Slasher was walking into the Nazgul Lounge after a session with the medical droid. The bacta was doing its work, but it was taking time. It wasn't so much that Slasher minded being wounded, but he had been somewhat distracted of late.

Ever since the revelations that had taken place during the mission some of his squadron mates had been avoiding him. This didn't surprise Slasher that much, they had served together for a long time, but they had not known of his other side until during this most recent mission.

As he entered the room, Slasher could not help but overhear Drac's comment about how Nazgul was an elite unit. Slasher was one of only two people on active duty with the Unit who had been there when the unit won that honor. While Hunter had been serving at the time when Nazgul won the honor, he was serving in the old Kaph Squadron.

Seeing Drac sitting at a table talking to a young Falleen female, Slasher is walking over and is about to greet the two of them when suddenly White_Lightning jumps to her feet and snaps off a crisp salute.

Returning the salute Slasher says, "As you were,"

sitting down with the two of them he says, "So Drac, how are you and Qayla here getting along?"

"You know her already?" responds Drac in a surprised voice.

"Yes I know her," responds Slasher, "You forget, I'm the Chief of Staff at the Academy."

As Eaglle approached the Atrus, He realized that he was quite nervous on what he would say to his new commanders. He did well on his exam, but he knew that that wouldn't mean anything when it comes to a real mission, and he has heard rumors about Nazgul being the elite, but nothing for sure.

Eaglle landed in the hanger bay, and exited the back of his fighter. He walked toward the entrance door, and entered the main area of the ship. He looked at his orders again to see were he was supposed to go. Hmm... 3rd Flight, Nazgul Squadron, he read again. As he was walking, he almost bumped into a droid that was waiting there for someone.

"Eaglle0100? I'm told to escort you to the Nazgul lounge for a meeting with your new flight" the droid said.

Ah well I guess the droid was waiting for me Eaglle thought. "Alright then," he said to the droid.

The droid leads him into what looks to be some type of bar, with a Mon Calamari, and 2 Faleens sitting at one table, with other people scattered around. "Your flight and commander are over there," the droid say's, pointing to the table.

Eaglle walks up to the table, a little unsure of what to say, and a little nervous about what his commanders first impression of him is going to be. Just as he gets close, the group stands up and leaves.

sigh... I guess i will just wait here and get something to drink till they come back he thought to himself

OOC:

My first post, tell me if i screwed up

OOC:

*whistles* I like you guys. Keep it up and you'll do very well here. One thing to note: Nazgul posts must be at least 500 words minimum, preferably 750. Since this is unofficial that doesn't strictly apply, but remember it. It's best if you practice now so it comes easier during a mission.

I'll go ahead and move the story along here in a few hours. Gotta go atm.

-Drac

Drac made small talk with Slasher while the two new pilots got to know each other. There was plenty for the two flight leaders to discuss, from maintenance and supplies to past battles and possible future actions. After a minute or two of talking he out a bottle of green stuff and sat at one of the tables with the Falleen, saying, "I don't think I'm going to use explosives so much from now on. I mean, they were effective enough at Anoat, but I don't like how it made me act...it's not good to enjoy causing violence like that."

"I think I know what you mean. On the other hand, we've got to be merciless in some cases. Sometimes the only way to neutralize someone is to kill them, and sometimes that can get messy."

Drac sighed, "You're right, there. It just doesn't seem to fit with the ideal of protecting civil order and the innocent."

"Something we all have to deal with for ourselves at some point..." Slasher mused. "By the way, how did it go with the demolitions side of things? We could hear and feel some of the explosions, but couldn't make out any details."

"Well, the first several blasts you heard were probably rocket munitions from the pirates. Fortunately, none of those hit anyone. Another would have been me creating a distraction to cover a flanking maneuver Hunter was leading."

"I do recall hearing several smaller blasts, but then there was one big one before some more small ones. What was that?"

Drac chuckled, "I had to hit the deck or get burned down by a pirate, and when I did I landed on a vent...that led straight into their main hangar. I opened it up for a look and may have dropped a couple of bombs into it. The results were rather spectacular.

