There was never a final call from the high command, never a singular order, but the individual tasks made it clear to everyone what was happening.
Kess braved another visit to the hotel and gave her father a big hug, but she didn't explain why.
Luke set down the empty shipping crate in the middle of his living room floor and sighed at the piles of Jedi records.
Wedge downloaded everything from Pad 14 terminal onto industrial sized datacards and started a system wipe.
Green Group launched into the air in pairs and disappeared into the daylight.
Han transferred the Temple layout onto portable datareaders.
Leia supplied Winter with Regrets For Missing The Meeting notices.
Crix stood on the side of the grassy quad to yell, "Forward! MARCH!" and watched as the rank and file stepped forward in unison and into the gullet of the transport.
Black Group launched into the air in pairs and disappeared into the daylight.
Kess meditated to try to reach Nik, but he wasn't out there.
Chewie unplugged the fuel line and closed down the port with a firm thrust.
Ashten handed a datacard to Kayla with severity, and Kayla nodded, fishing her own Just In Case letter from a pocket and traded it back.
Yana powered down the comm unit and yanked it away from the CIC bunker wall, shoving it down the hall on its wheels with a half a dozen other admins rolling similar gear into the same airlift.
Joanne watched from the traffic tower as Blue Group launched into the air in pairs and disappeared into the evening.
Rieekan commed his elderly mother 'for no reason'.
Werdun left on a civilian transport.
Vanech asked Luke where he had been. Luke told him training was on hold until further notice.
Kess screwed the panel back onto the Falcon's navcomputer and dropped the tool into her bag with finality.
South Base commerce drank in dwindling business. Clothes engorged seabags. Fresh food shattered diets. Lights went out. Barracks emptied. Routines ended. Sleep evaded.
Mon Mothma concluded the senate meeting with a sincere, "May the Force be with you all."
Kess stepped down from the Falcon ramp to find the Pad 14 lights were already out for the night. The place was a ghost town. Twelve fighters slept in two rows along the walls. Even the droids were switched off at their charging stations. The only light still on was coming from the manager's office.
Filthy and hot, she unzipped her flight suit half way and tied the arms around at her waist. Her tank top was sweaty and stuck uncomfortably to her skin. "One thing's for sure," she said as she dropped her shoulder to the doorframe. "I'm not going to miss this humidity."
Wedge grinned at his desk. "Wimp."
Most of the equipment was gone already. The rest was packed away in crates out on the deck. She looked over the desks that were once hers, once his, once Luke's . . . Her eyes landed on the wingman and boyfriend's best friend behind the big desk. Wedge was checking the drawers for anything else worth taking.
"Gonna miss it?" He asked.
"Yeah." She smiled at herself and nodded to look at it all. "Yeah, I am." Hands in her pockets, she turned to go. "You?"
"Meh," he shrugged, smiling out the truth of the lie as he shut off the office lights. "Just another duty station."
Kess would have called him a liar, but she didn't have to.
They strolled together out of the office and toward the travelway, but then both paused to look over Pad 14 once more. With everyone home making love to their partners for possibly the last time, the Complex was truly empty of souls.
"Can't believe it's only been a couple of years," he said.
"It was a good posting."
"Except for the humidity," he teased.
Kess looked at him now, realizing the real goodbye here wasn't at the place. Her body rippled with an odd wave of nerves, but she shook it off. "So what are your big dreams when this thing is over?"
"Eh," he shrugged, "we'll see." He smiled at her again, shifting his feet. "After all this, I don't think I could last in any job that wasn't behind a fighter stick."
She gave him a knowing nod. "I concur." She paused to think of her answer to the same question and found she didn't have one ready.
"Oh, lady, I know what you're going to do." Wedge shook his smiling face. "You don't have to answer."
Kess dashed her head aside.
His voice softened with pride. "Just promise me you'll invite me to the wedding."
Her mouth opened but words stumbled on her shock. "Oh. Uh." She laughed nervously. "I don't think he's ready for that yet." She shrugged bashfully. "It's only been a couple of weeks."
Wedge eyed her with a gentle correction. "No, Kess. It's been a couple of years."
Kess humbled.
He spread his arms to offer a goodbye hug. Kess grinned and wrapped her arms around his sides, hugging the stuffing out of him, and pulled back to separate and smile at the man. "Don't get shot—
She had whispered it automatically before she realized what she said. She smiled to play like it was a joke, even if Wedge didn't get the reference.
Wedge looked at her in melancholy. "You take care of yourself, huh?" He let her go.
She nodded, thoughtful, agreeing, and stepped back. "May the Force be with you."
"You too."
They paused.
They both breathed big again and nodded, and turned away from each other.
Kess aimed her feet to the barracks and walked, but each step reminded her of what was about to happen. They were about to leave Yavin forever. They were about to split up into several fleets on hundreds of ships to travel for several days. They were about to attack the Capital Planet of Coruscant in a final, decisive advance. There would be losses, heavy ones. And when it was all over, whatever survived of the Rebellion would be smeared across the galaxy, securing key stations to prevent the whole long story from repeating itself.
At her sixth step, Kess realized that, even if he lived, there was good chance she would never see Wedge Antilles again.
"Wait. Wedge?"
