Drama – Action/Adventure – a little Comedy

This started out as an RPG at but I decided to combine all my posts into a story. It takes place one year after the end of the Vong War. There is some history to Phaelon, so I'll included her character sheet from the RPG. Also, read my other stories "A Thin Line" and "Ice Breaker".

Disclaimer: Star Wars belongs to the all-powerful flannelled one. Phaelon is mine, but she operates of her own accord most of the time.

o:o:o

Phaelon sighed as the battle-scarred X-wing broke through the cloud cover and into the starry expanse of space. How the heck had Master Skywalker convinced her into teaching at the Academy? An easy class, he'd told her. You'll be a wonderful teacher. At the moment, she wanted nothing more than to bang her head on the cockpit in frustration.

Her four students were waiting for her a short distance away near one of Ossus' two moons. Many of them had never been in an X-wing or a fighter of any sort in their lives, and it was her job to acquaint them with flying. She shook her head as she watched two nearly collide. Only at the last second did they divert their courses and gently drift away. This was going to be a very long class period.

She had to have a discussion with Master Skywalker about this assignment. He probably had a reason for having her teach beginning piloting, but she couldn't understand what it was. She knew she wasn't the best pilot at the Academy, and she had no patience with children in any way, shape, or form. The least he could have done was let her teach diplomacy or history or something she was better at.

Reaching into the Force, she could feel the individual presences of her students. They all seemed so very young. Shaking her head, she took a deep, calming breath and pointed the X-wing at the small knot of ships waiting for her.

o:o:o

Thank the Force these things aren't armed, Phaelon thought sullenly to herself as she brought the X-wing down gently on its landing struts. Sitting back in her cockpit, she surveyed the four battered surplus fighters the Academy had purchased after the war – they had a few more bumps and bangs after the first day's lessons.

She sighed and shook her head. The first day. Fifteen thirteen-year olds out for the first time in a single-man fighter. Again she wondered about Master Skywalker's sanity – then again, he didn't have to deal with them. If it had been up to her, she wouldn't trust them with a simple landspeeder.

"Back in one piece?" asked a teasing male voice from behind her as she slid off the nose of the fighter to the duracrete. Corran Horn was leaning casually against a Lambda-class shuttle a few meters away. "Jysella says you're a good teacher," he continued. "Funny. You never struck me as good with teenagers."

"I'm not," she stated, scowling at the Corellian Jedi Master, "How come Master Skywalker didn't offer you the job? You're a much better pilot than I am."

He chuckled. "I never said he didn't. I'm just smart enough not to take it."

"Don't you have somewhere else to be?" she asked, feeling increasingly frustrated. "Or did Master Skywalker put you up to this?"

"Not really," he explained with a shrug. "Luke wanted me to take a look at the shuttle. I was just about done when I saw you coming in, and you were flying like you wished you had a couple proton torpedoes."

She narrowed her eyes. "Have you been practicing your TK?" she asked.

He shrugged, "As far as I know I'm still as hopeless as ever. Why?"

"Because that's exactly what I was thinking."

He sighed. "That's just intuition. Comes from years of dealing with smugglers and other unsavory types. You always know when someone really wishes they could put a couple torps up your exhaust."

She couldn't help but smirk. "I'll settle for beating on one of those new Duelist Elites or Master Skywalker, whichever I find first."

"I pity them in that case."

Favoring him with a grin like a manka cat, she left the hangar.