Relative shipboard time: 1330
Small meeting room on the Windstorm

In this small room sits two generals in long drawn out war. A war which has lasted far too long, and now threatens to invade this quiet sanctuary. General Hawkins, still in uniform, while the other general is in civilian clothes for what seems to be the first time in 20 years. After a few moments the two generals sit down in a pair of chairs and start to talk about the current situation. "General Kinneer, let's get right down to it, shall we? Why are you defecting, and what information could you have that would be important enough to concern me about Derra IV?" 

"You will notice an increase of imperial activity in the outer rim, and here in the Cluster itself. General I'm 42 years old, and I'm tired. I no longer wish to be a pilot or a bureaucrat. I wish to live my life out in peace, so I will tell you what I know about the local imperial forces."

Josh nods and leans back in his chair finally starting to relax a little, accepting that this man means no harm to anyone this day. "Alright General, I can accept that. I also sense you hold no alterior motives, and truly mean what you wish. This however, does not answer why the information you are giving me is important enough to concern my home."

"All I can tell you is the strength and amount of forces here in the Cluster. I do not know what is being planned, or who leads us. I was under the command of Admiral Rhyer Tavus, of the ISD Arcanus. I do not believe he is the one trying to band the Remnant together, but I think he's working for someone who is."

"No one has been able to band the Remnant together yet, people have been trying since Endor. I'm not worried about this latest attempt."

Artack Kinneer sighs and also leans back in his chair finally able to relax as well, "I became a general due to my piloting skills and the ability to not ask questions and follow orders. What I've pieced together are rumors and nothing more. The biggest rumor I keep hearing is, the hero of Derra IV is also planning our return to greatness. Most of which I do not believe, as do some of the other pilots that I've flown with."

"There were no reports from that battle, so the New Republic couldn't figure out exactly what went wrong. " Josh folds his hands over his chest and sighs drifting back into the memory of his home on that fateful day. A day which is etched in his mind forever, because it was the start of the invasion. "General Kinneer, I will invite my tactical officer and a recorder droid in here so you may tell him everything you know about the local forces."

"General Hawkins, I thank you. I do not want to remember the battles I was in, but I fear I will never forget them. One other thing, I was part of the 181st squadron, and I was at that battle. I give you my word, we were given orders to attack and that was it. We were told nothing about the mission, or who planned it, we merely followed orders. It's been 8 years since that battle, and for what it's worth, I'm sorry."

After a few moments Josh nods and stands up and slowly extends his hand to the general. "I will process the paperwork and inform my superiors of your cooperation, right now you will remain as a guest aboard the Windstorm. Soldiers like us may not want to be remembered, or remembered for what we did, but we don't wish to be forgotten either."

The generals shake hands and Josh walks slowly out of the room and comm's Lieutenant Veit to inform him that everything is all set for him. Slowly, Josh walks aimlessly through the halls of the Windstorm not entirely sure of his destination. Eventually though, he finds his way back to his office and proceeds to get a drink of Whyrren's out of the desk drawer. After pouring the drink and returning the stopper, he sits down and stares at a picture of an open field, on a planet far from where he was. 

Josh was so lost in thought he never heard the door open or Eric walk in. "Hey, you ok? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Startled out of his trance, Josh jumps out of his chair and reaches for a weapon that's not on his hip. Suddenly realizing what's going on and where he was he relaxed and sat back down. "Sorry about that, yeah I'm fine, just a lot on my mind is all. As for seeing a ghost, I think I have. My past is catching up to me."

"Anything I should know about?" Eric asks, as he reaches for a glass and pours himself some Whyrren's. 

"Nothing really, General Kinneer requests asylum and immunity. I'm going to do the paperwork shortly."

"The Impy? What's his story?" Eric relaxes in a chair and slowly drinks the alcohol he poured.

"Just an old pilot who wants to retire in peace and fade away. He was a pilot at the ambush on Derra IV." Josh finishes his glass in one swallow and pours himself another, even though he probably shouldn't.

"He's brave enough to show his face?" Eric notices the glass being refilled a little more than usual and raises an eyebrow, "So anything else you want to tell me? By the looks of things you're either drinking to remember, or to forget. So which is it and why?"

"I keep thinking about that day, of what I could have done differently, of who I should have told. Unfortunately I didn't know anyone in the rebellion at that time. It was before I followed my brother into the RS."

"Well, there was nothing you could do, don't worry about it."

"Yeah I know, still though, the empire hung around and searched for spies and dissidents like myself. They said it was for our protection. It was really an excuse to drag who ever they could into the spice mines of Kessel."

