Card Captor Sakura Fan Fiction ❯ Star Sanctity ❯ Chapter IV ( Chapter 4 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Star Sanctity



Star Sanctity
Chapter IV
by: the Lioness
[insert weird disclaimer]

Sakura slumped down. Over the last few weeks Commander Scath had gone from replacing morning simulation flights to just waking everyone up early. It wasn't everyday-in fact that no one beat her, she was beaten by at least one other person once a day at least half the time in simulation flights. And Commander Scath usually found another reason that the squad should wake up early. But it was making everyone rather sick of Kinomoto. Sakura didn't know what to do, Rigg was the only comfort she had while Spidra just kept getting nastier and nastier.
"It's not like I can loose on purpose. I tried once, you know. Just a little pause," Sakura held her fingers a centimeter apart. She was in the classroom studying late when Rigg and some other guys came in to study also. "Just a little one, got hit, died. Commander Scath met me at the door to simulation chamber."
"What'd he do?"
"He said if I ever did that again, he would personally escort me over to the Trooper Academy." Sakura shook her head. "Like I want to wear that armor. For one thing, I'm too short. Your friend Derik is welcome to it." Derik was Rigg's friend that had joined the Trooper Academy.


Her morning alarm buzzed. Sakura slapped the wall panel, and dragged herself up. It was morning already? She checked her chronometer, and rushed through the fresher and tossed on some clothes. She would not be late. Saho had been 15 seconds late once. The whole squad had to run all the way around the Academy complex for that.
Sakura met Rigg in the hall. Rigg was smiling. "Hey, initiation's over today. Let's see what changes."
Sakura blinked. "I forgot. Been too busy trying to stay awake."
Down at the parade ground, Commander Scath was looking as clean, awake, and irritated as usual. The harsh floodlights made the Commander's scars stand out like bloody scratches.

"Today, we start tactic training. You will start to learn how to work as a group. Scores will now be both for individuals and for your group. The group that looses will have to wake up early, the other group will get to sleep in. We will be rearranging groups as your strengths and weaknesses become more apparent. Later, we will have the whole squadron fight as one team against other squads. Then, you will get some real flight time in an actual Fighter." The Commander handed out class schedules.
"You may return to your quarters till breakfast. Dismissed."
Commander Scath watched the retreating recruits. He stood and watched Kinomoto. It was a shame that Imperial procedure made a target out of anyone who excelled like that kid, especially since she was the first female to ever score so high. She was a great natural leader, but the training procedures made everyone hate her. Hopefully, the group scoring would change all that. Hopefully.


Four months later, Sakura walked down the gray hall on her way to the outside landing strip. Today would be the first day that they actually left Evalin since they had first come here five and a half months ago. Since initiation had ended things had gone a little better among the pilots who had been in the same team as her as they had had to get up earlier far less frequently then the pilots of the other team. The members of the other team had therefore started to dislike her even more then before, but she had learned to live with that. Luckily the other team's dislike of her had lessened when their entire squadron had started flying as
one against the other squadrons. Thus far they had only been beaten twice, both times by Blue Squadron, but since those two defeats their team performance had gotten better and it was now know among the recruits that Green Squadron was practically unbeatable.

Sakura smiled at the thought, she and Saho had quickly excelled as leaders and she had slowly but surely gotten used to being in charge of her team. But today she wouldn't be leading her team, today Commander Scath was going to take them off-planet in their Fighters so that they could get used to flying long distances in their fighters.

