Beyond - Legends Fighting Fire One-shot (OCs) (Complete); Repost

Timeline: Sometime after episode 9. (Would that be after the nonology? Exact timeline not significant at this time.
Author: Me, of course, with an alpha read by WarmNyota (THANK YOU!) and detailed beta-read help from Thumper09 and Ewok Poet (Even MORE THANK YOUS!)
Characters: All OCs. Main characters are Jan, also Draviticus Feth

Author's note: I'm introducing Draviticus as a potential protagonist for another story. This is where he gets his start. This is a repost from a story I initially dropped a month and a half ago. Thanks to some help and strong suggestions, I've re-written the last 3/5 of the story, with a couple of little edits for the first portion as well. Hopefully they'll all make sense; let me know if they don't. As always, constructive criticism is welcomed! Thanks for reading.
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Using the last of her adrenaline, Jan carefully used the repulsors to back the awkwardly large FFS--she didn’t even call fire-fighting ships by their civilian name anymore--into its berth. Her dream to become an elite pilot of Coruscant’s fire brigade was nearing fruition; all she had to do was score high enough to get into the advanced academy.

I don’t need fire-suppressant foam cannons she thought to herself. All I’d have to do is wring myself out over a fire. I’ve sweat so much, it would go out instantly. She couldn’t hold back her sigh as the landing struts gently took the craft’s weight.

“Nicely done,” her examiner said while focused on tapping in notes on his computer pad. He was a male human named Broond. He had bright green eyes, pale skin and muddy brown, severely cut hair. “Give me just a moment here and we’ll get your score.”

She couldn’t hold back the anxious bob of her knee, nor the fresh trickle of perspiration that slid down her temple. Kriffing sweat glands.

The computer beeped as it spat out a final figure.

“Congratulations! On your FFS competency exam, you earned positive thirty-two.” The man was far too cheery in his announcement.

“Thirty-two.” Jan’s jaw gaped. “Thirty-two. Out of a hundred?” Her voice pitched alarmingly. “Thirty-kriffing-two?!”

Broond had the gall to chuckle at her as he flapped his hands in a placating fashion. “A positive thirty-two. That puts you…” he trailed off while he scrolled through his pad with practiced hands—he knew exactly where he wanted to go. “In the top sixty-eighth percentile. You did better than the vast majority of applicants,” Broond said.

Jan’s confusion warred with her mollification. “So...that’s good?”

He nodded cheerfully. “Good, but not great. That lets us know you’ve got potential, anyway.” He opened his mouth to continue, but his comm crackled. The examiner wrenched it out of his pocket and answered. “Broond here.”

“Broond?” The voice was deep, croaky, and echoed. Probably the voice of an Ithorian, speaking basic out of its two mouths simultaneously. “Broond, you have to see this. Open drone frequency Bresh Cresh six-three-three. Another applicant, named Draviticus. He has passed the turbolaser battery and he’s running plus ninety one! He’s doing things with his FFS that I’ve never seen before.”

Broond’s eyes popped wide as he bent forward to tune the holo to the frequency.

“That’s…not possible,” Jan muttered. She had lost forty-five points alone going through the turbo-laser portion of the exam and had no idea how she could have possibly dodged any more of the simulated attacks.

“Hey, I’m inclined to believe you, sister. Maybe it’s a computer glitch.” The holo sprang to life, showing the blocky FFS. Really, it was more of a cockpit connected to a barely streamlined block on massive engines with fire-suppressant foam cannons, colloquially called foam cans, jutting out at regular intervals. “I’m going to rewind to the start of the turbolaser trial, if that’s all right.”

While not easy, the first half of the course had only seen a few points docked from her score. It was boring, in a future-endangering sort of way. Jan nodded.

Broond increased the size of the display to max, which filled the entire cockpit with pulsing blue light, crafting the turbolaser portion of the exam. The object was to rescue a simulated escape pod, trapped behind a malfunctioning or hostile atmosphere-bound starship, without taking too much simulated damage.

The applicant’s FFS came in from the left and was a few hundred meters out of range when the barrage of harmless red blasts began pouring out of the right side of the hologram. The pilot stopped—which struck Jan as odd. Moments later, she realized that the weapons fire was diffusing, giving whoever was flying time to analyze the pattern. Then, abruptly, the FFS rocketed forward, as though the pilot locked the brakes on, throttled to max, and then let the brakes go.

With slaloming movements, the FFS zipped in, somehow managing to twist around the blaster bolts. Draviticus made that space-slug dance in ways that seemed improbable. A few shots hit the ship, but most of them simply missed—victims of the pilot’s brazen approach and extremely erratic flying. Jan had no idea how he made his graceless ship move so well.

