You call this a wing?

Posted on Thu Aug 14th, 2025 @ 10:47am by 1st Lieutenant Drydon 'Roman' Palamas & Master Chief Petty Officer Gaz

1,481 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Shoreleave [3-4]
Location: DS13- Fighterbay, pilots ready room
Timeline: MD7- 1555h

Drydon 'Roman' Palamas arrived about 5 minutes before his shift was about to begin. He wanted to see his new squadron in their natural environment if possible. He certainly had some ideas about what he wanted to accomplish in the short term, but any long term plans would have to wait for whenever they recieved more staff. Currently the entire wing had 42 people, 28 pilots and 14 tech chiefs, split evenly among 4 squadrons. He would be the leader of 'Blue Diamond' Squadron.

Along the side wall of the large cavernous bay was 4 sets of double doors, they apparently led to the 4 'squadron areas' with a lockerroom and pilots ready room for each squadron. In reality the areas could each hold a wings worth of personnel, so they all had plenty of space, for now. Over each door was a placard with the colour of each squadron. Red, Blue, Black and Green.

As Drydon looked around the 60 metre wide 100 metre long bay, he could see the semblance of 4 different clusters of fighters spread out in the distance. Here and there techs and pilots were working or walking or chatting. And by the looks of things, 2 of the fighters were missing, and out on FSP(Fighter Space Patrol) out around the station somewhere. He came up with a quick plan to help him get the lay of the land and also put the fear of an almighty god into his people to see what they were made of.

Drydon chuckled to himself as he walked up the stairs to the flight control centre. After finding a few ensigns and petty officers lazily manning their posts, Drydon asked if they could do an announcement and have all members of Blue Squadron report to their ready room. One of the petty officers said he'd do it right away.

In the ready room, Drydon 'Roman' Palamas stood stonefaced behind the dais and waited until he counted 10 other people in the room.

He was always out to make life interesting and anything but mundane, so he decided to have some fun with his people, in a team building sort of way.

'Greetings all, I am Lt Palamas, callsign Roman. I'll be your new squadron leader. I've heard we'll be getting some more people and some more birds fairly soon. Until then, Id like to get some things straightened out. 1...' he could see some of the people winnings already, thinking he was going to be a straight laced by the book type. He held a dramatic silence for a few seconds.

'I am not here to 'command' you by giving silly orders or do inspections, or make you spend more time on paperwork then piloting. Keep yourself sharp, take care of your birds, and take care of your teammates and you wont have a problem from me. I am here to lead you in combat, and help you all learn to be flight and squadron leaders in the future. 2, all paperwork will be handed in to the squadron adjutant, and not me...when we get one. I dont want my pilots wasting time on that nonsense, fill out your flight logs and mission reports, everything else, sens to the adjutant. 3, when I enter a room, don't call the room to attention, ever. If theres something important ill say 'heyo' or 'everyone listen up', no more of this attention/at ease shit.' Roman could see his people visible relax.

He continued 'If you drink, dont fly drunk. If you're too hung over to fly , talk to me or you're flight leader, and we will send you off duty with no penalties. All squadron members will then be allowed to make fun of you if you do though...and with that all said. I wanna see ho you all do in the cockpit. So stand to your birds, scramble drill in 10 minutes. Lets go do some flyinf people.' Some of his people were evening smiling now. The new guy sounded pretty cool so far. Roman walked down the aisle and back out into the fighterbay.

One of the Flight Sgts, callsign Salvo whispered to his wingman before they stood up and followed 'Did you see that man? What is that on his head, is he wearing a fucking golden crown wreath on his head?'

Roman, out in the bay found a nearby Chief and asked 'Hey, I'm the new squadron leader, where could I find the officer of the deck? I'd like to run a scramble drill with my pilots in 10 minutes.'

Gaz looked up at who the uniform told him was a new fighter jockey, though this one looked like he spent more of his time at the gym than most. He tried not to stare at the laurel wreath. "You want Lieutenant Akzhouri, she's in charge of flight control. She's probably in the CIC."

'Excellent, thanks Chief. I one you a drink.' Drydon then went off to find his new target, not meaning to be rude, buf often coming off that way.

As he watched the man go, Gaz got back to the junction box he was working on. He wondered if the kid knew that the computer would tell him that, and his combadge would connect him to her. "Fighter jocks." He muttered to himself.
12 minutes later, they were out in space in their birds.

Roman was in his element now, flying at roughly 70% the speed of light through a solar system in the cockpit in a Valkyrie. Even being a demi god didnt compare to the rush it was seeing planets and moons and asteroids wiz by him. He was a 'feel' kind of a pilot, though he was still a very competent technical flyer, he liked being on the edge. Orbital dogfighting was the lesson for today.

He had broken his squadron into 2 flight of 4, and sent each of them to opposition sides of a small dwarf planet, about 2 au away. He and his wingman would be with the left group, and he sent the other 4 with the right group. Palomas sent the other pair in his group to pursue and equatorial orbit, while his 2some pulled of into a polar orbit and slowed to 60% throttle.

Just as he predicted, the other flight of 4 had hit their burners and tried to make for a higher orbit. Trying to get a range and position advantage. It was right out of the textbook. They had also split into pairs and spread out about 2 miles apart. Since Romans pair had take a more polar orbit, he and his wingman would should up on the flank of the opposition.

He watched for a second as the other 2 from his group engaged the 4 opponents. It quickly turned into a mini furball, with each side scoring a quickly kill. Roman and his wingman then streaked in from the side and 'killed' two more opponents. The sole remaining pilot then did some fancy flying and was able to kill his wingman before Roman eventually finished him off.

He switched the Squadron come channel back on, after having everyone disabled them for the training.

'Nice work B flight, you scratched 2 of us before you got you. You performed the textbook manuever perfectly, but remember, doctrine is the last refuge of the unimaginative....Alright all, let's finish up with race back to the barn. The last one to do a loop around Dreizhan 5 and land back at the base buys the first round of drinks.' After hearing acknowledgements from Blues 2-8, Roman had them all line up abrest of him facing the 5th planet and got read to race.


38 minutes later, they were back in Fighterbay 1.

BLUE 3, callsign 'Hotrod' has earned his name obviously, he won the race, Salvo had come in second, and Roman had finished third, due to a slack starboard engine on his vessel. As he went to land his craft, he noticed his squadron mates landing their Valyries in the same haphazard fashion that he had seen when he first arrived. He quickly keyed his comm

"Hey, I'm not sure who taught you all how to park, but we have 12 landing marks in our squadron area. Lets take the first 8 spots, part on the mark that corresponds to your comm designator, noses facing in...I'd like to see some esthetic fucking professional in our area. Let the rest of those jokers look like shit if they want. If we're gonna be the best, we might as well practice by looking like the best."

After doing and AAR for about 10 minutes in a gaggle in the middle of their squadrons section of the bay, Roman asked for 4 volunteers to fly their patrol for the next day. They would be responsible for flight 2 6 hour shifts patrolling the system. When he was done, he dismissed his people and went to get ready to go for drinks at the Spot.

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