Title: Too Young
Summary: Reflection during the Borleias occupation during the NJO.
Disclaimer: Star Wars is, quite clearly, not mine, and no copyright infringement is intended. This story is not written for profit.
* * * * * * *
Leia looked around the hangar bay and slowly shook her head. The scene reminded her all too much of a time long past, but never, ever forgotten. Feeling a hand on her arm, she turned slightly to her left. "What is it?" Wedge Antilles asked, concern in his eyes.
Wedge. He, like the scene around her, brought back memories. Wedge had become a good friend to her and her brother Luke during their time with the Rebel Alliance, and he'd stayed close to them through the many trials time had thrown at them through the years.
"It looks just like Yavin," she murmured. "Thirty years we've been doing this, Wedge. You, and me, and Han, Luke, Wes, Tycho, Hobbie. Thirty years without a break."
"Sometimes it seems like longer."
"Usually it feels like a lifetime," she agreed. Leia fell silent for a moment, then spoke again. "Sometimes I wonder, though, if part of what makes it seem like such a long time is that we just started so very young. At 16, 17, 18 years old we should have been spending our days watching holodramas, not plotting how to destroy a space station."
He nodded in agreement. "We were very young."
She glanced around the hangar once more, and could almost see Wedge and Luke the way they were back then, almost hear them exchanging last-minute jibes or words of encouragement with Wedge's roommates, Biggs Darklighter and Jek "Piggy" Porkins, both of who had died during the battle over the first Death Star. "We were very young," she echoed.
* * * * * * * She wandered through the corridor, so lost in the memories she'd accumulated over her time with the Rebellion and the New Republic that she didn't even notice Tycho Celchu until she walked into him, and jumped as his datapad clattered to the floor. "Colonel!" she gasped, embarrassed. "I'm so sorry."
He just shook his head, grinning, and stooped to retrieve the datapad. As he straightened he asked, "Haven't we known each other long enough for you to just call me Tycho?"
"Funny you should mention that," she said, half to herself.
"What's funny?"
"Oh, I've just been thinking about how long we've all been doing this, how long we've known each other, and the fact that, in all the time we've known each other, we've been fighting, always fighting."
"I think everyone's been thinking about that recently. I think we're all starting to feel old."
"You're just starting to? I've been feeling that way for, oh, ten years or so."
He laughed. "Well, I have too, and so have Wedge, and Wes and Luke and Han. But I think the feeling is just a little more acute now, where we're surrounded by a much younger generation. I mean, I look at Gavin leading the Rogues and I remember him at sixteen, when Wedge had to fight General Salm to get him into the squadron at all. I know Wedge and I though of him as a kid then, and now he's nearly forty, so what does that make us?"
Leia nodded. "It makes me wonder how the older generation felt around us during the Rebellion and the beginning of the New Republic - people like Jan Dodonna, Mon Mothma."
"Probably the same way. I remember Wedge and Wes telling me about their time with Wraith Squadron. By the way, you should hear some of their stories, if you haven't already." Leia nodded. She had heard some of the Wraiths antics. "Anyway, both of them, but especially Wedge, because Wes sometimes seems like a ten-year-old trapped in a man's body, felt like conservative old men in charge of a bunch of crazy kids."
"How many times, between us all, do you think we had command trying to decide whether to shoot us, or just themselves so they'd not have to deal with any more of us?"
"Oh, I can't count that high," Tycho said, grinning. Then he sobered. "I've got to go. We've got some reports of Vong activity on the outskirts of this system. Nothing too urgent, but Wedge should know. Have you seen him anywhere?"
"I left him back at the hangar around all the young kids."
He glanced at her and saw a glimmer of something - pain? fear? - in her eyes. "Are you all right?"
She nodded. "Just a little sad, I guess."
"Oh?"
She nodded again. "It's nothing, really." Then she brightened slightly. "Come on, I'll walk with you. I wasn't going anywhere, anyway, and between us we might actually have a fighting chance of dragging Wedge away from work long enough to save him from starvation."
Tycho just grinned.
* * * * * * *
Wedge wasn't in the hangar, so they headed to his nearby office. The door was open so they stood there and waited for him to notice them. But he was so focused that Tycho wasn't sure anything short of a bomb would get his attention.
