Rage Against The Dark Ch 11 (Patreon)

Good evening y'all, all hail paid time off! With it, I finished this chapter early!

Also I may or may not be working on something I'll go over in the next writing update SHHHHHHHHHHH! It's a secret!

Anyways. Joking aside, if you'll allow me a moment to hop on this soapbox and preach at you. I'd like to recommend something near and dear to my heart. A video that will hopefully premier Soon(TM), a video that has been in production for fifteen months by a group of people who honestly inspired me to try this whole Patreon/Subscribestar thing.

Hell, it's fair to say that without their influence, I would not have picked up doing something creative again after a several year hiatus caused by poor circumstance and routine overwork.

So I'll invite you all to watch the premier of this video here. And ask you to join me in enjoying it in New Year's Eve.

Apologies, as I am certain you didn't come here to be preached to, but this is something for which I feel rather strongly, and these guys are as bad as I am about self-shilling, so I feel the need to help out in whatever small way I can. If you like long-form videos, documentaries, and lore dumps about big stompy robots, then let me tell you, you too will find you belong.

Or at least, find a playlist to listen to for a few hours. Here is the link, please consider it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38cHV-lZCXI

Thank you for your time, I'll get off my soapbox.

Anyways, here is chapter! Please let me know what you think.

=][=

“Run the simulation again.” Anakin ordered, scowling at the holo-display.

“One sec.” I reset the parameters and knocked two more flak turrets off the simulated Malevolence before running the simulated Shadow Squadron, Anakin’s personal fighter squadron, on an attack run against the Separatist Battleship.

Less than three minutes later, Shadows three, six, eight, and twelve were shot down on approach, Shadows two, four, seven, and eleven received so much damage that while they were able to complete the attack run they were left drifting through space on the battleship’s wake, easy pickings for any droid fighter or laser turret.

The Malevolence’s bridge, which we were assuming to have at least twice as much shielding as the standard Munificent class frigates, was battered and bruised, but thanks to losing a third of the bombers on approach the attack run was unsuccessful in decapitating the battleship.

“Dammit!” Anakin cursed. “Again!”

I knocked three more flak turrets off the Malevolence and ran the simulation again.

Seven simulations later, each one with reduced flak coverage and with a different approach by the starfighters, we finally got a bridge kill.

“Okay! It can be done after all! What was different in that one?” Anakin asked, pacing around the holo.

“Oh, after the first nine times we ran the same simulation, I started knocking flak turrets off the Malevolence to see how much farther the fighters could be expected to get.” I said easily, smothering Anakin’s hopes and dreams.

“And why did you do that?” Anakin asked, trying and failing not to sound annoyed.

Because I was so bored that I wanted to get back at you for wasting my time with a doomed grab at glory instead of trying to come up with a battleplan that would actually work.

“Because I figured that maybe you and I could head in there with Jedi reflexes and do a few preliminary passes and knock AA off the battleship to open the way for the rest of Shadow to do a bombing run.” I lied.

Anakin could definitely tell what happened in my head and what came out of my mouth were very different things. But he hummed and decided to take my explanation at face value. “No, that would take too long. Leaving the bombers exposed for that long will only result in them being shot down by Vulture Droids.”

“Okay, let’s try this then.” I said and reset the simulation with a different scenario.

Shadow Squadron skirted along the starboard broadside of the Malevolence, the flak there less than one third what would be faced on a head-on rush. Unlike all the previous simulations, the bombers didn’t change course on a mad-dash to the bridge, so the flak they faced remained almost manageable.

Shadows five and eight were destroyed, four, ten, and twelve lost an engine, but the ten bombers were able to reach the giant dish that was, as I was calling them, the Malevolence’s twin ion casters. The ten bombers dumped their payload, and the ion caster was marked as crippled.

Anakin grunted. “Run it again.”

Seven simulations and seven successes later, with varying levels of damage to Shadow Squadron, and Anakin’s reticence finally crumbled.

“You were right.” He said, his shoulders slumping. “We’ll have to leave that bastard Grievous for later. As soon as we have an idea of its location, we shall go with your plan of attack.”

As much as the guy got on my nerves sometimes, I had to admire his willingness to admit when he was wrong.

At least when not in front of the men.

