General Gordon Fren lay on his bunk, in his room on the MC-90 Star Cruiser, the Swift Liberty, sleeping peacefully. It was still quite early in the day, and he expected to get a few more hours of sleep before he had to wake up at 7. Unfortunately he could not, as an alarm blared, waking him up. He glanced at the chrono on his desk.

2 o’clock. Why do we always have drills at 2 o’clock in the morning? Why can’t we have one in the middle of the day for once?

“All personnel, report to your battle stations immediately. All personnel, report to battle stations.”

This message continued to repeat itself as Gordon groaned and got himself out of bed. He had known there was going to be a drill sometime in the next week, but hadn’t been informed when it would be. He had tried to get to bed earlier, so that these drills wouldn’t be as much of a problem, but had not been able to. He had spent too much of his time stopping the pilots in his squadron from harassing or heckling the pilots in other ones. They were an elite group, originally from the Outer Rim Sovereignty, and some of the newer pilots that he had brought into his squadron were quite full of themselves. He trusted his main core of pilots, the ones that had been with him all along, to behave respectably, and help him out when the younger pilots proved to be a problem, but he didn’t have much confidence in the younger pilots beyond his confidence in their piloting ability. Most weren’t too bad, but there were a couple which were arrogant, had huge egos, and were generally just full of themselves. Even being vaped in simulators didn’t stop them from being so arrogant. They had really been coming down hard on the pilots in Reaper Squadron, disagreeing with Exar Shadow Fel’s idea of a combined squadron. While Gordon Fren supported the idea, he couldn’t convince the younger pilots, and hoped that Fel and Reaper Squadron would perform well in the upcoming exercise. If they did a good enough job then maybe his pilots would respect their comrades more.

Gordon quickly finished getting dressed, and ran out into the hall. Other pilots under his command, both in his squadron and in the others, were running down the hall towards the docking bay, where his TIE Defender sat waiting. He quickly hopped into it and began going through his pre-flight checklist. Suddenly his comm unit cracked.

“All pilots, this is Fleet Admiral Smith. This is an exercise. The Imperials have attacked us here at Ando, and are driving towards the shipyards. Your mission is to protect our fleet from their fighters, and protect our bombers.”

Than the Admiral’s voice cut out. Gordon quickly activate his comm unit, set to the Swift Liberty’s starfighter channel, and began broadcasting.

“All pilots, confirm readiness. Launch when Control gives you authorization. Form up in squadrons and wait for further instructions.”

He then quickly switched back to the channel he shared with Slasher Squadron.

“Slasher Lead, 2 engines green.”

“Slasher Two, ready.”

“Slasher Three, everything in the green.”

“Slasher Four, left engine in the green, right showing usual fluxuations.”

“Flight Two ready.”

“Flight Three ready.”

“Slasher Squadron ready to launch.”

“This is Control, you have permission to launch.”

Gordon quickly flew out of the hangar bay and sized up the situation as other pilots flew out behind him.

The ‘Imperials’ had brought in five Imperial Star Destroyers, 6 Victory Star Destroyers, an escort carrier, and 4 Carrack Cruisers. The ships immediately began deploying fighters, both TIE Defenders and TIE Bombers. The Galactic Coalition force included 2 Neron Xyto Cruisers, Neron and Memory of Tholatin, both of which were launching 72 TIE Defenders, 6 Skipray Blastboats and 5 Sentinel Shuttles. Also present was the MC-90 Star Cruiser Swift Liberty, the 2 Republic Star Destroyers, Ando’s Pride and Strident, both launch 72 TIE Defenders, the 2 Haven Light Cruisers, Defender and Freedom and Defender Gunship 12 to Defender Gunship 18, each launching 6 TIE Defenders. A further 48 MC-10 Starfighters and 72 B-wings were launching from the shipyard.

The Imperial Star Destroyers were arrayed in a wedge, and driving straight for the shipyard. The Victory Star Destroyers were in 2 wedges on either side, the escort carrier hung back, and the carrack cruisers were on the edge of the fleet. Fighters swarmed around the ships.

Fleet Admiral Smith had his ships in a line, with Swift Liberty in the centre, the 2 Neron’s flanking it, and the 2 Republic Star Destroyers were on either side. The Haven Light Cruisers were beside the Republic Star Destroyers, and the Defender Gunships were split in 2 groups of 3, arrayed beside the Haven Light Cruisers. The fighters were spread out below the ships.

