7 Weeks Ago
Pe'Jem, one of many insignificant backwater outer rim worlds. Lightly populated, mostly miners and farmers. Lately pirates had started hitting their export shipments on the way up the grav elevator to the cargo ships. The small planetary security force with its two Z95 headhunters had been unable to do anything to stop the pirates, so a group of the miners and farmers had contracted Tonus to stop them. The pay wasn't much, but on the outer rim, you take what jobs you can get. The group gave him an old warehouse to set up in. There had not been any pirate activity in the three days he'd been here, but today that changed. Calos, Bryn and Climm, some of the local farmers ran into the warehouse, yelling "their hitting the shipment!" So much for advanced warning from Sec force that they were promised. He jumped up into the pilot seat of his old Z80 hunter snub fighter, no time for a pre-flight check, hit the power, brought the repulsers and engines online, and blasted out of the warehouse. Pushed the throttle full up, and hoped there wouldn't be a flame out, and pulled the stick back and climbed for the top of the grav elevator. Putting the sensors to full he could already see it was to late. Two pirates uglies had already drove away the cargo transport, and the pirates cargo ship had snatched up the shipment and was half way to the mother ship. He pushed the throttle to emergency power, not that it would do much good, there was not much of a chance of stopping them now. He opened fire on the pirates cargo ship. Its shields absorbed the attack, and they returned fire. He easily avoided the return fire, from his sensor readouts, it looked like it would take multiple passes in quick succession to bring down the shields on the pirates cargo ship. Then the two uglies opened fire, one scored a partial hit, the shields held. Doing some more evasive maneuver's he looped back at the cargo ship. But a barrage from the mother ship forced him to bank the other direction. The pirates won this round, but at least he could get good sensor scans of the ships. Scans completed, he headed back to the planet.
6 Weeks Ago
From the sensor scans, Tonus had a clear profile on the pirate ships. He put on a 'borrowed' maintenance uniform, and road up with a maintenance crew for the grav elevator, and installed a sensor relay off of the main sensor array. Now he would have a bit more advanced notice when the pirates came in to the system from hyperspace. Sensor relay installed , he headed back to the warehouse. Back at the warehouse he told his trusty old R1-TEE astromech unit (RusTee), to check that the sensor relay was working properly, and set to alert when any ships in the system fit the sensor readings taken before. RusTee beeped an acknowledgement and went to the console to perform the task. He started working on the guns on the ship, trying to squeeze any more power out of them.
Two days later the alert went off. He jumped into his Z80, pre-flight already run earlier that day, he yelled to RusTee "contact sec force, tell them the pirates are back", and blasted out of the warehouse. He checked his scanners, matched the pirate mother ship 100%. Then the pirate cargo ship, and two uglies appeared on scanners. He comm'ed RusTee, how long until sec force gets here. RusTee reply scrolled across the screen, 15 minutes. 15 minutes! This will be over in five. He fired at the uglies first, then the sensors picked up two more uglies launched from the mother ship, "Sithspawn!". The pirate cargo ship zoomed past, he banked hard and opened fire on the aft section of the cargo ship. White light sprayed from the ships guns. His plan was to basically make figure eight's behind the cargo ship, firing at the aft section of it each time he came around from the top and bottom of the figure eight, all while avoiding the return fire from the cargo ship, and the fire from the uglies. On his second pass the cargo ship had to start taking evasive action, still he managed to score hits on it. But the two uglies scored some hits on his ship as well, the shields held. So looped back again at the transport for a third pass. RusTee comm'ed up that the he had bought enough time for the cargo transport to pick up the shipment and head out. "Good to hear". He lined up on the aft section of the pirates cargo ship again, but had to abort, the two uglies launched later by the mother ship had caught up to the fray and opened fire, causing him to have to abort the run and go evasive. Now he was bracketed in between two pairs of uglies. Still he looped around back at the cargo ship to make another pass at it. If he can take it out of commission, the pirates might stop raiding the shipments because it won't be profitable for their trouble. Before he could open fire he had to go evasive again, rolling to port and banking steeply, as fire from the first pair of uglies hit his shields, a yellow warning light went off. Then his ship was rocked by the second pair of uglies getting in some hits. Shield warning light went red, then some of the shields collapsed, and a small bang from the starboard engine, and smoke started pouring out of it. The ship started to spiral out of control. He cut power to the damaged engine. The uglies disengaged, and headed back to the mother ship along with the cargo ship. He hit the atmosphere, smoke still pouring from the damaged engine. The Z80 was somewhat aerodynamic so he attempted to put it into a long glide. He comm'ed RusTee "I'm in trouble, track my trajectory and send help to where I go down" RusTee beeped an acknowledgment. Then the other engine cut out. The ground was coming up fast, too fast. He tried to use the repulsers to keep the nose up. Then he plowed into the ground and everything went black. He woke up, dazed, but not injured. Popped the canopy and stumbled out of the smoking ship.
