While whether or not Commodore Kildare was forthright in saying that he never did lie to his men had yet to be proven, the officers did, indeed, rest well that night. For their final freshly provisioned meal, Cyn and his wingmates each received a fried cutlet of "pork" (it was a white meat, but likely not pork), boiled green beans with an ounce of margarine, dry crusty bread , a pink cake of a mysterious alien berry and, most importantly, a freshly brewed carafe of dark roast coffee. Cyn ate with Talinn Kaarz and Reneaux. Talinn took her coffee black, Cyn with a touch of creamer, and Reneaux with a generous pour of cream and at least two packets of synthsugar. "To serve under the Commodore Kildare, and as part of an autonomous division to boot!" Reneaux said, tearing his bread apart with an audible crunch, "What an adventure!"

Talinn sipped her coffee quietly. "It seems unusual for a destroyer the size of the Erinyes to be acting alone."

"Well, of course it's unusual. That's what makes it an adventure, Kaarz. This would hardly be sporting if we had too much backup. You agree with me, right Dialan?"

Cyn jabbed at his vegetables. "You seem familiar with Kildare's service record."

Reneaux gave a great laugh—a bright, honest thing that might've even been endearing if it hadn't been so loud. "Of course I am! Kildare's a legend. Or at the very least, he should be. He was one of the first commissioned captains in the Grand Army of the Republic, he had a ship under him for pretty much all of the war, and, if you ask me, his role in the Battle of Sullust is criminally underrated."

Talinn took another sip. "Reneaux went through something of a Clone Wars phase as a child," she commented from over the rim of her cup.

"It wasn't a phase!" Reneaux stated, pointedly, "It's my legacy."

Talinn gave Cyn a dry look, and Cyn did his best not to smirk. Reneaux tore off a great bite of bread with a wiff of indignation. "Besides," he said, his mouth half full, "You should've read up about Kildare before arriving either way. The Erinyes was his command originally, after all."

"Really?" Cyn asked, his interest piqued.

The question stroked Reneaux's ego, and he crossed his arms with a self-satisfied smile. "True story. The Erinyes is one of the very first Victories rolled out. Kildare was its first and only captain. Commanded it for more than two years until the Battle of Coruscant, where it was nearly torn in two defending the capital. That's where the scar comes from."

Cyn tapped his plate with his fork. "But his command ended after the Battle of Coruscant?"

Reneaux nodded as he started into his cake. "On the Erinyes at least. It's sort of a miracle that the ship wasn't scrapped in the first place. It was towed to drydock and mostly repaired, but the Separatist leaders were killed before it could see action again. It was mothballed, along with Kildare."

A strange turn of phrase. "What do you mean, along with Kildare?"

Talinn set her glass down and gave Reneaux a serious look. "You shouldn't say those things."

"Well, Kildare was a bigshot in the Republic Navy, but retired soon after the establishment of the New Order," Reneaux continued, "Awfully strange that a career military hero would just turn in his commission right at the very height of his career. Rumor has it that he disagreed with—"

"Reneaux," Talinn said again, this time with an uncharacteristic forcefulness, "Please, drop it."

Reneaux's cheeks flushed red. "… Yeah, fine," he said, poking again at his cake.

Cyn gave Talinn a skeptical look. "Why…?"

"It's just not smart to talk politics on board," said Kaarz, returning her attention to her meal, "Not now, at any rate." Reneaux's silence implied that he agreed.

There were several long, awkward seconds as the group ate in an uncomfortable silence. Cyn looked about the officer's mess. "Do you usually eat with the rest of the flightwing?" he said in a valiant attempt to rekindle a conversation.

"Not really," said Talinn, her voice once more inoffensive, "Lieutenant Stone prefers to take his meals alone. Commander Guerrera tends to dine with the senior staff."

"They're a cliquish bunch, the brass," muttered Reneaux, still sullen.

Cyn tore off a chunk of bread. "And that Duraq?"

"He's not an officer," said Talinn, evasively.

"He's a felon," Reneaux said at the same time, leaning forward with a rediscovered eagerness.

Cyn stopped short at taking a bite at the response. "… What?"

"Duraq is a… Well, his rank is Specialist," began Talinn, more delicately by degree than she should have to pass it off naturally, "Which translates to—"

"Pirate!" cut in Reneaux, "Man's a pirate. Or a raider. I don't actually know if there's a difference between the two."

