Star Wars: X-Wing Second Edition is the second edition of the miniature war game designed by Jay Little and produced by Fantasy Flight Games that was first announced on May 1, 2018, and first release on September 13 later the same year. It features tactical ship-to-ship dogfighting between various factions and starfighters set in the fictional Star Wars universe. The game is played in a series of rounds wherein both players set maneuvers for each of their ships in the battle area without knowledge of the opponent's maneuvers. The game is over when one player's fleet is entirely destroyed. The second edition of the game is compatible with the Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures first edition ship models via the conversion kits made for each faction, however, rules, templates, and markers have all been changed.
Game Description[edit]
Directly from the publisher: 'Enter the next era of interstellar combat in the Star Wars galaxy! In X-Wing: Second Edition, you assemble a squadron of iconic starfighters from across the Star Wars saga and engage in fast-paced, high-stakes space combat with iconic pilots such as Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.
With refined gameplay that focuses on the physical act of flying starships, X-Wing Second Edition lets you create your own Star Wars space battles right on your tabletop. Intuitive mechanics create the tense atmosphere of a firefight while beautifully pre-painted miniatures draw you deeper into the action. Man your ships and enter the fray!'[2]
The Core Set[edit]
The core set, which is required to play the game, includes one T-65 X-wing miniature and two TIE/ln fighter miniatures. This core set uses miniatures and pilots based on the original trilogy, such as Luke Skywalker, as well as the expanded universe including Iden Versio from the Star Wars: Battlefront II (2017) video game.
The Core Set also includes the quick start guide, rulebook, 3 small miniature bases, 6 miniature peg stands, 3 movement dial pegs, the T-65 X-Wing Movement Dial, 2 TIE/ln Fighter Movement Dials, a damage deck of 33 cards, a range ruler, 11 maneuver templates, 3 defense dice, 3 attack dice, 2 T-65 X-Wing quick build Cards, 2 TIE/ln Fighter quick build cards, and the 3 preassembled and painted miniatures.
Factions[edit]
There are a total of 7 playable factions for the second edition of the game. Each faction is based on a side of the galaxy-wide conflicts set forth by the Skywalker Saga movies with the 7th faction being iconic characters who are unaligned across all 3 eras of conflict. While the core set features only two of the possible 7 playable factions –– the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire –– the others are sold in expansion packs, or can be carried over from the first edition of the game using the conversion kits.
Conversion Kits and Dial Upgrades[3][edit]
Within the conversion kits, players will find all of the components necessary to upgrade their existing Rebellion, Empire, Resistance, First Order, or Scum & Villainy ship collections from the first edition of X-Wing to the second edition. The conversion kit contains new ship cards, tokens, and upgrade cards. The conversion kit also includes the second edition maneuver dials for each ship.
The dial upgrade kits contain three plastic protectors that situate a ship’s dial within a secure housing. They also include a space on the back to insert a dial ID token displaying a silhouette of the corresponding ship, making it easy to differentiate between your ships.
Note that neither of these kits is required to play the second edition of the game. The conversion kits should instead be seen as a way for those who have collected an array of ships from the first edition to use their collection in the second edition, and the dial kits as an aesthetic choice only.
Expansions[edit]Wave 1[edit]
Release Date: September 13, 2018[4]
Rebel Alliance Expansions[edit]T-65 X-Wing[edit]
BTL-A4 Y-Wing>[edit]
Galactic Empire Expansions[edit]TIE/ln Fighter[edit]
TIE Advanced x1[edit]
Scum & Villainy Expansions[edit]Slave I[edit]
Lando's Millennium Falcon[edit]Custom YT-1300 Light Freighter[edit]
Escape Craft[edit]
Fang Fighter[edit]
Wave 2[5][edit]
Release Date: December 13, 2019[6]
Resistance Expansion Packs[edit]RZ-2 A-wing[edit]
T-70 X-wing[edit]
First Order Expansion Packs[edit]TIE/fo Fighter[edit]
Scum & Villainy Expansion Pack[edit]Mining Guild TIE[edit]
Wave 3[edit]
Release Date: March 21, 2019[7]
Republic Expansion Packs[edit]Guardians of the Republic Expansion Pack[edit]Delta-7 Aethersprite[edit]
V-19 Torrent[edit]
NOTE: Late into the production process, an error was found on the V-19 Torrent Dials. Corrected dial fronts, with the correct maneuvers, were shipped in this box in a separate plastic bag.
ARC-170 Starfighter[edit]
Delta-7 Aethersprite[edit]
Separatist Alliance Expansion Packs[edit]Servants of Strife Expansion Pack[edit]Belbullab-22 Starfighter[edit]
Vulture Class Droid Fighter[edit]
Other Supplies & Accessories[edit]
See also[edit]References[edit]
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Star_Wars:_X-Wing_Second_Edition&oldid=899702382'
When considering the best Star Wars games for this list, it's clear that the saga has had its ups and downs on PC. During the '90s and early '00s, LucasArts had a lot of hits, particularly with games that were targeted at using a mouse and keyboard or a joystick—these were the days when Star Wars games would launch just on PC, instead of every single console, too. And honestly, based on recent experience, it was a better time for fans of games based on Lucas's iconic films. It's hard to envision EA making a new X-Wing with just PC players in mind, for example. Then again, Jedi Fallen Order is perhaps the most promising Star Wars game in years, as a singleplayer-only Jedi action game.
While a previous version of this list was in a numbered order, here we've revised that so we can fit in more of our favourites. Among this bunch you'll find brilliant dogfighting games, first-person shooters, Jedi duelling and even an RTS. If you're looking for some not-so-good Lucasarts tie-ins, which are still loveable in their own right, check out our list of the worst Star Wars games.
Republic Commando
This light tactical FPS is one of the most enjoyable games to come out of the Clone Wars/Revenge of the Sith era, which is mostly remembered for disposable PS2 nonsense like Racer Revenge and Bounty Hunter. While Republic Commando looks a bit rough these days, it's refreshing to see that era of Star Wars executed with the right adult (but not too serious) tone. If the prequels were more like this, you might even have enjoyed them.
Gold Squadron Star Wars Wallpaper
After an extremely effective opening sequence where you watch the creation of your clone captain in first person, you're put in control of a squad of clone specialists. You can order them around with simple presses of the F button, prodding them towards highlighted parts of the environment to blow things up, converge on a single enemy, or take control of an area. With decent dialogue and voice acting, too, it's still easy to recommend now.
The neatest touch, which I've heard everyone bring up when discussing this game, is the comical windscreen wipe effect on your helmet that kicks in whenever its gets dirty or damaged.
--Samuel Roberts
Empire At War
It wasn't the most radical, in-depth or interesting RTS around back in 2006, but it's nonetheless as close as an official Star Wars game has got to capturing the magic of the saga's space and ground battles (better than Force Commander did, anyway). Petroglyph's Empire At War even has multiplayer again these days, after the developer switched it back on in September.
If one sci-fi multimedia series isn't enough for you, check out Andy's recent feature where he pitted the ships of Star Wars against those of Star Trek in a brilliantly detailed mod, then try it out yourself.
--Samuel Roberts
Rogue Squadron
When Rogue Squadron landed on GOG, I played through over half of it in one night. It’s still a brilliant shooter, featuring every Rebel spaceship with their own differences in sound design and feel (except the poor old B-Wing).
In the late '90s I was obsessed with Star Wars games—I think I still have a PC Gamer demo disc containing only Star Wars game demos that I played again and again for about two years—and Rogue Squadron is weirdly one of those titles considered an N64 game before a PC game, even though it came to PC first in North America. I only ever played it on PC, and for someone watching the Star Wars Special Edition VHSs every day in 1999, Rogue Squadron blew me away. That’s partly because of the level of fan service employed in setting some levels in familiar locations (or some you heard in passing, like Kessel) or having the Millennium Falcon turn up halfway through a mission, but also because it’s so simple an arcade shooter that it's aged pretty well.
Rogue Squadron, I suspect, was created to emulate Nintendo's brilliant Star Fox 64, with planets represented as little hubs and most completable in the space of about ten minutes. It's a really easy game to get to grips with in terms of the way each Rebel craft moves, and it was nice counter-programming to the X-Wing series if you weren't always in the mood for a sim experience. The only thing that drove me insane about Rogue Squadron is that its two best levels—and surely a reason to buy the game for most people—were the Death Star trench run and the Battle of Hoth, both of which were hidden bonuses that had to be arduously unlocked by collecting gold medals. They should've been the first missions in the game!
