Chapter 3: The Air Assault
"Designed in secret as a multinational effort between the various spacefaring nations of Earth, the F-1500 'Tempest' was a culmination of decades of clandestine research and development into starfighter technology. Put into production in 2023, just a year before its first use, they would serve in practically every significant battle Earth would fight in during the Galactic Civil War and see service in many variants. Thanks to its high speed and maneuverability and missile armament, it would prove to be one of the most successful fighters during the Galactic Civil War. While replaced by Earth in the aftermath of the conflict by more capable successors, its legendary status has kept it in service with many other galactic powers with upgraded export models still being sold to this very day."
Rising Tempest: An overview of the F-1500 family by New Oxford Press.
"Colonel, I'm picking up an Imperial force approaching your position." Captain Thomas "Grad" Kingser said. The commander of the battleship Warspite's air wing had taken a squadron of F-1500s down to give Petrova some air cover and protect her against an Imperial counterattack.
"Looks like a combo of various shuttles and drop ships, though I see a few TIE Strikers and some regular TIEs for air protection." His wingmate, Christopher "Spotter" Kartson said. Estimated time to location is about 15 minutes."
"Captain, I want that incoming force intercepted," Petrova said. "That should be in the ability of your squadron."
"Don't worry, we have it covered, Colonel." He said. His squadron of fighters began moving towards their targets.
It was thrilling to fly such a futuristic craft. Kingser was an American and, before the Empire attacked, had been flying commercial craft. Even though he always wanted to fly fighter jets, his chances were slim due to the USAF's high peacetime standards. Civil aviation also made a lot more money.
However, after the Empire arrived and Earth had begun mobilizing for the massive conflict that was coming, he had been offered a spot as a pilot in their space force. They could build starfighters far faster than they could train pilots, and getting someone with flight experience was better than starting from scratch. And besides, there was the matter of his career, which had been quite impressive so far. Back when he was a first officer, he had saved an airliner that was going to go down in a major storm, and the Captain was incapacitated.
Since then, he had participated in many battles ever since the beginning of the offensive Imperial territory, racking up enough kills to be considered an ace within a few months of deployment. Now, in addition to flying combat missions, he commanded an air wing of over a hundred fighters and other support craft. Unless his career didn't advance or he decided to became a test pilot, it wouldn't be long until he was commanding the warships that carried his fighters into battle.
"Alright, everyone, fire when you get in range. The targeting system should do the work for you, but we should have an easy show today. Just watch out, 'cause we're in Imperial territory,y and they could throw something at us that we would never expect." He said, getting a variety of responses from everyone else in the squadron.
With their air-to-air missiles ready, they sent one after each of the imperial targets. They'd take care of the soft targets first as some of the larger ships, such as the few Gozantis, would be able to slug off their missiles with minimal damage. Soon, they had made their decisions as the fighters streaked away in a desperate bid to avoid the missiles.
The barrage was effective, but not as much as hoped. It seemed that this area of the empire had rigged some cheap and somewhat unreliable sets of flares to their small craft. They had only managed to hit 50 percent of the incoming aircraft.
Still, almost anything that would be an effective fighter against them had been destroyed.
Except for two squadrons of TIE Strikers, whose flares had worked far better than anticipated. These formidable craft had been designed for air missions and to provide both air superiority and close air support for Imperial troops on the ground.
"Sir, it looks like they are launching missiles," Chris said. That was a first, as it seemed that the empire rarely used that technology. The few times that it had been used, it had been deployed from slow and ungainly TIE bombers and larger capital ships. And while they were a pain, they certainly weren't impossible to avoid. All of Earth's small craft had countermeasures such as much more advanced versions of the chaff and flares that were used by Earth's older fighters from before the empire came.
However, if the empire put its mind to building a missile, they could build a damn good one. This was probably due to the fact that their technology was still very good, and they had access to far more resources than Earth. And if they put it to use, they could deliver very formidable results.
The missile barrage began approaching the fighters of Earth. They dropped countermeasures, which managed to fool some of the missiles but not all of them. Heavy evasive maneuvers managed to get more of them off, but some would still hit their targets.
Which wouldn't do that much. Shielding would protect the fighters, and while their armor wasn't the best,t it should be able to hold back whatever was left behind.
Which was exactly what happened. One of Earth's fighters was shot down, though the pilot managed to eject, and then two of Grad's fighters received damage. They would be able to successfully return to their carrier in orbi,t however, which was an upside of the situation.
