Fic: Prisons
Title: Prisons
Author: Elena
Fandom: Star Wars EU - Lotf speculation
Summary: Wedge Antilles and the hypocrisy of others, because all Jedi fall and fail.
Once there was a princess.
I’m sorry, Wedge, that it’s come to this,” Leia said serenely, and Wedge just stared at her in consternation because Leia was wearing Jedi robes and holding a lightsaber hilt in her right hand and he’d never, ever seen her look so blank as she did then. Even her ‘diplomat’ face, the one she’d always worn when she had to settle some debate in the Senate, had shown something, and Wedge thought there was something inherently unnatural in Leia’s overly calm demeanor. Leia wasn’t calm.
Then she switched her lightsaber on and stabbed him in the shoulder, and sithspit, it hurt. She’d pinned him against a wall and he was cognizant enough not to move around because even if he was old, he liked his arm, and she was twisting it and twisting it as he twitched around it. That was about the time he started pleading. “Stop…Leia, stop…”
And she had looked at him like he was nothing. Like he hadn’t known her since before Yavin, like he was just some enemy of the state. Less than that, really, like he wasn’t even a real person. “Leia,” he gasped through the pain.
“Now what about you and Han?"
"We're happy, when we get to see each other. It's kind of rough on a woman to finally admit you love someone and then have him frozen in carbonite for the better part of a year. Then again, during that time he didn't find little ways to irritate me."
"That's his nature, though - he's chaos incarnate. Han Solo, you have to love him ..."
"... or freeze him in carbonite, I know. He's a good man. Even with his quirks and rough edges, I don't think I can find better in this galaxy. And I'm not really interested in looking, either, but there are times when I wonder 'Why him?' "
"If you ever have doubts, serious doubts, come see me. I can give you a dozen reasons to answer that question."
“Leia,” he gasped again. “How’s Han?”
And for a moment, just a moment, her face was filled with shock and she reflexively switched off her lightsaber. Wedge slid down the wall like so much boneless meat, the scent of his own burnt flesh sharp in his nose, and the last thing he saw before unconsciousness was Leia’s troubled face calming into serenity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Once there was a hero.
“Wedge, wake up. You need to wake up now.”
They didn’t put him in bacta. The wound, a disgusting, oozy hole in his shoulder, was an excuse to lock him in a private ward and drug him with mind-altering, pain-killing substances, and Wedge hated that he was reduced to this, a sleeping, silenced man. This was not what he had fought for. This was not it at all.
And every day, Luke visited him. Every day, Luke talked at him, a fervent, bright thread of hope for a better future - if only Wedge would believe. Believe in him. And Wedge ignored him each day because he had always believed in Luke, ever since that first impossible victory, and he had believed because Luke was honest and truthful and sincere, like nobody he had ever met before.
“That's impossible, even for a computer.”
“It's not impossible. I used to bull's-eye womp rats in my T-sixteen back home. They're not much bigger than two meters.”
He had believed in Luke because Luke had believed. But maybe he never had believed. Maybe he’d just been some stupid, over-confident farm kid and Wedge had made him more than he was because he had needed something, anything, to remind him that the Force was on his side.
“Wedge, say something,” Luke pleads, and Wedge contents himself with saying, “I can’t believe you when you don’t even believe yourself.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Once there was a friend.
“Wedge, it doesn’t have to be like this.”
His wound was half-healed when they sent the interrogators in. Wedge was not grateful. It just meant that instead of fainting after five minutes, he fainted after fifteen. All things considered, Wedge would rather leave the pain earlier than later.
And that damn hole just wouldn’t heal up.
“Wedge, focus on me. Look at me.”
Because even though Leia had missed all the important bits - on purpose? - it was still disgusting and unsanitary to stuff it with rags to stop the oozing.
“Wedge, why do you make this necessary?”
Wedge sneered at Corran and his stupid, long-suffering expression.
“Why do you, traitor?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Once there was a girl.
“Mom is dead.”
And Wedge’s whole universe contracted down to the fact that his wife was dead and his oldest daughter probably hated him.
“How?” he wheezed, and Syal’s mouth twisted just like Iella’s when there was bad news at the door - oh god oh god he’d never see her again - “Firing squad. They used a goddamn firing squad, those cowards, she was an example-”
“Shut up,” he whispered harshly, and his daughter’s eyes widened. She’d never seen her father like this before, and no surprise; it’d been a very long time since he had been afraid that a giant implacable thing was about the swoop down and destroy everything he loved. “Shut up right now. They’re listening, you little idiot, and they will kill you if aren’t more discreet.”
