Chapter 37
The Next Day
The small shuttle landed at a remote base somewhere in the northern United States. Sabine did not know where it was located, as the pure number of places that were located on Earth, from cities to entire nation states. She knew that many people didn't know much about the places outside their home country. To have that there were so many languages, cultures, and factions on one world was unique, with the entire planet being almost like a small galaxy.
This camp was the headquarters and training facility of the Special Operations Force of the United Nations Marine Corps. These were the most potent soldiers that Earth fielded, and they had been the men and women who had disrupted the Imperial operations on Zoloch Prime and Garnizon II as well as knocking out critical members of the Imperial leadership in the sector. With her Sabine had five other Mandalorian warriors which represented a diverse group of clans from throughout their space.
Disembarking, the Mandalorians were greeted by a number of Earth's elite soldiers in their full combat armor, who saluted them. The leading member of the group stepped forwards.
"I'm Major Petrova. I assume you are Clan Leader Wren." She said.
"Indeed I am. I have heard of your impressive exploits against the Empire on Garnizon II. Sabine replied.
Petrova smiled. "We couldn't have done it without the local resistance movement on the world. Let me show you some of the others who helped me with that task." She bean walking into the nearest building and Sabine with her other Mandalorians followed.
They soon reached a large training area, with most of the room taken up by an impressive shooting range. Several of the marines were practicing with Earth made weapons, shooting both stationary and moving targets with their blasters. Others practiced hand to hand combat with punching bags and each other. Seeing the new guests, they all stood at attention.
"Alright, everyone." Petrova said. "I don't think I need to remind you who the Mandalorians are and what they stand for." She turned to Sabine. "This is Sabine Wren, the leader of the Mandalorian clan Wren. I also don't think I need to tell you who she is and what she has done, especially on Lothal. It is an honor to host her and her Mandalorian comrades." The Major said.
"It is good to be here. I have heard of the exploits of yours, especially on Garnizon II and Zoloch Prime." Sabine said.
"I'm sure you will be interested in our weapons." Petrova said. "Do you want to try them out?"
"Of course," Sabine said. "That's why we came here."
The rifle Petrova handed her looked similar to some primitive slugthrowers that the military of Earth had used before the introduction of modern blasters. It seemed to strike a good balance between being not too heavy but also not too light. Even in hands not familiar with it like hers, it was fairly easy to use. A mock-up stormtrooper was set up, using armor that had been captured earlier on one of the many battlefields both in space and on the ground that had seen surrendered stormtroopers. Wren fired several accurate shots, each hitting the mock trooper. It seemed to pack a decent punch, able to shoot right through the front body armor of the trooper.
The weapon had their different settings for the rate of fire, semi-automatic, three-round burst, and fully automatic. The last setting was fairly difficult to control due to her inexperience with the platform, but due to its inaccuracy, it wasn't used a lot except in close range. It seemed to be at least comparable if not superior in quality to the Alliance's main blaster rifle, the A280. When compared to similar blaster rifles that the Mandalorians used, it was perhaps slightly inferior, but to nowhere near the degree that the Imperial's standard E-11 was. She next tried a smaller blaster that seemed to be a middle ground between a rifle and a pistol. Petrova had called it a sub repeating blaster, which made sense considering it was essentially a small repeating blaster. Perhaps the best galactic counterpart to it would be the DH-17 that was used by both the Empire and the rebellion. It had more of a kick to it than the rifle, but it would likely be a better weapon for close-quarters combat, or would make a good secondary with it's stock either folded or removed.
She then tried a pistol that seemed to be similar to her twin WESTAR 35 blasters that the Mandalorian warrior had used for years. She performed well with all the weapons, but she was most effective with it. Due to its lightweight, she was able to take another one in a similar fashion to her normal blasters. This initially surprised Petrova, as dual-wielding weapons did not seem to be common practice on Earth. Due to her experience with dual-wielding similar blaster pistols, she was even more accurate than before with only one.
"Very Impressive," Petrova said. "Dual wielding is generally not been very practical on Earth and has never really been popular outside entertainment. You've done the best that I've ever seen."
"Thank you," Sabine replied. She had heard
of the exploits of this group of soldiers and was intrigued, but she always took reports with a grain of salt. Looking at these men and women, it was readily apparent that the reports she had read were true.
She and her fellow Mandalorians would be giving a good report to Mandalor Bo Katan. These soldiers were Mandalorian quality, and she would be honored to fight alongside them.
