| abstract
| - In a medical clinic on a small moon along the outer rim of Hutt run territories, Meeko Farlane lays in a hospital bed with bandages on his head, one arm and both legs, two of his fellow pilots show up in his room and help him leave his hospital room to attend the wedding of his wingman to a girl he met on Roon. Just as the wedding begins the Imperials begin a bombing run. Meeko and a doctor from the clinic jump into a fox hole. Meeko awakes to find himself back in bed when the Givin General who owes him money for his service in the Hutt Defense Force comes to visit. The General refuses to pay Meeko his due. Shortly after the discussion, Meeko climbs out of bed, heads to the airstrip, and steals one of the General's starfighters along with Spinner, the assigned R2 unit that has been flying missions with Meeko since he first arrived. Once airborne, he sets course to meet up with the fleet of those fighting in the rebellion against the Empire and to get a promised Major commission, but soon is tailed and engaged by a couple of TIEs. Meeko makes fairly short work of them but soon finds he is out of fuel and is forced to land the ship in an agro-field of a farm planet. Meeko and Spinner hitch a ride to Bothawui where they network to get transport to a deployed faction of the rebel fleet. Once there, he reports to the hospital frigate and meets Colonel Trip who gives Meeko a hard time while he is lying in his new hospital bed. The Colonel goes on informing Meeko that he will be put behind a desk for the duration of his stay and will only be given the rank of Flight Officer and not the rank of Major in which he was promised. To get on an earlier transport from the frigate to the main command ship and to try to straighten out the mess made with his rank. Meeko uses his ever present R2 unit as a ploy, stating the astromech is Admiral Ackbar’s and he has been ordered to bring it to him. His plan works and he is off to the command cruiser. Meeko reports to Colonel Trip, who gives Meeko a quick dressing down. When confronted with the morning report which accounts all the little lies Meeko told to get there, Meeko is able to explain away most of the 'lies' as errors, but Trip does not seem to buy it. Trip puts Meeko under House Arrest until he can straighten things out. In another part of the rebel fleet in another sector, an aide picks up a comlink for Admiral Nibbits and its Meeko calling (pretending to be Nibbits’ son Tely) but when questioned about it Meeko talks his way out of trouble again. Meeko talks to the Admiral about his commission; when the Admiral realizes that Meeko could not possibly have talked to his son, Meeko pretends that there is static on the comm and talks the Admiral into amending his papers so that he can get his Majors commission. Later that night, Meeko is lying in bed, sleeping off a drinking binge, when someone walks into his quarters and finds the empty bottle on his desk. He wakes up Meeko looking for the astromech. He begins giving Meeko some advice on how to behave but nicer than a dressing down. However, Meeko does not take it well. It turns out to be Admiral Ackbar, who Meeko is ready to physically throw out the door, but the Admiral takes it well and offers Meeko a drink. Admiral Ackbar talks to Meeko about possibly helping him get out of trouble, but there is no way he can help him fly again. But the Admiral likes him, even lets Meeko keep his astromech, although it is against regulations to keep an astromech in personnel quarters. Meeko’s commission comes thru and the Admiral hands Meeko his new Major rank device. Meeko is sitting at a desk and meets Crash, another desk jockey; Crash is fresh from handling the Court Martials of fellow rebel, a lot of them pilots, but is uncomfortable with it. Meeko offers to switch assignments with Crash so that Crash is doing supplies and Meeko is handling the Courts Martial. Meeko tells Crash about his plans to form his own squadron without Fleet approval. Crash is a little hesitant about it, but Meeko talks him into it and start reviewing the files of potential pilots for his squadron. During the fleet’s replenishment at Telos, Meeko & Crash anonymously summon the selected pilots to the command ship’s officers club. The pilots are sitting around drinking. Meeko and Crash walk in and call them to order and "marches" them to a shuttle and fly toward Telos’ coastline and land. Pappy then marches the pilots to a secluded supply depot where he