Luke hadn't ever felt the aftermath of an artillery barrage before. His head felt like his best guess, though. He stirred and tried to lift his head. The throbbing against it made him reconsider. He made a noise that sounded like a strangled Wookie.
He took a few more minutes before opening his eyes,. He wasn't in the mess any more, but what he assumed were the pilot barracks. The Headhunter pilots lined the bunks in various states of undress, including two of them who were sleeping in a bunk together.
Luke groaned a little as he heard a chime come from besides him. He realized very suddenly that it was coming from his shirt pocket, which was presently on the ground. Why was his shirt on the ground?
He grabbed the commlink out of the pocket and spoke groggily. "Luke here,"
"Someone had a little too much fun with the pilots." Ahsoka's cheery voice came over the comm. Luke wanted to throw the commlink away, very hard.
"You're evil and one of the Emperor's cronies." He moaned.
That drew a laugh. "You weren't in your quarters, so I figured you had partied a little bit."
Luke pulled on his shirt. "What's up?" He kept his voice down, trying not to disturb the other pilots as he started towards the door to the hall.
"Get cleaned up, then we've got some work to do." Ahsoka said. "And I recommend grabbing a cup of caf on the way up."
"Yes, Ahsoka," Luke sighed and tucked his comm away. He looked back at the sleeping pilots, Wedge in particular. Even asleep, he looked rather noble. Not as scruffy as some Corellians he had met.
He went up to his quarters for a quick sanisteam and a change of clothes, then to the mess for some caf. By the time he got to the hangar bay where Ahsoka was waiting, it was nearly midday. Ahsoka was grabbing her case of training tools and setting it on a nearby crate.
She took notice of him almost immediately, and smiled pleasantly. "So, what was the young Prince's poison of choice?"
"A vile Neimoidian fire-brandy that should be illegal." Luke said as he took a long drink from his caf.
"As I recall, it is illegal, Luke, or at least contraband on most Imperial worlds."
Luke groaned. "That explains a lot." He looked over at her. "I'm guessing you didn't do anything as horrible?"
Ahsoka drew both of her lightsabers and handed one to Luke. "Oh, I had my fun last night. Captain Serrin is quite the host."
Luke registered a double take, almost dropping the saber in the process. "Wait, you and…"
Ahsoka gave him a lopsided grin. "I just know how to handle things in moderation, my young student." She teased. "Alright, today I'm going to show you the basics of what the Jedi called Form III. It has a lot of difference names. Soresu, the Way of the Mynock, or Perseverance."
Luke blinked. "What about Form II?" He said, recognizing that after the first lesson with Form I, he was missing a form.
"If you have to use Form II, we've run into problems that are bigger than you are right now. Makashi is about dueling. Soresu is more about defense, which is something important to understand. The lightsaber is a tool for defense, which you can use to protect others."
Ahsoka started to walk through the basic maneuvers and stances of the Form, starting first with slowed-down lightsaber strikes from Ahsoka, then full speed. The more they practiced, the easier Luke could find it to drop into the Force, to let it guide his actions, anticipating the next strike and where it could land.
For the most part, Ahsoka seemed impressed. "You're doing much better. It's time to work with the remotes now."
"As in plural?" Luke asked.
Ahsoka smiled. "Indeed. And we're going to carry on a conversation." She brought out two training remotes, activating them and tossing them into the air. They started to hover, floating around the hangar space and starting to orbit Luke. "You're a fast learner, Luke. But we all have to be right now."
Luke started to track the motions of the remotes, holding his lightsaber across his body in the Soresu opening stance Ahsoka had shown him. "The pilots mentioned that if the leaders of the cells are meeting, that Mon Mothma and Garm Bel Iblis will be the primary factions."
Luke caught a remote jerk to one side and fire. He brought his saber up, sending the small pinprick of red scattering. Immediately, he felt a tug in the Force, the second remote making its move. He swept his saber back, and he caught the bolt, blocking it.
"Yeah. Mon Mothma's Chandrilan, so we'll be on her home turf. Chandrilans are…"
"Known for talking. A lot." Luke caught one of the next two blasts, but got punished with a stinging bolt when he couldn't deflect the second. "Augh. Sithspit. And Gram Bel Iblis is Corellian."
"And a true tribute to his people." Ahsoka chuckled. "He was a Senator before the Clone Wars. Even then he was…brash."
"And nearly two decades of Imperial rule probably haven't softened him." Luke remarked, slowly circling with his feet to draw both remotes in front of him.
"Mothma and Iblis are two opposites of the same spectrum. The only thing they have in common is a hate of the Empire." Ahsoka said. "Your father kept them from tearing each other apart."
