When is a Win not a Win?

[Jaden Luka]

Jaden had never felt so tired in his life. Well, maybe he had; but the fact that his brain was so addled made it difficult to recall. The last however many hours had been spent in debriefing, scrutinising every last aspect of Rogue Squadron's mission to Bandomeer with Colonel Vorega, and a hologram of some pompous, droid-voiced "Fleet Intelligence" bastard who Jaden hadn't even heard of before.

Of course, the Rogues had been in no way at fault. And in light of their shaky and incomplete intelligence - which was "Most interesting," according to Commander Pompus - the fact that they'd managed to turn the mission around and still succeed in their key objectives, not to mention crippled an Interdictor in the process, was damned remarkable; and on total form for the infamous Rogue Squadron.

But Jaden didn't care about all of the bureaucracy; all the box-checking; the objectives; the statistics; none of that dren. All that mattered to him was that he'd left with a dozen ships, and come back with less. Thank the gods for the Layla, he mused, Else we'd have come back with fewer pilots as well.

He turned a corner, long strides carrying him as swiftly as he could towards the med bay. After the final few TIEs had been either turned to dust, or turned to flee, the Layla had mustered another salvo of torpedos to finish off the satellite, before turning its attention to pilot retrieval. Since he'd been back, Jaden's time had been so occupied with his debrief that he hadn't yet had the chance to check in on Razor.

He came to a halt after stepping through the static field that kept the air inside the med bay sterile, and turned his attention to a waiting droid. "Flight Officer Uolmi?" he asked. The droid gestured in the appropriate direction, and Jaden offered a curt nod. "Thanks."

[Tera Uolmi]

The bacta tank Flight Officer Uolmi had been suspended in was now empty. Tera sat on a gurney nearby, in what amounted to a white, two-piece bathing suit – the standard attire for a trip to the rejuve tank – and a pair of towels, one around her shoulders and the other one in her hands, squeezing the moisture from her hair. When Jaden Luka turned a corner into view, she looked up calmly.

“Captain.”

[Jaden Luka]

Jaden had been dreading the prospect of finding Razor still floating in the tank. There was nothing more disheartening to him than seeing the unnatural way they floated there, the huge pipe rammed into their face the only thing keeping them from drowning in that- whatever bacta actually was. Jaden wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.

Seeing her back on dry land - well, figuratively speaking - was nothing short of a blessed relief, and it brought a smile to his lips. His hand scrubbed at his stubbled jaw, trying to massage the expression down a few degrees, so he didn't seem too unprofessional.

"Good to see you up and about." Glad that his eyes were hidden behind his tinted lenses once more, he perfomed a quick surface sweep of Tera; no visible injuries, but then, the dings and scrapes on the surface were much easier for the bacta to buff out than any structural damage underneath. Jaden hadn't read the full med report yet, but from what he'd been told second and third hand via the Layla crew, she'd slammed into something pretty hard out there in EVA.

Jaden fought to keep the worry from his voice. "How ya holding up?"

[Tera Uolmi]

“I've felt worse.”

Tera's voice didn't carry even a hint of the dry humour that should have come with such a comment. She set down the now damp towel on the gurney beside her. It was a slow, almost cautious gesture. Her expression tightening, she carefully laid her left arm against her thigh.

“Fracture in the left radius, some bruising on the humerus and clavicle. They're going to fit a brace, let the bone knit together naturally, and monitor my blood pressure for the next two weeks.”

All in all, it wasn't the worst diagnosis given the circumstances but as Tera looked down at her wrist, it was clear she wasn't impressed.

[Jaden Luka]

Jaden offered a sympathetic wince. The last thing a pilot ever wanted to hear was that they'd be crippled out of flight status for any length of time. To Jaden at least, it felt like he was letting down the cause; not to mention the fact that being grounded made him feel anxious as hell.

He didn't know if Razor was feeling the same, but he could certainly sympathise if she was.

Right now however, there was a more pressing question on his mind; something of the utmost importance. His brow shifted into a heavy frown. "So," he asked, arms folding casually across his chest. "Did they give you pain meds; and more importantly, can you drink while you're taking them?"

[Lucy Gray]

A voice could be heard coming from the forward area of the Medical Wing.

