Business As Usual

[Vansen Tyree]

Things had changed aboard the Challenger. More importantly, they had changed for Rogue Squadron. Or Rogue Group. Or whatever the hell it was that Alliance Command had decided to call it now.

Things had been going very wrong for the Alliance to Restore the Republic of late, and the Wheel seemed to be uncomfortably close to the centre of it. Political alliances and emnity had shattered the once-united Galactic Empire into a myriad of factions, and while that presented opportunities for the Rebels, it also multiplied the number of potential rivals and enemies. All the while, there were whisperings of traitors and Sith lurking in the Alliance's midsts; rumours that Alliance Intelligence was trying it's utmost to keep at bay.

It had been decreed that in these troubled times, the Rebel Alliance needed as many symbols as they could, to maintain the faith and confidence of their soldiers. It was argued that Rogue Squadron's secret assignment to the Wheel wasn't high profile enough: that the Alliance couldn't afford to keep one of it's symbols tucked away, even if they were protecting an even more important one. There were fears too that, without Rogue Squadron popping up in Imperial Intelligence reports often enough, the Empire might become suspicious of what the Alliance's elite was really up to.

And so, Rogue Squadron had transformed: not just a dozen elite pilots, but several more. The Alliance's best would still protect the galaxy's hope for the future; but with enough spare pilots and planes with the correct paint job to once again let the Rogues take the fight to the enemy.

Today however, the mission that had presented itself was far less glamorous. By rights it shouldn't even have been a Rogue mission at all, but recent events had left him overly cautious. The Wheel had detected a distress call from deep space: a signal that seemed to date back as far as the Clone Wars.

The last time they had detected such a transmission, Commodore Tyree had allowed two of the Jedi to investigate it alone; and they had barely made it back in once piece, though the spoils ultimately did justify the risk.

This time, he would ensure that things were done properly.

Striding into the briefing room, he waved away any notions of salutes or attention. Rather than approach the podium however, he simply joined the assembled pilots scattered around the front row, settling himself down beside Major Perris. Captain Luka would be leading the briefing, whenever he decided to grace them with his presence; Vansen was there merely to offer the occasional growl and encouraging remark.

He shot a glance to the pilot beside him, his voice low. "You sure you can remember how to fly an X-Wing, Major? It's been a while."

[Kelly Perris]

Perris sunk about as much as one could sink in to the back of the rigid seat, one leg perched perpendicular over the other and arms crossed. The commodore's gruff voice and the taunting words that came entirely absent of a taunting tone at first made the pilot smirk, as much old habit would have him do, but only half a smirk before it turned tail to nothing at all. The major shot a similar glance back at Tyree.

"I've been flying anything I could get my hands on and get away with about as long as I've been able to walk, sir." He lifted the horizontal leg off and settled the foot on the ground, opting for an open-legged and decidedly male stance in his seat, stretching his neck up and back as he did so. "It isn't a habit easily forgotten or easily given up."

His old man had been a pilot, and his old man, so on and so forth. You could say it was in the blood. Tadel Perris was a man and pilot the major had aspired to be for many of his years - and he was hardly the only pilot to do so.

"Call me stubborn if you like. I am my father's son."

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen grunted.

"I spent years calling your father a stubborn ass, and it didn't make a damned bit of difference. Don't suppose there's any point expecting a different reaction from you."

He fell silent for a moment, his eye settling on one of the female pilots that had joined their modest gathering. His mind strayed to a few of the rumours that he'd overheard circulating about the ship, and while he ordinarily wouldn't pay much attention to the scuttlebutt down on the flight deck, this rumour had a little more resonance with him than normal.

He gestured subtly in her direction, dropping his voice properly this time. "You're not the only Rogue whose father I used to serve with, Major. He and I -" He didn't state it outright, but it was clear to whom he was referring. "- went through a lot together, and I owe it to him to keep his daughter out of trouble."

There was a heavy pause. "And more importantly, to keep trouble out of his daughter."

[Kelly Perris]

Perris straightened up in his seat, uncrossed his arms and pressed his palms into his thighs. Such news was bound to have reached the commodore eventually - even if things had been kept to the utmost discretion, the major had no illusions about hiding much from Tyree as it was bound to not work. Not so much because of the man, but rather the nature of a unit such as the squadron. He leaned ever so slightly toward the older man and kept his voice hushed. Even without the mention of names... yes, the persons to which he referred was crystal clear.

"Trouble, sir?" His eyebrows lifted. "Only the kind we all invite by virtue of our occupation."

The seasoned pilot straightened again and set his eyes toward the front of the room.

