Have you ever spent 18 hours in a small cramped fighter? Now I'm not talking about one of those two-seater gunboats, I'm talking short, one seat, four blasters and a torpedo launcher. Let me tell ya, it ain't no fun. Now a short skirmish, oh about 4 or 5 hours long can be a real pick me up after a boring week of routine make-work. But when you've been out flying through space, narrowly escaping death for 18 hours you start getting a bit edgy. We happened to get into one of those battles today, out on the other side of the Empire. Our carrier and a shitload of star destroyers against damn near equal odds. By the end of those 18 hours we had lost about a quarter of the fighters from my carrier, and three of our big SD's. We managed to get rid of five of the other guys SD's but they had two carriers here, so we have yet to run out of fighters to kill. My shift is over so I'm heading back to the carrier to get a nap and a fresh flight suit. I also need to take a shit. Yeah, yeah, I know, that's just not something people talk about, but believe you me, it gets to be a topic of major import after 18 hours in a small ship. I needed to take a leak before I even got into this ship, but since we were under heavy fire, there was no time to loose, after all, I didn't want my ride to get shot out from under me. After a couple of hours I just let the flight suit handle that, the design is pretty good, but when you've been in there a few hours it starts to smell.

I finally get out of my entanglement with a couple of prons (enemy fighters) and make my way to my groups carrier bay, and I'm coming in hot. I don't mean radiation, it don't take much of a shield to keep out radiation, hell freeze dried hamburgers come in rad proof packages, and they do mean rad proof. (Ever tried to get on of those suckers open without a freeze-dried hamburger opener? I don't think it can be done. Zelph and me tried it once, ended up putting the thing in the barrel of my fighters' blaster and setting it off. Didn't find anything left, so I guess it's not blaster proof.) Anyway, I was coming in hot temperature-wise. Now we may have a pretty jaded view of things when we think of the output of a one man fighters' blasters, but damn that's a lot of juice flowing through those barrels, and even the deep freeze of space don't keep them cool when they're set on autofire and you just keep holding down the trigger. Those fat assed greasers who fly anything bigger than a 5 man battle cruiser will tell you that the heat that comes off a fighter during battle ain't shit. But let me tell you this, if you fly into the bay and drop your shields before they hook up the heat dissipaters, anyone in a 100 meter distance is gonna be vaporized, it's that hot. All that will be left is a small pile of ash, and that's preferable than to be standing about 150 meters away, at least you don't FEEL anything.

Once I get the bird set down I see that Gweequo (it's said GWEE-KOE, and you damn sure better not forget it) is out runnin eyes over the icers' hook up. Gweequo is my B-team man. Now don't go confusing b-team with b-string, on an Imperial Carrier there just ain't no second class pilots, Gweequo is just the guy who flys my ship after me. First the a-team goes and fights a shift then the b-team takes over. I'm a bit late coming in, as I had made my way deep inside enemy files and it took some time to extricate myself, which also explains why Gweequo is out here waiting for me. We're also always switching around the who's of the a and b teams so everybody knows all about what everybody else can and can't do. Gweequo is a good man, there ain't nothing he can't do. On rare occasion the whole cab ( that's a flight group, two squads of five fighters each) has to go out and do some major rampaging, that's one reason we switch around the teams, the other is that most battles don't last long enough for the b-team to take flight, so otherwise they wouldn't see any action.

But like I said, I had to take a shit, and there seems to be some problem with getting the icers' hooked up. So I switch over to the deck channel to needle Gweequo (and to make sure the mechanics can hear, they can always use a good laugh on a busy day like this.)

"Gweequo, if you don't stop getting under the mechanics feet like this , one of these days they are gonna knock you in the head with one of those big ass wrenches they're always toting around and stuff you in one of your own torpedo casings."

"And if you'd actually pay attention to the thermal warning lights then you wouldn't keep melting the mounts off the icers."

"Oh I pay attention to it alright, I just haven't been able to get it up to critical yet." I know it don't sound so terribly funny, but it always cracks up the mechanics, cause they are always kidding us about it. Of course if I did get it up to critical I wouldn't be coming back.

"Okay, icers hooked, drop your jacket."

