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Chapter Text

"I am going to tell you a secret," Leia's father had said once, "and you must promise me that you will only ever use it as a last resort." 

"Do we have another secret escape tunnel somewhere?" Leia had answered, still distracted by the day's affairs, younger and eager and naive. "You know, I think we need one with a faster ship docked at the end of it, not some hunk of junk, with-" 

"Leia," her father had said sternly, almost coldly. 

And Leia had sat, speechless, because Bail Organa was never cold. Not to her. 

"This is not a secret that is likely to save other people. This is a secret that could kill you. This is a secret that could kill me and your mother." 

"...Then don't tell me!" 

Leia had leaned away from her father, her hands jerking upwards towards her ears, even though she had even then been too old for such a gesture. She wouldn't have pointed a charged and unlocked blaster at her father, even if he had asked it of her. This had felt like that. 

"Leia..." 

"If it can hurt you, I don't want to know!" Leia had insisted. 

Her father had gently taken her hands away from her ears. He had held them. 

"This is a secret that could also save your life," her father had said. "It is dangerous to know. This has been proven. But if you truly intend to continue my work, all of it, then... I think that it is also dangerous not to know. You must help us keep it." 

"I can't let slip something that I don't know," Leia had protested. 

But that had just made her father smile. "You must know it, so that you can use it, if you need it." 

"I won't need it." 

Her father had squeezed her hands and his eyes had been sad. "I hope not," he had said. "But we are not always given our choice of weapon in the fight against the Empire, so let me entrust you with this last resort, for when there is no other hope left..." 

Now, Leia walked down the dim, gray halls with her head held high, despite the fact that her hands were tightly bound. The pins in her hair could be repurposed, probably, but she hadn't been left alone long enough to try to do anything with them. The only weapons that she had at her disposal now were her words. 

The white lights cut into the walls flickered slightly. On either side of him, the soldiers' boots clicked against the gleaming floors. Behind her, the mechanical rasp and hiss of the Emperor's favorite beast followed her as closely as a shadow. There was no way for her to go but forward. 

The control center of this monstrous battle station was even darker than the hallways, lit only by bare necessity, and it made the planet out the window glow all the brighter. The difference made the man standing at the window, tall and skeletal, appear darker against its reflected light. 

Leia walked directly up to the man, refusing to give him the satisfaction of the slightest appearance of fear. "Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash." 

The hard suit of the mechanical beast brushed warningly against Leia's back. The touch sent an unnatural coldness through her. She could feel the next haunting breath against the top of her head, challenging her courage, as though she had anything but contempt for these men who made themselves important by making themselves a threat. 

"I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board," she finished. 

Countless reminders to control her temper had, unfortunately, rarely stopped the fire when it was already burning. It also didn't help her temper that Tarkin merely smiled at her, as though she wouldn't have gladly ripped him limb from limb if only she hadn't been bound. 

"Charming to the last," Tarkin declared. 

They traded more pointless barbs. Interrogation and a lengthy imprisonment - a hostage to be used against her parents, bait for other agents of the Rebel Alliance - was a far more likely fate for her than execution. She'd resisted their first painful attempts to probe her mind, but the Imperial Security Bureau rarely passed over an opportunity to extract every scrap of information, which would give her time to find her escape. 

Even if Tarkin wasn't bluffing about having signed an order of termination, Leia had already resolved that she could do no less than all the rebels who had held the technical readouts of the Death Star before her. 

Her resolve faltered when Tarkin threatened to turn the Empire's newest weapon on Alderaan. He shifted in a second from mocking satisfaction to a looming, predatory sharpness that left her stuttering on her own breath, caught between two heartless monsters. She could see in Tarkin's furious eyes that he meant his threat completely. 

All of Alderaan would suffer the same fate as the Scarif base. The same fate as the Holy City of NiJedha. As the planet of Ghorman. As hundreds of other peaceful planets and moons crushed under the Empire's might or torn apart during the senseless fighting of the Clone Wars. 

Her words now would decide the fate of every living being on her planet. 

"...Dantooine," Leia said, lowering her head. "They're on Dantooine." 

Tarkin had always thought poorly of her - "A stupid girl in over her head," he'd said to her face once - and so he accepted her answer with a speed that was both insulting and relieving.

"There. You see, Lord Vader? She can be reasonable." 

Dantooine's base had been abandoned for some time. The Empire would find nothing there but its rich wildlife, if they even bothered to look before destroying it! Such a target would take them far away from Alderaan. That would give Leia time to think, time for the Death Star plans to reach Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Rebel Alliance-! 

Tarkin turned to address one of the other Imperial cogs and said, "Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready." 

"What?!" Leia cried. 

Tarkin turned to her, all mocking satisfaction again, and chided, "You're far too trusting." 

It felt like the boarding above Tatooine again, before Leia had managed to eject the droids and the plans, like a lack of warmth so complete, so biting that it burned anyway. No way out. No place to hide. Even as Leia had resolved to struggle until the end, she had first had to overcome the cold and relentless loss of hope... 

"Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration," Tarkin was explaining, like there was any justification for this nightmare. "But don't worry, we will deal with your rebel friends soon enough." 

"No!" 

Leia jerked forward and was pulled back again by a heavy glove on her shoulder. It felt colder still. Immovable. Like Death itself standing at her back, holding her down. 

The only weapon she had here was her words. Having looked Tarkin in the eye, Leia knew with certainty that there was nothing she could say to change his furious mind. She looked desperately at the other people in this dark, whirring room. 

The control center was staffed by only a handful of Imperial officers, who didn't even look at her as they flipped their switches and spoke into their comlinks. Leia didn't have the words to express her disdain for these people just following orders. Some of them might have the same murderous fervor as the governor in front of her, but they also might have simply traded other people's lives for credits, for personal comfort, for a sunlit apartment on Coruscant and a waterfront resort suite on Naboo. 

None of them would go against Tarkin. None of them could. The only thing that Imperials loved more than rank was tearing apart dissenters. Tarkin wouldn't have picked anyone with a conscience to attend his evil ceremony. 

Leia felt a rasping breath against the top of her head again, reminding her that there was a man inside the mechanical beast, supposedly, a murderer nearly as powerful in the Force as the Emperor himself. Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Imperial Governor, only held the man's leash because Darth Vader, pitiful and loathsome as he was, allowed it. 

Her words now would decide the fate of every living being on the planet. 

Leia jerked herself around, throwing all of her strength against the hand on her shoulder, and looked up into the unblinking, black mask of Anakin Skywalker. 

"Padmé Amidala's child survived and was taken to Alderaan for sanctuary," she said, cold and clear. "If the planet is destroyed, your child dies with it." 

For several heartbeats, the terrible clicks and whirrs of the control center's deadly work continued, as though Vader hadn't heard her. Tarkin turned towards Leia, frowning as though he wasn't sure what he'd heard, opening his mouth to speak more of his poison, and then... he froze in place. 

Everyone in the control center was frozen in place, suddenly and unnaturally and against their own wills. Leia herself couldn't move. She struggled to even breathe, her throat and lungs seizing with the effort, struggling against the impossible gravity that had fallen on the room. 

There was nothing cold about the power that was holding them all still in its storm. It was like standing next to a burning engine. Like the air might catch on fire around her. 

There was anger, enough to drown in it, not her own but somehow felt just as strongly. Hatred. Despair. An urge to do terrible violence, to cause pain, to not just see blood but take it. It sounded like someone else in the control center was choking on these intense emotions, but Leia couldn't see through the living shadow looming in front of her. 

The ready whirring of the Death Star was dying down again. Comlinks chirped and were left unanswered by the frozen officers. 

"...What?" Vader said. 

The low word seemed to travel through the room like a detonation, shaking everything, though no one was released from the grip holding them all in place. 

Leia struggled to even swallow. Even seeing the Emperor in the Senate hadn't felt like this. That had been like looking in on celestial bodies from a distance, observing the way that so many people orbited a black hole of a man, many of them by choice. Here, Leia couldn't even look away from Darth Vader's mask. 

The pressure on her throat lightened just enough that she could gasp, taking in deep and ragged breaths. Her voice was barely audible.

"Padmé... Amidala's child... lives on... Alderaan." 

The room trembled. Panels groaned. Lights flicked and flashed. Something cracked. 

And then they were released. Leia fell to her knees, still gasping and coughing, and it felt like all her muscles were trembling uncontrollably. Every bruise that she'd gained being dragged around by stormtroopers seemed to be writhing. Every ache that her interrogation had given her throbbed fiercely in a full-body, bone-deep remembrance. 

She wasn't alone in this. Past the edge of Vader's swirling cape, she saw the Imperials collapsed across their consoles or even laid out unconscious on the floor. 

"Cancel the sequence," Vader ordered. His words still shook through the room, heard clearly, felt deeply in the chest. The air still felt like it might catch fire at any moment. 

Tarkin sputtered. The old man hadn't fainted, unfortunately, but he had still fallen on the floor. He pushed himself up on one elbow. "Lord Vader!" 

Vader ignored the objection completely, facing the technicians who were still mostly upright. "End it. Now." 

"Don't!" Tarkin snapped, clawing his way back to his feet, all ferocity and sharp edges again, so determined to kill in the name of his beloved Empire. "Whatever... whatever she said exactly, she's lying to you, Lord Vader- urk!" 

A massive, black arm had snapped out, fingers tightening on thin air. Several steps away, Tarkin clutched at his own throat as he was lifted off of the floor, off his own feet, until he was hanging in the air with enough space for a man to walk below him. His eyes were bulging. His boots jerked. 

The remaining cogs scrambled to obey Vader's command, the two of them lurching from console to console to power down the weapon. They stepped over the bodies of their unconscious fellows, who were drooling into the floor. 

"Cancel the sequence!" one of them hissed desperately into the comlink. "Cancel it now! Shut it down! Lord Vader commands it!" 

The other technician kept going and shut the consoles down completely, leaving the dim control center even darker than before. Only then did Vader's arm lower, his powers setting Tarkin back on the floor. Shaking and coughing, the governor stumbled over to the nearest dead console for support, staring at Vader with those sharp, animalistic eyes. 

Leia pushed herself up onto unsteady feet, wondering if she could sprint for the exit. She could try. She doubted that she would make it very far, but she wouldn't know unless she tried. 

Some of the now unconscious Imperial officers had been armed. If she could somehow reach one of their blasters... 

Vader began to turn back and Leia froze, not due to his Force powers, just desperate animal instinct hoping against all higher reason to remain unseen. She'd told him. She'd used part of her secret of last resort, twisting that terrible truth up in a desperate lie, and it was now setting in that she would never be able to take it back. 

"Vader!" Tarkin snapped, trying to push himself up tall. "Enough of this!" 

Leia exhaled as Vader turned away again. 

"What do you think you're doing?!" Tarkin demanded. "This is my battle station now! I am in command! The Emperor has ordered us to finally make an example of these rebellious planets and crush these criminals once and for all! I'll have you-" 

"Your petty ranks mean nothing against the powers of the Force," Vader replied warningly. "You will not fire on Alderaan until I have verified the information from the princess." 

"Her lies!" Tarkin barked. "Surely, her lies! They are all liars, the Organas, desperate at any cost to escape the gallows that they have built with their own hands! Do not be taken in by... by references to troublesome senators long dead and irrelevant-?!" 

The black glove snapped up again, only partway, and Tarkin jerked backwards and fell silent even though Vader apparently hadn't used his powers this time. 

"Do not speak of her." 

After the room finally seemed to stop trembling, Leia could see Tarkin swallow. Fear warred with fury on his pale, bony face. "We must prove the Death Star is fully operational. We'll be fortunate if its systems haven't sustained damage after aborting in the middle of the sequence-" 

Vader closed his fist and every console in the room was crushed in on itself, the metal squealing against it, the plastic cracking, the screens sparking and shattering. The conscious technicians yelped and scrambled to get away. In mere seconds, tons of specially constructed equipment had been crumpled like foil. The smell of burning plastics was foul.  

"You will choke on your aspirations for this technological terror, like your unfortunate predecessor, Tarkin, unless you learn to recognize when greater powers are at work," Vader warned. "There will be a target for this weapon, but it will not be Alderaan. Not yet." 

Tarkin still looked like a predator, but now a cornered one. Laws meant nothing in the face of violence like this, but he'd clearly never expected to be on the weaker side of such an arrangement. How long had it been since anyone had dared to tell this proud man no? He clearly hated it, such that for a moment, Leia truly thought that the governor would choose to break before he agreed to bend. 

"...We will prepare one of the secondary, emergency command bridges, on another level, and abandon this damaged overbridge," Tarkin said coldly. "Shall we make a course for the rebel base on Dantooine now, Lord Vader?" 

Leia's heart leapt with hope. 

"No," Vader declared, crushing her hope in an instant. "You said it yourself: the princess may be lying. Any rebel forces in that remote system will be just as easily destroyed by ordinary Imperial might, which will reach them much faster than this unwieldy creation." 

"We'll alert the nearest fleet," Tarkin agreed, "and, by Dantooine, know soon enough whether the princess is a liar." 

"Alderaan will give up its secrets quickly with the Death Star overheard and their princess in our possession," Vader promised darkly. "Not a word of this yet to the Emperor, Tarkin-" 

Leia sprinted for the exit, not even bothering to bend low and grab a discarded blaster, unwilling to waste the time. She leapt over the sprawled body of one of the guards who might have otherwise blocked her. Someone shouted behind her as she made it to the hallway, running gracelessly for the next bend, hoping to lose herself in the endless maze of identical dark floors and flickering white lights. 

A little chaos, some wasted time spent searching for her, might buy them all some luck-! 

And then her legs went out from underneath her, and that terrible, unseen grip pulled her backwards. Leia hit the gleaming floors hard enough to knock all of the breath out of her, especially as all of her hidden injuries cried out. The pain stunned her, for a few seconds, before she started to scrabble for a handhold. Any handhold. 

But there was nothing. 

When Leia looked back, she saw Vader walking towards her with a glove outstretched. When she was close enough, it felt like the floor itself threw her into the air, so that Vader could grab her by the back of the neck. She yelled and kicked, but he didn't seem to feel any of it, dragging her forwards down the corridor that she had been trying to use for her escape. 

"You have saved your precious Alderaan and your own life only momentarily, Your Highness," Vader warned. "There is no escape. If you try to flee again, know that your planet will be destroyed before you can find a way off of this station." 

Leia couldn't even look up properly into that unblinking mask. She caught only glimpses of its reflection in the dark floors, looking even less like a man than before. 

Would Vader fire on Alderaan, on his own child, if he lost his temper with her? How long until this selfish beast decided that she was lying if he didn't get what he wanted? How long until this coward gave in to the Empire and the Emperor's will again? 

Vader's gloved touch didn't feel cold anymore. Instead, it felt as though she was beginning to burn alive. 

"Sometimes, there is no other course of action but to endure," her father had said once. "Rebel agents are often forced to endure situations in which there may be no escape. They have no allies. There may be no rescue coming for them." 

"There's always at least one way out," Leia had insisted. "You just have to be clever enough. You have to wait for the openings. You have to make the openings!" 

Her father had smiled indulgently, but it hadn't reached his eyes. "Our enemies have more powerful weapons, greater resources, greater numbers, and control of the public narrative. They will stoop to depths that we can scarcely begin to imagine, often much faster than we can anticipate." 

Leia had clenched her jaw, struggling to swallow too many memories and the feelings of helplessness that they inspired. She hadn't been able to disagree again. 

"During the Clone Wars," her father had continued, "there were always several Sith assassins sneaking about, apparently serving the Separatist cause by attacking the servants of the Republic. There was... very little that most could do to fight them, if anything. Their Force powers and viciousness were formidable. Their restraint was not." 

"Like Inquisitors," Leia had said disgustedly. 

"Just so. When faced with an opponent who can deflect blaster bolts and send their enemies into walls with a flick of their hand, the only thing to do may be to end the violence as soon as possible. By escaping, ideally. By surrendering, if necessary. In those... bygone days... I asked a good friend to teach me ways to resist their influence, repel their intrusions..." 

"Obi-Wan Kenobi," Leia had guessed immediately. 

Her father's wistfulness had vanished, replaced by an unamused politician's mask, and Leia had probably not managed to keep her satisfaction off of her own face. 

In her experience, if a person just paid attention, then they would notice the way that different people curved their words around different subjects. The loathing edges in a senator's politeness when they spoke of an enemy, the dripping smugness when someone thought they were getting away with their corruption, the bleeding fear off of a betrayer's every gesture when they'd done something unforgivable... their feelings could be so obvious. 

Leia's father was a very good liar, but this time, here, with her, he hadn't thought to hide the particular fondness in his voice that belonged to his old friend. 

"Perhaps I shouldn't have bothered to pass on these resistance techniques," her father had muttered. "You have strength of mind enough all by yourself." Louder, he said, "Yes, Master Kenobi and I served together during the Clone Wars, as you know, and one does not have to be a Jedi to keep the Force with them." 

"No," Leia had agreed, thinking of the black hole at the heart of the Empire. 

Sometimes, it felt like everyone else in the galaxy had gone mad, falling over themselves to give power to one fallible man. A shamelessly evil man. Sometimes, it felt like she was a small ship, running out of fuel, running out of air, trying to fight against the gravity of a celestial body that was trying to swallow her whole. 

"The Force is everywhere, in everything, an energy field created by all living things, even holding the echoes of everyone who has ever lived. It connects us across great distances and time. As long as the Force is with you, you are never alone." 

Every time that he father reminded her of this, it sounded like he was reciting something. The words were curved with fondness again. 

Leia had heard the Force whispering to her long before she'd known what it was. As soon as she'd learned, she'd also learned that it was another thing to hide. Another thing that the Empire had taken from her. 

"I hope you never have to use these techniques," her father had sighed, looking pained by the mere thought of it. "But if the worst should come to pass... in order to make your openings, to find your escape, Leia, you must first endure." 

"Tell me what you know." 

Sometimes, the snow fell before the leaves did, and the world would turn equal parts rich green and sparkling white. There was a valley famous for this, the natural warmth of the earth below holding summer close even as the cold closed in, until the storms finally came. 

Delicate green stalks peeked through the thick blanket that crunched under her boots. The crisp smell of snow mixed with the strong, sweet, and slightly peppery smell of the spiny wisewood trees. If they were lucky, the leaves and branches might be coated in a thin, clear layer of ice, and in the sunlight, the forests glowed like they were made of glass. 

The beauty of two seasons crossing was fleeting, because one would ultimately prevail. The snow would melt. The plants would shrivel. The leaves would fall. The snow fell again. 

But there was always next year. 

"Who told you about Amidala?" 

On the other side of the world, there was a lake so clear that skating on its frozen surface felt like flying. It was breathtaking at sunrise, at sunset, in broad daylight, but most of all on bright, cloudless nights, when the ice reflected all of the stars above them perfectly. 

She had visited once, gliding across the mirror, balancing between the galaxy and its echo, trailing harsh, foggy breaths. She'd felt like a giant walking the galaxy's rivers of colorful stardust. And also impossible small like an wandering asteroid. Like some kind of luminous being. 

Some of the stars out there might have been dead, she'd realized, but their light still marched on for years and years. Dizzied, she'd fallen to her knees, unable to tell which way was- 

"Obi-Wan took the child from Mustafar... Did Organa take him in?" 

Sundander flowers burst out of the ground with every false spring, golden and impatient, releasing a soothing herbal scent. Row after dying row. Wave after helpless wave. Hopeful and desperate and statistically doomed. 

Until, finally, the cold retreated for good. The shivering survivors, the latecomers, were finally left to live in peace. 

To grow on soldier's graves, on old battlefields, according to an old poem that also worried, "When comes the day that the cold never retreats? We have only so many seeds-"  

"Where is he? Where is Kenobi?! 

It was only truly spring when she saw the first Ealdorman's Butterfly, a species found only on Alderaan, and only on a small fraction of their planet. 

They were bright yellow insects. Pretty. Harmless. So sweet. They liked to land on people's noses. In her mother's hair. On her father's parasol. 

She knew a girl who had a nose piercing that looked just like an Ealdorman, even programmed to flutter its engraved golden wings. Crafted on Alderaan. With Alderaan metals. Made by the girl's grandmother, who'd learned to make jewelry from her own grandmother, on this same planet almost a hundred years ago- 

"Where is the child now?!" 

She had asked her mother once why they still wasted time and effort on such things as summer solstice festivals. 

"Our spirits need music as our body needs sleep," her mother had said. "We must remember what we are fighting for, else we drown in our anger and grief-" 

"Your shields are weak. They will break, Your Highness, it is only a matter of time! No one is coming to rescue you. Where is Obi-Wan Kenobi?! Where is the child?!" 

She had tried to count the number of dead sundanders that she had seen in a single season once, before the snow finally melted for good that year. 

One thousand, nine hundred, and seventy-seven dead flowers- 

"Do you think that you have the strength to fight the Dark Side forever?! Whoever taught you such techniques is not more powerful than me." 

Her mind felt as though it had been cracked open, all thoughts spilling out, leaving her with nothing of her own. 

Instead, the universe was spilling in, trying to fill the empty spaces. Every feeling, every sense, had been magnified to become brutal, breathtaking. 

She could still hear the nearby unhappiness, still feel that walking pit of darkness, even through the buzzing of the station's walls. It swirled back and forth. Back and forth. 

"Speak, Doctor, or forever hold your breath!" the darkness said. "Your precious droid failed again! " 

"I- I adjusted the dosages of the serums to the highest levels I c-could, Lord Vader, without completely compromising the prisoner's coherency! My work is much more delicate than some hack like Gorst-" 

"I don't care to hear excuses!" 

"My- Lord Vader, I now suspect that- that our medical records may be incorrect." 

"Only now you suspect?! " 

The bobbing fear flinched at the same time that she did. 

"After the- the last interrogation, I requested a medical droid in order to run new tests. But the station wasn't designed to- prepared to-" 

"Excuses!" the darkness howled. 

"The Organas must have falsified the records! Cheated the tests!" 

"We should have arrested that entire family of traitors twenty years ago!" 

"Yes, Lord Vader!" 

"The princess has been revealed to be much too powerful in the Force for your machines to break..." the darkness seethed. "Perhaps Obi-Wan trained her himself..."  

Its heavy presence drifted back towards her, sending her flinching against the cold metal slab beneath her again. Even as the universe spilled in and out through the cracks, she could hide herself in its chaos, lose herself in its vastness... The Force was already all around her, it was easier than ever in some ways to wrap herself up in it. 

"Lord Vader, I've b-been looking into the records of the family... in order to design the most suitable interrogation-" 

"What is it?!" 

"An old report claims that Senator Organa, the elder, tried to visit the... Imp-p-perial Palace on Coruscant... on the night that the Jedi Order of- of traitors was..." 

The darkness seethed in the silence left between them. "You think that Organa took a Jedi youngling?" 

"It's a p-possibility, sir, given his, uh, known sympathies." 

The fire of anger surged again, crackling, and she choked on just the memory of its smoke. 

"I'd like your authorization, Lord Vader, when retesting, to run the results against the... database of the Order Inquisitorius...?" 

"Granted." 

"Thank you, Lord Vader-" 

"I want the results as soon as possible!" 

"Of course, Lord Vader!" 

Another ball of fear bobbed forward. Their determination had ebbed and flowed, lurking on the edges, and now finally bubbled up. "Lord Vader!" 

"What?!" 

"Grand Moff Tarkin de- requests your presence at on- at your earliest convenience!" 

"For what purpose?!" 

"The first stage of the operational review is complete." 

Anger. Again. Always. 

"Grand Moff Tarkin also wishes me to remind you that they have relocated to another level-" 

"I am aware!" The darkness seethed, but turned with great effort and whisked itself away. "If you do not have results, Doctor, by the time that I return, you shall not live to regret it!" 

Fear. Again. Always. 

"Yes, Lord Vader! It shall be done!" 

With the darkness leaving, she should have pushed her body up and found a way to remove it from that small, cold room. Instead, clumsy hands pulled pins from her loosened, tangled hair and dropped them. 

Instead, she drifted. 

Chapter Text

There was something in the way of the sun. Not blocking it out, not like a total eclipse, not even like a partial one, because the star was too close for that and the drifting planetoids were small shadows against its brightness in the black. Disturbed light flared around their bodies. 

"-can't still be here when he gets back!" 

"Just shut up!" 

"I don't want to die if things planetside go to hell!" 

"That's not our problem!" 

She opened her eyes. There wasn't a sun on the ceiling, just dim bars of flickering, artificial light that made her stomach and then her body all over churn like a sea smashing white against a cliffside. She could still smell the harsh sterilization fluids that had clung to the medical droid. She closed her stinging eyes again. 

