Author's note: This is my idea of a conversation that might have taken place between David and Captain Oonu after David's first flight on Freefall at the end of episode two of the Hallmark miniseries.
A very nervous David Scott stood before his instructor – and possibly former instructor he thought for a moment with some regret – and waited for Oonu's attention. He hoped that Oonu was not going to be to mad at him for doing what he had done – after all at the end he had proven to himself and to everyone that Rosemary had been right after all. He was a flyer.
Up until ten minutes ago he had thought her wrong. He had thought her wrong from the moment she'd told him that he was of the sky and was to be trained as a skybax rider. It seemed that Rosemary had been proven wrong when during the graduation ceremony a skybax had refused to come to him. It had – or should have been – the end. He'd failed and yet when he'd packed up and been about to leave he'd gone to the skybax simulator room. It was there that he had realised why he'd failed. He was the reason. Subconsciously he had constantly been saying to himself through all his training that he couldn't do this. The skybax had sensed that negativity in him and had therefore rejected him. When that realisation had finally dawned on him he'd just known what he had to do. Subconsciously telling himself that he could do this – that he could ride a skybax – he'd taken a saddle and gone to the launch platform and called again. For a few seconds it had looked like he was going to fail again – but then Freefall had answered his call and come to him, and he'd ridden a live skybax for the first time.
When they'd landed afterwards he'd run straight into a barrage of congratulatory backslaps from his classmates – they'd apparently watched the whole thing but he hadn't been aware of them watching, and congratulations from Karl and Marion. And then Oonu had joined them and told David to accompany him to the briefing room.
David pulled himself fully into the hear and now as Oonu was turning to face him after spending a good few minutes just looking at the saddles of some of the corps most famous riders including its founder Gideon Altaire preserved in display cases set into the rock wall on the upper level.
"What were you thinking David," Oonu asked after a moment.
"I just felt that I had to try again sir," David replied.
"An interesting if cryptic response," Oonu responded. "Explain." David sighed to himself and looked briefly down at the floor. How did one rationally explain something that you just felt. After a moment he looked back up at Oonu who was waiting patiently.
"After I finished packing my things," David began. "I went to the simulator room why I don't know," he didn't mention the brief chat he'd had with Karl and Marion. "I went down to the level of the simulator machine and for a few seconds just looked at it. Looking at it I felt…"
"Felt what," Oonu asked.
"I felt anger, sorrow, resentment," David admitted. "Sorrow and resentment that after all the work I had put in during the training to suddenly fail at the end. Anger for the same reason."
"Anger directed at us," Oonu asked. By us David knew that Oonu meant the Skybax Corps.
"Maybe a little but mostly I was angry with myself," David admitted. "I admit my emotions got the better of me and I did kick the mat around the machine. Don't worry their was no harm done. And that's when it hit me like a bolt out of the blue." At Oonu's confused look David explained. "Bolt out of the blue is a saying in the outside world. It means you suddenly realise something that had never occurred to you before that moment."
"Oh. So what did you realise?"
"I realised why the skybax didn't come to me when I called during the graduation ceremony." Oonu gave David a surprised look.
"Please explain," he said intensely curious about what David was going to say, maybe David had finally figured out what it was he was really afraid of. David took a deep breath.
"From the moment me and Marion came here to Canyon City," David began. "There's been this little voice inside me saying you cannot do this. It affected my outlook all the way through training."
"Yes I did notice your negativity all the way through," Oonu said. "Though you did seem more confident after you returned from that climb I sent you on."
"I was," David admitted. "You making me climb up to those nests certainly helped me get a handle on my vertigo. It forced me to confront the fear and that's the only way to break fears power. But facing fear is so hard, its been said many times that there is no greater enemy than ones own fears."
"How true. Go on David."
"As I was standing there looking at the simulator it finally dawned on me why the skybax rejected me. I remembered what you said during our first lesson; that a skybax will not approach if it senses fear in your heart. The skybax sensed the negativity in me and didn't approach. So I said to myself that I could do it, I needed to suddenly prove to myself, to the sceptic inside me that I could do it. So I picked up a saddle from the rack and went out to the launch platform and called again. For a couple of seconds it looked like no skybax would respond. And then I saw Freefall approaching, he let me put the saddle on him and climb on and off we went."
