[Set in the universe post my fic 'Myri and Me'.]
Myri Antilles-Skywalker smirked to herself as she thought that there probably had to be a first time for everything. Walking beside her, into the X-Wing hangar bays, her husband, Ben Skywalker, looked over and scowled.
"It's a trap. I just know it. He's out to get me."
Myri stifled a snort.
"Oh stop being so melodramatic, Red!"
"I'm not! He never did forgive me for marrying you."
His wife rolled her eyes.
"Yes he did. He was even there to give me away at our wedding, remember?"
"Yeah, well, here's where he takes his revenge. He says it's a father-in-law-son-in-law thing, but he's just calling me onto his turf for home advantage. I mean, he's even got me all rigged out in orange, for Force sake! Have you ever seen me wearing orange?!"
For the first time in their lifelong association, it was Ben and not Myri dressed in the loudly coloured orange flight-suit of X-Wing pilots. Myri crossed her arms over her chest and regarded her husband archly.
"Red, all X-Wing pilots have to wear that! It's mandatory! So rescue craft can spot you if you're ever forced to go EV. Look, you have nothing to worry about. You're not... that bad a pilot..."
Ben raised an exceedingly sceptical eyebrow.
"Reeeeally?"
Myri tapped a foot, not meeting her husband's gaze.
"Ummm... sure! He'll go easy on you."
"Please tell me you didn't tell him to go easy on me, Myri!"
"Uhhh..."
Ben threw up his arms in resignation.
"Oh great. Just great. How about you just shoot me right now and spare me the humiliation."
Myri sighed and tugged at the bridge of her nose.
"I just knew this was going to be a bad idea," she muttered, half to herself.
"You realize you're never going to see me again, don't you?"
"Oh stop being such a drama queen, Red!"
"I love you, Myri."
Ben's eyes had taken on a pathetic, beseeching look. Myri gave him a little shove towards the ship standing prepped for flight.
"Red, I'm warning you, quit it and go bond with my father!"
The two men faced each other in a similar hangar a few hours later, somewhere in Coronet City.
"Skywalker."
"General."
Retired General Wedge Antilles noted that his son-in-law was doing his best to meet his level gaze proudly defiant. But that didn't fool the veteran. He had looked too many fresh-faced pilots in the eye and had seen the same look of confidence they didn't quite feel just before they had been vaped into an early grave.
"Ready, then?"
"Yessir," Ben nodded affirmatively. He turned to follow his father-in-law, mumbling darkly, "As much as I'll ever be."
Wedge stopped in his tracks and turned with a cold glint in his eye.
"What was that?"
"N-nothing, sir."
Ben looked slightly paler than he had a moment ago.
"Hm. Don't try getting smart with me, boy. This isn't going to be a simulation. We'll be taking out the real things."
"Y-yessir."
A little more blood drained from his face.
"How many hours have you clocked in one of these?"
"Bout 40...ish...?"
Wedge had to fight to keep his jaw from dropping.
"40! That's it?!"
"Uhhh..."
His son-in-law very nearly squirmed under his appalled stare.
"I clocked twice that number in my first week as starfighter pilot! Your father must have clocked five times that before he even became a starfighter pilot! "
Ben sighed and met his eyes ruefully.
"I'm not my father, sir. And I'm not a starfighter pilot. I'm just a Jedi Knight."
"So you say."
Wedge appeared to be mulling things over. Then he flashed the younger man a patently plastic smile and headed towards his spacecraft.
"Well then, you shouldn't have any trouble keeping up with me."
Ben fidgeted where he stood.
"Ummm... sir? Have-have I given you some reason to be...ummm... displeased with me?"
"Displeased with you?!"
The father-in-law turned at the top of his ladder, his eyebrows raised sky-high.
"Why, you're married to my daughter! What reason could I possibly have to be displeased with you?!"
Ben's shoulders sagged and he passed a weary hand over his face.
