Roadside Picnic

Flight Officer's Report, action of [date], Onderon system

Per Commodore Sougal's request, I am submitting my account of the engagement identified above.

Transmissions intercepted by Whisper Base indicated a small Imperial convoy entering Onderon system would be carrying several hundred tons of parts and supplies for the Imperial ordnance station near Iziz, and that the convoy's assigned escort cruiser had suffered a severe drive failure and would be unable to travel with the convoy during its final leg. Sector Command hastily organized a strike force of two Nebulon-B frigates, Archer and Seven Bells, the CR90 corvette Tarafa, and the starfighter and armed transport complement from Canval Base.

The Imperial vessels exited hyperspace near the edge of the system's gravity well, following procedure for entry into a safe system with high levels of civilian traffic. Our frigates immediately deployed their starfighters and moved at best speed to intercept the Imperial freighters. As expected, there was a small escort force still present - a pair of Raider-class corvettes and a small starfighter complement.

Within a matter of minutes, the Alliance frigates had the freighters under their guns and were preparing to launch boarding parties. A number of Imperial ships broke away from the main body, and Commodore Sougal directed the closest Alliance ships to intercept and prevent them from escape.

Tarafa led this hastily-dispatched force, consisting of my element of A-Wings, an element of X-Wings from Canval, and two armed transports, the Leap of Faith and Tilted Heart. The breakaway Imperial force consisted of one of the Raider corvettes, six TIEs of mixed type, and a Lambda-class shuttle. Captain Gerb, commanding Tarafa, ordered the starfighters to engage the TIEs escorting the shuttle, under his corvette's support and directed the transports to harass the Raider. Gerb stated his belief that the shuttle was carrying high-value personnel and that it should be the primary target for our part of the engagement.

Just before the transports entered weapons range of the Raider, the Imperial vessel suffered a series of explosions in the drive section and broke apart. The transports did not fire on the Raider; I believe that the ship had been struck by turbolaser shots from one or both of the Alliance frigates and incurred greater damage than initially identified.

Five of the TIEs - four G/T models and an Advanced - moved quickly to screen the shuttle and engage Tarafa. Captain Gerb maneuvered to keep his ship between the TIEs and the smaller Alliance ships. A single Interceptor flanked our starfighter formation, making no effort to join the other Imperial fighters. Tarafa fought well, damaging or destroying the TIEs and firing on the shuttle. The shuttle proved to have been outfitted for combat with a heavy cannon, however, and coordinated with the TIEs to deliver heavy fire to Tarafa. The Imperials overcame our corvette's defenses and Tarafa's drive section began to fail. With the ship's maneuverability and speed greatly reduced, it was an easy target for the remaining Imperial ships and was destroyed.

When Tarafa was destroyed, the shuttle and TIE Advanced moved to disengage and escape. We destroyed the remaining TIE and landed enough shots on the shuttle to collapse its shields, but the vessel ultimately made a jump into hyperspace. Our detachment assembled into formation and rejoined the main Alliance force.

I can find no fault with the conduct of the detachment, and credit Captain Gerb with preventing the destruction of a number of starfighters and armed transports. We enjoyed the great fortune of the early destruction of the Raider; I feel certain that that vessel would have inflicted severe losses on our detachment. Of particular note, one of Canval Base's X-Wing pilots, Jaina Pelar, performed extraordinarily well. Officer Pelar flew aggressively, keeping her fighter closer to my A-Wings than I would have expected. Pelar displayed an uncanny ability to coordinate her own weapons fire with that of her fellow pilots. Her piloting skill is notable, but she is a superlative gunner. While the loss of Tarafa and most of her crew will be keenly felt, I expect that Sector Command will soon replace the ship, likely through the method of stealing an equivalent Imperial vessel.

I am available for further discussion and evaluation of the events of this action, at your convenience.

J. Battin, Flight Leader, Nightside Squadron, Seven Bells

Yesterday was the last day of classes for the spring semester. I'm still in limbo about the fall - hoping that I'll get to start the MPH, afraid that I'll have to spend another year in the undergrad program.