Jan saw that Draviticus had another problem. With the speed he was approaching the target, he was in real danger of plowing through the pod he was supposed to be saving. While distances were hard to gage in the holo, it seemed like a collision was inevitable when the FFS flipped a full 180 degree turn. The thrusters had to have been slammed back to maximum, but this time focused on stopping. When the insane maneuver had ended, the ship was parked extremely close to the “enemy” starship hull, in a dead area that the turbolasers couldn’t reach. The weaponry was still firing madly, launching what had to be dozens of bolts per second, but that achieved nothing except creating a pretty red light display.

The fire ship’s tractor beam snagged the escape pod. While they were safe from enemy fire, Draviticus took the extra minute to bring the pod inside the FFS’ hull.

Jan was impressed, but how could the ship escape the trap it had made for itself? She was about to find out because the FFS began creeping forward at a slow pace. It was so close to the enemy ship’s hull that the holo emitters couldn’t differentiate one ship from the other, the display lurched a few times. There was another anomalous graphic that the holo was projecting, too--little bursts of blurriness. Jan realized it had to be the fire-suppressant cannons. They were being used in odd ways, though.
Draviticus seemed to be spraying suppressant foam on the turrets, which somehow interfered with the turrets’ firing. The applicant started making his way out of the trap. He went slowly at first, but accelerated as he gained proficiency.

“He’s hugging the ship to stay away from most of the guns,” the examiner exclaimed.

“And using the foam from the FS Cans to baffle the turbolasers that could potentially hit him,” Jan finished. “Brilliant.”

The FFS zipped away from the last streaks of simulated danger and to the second-last trial, which was a simulated atmosphere-scraper fire.

The pilot tipped his craft, cockpit down, so that it was very close, and parallel to the building it was supposed to be extinguishing. The holo struggled to show six of the eight FS Cans washing blurry goo into the flames as the FFS hovered around the structure.

Jan could only imagine how disorienting it would be to fly around a building while staring at the ground.

There was an odd quiver at the top of the building. While she watched, it happened again. Shortly after the second quiver, the FFS twisted into motion, snapping another 180 so that the nose was pointed towards the building’s top.

“What’s happening?” Jan asked.

“Random additional challenge,” replied the examiner. “The top of the building has become unstable and is threatening to fall off.” Broond pointed at some of the structure as supports slowly bent. “These are starting to buckle. He’s supposed to—oh, there he goes. He’s using the tractor beam to stabilize the top. Oops. Too much. It’s hard to see unless you know what you’re looking for, but while he was supporting the top, he used too much power on the tractor beam. It collapsed a level or two. That’ll cost him, but not much, since it looks like the rest of the building is stable.”

Jan was dumbfounded. “How can he fly with that kind of precision? I don’t know if I could fly like that, even without using the tractor beam. Seems impossible.”

“I have no idea,” the examiner said. “But that’s what separates the good pilots from the amazing.” He glanced at her suddenly. “Er. No offense.”

Jan realized that her chances of getting into the elite firefighting pilot academy were slim. She had tried her best, and no matter how much she wanted it, she might not have the level of skill that this other pilot had. She knew she didn’t have his guts…or insanity or whatever it was that drove him. At least, not yet.

“None taken, I guess,” she muttered.

Broond gave her a reassuring grin, his green eyes flashing compassion. “He’s coming up on the free-fall test.”

The holo scrolled out a long ways, highlighting a large ship that fit with an interplanetary cruise liner that was plummeting through the air towards the ground. Lacking the hesitation to redline the engines that Jan had, Draviticus aimed his nose at the potential disaster and raced up towards the distressed craft. It took less than a minute for the FFS to reach the cruise liner. Immediately, the FS canons reached out to spray down the damaged ship’s flaming exoskeleton. Both ships lurched as the tractor beam locked on.

“Based on his performance, I bet he’s going to get more random challen—yep. See, the testing system disabled half the FFS fire suppression cannons. He’s got to…damn, his reflexes are incredible. He’s already twisted the ship so that the greatest amount of FS Can foam hits the hot spots. Oh, they did it again. Cannons deactivated. Ship’s twisting, and max available foam spread.”

Jan felt numb inside. Her dream seemed out of reach, now. But she felt a sense of awe, too. This pilot, whoever he was, had a gift. The sheer artistry of his abilities made her respect him. She wanted to learn from him. She wanted to touch him, in the sheer hopes that she might be able to leach some of his ability by osmosis.