Suddenly a blinding flash of light swept up from the planet, followed by another. It came up out of nowhere, and impacted on the shields of the lead Imperial Star Destroyer. The Imperial Star Destroyer quickly slowed down and began breaking of the attack, but the other ships were still there. When Gordon switched back to the fleet frequency he heard the tail end of the message sent by the Imperial Star Destroyer, saying that the Planetary Ion Cannons had disabled it. Then the NGC attack began. The TIE Defenders flew forward, lead by General Gordon Fren and Slasher Squadron, and immediately attacked the Imperials. As they closed with the fighters, a salvo of paint missiles was sent out, and flew into the Imperial’s tight formation, causing devastating losses, all of which immediately broke off, and their signal on the sensor board changed from red to white. However the Imperials’ return salvo was also quite deadly, and numerous NGC fighters had to break off the attack. Meanwhile the MC-10 Starfighters and SAB/SSFs were escorting the B-wings, Skipray Blastboats, and Sentinel shuttles towards the Victory Star Destroyer on the far right side of the engagement. The initial strafing run saw a titanic salvo of paint missiles fired at the ship, along with numerous laser cannon and ion cannon fire.

Some Imperial TIE Defenders immediately broke off their engagement with the NGC fighters, to strike at this new threat. Because they were forced to turn their backs to their enemies, the suffered even more casualties. However the Imperial Bombers kept on coming, and soon NGC fighters would have to do something to stop them.

Then the capital ships came into range of each other. Swift Liberty plowed ahead, slipping in between the two lead Imperial Star Destroyers, taking fire from both, but able to fire all her guns at the ‘Imperials’. The two Neron – class Xyto Cruisers also moved forward, firing their guns at the Imperial Star Destroyers on the edge of their wedge, and the two that Swift Liberty was attacking. The Republic Star Destroyers each attacked a wedge of Victory Star Destroyers, followed by a Haven Light Cruiser. The Defender Gunships, split into groups of three, were firing at the Carrack Cruisers. Currently they were suffering lots of damage, but were dishing out a lot as well. Then the planetary ion cannons fire again, ‘disabling’ a Victory Star Destroyer on the left side, and ‘disabling’ a Carrack Cruiser on the same side. Now the odds the Defender Gunships were doing good on the left side, and the Republic Star Destroyer along with the Haven Light Cruiser on that side weren’t doing bad either. On the right side the MC-10 Starfighters, SAB/SSFs and the ships they were escorting returned and strafed their target again, ‘destroying it’. They then began engaging the Imperial TIE Defenders sent to destroy them, while the B-wings, along with the Skipray Blastboats and SAB/SSFs began flying towards the TIE Bombers, which were past the NGC defence line, and on route for the shipyards.

Gordon looked around for Reaper Squadron, and initially didn’t find them. But then he saw them. They were going after one of the Carrack Cruisers on the right side, helping out the Defender Gunships, who needed the help badly. It seemed they had also recruited the 10 Sentinel Shuttles. He wished them luck, and then returned to his fight…

Exar Fel was laying down on his bed as his hands were tucked under his head. "I hope I can make the best effort in this."

Alert signals went......

Exar immediately got out from his bed and quickly got into flight gear with his helmet tucked in his side. He rans towards to the Hanger Deck of MC-90, the Swift Liberty and he quickly sees his squadron pilots gearing up into their cockpits as Exar gets into his TIE Defender and hails to his squadron from his starfighter, "This is Colonel Exar Fel, lesson up ladies. I want this a clean and simple task that I want you guys to follow my orders that I have a plan of action that Reaper Squadron make its marks on this battle and may the Force be with you always." Each of his squadron pilots signalled back and they kicked into gear of moving out of the Swift Liberty's hanger bay.

Exar Fel picked up on his first target, the Carrack Light Cruiser that he noticed Defender Gunships needed helped so he veer into that direction and so did his Reaper Squadron.

"I want the four X-Wings to line up in a tight parade formation and stay in formation towards the Carrack Light Cruiser and increase the shields so they overlapped themselves but no firing and I will tell you when to pull away, ok?" The X-Wings pilots in his squadron had conserns but they carried out his orders and they race fast at the cruiser which the Carrack was firing back that X-Wings' shields held from the attack. "Attention all Reaper B-Wings, I want you to follow them and when you are close to them, lock in their position and fire your torpedoes at them." One of the B-Wings pilot responded back, "Thats insane, sir. We will be attacking our friends. I must protest this action of yours." Exar Fel responded back harshly, "Trust me. I know what I'm doing if you follow it carefully." B-Wing pilot signalled back to him and that B-Wings caught up to the X-Wings and fire their torpedoes at the X-Wings.

When X-Wings were close enought to the Carrack, Exar ordered them to move into evasive action and when to different directions while the torpedoes were racing down to the Carrack and they hit the Carrack hard as which the Light Cruiser went dead. Exar radioed in to the Reaper Squadron, "Well done team on the job against the Carrack and now lets go back and help the others."

