I don't own Star Wars. It belongs to George Lucas.

Ever wonder how Wes became the way he is? Here's how.

~~

I Prank, Therefore I Laugh...

Wedge called me into his office yesterday. It was just after the incident where I glued Tycho into his cockpit. Wedge told me that he's finally become fed up with me. If I don't write this report on why I pull so many pranks then I'll be removed from Rogue Squadron and replaced with someone who can maintain some level of decorum.

He doesn't understand. He never has. I need to play pranks. It's the only way I can laugh anymore. I used to be a serious boy, back when I started getting home-schooled on Taanab. I was my Mother's prize student.

**

"All right, Wes. That's enough work for today. You go help your father bring in the herd."

"Yes'm."

My family was a bunch of nerf herders. No, I'm not joking. We herded nerfs. We rode gorrals, which are large, equine beasts and used force pikes to keep the herd in line. We kept them corralled close to the house, but had to shift where the corral was periodically to keep them from overgrazing.

My mother didn't know, but while my brothers were bringing in the herd, Pa took me aside.

"You're the eldest, Wes. Do you know what that means?"

"Yes, Pa. It means that I've gotta be responsible for my brothers so that if you're ever gone, they'll be taken care of."

"Good boy. Now. I'm gonna teach you how to shoot the blaster. It's very important. You need to know this to defend our herd and our family."

Pa taught me how to shoot that day. He said I was a natural, and have learned since that he was right. I was able to shoot down a syraccor, that's a fast type of bird, that was flying a hundred feet in the air at full speed.

Pa taught me everything I needed to know about taking care of the family, while Ma saw to my education. They seemed to think it was all dreadfully important and so I learned as fast and well as I could.

Then Pa died. It happened all of a sudden. Ma said that Pa had some sort of rare disease that couldn't have been cured. It had apparently been diagnosed a long while back, and Ma and Pa had decided then and there that I would have to be trained quickly to take over the farm. Ma's legs were crippled back when I was two, so I had to do it.

I really don't know that I did all that good a job. I tried, I really did. But Taanab is a hard place to live and farming is a hard life. It seemed that my family seemed to lose a member every year.

My mother was the first to go. She passed quietly in her sleep. I'm actually glad she went that way. She spent most of her life in constant pain. It comforts me to know that, at least in death, she did not suffer.

One by one my siblings were taken. The disease that took my father had been passed on to his children. First went Ghari, then Matix, then Peoter and finally Sampson...

I managed to earn enough money to get myself tested. I wanted to know how long I had before I was gone too. That was when I discovered that nature had played its ultimate prank on me. I was going to live. Of all my siblings, I won the genetic lottery and my father's disease did not touch me. I laughed at it. The doctor thought it callous. If only he knew that my laughter was a shield for my pain.

I was adopted by the family on a nearby farm. I determined to get off Taanab as soon as possible. I could no longer stay there with the ghosts of my family taunting me with the irony of their demise.

I became a prankster when I left my family farm, too. Why, you ask? It?s really quite simple.

I prank, therefore I laugh...

I laugh, therefore I endure...

I endure, therefore I survive...

That's why I'm the prankster of Rogue Squadron, Wedge. I use pranks to make me laugh, because laughter is what keeps me sane.

fin

~~

Jasper