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| Finding a Path - Han (cont 2) | ||||||||||||
| Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the movie "Star Wars." | ||||||||||||
| I stood stiffly before the Academy's board of directors. Dayvon had instructed me on procedures and had helped me fill out the various forms that one needed to fill out before being accepted as a member of Starfleet. "The next applicant is Han Solo," The man who had collected our forms announced, "his sponsor is Commander Anakin Skywalker." That caused a slight stir. "Please enter the battle simulator," one member of the board requested. On the outside the simulator looked like a rather large box, but the inside was the cockpit of an X-wing. "Ready?" a voice asked. "Whenever you are." Video games were not a problem. Instantly the equipment came to life and the canopy showed a landing field. As I lifted off I discovered just how detailed this video game was. Gravity generators had been installed to simulate the feeling of a real flight. This little test was the easiest I'd have Dayvon had warned me. The other were written tests. (Dayvon had been surprised to learn I could read, write, and do arithmetic at an average level for my age group. Even the Colonists had acknowledged that every one needed some basic skills to be of the any use in a highly advanced society.) But I realized that my scores in areas such as history wouldn't be worth mentioning. Two weeks later I was accepted. I was delighted till I saw my schedule. It turned out that my first year at the Academy was to be devoted to catching me up in the subjects which I had done poorly in. In other words History, Standard, Republic government, and Starfleet's moral policies were to take up most of my time. While Starfleet let the other cadets catch up to me in the areas of tactics, actually flying, and hand weapons. In some classes I was so far behind that I had to be taught individually, but it wasn't my fault! Why in the galaxy would someone from outside the Republic have studied subjects like Republic history, (if anyone had bothered to test me they would have found that I was only a little better at Corellian History,) or Republic government. But I did manage to survive the year. The second year was much more interesting, in all my classes, except History with its thousands of dates, I was able to join my classmates. And I was able to skip directly to advanced tactics. I was shocked to learn that of the twenty cadets in my class on flying fighter ships, I was the only one who had flown in anything more dangerous than a simulator. Later, when we started having simulator battles against one another I was finally convinced that they were telling the truth about their flight experience. Shortly after that I started trying to trick them into tearing their own ships apart rather than trying to shoot them. The ease I had in winning my game was one of the reasons we weren't allowed near a real ship. My game had another effect. It made me very unpopular with my classmates. I had explained that it was much more entertaining to do it my way than to simply shoot their ships down, but they insisted I was just showing off. In the end the instructor, Lt. Commander Mordash, decided that in the interest of reducing the level of hostility in the class, she would be my partner. I beat her seven times out of ten, but I never even tried my game on her. The first time Lt. Mordash paired up against me most of the class took some time off to watch us. I'm almost certain they were looking forward to seeing me lose, and hopefully lose badly. If so they were disappointed. While Mordash was still going easy on me, because I was a cadet, I blew her ship up. She must have written that first loss up as beginners luck, because on the second game I beat her in the same way. After that the Lieutenant began trying in earnest. She won the third game. At the quarter I was moved into a more advanced class, one that was using real ships. In this class I didn't dare try to make the other cadets tear their ship apart, not because they were especially good, but because they might get killed when I succeeded. That was another class in which I didn't make many friends. But to my surprise I did make one friend, Cadet Allen Dare. Allen wasn't any better than the rest of the class, but he was a lot more easy going. Allen said, and believed that there wasn't any reason I shouldn't try my hardest, and that it wasn't my fault I was a natural at flying. He, like all the other cadets, had no idea I'd had prior experience in this field. When Allen learned of my trouble in History he offered to help, and I accepted. In that subject I needed all the help I could get. ============================================================== I knocked lightly on Allen's door. Now that our first lesson had come I was more nervous than when Allen suggested helping me with history. A second later Allen opened the door, light from his desk lamp gleamed off his white hair. Allen's eyes made his hair even more unusual, for they were a dark brown. "Come in, Han," he remarked. "Tonight I thought it would be a good idea for me to find out how much of the Republic's history you already know. "You're the teacher," I replied with a tense smile. We spent the night playing a questions and answers game that made me feel very stupid. We started with, "when did something happened," but by the end of the lesson he was asking questions like: "What are the Jedi Knights' goals?" And I was answering with remarks like: "What's a Jedi Knight?" "It is really strange that you don't know about the Jedies. I thought everyone knew that even before they entered school. Stories about them are very popular," Allen commented. "Well I don't," I growled. "Why don't you have any of the background a five year old normally has?" Allen asked. "Because I didn't grow