Now, all of the TIE Strikers were targeted in the next wave of missiles. And while they may be more capable than the average TIE, they still lacked the shielding that would be necessary for them to survive a missile hit. They had been designed to defend against ground fire, but their armor was not going to hold up against a missile hit. Some fired flares and chaff and other countermeasures, but their numbers were decimated by the time they had made it into close range.
However, there was still a full squadron of them, which outnumbered them slightly. This was an issue as they were now getting into close range where their air-to-air missiles would not work as effectively. This would mean that they would get into an old-fashioned dogfight. It sometimes felt as if they were fighting WWII in space, as if this was some sort of those sci-fi movies or TV shows.
"Captain, the transports are getting through and approaching their expected drop zone." Petrova's voice was concerned.
"We're kind of occupied over here." He replied, making a sharp turn to intercept a Striker. These fighters were some of the better in the Empire, and it was keeping him on his toes far more than a regular dogfight would.
"There's one of my six, I can't shake him!" Lieutenant John "Smith" Marks said before his F-1500 was eliminated in a massive ball of fire. Casualties were always a part of even the best military operations, and from what it looked like, they were facing the best pilots that the Imperial military had in the area.
The three M75 medium laser cannons on each of Earth's fighters provided the armament necessary to go after these craft. And the F-1500 did have better maneuverability in the atmosphere due to its shields, which the Striker completely lacked, along with the fact that Earth had a lot of experience with these types of craft. The battle rapidly devolved, and while the Strikers were dealt with, the surviving imperial transports were able to land successfully.
"Fighters, prepare for interdiction." He said, preparing to strafe the Imperial troops that were being unloaded from their transports. They fired another volley of air-to-air missiles, which impacted across the Imperial ships, destroying many of them along with more than a few disembarked troops.
They didn't carry any dedicated air-to-ground weapons with them at the moment, but they did still have their medium laser cannons, which had more than enough power to kill anything that was unfortunate enough to be hit by its blast. The Imperial forces scattered, with some of Petrova's soldiers going to finish off the remainder.
With their mission continued and a new squadron of fighters preparing to take station over the region, the seven remaining F-1500s returned to their orbiting carrier to rearm, now to launch a preparatory aerial bombardment against major Imperial positions. The fighters could carry a significant payload of bombs, missiles, torpedoes, or rockets. All of them were far more powerful than anything Earth had before the empire came, at least in their size class.
They were assigned to bomb the headquarters and barracks of the 6th Yoss Legion along with generally disrupting it for the meantime. Small-scale orbital bombardment had taken place, but with turbolasers on many worlds, it was wildly inaccurate, often by a few kilometers.
The area shouldn't have much in the way of air defense. There would be some laser cannon-based AA guns, and maybe if they were unlike a few TIE fighters, but no surface-to-air missiles. For some reason beyond visual range, technology wasn't super common in the wider galaxy. Perhaps it was due to jamming, but electronic warfare hadn't exactly improved a great deal to begin with as well in recent galactic history, well at least from what he understood.
They carried a large number of guided proton bombs, which would be sent to their target by the fleet in orbit. The ships that were currently around the world would act like a satellite network, and while there were fewer of them than Earth's network back home, they happened to be far more efficient than that old satellite network, which interestingly remained even though it was wildly outdated by galactic standards. It would have to wait for the war to end before becoming more modern.
As they flew towards their target, they were hit with far more anti-aircraft fire than they anticipated. Using a recon pod, Grad noticed that practically everything that had the ability to shoot upwards and hit them at the altitudes that they were flying at was firing at them.
That wasn't exactly a great prospect, but it got worse when four squadrons of TIE fighters emerged on their sensors. Each fighter only carried two air-to-air missiles for self-protection, and only eight of them had been sent due to the others being destroyed or too heavily damaged.
"All fighters, I'm calling in for reinforcements, but I've been told personally by Deadlock that the mission is critical to the landing of troops over here. We are to proceed and destroy our targets before holding off the fighters. Were some of the best pilots on Earth, so I think that we can do this."
"Tell your engines to give you everything they've got," Grad said, and the fighters accelerated towards their target. As they came into view, they saw that one of the squadrons was made up of TIE strikers, which had proven formidable in stopping Earth's fighters, though they had been overpowered.
The bombs were soon dropped on their targets. The anti-air fire was especially intense, and two of the fighters were knocked out, falling from the sky. However, the bombs had their effect, obliterating much of the imperial base that held the legion and causing major damage to the unit. However, just as they were done dropping them, the TIEs came into missile range. Each of the fighters, now outnumbered eight to one, fired their missiles and then turned in the other direction to run.
