Chapter Text
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Beep! Beep! Bee-
WHAM!
…
…
“Damn alarm…”
The faint blue glow of an electronic device filled the tiny room as you sat up in your bed. The time on your now slightly damaged alarm clock read 4:00 A.M., though it felt much earlier than that. You picked up your data pad, instantly finding that three messages had been sent to you in quick succession.
Time Sent: 3:50 A.M.
To: Pilot TN-4032 (TIE C19)
From: Lieutenant Kozlov
Message:
Rebel ships spotted near planet Lothal. We have no information as to why at this time. Report to Conference Room 16 immediately.
You sat up more, sucking in air through your teeth. You had a guess as to what the two following messages were. You opened the next one.
Time Sent: 3:55 A.M.
To: Pilot TN-4032 (TIE C9)
From: Lieutenant Kozlov
Message:
Report to Conference Room 16 immediately!
“Shit,” you whispered, opening the last one.
Time Sent: 3:59 A.M.
To: Pilot TN-4032 (TIE C9)
From: Lieutenant Kozlov
Message:
Respond now!
You typed your response so fast; your fingers began to cramp.
Time Sent: 4:02 A.M.
To: Lieutenant Kozlov
From: Pilot TN-4032 (TIE C9)
Message:
I’ll be there in five!
You bolted out of your bed, letting your data pad fall to the floor. Adrenaline pumped through your veins as you flicked on the single light in your tiny room, blinding yourself for a second. After you fumbled around for your pilot uniform, you eventually found it and pulled it on. A quick glance in the mirror told you that you were a mess, but nothing could be done about it.
Exactly two minutes later, you were sprinting down a long hallway to the elevators, data pad in hand. You were crashing into walls, a usual occurrence, until you crashed into a person. A quick glance at their similarly black uniform told you they were also a pilot.
“Sorry!” you gasped.
“Seems we were both caught off guard,” a familiar voice laughed.
You looked up, seeing your friend and squad mate TN-3984. Not that she ever went by that, though. No, she preferred her callsign, Osprey.
“Did you get a bunch of messages from Kozlov too?” Osprey was breathing heavily as you entered the elevator together.
“Three of them. You’d think he’d realize our shifts start at 4:00.”
“You must be prepared! Even if it means waking up before your shift!” Osprey crudely imitated his gravelly voice.
“Ha ha,” You rolled your eyes. “Anyway, we’ll be doing some fighting. You excited?”
Osprey shook her head, her long dark hair nearly slapping her friend in the face. “No. Only you are excited for that stuff.”
“I’ll never understand why you aren’t.”
“It’s easy to like it when you’re good at it, Shatter.”
Right. Your callsign was Shatter, and not for no reason. You weren’t the type to gloat, but even you couldn’t deny how good you were at fighting in a TIE ship.
“Yeah, yeah…” You trailed off as the elevator finally brought them to where the two of you needed to go. “What’s the time?”
“4:05. Kozlov’s gonna yell at us.”
“What else is new?”
The two pilots stepped off the elevator together, then broke into a sprint. After far too much time, you reached Conference Room 16. Neither of you wanted to open the door, but after a quick game of rock-paper-scissors, you found yourself the one turning the knob.
To both of your surprises, you were the first ones there. Besides Kozlov, of course.
“Lieutenant…?” Osprey shuffled in behind you, trying to make herself seem as small as possible. “Where’s-“
“Later than you,” Kozlov scoffed, turning around to sneer at both of you.
You and Osprey quietly made your way to the chairs lined up against the back wall. Six were there, each reserved for a member of your squad. The leader, TN-4000, was usually early, but he was nowhere to be seen.
The clock on the wall ticked away as the three of you waited for the four missing people. Every second felt like an eternity, and Kozlov seemed to be getting angrier as each one passed by. If he wasn’t in the room, you probably would’ve been walking around by now, likely knocking things over as you went. Instead, you allowed yourself to imagine what it would feel like to be out there and fighting again. Oh, how you enjoyed it. The euphoria you got from hitting your target was unmatched.
The door flew open, banging against the wall. Four people tumbled through in an attempt to get into the room first. What resulted was a heap of bodies, all scrambling to get off one another. Kozlov watched in disgust, while you and Osprey tried to keep the grins off your faces.
