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Luke grinned in exhilaration as flames licked the nose of his X-wing. Some starpilots hated reentry. Dropping back into atmo, suddenly dealing with friction and turbulence and gravity’s heavier pull. Luke loved every second of it. And even moreso after a successful mission with Red Squadron. He barely resisted the temptation to do a barrel roll just for fun.
Red Squadron swooped down over the grasslands of Dantooine, where the Rebel Base had set up a base after evacuating Yavin IV under the logic that the Empire wouldn’t expect them to return there so quickly. It was working for now, at least, but Luke knew the base was only temporary.
He tried not to feel too disappointed about that. After the cloying humidity and claustrophobic forest of Yavin IV, Dantooine felt a lot more like home. Just not as brutally hot.
Finally, Red Squadron touched down in the hangar. Yanking his helmet off and shaking out his hair, Luke didn’t bother waiting for the techs to roll a ladder to his cockpit, just climbed out and slid down the hull, trying to use the Force to soften his landing. It didn’t really work but he was still too high on adrenaline to feel much of the impact.
Wedge climbed out of his cockpit more slowly—and, per regulation, used the ladder. “Don’t let Leader see you doing that.”
Luke just grinned wider. Red Leader and the vets were always telling the younger pilots their bodies would regret jumping off their ships after a decade or so. Luke couldn’t really imagine that far into the future so the warnings didn’t exactly land.
“Good flying out there,” Luke said, falling into step beside his friend on the way to the briefing room. “That pincer movement was perfect.”
Wedge shook his head as he laughed. “Only because you fly like you can read my mind.”
“No, you were in the ideal position,” Luke argued. “I knew you’d be there because that was the best place to be.”
“You only say that because you can read the TIE pilots’ minds, too.”
Luke rolled his eyes, exasperated. “It’s not the Force. I’ve told you. The Force feels different.”
“You’ve had like five hours of training with the Force,” Wedge said—bluntly, but not unkindly. “You have no idea what the Force is supposed to feel like.”
They continue arguing through the halls to the briefing room, neither budging from his position. Wedge was convinced Luke’s piloting abilities were supernatural; Luke insisted he was just doing what made sense; Wedge pushed back that five other options would have made just as much sense to any other pilot, but Luke always went with the one that ended up working the best.
In the end, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they had each other’s backs and the TIEs ended up as fireballs.
“Skywalker!”
Luke snapped to attention. General Dodonna was waiting outside the briefing room, watching them with an amused glint in his eyes. “If you have a moment?” the General asked.
“Sir.” Luke stopped and saluted quickly.
“This way.” With a nod further down the hall, Dodonna started walking away.
Meeting Wedge’s confused look with a confused shrug of his own, Luke followed after him.
To his surprise, Dodonna led him through the maze of the base to his own office. Despite the temporary nature of the base and despite the prestige of his rank, Dodonna’s space was cluttered with personal belongings, many dating back to his time serving the Old Republic’s starfleet. Dodonna gestured casually at the seat in front his desk, and settled into his own chair on the other side, then looked expectantly up at Luke.
Shoving aside his bewilderment, Luke sat quickly, keeping his posture erect. He’d never been summoned to a general’s office like this. Had he done something wrong? He mentally reviewed his last several missions. All right, maybe some of his flying got a little…flashy…at times, but it worked, didn’t it?
(He was, however, very glad he hadn’t done that barrel roll earlier….)
“Well, Skywalker.” Dodonna’s posture was unexpectedly relaxed, but his blue eyes were piercing. “How are you finding life with the Alliance?”
Luke blinked. “It’s—it’s great, sir.”
“And your squadron?”
“Also great,” Luke said, and immediately wondered if he should have given a more articulate answer. “I mean—”
“After—” Dodonna started to say at the exact same time. He stopped, eyebrows raised.
Luke winced. “Sorry, sir.”
Dodonna gestured. “No, go on.”
“Well, I—I was just going to say, I really appreciate being a part of Red Squadron. Commander Narra is a great leader.” He really needed to find another word besides great. “It feels like we’re really making a difference, sir.”
“You are,” Dodonna said steadily. “Would you like more opportunity to make a difference?”
“…Sir?”
Dodonna held Luke’s gaze. “The Alliance is expanding. Alderaan left its mark, but not the way the Empire intended, not when we successfully destroyed their superweapon.” He paused, as if waiting to see if Luke would point out that he was the one who fired the shot. After a moment when Luke said nothing, he went on. “More planets are reaching out to the Alliance and more pilots are joining up. Command needs to find homes for these pilots in new squadrons. We’d like you to form one.”