Though Rogue Squadron didn’t have the Battle of Endor (which is okay because X-Wing Alliance did that brilliantly and makes more sense in a sim style), this was a very complete-feeling game for players who particularly love the space and ground battles of Star Wars. It’s got some fun Expanded Universe bits, the Millennium Falcon as an unlockable and even patched in the Naboo Starfighter from Episode I, back when The Phantom Menace was more promising-cool-thing than pop culture atrocity.
I regret that that LucasArts didn’t bring its sequel, the stunning GameCube shooter Rogue Leader, to PC (is it too late for this to happen? Capcom is porting its console back catalogue to PC—no reason LucasArts shouldn’t do it), and it’s sad that Factor 5 is no longer around to create more games in the series. It seems like a waste to let the series die when it’s such a good representation of a major part of Star Wars.
Also recommended—but not good enough to be on this list because there are no X-Wings in it—is the similarly angled Battle For Naboo, which for my money would’ve been a way better addition to GOG than the weaker Star Wars Starfighter. That was the third best Prequel Trilogy game after Racer and Republic Commando. Hopefully it happens someday. Rogue Squadron fans would lap it up, I’m sure, but for now this remains the best you can get on PC.
—Samuel Roberts
Knights of the Old Republic
Knights of the Old Republic's success comes down to a single smart creative decision. By setting their story thousands of years before the events of the films, BioWare neatly removed themselves from the complex and contradictory state of the expanded universe in the early noughties. Given the freedom to do more or less what they wanted, they were able to build a Star Wars RPG that made that galaxy far, far away feel fresh again.
This was an era when Star Wars fiction was frequently tripped up by its addiction to iconic characters and set-pieces. The original Knights of the Old Republic demonstrates that repetition can actually be a good thing if it's sufficiently well executed. The plot is, after all, built from familiar parts—easy-going smugglers and their lifebound wookiee companions, deadly battlestations, young Jedi learning about the Force.
Knights of the Old Republic works because it drills deeper into these ideas than anyone had for a long time, capturing what made those original moments special in the first place. I'm pretty sure that Revan moment was the most surprised I'd been by a Star Wars story since the first time I saw The Empire Strikes back, even though the two reveals are structurally equivalent to each other.
This, incidentally, is the key to understanding the difference between KOTOR and its sequel—the former is an intelligent reconstruction of familiar Star Wars notions, while the latter is an intelligent deconstruction of them. That's perhaps a tangent too far. The point is: this series represents a high point for developers investing serious thought into their Star Wars stories. You should play it for that reason.
—Chris Thursten
Star Wars Galaxies
Star Wars Galaxies should have been one of the most important MMOs ever made. It had the ambition and the credentials for it—one of Ultima Online's lead designers creating a fully-3D persistent world where everything was driven by players. A ground-to-space simulation of the Star Wars universe with player houses, player cities, player ships, player factions. It's the dream that currently powers Star Citizen, and it almost saw the light of day a decade ago. I'm still a little heartbroken that it didn't. SWG sits near the top of the list of my personal games of all time, and I'm still angry about the way it all panned out.
This was an extraordinary game for roleplayers. The chance to just live in a totally open, totally customisable simulation of the Star Wars universe was an irresistible one, and when it worked, it worked wonderfully. I feel like Roy Batty at the end of Blade Runner saying this, but man—I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. I've played through Star Wars stories that you'll never get a chance to because they only existed because of the power SWG gave its players. I've taken down a rival bounty hunter in a duel in the streets of Bestine. I've flipped an Imperial gunboat upside-down so that the fleeing spy manning the top-mounted railgun can get a clear shot at the A-Wing on our tail.
Star Wars Galaxies was killed by two things: balance problems and its license. The former is something that should have been handled with far more care, and the latter is something that shouldn't have been a problem at all. When the game was conceived, Star Wars was a place—somewhere you could set an MMO. By the time the game matured, Star Wars had become a set of symbols, and the game was ripped apart by the need to cram as many of them into it as possible. Iconic 'theme park' worlds. Collectible movie trinkets. A little button at the start that lets you be a Jedi by clicking a picture of Luke Skywalker. All of this was utterly contrary to the spirit of the game SOE originally set out to make, but it can't take away from how many wonderful experiences I managed to have before it all fell apart.
I think I'm still angry about it, guys. Wait, no. I'm definitely still angry about it.
—Chris Thursten
Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Jedi Knight 2's lightsaber mechanics are important not only to the history of Star Wars games, but to multiplayer gaming on the PC in general. This was the game that established a passionate, competitive community dedicated to the concept of the one-on-one melee duel. Jedi Academy expanded and improved many of these ideas, but Jedi Outcast was there first. Without it, gaming would be much poorer—Blade Symphony wouldn’t exist, for one thing.
This was the first game to make duels feel like duels—acrobatic contests between two skilled combatants using deadly weapons. Most Star Wars games still get this wrong, treating sabers like regular swords. Jedi Knight 2 made the weapon in your hand feel hot, lethal, precarious. Each contest with Dasaan's dark Jedi was imbued with a sense of danger.
A note of praise, too, for the campaign. Early-noughties Raven shooters were a staple of my adolescence, reliably exciting action-adventures with colourful characters and great set-pieces. Jedi Knight 2 is among their best work, particularly the sense of mounting power it encourages. You start off without a lightsaber, crawling through vents and blasting Stormtroopers a la other Dark Forces games. By the end you're a force of nature, culling whole squads at a time as a blur of Force power and hot blue light. Well worth revisiting.
—Chris Thursten
Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
Knights of the Old Republic 2 is the quintessential Obsidian Entertainment RPG. The successor to a Bioware game, developed at a frenzied pace in only a year and a half, littered with cut content to hit its release date, and at times (like, a lot of times) utterly crippled with bugs. Even playing KotOR 2 years after its initial release, with a forum-brewed concoction of bug fixes and content-restoration patches, it's quite possibly the buggiest game I've ever completed. And yet it's brilliant, in spite of all those issues.
Here's Knights of the Old Republic 2's dirty little secret: it's not very good at being Star Wars. At least, not the classical film Star Wars of unambiguous heroes and villains, where the light side of the Force is always right. Lead designer Chris Avellone took Star Wars to the darkest place it's ever been. The Jedi are imperfect. The Sith are nuanced—manipulative, intimidating, but obviously scarred and broken in human ways that led to their downfall. Your mentor Kreia spends much of the game criticizing the Jedi, and she always speaks about the Force in shades of gray. Knights of the Old Republic 2 is the rare Star Wars game—really the rare video game, in general—that will show bad things happening to characters even when you try to help them.
Kreia is the key to KotOR 2's greatness, a character who is clearly haunted, bitter, manipulative, and yet right in so many ways. Avellone and the rest of Obsidian reexamined Lucas's galaxy through the lens of Kreia's ideology, and it's probably the most thoughtful take on Star Wars we'll ever get.
Even when bugs stopped me from progressing, when save files refused to load, when the ageing battle system left me frustrated, I had to push on to read just one more line of dialogue. It's simply the best Star Wars story ever written, buried in a game that only works right about half the time.
Get the latest Service Pack downloads from the Official Microsoft Download Center. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (KB976932). NET Framework 4.5.2 (Offline Installer) for Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7 SP1,. Apr 2, 2019 - Learn about Windows service packs and download the latest updates for Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8,. The latest service pack for Windows 7 is Service Pack 1 (SP1). Zadnji put ažurirano: Apr 2, 2019. Since the release of Windows 7 back in 2009, hundreds of updates have. And I can just call it Service Pack 2 because that's exactly what it is). Service pack 2 for windows 7 ultimate 64 bit.
—Wes Fenlon
Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
Jedi Academy grants you far more freedom than its predecessors. There's a bit of BioWare to the way you pick between different identities for your character at the start, the way you move through the campaign by choosing missions from a list of options, the way your alignment to the light or dark sides hangs off a mixture of large and small decisions.
