Plywood Fiend
Rear Admiral
O.K, considering that there are about 200 odd fan fics in this forum, it’s very possible that I’ve inadvertently ripped off someone’s idea. If that’s the case then I apologise. Let me know if this is the case and I’ll try and change the thing.
Also, I got a fair amount of information from tactics.solsector.net so I’ll be polite and thank whoever made that website.
Finally, I’m not sure if I need to include a disclaimer or not but in any case, I don’t own Wing Commander, I don’t own nearly enough of the games either.
Front Lines
By the Plywood Fiend
Chapter 1: Retreat
Salamander’s Perspective
A strategic withdrawa.l That’s what they always called them. Intentional surrender of nonessential systems, thereby causing the enemy to spread themselves too thinly, allowing for a greater chance of success in counter attacks. If it had ever worked out that way I didn’t know. All I knew was that here in the Vega sector, all we seemed to do was carry out a ‘strategic withdrawal’, then spend a month or two trying to defend whichever system we fell back to before abandoning that to the Kilrathi as well.
If they were spreading themselves too thinly, you wouldn’t know it from the force they sent to chase us out of Chang Cu. Three Bhantkara class fleet carriers with five Fralthi 2 class cruisers. The Hermes task force was no match for them on its own. Hence we’d been sent out to keep their bombers away from our ships whilst they made for the jump point. This was the kind of mission I loved more then most, the kind of mission where, assuming you weren’t incinerated in your cockpit, you could easily be left behind by your home ship and then incinerated in your cockpit, (if you were lucky).
Anyway, things hadn’t been going all that bad to begin with. Me and my two wingman, ‘Torrent’ and ‘Fool’ had already trashed a wing of Paktahn bombers heading for the Dominion, and the Arrows from ‘Swift Blade’ squadron and Hellcats from ‘Fire Wings’ had been keeping the cats off of out backs. Unfortunately, for every bomber we destroyed, three more seemed to emerge from a Kilrathi hanger.
“Guys, follow me in, same as last time, pick one and keep firing till you see floating whiskers.”
“Aye sir.” Torrent replied, it was nice to see that the nervousness I’d heard in her before the mission had faded.
“Sure thing Major.” Fool replied shortly thereafter.
A Dralthi took a few pot shots at my Thunderbolt on the way in, my front shields took a hit before I was able to swerve out of the way. I instantly brought up my rear view turret display but the Kilrathi was nowhere to be seen. I checked the radar and saw a bright red dot that looked fairly close to the stern of my fighter, being chased by a blue dot.
I didn’t have time for gratitude or relief; the first of the Paktahn was already in firing range. A series of bright green, blue and yellow flashes to my right told me that Torrent had already started firing. I followed suit a second later when I had positioned my targeting crosshair over the rotating green one on my view screen.
The pilot’s reflexes were far better then his predecessors that we’d blown apart earlier, he pulled his ship out of my line of fire before after only a few hits. I looked at my targeting display; his port shield was barely damaged. Shit.
“Worthless human filth,” chortled a Kilrathi pilot happily over my com unit, “You cannot hope to save yourselves.”
I considered replying but I abandoned the idea, I didn’t have time for this.
I pulled my ship to the right, narrowly missing a string of fire from my target’s rear turret. I tried to keep the beastie in my sights long enough to get a missile lock but I soon found my shields getting whacked once again. This time by a Vaktoth. Presumably the ship of the guy who’d just taunted me.
I wouldn’t take any bombers out with this bastard snapping at my heals, and I couldn’t sit back and hope that a passing Arrow or Hellcat would blow it away.
“Torrent, Fool, keep firing at the bombers, I’ll try and get this guy off out tails.”
“Aye sir.”
“Got it.”
The Kilrathi had flown passed my fighter and was now preparing for another run at me. I immediately punched my afterburners and swung my ship towards him.
