There was a fist. This fist was flying towards Snipes head, he knew it, he was expecting it, his left leg shot out to his side and brought the whole body down, Snipes ducked under the punch, then delivered one of his own to his opponents underarm before springing back up to a ready position and flicking a quick jab at his opponents head, it connected and the man stumbled back. Snipes didn't give him a chance to rest, instead springing forward and sweeping the mans legs out from under him with a swift left kick. He fell to the ground. Snipes smiled and hopped back to the ready position.

“Well? Anyone else?” Snipes said, loosening himself up, cracking his neck, and smiling widely.

Such were the competitions stormtroopers often held among eachother, padded gloves, but no other safety gear, they just fought as well as they could. Some did better than others. They had just started though, Snipes was just getting warmed up. He loved fighting, it was one of this great joys.

One of the others was about to step up, big, imposing, if a little shorter than Snipes, it just made him smile, but they were interrupted, Snipes comm unit beep a few times. They all knew it was a probably a call to action, they were all friends, even if they did get roughed up from time to time. Snipes sighed.

“Well, guess that's it for me boys.” He said it with a smile as he turned to pick up his shirt and gunbelt. “Better luck next time, eh?”

Snipes picked up his Comlink and hit the button. “What's up doc?”

“Snipes, aren't you forgetting something?”

Snipes thought for a moment, “No, don't think so.”

“You were supposed to meet me in your office half an hour ago.”

“That would explain the nagging feeling that I forgot something. I'll be right over there.”

Snipes pulled his shirt back on over his head and put the gun belt back on. He waved to the others as he walked out the door, another match had already started, Snipes had gotten all warmed up and now he had to go back to his office and endure another meeting of some sort. He hated meetings. He hated them a lot. It was a nice day too, that made the fact that he was going to have to sit around inside an office for the next couple hours listening to some boring officers drone on about objectives and ETA's and distant worlds all the more unbearable. 

It did make the walk to the barracks rather pleasant though, and when Snipes finally stood outside the door he just stared at it blankly for a few minutes. Then grunted, abhorring the idea of taking his hands out of his pockets he kicked the button and the door slid open. Various RAIDERS were gathered laying around the lounges, wasting space, as was their way. Snipes gave them a short wave and wandered towards the back, to his crap-heap office. Again he didn't really care to take his hands out of his pockets and instead head butted the console, opening the door. He strolled inside and plopped himself unceremoniously into his chair. Darr sat in the opposing chair, looking non-to-pleased, Virius leaned against a wall.

“Well, get on with it, I'm already bored.” Snipes yawned, leaning back in the chair, resting his feet on the desk.

Darr grumbled, but layed out a couple datapads. "This is a somewhat. . .unusual mission. Your squad will be traveling with a group of freelancers," Privateers you mean. "The target being Bespins cloud city." Darr handed a datapad over to Snipes, "They're having serious trouble with some of the repulsors that keep the city in the clouds, so currently the city is only comprised of a skeleton maintainance staff, a few administrators and a garrison. While they're well defended from a military attack by surrounding systems, a small freelance group should be able to sneak in, as they always seem to do. You're squad is to go with this group, in part to ensure that they do what we're paying them for, in another part to help with the mayhem there."

"Our objectives?"

"First and formost, there was a large stockpile of tibanna gas, stored in carbonite, still in the city when the emergency evacuation was called. You are to capture as much of this as possible, there will be a bulk freighter waiting for your signal outside the system, it will hop in and connect to the frieght bay of your designation when you call.
"Secondary objectives are to destroy the administrative office and the central control core for the cities systems."

"Sounds like fun." Snipes was grinning widely.

Darr nodded, stood and left, leaving all the datapads behind. Snipes reached over to his desk and keyed the intercom.

“Alright, RAIDERS! You have 20 minutes to prepare, gather your equipment, don your armor, meet me at docking bay C12, where you'll be boarding Queen Tetras Revenge. If you're late you get left. Briefing shall commence in flight, just pack heavy people.” Snipes screamed over the intercom, with a wolfish grin spread across his face.

Rogueboy was lying down on his bunk staring at the ceiling, it’s amazing what you can see when staring mindlessly at something images tend to float by; those of the past, those of the present, and perhaps those of the future to be honest RB never really knew what those images were and just attributed them to the few books he has read or the holofilms he has seen. All of a sudden Snipes’ voice rang out of the intercom. “Alright, RAIDERS! You have 20 minutes to prepare, gather your equipment, don your armor, meet me at docking bay C12, where you'll be boarding Queen Tetras Revenge. If you're late you get left. Briefing shall commence in flight, just pack heavy people.”