"Keeping our heads down isn't going to stop them from being cut off!" 

"Our shift's almost over! Then it's the next unlucky troopers who have to watch him murder the Imp-Sec doctor and clean up aft-" 

"Look at this! Look at what he did to this freighter that was trying to break the no-fly zone!" 

"...What the hell...?" 

"Look at all those bodies in the bay!" 

"When did that-?" 

"Too long ago! I can't believe I'm only seeing this now... Late to the search because of the big Moff's screaming and he takes it out on everyone else..." 

"Does the Grand Moff know-?" 

"Who can stop him?! My guy in the security center says that there were more in the hallways before he was kicked off to kill rebel civvies or some- He's right, we have to get the hell out of here. I should never have taken this fucking posting." 

"Shut up!" 

"The bonus wasn't worth my life-!" 

"Doctor! Sir!" 

A coward had slinked back into her senses, no longer entirely formed from fear and resentment. He bobbed and glowed with discovery instead. His interruption cut through some of the choking terror of the others. 

There was something behind him. 

"I've informed Lord Vader that I have the results of the tests he ordered," the coward said coolly. "I imagine he'll be here soon. I think he'll find the results from the Order Inquisitorius very interesting. Very interesting indeed." 

The terror flared again, hot and desperate, as all of these bodies came closer. She would have flinched away from them, if she could have managed more than lying still and breathing deeply, and trying to squish her eyes shut even tighter, like that would keep the universe out. 

There were countless bodies moving around her, but most were distant and distracted, blurred and barely giving off any reflected light at all. These were too close. Too loud. 

It hurt. Her throat burned. 

"What are you-? Step aside, soldier!" 

"No, sir. Sorry, sir. Orders are that no one is allowed into that cell." 

Now, she thought of partial eclipses. Of ships the size of fortresses hanging overhead. The sharp edges of disbelief and outrage, of fear and resentment, moving against a disk made of brighter things. The sun was being blocked out, but it was moving too. It flashed and winked. 

"...Are you spiced?! I'm the interrogator in this case! The prisoner is in my charge! Get out of my way, you idiots, and go hold her down again so that I can reapply the necessary sedation." 

"That was the last shift. And they said no one enters, not even the Grand Moff." 

The coward said, "Are you accusing me of lying?! For what?! For whom?!" and screamed, "I outrank you in every possible way! I'll have the Imperial Security Bureau make your life hell! I'll have you thrown into a cell on the most distant asteroid in the galaxy for this!" and bellowed, "Do you know what Lord Vader will do to u- to you for this incompetence?!" But the wall of fear wavered and creaked and held, as its two heads said, "No, sir!" and, "Sorry, sir!" and, "I don't know you from a human replica droid, sir, so take it up with him!"   

She thought of annular eclipses now, in which a body wasn't quite large enough to totally block out its looming star, creating the illusion of a great eye peering out into the galaxy. A black sphere surrounded by a burning ring. This ring was expanding. 

The bodies went towards the light, their unhappiness and frustration crashing into each other, until one of them stopped suddenly. Confused. Like the coward had only just now noticed that the sun existed. 

"There aren't supposed to be any other prisoners in this block! Who gave you the transfer orders?!" 

Something roared. Fear flared. 

"Look out, he's loose!" 

Blaster fire. 

Leia lost track of what was being shouted. The lights winking out. The terrible screams followed by worse silences. There was only her splitting head, her burning throat, and the desperate understanding that she needed to get up. To just get up and get out.

Oncoming blaster fire woke a person up from drifting like little else. 

Her body wasn't a good place to be. Her hands trembled as she put her palms on the cold metal, her knees ached when they slid against the hard floor, and her arms shook wildly as she dragged herself over to the door. Hair fell around her. A pin bounced next to her fingers. 

The door didn't move when she reached it, or when she used it to pull herself upright, or tried to push against its perfectly smooth, metal surface. It groaned and rattled in protest. 

It was such a thin door, really, in the grand scheme of things! A narrow and fragile layer through which already easily passed the chatter of a comlink, the smell of blaster fire, and the blinding flashes of an impossible sun. It was so porous, so insubstantial, that she should have been able to reach right through it! If only she pushed! 

Leia opened her mouth to call for help too and the words came out like a crackle of static. It felt like fire in her chest. She banged on the door instead. Bang! Bang! BANG! 

Blaster fire slammed into the door, the heat of it sending Leia flinching backwards. She caught herself on the metal ledge that passed for a bed, the impact like a second bolt, as the cell door whooshed open and immediately screeched still halfway. The familiar scent of blaster fire, of burning plastoid, came through. Gasping for breath, eyes already watering, Leia looked up just as the sun peered through the crack. 

The sun looked a lot like a stormtrooper for some reason. Black, plastoid eyes fixed on her and the universe flooded with joy. With relief. With concern. It spilled everywhere. 

"Hey, we're going to get you out of here," the stormtrooper said, pushing uselessly at the door. "Blast it, this is jammed good, but you can still slip out, right?" He reached out a gloved hand. "Can you stand? I think I might get stuck if I tried in this armor." 

Leia pushed herself up again, struggling with the... uneven surface of the ledge? She looked down at the metal and noticed for the first time that it had been dented in the interrogation. Using the wall for support, she climbed back to the door, and her hand fell into a heavy indentation there too, the damage that had almost stopped  her exit. 

As soon as she was close enough, the stormtrooper grabbed her arm, pulling her through and off balance. But he caught her too, on the other side, even though he was short. He even brushed her hair from her face with the hand not holding her up. The touch was so warm. It was almost familiar. 

She swallowed again and this time, her voice came out hoarse but clear enough. "...Who are you?" 

"Oh, right, the uniform." The stormtrooper reached up with that free hand, ripping off the blank eyes and white bone, casting it aside. "I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you." 

His short hair was a very light brown, sticking up in odd places. His pale face was sweaty under her fingertips, sweet with worry. His eyes were as blue and open as an Alderaan sky. He was as bright as a star, but she thought she could easily look at him forever. 

The universe was still spilling in and out of her head, and in this moment, it was singing. 

"Skywalker..." Leia repeatedly stupidly. "Like..." 

"Anakin Skywalker? He's my father," the young man said, even more stupidly. "I'm here with his former partner, Ben Kenobi- urk!" 

Leia had grabbed the front of her twin brother's armor and pulled him even closer, though there was nowhere to neatly hide him away from the Empire again. "Why aren't you on-?! You're not supposed to be here!" 

"I know, but-" 

"You can't let him find you!" 

"Yes, all right," said Luke, trying to remove her urgent grip. "Who?" 

"Darth Vader! He's looking for his child! If he finds out we're not on Alderaan, he'll destroy it!" 

Luke's eyes went wide with shock. Disbelief. Fear. 

"Destroy it? The planet?!" 

"LUKE!" another voice yelled down the hallway, panicked and furious and ready to fire. "PICK HER HIGHNESS UP AND LET'S GET OUT OF HERE ALREADY!" 

An animal roared again, fearful. Urgent. 

Luke hauled her up before the yelling ended. She stumbled again, her hair fell in front of her face, which smacked into the stolen armor, but it didn't block out the universe. Luke was strong, though, an anchor as the waves all around them twisted and screamed. 

"You're supposed to be on Tatooine!" Leia complained as he pulled her along. "You're supposed to be safe!" 

Confusion flared. It burned with grief. 

"How do you-?" 

"You didn't say that you knew her!" interrupted the other voice. "Should I be calling you 'His Worshipfulness' too?!" 

"I don't know what she's talking about!" 

Leia clung even tighter to the white armor. It had helped to know that he was somewhere out there, living far away from all of this, hidden deep within her heart. They fit together, even after all of this time apart, didn't he see it? What part of what she'd said had been confusing to him? 

She opened her mouth to ask and said, "They're coming." 

She felt the urgency, the determination, the giddy permission to kill. 

"They're coming for us now! They're coming for you!" 

"I think she's drugged," Luke said. 

"You have to run!" 

"Oh, you think?" said the other voice. 

"Please!" Leia cried. "Please!" 

She felt the eager press of the trigger before she felt the explosions that rocked the nearby elevators, like lightning before the rumble of thunder. She tried to pull Luke away, to tuck him back inside her heart, as her eyes burned and blurred. 

"Oh, hell, they're already here! CHEWIE!" The other voice put itself between them and the stormtroopers. "Get behind me! Get behind me!" 

An animal let out a growling moan. Protective. Murderous. 

Blasters fired again, too loud and too bright. And again. And again. 

It was hard to tell who was carrying who backwards, away from the white death spilling in. Luke pushed and Leia pulled. But they were stuck. Even as they were moving, they were still stuck fast, going nowhere, luminous beings trapped by thin, metal walls. 

And then Leia could feel the eager press of a trigger again. She could feel the murderous focus on her, on the half of her standing in front of her body. She could see the straight line, perfect and terrible, of the blaster bolt that was flying towards them, running directly from the stormtrooper's blaster to the back of Luke's head. 

"NO!" Leia howled. 

She threw up her hand and pushed against the universe. 

The answering wave of Force ripped down the hallway, around Luke, around the protectors beside them. The blaster bolt slammed into the ceiling first, but the wave kept going. 

All of the blaster bolts were knocked off course, into falling panels and sparking wires as the hallway tore itself part. Metal shrieked. Plastic cracked. Stormtroopers flew backwards through the air, their armor breaking and tearing off, and the control consoles screamed and flashed and broke apart. The station shuddered around them. The lights flickered and went out. 

Blood was dripping, over the metal mesh, down the cracked edge of a light fixture, pooling into the cracks. The debris shifted and crushed down even heavier. Jagged pieces of armor dug deeper into skin and bone. She couldn't breathe. 

"Leia? LEIA!" 

A strong arm around her squeezed a little tighter, pulling her upwards, and she gasped in a desperate breath. The shaking hand moved from her shoulder to her cheek. Leia opened her eyes to Luke's pale, worried face. There was sweat, fear, awe, but no blood. 

"...Well," said the other voice, strained. "Can't get out that way now." 

Luke turned slightly and Leia looked past him. 

"Oh," she said. "Oh, no." 

The hallway looked as though it had suffered some kind of tractor beam malfunction. The detention block was halfway destroyed, and all of the stolen debris had been thrown up against the hole in the wall - wall panels, parts of the ceiling and floor, the control consoles, the stormtroopers - all crunched together, an impossible barricade that would take many more explosives and saw tools to break through. 

Like trails in the sand, she could see the paths the debris had followed. Like smoke after a fire, the Force clung to them, and they seethed with pain and dying light. 

She'd never been able to touch the Force like this before, but now her head had been broken open and it was everywhere. In everything. 

An animal moaned. 

"What the hell did I get us into this time?!" complained the other voice. "First, some Imperial monster tears up my damn ship with some magnetic magic and now there's more of them...?!" The voice was tight and shrill and thick with grief. 

"Hey, don't call her that," Luke snapped. 

He was still holding her upright. One of his warm hands was rubbing up and down her back. She pressed her face into his stolen armor again, breathing in his aliveness. 

"The Falcon is in pieces! I'll talk however I damn well like!" the other voice snarled. "And the magic princess here who's supposed to buy me a new one apparently doesn't want to leave her cell after all!" 

Luke held her even tighter. "There's got to be another way out." 

But then he pushed her away, handing her over to... a carpet? A vertical carpet. It was very tall. And very warm. Its long, brown hair didn't smell good, though, like it was still attached to whatever animal it came from. It moved, too, holding her as she held it. It felt kind. 

Leia patted the carpet, confused as to where it had come from, while Luke said, "C-3PO! C-3PO, come in! C-3PO!" 

"Yes, sir?" replied a tinny voice. 

When Leia rolled her head over, she saw that Luke was talking into a comlink. "We've been cut off!" he said. "Are there any other ways out of the cell bay?" 

An animal rumbled and Leia felt the sound all through her body. A big hand was petting her hair. Leia clung tightly to the walking carpet, leaned backwards, and then looked up and then up again into the hairy face of... oh, a person. Not a human. Dark eyes. Big teeth. A black, button nose twitching with concern. Determination. Grief. 

"She's talking and using magic, isn't she?" snapped the other voice. "She's probably going to be just fine, Chewie, don't start picking bugs out of her hair or something." 

The walking carpet person rumbled again, barking softly with annoyed affection. 

"Whatever. Hey, princess." 

Another light flickered and went out. Beyond it, beyond the sparking barricade, shadowy bodies swarmed, furious and frightened and determined to tear through. Alarms were ringing through the battle station, calling out to one another. 

A strong hand jerked her shoulder and then disappeared. "Sweetheart," the other voice said, louder. "I don't suppose you'd like to use that magnetic magic to tear us open a new exit?" 

Leia rolled her head again and finally a new face came into view. Human. Pale but reddened, sweaty, twisted up and furrowed with urgency and frustration. Dark brown hair. Hazel eyes. Handsome, if you liked that sort of thing. Too tall. 

Her nose wrinkled and she said, "Who are you supposed to be?" 

"I'm the guy who's saving your life and hopefully getting paid a lot of money for it," the man drawled. "But you just closed off the only exit, so if you could please unclose it now and get us out of this trap, I'd really appreciate it." 

Oh, Leia realized, this man was stupid. 

She squinted. "So would all of the stormtroopers waiting to shoot you on the other side." 

The walking carpet bleated out a very loud laugh. 

"...Laugh it up!" the man said, scowling up at the walking carpet. "No, Your Highness, if you're going to tear up another wall, let's do the one on the other side of the hallway and redecorate this cell bay evenly, alright?" 

His face creased with wariness. Stubbornness. Hope. Every fleeting feeling in his fast-beating heart seemed to cross this worried face. 

"There's no other way out of here," Luke said, rejoining the conversation. His fingers fidgeted uselessly with his silent comlink. "C-3PO isn't answering anymore. I think that the droids might be in trouble too..." 

The man rolled his eyes. "Yeah, so come on, sweetheart." 

"...I just hope Ben's alright," Luke murmured. 

The walking carpet shifted and bent down slightly, then scooped her up with one arm and began carrying her down the hallway with little effort. She jostled against a blaster. 

"Hey!" Leia complained. 

"Stop kicking!" the man snapped back, when her foot smacked him in the armored shoulder. "Aren't princesses supposed to be used to being carried around?" 

Leia tried to kick him again on purpose. Annoyingly, he dodged her. 

"Watch it, Your Highness!" 

The walking carpet rumbled again with amusement. This time, the sound rang a bell in her aching head, rippling through memories of her father sitting in the dark with his head in his hands, and she finally placed this person as a wookiee. Kashyyyk System in the Mytaranor sector. A former member of the Republic, stripped of their rights by the Empire. 

"Sorry, Princess, but you can't seem to walk in a straight line right now," Luke said on her other side. "Let us help you." 

"My name is Leia." 

"Leia," Luke corrected, smiling. 

It sounded even nicer coming from him. It was so good to see him, finally, looking like everything she'd ever imagined and nothing like that at all. Better than that. She wished with all of her being that he hadn't come here. 

"Vader can't find you," she said. "He can't." 

"I know," Luke replied. 

"He has to think we're still on Alderaan." 

Another flare of confusion, burning with grief and anger. "Wait, is he looking for me now?" Luke demanded. "Anakin Skywalker's son? Because the Empire came to our farm?" 

"I'm not taking another 'no questions asked' job again, Chewie, no matter how much I'm being paid," the annoying man said. "That monster in the black mask is hunting you? You specifically?! That would've been nice to know!" 

"He killed my father," Luke explained. 

"No," Leia said. "No." 

Her brother sounded so earnest, so furious, so certain and aggrieved from the bottom of his heart. It didn't feel like he was lying at all. It sounded like he didn't... know. 

"He is Anakin Skywalker," Leia said. 

Shock appeared to hit Luke like a physical force. He skipped a step. 

"No," Luke said disbelievingly. "No, Ben said..." 

"He can't find you," Leia tried to explain in turn, correctly, urgently. "I told him that Padmé Amidala's child survived and was taken to Alderaan. If he learns that you exist, he'll think that's you, and then this battle station will destroy my planet!" 

It was a secret that was dangerous to know, but also dangerous not to know. Luke needed to know it, so that he could help keep it. So that he could help Alderaan survive. 

The silence that followed was loud with betrayal and fear. 

"...Destroy the planet?" the annoying man repeated. "They built this fake moon to destroy an entire planet?!" 

"Not if we destroy it first," Leia said, struggling out of the walking carpet's arms. 

They were at the other end of the hallway now. Leia's knees shook as they tried to support her, she tilted forward, but then caught herself against the wall. She breathed deeply. 

There were three different hands on her, trying to help hold her upright. The annoying man's hand left first, leaving an echo of trepidation and unhappiness, as he took a firm step backwards. Luke's left next, but he remained so painfully bright, spilling out wave upon wave of sickened, envious confusion and raw grief and miserable, choking lonesomeness. That left the wookiee, strong and gentle and nevertheless pushing upon her a rising, frenzied need to escape this sterile, deadly metal cage.

Leia shuddered. Beneath her hands, beneath her forehead, she could feel the buzzing of the wall's electrical components. The slight tremble of the different panels accordingly. The open space waiting for them on the other side. 

The wall was thick, layered, its components tightly welded, but... it was still made of parts. It was so thin in the grandness of the galaxy. It wasn't any more solid, any more immovable, than the hallways and the consoles that she'd already ripped up accidentally with the Force. There were cracks here that could become an opening. An impossible escape. 

All she had to do was use the Force on purpose this time. 

"Uh, anytime now, sweetheart," said the annoying man. "Whenever you're ready to get us out of this mess." 

"Shut up!" hissed Luke, at the same time that the walking carpet growled. 

The Force was already here, surrounding them, penetrating her being. It was a part of her. She was a part of it. All she had to do was recall how she'd managed such destruction before. 

The wall trembled. 

It had been fear that had unleashed that wave of Force. Desperation. Fury. Horror. 

The wall started to rattle. The metal strained, not wanting to move, the connections between the panels straining to hold together, before it dented deeply under her touch. 

"It's working!" Luke said, jubilant. 

He had come so close to dying. 

Underneath Leia's twitching hands, the wall buckled. It cracked. As the opening began to appear, to be made real, everyone around her seemed to strain forward, frantic to seize their exit before it could escape them. 

And her terror rose higher and higher until it was impossible to focus on anything else. 

They were so close to dying now, trapped no better than scum beneath Imperial boots again, lost without any natural light or the ground beneath their claws, soon to be made skeletons left smoking on the sand. She didn't know what she was doing, but if she couldn't do this, then they were all doomed! All of Alderaan would be doomed with them! No one would ever be able to count all the dead flowers! Darth Vader would soon return and he'd find them and then-! 

The metal pushed back and Leia sobbed, sinking down the wall, losing her grip. The universe was too big and she was too small to hold it. 

Warm hands landed on her back again, trying to make her unfurl herself. "Hey, hey," Luke said, anxious to help her. "Hey, it's alright. Leia. Leia, are you alright?" 

"No!" Leia sobbed. 

Her head had been cracked open by the Force. A part of her had been torn out of her chest and now anyone here could hurt it. Her home was marked for death and who she was would die with it. Nothing was ever going to be the same. 

"Oh, um, that's... that's alright," Luke said, rubbing an awkward hand up and down her back. "That makes sense. It sounds like you've been through a lot of trouble." 

Leia made a sound that she hadn't known she could make, between laughter and another painful sob. "You could say that..." 

Her heart was beating so fast and so loud that she thought it might burst. 

Pity was spilling down on her from above. Concern and despair. Directionless urgency. 

"You've been really strong," Luke said quietly. 

He helped pull her off the floor, as she pushed up and towards him, leaning into his warmth. "I'm so tired of being strong," she confessed in a whisper. 

Luke didn't have an answer for that. None of this was his fault, but he felt sorry. It wasn't fair this was happening to them. He would have used the Force too if only he knew how, she knew, if only she could maybe show him how to do it... 

The walking carpet growled above them, kicking very gently, then the wookiee placed a blaster on the floor and stepped forward. Luke shuffled them aside. Then the wookiee grabbed the edge of one of the dented panels. With a terrible screech, the wookiee ripped the wall panel out of its socket and threw it aside. 

"Yeah," the annoying man said. "Yeah, great thinking, Chewie!" He set his own blaster down and started pulling the half-destroyed wall apart too. "Good work!" 

Luke hastily pulled Leia farther back, hauling them back to their feet again. Dizzied, Leia clung to him and watched with wide eyes as the wookiee, Chewie, and the man made the opening even wider, even deeper. They worked feverishly, gleefully. So quickly, dread was blooming into determination. Into spite. Into hope again. 

"We're going to get you out of here," Luke promised. "We're here to rescue you." 

"Some rescue," Leia murmured hoarsely. 

So far, it had been a mess. Luke coming here, however he'd managed it, had been stupid and reckless and... if they were lucky, it just might work. The burning shadow of Darth Vader had somehow vanished from her senses. If they could somehow find a ship... 

"The Inquisitors know..." Leia remembered. 

"What?" 

Leia looked urgently up at Luke. "They took my blood. To test it." 

Luke's brow remained furrowed in blank, fearless confusion. 

"The Jedi hunters," Leia explained. "The Empire knows." 

"...Knows what?" Luke prompted. 

"That I'm Anakin Skywalker's child, and when he finds out..." 

"You're..." Luke's grip tightened and he shifted to stare more directly into her eyes. "Wait, you're... Did you just say that Anakin Skywalker is your father?" 

"Only biologically," Leia said distastefully. 

"But that would make us..." 

Disbelief. Confusion. Hope. Hope. Hope.  

"You're my brother," Leia finished for him, then frowned. "Did you really not know that? Why don't you know these things? Didn't anyone tell you?" 

"...No?" 

"That seems dangerous," Leia decided. She didn't understand what he was doing here, how he'd known to come find her, if he hadn't known that. "Especially if you're going to be running around on Imperial battle stations without a real plan for getting out again." 

Luke stared at her, searching for the truth in her face. Leia almost flinched, remembering Darth Vader, remembering the Dark Side of the Force trying to tear her open. Instead, Luke shook his head and laughed, before hugging her tightly. He smelled strongly of sweat and blaster fire. It felt like being embraced by sunlight. 

"I have no idea what's going on," he mumbled into her hair. 

Leia hugged him back and said, "That's obvious." 

Luke laughed again. It was full of grief. If she couldn't tuck him safely away into her heart again, she would at least get to the bottom of this mess. 

"Not to ruin what's apparently a beautiful family moment worthy of the Coruscant Opera," declared the annoying man, "but could either of you lend a hand with this?" 

The opening was there. All they had to do was find it. Make it happen. 

Smiling so widely that it threatened to split her head open in a new way, Leia stumbled forward, dragging Luke behind her. She pushed in between Chewie and the man, then put one of Luke's hands on her back, and planted her bare palms on the half-ruined wall. 

"What are you doing now, sweetheart?" said the annoying man, even as he pulled Chewie backwards. Chewie's bleating bark sounded encouraging. 

"Someone has to save our skins," Leia replied. 

She took another deep breath. Fear hadn't worked. That had been stupid, the thoughtlessness of a head full of Imperial drugs and Dark Side wounds, and she could feel her father's chiding exasperation. She had known better than that. If anger and panic didn't work to shield one's mind, then of course they wouldn't be a good foundation for anything bigger. The universe was spilling in and out of her head, but it didn't have to move her.

The emotions around her couldn't be allowed to wreck her peace.

She was ignorant in the ways of the Force, of the Jedi, but she knew just enough to try to move a wall. 

She thought of her father standing in the Senate, full of outrage and sorrow and a thousand passions, facing down the darkness trying to pull them all in and crush them, with inspiring serenity.

She thought of her mother, constantly being pulled in a thousand directions by their people, keeping her fingers on hundreds of chaotic strings, yet pulling the planet together in harmony.

She thought of all of the people who had died for her to be here now, on the Death Star struggling to save her planet, who were still with her in the Force. 

Luke's warm hand on her back was an anchor in the sea, a star in the blackness, pushing nothing on her but a desire to help. Leia pushed again, and this time, the wall fell apart like it wanted to break for her. It crunched. It sparkled. It folded. She was only doing what the others would have done, after all, just a little faster. There was nothing impossible about it. 

"I am one with the Force and the Force is with me," Leia murmured. "I am one with the Force and the Force is with me." 

With a final punch of Force, Leia tore the remaining components apart and sent many of them flying into the opposite wall. She fell into a storage room of some kind, beautifully empty, landing heavily on the floor, with her vision spotting black and white. The floor's surface warped under her hands, slightly, before that last push finished moving through her. 

