Rage.
Absolute rage.
Wedge's anger flared beyond all control. Face red. Knuckles white. Voice hoarse from growling at the top of his lungs until there was no more breath behind it.
No one heard it. No one saw it. All they knew was that he was hit, but he wasn't dead. He wasn't even damaged enough to need to eject, so his wingman peeled off to dive back into the fight without him. And Rogue Leader was left alone in the mess to stutter and drift.
Wedge gritted his teeth to look out the canopy and watch his lower port engine fizzle to nothing. He never saw the TIE that fired the shot. And R5 was already fried from another shot three long minutes ago. He yanked the stick to ease into some kind of effective position, but the dampers were trying to make up the difference for the dead engine, and the old bird over-compensated with bursts in three directions. It was like trying to fly with a dead rancor on his wing.
With Coruscant a glittering gem of black and gold beneath him, with red and green streaks surrounding him like some kind of disco, with capital ships hanging in the black like giant salt rocks in an asteroid belt, in the most important battle of this decades-long war, Wedge was once again nailed just enough to kick him out of the effort, but not enough to die.
Wedge was so incredibly pissed.
He wasn't supposed to live through this one. He couldn't explain how he knew that. He never quite put his finger on the conscious thought of it. But he wasn't supposed to live through this one. For the Battle of Coruscant, this final push to kick the Empire out of the Capital Planet, Wedge expected he would be one of the ones who could leave this war behind. He expected his last moment would be to watch a fatal blow coming to kill him, and he would merely close his eyes with a final prayer that the rest of them would live to be happy in peace. That's how he wanted to go out.
Not like this. Not limping the X-Wing back towards the Mon Icarus like a lame dog. Not to sit on the hangar deck and help the repair crew haul in pilots after the mission completed. Not to write the Regret To Inform You letters to widows and parents and children. Not to stand in some horrid Victory Day ceremony and get a medal that burned a new blister into his chest for every dead pilot that deserved it more.
But maybe, just maybe, his crack grease monkey crew could patch up the engine and send him back out before it was over. Maybe another pilot had landed a good bird that he could take back out. Hell, he'd take a TIE out if he had to. He was pretty good in those, too. Wedge really didn't have any other options but to crawl back to the hangar and figure out how else he could help get this done.
Inching around the Mon Calamari cruiser, he could already see they were struggling. The starboard shields flickered, and the well-lit hangar was crawling with the rushing army green jumpsuits. The place was a mess, but a loosely organized one. They had pulled in a Gold Group Y-Wing, charred black over its starboard engine, but the rest of the racing was to pull in ejected pilots from space. Crew stood at the tractor beam controls. Crew shouted into the Ops Channel. Crew lined up with naked gurneys by the small shield porthole. Crew ran full speed shoving filled gurneys with squirming burnt pilots toward the back of the hangar and into the hands of emergency med droids. They would need to bring the shield down so he could land, and he considered not landing simply so they wouldn't have to bring that shield down. In its flickering state, he feared it might not go back up.
He heard Seidrik's rushed voice in his ear. "Rogue Leader, Icarus Hangar. You comin' in?"
"Icarus Hanger, Rogue Leader. Only if your shields are gonna go back up. Can you confirm?"
"Wait one."
Wedge watched out his port eyeball to see Seidrik, still practically a teenager, man-up to demand a status on the health of their shields from the bridge so they could pull in a broken bird. In the three seconds he waited for an answer, he was now close enough to see Ashten's green hair running away with a burnt body on a gurney and Kayla's blond bob flying frantically into her face as she hit the controls with her elbow so her arms remained free to reach out into the momentary vacuum of space and yank a TIE pilot out of danger.
Support crew. They'd all be dead without them. You guys should get all the medals for this one, Wedge thought.
"Rogue Leader, Icarus Hangar, Bring it on in."
Wedge pressed his mouth and tapped the stick to nudge the bird in that direction, and the flickering shield zapped away to welcome him home-
It screamed.