Me? Luke felt his eyes widened. “You want me to…”
“Assume command, yes,” Dodonna said calmly. “We’ve thoroughly reviewed the reports from your missions. You fly well, but any hotshot can learn to fly. You also think well, you’re able to adapt, and you take care of your squadmates. These are the qualities we need in a commander.”
Commander. Luke’s head was spinning and there was a sudden, very unfamiliar tightness in his stomach. But he didn’t dare show any hesitation. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“We’ll schedule the formal promotion in a few months, possibly at our next base,” Dodonna went on, “and we’ll need to fill out the roster for your new squad. We will, of course, be seeking your input on that—”
“Wedge,” Luke blurted out. Caught himself. Took a breath. “Wedge Antilles, sir. My wingman.”
Dodonna gave a small smile. “We figured as much. He’s already on the list.”
Some of the tightness in Luke’s stomach eased. Too much remained. He felt like he’d swallowed a rock.
Dodonna glanced at one of the datapads on his desk. “Incoming message,” he murmured. “I have to respond to this. Skywalker, we’ll be in touch. For now, you’re dismissed.”
“Yes, sir,” Luke said numbly. He stood, saluted, and was out the door at lightspeed.
He wandered down several halls on autopilot, found a briefing room that was empty, and sunk down onto the nearest chair. For a long time, he just stared blankly at the opposite wall.
Commander.
No way. He was barely twenty years old. A few months ago, he’d never even been to Mos Eisley. He’d never flown in space. He’d never been in a dogfight.
And it wasn’t like he wasn’t good. He knew the Death Star wasn’t a fluke—he really was a good pilot. He consistently got more kills than anyone else in Red Squadron (those numbers didn’t lie), and he was able to do it all while assisting his squadmates.
But there was a lightyear of difference between being a good pilot and being a good commander.
It was one thing to risk his life and come out the other side. But ordering other people to take a particular formation? To lock onto a specific enemy? To disengage?
One bad call, and people would die.
And he would make bad calls. Guaranteed. So all those deaths would on him.
Luke tried to breathe deeply, but each inhale was short and sharp and each exhale was shaky. He shivered, cold as the sweat from the flight cooled in the atmosphere-controlled room. Bracing his elbow on the table, he dropped his forehead into his hand and transferred his blank stare from the wall to the table.
It was fine.
Actually, it was everything he’d ever wanted.
Just…it would’ve been nice to have a little more time before the blood was on his hands.
That night, Luke slunk back to the cramped quarters he shared with Wedge. He’d managed to pull himself back from the gravity well by forcing himself to do lightsaber training, which both helped and didn’t help. Helped because it gave him something physical to do. Didn’t help because it reminded him how little he still knew about lightsabers and Jedi and the Force and how there was no one around to teach him. The feeling of having a rock in his gut remained.
Wedge was lounging in his bunk, apparently watching a holodrama on his beat-up datapad. He muted it as Luke walked in and sat up expectantly. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Luke slumped onto his own bunk and started wearily taking off his boots.
“Well, what did the General want?”
Luke hesitated as the thought occurred that Dodonna’s information might be confidential. A second later, he decided he didn’t care. Maybe that was reckless. Maybe that was proof that he shouldn’t be a commander.
But he needed to talk to his friend.
He took a deep breath. “Command wants to give me my own squadron.”
Wedge’s hazel eyes flew wide. “Seriously?”
“Yeah…”
“Congratulations!” Wedge was already off his bunk, clapping Luke on the shoulder. Not a hint of jealousy or resentment—he looked honestly thrilled.
Luke tried to smile. “Thanks.”
Wedge took a step back. His eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”
That was the problem with having a wingman like Wedge. You just started knowing each other too well. Luke hesitated again. How pathetic was it to be given a promotion, and start complaining that you didn’t want it in front of someone who hadn’t been offered it at all?
Wedge sat down next to him and bumped his shoulder. “C’mon, what is it? Are you worried they’ll assign you Janson?”
“Janson’s a good pilot,” Luke said automatically. Wes Janson had been unable to fly over Yavin but had since resumed his position as Red Six. He also got into more trouble than anyone Luke had ever seen, and had a bad habit of starting brawls whenever a mission allowed them the chance to visit a bar. But he was a quick-thinking and creative in the air, and…maybe Luke would want him in his squad.