"I am, however, as invested in keeping other troubles out of this particular equation, but it does not stand in the way of duty."

He would, or course, much prefer that duty did not exact that same cost on him again, much as it had done fifteen or so years before.

"To be honest, I won't be screwing this up. Too important for too many reasons. I may be a 'stubborn ass', but not a stupid one, sir."

[Jaden Luka]

"The jury's still out on that one, Major."

Datapad casually tucked under his arm, Jaden strode calmly into the briefing room, and adopted his place at the podium. A lot had changed since the first time he'd stood there; months of practice briefing CAP pilots and training missions had polished off any nerves or discomfort that there might previously have been.

His eyes glanced around the room, mentally tallying off the pilots who had attended as ordered. Major Kelly Perris was joined by Captain Jamo Jakatta; when Rogue Squadron had expanded they'd needed more senior officers, and Joker had been one of the obvious choices. Unfortunately, that same need had lumbered the Rogues with Captain Aris V'Larr: one of Jaden's least favourite people.

The cadre of pilots was rounded out by Lieutenant Carré Inirial, and her former wingman Oisin Ocasta. Both were talented Rogues, but with Oisin especially - as with everyone else - there had been additional considerations for their selection beyond their piloting skill.

And of course the Commodore was there, keeping his eternally miserable eye on the proceedings. The situation didn't explicitly demand it; but given what had happened during the recent Venture incident, no amount of caution seemed like too much.

"As usual time is short," Jaden explained, making sure he'd captured the attention of the assembled six, "So I'll be emphasising the brief in this mission briefing."

Ordinarily, Jaden would punctuate these sorts of proceedings with an assortment of holographic images. Their absense - their unavailability - was a clear sign of why this affair needed Rogues involved.

"At a little after 0400 this morning, the CIC filtered out a transmission from the background EM picked up by our comm arrays. The signal is on an old Republic frequency that we don't usually monitor; but in this part of space it pays to keep our ears open for just about anything."

Tapping a finger on the datapad, he checked off the first his short series of talking points. "Nav techs were able to triangulate the transmission source to an uncharted star system a few dozen lightyears from here. Long range analysis suggests a lone dwarf star with no planets; but that's about all we know."

"It could be nothing," he admitted. "Or it could be another derelict Venator full of ordnance and spare parts. The Commodore has ordered the Rogues to check things out, secure anything useful, and blow the living frak out of anything dangerous."

He gestured to the pilots in turn. "Joker, Angel, Phoenix, and the Major will be our ground team: if there is anything to land in or on, you'll go skids down and check it out. We have absolutely no idea what to expect in terms of environment and atmosphere, so you'll be flying in full EV gear, just as a precaution."

"Echo on the other hand is the only pilot I know whose crazy enough to pilot a recon fighter in a dogfight; he'll be remaining in-vaccuum, keeping an eye on your asses and providing a comm relay back to the Challenger if needed."

Jaden held his hands open in apology. "That's all we've got; I'm afraid you're heading into this one pretty much blind."

He paused for a moment, eyes scanning the Rogues. "Questions?"

[Carré Inirial]

A few rows from the front, the newly minted Lieutenant sat with 'Sin, chatting lightly about Chrys and her girls. A subject her wingman could wax eloquent upon if afforded the opportunity. It made her smile, and kept her attention off of the disconcerting 'meeting' taking place in the first row as they all waited for the briefing to begin.

Not that she expected the Commodore and the Major to avoid one another, but their hushed tones and sideways glances made Carré more than a little suspicious. Knowing her Uncle and Kelly as well as she did...well.

Jaden's arrival and the scant details he could provide commanded everyone's attention and the hush prevailed even after he'd opened the floor for questions.

"Blind...again. Is Intel actively trying to get us killed?" Carré muttered under her breath and shook her head as Jaden's gaze passed over her. She assumed he'd give a go time when he dismissed them, and that was the only question she had at the moment.

[Jamo Jakatta]

“Uncharted space? You say the sweetest things, Captain.”

After months cooped up within the Wheel, Jamo welcomed any opportunity to put the convoy at his six for a while. It was the closest that any of them were going to get to shore leave for a long time. Though he was disappointed to learn that his wingman, Iyar, hadn't been picked for the mission, it'd be good to fly with Kelly Perris again. With a smile, he glanced at Carré and Oisin.

“Ready whenever you are, ladies.”

[Oisin Ocasta]

"Ladies?" Oisin interjected, throwing an indignant look in Joker's direction.

"I get that the Major has a girl's name," he conceeded, waving an arm vaguely in Kelly's direction, "But come on."

