Vince
Jan 25th, 2008, 12:18:30 AM
Trix had quickly gotten used to Academy life; except for the sudden loss of deathsticks and their lesser variants.
Wake up early enough to eat, physical training, indoctrination (Trix may not have been a genius, but he wasn't dumb and could very well tell what the education was really for), simulator combat, and classes were the stock of each day, and he fell into the routine easily, except for the whole 'classes' thing.
Here he was, thinking that he would have gotten out of classes for the time being, but now he had to study starfighters, physics, and a bunch of other classes that he would so characteristically fob through, and still make above average marks; that was only because he had to turn in his written assignments, or else.
Most of his teachers called him gifted, but lazy; that is, until they saw him fly.
When he entered in the simulators, he was mostly quiet until the difficulty levels were raised. Then, to the shock of many, the quiet, and unassuming young pilot-to-be would spew out a stream of invectives as imaginative as any they had ever heard as he wove his simulated fighter through the different tests in moves thought to have died with the disappearance of the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker.
Of course, he lost many more times than the famed Jedi Knight ever did; but to his credit, the most times he had ever "died on a mission" was three times in a simulated battle against Rogue Squadron, and he had shot down a number of them himself before going down.
Then, he focussed on the mission his fourth time through. He mostly ignored the Rogue fighters, and systematically blew out the defenses of the Rebel station he was to disarm before the Rogue Squadron would appear on the scanners. He stuck close to the station in an attempt to keep the defense turrets from getting a clean shots (in fact, he had led three 'rogue fighters' to their simulated deaths from friendly fire), and would appear from different parts of the station to pick off Rogue fighters that his team-mates were keeping busy. When the station's defenses were knocked out, he ran interference, played chicken a few too many times, and incurred damage on his simulated starfighter, but survived with the most kills out of the training exercise.
"What the hell are you thinking in there!" exclaimed Fan Umera. "You'd get killed if that were an actual combat situation!"
Trix had grinned. "If I die, I die. If I live, I live to die another day. But if I'm going down, I'm making sure the mission's completed before I do."
While such an attitude may have led some to believe he was a reckless pilot, Trix was actually one of the most cautious. He never made manoeuvres he wasn't sure he'd be able to pull off, and he never stuck on an enemy he couldn't shoot down in the first ten seconds of combat; he'd pull away and lock onto another target as quickly as possible.
"When you lock onto an enemy, you afford another enemy a chance to lock onto you," he had said. "There'll either be another chance to shoot the guy down, or you'll be dead."
Wake up early enough to eat, physical training, indoctrination (Trix may not have been a genius, but he wasn't dumb and could very well tell what the education was really for), simulator combat, and classes were the stock of each day, and he fell into the routine easily, except for the whole 'classes' thing.
Here he was, thinking that he would have gotten out of classes for the time being, but now he had to study starfighters, physics, and a bunch of other classes that he would so characteristically fob through, and still make above average marks; that was only because he had to turn in his written assignments, or else.
Most of his teachers called him gifted, but lazy; that is, until they saw him fly.
When he entered in the simulators, he was mostly quiet until the difficulty levels were raised. Then, to the shock of many, the quiet, and unassuming young pilot-to-be would spew out a stream of invectives as imaginative as any they had ever heard as he wove his simulated fighter through the different tests in moves thought to have died with the disappearance of the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker.
Of course, he lost many more times than the famed Jedi Knight ever did; but to his credit, the most times he had ever "died on a mission" was three times in a simulated battle against Rogue Squadron, and he had shot down a number of them himself before going down.
Then, he focussed on the mission his fourth time through. He mostly ignored the Rogue fighters, and systematically blew out the defenses of the Rebel station he was to disarm before the Rogue Squadron would appear on the scanners. He stuck close to the station in an attempt to keep the defense turrets from getting a clean shots (in fact, he had led three 'rogue fighters' to their simulated deaths from friendly fire), and would appear from different parts of the station to pick off Rogue fighters that his team-mates were keeping busy. When the station's defenses were knocked out, he ran interference, played chicken a few too many times, and incurred damage on his simulated starfighter, but survived with the most kills out of the training exercise.
"What the hell are you thinking in there!" exclaimed Fan Umera. "You'd get killed if that were an actual combat situation!"
Trix had grinned. "If I die, I die. If I live, I live to die another day. But if I'm going down, I'm making sure the mission's completed before I do."
While such an attitude may have led some to believe he was a reckless pilot, Trix was actually one of the most cautious. He never made manoeuvres he wasn't sure he'd be able to pull off, and he never stuck on an enemy he couldn't shoot down in the first ten seconds of combat; he'd pull away and lock onto another target as quickly as possible.
"When you lock onto an enemy, you afford another enemy a chance to lock onto you," he had said. "There'll either be another chance to shoot the guy down, or you'll be dead."