The refectory on Yavin IV was usually crowded at the evening meal, and that night was no exception. Wedge Antilles picked up a tray of food that looked only marginally more inviting than ration paste and paused just inside the doorway, scanning for a place to sit.
At least twenty pilots were already eating, along with another dozen support personnel Wedge recognized – some by name, some only by sight – as the ground crew who kept Massassi Base’s snubfighters flying in spite of impossible odds, indifferent supply chains, and machinery that ought to have failed days ago. Most of the pilots were drawn from the Independence and the Liberty, temporarily rotated down to Yavin to bolster security and cover an evacuation if the Empire made a stronger push on the moon.
He could have sat with any of them.
He knew perfectly well where he was going to end up.
At the far end of one of the long refectory tables sat the pilots of Luke and Wedge’s provisional squadron, still saddled with the painfully temporary name of Massassi Red Group. Luke’s long-suffering silence and Puck Naeco’s cheerfully relentless tone carried above the general noise of trays, utensils, and conversation. Wedge considered turning around.
Then he caught Mara Jade’s expression from across the room – flat, unimpressed, and carrying the distinct promise of violence held in reserve – and, reluctantly, decided his commanding officer probably needed support.
He slid onto the bench at the end of the table. Hobbie immediately shifted over to make room, which bumped Puck down the bench in turn.
“…is the most important defining trait of a squadron,” Puck was saying, with the air of a man delivering doctrine to the less enlightened. “We have to have a memorable name.”
“Memorable,” Mara said dryly, “is how they’ll describe your memorial.”
Sarkli chuckled into his drink. Luke, seated across from Wedge, simply closed his eyes for a moment as though appealing to powers higher than High Command.
“Captain Antilles,” Puck said brightly, “I’m glad you’ve joined us. I was just explaining to our new unit how important it is to have the proper name.”
“I’m assuming, Naeco,” Wedge said, setting down his tray and poking at something that might have once aspired to be meat, “that this is all prelude to suggestions.”
Puck’s face lit with vindication. “You are an officer after my own heart.” With a theatrical flourish, he produced a datapad from under the table. “I spent an intense seventeen minutes compiling a litany of possible squadron names. I now present them for review.”
Luke covered his eyes with one hand.
Mara did not bother disguising the look she gave Puck.
Hobbie kept eating with the grim focus of a man who had survived too many mess halls to care.
Sarkli, to Wedge’s surprise, looked genuinely interested. “Let’s hear them.”
“From best to worst,” Puck said. He cleared his throat. “At the top of the list: Skywalker’s Angels.”
Luke actually choked.
Hobbie thumped him once between the shoulder blades without looking up from his tray.
“After all,” Puck pressed on, “our commander is the most illustrious pilot in the Alliance, so it stands to reason that a formation of elite fliers under his…”
“No,” Mara, Hobbie, and Wedge said together.
Luke was still coughing. “Absolutely not.”
Puck nodded thoughtfully, stylus poised over the datapad. “I’ll mark that down as a maybe.”
“You do that,” Mara said.
“Next: Echo Squadron.”
“Taken,” Wedge said at once.
“Viper Squadron.”
“That’s an A-wing unit off the Independence,” Sarkli said. “So also taken.”
“Black Squadron.”
“We are not changing one color for another and calling it originality,” Wedge said.
Puck frowned and made a note. “Fine. Phoenix Squadron. Symbolic, dignified, evocative. We’re rebuilding from the remains of Massassi Base’s Red Squadron. Rising from the ashes and so forth.”
“No,” Mara said, and there was enough edge in it to make the table go briefly still.
Puck glanced sideways at her, curiosity flickering across his face, but she offered nothing more.
Wedge grimaced faintly and looked back down at his tray. After the attack on Lothal, I don’t blame her.
“Crimson Squadron,” he offered instead.
“There are already two variations of that in circulation,” Hobbie said. “At least. There was a group called Crimson Fury, unless they got folded into something else. There’s also a mixed-type squadron called Crimson Phoenix flying now.”
“Really?” Puck looked offended by the galaxy’s refusal to preserve names for his personal use. “How does the Alliance have this many squadrons and still no decent naming oversight?”
“Poor central administration,” Hobbie said.
“Shocking lack of imagination,” Sarkli said.
“Too many pilots with too much spare time,” Mara muttered.
Wedge glanced at Luke. “No comment?”
Luke lowered his hand from his face and sighed. “I already figured out that speaking only encouraged him.”
“Wise,” Wedge said.