The thought made her excited for, although they had gone up into space a couple of times so that they would get used to it, they had never actually stayed out there for more then a couple of hours. Now she would stay in her Figher for a far longer time and she'd feel more like a real pilot then a student.
Exiting the building she was in, she hurried across the parade ground to the landing pad just as the sun came up in the distance. Walking over to where her squadron's Fighters were perched on their racks she wondered if she'd have to fly as Commander Scath's wingman again. The last few times they had gone up into space Commander Scath had divided them into groups of three, the first time it had happened there had been four groups of three and one of four as there had been fourteen students in the squadron plus Commander Scath. However since then Cansu, Welnik, Branmen, and Olapic had been sent to the Trooper Academy for misconduct, leaving three groups of three and him with Commander Scath as the fourth group.
"As you know today we shall take our Fighters and fly over to Sachoonine, the planet with the Trooper Academy," Commander Scath grated as soon as everyone had arrived. "We shall spend the night there and return tomorrow."
Looking at his squadron Commander Scath eyed them until everyone nodded his head before he continued:
"You shall pair up in your usual groups, Kinomoto you shall be with me again, understood?"
"Yes Sir," they all replied before heading towards their Fighters at Commander Scath's signal.
Climbing up the rack and into her Fighter, Sakura barely managed to hide the excited smile on her face from her team members. This was the first time in three months that she had trouble controlling her emotions. Sitting down in the seat of her craft she quickly put on the breathing mask and smoothly lifted off at the Commander's order. They all climbed up into Evalin's atmosphere as a single group.
"Split up into your smaller groups," Commander Scath ordered as soon as they had pulled away from Evalin's gravity.
Heading up to the front of the squadron Sakura quickly took her place to the right of Commander Scath's Fighter.
"Everyone in formation?" Commander Scath demanded and waited for the leader of each small group to respond before they speed away from Evalin.
Sitting back in her seat, Sakura looked out the window to the Commander's Fighter and made sure that she was in the correct position. Lately Commander Scath always waited five minutes before commenting on a squadron member's mistake, waiting to see it the pilot would notice the mistake himself or not. If not he'd tell the pilot and then later use him as an example for the rest of the squadron. Seeing that she was slightly off he quickly adjusted her position.
"Good," Commander Scath praised over the com.
Looking down Sakura saw that the praise was aimed at her as the Commander had used a com channel that each group had so that they could communicate to only the others in their small group. Seeing that she was the only one in the group with Commander Scath, the praise had to be aimed at her.
"Thank you Sir," Sakura replied automatically.
When she had received her first praise from the Commander she had asked Rigg if he or anyone he knew in the squadron had received one as well, the reply had been negative. Rigg had continued to say that at times it seemed like Commander Scath was firmer on Sakura then the others and it had seemed to Rigg as if the Commander was training her to be a Commander herself someday. She had dismissed Rigg's idea saying that it was just coincidental. Anyway, no female in the past at made it into being a commander, they could join but they were just a face in a nameless crowd of people, surely the Commander would feel the same. But since then she had also started noticing that the Commander treated her differently and she had begun to wonder if Rigg was right.
If someone had told her about this on the first day or during the first two months she would have been both nervous and scared at the thought of having power over others, but not anymore. Having been constantly seen as a leader in her team she had slowly gotten used to, and had even started to like, being in charge.
Shaking her head she turned her attention back to her flying. She didn't want to mess up now, not with Commander Scath right next to her.


