Briefing
- Begin Log: T5B4M2 - Honey. I’m home!
Rensal “Bigfoot” Darklighter: Flight 4.1, Main P.O.V.
As I was about to enter the hanger I said to myself, “I thought twelve hours of sleep would have been enough.”
“Like I thought fifteen would have been for me, Biggy.” Said Vykk.
“All I can say is that twelve hours of sleep sure felt good, and I am rested enough that I wont make any stupid judgement errors.”
“I can completely agree with that.” Vykk replied while looking at his datapad. “It looks like you have Avenger One, while I have Three.”
“Bet you’re happy to be in one of those.” I said as we entered the hanger.
“I sure am! But I think those Squints could use a rest.”
“I think they’ll vape themselves if they don’t get a break soon.” I said as we walked by the scared and battered Interceptors.
“It’s a miracle any have of them made it back after that last fight.” said Vender.
“No it’s just the Great Pilots in them that got them back.”
“You’re right. I think its bout time to go.” Said Vykk looking at his chrono.
“I think so too.” The mission light went from Yellow to Red. “Greys Mount Up” I called out.
“Let’s go Thorns. This looks like it’ll be easy!”
Sure does. Said Vykk.
Three triwinged TIEs entered the battle.
“UH oh. Control we need backup.”
On their way, Flight Four
Six of our Eyeballs and our two Squints entered to tangle with the triwings.
I hope your happy, Flight Four. I was hoping for an easy run, and you had to go and say it. Said Taan
Flights One, Two, and Three, your on the triwings. Four you’ve got the Factory. Brier has the Container Transport and the Freighter. Came the orders from Control.
After acknowledging the orders, I noticed the triwing’s path.
“Flight Four the triwings will be on us before the other flights can catch up. They will be here a few seconds after are engaged, so throw a few shots to keep them dancing till our fire power gets here.”
They acknowledged, and a minute later we were starting the runs on the Factory. Each of us concentrated our fire over the laser batteries and the warhead launcher taking them out before the shields were down, giving us room to operate. Then a heavy bolt all of a sudden shot down at the station and hit Vykk.
“Ten come in?” I called!
He punched out, Eight. Said Dave.
“Let’s distract that Modified Frigate, before it kills the Factory!”
Linking two and firing, Eight! Came the call from Dave.
“Same here! Let’s take it out quick! Brier. When we get to ten percent shields, you need to use your ions to take this frigate out.”
I copy, Thorns.
Getting hit and damaged pretty good, I was able to start dodging the fire from the Frigate and the weak fire from the last two laser batteries on the station. We got the shields down on the frigate, and the Brier quickly disabled it. Then we were finally able to do the same thing to the station. With the excitement done, I started patrolling, in case something else came in.
I set my Avenger down beside the two battered Squints, grateful they made it back, when I noticed five open slots where the Fighters were supposed to be. “I hope we didn’t lose anyone else today.” I said as I climbed down the ladder.
“I don’t know, but you Greys are murder on the equipment!” Said Captain Ra.
“Would you rather be out there, and me in here?” I asked, I saw the look on the other techs faces, and something said I shouldn’t have said that.
“It’d make my job a whole lot easier if you weren’t being so careless out there! I think you need to spend a week fixing the equipment before you can fly again so you will learn to respect it!”
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Dave Trebonius Astoris:Flight 4.2, Alternate p.o.v.
Fifty minutes after they last heard it from Castor, the words “Nest high, my Greys,” still reverberated in the memory of every pilot as they prepared for launch. They were indeed nesting high. For what seemed like the first time ever, they were rested and prepared. They were all at the peak of their game. And, amazingly enough, they had a stable mothership that wasn’t in eminent danger of destruction.
Fifty one minutes after Castor dismissed them, the magnetic seal for the hangar bay opened, and the Greys were even closer to launching once again. Dave caressed the controls of his TIE Advanced as his eyes did a brief last minute check of the instruments. Somehow he doubted this was going to be a simple milk run. Were these things ever simple? Dave took consolation in the fact that the Black Widow could probably beat the crap out of any other ship likely to be at the factory site.