She felt everyone's delight and relief and worry as her own. It left her breathless. It would also be her excuse as to why she'd fallen over in the first place and was having trouble getting up again. She just needed a moment. 

"Leia! Are you alright?" Luke was right behind her, pulling her upright again and holding her against him after she nodded. "Leia, you did it!" 

"Ow," Leia said. 

"...What the hell," the annoying man said, as he and Chewie ducked through the hole that she'd finished for them, holding their blasters again. "I'm not going to get used to that anytime soon." 

Chewie barked something that sounded much more like happy gratitude. 

"You're welcome," Leia said. 

The annoying man raised his eyebrows, then raised a pointing finger too. "Look, I had everything under control until your freaky magic trapped us in there." 

Leia scowled at him. He was so stupid. 

"It's a wonder you're still alive," she informed him. 

He scoffed. Looking more towards Luke, the annoying man jerked his thumb back towards the hole in the wall. "As soon as they cut their way in there, it's not going to take them very long to figure out which way we went." 

"We'd better collect the droids and find a new ship," Luke agreed. 

Grief spilled out, a raw wound opened again. The man looked away, inhaling sharply, before exhaling mindfully. The wookiee, Chewie, let out a soft, sad howl. 

"Yeah," the man said. "Yeah, we'd better do that." 

"What exactly happened to the ship you came here on?" Leia asked. They'd said things about that, but she couldn't remember precisely, and if the damage could be repaired... 

"Not long after we sneaked off it, that monster in the black mask showed up and had an even bigger magical temper tantrum than yours," the annoying man said tightly. "Looking for the old man, Ben, it seemed like, though we didn't stick around to ask him about it." 

"Oh," Leia said, rubbing a hand around her aching throat. "He was... angry that his interrogation didn't work the second time either."

It wasn't her fault. She wasn't sorry for the bodies that Vader may have left behind him, but it was... sad. 

Luke squeezed her again. 

The other man's eyes narrowed, looking at her neck, and his face tightened, then he softened. "It was a miracle that the Millennium Falcon flew for as long as she did," he said gruffly. "It happens in this business, sweetheart." 

Chewie let out an agreeable growl. 

"Luke here says that you're wealthy enough to buy me a dozen new ships anyway," the annoying man continued, still badly pretending not to care about the loss. 

Luke was close enough that Leia could feel his frustration, embarrassment, and guilt as her own. She patted his back, because this wasn't the first mercenary she'd dealt with as a member of the Rebel Alliance, even if this one seemed peculiarly aggravating. Alderaan was worth far more than a dozen ships. 

"That's only if this rescue ever actually gets us out of here," Leia said archly. 

Unfortunately for her bleeding dignity, when she leaned forward to say this, she overbalanced at the end of the sentence. Luke had to catch her again before she broke her nose on the floor. 

The annoying man had also jolted to try and catch her, unnecessarily. He hastily stood tall again as though he hadn't tried to do such a thing. As though he hadn't, like everyone else, flared with alarm and concern. He cleared his throat and looked anywhere else.  

"Well, then, Your Worshipfulnesses. Let's not stop here."

Chapter Text

When building from the ground up, Imperial prisons were made with only one way in and out. If the Empire lost control of their fortresses, then it would be easy to set up a siege and send in the security droids, to fill the pit with poison gas, or to simply wait until their enemies starved. 

Escaped prisoners were a blow to the Empire's reputation that couldn't be afforded. The complete destruction of a prison, guards included, was considered by some a more acceptable loss. If the defeat couldn't be buried completely, then it would become another act of terrorism for which the Rebel Alliance of "Separatist holdouts" could be blamed. It was the same principle of overwhelming force that led the Empire's terror bombing campaigns. It was the same principle of control that would see all of the Alderaan destroyed, just in case the planet held the plans for this monstrous battle station. 

As far as Leia had been able to see when escorted to her cell, the detention block had been built into a dead end. Their way out would have been a long line of elevators and hallways designed to be locked down. They would have had better luck going down a garbage chute. 

When Leia had broken open the back wall, their new exit had taken them into a different section of the Death Star, some kind of parallel level. The alarms were ringing through the walls, but not through so many urgent bodies. The few bodies near them appeared to be looking outwards, guarding the entrances they knew about, because no one was expecting the prisoner and intruders to appear behind them. 

However, not distantly enough, Leia could feel the powerful buzzing of saws, beginning to dig hungrily into the barricade of debris. 

And Luke was struggling to get the droids back on the comlink. Without the droids, none of them knew where to find a hangar. 

"They shouldn't be here," Leia complained. "We have to get the plans back off of this battle station. As soon as possible, the Rebel Alliance needs that information." 

"What's your little revolution going to do against a place like this?" the annoying man said. 

For whatever reason, while Luke fiddled with the comlink, this man had taken up the post next to the crate that Leia was sitting on. Even when he was keeping his big mouth shut, which was never for long enough, he was still loud with worry, with resentment, with restlessness. If they didn't get a response soon, then he was going to start looking for an exit all by himself. In some ways, he had no shortage of courage. 

Leia rubbed her upper arms. "There's a weakness to the battle station, we just need to find it." 

"Not that I'm thrilled about the Empire having a planet killer, sweetheart, but it's the size of a moon and covered in artillery. You'd have to be suicidal to come flying at this thing." 

"You're here." 

The annoying man scoffed. "Not on purpose, Your Highness. Once we're out of here, even you couldn't pay me enough to come back-"

"If my little revolution and my planet get destroyed, then you're going to have a lot of trouble getting paid for anything!" Leia snapped. "If money is all that you love, then why don't you go hunt for loose credits with your friend over there?" 

Chewie was occupying himself by ripping into the storage room's crates and peeking inside. Mostly, he'd found a lot of spare lighting equipment. Chewie looked up and growled. 

Leia immediately felt ashamed. The wookiee didn't deserve her unkindness. 

The annoying man just snorted. "If I walk away, who's going to keep you upright?" 

Leia realized that she was leaning against the man's armored side. Slightly. Face burning, she hastily scooted away and hunched in on herself more, so that she wouldn't tip over under the weight of the universe spilling in and out and her hot, aching head. 

Disappointment. Amusement. 

"Are you there, sir?" Luke's comlink crackled. 

"Threepio!" Luke crowed. 

"We've had some problems..."  

The droids had apparently managed to trick their way past some Imperial officers and stormtroopers, just by pretending to be assigned to the Death Star. Who would expect a stiff protocol droid to be capable of infiltrating the Empire's superweapon? 

"Oh, Artoo-Deetoo has already located a ship that can be repurposed for our needs, sir," C-3PO assured them all. "He says that this isn't his first time hijacking a ship behind enemy lines." 

"...What, really?" Luke said, baffled. 

Leia had entrusted the plans and message to R2-D2 knowing that the old droid was crafty. Captain Antilles had once said that he'd never met an astromech so eager to get out of their ships and go off into danger on their own wheels. 

"I think he's lying, frankly," C-3PO said, followed by a lot of beeping in the background. "I've known this droid a long time and I don't remember anything of the sort-" 

"Where's the ship?" the annoying man demanded, grabbing Luke's comlink. "And how do we get there?" 

Luke yanked the comlink back. "And how do we let Ben know where to go?" 

"Kid, the old man told us to go on without him if we found a way out," the annoying man said. 

"We can't just leave him!" 

"Oh, um... Artoo-Deetoo, I'm not repeating that!" 

"What? What did he say?" 

"Master Luke, I'm so sorry, but to paraphrase: Artoo-Deetoo claims that Master Kenobi is 'making a purposeful nuisance of himself as usual' and that we ought to make use of the distraction." 

Outrage and grief still rippled out from Luke, but he surrendered the comlink.

"Don't mind if I do," said the annoying man. "Where's the ship?" 

Through C-3PO, R2-D2 gave them directions to a specialized service elevator that would take them a long way away from their current level. There was a relatively isolated hangar there that supposedly had several viable ships that could be sliced and stolen. 

A path out gave them all greater hope. Luke and the other man had lost their borrowed stormtrooper helmets when Leia had torn up the detention block's hallway with the Force, but they and Chewie still had their blasters, and the Force was no small thing to have with them. They didn't come out of the storage room shooting, but they left unafraid. 

The Empire's choking reach wasn't endless, its countless eyes weren't all-seeing, and stormtroopers couldn't destroy every child's schoolbook, every history text, every old stageplay across thousands of planets across thousands of star systems. They hadn't been able to stop Leia's father from teaching her what he could about the Force and telling her about some of what he couldn't. New possibilities, old dreams, stretched ahead of her now. 

Walking in a straight line wasn't a possibility at the moment, certainly not quickly, so Chewie carried her again. It was hotly embarrassing, but pleasantly warm, even if the smell of the wookiee remained less than pleasant. 

But Leia could feel the bodies moving all around them. Even with her eyes closed, she could see a sky full of lights, and the shadows that they cast, and she could grab Luke's arm in time for them to hide, to let a patrol pass by without seeing them. Even if the stormtroopers had seen them, they could have handled it. Leia could have handled it. Even metal walls were thin when compared to this great energy field that was spread across the galaxy, and people were much weaker than walls. 

If she could learn to master the power of the Force, then she could use it to help the Rebel Alliance. But if only Leia had been taught to use it before! If only she had somehow taught herself! A single averted blaster bolt had the potential to alter the course of the galaxy. The lives that she could have saved! The differences she could have made! 

The Tantive IV might have escaped the Empire. When they had been boarded, Captain Antilles and all of his soldiers might have lived. Leia would have had the terrible power to hold in place every cog in Tarkin's control center and crush them with her own hands. When Darth Vader had pushed his way into her head, Leia would have been able to do more than pull away, she could have pushed back. She could have burned him too-! 

Leia felt the flash of detection before she heard the shout. 

"Halt! Who are you?" 

It was impossible to mistake the sound of a voice yelling out through a stormtrooper's helmet. It was too late to warn Luke again, who had been walking too far ahead of them, out of her reach. 

The service elevator was now in sight at the end of the hallway. "There it is!" Luke had whispered, giddy, too distracted to keep peering carefully around corners. In the dizzying shift of lights and shadows, in the grand scheme of the galaxy, the walls were thin enough that Leia had lost track of which ones stood between them and the nearest bodies. 

Caught alone in the intersection between two corridors, Luke now turned to face the approaching suspicion. They could all hear the heavy footsteps. His blaster was out, but down. Leia could see the blasters trained on her brother reflected in the stiffness of his spine. 

"What happened to your helmet?" one of the unseen stormtroopers demanded. 

Luke huffed, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand, and he might have been the perfect picture of a shiny recruit if he hadn't still been too short for a stormtrooper. Behind the back of his head, he flashed two fingers at them. 

"I took it off just to clean some dust off the visor and then I lost it down one of those killer drops when the alarms went off," Luke complained. "Look, I'm just trying to pick up a new one before I get in trouble for it." 

The rest of them were pressed up against the wall. The other man had been bringing up the rear, watching their backs, but now he firmly pulled Chewie and Leia back so he could put himself closer to the edge. His eyes were dark. He stayed very still on the outside. His blaster was ready to turn the corner first. 

"They really need to put some railings on those things, you know?" Luke said. His conversational tone didn't hide the sweat on his brow, nor the bruise on the bottom of his jaw. "It's going to get someone killed one of these days, I swear." 

Chewie put Leia down and readied another weapon. 

"...I know a guy who died like that," one of the stormtroopers said. 

But the blasters still didn't go down. 

"Really?" Luke said, huffing again. "I guess I should be grateful it was just my helmet." 

The suspicion hadn't truly gone down either.

Leia wasn't going to cling uselessly to the wall when she could do something about this! So she grabbed at the man and pulled herself forward, towards the edge, even as her knees shook and he tried to elbow her back. 

He was resolved to take the first shot, for Luke's sake, as soon as one of the stormtroopers came close enough. But Leia could act now. She didn't see why blasters wouldn't be as easy to crush as walls, turned useless around the hands that meant to use them. She was the only one here who could reach out with the Force... 

"What's your designation?" the other stormtrooper demanded. "We should report this."  

Luke pulled his hand out from behind his head and Leia felt a shiver down her spine. It was the hand that had supported Leia as she'd used the Force to free them from the detention block, now reaching out into the Force all alone. 

"You don't need to know my designation," Luke said firmly. 

It was a reach made half-blindly, weak and fumbling, but so enviously determined that the suspicion wavered towards confusion anyway. 

"...We need I.D. for the report," one of the stormtroopers said. 

"You don't need to make a report," Luke insisted, with even greater strength. 

"That's not up to you," the other stormtrooper replied.

Their sudden confusion was only aggravating them. It was an itch that was moving through their trigger finger, spreading to their wavering companion, pushing them another step forward. 

From a certain point of view, this was a reach into the Force that was being made through her, and so Leia suddenly understood what Luke was trying to do here. He knew what he wanted to do could be done. He'd seen the results, if not the mechanics. He now knew what it felt like to touch the Force. 

But Luke didn't have the universe spilling in and out of his head, so he couldn't see the cracks where the wall was weakest. He was careful, uncertain, skimming his fingers against the surface to create small ripples in the Force. 

This flash of shared memory had Leia reaching out again, with one hand, back through her other half, towards the agitated minds resisting his push. She had been plunged deeply into the Force. Pushed this way, pulled that way, nearly drowning under a sea of hateful willpower, dragged down and down until the sheer pressure had threatened to crush her. She knew now how to make waves that moved men. 

"You don't need to make a report," Leia repeated quietly. Her fingers trembled, but her grasp was tight. 

The stormtroopers flinched. "...We don't need to make a report," said one of them. His rapid heartbeat was in his throat. He took a step backwards. 

Luke finally glanced towards her, out of the corner of his eye, but he kept his chin up and said, "I can go about my business." 

As he said it, Leia pushed with him, down against these soldiers who thought only in strictly manufactured lines and with the weapons in their hands. Small-minded murderers! Even now, when confusion and anger had been twisted into terror, one of them was fighting against to keep his blaster trained on her brother. 

"You can go about your business," the first stormtrooper said again, already starting to turn away, eager to flee. 

"Move along," Luke said forcefully. 

"Move along," that stormtrooper agreed. 

Leia disagreed. Who knew what these two would do out of her sight? Out of her grip? 

One of them still wouldn't just lower his blaster, still protecting this monstrous battle station that was still threatening her planet. Unlike the other, this blaster didn't want to break for her. It was being held together too tightly by a man holding his suspicion just as close. 

The Empire could never just leave well enough alone, could it? They always had to follow orders, no matter how evil those given orders were. 

If this stormtrooper was so eager to fire on someone, Leia thought furiously, then he ought to just lift it up to his own head.

Terror flared, hotter than ever, but she shoved that away with all the Force that she wished she could have turned back on Darth Vader. The stormtrooper didn't have to try to think about it! It was just another order! Just another easy press of the trigger... 

Leia saw the lift of the blaster, going up and up, reflected in the wideness of her brother's eyes. Luke jerked his head to look directly at her hiding place. 

The man beneath her other hand shifted, his restlessness pushed to its limit. He looked at Luke and his jaw moved silently, "Take cover!" Then he shoved her backwards, turned the corner, and he shot the nearest stormtrooper in the neck. 

It burned! Leia cried out and crumpled, the agony tearing into her throat and through her body. 

All the lights went out, as she was dragged down into the darkness by a faster and stronger force than anything she'd felt before, until there was nothing but an endless silence. 

Nothing but ripples on the surface of the water, where a person had once been. 

Sunlight glittered on the echoes and then Luke was there again, a warm and worried hand on her shoulder. "Leia! Leia!" 

"What happened?!" demanded another voice from very far away. Frustrated. Worried. Guilty. "Not very useful stuff, this all-powerful Force stuff, if it makes the princess swoon every time." 

Leia clung to Luke's bright light as tightly as she could, and he pulled her away from the pit of darkness and silence that was threatening to swallow her whole, if she drifted too close, too far. Her body couldn't move, but her other half pulled her up. 

"...Lucky that the second blaster misfired like that, but now we've only got one usable bucket," the other voice said. "Nice dive out the way, though, kid." 

"We were... She was in his head," Luke said. "And then you shot him!" 

Fear was thick in the air, but it was better than silence. Her feet were dragging along a cold floor, the grip on her ribs was too tight, but it was better than nothingness. 

An animal barked warily. 

"...Is that why it looked like the trooper was going to shoot himself in the head before I did?" the other voice demanded. 

Everything shifted. Luke slammed his elbow into a button on the wall. 

"Sounds like that new magic trick would have ended the same way in just another second, kid," the other voice insisted tightly. Fear became anger, which became resentment. "Should've just let me take the shot earlier, instead of getting in my way and messing around with bad ideas!" 

"I didn't know what to do!" Luke protested. "Why didn't you take the shot earlier?!" 

"I can't see through walls! Or aim with your witch of a sister here climbing all over me!" 

"You didn't have to push her like that!" 

"Kid, I thought you were about to get shot! Waving your hand around at them like that, what were you thinking? You should have just taken a run for it, then we could have shot them in the back if they chased."

An animal growled in agreement. 

"Sorry, I'm not used to thinking like a smuggler!" Luke snapped. 

"Well, better that than thinking like some hokey mystic!" the other voice snapped back, over the sound of a quiet chime. 

A door opened and Leia felt her body being dragged forward again. She was propped up against another wall, with Luke standing furious and frightened between her and the rest of the galaxy, which was better than lying empty on the cold floor. 

Another chime. A door slid shut again. And then all the lights and shadows around them were moving very quickly. 

An animal bleated worriedly. Chewie. 

"...Is she going to be alright, kid?" the annoying man asked. 

"I didn't think you cared," Luke snapped back. "Better her than you, right?!" And then he leaned in and said helplessly, "...I don't know. Leia? Come on, Leia?" 

He was reaching out with the Force again, wary hands skimming the surface, a brilliant lifeline. She took his hand. She was taken into his hands. Her body still wasn't a good place to be, it hurt to take a deep breath, she couldn't get a word past her burning throat, but she could turn her face into her brother's sweaty neck and then relax her own grip. 

She'd made another reckless mistake. Fear hadn't worked to make her stronger before. Hatred had come with such a different certainty, such a feeling of raw power, and such focus had only left her exposed.

If she hadn't done anything... if she had simply trusted and left everything up to her rescuers... 

There were waves all around, but she had an anchor. There was a bright star keeping her in its orbit, as the galaxy turned, drifting through the black. Her brother shuddered, exhaling in relief. 

Leia wasn't asleep. She wasn't willing to let herself drift so far away, even into a temporary silence, and she wasn't sure that she would have been able. It was hard to sleep when she ached all over, all the way through, bruises jostling with every step. 

"We're almost there," Luke promised. 

There was a darkness growing at the edge of her senses. Distant but dangerous. Like seeing a storm on the horizon. 

The door of the new storage room whooshed open. "Oh, thank goodness! You made it!" cried C-3PO. "I'm so sorry that we're late!" 

"Did you bring the new helmets?" the annoying man demanded. "Oh, good, you did. I need one that doesn't have a blaster burn on it. Kid, catch." 

She felt Luke jerk away from her, then the clatter of armor bouncing and rolling across the floor. "Hey!" Luke complained. 

"Only one person asked what we were doing, and I said that I'd been sent to collect them to replace some that had been recently damaged," C-3PO was saying now. "And the Imperial officer said, 'Carry on, then,' and didn't ask any more questions at all. Even though I was prepared to answer them! I'm starting to think I have the makings of a spy." 

When Leia cracked her eyes open slightly, she discovered that Luke's strange movements were him trying to support her and also bring the dropped stormtrooper helmet closer to him using his foot. He snagged it quickly enough. He even lifted it to his free hand that way. 

No more use of the Force.

Not yet. 

"Maybe we should have let the astromech droid here make all of the rescue plans from the beginning," the annoying man drawled. "I didn't think they were programmed for this sort of thing." 

A droid beeped and whistled. 

"Artoo-Deetoo says that he's been around, whatever that's supposed to mean... Oh, my! Is that-?! What's wrong with Princess Leia?!" C-3PO cried. 

"Tired," Luke said shortly. "You're sure that this is going to work, Artoo?" 

The droid beeped and whistled again.  

"Well, let's get to it, then." 

Warm hands lifted Leia up and carried her across the room. Chewie came to help and took a big step into something, then lowered both of them down to the floor again. The walls were very close. 

"You've got enough room in there?" Luke asked. "You've got her?" 

Chewie groaned unhappily. 

"I know you don't like tight spaces, you big, furry oaf," the annoying man said, but his voice was soft. "It's only for a short while, alright? And I have to put my head back into one of these stupid buckets, so you're not the only one having a bad time." 

"Leia, we're hiding you and Chewie in a storage crate to get on one of the ships," Luke said. "We'll only close the crate fully if we have to and we'll open it again as soon as possible, got it?" 

"Can we get on with it?" Leia mumbled into Chewie's fur. "Or do I have to do everything myself?" 

Amusement. Affection. 

"Alright, here we go," Luke said. 

The light disappeared, but Leia's eyes had already been closed. It was hot and sweaty, tucked up against a living carpet. Chewie really did smell unpleasant. The crate still smelled like the new plastic wiring that the wookie had removed from it. Even hovering, the buzz and tremble of the loading cart was unpleasant, as were the turns around tight hallway corners and the squishing tilt of steep ramps. 

She focused on the rumble and beeps of voices. Tense. Wary. Determined. 

"Hey, you got a problem with our flight plan, then you take it up with Darth Vader!" the annoying man snapped. No one had ever sounded so righteously indignant. "I just do what I'm told. And I was told to get this stuff down to Alderaan yesterday, pal!" 

"Yes, of course, I just-" 

"You want him to come here looking for the holdup?! Didn't you hear about what happened to that hangar on the other side of the station?! ...Yeah, I thought so! Give us a hand with this or just get out of our way already." 

Before she knew it, the crate was being cracked open again and Chewie was pushing out to freedom. Luke was there to help pull her out, pull her into his arms. He held her tightly, gently. It still felt like being embraced by sunlight. 

Chewie moaned softly nearby. 

"It wasn't that long!" snapped the annoying man. "Come here and help me figure out how to fly this thing already." 

Beeping from R2-D2 again. 

"He says that he can be of assistance here," C-3PO translated. "And that he may be able to disable any tracking beacons." 

"Yeah, Imperial ships all have them built in, but this one isn't nice enough to have a hidden secondary," the annoying man said. "Hopefully. Come over here and make yourselves useful again. I don't want to leave this hangar under fire if we can avoid it... These ships aren't exactly known for their fancy flying..." 

Luke helped Leia stumble over to a chair, sat her down, and then knelt beside her to buckle her in securely. He was gentle, but firm. At the end, he brushed her tangled hair out of her face again. 

She couldn't tell where his affection ended and hers began. She made the effort to open her eyes and look at him. 

"Thank you," she said. 

He smiled at her, sweet and sad. "I told you: I'm here to rescue you." 

"Some rescue," Leia repeated fondly. 

"Hey, so, the old fossil said not to wait for him if we had a way out," repeated the annoying man from the cockpit. "I'm in favor of following those directions." 

Chewie growled agreeably. 

"Where is Ben now?" Luke demanded, pushing up and away. "Do you know? Could he get here?" 

R2-D2 beeped and chirped. C-3PO said, "Really? Master Luke! Artoo-Deetoo thinks that, while distracting the Empire, Master Kenobi may have already left this battle station some time ago!" 

"What? Really?" 

"See, what did I tell you?" the annoying man said. "It sounds like your old man knows what he's doing! Let's catch up with him." 

Luke wavered, in the center of the ship's small main room, glowing again with betrayal and grief. "Fine! Alright, let's go! We need to get those plans to the Rebellion, right?" 

The darkness was still out there. It had only become angrier, hungrier, more hateful. It was still distant, but the smoke was growing thicker on the horizon, and they couldn't do anything to fight its fire. 

Leia wasn't strong enough to face Darth Vader again. It felt silly now to think even briefly that she could ever be powerful enough to fight him. 

"We need to get out of here first," the annoying man called back. "Let's hope that the old man got that tractor beam out of commission, or this could be a real short flight..." 

R2-D2 chirped something that made C-3PO say, "Oh, dear!" 

"Though let's hope that your little spy droid's false flight plan clears again," the annoying man said, even louder, "and the Empire won't even find out that their tractor beam is broken." 

R2-D2 beeped indignantly. 

Shooed away again, the droids came to rest near her. R2-D2 bumped up against her chair and Leia put a fond hand on the top of the droid's warm, swivelling head. C-3PO sat in the chair next to her and struggled to buckle himself in securely. 

