Pathfinders
SpecForce pathfinders are troopers that make covert drops onto enemy planets, establishing beachheads, and hold this territory until relieved by Alliance ground forces. Alliance pathfinders complete their extremely difficult mission profile by traveling light, and rely on surprise to overwhelm resistance. Pathfinders are trained in survival, alien species recognition, and repulsorcraft operation. They are equipped with rifles, grenades, and if space allowed, repulsorcraft and heavy weapons.

Training takes place on Yavin IV

[Rebel Pilot Training]

Jin-ho was looking around the room, trying to find someone to talk to about getting Pathfinder training. She had become a full pilot not too long ago, and had acumulated some additional flight hours in outer space to get her body more used to the G-forces within a planet's atmosphere, and the feeling of weightlessness without.

Still, flying a ship, especially an armed fighter meant that a crash was inevitable at some point or another, whether by technical errors or simply being shot down, and her primary means of survival would be just the skills she'd have. Which, being used to cities and spaceports, weren't as developed as she'd like.

- "Umm, excuse me? Got any openings left in the training schedule?" :unsure:

A bit hesitantly, she walked towards one of the people standing a bit further away from her. Though they looked nothing alike in appearance, there was something about the man's stance that reminded her of Captain Antilles, and figuring that her first guess would be as good as any, thought that he would be one of the instructors.

"Indeed we do, this is a difficult training session, hope you are ready for it....... To start with, do you have any experience in stealth? It is of great importance in these lessons" The instructor asked

Jin-ho almost brought up the mission she had been on sabotaging the Kamino Cloning facilities, but managed to stop herself in time. It had taken considerable effort in erasing her tracks, and even then she had more than one run in with the Sith afterwards, so it'd be for the better if she simply didn't bring that up.

- "Well, i know how to sneak around... My survival skills need the most work though."

"Right you can start now...... If you have any difficulty, just contact me on the comlink..... Once you have completed this training, I would focus on other starfighters apart from the ones you have already trained in, perhaps the A-Wing, but we'll talk about that later, go to your training now....."

- "Yes sir, will do." ^_^

Jin-ho walked towards the Landing Pad much as she had during her training for becoming a Pilot. Still she realised things were different now, with more of a focus on stealth as opposed to target practise. Not attracting attention was key, which probably meant freighters as opposed to fighters this time around.

As she recieved the details of her mission, along with a small package she was supposed to plant on a (friendly) target, the young redhead realised she had guessed correctly. The target was living in a small apartment in the city, and it would be up to her to plant a microphone on his console. Which meant getting into his apartment too.

[Residences]

[War Room]

Jin-ho walked into the room, smiling apologetically at her old instructor -- which she now technically outranked. She went over to the man, hoping honestly that he wouldn't end up saluting her. Then again, she hadn't saluted him either as far as she could recall... Sighing, she dismissed that train of thought before softly coughing to get the man's attention.

- "Heh, sorry about the first training exercise... Would i still be able to try and complete the training?" ^^;

She didn't know whether or not the man knew of her latest promotion. He probably would, given that they were supposed to be able to according to their job descriptions, but whichever the case the red headed girl believed -- though 'hoped' might have been a better description -- it wouldn't make a big difference between the two of them. She was there to take his class, after all.

"Sure thing...... I mean.... Yes Sir.. Eh Ma'am.... And may I say, congratulations on your recent promotion! Which level would you like to start on? The most advanced we have actually involve holograms.... It enables us to project different climates and planet terrains for training..... The actual real life training here on Yavin IV is the easy stuff! So which would you like to go for?" The man asked Jin-Ho.

Jin-ho sweatdropped, noticing her instructor was feeling as uneasy about the situation as she was. Much as she had expected, her current rank of lower officer meant people would actually be seeing her as such, and that she'd have to get used to acting like it as well.

- "Well... I'm still at the same point where i left off, to be honest. I have some degree of experience with stealth and camouflage, but not much other than that. Which level would you recommend?" :)

She gave the man a genuine smile, aiming to make him feel more at ease. She hoped it would make him feel more comfortable with suggesting a lower level training, should he believe it necessary, rather than setting the bar too high by not wanting to insult a superior officer.

"It's really up to yourself, decide which you think is most suitable to the training you already have...." The instructor walked off, ready to set the new tasks and schedules.

