The commander made his entrance into the briefing room only a few minutes after the alotted meeting time, closely followed by Captain Jax.  Whilst the commander made his way to this lecturn, Zyra took a seat with the pilots.  There was hushed anticipation as everyone waited for the Commander to speak.



OOC:  The commander should be sending his little session shortly.  Once that is done, feel free to commence posting.

The commander looked around the room and frowned.  His gaze fell across every person before he began to speak.  His voice boomed out across the room and several people wondered if the techs had the volume set to high until they quickly realised he hadn't even turned the microphone on yet.

"Now I don't know what you're all used to but you are now serving on a military vessel and we will act as such.  The resistance may not have formerly declared war but I predict they will do so within the next year or less.  Therefore we will live and train as soldiers.  Soldiers stand up and salute a superior officer when he walks in the room and refers to his superiors as 'sir' or 'ma'am'.  Get in the habit people.  When you see a superior in full uniform and hat you salute him or her.  Just like you would expect a subordiante to salute you.  Discipline and professionalism people.  That's what wins wars."

"Now you may have noticed a slight change to the roster.  Flight Officers Kern and Simestra will not be joining this squadron as their skill were needed elsewhere.  Instead we are joined by Pilot Officers Allen and Koruusk.  As their rank suggest they are newly commissioned.  I leave it to you all to get them up to speed quickly."

"First and foremost I have completed the Squadron roster and designated flight groups and pairs as follows.  Flight 1 will be led by me with Allen on my wing as Talon two.  Hyquin and Nallis are Talons three and four.  Flight Officer Webb will be given command of two flight with Lars as his wing.  Grimm and Savin will be seven and eight.  My XO will lead three flight with Koruusk on her wing.  Kismet and Bedix will round out three flight as Talon eleven and twelve."

"Learn the signs of yourself and your team.  Comm discipline was sloppy in the sim and I wont have it when its real.  You refer to your team members by number when on a mission, be it in space or on land.  A slip of a name gets people killed people."

"In space, flight leaders will have command of their flights whilst I retain overall command.  On the ground, I will base groups on the skills needed."

"Any questions before I proceed to the briefing?"

"Wow, I get to fly with the Commander! Interesting. I wonder what criteria he used to create the flights," thought Cyril Hyquin, relishing his designation as Talon 3. "Three's the charm," he continued, smiling at the pleasant coincidence between his number and his fortune.

Cyril looked around and saw that, indeed, two of the three original female Greys were not present, and they were replaced with a Duros and a Trandoshan. As he had been accustomed to, he begins to wonder what the skills of the two were. If it held true for their entire race, the Duros would be a skilled pilot, and the Trandoshan, well, Cyril couldn't be sure - at headquarters, he hadn't spent as much time with Trandoshans as he did with Duros, and there certainly wasn't any time to socialize with those he sees imprisoned in the Imperial outposts and garrisons he infiltrated. Immediately, he starts memorizing everyone's designation.

Afterwards, he turns his attention to the Commander again, making a mental note to start wearing his uniform on board the ship. It would be fun walking around feeling all military-like without actually having a mission to achieve, as his time wearing uniforms had been all but restricted to time spent undercover.

Feeling a twinge of mixed glee and satisfaction at the 'pre-briefing briefing' of sorts, Cyril changes to a more officer-like tone, saying, "Talon 3 has no questions, Commander."

Zyra listens as the Commander gives his tough-as-nails speech and carefully surpresses her smile.  She knew the commander was just rubbing the newbies noses in the dirt.  Once they earned his respect he would relax the standards a little.

She turned in her seat to look at ther pilots.  "We have a tradition in my old squadron.  Poorest performing flight on a mission buys the lomin ales for the rest of the squadron.  Let me tell you right now three flight, I expect to get a lot of free drinks in the coming months and thats an order."

Christian looked at the group with a nod to himself.  This is more like it. he thought to himself.  more militarised..more ordered.  He looks at the commander.  and the commander is a born leader..to the point and says it how it is.

Christian wasn't surprised that some people had left the wing, and that some replacements were found.  In his short time as a soldier, he had seen people wash out, be promoted or transfered to another location.  This was the nature of the military..and the nature of war.

He looks at commander sheppard with a small shake of his head.  "No Sir" he says clamly as he looks at him, waiting for him to continiue.

Allen looks around the room at the other pilots.  "Quite a formal lot," he thinks to himself.

As the commander starts his speech, he makes a few mental notes on who's who as he listens to the rest of it.  "Other than remembering everyones designations and all this formal stuff, I think I'll do fine," he grins inwardly to himself.

"I-" he says, and then checks himself, remembering.  "Talon 2 has no questions, sir," he corrects.

