Operation Arrakis: Out of the Blue
By Josh Cochran
Lord, please bring my friends through this day safely. I don't know what
their problem is, but I can't protect them all. Can't they see that
everything I've done in this mission I've done for them? They're all so
busy having their feelings hurt that they can't wake up and see what's
right in front of them! All I've tried to do is finish this mission so they
can go back to their lives without any more of them getting hurt! Nothing
is ever good enough for them! I'm tired of trying to be what they expect!
The hell with them. I'm just going to do my job, whatever it takes, and the
hell with what they think about it. But don't let anything happen to them,
or everything I've done will be a waste.
Josh opened his eyes to find Thayer's fighter directly ahead of him,
exactly where it was supposed to be. He was rotating the lead every few
minutes throughout the long wait to keep a fresh set of eyes at the front
of the formation. Were there a choice he might like to skip over Thayer's
turn while Becki was missing on the ground, but that would only cause more
tension between them. More tension was something the situation definitely
didn't need.
"Alright Hyper, I've got it." Hyper beeped and disengaged the autopilot
that kept the X-wing in perfect formation. "Any news?" he asked without any
real hope in his voice.
NOT OF LIEUTENANT BUSH. I DID COPY AN ENCRYPTED TRANSMISSION BETWEEN HOPE
THREE AND HOPE FOUR.
Josh's stomach tied itself in a new knot. What did Thayer and Noreh have to
talk about now that they didn't want him to hear? "Let's hear it."
Hyper beeped again, and Thayer's voice crackled in his helmet. "Noreh, this
is Thayer. Keep a close watch on the Jedi. I don't trust him."
Noreh's reply was immediate and affirmative, and only too willing.
"Affirmative sir. I don't like having him on your tail either."
Red flooded into the edges of Josh's vision and his chest burned. What did
Thayer expect him to do? Shoot him down? But maybe that was exactly what he
expected. And he wasn't used to being disappointed, so why should this be
any different?
Josh twitched his control stick slightly and settled his sight on the back
of Thayer's fighter. His wings were already in attack formation; all he had
to do was squeeze the trigger. Life will be so much simpler without you,
Thayer. Maybe I'll even be able to offer some comfort to your grieving
fiancée when we find her.
Josh rested his finger lightly on the trigger. Sci was talking to the
ground team on the radio. Sunlight glinted off the shiny dome of Thayer's
R2 unit. He gripped the trigger more firmly and began to squeeze, waiting
for the exact moment when laser blasts would begin leaping from his
wingtips.
No, it just wouldn't do. He released the trigger and took a deep breath.
Thayer might be unbearably full of himself, but he couldn't blow him out of
the sky just this moment. He was the second best pilot in the formation.
There were few enough of them as it was.
And there would be plenty of time to settle scores when the laser blasts
started flying. Josh drew in a lungful of air and let it out slowly.
Patience. Thayer's time will come.
Just as he began to settle back into the cockpit routine again, Hyper
blasted out a shriek that nearly deafened him. The droid beeped frantically
but nothing appeared on his translation screen. He looked back over his
shoulder to spit the droid with a furious glare. "Hyper! What the hell is
wrong with you!?"
Sci's voice answered the question before Hyper had a chance to. "Heads up,
Hope Flight. The shield just went up, and we're on the inside. We're going
to try our override." Josh could see in his mind Sci and Arrek aboard the
Red Home trying to shut the shield down with the remote access they had
installed in the control module before allowing it to fall into Sahhar's
hands. Over the radio he heard them working furiously at their consoles,
which ended with a muffled curse from Sci and a shouted one from Arrek.
"What's happening, Lead?"
"We can't access the shield, Seven. It's not responding."
"What? Let me try--" He tapped a series of commands into the datapad
strapped to his thigh but got no response from the other end. Several more
attempts led to the same result. "Damn. Can't tell if it's not receiving or
if the code's been changed, or-"
"Or if they found our modifications."
"That isn't very reassuring."
"Wasn't meant to be."
"I have a very bad feeling about this."
"So do I, Seven."
Hyper sounded another alarm, and this time Josh didn't waste time asking
for an explanation. He looked straight to his sensors and found rising from
the desert-
"Missiles! Hope Flight, we have missiles airborne. 23, 47, 69, still
coming!"
Josh dropped the nose of his fighter and began a hard right turn even as he
called out, "I have the lead! Hope Flight re-form on me!"
"Bearing to the missiles is zero-six-zero, Hope One," Arrek reported. The
other three starfighters pulled back into formation and raced towards the
outbound missiles, which now numbered close to two hundred. In the distance
dozens of bright purple fireflies rose upward from a billowing cloud of
desert sand more than a thousand feet high.
"Lead, there may be allied patrols in the no-fly zones. They can't see that
shield, but they'll sure as hell spot those missiles," Josh said. "Better
try to warn them away."
"Affirmative Seven. We do have a few aircraft headed this way at high
speed."