Puck ignored them all. “Very well. Dragon Squadron.”
“Taken,” Wedge said.
“Nomad Squadron.”
“Taken,” Hobbie said.
“Star Squadron.”
“That is barely even a name,” Mara said.
“It says what we do.”
“We fly starfighters,” Wedge said. “By that logic we may as well be Pilot Squadron.”
Puck stared at him. “That’s terrible.”
“Thank you.”
Puck scrolled farther down the datapad, muttering to himself. “Lancer. Sabre. Meteor. Comet. Thunderbolt.”
“Taken, taken, probably taken, definitely taken, and sounds like an escort frigate,” Sarkli said.
“You are all very negative,” Puck informed them.
“We’re experienced,” Mara said.
He sat back and drummed his fingers on the datapad, thinking. Around them, the rest of the refectory carried on: laughter from another table, the scrape of benches across stone, the low constant murmur of tired people eating before the next round of duty. Someone from maintenance shouted for more caf. The place smelled like overcooked protein, damp uniforms, and engine grease that no one ever fully got out of their hands.
For a moment, despite himself, Wedge felt the shape of it settle around him, the ordinary noise of a base still functioning, still alive. Too many empty seats elsewhere. Too many pilots gone from rooms like this forever. But here, for the moment, there was Luke trying not to smile, Hobbie pretending not to enjoy himself, Sarkli leaning in like this was high drama, Mara looking as though she’d rather be anywhere else while also very clearly choosing not to leave, and Puck somehow treating the naming of a half-assembled squadron like a matter of galactic consequence.
It was absurd.
It’s also, Wedge thought, exactly what they all need.
Puck straightened suddenly. “I have it.”
Luke groaned quietly. “That sentence has never once led to anything good.”
Puck pointed at him. “You lack vision. Listen: Skywalker’s Angels, but in Aurebesh.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then Mara set down her utensil with exaggerated care. “Naeco.”
“Yes?”
“If you say that again, I’m going to help history lose your records.”
Sarkli laughed outright. Hobbie finally snorted into his food. Even Luke, against all reason, cracked.
Wedge looked across the table at him and shook his head. “Remember, Skywalker – you wanted this. A new fighter squadron. Command. All of it.” He gestured once at Puck with his fork. “This is on your head.”
Luke rubbed both hands over his face. “I know.”
Puck brightened. “So we agree the burden of naming authority rests with command.”
“No,” Luke said.
“But…”
“No.”
“Then perhaps,” Puck said, undeterred, “we should at least establish a shortlist.”
Mara closed her eyes.
Hobbie leaned back on the bench. “This is how a squadron’s reputation is stillborn.”
“This,” Wedge said, finally taking a bite of the dubious contents of his tray, “is how officers start drinking.”
Luke looked from one face to the next, then exhaled and surrendered to the inevitable with the expression of a man accepting a doomed attack run.
“Fine,” he said. “A shortlist. But if ‘Skywalker’s Angels’ is on it, I’m transferring Puck to sanitation.”
Puck grinned. “I knew you’d come around, Commander.”
The main hangar in the Great Temple was quiet in the hours after the evening meal. Though it meant natural lighting was minimal and glowlamps were required, Mara long preferred quiet over bright when she was working on her X-wing.
She was elbow-deep in the guts of the lower-starboard Incom 4L4 fusial thrust engine, determined to fix the issue bothering her for the last three patrols she’d flown. At standard cruise throttle, seventy percent of full, there was a consistent vibration in the spaceframe; not critical, nothing that affected combat performance, but clearly wrong. The Massassi Base ground crew had pulled the engine twice and stripped it for examination, finding no issues. They’d hooked it up to a diagnostics computer and it declared the engine function nominal. Her astromech, R4-MS, found nothing wrong with the engine, though it did detect the spaceframe flutter at cruise throttle. The crew chief himself had looked over all the reports and told Mara, in no uncertain terms, that the engine was within tolerance and she needed to move on.
Mara had not moved on.
Within tolerance was not, to Mara’s mind, the same as correct.
So now, working with the light of a handheld glowlamp, she traced connections – fuel line, coolant line, control lines, sensor traces – looking for the problem.
This time, Hera might actually murder Wedge and Hobbie, she thought idly as she followed one of the connections with a fingertip. Though she’s the one who told them to treat me like a real pilot. Real pilots get assigned to squadrons, even high-profile ones. And anything with Skywalker leading it is going to be high-profile, at least inside the Alliance.