"So the mysterious CO opens up, it's about time too. Tell me more about back then."

Avoiding the subject Josh takes another drink almost emptying the glass, "Nothing to tell really, we fought however we could, with what we had. We were nothing more than a nuisance to them, though I'm quite sure the empire hated me when I left." Drifting back into the memory of how he left Derra IV in a stolen gunboat brings a smile to Josh's face, and allows him to empty the rest of the contents of the glass.

"There's a story there and you're not telling me. How can we follow you, if you won't tell us what's going on?" Eric also finishes his drink and sets the empty glass on the desk.

As if on queue, a communication comes in from the bridge. "Sir, we are receiving a distress call from a convoy near the planet Kerideph."

"Understood, plot us the fastest course possible and get FireClaw on standby. Also, send a message to Colonel Max Cal about our delay and destination.

"Roger that sir! Bridge out" and the comm line goes silent.

"Well Eric, now you know what's going on." Josh says with a smile, and makes sure his glass is empty finishing whatever little was left in his glass.

"You know I'll want the whole story when this is over."

"It's nothing much, just do a search for "Cheap Trick" you'll find the ship registry and the story behind it. It's not a grand tale at all, in fact it's not worth much reading."

"That's not what I meant, I meant about the Impy pilot and you."

"Oh that, well once Lieutenant Veit processes everything, you'll be able to read the report as soon as I do. Right now, we have a convoy to save."
 
Eric frowns and then shrugs his shoulders, "I'll get things ready on the bridge, see you there?"

Hearing a datapad beep on his desk Josh nods to Eric and looks for the datapad in the mess he calls a desk. "I'll be along shortly." Watching Eric leave he finally finds the offending datapad and reads the contents. He reads it again to make sure and types his response and hits the send button. He waits to make sure there is no other info and sets the pad back on his desk and walks out of the room towards the bridge.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ISD Prometheus
1357 Ship Time
End of the Battle

Got him, thought Max.  Hed have a piece of that Lambda shuttle nailed to his wall.  Max rolled his TIE Advanced back to the Prometheus.  Rarely flying anymore, Max truly enjoyed vaping that man- his former CO, the guy who brought him into the RS to begin with.  Ah well, as the saying goes, Paybacks are a

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1439 Ship Time
Bridge of the Prometheus

Toran Kask liked what he did.  He was told where to go, he would direct the ship there, and off it went.  From his spot in the crew pit, he looked up to see the CO walk in.  Toran thought he looked at least 10 years younger- the Commander was a great guy, in his opinion, but he really loved to fly.  He saw the Commander stroll over to the Communications Board, hit the open to fleet button, and heard him say over the comm channels,
Congratulations to all.  We wiped out the threat that our former CO posed to us.  With these bases here, as well as our continued presence, we shouldnt have to worry about a thing coming out of the Osiris Sector.  The famous Hawaiian pig roast for our End of a Tour will be sometime in the next few days.  Your COs will have more specific news for you as the day approaches.  Shore leave starts as of 1700 tonight and we hope to have it for a week.  That is all.
Cheers were heard from the crew pit.  That pig last time was great, thought Toran.  To his knowledge, none of the other COs did anything like this.  Nice guy, thought Toran, nice guy indeed.

Toran?
Sir?
Park her in the middle of stations and let her be.
Very good, sir.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One Week Later
Shipboard on the Angelfire
0658 Ship Time

Cantor Jon rolled out of bed and drudged to the fresher to get cleaned up.  When the CO wants to throw a party, he really knows how to throw a party, he thought.  On the way to the fresher, he stubbed his foot on his desk, Forgot that was there, he muttered.  He was new to these quarters, being new to the RS in general also.  Ah well, he said, I suppose Ill get used to it.  He hit the water for the fresher and started to clean up when, all of a sudden, his soap bar floated up to his face.  Whoa, thats really weird, he thought.  Soon, his soap bar wasnt the only thing floating around.  He drifted over to his comm board and complained about the failure in the zero-g unit to the bridge.  Other crew members and fighter pilots were also calling to complain of the same problem.  Bolts, the engineer, drifted over to the artificial grav unit, whacked it, and immediately hit the deck.  Back in his cabin, Cantor Jon looked around at the mess that the water from his fresher caused.  Well, it looks like Ill have some cleaning to do, he muttered to himself as he walked back to the shower and smacked his foot on his desk again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Same Day
Shipboard on the Prometheus
0946 Ship Time