Luke stayed in the doorway between the cockpit and the main room, tense and silent as their pilot easily lied to the Imperial flight controllers. Leia knew that the falsified flight plan had cleared again, for what would hopefully be the final necessary time, when Luke sagged with relief against the back of Chewie's copilot chair. 

"Thank goodness," commented C-3PO, as the ship lifted off of its platform, "because Artoo-Deetoo confessed earlier that Master Kenobi never turned off the tractor beams for the previous docking area that we were in, never mind the separate tractor beams overseeing this hangar bay's docking area." 

After a pause for a brilliant flare of pure frustration, their pilot yelled, "Tell me that before we take off!" 

They glided out through the shields and into the blackness of space, and still no one stopped them. With any luck, the Empire wouldn't learn for some time that their prisoner and intruders had already left the Death Star. The air that Leia breathed in and out here was recycled, stale, and yet full of hope.  

A certain distance had to be gained from the battle station in order to make the jump to hyperspace, the first in a series towards the rebel base on Yavin. It was a matter of Imperial procedure. None of them wanted to arouse suspicions too soon. The black was swarming with TIE fighters enforcing the Imperial order against unauthorized travel to and from Alderaan, waiting for a purpose. 

Then, the delay was entirely on their pilots struggling to learn the new hyperdrive system and adjust it to their preferences. Leia could fuzzily follow less than half of the argument that was taking place between her brother, both of their pilots, and the droids. 

They were almost ready when Leia jerked upright in her chair and cried, "Something's wrong!" 

Luke came running. "What?!" 

"I don't know!" Leia sobbed, clutching at her brother, who was now kneeling in front of her. "Something is happening behind us! It's... there's so much screaming!" 

Luke pushed off, back towards the cockpit doorway. "Han, what's the Death Star doing?" 

"Nothing that we can do anything about, whatever it is!" the annoying man snapped back. "Did you forget the size of that thing? We're almost away! Chewie, hurry up!"  

Leia fumbled with the buckles of her chair, but she couldn't undo them. Beside her, R2-D2 appeared again and tapped something on the wall, so that a window revealed itself. If she twisted, she could look back at the battle station... It really did look like a moon from this distance... orbiting a pale, blue dot. Alderaan. Her home. 

It was like being in the control center again, the clicking and whirring of a terrible machine ringing through space.

Buzzing. Building. Screaming.

She could see a green light building in the station's eye. 

"NO!" Leia shrieked. "No, no, no!" 

"Oh, no," Luke realized. 

Chewie moaned sadly. Grief. Grief . 

And then the building energy of the Death Star burst. The green light flashed, as bright as starlight, and went backwards, turning in on itself, going back into the battle station. Green light crackled through the gray surface of its hull, like lightning. 

The Death Star exploded. 

The back of it blew out in a brilliant explosion, green and orange and white, and then the rest of it blew up too. That was all orange and yellow and white. Too bright to look at directly. Like the terrible battle station had been designed to self-destruct spectacularly. 

Leia blinked rapidly, lowering her hand from her eyes, and watched as the gray fragments of the Death Star continued to explode. Piece by terrible piece. 

Relief. Confusion. Joy. 

"...What just happened?" Luke said faintly. 

R2-D2 beeped and trilled at length. 

"Oh, my," C-3PO said. 

"I don't care right now!" announced their annoying pilot, twitching with fright and determination, over the sound of Chewie's roaring laughter. "I'm putting us into hyperspace and as far from that mess as possible. I think those controllers on the Death Star have much bigger problems at the moment! No one's sending any TIE fighters after us anytime soon!" 

"...Are you sure that Ben left? Oh, no, what if he came back for us?!" Luke asked, sinking down against the doorframe. "Do you have any idea where he went?" 

After a long pause, R2-D2 booped very quietly. It sounded sad, for a droid. 

"We can only speculate, Master Luke, but Artoo-Deetoo seems to believe that Master Kenobi would have somehow made his way to Alderaan," C-3PO reported. "In order to... oh, dear, I hate to be the one to say this... warn the royal family of Darth Vader's impending arrival." 

Chapter Text

"Mon is right that we've all risked exposure coming here from across the galaxy - and then only for some to try to argue the planet killer out of existence?" Leia's father had muttered, when he had bestowed on her this mission. "The Empire is ten steps ahead of us and these councilors are trying to take us ten steps backwards!" 

It was rare that Bail Organa's cloak of serenity was disrupted by gestures like dragging a hand down his face twice in the same minute, for his gaze to be repeatedly caught by the horizon of dark memories and darker futures, but Leia was older now and so was he. The tired lines of his face deepened every year. As an agent of the Rebel Alliance, she had not anticipated one of her terrible responsibilities would be to bear the fear that her father had hidden all this time. 

"They're scared," Leia had said. 

Partially because it was what her mother might have offered, an observation of the furtive whispers and fractured gazes, because Queen Breha Organa was good at understanding actions and inactions without endorsing or condoning them. Leia wasn't quite so skilled in unconditional compassion yet, so she had also said: 

"You'd think they'd have enough proof by now that begging for mercy on their knees only gives the Empire a better shot at their heads! Have they ever built a weapon not to use it?!" 

Her father had given a gallows laugh. "No," he had agreed. "Some finally admit that a new war is inevitable, as though the last war ever truly ended! If you take this mission in my stead, then I can- I must return to Alderaan to do what I can for our people. I will tell your mother that the Empire is abandoning even their spiritless illusion of peace. We will need every advantage." 

Leia's original mission had been to seek out Obi-Wan Kenobi and beg for his assistance. Rebel soldiers who'd fought in the Clone Wars still spoke with awe about the miraculous abilities of the lost Jedi generals to pierce nearly all blockades and fortresses. 

They had hoped then that the support of the Tantive IV in the extraction would be unnecessary. 

"I'll complete the mission," Leia had promised, determined to do whatever it took. The potential costs had been not unknown, but more abstract then. "You can trust me with this." 

"I trust you with my life," her father had replied. Then, with a rueful smile, he had said, "Mon would say that I am entrusting you with something far more important than that. The fate of the Rebel Alliance, and thus the fate of the free galaxy, rests on our shoulders." 

"I won't fail you." She had realized how that sounded as she'd said it, so Leia had corrected herself. "I won't fail them." 

Bail Organa had taken her hands in his own and kissed her forehead - less gently than he had so many times before, a hard press of his lips, a tight tangle of his fingers - like he knew that he might never be allowed to do so again. One of the last things that Leia's father had whispered to her was this: "They will try to use us against each other if we are captured." 

Leia took another deep breath, but it didn't soothe the pain of being torn in half. 

"We can go back," Luke said again. 

Her brother was sitting on the floor beside her chair, tearing off the remaining pieces of his stolen armor, and still managing to hover. 

Leia wondered what the thrum of hyperspace around them felt like to him. His head didn't have the open cracks in it to appreciate or dread the surprising quietude. 

"I don't know who you think is going to be turning this ship around, kid, but it's not going to be me!" their pilot called out, repeating himself, still shamelessly eavesdropping. He was frustrated. He was sorry for her. The controls under his hands didn't fit right and never would again. 

"There go even the Falcon's scraps for good, huh," the man had muttered to Chewie earlier. The wookiee had moaned softly and sadly in response. 

Hyperspace had made the universe spilling in and out of Leia's head very small. What remained had been made incomparably loud, like hearing one's own heartbeat while trying to sleep. Yet the narrowness also made it easier to tell where everyone else ended and her wounds began. 

"Leia?" Luke reached out to put his hand on her knee again. 

It was warm and gentle, and it also felt terrible. Like the dry wind of a desperate flight across the desert. Like foul, dark smoke in the lungs. Like unrecognizable skeletons on the sand. 

Terror had sent Luke running towards fire and that love had nearly killed him. 

"No," Leia repeated. "We have to keep going." 

Even now, an unforgivably childish part of her desired to look back. Safety was behind her, it insisted, with her family and friends and familiar surroundings. But for the sake of everything she had ever loved, Leia couldn't nourish attachment to such comfortable fantasy. 

A darker part of her clutched to the reckless promise of vengeance. Leia had no hope of wielding the Force against Darth Vader and winning; that had only ever been a passing thought, a temporary passion, just more childish fantasy. Anakin Skywalker needed to die. Trusting in the strength of her anger and hatred would only deliver her back into his burning grip. 

Even worse: it would deliver Luke into his murderous hands as well. 

"The Empire's not going to take the destruction of that battle station lying down, I can tell you that much," their annoying pilot said loudly, bitterly. "With our luck, they'll have a whole fleet of Star Destroyers crawling over the junkyard there already." 

Chewie growled in agreement. 

Alderaan's rebellion had thrived behind the privilege of a largely peaceful history. They hadn't suffered the disadvantages of a reviled system like Mandalore, forever marked in the galaxy's eyes by centuries of ruthless, sprawling empires and the bloody civil wars that had also spilled across the sector. But how steadfast would allies be when the Alderaan system was declared to be the hidden heart of the Separatist remnants? 

Leia's father had taken many risks in his resistance over the years, but few so bold as this mission, and Alderaan had nearly paid an unthinkable price for it. The Death Star had chased the possibility of its destruction from Jedha to Scarif to them. Leia's impatience to help her Rebellion had brought upon them Tarkin's impatience to be permitted to kill until he somehow achieved ultimate order for his Empire. Alderaan would have surely become a potential target in time regardless, but now... 

The Empire would never forgive them this defeat. 

Her breath hitched as she imagined the campaigns of retaliation that might be enacted, if the Emperor truly no longer cared about more star systems slipping through his fingers. Occupation. Terror bombing. Chemical weapons. Strip mining. The entire surface reduced to glass-! 

Luke's hand squeezed her leg and Leia opened her eyes again. 

"Ben went to go help them," he reminded her. 

Chewie let out a series of bleating barks and growls from the cockpit. 

"Yeah, that's what I've been saying, Chewie," their pilot agreed. 

Luke looked towards C-3PO, who readily translated for them. "Do not get caught trying to save someone from the Wyyyschokk's webs and feed the beast even more." Then the droid added, "That's quite a gruesome saying, isn't it? I suppose that's only to be expected from a fellow who pulls people's arms out of their sockets over a simple game..." 

"There's nothing I can do for them now," Leia said tiredly to her brother. To herself. Every part of her body ached beyond words. "We have to go to the Rebel Alliance and tell them what's happened." 

"...Do we know what happened?" called their annoying pilot. 

A silence fell on the ship, which seemed like answer enough, and Leia closed her eyes again. She could still hear R2-D2's head swiveling back and forth beside them. Finally, the droid let out a careful string of beeps. 

"What did he say?" Luke asked. 

"...Artoo-Deetoo would like to offer his personal analysis of the situation and the plans, Master Luke," C-3PO said skeptically. "He keeps claiming that the destruction of oversized mobile battle stations and the other technological terrors used to be his specialty during the Clone Wars." 

Luke's incredulousness swelled like a bubble and popped into an exclamation. "...Did he destroy the Death Star?" 

From the cockpit, their pilot let out a disbelieving bark of laughter. 

R2-D2 rocked back and forth, trilling. 

"He tried- What do you mean, you tried?!" C-3PO demanded, aghast. "We were on that battle station!" Another series of beeps. "Well, thank goodness that it didn't work, you rusting bucket of loose bolts, we all could have been killed!"  

It took some mediation from Luke to get the droids to calm down again. C-3PO even tried to smack R2-D2 on the top of the dome and only managed some very light taps, but it made R2-D2 shriek like a dying animal and extrude a crackling tool to get the protocol droid back. Luke got zapped instead while holding them apart. Luke had to take a short break to yell at the cockpit for their unhelpful contribution of honking wookiee laughter. 

"You had better watch your language this time," C-3PO said unhappily, but finally, begrudgingly, began to translate the old astromech's assessment of the unbelievable situation. 

"Artoo-Deetoo has apparently been searching for potential weaknesses in the Death Star ever since you entrusted us with the plans, Princess Leia! The reactor system was very poorly designed. One blast to any part of it might have started a chain reaction that easily might have destroyed the entire station like that." 

"...Bad engineering?" Luke said disbelievingly. "That whole place was destroyed by bad engineering?" He looked up at Leia again and she could only stare back exhaustedly. 

"You'd think it was the Empire's first time building space stations or superweapons," said their annoying pilot to his wookiee copilot, the both of them turned around in their chairs. "But maybe that's just what you get for trying to build something to destroy entire planets." 

Spite. Bitterness. Joy. Chewie grunted something that made their pilot huff amusedly. 

"Could Ben have done it?" Luke demanded. "Maybe he didn't leave after all." 

R2-D2 beeped and whistled. 

"It would have taken a fairly significant blast," C-3PO said dubiously. "While Artoo-Deetoo agrees that Master Kenobi is capable of creating some rather impressive explosions, for a human, sabotage from the inside would have been nearly impossible after the construction's completion. Artoo-Detoo helped himself to quite a few files and messages while we were on the Death Star and it seems like the original project director was quite paranoid." 

"From the inside?" Leia repeated.

R2-D2 rocked back and forth with apparent eagerness, and C-3PO translated, "In one of the exterior trenches, there was a thermal exhaust port, right below the main port, with a shaft that led directly to the reactor's system. A precise hit with a proton torpedo would have bypassed the ray shields and set off the chain reaction." 

Their annoying pilot let out another disbelieving bark, then craned himself around to look back at them. "A proton torpedo? That's a one-in-a-million shot by what? No battleship would survive that amount of firepower and the swarms of Imperial TIE fighters." 

"Well, someone managed it!" Luke snapped back. 

"Sure, I guess those Alderaanians would have been desperate enough to try," their annoying pilot said. Before he finished speaking, his eyes had drifted over to Leia, and then he hastily looked away and cleared his throat of his discomfort. 

"I'd've tried it," Luke muttered. 

R2-D2's head swiveled back and forth, warbling at length again. 

"Well, I don't doubt that you would have participated in that piece of utter madness," C-3PO said waspishly. "You're very lucky that you didn't get the chance to try! Master Luke, I'd advise against getting into a fighter with this old astromech, he's got quite the reputation." 

"...Like being in a podrace," Leia murmured. 

Luke's head snapped around to look at her. "What?" 

"Something Captain Antilles said." Leia ignored the throb of grief and failure in her chest, focusing on the memory of the man's amusement. "It was in a report. A rebel pilot said flying with Artoo made her feel like the only human in a podrace." 

"...Pretty sure that means she felt like she was going to die," their annoying pilot called, but he seemed amused too. "I'm the best pilot I know and even I know better than to get mixed up in that nonsense." Leery nausea swelled and he muttered, "If I don't pay up soon, maybe that's where I'll end up if I'm lucky..." 

Chewie bleated sympathetically. 

"I know what podracing is! I'm from Tatooine!" Luke snapped towards the cockpit. His annoyance was outmatched by his sharp interest, as he looked R2-D2 up and down with consideration. "Bet that means you were originally calibrated for flying with someone fast." 

R2-D2 whistled proudly. 

Leia paid the bickering little mind, still thinking of rebel pilots. It felt like trudging through a muddy river, as this small universe spilled in and out of her head, through a body that was being worn down by the currents, but she slogged through. Maybe there had been other missions, other informants, other copies of the plans... if someone else had reached the Alliance first... 

Confusion flared and Luke said, "Wait, it wasn't someone shooting down that shaft?" 

"It seems unlikely, Master Luke," C-3PO replied, translating for R2-D2's new series of beeps and trills. "The Empire would have been expecting resistance from both Alderaan and the Rebellion. They caught us! They would have seen even a small fighter approach. And that pilot would have needed to somehow know about the battle station's peculiar weakness." 

"So what's the working theory?" demanded their own pilot from the cockpit, intrigued and impatient. "Internal sabotage after all?" 

R2-D2 chirped and C-3PO said, "Not intentional sabotage. Some of the reports and other internal communications while we were there suggested that the battle station's systems may have been strained and damaged when the initial attempt to destroy Alderaan was interrupted." 

Leia blinked slowly. 

"Initial attempt?" Luke repeated. 

"Before we arrived, there had already been an attempt to destroy the planet, but the order was cancelled at the last moment," C-3PO explained. 

"What, they couldn't get it to work?" the annoying pilot demanded. 

"...I stopped them," Leia said. 

"What?" 

As though from a distance, Leia heard herself say slowly, "Tarkin was going to make me watch. He lied about their targets. So I told Darth Vader that his child was alive and hidden on Alderaan." 

Confusion was still bright in Luke. "And?" 

"He made them stop in the middle of the sequence." 

Luke was close enough that his every feeling still touched her, moving like shapes and shadows in a crackling fire. Confusion. Anger. Grief. Hope. Betrayal. Wonder. So much. Too much. Leia tried to let the light wash over her, rather than stick her fingers in the flame trying to grasp each spark and understand them. 

R2-D2 trilled in a way that reminded Leia of laughter. 

"The firing sequence wasn't designed to be interrupted," C-3PO translated. "It seems that the Empire never anticipated having to stop the devastating process once the order to destroy a planet had been given." 

"So, the Empire destroyed their own superweapon?" their annoying pilot said, slowly, disbelievingly, gleefully, pushing out of his chair to come stand in the doorway. "Because they didn't take, what, safe cancellations into account? Like some shiny idiot trying to cut a jump in the hot second and cracking their own drive?" 

Luke huffed. "All of that energy had to go somewhere. And when they tried to use it again...?" 

"The weapon must have malfunctioned," C-3PO agreed. 

There didn't seem to be a single part of Leia's body that wasn't trembling. Even her exhale was shaky. Her vision blurred and turned hot. She could taste salt on her cracked lips. Luke's hand had landed on her knee again, squeezing and rubbing. 

Chewie barked from the cockpit, also delighted and incredulous. 

"Hell of a thing to miss!" their other pilot agreed. 

R2-D2 beeped and whirred, and C-3PO continued, "Creating a battle station of such horrific capabilities of mass destruction was an extremely difficult and delicate feat of engineering that accumulated many flaws. Between the lead engineer's apparent lack of foresight and the project director's fear of sabotage... analysis suggests that key internal components of the weaponry were so well-protected that they weren't accessible to be easily inspected, nor easily replaced, at all. Nothing should have ever been able to damage them." 

"Except the Death Star itself..." Leia said carefully. 

"You get that with ships sometimes, Your Highness," their annoying pilot mused. "Some great genius who's never flown or held a tool in their life forgets that engines are perfectly capable of blowing themselves up." 

Luke nodded, still wonderous. "People build some droids like that too, like no one'll ever need to open them. Like sand doesn't have a way of getting everywhere." 

"Yeah, so they can sell you a brand new one sooner, kid." 

"I know what a planned obsolescence scam is!" Luke snapped, annoyed again, because he wasn't too stupid to be told things. Why had everyone thought that he was too stupid to be told things?! He was desperate to know. "That's what I was going to say next!" 

"...Cool your jets," their annoying pilot said, surprised, affronted. "I'm just saying." 

"I'm just saying," Luke muttered. 

R2-D2 trilled and warbled, and C-3PO said hesitantly, "Indeed, the Death Star wasn't 'built to last' as they say. If the Empire had paused and taken all possible precautions, there could have been months, if not years, of repairs!" 

But tempers on the overbridge had been running so hot. Tarkin had been assaulted, denied, and humiliated. Darth Vader had been distracted, obsessed, aflame with rage. 

According to the intelligence that Leia had received from her father and then onboard the Tantive IV, the aforementioned the lead engineer and the project director of the Death Star, these destroyers of worlds, were both dead. Many of the wretched researchers at the Eadu base were dead or presumed to be. All of their expertise had died with them. 

If this old astromech's hypothesis was correct, then Alderaan had been saved from complete destruction from the first reckless, desperate interruption. 

Darth Vader had saved them all. Accidentally. 

"Well, Your Highness, your little revolution will probably be pretty pleased to receive those technical readouts now that they're useless," their pilot declared, smirking at her, somehow leaning even more obnoxiously against the doorframe. "You've saved them a lot of work." 

Leia rolled her head to look at him. Whatever had happened, whatever happened next, a lot of planets and their people had been saved. She found herself smiling without her permission. 

"No one is happier than me that those stolen plans are now useless." 

Joy only seemed more brilliant, inseparable as it was from the bottomless grief for all of the people who had died to steal the galaxy a chance. They'd gone on without hope, giving it up as a gift to others. The Empire had panicked at their efforts and lashed out wildly. 

Luke moved his hand along and squeezed her weak fingers now, and she turned her smile on him. "I would have died on the Death Star, if you hadn't come for me," she realized, "one way or another." 

"As soon as I got your message for Obi-Wan Kenobi, I knew there was something special about you," Luke said. "I felt it. I had to come. There was nothing left for me on Tatooine." 

Grief. Love. Betrayal. 

Leia's heart ached with him, with the loss of the family that she'd never known, never been able to meet for herself. She'd thought they were hidden and safe. She'd thought that there would always be a later time for Owen Lars and Beru Whitesun. 

"I... I can't believe you're my sister," he said quietly. "I didn't know I had a sister." 

R2-D2 booped sadly. 

Luke turned to look at the droid again, his chest twisting with such powerful uncertainty that Leia could feel it like pins and needles up her arm. "Does... Did the Empire try to blow up Alderaan while Darth Vader was there?" 

Leia recalled the murderous sharpness in Tarkin's eyes, towards all traitors to the Empire's progress. How fiercely the man had resented being made weak and afraid! 

If she had had control of the Death Star... and Darth Vader had been below her on some barren moon instead of an innocent planet... No, that was a selfish thought! Another childish fantasy! There was no good way to wield a planet killer! Even to put down a rabid animal of a man! 

Leia took a breath so deep that it made her throat burn too fiercely to speak. 

"Imperials are always knifing each other in the back to get ahead," their annoying pilot said dismissively, while Chewie let out an agreeable bark. "If I could take a shot at the back of the guy who'd destroyed the Millennium Falcon with his magnetic powers... well, I'd want to do it from really far away with a really big gun." 

This man was even more annoying when he was taking her side. Leia forcibly relaxed her wrinkled nose and pursed lips, taking another painful breath. 

"Er, no offense meant, kid," the man said, apparently only belatedly remembering the undesirable relation. "Princess." 

R2-D2 beeped again, sounding hesitant in a way that made Leia's heart drop to her stomach in anticipation. C-3PO's significant pause didn't soothe the rolling dread. 

"Oh, dear, I really wish I didn't have to be the one to say these things. Artoo-Deetoo wishes me to cautiously remind you all that Darth Vader may have returned to the Death Star before its ignominious destruction. He may be dead." 

Luke stared for several heartbeats, then looked directly towards Leia. He didn't speak. He didn't have to. 

Partially because C-3PO helpfully wailed the worst realization aloud for all of them. "And the other members of the royal family of Alderaan may be dead with him! And poor Master Kenobi if he was caught too! Oh, no! Oh, how terrible!" 

Chewie moaned from the cockpit. Their pilot winced but didn't translate the sorrows. 

"What an awful thought! I can only hope it isn't so! Artoo, why did you make me say that? There's a saying for this from a Jedha pilgrim: the messenger suffers most of all!" 

"Threepio, shut up!" Luke cried. 

The protocol droid's next word fizzled out in a mess of static. The chair beneath Leia cracked. The lights flickered. The ship groaned despairingly around them. Chewie startled and howled. 

The pilot grabbed the wall, yelling, "Hey! HEY! None of that! NONE OF THAT!" 

Her brother grabbed her hands, a guiding star, but so pale against the deepest void that had been waiting all this time for her to notice it again. Hyperspace was no escape from it. It was worse, perhaps, without a galaxy of stars around them, however distant they had been. 

"Turn it off or I'll turn you off!" Then some annoying idiot was pointing a finger in Leia's face again. "No more magic! No mystical energy field tricks on my ship! Not ever! And not while we're in hyperspace!" 

Leia glared up at him, the paneling rattled around them, but the man just glared back at her. Eye to eye. The Force scared him. He'd never seen anything like what she could do. It was also just one more strange element within a strange galaxy. 

Luke stood up and shoved the man backwards. "Leave her alone!" he shouted. "Don't you care about anything? Anyone?!" 

"Yeah! Me!" 

Chewie roared. 

The annoying man turned on his wookiee companion. "Yes, well, obviously you too! You know that! Why do I need to say it every time?! I'm trying to save our skins from experiencing hyperspace without a damn ship here!" 

He was even more annoying when he was right. Leia breathed. In and out. It hurt. 

"I am not," she said, "going to kill us." 

