In a dark room, in the middle of the night, on a backwater world on the ass-end of the Galaxy, a young man exploded upwards, sitting up in his bed and gulping in air as if he had only seconds before been drowning. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the light, but he took no note of the surroundings.
What in the sands just happened...
Biggs remembered... He remembered hearing the news about Alderaan, he remembered the briefing, he remembered seeing Luke in the hangar, he remembered the attack on the Death Star... He remembered being hit.
What happened...
Was he dead? That would make sense, there was no way he could have survived something like that... Unless his artoo unit ejected him at the last second, but then why didn't he remember that? Biggs lay back down on the bed... The bed? He must be dead, he didn't have a bed, not one this comfortable. The barracks on Yavin were alright, but they were still barracks.
Or maybe he just isn't on Yavin. Someone would have had to pick him up after the battle, before the oxygen in his flight-suit ran out... They could have taken him anywhere. Maybe this was some fancy medcentre. He finally looked around again, this time really looking. It was dark, but he felt his heart flutter as he recognised his surroundings.
He was home! Home on Tatooine, in his old room, the room he still used whenever he returned to visit his family or friends.
Kriff, how had he got here, it was a pretty long way from Yavin. Did Luke bring him back home to recover? Now that Biggs thought about it, he felt fine, like he had never even been wounded. And why did the rebels send him anywhere anyway, rather than just treat him on-base? It must have been them, if the Empire had recovered him he'd be in some prison camp right now...
Wait a minute!
He wasn't in an Imperial prison... Therefore, the Empire wasn't the one to find him floating out there. And the only explanation for why it wouldn't have been the Empire to find him is if the rebels had been victorious. WAY TO GO LUKE!
Biggs felt a grin stretch his face. They did it, they really did it! The Death Star was destroyed. That must be what happened, he was hit, then Luke destroyed the Death Star and they recovered his body, then sent him back home to recuperate. He jumped out of bed and began stretching, he felt fine, whatever treatment he'd been through must have worked.
Hells, actually, he felt better than he had in a long time. Ever since defecting to the rebels he'd been stressed out, a bit sore from the constant missions and pretty tired from the around-the-clock alertness they'd had to have to avoid the Imperials.
How long has he been back on Tatooine, it had been long enough to do the trick, obviously. He better get back to his duty. Stang, how was the war going anyway? The destruction of the Death Star would put the Empire back, but it wasn't going to end the war. The rebels needed him! Plus, he had promised Luke he'd listen to all of his stories when he got a chance!
He looked around his bedroom for a comlink or datapad or anything he could use to send a message to the Alliance, but quickly realised there wasn't one in the room.
It could wait until morning, he decided, he wouldn't be able to get into Anchorhead or Mos Eisley until the next day anyway, so he may as well settle back into bed and get a final good sleep before he rejoined his comrades. Biggs' last thoughts before he fell asleep were of where the base must be now, they couldn't have stayed on Yavin.
A few hours later, after a blissful, peaceful sleep, Biggs woke up with a yawn and got out of bed. His uniform was nowhere to be seen, but he supposed that it wasn't a very good idea to have it in a random civilian dwelling anyway, just in case Imperials stopped by as they sometimes did at his father's farm. Instead, Biggs pulled on a familiar old desert tunic, in the traditional Tatooine white and beige. Damn, he hadn't dressed like this since he left for the Academy.
He hoped the other survivors of the battle hadn't gone through his locker on Yavin, or they'd find the rather fancy outfit that he'd worn last time he was on Tatooine. Capes were the sort of thing that you ever loved or hated. Biggs grinned to himself remembering the feel of his cape, he was definitely in the "love them" camp. During his rather brief time in the Imperial Navy, he had acquired the fashionable core attire, among other things, in an attempt to fit in. He was just as comfortable in the old, worn tunic, but he did love a cape.
Before leaving the room, he made his bed, not quite to Imperial regulations, but it was clean. He took a final look around, might be a while before he came back. Over there in the corner was the holo taken years ago of him and Luke in the cockpit of a skyhopper, who'd have thought the pair of them, play-pilots from the deep rim, would go on to give the Empire such a massive blow!
And there, on the desk where he used to do his schoolwork, were a couple of model starfighters. Huh, he thought he threw that out last time he visited, a cut-out holo from some old magazine showing an advertisement for the Imperial Academy. Him, Luke, Tank and some of the other young men used to always talk about joining up, if for no reason other than getting away from the tedium of life on Tatooine. Kriff, what was Tank up to these days, was he still in the Stormtrooper Corps?
