Echo test flight, 0900 hours
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The next morning brings the Vandals back to Bay 13. Ty's nearly crawling up the walls with excitement. Mandall, on the other hand... well, it had been a while since he got roped into doing manual labor, and he swore it'd never happen again. The Echo lifts off as before, proving their hard work wasn't a fluke, and they set up the training flight. Mandall and Calsera would be flying X-Wings, while Jorm, Ty, and Aurelia would be testing the new ship's sensor arrays. The sheer volume of near-orbit traffic around Mon Calamari would be sufficient to test both the multi-tasking and the range of the ECM vessel. Ganet and the others would be onboard the Dagger in case anything went wrong.

Staring forward out of the cockpit windows as he turns the Echo to face out of the bay, which is set in the nose instead of the normal upper deck due to that location having been the installation point for the ECM gear, Ty grips the control stick like a life-line as the ship lifts off. It's been a little while since he's flown something this large, but it should, in theory, be like riding a swoop: learn it once, remember always. All diagnostics have come back clean, so he causiously noses the ship forward out the bay. After doing some basic turns and rolls to get a feel for the Echo's (he notes with relief that his skills are coming back quickly, at least the simple things), he turns towards Jorm, who is in the co-pilot's seat next to him, then Aurelia, who is occupying the ECM and engineering console behind them, and asks, "What now?"

Jorm thinks for a moment as Ty continues the basic manuvers.

"Let's do a patrol through the traffic zone, trying out the sensors. Assuming nothing comes to our attention, we'll do a top speed test out to the perimeter patrol zone, test the weapons on some passing rocks and then test the ECM. We'll top it all off with a test of our hyperdrive."

Ty nods, then pulls the ship in a tight loop around the Alderaan's hull before angling off toward the traffic lanes. "Ready when you are."

As the Echo prepares to launch, Aurelia sits at the electronics consol, gradually trying to prepare for the explosion of sensor data that is low-orbit around a major Alliance world.

Jorm relays the plan to Mandall and Calsera. He then turns to Ty and says "Let's see what she can do."

A grin spreads across Ty's face as he throws the throttle to the limits and burns plasma for the shipping lanes.

The morning of a new day, and Calsera unwinds herself from her hammock. A little food from the cantina and she joins the rest of Vandal squadron in Bay 13. Jorm assigns her to an X-wing and a slow smile spreads across her face. There's just something stimulating about the lean starfighter.

Waiting until Jorm's new baby clears the bay, Cat powers up her X-wing and follows the larger ship out. She listens as Jorms radios his plan for the maiden flight, then looks over at Mandall in the other X-wing.

"You want the left flank, and I'll take the right, flyboy?"

"Left side's fine with me," Mandall replies.

The Echo thunders into high orbit, the two X-Wings easily keeping pace with the ex-Imperial craft. The basic flight controls are responsive, so Ty opens 'er up and dives the brand new ship into a deadly zigzag through a cloud of shuttles ferrying cargo back and forth from the Rebel shipyards to the planet surface. The shuttles and cargo ships scatter like womprats before Skyhoppers. The Echo comes through Ty's little stunt unscathed. Furthermore, Aurelia's picked up a good bit of the cargos on her sensors. It's mostly personnel - the rookies onboard the dodging ships probably got quite a fright.

Aurelia and Jorm turn their attentions towards Calsera now. Ty returns the Echo to a steady flight, and Cat sees her radar "twitch" for a second as the ECM fires up. The newborn ship flickers and vanishes from the X-Wing's sensors for a few seconds. It's a noticeable effect; in a chaotic situation or with enough signals, though, the Echo might be able to fool an enemy pilot long enough to do something... drastic.

The test flight is interrupted by commlink chatter. "Vandals, this is Sword actual." Captain Kolit's gruff Calamari voice is clear. "RTB, you have a briefing in 15. Sword actual out."

Ty throws the Echo into a tight turn, then opens the throttle a good bit less then the last time, altering course by several degrees to miss the traffic lanes this time. "Already on way back to base, sir."

Aurelia resists the breif temptation to turn on the ECM system full bore and vanish into space. Instead she sighs, and slowly brings the sensor system down.

"Well, she works..."

"Wow..." Calsera murmurs to herself as the Echo disappears from her screen.

"ECM is working," she relays. "Echo has vanished from my sensors." It seems almost crazy that she can see the larger ship off to her left, but no sign of it on her sensors.

Jorm smiles at the results of the ECM test. That smile vanishes with the call for a return to base.

Jorm feels the lurch of Ty putting the ship through a hard turn before he manages a "Copy that Sword. Vandal Squad, return to base for mission briefing."

The lights in the austere briefing room dim as Captain Kolit brings the center hologram pedestal online, a ghostly image of a flight route flickering in a nimbus of blue light.

"Sorry to cut your playtime short, but we've got a priority target. As you may know, certain elements of the Empire use organized crime to influence places they can't reach. Bounty hunters, gangsters, smugglers... the Imperials have grown desperate and are beginning to think outside their spit-shined box."

The hologram reshapes itself, this time appearing as a corpulent Hutt. It looks like a hidden holocam snagged the shot from a distant balcony.

"Our sources on Nar Shaddaa place Naga the Hutt as one of the local Moff's most loyal suppliers of deniable arms, spice, and forced labor - slaves, not to put too fine a point on it. The slug's moving a large convoy over this route here." The hologram fizzles once more, a faint blue line arcing from the Nal Hutta system to Mygeeto. There's a break in the route at the Pelagus refinery.

"Destroy the convoy's escorts and disable the freighters. Command advises Pelagus as the optimal strike point, although that's your discretion. Our man on the inside will cripple the Moff's communications. Naga's people lose their cargo and can't raise their Imperial contact. If this tidy strike doesn't cut their ties, it'll strain them for sure. 8th Wing will move in after you jump out and help you 'liberate' the cargo."

"You'll need to use Imp craft. The Sith Eater is greenlighted for this mission, and with your new ship Command feels we've got enough firepower to pull this off and make it look like the Empire's doublecrossing their allies. Questions?"

"Umm, yes sir. First, how can we be sure that they won't be in hyperspace and just jump right by Pelagus? Second, what kind of escort craft can we expect?"

"Naga's got a fence there, adds another layer onto their dealings with the Moff. Fact is, it helps our cause as well. Reinforcements'll come too quickly if you're forced to take the convoy at Mygeeto; and it's too easily attributed to pirate activity if it's above Nar Shaddaa."

Calsera listens to the mission profile. Seems reasonably straightforward on the surface, though will probably prove more complicated in execution.

"Do we have any TIEs available to fly interdiction for the larger ships?"

"I'm gonna guess not. TIEs are shortrange, no hyperdrive. We'd need a carrier or something to jump them into the system, and I doubt the Imps would let us just borrow one. Now, on the other hand, I seem to recall from reading the mission logs that there are several shuttles floating around here somewhere."

"I know we have a hyperdrive-capable TIE...I'm just not sure if it's spaceworthy yet. Worked like a charm last time, though."