"Yeah, I'll believe that when I make it out alive, thanks," their pilot scoffed. He paused, looking her up and down, focusing on her neck again before looking her in the eye. "What kind of super-drug does this to a person anyway?" 

"It's the Force," Luke snapped. 

"It's a pain in my ass, that's what it is..." 

Silence fell again. R2-D2 let out a boop that sounded almost apologetic, but no one answered it, Leia only stared silently back at the astromech's blank, black eye. 

If she breathed, she feared that she might choke on the surrounding pity. She couldn't do anything. She couldn't do anything. 

"My sincerest apologies, Princess Leia," C-3PO said. "I don't know what came over me." 

"...That... That's all only if Darth Vader made it back to the Death Star, anyway," Luke said. "That's only if his mission succeeded." 

The man who had murdered the Jedi Order had long cast a shadow over the Rebel Alliance. His hunts had rarely failed. Leia's eyes felt hot again, but she didn't know if there was anything left to give. To think that her only hope was that Tarkin's madness had consumed him! That the rigid Grand Moff dared to act against the Emperor's favorite beast! 

R2-D2 beeped and chirped, and C-3PO warily said, "Perhaps the commanding officer gave the order to fire while Darth Vader was in transit between the planet and the battle station...?" 

Luke's mind crackled brightly. "So that Darth Vader couldn't stop him again? But also wasn't on the planet... Maybe..." 

"That's just more guessing," their pilot said unhappily, glancing towards Leia but speaking towards her brother. "Kid, we just don't know. We can't do anything about it. Making yourselves miserable over what might have happened back there won't change anything." 

"I know!" Luke nearly howled. He seemed surprised by the loudness of his own words and sat back again. "I know." 

"You can plan another rescue mission with the Rebellion when we get to their base." Even the man's kindness was more frustration than not, unpracticed as it was, and it sounded like it. "You can even fly all the way back there yourself." 

"Maybe I will," Luke replied sourly. 

From the cockpit, Chewie growled something that made the pilot's face wrinkle. "Who's going to be looking after your sister while you run off and get yourself killed?" he translated. 

Luke looked towards her and Leia had nothing to offer him besides another despairing realization. "The Inquisitors are probably already on their way." 

"-think she's alright?" 

A soft chirp. 

"...Kid, if your sister's finally sleeping, just leave her alone. You got some water in her, right? Leave her and her magic be." 

Worry. Frustration. Envy. 

"It's the Force." 

"I don't care. I don't want to know any more about your magical royal family than I have to. I'm still just here to get paid." 

"...My aunt and uncle told me that my father was a pilot on a spice freighter." 

"Kid." 

"I thought they just didn't want to talk about him because he'd left home and smuggled spice for the Hutts or something ordinarily bad. I didn't know that he was ever a Jedi until the day I met you! I didn't know he was alive and joined the Empire until Leia said it!" 

A quiet bark. 

"Hey, hey, cool your jets! What's wrong with a little spice smuggling, huh?" 

"...For the Hutts? My grandmother was brought to Tatooine as a slave by a Hutt." 

A low growl. Anger. Guilt. 

"...Sorry to hear that." 

"But I don't even know if that's true anymore. I mean, if it is, that means that this Darth Vader used to be a slave on Tatooine as a boy! Can you believe that?" 

"...I don't know, kid. It's a strange galaxy." 

"-did Ben say it like that? I... Did he not know that my father wasn't dead?" 

Quiet beeping. 

"Really now, Artoo, this is going too far!" 

Hissing frustration. "Threepio, lower your audio controls. No, don't apologize, just... just translate whatever he's saying, please." 

"Master Luke, I- he's claiming now that both he and Master Kenobi were there when you were born. What? I was there too? I don't remember that at all." 

Soft chirps and low tones. 

"Yes, I suppose that is the point of a memory wipe, but why only me? What do you mean I talk too much?!" 

"Threepio! Shut up!"

"Kid, honestly, just turn him off!" 

"-other jump should get us there clean." 

"...You're not going to tell anyone about any of this, are you?" 

A soft series of offended barks. 

"Uh, little late to be asking that kind of question, kid. Oh, come on, don't make that kind of face, I didn't make you talk at me, did I?" 

Determination. Anger. 

"Han. Are you going to sell us out?" 

A low growl. 

"Are you kidding me? And also tell the Empire that I helped the people who pretty much destroyed their precious superweapon?!" A loud scoff. "I don't have the right background to survive being an Imperial informant, even if I was inclined to tell those stiffs anything." 

A bleating, frustrated bark. 

"Yeah. Look, Luke, if anyone asks, and I'm going to do my damnedest to make sure no one ever does, I've never heard of this 'Darth Vader' guy in my life." 

"...Thanks." 

"Thank me by paying us. And afterwards, by pretending we've never met." 

"...Fine." 

Regret. Anger. Guilt. 

"Excuse me, then, Your Worshipfulnesses, so I can make some more calculations that won't send us flying into a star and end all of our problems real quick." 

"Hey, Artoo?" 

A single, inquisitive beep. 

"Padmé Amidala, that's the name you and Threepio said, right?" 

An affirmative whistle. 

"Did you say that she was a queen? And a senator? Really?" 

Another whistle. 

"Naboo. Naboo. That's that water planet in the Mid Rim that the Emperor is from, right?" 

An ugly, unhappy bloop.  

A laugh, tired and wonderous. "Yeah, we get news in the Outer Rim. Sometimes. Did you ever meet her more than the once? Did you know her at all?" 

A whistle. 

"...I've got to get you into a ship just so we can talk properly, huh? I'm a really good pilot. My aunt didn't even let me listen to the podraces at home, but I bet I could've done it. I bet that I could keep up with you." 

An eager trill. Rocking back and forth. 

Another exhausted chuckle. "...Was...?" 

A long pause. 

An inquisitive chirp. 

"She married Darth Vader and probably worked with the Emperor, so..." A yearning pause. "All my aunt said was that she was an offworlder who seemed nice enough. They didn't know her. Was she? Was she nice?" 

A soft whistle. 

Relief. "That's good. That's... great." A long pause, bright and gleaming with grief, followed by a choked voice. "You know, I bet that our mother was a lot like Leia..." 

Another whistle. 

"Hey, sweetheart, time to wake up..." 

There was a warm hand on Leia's face, rough-skinned but tapping gently, despite the urgency that she could feel in its owner. It smelled like ship grease and sweat. 

She blinked up into the annoying face of their mercenary pilot, kneeling in front of her. "Oh," she croaked. "It's you." 

He scowled, which was better than making those soft eyes. "You know, Your Highness, it's a wonder that you don't have a crowd of people just tripping over themselves to rescue you from death traps. Hey, no! No, come on, stay conscious here!" 

He rolled Leia's head back to face him. Leia almost kept her eyes shut to spite him, but glared blearily instead. "Wh-at?" 

"The droids transmitted codes that kept us from being shot right out of the sky, but Luke's still trying to convince your touchy rebel friends to let us land close enough to their main base not to have to carry you through that jungle down there, sweetheart." 

"No, I'm looking for a pilot named Biggs Darklighter!" Her brother's voice came from the cockpit, nearly shouting. "He can vouch for me!" 

"They're probably going to meet us with a firing squad on the tarmac, just in case," the annoying man muttered. "They're in a real panic. Why not, if the Empire has planet killers now? You might have to talk to them for us, Princess. Stay awake." 

"Just go find him! He's here, right? Tell him it's Luke Skywalker! Tell him it's Wormie if you have to! Just go ask him!" 

"...Wormie?" the annoying man said. 

Luke scowled over his shoulder, then brightened when he met Leia's eyes. "Leia! We made it! Mostly... Just... Hey, look, you heard me say that we have Princess Leia of Alderaan on this ship, right? We rescued her from the Death Star! It's been destroyed and she needs urgent medical attention! Let us land already!" 

Chewie leaned over in his seat and bleated out a happy greeting towards her. 

"Keep your eyes on the sky!" barked the annoying man. Begrudgingly, he turned back to Leia and said, "He hopes the hair is alright." 

Leia's hair had been tugged oddly as she shifted. She looked down and realized that it had been braided, into two long braids down her front, only slightly filthy and lopsided and tied with... what looked a lot like some wookiee hair. 

"The kid did that," the annoying man said gruffly. "Chewie helped." 

"...Thanks," Leia croaked, too bewildered and groggy to do anything else. She didn't know what she would say into a comlink, when her throat was burning every word to ashes. 

She didn't have to say anything, in the end. 

Luke had to repeat two more times that the Death Star had been destroyed and that she was onboard. "No, no one else from her ship, it's just her. Oh, yeah. And two droids. With the Death Star plans, if that helps at all now." 

They were given a landing platform and a strict set of instructions of which Leia immediately lost track. Luke sat on the arm of the pilot's chair, keeping up a stream of chatter with the traffic controller on the link, looking back at her often. "Sure, we can land like that, right? Yeah, that's no problem. Yeah, ramp down, power down completely, and don't disembark. Got it. You'll have a med droid or someone waiting, right?" 

What were words in comparison to the joy blooming over the green moon below? They circled lower towards Massassi Base. Leia rolled her head towards the side window that R2-D2 had reopened for her, watching the shadows of the trees and the great stone ziggurats grow longer as a red gas giant covered the orange sun. 

Trepidation. Excitement. Suspicion. Gratitude. Delight and delirium. Relief and disbelief. Merriment to the point of tears. Happiness in every possible form and color burst out from the earth, scattering across the glowing sky. 

The open ramp let a humid breeze into the darkness of their stolen ship, warm even as the sun sank away, carrying a strong smell of rotting vegetation and mildew. Indistinct noises came with it. The footsteps and shouts of technicians and guards. The constant droning of the jungle's insects and some hooting bird calls. The chittering of droids and comlinks. 

"...Luke?" someone finally called up. "Skywalker?" 

"Biggs? Biggs, is that you?" 

The person who stepped onto the ramp was a human man, with a pale face, black hair and a moustache, wearing an orange X-Wing starfighter uniform. He glowed with relief under the landing pad's dim lights. 

Luke crowed, "BIGGS! I was beginning to think that they'd lost you!" 

"LUKE! I don't believe it! What happened to staying on the farm for another season?!" 

Luke threw himself recklessly into the man's arms. They hugged so tightly that Luke was lifted off his feet, laughing, and it looked like they might fall off the bottom of the narrow ramp. They put their foreheads together. Then they clapped each other on the back as they pulled apart. 

"What's going on, Luke? One of the generals just said to drop everything, get my ass over here, and confirm that you were who you said you were..." 

"The Empire burned the farm down, so I figured that I might as well come join the fight right away." 

Shock. Grief. Biggs hugged Luke again. "Luke, I'm so sorry. Your folks...?" 

When they pulled apart again, Luke shrugged, and Biggs' face twisted with terrible understanding. His comlink beeped for his attention then, so Biggs confirmed for the caller that this really was Luke Skywalker and that he'd vouch for him and everyone with him. 

"He's the best damn bush pilot in the whole Outer Rim," Biggs insisted proudly. "We're lucky to have him!" 

"Thanks, Biggs." 

"I should've known you'd be after me sooner rather than later, and there's no one I'd rather have at my back. Come on out, they shouldn't shoot at you now. Sounds like some of the leaders want to talk to your new friends pretty badly..." 

"Listen, have I got some stories to tell you later! But you're right, it's pretty important stuff, so we'll be right out after you." 

Luke came back to take Leia's hand, hauling her out of the chair, which made every muscle in her body scream in protest such that he had to catch her again. She hadn't even been able to undo her own buckles when they'd landed, but with her brother's arm for balance, she managed to hobble forwards out of the darkness like an old woman. 

Once Luke's friend saw her, his eyebrows went up to his hairline, and he even snapped her a salute. By the shape of it, he must have been another Academy defector. 

"At ease," Leia told him amusedly. Their pilot had gotten her a little more water during their descent, and kindly not even charged her for the service, but her voice was still rasping. 

"Biggs Darklighter, Your Highness. I'm an old friend of Luke's from Tatooine." 

"I gathered. Please, my name is Leia." 

"Leia," Biggs agreed, grinning at the both of them. "Pretty important sounds like it might be an understatement, Luke. I didn't know that you knew how to keep that quiet." 

"Oh, you have no idea," Luke said. 

There was a small crowd around their landing platform, a shifting collection of faces and feelings in the deepening shadows. Starfighter pilots in their jumpsuits, transport and freighter pilots, technicians, some guards with lowered blasters, and a pair of astromechs. The growing weight of their worry didn't help as Leia struggled down the ramp. 

She could hear the droids disembarking behind them. C-3PO loudly declared that he didn't much care for jungles while R2-D2 beeped unsympathetically. Chewie groaned. Their mercenary pilot said, "Yeah, pal, I know you don't like this kind of heat." 

And then all of Leia's attention rushed ahead of them, as if her eyes had been snagged by the flash of a shooting star, and she stopped walking to focus on the new presence that was hurtling desperately towards her. The crowd started to turn towards the noisy newcomers. Leia started to cry from the sheer agony of her hope. 

"Please, step aside! Out of my way! LEIA!" 

Bail Organa burst through the crowd, followed by several medical personnel pushing an empty gurney, two of his most trusted guards and attendants from Alderaan, and what looked to be a significant number of the Rebel Alliance's leadership. If she'd had the strength, Leia would have thrown herself into her father's arms without a care for anyone else present. 

Instead, she reached out and her father came to her, his trembling hands cupping her jaw so that he could examine her face. He was crying too. An endless fount of guilt and gratitude. He pressed his lips fiercely to the top of her head and the familiar scratch of his beard broke any dam Leia had built against weeping without reservation. He took her into his arms. 

"My love, we thought you were dead," he whispered. He smelled sweaty, a little like blaster fire, but his clothes still held a little of the flowery scent of her mother's favorite perfume. "We thought you had died in that terrible place. Leia. Leia." 

"Is... Mother...?" 

"Safe and resting!" her father answered. 

His shaking hand stroked her filthy hair as she sobbed even harder, like an inconsolable child, as he unknowingly shared with her all of his fear, his horror, his grief. He would have traded his life for hers without hesitation. He felt like there was some price he ought to be paying now. 

"Thank you," her father said. "Thank you." 

"She saved us too, a few times," Luke said awkwardly, beside them. He stood as a shield of sorts, between them and the terrible pity of the shifting crowd. "You're... her father?" 

"Yes, Bail Prestor Organa of Alderaan. And you?" 

"Uh, I'm... I'm Luke." 

Leia felt her father sharpen all at once. "Oh," he said. 

"I think that we met once," Luke hedged, "but I don't remember it." 

"I do," her father said.  

"It's him," Leia croaked, turning herself in her father's arms so that she could look at Luke again. She could barely breathe through the burning in her throat. "It's him." 

She didn't know how to say what needed to be said with all of these people watching. The medical personnel hovered and bobbed, trying to push their way past the wall of her father's guards. Thankfully, her father seemed to hear everything anyway. 

He shifted so that he was holding her in one arm, reaching out with the other, gesturing for Luke to come closer to them again. Warily, hopefully, Luke stepped forward. He let her father put a hand on his shoulder, pulling him in, and her father tenderly pressed his lips to the top of Luke's head. Shock kept Luke still. Overwhelming misery and longing. 

"My son, it is good to see you again," Bail Organa said softly, holding them both. 

Leia reached out with one hand to hold Luke too, twisting clumsy fingers in his shirt, so that he knew she wanted him here. What was hers was his too.

But as she did this, Luke was already wrapping an arm around her father's back, the other around her. He hid his face in her father's shoulder for a precious moment. Leia could feel the tearing shudder that passed through her brother's chest. 

"Organa, please, allow us to look at your daughter's injuries!" someone pleaded. 

Regret. Worry. "Ah, yes, of course. Yes, please," her father allowed, which broke a dam in the crowd too. 

"We have to debrief her immediately," someone else said. "We need to know exactly-" 

"Not before the princess has been treated!" a third person squawked. 

"We need to know what happened! We need confirmation!" 

"Not here! Can someone get rid of this crowd?!" 

"Has the planet killer really been destroyed? Did you destroy it?" 

"Is that a wookiee?!" 

The universe spilled back into what had been a perfect, protected moment. Joy. Fear. Disbelief. Concern. All pushing and shoving into her head, while Leia simply clung tightly to her father and her brother, and hid her face like a small child again. 

Chapter Text

There were countless stories throughout the galaxy, some truer than others, that spoke of people gifted with extraordinary powers. Warriors with unbreakable skin and the strength to lift mountains. Elders who never ate and never drank and yet never died, so full inside with wisdom. Rainmakers bringing down floods or drought. Witches sparking fires that could never be extinguished. Trolls who could trade in lives, spending one person's health to save another. 

The Force had as many forms as there were living things in the galaxy. 

On this terrible mission, Leia had spent all of the strength that she'd had to give, then scrounged for the scraps that she hadn't known she'd had, and then she'd borrowed recklessly from the universe spilling into her head. She wasn't a Jedi. She wasn't someone who knew how to direct the flow of such great power without pieces of herself being caught in it. 

The Force was infinite, or close to it, but people were not, and its luminosity wore on the flesh. Leia had never thought to wonder before if for all of those legendary figures, with every otherwise impossible feat, there had always been such pain as the price. 

They put her on a gurney, her father and a gray-haired human woman, whose hands were strong and sure, and whose name was lost amongst her focused unhappiness over how her patients seemed to get younger every year. 

They floated Leia towards the series of rooms that had become Massassi Base's medical bay, trailing her brother, the droids, some of her father's most trusted servants, and several of the Rebellion's best officers. A loud parade of outrage and anguish and urgency. With an even louder audience of gawking technicians and soldiers peering around corners.  

Thankfully, her father was also here, and he took care of everything. 

House Organa's majordomo, Tarrik, who was failing to stifle tears at the sight of her, was sent to bring confirmation of her arrival to Leia's mother. The man abandoned all formality and ran. 

Her father's chief aide, Sheltray Retrac, was sent to ensure that their mercenary pilots didn't make themselves too annoying while waiting for their pay. Her face was cool, her nod was sharp, and her clipped steps carried away the memory, one half faded and the other half still as sharp as a knife, of a small human woman on a repulsor gurney, brown-haired and pale and dripping sweat, clutching her rounded belly and screaming. 

R2-D2 and C-3PO both left with the Rebellion's Commander Willard and Private Weems, who were sorry and hopeful and sorry they were so hopeful, accompanied by Lieutenant Ress Batten, who had almost been on the Tantive IV. Before she left them, Batten leaned in to whisper, "You've got to stop doing this kind of thing, princess, or I'll get reprimanded for sure." Her breath was warm with grief and guilt for Captain Raymus Antilles and all the lost others. 

This left her father, Luke, and Sateen Vestswe, another longtime aide and the head of her father's personal guard, waiting outside the room while the medical personnel took Leia apart. In Leia's memory, like Sheltray Retrac, Sateen Vestswe had always been a figure of unshakeable conviction, of imperturbable composure, but the curtain between them now didn't block the fire of worry, uncertainty, and shame. 

Another human woman met them here, pale and with graying brown hair, dressed in a reddish brown robe. She looked down at Leia with wide eyes, as if seeing something impossible. Some people were quieter than others, but this woman was nearly silent, like a fading wave of clear water smoothing over footprints and upset in the sand around her. 

The doctor gave the quiet woman and the old medical droid orders regarding scans and patches and flash-sterilizers, before she carefully started to remove Leia's sweaty, slightly bloodstained dress. Small cuts showed well on white. Leia wasn't of much assistance in this. 

She hadn't taken the mind probe gently during either of her interrogations and it showed all over her body. The purple and blue discoloration ran all up and down her weakened arms and legs, from all the times she'd been grabbed and thrown around during her capture. Some of her scrapes were probably from the escape, falling this way and that. Even the old medical droid let out a vaguely displeased beep at the sight of her back. 

Leia cried all over again as the doctor started to clean the grime off of her, the many layers of fear sweat and floor dust and dried blood. "Should I stop?" the woman asked. Leia shook her head, even as the kindness made her feel like her skin was a still raw wound all over. 

It was bearable until the quiet woman put her hand on Leia's bare shoulderblade and Leia felt the flow of the universe suddenly shift around them. A foreign influence started digging under her skin. Leia's entire being revolted. 

When the black and white spots finally cleared from her vision, the curtain was still flapping back and forth, the doctor was several steps backwards and holding a table to stay upright, the old medical droid had toppled over backwards, and the quiet woman was sitting against the far wall with even wider eyes than before, a hand held under her freshly bleeding nose. 

Luke burst into the room first, and he seemed more embarrassed by Leia's half-nakedness than she cared to be. Her father was the one who sorted between the fear and shock and apologies to discover that the quiet woman was a Force healer, who had only been trying to help. The doctor yelled at the healer. So did Luke. The healer apologized to everyone repeatedly. Bail Organa pinched his nose and sighed. The old medical droid beeped frantically until Luke took annoyed pity on it and tried to pull it upright. 

Leia clutched a paper roll to her chest and sat with the knowledge that she'd hurt someone undeserving while barely being aware of it. She wished that it didn't make her so angry. 

Into all of this miserable chaos sailed the Queen of Alderaan, Breha Organa, who took one look around the room and then clutched Leia's head desperately to her glowing chest, demanding peace. It turned out that Leia had yet a few more tears to spare for her mother. 

She felt her mother's life with every mechanical heartbeat full of helpless terror and thankfulness, as loud as a drum meant to be heard across mountains, as bright as a bouquet of candlewick flowers. When Leia had pressed her ear against the pulmonodes as a small child, she had never imagined they could be so full of despair. Every warm breath, every praiseful kiss, against her crown was both a comfort and not. 

Behind her mother followed more familiar heartbeats, waiting eagerly just behind the flimsy curtain. Visaiya, her mother's closest advisor and aide, a friend whose loss Breha had once said she would feel like cutting off a hand. Falena, her mother's youngest attendant and nurse, who had carried her lute off of Alderaan because no one had told her not to, and who had been playing it when Tarrik had reached them. Her hand brushed worriedly over the strings now. Memily, one of their housekeepers and Leia's old caretaker, already weeping into Vestswe's shoulder as he awkwardly patted her back. 

Fragments of home, even as they had all been forced to leave Alderaan behind. 

Leia wondered if all of those legendary figures, who had gripped such luminosity to perform their otherwise impossible feats, had also considered the agony of their borrowing worthwhile.

By the time that Leia was fit to leave the medical bay, it seemed that confirmation of the Death Star's destruction had flooded every corner of Massassi Base. Even the reluctantly hopeful had been spurred into joining the feverish celebrations that had broken out, regardless of how little the Rebel Alliance had to spare for parties. Victories against the Empire were precious. 

When they passed the vast hangar again, Leia saw that some of the starfighters had been moved aside and some of the technicians had brought out what looked like a still, even though people seemed drunk with happiness before anyone passed them a cup. Someone had persuaded or reprogrammed an old pilot droid to play yet another "NIAMOS!" club remix out of its crackling speakers. One of the dancing pilots still climbed on top of a starfighter and started shouting an enthusiastic rendition of "All Stars Burn As One" that made the bubbling crowd of at least a hundred people cackle and groan. 

The anthem of the Galactic Republic, now forbidden under Imperial law, followed Leia and her family as they slowly climbed the levels of the repurposed ziggurat. Dozens of giddy, uncoordinated voices echoed off of the stone corridors. 

Leia wouldn't have made it far without the ancient hoverchair that her mother had pushed her into. "My uncle's father had one of these," Luke had said dubiously, when the doctor had brought it to them. "It sat in the garage until I- uh, well, until me 'n' Biggs used it for scrap. I think this piece of junk is even older... At least it still works! It's better than nothing!" He'd then ducked his head away from Breha Organa's disapproving stare. 

"You're drifting left," Luke said unhelpfully now, like that wasn't obvious. 

"It drifts even when I'm not touching it," Leia hissed back. 

Her brother reached for the controls, uninvited, and she had to knock his hands away. "If you just let me look at it later, then I can probably fix it for you," Luke said finally, snippily, somehow receiving approving looks for his backseat piloting from both of Leia's parents. 

Leia also wouldn't have made it far without her parents and her family's attendants intercepting the long line of haunted faces determined to throw themselves in her path. Everyone on Yavin 4 apparently already knew that Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan had had something to do with the planet killer's miraculous death. They wanted her to know they knew. They needed her to know their own stories. 

"Your Highnesses, I have family on Alderaan," said a human commissary cook. "I don't know if they've made it out yet, but now they have a chance. Thank you. Thank you." 

"I was born in the Holy City," said a twi'lek freighter pilot, "during my mother's pilgrimage." 

