Werdna Elbee hated waiting. He was the type to rush in and get it over and done with. Mind you, that wouldn’t be a good idea considering the circumstances and the gravity of the situation.

The Flight Officer wanted to see him today, which was why he was in the reception outside of his office on Aurora Prime. Apart from the desk for the FO’s assistant, who was in Admiral Kessler’s office right now, the room was fairly sparse. Only a little plant and even smaller window stopped the room from looking like a cell. There was also some panpipe music sweeping the room by hidden speakers, but Werdna had the feeling that it was there to irritate rather than cheer you up.

Actually, the only really bright thing in the room was the female Lieutenant waiting in the room with him. Werdna didn’t recognise her but he still gave her a friendly smile and rolled his eyes up showing his boredom. The Lieutenant smiled back understandingly, but before Werdna could say anything the FO’s assistant came out of the office with a chirpy “Werdna Elbee? The Fleet Admiral Kessler will see you now.”

Werdna hadn’t been looking forward to this, and decided that it would probably be better if he could wait a little longer. He knew that he was here for a ticking off rather than praise. Although, Werdna was wondering why he hadn’t been sent to the Commodore of thee SSSD Sovereign, FA Kramer, as usual. The reasons weren’t looking good though.

The assistant closed the doors behind Werdna, ruling out that route of escape. Oh well, Werdna thought, I had better find out why I’m here then…

“You wanted to see me, sir.”

“Yes, Flight Leader, Commander Elbee isn’t it,” FA Kessler clarified to himself, “You’re probably wondering why you’re seeing me instead of Kramer.”

“It had crossed my mind, sir.”

“Well, he’s sick of you!” Kessler barked out bluntly, “You never seem to be out of his office because of the stupid things you do. I’m actually doing him a favour, since you seem to count as half of his workload.”

Werdna was silent, staring everywhere but at the furious, superior officer.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” ordered Kessler, “Now then, do you know why you’re here today?”

“The whole wreaking two TIE Defenders in the last mission thing?” Werdna asked cautiously.

“Damn, right! How the hell did you do that? I can understand you breaking your own fighter, but not your Squadron Commander’s craft too! Does it take a special kind of stupid to do that?”

“If you read the Commander’s report, sir…”

“I don’t have the time to do niceties like that, I’m just here to punish you!” Kessler laced into him, “I’ll give you a little chance though, explain how you done this, just to make me find out how a thing like this could be done.”

“Well, sir. We…we were fighting the pirates that have been a bit cocky in EH territories lately. We went after them on the edges of the Outer Rim asteroid field, and one of the pirates got a few lucky shots in on Commander Sequoh Marden, disabling his ship. The thing is, sir, it put his fighter on a collision course onto one of the asteroids, with his eject also disabled, and I had to react quickly to rescue him.

“The only thing I could really do was knock his craft out of the way…by sort of…using my own fighter to hit him…” Werdna cringed as he said it, checking to see if the Fleet Admiral was preparing his gun to shoot him on the spot. “Both of our TIE Defenders were pretty wasted, but I was able save him in the end. We had already destroyed most of the pilots and the rest of the squadron were able to finish them off.”

The Flight Officer stared at Werdna for a moment, thinking everything through. Kessler continued his grilling by asking, “Now tell me, why shouldn’t I have you killed?” Werdna considered the deal that he made with Grand Admiral Ronin a while ago, but he swore that he wouldn’t tell a soul that he was doing “special” jobs for him.

“Because…because…I know!!!” shouted Werdna “A pilots life is worth more than any starfighter!!!”

“Your opinion perhaps, but it may not be mine.”

“Erm…well…if you take into account…” Werdna thought hard on a way to continue his excuse, “…the cost of training of pilots, the personnel shortage we have right now, the need for good command personnel, are worth far more than a couple of TIE Defenders.”

Kessler stared even harder at Werdna now, scaring the hell out of him. This is it, Werdna thought; I expected to die by enemy’s hands, rather than my own side. Just goes to show that you can’t plan everything.

“How old are you, son?” came Kessler’s response.

Werdna was shocked by his response, and needed to take a moment before replying, “17, sir.”

“What, you’re not even old enough to take the final exam at IWATS, never mind be an Imperial Officer,” shouted the Fleet Admiral, “it says on this report that you’ve been in the Corps for over a year too, with a Vanguard medal.”

“My training was pushed forwards a fair bit,” said Werdna, trying his very best not to sound like a show-off jerk, “probably because of the personnel shortage…”

Suddenly, the pace of the conversation quickened again when Kessler asked, “This isn’t the first time you’ve done something like this, is it, Elbee?”

“Erm…no, sir”

“…And how many times have you pulled off stupid stunts like this?”

“I’ve lost count, sir, but remember your rule of combat no. 28…”

“WHAT?”

“…If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid, sir”

“GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE, BEFORE I SHOOT YOU MYSELF!!! YOU COCKY LITTLE SOD!!!”