In a split decision, with zero forethought or warning, Kess turned on her heals and trotted back for him. It took only three steps to reach him for he matched her return with equal fervor. She expected her intent was to give him another giant hug, old friends squeezing tight goodbyes. And they did, but there was more to it than that. Like two magnets finding each other for the first time, she jumped in his arms and found herself snugly captured. His palm went to her braids and his mouth landed on hers. The surprise kiss struck like a visceral gong.
Mouth pressed to mouth in equal shock, unmoving until the reverberations calmed. His thumb brushed her cheek as he retreated. Her mouth paused open as she eyed his chin. Embarrassed, uncertain, and now breathless in confusion, they began to retreat from each other—
What did we just do?
She looked up at his brown eyes. With equal shock, he looked down at hers.
This time they did it on purpose.
Kess wrapped her arms around him and reached up the same time Wedge took her face and took her mouth, full of purpose, strong and direct, as if he'd considered the details of this moment already. His kiss was different, his tongue stronger, more detailed, less tender. This pilot knew what he wanted. He knew how to get it. And he knew exactly what he'd do with it if it ever happened.
But his mouth drifted away and hung open with a breath of shock. He had also decided, long ago, that he'd left this target for someone else. Wedge eyes closed in a self-scolding, then he licked his lips as he retreated some more. He met her gaze again. And the momentary fantasy sobered from his eyes.
Kess rubbed her lips too, smiling with agreement. Without a word, she understood it entirely. She thumbed his lips and his chin and nodded as she slipped her arms from him. Wedge slowly let go and nodded imperceptibly too. He inhaled hard and took a big step back.
Wedge's brown eyes kept hers for a long moment and, finally, he forced a smile. His strong voice echoed across the dark empty deck in one last, loving order. "You take good care of him."
"I will." She nodded, shaking in her sigh, and tried to smile back. He continued to walk backwards while keeping her eyes. She pressed her fingers to her kissing mouth. Wedge swallowed a harsh throat and gestured the same brief blowing kiss . . . as he turned his back to her and forced himself to trot fast away.
She vaguely backed up to her own direction, but watched him jog away around the travelway until he was no longer in sight. Tears appeared like solitary diamonds on her eyelashes. She didn't give her conscious imagination permission to blossom with too many What Ifs, but she did grin through her tears as she marched back to her own side of life. She permitted her mind know one thing with certainty.
If it hadn't been Luke, it would have been Wedge.
Kess walked home still thinking about it. It didn't need explaining, but it would have been difficult to explain it to anyone else. Such was a common occurrence on the Last Day Before The Battle in which they were all prepared to die.
This was a story best left untold. Because this story wasn't going to go anywhere.
She wondered if Wedge found the chance to give the same goodbye kiss to Yana, or if he was saving such a moment for a real hello on the hope that they would both live long enough to have one. Yana was a private woman. She didn't share such hopes as openly as the rest of the girly girls, but that only made her open flirting at the barbecue that much more of an impacting statement. Kess liked the idea of the two of them together. They didn't know it yet, but they were perfect for each other. She was the librarian, the bookworm, the data cruncher. And he was long calmed from his Young Pilot High and, as he put it, 'ready to land'. Kess could easily see them both assigned to the Capital once this whole thing was over; her stationed as an operative in whatever new CIC bunker / data library the Alliance would set up there, and him stationed nearby as the Commander of their Flag Ship Squadron to stand boring watches and defend the new government at all costs. It was perfect.
Now all they had to do was live.
Once Kess got home, Yana was done packing and Joanne was finishing up, both somber through the final tasks of it. Kess stopped her feet in the middle of the barracks floor and just looked at the two of them.
Joanne stood from her half-stuffed seabag and grinned back. She spread her arms and stepped over for a big hug. Yana joined a moment later, adding to the group hug, pressing all three foreheads together with silent wishes and prayers.
Sniffing but forcing smiles, they parted.
Joanne said it first. "May the Force be with you, girly girls."
Yana and Kess muttered it too, adding, "See you on the other side."
With that, and to keep the sorrow goodbye from dipping any deeper, Kess grabbed her own already packed seabag and left her barracks suite for the last time.
She saw Luke in the big CIC Bunker meeting earlier today, but they had only focused only on the final planning of their surgical attack. She was now able to imagine more of the details around rescuing Nik, and she rubbed the locket at her breast to pray over it. Luke would fly in with Rogue Group and Kess would ride in on the Falcon, each taking a different route to land planetside. They'd see each other again at the rendezvous point a few blocks from the base of the Palace, but they would already be too deep into battle for hellos (assuming they were both still alive by that point). Her stomach tightened in the fear of it. That part was still days away because of the time they'd spend in hyperspace, but it felt like the whole thing was going to happen tomorrow.
Tomorrow. . . .
With stuffed seabag on her shoulders, she thumbed Luke's apartment chime—simultaneous to Luke thumbing the control to slide the door open.
For a beat, they just stared at each other.
Kess ran into his arms and Luke was already kissing her when he reached up to shut the door behind her.
It was a night of slow lovemaking and little conversation. There was no giggling, no questions, no discussion of plans; just silence and sweet sadness. A night of hope and prayer, with tight hugs and desperate cuddling. Kess imagined the whole base was doing this same thing right now, for those that had a partner with which to do it. She grasped onto gladness that, no matter what tragedies commenced over the next few days, at least she and Luke were free to have this moment.
Luke stared into her eyes with equal depth. He kept opening his mouth to speak but always closed it again in defeat. So he just kissed her some more and made love to her again, and held her hard like he was going to never let her go.