Project Boussh: Brightest Star in the Sky By Josh Cochran A single F-16 cruised through the night towards an uncertain fate. Its flight from Texas to Mendellia had been a long one, but it was approaching an end. Already flashes of light from the battle were visible in the far distance. Sitting in the fighter's ejection seat, Josh was fighting to stay awake. He hadn't been able to stop long enough for any real sleep since leaving Tennessee, and the long, low-level flight to avoid radar had taken its toll on him. He'd tried to sleep early in the flight but found that left over adrenaline from his theft of the plane and anticipation of the coming battle hadn't allowed it. Now he floated in a state of semi-consciousness with pure exhaustion threatening to finally overwhelm him. There would be plenty of time for rest soon enough, he knew. Enough rest to cure all his problems. He only hoped he could make a difference in the battle first. Out there, ahead of him, were truly brave people who were doing everything they could to defeat an enemy they'd never imagined could actually exist. He didn't know much about them, and never would, but he knew they were people with hopes and dreams for the future. Things he no longer had. He silently berated himself yet again for not having taken this whole operation more seriously when he'd first heard about it. It would have been a simple matter to check out the reports he'd been receiving. Then he could be the one out there now, freeing up one of them to return to their life and their future. Surely each one of them had someone who would be worried about them, and who would mourn them if they were lost. He could have traded his wasted life for one that still had some meaning. The fact that he hadn't simply made the failure that was his life complete. Hopefully he'd still arrive in time to make a difference. He was close enough now to see the green and red flashes in the sky along with the explosions he'd been seeing for the last few minutes. Josh shook his head to clear some of the fatigue and set to work readying his fighter for combat. He armed his missiles and activated his radar, hoping that the fire control system of the F-16 would be able to track TIE fighters. He also wasn't entirely sure that his missiles would do any good, either. What are TIEs made of? Anyone with enough technology to break the light speed barrier routinely ought to be able to create an alloy that standard explosives couldn't scratch. Now he could make out the glowing drive exhausts of the X-wings and the single A-wing in the dogfight. Josh switched the fighter's radio to the frequency Sci had listed as the Terran mission frequency so he could get a feel for what was happening out there. "Six, break right!" a female voice called. One of the X-wings responded by suddenly turning hard to starboard just in time for a laser blast to pass through the spot in the sky it had just occupied. "Thanks Twelve." Josh closed his eyes trying to recall all the callsigns he'd memorized earlier. Rogue Six...Gavin Darklighter. And Twelve was Inyri Forge. "Anytime, Six. But you haven't lost him yet." Sure enough, the TIE stayed right on the Gavin's tail, doggedly firing blast after blast at the fleeing fighter. Sensing a chance to get involved, Josh hit the button to jettison his nearly-empty drop tanks and kicked the Falcon into full afterburner. "Twelve, I'm going to head in your direction. See if you can get this guy off my tail, okay?" "Copy that." Gavin's and Inyri's fighters turned and headed towards each other from across the engagement zone. Josh cursed, still out of range to help. He willed the fighter to fly faster, but it did no good. "Get set, Twelve. Almost...almost... NOW!" Gavin's X-wing dove hard just as the approaching X fired a quad-linked blast. There was no way the TIE pilot could avoid flying directly into the blast. Both the hapless pilot and his ship were instantly turned into a molten fireball. "YES!" Inyri cried over the comm. "Great shot, Twelve! I owe you one!" Gavin called back. "Roger that, Six. And I *will* collect." Just as Josh finally reached the combat zone, two new TIEs dropped in behind Rogue Twelve. Josh turned hard to follow them, hoping his flying skills were really up to the challenge of dogfighting. He selected the Sidewinder missile under his right wing and tried to get the infrared scanner to lock on to one of the TIEs. Although most of the enemy fighters showed as a cool blue, the exhausts for the twin ion engines glowed bright red and the scanner began to track the right hand fighter almost immediately. The computerized growl in his helmet told him the missile was doing its best to get a firm lock on the target. The TIE settled down on Inyri's tail, trying to get a good angle for a single, killing shot. As soon as the enemy fighter stopped moving around, the Sidewinder's seeker finally got a clean lock. The growl in his headset turned into a squeal, and a flashing box appeared around the TIE. Josh crossed the fingers of his left hand on top of the throttle as he squeezed the trigger on the flightstick with the other. ---- "Six, break right!" Gavin yanked his stick hard over just in time