| abstract
| - At special invitation of a former member of the Rebel Alliance (now retired with honor and only one limb prosthetic), members of Ghost Squadron were deposited by the maglev at a station nearest a rather large park built into the sloping hill, crafted into an amphitheatre with only slight changes to the topography. Happy squealing can be heard from within the amphitheatre as well as adult voices, tolerant in tone, asking their children to settle down. The focal point of all the seats is taken up by a stage, and more than one very youthful face can be seen peeking through the old-school curtain at the audience, including one blond haired, blue eyed human boy who bears a passing resemblance to a certain Jedi Master. Their host, a human as well, stands up from his seat as soon as he spots the oncoming X-Wing jockeys and clears his throat, stepping forward to try and gain everyone's attention. "WELCOME!" he calls out loudly, allowing the children to find their seats with their parents, humans and aliens of every stripe. "Please welcome our honored guests from the New Republic's premiere X-Wing squadron." After a formal salute (he was, after all, once one of theirs), he leads the applause. And probably six children promptly bolt from their parents to go goggle at the X-Wing pilots with avid curiosity and rampant hero worship shining in their eyes like the Bright Jewel above. Immediately beaming with pride, Raxis returns the salute and then turns to the applauding crowd with a wide smile and return waving to the gathered crowd. Idly scanning the crowd for what could be the members of the YT-1300 freighter he'd assisted in saving from pirates, he can't help but feel that this is quite the long shot from being stuck working in the droid cleaning pits. Turning to smile at the gathered kids, he puts on a boyish smirk and gives them a playful salute, clearly intending on helping this be a happy occasion for the littles. Some might think that a hard-bitten veteran pilot, and a Corellian to boot, might be stand-offish and condescending towards younglings. However in the case of Kesander Beysarus, they'd be mistaken. In fact, the pilot of Ghost-7 seems to be delighted at the encounter with children. After returning the salute of the Host, the blond haired man drops into a half-crouch reaching out to shake hands with the boys in the group of six and nodding his greeting to the girls. "Great to see you all here today," remarks the Lieutenant with a smile and a cheerful, courteous voice. "Hope you'll enjoy the show." Rising to his full stature once more, the Ghost Squadron XO looks about to see where the rest of his comrades have got to. The CO of Ghost Squadron returns their host's salute gravely and without any hint of disrespect, and then she affords him one of her people's courteous bows, smiling tolerantly when she hears any kids squealing about her wings. She gets that a lot from mixed or human-only cultures. "Thank you for the invitation," she says to Marrell Thelin, their host. "Please do not delay the show on our behalf," she adds as they're led to their front-row seats, children in tow... and if Kesander's lucky, he might have a lap-child for the performance, the kid's mother smiling politely and blushing a bit at her son's antics. More children come over boldly to examine the pilots in very close proximity with the lack of full knowledge of the concept of 'personal space' that adults would have. Drake and Raxis both get their admirers, one going so far as to giggle with her best friend about how 'cute' the two boys are, and then they shamelessly start talking about which one each of them would get if they were like 10 years older. Girl-talk. Fear. Drake grins a little as he stands at attention, back straight and legs stiff, returning the salute. After dropping his arm, Drake tries to stay away from the children coming over to him and his fellow pilots, thinking in his mind that he hasn't done anything yet and doesn't feel as if he should be here. He grins slightly at everyone, nodding to those who look at him, but keeping silent as he follows the group to their front row seats. Finding a seat, Kesander lowers himself into in with the dignity befitting the occasion. Leaning towards his CO, the Corellian asks, "So what are we going to see again?" Sandman offers one of his mildly irreverent expressions and adds, "I hope it's at least got a chase scene in it." Waiting for their guests and most of the rest of the audience to settle in... as well as children can ever settle in when they're excited and probably had a touch too much sugar, Marrell Thelin beams with pride when the serving officers return his salute. He doesn't quite cry, but his eyes get a little teary for a few moments. Then, he nods to his wife, one of the sensor techs who had escaped Hoth on the first transport that was away, who gives a cue to the stage. Given this seems to be a children's production rather than anything slick and overly staged by professionals, the initial actor on stage seems to be a narrator, a young female Wroonian with blue skin and silver hair that's