The Sleepover to Restore the Republic - ClawedandCute (Adi_Fire) - Star Wars (2024)

Chapter 1: What to Do When Your Young Adult Son Tries to Convince You to Join a Terrorist Organization and Overthrow the Government

Chapter Text

Darth Vader was having a perfectly normal day, marked out by the usual duties and decisions that come with commanding the Executor. It was almost — almost — a good day.

Then an Alliance X-Wing dropped out of hyperspace and hailed the Executor, surrendering before they even had a chance to power weapons. Vader wasn’t particularly interested at the time — some Rebel scum who lost their nerve and were hoping to seek asylum with the Empire, no doubt. It had happened before, and it would happen again. Of course, the Executor was not normally the ship a turncoat rebel would choose to hail. Vader had a reputation, after all.

So Vader was content to stay in his meditation pod, hoping that his men would handle things and squeeze the rebel for information on Luke, as his standing orders directed.

But then.

“Lord Vader.” Admiral Piett’s perpetually on edge voice emanated from the comm inside the pod. “Lord Vader, please come in.”

A heavy sigh gusted out of Vader’s breathing apparatus. “What is it, Admiral?”

“There’s a situation, my lord. In the hangar.”

“With the rebel, I assume. Can my men not handle it?” Vader’s crew — being mostly clones that Vader had kept from decommissioning (not because he cared, of course, but because they were useful and obedient) — was more competent than most Imperial legions. He would have expected them to have no problem subduing a lone rebel fighter, even if it was one of the Jedi survivors rumored to be part of the Rebellion.

“It’s not quite so simple as that, my lord,” Piett says. “The rebel… It’s Luke Skywalker. Your son,” he adds, as though Vader might have forgotten.

The Force surges; the inside of the pod creaks, straining against the sudden pressure. “Is he secure?”

“Yes. He surrendered as soon as he came aboard.” Piett pauses. “He wasn’t even armed, my lord.”

Perhaps Luke has finally come to his senses. After the debacle on Bespin, Vader had lost all hope of that happening, but it seems he underestimated his son. Or, rather, assumed his son was more like Anakin Skywalker — a foolish idealist who never read the writing on the wall until it was too late — than not.

But this makes Vader think that Luke might have inherited Padme’s brains. He can only hope so. It will save him pain down the line.

“He’s asking for you, my lord,” adds Piett, pulling Vader out of his thoughts, which he is grateful for. He’s spent over twenty years avoiding thinking of Padme, and here is Luke, making him break the habit in the span of a few seconds. “He says he will talk to no one but you. What are your orders?”

“Hold him there,” says Vader, leaving his pod. “I’m on my way.”

He is so lost in his swirling thoughts that he almost gets turned around on his own ship, even though he spends most of his free time in the hangar. Backtracking and trying to pretend like he isn’t, he course-corrects, glaring at the technicians who witnessed the mistake, daring them to show any reaction. They, knowing full well that being fired on the Executor equaled being choked to death with the Force, kept their eyes on their work.

When Vader arrives in the hangar, the first thing he sees is the X-Wing. It’s in horrible condition, the hull clouded with carbon scoring and certain parts looking like they’re being held together with tape and string. Upon closer inspection, it seems they are being held together by tape and string.

The rebels would never have survived during the Clone Wars. Have any of them even looked at the acceptable safety standards that are outlined in every ship manual? It’s not that Vader has, but he certainly wouldn’t let his son fly around in a ship that looked like that. He files this travesty away as another reason to hate the Rebellion. The list is stretching long.

The second thing he sees is Luke, still wearing his bright orange flight suit. He’s a bright beam of sunlight against the gray and black interior of the hangar, his reflection stretching downward into the shiny black floor. The only interruption in his riot of color — orange suit and tousled blonde hair and healthy pink and tan skin — are the durasteel binders clamping his hands together in front of him.

Hands, plural. So he did manage to get a prosthetic after Cloud City. That’s a relief, at least, although Vader doesn’t doubt that it’s of a cheap, subpar design. The Rebellion doesn’t seem like the kind of organization that has the funds or time for anything else, even for the fighter who is arguably their greatest asset.

Luke. Vader stretches out to him through their bond, bracing himself for shields, for a furious Luke shoving him out, but instead he is met with an open curiosity and cautious excitement, spreading like a sunburst into his mind.

Luke grins at him. “Hey, Ipu,” he says, like they never dueled on Cloud City, like Vader isn’t the reason he’s missing a hand, like they don’t stand on opposite sides of the war, like Vader isn’t the reason his amu — how long has it been since Vader has used that word? — is dead.

Vader marches across the hangar to loom over him, arms folded. “What are you doing here?”

Luke tips his head back and back — he inherited Padme’s height, not Vader’s. “What, you’re not happy to see me?”

No. No, Vader isn’t because now he has to bring Luke before his master. Vader is barely allowed to have his ship and his crew apart from Sidious; there’s no chance that Sidious will allow him to have his son. His orders are clear. Find Luke, and bring him to Coruscant to be trained. That is the only way he is allowed to have him. “What are you doing here?” he repeats, far angrier at Luke’s stupidity than he expected to be. After all, it was stupidity that served Vader’s own ends, wasn’t it?

“I kind of thought it was obvious,” Luke says with a shrug, glancing between the two helmeted clone troopers that stand on either side of him. “I came to bring you over to my side.”

Beneath his helmet, Vader blinks. Forgetting for a moment the gravity a Sith Lord and leader in the Empire should maintain, he bursts out, “You what?” in the most incredulous voice his vocoder allows for.

Luke blinks right back. “I was just thinking, since Cloud City —” Luke lifts his hands, wiggling the fingers of his prosthetic, as if that doesn’t bring up the painful memory of yet another of Vader’s failings “— well, you said you wanted to rule the galaxy. With me.” He clears his throat. “And, I mean, you didn’t mention the Emperor in there, so I can assume you’re looking to overthrow him, right? And like, set yourself up as emperor?”

Vader hasn’t actually thought that far ahead, so he exudes noncommittal silence. At the same time, he rakes his gaze over the assembled members of his crew, cataloging who is loyal to him — and him alone — without question. The clones, Admiral Piett (thankfully, since he is the first competent admiral Vader has had), and most of the ship technicians. There are still some others, who, while they may not particularly like him, like Sidious even less.

He can work with this, provided Luke doesn’t —

“Anyway, I kept thinking it over, and since we both want the Emperor gone, we’re basically on the same side, right?” Luke points to himself. “Rebel scum.” He points to Vader. “Also, rebel scum, except you come in black.”

Provided Luke doesn’t do something like that.

“So I thought that I could come and talk you over to our side, yeah? Because it’s really only logical — although don’t tell Leia that, because she thinks I’m crazy — and you are my ipu, so I’d rather not have to — well, Ben and Master Yoda keep saying I’ll have to kill you, but I don’t want to do that, so —”

“Master Yoda’s alive?”

The look Luke gives him is suddenly cagey. “No-o… No, it’s just Ben. Sorry, slip of the tongue.” He smiles, as if that will make his obvious lie any more believable. He definitely didn’t get his amu’s brains — at least not the places it counted.

“And who is Ben?”

“You know, Ben. You killed him, on the Death Star.” Luke frowns at him. “I forgive you for that, by the way, but only because he came back as a ghost, which means he’s not actually gone, but it was still an awful thing to do, especially since he was your friend —”

“You mean Obi-Wan?”

There’s a heavy sigh from the vicinity of Admiral Piett. Vader hears one of the clones — Cody, from the sound of it, and why did he choose to keep Anakin Skywalker’s old master’s clone general around? — mutter, “Oh, here we go again. Brace yourselves, boys. It’s another Kenobi hunt.”

“He’s dead, though,” another clone — Jesse, if the ability to state the obvious is anything to go by — says.

“Of course I mean Obi-Wan,” Luke says, rolling his eyes, apparently utterly unaware that Ben was not a common nickname for Obi-Wan, at least not back when Vader — no, Anakin Skywalker — knew him. “Who else would I mean?”

“He’s not dead?” Vader does his best to control the Force shockwave that wants to erupt out of his chest. Throwing Luke backwards across the hangar wouldn’t make for a pleasant reunion, although it would probably stop him from continuing to imply — and outright state it — that Vader was sympathetic to the rebel cause.

Which he isn’t.

“Oh no, he’s dead,” Luke answers. “He’s a ghost.”

Strike me down, and I shall become more powerful than ever before. Of course. Of course Obi-Wan of all people would find a way to haunt the galaxy. He supposes it’s only a matter of time before Obi-Wan decides to become the poltergeist of the Executor. “Why are you here, son?” asks Vader, desperately hoping to change the subject.

“I already told you. I’m here to turn you.”

Vader took a deep, humming breath through his apparatus. “And I am mandated to bring you before my master, so he can turn you.”

“Yeah.” Luke bounces on his heels. “But you’re not going to do that.”

Oh, here he goes again. “Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I —” Vader stops, taking another deep breath. He’s not going to get into a Yes, I am, No you’re not fight with his son. He’s the second most powerful person in the Empire. It wouldn’t be dignified. “I am subject to my master.”

Luke sticks his lower lip out doubtfully. “Are you, though? That’s not what you said on Cloud City, and I remember that day pretty well because…” He holds up his prosthetic again, and Vader glowers through his mask. “So. When do you want to overthrow the Emperor? I’m free for… Well, pretty much the foreseeable future, or until Han and Leia find me.”

Silence descends on the hangar. Standing beside Vader, Piett makes a subtle sign with one hand. Every clone in the room takes a not-subtle step toward the crew members whose loyalty is in question. Every non-clone crew member whose loyalty is certain takes a large step away from those people.

And in the center of that stands Luke, utterly oblivious.

Force, he would never survive on Coruscant.

“Admiral,” Vader says stiffly, “I am going to my quarters. See that I’m not disturbed. And see that everyone on the ship understands the… situation.”

Piett didn’t rise as high as he has in Imperial ranks and managed to make a career out of being admiral to Darth Vader by asking questions or — Force forbid — sharing his opinion on his superior’s actions. “Yes, my lord.”

Nodding, Vader stalks forward, grabs Luke by the collar of his flight suit before he can say anything else damning, and marches out of the hangar, dragging his shocked and protesting son along behind him.

Chapter 2: How to Restore Healthy Family Dynamics When Your Father is a Murderous Maniac (And Addressing Other Problems)

Chapter Text

“Hey! You can’t just drag me around like this! I’m not ten years old.” Luke twists in Vader’s grip as they swept through the pristine corridors of the destroyer, drawing eyes wherever they went. Aside from the manhandling, this is already going far better than Luke expected. He had been banking on Vader’s clear attachment to him and his apparent desire for a relationship, but he had still been mentally chewing himself out for his idiocy when his X-Wing dropped out of hyperspace practically on top of the Executor. At the time, Luke still wasn’t certain that he hadn’t grossly misread the situation, that Vader wouldn’t just hand him straight over to the Emperor with a bow stuck to his back.

But apparently Luke’s first instincts were correct (he’s so going to hold this over Leia’s head, provided she doesn’t court martial him as soon as she gets her hands on him again), given Vader’s reaction. And given the strangely… casual atmosphere of the destroyer. Luke doesn’t know exactly what he was expecting, but wise-cracking troopers and an admiral who looked more tired and long-suffering than afraid weren’t it.

“No,” Vader rumbles in agreement, stopping in front of a reinforced airlock. It slides open when he passes his free hand in front of the panel, and he — somehow gently — tosses Luke inside the room beyond it, following after him. “You simply make decisions like one.”

Luke, staggering to keep his balance, whips around to glare at Vader. “I’m trying to help you.”

“By revealing my plans to my entire ship?” Vader somehow manages to convey a furiously raised eyebrow. “Thank you.” His vocoder shouldn’t allow for sarcasm, but somehow it manages to throw a gallon of it right in Luke’s face.

Straightening his rumpled flight suit, Luke takes a look around the room. It’s a sitting room in what seems to be a well appointed suite, with its own private fresher, a kitchenette, several bedrooms, and another room that has some kind of white, egg shaped pod in it that’s just Vader-sized.

Luke’s not going to ask about that one, especially since it is the only room with a used air. “So, you do admit you have plans?”

Vader sweeps past him toward the kitchenette. “I admit no such thing.” Using the Force, he rips open one of the cabinets, which moves stiffly and smoothly, as though it’s never been opened before. Twin ration packs thump on the counter, tear themselves open, and fly into the rehydrater that’s set into the wall next to the cabinets.

As the rehydrator hums, Luke eyes Vader. “Are you… are you making food? Can you even eat food?”

Vader ignores him stonily. The rehydrater dings — an absurdly homey sound — and yanks itself open without Vader ever touching it. The steaming, rehydrated packs float out and settle on the counter that stands between Luke and his father. Glaring at Luke through the obsidian eyeholes of his mask, Vader rumbles, “Eat.”

Oh. “You were making food for me?”

Vader looks him up and down. “You’ve not been eating enough,” he says by way of answering, sounding deeply offended. “Such negligence can only be expected from the terrorists you’ve chosen to align yourself with, but I won’t tolerate it. No son of mine should look so undernourished.” He tips his head to one side, and the binders around Luke’s wrists fall to the floor with a clatter. “Eat.”

Narrowing his eyes, Luke folds his arms, trying not to think about how the stance resembles Vader’s earlier body language. “Not until you tell me what you’re planning to do.”

“This is not a negotiation.”

“No, no, I think it is.” Luke holds his ground. “Unless you want to try to force feed me, which I’m going to tell you right now is going to be more funny than intimidating. Not a great fear tactic, is it? Feeding me, I mean. What’s next? Aggressively tucking me into bed and telling me a bedtime story.” He snorts. “That’ll really show me.”

“I already cut off your hand.” Something in the way Vader says it makes it sound more like an apology than an implied threat.

“Yeah, and I think we both know that was an accident.” Luke didn’t, actually, until this very moment, but he’s not going to tell Vader that. “Were you aiming for my saber hilt or something?”

Vader remains stubbornly silent.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Wondering if it’s wise to give in like this, he climbs onto the seat that’s pushed up against the counter and starts picking at the ration pack. It’s much nicer than the ones the Alliance has, but he’s not going to tell Vader that either.

