Experiential Learning [2 BBY]

[Silus Xilarian]

As far as Imperial Star Destroyers went, the Relentless wasn't a bad gig. Since it's primary directive was to perform joint operations with Imperial Intelligence, it wasn't anchored to any particular system. Instead it would roam all through the Empire, going where it was needed most. Being stationed on such a ship meant plenty of opportunities to see new places, something that was rare with other assignments. The past few weeks however, had seen the Relentless become an absolute prison.

Due to a recent surge of Rebel activity in the Lothal Sector, Imperial Intelligence began running a heavy campaign in the sector and was using the Relentless as a staging point to gain a quiet entry into the sector. That meant basically sitting in space watching shuttles come and go, and due to the proximity to intel operations none of them were for any leisure purposes. The absolute worst part, however, was that all training exercises had been cancelled. Silus normally wasn't the type to mourn over something as boring as practicing formations, but he had recently stamped a black hawk on a new pilot and had to sit back and watch while she sat on the ship gathering dust. So far, the only TIE fighters she had been allowed to fly were simulations and he wanted to change that almost as badly as she did. Several times he'd gone down to the Shadow Squadron hangar to find her down there just milling around. He could only imagine how badly it stung to have her own TIE sitting right there and not be able to fly it.

Silus' first idea was to go to Admiral Garrett and get him to green light some routine patrols around the ship. Like most of Silus' first ideas, this was a stupid one. Garrett wasn't going to let him out just to go play. Luckily, he didn't go with his first idea like he normally would. Instead, Silus went to his second idea. Silus' second ideas were normally much better than his first ones, and this one was true to form. Peaking into the mission log for the ship, Silus found a gold nugget. Rebels had set up an interdiction field on a hyperspace route that the navy used to transport weapons and supplies through the sector. Intel had caught wind of it and relayed the information back to Garrett who promptly sent a squadron of fighters out to shut the Rebels down. The fighters he sent out were taking an alternate hyperspace route that would bring them close to the location of the Rebels and allow them the element of surprise.

Silus did the math and figured if they were to leave in the next twenty minutes they could get there just as the fight was starting.

They would of course have to take the interdicted hyperspace route to catch up to the other fighters, which meant purposefully flying into an ambush. Normally that's not an ideal situation, but the Rebel's couldn't ambush them if the Rebel's themselves were already being ambushed. It was a little thing that Silus liked to call strategy. He was playing chess while everyone else was playing checkers, figuratively speaking. Literally speaking however, someone else was playing chess, and that person's name was Admiral Garrett. And as long as he was playing chess, he wouldn't see that Silus had just added two new names to the mission log.

As Silus confirmed the mission log changes, he was already snatching on his flight jacket and jogging out of his quarters. By the time the door shut behind him, he was already down the hall banging on another door. She was either in her quarters or in the hangar and both stops were on his way.

[Bette Davis]

Lieutenant Bette Davis straightened her rank plate in the mirror. She had been expecting to return to the Annihilator after the mission Commander Xilarian had brought her on, but it seemed that a permanent place for her had yet to be found. Even though she was now part of a Shadow Squadron there were a lot of moving pieces involved in getting her actually on a Squadron on paper. Or something.

She didn’t fully understand it yet.

Someone banged on her door and she turned to face it, calling “Come in!”

Silus poked his head in.

”Are you decent? I got us a mission - if you’re coming let’s go.”

”Uh, yeah. Yes!” Bette scrambled for her boots, throwing them on while Silus drummed his fingers on the door.

”Okay, okay...” She dashed out the door, her commander already starting down the passageway without her. Bette jogged to catch up and then had to keep jogging as he quickened his pace.

”What’s the mission? Sir?”

[Silus Xilarian]

Silus glanced back for a moment to make sure that Bette was keeping up.

"Rebels set up an interdiction field on a hyperspace route that we use in this sector and have been hijacking our supply shuttles. Garrett scrambled a TIE squadron about half an hour ago to ambush them. We're going to join up with them. We gotta hurry though or we'll miss the party."

