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Chapter One

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. . . It is a period of civil war. The Galactic Empire has increased its recruitment drives to combat the threat of the Rebel Alliance. LUKE SKYWALKER and BIGGS DARKLIGHTER formed a plan to enlist and leave their home planet and take their skills to the Rebellion once their training is completed. Little do they know what dangers are facing them in the Core, for the Empire has completed work on their ultimate weapon. . .Luke Skywalker tightened his grip on his duffel bag and strode off the landing platform. The mass of other beings in the spaceport walkways slowed his gait. He gazed up and down at the massive buildings that dwarfed the liner he and Biggs had just disembarked on this local afternoon. The wind gusting over and around the aerodrome tugged at his shaggy blond hair. The sharply acidic smell of the air irritated his nose. He clenched his teeth. He wasn't gawking at Coruscant like the spacers said he would.An arm bumped into his unencumbered left shoulder. He turned to Biggs Darklighter’s unrepentant grin. “We finally made it,” the black-haired young man said. “Sent a subspace comm off to my parents, but we'll probably finish basic training before they get it.” Biggs shook his head. “So what's next on our arrival agenda?”“We’ve got to find the airbus to the Academy. They didn’t leave us any time to sightsee.” Luke glanced as the directional sign hanging from the ceiling as they moved inside the passenger terminal dome. It labeled the sections of the aerodrome. “Looks like planetary transport is on the other side of the dome.”“Or we could just follow the guys dressed like us.” Biggs gestured at a group of young men about their age wearing navy blue jumpsuits and carrying duffel bags.“That’ll work until they prove just as lost as we are.” Luke fell in step with Biggs’ suggestion and walked beside his storm-brother. Watching the other Imperial Academy cadets through the crowd gave him something to concentrate on besides the hollow throb around his stomach. You shouldn’t be here, sprang to his mind, yelling to be heard over the din. Luke ignored it for the umpteenth time. He had never been cut out to be a moisture farmer, there was no reason to stay on Tatooine, their plan would make a difference, and he earned his right to be here by passing the Academy entrance exams.The young men from Tatooine stepped onto a travolator that whisked them across the terminal level past all the other landing bays, waiting areas, shops, and restaurants that filled the space. Not to mention the people crowding into those spaces and the stable corridors connected to them. Mos Eisley had a population of 60,000 people; this level of Westport had that many to Luke's count.Biggs poked Luke with his elbow and nodded in the direction he wanted Luke to look.“No wonder the Sullustan on the liner's crew turned down shore leave.” His frown tugged down his black mustache.Luke looked at the restaurant they were moving past. Five stormtroopers stood right behind a pair of Duros as the server gestured widely for them to leave. The Duros did and the stormtroopers marched in step behind them. “Turning down business, that’s something you don’t see in Mos Eisley,” Luke agreed in a quiet voice. Biggs’ nostrils flared—never a good sign. Luke leaned his head closer to his taller friend. “Remember what your father told us. We have to stay quiet about what upsets us on the Core Worlds.”Biggs rolled his brown eyes. “Yes, Mom, I do remember what Dad told me. Keep it up and I’ll start quoting your uncle back at you.”Luke smirked. Biggs was the only one who never shied away from mentioning the Lars. “Fine, but ‘no you can’t go to Tosche Station’ has limited use here.”Biggs snorted and shook his head. “I’m just glad we qualified for the Academy’s flight school.”They had already left the white-clad marchers behind when Luke nodded his agreement.The airbus was a sleek, aerodynamic vehicle with more viewports than metal parked under a landing pad that doubled as an awning for their level. The transparisteel dome covering the pilots jutted up even with it. Luke wondered how many ramming accidents had there been with trainees. If you missed all the jumpsuited cadets boarding it, ‘Imperial Naval Academy Imperial City’ was emblazoned on it between the windows and the repulsorlift generators.An older year cadet—Luke still wasn’t sure of the collar tab meanings yet—marked their arrival on a datapad. They found a free bench at one of the windows and stowed their duffel bags under the seat. The airbus was nearly full. They waited as the last cadets finally boarded. The cadet-in-charge stepped up into the airbus and stopped in the center of the aisle. “Welcome to Imperial City, first year cadets. Take a good look as we approach the Academy because you will be too busy for sightseeing once you get there.” He paused to let the good-natured groaning die down. “Once we get to the Academy District, you’ll go through check-in and get your dorm room assignment, then you’ll go through a medical evaluation because we don’t know what you’ve dragged here off the Corellian Run. Once that’s done, you’ll be free until orientation at 1800 local hours.” He sat down in the nose of the airbus and the vehicle slid backwards out of Westport.Biggs craned his neck to look around Luke’s head at the orderly levels of air traffic filling the spaces between buildings. “Small wonder they send the best pilots here. You have to fly just to travel on planet.”The airbus pilot’s voice commed into the passenger area. “Since this is likely your first trip to Imperial City, I’ll be pointing out our major landmarks as we pass them. Westport is one of the busiest spaceports on the Queen of the Core. It’s closest to the Legislative District, the Imperial Palace, the Senate Buildings, the Academy, and Coruscant University. So if you wash out of the Academy, you may find a job there.”The cadets snickered. Luke smirked at Biggs. “A back-up plan to the plan?”“You are addicted to plans.”The airbus pilot continued. “We’re flying through the Legislative District. On the port is the Imperial Executive Building and the Imperial Senate Chamber is the larger dome behind it.”Luke leaned closer to the window. Blocks of buildings radiated from each of the domed centers like they were a set of massive gears. The tall and relatively thinner spires towering over the domes ruined the gear illusion. It was folly to build anything that tall on Tatooine; one good storm would smash a tower like that into the sand. Was living higher than everyone else a status symbol on Coruscant?“If you need to find your senator,” the pilot said with a suppressed chortle, “their offices are in the Imperial Executive Building and all of them live in this borough.”“Does Arkanis sector have a senator?” Biggs asked.“If we do, it’s someone Jabba approved of,” Luke answered. They both grimaced.“Off the starboard, you can see the Imperial Palace. Our route today doesn’t take up any closer, but cadets are given a guided tour eventually.”Luke and Biggs both craned their necks but so was everyone else on the airbus. The other buildings pointed out to them had been graceful domes, the Palace was a colossal trapezoidal block as big as the Senate Chamber. Spotlights illuminated the long red banners stretched in multiple places down the walls. The white Imperial crest was in the center of each banner. Five smooth spires rose up from the base to touch the sky. A landing pad jutted out over a duracrete canyon like an offering plate.A wave of cold as frigid as a night desert wind rolled over Luke. He leaned back against the seat as his gut seized up. Stay away! Danger there! Yeah, that was different enough to pay attention to. He focused on the buildings from the port window until he thawed.The Imperial Academy of Imperial City was housed in a tall spire flanked by shorter spires and connected with thin buttresses. The airbus came down on a square landing pad in front of the large doors under the black Imperial crest emblazoned on the duracrete. Luke was glad to see the interior lobby—while still more expansive than it needed to be—had shrunk to hundreds of meters rather than kilometers. The hallways and office rooms they followed the cadet-in-charge through finally reduced to human-sized and the day became sand-gritted boring.Luke went to the next room behind the cadet in front of him with Biggs behind him. He stepped up to the clerk behind the long counter when the clerk said “next.” He answered the questions the clerk had no matter how nonsensical the need for the answer seemed. And then repeated the same thing in the next room. He eventually got some useful things out of the routine: his dorm room number and he was still bunking with Biggs—no breaking in a new roommate necessary—and a map of the Academy to find that dorm room and the mess and the classrooms. He finally got to sit on an examination table in the medical cubby, so he studied the map as he waited for the medical nurse.The man that came in carrying a datapad and wearing a medical jumpsuit was only a few years older than Luke and Biggs. His brown hair was slicked back into the same short hairstyle all the clerks had. They would probably send him for a haircut next. “Luke Skywalker?” he asked in a brisk tone.“Yes.”“From Tatooine?”“Yes.”“Flight school enrollee?”“Yes.”The nurse tapped his datapad with his finger before setting it down on the countertop in the corner closest to the door. “Now we’ll take a blood sample and while the mediscan unit processes that, we’ll take your vital statistics.” He opened the drawers under the counter as he spoke. “Hold out your hand.”The small vial pricked Luke's finger and drew up blood into its clear tube. The nurse closed the vial before swiping Luke's skin with a disinfectant pad. “Stand on the scale with your boots off.” He gestured at the flat plate set under the sensor array on the back wall and then turned to the machine on the counter.Luke toed off his boots and listened to the machine's beeps: the one behind him and the one on the back wall which flashed his weight and height.“One point seventy-two meters and seventy-seven kilograms,” the nurse said as he tapped the datapad again. “Good thing you're in the pilot program, you're too short to be a stormtrooper.”“I'm aware,” Luke said as evenly as he could manage. Would the Academy turn into Tosche Station; everyone making fun of him? He was more than ready to leave the Wormie nickname behind him. He shoved his feet back into his black boots.The mediscan unit beeped that it was finished. The nurse turned to it with his datapad. “All your markers came in completely healthy. Now we'll input your genetic code into the military database and you'll be finished.”Luke snagged his duffel from the examination table. “Genetic database?”“In case we can't identify your remains any other way. You want your kin to know what happened to you.” The nurse pressed another button on the mediscan unit and consulted his datapad. “Next of kin Huff and Lanal Darklighter?”“I'm an orphan.” Luke stuffed his datapad into his duffel and zipped it closed. “They were the last ones to take care of me.”The nurse turned to Luke at the same time the mediscan unit let out a screech. He jerked back to it, plugging in his datapad. “What the!?” The machine wailed again.“I thought you said I was healthy?” Luke asked.“You are. It's never done this before.” The next button the nurse pressed stopped the shrill noise. He read his datapad with his pale face growing paler the longer he stared at it.“What's going on?” Luke asked.The nurse's throat convulsed as he swallowed, but he looked up, not that his eyes focused on Luke. “I have to... my supervisor... just wait here. Wait here.” He jerked the cubby door open and trotted down the corridor.Luke slipped the strap of the duffel over his head and across his chest. The mediscan unit did not have a display screen. Maybe he should connect his datapad?Biggs leaned in the doorway. “What the hell was that? Are you dying?”“He said I was healthy so it's not that. I don't know what it is.”They both heard the voice of Luke's nurse carry down the corridor. “We'll just keep him here for whoever shows up first?”“Pull yourself together, ensign.” A group rounded the corner: an older, dark-skinned man, two guards in black jumpsuits, and the nurse behind them. The older man wore a Lieutenant's bar on his chest. “Which one of you is Cadet Skywalker?”“I am, sir,” Luke said.The Lieutenant nodded. “These two men will take you to your dorm room.” The guards stepped forward, arms loose at their sides.“What's going on, sir?” Biggs asked. “Is Luke in trouble?”“No, I'm sure this is just a bureaucratic snag,” the Lieutenant answered smoothly. “The datapushers will get it sorted out before classes begin tomorrow. Carry on with your enrollment, cadet.”The last had the unmistakable tone of an order expected to be obeyed, but Luke recognized the mulish gleam in Biggs’ brown eyes. “I will see you later, Biggs.” He squeezed Biggs’ arm as he stepped through the door.“Later, okay,” Biggs answered with a head nod.Luke nodded back, left his hand against Biggs’ arm for as long as he was in reach as he stepped over to the guards, following the one who turned on his heel first and took the lead. Luke kept his face and his body calm, but his mind churned on why he needed a pair of guards. Nothing he ever did on Tatooine should have reached the Empire, much less alarmed them. Fierfek, Jabba didn’t even know who to blame. So who wanted him? From what the nurse said, it was more than one person. And why was he wanted now?He followed the guards onto a turbolift and couldn’t blame his sinking stomach on the lift alone.

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Chapter Two

“When are they going to let us into our rooms?” A cadet with almond-shaped eyes threw himself onto the closest couch, jostling the cadet already sitting on the other end. “Our whole floor is compromised because of one contagious cadet?”The other cadet on the couch rolled his eyes. “If he was contagious, we’d be swarmed with medics right now. I heard he is a Rebel infiltrator.”Biggs didn’t dare breathe as he walked past the pair of them in the recreation lounge. No one knew the plan, no one but him and Luke and the sand dune they had parked on top of to work it out. And they hadn’t said anything since that day.The first cadet waved off that suggestion. “If he was a Rebel, he’d go straight to prison. Maybe he faked his qualifications to get in.”Biggs plopped down at the public terminal and ignored the rest of the cadets in the room. As they finished the check-in routine, the ones who were supposed to live on the same dorm floor as he and Luke were sent here to wait instead until the orientation meeting. Why the hell did the Imperials in charge of the Academy need Luke isolated from everyone else? Luke had given Biggs the code to get him out of this mess, but Biggs needed to know what this mess even was to plan something. It was just the two of them against the whole planet. Majority of people on Coruscant were civilians, so really just the two of them against the trained forces here at the Academy and whatever help they called in.He shrugged his shoulders to loosen them and typed Luke’s name into the terminal. “Access denied.” He stroked his mustache. Luke was in the Academy database, something should come up for cadets to match faces with names. Biggs typed in his name. His record displayed promptly: image, bio information, and list of classes he was in. The dorm room number had been deleted and that sharpened his worry about what they were going to do to Luke, but it was a minuscule change compared to “access denied.”What was needed now was someone who could access Luke’s file, slice into it if necessary. He remembered the comments on the airbus. Even a Hutt-sanctioned Senator could find out the why behind this targeting of Luke.His search term only got as far as “Senator of Aurek” when the Senator of Alderaan populated the search feed. The holoimage available was a young woman—same age as Luke and himself—dressed in a white gown standing on a repulsor podium and arguing fiercely if her gestures were anything to go by. This terminal didn’t have speakers for the audio. The text snipped from political commentators underneath wasn’t kind. “The youngest Senator is pathetically idealistic. Senator Leia Organa of Alderaan condemns the policy of species segregation on Coruscant. Drost Elegin calls the Senator of Alderaan ‘Little Miss Inalienable Rights.’ ”Biggs liked the sound of all that and she was pretty. People always overlooked what pretty people were capable of; something he and Luke used often on Tatooine. He opened up the file to her senatorial office. She was on Coruscant and her last diplomatic mission was to Ralltiir. He erased his search and leaned back.The spacers had lots to say about Ralltiir while he and Luke traveled to Coruscant. Most of it centered around how Rebels had fought there and actually killed a Moff. He had a hunch—and Luke had taught him to follow his hunches—that this Senator was their chance to get where they’d really make a difference. Now to get Luke out of here before he took a pleasure cruise with Jabba.No one in the recreation lounge paid Biggs any attention as he went to the door. It had been strongly suggested the cadets who couldn’t go to the floor Luke was being held prisoner on stay here until orientation. But no guards stood by the lounge door. He slipped out and strode down the corridor until he was far enough away to not be shoved back in there. Then he consulted the map of the Academy on his datapad.The dorm room he and Luke were supposed to share was in one of the connected spires. He needed a skyhopper to get to the windows. Scowling, he pulled up a list of Academy locations. The scowled turned into a grin when he reached a location named “landing pad hangar bay.”The landing pad that personnel used stretched out behind the Academy building about halfway up before the building narrowed as it went higher. The hangar bay wasn’t even locked. Imperials were a lot more trusting than spacers working out of Mos Eisley. Then again, maybe good Imperial boys never contemplated speeder larceny. Good thing Biggs had never considered himself a good Imperial boy.The setting sun streamed into the darker space through the open hangar door. It looked like it was only secured by a force field. However, there were probably security scanners; he spotted one in the far corner covering nearly the whole bay. Now he had to move fast.There wasn’t much inventory to tempt a professional thief. Mostly Sienar models with a few SoroSuubs mixed in. He’d rather have more speed for this. The Incom T-13 would have the same controls as his skyhopper, but no protection.He shook his head and spied a portable welder on a tool cart parked along the wall. That would do to get the window open. Picking it up, he saw the perfect getaway speeder, a bright red Narglatch AirTech XJ-6. Biggs made a silent whistle in appreciation of the Clone Wars era vehicle. Someone on staff was a serious flyboy and he was thankful. Because those two oversized turbofan engines were out in the open waiting to be hot-wired. He set the welder on the passenger seat and got to work.It was a nice room, this dorm room he had been escorted to. The part of Luke that was trying to stay calm and rational could compare these surroundings to what he had grown up with. The door to the corridor was flanked by two wardrobe cabinets made of smooth painted metal without any dents or chips on them. The pair of loft style beds with built-in desks underneath them were pushed against the other two interior walls to leave the center of the room free. He hadn’t covered the protected mattress with the sheets and blankets folded in a stack on the desk, but he had tested the spring of the padding. It dented around his hand. The room ended with three windows framed together in an attempt to be a larger sheet of transparisteel. At least the windows opened, which Luke had discovered as soon as the guards locked him in here. He had plenty of fresh air while he sat and fumed that he was too high up to climb out. Not without gear he didn’t have.Back on Tatooine, furniture was carved from the bedrock that the homesteads burrowed into or cast out of pourstone and made comfortable with cushions and pillows. Undoubtedly, whoever had designed these cadet quarters would think that was rustic. He wondered how this nice room with conforming seats and mattresses compared to other dwellings on Coruscant. He looked out the open window at the darkening sky. The windows of the distant tall buildings glowed with interior lights. People going about whatever their daily routines were on this planet with no inkling of the predicament he was in. There was no noise from the neighboring rooms. That didn’t make any sense; the walls weren’t thick enough to block all noise. Had they decided to not let anyone on the floor other than him until the alarms were answered?His stomach growled. He figured the free time between medical check and orientation was supposed to cover getting food. Which he had missed, getting brought straight to this room. He slumped further in the desk chair he sat in. Could he ask the guards to get him something? Or would it be better if everyone forgot he was in here?“Blast it, Biggs, where are you?” Luke muttered. They should have brought comms, no matter what the approved items list said. It was time for the orientation. Maybe he got swept up into that?The traffic noise drifting in through the open window grew louder, like it was coming closer. But that couldn’t be right. Traffic in Imperial City was constricted to the skylanes. He headed to the windows.A bright red Narglatch AirTech XJ-6 rose up even with the window. Biggs grinned from the driver’s seat. “It’s later. Ready to go?”“You better believe it.” Luke snatched his duffel bag off the desk and slung it across his body before he pulled himself up into the window. The dorm room door slid open behind him. Luke glanced over his shoulder at the white-armored stormtrooper framed in the doorway and his blue eyes widened.“What the?!” The stormtrooper pulled up the BlasTech E-11 blaster rifle hung from his shoulder. “Get down from there!”Luke leaped from the window into the passenger seat. “Punch it!” He yanked the restraint harness into place as the blaster bolt hit the window frame.Biggs already had the airspeeder in motion by the time Luke got the restraints on. “They shot at you?” He glanced over his shoulder as he circled the massive skyscraper.“They sent stormtroopers after me!” Luke’s feet hit something metal on the floorboard of the seat but he just shoved it away. He looked back up at the window and saw the helmet shape still there. “He’s still there as an observation post.”Biggs twisted around the tower and the larger building it was attached to. “There’s some traffic.” He accelerated the airspeeder, causing their hair to fly back as the wind whistled past their ears. The skylanes were stacked on top of each other between the buildings.“Did you find out anything?” Luke asked as he twisted back to look for pursuit. Nothing appeared flying out of the Academy’s building yet.Biggs dove the airspeeder through three skylanes of traffic before joining the flow of the fourth. “They locked up your record. I couldn’t see anything.” Luke clenched his fists. He had counted on Biggs finding something. “But I think I found someone who can help,” Biggs continued. “A Senator who’s a loud mouth against Imperial policies should be able to access your records.”“Arkanis sector has a senator?” Luke asked.“Don’t know, I stopped on the Senator of Alderaan.” Biggs shifted the airspeeder to the skylane exit. “We’ll dump this on that public landing pad over there and take a public airbus. That’ll keep them looking in the wrong place for a while.”That made sense, but Luke saw a flaw in Biggs’ reasoning. “Alderaan’s a Core world. Why would its senator help us?”Biggs set the airspeeder down on the docking clamps and shut off the engines. “I’ve got a hunch she’s a Rebel. Come on.”Luke snapped his mouth shut while Biggs paid the droid attendant of the landing pad. Whatever made Biggs think that was good enough proof for Luke without being told what it was and they didn’t need to discuss it in the heart of Imperial City. Instead, he looked down at his navy blue jumpsuit, the uniform worn by all the cadets. He dug into his duffel. “Put something else on.”Biggs pulled his new tan jacket out of his own duffel. All Luke had was his desert tunic, but it worked as a jacket over the jumpsuit. The docking clamps lifted the airspeeder off the platform and added it to a stack of airspeeders on the side of the platform closest to a building. He would like to see how the droids worked the machines to get an airspeeder out from the middle of the stack, but he wasn’t curious enough to risk his freedom. They hurried to the public airbus landing pad.

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Chapter Three

The public airbus was slower with its many stops, but the authorities ignored it completely as it lumbered through Imperial City’s skylanes into the Legislative District. About an hour after two wayward Imperial cadets committed speeder larceny and escape from wrongful imprisonment, they exited the airbus and walked the short distance to the Imperial Executive Building. It was a dome shaped building that could cover all of Mos Eisley if it could fit past the highlands of the Great Mesra Plateau. Lights gathered in bands around the building. The easiest band to see was at the bottom where Biggs and Luke walked along a thoroughfare for airspeeders coasting against the metal ground; the tunnel for the thoroughfare was lit as it continued through the building. The next two bands of light were probably from windows to the interior. The highest band was massive lights marking the hangar bays of tiered docking platforms. They looked large enough to handle smaller capital ships to Biggs’ eye. He guessed that politicians didn’t have to go through the spaceport like everyone else. Spotlights stretched up into the night sky and waved. The skylane traffic ignored the illumination and continued on its way.The offices inside the Imperial Executive Building followed the same layout as the galaxy: sectors from the Outer Rim Territories circled the dome’s edge, sectors from the Mid Rim inside that ring, sectors from the Expansion Region nestled inside that one. The planets of the Inner Rim, Colonies, and Core all had their own senator but the regions still nestled around the building in that order. So once they reached the Core’s section, all they had to do was find the correct level. Alderaan’s office was on the top level next to Chandrila’s.Biggs and Luke entered the reception area and stepped aside so two men dressed in blue tunics and tan trousers could carry a large crate out of the offices. The wall they moved closer to was a giant holovid screen showing rocky mountains covered with white. Beyond them, the shadowed spires of a city reached up past the peaks. Biggs blinked at the cost of a screen as large as the room, but it matched the furniture made of wood, a fountain splashing against the opposite wall, green plants in pots scattered everywhere, and the fabrics on the furniture and carpet colored a deep rich blue unfaded by time. One only saw that shade at the weddings of the wealthy on Tatooine. Alderaan takes care of its diplomats and then some, Biggs thought.Luke was still staring at the holovid. “Just like my dreams,” he murmured.“Gentle beings,” the protocol droid behind a waist-high desk at the other end of the room said. Biggs elbowed Luke and they headed to the golden-plated droid. “I am C-3PO, human-droid relations specialist. How may I assist you today?”“We need to see Senator Organa,” Biggs answered.“I see. Do you have an appointment?”“It’s an emergency, so no we don’t,” Luke said.“Unfortunately, the Senator is preparing to leave tonight for another diplomatic mission, so I’m afraid her Royal Highness will not be able to see you just now.”Biggs frowned. “A diplomatic mission like the one to Ralltiir?”“Oh dear, I hope not.” C-3PO leaned back. “So much blaster fire.”“Threepio,” a female voice chided from the doorway behind the desk. The woman was shorter than Luke, but radiated a presence. And was more beautiful than her holovid had prepared Biggs for. She wore a white gown with a high neck and a strange fold of material from her shoulders. It wasn’t a cape, but that’s all Biggs could determine. A silver belt cinched her waist and her brown hair was coiled into buns over her ears.“Oh Princess Leia—”Biggs interrupted the droid. “Biggs Darklighter, ma’am, and this is Luke Skywalker.” He bumped Luke, who had forgotten how to talk around a girl again. “We’re sorry to barge in here like this.”Her brown eyes appraised them both. “What emergency could send two Imperial cadets to me during arrival week? You’re not from Alderaan.”“No ma’am,” Luke said. His face reddened. “Sorry, is that right? You’re a princess?”“I’m a Senator here on Coruscant.” She smiled. It encouraged more details rather than shut them down.“An alarm went off when Luke was getting his medical evaluation,” Biggs said. “Then they locked him up from the rest of us, locked his records so they couldn’t be read, and sent stormtroopers after him.”“They shot at me when I was leaving with Biggs,” Luke said.“By the Maker, how did you escape?” Threepio asked.“Through the window.”Biggs smirked. “We weren’t planning on a career with the Empire, but we did think we’d make it past the first day.”Senator Organa’s gaze darted between them as she frowned. She finally stopped to look at Luke. “It happened during your medical evaluation? No disrespect to your ancestors meant, but is it possible you’re not fully human?”Luke shook his head. “There’s no way my family could ever afford the treatments to create a hybrid baby.”Luke was all that was left of his family and only had the credits left in his pockets after paying the entrance fees for the Academy and passage to get here. Biggs figured they didn’t need to get into the slavery in the Skywalker family’s past. Slave masters wouldn’t pay for treatments to make hybrid babies either.“Okay, now I have to see what they’re hiding about you. Come in.” The Senator led the way into the next room and Threepio brought up the rear. The room was an office for an aide containing a desk with a built-in terminal, but it was still richly decorated in white and blue like the lobby. A R2 astromech droid was parked next to the desk. “Artoo, I need you to search the Imperial Academy database for Luke Skywalker’s records.”Its blue and silver dome swiveled as the droid let out an inquiring warble. The photoreceptor aimed at both Biggs and Luke as they reached the desk and stopped on Luke.“Yes, that is him,” Threepio answered. “Now search quickly, Artoo, before stormtroopers follow them here.”Biggs crossed his arms. “I’m pretty sure we lost them. There’s a lot more people here, makes it easier.” They probably had a search going for the airspeeder if they hadn’t found it already. And since he left it on a parking platform in the same direction as Westport, hopefully they’d aim the search that way.Artoo beeped and extended a scomp link into the port in the side of the desk under the terminal. Senator Organa sat down at the terminal and motioned for Biggs and Luke to come closer. Biggs didn’t hesitate looking over the brunette woman’s shoulder. Luke looked over her other shoulder just in time to see ‘access denied’ flash on the screen. “Oh come on, you can get past that,” she said.Artoo warbled, the scomp link spun, and the screen flashed. Luke’s biography and image finally appeared on the screen along with two extra blocks of red text across the top. Biggs frowned. His record hadn’t looked like that.Senator Organa gasped. “Those are the Emperor and Lord Vader’s priority codes. The stop everything and obey these orders codes.”Biggs focused on the instructions after the codes. “Detain for retrieval by my agents. This doesn’t make any sense. Why would the Emperor of the galaxy want Luke? Or this Lord Vader?”“What can you tell us about these alerts?” Senator Organa glanced at the droids.Artoo’s electronic warble was complicated. Threepio waited until he was done before translating. “Both alerts hit Master Skywalker’s record seconds apart. The Emperor’s originated at the Imperial Palace. Darth Vader’s originated from the Star Destroyer Devastator, his flagship.”The line after the top code, the code from the Emperor, expanded, adding a new line of text. Luke read it out loud. “Kill this target if he escapes Imperial City!”“What did you do?” Senator Organa asked.“Nothing!” Luke stepped back to throw his hands out. “Why does the Emperor want to kill me? I’m a nobody from the Outer Rim.”Artoo whistled and beeped. Threepio tilted his head at the shorter droid. “How can you know? We have never met him before.” Artoo warbled in response.“What did he say, Threepio?” Senator Organa asked.“He says that General Kenobi knows why the Emperor wants Luke Skywalker to cease functioning.”Biggs looked at Luke over the Senator’s head. “Kenobi?” Luke shrugged.“And how do you know that?” Senator Organa focused on the barrel-shaped droid.Artoo’s answer was full of complicated whistles, beeps, and trills. Threepio translated. “He says it is based on a memory fragment dating from during the Clone Wars that pairs Kenobi with Skywalker. Unfortunately, he cannot say anything further about it.”“That’s convenient.” The Senator’s tone was as dry as the Western Dune Sea. She twisted in her seat to look at Luke. Biggs stepped around her to get closer to Luke for support and to jostle Luke into speaking if he needed it. “You’re from Tatooine,” she continued. “My father just asked me to go to Tatooine and recruit General Obi-Wan Kenobi. Do you know him?”“I’ve never heard of an Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Luke said. Biggs shook his head. “There’s a Ben Kenobi, a hermit who lives near Anchorhead. Maybe he’s related.”“You’ve had interactions with him?”“Not really,” Biggs answered. “He’d watch our races through Beggar’s Canyon and never told our parents what we were up to. Fixed Tank up when he took that spill. But your uncle thought he was crazy.” He turned to Luke.“No, Uncle Owen said he was dangerous. But right now, I’ll take dangerous that I know. If you can get us off Coruscant, we’ll take you to Ben on Tatooine.” Luke’s blue eyes bored into the Senator’s brown ones.“And sign up ourselves,” Biggs added.The door to the reception area slid open and an older man leaned in. “Your Highness, Tantive IV is ready to depart.”“We have two guests traveling with us, Captain.” She held out her hand to Luke. “You have a deal.” He shook it firmly.

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Chapter Four

Leia laid back on the wide bunk in the Executive Suite cabin on Tantive IV intending to rest while she could. Sleep wasn’t returning now that she had woken up. Instead, she got a directionless sense of unease. She focused on that to find the source.The two strangers from Tatooine? No, surprisingly enough, she believed them and their offer to join the Rebel Alliance. Artoo would have sliced through anything faked to gain her trust. And they were both so earnest and open. And trying to be gallant. Well, Biggs Darklighter was trying to be gallant. Luke Skywalker was a bashful mess with anything not concerning his predicament. Helping the Rebel Alliance through spying was probably out for both of them, but they claimed to be pilots. The Alliance needed more fighter pilots in the fleet, despite her father’s wish for diplomatic solutions.Meeting with a hero of the Clone Wars? No, General Obi-Wan Kenobi didn’t summon any heart palpitations; no one would after she was introduced to the Emperor. She shivered at the memory. There was a possibility that Ben Kenobi wasn’t the General, but what details she was able to find about Tatooine made it sound like a good place for a hunted Jedi to hide.The Death Star plans? Her heart pounded against her ribs and she sat up in her bunk. She had the plans to the Empire’s rumored ultimate weapon on Tantive IV’s computer to bring to the Alliance for analysis. It needed a back-up somewhere else. She redressed in her white gown and boots and entered her suite’s lounge.Artoo beeped softly at her when she entered the sitting area. “I have a special mission for you, Artoo.” She sat at the terminal desk. The droid dropped his third leg and rolled over to her. “I want you to store a copy of the Death Star plans. If anything happens to me, you must get the plans to my father or General Dodonna. Do you understand?”Artoo whistled affirmatively and extended his computer interface link. Leia’s dread eased as she watched the schematic images flash onto the terminal screen. It was a small thing to ease her mind so, but it did. Strange, Tatooine shouldn’t have any trouble for them, not with how it was a haven for criminals and with two natives to guide her crew. She looked around the empty lounge decorated in blue and silver. Artoo finished and tucked his interface away. “Where’s Threepio?”Artoo beeped and rolled to the door. She followed him down the hallway to the starlight lounge at the other end of the top deck. Biggs’ voice carried without him projecting. “I could be a diplomat if it scores a beaut of a ship like this one.”“The last time you tried to be diplomatic about anything, you ended up punching Fixer in the face.” Luke said along with the faint sound of metal scraping metal. “There’s the problem servo.”“Fixer deserved that punch.”Leia paused where the hallway opened up into the lounge. Biggs leaned against the wall next to the meditation garden with his long legs stretched out on the seats that undulated around the garden’s retaining wall. Threepio sat next to Biggs’ feet and Luke sat beside the droid’s unsheathed right arm. They had changed out of the Imperial Academy jumpsuits. Biggs wore the tan jacket he had on when he arrived in her office with a blue tunic and brown trousers that were fashionable on a number of worlds. He had a black cape fastened around his neck on top of all of it. Luke also wore the loose, wrap-around tunic disguise again but without a tunic underneath and a brown leather belt cinched his waist over it. His dingy cream trousers were tucked into the knee-high black boots that had been part of his cadet uniform. This was the wrong dress to wear on the planet. She should change too, before they left the ship.The blond young man dug into the exposed wires with delicate tools. “I never said he didn’t. What I am saying is I’ve never heard of a species who punches as a polite way to say hello. Have you, Threepio?”“No, Master Skywalker, I have not. Gamorreans are fairly aggressive, but even they don’t punch for hello.”Biggs saw Leia and smiled. “What do you think, Princess? Do I have what it takes to be a diplomat?”“Oh dear, Princess Leia, I hope we didn’t disturb you.” Threepio swiveled his head as much as he was able to without moving the rest of his body.”“It’s all right. Sleep wasn’t happening, Threepio.” She sat down on the seats on the other side of the opening into the lounge. It had the best angle to converse with her traveling companions. Artoo rolled up to Threepio’s legs. “My entire Senatorial career so far has been giving speeches and not letting myself punch morons.”Biggs’ white teeth flashed under his black mustache as he grinned. “Guess I’ll stick to flying then.” In the viewport that covered the ceiling and back wall of the lounge, the dappled starlines of hyperspace straightened into lines and then became pricks of light against a velvet black. “Out of hyperspace already. This was a quicker trip than the liner into Coruscant.”Artoo whistled a question to Threepio. “Master Skywalker volunteered to correct the misaligned servo in my arm.”Luke’s cheek and ear that Leia saw reddened. “I should’ve asked first.”“Luke tinkers when he’s nervous, when he’s bored, when he’s avoiding chores,” Biggs said with an affectionate tone.Leia wondered about their relationship. It really wasn’t the time to ask nor did she wish to cause any embarrassment. “It’s fine. The droid tech on board hates trying to fix Threepio.”“He says my wiring is idiosyncratic,” Threepio said to Luke.“Threepio would have had to wait until we reached home to get fixed and he’s been complaining about that arm. I’m sorry we didn’t have time to get it looked at on Coruscant.”“That is perfectly all right, Princess Leia. I don’t trust what those technicians on Coruscant could do to me.”Luke withdrew the tools from the wiring. “Okay, Threepio, try moving it now.” He leaned back.Threepio rotated his arm at the shoulder joint. “Thank the Maker, you fixed it!”“Good, let’s get your casing back on.” He picked up the golden plate from its resting place behind his back.Biggs focused on Leia again.”So we’re heading straight to old Ben and then straight back here then onward to Alderaan?”“I’m afraid so,” Leia smiled. “Rebel Alliance, widely traveled but we don’t stay too long in one spot.”Luke finished locking on Threepio’s casing. “Good thing we want to see the galaxy.” Before Leia responded, an alarm blared over the internal comms.“Is that a we’re out of hyperspace alarm?” Biggs asked as he stood.“No, it’s the call to battle stations,” Leia answered as she headed to the aft turbolift.“Do we have battle stations?” Luke pulled Threepio up off the seat.The turbolift doors opened and Captain Antilles stepped out. “Princess, the Devastator just emerged from hyperspace and they’re hailing us to surrender or be subdued. We have the planet between us, but that won’t last long.”Leia felt the blood drain from her face. “Wipe the computers. I have the plans. We’re on a diplomatic mission—”“There’s no crisis in this sector to use that excuse on, your Highness.”Leia nodded. She knew that, but the Empire wasn’t supposed to know about the detour to Tatooine. “We’ll take the shuttle down to the surface.” They crowded into the turbolift with the droids and Captain Antilles pressed the button for the fourth deck. “Once it’s launched, you jump back into hyperspace, go to Alderaan, and report to my father. We’ll find alternative passage from Tatooine.”The Captain winced slightly, but nodded. “Your protection detail—”“Will draw too much attention.” The turbolift stopped and Leia charged through the corridors to the hangar bay.“You need a pilot.”“Sir, both Luke and I are pilots and we won’t let anything happen to the Princess on Tatooine,” Biggs said.“That’s settled then.” Leia slapped open the door into the hangar bay. The smaller planetary shuttle waited for them. “Artoo, Threepio, get on board and strap in.” The droids scurried to obey her.Luke wore a serious expression, more thoughtful and worried than it had been in her offices on Coruscant. He looked at Captain Antilles and then her. “I’m a better distraction.”Biggs’ head reared back. “No, Luke, you can’t!”“There’s something else going on here. Bigger than me, bigger than finding General Kenobi.” Luke’s blue eyes bored into Leia’s brown ones. “Giving them me distracts them from Tatooine and keeps any of the crew from dying fighting a Star Destroyer to get to hyperspace.”Leia’s heart plunged through her. “I can’t ask you to do that.” Yes, she could ask that of herself and of uniformed men and women who had already volunteered, but not this wide-eyed innocent who asked her to save him.“It’s what’s best for the Rebellion,” Luke said.“The Empire wants to kill you!” Biggs grabbed Luke’s shoulder.“The Emperor does, but not Vader. And that’s Vader’s ship.”Leia shook her head. “Vader is the Emperor’s enforcer. He will kill you for the Emperor.”“Vader won’t. I have a hunch.”Biggs groaned. “Shavit your hunches, Luke.”“Princess, you must leave now,” Captain Antilles said.Luke’s face hardened. “Go, before the Star Destroyer can see you.”Biggs’ face twisted. “We are Tatooine’s shooting stars,” he said thickly. “We can’t be stopped. I don’t care what hellhole the Imps bury you in, I will find you. Bnach, the spice mines of Kessel, I’ll storm the kriffin’ Imperial Palace if I have to!” He grabbed Luke’s other shoulder.Luke squeezed Biggs’ wrists. “I’m counting on you. Go save the galaxy first, like your father wants you to.”Biggs let Luke’s shoulders go, but Luke held his hand with their arms outstretched until the growing distance forced them to let go. Biggs’ steps increased as he strode to the shuttle’s entry ramp. Leia impulsively closed in on Luke and kissed his cheek. “For luck,” she told his widened eyes. Then she dashed into the shuttle. She threw herself into the copilot’s seat. Biggs’ hands already flew over the controls as she strapped in.In just a few minutes after Luke and Captain Antilles left the hangar bay, the shuttle was free of Tantive IV and accelerated toward the tan and reddish-brown planet. Her throat tightened and she couldn’t think of one platitude to tell Biggs. Two moons floating above soon drifted from the front viewport.Biggs broke the silence with muttering once they reached the atmosphere. “E chu ta. Whao kae kark D’emperiolo dotkohu killee mah whoka, Jee hatkocanh killee hoohah.”Threepio flailed his arms in the seat behind the pilot’s. “Master Darklighter, you can’t use language like that in Princess Leia’s presence!”Biggs glanced at her. “You know Huttese?”“No.”“It’s fine then, Threepio, as long as you don’t translate what I just said.”“Don’t fret about it, Threepio,” Leia said. She wasn’t the Princess now; she was a Rebel soldier who wasn’t scared to death of what they had left Luke behind to face.Darth Vader waited with the stormtroopers platoon in the Devastator’s main hangar bay. The Corellian Corvette Tantive IV settled onto the bay floor. He had the Princess of Alderaan and proof of her treachery within his grasp. He had expected more of a fight from her, but the smaller ship had announced their passenger agreed to surrender as soon as the Star Destroyer rounded the planet. She must think her hiding place for the plans was impenetrable.Padmé was quiet now in his mind. She had raged when the order to apprehend the Senator of Alderaan had been given that it must be a distraction from their alarm at the Academy. That alarm had been set up years ago to discover what Palpatine was waiting for and he agreed with her that it needed investigating, especially since the name attached to the alarm had been a portion of his once, but who did they have on Coruscant to investigate? No one that they trusted capable of evading Palpatine. Then she had switched to how they should align their forces with her old Senate colleague Bail Organa and his family. He had finally ended that argument with how the Organas shouldn’t have been so obvious in their rebellion to draw this much attention. But the Princess of Alderaan in his custody gave them greater leverage, and Padmé would eventually stop sulking and find a way to use that.The entry ramp lowered and Vader strode up into the Corvette flanked by stormtroopers. The crew of nearly fifty men lined the corridor. Their captain Raymus Antilles and a boy dressed in the desert garb of Tatooine waited in front of the turbolift. Princess Leia Organa was not in sight.Vader stopped in front of the captain. “Where is the Senator?”“Princess Leia is not aboard for this voyage. This is our passenger, Luke Skywalker of Tatooine.” The captain gestured at the young man standing next to him.Skywalker! Vader’s head jerked back. He had thought the boy was the Emperor’s prisoner or dead by now after he had seen Palpatine’s orders on the Academy record. But here Luke Skywalker was, having evaded capture until now.Ani? Padmé’s voice awoke in his mind. What is it? What’s wrong?He studied the boy best he could through the lenses of his mask that tinted the universe red. Luke’s hair was fair, probably blond like his had been before the fires of Mustafar. The roundness of Luke’s face suggested Padmé’s, but the cleft in the boy’s chin matched his. And the Force radiated from Luke like he was another sun in the sky.But it couldn’t be true!“Skywalker,” Vader said because he had to say something in front of these witnesses. Padmé gave a soft gasp. He looks like you, Ani. But different enough to not be a clone. He escaped Palpatine?The boy straightened his shoulders. “How did you gain passage on the Senator of Alderaan’s personal counselor vessel?” Vader asked.Luke blinked. “She offered it to me, sir. So I could go home while she discovered why I was treated like a criminal for enlisting.”“Like a criminal?”“The Academy locked me up and then stormtroopers came after me.” Luke snapped his mouth shut. His indignation over the treatment blazed in the Force.“And you turned to the Senator of Alderaan for assistance.”“She wasn’t appointed by the Hutts.”Vader blinked behind his mask. That… that was a Padmé response: factually accurate and delivered without a trace of sarcasm so the cut was all the sharper. She laughed in his mind. Oh, I like him. How did he end up with that name?
You’re objecting to his name?