hangs a sign reading "Do Not Enter: Temporary Ithorian Milaria Infestation". One of the pilots, a humanoid female with white skin, blue hair called Queen recognizes the cases of Corellian Whiskey she had stolen and wonders who transported them here. Meeko explains to the pilots about how he is going to form his own squad, and that if they do not join they will be court martialed as planned. Sabre, an Arcosian, is not tempted by the offer of a pilot who is in his thirties and therefore believed to be out of his prime. He starts calling Meeko names like “Gramps” and “Pappy” and telling Meeko is too old to fly in combat and to prove it, Sabre tries to knock Meeko on his butt and a fight ensues. During the fight, three flash speeders of rebel security has tracked them and show up at the warehouse and despite the sign enter the building and are quickly trounced by the pilots inside. Acting as a team, they move out all the boxes of Corellian Whiskey take their shuttle and steal the three speeders and proceed to travel several kilometers along the beach. The speeders stop and Meeko does not hesitate to pick up the fight against Sabre again. They both end up sitting in exhaustion on the sand and Meeko asks if Sabre has had enough. Sabre nods and asks how “Pappy” is going to form a squad without authorization. Pappy says he is going to steal one. The pilots decide to fly with Pappy. The next day back on the Command Ship, Colonel Trip finds out that none of the Courts Martial have not gone thru so he goes to Crash to find out what is going on, and finds out that Pappy and Crash switched work loads. Pappy explains to the Colonel that he did not file any of the charges, from the last three months. Pappy and Crash decide they need to move up the plans for starting their squadron. Colonel Trip threatens to ship Pappy out. Pappy and Sabre go to Fleet HQ and Pappy pretends to be ranking medical officer to find a squadron whose planes he can steal. Sabre is in charge of finding a moon or planetoid where the squadron can base at. Pappy convinces the corpsman on duty that Slam Squadron has an epidemic of Ithorian Malaria and they need to be quarantined. Pappy and Sabre meet up and Pappy learns of a moon that has systems for air operation and that it has a hospital on the island...with many female nurses. Pappy has arranged to have the entire Slam Squadron quarantined for 14 days. Pappy sends a bottle of scotch to Admiral Ackbar, Pappy invites Admiral Ackbar to a party he has set up with the many of the young females in the fleet, but the Admiral knows that Pappy is up to something, but he wants to hang with the girls so the Admiral removes his rank and goes to the party. Pappy pumps one of the nurses for information about a rebel outpost on a moon in the Kegan System and puts his medical pin back on his collar to score with the nurse because she only likes doctors. Pappy informs the Admiral his plans about his squadron and Admiral Ackbar seems understanding about the new squadron. Pappy explains about who he will get to be pilots. Admiral Ackbar explains that he knows the pilots Pappy has in mind and gets a good laugh out of it. The Admiral goes along with it for the two weeks that Pappy needs and names his new command Dewback Squadron. Pappy has discovered that Slam Squadron has no kills and that they lost six planes. A new transport shows up with Slam Squadron but the CO of the squad is not happy that they are being quarantined for two weeks. Pappy assigns flight leaders are and explains about the little red button on the planes stick-shift, that it fires real lasers and they need to be careful they do not shoot each other. The squad climbs into the X-Wing Fighters and take off, some waggle during take off, others do it without an issue. Pappy talks over the radio to the guys and begins to teach them how to fly, telling them that he knows how to take out the TIEs with the craft they have. Queen accidentally shoots Sabre's X-Wing, damage is done to Sabre's ship making him roll into a slow right-hand turn. Pappy guides Sabre down, leaving the other pilots to fly themselves to the base, where they are met by the nurses. Sabre crash lands his X-Wing; Crash commandeers a speeder to pick Sabre up. When Sabre gets back to the squad, he starts a fight with Queen, where Pappy starts to take bets on the fight instead of breaking it up. The fight ends in both pilots face down in the dirt so all bets are off. A speeder pulls up driven by Head