It screamed in that familiar, painful, ear-piercing, twin ion engine scream. It screamed with an I'm-coming-to-take-a-bite-out-of-your-ass, Imperial jackass scream. Even in the soundless dead of space, it screamed. Before he could turn his head to see it coming, the Doppler shift of sound already told Wedge it was screaming for them. The TIE was spinning on a kamikaze run toward the hangar, like a needle intent to stab a hole into the side of the capital ship, like a suicide bomber aiming to take out his family.
And they had lowered the shields for him.
Wedge's rage exploded in a battle cry the same moment his fist yanked the throttle. He cranked the pitch until he spun too, spiraling his broken ship into the damn thing's way. He saw the flash-pop and a body punch out into space above the TIE only a split second before the black beast T-boned Rogue Three.
The crash knocked him around like a bee-bee in a box car. Wedge let go of the controls, closed his eyes, and just let it happen. He felt closure that his final thought was, indeed, a prayer that all of Rogue crew would live to be happy in peace.
Inside the cockpit, his body tumbled and banged. His helmet cracked the yellowed transparisteel of the canopy. The crunch of metal against metal growled with the power of an evil demon. In the crackling mike, he heard Seidrick's shout get cut off too fast to know what he was yelling. He felt the X-wing hit deck and slide with a nails-on-chalkboard scrape. He heard a woman scream. And he realized he was tumbling to a stop.
Dizzy, bruised, shell-shocked, Wedge began to open his eyes.
Ka BOOOM!
Orange fire flowered from his snapped port wings and rolled over the panel-less, black beatle body of the TIE, still skidding to a stop on the deck beside him. In instinctive self-preservation, Wedge began to blink away from the explosion, but his eyes only widened to watch all the other eyes staring back at death. Oily fire bubbled away from him with the speed of a flash flood, igniting the air in the hangar, and swept over a scattering of grease monkeys still coming out of their duck-and-cover from the crash.
Ashten began to bring her body up from covering the pilot in the gurney just as her green hair burnt black and her skin melted. Seidrik cried out with a red face to warn others just before his body slammed against the bulkhead like he'd been fired from a cannon. Kayla barely turned to see what happened when the explosion blew her out the open porthole like a pea from a straw, right along with gurney and the TIE pilot she had just saved.
"NO!" Wedge screamed. He watched in impotent horror as his entire repair crew slammed against the nearest bulkhead, snapped like twigs over equipment, fried like paper, and swept toward the open bay doors like dried leaves in a strong wind, several tumbled out into space like dead gnats before the shield slammed shut again.
"NO! NO! NO!" He slammed his right arm hard against the side of the cockpit, over and over and over again. He tried to look at his lap, he tried to slam his eyes shut, he tried to think of a way to make the rest of the X wing explode with him still in it, but all he could do was sit there, trapped, helpless, and watch.
The fire burned itself out within in two seconds. Droids piled on people piled on broken fighter parts piled on more dead bodies strapped into gurneys in the fore-corner. He saw the flash of red and green outside that the battle continued to rage on. He felt the Mon Icarus rock from another hard blow. He saw the blast doors slammed shut to contain the blast. The only thing left alive in the hangar was him.
And now he had to wait until the battle was over before they could pry him out of the broken cockpit.
Wedge looked out through that canopy, blinking through blurry vision and tears of rage, his teeth splintering behind his retracted lips, his right arm broken by his own beating, and had all the time in the world to sit there and stare at all their dead bodies.
They split up. Since Yana drove Kess and Tayla, and Wedge drove Nik and Luke, it made sense for Luke to stop and pick up his own speeder so the Jedi could fly his own family home after the dinner. The guys had tried to engage him in further conversation on the way out, but Wedge wasn't in the mood for it. He was too irritated. They all kept trying to hook up him and Yana like nothing ever happened, like they hadn't all just been through the biggest losses of their lives. Was he really supposed to just pick up the pieces and live happily ever after? Just because he was unfortunate enough not to be on The List? He had no right to that. In all the years from defecting the Imperial Navy to now, Wedge had not accomplished a damn thing that earned him a 'happily ever after'.