He folded his arms across his chest - mainly to stop them from flapping about so much - and seethed quietly to himself. At least Captain Luka's sort-of compliment was some solace for him; some talent that set him apart from the rest of the Rogues.

He couldn't help but echo Carré's sentiment though. Flying blind into a mission like this always seemed to go horribly wrong whenever the Rogues were involved. "I guess I'll just have to be the seeing eye nerf for the squadron then," he muttered to himself.

[Jaden Luka]

Jaden cleared his throat a little, hoping to nip the childish bickering in the bud before it god too carried away.

"In your brother's defense," he said, turning his attention directly to Carré, "The Alliance isn't exactly rolling in long range survey ships. We're relying on second hand data from either the Republic and the Alliance."

"Not to mention," he added, "As part of our efforts to avoid detection, the Wheel is intentionally navigating through space where Republic and Imperial awareness is sparse. Intelligence knows nothing, because as yet there is nothing to know."

He frowned a little, the expression just barely hiding the hint of mischief in his eyes. "With the Commodore's permission of course, I'm sure we can arrange for some of our Rogues to start conducting system surveys, if it's that much of a problem."

A considerable amount of groaning came in response, although most of it seemed to come from Echo: probably because the Lieutenant had already worked out that the odds of him drawing the short straw for that sort of mission were pretty high.

He turned his attention to the only pilot left in the room who hadn't spoken out yet. "Any condescending comments or pearls of computer-brained wisdom to add, Captain V'Larr?"

[Aris V'larr]

Aris sat sphinxlike in the front row with her customary datapad on the foldout desk by her chair. She quirked an eyebrow at Jaden's choice of words, but the briefing room wasn't the place for a verbal joust, no matter how appealing a target he made.

"It stands to reason, sir, that if we could intercept this transmission, then so could anyone with the requisite knowledge of Old Republic communications," she said. "Assuming we find anything of value, I recommend we make a priority of deactivating or altering this transmission as soon as we have established a secure perimeter."

She glanced toward Major Perris, a tacit solicitation of his approval.

[Kelly Perris]

Kelly caught the solicitous glance, having been watching each person as he or she spoke. V'larr did have this excellent habit of picking up on details others may have neglected or missed entirely. He turned his attention to the front.

"V'larr is right. Anyone with the right ears to have heard the transmission and any motive to stick their nose in it might decide to show up. Anything we can do to further cover our six and not have this be a glorious cockup would be decidedly to our advantage."

The major tapped fingers momentarily on the pull-out desk affixed to his own seat.

"Another thing, Luka. What's our plan if this whole thing goes sour? I should damn well hope nobody's hedging their bets on a dull mission, because experience speaks to that being in the seven hells of unlikely, not to mention stupidly foolish."

[Jaden Luka]

Jaden felt his hands clench ever so slightly on the faux wood of the podium. That was classic V'Larr right there - take a simple suggestion like 'turn it off', and dress it up in some pompous language to make it sound like a deeply profound and innovative idea.

Fortunately, Kelly's advocacy of the approach allowed him to ignore his fellow Captain completely, which was about as close to a win as Jaden could get at this point.

"First and foremost, this mission is about recon," he reiterrated. "Your priority is finding out what that thing is, and then making sure that we know what it is. If the situation is too hot or too dangerous, you high-tail it out of there, and we come up with a new plan based on fresh intelligence."

"As for what happens if you commit and things go FUBAR -"

He shrugged. "I'm pretty sure that's a spur of the moment, field command decision. Didn't you wind up being a Major for allegedly being good at that sort of thing?"

[Kelly Perris]

The corners of the major's mouth turned upward. He would be lying if it didn't please him to some degree, stoke his pride, that command had faith in him. Even if had become more humble with time to not outright state it as fact. Space Monkey was right. He was, after all, a Major for a reason. Many reasons - and it was a double-edged sword, when he thought of it.

"No plan, then." He agreed, and turned in his seat to look over the small handful of those assembled. It wasn't anything new, of course. It was the same tale, with a different plot. Send the Rogues, they would say, those crazies can handle it.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised." He smirked then, still looking on them all. "What's a Rogue for, eh ladies?"

[Carré Inirial]

Ohh..that smirk.

It tended to get her into trouble...of the most delightful variety, granted, but trouble nonetheless. Carré sat back in her seat just so, crossing her slender legs, fingertips smoothing out the fabric of her sleek, black flightsuit. Head canted to one side, emerald eyes slid across those assembled before landing upon Kelly and lingering there.