"My sister was a hyperdrive engineer in the Kuat shipyards," said an elderly human mechanic, her hands shaking. "Before she died, she became so... I think the Empire murdered her because she wouldn't help them build that thing." 

"I used to run with Saw Gerrara's guerrillas," said a big zabrak soldier with heavy scars and broken horns, who made everyone else stiff with vigilance. Leia supposed no one else could feel just how satisfied and peaceful the soldier was. "You got them some justice." 

"My husband was on Scarif," said a human starfighter pilot as he passed them. He bore heavy resemblance to a Republic clone trooper. He said nothing else. 

He was followed by a mon calamarian, turned a very pale orange with age, pulling a small wagon full of depleted blasters. The hunched technician pointed towards Leia with a trembling, webbed finger, then in a heavily accented croak declared, "Good! GOOD! GOOD!" He knew other words in Basic, but he was too happy to find them.  

"I chased this weapon for years," said a young human woman, wearing the equipment of a communications analyst. Her pale face was blank. Her eyes were distant. She didn't seem to know what to do with herself now. 

By the time that they reached the private briefing room that the present Rebel Alliance leadership had chosen, they had lost all of her mother's attendants again. Falena was the last to leave, with a former revolutionary from Ghorman, who had been nearly incomprehensible through their relieved weeping.

Commander Willard at the door greeted Sateen Vestswe like an old friend, but was skeptical of allowing Luke to enter with them. 

"If Queen and Viceroy Organa believe that the young man's presence is necessary, then we must trust their judgement," said a new voice, calm but firm. 

Commander Willard straightened. "Councillor Mothma." 

A familiar woman in elegant white robes emerged from the shadows, trailed by her own aide, and came to embrace Leia's parents. "My friends, I am so sorry for your losses." 

"Thank you, Mon," Leia's mother said. They had not yet spoken of it, but leaving Alderaan behind wore heavier on Breha Organa than anyone else, and unnatural green light swelling overhead was still at the forefront of her mind. It flashed over and over again. "We never imagined that the Empire would retaliate so horrifically. They would have made a message of our people: they intended to tell the galaxy that no planet was sacred or safe." 

Soon enough, Mon Mothma turned her attention to Leia, expressing her sympathies again. her smile was soft. Her hands were gentle as she held Leia's fingers and thanked her on behalf of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. 

All the while, the chief of state and former senator was thinking of the others she had failed. A young human woman with hard eyes and a fire that had ignited so many others. The communications analyst from just before, dead-eyed with grief. Another human girl, too young to be a woman, smiling with anxious, golden brilliance during a Chandrilan wedding ceremony. 

Most of Leia's injuries were hidden by the new clothes that her mother's attendants had provided: a long-sleeved gray tunic and blue trousers. But the shirt was big on Leia, as most borrowed clothes were, and it didn't cover the necklaces of lingering bruises, noticeable even after treatment. Leia had asked her mother to leave her hair down to help hide them. The sight had inspired in her father such horror, guilt, and deep, worn sadness. 

Mon Mothma's eyes flicked over these injuries several times, before she finally allowed her soft smile to slip away. "Are you ready?" she asked solemnly. 

Leia had thought so, before this mission. The Empire hadn't cared whether she might be or not, but she had survived them, and so now she owed it to everyone who hadn't, everyone who wasn't part of the crowd below howling with joy, to tell the galaxy that it hadn't just been her. 

The private briefing room was as unfinished as the rest of the rebel base, with stone walls weeping moisture onto bolted pipes and bright yellow cables. Gathered tightly on the opposite side of the central console were old General Jan Dodonna, grim General Davits Draven, Commander Vanden Huyck Willard, Councilor Mon Mothma and her aide Cianne, and Private Weems from communications; the last two of whom were taking notes. 

Their formality restrained most of their horror and pity as Leia hoarsely spoke. These weary individuals were hardened to hearing about the heart-breaking tragedies that were happening across the galaxy every day, after all, many of which had had worse endings than her own experiences, and Leia hated the injustice of the universe so fiercely for that second of realization that she struggled to take in her next breath.

This was mistaken as her being overcome by fearful distress. Her remorseful mother patted her shoulder while Leia inhaled again and the room politely waited for her to recover. 

It would have been untruthful to call any of these leaders of the Alliance to Restore the Republic cold. Or unkind. They were not cruel, but simply thorough in their business of trying to save the galaxy. Leia appreciated their ruthlessness. Their strict concentration was already transforming previously unimaginable agony into neatly categorized reports and the next dozen actions. Personal misery was becoming new purpose. Facts mattered here, not the feelings spilling in and out of her head.

There was some comfort in this focus. 

Unfortunately, duty also required suffering through their long, shocked silence after Leia informed these people what exactly had happened in the Death Star's overbridge. 

"Were... you not aware that Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker?" Leia asked.

She was considering looking directly at her father for answers, because quite frankly, she thought it would have been a very poor decision on his part not to inform the people who were supposed to make plans. 

"We were," General Draven said shortly. 

"We weren't aware, however, that the man had a child," General Dodonna said, looking very pointedly towards Bail Organa. 

Leia allowed herself to turn her head and saw her father appearing unruffled, despite all of his personal roiling unhappiness, sitting back with his fingers laced in front of him. "It was need-to-know information," Bail Organa replied. 

The clench of General Draven's jaw made Leia's teeth ache in sympathy. Mon Mothma closed her wide eyes and put a hand over them, sighing. She was thinking of another failure, another woman, a lifetime ago now; of sitting in a dark office, on a darkening planet, watching the tiny, flickering projection of flowers in spread hair. 

"Uh, children," Luke said. 

Mon Mothma looked up. "Pardon?" 

Beside her, Luke pointed at himself and said, "My name is Luke Skywalker." He gestured towards Luke and explained, "I'm, uh, her brother. Twin brother." 

Shock. Disbelief. Several people turned their outrage towards Bail Organa again. Even Sateen Vestswe, her father's bodyguard, was fiercely repressing his own shock. 

Under such pressure, Leia's father maintained his outward serenity and used his thumbs to make a shrugging gesture. "You didn't need to know," he said wryly, which made Leia's mother exhale amusedly. She'd known, of course. 

Inappropriately, Leia almost giggled. She loved her father so dearly. 

The full details of her interrogations, Leia skipped, but she did reveal that the second had provoked medical tests. And that these tests had involved a consultation of the Inquisitorial database. It had to be assumed that the Empire was now aware that Leia Organa of Alderaan was the biological daughter of Anakin Skywalker. 

Luke reached over to take her hand here, which was appreciated. The Empire didn't know about him yet, but if the Empire ever returned to Tatooine, the information might be uncovered. 

"The Death Star's destruction may be a boon to us in this way as well," General Dodonna offered thoughtfully. "With any luck, Princess Leia, the Empire will assume that you died as a prisoner on that battle station." 

"That might buy us some time," General Draven agreed. 

Leia described her rescue in better terms than it perhaps deserved. It was simpler to say that they had broken down a wall to create an alternative exit, without saying how. It was strange how such a long, tense escape could be so neatly summarized: they had taken a service elevator to a different level, they had stolen a ship by falsifying flight plans, they had witnessed the Death Star's disastrous second attempt to destroy Alderaan, they had fled. 

R2-D2 had already provided the Rebel Alliance with an analysis of the Death Star plans. "That astromech's specs are so off-model that I hardly know where to begin," complained Commander Willard. "But preliminary analysis by our own droids suggests that it may be correct." 

By the time that they were finished, Leia felt carved out and made hollow. The Rebel Alliance had won one battle. With effort. With luck. With the will of the Force. 

They hadn't won the war. 

She listened silently as her parents described their own perspective of the Empire's attempt to destroy their planet, using a similar method of reduction. Terror and loss and shame became a story, taken down in neat lines. The Organa household had arrived on a faster ship, but they had still been overseeing the tumultuous arrival and settlement of other Alderaanian rebel ships across this moon when Leia had appeared, and so they had not yet given a full report. 

It began with the frightening disappearance of the Tantive IV. The massive battle station's mysterious arrival, eclipsing part of the sun. The Empire's daunting refusal to communicate with the Alderaanian government or Queen Breha Organa beyond strictly forbidding all travel to and from the planet, by order of an unavailable Governor Tarkin. 

All culminating in the horrific green light of the superweapon preparing to fire. The dreadful realization that the Empire intended to make an example of them, that there was nothing they could do or say to escape their fate... followed by miraculous, inexplicable interruption. 

There had been continued opaqueness from the Empire. Crowds had gathered in front of the royal palace, in front of the parliament buildings, in city squares and on the steps of town halls, frantically demanding answers. The Death Star had jammed most interstellar transmissions and then increased the net to interfere with planetary communications. Cable connections had still worked. Short-distance networks had survived. Consoles on the far-side of the planet had struggled through the static to reach out to each other and across the galaxy. 

The spaceports had been overwhelmed. Swarms of TIE fighters in orbit had attempted to destroy any ships that dared to breach the upper atmosphere, but the brave and the desperate had bolted for the holes in the blockade anyway. It was estimated that even in this period of uncertainty, more ships had escaped Alderaan than had been downed. 

Queen Breha Organa had encouraged it, with barely any plausible deniability, with what little she'd been able to broadcast. If the Empire wasn't simply toying with them in a deeply cruel manner, then every person on Alderaan had the right to take the risk of running. 

And then, finally, the Empire had broken their silence and demanded that Queen Breha Organa and Viceroy Bail Prestor Organa prepare to present themselves to a representative of the Empire. Leia's parents - and their bodyguards, aides, and political advisors, and the sweating government officials stubbornly connected on the fizzling holoprojector - had fiercely debated the dangers and opportunities of cooperation. 

"Imagine our surprise when the first person to arrive was Obi-Wan Kenobi," Leia's father said wryly, "in a stolen TIE fighter. I felt almost twenty years younger." 

The Jedi Master, the most famous negotiator of the Clone Wars, had sworn to them that there was nothing further to be gained from diplomacy. He had told them that the Empire intended to kill them all. That Darth Vader was coming for the Organas. That if there was any deal to be made at all, the Jedi had promised, they would have a far greater advantage if they kept themselves out of the Empire's hands. 

They had taken his advice. 

"Thankfully, our household had been anticipating a visit from the Empire, and from Lord Vader specifically, for some time," Leia's mother said calmly. "We had escapes planned for a number of potential situations. Nevertheless, it was close." 

Her mildness covered a great deal of misery and panic still lurking close to the surface. Fire in the skies above the royal palace. Screaming in the halls. Horns and beacons blaring across the mountains. Her friend Visaiya's hushed voice providing updates as they moved quickly through dark and narrow tunnels, informing them that some angry citizens had attacked the Imperial transports upon their landing. It had gone poorly for those poor people. 

"I'm so glad that you survived," Mon Mothma said again. 

"It's been nearly twenty years since I was driving a getaway speeder for someone trying to assassinate the Emperor, but this old man still has some fight in him, hm?" Leia's father replied, trying to inject some levity back into the despairing room. 

Leia frowned. "You've never told me that story before." 

"Nor me," Mon Mothma said dryly. 

"You tried to assassinate the Emperor?!" Leia pressed. 

"No, I was just giving a friend a ride," Leia's father answered, clearly enjoying himself. 

"I wish it had worked," Luke said fervently. 

General Dodonna chuckled. Mon Mothma and her aide Cianne both smiled. 

Leia's father winked at Luke. "So do I." 

"We're talking about that later, Viceroy," General Draven warned, looking towards Private Weems. Private Weems nodded and scribbled another note down. 

Unfortunately, despite all of Bail and Breha's protests, Obi-Wan Kenobi had remained behind. 

"We don't know what's become of him," Leia's mother admitted. 

"...General Kenobi was known for his remarkable adaptability," General Dodonna offered. 

Leia's father nodded, but his unhappiness could no longer be contained. He wanted to have hope, to keep the faith that had accompanied him for so many years, but he had a terrible feeling of grief. Leia's mother reached out to place a hand on her husband's arm. 

"We'll have to wait for further intelligence from our agents who remain on Alderaan-" 

"He's gone," Luke said. 

Leia's mother closed her mouth and the room turned its focus on Leia's brother. Luke's face was even more grim than her father's. He had already described for them how his family had recovered the droids and how he'd accompanied Obi-Wan Kenobi into the clutches of the Death Star, after the Empire had killed his family and burned his home. 

"How do you know that?" Mon Mothma asked softly. 

"...I can feel it," Luke said. "...I think." 

There was an emptiness where something remarkable had been before. He could feel it. And Leia could feel it through him. 

Leia's father closed his eyes to bear the intensity of his grief. Mon Mothma and General Dodonna remained uncertain, however, and General Draven was entirely unconvinced. Private Weems and Aide Cianne were already making plans, bright with busyness. 

Alderaan didn't have planetary defenses, but they did have emergency beacons in the case of an attack or natural disaster, and Queen Breha Organa had sounded the alarm for a planetary evacuation before her flight. Leia's parents and their household had escaped Alderaan as other ships had challenged the thin blockade in countless numbers. But not enough of them, not nearly enough, as the Death Star's terrible green light had started to shine again. 

But then the planet killer had only ripped itself apart. 

"When we saw that battle station destroy itself..." Leia's mother had one trembling hand over her mouth and the other on Leia's shoulder, pulsing with remembered terror. "We thought... We truly feared that our daughter had died with it." 

Regret. Guilt. Leia's mother's grip tightened on her. 

"How fortunate this was not the case," Mon Mothma said gently. 

"...Before you arrived, Queen Organa, we received a recording of the battle station's destruction ourselves," General Dodonna admitted. "Of both attempts to destroy your planet." 

"Rebel agents and ordinary citizens alike have proof of the Empire's unconscionable plans to bring a new age of terror to the galaxy," Mon Mothma agreed. "We have reached out to many Alliance leaders and are planning how best to present this information to our allies and to neutral parties in the- the dissolved Imperial Senate. The Emperor's willingness to discard a Core Worlds system, one of the oldest members of the Galactic Republic, highly regarded for its culture and trade, will not sit well with even the most placid Imperial citizens." 

Leia thought that their acquiescence would surprise all of them and none of them. This thought tasted like someone else in the room, but plans were flying by like a meteor shower, leaving her unable to trace it. They could use this to their advantage, if they were quick and clever. 

After the Death Star's shocking destruction, the surviving TIE fighters had been in chaos. Alderaanian ships had fled without united obstacles. But the royal palace had apparently remained occupied by Darth Vader's landing party and no mob had been unable to unseat him. The few remaining Imperials had sounded every possible distress signal. 

"The Empire has already gathered a remarkable presence around the planet," General Dodonna said apologetically. "The Imperial Navy answered the call." 

"We expected as much," Leia's mother said. "We can only hope those who volunteered to stay behind can remain strong... It is our hope that as the Empire attempts to rescue its pride from what they will surely perceive as a humiliation, they will choose to cast our family as the traitors to our own system and the Empire, who forced their hand, and spare the people. Our allies at home may be forced to renounce us to protect our citizens." 

It burned her. It burned all of them, every single person in this room, to be helpless to save everyone who had been left behind. Leia had led the Empire to her planet. If being cast as the villain helped the people who had been under her protection, she would bear it. Somehow. 

It soothed some of that terrible burn that these leaders whom she so admired looked at her with gratitude and pride. General Dodonna came around the table afterwards to shake her hand, so carefully, full of relief and admiration, and said, "We will all do what we can for the people of Alderaan. We will try to prepare for the Empire's retaliation. But today... Today, you are a hero of the Rebellion, and we will find a way to honor your courage." 

But his mind was elsewhere, looking ahead, tense and unsatisfied, neat lines trying to spin ahead of the turn of the galaxy, forming plans upon plans and then plans to follow them. The great work loomed ahead of them all, grueling, neverending, without clear and certain rewards. 

Leia's mother remained behind to continue speaking with these leaders regarding the fate of Alderaan, the fates of the Alderaanian rebels who had come to Yavin 4, and the fates of the Alderaanian refugees who were now spreading across the galaxy. Aides and advisors such as Visaiya and Sheltray were summoned for their insights. 

"We must find our rest while we can," Leia's father said, as he ushered Luke and Leia from the private briefing room. "This is work that's worth doing well." 

To that hypocrisy, Leia could only give her father a withering look. Exhaustion was thick in the air, but she foresaw a late night for him as well, surrounded by his own aides and rebel officers. It was outrageous to expect her to sleep peacefully, to treat her like a little girl who needed to be sent to bed, but her father's answering gaze promised he was going to be immovable in this. 

"I don't know how we'll be expected to sleep with all of this noise," Leia complained anyway, as the vibrations of the celebrations below audibly reached them. 

"You could go join the celebration if you prefer," Leia's father suggested mildly. 

"How is that resting?" 

But she remembered what her mother had said once, "Our spirits need music as our body needs sleep." And it was hard to maintain a strong foundation of irritation and guilt against the white-rapids-rush of happiness and relief and laughter coming up to meet them from the lower levels of the ziggurat. It splashed wildly around them. Soon enough, even a bystander such as herself would be drenched in the drunken glee. 

While she was distracted by the upwards waterfall, someone came running up the stairs, urgently calling, "Viceroy!" And soon enough, Leia's father was kissing her forehead and bidding her farewell. "Try to rest," he urged her, "and if not... both of you, go enjoy being young." 

"What does that mean?" Leia demanded, but her father just laughed. 

Unnecessarily, Luke promised to see her to the mobile shelters that the Organa household had set up outside their ships. "You alright?" her brother asked her, as they wound their wound back to the lower levels. 

Sateen Vestswe remained with them, leading them out, walking several steps ahead. Her father's bodyguard respectfully pretended not to listen in, but it was odd to be able to feel the way that a person's attention perked up and swiveled. It was odd to truly know things. 

"I'm fine," Leia replied. "Just... tired." 

She'd slept through several hyperspace jumps on the way here. It felt like she might yet be able to sleep for days, if only her mind would allow it. She was certain that it wouldn't. 

"...Guess it's real busy work, ruling a planet," Luke said conversationally. "Especially when the Empire's not just going to sit back and let you look after people anymore. Sorry that your parents have to get back to it so soon." 

"It's important work," Leia replied. "I don't need to be tucked into bed." 

She didn't doubt that her parents loved her. She knew that if she had asked either of her parents to come see her to bed, like she was a small child again, they would have done it, but... Upon arrival, she'd thought that she might never leave her father's arms again, but even a loving embrace chafed when it was so tight with guilt, filled with lingering fear. 

"I didn't say that you did?" Luke said, amused. 

The flare of grief from him, so close and so bright, had Leia's hand slipping off of the controls of her chair. The armrest bumped into her brother's thigh. "Ow!" Luke reached out to grab the back of the chair and shove it back on course again, exactly as she'd told him not to do earlier. 

Leia didn't start moving again, except to drift ever so slightly sideways. Under Luke's bewildered gaze, she searched the dark joints between stone tiles and the beaded moisture on the lighting cables bolted to the ceiling, and shamefully found nothing exceptional to offer him. "I'm so sorry, Luke," she said hoarsely. 

"What?" 

"When I sent the droids to find Obi-Wan, I didn't..." She took a deep breath. "I was desperate." Her eyes were burning. "I wanted to meet them, to meet you, someday, but... I thought it wouldn't be safe. And then I brought the Empire to your home, to your- to our family anyway!" 

Confusion bloomed into forgiveness. Immediately. Outrageously. Even though it had been her mistakes, her inexperience, her lack of preparation that had cost him so much. 

"Oh," Luke said. "It wasn't on purpose, right? It was an accident." He glanced towards their escort, who was now lurking towards the end of the corridor, pretending to be deeply fascinated by the moss on the walls. "And well, uh, the Empire probably would have come to talk to my aunt and uncle sooner or later, I guess. I was pretty determined to follow Biggs off into space..." 

"I would- We would have helped your family escape Tatooine, if we had only suspected a risk to them! And of course, I told R2-D2 to find Obi-Wan Kenobi, not you!" 

Luke shrugged awkwardly, pulling her chair back into place again. "Didn't account for jawas," he said wryly. "Look, Leia, it's not... it's not your fault. The Empire's to blame for everything. You didn't make them do any of that. And you didn't make my uncle buy stolen droids either." 

There was bitterness in her brother, but none of it was directed towards her. 

"If I'd been there..." Luke started, before his shoulders slumped with acceptance. "There was nothing I could've done either. Ben was right. I just would've been killed with them. ...And you're right that it's not going to take much for the Empire to figure out that Anakin Skywalker is my father... if they ever bother to go back to Tatooine and ask around. I... I need to find a way to send messages to Fixer and Camie... all of my friends back home are going to be better off pretending not to know me..." 

Leia wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. "They didn't even change your name." 

"If there's a bright center of the universe, Tatooine is the planet that it's farthest from," Luke recited, like an old joke. "We're pretty isolated. I don't know, I might be a Lars according to some official Hutt records somewhere, if I'm anywhere. But... I like being a Skywalker." 

He sounded defensive about it. There was history there that Leia didn't understand. 

"I wouldn't mind being a Whitesun, maybe," her brother mused. 

"I like you not being dead," Leia insisted, smacking his hand away from the chair controls again. She took another deep breath. "I just... I wanted you to know that I'm sorry about your aunt and uncle... and about Obi-Wan Kenobi. I would have liked to know them. Maybe I should have found a way to visit..." 

"Can't live off of maybes." Luke sounded like he was reciting someone else's words again, but his grief now was threaded through with deep, warm love. "Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru probably would've told you to stay away. Too much risk. They didn't even really like Ben hanging around the farm... and now I know why... But they would've liked you, I think." 

He felt certain. Fond. And that only made Leia tear up again, entirely against her will. 

Luke patted her shoulder some more, then asked, "Do you know why they separated us?" 

Leia told him the reasons that her father had given her, when she'd asked him. The people present at their birth had wanted one of them to survive if the Empire found the other. There had also been some fear that they might have amplified each other's presence in the Force, a binary system brighter in the sky than any lonely star, and the Emperor would find them. 

"That's what Artoo said," Luke sighed. "But I wish..." 

"I know," Leia agreed. 

People were always dreaming about isolated planets, about some mythical hidden paradise, where they might be able to live in peace. Such dreamers said that there was no fighting the Empire, so the only solution was to go live quietly somewhere else, and they quailed when Leia pointed out that the Empire was always expanding and would only expand faster without any resistance.

The Empire would rip into these "unsettled" planets for raw materials. They would transform paradise into new agrarian worlds to feed their military and the Core Worlds. 

Leia didn't think highly of such escapist fantasies. But... she held this dream of a different past tightly, for a moment, as it spilled between her and her brother, this idea that there might have been a place big enough for the both of them. A home. A home that would have been safe. A home that might have lasted forever. 

"We're together now," she offered. 

Luke huffed a laugh, which still tasted like grief. "Yeah," he said. "We are." 

They moved on. Leia thanked Sateen directly for allowing them their discussion and the man smiled at them both. "You're welcome, Leia," he said. "And you, Luke." 

Luke startled a little to be addressed with such respect and fondness from a stranger, but he thanked the man as well. Leia wondered if someone in the Organa household, despite their exile, would soon try to refer to her brother with a title. He'd shrugged off "Your Worshipfulness" easily enough from their mercenary pilot, but she imagined he'd struggle with something more sincere. They'd have to get his story straight quickly. 

The celebration became louder and louder as they traveled down, as expected, the air shaking with delight and indulgence. They passed more than one couple trying to enjoy a dimly lit corner. The first couple, a young human technician and a mon calamari mechanic, just giggled and scurried away when Sateen shined a questioning light on their odd form. The next couple initially ignored them except to make a rude gesture when Sateen cleared his throat, but apologized and moved when they realized they were blocking the passage of Leia's chair. 

As soon as they reached the bottom level, a droid with a drink tray on its head found them and eagerly tried to serve them. It was fluttering some of its panels and flashing its lights to the beat of the howling music. Every single cup on its tray was already empty. 

The hangar was still full of people, most of whom were sitting around on the floor or on crates and laughing, or standing around and bouncing vaguely to the beat of the songs. Someone had managed to make the music clearer and much louder. However, the dancing had apparently only gotten worse. Someone in the middle of the crowd was waving glowing marshalling wands very enthusiastically. Buzzing near the ceiling were some light drones also typically used to direct ship landings, apparently repurposed to provide party decorations. 

"LUKE! Luke, I've been looking everywhere for you!" Biggs Darklighter stumbled out of the sea of happiness, with the top of his starfighter jumpsuit tied around his waist to reveal a sweaty undershirt, his hair and mustache mussed, and he immediately embraced Luke again. "Pal, kid, where've you been?! Did you go back to Tatooine or something?" 

