Page 2 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast
Results 21 to 40 of 68

Thread: Formation

  1. #21
    SW-Fans.Net Poster



    Bette Davis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    AKA
    Holly
    Location
    ISD Admonisher
    Posts
    1,004
    “We’ve got a mission briefing together in a few hours, Ensign. I imagine that’s what he,” she peered down the passage at the retreating Kim, “was supposed to tell you.”

    Bette recognized the look in the ensign’s eyes. She’d seen it in the mirror after Endor.

    ”What ships are you certified on, pilot?”

    yo ho yo ho a pilot's life for me

  2. #22
    It took every ounce of willpower not to follow Commander Davis's eyes towards the retreating Ensign Kim. That certainly wasn't what Kim had said, and Railla suspected the Commander was countermanding things on the hoof. The very possibility of it quickened her pulse, but it was imperative that she dump ice water in her veins, and do it now.

    "Ma'am, I'm combat rated on TIE/ln, TIE/IN, and TIE/sk. I have proficiency simulator rating on TIE/sa as well."

    Cyer bit at her lip, lest she blurt out I can fly anything you need. It was more zeal than fact. But she was willing..

  3. #23
    SW-Fans.Net Poster



    Bette Davis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    AKA
    Holly
    Location
    ISD Admonisher
    Posts
    1,004
    “Excellent.” Just as her file says.

    Bette tilted her head a bit. “Have you been to your temporary quarters yet? There’s some time before the briefing, and I don’t think you’re supposed to be just wandering around the ship. Can’t have you getting lost.” She winked at the younger woman, but didn’t get much of a response beyond a tightening of the lips.

    ”Ohh-kay. I was heading to the mess. Come on, you probably need something to eat that didn’t come through a tube.”

  4. #24
    A visit to temporary quarters sounded dreadful, but a visit to the flight deck mess?

    Despite her best efforts, Railla couldn't fully conceal the smile betraying her at the corners of her mouth.

    "Yes ma'am."

    She fell in, matching Commander Davis's pace. The Imperial military didn't exactly do cuisine, but from the moment you were a cadet onward, you generally learned to appreciate that texturized protein cubes were a pointed step up from liquid nutritives. Once you were in the Empress's service long enough, you even started to look forward to it.

    Still, it was highly irregular to be invited by an officer to mess as a non-comm. Railla wondered what that meant. She wasn't about to beggar the question by requesting to speak candidly with the only person here that seemed interested in getting her back into the fight.

  5. #25
    SW-Fans.Net Poster



    Bette Davis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    AKA
    Holly
    Location
    ISD Admonisher
    Posts
    1,004
    Bette didn’t miss the twitch of a smile that passed over the ensign’s face. Maybe it was because she realized she was standing with the first female pilot in the starfighter corps. Bette got that sometimes, from other female pilots.

    Not so much the men
    . A ghost of a rueful smile traced her lips at the thought.

    She led the way to the mess, though as all ISDs were virtually the same inside Ensign Cyer could have easily found it herself if she’d ever been stationed on one before. There was no small talk on the way, which made the silence stretch and feel slightly awkward when Bette finally spoke.

    ”Have you ever flown a Defender, Ensign?”

  6. #26
    And just before she could catch enough air to gain lift, she was grounded again. Railla's jawline tightened, and she begrudgingly gave a tidy shake of her head.

    "No ma'am. I've run it in simulation, but..."

    The Ensign chewed her words.

    "I haven't yet rated for live flight hours."

    Though the TIE Defender was well over a decade old, it was still held in begrudgingly stingy quantities. The odds of a TIE pilot meriting the chance at live flight hours in a Defender were slim. Especially slim if that pilot was stationed on a gun platform in the Outer Rim.

  7. #27
    SW-Fans.Net Poster



    Bette Davis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    AKA
    Holly
    Location
    ISD Admonisher
    Posts
    1,004
    “Just trying to get a handle on your capabilities.” Bette smiled tightly, and then they were passing into the mess hall.

    She grabbed a prewrapped tray of food and took it to an empty table, popping the seal as she sat. The tray automatically heated the sections that needed to be warm, and she let it sit for a few minutes while it did its work.

  8. #28
    It was a cryptic response that didn't clock whether she was coming or going, but Railla still bridled. A question like that, you only wanted to answer one way - Yes Ma'am. Still, this was the kind of thing a Commander probably already knew before singling out an Ensign, so she wondered what it all meant?

