Star Wars IV
The shockwave of the star destroyer's impact threw the Thunderclap forward. Nadska clung white-knuckled to his seat as the woman piloting raced to stabilize the fighter. Her success didn't surprise him, what worried his was the approaching capital ships of the republic and the triangular silhouettes of destroyers against the sun.
"What's the plan captain?" she asked the shadow trooper. She was entirely too calm about it all, Nadska found it deeply unsettling.
"Keep close to the republic ships," he replied, "they're less likely to shoot us."
She dodged some falling debris before giving an affirmative.
"Great," Nadska mumbled under his breath. At the very least this was still better than being stuck planet-side. These two had saved his life, he had no reason to complain.
"Contact imminent," the woman announced.
The shadow trooper spun to face him, "I need you with me on the guns smuggler."
Nadska perked up, maybe this wasn't going to be as bad as he'd been imagining after all, if there was one thing in the galaxy he could do, and do well, it was shoot.
He was led to two domed pods protruding from the rear of the ship, the shadow trooper indicated the left pod for Nadska while he claimed the right pod. Nadska sat down and clipped himself in. This was more like it.
It took him less than a minute to figure out the slightly modified controls. Then, admiring the sleek appearance of the twin barrel cannons, the first imperial tie-fighter flew past his viewport. He squeezed the triggers. Nadska's world became a flashing green kaleidoscope as the cannons flared to life. A brilliant orange ball of flame indicated the destruction of the tie-fighter, he stopped firing just long enough to pick out his next target, an imperial interceptor, before resuming his rain of death.
Vibrations beneath his feet suggested that their pilot was also engaging in combat, this was made even more apparent when the ship dropped into a series of barrel rolls. Between bursts of cannon-fire he could see the shadow trooper's guns hard at work on the other side of the Thunderclap's thrusters. Together they were a force to be reckoned with.
Nadska's hopes rose as they left their first destroyer behind, luckily it was too busy with a republic ship to notice them. He watched as the destroyer came along the republic ship's starboard side, there was a seconds hesitation before the destroyer unloaded battery after battery of heavy artillery into the opposing ships flank.
Nadska squinted against the glare of the sun as a new shape came into view. His hopes fell again. They were being hounded by a sentinel-class landing craft, which in terms of manoeuvrability wouldn't have been a problem, but out in the open sky its heat-seeking concussion missiles and ion cannon turrets were a problem. The Thunderclap was ill-equipped to deal with such firepower.
"Hold on!" he heard the woman call from the cockpit.
The sentinel locked on to them and released four of their eight concussion missiles. Nadska's gorge rose as the Thunderclap careened into manoeuvres he wouldn't have thought any ship was even capable of. He had no choice but to trust in her skill as a pilot, at this point he was just along for the ride.
"Hold on to something," she shouted, "and if you vomit on my turrets I'll space you myself!"
Nadska knew he wasn't going to vomit, he was more concerned with the dark haze creeping in from the edges of his vision. He wouldn't have been able to say which direction was up or down to save his life.
The last thing he saw before loosing consciousness to the g-forces was the business end of a concussion missile rapidly approaching the viewport.