Jin-ho stood at the console for a fair bit of time, choosing an option, then backing up to the main menu again as soon as doubt kicked in. She had no clue which level of difficulty she could manage, and ultimately just closed her eyes and picked something at random. They were holograms anyway, not like they could hurt you anyway... right?

-=TRAINING PROGRAM GAMMA-BETA-NINE INITIATED=-

The room darkened around her, before the holographic projections kicked in, revealing a heavily forested area. The screen had shown her the target, which -- according to the display -- she was supposed to scout for enemy troop strength. She nodded to herself, and took a couple of steps forwards.

Then the mortars started raining down on her location.

- "WHAT THE HELL!?!" o.O

Diving to the ground, she crawled over to a nearby tree as she looked around herself. What kind of crazy setting did she type in anyway? Deafening explosions thundered around her, and peering into the distance she thought she could make out humanoid shapes wielding blasters.

Cursing her luck, she stayed low, and headed out for the point she was supposed to scout at. She eventually found a good hiding place, from where she looked over the surrounding area. Tanks, Walkers and other vehicles appeared to swarm the landscape. And droids. Countless droids. Thousands of them.

- "I'm supposed to count this?" >_<

Luckily for Jin-ho, she didn't have to, as a scouting droid spotted her, and wasted little time in sending a volley of blaster shots her way. Her surroundings darkened again, before she found herself back in the room. Biting back a curse, she headed over to te console to see what difficulty level she had chosen.

- "Wha-- Battle of Kashyyk?!? Man, so much for picking random settings..." <.<;;

Shaking her head, the red headed girl set about picking something decidedly easier. Like face General Grievious alone and unarmed. Or sabotage a planet-sized space station, perhaps.

Grinning at the sarcasm in her thoughts -- whoever heard of a space station that big anyway? -- she set about reducing the difficulty, and starting out easy from the basics again to prevent being almost literally blown away like last time.

The next batch of 'missions' were little more than training exercises to sharpen ones perception, really. There'd be a scene taking place in front of her for roughly five to ten seconds, after which there'd be questions appearing on the console asking specific -- and often random -- details about what she had seen.

The questions themselves ranged in difficulty, going from 'What color were the curtains?' to 'Did the man on the left have a bruise on his arm?' to 'How many people were standing at the register?'. Some were multiple choice, others were open, but Jin-ho nevertheless managed to get most of the questions right once she had gotten the hang of it.

At one point, she started seeing it as a game, and would mention as many details as she could to herself, trying to guess which questions would come up next. Sometimes she was right, sometimes not, but she found she was starting to notice things she formerly just skimmed over, even if it was by a small degree. Deciding to call it a day, she logged off and left the training room again. She'd try to apply what she had learned outside of training though, eager to find out what she had missed earlier.

One of the instructors walked to Jin-Ho having just entered the training area, "Ah Jin-Ho.... How is progress coming along? I heard you were recently promoted.... Congrats... You deserve it!" The older gent spoke.

Jin-ho could hardly hide her excitement at being promoted. Though it meant her missions would start to get a lot more difficult now, at the moment she was really enjoying herself as she tried out the new set of priviledges and clearing level that had come with them. Sure, there were still a number of areas off limits to her, but for now she was just content walking through formerly restricted areas simply for being able to. When she was addressed by an older man holding the same rank she was, she stopped for a moment, and nodded in his direction.

- "Yeah, i have, thanks! Just got some Pathfinder training done, and after i get a bite to eat i'm going to see how much of it stuck with me. I'm kind of looking forward to it myself, honestly." ^_^

"Well if you're ever needing any advice or help with your training, my name is Xerxa.... And I'm here to help out all of the rookies.... I've been here since the beginning.... Fought in the Clone Wars for my planet.... Nothing could've prepared me for everything that's going on now in the galaxy..." He spoke referring to the oppression of the Empire.

Jin-ho winced as she heard Xerxa speak. In a way, she could imagine where the man was coming from, given that until a few months ago, she hadn't had anything to do with the Rebels at all. She hadn't really fully realised just what she had been doing when she accepted her mission to Kamino, and there was the run-in with that Sith not too long after that.

Looking back, she realised he hadn't been chasing her specifically, which came as somewhat of a relief, though it ended up with her landing up to her neck in trouble after all. Ironically, it had been thanks to another Sith that she had gotten out of it again, which felt somewhat... odd. Still, she wasn't about to complain after having a 10,000 credit Bounty lifted off of her head.