up in your stupid Republic! Who care about Republic history except the Republic, and I've only been a citizen of the Republic for a year and a half! That's why!" I snapped. "I didn't know that," Allen commented. His quiet reply dissolved my anger, "Well, I didn't really tell anyone," I mumbled. "That's why you have so much trouble in history. The teachers probably teach it to you like they would to anyone else, but you need someone to tell you the stories and the legends that everyone else knew to begin with," Allen stated. ============================================================== So our lessons turned into storytelling sessions and trips to the local library. I was surprised by how much easier it was to remember the dates of things had that happened when I knew what had happened. After a few lessons I felt like I owed Allen something. Finally I asked him if he would like me to help him with his flying. Allen would never be an exceptional pilot but he did improve. My History scores raised but never beyond just passing, so I figured we were even. ============================================================== "Do you ever get homesick?" Allen asked one day. The question was so out of the blue I wasn't sure how to answer it. I thought about Corellus for a while before answering, "Not really, I mean I sort of miss what my home planet should have been like, but the way it is... Well it has no use for me nor I for it." "I'm from Tellsare," Allen continued almost like he hadn't heard me. "It's the most beautiful planet in the galaxy. On my part of the planet there are huge deciduous forests. We build our cities around them. It's not at all odd to see a building with a tree growing up through the roof. My house used a tree for one corner post, my room was on that corner, I used the tree as my private exit." He smiled sadly, "I miss it a lot. How can you not miss being in familiar surroundings?" "I've always lived on an air base," I replied. "This one's a little more modern but it has the same feel. I also took some of the stuff from my old room with me, so I guess I just brought my familiar surroundings with me. "Here I've got a chance to get into space as well. On my home planet I didn't have that." "Is outer space so important?" Allen asked. I looked over at him, confused, "of course it is, outer space is the biggest thing in existence." "And that makes it more important than a single planet? It's so empty and unfriendly." "It's not unfriendly, it just exists." "It's cold, silent, and dead," Allen insisted. "It never feels that way to me," I argued. "It feels peaceful... Like its sleeping, like it knows we will never be able to hurt it in the slightest. Planets aren't safe, or stable. They're always changing, growing, and dying. But space is always the same." "That's because planets are alive, space is dead." I shrugged, it was obvious this wasn't going anywhere, "Come on," I said. "We're going to be late for the Survival Class." Survival was anything but a regular class. You never knew who was going to be in it with you, and you were required to participate in it about once a month. Each session could last anywhere from a few hours to a week. We might be given all the supplies we needed, or we might have to find them. The main obstacle might be your environment or it might be your classmates. You were carefully monitored at all times, but no one would interfere unless you requested it, or were unconscious. If you did ask to be picked up early you needed a good reason. Without one you couldn't pass survival, and you didn't graduate till you passed this class. When we were playing games in which you tried to `kill' your classmates, the rule was that once you were `dead' you couldn't move or speak. Being `dead' was incredibly boring, sometimes the monitoring ship wouldn't pick you up for hours. Allen and I ran into the classroom just as the bell rang. This time our instructor was a youngish captain. "The scenario for this session is that the crews of two enemy ships are stranded on a damaged space station. The objective of this scenario is to capture, not kill, the other crew. The station is running on emergency power only, there are sections without oxygen, gravity, or both. You have a week to accomplish your goal. The teams will be picked randomly," The captain informed us. "Alright," I whispered, "This I can enjoy, much better than desert survival." "I can't see why you enjoy blasting people so much," Allen replied, also in a whisper. "I hope we end up on the same team." "You know, I might not do as well at capture as I do at kill," I remarked. "You'll be good at it, and you know it." ============================================================== The space station was two days from Courscant. On the way there, I organized my team. "We'll need to secure one room for a jail and keep its location secret. We can do that by having sentries set in a perimeter around the jail. Then who ever's left will be paired up in squads to search for the other team. Any questions." "Yeah," a boy with dark golden hair stood up to face me, "Who put you in charge?" "I did," I replied coolly, "Any arguments?" The boy took in my confident relaxed stance, "Yes." Oh well, some people never know what's best for them. One step forward took me close enough to the boy for what I planned. An open-handed blow to his chin sent him staggering backwards, and a conveniently placed foot returned him to his seat. "If you've got a better plan, or noticed a problem with mine I'd be happy to listen," I informed them. "But if all you can do is argue over leadership then I'd thank you to keep quiet." No one had anything to say. We used an empty storage room for our jail. I spent the first day organizing the jail's security. Then I joined the patrols, taking Allen with me. We skirted around an airless area. Then we heard voices coming toward us. The