"Where is she?" It was the voice of Kylie. There was pounding of footsteps and a crash as someone tripped over a rolling tray of medical devices, followed by a rich Rodian curse. Seconds later, Kylie appeared at the doorway into the tank room where Razor and Jaden were at. Kylie had a bandage on her forhead and her left arm was encased in a bacta refreshing unit.

When she saw that Teri was okay, she sighed with relief and flung her arms around her neck. "I thought you were a goner. It wasn't until I came to that I heard that you were safe and in a bacta tank."

The last thing that Kylie had seen was a brilliant flash. When the damaged Defender had disappeared, it had dropped its missile rack. With no time to call in a rescue and definitely thinking better than shooting a rack of concussion missiles, Kylie did the only thing she could think of.

She swooped her fighter in between the missile rack and where Razor was floating. She immediately pumped all laser and engine energy into the shields, almost getting them up to their maximum output. Then she tensed as the missiles exploded. The resulting blast was devastating, but she was able to absorb most of it on her ship. Razor had lived, being shielded by Kylie's X-Wing, but Kylie's ship had been severly damaged. The shields bled away and the rest of the blast had rocked her ship. Sparks exploded out of the console and Kylie felt tiny hot shards penetrate her flightsuit on her arms. The blast was so bright that Kylie had to close her eyes. That was the last thing she remembered. Then she was slammed into the side of the cockpit and blacked out from the concussion.

When she awoke, she was in the med bay. She had a nasty bruise and 2nd and 3rd degree burns on her arm. She also found out that Razor had made it but that Kylie's astromech was damaged. The techs didn't know if they could repair him.

"But I need you to bring 6-EE back." she had told them. They all found that funny and the techs promised to do what they could. Then she was off to see Razor, and here she was, hugging the crap out of her.

[Tera Uolmi]

“Perigen patches. Apparently the Empire intercepted the last med supply shipment, so all the Comaren they've got left is on ration. I guess you need to actually lose a limb to get some of that.”

Tera gave Jaden a wry smile as she held up the pack of painkilling patches. They were meant to be used on cuts and bruises, on the scraped knees of kids who had gotten too rough in a game of gravball.

“In all honesty, a stiff drink would probably be better at taking the edge off.”

At that moment, Archer burst into the room and threw her arms around her one-time wingman. Tera winced, tucking her injured arm as tight as she could against her body.

“You made it out alive too, huh? Guess we are as lucky as the rumours say we are.”

[Jaden Luka]

"Don't sell yourselves short," Jaden interjected, quirking an eyebrow like a scolding teacher; something he instantly hated himself for doing, but at least it would make him a discouraging target in case there were any more hugs being thrown about.

Briefly, a hand snuck free to shove his lenses back up his nose before he reasserted his disapproving, arm-folded stance. "Don't thank luck for something, when the responsibility clearly lies with skill. You wouldn't be here if you didn't have it; and lesser pilots would have splashed and shattered against that first TIE formation." A smile curled briefly at his lips. "You two went up against a Defender, and survived: and those things were designed as X-Wing killers. You aren't here because you're lucky, ladies. You're here because you're Rogues."

He cast a suspicious gaze around the med bay, his hidden eyes forcing him to over emphasise the expression with his eyebrows in order to get the point across. "Now, lets get out of here, before one of those droids comes over and cures us of being awesome."

[Tera Uolmi]

A bundle of neatly folded off-duty gear was laid out for Tera on the cabinet beside her bunk. She tugged on the trousers and was about to attempt to fight her way into a vest, when a med-droid returned – unwilling to let her leave before it completed one last task. She gave Jaden a weary glance as the droid made typically quick work of fighting a brace to her left arm. Then, with a little unrequested help from Kylie, she pulled on the vest. Tera muttered a short, gruff word of thanks then looked from Jaden to Kylie.

“First drink's on the newbie. Squad rules.”

[Sanis Prent]

Hangar Bay - Valiant

It was one of those rare moments that we took enough shots to require hauling Layla's wide ass into Valiant's hangar bay for some heavier re-tooling, and I dreaded it. The amount of electronic warfare damage we took meant that Layla's entire sensor package would have to be pulled out, stripped to components, built back up, and recalibrated. The first three parts were fine. I know what a blown circuit bundle looks like. The last part involves MARCUS.