Exar signalled the MC-90 commander, "This is Colonel Exar Fel, Reaper squadron leader we have laid waste a Carrack Light Cruiser back off the tails of our Defender Gunships. The tactic I was using was the A-Wing Slash tactic which it provided a good manuever to use. I hope you disapprove of using my X-Wings as pawns which wasn't my attention of using the pilots like that but I thought it was effective. If you misapprove of it, I would be court martial on the matter but now I must get back of protecting our fleet from attacks."

Gordon frowned as a squadron of TIE Defenders turned towards the Slashers, coming up at them from below. He quickly double rolled his ship to port, and then broke hard down and right. The rest of One Flight followed him through the maneuver. The TIE Defenders, which had been ‘leading’ him with their shots, were now aimed above and to port of him, and they quickly flashed by. Gordon quickly flipped his ship upwards and slipped in behind the enemy TIE Defenders, which promptly started evasive maneuvers.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p> </o:p>

“One Flight, stick on me, Two Flight and Three Flight, where are you guys?”

<o:p> </o:p>

“Two Flight is to on the opposite side of the engagement area, and too busy to help anyone.”

<o:p> </o:p>

“Three Flight is angling in at your current targets, perpendicular to them, from above. If they continue on their current paths they will come under our guns soon enough.”

<o:p> </o:p>

“Excellent, we will continue to herd them your way. Two Flight, try to stay alive, we’ll come to your aid as soon as we’re done with this squadron. Three and Four, I want you guys to go more to the port of me, that way you can prevent the squadron from breaking to port before Three Flight ambushes them.”

<o:p> </o:p>

“Yes sir.”

<o:p> </o:p>

Three and Four slid to port, and continued to fire at the TIE Defenders. They were not trying to hit them so much as to keep them moving into the ambush. Even so, 2 TIE Defenders broke of from the fight, signaling that they were ‘destroyed’. One of the kills was chalked up to Gordon, the other to Slasher Three.

<o:p> </o:p>

Then Three Flight started firing at the TIE Defenders, while they were still above their targets. In their first salvo they killed three of the TIE Defenders, before the enemy TIEs broke to port. Slasher Three and Four, guess this is what would happen, and each blind fired a pair of paint missiles straight ahead, and the enemy fighters moved straight into them. This accounted for another three TIE Defenders. One Flight adjusted its flight path so it would continue attacking the enemy TIE Defenders from below and behind, and Three Flight continued to attack them from above and behind. No matter what the TIEs did, the Slashers would follow them through the maneuver and then continue attacking the enemy. Soon their numbers were whittled down to zero, and Three Flight and One Flight formed up behind Gordon, and headed through the battle, towards where Two Flight was spread apart. Five and Six were flying cover for a pair of ‘damaged’ TIE Defenders, and were having lots of difficulty. Seven and Eight were busy battling half a squadron of TIE Defender, and were barely staying alive, so they couldn’t help Five and Six. Other fighters in this area of the battle had troubles of their own. While the defence forces were winning in one part of the engagement, they seemed to be losing here. Gordon also noticed a flight of TIE Defenders coming in on Seven and Eight from behind.

<o:p> </o:p>

While still on the way there he heard Exar Fel’s message.

<o:p> </o:p>

Excellent, he seems to have proved that the joint squadron idea works well against capital ships. Now he’s going into the main fight against the fighters. We’ll see how they do against the TIE Defenders. Hopefully he will succeed in show my pilots that his tactics work well, and they will stop heckling his pilots. His message was a bit cocky, yet that isn’t all that uncommon in pilots. Even I can be cocky and egoistic at times.

<o:p> </o:p>

The Gordon returned his attention to the fight at hand, and addressed his pilots.

<o:p> </o:p>

“One Flight, stick with me, we will keep the newcomers off Seven and Eight. Three Flight, you guys help them with their half squad. Then go help Five and Six.”

<o:p> </o:p>

Gordon didn’t wait for a response, and quickly cut right.

<o:p> </o:p>

“Slash through them. I want to see four more Defenders dead by the time we get past them.”

<o:p> </o:p>

“Yes sir.”

<o:p> </o:p>

Gordon headed straight for the enemy fighters, and fired a pair of torpedoes at the first target that presented itself, the TIE Defender second from the left. Two fired a pair of missiles at the one on the far left, and Three and Four fired missiles at the other two. Then One Flight was past the enemy, and behind them their targets were breaking off, signaling that they were destroyed.

<o:p> </o:p>

Unfortunately, before he could get turn around to go help the rest of his squadron, a full squadron of TIE Defenders ‘bounced’ him from below. He quickly threw his craft into a spin, and rolled left, and then left again, before pulling up, and looping around, trying to get behind his attackers. However his pursuers stayed with him and Four was soon out of the fight. He continued to throw his craft through evasive maneuvers, but none worked. Checking his sensor board, he saw that Reaper Squadron was near by, and heading towards him.

