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Wedge Antilles was twenty-one years old. He was a lieutenant in the Rebel Alliance. He was a certified X-wing pilot with an impressive number of TIE kills. He was good enough for the Imperial Skystrike Academy before he defected. He had survived the Death Star. He’d served the Alliance for a little over two years.
As such, he considered it his solemn duty to mentor Luke Skywalker. The kid was the most natural pilot Wedge had ever seen, and was apparently a Jedi or something like it, but he was also nineteen years old and had only been with the Alliance for three months. The rest of his life he’d spent farming moisture.
Wedge was still not entirely sure what that even meant.
So Wedge did his best to give Luke a crash-course on military tactics, discipline, and so on. Even after mission, when they were supposed to be asleep, Wedge sacrificed an hour or two of much-needed rest to try to pass on as much as he could of his own knowledge of military history, tactics, Alliance protocols, and more.
Luke drank it all in.
Thus, overall, Wedge though he was doing an excellent job with his self-appointed mentorship, thank you.
Then he saw the lightsaber.
More specifically, he saw it activated.
He was opening the door to their quarters when he froze at the brilliant light directly in front of his face which every instinct in him screamed do not touch.
“Sorry!” Luke yelped.
The light vanished. The faint odor of ozone remained.
Wedge blinked. Then blinked again. He couldn’t quit clear the after-image. “What was that?”
“I didn’t know you were coming back,” Luke said apologetically. “Sorry.” He was turning something over in his hands which, after some squinting, Wedge was able to recognize as his lightsaber handle.
Wedge’s eyes widened. “That’s a lightsaber?”
Luke hesitated, like he was still trying to make sure Wedge wasn’t mad at him for almost stabbing him in the face with said weapon. “Yeah.”
“Wicked,” Wedge breathed. “Turn it on again.”
“…You sure?”
Nodding eagerly, Wedge slipped past him to sit safely on his bunk.
Luke started to smile shyly. “Okay. Just stay there, okay?”
A second later, with a snap-hiss, the blue-white light filled their small quarters along with a low, threatening hum.
“That,” Wedge declared, “is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s pretty great, isn’t it?” Luke rolled his wrist and the blade smoothly crossed twice in front of his body. In their narrow quarters, there wasn’t room for much else.
“What were you doing with it?”
“Practicing. Or, well, trying to.” Luke rolled his wrist again. “I’ve gotten pretty good at this move, but…”
“You need more space,” Wedge said firmly. “Briefing Room Four’s usually empty.”
Luke’s eyes widened. “You think it’d be okay if I practiced there?”
“Sure. Especially if I’m with you.”
Luke grinned and saluted. “Yes, sir.”
Briefing Room Four was, as Wedge had promised, empty. Luke set himself up in the center of the room and, with another shy smile, activated his lightsaber.
Wedge had never seen any footage of the old Jedi after the Empire scrubbed all the records of them that it could, so he didn’t exactly have much to compare Luke to. Luke kept insisting he wasn’t very good, but watching him spin a sword made of plasma was still the coolest thing Wedge had ever seen in his life.
Then Luke mentioned, just off-hand, that he’d practiced deflecting training bolts on the Millenium Falcon.
Wedge gaped at him. “Can you deflect a blaster?” A hundred tactical implications flashed through his mind at lightspeed.
“That’s what I was training for, yeah. Just, I forgot the training remote.” A hint of frustration crept into Luke’s voice. “I think it’s still on the Falcon somewhere. So now I have nothing to…” He trailed off.
Wedge looked at Luke.
Luke looked at Wedge.
They both looked at the blaster in Wedge’s holster.
“Okay,” Wedge said slowly.
“Lowest setting?” Luke suggested.
“You sure you can block it?”
“Definitely! I blocked like three shots in a row with the training remote.”
Because Luke was nineteen, and Wedge was twenty-one, and because they had already survived the Death Star, this was good enough for them.
For the record, they weren’t completely irresponsible. The room was, as mentioned, empty. And they made sure there was absolutely nothing breakable. They each double-checked that Wedge’s DL-44 was set to its lowest setting. Then they stood a good ten meters apart, and Wedge made sure Luke had the lightsaber activated and held in a defensive position before taking aim.
“Ready?” Wedge asked.
Luke gave a quick, firm nod. His face took on the look of concentration Wedge recognized from when Luke was in the flight sims or climbing into his cockpit. Then he closed his eyes.