No, I’m curious. I had picked Luke if we had a boy, but I don’t remember telling anyone.
Because her body died, her life force combined with his in this ruined body, and they had watched the HoloNet footage of her funeral and that of their unspoken of but obvious child. “Who raised you, Luke Skywalker?” Vader asked.The young man’s forehead furrowed, not expecting that question. “Owen and Beru Lars, my uncle and aunt. They died last year in a sandpeople attack, sir. Those are Tusken Raiders—”“I know what Tusken Raiders are and what they can do,” Vader interjected. “What did they tell you of your parents before they died?”Again the boy frowned in confusion. “My father’s name was Anakin Skywalker and he was a navigator on a freighter, died in space. My mother was Padmé Skywalker and she died having me.”Vader closed his eyes at the names spoken aloud after so long, eighteen long years. The Force sang that it was true as well. Padmé’s arms felt like they were wrapped around his body. Our child lives? How is that possible? Oh Ani, I didn’t know. I would not have hidden this from you for eighteen years. We should have tried harder to get my memories from between the explosion and awakening with you.
I hurt you once and I swore to never do it again.

But we lost him. Luke deserved better than a scrabbled life on Tatooine.
No one deserved a life on Tatooine—except Jabba, inside the Great Pit of Carkoon—especially not the son of his angel. Someone had saved his son and sent him to the only family they knew Vader and Palpatine would ignore. He had his suspicions of who that someone was and briefly wondered why his former master had been foolish enough to let the boy enlist. But it didn’t matter right now. Padmé’s son lived. He had a son.And the Emperor of the galaxy wanted his son dead.“Your uncle was creative with the truth,” Vader said to the boy. He turned to the stormtroopers hovering behind him. “Skywalker is in my custody. Restrain him in a cabin next to my quarters.”“Yes, Lord Vader,” the stormtrooper answered. Two stormtroopers stepped up to Luke and secured his wrists in front of him with binders. Then they escorted the boy down the entry ramp.Vader gestured at the Tantive IV’s crew. “Take these men to the brig. Then tear this ship apart. I want the plans found.” The rest of the stormtroopers marched forward. Is he arrested too, Anakin? The scowl that he couldn’t see was present again in her voice.
No, love, for his protection only. Palpatine must not have him.

Well, on that we are agreed. But you have to tell him the truth. He thinks we’re dead.
When there is time, I will tell him everything. Vader turned and left the ship with his black cape billowing behind him.

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Chapter Five

Biggs gritted his teeth. He almost wished the shuttle was harder to fly for a bigger distraction from his worries. Luke's hunches always worked out, but this is the first time his life was on the line with the Imperials. None of this was supposed to happen.Princess Leia looked over the sensors and then through the viewport. “We're not landing in the settlements?”“Just in case the Imps decide to check all landings today. The garrison never has anything else to do. They might think annoying Jabba's smugglers is a good idea.”“Jabba?”“Jabba the Hutt, our local crime boss. He and the Imps have an understanding. We’ll set the shuttle down by my parents’ homestead and borrow a landspeeder.” Biggs guided the shuttle through a pass in the craggy cliffs and skimmed over the mesa. “As long as that Star Destroyer is in orbit, they can spot this ship.” But as soon as it leaves, there goes any chance of saving Luke. His throat tightened.“I have coordinates.” Leia’s hands hesitated over the navigation console. “Father wasn’t sure if they were still accurate.”“Punch them in. If it comes up with Mos Espa or Bestine, it’ll rule out old Ben as your general. I think Anchorhead is as close to civilization as he’s ever gotten.”She entered the numbers into the system. The ground map shifted to the jagged canyons that bordered the Western Dune Sea. Biggs glanced at the screen briefly. “The Jundland Wastes, no wonder old Ben was able to watch our races. We probably buzzed his homestead.”“Not much to do here?” she asked.“Not like the Core, no, but none of us crashed into the Stone Needle, though Luke came the closest.” Biggs swallowed hard. He had walked away from his smashed skyhopper, but he wouldn’t be so lucky against the Empire.Leia’s brown eyes winced. “We should have just clubbed him on the head and dragged him on board.”The image of the dainty young woman hitting Luke in the head with the butt of a blaster was so incongruous, it forced a chuckle out of Biggs. “That’s not very Princess-like of you.”She rolled her eyes. “You should hear the stories my etiquette instructor has about my childhood. And I’m not the Princess or Senator of Alderaan here.”“Okay.” There were enough cutthroats around who’d take her for ransom. A gully formed in the mesa edge and Biggs followed it down to the desert below. The landing gear slid out and he set the shuttle down. “She should be all right here. The Jawas’ circuit doesn’t take their sandcrawler up onto this mesa.”Leia nodded and turned to her droids. “Threepio, you and Artoo stay with the shuttle. Artoo, use the shuttle’s sensors to see what’s going on in orbit.”Artoo beeped affirmatively and rolled past Leia and Biggs to access the data port between the pilot and copilot seats. Threepio waved his arm. “We will keep the shuttle secure, Princess Leia.”Biggs brought Leia in through the homestead’s garage. It was mid-morning on Tatooine and all the family landspeeders were out. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Don’t have to worry about awkward questions. You and Lanal are about the same size; you can take some old clothes of hers. What do you have on your feet?”She lifted her foot as she stepped onto the gantry between the garage and the living areas of the homestead. “Boots?”He glanced at the knee-high, white boots. “Those are tall enough to keep sand out.” He led her over the underground water tanks and hydroponic growers that she slowed to look down at. She caught up when he turned right into the hallway carved into the bedrock. The first door on the left led to the bedroom he and Luke had shared for the last year.Her wide eyes took in the bunk beds carved into the wall, the long workbench desk underneath the courtyard window, and the wardrobe cabinets crammed into the corner. The holovid display on the desk still cycled through the images: Luke and Biggs with their skyhoppers and speeders, Owen and Beru Lars in the courtyard of their homestead, and the Darklighters at his father’s wedding to Lanal. “Are you and Luke brothers?” she asked.He opened the second wardrobe. The blasters and Luke’s blaster rifle were still in there. He strapped on his favorite blaster belt and holster. “Not by blood. Luke and me have been best friends forever. When his aunt and uncle died last year, I asked Dad to let him live with us until we could go to the Academy.” He shook his head while taking out the new model blaster rifle and slinging it over his shoulder. “My bright idea.” He took Luke’s 6-2Aug2 hunting rifle out, forcing himself to be gentle with one of Luke’s few belongings. “Can you shoot this?” He held it out to Leia.She frowned. “I can take care of myself.”“Of course you can, but that’s not what I asked. The Jundland Wastes are crawling with sandpeople. If you can’t handle this slugthrower, I have to find one you can.”She took the rifle, judging the heft of it before setting it against her shoulder and peering down the length. “I’ll make it work.”“Okay, wait here while I get you some clothes.” He headed down a level to his father and stepmother’s bedroom. Luckily, Lanal was a clothes Jawa. She’d never notice that anything was missing. He chose a mid-calf split skirt, a wrap-around tunic, and a thick shawl to cover her hair and face with. He found a canvas bag for her to pack her senatorial dress in discarded on the wardrobe floor.It didn’t take Leia long to change while he waited for her. Then they headed back out through the garage. The oldest storage shed on the homestead wasn’t connected to the underground compound, so they hiked across the sandy plain to the dome twice as wide as the front entrance dome to the compound. A ramp had been dug out of the rock to the door as wide as the dome, but Biggs went to the steps down to the human-sized side entrance. “Wait outside while I get the speeder.”She nodded and adjusted the shoulder strap of the bag. He keyed in the code for the door and stepped into the dim interior. Luke’s speeder was still parked in front of the ramp door. He keyed the open sequence, drove it out to the surface, relocked the shed, and returned to Leia’s dubious expression aimed at the vehicle. “Will this actually get us there?”“Me and Luke rebuilt this speeder for years.” He offered her a hand with climbing in. “It’s the fastest SoroSuub X-34 on Tatooine.” He vaulted into the driver’s seat and eased the accelerator.She looked back over her shoulder at the homestead. “Biggs, this may be the last time you’ll be this close to your family. Don’t you want to leave a message?”“Leave something for the Empire to retaliate against my family with? They’re going to track me down eventually.”“Your family would denounce you to the Empire?”He shook his head. “No, my father hates the Empire, but I’m the one who’s supposed to destroy it with one blaster shot. And I really don’t want to hear how I threw all my plans away to save Luke.” He glared at the canyons on the horizon. No, Biggs really couldn’t take a lecture on how looking out for Luke was just holding Biggs back.Leia rested her hand on his arm. Its heat was different from the heat of the suns. “My father and I agree that the Empire’s tyranny must be stopped, but we can’t agree how. He believes that if we can talk enough worlds into showing support, the Empire will be forced to back down. I’m afraid we will have to fight back, but I’m ready to.” She smiled slightly. “You won’t have to go alone against the Empire to rescue Luke.”“Thanks, Leia, for everything.”She squeezed his arm before withdrawing her hand.The safest route into the Jundland Wastes for landspeeders took them past the old Lars’ homestead, where Luke grew up. Biggs hadn’t been out here since the funeral and making Luke come home with him and his father. That had been a hard enough trip. His mind kept replaying when he and Luke landed their skyhoppers here, so jovial after another insane pass through Beggar’s Canyon, and finding two corpses instead of Luke’s aunt and uncle. It had taken so long to rid the twice-orphaned young man of his bleak expression that had taken hold that evening. Biggs had insisted that his father sell the homestead and give Luke a fair price rather than just add it to Huff Darklighter’s sizable holdings. Uncle Jula had paid for it and moved his family out there. Those credits had paid for Luke’s trip to Coruscant.He glanced at Leia’s wide-eyed curious face as they passed over the flat landscape. She didn’t say anything, so he turned his attention back to the land in front of them. The entry dome was growing larger on the left and a landspeeder he didn’t recognize was parked in front of it. Uncle Jula and Aunt Silya’s landspeeder would be parked in the homestead’s underground garage. They had visitors, maybe neighbors dropped in for bread and water?He slowed the landspeeder. This was morning time that the neighbors would be working on their own homesteads before the heat of Tatooine’s suns at the height of the day drove everyone indoors again. His cousins Gavin and Rasca were too young to have friends with landspeeders yet.Leia turned to him. “What is it?”“Something’s wrong here.” Figures next to the entry dome were coming into view: a pair of Weequays packing water collection jugs to the back of the landspeeder and a human wearing a breastplate loomed over a human female. She shrank back from him toward the dome. He grabbed her arm and they heard her scream of denial over the sands and the hum of the landspeeder.“Shavit,” Biggs muttered. He gunned the landspeeder and swerved to aim at the entry dome.Leia reached for Luke’s rifle that she had stowed beside the passenger seat. “Know what is going on yet?”A boy charged out of the doorway in the dome with a yell. The man let go of the woman and slapped the boy down into the sand. He planted his foot on the child’s back so he couldn’t rise up again. His laugh carried as he pulled the woman against his body.“Jabba’s goons decided to collect more than water today,” Biggs growled. “Stay in the speeder.”She nodded tersely as she tightened her grip on Luke’s rifle.He slid the landspeeder to a stop in front of the nose of the other larger landspeeder and jumped out. The swarthy human in the breastplate and sweat-stained clothing glared at Biggs’ approach, but Silya Darklighter wrenched her arm out of the goon’s grasp and she scuttled back to the entry dome. The goon bent down and hauled the boy off the ground. Ten-year-old Gavin dangled in front of the man, his feet well off the ground, with the goon’s arm around his chest. Biggs kept his arms loose at his sides. “Morning, Aunt Silya. Collection day?”Silya Darklighter was Lanal’s older sister, tall and dark as Biggs’ stepmother was tiny and blonde. She backed up toward the steps of the doorway, clenching her fists. “Yes, you’re late.” The Weequays continued loading the water.“Sorry, you know how Dad is.” Biggs didn’t recognize the man holding Gavin and scowling at his intrusion. “Don’t know you,” he said bluntly. “You haven’t collected at Huff Darklighter’s before. The silent ones back there have.” Biggs waved at the Weequays ignoring the humans. “Hi guys.”They continued securing the water collection jugs. The swarthy human glanced back at them and swallowed hard as he saw they were not supporting his attack.Biggs let his lips curl into a nasty smile. “You must be new to the water collection. You think Jabba’s going to avenge you if we farmers decide we can’t do business with you? Jabba won’t care as long as he gets his water.” He nodded as the Weequays closed the back of the landspeeder and moved to its passenger doors. “Which your pals are taking care of. Let him go and leave.”The goon’s grip around Gavin’s chest tightened. “Or what?” He snarled.The sound of Luke’s rifle firing echoed against the entry dome. The slug dug into the sand under Gavin’s feet and before the goon’s toes. All heads turned to Leia in the open canopy landspeeder. She readied the weapon to fire again and adjusted the rifle’s long barrel up even with the goon’s head.“Or the next slug goes through your head.” Biggs grinned. “And Jabba still gets his water.”The goon threw Gavin. Biggs jumped forward and caught his cousin before the boy touched the sand. The Weequays climbed into the landspeeder while the human man adjusted the belt as he stepped back. “We’ll see you next month.” He dove into their landspeeder and it floated back before it turned and sped away.Biggs heaved a huge sigh of relief and set Gavin down. “No blood, Gavin?”“I’m okay.” But his face was growing red under his dark hair.Biggs ignored the boy’s obvious embarrassment and turned to his aunt. “Where’s Uncle Jula?”Her hands remained in fists at her sides. “Installing a new vaporator on the south ridge. I thought I could handle this transaction without him.” Her gaze didn’t leave Gavin, though she finally relaxed enough to rub her arm.“Wear a blaster next month.” Biggs headed toward the landspeeder. Leia leaned the rifle against her shoulder with her hand off the trigger. “That’ll stop that idiot from doing anything like that again, if he survives long enough in Jabba’s employ to make it to next month.” He reached in the second seat and pulled out his blaster rifle. “Gavin, here.”The boy jogged to Biggs’ side and wrapped both his arms around the blaster rifle Biggs thrust into them. “What?”“You keep it. Next time Jabba’s goons threaten your mother or Rasca, just shoot them. That’s the easiest way to get them to listen.”Gavin grinned, his teeth gapped waiting for the adult ones to grow in. “Thanks, Biggs!”“Take it inside and check on your sister.” Gavin nodded and scampered down the steps into the entry dome. Aunt Silya turned her frown on Biggs. “I am grateful you showed here, don’t dare think I’m not. But you and the Skywalker boy left weeks ago for the Academy.”Biggs rubbed the back of his neck above his jacket and cape. “The Academy didn’t work out, Aunt Silya. But it’s best that you never saw us if anyone comes asking about us.”She nodded. “I’ll make sure Gavin understands. Safe journeys.”Biggs nodded before he jumped back into the landspeeder. Leia stowed the rifle within reach again as the vehicle moved again. “So why doesn’t Jabba pay for water?” she asked.“He does pay when his usage goes over the allotment taken from moisture farmers. The farmers pay the allotment so Jabba doesn’t have their homesteads burnt out with them in it.”Her face jerked from the landscape to stare at him. “Tatooine is an Imperial world. It’s not part of Hutt Space.”He shrugged. “We’ve got Imperials. They patrol right around their garrisons unless they’re looking for something the Empire wants. And they certainly don’t stop Jabba from doing whatever he wants to do. Good people go into Jabba’s Palace and die,” he quoted.“The expansion of the garrisons in the Outer Rim was presented to the Senate as bringing law and order to planets that had none.”“They were supposed to? It won’t happen on Tatooine until after Jabba’s dead, if then.”They lapsed into silence as the landspeeder hurried on.

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Chapter Six

Leia’s coordinates led them to a domed hut on a rocky outcrop that looked over sand dunes that stretched to the horizon. It was another vista that jolted her with familiarity—like the land around the homestead of Biggs’ aunt and uncle—even though she had never traveled to this planet before. “My dreams were of this place,” she murmured.“Leia?” Biggs held out his arm to help her out of the speeder.“Nothing.” No good had ever come from discussing her strange childhood dreams. She grabbed his hand and scrambled out of the speeder while focusing on the hut again. Where the Darklighter family homestead had domes popped up out of the ground covering their warren of underground rooms and she assumed the other one they stopped at had the same, this building’s dome rested on top of a blocky rectangle. It didn’t look tall enough to stand up straight under its roof. A spindly machine stretched above the roof at one end. Those machines had dotted the Darklighter homestead and she wondered what their function might be.Biggs headed around the corner of the building to the opposite end. He waited until she was at his side before knocking on the metal door. A couple of steps were carved down to meet the true bottom of the door. So the building was partially underground.The door slid open, revealing a white-haired man dressed in a long beige robe layered on top of a brown tunic and trousers. He smiled broadly through his neatly trimmed beard. “Biggs Darklighter, what a pleasant surprise. Come in, come in.” He moved aside and Biggs gestured for Leia to enter the dim interior first.It wasn’t that dim once inside from the harsh glare. The walls were painted white and light entered through tiny square windows close to the roof. The bed tucked into the niche in the wall must double as seating with the round table in front of it.The old man looked out the door before shutting it. “And where is Luke? You two boys are rarely apart.” His accent sounded Coruscanti though years on Tatooine had softened it a bit.Biggs looked at the floor and rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s a long story, Ben. She better go first.”The old man gestured for them to sit while he settled into a fur-covered chair next to the bed. Leia perched on the edge of the bed and Biggs sat next to her. She unwrapped the shawl from her hair and draped it on her shoulders. “Are you General Obi-Wan Kenobi?” she asked.“General Obi-Wan Kenobi,” the old man sounded wistful. “There’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time….” He recalled himself to the present. “Not since before you two were born. Who’s looking for Obi-Wan Kenobi?”“I am Princess Leia Organa. I present myself in the name of the royal family of Alderaan and of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. I break your solitude at the bidding of my father, Bail Organa, Viceroy and first Chairman of the Alderaan system. Years ago, General, you served the Old Republic in the Clone Wars. Now my father begs you to aid us again in our most desperate hour. He would have you join him on Alderaan.”A delighted grin broke across General Kenobi’s face. “Leia! The last time I saw you, you were a baby in Bail’s arms. How time has flown. So Bail has decided to pull me from hiding; what has changed?”Leia glanced at Biggs. It was still classified, but Luke had guessed something else was going on. “The Empire has built something they consider the ultimate weapon. They call it the Death Star. I have the plans for analysis once we get to Alderaan.”“Death Star?” Biggs shook his head. “Yeah, I trust our benevolent government with something called the Death Star.”Leia wasn’t sure if it was a good sign or not that his sarcasm was so thick.General Kenobi tugged thoughtfully on his white beard. “Agreed, the implications of that name chosen by a Sith Lord are grave for the galaxy.” He slapped his hands on his thighs. “We must take Luke with us to Alderaan.”Biggs’ face twisted. “The Empire has him.”Shock rippled across the bearded face, but faded as General Kenobi frowned. “I told your father not to send him to the Academy.”“Well, somebody should’ve told us!” Biggs’ hands curled into fists. “We thought we had a great plan to go learn more piloting and Imperial tactics and then take those skills to the Rebellion. And we still don’t know why Luke set off an alarm on Coruscant!”General Kenobi’s face grayed under his tan. “By the Force, Palpatine has the boy?”Leia thought she better interjected before either man worked himself into a cardiac arrest. “No, I got them off Coruscant. The Emperor and Lord Vader both had separate alarms and orders on Luke’s record. But Vader’s Star Destroyer found my ship in this system and Luke volunteered to surrender so we could get away with the plans and find you.”“Darth Vader?” General Kenobi’s expression looked bleak.Biggs slid a hand over his face. “Luke had a hunch Vader wouldn’t kill him.”“He might be right about that,” General Kenobi agreed while plucking his beard again. “Though death is preferable to falling under the sway of the Dark Side.”“That still doesn’t answer why they targeted Luke,” Leia said.General Kenobi closed his eyes with a sigh. “Luke is the son of a Jedi, that’s why the Empire wants him.” Biggs spluttered, but the General held up his hand. “Lies were told to Luke and the community to protect him, and it has all reverse-thrust horribly. The rest should wait until later. Trust the Force, Biggs, you will see him again.”Leia’s mind whirled. The son of a Jedi, well, that explained the alarms. And her father had called Vader the Emperor’s Jedi killer in bitter tones once. Oh, they should have dragged Luke onto the shuttle. But they couldn’t waste time on regrets. “We need to get moving. We still have to find transportation to Alderaan.”The General shook his head. “No, not yet. The heat of the day is upon the sands.”“He’s right,” Biggs added. “It will be a couple hours before it’s cool enough go out again.”Impatience clawed at her to do something, anything to improve the Rebel Alliance’s chances against a superior foe. To show her father that he was right in trusting her to complete a valuable mission. To not give the Imperials on planet any time to catch up with them. She wrestled with the familiar urge to accomplish something from the Imperial Senate and counted it a win for her diplomatic poise when she merely asked “Truly?” instead of whining it.“Yes, it is true,” General Kenobi said firmly. “I gave myself overheat sickness not listening to the local wisdom.” He stood and headed up the steps to the entry alcove. “We’ll eat while you rest.” He continued through another rectangular doorway in the pourstone wall and turned to the right. It sounded like a piece of metal on hinges creaked open and landed on stone. Then his footsteps faded down.“He probably needs us to eat up his stores.” Biggs twisted to the side and picked up a metal helmet from an outcropping of pourstone functioning as a table. “You can’t hurry the suns, Leia. Not on Tatooine.”It made sense to stay put, but what was the Empire doing to Luke while they waited? She didn’t want to think about that. She had another idea and slid her sleeve back, uncovering the comlink strapped to her left wrist. “Threepio? Come in, Threepio.”“Yes, your Highness? Artoo has secured this comm channel.”“Great, we’ve succeeded in the mission. Can you pilot the shuttle to these coordinates?” Threepio could get the shuttle here and then once it was safe for humans to go outside, they could go directly to a spaceport without delay.She heard Artoo offering commentary in the background. “Your Highness, my piloting programming is limited to landings and departures that do not require much maneuvering. Artoo believes the terrain surrounding the coordinates will require more maneuvering. And unfortunately, this shuttle is not equipped for an astromech copilot.” Artoo got louder in the background. “I did tell her, Artoo, but it’s not like she can buy a new shuttle on this desolate planet. Really, what do you expect?”Leia’s shoulders slumped. No one had ever expected her to be in a situation where she would need Artoo to pilot.Biggs glanced at her. “What’s wrong now?”“Threepio can’t fly the shuttle through the terrain.”“That’s still a good idea. Can he get the shuttle to 33°43’26.68” north and 7°46’44” east?”She repeated the coordinates and waited while the droids conferred. “Yes, your Highness, I can land the shuttle there. The Great Chott salt flat presents no issues.”Biggs nodded at her happy smile. “Tell them to take off in about two hours and I’ll meet them there and fly the shuttle closer here.”“We can all meet them there.”“I need to leave Luke’s landspeeder with my aunt and the less she knows the better.” Biggs put down the helmet before leaning against the pourstone wall and closing his eyes.Leia couldn’t disagree with that so she relayed the information to Threepio and signed off from the comm. At least now it felt like they were progressing.One didn’t need Force-enhanced hearing to eavesdrop on the conversation in the Overbridge’s conference room. Vader used it anyway as he followed Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin down the hall toward the argument. His concern was to know of any of the leaders of the Empire’s military had learned about the young man imprisoned in officer quarters since Vader disembarked from Devastator four hours earlier. What Tarkin thought of the argument he plainly heard was not betrayed by his hatchet-profiled face.“Until this battle station is fully operational, we are vulnerable.” High General Cassio Tagge’s firm voice carried down the hall. “The Rebel Alliance is too well equipped. They’re more dangerous than you realize.”“Dangerous to your star fleet, General,” Admiral Conan Motti of the Imperial Navy arrogantly declared, “not to this battle station.”Tagge’s voice rose. “The Rebellion will continue to gain support in the Imperial Senate—”Tarkin interrupted the General of the Imperial Army as soon as he and Vader stepped into the conference room. “The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern. I have just received words that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.” They circled the round table and Vader stood close by as Tarkin sat.“That’s impossible.” Tagge’s astonishment was clear in his voice, on his face, and in his emotions. “How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?”Tarkin turned from the General on his left to look at all the military leaders around the table. Only three seats were empty. “The regional governors will now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line.” His pride bubbled internally but his face betrayed none of it. “Fear of this battle station.” Motti smirked enough for both of them.“And what of the Rebellion?” Vader admired Tagge’s tenacity. “If the Rebels have obtained a complete technical readout of this station, it is possible—however unlikely—they might find a weakness and exploit it.”Tarkin found that prospect highly unlikely but Vader decided it was time to focus on who had those plans. “The plans you refer to will soon be back in our hands. Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan has proven she is a traitor by her possession of them. Our troops are closing in on her as we speak.”“Besides,” Motti said. “Any attack made by the Rebels against this station would be a useless gesture. No matter what technical data they’ve obtained. This station,” he jabbed his finger against the table for emphasis, “is now the ultimate weapon in the universe.” Tarkin leaned back in his seat as he listened. “I suggest we use it,” Motti continued. “The test firing on Jedha has been reported as a mining accident to the rest of the galaxy and Scarif’s location in the Outer Rim means the Core Worlds can safely ignore what happened here. We need a target that they will not dismiss so easily.”People died from those firings. Padmé’s voice was laced with disgust. And that wasn’t enough for your bloodlust?Vader was tired of this arrogance. He had a traitor to find as well as a way to approach his son. “Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.”“Don’t try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader,” Motti said with a sneer. “Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen plans.”Vader moved closer to Motti. All the years lost with his son fueled his anger. If the Admiral wanted to be an example for the rest of them to leave Vader alone, so be it.Motti grew bolder. “Or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebel’s hidden fortress—” Vader lifted his hand and Motti broke off. His throat convulsed but no air got past the invisible hold. His fingers clawed for the hand wrapped around his throat and snagged the collar of his uniform.“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” Vader said congenially. He liked the gasping wince Motti made.
Ani, if you’re going to kill him, make it quick. I don’t want to watch it.
“Enough of this!” Tarkin demanded. “Vader, release him.”“As you wish.” Vader moved back to his spot behind Tarkin. Motti collapsed against the table as he inhaled.“This bickering is pointless,” Tarkin said. “Lord Vader will provide us with the location of the Rebel fortress by the time this station is operational. We will then crush the Rebellion with one swift stroke. Dismissed. My office, Lord Vader.”Vader’s respirator hid the sound of his sigh. Damn duties, damn Rebellion, damn underlings, damn Tarkin; he hadn’t had a second to pause and reflect since he found his son. Luke, who still thought his father dead. How to tell him the truth? Padmé kept advising to do it calmly, to have medical tests ready for proof, and to possibly put Luke inside his meditation chamber so the boy could see what was left of his face. He didn’t think that would reassure the boy at all. He trailed behind Tarkin and General Moradmin Bast as they crossed the corridor into the central room of the Overbridge. They avoided the strategic holodisplay pod and the duty stations as they wound between them to reach Tarkin’s executive office discussing transfers to the Death Star. Vader thought they were nearly at full deployment already, but didn’t care.Bast left them once they reached the door. Tarkin continued into his private office and sat in the chair behind the desk, a matching copy of his seat in the conference room. The door slid shut behind Vader and the older man pinned a steely-gray glare on the black armor. “You will not kill anyone under my command, Vader, but especially not Motti. The only Vice Admiral I’d consider replacing him with is on a tour of duty in the Corellian system. I will not have any delays due to personnel issues.”“As you wish.”Padmé’s voice scowled in Vader’s head. Damn fool packed this whole battle station with his loyal minions.Tarkin pursed his lips, but changed topics. “What is the status of the search for the runaway Princess?”“No trace of her leaving Coruscant by other means has surfaced. It is more likely that she escaped to Tatooine while her crew distracted the Devastator. The garrison and other agents are searching the spaceport.”She’s as tricky as Bail, Padmé said admiringly. I don’t think the stormtroopers will find her. They aren’t as good as our troops.An iron-gray eyebrow arched. “And the boy you are keeping imprisoned not in the detention block has no useful information?”“Not about the Princess, no.”The older man leaned back in his chair. “What is so special about a runaway Academy cadet? Why does the Emperor want him?”Stay away from Luke, you cadaverous di’kut! Padmé snarled like a krayt dragon. If only they could just shove the Grand Moff out an airlock.“He is strong in the Force. I plan on presenting him to the Emperor myself after my duties are finished here.” And with enough training to defeat the Sith Lord went unsaid.Padmé heard it. I don’t like that plan either, Anakin.
Palpatine already knows he exists. The only way Luke will be safe is for him to learn to use the Force.
But Tarkin heard ‘the Force’ and dismissed the whole matter. “Fine, just keep your new pet out of operations.” The comm on his desk signaled. “Yes?”“Sorry to disturb you, sir, but the Emperor’s Hand has brought you a message,” Bast said.“Well, this is an unexpected development. Isn’t it, Lord Vader?”“Yes.” He cursed himself in all the languages he knew. He should have expected this. Some crew member innocently commed about Vader’s prisoner, so the Emperor sent a Hand to check on things. Which one of them did Palpatine send?The door slid open, revealing a petite, pale-skinned woman. Her red-gold hair was tamed into a braid down her back, and her insignia-free uniform was a different shade than the ones the other ranked officers wore. Mara Jade, the youngest one, Vader sneered. The one Palpatine was only giving the barest of Force training to as an experiment.
That poor girl has just needed love. We could have won her over if you had just offered her that.
“Greetings, Grand Moff Tarkin, Lord Vader,” Jade said.“Welcome to the Death Star, Emperor’s Hand,” Tarkin said.Jade stood not quite at parade rest before his desk but close enough to put a military man at ease with her. “Evidence has come to light that Queen Breha Organa of Alderaan and her consort Viceroy Bail Organa are traitors to the Empire.”“Trouble always starts in the home. Perhaps there is something to the idea that parents should give up their children for the Empire to raise properly.”Jade frowned.Tarkin smiled thinly. “Evidence has come to light that the Princess of Alderaan is a traitor as well. So what does the Emperor want done about this family affair?”“The Emperor thinks a show of might is necessary. The Death Star’s arrival in the Alderaan system will prompt loyal citizens to reject their traitorous leaders. Unless you have found a military target to demonstrate on. He was most insistent on that point.”Palpatine would not dare! Padmé’s voice thundered regally. Alderaan is a peaceful planet; they have no weapons, not since the Clone Wars!
And Bail Organa has been an irritant in the Senate since then. Do you really think Palpatine has ever forgotten the Delegation of 2000?
Tarkin said, “The Emperor is wise and leaves military matters to the military. We have no other targets at this time. Shall we give you a ride back to the Core?”Jade nodded. “I’m to return to Coruscant. The trip is shorter from Alderaan.”“Very well.” Tarkin pressed the comm on his desk. “Bast, arrange lodging for the Emperor’s Hand and inform battle station operations to set a course to Alderaan.”Jade nodded. “Thank you for your service, Grand Moff Tarkin.” She marched out of the cold metal office.She still believed she spoke for the Emperor, Vader realized. How she will suffer when that illusion was stripped away.“Pity, she can’t stay longer,” Tarkin said. “She brightens up the place.” Vader stared down at the older man. The prospect of destroying a Core World had made Tarkin near giddy. “Go find the runaway Princess, Vader. We don’t want her doing anything rash because of Alderaan.”Padmé’s voice sounded ill. We have to stop this. They cannot destroy Alderaan like Jedha and Scarif.
We can keep Luke safe or attempt to save Alderaan. We shall not save Alderaan, not with all of Tarkin’s minions here. And Palpatine sent Jade here to kill Luke. The message to target Alderaan would have been sent via HoloNet otherwise.
Padmé’s anger was a furious beating mass, a krayt dragon ready to claw and bite, and she directed it in the form of Naboo oaths to their gods and goddesses, invectives aimed at both Palpatine and Tarkin. She even cursed for the Goddess of Safety remove her blessings over both men. It was a rote performance with Palpatine and the state of Naboo grace, but Tarkin was a new recipient of this level. And Padmé was always so clever with her words. She hadn’t repeated an invective yet. Neither Palpatine nor Tarkin will have Leia Organa! I will stand aside on the rest of Alderaan to protect Luke, but the Princess will be saved too!As you wish, my love. Vader inclined his head at Tarkin and swept out of the office.