    Railla repeated the rote routine of procuring chow. When you'd done it once, you'd done it a thousand times. Everything was uniform for a reason. She peeled away the lining from her ration tray, letting the heating element do its work before returning her attention to Commander Davis once more.

    "Permission to speak freely, Ma'am?"

  9. #29
    SW-Fans.Net Poster



    Bette Davis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    AKA
    Holly
    Location
    ISD Admonisher
    Posts
    1,004
    This should be interesting.

    Bette picked up her utensil and poked at the brown meat-like protein cubes. “Permission granted, Ensign.”

    She licked the sauce off the end of her utensil and put it down, picking up the roll of bread and breaking it open. The ensign could talk, but she was going to eat.

  10. #30
    "We're going after the people who did this, right?"

    Railla was calm in her expression and tone, but she was white-knuckling her utensils.

    "That's what this is about, right? I want to be back out there, in the fight. I don't want to be debriefed only to be put back in the bottom of someone's flight roster. Not without making someone pay for this."

  11. #31
    SW-Fans.Net Poster



    Bette Davis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    AKA
    Holly
    Location
    ISD Admonisher
    Posts
    1,004
    Bette chewed thoughtfully and swallowed before replying.

    ”I hear a lot of I want in that, Ensign. Revenge, is that it? Is that what you want?”

    She took a bite, and spoke around it as she ate. “Th’ Empire doesn’t work like that. We’re not here because a baby pilot got her ass handed to her in a fight, we’re here because a shipyard was raided by an unknown party. We follow orders. Chain of command.”

    Bette sipped her water, meeting Cyer’s eyes.

    ”You keep running hot like you are, you’re going to go right off the rails.” She was looking at the younger woman sternly. Bette couldn’t show sympathy for how Cyer was feeling - the girl needed to hold it together for a day or two, then she could sit with a shrink and work out her survivors guilt in a safe way.

  12. #32
    She could feel heat in her ears from Commander Davis's no-nonsense appraisal. She couldn't offer a suitable rebuttal or defense, so she took her frustration out on her chow, spearing a few protein cubes in quick, efficient bites. It allowed her to momentarily break eye contact and reflect on what the Commander said. Even in her anger, there was selfishness. The Empire doesn't work like that.

    "Two days ago, everything made sense. I knew my place in my squadron, I knew my role in the formation. I knew exactly how I contributed."

    Her pace had slowed, and now Railla was pushing a cube on her plate along with her fork.

    "Now I'm an after-action debrief in a bacta tube. My squadmates died, and I didn't. That's what I've got to give to the Empire, but I know I can do more."

  13. #33
    SW-Fans.Net Poster



    Bette Davis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    AKA
    Holly
    Location
    ISD Admonisher
    Posts
    1,004
    "You'll get a new squadron," said Bette, matter-of-factly. "Your contribution continues, because you survived. It may sound callous, but if you think you're the only person on this ship, let alone the entire navy, who ever lost friends in battle then you're severely mistaken. Either you manage to pick yourself up and move on, or you'll wash out."

    Bette eyed Cyer, seeing a little fire behind her sad eyes. "I don't think you're the kind who washes out, Ensign. And in a few hours you'll see why we need you to get your head in the game right now, today."

    She picked up her empty tray, every bit of food scraped clean, and got to her feet.

    "Take the time between now and the briefing in," Bette checked her chrono, "two hours, to get straight. Your temporary quarters would be a good place to do that. If you wander the passages for two hours or barge into the flight deck it'll be a bad look. Like someone who doesn't know what she's doing here.

    "We're going to be in the main briefing room. And I think Ensign Kim is still lurking around and he'll know where your quarters are."

    Bette nodded to Cyer and made her way out of the mess hall, dumping her tray in the reclaimer.

  14. #34
    * * *


    It turned out to be good advice. The Commander had left Railla to dispatch the rest of her chow, and she'd quickly tracked down Ensign Kim afterwards to get directions to her assigned quarters...which weren't much. Then again, it was a pilot's berth, so she was used to not much. A bed, a locker, a small table with a lamp, and a holo projector.

