ya know, this has the first dogfight i've written from start to finish in literal years. hope it's any good? yall decide
The hum of the powerplant beneath her wobbled and wavered, still unsteady. She knew part of that was due to the fighter sitting at idle, something no fighter was ever keen on, but there was something off in it as well. The hyperdrive unit was also not spooling up, something she could audibly discern.
Come on girl! All the connections are right! What are you complaining for!? She groaned, flopping against the hull. She had been fighting with the hyperdrive for over a week now, completely rebuilding the device. It could easily be that the engine was not producing enough power for it, as she had both of the replacement engines running at maximum output right now. It would give the normally slow and clunky fighter an edge in a fight as most pilots wouldn't expect the massive fighter to move like she was going to. But it could be that the engines were pulling too much power.
She let out a sigh as she listened to the vibration of the fighter for several more moments, just before hopping up to check the computers in the cockpit. A task made tricky by half the armor plates being currently scattered about the hanger space, exposing the delicate components of the fighter that she had to walk across to reach the cockpit.
"Kyra! Is that fighter ready to roll!?" Holden shouted from below her, barely audible over the unmuffled engine noise. He was running to the Y-wing, stopping close enough to her to shout more comfortably.
"Sorta! She's completely out of tune and the hyperdrive is still down? And what about the nicknames?"
"Maddie got snagged by someone! Get that fighter cobbled together, she can get docked to the Redeemer for the flight!"
"What!?" her heart leapt into her throat, her mind kicking out of comprehensible thought.
"You heard me! Roy and Mandy are trying to find her, I'm getting the X-wings prepped and ready to launch! You are flying Maddie's, got it!?"
"Uh… yes sir!" she scrambled to shut the engine down, calling out to several of the droids she had been using to help her to start reattaching armor plates. She was close to running as she could get back to the powerplant, making several rapid adjustments she knew where needed. Once done, she left the rest to the droids, leaping off the hull to lightly land into a roll, before running for the Redeemer.
It didn't take her long to throw a flight rig over her tank top and grab the flight helmet she had, sprinting right back outside to clamber up into Madelyn's X-wing. The fighter easily purred to life at her command, stuffing the helmet on over her hair. Off to her right, she saw the droids putting the last bolts on the Y-wing, mostly back together now. "Uh, R-Five, tell the old C-1 with the Y-wing to get it fired up and slave it to our controls, alright!?" she was thinking quickly, not really sure why she had spat the order out herself. It was just instinct for her.
As she was running her pre-flight checks, Holden rushed off the Redeemer, in his full flight suit, to leap into his own X-wing. A moment later and his voice was crackling through her helmet. "Send the Y-wing into town! Astromech should be able to handle that, right?"
"Easily, you hear that C-One fifty-six?" she barely remembered to key her comms when she responded. She got a beeping trill in return, the Y-wing's engines sputtering to life before the heavy fighter shakily slid into the air.
"Good, Marines should be spooling up the Redeemer any second now. Follow me out. Roy, Mandy, you two hearing me?" Holden's fighter raised slightly, the ladder still hooked to it's cockpit, lifting off the ground with it. He raised his landing struts before gently rolling slightly, deftly knocking the ladder off before he raised away and lowered his canopy. Kyra barely managed to do the same, not an operation she ever trained to do. If anything, flying a fighter was an informal training she had as a mechanic, just so she could test the craft.
"Loud and clear Captain."
"Good. When the Y-wing gets to town, mount up and get airborne. I doubt that bounty hunter is still in anchor head."
"Yes sir. Eta?"
"Fifteen mics, out." Holden left a clear gap in his words before continuing. "Kyra, we're going to take long arcs around the city. Keep eyes out for any ship's trying to break atmo, sensors at full power, good copy?"
"Yes Sir!" his engines flared as his fighter leapt away, Kyra angling a different direction before doing the same.
"Sir, got a sensor hit, looks like an old R-42, trying to break atmo!" Krya's voice spilled out of the comms of the speaker in the old Y-wing Roy now found himself in, as he was still strapping into the seat.
"Good copy Sparks, I got it too. Bucket, you up yet?"
Roy scrambled to find the button to key the mic, the panel still with a few screens not mounted right. "Uh, not yet, this thing's janky as hell and I don't have a helmet!"
"Sorry about that, I did my best! You won't have hyperdrive right now either!"
"I like the E-webs though! They zeroed?" Ordo pipped in from the gunner's seat behind him.
"Not at all!"
"Fun!" Ordo sounded oddly excited about that.
"Give me a heading and we'll be right behind you." Roy closed the canopy just before raising the fighter into the air, the crowd of people watching them scurrying away as the they were blasted with engine exhaust.
