Raigen had shown up on time to the briefing, but out of uniform for the most part.  Actually he was out of regulation by any sense of the word.  Just at first glance, the twenty five year old was sweating profusely, or at least he was recently. He’d taken what little time he had onboard for PT, physical training.  A five mile run, followed by thirty minutes of calisthenics, another five mile run, weights, and a final five mile jog just to cool down.  Under a sweaty, freshly shaved head, he was sporting a scruffy looking five o clock shadow.  A sleeveless white shirt, sweat stained, hung over a slender but chiseled build.  A red krayt skull tattoo emblazed his right bicep, and the blue phoenix wjng insignia worn proudly on his left.  Raigen was truly a man of two very different worlds.  Around his waist, the top half of black coveralls were tied via the sleeves with a certain lack of care.  They were borrowed, as he had no belongings to speak of and his uniforms had yet to be delivered to Hellfire Squadron’s new barracks.

Raigen stood quietly in the back of the briefing room, not drawing any attention to himself as he stood, arms crossed watching and listening intently to his new commander.  Raigen rolled his eyes as the briefing drug on, however short it may have been.  His eyes locked with Warrant Officer Marok for a moment.  They hadn’t spoken yet, but it was no secret that Raigen was unhappy with his placement in the squadron, a point he made emphatically to the upper echelon upon assignment.  He had insisted upon being placed in a shipboard role.  And why shouldn’t he be? As many years AWOL as he may had been, he had more experience than many of the faces in the room, many of which he only knew through personnel files, and he wasn’t eager to climb back into the Imperial deathtraps they passed off as Starfighters.  Especially not with a rag tag squadron of which Raigen had never served with before and had flown together, at most, once.  Not eager to put his life on the line, and less eager to put it in the hands of the men around him, Raigen hoped he could survive long enough to be reassigned to a role with. . more retirement options.

His jaw dropped as the briefing continued, his reservations apparent.  Warrant Officer Marok more than likely would have seen his disapproval, even before the meeting was over and the squadron filed out of the conference room. Marok would have been on his way to the fighter tubes when Raven approached him from behind. “Sir. . .Sir, you can’t be serious.  They want us to engage this outpost directly?  With no word if the enemy will have reinforcements in hyperspace range?  Lieutenant.”

“Stow it, pilot. We have our orders, we launch in twenty minutes, less now.”

“Sir, I didn’t say this in the briefing room for a reason, I don’t want to worry them anymore than necessary, but doesn’t this seem like something that could be done from orbit, with turbolaser batteries? With all due respect, sir.”

Paxton Marok continued walking as they spoke, “With all due respect, crewman, I’ve read your file.  You didn’t want this position, even though you have as much experience if not more than the other members of this squadron.  You didn’t want to put your neck on the line. You came onboard as a fugitive from the New Republic, a prisoner. And you serve at the pleasure of this Navy, this vessel, and in all honesty, myself.  So my suggestion is to tighten up and show you can be a member of this group before you start making suggestions, or you may find yourself in a very familiar situation.” Paxton Marok continued on without as much as a look back before sighing and turning to Raigen, "We have a second squadron on standby.  This mission is as much about brushing up as it is eliminating this outpost, so if you're so confident you know what you're doing, show me."

Tough love, Raigen thought as he broke off for the barracks, where he was lucky enough to at least find his pressure suit and what had to have been a used flight helmet from the scorch marks.  Dressing quickly, he made his way out of the squadron barracks last. Sprinting, he caught up with his squadron still climbing into their Interceptors. He thought, at least we aren’t flying the toscan leftovers.  In fact, compared to what he was used to, these were fairly new. . .newish.  Raigen pulled the black helmet over his head, the life support tubes trailing down to his chest pack.  Lifting himself with both hands, he swung his feet over the cockpit hatch on top of the interceptor and dropped his body inside. Some things never changed, including the checklists and layout of the familiar craft.  If he was going to fly a deathtrap, he thought, he was glad it was a highly advanced one like the Tie Interceptor. 

“Green lights across the board, Hellfire 12 checking in. Call sign is Dirty, if anyone needs me."

Jix gulped deeply from the mug of non-alcoholic synthale that the barkeep had placed on the counter in front of him for a small sum of credits. He would have preferred to drink the real stuff, but as he was technically on duty he had to avoid it.

They do these rotations through alert squadron just to force me to sober up and stop getting into fights, though it's not exactly my fault...

It wasn't his fault, not really. Jix had a weak spot for the hard stuff, and when he started to get a little tipsy he would lose control of his pheromones. It wasn't so much that he picked fights, as that his body picked them for him.

Suddenly an alert tone interrupted Jix's musings, it was his comlink, with instructions to report to the briefing room. With a grunt and a sigh of resignation Jix heaved himself off of his stool and made his way out of the bar and through the corridors of the Dead Gun.

When Jix reached the doors of the briefing room, he looked down and quickly took inventory to make sure that his uniform was in order before stepping through the door and taking his seat among the other pilots. He saw several that he recognized from their time on the simulators. Jix had not bothered to learn the names of most of the pilots yet. He had seen far to many squadron mates die in his nine years, and had learned to never make friends until after the first couple of missions had passed and whoever was still there at that time was obviously at least a decent pilot.

“Alright everyone, let's get it together.” came the somewhat gravelly voice belonging to the squadron commander, another Warrant Officer 1st Class, had introduced himself as Marok if Jix remembered correctly. Chances were good that Jix himself could have been in that position had he not been involved in so many fights, and had it not been for his crazy antics in combat. He half listened to the briefing with ears trained from years of such briefings to seize upon the important information and file it away for further review at a later time if needed.

Jix took the datapad that was offered to him and reviewed the information contained within.