As they made it to the Shadow Squadron hangar, Silus broke out into a full run. His TIE Advanced fighter, Hammer, was parked all the way at the end of the hangar, much farther away than Bette's, and he didn't want to be the one holding them up. He got to his fighter and jumped onto the ladder in full stride, scrabbling up with a practiced ease. As the cockpit closed around him, his heads-up display sprang to life. He quickly punched in the mission ID and breathed a sigh of relief that he and Bette were still listed. He was worried Garrett would have found what he'd done and locked them out. He pulled up the squadron screen and pulled Bette's TIE over to his active list. A graphic of her TIE dominated the middle of his screen for about 3 seconds, then shrank and moved to his peripheral. She would be seeing something similar on her squadron screen, just with less options. As everything linked up, the communications light beside her ship lit up, indicating that they now had a secure channel.

"Shooter, this is Shadow Leader. Do you copy?"

He got an affirmative from her just as the engines on his TIE sprung to life. The repulsors lifted his ship smoothly into the air. He glanced over, saw that Bette was good to go, and then turned his fighter toward the hangar bay door. As they flew out into space, Silus linked their hyperdrives together for a multship hyperspace jump. The jump would take a little longer to calculate, but would guarantee that they arrived together. While they waited, Silus dipped his TIE a little on each axis, getting a feel for the controls. He set the comm channel between himself and Bette to voice activation.

"It'll take a few minutes to calculate this jump. Since the other squadron got a head start on us, we're going to take a more....direct path."

This was his way of saying to Bette. "Hey. we're flying into an ambush".

"I did the math though, we should get there right as the fight's starting."

[Bette Davis]

"Copy that, Shadow Leader."

Bette double-checked the seals on her flightsuit, suddenly worried that she'd forgotten something in the mad dash to get off of the Relentless. Everything seemed to be in order. She tightened her crashwebbing as Xilarian's navicomp calculated their jump.

There didn't seem to be more to say. She gritted her teeth a bit, hands tightening and relaxing on the flight yoke, using repulsors to keep her ship tight with her commander's. Classic wingman position.

We should get there right as the fight's starting.

Bette swallowed hard, then closed her eyes as the hyperdrive pinged that the jump had been calculated. The countdown started, the two TIEs matched like a set of twins.

She opened her mouth to say something - and the TIEs jumped to hyperspace, taking her breath away.

Doubt, or confidence?

Pressed into her seat, Bette swallowed her words.

I can do this. I have done this.

"Nice day for a dogfight," she said over the comm.

[Silus Xilarian]

"It's a nice day to do anything that doesn't involve sitting around on a Star Destroyer."

Silus stretched his legs as much as he could and wriggled around a bit. TIE fighters were surprisingly comfortable to fly, but not so much to relax in.

"Don't get your hopes up to high though. That jump took a bit longer than I thought it would, so we might come in on the tail end of things. Doesn't matter though, it got us out in the black."

His nav screen said they had over seven hours until they reached their destination but that was misleading. They would be pulled out of hyperspace at some point during the route, so the trip would actually be much shorter. The thought didn't seem to speed things up in any noticeable way.

"So I've read your file, it's got all the basic crap. Got any hobbies? A girlfriend? What gets your boots on the floor every morning?"

[Bette Davis]

Bette sat back in her seat, resting her head as best she could. It was a fact that the TIE cockpit was designed for an average human man, and she was a scant 5'5". Everything worked well enough within safety parameters that she didn't need any special accommodations, but the back of the seat hit her head a little weirdly rather than cradling her helmet.

"My hobby lately has been trying to get out of the shuttle pool." She gave a weak fist pump in her cockpit even though he couldn't see her. "Mission accomplished."

There was a moment of silence, and she knew he wanted more than that weak ass answer. Before he could tell her that himself, she cleared her throat.

"Uh, no girlfriend. Or boyfriend. I'm, um, too busy. What about you? Is there a Mrs. Xilarian back home?"

[Silus Xilarian]

"No wife, couple of old girlfriends I forgot to say bye to..."

Silus did a round of checks on his nav screen, becoming acutely aware of how slowly time was dragging on. The rest of the small talk was equally awkward for both of them until both ships rocked and were mercifully pulled out of hyperspace. Getting yanked out of lightspeed was a horribly uncomfortable affair, but Silus would take it over small talk any day of the week. That was until everything came into focus. Where he expected to see a TIE squadron making easy work of a few rebels, he instead saw two medium freighters, with a few X-Wings flying support. His radar lit up showing several ships behind them, all moving in their direction. Two of the dots were moving in faster than the others.

