"Outside Looking In"
Deleted Scenes
by Katie Zajdel
thumper
[a] coronasquadron dot com
Standard disclaimer: The universe belongs to Lucasfilm. The characters belong to me, though they wish they didn’t. I won’t break anything.
1. Extended Fleet Introduction Scene
Author’s Note: Originally this
story was going to be the rest of the “big introduction information
dump” that
was begun in “Commencement,” and the full fleet introduction was slated
for
that patrol in the beginning of OLI with Quiver and Darin. However,
including
this full-blown descriptive scene contributed to turning almost the
entire
first third of the story into nothing but talk, most of which
(including this
part) did absolutely nothing to move the already-tenuous plot along (I
tried to
tie it in, but that connection was weak and flimsy at best). Since I
had
already managed to make this scene kind of self-contained, I figured it
would
be best to go with a quick summary of the ships and keep the extended
version
by itself at the link here
for those who may be interested in it. The
extended
version is still “Corona Squadron canon”, so it’s not really fair to
call it a
“deleted scene” because it wasn’t really “deleted,” just...moved to a
more
appropriate location for storytelling sanity purposes.
2.
Full Dance Flashback
Author’s
Note: This one made more sense to take out, and was therefore easier to
convince myself to do than the one above. I like the scene, but there
were two
things wrong with having it in the story as-is (it was inserted in the
dance
scene in Chapter Three, where the couple-paragraph summary of it now
resides).
First, its length really threw off the pacing of the rest of the scene.
Second,
it was way too detailed for a memory of an event like this that
happened a
couple years ago to Darin.
----------
...The
memory of one evening in particular always stuck out whenever he
thought about
that time.
“If school would teach us anything useful in
the real world, I’d know how to do this already!” Darin said over the
soft
music.
His mother, Ginala, laughed easily. “Relax,
sweetie. By the time we’re done, you’ll know how to dance.”
“I can’t mess this up, Mom.”
“You won’t. Now, pretend I’m Tarrah. At the
beginning of the first dance, you need to do things a little
differently to
start the whole evening off. Take both of my hands...”
No matter how many ways his mother patiently
tried to explain the fundamental dance steps to him, though, after half
an hour
of failures Darin was just getting more stressed. “Mom, I just don’t
get it!”
“We’ll get there sooner or later,” she
reassured him. “You’re certainly not clumsy, so that’s not the problem,
but it
doesn’t seem to be clicking for some reason. You just seem very
mechanical
about the whole thing, and that’s making it harder for you.”
“Trying to memorize dance steps isn’t
working when I don’t know what it’s ultimately supposed to look like.
Maybe
then it’ll make more sense about what I’m trying to make my feet do.”
Ginala thought for a minute and then called
into the other room, “Jo’co, come here.” To Darin she said, “Have a
seat. We
can show you the finished product.”
After the teenager sat down in a chair,
Darin’s father, Jodeco, came into the room. “How goes the dance
lessons?” he
asked.
Ginala beckoned him over. “He needs to see
how it’s done, so come over here and dance with me, you big glubber.”
A sly smile crept over Jodeco’s face. “Only
if we do it right.” He stepped to the music player and put on their
song before
turning to his wife and giving a small, formal bow.
Smiling warmly and keeping her eyes on her
husband, Ginala said over her shoulder to Darin, “That’s the
old-fashioned way
of starting the evening. Now he’ll come up and take my hands–” She
paused while
Jodeco demonstrated. “–And after two counts, you start the steps.
Forward,
side, side...”
By the end of the first verse to the song,
Ginala’s explanations had faded into silence. Darin watched as his
parents
gradually drew each other closer, rested their heads against the other
and
closed their eyes . They moved with a single fluid grace that Darin
knew had to
be attributed to more than just knowing the dance steps well. There was
some
intangible understanding there allowing them to make a series of
clinical
choreographed motions into the dance before him. It was fascinating,
and
everything made so much more sense now.
The song ended, and his parents slowed to a
stop and parted reluctantly. Jodeco bowed again, formally ending the
dance, and
gently kissed Ginala’s forehead. Then he walked over to Darin and
patted his
shoulder. “And that, son, is how you win over the woman of your dreams
and make
her your dance partner forever.” He lightened the statement with a
wink, but
Darin could tell he was dead serious.
“You big glubber,” said Ginala, playfully
smacking Jodeco’s arm while smiling coyly and blushing. She then asked
Darin,
“Did you see how it’s done? Does it make more sense now?”
Darin nodded, though suddenly it all seemed
a whole lot more complicated.
Ginala offered a hand to pull him to his
feet. “Then let’s try this again. You’ll be dancing in no time.”
Darin
shook himself out of it, overwhelmed with the memories of his parents
and his
home.
**********
3.
Sounds on the Ship
Author’s
Note: This was the first part written for an idea that was supposed to
have a
much larger presence in the whole story, namely Darin’s difficulty in
getting
used to the various sounds Crescent Star’s
systems make, especially at night (when Quiver’s asleep and the room is
actually quiet). After traveling and spending time in different hotels
and
buildings, I still like this idea, plus it ties in the difficulties
Quiver’s
having in getting used to his new roommate after having the room to
himself for
a while, and there’s also a throwaway mention from “Commencement” about
how
Quiver gets the bottom bunk when he’s drunk. But after all the scope
problems
I’ve had with this story it was one of the first things to go just
because of
the difficulty involved in tying it all in, so I never wrote more than
this one
part. And besides, Darin had enough things to deal with in this
story–adding
this was too much. So this whole idea got reduced to one single phrase
in
Chapter Three when Darin’s complaining to himself about being tired.
This scene
takes place at the very end of Chapter Three, after Darin leaves the
dance.
Writing “Drunken Quiver” is hard.
--------
Darin’s
already-restless sleep was interrupted around 0130. His closed eyelids
couldn’t
completely keep out the bright light suddenly washing over him, and his
ears
picked up some loud laughter. He groggily forced his eyes open enough
to squint
out into the light. “What?”
“Huh?”
came the slow response after the laughter stopped. “Oh! Hey, ’syou!
Sorry, new
guy. Fer-got I gotta roomie.”
The
light remained at the same intensity, and Darin finally was able to see
well
enough to see Quiver stumble from the door over to his desk chair and
sit down.
Quiver looked at him with a big, lopsided grin. “Hi, new guy.”
“Um,
hi,” Darin replied. He wondered if his pillow could block the room’s
light if
he covered his head with it.
“Hey,
where’d ya go? We couldn’t find ya af’er da dance when we wentta get
drinks.”
“I
left early,” said Darin. “I had a lot to do and was tired. Can you get
the
light?” He decided to see if the pillow would be enough.
It
took another few seconds for the slurred response from his wingman. “I
would,
but yer in my bunk.”
“No,
I’m not,” Darin said in a voice muffled by the pillow on top of his
head. It
wasn’t a perfect solution, but it helped with the light and not only
that, but
it also helped Darin hide his growing irritation. Blast, but he was
tired.
“Yours is the top bunk. I’m on the bottom.”
“But
da boddum one’s mine when I’m too drunk ta climb ta mine. Like now.”
“I
don’t want you getting sick in my bunk.”
“I
won’t. And whad’ya think’ll happen if I’m on top ‘n’ get sick ‘n’ can’t
make it
ta da ‘fresher in time ‘cause I’m on top?”
Darin
had to admit that would potentially be worse. Grumbling inaudibly to
himself,
Darin got out of bed, turned off the lights and climbed up to Quiver’s
bunk.
Maybe now he’d be able to get some sleep. He had to get up in–he didn’t
even
want to calculate it.
“There.
You can have the bottom bunk now. Just take your boots off before you
lie
down.”
“Aww,
thanks, rookie!” Quiver drawled. “Nice of ya. I–ow!” The last word
coincided
with a small thud and an impact against the set of bunk beds. “Dat
hurt! Stupid
bunks in da stupid dark.”
Darin
stifled a bit of laughter fueled more by his own aggravation at the
moment than
anything else. A few moments later the bunks rocked a bit, and then all
was
still and silent from Quiver.
Finally, Darin thought. He tried to
welcome sleep with open arms, but before sleep came, a few other things
did:
the creaking of metal on the other side of the wall; some sort of
chugging
sound from above the room, louder now that he was on the top bunk; a
soft
whistling coming from somewhere; more creaks and groans and whirrings
that he
couldn’t identify.
He
wanted to scream.
*************
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This
page last updated July 21, 2008.