“Ha Ha. Very funny, but I’m not that old,” Schmitty said with just a tinge of indignation in his voice. “And don’t call me ‘Daddy’!” The rest of the Blue’s couldn’t help it and laughed. The question was: were they laughing at him or with him?

All eight pilots of Blue Squadron, the new Blue Squadron that is, were seated at one of the larger tables on their new ship. The CRS Morning Star was the new home of Red Squadron, Blue Squadron, and Eclipse Squadron. Like almost all of the New Republic’s capital starships, the Morning Star had a lounge. The design of this one made it resemble a huge aquarium; so much so that the pilots renamed it “The Fishtank”.

Lt. Col. Andrew Dobson, their commander, had called them all here in an attempt to have them all get to know each other a little better. He knew that they would be called upon to fly together very soon and wanted to take this chance to have them bond. As evidence of Flight Officer Kristofer “Target” Chester’s teasing 1st Lt. Steve “Schmitty” Michadick about his age, things were going well.

“Awe, come on…tell us another story…,” Target beckoned the older man. He let the request hang in the air for a few seconds and then added “…Daddy.” Another round of snickers were heard around the table.

Schmitty, fanning that he was actually insulted by the nickname given to him from the youngest pilot aboard the Morning Star, thought of another story from old academy days. He had already told them about the many pranks that he and his, then, friends pulled on each other. They all liked his stories, but couldn’t believe that the man that they saw in front of them could have done some of the things in his stories. But he had. He told them about cred-locking people in their rooms and coating them with talcum powder…from the outside. What story could top that one, he wondered. Then he remembered one. “Man, even I can’t believe that I did that,” he thought to himself.

“Ok,” he began. “I need to preface this by saying that I was once young and stupid and that this was not one of the things that I am proud of.” He looked at each one and saw that they were both attempting to hold in a grin and, at the same time, realizing that he had just accused them of being young…and stupid. Of course, he knew that none of the men sitting around this table was in fact stupid. But, he also knew that everyone, when they are young and the seriousness of life escapes them at points, did something in their lives that, had they given it a little more thought, would not have done (or would do in some of their cases) that something that was completely stupid.

“Yeah, yeah. Just get on with the story,” Target taunted the older man.

“Well, as I was telling you before, the first year cadets at the Academy are broken down and made to depend on each other…to become a team. Each year cadet class bonds together. It becomes almost like class warfare. Each class thinks that it's in combat with all of the other classes. First year cadets versus second, third, and fourth year cadets. But the biggest rivalry is always between the first and second year classes. Our class called each other ‘buds’ and a few of us were a very tight nit group, more so than with the rest of our class. We would do everything together.

There is always a second year cadet that thinks he, or she as the case may be, has that power to boss around the first year cadets. They let their little real power of command over the younger cadets go to their heads. They generally become mean and cruel to the first year cadets. So, as you’d expect, that person becomes the target of the younger cadet’s anger.

When I was one of those first year cadets our “target” was Cadet Corporal Obrine. He was a big guy, strong and muscular. He loved to humiliate us and abuse his command over us. And we hated him for it.

It was one night, when our group of buds was hanging out in one of our rooms talking about Obrine that we were overheard by one of the fourth year cadets. As it turned out, he was our XO and cadet corporal Obrine’s roommate. He came in the room and just looked at us all there. Since he was a fourth year, and we were only first year, we had to jump to attention. We thought that we were in big trouble for sure. But, he turned around and very quietly closed the door. Our fear grew. We were now alone in the room with our XO, a man that was feared by all first year cadets.

To our surprise, he told us to relax. For a second, we all thought it to be a trick and looked questioningly to each other. With a sigh, Cadet Captian Pikerton laughed and repeated his order for us to relax. We had never seen him laugh before, but uneasily released our braced bodies from the position of attention.