Vader watches him eat broodingly.

“So.” Luke licks his fingers with the most obnoxious sucking sounds he can manage. “I take it you’re not sending me to the Emperor?”

“You were very foolish to come here.”

“You know, that’s exactly what Leia said when I told her my plan, except her version had a lot more swearing. I had to sneak away at night.” Luke starts on the second pack. “Force, she’s going to be on the warpath when she finds out. Speaking of.” He sets his chin in his hand. “You might want to move the Executor.”

“You don’t want the Princess to find you?”

Luke grins. “You don’t want her to find you.”

Vader seems to consider this. Then he says, “Are you perhaps very… unintelligent, son?”

Snorting on a laugh, Luke says, “What kind of question is that?”

“An eminently reasonable one, I would think.”

“Suns and sand, you talk like such a Corrie.”

Vader seems to inflate. “I do not —”

“Anyway, no, I’m not stupid. At least, not stupider than you, anyway. What kind of person tries to overthrow the kriffing Emperor without some kind of plan?”

“I do have a plan. You’re very bold, son, to insinuate otherwise.” Vader slams both his hands down on the counter, which is a stunningly normal-seeming gesture from someone like him. It occurs to Luke then that he should — by all rights — be far more frightened than he is, but the right feelings just won’t come. Maybe he’s disassociated. Maybe it’s just difficult to be afraid of a seven foot tall black cyborg when it demands you eat and accuses you of being underfed.

“Then tell me the plan.”

“I did tell you, but you were far too preoccupied lamenting your heritage to listen.”

“I listened! You said that we could rule the galaxy together, but I’m just wondering exactly how you’re planning to do that. And exactly which of us is going to rule, because I know I’m not.” Luke lays a hand on his chest. “I’m not one for administration — just ask Leia or Han — and I’m starting to think you’re not either.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“For starters, you’re in here with me, arguing, instead of up on the bridge telling your crew what to do.”

“Admiral Piett can handle things tolerably well.”

“Oh, so you’re a delegator.” Luke grins. “Everything makes so much more sense now.” Before Vader can inflate again, he adds, “So you’re going to delegate the whole Empire to someone. Who?”

Vader is quiet for a long stretch of time. “Originally,” he says stiffly, “it was going to be your amu.”

Luke freezes. “It was going to be my what now?”

“Your amu.”

“My amu, the spaceport whor*? I mean, good for her, but would she really have the capability to —”

“The what?” Vader’s voice is exactly one decibel beneath a roar. Luke claps his hands over his ears. “Your amu was not a… a spaceport whor*.” The entire room creaks ominously as the Force rushes away from Vader in a wave. Luke’s ears pop. “Who told you that disgusting lie?”

Luke ducks a little. “My aunt and uncle?” It was all right to say that — they were already dead.

“But they met your amu!” Vader’s voice rises a startling half octave, which is somehow worse than his normal rumble. “They —” He sighs and appears to try to compose himself. “She was a senator. Padme Amidala.” The name seems to pain him.

The bottom drops out of Luke’s stomach. “My amu was the senator from Naboo?”

“Of course she was! Why wouldn’t Obi-Wan tell you? I suppose he relished keeping your family history from you, the mewling —”

“Ben knew who my amu was?”

“Of course Ben — Obi-Wan — knew who your amu was! Your aunt and uncle knew too, but clearly they felt the need to lie to you, just as everyone else did, and keep you from me —”

“Hey, don’t talk about Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen like that!” Luke jumps to his feet. “You’re the reason they’re dead!” He’s not certain he can forgive Vader for that one. Obi-Wan is somehow easier — there was a history between him and Vader, and it’s clear from the way Obi-Wan died that he chose his fate and made peace with it.

But Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen very much expected — and wanted — to continue living. They were planning to bring the harvest in, and all Luke could think when he found their burned bodies was that the last thing he did was whine about having to help out on the farm for yet another season when he wanted to become a pilot.

Vader is quiet again, for a long time. Some part of Luke wants to fill the silence, but he forces himself to keep his mouth shut. He needs an answer for this — a real one. Something that assures him that he’s made the right choice. That Vader is worth saving, that this is the path to victory — whatever Leia said when he told her what he planned to do.

The Rebellion needs Vader, which means Luke should be able to put aside his anger, but it’s hard — especially when yielding to his feelings for Vader is basically his entire plan.

At long last, Vader speaks. “They’re not dead.”

Luke almost falls over. “What?”

“They are not dead.”

Luke wants to say something clever, like, Your Sith lies won’t trick me, but what comes out instead is, “Yes, they are.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Yes, they are.”

“No, they’re —” Vader takes a deep breath through his respirator. The sound reminds Luke of the noise of the intake port on a starfighter. “Son, they are the last living members of my family, besides you. Though deceived by Obi-Wan into thinking I was a danger to you, they still raised and protected you. To that end, I had no quarrel with them, nor did I want to kill them.”

“I saw the bodies.” Now Luke’s voice is pitching up an embarrassing half-octave.

“Cadavers from the Executor.” Vader seems to grimace, even though Luke can’t see his face. “At the time, I thought you were nothing more than a foundling they had adopted. I do regret the —”

“Trauma? Horror? Grief? Nightmares?” Luke lets out a high-pitched laugh. “Oh Force. So they’re not dead?”

“...Yes.”

“Well, where are they?”

Vader makes a sound like he’s clearing his throat. “They’re in an Imperial prison under false names.”

“They’re what?” Luke does a double take. “You said you didn’t have a quarrel with them!”

“With regards to how they raised you, I didn’t. But they still stole you from me, and I couldn’t have my master discovering they were still alive.” He is quiet again. “Owen and Beru were never ones to stay out of a fight from what I… from what Anakin Skywalker knew of them.”

Luke takes a deep breath. They’re alive. This changes… Well, it changes everything. “So you’ve been ignoring your master’s wishes for a long time.”

“I have been making… strategic judgment calls.”

Which is another word for the same thing. Luke grins. “We’re going to get them.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Sure we are.” Luke heads toward the suite’s door. “Where’s the bridge? Up, I assume? I never can remember how star destroyers are laid out —”

“Beru and Owen are safe where they are, and I forbid you from putting yourself in danger to rescue them.”

“I’m not going to be in danger.” Luke rolls his eyes. “You’re Lord Vader. Just tell the officials it’s a classified prisoner transport, and they won’t even report it.”

Vader doesn’t respond. Luke gets the distinct feeling that he’s annoyed that Luke had such a thought out plan to throw at him.

“If you want me to help you overthrow the Emperor,” Luke wheedles, “you have get my aunt and uncle back.”

Vader glares.

“And,” he continues, “we need an administrator, right? Someone to run things while we, I don’t know, zip around the galaxy and kill all the bad guys.” He beams. “Aunt Beru is phenomenal at that stuff. She and Uncle Owen ran a whole branch of the Freedom Trail.”

“Are you suggesting that we simply shift the mantle of galactic dominion to the next female family member?”

Luke spreads his arms in a shrug. “I guess so. It’s her or Leia.”

“The Princess,” Vader says, managing to sound like he’s speaking through his teeth, “is a terrorist.”

“Sure,” Luke concedes. “But she’s kriffing good at administration.”

Vader stalks forward. “I will tell Admiral Piett to set a course for the prison.”

Luke grins and hurries to catch up with him — curse his cyborg-long legs. “I knew that would work.”

Before Vader can give him a scathing response, the suite door slides open to reveal Artoo, who trundles into the room with a string of joyous beeps. He rolls right up to Vader, tipping his shiny black eye upward. AN1, he chirrups out in the happiest tone Luke has ever heard. He’s practically bouncing on his ambulatory struts, like some kind of overexcited dog. AN1, AN1, AN1!

Vader stares down at Artoo, nonplussed. “I said we were not to be disturbed,” he drones out, peering out into the corridor as though he expects to find an Imperial officer out there — who will no doubt not live very long in the face of Vader’s annoyance.

“Oh, relax.” Luke drops down into a crouch, stroking the top of Artoo’s dome. “He was in my X-Wing. Probably snuck out of the hangar and tracked me here through my comm.” He sends Vader a sly look. “He’s very happy to see you for some reason. Who’s Ani?”

Vader is an immovable tower of black. “I wouldn’t know.”

AN1! Artoo prods Vader’s leg with his multitool attachment. You’ve been repaired! The mechanic did a bad job. Do you want me to run a search for a better one?

Luke chokes. “Ani’s you. And Artoo was your droid, not Obi-Wan’s.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh Force.” Luke lets himself go limp against Artoo’s side, laughs bubbling out of his throat. “The great and terrible Darth Vader, attack dog of the Emperor himself! Ani!”

Vader gives him a very unimpressed look. “It was a… childhood nickname.”

Luke can’t answer. All he can do is scream with laughter, until Artoo swivels his eye toward him, concerned. Do you also need a mechanic, LUK3?

“Oh, don’t feign innocence,” Vader snaps at Artoo, dropping all pretenses. “You know exactly what you did.”

Artoo’s next chirp can only be described as mischievous. Am I not fulfilling my primary directive, AN1?

“You do not have a proper primary directive. That’s half the problem, you hunk of scrap metal.”

“Hey, he’s not scrap.” Luke tries to contain his laughter as he taps Artoo’s head. “He’s apparently your best friend.”

Vader sweeps onward, past Artoo. “We have wasted enough time. Come.”

“Oh, this wasn’t a waste, Ipu.” Luke climbs shakily to his feet, leaning on Artoo for support. “Ani.”

# # #

“Leia.” A hammering fills her cramped quarters on the heavy carrier that’s been doubling as the Rebellion’s mobile headquarters. “Leia.”

Leia groans, her eyes opening. The room is dark, which means they’re still on the night cycle, which means that whoever is on the other side of the door is going to die for disturbing her sleep. Rolling out of her bed and onto her feet, the endless lengths of her hair streaming down her back in a braid, she stumbles over to her door and slaps her hand against the access panel.

The door slides open, admitting a blinding stream of white light from the hallway outside. Cursing and covering her eyes, Leia snaps, “What? What is it? Someone had better be dying, or the Emperor himself had better have showed up with a Life Day basket and a peace treaty or else, I swear —”

“Luke’s gone.” She recognizes Zev’s voice, though she is still too light-blinded to make out his face.

Dropping her hand from her eyes and squinting through the light, Leia grates out, “What?”

“He’s gone, Leia.” The blurry, shadowy shape that is all she can see of Zev straightens up into something approaching military posture. “He grabbed Artoo and his X-Wing and left — sometime a few hours ago. We don’t know exactly when, but Wedge and the other pilots found his bunk empty fifteen minutes ago.” Zev pauses, seeming to brace himself. “Do you think he… Do you think he really…”

Yes, Leia does think that. Luke is the exact kind of stupid idealist who would, and he’s just stubborn enough to go against her orders and surrender to Vader anyway. “Is the tracker we put on Artoo up and running?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“We got a ping near the Mid Rim asteroid pelt, but then it disappeared. We think they jumped to hyperspace.”

Which might mean Luke is on his way to Coruscant — and the Emperor — right now.

Oh, she’s going to kill him when she finds him. Vader too, for good measure. “Keep on it. As soon as they drop out of hyperspace, get a read on their position again. I want a squadron of X-Wings ready to go. You’ll take point, and I’ll go along as your copilot.”

Zev — who she can finally see clearly — frowns. “Is that wise? If we fail, Vader’s got not one but two high ranking members of the Alliance.”

Leia doesn’t care about wise right now. She’s already lost Han to carbonite. She’s not losing anyone else, especially not to Vader, who almost took Luke from her once before. “Scramble the squadron,” she says. “Now.”

Chapter 3: How to Effectively Navigate Your Superior's Fraught Family Relationships

Chapter Text

Piett could retire from the field. He could have done it five years ago, when he reached fifty standard years, but he hadn’t yet attained a rank higher than captain at the time.

And Pietts become majors, colonels, generals, and admirals. They don’t stop when they’re only captains — they never have, not even in the days before the Empire.

Piett saw the Republic fall and the Empire rise, and he didn’t survive the upheaval just to retire from the field as a measly captain.

Then Darth Vader choked Admiral Ozzel to death and promoted Piett on the spot.

As promotions go, it wasn’t the most pleasant, but it was the one advantage — at the time — of shipping out on the Executor. Yes, your superior officer was some kind of religious fanatic with a mostly cybernetic body who had the unfortunate tendency of killing subordinates who displeased him, but with any luck, you would rise through the ranks with the speed of a shooting star.

Of course, your burgeoning career might crash and burn at the whim of a Sith, but it might not.

Piett, promoted during the most turbulent time in the Executor crew’s memory, when Vader was on a relentless hunt for a son he had thought dead, had not expected to survive very long. When Luke Skywalker escaped Cloud City, slipping out of Vader’s clutches at the last minute, Piett braced himself for death. When Vader came onto the Executor’s bridge like an explosion, the support struts creaking from the Force shockwaves that kept rippling out from him, Piett lifted his chin and determined to meet his doom like a man — like an admiral.

Except Vader had simply told him to chart a course to the nearest Imperial stronghold where a spy was waiting to give them new information on the Rebel Alliance. Then he told Commander Cody to increase the bounty on Luke’s head again.

And that was all. Vader swept away in a flash of black cloak and left them to it. When Piett remembered how to breathe, he ordered the bridge technicians to begin the calculations. As he turned toward the viewscreen, Kix — ready in case of a Vader-related medical emergency — mutely handed him a cup of water, which he drained with the same enthusiasm as he might have drained a shot of Nubian vodka.

It was slightly difficult in that moment to not be resentful of Kix and the other clone troopers that Vader collected and sheltered — like stray tookas. They were forever safe from his rage. He never raised a hand against them like he did against Imperial recruits.

Piett survived that day, and then he continued to survive, even as Vader grew continually more frustrated with Luke’s powers of evasion. As the months slid by, he started to believe that Vader had no intention of killing him. That perhaps — in Vader’s strange, unknowable way — he even enjoyed Piett’s company, or at least tolerated it in a way he hadn’t tolerated the company of other admirals.

