SUPERNOVA | ❝Don't think, just do.❞
When TOPGUN calls, the pilots flock, with no clue of the trials they are about to face. It brings old friends together, everyone from former TOPGUN classmates to childhood friends - they come and go into each...
┌───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────┐ TWO great balls of fire! └───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────┘
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IT was their father who first took Celeste and Quincy up in the air. Starting out as part of the search-and-rescue team for TOPGUN, Manny knew his way around the skies by helicopter better than most — but that didn't mean he was wary when introducing his children to flying. He took his kids down the much less military route, on a simple helicopter tour.
Celeste never forgot that feeling. The view from above, the world shrunken down so small it could fit into her tiny little palm. Everything felt so insignificant, including her. It was something beyond profound for a kid her age. She knows Quincy felt the same too. From then on, whether Manny and Wendy Sterling liked it or not, their kids would do anything to get inside a cockpit. Only there was one difference with the older twin, more silent and contemplative. As she'd stared down at the bite-sized world below, Celeste had asked herself one more thing:
What if I went further?
She imagined the whole world shrunken to that size. Feeling the gravity shed from her body like snake's skin, weightless in every sense of the world as she looked back at the blue planet left behind.
Celeste has chased that feeling ever since. And one too many times, she has been burned out by the disappointment.
Still, she can't resist the strange bubble of eagerness that rises inside when she and Quincy land back in San Diego. It's like coming home — and not just because her parents live her. So much of Celeste's life has been rooted in California, despite considering herself a born and bred Floridian. Sometimes she liked to compare the two coasts in terms of the heat. At home in the east, she found herself slightly stifled, wrapped up in humidity. But here, sunny San Diego represented the more positive beats in her life. For instance, when she made the decision to follow her brother into TOPGUN; all else had failed. But now here she was, being called back for a top secret mission.
"Home sweet home," Quincy sighs, the wheels of his suitcase clicking across the tiled airport floors.
The twins emerge into the arrivals, various families mixing together to greet one another. Celeste searches the crowd of faces, scanning them rapidly as if looking for an enemy in her airspace. But the minute she recognises her parents, she relaxes into a child-like grin. The Sterlings return this expression, calling their names and waving.
Quincy is the first to meander through the crowd into his mother's arms — Wendy holds him close, both of their voices high pitched and bubbly with excitement. He always was a momma's boy. Celeste, on the other hand, walks to her father. Manny is more like his daughter. Stoic and practical. So therefore their closeness is like each other's secret. Alright, they always seem to say, I'll do this just for you. Because you're special. Manny outstretches his arms, and his daughter walks freely into them.