<o:p> </o:p>

“Fel, this is General Fren. Would you mind lending some assistance to us?”

<o:p> </o:p>

Gordon continued to dodge, imagining the look of surprise that was probably on most of his pilot’s faces…

<o:p> </o:p>

Meanwhile the capital ship battle was going well for the defenders. The planetary ion cannons fired another time, striking the two Imperial Star Destroyers attacking Swift Liberty, finishing the job of taking them out of the fight. Swift Liberty then continued moving forward, and turned left, to sweep across that next Imperial Star Destroyer from behind. Meanwhile it shunted power from its starboard shields and shift the power to reinforce its port shields. The Neron Star Destroyers continued pounding their Imperial Star Destroyers. Soon the one of the left broke off from the fight, and Memory of Tholatin began following Swift Liberty, which had continued heading left and was cutting in behind the two remaining Victory Star Destroyers fighting a Republic Star Destroyer and Haven Light Cruiser. Swift Liberty and Memory of Tholatin pounded both of the Victory Star Destroyers hard, and then the Republic Star Destroyer finished the first off, while the Haven Light Cruiser rolled underneath the last Victory Star Destroyer on that side, and poured fire into the area of the hangar and the bottom shield generator. A few well placed shots from Swift Liberty hit the area of the top side shield generator, and then the VSD broadcasted that its shields were down. Memory of Tholatin moved into to finish it off, and the VSD rocked as it fired a salvo of missiles, before turning away from the fight signaling that it was dead. The missiles continued on their flight path, and while some were shot down by the Elite Anti-Missile Defense Systems on the surrounding ships, enough got through to Swift Liberty that it had to break off, and signal that it was destroyed. Suddenly the Carrack Cruiser left on that side swept, and in a last ditch effort, pounded the Haven Light Cruiser ‘destroying’ it, before the Defender Gunships it was fighting finished it off.

<o:p> </o:p>

On the other side of the engagement, Neron had defeated its Imperial Star destroyer, and was moving in on the two remaining Victory Star Destroyers on the right side. It was just the Republic Star Destroyer left to defend against the VSDs, the Haven Light Cruiser there was already out of the fight. Together Neron and the Republic Star Destroyer destroyed the last two Victory Star Destroyers. The Defender Gunships destroyed the last Carrack Cruiser although it killed on of their number.

<o:p> </o:p>

The TIE Bombers came within range of the shipyards, and opened fire on the first one, with paint missiles and laser cannons. They made sure to target the ships building within them, such as the Mediator Battlecruiser in the first one. It was designated destroyed, and the shipyard heavily damaged after the first to passes. Then the SAB/SSFs came roaring down on the TIE Bombers, and severally cut down their numbers, but the TIE Bombers still had enough ships left that they were able to ‘destroy’ the shipyard. The B-wings and Skipray Blastboats arrived on the scene just after the shipyard was destroyed, and they finished off the last of the TIE Bombers. A significant portion of the TIE Bombers that were left when the B-wings and Skiprays entered the fight were marked as disabled.

<o:p> </o:p>

Back in the dogfight, Gordon was still leading his flight through a wide range of evasive maneuvers, trying to shake the squadron on his tail. He hoped that Fel would come to his rescue soon. Not only was there the practical reason, he didn’t want to ‘die’, but also there was another reason. If Reaper Squadron saved part of Slasher Squadron, his pilots would be more likely to accept the Reaper pilots…

"General Fren, this is Exar Fel of the Reaper. I copy that and we will be gladly to help to help out."

Exar Fel changes the channel to his Reaper squadron, "This is Exar again. We are giving a lending hand to General Fren. Divert some power from the engines to the weapons and shields and also I want you guys to be paired into three fighters of different combination." They all copied the message sent by Exar Fel, so they began to join in the battle with enemy fighters.

The Reaper squadron enagaged the enemy fighters with retentless and they dont stop for nothing that that comes in their way. Exar's group was combination with his TIE Defender with a X-Wing and B-Wing, that his group were ahead of his squadron were blazing its laser cannons which they were more powered than normal against enemy fighters as their fighters were in fireballs by Exar's group laser cannons. Exar's group were picking off fighters one by one. The sneaky enemy TIE Defenders were behind his squadron as they were ill-fated way to attack him that Exar is Force-sensitive person, he began to switch his squadron to combat them as he radioed them in, "Follow my lead, guys. Lets perform the feint and backstab manuever. Reaper Group Two, you will make the head on attack then veer away to the port side while Reaper Group Three will sneak in and blow them out of the stars." Group Two moved the shield power to the rear edge of their fighters and they were pushing their engines to the limit while they were head on to the three enemy TIE Defenders and that Group Two veered away before reaching effective combat range from the enemy TIE Defenders and they took the bait and began to chase after them. Group Three began to chase after the fooled TIE Defenders at high speeds and blasted them away to space dust.

