2 members
Strike Fighter Squadron 25 (VFA-25) / VFA25
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Security -
Scouting
Not every pilot goes looking for the highest bidder. Some of them go looking for work they can live with and a code they can stand behind. VFA-25 has been that since 2954. The Black Bolts are based in Nyx, open for contracts, and always looking for pilots who fly for the right reasons.
History
VFA-25 traces its lineage to a UEE Navy strike squadron commissioned in the 29th century to patrol the Vanduul frontier. For generations the Black Bolts flew off carriers in the Perseus and Tiber systems: precise, aggressive, and gone before the enemy knew what hit them. They called it the bolt from nowhere. The name stuck.
The modern squadron was forged in disillusionment.
The Vanduul incursions of the early 2950s exposed something the brass had been hiding for years that the men and women on the line were expendable when the political math didn’t add up. The pilots of VFA-25 have a name for what happened: the Brass Betrayal. A series of stand-down orders, quietly issued, carefully worded, that left UEE outposts naked while someone in a Senate chamber managed their image. Good people died. The orders were never explained. The pilots were expected to move on.
They didn’t.
Between 2952 and 2954, a core group resigned their commissions one by one, not radicals, not ideologues, but operators who had finally seen enough. Their commanding officer, a career pilot known only by the callsign ANVIL, had already been making quiet contact with a settlement in the Nyx system. When the last resignation cleared, they pooled their severance and left.
Levski asked no questions. The Black Bolts respected that, and little else about its politics. They fixed their ships, took their first contract, and got back to the only thing they’d ever been good at, flying strike missions. Now they do it without a flag on the fuselage.
By 2955, the work was everywhere. Piracy up across Stanton, Pyro, and Nyx. Vanduul pressure on independent settlements. Traders who needed lanes held and couldn’t afford to wait for the UEE to care. The Black Bolts were already there.
They still are.
Manifesto
“We didn’t leave because we stopped believing in something worth protecting. We left because the people giving the orders stopped believing in it too.”
— ANVIL, founding address, Levski, 2954
WHO WE ARE
We are pilots. That is the first and most honest thing that can be said about us. Not politicians. Not mercenaries chasing the highest bidder across the verse. Not ideologues with a manifesto printed on a flag we expect you to salute. We are people who learned to fly before we learned to doubt, who spent years putting our lives between the darkness and the people living in it and who eventually had to reckon with the fact that the institution we served had stopped deserving that sacrifice.
The founders of Strike Fighter Squadron 25 come from the UEE Navy. We flew strike missions on the Vanduul frontier. We ran escort on humanitarian convoys through Pyro before it became what it is now. We lost friends in engagements that were never officially acknowledged, for objectives that were quietly re-framed as something else by the time the after-action reports were filed. We know what it means to follow orders. We also know what it costs.
We are not here to tear down the Empire. We are not revolutionaries and we are not running from the law. We are here because we found a place, this rock, this community, this cold and stubborn settlement buried in the Glaciem Ring, that reminded us what we were actually fighting for in the first place. Not a Senate. Not an admiral’s career. People. Honest, ordinary people trying to build something in the dark.
That is what we protect now. And we are very good at it.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
We fly for people, not politics. There are organizations in this verse that will point a gun wherever the credits tell them to. That is not us. Before we take a contract, we ask a simple question: does this protect someone, or does it just serve someone’s leverage? Cargo escorts, lane security, pirate interdiction, scouting runs ahead of settler convoys, that is work we understand and work we will do with everything we have. Corporate power plays, political suppression, actions designed to tighten someone’s grip on people who never asked to be gripped, we don’t care how much it pays. The answer is no.
We do not abandon a wingman. Ever. This was drilled into us in the Navy and it cost some of us everything to learn that the institution didn’t always mean it. We do. There is no contract valuable enough, no tactical advantage clean enough, no command authority high enough to justify leaving one of our own behind. A pilot in distress is the only emergency that supersedes the mission. If that makes us inefficient, we accept it. If that makes us dangerous to fly against, good.