Besides, Yana pretty much shut him down anyway. She wasn't an outgoing woman by any means, but she was well-known for her inner strength not to put up with player bullshit. She flirted back on Yavin 4, but she was no longer interested. She made that clear with her cold and concise message about the wedding plans. Disappointed as he was by it, he respected her enough not to press the matter any further. In a way, he respected her more for it, for she was one of the few who didn't act like the whole war should be erased from memory.
Still, she was First Lady and he was First Man, so he was going to have to find a way to interact with her over this damn wedding anyway. He made a point to find a friendly/professional balance so that their interaction didn't feel awkward, which would be a difficult task when she couldn't talk. Somehow he'd manage, he insisted of himself, and flew alone behind Luke and Nik in the other speeder to this Tatooine place they kept raving about. As if Luke sensed his annoyance, the man engaged more than usual to Nik's boisterous and playful antics. It was as if the other two were creating a happy distraction so that Wedge's cold silence wouldn't be noticed. Wedge let them take the front lines on that.
Strolling into that furnace of a restaurant, the three men found the three women already at a large stone table with iced drinks and nibbling on communal flat bread. Wedge's eyes instantly locked on her-he couldn't help it-a blue band tied back the pale brown hair from her porcelain face. Her red lips smiled white teeth at some joke Kess just said, until those green eyes saw him come in behind the rest of the crew. Her smile faded, but her lips remained parted. Her white cheeks flushed with a touch of pink. Her posture straightened, and her shoulders heaved a slow, careful breath of air.
In an attempt to offer a silent peace, Wedge pressed an uneasy grin as he sat down across the big round table from her, expressing as best he could a face of apology for making her uncomfortable. Thankfully, the moment was swept away by the other wild and happy activity.
Four Jawa waiters took care of them. The restaurant owner, whichever one it was, was glad to have this party visit their establishment and worked hard to give them the royal treatment. Tayla whined that she couldn't read the menu. Nik tried to order sulferian meat sticks for his sister. Kess was then forced to explain her allergy that would make her go voiceless for a time. Yana shrugged at Kess that she shouldn't bitch about such a thing. Luke ordered something that made him announce he was going to have to find a gym for them very soon. Apparently, the Jedi hadn't gone running once since they got here. Wedge gave up on trying to understand what the food was and just ordered whatever Luke was having.
"So, how did you guys do?" Luke soon asked the women.
Kess explained they found dresses for the Senate Ball but they weren't shopping for the wedding yet. Yana shook her head and snatched the datalink to type, then tossed it across the table at Luke and reached for the second link out of her bag.
Luke picked it up and read, and Wedge over to read over his shoulder.
I have some ideas now.
"Oh?"
Yana motioned that the datalink go to Tayla, and instructed with fake sign language that Tayla was to read her words for all to hear. Yana typed and Tayla read. "Earth tones. And you're not allowed to wear black."
Wedge scrunched his brows. "Everything we were looking at was black."
"Not me," Nik said. "I'm not wearing black."
Luke eyed over at the woman sitting next to him. "No black, huh?"
Kess wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "You look good in it, don't get me wrong, but we're supposed to be on the light side."
Luke shrugged and hitched a grin, "I'm tempted to just wear our old uniforms."
Kess sat up and yipped. "Yes! Yes." Then, to Yana. "Why can't we just do that?"
Even Wedge blanched at this. "At your own wedding?"
Yana glared her eyes at Kess, but she reached across the table and snapped her fingers until she got Nik's attention.
The former Emperor looked at her like a pup busted for something.
Yana typed. Tayla read. "Comm Leia."
Nik grinned and pulled out his comlink. Tayla shared the view of the link screen so he would get the number to follow the order.
Wedge chortled darkly, "You're both about to get outranked."
"Hello?" Leia's voice blossomed from the tiny mike.
Nik set the comlink towards the middle of the table. "Hiya, sis! It's Nikolai."
"Welcome back," Leia's voice smiled. "How are you?"
"I am great and I am calling on behalf of your lovely assistant and First Lady of the Wedding. Four of us are sitting at this table trying to convince two of us not to wear their stupid uniforms to their own wedding, and we thought you might help us lay down the law."
Leia's voice was firm. "No uniforms! Good grief!"
Tayla called out. "Yana says to tell you that Kess doesn't want Luke to wear black."
