Right after the speech made by Chief Petty Officer Gorma, Thedrish steps forward.

"Yes, Thedrish? You have something on your mind?"

"Sir, you made it clear to us that we are divided into two flights, Red and Blue. You also told us Blue Flight is made up of Kane, Drac, DarionRogue and myself."

"That is correct."

"Forvige my eagerness, but as new member of the Nazgul Squadron, I realise that I'm new to these kind of exercises. I am not sure who my wingman is. And I do like to know who's shadow I will going to be during this drill. Sir!"

Drac suppressed a yawn as he stood beside the others on the training deck. He didn't exactly apreciate getting woken up...but that was the military life, was it not? Giving a mental shrug, he turned his attention to the Chief Petty Officer in front of them. What was his callsign? Slayer? No...SLaughter? Not that either...Slasher? OK, that sounded about right.

The mon cal pilot continued to pay attention to the instructions being given to them, but thought back on the last few days at the same time.

He'd arrived at the base around mid-day, stepping off of the transport alone. Taking a breath, he sighed at the prospect of yet another dry world. Why couldn't these species appreciate how soothing a nice, humid atmosphere was? Breaking off from his thoughts, Drac approached a nearby human bearing a Warrant Officer's pips. Saluting, he said, "Sir. Please forgive my interruption, but I've just arrived on-base. Could you direct me to Nazgul Squadron's headquarters?"

The man returned the salute, nodded, and pointed toward a building some distance away, "You'll find Nazgul there. Good luck, pilot."

Drac thanked the officer then made his way to the building the man had pointed out. Stepping through the main entrance, he glanced around. The place seemed deserted. Confused, Drac continued into the building, glancing through any open doors he came across. The mystery was solved when he looked through a door leading out into a hangar...a hangar empty except for a couple of advanced TIE starfighters he'd only read about.

The squadron must be on a mission. Drac cursed his bad luck. He might have gotten to fly if he'd arrived sooner. There was nothing for it though, so he continued through the building. Another twenty yards along he finally met someone, a mechanic who confirmed his theory and pointed him to the squadron's rec hall, suggesting that he wait for them to return there.

Mihawk made his way to the rec hall and looked around. Pretty much the standard for a squadron's R&R spot...except for a bottle someone had left on the table, which held an inch or so of some green liquid still. Drac settled into one of the chairs, pulled out his datapad, and began researching the starfighters he's seen in the hangar. If you wanted to be the best, you had to know what you were about.

Drac refocused on the present, mentally reviewing the directions thus far. Satisfied that he'd caught them all, he turned his attention to the pilot named Thedrish as the tall human asked his question. From the order their names had been mentioned, Drac assumed that this man would be his wingman but refrained from speaking out of turn.

After the changes announced by Chief Petty Officer Slasher, Thedrish looked for Darian and walked towards the man he had met on the shuttle. “Hello Darian” he said. “Up for some more simulator training?” “Uhuh” Darian replied with a smile, “this time we will do better than that rookie shuttle pilot eh?”. Both man grabbed their gear and walked towards the simulators. Along the way, they passed the TIE's standing useless in the hangar. Thedrished looked for his newly purchased TIE, one of the Oppressor series. “Not today” he thought. As they passed the TIE fighters, Darian asked “any idea what to expect from this simulator mission?” “Nope” Thedrish said with a frown. “I expect an easy start with a twist when we're almost out of the asteroids. Just to show us fresh flyboys how fresh we really are”. Darian looked puzzled. “In the short while we've been here, I've heard several stories about Ensign Ph'rranix. Some say he's the best wingman someone could get but others say he likes to have rookies for breakfast”. Darian let out a muffled sigh. “Just our luck”.

As they entered the simulator room, Chief Petty Officer Slasher was waiting with a datapad in his hand. “Well well, I see two volunteers who want to start of as the first lucky ones.” Slasher said. “Yes Sir” the men echoed. “Flight Control, prepare for the first two pilots.”. Darian and Thedrish walked to the simulators. But just before each of them headed to their TIE, Thedrish whispered something to Darian. After that, with the help of the groundcrew, they boarded their dummy TIE. “Flight Control, Nazgul 1-3 entering combat zone” Thedrish reported when he was logged on and virtually entered the asteroid belt. After that, his wingman reported in: “Flight, Nazgul 2-4 entering combat zone”. Almost instantly, both heard the familiar voice of Chief Petty Officer Slasher. “Get ready to enter the asteroid belt. Fly to the center where you will find an X-wing we use for target practise. From that moment, your mission will start and your objective is to come out together and alive”. Both pilots ackowlegded the instructions and flew in.