“Got it.” I said with a nod, keeping a tight leash on my emotions so he wouldn’t sense my giddiness. “Want me to take care of the briefing?”

Anakin sighed. “No, I’ll do that myself.”

“Okay cool.” I said. “I’ll be with Poots if you need me.”

“Oh? You’ll finally unveil whatever is behind that screen in the hangar, what is it anyway?”

I smiled. “A new space superiority fighter that, once any teething troubles are taken care of, will revolutionize space combat.”

Anakin snorted. “Riiiiiight.”

Oh ye of little faith.

We exited the tactical room and walked together to the nearest lift. Once at the hangar bay, we finally went our separate ways. I went to the hangar bay that I had appropriated. The clone in charge of the hangar had been reticent, at least until I set down a 32 cm diameter chocolate cake on his desk. Then he’d been more than happy to set aside a double bay for my exclusive use.

In order to provide a guard and guarantee privacy and my surprise, I bribed Torrent with cupcakes. Only those who were off duty could guard the partition I’d had set aside, and every ‘shift’ received a cupcake. Competition for those shift spots had apparently been quite fierce within Torrent, at least one time escalating all the way to a free for all fistfight.

I nodded to Flame-head and Trips, the two guards ‘on duty’ and went into the partition, where Poots was polishing the durasteel plating of two Space Superiority Fighters.

The vehicle in front of me was nothing like anything that the Corusca Galaxy had ever seen. Its fuselage was large when compared to Z-95 Headhunter, it had four swept-back wings arranged roughly in an X formation. The tip of each wing mounted what used to be a 2a fission engine salvaged from the Venator’s stores for the repair and refit of the Z-95 Headhunters, though in truth, thanks to my and Poot’s modifications, they resembled next to nothing of their original forms.

The drives on the fighter were fusion-torch engines, they each fused deuterium and helium-3 to generate a stable supply of superheated plasma, kept under control by magnetic containment fields. It used ever abundant hydrogen as reaction mass for propulsion, this reaction mass was expelled from the four-way exhaust on each of the engines; fore, aft, lateral, and dorsal/ventral. Giving it literally unmatched maneuverability in space.

Hell, it could turn one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and accelerate ‘backwards’ almost as quickly as it could accelerate ‘forward’.

The downside to taking advantage of Newtonian physics to fight in space, was that it was utterly unsuited for atmospheric flight. It could brute force it, but a not insignificant chunk of its deflector shields would be taken up simply battling air-resistance.

Its armaments were nothing to scoff at. Four Blastec Defender F-10 Assault Laser Cannons on the tips of the wings, two Merd-Sonn Munitions P-12 Heavy Blaster Cannons on hardpoints at the ‘bottom’ of the cockpit window, and six SoroSuub M-2 Blaster Cannons, two of them coaxial with the P-12s, and could thus be used for spotting fire for the Heavy Blaster Cannons.

It had four hardpoints for proton or concussion missiles on the bottom of the two upper wings, two on each. And lastly, it had a fusion torch and a tow cable with a grappling claw to cut debris into manageable chunks and haul them away.

I was initially planning to call it the Starfury, unfortunately Blastech held the rights to that name for a barely remembered starfighter that was not nearly as good as the literal revolution in weapons technology in front of me.

As such, I’d settled for Hummingbird Space Superiority Fighter. I thought it fitting, due to the fact that the hummingbird could literally fly backwards, just like this monster. I had to see if I could insert ancient knowledge of hummingbirds being insanely dangerous animals from some death world or another, that’d be hilarious.

My second choice for a name was the Longsword. But Systech Corporation held the rights to that name for a space superiority fighter. Even if they hadn’t really done anything with it in a few centuries.

Fuckin’ corporate-interests-first policies. A Republic ‘for the people’ my fat space-Mexican ass!

Still…I stood in front of one of the two ships and put my hands on my hips. “Yeah, Poots is definitely getting a whole birthday cake, just for him.”

A tentacly head popped out of the Hummingbird’s hatch before a body far too large to fit in said cockpit wriggled out and with a happy ‘pooooooot’ of expelled gas, Poots descended and wiggled his tentacles excitedly at me. Thanks to Communication Talent, I had picked up the meaning of his sign language over a few days.

It was still fun to pretend I had no idea what he meant in front of others though.

