Tale 2: Same here
Seven years before the Battle of Corpagia
5:37 P.M. Faith Cruiser
The planet Caresica never looked more beautiful to Kevin Silliger's eyes. It was the perfect mix of colors: rich, lime-green forests on every continent, gleaming-diamond oceans all over, the poles were a flawless angel-white. Even the black and red volcanic region seemed to fit in perfectly with rest of the planet. The star's beamed their light proudly all around it, encasing the gem of nature in its undying sphere.
But he didn't have time to admire it's full beauty. He only glanced at it for a few mesmerizing moments, then had to turn away, though it was hard. Sighing raspily, he trudged back across the large hangar bay deck, eyes heavy. He picked his footfalls carefully, making sure to dodge all the sharp shards of deck metal that were sticking out of the deformed floor. He didn't forget to step over the nitro-fuel puddle that had spilled from a supply crate, and almost forgot to watch out for the construction droid crossing his path just ahead of the puddle, but managed to stop before getting run over by it.
Tired and weak, Kevin slowly approached Chief Deck Officer Darlow Nihil, who was barking orders at his maintenance crew, droid and being alike, as they hastily repaired two Y-Wings and an X-Wing at one time. "Delivered them sir," Kevin reported as Nihil continued to shout orders. "You want me to do anything else?"
Nihil didn't answer him at first, but instead hammered a nail into the side of a crate, sealing a leak that it had. "Not at the moment, but maybe–Avis watch that current! All right, good job! Maybe later though Lieutenant, so stick around," he finished to Kevin.
Inside, Kevin groaned. He was exhausted. Outside, he instead grinned politely at Nihil. "Yes, sir."
The Shistivan Deck Officer barked another order and walked off towards one of the Y-Wings.
Kevin watched him go for a moment of two, then turned in the opposite direction, spotting his twin brother helping a few tech crew members repair a damaged hardware tug. He was on the top of the flipped contraption, using what looked like a plasma welder to lock down a broken section of the hull. Kevin walked to the side of the tug, where he could only see his brother's thick boot hanging over the edge. The plasma welder burned loudly into the tug. "Hey Evan?!"
The welder continued to burn loudly.
"Evan?!"
It still didn't stop burning.
"EVAN?!"
The welding noise finally stopped, and the boot disappeared onto the top where his brother was and for a moment he thought Evan was done and about to go farther across the hull. But then, his brother's head appeared, welding mask pushed over his scalp. "What? I need to get this done."
"Okay, I just wanna ask a question. You need me to do anything?"
Evan's eyes went towards the back of his head, thinking. He shook his head. "Naw, nothin' I can think of!" he shouted down above all the noise. "Ask Neelix!"
"Okay! Hey, if he doesn't have anything for me to do than I'm goin' to the Lounge to get a drink! You want anything if I go?!"
"Naw, man. Thanks though." His grinned his appreciation then went back to work.
Kevin walked over to where Neelix, the Assistant Deck Officer. When he didn't have anything for Kevin to do, it made the pilot's tongue yearn even more for his favorite drink, a Ballurin Starburst, a tiny bit of water mixed in with tons of Ballurin liquor, the strongest liquor in the galaxy, illegal in some parts of it.
So Kevin walked towards a corridor, now a little more awake in his excitement and relief, and walked out of the active bay. He discovered that his ears were ringing lightly from all the noise, and he still hadn't washed the black from his hands. But he didn't care. His tongue was his only concern.
In no time at all, he was at the bar, giving his order to the bartender, Garkuk Bos'leth. A minute later, he was as refreshed as he had been that morning, plus a whole lot more. Thanking Bos'leth, Kevin made his way out to the last table in front of the giant observation window and sat down, hoping to drink in peace since his ears were still ringing. Plus, it also gave him another opportunity to admire Caresica's beauty once again, this time in silence, instead of the clatter of the hangar bay. He took another graceful sip as he stared out at the planet, and imagined taking a bath in the planet's gleaming oceans, how even more refreshing that would probably be.
Kevin has always enjoyed the wide variety of beauty and sights that the Lounge window had provided in the two years since he had joined the Alliance. From it he had seen countless different worlds and billions of stars. The lighting in this particular part of the Lounge made the experience tantalizing. He took another sip, now starting to relax, from both the view and the drink.
And then it slowly came to an end. First, he felt the Faith maneuver its large bow, feeling his stomach sinking down along with it. It then limped its battered, damaged hulk into the cage-like structure of a Garut-class Repair Outpost. Kevin's view of Caresica was interrupted by the appearance of the long, magnetic docking arms of the Outpost.
Sighing in frustration, Kevin finished off his drink slowly, enjoying every last bit of the liquor as he could, then calmly got up. Placing the empty tumbler onto the bar for Bos'leth to take care of, Kevin walked back out of the Lounge, not satisfied at all by his break. The view and the drink had been good, but Kevin had always liked enjoying things at length. He didn't like short instances of relaxation; felt that those moments did nothing to satisfy anybody.
Walking into the turbolift, he suddenly felt his jumpsuit pocket vibrate against his skin, and he realized as he grimaced at the shock of it that he had forgotten to turn his comlink back to "buzz" mode. He removed it quickly from his inside pocket. "Flight Cadet Silliger." Kevin prayed that it wasn't Nihil asking him to do something else.
"Hey Kevin, it's Bryan; I need a favor from you, buddy; umm, Vanessa's been invited to the planet by Admiral Kulav'e'k for a debriefing and she need escorts. You interested at all?"