Cody and Jesse, who arguably knew Vader the best of the Executor clones (and most importantly, knew him before, when he was still Anakin Skywalker), tended to agree, in shocked tones, that Vader did seem fond of Piett. Kix wanted to check Vader for some kind of aneurysm, which Piett found reasonable and insulting at the same time.

Now, staring at the rather short Rebel pilot with hair like sunshine and a flight suit colored an offensive orange who is standing on the destroyer’s bridge, beaming, Piett thinks he might be having an aneurysm. He almost wishes that Vader had killed him above Bespin.

“So.” Luke bounces on the balls of his feet, in what is most definitely not military posture. “Can you do it?”

Can he chart a course to the Imperial prison where Vader left Luke’s aunt and uncle three years prior? Yes, of course he can. That isn’t the question. That isn’t the question at all. Almost timidly, Piett lifts his gaze to Vader.

He is a hulking shadow behind Luke, arms folded, cloak mantled around him. His breath is a menacing but familiar rhythm. Piett clears his throat. “My lord. Shall I chart the course that the rebel — the prince — Luke — your son asked?”

“The prince?” Luke splutters, somehow insulted. On the other end of the bridge, Jesse has the temerity to snicker.

Vader ignores the outburst. “Yes, Admiral. Posthaste.”

A suicidal question — Why are we transporting political prisoners onto your ship at another prisoner’s request? — hovers on Piett’s lips, but he’s not foolish enough to ask it. Thankfully, the clones have no such limitations.

“Um.” Sitting in one of the vacant technician chairs, Jesse raises his hand before Dogma can shove it down. “Can I ask why we’re freeing two rebels when we could, well, not do that?”

Vader sighs the sigh he reserves for the clones — particularly the 501st. “We are not freeing them. We are merely shifting their location. They will still be secure.”

Luke tilts his head back over his shoulder, looking up toward his father — his father, Piett is never going to become accustomed to that concept. “Yes, we are,” he says, frowning. “We’re definitely freeing them.”

“Son —”

“They’re your family too, Ipu.”

Piett considers passing out but opts for shifting his stance to parade rest, which is as close as he allows himself to come to fainting. He’s not really sure what did it — whether it was the casual mention of Vader having a family or the word ipu.

“They’re traitors to the Empire,” Vader rumbles.

“So are you!”

Piett holds his breath, waiting for an explosion or — as sometimes happens with Vader and the Force — an implosion.

“That,” Vader says at length, “is an entirely different situation.”

“Yeah.” Luke folds his arms — and looks disturbingly more like his father in the span of a moment. “Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen aren’t trying to kill the Emperor.”

Piett pretends not to hear. He cuts his gaze sideways toward Cody, silently asking him if he confined all the crew members sympathetic to the Emperor to the brig. Cody nods.

Well, that’s one disaster averted at least. Piett doesn’t know exactly when most of the Executor — perhaps by dint of being away from the Core for so long and surviving only because of Vader’s power and leadership — became comfortable with choosing Vader over the Emperor, who they were supposed to have sworn fealty to, but it has certainly happened, for better or worse. He blames the clones and their almost childlike affection for a hulking cyborg who should, by all rights, strike fear in any sentient who saw him.

“I am not trying to kill my master —”

“Overthrow him, then. Whatever.”

This marks the first time the word whatever has been said on the bridge of the Executor. Not even the clones — not even Fives — have ever stooped that low.

Vader glowers at Luke. Luke is unfazed. Piett readjusts his expectations for what life on the Executor is going to look like going forward.

The entire bridge creaks ominously. Luke narrows his eyes and lifts a hand. Every freestanding item on the bridge — from datapads to hats to a small blue astromech that lets out a string of irritated beeps — rises into the air, spinning as though the gravity suddenly shut off.

Gods of his ancestors, there’s two of them. Piett is glad he had the maintenance droids retrofit all the view screens on the ship to withstand Vader’s outbursts last time the Executor was in orbit over a planet for an extended period of time.

“Yeah,” Luke says, wiggling — wiggling! — his fingers. “Two can play at this game.”

“But only one of us is fully trained.”

“Oh, big whoop.” Luke rolls his eyes, almost giving Piett a heart attack. “We both know you’re not going to hurt me.”

“I could leave you in the prison under an assumed name until you learn some respect,” threatens Vader with a contemplative sort of air.

“That’ll kind of derail your plans, won’t it?” Luke gives an openhanded shrug. “Anyway, someone would figure out who I am and notify the Emperor, so no, you won’t do that.”

Piett — along with everyone else — looks at Vader, waiting for his response.

“I could throw you in the brig here on the Executor,” he says finally. The bridge support struts groan.

“Sure, but then you’d be all alone. I’d stop talking to you, even if you came to visit me.”

“That would be a mercy,” replies Vader, but Piett gets the sense he doesn’t mean it.

“We’re wasting time, you know,” Luke says. “I mean, Leia is going to find me eventually, and you really don’t want to be nearby when she does.”

“I’m not afraid of the Princess.”

“You should be. I’m a little afraid of her, to be honest.”

There is still a small storm system of objects spinning around Luke. Piett is going to have to add a chapter to the open-source manual they have for dealing with Vader-related problems on the Executor. Maybe he’ll title it something ominously ambiguous, like “The Son”.

“Fine.” Vader sounds resigned, which is rather disturbingly new. “We’ll do it your way, son. Admiral, make the jump and then set a protocol droid to open up a set of guest quarters.”

Piett’s not certain he even knows where the guest quarters are. “It will be done, my lord.”

Luke grins, like the sun bursting through the clouds. Everything floating around him, including the astromech, settles gently onto the floor again. “Family reunion. Wizard.”

# # #

“What do you mean the Council didn’t approve the squadron?” Leia, caffless far too early in the day, stalks into the hangar. When she woke this morning, she donned her white jumpsuit that still holds memories of Cloud City and Han, which immediately put her in a foul mood.

Her mood did not improve when Zev commed to tell her that the Rebel Alliance’s governing council had vetoed his request for a squadron of X-Wings to search for Luke.

Zev ducks reflexively, even though she has nothing to throw at him. Beside him, Lando says — in his characteristically lackadaisical voice — “It means exactly what he said, Leia love.”

Leia directs her fiercest glare at him. Lando bears up beneath it, giving her a smile that is more expensive than the finest Alderaanian wine. He is wreathed in the clothes that would have befitted the lord of Cloud City — though he is now a rebel on the run from the Empire, just as all of them are — but he carries a blaster at his hip as well, half hidden by the sweep of his gold silk cape.

The Alliance Council pardoned him for betraying her, Han, and Chewbacca on Bespin, but Leia… Leia hasn’t yet decided what she will do. Part of her wants to find the nearest carbonite chamber and freeze him in it until she finds a way to get Han back, but the other part of her wants Lando to be awake and conscious of what he did to his friend.

And a third — smaller — part of her is just impressed that he had the courage to face the Council with the truth of what he did, and more importantly, face her each day, knowing that she blames him for everything that happened. He’s in an especially precarious situation now that Luke — the softhearted buffer that stood between her and him — is missing.

“So that’s it then?” Leia swallows down an explosive yell that Zev — sweet Zev, who has made sure to look after her and Luke since the debacle on Cloud City — doesn’t deserve. “They’re just going to let a high ranking member of the Alliance and one of our only Jedi flit off into the Emperor’s arms?”

“No-o,” Zev concedes. “They’re just not going to risk a squadron of X-Wings that we need for combat for it.”

“What are they going to risk?” Her patience is running out like water from a leaky tap. She folds her arms — trying to think of who that particular stance reminds her of — and leans back one heel.

Zev gestures behind him, to the Millennium Falcon’s section of the hangar. Chewbacca is waiting at the foot of the lowered ramp, as melancholy and quiet as he has been since they lost Han to the Hutts. Threepio is with him, in standby mode. “That,” he says. “And Chewie and Lando to accompany you. And me, since they’re pretty sure my — my dad will protect me if I get captured. Joy,” he adds with a sigh. “And they said you could go, since they figured they couldn’t stop you and didn’t want to have to bother with arresting and court-martialing their best general.”

“What else did they say?” Leia asks through her teeth.

“Um.” Zev winces. “They also said that if Luke wanted to ignore their orders like a moon-eyed womp rat and rush off with a harebrained plan that put everyone in jeopardy, then they certainly weren’t going to waste resources going after him, not when we’re already moving bases and changing codes for security anyway. They figure if he’s around to be found, we’ll find him. No need for anyone else yet.”

“Oh, so I suppose Luke can just go die then.”

“That was roughly what they said,” admits Zev. “Only… they used more colorful language than that.”

“What language?” If the Alliance is going to abandon her best friend, she’d like to hear exactly what they said.

“Oh, I can’t repeat it.”

“I’m not going to be shocked, Zev.”

“No, I can’t repeat it. I still think my mom is going to appear behind me with, like, soap or something. I’m Core, Leia. Not all of us grew up swearing like sailors. Or,” he adds in undertone, “took to it like a quacta to a slime bath.”

Leia narrows her eyes. “I don’t swear that much.”

Both Zev and Lando raise an eyebrow. Chewbacca lets out a doubtful growl.

“Kriff you all.”

“Kind of proving our point, Leia love,” Lando points out, nimbly ducking the punch she aims at his shoulder.

Glaring, Leia surges toward the Falcon, the others hurrying to keep up. “How,” she shouts, voice rolling all around the hangar, “do they expect us to get Luke away from Vader without backup? The Falcon against the Executor? That’s a bad joke, not a battle plan.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Lando rests a hand on her shoulder, not withdrawing it even when she aims an acidic glare at it. “I know a friend of a friend who has access to some ion cannons. Fit the Falcon with one, drop out of hyperspace in the Executor’s wake… They won’t know what hit them.”

“That’s assuming Vader doesn’t have his fleet with him.”

“That’s what Luke assumed,” Zev points out. “He thought Vader was on his own, looking for him.”

“Luke’s not exactly a paragon of intelligence right now,” Leia says as they reach the ramp. Chewbacca roars in wordless agreement, laying a massive, furry hand on top of her head in greeting. She allows it, but only because it’s him. “But maybe you’re right. We can only hope.” She eyes Lando. “Who is this friend of yours?”

“Friend of a friend,” Lando corrects sunnily, pausing on his way to the co*ckpit. “Vizago something or other. The lovely Hera Syndulla knows him.”

“She’s not your friend,” Zev says on his way up the ramp. “She hates you.”

“And Sabine told me all about the time she kicked you right in the —” Leia starts, but Lando flaps his hands, cringing.

“Let’s not bring up painful memories!” He shakes himself, seeming on the verge of shielding the sensitive area in question. As it is, he hunches a little. “Vizago is a professional. I’m sure my past with General Syndulla won’t matter. What could go wrong?”

Zev ducks his head with a sigh. “I hate it when he says that.”

“Yeah.” Leia sucks air through her teeth. “Wake Threepio up and have him standing by to comm Wedge if we get in trouble.”

“But he’s not approved —”

“And he can always sweet talk Mon Mothma into letting him do whatever he wants.” Leia forges forward up the ramp, ducking inside the familiar, dingy main corridor of the Falcon. She leans against the wall, sighing as she listens to Zev and Chewbacca try to belay Threepio’s worries as they give him her orders. “Kriff, Luke, you had better appreciate this.”

# # #

Staff Sergeant Nymo was having a perfectly normal day on Imperial Detention Center No. 345 or — as it’s more colorfully known — the Rear End of the Outer Rim Where Careers Go to Die. He was safely ensconced in his office at the main entrance to the detention area, about to sink his teeth into a ration pack and pretend it tasted like anything other than a stale blend of processed protein and other essential nutrients, when the proximity alarm sounded and the head of orbital security informed him that the Executor — the Executor! — had come into orbit and sent a royal shuttle down.

Nymo braces himself. It could just — if just was really the right word — be Darth Vader, but it could also be the kriffing Emperor, for reasons he couldn’t fathom. It could also be Darth Vader and the Emperor. Maybe it was the Emperor, Darth Vader, and a whole complement of stormtroopers set to mete out violent and final judgment for some facility-wide shortcoming.

Nymo considers the airlock that stands just across from his transparisteel office window that looks out on the corridor. Was explosive decompression faster? He couldn’t say if it was less painful, but if he died on the job — technically — his family might get a bigger payout than if he were “fired”.

The door at the end of the hallway rumbles open, admitting a hulking figure wreathed in black. He’s flanked by one stormtrooper who is like a color flipped image of him in his stark white armor.

Nymo fights the urge to crawl under his desk. Too late. On shaking legs, he moves to the window, where a slot at the bottom ledge lets in sound from the corridor. “My Lord Vader,” he says as he pulls into appropriate military posture. “What can I do for you?” Bracing himself for the word die in response and the sensation of an invisible hand squeezing his neck, Nymo waits.

Vader stops eyeing the stormtrooper with a somehow irritated gaze and turns toward him. The bulging eyes of his mask are inscrutable. “I’m here to transfer Prisoners 8845 and 8846,” he rumbles out, the bass of his voice making the transparisteel vibrate. “Classified at the highest level, by imperial decree. Keep it off the books, Staff Sergeant.”

Nymo blinks like a womp rat caught in a set of speeder headlights for a few seconds and abruptly realizes he stopped breathing as soon as Vader walked in. Gasping for breath, he clutches the edge of the ledge in front of him for balance. “Yes. Yes, of course, my lord.”

The stormtrooper peers at him, exuding an air of faint concern. “Are you… are you okay?”

“He’s perfectly fine,” Vader says before Nymo can respond. “Come along.” He sweeps down the corridor, keeping up the same fast pace, assuming that Nymo can get the airlock that leads into the main prison open in time.

He does, but it’s a close shave.

As the airlock falls shut again, Nymo staggers over to his chair and collapses into it. He’ll never complain about this job being boring again. He loves boring. He’d marry boring if he could.

The peace that descended when Vader and the stormtrooper left doesn’t last nearly long enough. Nymo is just starting to consider his ration pack again when the buzzer sounds, signaling that someone wants to be let back into the corridor.

Given that the someone is Darth kriffing Vader, Nymo almost falls over himself opening the airlock again.

