“Four Flight, dis-missed!”
In unison, the thirty cadets turned right, slammed their left foot down, silently counted to three and marched away, shaking off the tension after the first three steps and talking to each other in low voices as they migrated to the change rooms.
“Daggart!” shouted Solo.
Slak Daggart stopped, wobbling a bit as he tried to keep his balance on his hurt leg. He weakly snapped his left foot down and came to attention, still facing away from Solo and Hublin. “Yes sir?” he said, breathing heavily.
“Daggart,” said Solo, looking over his datapad. “It seems you’re a Corellian?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Recruited in the Blue Sector.”
“Yes sir.”
“When you arrived at the recruitment station, you listed your reasons for joining up as...see the galaxy, escape the Meatlump gang, and meet girls.”
“Yes sir!”
“Preferably femtroopers, you said?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Well, Cadet Daggart, I’m going to be taking a very personal interest in your career. Do you know why?”
Slak paused. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
“Granted.”
“I recognize your accent, Lieutenant” Slak said, wheezing in between his sentences. “You’re not only Corellian. I think you’re Coronet City, probably, since most folks outside the city haven’t heard about the Blue Sector. You’re accent’s mostly gone, which means you’ve spent time being raised somewhere else. Or maybe here. You’ve taken an interest in my career because you see a lot of yourself in me, and you’d like to see me succeed because someone else took a chance on you and you’ve benefited by it. And it would give you a sense of personal fulfillment to pass on the chance you were given to a deserving, highly motivated person like me.”
“Well,” said Solo, looking Slak over and pursing his lips in thought as he walked behind him. “You know, I’m impressed, Daggart.”
Slak smirked, despite how much his side felt like it had been dipped in acid and set on fire.
“Yes,” Solo continued, “that’s quite an assessment of your situation. There’s only one little thing wrong with it.”
Slak’s face went blank. Things never had gone well for him when someone in power said he was wrong.
“What’s that, sir?”
Solo smiled. Even though Slak was at attention with his head and eyes facing forward, he could see Solo’s grin and hear the sarcasm in his voice.
Solo leaned down and whispered in Slak’s ear. “Everything,” he said. “The reason I’m going to make you my personal project is this: I am Corellian. I was from Coronet City. And there, even though the nearest body of water might as well be a parsec away, we say that little street worms like you like to rock the boat. You like to stir things up and see if people fight and get themselves all wet, while you sit back and laugh at it all.
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"And that’s the reason I don’t trust you, don’t like you, and don’t even want you in Four Flight, Daggart. I had you figured out as soon as you made your little joke here.You thought you were being funny? Guess what. You just made life tougher for every single Corellian now who joins up under Hublin. I’d bust you down a notch if I could, but you’re already at the lowest possible point! There’s no lower place to go, except out the door and into the black. Understand?
“Y’see,” Solo continued when Slak didn’t answer, “the people I answer to, they might think I’ll go easy on you because we’re from the same place. And I plan to show everybody, absolutely everybody, Cadet Daggart, that I don’t play favorites! In fact, if you quit and go back to trooper training because of me, I look better! You understand? I am going to try to make you quit! You, Daggart, are going to be my personal project! I’m going to be watching you so closely, you’re going to feel claustrophobic if you’re in an open field! Feel paranoid, Daggart? Speak freely!”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Well you shouldn’t, Cadet! It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you! And I am out to get you, Daggart! You better keep that snub nose of yours cleaner than a gravball referee’s whistle, or I just might shoot you myself by accident on a training exercise. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Slak said. Fear was gone, replaced by cynicism. He’d seen this before from the police.
“Good. Now get to chow, and then get to sports. I’ll be checking up on you there, too. Dismissed! Move!”
Slak came to attention and made a slow, careful right turn, then lifted and planted his foot firmly. Solo watched him as he walked off, trying mightily to hide his limp.
“You went a little easy on him, don’t you think?” said Hublin.
“It balanced out that little stunt you did with the shocker. We’ve got time to grind him down. Between you and me, we’ll see what he’s made of.”
Hublin nodded his head slightly. “He has a lip on him, true. But his scores were the highest in his class.”
“Yeah, and I’m a Bantha’s uncle. There’s something about him that isn’t scanning right all the way with me, but I’ll figure it out soon enough.”
Hublin smirked and walked off, leaving Solo to stare first at the door Slak had left through, then through the nearby window at the dark sky outside.
#
“So what happened?” Dav said as Slak took his seat. The food on the tray was, indeed, more appetizing than basic training had been. But it still wasn’t enough to distract from the life they still had to lead for the next few months to years.
“He gave me grief,” Slak said, wincing as he sat down. “He’s from the same planet as me, same city, even. He told me know he’s got me under the blaster as far as keeping an eye on me.”
“You in serious trouble?” Bondo asked before shoving the entire serving of MireCake into his mouth in one large forkful.
“Nah, he’s just tryin’ to scare me.”
“Is it working?” Jada asked, her eyes narrowing.
“It should!” broke in a skinny fellow who sat next to Jada with a pointed chin and jug-handle ears. Slak remembered someone had called him S’Vip earlier. “Solo is one of the toughest officers here!” S’Vip said, sounding almost eager at the abuse Slak was likely to get. “He’s young for an officer, and he’s gotta prove himself to the others. He’ll rake you over the coals now every chance he gets!”
Slak chuckled. “Nah. I’m Corellian. How hard could he get on someone from his old stomping ground?”
“What about those guys? Any of them look like they’re from your old stompin’ grounds?”
Slak looked in the direction Dav had pointed. They and the other members of Four Flight had filled the table closest to the door. Based on the shoulder patches, Three Flight had filled the long table next to them, and Two Flight next to that.
One Flight had filled the farthest table, next to the wall and closest to the food.
“Something about them,” Dav said, looking at the One Flight group, “something just not quite right to me.”
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TO BE CONTINUED...