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Chapter Seven

Biggs found he didn’t have much of an appetite for the lunch Old Ben cooked for them. He wanted answers. Luke was in trouble and they had no idea why. Old Ben hadn’t offered any answers other than Luke was the son of a Jedi, whatever that was. He leaned forward and set the half-cleared plate on the small round table in front of the sleeping nook. “Luke’s father gained his freedom winning the Boonta Eve Classic of 968 and became a navigator on a freighter and married an offworlder. He died in a space accident before Luke was born and his mother died in childbirth, so the Lars raised him.”Old Ben looked up from his plate but didn’t say anything. Leia’s eyebrows knitted thoughtfully but she didn’t say anything either.“Was Luke’s mother the Jedi you were talking about?” Biggs looked up at Kenobi after he plunged through with the question.“No, she was not.” Ben sighed as he set his plate on the table and picked up his water glass. “The Lars and I lied to Luke and to the rest of Tatooine. The only things true in that story were about his mother: she wasn’t from Tatooine and she died having him. Anakin Skywalker was a Jedi Knight, a General in the Clone Wars, and a hero on many worlds. It’s a shame that his birth planet knows nothing of his escapades, but it kept Luke safe.”“Safe from what?”“The Empire hunts Jedi,” Leia said gently. She sighed and looked back down at her empty plate. “Anakin Skywalker won his freedom in a what? And why?”“Anakin’s mother was a slave, so he was born into slavery.” Ben sighed again. “These are things Anakin never spoke of. I did not learn of them until coming to Tatooine.” His gaze fell into his cup of water. “Boonta Eve is a Hutt holiday,” Biggs explained. “They used to celebrate with a big podrace called the Boonta Eve Classic every year before the Clone Wars put an end to the sport circuit. Anakin Skywalker was the only human to ever win it at fourteen years old. He built his own podracer and bet it and his winnings for his freedom.” Leia was mouthing the number fourteen, so Biggs shot a suspicious glare at Ben. “At least that’s the story told on Tatooine. Or is it a lie too?”“I didn’t get to see the race live, but yes, it happened. And having rode with Anakin when he piloted after he left Tatooine, the stories probably aren’t accurate enough.” Ben stood up and took the dishes to the sonic dishwasher beside the refresher door.“Why didn’t you tell Luke you knew his father?” Biggs clamped his mouth shut too late. But Old Ben didn’t know because Luke didn’t tell anyone else, not the townspeople and moisture farmers who sneered at his slave name, not the other kids who nicknamed him Wormie. Biggs was the only one who knew how much Luke missed any connection with his parents, especially his famous father. How many times had Luke talked Biggs off some metaphorical cliff with Huff just by reminding Biggs the Darklighter family was more intact than his?Ben’s shoulders slumped as he dealt with the dishes. “I didn’t because Owen Lars asked it of me. He was afraid the knowledge would endanger Luke. After the Lars died, well, I was waiting for a sign from the Force.”And the Force waited until it was sandblasted too late. Biggs held in his scream of frustration. It was no one in this hut’s fault that Luke was in danger. He knew better than the pair of them that once Luke made his mind up no one could change it for him. But Biggs’ position was always at Luke’s back protecting him from the latest crazy idea. Until now. He restrained his scream as he stood. “I better go meet the shuttle.”The afternoon suns were still bright in the sky, but the winds were blowing through the canyons. Not hard enough to disturb the landspeeder steering, but it helped cool a body. Biggs needed to stay calm and cool to impress the Rebel leaders. Otherwise, it might just be him and the Princess rescuing Luke from Imperial clutches. He wanted more bodies on that mission, even if she was a great shot.The shuttle hadn’t reached the old Lars homestead before he did, so he parked the landspeeder next to the garage dome. Aunt Silya charged out of the entry dome but slowed when she saw who it was. “You need another landspeeder, Aunt Silya?” he asked.“I suppose another one won’t hurt. Gavin will want to start flying before too long.” She stopped next to it and ran a hand along the faded red side. “This belonged to the Skywalker boy; where is he, Biggs?”“In trouble and out of reach.” Biggs stared up at the blue sky. The shuttle was in approach now. “Sorry for using your homestead for a meeting place, Aunt Silya.”“What have you boys done now, Biggs Darklighter?”“What we always planned to do; it just got accelerated on us. And I dare not tell you any more. Take care.” The shuttle landed and Biggs sprinted up its entry ramp.Threepio jerkily climbed from the pilot’s station. “Greetings, Master Darklighter. I am most grateful that you are here to resume piloting duties. The geological features of what the locals call the Jundland Wastes look like they would cause no end of damage to a ship or a droid for that matter.”Artoo twittered.“I was just getting to that. Artoo regrets to inform you that the Tantive IV was taken by the Devastator, and that the Star Destroyer left orbit a half-hour ago.”Biggs stared bleakly through the viewport at the heat-shimmer over the flat sands. Luke was well and truly out of reach now. Stay safe, Luke. Whatever you have to do, stay alive until I get there. He closed up the entry ramp. “Strap in so we can fly.”Flying this shuttle was more tricky than his skyhopper, but he managed to get the larger vehicle down to a sheltered valley below old Ben’s hut. Threepio paused at the entry ramp. “Are we supposed to join you, Master Darklighter? I’m not sure Artoo and I can handle that terrain.”Artoo’s twittering almost sounded like a laugh.Threepio bent at his waist and looked down at the shorter droid.”I’d like to see how much traction you have over loose sand. I’m having enough problems with my joints without sand getting into the gears.”“You two just stay with the shuttle. If Leia needs you, she can comm you.” That mollified the droids and Biggs climbed up the incline to Ben’s hut. The dim interior with cooled air was a relief after outdoors.Old Ben looked up from across the room where he was digging through a battered, wooden chest. “Water is on the ledge, next to the lamp,” he said in a low tone that still carried well. The old man bent back to the chest.Biggs found the pitcher and a glass next to the lamp and poured himself a full glass before heading down the steps into the room proper. Why Ben was being so quiet was soon visible. Leia was curled up under a woven blanket in the bed niche sound asleep. Biggs continued past, drinking the water, until he was next to the chest. “What happened?”“The recent events caught up with the Princess.” Ben pulled out a cloth-wrapped cylinder from the chest and stowed it into a bag he had hung from his shoulder without unwrapping it. “You should rest as well. It’s best to fly into Mos Eisley in the morning with all our wits about us for that wretched hive of scum and villainy.”“You make it sound so fun, Ben.” Biggs turned away. The round table had been pulled further away from the bed niche and another sleeping pallet set up on the floor. He didn’t argue but pulled off his boots and crawled into the blankets. He would find Luke again. The Empire didn’t know it was tangling with Tatooine’s shooting stars.Spaceport control—such that it was in Mos Eisley—gave them a docking bay in the oldest portion of the city when they flew into its space in the morning. Biggs didn’t have any issues landing the shuttle inside the pourstone crater. He caught Leia’s frown as he stood. “What’s wrong?”“Renting this place took most of the credits stored on the shuttle. I can get more, but the Isk Grek Besh Cresh account is under my own name.” She shook off the worry. “Let’s go get a price, then finance it.” She instructed her droids to stay with the shuttle again, and she and Biggs caught up with Ben at the street door.The old man looked pleased. “The cantina’s not far from here.” He set off at a pace Biggs and Leia matched.“You know Mos Eisley pretty well for someone who barely went into Anchorhead.” Biggs knew he sounded surly and he shouldn’t, not to a General who outranked whatever his rank will be officially and a hero from the Clone Wars too. But it was old Ben who he knew well enough to be surly with.Ben only smiled. “Glad to know the subterfuge worked. The Empire has been hunting Jedi since before you were born. Do you really think I wouldn’t plan a way to leave in a hurry if needed?” His blue eyes twinkled as he stopped in front of the long, low-slung, pourstone building with multiple domes on top. “Chalmun’s Spaceport Cantina, most of the good, independent freighter pilots frequent this place. They can talk freely here, but watch yourselves. This place can be rough.”Leia’s chin stayed up after she nodded. She followed Ben inside and Biggs followed her. He squinted as they came down the steps into the dim interior. His eyes adjusted and he tried not to stare too long at any strangely shaped shadow. Ninety percent of the shadows were off enough to remind him he wasn’t in Tosche Station.The oval-shaped bar in the center and the drink dispensing equipment behind the human bartender was brightly lit, but that threw the patrons’ faces into shadows when they turned. The standing room at the bar was fairly crowded. Each table scattered around the room and tucked into the alcoves along the walls had a lamp that barely illuminated the faces around them. Narrow windows let more light into the alcoves. One alcove was a bandstand with a group of Bith musicians playing a lively tune.An Arcona with salt-addict's gold eyes stepped between them and the bar but continued to the alcove in the corner. The next alcove over had a Bith and a Talz sharing drinks with two beings Biggs couldn't identify. The next table had a Gotal rubbing cones with a H’nemthe, but the Shistavanen had an alcove all to himself. A few of the shapes he could make out clearly around the bar wore environmental suits or breathing apparatus. Jawas' bright eyes shown out of their hoods as they scurried nearly under the tables. A Chadra-Fan whistled for a drink and the bartender supplied a half-full tumbler of something white. A Devaronian male kept his eyes on Leia as they moved inside. A Rodian moved from the bar to a table on the other side.Ben had slipped into an empty spot at the bar and was talking in a low tone to a tall, furry biped. Leia stepped up in the wide space next to an Aqualish nursing a short mug of ale. Biggs moved in on her right and frowned at the bartender’s inattention. Leia waved her hand and pursed her lips when the swarthy human moved to the other end of the bar.The Aqualish petted her arm and said something in a language Biggs didn’t recognize. Leia shifted to the side with a strained smile, but moved her arm out of reach.The bartender finally circled the equipment within reach. Biggs tugged on the older man's tunic and ordered two Starshines. He pushed one of the tumblers in front of Leia.Her brown eyes flashed. “I can order my own drink,” she whispered fiercely at him. Her glare transferred to the bartender who was now on the other side of the bar with the drink dispensing equipment hiding him from the patrons on this side. Her cheeks reddened.Biggs tasted his Starshine and it burned his mouth in all the right ways. “Sip it,” he said. “Starshine can hit hard.”The Aqualish garbled something. Leia sighed, but her expression still looked annoyed. A disfigured human man moved between the Aqualish and Leia. “My friend wants to buy you a drink, pretty girl.”Leia smiled tightly and wrapped her fingers around the tumbler of clear liquid. “No thank you, I already have a drink.”“Then I’ll buy you a drink.” The man tried to smile, but the scar tissue covering the right side of his face and misshaping his nose turned it into a leer.“No thank you,” Leia said firmly as she shifted further down the bar counter.The pair of Duros near the bandstand broke off their argument to watch. The Ithorian, Givin, and another Gotal in the alcove behind them focused on Leia and her admirers too. Too much attention, Biggs decided and moved around Leia. “She’s not interested.”The man scowled at him. “You just watch yourself. We’re wanted men. I,” he tapped his chest, “have the death sentence on twelve systems.” The finger jabbed at Biggs.“I’ll be careful,” Biggs said with all the gravity that bluster deserved.The man seized Biggs’ jacket pulling him closer to the angry eye and the blinded one. “You’ll be dead!”Ben Kenobi was at Biggs’ side. “This young one’s not worth the effort.” The man and the Aqualish both focused on the old man. “Now let me get you something,” Ben continued.The man let go of Biggs’ jacket to shove him away from the bar. Biggs’ back hit a nearby table and knocked it over. He managed to land on his ass so he could still see. Ben reached under his robe.The Aqualish and Leia both drew blasters. “No blasters, no blasters!” The bartender dropped to the floor behind the counter.The blasters never fired. A blue glowing and humming beam of light appeared from the metal hilt Ben held. It moved almost too fast to see. The disfigured man fell back against the bar. The Aqualish screamed as he fell beside his friend. Biggs stared at the severed arm and blaster on the floor. Aqualishes had red blood too, even though most of the wound was cauterized.Ben glanced around the cantina before killing the energy blade. The other patrons turned away from the scene as the band started a new tune. Leia holstered her blaster and looked up at the furry, bipedal alien who had remained at Ben’s back. Ben offered a hand to Biggs after he put away the strange weapon and asked a question with his blue eyes.Biggs accepted the pull up from the floor. The old man was stronger than he looked. “I’m alright.” He looked up at their newest companion.“Chewbacca here is the first mate on a ship that might suit us.” Ben led them around the bar to the other side towards an alcove with only one table.Han Solo adjusted the chair that put his back under the window in the alcove while Chewie led the prospective clients to him. A lightsaber and the old man knew how to use it, that was interesting. He sat down across the table from Han. Not as interesting as the quick-draw spitfire ready to shoot over being harassed in a cantina. She would’ve been better off shooting first than letting the privileli pulling out the third chair for her deal with it so badly. The younger-than-Han man perched on the bench against the alcove wall next to her and his black mustache quivered with protectiveness. His outfit and manner screamed privilege, such that it was on Tatooine. Chewie slid his bulk down the bench on the other alcove wall closer to Han. Time to get started. “Han Solo, I’m captain of the Millennium Falcon. Chewie here tells me you’re looking for passage to the Alderaan system.” He tipped his head at his Wookiee copilot.“Yes, indeed,” the old man answered, “if it’s a fast ship.”“Fast ship? You’ve never heard of the Millennium Falcon?”The old man shook his head ever so slightly. “Should I have?”Han smirked. “It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.” All three of these potential clients looked skeptical. Han and Chewie leaned closer. “I’ve outrun Imperial starships. Not the local bulk cruisers, mind you; I’m talking about the big Corellian ships now.” He flicked his eyes over each of them: the old man unreadable, the spitfire unimpressed, and the privileli mentally going over a catalog of ships. “She’s fast enough for you, old man.” He rubbed his thumb against his finger. “What’s the cargo?”“Only passengers: myself, the two young ones.” They both straightened and looked so serious. “Two droids.” The old man leaned forward. “And no questions asked.”The old man’s seriousness he believed, but Han grinned. “What is it, some kind of local trouble?” Credits hadn’t changed hands yet.“Let’s just say we’d like to avoid any Imperial entanglements.”Han leaned back from the old man’s look. “Well, that’s the real trick, isn’t it? It’s gonna cost you something extra. Ten thousand, all in advance.”“Ten thousand?” the spitfire demanded. She had a cultured voice. She turned to the old man. “We could almost buy our own ship for that.”The old man flicked his eyes to Han’s rebuttal.Han leaned forward again, a smirk playing at his lips. “But who’s going to fly it, sweetheart, you? Him?” Han tilted his head at the glowering young man.The privileli finally spoke. “I can.”The spitfire’s chin thrust up and she started to stand as she turned to the old man. “We don’t have to sit here and listen—”The old man patted her shoulder so she’d sit back down. He looked back at Han. “We can pay you five thousand now plus fifteen when we reach Alderaan.”Han realized that both he and the spitfire were giving the old man the same incredulous expression for bargaining the wrong way. Han recovered first before she wrecked it. “Twenty thousand?”The old man nodded.“Okay, you got yourselves a ship.” The old man smiled through his sparse white beard. “We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready,” Han continued. “Docking bay ninety-four.”“Ninety-four,” the old man repeated.Movement on the other side of the bar caught Han’s eye. “Looks like somebody’s beginning to take an interest in your handiwork.” They looked over their shoulders at the stormtroopers questioning the bartender. The bartender pointed toward their alcove.The old man silently but efficiently hustled the two young ones out the door. By the time the white armored stormtroopers circled around the bar and reached their alcove, only Han and Chewie were sitting there to stare back at the black polarizing lenses of their helmets.Chewie growled an insult at their white backs as lowly as the Wookiee throat could.Han didn’t let that ruin the sudden relief filling him. “Twenty thousand.” He slapped his thigh. “Those guys must really be desperate. This could really save our necks. Get back to the ship, get her ready.”Chewie nodded as they stood and headed to the door. Han lingered to finish off his drink. With a smack of his lips, he set the glass back on the table. A couple of strides toward the door was all he managed before a green Rodian slipped out of the shadows and pressed a blaster against Han’s chest. “Koona t’chuta Solo? {Going somewhere, Solo?}” He jabbed the blaster.Han moved back to the empty alcove. “Yes, Greedo, as a matter of fact I was just going to see your boss. Tell Jabba that I’ve got his money.” He sat down in the spot the privileli had been in.Greedo sat on the other bench holding his blaster over the table aimed straight at Han. “Song peetch alay. Mala tram pee chock makacheesa. {It’s too late. You should have paid him when you had the chance.}" Han continued to settle against the bench, slouching down to be comfortable and propping his left calf on the edge of the table. Greedo continued, “Jabba wah ning chee kosthpa murishani tytung ye wanya yookah. {Jabba put a price on your head so large every bounty hunter in the galaxy will be looking for you.}" He chuckled. "Chas kee nyowyee koo chooskoo. {I’m lucky I found you first.}"Han waved his left hand. “Yeah, but this time I’ve got the money.”"Keh lee chalya chulkah in ting cooing koosooah. {If you give it to me, I might forget I found you.}" Greedo bobbed his head agreeably, but the blaster never wavered.Han brought his left hand up to the wall beside his head and looked for an interesting spot of rough duracrete to poke. Out of sight, his right hand unholstered his heavy blaster pistol. “I don’t have it with me. Tell Jabba—”“Jabba hari tish ding, {Jabba’s through with you,}” Greedo interrupted. Han watched his hand poke the duracrete again. “Song kul rul yay pul-yaya ulwan spastika kushunkoo oponowa tweepi. {He has no time for smugglers who drop their shipments at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser.}”“Even I get boarded sometimes.” Han held the heavy blaster pistol against his right leg. “You think I had a choice?” He moved it higher.“Klop Jabba poo pah. Goo pankee ata pankpa. {You can tell that to Jabba. He may only take your ship.}”Han dropped his left hand. Take the Falcon? There was only one way that would ever happen. “Over my dead body.”“Uth laynuma. Chespo kutata kreesta krenko nyakooka. {That’s the idea. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.}”“Yes, I bet you have,” Han said before firing.Smoke filled the alcove. When it cleared, Greedo fell face first on the table and didn’t move as the patrons of the cantina looked their way. Han stood up and holstered his blaster. Then he moved toward the bar. “Sorry about the mess.” He tossed the bartender a credit chip that would cover his and Chewie’s tab and Greedo’s removal and didn’t look back as he left.

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Chapter Eight

The Princess was still fuming about the amount they got for her shuttle and the amount they would pay this Han Solo character. Biggs wisely kept his mouth shut. She really didn’t want to hear that was the best price for a vehicle with no hyperspace engine. Chewbacca the Wookiee—Leia had identified his species before asking Ben why he promised Solo more money—waited at the door the alley ended on. He looked over their group like he was counting heads before punching the code. The furry biped led them down the stairs and around the corner of the docking bay's larger door. The group stopped short, but Chewie continued across the sand-covered floor.The Millennium Falcon was a Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-1300 light freighter whose body looked like it had gone through every asteroid belt in the sector, but the vital areas had been patched. If it had ever been painted, there was no evidence of it now. Biggs had seen wrecks in the desert that looked better. Dorsal and ventral quad-lasers were tucked up against the hull. The concussion missiles housed in the lower center-forward mandible were fully stocked. It was a well armed piece of junk.Leia made an inarticulate sound of dismay that drew Biggs and Ben’s attention back to her. “You should know better than to judge on appearances,” Ben said.Han stopped the adjustment he was making to some exposed piping near the extended entry ramp. “She’ll make point five past lightspeed.” He came out from underneath the ship, around the power droid, and stopped at the end of the entry ramp.Chewie climbed up the ramp and Ben headed toward the captain. Leia and Biggs trailed behind.“She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, sweetheart. Made a lot of special modifications myself.” Han’s gesturing arm spoke to the whole group, but his eyes never left Leia’s face.Leia’s cheeks reddened. “If you fly this thing, you’re braver than I thought.” She turned on her heel and marched up the ramp.Han grimaced slightly and Biggs felt a surge of satisfaction that Leia was not charmed by Han’s smooth talk. The captain turned to Ben. “We’re a little rushed, so if you’ll just get on board, we’ll get out of here.” He herded them toward the entry ramp.Biggs headed in first, but heard Threepio say “Hello, sir,” behind him. The ramp led up into a corridor that ringed the circular ship. He ignored the offshoot hallway to the cockpit and ended up in a cargo hold that had a gaming table and passenger seating shoved under a built-in bunk in the corner.Leia turned to him. “Do you really think this ship can leave the atmosphere?”As much as he hated to give Han Solo any credit, Biggs nodded. “Vehicles in use get beat up in a hurry in the Outer Rim. As long as it isn’t half buried in sand, it’ll still go.”She sighed. “I am judging by appearances.”“It’s been a rough time for all of us.”Threepio shuffled into the lounge area with Artoo rolling behind him. “No, I don’t think you should interface with this ship’s computer.”Artoo chirped at him.“Well, you don’t know where it has been.” The golden droid eased down to the seat curved around the gaming table.Leia looked at Biggs and her mouth curved up impishly. “Shall we give ourselves the tour? Since the captain is remiss in that duty?”“It’ll ease your mind immensely to know where the life pods are.” Biggs bowed at her and flung out his arm toward the other side of the hold where the tube-like corridor started again. Leia’s smile widened as she headed down the port-side corridor.They had stowed Leia’s bag and his cape and reached the crew quarters when blaster fire from outside echoed down the corridor. “Chewie, get us out of here!” Solo’s voice yelled as footfalls ran over the deck plates. Biggs and Leia ran back to the main hold as the sublight engines powered on causing the whole freighter to vibrate. They returned the same time as Ben did from the other direction and threw themselves into the seats fumbling for the restraints.Artoo whistled. Threepio had already strapped himself in at the end of the curved bench. “Oh my, I’d forgotten how much I hate space travel.”“What happened?” Leia kept her hands on the restraint harness.“Stormtroopers,” Ben said. “Apparently they didn’t want us to leave.”The vibration eased as they left the atmosphere. Biggs unfastened his restraints. “I’m going to see if they need help. The garrison could’ve put a call out.” Ben stood up before Biggs climbed over his lap. Leia followed them to the cockpit corridor.“Stay sharp, there’s two more coming in,” Han said as he climbed into the pilot’s seat. “They’re gonna try to cut us off.”“Why don’t you outrun them?” Leia demanded as she slipped past Biggs and Ben and stood between the pilot and copilot seats. “I thought you said this thing was fast.”Han glared at her. “Watch your mouth, sweetheart, or you’re going to find yourself floating home.” He turned back to the controls.“Do you need me on the quad lasers?” Biggs asked.“Not unless they launch TIE fighters at us. We’ll be safe enough once we make the jump to hyperspace. Besides, I know a few maneuvers, we’ll lose them.” Turbo laser fire hit the shields and shook the whole ship. “This is where the fun begins,” Han said.“How long before you can make the jump to lightspeed?” Ben asked.Han twisted to the side console behind him. “A few moments to get the coordinates from the nav computer.”“Are you kidding? At the rate they’re gaining?” Leia leaned forward angling her head for a glimpse of their pursuers through the cone-shaped viewport.Han turned to her again. “Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dustin’ crops, girl.” Leia puffed up but Han turned back to his controls. “Without precise calculations, we’d fly through a star or come too close to a supernova,” he ignored the explosions ahead of the ship to face Leia again. “And that would end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?”The ship shuddered constantly and a large red light on the pilot’s console began flashing with an agitated beeping. “What’s that flashing?” Biggs leaned into Leia and pointed to the light.Han slapped his hand away. “We’re losing the deflector shields. Go strap yourselves in.” He reached up for a switch over his head. “I’m going to make the jump to lightspeed.”Chewbacca growled something as Ben pulled both Leia and Biggs from the cockpit. The ship’s engines shifted to a whine as they buckled in again.Threepio moaned as they settled. “By the Maker, it’s just like Ralltiir all over again.”“Stop bringing up Ralltiir,” Leia said. “You never left the ship.”The shimmy of the ship smoothed out. Ben exhaled. “I do believe we have safely made it to hyperspace.” He unbuckled his seat restraints, crossed the hold, retrieved his bag from the stowage compartment, and returned holding another hilt and a ball-shaped remote. His blue eyes focused on the hilt as he extended it to Leia. “I’m sure Luke won’t mind you borrowing his father’s lightsaber to begin your training.”Her brown eyes widened as she she leaned back. “Training in what?”“To be a Jedi. To use the Force for more than just diplomacy.”Biggs wished he had a computer to research the Core terms these two kept bringing up. “Jedi?”Leia glanced at him. “The Jedi Order, the Empire hunted the Jedi down after the Emperor disbanded it. They tried to stop him from seizing control of the Old Republic. Now the Jedi are all but extinct.”“There’s a bit more to it than that.” Ben gestured for Biggs to shift off the curved bench. The younger man moved to a nearby stool. Ben continued as he moved closer to the game table. “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice for the Old Republic, before the dark times, before the Empire.” He shook off the melancholy with a small smile. “The Force is what gives a Jedi his or her powers. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together. Some beings can learn the ways of the Force to do impossible things. Leia is one.”She shook her head. “Vader looks for Force users; he’s never reacted to me. I’m not sensitive to the Force.”“You hide your abilities to an extraordinary degree. You get that from your mother. She was sneaky too.”Leia’s jaw dropped open. Biggs didn’t think that it was polite to call the queen of a planet sneaky, but Chewbacca entered the hold and barked a question at them before Leia recovered.Threepio turned to them. “First mate Chewbacca want to know if anyone wishes to play dejarik with him.”Biggs shook his head. “Don’t know it.”Leia’s lips pressed together as her eyes bored into Ben’s face and the hilt he held out in turn. “Making a fool out of me is the worse way to prove I’m right.” She pushed off the curved bench and seized the hilt.Artoo twittered and beeped. Threepio turned his head to Chewbacca. “Artoo is willing to play.”The Wookiee shrugged, but sat down on the curved bench and powered on the holographic table. Slightly translucent creatures took position on the black and white squares. The astromech droid manipulated the controls with a grasping arm.Leia turned the hilt over in her delicate hands. It was obviously built for someone with much larger hands. She found the power switch and a blue-white beam as thick around as Biggs’ thumb extended from the emitter matrix for a little over a meter. It did not fade and made a humming noise as she shifted it in the air. “A lightsaber.” She sounded awed.“The weapon of a Jedi Knight,” Ben said as he stepped back. “Not as clumsy or random as a blaster. An elegant weapon for a more civilized age.”“It’s lighter than a vibroblade the same size.” She shifted into a fighting stance.“Part and parcel of the difficulty mastering it.” Ben studied her stance. “You have studied dueling.”Her cheeks reddened. “I liked it better than dancing lessons.”“Let’s see what you can do.” Ben pressed some buttons on the ball-shaped remote. It rose into the air and joined Leia in the cleared portion of the hold. It was covered in mirrored emitter matrixes that glowed. She brought the lightsaber up between her and the remote. It launched a small red energy bolt. She parried it and focused on the remote’s next movement.Biggs was impressed by her fluid movements as she matched the remote’s bobbing and weaving. He wouldn’t move that well against it. He glanced at Ben for his reaction. His face went gray under his white beard and he clutched his chest before staggering to the stool next to the console built on the wall across from the game table. It suddenly hit Biggs that Ben was old. Tatooine-living aged people faster than other worlds. He crossed the hold to Ben’s side. “Ben? Are you alright?” Biggs glanced at Leia and she looked a little space-sick herself as she shut off the lightsaber.Ben gripped his thighs as he breathed. “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.” He took a deep breath and wiped his brow. “I’m alright, son. Let’s see what Leia can do.”Her face looked less green now, Biggs noticed as he sat in the chair bolted down in front of the console. She reignited the lightsaber and it made a snap-hiss noise.

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Chapter Nine

There was something more boring than being grounded by Uncle Owen and it was Luke’s current situation. At some point—probably on board the Star Destroyer or maybe when they transferred him to these battle station quarters—his fear of death subsided, allowing his curiosity over what in the Corellian hells was going on to fill his mind. And nobody would tell him anything! The guards that escorted him here and disappeared hadn’t dared to say anything to Lord Vader’s prisoner. Luke hadn’t seen the black armored figure since they disembarked the shuttle yesterday morning and Vader hadn’t been inclined to talk during the ride.Now frustration was beginning to override curiosity and he didn’t have anything to fly or rebuild to ignore it. Exploring the three rooms he had been locked into had worked for a while. The refresher was larger than the one on the Star Destroyer and Leia’s Corellian Corvette. The bedroom was smaller, but the attached office added more floor space. Neither console in the bedroom or the office let him access anything but the entertainment library. The top suggestions were blatant propaganda pieces so he left them alone. The shelving units bracketing the doors were empty, so at least he hadn’t stolen somebody else’s quarters.He threw himself back onto the bunk. He would ask the droid that brought his meals if there was a portable flight simulator he could borrow. He could pretend to fly for lack of anything better to do.The viewscreen mounted next to the door that led into the hallway clicked on. He frowned. He hadn’t activated the controls. It showed a pretty blue and white world floating against the blackness of space. “The planet Alderaan,” a male voice narrated over the image, “has been found guilty of supporting the Rebel Alliance. Commence primary ignition.”A green blast as long as a Star Destroyer crossed the screen. Luke bolted upright. A fireball spread where the beam touched the planet and a ring of fire circled as Alderaan now burned like a sun. It flared out and chunks of dark rock flew out where the fire had been and at the recording device broadcasting this destruction. Agonized bile rose in his throat. Biggs, the Princess, had they made it to Alderaan? They had had over thirty hours to travel there from Tatooine. Were they now just specks of dust and ash along with everyone else on the planet? How many people lived there? His knees buckled and the bunk was under his butt again. Core worlds always had large populations. He swallowed hard, forcing the bile down.The tingle that always told him when sandpeople were around or a sandstorm was coming riveted his spine. Danger was coming for him right now. He needed a weapon. Nobody had left him a weapon.He grabbed the pillow from the bunk as he stood up. The bedroom door slid open and he slung it. The blaster pistol in the small hand shifted off target. The energy bolt hit the wall past the foot of the bunk. Luke rushed forward while the redheaded woman still had the pillow over her face. She pivoted around him, but he wrenched the blaster out of her surprisingly strong grip. He clutched it to his chest and dove for the office door. It slid open before him.“The destruction of Alderaan is complete,” the voice declared from the viewscreen. “The Death Star is a fully operational battle station.”He rolled back onto his feet inside the office doorway. The woman yanked the pillow off her face. “You hit me with a pillow, you Outer Rim hick!” She wore the uniform of an Imperial officer so he decided he shouldn’t shoot her, even though she didn’t have a rank insignia on it. “Who the hell fights with a pillow?”“Who the hell blows up a planet?” He tucked the blaster into his belt while his other hand gestured at the viewscreen. “Everybody on Alderaan was part of the Rebel Alliance?”Her green eyes flicked to the viewscreen. Her breath caught as she saw the newly formed asteroids. “That wasn’t the orders I gave.” Each word hit like chunks of ice. “Loyalists were supposed to be protected from their rulers.”The ugly laugh that tore out of Luke surprised them both. “Lady, the same guy who wants me dead for leaving Coruscant didn’t order that.”Her lips pressed together so tightly they went white. She strode toward him, dropping a hold-out blaster from under her sleeve into her right palm.The office door to the hallway was locked, so he seized the shelving unit next to the door and yanked. It was a free-standing piece of metal furniture that lodged against the second bookcase on the other side. The door to the bedroom slid shut. He dove behind the desk. She was petite; she might fit under the shelves.The door slid open. Her fist smacked the metal. “An Outer Rim hick like you shouldn’t be this hard to kill.”“Why does the Emperor want me dead?”“I don’t ask why. I’m the Emperor’s Hand and I do his will.” She grunted after bracing her feet.He stopped himself from making the quip ‘if she was the right or the left one.’ He wanted answers and at least she was speaking to him. “I’ll give you a clear shot for a plausible reason.”She dropped to the floor. “How stupid are you?” She slid under the shelving unit and climbed back to her feet. He glanced under the desk and across the floor. A mass of black was in the bedroom behind her. “It’s a power play of some sort. My Master doesn’t want Vader to have you, Farmboy.”He took a deep breath and stood up.She leveled the hold-out blaster at him. “It won’t hurt much.”It jerked out of her hand and flew behind her. She spun around, her red-gold braid nearly whipping her face. Vader caught the blaster in his broad, gloved hand and crushed it. He marched forward, dropped the remains of the blaster, and gestured with his hand. Vader didn’t touch the Emperor’s Hand, but she flew back landing against the wall above the sofa. The shelving unit shoved itself out of the door so hard it toppled to the other side. The black gloved hand squeezed as he continued striding forward.The Emperor’s Hand choked. Her feet kicked and her hands clawed at her throat. Her gasps for air were louder than Vader’s mechanical breathing.Luke didn’t know how Vader was choking her, but he couldn’t watch anyone else die today. Not with a whole planet full of dead floating outside this battle station. “Stop! She’s subdued. You don’t have to kill her. Please.” The expressionless mask turned to him. Luke swallowed hard. “You don’t have to kill her. Please don’t.”“As you wish.” Vader dropped his arm. The Emperor’s Hand slid down the wall, bounced off the small gray leather sofa, collapsed on the floor, and heaved air back into her body.Her third breath in tore out of her in a scream. She spasmed on the floor and arched her back to a painful angle. The scream grated her throat.“That’s not better!” Luke didn’t care if invisible hands wrapped around his throat next. He moved around the desk toward her.“That is the Emperor’s punishment,” Vader said. “Not my doing. Never trust the Emperor.”“I don’t plan to,” Luke muttered as he knelt next to the convulsing woman. The blaster lifted from his belt and floated up to Vader’s hand. Luke didn’t complain as he seized the woman’s hand. She squeezed back as she sucked in air to scream again. Freckles dotted her pale, sweaty face. He brushed his fingers against her temple wanting to give what comfort he could. Her body convulsed, hitting his leg when she thrashed. Energy surged through his body meeting the same energy from her.Then the dream swallowed him whole.Stone floor and curved stone walls creating a massive tunnel effect replaced the gray durasteel square office. The tunnel ended with a short staircase up to a metal platform suspended between three round windows. Six empty security stations on columns flanked the black throne centered in front of the window facing the stairs.The figure in the black hooded robe was shorter than Vader and held a black chain as thick as Luke’s arm between gnarled hands as he reclined on the throne. The chain descended the staircase to the figure of light at their foot. The black chain fastened to a black slave collar around her neck and wrapped around her body so tightly her luminescence barely peeked through.“One simple instruction,” a low voice full of malice filled the room, “but you failed in that, you worthless tool. Vader was not to know.” Blue lightning from his hands danced down the links of the chain until it reached the slave.She screamed as smoke wisped toward the ceiling. “I’m sorry, Master!” The Emperor’s Hand sobbed. “Have mercy, please!”“You dare ask for mercy, you failure.” The hooded figure sneered. “All that training wasted on you.” More lightning moved down the chain. “All my other Hands would have seduced the boy and lured him away from Vader, but it never occurred to you. Vader doesn’t even think you’re enough of a threat to finish off properly.”Another lightning bolt hit her, but she didn’t beg in her screams and sobs this time. “Other Hands?”“More capable than you, stronger than you, smarter than you.” The Emperor cackled and the chain-wrapped form slumped even more. “You believed you were the only one? That I would trust in only a pathetic, weak fool like you? You were a mistake soon rectified.” More lightning ran down the chain.Luke leaped forward, grabbing her glowing hand with his own shimmering like the suns. Her head turned to face him. They needed a shield. He could make one with this energy he felt full of. A blue shimmer like a ship’s deflector shield surrounded them. The lightning bounced off it.Her green eyes crinkled. “Why are you helping me?”“Because no one else needs to die today. Not to please a man who keeps you in chains.” He squeezed her hand tighter. “You are a person, not a tool, not a thing. You don’t have to be his slave. You are worth so much more than this.”Her fingers twined with his. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”“No, but I’m willing to help you do it.”“I hurt,” she whispered.He channeled the energy toward her. “Ignore it. You are stronger than pain.”She sat up despite the chains.”I am a mistake for you no longer.” Her body glowed brighter. The collar melted away, freeing her slender throat. “You lied to me. You used me.” The chain melted slower. Luke brushed his free hand against the links and they shattered into golden sand. “You don’t want me, so you shall not have me ever again!”The explosion of light traveled up the chain, disintegrating it as it went. The Emperor dropped his end of it and vanished in a black cloud. The throne room shimmered around them, taking a green tint that matched the green of her eyes.Her gaze dropped to their joined hands. “You don’t hate me.”He grinned. She didn’t know why and he had no reason not to tell her. “I’m the freeborn son of freed slaves. Hate is for the masters. Besides, you missed me by a kilometer.”Her eyes narrowed but her lips curled up in a smile that he would positively, gleefully love to see aimed at Jabba’s goons. “I missed you by a meter if that. Thanks to a pillow.”Luke laughed and she did too. Their hands were still twined together as the dream ended. He blinked. His right hand was curled around her left and the fingers of his other hand rested against her temple. Her thrashing had stopped with her on her left side and her breasts pressed up against his bent leg. She breathed slow and steady. No time had passed at all.“A foolish choice,” Vader said above him, “but the Force is strong with you, m—” He broke off and Luke looked up at the two-meter-tall man. There was more Vader wanted to say, something vital to understanding this whole mess, but now he just breathed through his respirator.The Emperor’s Hand groaned. Luke let go of her hand and she rolled more upright. Bracing on her arms, she stared at Vader. “He said he has other Hands.” Her arms trembled but her face was carved from stone even her eyes.“Of course the Emperor does. You were a fool to believe you were anything special to him.”Her blank expression cracked into a glare. Before Luke could remind her that she was lied to, she snapped. “You know all about special, don’t you, Lord Vader? The only one worthy to be the Emperor’s apprentice.”“You should consider yourself fortunate to have never earned that favor from the Emperor.” Four stormtroopers entered the bedroom. Vader gently pulled Luke up to his feet and away from the Emperor’s Hand. “Lock her in a detention cell and make sure my guest is guarded from now on.”“Yes, Lord Vader,” one of the stormtroopers answered as two of them yanked the Emperor’s Hand to her feet and fastened binder cuffs around her wrists. She refused to look at Luke and marched out with her chin high enough to scrape the ceiling.Luke stared at Vader. The bedroom’s hallway door slid shut behind the stormtroopers, surely now it was safe for a conversation. “Why does the Emperor want me dead?”Vader turned to the ruined bookcase. “That will not happen.”“I’ve done nothing to him or the Empire.”“The Emperor is afraid of what you will become.” Vader marched through the office and bedroom. Luke rushed after him, but the hallway door slid shut after the billowing cape before Luke reached the bunk.“The Emperor’s afraid of pilots?” He rolled his eyes at the closed door.