"Yes I saw," Oonu said. "You flew well together you and Freefall. It's rare to see a cadet and a skybax fly so well together on their first flight together. Tell me how did you find it?"
"Exhilarating," David admitted remembering with a smile the feel of the flight. "You were right what you said about nothing comparing to the first flight." Oonu did smile at that.
"I knew I would be," he said. "I still remember my own first flight as if it were yesterday." David had to smile at Oonu's tone as he nodded in understanding. No matter what happened to him in the future he knew that he would remember those first few minutes of flying with Freefall for the rest of his days – even if he never flew again.
"Now the question is what are we going to do with you," Oonu said finally. "What do you want to do David?" David blinked startled. He hadn't expected Oonu to ask that question.
"Personally sir I would like to stay in the corps," David replied. "I feel now as if it is where I belong. Rosemary was right I belong in the sky."
"That might not be possible," Oonu admitted. "Since you failed at the graduation ceremony you are technically no longer part of the corps. I do not know if it will be possible to get you back into the corps. The situation you have presented us with is unprecedented in the entire history of the corps. Never before has a cadet been rejected by the skybax at the graduation ceremony then accepted by the skybax afterwards."
"So what happens now?" David asked.
"I do not know. This kind of decision is beyond my authority. The Canyon City council might be able to make the decision to readmit you to the sky corps I do not – they do have considerable authority over the corps. If they cannot then the only alternative is to ask the Senate back in Waterfall City to give the go ahead to allow you back in. I will do what I can David."
"Thank you sir."
"On a side not I will keep a place in the squadron for you until we know either way," Oonu said. "Until then I would suggest that you return to Waterfall City in the morning and wait."
"Patience has always been a virtue of mine sir. I can wait."
"I'll do what I can to limit the wait," Oonu replied. "The way you flew with Freefall shows that you have the potential David to be one of the best skybax riders in the corps history." David had to work hard to keep the astonishment from his face and the blush from his cheeks. "You are dismissed now David. Breath deep… cadet." Oonu said that word on purpose. He wasn't surprised when David gave the skybax salute back.
"Fly high sir," David responded. With that David turned and walked out of the room.
Marion and Karl were waiting for him outside. David noticed that Karl was currently holding the baby chasmosaur – which he had seen sleeping in his room earlier – in his arms. As before the baby dinosaur was sleeping.
"How it go," Karl asked his half-brother.
"Quiet well actually," David replied. "Oonu wasn't angry or anything. He seems to me to be very keen on the idea of me staying in the sky corps but he doesn't know if it's possible. Apparently the situation with me is unprecedented in the history of the corps. Oonu doesn't have the authority himself to readmit me to the corps, he as much said he would have done so already if he had."
"Only the Canyon City Council or the Senate could do that," Marion said silently vowing to herself to have a word with her father about allowing David to return to the sky corps where he belonged.
"Oonu has promised to do all he can," David added as they started walking along the rock paths carefully. You always had to be careful because of the sheer drop on the one side and you had to especially careful in the dark despite the presence of artificial lighting powered by the sunstones and the light coming off the sentinels whose sunstones protected Canyon City and the Skybax Corps from attack by the huge swarms of pteranodons that inhabited the canyons below the sentinel barrier. Only one pteranodon lived above the barrier here and that was Freefall who had seemed to find a home of sorts among his skybax cousins having been rejected by his own kind for being an albino.
"Until we know either way I'm to return to Waterfall City," David continued. "So I guess I'm going to be Zippo's house guest again."
"You and me both," Karl added. "I don't have to return to Vidabba for awhile."
"The next bus to Waterfall City is in the morning. We'll all catch that bus in the morning," Marion decided. Both David and Karl nodded in agreement before they all headed off to have the evening meal. They would return to Waterfall City in the morning and wait there to see what would happen next.
The End