Finally Leia spoke up. "We've come to kidnap you." Wedge's head jerked up so fast Tycho thought he might give himself whiplash.
"What?"
"We're taking you for food, kicking and screaming if necessary."
He looked at both of them, looked at the datapad in Tycho's hand and asked, "More work?"
"Yes, its-"
Wedge held up his hand. "Is it something we have to prepare for right now?" His second-in-command shook his head. "Good. Let's go."
"The walk to the nearest eatery was silent, but once they were seated in a corner booth, Leia asked Wedge, "How do you feel being in charge of all these people, these kids?"
He sighed heavily. "Let's just say I don't envy the leaders of the Rebellion their authority."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it was a great honor when Luke gave command of Rogue Squadron over to me, but I really didn't want command. I didn't like the idea of ordering my people on missions that no one had any business coming back from." He looked at Tycho. "I know you felt the same." The Alderaanian nodded.
"I can't help but think about the number of people - of kids, really - who I've ordered to their deaths." He looked at Tycho again. "It was a little different with you, and Wes and Hobbie, and Corran, because you all had proven you could survive the worst the universe could throw at you, and then some. But people like Jag and Jaina." His voice began to trail off as he avoided meeting Leia's eyes. Then he continued. "Those two are good, real good. The best this generation has to offer. But they haven't proven themselves that way yet. Every time I order them out, it kills me. It really does." He sighed again.
"I know Gavin feels like he's failing as a quadroon leader, because the Rogues have been losing people at every turn. But it really isn't his fault. He's getting young kids who haven't got the training and experience they need, and he's losing them and we haven't got any other choice."
"Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" Leia murmured.
"Yes it does," cam a voice from behind her.
She twisted around and looked up into Wes Janson's eyes. She was used to seeing a broad smile on the youthful face, but now it appeared that the sober tone of the conversation had gotten to him. "Sounds just like the Rebellion."
"Sounds too much like the Rebellion for my taste." Leia's face hardened. "I'm tired of seeing death everywhere I turn. Over the last thirty years I've grown tired of sending kids off to die. I've sent my own children off to their deaths, for Force's sake."
Wedge reached over and rested a hand on her arm as tears filled her eyes. "We're all tired of this, Leia. We all deserve some kind of peace in our lives. Maybe when all this is over, we'll have a chance at that. But for now, as awful as it is to say, we haven't got a choice."
"I know that," she muttered. "It's just that every time I look around this base, every time I look around that hangar, it takes me back to Yavin. It reminds me of what we were up against, and what it cost us. I look at the Rogues and I see Red Squadron, and it terrifies me because I remember that our celebration after Yavin was as much a funeral as a party."
She stopped speaking and her eyes looked haunted. "Sometimes I even wonder if, if the Empire were still now what it was then, if Palpatine were still in charge, would the galaxy be better off?"
Her words shocked them into stunned silence for a moment, then Wes spoke, his voice hard. "No, Leia. Maybe Palpatine would have been able to save this galaxy from the Vong, but what kind of galaxy would he have been trying to save? And why? H'ed have been fighting to preserve his power in the galaxy, not to protect his people. That was always the difference between us and the Empire. When someone died, we felt a loss, and we felt for that person's family and friends. When Palpatine lost one of his people, all he saw was a loss of efficiency, not a loss of humanity." Wes' eyes were hard now, too, harder than Leia had ever seen them before.
"Maybe fewer people would have died in this war, but how many people would have died senselessly during the years leading up to it. And they'd all have been living in fear of the Emperor and after this they'd continue to live in fear. And I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to live like that. That's no way to live."
He took a breath, then continued. "No, by ridding the galaxy of Palpatine, we did more good for people than he ever could have or would have."
Leia, Wedge, and Tycho were staring at him. Fun-loving Wes Janson, the joke of Rogue Squadron, was rarely so serious. This was a side of him no one, save his closest friends, ever saw.
But thinking about that made Leia realize the impact that this war was having on all of them, the impact that the war against the Empire had had on all of them.
At last, she nodded. "You're right, of course. We've done a lot of good for the people of this galaxy." She paused, thoughtful and serious. "But sometimes I wonder what we've done to ourselves."