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Chapter Ten

Han decided to join the rest of the ship’s crew and passengers in the hold. He had earned his fee so far, but it wouldn’t hurt to remind them of that. He headed down the curved hallways with a swagger. “Well, you can forget your troubles with those Imperial slugs.” The privileli sat in the chair for the main engineering console. Han nudged his shoulder and the younger man moved to the old man’s other side. Han threw himself into the vacated seat. “I told you I’d outrun them.”The spitfire ignored him in favor of blocking two stun blasts from a remote with a blue-bladed lightsaber in rapid succession. Chewie and the pair of droid sat at the dejarik table. The old man and the privileli watched the spitfire and the lightsaber.“Don’t everybody thank me at once,” Han muttered. “Any way, we should be at Alderaan by sixteen hundred hours.” He double checked the readings on the console. His estimate was still accurate.Behind him, the protocol droid said, “Now be careful, Artoo.”The astromech droid beeped. Chewie bellowed over the move made by the holographic pieces. Han swiveled his chair. The protocol droid turned to Chewie. “He made a fair move.” Chewie continued disputing that.The plated arm waved at the Wookiee. “Screaming about it can’t help you.”“Let him have it,” Han advised. “It’s not wise to upset a Wookiee.”“But sir, nobody worried about upsetting a droid.”Han smirked and leaned closer to the game table. “That’s ‘cause a droid don’t pull people’s arms out of their sockets when they lose.” The protocol droid swiveled to Chewie who smugly put his hands behind his head. “Wookiees are known to do that.”The golden-plated droid turned back to Han. “I see your point, sir.” He leaned down to the astromech. “I suggest a new strategy, Artoo.” The small droid’s dome rotated its photoreceptor to the taller one. “Let the Wookiee win.”Chewie growled how that was an excellent choice.The spitfire hadn’t shifted her attention off the remote. But the old man decided it was time for a pep talk. “Remember a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through her.”Han raised an eyebrow. An actual living Jedi? No wonder the stormtroopers crawled out of the sand dunes in Mos Eisley. And no wonder Chewie insisted they take this charter. His first mate and partner had a soft spot for the other group the Empire hunted down harder than they hunted down Wookiees. Claimed to have saved the life of a Jedi back in the Clone Wars even.“You mean it controls your actions?” she asked.“Partially, but it also obeys your commands.”The remote moved faster and shot a stun blast past her defenses. It hit her thigh. She jumped forward with a pained cry, but didn’t drop the lightsaber.Han laughed. “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, sweetheart.”She shut off the lightsaber with an expression that said she agreed with him. “You don’t believe in the Force, do you?” she asked instead.“Sweetheart, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff. But I’ve never seen anything to make me believe that there’s one all powerful Force controlling everything.” The old man crossed his arms. “There’s no mystical energy field controlling my destiny,” Han continued. The old man chuckled nearly to himself. “It’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.” He turned back to the console.The old man pushed off the stool. “I suggest you try it again, Leia.” Han’s ear twitched at the spitfire’s name. Pretty, but it didn’t sound Tatooinian. The old man picked the helmet off the wall and carried it to her. “This time, let go your conscious self.” He set the helmet on her head and it fit over the brown buns she had looped over her ears. “And act on instinct.”He stepped back while Leia touched the screen covering everything but her chin. “But with the blast shield down, I can’t even see.” The privileli crossed his arms and frowned over the handicap. “How am I supposed to fight?” she asked.The old man stopped by Han’s chair. “Your eyes can deceive you, don’t trust them.”That was a worthless bit of instruction, Han thought. But Leia activated the lightsaber as she settled into a dueling stance. The remote circled around her faster than it had moved before the blast nailed her shoulder this time.“Stretch out with your feelings.”She let out a huge breath and settled into her stance again. The remote fired three blasts. She parried them all flawlessly. Han stared. The privileli dropped his arms with a grin under his mustache.“See?” the old man smiled. “You can do it.”Leia deactivated the lightsaber and pulled off the helmet.“I call it luck,” Han said.The old man looked over his shoulder at him. “In my experience, there’s no such thing as luck.”“Look, good against remotes is one thing. Good against the living? That’s something else.” The old man was going to get a pretty girl killed with that thing. The console beeped at him. “Looks like we’re coming on Alderaan.”Leia reached the old man before Han got out of his seat. “I did feel something. I could almost see the remote.” She sounded awed.“That’s good.” The old man patted her shoulder. “You’ve taken your first step into a larger world.”Han shook his head while Chewie followed him into the cockpit. He double checked the nav computer’s readings. “Stand by, Chewie. Here we go, cutting the hyperdrive engines.” He stood up over the navigation station’s seat behind his pilot station and threw the switches.The starlines shifted back to points of light as the Falcon’s hum deepened. Before he dropped into the pilot’s seat, bombardment hit the deflector shields. “What the?” Rocks of all sizes bounced off the shield in front of the cockpit viewport.Chewie demanded to know what they had arrived in the middle of.“We come out of hyperspace in a meteor shower or some kind of asteroid collision.” Han double-checked the charts for the Alderaan system. “It’s not on any of the charts.”The passengers surged into the cockpit. “What’s going on?” the privileli asked.“Our position is correct,” Han told him and Chewie, “except no Alderaan.”Leia peered over Han’s shoulder. “The stars are right. This is the Alderaan system.”“What do you mean? Where is it?” the privileli insisted.“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It ain’t there. It’s totally blown away.”“What?” Leia’s voice thickened. “Mama, Papa, everyone?”“How?” the privileli asked.“Destroyed by the Empire,” the old man said.Han looked over his shoulder at the old man and focused past the devastation on the spitfire’s face. What the hell was an Alderaanian doing on Tatooine of all places in the galaxy? He aimed at the problem at hand. “The entire star fleet couldn’t destroy the whole planet. It would take a thousand ships with more firepower than I—” The Falcon’s proximity alarm interrupted him and he shifted his gaze to that screen. “There’s another ship coming in.”“Maybe survivors.” The privileli squeezed Leia’s shoulder. “Maybe they know what happened, Princess.”“The Death Star is what happened to my people.” Tears glittered in her brown eyes.“It’s an Imperial fighter.” The old man’s gaze wasn’t even on the instrument panel.Han flipped some switches above their heads as a TIE-fighter shot at them as it flew over them. Princess? Did the privileli just call that spitfire girl Princess? That had to be a nickname, a sign of affection, because there was no way that any royalty would ever land on Tatooine.“It followed us!” The privileli moved forward for a closer look.“No, it’s a short range fighter,” the old man said.“There aren’t any bases in the Alderaan system; we didn’t allow the Empire to build any. Where did it come from?” Leia asked.“It sure is leaving in a big hurry,” the privileli said.“If they identify us, we’re in big trouble,” Leia added.“Not if I can help it,” Han said. “Chewie, jam its transmissions.” Chewie reached his long arm back and hit the switches on the wall beside him.“It’d be as well to let it go. It’s too far, out of range,” the old man advised.“Not for long.” Han pulled the levers coaxing more speed from the ship. The gap between them and the TIE-fighter closed some.“A fighter that size couldn’t get this deep into space on its own,” the old man said.“He must’ve gotten lost, been part of a convoy or something,” the privileli suggested.“Well, he ain’t gonna be around long enough to tell anybody about us,” Han promised.“Look at him. He’s heading for that small moon.”Maybe Han should tell the privileli to get on one of the quad guns. That would keep him from pointing out what they could all see. “I think I can get him before he gets there. He’s almost in range.”“That’s no moon,” the old man declared. “It’s a space station.”“It’s too big to be a space station,” Han said an unease tightened his stomach. As the object grew closer, he could see it was too uniformly smooth to be a planetoid.“Is that the Death Star?” the privileli asked Leia.“I have a very bad feeling about this,” she said softly. Chewie agreed with her.“Turn the ship around,” the old man said.“Yeah, I think you’re right.” Han cut the rear thrusters and powered up the fore. “Full reverse. Chewie, lock in auxiliary power.” The Falcon began to shake. Leia’s Death Star grew larger in the viewport. “Chewie, lock in the auxiliary power.”Chewie flipped a switch on the main console. {Not working,} he howled.“Why are we still moving towards it?” the privileli demanded.“We’re caught in a tractor beam,” Han said between Chewie’s grunts giving status reports of various systems that didn’t like this abuse. “It’s pulling us in.”“There has to be something you can do?” Leia demanded.“Nothing I can do about it. I’m at full power, I’m gonna have to shut down.” The old man leaned out of Han’s way as the pilot flicked off switches. The shimmy eased considerably. “But they’re not gonna get me without a fight.” He glared at the gray sphere.Chewie howled a Wookiee insult at it.“You can’t win.” The old man really sucked at pep talks, Han decided. “But there are alternative to fighting,” the elfosahaj continued.They always had their blasters if the elfosahaj’s idea fizzled out.Mara inhaled deeply as she kept pace with the stormtroopers flanking her. Her body ached all over and pain always made it hard to concentrate. Would she even be able to touch the Force with her connection to the Emperor severed?He lied. He had always lied.She had never needed the Emperor to do this trick before. But she needed calm. She took another deep breath. They turned down a hallway with a console room off it. She had to sway them both before they reached it.With the pain tucked away behind a mental shield, she put the special cadence to her words. “Lord Vader will be pleased with your service.”“Lord Vader will be pleased with us,” the stormtrooper on her left said.“You have been the very model of Imperial efficiency.”“We have been perfect stormtroopers,” the one on her right said.She stopped at the console room’s door. “This is my cell.”The right stormtrooper opened the door controls. Luckily, the room was unmanned. “Get in there, rebel scum.”“You want your binders back.” She held up her hands.“Need those back.” The stormtrooper on her left unlatched the binder cuffs.“Return to your duties.”“Let’s return to our duties.”“She’s not going anywhere.” The second stormtrooper keyed the door shut.She engaged the lock as they marched away. Well, the Empire having graduated nothing but simple-minded morons from the Academy was no longer a problem she had to deal with. The Emperor no longer required her services. She eased into a chair in front of one of the consoles ringing the room.No sugar dipping the truth. She always demanded that much of herself. The Emperor wanted her dead for failing to kill one Luke Skywalker. Her eyes burned; side effect of the pain he had inflicted her with and better off ignored.He had lied to her about what she was and what she meant to him since she was old enough to believe that becoming the Emperor’s Hand and seeing that his will was accomplished throughout the Empire was the only aspiration that mattered. Her fists clenched.His will was his desires and he desired an entire world dead.She couldn’t start there. Her first assignments had used her body because that is what the greedy lechers concentrated on and not the words on their lips and datapads. Then the Emperor had trusted her with the traitors. Not the Rebels, Vader had them, but the ones who abused the Empire’s benevolence to fill their greedy hands. She had investigated and they had both deserved the executions she had given them.Greed was a feature of the Imperial Court, she realized how much she had counted on it in her dealings with them. Greedy men, fewer greedy women, and actual monsters—Vader the most merciful of those, Tarkin the most calculating, Isard the most treacherous—surrounded the Emperor and she hadn’t trusted any of them. She hadn’t needed to because she trusted the Emperor and he trusted her beyond all of them.Her insides seized and pulled her chest down to her thighs. He lied and the voice in her head sounded like that stupid farm boy. She was a fool to have recognized every monster, but missed the one who held their leashes.She took a deep breath, eyes screwed shut holding in heated wetness, and forced her spine against the back of the seat. She had failed this assignment like a rank amateur. No time to research Luke Skywalker like she preferred to do on her targets, just take the data the Emperor provided and intercept Vader and Skywalker on the Death Star. Kill Skywalker without alerting Vader and the message to Tarkin was cover for her presence on the Death Star.She rubbed her temples. Vader had been in Tarkin’s office and she had panicked. She had scouted and had decided to make the kill as soon as it looked like Vader wasn’t paying attention and sprint to her shuttle. Vader had known she was here, had guessed at what her true assignment was, and had set up a trap which she then walked into. Seduction? Why in the galaxy would she even think of seducing Luke Skywalker when the youngest man she had ever seduced had a daughter the same age she was?The target interceding to keep her alive was the real surprise. Why had he done that? Why free a slave when he was a prisoner in more danger than she was?Mistake. The memory of her former Master’s words echoed in her mind in his angry voice. A pathetic, weak fool. She screwed her eyes closed again. Failure. She covered her ears with her hands, but that didn’t stop the echo. Worthless tool.He lies. The Farmboy’s voice was softer than the Emperor’s, but a current like electricity ran through it. You are a person, not a tool, not a thing. Durasteel scaffolded his words. You are worth so much more than this.Who to believe: the Emperor of monsters or the target who had no idea why he was wanted dead? For all his simple naiveté, the Farmboy’s truth made her open her eyes again. Maybe it was only that she wanted to believe him. But none of that was helping her analyze the assignment. Learn from the mistake and move on. In fairness, in balance of the guilty and the innocent, she had to concentrate on Alderaan. Two billion people, citizens of the Empire and statistically there was no possible way they were all traitors. Her stomach churned and she stared at her hands. Two billion people dead so the Emperor could stop one family. The Emperor murdered two billion people. And she had played a part in that. How did one make amends for the deaths of two billion innocents?In order to make amends, she had to leave the Empire alive. She rubbed her temples again. The closest thing to an ally she had on the Death Star was Skywalker and he was a prisoner. Her nose wrinkled. She could still feel him in her mind. It wasn’t like the Emperor’s voice; just his feelings and it was honest worry over her. She blinked. Why was he worried about her? He needed to worry about himself and the interest Vader had in him.She turned on the console in front of her. The codes the Emperor had given her still worked. He had said they were embedded into every computing console the Empire built. She swallowed. Everything he had ever told her was suspect until independently verified. This worked at least. All she needed now was a time frame and a plausible reason to steal a shuttle. She opened up Flight Control’s system and the security feeds.She wanted to live so she would find it.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Chapter Eleven

They crouched in a series of compartments hidden under the Falcon’s corridor deck plating: the droids in the one farthest from the entry ramp; Leia and General Kenobi in the center; Biggs, Captain Solo, and Chewbacca in the first one. Leia strained to listen for threats beyond the noises of the landing craft. She had to focus on something, anything, otherwise she’d be sucked into the numbing vortex of loss. Alderaan was gone in an instant.Nothing distracting was happening, kest! Damn the Empire! Her hands curled and her fingernails dug into her palms. She thought she had hated the Empire before with its brutality against non-humans and its rigid tyranny against democracy and its subjugation of any protest with callous military might. Now pain lanced her palms but that didn’t halt the shaking vibrating her arms. This was hate, a hot fire under her skin, wanting to seize the Emperor in his black robe and set him alight with it. Her ears under her hair buns were already aflame.“Leia,” General Kenobi said.She twisted to stare at him, not that she could see in the dark. But why take the chance of giving away their hiding place? The entry ramp was extending down with a hiss of hydraulics.We do not need voices, Padawan. General Kenobi’s voice in her head was amused by her confusion, but soon it turned grave. Do not let hatred dwell inside you, Leia. Hate leads to suffering.She couldn’t articulate her feelings into words as boots marched over their heads. That sound and the idea of the Empire just elicited an inner howl of grief that pierced like the hunting cry of a stalking bird now extinct with the rest of Alderaan. The vortex was numbing the fire, but felt like it was pulling her down into the never-ending cold.
There will be justice for Alderaan, Padawan. Trust the Force. Hate only hurts you.
Leia couldn’t bring herself to care. The only thing that shattered the ice that caked over her was the thought of seeing the Empire in all its evil glory burning. Starting with the men searching the freighter right now.General Kenobi did not approve. She felt that disapproval without sound in this tiny compartment, and she saw the frown in spite of the pitch blackness blinding her eyes. Bail and Breha taught you the difference between justice and revenge, Leia.That put away her desire to lash out like the childish distraction it was. Her parents who had chosen her to love out of all the war orphans the Clone Wars had left had taught her what justice is and how it applied to all beings. There would be no justice for Alderaan unless the Rebel Alliance succeeded. They had a mission to complete despite this horrific detour.Just as she felt her professionalism grab hold, boots marched overhead again. She held her breath as the reverberations left the corridor to the cockpit and marched back down the entry ramp. There was silence for a minute, and then the deck plating scraped nearby. General Kenobi reached up and pushed with his hands and something else. She could feel the slight shift of the older man’s power.“Boy, it’s lucky you had these compartments,” Biggs said softly but his voice carried in the silence left by the departed stormtroopers.“I use them for smuggling,” Captain Solo answered. “I never thought I’d be smuggling myself in them.” General Kenobi finished shoving the deck plating off and Leia stood up with him. Captain Solo twisted around, only his upper half visible out of the smuggling compartment, with his blaster in hand. “This is ridiculous,” he said to General Kenobi. “Even if I could take off, I’d never get past the tractor beam.”“Leave that to me,” General Kenobi said as he pushed up with his arms to sit on the floor.Captain Solo did the same maneuver and sat on the edge and looked at the entry ramp corridor. Biggs copied the move on the other side of the compartment without saying a word. “Damn fool,” Captain Solo muttered. “I knew you were going to say that.” He turned back to look at the General.“Who’s the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?” General Kenobi told the smuggler.He didn’t have a snappy comeback for that, Leia noted as she hopped up onto the floor. Chewbacca growled a complaint about the sneaking. Captain Solo ran his hand over his first mate’s head to soothe him.“Can we sneak out of the ship yet?” Leia asked crisply, all business. “We can’t disable their tractor beams from in here.”General Kenobi gazed at the bulkhead separating him from the rest of the hangar bay. “We still have stormtroopers out there, a seven unit troop.”Captain Solo silently climbed to his feet and looked out the entry ramp hatch. He grimaced before waving for a retreat. Chewbacca pointed Biggs to the cockpit corridor before he silently settled the deck plate back over the compartment. She and General Kenobi joined Biggs, and Captain Solo moved to them with a frown. “Two in guard position at the bottom of the ramp. I can’t see where the hangar control room is without being seen. The next step in the Imperial handbook is scan the ship, and the compartments aren’t built to block out life signs.”“They believe the fabrication we put in the log.” General Kenobi blinked and his focus returned to their group. “They will leave once the technicians are on scene. How many do you expect for a ship this size?”“Two usually.”“And we have the element of surprise.” General Kenobi smiled through his beard.The rest that followed was anti-climatic in Leia’s opinion, but it proved they had hired the right pair of scoundrels. Chewbacca and Captain Solo flanked the entry hatch. The technicians focused on their crate of scanning equipment and missed observing the blows coming for their heads. The stormtroopers on guard believed the call for assistance, and there was no one in the hangar bay to hear when Solo had to shoot one.She and General Kenobi got the droids out of their compartment while Biggs and Captain Solo disguised themselves as stormtroopers. Solo finished first and headed down the ramp while she and General Kenobi straightened out Biggs chest plate. He didn’t spend long out there. “The hangar control room is looking right down at the entry ramp, but the window is clear. Come on.”General Kenobi set the helmet on Biggs’ head. “You’ll be our diversion to get inside. Your transmitter is disabled and don’t return to your post.”Leia hurried after Chewbacca and the droids to the hangar bay exit avoiding the large hatch in the deck for a cargo lift. Captain Solo jogged up to join them in the sloping corridor that rose to meet the control room door. There were no controls for the door on this side. Solo and Chewbacca waited at the doorway for a few tense minutes.The door slid open. The gantry officer’s mouth fell open right before Chewbacca howled and backhanded him. Solo blasted the other occupant of the room before he had time to reach the console comm unit.Biggs ran up to join them as the group surged into the control room. Leia glared at the cocky human who was double-checking his blaster handiwork. “Between his howling and your blasting everything in sight, it’s a wonder the entire station doesn’t know we’re here.”Captain Solo jerked his helmet off as he turned to glare at her. “Bring ‘em on! I prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around.”Biggs made sure the door was locked and set his helmet on a nearby storage barrel. “Maybe you’re in a hurry to die, but I’m not. All this sneaking around has kept us alive.”The droids reached the console that filled a wall of the cramped control room. Threepio ignored the bickering humans and addressed General Kenobi. “We found the computer outlet, sir.”“Plug in. He should be able to interpret the entire Imperial computer network.” The Jedi Master joined the droids in front of a viewscreen. Artoo’s computer interface arm swiveled inside the dataport before he beeped and whistled.“He says he has found the main control to the tractor beam holding the ship here. He’ll try to make the precise location appear on the monitor.” The viewscreen flashed through a series of technical plans while Artoo warbled again. Threepio continued with the translation. “The tractor beam is coupled to the main reactor in seven locations. A power loss at one of the terminals will allow the ship to leave.”General Kenobi focused intently on the plans on the viewscreen before looking back at the three younger humans. “I don’t think you can help. I must go alone.”“Whatever you say,” Captain Solo said as he crossed the room to his Wookiee partner. “I’ve done more than I bargained for on this trip already.”Leia darted to the door. “You want to split up in Imperial territory?”He smiled softly at her. “This is a job that calls for subtlety.”Both men bristled at the implication of General Kenobi’s glance at them. “I can be subtle,” Biggs said.General Kenobi patted Leia’s shoulder. “Be patient, Padawan. Keep your droids safe so we can deliver the information to your allies. May the Force be with you.” He adjusted his lightsaber on his belt, opened the control room door, and moved quickly down the corridor.Leia pursed her lips and closed the door behind him.{Jedi and their solitary missions,} Chewbacca barked.“Boy, you said it, Chewie.” Solo leaned against the Wookiee affectionately. “Where did you dig up that old elfosahaj?”Leia raised her eyebrows, recognizing the insult even though she didn’t know the language, and wondered how often the pair used a lack of understanding of Shyriiwook to con people. She didn’t let on that she knew it. “General Kenobi is a great man.”“Yeah, great at getting us into trouble.”“I didn’t hear you give any ideas,” Biggs retorted as he brushed back his black hair.“Well anything would be better than just hanging around babysitting an incognito princess and her latest boy-toy.” Solo straightened emphasizing his height over Biggs.Biggs stepped forward clenching his fists. “Who do you think—”Artoo whistled and beeped excitedly. Leia bypassed the bickering males best she could in the cramped space. “What is it?”“I’m afraid I’m not quite sure, your Highness. He says ‘I found him,” and he keeps repeating “he’s here.” Threepio waved one of his arms apologetically.“Who’s here, Artoo?”Artoo’s series of beeps slowed down. “Darth Vader has a guest under guard,” Threepio said.Biggs dropped his argument with Solo to join the droids and Leia. “Vader? Luke’s here?”“He’s not named in the files Artoo accessed,” Threepio said. “Artoo is looking for a security feed to verify, Master Darklighter, but that is what Artoo believes. Master Skywalker is on this space station.”Leia found it very hard to breathe. Could it be possible that Vader hadn’t tortured and killed the young man? This awful day may actually have a hint of radiance?“Vader? Luke? Who are they?” Solo asked.The viewscreen changed from a technical blueprint to a security holovid of a living quarters. And it was Luke, lying on his back on the bunk. Her heart leaped so hard she felt dizzy.“Luke! Where is he?” Biggs demanded.“North seven aurek sixty-eight level three hundred,” Threepio said. “He is under guard now. Apparently, there was an earlier incident of someone attempting to kill him that Darth Vader intervened in.”“Vader intervened? The Emperor’s enforcer protected Luke?” Leia demanded.“But the Emperor isn’t out here.” Biggs’ dark eyebrows knitted together.“Everyone on board technically obeys the Emperor,” Leia said, “except for us in this room. All he’d need to do is send a message.” One that Vader hadn’t obeyed and outright defied. That was a puzzle.“What are you talking about?” Solo demanded.Leia turned to Solo’s confused face. “Luke surrendered to Vader so we could escape with the Death Star plans.”“And the Emperor said to kill him after we enrolled at the Academy. We ain’t leaving him here for that to happen.”“Now, look, don’t you two get any funny ideas. The old man wants us to wait right here.” Solo sat in a nearby chair, leaned back, and propped his feet on the console desk.“General Kenobi didn’t know he was here,” Leia said. The Jedi Master was too upset over Luke’s fate to disapprove of rescuing him. “A few minutes ago you said you didn’t want to just wait here. Now all you want to do is stay.”He scowled up at her. “Listen your Worshipfulness, I’ve tried jumping to others’ orders before, learned how to dress, how to march, how to snap off that pretty salute. It didn’t end well.” Chewbacca made a soft whine of sympathy. “Now I take orders from one person, me!”“It’s a wonder you’re still alive.” Leia snapped back, annoyed with his selfishness.“And I’m gonna stay that way by avoiding people the Empire wants dead.” Solo pointed his finger at her face or the ceiling with the angle between them it was hard to tell.“E chu ta,” Biggs growled. He was so livid his whole body vibrated in the stormtrooper armor. Leia and Chewbacca both stepped closer to be between the two men while Captain Solo dropped his feet back to the floor. “Luke is my umakkar-upan and we are not leaving him behind with people who want to kill him again!”“Of course we’re not, Biggs,” Leia said. “But we need a plan. Go take the uniform off the officer that wasn’t shot. I need a disguise.” His anger retreated as he stepped back to handle her request. She looked back at Solo. “If money is all that you care about, then that’s what you’ll receive if you two help us.”Chewbacca growled {Oh no.}Solo looked at her warily. “And you’re going to pay with what, Princess?”He wasn’t trying to attack her with Alderaan’s destruction, but her chin raised defensively all the same. And her time in the Senate taught her to be offensive with her supposed weaknesses. “You’re a fool if you think all of Alderaan’s wealth was on planet.” Biggs handed her the black uniform. Leia turned to a small supply closet with a door. It had enough room for her to change clothes in private.The gantry officer had been broader than Leia was everywhere, but she cinched the waist in with the belt and the jacket covered the folded sins. There was enough room for her to hide the lightsaber hilt against her stomach under the jacket. The black boots were far too big for her feet, so she stuffed blank flimsi into the toes. She’d stow her white ones on the freighter when they left. The cap fit between her buns, so she didn’t have to deal with changing her hairstyle.She stepped out to Solo’s smirk. “What’s your plan, Lieutenant?” he asked.“Threepio, hand me those binders will you?” The golden droid passed the restraining cuffs from the console desk next to the droids. Leia stepped up to Chewbacca with them. “Now, I’ll put these on you.”{You will not!} Chewbacca roared at her.“Stow that attitude!” Leia yelled back. She breathed deeply and wrestled her fraying patience together. “It’s just for show. They won’t let any Wookiee no matter the expertise wander around unrestrained nor without guards.”Solo took the binders from her as he stood. “Something’s broke, Chewie can fix it, and it’s in this Luke kid’s room?”“That’ll get us to the section at least.” Biggs turned from the viewscreen which now had a series of maps to their destination. “Should keep the guards unsuspicious long enough to get the drop on them.”Chewbacca still looked dejected over the unlocked cuffs on his wrists. Threepio waved his arm as the men picked up their helmets and headed to the door. “Princess Leia, pardon me for asking, but what should Artoo and I do if we’re discovered here?”“Lock the door,” Biggs suggested.“And hope they don’t have blasters.” Solo added as he plopped on his helmet.“We won’t be gone long,” Leia said.“That isn’t very reassuring.” Threepio propped his arm on Artoo’s dome. But the organics continued down the corridor.

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Chapter Twelve

Vader retreated to his personal chambers unsettled by the appearance of the light freighter from Tatooine and what he felt near it. The suit needed time to recharge and he had to sit in his hyperbaric meditation chamber or a bacta tank while that happened. He opted for the chamber so he could read the reports gathered from Mos Eisley on Tatooine and meditate on the phenomena. It had felt like Obi-Wan. Or was he only feeling it that way because of Luke’s existence?He passed through the office that the main door opened to and with the Force depressed the sequence of buttons that would relay the information to his chamber. It barely slowed his stride into what would be the main bedroom for any other General or Admiral on board. For him, the bed was replaced with a dodecahedron pod three meters in diameter nestled on hexagonal dais. The longitudinal seams were pulled apart, revealing the bright white inside the dark gray outer hull.He crossed his prosthetic legs upon the floor inside as the halves closed around him. The pod’s mechanical arms emerged from their hidden compartments and lifted his helmet and mask away. The power cords snaked towards the control panel on his chest and he guided them in with the Force. The equipment chimed that it was charging. He closed his eyes and reached out through the Force.Luke blazed like a star, too many levels away. Vader frowned. He should have found a location closer to his personal chambers to keep the boy in. He was in danger that far away as Mara Jade had proved. Her Force presence was safely contained levels away from his son, good. Now to find strong Force signatures beyond those two.He expanded his reach again, losing focus of the Death Star’s structure in the process. There was a signature, achingly familiar, but muted somehow. As if the user had discovered how to bank the Force around his fire and hide. When Obi-Wan hid, another Force presence lit up briefly before dying down again. Had his old Master found a new padawan? The pair of them were separated by many kilometers.He opened his eyes with a weary sigh. He couldn’t take a feeling to Tarkin, no matter how many times the Grand Moff had seen the Force in action. After all this time, you would condemn Obi-Wan to Tarkin? If Padmé was still corporeal, she would be tapping her foot as she glared at him. Give Tarkin the accolades of destroying the last of the Jedi?
You would prefer it less if I kill him myself.

We can use him against Palpatine.
You are far too optimistic about that. Do you really think that Obi-Wan will unbend enough to work with us? He opened the report from the Tatooine garrison. While searching for the Alderaanian senator, they investigated a report of a disturbance in a Mos Eisley cantina. An old human male with white hair and beard intervened in an altercation between two parties: the Aqualish Ponda Baba and Cornelius Evazan in the first party and the second one made up of an unidentified young human male with black hair and mustache and an unidentified human female with brown hair. When blasters emerged, the bearded human male drew a lightsaber and cut off the arm of Ponda Baba. By the time stormtroopers reached the cantina, all parties had fled the area. Ponda Baba and Cornelius Evazan were apprehended stealing medical supplies and Ponda Baba’s injuries matched dismemberment by lightsaber.It was Obi-Wan, all right, Vader thought sourly. He never could set foot in a cantina without his lightsaber hitting someone. The report continued with details from an informant who followed the old human male with a lightsaber, two younger humans who matched the descriptions of the ones in the cantina altercation, and two droids to Docking Bay Ninety-four. The transponder code of the freighter that took off from it roughly five hours ago matched the one the tractor beam plucked from Alderaan’s previous orbit less than an hour ago. Princess Leia slipped from his grasp and found the old man on Tatooine and somehow they managed to hide on that hunk of junk in the docking bay.
You promised to keep the Princess safe, Ani.
She’d be safer with different traveling companions. No report from the scanning crew yet. He’d probably have to scare it from them in person if they were still capable of giving a report. Like he didn’t have enough to do already.The report from Tatooine was proof that a Jedi had managed to stay hidden on Tatooine and came here. Luke was proof that the Jedi was truly Obi-Wan Kenobi, since Obi-Wan was the only one left who could have delivered Vader’s child to Owen Lars. But he wasn’t about to share the reason for his certainty with Wilhuff Tarkin, one of Palpatine’s toady officiants through and through. Memories that were never far away rose unbidden to his mind’s eyes. The heated and sulfur-tinged wind had brushed over his skin and through his clothes. His wife, his angel, the one who he could not lose, the one he had acquiesced to the atrocities for, had stared at him like he was Nute Gunray and Count Dooku combined. Defiant anger filled her and curled her hands into fists at her sides, but her brown eyes welled with tears that didn’t fall. “I will not let you set me up as a tyrant in his place, Anakin!”Before Anakin could find the argument that made her understand that her ideas could reshape the galaxy into the best it could ever be and he was her tool to make it happen, Obi-Wan swaggered out of Padmé’s ship ready to crush Anakin’s hopes and dreams like always. But not this time. This time Anakin would not listen to Obi-Wan and lose his family that only he could save. He faced the older Jedi but only lashed out with his words. “You turned her against me!”“Your lust for power has already done that.”In between the Jedi and the fallen goading each other, Padmé’s anger vanished in a flash of pain. She sat on the entry ramp to her ship. Her hands grasped her pregnancy swollen torso. “Ani, Anakin, Obi-Wan, something is wrong.” Her face grew paler. “Something is wrong. Please, Anakin!”They had ignored her in their duel. Then the explosion of the mining facility had interrupted and all was lost to pain.Vader felt Padmé’s hands on his cheeks, cupping his scarred face. Don’t dwell there, Anakin. I forgave you long ago. Palpatine manipulated us all. Our son lives.He opened his eyes with a sigh and missed her face in front of his. The physical sensations never had the expected visuals with them. Since Palpatine had not apprehended Padmé and Obi-Wan when he arrived on Mustafar, Obi-Wan had gotten her and the child out of his reach. Unfortunately, the move only saved Vader’s son from Palpatine. And since Obi-Wan had taken his son—who deserved the same beauty and ease Padmé had spent a childhood in—to that slave pit, it was only fitting that he had remained there to keep the boy alive these past eighteen years.The only oddity was why Obi-Wan involved the Lars. The Jedi preferred babies to raise and train after all. Vader sneered in memory of the ‘he’s too old to train’ verdicts. They had died and he survived; which was the better policy after all? Luke had no training in the Force. Nor did he react to the presence of Darth Vader as the antagonist of his night terrors. It could be a blessing when Vader got a spare moment to explain who he was to the boy, but it could also be a hindrance to the boy understanding the treachery Palpatine was capable of. He couldn’t hide the boy from Palpatine’s attention not like he had protected Padmé all these years.Something stirred deep in his chest that he had not felt in so long, hope. Hope to break the stalemate Palpatine has contained him with. Hope to finally mete out justice for Padmé. He opened a security feed and directed it to Luke’s quarters. The color holovid filled the viewscreen. The slight young man slumped over the console unit in the corner. The hair covering the back of his head was blond with bleached highlights from the suns glare. It was also growing past the collar of his loose white tunic. The Lars were dead, Luke had said they had died last year, didn’t anyone try to groom him before he attempted to enlist? Vader scowled and sent an intercept command to get the reports of Luke’s escape from Coruscant.Luke leaned back in the seat, draping his neck over the shoulder-high back. He stared up at the ceiling before pushing away from the console unit and standing up. He got his height from Padmé. The suit and the prosthetics repairing his body added fifteen centimeters to Vader’s height, but he still would have loomed over Luke before them. A smile tugged at Vader’s lips as he watched the boy flop back on the bunk and stare up at the ceiling. The boy had no personal items beyond the clothes and the datapad in his duffel and no duties. Small wonder he was bored. But at least from his position on the bunk, Vader now saw his face. Luke’s pale skin had a healthy golden tan and his eyes were blue, the same blue he remembered on a different face.Oh Ani, Padmé’s voice went soft and wistful. He’s beautiful. We missed so much.Vader needed to find something to occupy the boy. He needed to tell him the truth. The optimism began to shatter. He didn’t want to think about Luke’s reaction to the truth: his father wasn’t dead. He was a monster, fused together by the life force Palpatine had stolen from Padmé. Both their essences tethered here thanks to Anakin’s ill-considered choices. No one would approve of that. He had to make the boy focus on the danger Palpatine posed. Palpatine knew about Luke, but the boy slipped out of his grasp twice. The Force was with him. Vader had never before been able to bring a Force user to his faction before; Sidious always found them first and drew them to his side. He would not get Luke.Luke wasn’t safe aboard the Death Star. Every officer Tarkin had in command was loyal only to Tarkin and by extension Palpatine. If any of them discovered who Luke truly was, or what the true task the Emperor’s Hand was sent to do, Luke was dead. Or imprisoned on the next shuttle to Coruscant for Palpatine’s pleasure. Or another Hand might arrive to finish Jade’s job. Tarkin refused to let Vader bring any of the 501st stormtroopers much less any of his Noghri honor guards to the battle station, and both groups took the command to remain on the Devastator sullenly. Vader couldn’t trust any of the stormtroopers stationed here to disobey a command from another Hand. Luke would be much safer back aboard the Devastator, surrounded by troopers and crew loyal to Vader, and Noghri as the last line of defense.The Devastator remaining docked with the Death Star did not insure Luke’s safety. Vader had to remain here until the damn plans were found or Palpatine gave him another assignment, but no one had said anything about Vader’s flagship. He would send them away with Luke aboard, rebel hunting. Tarkin may scowl if Vader told him the Force gave him a location, but he wouldn’t countermand the order. Not when it could find Tarkin a new planet to blow to atoms. Vader put aside the security feed to Luke’s quarters and called up an atlas of the galaxy.

