On the carrier Genesis, a member of Voskov’s armada, the ships lights flickered red and danced off the wall to the accompanying alarm. “Attention all hands, fighter pilots are to be on the hangar deck in 30 seconds, repeat all fighter pilots to the hangar deck,” sounded the voice that Lieutenant Max Baer was so accustomed to hearing when a scramble was called.
The call to general quarters and for pilots to scramble was no surprise him, and he had already begun to don his flight suit when the alarm was called. He bolted from his berth and headed to the main hangar deck where hundreds of other pilots were in the same situation – still putting on their flight suits and getting ready to launch. The hangar system was just now brining the first fighter craft onto the deck – the fighters of the squadron leaders were always first up. The carrier was designed to quickly launch and service strike craft by taking them from remote bays where carrier crews worked endlessly to rearm, refuel, and repair them to the hangar deck. Baer spotted his craft with its tail marking of TF-185 quite obviously showing.
He ran over and clambered into the cockpit, and brought the canopy down over top of him. As soon as he had thrown on his helmet, the HUD was displayed where he was accustomed to seeing it, and he felt the pull of the catapult as it shoved him into the airlock. Then of course, the door in front of him opened, and he relaxed as the ship’s catapult threw him effortlessly into space. At least a hundred other pilots exited the ship’s numerous launch bays at the same time he did. In the distance the glint of weapons fire could be seen as the TEC fleet had begun to fight with the Vasari battle group. He had begun to fire the thrusters in a quick check to see if anything that the techs had missed was malfunctioning, and then started on a forward course to the assembly zone some two kilometers away from the carrier.
Shortly after reaching the assembly zone his comrades rallied around him. In the typical TEC wedge formation they started to move towards the battle zone with orders to engage any Vasari fighters. Typically the TEC fighter squadrons had been forcing the Vasari fighters to engage them long before the bombers were launched, leaving a clear path to the Vasari capital ships and supporting fleet.
Before long, Baer spotted incoming Vasari fighters. Oddly enough, it appeared that their formation was made vertically as opposed to the horizontal layout that the TEC used with their formations. He looked about and to his right he saw an entire TEC wedge driven apart and destroyed by Vasari fighters swooping in from under and above the formation, taking advantage of the less veteran squadron leaders. Baer quickly decided that this Vasari formation was not going to have that same luxury. He barked off some instructions to the rear part of the wedge, “ Ackerman, Stevenson, these bastards are going to come above and below. Ackerman, you’ll take your wingman and go low, Stevenson make sure they don’t get over top.” Following acknowledgements, he reminded the rest of the formation to quickly break after the first pass, and then in a mere second his finger was on the trigger letting a short burst of his auto-cannons fly towards the oncoming Vasari fighters.
Ackerman and Stevenson did as they were told, and consequently the Vasari pilots were surprised. The two quickly broke off and into their respective directions, twisting and turning to get onto the six o’ clock of the Vasari fighters. The rookie pilots in those space craft had wagered their entire success on green TEC squadron leaders not noticing their plans, and were almost immediately killed by Ackerman and Stevenson and their wingmen. The rest of the formation was now locked in a bitter dogfight with the remaining Vasari group. Baer had no time to pay attention to his comrades as he worked to line up a burst on the Vasari fighter in front of him.
The TEC craft were nimble, but the Vasari craft were fast and had a slimmer profile, making them harder to hit. He worked the Vasari pilot, constantly maneuvering to line the shot up, but to no avail. Finally Baer lost his target as it managed to break away from his maneuvering and turned the tide on him. Baer was not one to be easily beaten, as the Vasari pilot came on what he thought was going to be a clean run on Baer’s right side, Baer utilized one of the strengths of TEC fighter craft and quickly fired thrusters to turn and face the approaching Vasari craft.
He let loose a ruthless burst of auto-cannon fire and fired the forward thrusters just in time to escape the blast debris. He looked quickly around him only to find all a mess of TEC and Vasari fighters in a cycle of desperate struggles to overtake one another. Quickly he found Ackerman fighting off one, and took to the foe.
Between the two of them, the Vasari pilot had little chance. As the Vasari pilot would try to make a run on Ackerman, Baer would intercept him and try to catch him in a burst. Eventually, Baer’s efforts and patience paid off as the Vasari craft burst into pieces. The cycle continued for nearly an hour, and after he had scored eight kills and the Vasari fighter force was nearly vaporized, Baer was finally comfortable and calm again.
For one second, he had let his guard down and it was a mistake. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a Vasari fighter line up a burst on him, and prepared to die in space. Just as he had said his last prayers, the fighter exploded into hundreds of pieces and Stevenson’s fighter shot past his starboard side, with a quick salute from Stevenson accompanying the destruction of the enemy fighter.
Baer radioed off to him, “Tell you what, I’m glad I fly with a bunch of crazy bastards like you, otherwise I’d have been dead a long time ago! You still owe me a few more, though.”
Stevenson shot back, “I dunno lieutenant, looks to me like you owe me now, that counts for two - one because I saved your ass, the other because you were half asleep in the middle of the galaxy’s best entertainment.”
Baer chuckled, but didn’t respond. Although he was lucky, two of the rookies assigned to their wing had been killed and he knew hundreds more hand died in the dogfight. He saw the bombers lining up to make their runs on the Vasari ships and knew that within a few hours, all of this mess would be over. He ordered his wedge formation to regroup and begin their patrol cycle around the TEC fleet, which at this point was just now seizing the upper hand.
