Peter Papp was born on the planet of Dantooine and lived there for seven years. His father, Owen Larson, was a farmer until he was killed during an Authority raid. Peter no longer had a family and for 4 years wandered the galaxy in his Z-95 Headhunter. At age 11, he turned to the Empire. He was already a great atmospheric pilot and space pilot and blew away his flight instucters. After only two missions, he reached the rank of Lieutenant for outstanding performance. After many battles, he was reconized as the youngest Top Ace within the Empire, at age 12. Although there are other shielded and faster spacecraft, Peter likes to use the TIE Fighter the best. He claims that if you realize that with 1 or 2 direct hits and your finished, you are not as relaxed as with a shielded craft. He is now currently the leader of Beta Elite Squadron aboard the Imperial Class Star Destroyer Avenger.
Delta Flight III Leader/General ShayneH (ShayneH)
A little story from General Shayne Hodge with no set name:
Enjoying some well deserved rest in my cabin on the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera under the now Grand Admiral Thrawn, I thought back to my early days of a pilot in the Imperial Navy, my training, those rough times in those unshielded Tie Fighters. One of the times that readily came to mind was the time I was asked to fly the Missile Boat prototype a couple of months ago for a routine escort mission. My assignment was to escort Grand Admiral Thrawn's previous ISD, the Grey Wolf....
The call came in while I was sleeping. It seemed that the Grey Wolf needed an escort to its jump point two hours. Why me, I grumbled to myself. Didn't I just help capture Zaarin 7 hours ago? This is my thanks, a medal slapped on me and then woke up in the middle of the night? Oh well, escort mission are usually boring enough.
Twenty minutes later, I was back in the cockpit of the Missile Boat, a nice ship but not nearly as good at dogfighting as a Tie Defender; even those unshielded Tie Fighters are better in a dogfight. Checking my instruments and readjusting my course a bit to stay with the Grey Wolf, I almost nodded off. Shaking myself awake, I noticed a small anomaly. There was a small asteroid about 3 klicks away. Funny, I thought to myself, as there's no reason for an asteroid to be around here. I went to investigate, and noticed that it wasn't an asteroid but a disguised Rebel probe...
"Tau 1 to Grey Wolf, there's a Rebel probe in the area, Repeat Tau 1 to Grey..."
Just then, a Mon Calamari Star Cruiser, Six Carrack Cruisers, a captured Interdictor cruiser that the Rebels must have gotten from Zaarin, 4 Frigates and a mess of blockade runners, X-Wings and B-Wings emerged from hyperspace in a circle around the Grey Wolf. Luckily, it was over 50 klicks from the nearest capital ship. Unfortunately, B-Wing Gold came out only 10 klicks away from it. What a great day...
The Grey Wolf immediately launched all of its fighter resources. The Tie Defenders, the second missile boat, 3 squads of Tie Fighters, 2 of Tie Interceptors and 5 squads of Tie Bombers came out.
The Bombers started heading for the Interdictor. I was equipped with 40 advanced missiles and 20 of those new mag pulses. Switching to pulses, I fired 2 into the Interdirector. There went its weaponry. By the time I fired all of them, everything but the blockade runners and fighters had their weapons disabled. Soon the Mon Cal cruiser, and the carrack cruisers fell to the bombers. All that was left were the blockade runners and the Interdictor. One of the Tie Defenders was trying to disable a blockade runner so it wouldn't shoot back. I tried to help take its shields down with my lasers. My shields were low, and the corvette pierced them. The transparasteel darkened for a second them came back on. My sensors and CMD were out and my flight stick was stuck to the left. Then I relized that I was heading for the ion stream that the Tie Defender was pouring...
With a sizzle and shriek of tortured electronics, all my systems went out except for emergency life support. I noticed I was heading for the Interdirector cruiser. Oh well, at least I'd be heading toward an Imperial ship. If they follow Imperial regulation, they'd send a transport or an ATR to catch me in its tractor beam.
When I was close enough to the Interdirector, it launced out a tug. The tug managed to catch me at first in its beam, but then I slipped through it toward the cruiser. I hit the emergency stop, and a minor explosion denonated a few feet in front of my ship stopping its momentum. I was wondering why they sent a tug instead of an ATR to get me when it hit. The Interdictor was the Rebels! Using the last chance I had, I turned on the emergency manuvering jets until the rear faced the tug. When the tug was no more then 1 meter away, I hit the last small emergency momentum charge, which was a last resort like the one in the front. Unlike the one in the front, it wasn't meant to stop you but to give you a little push. Then again, it could blow you up too. The charge blew up the tug, but ripped up the back of my ship. The last thing I rembered was hitting the eject button...
Wing Commander's Note:
General ShayneH apparently had his TIE specially modified since Seinar Fleet Systems does not reportedly produce a TIE Fighter with explosive"emergency momentum charges".
Sometime later, I woke up in a bacta tank on the Grey Wolf. Seems they picked up then hypered out once the Interdictor was destroyed. After I was healed, I was sent to the Grand Admiral's quarters. I wondered if I'd be executed for loss of the Missile Boat or just relieved of duty. It turned out to be neither. Thrawn told me what a brilliant idea of using the charge to destroy the tug was. He then promoted me from Commander to General and gave me a medal.
Those were the times, I thought, coming back to the present. Oh well, tomorrow brings another adventure.....
General Shayne Hodge