Orbital Station One, in orbit of Earth:
A shuttle landed and one man walked out. Alliance Starfighter Corps Captain and squadron leader of the elite Rogue Squadron, as well as Jedi Luke Skywalker, exited it, wearing his standard orange flight suit. He knew he would be testing out one of Earth's fighters today, and had therefore come prepared.
Greeting him was Major David Davis, callsign "Deadlock", the CAG (or commander, air group) of the Revenge. Both pilots had heard about each other's exploits, though Deadlock thought that the pilot was still better than him, especially in dogfighting.
"It's good to see you, Captain, I've heard about your many exploits." He shook the somewhat younger pilot's hand. In retrospect, the phrase "many exploits" was probably the understatement of the century, as this man was not only responsible for the destruction of the Death Star but indirectly for the massive growth of the rebel alliance in the past nearly two years. And the number of people he had managed to attract to the rebellion due to his heroics could not be quantified but was definitely massive. What was Davis compared to him?
"I've heard some about you as well. Apparently you have the highest kill count of any Earth pilot, and you would definitely be a contender for the top ten in the entire Alliance in the past few months."
Deadlock had not heard that before. "Well thank you." He replied. "Anyway, let me show you the F-1500c multirole space superiority / snub fighter. There are three main models of fighter we use in space here on Earth, this one which is barely a month old, the F-1500b which makes up the bulk of our fighter wings, and the F -1500a which has mostly been either upgraded to the b model or assigned to secondary bases and ships. All three use the same spaceframe and have as many of the same components as possible to both standardize production and make conversions faster, which means that replacing models is a lot faster as we just need to swap a few parts. Sometimes the entire conversion can be done on the flight deck of a warship. There are also a few prototype designs we have that never entered mass production or regular service, and a few designs that are in the pipeline." He said.
Luke looked at the fighter, which currently had its wings folded to save space. It appeared to be slightly longer than the T-65, but only about a meter. With its wings folded, it took up less horizontal space than the T-65, though it was slightly taller as well with the wings folded. It looked generally similar to the pictures of older atmospheric Earth fighters, and shared many of the design aesthetics. But it was not really comparable to any in particular model that he had seen.
"This fighter has the speed o Interceptor, the agility in space of a normal T I E, almost the gun firepower of an x wing, and unparalleled flexibility in missile armament, electronic countermeasures, and stealth systems. This fighter has a single heavy laser cannon mounted just in front of the cockpit and two wingtip mounted medium laser cannons, which is a significant increase in gun firepower from the last model."
He led Luke over to a selection of different missiles, bombs, rockets, gun pods, fuel tanks, and even additional electronic warfare and sensor suite. "The fighter has seven different hardpoints that can be equipped with a variety of weapons and extra fuel tanks here. Whatever mission you need to undertake can realistically be fulfilled by any of these modules. Interception against enemy fighters and bombers, attacks against enemy capital ships and space stations of all sizes, extended-range missions in deep space, electronic warfare, a ground attack against infantry, light and heavy armor, and surface bases."
Luke was impressed by the fighter. The X Wing was a notoriously versatile craft, but this F-1500c blew it out of the water so to speak.
"While some would say dogfighting requires more skill and is more honorable, most of our kills have been thousands of kilometers away with missles. Th fighters lack any sort of electronic countermeasures, so unless the pilot can shoot down the missile or evade / outrun it, it's going to die. It's why we have such a high kill to death ratio, we don't usually get close to th 's. Even when we do get in close range with them, we still have a good kill to death ratio due to the shielding on our fighters which th 's lack. In fact, it seems like in close range dogfighting we are getting a similar ratio of kills to deaths that alliance pilots are getting." Deadlock said.
"That's impressive." Luke said. "Your pilots seem to be very skilled."
"Aside from the ones who were pilots before the fleet was revealed to the public, most of our pilots were flying atmospheric fighters in the air forces of Earth's nation states." Deadlock said. "It's been such a big advantage because these people are already trained pilots. Re-training them on spacecraft isn't that much more difficult." He said.
"Can I take this fighter for a spin?" Luke asked.
"Be my guest Captain." Deadlock said.
For about an hour the force-sensitive pilot flew the craft around and even shot training blasts at some practice drones. He was able to easily pull off maneuvers that even the most skilled pilots of Earth struggled with due to his abilities in the force.
Deadlock looked at the pilot flying around with awe. He had never seen anyone fly like this before. He looked at the pilot flying and wondered if there was anyone else with this power on Earth. They would vertically be useful to the war effort if they were discovered or even existed.
