Star Wars, Revenge of the Sith, page 36[/quote posted: “Obi-Wan shook his head. This was completely impossible. No other pilot would even attempt it. But for Anakin Skywalker, the completely impossible had an eerie way of being merely difficult.”
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, page 135 posted: “This is, simply put, impossible. It can’t be done. He’s going to do it anyway. Because he is Anakin Skywalker and he doesn’t believe in impossible”
Page 135 posted: And at the same time he draws power from the force. He gathers perception, and Luck, and sucks himself into the instinctive, preconscious what-will-happen-in-the-next-ten-seconds intuition that has always been the core of his talent
Death Star posted: There was no need to specify that he was talking about Colonel Vindoo "The Shooter" Barvel, one of the most decorated TIE pilots ever. During the Clone Wars, Barvel had taken out more than thirty confirmed enemy craft in ship-to-ship combat, twice that many more probables, and nobody knew how many he hadn't even bothered to report. Vil knew he himself was a good pilot, a hot-hand even in training, but Barvel, who had been cycled out of combat by jittery brass to make sure the Empire had a live hero to parade around as a recruiter, was the best. Even though he was only a captain at the time, he'd been put in charge of the pilot school at ICNB. Barvel could power-dive the wings off any other craft and hit a target the size of a pleeky on the way down at top speed, port or starboard cannon, you pick which gun. In training missions he'd flown with the man, Vil had felt like a small child who could barely walk trying to keep up with a champion distance runner.
death Star posted: Vader hadn't exactly flown circles around Barvel, but every time The Shooter jigged or jinked, Vader was half a second ahead of him. Barvel was doing things Vil didn't think were possible in a TIE, and Vader not only matched him, move for move, he just plain outflew him. It was— no other word for it—astounding. Vil quickly realized that Vader could have taken the flight school commander out at any time—he was only playing with him. That had been as spooky in its own way as Vil's nightmare. He'd never seen a human pilot move like that. Damned few alien ones either, for that matter. After a few passes, and with what had seemed a slow, offhand, lazy series of rolls and loops, Vader came around, nailed Barvel with his training beams, and it was "Game over." All the pilots hanging there in space had to reach up and shut their mouths manually.
death star posted: What Vil hadn't mentioned, mostly because he still didn't believe it himself, was that the mechanic who'd serviced Vader's borrowed TIE fighter afterward had come out of the bay shaking his head. The nav and targeting comps had been turned off, he'd said. Cockpit recorder showed that Vader had done that before he'd left the dock. So if the mechanic was to be believed, not only had Vader beaten the best pilot in the navy as easily as if Barvel had been a crop duster on some backrocket world, he had done so on manual. Which was simply impossible.
KenKenobi posted: Declann can give him the insights of a Grand Admiral into facing these two (not that Vader needs help). Which would be...what, exactly? Fleet Admiral tactics are going to do little here in a dogfight, and Vader'd probably throw half of it out the window anyway.