Wedge blinked. “Hey! Keep your eyes open.”
Luke opened one eye. “I’m not supposed to be able to see.”
Wedge stared at him like he’d suddenly started speaking Olys Corellisi.
“It’s so I can feel the Force,” Luke explained.
“Oh.” That didn’t sound right, but Wedge wasn’t about to question Luke about Force stuff.
Tightening his grip on the lightsaber, Luke closed his eyes again. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Wedge took a breath, aimed just past his head, and squeezed the trigger.
The lightsaber flashed. Red met blue. Energy crackled and the red bolt shot into the starboard wall. It left a small scorch mark in the white plaster.
“Wizard!” Wedge shouted.
“Do it again!” Luke shouted gleefully.
Wedge fired again, and again, and again. Luke spun the lightsaber in a blur of blue-white. Energy crackled. Shots ricocheted into the walls, the floor, the ceiling. One almost hit Wedge when Luke deflected it straight back.
“Sorry!” Luke called.
“You realize how awesome that’d be in a firefight, right?” Wedge called back, glancing at the smoke rising from the wall behind him about half a meter from his head. He shook off the tingling feeling that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. It was fine; it missed him. Turning back to his friend, he lifted the blaster, aimed, and fired.
Maybe Luke was still distracted from almost hitting Wedge because this time, the lightsaber was just a little too slow. The bolt caught him in the upper left thigh.
Luke made a strangled sound. He dropped the lightsaber. The weapon hit the floor and deactivated. Luke followed a second later, crumpling on his injured leg.
“Stars! Luke!” Wedge raced across the room, skidding on his knees next to the other pilot. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Luke said breathily as he propped himself up on his elbows. “Ow…”
They both risked looking at the injury. Even on the lowest setting, the bolt had zapped straight through Luke’s pants and left a streak of his skin so charred it had turned white.
Luke’s face turned about the same color.
Oh, kriff. “You’re okay,” Wedge said quickly. “Deep breaths.”
Luke obediently sucked in a breath. He blinked hard like a man whose vision was no longer functioning.
Shavit. Wedge knew that look. “Just lie down for a second, all right?”
“Yeah…” Luke’s head dropped onto the floor a little harder than it should and his eyes fluttered closed. “Good idea…”
“I’m gonna comm Medical.”
Luke’s eyes snapped open. “What?”
Wedge was already fishing his comm out of his pocket.
“Don’t!” Luke’s hand snapped out to grab his wrist with a surprising amount of strength given that he still looked like he was about to pass out. “Don’t, Wedge, please, I’m okay—”
“You’ve been shot!”
Luke winced. “They’re gonna ask what happened.”
“Yeah, and—” Wedge broke off, suddenly imagining himself in front of Red Leader and trying to explain the series of decisions that had led them to this moment. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah,” Luke breathed as his fingers slipped off Wedge’s wrist. He slumped back onto the floor. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Wedge chewed doubtfully on his lip as he studied him. “Can you walk home?” Maybe they could sneak some bacta, and once they were back in their quarters, he could—
“Wedge?” Luke’s eyes had fallen closed again; his head lolled slightly to one side. “I think I’m gonna…”
Kriff. “Medical, this is Lieutenant Antilles,” Wedge blurted into his comm. “Blaster injury in Briefing Room Four.”
Wedge had the worst luck in the world. He knew this because he shot his friend. He also knew this because the medic who arrived to care for said friend was Sienn, who was notoriously one of the least sympathetic nurses in the entire Rebel Alliance.
Right now, she was glaring lasers. “Run it by me one more time.”
Wedge glanced at Luke for help, since Luke was currently sitting upright on the repulsor gurney and his face had returned to its normal color, but Luke was avoiding his gaze and picking at the bacta patch on his thigh. Traitor.
Sienn slapped his hand away. “Stop that.”
“Sorry.”
Sienn glared at Wedge again. “You shot him. On purpose.”
Wedge drew himself up and folded his arms across his chest and tried to look…military. “It was training.”
“With a live blaster?”
“It was on the lowest setting!”
Sienn threw her hands in the air with disgusted exasperation. “I do not get paid enough to deal with pilots.”
Wedge could feel himself turning red.
That, of course, was when Red Leader walked into the room.
Wedge froze.
Arhul Narra stopped directly in front of them. “Tell me,” he said slowly, his gray eyebrows drawn low over piercing eyes, “why I was just pulled out of a classified briefing due to a report that Red Two shot Red Five.”