Vader reappears, again trailed by the stormtrooper, who is likewise trailed by a man and a woman who are in their mid forties at the oldest. The man is burly with a scruffy brown beard and a permanent scowl, and the woman is solidly built as well, with disheveled sandy blonde hair and wide blue eyes that ought to be soothing but are exactly the opposite.

She’s currently glaring at Vader’s back.

All that’s fine — Nymo can handle that — but what isn’t fine is the horde of other prisoners, who are not supposed to be out of their cells. They’re all political dissidents, rebel fighters, or people who just plain annoyed the Emperor, and they were sent here to rot, basically.

Which means that — oh kriff — Nymo is going to have to kick up a fuss. And to think he almost got out of this alive. “Um.” He clears his throat and stands. “My lord? I thought — well, you said you were only transporting two prisoners? Did I perhaps mishear?”

Vader twists his head to look at him, his heavy breaths as rhythmic as a drumbeat — an executioner’s drumbeat actually, and why did he have to make that connection, that makes everything worse —

“My directive changed unexpectedly,” Vader replies. As he says this, his gaze tracks down — and down — to the small stormtrooper, for reasons unknown. “All of these prisoners must be transported to another, more secure location. There have been too many breakouts orchestrated by their rebel friends, such as Luke Skywalker —” he puts a peculiar emphasis on the name “— and the Emperor wishes to ensure that such rebel victories are not allowed to continue.”

“Oh.” Nymo swallows. “I understand.” He’s still alive. For now, anyway. He’s happy to label that a win, even if it doesn’t last for very long.

“It would be terrible if the rebels got a hold of all these prisoners,” the stormtrooper adds unexpectedly. His voice is cheerful, almost to an obnoxious degree. “I mean, they’re already making the Empire look like a bunch of fools, what would happen if —”

“Indeed,” Vader interrupts with a quelling look that makes Nymo want to crawl out of his skin and hide in a corner. “Please erase all the security footage from the past hour, Staff Sergeant, and wipe all record of our presence here from the database. It’s imperative that the rebels do not catch wind of this operation.”

“Y-yes, my lord, I understand, but —”

The stormtrooper steps forward and waves a single hand in front of Nymo’s face. “You want to do what he says.”

As Vader shoves the trooper’s hand down, a strange calm falls over Nymo like a blanket. Something like a gentle hand wipes away all his anxiety, and an equally gentle voice murmurs that his objections really aren’t that important. It’s Lord Vader, after all. Of course he should do as he says. What could the harm be? “I want to do what he says,” Nymo agrees dreamily, reaching for his datapad.

There’s a pleased grin in the stormtrooper’s voice. “Great. Thanks!”

“We will be departing now,” Vader says, all but shoving the stormtrooper ahead of him and gathering the prisoners with a wave of one massive black arm. “Be sure that you make it as though we were never here.”

“Yes, my lord,” Nymo says, still feeling unutterably peaceful.

The whole group leaves, not without several incredulous backward glances from all the prisoners. Just before the airlock rumbles shut, a petulant voice rises up. “Hey! Quit pushing just because you’re annoyed that I was right, again, and —”

The airlock cuts off the rest of the sentence. Nymo tries to grasp onto it and identify the voice and context, but it doesn’t really seem important. He lets it float away and busies himself with erasing all evidence that Vader and the Executor were ever here.

Peace descends again.

Chapter 4: Orchestrating Reunions with Estranged Family Members and Dealing with the Problems That Follow

Chapter Text

For the first and only time since Padme told him she was pregnant, Vader regrets becoming a father. Thus far, it has been more trouble than it’s worth. He and Luke weren’t two steps inside the main prison before Luke ground to a halt, catching his arm — catching his arm — and said that it wasn’t enough to just rescue (they weren’t rescuing them, Vader assured himself — they were simply transferring them) Owen and Beru.

Oh no, no, no. They needed to rescue — transfer — every rebel and dissident in the entire prison. It wouldn’t be right otherwise, Luke said, and he refused to move forward until Vader agreed.

“Come on, Ipu,” he wheedled. The stormtrooper helmet obscured his face, but Vader knew he was giving him his most winning smile.

And it was working. “No. Absolutely not — it’s bad enough that we are taking your aunt and uncle.”

“And your stepbrother and stepsister,” Luke corrected, infuriatingly. The last thing Vader wanted was to be reminded of his family connection to the two of them — it made it very difficult to stay angry. He kept hearing Amu — and he hadn’t thought of her in any context beyond her death in years — telling him that Amavikka looked after their own, especially their family. That was the rule.

But did it have to apply to two of the people who had kept him separated from his son?

Though, to be fair, they probably hadn’t known they were doing that; Obi-Wan — curse him — surely told them that Anakin Skywalker was dead, which was true. In a way.

From a certain point of view, a voice that sounded like Obi-Wan murmured in the back of his mind. Vader growled and shoved it away.

“Anyway,” Luke went on, blissfully certain of the validity of his plan, “if you’re going to overthrow the Emperor, you need support, right?” He swept an arm to encompass the whole prison. “Look, here it is! They’ll be so grateful that you freed them that they’ll side with you.”

Vader did everything he could to convey heavy doubt. There was no way in the galaxy that these people — Owen and Beru included — would side with Darth Vader, of all people.

But. They might just side with Luke, and if Vader left them behind, against Luke’s express request, the beaming strength of his smile might dim, and the casual way he addressed Vader as Ipu might stop.

And Vader didn’t think he could bear losing that, not now that he had it. “Fine,” he rumbled and started forward again. “We will do it your way.”

Luke skipped. He actually skipped. “Great.”

Vader had the distant yet crystal clear memory of Padme always — always — getting what she wanted when she smiled at him in a particular way. It was fitting that their child had gotten that ability. He sighed long and loud through his vocoder.

Opening Owen and Beru’s shared cell went about as well as Vader expected. As soon as they saw him, he was met with a stream of Amatakka swears and vulgarities. Beru managed to cast elegant aspersions on his lineage and imply that he was ravaged by various venereal diseases before Luke tore off his helmet. The sight of his face stopped both of their flows of words, and they just stared, agog.

“It’s all right,” he told them, with ridiculous confidence. “We came to rescue you.”

“Transfer you,” Vader corrected, which earned him an exasperated scowl from Luke.

“You’ve got to come with us,” Luke said, gesturing for them to come out into the corridor. He didn’t even let Vader put them in binders, like any self-respecting Imperial would. “We’re kind of in a rush.”

“We?” Owen managed weakly, looking back and forth between them.

“Yeah.” Luke gave his uncle a sideways grin before cramming his helmet back on. “This way.”

Clearing the rest of the — thankfully small — prison was mostly straightforward. One particularly desperate rebel did try to stab Vader with a shiv (how badly run was this prison, if the occupants had shivs?), but Luke dragged him back just in time.

The trip back to the Executor — from the rebels following Vader and Luke like ducklings to Luke’s ill advised use of a Force mind trick — was like some kind of strange fever dream, like the ones Vader remembered having while he was still recovering from his ordeal on Mustafar.

Needless to say, as soon as their shuttle reaches the Executor and Vader steps down from the ramp and into the hangar — ignoring the stream of complaints Luke has been directing at him since he dragged him out of the prison — he lets out a long breath.

A split second later, something small yet solid slams into him from behind. Beru’s voice is loud in his ear as she manages wrap her legs around his neck and tries to flip him to the floor using a particular kind of Amavikka martial arts that is designed for people of small stature. It’s only by bracing his feet against the floor and locking his knees that he manages to keep his footing.

“Run, Luke!” Beru bellows again. “Run!”

As the other rebels spill out of the shuttle and hurl themselves at Vader’s shocked hangar technicians and clone troopers, Owen manages to wrestle Hardcase’s blaster out of his hand, which is impressive, and spins around to point it at Vader’s head. “Get away from Luke!” he shouts out, staggering sideways, away from Hardcase.

It is perhaps the stupidest display of reckless bravery Vader has ever seen, even if the other rebels are desperately grappling with the other occupants of the hangar, trying to arm themselves and back Owen up.

If Owen and Beru are trying to endear themselves to Vader, throwing their lives away for Luke is an effective way to do it.

Then a tiny twi’lek rebel — does the Alliance purposefully recruit teenlings? — snatches General Veers’ blaster by kicking him in his unprotected groin, which makes every male in the hangar wince in sympathy. While he’s hunching over in pain and trying to grab her, she dances away and accidentally fires the blaster off into the air.

Things spin further into chaos after that, and the once smartly organized hangar devolves into a scrum of people, all fighting for dominance. And rebels — as evidenced by the tiny twi’lek — fight dirty. Vader’s men are under strict orders not to fire on any of the rebels, but he doubts even their discipline will survive in the face of about a hundred desperate rebels pointing guns at their heads.

Vader’s just about to ignite his lightsaber — not to kill anyone, though he isn’t opposed to hacking off any uncooperative limbs — when Luke climbs on top of the shuttle and manages to make himself a perfect target in the process.

It is a cruel joke that his son is exactly as stupid as Anakin Skywalker was.

“Everybody, stop it!” Luke roars out. A Force shockwave follows his words, vibrating the floor and making everyone freeze in place. Veers ends up clinging to the very tip of the tiny twi’lek’s left lekku, and Owen is frozen in the act of putting Dogma, who jumped between him and Vader and tried to disarm him, in a headlock.

And Beru… Beru is hanging upside down against Vader’s back, clinging to his armorweave cloak and keeping her legs clamped around her throat. She is not large — the Lars and Whitesun families are built like bricks to make up for the lack of height — but her weight still drags at Vader’s throat. There is the uncomfortable sensation of his airway being constricted.

There’s a stretch of silence. No one seems to know quite what to say. Then Owen says, in a slow and careful voice, “Luke? What’s going on?” His accent, thick in his distress, would be unintelligible to anyone who isn’t a Tatooian native.

“You can’t kill him,” Luke says firmly.

“He captured you — he’s a killer. The Emperor’s attack dog, Luke!”

“He didn’t capture me.” Luke folds his arms. “I came here on my own.”

“Why?” Beru bursts out, voice strained from her current position. She makes no move to stop trying to slowly choke the life out of Vader.

“Because he’s my ipu.”

There is dead silence in the hangar. The tiny twi’lek finally raises her hand. “I’m confused,” she says in a timid voice, extracting her lekku from Veers’ grip.

“So are all of us,” Dogma grunts, slapping at Owen’s arm in an attempt to make him let go. “But that’s definitely the General’s kid — they’re both awful at explaining things.”

“Look,” Luke says, holding out both hands in a placating gesture that does absolutely nothing to placate the crowd. “We’re all on the same side.”

Owen narrows his eyes. “He’s not your ipu, Luke,” he says, in what appears to be a last ditch attempt to salvage his nephew’s sanity. Vader knows the feeling. “Your ipu was a spice runner — he’s dead. We told you.”

“No.” Luke frowns. There’s uncomfortable pressure in the Force, pressing down on the hangar. “No, you lied to me. My ipu is Anakin Skywalker. He fought in the Clone Wars, and he’s right there.” He points at Vader.

Slowly, every eye in the hangar tracks toward Vader. Beru loses her grip on his throat and lands in a heap behind him. He steps away from her, but not before she slams a kick into his metal leg, which sends painful vibrations running up into his stump.

“I see you are just telling anyone,” Vader rumbles, sighing the deep sigh that only Luke seems able to provoke.

“No.” Owen shakes his head. “That’s Darth Vader.” He elongates the name, as though he thinks Luke might not get it otherwise. “Anakin Skywalker is dead.”

“I agree,” Vader says, glad at least someone seems to have a grasp on that simple concept.

“No, no, you’ve got it wrong.” Luke scrubs a hand through his hair. “He is Anakin Skywalker — he’s just got this weird, like, complex about it. Keeps saying he’s dead. Ben kind of had it too — they’re both a bit off, I think. I guess you can’t blame them after everything. But whatever.” He swipes his hands in the air, like he’s sweeping away invisible writing. “The point is, that’s my ipu, and he wants to overthrow the Emperor, right? He told me. And we came to rescue you, because apparently he didn’t kill you, which I’m so glad about, by the way — I’d’ve come ages before if I’d known — and we realized that we needed someone to run things, you know, after we get rid of Palpatine, so we thought you, Aunt Beru, would do amazing, and —”

“You what?” Beru manages to pick herself up. Vader braces himself for another attack. “Lukka Skywalker —”

“So anyway, we have to help him overthrow Palpatine,” Luke says. “That’s the only sensible thing, right? I mean, the Alliance doesn’t have the same kind of resources Darth Vader has, so he’s kind of like our secret weapon.”

Before Vader can express offense over such a label, Owen echoes, “Secret weapon,” faintly. At least Vader isn’t the only one Luke can throw completely off course. That’s… rather comforting, actually.

“So if everyone,” Luke says, directing a pointed look at Owen and the tiny twi’lek, “could put their weapons down, that would be great. We’re all on the same side, like I said.”

“I highly —” Dogma chokes a little as Owen tightens his grip “— highly doubt that.”

Everyone — from rebel to Imperial — nods in agreement. They’re still locked in knotted clumps, like snapshots of a fistfight.

“The young prince is telling the truth.” It’s Veers who speaks, stepping away from the twi’lek as he does. He unclips his backup sidearm and lays it on the floor. Surrounded by rebels as he is, it might be the bravest thing Vader has ever seen him do.

“Prince?” Owen still sounds faint.

“If we wanted to kill you rebels,” Veers goes on, motioning from his men to step away from the newcomers, “we wouldn’t have to deceive you to it. Prince Luke —”

“Please stop calling me that.” Luke cringes.

“Prince Luke,” Veers repeats, ignoring Luke completely, “is correct in saying that our goals are the same. We all want the Emperor gone.”

“This — I —” Beru takes a few more steps away from Vader. “Owen, I think I’ve cracked. I think I’ve totally lost it.”

“Me too,” Owen answers, looking from Luke to Vader to Veers and back again. “Me too.”

“It’s true.” Luke climbs down from the shuttle and goes to stand beside Vader before Beru can grab him. His presence is a warmth that wraps around Vader, warming even his cybernetic limbs. “This’s your brother — he is Anakin Skywalker, and he needs our help. It’s like you always said, Uncle Owen. We’re freeborn, so we’ve got a responsibility to help the people who’re still slaves.” He sweeps a hand toward Vader. “That’s him.”

