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Somewhere in the galaxy, there was a refresher chamber, squeaky-clean and populated by one Kyle Katarn, half-naked, fully bearded, and clad only in a bath towel.
'Helloooo, ladies. Look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn't me, but if he stopped using ladies' scented body wash and switched to Old Space, he could smell like he's me. Look down, back up, where are you? You're on a Skipray Blastboat with the man your man could smell like. What's in your hand, back at me. I have it, it's a space oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now ur-diamonds. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Space and not a lady. I'm on a dewback.
Old Space. Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo.
Wes, Hobbie, and Tycho were still panicking when the message came in on their instrument panels. Wes stopped screaming to read it aloud.
'"As you know, it is perfectly possible to take down a Star Destroyer in less than two minutes with the correct craft and armament, and with a little bit of skill. ST-166 will now demonstrate that using a B-Wing. You will each attempt the same against the Star Destroyer, Gravitas Shortage, whose weapons are currently set to simulation mode. After viewing ST-166's attempt, you are to dock with Gravitas Shortage, where production crew members will set your weapons, shields, and systems to fit this simulated skirmish as well. You will be scored based on time. If you successfully destroy the Star Destroyer in the sim skirmish, you earn one point for every second under ST-166's time and lose one for every second over. If you are shot down, you lose a thousand." Oh. Well, alright then.'
Hobbie breathed a sigh of relief. 'Well, we're not dead space meat, then. Not literally.'
'No,' said Tycho, 'but our scores are probably going to be deep in the pits after this.'
Minutes later, another starfighter exited hyperspace behind the three presenters: a Slayn & Korpil B-wing starfighter painted a stark white, flown by none other than the show's tame racing pilot. As the B-wing entered maximum weapons range, Gravitas Shortage opened fire, filling the space around it with hails of weakened green laser bolts. From its hangar bays, it began to deploy its fighter complement, all set to old Imperial specs-no shields, no life support, no hyperdrive. One such flight of TIEs attempted to intercept the B-wing, only to be 'vaped' moments later by ST-166's cannons. Dodging and weaving through the storm of laser fire, the B-wing closed in on the Star Destroyer's shield generators and opened fire. The fighter's first attack run left the starboard shield generator covered in a layer of paint from training torpedoes, while the second left the port generator in a similar state. ST-166 administered the coup de grace shortly after, taking his B-wing into a tight turn, cutting his throttle, and pelting the bridge with simulated laser fire. In the space of fifty-eight seconds, it was all over.
Tycho let out an impressed whistle. 'Bloody hell, that was a perfect run, or at least as close to it as anyone will ever get.'
'Yeah, yeah,' grumbled Wes. 'Alright, gents, let's get our fighters sorted out.'
One hour later, Janson was first on the chopping block. His fighter began ten kilometers away from the ImpStar Deuce. On his display, the countdown began. He double-checked his systems to make sure everything important was functional. Three. Two. One.
Maxing out his throttle, Wes attempted to close to maximum cannon range as the Star Destroyer's guns lit up. Of course, doing that was easier said than done.
'Now, viewers,' he explained, 'the TIS Zeta 19 is a solid craft for atmo. Decent hull armor, engines that can take you to a respectable 950 kilometers an hour in standard atmospheric conditions, a pair of forward-facing laser cannons, all built by Corporate Sector Authority members. Of course, this thing also normally requires a gunner in addition to the pilot, so I had to do some quick rewiring and reprogrammi-OH SWEET MERCIFUL GALAXY!'
He wrenched his stick to the side, barely dodging an oncoming TIE. As its wingman entered Wes' crosshairs, he pulled the trigger, disabling the TIE with a low-powered laser burst.
'Now, uh, what was I saying? Oh, right. I had to reprogram the lasers to operate from the pilot's seat. Also had to replace the original pilot's stick with the gunner's. I can do some minor targeting with the turret function, but it's like flying a BTL-S3 Y-wing without a copilot.'
Weaving through streams of laser fire, Wes made his first attack run on the Star Destroyer's starboard shield generator. System readouts told him that he'd only done minimal damage to its armor.
'And to make things worse, this thing is a CSA design! A cheap one, at that! Its engines are complete rubbish in space because dust and debris get in everywhere after a few days of flying! The handling is, quite frankly, crap, and it feels like space molasses climbing up a hill in the middle of a cold night on Hoth. And to make things worse, my lasers seem to have lost their punch because my shield generator's eating up all the power! Honestly, I have no idea why Corporate Sector Espos bother with these rickety pieces of junk when they could shell out the money for X-Wings, like what CorSec used to do! It's mind-boggl-whoa, took a bad hit there!'
