fandomhigh | Flight and Flying [Friday morning]

Anakin was leaning against the reconfigured flight simulator when the flight students arrived.

"Today we're going to do something a little different," he said, walking over to the television from his room and pushing a few buttons. A three-dimension projection of a world rotated in front of them. "We're going to complete an entire military mission. This planet is being slowly starved to death by the blockade set up by these donut-looking control ships and their army of droids."

Anakin gestured to the projection. "Working in pairs, your job will be to take off from the planet's surface, fight past the enemy's droid fighters and destroy the control ship." On the projection, the target glowed red. "The only way to destroy the ship, unfortunately, is to blow it from the inside--its shields are too powerful for the starfighter's torpedos to take out from space." He put his hands behind his back and paced. "You're up against a deadline as well. On the surface there's a battle taking place: your people against a droid army that doesn't get tired. Taking out the control ship also powers down those droids. Take too long to blow it up and you won't have a reason to go back to the planet--the enemy will have won through battle what they had been trying to achieve through blockade."

He pointed at the simulator. "You'll be flying the Naboo N-1 Starfighter," he said. "They're a little more sensitive than the F-16 from last week, but not quite as twitchy as the Jedi starfighter. And remember that once you break atmosphere, you won't be fighting gravity any longer so you don't have to yank on the controls quite as hard. The droid starfighters are faster than you are--and there are a lot of them--but they're also pretty stupid. Watch each other's backs and you'll do fine."

He grinned. "And in case you're wondering, yeah, this was a real battle. And the exercise can be accomplished." He tossed two deeply silly-looking helmets into the flight simulator. "Those will allow you to talk to each other. Plus, they're terribly stylish."

He put his hands together in front of him. "When you successfully complete the exercise, you get a donut to make up for the ugly one you've just removed from the sky." He gave them all an excited look. "Oh, I hope to see you all on Sunday for the field trip to the Air and Space Museum, but more importantly, I've heard from home. I'd asked for permission to have an actual Jedi starfighter brought here so you could get some non-simulated flight experience."

He smiled. "They've done me one better--inviting you all to come with me to Coruscant for a few days and see how the simulated stuff measures up the real thing." He turned serious. "Of course, I'm not going to bring you all to a new planet and have you blow up because you weren't paying attention, so this week--and next, which will be an actual flying experience--I'm going to be watching your technique to see if you're ready to fly an actual starfighter."

He waved them towards the simulator. "So impress me, all right?"

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"Really now? I guess I'll have to come up with one myself," he said but went quiet as he had to dodge the incoming fire.

He made a roll to the side, away from Sam and just barely missed getting hit before he finally straightened up and managed to find a clear shot, taking out the droid fighter.

"Nice shot!" Sam caught a flash of motion out of her right side peripheral vision and twisted in her seat, then twisted back. "Incoming! Five o'clock."

She dipped down at a forty-five degree angle and banked right, hoping the fighter would follow her, and not stick with Cam.

"And he brought some friends," Cameron said as more droid fighters left the main ship. He brought his own ship around and went in pursuit of the fighter that went after Sam.

Sam was a little thrown by suddenly being in the lead, which was definitely not where she wanted to be. "Look out, Cam. I'm gonna do a 180 and head right towards you."

"Copy that, Mary Poppins," Cameron replied as he tried to make the droid fighter more worried about him than taking a shot at Sam. He didn't want to risk firing however and accidently hitting her so he held off for now.

"Survey says? Wrong answer," Sam laughed as she did a quick 180 and buzzed by Cam, now chasing the fighter.

"I think it suits you," Cameron grinned until he suddenly came under fire. He cursed and yanked on the controls, making a hard turn right. The droid fighter followed right after him. Evasive maneuvers it was.

"You all right?" Sam asked, trying to spot him, but unable to since she was trying to concentrate on aiming her shots on the fighter. Two shots had already gone wide. She pushed her fighter to go faster.

"Yeah, just got something annoying on my tail," Cameron grumbled as he couldn't shake off the fighter. He tried pulling the 180 again, but the droid easily followed him. "Damn."

"I've got an idea," Sam said, heading directly towards Cameron, the fighter once again on her tail, "but I need you to trust me, okay?"

The next shot that came in was pretty close and Cameron nodded. "I'm all one with the trusting."

"I'm going to head right for you, and exactly when I say, I want you to break right and aim down, towards five o'clock, okay?" Sam said.

"Break right and aim down," Cameron confirmed. "Got it."

Sam shot forward, and about thirty seconds before she hit Cam, she shouted, "Now," and broke right and aimed up.

The fighter behind her was surprised by the move and didn't recover in time, still heading forward on its old path.

Cameron right away broke off right as well, aiming down and going right underneath Sam.

Behind him, the droid fighter was caught as unaware as Sam's and found himself flying right into the other fighter.

Cameron grinned as he watched the explosion. "Wooohooo! We rock."

Sam cheered, high on adrenaline. "We totally rock! Ready to go blow something up?"

"Sounds good to me," Cameron said as he brought his fighter back into formation. "And judging from the activity, I'd say our way in is at ten o'clock."

"You take the lead, then," Sam offered, "and I'll cover your six."

"Roger that," Cameron said as he headed towards the hangar deck. Of course, there were fighters going in and out of there so he started firing to clear his path.

Sam fired as well, aiming for the fighters that looked most likely to break formation or cause them problems later.

They made it inside the ship in one piece, dodging and weaving between the droid fighters, occasionally blowing one up. Cameron frowned as he took in the hangar and did his best to try and not hit anything, but it was a tight place to maneuver anyway.

"See anything vital looking we could blow up?" he asked Sam.

Sam grinned, not that Cameron could see it. "Dead ahead," she told him. She was maneuvering below him, but was prepared to drop back if necessary. "I think I see your neon lights," she said, spotting the power core, "All you need is an arrow and a 'you are here' map like at the mall."

"Or you as wingman," he pointed out. "So we blow this up and get the hell out of dodge?"

"Like your ass is on fire," Sam said, already dropping back to let Cam take the shot. She'd need to get out of there just as fast as he would if she didn't want to explode. "It's gonna be an earth-shattering kaboom if we do this right."

"Sounds like fun," Cameron replied as he took aim of the power core and fired. As soon as the small explosions started to happen, he turned the fighter around and joined Sam again for the mad dash out of the ship.

Re: Save Naboo!

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