"Oh-two-seven. Careful, she won't be as fast as an x-wing, but she's no standard y-wing."
Roy didn't respond, fighting to keep the fighter stable as he raised the landing gear. The engines were groaning and sputtering on him, the fighter drifting several meters back and forth. Jeez Kyra, are you trying to get us killed in this thing!?
Roy shook his head, releasing the single X-wing style control yoke to slam the throttle forward. There was a moment that the engines coughed, only for him to be slammed back into the seat, the fighter rapidly accelerating as the engine noise suddenly stabilized. The craft was still tremoring, but it was much more stable now. "Sparks, how out of tune is this thing?!"
"Uh, I just made some quick guessed adjustments based on the engine noise!? Is it bad?"
"Not the worst, but she's shaking a good bit."
"Prolly have the engine alignment off. We can fix it later."
"Get off comms you two! I'm coming up on the bandit now!"
Alright, lets hope this plays out well! Roy gently banked the fighter onto the heading they called, simultaneously checking as many of the readouts as he could. Several systems seemed to be spazzing, having to smack the diagnostic screen several times just to get an image to display. But the weapons and shield arrays all came up perfectly, even the sensors and targeting computer working fine.
"Test firing these E-webs." A moment after Ordo spoke, twin streams of red energy blasts ripped out over the top of the fighter, dropping off to the right of the craft before burning out a couple of clicks away. "Ouch, no kidding on not being zeroed. Should be straight now." Roy just shrugged, not bothering with responding to her.
"Bandit's confirmed hostile. I say again, Bandit confirmed hostile." Holden's voice spilled from the speaker. "Sparks, watch your shots, don't hit it, just try to force it to the ground!"
"I'm trying sir!"
Damn it! we could really use a corvette right now! Roy shook his head, seeing that whatever was happening was slowly climbing skyward. It made him be slowly angling his nose upward as well, the sky slowly beginning to transition from blue to black. Annnd I really hope these canopy seals are good!
"This is Redeemer to Y-wing, we're coming up on your portside. We'll be on trail." One of the marines voices spilled through the speakers, knowing they were flying the freighter.
"All birds, be advised, bandit has broken atmo, I say again, bandit has broken atmo! Won't be long till they jump to hyperspace! We need to stop them!" Holden's voice rose substantially, Roy not blaming him a bit. If the bounty hunter managed to escape, they were never seeing Stodel again.
"Jai, get ready, I'm breaking for orbit, see if we can't get scanners on this!" Roy spoke into the intercom for the fighter as he suddenly pitched up, making sure the throttle was still maxed out. After a few moments, the sky had turned into the full velvety black of space, filled with the pinpricks of thousands of stars. With it, several sensor contacts appeared. The two x-wings were popping friendly IFF signals, chasing a third unknown contact.
"Sir, my Astromech is getting a codded signal… it looks like a hyperspace coordinates?" Krya's confusion was clear even over the crackling radio system.
The third blip suddenly disappeared from the sensor, Roy letting out a curse as Holden's voice spilled over the radio. "Damn it! they just jumped to hyperspace!" there was a pause for several moments before Holden spoke again. "What channel did you get these coordinates from?!"
"Uh, R-Five is saying it was on a pilot recovery band. Alliance comms protocols."
"Hell yeah, that's gotta be Stodel! All ships, get a course to those coordinates spooled up, Sparks, you and I should be able to outrun an old starchaser in hyperspace, lets get there and prep an ambush, Redeemer, Bucket, follow along behind and let's hope we can catch her!"
"Affirmative Cappy, standing by for the Redeemer." Just after Roy responded, the two x-wings disappeared from sensors, leaving him as the only ship holding orbit. Damn it, I hope this wasn't some sort of decoy!
"Well, Hello Hollis Prime!" Akira did her best to stretch in the cramped cockpit of her R-42, having spent the better part of a day in it. Thankfully, Hollis Prime was not far from Tatooine, and only a parsec or so off the Corellian Run hyper lane. But traveling there in a fighter with a class two hyperdrive was crappy, to say the least.
"Great. Never wanted to be back here." She heard her captive grumble from behind her, the intercom set to pick up anything her prisoner said. Unless she decided to turn it off.
"Shouldn't have pissed off the governor then!" Akira let out a soft chuckle, checking the puck again to make sure she inputted the comms code properly. "Governor Darras, this is a representative of a certain guild bringing you a present." She smirked at her joke, knowing most of the empire viewed bounty hunting, and it's guild, as not much better than criminals.
A warning bleep blared through her cockpit a moment later. "Bounty hunter, I want confirmation you have my prize. Move your ship to these coordinates and power down to be boarded." The authoritative voice was crisp and clear, something only high end comms systems could produce.