As the cat saw me flying towards him at suitable ramming speed, his first reaction, thankfully, was to get out of my way before he found the bow of my fighter embedded in his cockpit. As he flew off to his left, I instantly pulled in behind him. His rear turret started firing at me but that didn’t defend him against the far greater stream of gunfire that I threw into his rear shields. Once these had collapsed, I fired off an Imrec missile up his engines. He had time to eject one decoy, which flew straight passed the missile and into my front shields, before the missile struck his craft, causing it to spin uncontrollably, trailing a line of fire as it did so.
The pilot said a few things over the radio in Kilrathi. I don’t know what he was saying but it was probably something offensive. After revelling in triumph for about one second, I pulled back towards the others and tried to find another Paktahn to shoot at.
I increased my speed to maximum. Sitting still for extended periods of time in a place like this redefines stupid. I found Torrent and Fool roughly five kilometres away from me. Out of the original group of four bombers, three remained, judging by the look of Fool’s target, it looked like the number would soon be reduced to two.
Space was beginning to fill up with debris; most of it was too badly charred to determine whether it was from a Kilrathi or Confed fighter.
Whilst moving my ship around what once may have been the wing of a star fighter, I almost flew my ship into an ejected Terran pilot, I had to swerve and then some to avoid them. I couldn’t help but feel a sudden stab of pity. None of our ships had been outfitted with tractor beams, there was no chance that the Hermes would send out a rescue shuttle in the middle of a battle like this, and they wouldn’t be here when it ended. That pilot, whoever he or she was, would either get whacked by a passing ship, get fried by a stray shot or be scooped up by the Kilrathi. There was nothing any of us could do about that.
I pushed the thought from my mind as best as I could as the ping of the missile lock sounded. I fired off a second Imrec into a nearby, seemingly undamaged Paktahn’s shields. The pilot instantly pulled up, losing its torpedo lock on the Toronto.
The missile swerved into a decoy that the Kilrathi bomber had deployed and detonated a few moments later. I let it go. I had to focus on the fighters that were still heading for our capital ships.
I found a target, and fired. The Paktahn didn’t try and flee right away, the pilot presumably was mere seconds away from a missile lock. I grinned, I was firing at an idiot. A rookie without a doubt. The sort who hasn’t figured out from a dying wingman’s last snarling hiss that they aren’t immune to death.
His shields failed after a moment, soon afterwards, my tactical display revealed moderate damage to his engines after a few gunshots impacted on his hull.
He started to move then, not that it did him much good. His engines had taken a fair few hits and he couldn’t move much faster then a porcupine mine. I swung around behind him and fired again. He ejected about five seconds earlier then he probably could have got away with. I wasn’t so careful to avoid his ejection seat as I was with the other pilot. There was a slight flash of blue as the Cat was fried on my shields, then nothing. Oh well, accidents happen.
“The Rome is taking hits guys,” Said Lieutenant Jake Coben, the Hermes’ com officer, ”Cover her.”
Above me, I could just make out shapes that appeared to be Longbow bombers. It was nice to see they’d finally got some of those in the air, maybe now we could even up the odds a bit. Unfortunately, their presence meant that a lot of the fighters guarding our rears were about to be diverted to cover the bombers.
I heard a scream then, a human scream which came from a face that had appeared on my, and most probably everyone else’s com screen. The pilot was waving his arms frantically, trying to fend off the flames that were reaching up from his consoles to lash at him.
There was the briefest sound of an explosion, and then the screen went dead.
The pilot had probably opened a channel to all ships to request assistance. It was easier to ask everyone then see who was closest, especially if your wingman had been fried. I don’t know if this was the case. Anyway, instead, our entire compliment of airborne pilots was treated to the sight of his fiery death and the sound of his shriek of an epitaph. Not to sound unfeeling, I mean I did feel bad for the guy, I still do, and I’m not blaming him for what happened, but in the heat of combat we don’t need stuff like that.
“All fighters,” Coben again, “We are approaching the jump point, you have five minutes to get yourselves back here before we jump out. Don’t dawdle people, if we have to leave you behind, we will.
