ITOD Home > RS Tour 4 (XWA Mixed Tour) > XWA ATR Sim: Attack Imperial Outpost

Collaborative narrative by Mia StormChaser and Naes Draw of Dagger Squadron.

[NRSD Redemption-Simulator Banks]


Colonel Naes Draw walks up to the transport craft simulator with a sigh. Orders down from Command. There was a new training sim for fighter pilots, to practice in Stormtroop- ATR-6 Assault Transports. Not his favorite craft to fly, he'd piloted one in action before; but the task force wanted to have more qualified assault transport jockeys ready.

Flying bricks with guns, was what they were. Not that he had problems with the pilots who flew these things of course, bought his squad a round once. Storm Team were good people... and he'd watched some of them die.

He shakes off those memories. Wasn't gonna do him any good going into this run, and he wasn't willing to send his squad into anything he wasn't ready to dive into himself. He was going first.

[Simspace-Hangar: Mia StormChaser]

Major Mia StormChaser climbed into the battered simulation cockpit and selected the Assault Transport mission option and although feeling faintly like she was cheating on her much beloved WildCard One X-Wing, she had to admit though that this Empire buckets were built to last, if somewhat surprisingly cramped, with most of its space taken up with its complement of missiles and laser banks! Must be something about the craft’s chucky outline and the memory of the fear the craft had instilled in her when she first went into combat as a raw Lieutenant. Smiling to herself as she began to load the correct programme into the sim, she reminded herself that was only just a year ago.

She hadn’t been that thrilled when her Squadron CO, Colonel Naes Draw first suggested that that she joined him in flying the latest Combat Sim, in an Assault Transport of all things. High Command must have something pretty special by their sleeves if they wanted them to brush up their training on these bucket of bolts. Last time she had even gone near one of Assault Transports was when her and Petty Officer Cryus of the Brier had spent some…quality time…together when they were briefly seeing each other.

Setting her mouth in a thin line, Mia shook her head as if that would help her forget what had happen to Cryus recently. It didn’t, so she busied herself getting by starting up the combat sim, as just across the room, she could see that Colonel Draw had already started the mission, and she didn’t want to late joining him.

The Colonel, thought she was going to be the pilot’s chair of the second transport, Storm Two, but to Mia’s surprise, she had been assigned automatically to the imperial side, and rather than flying the other Assault Transport, she had found herself taking the controls of the much sleeker TIE Interceptor. What were command playing at? Mia was pretty sure her CO didn’t know he was up against anything other than the sim AI, and would be counting on having a real life pilot directing the flight of the other Transport.

Well thought Mia, this was going to be an interesting mission - but orders were orders, and she would certainly give Naes a run for his money...

[Simspace-Hangar: Naes]
“Storm One, you are cleared for departure.”
Naes brings the big craft off the glossy black flight deck, smoothly enough. He had plenty of experience with the YT 2000, so he wasn’t uncomfortable flying something larger. He brings up the thrusters, pushing the ATR towards the central hangar opening. He had to admit, learning to handle a ImpStar’s hangar took some work. And depending on the crew on duty, some of the old hands who switched sides still insisted on tractoring. Not today. At least it kept stored fighters out of line of fire.

He pushes the nose towards space and brings up the navcomp. “Storm One is clear. Storm Two, lock onto my nav coordinates and prepare for jump.”

Today's sim- mission, treat every sim like it’s the real thing and live longer- was a strange one for a pair of Assault Transports. Hyper into the target area, and bring down a pair of XQ4 platforms. With a standard Imperial complement of three starfighter squadrons, 6 turbolasers and the same of point defence laser cannons they were no slouch.

He was used to keeping those fighters off transports sixes. Now he had to trust in the defence squadron if this went to hell.

“Storm Two, engage hyperdrive on my mark, three, two, one... Mark.”

He pushes the levers forward, and the points of light before him elongate as the two transports jump towards the target.
-
[Simspace-Imp Depot: Naes]
The pair of ATRs appear just outside range of the two platforms, and continue in.

“Two, break off and engage fighters! Keep clear of the stations.” Naes reaches up and primes the cannons. And here we go.


[Simspace-Imp Depot: Mia]

Watching the approach of the two assault craft, it was immediately obvious to Major StormChaser which was being piloted by her CO, even without noting the craft destination. Naes’ craft was gunning its speed as much as possible to get within missile range of the first platform as quickly as possible.