“The rest of C-Squadron,” Kozlov finally spoke when the others stood up. “Here at last. Ten minutes after you were supposed to be flying,” his voice was deadly soft.
You hurriedly checked the time. 4:15 A.M.
“Where were you?” Kozlov asked TN-4000.
“Uh,” he seemed unsteady on his feet. “We slept through our alarms.”
“All four of you?” Kozlov sneered.
You watched another one of your squad-mates turn a little pale, before stumbling over nothing. Suddenly, it clicked.
Those idiots are hungover!
Of course. After their last shift, the squad wanted to go to the one bar on the ship and have ‘a drink or two,’ as TN-4000 put it. Both you and Osprey had declined, knowing that it wasn’t a great idea.
“Seemed like they had more than ‘a drink or two,” Osprey whispered.
“I would give you a proper reprimanding,” Kozlov rubbed the bridge of his nose, “but you have work to do,” he turned on his heel. “You are to accompany A and B Squadrons to planet Lothal, and destroy any Resistance ships you find there. One is a cargo ship, likely carrying men and supplies. Return here and then we will have a chat about drinking after hours.”
You couldn’t keep in a grin off your face when your squad members’ eyes widened. Really, did they think they were being discreet?
“Nice job, guys,” Osprey whispered as they all left the conference room.
“Shut up,” TN-4000, callsign Eagle, responded.
“We told you it was a bad idea,” You added.
The hangar was as beautiful as ever. TIE fighters lined the room, their black, shiny exterior matching the tile that covered the walls. A large opening to the outside filled your heart with excitement. In just a few moments, you would be out there among the stars.
You didn’t realize you’d stopped walking until Eagle lightly hit your shoulder.
“Hey, wake up,” he grinned.
“Shut up,” You narrowed your eyes.
Within moments, you were on your ship. TIE C9, the exact same as the rest of the fighters of its kind, but also entirely, wholly unique. The sound of the twin engines roaring to life and the vibration of the seat woke you up more than anything else could. The light scratches and dents on the controls showed signs of many past missions, all with one goal in mind, to keep the First Order running. The slightly loose panel in the back provided an opening into the inner workings of the ship, something that you studied almost religiously. You loved flying, you really did, but the one thing you could possibly love more was the way the ships were built. You’d seen them being constructed before, in a perfect assembly line perfected over many years of trial and error. The one thing you wanted more than anything was to work on your ship, and make it your own.
“C-Squad leader, Eagle, standing by.”
The crackle of the communication system in your ear was the final piece of the puzzle that was the beginning of a wonderful shift.
“Wolf, standing by.”
“Riddler, standing by.”
“Grave, standin-
“Ooooooo!” someone crudely imitated a zombie.
And just like that, the moment was ruined.
You smacked a hand to your forehead, wishing your squad-mates were a little more professional. Someone, Wolf probably, had done what the group always did when Grave called his name. Make an obnoxious noise.
“You guys suck,” You sighed.
“Pbbtthhh,” Wolf blew a raspberry into her mic.
“You made it worse,” Osprey giggled.
“Alright, we all here? We’re here. Let’s go,” Eagle’s grin was very audible through his mic.
Your ears picked up the faint sound of a cable detaching, the one that tied your ship to the dock. “Move your asses before I leave you behind!” you taunted, flying towards the exit.
“Oh no you don’t!” Riddler zipped past you. Cocky as always.
You didn’t have time to be frustrated with him; the light of the stars in the sky had instantly captured your attention. Oh, how beautiful they were. Two other groups of TIE fighters were waiting outside, hovering in the emptiness of space.
“C-Squad finally decided to join the party, eh?” A new voice laughed in your ear. B-squad’s leader. You could never remember his callsign.
“Blame the idiots who got drunk last night,” Osprey sighed.
“Hey! We didn’t get drunk,” Wolf huffed. “Just… tipsy.”
“I just threw up,” Grave sounded awful.
“Ew,” Osprey commented.
“Didja get the vomit bag in time?” Riddler grinned.
“No.”
“EW!”
You were so glad no higher ups would be listening in on your conversation.