Starting you with a lightsaber from the get-go, this game is all about mastering a combat system with a remarkably high skill ceiling. There are multiple types of saber, including Darth Maul-style double-sabers, dual sabers, and increased depth for single-saber fighting. It's a little messier than Jedi Outcast as a consequence, but far more stylish. I played this game to competition dozens of times between 2003 and 2005 because it felt so good to carve new paths through each level. I treated it as an opportunity to direct my own Star Wars movie, each run of moves just as important for their aesthetic value as their combat effectiveness.
Despite the aging engine it still holds up remarkably well—landing a heavy blow after a wall-run feels amazing even now. I can't believe it's twelve years old, and it's even stranger that the series ended here. No Star Wars game has done lightsabers this well since. It's crazy, when you think about it--fourteen years since the last time a developer rendered the series' most famous weapon in an interesting way. People who were born the month Jedi Academy came out are now almost too old to train as Jedi! If Jedi were real. I understand that they are not.
—Chris Thursten
Star Wars Battlefront 2
Old Battlefront 2 is a bit of a mess. But what a joyous, silly, damn fun mess of a game it was. Where most Star Wars games cast you as a Jedi or a heroic pilot, Battlefront and Battlefront 2 finally had the good sense to make you just another trooper on the ground, a lowly Stormtrooper or rebel soldier with a good old fashioned blaster at your side. There's something sublime about that: Battlefront is the rare chance to feel like you’re playing inside the Star Wars universe, rather than carving out a new destiny.
It plays like a goofier Battlefield, with floaty jump physics and battles that were more chaos than calculated strategy. AI enemies are nothing but stupid cannon fodder, and yet they’re so satisfying to mow down in droves. It’s hard not to love a Star Wars game that unabashedly gives you every toy you could ever want to play with. Sure, jump in an AT-ST! Sure, play as a wookie with a bowcaster! Sure, ride a tauntaun across the surface of Hoth. Oh, you want to be a wampa? Yeah, hell, why not.
Battlefront 2 added hero characters to the original game, and sure, they’re crazy unbalanced. But who doesn’t want to Force-sprint across a map as Obi-wan Kenobi and slice up a bunch of droid troopers? How could you say no to landing a fighter inside an Imperial Star Destroyer, fighting your way through its corridors, and destroying it from the inside? Battlefront 2 is the most unabashedly video gamey Star Wars game of them all. Revel in its silliness.
—Wes Fenlon
TIE Fighter
In every possible way, TIE Fighter was a space jockey's dream. It took the formula established by X-Wing and polished it to a perfect shine with glorious graphics and audio, an exciting variety of ships, and a multi-layered narrative wrapped in an overload of Star Wars bombast. You even got to fly with Darth Vader himself!
But its real genius—the element that transformed it from a great starfighter sim to an unforgettable Star Wars experience—was the way it convincingly turned one of sci-fi's most famously evil empires into a force for good. By portraying the Galactic Empire as a bulwark of peace, order, and good government standing fast against a band of violent, lawless terrorists—and playing it completely straight—it pulled me in: I was blowing Rebel ships into radioactive space dust, and I was the hero. Sure, there was some shadiness going on around the edges, but the greater good was always served.
The instructions came in the form of a pseudo-novella entitled The Stele Chronicles that humanized not only the lead character, young Maarek Stele, but also many others, like his friend Pargo, who signs up to be a stormtrooper, and the fatherly admiral who guides him through the early stages of his career as a pilot. The strategy guide took it even further, painting a picture of Imperial life as one of camaraderie, heroism, practical jokes, and, sometimes, emotionally-wrenching losses. I wasn't fighting for the Empire simply because the game forced me down that path—I was doing it because I wanted to. It was the right thing to do. And I loved it.
—Andy Chalk
X-Wing
While it wisely didn't try to ape the events of the movies beat by beat, the first LucasArts Star Wars game was still filled with enough familiar sights, sounds, and details to make you feel thoroughly connected to the fiction. It was exciting to do the stuff the characters yelled about in the movies, like diverting power to the shields and weapons, not to mention activating the hyperdrive at the end of every mission. You got to dock (in cutscenes) with familiar ships like the Mon Calamari Star Cruiser, and were able to fly A-Wings and Y-Wings, which never got much screen time in the films (though, honestly, I really only ever wanted to fly an X-Wing).
While you couldn't look around with the mouse, there were tons of different cockpit views to toggle, including one where you could look back at your trusty R2 unit. Hang on back there! Between missions you 'walked' around (doors would slide open when you moused over them) and got mission briefings from the same weird old guy that prepped the pilots who took on the Death Star. It all went a long way toward making me feel like a real rebel pilot engaged in a campaign against the Empire.
At the time, the iMuse (interactive music) system had only been used in adventure games, but it was put to stellar (ha) use in X-Wing. Events such as the arrival of enemies and allies were coupled with dynamic musical cues, giving the soundtrack a real cinematic feel. X-Wing's sequel, TIE Fighter, may ultimately have been the superior game, with a better campaign and more interesting story (and that blessed ‘match target speed’ key) but at the time, X-Wing gave me exactly what I was looking for: a blend of exciting arcade shooting and enough fiddly flight simulator options to cover a keyboard.
— Chris Livingston
Episode 1: Racer
Episode 1: Racer was the first racing game I ever played that felt fast. I mean truly fast. As in, if you lose focus for too long, your mindset quickly deteriorates into “Oh my god oh my god oh my god, don’t crash, turn faster, oh god what’s happening” before you hit one too many walls, lose an engine, and drift slowly to an explosive stop. The glorious thing about that level of speed is it emulates exactly how I imagine podracing would feel. To me, podracing is on the very short list of good things that came from the Star Wars prequels—along with Darth Maul, Jango Fett, and this moment—so for the game version to get it so right was pure ecstasy.
Racer didn’t just stop at the speed—it gave you complete control over your pod. You could overheat your engines to boost, push your nose forward to gain speed midair, tilt your pod sideways to make it through small gaps—or attempt to and crash into the wall anyway as I often did—and sacrifice speed to repair an engine mid race. Basically anything you saw Anakin do in the movie, you could do to your pod during a race, but without having to eventually become a Sith lord. Racer gave you all of the detail of the film without the burden of its storyline, instead placing you in the shoes of a generic racer working your way up the ranks of the podracing circuit.
Spare parts, upgrades, and even pit droids were all available to buy for any of the 23 possible pods you could unlock. Racer had an immense and, frankly, surprising amount of customizability and detail for a licensed game, especially one based entirely on a 15 minute scene from the movie. But LucasArts managed to incorporate every single thing from that scene to make podracing feel like podracing. It feels fast, dangerous, and fun as hell. The music matches the intensity of the races, and each new track is like exploring a different piece of the Star Wars universe.
Even since Episode 1: Racer’s release in 1999, few racing games have matched the amount of depth and speed it offered. Sure, other games let you unlock new cars to customize, but going around a track doesn’t offer the same adventure as dodging rocks on Tatooine, and cars can’t go nearly as fast. Whenever I think fondly back on Racer, I remember the speed first and foremost. I remember how awesome it was to finally unlock that racer who had beaten me a dozen times, and how dangerous it felt to be racing at all. And I remember how glad I am that they made the prequel trilogy, if for no other reason than this game came out of it.
— Tom Marks
Dark Forces
Before I ever played Dark Forces, I remember reading the gorgeously illustrated, captivating Dark Forces: Soldier For the Empire, in which Imperial-turned-hero Kyle Katarn infiltrates the Death Star to steal the battle station's schematics. This was a revelation to ten-year-old me: that a new story could tie into the events of the Star Wars films, with a character who felt vital to this universe.
When I found out Katarn was the star of Dark Forces, well, I naturally had to play it. That story is the real legacy of Dark Forces: it spawned the Jedi Knight series and its own cast of characters that weaved in and out of the films and the rest of the (now noncanonical) Expanded Universe. Dark Forces helped prove that there were compelling stories to tell outside the films in Lucas' galaxy far, far away. And it let you shoot a ton of Stormtroopers in 3D, which was way novel in 1995.
— Wes Fenlon
It sounds weird, but being able to jump, crouch, look up and down, and walk around in multi-level maps was pretty exciting at the time, and it helped Dark Forces feel less like the Doom clone it easily could have been. The main appeal for me, though, was that instead of shooting a bunch of demons and monsters I'd never met before, I got to shoot Star Wars men I'd been familiar with for years.
