My fighter shook as her shields brushed off a heavy blaster shot. Her shields were fortunately still standing strong.
I have loved planes for as long as I can remember. Growing up, I was obsessed with the B-21 Raider. The idea of a flying wing imparting the fires of hell upon her enemies was fascinating to me.
Part of it was probably my mother being in the Air Force before becoming an astronaut. Whenever I had time, I would tour the bases and see the inside of the planes. I was borderline obsessed.
I squeezed the triggers on my control wheel. The resulting stream of blue light turned an enemy fighter to dust.
One of my earliest memories was actually in an active warzone. The Chinese had launch an invasion of California. I was living with my parents on an Air Force base at that time. One morning, I heard gunshots and loud bangs.
Upon looking out my window, I found several F-22 Raptors and J-20 Mighty Dragons flying through the air. It was a proper dogfight. Despite knowing that a stray bullet could rip me to shreds, my eyes were glued to the skies.
Although this was on a much larger scale, it felt comfortably familiar. Maybe I could be a good pilot like my mom.
Suddenly, I felt the tug of danger through the force. Following my instincts, I pulled hard right. With inches to spare, a missile flew past me at blistering speed. It was quickly followed by an enemy fighter.
I scoffed, pulling up and left. This put me into a corkscrew to put my nose on the bastard's tail.
Once I hit the apex of the corkscrew, my upside-down crosshairs locked onto them. I squeezed the triggers once more, blowing them to smithereens.
An enthusiastic yell came through my squad channel. "WOOOOOO! GOOD KILL!"
I chuckled as I leveled my fighter. "You know it, Iso."
I was assigned a mixed squadron of 8 fighters, 4 interceptors, and 4 bombers. Our designation was Yom 7. Iso was the callsign for one of the fighter pilots in my squadron. Allegedly, he received this callsign due to his exceptional skill of isolating enemy fighters from their squadron.
I checked my scanner and gulped nervously at what I saw. There were two enemy squadrons approaching my position. I shook my head, pushing away all thoughts of concern. "No time like the present."
I gripped the throttle with my right hand and slammed it forwards to maximum. I felt the seat press into my back as my fighter accelerated.
They grew ever closer. I felt the nerves from my pilots. They were tight and hot. We were outnumbered 2 to 1.
As they were about to enter the effective range of my weapons, they began exploding in rapid succession. 1, 2, 3… 17 of them were gone in the space of a few seconds. They had just been slashed in half.
I followed the trajectory of the stream of blue lights and found a lone friendly fighter. It had a weird paint job and their squadron was nowhere to be found.
I was absolutely flabbergasted. "Iso, who the fuck is that?"
Iso laughed. "You've never heard of Doghouse? He's the best damn pilot in the Republic!"
I squinted my eyes, scrutinizing this so-called Doghouse's movement. "Is that so?"
Iso replied excitedly. "Hell yeah! His CO's have only ever given him two combat orders over the years: When to take off and where to land. I wish I was that good."
I continued to watch as all the remaining fighters from those two squadrons began pursuing Doghouse. "They seem mad…"
As I spoke, I saw something that nearly made me keel over in shock. Doghouse pulled the nose of his fighter up and stopped on a dime. The enemy fighters ended up flying right past him. He then leveled his fighter and then the slaughter commenced. It wasn't even 30 seconds before the rest of the fighters were gone.
My jaw was about to break through my oxygen mask. "Did he just pull off a fucking cobra maneuver?" I then shook my head and sighed. "Never mind, let's get out of here before they send more squadrons."
I checked my scanners and found a hotbed of fighters from both sides near the Star of Coruscant. I then dished out my orders. "Yom 7, we're on the move. Set heading to 087189."
Iso quickly replied. "087189, affirm."
I tightened my grip on the controls as we sped forward. It only took us 30 seconds to cross the distance before slowing down. There wasn't really a speed limit in the vacuum of space.
As we were about to enter the fight, an enemy squadron engaged us. I screamed into comms as I pulled off to the right. "SCATTER!"
Both squadrons broke off as a good-old dogfight ensued. I immediately had an enemy on my tail. Off to my right, one of my pilots also had someone tailing him as well.
I pulled hard right and opened fire. A few of my shots clipped his rear, igniting one of his engines.
Then there was a flash of light to my left as one of my guys got taken out.
I pushed the controls forwards, sending my fighter into a nosedive. Then, I spun around and pulled up.
In my sights were two enemy fighters ripe for the picking. I opened fire, quickly obliterating the both of them. Now we outnumbered them by one.
That difference quickly changed to two as the fighter I had clipped before turned into a ball of flames.
The command channel then lit up. "ALL SQUADRONS DISENGAGE AND RTB, I REPEAT, ALL SQUADRONS DISENGAGE AND RTB!"
I pulled hard left and lit up another enemy fighter before speaking to my squadron. "Disengage and RTB, let's get back to the hangar."
I looked at my scanner and found that I was still being tailed. I clicked my tongue and pulled up, completing a full loop and ending up behind the pest. With a quick squeeze of my triggers, he was gone.