Once the icers are hooked I drop the shields and hit the canopy open. I don't even wait for it to get open before I scramble out, the icers are fast but the bottom of my boots still get fried as I hop across the nose of the ship. I hit the deck in a flat run, for now that I am upright the situation takes on a whole new sense of urgency, I'm about to blow. There's a couple of browners from the bridge trying to push the mechanics around, they look up and notice me, they appear to want to have a 'chat' with me. Before they can actually give an order to make me stop I launch into the air, sail over their heads, and land the other side of them just in time to turn down the corridor to the head. I love it, every time one of us does something like that it serves to remind those bastards who the real men are; cap troopers.

Not all fighter pilots are cap troopers, but ALL the good ones are. In fact there is a limit as to how high a non cap trooper navy officer can be promoted. But I wasn't concerned with all that just then, as I was just a few feet away from the head. I didn't slow down or even put out a hand, just turned a shoulder to the door and hoped no one who out ranked me was standing on the other side. I headed for the first stall I saw, and by this time my pants were already down and the bombs were dropping before I even reached the seat.

You can find a great deal of relief from surviving a heavy engagement, but there ain't nothing better than a good shit.

Course' now that I'm here I can start thinking a little bit ahead of the current situation. It's really too bad that these stalls aren't any more comfortable than they are, otherwise a guy could easily catch a few hours of sleep right here. Then again, if they were any more comfortable than every guy who eats and defecates on a regular basis would be right here. Now that I'm getting rid of my unwanted mass, it's a good time to think about replacing it with some proper nourishment. It may seem odd to an outsider that we keep food dispensers in the toilet stalls, but when you’re in this line of work you eat whenever you get the chance. And that's the main reason why most cap troopers go on to be fighter pilots, because you can always get food when you want it. Now there are a whole bunch of species in the empire with slow metabolisms who don't require much nourishment, which also means they are a bit slow. A slow cap trooper is a dead cap trooper. 98% of all cap troopers are Lithunarians plus a scattering of other species, and one human. I swear, for some reason the brass always seems to be trying to starve cap troopers, but here I eat all I want. I guess they are worried we'll get fat, but fat is like slow for caps', and cappin' is something that stays with you for life.

So I grab a bar of my favorite food supplement and start munchin away when some asshole kicks the door open. Just as I figured, its the admirals brown nosers, and I'm really wishing there was a thick deritellium door on this stall, or any door for that matter. They aren't called brown nosers because they're always sucking up and kissing ass to the admiral, but because they're always rooting around in his shit. I don't think any admiral likes them, but it's part of some training program. They are destined to be paper pushers, the empire just decided that if they are going to be officers in the navy they should at the least have the experience of going through a battle. The worst thing is that they outrank me.

"Warrant officer" the FAT browner says with a sneer, "why didn't you stop when we hailed you?"

"You were between me and the head, and I had an important mission to accomplish in the head. If you want to stop me in mid mission you are just gonna have to be faster than that." The first thing I'll do if I ever command a big ship, is make the deck heads off limits to everyone except pilots and mechanics.

They called me a WO, but they know I'm really only one bar away from being able to knock their heads off and get away with it, and from the looks of this battle I'll probably earn that bar next shift. So they're trying to get their licks in now, but if I do get my promotion I'll bet you my entire service pay that I'll never see the two of them again.

"You had better get some quick rest," they says, "because you are going on double shift in two hours."

"Jeez, Gweequo can handle those prons alright, I want some real sleep, what with all these alerts we've been having I'm running pretty ragged as it is."

"Yeah, Gweequo could handle it fine if he had some help, but the fact is that you are the only one who came back from your A shift." The browners' tone starts to get civil, so I start to get worried. "Second wing has taken such a beating that we gave them our reserve ships, Gweequo is all that's left of your cab, and you are now the leader of south wing."

I was afraid he was going to say something like that. I would have never thought anyone could take out Old Man Grinder, and would have beat the shit out of anyone who said so. "What the hell is going on here? I swear I took out two or three pron wings all on my own, they should be dead by now."

"The admiral thinks that these guys were just a draw, and when we engaged them the Vernoliads sent in three carriers and 10 SD's. The 12th fleet is on its way, but in the mean time we aren't going anywhere."

"shit." What else could I say? "Damn. Fine, now leave me be, I'll be around in a few," Then, as if to emphasize my point, (and before they could protest,) I made such a show of flatulence that even MY gills turned green. They took their cue to leave.