Jamie held his mouth shut to prevent a whoop.  He wanted to jump, but held himself still while the commander spoke.
Talon 5...flight leader!  Whoa!  Dad would be proud...
He looked around at the pilots in his flight, memorizing their new designations.
Lars, Talon 6; Grimm, Talon 7; Savin, Talon 8...
He chuckled at Captain Jax's expectations.
Good thing I'm not in her flight!
He looked around at the other pilots, and remembered that he didn't know much about them.  He opened his mouth to ask a question, but closed it first.  He'd wait and figure it out later.

The commander seemed mildly amused at everyone's responses.  "You don't need to refer to yourselves by your designations here you know.  It only when we are on mission where our comms might be intercepted.  I'm trying to turn you into skilled soldiers, not droids."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:08, Mon 20 Mar 2006.

Koruusk looked from pilot to pilot and then back to the commander as the man spoke. It was....... different compared to his previous experience in a structured group. The Trandoshan slavers he grew up with had a sort of a sliding scale. Things were a lot more loose with them but punishment was a lot more harsh and there was no reward system for those who did better as everyone was expected to do their best and no less. He was relieved by the differences even though he wasn't sure he would handle them perfectly well. He hated everything to do with those slavers now so anything different was a plus.

When the commander finished speaking he turned to the officer he had been assigned to. He didn't know for certain but he felt it was likely an honor to be assigned as 'wing' to your immediate commanding officer. His experience in fighters was limited but he was a quick study and he had spent nearly every moment training with them since he joined this resistance. He hoped it was enough to warrant such an honor.

"It is my honor to serve as your wing, Captain Jax," Koruusk nodded at his immediate superior as he spoke as politely as he could in shyriiwook.

He was in the habit of speaking in shyriiwook. It had become second nature to him. The thought never even occurred to him that some of the people here might not know it.

The Captain gave her new wingman a small smile as he spoke.  "The pleasure is mine Pilot Officer Koruusk as it will be that of our flight I'll wager.  However I would suggest you stick to Basic in the future.  There are few who understand the dialogue of the Wookies, there are fewer still who can speak it.  Whilst I count myself as one who understands Shyriwook, I've yet to met a human who can speak it."

Koruusk tilted his head a bit, half his face bit by an awkward smile and the other half a frown. He was fluent in basic but speaking it felt mildly unnatural to him. Afterall, up until a few months ago he had been living in a place where everyone around him could only speak shyriiwook so he had to make a conscious effort to speak in anything else. It was one of many things he would have to adapt to.

"I ..... will try to remember that. I am not yet accustomed again to being around people who could speak languages other than Shyriiwook" his basic was annunciated with a bit of a hiss. "Will there be time to fly a few training runs in our flight. It seems likely we will need to learn each others style of piloting as we will be flying very close to each other."

"Make sure you practice.  In the heat of combat, you might have a moment to warn us of something.  You better make sure when the time comes you know how to speak Basic."

"Oh and remember what the Commander said.  When talking to a superior you address them as sir or ma'am.  That includes all the Flight Officers, myself and the commander.  It doesn't apply when we are out of uniform or in the mess but get in the habit or you'll end up peeling a lot of tubers or some equally unpleasant duty."

Things were getting more and more interesting by the minute. Cyril had overheard the new squaddie's unintelligible 'growls-with-hisses', and considered himself fortunate that the Captain had identified the language as Shyriiwook. Though Cyril could not understand Shyriiwook, much less speak it, he found it amusing that a Trandoshan could actually speak the language of the Wookiees. As he was wont to do, he made a mental note to try and find out anything he could about the Trandoshan.

"At the very least, I could get to learn two new languages," he reasoned to himself. The more languages he could understand, he knew, the more information he could gather.

Ashlyn simply shook his head at the Commander's request for questions.  None of the minor questions that came to mind seemed relevant enough to voice and would most likely he would learn the answer simply by listening to the rest of the briefing.

At Jax's performance expectations, Bedix got a wry grin on his face.  "Yes Ma'am."  He commented softly not really intending for anyone to hear.  He looked over the third flight.  A transdoshan that prefered something other than basic.  That could be difficult to get along with.  A common crook and himself.  He wondered if they were expected to be the problem children, the chaotic bunch that didn't follow orders so needed the Captain's guidance.  They would just have to see.

Nirro was happy with the way things turned out. He didn't mind ending up as christians wing again as the last time they had worked well together. Now with a clear chain of command things could go better. He was happy for Jaime as well, the only pilot from the sim who was given a flight command. Now that was impressive! Well time to get all military like!

As the Commander started into his harangue, Devon straightened up from his boneless slouch into a position that military types such as Commander Sheppard and Captain Jax would hopefully find acceptable.  As Sheppards speech continued, a mixture of emotions crossed Devons face as he realized exactly how different this new life was going to be.

As the squadron assignments were called out, Devon glanced around; matching faces to names and callsigns.



Devon grinned at the captains comment and chuckled quietly, but otherwise remained silent, waiting for the commander to continue.