Fifty two minutes after the end of the briefing, Thorn Flight 4, the Tie Advanceds, launched from their rails within the gigantic Star Destroyer and hurtled into the deep blackness of space. The comm was instantly alive with chatter as the pilots began calling identifications and threat assessments back and forth. Then, of course, enemy starfighters arrived. But these were bigger, meaner, and faster than the Tie Advanceds that Grey was piloting.
Sithspit! 4.3 cursed into the comm.
“Easy Thorns,” Dave replied, “we can split it up and take them. They may be faster, but we’re smarter, of course.”
Almost immediately came contradiction from Black Widow: Negative, that’s a negative. Flight 4, you take the factory. Flights 1, 2, and 3 will take the triwings.”
Surprise was evident in 4.3's voice, But they’ll get slaughtered against those things!
Thorn 4.1's voice was grim, Can it, 4.3.
Flight 4 hurtled past the enemy triwings, although Dave took the opportunity to put a missile through the front viewport of the lead one. Just because he could. Within seconds the Advanceds of Flight 4 found themselves in the thick of a hornets nest of turbolasers from an irritated Modified Frigate.
Dave again raised Black Widow command on the comm, “Ah.. Black Widow, do you suppose you could maybe fly your big ship up here and kill this frigate?” The reply, as predictable, was negative. As Dave circled the facility making identifications, 4.1 and 4.3 began dropping the shields of both the Factory and the Modified Nebulon B. It took some time to disable both, and during that time a dogfight was raging between the remaining triwings and the other three Thorn flights. Dave wasn’t certain, but it appeared that several shielded Eyeballs had already dropped to the ferocity of the attack.
As the boarding began, Flight 4 turned around to join the fray against the enemy triwings. Without warning, the remaining Tie Fighters and Interceptors of the first three Thorn flights turned and fled back to the safety of the Black Widow. Exasperated, Dave and the other Avenger pilots tore into the triwings. But worse was in store. After dispatching the flight, another flight, this one twice as large, arrived to replace it.
Six triwings! I hope there’s still some left in that factory for us to use, Dave thought to himself.
When the triwings stopped coming, the remaining Thorns reboarded the Black Widow.
After docking and dismounting from his starfighter, Dave found Castor on the bridge. Walking up and standing next to him, he let out an exaggerated sigh. Castor looked at him, somewhat distractedly. “We lost a few out there, Dave.”
Dave nodded in reply. “Perhaps we’ll gain quite a few starfighters from this raid,” he ventured, “but will we have enough people to pilot them all?”
Castor caught the question and all its underlying meanings. “We have a mission, Dave. Grey Squadron did not come out here to be slaughtered. We will stop Malachite. We must stop Malachite.”
The ferocity of Castor’s voice somewhat surprised Dave, and he found himself taking an involuntary step back. He nodded, nevertheless. “Yes, you’re right... he must be stopped.”
**************************
Adam “Vender” Fene: Flight 3.1, alternate p.o.v.
Vender awoke to the hail over the Black Widow's comm system to report to the briefing room. He was still tired, as sleeping late was his specialty. Moving slowly, he stood up and looked for his boots as he was wearing his flight suit anyway. He lost a lot of clothing during the
switch, that part annoyed him the most since he had to wear his flight suit until they could find something else for him.
"There they are." Vender sluggishly bent over and pulled a pair of boots out from under the bed. "Man these quarters are nice." He grinned to himself feeling more at home. If it weren't for the blood stain on the wall, it would almost be perfect.
He heard the announcement again and decided to get moving. "Bah..I'm a comin'." Slipping on his boots, Vender started to trot out of his room, and down the corridors towards the briefing room.
It wasn't as nice as the Aragorn’s, but it still had that adrenaline pumping feeling, just like the first time he joined the Academy. It was just a shock of nervousness he supposed, at the odds and the mystery with each briefing. Nothing ever went according to plan in his experience, and the battlefield always looked totally different from what the holo projectors told him. Perhaps this was the best part about being a pilot, other than that flying part.
The briefing was pretty short, and Vender was walking along the corridors again. "They sure love to stick me in Squints." He opened a granola bar and took a bite as he waited for the Black Widow to go in system to where they would strike. The granola bar slipped out of his hand, and as he went to pick it up a figure walked by, almost unfamiliar to him.