“Yes, you are getting a whole birthday cake.” I said as I looked at the two marvels of engineering hanging from the rack in the fighter hangar. “All to yourself. This is awesome. So, how close are they to being ready?”

Poots waved his tentacles in a complex pattern that informed me he was just polishing the surface, and the fighter was ready to go.

I smiled and, using my HUD, sent a message off to Charlotte.

“You’re gonna have to wait for that cake until I get back from the mission.” I said, reaching up and patting Poots’ snoot. He squeaked, rubbed his snoot on my hair, then modified the mixture of gas in his pouches and rose up to the fighters and puttered around, making them shine.

It wasn’t long before Charlotte arrived, and I had to tell the two guarding the area that she was cleared to enter.

The moment she stepped in, Charlotte froze, her eyes opening wide as saucers.

“I told you I’d get you to fly again.” I said, stepping up to her. “It’s no Infinite Stratos, but—”

That was as far as I got before I had an armful of beautiful girl doing her level best to shove her tongue down my throat, her arms wrapping around my neck and her legs around my waist securing her to me like the galaxy’s sexiest limpet.

Still, one never knew, so I provided extra stability by taking two handfuls of her cute, tight derriere.

She broke the kiss to whisper, “Thank you!” before kissing me again, an act she repeated several times, each time kissing a different part of my face and neck.

Mini-me was making my pants uncomfortably tight, and crawling into one of the cockpits for some privacy with the comely girl in my arms was looking evermore like a good idea.

Until my Information Defense pinged me that its threshold for hiding the emotions Charlotte and I were exuding was about to be reached.

Painful as it was for the both of us, she unwrapped herself from me and I gave her ass one final farewell squeeze. She turned to inspect the fighters. “What are they called?”

“I’m thinking of calling the ship class the Hummingbird.” I said, waiting for mini-me to calm down and stop making my pants feel a couple sizes too small.

“Not a very intimidating name.” Charlotte said. “But that might honestly help, make it underestimated by any adversaries.”

“My thoughts exactly. Also every other name I wanted was taken.” I said, making her giggle at my misfortune.

My comms unit pinged, I brought it up to my lips. “This is Rylanor, Go ahead.”

“Uhh, sir.” Said a Clone, probably Trips or Flame-head. “General Skywalker requests to see you…I have been informed that the request is in fact an order.”

I snorted. “Poots! Time for the reveal!”

Poots whistled and floated over to the clasps holding up the flimsiplas sheet that had given Poots the privacy to work. It fluttered slowly to the ground, revealing a very annoyed looking Anakin whose face morphed into a look first of surprise, then suspicion, then awe.

“Gentlemen,” I said, waving to encompass the fighters. “Allow me to introduce the Hummingbird. The Space Superiority Fighter that will revolutionize Starfighter design across the Republic.”

Anakin stared for several long moments before sighing and signaling Shadow Squadron. “Come on, we’re going to the simulators.”

I grinned.

=][=

I grunted as I shut off my acceleration to turn the ship one hundred and fifty degrees across its x-axis and 70 degrees on its z-axis, bringing Matchstick into the firing arc of the six blaster cannons, his Z-95 Headhunter’s deflector shields, already set to double front, flared as they absorbed the barrage of plasma.

I pushed the Hummingbird ‘down’ its current z-axis and decelerated, turning to follow the significantly less maneuverable fighter, the blaster cannons shredding its fuselage and transmuting it into a ball of expanding gas and slag.

I was then pressed into my seat as I accelerated in the ships current x-axis, weaving between a barrage of blaster bolts, only a few pinging off the Hummingbird’s deflector shields. But with its four engines, the Hummingbird had nearly twice the acceleration of the Z-95, and it could accelerate in just about any direction even as it turned, a feat the Headhunters could not equal. Broadside got a little too eager to score some damage on my ship, and paid for it by taking not one, not two, but four Assault Lasers to the cockpit.

They weren’t really lasers, they were closer to up-gunned blaster cannons if anything, the main difference being, these were rated to be a threat to a frigate’s deflector shields.

A second member of Shadow Squadron went down in under three minutes, and I continued to fly figures eight around the rest of them as they attempted to lock me down and hopefully get a kill.