to see a laser blast pass through the spot in the sky he'd just occupied. "Thanks Twelve." "Anytime." Gavin was getting tired. The air battle over Mendellia had been raging for several hours, and the eastern sky was beginning to show the first signs of the approaching dawn. The Rogues, Wraiths, and Graces had racked up an impressive number of kills. It'd been a mixed bag; some of the pilots were incredibly good, and some incredibly bad. Gavin guessed that the good ones were Imperial pilots from the Admonitor and the bad ones were local Mendellian pilots. Apparently the one behind him now was one of the Imps. Gavin spun his fighter around in a tight circle and shot off in a completely new direction, trying to get an angle on his pursuer. The TIE Interceptor stayed glued to his tail. "Twelve, I'm going to head in your direction. See if you can get this guy off my tail, okay?" "Copy that." Gavin spotted Inyri's X-wing off in the distance and drove hard in her direction. A well-placed blast from the pursuing TIE brought his rear shields down to fifty percent. Rogue Twelve grew larger and larger in the forward windscreen. "Get set, Twelve. Almost...almost... NOW!" Gavin sent his X-wing into a stomach-flipping dive just as Inyri fired a quad-linked blast. The Interceptor had no time to react. It exploded into a fireball that bounced Inyri's fighter around the sky as she zoomed past. "YES!" Inyri cried over the comm. "Great shot, Twelve! I owe you one!" Gavin called back. "Roger that, Six. And I *will* collect." Gavin was about to reply when his pulse suddenly leapt into his throat. Two TIEs, out to avenge their comrade, had dropped in behind Twelve. They were angling for a clear shot that would likely blow Inyri out of the sky. "Twelve! You've got-" Gavin started. He broke off when one of the enemy fighters suddenly exploded. The remaining TIE broke to port to avoid the shrapnel left by his wingman's destruction. Gavin was shocked to see a small Terran aircraft pursuing the TIE. ---- Josh let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding when the TIE exploded. So much for not being able to damage them. He quickly turned to chase after the other TIE. "Terra Thirteen to Rogue Twelve. Your tail is clear." Josh chuckled to himself about the irony of his self-selected callsign. Terra Thirteen. The unlucky Terran. He also secretly enjoyed the confusion in Inyri's response. "Thanks, uh, Thirteen." "Rogue Two to unidentified craft," a new voice broke in. "We don't have a Terra Thirteen. Identify yourself." "It's a very long story, Two, and I think we're all too busy to get into it right now. We'll talk about it when we're done here." There was a brief pause before Two responded, the reluctance clear in his voice. "Alright, Thirteen. But this better be a really good story." Oh it would be, Tycho, Josh thought. But you'll never hear it. "Agreed, Two." "Join up with Six and Twelve. They'll make sure you don't shoot the wrong TIEs. We have a few on our side up here." "Copy that," Josh responded automatically. He was already busy lining up for a shot on Inyri's second attacker. He closed on the TIE, starting to feel a little cocky. The first kill had been so easy. As the floating aiming point for his canon crossed the ball cockpit he squeezed the trigger and sent a stream of twenty-millimeter shells streaming towards the TIE. And watched in frustration as every one of them bounced right off. He conceded to himself that maybe that did have some better materials after all. He switched back over to missiles and prepared to take another shot. Over the next twenty minutes he shot down three more TIEs, while the X-wings flying his wings accounted for five. He could tell he was beginning to grow complacent and fatigued, and his reactions were slowing down. But that was okay, he'd done more or less what he'd set out to do. He'd made a difference. His first shot saved Major Forge and another removed an Interceptor from Iella Wessiri's tail. It had been an honor to fly with the New Republic pilots. In his wildest dreams he never thought he would fly in combat with Rogue Squadron. He had been a pilot for half his life, first learning how to fly in his grandfather's antique trainer as a teenager. He could fly almost anything in the air today. Any Terran craft, anyway. And he was an exceptionally good pilot. That was probably the only thing he really was good at. He admitted to himself that he'd been a little worried about flying in combat today. Not worried that he wouldn't survive the battle. He wasn't planning to do that anyway. Worried that he wouldn't last long enough to do any good. He had done well, though. Much better than he thought he would. Glancing down from the cockpit of his fighter he saw a new squadron of TIE Interceptors trying to sneak into the battle at low level. They didn't seem interested in joining the air battle. In fact, it looked like they were heading for the island itself. If they made it to their targets, the allied teams on the ground could be in a lot of trouble. He knew from the radio calls he heard that most of the pilots were out of missiles. Some of the New Republic pilots had been in this battle for