"Hey Shooter, we're either very early or very late...either way, I guess I'm shit at math. That's on me..."

Silus flipped on an open channel where he assumed the Rebels would be listening.

"Hey guys, funny meeting you here. We're just on our way back from a mission to steal these TIE fighters from those dirty Imper..."

A sharp squelch over the comms cut him off.

"Power down your ships and you'll be taken captive, you have five seconds to comply."

For the tiniest of moments he was worried that Bette would power down and was relieved when she didn't. He readied himself as he spoke again.

"I guess you wouldn't believe me if I told you we had you surrounded..."

A target lock warning lit up the inside of his cockpit. G Forces pinned him back against his seat as he went full acceleration forward then split away from Bette.

[Bette Davis]

Her HUD lit up with contacts as the two TIEs were pulled out of hyperspace prematurely. Bette fired up her sublights while the computer struggled to cycle the hyperdrive to get ready for another jump.

There were two freighters ahead with an X-wing apiece, four more X-wings behind them, closing in with two flanking A-wings.

"Shit!" Bette's comms were still set on voice activation, but she couldn't do anything about that now. Xilarian shot forward toward the freighters and then peeled away pos-x as the fighters behind them target locked both of the TIE Advanced.

She accelerated hard, spinning down neg-y. The X-wings in front stayed put while the fighters behind them split up. The A-wings shot ahead of the X-wings, one going after Bette and the other following Xilarian.

"Shiiiiiit," Bette hissed, g-forces pressing her into her seat as she pulled her TIE neg-y again just as the Z axis lined up with her nose again. Flying upside down relative to the freighters and directly away from them, she now had an A-wing coming about behind her and two X-wings coming in from her port side.

She pulled the steering yoke, edging the TIE neg-x just a bit so she was coming up on the upside down X-wings from in front and slightly above them, pressing the fire controls and spitting green plasma at them.

[Silus Xilarian]

Silus peppered one of the freighters in front of him with laser fire as he rolled his TIE ninety degrees to his right. He throttled all the way down to ten percent and pulled the stick back, letting the maneuvering thrusters overtake his engine torque to rotate his ship pos-Y without losing as much of his forward momentum. The two X-Wings that were chasing him started closing in and green energy began to pepper his shields. Just then, he fired his engines full throttle mid-maneuver. The torque of the acceleration amped up the g-force as it pulled his ship completely around, reversing his original course. The inertial dampeners in the ship were working overtime, and Silus still felt his throat sink into his stomach. Both of the X-Wing's hadn't bother to roll with him, and were now trying x-axis turns to reverse course, which was much slower than a y-axis climb or dive. The pursuing A-Wing overshot completely, and nearly collided with one the X-Wings as he try to course correct.

Silus and Bette were now flying in roughly the same direction, with Silus staring at the belly of Bette's ship. His angle of approach was allowing him to gain some ground on her and the A-Wing pursuing her. The A-Wing pilot had rolled to match Bette's orientation and Silus was more than happy to take advantage of this. A-Wings had great visibility above and around them, but they had to rely on sensors to see anything coming from underneath.

Silus allowed himself to pull close enough that the A-Wing wouldn't be able to react to incoming fire before he locked on and began battering it with twin laser cannons. The pilot frantically tried to roll away as his light shields were quickly stripped away but it was t0o late. One of the ships twin engines took a few hits and the explosion ripped apart the entire ship.

[Bette Davis]

One of the X-wings in front of her couldn't dodge in time, and her laser blasts took apart it's port S-foils, sending it into a terminal spin. The other peeled away but because of the angles Bette slotted in easily behind him, still peppering his rear deflectors with her laser cannons.

Her HUD target lock alert beeped as the A-wing chasing managed to acquire her in his sights, and then it exploded in a burst of silent fire. Xilarian's TIE shot past behind her, and she returned her attention to the X-wing in front of her.

Unfortunately it was flying back toward the freighters, and there were four more X-wings flying in a spread formation straight toward them.