- "I... think i know what you mean. It hasn't been that long for me, and i'm already wondering what went horribly wrong with the Galaxy to have it end up like this. Not to mention asking myself why i didn't notice all of this before, to be honest." ^^;

"Many people just get on with their lives, not realising that they are being crushed from all sides by the Empire.... It's a sad situation.... Anyway, sorry if I am keeping you from your duties... I will be here if you need to find me... Take care Jin-Ho..." He said as he began to walk off.

Jin-ho nodded and thanked Xerxa for the offer. She figured she'd probably end up taking him up on his offer though, having quite a remarkable service record under his name meant he could more than likely teach her a thing or two about... well, anything really.

After the man had walked off, she tried to recall Xerxa's face, as many of the small details as possible. She then went out to get something to eat, after which she'd go to her room to try and make a sketch of his face. And her cousin's. And her father's.

Suddenly, the comlink of Jin-Ho sounded off, it was a message from Mon Mothma,

"Jin-Ho.... I'm sorry if you are busy, but we have recently received some information that could be of great value to us.... I know you stated before that you wanted to train more before being given a mission with your team, but I was wondering if you would be able to do this one for us...." She said waiting for an answer.

After overcoming her initial surprise at hearing her comlink go off, Jin-ho chuckled as she heard Mon Mothma's message. Despite everything that had happened so far, it felt somewhat comforting that both Leia and Mon Mothma appeared to use the same way of requesting people to do a mission for them.

- "Heh, sure thing, i'll be right over. War Room again?" :)

As she walked on while talking, she passed a new recruit carrying several documents. One of them fell from his hands however, but Jin-ho managed to catch it before it hit the ground with barely a glance. She held it up for the man to take it back when it occurred to her what she had just done. Blinking in surprise at her own actions, she smirked as she replied his salute and continued down the corridor to whereven Mon Mothma would tell her to go to.

- "Heh... Guess i really am starting to get the hang of this..." ^_^

[War Room]

[War Room]

Jin-ho arrived at the Pathfinder training area uncharacteristically early. She had already reserved one of the holo-rooms for her team to train in, and made all the preparations that she believed would be necessary to train on the different scenarios that might happen. Regardless of the way her first mission as a team leader would work out, she didn't want to end up getting caught unprepared. Both for her as for her team members' sakes.

Still, it was somewhat of a relief to see the first of them trickle in, and by the time the deadline came all of her team members had managed to make it on time. Motioning for them to follow her into the holo-room, the group stepped inside, yet Jin-ho booted up a fairly standard training program, depicting a fairly normal looking living room. She leaned against one of the walls, before walking over to stand in front of them, resisting the urge to fidget.

- "Right. I've been ordered to assemble a six man team for a mission, and quite honestly, you were pointed out as being my best options... Until you accept, i cannot give any detailed specifics about the mission, but it'll involve infiltrating and taking over a small ship. Though i suppose you've probably guessed as much if you know each other's specialties." :)

The red haired sergeant took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself for the hard part. She'd rather have skipped it, but she didn't want to force anyone into placing their lives in her hands. Everyone deserved the right to choose that on their own, and the people in front of her were no different in her opinion just because she outranked them.

- "Now, if there's anyone... not willing to join me on this mission, you're free to leave, and i won't hold it against you. If you stay however, i need to count on you as a member of the team, so no second thoughts. We will all have a part in the planing, the main objective is for all of us to return safely after all. Now... choose."

She bit her lip, wondering whether or not they'd have noticed her nervousness. Not wanting to sound arrogant, she had opted instead to tell them the simple and honest truth, hoping they'd appreciate it enough to trust her despite this being her first mission as a team commander.

Coyl - "Well, 'suppose i might give it a try..."

Coyl rubbed his chin as he thought out loud, until Shylo elbowed him in the gut. There was no force behind the blow though, making the gesture a playful one.

Shylo - "Stop joking around with her, flyboy, we both know you want in." :)

One after the other, the five people that had gathered agreed to join, and it felt to Jin-ho like a lead weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. Nodding enthousiastically, she set about to explain the mission details.

- "Right... There's a transport ship coming in two days from now, and it's carrying a bunch of impounded R2 droids the Alliance really needs. The problem is that the Empire knows this all too well, meaning we're probably being expected already. Our main problem would be getting onboard without triggering every alarm in the star cluster."