Finding the X-wing wasn't difficult. But Thedrish found it all way too easy. His feelings told him it was a trap. “Darian, keep your eyes open” he said. “Will do that Thed”. Thedrish looked at his radar constantly, as if he was looking for something and suddenly... “Break right, incoming!” he barked into his headset. And just seconds before the missiles appeared from behind one of the asteroids, the pilots had changed course. The missiles barely missed both fighters and struck an nearby asteroid. “Full throttle, follow me” Darian said. Both TIE's accelerated and they tried to get away.

Ensign Ph'rranix voice could be heard on the communication channel. “Good start pilots, but you are only halfway”. Thedrish looked at his radar, they were followed by two fighters. Ph'rranix hadn't troubled himself by splitting up. Both he and his droid were following them. At that moment, his thread indicator started flashing orange, meaning they were seconds away from missile lock ending the mission. “Darian, switch to channel 25” Thedrish said. Ensign Ph'rranix smiled as he was monitoring them and heared what they were up to. “At my signal, full throttle and split up. If we go around that large asteroid, we will be out of range within seconds”. Ph'rranix smiled and selected 4 of his short range missles. Four would be a waste on two rookies, but it would scare off the other pilots. Within seconds, he had missle lock and fired four missiles. Unfortunately, things went a little different. Because instead of splitting up, the Nazgul pilots fired everything they got at the large asteroid they were heading for and at the very last second, they pulled up and flew away. There were many large explosions. The result was that the asteroid broke into countless small pieces. As the four missiles Ensign Ph'rranix fired reached it, they exploded without posing any threat to the Nazgul pilot.

“Ensign Ph'rranix, Sir?” Thedrish voice was on the radio. “Could you please clean up before you leave the battle zone?”. The Nazgul pilots had completed their first mission. “Thank you for flying Rookie Airways”.

OOC:

WC: 714 words, couldn't help myself

Drac nodded to Kane, greeting the human Chief Petty Officer politely. He knew the man was the squadron's XO, but had not yet had much chance to get to know him. At the officer's order, they approached the simulators and climbed in. Prep took just a few minutes and before long both pilots reported all systems in the green. They launched an approached the ateroid field, holding on station as they watched the first wing pair run the gauntlet. Drac nodded in appreciation as he saw the pair's gambit succeed.

As soon as the field was clear for the next pair of fighters, Kane accelerated into it with Drac holding loose formation behind him. Only once in training had the mon cal had to deal with navigating an asteroid field, and he wasn't comfortable with the idea of it yet. Somehow that must have bled over into his flying, since Kane's voice came over their private channel, "Easy, Drac. Remember, it's a training sim. If you screw up here it's so you won't if you run into the real deal."

"I guess so, sir. Nothing for it though. I'm your wing." Drac stretched his hands to loosen them as they approached the first obstacles.

The first section of asteroids was relatively easy to navigate: they were mostly smaller rocks spread far apart. It got harder all too soon though and as Drac followed the XO around an asteroid the size of a bantha the senior officer reminded him to loosen up his formation. "...And remember to watch your scanner too. Ph'rranix could be anywhere in here."

They'd progressed about a third of the way through the field by then and Drac was starting to get confident thta he could handle this. Then an X-wing appeared from behind an asteroid straight ahead of them, firing off a missile at Kane. Drac barrel-rolled right, slotting his fighter in behind a large rock while Kane took similar evasive maneuvers...then a second X-wing appeared from starboard and below, this one firing on Drac. Panicking slightly, the mon cal pilot forgot that his Avenger was faster than the Interceptors he'd trained in. Breaking away from his assailant's line of flight, he threw his throttle up to full power...and promptly smashed into an asteroid. The simulator went black for a moment, then returned to life with his ship now positioned near the others outside the asteroid belt.

Drac slumped in his seat with embarassment and some shame. A rookie mistake, that. Granted, he was a rookie, but that wouldn't change a thing if the flight had been real. Kane's voice came over the com channel, "You know what you did wrong, pilot?"

"Yes, sir. I panicked and let that rule my actions. Then I forgot to compensate for the new fighter's abilities. I'm sorry, sir."

"Well, you're not dead. You'd better learn from this though....we'll do the run again in a few minutes."

"As ordered, sir."