At first it looked like Nils, which just gave him the plain creeps. Not that Nils was an unattractive man, but the fact was, that he was dead. Vender caught himself staring when the figure finally turned the corner. He stood there and blinked in silence, unsure of what this odd feeling was in his stomach. Imperial granola bars were never that good.
He wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, and began a brisk but casual walk to the hangar which was not far away. The Black Widow was nearly at their destination and Vender would be launching soon. "Of course, they can't fly without bait, can they?" Vender stopped and
looked at the floor. "Note to self..quit talking to yourself." The comment was so odd a droid stopped and looked at him funny, as if it had emotions. Vender blinked again and started walking faster again, this time, thinking to himself how creepy this ship was starting to seem.
Finally, Vender arrived in the hangar and ran into his TIE Interceptor. He should own this craft by now, he'd never lost it, and it always seemed to stick with him. It was his lucky squint. "Ahhh luucccky... I maybe losing my mind but at least there's one place I feel a little safer in."
Vender watched stars thin out and stop through the mag field in the hangar, and realized it was time. "Control, I'm launching now..so if you'd mind letting me go from this arm here. ."
Jila Cosa paused as she was probably waiting for Castor's or the TacTeam’s order. Thorn Flight 3.1, permission granted, would you like fries with that?
Vender smirked as he felt the arm move and shove him out of the hangar into space. A few Avengers were already out. That's ok, he was a man, he could take the hint. "Screw shields." Vender snapped a switch back and suddenly the engines were fully juiced as he whipped by the Avengers, pulling a few G's with the acceleration. "Oooookaaaay! I think I'll turn those back on now.."
He noticed something he hope he'd never have to see. Vender had faced them one time before, and it was pure hell to say the least. TIE Triwings. If there was one craft he wouldn't want to be in at that moment, it was a squint, even if it was lucky. Shunting all the energy to his shields as possible, the triwings were moving in fast. Too fast. It just wasn't normal. As if dogfighting wasn't enough.
"This is Thorn 3 1, I'm playing the rabbit." Vender checked the comm for approval, and it sounded like his Avenger squadmates agreed. One of them responded with a Wounded Rabbit, more like.
The triwings, in seconds, were suddenly on top of them. The laser shot felt like a huge permacrete brick hitting his aft. "Oh, yeah! This ain't normal." Suddenly Vender pulled his stick back as he climbed and then rolled into a bank to port as two missiles slammed into the Defender. "Thank goodness these guys have no talent."
Reports were rolling in. Some freighters were disabled, as well as the factory. Things were progressing nicely enough. They should of realized triwings alone could not hold them off for long. In fact, as the minutes rolled by, they had all been destroyed. "Oh, yeah! Let’s not thank
the rabbit!"
The Modified Frigate was still on the loose, but a few ATR's and T/A's made short work of it. Minutes later the Scout Craft launched from the Black Widow, capturing the freighters for supplies.
"Looks like my work here is done. This is Thorn Flight 3, I'm ready to dock." Vender waited for Control to respond.
Permission granted, and you forgot your fries. Control said, as a small bit of laughter could be heard in the background.
Vender cut off the comm.. "Shaavit! I'm supposed to be picking on them! What the...?" There was just no respect, but he could understand they were just trying to be comfortable aboard their new home. The Black Widow.
******************************
Jila Cosa: Additional p.o.v.
I awoke as if from a sleepwalker’s trance and looked around. People I knew walked all around me but the ship was nowhere near familiar. The last thing I remembered was a soft voice in my head saying *Nest high, my Greys* and then silence, but the silence turned into a big black void in my mind, and that was when I knew, without really knowing how I knew, that at least one Grey pilot had died during this mission. My consciousness must have shut down to shield me from anything else like that. I can’t be sure.
I stood there in the middle of the hall watching people who had definite destinations in mind. I couldn’t for the life of me think of mine. Suddenly there was a sensation as if the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders. I don’t know how I knew, but I Knew that all of the friends that I had made from the ‘droid bay had all come through in one piece. I also knew that Lessa had survived, but she was in pretty bad shape. Well she wouldn’t think so, but...
“Jila? Jila.” The male beside me said as he touched my shoulder. The touch cut through my confused state like a lightsaber. I spun around and swung my fist as hard as I could, and stopped just before my fist connected with its target. “Whoa, Jila! Sorry! I keep forgetting how jumpy you get.” Dartil said as he jumped back a couple steps. I took a couple of deep breaths but they released themselves more as shudders.