"After we cleared that area we eventually found their comm center and armory. We disabled the comm, and piled all the weapons in the armory into one big pile, with a bomb on bottom. We started to clear the area, but a gang of pirates charged up. They ran into the armory to get weapons after seeing our effectiveness...as you can imagine, the results of that decision weren't good for them."

Laughing at that, Slasher nodded, "That would have been the really big blast we felt. For a second there thought the asteroid might break up."

"Imagine being only a hundred meters or so away from it." The Mon Cal shook his head, "Not long after that we got the message to return to the fighters. We chose a different route back, found the atmospheric generators, and wired them to blow as we passed through. They went up about the time we got to the fighters."

The two conversations lasted another couple of minutes, then Drac checked his chrono and stood, "Ten. Eleven. If we want to catch Ensign Atrasin or CPO Morrell in their office, we need to head over there now."

-----

The walk was a short one, but it looked to Drac like it was long enough to letthe new pilots get a little nervous. They had nothing to fear, though, at least as long as nothing had pissed Driver off. He'd seen Driver get mad before, and it wasn't anything to laugh at. That shouldn't be a problem today, though. While the mission to Anoat had not gone off perfectly, the squadron came away from it in better shape than they came away from the Ator mission.

When the group arrived at Driver's office they ran into Poe again. Drac flagged down the droid for a moment, "Poe, come over here for a second."

"How may I be of service to you, sir?" The droid sketched a jerky, splay-limbed bow.

"Do you know if Ensign Atrasin is in his office at the moment? Or Chief Hunter?"

Poe's head cocked to one side, "I believe SCPO Hunter-Morrell is in Ensign Atrasin's office, sir, along with the Ensign."

"Thank you, Poe. Dismissed."

Walking over to the door to the office, the Petty Officer knocked politely, saying, "Driver, if you have a moment I'd like to introduce our two new pilots."

OOC:

Que Driver and/or Hunter

Words: 701

After Driver finished giving the new pilots the standard scare speech, or some version of it, Drac stepped forward and said, "Thanks for your time, sir."

"No problem, Nine. Where are you headed after this?" Atrasin leaned back in his chair, relaxing somewhat now that the formalities were over with.

Waving a hand in the general direction of the door, Drac replied, "I was planning to take these two to do some simulator work, see how they do. Better to become a team now, than when we're under fire."

"Good." Driver looked at each of the new pilots, "Good luck, Crewmen. Follow Drac's lead."

Drawing the Ensign's attention again, the Mon Cal asked, "Anything new from the top yet, Driver?"

The human officer shook his head, "Not yet, but it probably won't be long. That's a discussion for another time, though. Dismissed."

Drac returned the salute and led Qayla and Eaglle back out of the office and toward the simulator complex, "That wasn't too bad, eh?" Turning around, he saw they were both a little paler than before, "Well, he can be intimidating I guess. Don't worry, you'll be glad to serve with Driver once you get to know him. There aren't many officers in the fleet who do their job better, if any."

-----

Once the group arrived at the simulator complex Drac pointed toward the squadron's machines. Since Nazgul flew Avengers, rather than the standard Interceptors, their simulators were of a more advanced model as well, "Go ahead and suit up. Once we're all ready I'll outline the mission for you." As the two pilots went to comply, Drac approached a nearby tech and began speaking with him.

Once he finished talking to the tech, the Mon Cal quickly suited up and climbed into one of the simulators. His cockpit remained black for some twenty seconds, then resolved itself into a launch bay in a standard Imperial Class Star Destroyer, Mark II. He flicked his comm channel over to the squadron frequency, "Okay, Nazzies. We're using the designation 'Black Group' for this run. I'm Black One or Black Leader, White_Lightning's Black Two, and Eaglle's Black Three. Activate your engines, perform a system check, and report back."

While he waited, Drac performed his own checks. His engines came up smoothly, his lasers and shields powered up, and his missile tubes showed green, "Black Leader, two lit and all green."

"Leader, Two. Ready to go."

"Leader, Three. Everything's fine here."

"Good. Now comes the hard part. Our mission is to intercept a small rebel transport that's launching from the planet below. Intelligence reports that it's escorted by a full flight of snubfighters, so they'll have a four to three advantage on us. We're to shoot down all enemy craft and finish by vaping the transport."

Hitting a switch, the Petty Officer moved to the main comm channel, "Control, Black One. All green. Requesting permission to launch on intercept run."