She knew his shields had to be low and stuck with him, accelerating a touch to close the distance as she continued to pound away on his deflectors. One of the approaching X-wings swung around to her port trying to cut off her options, a couple others spinning away to presumably chase down Xilarian.

The X-wing she was chasing finally exploded and Bette pulled on the yoke hard, pulling pos-y and pouring on the acceleration to try to pull out of a possible pincer maneuver by the Rebels.

[Silus Xilarian]

The remaining ships were still giving pursuit, but Silus could tell they were reevaluating their strategy. Already they'd lost two ships while Silus and Bette were virtually untouched. They had gotten bored and glassy-eyed waiting around for shuttles to fall into their laps and weren't ready for a real fight. While they were talking amongst themselves, Silus cut a hard neg-x and watched the slow reaction by the pilot's behind him. He cut pos-x sharply then straightened his course, then rolled to his left and cut pos-x. His maneuvers barely had any real effect on his heading, but the X-Wings following him were struggling to match his erratic flying. His path almost crossed with Bette's again, only this time he rolled again, showing her the belly of his ship as he pulled a hard pos-y turn. The X-Wings behind him followed suit, and soon Bette had a nice view underneath three X-Wings.

On his radar, Silus noticed that the A-Wing had separated himself a bit from the fight.

"Shooter, keep an eye out for that A-Wing, he's going to try to get out of view then come back on us hot."

[Bette Davis]

Bette opened fire on the three X-wings as Xilarian drew them across her bow, glancing bolts off two before getting solid shots in on the third. Deflectors failed and the X-wing pilot lost steering control, drifting off at speed while Bette flew up behind it to finish it off.

Xilarian had said something about the A-Wing.

She spared a glance for her HUD but couldn’t see the ship. The out of control X-wing’s trajectory was taking it past the freighters, and while it was out of the fight she didn’t see why she shouldn’t light up the bigger ships.

Switching to proton torpedos Bette targeted the nearest freighter, just in time to hear the alert of a target lock as the A-wing came around the underside of the freighter beneath her.

[Silus Xilarian]

In the corner of his eye, Silus could see the image of Bette's TIE flashing yellow on his HUD, warning him of a target lock. He pulled a hard pos-y turn in time to see the missing A-Wing coming in on her fast. He was far enough away that he probably couldn't keep enough sustained fire to break through the A-Wing's shields, and he would risk hitting his wingmate as well. As he ran through his options a target lock warning on his own ship spurred him out of his head and back to instincts. He rolled hard to the right then back to the left to shake up his pursuers, then steadied for just long enough to get a target lock on the A-Wing. He fired off a few measured shots. One of them pecked harmlessly at the A-Wing's shield, a few flew harmlessly into space, and one actually tagged Bette. It wasn't enough to do any real harm to either ship, but it was enough to get a target lock and confirmed hit warning blaring in the A-Wing pilot's ear.

Silus didn't have time to see if his little trick worked though, as his own pursuers were back on him.

He went full throttle as he danced his TIE from side to side, putting some space between himself and the X-Wings pursuing him. He buzzed one of the freighters, grinning as a proximity alert screamed in his ears, knowing that everyone on that ship would be hearing something similar.

He used the freighter to break line of sight from his pursuers for a few seconds. In that time he throttled down to zero, letting his momentum carry him and let the maneuvering thrusters rotate his ship. The X-Wings came back into line of sight running full blast and gaining ground quickly only to find Silus facing them, essentially flying in reverse, with laser cannons going full blast. One X-Wing bit the dust almost instantly as the lasers chewed through his shields and landed several direct his to his cockpit. The explosion spread enough debris to cause both of his wingmates to scatter.

Silus quickly ramped the throttle back up, feeling his seat come up to smack against his back. The g-forces made it feel like he was being crushed as he completely burned off his momentum, then sped off back in the direction he came.

[Bette Davis]

Bette made a split second decision to trust her shields, firing her torpedos at the freighter before rolling right and into a pos-y climb over the larger craft.

As she fired her ship took a few glancing blows, but the A-wing missed with the majority of its shots, spiraling neg-x-y as Xilarian in the second TIE buzzed by. Bette pulled out of her climb, maneuvering around to face the freighter again and lit it up, pounding its shields with laser fire.