She allowed herself a chuckle as she tugged a hair-thin sensor trace; the connection was firm in place, unlikely to be the source of the vibration. I should’ve told Hobbie no when he suggested I apply for Skywalker’s squadron. This is going to end badly, if any of the rumors floating around are true. She grimaced. And I already know at least some of them are true. The Empire is going to come looking for him. I should be far away. Flying in his squadron is visible, too visible. I should turn down the slot, transfer to an air wing.
And then she found it – the coolant feed. Like all the connections she was tracing, it was secured inside the engine in several places. On the third bracket, she found a bit of play, perhaps a millimeter worth of wear between the line and the bracket. It wasn’t enough for the line to come loose, but it was enough for the line to move, and perhaps, under cruise conditions, it was enough.
Don’t reach out. Don’t flare. Don’t listen. Visibility is death, Mara. She’d heard those words, repeated, varied, and drilled into her for eight years. Yet here she was, joining a squadron with the most visible man in the Rebellion. Even as shut down as she kept it, walls fortified, ignoring instead of listening, she had felt it when he came down the ramp of the Millennium Falcon on Yavin IV months ago, following the princess. Felt him. Like he was unafraid of what the Empire would send after him.
She fumbled blindly in her toolbox before coming out with a series of split-ring shims. One by one, she tried them on the coolant line, looking for one that would slip between the bracket and the line to firm the connection and eliminate the vibration.
If the Force was an ocean, she’d built dams around her mind. It was an incomplete metaphor but it worked well enough. Still, the pressure was greater than it had been since Lothal, as if the Force itself was more insistent. Or maybe it was Skywalker’s presence. Another reason this is a bad idea, she told herself as she picked the shim that felt best by hand and began properly securing it in place. Visibility is death.
With the shim locked in place, she began closing up the engine again. She’d need to fly a patrol to know for sure whether the vibration was gone, but she was fairly certain the issue would be fixed. Tomorrow, I’ll know for sure. Training flight with Skywalker’s group.
She pondered that as she finished closing the sublight engine panel, securing it in place before turning to clean up her tools. Eight years as the shadow of a shadow. Maybe I can actually belong here. Be a combat pilot the way Wedge and Hobbie trained me. Belong to a squadron that lasts. Make a difference. She almost laughs at the last thought. Yeah, Mara, make a difference. Not just watch while other people die around you, trying to keep you alive. Maybe be worth the sacrifices other people made for me. Or maybe I’ll be vaped in our first real mission and none of it will have been worth it at all.
“Need help?” Hobbie’s voice interrupted her thought.
“No, I’m just finishing up,” Mara said, shaking her head and refocusing outside her own head. “I think I found the vibration in the number three engine.”
“What was it?”
“Bracket on the coolant line is worn enough there was play. I shimmed it. I’ll see tomorrow if I still pick up that flutter at cruise.”
The dour pilot nodded. “That’s the sort of thing the ground crew overlooks if the line and bracket are both still inside spec.”
“Right, but together, they don’t fit right anymore.” Mara stretched as she rose to her feet. “I should get some rest. Training flight tomorrow.” The pendant hanging on a loop of leather around her neck had slipped out from concealment when she had been lying prone under the engine; she tucked it back under her tunic.
“Mara,” Hobbie said, voice soft. She froze. “I talked to Wedge.”
“About me,” she said flatly.
“Yes. Either you earn your place in the squadron, or you don’t. It’s you, either way. Not Syndulla.”
An exasperated sigh escaped. “Hobbie, you don’t get to…”
“Skywalker told Wedge he didn’t care about the politics,” Hobbie said dryly. “It’s driving Wedge up a wall. He wants you in the squadron, and his compromise with Wedge was tomorrow’s training flight before making it official. Wedge is ready to chew through a bulkhead.”
Mara couldn’t help but laugh at the image. “You think Skywalker’s the real deal?” she asked after a moment. “He’s not going to put me on the roster as a mascot or to curry favor with Hera? And he’s not going to ground me or kick me off the roster for the same reason?”
“I know you haven’t gotten to know him yet, Mara, but Skywalker doesn’t play games.” Hobbie shook his head. “I’ve never seen an officer like him in the Empire or the Rebellion. Everyone learns to play the games to get promotions; Skywalker flew exactly one mission before being put in command track, and he acts like it.”
“That one mission was blowing up the Death Star.”
“Exactly.” Hobbie offered her a rare smile. “He thinks you have the chops for this. Tomorrow will prove it. And you’re in. Welcome to whatever comes next.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I’m voting for myself. Training you was my idea, after all.”
“Wedge says it was both of you.”