I finished my constitutional, (and set some paper on fire,) and headed straight for the deck sleepers, and set mine on an hour and a half. Two hours in a sleeper and you feel like you just slept ten. There is a draw back to them, it seems that most species require dreams with their rest, mark of intelligence and advancement I guess, and when you are in a sleeper you don't dream. That's just fine and dandy for a couple of days, but if it goes on for too long then you start going berserk, which is bad for everybody. I'll be pushing it if I have to use a sleeper again, but too, I may not live that long.

The box chimes me awake in an hour and a half, and I feel like someone big just hit me in the head with a large iron pipe. I crawl out of the box and slam back an ounce of zip juice. If I do manage to survive this battle, I'm going to pay dear for it. There's a new clip outside my sleeper that says I'm the new leader of south wing. Things must be bad when the browners are actually doing their job. I figure they just goofed the clip badge and missed stating First south wing, I mean, things can't be THAT bad.

I put on a fresh flight suit (and after making sure no one was watching dumped the old one down the incinerator chute, no way in hell I'd wear that one again,) and headed up to ops. Now I've done my training stints of going up to ops to check the situation then giving the wing a battle plan, but they were just training stints, this one will get people killed, people who are my friends. I decide real early that I'm going to have a bad day.

Ops was crazy. Displays were flashing all over the place and the brass were all yelling at each other. I decided to skip the info officers and go straight to the guy who could give me the real story; the display tech. On all Imperial Naval vessels of any size there is a small group of techs who's sole responsibility is to make sure that what is going on outside the ship is what is seen on the inside.

This techs name is Nich, the Old Man told me about him, he knows his job, and the Old Mans' opinion is as good as gold to me, or was, damn this IS a bad day. "Hey Nich, what's the score?"

He looks up at me and just shakes his head. It's a good thing I didn't eat breakfast when I got up, that way this nausea won't bring forth any nasty results. "We're down to us and 10 SD's, and three of them are lamed. The Prons have 12 SD's, 2 carriers, and 30 veckies." (a veckey is a ship about half the size of a SD, usually they're nothing to worry about.) This was the point that I thought things were looking up, I mean the Prons aren't known for their technology, or for having good ships. Then he went on, "The Vernoliads have 8 SD's, 5 carriers and 60 veckies." Now that does mean trouble. The Vernoliads ain't no slouches, and I have resolutely decided that, yes, this is a bad day.

"So what's with this badge? Aren't wings two through ten going to join the fun?" At this Nich looks down to the floor and shakes his head. A cold chill runs up my spine and I'm really wishing I had a small dark corner where I could huddle up and tremble out of sight.

"There's not even enough fighters for one wing." I was just about to run down to the bunks, no really I was. I ain't no coward, but if I'm gonna die in a plasma ball, I want to do it in the arms of a gorgeous babe, or at least a decent facsimile thereof. It just so happens that about the time Nich finished speaking that the admiral called for the wing leader. I was four steps toward the door before I realized that he meant me.

"Aye sir." Never disappoint your captain, especially if he's an Admiral.

"You don't have shit left of your fighters, but take what you do have and deliver a worm bomb to the Vernoliads flag ship right here." He pointed it out on the display. "I want you to shove that worm down his throat, understood?"

"Aye sir!"

"The deck says that all you have left are some wrecks and those proto ships you boys have been piecing together, so don't waste time chasing rabbits, I want some dead Vernoliads. Get with it!"

"Aye Sir!" A salute and this time I'm heading for the door with a mission. I didn't ask why the SD's can't fire any worm bombs, we must be in worse shape than Nich realizes.

The worm bomb is a rather nasty little piece of military hardware. It has no propulsion system so it must either be fired from a large ship cannon or attached to a small ship and let loose when the direction and speed of the ship will make it plow into it's intended target. Once the bomb hits the ship it locks on to the energy source of the engine and starts chewing its way through the ship until it can detonate its warhead. Lucky me, I get to lead a squad of fighters straight through incipient hell to drop some of these babies in their laps.

I get down to the flight deck, snag a sergeant and send him off to get me a head count and list of all the remaining pilots. I snag another and sent him off to get a count of the functional fighters. I already knew how many proto fighters we had; 21. Now would be the time to see how they perform. A make or break kind of thing.

