Straight on 'Til Morning
By: Angel
[Days Before the Battle of Endor; Sullust]
She walked through ash, hands held out to either side like wings spread. It fell like snow, collecting in her dark red hair and outstretched hands. The toxicity of the air was just low enough to go without a rebreather, but only just, yet it smelled of memory. The tunnels beneath her feet had been home until the day she'd left to join the Rebellion with Risha.
With her eyes closed, Lieutenant Jeni "Angel" Courtner could almost feel the Zabrak woman's hand in hers, helping her up the steep cliffs full of sharp, fragile rocks. They'd stood atop this very plateau, with the soot and ash swirling around them while they waited for their contact. Inuu, the elderly Sullustan woman, had disabled their tracking beacons and smuggled them off-world in her shuttle. Two days in a cramped cargo hold with only the warmth of Risha to stave off the chill of space should have been an ordeal, but to Jeni it had been the best moment of her life.
Now she was home again and Sullust was free of the Empire. The fighting had been terrible and bloody, but the cost had been worth it. The planet's massive manufacturing assets would now serve the Rebel Alliance. She wasn't sure why the entire Rebel Fleet had massed here, but it didn't matter. Her home was the center of something big. They could all feel it.
The crunch of boots should have startled her, but Jeni didn't even bother opening her eyes. She knew who it was even before Lieutenant Conall "Shadow" McKenna came to stand beside her. Cracking open one eye, she glanced his way to see his coat collar pulled up high and his hands stuffed deep in his pockets.
"This can't be sanitary," he said, shaking his head.
"Just don't swallow any of it."
"Right, good advice. Listen, the other Reds were meeting down in Surrik Tunnel for drinks. I was sent to find you."
"Ooh, drinks, how can I resist," she mused, closing her eyes again and letting some of the collected ash crumble in her palm and fall away as she wiped her hands on her green flight suit.
"You can't. Well, you can try, but it's kind of an order. Lock says there's something big coming up and we may not get a ton of time soon."
Blinking soot from her lashes, she turned to look at him, frowning as could feel his uncertainty. There was an edge to his tone. Opening her eyes again, she turned to face him.
"What's happening?"
Shadow shrugged. His hair had begun to collect ash and Angel reached up to brush it off.
"Stop that," he said, weakly batting her arm away. "You're going to just mash the grease into my lovely hair."
"The ash isn't greasy here, you diva."
"I'm not a diva."
Angel shifted her weight onto her back foot and put her hands on her hips. "The Corellian Bar on Loos?"
"One time. One time!" he said and shook his head. "Look, right... Look, I don't know. I think we're getting reassigned. The lot of us. Temporarily or something."
Angel was shocked. Reassigned? They were breaking up the squadron? For what? Why now? Even temporarily that seemed extreme. There were a lot of squadrons here. Angel had never seen so many Alliance pilots in one place, so why were they breaking up Red? It had to be for something good, right? Something really big?
"Well, clearly it's for a good reason. I'm sure it's super top secret. Like you'll be assigned to break into an Imperial Bunker in a Scout Walker!" She laughed at the last bit, which made Shadow groan, yet she could see his smile beneath his coat. Just like that she'd reached out, found his discomfort and tossed it away. That's what she lived for.
Then, he sighed and glanced back over his shoulder. For a moment he stood like that and Angel wasn't sure what he was thinking. The discomfort wasn't there, she could tell. This was something else entirely.
When he did look back, his expression was pretty serious. "You should tell her, Jen."
Angel blinked in surprise. "Uh, what? Tell who... tell who what?"
"Gemilan."
Gemilan. Her breath hitched just above her stomach and a terrible, burning fear raked its way up her spine.
"I don't know what you, ah, what you mean."
Shadow reached out and put a hand on her arm, squeezing it. "I'm serious. Something big is happening. The entire fleet is here. From every corner of the galaxy. I can feel it. It's like the whole universe is balancing on the edge of a bloody knife. It will tip one way or another and I don't know what will happen. What I do know is that you're running out of time. Tell her."
Angel looked everywhere but at her friend. The euphoria of a moment ago evaporated in an instant. In its place she felt a small, growing apprehension. Thinking of Gemilan made her feel wrong. Unfaithful. Somewhere, out there, Risha might still be alive.
"I know what you're thinking," Shadow said. "Risha is gone. It's been over a year and I want you to look me in the eye and tell me you meant the same to her."
She couldn't or she wouldn't or she was afraid to admit it. Angel shut her eyes instead. What she saw in her mind was Risha climbing the ladder to her X-wing, telling her they'd talk when she got back. They'd talk. They'd work it out. Risha pushing her away the night before was a mistake. It had to have been a mistake.
"Jen." Shadow's voice was low, intense. It was the tone he took when he needed to cut through her bullshit. "Tell Gemilan how you feel. It may be the last time you can."
And then he left, his boots crunching in the fresh fallen ash. She stood a while longer, hearing the cries of the Ash Angels in the distance.
"Frak me," she grumbled and turned to follow.
[1 Hour Later; Red Squadron Base Camp, Deep City Nine, Sullust]
One last major assault to win the war. One last push to put an end to it all and they were going to split up. Red Squadron was to be dispersed among a half-dozen units, so this would be the last night they had as a squadron.
So they screamed into the night.
Angel sang her heart out while her fingers strummed the hallikset. It was a familiar song, full of range and defiance and rebellion; a favorite among the squadron. So many think they called her ‘Angel' because her voice was pretty, but in reality, it's because she screamed like an Ash Angel.