“I let Wedge think that.” Hobbie offered her a more sober nod. “You earned this, Mara.”
The azure glow of the lightsaber painted the room in blue highlights. Luke flicked the blade up to guard position, as Ben Kenobi had taught him, attempting to stretch out with his feelings.
The first dart from the hovering target remote took him in the thigh. Luke yelped and stumbled back, his guard dropping, and the second bolt took him in the shoulder before he got the humming lightsaber back up in position. Focus, he told himself as he reset his stance and tried stretching out again.
He could feel it, then – a trickle of energy on the edge of his senses, like he was standing next to a high-voltage power cable. This would be easier if I had more time to train. Or if I still had a teacher. His hands moved on instinct, and he batted away a pair of stingers in quick succession. But there’s not time. There’s never time, and there’s no one to teach me.
The next bolt drilled him in the hand, and he nearly dropped the lightsaber altogether. “Shavit,” he growled aloud, before he forced the frustration out with a breath and tried to stretch out again.
But his mind wasn’t focused on the exercise – it was focused on the new squadron. After the battle of Yavin, he’d been given his promotion, put on the command track, and then he and Wedge had pulled a number of missions: diplomatic, yes, but plenty of flight missions with Commander Narra’s Renegade Squadron to tutor him on command and combat tactics. Flying the T-65B X-wing was far more natural than this lightsaber exercise, but flying wasn’t the same as commanding. Rebel High Command clearly had leadership in mind for him, but they weren’t so foolish as to put him in position before he was ready.
And now I’m in that command position, and I’m still not sure I’m ready. The lightsaber picked off another stinger, Luke’s conscious thought never interrupting the movement. At least I have Wedge.
And with that, he began considering his squadron, such as it was.
Wedge Antilles had become a fast friend. Two years older than Luke, Imperial Academy-trained, Corellian, and level-headed under fire. Corellians are all supposed to be hot-headed and reckless, like Han, Luke reflected, but Wedge doesn’t fit that at all. Without him, this squadron won’t work. I just hope I can learn enough from him before the Alliance needs him to command his own squadron. Wedge understood paperwork and procedures in a way Luke suspected he himself never would.
Derek Klivian struck most people as the silent type, but Luke saw something else in him – the quiet skeptic who thought before he spoke, and didn’t use a lot of words. Hobbie was a survivor, an Imperial defector, and Luke suspected he’d be a cornerstone of the squadron.
The lightsaber moved, again almost of its own volition, picking off another pair of bolts.
Puck Naeco was going to drive Hobbie up a wall, though. The Denon pilot’s squadron name ideas at supper had taken Luke entirely off-guard. But if this squadron gets used the way Wedge thinks, we’ll need pressure relief. He’s the relief valve. Skywalker’s Angels is a ridiculous name, but if the squadron can laugh, they can survive.
Sarkli, though… Luke pondered his unease, the lightsaber picking off another stinger. Wedge thinks he’ll work out. Maybe I’ll have more of an opinion after I’ve flown with him. I need to give him a fair shot. He was a Pathfinder, he’s been in Alliance service a lot longer than I am, and we could really use his skills.
And then there was Mara Jade. A stinger bolt finally slipped through his guard, catching him in the ribs. Luke hissed in pain, finally shutting down the lightsaber and surrendering the exercise. On paper, a good-but-not-great pilot. Wedge and Hobbie had trained her. Hobbie had talked to him, privately, to vouch for her. On paper, she was a questionable decision if Dodonna started throwing combat missions at them sooner than he expected. Yet the same part of him uneasy about Sarkli was bedrock certain he wanted her in the squadron.
That led to a whole different chain of uncomfortable thoughts. After the Death Star, after trusting the Force and his feelings to make an impossible shot, it’d be easy to reassure himself that it was more Force-driven intuition. And the moment I start doing that, I could label any impulse I have as coming from the Force. But I’m not a Jedi, and if I’m leading a squadron into battle, me deciding every idea is from the Force is going to get a lot of people killed. So, I evaluate Sarkli and Mara, and if they make the cut, they fly with us. If they don’t, I don’t argue with the results. I can’t afford to delude myself if I’m going to be a good squadron commander.
Luke clipped the lightsaber back to his belt and picked up the deactivated target remote. I need to make more time for this, he chided himself, or I’m never going to get better. Wedge would tell me to put in the time and commitment, not make excuses. He’d be talking about flying, but if I want to learn about the Force, it’s no different.
Tomorrow, we’ll fly and we’ll make decisions.
