[h3]ISD-Blackstar (Hangar)[/h3]

Standby for Liam and his squad meant that they sat in their dark tinted TIE-fighters until the hangar doors opened, so they were forced to stare into the back of each other’s fighters or the ceiling. With part of the TIE cockpit view blocked by the wings he always felt a little cramped, he might end up switching to a TIE-Int eventually along with the rest of the squad. But not anytime soon if he had anything to say about it. Truthfully, he’d love it if he could fly a Delta-7. Despite being outdated, the narrow frame and dynamic coloring had always made them attractive to him.

The coordination beacon in front of Liam lit up suddenly. It was time, two beeps, and then a third slightly prolonged beep.

 [h3]Battle over Arbya[/h3]

The space between the Blackstar and the Warhead was painted green and blue as cannon bolts flew towards each other, all of which were being intercepted by the other’s shield; even though the Warhead was several kilometers away the translucent blue glow of their shields were obvious. It was up to either the skill of the Captains or the Pilots to make up the difference in such an even fight. The Blackstar was the only one with visible damage, that explained the earlier shaking; a not so polite greeting from the Warhead.

“Loosen up the formation, I’m giving you all freedom to fly however you want, but whatever you do, don’t fly textbook formations.” O1, Ben, ordered as they all sped out. The Warhead’s fighters weren’t in range yet but looking at the radar Liam could see they were changing their formations too. 

[i]That’s right, using something obvious and known by your enemy would get you killed instantly. [/i]

Liam shifted himself upwards, allowing Maran and the rest ample room to maneuver, to escape any turbolaser fire, and the fighters themselves. Another fighter had shifted themselves to face him, it seems they at least wanted to be clear about who was fighting whom.
The tactical display showed D5 was still out of range, but he could see his callsign and marked him as a target.

[i]Dagger-5, TIE-Interceptor…[/i]

If Liam started shooting now the lasers would lose their power by the time they reached D5, but they would retain most of their particle cohesion and blind the man at least, giving him the opportunity to follow up with a concussion missile. That would destroy him instantly if it hit, and D5 showed no signs of deviating yet.

Liam flicked his thumb upwards, lifting the cover over the missiles, and fired. Without being blinded or obstructed the pilot would easily dodge, then he did, to his port side and dipped downwards. Liam kicked in the throttle, using the full acceleration of his altered TIE, and chased after him. The screeching of the TIE engines was muffled but Liam had grown accustomed to it, even growing to like it in the same way one would just run the engine of a new speeder.

D5 tried to lose him in a dip, he swooped downwards to lose him, then as Liam lined up behind him, he quickly ascended; obviously counting on the normal TIE fighter’s lower agility to leave Liam in the dust.

“But this is no normal TIE…” Liam muttered as he yanked his yoke back up, following D5’s red ion trail. Liam nudged his flight stick to the left and put D5 cockpit pod slightly out of frame and fired. He was hoping to disable either the engines or weapons, but D5 seemed to think he was going for a killing shot and had accidentally placed one of his solar wings within Liam’s crosshairs.

Green flashes erupted from the bottom of Liam’s cockpit pod and splashed against the side of D5’s fighter, causing a surge of energy to ripple throughout the ship. D5’s interceptor sputtered, it’s ion trails flicked on and off before it started drifting.

“O7 here, D5 disabled!”

“Great kid, don’t get cocky!” O6 called out to him.

“I’m older than you!” Liam turned back around to pick out another of Dagger squad. If they can lower their numbers enough, they’d be able to send people at the Warhead, the stalemate between them and the Blackstar wasn’t going to last forever.

[i]Dagger-3[/i]

He was following up on O2 too closely, like had had tunnel vision on her rear, but it didn’t seem like O2 could shake him. Another stalemate for today, and far from the last.

“O7, you’re in a good spot, mind if I bring you a friend?”

“Go for it, come by point six-four, I’ll get him!”

Liam swooped ‘upwards’ putting himself outside of both O2 and D3’s field of view for a few seconds, and then arced down as quick as he had risen, putting himself right on D3’s side. A quick burst of green painted the side of the other interceptor, a slightly more violent reaction this time. The side of the int melted and exploded, tossing the int into an uncontrolled spin as his ion engines died. It was probably scary, but either the Blackstar or the Warhead would be able to find him afterwards.

As he thought this another enemy flew down across his path. Liam ratcheted his throttle to full and pivoted his Tie up on its port wing, then corkscrewed down into a roll that brought him onto another interceptor’s trail and fired. He was fast though; Liam only just grazed a wing as the other TIE dipped left and over Liam’s line of sight.

“He lost me too, O7. Slippery.” Jarael, O2, had said.

“That’s fine, O2, we’ll get him.”

Liam pushed his stick left as well, but the Int was flying over and behind him.

[i]Come on, you need a target lock for your missiles, or you need to get close for accurate lasers. I know your ship, and you know mine![/i]

The int quickly closed the gap, now hot on Liam’s tail. Liam centered and yanked his stick all the way to his chest, tightening his turn, the g-forces slammed his body into the back of his seat. Liam’s TIE/LN shot across the int’s line of sight, rolling into a 180 degrees turn. Liam pulled the stick back again and ‘dropped’ into the TIE’s tail, his elongated turn allowed the TIE to miss him by a fair distance.

“I have you now.” Three laser blasts poured over the side, and the same as before happened; leaving another drifting TIE to sort out afterwards. 

“Blackstar to fighters, enemy bombers inbound, keep them away from us!”

“They’ll be easy targets!” Blanche said in a guttural voice.

Liam turned to engage them too, three bombers flew out, with an additional group of normal TIEs as escort. He manually selected them as targets, and the computer extrapolated their paths. 

[i]Huh?[/i]

“It changed?”