The Battle of Bakura (Rogues, Shadows)

[Bette Davis]

Flight Commander Bette Davis popped a pill into her mouth and washed it down with a swallow of water. The mess was nearly deserted as breakfast had been over for about ten minutes. The cooks were slugging it out in the kitchen (one of five on the Termagant) washing dishes and throwing out uneaten powdered eggs.

She'd only been able to stomach one look at the runny, chunky excused for scrambled eggs before she'd retreated to a solitary table with a glass of water and some toast. The toast was gone now, as were her squadron mates. Bette fingered her second pill and checked the chrono. About two hours before they came out of hyperspace above Bakura. It was a standard diplomatic mission, yada yada yada, and Captain Kellison was all puffed up like a nuna bird in mating season over the privledge of escorting the Ambassador to Bakura.

The plan was to re-open relations with the quietly neutral system, and the end goal was for more raw materials with which to construct weapons of war. Bette placed the little white pill on her tongue and lifted her glass - only to be interrupted by a familiar voice.

[Tal Kellison]

"COMMANDER DAVIS!"

He certainly looked out place in the mess hall. Generally, officers dined in their own hall in a different part of the ship, disdaining putting themselves down on the same level as the troops they commanded, thinking that it would erode their command position.

But not Kellison. He made it a habit to dine with troops, a practice that raised many eyebrows among his subordinates. After all, they needed his guidance, his wisdom. They needed to know that he was more than a commander. He was more like a father figure. Someone they could look up to and emulate. True they didn't have the talents he was born with, but perhaps he could do little things to help them achieve more in their lives.

"Commander, we are mere hours away from one the most important moments of my career and I come here to find one of the people under my command...popping PILLS, like some sort of Simplasian speed addict. Haven't I told you about the dangers of drugs? They may seem like the easy answer, but they're not. Look at me. I've never done drugs in my life and look at where it's gotten me."

[Bette Davis]

Bette's eyes widened and she choked the painkiller down without water. She stood up abruptly and saluted. "With all due respect, sir, I am taking regulation pain medication for a headache."

After gaining a command Lucky had gone from bad to worse. Before he'd just been an anal retentive hard case, looking for things to be wrong and yelling about them. A few months with his own Star Destroyer had changed him into something ultimately more frightening.

For one thing, he thought that he deserved the command, which he didn't because he'd only gotten it because during the confusion after Endor someone had signed his temporary promotion into reality. Someone... stupid. Bette kept a cheery smile on her face. Kellison had also gotten it into his head that the best way to lead was to become everyone's friend, or something. Meal times were tense whenever he chose your mess to eat in, because that anal retentive side was still very much active.

"Permission to leave to prep for the mission, sir?"

[Aliya Vahlshalynn]

Aliya was chowing down her own meal far from the wrath of Captain Moody. She had the unfortunate pleasure of eating with him once and got to listen to the Kellison is a wonderful leader crap show. She ate her food in a record seven minutes, though paid with indigestion later. Rolling around in space with the G-forces was NOT a fun feeling.

Looked like her flight commander was getting chewed out for no reason again. She never understood why the Captain hated Bette so much. The woman was a damn fine pilot and loyal as hell. He never gave her that much grief so it wasn't a sex issue. Man must have a pole up his rear that spelled Davis.

She threw her tray away and discreetly wedged her way between the two of them, saluting the Captain as was proper. "Captain," and turned towards Bette, "Commander. We really need you down at the hangar. I got this frelled up call about our weapon computers fritzed to hell and our wing links went flat."

Aliya grabbed Bette by the arm and started to drag her off, "I'm so sorry, Captain. If we don't get our TIE's ready, we're going to be late for the escort. Don't want that happening, Sir!"

She darted them around the corner briskly, keeping an eye behind her for the Captain incase he followed, being suspicious like he normally was. Once they entered the tube, she let go of Bette. "Geesh, Shooter. What the hell was that about back there with Lucky?"

[Bette Davis]

"Headache meds." She pulled the pill canister from her coveralls and rattled it. "If I could just be alone with him for a minute..." Bette trailed off, her hands tightening around an imaginary neck.

"You said something about our targeting computers?" She slipped her painkillers back into a pocket and followed Aliya up the passageway towards Shadow Squadron's hanger full of TIE Defenders.

[Zachariah Jak'el]

Zak grunted and as he slapped the access panel back onto the TIE defender and bolted it into place. He walked around to the other side of the TIE and removed another access panel. He looked, and poked, around at the wires and lights that filled the inside of the TIE for a few moments before reached in with his gloved hands and reconnecting a loose wire, "There we are," He said as he pulled his hands out of the confined space and rebolted the hatch on.

