Final Exam-Wash's Tale
Friday, January 27, 2006
No matter how good you might be, there's always that little twinge of doubt. Hoban Washburne is very good at flying, but he isn't any different.
CATEGORY: FICTION TIMES READ: 3348 RATING: 9.0 (PG) SERIES: FIREFLY
This is a story set before the series, so there isn't any risk of spoilers.
This is the second in my ongoing Tales series, which covers all of the BDHs, so if you like it, the rest can be found here:
River, Mal, Kaylee, Zoë, Simon, Inara, Jayne, Book
Rated PG for some very mild language.
Chwen Joo=Retarded pig
Ma Fuhn=Trouble
Wuo Duh Tian Ah=Oh my God
Da Shiong La Se La Ch’wohn Tian=Explosive diarrhea of an elephant
Dohn-ma=Understand?
Bao Jone=Take care
Mo Min Chi Meow=Ridiculously strange
*****
Hoban Washburne sat down on his bed and sighed.
The latest scores had come in. There was no way that Wash could beat Manfred Asbach out for top of the class. That chwen joo had managed to get in above him somehow. Wash just couldn’t believe it. This sort of thing was supposed to happen to other people, not ruggedly charming folks like him.
Not even the final live flight test tomorrow would make any difference. Even if Wash managed to make his shuttle dance a complicated little jig and Asbach plowed his directly into the nearest convenient large rock it wouldn’t be enough to move him out of second place. Although, the thought of Manfred spread across Beaumonde’s geology in a fine paste did make him smile a little.
Wash got up and looked at himself in the mirror of his dormitory room. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head once to try and clear it. His upper lip still bothered him. The fuzz growing there stubbornly refused to come together into that mustache he’d always wanted. The other students had told him that he looked like a ten year old boy, almost daily, for as long as he’d been here, and everyone knew that the first and best way to assert one’s manliness was to beat some poor sap to a pulp.
I think your Wash is the perfect precursor to the one I imagine in "Aftermath," by the way; for both us, this is a man who is most at ease when piloting a ship. But you take him much farther with that wonderful moment where he discovers what it really means to be out in the black; that's an instant of revelation that helps to explain much about him, why he ends up on Serenity, and what matters to him.
My only criticisms are quibbles about plausibility: I don't think it's likely that a flight school would only have students do a 'real' flight once before graduating them. As I understand various flight schools (civilian and military) you start out in simulators, then do real flight, with an instructor gradually giving you more and more control. After a certain number of hours of real flight, you get your certification. It just doesn't seem likely that something as complicated as spaceflight would have lower standards for training.
I understand why you did it, for the drama of having us see Wash as he first encounters the black. I guess I'd have separated that moment from the graduation/rescue and done them separately. It would avoid the plausibility issue, and still let you do all the things you want to do in the story.
Great work! Now, bring on the other seven!
b
Typical Washlike comment. Love the introduction of the dinosaurs.
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