Saga Commencement -- Rebel pilot squadfic, OCs, OT era, completed 1/28

Awesome! I love the Darin/Quiver bonding going on in this post.


"Fighter pilots who won't change don't last long, unfortunately," Quiver replied.

Quiver's a smart cookie. I'm glad Darin has a non-idiotic wingman now.

And the taping of the thigh was hilarious.

Keep up the great work!

 

Great update, Thumps, I still love this story! Poor Darin doesn't know what he's getting himself into. Oh well, he'll find out soon though, won't he?

I also liked Quiver taping Darin down. They'd probably have to do that to me, too. I can't wait to see Darin's first taste of combat....again

Awesome stuff! Even though I keep missing first post!

 

QFT. Sure, he's a rookie, but he's a good kid and seems to have his head on straight. All of that training and preparation will get put to good use soon, it seems, and he's going to need every bit of friendly assistance and guidance he can get!

Great update, Thumps! Thanks for the read!

Trikes

 

snowy: Quiver is happy that someone finally recognizes his brilliance. I'm happy their developing relationship is coming across well. Thanks bunches for reading!

Peri: Yuppers, he'll find out very soon, unfortunately for him. I'm glad the taping went over well. Thanks very much for reading!

Trikes: Yeah, Darin will have a chance now to use his training and see if it'll do him any good. He tries hard, the poor guy. He'll certainly be relying a lot on Quiver too. Thanks muchly for reading!

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I tried to average out the lengths of the remaining two posts to something digestible, which is why this post ends in a kinda weird place. The last chapter didn't divide very well.

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Darin felt sick from nervousness as he walked to the hangar with the others. Quiver, on the other hand, didn't look too concerned about the fact that they were all about to fly into a swarm of lethal laser bolts. He was chatting with CC about something until Darin interrupted with a hesitant question. "Quiver? What are Windstar and Darkspeed?"

"Huh?" Quiver turned his attention to him. "Oh, they're a couple other ships in our fleet. A Corvette and a Bulk Cruiser, respectively."

"They didn't mention Crescent Star in the briefing. Isn't she coming too?"

"I doubt it. She'd just spook the tiny Imp fleet and make it run. Didn't they teach you these kinds of things in training?"

CC elbowed Quiver in the side, prompting a small yelp from him. "Be nice to the rookie!" she scolded. Quiver stuck his tongue out at her, and she returned the favor before ignoring him and patiently explaining to Darin, "We've done similar hit-and-runs on small fleets before. One thing we noticed is that when Crescent Star and sometimes Bacta come with, the targets put all their efforts into running as soon as their sensors detect us, and we end up not catching anything. So what we've started doing for small, low-firepower fleets like this is having Star, Bacta and Providence hang back out of sensor range until we microjump in, and once we have the targets engaged, the three of them will start moving closer with their sublights for support and pickup. Make sense?"

"Yeah...I think so." Darin was about to ask what kind of ships Bacta and Providence were when he was distracted by Quiver taking the forgotten roll of tape from him and tossing it back on the countertop in the hangar.

"I heard Bacta's weapons are being glitchy again, otherwise she might have come with on this one," Quiver said offhandedly. "Should give that roll of tape to her mechanics: they probably need it more than your flightsuit does, rookie."

CC sighed, shook her head, gave Darin an encouraging grin and started angling over to the subhangar housing Corona Squadron's X-wings. "Be nice to the rookie, Quiver!" she called over her shoulder.

"Hey, I'm the epitome of the word 'nice'!" Quiver called back. Darin couldn't be sure, but it sounded like CC almost choked on a spasm of laughter.

Since they had just come back from patrol, Darin's and Quiver's X-wings were near the hangar's magcon field, separate from the others and getting a quick turnaround. The two pilots hadn't taken more than three additional steps in that direction before they were stopped by a voice from behind saying, "Look, it's our sweet little rookie!"

Darin recognized that voice by now. He turned around to see the two Quakes dressed in grey Y-wing flightsuits, the blonde with a pilot insignia and the black-haired woman designated as a gunner. He realized that he hadn't even gotten their names yet, though to be fair his memory capacity for names had gotten maxed out the previous day anyway. Before he could ask for them the black-haired woman grinned and said, "Good luck out there."

The blonde finished braiding her hair and took her helmet back from her gunner. "You'll do fine," she told

 

Arrgh! I didn't beat the PM this time. Blast.

"I'm glad to see you've already learned the proper answer for 'buy us drinks' is 'yes'," Quiver said.

That was so funny! I think I love Quiver even more now- I really like how he sticks up for Quiver when Chopper is being grumpy.

Another great part was Darin getting himself ready to fly. His backstory is so sad!

And the battle was really well done too, poor Darin seems pretty terrified! That was an evil cliffie, btw.

Keep up the awesome awesome work!

 

Proving himself to Chopper became less of a priority in light of the need to prove himself to those he had lost.
Very powerful, and very sad! Get out there and tear it up, kid!

He's making some rookie mistakes, but he's out there and already got a kill marked down in his book! Let's hope he pulls through for the damaged Y-wing... just stay focused, rookie!

Great update, Thumps! And an evil cliffhanger, indeed!
Trikes

 

As one of her beta readers, it's not quite as evil of a cliffie for me. But it's still amazingly intense! This is Thumper's line of expertise...I've never read anybody besides her who can put the stress of combat piloting into such perfect details. And that includes all the pro-fic I've ever read. I can't say enough about your skill, amiga. Super work!

 

snowy: Hee hee, you might have a better chance this time to beat the PM again. You picked out what I think is one of my favorite Quiver lines in this story, and I'm glad Darin's backstory summary came out well. Thanks bunches for reading!