"Black One, permission granted. Shoot straight and turn fast."

"Will do, Control..." The signal fizzed and popped as he flipped channels again, "Okay, Black Flight, we have a go. Follow me out, one on each wing." He suited actions to words, thumbing the button that detached his fighter from its brackets and pushing it forward into a dive down out of the hangar bay. As soon as he cleared the ship he activated his shields and examined his scanner for the objective. The transport was about ten klicks out, and coming straight at them. A moment later more detailed data began to scroll across his flatscreen, and he forwarded it to the others, "Blacks, here's what we're up against."

OOC:

Okay, guys. Go ahead and run through your preparation from the time we entered the simulator complex and begin to engage the enemy. This is a pretty good spot to rack up some impressive word counts.

The transport we're facing: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/YV-100_light_freighter
The snubfighters we're facing: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Toscan_8-Q_starfighter

As before, all Nazzies are welcome to jump in.

Eaglle put on his suit while he thought about what he had seen of the squadron so far. He liked the seemed informality of the squadron, but was a little scared at some of the talks that were given about what happens if you dont report in or leave without permission.

Being killed never sounds fun he thought to himself on that topic as he finished getting his suit on.

He turned and looked at the simulators, and was a little surprised. erm... these are the newer models... this ought to be interesting as i dont have as much time on these as the other ones he thought.

He saw Drac get in to the first simulator, and then got into the 3rd one down as he was the third person in this flight. His cockpit was inside of a hanger, ah... that an ISD m2 he recalled from his training. He then got a tad startled as he heard over the comm, "Okay, Nazzies. We're using the designation 'Black Group' for this run. I'm Black One or Black Leader, White_Lightning's Black Two, and Eaglle's Black Three. Activate your engines, perform a system check, and report back".

Eaglle flicked on the engines, and ran a system's check, and finding everything good said, "Leader, Three. Everythings fine here"

When Drac replies, "Good. Now comes the hard part. Our mission is to intercept a small rebel transport that's launching from the planet below. Intelligence reports that it's escorted by a full flight of snubfighters, so they'll have a four to three advantage on us. We're to shoot down all enemy craft and finish by vaping the transport," eaglle feels a little apprehensive about the odds, as he didn't know what snubfighters they were.

Lets hope its not those A-wings, or worse he thought to himself. When Drac gave the squadron the go, eaglle pushed one button, detaching the fighter, then waited a second to get on Drac's left wing, then eased the stick forward into a dive, and flicked another switch that turned on his shields, activating a row of LED's indication his shield strength left. He immediately spotted the freighter on his scanner, and saw Drac start to approach closer to the target.

Just then, he received a comm message from the main base, "All Blacks, just a heads up, Slasher is having medical issues and will not be able to watch this mission right now"

Thats not good at all. I will have to find out what happened on that last mission, Eaglle thought to himself

When Drac sent the data of the fighters to him, he felt a little better. Those fighters are pretty outdated, so we should be able to counteract those odds. We will have to watch out for the freighter though, that is more modern with some significant armament.

Eaglle flicked a switch with his left thumb, activating his missiles as he wouldn't want to have them not launch, and then switched his blaster to linked burst. As he approached, he turned a nob in the center the the third fighter down, which still hadn't spotted him for some reason.

A there we go He thought to himself as he saw 3 of the fighters turn toward the flight, and a light on his LED showed that they were trying to get a lock. his missiles locked on and he got ready to fire as soon as Drac gave the order, or fired, whichever one came first

OOC:

word count: 581

finally made the minimum mark with this. not all that impressive for some but this is my highest yet. as this is my first combat post, suggestions for improvement are welcome.

Qayla watched as the "unfriendlies" as her leader called them came into her range. "Cover me!" she said over the comm, as they came toward her. She waited until she had the enemy right where she wanted him, and fired. She hit her intended target, smashing it to bits, and cooking his partner.

Realising she'd gotten her quarry, she nearly let out a battle yell, but thought better of it. There were till two more out there, and she had to keep her wits, or she'd still be behind the eight-ball...or worse.

Dropping back to keep an eye on Eaglle, she kept an eye out for the other two enemy craft that were left. Lightning bolts they were not, but they could definitely come in fast enough to surprise you if you were careless about keeping an eye on your scope.