We go where the work is. We stay where the code holds. Levski is where we keep our ships and where we sleep. It is not a cause we have enlisted in. The People’s Alliance has their politics and we respect their right to them, we simply don’t share them, any more than we shared every policy the UEE Senate ever passed. We are not ideologues. We are not converts. We are pilots who needed a port that asked no questions, and we have been good neighbors in return.
What we carry with us, the only flag we actually fly, is the code written in this document. That travels wherever we do. It does not change based on who is paying, which system we are operating in, or how desperate the contract situation gets. Other outfits in this verse bend their rules when the credits are high enough. We have watched what happens to those outfits over time. The ones that survive do so by becoming something their founders wouldn’t recognize. We intend to be recognizable until the last ship in this squadron goes dark.
Hire us and you get the full weight of what we are. You also get the full weight of what we won’t do, and no amount of negotiation changes that list.
We are not the UEE’s enemy. We are also nobody’s weapon against them. Our grievance is with failure, not with the idea of the Empire itself. When the UEE acts in good faith, protecting civilians, pushing back the Vanduul, keeping lanes open, we have no quarrel with them and will work alongside their forces without hesitation. We will not be hired to kill UEE personnel. We will not take contracts that are designed to embarrass, destabilize, or undermine legitimate imperial operations. We left the Navy. We did not declare war on it.
Collateral damage is a mission failure. We are strike pilots. Precision is not a preference, it is a professional standard and a moral one. We do not accept contracts that require civilian harm as a predictable outcome. We do not engage targets we cannot positively identify. We conduct our operations with the understanding that every person in the area of engagement is someone’s family until we can confirm otherwise. There are outfits in this verse that measure success by the size of the explosion. We measure it by whether the people we were protecting are still alive.
Reputation is the only currency that doesn’t inflate. Credits come and go. Ships get replaced. But in a system like Nyx, where every trader through the Glaciem Ring is watching to see who can be trusted, your word is the only thing that compounds. VFA-25 does not break contracts. We do not lie to clients. If we cannot complete a job, we say so before we take the money, not after we’ve failed to deliver. Every mission we fly is either an advertisement or an obituary for our credibility. We intend to keep flying.
WHAT WE OWE EACH OTHER
The Black Bolts are not a corporation. We are not a military unit with a chain of command you can appeal to if you disagree with your billet. We are a squadron, which means we are, first and last, accountable to the person flying off our wing.
We owe each other honesty, even when it’s uncomfortable. If a pilot made a mistake on a run, we say so in debrief: not to humiliate, but because the next mistake might kill someone. We owe each other the space to be wrong and the expectation that we’ll do better. We owe each other a drink at Café Musain after every job, because the debrief ends there and the night begins.
We owe each other the truth about why we’re here. Not the recruiting pitch. Not the cleaned-up version. The real reason, the after-action report you never filed, the order you followed that you shouldn’t have, the moment you knew something was broken and flew the mission anyway. We don’t ask for that story on day one. But eventually, in this squadron, everyone tells it. That’s how you know you belong.
A NOTE ON WHAT WE ARE NOT
We are not heroes. Heroes are what recruitment posters make of people after the fact, usually once they’re dead and can’t correct the record. We are professionals who made a specific set of choices about who we work for and what we won’t do. Some of those choices were principled. Some were exhausted. Most were both.
We are not martyrs. We are not performing sacrifice for an audience. If a contract goes wrong and we take losses, we grieve and we adapt and we fly again. This is the work.
We are not naive. We operate out of Levski, which means we operate in a system that houses political radicals, gray-market traders, people running from things they probably deserved to run from, and people running from things they absolutely did not. We don’t ask questions we aren’t owed answers to. We also don’t pretend that everyone who docks at Levski shares our values. We share a port. That’s enough.
What we are is this: a small group of very skilled pilots who believe that the work matters, that the people being protected matter, and that the way you do the job is inseparable from the reason you do it.
