“Grounded” - From a Certain Point of View

"Grounded", by Greg Rucker, comes from the perspective of Nera Kase. This story follows "Desert Son."

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WARNING: This is a plot summary of the short story, spoilers ahead:

Nera Kase was one of the most important people in the Alliance, although you wouldn't have known it given her small stature, youthful visage, and grubby jumpsuit. But Nera was the chief of fighter maintenance at Base One. As such, it was her business to know every pilot and every ship in the Yavin Hangar. She was also responsible for the teams of mechanics and scientists that kept the base and the ships operational. Now she was alone in the hangar, with all the available ships and pilots having already launched towards the Battle Station, and all other personnel were either in the command room, or were nearby hoping to watch the readout screens and hear the comms that would tell them what was going on.

Nera thought about her crews. There were 4 or 5 assigned to each fighter and pilot, but each crew was doing triple and quadruple duty, so each ground crew member was responsible for 3 or 4 ships. They were responsible for the well being of each ship, while taking care of each pilot that would fly it.

She finally entered the briefing room, and saw some of her crew chiefs tucked away in various corners of the room. Nera pulled out her data pad, and began tracking the battle. Gold Seven was the first to go, and she quietly marked "flak" next to his name on her datapad. Pilots were dropping one by one. She knew them well, and each one was painful. When Garven Dreis died, there was a palpable shift in the already tense, but silent room.

Red Five’s group entered the trench. She didn’t know Skywalker. But she knew Wedge, who had to leave because his X-Wing was hit. Biggs was then gone. The TIE element closed in on Red Five, and she hesitated to even bother recording “TIE” next to Darklighter’s name. What was the point? Then Skywalker’s targeting computer went down, and she cringed at the mechanical error that fell on her.

Then some kind of joyous hollering came from the comms. “You’re all clear, kid...” The command room was utterly silent, when the mark on the various screens, that indicated the battle station itself, disappeared. No sound, no fireworks, it was just gone from the screens. The room erupted into pandemonium, and as everyone ran out to the hangar, Nera collapsed with grief, remembering every pilot that would not be returning.

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