"Good work guys but I have a good for you guys so listen up. Here it is, I want to capture at least twenty enemy TIE Defenders so our capital ships can pick them up for retrivial and X-Wings will provide cover for us and disabled enemy fighters." The fighter pilots which the ones who has ion cannons to be switched to them and X-Wings were holding back to scan for enemy fighters in different arcs to cover that they were in a four starfighters formation. The Reaper fighters went after the enemy fighters that were coming in.

A few short minutes or so.....

Reaper squadron has accomplished its task made by Exar Fel that he was surprised that some of his fighters were abit damaged but it didn't stop their courage when taking fire. They were saved by X-Wings and some of the squadron that could spare the time of helping out and some fighters were scrapped.

"Swift Liberty, this is Exar Fel. I know we were suppose to defend our system but I thought we should capture some TIE Defenders and their pilots and let them see the real truth about the lies and deception by our enemies. So, radio in to one of our capital ships to tractor them in and take extreme measures, ok sir?"

Exar closed his eyes and began to feel Gordon's thoughts and saw what was on his mind. That Exar thought clearly about Gordon's thoughts and took them in his fingers and he communicates to his Reaper squadron pilots to help out the Slasher squadrons. Reaper squadron were heading towards the Slasher squadron and began to join in the fight and man they out a fight against the Imperial fighters by relinquishing their laser cannons to shred the fighters to bits, if like they chew the main course down the hatch and splat out.

Gordon smiled as Reaper Squadron came in, and wiped the squadron of his tail.

“Thanks Reapers.”

He then flew back into the dogfight, to help out Five and Six. Reaper Squadron followed them, and the two squadrons finished off the dogfight together.

Meanwhile the escort carrier had recovered some fighters which had managed to escape the dogfight, and had made a quick micro-jump to the edge of the system, before returning, signaling that it had safely fled the scene of the battle.

“All ships, this is Admiral Smith. Congratulations to you all, you all performed well. Proceed back to your hangar bays, and you superiors will inform you of the result.”

Gordon quickly turned towards Swift Liberty and asked for docking instructions. As he flew in, he saw Reaper Squadron behind hi, just beginning to dock. While he would have preferred to talk to Exar Fel about his experiment right away, he needed to head over to Neron, and be involved in the debriefing of the exercise. While he would have preferred to fly his TIE Defender over there, he was forced to go in the shuttle, with the other officers from Swift Liberty, mainly because technicians would be busy taking off the modifications to his fighter. He quickly got out of his fighter, made sure the rest of his pilots had landed safely and were okay, and then left for the aft landing bay where the shuttles were. He boarded the shuttle, and waited for the rest of the officers to come…

Gordon sat onboard the Neron – class Xyto Cruiser Neron, in a conference room, while other officers took their seats. At the head of the table were Fleet Admiral Smith, who was in charge of the ‘defender’ fleet in the exercise, and Fleet Admiral Sarn, who was in charge of the ‘Imperials’. Also with them was the analysts sent from Fleet Command to observe the exercise. Soon all the officers were there and the meeting began.

“Overall the exercise was a good one. The Defenders succeeded in defeating the Imperial fleet, and the Imperials were forced to withdraw. Unfortunately the shipyard was destroyed, and the Mediator Battlecruiser in it was also destroyed. The MC-90 Star Cruiser Swift Liberty is also listed as being destroyed. An Imperial Escort Frigate managed to escape, with some pilots and fighters, but to be reasonable; you did not have any Interdiction Cruisers to help you. The starfighter battle was pretty standard for the most part, space superiority fighters fighting each other, bombers attacking the capital ships or shipyards. However, there was one exception. Reaper Squadron. I noticed it is not a normal squadron, and after discussions with Fleet Admiral Smith I have learned it is an experiment squadron. General Fren, would you care to brief us on Reaper Squadron.”

“I haven’t studied the sensor images completely, but from what I saw it was a success. They had a flight of TIE Defenders, XJ X-wings, and B-wing Bombers. They used the A-wing slash, slightly modified, and pounded a Carrack Cruiser. They flew with precision, in a manner that could not be duplicated by a squadron of fighters and a squadron of bombers that joined together during a battle. The precision they used needed a long time of training together, developing these ideas, and practicing them. Also, they formed together, mixing a TIE Defender, with an XJ X-wing and a B-wing in one flight, making use of what each of the separate fighters has to offer, and pounded numerous fighters. I’ve calculated that Reaper Squadron shot down over 3 squadrons, and they weren’t even in the starfighter battle the whole time! And they didn’t suffer any losses, just minor damage to their vehicles, easily repaired. If I might be so bold to say so, I’d say that the experiment was a complete success, and that you should take the ideas back to Fleet Command, and form more joint fighter-bomber squadrons. No existing squadrons should be broken up, up new pilots should be joined together to form these new squadrons.”