Things had been hectic for Shadow Squadron Pilot Zachariah Jak'el. His TIE defender had malfunctioned during a patrol mission and crashed into the shielded flank of their Star Destroyer carrier ship. He had ejected at the last moment and spent the next two weeks in the medical ward getting over his cold and shock. He had been issued a new TIE defender, but it was a overused old thing that barely worked and it's only comfort was the fact that the hull was still in one piece. He had spent the last month fixing the beast up. The engines had been completely refitted, the weapon and targeting systems repaired, and now he had solved the power problem. The TIE had only been operating under half power for the oddest reason and only now did Zak found that one of the two power cables that connected the generator to the rest of the ship had become loose.

Zak walked over to the boarding ladder and climbed up and into the cockpit of the TIE. He fired it up and smile as he read the technical readout. The TIE was now running at full power. He patted the starfighter and then shut it down and climbed out. The ship was repaired, and not a moment to soon. He was afraid he was going to have to barrow someone Else's defender for the Shadow's escort mission over Bakura.

Zak moved around the ship, collecting tools and equipment and carrying them over to the workbench half way across the hangar bay. He carefully cleaned and checked all the equipment before placing it in it's proper place on bench and adjacent bins and shelves, whistling a merry tune the whole time.

[Tannis V'larr]

"Activate modules fifteen-D through twenty-one."

RD-80 blooped an affirmative.

"Good. Now load the simulation again."

The astromech's domed head swiveled as it uploaded the simulation program into the TIE Defender's mainframe. Data flooded through the targeting computer read-out, a melange of bogies of various sizes and alignments.

"Targeting resolution is nominal. IFF protocols functioning. Target prioritization functioning. Targeting assistance..."

A few keystrokes brought up a reticle in the targeting view, which roamed toward the closest simulated enemy. The reticle encircled its target and locked into place--

Then the monitor flickered and washed over with red Aurabesh script.

It wasn't in Tannis V'larr's character to react explosively in irritation, but the new targeting computer in his Defender was testing even his vaunted Sikarran discipline. He and RD had been fighting the buggy system since early that morning--he'd missed breakfast because of it.

"Piece of... inferior programming. Ar-Dee Eighty, please log this along with the forty-seven other fatal system crashes since this morning."

The carbon-black astromech bubbled and tittered its private amusement and retracted its probe from the Defender's computer access port. Tannis heaved up from the pilot's seat and crawled out of the narrow cockpit. "Run another level-five diagnostic and recompile the simulation," he grunted back at the droid. "If nothing turns up, program a boot-up protocol for the old system. I would prefer that my targeting computer not crash while I'm trying to line up a shot."

RD whistled wearily and set about its tasks as the Professor's boots hit the hangar deck. Tannis knew he had little time to prep before the Shadows' escort mission launched. He made for his equipment locker next to the buoyant Zachariah Jak'el.

"Colonel Jak'el," Tannis greeted him blandly. "I trust you are having better fortune than I."

[Milivikal k'Vik]

k’Vik hung over her ship like a Frigate Bird over a school of fish. The Torobos Watchman was a Nebulon B frigate that had been heavily modified for long term recon missions. They had only recently taken on the Rogues to give their own squadron downtime.

The Sullustan lead tech, Biwin Ne’bob, had already given up on shooing the A-Wing pilot away. She would not physically intercede, but watched his every move. When asked why, k’Vik explained that this was her ship: she had done most of the assembly herself, during the little downtime during her stay as a Gallowfree Transport pilot. While Alliance ships were supposedly property of the Alliance, some elite pilot’s ships skirted the rules. She watched as the port concussion missile launcher was extracted in exchange for a recon suite. k’Vik occasionally checked the mix of ships belonging to her squad mates, but the twittering astromechs were surely keeping track of them better than she could.

Her wrist chrono ticked over and began to vibrate. The mission briefing was in ten minutes. She strode over to the hanger’s comm. station.

“This is Commander k’Vik, reminding the Rogues to report to the briefing room in five minutes. Thank you.”

Biwin sighed, relieved that the pale fighter pilot was gone.

[Zachariah Jak'el]

Zak pulled his work gloves off and stretched his hands, glad to be free of the greasy gloves, "About the same, Professor," He answered as he stretched his fingers a bit more and then pulled the gloves back on, "From what I've seen each TIE has a different problem with the targeting system. Some simply don't work at all while others work at different levels. So I figured it was a either a programming problem that didn't agree with the defender's systems or the other way around, like the human body rejecting a organ transplant," Zak was one of the more technically savvy pilots of Shadow Squadron. He was the one most called on when there was a problem. He was not that he was smart, he was just good with machines, "I ran the program on my ship and nothing would work at all. No targeting retinal, no tactical information, no nothing. The system was not even turning on. While working on this problem I found that my TIE was running on half power. I located a loose power coupling and stuck it back in. Based on that I got a hunch as to what the problem with the new targeting computer is. My hunch is that this new system takes up considerably more power then the old one and all we need to do is recalibrate the power grid so that it feeds more power into the targeting computer. If this is true we may need to upgrade our power generators or pull power from our back-up depending on how much this new systems needs, if that's even the problem. I know I've carefully calibrated the intake/outtake of power in my TIE's systems to avoid the chance of a power surge and so I know when I'm loosing power. It's worth a try at least."