Cyn had trouble believing. It seemed almost too fanciful to be real. "A pirate, enlisted in the navy? Is that… Legal?" asked Cyn.

"Obliquely," said Talinn.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess," said Reneaux, "Guerrera seems to be able to handle him, though. And he's the best pilot in the wing. By, like, a lot."

Cyn shook his head and poured himself another cup of coffee. There was something about the whole situation that rubbed him the wrong way: the Empire was supposed to fight pirates, not conscript them. That said, Talinn was not forthcoming with information, and Reneaux struck him as an altogether unreliable source of facts. He would need to learn more about this former pirate, Duraq, but on his own terms. "Are there any other mysterious backgrounds in our wing that I should know about?" he asked, bringing the coffee to his mouth.

"Reneaux's father is a prince," Talinn said matter-of-factly.

Reneaux rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Well, the actual title is Margrave."

The resulting snort splashed coffee up into Cyn's face, and was the reason that he managed to burn his nose on the first day of his job.

Cyn dreamt of Ria that night. It was the reenactment of an old memory, when they used to play near the stream as children back at the old homestead. The water was icy with the chill of spring's first snowmelt, and Cyn was afraid to hop across the slick rocks. Ria wasn't, and told him that he would never see the secret that laid on the other side of the brook if he wouldn't follow her. He was scared (he was a schoolboy, after all, even if Ria was somehow, suddenly, a smartly uniformed adult) but when she finally encouraged him to take a step he felt his foot slide on the rock and—

He awoke with a start, alone, in the cold heart of the Erinyes, his nose and throat dry from the stale, recirculated air and his heart pounding. He ran one hand through his hair, wiping the sweat from his brow. He remembered where he was. He closed his eyes and sighed.

Cyn lay back down on the stiff cot, covering himself with the thin blanket he had been assigned. He forced his eyes closed, half-hoping and half-dreading to slip back to the sunny glades of Jerijador. And while sleep did find him, he did not dream of Ria again.

Cyn's first death came swift and sudden. He was flying his TIE over a modular conveyor, with orders from Commander Guerrera to inspect the containers. It all happened in the course of a moment. As he flew in and began scanning, the conveyor suddenly changed direction and moved upwards, clipping into the wing of his craft and throwing it off course. Suddenly, the view of space around him began spinning, his head swirling from the sight as his quickly shorting ion engine screamed in his ears. Then, a loud crack and a blinding light as the out-of-control TIE slammed into a nearby bulk freighter. The sounds of shattering glass and twisting steel. Light vanished.

It had been the very first sortie of the morning.

Cyn's second death at least came from a fight. A pack of assault shuttles were using an icefield as a staging ground, and the flightwingwas attempting to flush them out so they could be picked off by the Erinyes. The mission briefing said to expect moderately sized, semi-maneuverable vessels with good firepower, but mediocre engines. Cyn thought that his TIE's speed would give him the edge, as it had in similar drills in the academy, but the briefing was wrong. Three A-Wings burst out alongside the shuttles, and Cyn could barely process their shapes before a beam of brilliant light shot into the cockpit of his fighter. It exploded from the inside out, the light of the display was scattered by the ice as though they were a thousand perfect lenses.

Cyn's third death made him suspicious. A minefield lay in front of a supply cache, and he was commanded to start cleaning it up. But upon shooting the first mine, a missile shot out of it and quickly reduced Cyn to stardust before he could get a shot on it. It was strange—a mine shouldn't shoot a missile, and Guerrera must've known that it would've been the case, seeing how expertly he and the rest of the squadron completed the mission. He felt misled, and it did nothing to soothe Cyn's growing frustration.

Cyn still wasn't sure what caused his fourth death. The flightwing was maintaining formation near a resupply platform, there was a sudden crack, and then nothing. He slunk into his seat with a frustrated snort. Somehow, no one else in the wing had died, and it took nearly twenty minutes before he could rejoin the other five, all of whom made it out in once piece.

The fifth death though was simply inexcusable. Tired from hours in the cockpit and spiteful at his lukewarm performance, Cyn's maneuvers started to become increasingly aggressive and unpolished. He misjudged the distance of an asteroid he was flying over and clipped his wing, reminiscent of his first death. This time, however, his TIE went careening towards the flightwing, and within two-thirds of a second had smashed into Duraq's craft. The monitor went dark, and the hatch of his simulation pod swung open. Across the room, he could see the other units open in turn, and one more forcefully than the others. Duraq leapt from his simulator onto the ground, his face dangerous. "Shit's sake, Dialan, watch your damn surroundings!"

