LUKE SKYWALKER

Prophecy is a dangerous thing; it rarely is as it seems.

—Ancient Je'daii proverb
attributed to an unknown warrior of the Force Wars

Deep Space, Mid Rim, 0 ABY

"Standby for hyperspace translation," Wedge said.

Luke took a deep breath, forcing his numb limbs to move a little. Circulation was almost non-existent, and he felt like he had to skrag. In the tight confines of a one-man cockpit, that was no small feat. But he repressed the need, knowing that he didn't have the time.

Just as the thought crossed his mind, there was a flicker of a will not his own in his mind, gently pushing him.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, opening himself up to the will he felt, just as he'd done before. He felt the cool, rushing power of the Force swirling around and through him. Peace washed through him, and he could feel the searing power from the engines like they had sprouted from his body. He could feel the currents of electricity flowing through the instruments and could feel the coiled power of the plasma cannons. It was like making his ship a part of him.

Beyond the thin hull of his ship, he could feel the lights of eleven souls flying in formation beside him through hyperspace. He could feel the power in their ships, but it was like viewing lights through a warped pane of glass; they were there, but he couldn't make them out clearly.

He felt the ship drop out of hyperspace before it actually happened. It was like reaching to catch a ball that hadn't left the thrower's hand yet. As he opened his eyes, he saw the streaks of hyperspace collapse into points of starlight.

"This is it. Go to combat acceleration and follow me in," Wedge ordered.

Luke gave a perfunctory acknowledgment, and moved the throttle column forward to maximum combat acceleration. The soft vibrations from the engines turned into a discernible tremor.

Ahead of the Squadron, a space station hung suspended among the void, just barely a thousand kilometers out. Already, alert fighters were being launched from hangars and shields were being raised over the exposed HoloNet transceivers.

As the closing velocity rose higher and higher, the engines straining to propel the strike-craft ever-faster, Luke glanced out his port S-Foil, seeing the rows of capital-grade torpedoes attached to pylons. It was essentially the same loadout the Squadron had used near Lutrillia, though the torpedoes themselves were a slightly more sophisticated Imperial Navy model.

"Looks like Cardan-class," Wedge commented. "Okay, we'll make this simple. Stand by for torpedo launch on my mark, then get ready to get the hell out of here."

A chorus of acknowledgments crackled out over the comm channel, Luke's among them.

The twelve Alliance warbirds slashed through space, before Wedge's calm Corellian drawl said, "Torpedoes away."

The range was trivially small for such large torpedoes, and they rocketed ahead of the Squadron, just as they turned to make their escape. Confusion turned to panic aboard the Cardan-class station, as twelve strike craft suddenly produced two hundred and forty torpedoes.

The fifty-six TIE Fighters that had been accelerating to meet twelve X-Wings suddenly changed their headings, veering toward the torpedoes instead.

Luke lost his view of the Imperials' desperate defense, as he swung the nose of his ship around, decelerating as hard as he could.

"Standby to jump," Wedge ordered.

Deep Space, Outer Rim, 0 ABY

"The mission was a success, Admiral," Wedge said, finishing his report crisply. Luke stood at attention beside the Corellian, offering commentary when he'd been asked to do so and keeping his mouth shut the rest of the time. "Surprise was total, and we managed to destroy the station and the HoloNet relay it housed.

Thrawn sat back in his chair, his fingers drumming on the surface of his desk as his glowing eyes studied the two pilots. "By all accounts, Rogue Squadron acquitted itself well, Commander," he said. "As did every prong of this operation."

Luke and Wedge both nodded.

It surprised Luke to no end just how fatally overconfident the Imperial Starfleet could be. True, they had faced no real spaceborne force that could challenge them since the aftermath of the Clone Wars, but their tactics and doctrines were appalling when fighting anybody with even rough force parity.

Not that the Alliance had anything close to overall strategic parity with the Empire, Luke reflected. The Empire had over fifty thousand purpose-built star destroyers, while the Alliance only had around eighty; only seventeen of which were actual Alliance Naval units, and all of them courtesy of Admiral Thrawn.

Still, he didn't think that the Imperial Navy wasn't truly prepared to fight an opponent who was well-trained, motivated, and somewhat well-equipped, on equal terms. His belief was bolstered by the fact that every HoloNet relay that had connected the Outer Rim to the Mid Rim—which was, on a whole, strategically important enough to warrant Imperial Naval protection—were currently cooling debris fields.

"Go get some downtime," Thrawn said, his fingers ceasing their rhythmic tapping. "I'll be sending you out again. A longer mission, I'm afraid."

"Aye, sir. Thank you," Wedge said.

Thrawn nodded, then responded to their sharp salutes with one of his own.

Outside the Admiral's office, Wedge smiled wearily. "Keeps you on your toes," he said with his characteristic Corellian drawl.

Luke nodded. The one time that he'd ever met with Thrawn alone he'd definitely been kept on his toes. The alien admiral had an uncanny way of seeing things that no man should have been able to, and then using that knowledge ruthlessly—either in battle or in conversation.

"I'll see you later, Luke. I'm going to go check on the engineers."

Luke guessed that Wedge was going to check on one specific engineer. He didn't begrudge him the happiness he'd found with Gwendolyn, though, and didn't say anything. Instead, he nodded. "See you later, Wedge."