“How dare you,” she started, and he cut her off right then.
“I dare because I’m your father and I know best. I was doing this when I was younger than you are now, and even if you blame me for your mother’s death, I still want you to live. You are going to leave this prison, and when they approach you - and they will! - you are going to tell them the truth and say that you hate me for being a traitor. That is all you are going to think about, because they’ll probably have a mind-reader among them and you’re not old enough to block them out. Do you understand me?”
She gulped and glared at him, blue eyes burning in her face.
“Do you understand me?”
“I don’t blame you,” she said, and Wedge felt relief.
“Then lie.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~```
Once there was a student.
“It is time to leave, General.”
He didn’t recognize the voice, not at first. A woman speaking to him from behind the door of his cell, that’s all, and he had known many women in his life. She had called him General, and that didn’t narrow it down at all, because everyone called him General now, even the interrogators.
“General, I know you are awake. We must leave immediately; our window of opportunity closes in approximately twenty-five minutes.”
And in the exotic lilt of the woman’s accent, it all came back to him. He had never quite forgotten those terror-ridden days on Borleias. It had been too close, and he had been too changed by it, by the realization that all he had fought for had been warped and destroyed in his daughter’s short lifetime. Adumar was an anomaly; Borleias had been the status quo.
And he remembered the young Chiss Major who had come with his nephew, the squadron commander who had found the time to insinuate herself as his aide. He had known she was a spy, and more importantly, she had known as well. It frustrated her to no end, that she was in a position where she could find out everything she wanted to know, but couldn’t, because he controlled the information flow.
It had amused him at the time. Kyrn had been no Erisi Dlarit, and more than that, her casual xenophobia could get her killed. He had learned long ago that underestimating someone because of their species got a man killed - and he liked the forthright young officer enough to try and teach her the same lesson.
“As always, Major, you have impeccable timing. My execution was tomorrow.”
The door opened and a cloaked figure gestured quickly. She’d gotten in dressed as a nun from the sect of the Force most Corellians worshiped, probably posing for his last rites. That was clever. “I was recently promoted to Colonel, sir. And yes, I knew that. I believe the official report sent over the Holonet stated that you were an ‘example’.”
Wedge just grinned bitterly. “Stupid of them. Didn’t they learn from the Emperor’s mistakes? ‘Examples’ only make enemies. Oh, and congratulations on your promotion.”
As they hurried through the halls of the prison, he noted that all the cameras he could see are blank and unseeing.
“Ion blast into the control room computer,” she said by way of explanation. “I do not believe Mistress Organa or Master Skywalker think of themselves as the Emperor.”
“No, they wouldn’t. Luke or Leia never liked to think of themselves as the bad guys, even in the old days. Martyrdom and heroics, and all that stuff.”
She gave him another bundle of dark cloth, and it took him a moment to realize that it was another nun’s outfit. His shoulder and the solid core of scar tissue in it protested loudly as he pulled it over his head, and he was grateful that the Kyrn said nothing at his obvious whimper of pain.
“I had thought that all old Rebels were of the opinion that they were all heroes against the evil Empire.”
“Oh, we were,” he said, voice muffled. “But there’s a difference between being a lightsaber and a vibroblade. I’ve done both, and can appreciate the relative uses of each. But the others…they don’t like to think of themselves as vibroblades. It was a new era, after all.”
Finally, his head was through the clinging robes, and he tried to wrap the traditional binding around his head. His shoulder stiffened and the nerves of his left hand went numb, though, so Kyrn had to finish it.
“So you are a vibroblade?”
“Me? Oh, no, Colonel. I’m a kitchen knife.”
She laughed gently. “Your daughters have inherited your sense of humor, General.”
He tensed. “My girls?”
She nodded, her head just a shape wrapped in grey cloth. “Myri,” and Wedge thought that his youngest daughter’s name was a strange foreign creature in the Chiss woman’s mouth, “came to us in the beginning of the war. She searched for you endlessly, but it was only with the arrival of your oldest that we were able to find you.”
He relaxed in relief, and Kyrn touched his shoulder gently. “This way, General,” she said quietly, and Wedge Antilles stepped out of his prison.