“But what of the SAB/SSF? Was it not designed to be used in this manner? Meaning we could just take the SAB/SSF squadrons and make them fighter-bomber squadrons?”

“Yes it was designed to be used in that manner, but studies show that it has failed miserably in that aspect.”

“What?!”

“It is much more of a space superiority fighter than a bomber, and a TIE Defender could do its job as a bomber just as well as it can. It is my opinion that a good fighter/bomber design has yet to be made, and is will be extremely hard to design. Most designs either have the weak points of both the designs; slow speed, and not a lot of shielding, or if they are quick, they do not have enough good weapons to be used against a capital ship in anything role more than what a TIE Defender could do. If you want a better bomber, go get the research teams designing one, and pair that up with space superiority fighters. The increases in speed that most space superiority fighters have reached are enough that a fighter/bomber design is now unrealistic.”

“We will bring your ideas back to Fleet Command, though it is likely that they will not be addressed very quickly.”

“You would be wise to see that they are addressed extremely quickly. The idea has merit, and it could prove to be a turning point in any future wars we fight.”

“You seem so sure that we will be fighting another war?”

“Yes we will fight another war. I can guarantee it. There are three major galactic powers are present, the New Order, the Black Dragon Empire, and us. We are all expanding our borders. Some of us through peaceful means, others through terror, or military campaigns against the local planetary defense fleet. Others are attacking pirates and mercenaries, freeing the people of that planet from the threat of the pirate attacks, and thereby convincing the people to join them. Sooner or later we will come to a collision of two governments, where both of us go after the same planet. A battle will probably break out, and then a war will start. We need to be ready for that possibility, which I guarantee will happen. Also we have wars, not major ones, going on right now. The war against terrorism and GLF is one example. If we find one of their bases, or find someone that supports them, I can guarantee we will go after them. We also have wars against pirate and mercenary gangs. Not major wars, but wars nonetheless. If we aren’t ready for every possibility, and if we don’t have the newest and best equipment, suitable for its intended purpose, we will be crushed, or at the very least suffer a very unpleasant surprise. And that unpleasant surprise could be very costly in material and, more importantly, personnel. If we suffer major losses like we did at Corellia, we will lose a lot of support, recruitment will drop, and we may see ourselves in a position where we don’t have any support amongst the people, and we are forced, through political influence, to surrender to any enemy we could have beat, if only we hadn’t suffered that initial defeat.”

“If the people don’t support a war, we shouldn’t be involved in the war.”

“Your quite right. But the people tend to be swayed by something very little, such as an initial loss against any enemy we weren’t prepared for. If we had been prepared, their support would not have swayed, and they would have backed us in attacking the enemy, and forcing them to surrender.”

“You may be right, and even if you aren’t, you raise some good ideas and points. I will relay your ideas to Fleet Command, and most likely some of them will make their way to the Ruling Council for debate there.”

“I can only ask that my ideas be relayed to the proper authorities, for the good of everyone.”

“I think that concludes the fighter portion of the meeting, unless anyone wants to add something.”

“I would. Who was the squadron that Reaper Squadron first attacked. The one that was sticking with my flight and me the whole time until Reaper Squadron helped us out?”

“Let me check…it was the Golden Eagles, stationed onboard the Imperial Star Destroyer Justice. Commanded by Colonel Kristen Bartle. Her commanding officer presently here is General Veers.”

“General, send my congratulations to her, tell her she would have smoked us if we hadn’t gotten our backup. And also tell her she’s trained a formidable squadron.”

“I will General.”

“Thank you.”

Gordon, along with the other fighter commanders, left the conference room, and returned to the shuttle that would take him back to Swift Liberty as the rest of the commanders analyzed the capital ship engagement…

Gordon smiled as he left the docking bay onboard the Swift Liberty after being dropped off by the shuttle. Now that the meeting was over he could go and speak with Exar Fel. And he had a lot to speak to him about. He needed to find out what Fel’s thoughts were on how his experiment worked, and also to relay that the ideas were being forwarded to Fleet Command.

“Bridge, this is General Fren. Do you know where Colonel Fel is?”

“One second sir…He’s seems to be in his quarters sir.”

“Thank you Bridge.”