Summary: Reflection during the Borleias occupation during the NJO.
Disclaimer: Star Wars is, quite clearly, not mine, and no copyright infringement is intended. This story is not written for profit.
* * * * * * *
Leia looked around the hangar bay and slowly shook her head. The scene reminded her all too much of a time long past, but never, ever forgotten. Feeling a hand on her arm, she turned slightly to her left. "What is it?" Wedge Antilles asked, concern in his eyes.
Wedge. He, like the scene around her, brought back memories. Wedge had become a good friend to her and her brother Luke during their time with the Rebel Alliance, and he'd stayed close to them through the many trials time had thrown at them through the years.
"It looks just like Yavin," she murmured. "Thirty years we've been doing this, Wedge. You, and me, and Han, Luke, Wes, Tycho, Hobbie. Thirty years without a break."
"Sometimes it seems like longer."
"Usually it feels like a lifetime," she agreed. Leia fell silent for a moment, then spoke again. "Sometimes I wonder, though, if part of what makes it seem like such a long time is that we just started so very young. At 16, 17, 18 years old we should have been spending our days watching holodramas, not plotting how to destroy a space station."
He nodded in agreement. "We were very young."
She glanced around the hangar once more, and could almost see Wedge and Luke the way they were back then, almost hear them exchanging last-minute jibes or words of encouragement with Wedge's roommates, Biggs Darklighter and Jek "Piggy" Porkins, both of who had died during the battle over the first Death Star. "We were very young," she echoed.
* * * * * * * She wandered through the corridor, so lost in the memories she'd accumulated over her time with the Rebellion and the New Republic that she didn't even notice Tycho Celchu until she walked into him, and jumped as his datapad clattered to the floor. "Colonel!" she gasped, embarrassed. "I'm so sorry."
He just shook his head, grinning, and stooped to retrieve the datapad. As he straightened he asked, "Haven't we known each other long enough for you to just call me Tycho?"
"Funny you should mention that," she said, half to herself.
"What's funny?"
"Oh, I've just been thinking about how long we've all been doing this, how long we've known each other, and the fact that, in all the time we've known each other, we've been fighting, always fighting."
"I think everyone's been thinking about that recently. I think we're all starting to feel old."
"You're just starting to? I've been feeling that way for, oh, ten years or so."
He laughed. "Well, I have too, and so have Wedge, and Wes and Luke and Han. But I think the feeling is just a little more acute now, where we're surrounded by a much younger generation. I mean, I look at Gavin leading the Rogues and I remember him at sixteen, when Wedge had to fight General Salm to get him into the squadron at all. I know Wedge and I though of him as a kid then, and now he's nearly forty, so what does that make us?"
Leia nodded. "It makes me wonder how the older generation felt around us during the Rebellion and the beginning of the New Republic - people like Jan Dodonna, Mon Mothma."
"Probably the same way. I remember Wedge and Wes telling me about their time with Wraith Squadron. By the way, you should hear some of their stories, if you haven't already." Leia nodded. She had heard some of the Wraiths antics. "Anyway, both of them, but especially Wedge, because Wes sometimes seems like a ten-year-old trapped in a man's body, felt like conservative old men in charge of a bunch of crazy kids."
"How many times, between us all, do you think we had command trying to decide whether to shoot us, or just themselves so they'd not have to deal with any more of us?"
"Oh, I can't count that high," Tycho said, grinning. Then he sobered. "I've got to go. We've got some reports of Vong activity on the outskirts of this system. Nothing too urgent, but Wedge should know. Have you seen him anywhere?"
"I left him back at the hangar around all the young kids."
He glanced at her and saw a glimmer of something - pain? fear? - in her eyes. "Are you all right?"
She nodded. "Just a little sad, I guess."
"Oh?"
She nodded again. "It's nothing, really." Then she brightened slightly. "Come on, I'll walk with you. I wasn't going anywhere, anyway, and between us we might actually have a fighting chance of dragging Wedge away from work long enough to save him from starvation."
Tycho just grinned.
* * * * * * *
Wedge wasn't in the hangar, so they headed to his nearby office. The door was open so they stood there and waited for him to notice them. But he was so focused that Tycho wasn't sure anything short of a bomb would get his attention.
