your actions." He cleared his throat. "The problem with that is, life's unfair! Hell, you of anyone should know that! If the Imps jump us with a frigate or a Star Destroyer or whatever, are you going to comm them and complain about the unfairness of their strategy? That might make for a laugh!"
He shook his head. "Wedge. You've got the makings of a good pilot. You've got the skills, some of the training, but most importantly, the knack for it. You're light on experience, but that'll change if you stay with Red Squadron. But I can't have you flying if you can't take it seriously, or if your ego's going to get in the way of smart decision-making."
Wedge swallowed. Dreis hat hit home. I allowed myself to be offended by the ridiculousness of the simulation…I wanted to make my own impression. He looked down. "It won't happen again, sir," he murmured.
Smiling amusedly, Dreis rose and clapped his back. "I know. In the meantime, though, you did have the best run of the day, getting the TIEs and the Lancer. That should be enough to get you a drink in this place. The beating's over, Antilles, now get out of here."
"Yes, sir!" The young Rebel pilot stood and turned before walking out the door.
Dreis settled back into his chair and rolled his eyes. Kids.
I claim neither the Star Wars universe or the characters within as my own. This is simply for the enjoyment of readers.
I wanted to test the waters on Star Wars, find out what the fandom is like! So we'll se how this goes.
-TF