She paused for a moment there, letting the information sink in a bit before continuing. She'd already given the plan some thought while waiting on the others to arrive, for the simple reason that the sooner they'd be able to work out what the best approach would be, the sooner they'd actually be able to start training.

- "Now, to avoid suspicion and to buy ourselves more time for when we need to transfer the cargo, it'd be best if we manage to sneak on board before it takes off. Dash, i believe that's your area there. Coyl, Ress and myself will need to take the bridge, and Shylo, Dash and Dak would have to secure the cargo holds to prevent sabotage. Ress, you'll need to slice every terminal on the ship off the power grid, one emergency broadcast and we'll all be in deep trouble, while Coyl keeps it on course in case we're being monitored -- which we probably will be."

Jin-ho frowned for a moment, thinking about where to keep the enemy crew. There weren't a lot of them, but if they'd mount a counterassault while they were all busy the entire plan would go to Hell in an uncharacteristically swift way.

- "As for the crew... We'll lock them in one of the hallways, closing the blast doors on both sides. If Ress can shut down life support in the two compartments on either side of it, they'd be hermetically sealed in by their own emergency systems until their backup gets on board after we've left already. We'll leave Shylo, Dak and Dash there to keep an eye on them regardless, Shylo'll be the leader of the second group."

She looked at each of them in turn. To be honest, she was getting kind of thirsty from all the talking, and took out a bag she was carrying, handing out drinks while taking a sip of the one she had opened for herself. The last part of what she had planned out was a bit simpler... Or rather, more difficult since there was little they could prepare for.

- "The last part is the tricky one. We'll drop out of Hyperspace and meet up with a ship to transfer the cargo. We need to work fast, so we'll probably be tricking the system there's a fire on board and having it jettison all the cargo, then have the recieving ship stand ready to tractor it into their holds. We'll be jumping into some X-Wings as fast as we can, and cover the transport as it makes its escape. The amount of resistance we'll be facing will depend on how well we've done, but generally assumed to be high. Any suggestions?"

Jin-ho took a deep breath, taking another sip from her drink as she waited for the others to bring up inconsistencies, mistakes or simply ideas of their own. She had gone by the layout of her father's ship setting up the plan she had just explained, and it could very well be that there were newer safeguards built in that she was not aware of. Still, it seemed like a good plan to her overall...

There was of course some initial arguments against her plans, mostly things she had overlooked. Shylo seemed to agree that splitting the team in two was a good idea, to prevent them tampering with the cargo -- or worse, the engines -- before they could get to them, or pin them down in a section that could be walled off by fighting them in if need be. Dash would know the tricks of the trade, and would be able to act against them if the crew tried to break free, and Dak would help out as the two more experienced members of her team held his enthousiasm in check.

On her own group, there was some discussion about what she'd be doing, but it had soon been sorted out that her role would be similar to Dak's in 'Team Shylo', given her experience at living on a ship in general. Knowing a little bit of everything, she'd be able to help out with the ship controls easily enough.

About an hour or so later, everyone appeared to be satisfied with what the plan had been, and who had what role where and when. Chains of command had been set up for each of the two groups -- at Ress' suggestion -- and it was decided that the teams, now named 'Home Team' for the bridge, and 'Away Team' for the engine and cargo, would be led by Jin-ho, Ress, then Coyl and Shylo, Dash, then Dak respectively. Should one fall, it'd be clear who would be the next one in command.

With a nod, Jin-ho stood up, shoving in a holodisc containing the clearance code for the training program Mon Mothma had prepared for her. The mission was important for the Alliance, and she had probably ordered it's development as soon as it became clear what their target would be. She doubted the name of the ship would differ, given half the chance.

The training modules lasted for several hours. They played the scenario over and over again with just the six of them. Starting out at a low AI difficulty setting, the mission was first trained until everyone knew their role and those of the others by heart, and could fill out for each other in time of need. Ress had even taken Jin-ho aside for a moment to explain to her about the security system, and what she'd be supposed to do if he was disabled before he could slice the system.

After that, the AI was slowly set to increasing difficulty levels, which generally meant they shot faster and, most importantly, better, and their treatment of her team seemed to start bordering distrust almost at first sight. Overall, the mission was a success again -- despite Shylo taking a blaster hit to the shoulder -- so after a few more tries the difficulty slider was moved up again.