    Two hours was barely enough to nap, and she was too keyed up to do it. Instead, Railla lay on the bed and simply activated the holo. The only authorized feed was state-run Imperial HoloNet, which kept the content fairly dry. There were news reports of a few pacification operations underway, an announcement about a gala hosted by Empress Tarkin to take place in a month, and the usual recruitment drive holos. Railla eased off her cap, setting it on her pillow as she gingerly eased her burned hand out of its glove. She was only half paying attention to the holo when something familiar crossed her vision.

    Not something, someone

    In between a panning shot of cadets in formation and a bumper reel of TIE fighters in parade formation was a very familiar TIE pilot.

    "Shit." Railla bleated in naked Jelucani accent, driving both of her hands against her forehead in shame.

    "Shit!"

    Commander Davis as in Commander Bette "Shooter" Davis. How had she been so self-absorbed and stupid?? Railla flung back against the mattress, drawing curly locks of hair over her eyes like a curtain. This was her moment. This right here. If she wanted to make a difference and wanted to catch someone's attention, there probably wouldn't be a better time.

    I hear a lot of 'I want' in that, Ensign.

    The rebuke still cut, and Railla frowned at it. But she still couldn't ignore the feeling in her gut. I have more to offer than this. If she was going to do her duty and truly serve the Empire, she was going to have to figure out how to be her own advocate in the process.

  15. #35
    SW-Fans.Net Poster



    Bette Davis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    AKA
    Holly
    Location
    ISD Admonisher
    Posts
    1,004

    Briefing Room

    Bette stood at the front of the briefing room, waiting for the rest of the Shadow Squadron pilots to file in. The room filled up with eleven established pilots, and Railla Cyer was there as well.

    She looked a little more put together than she had a few hours earlier.

    Bette switched on the holo projector.

    ”Okay, lets get this briefing underway. As you all know, Ord Trasi was hit by an unknown assailant two standard days ago.”

    The holo projector displayed the shipyard as it had been, and then she switched it to how it was now.

    “All signs point to this being an attack from the Mandalore system. Our mission is to fly in there and take a look around. You all know your wing assignments - Ensign Cyer you’ll be my wingman for this assignment. You’re the only survivor who saw the ships that attacked. If we can locate them with the Mandalorians then the brass will send in the big guns.”
    Last edited by Bette Davis; May 15th, 2019 at 06:24:36 PM.

  16. #36
    Before, the woman at the podium been a Commander with a possible lifeline to throw her way. Now? She was Commander Bette Davis of Shadow Squadron, summoning her by name for a joint assignment. Railla was thankful for the severe cant of her officer's cap, obscuring how wide her eyes were at this whole encounter. Shadow Squadron were the aces of aces, the best the Empire had to offer. If she had more to offer the Empire, it was time for Railla to prove it. Because if she didn't, this kind of opportunity didn't happen twice. Putting a name to the proverbial face of the Enemy dumped some ice water in her veins. Mandalorians. If ever any race of beings carried a reputation that preceded them, the masked warriors of Mandalore fit the description. They'd been warriors almost as long as there had been wars. They were even rumored to be as ancient as the Jedi were. Of course, if history was worth anything, it offered plenty of evidence they could be beaten. And now, Commander Bette Davis of Shadow Squadron was giving her that chance.

    "Yes ma'am."

    She was relieved that her voice came out in her borrowed coreward accent. It was a survival tactic she'd learned early on at Skystrike Academy. Officers might not admit they had a coreward bias, but Railla saw it early as a child, and how her father had learned to survive. Besides, that was the whole point of it, wasn't it? Everyone came from ten million worlds with ten million different ways of doing everything. For the Empire to work, everyone had to work to conform to an ideal. That meant that every day, she'd learned to pack up and leave Jelucan far away. It was easier some days, and harder on others. But she'd be damned if she was going to stand before Shadow Squadron and not project the image of an elite Imperial pilot. After all, Jelucan was the least of things in the current she was swimming against.

  17. #37
    SW-Fans.Net Poster



    Bette Davis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    AKA
    Holly
    Location
    ISD Admonisher
    Posts
    1,004
    Tod Marr raised his hand. Probably a first, in a briefing.

    "Yes?" Bette leveled a stare at him.

    "Uh, sorry Shooter, just wondering, how are we going to find two ships in an entire system?"

    "Good question. Here -" she reached over and selected a section of the holo, enlarging it, "is one of the Mandalorians' task groups. These are scattered along the border of the system. There are different clans among the Mandos but they all work together to keep us out, so each group here, and here," more sections of the map lit up, "are led by different clan leaders but all report to their head, Mandalore.

