"Luke" Wedge Antilles whispered worriedly. "Commander, you ok?" Wedge rested a hand on Luke's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"I'm alright Wedge, it's just my first mission as a Commander so I guess I'm a little nervous" he admitted sheepishly, trudging through the forest ahead. "Not to mention it's a big mission, freeing all those people from torture? What if I don't do it right?"
"You're Luke fucking Skywalker" Wes comforted "you'll be fine" Luke smiled back to Wes, appreciating his friends words, despite not being a fan of Wes' language. The three friends continued to lead the other 7 rebels through the murky trees, occasionally stopping to rest or for someone to tie their shoelace. The only usual sound was crunching leaves, snapping twigs, or Wedge's whistling.
"You know, I hate the empire with a passion, but they're doing one thing right, I just hope we don't run into any imperials here" Wes piped up again, hoping to calm Luke's nerves.
"What's that?" Luke asked, not taking his eyes off the pathway ahead.
"Trying to ban slavery" Wedge chuckled. "A lot of these people being tortured were once slaves, I hope we don't see any imperials either, that'll make everything worse"
"You know Commander Skywalker" an elder man stated from behind him. "People believe Darth Vader was once a slave, and that's why he was corrupted by the emperor" Luke stopped in his tracks at the news, turning to face the voice.
"Really?" He asked curiously "but Darth Vader isn't human is he?"
"No one knows sir" someone else said. Luke contemplated it in his head as he continued trudging on, Darth Vader, murderer of Ben and his father, being bossed around? It was almost comical to him.
"C'mon" Wedge urged "they'll be time for stories later, AFTER we rescue the slaves"
"Wedge is right, let's keep moving"
After what felt like hours of marching through the forest, Wes stopped the search for a break.
"Commander" one of the more timid rebel's whispered. Despite Luke being one of (and most likely) the youngest rebel in the alliance, most of the others saw him as a tough fighter, not a meek farmboy. "Really sir I don't mean to intrude on your personal time, I- I was just wondering what your plan of attack was when we found this base?" Luke mentally face palmed at the realisation he hadn't explained the plan, like any commander would. He saw Wedge and Wes sniggering behind their hands a few feet to his right.
"No it's ok, well once I was shown a map of the base, I saw it has four entrances, a north, a south, an east and a west, Leia told me that only myself and umm someone else, I was thinking Wes, should go and look for the scientist who goes by Leeson, as I'll be- be able to track down his lab with my f-force abilities a-and I'll have a back up, the rest of you are to attack from the north entrance while Wes and I-I go from the east"
"Are you cold?" Wedge whispered, once the others had gone back to their smaller conversations, Luke shook his head. "Well your shaking and I've never seen you stutter so much, actually when you fell on your face in the mess hall and tripped up about 10 other people, you stuttered pretty hard-"
"Shut up" Wes sighed as he sat next to Luke "he's nervous you moron"
"I'm not" Luke insisted as he trembled a little more.
"Luke listen to me, you're already doing better than Wedge was, when he moved up the ranks, the night before his first mission he wet the b-"
"I did no such thing!" Wedge cut him off, glaring at his older friend. Luke laughed a little before standing up.
"Thanks you two, it's kinda hard to lead a first mission without Han, he's my best friend, and when I first joined the alliance I thought I'd have no friends, but you two are just as great"
"We know" Wes chuckled "let's keep moving, we may make it there before nightfall if we're lucky" Luke was pretty sure he was going to collapse after around 3 more hours of trekking, Wedge had stopped whistling, Wes wasn't cracking jokes, nobody spoke, they just marched.
"This is your mission Luke" Wedge reminded him through a yawn "you say the word and we head back, or at least find shelter"
"No" Luke muttered "gotta keep going"
"I DO NOT CARE WHO WE TRY IT ON! BRING ME A PRISONER NOW!" They heard a voice bellow in the distance. This lifted Luke's spirits, only so slightly, they were close.
"Guys we have to keep going! Look how close we are!" A new found energy burst through the blue eyed teen as he took off in a run ahead.
"What are we going to do with him" Wes chuckled, picking up his pace.
New book! I may or may not have stolen it from someone else... it gets more original!
The chapters will get longer, I just didn't have the time with this one, not to mention it is a new one. The serum Luke will be injected with should take place in chapter three, the effect began in 4 but he's fully turned into a toddler by 5 and if you are in the future then you can skip right to it! Is future Briar any better at writing? Anyway fave it, follow it, forget it, do whatever you want with it. (Also review)
Briar x