((USS Victory, Flight Lounge))

Lucas Mario ‘Patch’ Paccelli was 35, and a career long pilot. He had made, and lost the rank of LCdr twice in the past 4 years. His first demotion came 5 weeks after his first promotion to the rank. He had been busted back down to Lt for ‘buzzing the tower’ after being explicitly ordered not to. He had actually been responding to a distress call that the Starbase’s Ops centre had sent him, but the sight of him roaring past the open dome of ops on full afterburner for the 3rd time that week had set off his former CO’s rage. The second demotion was the result of an altercation between him and the XO he was serving under aboard the Helsinki.

Luke was relaxing in one of the recliners dotted about the large lounge that was next to the launch bay ops centre and pilots ready room. He was reading a holo novel about the US Navy’s trouble fielding operational aircraft carriers in the lead up to WW3 in the mid 21st century. The story followed the history of a single Gerald Ford class vessel that spent more then a third of her lifespan dockside or in drydocks in a non operational state. It also delved into the calamity that befell the US during the first few weeks of the war when they had only 4 operational flatops due to budget constraints, and extra long refit cycles.

“Patch, Bridge called down, they want a presence patrol airborne in 20 mikes, we’re gonna mix pilots from both crews, so we’re going to send a co-pilot from the Farragut flight crew with you on the USS Anvil.” One of the ops staff said from hatchery.

“Roger that.” Patch righted the recliner, shut off his padd and threw it in his ‘go bag’ and made his way over to the pilots ready room.

After recieving the mission brief from the Flight Deck Duty Officer, the 11 people on the mission grabbed their gear and headed to the launch bay.

The ‘presence patrol’ itself was nothing more then excuse to get flight time, and do some training to get the 2 separate flight groups accustomed to working together, and to extend the range of the search for Ayres and Parr. Their was a flight element(2 fighters) of Valkyries, one each from the Victory and Farragut flight groups. Patch would be the pilot for the Arrow class Runabout, with a co-pilot and ops officer from the Farragut.

It was simple and routine, they would fly a 3 hour circuit around the the Victory at a range of about 3 light years and perform a series of drills and training scenarios as they went. For one, an element of fighter would escort the Anvil as if it was a friendly frieghter while the other element tried to make simulated attack runs against it. Another an hour later, had the Anvil performing a simulated bombing run on the Victory and the 4 fighters were tasked with intercepting them.

“Nice work so far people. Good shot ‘Jammer’, nice work finishing us off when we tried to break and run. Forwarding the next way point to your nav systems, rendevous there, and lets get this patrol finished and head back to the barn all.”

“Copy that Anvil. You almost slipped away at the end.” Jammer replied

“Roger lead.” The other element lead replied.

“Course locked in, lets roll. Anvil out.” Patch closed the channel and turned to his co-pilot.

“So I know youre checked out on runabouts Ensign, but have you ever flown an Arrow class yet?”

“Uh, no sir, only in sims. I do have 12 hours logged on Danubes though.” The young Ensign from the Farragut said.

“Well no time like the present, take the controls and get us to that next waypoint. These Arrows are a lot bigger then the old Danubes, and quicker and more responsive too though. Feel free to maneuver as you see fit. Get a feel for her.” Patch passed control of the ship to the Ensigns station. He knew that best way to learn to work together with the other flight group was to get to know eachothers capabilities and weak points. He might aswell see how the kid flew.