Charter
CHARTER OF ENGAGEMENT
Strike Fighter Squadron 25 – “Black Bolts”
VFA-25 | Private Military Contractor | Nyx System
Issued: 2954.08.01 | Current Revision: 2956.05.23
ARTICLE I — IDENTIFICATION & STANDING
Strike Fighter Squadron 25, operating under the designation VFA-25 and commonly known as the Black Bolts, is a private military contractor specializing in aerospace strike operations, escort, interdiction, and reconnaissance. The squadron is composed exclusively of former commissioned officers and rated pilots of the United Empire of Earth Navy. VFA-25 maintains no formal affiliation with the UEE, any governmental body, corporate entity, or political organization.
VFA-25 is authorized to operate across all accessible systems within the verse. Contracting parties bear responsibility for ensuring that requested operations comply with applicable local law within their jurisdiction. VFA-25 assumes no legal liability for regulatory compliance outside of its own internal code of conduct as outlined herein.
ARTICLE II — SCOPE OF SERVICES
VFA-25 offers the following contracted service categories:
II.A — Escort Operations Protection of designated vessels, convoys, or personnel during transit through contested, lawless, or high-threat space. VFA-25 escort flights operate under the BOLT callsign. The squadron assumes responsibility for airborne threat neutralization only; ground-side or docking security falls outside scope unless separately negotiated.
II.B — Patrol & Area Denial Sustained patrol operations securing a defined lane, zone, or spatial corridor against piracy, hostile interdiction, or unauthorized transit. Patrol contracts are issued on a time-limited basis and renewed by mutual agreement. VFA-25 does not guarantee zone sterility, only active good-faith effort 1 to maintain it.
II.C — Strike & Interdiction Offensive operations against specified hostile assets, including pirate vessels, armed installations, and high-value targets operating outside the law. Strike flights operate under the FIST callsign. All strike contracts require a verified target package submitted in advance. VFA-25 reserves the right to abort or modify a strike if field conditions produce material deviation from the submitted package.
II.D — Reconnaissance & Scouting Long-range intelligence gathering, jump point surveillance, and advance scouting in support of client operations. Reconnaissance contracts include a delivered report of findings. Reconnaissance flights operate under the EAGLE callsign. Raw sensor data remains the property of VFA-25 and is not included in standard deliverables unless separately negotiated.
ARTICLE III — CONTRACT TERMS & CONDITIONS
III.A — Engagement & Payment All contracts are formalized in writing prior to commencement of operations. A non-refundable mobilization fee is required upon contract execution to cover pre-mission logistics, fuel, and ordnance staging. Remaining balance is payable upon mission completion as defined by the agreed success criteria. VFA-25 does not operate on contingency. Partial payment for partial completion 2 may be negotiated at the squadron’s discretion.
III.B — Mission Success Criteria Success criteria must be explicitly defined at the time of contracting. Ambiguous or open-ended objectives will be returned to the client for clarification before the contract is accepted. VFA-25 does not accept contracts whose success is defined solely by client satisfaction or post-hoc assessment.
III.C — Contract Modifications Modifications to active contracts must be submitted through the contracting officer and agreed to in writing by the Squadron Commander. Verbal modifications issued during active operations carry no binding weight. Clients who materially alter mission parameters without prior agreement forfeit entitlement to completion payment and assume full liability for any resulting operational complications.
III.D — Force Majeure & Abort Conditions VFA-25 reserves the right to abort an active mission without penalty in the following circumstances: discovery of undisclosed hostile force strength exceeding reasonable mission parameters 3; confirmation that submitted target intelligence was materially false or deliberately misleading; emergence of conditions that would require violation of VFA-25’s Code of Conduct as outlined in Article IV. In abort conditions, the mobilization fee is forfeited. No further payment obligation exists on either side.