The examiner cleared his throat. “His docking berth is the space right next to ours. He’s a minute out, if you want to go meet him. I uh, I know I do.”

Jan’s answering smile was strained. “Me, too.”

As she headed toward the airlock, Jan let her hand run along the passageways of the FFS, resolving to try again. She felt an odd attachment to the ship—a ship that Jan felt like she let down, though she couldn’t put her finger on why.

The pair of them stood just inside the airlock and watched Draviticus back his boxy FFS into its spot.

Just as it groaned to a halt on its landing struts, an official speeder, decked out in day-glow orange, complete with a flashing amber lights on top pulled in right beside Draviticus’ FFS. Two sentients got out and stood at the foot of the exit ramp--one was a tall human, wearing a navy blue jumpsuit, white-yellow hair shaved close to the scalp.

Broond spoke softly into Jan’s ear, a little awe in his voice. “I’m not sure who the other sentient is, but the human is Coruscant fire chief Chorlis. I guess he was watching the drone feed, too. Come on, I’ll see if I can introduce you.”
The second sentient was a Quarren male, mouth tentacles writhing excitedly under bulbous sea-green eyes. He wore a spotless, dark blue shimmersilk suit that contrasted his eyes. His black shoes were shined to a perfect polish.

Before Jan could get there, Draviticus and his Bith examiner marched down the ramp.

Draviticus was a slender, quite-short human man who barely came up to Jan’s shoulders. As dark as black could be, his skin made it difficult to tell where his flesh ended and his long black hair began. It hung in thick dreadlocks tied into a tail, reaching well past his shoulders. His face was just on the wrong side of homely, with a too-large nose and a too-wide mouth. Alert, big blue eyes assessed everybody who was staring at him. He looked a little jumpy.

Jan could understand that--she’d been done with the test for nearly an hour but her legs were still quivering.

The blond human strode forward, hand outstretched. “Draviticus, I’m Jarl Chorlis, chief of operations of the Planetary Fire Department.”

Draviticus’ eyes shot wide open as he shook the other man’s hand. “An honor to meet you, Chief. Er, sir.”

“Don’t sweat it, son,” Chorlis said with a little laugh. “This is Senator Graudyist. He’s head of a number of departments, though Coruscant Planetary Fire Department is the most important, right?” His laugh sounded more forced.

“Yes, I’m sure,” the Quarren droned, with a gravelly voice, accented with the scorn from upper-class Coruscanti elite.

Chorlis stifled a scowl at the senator. “We came to congratulate you. That was some impressive flying, son. Damn fine. I’ve never seen the like,” he said.

“Uhh...thanks?”

Jan couldn’t help but notice Draviticus was completely out of his depth. Whether it was jitters brought on by speaking to VIPs, or social anxiety in general, he was as nervous as a lame mole-rat in a gundark nest.

Chief Chorlis seemed to catch onto that as well. “I’ll cut the nerf crap. If you want the pilot’s job, son, it’s yours.”

The smile that crossed Draviticus’ face took most of the homeliness out of it. “Flying is what I love, sir. Where do I sign?”

“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself, Fire Chief?” Senator Graudyist’s voice sounded almost bored, but the hawkish way he was glaring down at Draviticus belied the tone.

“Am I?” Chorlis was genuinely surprised. “This sentient just received the highest score on the entrance exam in 500 years. We would be complete morons if we didn’t--” Jarl took a deep breath before speaking again. “We would be remiss in our obligations to the entire planet if we didn’t hire this man.”

That seemed to be exactly what Senator Graudyist was waiting for. He wagged his thick finger haughtily at the chief. “Ah, you’ve put your finger on the problem, Jarl. Man. All I see here representing CPFD are human males, with one token Bith outsider. Where are the other species? Where is the diversity?”

The Quarren’s tone was starting to get under Jan’s skin; she found it impossible to stay quiet. “I’m a woman, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Oh, are you?” the Senator intoned haughtily. “I hadn’t noticed; I suppose you are. But you’re still human.”

Jan’s hands clenched into fists. Biting back further replies was one of the hardest things she had ever done. A glance over to Draviticus showed him in the middle of a tooth-grinding grimace as well.

Graudyist spread his arms grandly, as though he was in the senate chambers. “I’m going to table legislation later today that mandates the inclusion of reasonable percentages of various species to all governmental positions. No longer can we continue living in the shadow of the Empire’s xenophobia.”

“But surely, Senator, we must hire the best sentients available, for the safety of all citizens,” the chief said through clenched teeth.