Beru catches Luke’s arm and tries to pull him away, gazing up at Vader. “This is really… really not what he meant, my love.”

“But it is!” insists Luke. He tows Beru back over and takes Owen’s arm in the process, forcing him to let go of Dogma. Somehow, he manages to maneuver them both so they’re standing in front of Vader. “He’s your brother. He’s family, and he needs us. Isn’t that all it takes?”

It is a ridiculously simplistic take on the situation. Vader should be insulted. He should bodily pick Luke up and get him away from Owen and Beru, who have so clearly poisoned his mind with foolish ideals that will get him killed one day.

But. Luke is beaming up at him.

And Anakin — no, Vader, Vader — has missed Owen and Beru, in some strange way.

“Hello,” Vader manages at last. “I… I apologize for destroying your farm.”

Owen’s brows drop down on his eyes. “You destroyed the farm?”

Luke winces. “Only a little bit. The — the bones of it are still there.”

“That was my ipu’s farm!”

“As I said.” Vader shifts. “I apologize.”

“There.” Luke nods. “You see? He’s sorry.”

“He’s Darth Vader.”

“No, he’s Anakin Skywalker. You’re not listening.”

As Luke and Owen continue to bicker in lowered tones, Beru raises her eyes to Vader’s face. He has the queer, uncomfortable feeling that she can see right through his mask. “You’re… you’re taller than you were last time I saw you,” she says finally.

Vader clears his throat, a sound that is garbled by his vocoder. “It’s the suit.”

“Ah.” Her jaw works. “Obi-Wan told us you died.”

“He gave many people that impression.”

“I think he believed it at the time. But we would have looked for you, if we had known you were alive.” She tips her head to one side. “Lars and Skywalkers. We stick together.”

Vader starts to respond — though he has no idea what he’s going to say — but an alarm blaring interrupts him. Every comm — even the Executor’s shipwide comm — crackles to life.

“Did you do it?” A young woman’s voice rolls deafeningly through the hangar, echoing through many different speakers. “Did you do it, Threepio? Yes? What do you mean it’s transmitting already — oh kriff!”

There’s a short stretch of silence. Vader finds himself looking over at Luke, who is pressing his lips together in a manful effort not to laugh. “I told you,” he says. “I told you Leia would find you.”

Oh for the love of — “We traveled through hyperspace. You said —”

“Well, clearly she stuck a tracker somewhere on me, or on Artoo.” Luke rolls his eyes. “She’s determined. A bit like you, honestly. Leia Organa’s my best friend,” he adds, for Owen and Beru’s benefit. “She’s the Princess of Alderaan, actually. I rescued her from the Death Star.”

“Oh.” Now Beru is the one who looks faint. “Luke. Luke, there’s something —”

“Imperial sleemos!” Leia’s voice is back, even louder now. “This is Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, and I am currently riding in your wake with a massive ion cannon pointed at your stern. I will fire unless you give me Luke Skywalker, alive and unharmed.” She pauses. “And be quick about it, because I’m really kriffed off. You have two minutes to respond.”

Vader throws an accusing glare in Luke’s direction. He just spreads his hands in a what can you do? gesture. “You should let me talk to her,” he says.

“I am not quite that stupid,” Vader says.

“Luke,” Beru tries again, more desperately this time. Another voice over the comms — Piett’s this time — interrupts her.

“Lord Vader,” he says, sounding very tired, “should I send out fighters to intercept?”

“We can’t fire on Luke’s friend,” Hardcase protests. “Even if she is a rebel. We should just jump to hyperspace.”

“We can’t jump away without letting her know I’m okay,” Luke protests. “She’ll be worried sick! Again!”

Vader is about to ask just when this ship became a democracy when Leia’s voice blares again. “You have ten seconds,” she shouts, even though not even a minute has passed. “Ten, nine…”

“Hold the fighters, Admiral Piett. General Veers, answer her,” Vader orders. He somehow doubts she will respond favorably to his own voice.

“You can use my comm,” Luke offers, tossing it over. He shrugs. “But it’s not going to end well.”

Eyeing Luke, Veers lifts the comm — a shoddy, second rate model, but is only to be expected of Alliance-issued gear — to his mouth. “Princess Leia,” he says, “this is General Maximillian Veers, speaking on behalf of Lord Vader. I can assure you that your friend is unharmed. He’s quite well, in fact.” Better, his tone implies, then some of us.

There’s another short pause, followed by a scuffling sound, as though someone is wrestling the comm out of Leia’s hand. Then a new voice, a young man’s, says, “Dad?” in a slow, rather accusing way.

Veers takes a moment to look toward the ceiling, sighing deeply. Vader recognizes the posture from his own recent experiences and guesses the cause even before Veers says, “Zevulon?”

“Zev,” comes the irritated response.

“Oh, so you’re his ipu,” Luke says. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Veers gives him a sharp look.

“Good things,” Luke says in a rush, then winces. “Well, no, actually, but there was a lot of, um, love behind what I did hear. I think. I don’t really know your relationship. Or the situation, honestly. You seem like a nice person.” He clears his throat and looks down. “I’ll shut up now.”

Veers take a long breath. “What are you doing here, Zevulon?”

“Zev. And I’m here to get my friend. What are you doing here, Dad?” There’s the sound of snapping fingers. “Oh, that’s right! Being the arm of oppression in the galaxy. I always forget that.”

By now, everyone, soldier and rebel alike, is sliding each other awkward looks, embarrassed to be hearing a private family spat on a very public comm line. Vader is surprised to feel a twinge of sympathy for Veers. Today is not a day for easily managed sons.

“Zevulon — Zev —” Veers tries, but there’s another scuffle.

“You can fight with your dad later,” comes Leia’s hissed voice, followed by an indignant squawk from Zev. Vader fights the urge to put his head in his hands.

The scuffling dies down. A rich, smooth voice that sounds very pleased with itself emanates from the comms. “Can we speak to Luke, please? We’re all very eager to hear from him.”

Vader grinds his teeth. “Why,” he asks, “are you working with Lando Calrissian? He is a lowlife at best, a criminal at worst, and he has betrayed you before.”

“To you,” Luke points out, having the unmitigated gall to hold up his prosthetic hand again. “And what can I say?” His smile can only be described as evil. “I’m a forgiving person. Can I have the comm, please?”

At a signal from Vader, Veers mutely passes Luke the comm. He activates it and says, “Hey, Lando. It’s Luke.”

“Luke, baby! How are you? Giving them hell, I hope.”

Luke grins. “I’m fine, before Leia has a conniption. This was my plan, remember? It’s going great, actually! I guess you could say I’m giving them hell, but —”

More clattering and some muffled swears echo throughout the hangar. There’s a rumbling growl that sounds suspiciously like a Wookiee, and the high, anxious voice of a protocol droid, though Vader can’t make out the words being said. Evidently, Leia won the battle for the comm because she’s the next one to speak. “Luke.” Her words are measured out like poison, carefully accurate yet deadly all the same. “I’m going to knifing kill you. You get your stupid Jedi rear to the Falcon, or I swear —”

“Lukka.” Beru yanks on Luke’s arm hard enough to almost topple him over. “You need to listen to me.” She glances over at Vader. Hesitation flickers over her face, but then she seems to make the decision to plunge forward anyway. “Listen, Luke.”

Luke takes the comm away from his mouth. “Okay, Aunt Beru, I’m listening, but —”

“Leia’s your sister,” Beru interrupts.

“Your twin sister,” Owen adds, as if the extra information somehow makes everything make sense.

The galaxy stops spinning. Vader lists to the side. Veers inconspicuously props him up, but when his weight proves too much, Dogma and Hardcore end up very conspicuously propping him up.

A sister. Luke has a sister. Vader has a daughter.

And he —

Oh no. The events on the Death Star flash through his mind. Oh no, no, no, no.

Luke is staring at Beru, mouth hanging open. There’s a faint, disbelieving creak of a scream coming out of his throat. At length, Beru — grimacing the whole time — reaches out and gently shuts his mouth.

“Luke?” Leia’s voice rises in pitch. “Luke, what happened? Are you still there? Chewie — prime the cannon.”

“No, don’t!” Luke jams the comm back against his mouth. “Don’t prime the cannon, Chewie! I’m fine. I’m just fine.” He stares at Vader. “Um… Leia, I think you need to come aboard.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

“No!”

“The ion cannon will work fine from inside the hangar, and I’m not coming to you, so —”

“You are the worst —”

“Leia.”

“Luke.”

“Leia.”

A pause. “Fine! But Vader had better be kriffing far away because you don’t want to see what I’ll do to him when I find him.”

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” Luke says, even though Vader is standing four feet away from him.

That’s all right, though. Because Vader is far away. In fact, he’s having an out of body experience, watching his hulking form list against Dogma and Hardcore from somewhere ten feet above his own head. He drifts there, incorporeal, and has a screaming panic attack.

It’s quite cathartic.

Through the panic attack, he hears himself say, in a stunningly calm voice, “Admiral Piett, drop the hangar shields and allow the rebel ship to board. Notify all security forces and tell them to stand down.”

Still floating above Vader’s head, Anakin Skywalker thinks that’s a sensible course of action.

Chapter 5: What to Do When You Discover Your Children's Unfortunate Latent Attraction to Each Other

Chapter Text

Luke is… Luke is fine. Sure, his aunt and uncle just dropped a kriffing bomb on his head, when he was already still adjusting to the idea of his ipu still being alive — and being a Sith Lord, but that was beside the point — but he’s fine. He can handle this. It’s not like Leia wasn’t already close to his sister anyway. It’s just official now.

If only… He is assaulted with the vivid memory of Leia passionately kissing him several months prior, just after he’d recovered from being attacked on Hoth. Of course, she’d only been doing it to mess with Han, which Luke was always willing to help with, but…

Oh Force. Is anything about his family normal? Why didn’t Ben bother to tell him the truth about Leia as soon as he saw her?

He cuts his gaze sideways, toward Vader. He’s standing under his own power now, though Veers, Dogma, and Hardcase are still hovering around him. On balance, Luke thinks he’s taking this much better than Vader is. At least he didn’t almost pass out.

Through the fuzzing blue hangar shield, the Falcon is visible, skimming closer by the moment. It’s near enough now that the massive ion cannon that’s been jury-rigged to the top of the hull is visible, staring the hangar down. Leia never did do anything by halves.

“You could have told me,” he says, throwing an accusatory look at Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. “I had a right to know.”

“Oh please.” Uncle Owen snorts. “You would have gone blazing off to Alderaan to find her and brought the Empire down on both your heads. As soon as you so much as looked at her you apparently went aboard the kriffing Death Star to rescue her.”

“And blew it up,” Hardcase adds helpfully. “That was an interesting day.”

“And,” Aunt Beru says, reaching up to tweak the strands of hair that curl against Luke’s neck, “as soon as you found out about your ipu, you did this.”

Luke wafts her hand away — she’s a little too close to his ears, and he has vivid memories of her grabbing him by the ear and hauling him away from danger whenever he got in trouble as a child. He doesn’t put it past her to do it now, to just clamp her hand over his ear, and Leia’s ear for good measure, and drag them both onto a shuttle. “It wasn’t right away,” he says in a petulant voice. “I’ve known for about six months.”

“Oh well, that makes it reasonable,” Uncle Owen says, as the Falcon passes through the shield and comes in for a landing. “I didn’t have the context before.”

“Prince Luke,” Veers says with a tense, rather fixed smile, “what would you say is the likelihood that the princess and your friends come out shooting, similarly to the other rebel scu — your other allies?”

Luke looks at the cannon again. “Oh, I’d say it’s really high.”

Veers nods. “As I thought. Take cover, men!” With a sweep of his hand, he gathers the clones and hangar technicians. In a moment they are all ensconced behind crates and shuttles, peering out warily. Veers stays beside Vader, which Luke thinks is rather brave of him, given that Vader is basically a huge black target. Foreseeing disaster meted out by either Leia, Lando, or Zev, Luke takes a long, prudent step to the side, until he’s standing in front of Vader.

A heavy, gloved hand comes down on his shoulder. “You are not much of a shield, son,” Vader rumbles, sounding amused, the kriffhead.

Luke doesn’t need to be reminded that he’s almost two feet shorter than his ipu. “Hey, I cover your center mass,” he says. “That’s all you can ask for. Though Leia does have pretty good aim — she could probably pull off a headshot.”

“How comforting.”

“I thought so.” He tips his head back over his shoulder to grin at Vader. “At least your two kids aren’t boring disappoints.”

“No. Just terrorists and revolutionaries.”

“We get it from you.”

Vader’s presence in the Force stutters, clearly caught between being pleased and annoyed, but before he can fully settle into one or the other the ramp of the Falcon lowers in the hissing of pistons. From the shelter of the hydraulics, there’s a flash of white and the sound of a blaster discharging. Vader’s hand leaves Luke’s shoulder to press outward. A red blaster bolt freezes in midair for a split second, crackling just in front of Luke’s chest, before zipping sideways and exploding against the hangar shield.

“What the kriff, Luke?” Leia ducks into view. She doesn’t free a hand from her blaster to make a rude gesture, but her eyes scream it.

“You almost shot me!” Luke howls back, pointing toward the sooty smudge the exploded bolt left at the edge of the hangar floor.

“Well, I didn’t know you’d be standing in front of him like a kriffing moron! You said he was far away!”

“I lied, obviously I lied!”

“Idiot!”

“Hothead!”

“Oh Force,” Uncle Owen mutters, raising his eyes toward the ceiling. “All this, and you didn’t guess you were related?”

“Come on, Luke!” Zev materializes next to Leia. “Chewie’s got the Imps covered with the cannon, and Lando’s got the engines primed. Let’s go!”

“You’re not listening,” Luke yells back, as every Imperial in the hangar puts their metaphorical head in their hands. “I’m not coming. My plan is working.”

Leia gives a very unprincesslike stomp of her foot. “Luke Skywalker, I will drag you off this ship and all the way home if I have to!”

“As if you could lift me.” At least Leia is shorter than him. That’s one consolation. She’s apparently the only living member of the family who is, besides Aunt Beru.

