A Blow For The Rebellion: Early Start

by Michael 'Majick' Chalk

(As always, my thanks to George Lucas and Lucasfilm for allowing me to play in this universe. I don't get any profit from this story, but I do get enjoyment out of writing it. If you enjoy reading it, let me know.)

It all began with the man in the cantina. Some people will buy anything from a man in the cantina. In my case, I bought a line of political philosophy that got me into a lot of trouble.

I suppose I should introduce myself. It's only polite, after all. My name is Manne Cynde. I was born and raised on Dantooine, and about six months before the battle of Yavin I met a man in a cantina there, like I said.

I suppose I could have passed the guy over. He was a drunk, after all. But he was talking about all the ships he'd been mending. Transports, fighters, speeders and others. I have to admit, I was intrigued. I was an incorrigible speed freak, and I was at a loose end. I'd just got dumped -I wonder how many Rebel stories begin this way- by my girlfriend, and I needed something to do. I offered to get the guy back to this 'Rebel base' of his, never dreaming it could get me into as much trouble as it did.

Within an hour, I was a convert. Oh, it wasn't really the beliefs of the Rebellion that convinced me. Not particularly. I mean, I was all for the idea of sticking it to the evil Empire, but I never thought it would happen.

No, what convinced me were the ships.

I'd never been off planet before. I was seventeen years old, and in need of some new interest in my life. I could say that the Rebellion was that new interest. I'd be lying. It was the ships.

For the first time in my life, I was in love.

There was such variety! From the basic Headhunters, through the Y-Wings, the X-Wings, the modified ships -often called Uglies, but they were anything but to my eyes- and of course the transports.

I signed on with the movement as the drunk's assistant, ready to strike a blow for the Rebellion.

I spent a happy few months on Dantooine. I can look back now, and see it as the calm before the storm, but at the time, I had this vision of myself as the luckiest person alive. The Rebellion had come to my homeworld, had set up their base there, and would beat the Empire from there.

Little did I know.

Three months after I joined, a buzzing on my comlink awaked me. The Rebels were evacuating the base, and my drunkard friend wanted to know if I was in for the long haul. Thing was, they were a pilot short. Could I fly one of the Y-Wings…?

Twenty minutes later, I was in the hangar, suited up, and ready to fly. We were evacuating the base, and heading rimwards, towards our next base on a planet in the Baabi system, out beyond Hutt space. I shivered as General Dodonna explained the facts.

"We've received word that the Empire is building some new kind of weapon. Obviously, this is worrying news, and so we feel it is best if we evacuate this world, and find one father from the Core. That is why we have chosen Barabi II."

"Sir," a young pilot spoke up. "What kind of new weapon are we talking about?"

"We don't know. That's the problem. All our spies have been able to find out is that the Emperor is very pleased with the idea."

We shared a collective shiver. The Emperor pleased? Not nice…

The feeling was all but forgotten as we rushed to our ships. I'd told my parents not to wait dinner, and left a rude surprise for my ex outside her apartment. My life on Dantooine was pretty much complete.

I clambered into the Y-Wing, and familiarised myself with the controls. They weren't hugely different to those of the Headhunters I'd been trained on, so I felt pretty much at home. I ignited the two engines, and gently brought them up to speed. Activating the repulsorlifts, I turned the craft to face the hangar door, and goosed the throttle to move me forward slowly.

The craft moved like a dream. Sure. it was heavy, but it was responsive. I felt a trace of envy as the X-Wings began to move out ahead of me, but comforted myself with the knowledge that in a fight, I'd last a lot longer than an X. Better shields, and stronger weapons made that an easy calculation.

I really had no idea back in the early days. None at all.

Barabi II was a planet that had been settled in the pre Clone War times. Nowadays, it was a ghost town. According to legend, some crazy old colonists still lived there, but we never saw anyone. It was easy to believe in the story, though, as things kept going missing.

Clearly someone was light of finger, and even lighter of foot, if they were getting past the perimeter. After a month, weaponry started to go missing, and I was assigned to go check out the local settlement site, along with two other new recruits, Wes Janson and Jek Porkins.

