Sharp's Purpose

By
LCM Sharpthief

I snapped awake with a start and lay sweating in my bunk, breathing hard.
"Sharpy, you feel that?" Pred couldn't keep the incredulity out of his whispered question from the bunk beneath me. I grunted an affirmative. Pred laughed quietly. Dak was slowly getting out of his bunk, turning his head from side to side as if searching for something
"You'll make a fine Sith, Sharpy. This is what trouble feels like. We should check in with Tig..." A piercing wail cut him off as the scramble alarm woke the other members of Flayer Squadron, Shade swearing loudly as his head hit the bottom of the bunk above him. The tannoy at the end of the barracks whirred into life.
"The Avenger is under attack...all hands to defence stations...all hands to defence stations...this is not a drill...I repeat...this is not a drill!"
"Flightsuits...NOW!" Pred barked. I clambered into my pressure suit before grabbing my helmet off the top of my locker and roughly slinging it under my arm. Pred looked around to check the rest of the squad.
Seeing us all suited up he nodded briefly, took a long, slow breath and calmly said "Okay, let's go- and if I don't get time to say this later, be careful out there."
The room was suddenly full of grins, "Well there's always a first time for everything, I suppose," drawled Sirel nonchalantly, a lop-sided smirk brushing his face.
Then we ran, the sound of the others' laboured breathing hissing hard in my ears as we pelted down the corridor to the launch station in the jangling, tight world of pressure suits- techs scrambling out of the way of these insectoid beings.
It was becoming difficult to run, even though I'd only run 200 metres or so. Glancing around I saw everyone else having the same trouble. I found myself leaning forwards, resisting some unknown force. Suddenly a blast door slid shut in front of us and we all fell flat forwards, landing awkwardly. There were yelps all around me as hands and arms were crushed between durasteel flooring and combat helmets. I desperately reached out for a handhold on something as I slid back the way we had come, anunknown wind whipping past our faces like a gale- and getting stronger. Dakhar, the new boy in Flayer, freshly initiated in the Tiecorps, but already showing himself a more than competent flight member, was the first to realise what was happening.
"The corridor's lost integrity, we're losing atmosphere!" His voice already sounded distant, whether this was from my lack of oxygen, lack of atmosphere to carry the sound, or just the sheer noise of the wind rushing by my ears, I had no idea. Looking up, I noticed Pred and Dak had managed to remain standing by the door, no doubt by some powerful stunt of the force, and they were now at least 25 metres away and retreating rapidly from my sight.
Pred was screaming something over and over, "H...mets, h.......ts". I looked round in a panic and saw my helmet lying beneath my feet behind me, still attached to my suit by it's tether. I frantically gathered up the tether and roughly slammed the black bulb over my head, feeling my conscious mind drift as I fumbled with the catch, hearing myself gasp within the confines of the helmet. The seal was made and the systems auto-activated. I was suddenly wrenched upright with sickening force and for a moment my head swam and I thought I might vomit- a fatal mistake in this situation. My magnetic boots adhered to the durasteel with a dull double boom which reverberated in my helmet.
The silence after the wind was terrific, my ear drums whined with remembered pain. My vision cleared and I saw the wreckage that was left along with the five black figures around me. Five? Something brushed against my leg and I looked round into a once human face- twisted and pulled by pain and vaccuum. Drawing back instinctively I gasped in horror as the tech groped for me in abject agony. I hesitated for a moment and made a decision. The face disappeared behind a flash- muted easily by the photo-sensitive coating of my helmets face as the blaster I had drawn discharged into the head of the tech.
"What are you doing?" Bright screamed at me through the comm, his body language showing shock and fear as his hand shot to his own sidearm.
"Something I hope you'd do for me." A moments silence reigned, then Bright's head bobbed in comprehension and he patted me on the shoulder. Wait, wait, I'd forgotten something...I started with a jolt...
"Where's Mikhail?" I shouted agitatedly, answered by a harsh, reprimanding feedback from the comm syatem. Five helmets turned to face me, hands clasped involuntarily to the side of their heads.
"Sorry, sorry," I held my hands up placatingly.
"Must have got sucked out, he might have got his "tin-hat" on in time." Drosha shrugged. The shrug said it all...he's probably dead. Meanwhile, Pred had run over to a console and plugged his suit into the internal comms.
"Come in bridge, this is Captain Predator...Firefox come in..." the signal stopped abruptly as Firefox answered and Pred switched to a private channel. The faces around me grimaced in consternation at being left out. I shrugged and strolled down the corridor, now swept completely clean of all debris by the depressurisation. I saw the hole in the hull about 50 metres round the curve of the corridor. It was clooged with various bits of debris-scanners, furniture, wiring....bodies. I cleared some of it and looked at the hole- just about half a metre wide to start, with bigger rents peeling away from it as it was opened up by debris. Looking behind me I saw the cause of all this- a small piece of glowing rock. I chuckled sardonically into my commlink.
"What's up Sharpy?" Shade's voice piped over the link?
"It's not even combat damage, it's a bloody rock." I shook my head in silence. Those techs must have been repairing the shield projector here, it's the only way something so puny could have got through.
I looked through the hole at the battle raging outside the Avenger- a soundless war of light flickering through the darkness- and we weren't in it. I hit the bulkhead under my fist gently. It was almost possible to keep score- the fighters of the New Republic had internal atmospheres, a dangerous luxury in my opinion, and when they blew the oxygen burn was visible and quite different to that of a TIE's engines going up. I stood there with my eyes passively taking in the scene, vaguely vengeful and frustrated, but most of all thinking about the tech, reaching, clawing for me, the understanding in Bright's eyes as I put my blaster pack in it's holster and the fragile nature of our short lives.
Somewhere along the line, Pred got off the comm long enough to tell us we were stuck here for the duration, then went back to the comm on some unknown errand. We stood and stared at the battle raging barely 3 klicks from where we stood. Fingers itched and the tension grew as we watched the drama unfold. I felt empty and lost, useless and
When it was over, some 2 hours after we were imprisoned in the corridor, we slunk back to our bunks and played sabacc for a while, still in our flightsuits, glumly tossing the cards around until Drosha said, "Why do I feel like this?"
"I think we all do," Pred confirmed. "I think we need to get out of here, get your suits back on...we're going to go kick some arse."
"You're the boss, Pred, you're the boss." Bright confirmed. We grimly got our helmets and strode after Pred towards the Hangar. Sudenly it all fitted nicely, we had our purpose, we were going to fulfil it- it was what we did, we had been denied it for a time, but nothing could stop us when our purpose was at hand, we knew what we needed to do
.
Sure, Firefox kicked up hell for a time, unauthorised use of Emperor's Hammer resources, blah blah blah...but in the end two dead M/FRG's speak for themselves and we sure felt a hell of a lot better, our purpose fulfilled.