The freighter listed to the side, perhaps trying to bring its ventral guns to bear on her, as the second freighter came to life. Sublights flaring, it turned to its starboard, possibly looking for an escape vector.

Bette stuck with the first freighter, dodging around with it as she targeted its engines, until the remaining two X-wings found her. She flew a loop around the freighter, hoping they’d follow and she could just come around behind them with her superior speed.

[Silus Xilarian]

As Silus buzzed around the freighters he found himself free of pursuers for the first time. Bette was pounding on one freighter while the other seemed to be searching for an escape vector. He was about to start hammering the escaping freighter when he noticed that the remaining two X-Wings had switched over and were chasing Bette in circles around the injured freighter. The interdictions fields had not been down for very long, so he was sure they still had time before the other freighter could calculate a jump to lightspeed, so he decided to peel off and help Bette.

Just then he got a target lock warning and something lit up his shields hard. He rolled and pulled a hard pos-y just to get himself out of line of fire. Sure enough the errant A-Wing, who had been coming in full blast, over shot him. The fighter started to loop back around but had done it too closely. Silus shot ahead full throttle and lit the A-Wing up. He saw it shields go down as it sped out of his effective range, and he kicked himself for not being able to take it out. Just then the right engine of the A-Wing blew out a jet of particles and began to list to the right. After a few seconds the right engine blew out a second stream of particles and exploded, taking the rest of the fighter with it.

With the A-Wing out of the way, Silus joined into the fray with Bette, letting her lead the two X-Wings around as he fell in behind them. He locked on and easily took one of the pursuers out as the other broke off in a hard pos-y climb.

[Bette Davis]

She made three wide neg-y loops around the freighter, feeling a little more ridiculous each time she went around. The X-wings weren't gaining on her, but she also wasn't gaining on them as quickly as she wanted. Thankfully their proximity meant that the freighter was hamstrung, unable to defend itself without accidentally firing on its own friendlies.

In addition, as she had to keep moving she wasn't able to target the freighter correctly to just disable it.

The HUD indicated that another enemy ship had been taken out, and then Xilarian fell in behind the X-wings, destroying one and forcing the other to peel off. Bette bit her lip as she slowed her TIE, targeting the freighter's propulsion with her torpedoes.

A direct hit punctured the shields and disabled the engines, and then she targeted the foreguns, opening a channel to the Rebels.

"Rebel freighter: power down your weapons or I will be forced to further disable you - and I may make a mistake and spread you across this section of space."

[Silus Xilarian]

Silus couldn't help a wicked grin as Bette started trash talking the rebels. The last X-Wing in their fighter compliment appeared to have taken some damage when Silus blew up his wingmate, and was now limping his ship away from the freighters, probably hoping his astromech could stitch him up enough to get into hyperspace. Silus fell in easily behind him.

"Various Rebel Scum: I advise you follow the instructions you were just given. Your fighter escort consists of one wounded X-Wing with a terrible pilot, you have one wounded freighter with what I assume is a terrible captain, and one freighter who won't calculate that jump to hyperspace before I blow them up, and who also probably has a terrible captain."

He waited a few seconds but didn't receive any signal of a surrender. They were probably discussing it among themselves. Silus squeezed the trigger and blew apart the X-Wing in front of him.

"Correction, you have no fighter escort."

With the X-Wing destroyed, Silus pulled his ship lazily around and locked on to the undamaged freighter. The remaining rebel ships were holding on to a hope of escape. He let loose a salvo of laser fire and proton torpedos, severely wounding the second freighter. Just then a squadron of TIE defenders dropped out of hyperspace on the edge of the battle. Silus laughed and greeted them on the comms, but over the open channel so the remaining rebel ships could hear him.

"You boys are just in time, we've got some rebels here achin to die for the cause!"

Both Rebel freighters powered down.

[Bette Davis]

Bette circled the freighter in front of her. The transponder read Eyeblaster2100, which was almost certainly a spoofed name, and she dipped her panels at the arriving Defenders.

“What the fuck, Xilarian!”

”Cut the chatter Reaver Two! Storm Leader this is Reaver Leader. What the fuck are you doing out here?”

She looked out of her viewport, the ‘eyeball’ of the TIE, and watched as four of the newly arrived Defenders tracked down the X-Wings she’d disabled. A piece of S-foil debris drifted past, and she looked down at her gloved hands as the two squadron leaders snipped at each other over the comm.