Stormtroopers, Imperial officers, probe droids, Gamorrean guards.. we got to have blaster battles with all of them, a dream come true for fans of first-person shooters and Star Wars. We even got to fight Boba Fett, who was waaaaay OP, by the way. He'd dodge around in the air like a hummingbird on cocaine, soaking up damage and flinging an inexhaustible supply of missiles in your face. We weren't ready for that. We were expecting the dumb, lame Boba Fett from the films, the moron who deliberately landed right next to a dude holding a glowing laser sword and attempted to shoot him from six inches away. The Boba Fett who was defeated by a pat on the back. That guy.
— Chris Livingston
I love the hell out of this game and its sprawling, often confusing levels and lovely-feeling guns. My dad got stuck in the sewer level with all the dianogas for ten years. In some ways, he never really left it.
--Samuel Roberts
The secret best: Star Wars Screen Entertainment
Okay, sure, Dark Forces, TIE Fighter, blah blah. We know they're great. But the greatest Star Wars game is obviously Star Wars Screen Entertainment, a 1994 'CD-ROM including different A New Hope-thematic options to use as screen savers.'
The thrilling screensaver options included an infinite opening text scroll (with customizable text!!), a (likely poorly animated) Death Star trench run, and a bunch of Jawas being annoying. There were also glacially paced space battles. What's not to love?
If you want to own the greatest Star Wars interactive media product of all time, you can find a used copy on Amazon for the bargain price of $1.95. It will almost certainly not work on any computer made after the year 2000.
--Wes Fenlon
Come on, Wes, we all know Yoda Stories is the secret best.
--Samuel Roberts
Standard Disclaimer: Per the previous Gold Squadron entry, this is largely a fan-fic based on a Star Wars Role-Playing Group from “back in the day;” I’ve retconned it a bit to keep in “canon” with the larger Star Wars Universe (at least before the Disney buyout), but the overall sequence of events are pretty much as described.
Yavin Base was almost completely evacuated by the end of the third day after the Rebellion’s stunning victory over The Empire’s dreaded Death Star. Almost all of the Command staff, and all of the Logistics staff, were gone; as well as the vast bulk of “logistical assets,” the critical war material necessary to keep the Rebellion functioning.
All that was left was a rudimentary sensor net in orbit around Yavin IV, and the handful of technicians to run it; Princess Leia, Commander Willard, and Captain Han Solo, and his first mate, the Wookie Chewbacca, in their ship, the Millennium Falcon, and, finally, Lieutenant Colonel Horton Salm and his recently reinforced (yet still woefully understaffed and under equipped) 41st Fighter Wing.
Said Wing currently consisted of “Red Squadron”, recently redesignated (the “ink” was still “wet” on the “paperwork”) as the 411th Tactical Fighter Squadron, under the command of Major Luke Skywalker, recently promoted from 2nd Lieutenant, a full three-grade jump in one combat mission, as a “Hero of the Rebellion” for taking and making the “Shot Heard Around The Galaxy,” as it had rapidly come to be known. The pair of proton torpedoes the young pilot had loosed had made it into the vulnerable “secondary thermal exhaust port,” travelled quickly to the Death Star’s main reactor, and then exploded as designed.
The resultant energy spike had caused a catastrophic loss of containment in the Death Star’s main reactor, consequence of which the Death Star had exploded, and quite spectacularly, too.
Luke was also serving as the 41st Wing’s Operations Officer, him being carefully chivvied along and coached by the Wing’s more experienced leadership cadre. Major Skywalker was in a slightly unenviable position, in Ash’s opinion; Luke was, for reasons of “Public Relations,” being rapidly elevated to near-Saint status, and was quite probably in deep over his head. But Ash thought Luke was a good guy, and a steady sort; he’d probably do well, with some training, experience, and supervision from Colonel Salm and the other more experienced officers in the 41st.
Luke also had the recently promoted Captain Wedge Antilles, another steady sort, backing him up as the squadron Executive Officer.
Rounding out Red Squadron was three of the recently arrived X-Wings, and their pilots: 2nd Lieutenants Derek Klivian, Wes Janson, and Dak Ralter; eager, fresh-faced young pilots ready, willing, and able to join the fray.
Next up in the 41st Wing’s “inventory” was Blue Squadron, recently redesignated as the 412th Tactical Fighter Squadron, under the command of Major Kaleb Loran, also serving as Wing Executive Officer. Then-Captain Loran and his two wing men, 1st Lieutenant Quinlan Tam and 2nd Lieutenant Yoshy Shildirs, had backed up three Y-Wings from Gold Squadron in their “diversionary attack” on other polar trenches in the vicinity of the crucial target trench that held the vulnerable secondary thermal exhaust port, in an attempt to lure some of the Imperial defenders away from the actual target.
Unlike the previous iteration of Red Squadron, then-Captain Loran’s Blue Squadron had stuck close to the Y-Wing’s they were escorting and covering for, in their role of diversionary attack forces. Thus, they had been in an excellent tactical position to furiously attack and disrupt the Imperial T.I.E. fighter formations rallying in defense of the target trench when then-1st Lieutenant Ashford DuQuennes, senior surviving officer of “Gold Squadron,” had decided that the diversionary attack had been a failure, garnering no T.I.E. fighter opposition, and only occasional, desultory fire from surface gun emplacements; that the main attack had been attritted dangerously close to non-mission capable levels of casualties; and had then moved in support of the real, main attack in an aggressive, expeditious manner, taking out two of the three T.I.E. fighters attempting to pursue and eliminate the three remaining Red Squadron X-Wings closing on the secondary thermal exhaust port; and then eliminating nearly a dozen T.I.E. fighters attempting to make it down into the trench, having made it past Blue Squadron’s insanely furious, free-wheeling, chaotic attack.
1st Lieutenant DuQuennes’ Gold Squadron (as the surviving senior officer, however junior his rank-grade, Ash had, quite properly, assumed command of Gold Squadron’s remaining trio of Y-Wings) has stuck it out in the trench, and had thus witnessed the late arrival of Captain Han Solo in his highly-modified light freighter, the Millennium Falcon; had seen Captain Solo’s attack on the sole remaining T.I.E. fighter closing for the kill on Red Five, Luke Skywalker, which resulted in Luke having no opposition to his taking the “one-in-a-million” shot.
Ash’s flight had also witnessed the successful “Shot Heard ‘Round The Galaxy,” and had then sounded the recall/”scram” warning to the surviving Rebel forces in near proximity to the Death Star, for them to safely get the hell away from the rather enormous ticking time bomb the Death Star had now become.
Major Kaleb was backed up by Captain Quinlan Tam as squadron XO, and 1st Lieutenant Yoshy Shildirs as (nominally, for now) Third Flight Leader. Blue Squadron had also received three reinforcements; 2nd Lieutenants Dayl Bascalr, Hannis Adonor, and Amee Konarr. Like the Red Squadron replacements, they were all painfully young, fairly inexperienced pilots, who nonetheless possessed the aptitude and courage to climb into a “snub” fighter (as the diminutive starfighters were often referred to as), and head out into The Black to do the thing.
Gold Squadron, newly redesignated the 413th Attack Fighter Squadron (as distinguished from the X-Wing’s designation as “Tactical Fighter Squadrons”) , had also received new faces; 2nd Lieutenant Ellors Losh, a lanky male Duros, and 2nd Lieutenant Burukt Kre'Dza, a stoutly built, compact Bothan Male. Unfortunately, like their new Commanding Officer, neither had come with assigned gunners for the “back seat” of the two-seat Koensayr BTL-S3 Y-Wings.
The two-seat Y-Wing was something of a “sore point” with the Rebellion, as finding truly competent and cheerfully willing “back seaters” was an ongoing problem. While the tactical leaders of the Rebellion had little doubt about the combat efficacy of a well-integrated pilot/gunner/astromech team, getting such teams together, and then trained up to that point of “efficacy,” was no small task.