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No. No no no! NO!"

Massaging my temple, I angrily sat up from the folding chair I'd arranged on the hangar deck while I toiled over endless calibration reports and configuration cycles.

"Do NOT reset passive EM receptors to defaults. Why am I even arguing with you? You want EVERYTHING set to defaults!!"

"Sanis, the design specification is the result of aggregate planetary conditions set by Corellian Engineering. Far be it for me to disagree with the arithmetic mean of all possible expected conditions to be used as a standard for passive sensor scans."

I sat up, yanked MARCUS off the table, and started screaming at it inches from my face, fully aware this made me look like an unhinged psycho yelling at a quasi-autonomous fruities can.

"We do this every time! Every fucking time! I tell you, 'I've got a system, MARCUS, follow the damn system, MARCUS!' Do you save my defaults? What about my defaults? Me, the guy who hasn't let Cirr weld you to the front of the ship as a hood ornament! I swear, I want to find the Verpine that made you some times and punch him in the thorax or carapace, or wherever he keeps his cock, as some kind of divine punishment for me having to put up with your anal retentive backtalk!"

Exhausted a bit, I lowered the module to my side, venting a bit of rage in a sigh, then brought MARCUS back up to eye level again.

"Once again! We come off hyperdrive .023 realspace moments per second. That creates...write this down....DISTORTION...in the EM band for a good five kilometers of realspace. Cirr wrote the decay equation, backtalk him about his math at your own risk, but it works. Every time!"

A moment of silence, then broken again.

"Sanis, if you would only recalibrate your hyperdrive to..."

That was it. I was done. I chucked MARCUS over my shoulder and stomped off.

"I hate recalibration!"

[Regan Altink]

"What the hell d'ye think y're doin'?"

The demand for an answer reverberated through the hangar, despite it's cavernous size. Silence fell over the ground crew as concerned eyes swept around, wondering if it was them who had incurred Tink's wrath. Perhaps it wasn't fear in their eyes, but there was certainly a great deal of reservation and concern -

Unfortunately, the man responsible hardly looked the part. Average height, and average build, wrapped in fairly average looking clothes, there was absolutely nothing intimidating about Regan Altink when you looked at him. Hell, with the hat that he incessantly wore - informing anyone who asked why that: "Space is bloody cold, y'brainless wee idiot; why d'y think I wear it, eh?" - he almost looked comical. But boy, when he was in a bad mood, could that guy shout.

Face scrunched up into a scowl, he stormed through the nervously silent hangar, and advanced on the X-Wing in question, and the unsuspecting pilot with their arm still jammed into the engine casing. He reached out and snatched the hydrospanner from their hand, and brandished it angrily in their face. "Did y' nae read the manual?" he asked pointedly.

An accusing hand pointed towards the gantry that ran around the hangar's wall: the eerie from which the Chief perched and surveyed his domain. "I can see from way up there that y'holdin' the wrong kind o' spanner. The 4L4 has fourty-two gauge fittings, and this is clearly a fourty-five." He brandished it again. "Can y' see the wee little numbers there?"

His arms folded disapprovingly across his chest. "Three may no' seem like much of a difference, but this is precision equipment. If you're no' careful, you'll shear off the bolt heads, and someone - probably me - will have tae grind off the entire assembly and machine out new mounts, just because y'cannae read two simple wee numbers."

He shook his head and sighed. "Honestly; if only y'life was on the line, I wouldnae care. But these are my planes y're puttin' at risk here."

His eyes narrowed. "What d'y have to say for y'self, eh?"

[Oisin Ocasta]

Under normal circumstances, that was a dangerous question to ask. Oisin often had too much to say for himself, and was often criticised for such - people always used to say that if he had nothing to say, he'd say anything; and it was pretty much true. He could talk endlessly about the random trivia of his day; make even a single innocuous subject spin out for at least an hour, if he was bored, or nervous, or if it was the only way of avoiding the descent of an awkward silence. He even had quite a lot to say to himself as well, particularly on those long boring recon assignments that he used to do before they'd plugged him into a hole in Rogue Squadron's roster.