area didn't have gravity in some spots so I grabbed Allen and ran toward a spot we had just passed through. Once there we pushed off the floor. We were drifting peacefully near the ceiling when the other party entered. It consisted of the golden haired trouble maker and a girl with pale cornsilk hair. They were tied up and escorted by Cadet Malee whom I knew from another class, and a bulky humanoid. As I'd expected not one member of the little group looked up. A quick shot from my phaser knocked Malee out of the fight, but the humanoid appeared immune to phasers. Now that he knew where we were Allen and I were in trouble. But the humanoid make a mistake in assuming his captives were helpless. The girl took several running steps and kicked the phaser out of his hand, without her hands to balance her the girl fell heavily. Allen quickly kicked off the ceiling then when he was low enough, he dove from the Zero-G nodule. Allen reached the phaser long before the humanoid and raced to a covered area. The boy, after retrieving his, the girl's and Malee's phasers also headed for cover. That left me floating about a foot off the floor in plain sight. Many people tend to ignore the fact that bulk and brute strength make little difference in Zero-G combat. The humanoid was used to routing all opposition with these two virtues. This time they made no difference at all, while knowing your battlefield made quite a bit of difference. I won by tricking my opponent in to leaving the Zero-G nodule, the fall was enough to knock him out. When he and Malee awoke they were both securely tied up. The girl, Tara, had sprained her ankle, so I became a temporary crutch for her while we escorted Malee and the humanoid, to our jail. Even on the two hour trip across the station Ander, the golden haired Cadet, made it obvious to everyone that he resented my taking charge. Eventually we would have to work this out, but not while we had prisoners. ============================================================== Luckily Ander and I didn't meet again till the last day of the week. I had told our whole team at the beginning of this game that we were spending the last day in a close watch on our jail. When we had all collected I was disappointed to see just how few of us there were left. But there was one way to change that. "I'm going to get captured," I calmly informed my team. "What!?" I wasn't sure if the whole group said it simultaneously, but it was close. "Get the arm-brace out of the first-aid kit," I instructed, removing my knife from its sheath. "I'm going to rescue the rest of our team." "What's the arm-brace for?" Tara asked as she handed it to me. "Watch and you shall see," I answered. I turned the brace over and slit the leather covering the metal brace. The I slid my knife into it's new sheath. The blade fit nicely, but the hilt would have to go. I set the knife on the floor, then stepped on it. The break was a little more ragged than I would gave liked, but it would do. I slid the knife blade into its hidden sheath and strapped the brace on my left arm. "Everyone stay put, this won't take long." I admonished. ============================================================== It didn't take long to get captured, and my `broken arm' made the ease with which I was captured more believable. They quickly took my phaser and the knife I had borrowed from Allen. But when they started poking around the arm-brace I screamed, "Leave it alone, won't you. My arm's already broken." "Sorry," one of my captors remarked. They didn't even tie me up for fear of hurting my arm. As soon as they shut the door on their jail, I removed the arm-brace and dug out my knife. Then I ripped off the leather covering on the brace and wrapped it around the knife to create a make-shift hilt. "Alright people, we're breaking out of here," I said as I cut my teammates' bonds. "We'll need a phaser," one cadet remarked. "And I know just how to get one," I replied. "Let's get all this rope out of sight." "Okay now everyone stand facing the door, hands behind your back. Jeff, Narzis pretend to get in a fight." I moved to stand to the left of the door. Then I yelled, "Hey! There's a fight in here. We can't break it up because they're the only ones that got loose." A few seconds later one of our guards poked his head in. "Cut it out you two!" He yelled, raising his phaser. I stepped behind him and put my knife against his throat. The guard fainted. I stunned the rest of our guards before they were entirely sure of what was going on. Members of my team scooped up the guards' phasers on the way out. Several members of my party were for holing up somewhere near here, but I wanted to get back to the rest of my team before Ander talked them into doing something stupid. I trusted Allen to take care of things for awhile, but he wouldn't be able to control things indefinitely. When we did get back it turned out that Ander had taken five people with him and went out to capture more prisoners. "What should we do about them?" Allen asked. "Nothing," I answered, smiling nastily. "They'll get caught, but we have more than five prisoners, a lot more. And next time Ander won't argue about me taking charge." "That's what it all comes down to, isn't it Han," Tara stated, glaring at me, "Ander wouldn't accept you as leader so you're going to let him look like an idiot in front of our instructors." "Look sweetheart, leaving our stronghold right now is a sure fire way to get caught. The other team doesn't have a single prisoner, unless they've already caught Ander and his bunch, so they've got to be desperate. They have about five hours left to get their prisoners back and get a good grade on this contest. I'll bet that every person available is looking for us. Right now we're in a deadlock, we can't take anymore prisoners and neither can they. But this team is ahead, we don't want to break the