Describe Star Trek: Flight Line here.
Well, to quote from the introductory paragraph:
"You know the stories about the Dominion War. From the Second Battle at Deep Space Nine and the destruction of the Torros III shipyards, right up to the final battle for Cardassia itself. Everyone knows about the ships that fought in those battles. But what happens when you look on a smaller level? Like, say, the flight-line on one given ship in the war?"
Put basically, Star Trek: Flight Line
is an Elsewhere Fic set during the Dominion War and written by Deadbeatloser22. It looks at the actions of one squadron of Starfleet fighter pilots in some of the better and less known actions of the War, starting at Torros III, something mentioned but not shown in canon.
Tropes featured in this fic include:
- Ace Pilot: Jon, Mark and James are supposed to be this, being the flight leads.
- Airstrike Impossible: The first chapter features Jon having to fly through a hole in the structure of a shipyard and blow up a coolant duct. The only reason he's sent to do it is he's the closest pilot who still has torpedoes.
- Berserk Button: Don't mock Jon's call-sign, or he'll break your nose.
- Chekhov M.I.A.: Jon's brother, captured behind enemy lines as of chapter two. Taki notes it gives Jon "something to fight for".
- Code Name: Lots of Call-signs. Just in chapter one, we have Booster, Cypher, Sakura, Shunt and Smash. Plus whatever Cypher's wing men use.
- Chapter two adds Rocker and Killjoy to the list as Booster's wing-men.
- Chapter three adds Tomahawk and Scimitar.
- Ejection Seat: Bashed about a bit; It's mentioned the seat itself is only of any use in atmospheric combat, as the pilot can just be transported back to the carrier otherwise.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Jon's Call-sign is Sakura. He's supposedly above whatever assumptions people try to make over it. Not that that stopped him from breaking someone's nose over it.
- Hero of Another Story: The Black Sharks function as this.
- Military Alphabet: Variation, the radio chatter uses a lot of Air-Force jargon.
- Old-School Dogfight: Practically runs on it.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: You aren't likely to hear anyone on the flight deck refer to Jon by his full first name.
- Screw the War, We're Partying: Chapter one ends with the pilots celebrating the destruction of the Torros III shipyards, even as the Federation moves into a state of full-scale war.
- Self-Insert Fic: Par for the course here.
- Shout-Out: The call-sign for the combat controller in chapter one is Highwind.
- The dialogue at the end of chapter three is lifted almost verbatim from the start of the first mission of Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War.
- The Battlestar: The Ikari and the other Akira-class ships.
- Theme Naming: The three Akira-Class carriers in chapter one are all named after anime characters: The USS Ikari (the home base for the protagonists), the USS Kaneda and the USS Kurosaki.
- Also, all four pilots in Jon's flight have call-signs that start with "S" (Sakura, Smash, Shunt and Scimitar).
- Unwinnable Training Simulation: Jon runs Simon through one in Chapter 3.
- Wing Man: Taki/Smash, Greg/Shunt, and Simon/Scimitar to Jon/Sakura.
- Rocker, Killjoy and Tom/Tomahawk to Mark/Booster