“Where necessary, certainly.” the Quarren answered smoothly. “But I think my sister’s eleven year old spawn could pass your little obstacle course.”

Jan couldn’t stop her jaw from dropping. She took two steps forward, but Broond stopped her with a firm grip on her shoulder. He looked angry too, but was somehow keeping control of himself.

“Please. Stay here. Don’t let him get to you,” Broond whispered. “Don’t do anything…” rather than finish, he hurried over to Chief Chorlis’ side. Draviticus’ examiner had moved next to Jarl as well.

Don’t do anything stupid, Jan finished. She planted herself and stuffed her hands into her jumpsuit pockets, where nobody could see she was drawing blood from her palms in spite of her short fingernails.

Draviticus may have dark skin, but Jan could still see the tinge of red in the short man’s face. Chief Chorlis looked equally angry.

“That was not an easy exam,” Draviticus insisted.

The Senator’s scoff sounded as though he was gargling. “Pish posh. A pair of trained kowaxian monkey-lizards could probably oof!”

A wild, windmill punch took the senator down.

Jan’s first fear was that Chief Chorlis had thrown the punch. Fortunately for Jarl, he was being surreptitiously held back by his examiners who had grabbed his wrists and shoulders. Draviticus, on the other hand, had dropped to his knees and was vigorously applying his knuckles to the Quarren’s tentacled face.

Chief Chorlis’ shout of “Harder! Hit him harder!” as he struggled against his examiners was likely drowned out by the senator’s screams of pain and fear.

Draviticus was punctuating every word with a punch. “This is why I hate...people!” He brought his fist back for another blow, then realized the Quarren was unconscious. Bright red blood spattered the senator’s expensive suit and the human’s fist and sleeve. Draviticus let go of Graudyist who slumped bonelessly onto the permacrete floor.

Draviticus stood, mirroring the dumfounded expression of the other four sentients as they stared at the very still figure on the ground.

“That’s not good,” he muttered, before turning his head and vomiting noisily.

One month later…

Jan watched her tablemate, trying to keep the pity out of her expression. Draviticus had nearly been arrested for his assault on the senator. Chief Chorlis had been able to convince the shavit-head not to press charges against the man, though probably at great cost to himself. Jan didn’t know if Draviticus understood that or not. Social customs seemed to flabbergast him sometimes.

Like when Chief Chorlis had given Draviticus a free meal for two at one of the most exclusive restaurants on the planet. They served meals as expensive as her first speeder. Sentients in spotless white uniforms, complete with gloves, stopped by to refill drinks and inquire of any possible need. Dravicus had invited her. Jan should have been the one buying him something nice, for all the help he had given her.

Over the past two weeks, she had worked with Draviticus nearly twelve hours a day, learning some of his flying techniques. That wasn’t what Jan had expected when she asked the twenty-something year old man for a few flying tips. He was surprisingly patient, and a fair teacher. In spite of the simple way he dealt with people, Draviticus wasn’t stupid--very far from it. A couple of times, he had spouted navigation-related mathematical equations at her that might have stumped a navicomputer. If it was any other man, she would have suspected he had memorized the equations to impress her. Draviticus didn’t work that way. Holy space, did he not.

Draviticus’ eyes were downcast, pushing barely-eaten five-star food around his plate. He bashed his bite of steak into his pile of mashed tubers--tubers that had been carefully crafted into a tentacle-filled face. He had barely spoken to Jan all evening. In itself, that wasn’t surprising. He rarely strung more than five words together, except when he was talking about flying, or how to fly. Or droids, of all things.

Jan swallowed her bite of nerf steak, medium rare, done just right. It had an indescribably tasty sauce--sweet and sour, salty and spicy, all at the same time. Ordinarly, she hated anything but salt on her meat. “Does that make you feel better?” she asked, pointing her empty fork at the tuber-Quarren he was giving a beating to.

“Yes,” he answered, as though puzzled why. “I know it shouldn’t.”

Jan smiled encouragingly at him. She was trying to enjoy the meal. Quality food like this was something she’d never been able to afford. Even on an elite firefighting pilot’s salary, it wasn’t something she’d be able to do more than once a year.

Draviticus’ sadness was palpable throughout the whole meal. Jan tried not to let it bring her down, but he was so inwardly focused, and immune to her jokes. She stopped trying to make him laugh after the third day of flying practice.

“Have you had any luck finding another job?” Jan asked him, already knowing the answer.

“No.” He spread some gravy over the bite of meat and continued subtly slapping the mashed tuber. He seemed to be analyzing the gravy splatter pattern.