Author: Elena
Fandom: Star Wars EU - Lotf speculation
Summary: Wedge Antilles and the hypocrisy of others, because all Jedi fall and fail.
Once there was a princess.
I’m sorry, Wedge, that it’s come to this,” Leia said serenely, and Wedge just stared at her in consternation because Leia was wearing Jedi robes and holding a lightsaber hilt in her right hand and he’d never, ever seen her look so blank as she did then. Even her ‘diplomat’ face, the one she’d always worn when she had to settle some debate in the Senate, had shown something, and Wedge thought there was something inherently unnatural in Leia’s overly calm demeanor. Leia wasn’t calm.
Then she switched her lightsaber on and stabbed him in the shoulder, and sithspit, it hurt. She’d pinned him against a wall and he was cognizant enough not to move around because even if he was old, he liked his arm, and she was twisting it and twisting it as he twitched around it. That was about the time he started pleading. “Stop…Leia, stop…”
And she had looked at him like he was nothing. Like he hadn’t known her since before Yavin, like he was just some enemy of the state. Less than that, really, like he wasn’t even a real person. “Leia,” he gasped through the pain.
“Now what about you and Han?"
"We're happy, when we get to see each other. It's kind of rough on a woman to finally admit you love someone and then have him frozen in carbonite for the better part of a year. Then again, during that time he didn't find little ways to irritate me."
"That's his nature, though - he's chaos incarnate. Han Solo, you have to love him ..."
"... or freeze him in carbonite, I know. He's a good man. Even with his quirks and rough edges, I don't think I can find better in this galaxy. And I'm not really interested in looking, either, but there are times when I wonder 'Why him?' "
"If you ever have doubts, serious doubts, come see me. I can give you a dozen reasons to answer that question."
“Leia,” he gasped again. “How’s Han?”
And for a moment, just a moment, her face was filled with shock and she reflexively switched off her lightsaber. Wedge slid down the wall like so much boneless meat, the scent of his own burnt flesh sharp in his nose, and the last thing he saw before unconsciousness was Leia’s troubled face calming into serenity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Once there was a hero.
“Wedge, wake up. You need to wake up now.”
They didn’t put him in bacta. The wound, a disgusting, oozy hole in his shoulder, was an excuse to lock him in a private ward and drug him with mind-altering, pain-killing substances, and Wedge hated that he was reduced to this, a sleeping, silenced man. This was not what he had fought for. This was not it at all.
And every day, Luke visited him. Every day, Luke talked at him, a fervent, bright thread of hope for a better future - if only Wedge would believe. Believe in him. And Wedge ignored him each day because he had always believed in Luke, ever since that first impossible victory, and he had believed because Luke was honest and truthful and sincere, like nobody he had ever met before.
“That's impossible, even for a computer.”
“It's not impossible. I used to bull's-eye womp rats in my T-sixteen back home. They're not much bigger than two meters.”
He had believed in Luke because Luke had believed. But maybe he never had believed. Maybe he’d just been some stupid, over-confident farm kid and Wedge had made him more than he was because he had needed something, anything, to remind him that the Force was on his side.
“Wedge, say something,” Luke pleads, and Wedge contents himself with saying, “I can’t believe you when you don’t even believe yourself.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Once there was a friend.
“Wedge, it doesn’t have to be like this.”
His wound was half-healed when they sent the interrogators in. Wedge was not grateful. It just meant that instead of fainting after five minutes, he fainted after fifteen. All things considered, Wedge would rather leave the pain earlier than later.
And that damn hole just wouldn’t heal up.
“Wedge, focus on me. Look at me.”
Because even though Leia had missed all the important bits - on purpose? - it was still disgusting and unsanitary to stuff it with rags to stop the oozing.
“Wedge, why do you make this necessary?”
Wedge sneered at Corran and his stupid, long-suffering expression.
“Why do you, traitor?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Once there was a girl.
“Mom is dead.”
And Wedge’s whole universe contracted down to the fact that his wife was dead and his oldest daughter probably hated him.
“How?” he wheezed, and Syal’s mouth twisted just like Iella’s when there was bad news at the door - oh god oh god he’d never see her again - “Firing squad. They used a goddamn firing squad, those cowards, she was an example-”
“Shut up,” he whispered harshly, and his daughter’s eyes widened. She’d never seen her father like this before, and no surprise; it’d been a very long time since he had been afraid that a giant implacable thing was about the swoop down and destroy everything he loved. “Shut up right now. They’re listening, you little idiot, and they will kill you if aren’t more discreet.”
