"Eclipse Two, a wedge and a wishbone are on my tail, assistance requested."
"Eclipse Leader, I copy."
Blackman jerked on the back on the controls and dialed propulsion power into the maneuvering jets with his left thumb. The craft responded in a tight flip that positioned him so he could see Eclipse Two. There she was, enemy starfighters bearing down on her, heading straight for him.
More deaths happened in face-to-face attacks then any other way. Blackman wasn't a Corelian, and he cared very much about the odds. Quickly he dialed his propulsion and jets into a rough balance and brought his fighter into a sharp climb that he let continue for two seconds.
"Eclipse Leader, this is Eclipse Two. Where is that assistance you promised?" Her tone was clearly less then pleased.
"Coming ar-" His craft convulsed and his windows were painted with frost of blue electricity wich framed an E-Wing. He had no idea where the fighter had come from, but that wasn't important. In fact, much of nothing was important to him, because he couldn't afford energy on conscious thought just now. Acting on instinct his craft fell into a simi-loop that situated him on the enemy craft's tail.
Or more the maneuver was supposed to do that.
Three red streaks flew past overhead kindly informing Blackman that the E-wing had moved from a head on assault to his tail. He couldn't help Eclipse two out now, however he also couldn't leave her without assistance. A quick glance at the sensor screen revealed the next closest fighter to Eclipse One.
"My hands are full - Eclipse One, can you take care of her?"
The gruff voice barked the expected reply. "I copy 'Clipse Lead."
Blackman barreled left just in time to miss a second barrage of laser fire. He noted the orientation of the triangle and was able to tell the orientation of the craft. He began to dive, and then dialed his engine into reverse. It had the intended result of switching their positions, and soon he saw the E-Wing shooting forward, apparently giving up on maneuvers.
In a moment the agile TIE Defender was on the E-Wings tail. Blackman tapped on the right trigger, lacing the craft's aft shields with laser fire. With a crackle and flash the enemy craft's shields went out. The E-Wing pilot clearly decided to return to maneuvers. He rolled to the left even as the last bolt disabled his shields, nearly throwing Blackman off. Blackman began to think of all the possibilities that the pilot could do, and filed them into different subsets, such as rash, simple, advance, commonly taught, and then he selected the ones he thought the enemy most likely would do based off what he had done so far. Mentally he plotted a sphere over the E-wing, placing ghosts off all the possible maneuvers branching off it, and highlighting the few he had selected earlier. As his conscious thought dissected the enemy's mind in an organized dash, his sub conscious was once again left with the task of piloting the craft.
The enemy pilot tried a climb. This was third on Blackman's list, however because one and two both were variants on dives, one a corkscrew, the other involved cutting speed and falling into a spiral, he had began on a dive himself. Blackman gave more power to the maneuvering jets from the propulsion, and brought the nimble TIE Defender about, correcting his mistake. The E-Wing fell into his sights, and he fingered the trigger, cutting the craft's ground shields to half.
He reanalyzed the pilot, taking in what he knew about his technique, and figuring in what he would do now that his lower shields were in such a state. A micro-second glance at the sensor screen gave him additional information, that about the status of the fighter, as well as that of the battle, which he figured in accordingly. Once again all the possibilities were painted onto the fighter, and the most likely were highlighted - far fewer then last time.
The E-Wing made his move. He reversed his propulsion trying the trick Blackman had just done. Number one on Blackman's list. He squeezed the trigger, and the E-Wing erupted in a fiery blaze.
Wasting no time he looked down at the sensor display, giving it more time then before. Eclipse Two was partly clear, hovering at the edge of the battle. What was left of the battle anyway. Only two fighters remained. One was the wedge still on Two's tail followed closely by One. Blackman tensed when he saw what type of fighter it was: a TIE Defender. Then a second jerked onto the screen. Three, four, six TIE Defenders clustered on the far right side of the screen.
"This is Base Leader, six rouge fighters have been detected baring on your position, four clicks from Eclipse Leader."
Blackman looked over at the com screen, seeing which fighter channels were still active. One, two, and nine. Including him they had four. The enemy outnumbered them by a half. Those certainly weren't the best odds, but they were manageable. However One and Two were still busy, so that gave them only two to fight with. Two against six. Blackman cursed under his breath. He needed to locate nine to form a quick plan. If he was nearby one of them could cover the other, if not maybe they could flank the enemy's force by both sides and scatter them. He looked down at the sensor screen and looked for Nine's position. He found the fighter directly in front of the rouge fighters. To make matters worst if Blackman was to aid Nine he would have to attack the rouge fighters in a head on collision. To make matters ever more dire if at anytime they would destroy Nine they'd be set up for a head on attack, which, unless they were fools, they would take.
The pinpoint of light that marked nine's position went out.
One against six, in a head on fight.
Immediately his mind went to work. He decided upon what he knew, what he didn't know, what would be good to know, how he would find these things out, what actions the pilots might take would tell him what. He guessed their attacks, and formed counter attacks, he formed attacks and guessed their counter attacks. He set himself inside their minds, tearing apart any physiology that would match theirs. He had never been a traitor, but he had flown against other TIE Defenders before, and he how such odds on your side changed your tactics. He also knew that they shared a common foundation: neither party held fear.
