REPORTING OFFICER: Colonel Hav Antiel, Squadron Commander
DATE SUBMITTED: 20 April 2020

Colonel Hav Antiel walked slowly in the middle of one of the ISD Warrior's hangars. He was looking around at the full complement of TIE Interceptors, twelve of them, that had been pulled out of storage—or a museum, perhaps—to serve as his squadron's craft.

It had been an unconventional call from the CMDR. The Warrior's other squadrons had TIE Defenders, Gunboats, and Missile Boats, plus one inexplicable flight of Imperial Landing Craft. The TIE Interceptor was a craft from another era, from a time when the old Empire had endless waves of pilots and craft. Or so it seemed, at least. Antiel wasn't old enough to remember those days, but he'd heard the glamorized stories from his Uncle Garm.

'Am I crazy?' Antiel thought, looking around at the Interceptors in their racks, the ships he had chosen for his new squadron. His old squadron, Sin, had just earned the right to fly a new state-of-the art fighter, the TIE Sinister, with all of its bells and whistles, and shields, and missiles, and hyperdrives, and cupholders, apparently. Was there really room for these old fighters in the modern TIE Corps?

Antiel remembered the words in the TCCOM's message heralding the reactivation of Rho Squadron:

Choice words hung in Antiel's consciousness. Bold. Sharp. The carelessness that shields can foment.

'Are the ships to your liking, Admiral?'

Antiel turned to face the young crew chief who'd been assigned to Rho Squadron.

'That's 'Colonel,' now, Chapman.'

'Yes, sir, of course,' said the crew chief, a waver in his voice revealing his nerves.

Suddenly, Antiel was pulled into a rough, one-armed hug.

'Well, would you look at this,' said Lieutenant Colonel Zekk Terrek, the commander of Sin Squadron. 'I don't know what you did to Plif to make him stick you with these old rustbuckets, but it must be bad.'

Antiel sighed, shook his head, and smiled. ''Rustbuckets?' They look pretty pristine to me, Zekk.'

It was true. The TIE Interceptors were gleaming in the hangar. Antiel smirked as he looked around at them again.

'You're nuts if you're going to fly one of those, Hav,' said Zekk. 'That new dagger of yours isn't going to protect you from a concussion missile. How many laser hits can these things withstand, anyway?'

Ignoring LC Terrek, Antiel turned to his crew chief.

'Looks good from here, Chapman. Nice work. I'll bring my flight leaders through for a thorough inspection later today. Dismissed.'

As the crew chief nodded and began making notes on a datapad, Terrek gave Antiel a friendly but hard shove.

'C'mon, Hav,' he shouted as he jogged toward the hangar exit. 'You gotta see my new ships!'

Antiel shrugged and chased after him, feeling more like a TIE pilot again with every passing moment.

Welcome to Rho Squadron's first Weekly Squadron Report—or at least the first that I can find record of, anyway. I've done some preliminary research into the history of Rho Squadron, and the only thing I've found so far is an old squadron banner. I'll keep researching, but if you know some history about Rho, send me a message. I love learning about TC history from the people who lived it.

It's been close to two years since I last led a squadron, and I'm very excited to be back in the CMDR role. I loved being the WarCOM. That role gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation of the TIE Corps, and I know I'll always have fond memories of my time at the helm of the Warrior. But I'm geeked about taking command of this new reactivated squadron.

So geeked, in fact, that I spent the last week working on the new squadron patch.

After looking at the existing squadron patches of Alpha, Beta, Delta, Epsilon, Kappa, Sin, and Theta, I realized that none of the squadrons patches use the color green. My initial plan was to make a green squadron patch. I started by taking a photo of my 3 3/4' scale toy TIE Interceptor and recreating it as vector art in Paint Shop Pro. I modeled the shield and banner shapes on a similar design I found online.

Normally when I do this, I use wild 'circus' colors so that I can tell what's what: parts of the TIE were bright green and red so I could easily group the layered vector shapes. When I was ready to try real colors, I found that it was hard to find the right shade of green. Too dark and it looked like a park ranger's badge. Too light and it looked like an Army Ranger badge. I tried shades of black and gray for fun, and... well, what can I say? It reminded me of the glory days of the Empire, and I was sold.

Speaking of the glory days... I asked the TCCOM if there was any wiggle room on Rho's fighter complement. When he offered me a choice between what was on the Fleet Order of Battle or the any of the Tier 1 ships from (Re)Mobilization, I started dreaming of the classic TIEs from my childhood: TIE Fighters, TIE Bombers, and the glorious and intimidating TIE Interceptor.

I love a good shieldless TIE. It reminds me of the early missions in TIE Fighter, the chapters in Rogue Squadron about Wedge being hunted down by 'squints,' and that amazing feeling of sniping your good friend in XWA from 1.5 klicks away before it turns into an endless turn war. After consulting with some of my closest TC friends, I decided on the TIE Interceptor.

That left the question of squadron objective. What role could a TIE Interceptor fill in the modern TIE Corps? It's certainly not a space superiority fighter. I thought back to the TIE Interceptors I saw in Return of the Jedi: swarms of dagger-tipped fighters spewing at the Falcon. I also thought about the scenes of TIE Fighters flying to and fro in scenes from The Empire Strikes Back, buzzing around like flies at a picnic.

That gave me and idea. Rho Squadron should be the first line of defense against any would-be attackers foolish enough to target the Warrior. We're not going to hyper into battle; we're tied to this ship like a life raft. I liked the thought of the WarCOM scrambling Rho Squadron at the first sign of B-Wings or Y-Wings in the distance. And I loved the thought of Rho Squadron chewing right through them. As Plif described it, 'Their mission will be to defend the ISDII Warrior from any and all threats, doing so without the safety net and resulting carelessness that shields can foment.' That might not be a true Strike objective, but it's exactly what I was looking for.

• Rho Squadron reactivated
• COL Hav Antiel awarded the Grand Order of the Emperor
• CPT Trideo Arkson joined us from the Reserves as Rho 2-1
• CM Drake Starfire joined us from the Reserves as Rho 3-1
• LCM Jarion Renalds joined us from the Reserves as Rho 2-2

A full list of active competitions is available on http://tc.emperorshammer.org/competitions.php?id=current

Flight I

[1-1] COL Hav Antiel

• Flying: none
• Non-flying: new uniform, wiki edits, Trivia Grand Tour, MoC
• Communication: email, Telegram, Discord

Flight II

[2-1] CPT Trideo Arkson

• Flying: none
• Non-flying: none
• Communication: email

[2-2] LCM Jarion Renalds

• Flying: LoS (x7)
• Non-flying: none
• Communication: email, Telegram

Flight III

[3-1] CM Drake Starfire

• Flying: none
• Non-flying: new uniform
• Communication: email, Telegram, Discord

OK, this has been a long report! Thanks for hanging in there, pilots.

Now get out there and show 'em who the bad guys are.

COL Hav Antiel
CMDR/COL Hav Antiel/Rho/Wing II/ISDII Warrior
GOE/GSx2/SSx6/BSx10/PCx8/ISMx17/IS-1PW-11GW-22SW-43BW-6GR-14SR-52BR/MoI/LoC-Rx2/LoS-CSx6-Rx2/MoC-4doc-4poc-5goc-5soc-36boc/CoLx2/CoB/LoAx20/OV-5E [Executor] [Trainee] [Private 4th] {TCCORE-COE-MCBS-MP/2-SM/4-TM/3-WIKI}

Ace of the TIE Corps 2018