He quickly walked to a turbolift, waited for the two mechanics that were on it to get off, and then walked up, and punched the button for the floor where Fel’s quarters were. He quickly walked to quarters, and knocked on the door, waiting for Fel to respond…

Exar Fel radioed back to Gordon, "Your welcome, Gordon Fren. The Reaper Squadron is always there to help out."

Reaper Squadron followed Gordon's squadron and began to mop up the remaining fighters of dogfighting.

Exar Fel and his squadron turned towards Swift Liberty as well which they followed Gordon's squadron again and asked for docking instructions from flight control. Exar flies in with his newly formed and experimental squadron and eased on the flight deck. He saw Gordon on the flight deck as he smiled to him and gave the thumbs up to Mr. Fren that he was in his fighter's cockpit. Exar got out of the cockpit of his fighter and stood there by looking at his fighter. He put his right hand on his fighter's hull to get the feel of it as he glimpse himself of a job well done. Other Reaper pilots began to exit their fighters and they decided to go to the mess hall but not Exar, he decided to go to his quarters.

Exar lies down on his bed in his quarters and takes a short nap. While under his bed, it has a box of things that he brought over from his IPV-1 and one of things has a small pyramidial object with gold casing and some strange pictures and other things on it. It began to glow of the colour red like a christmas lights and formed an image of red hologram that expanded that almost engulf Exar's bed size. Red figure smiled at him and it heard a knock at the door, "Drats, I will see you around my bloodline son and soon you will know your place, young one."

Exar Fel woke up from his sleep and quickly got to the door and opened it. He saw Gordon Fren infront of him and he showed Gordon to come in by his hands, "Welcome General and these are my quarters and take a seat."

Exar watched Gordon taking a seat in his room, "That battle sure was something and so what drops you by to my quiet quarters, if you don't mind at all answering that, sir. Would you like something to eat or drink?"

OOC: Anubis will come in the next post of mine soon

OOC: Sounds good.

Gordon walked in and took the seat that was offered to him.

"No thanks, I'm fine, there was food and drink at the debriefing. Yes, that was a good battle, made all the better since nobody actually died. I know there has been problems in the past between our pilots, mainly my pilots harassing some of yours. I hope that is all over, seeing as your pilots save mine today and your squadron escaped without damage, while mine lost some pilots. But incase I am wrong, I need you to report any future harrassing or problems to me right away, alright? We need to stop it soon, before it gets out of hand. However that is really the main reason why I'm here. I need to know what your opinion of today's exercise is, in relation to your squadron. I need to know if you feel the experiment was a success."

Gordon wanted Fel's opinion urgently, because he had just told his superiors the experiment was a success and to form more squadrons of the same design. Unfortunately on the way back to Swift Liberty he had realised how much he didn't know. He didn't know the level of comradeship Fel's pilots had with each other outside the cockpit. He didn't know if they got along together or if they argued all the time. If they didn't get along well, the experiment would technically prove to be a failure, since it would just create problems within the squadron. Or if there was a problem where the fighter pilots constantly harrased the bomber pilots, since they flew slower less manuverable craft, then that could prove to be a problem that would erupt in other squadrons of similar design. He needed to know that information quickly because if he didn't find out until later he wouldn't be able to tell the advisor of the situation to ignore his suggestions, since he hadn't had complete information when he had made them.


OOC:More to add soon.

Meanwhile the majority of the pilots stationed onboard Swift Liberty were in the pilot's mess hall. The Slashers were sitting together at a long table discussing the exercise amongst themselves. Slasher Four was still angry about being shot down in the exercise.

"Relax Jay, its no big deal. Anyone could have been shot down. Thats what happens." said Nina Daoust, pronounced Doe, who was Slasher Eight. While she was a relatively knew pilot in the Slasher ranks, she was calmer than most and one who Gordon didn't need to worry about.

But Jay, whose full name was Justin Hartman, was not one too calm down very easily. A human from Anoat, he had always been easily angered, but not easily calmed down.

He continued his angry rant and the other began to ignore him.

Major Tyler Moss, Slasher 5, was talking to Commander John Durling, commander of Nova Squadron, a B-wing squadron assigned to Swift Liberty.

"How do you think the exercise went."

"Not bad for our side, though the other side got hammered."

"True enough. How'd you squadron do?"

"We manag-"

He was cut off by a yell from the table behind him. Both of the officers, along with the rest of the pilots in the mess, jumped up to see what was happening.

Jay had been walking past the Reaper table, to got get more food, when he had heard thm bragging to each other about the exercise and how they had no losses. As he was walkin by one of them threw a piece of food at another and it accidentaly hit him. He blew up and started pounding on the nearest Reaper pilot, thinking that he had thrown it at him on purpose since he had been shot down but the Reaper's hadn't.