Wedge and Luke exchanged a look.
Narra consulted his chrono. “Let’s hear it, gentlemen. By my estimate, you’ve had about fifteen minutes to get your stories straight.”
Wedge took a deep breath. “We were training, sir.”
“Oh?” Narra arched an eyebrow; his voice was acid. “I don’t recall authorizing any training with live blasters in Briefing Room Four.”
“It was lightsaber training, sir,” Luke explained.
Narra slowly surveyed the room, his gaze lingering first on the lightsaber still lying on the floor, then on every scorch mark on the floor, walls, and ceiling. “…I see.”
Wedge hurried to steer the conversation towards something more uplifting. “Luke can deflect blaster bolts, sir. It could make all the difference in a—”
“And this is the fact that led you to suggest shooting him at close range?”
Wedge bit the inside of his cheek. “Yes, sir.”
“Technically,” Luke started to say, “I was the one who—”
Narra glared. “I didn’t ask, Skywalker.”
Luke retreated into silence. A wise tactic.
“Why Briefing Room Four?” Narra asked.
“There’s nothing breakable,” Wedge answered promptly, at the exact same time as Luke earnestly said, “It’s always empty.”
They stopped. Stared at teach other.
“You said it’s always empty,” Luke pointed out, looking confused.
“Meaning what, Lieutenant?” Nara asked. “Meaning there was no one tell you not to do what you were planning to do, or meaning there was no one to injure with your antics but the two of you?”
There was no safe answer to that question. “We didn’t want to disturb anyone, sir.”
“Oh, yes,” Narra said blandly, “because none of us were doing anything remotely important before we had to come here and make sure you hadn’t shot Skywalker’s leg off.” He looked pointedly at Sienn, who rolled her eyes, and then at the datapad in his own hand, which Wedge assumed contained the notes from his classified briefing. Then he heaved an exhausted sigh. “Skywalker, Antilles, you’re both good pilots.”
Luke looked up hopefully, clearly under the foolish impression that the lecture was over.
Wedge was not so confident.
Sure enough, Narra narrowed his eyes. “I don’t want to have to inform the Empire that they’re wasting their time killing our people, because it turns out my two best pilots can and will take each other out of action the second they’re left together unsupervised.”
Luke instantly deflated.
Narra turned to Sienn. “How bad is the injury?”
“Third degree,” she answered promptly. “Bacta should have it back to normal within twenty-four hours, assuming he does nothing to aggravate the injury, but he also experienced a vasovagal response which could reoccur until the injury is healed.”
“You’re grounded until then,” Narra told Luke without looking at him.
“Sir—” Luke tried to protest.
“Is your routine patrol tomorrow so important it’s worth risking permanent injury?” Narra asked coolly. “Or passing out in the cockpit?”
“But I didn’t—”
Wedge gestured fiercely.
Luke cut himself off. The tips of his ears had turned red. “No, sir,” he mumbled.
“And you’ll be staying in medical for the full twenty-four hours. I need someone with common sense to supervise you.”
Luke shot Sienn a guilty look. Her expression was as unforgiving as a Corellian winter.
“And you, Lieutenant.” Narra faced Wedge. “Grounded for twenty-four hours as well and I’ll instruct medical to take the cost for the bacta out of your pay. I also expect a full report detailing each and every risk you elected to ignore with this little exercise by 0600.”
Wedge remembered Luke deflecting the bolt back towards his own head and winced. “Yes, sir.”
“I also…” Narra paused, “expect a full report detailing the success of this experiment.”
Oh. Wedge stood up taller. “He deflected twenty-three out of twenty-four bolts, sir.”
“That many?” Luke whispered.
Wedge nodded.
Narra sighed again. Then, as if against his better judgment, he turned back to Luke. “Twenty-three out of twenty-four is impressive.”
Luke grinned. “Thank you, sir.”
“Next time, requisition a training remote.”
“Yes, sir,” Luke said earnestly.
Maybe Wedge was imagining things, but it looked like Narra’s mouth threatened to twitch into a smile. Their commander stalked out of the room before he could confirm.
Wedge let out a long breath. “Well, that could’ve been worse.”
Luke was still staring after Red Leader. “He said it was impressive. Did you hear that, Wedge?”
“Boys,” Sienn said sharply. “Do not start congratulating yourselves.”
It was, Wedge had to admit, a little late for that.