Kess dropped her ear to Luke's shoulder and grumbled. "Now I know why people complain so much about planning weddings."
Luke shoved a tongue in his molar. "Un huhn."
"I'm okay with that." Leia said through the tiny mike. "Do we have any ideas on what style this thing is going to be?"
They all looked at Kess. She panicked and shrugged violently. "We weren't even looking at wedding stuff today! I thought this was all about the Senate Ball."
Leia's voice peeped up. "Nik, tell me everyone that's there."
Nik complied to list everyone in clockwise order. "Wedge, Luke, Kess, Yana, Tayla, and me."
"Yana?" The single word was enough of an instruction by itself.
Yana set her elbows on the table and typed furiously with her thumbs. As Tayla read it, Wedge's snuck a glance at Yana, and Yana's mouth parted again for another controlled breath.
Tayla read, "Earth tones and off-whites. Tatooine looking stuff. Muslin. Lace. Accents of either colorful flowers or fresh green plants."
Kess peeped, "How did you get all that out of today's shopping?"
Yana angled over a chin and flattened mouth. She was either saying, Because I know what I'm doing, or she was saying, Because I lived with you for a year and I know you already. Whatever the actual message, Yana made her point with expression alone.
Leia voice smiled warmly at all this fun, but seemed sober that she was missing it. "Wedge? You there? Can you work with that?"
"Yeah, that helps. I'll just dress his ass up as a tree."
Nik added, "And Kess a can go as a rock."
Three Jawas came around with big trays of food. The comlink discussion quieted while all the plates got passed around and the distraction of who's dish was whose. Tayla poked at her food with an index finger and asked what it was. Yana waved her palm at her face overwhelmed by the heat in here. Nik talked loudly in Jawaese to thank them grandly for the excellent service. Wedge dared another peek across the table.
This time, Yana returned a shy smile.
Wedge's heart thudded...
A boot kicked a boot under the table. Luke pulled over a fork and tightened a quiet, sing song voice to the woman sitting next to him. "Shut up."
Wedge lowered his gaze to the table. I feel like I'm under a fucking Jedi microscope.
Once the madness quieted, Leia spoke again. "Wedge? Do you remember that favor I asked?"
"I'm on it." He reported with ease. "I'll comm you tomorrow with the details."
"Good." Then, "Where are you guys? What are you eating?"
Nik leaned over the table to speak low and husky to describe the delicious grease and meat of Tee Dee Q's dewback barbecue. Leia admitted it sounded really good right now, so Nik waved over a waiter and murmured in Jawaese again. Luke and Kess chatted more about off-whites and fresh greens as they all began to eat, and Nik brought his attentions back to the table to report into the comlink again. "You've got a big greasy dewback dish coming at you right now, you're highnessness."
Wedge and Luke both flicked widened eyes at Nik.
Leia laughed through the comm. "You are too kind, Nik. Thank you. I gotta go."
"Bye!' Tayla called.
Click.
Luke shook his head at Nik. Even Yana looked stunned by that one. Nik shrugged his hands. "What?"
Wedge explained politely. "That nickname was reserved for her husband."
Nik's face melted with regret. "Awe, man, I'm sorry."
Wedge patted him firmly on the shoulder. "It's okay, man, you didn't know."
"Maybe we should take the food to her ourselves and cheer her up a bit."
Yana shook her head firmly to that plan. Tayla offered instead. "Or you could send her a cake."
Nik complimented Tayla on a good idea and motioned over a menu so they could pick a suitable desert together.
Wedge murmured to Luke with concern, "Is she doing okay?"
"She's..." Luke grimaced a bit, then, "We all have our good days and our bad days." Luke met the man's eye to express how true that was to everyone at this table.
Wedge absorbed that. Maybe he misread everyone else trying to sweep the war under the carpet. Maybe they were all still mourning in privacy, like he was.
"We should have her over for dinner." Kess said over a bite. "Get her out of that lonely apartment so she can be normal for one night."
"That's a good idea," Luke agreed.
"Can you help me out with that," Kess asked Yana. "Call it wedding plans so she can't say 'no'?"