*I'm going to go ahead and post the second run...Kane hasn't been active since the 15th, anyone know where he's gone? I don't see a Leave topic by him...*

Drac checked his systems as he closed formation on Kane for their second try at the asteroid belt. Everything looked good, so as he closed he practiced adjusting his throttle and doing basic maneuvers. This TIE Avenger was a different sort of beast than the Interceptors he'd trained in, and he needed to learn how to treat it.

Entering the field for the second time that day, the mon cal took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then released it slowly. Okay, let's do this. At Kane's signal they moved into the flow of rocks, keeping an eye on their scanners at all times. Up. Down. Roll left. Turn right. Up and over. Down again. They made their way through the morass of spacerock.

The wookie officer must have been trying to un-nerve the new guy, because before long they made it to the halfway point without being attacked. If he was, it was not totally unsuccessful. Drac was tense, eyes flicking from rock to scanner to rock in an attempt to not be snuck up on. Then it happened: A missile lock tone sounded and Drac saw an X-wing appear in his aft arc. Rolling hard, he saw an asteroid with a hole through the center, possibly the result of some earlier missile strike. Climbing sharply, he inverted and began climbing again as he passed through the asteroid, breaking away sharply and grinning as the missile impacted on the asteroid.

The mon cal pilot's grin turned to a grimace as a smaller chunk of debris slammed into the front of his port solar panel, near the bottom. Or would have if not for the shields. Suddenly Drac was extremely thankful to be flying Avengers. However, the X-wing had reappeared in his aft arc and the meteor strike had drained his shields down to 5%...and they weren't recharging. Looking around quickly, he saw Kane not far off playing hide and seek with a second X-wing. And before them...the end of the belt section they'd been assigned to run.

Judging distance on the fly, Drac thumbed the activation switch for a missile, aimed it, and let it fly. Flashing through space, the explosive flew right behind Blue One's craft and slammed into the edge of an asteroid the size of the squadron's hangar. It was far ahead of the X-wing, but the shot accomplished what Drac had hoped it would. A section of the asteroid blew out in the missile's backblast, lacing the space between the Avenger and pursuing X-wing with a wall of debris. Drac was just thankful the asteroid hadn't been any smaller or he probably wouldn't have hit it with a shot like that.

Twisting his ship to run parallel with Kane's, Drac punched up his speed and started running. The X-wing behind him moved up and shot out what shields he'd had left. Its next shot left a long black scar on his starboard solar panel. He tried to contact the flight leader, but got no signal...checking his diagnostics it became apparent that though the meteor had not overloaded his shield projector, it has shorted out his com unit. Luckily, Kane saw what was going on and pulled an Immelman to come in on the X-wing's flank. A well placed shot knocked out the wookie's shields and forced him to break off. It gave Drac enough time to flee around the side of the biggest asteroid he could see and, once on the other side, punch it for the exit. He made it out okay, though his top speed was down to 90% of normal. Kane followed a moment later and in noticeably better condition.

After returning home and getting chewed out by the officers, Goth was upset enough, but the comment on no celebrating took the cake.
What was there to celebrate. He got the hell kicked out of him, and Nazgul lost a pilot to boot (his wingman).
And as for all this talk of working together, where were they when he was in trouble and flying for his life, in a beat up fighter?
If he got a few kills, so what, he wasn't here for glory, he was just keeping his word and doing his job.
Speaking of doing his job, he headed to the simulators with JMac. At least he was going to get some good training. But from experience Goth knew no amount of training could ever equal the real thing.
Once in the simulated cockpit Goth did a quick check of settings; putting lasers on linked fire and switching his missiles off dumb fire. He also set his lasers at extreme range.
Once the simulation started Goth let JMac take the lead. He stayed in tight formation off JMac's wing. Whipping and turning, swerving and dodging around the asteroids as they moved toward the X-wing at the center of the field. He had to break formation twice to avoid wayward asteroids, but with lightening quick reactions he was back on his wingman's wing in tight formation.
When the X-wing came into view Goth opened fire on it with lasers blazing and emptied his missile rack on it pulverizing the derelict
With precision, Red 3 and 4 performed a crossturn beyond the smoldering wreckage. Which was made easy thanks to Goth's exuberance.
JMac came over the com:

'You probably shouldn't have done that. You know they are watching, and we may be attacked on the way out.'

Goth keyed his com:

"I know, but I had to relieve some tension. Besides that's why I have you, and I still have my lasers."

Forming back up they headed out of the asteroid field.