"Roger that, I will be there in…" she quickly plugged the coordinates sent with the transmission into her nav-computer. "Five minutes. You know I just have a small snub-fighter. No need for boarding, if you have a hanger, I can land just fine!" she smirked, just excited to be so close to being paid again.
"Move to the coordinates and power down to be boarded. We have no need of you landing."
Thirty thousand imperial credits? I'll be living pretty for the rest of the year off that! She turned the volume back up on her music as she adjusted her course toward the coordinates. It didn't bother her in the slightest that the imperials were being so pushy with her. Namely, because most clients that wanted to pick the bounty up in person rather than through the guild had some weird rule or another about the handoff. Weird was normal in this business for her. Once she was at the location, she brought her fighter to a controlled drift, shutting down the main engines.
"At the coordi-" she was cut off as a small imperial warship dropped out of hyperspace just a click away from her, bearing down on her. She wasn't any kind of expert in ships, but she knew it was one of their smaller ships, but shared the angular design of a star destroyer. "Good to see you gentleman. Ready to transfer the prisoner and receive payment!" she crossed her arms, waiting patiently for a response. Only to realize one of the deck cannons was swiveling toward her ship.
She slammed her throttle forward, having completely forgotten she had shut the engines down. Her heart stopped at that realization, knowing a ship grade turbolaser would easily vaporize her fighter.
This is it, isn't it? She was scrambling to turn the engines on when a bright orange streak lit up her vision, detonating in a huge fireball on the ship's turbolaser battery. The origin of the streak was one of the dark grey and red x-wings that had been chasing her over Tatooine, it's wing mate firing a burst of red laser fire at the cruiser.
"This is Captain Holden of the Rebel Alliance to whoever the hell you are! Get that fighter moving if you want to live!" a male voice crackled across the comms, the laser fire currently ripping away from the starfighters striking freshly raised shields. Several green laser blasts ripped away from gunports on the cruiser, the remaining turbolaser turning for the rebel fighters. At the same time, four Tie fighters dropped from the split nose of the cruiser and the two side docking ports to accelerate away from the ship.
"Well, shit." She dropped her eyes from the fight beginning to unfold, instead focusing on getting her fighter moving.
Kyra jammed the yoke forward, then yanked back on it, diving her fighter just before popping back up. It allowed her to narrowly dodge first a linked blast from one of the Tie fighters, then a barrage of cannon fire from the Arquitens class cruiser currently firing at her and the captain. She immediately juked and rolled as soon as she had pitched, the enemy fighter's fire ripping past her once more. "Captain! I can't shake this guy!"
"Just hold on! I can't get a clear line on him with that cruiser lighting us up!"
Kyra shuddered, trying to keep juking and dodging her ship, relying entirely on instinct for where to move the craft. Somehow, despite only some rudimentary flight courses and some experience with freighters, she was staying just clear of the enemy fire. Mostly. Several green bolts had struck her fighter, but the shields were holding.
Damn it! why couldn't we have stopped them on Tatooine! She couldn't help that thought as she looked back through the narrow pane toward her rear. She could only see the Astromech behind her head, not even sure why she bothered. Orange light burst in the black of space around the R-5's head, marking an explosion. A check of her sensors confirmed her thought, the tie fighter being nothing but scrap. But who shot that? Was it friendly fire from the cruiser!?
"Who ever is flying my x-wing, you better not scratch it!" Stodel's voice suddenly erupted from the comms lines, the R-42 on her scanners finally moving. "Bounty hunter unlocked her turret for me, so you better thank me later!"
"How about I thank you now! Glad to have you with us Goofball!" Kyra made sure her comms were set to an open frequency before she spoke, swinging her fighter around to engage a tie chasing the older fighter.
As soon as she got a weapons lock on it, the tie started juking and dodging, trying to shake her lock. She fired several bursts of unlinked fire at it to no avail, the pilot easily keeping her from placing an accurate shot. A moment later and her fighter was rocked by a green blast, alarms ringing out as the shields failed to fully stop the shot and damage was being reported by the system.
"I'm hit! I don't think it broke armor though!" Kyra juked off the tie she was chasing, redirecting all of her remaining shield power to the rear as one of the other tie fighters had snaked onto her tail.
"Captain Holden! I don't think we can win this fight! We need to run!" An unfamiliar female voice with a thick accent was in her ear now, only able to guess this was the voice of the bounty hunter piloting the R-42.
"Agreed. Goofball, get her fighter on our channels so we can stop transmitting in the open!"
"On i-" Maddie's voice was cut off just as Krya's view swung around to the R-42. A green laser from the cruiser ripped into the back half of the fighter, pretty well ignoring the shields to send it spiraling through space, and completely unpowered.