The TIE Strikers, however, had been armed with air-to-air missiles and fired them against the six fighters. That was very rare for the empire, but not completely unexpected and unheard of. The striker was a fairly rare experimental design. Most were destroyed with chaff and flares and by evasive maneuvers; however, one hit one fighter, which began losing speed. Part of its rear thruster had been hit, and their speed was slowed.
"I'm taking this as fast as I can," Chris said.
"Hold on," Grad said. "It's been an honor serving with everyone here." Even through the comm system, they could tell his voice was heavy in emotion. He turned his fighter around with one goal in mind: buy as much time as possible for the rest of his squadron to escape.
He had no extra ordnance on him, with his only armament being the three medium laser cannons. But this lack of extra weapons meant that he had a lot of maneuverability and acceleration in this atmosphere and could push his aircraft to its absolute limit. And his shields and armor would give him at least some protection, though it wouldn't last long under sustained fire.
He picked up a small music player that he had bought while on shore leave on Garnizon. Apparently it had been looted from an Imperial officer by one of the local rebels. A friend of his had helped him program some of Earth's music on it.
As his cockpit was filled with heavy metal, he charged towards the mass of TIE fighters. If he was going to go down, he might as well go swinging. And listening to some damn fine music while he was at it.
He had a fairly significant speed edge when in atmosphere compared to his Imperial counterparts and used that to stay out of their range. If he were fighting in space, this would be a lot harder. There, he would still have a speed advantage, but it would be much less pronounced.
He darted into range of the TIE Strikers, managing to kill three before he was in the thick of them. Killing another, he raced out at maximum speed, drawing the fighters away from the rest of his retreating squadron. His heavy laser cannons cut through the TIEs like a hot knife cuts butter, and soon, all that remained of the fragile Imperial fighters was wreckage.
Turning around again in rapid succession, he destroyed another three regular TIEs. This was another small victory, and to add to it, a thought amid so many TIEs trying to attack the same target, several even crashed into each other.
Despite his strong evasive abilities, he was still hit more than a few times as he had to dodge a large number of fighters coming his way. But unlike the other fighters, he could afford to take a hit as he had shields and armor. And he was far more maneuverable due to his shielding, which gave him an aerodynamically ideal shape when compared to the TIE fighters that he was facing. Several in fact made extreme maneuvers that essentially tore their fighters apart.
But they were still taking a toll on him due to their massive numbers. While there were only a few TIE Strikers left, they were proving to be very formidable opponents. And due to the volume of fire bay coming his way, at least some of it was hitting him and causing damage. It would only be a few minutes before he would be shot down by the mass of fire.
However, salvation soon arrived.
"Grad, do you copy?" Deadlock asked over the comm system. Two squadrons of Earth's fighters were fast approaching his position. Armed with a full air-to-air loadout, they would soon deal with the various TIE fighters.
"Get out of there, Grad." He said. "We have this under control."
Grad sighed with relief as he boosted his engines to their maximum power setting and raced out of the contest airspace, leaving the TIE fighter behind. He had managed to get out of this difficult situation with his fighter intact, and he had taken down a dozen TIEs during the time. Granted, it would probably need significant repairs, but the fact that he was in one piece at all was a miracle.
"I'm going to have to buy you a drink after this Deadlock."
"Don't worry, that was a hell of a fight. Once I get this settled down you're getting a goddamn promotion." Deadlock said. "I haven't seen someone fight like that for a long time." With two dozen fighters all armed for air-to-air combat, the TIEs were easily dispatched.
In a few cases, the empire had managed to retaliate with TIE fighters of their own, but most of the time, they had been destroyed before they even got close to Earth's fighters. And many more had been destroyed on the ground before their pilots could get to them and take off.
Grad and his pilots paved the way for such an attack. Every target that needed to be struck from the air had already been taken care of or was in the process of being destroyed. It was a systemic distribution of damage to any target that needed it. Guided munitions were fed targets from orbiting starships, providing better information than the mass of old recon satellites back on Earth.
As they were fighting in the air, the ground invasion of the planet was already underway. Massive transports and landing ships were already making their way into the atmosphere of the planet through designated safe lanes that had been cleared of any remaining orbital resistance. They would soon be offloading several hundred thousand soldiers along with tens of thousands of vehicles and massive amounts of supplies. Such operations were always difficult, even more so than the naval landings that had taken place back on Earth, but the planet now had some experience to draw upon in order to pursue their targets most effectively, taking the planet in the least amount of time possible and taking the fewest casualties.
Now, the war was in the hands of the boots on the ground, though Grad and his pilots would give them all the support that they needed to win this fight. But these missions would have little to no aerial opposition, as the fighters would be flying high enough.
A new phase of the campaign was about to begin.