Indeed, a single glancing shot from the Star Destroyer's point defense turrets had taken the little Zeta 19's shields down from full to forty-five percent. From the Star Destroyer's bridge, Hobbie and Tycho winced as they watched the laser graze the little Interceptor on a camera feed.
'Oof,' Hobbie said, 'that will hurt. You think he's got enough juice to actually recharge his shields and power his engines and guns?'
'Oh, I doubt that,' Tycho replied. 'See, at least our fighters were built with shields in mind. The Zeta 19 didn't have shields as standard.'
'Exactly,' Hobbie remarked. 'It's only a matter of time before he's blasted out of the void, now isn't it? At least we'll have actual survivability in space.'
'Yeah. And knowing Janson, he'll probably be yakking on about the wonders of turrets and rear gunners.'
'You see, viewers,' Wes continued, 'this fighter has what the other two don't-turrets! And as an experienced rear gunner, I, Wes Janson, will demonstrate to you the wonders of 360-degree targeting!'
Passing the Star Destroyer's command tower, Wes traversed the Zeta 19's guns, aiming them rearward and maintaining his rate of fire against the ship's shield generators. Damage readouts put him close to halfway to taking down the starboard generator, and after a mere two minutes. Outstanding. He would have kept at it, too, if the point defenses hadn't hit him directly.
'What?' Wes tapped at his display. 'Weapons and controls are-power's just gone out of my guns. What could possibl-Oh. Oh. Dammit.'
Hobbie and Tycho gave their comrade a space golf clap as he dismounted from his rustbucket. Wes dropped down onto the deck, removed his helmet, and accepted a bottle of water from one of the production crew.
'Negative one thousand,' Hobbie said. 'You lasted two minutes, five seconds.'
Wes grimaced. 'Well, it's not bad given the fighter I had on hand.'
'Would have been better if you'd gotten a proper spacecraft instead of an atmospheric rig,' Hobbie pointed out.
'Oh, right, like your C-73 will actually perform better than mine. That thing's ancient, Hobbie. It'll never survive the run.'
The argument continued for some time until Hobbie remembered that he was up next. Dragged forcibly into his cockpit, Hobbie and Wes continued their exchange until the canopy had finally sealed.
'Alright,' Hobbie said, adjusting the cockpit camera, 'let's do this. Unlike Wes, I've picked an honest, proper starship, one actually cleared for void flight with the gear to prove it.'
Something beeped in the cockpit.
'Aside from that one minor hull breach. I'm leaking a little oxygen there, but I should have more than enough to live through the test. I hope.'
Three. Two. One.
'Nyargh! Ack!' Hobbie put his Tracker through a series of erratic maneuvers, corkscrewing and sideslipping to avoid the attacking TIEs and incoming lasers. 'Hurgh! Almost took a hit there, but I'm doing just fine! Although I would very much like to go home now, really! Ah! Frakking kamikaze TIE nearly sheared my starboard wing off! Are these things piloted by suicidal droids or something?
Taking his craft in a diagonal path 'above' the Destroyer's command tower, Hobbie inverted the C-73, dove, and looped back to strafe both shield generators on his attack run. Setting his lasers to dual-fire, he held down the trigger and walked his shots across the tower's length, scoring palpable hits. His attack run, however, ended with a jarring impact to his shields.
'Oh no, that's taken me down to fifty-five percent,' he deadpanned, 'whatever shall I do? Certainly not divert discretionary power to my shield recharge with my void combat-rated power plant, am I right? Take that, Janson!'
Of course, the C-73's decrepit wiring and components made even that a difficult task. Power trickled in at a glacial pace, restoring shield energy at a whopping one percent every ten seconds.
'Now, that's unimpressive to you military pilots and to you modern starship enthusiasts,' Hobbie admitted, 'but back in the day, this thing in its prime could recharge its shields at about the same rate as the Z-95 Headhunter could. Well, this thing isn't in its prime. Far from it. In fact, I think I just lost another one of my armor plates.'
Hobbie veered away and decided to try a different approach, orienting his fighter so that the Star Destroyer now pointed 'down' from his point of view.
'The wonderful thing about fighting Star Destroyers is, I think, their distinct lack of rear-facing weaponry. Other than a few piddly point defense turrets, the ImpStar Deuce really doesn't have much junk in the trunk aside from its engines. Pretty normal for fighters, but a downright fatal weakness on a capital ship if used right.'
Sure enough, said weakness was exploited well enough to whittle the shield generators' hull ratings to zero, allowing Hobbie to try for a finishing blow. In the words of a certain Jedi Master, however, 'Do or do not. There is no try.' Hobbie did not. A TIE Interceptor vaped him moments after he disabled the second generator sphere.