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Chapter Thirteen

Luke stared up at the gray ceiling of his quarters. He had the urge to mark it with something: Luke Skywalker was here, remember Alderaan, a Tatooine proverb, or just the symbol of the unfettered. Did they even have any other paint colors stocked on board? He wouldn’t be surprised if the supplies only had the same unrelenting gray that was every surface he had seen on this battle station. Thinking about the unfettered made him remember how the chain shattered into shards of light in the dream and the girl who had been a slave proudly marching out of here.He had been trying not to think about it since he got abandoned in here again by everyone over a couple of hours ago. Something was different inside his mind, had been since the crazy dream with the Emperor’s Hand. He had a spot like a spike driven into his bedrock and wire spooled around the spike before extending out of him. That’s how he visualized it when he closed his eyes. It radiated energy that reminded him of her, the Emperor’s Hand, and how she felt in the dream: as warm and fragile as sand-glass and pain roaring from her like a krayt dragon. It was just as beautiful as her luminous form had been earlier and he still felt the need to comfort her. He wrapped his hand around the wire.The second he did that, he surged into another space and against another self. He wasn’t trying to flatten the other end but the girl was flailing against him like Madame Sandskimmer who always yelled and waved her arms against Luke’s driving through Anchorhead. She shoved and pushed and Luke released his grasp on the connection and retreated. Her voice followed him into his mind. Don’t do that! Shavit, the Emperor told me when he wanted to control my movement so I could relinquish. I’m trying to remain undetected here and you giving me spasms making me hit the wrong button won’t help!Luke shrank back further, completely contrite and completely confused. He hadn’t been trying to hurt her, hadn’t wanted to hurt her, and didn’t know how he had hurt her. And he was so tired of not knowing!
You haven’t had any training in anything. And I barely have any abilities worth training.
He felt the bitterness in his mouth like he had bit into chokonoseleh fruit. He suspected that was a lie the Emperor had told her, but how to talk to her about it like she was doing?
Telepathy works easiest between Force users and Force sensitives. It takes effort and concentration, but less effort than if you’re trying to send something to someone who isn’t a Force user. Form the words you want to say, speak out loud if that helps, and push the words into the connection between us.
His eyes were already closed, but he squeezed his eyelids tighter. “Hi, I’m sorry.” Then he shoved the words and just his words into the connection that still looked like a wire.He felt the words hit her like a blow and a headache began. Her mental voice shook a bit when she responded. Not so much effort. Kriff, you’re powerful.Powerful at what? He was careful to barely tap the words this time.The Force, what Vader used. Her words trailed away with her focus. He could see a heat mirage of a console that looked similar to the one he had sat in front of in these quarters. What are you doing? Luke used the same small tap on this question. It was getting easier and he stopped speaking out loud with it. I thought they were locking you up.
That’s what they think they did, and I’m looking for a way off this battle station before Vader decides to personally supervise my execution.
Luke didn’t bother with denying that possibility. She’d already be dead if Vader hadn’t stopped at his request. Obviously, he was someone whose safety Vader took personally even though he had no idea why. Hiding in the inbound-outbound traffic?That’s the idea, but there’s no traffic. The only ship that has docked was a freighter that flew into Alderaan space. They must have been in hyperspace when it happened. Her personal frustration mixed with a larger pain, the responsibility of the dead of Alderaan.It’s not your fault, Luke sent to her.I know what my culpabilities are, Farmboy. He was an excuse for her scorn; he recognized the target was herself. So spare me a lecture.
I’m not lecturing. Look, if I ever get to leave this place, you can sneak aboard my ship. I’ll help you.
Incredulousness overcame her scorn and it rolled over their connection to him. You’ll help me? I tried to kill you! The Emperor—and Luke felt overwhelmed by the bitter lancing of the man who had raised her, who she had believed in, who she had loved as a father had ended up betraying her so thoroughly—doesn’t care if I live.I care. He wished he could follow those words with a hug. He was glad she was still alive and had gotten away from the stormtroopers. Not everyone in the galaxy acts like a Hutt, but I can understand why you don’t believe that.She was a sandstorm of different emotions and pain. Her suspicion hammered at him. He maintained his compassion and sympathy like bedrock. The wind of suspicion died down. I don’t understand you. You don’t want anything.That’s not true. Right now I want answers. His heart squeezed and he rubbed his chest above it. I want to hear from Biggs.Her composure returned as she probed for a bargain, looking for the trade. Is that what you want me to do? Find this Biggs?He was headed to Alderaan when we split up. Luke took a deep breath and pushed aside his uncertainty. You don’t have to trade for my help. That’s not how it works.A banked favor to call in later? She was dubious over that scenario. Was that what you saved me for?
I didn’t want to see you die. I still don’t.

But I tried to kill you!

On the orders of your slave master, it wasn’t personal. Would you kill me now?
No. She puzzled over that admission. Your death profits me nothing.He missed his Aunt Beru. She had had a talent for explaining this stuff. She’d say what’s good for your inner self can’t be measured by profit. But the Emperor’s Hand was starting at the beginning. It’s a favor anyone can call in, a perfect stranger even. I just want to see you live your life in freedom.Her confusion was tinged with concern. Why do you want that? What do you get out of it?
Everyone deserves to live free without the threat of death or slavery and deserves to have a say in how they live. You didn’t have that, can’t you see the difference?
What does Vader want with you? The Court will rip you apart. There’s no way he can prevent that. Her concern was still there, but something stole her attention. Her alarm rippled rather than exploded.Luke tried to see what she saw. What is it? Did they find you?No, they’re on your floor. She chuckled as she relaxed. The connection between the two of them slackened with it. I can’t believe no one questioned her hairstyle.What? He didn’t get a chance to ask anything further as he heard two blaster bolts outside his door. He swung out of the bunk, but before he could dodge into the other room again a stormtrooper shoved in through the door before it fully opened. A tiny female in a black Imperial uniform was right on the white armored figure’s heels and a shaggy-furred bipedal alien towered over them both behind her. One last stormtrooper closed the door behind their group while Luke finally recognized the delighted smile between the brown hair coiled into buns over her ears. “Princess! You’re alive!” He forgot himself and actually wrapped his arms around her.She returned the hug just as tightly. “Are you all right?”He didn’t get a chance to answer her before the lead stormtrooper pulled off his helmet and Biggs squeezed him with armor-clad arms, muttering a prayer of thanks under his breath. He felt the icy pain around his heart break away and the melt found his eyes. “I didn’t know. They showed what they did to Alderaan and I didn’t know if you had made it there.” He thumped Biggs as hard as he could through the plate protecting his umakkar-upan’s back.“Just what did happen to Alderaan?” The last stormtrooper removed his helmet revealing a pale-skinned human male older than Luke and Biggs and taller than Luke. He raked his brown hair back with his gloved hand.“Captain Solo and Chewbacca,” Princess Leia said. “We chartered their ship.”Luke nodded and gestured at the viewscreen opposite the bunk. “They showed a blast from here, this Death Star, and it obliterated the whole planet.” His gaze fell on the Princess’ pale and drawn face. “I’m so sorry. The broadcast claimed that the planet was guilty of supporting the Rebel Alliance.” Then he remembered a detail that he hadn’t had a chance to ask the Emperor’s Hand. Hey, your orders? What did you mean?Bitterness still leaked over the lid she put on it. You figured it out. They were a sham to get me here to kill you. Destroying Alderaan was the intention of this weapon. He never wanted them to have any mercy.Did the Princess really need to know that the Emperor targeted her home world like that? Before Luke decided on a answer, Biggs pointed at the scorch mark on the bulkhead. “That’s a blaster mark. What happened?”“There was this girl,” he began.Biggs’ grin flashed his white teeth. “I knew we just had to get you off Tatooine!”“Not like that,” Luke groaned. “The Emperor sent her here to kill me. I made her miss.”“The security record said Lord Vader intervened.” Princess Leia frowned. “What did he do?”“He stopped her from getting another shot off. And then it got weird.”“But why does he want you?” Biggs interrupted.“I don’t know. He hasn’t told me anything.” Luke looked back at the Princess. “You still have the ship?”She nodded. “General Kenobi is disabling the tractor beam so we can leave.”Luke reached out again. They have a way off. Where are you? We can get you too.Her shock rocked their connection. What?
Come with us!
Her shock was giving way to dismay and suspicion. Your friends won’t trust me and I can’t blame them. Something distracted her focus and she had to suppress her alarm. Guard shift change. They’re headed to your location. Go, Skywalker, I can take care of myself.Her alarm triggered his. “We gotta go before the next guards get here.”“The kaprito makes sense.” Solo replaced his helmet and opened the door. “Let’s go.”Chewbacca bent down in the corridor and relieved one of the dead guards of his E-11 blaster rifle with a quiet chuff. Luke liberated the other one’s blaster and belt. He felt less useless with a weapon of his own.That pause cost them. Two stormtroopers appeared at the end of the corridor nearest the turbolifts, yelled, and ran toward their group.Solo and Chewbacca fired at them, dropping both stormtroopers to the ground. “They raised the alarm,” Leia exclaimed. “Move it!” She led the run down the corridor in the opposite direction.The comlinks in the stormtrooper helmets were coming in handy, Biggs recognized, as the orders sent out to all the troops stationed in this section let them duck into a different corridor and avoid their pursuers. That intel was almost worth how you could barely see through the damn lenses. They ducked into a gray side corridor and panted heavily as they waited for the turbolift lobby to clear out. The latest car arrival disgorged six or so stormtroopers who marched away. Luckily, no one headed into the corridor they were huddled in now. With more luck, they’d find a turbolift heading horizontally back toward the hangar bay.Leia winced as she leaned against the wall, lifting one foot off the floor before the other. Luke noticed. “You okay?”“I hadn’t planned on running in these boots,” she said with a wry twist of her lips. She put both feet on the floor. “I think we can try subtlety now.”Solo yanked off his helmet and glared down at her. “How do you figure that?” Chewbacca added an under his breath growl to his captain’s words.“We lost the pursuers. You and Biggs can escort the prisoner Chewbacca through any new patrols. I’ll be giving Luke a tour and then we’ll meet back at the hangar, without people shooting at us.”Biggs lifted his helmet off. He was getting sweaty under it. “They’ve been giving a description of our group with a rampaging Wookiee.” Chewbacca’s whine was angry. “Don’t blame me if they don’t know the difference,” he added.“The rampaging Wookiee can be another Wookiee,” Luke suggested.“Stormtroopers won’t care as long as you talk fast and keep moving,” Leia said.Solo bristled. “Are you telling me how to con someone now? Seriously? A Core World Princess?” He turned in disgust and whirled into the main corridor. He froze as a group of six stormtroopers rounded the corner they had cleared before hiding. The stormtroopers and Han both froze in shock, but Han recovered first. He drew his blaster and fired, hitting one stormtrooper dead in the chest so hard, the armored figured flew back. He yelled and charged the rest of the group. They all turned and ran. “Get back to the ship!” Han yelled back.Chewbacca howled and took off after his captain.“Where are you two going?” Leia nearly screamed after them.Luke turned to Biggs and the Princess. “That was brave.”“What good will it do us if he gets himself killed?” Leia pursed her lips and took the lead. “Come on.” She hurried into the now empty turbolift lobby as a klaxon sounded down the corridor.Biggs put the helmet back on, but the comlink was nothing but static now. He pulled it back off and tossed it onto the floor. “They shut off the comlink so no more knowing what they’re doing.”“Great,” Leia said. Marching feet echoed from another corridor leading in their direction. They jumped into the first open turbolift car. Luke hit the controls and the car dropped.

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Chapter Fourteen

Chewbacca loped after Han’s reckless run. Foolish human male, trying to impress the young female padawan. If they all survived this, he would need to explain that Jedi don’t mate. Han had been a cub when the Purge destroyed almost all the Jedi. Small wonder he didn’t remember things everyone used to know about the Order. The running footsteps and blaster shots turned down a smaller hallway, one still tall enough for a Wookiee to fit through but narrower for less traffic. He kicked a fallen stormtrooper out of his way. He paused and tilted his head to the side. Something ahead sounded different, but the sounds echoed oddly off the metal plates this Death Star was made of. He raised the blaster rifle wishing his trusty bowcaster wasn’t locked away on the Falcon. At least the Imperials couldn’t find it in that hidden storage locker.Han tore around the corner of the hallway, firing wildly behind him. More blaster bolts answered, hitting the walls and ceiling. Han never slowed down. The stormtrooper boots he had on over his shoes had good traction, enabling Han’s speed. Chewbacca heard even more boots running towards them now. He fired blindly, not wanting to wait for actual targets, but a cry and a fall told him he had gotten one of them. Then he turned after Han. His long legs made up the difference in speed, so he reached the recipient of his life debt without difficulty. They turned and fired down the corridor. None of those blasts hit any stormtroopers.Chewbacca followed his human partner as they turned into a corridor that led toward the hangar bay. The stormtroopers had a surge of speed behind them and fired. The bolts missed, but Chewie’s keen ears heard a voice behind a speaker in the helmet call out “Close the blast doors!”Ahead of them, the thick blast doors that separated the hangar bay area from the rest of the station were slowly sliding closed forming a diamond of space. Han jumped though and whirled back around as Chewbacca followed him. He fired, hit a couple of the stormtroopers, and caused the rest to instinctively skid to a stop. Chewbacca had time to aim and hit another stormtrooper before the blast doors sealed.Han heaved in air that he let out in a sarcastic bark. “Get through that, bucketheads! Come on, Chewie. Let’s find a place where I can shed this.” He rapped his fist against the chest plate of the stolen stormtrooper armor. “And get back to the Falcon.” He jogged down to the next intersection and Chewbacca followed closely.Leia glanced at the turbolift controls after Luke had pressed the buttons. “We’re heading down! We need to go across.”“Down first,” Luke said in a distracted tone. Biggs looked sharply at his best friend and storm-brother. Luke’s expression was not focused on the control panel. It didn’t look like he was focused on anything in the turbolift car. “They aren’t expecting us to go down and we can get on the other side.”Leia’s brown eyes turned to Biggs and she bit her lip. “Other side, Luke?” He asked as he set his gloved hand on Luke’s shoulder.Luke blinked and turned to Biggs. “The structure, maintenance access; they have less security holocams in there. We can cut across that way.”“One of your hunches?” Biggs asked. Luke usually didn’t look that distant when he was getting one of those.Luke’s lips twisted wryly. “Related, I think. I’ll explain later.” The turbolift came to a smooth stop and the doors opened onto an empty lobby. They exited with blasters ready, but no stormtroopers nor blaring alarms greeted them. Biggs let out a sigh of relief and saw the other two do the same. “I saw a schematic,” Luke said. “This way.”The corridor looked the same as all the others. Biggs wondered if they passed out maps on datapads like they had at the Academy, because he really couldn’t see how anyone stationed here knew where they were or where they were going. Unless the lights emitting from the vertical slits on the wall were a code giving directions because there were no signs posted anywhere.Leia huffed. “They let you see schematics?” She asked Luke.“I saw some for this section. I don’t think they wanted me to see them.”Biggs frowned. Luke had never been much of a slicer, not that the computers on Tatooine were as advanced as what the Empire used. “You didn’t have anything else to do so you practiced slicing?”“Yeah, I practiced. It wasn’t locked down real tight.” Luke’s voice was distracted again. This was weird, even for Luke, Biggs thought. The other kids around Anchorhead had always found Luke weird and had given him an awful nickname based on wermo, but Biggs had never cared. Luke’s hunches had saved their skins more than once. But he didn’t act like this when one of his hunches happened; he got more alert when he sensed something bad was about to happen.Leia shook her head. “Let’s double check the route.” She raised her hand-held comlink to her mouth. “Threepio, do you copy?” Silence was the only response. “Threepio, come in.” The droid still didn’t answer. “Where could he be?”Biggs shook his head at her worried expression. They hadn’t given the droid any instructions on what to do with the comlink when they left. He had figured Leia already had a procedure worked out with her droids. “We have to keep moving, before they spot us on the security monitors.” She nodded and Luke ended up in the lead. They followed him down a corridor that didn’t look any different from all the other corridors they had traveled down.The explosion rocked the control room and the two droids in the supply closet. Their auditory sensors still heard the stormtroopers rush into the empty space and the orders given. “See to him.”Threepio tilted his upper body as much as he was able in the supply closet so his photoreceptors focused on his counterpart. “Leave the talking to me, Artoo.” He said in a tone unable to be heard by organic auditory processors. He straightened and tapped his fingers against the door. He knocked twice before the door slid open and four armed stormtroopers had their blasters aimed at them. He raised his hands as he stepped into the office. Artoo’s third wheel descended and he rolled out behind him. “They’re madmen!” Threepio addressed the stormtroopers. “They’re heading for the prison level, ranting about freeing all the prisoners. If you hurry, you might catch them.”The stormtroopers relaxed their aim and returned their attention to the officer in charge. “Follow me,” he ordered before singling one of the three. “You stand guard here.” The officer in charge and the other two left the control room in a quick jog. The remaining one stood in the blown-out doorway where he could look down the hall and into the control room.Threepio slipped the hand-held comlink off the console desk and into his metal hand. The stormtroopers hadn’t noticed his mistake. Luckily, Threepio had the presence of logic functions computer to shut it off when the Imperials approached the control room door an hour and forty-five minutes after the Princess and her companions left on their rescue errand. “Come on,” he said quietly to Artoo.The guard aimed his blaster at them when they approached.“Oh!” Threepio took a step back. “All this excitement has overrun the circuits of my counterpart here. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take him down to maintenance.”The helmet moved slightly, looking down at Artoo and then back up at Threepio. He pulled his blaster back against his chest and stepped out of their way. “All right.”The droids hurried out the door, down the corridor, and ended up looking into the hangar bay and at the ship. The bay was not under observation, but it was also missing the organics that belonged with the droids. They crept along the hangar bay walls and stopped at a data socket in the wall. It was partially hidden by cargo crates, which would help hide the droids. Not that organics really paid attention to what droids were doing in Threepio’s experience. The stormtroopers leaving the freighter did not glance in their direction were a timely example. But now he was free to share his observations with Artoo. “They aren’t here! Something must have happened to them. See if they’ve been captured.”{All right, I will check the alarms,} Artoo said in Binary. His computer interface link inserted into the socket and they both began rotating. {All the alarms are telling security to apprehend them, and there have been sightings on two different levels.}“Thank goodness, they haven’t found them! Where could they be?”{Comm and ask them. Oh, I think the Imperials are changing orders.}“Comm and ask them? Oh, my! I forgot I turned it off.” Threepio quickly activated the comlink and raised it to his vocabulator that resembled the mouth of a humanoid organic. “Are you there, your Highness?”Luke stopped at a door and it slid open without needing a code. The tube-like room was sectioned into an airlock with an already-open inner door and the bigger section had double rows of ship bunks installed in the walls along with storage compartments. There was room for eight people to bunk here but the storage compartments were empty. The room ended in a blank wall.“Are we in the barracks?” Leia asked.Luke shook his head. “It’s some sort of life pod in case of atmosphere loss. But if we can get through this wall.” His broad hands flattened on the dark gray rear wall. “We’ll be in the unoccupied portion of the station.”Biggs got closer looking for a seam they could pry apart. There didn’t appear to be one. “How are we gonna do that? This belt doesn’t have a fusioncutter packed in a pouch.”Leia gasped, unfastened her uniform jacket, and slid her hand inside near her waist. She pulled out the silver cylinder that old Ben had her practice with during the trip. “Get behind me.”Biggs pulled Luke back so Leia had room to activate the weapon. The blue plasma blade extended from the hilt with a snap-hiss. “What is that?” Luke asked.“A lightsaber,” Biggs answered because Leia was focused on the wall and the weapon. “Old Ben is a Jedi who fought in the Clone Wars.”“A Jedi?” Luke’s blue eyes widened.Leia held the hilt with both hands and drove the plasma blade into the metal at her chest height. The durasteel melted around the point of contact leaving a fiery trail as she pushed the hilt down along the wall. “This plate is thick,” she said over the sound. “There better be air on the other side.”Luke squeezed his eyes shut before he spoke. “What I saw didn’t say anything about maintenance workers needing space suits.”“You got a hole in it already. We’d be losing atmosphere already if it opened into the vacuum.” Biggs’ smirk shifted to a smile when she tossed him a dirty look.She knelt on the floor and shoved the lightsaber across the wall until it was wide enough for a doorway. She let go of the hilt and the blue-white blade shut off. Without her hands on it, the hilt fell to the floor. She left it there while she sat up and shook her arms. Luke crouched next to her. “Need a break?”“I need more practice, but it’s yours.” She plucked it off the floor and handed it to Luke. “General Kenobi said it belonged to your father.”“My father?” Luke looked skeptically at the silver hilt. “He was a navigator on a spice freighter.”Biggs grimaced. “They lied to us, Luke, your aunt and uncle and old Ben, to everybody on Tatooine. That’s why your genetic sample set off the Empire’s alarms.”Leia set her hand on Luke’s shoulder. “They had good reason to lie. The Empire destroyed the Jedi.”“That makes sense out of the only thing Vader told me.” Luke shrugged. He turned the lightsaber on again and waved it slightly in the air. “Let’s get back to the ship.” He stabbed the blade into the molten metal where Leia quit cutting and began pulling it up. Biggs took over when Luke reached as far as he could. How the lightsaber cut through the durasteel was unlike any fusioncutter Biggs had ever used. It didn’t weigh much, but it wanted to spin in his hands like a gyroscope. No wonder Leia and Luke tired out while pulling it through the durasteel. The door was taller than Leia; Luke and he would have to duck, but not too far.The cuts connected and Biggs handed the lightsaber hilt to Luke. The panel hadn’t budged. “Stand back.” Biggs heaved his shoulder into the center. It shifted away from the rest of the panel. He rammed into it again but there was something blocking it from falling flat on the other side. “Something’s in the way.” The edges were still too hot to risk fingers to get a hold to pull it. “Now what?”

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Chapter Fifteen

Luke stared at the free piece of metal that Biggs couldn’t shift. Vader had moved the bookcase and lifted the Emperor’s Hand without touching either one. And the Emperor’s Hand had said he was strong in the Force.Leia’s shoulders slumped. “Maybe if we cut it in half? Or if we could find a handle to pull it in?”Biggs dug into the pouches of his armor’s belt.Luke closed his eyes, letting their voices recede from his awareness. He pictured the metal rectangle with glowing edges. It was loose, it just needed to move to the right and get out of their way. He stretched out his hand. His fingers slid into the cut and there was no pain from the heat across his palm. He shoved.The scrape of metal filled the room. Leia and Biggs’ voices fell silent. The left gap was wider, but they could only fit an arm through. Luke gritted his teeth and shoved as hard as he could.The panel jerked as it slid like a door off its tracks. But it finally moved over so it no longer blocked the hole. His body trembled with exhaustion and his teeth ached from clenching them. He opened his eyes.His left arm was stretched out and pointed to the hole in the wall half-a-meter away. Biggs had his back against the bunks giving Luke clear access to the hole. “Luke?” His brown eyes were blown wide. Leia’s astonishment hammered at Luke too. He dropped his arm and tried to swallow through his suddenly tight throat. Was that fear in Biggs? He couldn’t tell beyond his own. He didn’t want these powers or the truth about his father if Biggs was afraid of him.Biggs grinned with a glee Luke hadn’t seen in him for a while. The ends of his mustache curled up as his white teeth gleamed and his eyelids crinkled around his eyes. “That is amazing! Remember how hard it was to get that airfoil section out of the canyon wall? If you could’ve yanked it free from a distance,” he broke off to laugh. “Can you do it again?”“I think so.” Luke felt giddy with the relief. “But I probably can’t do it soon. It feels like a lifted something heavier than that.”“Rest up,” Leia said. She stepped up to the hole. A small girder between the room they were in and another piece of machinery is what kept the metal in place. They could climb over it and onto the machine behind it, but Luke couldn’t decide what kind of engine it was with what he could see of it. Leia leaned out further in the darkness. “They didn’t waste any illumination in here.”“I think I’ve got a glow rod.” Biggs searched his belt again.Leia’s comlink chimed. “Princess Leia? Are you there?”She jerked back inside the room and raised it to her lips in the same fluid movement. “Threepio!”“We’ve had some problems. We had to abandon the control room, your Highness. But Artoo still has access to the computer systems.”“Where are you?”“We’re in the main hangar across from the ship.”Leia sighed. “I’m not sure what level we got off on. We’re trying to access the maintenance areas.”Artoo’s whistle carried over the comlink. “Artoo has found you, but you are four levels below the gantry that you were attempting to access.”Biggs freed a small glow rod from his belt and leaned out the hole. “I see it. We can climb up this crane to reach it.” He aimed the light beam at the engine the hole faced.“Can we get back to the hangar from that gantry?” Leia asked.“It will bring you to a sector that is not being patrolled for your presence.”“Great, stay put. We’ll be there shortly.” Leia closed the comm.“They left a crane inside?” Luke asked.“Guess the Empire had more cranes.” Biggs tossed him the glow rod. “I gotta abandon the armor. No way I can climb in it.” He passed the belt and rifle to Luke before unlatching the chest plate.Leia took the glow rod next and peered up into the darkness of the Death Star’s interior with its help. “That is a long way to climb.”“But easy-to-grip hand and footholds uniformly placed,” Biggs said as he chunked the gauntlets into a bunk. “Jawas could scale that with no trouble.”Luke scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t think she’s done as much rock scaling as we have, Biggs.” Both of them looked at the uncomfortable Princess in the baggy Imperial uniform.“I went climbing once,” she retorted. “On a dare. I didn’t care for it and my mother.” A sudden spasm of grief interrupted her, and she stumbled to a stop. Breathing deeply and closing her eyes, she resumed. “My mother didn’t want me to have an accident and fall.”“Think you can lift her up there?” Biggs asked Luke.“No,” Luke answered quickly. Leia weighed more than that piece of durasteel. Not that he was about to say that part out loud. He looked down at the stormtrooper belt. “You’ve got a grapple hook and wire. We’ll tie ourselves together.”Leia looked dubiously at the wire as Luke unspooled it. “That looks more likely to cut someone in half than to stop them from falling.”“We’ll secure it to your belt.” Leia lifted her arms and Luke felt his face heat as he realized she’d done that for him to tie it to the belt cinching the jacket. That must mean she didn’t consider it inappropriate to touch her for this, but he still moved as fast as he could to knot the wire around her belt on her left and right sides. “I’ll take the lead; you’ll take the rear.”Biggs nodded and pulled off the second armored boot. “Better for me to catch you two than the other way around.” He stood up and caught the belt Luke threw to him.Luke tied the beginning of the wire to his belt on both his sides, hanging the slack between the two knots behind his back, like he did for Leia. Biggs secured the wire to the stormtrooper belt before buckling it on. Luke stowed the glow rod into his belt pouch before heading to the hole. The near interior was lit from the illumination spilling from their hole and was blocked by them and the crane from extending very far. Luke clambered over the waist-high girder, dropped on the platform the crane was set on, and turned to help Leia. Biggs didn’t have any hesitation seizing her waist and lifting her. Luke fought his blush with a grimace as he grabbed her legs, glad the Emperor’s Hand was quiet in his head. He really didn’t want to explain his reflexive jealousy of Biggs’ self-assured ease.A fence of girders barricaded the crane from the machinery behind it but it was as tall as Biggs, so they walked under it to reach the crane’s central pivot. The droid brain that controlled the movements was missing, probably moved to another crane in another section of the battle station. Or maybe maintenance had it stored away from the machine until they needed to use a crane. The arm was pointed up at an angle just a little past ninety degrees and the light on the gantry above them showed the arm met it about halfway up.Luke jumped up and grabbed the upper ledge of the base. Without asking, Biggs moved under him and boosted. “Thanks,” Luke said as he used it to scramble on top. He grabbed Leia’s arms and pulled her from Biggs’ lift. They both pulled Biggs up.Leia looked up at the arm. “It’s shaped more like a ladder.”“Yeah, nothing to worry about. Just follow Luke’s lead,” Biggs said.The boom was made up of three main beams shaped into a triangle by the supporting crossbeams. The point of boom pointed down into the dark abyss, so the side they could climb looked like a steep ladder. Luke took a deep breath and mounted the short bit extending out of the central pivot. He took care not to set too fast of a pace and focused on reaching for the crossbeam rungs and not the distance between them and the machinery below. It must be something connected to the huge air tanks the crane was next to.He glanced past his feet and saw Leia’s determined frown. Just a few more meters. The angle wasn’t enough to fatigue his arms and legs, which was good when he reached the gantry. He lodged his boot heels against the rung and reached above his head. His hands curled around the edge of the gantry. Now he was glad for his slight frame and short height, it meant less to have to pull up over the edge of the platform. He paused to breathe once his waist bent over the edge, and then rolled his lower half onto the gantry. He lay on his back and blinked at the ceiling lost in the darkness above the tanks.“I can’t reach.” Leia said and the cavernous area made her voice tiny.Luke rolled over again, looking over the gantry edge. Leia stood in the same spot he had, but her fingers fell centimeters short of brushing the gantry. Biggs grabbed her calves as she wobbled. Luke extended his arms. “Grab hold.”She latched onto his forearms and he pulled her up. Biggs soon joined them. They knelt on the smooth metal gantry, recovering their breaths, and untying themselves. Leia climbed to her feet first. “Come on. Let’s get back to the ship before that crazy Corellian takes off without us.”Vader seethed as the power cords finally released him, his helmet sealed in place, and the meditation chamber split apart three and a half hours since the process began. Damn Obi-Wan to all the Corellian hells, he sent his padawan after Luke! Luke had no fear of the badly disguised Princess nor of the man who had embraced him, so of course he left with them. Probably headed straight back to the beat-up freighter for a chance to flee. Why would the boy bother to stay? Vader hadn’t given him a reason to stay. He had let the opportunity to say anything slip through his prosthetic fingers thanks to the fear of the Emperor’s former Hand overhearing what she shouldn’t and the fear that Luke would reject him.There was still a chance to fix this. He would intercept them in the hangar bay, stop the freighter from leaving, and prevent Obi-Wan from turning his son against him. He was even inclined to spare the young ones—along with the rebel Princess—for the loyalty they showed Luke. If his son chose Vader, he could be magnanimous. And sparing them would irritate Tarkin to no end. He glanced at the security feeds now routed to his desk again. The saboteurs had split up into two groups. Actually three, but Obi-Wan had skills that hid him from the majority of their security forces. He’d deal with his former Master after Luke.The comlink embedded in his helmet chimed for attention before he stepped into the corridor outside his rooms. He answered it, on the off chance that security was contacting him directly about the rebel operatives running loose on the Death Star. “Vader.”But it was Tarkin. “Report to the Overbridge once you are available, Lord Vader.”“After I have apprehended the rebel operatives.”“No, now,” Tarkin replied. “We have another plan for them.”Vader’s step faltered as his mind summoned the possibilities Tarkin could decide for the band in the small freighter. Letting them gather in the hangar, sealing the airlock blast doors, opening the atmospheric shields before they reached the safety of the freighter. His imagination conjured Luke’s form ejected into the vacuum of space, but it was only his fatalistic imagination. The Force didn’t offer any certainty.Padmé’s voice sounded strangled. We can’t let that happen, Anakin. Please, our son, Bail’s daughter, Tarkin cannot kill them! Please, Anakin.I will not let that happen, my angel. The best way to make sure Tarkin hadn’t planned something horrendous was to be there in person to stop it. “As you wish,” he growled into the comlink and changed his stride to march to the Overbridge. Tarkin would not kill his son; Vader would kill the Grand Moff before that.The Overbridge had a subdued hum of activity, but fewer officers and technicians than had been here during the firing. The vibroblade-sharp man didn’t turn from the viewscreen that still showed the rocky remains of Alderaan. Vader snarled to himself as he crossed the space. He felt the technicians’ fearful concentration trying to ignore their superiors, and the same thing from the officers only not taking as much effort. He stopped next to Tarkin.“Ah, there you are, Vader. Kept up with the security reports during your respite?” Tarkin didn’t bother turning his head to look at Vader.“I can capture all of them without losing any more of the troops, with your leave.” Vader gritted his teeth. Being under this egotist’s command was quickly reaching the end of Vader’s patience.Tarkin’s lips twitched. “That won’t be necessary. We’re letting them go.” His gray eyes landed on a technician at the security console.The technician swallowed hard. “The signal from the homing beacon is still strong, Grand Moff Tarkin, but they haven’t returned to the hangar bay and activated the ship yet.”“It shan’t be long now.” Tarkin turned to Vader. “We’ll let the Princess of Alderaan and her compatriots scamper back to the Rebel Alliance base and destroy them all at once.”The respirator continued Vader’s breathing even though it felt like what was left of his lungs froze. Luke was heading to that rebel base as well. “They have a Jedi with them.” Let me hunt him, he refused to snarl at Tarkin. Give me a chance to warn my son from this course of action.“Do you really think the power of the Force can spare him from the power of this battle station?” Tarkin waved a hand at the viewscreen. His thin lips curled upwards. “I know it is your primary purpose, Lord Vader, but let them go. Let the Rebels hope that a Jedi will save them all before we obliterate their existence. After that, no one will oppose the Emperor’s will.”“As you wish,” Vader seethed, but the voice modulator stripped away the anger. The Force whispered under his anger; something else was in play here and now.Obi-Wan was always a game-changer in the Clone Wars, Padmé reminded him. How many times did his arrival change the course of a battle and save you?
As many times as I saved him the same way. What of it?
The Rebel Alliance has Obi-Wan. They have plans for the battle station. You have a duty to protect your men and the Noghri from Tarkin’s folly. Padmé was still relentless over duty. We cannot lose anyone and successfully challenge Palpatine. And if Obi-Wan wants to continue to protect Luke, let him.
Our son!
Padmé’s voice turned gentle. Obi-Wan doesn’t know about our troops to protect them, Ani. You’re the only one who can do that.She was still right, as much as it pained what was left of his heart to let Obi-Wan steal his son again. Tarkin and the others depended far too heavily on this technological marvel. Obi-Wan the game-changer would shift the slip face of the dune to swallow the battle station without a trace. Vader’s duty also included his men and the Noghri; they needed protection from Tarkin’s downfall and Rebel reprisals. Vader folded his arms above his life support control panel. “The Devastator should remain in the Alderaan system to apprehend any more dissenters.”Tarkin’s eyebrow rose. “Under your supervision?”“The task is within Captain Wermis’ capabilities. I will remain here.”Tarkin’s second eyebrow joined the other, not bothering to hide his surprise at the first complimentary thing Vader had ever said about the captain in charge of the Devastator. Vader did not comment on Tarkin’s surprise, not when he had spoken the truth about Palpatine’s cowardly lackey. Tarkin finally shrugged and waved a hand at the comm unit console. “Send the orders. There may be more incoming Rebel traffic.” He turned back to the viewscreen. Vader dropped his arms and strode to the comm unit.