Right now, however, he couldn't think of the slightest thing to say in response to that. All he managed to do was stare - slightly surprised and a little bit scared - at the hydrospanner being brandished in front of his nose, and wonder what half the words tumbling out of the Chief's mouth actually meant.

"I, uh -" he stumbled, trying to think of something to say. "Sorry?"

[Regan Altink]

Regan sighed and shook his head, slumping inside his coveralls at the apparent idiot moron in front of him. His eyes scanned the fuselage above the pilot's head, picking out his name and callsign - LT. OISIN OCASTA, "ECHO" - from the paint decals that adorned the craft. "Listen, Oysin," he said, pronouncing the deceptively spelt name completely wrong. "Check the wee numbers before y' start, and we willnae have a problem, eh?"

He hesitated for a moment before setting the hydrospanner down on the S-Foil beside him, and then turned and walked away, muttering under his breath as he went. "Oh, sure," he said with sarcasm in his voice, echoing the words of whichever officer had talked him into it in the first place, "Why no' let the pilots help wi' repairs, tae lighten the load on y' technicians, an' train 'em fur emergency repair work while on mission? Two birds wi' one stone."

He let out a sigh. "Mustae been stoned maself if I thought this w' be a good idea," he grumbled, disappearing into his distant corner of the hanger to tinker with something that wasn't idiotic and didn't talk back, well aware that no one was paying any attention to the bitter ramblings of a grumpy old tech, again. "Spend half ma time cleanin' up after the mess these damn pilots make. Frellin' rocket jocks ..."

[Chrys Atreides]

"He means well...he's just really protective of the ships."

The soft voice, a stark contrast to Tink's original tone, came from behind the pilot. Long blonde curls had been gathered into a bit of a messy bun at the nape of her neck, several tendrils had escaped to frame her face. A slender hand lifted the clean rag to wipe at the smudge of grease she could feel on her cheek, while the other absently smoothed out her white tank-top.

"You must be Sin...I'm Chrys, one of the Tinkerers." she grinned brightly, tucking the rag into her back pocket. "Can I give you a hand with anything?"

[Oisin Ocasta]

Oisin considered correcting her on how to say his name; but then, so many people were unfamiliar with the obscure Alderaanian dialect that he'd grown used to it by now. He had of course considered changing the spelling to make life easier; but in truth, he kinda liked the rugged, rebellious, devil may care image that Sin Ocasta conjured up. Made him sound - and feel - like an action hero. At least it did, until he accidentally caught sight of his scrawny frame in a reflection, or was expected to do anything remotely cool.

There was another reason to not correct in this instance, of course. With the Chief, even if the opportunity had presented, fear was a major obstacle. With this Chrys however, doing so merely opposed one of his cardinal rules: Never argue with a cute blonde.

Well, that, and I'm scared of talking to girls. But lets not dwell on that, shall we?

Oisin stared blankly for a moment, brain spinning wildly out of gear as the cogs struggled to align and churn out a coherant thought. He managed to muster a frown to cover his tracks for a moment, but he needed to say something, fast.

"Aren't -" he started, the sentence beginning before he'd even decided what the subject of it was. "- you worried about getting caught in the crossfire when your boss comes back and yells at me again? Or is this all part of some -" He waved his hands for vagueness. "- good cop, bad cop, lets screw with the new guy routine that I'm not totally up to speed with?"

[Sanis Prent]

"Can I give you a hand with anything?"

"Hahaha, I bet you can!"

Instantly brought out of my MARCUS-related funk, I jumped into the awkward circle jerk. Mechanics and Pilots, like nerds and jocks all coming together awkwardly. I clapped Oisin on the shoulder, giving him a squeeze.

"Nice, man. I hear mechanic chicks are fucking dirty."

[Oisin Ocasta]

Oisin's shoulders slumped under the impact of Lucky's arrival. Oh, joy. Sanis Prent.

One of the things that Oisin had never come to grips with since becoming a pilot was the whole up-themselves arrogant man-whore routine that many of his fellow pilots seemed to throw themselves into so wholeheartedly. While not a fighter jock specifically, none of them epitomised that particular cliché quite so well as Sanis Prent.