She watched as Eaglle vaped one of the enemy craft, and that meant that there was only one more left. "Good shot!" she yelled "Now don't get cocky!" She chuckled to herself, as she thought back to what the captain of the other ship had said to her. She never thought that the day would come that she'd be in the "driver's" seat with someone who didn't have the same experience level as she did. He was good, none-the-less, and she had to acknowledge that he did seem to have a natural sense of control.

They both saw the last one, but he was closer to it, so she let him fire at it, and she provided cover. When it was apparent that the last one had been vaporised, she took her fingers off the firing controls. "Good job!" she said. "I hope you're that good in an actual situtation. It would be an honour to have you as a partner out there."

Drac kept a light hand on his stick, jumping and juking his Avenger around. His moves showcased the fighter's agility and speed. He couldn't help but smile as the trio mowed down the enemy snubfighters, with three of the eight falling to his guns alone.

As the flight circled back out after killing the last of the snubfighters Eaglle's ship suddenly jerked hard and Drac heard the pilot's strained yelp at the sudden impact. He'd been fired on by the transport, whose shots had taken down his shields and left black scorch marks on the left side of his cockpit. Drac thumbed the comm switch again, "Tighten it up, Blacks. The freighter's guns have a hard time hitting us, but they hurt when they do.

The other pilots acknowledged his order and got into position on his flanks. As they banked back toward the larger ship, all three began dancing their fighters to confuse the freighter's targeting. When they closed to a klick and a half the Mon Cal switched over to proton torpedoes again and instantly got a lock tone on the freighter, "Blacks, key your torpedos to targeting frequency 749 and prepare to fire on my mark."

The Petty Officer listened until both pilots confirmed his command, then turned his attention back to the freighter. He quickly swung the targeting reticule over the ship, settling it on a spot just aft of the bridge on the starboard side of the ship. He waited a beat, then apoke again, "Get ready...Mark."

Three proton torpedos flashed out toward the freighter, slamming into its shields and detonating in a brilliant ball of fire. The ship's shields flared for a moment under the stress, then gave out. When the explosion cleared the Nazgul pilots could see a hole in the hull of the freighter, about a meter by a meter in size, with flickering flames dying out as the oxygen depleted. Molten metal from the hull froze into perfect spheres or trailed out behind the ship as the cold of space froze it again, "Good shot, Blacks. One more should do it."

The freighter rolled over, presenting its other side to the Avengers, along with its intact port shields. Again Drac targeted the ship, this time aiming directly at the bridge, "On my mark...mark."

A second salvo of torpedos shot out at the stricken ship, crashing into the forward deflector shields. As weakened as they already were, the shields gave out more quickly than before. Dying as soon as they did, they allowed the last torpedo to impact unmolested. It slammed into the bridge viewport, bored through it, and hit the bulkhead at the back of the bridge before exploding. The ship's hard lines softened around the bridge as the expanding fireball inside metled and warped the durasteel. Finally the much-abused hull plates could take it no longer and the bridge blew out in a satisfying spectacle.

The freighter immediately stopped firing as escape pods jettisoned from the doomed vessel. A moment later it went completely dark, threat index zero. The Black Flight flyers cheered their victory, then the simulators went black.

-----

Twenty seconds later their viewscreens lit up again, showing an asteroid belt. Drac chimed in on the comm, "Okay, Blacks. This one's a little tougher. It's based loosely on the squadron's last mission, to an asteroid belt in the Anoat system. The New Republic was involved, and reports say that a Rebel force of unknown strength has moved into the system since the destruction of the asteroid base. We're to find them and kill them if possible. If not, we're to do our best to escape with the proper information. Understood?"

"As ordered, sir."

"Got it, Nine."

"Good deal. They should be somewhere in the belt ahead of us, so let's find them. Move out, Blacks."

=== Right before the freighter attacked ===

Eaglle was really enjoying himself as the last of the fighters were shot down. He had gotten a few of them himself, as was starting to get a little confident, when his shipped jerked, a siren started wailing, and his shield indicator LED's all turned off. He couldn't help but yell from the impact, and could see the left side of his fighter was blackened. That was way way to close, he thought to himself as he straitened out his fighter to Drac's orders, then started dancing around as a few shot were still coming in too close for comfort.

