This place was beginning to take its toll on Kaida 'Ryyk' Burkan, Senior Crewman and Flight Member of Viper Squadron. It was new to be aboard such a huge thing as the SSD Atrus. It was a whole new thing for her. These names, the places, the orders, the different abbreviations for everything even... It was like a whole new language to her. A language that she needed to learn. Quickly. Ryyk had high hopes of getting up the ranks of the Imperial Fleet rather quickly. And she had already reached her goal of passing the exam with a perfect score. But even still... such new surroundings were going to eventually get to her.

She was going to start missing Kashyyyk.

With a shake of her head, and a soft grumble, she tore the thought of Kashyyyk from her mind. That was no longer her home, she couldn't miss it. She couldn't let herself want to go back. This was her new home. This wonderfully huge SSD. It was amazing really. Despite the initial fears that struck her mind, she was beginning to look forward to the dog fights that awaited her out in that vast black nothingness called the Galaxy.

The need to fly was eating at her. Constantly she found her hand twitching, as if they were grasped around the yoke of a starship. She found that her eyes would narrow as images of the stars flinging past her viewport entered her mind. She found that her heart began to race every time she thought about finally being able to pull the trigger to one of her TIE Interceptor’s Blaster Cannons and destroy one of those annoying ass bogies. These thoughts and more filled her mind with images that she needed to become reality before she went crazy. Figuratively of course. Just being able to sit in the cockpit of her Interceptor would suffice at this point. Of course then she might actually try to take off and start ’PEW PEW!’ noises as she flew about the Atrus.

The girl was laying on her bunk, surrounded by the metal walls of her bunk room, staring up into the slanted ceiling with those amber eyes of hers. She couldn’t help but let out a chuckle at the thought of actually making pew pew noises. It was so childish, and it was something she used to do when she would pretend to be flying, holding onto a stick, turning and twisting it as if it were the yoke of her own specially designed ship. That was years ago, though.

Now she had the chance to do the real thing.

That thought alone made her heart race, beads of sweat appear across her forehead, and her hands twitch for the controls. It was ridiculous really, just how badly she wanted to get out there and destroy some rebels. Ryyk’s brutal mind set was making it even worse. Every time she thought about it, she would end up playing out the entire dog fight in her head. Sometimes it would last only a minute or so, and others, she would pit herself against five to eight bogies at once, and still come out the victor.

There was only one problem with these images alone becoming reality: She’s never been in a dog fight.

The only skill she has is flying. Never has she ever been pitted against an enemy, in practice or in real danger. A grumble came to her lips as she thought about this, shifting in her bunk to lie on her side, amber eyes glued to the screen of the Com that had been placed in her bunk room.

There was a light blinking on the bottom of the screen, indicating that she had a new message. ’One guess who it’s from…’ She grumbled and sighed. They had been trying to contact her since she joined the fracking academy.  Another grumble fell her lips as she pondered on whether or not listening to this message would be best.

So Ryyk hopped down from her bunk, and landed with a grunt, seeing as how her bunk was elevated as it were the top bunk of bunk beds, and made her way over to the Com with a look of disdain plastered on her visage. With another grumble, she sat at the chair in front of the desk that the Com sat on, typed in her password, and clicked on the ‘New Message’ icon that was still flashing on the screen. With that, a holoimage of her mother Perya appeared, a happy-go-lucky look on her face.

“Hey Kaikai!.” Ryyk instantly flinched and growled softly at the sound of her childhood nickname. “How’s it going in Navy? We heard that you passed the Aviator’s Exam with perfect marks! Great job!” Confusion crossed Ryyk’s face as she listened to this. How would they know her score? Hmf. No matter. She continued to listen. “I really hope you actually decide to reply to this message. We really want to hear from you. Oh and you’re father is doing… well. A Hutt has him doing some really tough jobs, so you won’t hear from him any time soon. But other than that, things are good here. Wook-wook wants to say Hi. (The Wookie, standing in the background, waves and makes his gurrgglerarwrararwrwrwr noise.) Well… again, honey. Please reply to this message. We miss you. And good luck!”

The holoimage dissipated and Ryyk sighed as she sat back in her chair. Running a hand through her hair she grumbled again. She would reply tomorrow. Right now, she needed to relax, and think about what to do now that she actually was a pilot in the VEN.

Kaida ‘Ryyk’ Burkan sighed again and began to run her hands across the keyboard, doing a history search on the Navy, particularly the Viper Squadron. She wanted to know as much as she could about what she had gotten herself into.