I remember thinking that it was kind of pointless sending the bombers out seeing as they didn’t have time to shoot at anything, That was before I heard the cry of,
“I die for my…”
This transmission was cut off abruptly as space lit up by the exploding fusion reactor of one of the Bhantkara carriers. After another moment of silence, a number of Kilrathi pilots started hissing and growling their outrage at us over the radio. They also seemed to be shooting at us with renewed zeal.
My rear shields took hits from two Darkets that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. My onboard computer instantly took control of the rear turret and let off a few rounds into the closest fighter, which then proceeded to fire a heat seeker at me.
My ‘Lock’ light sprang to life with the fast, nervous beeping that usually added to the nervousness of the guy trying to evade the missile. I dropped off a decoy and hit my afterburners, swinging my ship around so that it was pointed at the Hermes. It made no difference.
The missile crashed into the rear of my Thunderbolt, ripping my rear shields away with contemptuous ease. There was a sharp jolt and I was flung forward towards my view screen. My ship had veered off course slightly, I tried to correct that after I’d pried myself off the window, but the two Darkets quickly appeared from the shadows once again and started firing at my now singed fighter. Flying in a straight line no longer seemed like a good idea.
“Hurry up people, you have three minutes left.”
My rear turret was gone, no help there, I hit the afterburners and hoped that the damage I’d taken from the missile hit hadn’t wouldn’t slow me down too much.
“Jak-ta-gah! Yes, run! Worthless ape dung. You will die before you…”
The Kilrathi pilot’s taunt was cut off as his fighter blew up. Its always a good idea to keep an eye on your radar when firing at a target, its easy to get distracted when you’re a hit or two away from a kill and not notice the beastie sneaking up behind you.
“Thanks Razor.” I uttered, trying to hide my relief behind forced nonchalance.
“Don’t mention it. I knew you’d need me to help you sooner or later.” She cut the channel before I could respond with a witty comment of my own. Truth be told I didn’t really have one, but that’s not important.
O.K, by the looks of things i'm going to have to post this chapter in two posts.
Also, I got a fair amount of information from tactics.solsector.net so I’ll be polite and thank whoever made that website.
Finally, I’m not sure if I need to include a disclaimer or not but in any case, I don’t own Wing Commander, I don’t own nearly enough of the games either.
Front Lines
By the Plywood Fiend
Chapter 1: Retreat
Salamander’s Perspective
A strategic withdrawa.l That’s what they always called them. Intentional surrender of nonessential systems, thereby causing the enemy to spread themselves too thinly, allowing for a greater chance of success in counter attacks. If it had ever worked out that way I didn’t know. All I knew was that here in the Vega sector, all we seemed to do was carry out a ‘strategic withdrawal’, then spend a month or two trying to defend whichever system we fell back to before abandoning that to the Kilrathi as well.
If they were spreading themselves too thinly, you wouldn’t know it from the force they sent to chase us out of Chang Cu. Three Bhantkara class fleet carriers with five Fralthi 2 class cruisers. The Hermes task force was no match for them on its own. Hence we’d been sent out to keep their bombers away from our ships whilst they made for the jump point. This was the kind of mission I loved more then most, the kind of mission where, assuming you weren’t incinerated in your cockpit, you could easily be left behind by your home ship and then incinerated in your cockpit, (if you were lucky).
Anyway, things hadn’t been going all that bad to begin with. Me and my two wingman, ‘Torrent’ and ‘Fool’ had already trashed a wing of Paktahn bombers heading for the Dominion, and the Arrows from ‘Swift Blade’ squadron and Hellcats from ‘Fire Wings’ had been keeping the cats off of out backs. Unfortunately, for every bomber we destroyed, three more seemed to emerge from a Kilrathi hanger.
“Guys, follow me in, same as last time, pick one and keep firing till you see floating whiskers.”
