Star Wars - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Star Wars X-Wing: Knight Squadron ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter 2

Later brevet Capt. Hunter met with base commander Colonel Karsan Lin, a weather beaten man of Alderran.

“As I understand it Captain you want to form a new X-Wing squadron?”

“Yes sir.”

“Are you aware Captain that supplies of snubfighters are very limited nowadays?”

“With respect sir General Riekken has already given me this speech.” Lin raised his eyebrows a bit and Aidan squirmed a bit under his gaze.

“Well then I should warn you that we only have six snubfighters available for you. The others were given to Rogue and Blue squadrons.”

“Blue squadron?” said Aidan, his eyes snapping open, “Who's commanding?'

“I think that Cmdr. Merrick Simms is in charge.”

“They promoted Captain Simms?' said Aidan, “I wonder…” he paused and Lin began to talk again.

“We have three unassigned trainees you can interview. Their names are David Walker, Sovach “Heavyarms”, a Wookie believe it or not, and Seku Passik. I f you want could take you to meet them in oh, half a standard hour. Is that understood?”

Aidan snapped out of his reverie.

“Yes sir,” he said.

“Good. You may go,” said the Colonel, “Oh and Captain? For the time being your squad will be designated as Green Squadron until you come up with a better name. Dismissed.”

Aidan saluted and then walked out of the office. He broke into a run as soon as he cleared the threshold, racing to find a couple of long lost friends.

Although the hangar on Kollador Base was a perfect example of controlled chaos, it wasn't hard to find Blue Squadron. Twelve X-wings with standard red stripes painted blue sat in the far corner of the hangar. As Rob walked over to them, he saw her. She had her back to him, talking to some rookie. He snuck up behind her and said, “I've got an eyeball on my tail Commander, I can't shake him!” Commander Ru Murleen stopped talking and slowly turned around. When her eyes landed on Rob, they lit up like twin stars. She gave a cry of delight and enfolded him in a fierce hug. Rob smiled. Ru was exactly the way he remembered her. Tall, but not enough to be uncomfortable in a fighter, and with her short blond her cut in a military style that kept it short but didn't give it a buzzed look. As she pulled back, he got a close up profile of her dazzling blue eyes.

Attracted by the shout, Cmdr, Merrick Simms, the short, lean-muscled commander of Blue Squadron trotted over and then Rob had to endure a bone-crunching slap to the back.

“Rookie one!” said Ru, using Rob's old nickname, “what in the world are you doing here?”

“Hey! How's life with the Rogues?” asked Cmdr. Simms.

“I've been doing fine all around, but I need to talk to you guys about something. I've left the Rogues…” However, he didn't get a chance to finish, because Simms and Ru Murleen began to talk almost at once.

“You did what?!”

“Why?”

“What the sithspawn did you want to do that for?”

“I thought you were happy serving with Cmdr. Skywalker!”

“Whoa whoa, you didn't give me a chance to finish! I left the Rogues to start my own squadron. I want your help with it.” This came as a bit of a shock to the veteran pilots.

“What exactly did you want our help with?” asked Simms, noticing for the first time, the rank of brevet Captain on Rob's jumpsuit.

“That's the thing. You see there aren't that many rookies here at the base. I have you and Rogue Squadron to thank for that. I want you to temporarily join up with Green squad, train the rooks; fly a couple of missions, then you can go back to Blue Squad. You do out rank me, so I can only ask.” Ru and Simms looked at each other and walked over underneath the wing of Simms' X-wing to talk, while Rob watched nervously. After a couple of minutes, they came back over.

“Here's the deal,” said Simms, “Blue Squads rookies are gonna a whole lot of work before we can send `em out. The days when we just made sure that they could fly the ships and then hurled them out into space… those days died with Derra IV and Hoth. We'll join up, and keep in mind that we're only doing this because you were our squad mate and survived the Death Star with us, but if you don't want people to think that we're in charge, you'll have to do all the talking. Is that clear Captain?”

“Sir, yes sir!” saluted Aidan. Then he realized what he was doing. “You made mw do that on purpose didn't you?” he said. Simms grinned wickedly.

“Yup,” he said simply and walked off. Ru then planted a quick kiss on Rob's cheek.

“I'm glad you're back. Too many new faces in the squad and not enough old friends,” she said, smiling widely, then walked after Cmdr. Simms.