Wes' expression was one of sheer, unadulterated smugness. The trademark smirk had been passed down the Janson line for generations, and Wes had made good use of it, much to Hobbie's chagrin.
'According to my chrono, I still lived longer than you did, dumbass.'
'Yeah, you did. Two minutes, ten.'
Hobbie whooped half-heartedly. 'Alright, Tycho, you're up next.'
In his Dianoga's cockpit, Tycho hummed happily, carefully adjusting his air conditioning vents so they were all perfectly aligned. 'As you can tell, ladies and gentlemen, I've done this properly. The key to taking down a Star Destroyer is not speed or a small target profile or omnidirectional targeting or whatever the hell a C-73 Tracker has. The B-Wing was designed to take down capital ships and it's got none of those. What it does have is decent maneuverability and very good durability, something my fighter has as well. The Dianoga has acceleration and a turning radius about equal to those of a Y-wing, though it does have weaker shields, armor, and weapons. In fact, it was actually considered rather overpowered for a non-military starfighter, which is why you often saw so many of these in pirate and mercenary hangars in the last days of the Old Republic. All that because it was built by Koensayr Manufacturing, the same blokes responsible for the venerable Y-wing line and-'
A TIE zipped past his cockpit.
'Oh, bloody hell, how long has the timer been going?'
'Fifteen seconds,' said Wes on the comm.
'Alright, chaps, let's do this for good old Koensayr.'
Setting his throttle to full, Tycho focused discretionary power on his shields and performed evasive maneuvers, twitching the control stick ever so minutely to maintain his targeting brackets' position on the shield generators.
'Unfortunately,' Tycho said, utterly calm, 'since this was built by Koensayr, its controls still feel quite sluggish. I've set my stick to max sensitivity and it takes about as long to respond to stimuli as Wes after a Spacey's take-out run. There's also the fact that its firepower is not quite up to snuff, as I'd taken out two of my laser cannons and completely lack explosive ordnance. If you've flown an A-wing or a TIE before, chances are that you'd probably rather take on the galaxy in a Reliant Mynock than fly something from Koensayr, and I don't blame you. It responds so damn slowly that in the time it takes to turn this thing ninety degrees, I could have booked a shuttle to Coruscant, finished a twelve-course meal, and watched a full run of Springtime for Palpatine.'
Despite the ship's shortcomings, the old Alderaanian still managed to avoid all but a few glancing hits, tanking blows to his shields that would have disqualified Wes and Hobbie many times over. His stripped-down armament proved to be only a minor handicap as he slowly, leisurely ran laser fire down the command tower's length, disabling the shield generators on his third attack run. At three minutes, Tycho veered away from the Destroyer's aft and coasted in a wide arc back towards Gravitas Shortage's fore end to fire at the bridge. Just before his hull readout hit zero, Tycho landed the killing shot.
When Tycho returned to the Star Destroyer's hangar, he came out singing.
'Aaand now it's Springtime for Emprah and Coruscant
Jundland's a fun land once more!
Springtime for Emprah and Coruscant
Watch out, Jedi, we're going on tour!'
Hobbie and Wes looked at the camera droid with abject horror.
'Horton Salm,' Wes said, 'if you're watching this, we do not know this man and have never known him.'
'Yes,' added Hobbie, 'unlike that, er, that guy, we aren't Imperial agents in disguise.'
Tycho rolled his eyes. 'Alright, let's get on with it. How did I do?'
'Three minutes...ten seconds,' Hobbie said. 'Negative one hundred thirty-two points in all.'
'Oh, wonderful,' Tycho said, surprised that he'd done so well in such a sluggish craft.
'And on that bombshell,' Hobbie exclaimed, 'back to the studio!'
Thunderous applause, catcalls, and jeers from the audience greeted the intermission in the day's antics. Wes, crisp and clean in business casual, stood in front of the holoprojector that had just aired the Star Destroyer battle.
'But before we continue with this episode's silliness,' said Wes, 'it's time for our Star in a Reasonably Priced Fighter. Tonight's Star has served since the days of the old Rebellion, back when our Galactic Alliance was merely a little X-Wing Alliance of sorts, still fighting to restore the Republic. In fact, he was even on the crew of the Millennium Falcon during the Battle of Endor!'
'Is it Lando Calrissian?' Hobbie asked from the edge of the crowd.
'Nope.'
'Airen Cracken?' queried Tycho.
'Nope. I'll give you a hint. He's the current CEO of a very successful transport service called Twin Suns.'
Silence. Appropriate, really, given the guest's rather reticent nature.
Wes put on his trademark smirk yet again. 'Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mister Ace Azzameen!'