“Aye sir.” Torrent replied, it was nice to see that the nervousness I’d heard in her before the mission had faded.
“Sure thing Major.” Fool replied shortly thereafter.
A Dralthi took a few pot shots at my Thunderbolt on the way in, my front shields took a hit before I was able to swerve out of the way. I instantly brought up my rear view turret display but the Kilrathi was nowhere to be seen. I checked the radar and saw a bright red dot that looked fairly close to the stern of my fighter, being chased by a blue dot.
I didn’t have time for gratitude or relief; the first of the Paktahn was already in firing range. A series of bright green, blue and yellow flashes to my right told me that Torrent had already started firing. I followed suit a second later when I had positioned my targeting crosshair over the rotating green one on my view screen.
The pilot’s reflexes were far better then his predecessors that we’d blown apart earlier, he pulled his ship out of my line of fire before after only a few hits. I looked at my targeting display; his port shield was barely damaged. Shit.
“Worthless human filth,” chortled a Kilrathi pilot happily over my com unit, “You cannot hope to save yourselves.”
I considered replying but I abandoned the idea, I didn’t have time for this.
I pulled my ship to the right, narrowly missing a string of fire from my target’s rear turret. I tried to keep the beastie in my sights long enough to get a missile lock but I soon found my shields getting whacked once again. This time by a Vaktoth. Presumably the ship of the guy who’d just taunted me.
I wouldn’t take any bombers out with this bastard snapping at my heals, and I couldn’t sit back and hope that a passing Arrow or Hellcat would blow it away.
“Torrent, Fool, keep firing at the bombers, I’ll try and get this guy off out tails.”
“Aye sir.”
“Got it.”
The Kilrathi had flown passed my fighter and was now preparing for another run at me. I immediately punched my afterburners and swung my ship towards him.
As the cat saw me flying towards him at suitable ramming speed, his first reaction, thankfully, was to get out of my way before he found the bow of my fighter embedded in his cockpit. As he flew off to his left, I instantly pulled in behind him. His rear turret started firing at me but that didn’t defend him against the far greater stream of gunfire that I threw into his rear shields. Once these had collapsed, I fired off an Imrec missile up his engines. He had time to eject one decoy, which flew straight passed the missile and into my front shields, before the missile struck his craft, causing it to spin uncontrollably, trailing a line of fire as it did so.
The pilot said a few things over the radio in Kilrathi. I don’t know what he was saying but it was probably something offensive. After revelling in triumph for about one second, I pulled back towards the others and tried to find another Paktahn to shoot at.
I increased my speed to maximum. Sitting still for extended periods of time in a place like this redefines stupid. I found Torrent and Fool roughly five kilometres away from me. Out of the original group of four bombers, three remained, judging by the look of Fool’s target, it looked like the number would soon be reduced to two.
Space was beginning to fill up with debris; most of it was too badly charred to determine whether it was from a Kilrathi or Confed fighter.
Whilst moving my ship around what once may have been the wing of a star fighter, I almost flew my ship into an ejected Terran pilot, I had to swerve and then some to avoid them. I couldn’t help but feel a sudden stab of pity. None of our ships had been outfitted with tractor beams, there was no chance that the Hermes would send out a rescue shuttle in the middle of a battle like this, and they wouldn’t be here when it ended. That pilot, whoever he or she was, would either get whacked by a passing ship, get fried by a stray shot or be scooped up by the Kilrathi. There was nothing any of us could do about that.
I pushed the thought from my mind as best as I could as the ping of the missile lock sounded. I fired off a second Imrec into a nearby, seemingly undamaged Paktahn’s shields. The pilot instantly pulled up, losing its torpedo lock on the Toronto.
The missile swerved into a decoy that the Kilrathi bomber had deployed and detonated a few moments later. I let it go. I had to focus on the fighters that were still heading for our capital ships.
I found a target, and fired. The Paktahn didn’t try and flee right away, the pilot presumably was mere seconds away from a missile lock. I grinned, I was firing at an idiot. A rookie without a doubt. The sort who hasn’t figured out from a dying wingman’s last snarling hiss that they aren’t immune to death.
