Introduction: This is the year that the PWS is going into the carnage of war, along with all the other paladin fighter personnel. The war against the House of Aurelius was raging during its first stages. The Common Wealth's first goal was to secure the outer system of Extruvious, a key outpost system against the inter-galaxial war that became unleashed when our colony ships were sent out to what we had gotten readings of "desolated" space. Humanity has survived from the brink of extinction after seven World Wars, the geography of the Earth forever altered and government boundaries altered in great ways forging seven superpowers. Humanity however has learned to live in peace and work for a common goal of expanding its own boundaries…or in this case, defending them.
This is the story of one division nicknamed "The Rebellion."
It seems as just yesterday that we were back in high school and that we were recruited and sent into the SSF pilot training where our group was isolated from the rest. It was by a mere stroke of luck that our small squad which had known each other for most of our lives stuck together in one group with no displacements, we even got some apprentices under our wings.
Our story goes back to the early years of our lives. Our fighter squadron number is of twenty-five strong and we go way back to our junior high years, well for most of the six of us.
- - - -
I met Timothy when I entered public schools in sixth grade where he offered me some college-ruled paper and from there our long journey began. We passed the evenings roaming around the suburbs and outer rim of the city where our parents would usually have to go pull us out of some trouble that we would usually find a way to get into. He was of average height, spiked hair, partially tanned and very athletic for anything that involved running (he had set the record for our elementary school for any type of sprint in his sixth grade year for the whole school so he was pretty good.)
The next year we found ourselves in Mr. Zyle's home room for seventh grade year. In that class our duo doubled to include two more members, the non identical twins Kurisutofaa and Axitsuke. The two were exchange students from the Japan-Pacific Alliance that now covered coastal China and absolutely all the islands in the pacific except for part of Australia and the ex-Alaskan archipelago which is under the control of the Canada-Britain Merge but part of the Americas-Greek Incorporation. Both of them were in the Symphonic Orchestra and part of the school's Freestyle Wired Ensemble. I remember precisely what it was like that year when the two of them started the ensemble. Tim and me would be off playing the keys or outside in some type of sport and we would hear the rapid paced improvisation pouring out from the speakers of the electrical lead violas belonging to both of them and the ever-booming bass of the four cello players behind them with their instruments hot wired to whatever speakers were on hand.
The golden year before we got into high school we met the key addition to our group. His name was Jonathan and all we knew about him was that he had a passion for sports of all kind and all type, yet he still had that spark of intelligence and intricate balance for a usage in computer related things, that ingenuity for technology that most people lacked. Yet none of that played a role as much as something else in his life. He was what we call a gamer too, but people didn't remember him for that rather than the all-round athlete he was.
"Perfection."
….That was the only word that coursed through our heads on our freshman year when we saw her walk through the faded, gray colored door of the English classroom that year. Rich, long, dark brown curls with some blonde highlights went from her hair immediately on the sides that was a bit longer than her shoulders to her upper back. Her stature was a few inches shorter than me but she was wearing some small high heels so it made her seem like up to my nose height. She had something enchanting about her in every part of her body. Her eyes were a dark hue of purple and they were natural, no contacts lenses. Her skin was light, not pale, not tanned, but just fair skin with incredibly few, barely noticeable blemishes that added to the effect of what we saw in our minds as a glow that emitted from her heavenly like body. She was wearing a black blazer outfit with a white dress shirt underneath with only the top button undone, unlike most of the school's girls with their skimpiest outfits.
"Is this English 1 Room 506?" She quietly asked after knocking on the open door.
"Yes, yes it is," the teacher answered. "You must be…" He checked his cluttered desk for roster sheets. "Oh, you must be Raine. You are the incoming student! Well welcome to my class. Take a seat wherever you wish and we'll continue with today's lecture." The old man finished.
All we did through out the whole introduction was just admire her. Then she started walking and picked my row of desk and walked to the desk farthest back which was the one directly behind me.
Jonathan shouted, "HEY! IT'S MY SISTER!" and Kurisutofaa, Axitsuke, Tim and me froze and without moving our heads made our eyes follow the direction of where the voice trailed from, for we knew that he wasn't lying.
At that precise moment, Raine was sitting down behind me and she leaned over and whispered in my ear, "You know…it's very impolite to stare at a lady, no matter her attributes. Tell you and your friends to stop doing so please." Then very quietly.. "I am your elder you know..." and then she giggled.
