Ginger, Ginger, Come Walk With Me

[Marselia Urstalis]

Location:
Levantine Astronautical Academy @ Oswaft Station
Orbiting Laekia
Silver Sanctum Coalition Territory

Tags:
[member="Sylvia Nuru"]

One of the responsibilities handed to new cadets after so many months was giving tours to visitors and potential students, as it was a reasonable assumption that they'd know the layout of the station, the purpose of its many areas, and its amenities. So far, so good, but answering all the questions they had got tiring when there were so many other things on her mind, such that she found herself with a test of her patience. Good instructor training? Who knows?

"Kids! Is that what I have to look forward to, someday?" She wondered out loud, in morose reference to the family life she might not get to have, flopping on a couch in one student lounge after giving a tour to an energetic and at-times rambunctious group of children, herded by their teachers, "So many questions!"

A few other cadets muttered or grunted their agreement with her exasperation, and a third year went on to gush about a group of kids she had once hosted on a tour. After a few minutes, Lia tuned out from the blather to stare vacantly at the planet of Laekia, below, and the stars beyond its glow, until the tour coordinator popped her head in, looking for a volunteer to handle a tour of people from the Galactic Alliance. For that entity's proximity to the Kathol Sector, her attention was quickly torn away from the viewport. Kathol was where the Dawn Treader had went, taking a large number of her to-be Starchaser relatives with it.

"I'll do it!" she blurted, before anyone else could say a word, which gained her some surprised looks; she hadn't done something so unpredictable in months, and those eyes followed her a moment as she rose to her feet, with something that wasn't quite a bounce in her step - cautious hope, that was, "fighter pilots, right?"

The coordinator shrugged, "They're in the holo-library, Urstalis. Why don't you ask them yourself?" To which she gave a rueful smile, her shoulders slumping a moment; she looked the coordinator in the face, "Alright, I will!" and she was off at a light jog through the corridors, so as not to keep them waiting too long. Libraries weren't for everyone. Some minutes later, she arrived, fixing her hair and smoothing out her cadet uniform before slipping through the doors into the massive archive and stepping amongst those gathered, civilian, military, and more besides.

"Okay..." she raised a hand to make herself better visible, "...Galactic Alliance, you're with me!"

 

[Armand Temi]

Arriving at Oswaft Station, Rogue Fifteen did a final headcount of all of the travelers who’d come with her. She’d been charged with taking a group of Alliance students and trainees to the Levantine Astronautical Academy in the Tingel Arm.

While Sylvia Nuru did not dislike children, she just wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. Like wild animals, did she try to tame and befriend them or just let them go off and do what came naturally without interfering? But since her Lt. thought her, in his words, “one of the more dedicated and responsible pilots” she was picked to bring the youngest members of the Galactic Alliance – mostly middle school and high school-aged students to the Academy for a tour.

The entire day before the trip, Sylvia completely dreaded thinking about it. This week-long jaunt is going to put a serious kink in my training chain, she thought gruffly. But the next day, she woke up feeling a little more enthusiastic to get off of Sullust for a while, although she knew all of them, students and pilots alike, would bring along the lingering smell of sulfur which clung to their skin and hair.

Once they debarked from the Transport and out of the docking bay, the group with Sylvia in the lead, was ushered into a holo-library. The students, especially the younger ones, began excitedly yammering on until finally the red haired pilot said, “Shhhussh! This is a library and there are people trying to study.” While she wasn’t ignored, a few went on talking as though she hadn’t even spoken. Not enough stimcaf in her system yet, a small kernel of a headache began to form behind her eyes. This is going to be a long day, she thought. Furthermore, the library began to fill with others now – military, civilian, senior citizens on a discount vacation. Her Alliance students took full advantage of the cacophony and crowd to begin talking loudly again.

“Galactic Alliance, you’re with me!”

Finally, thought Sylvia, glimpsing a lone hand flash up from the crowd, and as she neared, beckoning her students on, a shock of scarlet hair became visible.

“Having red hair must be a prerequisite for being a tour guide today,” she joked when within ear shot of the fellow Levantine pilot.

[member="Marselia Urstalis"]