Zak was more then a little surprised with his own reasoning. He had not thought about this until just now, but it really all made sense. A new system that took more power would cause the whole TIE's energy grid to be recalibrate to deal with the difference. Why had he not thought of it before? That was the problem with new prototype parts. The Empire always gives them to the elite squadrons first without properly testing them first, since a real field test would work so much better then a staged controlled test.

"But before we try my half crazy idea I'd like to know what you think the problem could be?"

[Tannis V'larr]

Tannis frowned and pulled a datapad from his pocket. "I suppose it's possible," he said. "I've been looking over the specs -- the new system demands thirty percent more power than the old one. Unfortunately, readjusting the grid may not be the answer for all our fighters. I have noticed that Shadow Squadron pilots seem to have a fetish for customizing their craft, legally or illegally. This new targeting computer is so highly integrated into other ship's systems -- shields, propulsion, power distribution, scanners -- that it may be in conflict with some of those modifications. That would explain why it is affecting our fighters differently."

RD-40 issued another exasperated sigh as it tussled with Tannis's Defender.

"Though it would not explain the problems with my craft," Tannis added almost self-righteously. "I have always kept my ship up to specs. For the meantime, we can program a protocol to boot up into the old system if the new one crashes. Unfortunately, each fighter would be left in the dark until the old system was up and running again. About thirty seconds."

Tannis knew he didn't have to explain to another pilot -- in combat, that was an eternity.

"The briefing is in ten minutes. Until then, I would appreciate any any assistance you could render."

[Tarn Ardsul]

Tarn was already waiting inside the briefing room, staying out of everyone's way as they prepared for the mission. It was mostly techs double-checking coordinates and flight paths that their squad would be using. He had a nice view of the arrangement from the top bench of the circular setting.

His hands pounded the empty seats next to him, one after the other, to the annoyance of one of the techs. "Sorry," he smiled apologetically and grabbed his helmet and tried not to play with the visor. Tarn puffed out a breath and heard his Commanding Officer over the link.

“This is Commander k’Vik, reminding the Rogues to report to the briefing room in five minutes. Thank you.”

Five more minutes of boredom and dirty looks, which were not caused being obnoxious. Even though he defected from the Empire many months ago, there were still some in the Alliance that didn't trust him. It didn't matter how many TIE's he blew out of the sky or how many times he risked his life for his wing mates, he was still continuously viewed suspiciously. Maybe when he died they might believe but what a stupid way to prove yourself.

[Aliya Vahlshalynn]

"You said something about our targeting computers?" She slipped her painkillers back into a pocket and followed Aliya up the passageway towards Shadow Squadron's hanger full of TIE Defenders.

"Yeah I dunno," Aliya led Shooter to her ship and called up the targeting system. She ran a quick simulation and Aliya moved her ship into position to line up a shot. Soon as she had a confirmed locked, the system crashed. "It flakes out just as we get a lock on though it seems that each TIE is having its own unique problems with it."

She nodded over to Tannis, "The Prof's been trying to figure out what the frell is going on with sims but no luck so far."

[Tal Kellison]

The sound of laughter echoed down the hallway as a group of a half dozen grey-garbed Imperial technicians entered the hangar, followed closely by a small pack of astromech droids. Their black-capped heads snapped up and the conversation died when they found the hangar wasn't empty. The men's manner quickly became more business-like.

The most senior member of the group, a grizzled fellow with arms as hairy as a Wookie's addressed the pilots with a voice that spoke of many nights of heavy drinking and smoking.

"Excuse me, Sirs, we have a work order here to check out these Defenders before the Ambassador departs. Is there a problem here or can we proceed?"

Several of the other technicians looked at each other with mild annoyance. They hated it when the pilots stepped on their toes. "What the hell?"one whispered to his neighbor, 'you don't see us hopping in the damn things and doing THEIR jobs."

[Hunk]

Originally posted by Tarn Ardsul
Tarn was already waiting inside the briefing room,
His hands pounded the empty seats next to him, one after the other, to the annoyance of one of the techs. "Sorry," he smiled apologetically and grabbed his helmet and tried not to play with the visor. Tarn puffed out a breath and heard his Commanding Officer over the link.

“This is Commander k’Vik, reminding the Rogues to report to the briefing room in five minutes. Thank you.”