"MADELYN! Come in, now! Maddie!" The captain's voice brought pain to Kyra's ear, herself wanting to scream into her radio.
As much as Kyra wanted to follow the doomed fighter, to check if her friend was alright, the green laser blasts ripping dangerously close to her forced her away, just barely keeping the x-wing ahead of the deadly energy.
"If you can hear this, my ship is a totally dead! No weapons, no engines, life support is failing! I don't know if your pilot is still alive!" the new voice spoke again, filled with fear.
An alarm rang in her fighter, this one denoting a hyperspace jump out signature. A moment later and another friendly blip had appeared on her scanners, a few clicks from the frantic fight.
"Bucket to Captain, do you-" she recognized Roy's voice on the radio, his voice only stopping for a moment. "detaching and engaging!"
"Three tie fighters and an Arquitens? You are just a bad luck magnet, aren't you Roland!"
Roy shook his head as he tilted the fighter's nose down and away from the Redeemer and jammed the throttle forward. It had taken most of the trip, but he had managed to get the fighter to display avionics, sensor, and weapons data to his commando helmet on the journey there. "No kidding Jai. Get ready, we're going to clear Kyra's tail so she can help the captain down those ties, then hit the snot out of that Arquitens."
"Awwwl, you just wanna save your girlfriend!"
"Jaaaai!"
"Hey, you can't help a gal being a little jealous!"
Roy rolled his eyes, setting his guns into manual as he angled all of his shields front. He wanted to take a deep breath to settle his nerves, but found the moment he thought he was about to be going into a fight, his fear and trepidation of it being a dogfight vanished, replaced with excitement.
After he crossed roughly five clicks from the cruiser, warning alarms started off key blaring in the cockpit, green weapons fire starting to lance away from the ship. Several shots burst against the shields, rocking the fighter.
"Uhhh, Roland! Ya know, maybe you should try, I don't know, EVADING THE ENEMY FIRE!?"
"We're fine Jai, just hang onto your helmet!" he smirked, keeping an eye on the shields as he angled onto an intercept for Kyra's fighter. Despite the shots hitting the shields, they were holding quite well. Once he was within a click or so of the Tie chasing Krya, he started firing paired laser blasts, missing with several before he managed to connect with one. It was more than enough to turn the unshielded fighter into floating scrap.
"Sparks, you're clear, go help the captain mop up the Tie's, we got the cruiser!"
"Uh, soldier boy, one of those Tie's you want her to mob up? He's angling in behind us!" the twin E-webs started firing, Roy only able to faintly hear them through the hull of the ship.
"Well, keep it off us! Cruiser is the bigger threat!" He rolled and pitched the heavy fighter toward the cruiser, the throttle still maxed out. Without bringing up the targeting computer, he switched to his torpedoes and set them to dual fire. He only got time to pulse the trigger twice before he was forced to break off, about to slam into the hull of the Arquitens. All four slammed into the bow shielding, the bubble crackling and warping from the powerful explosions before entirely collapsing. The fighter was violently rocked as he ripped past the cruiser, hearing and feeling an explosion rip through the fighter.
"Damn it Roy, give us some rear shields, that tie just nailed us!"
"Quit whining, it just scratched the paint a little!"
"You're not staring at a hole the size of you a couple of feet from you!"
Roy quickly redistributed his shields evenly as he began a long loop around to hit the cruiser again. He looked up as he did so, able to see the Tie chasing them and the twin red streams trying to swat it away coming from the turret just behind him. as he watched, a linked blast from tie slammed into the rear shields, taking another chunk from the read out. Beyond it, an x-wing with blue highlights easily ducked and weaved through the Arquitens fire, firing a single dual-linked blast into the Tie fighter behind them.
"Your clear Bucket! I'm on your wing!"
"Alright Sparks, get ready to dumb fire every torpedo you have into that cruiser when we come around, and double up your forward shielding!" He suddenly cut his thrust back to a third, the crafts turn sharply tightening. This brought the cruiser's top into view, pulsing the trigger twice more. His four torpedoes, plus the six from Kyra's x-wing all lanced unimpeded into the arquitens. The four shots from him blew clean through the ship, leaving holes almost large enough for him to comfortably fly through. He quickly switched back to his cannons, unlinking them and holding the trigger down as he pitched and ruddered across the ship. The cannons chewed apart the ship, one of the shots landing near the aft. A moment later and the entire cruiser was detonating.
"All wings, we're clear for now! Redeemer, scoop up that bounty hunter and get them inside the ship, Bucket, get docked, Sparks, we're on air patrol until the Redeemer is ready to jump! Get moving!"