The rouge pilots because they thought they couldn't lose.
Blackman because he knew he wouldn't lose.
He had to instill fear into them, enough to cause them to call off a head on attack just long enough for him to attack them in a manner that relied more on skill, and also long enough that gave him the aid of One and Two, but not too much that would cause the pilots to brake formation and charge at him. A missile lock would do that, but only for one of them, and if that one happened to not be the leader it would only cause the formation to disintegrate. If it were the leader of the formation, however, he would lead them all into an evasive maneuver.
Picking out the leader was a fairly easy job, and it took only a few moments to get a lock. The fighters didn't make any movement. Surely their computers should have warned them of the lock, so why weren't they responding? Not only was it not a human response, it wasn't intelligent. If the leader fell the others would be lost, not knowing what to do. Even if the leader wasn't afraid to die for his cause, he should care about his wingmen's lives, and how all their deaths would hurt the cause they fought for.
Blackman's computer beeped warning a missile lock on his craft. They just wanted to trade one fighter for another? The leader was willing to kill himself, as well as his comrades just for Blackman's life?
He jerked back on the left trigger sending a proton torpedo at his opponent. In return the enemy's warhead appeared on Blackman's sensor display. It was identified as a heat/life concussion seeker missile, a powerful one at that, and it was charting brakeneck speeds. He realized he wouldn't have time for another missile lock, so he sprayed laser fire at his opponents, and then dove in a wild spin in an attempt to avoid the missile, but it proved too fast and agile. He never saw it hit.
A strange realization crept over the man as he discovered that he wasn't dead. He released a breath he didn't know he was holding, and opened his eyes that he hadn't known that he had shut. Before him displayed the elapsed mission time, the number of kills each member achieved, and various other information that the programmers thought might be useful.
Blackman leaned back with a sigh. The reason the six rouge pilots didn't act human was because they weren't human. They were simulated pilots who weren't programmed to fear, to be angered, to get sloppy when victory was at hand. Destroying the 'leader' wouldn't throw their forces into chaos, or even disassemble their formation.
Getting into that state of mind was the only way he could perform, and it was his downfall every time. He could take down droid pilots, he had done it countless times before, except even droids had blind spots, and even droids were given some thought, some personality to aid in their performance. A few tales drifted about the ancient clone wars and how the simple battle droids made expressions of dismay before their deaths, or how some turn and ran, even when they knew they couldn't get away.
The simulator had a memory wipe after every session, however, and had a perfect 'sensor array' which in solely relied upon. There was no tricking it, and there was no preying upon its flaws.
Blackman looked back up at the screen seeing that Two had went down, but One had survived, even if it was by a narrow margin, completing the mission. Despite the fact that only a single member of their entire squadron had lived through the ordeal, he was pleased; no squadron had ever before completed the simulated mission. In fact the point of it was for the pilots not to survive in order to carefully examine their limits.
Blackman activated the door, and emerged from the simulator cockpit. He found the entire squadron clustered around One and Two giving congratulations. Blackman soon gathered that Two had died only a second before the simulation ended and was the reason the last TIE Defender had bit the dust. Although if it was real One was the only one that would have walked away, the squadron saw both pilots as the survivors, ignoring technicalities. Well, if it had been real, all three of them would have walked away more likely then not.
Blackman made his way to the elevated platform that led out of the simulator door in hopes to have a better chance of attracting the ecstatic group's attention. He had something to tell them and now was as good of time as ever. Eclipse One apparently took this as a sheepish withdraw, and quickly called his superior up on it. His deep gravelly voice easily rose above the noise in the room.
"Ya died and now you're trying to run away, ey?"
This caused the room to brake out in a bunch of whoops and cries of amusement at what they now unshakably took as a shameful retreat. There was no point in trying to deny it at this point, no one would believe it, and it would be suicide to say that he just wanted to get to the door to grab their attention; he realized now that it would only sound like a poor excuse. Instead he smiled and gave a shrug of his shoulders, silently accepting the accusation. When the room quieted down enough to speak, Blackman did so.
"I've got good news men." This quieted down the room, not enough to hear a pin drop, but enough that he could have whispered if he so wished. "We're going into active service starting to-" -day. The room returned into an uproar thrice what it had been. The pilots were to excided to keep their focus on anything for long. They hollered, slapped each other on their backs, and declared how they were going to kill the 'publicans. Even Eclipse Two had a wide, tooth filled grin as she glanced about her wing mates, something Blackman had never seen before.
The only one who didn't partake in the celebration was Eclipse Two. Other then Blackman, Two was the only one who had seen combat outside a simulator or training run, and he had seen easily twice what Blackman could claim. Also his work had been as a mercenary, where every battle was one for your life, unlike Blackman's military upbringing that included countless patrols and easy battles against small bands of pirates. Two knew how grizzly war could be.
Blackman quietly exited, retiring to his office. There he transmitted the message: Eclipse Squadron was ready to serve.
