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It's been a few weeks since Pegasus showed up and my transfer from Galactica. I'm doing my best to settle in as leader of Green Squadron, who I have dubbed the Star Wolves. Before Cain got shot, she put me on the list of transfers and promotions. When Fisk took command, I told him that I'd only work with Mark II Vipers. Not only do I like the model, but I like the feel of the stick better than the Mark VIIs, but I guess that's because when I volunteered to replace a few pilots, the good old Mark II is what we trained on. Thankfully, Fisk gave me clearance for that before he got garroted, because this Garner guy seems to have it out for pilots. The bastard would have revoked my flight status just for suggesting it. Hopefully this tradition of the Beast devouring its Commanders on a weekly basis will hold out and I won't have to deal with him much longer either, but Major Pym tells me I need to keep those opinions locked up. I don't talk much, but I guess when I do there's just too much truth in it for most people to tolerate. So, we're out on a CAP the other day. Big G's gone to help those miners get the metal out of the asteroids in a nearby system. Pegasus and her crew were put in charge of keeping the civilian fleet safe. Anyways, being that the Star Wolves are the first to be chosen for CAP runs, we take first shift of the day. Six hours I sit in that cockpit with nothing to do but run circles around the ships. My good friend Sidewinder was my wingman for that flight, and I had a flight composed of my squadron third (as in third-in-line should I or Sidewinder get killed or incapacitated) named Wolfman and a nugget who went by Caboose. Didn't know him long enough to learn his real name. So, we're in our fifth hour and fiftieth minute of the patrol when Hoshi tells us he's got something on DRAIDIS popping up a few clicks away from our current posistion. We go check it out and see if we can get a visual confirmation. It ends up being a fairly large sized convoy made up of two cargo ships, four heavy raiders, and twice as many escorts. I radioed in to Pegasus and informed them of the situation. "The rest of the AirGroup is being scrambled," Hoshi told me, "they'll be there in two minutes." Well, thirty seconds was all it took from the moment I radioed in that the escorts noticed us. Three broke off from the convoy and zeroed in on our position. I ordered Wolfman and Caboose to floor it back to the Beast while Sidewinder and I held off the Raiders. Well, Caboose got in his head that he could take them on. (Typical Pegasus simulator jockey mentality) He hit his burners and jetted into the trio of raiders and passed us before I could even order him back. He went in guns blazing and managed to nick one of the toaster's wings before the other two popped up behind him and blew him to bits. As of now he's still considered MIA, but I don't hold out much hope. Call me a cynic if you want. It was back to two on three. Sidewinder managed to destroy the wounded raider and I took another one out, but the third...the third one managed to dropped himself right into my kill slot. I couldn't shake him. He must have been wasting his ammo for a good fifteen seconds before Sidewinder came around and got him. It had only been about a minute and a half since I radioed Pegasus and the rest of the Airgroup was still thirty seconds away, but the rest of the raiders had noticed us and all five left the convoy and were bearing on us. I did the only thing we could do from where I was sitting: fly right into them guns blazing and hope we didn't get killed. It was the kind of senseless self-sacrifice and aggression the Major usually frowned upon but he knows that it is my way. We managed to fly right through the center of their formation and take out two right there. When they turned about we had already hit our brakes, turned on a dime, and flew straight into them again, taking out another one of them. The two that were left were tricky little tin cans. At the time, I didn't know that raiders could get born again like the skinjobs, so I didn't know the two we saw were probably veterans. Didn't make much of a difference to us, anyways. The Airgroup managed to make it to us in time and started on the main convoy. Sidewinder and I spent the rest of the engagement cleaning up the remaining raiders before heading home. I'd call that a good day. Most might think me horridly callous to think that, but after you lose everyone you ever knew and loved, along with anyone you used to fly with that gets blown to oblivion because a few toasters decide to raid the fleet or board your ship, losing one person to take out a small sized convoy that (thanks to our little op a while ago) won't be coming back can be considered a good day. |