Corran Felds and Vason Senmic were tinkering around with one of the Prometheus TIE Fighters when Vason got a call from the CO about a new mission.  Unfortunately, this was just as they were replacing lubricant for one of the engines for the Fighter- when Vason got up, he was drenched in green lubricant.  Sorry about that, Vason, Corran hollered.  You better get headed to your briefing.  Great, Vason thought, just what I need now after that punch spill right onto my dress uniform at the roast

Five minutes later

Vason slipped into the back of the briefing room, trying to avoid being too noticeable.  The CO, Max, was just about to start the briefing, saying this:
Good morning all, I hope you all got some nice R&R after that pig roast.  One more medal I forgot to hand out at that roast actually came in this morning.  Vason, you got awarded the He who wears his beverage well award, will you come up here?
Vason, face turning red to nicely contrast with his green lubricant, stood up.
Sorry, Vason, I just had to.  You can sit down now, Vason.  Thanks.  Anyway, weve received a request for assistance call from the PBF folks.  They are now sheltering our wing due to the loss of several of our ships and pilots over the course of the years.  Anyway, suit up.  Our ships will be there within the half hour.
Vason saw the CO hit the general call button and the time-tried general call came out over the loudspeakers for the entire gathering of ships for this mission.
All crews prepare to head out.  Prepare for hyperspace in ten.  All fighter pilots man your TIE Interceptors.  Thats right boys and girls, no TIE Advanced for this mission, you all banged them up pretty good on the last one.  All crews to the flight decks in five minutes.  Good luck and may the Force be with you. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Greetings pilots of the PBF!

PBF had over 50% reporting for this past mission, and if we exclude the R2W guys who probably don't own the game, PBF was about 70%. That's AMAZING!! I hope to see the reports increase, we've seen alot of new pilots enter the fray. For those that haven't noticed, FA Mike "MacMan" McEwen has returned to service and has taken over Blue squadron. He's already shown why he was a Fleet Commander and a PBF CO at one point. He's lead Blue to 3rd place victory and has taken the Top Gun spot! Nice work Mac! Also coming into the fray after a long time is former Phoenix CO, Indiana Bridger! Along with former FC, FA Dave Trebonious-Astoris they both are serving Green squad at this moment hoping to give Mac and Blue squad a run for their money.

In other news, I'm sure most of you have seen Sabre as the Top Squad, well I've decided to transfer to Crimson to try and give those guys some help, and to see if I can take the big shots down. :) The competition is on now, Most of the squads are active enough to now compete with Saber, so lets see if they can be toppled. 7.02 Challange is as follows: 5 extra merit points for the squad who takes down Sabre. I know sabre, they will fly their heart out now, as should the rest of you if you want to help lead your squad to the Top!

The Xwing Mission is not hard to get a mission complete on, but it is hard to survive. It was designed to be close to realistic, so you have a dog fight on your hands. The TIE Mission I have to apologize on, it's my first mission, and with David Vaughan, and Argon Viper's help it was tested and completed. If there are any major bugs please let me know immediately. I'll try and send out a fix as soon as possible.

Now onto the good stuff! The merit points have been updated congrats to everyone who flew! Medal for Top Gun goes to FA Mike "Macman" McEwen! Congrats Mac! The Mission Report Medal goes to Indiana Bridger! Congrats Indy! Sabre and Blue Squadrons both earn the Medal of Activity for having over 70% reporting. Congrats!  All medals have been awarded and the merit table has been updated. 

I didn't see that many nominations come in for promotions, but I do have some to hand out. Nixximus, for your improved flying skills and your help in Sabre you are here by promoted to Major. Congrats Nixx! One other promotion is my SO, this has been long overdue and comes with many of your wings support. Max Cal, you are here by promoted to BGN, Congrats! Two more I have is to my XO, Eric reagan who has done alot to help with Cadets and with putting up with me as a CO. Also to Markus Jarnhann, for stepping up as Hope XO, ITOD CO, and helping out where needed. I thank you both! You both are promoted to full Commanders. Congrats!

I look forward to seeing your reports.

Pilots! To your ships!

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

PBF 7.02 

The deadline for the current mission is: 

Sunday August 27th 11:59 pm EDT 

You can download the current mission at: 

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

Send Xwing reports with pilot files attached to: 

pbfreports@yahoogroups.com 

Plus your own squadron CO and/or squadron egroup. 

Send TIE reports with pilot files attached to: 

r2wreports@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 mission as "defect.xwi" ( this will place it as X-Wing 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.

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/ 