Luke laughed under the assault of affection, barely managing to keep them upright. "How many drinks have you had already, Biggs?!" 

"Not enough! Here, I, uh, meant to save one for you, but that was at least two cups ago, so you'll have to come this way for more." When Luke resisted the pull, his friend grabbed both of his shoulders. "We gotta... We gotta toast your folks, Luke, and you finally getting off of that old rock, may the Force be with it, and finally joining the good fight!" 

"We will," Luke promised, unable to resist his friend's joy. "We will, I promise, but-" 

Biggs leaned in. "You know you didn't have to rescue a princess for them to let you in here, right?" Then the man's eyes slid over to Leia and he said, "Oops." He tapped a much clumsier salute against his forehead, still grinning. "No offense meant there, Your H- Leia!" 

"None taken," Leia said amusedly. 

"I'll be happy to buy you a few drinks too," Biggs insisted, glowing with generosity towards her and all the universe. "I heard from just about everyone that we've got you to thank for the fact that our patchwork fleet here doesn't have to go on some Scarif mission again to try to destroy the planet killer! No? You sure? Suit yourself!" 

Outwardly, the man seemed utterly oblivious to Luke's embarrassed attempts to hush him and Sateen's mild disapproval behind her. Inwardly, he just didn't care to be ashamed of his joy. Leia only felt herself smiling wider and wider in response. 

Biggs leaned towards her and completely failed to whisper. "I would've liked to take a few shots at the Empire, but, you know, I like not being shot at even more!" 

"Sensible," Leia said dryly. 

It wasn't pleasant, the sheer amount of spectacle spilling in her aching head here, and yet... She wanted to sit here and let the waves of happiness wash over her. To dig her toes and hands into the shell-sharp sand and shudder each time the spring-cold water splashed over her legs and go half sun-blind watching the sparkling horizon. 

Leia sincerely wondered if anyone in the history of the galaxy had ever been so overjoyed to be alive as the defiant people around them. 

Oh, when she looked closer, there were pockets of darkness. A woman across the room was weeping furiously as a stranger rubbed her back. A man in the crowd desperately wished for this night to never end, terrified of having to give up this happiness again. The circle of people sprawled nearest to them were speaking of a friend who hadn't survived to see this, who wasn't one of the beneficiaries of extraordinary chance, drawing themselves tighter together with a weaving of righteous, persistent love. But all those flaws, those painful pieces present even now said, "This is real. This feels impossible, but it's real." 

And altogether, these people were incandescent, luminous, improbably joyful. The terrible past was behind them. The terrible future had yet to find them. There were no plans here for what to do next. There were no dreams of what might have been in another life. There was this beautiful, shining present in which the currents of the Force moved through them all, joy and relief and hope overflowing from one person to the next. 

"I've got to introduce you to some people!" Biggs declared, trying to pull Luke into the crowd again. "I almost couldn't believe it, but there are some pilots here who are almost as crazy as you!" 

"Oh, I, uh..." Luke looked towards Leia, clearly torn. "I can't..." 

"Stay," Leia urged him. 

Her brother wanted to do right by her, he'd promised, but the strangers and music and celebration around them were new and exciting and distracting, the promise that there was more to this new life than sadness and exhaustion and regret. Biggs Darklighter was the only truly familiar face he had here. His last fragment of home. 

It took some persuasion, but not much. With her gentle permission, Luke hugged her tightly and then finally allowed Biggs to pull him into this twisting, shining sea of happiness and comradery. 

Behind her, Sateen leaned in to help catch her drifting chair and ask, "Shall we go?" He had his eyes on the members of the crowd who were watching them, on the person pointing shamelessly at her, on the people thinking about coming up to her and saying something. 

"Not yet," Leia replied. "In a moment." 

A shistavanen was the first to approach, short and thin for the species and so presumably quite young, with very dark brown fur and big yellow eyes. Reflected in them was the memory of trespassing across a changed system border, of taking fire, of a long and hungry chase as the Empire had hunted them like animals for something important that they hadn't even seen. The shistavanen's pointed ears were tucked down as they shuffled over. 

"Are you the princess?" Their voice was very low by human standards, and the words were slurred in a snout that naturally struggled with Basic, but somehow Leia knew regardless that this was a wolfgirl. And that she liked the rich color of Leia's long head fur. 

"Yes, I'm Leia Organa of Alderaan." 

The girl's ears perked up. "I'm from the Uvena System! I was born there... but I don't remember it." 

"The Uvena System in the Seswenna Sector? Yes, I've heard of it," Leia replied. "I've never been." 

The Eriadu System was also found there; its capital planet, the capital of the entire Seswenna sector, was the homeworld of Governor Tarkin and his family. Like most Imperials, Tarkin had loathed anyone who wasn't human, even the ones who had been happy and foolish enough to fall in line with an Empire that hated them. She didn't need to ask why this wolfgirl might be happy and relieved that such a governor was gone with the planet killer. 

Instead, Leia said, "What's your name?" And, despite the aches that felt as though they might never leave her, she stayed for a little while to listen. 

Chapter Text

Meditation was now like trying to find her way on a planet she has never visited before. Leia had thought that she knew how to survive the wilderness, because she knew how to climb up a cold and jagged mountain like Appenza Peak, and then survive the long and treacherous descent afterwards. Now, stranded countless light-years away from the guide of familiar dangers, almost everything she has learned before was wrong. 

The stars here were alien. The sun bearing down was a stranger, traveling along an unknown path at an unknown pace, shining too hot or too cold, too bright or too dim. The air was thin and tasted different. The wind could turn at any moment, bringing down storms that she hadn't been taught how to weather. The ground was too soft or too hard beneath her sore feet. 

Leia could learn to find her way again, even when gravity itself had shifted, with time and with teaching. With a little rest, with great effort, she had discovered that could shield herself away from the universe entirely, but it didn't take long before the strain and the silence became agony. She needed to find a restful place for herself between absolutes. She needed to build a shelter from the elements that would last her... a little while, at least. It was absurd, she recognized, to expect to find a comfortable, effortless place that would last her the rest of her life. 

Repelling Darth Vader's invasion, revealing and concealing specific fragments of herself, had been simpler in some ways than this new task, because he was only one man, an intruder with a particular focus and limited patience. 

The Force healer here on Yavin 4, who by mutual agreement hadn't tried to use her abilities to help Leia directly again, had kindly given useful advice for seeking out a new balance. "It's not going to be the same. It will heal, but it will never be the same again. You cannot make someone into who they were before the wound, even yourself. You must become someone new." 

Leia breathed in deeply, counting, and then exhaled with the same focus. The air here was warm and wet. Even sitting in the shadow of the ancient ziggurat did little to hold back the thick heat. Tucked off to one side of the base's entrance, even the stone step that she was sitting on teemed with busy life, covered in moss and with a colony of tiny insects living beneath the stone feeding on the moss. A small, amphibious creature was smacking along, dragging itself through the dirt, heavy footstep by heavy footstep, to feed on the frantic colony. 

And then a six-winged, jewel-blue insect roughly the size of her face came to investigate her hair, which was even more distracting. The buzzing was very loud. Its wings smacked against her cheek. The curious animal didn't go away until Leia gently waved it off using the adjustable cane that her mother had insisted upon. 

As she lowered the cane again, she accidentally smacked her brother's knee. Luke grunted, then opened his eyes to give her an undeservedly betrayed look, even though it hadn't hurt him at all. And it wasn't like he'd been having much luck focusing either. 

"Sorry," Leia sighed. "I didn't mean to do that." 

"...It's all right." Luke lifted his arms above his head and stretched out his spine, before leaning back on his hands, only to then immediately flick some beetle-like creature off his thigh. "I've never seen so many bugs in my life, not even on a dead bantha at night." 

Leia snorted and leaned back as well. "You certainly have a way with words. I thought it was supposed to get hot on Tatooine during the day." 

"Heat on Tatooine almost never felt like this." Luke tugged on the collar of his black shirt again, of the second set of clothes that the Rebel Alliance had provided for him. 

When he'd staggered back to the Organa household camp late last night, they'd had a cot waiting for him. Someone had asked after his belongings, he'd been assigned storage space as well, and her brother had been forced to admit that he didn't have anything besides the clothes on his back and an old lightsaber. Included in that was a yellow jacket, mysteriously acquired from somewhere after Leia had left the celebration, but he'd shed that layer already today. It was folded on the stone between them. 

"Someone said that it rained last night? And it's going to rain again later? And it's not even their rainy season here." 

"The frequent cloud cover serves as limited protection from Imperial detection," Leia replied, closing her eyes again. She hadn't slept well, of course. "We're probably lucky that we're not hiding on a planet where it rains permanently." 

"...I can't even imagine it..." 

While trying to find her centre, Luke's presence remained a steadying anchor, a guiding star, a necessary reminder of all of her mistakes on the Death Star. She couldn't use him as her new foundation, no matter how tempting that was, it seemed like an obvious mistake, but her brother could still be... a landmark... in her journey through the Force. 

It was difficult, however, to seek peace with the shared frustration of a headache. Leia's head ached because of poor sleep and the universe spilling in and out of her head. Luke's head ached slightly because of limited sleep and a slight hangover. 

That persistent, buzzing distraction among many kept Leia from noticing any earlier the pointed feeling that someone was searching for them. It wasn't a familiar mind. She couldn't tell if it was one person or many, she couldn't parse any thoughts associated with the search, much less any clear ones, but the intention was strong, focused, and getting closer. 

It felt... orange. 

Leia opened her eyes and looked up, suddenly enough to capture her brother's attention. Exiting Massassi Base's main entrance was someone wearing a starfighter pilot's uniform, human, thin, with pale skin and short, black hair, and their brisk walk was at odds with the way they were looking all around. The pilot stopped to speak with a technician. 

"What is it?" Luke asked. 

The technician pointed towards Luke and Leia. The pilot turned, revealing a sharp and narrow face, confirming that it wasn't Biggs Darklighter. 

"I think that person is looking for us." 

"Oh, uh..." Luke's brow furrowed, but by the time that the pilot marched over to them, he summoned a greeting. "Hey, it's Wedge, right?" 

The pilot nodded, once at both of them. "Antilles," he agreed. "Sorry to interrupt, Your Highness." 

"Leia, please. I think that we were probably finished for the day anyway." 

Looking at this young man, whom she was fairly sure she'd never met before, felt a little like reliving a memory. 

More certain than old legends, her father had spoken before of his personal experiences with the lost Jedi's powerful predictive abilities, regarding both immediate actions and events far off into the hazy future, always fallible but often uncannily true in some way or another. She wondered if this was where those visions came from: strong intentions reaching out across the galaxy. 

"What can we do for you?" Leia asked. 

"I'm actually just here for Luke," Wedge said apologetically. "Someone said he was keeping you company out here." 

Luke's posture gained a wary edge. "What's the problem? Is Biggs all right?" 

"More so than I'd have expected after last night," Wedge answered dryly. "Darklighter's been talking you up as a pilot again, as soon as he woke up, and now Commander Dreis wants to see you in the sim for a test as soon as possible." 

Luke practically jumped to his feet, excitement flaring like a second sun. "Really?!" 

Wedge's eyebrows went up. "We're down in numbers since the Battle of Scarif and Darklighter swears that his friend Luke Whitesun can... uh, hit a womp rat's eye in a T-16...?" 

Luke laughed. "Well, I can hit a womp rat, at least! I always brought back the most tails out of anyone in our crew." 

That made Wedge's lips quirk. "Well, I'm supposed to get you checked out on the Incom T-65 either way; and if you're good to go now, then we might be able to get a test run of your sim test in before the commander comes by." 

Even nearly trembling with urgent delight, Luke looked worriedly towards Leia first. She was already smiling back at him. "Don't let me keep you," she drawled.  

No matter what she wanted to be true, they weren't going to master the Force in a day. The Force healer here had repeated that piece of advice to them several times before returning to her work. As much as Leia wished otherwise, if she was fortunate enough that the cracks in her mind healed in time, she was just going to have to put up with the wounds itching. 

"Let Artoo know if you see him?" Luke asked her. Aside to Wedge, he explained, "Artoo-Deetoo made me promise that I'd try flying with him first, before giving any other astromech a go." 

Wedge looked concerned. "A droid made you promise?" 

"I'll tell Artoo or Threepio if I see them," Leia amusedly assured her brother. If he wanted to take on the old, modded astromech with the crazy reputation, and to take a skills test with a lingering hangover, then that was his prerogative. "But I don't think you need one for a simulator...?" 

Wedge nodded. "You don't. "But Red Leader might have us all in real X-Wings for drills by the end of the day if you're half as good as Darklighter claims you are, so we can let someone on coms duty know to call your droid, if you've got a good one already." 

With that assurance, Luke was ready to run off. "Wait," Leia realized as the young men left together. "Luke! Your jacket!" The yellow jacket was still folded on the stone beside her. 

"It belongs to Biggs! I'll grab it later!" Luke shouted back. 

As they left, Leia sensed more than heard Wedge asking, "...Are womp rats really two meters long?" 

Leia sat back again in defeat, still smiling after her brother. She had never had much opportunity to pursue piloting, the important business of governance and rebellion had both taken priority, but she'd done well enough in her lessons. The way that Luke loved flying, bright with passion before he'd even left the ground, almost made her want to try again. 

She closed her eyes and followed Luke's star through the lively field of Massassi Base, as hundreds of people, all of their emotions and intentions, put themselves back to work trying to save the galaxy. Chaos, yet harmony. In the aching blur of light, a few other bodies stood out. 

Her mother was with Mon Mothma and General Dodonna again, surrounded by a hive of advisors and aides, analysts and strategists, councilors and commanders. Leia assumed that Breha Organa was still working to spread the news of what exactly had happened in the Alderaan System, while the Empire presumably attempted to suppress information and brand the Organa family as terrorists. Her mother felt tired, but still fiercely determined. 

Leia's father was also busy, speaking with... ah, that frustration had to belong to General Draven. They were also surrounded by a web of aides, guards, and agents. Bail Organa had cultivated an extensive network of friends, allies, and enemies throughout his service in the Senate, during the Clone Wars and afterwards, of which Leia as his successor knew only a few strings. How many old favors had become useless that their family was exiled? 

Most of the Organa household were either divided between her parents or back at their decreasingly temporary camp, as far as she could tell. During her tossing and turning last night, Leia had restlessly thought that she might be able to teach herself to have a better sense for droids in the Force; or at the very least for C-3PO, who had a capacity for intelligence and anxiety that outweighed all other protocol droids she'd encountered. But now an ache rang through her head like a warning bell being struck, so she didn't try to look closer. 

Of course, Memily, their housekeeper and Leia's old caretaker, was sitting on a storage crate about thirty paces away. Leia suspected that if she stepped out of the middle-aged woman's sight for a moment, an alarm might be sounded. Memily was kindly focused on the rough, brown cloak that she was mending. The Rebel Alliance apparently had a great deal of clothes that were in need of mending due to various exploits, so an industrious person like Memily had quickly acquired a full basket to carry around. 

Between her physical and mental aches, Leia doubted she'd do very well at such a meticulous task. Instead, she resumed her meditative pose and considered making a diligent attempt at the techniques that the Force healer had kindly shared this morning, and then rather found herself composing the arguments that might compel her parents to allow her to observe them. 

Despite the incessant nearby territorial hooting of two rival jungle animals, the three-way argument between some technicians regarding the weather satellites that became a four-way argument when their supervisor finally arrived, the amphibious carnage happening beneath the stone she was sitting on, and the happy pair of off-duty rebel soldiers lounging halfway up the ziggurat who were somehow still drunk, Leia managed to devise several viable counter-arguments to her parents' most likely objections. 

Only to immediately lose the thread when a triumph flared, pointed directly towards her, and sauntered over. "Your Highness, are you hiding here from your adoring fans?" 

Leia opened her eyes as their mercenary pilot, without asking any sort of permission, put a hand on one of the mossy steps and leaned like he meant to stay for a while. Though he'd clearly been able to wash himself and find new clothes since their landing, he looked even scruffier than before, rumpled all over and probably unable to shave. 

"I hear they're thinking about giving you a medal," the annoying man drawled. 

Unfortunately, he wasn't wrong. Leia's mother had briefly mentioned this morning that Mon Mothma was inclined to put together a morale-boosting ceremony to honor the surviving heroes and the fallen of the Battle of Scarif and the ensuing "Battle for Alderaan." This would, very likely, include honoring Leia specifically, as the only survivor of the Tantive IV. 

When Leia had objected, her father had wryly replied, "We can't exactly pin medals on Darth Vader and Governor Tarkin for destroying that terrible machine, my love." 

"Are you looking to receive one too?" Leia asked now. If she was going to have a medal forced on her, then they might as well give them to everyone else who'd escaped the Death Star, which included their mercenary pilot. "You likely won't be able to sell it for much." 

That made the man's lips purse, but then he chuckled. "Hey, Princess, I'll be happy if I actually end up getting paid, instead of getting shot for having seen too much of this place." 

"We don't do that," Leia said sharply. "We're not a gang." 

Their mercenary pilot just looked at her doubtfully, pityingly. "I've met more than a few 'freedom fighters' across the galaxy and they're usually not any nicer than smugglers when they're desperate," he said harshly. "Good causes tend to make good people ask for discounts and donations that I can't afford to give. Sometimes at gunpoint." 

Leia didn't know what to say, because he was wrong, he was wrong, the Alliance to Restore the Republic wasn't like that. But unfortunately, he also wasn't wrong. The galaxy was like that. 

"I thought my father's aide promised you your original payment and a new ship," she said stiffly. She'd seen this man in passing at the celebration the night before. She'd made sure to ask after this man and his wookiee partner both last night before retiring and this morning. 

The man blew out an apologetic exhale and looked away. "Yeah," he admitted gruffly. "Yeah, I can't exactly go around in a stolen Imperial ship, that's just asking for trouble. It's not nearly as fast as I need it to be, anyway. It's just... not clear yet when someone around here'll be able to take me and Chewie out to a decent shipyard... Just have to hope that your little rebellion is as good as its word." 

By the end of this little speech, he'd turned his head back, looking her directly in the eye again, searching intently, anxiously, for something in her face. 

"My father is," Leia replied. "My family is." 

"Right. Right, no offense meant to you, sweetheart." His tone would have been utterly unbearable if Leia hadn't such a clear sense of his relief, his hope, his fear. "Put in a good word for me with the royal couple soon, will you?" 

It was close to being unbearable anyway. 

"Don't worry about your reward, I'll be sure to encourage them to send you on your way with your money as soon as possible," Leia said sweetly, which made the man scowl down at her nicely. "What's your hurry, anyway? Are you that eager to spend your reward?" 

"What good's a reward if you aren't around to use it?" The man scoffed, but it tasted like guilt, like regret, like frustration. "I've got some old debts that I've got to pay off. Even if I didn't, I'd have to be a fool to stick around here, as nice as it was to be included in the party." He glanced around. "Hey, what happened to the kid now? Is he still sleeping off leaving you alone yesterday?" 

"He's doing a flight simulator test, and I told him to go, both times." 

The man clicked his tongue, the sound sharp with worry, even though he drawled, "Well, better to crash a sim than a real ship... not that you have too many of those around here... What's the life expectancy for starfighter pilots in your ragtag fleet, anyway?" 

Just because Leia had had the same thought didn't mean she wanted to hear it from someone else! Luke wouldn't let himself be tucked away somewhere safe, if such a place even existed, even if she was inclined to try something so ridiculous. He wanted to fly. He wanted to fight. 

"Why? Are you interested in applying?" 

"Hardly!" 

Leia pushed herself to sit a little straighter, leaning towards the man whose scoff was so full of curiosity. "You should join the Alliance! We need good pilots." That inspired a flare of pleasure, followed by an overdramatic rolling of the eyes, so she pushed, "You can't say that you like living under the Empire!" 

"You haven't even seen me really fly, Your Highness!" The annoying man leaned down. "Careful, you might make a man think you're looking for excuses to keep him around..." 

"Hardly!" Leia repeated. "Do you know how many people I've seen - good people! Brave, determined people! Fall to pieces under less than half the pressure that you and your wookiee partner stumbled through on that battle station? Complaining the entire time?!" 

The Empire could be overwhelming. Its reach was so long and so relentless, its patience at once limited and endless. It promised brutal revenge against anyone who dared to speak up against it. It was maddening that this incredibly annoying man had the bold courage to walk into such dark places and the steady resolve to fight his way out again. 

At the moment, the man seemed taken aback. "I didn't exactly have a choice about keeping cool in there, sweetheart. Shooting the next guy in front of you before he calls all his friends isn't taking on the whole Empire. Me or them. Simple choice, really, if you just think about it." 

"Well, the Alliance could use that kind of willpower! If you'd be willing to turn it towards helping someone besides yourself again!" 

Countless feelings seemed to pass through the man's heart and across his face, tearing into him, and Leia felt the pain too. She sat back again, her hands twisting with regret around the cane in her hand until she put it aside, knowing that neither of her parents would be impressed by her recruitment techniques. A choice being simple didn't make it easy. 

"But you've got to follow your own path," she admitted. "No one can choose it for you." 

It took a long pause for the man's emotions to settle back into frustration. "Well, thanks for your permission, Your Worshipfulness." But he didn't seem to like his own harsh words as soon as he'd said them, so Leia stared at the sky and waited for him to try again. Finally, he said, "Maybe... maybe once I have a new ship and a target off my back, I could... run a few small jobs for your little rebellion... for a price. Here and there. If I have the time." 

She turned to look up at him again. He finally sat down on the stone, bringing them closer, though the yellow jacket remained between them. His eyes seemed almost green in this light. 

"Maybe if someone asked me nicely," the man murmured. 

Leia saw herself reflected in his gaze and suddenly realized, aghast and speechless, that he thought that she was pretty. This man had seen her drugged silly and flopping uselessly, weak with torture, furious with hatred, burning in the Force, and he was still looking at her now with an outrageous wistfulness and daring. 

She had the sense in this moment that the man had never been handed much of anything in his life. Inappropriate timing? Inappropriate situation? He wouldn't have ever had anything at all if he hadn't dared to reach for it, regardless of whether anyone thought a scumrat orphan or smuggler nobody was deserving of anything nice. This man was full of such reckless, embarrassed hope and spiteful, mushy longing. 

At a loss for what else to do, Leia said, "Oh? And how am I supposed to ask you nicely when I don't even know your name?" 

The force of the man's own confusion had him thankfully leaning back. "What?" 

"You never introduced yourself." 

His expression of bafflement was very satisfying. "Well, I was busy at the time," he then insisted, his cheeks possibly flushed slightly red. "Rescuing you from that death trap." He cleared his throat and lifted his chin. "Han Solo. I'm captain of..." He paused, the sourness of grief washing over them. "Former captain of the Millennium Falcon," he finished, less proudly. "The wookiee was Chewbacca." 

"...I'm sorry for your loss," Leia said. She didn't remember whether or not she'd said so yet, but it was important to be thorough. "And thank you, for the rescue, in which you claimed to have no choice. I do appreciate it." 

The man, Han Solo, huffed, pleased and mournful. "The kid was pretty determined to go find you. He probably would've gone off with or without me."  

"I appreciate that you didn't let him go alone." How close Darth Vader had come to potentially discovering Luke as well still haunted her, so she hastily reached for the nearest distraction. "Where are you from, Captain Solo?" 

"Uh, Corellia, originally." 

"And afterwards?" 

The man shrugged. "Oh, of nowhere in particular. Everywhere and anywhere."  

The first answer had little attachment to it, nothing in comparison to the swell of misery every time Han Solo contemplated the loss of his ship. He'd lost something he'd loved dearly just trying to take Luke, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the droids to Alderaan. A fit of Darth Vader's rage had saved Leia's home. A different fit of rage had destroyed Han Solo's home. 

"Don't look so sad for me, sweetheart," the man said, smiling crookedly at her. "I've gotten to see more of the galaxy already than most people see in their entire lives." 

"We'll get you a new ship," Leia promised. 

Han Solo blinked in surprise and the following smile looked far more sincere. "I'll hold you to that, Princess." He cleared his throat. "Just, uh, just keep those magnetic magical powers of yours in check if you ever come along for a ride again, huh?" 

It would have been impossible to resist the urge to roll her eyes, so Leia didn't try. If this annoying man wanted to keep pretending not to know what the Force was called and what it was, then she wasn't going to waste her time arguing with him. His amusement, his playfulness, was impossible to miss. 

"I'll try to contain myself," Leia said dryly. 

