Andr3

Biography

The exact origins of CPT andr3 are unknown. That might be in part because it (we don't know what it is) does not seem to talk. Though it is rumored it occasionally telepathically communicates with decorative plants in the cantina and with the giant worm said to be living in ISD Hammer's trash compactor. Also, it posts random nonsense on the destroyer's subnet Discord.

Actually, it is not even known if andr3 is indeed the captain’s real name or simply some gibberish the 42 standard year old child hammered onto the keyboard when the registration officer demanded: "Enter your name, pilot!"

How such a shady little green force-sensitive non-human character was able sign up for a fascist organization such as the imperial navy and even make it onto the roster of a squadron assigned to one of the most prestigious and renowned Star Destroyers is beyond comprehension. Jedi mind tricks might have played a role.

Trivia

As far as trivia goes its actual truth content is always hard to determine. But the following facts about andr3 just seem to be too plausible not to be true:

• At a mere 30 cm in hight andr3 can neither reach pedals nor yoke of the star fighters it flies. It rather seems to move controls telekinetically which does induce some mental strain during combat. After successfully completing a training mission the tiny critter almost caused a disaster by falling asleep behind the wheel, drooling all over the place and nearly crashing a TIE Bomber loaded with live heavy rockets into M/FRG Osprey.
• Maintenance crews are not too fond of this little green bugger not only because they have to sweep up saliva, snot and the occasional diaper filled with baby-poo, but also because it force-unscrews all the knobs, nuts and bolts of the crafts it is assigned to. That is said to be the reason for the large amounts of Loctite that the navy have recently procured. A common expression heard on the flight deck is: "This North Pangalin swamp rat causes more damage to the fighters than them pesky Rebels do!". In fact, many round knobs that had miraculously disappeared later resurfaced in andr3's locker. If this kind of odd-ball behavior will ever promote it to higher military ranks remains to be seen. Not if the maintenance crews have any say in it.
• Admiral Harkov once joked about the green infant as being "the Emperor's pet". If that statement eventually contributed to the late Admiral's demise is classified.
• andr3 seems to be the only navy pilot that gets away with starting a food fight with the roomba cleaning bot in Hammer’s cantina and with wearing an old potato sack as a uniform. The latter in itself is widely considered a very odd circumstance, since potatoes have not even evolved in this galaxy.

Short Stories

From Hammer to Warrior

The bigger part of TC officers was gathered sitting down in the mess hall in front of the speaker desk. Behind it the TCCOM. Plif demanded to know: "Why ain't nobody applying for these damn Squadron Commander jobs? If you little chickens don't apply, I'll have you stripped off your comfy FL and SQXO ranks and have you keelhauled in no time!" Somebody in the audience mumbled: "What is a chicken?"

A little green hand went up in the air, not very far and barely noticeable. But as so often when it did something, people got a hunch something was about to happen and felt compelled to look in its direction. The kid barfed up a turquoise substance straight onto the potato sack it was dressed in. It was like a thousand voices cried out in embarrassment and disgust and were suddenly silenced. Some closed their eyes, sighed and turned their heads back to face the speaker desk. Others just took a deep breath, shook their heads and ignored it. Blackxranger closed the visor of his helmet which acts as Peril Sensitive Sunglasses (TM).

Later that day the little green figure stumbled by its bosses bureau. As it was about to enter, it noticed Delta CMDR LC Highlander's door was cracked a tiny bit open and it could make out some of the words that were spoken inside. "Highlander, your little pet has wrecked countless bombers and fighters. The maintenance crews are furious [... indistinguishable...] too expensive. We have exceeded Hammer's 30 ABY budget by 23% already and it is only November. And now this embarrassment in front of the TCCOM... Did you see Sin is looking for a new commander, commander?" Highlander gasped, but he couldn't get a word in. The other voice rambled on: "I made a decision. I ordered the IO to access its subnet Discord account. They have sent an application to BGCOM VA Marenta. You, Genie and a couple others will send letters of recommendation to her and I will act like I cannot let it go because I have secret plans for it. That should be sufficient bait. The Warrior is full of thugs anyways. Let them deal with it."

The door opened all the way and BGCOM AD Phoenix Berkana stormed out. He didn't even notice the figure that barely reached up to his knees. As the potato sack hopped into LC Highlander's office the kid in it blinked at him. Highlander said with a calm fatherly voice: "Come here you little poop bag, we need to talk."

A few hours later the door of Lambda Squadron's ready room swooshed open. Genie turned his head to look who it was. Seemingly nobody. Then he looked to the floor. A tiny creature with big brown eyes and even bigger green ears looked at him. Under its arm it carried a plant and the Hammer cantina's Roomba cleaning bot kept ramming into its feet, reversed, spun up its electric motor and rammed into the kid's feet again. The kid was unimpressed and kept looking at Genie. Genie: "Solohan, Blackxranger, there's somebody here for one of you fools." Solohan understood immediately: "Do you need a ride, little fellow?" The kid nodded and Solohan heard a voice in his head. "You want me to fly you over to the Warrior? Sure, why not. Let me just quickly put on some pants. I don't want the Warrior pilots to know we don't wear pants in Lambda Squadron." When Solohan's Lambda shuttle smoothly sat down in the Warrior's hangar bay he looked over to the kid and announced proudly: "And the whole not-crashing-and-dying-part, consider it my farewell gift to you."

