An old tale retold
What is General Rieekan thinking about one chilly afternoon on Hoth?
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A/N: I understand that a very well connected plot bunny can wrangle a commission in Rogue Squadron for anyone who can identify where the plot came from! ;)
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You're late? Well, you're not the first one to be that in my list of this afternoon's appointments. Quit wasting time telling me about it, and take a seat.
No, I'm not cross. Spent the time thinking, that's all. You see a lot, rising to be a general in a rebellion. Good things, bad things. Good people, too – and Force knows, plenty of bad ones!
I was thinking of a good person, though. Tech, she was, on one of the early bases we had. Good pilot, too, but she preferred to mend things. Had a boyfriend, or maybe a husband. Nobody knew, rumour just got round once she started having a spot of trouble bending over the engine units. Then there was a battle. A big one, and the squadron she'd been tech for went up and not one of them came down again.
We had to leave that base, then. Evacuate to the old cruiser we had. And that was where the child arrived. Pretty little girl, dark hair and big dark eyes. Had all the X-wing boys doting on her, right from the start. And it almost was Day One, for her mother wasn't getting beat by this any more than by the Empire. Stuck that baby in a carry sling and got back to her engine units.
Of course, that baby didn't stay in that carry sling. You have a ship full of pilots with not much to do but go on duty, off duty and lose their shirts at sabaac, they're pretty soon playing with a little thing who could talk with her eyes long before she managed "ek-zing!" She mightn't have had a father any more, but she couldn't have had more doting aunts and uncles, each one of whom would tell you they were the one who taught her 'X-wing' as her first word. 'Baby of Blue Squadron,' they called her.
Well, we lost that ship too. Got the fighters out, and that was about it. And I don't think anyone who was there will forget standing in the command centre of the new base, realising that if we'd lost the techs, we'd lost...
Nobody said it. Just as well. One last, late X-wing came in, and he got his cockpit lid up almost before he'd taxi-ed to a halt. "Can someone take the baby?" he called down. "Grabbed her off a hover trolley and tucked her under my arm, but it hasn't been too easy flying like that. Sorry I'm late."
Baby of Blue Squadron she really was, then. Sometimes, when higher command would come to visit, they'd question the wisdom of having a little bit of a girl, scooting about the place in a cut-down orange flight suit with a grease smudge on her nose. They'd suggest sending her somewhere safe, like Alderaan. Have her adopted. But the boys and girls wouldn't hear of it. She was the Baby of Blue Squadron, thank you, and that was that. They kept her in orange so they didn't run over her, and she grew up pale as a shroom in the dark. Wherever they went, she went too: cruisers, frigates, land bases. Knew almost everything about the inside of an X-wing and spoke binary like an astromech, but I don't think she met a plant until she was eight.
That tale did the rounds. Uncle Jhi, the one who'd rescued her, took her out for a walk on the moon they were on. They came across a tree, and she walked all round it and asked: "How does it work?"
He was probably the longest lasting of the uncles, but we lost him too, a few years after that. The Baby of Blue squadron was quieter, after that. For a few years. Then she went to work as a tech, like her mother. Good pilot, she was, the squadron had taught her that. She got offered a commission, but she turned it down. Said she was the Baby of Blue Squadron and she wanted to repay them for all they'd done for her. Nobody was ever going to have to wait for a repair, if she had anything to do with it, and all the squadron swore she conjured spare parts out of thin air.
Had a new batch of pilots came in. And one of them – Force! Sparks flew. She'd fix his fighter and complain about the way he treated it; and he'd poke her repairs and complain the wings would fall off if she couldn't do a bolt up tighter than that. Everywhere you went on base, you'd fall over them arguing.
Call me sentimental if you like. He was a good pilot, with a good eye for command, and she was the Baby of Blue Squadron. What could you do? I pulled a few strings, got him a commission. Then I said to him, "Officers take orders."
He stood to attention. "Yes sir?"
"Well," I said. "You take one from me. You just pop along and ask the question you've both been fighting over without ever mentioning it, and I'll see what I can do about getting you Leave for the occasion."
They're on Home One, now. With another baby in a carry sling.
And what was I thinking all that for? Didn't you say you were late, going round the long way to avoid the South Passage? Blockage?
I keep telling everyone, just push past. It's happening every day; they won't notice you.
Can't do it. He won't accept a commission. But I'm wishing I could do the same thing for Solo and the Princess.
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