The main sticking point was finding gunners competent enough, and just crazy enough, to stay in the snub fighters. Most gunners assigned to Y-Wings were rather junior in rank-grade; as they progressed and gained more experience, the vast majority of them would seek transfer out of the “suicide sleds” (another common sobriquet for starfighters) for safer, saner, assignments. Like, aboard capital ships, or ground-based gun emplacements.
Given the vast population of the Galaxy at large, and the number of beings flocking to the Rebellion, there were bodies aplenty to stuff into a flight suit and cram into the backseat of the two-seat Y-Wings. But it wasn’t merely a matter of finding gunners competent enough, and crazy enough, to remain in the assignment; there was the mesh of personalities to consider, as well. Many a prospective starfighter gunner had “washed out” due to, ah, “personality conflicts,” of one sort or another, with their front-seat pilots.
The three Gold Squadron Y-Wings that had survived the Battle of Yavin were the only three BTL-S3 Y-Wings in the original Gold Squadron; the other three Y-Wings, belonging to Commander Jon “Dutch” Vander, Major Davish “Pops” Krail, and 1st Lieutenant Erol Tiree, were of the single-seat BTL-A4 variety. The BTL-A4, more commonly referred to as the “Longprobe,” was equipped with an auxiliary computer processor that tied the twin sensor assemblies (one each at the leading end of the twin-engine attack fighter’s engine pods) together, giving them considerably enhanced sensor range and capability over the two-seat BTL-S3 model.
Ash had, er, “acquired,” shall we say, a spare processor off of a badly damaged BTL-A4 being salvaged for useable parts, and had, in his spare time, figured out just where and how to install the module in the already cramped confines of the fuselage and cockpit module of his BTL-S3 model Y-Wing, The Meanstreak.
He accomplished this with considerable computer-aided-drafting-and-design support from Yavin Base’s capable main computer (and we won’t be going into the details of exactly how he managed to acquire the necessary access, and run-time cycles, to do that thing), as well as some covert technical expertise and helpful insight from Yavin base’s Ground Crew support staff of starfighter technicians.
Suffice to say that that help was garnered by the discrete passing of substantial quantities of distilled spirits to the Ground Crew techs that participated quietly in Ash’s little project; again, we won’t go into detail on exactly how Ash managed to acquire sufficient quantities of high-end-hooch necessary to, ah, encourage, cheerful and willing cooperation from that group of dour, pessimistic veterans; but Ash’s popularity with those grumpy, jaded, generally-reluctant-to-admit-that-pilots-were-even-sapient-beings technical experts had risen considerably afterwards.
Which is why The Meanstreak, otherwise a standard BTL-S3 Y-Wing, came to possess the enhanced sensor range and processing capabilities of a BTL-A4 “Longprobe” Y-Wing. Ash had then spent considerable time and resources towards locating additional spare -A4 sensor suite processor modules for the rest of his flight; to date, he hadn’t had any luck. But he was still looking. Always looking.
Presently, though, he was looking at a rather questionable example of a Corellian Engineering Corporation’s YT-1300 model light freighter, heavily modified, his hands clasped contemplatively behind him, bouncing lightly up-and-down on his toes, idly wondering whether he should be standing quite so close to the alleged starship.
“Can I help you with something?” a slightly gruff voice asked from off to his right.
Ash looked that way and spotted Captain Han Solo, and his first mate Chewbacca, approaching the Millennium Falcon, before returning his gaze back to ship. Captain Solo stopped next t Ash, and looked towards his pride and joy, as if evaluating her through the eyes of someone seeing her for the first time.
Ash, without taking his eyes off of the ship, observed mildly, “This ship is a fraud.”
Slightly defensively, Han shot back, “Whaddaya mean?”
Gesturing towards the engine array at the stern of the ship, Ash stated confidently, “Your thrust/mass ratio has to be close to, if not exceeding, that of most starfighters.”
Pointing next to the upper and lower quad laser cannons, he continued, “Your armament load out exceeds that of a starfighter; call it that of a light gunship.”
Pointing next at the various maneuvering thruster strategically located about the hull, Ash said, “Your maneuverability rating is also, quite probably, approaching that of a starfighter.”
“Something like,” Han agreed.
Then pointing out the various deflector shield emitters studding the ship’s hull, he continued, “Your shield rating, quite frankly, makes me mildly envious. Added to the reinforced hull,” here, Ash pointed to the various patches of reinforced armor plating over critical parts of the ship’s exterior, “I could probably shoot at you all day with my Y-Wing’s laser cannons without so much as making you nervous.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Han allowed charitably.
“Indeed,” Ash concurred judiciously, once again pointing to the quad laser cannons before observing, “shooting at you, or, rather, your ship, seems like it might be a generally futile, mercifully brief, and extremely unpleasant endeavor.”
“That’s the general idea, at least,” Han agreed affably, scratching his head and wondering where this conversation was going, before asking yet again, “Is there something you need here?”
Ash finally turned to face the smuggler and pirate, stuck his hand out, and introduced himself, “Captain Ash DuQuennes, XO, Gold Squadron.”
Han took the proffered hand, and was pleasantly surprised that the handshake was a firm-yet-brief, up-and-down-before-release; the “little guys” like Ash, in Han’s experience, sometimes tried to…compensate… by going for a “crusher” grip.
“I remember you, Captain,” Han stated, before adding, “congratulations on the promo*, by the way; I caught part of your battle in the trench during my approach. That was some mean flying, and even meaner gunnery.”
*promotion
“Thank you, Sir,” Ash replied with a somewhat self-satisfied air; “that’s what we do. Or, at least, strive for.” Undue modesty about his tactical accomplishment was not one of Ash’s virtues; but neither was it a particularly obnoxious vice, either.
Han introduced his partner, “This is my first mate, Chewbacca.”
Chewie stepped up next to Han and stuck a hairy paw out towards Ash, showing that he was familiar with the human custom of trading grips; Ash took the massive, hairy hand without hesitation, looking up…and up…and up…to meet the eyes of the towering Wookie. If Ash had been a “crusher” type of hand-shaker, the gentle yet casual strength he felt in the Wookie’s hand would’ve quickly disabused him of any pretension in that regard; he was fair certain the Wookie could crush his smaller hands into so much bone fragments and bruised meat with little effort.
Ash observed wryly, “Do you know, Mr. Chewbacca, I think we may have the exact same eye color.”
Looking more closely, Chewie yip-barked once in amused agreement before releasing the tiny human’s hand.
Motioning towards the Falcon, Han asked, 'So, what d’you think?”
Ash immediately replied, “Visually, at first glance, it looks like it’s long past time for a final tow to the nearest handy scrap yard. Technically, I think I’d rather not be on the wrong side of a furball against you. Still, it looks like it’s held together with bailing wire, putty, and space tape.”
Chewie laughed, and uttered a brief string of growls and ululations, to which Han shot him a quick, dirty look, before turning back to Ash and explaining, “Roughly translated, he says, ‘you don’t know the half of it, kid’ And, sad to say, he’s more right than I’d care to admit, at times.” Somewhat defensively, “But she’s solid; I stake my life on it!”
“No doubt, no doubt,” Ash agreed mildly, affably, not wishing to give any offense, as he gazed contemplatively over the disreputable looking freighter.
About A Week Earlier…
Puck burst through the door to his quarters and palmed the light panel to bring up the illumination strips mounted on the stone box’s ceiling, announcing loudly, “Ash! Villym! Get up! We got new arrivals! Princess Leia just arrived! She came here on the Millennium Falcon, with Han Solo!”
Coming out of much deserved sound sleep (he and Villym had just returned a few hours previously from an extended CAP,* and were catching up on their rest), Ash replied muzzily, “What the frell is an aluminum falcon**?”
*Combat Area Patrol.
**Yes, a blatant shout-out to the incredibly hilarious Robot Chicken sketch.
“TheMillennium Falcon! Famed pirate and smuggling ship of Han Solo, and his first mate, Chewbacca!” Puck exclaimed somewhat indignantly, slightly peeved that his Flight Leader and friend didn’t know who simply the most famous Corellian was.