The kid got to the registration officer at the hangar bay exit. The registration officer demanded: "Enter your name pilot!" The kid levitated itself up to the keyboard and entered: andr3. Eventually andr3 found the Sin Squadron commander's office. It looked deserted and like somebody left in a hurry. The desk was way too big for it. andr3 dropped the plant it stole from the Hammer in the middle of the office and did what little kids and fresh baked squadron commanders do: it wrapped itself in a blanket and fell asleep underneath the desk.

The Preflight Check

Together with the ground crew that were responsible for getting TIEs ready for their missions, Sin's pilots performed a walk around their weapon platforms. Though capable of aerodynamic flight the TIE Sinister showed no control surfaces, Pitot tubes, air intakes or angle of attack or side slip angle sensors that needed to be checked. Instead, they performed visual inspections of the solar panels and made sure there was no obvious damage to the sleek black radar absorbent coating that covered the hull. All protective coverings which came with red "remove before flight" tags for instant visibility, had been removed by the crew as they were supposed to.

In its black flight suit and with its little helmet tugged under its left arm, andr3 wobbled down the metallic plank that led to the top of Sin 1-1's spherical cockpit. The round hatch stood open. andr3 stepped up to the rim of the hatch, bent forward and stuck its little green head down into the darkness of the cockpit. "Everything in order?", asked crew person Tameka who was standing next to it on top of the cockpit. Possibly in response, the tiny green creature made a sound like it was blowing its nose with its head still down in the void. It tossed its helmet into the pitch black hole and then leaped right after it only to land on the pilot seat with a fat fumpp. The critter hit the master power switch and the red cockpit lights came on. Crew person Tameka looked down into the cockpit and saw andr3 in its seat, ears pointing left and right, with its head in its neck gazing straight back up at her. Its short arm was extended pointing at the empty cup holder. "Espresso. Right away, Sir!", Tameka confirmed as she turned on her heels.

andr3 proceeded with the systems check. Cockpit indication lights: all cockpit indications came up for a brief moment — check. The TIE/SN followed the dark cockpit philosophy: all indications remained dark unless they called for the pilots attention. Targeting system, lasers, ions, shields, radar, navigation, hyperdrive: check, check, check, check, check, check and check. andr3 inserted a data storage device that contained the crypto codes to arm the ordnance and to en- and decrypt the comms for today's sortie. The green creature looked at an Aurebesh keyboard mounted to the left of the seat and the keys started moving frantically. A synthesized voice sounded through the headphones of all three Sin flight groups: "Sin Squadron, this is Sin leader. Report flight readiness." One by one all other nine pilots confirmed their readiness.

Crew person Tameka was back and handed the espresso down into the cockpit. It was actually a sizable drink to the person in the pilot's seat. Then Tameka secured the hatch and removed the safety bolts from the clamps that held Sin 1-1 to the ceiling of ISD Warrior's main hangar bay. As she pulled a lever, the clamps let go of the TIE. In the Warrior's artificial gravity field the ship dropped towards a force field that separated the pressurized hanger from the near perfect vacuum of the interstellar medium.

The Rebel Assault

The Warrior was quiet. Very quiet. You could hear crickets chirping in the closets and see tumbleweed rolling down its corridors. Sin CMDR andr3 was in its office, buried in reports up to its ears. All this administrative stuff that came with the role. It reminisced about back in the days on the Hammer, in Delta Squadron, when it just boarded its T/D, slammed the throttle on the table and pulled the trigger. Its mind started wondering off, conceiving a fictitious battle plan...

Scenario: The aim is to take out a set of large space stations that are in the business of maintaining and retrofitting rebel cap ships with the latest technology. These stations orbit a planet which is not per se hostile to the Empire, but hosts several ground based shield generators that protect the stations in orbit. Also, their people contribute to the work force on the stations and they have a viable financial interest in maintaining this business. Hence, a certain amount of resistance from the planet's forces is to be expected. Furthermore, we expect the rebels to heavily defend this installation as it is a major contributor to their war effort.

Reconnaissance: Sent in a line of reconnaissance to establish the exact number of stations, their defenses, size and strength of Rebel guard forces on patrol and ground forces protecting the shield generators. Get an estimate of the planetary overall defense capabilities in case they chose to side with the Rebels. Also, scout for any Rebel forces in the sector which are close enough to come for aid when we attack. It is all but guaranteed the Rebels will call in reinforcements once we strike.

Attack: The Imperial approach is to strike with force. We will strike with a large fleet to quench the opposition quickly, rather than dragging out the battle and risking prolonged fighting with any reinforcement potentially called-in before the primary mission objectives are completed. The main goal, which shall be accomplished as quickly as possible, is to destroy these stations. Therefore, we will employ an assault fleet. The ground assault units will tackle the shield generators on various continents, while the superiority forces will tackle any space defense before ground shields are taken out and the actual stations can be attacked. Secondary mission objectives are to gain control of the system and to destroy any remaining rebel forces.

Aftermath: Once the battle is won, the assault fleet will be re-assigned to other matters and a superiority force is called in to control this system. Should the planet have decided to side with the Rebels and control of the system is no longer a feasible goal due to inherent defiance of the people, it might considered to call in a bombard fleet to punish the planet for making the wrong decision.

andr3 woke up. Its right ear was numb from being kinked by the weight of its head against the table. It realized it had been drooling all over the reports.

Signature Drink

The Swamp Mule

• Vodka Chalquilla
• Ginger Ale Swamp water
• Mint Moss
• Add a cube of frozen carbonite to chill it down