III.E — Liability VFA-25 accepts liability for damages directly caused by demonstrable negligence or misconduct on the part of its pilots, adjudicated by the Squadron Commander’s internal review. VFA-25 does not accept liability for collateral damage arising from client-provided intelligence failures, third-party interference, or conditions outside the scope of the agreed mission parameters. Loss of client vessels or cargo during escort operations is not grounds for compensation unless VFA-25 is found to have abandoned its escort responsibilities without cause.
ARTICLE IV — CODE OF CONDUCT & ABSOLUTE RESTRICTIONS
The following restrictions are non-negotiable. They are not subject to override by contract terms, client authority, or payment. Any contract found before, during, or after execution, to require violation of these restrictions is void. Mobilization fees paid against void contracts are non-refundable.
IV.A — Positive Identification Requirement VFA-25 pilots will not fire on any vessel or personnel that has not been positively identified as hostile or confirmed as a contracted target. Clients providing target packages bear full responsibility for the accuracy of identification data. VFA-25 will not accept “fire on sight” orders against unspecified or loosely defined target categories.
IV.B — Prohibition on Civilian Targeting VFA-25 will not accept contracts that require, anticipate, or are reasonably likely to result in harm to non-combatant civilians. This prohibition extends to operations against legal civilian infrastructure, legally inhabited settlements, marked and identified medical facilities or vessels, and vessels not engaged in hostile activity. Operations that carry incidental civilian risk are evaluated on a case-by-case basis and require commanding officer approval.
IV.C — Prohibition on Political & Suppression Operations VFA-25 does not accept contracts whose primary purpose is the political, ideological, or economic suppression of a civilian population, independent settlement, or non-hostile organization. This includes but is not limited to: blockades of civilian food or medical supply, forced displacement operations, and contracts issued against political dissidents absent evidence of criminal conduct.
IV.D — Prohibition on Operations Against UEE Personnel VFA-25 will not accept contracts requiring offensive action against uniformed UEE military or law enforcement personnel. This restriction does not apply to defensive action taken when VFA-25 pilots or client assets are fired upon by UEE forces in error; such incidents are to be documented and reported through appropriate channels.
IV.E — Wingman Doctrine No contract obligation, client instruction, or tactical directive supersedes the responsibility of VFA-25 pilots to attempt recovery of a distressed squadron member. Clients are advised that mission timelines may be affected by this doctrine. It is not subject to waiver.
ARTICLE V — CONDUCT OF CLIENT RELATIONS
V.A — Confidentiality VFA-25 does not disclose client identities, mission parameters, or operational outcomes to third parties without written client consent, except where required by applicable law or where disclosure is necessary to defend VFA-25 against a false claim 4. Clients are similarly expected to maintain discretion regarding VFA-25 operational methods and internal structure.
V.B — Client Conduct Clients are expected to engage with VFA-25 in good faith. Deliberate provision of false intelligence, concealment of material threat information, or attempts to verbally modify contract scope during active operations are grounds for immediate contract termination. Clients found to have deliberately endangered VFA-25 personnel through deception are permanently blacklisted and may be subject to further remedy at the squadron’s discretion.
V.C — Chain of Communication All client communication during active operations is to be directed to the designated mission flight lead. Clients are not to issue orders directly to individual pilots. Interference with pilot decision-making during active engagements is a safety violation and will be treated as grounds for mission abort.
ARTICLE VI — DISPUTE RESOLUTION
Disputes arising from contracted engagements shall first be submitted to the VFA-25 Squadron Commander for internal review. The Commander’s findings are final on matters of operational conduct. Disputes regarding payment or breach of contract terms may be escalated to a mutually agreed neutral arbitrator 5. VFA-25 does not submit to the jurisdiction of any single governmental or corporate arbitration body as a default forum.
ARTICLE VII — AMENDMENTS
This Charter may be amended by the VFA-25 Squadron Commander. Amendments take effect upon publication and apply to contracts entered into after the amendment date. Active contracts are governed by the Charter revision in effect at the time of execution.