Xil sat in his chair with his usual 'thousand meter stare' as the Commander addressed the squadron.  He thought to himself, and when he found out that he was flying in first flight with the Commander, he looked over at his wingmate and quickly caught his eye.  He nodded his head slightly and turned back to Commander, regaining his same flat expression.

"I have no questions, sir."

"Don't worry, Ex," Cyril whispered, casually giving his new wingman a nickname. "I can call you Ex, right? Just watch my back like you did for your wingman in the sim, and I'll be sure to return the favor. Besides, I'd rather be a spotter for a sniper than have a sniper spotting me.

"Of course, we still gotta remember that what the Commander says, goes."

Seeing that nobody was voicing any questions the Commander pressed on.

"As you all know, we are now serving with the Perlemian-Hydian Alliance.  Despite what some of you may have heard, this Alliance whilst acting in defiance of the Galactic Empire's edict on restriction of military vessels, is NOT at war with the Empire.  Nor are the any immediate plan for such a war to be declared.  It would be a slaughter as the Alliance lacks the firepower to take on such a mighty fleet."

"Our primary task is to defend the trade lanes and to help quell pirate activities in the area.  There may be some action against the Empire but there will more likely be recon in nature or maybe some hit and run or resource raids."

"This brings us to our first mission.  As many of you know, Black Talon Squadron is a brand new squadron that I conceived to branch into a new area of warfare.  Whilst we have plenty of pilots and even some formidable commandos, I envision the need for a small force that can combine both roles.  We can go where others can't."

"What you may not know is that whilst the squadron was approved in theory, in practice, things are different.  You may have noticed that the Indefatigable has two full squadrons already.  So where are our ships you might ask?  The simple answer is we weren't supplied any!  All we have is two Z-95 Headhunters that are the captain's and my own.  We also have periodic use of one of this frigate's landing craft.  There just aren't enough resources for the Alliance to hand out a dozen fighters to an experimental squadron."

"Whilst our starfighter situation is grim, our equipment supplies are better.  We have access to the ground supplies on this vessel which means we have the use of the mechanical facilities, explosives and weapons.  This will be enough to get us started."

"As such are first mission is going to be threefold.  We will be taking the landing craft to a nearby system which will remain unnamed until we arrive for security purposes.  A local pirate group is operating out of the area.  Our mission is to learn what we can, disrupt their activity and as best we can acquire what resources we can be it weapons, credits or even ships.  This group will need to be quite self-sufficient if we hope to get off the ground."

"For the intelligence briefing I will be handing over to my Intelligence Officer.  He looks to Zyra.  "Captain, continue the brief."

Zyra stood and took her place at the display as shots of a city began appearing.  "This is Serakot, a small city of approximately two thousand.  It is a society based largely upon piracy and entertainment for the same.  They do have some agricultural produce and textile production as well, but primarily it is a small, largely lawless town whose income comes from piracy and entertainment."

"Our entry will be via shuttle.  Our cover is that we are a small band of freelance smugglers and mercanaries looking for work.  Once there we need to learn what we can about the pirates who work out of here and what threat they pose to the Alliance.  Many shipping lanes can be threatened from this world."

"The pirates numbers are estimated in the hundreds.  We are unsure of their armament but we suspect they have a mixed collection of fighters and bombers, likely older models like Z-95's and the like.  They have transports and rumours persist of some gunships, maybe even a small cruiser though this hasn't been substantiated."

"We need to gain what information we can through diplomacy or force.  We must disrupt any threats to the Alliance and we must gather resources to keep our squadron running."

"Now you all bring unique skills to this squadron so you are all expected to contribute to the planning phase.  Lets hear ideas and questions.  The more ideas we get the less suprises we should face when we get there."

Xil raised his hand and stood when called on.  "Ma'am, what are the urban areas like.  Does it have long straight streets or is it chaotic sprawl?  Will I have a hard or easy time lining up shots?"  He will continue to remain standing until his question is addressed.

Cyril Hyquin grinned. He was right - the squadron had no ships of it's own - and even such a disappointing revelation did not stop his face from gleefully expressing itself.

"Um, Captain? What if, and this is a very big if, what if in the course of posing as mercs, someone actually hires us? What do we do then? Do we fulfill whatever contract we get? That gives us the opportunity to gain some reputation in that area, but we run the risk of having to go against our side."

"Well we will have a better idea when we get there.  However I trust you're not planning to stand in the middle of a street with your sniper rifle!  We're not after that kind of attention.  In fact weapons should be limited to sidearms only.  They will not attract attention.  Most importantly we do not start firefights without the commanders authorisation unless you are fired at."




"Thats always a risk of undercover work.  I imagine we will play along as best we can for as long as we can.  Earning favour with these pirates might help our cause but not at the expense of innocent lives."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:29, Tue 21 Mar 2006.