“I’ll get Lando to do it,” Leia hurls back, stomping her foot again. “Let’s go.”

Luke folds his arms. “No. And if you’d just look around instead of yelling at me, you’d see that I’m right.” He makes a sweeping gesture to the rebels all around the hangar, careless of where his arm goes. As such, he almost smacks a long-suffering Veers in the face. “Vader — Ipu, I mean — helped me rescue all these people. And look —” he makes another sweeping gesture to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. This time it’s Dogma who has to duck, cursing under his breath. “My aunt and uncle are still alive! He didn’t actually kill them, ‘cause they’re family. There’s still good on him, and he’s on our side — he just doesn’t realize it yet, you see? I was right.”

“No, you’re a moron,” Leia says, stepping off the ramp and raking her gaze across the hangar. The sheltering troopers and technicians duck lower — more from a desire to avoid another incident than from fear, Luke thinks — and the rebels wave a timid hello, murmuring to each other. Luke imagines they’re saying things like, Is that the Princess of Alderaan? Why is she yelling at the weedy kid who rescued us? “You freed all these people?” she asks finally, narrowing her eyes as if she thinks the rebels might be Imperials in disguise.

“No, we freed all these people.” Luke jabs his thumb over his shoulder to encompass himself and Vader.

The tiny twi’lek rebel raises her hand again. “He’s telling the truth, Your Highness,” she says, with a quick little curtsy that makes Leia’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “Darth Vader did help him, and he didn’t even seem particularly frightening — to any of us.”

Luke sighs deeply, glaring at the twi’lek. “Then why did you grab a blaster and try to shoot him? And why did that one of you try to shiv him?”

As Leia nods approvingly at the news, the twi’lek shrugs. “He was there?”

There’s a heavy sigh from Vader. Luke pinches the bridge of his nose. Veers, apparently having decided he’d waited long enough, lifted a hand in greeting to Zev. “Son,” he manages, obviously deciding to avoid the name debate entirely.

Zev regards him. “Dad.”

Hardcase clears his throat. “Family reunions all around, I see.” Dogma elbows him — hard.

“See?’ Luke says again. “It’s all very civil. You can put your blaster down — down, Leia, not farther up. Oh, come on.”

“No!” She stalks forward a few steps. “He’s a monster! He tortured me, and he destroyed Alderaan, and he deserves to die. Prime the cannon, Chewie!”

“Don’t prime it!” Luke bellows back. There’s a faint, irritated roar from inside the ship — Chewbacca demanding they both make up their minds.

At that moment, every clone in the hangar rises up in vast, righteous fury.

“He wasn’t the one who gave the order,” Dogma says, drawing himself up to his full height. “That was Grand Moff Tarkin!”

“He didn’t even like the Death Star,” Hardcase adds.

“Yeah,” another says. “Said it wasn’t sporting.”

“Oh,” Zev says through his teeth, shaking his head. “It wasn’t sporting.”

“Hey.” Luke points at Zev. “That’s a step up from the genociding maniac we thought he was, okay? We need to encourage it.”

“We need to kill him,” Leia says.

“‘Course,” Hardcase says, as though she didn’t speak, “there was that whole torture thing. He did… He did do that, but I mean, it wasn’t personal. And you look fine! Though, I guess that’s not a huge consolation, but —”

Dogma claps a hand over his mouth. “Stop talking.”

“What is going on out there?” comes Lando’s voice from within the Falcon. “Am I supposed to bust out of here, or what?”

“Just give us a second!” Luke and Leia yell at the same time. Zev covers his ears.

“I could do with a little support,” Luke tells Vader, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. “Little backup. Really anything besides you standing there like some kind of black specter of death. It’s kind of undermining my argument.”

Vader stirs behind him, armor creaking. “You…” His mechanized voice sounds distant and strangely unsteady. “You look just like your amu, little one. Your real amu.”

Leia’s mouth falls open. “I…” Her voice disappears into a disbelieving sort of squeak. Her hand trembles against her blaster, which really isn’t ideal, given that her finger is still on the trigger.

Luke raises his eyes to the ceiling, sighing. “Not really the help I was looking for, Ipu.”

“Luke.” Leia is rigid. “Explain. How does he know my biological mother?”

“Well, this wasn’t the way I was going to broach the topic,” Luke says. It is, in fact, perhaps the worst way in the kriffing galaxy to broach the topic, but here they are. “But, yeah, so he knows your mom because… because, um…”

“Luke.”

“Because she’s my amu — mom — too.”

“That’s not possible.”

“No. No, it is.” Luke grimaces. “We’re siblings, Leia. Twins, in fact.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“This is starting to get a bit insulting — yes. Look, I just found out too, but it’s true, we are! It makes sense, if you think about it. Didn’t you always get a feeling?”

Leia throws him a wide-eyed look, shaking her head. “No, I didn’t! I kissed you, Luke — twice. No, I didn’t have a feeling we were brother and sister!”

“You what?” Uncle Owen and Vader burst out at the same time. Somehow Luke is the one who gets the furious looks from both of them, plus a judgmental one from Veers — Luke can almost hear him thinking inbred rebels, as if he’s one to talk.

“I need to…” Aunt Beru sinks to the floor, crossing her legs. “I just need a minute. Just a minute.” Her face is rather pale.

“You kissed your sister?” Zev looks back and forth between them. “That’s disgusting.”

“I didn’t know she was my sister.” Luke throws his hands up in the air. Veers takes a few precautionary steps away. “I told you.”

“You said you had a feeling!”

“After.”

“You got the feeling after you kissed her? That’s worse!”

“How is it worse?”

“I don’t know! It just is.”

“Both of you, shut it!” Leia is starting to hyperventilate, bracing her hands against her knees. “I’m the only one allowed to freak out right now.”

“What about me?” Luke protests. “I didn’t know either!”

You know, Artoo beeps, in the particular tone he uses when he’s about to pour fuel onto the fire, the first thing LUK3 said when he saw you in my recording was that you were beautiful.

Leia glares at him. “Luke!”

“It’s not my fault!” Luke yells, well aware that his voice is becoming a whine. “And the first thing you did was flirt with me!”

“I insulted your height!”

“Flirting!”

“Bullying!”

“Then what was that kiss on my cheek? For luck, my foot!”

“What is going on out here?” Lando appears in a sweep of blue formalwear and golden cape. “Are we going or not?”

“Luke and Leia are twins,” Zev informs him, in the calm voice of someone on the verge of a breakdown.

Lando blinks a few times. “Metaphorically?”

“No. Literally.”

A few more blinks. “Is there any chance that Han is related too, effectively making Leia single, or…?”

“No!” Leia kicks Lando in the shin before he can dodge.

“What?” Lando hops around on one foot, an extremely undignified lord of Cloud City. “I’m just saying I’m your best bet, Leia love. Look at us — I’m the only male around that you can guarantee isn’t in some way —”

“Shut up!” Leia aims another kick at his leg, but he manages to dance aside.

“This Han.” Vader’s voice is suddenly in Luke’s air. He’s actually leaning down, gripping Luke’s shoulder as if to prevent him from running away. “Is he the one I had put in carbonite?”

Luke winces. “And tortured, yes, since you just had to get both of them, apparently, but I wouldn’t mention that right now. It’s a really sensitive —”

“He and Leia are…” Vader seems pained. “In love?”

“Sure, I guess. What does this have to do with — where are you going?” Luke runs to catch up as Vader starts heading toward the hangar exit.

“What’s he doing?” Leia breaks off tormenting Lando. “Running away?”

“Hardly.” Vader’s stride is purposeful. All his previous uncertainty is gone. “I’m going to tell Admiral Piett to set a course for Tatooine so we can retrieve the smuggler.”

There’s a long stretch of silence, broken only by the sound of the hangar doors sliding open at Vader’s approach. Then Leia’s pounding feet echo behind Luke and Vader. “What is he going to do?”

Chapter 6: The Restorative Power of Family Dinners (As Long As You Hide All Sharp Objects)

Chapter Text

All in all, things are going better than Zev expected. Sure, he’s on the Executor. Sure, he’s spent too much time looking at his dad’s face, noting all the ways it’s similar to his and trying to tamp down on the resultant boiling rage. Sure, Darth Vader is a constant threat, looming in the background or — in some cases — the foreground. Sure, he’s currently stuck having a very, very strange dinner with Luke’s resurrected aunt and uncle, two clones (Wasn’t the clone army decommissioned? And don’t these guys kill Jedi?), two lemon-faced Imperials (one is his dad, so it’s extra unpleasant), a fuming Leia, an irritated Luke, a nervous Lando, a murderous Chewbacca, an anxious Threepio, a self-satisfied Artoo (the worse version of the little astromech), and the Emperor’s attack dog himself.

But. But he’s still alive, and Luke seems pretty relaxed. Zev’s learned to off his assessment of situations because, reckless or not, Luke tends to bring everyone home alive and — relatively — uninjured.

Plus, Imperial ration packs are way better than the Alliance’s, though he will never — not even if they torture him — admit it.

“So…” Zev clears his throat, looking up and down the table. They’re in some kind of state room with a long, shiny table set up in the center. Darth Vader is brooding at the head of it, like some kind of malformed black vulture, silhouetted against the starfield beyond the view screen that spreads out behind him. “We’re heading to Tatooine?”

The second Imperial — Admiral Firmus Piett, according to his introduction, and Zev has made up his mind to call him Firmus just to annoy him — looks up, forking a delicate mouthful of food. “Yes, that is correct,” he says in his unfathomably annoying Core accent — never mind that Zev has the exact same accent. Firmus is set up next to Leia, which makes Zev feel a surprising flare of sympathy. Her head is down, and she’s attacking her food like she’s picturing the faces of all her enemies on it. It took look almost a half hour of arguing to get her in here, another half hour to get her to put her blaster down, and a final quarter of an hour to convince her to eat and stop picking up her knife and throwing meaningful looks at Vader.

“Got it, got it.” Zev exchanges a look with Luke, who just widens his eyes and shrugs. He’s on Firmus’ other side, directly to Vader’s right, and Zev has a feeling he chose that seat specifically to extend the buffer between Leia and Vader. “And we’re going to get Han.”

“Yes,” one of the clones — Cody, Zev thinks his name is — says. “That’s the General’s orders.”

“The General?”

“It’s what they call him,” Luke says, shoveling food into his mouth as he flicks continuous, worried looks in Leia’s direction. “It’s his rank from before.”

“No, it is Anakin Skywalker’s rank,” Vader rumbles from the head of the table. At his voice, Lando chokes on his food. Chewbacca, sitting beside him, takes the opportunity to hammer his on the back with a massive hand. By the sound of it, Lando almost coughs up his spleen as a result.

It’s possible that Chewbacca, like Leia, hasn’t quite forgiven him for the Carbonite Incident either.

“Cody and his brothers tend to forget that Anakin Skywalker is dead,” Vader goes on. There is no food in front of him, so he just has his hands resting on the table in while everyone else eats. It’s nothing short of disturbing.

“Because he isn’t dead,” Luke mutters into the cup of blue milk that Beru poured out for him. “You’re Anakin Skywalker.”

“I am not.”

“You are too.”

“I am —” A deep, exasperated breath rattles through Vader’s mask. “You are mistaken.”

On Vader’s other side, Beru pats — pats — his arm. “Whatever you say, Ani.”

Zev doesn’t have the Force, but even he can feel Vader’s annoyance swelling like a tsunami about to wash over a coastline. He clears his throat again. Lando has recovered from his coughing fit and from Chewbacca’s attempts to “help” and is now sucking down the Corellian whiskey he poured out for himself after waving off Beru’s attempts to give him milk. Dad catches his eye across the table, shaking his head and pointedly stabbing his fork into his food.

Eat, his eyes say. Don’t talk.

Well, that’s enough to make Zev want to sing like a bird. “So why are we going to get Han?”

Dad shuts his eyes and sighs loud enough to be Vader.

“Like,” Zev goes on, “I know why we are.” He swirls his fork to encompass Luke, Leia, Lando, Chewbacca, and the droids — kriff, he’ll even throw in Beru and Owen, they seem nice even if they are tangentially related to Vader. “But I’m wondering you are.” Another fork swirl, this time in reference to Vader, Firmus, Dad, and the clones. “I mean, you guys are the ones who put him in carbonite and sold him off to Jabba, you know? It’s just weird.”

Dad opens his mouth to reply, but Vader beats him to it. “We’re going,” he says in his deep, ponderous voice, “to retrieve the man Leia is… involved with before my children’s incestuous relationship goes any further.”

Luke chokes on his milk, spewing blue across the table, even flecking the side of Vader’s helmet. Leia’s fork strikes her plate with a murderous click as she snaps her head up to glare at Vader. Owen looks like he wants to crawl under the table, and Beru shuts her eyes, wincing.

“Incestuous?” Luke coughs out.

That’s an image that’s going to haunt me, Chewbacca groans.

Try having memory banks that never delete anything, Artoo says, which makes Threepio thump his dome.

“You’re one to talk, you infernal astromech!” he says in a quavering yell. “You must have known the whole time. I was completely ignorant of the situation, of course,” he adds, tipping his head toward Vader. His wide, golden eyes are somehow anxious, even though they’re technically expressionless, just like the rest of his face.

Ignorant is a good word to describe you, Artoo chirrups.

“Oh, shut up!” Leia reaches around Firmus to hit Artoo on his dome with her spoon. “You knew the whole time, and you didn’t say anything, you kriffhead!”

BA1L ordered me not to say anything when he agreed not to wipe my memory, Artoo protests. 3PO is the one who couldn’t manage his vocal processors!

“Excuse me?” Luke leans forward. Sighing, Firmus leans back, clearly wishing he was anywhere but here. Zev doesn’t sympathize; he’s honestly enjoying the show. It’s nice to know that his family isn’t the only screwed up one. “Threepio knew about us too?”

“Oh, you didn’t know that?” asks Fives from in between Owen and Cody.

Luke throws him a harried look. “No!”

“Kriff, nobody told you anything, did they?”

“What do you mean Threepio knew about us?” Leia grinds out, gripping her knife like she means it. Without even looking, Luke reaches in front of Firmus and lays a hand on top of her wrist.

