drabblewriter

After days of time spent in simulators, Wyl finally sits in the cockpit A-wing he's been assigned, ready to take her up for the first time. Metal and transparisteel surfaces gleam dully around him – the ship isn't new by any means, but not much of the Rebellion's equipment is.

It's just so strange. Though he'd flown well after his initial training, he'd felt oddly detached from the simulations. He'd known he wasn't really flying. Yet even now, sitting in the fighter in the capital ship's landing bay awaiting clearance to take off, it still feels wrong.

The ship is dead. The engines make it vibrate just slightly, but the shiny surfaces and the flickering lights don't breathe like he's used to. He can't feel powerful muscles moving beneath him or hear long wings capturing the breeze or feel the wind whipping through his hair as the ground flashes by below. Even more than he'd known he would, he misses the sur-avkas he grew up riding back above the cliffs of Polyneus – Home. He misses Home.

The comm crackles. “Riot Three, you ready to go?” That's Sonogari, his first friend here and his unofficial flight instructor.

Wyl lets his thoughts of the past go on a breath and responds, “Ready, Seven.”

“Follow my lead. We'll see what you can really do in that thing.”

“Copy that.”

Wyl watches through the transparisteel canopy of the A-wing as Sonogari lifts off and sails through the hangar's magcon shield. When he's gone, Wyl activates his own repulsorlifts, and his ship lifts off the ground.

That's disconcerting too. He can see the landing deck falling away, but the inertial compensators keep him from actually feeling any of it. He's been told not to touch any dials he's not thoroughly familiar with until he has more hands-on experience, but as he exits the hangar, Wyl reaches out and turns down the compensators just enough that he feels himself being pressed back into the seat slightly.

He smiles. That's more like it.

“Nice of you to join me,” Sonogari quips over the comm. “Catch me if you can.”

Wyl just catches the flare of his engines as his squadmate takes off for a nearby asteroid field. He smile stretched to a full-on grin as he follows, acceleration making his blood rush as he lays a hand on the fighter's panel like he would have a sur-avka's neck.

“Let's do this, girl,” he murmurs, and that too feels right.

He can get used to this, he thinks. He'll fly an A-wing, he'll do just as well as he ever did on a sur-avka, and when this was is over, he'll go home to stay.