Trikes: Sorry for the cliffhanger. Purely unintentional, I assure you, and only happened because of the way I tried to split this chapter up. We'll see in a minute how focused (or not) he'll be and what will happen to the wishbone as a result. Thanks muchly for reading!

Peri: Aww, thanks. It's much easier for me to focus on what's going on inside the cockpit than outside of it during a fight. Doesn't always work, unfortunately, but oh well. Thanks beaucoup for reading!

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Here we are at the end. I don't have any "extras" or "special features" this time like I've done with past full-length stories, sorry. Thanks very much to all those who have come along on the ride. I really appreciate it! Y'all are awesome!

And now the conclusion, continued from where last week left off...

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(cont'd)

Botch beeped urgently at him and drew his attention to a lone TIE approaching from port, apparently wanting an easy kill of a severely damaged fighter. Darin positioned himself between the wishbone and the TIE, hoping the sight of his fighter would be enough to deter the Imperial. It wasn't. Blast it, now what was he supposed to do? Confront it? Stay there in position? What? By the time he called for help and explained the situation, it would be too late. He silently willed the damaged Y-wing to fly faster, but it remained at its previous agonizing pace.

It wasn't like he had never been in the position of needing to protect someone during a sim battle. In fact, he couldn't count the number of times his wingman's actions had forced Darin into the protector role. But that had rarely ended well for Darin, and often not for his wingman either, and his wingman's ship had always been undamaged at the start of it. Quake Three was already at a disadvantage there. Darin knew enough to know that this wasn't going to be good.

They were now out of the dogfight and heading toward the distant spot where his sensors said Crescent Star and the rest of the Rebel fleet was, just like CC had said. Out here in the open, Darin was the only one available to protect Three, and he made up his mind. Darin chewed on his bottom lip, quickly told Quake Three what was happening and turned toward the eyeball, adjusting his throttle to try to keep himself between the TIE and Y-wing. He bumped his weak shields full forward and started firing.

The Imperial pilot dodged the laser bolts and started to climb; Darin followed and managed to nick one of the TIE's wings. That didn't affect it much, and as if to laugh in Darin's face the TIE smoothly spiraled upward a bit with the Rebel still following. Finally it pitched over and throttled up, heading straight for the injured Y-wing that was now a little distance away.

When Darin saw that he had left Quake Three open like that, his stomach turned hollow. He was still a little bit under the TIE in relation to Three, and in one instant he had reversed his throttle, desperately pulled a turn so sharp that the inertial compensators couldn't immediately correct for it, and punched his throttle in full again as he raced to get between the two craft.

He was going too fast to try to aim, so he put his shields full aft and snuck into the TIE's line of fire just as the Imperial opened up on Three. Darin felt the lasers impacting his rear shields as he physically shielded Three, and they were being drained fast. He hadn't gotten very far ahead of the TIE-he hoped he could get it to change course so they wouldn't end up ramming the Y-wing, an event which was imminent in the next couple of seconds. Quickly, before the TIE's first salvo had ended, Darin braked to two-thirds speed.

The full-throttle TIE pulled up sharply to avoid the

 

Awww, I love this story. So sad, but Darin's got a really good wingmate, I think.

He had seen the emblem before and even had the patch on his shoulder, but it hadn't really meant anything until now. He looked past the Rebel insignia, past the oppressive black dot drowning out the majority of the star, and now focused on the silvery rays of the eclipsed star's corona escaping from behind the black dot, refusing to be blocked.

The gains, not the losses.

That's such a good metaphor for the Rebellion and Darin and basically everything in this story, and it ties in with the theme in the story so well, and BASICALLY, what I am trying to ramble out here is that I think it's awesome.

Have I mentioned that I love Quiver? Alot?

So now I think I have to go read all of the sequels again.

Great work! This is such a good story.

 

Oh wow! Amazingly poignant ending, Thumps! I think I kinda felt sick along with Darin, but Quiver helped us get through it, for sure!

Awesome, awesome story! Wonderfully done all the way through!

Trikes

 

Very moving, very profound, and, of course, awesome cool fighter scenes! Good work!

 

So sorry I'm so late getting in here...a story like this--better, an ending like this--deserves immediate attention. Your entire story was bloody fantastic, Thumps. I can't say enough about your talent. Super work! Your characters made me so curious about the rest of the stuff you'd written, so I went to Coronasquadron.com to continue Darin's saga. So glad I did. The story rocks! I'm hoping to see more Darin and Quiver up here.

Stupendous ending!

 

Good story, really captured the emotional aspects of war and the stresses that are inherent in losing squadmates. I thought it also did a good job of relaying the adrenaline-pumping experience of being in combat for the first time. Nice work.

 

snowy: Thanks! Themes are so much fun to work with and explore. Darin's wingmate situation has definitely improved over what it used to be, and Quiver appreciates the attention very much. Thanks for reading this again and for replying!

Trikes: Thank you! I'm glad the ending came out well. Quiver can be surprisingly helpful when he wants to be. Thanks so much for your compliments and for reading!

Danaan: I'm very happy you liked the fighter scenes, and I'm sorry it took so long for them to show up in the first place. Thanks a bunch for reading and replying!

Peri: Thanks! I've spent a long time tinkering with this ending trying to get it to come out all right, and I'm glad it did. I'm sure you'll see a shorter Corona story or two around here every so often. Thanks again for your compliments, your betaing, and for sticking with this even when you knew how it was going to end.

Atarumaster88: Thanks very much! Those are some of the things I was going for in this story, so I'm happy they came through. Thanks for reading and replying!


Thanks again to everyone. I really appreciate your readership.