Calos arrived in his old heavy X-2 skid about five minutes later. "You alright"? "I'm OK, my ship, not so much". They loaded the wreckage onto the X-2 and hauled it back to the warehouse. RusTee beeped and hooted when they returned. "Yeah, I know, see if you can get Miri on the holonet, and see if she has time to work on a 'project'". RusTee beeped an acknowledgement. Miri was the best star ship mechanic he knew. When he first arrived on the planet, he saw a debris field from several ships, clone wars era from the looks of it. He was going to go salvaging that wreckage and hopefully find enough parts to repair, and even upgrade his ship.
5 Weeks Ago
The wreckage was from a long forgotten clone wars battle. From the looks of it the separatist side took the brunt of the losses. The debris field had a ton of salvage. So far Tonus had already salvaged buzz droid and cluster missiles, power converters, relays, wiring, durasteel panels, shield generators from droid destroyers, and clone transport engines just to list a few. Calos let him use the X-2 to transport the parts back to the warehouse. He returned to the warehouse with the latest load of parts. He carried two power converters over to the work bench where RusTee was already working on another one. Miri was working on the ships engines. Miri put her hands on her hips and said "You know this type of ship was never designed for anything like this". "I know, that is why I re-enforced the wings struts". "I'm not just talking about putting four engines where it only had two before, or the missile racks on the wings." Miri said. He smiled and held up is hands in the air in surrender, "You're right, you're right, but that is why I asked the best star ship mechanic in the galaxy for a hand with this project." She smiled and went back to working on the ship. This had been her concern since he showed her the design plans of the upgrades he wanted to do. Inspired by the design of X-Wing fighters, add an engine on the top of each of the downward slanted wings while still keeping the engines mounted on the underside of the wings. Four rack mounts for rockets on the underside of each wing and laser cannons mounted at the end of each of the wings, yet still keeping the guns mounted on the forward sides of the fuselage. Adding dual stabilizing tails to the aft and canards on the front of the fuselage to improve atmospheric maneuverability. Extending the length of the ship to accommodate the gear needed for extra components and a slot for RusTee to fit in the ship, an extra pair of eyes, or in this case sensors are always useful in a dog fight. Since he found the destroyer droids shield generators he also got the crazy idea to add them in a linear line down the fuselage and wings of the ship as a secondary shielding, even if it would have the shield profile of a piece of popcorn.
1 Week Ago
Miri said "I think we are ready for a test flight". "Agreed, do you want to do the honors or should I"? "I rather not risk my life unnecessarily" Miri said. "No problem I'll do it". RusTee hop in, lets take the ship out. RusTee tweedled and scooted under the ship and was pulled up into the custom slot for him. Tonus hopped in and powered up the ship, and eased it out of the hanger. Ran though the pre-flight everything checked out. "Comm check Miri", "check" she replied. Monitor the systems RusTee, let me know at the first sign of trouble. RusTee reply came across the screen acknowledging, adding a question of the flight worthiness of the snub fighter. Were about to find out RusTee, and he eased the throttle forward and pulled back on the stick and the craft took to the sky. The fighter definitely had improved response in the atmosphere. Miri had done miracles with the engine responsiveness. The speed was boosted by a ton as well, and he hadn't even pushed the throttles to full yet. "Miri you are a miracle worker". "Of course I am, assuming the ship doesn't explode or break apart" Miri said. "Lets test that out RusTee, power up the weapon systems and shields". He headed for a target area he set up out by the debris field. First pass he set the weapons on a rotating pattern, so only one gun or cannon would fire at a time, port gun, starboard cannon, starboard gun, port cannon. No problems detected. Second pass duel linked fire, port gun and starboard cannon, starboard gun and port cannon. RusTee detected a small but continuing power drop during this configuration. Third pass quad linked all four weapons at once. Just as Miri predicted, there was too much of a power draw. As he fired the panels dimmed, the engines slowed, and the shields shrunk, but it poured out a lot of destructive power. He comm'ed Miri "you were right about the quad linked config, I'm heading outside of atmo to see how bad it is". "Roger that, I'm not coming up and rescuing you if you blow up" Miri said. "Roger that". RusTee scrolled across the screen that there was a 30% drop in power for each quad linked shot. "Roger that RusTee". Once outside the atmosphere, he tried it again. on the fourth shot, everything went dark and silent. RusTee was correct about the power drop. Well at least it didn't explode. He powered the ship back up, and comm'ed Miri, "three shots with quad link, going to test engines at full throttle and at emergency power then head back", and you can say i told you so" "Roger that, and i told you so" Miri replied. At full power everything was smooth, but at emergency power there was some increasing vibrations. Miri had the emergency power problem fixed by the next day. He gave her as many credits as he could spare for her help, and she packed up to head off to her next job. On her way out she said "good luck, don't get yourself killed". "I'll work on it, and I owe you one". "Two", she said. "Right, two" Tonus replied.