Where the hell am I? And why can’t I remember? The words raced through my head, and my eyes started to mist.
“Calm down Jila. You’re all right.” Dartil tilted my head up so he could look into my eyes. “What’s the matter?”
BEEP ...saved by the beep. My datapad beeped just in time that I didn’t have to tell him what the matter really was. When I clicked on my datapad I saw the message “Report to new droid bay, Level 4.”, accompanied by a ship schematic and instructions on how to find Level 4.
Work. Yes. It would feel good to get back to work. “I’ve got to go. Duty calls.” I said, glad to have a reason to be away from Dartil. He was a good person, but I had no explanations for him. I followed the paths on the schematics as quickly as I could and found the new droid bay in a relatively short time. I slipped through the doorway just as the bothan began to speak. As I watched the bothan pace while it talked I caught the differences that made this one a female. She looked as if she’d rather be yanking apart ‘droids than standing there talking about it.
“For those of you I haven’t worked with before my name is Lieutenant Commander Chiria Shi’asa. My station is Comp/Comm. The Admiral wants all of these IMP droids repaired and reprogrammed for our use. I have transferred the new programming to your datapads. First step is to run a program scan to see if these droids will accept our programming, or if they’ll need to be wiped and then reprogrammed. Then we need to put the damaged ones back together. The Admiral says you people are the best techs he’s seen in a long time. Let’s get to it.”
So we got down to business. First was the matter of finding the tools. Damn, but those IMPs sure spent some credits putting this bay together! I slipped on my personal translator and went to work. So many droids. Many of them were in pieces, so we just took the heads and worked on those. Almost two thirds of the droids would not accept our programming.
By the time we got those and the others reprogrammed my eyes had a mind of their own. They’d decided that they wanted to pull the curtains down and stay that way.
When Captain Ra saw that I wasn’t the only one like that he gave us three hours to eat, shower, and take a catnap, and then it was back to work. It seemed that time passed like lightspeed. I felt I had just gotten to sleep when it was time to get up and get back to it, but that was okay, the work needed to get done, and I could get lost in it. By the time we had all gotten back to the droid bay Captain Ra and Lieutenant Commander Shi’asa had made an assembly line with all of the droids and replacement parts that they could find. This work went much faster than usual as each of us only had one part to work on instead of a whole droid to repair.
---------------
Done!
As the last of the droids rolled past me at the end of the line Captain Ra and Lieutenant Commander Shi’asa ordered us to quarters and straight to our bunks. We saluted them both, happy to have some real sleep time. As we found our individual quarters I hugged my friends and told them how happy I was that we had all survived. They agreed.
When my comm beeped I jerked awake and nearly fell off my bunk. I felt fuzzy, like I’d had too much sleep.
“Report to the new TacOps in thirty minutes, Cosa. Directions are on your data pad.” I quickly found the ‘fresher and cleaned up again. I dressed quickly, grabbed my datapad, and followed the schematics with the new route. As I slipped through the door of TacOps there it was, oddly enough almost in its old customary place. My headset communicator. The Tac Team looked didn’t seem to notice that there was a huge difference in the room. They stared at the holotank and hypothesized furiously.
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End log: T5B4M2
Battle 4, Mission 3: Old Friends?
by R.C.Miller (Castor@RebelSquadrons.org)
A Grey Squadron, of the Rebel Squadrons, Additional Text Briefing
for Grey Squadron’s add-on Mission 3, Battle 4, Tour 5
for the Star Wars TIE Fighter Combat Simulator game.
All the crew was back and in place now, supplemented by Shock and numerous droids. They were still severely undermanned, and Castor had shifted the watch schedule around to accommodate it. Those departments in worst need were strongly suggested to use an overlapping six on, four off schedule. This would alternate having everyone at station for an hour, and then three quarters of a watch section for the next four, when the off section could sleep.
The scheduling to clean out the factory, the cargo transport, and the freighter of all personnel had been a nightmare. Although the job was made slightly easier by the experience of cleaning out the Widow of personnel and assassin droids, so they generally knew what to expect, it was made all the harder by the double set of duties the commandos had drawn. The Shocks never showed their exhaustion. And they hadn’t made any mistakes. They never complained, and the task had been accomplished. Announcements had been made that the vessels would be destroyed, and anyone left on board would probably not be rescued. A few last holdouts had surrendered.