Cyn stood himself. Liquid anger pumped through his temples. "It's not like you did a good job getting out of the way."

The temperature of the room seemed to suddenly drop. A dark expression fell over Duraq's face, and Cyn realized that he had made a mistake. "Getting cocky on me, kid? Listen, I don't give a damn whether you live or die out there," Duraq said, pointing out towards a window, "But the moment you wind up becoming a liability to me, I swear I'll—"

A cheerful beep sound from across the room. Duraq was cut off as his wrists suddenly slammed together, their plasteel shackles colliding with an audible clash. It took a moment for Cyn to realize what had happened—the bonds that normally kept Duraq constrained had re-energized. Across the room, Guerrera pocketed a small remote as he climbed from his simulator. He retrieved a cigarra from his pouch. "That's enough, both of you. Take a smoke break. We'll reconvene in ten."

Duraq clicked his tongue, but sauntered off without further contest, his wrists still latched together by a magnetism strong enough to crush girders. Stone followed without a word. Cyn was about to do likewise until Guerrera spoke up. "Not you, Dialan."

Cyn took in a deep breath. He looked behind him: Kaarz gave him a clearly forced smile that she must've assumed was reassuring; Reneaux mouthed the word 'yikes'. Cyn turned and looked to Guerrera. The old veteran lit his cigarra and took in a deep, almost greedy drag. He exhaled, shooting a plume of smoke through the simulation deck. Then, he looked at Cyn, his cobalt blue eyes cutting through the haze. "What happened?"

"I let him pick a fight, but I take responsibility. I was frustrated. I died. More than once," Cyn said, doing his best to maintain his gaze.

"You did. That was the plan," said Guerrera, reaching into a satchel. "Catch."

The commander tossed an object to Cyn. His reflexes kicked in just in time to catch it. He looked at the object in his hands: a protein-water. "You're dehydrated," Guerrera said, once more bringing the cigarra up to his lips. "Drink up."

Cyn broke the drink's seal. The water was gritty and bitter, but he found himself thirsty enough that it didn't matter. He took in a great gulp with a breath as Guerrera took another hit from his cigarra. "Now focus. Why were you shot down?"

A moment passed. Answer too fast, and he'd make a fool of himself. Answer too slow, and Guerrera would see him as incompetent. He'd have to go with his gut. "… The simulations were made to be different and… Irregular. Not like the ones I had while training."

Guerrera stared at him, processing the answer with a neutral expression. Then, something resembling a smile. It in no way complemented his hard-etched features. "Good answer. I wrote all those scenarios myself. I hope you can see why they're needed."

"You don't trust the training we get at the academy," Cyn said, tossing the quickly-emptied bottle of water into a nearby rubbish bin.

"If I trusted it, I'd be dead," said Guerrera, "The academies are full of worthless has-beens, who haven't seen combat in decades, and teach centuries-old tactics for conventional wars that simply don't happen anymore. Most young pilots out of them are programmed like droids, and are about as useful. We're correcting their mistake now, while we still can."

He tossed the cigarra to the floor and ground it with his heel. "The rest of the flightwing'll head to the docking bay for maintenance duty. You'll run through the scenarios again with simulated wingmates. You'll keep at it until you clear all five. Understood?"

It was not an easy request. It had to be done. Cyn gave a salute. "Sir!"

"Get to it, then," Guerrera said, walking towards the hallway where the rest of Beta Squadron waited for him. Before he got to the door however, he stopped and reflected for a moment. "And Dialan," he said, stopping before the exit.

Cyn was halfway back towards the simulation pod as he looked back. Guerrera's pressure was undiminished even with his back him him. "I meant what I said yesterday in the flight lounge. Follow my orders. Fly well. And you might just survive this."

With that, the door slid open, and Guerrera vanished behind it. Silence reigned in the simulation chamber. Cyn was alone, and allowed himself the luxury of a sigh, but could scarcely allow himself anything more before climbing into the pod. He recognized how poorly he had flown. He had to improve, and quickly. Perhaps he might survive his career, but he had the distinct feeling that he would not survive the next simulation.

