-=Main Bridge: Windstorm 44:4:1 =-

The image of the new captain of the Shadowblen, a recently acquired corellian corvette, is flickering on the screen in Josh's office. Making the last preparations and giving the clearance codes for their new journey. "Understood, Sir! It won't take us long to meet up with that convoy and help escort them. We are, however, a skeleton crew so it will make any battles difficult." 

"I understand captain, and thank you. Just please do your best and send my regards to the Fleet Commander when you arrive. I'm sure he'll be pleased with his new acquisition." Josh smiles at the thought of seeing Dave's face when his convoy arrives loaded heavy with one more corvette.

"You still want me to ask for his surrender when we arrive?" The face of the captain looks very weary at this idea, wondering if Josh was drunk again.

"Yes captain,  'Per the orders of General Joshua Hawkins we demand your surrender!" will do nicely. Dave will either enjoy the joke or demote me, either way as long as you explain you were following orders, you will be safe. In which case, we'll all get a laugh out of it. Just explain to him how you came to be in our service, and all will be well Captain." 

the captain blanches at the though of demanding the surrender of the Fleet commander, but realizes that it is a joke and he is following orders, he does find some pleasure in following through with this act."Aye sir! All station report ready, we're clear for hyperspace. Shadowblen out."

"May the Force be with you, Windstorm out." Josh closes the link to the communication and switches it to visual so he can watch the newly acquired corvette leave for Greeop and home. "I just hope we still have a home to return to. You're role as just a support vessel is larger than you know. You are going to help hold our home together."  Josh closes the computer link and just stares blankly at a picture he has of his home, plotting the next course of action

-=Josh's office 44:4:5 12:30 =-

"Are you sure, Sir?" Josh looks up from the datapad with a quizzical look on his face. 

"I am, this is something I have to do." FA Michael "MacMan" McEwen sits in front of Josh's desk his face is as emotionless as stone. 

Josh stared at his friend, a man that he has shared a few battles with, someone with a wealth of advice and knowledge that he's come to respect and learn from. Now, a man who has seen his own share of battles both in the expanse of space, and behind the desk is deciding to leave the desk behind. "I suppose you could just make it an order and pull rank on me, if I was going to stop you that is. Still, I know you would never do that, and I would never stop you. If you feel that you must go, then I can't and won't stop you. Should you need anything from me, you have but to ask my friend." 

Macman nods and starts to crack a smile on his facade, stands and salutes,"No my friend, I would not pull rank on you, but I am glad for your blessing. I depart in a few hours, I still have preparations to make. Permission to stand down as Second officer to the Patriot Battle Group, Sir?" 

Josh Stands and salutes, lowering his arm to shake the hand of his friend. "Permission granted Admiral. Stand down as second officer and may the Force be with you. On a personal note, we'll miss you around here. Your wisdom has been beneficial to us all. You will always be welcome here Admiral."

"Thank you Josh, this is something I Must do I'm afraid." An admiral in an old uniform that is highly decorated and worn with age turns and walks out of the office for the last time. He stops before the door and slowly turns back to look at Josh, "This is for the best you know."

"I understand Mac, no one will stop you. Just stay safe please. We'll miss you until you return."

Mac nods and slowly walks out the door, leaving his friend and ship behind. Josh nods and slowly sits back down and stares at the datapad containing the new orders of his friend. 

-= Briefing room: Windstorm 44:4:14 16:30 =-

"Ok pilots, our time of getting ambushed and attacked is over. Thanks to Gold Squadron and their operations they have successfully blinded the local imperials. Thanks to intel we have discovered the White Guard are no longer a pirate group, they have returned to the imperial fold. It seems their crimes were forgiven as the imperials needed supplies, people and ships. Which brings us to this mission." Josh taps a button and shuts the lights to dim and brings up the holographic display in the center of the room.

"Our encounter at Corva Yag a while back proved an interesting trip. We captured a corvette which should now be our Fleet Commander, and we learned where the White Guard's main shipping platforms are. You're mission is to destroy as much as you can and get out alive. We're sending the Prometheus in with an escort of A-Wings. A-Wing pilots, your job is to hit and fade. Destroy as many freighters, corvettes, or whatever else is there and get the heck out. Prometheus and the TIE pilots, you're job is to cover their retreat and take out what they could destroy. Be mindful! Once you start blowing up stuff they'll start sending in reinforcements. It won't be a complete turkey shoot." Josh hits a button and the lights come back on.