Then Luke imagined Wes getting shot down, his comms cutting off mid-scream, and it was all somehow Luke’s fault. He shook his head sharply to clear the image of TIE fire vaping Red Six into shrapnel.
Wedge bumped him harder. “Red Two to Skywalker. Talk to me.”
“I just…” Luke took a deep breath. “What if they’re making a mistake?”
Wedge raised his eyebrows. “Are you telling me you don’t think you’d make a great commander?”
“This time last year, I was a moisture farmer.”
“So?”
“So I can’t possibly know what I’m doing!”
“Your flight record says otherwise.”
“Flying isn’t the same as commanding.”
“No,” Wedge agreed. “It’s not. But you’ll learn that just like you learned to fly.”
“Sure, but…” Luke struggled to find the words to explain the rock of anxiety still in his stomach when he thought of the space between what he knew now and what he’d need to know to keep his squadron alive. “Learning means making mistakes.”
“Yeah,” Wedge said steadily.
“if I’m a commander, mistakes mean people die.”
Wedge’s eyes hardened. As the only other survivor of the attack on the Death Star, he knew that better than most. “Yeah.”
“I’d rather just risk my own life,” Luke muttered.
“I understand that,” Wedge said quietly. “But if Command wants you running a squadron, they must think it’ll save more lives overall. Remember, they’re thinking on a scale of the entire Alliance.”
Luke glared at him. “So, what, the people I get killed are just acceptable casualties?”
Wedge met his glare without flinching. “We’re at war, Luke. People die. Pilots die. We all knew the risk when we signed on.”
Clenching his teeth, Luke turned away.
“Look,” Wedge said. “If Command thinks you’re the best man for the job, then you are. They’re not stupid.”
“Maybe they’re just overestimating me because I—” Luke broke off. This wasn’t helping.
“Because you what?” Wedge pressed. “Blew up the Death Star? Have the Force? All of that’s true.”
“None of that has anything to do with being a commander.”
“What did the General say?”
“Huh?”
“When he said why they want you. What did he say?”
That Luke was smart, adaptable, and cared about his squadmates. All of which was…also true, if Luke was honest.
But was it enough?
Luke sighed. “I’m gonna go shower.”
To his relief, and not to his surprise, Wedge eased off with a crooked smile. “Don’t use all the water.”
“I won’t.” Luke peeled himself out of his flight suit, grabbed sleep clothes, and headed for the fresher.
“Hey, Luke?”
He paused, looked back.
Wedge was stretched out on his bunk again, datapad in hand, but all his attention was on Luke as he said, “I just hope I get to keep flying with you.”
Luke’s stomach flipped and the rock got a little bit smaller.
The next day was a rest day.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. All Luke wanted was to get in the cockpit and take off. It didn’t even have to be a mission. A routine patrol would at least get him off-planet and give him something to focus on.
Instead, he had twenty-four standard hours to kill all on his own.
He found an empty room and practiced lightsaber drills until he got so angry over the fact that he’d been over all these drills a million times already and there was no one to teach him anything new that he found himself wanting to throw the lightsaber across the room.
So that probably meant he should power it down for a while.
Then he headed for the hangar, hoping there’d be something to do on his X-wing. Unfortunately, the maintenance techs took one look at him and all but ordered him out. Rest days for pilots meant the techs could work more thoroughly on the ships, and they didn’t want him getting in the way.
With no idea what else to do, he wandered the base with no destination in mind.
Somehow, his feet ended up outside of Leia’s office.
As soon as he realized where he was…it felt right.
But as soon as an aid walked by and asked what he was doing, it felt incredibly awkward.
“I, uh, I was hoping to see the Princess,” he stammered.
“She doesn’t have any appointments today,” the aid said, consulting a datapad.
“Uh, no, it’s not…it’s not scheduled. I just…could you see if she’s free?”
At that moment, Leia’s door opened, and there she was: beautiful as always, but with shadows under her eyes and a new thinness to her face that made Luke immediately worry over whether she was getting enough sleep and food.
“Luke?” She smiled, a wide and unfiltered—unpolitical—smile that he sometimes thought was reserved for him. “I was just thinking about you for some reason. Are you here to see me?”
“If you have time…”
“I can make time,” she said decisively. “What is it?”
He followed her into her office. Unlike Dodonna’s, hers was ruthlessly organized…and contained almost no personal items. Her personal items, her reminders of her life outside the Rebellion, were lost on Alderaan—like Luke’s were lost in a scorched homestead on Tatooine.
He sat down opposite her desk, elbow on its surface, chin in his hand. Then he realized he was slouching and sat up straighter.
