Astoria shuffled a few datapads around her desk, as best she could considering the messy state of it anyway. She sighed as she brought her attention back to the multitude of reports and paperwork she still needed to read and/or sign off on on her console. A glance to her left had her eyes land on a picture of herself when she was younger with a few of her friends from childhood, before she joined up with the Directorate Security Forces.
"Catch me if you can Daniel!" she yelled over her shoulder as she raced across rooftops and jumped over, rolled over, and slid under obstacles in her path. A quick look behind her showed Daniel, an auburn haired boy her age doggedly running at her heels a few meters back. Looking forward again she turned just in time to see the big gap between this building and the next - had to be at least 5 meters she later thought - and her heart hammered in her chest as she soared freely in the air; arms wheeling and her legs stretched as far as they could go to reach the next rooftop. A second later her front foot made contact and she immediately dove into a forward roll to bleed off her momentum and took a few steps forward. Turning around she was just in time to see Daniel doing same thing she did and as he came up they high fived each other. The massive grin on her face must've been contagious if the grin on his face was any indicator.
Man... those were the good old days... Where she was just living one day to the next at the orphanage with the rest of the crew. In the morning she would get the rest of the kids up in time for whatever breakfast they and the caretakers - bless their souls - could scrounge up and got ready for school. Afternoon and evenings though, she and her friends would go running over rooftops and doing daring-dos and causing some mild havoc in town. She didn't realize at the time why the old matron of the orphanage pushed the kids so hard to go to school, but at least now she knew it payed off. Considering how it got her into the DSF and got her to fly fighters, well, she'll never complain about working hard again.
"Cub 11, Home Plate. Contact, 2 Bogeys. Grid 7-3-4 by 3-3-1 by 9-5-4, how copy?"
"Home Plate, Cub 11. Wilco. Bogeys on sensors, moving to engage. Out." my element lead, another trainee pilot, replied back to the ATC for the exercise. "12, on my wing. How Copy?"
"Two," I moved the stick in my right hand and gently pulled left to stay on his wing as he rolled left then dived and punched the throttle. Hell. Yes. This is the shit I signed up for baby! With a deft twist of my wrist I rolled my fighter to match, pushed the stick forwards, and punched my throttle with my left arm, the accel slamming me into my seat but I couldn't give a shit as my heart was starting that addicting beat in my chest and a manic grin pulled at my lips.
I followed his lead and we hit an asteroid field a few minutes later. I dived under an asteroid in front of me when my passives finally found the hostile contacts some hundred kilometers away burning hard in our direction, "Break break! Bogeys two o'clock high. One zero zero klicks."
"Wilco 11. Weapons hot, go active," and with that the exercise was officially on.
That was the first time I went out for combat, simulated combat sure, but still technically combat. We eventually won that one too, the other team was too aggressive and got baited and separated. Reminds me of my first official engagement though as an actual fighter pilot and not a trainee.
"Angel Flight, Lighthouse. Contacts grid 7-7-7 by 8-4-1 by 9-0-5. Your flight is ordered to intercept, how copy?"
"Lighthouse, Angel Actual. Affirmative, moving to intercept. Out. Angels, form up on me."
"Angel 2, I read you," I replied back as I formed up a bit behind his right wing.
"Angel 3 copies."
"Angel 4, Roger."
We formed up on our flight lead and we boosted over to where our mothership picked up the contacts, somewhere about a thousand kilometers away from our position. Still, we were the closest DSF unit so we got picked to go poke the hornet's nest. We stopped boosting once we were about a hundred klicks out and our passive sensors picked up the contacts, a flight of pirate fighters. No idea where the hell they came from but we've been picking up pings for days in this area.
"Unknown fighters, this is Angel Flight from the DSF Moreno, identify yourself or you will be fired upon."
"Go fuck yourself corpo!"
