Rebellion - Acting Flight Leader Neela Tashi
“Six, what’s your drama?” Tashi said with gruffness as she sat down next to her pilot.
Most of the rest of the ‘Stompin Wampas’ were partying with the other squads in the aft Mess Hall, that room being the only one large enough to harbor so many. ‘Mother Hen’ had charm, but she was still just a converted cargo hauler at the end of the day.
She had a hot cup of whatever passed as coffee on the ‘Hen’ and sat down with him. She had found him here, head down, alone in the “officer’s mess” just aft of the cockpit. It was little more than two chairs and a table nestled up with a bulkhead, but it was something she supposed.
“Six... Tye’ she used his real name, ‘Speak.”
He pulled his head up from his arms to face her. His eyes were red. In that instant she remembered how young he really was. Young in a way that didn’t have much to do with age.
“If you have to ask, then you’re as cold as they told me you were.”
This was about Four. Neela knew it was, she just wanted to get him talking.
“The answer you’re going to ask for is ‘yes’ by the way.” Neela answered.
“Are you really that much of a frigid bitch?”
“No. I mean, yea, I am. Straight sub zero. But no, that’s not the question.”
She waited.
Tye shook his head in disgust and then cradled his face in his hands. Neela drank her room-temperature caffeine. It wasn’t half bad actually. For a long while neither said anything.
“Is it always like this?” Tye asked. He turned away as he said it.
“I already told you that answer. It doesn’t get easier. But you grow a little more calloused I guess.”
“And what if I don’t want to be?”
Neela grimaced. This was getting into shades of grey. Neela did not like shades of grey.
“I’ve never known anyone who could stay that way. Not that could keep doing this anyway.”
While Neela was new to the Wampas, it was hard to miss the way Six, or Tye rather, had pined after Four. Neela could see the appeal, Four was a firebrand - fierce, raucous and beautiful.
But Neela had also gotten the vibe that Tye wasn’t the first pilot she had shared bunks with. And it seemed clear that Four didn’t feel the same way about it as Six did. It was cute, in a sad sort of way. At least it would have been if Neela believed in that sort of thing. Losing a friend and fellow pilot was a burden for the whole squad, but Tye thought he had lost more than he really had.
Tye’s voice brought her back to the moment, “If it’s like this then, maybe I shouldn’t be here. I’m not like you.”
Putting the personal insult aside, Neela remembered those same feelings from a version of herself ages and ages ago.
She answered back, “I get that,’ which was partially true, ‘but if we don’t do this, who else will?”
Before he said anything more, the dullish warning buzz of alarms went off. As the Hen came from civilian origin, her alarm systems weren’t quite as bone-jarring as normal Alliance facilities.
Pilots in various states of readiness dashed across the hallway from the small mess. Neela turned to down the last of her drink and slapped the cup down on the table.
“That’s enough touchy feely for today pilot. Time to work for your living.”
He nodded, “Yes, ma’am.”
Together they raced down the hall, joining a long chain of jogging pilots.
“Sitrep!” She barked.
Neela didn’t see any pilots from ‘Wampa’ Squad but assumed someone would be in the know.
“Imperial fighters headed this way. They must have homed in on the ‘Hen’ somehow.”
Someone ahead had called back. So the ‘Hen’ had been found out. If they couldn’t protect the Hen then all their efforts thus far would be for nought.
As she climbed into her cockpit, she gave a thought for Six and how ready he was to do this again. If he wasn’t, she hoped it wouldn’t get him killed. He might actually be a good pilot someday.