Ash’s response, even through sleepy, light stunned eyes, was a fairly accurately (and forcefully) hurled pillow at his subordinate’s head; fortunately, it was just a pillow. Ash could have just as easily grabbed the wickedly sharp, perfectly balanced knife underneath said pillow, and, in his sleep-deprived, rudely awakened state, hurled that at his subordinate and unwelcomed interloper. Common goddamned courtesy dictated that, when people came back from an extended CAP, barring an actual emergency, they were left the frell alone to get caught up on their sleep. Some crews, in sloppiness and poor discipline, slept while on CAP, trusting that their sensors and/or astromechs would wake them up should something noteworthy happen.
Never, in Gold Squadron; unless crew rest periods had been deliberately inserted into the mission profile and OpOrder* beforehand.
*Operations Order; fancy term for Mission Orders.
Ash also had a rather hard and sturdy flight helmet hanging conveniently close to hand from a peg on the upright of the bunk bed he shared with Villym; that, too, could’ve been a potentially painful projectile.
With the naturally superior reflexes of a rather superior fighter pilot, Puck easily snatched the pillow out of the air before it impacted, clasping it close to his torso, before responding, slightly hurt, “Fine! Be that way! See if I ever again catch you up on the latest when it comes in!” before turning around and leaving in a huff, taking the pillow with him as he closed the door.
Ash blinked a few times before yelling, “Gimme back my goddamned pillow!”
“And turn off the frellin’ lights!” Villym added for good measure.
About A Week Later…
An imp of the perverse goosed him, and Ash inquired rather casually, “Can I take her up?”
“Not a chance in hell,” Han replied immediately, equally affable and mild, a lopsided grin on his face.
Ash nodded understanding acceptance at the pronouncement, seemed to think it over for a moment before jerking a thumb over his shoulder towards the assembled, parked Y-Wings, offering, “I’ll let you take The Meanstreak up.”
Han looked over at the parked starfighters, his lopsided grin fading to something more accurately described as “wistful,” before answering, “Pass; been there, done that, not anxious to repeat the experience any time soon.”
“Fair ‘nuf,” Ash relented cheerfully, to show there were no hard feeling at the refusal, before saying, “Well, Captain Solo, Mr. Chewbacca, it’s been a pleasure to meet you; perhaps we’ll meet again at the new base?”
“Perhaps,” Han agreed, as Ash nodded farewell before turning away to head back over to his own unit’s ships. Han watched the young pilot go, recalling, somewhat fondly, and somewhat sadly, his own time spent in the diminutive “suicide sleds,” and Chewie lowed an interrogative at his partner. Han answered, “Seems like a nice kid; I like him.” Han generally admired moxie and chutzpah, and the young fighter pilot’s casually brazen (yet respectfully polite) attempt to wheedle a crack at the controls of his baby fell firmly into both categories
Chewie’s slightly sad response would be translated as: Aren’t they all, mostly? Until they’re not? Chewie had never himself participated in that particular type of space combat; fitting his bulk into a starfighter, while not impossible, would be a sight to see. Nonetheless, he was a veteran of multiple space combat engagements, and knew from first-hand experience the staggering mortality rate amongst fighter pilots.
Ash was recently, but solidly, elevated to the status of “veteran,” of that particularly deadly profession; as such, his chances of survival had improved dramatically over the rank novices that made up the bulk of the Rebellions starfighter pilot’s ranks.
But considering the vast resources of The Empire, and the staggering firepower at the disposal of the huge capital ships that formed the bulk of the Imperial Fleet, “dramatically improved” wasn’t really saying all that much. The odds still heavily favored Ashford DuQuennes soon becoming a flash-seared, charred, flash-desiccated meatsicle, forever drifting in the endless void of space, just another fallen “hero” to some, another “kill marker” painted on the fuselage or cockpit of someone else, and then forgotten by all but a handful of friends and relatives who might lament his passing. If he was lucky, his name might go up on a monument somewhere, someday.
Such morbid thoughts were the furthest thing from the mind of Captain Ashford DuQuennes on this particular day; he was instead “getting his game face” on, as he made preparations to finally depart Yavin Base with the last of that place’s sapient, Rebel-affiliated occupants.
His first stop was in his quarters, where he changed into his flight suit, neatly folding and stowing his uniform in the soft-sided, camp-style “gear bag” that held his few meager possessions: spare socks and underwear, two spare uniforms, one spare pair of boots, and two slender folios containing: the datacards with holopics of his family, back on Chandrila; some, of his Red and Gold Squadron comrades (most of them now dead); one “sealed, read-only” datacard with his official diploma from Brionelle Memorial Military Academy; several more with the various technical and maintenance manuals pertaining to Y-Wings; and even more with the complete series of “textbooks” and syllabus’ of his entire course of study at Brionelle.
Upon learning of 2nd Lieutenant DuQuennes’ singular precious possession, about two months after his inception into the Rebellion and his assignment to Commander Garven Dreis’ Red Squadron at Yavin Base, Dreis had had copies made and distributed to the younger pilots, as well as the other squadron’s unit leadership, causing then-1st Lieutenant Kaleb Loran to firmly (and literally) smack himself in the forehead for not having the foresight to also grab his course materials, and bring them along with, when he departed the Imperial Academy on Corulag to seek out and join the Rebellion .
Dreis had put 1st Lieutenant Biggs Darklighter (with Ash acting as Teacher’s Assistant) in charge of training and instructing the haphazardly educated “bush pilots” in true combat tactics.
Together, Biggs and Ash had begged, borrowed, or outright stolen every moment of simulator time that they could (that is, over and above their allotted access time). Commander Dreis, during the coffee-and-bull sessions he shared with the other starfighter unit’s leadership, had commented wryly to his friends in Gold Squadron, Dutch and Pops, that that moron (referring to 2nd Lieutenant DuQuennes) had completely overlooked the fact the as the military academy for a planetary defense force, Brionelle’s curriculum placed a less-than-subtle emphasis in achieving maximum results from light forces, and small unit tactics.
Pops, a seasoned and wily veteran, had observed wryly, “Missing the blatantly obvious is what 2nd Lieutenants do with alarming regularity, Commander. “ His expression settling into his customary cold scowl of disapproval, he added, “You’d better get his head out of his ass and screwed on straight, or he won’t live long enough to be a 1st Lieutenant.”
Unbeknownst to 2nd Lieutenant DuQuennes (Commander Dreis, indeed, all the other squadron leaders were well aware of it), Dutch and Pops quietly kept tabs on all of the junior pilots, and were mildly impressed with the young Chandrilan’s (amongst others, to be sure) burgeoning tactical acumen, piloting abilities, and, most especially, his gunnery scores.
Indeed, the two of them together were formulating their stratagems, their wiles, with which they would recruit, sway, entice, seduce (or outright bop over the head, stuff in a sack, and blatantly abscond with) Ash and several of the younger pilot’s in his “class.”
In truth, Ash hadn’t thought about using the materials to aid and assist other fighter pilots in the Rebellion; it was just that the textbooks and coursework represented on those datacards also represented four years of his life. And while he wasn’t overly sentimental about such things, he also wasn’t ready yet to discard what represented approximately one-fifth of his temporal existence in this Universe.
But he certainly didn’t mind sharing; not in the least.
When Commander Dreis’ stunned reaction upon discovering Ash’s treasure sunk in, Ash had also smacked himself rather firmly upon the forehead.
Sparing a moment to gaze fondly at the academy folio, with its neatly embossed Academy crest on the front and back covers, Ash soon returned to the business at hand. He removed his titanium-and-sapphire class ring, his sole affection with regards to jewelry, and looped the light chain holding his Rebellion-issue identity tags through the class ring before tucking it inside his undershirt.
The (completely artificial, yet nonetheless substantial) sapphire was the same blue as the Advanced Tactical Course (Starfighter Combat) class color-code; that it very nearly matched the color of his own eyes mildly pleased his him, mildly tickling his otherwise (nearly) nonexistent vanity.
Next up was his Flight Suit.
His graduation/”going away” present from his family (they already knew his mind with regards to his future plans, with varying degrees of approval, and disapproval) had been a tailored combat flight suit, rather better fitted than the Rebellion’s baggy, shapeless, general issue “Shoot-Me-Orange” flight suits.
The medium gray suit came with reinforced patches of tough, forest-green synthleather on knees, thighs, elbows, forearms, front-and-back torso, chest, and shoulders, and the built-in, compact, sophisticated life support module was considerably less bulky than the garden variety ones issued to other Rebellion pilots.