Those pilots ... she’d killed them.

Her neck felt tight as she watched the battlefield on her HUD, making sure the Rebels in the freighter she was babysitting didn’t do anything stupid.

Better them than you, she told herself.

Belatedly she realized someone had said her name over the comm.

”Repeat please, sorry.”

[Silus Xilarian]

Silus dipped his panels as Reaver Squadron came flying in, then flew just above the freighter he'd just lit into kind of like a dog laying down to chew on a bone.

"We were a late addition to roster, jumped in here hoping to help you boys clean up. Didn't realize you'd be running late. It's alright though, we handled it just fine. There was only about twelve of em."

He wouldn't fudge the numbers on his official report, but out here it didn't hurt anything.

"No shit. And I bet you turned you shields off, just to make it fair..."

"I'm not gonna say all that...I mean, I did, but I'm not gonna say it"

Silus heard a few chuckles over the radio, felt some of the tension die down.

"We weren't expecting to take any prisoners, we don't have a boarding team for these freighters."

Silus read between the lines and shut down that line of thinking immediately.

"We offered them a chance to surrender and they took it, I intend to honor that. Shooter and I can babysit them until a boarding crew can get here."
"We'll sit with them, I have a feeling you need to get back and have a talk with Garrett..."

When Bette heard her nickname she chimed in as if she had zoned out. Silus had an idea of what might be running through her brain right now.

"I said we're gonna head on back. Endel and his Reavers are gonna hold down fort here until Garrett can send someone to collect these freighters."

Silus switched over to private comms with Endel. "No bullshit, you bring these in..." He switched back to the open channel.

"Alright Shooter, let's go. Thanks again for all your help fellas."

Silus flew up and dipped his panels one more time and flew out to make the jump to hyperspace.

[Bette Davis]

Bette flushed deeply, relieved that no one could see her face as Xilarian repeated himself over the comm. She shut up and followed him out of the area, allowing him to connect to her hyperdrive again and plot the jump.

The trip back seemed shorter than before. Xilarian told her over the comm that he was taking a nap, and she just stared out of her cockpit at the swirls of hyperspace.

When the reversion to real space happened she startled out of her daze, following the commander into the Relentless.

Bette climbed out of the TIE Advanced, stripping off her helmet and flight gloves, staring a little blankly at the techs running up to service the starfighter.

[Silus Xilarian]

As they left the hangar, Bette seemed like she was still out in in the black and her body was just going through the motions without her. He reached over and nudged her on the arm, giving her a slight start.

"I'm gonna grab a shower but I want to go over some stuff. Twenty minutes enough time for you to do what you need to do?"

He almost thought she didn't hear him until she spoke, still looking away.

"Yeah.." She seemed to somewhat snap out of her haze for just a moment "...Yes, that should be fine.”

He nodded and gave her a pat on the shoulder. "Alright then."

He went back to his quarters and threw his gear over into a chair he had sitting in the corner. He left a line of dirty laundry all the way to his shower that he would pick up when he got back. Twenty minutes later he was out of the shower, dressed and heading back down the hall to Bette's quarters. He went to knock but found the door was still open. He took a quick peek inside and saw Bette sitting at her dining table, still dressed in her flight suit. As he was about to go in, he heard something in the hallway and glanced outside to see a dark gray protocol droid approaching.

The droid stopped and stood at attention. Silus narrowed his eyes at it.

"What are you sellin..."

The droid seemed almost struck by the gruff comment. "Sir, Admiral Garrett has requested a meeting with you in his office."

Silus waved a dismissive hand toward it. "Yeah, sure. I'll be there in a bit. I have to take care of something..."

The droid seemed genuinely confused for a moment then protested. "He won't like to be kept waiti..."

Silus snapped at him, "Well I don't like being rushed so I guess we'll all be fucking miserable. Go tell him I'll be there in a few minutes!"

The droid squeaked out a "Yes sir!" and turned so quickly it nearly fell. Silus shook his head and went back inside, shutting the door behind him. Bette was watching him now, having been drug back to reality by the argument outside. Silus cocked his head to the side a bit.