"Then I guess that's my job now." He remarked. He watched both remotes, trying to circle him. They shot out a spatter of bolts, and Luke let his instincts guide him. He side-stepped to the right, bringing his saber to block where he would be instead of where he was. All but one of the five blaster bolts missed, and that last one only grazed him.
"How perceptive. It's going to be your job to make sure you aren't underestimated by anyone there. You're Alderaan."
Luke continued to go through the training exercise, making sure to pay attention to his footwork, always aware of where he was standing. "I'm ready for it. It's what I was raised to do."
Ahsoka smiled, just a little, and Luke got the sense that her mind wasn't entirely in the moment. Luke's slipped from it as well, and he was rewarded with a stinging blast to his arm. "Kriff!"
"Language, Luke." Ahsoka teased him.
Luke got a feeling that the week long journey to Chandrila was going to be a long one.
Time did crawl to a standstill in the doldrums of the ship. Their third day in hyperspace had Luke studying the backgrounds of the various cell leaders, Ahsoka's personal intelligence that she had from the various cells, as well as specific planets that the Empire had imposed martial law on. The list was impressive. Alderaan, Denon, Corulag, Ryloth, and a dozen others.
He had an idea of how he wanted to approach the meeting, but as a Republic general had said, no battle plan survived first contact with the enemy. He didn't want to view Iblis and Mothma as enemies, but they were the main opposition.
Luke was deep in a report about the capabilities of a Phoenix Cell in the Outer Rim when a voice piped up behind him. "You do realize you've been in the mess reading for four hours?"
That got him to perk up, blinking. Wedge was standing behind him, peering over his shoulder. Luke instinctively reached for his mug of caf, and was rewarded with bitter cold in return. "Ugh. What time is it?" He blinked, trying to bring himself out of reports.
"Fourteen-hundred ship time." Wedge sat down next to him at the table. "Want to take some time away from it?"
Luke sighed, and he turned off the datapad. "Probably a good idea." He remarked. "That caf was warm when I sat down." He promised.
"I'm sure," Wedge chuckled. "Listen, you could use some free time.
Luke thought about it a moment. "I'd like that," He said.
"How about we have that flying lesson? We've got two simulator balls in the ship. They were originally for TIE fighters, but we've loaded programs for the Z-95 in there as well."
That brought a grin to Luke's face. "I think I can definitely go for that."
Wedge tapped his shoulder. "Then get up, let's get you into a flight suit."
The borrowed flight suit didn't fit Luke particularly well, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Since they weren't going into the actual void, the suit was more there to adjust himself to the feeling of it. He checked the fastenings on his gloves as they entered the simulator room.
The room itself might have been a briefing area at some point, with a number of benches situated in front of a screen. The two simulator bubbles stood in front of the screen, looking like smaller, unarmored versions of the cockpit of a TIE fighter.
"The feeds from the simulator balls feed into the screen. It lets us analyze data and take notes." Wedge explained as he headed towards the simulator on the right. He climbed up the ladder and opened up the hatch, and gestured for Luke to do the same.
Luke dropped into the simulator, finding himself on the command couch. Luke pulled his helmet on, flipping down the HUD visor. He strapped himself in, and flicked the simulator on. "Well, this is something." Luke said. "Imperials didn't spare anything on these." He watched as data streamed across the screen.
"We think that before our capture of it, the Firestorm was a training vessel. Green TIE squadrons would be assigned here to get some real world experience before being attached to a Star Destroyer." Wedge explained. "Load up the Z-95 interface on the simulator."
Luke found the shipboard computer and started to enter in the parameters for the Headhunter. The simulator whirred to life, and Luke settled into the pilot's seat, placing his hands on the throttle and stick. "Where do we start?"
"You've got some piloting experience from what I've heard?"
"Speeders mostly. I've also flown our ship a few times."
"Well, a freighter's its own beast. A Headhunter's got maneuverability, and it's got some good guns, but it's not as hearty. It's got deflectors, unlike a TIE fighter, but it's not invulnerable." The screen in front of Luke turned into a spatial field, with a planetoid of some sort beneath them. Stars dotted all the parts of his screen that weren't occupied by the brown, lifeless rock.
"So, where do we start?"
Wedge smiled. "Some basic piloting. Follow me down onto the planetoid. We're going to do some basic flight maneuvering. By the way, watch the inertial forces you'll pull. You don't feel it in a freighter, but in a fighter, you're going to be feeling the Gees."
Luke saw another Z-95 take off, waggling its wings as if waving to Luke and inviting him to join. Luke put more power into the Headhunter's engines, and followed Wedge down onto the planetoid. For once, he let himself fall into just the act of flying, something that came even more naturally to him than the Force.