OOC:

Part 1: The Assault

Fain's application for Boarding Action AIT had gone through two weeks prior to today, and now he sat amongst his brothers-in-arms in a conference hall aboard the Victory-class Star Destroyer Insidious. Helmet between his knees, he sat ramrod straight hanging on every word his Senior Drill Instructor hashed out before a large viewscreen. The short Sergeant giving the lecture had been giving classroom style instruction on the layout of the Destroyer for the better part of two hours and was just now wrapping up the Rules of Engagement for this exercise.

"Now if there any questions--" The Instructor asked rhetorically "Squad Leaders, get your sorry excuse for soldiers to their designated assembly areas. I said now! I've got a simulation to run!" 

The hall instantly burst into a cacophony of bellowing Squad Leaders delegating duties to their ASLs, who in turn ordered their fireteams into position and began flooding out into the corridor. Fain's squad, commanded by a pudgy ebony skinned Sergeant named Hughes, along with their entire training platoon double timed it to one of the Star Destroyer's massive hangers where Hughes ordered the twelve members of his squad up the boarding ramp of a repurposed Tie/sa Bomber, which had been stripped of all firing systems and filled to capacity with high backed chairs with harnesses for securing infantrymen in place.

Sergeant Hughes punched a large red button controlling the bomber's ramp and made his way to the adjacent fuselage to inform their pilot that the assembled Stormtroopers were 'Go for launch'. Turning 180° on his heel, the Sergeant gave a series of curt hand gestures ordering Fain and the rest of his to secure their harnesses and prepare for launch. Once fastened in, the bomber picked up off the durasteel hangar deck and rotated on it's yaw axis to align with the rest of the bomber wing; four retrofitted bombers, each laden with thirteen troopers.

One by one the bombers taxied through the hangar and out into the cold vacuum of space, traveling out into the vast darkness to the designated rally point to being the exercise. Fain was nervous about this drill not only because a Ship-to-Ship boarding action was supposed to be the most brutal and grueling form of combat the average trooper would ever see, but also because of his performance on his last assignment where he had choked under the pressure and forced, not only his squad, but the other assigned squads, to pickup his slack.

Five standard minutes into the flight, the pilot's voice came on over their helmet's internal speakers; informing the Stormtroopers embarked inside bomber that the exercise was about to begin. Sergeant Hughes removed his harness and ordered his squad to arm themselves with training blasters held on weapon racks above their heads. Several of the troopers grabbed standard issue stun rifles and an assortment of smoke and flash/percussion grenades, while the occasional grenade launcher was being hefted here and there.

Fain's bomber made it's slow trek back to the Insidious and the pilot inched his ship forward until they were mere feet away from the Destroyer's massive outer hull. A docking umbilical was sent forth and adhered to the durasteel plate protecting the Insidious, and a cherry red outline began to form around the inside of the umbilical. There was a satisfactory sucking sound, which was quickly sealed by expanding gel in the docking umbilical, and a six foot by four foot oval chunk of thick durasteel gave way to the interior of the Destroyer.

"Pop smoke. Everyone, through the breach!" Sergeant Hughes bellowed.

The superheated chunk of metal fell clear and the portal was lit up from the inside by bolts of blue light. raking the surrounding interior hull, with more then a few bolts coming through the breach to strike the interior of the docked bomber. The trooper to Fain's left followed suit the Sergeant's order, hefting his grenade launcher into position and banking two smoke grenades into the belly of the Destroyer. Soon, thick smoke bellowed forth from the silver cylinders, providing cover for the assault team.

Fain was fifth through the breach and already he could see the prone forms of men lying on the ship's deck. Charging clear of the smoke screen, he slammed into cover inside of a small alcove in the corridor. Fain leaned around the corner and snuck a quick peek at the enemy's defensive position. A dozen enemy troopers had setup a barricade mere meters away from Fain's position, cutting off a large four way intersection. He ducked back into cover. His squad was slowly advancing on the barricade, some troopers following Fain's lead and using the corridor's interior for cover, others using stacked supply crates squatting low to avoid being knocked unconscious. 

"We're all going to get tagged if we don't advance!" Hughes bellowed over his comlink.

Fain leaned out of cover and squeezed off several well aimed shots, taking out three combatants. Their unconscious forms slumping over their ramshackle cover. This caused a ebb in the enemy's fire, allowing Sergeant Hughes' squad to advance and over take the position. Out of the twelve troopers to disembark the bomber--one trooper was tagged by stray fire inside the bomber--eight, including Fain, were still standing and were cutting off the intersection in three directions; stunning the odd combatant that tried to be a hero and retake their position.

"I want that Bridge" mused Hughes over the squad's comlink.

Fain could almost hear the man smiling. Taking off down one of the corridors, Fain followed the blue stripe labeled 'Bridge' that ran down the corridor's wall. Coming across little to no opposition, but seeing some of the aftermath the boarding parties had caused, Fain was glad this was only a training exercise. Several long detours, and one large skirmish behind them, the squad rounded a corner to see two marines guarding a sealed blast door. Firing quickly from the hip, Fain managed to stun the guards and render them unconscious.

The engineer attached to his squad began working on opening the blast door, securing a detpack securely on the center of the massive door.

"Three...two...one...clear!"

The engineer called out to the covered troopers; the door slagging inward onto the bridge. Once again, intense fighting erupted between the eight assault team members and four defending marines. Though they were well trained, the marines lacked the man power to successfully repel the boarding party as they entered the ruined Bridge. Fain raised his blaster to a combatant sitting down wearing a beret with a red flash on it.

"Sergeant-at-Arms, tell your men to stand down." Fain ordered.

The grizzled looking vet grudgingly replied pushing a small green button on his console sounding the siren that would end the exercise, and handing Sergeant Hughes a comlink connected to the ship's internal public address system.

Hughes spoke into the Com. "Gentlemen, the ship is ours."
   

OOC:

WC:1154

Make sure to reread your post before you post it; there's a ton of forgotten words and incorrect tenses that make it tough to read.

Quote:Fain's application for Boarding Action AIT had gone through two weeks prior to today, and now he sat amongst his brothers-in-arms in a conference hall aboard the Victory-class Star Destroyer Insidious. Helmet between his knees, he sat ramrod straight hanging on every word his Senior Drill Instructor hashed out before a large viewscreen. The short Sergeant giving the lecture had been giving classroom style instruction on the layout of the Destroyer for the better part of two hours and was just now wrapping up the Rules of Engagement for this exercise.

'Today' in the first sentence perhaps could have been phrased differently, as we do usually use the past tense.

The second bolded bit just doesn't read well at all.

'This' in the last sentence ought to be 'the.'

Other notes: italicize ship names; TIE fighters and its variants are acronyms, so all the letters are capitalized; the conjunction it's is used for 'it is,' while the conjunction 'its' is used for possession.

Hughes 'muses' that he wants the bridge. Muses means to talk to one's self, in, by my interpretation, a rather brooding fashion. A more appropriate word would be 'commented,' 'noted,' 'commanded,' etc.

Some of the same notes for the second part. Spell check, read over it (aloud if it helps).

From a story perspective, I'd also like to see a bit more of the 'tactics' associated with ship-fighting. Emphasize how fighting aboard a ship is different than fighting in other environments.

This specialty needs Moderate Revisions. It's a solid start, but it needs some work. For your edits, please:

-REPOST both stories so I can compare them to your original specialties; this can be done in this thread for convenience.

-POST in the thread for specialty grading so that I know your spec is done.