"I'm doomed."
Myri entered their apartment that night to find her husband sitting on the couch, his head in his hands. She smiled and greeted him cheerfully,
"So? How was it?"
Ben drew in a long, shuddering breath and looked up. His face was haunted and his hair in complete disarray. he hadn't even changed out of his hated flight suit.
"I survived, didn't I? So I'd call it a stupenduous success!"
Myri frowned at his dry sarcasm.
"Red..."
Ben widened his eyes in his defence.
"What? You told me to go spend time with your dad and I did. Now you want details?"
"Yes," his wife answered firmly, "So what happened?"
Ben studied her for a moment.
"Apart from how he tried to kill me?"
Myri's eyes stretched in shock.
"Kill you?!"
Ben rested his chin on one hand, his eyes gazing out into space as he recounted.
"Yeah! He commissions me an unarmed fighter, with the bossiest astromech I have ever seen, who insists on calling me 'Rookie' all the time, like it's a swear word! And then he proceeds to lead us through an asteroid field!"
"What?!"
"And that's not all. Apparently he'd gotten his X-Wing temporarily fitted with tracking lasers and he wanted to see how well I could fly in a combat scenario. So while I'm juking and jinking in his sights, the great ace, Wedge Antilles is leisurely painting my ship so that now, if you place it under UV light, one side reads 'Skywalker flight risk', and the other says 'I wouldn't take you in my squadron if you paid me in whiskey' !"
Myri stared at her husband's mournful features for a moment, but unable to help it any longer, burst into a fit of breathless laughter.
Ben regarded her with a look of utter reproach at her inability to sympathize with his predicament. He stood up.
"Oh sure. Laugh it up, fuzzball. My nerves are shot and I'm going to bed before any other member of your family gets another sadistic idea to malign me!"
Myri closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"I'm sorry. It's just my dad gets these flashbacks to his Rogue days once in a while."
Her fingers played with his belt and she looked up into his face from beneath her lashes, suddenly unaccountably shy.
"I'm still glad you humoured him, Red. I know how uncomfortable you feel in starfighters. So... if you'd like... I might have an idea or two about how to say thank you..."
Myri squealed as her husband's arms caught her round her middle and, without another word, lifted her off her feet, literally dragging her off in the direction of their bedroom.
"Oh Wedge. I said go spend some time with him, not pull one of Janson's stupid pranks on him!"
Iella Wessiri Antilles stared at the smirking visage of her husband seated across from her at the dinner table in exasperation, her fork poised halfway to her mouth.
Wedge Antilles' didn't seem the least bit repentant, only surprised that his wife couldn't see the funny side of the whole incident.
"But Iella! It wasn't stupid, it was an old classic! That was how we used to break in the new recruits! And I'm sorry to say, he wouldn't have made it through. I mean, he was like a sitting duck in my sights! Painting him was almost too easy!"
Iella waved an angry utensil in the air.
"Why must you insist on humiliating him? He doesn't necessarily have to be the pilot his father was."
Wedge continued to stand his ground.
"Oh come on, Iella! He's a Skywalker! And he's married my daughter! The least he could learn to do is handle an X-Wing like a man!"
Iella sighed.
"Oh you men and your ideas of machismo! Honestly, sometimes you're no better than children!"
She regarded her husband through hooded eyes.
"But on another note, Ben's apparently decided to put a brave face on things. A message came from him some time ago. It's on your datapad. He says he enjoyed your bonding session and wants to know if you're free next week. He wants to take us all out... dancing."
In the silence that followed, one could have heard a cred-coin drop. Iella fought hard to bite back her smirk.
"What?!"
Wedge's face was a study in incredulity.
His wife replied almost entirely too casually.
"I told him we'd love to."
The old general's head sank into his hands.
"Nine hells, Iella! What'd you have to do that for?! Can't you see? It's a trap!"
[Aaaand that's a wrap, folks! Merry Christmas!]