Shadow had put enough durasteel crates and drums together to make a percussion set while Yale found a sort of bass vye to play. Vape even managed to squirrel up some kind of flute that made it into the mix.
They played before a roaring bonfire that was lit in the middle of the Sullustan street. The tunnels were deep and wide, forming streets with dwellings on each side. Collectively, the whole place was called Deep City Nine. Red Squadron made sure the entire city heard that the Rebellion was in town and they were going to seriously do some damage.
As the last note died down, Angel accepted a glass of Corellian whiskey from Gremlin and for just a moment, Jeni felt her eyes hold onto the other woman's. Talk to her, she thought. Her gaze shifted down from Grem's eyes to her lips and she wondered how they tasted, but soon she was downing the drink instead.
For courage, she told herself. But over the next hour, she found excuse after excuse. She sang, she played, she drank, and she did everything but talk to her. Song after song; drink after drink until she was reeling her voice was a torn memory of itself. Still, she couldn't help but see Gemilan dance; see her body as a sensual shadow against the bonfire.
Yet if she stared long enough, that shadow became the ghost of someone else. The ghost of a woman who had pulled her from these tunnels and into the stars. A woman she'd finally confessed her feelings for. It had been a painful mistake.
Some pilots broke off in pairs as the evening grew long. One by one the crowd thinned until only a few remained. Even Shadow was pulled from their makeshift stage, woozily waving a good night as he was dragged somewhere. Gemilan's eyes had caught hers a few times and held them, and Angel thought she'd seen an invitation, but then the memory of standing next to an X-wing's ladder, shame burning on her cheeks would make her turn away.
Then she, too, was gone. Angel wasn't sure when the music stopped or when the bonfire finally died down, but she was acutely aware of how quiet the night had become. Vape lay curled up on a rucksack, looking so young that Angel felt it would be a crime to leave her alone. And so, near the ashes of the last Red Squadron bonfire, Angel lay down and closed her eyes.
It was for the best that she'd kept her feelings to herself. Tomorrow, she'd be flying into one of the biggest battles she'd ever seen and having her heart torn out again wouldn't help. She needed to be focused, alert, ready.
Soon, everything would change.
[Hangar of the CRS Home One, 30 Minutes before The Battle of Endor]
The young crewman handed Angel her helmet as she climbed into the cockpit of her A-wing fighter. The bucket was battered, bent in some places even, but it fit like a warm hug around her flight cap. Largely painted off-white, the silver, gray and red paint design had flecked and scuffed into an almost new pattern.
Touching her comm panel, she connected her helmet to the fighter's systems and did a quick comms check while the crewman adjusted her crash webbing. Gently tapping her helmet, he gave her thumbs up, which she returned before he retreated off the fighter's hull.
Her A-wing had been with her for a long time, showing wear on almost every surface. The black paint covering her forward panel was so scuffed and worn from repeated dismantling that it the silver metal beneath shone through in multiple places. The readout screen and sensor boards had small cracks in the corners where bolts were tightened down too hard. Her HUD flickered twice before it loaded up. Even the flight stick's button labels were worn off.
She'd flown this fighter for so long and with such love that she knew every imperfection. The seat had been restuffed twice. Her headrest was largely full of duragel instead of foam. She'd hand stitched the synthleather closed herself.
The engines lit with a cough and a protesting whine, but they lit. The guns came online without a hitch, but had long ago been stripped of their rotation gyros. Concussion missiles were loaded and with a few taps of her fingers, they were programmed into her flight computer. Everything was set and ready, she just needed clearance to lift off.
"Gold Squadron, this is Gold Leader," General Calrissian said over the comm. "Check in when able."
"Gold Three standing by," she said when it was her turn and then leaned back in her seat, her hands resting on the canopy rail. Once they were cleared to taxi, she'd close the canopy and shut herself in, but for now she relished the free-flowing air of the hangar. It smelled of grease, oil, and spent ozone. She heard the sound of a dozen engines starting, turning over, and igniting. The Rebellion was awakening for this last big push.
Across the hangar of Home One, through the glowing blue of the mag-field, she could see the rest of the fleet slowly drifting by. Somewhere out there were the rest of her friends, scattered to other units for this final push. It felt final anyway. The grand adventure she and Risha had set out on years ago had all come to this and there was a very small, but very loud, part of her ego that mourned its end. Things would be different after this, one way or another.
"Gold Squadron, prepare for taxi," Calrissian said before adding. "Today, we'll make history. May the Force be with us."
A tingle ran up Angel's spine ending somewhere in the back of her mind. She felt a familiar sensation that she'd felt right before something big happened. There was a tug at the back of her mind and she knew, at her two o'clock, beyond the walls of Home One, was Shadow. He was looking at her too.
Angel hadn't told her. She felt his subtle disappointment and it made her uncomfortable. After the battle, she told herself, she'd tell her then. She looked out into space, wondering where she was in the mass of rebel ships. Was she looking back at her too?
The squadron began to taxi and Angel closed the canopy bubble, sealing herself into the tiny A-wing. With gentle bursts of thrusters, she exited the hangar into open space along with the Falcon and hundreds of other fighter craft.
"All craft, prepare to jump into hyperspace on my mark," Admiral Ackbar said over the comm.
Angel rested her hand on the lever that would propel her tiny fighter into the great blue beyond. On the other side was some kind of end.
Lando gave the command and as one, every rebel craft shot into hyperspace.