A quick glance at the power signatures of Storm One confirmed Mia’s assessment - the lasers were providing shields with their energy, whilst all other spare energy had been diverted to the transports frankly sub-standard engines.

In comparison, Storm Two was slowly edging towards the second platform and was already being targeted by a duo of TIE’s, who were racing to break off its missile attack.

Turning her craft towards Storm Two, Mia was soon catching up with the forward TIE’s - it was time for her first kill...

Naes feeds his turbolasers incoming targets. “Two, watch it. You’re getting too close.” He brings shields to the front, as he stares down the first inbound flights of TIEs headed his way. Trusting in his wingmate he holds his bearing as the first snapshots start streaking past his craft. He holds off on the cannon control, waiting...

As they come into firing range he toggles the safes on the turrets and throws the ATR into a dive, responding with heavy fire of his own as he gives his own weapons clear fields of fire, taking hits of his own- and is rocked by an impact! One of the incoming fighters was slow to maneuver and clipped their wing panel off the top of his transport.

He lets off a stream of rather inventive Corellian expletives as he checks damage control.

Shields: 148%
Dorsal Turret: Offline

He stabilizes the craft, risking a look at the tactical readout. Three standard TIEs down, one probably damaged. Only 33 to go... He levels his shields and boosts them with energy from the ion cannons. “Two, I’m hit but alright.” He needed to start doing damage, now. With that flight behind him, taking parting shots from his remaining turrets, he brings up the torpedo targeting systems and links the launchers. “Beginning my run now.”

Storm Two’s turbolaser turrets turn to track the inbound TIEs as it makes a curve around, coming off the straight line flight towards the XQ4. As the TIEs come within range, it opens fire, rolling to change its firing angles.

[Simspace-Imp Depot: Mia]

‘Emperor’s Black Bones!’ cursed Mia as she saw Storm Two take out two standard TIE’s half a click in front of her with its automatic turrets – for a AI controlled craft, it was packing quite a punch and mowing down the incoming TIE. Scanning through her target lists, she quickly noted that Storm One was making its attack run on it platform, but soon the pressing need to get out of the way of the lasers of Storm Two meant that she had to give up monitoring Naes attack.

‘Okay ‘ceptor, let’s see what you can do.’ Muttered Mia as she started to weave towards Storm Two – those TIE’s it had been blowing apart had at least managed to do some damage, and she noted its shields were down to 33%. Moving slightly closer and continuing to roll her craft to make her craft harder to hit, Mia shouted her victory cry as her blaster cannons strafed across the hull of Storm Two. Heavily damaged, the transport began to roll itself, but this time uncontrollably, but not before a lucky shot nearly thumbed into Mia’s unshielded craft.

Gritting her teeth, Mia desperately fought to control the Interceptor, as Sirens sounded in her Sim chamber. Scanning the damage readout, she was relieved to see however that apart from some minor engine damage, and some interesting power surges, she was still mostly in one piece. Picking up her visual scanning, Mia was just trying to locate what had happened to Storm Two, when two explosive flashes lit the inside of her craft, a closer one as Storm Two succumbed to her damage nearby, and a much larger, but further away, Mia saw that the first platform had been destroyed.

“One platform down, one to go- Two? Two! Blast it.” Naes cuts off his pleasure at downing the platform as he gets the report of Storm Two’s demise. “This is Storm One, requesting support!” He does a scan of the remaining craft, and comes around. Time to take this thing down and get out of here. He’d lost his wingmate and taken nasty damage, loitering wasn’t on his list of things to do. Dorsal turret was probably a crater right now, and the fin probably wasn’t any better.

His remaining turrets start laying down defensive fire as he races towards the remaining platform, soaking up hits from its lasers as he brings his targeting online-

As his scopes light up with arriving craft reports.

Carrack class. Modified frigate. ...And a Vic deuce. Nearly as soon as he had time to register that, the final touch: two squads of squints disgorging from the frigate and Victory II class.

“Rebel scum! Surrender at once or be destroyed!”

Without another thought, he jams down on the firing stud, emptying his remaining payload as he slashes between the two closest docking arms. He winces as he is rocked by the resulting field of debris. “C’mon, where’s my support?” Command loved these surprise missions, why didn’t he expect something. In any case, the inbound TIEs meant he wasn’t likely to manage another run.