“Oh, he was your amu’s protocol droid.” Fives takes a contemplative bite of his food, chewing rhythmically, apparently oblivious to the way Leia has gone white except for two spots of color high on her cheeks and the way Luke’s mouth has fallen open. “He went everywhere with her. Made it to the frontlines a couple times too.” He licks his spoon, staring off into the distance thoughtfully. “He’s kind of a war hero, right along with little Artoo, though he complained the whole way.”

There’s the sound of Threepio’s processor cycling. His internal fans start going, like he’s about to overheat. “I have no memory of this, Master Luke — I swear.”

I do. There’s a definitely cackle in Artoo’s beeping.

“Yeah, that’s true,” says Fives, apparently understanding binary as well as Luke does. “The General never did wipe Artoo’s memory. Got us into spots of trouble — I remember one time —”

“Did everyone know about our heritage except us?’ Leia explodes, prompting general and mildly terrified silence.

Zev raises his hand, regretting it when she turns a burning gaze on him. “I didn’t, personally.”

“I sensed things,” Lando says. “A certain, indefinable something —”

Shut up, no you didn’t, Chewbacca says. If I didn’t, you didn’t.

“Excuse me, I happen to be very perceptive —”

“I didn’t know the General was married,” Fives offers. “I kind of thought he and your amu were just having a fling, you know, and —”

“I knew,” Cody says.

Fives throws him a betrayed look. ‘And you didn’t say? How did you know?”

“General Kenobi told me.”

“You were Ben’s clone commander?” Luke’s mouth is still open.

Cody wrinkles his forehead. “Who?”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Dad says, blandly helpful as he takes another prim bite of his food. “He started going by the name of Ben Kenobi after the Empire rose, apparently.”

“He kept his same last name?” Fives snorts. “And we still had trouble finding him?”

“Hiding on Tatooine was, perhaps, a stroke of genius on his part,” Firmus says.

“The General hates sand,” Cody supplies, for Luke and Leia’s benefit apparently.

Luke looks genuinely offended, like he’s about to take up arms in defense of his beloved Tatooine. “Why?”

“Because,” Fives says, voice taking on a memorized quality, “sand is rough, coarse, irritating, and it gets —”

I’ve got holopics from the wedding, Artoo interrupts. If anyone wants to see. And some vids that AN1 told me to delete but your amu had me put in a folder marked “Blackmail Material”.

“Oh, I want to see that,” Luke says, leaning forward again.

“I don’t,” Leia snaps, because the two of them are just going to be working at crosspurposes today. “I don’t want to see whatever wilting idiot married Darth fripping —”

Luke gives her a sly look. “It’s Padme Amidala.”

Now it’s Zev’s turn to almost choke on a particularly dry chunk of boiled chicken, and it’s all he can do to wave off Lando’s attempts to mete out the same kind of enthusiastic back-thumping he received from Chewbacca. “Senator of Naboo, Padme Amidala?” he manages, eyes streaming. He’s wrapped up enough in trying to breathe to take the glass of water Dad hands him without complaint. “Leia’s personal hero, Padme Amidala?” He drains the glass in a moment.

This has been a very weird day.

Luke grins. “Yep.”

Leia hurls such a venomous look in Vader’s direction that Zev’s surprised his faceplate doesn’t melt into a black puddle right then and there. “I hate you.”

“You should thank him,” Luke says. “How often is it that your hero turns out to be your amu?”

As Leia gamely tries to impale Luke’s hand with her fork, making Firmus hastily tuck his hands under the table and studiously look upward to avoid eye contact with them both, Luke says, “Call up the holopics, Artoo!”

“Do not,” Vader rumbles, speaking again at last, in a voice deep enough to vibrate the table, “call up the holopics, Artoo.”

The intimidating effect he was going for is rather undermined by the diminutive nickname, which is almost funny to hear coming out of a menacing vocoder.

“Why not?” Luke somehow manages to give Vader — Darth Vader — tooka eyes, and Zev thinks it might actually be working, which means he’s going to have to adjust his entire worldview to fit that concept. “It’s our family.”

“We are not here to journey down memory lane,” Vader says, using a disposable napkin to dab the blue milk off his helmet. That negates the intimidation factor even further, if Zev’s being honest.

“I mean,” Luke says, “I kind of am.”

“I would rather die,” Leia says.

“Kriff,” Fives mutters down at his plate. “I know who got Amu’s genes and who got Ipu’s.” When Leia glares at him, he just meets her eyes sunnily, forking up a few rehydrated pieces of nerf steak.

“We’re here,” Vader says, in the tone of a man trying to drag the conversation back on topic while the members of the conversation were kicking and screaming, “to retrieve your sister’s entirely unsuitable lover, overthrow the Emperor, and rule the galaxy together.”

“Unsuitable?” Leia explodes. She doesn’t seem to have an issue with the other term applied to Han. Zev files that away for mocking later, when she’s in a less homicidal mood.

Leia jumps to her feet, and Zev really thinks she’s going to haul off and punch Vader right in his mask — and wouldn’t he love to see that — but Luke manages to reach around long-suffering Firmus and shove her back into her seat.

Spoilsport.

“Unsuitable,” Vader repeats, very unwisely.

“Yeah, sure, that,” Luke agrees, practically thrown across Firmus as he pushes Leia down again. “But also liberate Tatooine, restore freedom to the galaxy, and install Aunt Beru as Chancellor when we’re done.”

“Install who now?” Leia snaps her teeth at Luke, and he withdraws his hands from her shoulders hastily, but she stays in her chair even so.

“I don’t understand either,” Beru commiserates. “It’s some kind of strange habit the Skywalker boys have. They like to just give the galaxy to people. Usually Skywalker women, apparently.”

“Yeah,” Owen grunts. “My side of the family is too busy trying to keep the family farm running to bother with ruling the galaxy. Or we would be,” he says, scowling in Vader’s direction, “if someone hadn’t burned it down.”

“Hey.” Luke points at Owen. “He said he was sorry.”

“Oh,” Leia says, a little hysterically. “He said he was sorry.”

“Anyway,” Luke says, turning back to Leia, “I thought about you, but I didn’t think you’d want it, and at the tipe Ipu wasn’t really for it. And Aunt Beru’s older.”

“I don’t seem to remember most of these extra objectives,” Vader says, tipping his mask toward Luke.

Luke beams up at the black, skullish face. “I know. I added them.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, we can’t bring and big ship and all these soldiers to Tatooine and not free it, can we?”

“It will be rather difficult to keep it from coming to my master’s attention.”

“Oh, he’ll just think we rebels did it.” Luke waves off the concern, as though drawing the attention of the kriffing Emperor is a small thing. “And we will have.” He smiles again, brighter and wider.

Vader regards him. “I’m not a rebel.”

Beru pats his arm again. “Sure you’re not, dear.”

“I’m going mad,” Leia breathes out, slumping in her seat. “Stark, kriffing, raving mad.”

“That’s the normal feeling when presented with one of General Skywalker’s plans,” Cody says. “It will pass.”

There’s silence at the table for a few minutes. Dad catches Zev’s eye again and says, without words, I told you not to talk.

Zev manages to convey Kriff you in the way he cuts his nerf steak into smaller pieces.

So, Artoo beeps at length, are we ready for the holopics now, or…

Before Vader — and Threepio from the way he shifts — can tell Artoo to shut up, a proximity alarm screams out all through the Executor. Zev startles so hard that he knocks over his glass of milk. Luke uses the Force to catch it before it spills.

As Firmus lifts his gaze to the ceiling in a This might as well happen posture, Dad pinches the bridge of his nose. “What now?” he says, almost plaintively.

As if in response, a clone’s voice comes through the ship’s comm system. “General, Admiral Piett, General Veers,” he says, “another X-Wing has dropped out of hyperspace. It’s, um, hailing us. Very insistently. Won’t shut up, actually.”

Vader gives Luke an accusatory look. Luke spreads his hands. “Hey, whoever it is, I didn’t call them. Leia?”

She gives him a look that matches Vader’s. “I’ve been with you this whole time, Luke! When would I have called? Do you think I wanted anyone else involved in this kriffstorm?”

“It occurs to me,” Lando says, “that we forgot to deactivate Artoo’s tracking beacon.”

“How,” Fives says, peering down the table at Lando, “did you idiots ever manage to blow up the Death Star?”

Luck, Chewbacca says dourly, at the same time as Luke says, “The Force. And hey.”

Another long, heavy sigh hisses out of Vader’s breathing apparatus. “Drop the hangar shields,” he says into his comm. “Withdraw all personnel from the hangar and seal it off. I am on my way. And you,” he adds to Luke as he stands up, “are coming with me.”

Luke is already on his feet. “You think I’m going to let you meet any of my friends without me standing in between you? I like my ipus without any holes in them.”

“You are not going alone.” Leia jumps up and grabs Luke’s hand, glaring at Vader like she’s daring him to try to separate them.

Vader looks from their hands to their faces in a way that makes Zev think he very much wants to pull them apart. No doubt he’s remembering the kissing revelation. “Very well,” he says. “We will all go.”

Chapter 7: How to Tactfully Address Your Estranged Family Member's Misdeeds and Missteps

Chapter Text

Piett is… tired? Tired seems like the right descriptor, although it’s impossible to tell for sure, since he physically hasn’t been able to relax and shut off his mind since Luke set foot on the Executor.

He definitely hasn’t been able to stop feeling like he’s about to be shot in the back at any moment since Leia Organa stepped onboard the ship. Finding out she was Vader’s daughter — as if the day wasn’t already something akin to a fever dream — didn’t help. In fact, it only worsened the situation. Now, everything Vader, and by extension the crew of the Executor, has done to her is several magnitudes more personal. Not only that, but she apparently has a heritage that makes it very likely that she will enact sudden and bloody revenge when she sees fit to do so.

Needless to say, if Piett sleeps tonight — which is not seeming very likely — he’s locking the door to his quarters. Though, if Leia is as strong in the Force as her brother and father, it probably won’t make a difference.

Maybe he should invade Max’s quarters tonight. Given that his estranged terrorist son, along with all his terrorist friends, is also onboard, Max could probably use the protection as well.

Now that Piett thinks about it, the best thing to do might be for the entire crew to lock themselves in the mess hall and bed down together. Safety in numbers, after all.

Gods of his ancestors, is this what the illustrious military of the Empire has come to? Hiding from children, ragtag fighters, droids, a middle aged aunt and uncle, and a Wookiee?

At least the Wookiee looks like a legitimate threat. At least the Wookiee isn’t a twenty-two year old girl who is glaring at him.

As the motley group, consisting of the strange, vaguely murderous beast that is Vader’s family, his family’s friends and droids, a harried Max, and several high ranking clone troopers, stops in front of the hangar door, Piett pulls his gaze from Leia and says, “The X-Wing has landed, my lord.”

Vader nods, studying the door in front of him. He makes no move to open it. If Piett were prone to making disrespectful guesses about his lord’s intentions, he would have said that Vader didn’t want to open the door.

That’s understandable. Piett doesn’t want to open the door either. After a long minute passes, he asks, “What are your orders, my lord?”

“Stand at ready,” Vader answers. “I am… assessing the situation. It wouldn’t be wise to open the hangar yet.”

Beside him, Luke raises a doubtful eyebrow. “How come?”

“It would be inadvisable to go in without an appropriate strategy,” Vader says, and Piett nods along — more to lend credence to his words than anything else. Part of the job of an admiral is always making it appear like your commanding officer knows what he’s doing, even if he is making things up as he goes along.

Vader tends to improvise. Frequently.

There’s an echoing thud from the other side of the bulkhead. Everyone — even Vader — jumps back and immediately tries to pretend they didn’t. Rubbing the back of his neck, Lando says, “I think whoever it is wants to come in.”

“If it’s even a who,” Fives says — in his endlessly helpful way. “It could be a what.”

Cody hits him on the back of the head.

“Ow!” Fives throws him a betrayed look. “I’m just saying, we don’t know.”

“Whoever it is commed us, you kriffing —”

“Ghosts can comm people too! You hear the spacers talking about it all the time.”

“They’re strung out on spice, Fives.”

“You —”

Another reverberating knock interrupts Fives. Everyone falls silent again, peering at the bulkhead. The Wookiee — Chewbacca, Piett thinks — lets out an anxious roar.

“This,” Leia says suddenly, in a voice that is a thermal reactor two inches from meltdown, “is ridiculous.” She stalks over to the door, somehow managing to bodily shove Vader aside, and slams her fist against the door panel. There’s the sound of transparisteel cracking.

Max cringes. “You don’t… You don’t actually have to hit it that hard. That’s —”

Leia whips around to glare at him. Her eyes are black holes.

Max, being the military man that he is and being someone who apparently has a previously undiagnosed death wish, finishes anyway. “That’s broken now. The door’s not going to open automatically.”

“Oh Force!” Luke ducks around Vader to push Leia’s shoulder. “You never do think things through.”

Zev bursts out laughing. “Oh, she never thinks things through?”

“I did think this through!” Luke glares at Zev. “And it’s working!”

“It’s working?” Leia prods Luke hard in the chest. “We’re on a kriffing star destroyer!”

“And we’re not dead. And we got dinner. All in all, I call this a win!”

“You are the most —”

“And you —”

“Children.” Owen pinches the bridge of his nose. “Shut up.”

Leia narrows her eyes. “With all due respect, you can’t tell me what to do.”

“Technically,” Luke says, raising one finger, “he can because he’s your uncle.”

“Oh Force —”

Another bang on the hangar door makes Leia clap her mouth shut and makes everyone else jump again.

Chewbacca suddenly strides forward, pushing past Piett, and growls something exasperated under his breath. Then, still muttering, he grabs the manual crank and begins to turn it. One wide eyed, twitching look over his shoulder makes Lando scramble to help him.

Bit by bit and protesting the whole way, the hangar door groans open. Max takes several prudent steps back, gesturing for the clone troopers to do the same, but Piett remains where he is. As admiral, he’s supposed to stay by Vader’s side.

He’s never wanted a demotion so much.