Even tougher, though, was getting all those people aboard and incarcerated humanely.
---------
In taking all the factory’s reserve Avengers, it had been left mostly defenseless in the hopes that Spinel would be the victor of it’s battle with the Saguaro. When the Black Widow had returned, the factory personnel had assumed that Spinel, in fact, had won the day.
But how wrong they’d been. They’d been almost entirely unprepared to accept that the Black Widow was mounting an attack against them.
Almost.
That was when the tri-winged TIEs launched.
And they were the fastest starfighters Grey had to deal with yet.
Castor recalled the second notice of this sort he’d been given. It had read;
From: Med Command, Major Elyen Ototh
To: Grey Leader, Admiral Castor Efrata-Landis
Re: Recovered Greys, Flight 1 entire, Flight 2.1 and 2
Report: Grey’s recovered by Brier.
Triage personnel report following Greys D.O.A.:
Leif Nalpak. Cause: ruptured flightsuit, debris puncture
Trace. Cause: ruptured flightsuit, debris puncture
Fion Grell. Cause: ruptured flightsuit, debris puncture
Slyder McGrath. Cause:Internal bleeding, apparent contact with startfighter
Alta Darklighter. Cause: ruptured flightsuit, debris puncture
Tag Rendar. Cause: beheaded, apparently by debris contact
My sincerest regrets, Admiral.
Those services had been held, as well. Ten Greys dead. Over two thousand of my people gone in this campaign. I’ve lost the Aragorn, the D.H., the Bramble, the Thistledown, and dozens of starfighters. The only ship we have that we started out with is the Brier. We’ve lost more in one week than Grey ever did before combined. What the hell am I doing here?! Everything we’re doing is right. So why are we down so far? Who is this guy that he’s prepared for everything that we’ve tried?
Castor walked down the passageway, Lessa beside him, not reaching his shoulder in height, taking her bodyguard duty extremely seriously. There’d been a number of times when she’d become nearly a blur as she moved to investigate a questionable area ahead of him. There’d been a few times when she’d flushed out an assassin droid, and her image all but disappeared as she wove to it, depriving it of it’s weapons with her blades before it could get a solid target lock on a living being. Castor had known of her abilities, but he’d never really seen them up close and personal. Until now. And he was fairly impressed.
They’d finally returned to the bridge, and the Star Destroyer’s Command Room.
“Okay, Lessa.” Castor turned to his bodyguard. “You’re relieved of duty. Go get some sleep.”
“Yes, Sir.” She replied calmly, but remained at his side, her eyes darting into every shadowed corner of the room.
“Um... Lessa?” Castor called mildly.
“Yes, Sir?” She responded instantly.
“You’re relieved. Go get some sleep.”
“I believe you said that once already, sir.” She said, still searching with her eyes, and still not making any move to do anything different. “I hope you’re not into the habit of repeating your orders, sir.”
Castor lifted an eyebrow. “Well, I haven’t been, up until now.”
“Good.” Lessa said, with a slight hint of a smile. “Because it’s really distracting.”
Castor stood there just blinking for a few seconds, as if he were going to have to reboot out of a mental feedback loop. He sighed and sat at his new desk.
--------------
“Admiral,” the gotal paced in his frustration. “The conditions on this ship are absolutely deplorable!”
Castor tried very hard not to smile, knowing exactly what the problem was, and just where the conversation was going to go. He just didn’t know exactly how much the Barkeep was going to walk away with when he left Castor’s new office. “Tess, I know this ship doesn’t have a Bar and Grill. You know as well as I do that the Squadrons have much looser regulations where that is concerned than most military organizations, particularly the Empire.”
“But is there nothing that can be done?” Tesserak pleaded, clutching his fists tightly over his chest. “I provide an extremely valuable service which supports the general morale. The crew needs me now more than ever!”
“I understand that, Tess. But I’m not sure exactly how far we can reproduce your establishment on this Star Destroyer. This ship wasn’t exactly built with us in mind.” Castor explained.
“Sir, surely there is one suitable area, a single room or suite, of appropriate size that can be modified to satisfy this debilitating lack.” Tess was practically begging, his normal overacting overshadowed by his genuine concern.