Pack heavy? Rogueboy thought to himself what the hell does that mean?

Shrugging his shoulder Rogueboy headed towards the armoury if Snipes wanted him to pack heavy that would mean a heavy gun and a shitload of ammo the question on Rogue’s mind was Z-6 or plex missile launcher?

Sitting in the transport Queen Tetras Revenge wearing his body glove Rogue was attaching the plastoid plated that would protect him against fragmentation, low powered blaster fire, and occasionally deflect blaster fire, however the stuff would melt with a direct hit which tend to be more fatal. RB picked up his plex missile launcher the one that could have four loaded rockets at a time, and gently ran his hand over the smooth surface of it admiring the devastation a single rocket could cause and its lethal lock-on ability. The downside to the plex missile launchers is that aside from the fully loaded launcher is the fact that ammo is often scarce and your average trooper can only carry one extra reload. RB was raptly listening to Snipes as the squad leader went through the briefing.

OOC: Closing time, one last call for alcohol so finish your whiskey or beers.

Snipes stepped into Queen Tetras Revenge. He closed the ramp behind him, RAIDERS were already loaded. Even Fury, the gurrcat, wandered up and nuzzled Snipes hand, Snipes smiled and petted the large cat. He exhaled, blowing smoke out into the hall, cracked his neck and wandered to the cockpit.

The ship was in a considerably better state than it once had been, it had transformed from a random collection of rusted metal plates to a complete, fully functioning ship. Snipes sat in the pilots seat, made a second check of the systems and then warmed it up.

“Yo, RAIDERS, everyone report.”

“This is Rogueboy, I've got Cursed and Famus here, we're all stowed.”

“This is Virius, armory is locked down.”

“Otto here, Dante and I are in the lounge, ready to go.”

“Awesome,” Snipes said.

He hit a few buttons, flipped a few switches and then fired up the engines and pointed the thing towards the sky, breaking atmosphere was always boring, as was calculating a hyperspace jump. He did them absently. When the ship did finally find itself enveloped in the twirling blue nexus of hyperspace Snipes wandered back to the lounge to brief his awaiting squad.

Snipes looked around, they were busily picking their finger nails and snoring. Snipes kicked RB's crossed legs, waking him up. “Oh, hey boss.”

“Alright, well, this is how it's going down:

“We're going to meet up with a group of three ships in about twenty minutes, a C-90, The Corellian Hound, a YT-2400, The Hole Card and a DP-20 Gunship, The Hard Place.  From this rendezvous we'll continue on to another system just outside of Bespin, where we'll drop several small containers referred to as 'cry babies', these simulate the signatures of larger ships and send out distress calls to distract the small force guarding Bespin. The moment that force moves out we'll move in, the other ships will concentrate on taking out the various cloud cars, small fighters and any defenses on the city itself.

“We are going to land on docking bay six, and move down a couple levels to the bay tibanna storage area, once we have it secured we'll high jack the lifter droids, signal to a bulk freighter that's already in place, this freighter will move in and we'll have the droids load the booty.

“After that we'll move back up and try to cause collateral damage to the core system controls and administrative buildings. In addition to us The Corellian Hound will be dropping two of their boarding squads and The Hard Place will be unloading some of their crew once the battle in space has calmed down. Their payment is going to be a portion of the tibanna and whatever else they can carry off, we also have been authorized to, and I quote 'loot, pillage, plunder and otherwise spread chaos.'

“Any questions?”

She was a tall red Twi'lek, a rarity in her species, and even a stranger sight in as a solider.  She was still in her mid twenties, but Namyr felt old, much older then the pup recruits she saw running around her in the hall way.  The lines around her mouth and eyes said as much from years of stress and lack of sleep.  But the smirk on her face and the glint in her yellow eyes spoke another story of who she was.  It didn't help she was wearing a brand new Stormtrooper armor, helmet under on arm, Lekku hanging down her back, and a long blade was balanced casually on her shoulder.  A slight sway to her shapely hips spoke of her battle style, how she was a killer, her dancing blades her favorite instrument to preform a deadly dance of beauty and pain.

Raiders, she was assigned in the Raiders Squad, her very first squad when she had graduated from basic.  It had been a long time since she had seen her old friends, Snipes, that other kid whose face always looked like he was having an inter-monologue in his head...Dante, that was his name.  Those were the only older Raiders she could recall form the roster she had read when she had gotten her orders a few months back.  Then again the roster had been old then, who knew who was on the squad now.  But Raiders, it was a wonderful comparision to the dirt and grim of the outer rims, fighting in uncharted territory, against rebels, and whatever else decided it didn't like the Empire's presence there.  Namyr had seen too many boys right out of basic die in those horrible conditions.

