Rebel Pilot: A Star Wars Story

Chapter 6

Leia may not have known Luke for long, but she clearly recognized when he was upset - or maybe that was just her twin intuition. "Luke, what's wrong?"

Luke shrugged. "I really thought Han would change his mind."

Leia shook her head in disappointment. "He's got to follow his own path. No one can choose it for him." Her face changed to a smirk. "I won't be up there in the sky, since I'm not really a pilot, but I've given myself an equally important job."

Anakin liked the sound of that. "What kind of job?"

"Get answers out of Obi-Wan Kenobi," she said mischievously. "I understand why he's hanging back, since some of these people would probably know of him, but I'm not stupid enough to think he's not avoiding talking about all that stuff we found out about on the Millenium Falcon ."

"Like me being a Sith Lord?" Anakin asked cheerily. Luke and Leia turned to him, their faces confused. Anakin sighed. "I thought maybe saying it nonchalantly would suddenly make it not mess with my head anymore. I was wrong."

"I'm gonna go track down Mr. Certain Point Of View." Leia gave Luke a kiss on the cheek. "May the Force be with you."

"And with you, Leia," Luke said with a smile as she went off.

As Luke and Anakin began to head for their respective ships they'd been checked out on, a pilot Anakin didn't recognize came out of nowhere and grabbed his arm. "Luke! I don't believe it! How'd you get here? Are you gonna fly with us?"

"Biggs!" Luke exclaimed, and Anakin concluded that this must have been one of his friends back home on Tatooine. (The idea of his son being raised on Tatooine still made his skin crawl. How dare Obi-Wan take him somewhere with so much... sand .) "Of course, I'll be up there with you! My father too!" He nodded to Anakin.

Biggs furrowed his eyebrows. "Luke, I thought your father... well, I mean..." Anakin fought a smirk as Biggs tried to find a sensitive way to tell Luke his dad was dead. "...this person is only a few years older than you," he finished.

"Time travel! There's this thing called the Force, I'll tell you all about it when we're done!"

Anakin shrugged. "You don't have to believe him, but I'm definitely not from this time period. And that's definitely my son."

"I... okay." Biggs clearly didn't believe him, which Anakin could sense through the Force, but he dropped it. He looked around for a distraction and noticed Red Leader heading their way, thankfully saving him from having to get further involved in the mess that was the Weird Force Thing that had happened to the Skywalkers.

"Are you Luke Skywalker?" Red Leader asked. "Checked out on the Incom T-sixty-five?"

Luke nodded proudly, and Biggs piped up, "Sir, Luke had got to be the best bushpilot in the outer rim territories."

He patted Luke on the back. "You know, I met your father once when I was just a boy." Anakin's eyebrows shot up. Huh? He tried to recall having met this person... the Clone Wars had been a rather busy time for him, but surely... "He was a fantastic pilot. If you've got a fraction of his skill, you'll do alright."

Okay, well, Red Leader didn't really seem to recognize him either, so he could be completely making this up.

"Thank you, sir," Luke said. "And of course, my father's here too, and from the sound of that, that's great!"

Red Leader looked surprised. "General Skywalker? He's alive?"

Luke nodded towards Anakin, and Red Leader acknowledged him for the first time. And almost had a heart attack.