What Ash truly treasured about his flight suit, and which made him somewhat the envy of other junior pilots, was the complete absence of the “Please-Trip-Me-And-Kill-Me” ejection support straps that dangled down below their knees. “Newbies” were easily distinguished from “old hands” by the latter’s ability to walk, run, climb ladders, and otherwise clamber into the cockpits of their respective ships without falling ignominiously flat on their face, victim of the dangly straps.
The “downside” of his custom flight suit was the Rebellion’s inability to repair or otherwise support it beyond basic repairs and general maintenance. If something were to happen to it, he would be forced to pack it away and don the standard Rebel-issue suits, until and as such time as he could get it repaired.
This had already happened with his suit’s helmet; the comm system had futzed out on him, and the Rebel-supplied system was not compatible due to the space/shape restrictions of his custom helmet, currently packed in his gear bag, upside down, and stuffed with (and surrounded and cushioned by) socks, shirts, and underwear. Ash made do (without any complaint) with a standard Rebel flight helmet.
Next, there was his gun belt and blaster pistol. Most Rebel pilots didn’t bother with the thing, it being something of an option that was generally considered by other pilots to be more of a “tough guy” affectation than a genuinely useful implement.
Ash had elected to take advantage of that option, and had been issued a BlasTech DH-17 blaster pistol. The older, long-barreled pistol didn’t have quite the “punch” of newer models, but its longer barrel and tight focusing aperture gave it a slight yet significant range advantage over many of the newer models, as well as a narrowly focused bolt (the DH-17 was sometimes referred to as a “needle beamer” because of this) that penetrated better than many a newer model.
Ash had modified the standard military issue gun belt and flap-holster into something that somewhat resembled, yet was not quite, a “gunfighter’s rig;” true, it rode lower and somewhat more comfortably on his right hip than usual (especially considering the narrow confines of his pilot’s seat!), and the “flap” was now gone, replaced by a sturdy yet quickly and easily removed strap over the pistol grip’s back strap.
Ash had spent plenty of his spare time (in between other “ongoing” projects) kibitzing with Yavin Base’s Ground Force’s Unit Armorers, learning the ins-and-outs of blaster maintenance and modification. While he had not (yet) attempted to modify his issue blaster in any way, he had definite thoughts along those lines, and was merely awaiting time and resources to “tinker,” however carefully and cautiously, with the thing.
Finally, Ash strapped on his last piece of gear, this time on his left thigh: an extremely well made, ruggedly durable, highly functional, combat vibroblade, it’s slightly canted grip facing forward. Ash could draw and activate it quickly with either hand, using a standard grip for a right-hand draw, or a reverse-grip if he used his left.
This was not the “tough-guy” affectation most of the other pilots thought that it was. Ash had received Basic Personal Combat training during his freshman year at Brionelle, which included not only the basics of hand-to-hand combat, but also the basics of close-in knife fighting.
He recalled fondly the tough-as-nails instructor from the Chandrilan Defense Force’s Ground Combat component that had instructed the class of young cadets on the rudiments of bladed combat. The man had been of average height, perhaps a touch taller, but whipcord thin, immensely strong, and amazingly, incredibly fast.
He had also been one of the scariest, meanest looking people Ash had ever laid eyes on, before or after. The deep, narrowly-set eyes, under a prominent, jutting brow, framed by a lean, wolfish, fearsomely scarred face, set in an almost perpetual scowl (or was that merely a trick of his features?) had scared the young, rambunctiously exuberant cadets into meek quietude.
For all his fearsome appearance, Master Sergeant Valton had a somewhat nasal, raspy voice, albeit a calm, experienced one that penetrated the thick skulls of the young twerps currently in his care. He’d said, “The first rule of knife fighting, and other forms of edged-weapon combat, is: don’t. Generally speaking, the ‘loser’ is a dead mass of bloody, cut-to-hell flesh; the ‘winner’ is typically an only slightly less bloody, cut-to-hell, maybe-not-dying-but-definitely-in-need-of-urgent-medical-attention mass of sliced flesh.”
He’d went on, “You’re better off backing off, quickly; drawing a blaster, and shooting the frellnik in the head from a safe distance.”
With an almost weary air about him, he then stated, “But! If you do ever happen to be in some form of edged-weapon combat, then do not hesitate. Draw your blade, and commence to cutting and stabbing that son-of-a-bitch into as many small, bloody chunks as you quickly and possibly can.”
“Do not swing and slash wildly; it just wastes time and energy, and opens up your own defense as you take time to recover; keep your strokes and stabs in tight; quick, neat, fast, and economical. Like this.”
The veteran NCO*had then proceeded to demonstrate, using training blades and in “slow time” with his assistant, what he was talking about; the youngsters had watched with rapt attention the still rapid interplay of quick, neat slashes, precise stabs, forearm blocks, and so on, as the two veterans demonstrated their deadly trade.
*Non-Commissioned Officer; Corporals, Sergeants, Petty Officer and Chief Petty Officers (Naval-types).
Once finished, Master Sergeant Valton said,” And now we do it in real time.” The two veterans closed again, and this time the entire process was a veritable blur to the inexperienced cadets. For all of their obvious expertise and furious energy, the two veterans weren’t even breathing hard when, minutes later, they “broke” and stepped back, either by mutual consent, or some signal from one another that the cadets missed.
What they (mostly) didn’t realize was that the interplay had been somewhat choreographed, a “staged” combat, not at all dissimilar from the training katas that they were learning in their hand-to-hand classes.
Over the next four weeks, Master Sergeant Valton (and his assistant, Senior Sergeant Makelroi) led the tyros though the basics forms and techniques of edged-weapon combat; like most of the fighter pilot candidates, Ash possessed the reflexes and coordination to be quite good at it, and his and others skill quickly blossomed under the expert tutelage.
What Ash and a select few others also possessed, that most of the other fighter pilot candidates (indeed, even most of the ground forces candidates) manifestly did not was the almost insane aggressiveness necessary to do in-fighting well.
What none of the cadets realized was that this course wasn’t graded; not even at a basic “Pass/Fail” level. It was, however, observed closely, and evaluated; by not only the Ground Forces cadre, but also the Advanced Tactical Course (Starfighter Combat) cadre, too. It wasn’t quite a make-or-break benchmark for advancement, as cadets “blossomed,” more-or-less quickly, depending upon their uniquely personal abilities and inclinations.
But the cadre from many of Chandrila’s “combat arms” still observed closely, and noted with interest, which cadets “excelled” at that sort of thing, and which did not; Ash and a few of his fellow cadets (not all of them “guys,” either!) had been noted with interest and earmarked for “good things.”
Ash recollected (at the time, with amazement) how Master Sergeant Valton and Senior Sergeant Makelroi had been incredibly patient, even gently soft-spoken, with even the most uncoordinated and inept of the cadets, never publicly castigating, disrespecting, or otherwise publicly humiliating any of the cadets, no matter how spastic their efforts were.
In the fourth and final week of their training, a bit more than a half-dozen cadets (Ash included) were taken aside for some real “personal” attention from Master Sergeant V Valton. The grizzled veteran, while still using the (mostly) harmless training knife, had proceeded to conduct an abbreviated “advanced course” for the ones who had excelled thus far.
It was humiliatingly, sometimes painfully, brutal.
Yet Master Sergeant Valton (and he would always and forever be “Master Sergeant” in Ash’s mind; any single individual that incredibly deadly deserved every gram of respect another, lesser being could give, and Ash knew firmly that, outside the cockpit of a starfighter, he was such a “lesser being” compared to the likes of such veteran NCOs) never lost that demeanor of carefully cultivated, professional patience.
After sending all of his “advanced” students (Ash obviously included) repeatedly sprawling painfully onto their backsides, Master Sergeant Valton would calmly remind them yet again, “The knife isn’t the weapon; your mind and body are, and the knife is nothing but an extension of you. You hold your knife in one had; that leaves your other hand, and both of your feet, to create and cause all kinds of mischief and mayhem; use them, as well! Let your mind and eyes go slightly out of focus, and think-yet-don’t-think about what you’re doing. Feel the rhythm of your opponent’s technique, while staying rapidly unpredictable yourself; once you spot the rhythm of your opponent, it’s all over for him, ‘cept for the cutting; he’s dead meat that just don’t know it yet!”