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Chapter Sixteen

Han and Chewie rounded the corner in the corridor at a jog. The old man was waiting at the doorway into the larger hangar bay with his lightsaber hilt in hand. The spitfire—Leia—and the two boys were nowhere in sight. Kenobi dropped his arm so the lightsaber hilt pointed to the floor. “Where are the others?” The jovial tone evaporated from his voice, leaving behind something as dangerous as Chewie.Han’s hands jerked up in surrender without him even thinking about it. “We ran into some old friends and had to split up.”“Split up?” Kenobi’s eyes flashed. “Vader’s on this battle station. If he finds them—”It had seemed like a good idea at the time to distract the forces looking for them. But they were a bunch of law-abiding kids, did they really understand how to avoid Imperial entanglements? Han lowered his hands with a worried frown. Kenobi sure didn’t think so.Kenobi breathed deeply. “Why did you leave?”{The Princess insisted,} Chewie said with a growl.“She insisted?” Kenobi demanded. Han looked up at his first mate. “Did I or did I not tell her he wouldn’t like it?” Chewie growled his agreement, but it didn’t ease Han’s emerging guilt. Everybody kept talking about this Vader person; what if he was chasing the spitfire and the privileli to get the kaprito back?“Sithspit,” Kenobi muttered. “She is her mother’s daughter.”Before Han could figure out what the old man meant by that, running echoed down the corridor. The three of them rounded the corner, Leia and Biggs flanking Luke. “General Kenobi, please—” she began.Biggs interrupted her as he slung his right arm around Luke’s shoulders. “Look who we found, Ben!” He had ditched his stormtrooper armor while running as well.Kenobi’s face softened, but his blue eyes still crinkled with worry. “Luke, are you all right?”“One piece, but very confused,” the blond kaprito said with relief.“We can trade stories after we get out of here,” Han pointed out. “Is the tractor beam out of commission or this will be a real short trip?”Kenobi nodded. “It is.” They hurried into the hangar bay, Han and Chewie took the lead and Kenobi the rear. The pair of droids emerged from behind a stack of crates and Leia waved at them to hurry to the Falcon’s entry ramp. Luke stopped short. “What a piece of junk!”Kenobi prodded the kaprito before Han snapped at him in defense of his ship. “We should go now, quickly.” Han charged into the cockpit right behind Chewie and threw himself into the pilot’s seat. Surprisingly, the princess and Kenobi claimed the other two seats in the cockpit. Han ignored them as he ignited the sublight engines. Nothing grabbed them as the ship slid out of the hangar bay’s opening. But they still had to gain some distance from the Alderaan system’s other planetary bodies and their gravitational pulls and give the nav computer time to calculate. He twisted back to the side console behind his seat and reached over Leia, still dressed in her stolen uniform. “Where are we going now?”“Yavin 4.” Her brown eyes gazed at him somberly as he punched in the destination and turned back to the cockpit viewport. The proximity alarm began blaring. “We’re coming up on the sentry ships,” Han told Chewie. “Hold ‘em off! Angle the deflector shields while I charge up the main guns.” He hurried out of the cockpit, and glanced into the main hold. Biggs and Luke were strapped in at the dejarik table. “Come on, we’re not out of this yet. I need you two on the quad guns.”The younger men loosened their acceleration restraints and ran after him. Han hit the charge code on the buttons next to the ladder leading to the dorsal and ventral quad-lasers. The Falcon shook around them as its shield repelled turbolaser bolts. Biggs grabbed the ladder and climbed up. Han looked at the kaprito. “You can shoot one of these?”“I can shoot anything,” Luke said scornfully. “I’m from Tatooine.” He grabbed the ladder and headed down.Han probably deserved that scorn. Everything on Tatooine wanted to kill you, even things that didn’t look dangerous. He shook his head and returned to the cockpit. “You two in?” He said into the intercom. Biggs and Luke declared they were. “Okay, stay sharp!”{Four TIE fighters}, Chewbacca barked as he increased the speed.“Here they come!” Leia called out. The four snub-fighters raced straight at the Falcon before splitting into pairs going left and right.The quad guns spat out laser fire as green laser bolts hit the Falcon’s shield giving the black space beyond the viewport a glow. The TIE fighters swung around the ship again. “They’re coming in too fast!” Luke yelled over the intercom.The Falcon shuddered again and alarms wailed in the cockpit. Han clenched his teeth as he rerouted power to the shields and sublights.“Fierfek,” Biggs muttered, probably to himself.Another volley of laser bolts hit the Falcon, the last one hitting close enough to the cockpit to light it up through the viewport. Chewie barked an expletive at the Imperial fighters.Something exploded inside the corridors. An alarm blared at the nav station next to Leia’s seat. “We’ve lost lateral controls,” she informed them.Han confirmed it on the pilot’s dash. “Don’t worry, she’ll hold together.” He patted the console in front of him. You hear me, baby? Hold together. He made a hard right swoop, but the TIE fighters matched it.The laser cannons spit out more bolts and the concussive force of an explosion rocked the Falcon. Biggs laughed victoriously. “One down.”Another explosion rocked them from underneath but none of the alarms screamed that they had been hit. “Got him!” Luke yelled. “I got him!”“Great, don’t get cocky,” Han told them both. “There’s still two more of them out there.”Chewie rumbled, {Only two? They have had time to send more.}“I ain’t complainin’ about that,” Han told him. Maybe it took longer to launch TIE fighters from that battle station than it did from Star Destroyers. He aimed the front of the Falcon at one, but it dove underneath and right into fire from the dorsal canon. The last one was behind them according to the transponder code before another explosion rocked and their code signature disappeared. Biggs let out a whooping sigh.“That’s it! We did it!” Luke yelled.Leia glanced at another alarm near her elbow. “The coordinates are ready!”Han punched them in and pulled the lever, finally leaning back with a sigh as the starlines shifted to the clouds of hyperspace.Leia slumped back in her seat. Threepio’s voice carried through the corridors of the ship. “Help! I think I’m melting! This is all your fault.” Artoo beeped in response.Chewbacca climbed to his feet growling about checking for damages and pulling the droids free of whatever before permanent damage set in. Captain Solo tugged off his tan leather gloves as he turned his seat and looked in her and General Kenobi’s direction. “Not a bad bit of rescuing, huh? You know, sometimes I even amaze myself.”“That doesn’t sound too hard,” Leia said dryly. He twisted to face her completely but she continued before his wounded angry glare became words. “They let us go. It’s the only explanation for the ease of our escape.”“Easy?!” His voice exclaimed, but his eyebrows were drawn down as if he was seriously considering her words. “You call that easy?”How could someone who operated in the Fringe be this dense? “They’re tracking us.”He was breathing harder now, but added a smirk to his lips. “Not this ship, sweetheart.”General Kenobi stopped pulling on his beard with a sigh. “Protesting won’t change the fact that the Imperials let us go. They had the capabilities to swarm us and yet chose not to. Have you ever known them to show such restraint?”Han’s scowl deepened. “We can drop out of hyperspace and ditch the homing beacon after we find it.”Leia shook her head. “They’ll just target another civilian system like they did Alderaan.” Her throat tightened. “The Alliance has to stop that battle station. Artoo has the technical readouts; your fast ship will give us enough time to analyze them for a weakness.” She confirmed it on the nav computer. “We should reach Yavin 4 in a little over an hour and a half.”Han looked at her, but his scowl had shifted to consternated admiration. “I’m never gambling with you, your Worshipfulness.”“A wise sentiment,” General Kenobi said as he stood. “For now, it is time to hear Luke’s tale.” For the first time, he moved as stiffly as his hair and beard suggested his age was. Leia trailed after him, dimly aware that Captain Solo followed them both. What Luke had let slip when they had rescued him didn’t match any of the rumors she had heard about Darth Vader.Luke and Biggs were in the main hold, the taller, darker man holding Threepio steady while the blond went over the droid’s diagnostics. “You didn’t fry anything, but I’m sure that didn’t feel good. You should probably stay strapped in during a space fight. Sit and power down until everything stabilizes.”“Yes, I do agree with that assessment, Master Skywalker.” Biggs and Luke maneuvered the humanoid droid to the dejarik table and helped him sit on the end of the curved bench. “Just reactivate me should you need my services.”General Kenobi sat down on the stool where he had watched her lightsaber practice earlier. “Luke, my boy, what happened to you once Vader took you prisoner? What did he tell you?”“Not much of anything.” Luke collapsed onto the other end of the curved bench. “He wanted the Princess on Tantive IV; he was shocked to find me surrendering instead.” He glanced at Biggs who leaned against the engineering console with folded arms and then his gaze found Leia hovering at the corridor opening. “The captain and I told him you sent the ship to take me home while you figured out what went wrong with my enlistment.”Leia nodded, that was the only logical story he and Captain Antilles could have come up with. General Kenobi leaned forward, planting his hands on his thighs. “Vader didn’t lock you in the brig, Luke. Did he give you a reason why?”“No,” Luke shook his head. “He asked me who raised me and did I know who my parents were, told me Uncle Owen was creative with the truth, and had me put into a cabin on the Star Destroyer and then officer’s quarters on the battle station.”“He never explained anything?” Biggs’ eyebrows clenched over his brown eyes.“Nobody has, really. Well, the Emperor’s Hand said the Emperor didn’t want Vader to have me before she tried to shoot me again. Does that count?” A frustrated exhale lifted Luke’s bangs from his forehead. “Vader said to never trust the Emperor when the Hand was dying and said I was strong in the Force. That’s the last time I saw him.” General Kenobi exhaled a tension that Leia hadn’t realized had gripped him so tightly. Before she could ask what had the Jedi General so worried, Luke removed the lightsaber from his belt and held it out. “My father was a Jedi?”“Yes, Luke, he was. We fought together in the Clone Wars. Anakin was the best star-pilot in the galaxy, a cunning warrior, and a good friend. After the Purge and with the Empire hunting Jedi, your uncle and aunt decided you would be safer not knowing.” General Kenobi tugged on his beard as he nodded at the lightsaber. “I should have brought you that and the truth after Owen and Beru died. It would have spared you much danger just now. Forgive me my cowardice for not wanting to add to your pain.”Luke stared at the lightsaber as he pulled it back to him. “Did my mother die in childbirth?”“The medical droids could not find a cause for her sudden decline.” Artoo beeped softly and turned his photoreceptor to General Kenobi. Grief lined the older man’s face. “They had to surgically intervene to not lose you with her.”Luke’s pain flickered over his expression. “How did my father really die?”General Kenobi kept his gaze on the younger man. “A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct.”“She said I was strong in the Force,” Luke said almost to himself.“The Force is what gives the Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together. We can bring the Jedi back, if you learn the ways of the Force. You and Leia crossing paths at this point is a sign from the Force.”Captain Solo huffed under his breath. Leia was aware of the younger men’s gazes on her. Her a Jedi? She had felt something before with the remote, but nothing in her life and her training had prepared her for this option. She was going to free the galaxy from the Emperor’s tyranny and then represent her people in the restored Republic like her father Bail Organa had. But now her father, her mother, all of Alderaan was gone. Her head felt like it was spinning and she couldn’t say yea or nay on this decision. She had a duty to the Rebel Alliance, but they needed Jedi Knights. That’s why her father had sent her to recall General Kenobi from his exile.Luke looked back at the General. “There’s nothing left on Tatooine for me. I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.”General Kenobi smiled impishly. “Well, let’s start with how you handle a lightsaber.”They would have to share a lightsaber, Leia realized. She didn’t have one left to her.“We know how it cuts through durasteel,” Luke commented as he stood up.A finger tapped Leia’s shoulder. She jerked around and Captain Solo motioned for her to follow him. What has gone wrong now? He stopped at a storage locker, pulled out the bag Biggs had given her back on Tatooine and her white boots, and then continued around the ship. They passed the engineering bay, where she caught a glimpse of Chewbacca inside poking at something, but Captain Solo stopped at the next door. He ushered her inside first. She frowned but stepped into a bunk room. Three bunks were inserted into the walls of the room, but the one on the back wall had a mediscan until built into it.Captain Solo set her bag on the bunk on the left and her boots on the floor below it. “There’s the head,” he pointed to a smaller door across the room, “and here’s a sonic shower if you need it.” He jerked his thumb at the matching smaller door behind him. “There’s medical supplies under the medbunk too.”Leia’s frown shifted to confusion. “I’m not injured.” “Your feet?” Nobody would count blisters as needing medical intervention, except Captain Solo. He shrugged. “Any way, I figured you’d like to freshen up. They’re too busy to think about what you need. All girls like to freshen up.” He shuffled a bit. “You don’t want to walk into your base looking like an Imperial to all your revolutionary friends, right? So take the space and do what you gotta do.” He jammed his hands into his pockets. “Without the old elfosahaj decidin’ everything before you have a chance—” He broke off with a grimace. “The lock works, not that they’ll walk in on you. That kaprito can’t be as good as you were with a lightsaber. Bound to be a funny show.”“Thank you,” she said softly. It wasn’t just a chance to change her clothes that he was offering, but an opportunity for solitude to wrestle with her grief. Because once they reached Yavin 4, there wouldn’t be any. “Yes, thank you, I’d like to change out of this.” She tugged on the uniform tunic.Han gave her a lopsided smile. “They might have kept me enlisted longer if all the lieutenants had been as pretty as you.” He ducked out the bunk room into the main corridor.Leia locked the door behind him and leaned her forehead against it. She had never faced a choice of what to do without her parents’ input. Now she faced all of them forever alone. Tears built against her eyelids and she let them come.

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Chapter Seventeen

Luke wanted to be in the cockpit, watching the hyperspace shift into regular space instead of restrained at the dejarik table. But the Captain seemed annoyed with them for some reason. Wasn’t that a running theme for today? The Emperor’s Hand had been annoyed by what Luke did to escape getting shot and then later with what he didn’t know. The connection was still in his mind, but he didn’t reach out to the stretched wire. She hadn’t wanted to come, had turned down his offer of freedom each time he extended it, and now she was quiet. It felt like she was asleep and felt a reluctance to wake her. If Vader caught up with her, well, she needed her rest against him. He hadn’t told Ben—Master Obi-Wan!—about their connection yet. He’d rather do it privately, but didn’t know when there would be a private chance.Princess Leia returned to the main hold dressed in her white gown again. She sat down in the engineering station’s seat and fastened the restraints. Were her eyes reddened? It was hard to tell from this distance and he didn’t want to stare.The cylindrical astromech droid rolled around the table to Luke’s side. Its photoreceptor shifted as if examining Luke. It whistled and beeped at him next. “Sorry, I don’t know much Binary,” Luke said.The blue dome turned slightly, so the series of beeps was aimed at Threepio instead of Luke. But it sounded like the last part was what the droid had said before. Threepio shifted his head and focused his glowing photoreceptors on Luke. “My counterpart wishes to know if you are a pilot, Master Skywalker.”“Yes, mostly on an Incom T-16. But I passed the Imperial Academy’s entrance simulations.”Artoo beeped emphatically. “He says he will fly with you if the Alliance clears you for piloting duties,” Threepio said. The golden droid looked at the droid rolling across the floor with a happy tune. “Artoo, Princess Leia has not given you permission to do that.”Artoo stopped rolling to give out an angry electronic twang.“You sound like you haven’t got an integrated logic terminal left in your processor,” Threepio retorted.Artoo blat was even angrier. “Don’t call me a mindless philosopher, you nearsighted scrap pile!”Leia rubbed her temples. “Don’t you two start. Of course Artoo wants to fly; he’s an astromech.”Luke bit his lip. This was the second time he had interacted with her droids and didn’t even consider her wishes on the matter. Granted, droid slavery wasn’t better than sentient slavery in his eyes but things were different in the Core. And she had lost everything today; he should be tactful about this. “If you have other duties for him?”She brought her head up quickly. “If Artoo wants to volunteer, I’m not going to stop him. We must download the technical readouts to the Death Star first. Then he can fly with you if that’s what he wants.”Artoo whistled happily. “That is what he wants and he thanks you, Princess Leia,” Threepio translated.Biggs chuckled and propped his chin in his hand. “The Princess doesn’t take you flying, short stuff?”“I can fly,” Leia said. “But all my instructors claimed I take too many risks and senators aren’t supposed to fly themselves.”“So why do you have an astromech?” Biggs asked. “A protocol droid makes sense for a diplomat.”“My father gave them to me when I was a child and they have been good friends ever since.” Her smile looked a little watery to Luke. “You get used to the bickering.”“Oh, your Highness, we weren’t trying to upset you,” Threepio exclaimed. “See, Artoo, you must be better behaved.”The Binary came out as a jaunty and melodic tune. Luke choked back his chuckle. “I don’t think he cares; he’s getting to fly.”Old Ben, Luke mentally corrected himself, Master Obi-Wan tugged on his beard while he looked at the happy droid. “Indeed.”Captain Solo’s voice interrupted over the internal comm system. “Strap in, we’re ‘bout to hit the atmosphere.”“Wait, you need my codes.” Leia jumped up and hurried to the cockpit.They didn’t hit any turbulence going through the atmosphere, and the light freighter landed without too long of a wait. The Princess headed down the entry ramp first followed by Master Obi-Wan. Luke and Biggs and the droids followed him. The air that hit Luke’s face was thick with moisture. Vaporators would burn up pulling so much moisture out of the air on Yavin 4. The mechanical smells from the ships and speeders competed with a luscious green smell that he had previously only smelled in the hydroponic chambers back at the homesteads. The freighter’s landing bay was a field scraped free of vegetation in order for large ships to have a flat surface and ringed on three sides by trees nearly as tall as the massive conical stone building that was a hive of activity. Luke stopped walking to take it all in and Biggs stopped next to him.“I’ve heard they have gardens on Coruscant.” Han drawled behind them.“They didn’t let us see any,” Biggs said.The Princess waved for a landspeeder that had two benches behind the standing driver. They jogged to reach her and Ben, no Master Obi-Wan to catch the ride. Luke clambered on top of one so he had an unimpeded view of where they were going and Biggs sat beside him, pressing his back against Luke’s. Leia sat next to Luke’s legs and continued to direct the Rebels in gray jumpsuits and helmets to secure the droids on a different landspeeder that only had one bench. Artoo protested having to lie on his side in Binary that Luke didn’t understand, but the tone was all too clear. Han and Chewbacca climbed onto the landspeeder with the droids. Master Obi-Wan settled on the bench next to Biggs’ feet and then they were off, traveling smoothly over the old stone and new pourstone that patched the ground in front of the vine-covered building that looked as tall as a mountain.The moisture fell away as they moved deeper into the shadowed interior, leaving the sunlight generated by the Yavin star and reflected onto this moon by the red gas giant. But the stone space was lit by modern lights and other gray jumpsuit-wearing gentlebeings swarmed over starfighters. Y-Wings he recognized, but the other style, he craned his neck to get a better look as they passed one. Its fuselage looked like a Z-95 Headhunter, but the thicker wings had two laser cannons at the end. Men in orange flight suits were grouped between the snub-fighters or helping the technicians. Other men standing guard wore black vests over blue tunics and gray trousers with white helmets.The landspeeders slowed to a stop near a smooth-shaved, gray-haired man dressed in a beige longcoat over darker tan trousers and tunic. He didn’t wait but rushed forward. Leia suddenly grinned and hopped off before the landspeeder stopped. He caught her up in a hug. “You’re safe! We had feared the worst.” He released her and his smile dimmed. “When we heard about Alderaan, right after Scarif, we were afraid you were… lost along with your father.”Leia’s grin faded and her resolution solidified. “We don’t have time for our sorrows, General Willard. The Imperial battle station, the Death Star, has tracked us here.” Her gaze fell pointedly on Han, but then shifted to the technicians lifting Artoo from the other landspeeder. “You must use the information in this R2 unit to plan the attack. It’s our only hope.”General Willard gestured to the technicians and they ushered Artoo toward a bank of turbolifts carved into a stone wall. He glanced over the rest of their party, lifting his eyebrows in surprise when his gaze reached Master Obi-Wan. “General Kenobi?”“I see my reputation precedes me,” he said with an impish smile.“And these two wish to enlist as pilots.” Leia waved a hand at Luke and Biggs. “I’ll take General Kenobi to meet the rest of High Command. Captain Solo, follow me and I’ll see to your payment.”“Fine,” Han said. “Professional establishment you’ve got here,” he drawled at General Willard as he and Chewie passed the older man and joined Leia and Master Obi-Wan.The General watched the group head into a turbolift before shaking his head. He pulled a datapad out of a coat pocket before turning to Luke and Biggs. “Names, planets of origin, and flight experience.”“Biggs Darklighter.” Biggs tapped his chest and then jerked his thumb at Luke. “Luke Skywalker, both of us are from Tatooine.”“Skywalker?” General Willard’s head jerked up and he stared at Luke. “Kenobi and Skywalker? Are you related to Anakin Skywalker?”Luke frowned. “He was my father, died before I was born.”“Maybe we’ll have a damned chance this time. What have you flown?”“T-16s mostly, but we did pass the Imperial Academy’s flight simulators,” Luke answered.General Willard finished his note taking and gestured for them to follow him to the turbolifts. “If you’re up for it, we can get you into the simulators right now.”“Yes, sir,” Biggs answered. “We’re ready for that.”The turbolift ride was as smooth as the ones the Empire built in their battle station, despite the obvious retrofitting. General Willard escorted them to the Lieutenant in charge of the holosimulators. She looked askance at their civilian attire, but no one had given them uniforms yet. They had two simulators, both shaped like the cockpit portion of the new snub-fighter that caught Luke’s eye in the hangar bay. They climbed in, one pilot each, the canopy closed around them, and the program started.The control configuration was nearly similar as the T-16. Maybe Incom had built these holosimulators and the starfighters they represented. It took off the same as his skyhopper. The instructions were to lift off from the planet, go to hyperspace, land on a second planet, lift off from that one, and rendezvous with a capital ship in orbit. Luke found all the proper controls for those actions.The lieutenant’s voice filled the comm speakers in his helmet after he cut off the starfighter in the capital ship hangar bay. “Okay, you got the basics. Now for round two.” The cockpit controls turned on in front of him, the canopy screen turned to a velvety black star field, and a squadron of TIE fighters heading straight for him. “Take them out, pilot.”Luke inhaled deeply and focused. It was like swarming womp rats, only they could fire back. He fired his laser canons as he banked his starfighter and changed his direction for his second pass. TIE fighters that he hit exploded spectacularly, but another squadron joined the first. He lost count of how many were out in the simulated subspace with him. He continued shooting and evading their blasts at him until he lost himself in it. And he managed to fire one more blast when his alarms went off. The cockpit shook with the impact and everything went dark again.The viewscreen canopy lifted up and Luke left the helmet on the seat when he climbed out. Biggs and the Lieutenant waited at the bottom of the yellow ladder. “I didn’t last as long as I thought I would.”Biggs’ brown eyes boggled at him. “You lasted way longer than I did.”The Lieutenant stared at her datapad. “You just exceeded the previous top score. I didn’t think anybody could beat Antilles.” She recalled her military bearing with a quick shake of the head. “Both your scores put you on the active duty roster. I’m forwarding them to Commander Dreis for approval. It’s a mere formality. After the Battle of Scarif, we need pilots in the Red Squadron.”“There was a battle at Scarif?” Biggs asked. “We’re from Tatooine, the next system over. What happened?”She winced. “A group of our spies calling themselves Rogue One heard the Death Star plans were archived there and went after them. The Fleet provided support and got the plans, but we had so many losses. The Profundity, the Lightmaker, the Rogue One, nearly all of the Blue Squadron.”“Damn,” Biggs smothered a yawn. “Sorry, I’ve just been up for,” he blinked at his chronometer, “almost twenty four hours.”“You too?” Luke blurted out.The Lieutenant tapped on her datapad as her eyes boggled. “You made that score despite being that sleep deprived?”“Err, yes?”“Go out this door and take a left. Go to the end of the hallway but turn right when you reach the turbolifts. You’re both in barracks 110. Get what sleep you can before duties start.”“Thanks,” Luke told her and meant it. It felt like everything from the past few days was crashing on them now.“Welcome to the Alliance,” the Lieutenant said with a smile.

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Chapter Eighteen

They found the barrack room and Luke passed out faster than he had fallen asleep since leaving for the Academy weeks ago. It was nine hours of deep, refreshing sleep before an intercom went off in the room announcing a briefing on the Death Star attack in an hour. Biggs changed his clothes in a hurry, Luke cleaned up and ignored the wrinkles in the one outfit he had, and they followed other pilots and personnel to the commissary on the other side of the building. They shoveled their breakfast in quickly and then followed the others to the Briefing Room, which was on this floor in the center of the massive edifice. It had been carved out of the massive stone blocks the original building had been built of, but the walls, floor, and ceiling had been covered with fabricated panels to create a uniform square shape. Pilots were already settling in the chairs facing the giant viewscreen on the wall one saw as one entered the room. Some of the pilots were in uniforms or civilian attire, so Luke and Biggs didn’t look out of place. The seating didn’t appear to be assigned, but they grabbed a couple of chairs in the back of the group. It didn’t take long for the rest of the chairs to fill in. Luke glanced back and saw the standing room was being taken too.Any quiet conversation hushed as soon as men dressed similarly to General Willard marched in. Princess Leia and Old—Master Obi-Wan entered with them, but stood against the right wall while the other generals went to the front. A small metal plate with five red dots was pinned to his tunic now. Before anyone started speaking, Artoo led a few more astromech droids to the clear space between the viewscreen and the chairs. They parked themselves making a new front row.A man who had to be as old as Master Obi-Wan stepped up to the viewscreen’s right side. “You all know these people,” he intoned with quiet power, gesturing with this head at the line against the wall. “They are the Senators and Generals whose worlds have given us support, whether open or covert. They have come to be with us in what may well prove to be the decisive moment.” The seated pilots glanced at the group, Luke included. He wondered why they weren’t bothering with evacuation.“The Imperial battle station you now all have heard of is approaching from the far side of Yavin and its sun. That gives us a little extra time, but it must be stopped—once and for all—before it can reach this moon, before it can bring its weaponry to bear on us as it did on Alderaan.” A murmur ran through the crowd at the mention of that world. The viewscreen showed a simple line schematic of the battle station. The general looked at the pilots. “The battle station is heavily shielded and carries a firepower greater than half the Imperial star fleet. Its defenses are designed around a direct large-scale assault. A small one-man fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defenses.”A human male, probably in his thirties, dressed in a flight suit standing behind Leia spoke. “Pardon me for asking, General Dodonna, but what good are snub-fighters going to be against that?”“Well, Gold Leader, the Empire doesn’t consider a small one-man fighter to be any threat, or they’d have a tighter defense. An analysis of the plans provided by Princess Leia and the Rogue One team has demonstrated a weakness in the battle station.” Luke heard Artoo’s beeps in the quiet.As General Dodonna spoke the schematic rotated and drilled down to the surface section of the Death Star. It shifted to a blocky canyon and the viewpoint moved as if you were flying through it. It was less ragged compared to Beggar’s Canyon back on Tatooine. “The approach will not be easy,” General Dodonna continued. “You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point.” The viewscreen stopped at the location right before the end of the trench and the pilots leaned forward to get a better look. “The target area is only two meters wide.” Target lines diagonally divided the screen and centered on the circular object on screen. “It’s a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port.” The viewscreen image turned to show a crosscut of the trench. A solid triangle flew over the port dropping a payload into it and the shaft that led straight down before it flew out. The viewscreen followed the payload down the shaft while General Dodonna explained. “The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station.”The payload on the viewscreen continued until it reached a circle inside the larger circle of the Death Star. Then lines flashed out in a simulated explosion. The crowd murmured in disbelief. The screen shifted back to what the pilots would see at the end of the trench.“Only a precise hit will set up a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you’ll have to use proton torpedoes.”The brown-haired pilot already dressed in his flight suit on Luke’s left shook his head hard. “That’s impossible, even for a computer.” His voice was loud enough to carry through the disbelieving mutters of the rest of the crowd.Luke pitched his voice the same. “It’s not impossible. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home. They’re not much bigger than two meters.”Other pilots turned to their exchange including the one along the wall named Gold Leader and an older man dressed in a flight suit standing next to him.“Is that so?” The pilot next to Luke was near his and Biggs’ age and his scorn was emphasized by his drawl. “Tell me, when you were going after your particular varmint, were there a thousand other, what did you call it, ‘womp-rats’ armed with power rifles firing up at you?” Luke smirked. “They swarm Beggar’s Canyon in those numbers plus Gray Rot. I’ll take the Imps with power rifles.”“With all the firepower on the station directed at us, this will take a little more than barnyard marksmanship, believe me.” He slumped in his seat.The schematic pulled out of the trench to show a broad view of the Death Star. General Dodonna indicated a string of flashing markers. “Take special note of these emplacements. There’s a heavy concentration of firepower on the latitudinal axis, as well as several dense circumpolar clusters. Also, their field generators will probably create a lot of distortion, especially in and around the trench. I figure that maneuverability in that sector will be less than point three. Remember, you must achieve a direct hit.”The crowd murmured and a few pilots groaned.General Dodonna waited for more questions, but no one had any further comments to articulate. “Man your ships! And may the Force be with you.”The crowd stood and began to leave the briefing room. Luke turned to the still morose pilot next to him. “Luke Skywalker, Biggs Darklighter.”“Wedge Antilles.” He shook Luke’s out-stretched hand. “You guys just got here?”Biggs leaned over Luke’s shoulder. “The Lieutenant over the simulators told us we were on active duty.”“We need all the competent pilots in the skies against that thing.” Wedge jerked his thumb at the viewscreen. “Come on, I’ll show you to the locker rooms.”Wedge showed them the locker room, picking up the pace as the intercom voice announced the time before take-off. The officer there confirmed that both Luke and Biggs were assigned to Red Squadron, with call signs Red Five and Red Three respectively. They changed quickly into their orange flight suits and the safety gear that went with it was intuitive to put on. The voice on the intercom had changed to “All flight troops, man your stations. All flight troops, man your stations” by the time they returned to the first floor hangar bay.The flight crews scurried around their crafts, unlocking power couplings and checking with the boarding pilots if everything was ready to go. Further away from the hustle, Han Solo and Chewbacca were transferring a stack of small armored boxes to one of the outside transport landspeeders. Biggs bristled and Luke could feel it without even looking at his umakkar-upan and he matched Biggs’ longer strides.Chewbacca nodded at them when they approached, but Solo didn’t look up at them. Biggs spoke first. “So you got your reward and you’re just leaving then?” He stopped right next to the storage boxes.“That’s right, yeah.” Han sighed when he picked up the next one, but looked Biggs in the eye as he straightened up. “I got some old debts I’ve got to pay off with this stuff.” “You owe Jabba,” Luke said quietly, looking for a way out that would let both Biggs and Solo save face. It wasn’t a hard guess; the number of people on Tatooine who didn’t owe Jabba was the smaller of the two.Solo nodded as he turned to place the box on the landspeeder. “Even if I didn’t, you don’t think I’d be fool enough to stick around here, do you?” He looked at them again. “Why don’t you come with us? You two are pretty good in a fight. I could use you.” His head twitched to the side in a half-hearted shrug as if he was embarrassed about paying the compliment.Biggs wasn’t accepting it. “Come on! Why don’t you take a look around? You know what’s about to happen; what they’re up against.”Solo turned away to load another box.“They could use a good pilot like you,” Luke added. “You’re turning your back on them.”The older man looked a little incredulous and more than slightly defensive. “What good’s a reward if you ain’t around to use it? Besides, attacking that battle station ain’t my idea of courage. It’s more like suicide.” He slung another box onto the landspeeder.Biggs gave a dramatic huff that usually he did right before he took a swing at someone. Luke looked up and gave him a sharp head shake. Now was not the time to find out what infractions the Rebel Alliance considered grounding worthy. Biggs twisted his mustache with a sneer instead. “At least we’re doing something to take those dotkohu down.”“Master Darklighter, that is not proper language around the Princess!” Threepio exclaimed behind them.They turned to see the golden droid with said Princess and Old Ben—Master Obi-Wan walking down the steps into this part of the hangar bay. Princess Leia was smirking at the droid before looking at the men. “Maybe I should learn Huttese.” Her smirk shifted to a smile.And that defused Biggs faster than Luke had ever managed during their entire friendship. The taller man reddened. “Sorry, I shouldn’t let the situation get to me like that.”“We were trying to talk Han into helping.” Luke explained to the newcomers as Solo rested his hands on his blaster belt.“Ah and talking became yelling.” Master Obi-Wan smiled slightly.Leia shook her head. “He’s got to follow his own path, same as all of us. No one can choose it for any of us.” She looked again at the smuggler. “But if you could bear witness to the rest of the galaxy no matter what happens today.”She hadn’t phrased it as a question, but Solo nodded. “Yeah, I can do that.”Master Obi-Wan shifted his arms to turn both Luke and Biggs to the hangar bay with the snub-fighters. “Let’s get you boys to your ships.”They hadn’t made it very far when Solo’s voice called after them. “Hey Luke, Biggs!” They turned and he nodded. “May the Force be with you.”Luke waved at the older man as they headed through the archway. Biggs sighed. “Doesn’t do me much good.”Master Obi-Wan patted his shoulder. “The Force touches you along with everything else in the galaxy. We are all connected.”The lightsaber hilt bumped against Luke’s thigh. He unhooked it from his belt and handed it to Leia. “Keep it safe for me, please?”Leia nodded and Master Obi-Wan gave both Luke and Biggs one last pat. “Now go find your ships before they leave without you.” He and Leia headed toward the main turbolifts, but Artoo and Threepio stayed with the pilots.Luke and Biggs headed toward the X-wings and heard snatches of chatter from the technicians and pilots. “That’s General Kenobi!”“I thought he died in the Purge?”“He’s back and Skywalker’s back too!”“Kenobi got off the transports with a bunch of kids. None of them were General Skywalker in disguise.”“That’s a shame. We need him right now.”The group began to scatter as Luke and Biggs moved out of earshot. Luke swallowed hard and tightened his grip on his helmet. Oddly enough, Darth Vader’s mechanized voice echoed in his mind. Your uncle was creative with the truth.Biggs bumped into his shoulder.”You okay?”“When we get back, I’m asking everyone about my father.”An older man in a pilot’s jumpsuit walked under an X-Wing and approached them. “Are you Luke Skywalker? Just beat the top score by a factor of three on the Incom T-65 simulator?”“That’s him,” Biggs said proudly.“They didn’t tell me my score,” Luke said.“Commander Garven Dreis,” the older man said. “You must be Biggs Darklighter. Your ship is two down.”Biggs saluted before jogging away. “We’re a couple of shooting stars that’ll never be stopped!”Commander Dreis patted Luke’s back. “I met your father once when I was just a boy. He was a great pilot. You’ll do all right. If you’ve got half of your father’s skill, you’ll do better than all right.”“Thank you, sir. I’ll try.”The commander headed to his own ship and Luke climbed up the ladder to the cockpit of his X-Wing. A hoist had grabbed hold of the top of Artoo’s dome and moved the droid over to the socket behind the cockpit. Two technicians were on the top of the snub-fighter, guiding the droid in. “This R2 unit of yours seems a bit beat up. Do you want a new one?” the one squatting on the second yellow ladder offered.Luke set his helmet on a side ledge inside the cockpit. “Not on your life! I promised him.” He nodded at the droid. “You okay, Artoo?”Artoo hovered over the craft and beeped confidently at Luke.“Good.” Luke finished climbing into the cockpit and fastened his helmet on before starting the preflight checks.The voice on the intercom had changed. “Gold Squadron please begin takeoff procedures.”Threepio looked up from the floor of the hangar bay as the technicians finished lowering Artoo into the socket. “Hang on tight, Artoo, you’ve got to come back.”Artoo whistled back at Threepio.Threepio tilted his head to the side. “You wouldn’t want my life to get boring, would you?”Artoo’s beeps sounded like they had a laugh in them this time.The technicians finally finished with Artoo and pulled the ladders away from Luke’s X-wing. Threepio retreated with them. The intercom voice had changed to “Clear the area.” Everyone left on the floor moved even faster. Helmets were passed into cockpits, coupling hoses were disconnected and dragged away, cockpit shields lowered into place. The signalman waved his yellow glow rods at Luke. With a light touch on the controls, he brought the ship up and raised the landing gear.“Luke, the Force will be with you.”That had sounded like Ben, but he wasn’t here. He was wherever the generals would observe the battle from. Luke frowned, but followed the other X-wings out of the temple building and into the cloudy blue sky between the green of the trees and the red ball of Yavin.