He was waiting for the order to target the freighter to get revenge for the damage he had taken. As soon as the frequency was given, he changed to it, and responded, "All set, Nine."

"Get ready... Mark," Drac said, and Eaglle fired his torpedo. He was pleased to see the damaged done to the freighter, getting his revenge for the damage done to his fighter. "On my mark... mark" Drac said again, and Eaglle fired his torps again, and someone's torp, he couldn't tell whom, slammed into the bridge, and then the bridge detonated in an impressive fireball. As the escape pods ejected, Eaglle was considering hunting them down, but then as he was yelling out his victories, the simulator went black, and eaglle realized that he had gotten so into it tha he had forgotten it was a Sim. Well that was fun... I wonder if Slasher is doing any better, he thought, and then the sim lighted up again.

hmm... an asteroid belt... I don't have much experience fighting in these... this ought to be interesting.... Oh, and it seems that just to make it more interesting, we dont have full info on the enemy this time... great, he thought as Drac relayed the sim info to them.

Eaglle decided to just stick in formation till the enemy sighted them, and to try and stay away from flying to close to the 'roids. All of a sudden, Eaglle instrument panel lit up, and he heard Qayla say, "Black Lead, this is ten. We've got a magnetic field ahead of us, and from what I know, asteroids don't make that strong of a field. Assessment: Enemy ahead. Putting shields on full as a precaution. Ten out"

Eaglle reached down to crank up his shields, then realized that they were already on max. He had subconsciously turned them up when he was thinking about flying close to the asteroids.

The 3 Avengers dropped down underneath the asteroid to try and sneak attack the force, staying close, preparing to engage whatever was awaiting on the other side. Eaglle flicked on his torps, and got his hands ready to fire, then realized he was shaking a little. I hate not knowing what the enemy is, he thought.

OOC:

Word count: 483. Almost there.

I couldn't go much further as I didn't know what the enemy craft will be...

=== Right before enemy fighter attack ===

Eaglle was very confused... He was expecting the enemy force to be right behind the asteroid, but nothing seemed to be there. Just an Asteroid spinning very quickly. "You'd think they'd put a new base in there, but the asteroid's spinning too fast for that. I don't get it either." He added on the the current conversation.

Wait a sec... Drac never went over the sim overview... that could be a problem he thought. All of a sudden, his sensors started beeping, and he almost jumped out of the cockpit for his nerves. He saw Drac zooming around an asteroid, and then looked down at his scanner. Oops... six fighter huh? he thought to himself as he turned around the asteroid behind Drac, with Qayla just behind him this time. Just as he accelerated around, he saw Drac's ship jerk as fire hit him, then saw an asteroid explode.

so much for not blowing up asteroids eaglle chuckled, making sure his com was not receiving the message. Just then, the second fighter in that pair started descending on Drac's stricken fighter, and he turned up to stop it, firing before he had a lock. Naturally, it missed completely, but it did it's job. The X-wing pulled up to see who it was shooting at, then turned toward Eaglle's Avenger.

Just as the fighter pulled close, Eaglle inversed his planed, pulled back on the stick, and did a 3/4 loop, so that he was pointing right underneath the fighter, then fired a quick burst. He could see from his sensors that it was just enough to bring down the shields, but before Eaglle could fire another burst, it also dove down, and as the Avenger tried to compensate, it overshot the X-wing, and Eaglle shuddered as he could see his shields drop to 25%. Eaglle turned to the left, just getting inside of the X-Wing, then quickly rolled to the right, and then mid-roll reversed the turn direction on the stick, and cut throttle, so he was able to line up right behind the enemy Fighter.

Bye, bye, sucker, he thought as he fired another quick burst, getting a satisfying explosion from the ship, then broke down, and accelerated again to realign himself with the other Black's. Just then, his fighter shuddered as the debris from an exploding asteroid collided with his ship, and his shields dropped to 20%.

So that's why Drac and Qayla hate asteroids... he thought as he exited the debris field, falling behind Qayla this time.

OOC:

word count: 426... ARG why does 500 seem like a ton of words to do...

1 fighter this time.