The six X-wings of Blue Squadron hyper into system, and right into a furball with the new TIEs, effectively keeping them from coming to his aid without being vaped. He dumps all discretionary power to shields and engines and starts his run out of system. This was a complete mess, the best he could do at this point was get clear before the remaining fighters could avenge their comrades.

[Simspace-Imp Depot: Mia]

Mia saw that Storm One, piloted by Naes had been heavily damaged and appeared to on the point of withdrawing from the action. Cycling through the remaining Imperial forces, Mia was dismayed to note that only a couple of the original contingent of TIE from Alpha Squadron had made it this far, while out of ETA Flight, she was only Interceptor left.

She wasn’t going to miss a chance to catch up with Storm One though before it exited into hyperspace though. Swinging her craft around, she gunned her damaged engines as much as possible to cover the three clicks to her target as quickly as possible.

“Alpha Flight, form on my mark and attack the remaining Transport’ Mia signalled the other remaining TIE’s – if she was quick, they would be able to overpower Storm One.

Just as she was going to give the command to open fire though, Six X-Wings exited hyperspace right in front of her hastily commandeered squadron. Twisting her control stick violently to one side, Mia only just avoided being eviscerated by the bank of enemy fire as the X-Wings closed in quickly, and sent the remaining two Alpha TIE’s into oblivion.

“Sons of Blasters” Mia almost screamed into her comlink as she made rapid adjustments to her power regulators to try and coax some more speed from her fried twin Ion engines – she’d faced worst odds before, but not in a damaged unshielded craft, and these AI controlled X-Wings were good – too good it occurred to Mia for an apparently routine sim mission.

Just as she was about to despair, her comlink buzzed into life, sending reports of incoming reinforcements only minutes after the first platform had been turned into dust. A Carrack Light Cruiser, a Frigate and the Star Destroyer Procurator no less.

“Theta wing here to support you ETA” came the simulated pilot’s voice from a group of replacement TIE that had quickly issued from the Frigate designated Achilles Heel, while the the SD Procurator moved into position next to the remaining platform.

‘Theta flight – concentrate your attack on Storm One – the X-Wings are secondary target.’ Mia issued the command whilst still desperately to avoid the fire of the X-Wings which had not disengaged from their attack on her.

“Acknowledged ETA 1, starting our attack run now.” Mia noted with satisfaction that Naes was going to have his hands full dealing with four imps on his scorched tail.

Suddenly, and just as Mia had managed to manoeuvre her craft behind one of X-Wings, her engines cut out completely, sending her craft into a spin – unable to restart in time, Mia could see through her cockpit that her crazy path was sending her straight into X-Wing which had been following close behind, tried desperately to veer away from her craft.

“Oh Sithspit” Mia managed to say just as her craft smashed into the unlucky X-Wing, and both crafts were consumed in the resulting fireball…

[NRSD Redemption-Simulator Banks: Mia StormChaser]

Climbing out of the sim chair, Mia cursed her bad luck again – if only her engines hadn’t been so damaged she might have completed the mission. Resting on a nearby couch she waited for Colonel Draw to finish his mission, wondering if he had managed to get Storm One to safety from Theta squadron.

Only a couple of minutes passed before Naes exited his own simulator and walked up to Mia, the young Corellian brushing his hair aside from his forehead where it had become plastered by sweat.

“Good to see you Sir, on the same side this time.” Mia clasped hands with her CO. “I got fried I’m afraid – engine failure followed by a one sided argument with a X-Wing hull plate…” Mia smiled.

Naes nods slowly, a bit of a smirk on his lips. “The same, StormChaser. Bad shot caught the primary drive as I was making my runup to jump, and after that it was a losing fight, held them off for a bit. But at that point, I was dead in space other than maneuvering jets and what was left of my guns. I guessed there was something going on with Storm Two... So, it assigned you to the Imp side I take it. Interesting bait and switch on their part, isn’t the first time.

He stretches out a bit. “Always good to see how our opposites handle in an engagement, for the next time you find yourself covering transports. Alright, we’ll run these again with different pairings as many times as needed, but I’ll have the rest of the squad do blind runs first. I trust I don’t have to tell you not to give them information on this run beforehand. Now, I imagine you want to hit the ‘freshers. You’re dismissed.”

He gives her a salute, and they go their separate ways, as he brings out a datapad and starts going over unit resource expenditure reports... That was an odd number.