Pikerton then proceeded to tell us that he had heard us talking about his roommate and knew how our class felt about him. He told us that his roommate thought a bit highly of himself and was hard to live with because of it. Then came something that was the biggest surprise yet. He told us that there was a tradition that the first year class would pull one of the upper class cadets…generally, it was the second year cadet that gave the first year cadets the worst time. We nodded knowingly, but then had to ask…”What do you mean by ‘pull’?”

He explained that a group of first year cadets would sneak into the upper classmen’s room in the middle of the night, yank the person out of bed and then do something with him. He told us about some of the things that had been done in the past. For about half an hour we sat there thinking of what we could do to Obrine. Since we hadn’t decided on anything yet and it was getting late, Pikerton said that he’d help us out by leaving the room unlocked, but that was as much as he could do. He also made it clear that he was still our XO and not our friend, but just wanted to see the tradition continue. Then he got up and left.

We sat around talking about the meeting a while longer and came up with a plan. Starting the next day each of us would start collecting things that would smell bad or had a nasty consistency. We each swore to secrecy and headed off to our own rooms.

About a month later it was time for the pull. Earlier that day we told Pikerton that he’d have visitors that night. He agreed to keep the door unlocked. We all put on black clothes, painted our faces to mask our identities, and brought out the various concoctions of old food and lotions. My roommate was the one in charge of getting the rope. All was set to go.

We waited until a few hours after midnight for total darkness and to be sure that everyone was asleep. Then we met in a hidden area near the door and made our final checks. At the count of three we were off. In all there were ten of us. And we knew that we’d need each and everyone to pull this scheme off.

Pikerton told us that his roommate was a light sleeper and tended to wake up punching when stirred. So, with excruciating slowness, I turned the handle to his door and pushed it open. My hands were sweating with the fear that the door would squeak and our element of surprise would be gone. Thankfully, Pikerton had lubricated the door just that morning. Once the door was open, all ten of us filed in and got into position. I counted to three silently with my fingers and then, as quickly and strongly as I could, grabbed onto a leg.

As expected, Obrine woke with a jolt and attempted to punch at the first black face he could see. That time, it was Obrine that surprised us. He was strong enough to land that first punch as he was quickly being dragged out of his top bunk. Lucky for him though, we were able to get a better hold on him and kept him from slamming head first onto the floor.

We each got a good grip and, as one, started to walk out of the room with the captured man. It was a short way to the door leading outside and then down the stairs. Three times Obrine struggled so much that we nearly lost control of him. Had that happened, he surely would have gotten hurt from the fall since his upper body was the heaviest, his head would have hit first. But, even with all of the struggling, we were able to carry Obrine to the designated spot in the middle of the courtyard. It was the place where the whole Academy would gather in the morning for formation. We set him down next to a flag pole and began to tie the man to it with the rope. This whole time, none of us said a word. Except for Obrine. He attempted to scream threat after threat at us until we were able to get the rag in his mouth to quiet him.

Once we had him secured to the pole, we brought out our goodies. One by one we dumped and smeared the foulest smelling substances known to the galaxy on this muscle bound man. When we were done, Obrine looked like a Hutt straight out of a slime bath…and smelled even worse. Then, before standing around for him to identify us all, just as we had planned, we bolted in different directions and made it back to our rooms.

After washing up, I was chosen to disguise my voice and call one of Obrine’s classmates to let them know that their classmate was in need of help. It told us something when it took his classmates until dawn to go out and get him out of his predicament.

Schmitty looked around the table. His new squadmates looked at him in awe. They couldn’t believe that the man that they knew would have done something like that story they had just heard. Half of them knew him as only a kind older man that was a decent, not great, but decent pilot. The other half didn’t know him at all.

“Well, Schmitty, I think we now know what you are capable of,” Captain Paul “Rogue” Sweet said while grinning.

“Yeah,” Flight Officer Ionescu “Zoz” Ciprian added. “Remind me not to get on your bad side,” he said before laughing.

Schmitty just nodded. Well, at least they know that he is not the do-gooder that they thought he was. He chuckled to himself. “Ok, who’s next? I’m tapped out.”