Wormie the Prince
By Rey

Story Notes:
1. Experimental thing, not to be taken too seriously.
2. Random, meandering words, with average writing quality, pretty short too.
3. First attempt at humour, somewhat of a meaningless fluff. Bear with me?
4. Shifting point of views. Tell me what you think?

Part 1: The Hapless Army Captain

"Wormie?"

Janek "Tank" Sunber, an army captain now, looks like; but still the old Tank in a few aspects, seems like.

"Tank."

Luke despises that name, and the way Tank still looks down on him, in addition to looking down at him; but he does miss his peers from Tatooine, however unfriendly they were, or even still are.

"What are you doing here? You're too short to be a stormtrooper," the older, bigger young man remarks, condescendingly baffled.

Luke flushes and scowls. "Don't I know that," he gripes. "Can't I just visit with you? Just that"

He shrugs awkwardly, when Tank gapes, flabbergasted and incredulous.

"But… but this is a military installation! You can't just stroll in here just to visit with me!"

Striking the older, bigger man into a stuttering near-silence is very, very satisfying, Luke must admit, regardless of what tool he does it with.

"No kidding." Luke shrugs again, grinning wrily. "How are you, Tank? Glad you're still alive, at least." His face crumples slightly, remembering Biggs, but then he tries for a bright smile. "Want some drink? Is there any cafetaria round here, anyway?"

Tank snorts, his arms akimbo. "Just for us insiders, Wormie. Don't tell me you can breeze into that one too."

Luke shrugs, again. "Suit yourself," he retorts. "If you show me, the drink's on me." But he truly hopes Tank will take the bate.

"You?" Tank turns even more baffled, and disbelieving. "Got lots of credits to burn lately, huh?" he wonders aloud.

"You can say that," Luke laughs, hopeful. "So?"

It's, at long last, Tank's turn to shrug and give back, "Suit yourself." And, given acquiescence, Luke eagerly obliges.

He tries to stay neutral, truly he does, when, outside the room, they are immediately flanked by a group of stormtroopers with the emblem of Vader's Fist: six to the front, four to either side, and six to the rear.

Tank looks positively… gobsmacked. So funny!

He can't ignore it though, for Tank's sake, when the beleaguered man gives him a sharp sidelong glance and hisses none too softly, "What's with the escort? It's Vader's Fist too! You're playing with me, Wormie? Don't involve me in your mad scheme!"

He shakes his head.

But for Janek "the Tank"'s part, he notices Luke's lurking wry lip-twitch…

He stops dead on the middle of the corridor and turns glowering eyes at the much-shorter man. "No, you explain this before I agree to go with you anywhere," he growls, shaking Luke's shoulders violently in the process.

The next moment, despite his being an army captain and several pay grades above most of the bucketheads, his arms are roughly yanked away and behind his back in a painful twist, and six blasters set on "kill" are aimed on various parts of his person, even as six others corden Luke off from him and the rest take point on either side of the corridor.

"What's the meaning of this?" he squawks, his eyes wide with shock and then fear. "You… I… Wormie! What…?"

In answer, Luke the Wormie instead addresses the twenty elite soldiers as if in command of them – troops of the infamous Vader's Fist! – and despite the presence of their commander, who is actually one of those bucketheads who is guarding the short scrawny guy, with exasperation rather than consternation too, let alone fear. "Let him go, please. It's just new to him. It's new to me too." He looks… rueful, even!

"We have our orders, sir," the commander of the elite bucketheads – the one standing closest to Luke, Janek notes – pipes in blandly.

He cannot believe it. Twenty stormtrooper of an elite commando group, answering to Luke Wormie Skywalker, and one of the twenty is even their commander, as if an escort team for planetary royalty from somewhere.

But even planetary royalty don't get the honours of being escorted by people of Vader's Fist! However they wish it to happen, those stuck-up idiots…

"Order? What order? From whom?" But none of the twenty answers him. And Luke… Luke just looks at him calmly, with eyes years older than his face and a soft sad – or wistful? – smile that just makes it more unnerving.

The hair on his head stands on end. "Luke?"