Hour passed. Cyn wasn't sure what time it was. Simulations might not be real combat, but the helmet he wore was pressurized to the same low-oxygen levels that he'd need to expect in flight, the pod shook and rolled in combat, and even the simulated deaths were a mind-stunning blend of bright light and deafening roars. He felt more exhausted than when he had working manual labor in his youthful summers past. He felt more exhausted than he had ever been during basic training.

That, and there was still maintenance duties to see to.

Step by step, he forced his weary body and wearier mind down a hallway heading towards the docking bay. Windows to his right displayed a thousand stars, those pinpricks of worlds flying past him at the speed of light as the Erinyes sailed deeper and deeper into the litmus between known space and the Unknown Regions. He stopped and looked out as those endless worlds filled with countless people shot past him. He was on the wrong end of the galaxy to see Jerijador, and even if he had, who could tell any of those limitless world apart from each other? A weak mind and an impossibly large galaxy can make one feel very, very small indeed.

Then, a loud, braying laugh that Cyn was far, far too tired to handle.

"Hey, Dialan!" cried Reneaux from behind him, "Hey!"

With an effort akin to pushing a great stone, Cyn turned and looked back. Reneaux was smiling and giving him a great wave of his hand. Talinn stood at his side, looking at Cyn with her large, curious eyes. Reneaux walked towards him jauntily. "You look like hell, Dialan!"

Cyn twisted his mouth into a smile. "How kind of you to notice."

He immediately regretted the comment, as it merely earned another great bark of a laugh. "No problem! But look the bright side. Seems like you graduated from the University of Guerrera!"

Talinn ever so slightly lifted her chin. "And on your first night at that."

Cyn leaned against the window. Just taking the weight off his feet was a blessing. "Guessing I'm not the first to go through this."

"Not at all," said Talinn.

"It's like Guerrera's way of hazing ensigns," said Reneaux with a firm, authoritative nod. "It took me more tries than I'm proud to admit to get through it."

Cyn didn't doubt it. Reneaux must've trained hard in the simulations: for all his bluster, he had flown circles around Cyn today. There was still so far to go to even be average. Cyn tried not to let the thought weigh him down any more than he already was. "What time is it?" he asked.

"It's just before 21:00," said Talinn.

"Then I need to get moving," said Cyn, pushing himself from the wall, "I've still got to wrap up my share of maintenance duty."

Reneaux broke into a broad grin, giving the distinct impression of someone very eager to break a surprise and very bad at concealing his excitement. "Guess again, Dialan."

Cyn gave him a curious look. With a snap of his fingers, Reneaux pointed his thumb towards himself. "We decided to handle your maintenance for you! It's already done."

Talinn smiled herself, but after a beat gave a small, glance in Reneaux's direction. "Technically, it was actually Stone's decision."

Reneaux's shoulders dropped half an inch. "Well… I mean, yeah. It was Stone's idea."

"And Stone did most of the work."

"Well," Reneaux said, "That's because he's just really fast at—hey, I helped, okay!"

Talinn gave a quickly contained giggle. "That's true. You did help."

Cyn blinked. He hadn't even considered the flightwing going out of their way for him as a possibility. "You guys… You didn't need to do that."

"Yes, we did," said Talinn, her expression sincere.

"You've got to look out for your fellow wingmen, y'know," said Reneaux, cracking his knuckles. "And you're one of us. It's tradition."

It was a simple and frankly cliché sentiment. And yet in this moment, weary and relieved, it somehow sounded profound. They served together, so they cared for each other. For the first time all day, Cyn smiled, the expression emerging swiftly and naturally. These two were his comrades. "Have you two eaten yet?" he said gesturing down the hall with a tilt of his head, "I just realized how hungry I am."

"Yeah, we have," said Reneaux as the three started off, "But we have that covered, too. I nicked a meal bar from a supply closet. Here. I hope you like the flavor. It's… uh… 'Calorie'."

Talinn gave him a humorless look. "'Calorie' isn't a flavor."

"It is too!" Reneaux snapped, "It sounds dumb, but look, it's written right here on the wrapper! Back me up, Dialan."

Cyn snorted, but planned on agreeing whether or not the flavor was, in fact, 'calorie.' After all, Reneaux had looked out for him tonight. It was only fair that that he return the favor