"Mind if I join you?" Bette gave a weak nod "Sure..."

Silus walked over and set across from her at the table. He pulled a flask of whisky from his pocket, took a small swig and set it down in front of her. The expression on his face had softened and carried a slight hint of concern.

"I wanted to tell you that you did a good job today, better than I've seen from you in any sim. I have a meeting with Garrett here once I leave, so you won't need to worry about a preliminary report, just do your full report when you're ready. I'll cover if you need some extra time."

[Bette Davis]

Bette looked up at Xilarian, a little surprised to find him there. She’d been about to take a shower when she’d sat down just for a moment...

She reached across the table and took the flask, helping herself to a sip. Bette didn’t relinquish it, holding it in her hands while he spoke.

”I’ve just never...” Bette shook her head, trying to clear it. “It’s so much like the sim, and yet nothing like it at all.”

[Silus Xilarian]

"It's rough at first, and it's something you'll have to square with."

Silus' instincts were to tell her that everything's fine, but he knew this was something that had to be taken seriously, and that meant facing a hard truth.

"A lot of the people that we cross off, they deserve every laser we put in 'em. Others probably aren't so bad, just ended up on the other side. The fact of it is, it's war. It's never going to be easy. So people get numb to it, some get bloodthirsty. You won't be either of those. That's part of the reason you're on this ship right now."

[Bette Davis]

Bette took another long sip from the flask and set it down, running a hand through her short hair.

”Right.” She scrubbed her hand over her face and sighed, leaning on her elbows. “I know all that.”

Bette looked up, meeting his eyes for a long moment before looking away. “I keep imagining their families getting the news. Like if my father got the visit, the news that I’d been killed in action.”

She bit her lip, staring hard at the table. “But it’s war. They’re the Rebels.” Bette paused, and added softly, “We’ve all made our choices.”

[Silus Xilarian]

"Knowing it and making peace with it are two different things."

Bette looked as if she were about to protest and Silus put a hand up to stop her.

"You aren't on trial here. I just want you to see the entire picture. If this is what you want, you're here. I've seen everything I need to see. If you decide this isn't for you, I'll do everything in my power to get you where you want to be. No hard feelings, no judgement. I just want you to be sure. Understand?"

[Bette Davis]

She met his eyes again, and didn’t look as haunted as she had before.

“I understand. This is where I want to be.”

Bette half-smiled. “I’m good at this. While we were in it ...it was just me and the ship and a bunch of targets.” She formed her hand into a fingergun and mimed shooting.

”Dad talked about this part of it,” she said quietly. “I didn’t really understand it until now.”

[Silus Xilarian]

Silus smiled warmly. "I'm glad to hear that. And just remember, if you ever need someone to bounce thoughts off of my door's always open."

He got up and stretched a little, working some stiffness out of his legs. He put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. With his other hand it picked up his flask.

"Alright, I'm gonna need this now. I have an ass chewing to attend." He started to walk off, and stopped himself. "There's one more thing I want you to consider. The whole good guys / bad guys thing gets pretty murky sometimes. If something we're doing is bothering you, you can always tell me. As long as I'm your commander you won't be punished for sticking up for what you think is right. Copy?"

Bette nodded.

"Good. Get a shower and get some sleep. We'll be grounded for a bit, but we're still going to be training."

[Bette Davis]

She nodded again, getting up and following him to the door to close it behind him. As he stepped out she put out a hand to stop him.

”I just want to say thank you. Sir.”

Silus nodded, and she withdrew her hand, closing her door as he headed away down the passage. For a moment she stood there, staring at the door, then she turned crisply and walked to her private refresher.

Bette methodically stripped off her clothes with as much care as a priestess preparing for sacred rites. The boots were set carefully outside the refresher, flightsuit and underthings were folded and placed in the receptacle for cleaning. She examined her face in the mirror before stepping into the sonic shower.

She didn’t look like anything had changed. But while the shower cleansed and purified her skin she knew that part of her, deep inside, was different. Almost like a sore muscle that would repair itself and become stronger. Harder.

Bette scrubbed a loofah over her skin, loosening dead cells to be whisked away by the sonic shower. The lesson she’d learned today would serve her for the rest of her career. She squared her shoulders, standing taller.

She was going to have a long​ career.