braided carefully down her back. "A long time ago," she begins, recounting briefly the fall of the Old Republic. Her speech is backdropped by other children in clever hand-made (by parents) costumes that symbolize starfighters and spaceships, and one child, looking rather gleeful, seems to be sporting a red glowstick of some kind, a brief tragic beginning that led to the rise of the Empire. The kids playing the Imperials don't seem to be too keen on that. Gasps from the audience ring out during the bit about the obliteration of Alderaan and the encroaching Death Star. Eventually, as the narrator manages to find her way to Yavin, the children behind her begin staging the original Death Star battle, with that blond-haired, blue-eyed boy running around the stage with his arms outstretched, a brown-haired boy pretending to be Wedge Antilles on his 'wing'. During the whole thing, parents and children can be heard softly, asking and answering questions to explain what they're seeing. It's hard to hear some of the questions over the X-Wing noises the 'pilots' are making. Getting a thoughtful look in his eye as he finds the whole display to be utterly adorable, Raxis smiles and remembers the stories he was told by Rebel supporters at the university prior to his own homeworld's fight for independence. Relaxing back into his chair next to his squad-mates and gathered children, he catches the eye of a young one and gives a 'thumbs-up' when the X-wing squadron of children on stage pose their attack against the dreadful Death Star. With a wink and a grin, he turns back to watching the show. "MRRREEEEEEEOWWWWWW!" goes the boy playing Luke Skywalker, making shooting noises at a girl who squeals, dressed up as a TIE fighter, the girl tripping and falling, but then all the TIE actors were doing that, so it's no accident. A scruffy-looking boy in Corellian dress... and a young Wookiee... come running on stage, the Wookiee howling with a tinny voice, to chase the Darth Vader actor off the stage before young-Han shouts, "You're clear, Luke!" Young-Luke makes a child's equivalent FOOOOOOOSH! noise to pretend to be proton torpedoes. The Death Star in the background, not played by any child, just a construction paper prop... gets punched out by the Rebel actors, leaving the frame behind, and all on the stage is quickly cleared off, children taking the place for the famous medal awarding ceremony, complete with a white-clad Princess Leia actress who looks hideously nervous. Kyrin leans over toward Kesander and says in a soft voice, "I believed a night of culture was in order." Upon her lap is a wee human babe, probably no more than two, quite entranced by the production. The Chyleni glances at Drake and Raxis to make sure they're paying attention... it wouldn't do for them to fall asleep before the kids, after all. Kesander nods to Kyrin, smiling at her answer. But this is clearly for some reason not all frivolity for the Corellian for some reason. His blue eyes turn the sort of ice color that appears when the pilot is furious or about to fly his ship into the awful furnace of combat. But Sandman's face otherwise bears no trace of anger. Truthfully, it is hard to say what emotions flow behind his visage. As the Lieutenant's eyes remain locked on the stage, a single tear wells in one of his eyes, and he raises a hand to wipe it away as unobtrusively as he might. "Lieutenant Beysarus, could my daughter sit with you?" Asks a woman with a hesitant polite smile on her face. "She's been asking over and over again...." Turning his gaze towards the querant, the man looks at the little girl, blue eyed, dark haired. Probably Corellian, a decendant of one of the old families of Coronet. "Uh, um, yeah, sure. No problem," replies the pilot of Ghost 7, gently reaching down to pick up the girl and set her on his lap. A few more drops of moisture well in the man's eyes, but he does not attempt to wipe any more of them away. From the way he holds the youngling, one might think the child his own daughter. Drake keeps his eyes on the stage, grinning at a few parts of the show where the actors playing TIE fighters fall over as they run about, getting shot down by the X-Wing actors. Drake doesn't look at anyone, trying to keep his attention to the stage by blocking out all other noises and things going on. Looking around for a moment, Raxis' eyes glance over Kesander and Kyrin, and then turn again to the assembled children watching the show. Exchanging longing glances from a few of them, he waves them over. Before he can say another word, three children climb onto his lap as he is buried by kids wanting to sit with a pilot while they watch the show. Chuckling at his near-dogpile, he settles into place and lets them get comfortable, keeping his eyes on the show. Once the stage is cleared from the battle of the Death Star, adults doing all of the cleaning to allow the children their moments of glory, the stage is sheeted in white. Hoth. Chilly. Children decked out in thin snowsuits proceed to enact the battle of Hoth, with pairs of children having /far/ too much fun playing the Imperial