The three of us trudged through the overgrown vegetation that surrounded the former settlement, grousing with every step about the sheer unfairness of sending us out on this sort of mission when the Rebellion had perfectly good commandos for ground pounding. We were pilots, the elite.

Looking back, I suppose that's why General Dodonna sent us out to do the job. Given what the Rebellion was due to go through, this was a dream mission. Not that we knew that, but I always thought that the General suspected it would be a long, hard fight.

Anyway, there we were, looking for crazy thieves. The three of us were armed with pistols and grenades, but as I didn't know one end of a gun from the other, I hung back. I knew Janson was a good shot, having seen him take on the best of the snipers and sometimes even win.

Porkins, meanwhile was another matter. He claimed to be a former Imperial, although I wondered what unit could have had this podgy old man in it. He seemed to know what to do with a gun, though, so I was pleased to have him in front of me. Certainly he made for a good shield, if nothing else.

We skirted around the settlement, looking for signs of life. Finally, we found it. We looked through the windows of a cabin, and found a bizarre family scene.

'Father' was sitting at the table, stripping and reassembling the rifle he had in a time that would make the most hardened instructor weep. He looked to be about sixty years old.

'Mother' was a giant Wookie, maybe ten feet tall. She had a rifle slung across her back, and a demolitions expert belt around her waist. She was stirring a pot on the stove, some foul smelling mix that made me want to retch.

The 'children' were as bizarre, if not more so. One was a Verpine, cowering in the corner, hunched in around itself. One of its insectoid eyes bandaged, as well as numerous other wounds that looked infected, and poorly treated. The reason for its condition was all too clear. The other child was a young humanoid, seemingly a Twi'lek/human half breed. It was armed with a holdout blaster and a knife, which was stained with a dark blue colour. I realised with a wave of nausea that being plunged into the Verpine's eye had probably been the cause of the stain.

I looked around at the other men. Janson looked horrified, although with a goodly dose of fury as well. Porkins simply looked blandly into the cabin, his gun out, and the safety off.

"If we fire through the window, we can each take out one of them," he said, reflectively.

"Shoot the kid as well?" Janson asked.

"Yep. I figure that gun it's holding isn't for showing off to anyone."

"I'll take the Wookie," I said hurriedly. While the scene in front of me was nauseating -indeed, the half-breed took a slash at the Verpine with the knife as I watched- I still didn't want to shoot some old guy or a kid.

Porkins looked at me for a second, weighing me up.

"You got it, kid. You ready, Wes?"

"Yeah. Old man is mine."

"Fine. I'll take the kid then," Porkins said, with a sigh.

We checked our weapons one last time, and prepared to assault the cabin. I tried to avoid the other men's eyes, but Porkins spoke to me.

"Look, kid," he began. "I know this isn't exactly the glamour mission we signed on for. But look at it this way: We're saving that kid in there from those weirdoes. That's what the Rebellion is all about, saving those who can't save themselves."

"Besides," Wes added. "Between the guy with the gun, that walking carpet, and that vicious little bugger, I reckon they outnumber us." He grinned, then added, "you realise this is the first real combat I've ever seen?"

We came in through the door and two windows. My gun spat twice, taking the Wookie in the chest and the head. Janson shot the old man twice in the side, and Porkins' half power shot took the half-breed child in the back. All three dropped, stunned, to the ground. Janson pulled out a comm unit, and called in our position.

Eventually a New Republic team showed up, and took over the recovery operation. It was decided to leave the Wookie, the man and the half-breed in the cabin. The guns and missing equipment were taken back to the base by the team.

Which left the Verpine.

He watched us fearfully as we approached. Wes crouched down in front of it, and offered the little guy his hand. The Verpine shrank further back into his corner, wrapping his arms tighter around him.

Wes stood up, and looked at the two of us.

"I don't want to scare him, so what should we do?"

"I have an idea," I said, wondering where this was going. "Porkins, do you have any sweets on you? Any candy?"

Porkins blushed slightly, then fished inside one of his jump suit pockets. The heavyset man then pulled a fistful of candy from his pocket, and Wes grinned.

"Not every thing going missing was down to these guys, then?"