This time, there was no distrust, but rather paranoia. They had been forced to basically hijack the ship from the facility themselves, Coyl trying his hardest to dodge turbolaser turrets and ion cannon blasts while speeding away into space. Unfortunately, two Star Destroyers managed to show up in time to blast them to smithereens before they were ready to flee into hyperspace.

- "Heh... Perhaps that setting was a little bit... too much." ^^;

Jin-ho sweatdropped, and set the slider slightly lower again, but still above the last tie they had successfully completed the mission. With all the AI programming that had gone into the exercise, the starfighter program had been placed on another holodisc, so they'd have to train on that later. Or, as Jin-ho noted when she looked at her clock, another day.

- "Well, i'd say we're doing pretty well so far... Try to get some sleep, we'll gather here at nine again for the starfighter part of our training."

Stifling a yawn, she pulled the holodisc out of the terminal before placing it in her pocket. Since it would give away the entire mission, she definitely wanted to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands, and had decided to keep it on her person at all times. Waving goodnight to the others, she headed to her quarters again.

Once there, she'd waste little time in getting some sleep, her muscles a bit sore from all the running around she had done today. Placing the two holodiscs under her pillow, she was out like a light, curling up under the covers as she dreamt about R2 droids, bleeping merrily as they drove around in a certain cargo ship...

The next day, she waited for the others to arrive again, shortly after breakfast. She herself was well rested, something she had taken care in pointing out that, due to the repetitive nature of their latest training, sleep would be a bit harder to get than usual.

When everyone had gathered together in the private training room, they'd find six X-Wing simulators standing in it. From the look of things, it was fairly obvious what their training would be covering this time, even if she hadn't said so a day ago.

- "Right, next up is fighter combat. Now, i know all of you have had your fair share of flight hours, but the main thing i want to train on is working as a team. For this reason, we will remain together as a group up until we start on the mission, and yes Shylo, that means mixed sleeping quarters too, sorry."

The people in the group -- mostly the males -- chuckled softly as the Twi'lek murmured something under her breath. With a stern look between the two women, Jin-ho managed to bring the message across that they'd still take turns guarding each other while taking a shower, so no harm done there.

- "Heh, anyway... Formation flying this time, for much the same reason. The amount of TIE's appearing is constant, but increases over time. After we hold out for five minutes, more advanced fighters start to appear. It is said we get to see the first cap ships in thirty minutes, and after an hour they start bringing in the big guns. You get shot down, the fighter you're in will deactivate, so be careful when trying to set killboard records. Let's see how far we can get, shall we?" ;)

As Jin-ho started going more into details, the six man team stepped into the fighters, and the program started loading up. They'd find themselves in deep space, flying in a fairly standard arrowhead formation, and from what the red headed sergeant had been telling them they'd have thirty seconds to get ready. They changed formation into the Wedge, and started their attack runs...

Training continued for a good while, and after everyone had gotten more used to each other's flying styles a small transport similar to the one they were supposed to defend was added into the mix. Much as could be expected, screen formation flying came up next, with the main objective logically being that the transport had to survive as long as possible.

The first try went relatively well, them managing to last almost ten minutes despite the enemy massively targeting the ship itself as opposed to spend most of their time dogfighting with Jin-ho's fighters. They trained for a while longer, until eventually they managed to reach fifteen minutes. Jin-ho removed her visor, and stepped out of the simulator cockpit.

- "Well, enough of that for now. Who's up for some food? My treat, since i'm having you go through all of this." :P

Relieved, the others stood up as well, walking off some of the fatigue from the near constant battles by pacing up and down the simulator room. Jin-ho rubbed her eyes for a second as well, she really did feel as if she could use a change of scenery. Before opening the door however, she turned around to mention something.

- "On a sidenote, no one except the six of us knows about this plan. Mon Mothma may have given me this mission, but she left the 'how' entirely up to me, though she might put two and two together and figure out the rough outline for herself i guess." ^^;

Recieving a couple of nods and some stray confirmations her way, she smiled back at them before pocketing the two mission detail holodiscs she kept on her at all times, and opening the door to step out into the Pathfinder training area. People might suspect a lot of things about what they were going to be up to, but she wanted to keep mission exposure to a minimum. Her past few missions had been like that, and it had suited her fine.

[Residences]