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Chapter Nineteen

Threepio had caught up with their group before they boarded a turbolift up to the third level command center. Leia didn’t say anything about his tardiness. He and Artoo had been counterparts her entire life and Artoo had hinted that their connection formed years before her birth. But the battle Artoo, Biggs, and Luke were flying into—she bit her lower lip, trying to concentrate on the military strategy, the bigger picture of stopping that technological monstrosity before Yavin 4 joined Alderaan.“Take heart, Leia,” General Kenobi said out loud this time. She looked up at him. “You’ve never seen them fly.”“Biggs flew the shuttle on Tatooine.” She reminded him. “Before we sold it.”His impish smile broadened. “No, you haven’t seen them fly.” He chuckled, but the turbolift doors slid open before she could ask what he thought the difference was.Leia led them through the dark interior room, past the rows of consoles with their glowing tracking screens set between stone columns supporting the weight of the levels above them. The communications bank of consoles filled the rear wall. She went straight to the circular viewscreen table in the center of the room. General Kenobi stepped up to it beside her and Threepio found a gap to place himself with all the humans.The viewscreen table had a flat display of the planet Yavin colored red in the center, its fourth moon colored blue, and the approaching Death Star on the other side of the planet. General Dodonna and the other military figures of the High Command leaned over the tall edge and surrounding the viewscreen. Commander Bob Hudsol, who wore the thickest white mustache Leia had ever seen on a human male before, glanced up as they approached. “Estimated time to firing range is fifteen minutes.” The screen display added a red wedge from the Death Star to map its progress until firing range.General Dodonna said, “Send out an alert for the evacuation process.” An aide nodded and moved to the comm station.Soon the intercom voice announced, “Death Star approaching. Estimated time to firing range, fifteen minutes.”General Kenobi looked at the other generals. “That’s not enough time to finish evacuating the base.”General Dodonna shook his head. “I don’t suppose you are getting anything from the Force?”“On the outcome of this battle?” General Kenobi looked down at the moving circles and the warning firing range wedge. “The Force has never gifted me with unassailable visions of the future. We must trust our pilots.”Commander Lajaie left the communication consoles and joined them at the viewscreen. “The young Skywalker, is he a Jedi too?”“For his safety, his training was delayed. We win this day and then it can begin.” General Kenobi glanced sideways at Leia. “Along with others.”Luke’s lightsaber was solid in her hand, but the silver belt of her dress was far too delicate to hang it from. She hadn’t agreed to General Kenobi’s idea to train her as well. She rested it and her hands on the rim of the viewscreen table, in full view of the High Command present. “We will win this day and we will restore the Jedi Order.”“Yes, you shall,” General Kenobi nodded.Red Leader’s voice filled the Command Center over the comm system. “All wings report in.”Thirty snub fighters flew out of the atmosphere of Yavin 4, a mix of X-Wings of Red Squadron and Y-Wings of Gold. Red Squadron took the lead as they moved around the massive red gas giant. Biggs scanned his controls quickly before returning his gaze to the star field beyond Yavin. The engines of the X-Wings ahead of him glowed red. A smooth gray sphere hung there already; the light of Yavin’s star reflected along the edge of its curve and grew larger as they flew closer.The Red Leader’s voice spoke over the comm. “All wings report in.” According the formation they were flying in, Biggs remembered.“Red Ten standing by.”“Red Seven standing by.”“Red Three standing by,” Biggs said.“Red Six standing by.” That was Porkins. He had introduced himself quickly as they boarded back in the hangar bay.“Red Nine standing by.”“Red Two standing by.” He recognized Wedge Antilles’ voice.“Red Eleven standing by.”“Red Five standing by.” Luke said eagerly, the last ship of their formation.“Lock S-foils in attack position,” Red Leader ordered.Biggs flipped the toggle and watched the wings of the ships ahead of him split into the eponymous X shape. Then his ship felt buffeted by something.“We’re passing through their magnetic field,” Red Leader explained. “Hold tight!” Biggs adjusted his controls to compensate. “Switch your deflectors on. Double front!”The Death Star was closer now and one saw the towers and canyons giving shade and coloration to the gray metal surface. One quadrant was scooped away for an antenna dish, which was already turned toward Yavin 4.Wedge’s awestruck voice carried over the comm. “Look at the size of that thing!”“Cut the chatter, Red Two.” Red Leader ordered sharply. “Accelerate to attack speed. This is it,boys!”Biggs increased his throttle and maintained the formation with the rest of Red Squadron.Gold Leader’s voice spoke over the comms. “Red Leader, this is Gold Leader.”“I copy, Gold Leader,” Red Leader said to both squadrons.“We’re starting for the target shaft now.”“We’re in position. I’m going to cut across the axis and try and draw their fire.”The X-Wings and Y-Wings split apart as Red Squadron headed to the black equatorial trench that bisected the whole Death Star and Gold Squadron swooped down between it and the target shaft. Biggs copied the graceful roll that put the surface of the Death Star underneath the noses of their ships. The turbolaser turrets spat green laser bolts at them that were easily evaded, even as the turrets swiveled to follow the X-Wings’ course.“Heavy fire, boss! Twenty-three degrees,” Wedge said over the comms.“I see it. Stay low,” Red Leader responded. Biggs spotted Red Two skimming the Death Star’s bumpy surface. The laser bolts weren’t configured to shoot that low and couldn’t stop Wedge’s barrage.“This is Red Five. I’m going in.” Biggs focused on Luke’s nosedive toward the surface. He didn’t waste time with fancy flourishes that Biggs had seen him pilot before, but shot his turbolaser cannons to strife the surface. He hit something explosive and a fireball erupted right in his flight path. “Luke, pull up!”Luke couldn’t pull out of it but his X-Wing shot through the fireball, emerging on the other side with scorch marks on his wings and fuselage.“Are you all right?” Biggs demanded over the comms, ignoring all military protocol.“I got a little cooked, but I’m okay.”Biggs heaved his own sigh in response. After everything that happened to get Luke back, he was not losing his storm-brother to this planet killer.Vader strode down the corridor outside the turbolaser turrets and other armaments. He always preferred the front of the battle where he could protect his men, issue orders as soon as they were needed, and inspire confidence by suffering the same as the troops. Even though these stormtroopers and technicians were not his loyal 501st nor the trusted crew of the Destroyer and his other ships, they still worked faster as he passed. Let Tarkin and the others hide on the Death Star’s Overbridge. Vader would win the troops’ favor out of their sight.Alarms blared as an officer moved out of a side corridor, looking both ways for someone of higher rank. He spotted Vader and rushed toward him. “We count thirty Rebel ships, Lord Vader. But they’re so small they’re evading our turbo-lasers.”Vader paused outside a control room. “We’ll have to destroy them ship to ship. Get the crews to their fighters.” The officer hurried off to obey and Vader continued into the control room to oversee just what damage thirty Rebel snub-fighters could do. A fair bit to the upper levels of the station he learned as he surveyed the reports of damaged areas, equipment, and injured personnel.It was all easily repairable, even the loss of lives, so what did the Rebels hope to gain? None of this slowed the Death Star’s approach to their base. The base where Obi-Wan had taken his son.Our son, our miracle son, you cannot let him die there, Anakin! Padmé’s voice was relentless in his mind. They’re fighting with a purpose. Find out what it is, Ani. Please, to save our son!As you wish. He focused on the viewscreen tracking the Rebel movements above the surface of the Death Star. Their forces were split into two groups. The officers and technicians in here were focused on the attacking squadron over the axis trench. The other squadron was attacking close to the Meridian Trench near the Death Star’s north pole. Nothing of importance was up there except thermal exhaust ports from the reactor core.The highly unstable reactor core designed by Galen Erso, who was a traitor to the Empire—Vader had seen the evidence of that himself—but Tarkin’s pet engineers had said it wasn’t necessary to repair the design. The odds were astronomical against the chain reaction ever being detonated, they had said. The Rebels had decided to take those odds on an impossible shot.You could make it. Padmé’s voice purred seductively. It’s not an impossible shot for the only human to ever win the Bootna Eve Classic, for the ex-slave boy who saved Naboo with one shot.
You don’t have to flatter me to get what you want. We’re long past that.
The Force stirred around him and her voice hardened. Go out there and take this technological terror from Palpatine at the last possible second but before the base is destroyed. That will save our son, serve our vengeance, and give justice for Alderaan.He considered that strategy. Oh yes, the loss of Tarkin and his loyal cohort stationed here shifted the make-up of Palpatine’s court in ways that he couldn’t wait to exploit. But there was time enough to decide on that later. The TIE fighters had entered the fray and were only concentrating on the squadron causing the most damage. “Have the two best pilots that have not yet been deployed set aside for my personal orders.” He told the officer in charge of the control room before striding out into the corridor once more.Smoke from the turbines of the giant laser guns filled the firing rooms and the corridor. The gunners in their black helmets and uniforms steered the lasers after the faster targets but always fired too late. Their blasts shook the area like thunder until it was replaced by a volley of blasts from the enemy. Gunners, technicians, and stormtroopers all flew into the air with the explosion. Vader continued to the pilots ready room. All the pilots were in line to dash through the door into their hangar bay, except two standing at attention near the entrance. He stopped in front of them. “Several fighters have broken off from the main group. Come with me.”They fell in behind him as he turned to the side corridor that led to the hangar bay for his personal TIE Advanced x1 prototype. Now he was glad he had indulged in bringing it along. It was the only ship besides the shuttles with a hyperdrive on board the Death Star. His two wingmen loaded into the standard issue TIE fighters and they swooped out of the hangar bay in attack formation. He let himself relax into the Force, the way it was possible for him to do so when he flew.Two bright beacons signaled in the Force in the area. He focused on the stronger of the two and it felt familiar. His son was in a fighter out here. Luke had called himself a pilot when Vader could not, dared not linger with him. The Rebellion obviously recognized Luke’s skills. Using the Force, he found Luke’s transponder code and watched the X-Wing spin tightly before nosediving at the surface. He smiled under his helmet. Luke was a pilot just like he was.The other beacon in the Force was closing in on Luke and it was familiar to Vader as well. He should have killed her out of Luke’s sight since it disturbed him so badly. “Head to the polar trench,” he ordered his wingmen. “I will rendezvous with you there.” His internal growling barely recognized their assent before he swooped into the battle to save his son.

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Chapter Twenty

The Red Leader’s X-Wing flew past Luke’s as Luke rubbed his nose with his gloved hand and pushed the stick down for an attack dive. “Watch yourself!” Red Leader said over the comm. “There’s a lot of fire coming from the right side of that deflection tower.”“I’m on it.” Luke twisted his dive to cross the Death Star’s horizon. He aimed at the source of the surface fire. His laser bolts rained down on the onrushing surface.“I’m going in,” Biggs said. “Cover me, Porkins.”“I’m right with you, Red Three.”As Luke pulled up, Red Three and Red Six both concentrated their fire on the deflection tower and it exploded. A series of sequential explosions skipped across a large section of the battle station’s surface, leaping from one terminal to the next. Biggs shot past, but the X-Wing behind him was hit with an energy wave between two explosions.“I’ve got a problem here.” Porkins’ voice sounded distracted. “My converter’s running wild.”“Eject,” Biggs ordered. The Imperials answered with heavy green laser bolts that Biggs’ X-Wing avoided.“I can hold it.”“Pull up!”“No, I’m alright—” One green laser bolt hit and Red Six broke apart in a fireball. Luke’s breath caught, but there was no time to mourn a fallen comrade.Luke, trust your feelings. That sounded like Ben, but nobody else was reacting to General Kenobi on the comm. He tapped his helmet comm before he thought that it was how the Emperor’s Hand had spoken to him telepathically before. There was no time to reach back to Ben. He focused on the surface and fired. One of the firing stations exploded behind him as he pulled out of the strafing run.“Squad leaders.” The control officer back at the base spoke over the comm and Luke was reminded again how voices sounded over the comlinks. “We’ve picked up a new group of signals. Enemy fighters coming your way.”Luke glanced out of both sides of his cockpit and then back at his instrument panel. “My scope’s negative. I don’t see anything.”“Pick up your visual scanning,” Red Leader ordered. “Here they come!”Six TIE fighters dove toward them. The front four moved in sync until they reached the battle area and they swooped in separate directions.“Watch it, Seven! You’ve got one on your tail.” Red Leader called over the comm.Red Seven weaved high above the surface, but the TIE fighter stayed with him as it fired. Laser bolts connected with the X-Wing’s engines. “I’m hit—” Red Seven exploded in a fireball.Luke’s skin crawled like Tusken Raiders were on their way. His head swiveled looking for TIE fighters, but nothing was behind him. He extended his focus to his squadron and his heart leaped into his throat. “Biggs! You’ve picked one up, watch it!”“I can’t see it!” Biggs yelled back. He turned back to dive down to the surface. The TIE fighter matched that move and all the rest of Biggs’ twists. “He’s on me tight. I can’t shake him.” The TIE fighter fired, but Biggs swung his X-Wing out of the laser bolts path.“I’ll be right there.” Luke accelerated toward the pair, chasing after the TIE fighter. Biggs twisted his X-Wing toward the surface and evaded the latest blasts from the enemy. Luke’s targeting system locked onto the TIE and he fired. The spherical ship exploded in a fireball.“Pull in, Luke! Pull in!” Biggs shouted over the comm. Wedge’s voice chimed in. “Watch your back, Luke! Fighter’s above you, coming in.”Luke looped away from the Death Star’s surface to spot the TIE. He rolled as it began firing. One of the bolts furrowed his right upper engine, leaving fire its wake. “I’m hit, but not bad. Artoo, see what you can do with it. Hang on back there.”Green laser bolts streaked past them and Artoo’s response showed up in Basic on a small screen on his instrument panel to the right of the primary display monitor. “I’ll fix it. You keep that dotkohu from hitting us again.”Luke rocked the X-Wing and wondered how the astromech had learned Huttese. The TIE fighter had chased him into an area that they hadn’t blasted the heavy artillery into oblivion.Red Leader spoke over the comm. “Red Ten, can you see Red Five?”“There’s a heavy fire zone on this side. Red Five, where are you?”None of those blast hit the TIE behind him. Luke soared away from the surface to get some room to move. “I can’t shake him!” He evaded the laser bolts and headed down again.“I’m on it, Luke!” Wedge said over the comm. “Hold on.”Luke shifted hard again to avoid the fire. “Blast it, Wedge, where are you?”Red Two faced Luke’s X-Wing almost nose to nose before Luke shied to the right. Wedge’s turbo cannons took out the TIE fighter before it could react.“Thanks, Wedge.” Luke heaved a sigh.“Good shooting, Wedge,” Biggs added over the comm.Mara smoothed the wrinkles in her uniform as she crossed the console room to the storage cabinet. She had set up a shifting cascade to let her out without triggering any alarms in the security system and broke into the closest food stores for ration bars during the night shift. So she was full at least. Sleep had been harder to get on the cold metal floor and constant interruptions which turned out to be her mind finding false alarms. Her body still ached from the Emperor’s attack and the travel lag was catching up with her. All she needed was a safe place to sleep away the pain. This console room had a small medpac in the storage cabinet to handle slight emergencies without going all the way to the medcenter. She opened up the small doses of painkillers and stim pills and dry-swallowed them. Should she take the medpac with her or take a chance of finding better supplies along the way? She closed it and set it back on the shelf in the cabinet. And frowned all the way back to the seat and console she had claimed as her primary.The second guessing really needed to stop. Ever since she had helped that farm boy get into the maintenance access and he had all but pleaded for her to meet them in the hangar bay and she turned him down, a low level dread itched across the Force. It wasn’t her danger sense, that feeling that always warned her to tread carefully or retreat from a situation, but it still made her question if she should have gone. Gone where though? To the Rebels? She was supposed to stop the lawbreakers, not join them. She wasn’t supposed to allow the murder of billions either. She could have left for any planet. She didn’t have to join the Rebels or give them any intel. Besides, they wouldn’t want her help to avenge Alderaan regardless. And it didn’t matter because she had remained here and the Death Star was in hyperspace now.She reached back to give her braided hair a tug and her gaze was caught by the screen on the Death Star’s engines. It was out of hyperspace now and orbiting the gas giant Yavin. Where in the galaxy was Yavin? It wasn’t a Core World. She pulled up the astrogational information. The Outer Rim? That was a horrible target for their terror asset. She moved back to her screen showing computerized commands from the bridge. The Rebel agents had been tracked to the fourth moon of Yavin. Skywalker hadn’t escaped. Disappointment tightened her throat.There were more details under the attack. Thirty one-man fighter ships were currently strafing the Death Star and doing an excellent job evading the turbo-lasers configured to destroy capital ships. The Death Star gave the order for TIE fighters to launch. This was her only chance to get off. She pulled up the schematics for the quickest route between her position and the fighter pilots ready rooms, committing the directions to memory before closing all the consoles and erasing all visible evidence she had been in this room.By the time she found the area, the initial wave of TIE fighters had launched and Lord Vader had left to join them with his selected wingmen. One locker room had what she needed, a straggler tugging on his flight suit with his back to the door. Too bad she had lost all her weapons; shooting him like this would solve everything. She strode in and locked the door behind her.The door caught his attention as he glanced over his shoulder. Her uniform made him straighten to near-attention before the lack of insignias confused him. “Can I help you, officer?”Her lips curled up in a slight smile that men found flirty. She knew exactly where she stood with this. “You have a choice, pilot, easy or hard. I need your flight orders and ship.”“What?” He stepped away from his locker among all the others against the wall. She matched his stance by stepping closer. “You want my ship, why?”“Because it’s leaving this battle station.” She held out her hand for his code cylinder as she stepped closer.His hands curled into fists as his confusion shifted to a sneer. “A damn traitor like the rest of Alderaan.” He charged forward and raised his fist for a punch.Her grin widened as he chose the hard way. She pivoted around his blow and kicked when she was behind him. Her foot hit him mid-back, pushing him further off balance. Then she whirled around to face him. He staggered but managed not to hit the floor. But his arms were stretched out to push against the floor. She wrapped her legs around his neck and threw herself to the side.He followed her down to the floor. His fist seized her pants and yanked.The material held. She squeezed her legs.He yanked again and slapped her leg against his vocal cords with his other hand as he wheezed.She shifted her legs. His neck rolled until it cracked. Then he went limp.Mara uncoiled from around him and tested his pulse. Hard way accomplished. She found his code cylinder on his belt. One of the lockers had a uniform hanging in it, so she didn’t bother stripping the former pilot. She dragged him into the ‘fresher stall and locked it. That would buy time if anyone entered this locker room after she left. She pulled the flight suit on over her Imperial Navy uniform and fastened the helmet on before leaving. All she had to do was fall in line with the other pilots heading to one of the ready rooms outside the TIE fighter hangar bays.The code cylinder instructions didn’t hold any surprises, just proof that Lieutenant Qorl was activated in defense of the battle station. She climbed into the available TIE fighter the deck crew pointed her to and soon launched into the vacuum of space. The red ball of Yavin blocked the view of the moon with the rebel base. She should go there. This TIE fighter model didn’t have a hyperdrive unit. And to be brutally honest with herself, she wanted to see Skywalker.She concentrated on the battle raging over the surface of the battle station. The Rebel snub-fighters consisted of Y-Wings and the X-Wings from Incom’s schematics from when the company was nationalized. The traitors that fled the company had managed to build the new starfighter. The pilots were good, but their ships weren’t as fast as the TIE fighter or as numerous. She picked one to follow, to look like she was following orders, while she opened up the bond with Skywalker.The bond didn’t stretch through Yavin to its fourth satellite like she had expected. Instead it pointed to an X-Wing that spiraled before letting a volley loose on the surface. What the Corellian hells? Is the Rebellion so desperate for pilots they let you fly? She didn’t dare scream it through the bond at him; neither of them could afford the distraction. She ignored the TIE fighter pilots chatter and shifted into following him. His wings and fuselage were already streaked with soot. What had caused that, flying through a fireball?That thought was soon interrupted by the part of her that was still outraged at being defeated by a pillow. She could finish her mission and shoot him down right now.She jerked her thumb down on the stick, away from the firing control, as her stomach churned. How could she even consider that? The Emperor would never take her back. And Skywalker had saved her life and had wanted nothing more but to continue helping her. Is this how she considered repaying that? Nausea rose in her throat.Skywalker’s X-Wing banked away from the Death Star surface. Mara followed, dodging the blasts from one of his comrades. She didn’t know their comm frequencies and she didn’t have any jammer equipment that could slice into what the Rebels were using. He jerked his ship to the side, trying to shake her off his tail. This was the worst possible time and place to reach out telepathically, especially to someone with no training, but it was her only option for communication.Her danger sense flared before she attempted it. She shoved her stick to the right, breaking off her pursuit of Skywalker’s X-Wing as he dodged to the left. But the ship barreling straight down their previous trajectory was a TIE Advanced x1 prototype with the distinctive bent solar array wings, not one of Skywalker’s Rebels. Her mouth went dry as she accelerated. The laser bolts streaked past her.She could feel a familiar fireball of anger that was the other pilot, churning the Force between them. But just in case she hadn’t correctly identified him, Vader’s vocabulator voice filled her helmet’s comm. “You will not kill my son, schutta of Palpatine.” And more laser fire spat at her as he chased her.She accelerated away toward the gas giant. It wouldn’t do any good to protest her innocence. Vader never listened when he felt like this. Even her Master had to wait until Vader calmed down and then punish him for it. She didn’t have a Master any longer, and the Emperor would not punish Vader for killing her.Her danger sense pulsed again and she jinked closer to Yavin’s gravity well. The bolt hit the bottom of her starboard solar array wing, but missed the cockpit. But the blow was enough to cause her to spin out of control.Vader withdrew, satisfied that her fighter would fall into Yavin and be torn to pieces by the gas giant’s gravitational force.Mara gritted her teeth and fought with the stick. She was not dying like this. She was not dying at all. The instrument panel wailed at her, showing her the danger zone of the gravity well. She was still spinning, and the stick was not responding. She shut off the ion engines and directional thrusters. She breathed out her doubt, closed her eyes, and focused on her danger sense. NOW from it made her jab her finger on the thruster ignition button. They fired briefly and the spinning momentum shifted from rotating on the vertical axis to the horizontal. The gas giant loomed in the transparisteel viewport, but it was growing smaller. It was a dizzying view of where she had been. The battle was flashes of lasers and fireballs against the smaller gray sphere. She checked the instrument panel. She was out of the gravity well danger zone, but the planet had changed her trajectory. Time to stop this spin.The ion engines and directional thrusters refused to ignite.Her skin inside the flight suit prickled with sweat. She rerouted power relays on the instrument panel. Still no response from the engines. “Vader take Vader,” she snarled. The rate she was going didn’t leave her with much time to make in-cockpit repairs. The hum of her danger sense increased. What was she headed towards? The instrument panel showed the decreasing space between the TIE fighter and Yavin 4. Great, she was headed for the habitable satellite in this system. Entry into the atmosphere was going to end in a crash, shavit. She scrambled over the instrument panel again. One of these connections had to work, had to. The atmosphere buffeted the spherical craft. And the directional thrusters finally responded. She aimed them to slow her descent, not that they had much thrust against her velocity and Yavin 4’s gravity. But she was able to flatten out the descent. By the Force, it had to be enough.

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Chapter Twenty-One

Davish Krail, nicknamed Pops by virtue of being the oldest member of the Gold Squadron, brought his Y-Wing into the attack formation flying even with Gold Two and close behind Gold Leader. If their luck held, all three of them would drop proton torpedoes and at least one of them would go down the shaft to the reactor.Jon Vander’s voice came over the comm. He was young for a captain, but was already a quadruple ace and survived the Battle of Scarif. “Red Leader, this is Gold Leader. We’re starting our attack run.”“I copy, Gold Leader. Move into position,” Red Leader said from the strafing runs the Red Squadron were making across the surface of this battle station.The three Y-wings swooped as one closer to the surface. “The exhaust port is marked and locked in!” They dodged the green laser bolts from a surface armament and descended into the trench. Laser bolts continued to fire from the armaments ahead. “Switch all power to front deflector screens.” An XX-9 heavy turbolaser on the bottom surface of the trench continued firing at them. “How many guns do you think, Gold Five?”“I’d say about twenty guns,” Pops said tersely. The flyboys in Red Squadron needed this information, just in case. So did the base if they wanted to make a training simulation out of it someday. “Some on the surface, some on the towers.”The forward deflector screens at double strength kept the laser bolts from landing directly in their cockpits. “Switch to targeting computer,” Gold Leader ordered.Pops threw the switch that brought the targeting computer screen directly in front of his face. The trench was reduced to a grid of yellow lines with red lines traveling down the screen that marked the ship’s progress. “Computer’s locked,” Gold Two said. Dex Tiree was younger than Vander, but he survived the Battle of Scarif with them. Suddenly the laser bolts stopped firing completely. “The guns… they’ve stopped!”There was only one reason why the Imps and their programmed turbolaser batteries would stop firing at enemy ships. Pops glanced over his shoulder. “Stabilize your rear deflectors. Watch for enemy fighters.”“They’re coming in! Three marks at two ten.” Pops shifted his deflector screens while Gold Leader pointed out the direction of the TIEs. The center one was a model he hadn’t seen before with angled solar arrays. They moved as one unit as they dove almost vertically into the trench and came up behind the Y-Wings. And they were fast. The center one locked onto Gold Two and fired before Tiree had a chance to adjust his screens. The third Y-Wing vanished in a fireball. Pops increased his speed to stay close behind Gold Leader. Vander had picked this close formation and he would stick with it. It worked well enough at the Battle of Scarif.Vander’s voice sounded panicked over the comm. “I can’t maneuver!”“Stay on target,” Pops intoned. They’d only get one shot at the target shaft. He wasn’t locked onto it.“We’re too close!”“Stay on target.” Pops repeated his mantra.“Loosen up!” Gold Leader tried to give his panicked yell the tone of an order, but it didn’t matter as the laser bolts from the TIE fighter streaked past Pops and scored a direct hit. Gold Leader was gone.Pops climbed out of the trench and the TIE fighters followed him. “Gold Five to Red Leader. Lost Tiree, lost Dutch.”“I copy, Gold Five,” Red Leader said.“They came from behind—” The laser bolts struck home and the explosion took away any other warnings he could have given them.General Moradmin Bast frowned at the analysis projecting the Rebels’ intentions with their attack. Lord Vader’s TIE Advanced fighter had wiped out three snub-fighters in the Meridian Trench near the Death Star’s north pole. The analysts hypothesized the Rebels were trying to set off a chain reaction in the reactor core. They wouldn’t succeed, but Bast would be less nervous if they had paused to retrofit Erso’s reactor core design with anything more stable. It hadn’t been his call and neither was this one. He straightened over his console in the office he shared with High General Tagge. Damn that he had left to investigate a potential Rebel base several sectors away before they realized there were Rebels aboard the Death Star. Because Bast had to bring this potential risk up to the Grand Moff, and it would be nice to have support from someone else in command who was clear sighted over the threat the Rebels could be.No time to dawdle now. He stepped out of the Army Operations Office and looked over the dark main room of the Overbridge. Grand Moff Tarkin stood in front of his command station staring at the main viewscreen that showed the gas giant Yavin formed by red lines so the battle station’s target represented by green lines was visible behind it, moving closer to Yavin’s edge. Bast walked up to his senior officer’s shoulder, and spoke in a low tone to not alarm any of the other officers and technicians on the bridge. “We’ve analyzed their attack, sir, and there is a danger. Should I have your ship standing by?”Tarkin turned his head to look at the younger man. He didn’t bother to lower his voice. “Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances!” He turned back to the viewscreen.The tracking technician spoke over the comm for the entire bridge to hear. “Rebel base, three minutes and closing.”Bast nodded sharply, even though Grand Moff wasn’t looking at him, and turned back to Tagge’s command station. He could monitor the battle and the on-going analysis from here and not miss the ultimate destruction of the Rebel Alliance. The Grand Moff was mostly likely right, he told his lingering doubt. There was no way the Rebel snub-fighters could exploit a weakness in three minutes. Not with Lord Vader shooting them to components. No one could beat his talent at piloting.Garven Dreis glanced over his shoulders. His wingmen Red Ten and Red Eleven were in position with him. “Red boys, this is Red Leader. Rendezvous at mark six point one.”General Dodonna’s voice filled the comm over the assents of his surviving pilots. “Red Leader, this is Base One. Keep half your group out of range for the next run.”“Copy, Base One. Red Five, Two, and Three, hold up here and wait for my signal to start your run.” The three young pilots with the highest simulator scores on the entire roster acknowledged the orders as they got their starfighters up to the northern hemisphere of the battle station. Garven led his wingmen into the trench. “This is it,” he announced over the open comms as the X-wings leveled off in the trench and the towers rained laser bolts directly at them.“We should be able to see the target by now,” Red Ten said. Red Eleven answered Red Ten. “The disruption down here is unbelievable. I think my instruments are off.”Suddenly the laser fire from the tower dominating the metal ridge at the far end of the trench went silent. “Keep your eyes open for those fighters!” Red Leader ordered as he hunched over his stick.“There’s too much interference.” Red Ten complained. “Red Five, can you see them from where you are?”Luke’s voice was assured over the comm. “No sign of any…wait! Coming in point three five.”“I see them.” Red Ten said grimly.Garven ignored the interplay as he brought out his targeting computer. “I’m in range.” The readout screen showed the red lines moving in on the target exhaust port. “Target’s coming up. Just hold them off for a few seconds.”Sweat beaded over his face. He knew the Imperial TIEs were closing in, but couldn’t concentrate on them and the target at the same time. “Almost there,” he said out loud for himself and the others listening.The fireball behind his X-Wing lit up the cockpit and the trench, and Red Twelve’s transponder code vanished. “Better let them loose,” Red Ten said. “They’re right behind me.”“Almost there,” Garven said, chanting it like a religious mantra.“I can’t hold them!” Red Ten yelled before another fireball lit up the trench.On the targeting computer’s readout screen, the red lines closed on the end of the yellow line trench and turned into crosshair angles. Garven fired two proton torpedoes and climbed out of the trench. “It’s away!” he yelled as the explosion blossomed around his X-Wing. He flew out of the fireball adding scorch marks to the hull of his snub-fighter.“It’s a hit!” Red Nine exclaimed over the comms. His transponder signal was just now leaving the horizontal trench strafing area.Garven checked his instruments. “Negative.” He looked back down at the surface damage on the Death Star. “Negative. It didn’t go in; it just impacted on the surface.” His instruments pinged in alarm and Garven jinked. The prototype TIE fighter from the trench hit his X-Wing with a laser bolt. It must have followed him up and out. And he hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t expected it really. The bolt had hit the upper starboard engine and an alarm flashed on his control panel. It was a critical failure cascading into an explosion.Luke’s voice came over the comm. “Red Leader, we’re right above you. Turn to point oh-five; we’ll cover for you.”“Stay there,” Garven ordered. “I just lost my upper starboard engine. Get set up for your attack run.” The prototype fired again and Garven’s stick wouldn’t respond. He yelled as he tried to pull up and away from the surface. It didn’t work. He hoped he impacted with something important to the Imps. Anything really to give his boys a chance.Leia squeezed Luke’s lightsaber, making sure that her fingers and thumb were far from the activation button. Gold Leader gone, Red Leader gone, Alderaan gone. A mountain felt like it was lodged in her throat. The air forced in here for the computers was freezing her under this thin dress. She missed the thicker weight of the Tatooine garments Biggs had given her. There was barely any wedge left between Yavin 4 and the Death Star. She looked over at Threepio. Somehow his frozen expression looked worried. Anxiety throbbed between her and everyone else in the Command Room. Her grip tightened on the weapon and she checked again that she had no chance to activate it and destroy their precious equipment.Commander Hudsol turned from the tracking screens to the rest of High Command around the circular viewscreen table. High Command as a group all looked up at him. “Without the squadron leaders, how will they regroup?” His worried gaze snapped between General Kenobi and General Dodonna. It finally stopped on General Dodonna, probably because he had been Supreme Commander for so much longer and directly responsible for this base.General Dodonna opened his mouth to reply, but the comm system crackled to life. Luke’s confident voice gave orders that he had no rank to be giving. “Biggs, Wedge, let’s close it up. We’re going in. We’re going in full throttle.”All the eyes in the Command Room focused on General Kenobi, who had a small wistful smile on his face as Wedge Antilles, the ace of all the fighter squadrons, said, “Right with you, boss.” Even Leia, whose command experience had been many lessons from the men and women in this room and from her father, knew that ‘Boss’ was a nickname reserved for the squadron leaders. She squeezed the lightsaber again, feeling something small but bright inside of her against the anxiety and fear bearing down on her. Something like hope?“He is his father’s son when it comes to leading people,” was all the Jedi General said as the command room filled with the conversation from the last bombing run the Alliance had.

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Chapter Twenty-Two

Han scowled at the Falcon’s instrument panel as the voices from the comm channels filled the cockpit.“Gold Five to Red Leader. Lost Tiree, lost Dutch.”“I copy, Gold Five.” “They came from behind—” Gold Five’s voice vanished in an explosion.Chewbacca didn’t say anything in the copilot’s seat. But Han felt the Wookiee’s eyes on him as he refused to look back. He was bearing witness, that’s what the spitfire had asked him to do. They were lingering at sublight speed in the Yavin system to the bitter end or until some Imperial crossed the Falcon’s path and they had to flee.“Red boys, this is Red Leader. Rendezvous at mark six point one.”Red Squadron, wasn’t that the one that the kapritos from Tatooine had been assigned to?“Red Leader, this is Base One. Keep half your group out of range for the next run.”“Copy, Base One. Red Five, Two, and Three, hold up here and wait for my signal to start your run.”“Copy, Red Leader,” Luke’s voice answered.“Copy, Red Leader,” a male voice said with a Corellian accent.“Copy, Red Leader,” the privileli said.Han’s hands tightened on the throttle. That trench run; the Gold Leader’s run had been sitting targets for the Imperial TIE fighters. Now the Rebels were down to the kapritos he knew. “This is it,” Red Leader’s voice announced.Maybe this run would hit the target, Han told himself.“We should be able to see the target by now,” another male voice Han didn’t recognize said. The male who must be the second wingman answered. “The disruption down here is unbelievable. I think my instruments are off.”“Keep your eyes open for those fighters!” Red Leader ordered.“There’s too much interference.” The first wingman complained. “Red Five, can you see them from where you are?”Luke’s voice was assured over the comm. “No sign of any…wait! Coming in point three five.”“I see them.” The first wingman said grimly.“I’m in range.” Red Leader told them. “Target’s coming up. Just hold them off for a few seconds. Almost there,” he said out loud but it sounded more like for himself.Han leaned closer to the instrument panel and pressed the sensor for nearby transponder codes. The Rebel snub-fighters didn’t come up at all; the Falcon was too far away.“Better let them loose,” the first wingman said. “They’re right behind me.”“Almost there,” Red Leader said, chanting it like a religious mantra.“I can’t hold them!” the first wingman yelled.“It’s away!” Red Leader yelled.“It’s a hit!” a new voice exclaimed over the comms.“Negative.” Red Leader sounded deflated. “Negative. It didn’t go in; it just impacted on the surface.”Han’s right hand jerked off the stick and his fist punched his thigh.Luke’s voice came over the comm. “Red Leader, we’re right above you. Turn to point oh-five; we’ll cover for you.”“Stay there,” Red Leader ordered. “I just lost my upper starboard engine. Get set up for your attack run.” Han returned his hand to the stick. They were just a couple of kapritos and if the comm silence was accurate, they just lost all the leadership in the battle itself. Who the hell was going to tell those newbies what to do?Another of the squadron’s voice broke it. “I’ll cover you from above, just—” The explosion started before the loss of the comm channel made it vanish.Han’s mouth felt as dry as Tatooine.Luke’s confident voice filled the cockpit next. “Biggs, Wedge, let’s close it up. We’re going in. We’re going in full throttle.”Han whipped the Falcon into a bank so hard, Chewie had to grab the ceiling instrument panels for something to hold onto.“Right with you, boss,” the young Corellian answered.{Han?} Chewie growled.“Punch it, Chewie!” The Wookiee was already forwarding all the auxiliary power to the sublight engines before Han finished the yell. “They need us.”Something rocked Luke’s whole body like he had rammed his ship into unyielding ground. But it hadn’t. His legs and head ached, but nothing was wrong with him. He closed his eyes and saw the vibrating wire to the Emperor’s Hand in his mind. Are you okay?She didn’t answer and the pain faded from his body. Luke spun his X-Wing to dive to the surface of the Death Star with Biggs and Wedge following the maneuver. Biggs’ worried voice came over the comm. “Luke, at that speed will you be able to pull out in time?”“It’ll be just like Beggar’s Canyon back home,” Luke said grimly.They fired on the guns at this end of the trench, none of their bolts hitting a target. But the Imperial green return fire also missed. They leveled their ships above the floor of the trench. “We’ll stay back far enough to cover you,” Biggs said.“My scope shows the tower, but I can’t see the exhaust port! Are you sure the computer can hit it?” Wedge asked. The laser cannon on the tower spat out more bolts. Luke concentrated on his deflector screens rather than answering Wedge. If they all blew up in here, Yavin 4 was dead just like Alderaan. “Watch yourself! Increase speed full throttle.”“What about that tower?” Wedge demanded.“You worry about those fighters! I’ll worry about the tower!” Luke hunched over his stick as the laser bolts streaked past his canopy. One of the instruments beeped for attention. “Artoo, that stabilizer’s broken loose again. See if you can’t lock it down!”“I’m on it.” The screen translated for the droid.Stay calm, Luke. Let the Force flow through you. Ben sounded like he was talking in the cockpit again.The guns ahead of them went silent again. “Here they come,” Wedge warned, “oh point three.” Luke glanced at the timing screen. Still too soon to activate the targeting computer to see the distance to the target exhaust port. His instrument panel alerted to the three enemy ships behind his wingmen. He couldn’t focus on them, but he saw the incoming fire alarm.“I’m hit!” Wedge yelled. “I can’t stay with you.”“Get clear, Wedge,” Luke ordered. “You can’t do any more good back there.”“Sorry!” Wedge said as his X-Wing pulled up out of the trench. None of the TIE fighters followed him.Biggs shifted his X-Wing from side to side between Luke and the TIE fighters. “Hurry, Luke, they’re coming in much faster this time. I can’t hold them!”Luke looked back at Artoo. “Artoo, try and increase the power!” He didn’t look at the droid’s response, but focused on the throttle. They had to out run the enemy.“Hurry up, Luke!”Use the Force, Luke.“Wait!”A fireball lit up the trench and rocked Luke’s X-Wing. Biggs’ transponder notice on Luke’s instrument panel vanished. His stomach hollowed out and he couldn’t read the targeting computer screen as it wavered in and out of focus. He felt the impression of a squeeze on his shoulder. “We’re a couple of shooting stars, Biggs,” he whispered, “and we’ll never be stopped.”He blinked back the tears and leaned forward with the controls, urging the ship to go even faster. He flipped the switch to activate the targeting computer.Darth Vader gritted his teeth. Luke had lost both his wingmen and still flew on to complete his mission. That drive was pure Padmé, and it was admirable at any other time and place. Right now, he needed Luke out of the way so he could destroy Tarkin’s technological terror. But first, before Vader’s wingmen decided to take initiative on their firing controls. “I’m on the leader,” he told them. They responded with, “Copy that” and Vader went back to barely considering them.The Force swirled around the boy, aiding his evading shifts in his flight path. Vader’s targeting computer was having fits trying to get a lock on the X-Wing. Oh, Luke could fly. In a less cruel universe, they could fly together to the center of the galaxy and back. But now they were running out of time. He closed his eyes as the Force took control of his hands. He fired before opening his eyes again.The laser bolt hit the astromech riding behind the canopy. The arms reaching for the damaged parts of the X-Wing went limp. That would send Luke out of the trench, like his wingman earlier. The mission was too important to risk with a damaged ship.Luke’s X-Wing didn’t slow down.Fierfek, did the boy want to die?! His signature in the Force did not feel suicidal only determined and calm. Far calmer than Vader was beginning to feel right now. If he let Luke continue and make the bombing run at the end, would there be enough time for him to drop his own payload? He adjusted his sensors, trying to find the target exhaust port amid all the distortion fields present in the trench. The Force slammed him with a quick loss of life, and the transponder for one of his wingmen vanished from the sensors. “What?” Luke didn’t have any rear-mounted lasers, so the shot hadn’t come from him. Panic seized Vader’s remaining wingman. “Look out!” he screamed into the comm.Vader’s sensors blared their warnings, but the TIE fighters collided. A glancing blow at their speeds sent the panicked wingman into the trench wall and knocked his ship out of the trench altogether. He saw a Corellian freighter, a YT-1300, pull up from the trench before his out of control tumble changed his view to the star field.He snarled as he pulled the craft under control again. There was no time for this, not if they wanted to take this battle station from Palpatine’s use. He turned back to the Death Star. The Rebel transponder signals had broken off what was left of their attack and all four of their remaining ships were fleeing towards the fourth moon. Luke’s mood had shifted to jubilant, and it was shared by his Rebel comrades.Had Luke done it? The gray metal sphere hung in the black of the star field before shattering in a mass of white energy. A ring spread out from the cloud of the remains that burned and spread like a secondary star field. The wave of death washed over Vader, quicker than it had for Alderaan. As if the Force already held their lives in forfeit.Vader laughed. His vocoder had no idea what to make of that sound and the electronic chortle made him laugh harder. “He is our son, Padmé. Force impossible shots and aggressive negotiations. Our boy did it.”Our boy, Padmé’s awed voice echoed. He is incredible, Ani. I wish we could go with him, to actually be with him. To learn all about his life to this point.I know, my angel. His laughter finally ebbed away in his scarred throat. “I wish we could congratulate him on the blow to Palpatine.” He sighed as he felt Padmé’s intangible embrace. “I must return to protect our allies against Palpatine’s wrath when he discovers his loss.”
And it falls on you to report it.
“Which is best done from the Devastator. By the time we reach it, I will need medical intervention.”Convenient, let Palpatine rage while you float in a bacta tank. That will give the Rebels time to evacuate. “There will be more rage from him once we emerge. Best prepare for it now.” Normally, that prospect would curdle his own rage at Palpatine’s lies and power over him. But now he was too proud of Luke, his miracle son, and what he had managed to do for the rage to seethe inside him. He set the hyperdrive to the Alderaan system and activated it. There would be another day to find his son, tell him the truth, and secure his loyalty. The Rebellion and Obi-Wan would keep Luke safe from Palpatine for now.