Nurse, who informs everyone that Dewback Squadron is off limits to the nurses. Pappy tells Dewback Squadron their first mission is to blow up an Imperial airbase. A doctor from the medical outpost shows up to report the condition of Sabre and Queen and he informs Pappy that there is an officer coming who is out to get Pappy. The next day pilots are in their planes and taking off and Pappy gives some last minute flight instruction to the squad. Pappy tells the squads about the reason they fly in pairs to defeat the TIEs. Lucky & Fraz are paired up Pappy is not entirely pleased with the formation that he sees, but he says they are getting better. Queen and Sabre are at each other again, Queen feeling that Sabre is too close to his wing. The squad begins their strafing of the airbase, the Imperial fire back with their anti-air guns. Queen comes in too low and loses a meter off her wing tip. Sabre sticks with her to make sure she lands safely. Pappy takes the rest of the squad home while Queen and Sabre go to the nearest rebel outpost. When Pappy returns, he finds Colonel Trip waiting for him. Colonel Trip lists charges against Pappy. After hearing the list, Pappy lists a few that the Colonel had forgotten. The Colonel goes over the personnel problems with the squadron. Pappy learns that Queen has crash landed her X-Wing but he is fine. Pappy sarcastically says that in only a few months Queen is almost an “Imperial” ace. Pappy physically removes the Colonel who draws his blaster on Pappy, who in turn relieves the Colonel of his weapon. The Colonel threatens with throwing Pappy into the brig for insubordination. That night, Sabre’s X-Wing lands and reports that Queen is still stranded at a small rebel supply outpost. He informs Pappy that Queen can get an abandoned X-Wing at the outpost if she can get it fixed. Sabre tries to talk Pappy into in grounding Queen, but when Pappy says he will take Queen as his wingman, Sabre says he will keep her then. Sabre also informs Pappy that Dewback Squadron will not get any bomber escorts which means no combat time. Sabre points out that this is all because Pappy never gave the Colonel a chance. But Pappy has an idea… to get drunk. In the mean time, Toast makes a key to get into the hospital now that the Head Nurse has put a lock on the side-door. Decoy feels that his 'number is up' so he speaks to Pappy about it on the beach. In his own attempt at therapy, Pappy beats up on Decoy on the beach to make him fight the feeling gone. During the therapy session, Pappy gets an idea. He goes into the tent and wakes up Sabre about a way to get the Imperial pilots to "come play"...Pappy says they will be flying before the sun is up and will be getting up in a couple hours. At daylight, the X-Wings are taking off. Since they cannot get the Imperial pilots to engage them, the plan is going to trick them into thinking they are bombers going through the sector. Pappy tells them to on the bomber pilot frequency and talk like bomber pilots...know that the Imperials are listening to the frequency. It works. TIEs begin to take off to engage the faux bombers. Pappy then tells everyone to go back to their regular frequency but to hold their flight patterns but get ready to engage. The squad breaks in twos to engage the TIEs and the dogfights begin. Queen’s plane takes several shots on the wing and Sabre comes to his aid, to which Queen tells Sabre to stay closer. Pappy's plane takes lasers in the port side and Pappy finds his pilots are all busy or in trouble with fighting TIEs. The Imperial break off and go home, so Pappy does the same with his squadron. They start to report in and find out they got 18 kills total, and no losses. When they land they are met by communication crew techs confirming the 18 kills but Pappy is modest about it. Colonel Trip is also there to meet Pappy, who calls Pappy into the squadron’s command center. Admiral Ackbar shows up as well. Colonel Trip reads off the charges against Pappy but Pappy informs the Colonel that if he court martials the squad that he will look really bad. Admiral Ackbar tries to talk the Colonel. Out of it; the Colonel refuses to withdraw the charges, putting Pappy under House Arrest again, just another of many more to come. Pappy kept the squadron and was soon asked to train other squadrons. He formed those squadrons, and even acquired ground troops, into a special organization now known as Dewback Wing.
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