The man's nervous tapping was interupted with a bone-jarring slap on the back. Hunk hopped over the bench before landing none-to-gracefully next to Tarn. His 5 o'clock shadow almost hid the smeared lipstick that still lay below his mouth, a souvenir from the night before.

"How's it goin, Chief? Ready to get this show on the road?"

[Biff Dronsom]

When he heard the call from Commander k'Vik, Biff couldn't have been on his feet faster. It felt like an age since the squadron had flown together, especially on any kind of mission of importance, so he was itching to get into the cockpit. Arriving, he found only two others before him, so busied himself by pacing about the room, looking over the shoulders of the techs.

[Bette Davis]

Bette rubbed her forehead and shook her head, "Shadow Leader is going to have to talk to someone higher up about this. I'd rather our wingmates were running a sim program than taking their ships apart with barely an hour before a mission!"

Her voice got louder with each new word. "We have techs for this sort of thing!"

The two female pilots walked into the briefing room, and Bette pulled out the bottle of pills and tossed them to Commander Grisham, Shadow Leader, who was just setting up the visuals for the briefing. "You're going to need those, Commander."

[Aliya Vahlshalynn]

Aliya's eyes widened and her mouth dropped stunned. She did not just see that. Commander Grisham looked just as baffled.

"Um sir. We're having problems with our targeting computers and Davis was hoping you could talk to someone to get our ships put back together."

"What?!" Grisham barked back.

"Well, some of our pilots are trying to fix the problem and others ..."

"Enough!!! Your squad needs to be flight ready in less then an hour! We don't have time for this dren!" He hit a button and called down to Levtz, head of maintenance for the ship and fighters.

"Yes, sir?" Aliya had to fight a smile. Poor guy had no idea what he was in for.

Grisham got to the point rather quickly. "I don't care what you need to do but peel those pilots out of those ships and get them flight ready ten minutes ago! The last thing we need is for hostiles to attack us and our pilots unable to shoot a damn thing out of the sky!"

"Yes.... Yes sir. I'm not sure why I wasn’t inf..."

"I don't care why it happened! Just FIX IT!!!"

"Yes sir!!!"

Grisham fell down into the nearest chair and stared at the pills Davis threw him. He really did have one monster of a headache now ...

[Tannis V'larr]

Bette's interjection warranted nothing more than a raised eyebrow. Now that the techs had finally arrived, there was no point in arguing.

"Excuse me, Colonel Jak'el... Ah, gentlemen." Tannis intercepted the senior tech before his crew had dispersed. "You will find one of your astromech units, Ar-Dee Eighty, running a diagnostic on my Defender's targeting computer. In case you did not receive the maintenance requests I have been filing for the past three hours, the droid will be able to fill you in. I have a briefing to attend."

As he walked away, Tannis heard one of the techs mutter something along the lines of "arrogant half-breed."

Tannis found his way to the briefing room and took his seat just as the squadron commander was raining hellfire and brimstone on the maintenance crews. While he seemed somewhat less insubordinate than their previous commander, Grisham was prone to occasional bouts of excitability. Then again, he was only human.

[Zachariah Jak'el]

Zak smirked as he watched the Techs file into the docking bay. It was always this way before important missions. The top dogs yelled at him and the other Shadows for messing with the ships, the techs came in and added to the yelling, and the Shadows disapeared with barely a work in edgewise. Zak was not much for talking, but he deemed it all a huge waste of air.

He moved back towards his ship and closed the cockpit hatch he had left open. A couple techs walked over as Zak dismounted his boarding latter, "I already fixed it," He chuckled as he passed them by. His ship was back in one piece, less then could be said for the Professor's ship. Zak enjoyed the baffled expressions on the techs faces. He walked on without turning back as they began to go over his ship themselves. Of course they would find nothing wrong except for the disfuctional targeting system.

He wandered into the breifing room and leaned against the wall right beside the door. He seldom sat during a briefing. Why sit down now when you were going to sit in a cockpit for the next several hours. The New commander was okay in Jak's eye, but he felt that each commander was the same as the last. It was just a different face and a louder voice.

[Hunk]

Hunk's expression darkened for the briefest of moments as he surveyed the enarly empty room. Where was everyone?

"I hope you boys have some Xexto blood in you and some extra arms hidden under those clothes, because it looks like we're each going to have to pilot 3 or 4 ships." Hunk chuckled deeply at his own joke, thinking it hilarious.

"Speaking of ships, I hope they're taking good care of Zhara."

It was important to feel a bond with your ship, he felt, so Hunk had decided to name his after the Twi'lek waitress he had detangled himself from this morning. Well, at least he thought that's what her name was. To tell the truth, that wasn't what he was concentrating on.