Today
The alert went off, and the snub fighter was repaired and as ready to go as it was going to get. RusTee rolled under the fighter and was lifted up and ready to go. Tonus hopped into the fighter, powered it up, and blasted out of the warehouse. As he pushed the throttle up to full power, on the scanners he picked up four uglies and a transport, with four more uglies on the way from the mother ship! Clearly the pirates had detected his launch and were expecting with their superior numbers to have an easy time shooting him down, again. Well they were going to be in for a big surprise. "RusTee designate the four uglies as targets one through four, arm and set one buzz droid missile for each, hold on getting a target lock until i give you the signal". RusTee signaled ready on the screen. The uglies opened fire at max range, clearly trying to prevent a repeat of before, where he was able to slow the transport down enough so it couldn't scoop up the shipment. He switched shields to full forward, and juked and jigged to keep them from scoring any hits. Once he had closed close enough to prevent the uglies from having much of a chance of avoiding the missiles he told RusTee "lock on targets 1-4 and fire". He put each one of the targets in the target brackets, and RusTee fired a missile at each. Each of the buzz droid missiles hit their target. The buzz droids had been modified each with an explosive charge, that they would drill into a critical part of the enemy ship (power converter, engine weapon system, ...), plant the explosive and detonate it. Three of the uglies exploded in brilliant balls of flame, the other ugly had explosion, and secondary explosions, and was effectively out of the fight. "Rustee arm the concussion missiles and ready to fire them on the pirates cargo ship". RusTee signaled ready to go. He set the guns for rotating, and took a head on pass on the cargo ship. Looped back, cut the throttle back to match speed with the slower cargo ship, switched to quad link on the guns. Put the cargo ship into the target brackets "RusTee fire the missiles", Squeezed off three shots, which collapsed the cargo ships shields. Switched to dual linked fire just as the concussion missiles hit causing multiple explosions. RusTee flashed a warning across the screen that the second wave of uglies were within max firing range. He put two more shots into the cargo ship and it exploded. He switched the guns back to rotating, pushed the throttles back up to full, and dove toward the planets atmosphere. The uglies opened fire, and the shields were only at 11%, so evade and avoid until they could firm back up. Juking and jigging, rolling and banking, to make getting a target lock on him as difficult as possible. The shots were getting closer, he pushed the throttles up through emergency power, and started pulling away. "How long until atmo RusTee"? 10 Seconds RusTee scrolled across the screen. When he hit the planets atmosphere, he eased back on the throttle. The uglies followed him into the atmosphere, which was a mistake. He did a barrel role, the and a split S turn, followed by a loop, the uglies couldn't match the maneuverability of the modified Z80. Having no missiles left, he opened fire on one of the uglies, white light streamed out at the enemy. He scored a few hits, but couldn't keep the target lock on the enemy long enough, because he had to do a snap roll to keep from getting hit by another one of the uglies. This kept occurring, as soon as he could take a shot at a target, he would have to go evasive to avoid being hit. The whole time he had been diving further into the atmosphere, Shields had firmed back up to 85% so he switched guns to dual mode, for more punch. This time when he got the ugly in his sights he took out one of it's engines, taking it out of the fight. Three more to go. The next ugly was lining up on his six O'clock to take a shot at him again, so he pulled up, and hit the braking thrusters. The enemy flashed past him, he let off the braking thrusters, pushed the throttle back up, and opened fire. The ugly burst into flames, and nosed toward the ground trailing smoke and flames. His ship was rocked by fire from the two remaining uglies, yellow indicator on the shields lit up. Clearly they were not ready to give up. He pushed the stick forward did an outside loop, a barrel roll, followed by a split S. Switched the guns over to quad link, lined up the ugly in the target sites, and squeezed two shots into it, and it exploded in a big fireball, banking sharply to port, he saw the last ugly head back to the mother ship. So he headed back to the warehouse. Calos and Bryn were there when he landed. Tonus told them "The pirates should have had heavy enough losses today, plus not getting the shipment that it should make it not profitable for them to try again". "That's great news, but can you hang around for a couple more weeks just to be sure" Calos said. "Sure, no problem, i can use the time to do some more salvage runs, and maybe Bryn can cook up some more of that scrumptious nerf stew". Bryn replied, "you have a deal".
Based on the far far away galaxy, created by George Lucas and expanded upon by the many authors of the Star Wars books.