Well that was blunt, and with the squelch and static their end of the channel closed and considering how they're burning hard towards us its obvious that they're hostile, "Angel Flight, form up by element and engage!"
'''Roger!'''
Our flight split and I followed Angel Actual's lead. I pressed my weapon's safeties off and we burned hard towards them. Our sensors turned active and I immediately had tone, "Angel 2 I got tone! Fox one fox one!!"
Two of my missiles dropped from my fuselage and ignited their thrusters and sped towards the fighter I was targeting. The pirate jets instantly scattered but my two missiles followed their target, doggedly staying in its heels even as it jinked and dived before it finally shot chaff and flares. This time one of the missiles went after one of the flares and exploded, leaving the second missile to keep on going. I followed after him, finger primed to fire off another missile or two when Angel 1 screamed in my ear, "Angel 2 you have a bogey on your tail! Missile missile dive!"
I instantly threw my fighter into a dive, looking up out of the canopy I saw the missile on my six fly right over my thruster nozzle a scant few meters off. My HUD put that bogey as Target 1, shit. I have their leader on my tail and he's a bare kilometer behind me. I pulled out of my dive and banked right, my active sensors pinging him following right behind me and the fighter I was following beforehand, Target 2, being chased off by Angel 1. Damn I was alone on this one. I pulled back hard on my stick and prayed that Target 1 would stick on my tail. I tapped on my other thrusters with my feet and cut my main engine and flipped a full 180 degrees and there he was a few hundred meters in front of my nose, "Guns guns guns!"
I smashed the button for my lasers and his fuselage burned, his fighter tumbling off into the distance before exploding; guess I hit something important, "Splash one!"
Pulling out of my spin I gunned my engines and tried to find my lead and found him still going after Target 2, though the latter was trailing gas. I punched my throttle and boosted after the duo but by the time I caught up Target 2 had been splashed by a missile from Angel 1, "Good shooting Angel 2. From up on me and we'll get the rest."
"Affirm Angel 1, on your wing."
They threw me a party, kinda, sorta, after that considering that was my first kill and I was the rookie in the unit. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but camera footage of my cockpit had my face nearly split in half by a grin it was so wide; and that was how I got my callsign Smiles. My time in the DSF was... pretty good actually. Turns out being a fighter jockey got you laid whenever you're in port. Must be something about us being able to play our fighters like our fingers. Heh.
Still. It was probably a bad idea for me to screw one of the DSF's admiral's daughter, but hey she came onto me first! But I got caught when I was sneaking out and I booked it out of there. The rest of that tour was... pretty tense for me and I resigned my commission and got an honorable discharge out of it. A pretty nice nest egg too if I do say so myself. Got plenty of bounties over the years and I never did use too much of my money, preferring to send most of it back home to the orphanage.
I tried to go back to civilian life, I really did. I went back to the orphanage, got a place and a job nearby and helped them out whenever I could. Sometimes I went out onto the dating scene but no one ever really caught my fancy. From time to time one of my old buddies from my DSF days would come by and we'd get a drink or six, but I was always yearning to get back out there. To get back in a fighter seat and fly out in the black again.
A few years after I mustered out one of my old buddies from my old unit came by and dropped the news that a lot of our old unit was leaving the service for some reason or other and he was whining about how he was thinking about going mercenary but couldn't find a good one to sign up with. And it hit me. Why don't I make one?
With a core made up of my old unit, we could pool together enough money to buy something nice to start out with and with the sign up bonus of 2 BC and considering lots of the people I used to know are now higher up in the command chain... well its an idea worth thinking about. Fast forward a few months later and TRIPYRE LTD. was born with me at the head.
I snapped out of my day dream when the door to my office opened up, "Smiles, here's the contracts available right now."
I gave Rook a quick smile, "Thanks Rook, any good ones?"
He shrugged, "Any contract's a good one and you're the boss. I'm up for whatever."
I hummed a bit as I scrolled the datapad at the three open contracts, "Lets go for this one..."