The proto fighters were designed by myself and many other pilots aboard ship, and built out of salvaged and in stock equipment. The empire is real good about making ship designs that work well, the only problem is that it uses the design for centuries. So the proto fighter is basically the standard imperial fighter with every system improved with the latest technologies. There are a few changes, most notably those from the human perspective.

The sergeants report back. I have 8 standard fighters and 2 chugs (large three man rigs with heavy armor and two turrets, designed to launch worm bombs. Oh yeah, they’re slow (chug chug)). I have 37 pilots, including me. Three cabs ain’t so bad. And considering that we are probably outnumbered 15 to 1 right now it ain’t so good either. I send the sergeants off to assemble the pilots while I go down the roster.

Once they are all lined up on deck I start playing my official South Wing leader role. "We’ve got two more pilots then we have ships to run, so who’s staying behind?" I didn’t actually expect anyone to volunteer, but procedure requires me to ask. So I look them all down real close and pull out two of the most worn out looking and send them back to bed.

"Now I need six volunteers to run two chugs." They all start fidgeting and scuffling so I try to motivate them a bit. "Look six of you are going to be on chugs, and by the emperors crown, I better have the best six for the job." They take me a bit more serious and decide among themselves who should be teamed up. "How many of you have flown a proto before?" Twelve signify themselves, and only four of them had had a proto built for them. At least the controls of the proto can be set to duplicate the old standard.

I grab a WO from second south wing and we work out how to section off the ships and the men, putting the rookies under the quick eyes of vets, and setting up a couple of small teams of vicious bastards to run interference. I then take all of my info over to the tactical simulator and have the men gather around so I can tell them the plan.

We swarm out of the hanger bays and start forming up. I’m out first and taking the lead, I don’t expect anyone to follow my orders while I’m hiding in the rear. The prons are zipping around all over, trying to stay out of the range of our carriers turrets. The chugs are out front with a sphere of proto ships glued around them. Those of us in front lock tow cables to the big cows and max our engines, trying for all the speed we can get. We stay low, next to the hull of the carrier until there is a straight line between us and our doomed target. We don’t get very far before the prons and verns notice our little collection. About the time we start getting dangerously close to a head on with the bogeys our groups of vicious bastards shoots up from the rear with an incredible burst of speed and start waging a holy war on anything in our path while the rest of the group take up challenges from everywhere else. I considered using the speed boosters to tow the chugs, but I just don’t think the old beasts can take the strain.

We finally finish off the 3000 or so klicks to our target through the most hellashious chaos I have EVER been in. Hellfire and brimstone raining down from every direction and here I am doing tug work. You can spell the experience S-T-R-E-S-S. When we are one klick away from the target we drop our tow cables, the chugs release their worms then start turning back. Meanwhile the escort group is splitting up, the forward four from each chug stays with the worms to provide cover, while the rest continue guarding the chugs. The maneuver was perfectly executed. Nothing like a gallon or two of adrenaline to perfect the skills of any species.

We receive the absolute and undivided attention of out targets turrets. After a near eternity of head pounding I finally come face to face with the enemy SD’s hull, so I give the order to pull out, as the worm bombs spear right through the ships armor heading for the engines. Finally free of the frustration of escort we become our own groups of vicious bastards, continuously releasing our bouts of pent up rage.

I just happened to be facing the enemies’ SD when the worms reached the engines. The only way I can describe it is; Magnificent Destruction. The billowy cloud of brilliant hellfire, signifying the final end of a Star destroyer is the most beautiful sight a naval soldier can see. And then I understand the admirals plans. Shunting right through the exploding debris our reinforcements come streaming in. The carriers launching fighters like a wet dog shaking off water. In the years to come everyone one of us here will be bragging about what we saw, GARUNTEED.

It took the enemy a little bit longer than it should have to realize the changes in the situation. They start making a hasty retreat while being torn to shreds. I head back to my wing and keep them moving toward the sweet comfort of our hanger bays. I wasn’t sure about any of them but I had had enough of blasters and plasma balls for two weeks, hell maybe even a month.

Of course the little soldier in me wanted to cry foul words to the stars and spill the energetic entrails of my enemies across the void.