“Oh the future's looking a whole lot better,” Rob muttered blushing furiously. He turned to walk away when he saw Hobbie, Janson, and some new guy whistling and making smooching gestures towards him. Rob glared, then grinned. He stopped a couple of passing R4 and R5 units, whispered something to them, and then stepped back. The two droids took off across the hangar, screeching and spitting sparks from their arc welders. The grins were wiped off the three pilots faces as the droids charged towards them. Hobbie and Janson ran in one direction and the rookie went another as pilots and techs roared with laughter. Wedge Antilles and a new recruit named Tycho Celchu wandered over.

“What'd you say to make those droids do that?” asked Wedge.

“I told them something they wanted to hear,” shrugged Aidan. He began to whistle a nonsense tune as he strode away.”

The very next day Colonel Lin introduced Aidan, Simms, and Ru to the three remaining rookies on base. David Walker was a native of the out of the way planet Churba. He was short and lanky with shoulders just wide enough for him to be comfortable in a starfighter cockpit. H e had light brown hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. The next pilot was Seku Passik, formerly a slave girl to an Imperial captain, was in a simulator next to Walker. Savoch (Pronounced saw-vock) was a wookie native to the planet Kashyyk. He was considered a midget by Wookie standards, but he had incredible upper arm strength, earning him the nick name `Heavyarms.'

At the moment the rookies were running a sim of the Battle of Yavin, Aidan winced slightly and saw that Ru and Simms had fixed expressions. They had all been at Yavin with what remained of Blue squadron, fending off waves of TIE's as Red Squadron made their last desperate run o the trench. Every pilot in the Alliance could rattle off the names and designations of the Yavin survivors. Luke Skywalker, Red Five. Wedge Antilles, Red Two. Samica Trey, Gold Seven. Merrick Simms, Blue Leader. Ru Murleen, Blue Two. Aidan Hunter, Blue Three.

The three rookies stepped from the sim cockpits, covered in sweat and grime. Savoch and Seku had been in Y-Wings and had died early on. Walker had been in an X-Wing and had been able to torp the port, but had been shot by a turbolaser cannon on his way out.

“Excellent work Cadets. Although you all died, at least you destroyed the Death Star and saved the Alliance,” said Lin as the rookies snapped to attention, “Unfortunately we won't be holding a ceremony for you Mr. Walker. Anyhow, I'm here to give you new orders cadets. This is Capt. Aidan Hunter, commander of the new X-Wing training squad, Green Squadron. You've been assigned to it. These will be your fellow officers, Cmdrs. Merrick Simms and Ru Murleen. That is all.”

“Welcome to Green Squadron,” said Aidan.

Two weeks later Aidan sat at his desk and groaned. His new office, that he was provided because he was a squadron commander, was sparsely furnished with the basics and was very small. But Aidan was unhappy for another reason. The three rookies had been showing good scores and Green Squadron had been provided with the remaining six X-Wings on base. Then the five new guys arrived on base, and had been assigned to Green Squadron. Aidan groaned again as he remembered the pilot interviews earlier that day.

Heero Yuy, home world unknown, had been involved with an Alliance Intelligence cell on an orbital colony above Sluis Van. He had been sent to destroy an entire Imp base, and had actually succeeded, destroying it entirely by his own hand. The destruction had accidentally spread out to the city and some civilians had been killed. Perhaps that explained the young man's absolute lack of emotion. The entire interview had been a sort of question and answer session with Heero speaking in a dull monotone. Aidan had decided that if the young man showed any odd tendencies in the sim, he would be gone by next week.

Duo Maxwell was a native of Ord Mantell and had built an X-Wing for himself out of junk. He was a lot more emotional than Yuy had been, maybe too much so, but he kept reasonably in line as long as anyone didn't make `junk' jokes or talk about his unusual 2 foot braid.

Trowa Barton was unemotional as well, but not totally devoid of them. He was just a very quiet, reserved man, capable of keeping his cool in the most stressful scenarios.

Quatre Winner was the odd man out. He was from Coruscant and according to his file he had had a serious argument with his father about the Empire and the Rebellion. Promptly after that he joined the Imperial naval Academy and then defected to the Alliance. This had taken some doing as the ISB (Imperial Security Beauru) had cracked down on dissention in the ranks.

Wufei Chang was from the colony world Chiana II. That world had had a record of being problematic for the Empire and had been `disciplined' many times over the years. There rumors that Chiana II had been one of the Death Star's targets after it was supposed to have destroyed the Yavin IV Base. Wufei was also reserved, but his record had shown that he could be insubordinate and could boil over into battle frenzy whenever the mood hit him.

Aidan groaned again. This was going to be a long day. A very long day indeed.