Bonus points to Tag, who tried to ram me. He failed and thus received a full fusillade of all twelve blaster cannons, the expanding plume of gas and slag providing me with an opportunity to fool the rest of the squadron’s sensors and giving me the ability to sneakily get Shadow Ten in my sights.

Even outnumbering me eleven to one, the Z-95’s could not do much against a ship that was as maneuverable and heavily armed as the Hummingbird.

Previous matches had gone even more heavily in my favor, as for those I’d been able to have Charlotte as my wingman. That unfair prodigy of a pilot had only needed a fifteen-minute explanation of the fighter’s controls, as well as ten minutes flying it in the simulation. After that, she was a better pilot than me.

Which was good, because around the time that she got used to the controls was when Anakin joined the simulation.

He flew a Delta-7 Aethersprite light interceptor, putting his maximum acceleration nearly on par with the Hummingbird’s, and the first time he’d joined in, he’d shot me out of space within the first two minutes of the engagement.

In a ship that was objectively speaking ‘last generation’ when compared to mine, with worse maneuverability, slightly worse acceleration, outgunned and with defenses that were at best half as good as mine, he’d taken me apart in short order.

Charlotte however? That was another story altogether.

The two chased each other in a deadly game of tag. Charlotte flying strange maneuvers around the Aethersprite and getting the occasional potshot in, with Anakin making use of the times Charlotte maneuvered to accelerate beyond the range where she’d easily be able to get a shot at him.

The Force did not come into it beyond heightened reflexes and the ability to move the controls faster through Force Speed, or using the Force to augment our bodies to better counteract the strain of high gravity maneuvers.

The two were nearly equally matched…so long as Charlotte was in the significantly better fighter.

Anakin Skywalker was simply that good.

Though the more they dueled in the cockpit, the more Charlotte closed the gap between them, one millimeter at a time.

Their tally so far was five-to-four in Anakin’s favor, with the deciding factor of who won between them being how quickly I could mop up Shadow Squadron and provide support for her.

The wonders of taking full advantage of Newtonian physics to dogfight in space.

Speaking of, I finished off Shadow eleven, the final member of the squadron. I reoriented and burned toward Anakin and Charlotte’s fight at max acceleration, the maneuver pressing me uncomfortably into the seat at my cockpit.

Anakin noticed immediately and began to burn away, I grinned and decided to end the simulation with a bang and redlined all four of my engines while lining up for a ram.

Not long after that, the simulation ended with the notice that I had been destroyed. I crawled out of the entrance hatch to my fighter and grinned toward Anakin as he exited from the simulator, looking glum.

My grin widened.

“Yeah yeah, you win.” He grumbled. “Ramming may be funny in a simulation, but don’t ever actually do it!”

I saluted lazily, and jumped down, using the Force to turn the deadly fall into a short, controlled hop.

“So?” I asked, poofing up and waiting.

Anakin sighed. “Yeah okay, it’s…very impressive. And I must once again reevaluate your gassy companion.”

“Hey, I helped with the design!” I said defensively. “I have the design files to prove it!”

Anakin grinned, and I realized he’d damned me with faint praise as revenge for beating him.

The childish dick!

Exactly what I would have done, but still! He was (biologically) the adult here! He didn’t get to act like a brat!

That was my job!

“You weren’t wrong when you said that this could revolutionize starfighters.” He shook his head. “It’s such a simple concept, yet to think nobody has thought of it.”

I smacked my lips. “Well, in the defense of most beings, just about all intelligent creatures originate in a place with atmosphere. It makes sense that we’d take those ways of thinking into space.”

Anakin shook his head. “Its maneuverability is, to my knowledge, completely unmatched, and it has surprisingly powerful teeth. The fact that it has a hyperdrive is also a serious boon.” He smacked his lips. “I want one.”

I shrugged. “Get the materials to Poots and he’ll put one together for you.”

Anakin blinked. “How did you get all the parts you needed to put these two together?”

“I Strategically Transferred Equipment To Alternate Locations.” I rattled off, then pulled out a cupcake, making it seem like I was drawing it out from my sleeve while it was in fact coming from my pocket space, the only part of my pocket dimension I could access while outside a gravity well. “I also bribed every supply officer to smudge the parts lists and the Hangar Master to let me use the double bay.”

