A VE Day Rant with Mister Errand Boy and Myself in which Nothing Is As It Seems
I was tired, otherwise I wouldn't have been so free with my thought, or drink. It was Victory at Endor Day, only Coruscant didn't seem to know it. I was trying to drown my sorrows at the Keldon Knot. Now, mark you, being half Keldon, I knew that the Keldon Knot on the sign was highly stylized and you'd never find something remotely resembling this as a drinking place on Keldon, but I didn't care. I didn't care about much. I just wanted to be alone in my misery. Unfortunately, it seemed misery loved company and seemed to draw it.
"Mind if I join you?" a voice asked politely.
I looked up from my double Lomin. He was harmless looking, short brown hair, vaguely familiar looking, and a semi-military bearing that his civilian clothes couldn't hide any more than mine could. I had a vague urge to stand up and salute, but it was very vague. He was just another face in the crowd, like me, someone who put things together so the big guys could smash them up again. I motioned to the chair across from me and he sat. "Rotten weather," I muttered, feeling obliged to say something, but reluctant to say anything. I didn't want to think. Victory at Endor Day was my personal pity party day, if it so happened I had the day off.
"Yes, I suppose it is," he replied absently.
I get feelings about people, sometimes, and I got some pretty strong ones off of him. I'm not a Jedi, never will be, but I do get feelings. He was feeling just about as miserable as me, for whatever reason. But I also got the feeling he was trustworthy. "You military?" I asked, but I already knew the answer.
"Same as you," he said.
"Not quite," I took a sip of my ale. "'m a mechanic. Haven't seen you around. You look like…hmm… too skinny for quartermaster, too plain for a fighter jock…whaddya do?" I asked, insight failing me.
"I run errands," he said, after a slight pause. "All sorts of things, whatever I'm told to do."
"Huh," was my only answer. He might be intelligence. I downed the last of the Lomin and flagged the bartender for another. I couldn't remember if it was two or three. "Useful, that. So what's 'n errand boy doing here drinking? Or watching other people drink? Mind," I decided to reveal part of my hand here, accidentally more than on purpose. "You seem to be an all right sort."
He sighed. "I wasn't thinking about Endor particularly today."
"You look like you've got the weight of the galaxy on your back," I commented. "How do I look?"
"Tired."
"An honest man," I laughed, I think. "Corellian, aren't you? It's the accent."
"And you too if I'm not mistaken."
"My mother was, picked it up from her I suppose." I don't know why, but then I launched into what had been troubling me since I realized it had been troubling me. Well, that made sense in the Keldon Knot. Now it makes a little less. "You know what I hate?" I said, gulping from my new ale. "I hate how p-people starr-eo…sertyp…gah!" the word seemed to have deserted me.
"Stereotype?" he offered.
"That's it," I said gratefully. "Syatr- what you said, us Corellians. All about the odds, an' sush…great pilots. I'm not a pilot an' I'm glad!" I thumped my Lomin down decisively to emphasize my point.
"Really?"
"You doubt me?" I put a hand to where my blaster would have been if I had had the sense to wear it, but it wasn't there.
"No, not at all, I was just commenting," he amended.
"They go on," I muttered. "About wossisname…Antilles an' Skywalker an' the Rogues… They weren't so great!" I announced loudly. "I mean, they were good…no denyin'… but I coulda been a Rogue…"
"What stopped you?"
"My damn Keldon luck happenin' to my damn Corellian self," I said, swinging my right leg up onto the table with total disregard for hygiene and propriety. My tablemate looked a little startled. I pulled up my trouser leg so hard that I though I heard fabric rip. He saw it now and he nodded sympathetically. I didn't want his sympathy and I brought my leg down. "That isn't comin' out," I said. "Can't be a pilot with a lump of metal in your leg. Could saw it off an' get a prothestitic, but then y' got to pass the exam… I can't." I felt like crying and I might have let a tear go. "I'm no good at flyin'. What with this metal an' a bad set of eyes, I can't fly. Won't ever. So I'm a mechanic. 'tached t' Banshi Squadron. I can push yor machine just the bit futher it needs t' go, but I can't stand thinkin' about all those people who stand up there and take the bows. Rogue Squadron an' all them Corellians, Antilles, Celchu…" names deserted me. "that lot," I finished up lamely.
"Isn't Celchu Alderaanian?"
I waved a hand. "So what. I jush…just wanna tell someone, I've been with the Alliance since just after Hoth an'…an' no one's said thanks much. I know when you're in a hurry, it doesn't matter much, but…No one's ever noticed me before, why should they bother if I prepped their engines so they could fly. Why should they bother if I cared to boost their shields an extra notch?" I said, taking a big gulp of ale.
"People care," he said, touching my arm lightly, then, as though I might be offended, drew his hand back. But I wasn't offended.
"Don't you ever feel that way, errand boy? Don't you ever wish they could know the half of what you did to help them? And don't you ever wish they'd just say 'Thank you'? Doesn't take a medal. Doesn't take a pension. Just a 'Thank you'. Maybe a 'Well done' or a 'that was a quick repair', but no…" I sighed, and a moment later, so did the errand boy. It seemed like a day for sighs. My mind wandered and gradually came back. I held up my Lomin ale, slightly so as to not spill any.