deadlock. So I'm not risking our position, and our grade, to protect the image of several fools!" I explained harshly. "Okay, you've got reasons to throw Ander to the wolves," Tara acknowledged. "But you're still enjoying it." ============================================================== I got a very high grade on the scenario, so did the rest of my team, except for Ander and his five friends, or should I say ex-friends. They scored lower than the other team. The other team actually did fairly well. They hadn't won but they had behaved in a very sensible way. No one had ever tried my trick before, so the Captain didn't take off many points for letting their prisoners escape. Instead my team recieved extra points for that little game. It had been a great week, but now I was back to all my regular subjects. In my math class I noticed several of my teammates from the space station. Experience had taught me to expect difficulties in this situation. While they needed me everything was great, but after the scenario was over, well everything was a lot less than great. "You're not such a hot shot in here are you?" Karrie Salus commented handing me back my paper after looking at the grade. I checked it myself, it wasn't that bad, only a B-, I'd done worse. But I could see Cadet Salus' point. It didn't look very good compared to the high A in Survival. I hoped there wouldn't be any members of my team in Republic Government or Standard. In those classes my grades were really awful. That was sort of how the year went. I was the best in my more practical classes, and I made sure everyone knew it. In the rest of my classes I kept to myself and did the best I could. I hadn't forgotten what Anakin and Dayvon had said about the Academy's attitude toward outsiders, and I wanted my teachers only to remember me in the classes where I was the best. ============================================================== "Good luck with next year," Allen commented on the last day of the school year. "You sound like we won't be seeing each other then," I commented in confusion. "We probably won't. Han, this is the year where they start separating people into two groups: X-wing pilots, who are the ones who have a real future in Starfleet, and the rest of us. The second group gets training as either ground crews or as the crews of the battleships. To get in the first category you usually have to be a member of a Starfleet family or you have to be an exceptional pilot, like you. The rest of us just stay in starfleet long enough to pay the Academy back for training us, then we get jobs on commercial ships. "The X-wing pilots eventually end up in command of a squadron of X-wings or as the captain of one of the bigger ships. Then they get promoted to the administration of Starfleet," Allen explained. "You've dodged a lot of the garbage most outsiders in the Academy have to take. Sometimes I think you don't even realize how things work around here. You're protected from that because you're a great pilot, and by the way you keep your past hidden. Then to finish it off Commander Anakin Skywalker is sponsoring you, he's a member of a Fleet family, and he doesn't even need those connections, because he's such a hot pilot. "You're lucky, for someone who doesn't come from a fleet family. You won't even know what it's like for the rest of us until you try to get a favored posting." "A what?" I asked. "A favored posting, Han. One of the safe, highly prestigious, posts that the older fleet families try to save for their relatives," Allen explained. "When an outsider askes for one of those posts, instead of being content with border duty, they run into a solid brick wall. That's when the outsiders figure out it doesn't matter how good they are, because Starfleet wants good pilots on the borders and good friends every where else." "That's going to change," I replied. "Anakin said Senator Palpatine is setting up a new order where all that matters is skill." "Han, sometimes you are so uninformed about what's really going on that its frightening," Allen remarked. "Especially with your way of making things turn out the way you want them to. Don't let people use you to make things turn out for them. That's what happens in the Survival classes, you're the reason your team always wins, but after its over the other kids don't care about you. In fact they usually dislike you." Allen paused, trying to find a clearer way of saying what he was thinking. "Han... Make sure you don't help someone bring about changes that you can't live with." Another pause, "I think your friend Anakin may be in over his head with Palpatine... I've heard, well I guess everyone in Starfleet knows, there are rumors that Anakin Skywalker changed when he got involved with Palpatine, he became Palpatine's puppet. A lot of people who work for the Senator end up like that. "Stay away from Senator Palpatine and his new order, please." "Don't worry Allen, I'll look before I leap, I promise," I replied. "Now stop being so serious." "Remember that promise." "I'm going home for the summer," Allen told me. "What about you?" "I guess I'll stick around here, goof off a little. If I get bored I can always work on history." I remarked. "Han, don't you think you should go home once in awhile? You stay at school for every break. I can believe that your home world is far enough away to make it impossible to visit on a week long vacation, but this time you have over three months!" Allen objected. "All you know about my home world is that it's outside of the Republic, that alone should give you a few ideas about why I'm not going there." I smiled a little, "In case you need another hint, it isn't outside the Republic by choice." "It's your decision," Allen conceded. "But if you're not going to your home, why don't you come to mine." "You're sure your parents won't mind?" I asked. "Perfectly sure." | ||||||||||||