AT-ATs. Once more, the young boy playing Luke Skywalker goes out there with his makeshift snowspeeder and the Wedge Antilles actor on his wing once more. And surprisingly, they get the story right and have young Wedge be the first to take down a walker. More child-generated shooting and zooming noises, with cheers from both audience and actors when the Rebels escape the frozen planet and run past black-clad kids holding up pictures of Star Destroyers on little wooden poles. Things get a little confused, with 'Luke' being off to stage left, kneeling and listening to... well, it's a puppet. A green puppet made from a tridactyl sock. But the sock puppet and the brown-clad child playing Obi-Wan Kenobi plead with Luke as the other half of the stage is taking up with Han and Leia's fleeing the Imperials and eventual capture on Bespin. Luke of course takes up his blue glowstick as the other actors leave the stage, with only the Darth Vader actor left. With the most gleeful of lightsaber noises, the two kids with glowsticks reign supreme on the stage for a good couple of minutes. Another in attendance, though not seeming half as cheerful as Raxis, is the pilot of Ghost Six: Lance Corbet. Sat with Ghost Squadron, beside the pilot with the three jostling children, he seems amused enough, but his eyes keep straying to the sky above, especially when the space battles are reinacted. Watching the scene of the fight on Hoth, Kesander's face remains a strange alloy of emotion and stoicism. It helps somewhat that the little girl in his lap is being very good, pointing every so often to the action on the stage and saying something in Corellian, to which Kesander nods and replies. The little girl's eyes light up and her voice offers up a burst of lilting laughter as the "light saber duel" proceeds. Kyrin seems to have acquired her own second lap-child, although a third child seems to have perched between her wings and is clinging to her back, much to the girl's father's utter embarrassment. The pilot of Ghost One smiles rather fondly, if wistfully, but makes no effort to dislodge any of the children, even the one accidentally pulling on her pointed ear. She even directs a smile and wink to their host, human Marrell Thelin, who grins quite happily as the pilots get swarmed with kids. "This is a good choice of story, I think," she murmurs toward Kesander, and the child in her arms nods sleepily. "Wouldn't that be awesome to have a lightsaber?" Raxis whispers to the children on his lap with the slight tone of a children's holo-vid show host. Smiling at them, and nudging Lance in the process, he smiles as the kids turn to him and emphatically nod. "Well let's find out who wins." He smiles as the children, two boys and a girl, turn back to avidly watch the scene unfold on the stage. Giving the stage every bit of attention he hopes the children will give, he seems to be radiating enjoyment at the moment. The final act for the play in front of them begins with the children running over sandy fabric, the rescue of Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt, another rather large paper construct. The violence of course is either muted or turned into cartoon violence, with young Luke pouting when one of the adults guiding the show takes away his blue glowstick and gives him a green one instead. Screams erupt briefly at the scary bits with the Rancor and the Sarlacc, but Luke's apparently cheered on by the audience. Then the big battle goes down, with kids in costume pretending to be Ewoks and others in black pretending to be spaceships, and the Wedge and Lando actors getting to shoot down an inordinate amount of TIE Interceptors and the Mon Calamari child playing Ackbar gets to tear up the paper Executor (and he does so with intense glee, going so far as to jump on the pieces of paper once they've fallen to the stage). Another lightsaber battle, then a noble young Luke Skywalker defeats Darth Vader, standing up straight and defying the Emperor-actor. And when Wedge and Lando do their jobs and go screaming off-stage with the appropriate starship noises, the Death Star prop is destroyed by most of the actors, the confetti thrown up in the air by some of the kids who've had more than enough energy or sugar. Finally, with grey bits of paper raining down, the entire cast assembles on stage, with the Luke actor in front, looking a bit nervous and uncertain, but his face beaming when their host - his father - leads the applause. Standing-o and squealing from the kids. "Oh, I agree," replies Kesander to Kyrin in basic. "They should learn these stories early. And never forget them. They've been pretty dearly bought; we lost a lot of people at Yavin, and at Hoth. Some of them named Beysarus." Fortunately, the little girl in his lap pays no heed to any adult-talk and remains firmly entranced in her wide-eyed appraisal of the action on the stage. At the grand finale, Sandman stands up, gently holding the little Corellian girl in his arms, showing her how to applaud along with everyone else. "Let's get up and clap, guys," Raxis says, helping the kids off of his lap as he stands