In the Navy: Chapter 2 - Two Fox Two
11 Dec 2016Nicholas Locke
Many a man has said that Super-cruise is the fastest and most efficient way of traveling inside a system, but it's never how the holovids say it is. Sometimes they'll show a lone pilot on a mission, going from station to station in what almost seems like an instant. That's not exactly it. In reality, it would most likely end up taking Gaius and me half an hour or so to get from the Majestic down to the planet, and the majority of that will be spent accelerating, and then slowing down as much as I can before hitting atmo, to avoid an emergency drop.That's another thing that the holovids lie about, I suppose: the emergency drops. They might tumble a little bit, maybe mutter a few expletives before stabilizing and being on their merry way, but in my cramped cockpit? There would be a tumble, most definitely. The harness around my chest would save me from my head smashing into the dash, which I am ever thankful for, but there would be a great deal of internal damage to the frame shift drive itself. Nothing that I would be able to fix either.
Guess that means I’d better not break it though, right?
Gaius's voice breaks me out of that line of thought. "When we arrive, maintain an altitude of around 4500 meters, still don't know what we're dealing with out there. I'd rather have a middle ground than be caught by a missile in the dead center of its optimum range."
"Understand." I replied, keeping transmissions short. "How about bandits?"
“Shouldn’t be an issue. If we find any, we break and engage.”
“Got it.”
For the rest of the flight, we sat in silence, watching the stars around us as we approached the rapidly growing planet in front of us. My Eagle shuddered as we came out of super-cruise, and into the atmosphere of the world.
The planet loomed larger and larger in my canopy as we transitioned from space to atmosphere. Tiny reentry flames licked around the ship, little blue shield ripples distorting my view. The low rumble began to fill the cockpit with noise, vibrations from under the canopy jostling me around.
As we descended through the air, elements of the holographic atmospheric HUD appeared in front of me. The artificial horizon took up most of the space directly in front of me while to the left of that, a tape displaying my air speed, and to the right, surface altitude.
“Where’s the touchdown point?” I asked.
The comms were silent for a moment, and then a waypoint appeared on the planet’s southern continent.
“Gagarin Starport. Just follow the beacon. They’re already expecting us.”
“Roger.”
Gaius dropped out of supercruise around three kilometers above me, and sped up as he dived to pull in front of me and take the lead. I shifted my flight stick smoothly to come up on his left wing, and continue on our path to the starport.
After a few moments of holding in a straight line, watching as the flight assist automatically corrected for wind and trim, my scanner displayed a small triangle, jittering around.
“Contact.” I announced, raising Gaius on the comms.
“Visual. I’m continuing press. Break and engage him, then proceed to waypoint.”
I pulled back softly, enjoying the feeling of the rise in altitude, before rolling to the right, pulling hard back, towards me on the stick, and accelerating at full throttle towards the ghost contact. The earth beneath me started to form into a large blur of green.
I kept switching between looking at the altimeter and the scanner, making sure I would know what I was about to go up against, whilst simultaneously trying not to crash into the ground at mach 1.7. The ghost contact changed into a solid square, hardpoints retracted. A quick glance at my left panel identified him as an Eagle Mark II with the local
A quick flip of a switch deployed my own hardpoints, the missile racks below me, and the multi barreled cannon above me extending outwards. The other aircraft became aware of my presence at this point, and turned to face me.
I recall from my training, one of my instructors telling me, “When one goes into battle, he should know his enemy’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as his own.” The Imperial Eagle was built as an Interceptor, not necessarily a fighter. It had speed, it had power,a bigger gun, heavier armor and shields than a Mark II.
The keywords here are ‘Heavy.’ A Mark II can turn on a dime, and bring all three of its hardpoints to bear much easier than I could.
I wouldn’t win if this became a turn fight, so speed was my best advantage. The range between us hit three kilometers, and I thumbed the red button on the top of my stick twice.
“Two Fox Two.” I announced over the comm that I shared with Gaius, more out of habit than anything else. The two plumes of fire streamed out from the underside of my ship and streaked towards the fighter in front of me.
Many thanks to M. Lehman for helping me with proofreading this log and giving me advice on it!