"Well, hey now, if you're willing to pay for nice replacements every time, then maybe we could come to some kind of agreement about the magic," Han Solo drawled, but his genuine concern and relief glowed around him. "Uh, how's that... How's all that going, by the way? That Force stuff giving you much trouble anymore? Now that whatever the Empire did has worn off?" 

"I'm handling it. We're handling it." 

"Yeah, the wily old man's going to train you in the ways of the energy fields, too?" 

It took Leia a few seconds to understand what the man meant, to realize that he didn't know. "No," she said carefully. "Obi-Wan Kenobi stayed on Alderaan after urging my parents to escape. It's assumed that he died facing Darth Vader." 

"Oh." Han Solo's regret and sadness was real, even if he didn't show much of it. It was to his credit that the next thing he said was: "How's Luke taking it?" 

"...As well as can be expected." 

"That bad, huh?" 

Leia didn't know how to put it into words. In many ways, it felt like her family's exile from Alderaan had yet to settle in. It had only been a few days. She couldn't truly understand yet what it would be like to never be able to return to her home planet ever again. It still felt like Captain Raymus Antilles and the Tantive IV might return to Yavin 4 at any moment. 

Luke's grief felt similar. She didn't really know who Obi-Wan Kenobi had been to him, but it was tangled up in all of the other burning feelings he had regarding Tatooine. 

"So, uh, there's other people like Kenobi out there?" Han Solo tried. 

"Hopefully," Leia answered. 

Before he'd left her and Luke with the Force healer this morning, Leia's father had promised that he would be looking into their options for teachers. The quiet woman, who if she had a name preferred not to go by it any longer, had readily admitted that both her abilities and her experience were limited. Through her father's warm hand on her shoulder, Leia hadn't caught much through the heavy guilt and grief he was carrying, besides flashes of wanted posters and bounty pucks and the silhouette of bodies on dark streets. 

"And in the meantime, the kid's going to fly," Han Solo murmured. "Might as well. There's a lot of trusting your instincts and sheer force of will when it comes to flying, you know." 

When Leia reached out, stretching that aching muscle again, she could easily find her brother's star again. His focus seemed, at this moment, far superior to all his attempts at meditation. Tightly controlled. Purposeful. No room for doubt or sorrow. 

While Leia thought about asking Luke later about all the freely flying emotions running through him, she misjudged the location of someone else, and so missed their approach until it was too late to perform damage control. A heightened awareness of everything around her had, apparently, also created far more distractions. 

Han Solo said, "You know, Princess, when I have my own ship again, maybe I could show you what a good pilot I am..." 

"Leia! There you are!" Bail Organa declared, sweeping forward with a smile as though encountering a target in the Imperial Senate. The man sitting beside Leia quickly straightened, just in time for Leia's father to say, "Ah, I don't believe we've been introduced." 

"Er, Han Solo, Captain of the Millennium Falcon. Formerly." 

"Oh, the pilot who brought my daughter here to Yavin. Viceroy Bail Prestor Organa of Alderaan... ah, formerly, one might say these days." Leia sighed at her father's jovial tone, but he playfylly ignored her. "My apologies that I haven't until now been able to offer you my personal thanks. Her mother and I are endlessly grateful." 

"My, uh, my pleasure," Han Solo said, pushing to his feet and awkwardly shaking the offered hand. He looked wide-eyed towards Leia, but she could only raise her eyebrows. 

"I understand that we've promised you a new ship?" Leia's father asked. 

Conversation like this was a skill that Leia had yet to master. She watched in horrified awe as Bail Organa blockaded and managed to extract from this unprepared man his planet of origin (Corellia), his current profession (smuggling), whether or not he enjoyed that (it had its ups and downs), what sort of new ship he was looking for (it depended, ideally something that could be fitted to his preferred style), and his mechanical abilities (good enough to get around). 

"I should offer my personal thanks to your partner as well," Leia's father mused. "It's quite unusual these days to see a human keeping close company with a wookiee." 

Han Solo sputtered. "Chewie-? Chewbacca is my co-pilot." 

"Wonderful. And you're unattached, then?" 

That made the harried man sputter even more. Leia's father was practically glowing with amusement. Leia rolled her eyes and looked towards Memily, who wasn't even pretending to sew anymore, and looked utterly unrepentant about summoning Leia's father. 

"To any particular organization, of course," Bail Organa continued brightly. "I hope that we'll see more of you and Chewbacca both in the Alliance. Chewbacca... that name sounds vaguely familiar... Anyway, I may shortly require some trustworthy pilots to make contact with an old friend who's quite fond of wookiees, so your help would be quite appreciated." 

"I'll, uh, I'll talk it over with Chewie," Han Solo promised.  

"Excellent. Perhaps you could both introduce me to him now?" 

"All right, we could... do that." 

"I thought you were in an important meeting," Leia said drily to her father. She'd had the situation here, not that there had even been a situation here, completely under control. 

"Oh, it ended rather abruptly. Perhaps it was something I said?"

The innocent act here didn't fool Leia for a second, but she could admiringly admit to herself that after decades as a politician, her father was very good at it. She could only dream of such excellent lying. 

Chapter Text

Darth Vader stood on a balcony of the Mountain Palace in Aldera, overshadowed by the Star Destroyer hanging above the heart of the capital city like a sword, and gazed out at the billowing clouds of smoke across the gray horizon. The setting sun had been shaded a dim, hateful red. 

He paid no attention to the corpses at his feet. 

The fires below couldn't be attributed to any one spark. Imperial ships had been forced to shoot down many panicked civilian ships belatedly trying to escape this sinking ship of a planet like all the quicker vermin before them. At least one Imperial vessel had been brought down in a senseless collision. Civilian protests across the city and quelling of such rebellion had also caused significant damage so far. 

A report claimed that fallen debris from these ships, perhaps even from the Death Star itself, had started wildfires across the continent. Local governments had not been permitted to dispatch emergency services, because such deployment would give the rebels too much cover to continue their separatist activities, but some unruly officials had made the attempts regardless of the Empire's directives. 

Recordings of what was happening within this Core system would not look well for the Empire. And so even more Star Destroyers, drifting distantly overheard like an unnatural mountain chain, like a sparse asteroid belt, were jamming the planet's communications again.

Darth Vader did not concern himself with this either. It was the Imperial Security Bureau's purpose to manage messes such as these. His priority was, of course, the cowardly and treacherous Organas.

Some members of the royal household had remained, rather than vanish into the chaos, but these servants had also remained frustratingly tight-lipped. Soon, all the galaxy would know that the beloved royal family of Alderaan were traitors and terrorists, and these enemies of the state would inevitably be found, but what little control Darth Vader possessed over their information would become increasingly fragile. 

Turning away from the miserable view, Darth Vader returned to the room where a set of brown robes remained fallen on the marble floor. They were unremarkable in their design. Inanimate fabric. Ordinary in every way that he knew how to investigate, even a little dusty with sand, and nevertheless, the robes taunted him. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi was dead, he had to be, but he hadn't even left the satisfaction of a corpse. If this was one last trick, from a man who had been so full of tricks and little else, then the mysterious powers at work eluded Darth Vader's searching grasp at every turn. 

Yet another Force secret that his jealous former master had denied him. 

And with Obi-Wan had perhaps died the secret location of the child. It had seemed natural to chase his former master instead, as soon as Obi-Wan had revealed himself, because the Jedi had been the one to remove Darth Vader's family from Mustafar on that fateful day. At some point, Obi-Wan would have been in possession of his child. Perhaps the cowardly Jedi had been in hiding with the child on Alderaan all along. 

If the child's survival was not another trick. 

On that fateful day on Mustafar, Darth Vader had been foolish enough, sentimental enough, to initially offer the Jedi the chance to walk away from the Empire's new peace. To go live quietly somewhere out of the way. Retire. Meditate. As the Jedi had always claimed they preferred to the wars for order and justice. 

But Obi-Wan had instead fought him one last time, just to let his former student know that he stood against him in all things, just to destroy everything his supposed friend had once held dear. Before apparently greedily taking that offer anyway and vanishing from the galaxy. 

Darth Vader's former master's final distraction here on Alderaan had worked its apparent purpose of allowing the Organas to escape into the black. No, that sudden appearance and sacrifice, Darth Vader was grimly certain, could not be meaningless. There were many other lives that Obi-Wan had not come running to save. 

Looking around the bright rooms of this palace one more time revealed nothing of his former master's plots with the Organas. Strewn across the floors now were dull, worthless props for a dishonest family's life. 

The Alderaanian princess had been shockingly resistant to the Force, as powerfully deceitful as her elusive father, but she hadn't been able to hide that there was a secret to hide. There had been something truthful about her claim and she had guarded it desperately. The sheer strength of the girl's fear, her dread, her hatred, had finally betrayed this vengeful conspiracy. 

The memory of her twisting face, her dark and pleading eyes, followed Darth Vader from ruined room to ruined room now. Even after the girl had been lost with that technological terror. As sharp and gleaming in the Force as a rarely seen shatterpoint. 

It had to be that the dead girl would have unraveled eventually, within mere days, Darth Vader was certain, with greater effort. Her training had been impressive for a novice, but it would have had the endurance to withstand the full attention of a Lord of the Sith. She had been the key. Even if her information had ultimately been limited, Tarkin's impatience's blowing up in his face had still cost Darth Vader his greatest point of leverage over these rebels and kidnappers. 

There was a new power blooming in the Force on the edge of his senses. A feeling like the distant, roaring birth of a star, which might somehow tip the fate of the galaxy. A great disturbance in the currents of the universe that couldn't simply be the result of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bail Organa's love of ruinous lies. 

As Darth Vader contemplated his predicament, the scared man lurking in the hallway finally pushed himself to enter the room, his face as white as a sheet. "Lord Vader? The Emperor commands that you make contact with him." 

There was nothing more to be gained by wandering the halls of the Mountain Palace. Darth Vader had already ripped open the secret passages that the Organas and their household had used, and had found the empty landing platforms at their long end, and he doubted that there was much to be uncovered from the smoking consoles that these rebels had left behind. They had evidently been prepared for this flight. 

They had, perhaps, been prepared for him. 

Darth Vader turned on his heel, his cloak swirling behind him. "Prepare the ship. We will have to travel to one of the outermost Star Destroyers in the blockade to send a clear transmission." 

"Yes, my lord!" 

The ascent provided an even better view of the fires burning across the planet's surface, but Darth Vader instead looked away. He looked up towards the emptiness of space. To where the massive mobile battle station called the Death Star, a project decades in the making at near-unimaginable expense, had been whole not so long ago. 

Its petty engineers had been very proud of its kyber heart, ripped from the mines of Jedha and countless other sacred sites, and had often cited the fact that kyber was nearly indestructible. That it lasted forever. Not a one of them, so it had seemed, had caught a whisper of the way that the kyber crystal moaned in their hands. 

Like so many of the weapon's detractors had feared and warned, the technological terror built around that indestructible core had trembled and then buckled under the weight of its own power, a limited spectacle rather than a versatile tool of war. It had been unable to truly master the unnatural death and pure destruction that it had recklessly summoned into existence. The transient battle station had immediately rotted around its kyber heart. 

The Emperor would not be pleased. 

Fearful silence was the foremost feature of their ascent from Aldera to orbit. The hangar and corridors of their chosen Star Destroyer were nearly deserted when their ship docked and as Darth Vader strode unimpeded toward the secure communication chamber. The technicians inside bowed and fled as soon as the connection was established. 

Darth Vader bowed into a kneeling position as a hologram appeared before him, an elderly man with a crooked bend shrouded in dark, hooded robes, the Galactic Emperor projected at three times his physical size. He was standing, his withered hands knotted tightly before him. 

The weight of Lord Sidious's anger, even with all of the light-years between them, made him seem infinitely greater still. Incandescent. Darth Vader found himself... relieved that he was not current on Coruscant to suffer such powerful, seething displeasure. Hot enough to make the screaming heat of Mustafar seem mild. 

"What is thy bidding, my master?" 

"There has been a great disturbance in the Force," the Emperor drawled. 

The words had the feeling of a trap. Should Darth Vader raise his head again, his master's eyes would likely not have been visible, but he sensed their predatory sharpness. Caution was warranted, while he did not yet know what the furious Emperor did and did not know. 

"I have felt it," Darth Vader agreed. 

"It appears that I will have to wait to witness the final destruction of that insignificant rebellion and attain an absolute, everlasting peace for my glorious Empire." 

This had the faint lilt of the charming politician that the Emperor had once been. The intonation of the showman's speech that Lord Sidious would likely have to make to the frightened herds of the conquered galaxy who did not yet loathe him, who still clung to him as their wise father and devoted protector and the stable ground upon which to live their pathetic lives. 

"After so much tireless effort from our brave soldiers and brightest engineers of the Imperial Navy, it saddens me to have lost such a magnificent tool for justice and security," the Emperor continued, with each word losing more of his feigned empathy. 

Mournfulness for others was not a feeling that existed within this Sith Lord's withered heart. 

"Lord Vader," the Emperor said coldly. "With that weapon, we would have finally been free to devote ourselves entirely to the powerful and arcane arts of the dark side of he Force... to ascend far beyond the mastery which has already been achieved!" The pause that followed felt especially dangerous. "Instead, I wait." 

Darth Vader's forced breathing remained constant beneath such pressure. The monstrous suit in which he had lived beyond his death for so many years possessed some advantages. 

Finally, he answered, "Ordinary men were not as capable as you at wielding such great and terrible power, my master." 

The Emperor left the silence rest between them. Go on, it dared. 

"The planet-killing weapon appeared to cause a madness in these ordinary men. It made them arrogant. They tasted flashes of this unnatural power and at once presumed it to be even greater than the Force itself." 

"They know little of such things," the Emperor said dismissively. 

"With glee, Grand Moff Tarkin eliminated the previous director of the project on Scarif, in his haste to assume command of the battle station, and in doing so destroyed an expert of its intricate operations." 

"...Yes, yes, so I was informed..." 

"In their petty struggles, the Eadu facility and the project's foremost engineers were also lost. The unnecessary demonstrations on Scarif and Jedha, also performed under the excuse of eliminating these insignificant rebels, instilled in Tarkin an appetite for destruction that devoured him." 

Tarkin's loyalty to the Empire had been fierce, but the spell of temptation that the Death Star had cast upon him had been fierce as well, and it now could not be proven that Tarkin wouldn't have succumbed to the vision that he might ascend to the galactic throne and implement his own perfect order. Left to his own devices with such a tantalizing device, the man truly might have become a threat. 

"It was not the consensus onboard to select Alderaan as the inauguration of your weapon, my master," Darth Vader added. "The decision was Tarkin's." 

Since the earliest days of development, self-important servants of the Empire had come together to fervently debate the worthiest targets. The most foolish had believed that the weapon would never be used. Many had wished to use it sparingly, only as absolutely necessary. 

And nearly all of them had professed strong opinions on the weapon's introduction. Many had wished to gently introduce such a force to the galaxy. The uniformed men around Tarkin had repeated some of these arguments: they had wanted to choose a long-despised enemy, ideally an underdeveloped, underpopulated, and non-human planet in the Outer Rim, perhaps a former former prominent member of the Separatist movement during the Clone Wars. They had wished to begin with an act of destruction that could be easily, cheerfully welcomed. 

Darth Vader knew that the Emperor himself had not been spared the endless bickering. In fact, Lord Sidious had likely suffered far more of these meetings. 

"...Yes, Grand Moff Tarkin appeared... greatly disturbed before his untimely end," the Emperor said silkily. "He informed me that you were one of these complainants, Lord Vader, and had forcibly prevented him from taking initiative with... powerful prejudice." 

Darth Vader's breath did not catch. His mechanical body continued its harsh rhythms regardless of the frantic lurch deep inside his being. 

"He did not appreciate being reminded of his own fragility against the powers of the Force," Darth Vader replied smoothly. "He attempted to fire upon Alderaan against my orders while I was on the planet. Another attempted murder in his deranged pursuit of personal power. He was climbing the remaining rungs of Empire at perilous speed." 

"His arrogance was his undoing," the Emperor agreed. "I am relieved that you survived such vile machinations, my apprentice." 

The faint thread of amusement in Lord Sidious's voice did not go unnoticed. A less knowledgeable individual might assume that the Emperor merely found Tarkin's architecture of his own humiliating, spectacular demise darkly amusing. Poetic. 

But after so many years, with the confirmation that there had been a transmission, Darth Vader knew his master well enough to suspect that a stiff servant such as Tarkin had not simply called upon the Emperor's attention to whine and rant that he was not getting his way. It was possible, even likely, that Tarkin had contacted the Emperor seeking permission to fire on Alderaan.

And either Tarkin had finally gone mad upon being denied a second time or... the Emperor had granted Tarkin's murderous wish. 

It had been a hideous experience for Darth Vader to look up at the sky and see that terrible green light gathering distantly above him. To feel that creeping, helpless certainty... a kind of cold, slimy ooze that slithered up even artificial veins and spread clammy tendrils through a mixture of guts and machine. To realize that the dragon had never been slain, his fear had not been destroyed for good, and the things that that venomous creature had whispered to him a lifetime ago were true. 

All things die. 

"The Death Star would not have survived long in the inexpert hands of such an unstable man," Darth Vader opined. "My apologies, my master, for being unable to prevent Tarkin from seizing and destroying your creation." 

The threads of the Emperor's amusement had only existed within the broader tapestry of rage and cruelty. Darth Vader felt the danger rising again in the pause before his master answered. 

"Prior to this tragic events, Lord Vader, I sensed another disturbance in the Force..." The Emperor trailed off into silence. 

Darth Vader was forced to ask, "What was it, my master?" 

"I was shortly contacted by the Grand Inquisitor... who wished to personally share with me a remarkable revelation. I understand that this is the matter that you were personally investigating before the destruction of my Death Star." 

"...Yes, my master." 

Darth Vader's mind was spinning with the possibilities of what exactly the Emperor knew. Tarkin had been uncertain of what precisely had been said on the overbridge, but the Grand Moff would have reported what little he knew to the Emperor, who would not have let his apprentice's strange behavior go unquestioned. 

Inwardly, he cursed himself for not slaughtering every individual on the overbridge at once. He could have easily later informed the Emperor that Tarkin had been planning to use the weapon in a coup. 

"My condolences, Lord Vader, on your personal loss." 

"...Of which loss do you speak, my master?" 

Darth Vader inwardly cursed his former master again, preparing himself to be told that the child's survival had been a trick all along-! 

"Were you not informed of the results of the tests performed upon the Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan?" the Emperor asked, with surprised and sympathy that could not be anything but false. He was toying with his apprentice again, perhaps his favorite pastime. "It was revealed to us that she had been the biological daughter of Anakin Skywalker." 

Darth Vader could hear himself breathing. He always could. But now it seemed louder. Harder. Harsher. Still, he could not stop it. He could not even slow it down. 

"She perished with all the others onboard the Death Star," the Emperor continued sadly, happily twisting the knife. "A sudden gain... a sudden loss..." 

The life support systems of the armored suit kept the man now known as Darth Vader alive whether he wished it or not. They breathed for him. They pumped oxygen into his bloodstream, even as a part of him was still lying upon black glass sand beside a life of fire, as its flames chewed on his flesh. 

The glowing projection before him somehow kept speaking. He could see its flickering reflection in the floor.

"She might have been a great asset if turned to our cause... but she was already a dedicated enemy... and the daughter of Anakin Skywalker could not have been permitted to become a Jedi." 

He remembered again the girl's twisting face... her dark, pleading eyes...! He remembered the furnace of fury and hatred that had pushed him to seize her throat to silence her lying mouth... 

Padmé's daughter! A daughter like he had once known their child would be! As slight and as stubborn as her mother!

He had looked his own daughter in the eye and hadn't known her. He had then hurt her in the same ways that had killed her mother. He had wasted his time chasing revenge against old ghosts and abandoned his child to die, when he could have saved her by going away with her, or by slaughtering the blustering tyrants around him and seizing control.

In this blazing moment, too late, he finally understood that he had fallen into the same trap again. He had been thinking only of himself. His anger. His hatred. The worst had happened to him again. 

He had killed her. 

Finally, the man looked up at the hologram of the Emperor, and knew that the displeased Lord Sidious was enjoying this final cruelty, even if it was not of his own orchestration. He had expected that his master would find some way to make the loss of the planet killer felt dearly. 

But not like this. 

He hadn't expected this agony... like watching a star burning out... 

"The traitorous Queen and Viceroy of Alderaan turned the stolen child into their puppet," the Emperor said, purposefully stirring up a storm of violence as he had done so many times before, "into bait for the Empire and for you, my apprentice. A tool for their rebellion. A distraction as they sought to save themselves." 

This had been Obi-Wan's last trick. The final betrayal. The Jedi had turned his child against him too. His daughter had looked him in the eye, had known him to be her father, and had rejected him. 

"These rebels must be justly, fiercely punished for their hateful grasps for power at all costs, Lord Vader. This budding alliance among separatist insurgents cannot be allowed to celebrate this victory. We must make them feel this pain tenfold. A hundredfold." 

"...Yes, my master. It will be done. Nowhere in the galaxy shall be safe for those who have betrayed us." 

"Good. Good." 

The man made his promises of vengeance to the Emperor sincerely. The Organas would pay dearly for using and discarding his child, for twisting her into a mockery of what she should have been, for abandoning her into the jaws of the beast.

Obi-Wan had died far too quickly, far too painlessly. Escaping his just desserts yet again. 

But as he cursed the Jedi he had once called a brother, once called a father, Darth Vader did not cling to his Sith master as he had in the burning ruins of his youth. 

The years had been long and numbing. The company of a vile, old shadow had become less necessary... especially as this crowned, gluttonous shadow had also become less understanding, less forgiving, and less comforting... more certain, more complacent, that it was truly all that its apprentice had left in life. 

The night had been long, but he was not so exhausted to overlook that the Emperor had apparently known that Anakin Skywalker's child had been a prisoner on the Death Star... when the order to fire on Alderaan had been given a second time. He would have died there, helpless and ignorant, if he had not accidentally put deep cracks into the battle station's foundations beforehand. Padmé's daughter, so strong in the Force, would have been left alone and grieving in the hands of the Emperor.

A long time ago now, Anakin Skywalker's wife had begged him to leave with her before anything else could go wrong, and he had foolishly told her that all would be well. He had had plans then. Ambitions. Desires. Reckless with youth, he had suggested that they allow Palpatine to do the dirty work, all of the messy, brutal oppression of uniting the galaxy, and so to become the most hated man in history. 

When the time was right, he had said to his wife, they would then throw the Emperor down. They would have been heroes. The whole galaxy would have loved them. And they would have ruled the Empire together. 

Anakin Skywalker had been deeply betrayed by the Supreme Chancellor, the secret architect of the Clone Wars, his supposed friend, perhaps more than anyone else. He had taken the measure of his new master quickly. Once his own power had sufficiently grown, once the secrets of Darth Plagueis were shared, he had intended to follow Darth Sidious's example immediately. 

Rather than become the next Dooku. Another General Grievous. Another Nute Gunray, who had died in pieces on Mustafar, while Imperial records claimed he had taken his own life after the Separatist defeat. Another Ventress or any other disposable zabrak assassin. 

But then he had lost everything... everything besides his new master... including his own body. There had seemed to be no point to rebellion after that. It had been... easier... to drift along as the shadow of a shadow. 

Trapped in a monstrous shell, a form which his master had once called a magnificent jewel box, he had instead take the opportunity to unleash his rage on the surviving Jedi. The Emperor had gladly, generously, provided him with every possible resource to take further revenge against those who had taken him from his mother to be their Chosen One, who had kept the galaxy in a state of chaos for far too long, who had forced him to hide his marriage so he could fight their wars, who had denied him mastery and the resources to save his family... who had denied him the joys of fatherhood in more ways that he had previously known-! 

In the present, the Emperor dismissed his apprentice. The hologram finally flickered away. The darkness only lasted a few seconds before the chamber's lights came back to their ordinary brightness. 

The man kneeling before the console pushed to his feet again and down on the desire to reach out through the Force and crush this shadow that had somehow managed to destroy him again. He was older and wiser now, cold with the venom that had again pierced his heel as he'd tried to crush a dragon beneath his foot, and he knew it would not be so easy. It would take greater planing than that to crush someone so treacherous. 

As a Sith himself, Lord Sidious must have realized at once that his listless apprentice would have gladly overthrown him to crown Padmé's daughter, as should have come to pass decades ago. The Emperor had tried to discard yet another apprentice and take the child for himself. Yet another betrayal... covered up with yet more pathetic lies to be swallowed. 

His master was right. It was time for their relationship to undergo a sudden, long awaited, fatal transformation.