Ash had times, inside the cockpit of his Brionelle academy Z-95 trainer, and later in The Meanstreak (his original-issue Red Squadron T-65B was also thusly named), to consider abstractly how remarkably well Master Sergeant Valton’s advice on knife-fighting scanned perfectly over to starfighter combat.
Get in, close-and-quick; strike fast, hard, and, most importantly, precisely. Look for the “pattern” of your opponents “style” or technique; once you spot it, pounce ruthlessly upon it and cut the motherfreller to pieces. Constantly analyze your own technique, and look for the predictable “pattern;” once you spot it, eliminate it immediately, lest it get you killed. If you can’t spot it, you’re dead meat, and just don’t know it yet.
If you really can’t spot it, then you’re one of two things: dead (or soon-to-be-dead); or you’re “doing it right,” and will probably survive. Combat plays no favorites, and the “dice’ have no memory. There are no guarantees in war. If you want a long life, stay at home, get married, have kids, eat right, exercise, and your chances improve dramatically.
Well, maybe not the “kids” part; the little monsters could take years off of your life in terms of worry and stress.
The same probably goes for spouses, too.
Gold Squadron Star Wars Cast
In any case, the blaster pistol and combat knife were the furthest things from an “tough guy” affectation on Ash’s part; they were the legacy of a painfully collected, carefully horded, rationally metered “institutional knowledge,” passed down generation-to-generation, in the form of patient instruction, followed by the acquisition of lumps and bruises garnered from practical exercises, from veteran to tyro.
Finally attired in what he considered the proper personal accoutrements of his trade, Ash zipped up his gear bag, slung it over his shoulders, collected his flight helmet, and took one last look around at the ancient, starkly bare stone walls of what had been his, Puck’s, Villym’s, and Erol Tiree’s personal quarters for the last half year or so.
Yavin was an interesting world, Ash had little doubt. But it was not, like most worlds, without its “pro’s-and-con’s” Ash would not miss the blistering, sweltering, incredibly humid “hot” season; nor would he miss the chill, incredibly damp “cold season.” He would not miss the stink of the industrial strength herbicides and fungicides that were constantly and liberally applied just about everywhere.
He would miss the stunning vista of Yavin, the huge, red-orange gas giant, hanging majestically in the sky; he would miss the amazing variety of flora the planet-sized moon housing the tiny fragment of opposition to Imperial domination of the Galaxy possessed, in all its splendiferous multitude of riotous colors; he would miss the cacophony of chirps, warbles, growls, roars, moans, hoots, and hollers of the forest moon’s indigenous fauna.
Mostly, though, he would miss the massive bulk of The Great Temple. Yes, it was largely a fairly uncomfortable mass of overblown masonry, trapping moisture and humidity relentlessly; and if it was chill and dank in the “cold” season, at least it was cool, if dank, in the “hot” season.
Lastly, though, and most importantly, it had been, for just shy of two years, a home for him and his friends and comrades, his mentors and leaders, men and women he had liked, admired, respected, and even loved like the family that they essentially were.
He stopped and rested his head briefly against the cool stone walls of his quarters, closing his eyes against the moisture threatening to overwhelm them, and prayed inartfully to a God he had never particularly believed in that his fallen friends and comrades, who had ultimately sacrificed everything, had not made that sacrifice in vain; and that if there was something called a soul, or spirit, and if they lingered or tarried here in this giant pile of rock, that they would take some comfort, some solace, and find a final, separate peace, that he and the rest of the living had not yet attained, would not attain, until it was their appointed time in turn.
Ash pressed his hand in earnest prayer against the cool, stone wall of the formidable bulk of The Great Temple, took a somewhat ragged deep breath, said a final heartfelt Amen, stood up straight, opened clear, dry eyes, and took final leave of his ghosts, of that place, for his chosen, preferred destiny.
Standing at the end of the corridor that led to the fighter crew’s quarters, Puck, Villym, Fynn, Ilab, and Pedric waited patiently on Ash; they were all similarly draped with pistols and knives, having consciously acquired the habit in emulation of their friend and mentor.
None of them missed the slightly red and swollen cast about Ash’s eyes, and the caustic comment Puck was about to make about “slackers and time wasters” died before passing his lips; his eyes softened, his mind quickly and accurately guessing what had held up his friend and comrade.
Instead of his usual smart assed commentary, he simply asked softly, “Ash, are you ready to go?”
Ash laid a brotherly arm on his larger friend’s shoulder and replied, equally softly, “Let’s all get the frell out of here.”
Emerging out of the stone corridors onto the Flight Deck, Colonel Salm, Major Skywalker, and both newly arrived Gold Squadron 2nd Lieutenants Ellors Losh and Burukt Kre’Dza looked mildly askance at the weaponry-draped assemblage headed towards their respective ships; Captain Antilles and Major Loran knew all about the Gold Squadron Flight’s personal quirks, and thus weren’t surprised at all.
Burukt eased over to the lanky Duros and asked, quietly, “You think they know something we don’t?”
Ellors gazed at the six veterans, three pilots and their trusted gunners, and said, “Friend, I’m positive they know a lot that we don’t.”
The fighter pilots stowed their gear, climbed aboard their respective ships, as the few remaining Ground Crew scrambled to detach and carry the various boarding ladders up the personnel ramp of the Millennium Falcon; the various fighter’s astromechs had been loaded aboard their ships the day prior, before another detachment of Ground Crew had disassembled and stowed the necessary lifts on a departing freighter.
Shortly afterwards, the Flight Deck of The Great Temple resounded to the rising whine of warming power converters, repulsorlift cells, and ion engines as, one by one, all the ships that remained of the Rebel’s presence on Yavin IV lifted gracefully, and, in stately procession, debarked through the giant opening of the massive stone relic, turned their collective noses to the stars, and left that place for their new home.
Once in orbit, the 41st held position temporarily while a Gallofree Yard’s GR-75 Medium Transport collected the reconnaissance satellite net, watched over by the 41st, as well as Captain Solo in the Falcon, before the entire assemblage broke orbit for their hyperspace jump point.
Heading further out by the second, Ash cast one last look back over his shoulder at the receding moon, before returning his attention to the stars in front of him, and settled in to prepare The Meanstreak for the FTL evolution, setting power levels and guidance systems for optimal performance. Behind him, Fynn was doing likewise, and Squeaks was double-checking them both, finally emitting a string of warbles, chirps and hoots; Ash glanced at the translation screen on his comm board, and read the translation of the little astromech droid’s commentary: the ship’s tight, Boss; we can kick this can whenever you’re ready.
Ash replied, “Good job, Squeaks. Go ahead and settle in for the jump; we’ll all go when we get the jump signal.” The hyperdrive system was synced to the comms system, and the jump signal from the Falcon, acting as “convoy leader,” would set the entire train of starships in motion, engaging all the respective ship’s hyperdrives automatically.
With a few moments to spare while the ungainly GR-75, a rounded, elongated ovoid of a cargo ship, completed its final preparations for the jump, Ash looked out to where the Death Star had exploded, the coalescing debris field barely visible as a slight “mist” around the bulk of Yavin, and sent a promise out to the stars, to all the Imperial he had yet to meet in battle, saying softly,“We ain’t done with you yet; no siree, not by a damned sight!”
Cheerfully optimistic, he added, “Matter o’ fact, we’re just gettin’ started! Buckle in boyos; you’re all in for rough handlin’, an’ hard times!”
“Frackin’ A-right,” Fynn agreed heartily from behind him, as the jump signal chimed; The Meanstreak’s hyperdrive spooled up rapidly, the stars elongating into infinity in front of it, and Gold Squadron, along with all of its various consorts, departed Yavin for their new home.
Gold Squadron is a part of the Star Wars universe.
Now, click EDIT to start adding more details!
Description[edit]
Click EDIT to update the description.
History[edit]
Click EDIT to update the history.
Appearances[edit]Gold Squadron Star Wars Movie
Click EDIT to update the list of appearances.
Legends[edit]
Any information drawn from non-canonical sources (Legends) should be displayed in this section. Click EDIT to update.
Want to add more but not sure how to begin? Check out our Wiki Starter Guide for Star Wars Universe!
Comments
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |