"...Dear Maker, what the skrog is this?”
Second Lieutenant Solo stood in front of Norrin Mek and Bondo Crasna. The two stood side-by-side, and could not have looked physically more different. Bondo was thickly built and nearly six and a half feet tall, while Norrin barely scratched the minimal height of five feet tall and looked to be barely a third of Bondo’s weight, soaking wet.
“Do you plan on doing any growing while you’re here, cadet?” Solo yelled, getting his mouth an inch from Norrin’s ear. “Do you think I’m going to let someone scrawny little schromp like you get within an inch, a mile of one of my TIE fighters? How the blazes did you ever qualify to fly a fighter when you’d need blocks tied to your feet to reach the pedals? And probably a booster seat to reach the steering struts? You think you can fly one of my fighters, cadet?”
“Yes, sir!” Norrin tried to yell, but it came off as a screech. Some of the other cadets started to chuckle in spite of themselves.
“Steady up!” Solo barked. “As for you, Cadet Shromp, you best learn to do some growing. Otherwise I’m going to bust you down so low, you’ll use a death stick to pole vault with. And as for you,” Solo said, looking at Bondo, “You’re smiling, cadet...Crasna?” he said after looking at the small datapad on his wrist, then looking up at Crasna’s chin. Bondo was, indeed smiling, standing at attention in the proper posture, with a slightly open mouthed grin on his face. “Would you mind telling me, Cadet Crasna, what you find so amusing?”
“You… you made a funny say, Lieutenant,” Bondo said, his smile still in place but his voice booming loud enough that everyone around him jumped just a little.
“A funny say? Crasna, what transport did you fall off of?”
“Agro freighter, sir. The Crasna. From the Core to the Outer Ri-.”
“I don’t care the name of the steaming stack of crinking gundar droppings you grew up on, Cadet, or where it’s been! As far as I’m concerned, you’re nothing more than a hairless wookie! You understand that, Cadet Wookie?”
“Sir,” Bondo said slowly, “my name is Cadet Crasna.”
“Cadet Wookie,” Solo said, standing tall as he could but still only reaching Bondo’s nose with his forehead. “You’re big and clumsy like a wookie, you smell like a wookie, and I don’t like you, cadet! Do you know why?”
“No, Sir.”
“Because you’re a wookie in every way that counts, cadet! And there’s only one wookie in this galaxy I actually like, and she’s a good dozen star systems away from here!”
“And,” said Lieutenant Hublin, picking up the comment where Solo left off, walking casually with his hands folded behind his back while Solo glared at Bondo, “the rest of you who managed to avoid being abused thus far, don’t think you’ll be getting off easy. Second Lieutenant Solo and mine’s job is simple: to weed out the imperfect. To burn out the impure. To take those who would break under the stress of combat and remove them with all possible speed. Our empire is fast being infected with rebel scum, and we need to trust every pilot in the air with our lives. And the dismissal rate of Four Flight typically is the highest in any squadron. If I find a reason to fail only half of you, I’m being too nice. Thankfully, being too nice is something no cadet has, or ever will accuse me of being.
“Your typical schedule will be posted in every room you inhabit. If you are late for any reason, the entire flight is punished. If your boots aren’t shined to standard, the entire flight is punished. If you fail an exam, the entire flight is punished. If you look around when you should be looking forward, the entire flight is punished. Why? Because in space if you make an error at a crucial moment, your entire flight will be punished, with death. Usually it will be another pilot who pays for your mistake, someone chosen at random by the laser blast of a pirate, a rebel, or some other miscreant or random error.
“Last thing before dismissal: All of you look out that window.”
Thirty heads swiveled in unison to look. “See those stars?” Hublin said. “Each and every one of them has order and purpose. If you were planetside, and were to look up and see millions of worlds, all needing order and purpose, what conclusion would a rational person come to?” Hublin said, now looking out and away from the flight himself. “What would a person think if they looked up, and saw that?”
“I’d think somebody stole my tent!” Slak said, using a voice said in a high-pitched mocking tone.
Everybody began laughing except for Hublin and Solo. The laughter continued until Hublin spun around and looked at everyone with a look of anger so intense everyone ceased looking up through the large nearby window and silenced themselves again.
“Who said that?” Hublin said, his voice sharp as a knife’s edge. Even Solo flinched, just a little.
“I’ll ask once again,” Hublin said, walking slowly between the ranks. There were several sets of eyes flicking back and forth within the flight, but only one face was smirking. “And if no one owns up to it, then everyone in this flight will do physical training through mealtime, sports, and all night if need be, until I hear who said that. Now, last time, who said that?”
Stolen novel; please report.
Dav closed his eyes and brought his arm up, bent at the elbow with the forearm parallel to the ground.
“Really? Cadet Cityboy?” Hublin said, looking at Dav. “What have you to say for yourself?”
“I will take responsibility for the comment, Sir!”
“Well, that’s very noble of you,” Hublin said. “Here’s what we give to noblemen,” he snarled, pulling something off his belt and flicking it with his hand. Dav heard a sound of metal sliding on metal as whatever was in his hand extended. Before anyone could react or even process what was about to happen, Lieutenant Hublin swung the rod and...
Hit Slak in the leg.
The rod snapped with a flash everybody in the flight saw. Slak screamed and fell down, the sudden pain and violence surprising and hurting him more than he’d ever thought possible. Though no stranger to being hit, Slak had never imagined that anything could cause that much pain. It had started with the sharp jab in his leg. But a split second later it felt like a small grenade had exploded under his skin with a snap and a flash. Slak felt…no he was sure that there must be a smoking, cauterized crater in his leg where his calf used to be. Worse, he could feel the pain creeping up his leg towards his knee, a horrible burning sensation that he couldn’t stop. Toughing it out was out of the question, and for just a few seconds he was little more than a screaming animal as he writhed on the polished metal floor, his eyes seeing nothing but a forest of polished boots and black trousers.
“There’s always someone in every flight who thinks he’s smarter than the Flight Commander,” Hublin said, his voice crisp and direct. As he said the words always, every, and smarter, he delivered a vicious kick to Slak’s side. Slak grunted and howled, rolling away as the other cadets made way for him to move.
“Steady up! Back in your ranks,” Hublin said. “Let it be known that in the end, there is only one punishment in this Navy. One punishment and one alone: Pain. Pain is going to be your constant companion, unless you perform according to the standard. Pain will be your father, mother, nursemaid and lover, every time you fail to meet my expectations! Is that clear?”
“Yes, Sir!” shouted twenty-nine voices.
“Good. And you, Eccles!”
“Sir!”
“That noble thing you did? Trying to take the flight’s punishment? So only you and not the rest of the flight would suffer? That is what you were trying to do, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Sir!”
“What you did, Cadet Eccles, was heroic. Do you understand that?”
“Yes sir! Thank you, sir!”
“Oh, no need to thank me, Cadet Eccles,” Hublin said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “People? Cadet Eccles here, decided to be a hero. Your hero. Who here knows what a hero is?”
No one answered. Slak had crawled to a nearby corner, whimpering. Something in Hublin’s voice made Dav’s insides churn with worry.
“A hero, people, is someone who gets everyone under his command killed, in the hopes that they’ll make a holovid drama about him someday! Is that what you want, Cadet Cityboy?”
“No, Sir!”
“Good,” said Hublin. The shock rod collapsed, shrinking back to the length of Hublin’s palm as he closed it and replaced it on his belt.
Dav sighed with relief.
“No, Cadet Cityboy,” Hublin said as he turned away from Dav. “No…”
Hublin suddenly spun around and punched Dav in the face.
Dav was surprised, but didn’t cry out or go down. He’d taken similar abuse in boot camp for the last six months, but was still surprised to be encountering it here. His nose throbbed, and felt like someone had ripped the skin off of it. His upper lip was throbbing, the smell of cheap leather from Hublin’s glove was in his nose, and he felt a trickle of blood starting in one of his nostrils. He heard a shuffle behind him, but didn’t dare move or look around as Slak somehow collected himself and got back to his place in line.
“Once again, people,” Hublin said, straightening his collar and giving his hand a shake, “I am Lieutenant Hublin. I am in command of this Flight, Four Flight, and I will never, ever be your friend. My job is to use every means at my disposal to weed out the weaklings, and expose any possible flaw in your character that might put another cadet, or worse, me at risk out there in the black. If you think I am cruel or unfair, file a complaint with the vacuum of space. You botch something here on the ground, you’ll receive a good, solid dose of pain. Make a mistake up there, and you’ll be lucky to die in a fireball when some rebel scum lights you up with his blasters.”
“Last of all, can anyone tell me why these two gentlemen of Four Flight received this level of punishment from me?”
No one wanted to answer.
“Because it’s your first day, Cadets. And I always go easy on my Flights on the first day! Now, when I say dismissed, you will leave in an orderly fashion for mealtime. You will have one hour after mealtime for sports. You will then form up back here in full uniform for another hour of drill, followed by another hour of class, followed by fifteen minutes of free time and then rest. You will rise tomorrow at reveille and form up, again, here in your physical training uniforms, no more than ten minutes after that wake-up alarm sounds. And none of you will be late. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir!” shouted thirty voices.
“Four Flight, dis-missed!”
-----
TO BE CONTINUED....