================================
Greetings pilots!! 

Please be sure to read this whole section for important information. 

My apologies for the late mission, my TIE mission builder retired sooner than I thought. It's ok though, I would like to thank Mathow Bizegar for doing this mission on such short notice. We are now back on track for mission builders, and I thank you all. If you are interested in making mission please let me know I might be able to set you up with a tutor to help. I also know that the Mission Building academy will be coming back in time. 

Now, Merits and Medals will be updated soon, I'm having max do them this time around. Figure it's about time I give him something to do ;) So be patient with the shinies, they are coming.

Now for the mission stuffs. :)

Top Gun for Xwing is Spokes! Congrats. Top Gun for TIE is Seeks. Great job!

Mission Report Medals goto James Folen for TIE, and Damon Lightwind for X-Wing. Congrats to both of you. 

Medal of Activity goes to Hydra for your efforts in the TIE mission, and to Red for your efforts in X-Wing. Congrats to both of those squads.

Now, for one other thing. I'm a slightly different CO. I don't like hand holding people unless I have to. I send out a mission with a clear due date and a narrative telling you as such. The due date is also in the mission itself. Not to mention I usually send out a mid mission newsletter, which is usually two weeks before the mission is due. Then there's the Killboard which also lists the date. I'm not going to hand hold you all and send you weekly email reminders to fly. Most of you are adults and responsible enough to fly the mission on time, and for that I thank you. I expect last minute reports because of real life. It happens, however, there is a whole month to fly this mission, there should be no reason on this planet I have to hand hold you all and beg reports out of any of you. If you can't fly for whatever reason let me know. I'll drop a 0 on the board so I know you're active and alive. 

Which brings me to the next point of interest. 0 reports are not bad, and don't see it as such. If you can't fly for whatever reason, broken stick, family issues, plain forgot, whatever.. let me know. I put 0's up there so I know you're alive and still interested in flying with us. If you don't report (or drop a 0 up there) for 3 THREE missions in a row, I'll be marking you awol. In which case you'll have until the end of the next mission to contact me to remove the AWOL status, or I'll drop you from the fleet. 

Which leads me to Crimson. Crimson squadron is now officially retired. It's had a great run, but there's just a lack of membership right now to keep it going. Gabrich and Kane will have their choice of squads. I will be dropping out of the PBF rosters since I won't be flying anymore. I'm pulling what Rekio did. I'm being an administrator due to my lack of time. However if I do fly a mission it will either be for Green or Blue.. I haven't decided yet. :) So Gabe and Kane, the choice is yours please let me know which squad(s) you would like to join. 

::goes through his notes:: Lets see, what else. Ahh yes promotions.

LCL Damon Lightwind, per your CO's request this was supposed to happen last mission. I just forgot, for that I appologize. Still with your efforts as Recruiting officer and as a faithful pilot in Red and the PBF you are here by promoted to full colonel. Congrats Damon.
 
Maj Gavin Starseeker. Your efforts throughout the RS has been amazing. You've helped out our FC, and myself on many occasions. Not to mention your work as PBF Mission builder, and your logistics work. It is my honor to promote you to Lieutenant Commander. Congrats Gavin. 

Now.. if you've read this whole thing, I'm impressed. The mission is due on sunday June 3rd 2007. Midnight EST (GMT -5). Please fly early and fly often. Remember you're first runs. The First runs are just for storyline purposes. It's you're choice if you wish to have it posted on the killboard or not. After your first runs are sent in, feel free to fly as often as you like for that top gun spot. 

Also, please remember TIE missions require screenshots. Failed TIE missions to NOT get saved in the pilot file. So we *NEED* screenshots. Failed missions with no screenshots will be counted as a 0 until a new report is sent. 

As stated last weekend in my email, Macman is stepping down as Fleet SO. I'm not entirely certain if I am going to fill in the position yet or not, but if you are interested feel free to apply. If I read something I like you just might get the job. :)

Thank you for reading this whole thing.

Pilots! to your ships!!

================================
The current Patriot Battle Fleet mission is: 

PBF 7.09

The deadline for the current mission is: 

Sunday June 3rd 11:59 pm EDT 

You can download the current mission at: 

http://pbf.rebelsquadrons.org/missions/

Send all reports with pilot files and orscreenshots attached to: 

pbfreports@yahoogroups.com 

Plus your own squadron CO and/or squadron egroup. 