Namyr let out a sigh, her pace slowing a little.  She had been through too much on the outer rims, even before she had gone she had to fake her own retirement, break of ties with everyone, and pretty much disappear.  She hadn't talked to any of her own friends in a very long time.  Except, except she had seen Rogueboy, it wasn't much of a meeting more of a passing by, he had even invited her to drinks, which Namyr refused, she had double weapon locker duty until they placed her in a squad. 

Rogueboy, how had they ended it all, Namyr couldn't remember, which probablt meant that Rogueboy didn't either.  Did she even want to go down that road again?  She wasn't sure but what else did she have to lose?  The smile came back to Namyr's lips as she stopped outside the door where she heard Snipes talking.  He sounded mostly sober, but it was in between paydays so he was probably short on cash.

“Any questions?” she heard him ask as she opened the door.

"Depends, do you want us to bring your wheelchair or your walker this mission?" Namyr asked flicking her head to toss one of her Lekku behind her shoulder.

“Alright.” Snipes started, “This is very simple, I don't know what went on between you two, and quite frankly you couldn't persuade me to care. All I really care about is that it doesn't interfere with the mission. Got it?”

Snipes stared at RB and Nams, and watched as they slowly nodded their heads. He had them sitting opposite each other in what passed for his office and (/or) room. The top most deck of the citadel cruiser was round, larger than any other room and completely filled with various bits of precious Snipes couldn't bear to part with. Not that very much of it was worth anything.

“Alright, I'm taking that as a 'Yes, I get it, can I please leave?'.  If you don't have anything further please get the hell out of here, I have shit to do.” Snipes wasn't in one of his better moods. “Oh, and RB, in about two hours relieve Virius from systems watch. He'll be in the cockpit. Until then try and get some sleep, we have something like sixteen hours before we hit Bespin.”

Snipes turned his back to them, there was nothing left to be said, instead he walked towards a desk he had set up at the end furthest from the turbo-lift and leaned over the maps and datapads. There wasn't anything he hadn't already seen more times than he would like, but he tried to commit every possible twist and turn of the floating city into his mind. He knew he wouldn't remember everything, but that didn't stop him from trying.

He wasn't going to get much sleep, a little perhaps, but he already had himself clad in his storm-commando armor, painted in the blood red tiger stripes. The helmet was somewhere, he wasn't really sure where, but somewhere. He cast his eyes around the circular room for the rest of his gear. The M4 was on his leg, easy enough, StA was sitting on a pile of swoop parts, simple, macrobinoculars were in a chest of random precious metals, comlinks were scattered around the room, any would do, they were just a back up for the one in his helmet anyway.

Snipes returned his eyes to the desk. The top most datapads held the information pertaining to their allies and their most recent comm. transmission. Not much of interest, just standard, 'hey, how ya doing, this is us, lets get going' kind of chit chat. The rendezvous had gone simply, quickly and generally quite well. That was a good sign as far as Snipes was concerned. Hopefully the rest of it would go as well. He had a bad feeling it wouldn't. Mostly because it never did. Snipes suddenly hated military life very, very much.

"Negative, negative. We're still getting our nerfs out of the stalls. We have enough crackers for now, and we'll get the milk when we're done with the nerfs."

As the transmission drifted down the ladder, Snipes strode over to the ladder and began to climb up to the command deck to reply.

Rolling his eyes, Dante leaned back into the overstuffed seat and stared at the ceiling, ignoring the absence of a head-rest. His equipment was mostly in a pile at his feet, while the DC-17 on his lap.

After several minutes of static, the channel popped, followed by a static-laced transmission.

"Bearlock,"

That word earned another eye-roll from Dante, and chuckling from several of the other RAIDERS in the lounge.

Why in Xendor's name are we even bothering with these codes? A brain-dead Gungan could probably figure these out...

"we're finished with the nerfs. En route to the RV for the milk."

"Understood, Scruffy. Bearlock out."

With the last line, Dante fell out of his chair laughing, only to stop abruptly when his equipment bags landed on his right toe. Ignoring the stares of his squadmates, he struggled to his feet, uttering an occasional curse as he brushed his boot against something.

"What are you staring at?" Dante muttered as the glances registered.

There was a loud thump as Sniping 101 slid down the ladder and onto the deck. Dante turned around to face the Squad Leader, pulling his dropped DC-17 towards himself with his uninjured foot as he did so.

"Get ready, RAIDERS." Snipes barked. "We're finally getting this bantha and krath hound show on the road."

OOC:

And...a post. I'll be more active from now on.