"So, Wraith, what happened? Man, you look like hell."

"That's weird, 'cause I don't feel that hot."

The lights in the room were too bright for my eyes. Two days in a Bacta tank will do that to you. I'd been burned pretty bad. When I reviewed the film I could see why, but I'll get to that later.

Two days ago I left for a mission to provide "air" support to the PBF forces attacking the surface of Onixida. That shouldn't have been a problem, it's just like flying in space except that there is one direction you are can't go. That mission changed.

In the hanger, Shay outlined the whole thing for us. We had only a few minutes to prepare while they moved our broken B-Wings out of the way. Nearly as soon as the deck was cleared, our orders did a 180. We were told to head straight for the surface. Now we WERE the ground assault crew. This was something altogether new. It's not like I've never done atmospheric before. Back on Tatooine I flew all the time, but it wasn't in an X-Wing at 100mglt, it wasn't down city streets, I didn't have to shoot at anything, and I certainly didn't have anyone shooting at ME while doing it. "What have I gotten myself into", I thought to myself as I strapped in to the cockpit. I'm barely here a month and I'm doing surface assaults. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe I WAS meant to be a farmer. I could have stayed on with the family. Sure I could never really OWN the farm, but I could have hidden there comfortably for the rest of my life.

"No" I thought. "Gotta think positive, gotta concentrate, thoughts of failure manifest themselves." I centered my thoughts, went inside, shut out the world. Hyperspace is a good place to meditate. I had learned a trick when I was younger to make the time pass on long trips with the family. I could will our ship forward and back, feeling myself pull away or get caught up by others that were with us. Not a lot, but a little at a time, maybe a few meters at most. I decided to try it, and see what would happen. I couldn't really see the other ships of my wing, but I knew where they were. It's always easiest for me to just look straight ahead when traveling this way. I closed my eyes and tried to "feel" my wingmates, then I tried to pull ahead of them, then let them ahead of me. It felt like it was working, but I couldn't be sure with my eyes closed. Pretty soon I was interrupted by a message from my astromech. It seems my hyperdrive was surging, it recommended I have it checked out when I returned to the Odin. "That's alright, I know what it is, it's not a problem... Yes, I'm sure".

I would have practiced some more, but we were about to drop out anyway. A minute later, we were there. My wing and I made a power-dive to the surface.

"Stay close, and keep the TIEs off of each other" I ordered. I had learned my lesson during that destroyer assualt, it must have been only an hour or so before. If we stayed close todether, the TIEs had a harder time attacking any single one of us. The more we spread out, the more they could take us on one by one. The wing answered back affirmative, and we dove in formation to the surface. There were certainly more gun emplacements than I had expected.

The TIEs were a little more than just annoying, they were downright troublesome. I did my best to stick to the mission, but I did have to break to force a couple off of me and into someone elses sights, then it was stright back down for me. I avoided the line of towers along a trench in the surface, and headed into the streets of this "city". I'd raise up to skim the surface of a block diagonally, corner-to-corner, taking out whatever I could before plunging back into the street on the opposite corner. I did this for quite a while, occasionally breaking to chase a TIE fighter back into the melee where he belonged. After only a few minutes I called my wing back into formation, and only received two replies. We'd already lost Gold-4.

We turned our attention to the towers and took out all of them in a four block section, that made it a little easier to breathe, but soon there came a missile lock and I had to break to avoid being hit. I did my best to loop and avoid the missile, but I still had the crossfire from the surface below and the TIEs above. A loop was too predictable, and they were leading their shots expertly. I ditched the looping maneuvere, and just tried to keep the missile on the edge of my scanners instead. The moment the missile detonated I was firing into the laser towers again. I had lost track of the safe zone we had created, and had to start over again. The Empire may not be much for aesthetics, but there are times when it serves them well. I was firing dual cannons, as it seemed to be doing the best against the towers, blowing them with a minimum of effort or missed shots. Fully cross-linked lasers always seemed to result in at least two of the shots going wide.

Once I nearly collided with a tower that refused to blow, I pulled up just in time to avoid crashing straight through it. I heard the impact on the bottom of my X-Wing and checked the damage report, afraid that I'd torn off my gear. There was no permanent damage, and I had bigger problems anyway. A "Black" X-Wing was targetting me, and needed to be taught a lesson. I switched to full cross-linked lasers, and pulled around onto his tail. He was spiralling down to the surface, trying to lead me into the towers, but he obviously didn't know how to fly an X-Wing very well. I cut engines to 1/3 to tighten my turning radius, and fired into his path. Someone had already worked this one over because his shields dropped instantly. I fired again, just as his shields restored themselves. Two of the four shots scored, and his shields blinked out again. This time, they didn't come up in time, and my final salvo blew him apart.

I quickly checked for enemy craft and found another black X-Wing on my six, no doubt trying for a lock. I pulled up and over, pushing me engines to their maximum as I topped out the arc. I got a few shots into his path before pulling off to port, avoiding the shots he was throwing at ME. I pulled back toward him, and matched his speed. This one knew even less than the previous, and flew straight out ahead of me. I switched to cross-linked torpedoes, and sent them on their way. There were far fewer peices to avoid from this one, but I followed a few of the larger chunks down to the surface, hoping to mask my approach like losing yourself in the sun. As my cover disintigrated in the atmosphere, I switched back to lasers, and resumed firing into the buildings. They went up one after another, thirty, forty, fifty.

I dove into the streets again to recharge, regroup and prepare. I ordered my wing back into formation, and this time received no reply. They were all gone, I was solo now. As I reached an intersection, I banked to starboard, and up onto the plateau. This was a bad choice. I must have been somewhere important because there were gun towers everywhere. They all fired at once, and my shields were dropping fast. I pulled up hard, trying to get out of range as quickly as possible.

A short while later, I leveled off, and as the horizon came into view I could see the fighting all around me, there were A-Wings, Y-Wings, Gunboats, X-Wings, all firing at each other with every weapon available. My train of thought was broken when my astromech detected a missile lock. "Do you want it targetted?" it asked. In the world of rhetorical questions, this has got to be one of my favorites. I told the droid to target the missile, and watched in horror as a yellow frame suddenly appeared dead center in my HUD. The missile was right in front of me, and only a hundred meters out, closing fast. I pulled back and over hard to port, but it was too late, the missile was too close. It impacted just behind me, and punched trough my X-Wing bottom to top, straight through the engines. I auto-ejected, but it scarcely did any good, since most of my ship was ejecting as well at that point. My upper starboard engine was following a path similar to mine, fire pouring out of it's side and back. I watched as in slow motion as it tumbled toward me before finally exploding mere meters away.

They say you're supposed to be flameproof in a flight suit. They're wrong.

I've spent two days floating in a Bacta tank, thinking about what happened back there on Onixida. Thinking about my career. This was supposed to be my final undergrad mission report... number three. This is not how it was supposed to end. My final mission report was supposed to be a triumphant beginning to my career in the fleet... My grand exit, not this. I got the blaze part right, it's the glory aspect that I need to work on. Of all the rebel wings cooperating on this assault, only mine suffered losses of any kind. Through my fault alone, we lost all four ships in my wing, while the rest of the fleet suffered no losses at all. If I am allowed to remain, I think I'll be concentrating on some post-graduate studies. I am not yet ready for the Patriot Battle Fleet.

Master Cadet Wraith K'Lan

Last updated 10/05/01 Site contents Copyright © 1999-2001 Mel Grubb II