Yana nodded and typed. Tayla giggled as she read. "Yes, but that means you have to decide on some of this shit."
Wedge laughed low. His eyes were bright. He snagged another glance of her.
And green eyes glittered playfully back.
"Okay. I'll get to work," Kess groaned, then she tried not to look guilty by keeping her eyes on her food as she said, "That means you two have to come over, too."
Luke tightened his lips- thud.
"Owe," Kess yipped.
Wedge's mouth parted with a breath, trying not to be a creep with too many glances. Yana wrinkled one eye shut with a reluctant grin. Nik picked up the last of the communal flat bread and threw it across the table at his sister. "You slaymo!"
Kess dodged the food and Luke laughed in agreement at the punishment. Tayla tried to sit up and throw food too... but as the flowering food fight was nipped in the bud by the adults, Wedge glanced over and pressed an apologetic grin, mouthing voicelessly. Sorry.
Yana made a tiny motion to wave it off as pure girly girl fodder. S'okay.
By the time dinner was over, Wedge was confident Yana knew he wasn't trying to be a pressuring heathen about all this (the pressure was only coming from the rest of them). Nik was teasing Tayla about stupid things to keep the conversation bouncy as the six of them rode the elevator together to the parking level. Yana fanned her neck again once they were back in the air conditioning and Wedge agreed with her assessment by rattling the collar of his tunic against his chest.
Once on the surface, Nik and Tayla had sprung into a game of grab ass like an uncle and niece, Kess and Luke were comparing schedule notes on when to have Leia and Chewie over for dinner, and the four Jedi moved as an unkempt family to their speeder at the end of the lot.
Wedge had to go left to get to his. Yana seemed to be drifting right to get to hers. Good byes and good nights were called through the windy night air as all split up, when suddenly Tayla broke off from her group and ran full speed back.
She handed Yana the twin datalink, smiled goodnight, and returned as if worried the others might leave her behind.
Yana gathered both links in her hands, gave Wedge another shy grin, and turned-
"Hey." Wedge said before he thought about it, and instantly kicked himself in the pants for saying anything at all.
Yana turned to look at him, guarded.
He wasn't sure what he was going to say, but now he redirected to say something else entirely. "Would you rather I have Nik handle the planning?" He angled his head humbly, "So you and I don't have to-"
Red-brown eyebrows knitted like he was insane. She rattled her head and squinted at him with raging questions. Her hand motioned. Why would you ask that?
Wedge swallowed. "I got the impression..." he wasn't sure how to put it. He licked his lips and looked at the duracrete a moment, then lifted his face and stiffened his shoulders. "I don't know. I guess, I thought..."
Yana's face scrunched with annoyance. She tucked one datalink under her elbow and typed furiously on the other. Then, turning her feet, shoved it into his face so he could read the text on it just before she walked away.
If you don't want to comm me, just kriffing say so!
Wedge blinked and blatted. "What?"
But she was already storming off. He stood dumb as she climbed into her speeder, powered up, glared at him with the insult of it one last time, and lifted into the air.
Wedge's mouth hung open. Now standing alone on the sparse parking level, with a crisp night wind blowing against his face, his eyes watched her speeder lift into the traffic lane above and zoom off.
A piece of his heart went with her.
He suddenly felt a conscious weight, like a sucker punch from the grave, like shipmate had reached out to whack him across the back of the head.
You idiot, it said, you saw us watch that fatal blow coming to kill us, but you didn't see us pray that you would live to be happy in peace.
Wedge blinked hard. His stomach spun.
Come on, Rogue Leader, Don't blow this. Make our deaths worth something.
He found himself in his speeder without remembering climbing in. His face scrunched over the hand bars. A tear dribbled from his eye. He looked at nothing out at the night. It was almost as if he had learned some Jedi senses too, but they only told him one thing. Like a dozen voices of dead grease monkeys, a hundred voices of dead pilots, a thousand voices of troopers on the Death Star, a million voices of troopers on the second, and a billion voices on Alderaan.
And they all said the same thing.
Over and over.
Make our deaths worth something.
Make our deaths worth something.
Make our deaths worth something...
You lived. Now you have a job to do:
Go. Be. Happy.