Oisin wasn't like that. Maybe it was through some moral superiority thing. Maybe it was just because he'd never been any good at acting the stud. Whatever the reason, it wasn't his style; and while normally he'd be happy to leave Captain Prent to his own devices, something just seemed wrong about leaving that kind of blatant, slap-in-the-face insult uncontested.

His jaw clenched, mind struggling to think of an appropriate reaction. What would Captain Republic do?

Realising that he lacked the necessary superpowers to follow up on that particular train of thought in its entirety, he chose instead to settle for the witty accompanying remark that his childhood hero would have produced.

"That may be an appropriate way to talk to a lady on that ball of refuse you call a homeworld, Captain Prent," he retorted, an undercurrent of edge creeping into his unusually confident tone. "But back home on Alderaan, we had something called manners. You might wanna check it out in a dictionary, if you can find one that uses small enough words."

[Chrys Atreides]

Bright blue eyes darkened as they narrowed, fixating on the features of one Sanis Prent. Brilliant pilot and just maybe the rudest bastard in the entire Wheel.

And absolute ringer in attitude and speech for her ex-husband.

She could feel the urge to leave pulling at her, enticing her to race off into some dark little corner where she could huddle until the panic receded. Rhys wasn't here, she told herself, he was locked up back on Lorrd, in the Central Qatamer prison. Justin and Themis had seen to that...just as they'd seen to the fact that he shared the the scars she would forever bear.

Words failed her completely as she simply turned and walked away, swallowing against the lump in her throat, only pausing to acknowledge Sin's defense of her with a light touch to his shoulder. There was little to be said to someone like Sanis, who would never understand or likely even care what she'd been through.

From behind her, she heard Carré approach and mutter quietly in an attempt to not be overheard. "Sanis, you idiot...that's Justin's sister. The one he had to go home to rescue because her husband beat the shit out of her daily for the last five years. Could you say anything more stupid to someone who's been through that?"

[Sanis Prent]

With a smile bordering on the dangerous sort, I fished for a stim out of a well-crumpled pack. I caught sight of Cirr gravitating toward the group. With ears like that, he heard what was up too. Lighting up, I leaned against Oisin's X-Wing.

"I don't have a homeworld, kid."

Jerking a thumb back towards Layla, I continued.

"You're looking at the closest thing to it over there."

I ignored the wide opening for a shot about at least my refuse is in a ball instead of a scattered debris field. No sense rubbing salt in a wound that didn't need it.

Carré's comment caught my attention, and I said nothing, gesturing with a wave of both hands as if to say how the hell was *I* supposed to know that?

[Carré Inirial]

"I thought somebody would have warned you so you wouldn't make a comment like that..." Carré muttered, shaking her head as she swatted at his shoulder.

Plucking the stim out of his fingers, she lit it and took a drag before handing it back, arching a brow. Damn thing was stronger than the pack she kept back in her quarters.

"C'mon, you insensitive prick, let's go get a drink. I heard Razor and Spoon are getting out of the infirmary today, you still owe me a rematch on the last shot contest we had. Sin, are you going to come along, or are you going to hang out here?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr, for as big a guy as he was, appeared in sudden ninja-like fashion in the midst of the others, summoned by the sound of a trip to the proverbial fleet watering hole.

"jI'm jin."

He announced in a nearly-desperate tone to Carré, nodding his head to emphasize the point. He went through the nearly-habitual mechanic's task of wringing a work rag around his big paws to pull away whatever muck and grease had attached themselves. In the awkward silence that passed, he felt the need to explain himself for some reason.

"jI'm gojing to see the arrc welderr jin my sleep. jI need a brreak frrom all thjis."

[Oisin Ocasta]

After spending the years since Endor keeping pretty much to himself, flying loan recon missions cooped up in the cockpit of his Snoopscoot with only his astromech for conversation and company, social gatherings weren't exactly Oisin's strongpoint anymore - not that they ever had been in the first place.

He looked around the assembled throng of pilots that had seemingly materialised from nowhere and, still perched in his repair crouch, suddenly felt very small and intimidated. He shot a glance at the engine beside him; then one at Chrys that lingered a little too long, before he managed to wrench his eyes away and focus on his wingman.

Or wingwoman? Wingperson? Whatever.