Sci dropped off the line as the purple pinpoints of light grew larger in
the windscreen. In moments they would be in weapons range. "Hope Flight, go
to line abreast. Make our first pass count." The four starfighters split
out of their diamond formation and lined up side by side, mere meters
separating their wingtips. Ahead of them a new group of potential targets
blasted skyward. "Hyper, how far is the center of the shield from the
launch site for those missiles?"
THE LAUNCH SITE IS WITHIN A FEW KILOMETERS OF THE SHIELD'S POINT OF ORIGIN.
"No luck, Seven," Sci reported. "Nobody's listening"
"Sci, try the self-destruct on the control module!" Josh called before Sci
finished his sentence.
"What? Why?"
"Hyper says the missiles and the shield are coming from the same place! If
we take out the shield we might get the launch control facility too!"
"Acknowledged, Seven."
"Major, wait!" Thayer broke in. "Becki could be in there!"
"I know, Hope Three." Sci's voice sounded suddenly very sad. "But if we
don't stop those missiles a lot of lives will be lost today."
Thayer made a strangled sound and fell silent. Josh held his breath waiting
for an explosion to erupt on the horizon. Over the comm he could hear Sci
struggling with his console again. Still nothing happened.
"No good," Sci said sounding a bit relieved. "It's still not responding."
"Forget it, Chief. We'll have to do this the hard way," Josh said. This
time he didn't offer to try it himself. "Get the Red Home into position
down near the launch site and see if you can pick some of these things off
as they come up."
"We'll do what we can."
On his sensors Josh watched the Red Home move away from Hope Flight as the
missiles came steadily closer. They would be in weapons range in moments.
"Hyper, pick four of those missiles and make sure we have a solid lock on
them," he instructed the droid. "Check the others' target lists, too, so we
get as many of those things as possible." Hyper finished picking targets
before Josh finished speaking and set about making sure all four fighters
had chosen different targets.
The instant the Iraqi missiles were in range, Josh squeezed his trigger
four times in quick succession. His quartet of proton torpedoes joined
those from the rest of Hope Flight streaking towards the larger missiles
that were still just out of visual range. Seconds later a series of orange
and purple explosions rippled across the sky in front of him. Burning
wreckage fell towards the ground trailing black smoke, but a majority of
the enemy weapons – a vast majority – still kept coming.
"What I wouldn't give for some seismic charges to drop into the middle of
that--" Brad said.
"You and me both," Josh muttered. "Get set, Hope Flight. Head to head pass
coming up. Let's make the most of it."
The four small fighters ripped into the missile formation with their laser
cannon at the extreme edge of their range. One missile dropped, then two,
then a half dozen. The pilots barely needed to bother aiming. Their targets
were so thick they scored solid hits by holding down their triggers and
sweeping their blasts back and forth across the sky. Still the missiles
came on by the dozens.
Josh was vaguely aware of Sci talking to the ground team on the radio. He
turned the channel down to shut out the distraction as the smaller
formation of fighters plunged into the vastly larger formation of missiles.
Although the missiles had been thinned somewhat, they still stretched a
hundred meters above and below Hope Flight's altitude and two dozen
kilometers in front of them. In this close the starfighters twisted and
wove through the missiles, blasting them apart as quickly as they appeared
in their sights. Noreh, flying Mike's TIE Defender, spun her fighter wildly
right and left and up and down, hitting targets from the top to the bottom
of the formation faster than a human eye could follow.
In the midst of this maelstrom, Sci came back on the fighters' frequency.
"Thayer, the ground team's found Becki. She's safe."
"Thank God," Thayer breathed. Josh joined in offering his own silent
thanks. He could see Thayer's fighter to his left and slightly ahead of him
stop firing for a moment before moving on to a new target.
That target must have been on the other side of the formation, though,
because Thayer's fighter cut suddenly to the left, straight across Josh's
flight path. When he saw the other X-wing pass through his crosshairs, Josh
squeezed his trigger. Laser blasts slammed into the back of Thayer's
fighter, bringing his rear shields more than halfway down.
"Check your fire, Cochran!" Thayer shouted.
"Then stay out of the way, dammit!" Josh replied.
As quickly as they entered it Hope Flight blasted out the back of the swarm
of missiles. They turned hard as they could to pursue the remaining
targets.
"The missiles are splitting up," Sci said. "One group is heading west and
the other is turning northwest."
Without a moment's hesitation, Josh said, "Graces take the north-bound
group, Terras will take the west." Thayer and Noreh split to the right –
this time careful to stay well out of the line of fire – and sped off after
the smaller group of missiles. Josh and Brad stayed right behind the larger
group.
"Any word on where these things are going?" Brad asked.
"Looks like targets in the US and Great Britain, Ten," Sci said.
Josh snorted. "What a shock."
All four fighters continued to pick off missiles one at a time as they
slowly caught up to their targets. As they closed on the back of the pack,
Josh got his first good look at what he was shooting at. The missile in
front of him was at least sixty feet long and had a triangular cross-
section with rounded edges. Stabilizing fins sprouted from along those
edges and three massive, purple-glowing ion engines filled the rear of the
weapon, driving it forward.