Finally Leia spoke up. "We've come to kidnap you." Wedge's head jerked up so fast Tycho thought he might give himself whiplash.
"What?"
"We're taking you for food, kicking and screaming if necessary."
He looked at both of them, looked at the datapad in Tycho's hand and asked, "More work?"
"Yes, its-"
Wedge held up his hand. "Is it something we have to prepare for right now?" His second-in-command shook his head. "Good. Let's go."
"The walk to the nearest eatery was silent, but once they were seated in a corner booth, Leia asked Wedge, "How do you feel being in charge of all these people, these kids?"
He sighed heavily. "Let's just say I don't envy the leaders of the Rebellion their authority."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it was a great honor when Luke gave command of Rogue Squadron over to me, but I really didn't want command. I didn't like the idea of ordering my people on missions that no one had any business coming back from." He looked at Tycho. "I know you felt the same." The Alderaanian nodded.
"I can't help but think about the number of people - of kids, really - who I've ordered to their deaths." He looked at Tycho again. "It was a little different with you, and Wes and Hobbie, and Corran, because you all had proven you could survive the worst the universe could throw at you, and then some. But people like Jag and Jaina." His voice began to trail off as he avoided meeting Leia's eyes. Then he continued. "Those two are good, real good. The best this generation has to offer. But they haven't proven themselves that way yet. Every time I order them out, it kills me. It really does." He sighed again.
"I know Gavin feels like he's failing as a quadroon leader, because the Rogues have been losing people at every turn. But it really isn't his fault. He's getting young kids who haven't got the training and experience they need, and he's losing them and we haven't got any other choice."
"Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" Leia murmured.
"Yes it does," cam a voice from behind her.
She twisted around and looked up into Wes Janson's eyes. She was used to seeing a broad smile on the youthful face, but now it appeared that the sober tone of the conversation had gotten to him. "Sounds just like the Rebellion."
"Sounds too much like the Rebellion for my taste." Leia's face hardened. "I'm tired of seeing death everywhere I turn. Over the last thirty years I've grown tired of sending kids off to die. I've sent my own children off to their deaths, for Force's sake."
Wedge reached over and rested a hand on her arm as tears filled her eyes. "We're all tired of this, Leia. We all deserve some kind of peace in our lives. Maybe when all this is over, we'll have a chance at that. But for now, as awful as it is to say, we haven't got a choice."
"I know that," she muttered. "It's just that every time I look around this base, every time I look around that hangar, it takes me back to Yavin. It reminds me of what we were up against, and what it cost us. I look at the Rogues and I see Red Squadron, and it terrifies me because I remember that our celebration after Yavin was as much a funeral as a party."
She stopped speaking and her eyes looked haunted. "Sometimes I even wonder if, if the Empire were still now what it was then, if Palpatine were still in charge, would the galaxy be better off?"
Her words shocked them into stunned silence for a moment, then Wes spoke, his voice hard. "No, Leia. Maybe Palpatine would have been able to save this galaxy from the Vong, but what kind of galaxy would he have been trying to save? And why? H'ed have been fighting to preserve his power in the galaxy, not to protect his people. That was always the difference between us and the Empire. When someone died, we felt a loss, and we felt for that person's family and friends. When Palpatine lost one of his people, all he saw was a loss of efficiency, not a loss of humanity." Wes' eyes were hard now, too, harder than Leia had ever seen them before.
"Maybe fewer people would have died in this war, but how many people would have died senselessly during the years leading up to it. And they'd all have been living in fear of the Emperor and after this they'd continue to live in fear. And I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to live like that. That's no way to live."
He took a breath, then continued. "No, by ridding the galaxy of Palpatine, we did more good for people than he ever could have or would have."
Leia, Wedge, and Tycho were staring at him. Fun-loving Wes Janson, the joke of Rogue Squadron, was rarely so serious. This was a side of him no one, save his closest friends, ever saw.
But thinking about that made Leia realize the impact that this war was having on all of them, the impact that the war against the Empire had had on all of them.
At last, she nodded. "You're right, of course. We've done a lot of good for the people of this galaxy." She paused, thoughtful and serious. "But sometimes I wonder what we've done to ourselves."