Time to turn off the music, he thought, as the warbling warning from his R2 unit informed him of the 10 seconds he had before the X-wing emerged into realspace. He clicked the playback unit off, adjusted his helmet, and took hold of the flightstick.
"Alright, Maestro," he acknowledged. Right on cue the stars came into view once again, first as long white streaks lancing past his snubfighter, then as the familiar pinpricks of light in the vast emptiness of space when the fighter snapped back to sublight speeds. Borath would have found himself gazing at those pinpricks of light, had he not known that some of them weren't supposed to be there, and that he had about a minute before they tried to blow him apart. "Rock and roll," he murmured to himself, flicking the switch at the left-hand side of his cockpit to open the craft's s-foils. Opening, they gave the X-wing its eponymous X shape and activated the four Taim & Bak laser cannons, one at each tip of the X. And I'm gonna need 'em, he thought.
The out-of-place dots of light, which were turning more a grey colour with every passing moment, were mines. Borath really hated clearing minefields, and this one had to go before he could destroy the communications satellites that they were protecting. Mines were small, vaguely star-shaped objects with intimidating spikes. They were hard to hit, and they fired at you. Not good news for fighter pilot who wanted to stay alive in time to make his next paycheque. Knowing that he wouldn't need his speed for much longer, Borath flipped the levers controlling power distribution. Shield recharge level to full, laser power pumped into shields and recharge up to full.
Determined to get the first hit, he targeted the nearest mine, checked that his lasers were set to fire independently, and started to line up the mine. The targeting reticle started to flicker green; he wasn't quite lined up but he opened fire anyway. Trying to get a clean shot, he saw the first green laser bolts streak out to meet his own red ones. His throat went dry as he saw just how many there were. The targeted mine exploded, but his fighter rocked under the fire of the first salvo from the remaining mines.
His shields flared and Maestro shrieked as only terrified R2 units can. He had no choice. A quick flick sent energy from the recharging lasers into his damaged shields and he began his crazy dance. Twisting and rolling the X-wing around its central axis he started to dodge the incoming lasers. Volley followed volley as he swooped in on the outermost mines, his movements not betraying his fear. Frantic manoeuvring was no substitute for slower, more deliberate motions, he had found. By the time the mines had fired at his last position he had moved to a new one, only to rotate back to avoid the retargeted laser bolts. Borath chuckled to himself. "My turn," he muttered at the minefield.
Bringing up the closest mine he opened up once more. The mine exploded, but its dying shot hit him, along with some aimed at him by its neighbours. He cycled his targeting scanner, and swung to port for the next one. A line, he realised, they're arranged in straight lines! Just a shame he'd started in the middle of one. He blasted straight down, his finger held down on the trigger. Mine after mine exploded, and only Maestro's keening shriek made him check his shield status; it was below fifty percent front and almost non-existent at the rear of the craft. Panic started to creep in. He dropped laser power into shields and swung around to face the next line of mines. He took out the first one, cycled his scanner, and noticed that the targeted mine was nearly a klick away.
"Maestro, the one in front of me!" he tried to say, but only got as far as "Maes..." before a well-placed shot penetrated his shields and caused a small explosion. "Sithspawn! Maestro, what was that?!" He glanced briefly at his screen for the translation of his R2's diagnosis. Scanner was down. He almost laughed at the irony, but was too busy weaving through the never-ending hail of incoming fire and hoping that he could survive for the next 44 seconds. OK, we'll do this the hard way then, he thought to himself, as he rounded on the offending mine that was pumping laser fire into him at close range. It exploded, giving him long enough to spot the next one - high and right - without being fired at by the mines that were now trying to keep a fix on him. Who needs targeting scanners anyway?! he grinned to himself as he took out mine after mine.
A triumphant blurble from behind him told him that the scanner had been fixed. "Yes! Maestro, nearest mine, now!" The target came up, Borath curved round to starboard to meet it, and yelled in panic as the mine appeared less then a deci-klick in front of him. He hauled the stick back and to port, and heard the undercarriage scrape the top of the spiky booby trap. On the way back around he dispatched two more and then took great satisfaction in killing the one that he'd almost crashed into. Weaving, dodging, spinning and shooting back at the lances of green fire, he finally came upon the last mine and wiped it out with one shot. He smiled grimly, and targeted the satellites. There seemed to be three groupings of five, and none of them were armed. Excellent. Thirty seconds were all he needed to eliminate them, flying through the explosion of the final commsat, laughing out loud in pure delight. Maestro let out a vituperative shriek.
"Oh, stop whinging about the damage to your paintwork and learn to have fun, you stripy tin can!" Borath chuckled, and then sighed as the adrenaline rush cleared and he realised how much he ached. Too much flying, not enough sleep. "OK pal, let's go home. That's enough excitement for one mission." The longsuffering R2 warbled his agreement, as it cut in the automatic piloting mode to prepare for the hyperspace jump home. The s-foils closed, Borath sat back, and watched the stars spin across the front of the X-wing, knowing that Maestro was lining them up on their exit trajectory. He'd just closed his eyes when Maestro moaned despairingly. He snapped alert again. A frigate had just jumped in-system, right into their path. "Sithspawn!" he cursed again, hammering the side of the cockpit.
He quickly clicked the manual override, but they were already too close to the frigate. It had opened fire, and the shields flared so bright that he could barely see. "Maestro!" he screamed. "Dump everything into the shields, and get us moving at top speed, right now!" He cut off his astromech's next whistling query, "No, never mind the Force-forsaken s-foils, we just need to get out of here! Get ready with the hyperdrive!" Borath tried desperately to get back into his weaving rhythm, but his heart was pounding so fast he could barely breathe. Salvo after salvo of starship-class laser fire slammed into his weakening fighter.
The frigate now filled the viewport, green streaks were everywhere, the lone X-wing spiralled under the thin neck of the starship and then screamed upward, finally on the other side of the monstrosity. Shields were all but gone. "Maestro, let's go, now!" The R2 unit warbled its affirmation, and then screamed as a laser bolt hit its casing and shorted its circuits. Borath cursed again and reached desperately for the manual hyperspace controls even as the frigate's lasers ripped through the engine housings and ignited the fuel tanks. Everything went white and then darkness descended.