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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2915012" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 349It was just like old times...in most every way. The current fact that was striking Jyren was that all of the Zephyrs, save for himself and Rulae, were very, very green. And not with envy, either. If any of them had ever been in an actual starfighter cockpit instead of a simulator, he’d have been thoroughly amazed. And that was the impression he’d gotten just from reading through all of the small files that Rulae had handed him.    Of the ten other pilots in the squadron, four were human(all from various planets in the galaxy), two were Mon Calamari, two were Twi’leks, one was a Bothan, and one was another Duros. It was, truthfully, a fairly normal make-up, species wise at least, for a starfighter squadron. Arguably, it was even more diverse than some units, but that really didn’t matter all that much in the end. The problem, for Jyren at least, was when he first met all of the pilots.    If he had thought they were green when he’d first read all of their files, after meeting them Jyren was at a loss for a colour to describe just how new they had to have been to Starfighter Command. A small part of him wondered if he’d looked like that all those years ago...wide eyed(even the Duros and the Mon Calamari), somewhat confused looking, and nervous enough that they all looked like they’d jump if someone spoke too quickly without warning. That thought alone made Jyren feel like he was getting old...and looking at the faces of the pilots, especially the humans, it was obvious just how young they were...    Of course, this was ignoring the fact that, despite he was technically in his early thirties(which was, however, nothing to an Alraxian...Toby was older than that), Jyren still looked a good ten years younger than he actually was. Maybe that was part of the reason the other Zephyrs were acting somewhat jumpy around him...they knew he was experienced(that was why he was the squadron’s XO), but while he looked it, he was so close to many of them that it was hard to imagine him being much more of a pilot than they were.    But those worries were passed off quickly, as Jyren knew they were childish. This wasn’t some little game...this was a starfighter squadron, and as long as they understood his rank, followed orders, and stayed alive, things should work out well enough. Not that he was any good at giving orders...but that was Rulae’s job in the end, so Jyren didn’t worry too much about that end of things.    They were aboard the Imperial-class Star Destroyer, Araddon, which had been refitted not a month earlier. The briefing room was spacious, and in the same semi-circular shape that Jyren was used to aboard New Republic ships. Sure, it was a bit different, but the basic idea was close enough...and it sure as hell wasn’t as humid as a Mon Calamari Cruiser was, which was most definitely a plus. The ship itself was preparing, along with the rest of their small fleet, for the jump to Vortex, with the final supplies and crew boarding.    Rulae had taken this time to organize the new squadron together for an initial briefing...mainly for introductions, wingmate assignments, and other very basic things that would have been dealt with months ago if there had actually been some real preparation for this war instead of a sudden admission by Chief of State Fey’lya that the Yuuzhan Vong did, in fact, exist. But that was the past and, so, things were having to be done more quickly than usual. They would just have to survive.    Before the briefing, Rulae and Jyren had talked about the wingmate assignments, and Jyren was surprised just how much that his old friend was asking for his assistance with it. He seemed to really be interested in Jyren’s opinion, which, truthfully, shouldn’t have surprised him all that much...it’d just been so long that he forgot how close the two of them had become after ending up as the last of the Zephyrs after Coruscant. The one important thing that was decided, though, was that Rulae and Jyren should not be wingmates. Though, sometimes, the Commander and XO would be wingmates, it was not always the best thing to do in a situation like the new Zephyrs were in...with the two of them being the only experienced pilots.    So, after all the assignments were given out and the pilots dismissed, they separated into their wingmate pairs...mainly to get to know one another. It was, after all, an important thing to know one’s wingmate. That meant that, currently, Jyren was sitting in a small chair in the mess across from his new wingmate, a female Twi’lek named Rea’tin Lor. She was, like most young Twi’lek females, relatively short and had a very attractive build...though, thankfully, she had the decency to actually wear the correct uniform of the correct size so as not to cause a distraction...Jyren had heard stories of Twi’lek female pilots who didn’t exactly follow that line of thinking, and had a habit of taking every little advantage they could.    “So you knew the Commander from before?” she was asking, casually trying to probe into a past that he was obviously trying to hide from her. She had an interesting coloured dark-blue skin, that seemed to get lighter towards the tips of her two head tails that, to Jyren, should have been a lot more distracting than it was...but after so long on Alraxia, one got used to a variety of different colours for skin tones(or fur or hair or whatever it was that covered the body at the moment).    Jyren nodded, leaning back some to rest against the wall behind his chair, “We were part of the first Zephyr Squadron close to fifteen standard years ago. We flew together during the first fall of Coruscant.”    Rea, as, apparently, everyone called her, nodded and leaned forward, idly resting her head in her hands, before asking yet another question in the same somewhat high-pitched voice, “So do you know if we’re going straight to a fight?”    Wow, did she change subjects quickly...    “Not as far as I know,” Jyren answered in as neutral a voice as he could. Somehow, he could handle children just fine, but something about young, naive pilots got to his nerves a little too easily, “The Vong are still a good way out in the Outer Rim. So we should be fine. Enough time to get all of you some flight time in and get everyone used to things before we get to the real thing.”    “I’ve done a hundred simulator runs,” Rea said, almost a little too proudly.    Jyren, somehow, managed to not as politely as possible, “Simulators can only help you out so much. Being in the actual cockpit out there is much different...”    He trailed off, not wanting to add that no matter how much training one had, nothing would ever prepare a new pilot for their first engagement. The utter chaos was so much that it was, simply, not something that could be prepared for. Hopefully these new pilots would be up for it...but Jyren knew from experience that most would not be. It was the hard truth, but the truth nonetheless.    “Do you have a family?” Rea’s voice cut into his thoughts yet again, nearly jerking Jyren up to look at her through the fringe of his hair that he had let get a little too scruffy again. She was, apparently, full of questions. He should have been, too, but for some reason he just didn’t have much to ask her. Not only was she so green that her skin colour was probably painted on to hide the fact, but part of him just felt little need at all to get to know someone that was going to die in a few months...or weeks.    “Yes,” Jyren’s mouth answered while he brain rambled on to itself.    And then the Twi’lek girl proved that she wasn’t a complete idiot. She very easily picked up on the fact that he was distracted, and so asked the first question that most everyone in the galaxy would in the same situation, “Is something wrong?”    “No,” again, the answer came far too quickly, and was definitely a reflex. Jyren sighed, shook his head, and got to his feet, “I’m sorry, but I need to go take care of some things.”    And then he walked out, leaving the poor Rea to sit there and wonder what she’d done wrong. She assumed that she’d said something stupid, but hadn’t seen any indicators as to exactly what that had been. It didn’t take long, though, before the squadron’s Duros Commander walked over to her.    Immediately, she knew why, and so she went straight to the point, asking, “What did I do?”    “Nothing,” Rulae said, shaking his large, blue-grey head, “He was...very close to his last wingmate. After she died he pretty much ran away from the New Republic as a whole. It can’t be that easy on him to come back like this.”    Rea sighed and shook her head, idly running a blue hand over the table in front of her. Though she didn’t say anything, Rulae wasn’t stupid. He’d been around long enough to know the problem, and gently patted her shoulder, “Its alright. I’ll have a talk with him. It may be a bit rough at first, Ensign, but he’s the best pilot in the squadron...you’ll be glad to have him at your wing.”    The Twi’lek allowed her Commander to walk off in the direction that her new wingmate had gone before sighing again and mumbling into the table, “I hope so.”</blockquote>

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