“If I were a Sith Lord that had just lost a valuable prisoner that carried master plans for my ultimate weapon, what would I do?” he asked himself seriously. Oh, well, that was easy. Slip a homing device aboard their ship.

So that’s what Luke set out to find.

Han could deny it all he like, could puff up his pride in the vessel until he burst, but facts were still facts, and one smuggler could not outwit the entire Imperial Navy.

A son of Skywalker? Well, maybe he could.

Concentrating hard, he searched all the most likely crevices until he found it, flicking on his lightsaber.

“Sorry, Father.”

And that was that. Leia found him not too many moments later, and stared curiously from his hand to his face, noting that the lightsaber was still on.

Finally, she asked “What…are you doing?”

“Huh? Oh.” He turned his weapon off and shrugged his shoulders. “Dismantling tracking devices.”

The princess paled. “What? How many? Does the Empire know where we’re going? Where the base is?”

Luke thought for a moment. “We’ve got about a week. After that, we’d better start packing up and find a new base.”

“A week,” she whispered in horror. “The…The Death Star, they’ll come, won’t they?”

Luke darkened. “Oh, most likely.”

One of the many things he loved about Leia was that she was filled with such steely resolve in a crisis.

Smacking her fist into the opposite palm, she nodded. “Then we’ve got to start acting, and fast!”

“Agreed,” he said. “One question: What am I going to do?”

Patiently, Mon Mothma had asked “But why? What do you see in him? I know he rescued you, but you’re far too quick thinking not to see the real possibility for betrayal.”

In the end she could not really describe to her esteemed peers what had prompted her to bring Luke right into the heart of the Rebellion.

“If you only saw him. It was like watching someone die, and you knew, you knew it was all too real. He wasn’t pretending, he wasn’t lying. He was broken and battered, and I had the chance to kick him while he was down.”

“So why didn’t you?” General Dodonna asked wryly.

Because she couldn’t.

Something ineffably drew her to the desperate young man. He wasn’t a powerful Sith Lord. He was as weak as a child, sobbing desolately as she held him. A suppliant servant that had laid himself, defenseless, at her feet.

It was as if he had said “I am yours, lead me.”

She had a responsibility to him that could never be explained in mere words. It went far too deep for that. To turn away Luke because of who his father was would be like turning away a child. Maybe Leia was going soft, but she couldn’t do it.

“He has real talent,” she’d argued.

“That we’ll see for ourselves,” replied General Rieekan, not at all impressed with the turn of events.

“When the Empire comes to butcher us like cattle,” confirmed Mon Mothma.

“When young Skywalker betrays us to them?” suggested Dodonna. “With all due respect, Princess, that might be what he is planning.”

“I know,” she agreed in a whisper. “But it’s a chance we’ve got to take.”

Rieekan shrugged. “Your judgment has never been wrong before. Let us hope this is not a bad omen.”

Han had bolted to see the person in charge of the Treasury about his reward, and the Wookie had of course gone with him. Leia had explained that she had to talk with the Rebel High Command, and suggested he get something to eat. Eager to please, he’d agreed, and been pointed in the direction of the mess hall.

News traveled fast, and Luke was quite consciously aware of several pairs of eyes boring into him. Not knowing what to do, he’d grabbed a tray and gotten food with everyone else.

Sighing, not knowing who on earth to sit with, he simply picked an empty table, and bent to filling his stomach.

A task which quickly turned out to be more trouble than he deemed it to be worth. A thin sort of oily, grey stew had been sloshed into a greasy tin bowl, accompanied by a chunk of dry looking brown bread, a few pills, and a cup of terrible, if strong, caff.

“Mind if I sit here?”

The sentence astounded Luke enough for him to tear his eyes away from the disgusting stew – which he was sure had made a growling noise in his direction – and to the source of such astonishment.

The sixteen year old smiled cheerfully at him, his darkish brown hair slightly shaggy, his eyes glittering. Luke got such a sense of pure, totally innocent intentions, of genuine good natured-ness as to astound him.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” He didn’t know what else to say.

The boy set his tray down across from Luke, plopping into the chair. No further contact was established for a some time, as the young man was busily shoveling spoon fulls of the disgusting stew quickly into his mouth before his taste buds got a chance to react. Luke just stared. After a small portion of the food was gone, the boy held out his hand to Luke, still smiling affably.

“Name’s Wedge Antilles. Red Two.”

Nervously, Luke took the hand. “Uh, Luke Skywalker.”

“Oh,” Wedge said knowingly. “You’re the guy everyone’s talking about.” Luke shifted nervously in his chair. “Rumor has it you were a wicked pilot.”

“I still am,” he replied, slightly defensively.

“Great!” exclaimed Wedge, leaving Luke to wonder if he suffered from some sort of malignant disease which rendered his brain impenetrable to the feared and revered name Skywalker, or if he really was just that nice. “Red Five’s been out since he screwed up his wrist.” He poked at the stew, grimacing. “It’s not usually this bad.”

“Really?” asked Luke coyly. “The food doesn’t usually stare back at you?”

Wedged laugh appreciatively, popping one of the medical pills into his mouth and following it up with some caff. “The Empire caught one of the people who supplies our rations,” he explained rather cheerfully for such depressing news, “so the others are lying low for a while. Still, we should be eating better again soon.” Wedge quickly downed some caff before rather randomly asking “Ever flown an X-Wing?”

Luke shook his head now, and that started Wedge off about the pros and cons of the attack and defense, and the form of oratory merely made its creator all the more endearing. Finally, however, Luke just had to know the truth.

“Wait, look, hold it. Do you have any idea who I am?”

Wedge glanced at him. “Umm….?”

“Luke Skywalker? Lord Skywalker? Dark Lord of the Sith? Ever heard of me?”

“Oh! Yeah, sure.” Wedge went back to eating.

Luke blinked. “And that doesn’t bother you?”

“Should it?”

Luke was utterly speechless as Wedge nonchalantly bit off a hunk of bread. “Well…but I thought…”

Wedge swallowed, grinning again. “Well, sure, you were a Lord of the Sith. But you’re one of us now, right?”

Comprehension slowly dawned on Luke as he blinked, a grin spreading across his face. “Yeah. I’m one of you.”

Wedge’s smile grew wider. “So where’s the problem?” He turned briefly in his seat to call “Hey, Biggs, come over here, there’s this cool guy I want you to meet!” A black haired, mustachioed youth came trotting over, and Luke was washed over with a sudden wave of unexplainable warmth.

“Hey, Luke, this is Biggs Darklighter. Biggs, this is Luke Skywalker.”

“Hello,” Luke responded sheepishly.

Biggs seemed only slightly surprised by the name, and smoothed it over quickly, extending a hand. “Hey,” he replied nonchalantly.

He seemed oddly familiar. “Have we met before?”

Biggs blinked. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Luke here’s a really neat guy,” Wedge explained to the black haired companion, and Luke smiled broadly.

He was Wedge’s man forever. They would be close, practically best friends. And Luke speculated that Wedge was one of the first people who had ever accepted him totally and completely for who he was, not who he was supposed to be.

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