Jan’s comm went off. Finally And perfect timing, too! “Please forgive me, I need to look at this.” She pulled out her data pad and read the message she had been hoping for over the last few days. An affirmative answer. Thank all the gods in the sky.

Draviticus stopped abusing his food to study her. He had to be wondering if this was a socially acceptable behavior. Most of the time, she’d have said it wasn’t. Today, it most certainly was.

She tried to stifle her excitement for him. “Drav, do you remember last week when I told you I might have a job for you?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “No transport pilot jobs. You promised. Too many people.”

“You’re right, I did. Serra, one of my friends, told me she was looking for something special. She said she has an opening. Do you want a job working for the core worlds? You’d spend almost every day flying an advanced ship, searching for new hyperspace lanes.”

“Will I earn more than 23,558 galactic standard credits per year?” Draviticus asked.

She had to stifle her smile. This was a magic number to him, apparently, for he always asked about the exact same figure when she suggested a job. “It pays closer to 35000 the first year, and increases annually.”

“Okay. I’ll try the job.”

Jan handed him her pad. “Okay. I showed Serra your FFS exam, so she knows you’re an amazing pilot. She just needs proof that you can solve a difficult navigational problem. Take this down, solve it in the next day or so, and ping her pad with the answer when you have it. She’ll contact you afterwards.”

Draviticus looked it over for a few seconds. “Can I solve it now?”

“Don’t you need a computer?” She bit her lip. Jan knew he was going to do this somehow.

He tapped on her pad for thirty seconds. “I’ve solved it.” He handed the pad back to her.

Jan hit send. Fifteen seconds later, Serra pinged her back.

Are you sitting on a navicomputer?

Nope, Jan pinged.

He just solved it?

Yep.

Great space. He’s extraordinary. And hired.

Jan smiled. You got that right. Just...be gentle. I’ll fill you in later. She packed the device away.

“Serra says you’re hired; she’ll com you in the next day or two. You’ll be doing important work.” Jan tried to read his expression but drew a complete blank. “Do you feel better?”

Draviticus gave her one of his face-morphing smiles. “Yes. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Jan couldn’t help it, she reached out and gripped his hand.

He looked down at her hand with a puzzled expression on his face. “Are we dating now?”

Jan burst out laughing, covering her mouth with her napkin. “Oh Drav, you’re priceless. Please don’t take this the wrong way. No, we’re not dating.”

Draviticus sighed, relieved. “Okay. Good. I’m not ready.” He carefully lifted Jan’s hand off of his. “I’m going to go, now.”

She tried to ignore his mostly untouched--well, uneaten--plate. “All right.” Jan screeched her chair back. When the short, dark man stood, she enveloped him in a tight hug. He responded by nearly crushing her rib cage. Jan grunted and let go after a few seconds. He didn’t. She forgot how short he was--his ear was pressed firmly up against her bosom. “Drav, you can let go now.”

“Okay.” Just like that, he stepped back and dropped his arms. “Thank you for always being nice to me.”

“I’m your friend, Drav. If you need anything, you comm me.”

“Okay.” After a final ear-to-ear grin, he nodded and left.

Draviticus walked in the same fashion he flew. He predicted the movements of tray-ladened servers before they blindly backed away from tables. Somehow he knew when people were going to scoot their chairs back, too.

Jan sat back down and pulled her comm from her purse. “Hey boss. Draviticus just left dinner.”

Chief Chorlis’ voice echoed from the device. “Right. Did he enjoy himself?”

She wanted the answer to that question too. “I don’t know. I guess so? Anyway, Serra finally got back in touch with me. Drav will start a new job very soon.”

“That’s great news.” They lapsed into a somewhat awkward silence. “Anyway, I’ll see you at oh-seven hundred tomorrow for your first day orientation.”

“You got it, boss. G’nite.”

After Jan packed her commlink away, she slid Draviticus’ plate towards her. Tonight, she was going to eat until she burst. Some things were too amazing to be wasted.

Oddly enough, that thought made her think about Draviticus.

 

Great job, Peri! I really like the changes you made to the story. I feel like there's more depth to this version and more to the characters of Draviticus, Jan, and the senator; for all of them and for the fire chief, they have clearer goals and obstacles, and things flowed very well as all those interactions played out. Draviticus's new job sounds interesting, and hopefully it will be an acceptable substitute for flying fire-fighting speeders for him. I hope Jan's FFS job goes well for her too, and it's nice to see Chorlis still has an interest in Draviticus's well-being. I'm looking forward to reading more about Drav (and anyone else who may show up)!