Hey guys! What's up!?

Just a warning for the next chapter and the rest of the story, I know I said I'm making this canon to the Star Wars movies and I am, but… There actually might be some changes, but not too much to make it look completely out of whack.

Other than that, lets get to it!


Chapter 12: First Flight


After we finished our meal, we went outside the base, to see snowspeeders gently dragging out our fighters from the cargo hold of the transport. They were freshly made from the factory, still in their white, naked form, just as green as we were, but that was about to change. As all the fighters were taken out, they were guided to the hanger, getting their own parking space as ground crew hooked up the fuel lines to the fighters.

We didn't waste our time as we got to giving our fighters their fresh coats of blue paint with the white, one advantage of being on an icy world with lots of snow means we have a lot of water laying around, we had to melt it of course in order to make the paint, but once we did, we had gallons and gallons of paint ready. Our fighters, of course, had the same pattern as Blu and Roberto's fighters, except for one detail. Since we had our own number in the squadron, we painted blue stripes on our wings to indicate who was who. For me, since I was Blue Five, I had to paint five blue stripes on each wing to mark my place in the squadron.

And what's more, we didn't have to wait long to jump in our fighters and get started, as soon as the fighters were fueled up and the paint dried, which also didn't take long since the cold helped the paint dry faster, we were ready. Commander Blu wanted to have us wait until tomorrow, to let us rest from our work, but we didn't want to wait as we were all standing outside our fighters, we wanted to have our real training started right now.

"Okay Blue Squadron, hop in your fighters and get ready for takeoff." Blu told us as we all replied, "Yes sir!" And climbed into our cockpits, our astromechs being placed in their slots in the fighters.

I powered up the engines as I then closed the cockpit, breathing nice and easy as this was the first time I powered up my fighter.

"Ready for our first flight Alex?" I asked my astromech, who replied with a few excited beeps. "Good to hear buddy, lets make a good impression."

And then Commander Blu's voice came over the comms.

"Alright Blue Squadron, as soon as we're out of the hanger, form up behind me and Captain Roberto in a triangle formation and we're going to head out into space." Blu ordered the Squadron.

Pulling the flying stick back gently, I lifted off from the ground and turned my fighter slightly to point to the open hanger, waiting for my time to head out and as it was, I flew froward slowly, joining the squadron gathering in a triangle formation, with some difficult since most of us were rookies. As soon as we were in the proper triangle formation, we flew froward, tilting our X-Wings in an angle and pointing towards the sky, climbing up and up, the blue sky turning into the black of space.

As we reached space, I realized I got there myself, piloting my own ship, there was a feeling I have never felt before, I can't explain it, but it was a good feeling. I was so lost in my own thoughts, looking around me and seeing the edge of Hoth, the black of space and the other Squadron members around me. I was so lost that at first I didn't hear Commander Blu's next set of orders until Alex was beeping at me.

"What…" I said, shaking my head as I heard Alex beeping at me, the astromech displaying hyperspace coordinates. "Oh… Sorry buddy, got lost in my thoughts." I told Alex as I put in the coordinates, watching the rest of the Squadron jump into hyperspace slightly ahead of me.

It was only a time of a few minutes, the squadron appearing in a completely empty part of space, I was guessing that Commander Blu wanted us to practice hyperspace jumps. As I appeared from hyperspace, I could see the rest of Squadron already present, as I appeared, Commander Blu's voice came again over the comms.

"All wings report in." Blu said.

"Blue Two standing by." I heard Captain Roberto's voice over the comms.

The squadron checking in one after the one and when it was my turn…

"Blue Five standing by." I spoke.

As the squadron finished up with that, Commander Blu's voice came again, this time it was a direct message to me.

"Blue Five, try not to show up late again." Blu advised me.

"Yes sir, sorry sir." I replied, apologizing.

"It's okay, you're still a rookie, you'll learn." Blu told me as I had to smile as Blu went over to the squadron's frequency on the comms again. "Blue Squadron, lock S-foils in attack position and then you can have fun practicing maneuvers with your wing partners, me and Captain Roberto are going to be staying back and watching you."

