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The Close Call

Second Lieutenant Mia couldn’t make her hands stop shaking, now that the moment had arrived to board her first starfighter. It only seemed a few short moments ago that she was training under Lieutenant Colonel Mieter, and had given the news that she would be transferred to her first active combat duty, but in reality, that had been only just over a standard week ago.
Looking back, Mia was not surprised however that since that life changing news, time had moved so quickly that she couldn’t keep up. Leaving her training academy, she had been transferred without delay to the refitted ISD Redemption to join the Vigilance Starfighter Group, and had been temporally assigned to the Dagger Squadron. Her world had then become a whirl of assessments, final combat simulation evaluations, and practical starfighter mechanics, and she had trouble in remembering when she had last had more then five hours sleep sine she came on board.
Still, despite all of the frenzied activity, Mia began to understand the deep commitment of the officers and other ranks in which she was now a part of over the last few days, and the seriousness of the current situation.
Apparently, two of the fleet’s ships, the Resurrection and the Senate had been sent to destroy a pirate base in the Jardal system, and had come under heavy attack from a much superior and unexpected force of pirates. Dagger squadron had been scrambled, and as their newest recruit, Mia had hurried to her assigned X-Wing, the slightly battered looking, Wildcard Two.
Standing in front of her first real starfighter, she tried to calm her nerves and stop her hands shaking. Final preparations had been completed, and her assigned R4 series Astromech Droid was making what she hoped was encouraging beeps as it was lowered into its position behind her cockpit. Settling into the pilots’ station, Mia marveled at how close the simulation machines back in the academy had been to the feeling of being in a real X-Wing cockpit. Surprising herself despite of this, Mia completed the final pre-flight checks smoothly and almost without thinking, and was ready to launch within minutes of entering the fighter.
After a final good luck message to all five pilots of her Wildcard section from the commanding officer, Colonel Richo, Mia launched from the safety of Redemption and began to make her way to the navigation point leading to the pirate’s base. Picking up her visual scanning, Mia noted that their assigned support capital ship, the Imperial Star Destroyer Dashan was just about to enter hyperspace, and still after all her training, Mia shuddered at the site of the bleak functional lines of this former symbol of Imperial domination. Before long, her droid, who had cheerily informed her, was assigned R4-XL, signalled that the hyperspace point had been reached, and closely following her Squadron Leader, Mia punched the controls for hyperspace.
Nothing prepared her what awaited her on the other side of the short hyperspace trip however. No training or physiological evaluation in a academy could come close to the intense chaos which reigned as she exited into real space. Already the rest of her wing had started to engage with what appeared to be a flying army of R-41 Starchaser’s and T-Wings which spewed from the pirates’ base. Gripping her controls as tightly as possible, Mia headed towards her nearest target, and began firing, not knowing as she did, that a high pitch keening was coming involuntarily to her lips. It was her battle song.

* * * * * *

The next moments seemed to slow down into hours, hours in which she heard constant shouted orders, screams, and howls of pain mingled with shouts of acclamation from her colleagues attacking the pirate forces in her headset.
The quite of space was constantly ripped apart by metal, flesh and explosions. She was dimly aware of grimly shooting down several targets, snarling all the time with a mix of rage and fear. Countless times she attempted to boost her battered shields, while R4-XL made hurried repairs to her many failing systems, all the time keeping up a litany of beeped reports of increasing urgency.
Engaging with a pair of T-Wing Inceptors, Mia managed to cripple one on her first fly past, but was raked by lazer fire by the second T-Wing, and her overburdened shield matrixes finally explored in front of Mia’s face, filling the cockpit with acrid smoke which swirled around injured pilot. Mia’s last sight was in the distance, an embattled Dashan closing with a larger pirate ship before she slumped unconscious with R4’s shrill voice fading with her into the black….

* * * * * *

On waking, Mia heard the story which was the talk of the medical bay back on board the Redemption. When she had been incapacitated, her R4 unit had quickly taken over her starfighter’s controls, and had managed somehow to limp the heavily damaged Wildcard Two back to the Dashan whose turbolazers had soon dispatched the remaining T-Wing.
‘Good to see you back with us Lieutenant.’ Colonel Richo had said when he visited his sadly depleted squadron after the mission.
‘Thank you Sir.’ Mia replied, wincing as the healing burns on her face pulled tight.
‘That’s one hell of a droid you got there Lieutenant.’ Colonel Richo smiled as he recounted again the story of her droid’s bravery.
Thinking suddenly of a perniciously brave animal on her home planet of Dantoonine, Mia replied ‘Yes Sir. I’ve decided to call him Warhog.’
‘Good choice Lieutenant.’ Laughed Colonel Richo, before moving onto the next injured pilot.