Leaning casually against the desk beside him, Leia rolled her eyes. “At ease.”
He wanted to tell her just how easy it was to be at ease around her. But more than that, he didn’t want to take up too much of her time. “General Dodonna wanted to talk to me yesterday.”
Something flickered in her eyes, and somehow he knew she already knew what he was here to talk about. He studied her face for…he didn’t know what. Doubt, maybe.
But she just nodded. “They want to give you a squadron.”
“Yeah.” Running a hand through his hair, Luke swallowed. “And if that’s really what all of you think is best for the Alliance, I’ll do it, but…”
“But what?” she asked calmly.
Luke hesitated. “This stays between us, right?”
“I can’t promise that without knowing what you’re about to say.”
Fair, he supposed. If it turned out that he had a secret that would hurt the Alliance, of course she couldn’t promise to keep that secret. “It’s nothing to worry about,” he said awkwardly. “It’s just…how I feel about it.”
Her head tilted in that way it always did when she was about to say something that made her seem a lot older than he was. “You don’t feel ready, do you?”
“How do you always read my mind?” His mouth twitched in a half-smile. “You sure you’re not a Jedi?”
Laughing, she shook her head. “You’re many things, Luke. You’re not subtle.”
“Well, I’m hoping General Dodonna couldn’t read me as easily as you can.”
“Honestly, he probably knows anyway. You’re a good pilot, but you know there’s more to being a good commander than that. Which is one of the reasons he thinks you are ready. Or will be, anyway.”
“Will be,” Luke echoed quietly. “And how many people will I get killed first?”
“Oh, Luke. You can’t think like that.”
“How can I not think like that?”
Leia pursed her lips. “I know. You’re right. And again, that’s exactly why we want you to be a commander—which you won’t find reassuring because it doesn’t solve the underlying problem. But no one becomes a perfect commander by remaining just a pilot. You have to actually take command to get better at it. And that does mean you’ll make decisions that aren’t right. And…”
“And people will die,” Luke finished.
“You can always say no,” Leia said softly. “If you don’t want that burden—”
“Then who else would do it?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. There are a few other candidates, but…we want you because we think you’re the best.”
“So if I say no, even more people would die, which still makes it my fault.”
“It’s not about fault—”
“Sure,” he interrupted flatly. “Let me know when you believe that yourself.”
Leia started drumming her fingers on the desk and said nothing.
See? Luke watched her carefully. “What did it take for you to…feel ready? As a senator, as a general?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Feeling ready never came into it at all.”
“Then how—”
Her eyes hardened. “You just do the job that needs to be done, Luke. And you do it to the best of your ability, and then you find out you still did it wrong, and you learn from it, and you do better next time.”
“But—” He cut himself off, running his hand self-consciously through his hair again. “I’m overthinking this?”
“You care,” she corrected. “You just also have to act. Take all that decisiveness that makes you such a threat in the cockpit, and use it to take command. That’s my advice.”
He sat up a little straighter. “Right.”
“And, Luke…” Reaching out, she touched his arm. “Trust the Force. This doesn’t all rest on your shoulders alone.”
“There you go, sounding like a Jedi again.”
She smiled. “I can’t pretend to understand it. I just know I believe something is out there, helping us. I have to believe that, or I’d be too scared to get out of bed in the morning.”
Luke blinked. “You, scared?”
“Facing a threat like the Death Star? Facing an enemy like the Empire? I’m too smart to not be scared.” She drew her hand back, folded both arms across her chest, and lifted her chin. “But I also believe I was put in the position, at this time, for a reason. Whether I feel ready for it or not.”
“Right,” Luke said slowly. “And…you think the position I’m supposed to be in is commanding a squadron?”
She held his gaze. “I do. I really do.”
For a moment, he closed his eyes. Thought about finding Obi-Wan just when he needed him, thought about finding Han and Chewie in that crowded cantina, thought about how even getting caught in the Death Star’s tractor beam was exactly what needed to happen so they could save Leia from execution.
He thought about that shot on the Death Star. How no one else made the shot, but he was there—in the right position, at the right time.
And it wasn’t like any of that happened because he was so smart or skilled or ready.
It didn’t mean everything worked out perfectly. Alderaan was still destroyed. He still lost Biggs and Obi-Wan.
But he couldn’t deny that it seemed like something bigger was at work. Like, as Leia said, it didn’t all rest on his shoulders alone.
He opened his eyes. “Okay.”
She smiled slightly. “Okay?”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it.”