Wing partners? Well this was great, now I had to work with Tiago, my wingman, this was going to be fun…

"Ready to practice Blue Five?" Tiago's voice came over in a direct message to me, his voice full of excitement.

"Just don't do anything stupid or get in my way." I snapped back sharply as I tried to ignore Tiago and focus on my own flying.

I practiced everything I learned from Blu and Roberto's teachings, doing loops, twists, changing speed, banking or climbing, sharply turning right or left, even spinning. I must admit my maneuvers were a bit sluggish or poorly executed, but I was learning and I sought to do them better as I went through the maneuvers again and again, getting a little better each time.

At the same time, the more I practiced, getting better, the more I forgot that my wingman was right behind me, struggling to keep up with me as I didn't tell him what I was doing. It would be my first serious mistake as a pilot.

As I turned sharply to the right, Tiago was still flying straight, turning to the right too in response, only as I turned back around, Tiago was completely unprepared as I realized we were going to collide right into each other. Tiago's fighter was on its side to me, so that his left side laser cannons lined up with the top engines of my fighter. I quickly flew in a downwards direction while Tiago flew up, only we still collided a little as one of his laser cannons skidded the top right engine of my fighter. The collision wasn't enough to knock us out completely, but enough that we both spun out out a little and the engine Tiago hit started to spark. I looked over my shoulder to see the sparks from the damaged engine, my mind panicking a little, but I calmed down as I took control of the situation.

"Alex, see if you can fix the engine, I'll get us back under control." I asked Alex as the droid beeped back and got to work.

Taking the flight stick, I wrestled with it until it submitted to me and I was able to stop from spinning out and fly straight, at that point Alex beeped back that the engine was still in good condition. As I relaxed I resumed my practice, without Tiago as I let him fix his own problem.

A few hours later, Blu told us that he thought the squadron should call it a day and get back to base, by this time night was settling down over Hoth. As we arrived back at base and landed down, I knew the first thing I would do once I climbed down from the fighter. Looking from my cockpit, I could see that Tiago's fighter, which was next to mine, had a damaged laser cannon, the one that hit my fighter. Only I didn't care about that, I only cared about yelling at my wingman. I climbed down the ladder from the cockpit, walking up to Tiago, who was already out and looking at the damaged laser cannon when I came.

"What was that about!?" I yelled at Tiago. "You could have killed me!"

"Well you were flying straight into me, what was I supposed to do?" Tiago retorted.

"I don't know, maybe fly in the opposite direction from me!" I continued yelling. "I told you, don't get in my way or do anything stupid and you did!"

Tiago was about to yell something back, only he stopped as Commander Blu came, clearing his throat to indicate that he was next to us.

"Blue Five, Blue Six." Commander Blu addressed us.

We stopped our fighting as we faced Blu, standing at attention, only I spoke without waiting.

"Sir, I respectfully request a different wing partner, me and Tiago here just don't work well together." I asked as politely as I could through my anger.

"Your request is denied Blue Five." Blu sinking my hope I would get rid of Tiago. "The roster is already official, no changes are allowed. I noticed that you and Tiago need a lot of learning on teamwork, if you don't work and figure out solutions together, we'll both end up dead, let today be your first lesson to learning teamwork."

Blu let what he said sink in for a few moments before turning to Tiago.

"Tiago, I'll get the ground crew to take a look at your damaged laser cannon and in the meantime, you two are grounded for the time being." Blu sternly making his point to us.

"Yes sir." Both me and Tiago replied with our heads lowered.

As Blu left, I lifted up my head, took one last killing glance at Tiago and after making sure Alex was out of his socket of the fighter, walked back to my room, where I thought that joining the rebellion was not only a blessing, but a curse.


And that's it for now!

Oh and when I said grounded, I meant that Lisa and Tiago are stuck on the ground for the time being! They're not actually grounded like little kids! LOL!