I have four finals, beginning with tomorrow's public policy exam. That's the class I'm most concerned about, as far as my final grade. I've enjoyed the class, and feel that I've learned quite a bit, but I've struggled with the exams. Communications looks to be the GPA booster I expected it to be. Epidemiology's been tough, and the most valuable class of the semester - again, as I expected. 430 and 405, though ... there's a lesson somewhere here. I'm borderline A/B in 430 and have a high A in 405, and I've done no honest work in either course. In fact, my work in 405 is arguably fraudulent (as is the entire course, in my opinion). I've abandoned much of the team-based work in 430 - not because it's been difficult, but because I just haven't cared about the course and the lack of learning it's offered. Frustrations abound.

I've used my old iPhone as a slightly heavier iPod for a while, and I've gotten used to having the dedicated device. Doesn't make sense, sure - means carrying around a second device instead throwing music and podcasts on the iPhone in my pocket. But I liked continuing to get some utility out of the old phone, and having nothing else on it meant lots more space for music. A few days ago, the home button stopped working, which made the whole thing just about useless. About $40 to repair it, assuming the screen doesn't have to be replaced as well - it's cracked along the top. Irrational as anything - if the screen has to be replaced, too, I'll just set resources aside for a Nano, I think.

As I posted over on FB, ain't no crazy like last-minute convention crazy. Let's start on Monday, about 48 hours before I'm scheduled to arrive in Indianapolis for GenCon.

I started the day off emotionally compromised anyway. Get to work, I'm already in convention/vacation space, have just about completely checked out from the shoulders up. Late morning, one of my volunteers texts me to let me know that he can't make it to GenCon. I immediately check in with my bosses, and we make an emergency plan that arranges for said volunteer to be able to make it, but blackballs him from any future work with us. I pass the first part of this along to said volunteer, he's grateful, and we're ready to move on. So far, so handled. I call around the rest of the team (minus our volunteer coming in from the UK, because), get hotel counts and confirmations (from most, and you can bet that'll be important later), and things look okay. Workday ends, I go play Infiltration, exchange some texts, and sleep like an innocent.

Tuesday, and the e-mails hit. Volunteer CH doesn't like e-mail. Rarely uses it. I wasn't too thrilled with this cat for a couple of reasons - he was added over my objections by one of the company owners, and since we do 95+% of our team communications through e-mail, he rarely checked in. CH had bought his plane tickets to the con with a rarely-used credit card. Round-trip airfare bought on a card that sees very little use? Yep, that'll trigger a fraud alert. And how is the card account set up to send out this alert? You got it - e-mail. THIS HAPPENED IN JUNE. CH didn't find out about until Monday night. After I'd called him. Grr. Then EO e-mails me. Now this mofo I was getting tired of anyway, because he'd started asking if his girlfriend could stay with us, and can we things for her to do at the con because she's not much into gaming and what-the-hell-ever-man. And he can't make it because of "unexpected expenses." I call bullshit, because that's the kind of guy I am.

My bosses are in transit from the West Coast. We communicate as we can, and start to figure out contingencies. The last thing we want to do is cancel events, but all of a sudden we have five games that don't have GMs and two exhibitor spots to fill up and it's less than 24 hours until we start assembling in Indy and the con for-real starts at 10AM Thursday. And this is where stuff starts getting good, and I mean good. I remove the offenders from our e-mail list and send out a call for help. Let the others know what's up, what spots are available, and why. About 75 minutes later, after texts and phone calls and e-mails, the spots are filled. We are set. We are ready to go. And who was the first person to step up? The dude in the second paragraph. You can bet he's now off the blacklist. Karma and shit.

Now, in the course of writing this entry (while I was also ripping and re-encoding Layer Cake and putting it on the iPad) ST texts me. He's overslept and his son has missed his flight to Oregon or Washington or wherever, so our hastily-modified plans to meet him in Louisville have been disrupted. We'll deal. If three dudes can get to Indy in a Civic coupe, three dudes can get to Indy in a Focus wagon. And we're going to. Because it's time for Nerd Prom.