That sent shivers of enchantment through my body and I jumped in my seat with a tingle in my neck.Shaylor the teacher glanced under his trifocals and delivered his trademark piercing look of seriousness that would usually shatter the concentration of anyone in the room,
"Anything.." he paused to add to his sarcastic effect "…wrong Mr. Sirus? Did I disturb something important that you had to do or say?"
I had to shake out the shivers before regaining my composure and playing his game. "Hmm.. Let me think about it sir." I paused for several seconds. "No, nothing that I can imagine. I'd say that you are free to continue your lecture…on whatever subject it may be.."
He then snorted and got back to writing extensive notes on the board.
His looks didn't affect our little group. We had honed our skills of perceiving people's personalities and their manners. We had learned to be unaffected by the many people that tried to intimidate us into submission, and Shaylor was one of them.
Well, the day after that I learned that Jonathan was very protective of his sister…the hard way.
- - - -
"If I asked you what you were doing I would be ignoring what I've clearly seen already, and what my sister told me already."
I stuttered. "Well.. eh, is she older or younger than you" I was nervous, I had to shift my gaze away from his that was drilling into mine.
"What is it to you? I thought that you would know better than that by now." He took a couple of paces towards me but I took half the number backwards. "She is younger than me by a year, yet that doesn't matter because I am older than you by three months."
What he said was correct, and if I had remembered about it I would probably have never even tried to get near Raine.
"Now, sorr-" He cut off before I even had the chance to realize what was going on, yet my reflexes took over and sidestepped an incoming uppercut to my stomach, then I flew through the wind at him to try and pin him down before he had anything else in the matter to say…physical wise.
We tried to land several strikes against each other, doing what we could to gain the advantage, weather it was to fling each other by the shirt to the brick wall or some other kind of advantage. I most likely would have gotten annihilated if it hadn't had been for something that I like to call "divine intervention." It turns out that Raine had been watching us the whole time from up a tree in a dark green pilot suit. Turns out that she likes to wear the most random outfits every day. She jumped down and landed beside us.
"Jonathan!" she exclaimed, which gave me the open time gap in which I doubled him over with a kick to his stomach. Raine smirked but still scolded me as she went over to my side.
I pronounced slowly between gasps for breath. "Thank you, and sorry."
"Oh no worries. Don't be sorry.." She quickly spun around and knocked me down when she kicked my knees with one swift, low, spin kick. I was speechless and rather surprised. Jonathan laughed but then had to clutch his sides from the pain. Raine smiled and helped me up, Timothy, Axitsuke and Kurisutofaa came out from the school in time to watch the fest and were truly shocked.
From that day on, Raine was part of our group. For life. She was the link that our group needed to be complete and for us to be inseparable. She was the only choir member amongst us and yet she was the most rebellious out of all of us. She had that spark of rebellion that we all had but she showed it more than all of us in her own manner by fighting the system from the inside, unlike all of us that did it from the outside and really never got far.
- - - -
Now we were at the grand ceremony of the inauguration of our squadron. Us six would be leading half the P.A.L.A.D.I.N. SSF (approximately 45,000) into the crushing of the House's already weak control of Extruvious, the planetary system closest to their galaxy. We had just finished the three week extensive training in which over three fourths of the applicants to be a SSF fighter pilot quit and went back to the standard issue bomber and fighters. The only way that people survived through the hell training was sticking together in groups. Luckily we all went together and we stuck together to help each other.
We now stood together on the podium amongst our squadron, our ledge a bit higher than all of them. Axitsuke and Kurisutofaa on each end with Axitsuke on the left end and Kurisutofaa on the right, Timothy next to Axitsuke and Jonathan next to him. I was next to Kurisutofaa and Raine was in my arms leaning back on me and looking up into my face smiling. It seemed as if it were from a dream that we would've had back when we met each other. Together past high school, basically done with our university hours and in some experimental military program sent out by the Chamber of Sages, which in this case turned out to be very well for us.
I smiled and kissed Raine with Jonathan laughing remembering the time where she whooped up on me…and another twenty or so times that the same happened but in different ways. Then the talking and all activity ceased that Thursday of November when the intercom came on.
"Welcome to the Pilot Academy Inauguration. You all have earned your wings well Paladin SSFs!"
We all grinned and looked up to the central chamber to see our fleet master doing the announcements.
That day changed our lives forever…