Anakin sighed. “I’d punish you, but you’d not have gotten the parts to do it otherwise, and these results speak for themselves.”

I nodded. “I’m going to patent it. That way anyone that makes it will have to kick up some royalties to me.”

“Jedi should not lust for material things.” Anakin chastised.

“But how else am I supposed to get my own privately owned Venator!?” I whined, giving Anakin pause.

“A Jedi should not lust for most material things.” Anakin muttered. “What are you planning to do with your own Venator anyways?”

I shrugged. “I dunno, employ every Clone I can after the war is over and go take over Hutt space?”

Anakin flinched hard.

“It probably wouldn’t be that difficult.” I mused, acting as if I hadn’t noticed his reaction. “By that point the Clones will be the most experienced fighting force in a millennium. And they’ll need something to do when the fighting ends. Not to mention, the Hutts aren’t exactly popular. I could get volunteers to fight from liberated slaves, have the Clones whip them into shape, and fuel the conquest of Hutt space through the conquest of Hutt space. I rid the Galaxy of Hutts, free a buttload of slaves, the Clones have something akin to a retirement plan. Wins all around!”

Anakin worked his jaw until he could speak, when he did, his voice was rather hoarse. “That…That’s an interesting goal. A bold goal.”

I shrugged. “It seems like the thing to do.”

Anakin nodded. “I like the way you think. Don’t let any of the Council hear you say that.”

I blew a raspberry. “How stupid do you think I am? Don’t answer that.”

“Skywalker.” We paused as Admiral Yularen walked toward us in the Hangar, Master Plo Koon walking next to him. “The enemy battleship has attacked one of our convoys of medical transports near Ryndellia.”

“The Ryndellia system.” Anakin said slowly, stroking his chin. “Near Naboo…where our super secret and thoroughly hidden medical base is located.”

“The one taking care of the wounded for the entire front? That’s bound to be his next target.” I said, a glint in Yularen’s eye informing me that he was impressed I’d paid attention at the various briefings Anakin subjected me to. “Anyone smart would be trying to retreat with that ship intact, not drive it deeper into enemy territory where it can get surrounded and destroyed. They wouldn’t risk such a strategic asset unless it was for a worthwhile trade.”

“There are many star clusters in that area.” Plo Koon said. “With a ship that big, he will be unable to chart a course that’s less than ten parsecs.”

I raised an eyebrow. “We can’t exactly do much different. The most we’d be able to shave off would be three parsecs, and we’re four parsecs out of position for a timely intervention.”

Anakin smacked his right fist into his left palm. “Then we’ll just have to take a shortcut. Admiral, warn that station what’s coming. I’ll take a squadron and delay the Malevolence long enough for reinforcements to arrive, that medical station must not fall.”

Plo Koon nodded. “This journey may be treacherous. If you lose too many ships before you reach the target…”

“We won’t lose anybody.” Anakin stated with conviction. “Shadow Squadron! Prepare to scramble! Rylanor, you and Charlotte will launch in the Hummingbirds, escort the bombers!”

The Clones all scrambled as Anakin walked toward one of the bombers, I saluted.

“I believe I’ll come along as well.” Plo Koon said. “Fly fighter escort.”

“Any help is welcome, Master Plo.” Anakin said over his shoulder, then grinned. “Just try not to fall behind.”

“What about me?”

I jumped at the sound of the young voice. Ahsoka had been hidden in Master Plo Koon’s shadow, both physically and in the Force.

“You will stay here, Ahsoka.” Master Plo said. “You are not ready for an assignment this treacherous.

“And he is!?” Ahoska demanded, pointing angrily at me.

“His Master has deemed it so.” Master Plo said. “Now come along, you can help me prep my fighter.”

Ahsoka gave me the stink eye as Master Plo left. I stuck out my tongue at her, making her glare and stick her tongue out at me.

Funny child soldier, throwing a tantrum because she won’t be heading into mortal danger.

…

Now that I think of it, she was getting the better end of the deal, wasn’t she?

Huh.

I queried the Force, and it returned a vague feeling that things might possibly work out alright, maybe.

I shrugged. Good enough for me. I ran to my quarters to grab my armor, Charlotte close on my heels.

Maybe I’d get lucky enough to stamp Grievous.