Major Moss and Commander Kela Poenn, Slasher Nine, quickly jumped forward to restraing Jay, while Commander Durling jumped up and restrained the Reaper pilot, even though he didn't look like he wanted to continue the fight and seemed to be glad it was over. Jay continued yelling at the Reaper pilots, saying that they were no good and an experiment gone wrong. Most of the rest of the Slasher pilots didn't agree with him on that count, but kept their mouths shut. Major Moss, Commander Poenn and Commander Durling took Jay and the Reaper pilot out of the mess and the pilots turned back to their discussions.

Out in the hallway Commander Poenn pulled out her comlink, and called the bridge.

"Bridge can you tell me where General Fren is?"

"Whose asking?"

"Commander Poenn."

"He's in Colonel Fel's quarter Commander."

"Thank you very much."

The group began walking towards Colonel Fel's quarters...

Exar Fel nodded as he was hearing him straight. "My squadron did had minor damaged to its shields but I knew things how I could use things. I'm sorry to hear about your pilots getting killed and I wish them a peaceful life with the Force. I will keep that in mind, sir. What I saw today in the exercise that is we were doing okay I guess, but there could be some improvements on the peformance that if we come in a real battle things would be different." He took a short breath then explaining to General Fren of the exercise. "Also about the experiment, is that I find it interesting of using different fighters to accomplised the goal of about their abilities. I think that a starfighter is more than a machine, its more like a trustworthy friend that if you treat it right and you will recieve rewards afterward, that is the true meaning of guiding your hands into battle."

Exar Fel looked down to the floor and something was on his mind that he needed General Fren to hear, "There was abit of a consern about my pilots of showing loyalty without questioning my orders that they did heistated when I gave the orders to 'technically' fire on my own squadron about modified A-Wing Slash that we all saw. I would not like this to happen again. We don't need this kind of disloyalty when we are in a real battle and it would cost us more than broken bones and wounds. I would like to see some of my pilots to trust in their leader and I know whats best in this. My famous cousin Soonitir Fel was the best pilot in the Imperial Navy that he knew how to deal about delivering unquestionable friendship and loyalty which I guess I'm following his footsteps."

Exar looked at the ceiling of his quarters and knew something is happening in the mess hall. "Ahhh Sir. We might have a problem in the mess hall but I can sense its settling down. I guess we should go down there and sort out the problem." He touched his lightsaber as his lightsaber was drawing him to use it but Exar heistated and walked out with General Fren. Soon after they left Exar's quarters they were interrupted by Commander Poenn and his group.

Exar looks at Commander Poenn, "What seem to be the problem here that I sensed something in the mess hall?"

When he was listening to what Commander Poenn has to say about one of his Reaper pilots and Exar knew which one it was. He activated his comlink to call in a friend in the Reaper Squadron that he has knew him for ages. "Anubis, my friend. Can you meet us near the turbolift which it is located near my quarters."

OOC: I will let you post before I introduced Anubis to the crowd.

OOC: For the record the guys aren't actually dead. Please check out the new rules.

IC:

Gordon was slightly disappointed with Exar's problems, because the same problems would most likely show up in any new squadrons modelled after his. He would have to remeber to have a talk with the official from High Command before he left the system.

As Commander Poenn explained the problem, Gordon thought back to when Jay had first joined the squadron. An enthusiastic young man, he had seemed quite humble and shy, though excited to have been able to join such an elite and reknown squadron. Somewhere along the way that had changed and now he was very self centered and egoistic. As he thought back to when the change might have happened, he remembered that right after the Outer Rim Sovereignty and the New Galactic Coalition had joined together and when he had been invited to go to Mon Calamari. There were crowds lining the streets cheering for Slasher Squadron and the other military personnel that were there. He remembered Jay looking on in awe and a change had come over him. He had seemed to think that all the attention was for him and him alone. That must have been it. Since then he must have grown acustom to the cheers and the crowds. Being shot down in the exercise had angered him and he had taken out that anger on the Reaper Squadron pilots.

"Flight Officer Hartman, you do realise that you can't keep on getting in fist fight onboard military craft, right?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. You're confined to your quarters until further notice."

"But sir-"

Gordon knew exactly what he was complaining about. The Slashers had shore starting the next day and from the stories he'd heard Jay was looking forward to it as every military man looked forward to shore leave. Bars and women...thats what he wanted. Gordon was always amused by how anxious the younger pilots seemed to look forward to shore leave. Yes he liked shore leave, but he wasn't as anxious for it as the younger ones. Missing this shore leave would hopefully be enough for Jay to stop his fighting.

"No buts Flight Officer. Your confined to quarters until further notice."

With that Commander Poenn and Major Moss took him away.

Gordon turned back to Fel and the Reaper pilot...