Flayer Report #13
-------------------------

We have got a new pilot this week LT Dak so I am sure we all welcome him.
Exams are still the bane of the squadron but some of you are still popping up with little pockets of activity so I think we will survive this testing time.

The squadron is doing well but after exams are finished we will be doing a full squadron review to see how we can improve.
Umm…. I cannot help but notice that no one has taken up my offer being an Acting Commander. Oh well it was worth a try to get a week off: p this offer is still open so if anyone is interested tell me.
SQUADRON of the Month
Rules and Point System
RULES
**The SoM award will be given out to a single Squadron at the end of each month.
**The Competition will be based on the amount of points a Squadron can generate within each month.
**The Squadron CMDR's will need to list the total amount of points for that week in their Squadron reports. On the last day of the Month the CMDR's are to submit to me their total amount of points for the month in a separate email.
Graphics: images, banners, animation, uniforms made "by scratch"= 4
Fiction: Stories, plotlines for missions, etc by the page = 5
Web Page design: "From Scratch" = 20
"Weekly Update" = 10
Mission Design: Per Mission = 25
Dark Brotherhood Related/Submission = 30
Competition Hosting: Only one member from the
Squadron per Comp = 25
IWATS Courses all Courses= 15
Pilot File Submissions: These will be 4 points per mission.
**Any other EH/TC related activity would be at the Wing Commanders discretion.

So this is hopefully how we will keep WC own! The best way to do this is if each of you submit a report on Tuesday or Wednesday and I will add it all up add mine and then we will have are final score.

Comps

Ok last week’s comps were won by ……

Flying comp – No one did it (Predator Crys)
Non-Flying – Won by Sharp (fiction is at the top of the page)

This week’s comp’s are.

Flying comp will be TC-TIE 1
And the non-flying comp will be based on the Ship wide comp I made design a mascot for Flayer

Standing orders

Inform me of all clones (Including DB)
Inform me of all medals and promotions within the DB
Do at least one thing per week – if any pilot fails to do this and does not contact me with a reason they will be classed as AWOL if you are AWOL twice in a month you leave and are put in the reserves
Every month I will contact each of you either via e-mail or live on-line to discuss your progress (Medals, promotions ideas etc.) Failure to respond will result in a pilot being classed as AWOL.
If you do anything which I am not sent an automatic e-mail then write to me yourself! (I can reward if I do not know what you are doing)
If you note that a BSF has not been done with in 36 hours something is wrong! Mail me with the file again as it may have been lost.
If you feel that you deserve a medal or promotion TELL ME! I will never say no what I might say is “ you need to do this… ”
Sending me ideas is considered activity all of them are noted and the really good ones earn rewards you may not feel your idea is much good however I may think it is great SEND THEM TO ME.
And finally and most importantly being Cruel to my goldfish is a court-martial offence and I will have you shot!

Activity Records

CPT Predator – Got promoted in the DB to DJK, got Dak to join and started a ship wide comp (maybe Tiger will give us some points for that)

LT. Sirel Dukat- working on the DB-TIE’s so we can get are citations back

LCM Brightsaber – Created his first mission (being tested) flew IW 22 and created 3 uniforms (57)

LT Drosha Krablaad - Contacted me he is currently having RL pressures and will report
in soon

LT Dak – Just joined has been promoted to LT for filling out his INPR and has took three IWATS courses. (55)

LT Shade – We welcome back Shade however he needs sometime to get himself sorted

LT Sharpthief – Flew TC-TIE 69, wrote fiction and worked on the website (45)

SL Mikhail Rheinhardt – AWOL! You have until the weekend to do something!


Squadron of the Month points

Week 1: 55
Week 2: 323 (378)
Week 3: 233 (611)
Week 4: 157 (768)

Total: 768!

CMDR/CPT Predator/Flayer/Avenger Wing II/SSD Avenger
GS/BS/PCx2/ISMx2/MoIx2/IS-1BR-2SR/LoC-ISx10/CoL/CoB [EXCR] {IWATS-CBX-ICQ-M/1/2-SM/2-TM-TT}

DJK Predator (Sith)/Archanis of Taldryan {SA: CORE}