"Hyper, make sure you're sending this to the Red Home," Josh said as he
steadied his fighter briefly so the gun cameras could get a clearer view of
his target. "I think this answers the question of if they got technology
other than the shield."
"That it does, Seven." Sci sounded as though he were studying the image at
that moment. The sound of the Red Home's laser cannons firing steadily was
audible over the open channel. "I don't recognize the type."
"Neither do I," Josh said as he blew the missile apart with a series of
laser blasts. "It's not a standard Imperial type, and it sure isn't Terran
either."
The X-wings had caught up with the missiles and were destroying them with
impunity. The bad news was that the X-wings were approaching their maximum
atmospheric combat speed while the missiles were still accelerating. Soon
they would begin to pull away from their pursuers and eventually they would
even be out of weapons range. The missiles were falling fast; it would be
close whether or not they would get them all in time.
"That's it!" Noreh's voice cried out, followed shortly by Thayer saying,
"Terra Seven, this is Grace One. The northern group is gone. We're coming
to join you."
"Negative, Grace One," Josh said. Do you think I want you trying to shoot
me down now? There were only a dozen missiles left now anyway. "Go
after the launchers. We'll join you in a minute."
Thayer and Noreh's blips on his sensors altered course toward the Red Home.
The Home, for her part, had taken up a racetrack pattern near the launchers
and was picking off every missile they managed to get off.
Half a dozen missiles remained now, but they were getting harder to hit as
they grew more and more distant. At close range each kill had taken only an
instant. Now that they were near the limit of laser range it was taking
much longer to line up a successful shot. Slowly, painfully, one missile
fell, then another. Josh and Brad moved on to their next targets.
---
Meanwhile, Thayer and Noreh's fighters streaked toward the launch site.
They had only a few missiles of their own left, and they launched them into
the missile base as soon as they could. The long range launchers fell
silent, and the Mendellian pilots switched to lasers as they moved in for
the kill.
---
"Make it quick, Seven," Sci urged Josh. "If you have to follow them out of
the shield you won't be able to get back in." Josh didn't respond. He
blasted the last missile that remained within the extreme range of his
lasers. Another three were outside that range and still pulling away.
---
Thayer and Noreh flashed over the missile launch site, blasting everything
in sight. Explosions erupted below them all along their flight path. Small
arms fire chased them across the sky, but it bounced harmlessly off their
shields. As they pulled up at the end of their strafing run, a pair of
missiles followed them up and away. They were much smaller and much faster
than the missiles previously launched from the site.
---
Brad scored an incredible hit on a missile well outside the published range
of his fighter's weapons. Two more remained, but Josh could see that Sci's
prediction was in danger of coming true. They would reach the shield in
seconds.
"Ten, got any torpedoes?" he asked much more calmly than he felt.
"I'm out," Brad replied.
"Great." He only had two left himself. "Okay Hyper, that's one for each
target. Let me know when you get a lock. Hyper beeped almost immediately,
and he squeezed the trigger twice. His last two torpedoes streaked after
the larger missiles.
---
Noreh had eliminated the surface-to-air missile on her tail with a well-
placed round of countermeasures, but Thayer wasn't so lucky. He was running
as fast as he could but the missile following him was faster, and wasn't
falling for countermeasures. He banked and twisted and turned, but still
the missile gained on him.
"Come hard right, Grace One!" Noreh called. "I'll get it!"
Thayer complied and Noreh dropped in behind both him and the missile. She
twitched her craft as gently as she could, trying to line the missile up in
her crosshairs. She fired a shot that went just wide of its target, and
immediately began settling in for another.
It was too late. The SAM blasted through Thayer's weakened rear shields and
blew apart the aft quarter of his X-wing.
---
One of Josh's torpedoes caught up to the larger missile it was chasing and
blew it apart in a spectacular explosion of red and orange and purple.
The other missed, and its target slipped through the shield.
---
Every alarm in Thayer's cockpit was going off as he fought desperately to
control the fighter. His forward thrusters were still working, but
everything behind the X-wing's droid socket was simply gone, including the
wings. With no way to stop it, the fighter's fuselage spun out of control
as the ground rushed up to meet it.
---
Ignoring the shout of frustrations from both Brad and the crew of the Red
Home, Josh reached out to the escaped missile through the Force. Fueled by
every ounce of frustration and fury coursing through his body, he reached
farther from himself than he ever had before. He found the missile, and
reached in even closer with his senses. When he found the fuel lines
feeding the massive ion engines driving the deadly payload, he squeezed his
flat palm into a fist, and the fuel lines buckled.
The last missile ruptured, spraying fuel all around itself until it finally
exploded into a million pieces. The wreckage fell from the sky and bounced
off the shield before sliding down its outer edge.
A collective cheer went up from Josh, Brad, and the Red Home at the same
time. "Alright, let's get on the ground and end this thing," Josh said. He
and Brad turned back towards the Red Home and the secret base generating
the shield.
They completed the turn just in time to see Thayer's X-wing plow into the
desert at full speed.