more than three hours, so it was no surprise they were running out of munitions. Josh wasn't sure where the Mendellians and their Imperial allies had gotten so many TIEs from, but he would have thought their supply would be running low by now as well. And yet, here was a new squadron. He could think of only one way to deal with them. Josh had a brief second thought about what he was about to do. His parents would never understand, and he wouldn't be there to help them as they grew older. He wished he could explain it to them. He'd left an e-mail on his computer to be delivered to his friends in a couple of days, asking them to take care of Rogue. He should have set one for his family as well, but at the time he didn't know for sure what would happen. Now, though, it was crystal clear what had to be done. His life and all he could have been had been wasted. The only thing he had to look forward to was years of slaving away in a meaningless job trying to make other people extremely rich. He'd been born to do something much more meaningful and significant than that. Here he had an opportunity to do what he always felt he was meant to do: Protect others. Josh pushed the stick over and kicked the engine into full afterburner, no longer concerned with fuel consumption. He activated his one remaining missile as he screamed towards the enemy formation. Hopefully he could take out one of the flight leaders with the missile, and maybe take out an entire flight with his other remaining weapon. The TIEs were in extremely close formation, so it should work. One of the Rogues, Gavin or Tycho, he couldn't tell, started screaming for him to return to formation. Something about attacking a full squadron without backup being suicide. *Not suicide,* he thought. *A meaningful end to a life that hasn't had any.* He turned the radio off so he could concentrate. The radar-guided AMRAAM locked solidly onto the leader of the approaching squadron's second flight. Josh fired and watched as the TIE exploded. Still at full afterburner, he increased his angle of dive to put him on a ballistic collision course with the squadron leader. The eleven remaining TIEs in the new squadron grew larger and larger in his heads-up display. Josh smiled. He felt at peace with himself and his decisions for the first time in a very long time. He leveled off his decent a tiny bit so there would be a better chance of the explosion causing collateral damage to other TIEs. The TIE squadron was so close now that he could no longer see all the fighters in the formation. It was a matter of mere moments, now. At the last possible instant, a pair of bright flashes, missiles, he would realize later, streaked by overhead and destroyed the two TIEs closest to him. The shockwave from the explosion threw him off course and away from the collision he'd been expecting. Shrapnel from the explosion was sucked into the F-16's intake and instantly shredded the compressor blades in the plane's engine. Several of the blades exited the aircraft at high velocity, tearing large holes in the mid section of the plane. The master warning and engine fire lights came on instantly. Josh blinked in confusion and instinctively pulled back on the stick to keep the plane in the air as long as possible. He yanked the throttle back to idle and pulled the lever for the fire extinguisher. It was immediately clear that the aircraft was a complete loss. He looked around to get his bearings in preparation to ditch the plane. He didn't have much airspeed left to play around with, but he had to make sure that the Falcon's wreckage could not be recovered and identified. It would imply that the United States had been involved in this battle. The explosion and his emergency maneuvering had carried him over the island itself. His best bet would be to crash the plane into the ocean as far offshore as possible and allow the wreckage to sink to the ocean floor. He made a slow, careful turn seaward, afraid to bleed off too much precious airspeed. Ahead and below was the High Palace with the ocean on the other side of it. Josh put the ruined fighter into as shallow a dive as his remaining energy would allow. Hopefully it would carry the plane far enough out to sea that it would crash into deep water. Josh flipped the radio back on and immediately heard a half dozen voices clamoring for his attention, urging him to bail out. He didn't respond. He still had to make sure this thing went into the drink. He'd stuck with it this far, and he would see it through to the end. He was approaching the palace and could see flashes of light around the exterior of the massive building and through the windows. Just then a new voice broke into the comm. "This is Terra Three. We need any available backup in the palace right away! Anyone that can help, please respond!" The person the voice belonged to was clearly very frightened. It was the first time in a while he'd thought of the team on the ground. He was right over the palace now. He wondered if any of the laser flashes he saw were coming from or worse, aimed at, the voice coming through his helmet. *Oh hell...* he thought as reached down and pulled the handle for the ejection seat.