Forget protocol and propriety for just a short moment, she thought, the Alderaanian words spilling past her lips in a tone normally reserved for Kelly's ears alone. "Are you sure we have time? Its a...long...list..." Gazing at him through lowered lashes, a corner of her lips lifted in a delicate, knowing smile.

Without looking, she was reasonably certain that 'Sin had turned scarlet, and and perfectly positive that she didn't want to know what her uncle was thinking in that moment. Carré shifted slightly in her seat and resumed a more proper posture, tossing her chestnut curls back over her shoulder as she glanced down at the datapad now balanced on her knee.

Thankfully, what little mission data Jaden had was now flickering across its screen, giving her somewhere to focus her attention before she got herself into any more trouble.

[Jamo Jakatta]

Jamo reclined in his chair, sliding knowing glance from Carré to Kelly and lastly to Jaden.

“You better wrap this up before Inirial ends up in a puddle on the floor, Captain.”

[Aris V'larr]

Aris appeared oblivious to the exchange because, for all intents and purposes, the part of her that was controlling her facial expressions was oblivious. Inwardly, about five percent of her cognitive processing was updating her list of reasons why she wished she was back in Thunderbolt Squadron. Lewd posturing during mission briefings was now reason #173, or reason #24 under the subheading of "Assorted Sexual Indiscretions."

Instead she focused on Luka with rapt attention. She was eager to get into the sky, where at least she knew these pilots were competent enough that she could trust her life to them. Within an acceptable margin of error, of course.

[Vansen Tyree]

Captain Luka threw a look in his expression that Vansen understood all too well - It's not too late to split the two of them up.

Jaden hadn't been a grass about the romance between the two pilots or anything like that; but once it had come to Vansen's attention, he had been one of the unfortunate souls on the recieving end of his private grumbling on the subject.

He met the Captain's gaze, and offered a slight shake of his head. He might have become a bitter, cantankerous old man in recent years, but at least he hadn't become a meddlesome old man. The two pilots were more than capable of screwing their lives up with or without his input; any efforts with him would probably only encourage them to screw it up faster in defiance.

Instead, the Commodore rose to his feet, the motion not quite as swift and fluid as he would have liked. A hand smoothed down the front of his uniform, and it took real effort to hold in the groan that male humans of a certain age seemed to emit every time they did something moderately taxing.

Most Commanders would offer some inspiring words at this point; but Vansen was no motivational speaker. Unfortunately, members of the crew still seemed to expect it from him, despite the fact that they actually knew what he was like. His eyes swept his audience, as his mind wondered what to say.

"Get the hell off my ship," he decided with a grunt, though there was no harshness in his tone. "And don't bother coming back unless you've got good news."

[Carré Inirial]

Fingers rose to brush a stray wisp of hair from her cheek as she shot Jamo a grin. Kelly had little reaction thus far, which disappointed her to some degree. Ahh well.

She rose as the Commodore did, and smiled at his dismissal. "Yes, Sir." the pilot replied, adding a crisp salute before making her way towards the door. There were preparations to be made before they could leave, and the sooner they did so, the faster they'd be in the air.

[Kelly Perris]

Kelly withheld any response to Carré's low-volume comment, with some admitted level of difficulty. Protocol an propriety had their place and time and being seated to the left of the Commodore in a mission briefing was most certainly the place and the time - not that such conditions were exclusive to the Major's selection of behaviour, but it did go a long way to helping.

Perris smoothed his hands down his thighs and rose.

"Alright, you fucksticks - you heard the Commodore!" He made to leave. "Scram!"

In that instant, the Major heeded his own words and wasted no time in splitting for the lockers, hearing the scramble of the small group following on his heels. Even if there was no guarantee they'd be engaging any adversary, most any opportunity to be in flight in the cockpit of an x-wing was a welcome one - particularly those opportunities where there was some doing to be done.

-----------------------------

Shortly thereafter, in the lockers....

Most pilots didn't stand, arms akimbo, attempting a staring match with a locker. Unless they were the Major and someone had taken the liberty to decorate said locker. With sloppy hearts and even more illegible writing.

"Okay..." He started, voice raised and tinged with annoyance and the lightest flavouring of confusion, head turning to look this way and that. "...which one of you assclowns got it in their tiny brain to confess their..."

He fingered one of the hearts, trying to read the poorly written words.

"...'loin-melting love' for me?" Kelly looked away from the decoration, his finger still pressed to it, a look of slight disgust pasted to his features.

[Jamo Jakatta]

On the opposite side of the locker-room, Jamo grabbed at the crotch of his flightsuit and sucked a breath in through his teeth.

“You got me burning all thrusters, Major Perris.”