Darker the Night (A Star Wars Rebels AU)

Chapter Five

Caleb's Delta-7 was the last in the air, owing to the fact that he wanted to see how the squadron did with takeoffs and landings. It was very basic stuff, and all of the cadets had been through some manner of flight training- that was a prerequisite requirement of admission to the Judicial Academy's Starfighter Corps program- but Caleb was a thorough teacher. In this case, he was more interested in seeing how well they did with procedure, rather than technique. Coruscant's airspace was teeming with speeders and starships around the clock, and there were certain rules for negotiating those, as well as for planetary orbit and beyond.

Not surprisingly, they all followed procedure to the letter and entered orbit without issue. Comm chatter was kept to a minimum, most likely because they knew he was listening. The row of Y-wings (and one Delta-7) were already in formation when he arrived.

"So far, so good," he said. "Let's just start with some evasive maneuvers and go from there."

He ran them through all the basic maneuvers, giving an occasional pointer here and there. It was a much slower pace than he was used to, and as a result, his attention was frequently split between the cadet he was evaluating and Hera Syndulla. Of course, she didn't actually require any of his attention. She ran through the maneuvers with the rest of her squadron, executing every task perfectly. He hadn't been able to get much of a read on her when they were on the ground, but now he could sense that she was happy. This was what she loved to do.

He smiled as he watched her execute a flawless canopy roll. She was exhilarating to watch. There was nothing jerky, no hesitation, and no sense that she was at any moment not in complete control of her ship. Caleb was considered a very good pilot by Jedi standards, but he knew that Hera Syndulla was better. He couldn't help but feel deeply impressed. The Jedi teachings sometimes mentioned individuals who were not Force-sensitive, but were still able to access the Force when it came to certain abilities. Hera Syndulla seemed to be one such individual.

"Very nice, Syndulla," he said. It seemed a paltry compliment to pay to someone so talented.

"Thanks." The loveliness of her voice was only slightly diminished by the comm.

As good as she was, there was really no way to know how she- or any of them- would hold up in actual combat. The Starfighter Corps was a peacekeeping outfit, not unlike the Jedi. But even peacekeepers needed to be prepared for anything. He had them work on some maneuvers together as a unit and then had them do steep ascents and dives. Again, Hera made it all look easy.

"I think that's it for today," he announced, after a couple of hours of solid work. "You all did extremely well. I think we'll work on dogfighting tomorrow."

"We, uh...haven't done much of that," Hera said. She sounded thrilled at the prospect.

"Your ships are all equipped with training simulators that'll allow you to target each other as if you were really in combat. I know it's not typical to do more than study combat specific to Starfighter Corps procedure during your first year, but I think you're all ready for a little fun," he told them.

Excited murmurs and laughter came through the comm.

Caleb smiled. "All right, let's land these birds so none of you are late for dinner."

Back on the ground, Caleb hopped out of the cockpit and sat down on the wing of his ship, looking across the hangar to where Hera was doing post-flight checks on her ship. He wanted to go over and talk to her again, but he held himself back. On the one hand, he was a Jedi, and his feelings about this woman were already muddled. It wasn't appropriate. On the other hand, he was Jedi- surely he was capable of handling confusing emotions by remembering all that he had been taught throughout his twenty-two standard years of life? Of course, he'd also been taught to avoid situations that were potentially problematic, and talking to Hera Syndulla was the opposite of avoiding a potentially problematic situation.