Sachoonine wasn't far away by galactic standards, but without a hyperdrive it was a long, dull trip. The two Imperial training worlds circled the same star, but were currently almost directly opposite each other. By the time Green Squadron approached the blue, green, and brown world below Sakura felt thirsty, hungry, and had to use the fresher.
Commander Scath sounded as well rested as ever. "Well squad," he croaked, "this is Sachoonine. One of the few worlds in the galaxy that has an amazing variety of climates. Useful for training troopers in land operations. We'll be landing shortly, but first…" Suddenly, an orange light lit up on Kinomoto's control panel. "I've just turned all your lasers to stun shots only. You can't really kill anyone now. Also, your Fighter can register these hits on your hull as 'kills', so…" Sakura noticed her scanner screen showing a squad of ships approaching fast, "Well, I'm not here boys and girls. Join me when you get hit." Commander Scath suddenly peeled off to the side.
'Great, a war game.' Sakura thought, 'and I really need to use the fresher.' She slapped on her all squad comlink while she studied the screen "Seems like an aggressive Corellen Claw formation. Let's try a Daysif Defense. Saho take your group solar north. I'll go south. Quaret, you're with me."
Kinomoto's group swung down while Saho's shifted up. The Corellen Claw attack was a standard V formation swung forward to surround a squad and crush it between it's claws. The ships were almost upon them now, and Sakura checked the scanners again. The dawning realization hit her as someone else in the squad blurted out- "X-wings?? But…"
Sakura forced her panic down. She hit the comm again. "Just training. Commander Scath wouldn't just be sitting there if it wasn't. Remember the sim flights. Nail 'em twice. Attack speed- let's go."
The Daysif Defense called for a turning of the tables on the attacking group. The Fighters would attempt to divide the claw right down the middle, taking out one side first.
The approaching X-wings, no doubt noting the formation of the Fighters, started to rotate their formation. "Rotate opposite, we'll get the half on the inside." Near a planet, anything on the planet side was 'in'.
Suddenly, they were upon them. Sakura yanked her stick, and her Fighter sprang planetward. She got a hit on the leading X-wing, but it's shields held. As Sakura started to tear a tight circle, she noticed that the X-wings had been liberally covered with the Imperial symbol on wings, body, belly, and nose.
"Keep to your elements. Stay together." Sakura jinked left, then right, as the X-wings' stun fire tried to tag her. Heading down, Sakura shot around the clustered, swirling ships. She dove into the maelstrom again. Hitting two X-wings during her swerving pass, she noticed that the ranks were beginning to thin already. "Green 2" that was Quaret- "how you doing?"
"Lost 'em both." Quaret was a hotshot pilot, but he didn't work well with others. "Got an X on my tail." Sakura ran a looping path between speeding ships to where her screen said Green 2 was located. Sure enough, Quaret was being hunted by an X-wing who was tight to his tail. Sakura swooped behind, nailing the X-wing three times in rapid succession. The X-wing barrel rolled till it was belly up and pealed away to the waiting group of the 'killed'.
"Stick with me." Sakura scanned the screen again. Six Fighters left. 'Shoot, it's hard to watch everything.' Sakura started pairing off the survivors- wingmen helped keep your tail clear, they watched your back. "Gray 6, 8 together. 4, 5, keep it tight."
Sakura and Quaret charged back into the giant cloverleafed dogfight. Tearing up, spinning around, hurling down they shot at the X-wings. But the numbers kept dropping. Suddenly they only had four left of the squad, then it was just Sakura and Rigg. The remaining four X-wings separated them, and then Sakura was alone.
'Sith. But I'm not dead yet.' Sakura barrel rolled left and swung right. She scored the last hit needed on one X-wing to take it down-clipped another. 'I really want some shields.' Sakura forced her mind clear as she took another twisting dive. Sakura purposefully flew so close to an X-wing that she could see the pilot. The X-wing jumped away, giving Sakura a clear shot at its partner. 'Got ya.' Sakura was grim as she pulled up, shimmying right. As remaining X-wings teamed up on Sakura, there wasn't much she could do. But she kept trying-until one 'hit' her, setting off red lights on her control panel.
"Sithspawn!" Sakura smacked the panel.
"Not bad Kinomoto." The grated voice of Commander Scath was heard over the comm unit. "But I wouldn't recommend running that close to an X-wing in a dogfight. The bastard may just run into you out of spite."
"Sorry sir. I just needed to scare him, sir."
"Fall in. Green Squadron, meet Phantom Squadron. They're a little training group temporarily here at Sachoonine. You're not to tell anyone about Phantom Squadron until they've gotten the same surprise you just did. It's part of the training." Commander Scath started to slide his Fighter towards the planet.