"Anyway, t'day we toast…the dearly desen…cease…ahh…the dead 'uns," I said, giving up an attempt at fine words and finishing half the ale. "Like my sis. She was inna Awing swadron…good kid…she had everything I didn't. Smarts, good eyes, even looked good." I fished around in a pocket for the 2D I had of her. "Here," I said, sliding it across the table to him.
"She's beautiful," he said.
"Just sayin' that," I said, but I knew he was right. Lillis had been beautiful. "An' now, she's dead. Mind, not a bad thing, dyin' so that others might live. It's just the dyin' bit…you know?"
"Yes," he said quietly. "I do know."
"So to her, t' your friends who aren't here. To everything that might have been, to everyone who should be here and isn't…" I tossed back the last of the Lomin. Then there was an explosion. I don't remember much of that. Just a roaring noise, screaming, fire and feeling the sting of debris.
When I woke, for a moment, I thought it was all a bad dream that would proceed a hangover, but it wasn't. There was smoke everywhere, but thin smoke, seeming to indicate that if the fire was not out, it was well on its way to being so. I couldn't feel my feet. The errand boy had a comlink and was employing it, though I could not seem to concentrate enough to eavesdrop. Then he saw I was awake. He crouched down beside me. "How do you feel?" he asked quickly.
"I'd rather have a hangover," I said honestly. "Other than that? No legs, head hurts…" and I desperately wanted to catch up on my sleep. My eyelids drooped.
"Hey," Errand Boy said quickly. "Don't fall asleep. Not until the medics get here."
"What happened?" I asked, feeling strangely calm.
"Imp supporter seems to have self detonated by the door. We were lucky, other people seem to have caught more of the blast," he said, looking angry as he said it.
"Lucky," I repeated. Just my damn luck that seemed to get everyone else killed and leave me maimed but alive and greatly regretting that fact. I wondered if I had lost my legs, but getting up to look would be too painful, I decided. I wanted to sleep.
"What would you say," Errand Boy began (to take my mind off of sleep, I thought). "If I told you I thought I could get you a job with the Rogues. Would you take it?"
"Look, Errand Boy- keth I don't even know your name- I'm sure you've got connections, but that seems a bit much," I told him.
"Would you take it?" he asked.
A faint smile somehow found its way to my face. "Yeah," I said softly. "Yeah, I'd like that, a lot." The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. Me, in Rogue Squadron. All right, not in the capacity I'd first imagined, but still!
"Then hang on until we get out of here."
We talked for a long while it seemed. He told me a little about his family, born and raised Corellian, travelling the galaxy, finding the Alliance and jumping in head first, never looking back. I liked his straightforward way of saying things and his honesty. The fools in High Command wanted their heads examined, making him an errand boy. He was officer material. I still hadn't learned his name. Finally the medics got to the Keldon Knot.
"Heh," a thought occurred to me.
"What?" Errand Boy wanted to know.
"Guess this has to be my worst VE Day," I smiled, but there was for a change, nothing bitter in my smile.
"I don't know," Errand Boy said slowly.
An aristocratic, though worried looking man made his way through the press of people, carefully picking his path over obstacles such as people and furniture. "Are you all right?" he called to Errand Boy who was immediately visible because he was standing. I was not, lying behind a table.
"I'm fine, Two. We need a medic over here for Tarina," he said.
"Is she conscious and stable?" he asked.
"Yes," I tried to shout, but it came out a whisper. Errand Boy smiled and repeated my message.
"She'll have to wait then. Iella's been trying to raise you, she's a bit worried. Do you want to go outside so you can hear her?"
Errand Boy turned to me. "All right if I leave?"
Strangely, I didn't want him to, I didn't want to be alone, but I didn't say anything.
"If you'll stay with her," Errand Boy called back. A nod from the other man, a 'Look out for her, Tych' and Errand Boy was gone.
"Did he just call you Tych?" I asked slowly. Funnily enough, my mind seemed to have been almost improved by the explosion.
"That's right," the blonde man said.
"That…that wouldn't be short for Tycho?" I asked weakly.
He nodded, took off his jacket and covered me with it. "I think you're going into shock," he explained. "You look rather pale."
"Pale?" I repeated. Then I wondered why it was that I was not blushing furiously. Somehow in the next moment, my fist was gripping a handful of his shirt in a deathgrip. Oddly, he did not look frightened, or amused, just tolerant as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world. "Mister Errand Boy," I said. Those were my exact words; some things don't fade with time. "Who was he?"
My captive looked confused, then sudden understanding dawned. "Him? Wedge Antilles."
I fainted, something I had never done before and I feel I couldn't have chosen the time better. The oddest thing of this whole little escapade was that when I woke up in the infirmary, my first thought was not 'What's the prognosis?'. No, Rather it was 'I called a Squadron Leader Mister Errand Boy and he sat through a drunken rant by yours truly.' My second thought was, 'Who's that card from?' There was a card next to my bed on the tiny stand. I never got cards, my family was dead. It was a 'get well soon' card, signed by 'Mister Errand Boy' and enclosed were my transfer orders to Rogue Squadron. I remember holding onto that card and those orders as I fell back to sleep.
The End or a New Beginning?