Zaadja huh, and occupied by those accursed New Republic Huttspawn no less, I only hope I'll be able to add more of them to my kill count.

As the briefing came to a close Jix stood and moved quickly out of the room. His earlier annoyance forgotten, he had a chance to kill some New Republic soldiers, and that was all he could have asked for.

Jix quickly moved into the equipment room across the way, and began to pull on his equipment, he slid off the uniform jacket, and pulled on the harness that holds ten of his throwing knives, before replacing the uniform jacket, and beginning to pull on his flight suit, but not before he stashed four or five more in his uniform pockets. Finally he pulled on his flight harness, slide the pair of Q2s5s into his boot holsters, and slid an FSK-7 combat knife into the sheath on the inside of his boot. That done he slipped an additional 5 throwing knives into the sheaths he had placed into his flight suit pockets, and started to make his way toward the hanger deck.

Jix pulled his helmet over his head, where it sealed with a slight hiss, and began to make his way down the ladder into the cockpit of his TIE Interceptor.

IIan closed his eyes for a moment, centering himself before strapping himself in.  The simulated environment was chosen at random, today’s being an asteroid field, “Okay guys, you know the jist. Let’s stay together go after the larger groups before picking off the rogues.  Save your missiles for the end.  Harmon, is that you in sim three?”

    Petty Officer Harmon was a brash pilot, but seasoned and well respected by the those aboard the Dead Gun.  “You know it Trask, you think I was gonna let these Nerf herders beat me t the morning killzone?”

    “Not a chance.  Wingman then?” IIan set his flight stick responsiveness and pulled his seat forward to reach the foot pedals.

    “You got it.  Let’s show these rookies why we hold the high score on this sim.” The simulation came to life, the TIE/LN Starfighters of Blue Squadron in a V formation if three boxed flights of four ties each. Harmon switched flight positions with Blue 2, a chief petty officer in his own squadron on the Dead Gun.  The squadron broke off into flights, flying in tight formations as they entered the asteroid field.  “Where are they Lead?  I don’t see them on my sensors”

    “Ionization interference from the asteroids, seems they’re leaking radiation of some sort.  We’re all eyeballs today guys, keep an. . .Contact three o clock low.  Element two, break right and take them from above.  Hothead, Split S and draw them out.”  The flight split, the rear ties reddening right and moving around a larger, stationary asteroid to take a position above the element of red ties.  Trask and Harmon rolled right, pulling up as they inverted and pulled back on the stick, performing a half inside loop until they were in front of the enemy element.  “Intermittent missile lock Hothead, break left then right, don’t let em paint you.  Blue 2 where y’at?”

    “Coming in now, no missile lock, Blue 4 don’t fire until we’re right on ‘em.” CPO Hepheth led his wingman down in their own Split S that dropped them behind the red ties in pursuit of Trask and Harmon but out of effective firing range.  They closed in slowly as the enemy yawned right and left, firing lasers cannons at their targets but unable to acquire a missile lock. “Taking too long, let’s do that Tattooine Sandwich you showed us last week, Lead.  I’m pretty sure they’ll follow.”

“You got it Two, Inside loop in three, two. . .now!”  Trask and Harmon pulled up on the flight sticks, their pursuers tightly in tow as they entered the inside loop, which was essentially a backflip in an airplane.  Blue Two and Four, waiting just long enough to close the gap, pulled up in their own inside loop, but tighter, sacrificing speed for area of target, and when both loops were complete, they had begun their acceleration before the enemy and closed the gap. Laser canons ripped through the Twin Ion Engines of the red ties and the heads up display scored a solo kill and save each for Blue Two and Four.

“Nice one Trask,  I owe you a kill.”

To Raigen, the simulator was little more than exorcise, a morning run.  Even the way he strapped himself into the flight seat was casual, making adjustments to the range of his lasers.  He chose a close shot configuration that had his lasers crossing less than a hundred meters in front of him.  Of course, the targeting computer would compensate in flight.  He set the sensitivity to the flight sticks lower to compensate for any involuntary muscle movement.  Too many blasts to the arms and shoulders wreaked havoc on a nervous system leaving injuries even the best medical droids couldn’t repair.

    Raigen wasted no time breaking away from his flight once the simulation began, heading to the farthest corner of the allowed field of operation before activating his sensors and taking a look at the battle. . .No sensors.  Only a murky field of blue static on his radar as he eyeballed the asteroid field for targets.  Ionization meant no sensors, but it also had another effect, more power.  The Tie/LN’s large solar arrays drew in that sort of energy to power the craft, meaning he could lay on the throttle and lasers as much as he wanted.

    The veteran pilot wasted no time increasing his velocity and reentering the shifting rock field.  Using mostly the foot pedals to yaw his craft in a sliding motion, avoiding asteroids as he came upon them.  A flight of computer controlled ties came into view. He could tell the difference by the way the leading pilot slowed as they turned to allow the wingman to adjust.  Humans wouldn’t fly so unnaturally in a break.  Raigen reached forward and toggled off his targeting computer.  It wouldn’t do him any good in this field.

    The red eyeball craft used the asteroids to mask his approach angle, leading his marks enough to close the gap.  This sort of battle was a dead man’s game.  The large pylons that provided power to the TIE also limited visibility.  Combined with the added discomfort of not being able to use your sensors to cover your flank meant he was going in blind and leaving himself open for an attack.  Raigen rolled his craft to check his blind spots, peering into the rear viewscreen above him periodically as the trio of multicolored craft came closer.

    He ‘rode their blind spot,’ punching the throttle at the last moment before sliding into the target’s ion trail.  A pull of the trigger, count to three, roll and break.  He was working off muscle memory, exercise.