I took one of the pieces of candy, and turned to the Verpine, who looked hungrily at the candy. I crouched before him, and offered it to the insect-child. The little guy snatched it from my hand, and gobbled it greedily. I offered it my hand, and it slowly reached out and took it.

We took the Verpine, whose name turned out to be Zraii, back to the base. He was placed in bacta, and while he was healing, Janson, Porkins and myself went to the pilots lounge.

"That felt good," I said to them, as we sipped at our lum. "I signed on to fly, but it felt good to help that little guy. Like you say," I looked up at Porkins. "Helping those who can't help themselves."

"That's how we have to strike a blow for the Rebellion," Porkins said with a smile.

After Barabi II, we moved on to the fourth planet in the Yavin system. A wonderfully forested planet, it had been scouted by a Sullustan, so I felt confident that it would be tolerable, unlike Barabi, which had been hot and humid.

And it was gorgeous! The entire planet was cool, the world had slightly less gravity, so it was that little bit easier to move around, and the forests kept the air clean.

I loved it.

Then, one day, fate arrived.

I'd been vaguely aware of news from other Rebel cells. Now it seemed like ours was the one to strike the first big blow against the Empire.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. For me, the story of Yavin IV begins on a routine patrol mission I'd undertaken with Wes Janson.

It has to be said, I'd really taken to Janson since the mission on Dantooine. At first, he'd struck me as a loudmouthed smart ass. Now… well, he was still a loudmouthed smartass, but one who I knew was always there for his friends.

On this mission, though, I seriously wished he wasn't there for me…

Neither myself nor Janson have ever laid claim to skill as botanists or zoologists. It's impossible, then, to say whether it was a plant or an animal that got us sick. We returned to Yavin base feeling queasy and dizzy, two symptoms no pilot wants to feel. We reported to sickbay, hoping for a quick cure, but no dice. We'd contracted Hesken fever, for which there were two cures: bacta, and time.

We were running short on bacta…

We sat in the medbay, with friends coming by to cheer us up. At one point, Porkins came by. Fresh from a mission of his own, he wanted to tell us the squadrons had a new mission, something big. He was going to fill in for Wes, now that Wes was out of commission.

We watched Porkins leave, and I knew Wes and I were thinking the same thing.

As Porkins walked away, I counted downwards from thirty. Wes said 'fifteen' at the same time I did, and we counted the rest out loud, bursting into laughter as we hit 'zero!' We climbed uneasily from our beds, and looked at each other.

"Sith take me if I don't get to fly today," Wes added, a touch dramatically. He looked pale, and unsteady on his feet. Then I realised I was swaying as well. Still, we would be more than a match for any Imperial pilots.

Not like they had shields on their ships or anything.

We helped each other to the briefing room, clad in black jump-suits. As the last of the other pilots arrived, I saw our friend Wedge sitting in the back row with some tow-haired kid chattering away next to him. Wedge had never liked baby sitting, but it looked like he'd been stuck with a fine kid to look after. Suddenly, a cough bought me out of my amused reverie.

I turned to find General Dodonna standing in front of Wes and I, looking down at us. We tried to stand at attention, but only just managed a sort of 'slouch-at-sway'. Dodonna held our gaze, not unkindly, but firmly.

"Back to the med bay," he said, quietly.

"But, General…" Wes managed

"Go. Both of you. I fear enough for the able and well in this mission today. I cannot dare send our ill into battle as well. Besides, I cannot risk you infecting the others. I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I have to make it an order."

With that, he stepped around us, and walked to the front of the briefing room. Wes and I turned and headed dispiritedly back to the med bay.

That, pretty much, was it for Yavin and I. The fever got worse in both Wes and myself, and we were shipped out of the base on stretchers. we did stay awake long enough to see the end of the Death Star, but we were in a fever induced sleep by the time the victory party was held.

That was a shame, as we both love parties, but these things can't be helped.

So, I missed the first truly big fight between the Rebellion and the Empire. Suffice to say, I was around for the Battle of Hoth, and boy was I around for Endor. Though I missed my first big chance, I'd still end up striking a blow for the Rebellion.

To be continued…

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