A-squad’s leader’s voice crackled in the mic. “Jump to lightspeed in three,”
“It stinks in here,” Grave interrupted.
“Two.”
“Don’t do any rolling maneuvers,” Eagle grinned.
“One.”
You pushed a throttle forward, then watched as the universe around you transformed.
Lightspeed, you thought, is absolutely wonderful. It’s pretty, it gets you places quickly, and communications don’t work. Love it.
Not that you didn’t like your companions, but they were entirely too loud sometimes. Even Osprey, the tamest of the bunch, still found herself in the fray of some of their wilder mishaps. Then again, none of them held the same absolute joy for fighting as you did. Some of them even described your joy of it as being sadistic. You’d never felt the guilt or remorse that many people did after they fought. Maybe it was because you never fought on the ground (really, you couldn’t throw a punch), but even people who were solely pilots like you didn’t feel the way you did.
You’d thought about the topic before, many times, over the time you’d spent in pilot training, and then the First Order. You’d concluded a long time ago that they were right. You were sadistic, in a way. But there was no better place to be so than in the First Order.
All too soon, everyone had to drop out of lightspeed. With it came the complaints from Grave that his ship stunk, until a red laser shot past him.
“Watch out, Grave!” someone gasped. you didn’t know who- your mind was preoccupied.
There were two large Rebel ships, one of which certainly looked like a transport of some kind. You guessed there were maybe thirty or so Wing class ships escorting them.
It will be a bloodbath.
You pushed the thruster forward, the roaring of the dual engines filling you with adrenaline. Suddenly, it was as if you could see everything. Even as countless red lights flashed past you, you were calm. So calm, in fact, that the beating of your heart slowed. It was all too easy, after all, to dodge the lasers. You’d done it before, and you were fully confident in your ability to do it again. The maneuverability of the TIE fighters allowed you to twist and turn in ways that ships normally could not. It didn’t matter who shot at you, they were not going to hit their target.
You may have been clumsy and rather weak on the ground. But in the air, with no gravity to hinder you?
You were deadly.
Almost automatically, you’d shot down an X-Wing, flying through the fireball it made to shoot down a Y-Wing right after. The audio that guided most pilots to shoot wasn’t used by you. You didn’t need it, and you didn’t need the little red screen embedded into your controls either. Why would you? There was a perfectly good window that you were looking through. Hell, you didn’t even need that half the time. You could’ve done it blind.
“Show off!” Riddler yelled into his mic.
“You want a showoff?” You grinned. Finally, a chance to be as cocky as he was.
“Now you’ve done it,” Wolf’s eye-roll was easily heard in her voice.
“I’ll give you a showoff.”
You immediately dived towards the cargo ship, feeling several Wings come after you. You couldn’t hear them, not over the sound of your ship’s engines, but you knew they were there. You could feel them. You always could when you flew. Lasers flew past you, but you’d already known where they would be, making it all too easy to dodge them. As you hurtled downwards, you readied your torpedoes. They were enough to take down ships hundreds of times the size of yours. Another example of the First Order’s impeccable engineering.
More wings began to follow you, but you only grinned. They were distracted, leaving the rest of the TIE fighters to do as they pleased.
Sure enough, just as you fired your torpedoes into the cargo ship, you heard several explosions coming from the command ship. You pulled up at the last second, just barely missing the fireball that billowed beneath you. You no longer felt the Wings following you, many of them had likely flown right into the flames.
Your job was not done, there were still Resistance fighters left, but they were outnumbered. Foolishly, they rushed the TIE’s, but their misplaced bravery was snuffed out moments later.
Soon, space was silent once again.
“Wonderful job out there, guys,” congratulated A-squad’s leader.
A volley of ‘thank you’s’ crackled in your ears.
Osprey chuckled. “How’s that ship smelling, Grave?”
“I may have done a rolling maneuver.”
“Oooo…”
“You really outdid yourself this time, Shatter,” Eagle grinned.
“Oh, thank you.”
You hadn’t been paying attention. The view of space and the planet beneath you was far too captivating.
“Now you’re humble,” Riddler huffed.
“Let’s go home,” A-squad’s leader began the countdown again.
Now, you thought, I can study how ships are made again.
You also felt the beginnings of a headache.
And… maybe have some coffee.