The rules for flying the mission are: 

1) You may run this mission as many times as you like but you MUST get the MISSION COMPLETE message and have a valid *.plt /*.tfr file in order to be eligible for the PBF/R2F Medal of victory. In addition, any score not accompanied by a pilot file for verification will NOT be counted by the PBF Command Staff. 

2) Run the X-Wing mission as "defect.xwi" ( this will place it as X-Wing TOD 1 Mission 1 ) so that your stats will be recorded in your *.plt file. Note: TIE missions have their own Battle file, so you will also be flying tour 1 mission 1. If they don't rename the mission to B1M1FM.TIE to play as the first mission of the tour.

3) Make a new pilot file to run the mission. If you fail the mission and wish to run it again make sure to use a new pilot file instead of re-running it with the same pilot. Any pilot file found to be "unclean" will result in the score NOT being counted by the PBF Command Staff. 

4) Destroying "Friendly" craft to pad ones stats is strictly prohibited. Pilot  files containing "Rebel" or "Friendly" craft kills will be considered invalid. 

5) You should also include a written report with your score laser/ion shots and hits, missile shots and hits and kill totals in the email. Laser padding in TIE missions is strictly forbidden and will result in a 0 score.

6) Pilot files will be manually calculated using the Official PBF Standard scoring chart for X-wing. Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of this chart, can email me to do so. 

7) No individual scores will be changed after the deadline! If a report is submitted that is never received at the report address given above, it will not be added after the deadline. Neither will the PBF CO accept a late pilot file. The only thing that can be changed afterwards are errors made by the Command Staff. 
 
8) Mail problems including undelivered mail and corrupted pilot files are not the responsibility of the PBF command staff. If your pilot file becomes corrupted and you do not include a written accounting, then your score will be counted as "0". 

9) If a pilot retires from the PBF at any time during the course of an active mission after having submitted a report, his report will no longer count for his former squadron. 

10) If a pilot transfers from one PBF squadron to another (such as attaining a squadron CO position) during the course of an active mission after having submitted a report, his report will now count towards the newfound squadron. 


You may ask, "What is required for the reporting. 

1) A valid mission file and physical report (same as normal) 

2) We know some people can't report in some instances. This will not beheld against squads. If it comes to pass that you could not report for any reason, such as computer issues, you were gone...A properly written narrative will suffice for the flying report. This does not cover, "Oh, I forgot to fly" Or, "I didn't want to fly." These narratives are for the use of people who cannot fly the mission, and need another method of counting a report. 

Guidelines for narratives: 
The narrative needs to be more then "I got in my ship, launched, flew around, shot this and this up, went home and drank beers." A quality written narrative (Under the discretion of PBF command staff looking at reports) needs to consist of some bulk. It can be, however, a report of anything. Since by using this method of reporting, you weren't able to fly for whatever reason, the narrative DOES NOT have to be about the mission directly. You could write substantial narrative about since your hip was damaged, you stuck back to make repairs to join the second wave. Or, since you couldn't fly, you volunteered to join the rescue shuttle to help an EVA pilot. What you write about is up to you. However, we have command people watching these reports, and they need to be involved, decent reports, or they will not be counted to the squad total. 

Also note: If a squad is at say 10 pilots....the 75% rule would apply to 7 pilots minimum...the 12 pilots per squadron will have no effect.The 75% and 100% requirements will be based off of the current squad roster...for those that were curious about that. 

-----PBF Information----- 

1) IRC--- 

I'd like to invite all pilots, new and old, to take part in whatever activities they have running in the Rebel Squadron's Bar and Grill, on the Undernet IRC network; #RS_Bar_and_Grill is the name of the channel. The Patriot Battle Fleet has it's own channel as well, #PBF. I spend a lot of time on these channels, and it's a good way to contact me if you have problems. It's also a good way to meet new people and gather information about the RS. Make sure you're connected to an Undernet server, and if you have trouble connecting to the Undernet, visit the Undernet homepage at: 

http://www.undernet.org 

To download an IRC program for Windows PCs, and also learn a lot about how IRC works, visit the homepage of the program mIRC at: 

http://www.mirc.co.uk 

To download an IRC program for macintosh, visit the ircle homepage at: 

http://www.ircle.com 

2) Masters of Combat Tactics--- 
Do you think you're the best? If so, then ComTac might be for you! ComTac is a set of missions that you can run to increase your ability level and gain fame! You can download the ComTac missions at: 

http://pbf.rebelsquadrons.org/comtac/ 