Work Text:
My first Imp kill: the eyeball head-on,
Twelve klicks closed in half a minute,
Hail of blinding bright green fire,
Ears deafened by my pounding blood.
I pictured him behind that viewport,
The empty eyes, the death’s head helmet,
Twin snaking tubes supplying life
To that grim rictus of a mask.
I pressed the trigger. The explosion
Rocked my wingtips as I passed
Through space which had once been a TIE;
I was relieved to see him die.
*
The long months passed, and in that time
I shed my boyhood, grew a shell;
The role of Rogue Lead fell to me
And I dealt with our losses well.
In every fight my carapace
Grew thicker and I built my skill,
And every eyeball which we vaped
I saw as grist fit for the mill.
A pilot’s life, a pilot’s death –
Better I live, and Imps who die.
Those flying skulls, them woe betide!
More kills to grace my X-Wing’s side.
*
Then came the day that Cracken brought
The squint jockey from Alderaan;
He’d lost his world and family,
And joined the Rebels dressed in black.
For the first time, I had a face,
The face behind the eyeball’s screen.
I did not want him as my friend,
Given the Imp that he had been.
But over time my coldness thawed.
I learnt to work with, to befriend.
Though much is taken, we adjust.
And gradually we learn to trust.
*
One thing has changed for me since then,
Since you became colleague and friend.
Where once I used to see a faceless drone
In my mind’s eye, now when I fight
Against an eyeball to the death,
It’s not an empty suit I see.
I see the living soul inside,
The pilot who, like you and me,
Has blood and tears which give him wings.
Before I press the trigger now –
Sometimes it takes me by surprise –
Behind his mask I see your eyes.
- Aug 2017