The cockpit of the T-65 X-Wing shuddered and vibrated in the turbulence of the now-familiar atmosphere of a gas giant.

Luke could feel the vibration of straining engines in his bones, as the quadruple engines propelled the strike-craft through the dense atmosphere at speeds that would have been impossible without the atmospheric shielding.

Dread reached up, and threatened to choke him, as a feeling of premonition from the Force washed over him.

Explosions from concussion missiles bracketed his ship once again, but he escaped death at the hands of the small missiles with a quick jink to port. The Force churned and whirled around him chaotic and uncertain; not the familiar calming presence he had grown accustomed to.

The dreaded outline of an Imperial TIE L/N Fighter appeared in his vision, emerging from a swirling cloud of vapor directly ahead. For a moment apprehension lanced through him, the earlier premonition forgotten. Then the apprehension turned to horror, as his controls locked in place.

The TIE grew larger and larger in his vision, and then its chin-mounted blaster cannons flared.

Bolts of emerald plasma sliced through his shields, and, the moment before he died, he opened his mouth to scream.

Luke gasped from the familiar terror of the dream—one of too many repeats of the dream he'd had aboard the evacuation transport, weeks earlier—as a hand shook him awake.

"You okay, Commander?" a voice asked. The clipped accent was familiar but strange at once. It sounded much like Wedge's Corellian drawl, but more refined; more restrained. His eyes sought out the speaker.

Lieutenant Arthur Crunie looked at the executive officer of Rogue Squadron with something approaching concern in his green eyes. "Nightmare, sir?"

Luke groaned, pushing himself up from his bunk. He was sweaty and tired; the dream had given him little rest. He glanced around the squadron's quarters, and found that the rest of the men were gone.

The deference of a man ten years—at least—older than him bothered Luke, but he didn't say anything. Deference to superior officers was part of any military, and Luke had somehow found himself Crunie's superior officer.

"Something like that," Luke said.

Crunie nodded. "I think we all have more nightmares than a civvie'd guess, sir." From the look of understanding in his eyes, Wedge guessed that he faced his own night terrors. Nightmares of slaughtering men he'd once fought beside.

Luke nodded in return. It had been more than a nightmare. He could still feel the Force whirling around him, brushing against his skin as it screamed something at him in a language he didn't yet understand entirely.

"Yep." Luke looked around the squadron's quarters, and asked, "Where's everybody?"

"Raising hell and meeting with their sweethearts . . . I think, sir," Crunie answered, setting himself down on his bunk, and closing his eyes.

"Not much for raising hell?" Luke asked.

"Not really." Crunie snorted. "Besides, Captain Baldor said we'll be getting an info-dump from the rest of the fleet soon, and I wanted to see . . ." he trailed off before he laughed—a little bitterly. "I guess that doesn't matter any more; there aren't many people who're going to send me a letter—if they even know I'm alive, they'll think I'm a traitor."

Luke didn't respond right away. "People think a lot of things."

"Yes, they do."

Luke's touchpad—buried underneath the few personal effects he stashed in a sack under his bunk—chimed, and he leaned down to fish it out from under the bunk.

"See? Probably the info-dump."

"Probably," Luke agreed. He lit up the touchpad, and found that he had a single message waiting for him. He smiled a little, as he saw the sender's ID. Tapping the screen, the prerecorded message began playing.

A young woman no older than him smiled at the camera. "Hello, Luke," she said, her brown eyes smiling even as she kept her mouth composed into an acceptably regal position. Leia had begun wearing her hair down more, and the soft brown locks framed her face.

"You . . . I hope you're well—the censors don't let much news about you and your squadron out." Luke recognized the polite way of saying 'I hope you're still alive' for what it was—the war had claimed too many people they had both known.

"They're running us ragged here. The constitutional committee seems to sleep three hours a day, and drinks caf for the rest of it. It wears you out." She offered a laugh at her own words, and Luke smiled. "But things are okay. They're okay."

She paused for a moment. "I guess there wasn't much to say, so I won't take up your day . . . I just wanted to say hello." She smiled, less regally this time. "I'll be thinking about you, Luke. Goodbye."

The message froze, leaving Luke with a still-frame of Leia's face.

"Sounds like a nice girl," Crunie commented.

"I hardly know her," Luke responded, turning the screen of his touchpad off. "Besides, she's a princess, and I'm a—" he almost said 'farmer,' but caught himself, "—pilot."

"I don't think that matters too much—it sounded like she wants to know you."

"Yeah . . . it does."

For a moment the Force swirled around Luke strong enough to take his breath away, and he wondered if it was telling him that a princess could like a farmer, or something else.

Dac, Outer Rim, 0 ABY

A tall uniformed man was waiting for Rogue Squadron. The throaty roar of strike-craft engines filled the hangar of Imprimis Base, though they were slowly dying down as throttles were cut.

William Sheplin's smile was small, as he watched the men of Rogue Squadron power down their birds and clamber out of their strike-craft. Luke had met the Imperial traitor several times, as Sheplin was the de facto liaison between Admiral Thrawn and the Squadron, but he didn't know if he'd ever truly get used to the tall man's thin expressions.

The protocol was somewhat hazy as Wedge descended the step ladder an engineer had wheeled up to the cockpit of his X-Wing, but, as his date of commissioning can come after the defector's, he saluted the tall officer.

Sheplin returned the salute with fastidious precision and said, "It's good to see you, Commander."