"Sorry, Carré," he appologised, with a vague gesture towards his X-Wing. I don't think the Chief will be all that happy if I just wander off and leave the work unfinished."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Oisin soon found himself hoisted out of his crouch, held at eye-level with the much-larger felinoid who waved off his concern.

"One mechanjic to anotherr, he'll underrstand. Fjile that one underr perrsonal majintenance. Keep yourr own gearr well-lubrrjicated!"

He glanced back at the mess they'd all made after a good half day of work.

"Besjides, we mjight all kjill each otherr jif we don't get a brreak. Come on, we'll arrm wrrestle and see who has to pay the tab!"

[Carré Inirial]

"Sin, never argue with Cirr. He could eat the lot of us alive and we'd never see it coming." Carré grinned, tucking herself between the felinoid and her wingman as the former set the latter down. She hooked her arms in with theirs and tilted her head back to look up at the kitty.

"Drinks are on me tonight - I don't need you arm wrestling and breaking my wingman before Kelly has a chance to glare at him. I vote we try to drain the bar dry before we even think about lifting another spanner. I'm liable to see wiring in my sleep, while you see arc welders."

She paused, glancing over her shoulder to watch Chrys retreat down the hallway towards her quarters. Biting her lower lip, Carré eyed Sin, then looked back down the hallway. Nodding to herself, she tugged her wingman close and leaned over to whisper. "Chrys might appreciate the company of a gentleman, you know. Next hallway over from our quarters, and you can't miss the bright pink door with the flowers painted at toddler height."

[Oisin Ocasta]

"But I kinda like circuitry," he muttered to himself lamely; not that anyone was listening to his protests anymore.

The conspiratorial whisper from his wingman made him tense however; suspicious eyes glanced sideways at the cat-man who had him restrained. Loosing his arm from Carré's, he slipped a hand into his back pocket and pulled out his cred card, sliding it covertly into her hand. "I owe you one," he muttered back softly, "But don't go crazy on me."

He hesitated for only a moment longer, before wrenching his other arm half-way free, and planting an elbow heavily into Cirr's ribs. Liberated, he broke into a run, and scampered off down the corridor.

[Sanis Prent]

"Free drinks? Deal to me."

I cracked a smile at that, and headed out with the rest of them to meet our more banged-up counterparts. After the mission we'd had, I knew at the very least I was looking to get a little pissed.

"Come on, Cirr. We'll find some naive deck-scrubber for you to arm wrestle, I'm sure."

[Tera Uolmi]

Jaden Luka lead the way into what had been a quiet bar, a few minutes ago. A cheer went up at the sight of Archer and Uolmi following the Captain in, the latter of whom even allowed herself a sheepish smile at the sight of her fellow pilots. They were huddled around a broad table that was already full of pitchers and glasses.

“You all just gonna sit and stare, or is someone gonna pour me a drink?”

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"jI'm on that!"

Cirr, surrounded by a series of beer pitchers, upturned a clean pint glass to tip it to the brim. He more or less pulled Tera into the adjacent seat and applied a one-armed hug, mindful at the last moment to take it easy on her in her delicate condition, as he pushed the pint in front of her. He raised the pitcher he'd poured from to her pint glass and clinked it with a smile.

"Welcome back, Rrazorr."

[Tera Uolmi]

Tera winced in anticipation of being crushed inside Cirr's arms, but the pain never came. She sniffed at the pint, but after some jeers took a healthy swig.

“Spasst, this is worse than the stuff they were feeding me in the medbay. What is it, thruster lubricant?”

[Sanis Prent]

"It's the special, for what it's worth."

I quaffed down a few notches in my own pint, shrugging after an initial wince. Tera was right, it had that distinct taste of being put together from dubious ingredients, and then fermented in a rusty tank. Still, it had alcohol, and was going for two pitchers a credit. None of us looked like we were too snobby to not drink it, at least.

"And unlike bacta, it should get us where we all wanna be."

Despite the questionable drinks, we all needed this. I looked around a table full of faces that were as tired as mine, and though we did what we were asked to do, we all felt pretty beat down.

"Sorry to wax dramatic, but we did just make it out of one hell of a knock-down, drag-out brawl back there."

With a little shrug, I shook my head.

"Just glad to see most of us back to talk about it."