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Chapter Twenty-Three

Obi-Wan followed Leia’s run through the temple’s hangar bay at a steady but slower pace. Luke’s starfighter settled on its landing struts, and the cheering ground crew hooked the technician ladder to it while the canopy lifted. They gathered around the X-Wing, barely giving Luke enough room to climb down. The giddiness from everyone made it too hard to get a read on Luke’s emotional state. He looked pale in Obi-Wan’s brief glimpse as the boy tore off his helmet and jumped out of the cockpit, but from the distance Obi-Wan wasn’t sure.“Luke! Luke! Luke!” Leia ran under the X-Wing and didn’t have to stoop. She reached the bottom of the ladder when Luke reached the floor. The boy scooped her up in a hug and twirled her around while she laughed. The other pilots and ground crew backed off from touching the hero of the battle. He set her back on her feet and she clipped his lightsaber to his ejection harness that was still around his waist.Obi-Wan went around the nose cone of the ship and saw Han Solo dash off the ground transport and run toward Luke. The gathering crowd parted for the running man and the Wookiee who moved slower but his longer legs kept up with the human. Solo was laughing as he called out to them. “Hey! Hey!”Luke let go of Leia and grabbed the taller man in an enthusiastic but quick hug. He gripped Solo’s arms. “I knew you’d come back! I just knew it!”“Well, I wasn’t gonna let you get all the credit and take all the reward.” Solo’s grin didn’t diminish as he playfully shoved Luke’s face.Leia moved into the opening between the two men, wrapping her arms around Solo’s waist. “I knew there was more to you than money!”Threepio, who had followed Leia under the X-Wing, gave an inarticulate cry that turned everyone’s attention to above the X-Wing. What exuberance had been on Luke’s face was wiped away as the technician’s hoisted the astromech’s blasted body out of the socket and down to the hangar floor. “Oh no.” Luke let go of Leia and Han and stepped closer to the protocol droid.“Oh my, Artoo!” Threepio exclaimed. A blaster score mark covered the silver and blue dome along with dried oil and hydraulic fluids. More ominous was how none of his lights flashed and he didn’t respond to his counterpart. “Can you hear me?” Threepio asked. Luke stepped next to the golden droid and rested his hands on one of Artoo’s legs as the droid was lowered into the midst of the technicians. Obi-Wan was not attached to the droid. Grateful for all the times it had saved him and Anakin’s lives during the Clone Wars, but not attached. But even he felt sympathy for Threepio’s anguished cry. “Say something!”Luke moved his hand to Threepio’s shoulder as the protocol droid turned to the head technician. “You can repair him, can’t you?”“We’ll get to work on him right away,” the technician assured Threepio while Luke continued patting the droid on the shoulder and back.“You must repair him!” Threepio turned around to face Luke. “Sir, if any of my circuits or gears will help, I’ll gladly donate them.”“He’ll be alright.” Luke reassured the protocol droid. But the boy wasn’t all right with his pale face and his blown pupils.Leia, take Captain Solo to the celebration. Luke needs a moment. Obi-Wan told the young woman telepathically. Her expression remained ecstatic and her arm remained around the taller man’s waist, but her brown eyes swept over Luke’s tense body. She used her arm to turn Solo away at the same time Obi-Wan put his arm around Luke’s shoulder. “Come, lad, let’s get you cleaned up.” He steered Luke toward the pilots’ ready rooms.Luke gripped his arm as soon as the crowd fell away. “We have to help her! I think she’s dying.” Startled, Obi-Wan glanced back at the route Leia had taken. “No, not the Princess, the Hand.” Luke’s whole body trembled. “Ben, please, we have to save her!”“Change out of that flight suit and I’ll get an airspeeder.” That task focused Luke to the present, and he sprinted off toward the locker rooms. Obi-Wan had no difficulties, securing the use of an airspeeder, the privilege of rank. Luke ran to it having traded the orange flight suit for a gray uniform. He jumped into the driver’s seat and took off at a speed that left Obi-Wan’s internal organs behind. He had forgotten after eighteen years of depending on his feet to get anywhere on Tatooine what it was like with a Skywalker behind the controls. He gripped his crash restraints and readied the Force to slow their fall as Luke accelerated the airspeeder over the tree canopy.Luke focused on a destination that Obi-Wan didn’t sense in the Force, but the young man’s direction never wavered. He probed Luke, not hard enough to be a distraction—Force forbid sending them crashing into the trees—but more thoroughly than he had on the Falcon. There was a bond in Luke’s Force signature that hadn’t been there the last time he had looked over Luke back on Tatooine. But it didn’t resemble any padawan bond Obi-Wan remembered from the Temple. There was no anchor point to dissolve, rather the connection bond rose out of Luke’s entire essence.Obi-Wan set that aside to meditate on later and confronted the more immediate problem. This airspeeder had a canopy top, otherwise talking would be impossible at the current speed. “You said Vader killed the Emperor’s Hand for trying to kill you, Luke.”“She missed me by a kilometer.” Luke’s hands tightened on the steering controls, and then he actually answered the unasked question. “Vader started to, but he stopped when I said he didn’t have to. Then things got weird.”Darth Vader stopping a slaughter was unthinkable enough to Obi-Wan, but now was not the time to derail Luke’s story. “What happened?”“She started convulsing. Vader said the Emperor was punishing her. I… I touched her and we weren’t in my quarters any more.” He took a deep breath. “There was someone else there, not Vader. He had her in slave chains and she called him master when she cried for mercy from his lightning attacks.” He gritted his teeth. “We stopped his attacks, broke the chains, and woke up.” He shook his shoulders without letting go of the steering controls. “Vader had her locked up, but she got out of that somehow. We can talk, telepathically. I kept telling her to come with us.”The airspeeder flew over a gash in the tree canopy and Luke choked off a pained gasp. He plunged the vehicle through the broken trees to the gouged forest floor below. Obi-Wan grabbed his restraints again. Luke brought it to the ground, popped open the canopy, and jumped out before the vehicle settled into its stop or before Obi-Wan pried his hands free. He ran to the shattered remains of a spherical craft. It had the upper half of one wing still attached. The circular viewport had cracked during the impact—Obi-Wan hadn’t realized transparisteel could crack—adding to the web-like appearance of the viewport. The top of the sphere was now flattened and the bottom hidden under churned up dirt level with the viewport.Luke ran to the side missing its wing and now sporting a sizable hole. He leaned in. “I’m here. It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna get you out. Next time, you come with me.”Obi-Wan climbed over a log to reach the hole while Luke eased the broken helmet off the battered pilot inside. She was younger than Luke and Leia, and blood from a scalp wound was turning her red-gold hair a deeper shade of red. Her pale skin was growing paler from blood loss and pain. Her lower body was pinned under the instrument panel. One hand was free and it grabbed Luke’s hand once he tossed the helmet over his shoulder.Pain mingled with gratitude and confusion. Luke scoffed. “Of course I was coming; you’re hurt.” Her green eyes focused on Obi-Wan. “It’s okay,” Luke answered. “He’s a Jedi; he can help you.”Even untrained Luke felt her rush of fear as her eyes widened. “That was hardly reassuring for anyone raised on the Empire’s propaganda of the Jedi,” Obi-Wan said softly.Luke reached in and touched her cheek, turning her attention back to him. “Nobody else needs to die today. Please?”“Young lady, you need both the Force and a bacta tank.” Obi-Wan leaned against the hull as he bent to meet her eyes. “I can put you in a Jedi healing trance, which will sedate you to the pain and stabilize you for the trip back to the base. But not without your permission.” Luke started to protest and Obi-Wan gestured him silent.She squeezed Luke’s hand harder and blinked slowly. Her lips parted and there was blood in her mouth too. “Live,” she gasped.“Lower your shields.” Obi-Wan leaned past Luke and rested his fingertips and thumb against her forehead. Her Force signature was nearly as strong as Luke’s, and the young man’s own energy was ready to aid. The Force call to heal found no resistance. Her eyes slid shut and her breathing shallowed.“Now to get her out of this death trap.” He straightened up as he considered the cockpit. “Luke, get the airspeeder ready to take her back in and bring it closer.” The boy nodded but gently lowered her arm to her side before letting it go and leaping clear. Obi-Wan pulled out his lightsaber. He cut the instrument panel into smaller pieces and pulled them off her with the Force. He cut the seat free and floated it and her out of the wreck.Luke jumped out of the airspeeder after he moved it closer, lowering its canopy completely, before he stopped in front of the floating young woman. His head jerked to look at that and then at Obi-Wan. “I had trouble moving a piece of metal.” He unlatched the restraints around her, and Obi-Wan let the seat go. “How can you do this?” He gestured at the still floating girl.“Practice, Luke, practice.” Obi-Wan smiled as they moved to the airspeeder.These Rebels knew how to party. Han finished off his latest Corellian ale and surveyed the result of his good work. All these celebrating people were alive because of him and the kaprito. That felt good. The spitfire princess had hugged him. That felt better.Leia was talking with one of the generals and still looked happy, even though she had calmed from her boisterous greeting in the hangar bay. Chewie had found a group of technicians and mechanics to talk to. But he didn’t see Luke. He had disappeared with the elfosahaj a couple of hours ago and never showed up to his own party. Time to fix that.Han grabbed three bottled Corellian ales and ambled to the princess. She finished with the general and turned to Han with a beautiful waiting-to-hear-the-pitch smirk on her lips. “Seen Luke? I’m saving an ale for him and it’s getting warm.” He raised the bottles.She blinked her brown eyes at him in surprise. “I haven’t seen him. But I think I can find him.”He followed her lead again through the maze of a base. No real point to learning where everything was; they had to relocate as soon as the party was over. She didn’t pause or ask for directions before they headed up the turbolifts, and they ended up in a medcenter observation room. Luke was at the window watching a limp patient getting lowered into a bacta tank. It couldn’t be any of the pilots from the Death Star run; none of them had ejected before they got hit.He handed Luke one of the ale bottles and Leia the second one before gesturing at the tank. “Who’s going in?” He would have remembered that red-gold hair if he had seen it on the base and Leia was staring intently at her freckled face. Both of the patient’s legs were in splints.Luke took a swig of his ale. “The Emperor’s Hand. She crashed in a TIE fighter.”Both Han and the Princess stared at Luke. “You’re missing your party for the woman who shot you?” Han demanded.“Why is everyone caught on that? She missed me by a kilometer.” Luke stared at the woman in medical basics. “She helped me on the Death Star. I couldn’t let her die.” He took a long pull from the bottle.Han would give anyone fleeing the Empire a ride out, but this didn’t seem the time to talk about improving the already-done escape. “You’re gonna have to deal with people being concerned, Kaprito. We don’t know anything about her.”“The Emperor’s Hand was a rumor to scare Imperials,” Leia said. “Palpatine’s pet assassin, so you better not cross him. I didn’t think the Hand really existed, much less be someone I’d recognize.” Han and Luke both turned to the smaller woman while she drank from her bottle. “She’s one of the reasons why my mother never wanted me in the Imperial Court without a chaperon. She’s one of Palpatine’s concubines.”That was more ingenious than Han had previously attributed to the Emperor. Make your assassin a pretty, young woman and hide her in his court; it had style. Luke looked puzzled. “What’s a concubine?”Poor kaprito hadn’t been in the Core that long. “Kind of like Jabba’s girls,” Han explained, “decoration and entertainment.”Luke scowled. “And just as voluntary, from what I know.” He turned back to the window as the medical droid sealed up the tank and threw a switch. A bright flash of light activated the bacta. The Hand didn’t open her eyes, but her body convulsed as much as it was able, suspended in the thick liquid. Her arms jerked. Concern slapped the scowl off Luke’s face and he stepped closer to the window. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s just bacta.”“She can’t hear you right now.” Han took another swallow of ale. But her convulsions calmed after Luke’s words. It was probably the sedatives kicking in.“She can hear me,” Luke said softly, not looking away. Han looked at Leia. “Is it a Force thing?”She swallowed before answering. “I don’t know enough to say yes or no. Luke, are you in love with her? Because seduction would be something she was taught—”Luke jerked to face her so hard he almost dropped his ale. “I’m helping free her, not gilding her chains!” He exhaled deeply when he saw the bafflement on Han and Leia’s face. “She was Palpatine’s slave. He tried to kill her. I hope she decides to stay and fight but it’s her free choice.” His shoulders slumped. “She didn’t think we’d help her.”“Of course we’ll help her,” Leia said briskly. “We have some hidden colonies she can emigrate to if she doesn’t want to fight.”The blond kaprito perked up with that news, and took a swig from his bottle. The door to the observation room slid open and they all turned toward it. Kenobi shook his head at them. “The medical droids said she is out of danger and progressing to full healing. Now go enjoy the victory with a clear conscious, Luke.”“Now those are orders worth following. Come on, your girlfriend in the tank is in good hands.” Han dropped his arm around the shorter man’s shoulders and turned him to the door. Leia wrapped her arm around Luke’s waist so he couldn’t twist away. Not that Luke tried. They trooped out together with Luke protesting not to call the woman his girlfriend.

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Chapter Twenty-Four

The topmost room of the abandoned temple, a grand ceremonial chamber with skylights aligned to Yavin 4’s solstices and equinoxes and tiled with precious stones, was obviously significant to the ancient Massassi. In deference to the long extinct race, the Alliance had only cleaned the chamber, repaired damaged stone work, tamed the jungle growth, installed metal doors and turbolift access. It had been decided that it was the perfect location for the award ceremony, but that’s all Luke knew. He had been kept too busy with explaining what happened during the battle, accepting the commission into the Alliance to Restore the Republic’s military as a lieutenant; learning the list of everything the High Command expected an officer to know and how he’d go about officer training; discussing with Wedge Antilles about the new Squadron they would be in charge of, reviewing the evacuation procedures for a base; arguing with Han to stay for the awards ceremony; talking to Chewbacca through Threepio that the Wookiee knew what Han had promised and he would make sure the Corellian kept it; meditating with Ben—Master Obi-Wan and Princess Leia; getting more supplies for his bunk, his uniform, and more casual clothes including a yellow flight jacket; showering with water; and sneaking to the medical level to check on the Hand’s bacta tank. So it wasn’t surprising that his grief didn’t hit until Luke was flat on his back in his bunk and he missed Biggs’ snoring.The entire base was participating in the mid-morning ceremony the second day after the battle. Luke tried not to dwell on that as he, Han, and Chewbacca waited for their cue in the anteroom before the chamber. Or maybe he was just picking up on all their emotions; Ben said that was something he’d start recognizing soon. He couldn’t help the excited smirk as he glanced at Han.The smuggler rolled his eyes, but the rest of his expression was jovial rather than exasperated. He had found a clean shirt that he fastened closed around his neck and matched with the same black vest, blue trousers, and boots Han had worn since Luke met him. Luke couldn’t close his new shirt all the way like that. It felt like it was trying to strangle him. Probably because it actually fit his body instead of Luke eking out the last bit of use out of garments cut for bigger bodies than his.The officer in charge of the ceremony opened the door and waved for the trio to start their march. They turned out of the anteroom and started down the steps, feet in time with each other’s, and Chewbacca behind them. The rows of Alliance personnel stood in a parade rest and turned to face the wide aisle down to the dais at the other end of the room. The mid-morning sun streamed inside through the five tall windows behind the dais. Princess Leia stood in the center waiting for them to reach her. She wore a new white dress with a lower neckline to show off the silver necklace she had on. Her hair was braided in a coil on top of her head, rather than the coils she had over her ears every other time Luke had seen her. The rest of the High Command stood at attention behind her, including Master Obi-Wan. He had finally traded his desert robes for a clean uniform though he had left off the long coat and hung his lightsaber from his belt. Luke had left his father’s back in his quarters. He probably shouldn’t have done that. Too late now.They mounted the steps up to the dais and the watching audience turned to face the stage. The uniform stomp of that many feet reverberated off the thick stone walls. Luke found his stomach quivering with the sound, but it was with excitement not anxiety. They stopped on the steps so Leia regally stood taller than them. She kept her regal composure through Han’s serious stare, but matched Luke’s grin with a grin of her own.Major Arhul Hextrophpon—Luke recognized him from the interview about the battle—and General Jan Dodonna stepped up beside Leia. Han finally grinned at the Princess while General Dodonna was removing the first award from the box Major Hextrophpon held. Her serious face returned as she took the first Medal of Bravery from the General and hung the brown ribbon around Han’s bowed neck. He straightened and winked at her. She smirked back but quickly moved to the next medal, passing the longer ribbon over Chewbacca’s head so the gold emblem rested on top of his bandoleer.Movement from Threepio caught his eye. The protocol droid had gotten himself polished for the ceremony and stood next to Master Obi-Wan. The old man’s expression was proud and Luke nodded slightly at the pair of them. Luke bowed his head when Leia reached him. The highest award the Rebel Alliance bestowed went around his neck. The round golden disk was engraved with a stylized flower that the Old Republic had used as an emblem. In the center of the petals was a rising sun. He felt the weight of the hope that they could win against the Empire land against his chest. He looked up at Leia, trying to show he was up to the task. Leia straightened and Han and Luke both bowed at her. Chewbacca missed that cue while he stared down at the medal on his chest. Artoo whistled and beeped something in Binary as he rocked on his two legs closer to his counterpart. The officials stepped aside to let him pass. Luke had no idea what the droid said, but chuckled just seeing the little guy whole, functional, and just as polished as Threepio. Leia gave a breathy chuckle too and Master Obi-Wan’s smile widened as he looked at the droid.Then Leia gave the signal and Luke, Han, and Chewbacca turned to face the audience. The applause from that many pairs of hands reverberated against the stone walls. Luke saw Wedge Antilles and Evaan Verlaine, the only other survivors of the battle, in the front row with the smaller awards. As the applause died down, they left the steps and filed in the front row next to Wedge.General Dodonna remained next to Leia and intoned solemnly about who the Alliance had lost thanks to the Death Star and displayed the memorials honoring their sacrifices: Jedha; the Rogue One team at Scarif; Queen Breha Organa, Viceroy Bail Organa, and their subjects on Alderaan. Luke’s head was swimming before the General rattled off the battle’s dead, but he heard Biggs’ name recited off. It hit him again like a landslide. Biggs was gone.The crowd’s indistinct murmurs woke Luke’s awareness that General Dodonna was still speaking. The older man was sharing the news that they had to abandon this base and find a new one. The Empire could have sent out a message when the Death Star finally learned about this location. Yes, it made sense to get moving. Luke didn’t have much to pack, luckily enough. Or unluckily enough considering he had nothing to remember Biggs by now.They were dismissed, not that anyone really left. Everyone wanted to shake hands or hug or just touch the Heroes of Yavin. Luke shook hands with the generals and other officers until he reached the one in charge of the medals. “Excuse me, sir. What are you doing with the medals given to the fallen? Sending them home to their families seems like asking for trouble from the Empire.”Major Hextrophon pushed his uniform cap back to peer at Luke. “I usually take charge of them, saving them for the day when their families will ask for them.” His eyes fell to the box in his hands. “The Empire will fall one day.”“Can I hold onto the one for Biggs?” Luke swallowed hard. “Biggs Darklighter.”“You two joined together.” Luke nodded since the sudden tightness in his throat made it hard to speak. “No harm in it. I know where to find you if I need it back.” The Major opened the wooden box in his hands and pulled out a circular enameled metal brooch. A red Alliance Starbird was surrounded by black words: “Rebel Alliance” around the top, “Honored Fallen” around the bottom, and Biggs’ name across the widest part of the Starbird.

It burned in his palm. “Thank you, sir.” Luke closed his fingers around it.“May the Force be with you.”They parted ways and Luke scurried into the turbolift without drawing any attention to himself. But the turbolift wasn’t empty. Threepio lifted his arm in greeting. “Oh Sir Luke, you’re not staying for the festivities?”He leaned against the turbolift wall opposite the pair of droids. Both medals—the one around his neck and the one in his hand—felt heavier now. “No, I’m all partied out. And it’s just Luke, Threepio. I’m no one’s master.”Artoo added something in Binary too complicated for Luke to follow. Threepio tilted his head. “Good luck making a counterpart out of him.”Luke wasn’t sure who that statement was referring to and the turbolift was slowing for his level. “I’m going to the medcenter if anyone looks for me. But I’d like to learn Binary while we have the down time.”Artoo beeped cheerfully as the door slid open. “Artoo says he is on your comlink,” Threepio said, “so you may reach us with it when you’re ready, Lieutenant Skywalker.”“Okay, I will.” Luke stepped off the turbolift wondering exactly when Artoo had managed that with Luke’s brand new comlink. He found the medical droid Too-Onebee packing equipment into traveling crates. “How’s the patient?”“Her bacta tank treatment is complete, but she is still unconscious in what General Kenobi described as a healing trance. The glucose and nutrients drip is to facilitate the trance’s affect on the body.” The droid gave Luke directions to the Hand’s recovery room and continued with his tasks.Luke found the recovery room and his breath caught to see her, the only color in the sterile white room. Someone had loosened her braid and her red-gold hair spread over the pillow like a fan. Her pale skin had a rosier hue now underneath all her freckles. He didn’t feel the throbs of pain in his own body. They didn’t have equipment hooked up to help her breathe. The drip Too-Onebee had mentioned was inserted in her left arm.In his non-expert opinion, things were looking better for her. And he shouldn’t stare like this, otherwise people were going to get the wrong ideas and repeat Han’s boneheaded comments. He turned the visitor’s chair so he wasn’t staring directly at her and sat.Now there was no distraction from the heavy weight in his hand. He opened his fingers and stared down at the medal. He should go home and give it to Huff Darklighter. That was the right thing to do. It was the hardest thing to contemplate. Biggs was the suns of his father’s system. To have to explain to Huff why Biggs was gone and Luke was still here, that was harder than actually living with Biggs gone. And that made the future bleaker than it had ever been before, even when he had stared at the gutted and burning homestead and had found Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru’s bodies. Biggs had been with him for that. Now was almost enough to wish Huff was a loyal Imperial for an excuse to stay away.“Judging by that shiny weight around your neck, your side won.” Her voice rasped out through a dry throat.He looked up at the medbed to a pair of brilliant green eyes watching him. “I blew up the Death Star. I don’t think that’s classified. Let me get you some water.” He found a couple of water bulbs left on an instrument tray and opened one while she directed the medbed to sit her up.She gulped about half the contents in one chug before speaking again. “Good riddance. So why are you in here looking like your best friend died?”“He did.” Even though ‘best friend’ was so inadequate to describe what Biggs was to him, it made the most sense to these near strangers he was surrounded by. He stuffed the medal into the pocket of the yellow jacket as he sat down again.Her green eyes winced as he adjusted the chair to face her better. “The one with the mustache?” Luke nodded. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for your loss,” she said.He could feel her sincerity and her guilt that her response was inadequate for his grief. “Thank you, that means a lot.” But he needed to not talk about Biggs right now. “What’s your name? The Emperor’s Hand is your slave title; I’m tired of using it.”That jolted her and she drank more water to hide it. How long had it been since her name had been used? “It’s Mara, Mara Jade,” she answered.“That’s pretty. Pleased to meet you. How do you feel?” Just because he didn’t feel the pain he had felt before the healing trance started didn’t mean it wasn’t rude to ignore what she went through. He should give her more nice in her life.“I want to scrub the bacta taste out of my mouth, but otherwise nothing physically hurts. How long has it been?” “Nearly two days.”She rotated the nearly empty water bulb in her hands and stared down at it. “What did you have to promise them for treating me?”“How hard did you hit your head to forget it doesn’t work that way?” He smiled as she huffed. “It’s okay. You get to choose what you want now. You can enlist or not. Han promised to take you wherever you want to go. He was drunk, but I think he’ll still do it.”“But you want me to stay and fight. I can feel it.”“I do,” Luke admitted. “You have the Force and can train to be a Jedi like me and the Princess. But you aren’t obligated to because I helped you. You’re free; you have a choice now. And I’m not like the Emperor, Vader, or any other slaver to take your choice away from you.” She stared at him and his cheeks burned under her gaze. “It’s true,” he insisted.“I know. You are nothing like the Emperor or Vader.” She smirked. “That’s a good thing.”

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Chapter Twenty-Five

“Something that I’m exceedingly grateful to his aunt and uncle for.” They both looked at the door. Ben—Master Obi-Wan—stepped inside the medcenter room. “They’d be so proud of the man you’ve become.”Luke ducked his chin toward his chest trying to escape the embarrassment. “General Obi-Wan Kenobi, this is Mara Jade.” He waved his hand at the medbed and realized she was nearly vibrating with wariness.“Greetings, Mistress Jade, I’m glad to see you healed so quickly.” Master Obi-Wan stopped at the foot of her medbed. “Luke’s extolling the virtues of the Alliance?”“He’s telling me I have a choice.” She was braced so hard against hope, preparing herself for disappointment, Luke wanted to squeeze her hand. He didn’t think she’d find it comforting. “I was taught you were dead.”“If there is a bright center of the universe, Tatooine is the planet farthest from it.” Master Obi-Wan rested his hands on his belt. “And you have a choice. I’m here to assess and advise.”“Me or the Alliance?”Ben smiled. “It’s rarely an either or and it all depends on what you want. Luke is right; you deserve that.” She didn’t say anything, so Master Obi-Wan asked. “Do we need to rescue your family from Palpatine’s custody?”“He only took me.” Her voice had a forlorn note that made Luke want to squeeze her in a hug. He kept his arms at his sides. “I don’t think they wanted me to go,” Mara continued. “I remember the first time I met my Ma—the Emperor and the ride to Coruscant on his private ship. My parents, they’re just a little more than shadows.”“How old were you?” Ben asked gently.“I don’t remember. I was old enough to talk to him, and to understand that I would be leaving home and going with him. But I can’t pin it down any closer than that.”“He raised you and still tried to kill you?” Luke didn’t bother trying to hide his anguish.Mara lifted her chin, but it didn’t hide the pain in her eyes. “He said I was special because of my tiny Force talent. I could hear his voice anywhere in the galaxy and he could channel his power through me if it was necessary. I passed all the tests, all the training, and became his Hand, the only one he trusted to carry out his will.” She clenched her jaw and felt so cold before she glared at Ben. “He lied. I’m not the only Hand. Vader confirmed it. I’m not special at all.”“You are special,” Luke insisted. “You got away from Vader. You survived crashing that tin can of a ship. You should be back in a cockpit because of that alone!” She blinked at him, distracted from her pain and confused by his vehemence. Luke felt his face heat again.“Do not hate yourself for falling for his lies, child.” Master Obi-Wan said gently. “He fooled the entire Jedi Order, the Senate, and the galaxy at large to recreate the Sith Empire.” He stepped forward until he was across the bed from Luke. “You are strong in the Force, Mara. And surprisingly not Dark. Did Palpatine teach you anything in how to use the Force?”“A few tricks to help me with my missions. What I was capable of learning and doing.”Luke didn’t have a chance to protest that before Master Obi-Wan chuckled. “If you chose to train with us, a larger world will open itself to you. And I believe you will surprise yourself with what you are capable of.”Mara frowned. “I have a responsibility for what happened to Alderaan. The Emperor and Tarkin always planned on killing the whole planet, but he made a fool of me, letting me believe that the citizens would be spared.” Her hands curled into fists on top of her blanket-covered lap. “I want to make him regret that.”“We will,” Luke said, “together.”She smirked at him before looking back at Master Obi-Wan and became fully serious. “I will share all the intel I know, but I don’t trust myself to face him directly. I know he lied.” Her fists pressed down on her thighs. “But I still want to believe his lies.”Luke couldn’t stop himself from setting his hand on her arm. “You won’t ever face that monster alone. I promise.”Her hands relaxed as she looked at him.“By the Force, no one in the High Command will put you on a mission to confront that Sith. Have no fear of that,” Master Obi-Wan added. Luke’s comlink alerted and the older man sighed. “It’s Leia. You should go see what she wants before she brings a whole parade through here.” Mara’s eyes widened in alarm and Luke’s gaze darted between her and Master Obi-Wan. “Go on, Luke, I’m not going to chase off your recruit.”It’s okay, Mara’s voice said in his head. I’ll call you this way if I need you.“Okay, but I’ll be back.” Luke trailed his hand down her arm as he stood up and moved around the bed. She squeezed his fingers before he was out of reach. He returned the squeeze before leaving the room. He answered his comlink once he was out of the medcenter area. “Skywalker.”“It’s Leia. I have something for you, something personal. Can you meet me at your quarters?”“Sure, it won’t take me long.” He found Princess Leia standing outside the door of his assigned bunk with a holoimage frame in her hands. She still wore the gown from the ceremony. Luke ushered her into the empty room. None of the surviving pilots had roommates in the long row of barrack rooms. “What’s wrong?”“Nothing’s wrong. What kind of week has it been to immediately jump to wrong?” She rotated the frame in her hands before she leaned against the naked bunk. Luke was glad he had taken the time this morning to make his bunk. Made the room look better. “Don’t answer that,” she continued. “I’m giving you Artoo.”“I don’t really feel comfortable with that.”“It’s not really an ownership thing,” she insisted. “Claiming them that way keeps the anti-droid sentiments of others at bay. He wants to keep flying but only with you.”“Even after getting shot?” Luke exclaimed.“He said it wasn’t as bad as getting dismantled while still activated. At that point, Threepio started calling Artoo demented and I’m not sure he’s wrong even with the clean bill of health from droid technicians. They didn’t find any damage to his core processor or memory modules.”Luke took a deep breath. He and Artoo had flown well together, and if no one was making a master out of him it could work in the future. “Okay, he can be my flying partner. I’ll do better at keeping him from getting shot.”She nodded crisply. “Thank you. There was one more thing. Biggs,” she paused looking at his reaction. “He took me to his family home before we headed to find Master Obi-Wan. Nobody was there and he didn’t want to get his family in trouble with the Empire, but I thought he’d want, that you’d both want a reminder. So I took this.” She thrust the frame at him.He looked down at the holoimage of Biggs grinning in front of his brand new skyhopper. It was the holoimage frame he and Biggs shared on the Darklighter homestead, rotating between all the images they had of themselves and their families. “Oh, Leia.” Tears filled his eyes, but he breathed deeply to calm down and shifted his eyes so the water didn’t spill. “Thank you.” His voice was unsteady and he breathed until it came back under control. “Thank you. These are the only holos I have of my aunt and uncle and now Biggs.”The Princess’ whole body sagged against the bare bunk’s frame. “I hoped I hadn’t overstepped by taking it. Things can change so quickly and then you have nothing to remind you of home.”Luke turned off the holoimage frame. If anyone knew how true that was, it was the woman standing in front of him right now. “Do you have any reminders, your Highness?”“A few heirlooms and some personal items entrusted to the Alliance, and what’s left of my people.” She smiled, but it was a brittle as fulgurite. Then she sighed. “What I need? Someone to consider Leia. I’ll have plenty of people who will consider my title. If we’re going to be Jedi, we should be friends.”Luke felt his shoulders drop. He set the holoimage frame down on his bunk’s mattress. “I’d like to be friends, Leia. I just didn’t want to be impolite.” Then he grinned because there was good news. “But I think Mara’s going to train to be a Jedi too. She’s at least leaning that way when I left her and Ben—Master Obi-Wan.”Leia’s lips twitched between a smile and a smirk. “Your girlfriend in the tank woke up?”He grimaced. He could choke Han for calling Mara that. And the more Luke explained, the more it stuck. So choking. Or checking in with Chewbacca for how the Wookiee got through to the irritating human.Leia settled on a smirk. “Don’t worry; I won’t say it in front of her. But you make the funniest face over it.”“Laughing at my face is fine, but no nicknames.” He never wanted to hear ‘Wormie’ ever again. “Mara’s about your size. Where do I get her clothes? I’m sure she doesn’t want to walk out of the medcenter in those tunics and trousers.”“I’ll show you to Supplies and introduce you to the officers in charge of it.” Leia set a quick pace from his quarters, but Luke had no trouble keeping up.The young lady kept her gaze on Obi-Wan as the recovery room door slid shut behind Luke. He couldn’t recall seeing such a guarded expression on one so young before. “I suppose Palpatine told you the Jedi were what? Power-hungry war mongers who wouldn’t stop the Separatists?” He asked with a smile to hopefully put her at ease.“That was what my history lessons said. The only time I heard the Emperor say Jedi was when he accused Vader of being one instead of a proper Sith.”Obi-Wan tugged on his beard wondering what exactly Vader did that was more Jedi-like than Sith. The stories the Rebel Alliance told about Vader were exactly what anyone drawing upon the Dark Side would do.“Is this when you tell me the truth that you don’t want me anywhere near your padawans?” Mara’s hands curled into fists again. “That I don’t have any Force skills worth training and I’ve been horribly corrupted by your enemies.”“Corrupted? But you haven’t been.” All Obi-Wan felt from her was her suspicion (understandable), the strange bond with Luke (that needed examination), and heartache (a far too familiar heartbreak of betrayal from a loved one). Obi-Wan pushed his memories aside to consider the poor child’s current predicament. “I’m not surprised you think that you could be, considering what Palpatine ordered you to do, murder and what have you.”“Lots of spying,” Mara said succinctly as if she had expected questions on her activities. “That started when I was old enough for sex because it made for the best distraction.” Mara hardly looked old enough for sex now in Obi-Wan’s opinion. “I only had two elimination assignments, traitors not Rebels. And I researched their crimes thoroughly before completion. They were criminals.” Her nonchalance broke. “Luke isn’t; the Emperor didn’t give me any time to research him.” Her anger over her treatment mixed with a protective sympathy toward Luke. That boded well that she wasn’t on a mission to ingrain herself for further harm. “He’s only guilty of being Vader’s son.”Obi-Wan’s thoughts came to a jarring crash instead of landing. “How do you know that?”“Vader told me, right before he shot me down, the calyarnr.”But Vader had not told Luke. And Luke must not know or he’d never have the strength to do what was necessary. Obi-Wan pressed his fingers against Mara’s temple and slipped in through the strange bond she had with Luke and the regard she had for the boy. The Force wove a loop around her memory. “Forget what Vader told you. Telling Luke will only hurt him. Never tell him. Just forget what was said. Keep Luke safe.”Her green eyes glazed over as she looked back at him. The command was as strong as he could make it, so he withdrew from her mind and pulled his hand away. She blinked and shook her head. “My apologies, I must be under the influence of medication.” She looked up at the drip bag and then Obi-Wan. “What were we talking about?”“Your commendable lack of vengeance,” Obi-Wan said quickly with a smile. “Which is less work for both of us if you want to be a Jedi. Vengeance is a path to the Dark Side.”“You want me to be a Jedi?” Confusion made her voice sound young.“Frankly, it’s safer for you. Half-trained abilities end up being a liability more than an asset. Becoming a Jedi and joining the Rebel Alliance is the easiest way to make amends for Alderaan, but only if you wish to. Luke would be most irate if he thought you were agreeing because you thought you had no other options.”Mara made a breathy sound that might have been a sigh or a chuckle. “He has repeated that enough, and I believe him. He has done nothing but try to help me and he doesn’t even know me.” The gleam in her eyes sharpened. “He finds this cause worthwhile, being part of the Rebellion and becoming a Jedi. I’m willing to do both.”She left ‘as long as Luke is’ unsaid, but Obi-Wan knew the implication was true. He held out his hand to her. “Welcome to the Rebellion, Mara Jade.”