“Of course there’s room, but we’re a little short on personnel right at the moment.” Castor reminded him, probably needlessly.
The gotal placed both of his hands, palms down, on the large black table at which Castor sat. As he leaned on it heavily, he said without all the usual drama to his voice, “Admiral, I’m the only being in your crew that doesn’t have a secondary skill. I am not doing anything, nor can I, to help get this ship into shape or alleviate any of the pressures on the crew. It would make me feel very useful to have the space allotted for a Bar and Grill, along with the responsibility of making the necessary modifications to bring it into existence. While the crew does in fact need the Bar and Grill to exist, without it I am only extra baggage and a constant waste of environmental service.”
Had Castor not agreed with the gotal to begin with, the seriousness of Tess’s expression would have changed his mind. Castor called, “Katie!”
“Yes, Admiral?” The droid looked up from the screen she’d been working at.
Without taking his gaze from the gotal’s eyes, Castor ordered. “Find a suitable area for a Bar and Grill. Tesserak will supply you with his specification requirements. Reserve that area for use and construction of a Bar and Grill, and give him complete access to the materials and information he needs to construct it.”
“Yes, sir,” the droid answered. “And quite frankly, might I add...”
“Thank you, Admiral,” Tess interrupted the droid, satisfied.
“Tess,” Castor said to the gotal. “I’m sure that you’ll be able to resurrect the Grill, but I don’t know what you’re going about the Bar.”
“Admiral, for all intents and purposes, I now have the place to put it. That is enough for this particular moment. That alone opens up a large number of possibilities.” He grinned and spread his hands wide at arms length to illustrate. “A wise old Jedi once said: Uncertain is the future. Difficult to see. Always in motion.” He continued, adding, “A wise old gotal once said: To move a mountain, the first shovel must be filled. In fact, I’m sure it was me that said that. I think it’s probably fortunate that I just thought of it.” He chuckled.
“Hmm... It probably is.” Castor agreed smiling. On second thought, knowing Tess, he’s got everything planned already, including having all the help he’ll need in getting it ready.
“I will notify you before we officially open for business, Admiral. You have my most humble gratitude.” Tess bowed deeply, and turned to speak quietly with Castor’s aide droid.
---------------
Castor sat with the Greys in their remodeled briefing room. “We’ve pretty much gotten everything that we could use from this depot. While we’re not sure where those few craft that left so quickly were ultimately going, we did acquire a dividend from this last operation. The tug that boarded the Pedipalp carried a tech from the station. Had he been on the station when we arrived, they would have been able to successfully hide his particular purpose from us. Since he was on the freighter, and installing certain data chips into the freighter’s navcomp, we know that we should be able to glean more destination points within Malachite’s sector from either the tech or his data chips. We are not in possession of that particular information yet, because those chips were destroyed when we disabled the freighter, but we have a number of duplicate sets of chips from the factory station. It’s only a small matter of time before we have someplace to go from here.”
“So.” Castor continued. “As it stands, we’ve gotten all the personnel off the depot craft. We’ll drop them off at the free-floater as soon as we can. Past that, all we have left to do here is to deprive Malachite of anything useful in this area. We’ve taken a lot from him already, but I don’t believe I’m ready to give him any breaks quite yet.” Castor said quietly.
“So we’re going to nickel and dime him to death?” Ace asked.
“To present a variation of a certain wise being’s theme; A mountain can be moved one shovelful at a time.” Castor could imagine the gotal’s grin if he’d been present.
“We’re going to nickel and dime him to death.” Juho stated with finality.
“Ah.” Castor hesitated. “Yes.” He agreed. “We’re basically going to do to Malachite the same thing that Greedo and Flame did to Y’ar. We’re going to cut his organization out from under him, piece by piece, until he makes a mistake or comes after us directly, or, as is my first choice, we find and destroy the Star Hammer project and permanently neutralize his threat. Now that Y’ar’s treachery has been nullified, they’re the ones playing catch up instead of us.”
“We don’t need everyone out this time, because it’s just a matter of killing the six depot craft and containers. By the time that’s done, we should have the information for our next destination. Your assignments are on your datapads. Questions?”
There were none.
“Nest high, my Greys.”
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