His shields failed after a moment, soon afterwards, my tactical display revealed moderate damage to his engines after a few gunshots impacted on his hull.
He started to move then, not that it did him much good. His engines had taken a fair few hits and he couldn’t move much faster then a porcupine mine. I swung around behind him and fired again. He ejected about five seconds earlier then he probably could have got away with. I wasn’t so careful to avoid his ejection seat as I was with the other pilot. There was a slight flash of blue as the Cat was fried on my shields, then nothing. Oh well, accidents happen.
“The Rome is taking hits guys,” Said Lieutenant Jake Coben, the Hermes’ com officer, ”Cover her.”
Above me, I could just make out shapes that appeared to be Longbow bombers. It was nice to see they’d finally got some of those in the air, maybe now we could even up the odds a bit. Unfortunately, their presence meant that a lot of the fighters guarding our rears were about to be diverted to cover the bombers.
I heard a scream then, a human scream which came from a face that had appeared on my, and most probably everyone else’s com screen. The pilot was waving his arms frantically, trying to fend off the flames that were reaching up from his consoles to lash at him.
There was the briefest sound of an explosion, and then the screen went dead.
The pilot had probably opened a channel to all ships to request assistance. It was easier to ask everyone then see who was closest, especially if your wingman had been fried. I don’t know if this was the case. Anyway, instead, our entire compliment of airborne pilots was treated to the sight of his fiery death and the sound of his shriek of an epitaph. Not to sound unfeeling, I mean I did feel bad for the guy, I still do, and I’m not blaming him for what happened, but in the heat of combat we don’t need stuff like that.
“All fighters,” Coben again, “We are approaching the jump point, you have five minutes to get yourselves back here before we jump out. Don’t dawdle people, if we have to leave you behind, we will.
I remember thinking that it was kind of pointless sending the bombers out seeing as they didn’t have time to shoot at anything, That was before I heard the cry of,
“I die for my…”
This transmission was cut off abruptly as space lit up by the exploding fusion reactor of one of the Bhantkara carriers. After another moment of silence, a number of Kilrathi pilots started hissing and growling their outrage at us over the radio. They also seemed to be shooting at us with renewed zeal.
My rear shields took hits from two Darkets that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. My onboard computer instantly took control of the rear turret and let off a few rounds into the closest fighter, which then proceeded to fire a heat seeker at me.
My ‘Lock’ light sprang to life with the fast, nervous beeping that usually added to the nervousness of the guy trying to evade the missile. I dropped off a decoy and hit my afterburners, swinging my ship around so that it was pointed at the Hermes. It made no difference.
The missile crashed into the rear of my Thunderbolt, ripping my rear shields away with contemptuous ease. There was a sharp jolt and I was flung forward towards my view screen. My ship had veered off course slightly, I tried to correct that after I’d pried myself off the window, but the two Darkets quickly appeared from the shadows once again and started firing at my now singed fighter. Flying in a straight line no longer seemed like a good idea.
“Hurry up people, you have three minutes left.”
My rear turret was gone, no help there, I hit the afterburners and hoped that the damage I’d taken from the missile hit hadn’t wouldn’t slow me down too much.
“Jak-ta-gah! Yes, run! Worthless ape dung. You will die before you…”
The Kilrathi pilot’s taunt was cut off as his fighter blew up. Its always a good idea to keep an eye on your radar when firing at a target, its easy to get distracted when you’re a hit or two away from a kill and not notice the beastie sneaking up behind you.
“Thanks Razor.” I uttered, trying to hide my relief behind forced nonchalance.
“Don’t mention it. I knew you’d need me to help you sooner or later.” She cut the channel before I could respond with a witty comment of my own. Truth be told I didn’t really have one, but that’s not important.
O.K, by the looks of things i'm going to have to post this chapter in two posts.