ITOD Home > RS Tour 4 (XWA Mixed Tour) > XWA 402: Elornia System Recon (IBG 202)

Finals loomed upon Jay's head, and no doubt the rest of his colleagues could feel it as well. On top of that, being quickly accepted into the new Officer training program gave him more to "study". At times, it felt like the weight of at least one world was on his shoulders.

Along his slop to fulfill his routine batch of retro missions as soon as he was able, he bumped into Colonel Naes Draw, his old friend who got him into this service in the first place. After quick salute, the two made small banter. Jay groaned and listed the responsibilities. "Well," Col Naes answered casually, "That's normal. We're all going through that, and as you can see, it's still fairly early for running the sims."

Jay made it as normal, setting up quickly and without incident. Knowing the mission layout from the briefing, he didn't even bother loading warheads this time! He still installed his trusty beam/boost, just to give him that extra edge.

He flew into the blinding red band upon launching, and he got to the space station, with a few containers floating around. TIE Fighters came at them, and both A-Wings fired their lasers. The TIEs didn't stand a chance, as it was 3 perfectly vulnerable husks against 2 shielded and at least one well-trained ace pilot.

The second wave came in, and Jay took care of them before they even had the chance to finish launching! And the third; rinse and repeat! Too bad the idiotic AI for a wingman couldn't dodge the station well enough, getting ejected in the process as an idling pilot floating in the void of space.

Jay went around and inspected. He got done, plain and simple, until the simulator pod knocked from outside. The muffled voice of Naes advised, "Don't forget to blow up the brick!" Jay almost left the area, not realizing the inspect-don't-destroy order weirdly didn't pertain to that one particular target.

Always the go-getter, Jay obliged and cleared the container, summoning the challenge.

3 TIE Interceptors came from the hanger, but like the Fighters from before, Jay lined them up and took care of them before their controls opened up. The 3 gunboats that warped from hyperspace, however, proved much trickier.

They all launched their missiles at him together, but Jay didn't cower or back out. He took them straight-on, blasting the missiles as they followed up with their lasers, pushing Jay's full 200% shields under 100! As Jay jinxed around, one got on his tail and locked up for missile. Thankfully, chaff was given to his craft by default. He needed the protection.

Even though the missile only marginally nudged Jay off track, he quickly got on the tail of his first prey, nailing it ruthlessly with his own lasers. He took a few hits in the back, but his shields held while the first gunboat was fried. "One down," he confidently narrated.

He turned his attention to the next one his computer gave him, until he heard the lock-on warning coming from the farther gunboat. He switched, destroying the missile and weakening its shields at the expense of some of his own. In pursuit, he vanquished the target while narrowly avoiding the stream of green fire coming from behind.

Finally, only one gunboat remained, and since they were out of the station's range, Jay made short work of the last one. Oddly, it fired a flare in similar strategy as what he'd try, except the gunboat was poorly angled for it to work. Stranger still, was the buzz sound it produced, like the same sound he'd hear if he failed a mission objective. It was so close to him blasting it to dust, he didn't know whether it was a failed objective or what.

He checked the stats - still "unresolved", so he clearly didn't mess anything up. No more fighters came rushing towards him, so he assumed the space was clear, and now with everything mopped up that wouldn't cost him the mission, he flew back triumphantly.


Upon finishing the simulation, he posted his proud score. Sadly, there wasn't any fanfare at all. To him, he barely did his job. He'd be surprised if anyone other than himself and Naes knew he was still kicking around. But again, while checking around was on his to-do list, he was too tired to care at the moment, so he finished up and went to bed.