    "They have a bit of a headstart on us, but we don't think they've gone far - yes, Maniac, what is it?"

    Tod put down his hand again, ruffling his fingers through his shock-blue hair. "Do we have permission to go over the border?"

    Bette smiled tightly. "We'll be flying Defenders to the system, but staying out of it. Officially. Unofficially, and by that I mean these orders are highly classified, if we see these sons of bitches we get to take them down. They got away with a gravity well generator and more than a handful of starfighters. If the Mandalorians are trying to make a push outside of their system, perhaps with Taris or Bandomeer... The Empire is going to have something to say about that.

    "So. Defenders." She focused again on the system map. "We're running a scouting party. And if I deem it necessary we'll have Captain Ragnus bring the Admonisher and all of Blood Fang task group down on them."

    Bette looked at each of the pilots in the room. "Any other questions?"

  18. #38
    "How many of our ships were confirmed stolen?"

    Confidential mission dossiers had been passed around the briefing room, and Railla broke her attention from the datapad to ask a straightforward clarification. They may have no idea the concentration of force waiting for them near the Mandalore system, but the war booty was a known quantity. While she hadn't flown them, Railla knew the specs and the space-avionic profile of the Incom I-7 Howlrunner about as well as she could from the books. Fast, shielded, and a low combat profile. What they lacked in firepower they made up for with elusiveness.

    Still, that wasn't the threat they needed to be the most mindful of. The gun platforms were still only a partially-known mystery. And she'd been the only survivor.

  19. #39
    SW-Fans.Net Poster



    Bette Davis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    AKA
    Holly
    Location
    ISD Admonisher
    Posts
    1,004
    Bette checked the notes. "Fifteen Howlrunners, three Skipray Blastboats."

    "What about the, what are they called, Basilisk droids?" Ensign Fairfield looked up from the datapad in his hand. "We don't have specs on them."

    "We're not likely to just run into them, but yes, these are a design used by the Mandalorians. Not totally unknown, but certainly not common. They pack a whallop, as Ensign Cyer can unfortunately attest." Bette met Railla's eyes for a moment, then moved on. "Since they're highly customized it's hard to say what an individual would be capable of. They usually have a rider or two, but even if you kill the rider the Basilisk are a weapons platform built on top of a semi-intelligent droid frame and they will keep fighting.

    "You see one, you shoot the hell out of it, is that clear Shadow 11?"

    "Yes sir," said Fairfield, narrowing his eyes down at the datapad again.

    Bette traced the hyperspace jumps needed to reach the Mandalore system. "According to our data, this is the most reliable way from here to Mandalore, and the likely route our raiders have taken. This, however," she traced a different route, "is shorter. This is the one we're taking. And we can do it because we'll be traveling in small starfighters, so we can skim closer to some of these gravity wells than the big capital ships can.

    "Admonisher is taking the long route. But we should arrive at the border just a little bit after our raiders. If they're there, we should be able to find them." She looked at the squadron. "Dismissed to the flight deck."

  20. #40
    Railla tried not to look like a wet-eared academy cadet at the sight of TIE Defenders set upon their prep racks in the flight deck. She'd logged a good amount of time in simulation with a Defender, but climbing into a sim pod was a pale shadow next to climbing into the real thing. The triple array of concave panel wings gave the ship a considerably wider profile than other TIE fighters she'd flown. But it didn't end there. The cockpit pod sat forward of the ion engines, shield generator, and the hyperdrive, giving the ship a robust fuselage for a TIE. She knew that even with that added room, the Defender sported an unprecedented amount of complex system miniaturization to enable everything it needed to fit in the chassis. And if she didn't know it before, she absolutely knew it when reviewing her assigned fighter's pre-flight checks.

    Dropping down from the ingress catwalk on the deployment rack, Railla nimbly moved from strut to panel, inspecting systems to confirm they were in good working order. She confirmed the ion thrust gimbals had their full range of motion. She made certain the cluster missiles, ion cannons, and laser cannons were locked, loaded, and zeroed. Try as she might, Railla couldn't quite wipe the smile off her face. Any opportunity to fly was a good one, but this was an opportunity like she'd never had before. Even without the stakes in play, she was still about to take a Defender into the black.

    It almost didn't occur to Railla to look to her left. If she did, she'd see Commander Davis doing the very same ritual with her own ship.

Page 2 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •