A quick note: If I owned Star Wars, this would have been included during the Dark Horse comics run. It isn't, so I don't own it. Simple logic.
Wes Janson sat down heavily on the couch, making the battered furniture item creak in protest. Bad enough they had the entire Empire on their tails, but having to go through grueling sim sessions on the days they weren't fighting for their lives... Hardly even thinking about it, Janson stretched across the couch and was asleep before he realized it.
The doors to the pilots' rec room hissed open, and Commander Skywalker blearily walked in, just as tired as the rest of the Rogue pilots. Ignoring Janson sprawled over the couch, he made his way towards the small refrigeration unit in the back and pulled out a drink for himself. After opening it and taking a few deep swigs, the surroundings clicked. More specifically, Janson's snoring clicked, and Luke turned to look at his fellow pilot. He was still thinking about ways to harness Janson's snoring as a sonic weapon when the doors opened again to admit Wedge Antilles. Not being as bone-tired as the other two (having flown the opposition in the previous sims), he noticed Janson immediately. Merely raising his eyebrows at how thoroughly Wes had sprawled himself across the only couch in the rec room, Wedge also pulled a drink out of the fridge and opened up. Turning around, he shook his head at the sight: Janson's mop of dark hair resting on one end of the couch, his flight boots dangling over the other side, and the rest of the room shaking in time to the loud snores being issued by the pilot. Wedge turned to Luke, about to make a remark, and froze when he saw the look on Skywalker's face.
It's not that Wedge was unused to seeing Luke smile. He'd seen his embarrassed smile whenever someone brought up his rescue of Princess Leia from inside the Death Star, his proud grin whenever the entire squad came back from a mission, not to mention the triumphant smirk whenever Luke came out of nowhere during a sim and shot Wedge out of the sky. But this was definately the first time Wedge could say he had seen this particular grin on his commander's face, stretching from ear to ear.
A predator's grin.
Setting his drink down on the counter, Luke made his way around the couch and out of the rec room quickly. Wedge leaned against the counter, nursing his drink and wondering what his friend was up to. It was several minutes later when Luke re-entered, carrying a toolkit. Motioning Wedge closer, Luke set the kit on the floor by the doorway, pulled something from it and tossed it to Wedge. The Corellian pilot fielded the catch one-handed, then looked at the item in question. Blinking in confusion, he looked to Luke to ask why he had been given a can of spray sealant when the ex-farmboy nodded towards Janson. Specifically, the pair of boots the pilot was dangling over the end of the couch. Wedge stopped cold when he made the connection. Looking between Wes and Luke, Wedge mulled his options. Granted, Skywalker was more than able to pull this stunt off on his own, but Janson was exhausted from the sims. Could Wedge really justify pulling a prank at a time like this?
Then again, he did still owe Janson for the time he had dumped itching powder into his flightsuit.
Setting his drink down on the counter, Wedge pulled the cap off the spray can and got to work on Janson's boots.
Luke balanced himself carefully on one of the remaining chairs in the lounge and began to undo the cover to the room's scramble alarm. Keeping his balance steady was quite a challenge, as the decor ranged from "well-worn" to "didn't we space that about six jumps back?", but he finally managed to expose the wiring behind the klaxon. As Luke dug into the wires, the door hissed open, and both conspirators froze. Derek "Hobbie" Klivian strode in, eyes half-shut from lack of sleep. The perpetually-mournful pilot stopped, and looked around at the scene: his best friend, unconscious on the couch; Wedge, spraying a can of something on the bottom of Wes' boots; and Commander Skywalker, barely keeping steady and doing something to the alarm system. Hobbie stood in the open doorway for a few moments, looking at each one in turn. Finally, he turned around and left quietly, obviously not wanting to have anything to do with this. The family of Corellian sand spiders Wes had dropped in his bunk a few weeks back probably influenced his decision.
Wedge and Luke both gave silent sighs of relief as Hobbie left, then got back to work. Wedge started to loosen the laces on Janson's boots, and Luke finally pried the scramble alarm out of it's housing. Letting the device hang against the wall, he dropped to the ground and pulled a second can from the toolkit. Keying the doorlock, Luke uncapped the can and began to spray it all over the surface of the door. Wedge had just finished unlacing the boots when the smell of vacuum lubricant hit his nose. Setting Janson's feet down carefully, he backed away from the couch, wrinkling his face in disgust at the combination of smells beginning to fill the room. Waving his hand on front of his face, he made his way next to the chair, knowing better than to get in the line of fire. The spray can began to stutter as it ran low, and Luke used the last of it's contents on the patch of floor leading up to the now-sealed door. Replacing the lid, Luke climbed back onto the chair and grabbed a pair of wires on the scramble alarm. Looking back to his partner, who was even now plugging his ears, Luke nodded, and touched the wires together, beginning their evil plan.
The klaxon sounded, splitting the air with a screech specially designed to wake even the dead. And Janson reacted as any well-trained Rebellion pilot would, under the circumstances. Breaking from a dead sleep, he hit the floor running, intent on making it to the hangar as quickly as possible. As soon as his first boot hit the deck, it stuck fast, knocking him off-balance for his next step. His forward momentum carried his feet from out of the boots and onto the floor. His socks' first contact with the deck was right at the edge of the lubricant patch. Janson glided along the floor, flailing his arms to maintain balance. He was actually managing quite well, until he slammed into the doorway.
It was the sight of Wes Janson, prankster supreme, scrabbling desperately for a handhold on the vacuum-slick doorway that finally broke the other pilots' silence. Luke and Wedge both gave loud howls of laughter, Luke doubling over in his seat and Wedge having to lean on the chair for support. Wes slowly lifted his head off the floor and glared at his fellow pilots through bleary eyes. The look only made them laugh harder, Luke nearly falling out of the rickety chair. Pushing against the wall until he hit a dry patch of ground, Wes shakily climbed to his feet and shot another look at his friends. Still laughing too hard to speak, Luke hit the "unlock" command on the door's keypad, and they siliently slid open. Sparing one last death-glare for the laughing pair, Janson shakily made his way to the doorway on the opposite side of the two, avoiding the slippery patch, and hopped over the threshold into the hallway. Unfortuntely, his socks had absorbed some of the lubricant, and the action sent him careening into the wall. This sent Luke and Wedge into another bout of laughter, and Janson used the wall as support all the way to his quarters, an air of wounded dignity about him.
The snickers inside the rec room began to die down, but flared up briefly as the two noticed Janson's boots standing resolute on the deck, empty but unmovable. Wedge stopped leaning on the chair and stood upright, still chuckling at the results. Before he could exit the rec room, Luke held up his hand and stopped him. Looking quizzically at his friend, Wedge noticed a slim object in his hand: the Commander's Access Key, a keycard that gave Luke access to pretty much the entire ship, including-
A burst of Tanaabian profanity wafted its way down the halls of the ship.
- pilot's quarters.
Wedge shook his head as he hopped over the lube patch into the hallway, glad that he wasn't going to be the one to handle the fallout from this mess. It was entirely Luke's idea, start to finish. Wedge just hoped Janson would realize that quickly.
Although for the next few weeks, Wedge planned on making sure his flightsuit was empty before putting it on...