to applaud, stopping periodically to put his fingers between his lips and give a loud, shrill whistling sound to assist the standing ovation. Giving the kids on the stage a thumbs up between bouts of clapping, he then enters the familiar stage situation of not knowing when to stop clapping. Knowing well that this could well go on long until peoples' arms become tired, he beams appreciation to the kids while listening for the audible sound of the clapping's recession. Standing along with the rest, Lance too begins to clap along with the crowd. Though he seems appreciative enough of the actors and their efforts, his own applause seems somewhat receded, though regardless he forces a smile to his lips for the children. Kyrin has a brief moment of unbalance as she tries to get to her feet with two kids in her lap and another perched between her wings. "I cannot give you a pony ride," she murmurs to the child who asks over the noise in her ear, "But there is perhaps an alternative," she adds as she too joins in the applause, with the fourth wall breaking when proud parents to go scoop up their kids on stage and express their pride and such, others coming over to check out the pilots before they leave. One wee little girl comes up to Lance and looks up at him with huge eyes, a few fingers in her mouth. "Why aren't you as happy as everyone else?" she asks in the brief interval she's not sucking on her fingers. Blinking, Lance looks down at the little girl before him. "Oh... um..." comes his stammering reply, before he finally says softly, "I am happy." Again, the smile is forced a little wider, and he does his best to show joy to the girl who had queried him. "You don't look happy," the girl states emphatically with the firm conviction of youth. She's the actress who played Leia. And apparently adooooores the Chief of State. "Your face is a mask. What's wrong?" As the applause dies down, the mother of Kesander's new little friend comes back by to collect her. As the pilot hands the youngling back to her mother, the child places a very childish, but well meant smooch on Sandman's cheek, which comes close to flummoxing the X-Wing driver. "Thank you, Lieutenant," says the mother, smiling appreciatively at the opportunity her daughter has had to spend time with one of the Republic's warriors. "Uh, of course, Ma'am, you're welcome. She's a good little girl." And with this, the Corellian apparently feels the need to get some fresh air and begins make his way to the exit of the amphitheatre. Glancing to the other Ghosts for a bit of help, Lance chuckles somewhat nervously. "Nothing's wrong. I've just got.. other things on my mind." replies the pilot. Clearing his throat, he adds softly, "You did a very good job." Kyrin bids Kesander farewell with a mildly concerned expression, but her attention is quickly garnered by their host and his proud son, and she takes the time to thank both for their efforts to raise the cultural quotient of her pilots. "We are honored by the invitation. I will of course tell Master Luke how well you did," she says the boy, whose eyes go HUGE and ROUND... either he's going to pass out with shock, or he's... yep, just went to go TELL HIS FRIENDS. Loudly. "Sometimes it is a good lesson to see for whom we fight." With a round of high-fives (or low fives, in this case) Raxis splits partly from the group as he and his three newfound friends move to greet and praise the performers. Pausing for pictures, Raxis kneels down with a large group of kids around him to smile big for the cameras. Laughing with the kids in the distance while hamming it up for the parents, Raxis' jacket is tugged by a young Mon Calamarian boy with a Wookiee doll tucked under his armpit. "Mister?" The child begins, getting Raxis' attention. "I...what do I do to be big and strong like an X-Wing pilot?" The kid asks shyly. Smiling, Raxis turns to the kid and looks him square in the eye. "It's really easy, friend," Raxis starts, motioning for the other kids to listen. "...just listen to your parents, do your lessons, keep healthy, and always remember to be one of the good guys." As the applause dies down and the pilots and parents and kids mix it up freely, eventually the party breaking up with parents thanking Marrell Thelin for hosting it on their way out to nice normal family things... suppers with their children and grandparents, others to go play some more in a park. Others yet still trying to re-enact the battles, children running around like madness. With a soft chime, the CO of Ghost Squadron picks up her comlink and checks the time readout. "Gentlemen," she says to her pilots still remaining, "We have a date." There's enough of hint in her voice to advise her pilots it's not a playdate with them sitting around making X-Wing noises and chasing each other with arms outstretched. "Let us roll." Putting the child down from her back and returning her to her parents, the CO of Ghost Squadron half-bows to their host and leads her pilots out to do their job. And those parents they leave behind start applauding again.
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