Maybe Tank would join the rebels too one day, and they'd get the whole gang back together. A whole crew of Tatooine rebels; wouldn't that be a shock to the corrupt Core-worlders, a bunch of Hutt-Space Rim ruffians taking down their precious Empire. And not just backwards hicks, but the son of a Jedi with them, that would be the ultimate screw to the Emperor who had had the order destroyed!
Biggs had never really known much about the Jedi, they were almost a myth out on Tatooine, Jedi hardly ever travelled out that far even during the Republic days. Finding out his best friend's dad was one had been a hell of a shock. There he'd been, telling some wild story about a race through Beggar's Canyon, when Commander Dreis had interrupted, "Skywalker, you said?"
"Yes?" Biggs had been confused, unsure about where the other pilot was going.
"Not related to old Anakin Skywalker is he? We could really use someone like him." the Commander had laughed, along with a few of the other older rebels, but Biggs, Wedge and those that didn't remember the Clone Wars were utterly confused. When Biggs answered "Uh, yeah, his dad was named Anakin, how'd you know?" though, it was Dreis who was gobsmacked.
He hadn't believed it was the same Anakin Skywalker at first, but then, how many Anakin Skywalkers could there have been at one time. Plus, it kind of made sense, Luke had always been one hell of a pilot, maybe he inherited it from his Jedi dad. Biggs had no idea what exactly the Jedi could do, other than a vague idea of "magic", but maybe Luke could do that too? He'd never shown anything like that, but maybe it was a secret. Or maybe he didn't know either.
Maybe Luke's some kind of wizard now too. Wouldn't that be funny, Biggs grinned, he'll arrive back at the rebel base and Luke will be dressed in funny robes with a laser sword talking about the Force or whatever.
Urgh, he really had to get out of here, he kept getting distracted.
Biggs finally left his bedroom. The Darklighter place wasn't huge, but it was definitely big by Tatooine standards, with about twice as many rooms branching off from the main pit as most of the underground dwellings in the area had. He had grown up with his father Huff, his half-sister Dera and his stepmother, but his uncle Jula, aunt Silya and little cousins also stayed with them, though he knew they'd been trying to move out and get a farm of their own for years, without any help from his dad.
He walked past the other bedrooms, stepping quietly. It wasn't too early in the morning, but the little ones loved to sleep in, especially his cousin Gavin. He was quickly out of the hallway and into the main opening, a pit where the various branches of the underground dwelling branched off. There was the way to his dad's rooms, that other tunnel went to the hydroponic gardens where the food was grown with their water harvests, that one was to the kitchen, that one his dad's office...
Yeah, there would be a com unit in the office. Surely his dad wouldn't mind. He'd call one of the local rebel contacts and arrange to be picked up in Anchorhead, then they'd just go into Mos Eisley and get a transport off to near wherever the rebel fleet was at the moment. He'd be there in no time.
Biggs knew the code to enter the office rooms, he used to help run the family business after all, and so he was at the com unit within seconds. It was an older model, but worked just fine, even if it only had the range to contact other units in the system. "Well, no point just sitting here, let's do this." he said to himself, entering the code for one of his contacts, some sleemo in Mos Eisley who he was sure only worked with the rebels because they had something on him.
There was no answer.
Kriff, it's not that early. He tried again, but still had no response. Next he tried to reach the leader of the cell in Mos Espa, but again, it didn't go through. Answer the damn com already! It was frustrating, he must have tried to contact a dozen different people that he knew were rebels or rebel sympathisers, yet none of them answered. The Empire couldn't have swept them all up, or they'd have found him too surely. What the sands is going on?
"What are you doing in here?" a sudden voice made him jump, but he grinned when he realised it was just Dera. She was still wearing her imported cloth pajamas with little pictures of nerfs all over them, he could have sworn she got rid of that, but maybe she just didn't wear it as often anymore.
"I'm just trying to com someone so I can get back to... you know." she looked very much like she did not know, but Dera didn't say anything. "How long have I been here anyway? Did Luke bring me? I feel great anyway. Full recovery."
"Uhhhh, what do you mean...?" she stepped closer and started looking at him funny, inspecting his face like there was something on him, "Did you go drinking with your friends last night or something?" this was definitely not an answer Biggs was expecting, his sister continued, "Wait, what do you mean recovery? Did you get into a fight! You and Luke, huh? I'm going to tell dad!"
Before he could blink, Dera was off and out of the room. She didn't know what happened to him? Why would she not know? Obviously the rebellion was secretive and all, but he told his family that he had joined them last time he visited, and shouldn't Luke or whoever else brought him here have explained what had happened...
Suddenly he caught a glimpse of himself reflected on the metal exterior of the com unit, as sunlight entered through the door left open by his sister. His hands flew to his face! FIERFEK, WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SAND-KRIFFING MUSTACHE!