No, he wanted to answer as the turbolift doors shut. I want to go back to my room and sleep, he thought as he felt his eyes get a little more heavier. But he knew that wouldn't last long before Nihil had some work for him to do. So I'd better take what I can get. "Sure, sir. Who else goin'?"
"Your bother. Managed to con him into this..."
Allowing himself to laugh ever so slightly, Kevin quickly snapped off "Tertiary launch bay" to the computer. The turbolift started moving back up the shaft. He then had a thought. "Do you think Vanessa'll let us have some down time maybe, or could you talk her into letting us have some down time after we're done escorting her? I would really like a break man. I mean, I'm tired, I'm sweating, I'm sure I stink–"
"I'm sure you can Kevin. It's only her debriefing after all. You think you wanna go?"
"Hell yeah, sir!" Kevin exclaimed with excitement. "I'd be glad to; just let me run back to my room first, aight?" He paused to stop the turbolift and send it to deck five, the level his room was on.
Bryan hesitated before answering. "All right, man. Just hurry up. Rawling out."
Kevin set his comlink back to "buzz" mode and returned it to its place in his pocket.
--
Evan Silliger was more than happy right now to get into the cockpit of an A-Wing, small though it was. He still wished he could've had time to freshen up before escorting Captain Hiller to Caresica. Wash his hands, take a shower, get a drink to sooth his dry mouth, do something about his ringing though he didn't know how; that would have been great.
Nevertheless, duty called; even when Evan didn't want it too. So he tried his best to imagine being completely clean and having a Ballurin Starburst washing the desert off his tongue as he strapped on his flight helmet. He set the computer to start running through the final pre-flight checklist, but he scanned the readings every now and then to make sure that nothing had been seriously damaged, because in a ship like an Alliance A-Wing, so much as a simple scratch could cause serious damage to the ship's primary systems. Which is why Evan couldn't figure out how A-Wing pilots seemed to have the highest percentage of survival.
This particular one, and the one sitting to the left of it, hadn't been damaged at all in the skirmish the Faith had just come back from. The paint had been chipped off in some areas of the light hull, but other than that the thing was spotless.
Running one small, final diagnostic on the A-Wing's primary systems, Evan's eyes scanned the area for any sign of Hiller and/or his brother, then only for his brother when he saw that there were no Lambda-class shuttles in the bay to take Hiller to the surface. They were probably in either the secondary or primary launch bay.
Evan finally saw his brother as he made his way up the small boarding ladder and into the other A-Wing's cockpit. They locked eyes for a moment and grinned in acknowledgment and greeting. Evan noticed that Kevin looked very clean, at least compared to himself, who still yearned for a shower. "Look at you, you slacker!" Evan yelled over to him. "Get to get all fresh and shit while we laborers work hard! What kinda bitch are you?"
Kevin shook his head and began running his own pre-flight checks. "Man–"
"And now you show up here all late lookin' nice and clean...such a slacker...and let me guess, you got a Starburst too didn't you?"
Kevin laughed delightfully.
"Look at you, man!" Evan laughed heartily. "Laughin' like its funny and all good...!"
"Shut up!" Kevin answered, still grinning. "You just salty that's all–that I got to relax and you didn't!"
"Hell yeah I'm salty, bitch! I wanted a drink, I wanted a–!"
"Naw you didn't, I asked you remember?! I said 'you want me to get you a drink?', and you said 'no,' remember?!"
"Yeah well I didn't know we'd need to do this!" Evan countered. "If I had know, then I woulda wanted one–!"
"–Boys!" shouted a high-pitched male voice. It came from Bryan, who Evan noticed was still helping the mechanics fix his X-Wing off to the side of the bay. "Keep it down would you?!" he said, staring at them with piercing green eyes that even the safety goggles he had on couldn't soften. "Use the com!" he finished, going back to his work.
"Sorry, sir!" Kevin said, snapping on his helmet. Now talking in a way in which they didn't have to shout, Kevin calmly muttered, "Salty, salty, salty," through the comlink.
"Fucker. Shut the fuck up," Evan responded.
Kevin started to respond when Evan's com buzzed on another channel. He flipped over to that channel and, as Kevin's voice ceased altogether, said "Ferry One." Haha, Evan thought to himself, also thinking of his brother. I'm the leader again.
"This is shuttle Berretia, Ferry One. We've been cleared to depart. Rendevous at coordinates 533 Mark 2. Berretia out."
Evan switched back to the other channel, his brother still talking to him on it.
"–ter, funnier–"
"The Berretia's launching," Evan interrupted. "Let's go." He nodded down and gave one thumb-up at the deck crew hovering all around his fighter, who began to run around and disconnect all the fuel lines and power cables, and also remove the boarding ladder from the side of the craft. They soon were done and cleared the area.
Evan closed the canopy to the cockpit and pushed the engine's power to its minimal output, and then simultaneously brought the repulsorlift jets online. His A-Wing gently floated up into the air, back-washing the deck with a rush of fumes.
"Wait man, I'm not ready yet," Kevin spoke. He closed his canopy and signaled to the crew, same one as Evan's, and they once again began to do their jobs.
"Well that's what happens when you waste time, man."
"Shut up!"
"Hey, I'm just sayin'....
"Just shut up aight?"
Evan didn't anything more. Better to safe than sorry.
In no time at all, Kevin's A-Wing was off the ground and into the air. The area in front of the two A-Wings was cleared soon after. Evan set his engine power to operational and pushed the throttle forward. The bay was behind him an instant later, and the gentle hum of the engines was wonderful to concentrate on instead of the ringing in his ears. His brother's ship beside him, Evan calmly changed course towards where the Berretia was–having launched from the primary bay–and rendezvoused with it.