The ride down was uneventful. After parking their Fighters, Gray Squadron had been escorted to the pilot barracks. Sakura had visited the fresher and plopped herself down in the lobby with her mealpack. Tearing into the food, she watched Rigg try to use the wall terminal to contact his friend Derik.
"He should be in officer's training by now. I might get to talk to him." Rigg punched more buttons. Suddenly he smiled. "All right! I can leave him a message. Hope he can get back to me tonight."
Sakura went back to eating when one of the pilots from Phantom Squadron came into the lobby. He was a grizzled man in his fifties, graying hair, hard-bitten expression, and tall build. He looked around, saw Kinomoto, and walked over.
"Commander Tenduo. So you're the one who gave Nansau that fright. He was convinced you had gotten lost and were going to really nail him." Tenduo grinned. "I looked at the computer readouts, that was some fancy flying. Surprised you didn't black out."
"Thank you sir. I have to be careful about that- blacking out I mean."
"I'm sure you do. Those Fighters sure can turn. But we've got shields."
"Yeah, I wouldn't mind having shields. We were sure surprised when you guys popped up on our scopes. Never seen a real X-wing in action before."
"Last time you'll see a friendly one. Come on hotshot, I'll show you my ship. Never met an Imp yet that didn't want to see one up close."
"Well, just one that wasn't shooting at me."
The Commander laughed. "You do have a dry sense of humor, kid. Come on, Commander Scath said you'd want to see this."
Kinomoto followed Commander Tenduo out to the landing field. The sun was beginning to set. Twelve X-wings sat at attention, in close formation. Tenduo reached out and patted the leading ship.
"This one's mine. Always has been." Sakura walked up and ran her hand along the hull. Her eyes found orange paint beneath a chip in the Imperial gray. "I had to fight to keep her. Took some doing, but the Imperials needed a training squad like mine. Once the right people heard my idea, I got to build my squad. We go around, training different groups."
Sakura replied quietly. "You weren't always an Imp?" Sakura smiled at the man, Tenduo was right; the Imperials did need a squad like this. She wasn't so scared to fight X-wings now, even if she did 'die' in that training exercise earlier.
"Nah, grew up on the Rim. Joined the Rebels to fly. What a bunch of idealistic idiots. They were so busy being free individuals, they couldn't work together. I couldn't stand the lack of discipline, the lack of reality in their goals. And other things. So I jumped ship."
"And just casually changed sides and ended up leading a squad?" Sakura was grinning.
"Well, my ship no longer has hyperdrive, or anything but stun weapons. And I had to talk to the right people…"
"Who was that?"
"Lord Darkim." Sakura was surprised, she had heard of the Dark Lord. "That man, he can look into your soul. See right into you. Can tell if you're lying, what you want to do. He just stared at me. Felt like he was peeling me inside out, I wanted to faint. Then he turns to one of his officers and says 'Give him his squad. He keeps the ship. Round up the others like him.' Then he walked out, and everything happened."
"Just like that?" Sakura didn't know hardly anything about Sygnif Darkim. She had heard of him, sure, who hadn't? But his information was just rumors…
"Just like that. When our lord says something, it happens." Tenduo gave his ship another pat. "But I didn't invite you out here to tell you my life story. Commander Scath is right, you're going to be an officer. Squad leader at least, even if you're a girl." Kinomoto felt surprised.
"That's why I want you to study this." He handed Sakura a datapad. "The brass knows I have it, they have a copy, and they know that we let promising pilots look at it. It's the Rebel's training manual, their standard attack patterns. The copy isn't new, but it helps with figuring out what they're doing in the thick of it. I need the copy back by morning-we don't want you becoming too dependent on what's in there."
"Uh…thanks."
"Don't mention it. Well, we better get back to the barracks."

Back at the barracks, Sakura scanned the datapad. She knew most of it, so she skipped to attack and defense patterns. Not much was there-it seemed that the Rebels didn't bother with too many rigid formations. The words 'improvise as needed' came up a lot. She put the pad down. She headed out to the lobby, maybe Rigg got hold of Derik.
A huge muscle-bound man sat in a chair across from Rigg. He was smiling, a slightly glazed look in his eyes, as him and Rigg tried to catch up on the last five and a half months.
"Yeah, we've been chasing each other around in sim flights, real flights, every which way. I think I can target in my sleep."
"I know I can. The flash learning gives me the weirdest dreams. Battles I know I wasn't in, stuff like that. But it is the fastest way to go. I'm surprised you pilots don't got through the same thing."
"I heard it doesn't take as well on pilots. Being drugged and glassy eyed don't sit well in a cockpit."
"Ah, I've only got one session left."
Sakura hid her surprise. She had no idea why Trooper training was so much shorter.
"Besides, I volunteered. Commando team training. The shortcut to becoming an officer." Derik had shoved a large smile on his face. "Then, officer training, and off to the real world."
"Hey Sakura, remember Derik?"
"Of course, who could forget that mountain? Hope you're having fun here."
"Good to see you Sakura, glad to see you made it." Drake checked his chronometer. "I've got to get back, I'm lucky to get this much time." He stood to leave, every move a careful extension of power. He gave Rigg a careful bear-hug and then slid out the door.
"Damn Sakura, he sure moves different. I think he's dangerous now." Rigg was amazed at his retreating friend's change.
"Well, we fly different now too. Same thing."
"I guess. Well, sleep tight, it's a long trip tomorrow." Rigg and Sakura returned to their temporary quarters.

End Notes: Little details may not seem important, but they have a way of becoming huge when the time is right, so remember them. I'm using some of Star Wars stuff in here, like the X-wings, the Empire, and the Rebellion. Don't sue me on that, I don't own it, George Lucas does. Please review.
Thanks to negau, ^~, Kimberly, Saki, Zephyr, and Empress Sarah-sama, for reviewing.
Note to Empress Sarah-sama: Syaoran is coming in, or more accurately fighting in. Hehe.

-the Lioness
June 22, 2001