“How dare you,” she started, and he cut her off right then.
“I dare because I’m your father and I know best. I was doing this when I was younger than you are now, and even if you blame me for your mother’s death, I still want you to live. You are going to leave this prison, and when they approach you - and they will! - you are going to tell them the truth and say that you hate me for being a traitor. That is all you are going to think about, because they’ll probably have a mind-reader among them and you’re not old enough to block them out. Do you understand me?”
She gulped and glared at him, blue eyes burning in her face.
“Do you understand me?”
“I don’t blame you,” she said, and Wedge felt relief.
“Then lie.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~```
Once there was a student.
“It is time to leave, General.”
He didn’t recognize the voice, not at first. A woman speaking to him from behind the door of his cell, that’s all, and he had known many women in his life. She had called him General, and that didn’t narrow it down at all, because everyone called him General now, even the interrogators.
“General, I know you are awake. We must leave immediately; our window of opportunity closes in approximately twenty-five minutes.”
And in the exotic lilt of the woman’s accent, it all came back to him. He had never quite forgotten those terror-ridden days on Borleias. It had been too close, and he had been too changed by it, by the realization that all he had fought for had been warped and destroyed in his daughter’s short lifetime. Adumar was an anomaly; Borleias had been the status quo.
And he remembered the young Chiss Major who had come with his nephew, the squadron commander who had found the time to insinuate herself as his aide. He had known she was a spy, and more importantly, she had known as well. It frustrated her to no end, that she was in a position where she could find out everything she wanted to know, but couldn’t, because he controlled the information flow.
It had amused him at the time. Kyrn had been no Erisi Dlarit, and more than that, her casual xenophobia could get her killed. He had learned long ago that underestimating someone because of their species got a man killed - and he liked the forthright young officer enough to try and teach her the same lesson.
“As always, Major, you have impeccable timing. My execution was tomorrow.”
The door opened and a cloaked figure gestured quickly. She’d gotten in dressed as a nun from the sect of the Force most Corellians worshiped, probably posing for his last rites. That was clever. “I was recently promoted to Colonel, sir. And yes, I knew that. I believe the official report sent over the Holonet stated that you were an ‘example’.”
Wedge just grinned bitterly. “Stupid of them. Didn’t they learn from the Emperor’s mistakes? ‘Examples’ only make enemies. Oh, and congratulations on your promotion.”
As they hurried through the halls of the prison, he noted that all the cameras he could see are blank and unseeing.
“Ion blast into the control room computer,” she said by way of explanation. “I do not believe Mistress Organa or Master Skywalker think of themselves as the Emperor.”
“No, they wouldn’t. Luke or Leia never liked to think of themselves as the bad guys, even in the old days. Martyrdom and heroics, and all that stuff.”
She gave him another bundle of dark cloth, and it took him a moment to realize that it was another nun’s outfit. His shoulder and the solid core of scar tissue in it protested loudly as he pulled it over his head, and he was grateful that the Kyrn said nothing at his obvious whimper of pain.
“I had thought that all old Rebels were of the opinion that they were all heroes against the evil Empire.”
“Oh, we were,” he said, voice muffled. “But there’s a difference between being a lightsaber and a vibroblade. I’ve done both, and can appreciate the relative uses of each. But the others…they don’t like to think of themselves as vibroblades. It was a new era, after all.”
Finally, his head was through the clinging robes, and he tried to wrap the traditional binding around his head. His shoulder stiffened and the nerves of his left hand went numb, though, so Kyrn had to finish it.
“So you are a vibroblade?”
“Me? Oh, no, Colonel. I’m a kitchen knife.”
She laughed gently. “Your daughters have inherited your sense of humor, General.”
He tensed. “My girls?”
She nodded, her head just a shape wrapped in grey cloth. “Myri,” and Wedge thought that his youngest daughter’s name was a strange foreign creature in the Chiss woman’s mouth, “came to us in the beginning of the war. She searched for you endlessly, but it was only with the arrival of your oldest that we were able to find you.”
He relaxed in relief, and Kyrn touched his shoulder gently. “This way, General,” she said quietly, and Wedge Antilles stepped out of his prison.