There’s a flash of blue and white on the other side of the door, and then a grizzled clone trooper with a silvery blonde beard and a shaved head lurches through the gap, his face like a storm. “Lukka Skywalker!” he bellows, making a beeline for Luke.

Then Luke does what every Imperial in the galaxy has been trying to make him do for the past three years. He turns tail and runs, ducking behind Chewbacca and peeping out around his furry waist. “Rex,” he calls as the clone stalks forward, “you just have to let me explain —”

“I already know the explanation, and I’m here to try to knock some sense into your kriffing head!” Rex reaches Chewbacca, who summarily abandons Luke. Before Rex can grab him, he dances aside and hides behind Leia’s shoulder.

“You think I’m going to help you?” she asks, giving him an outraged look as Rex advances. “Do you have any idea how kriffed off I am at you?”

“And you!” Rex bursts out, making Leia turn wide, blinking eyes toward him. “You ran off without me? You didn’t even comm to say Luke was gone? None of you did? I’m supposed to look after you two, are you trying to give Ahsoka and I more gray hairs?”

Leia is now Luke’s ally, backing toward the edge of the corridor and dragging Zev over for support. “I didn’t want to worry you —”

“Nice karking job!”

“Technically,” Zev offers, looking like he regrets speaking as soon as he opens his mouth, “Ahsoka can’t grow gray hairs.”

Luke winces. “Yes. Very helpful addition, Zev. Look, Rex.” He steps out from behind Leia, holding out his hands in a placating gesture. “It’s working. See, I’ve found my aunt and uncle! And look — your brothers! That’s a good thing, right?”

Rex, who had been glaring at Luke and Leia equally, startles. He drags his gaze from them and finally looks at the clone troopers in the corridor. They’ve all drawn back to the edges of the space, watching Rex with widened eyes and uncertain expressions.

There’s a stretch of silence, imploding in on itself like a black hole. Then Rex says, in a strangely flat voice, “Fives’ika? Cody?”

Cody is preoccupied — possibly with having an aneurysm, if his face is anything to go by — but Fives steps forward, grinning a little. “Hey, ori’vod. Long time, no see, right?”

Rex joins Cody in having an aneurysm. “I thought you were dead.”

“Not so much. I kind of thought you were. I mean, Jesse said you —”

“I escaped. With Ahsoka.”

“Oh. Um. Okay, well, that’s awkward.”

“Why?”

“It sort of means you’re in violation of Order 66. Still, after all these years, which is impressive. I’m honestly not sure if it’s still in effect — the General’ll know — but if it is, we’ve got to kill you. Sorry about that.”

As one, every non-clone in the corridor cringes. Luke opens his mouth to defend Rex, but Rex — all expression dropping away from his face and leaving behind the most terrifying blankness Piett has ever seen — spins around and lurches toward Vader, who is standing frozen by the hangar door. “You didn’t take their chips out? You kriffing save them, and then you leave those things in?”

Piett, cursing himself, his lineage, and his decision to join the Imperial navy, steps in between Rex and Vader — that is his job, however much he would prefer if it wasn’t — but he’s immediately bodily picked up by the meaty arms of a clone who hasn’t stopped fighting his whole life and dropped unceremoniously to the side. Then Rex is toe to toe with Vader, shoving a hand up against his chest. Vader is tall enough to make Rex look puny, but Piett would swear he’s actually hunched up, his head drawing down between his massive shoulders.

“I can’t believe you! All these years, I’ve held out hope that there’s still a bit of you in there, and then Ahsoka finds out, and she’s heartbroken, but by the Force, she’s not willing to just give up on you, and even your son seems to think you’re worth saving, but then all this time you’ve been wandering around with my brothers as your kriffing slaves, you kriffing coward, and I —”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Luke dashes over, managing to successfully maneuver himself between Rex and Vader. “You knew he was Anakin Skywalker? You knew he was my ipu?”

Rex appears to be trying to get around Luke without actually tossing him aside. Piett, picking himself up off the floor, grimaces at the double standard. “Of course I knew,” snaps Rex. “The kriffing idiot hasn’t changed his battle tactics in twenty years! Still running out ahead of his troops, still leaping out of ships without even a parachute, still contriving to be as dramatic as possible — it was obvious.”

“And you didn’t tell us?” Luke inflates until Piett finds it very easy to believe that he and Vader are related. “You knew, and you didn’t tell us?”

Rex starts to defend himself but stops. “Us?”

“Leia. She’s my sister.”

“She’s your what?”

“Twin. Sister. And don’t think you’re getting off easy here — it’s like everyone knew and just decided not to tell us!”

“I didn’t know Princess Leia was your sister!”

“But you knew Darth Vader was my ipu!”

“I was keeping it from you to protect you.”

“Well, maybe I didn’t kriffing want to be protected!”

“Maybe that wasn’t up to you!”

“That’s not fair,” shouts Leia from across the corridor, striding toward Rex. Her fists are balled at her sides. “We had a right to know!”

“You think I wanted to know that this is what my general became?” Rex stabs a finger toward Vader.

That is enough to break Vader out of whatever trance has been holding him in place. He moves Luke aside — as easily as though he were a balled up piece of flimsi — and sets both hands on Rex’s shoulders. His voice through his vocoder is unsteady, trembling between two octaves. “Captain?”

Heavy silence descends. For a long moment, it’s as though Rex and Vader are the only two people in the corridor. Rex stares up at him, head tipped back. “It’s… It’s General now. Sir.”

“At least you weren’t the last to know about your own promotion this time.”

“Second to last, sir.”

Piett meets Max’s gaze across the corridor. Max just spreads his hands and shakes his head. Well, at least the fact that he’s seeing this too means Piett hasn’t gone crazy and started hallucinating.

“Hi.” Fives takes a few long sideways steps across the hallway. “General Sky — Vader — I’m really going to need to know if he’s in violation of Order 66. You’ve got override power, and —”

“It’s overridden.”

“Okay. Great. Perfect, actually.” Fives retreats a step, slaps Rex on the back, and gives the other troopers a thumbs up. “Overridden, boys!”

All the troopers settle into significantly more relaxed postures.

Piett backs up until the wall is nicely supporting his back. Once it is, he allows his knees to go weak. He’s going to need a moment. And a vacation. And possibly a demotion. Right about now, being a hyperdrive technician sounds peaceful.

“I didn’t…” Vader has never, in Piett’s memory at least, sounded so hesitant. “I didn’t know there were chips. No one ever told me.” His inflection is strangely human in that moment, even through the vocoder. If Piett strains his ears, he can almost imagine that he hears the faint echo of what Vader’s voice once was, back when he was Anakin Skywalker.

The words hang in the air for a few long seconds, as several complicated expressions pass across Rex’s face. Luke and Leia, apparently knowing the eventual conclusion of those expressions, take several prudent steps back. Piett pushes off from the wall, blankly wondering if he’s going to have to intervene in whatever intergenerational tooka fight this is going to turn into, but Rex reaches up and hits Vader across the back of the helmet before he can.

“What the kriff?” he shouts. “Are you stupid? Are you dense? Did you hit your head particularly hard when I wasn’t around? Did all the built up electric shocks finally take a toll on your cognitive function? Why else would my brothers work for the Empire?”

Vader manages to convey wide-eyed shock and confusion through his featureless mask. “I thought they were just… very loyal.”

Luke facepalms. Leia pulls in a breath — probably to say something derogatory — but Luke claps a hand over her mouth before she can. Rex just makes a long, disbelieving sound. “You thought,” he says, enunciating each word with great care, “that my brothers were so loyal that they’d abandon the Republic and run around killing Jedi?”

Vader makes a sound Piett’s come to realize is him clearing his throat. “Perhaps?”

“You’re an idiot, Anakin Skywalker.”

“Anakin Skywalker is —”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the rundown from Luke,” Rex says, flapping his hand as he spins around. “All right, everyone, down to the med bay now — double time! I don’t suppose we can use Kix for this, if he’s even here — I’ll need a surgeon we can trust.”

Without hesitating, Luke pushes Beru forward. “She can get out a detonator with a malfunctioning scanner and no anesthesia.”

Rex blinks. “Well, we won’t be doing that.”

Fives puts more distance between himself and Beru. “I certainly hope not.”

“My lord.” Max — in a show of stunning bravery, Piett feels — raises a querulous hand. “We are set for an operation on Tatooine. Should we postpone it?”

“What operation on Tatooine?” Rex slides a narrow-eyed look in Luke’s direction. “Did you have something to do with this?”

Luke shifts from foot to foot, looking anywhere but Rex’s face. “Maybe? Ipu and I are going to liberate Tatooine.”

“Darth… Darth Vader is going to free slaves?”

Luke spreads his hands. “I guess?”

“He already liberated an entire Imperial prison,” offers Owen in a helpful voice. “The rebels are all settling into the guest quarters.”

“The guest… quarters?” Rex’s voice pitches up on the last part of the sentence. “He freed them?”

“Luke made him,” Zev says, folding his arms and smiling in a pompous way that reminds Piett of Max at his most insufferably confident. “He kind of does whatever Luke says.”

Luke rises up in Vader’s defense, apparently deeply offended. “He does not! He just —”

“And we’re rescuing Han,” Leia interrupts. “That was, um, Vader’s idea.” She grimaces at having to admit it.

Because he didn’t want them to be kissing any more, Artoo beeps, rolling over to Rex. AN1 kind of panicked when he found out.

Rex runs a hand down his face. “You kissed Leia?”

Luke huffs out a sigh, eyeing Leia as she takes a few exaggerated steps away from him. “No. She kissed me, and I don’t understand —”

“I kissed you?” Leia explodes. “You were practically begging —”

“I was not —”

“You —”

“Two separate times, and you’re trying —”

Piett shuts his eyes, letting their argument fade into the background. He has a feeling they’re not going to get any less frequent, so he’ll have to get used to tuning them out if he wants to maintain his sanity. “My lord,” he tries, hoping to finally get some direction from his commander, “shall I comm ahead to the med bay and tell them to prep for a sudden influx of patients?”

“Of course you should,” snorts Rex as though it’s obvious that Piett should listen to the rebel invaders instead of deferring to Vader.

Piett rubs his tired eyes. “My lord?”

Vader surveys the assembled clones, the bristling General Rex, his two children, and their various allies. Piett has never seen him slump before — he didn’t actually think it was physically possible — but his stance is utterly defeated. “Do as Rex says. Once the surgeries are complete, we will move on to Tatooine.”

Piett nods, salutes, takes two steps forward, and passes out. The floor is quite hard when he hits it. His last conscious thought, rising up vaguely out of the spreading darkness in his mind, is that at least he’ll finally be able to get some rest.

Chapter 8: Sometimes You Can Go Home Again: How to Return to Your Birthplace With As Few Explosions As Possible

Chapter Text

“Do you think he’s going to wake up?” Luke leans over Piett’s prone form, wrinkling his nose in worried doubt. He really is entirely too soft-hearted. That should worry Vader, but all it is currently doing is enthralling him. He has his amu’s heart — and her proclivity for shooting at things that displeased her.

“He’d better,” Leia snorts. She’s standing on one of the examination tables. Vader thinks it’s because she felt the need to be taller than everyone else in the medbay, including him. She seems more than likely to climb onto Chewbacca’s shoulders next. “After we lugged him all the way here.”

It’s possible she is too hard-hearted. Perhaps together she and Luke will make a complete, functioning person.

That is probably setting his hopes too high.

“You didn’t do anything,” Luke retorts, turning around so he can look at her. “Ipu carried him here. Which was very nice.”

Vader shifts a little to avoid the wave of dizzy uncertainty that comes from being called nice — possibly for the first time in roughly two decades.

Leia gives Luke a flat, unimpressed look. “I still hate him, but nice try.”

Vader sighs through his vocoder, though he can’t help but be proud of Leia’s self-assurance. It is a very Skywalker quality to remain true to your opinions.

Except Anakin Skywalker is dead. That’s right. He doesn’t usually forget that, but everyone’s insistence on calling him by his old name is confusing him.

That’s definitely what’s happening.

“You know, this would go faster if there was less background chatter,” Beru says from across the medbay, where she is currently laboring over Jesse, who is one of the few remaining clones who hasn’t yet had his chip removed. For the first time, Vader is grateful for the state-of-the-art medical equipment that stuffs the Executor’s medbay. Even so, it wasn’t what anyone would call easy to convince the clones to lie back on the surgery table, stick their heads into the ring that contained the surgical equipment and scanner, and trust self described “rebel scum” to play around with their brain.

The only reason they’re doing it at all is because Vader and Rex loomed over them at the same time and ordered them to. It is strange to be working alongside Rex again — and treasonous, though Vader is doing his best not to examine that part too closely — but he’s telling himself he’s only doing it because it is strategically expedient to do so. After all, Vader has always thought that soldiers capable of individual thought and decision make better fighters than automatons.

It has nothing to do — nothing at all — with the fact that it is comforting to hear Rex’s voice by his right side again. In the same vein, it has nothing at all to do with the way his stomach twisted when he heard the truth about the chips.

“I thought Luke said you could do something like this in the dark with no scanners,” Zev says in a vaguely accusatory voice. He is on the other side of the medbay too, half hidden among the recovering clones and the freed rebel fighters (all of whom refused to allow the surgeries to be performed unless the number of rebels in the room equaled the number of Imperials). As is his habit, he is a strategic fifty feet away from his father, who is beside Piett’s bed. He is standing to attention for Vader’s sake and watching Luke and Leia at the same time, presumably for his sanity’s sake.

“It doesn’t mean she wants to,” Owen says. He is two paces away from Vader, apparently having set himself up as Vader’s guard — either for everyone else or against everyone else. It’s impossible to tell yet.

Lando, Chewbacca, and the droids are near Leia’s examination table. Lando is still doing everything he can to avoid Vader’s gaze, practically hiding behind Chewbacca in the process, but Artoo is peacefully burbling to himself as he settles himself exactly equidistant from Luke and Vader.

“At least I’m nearly finished,” Beru mutters to herself, refocusing on Jesse, who is still as a stone on her table.

Rex gives Vader a narrow-eyed look at that. He is still disappointed that the clones felt no need to air their grievance at Vader once they were no longer under their chips’ influence. He had apparently been expecting a bloodbath or at the very least a wave of fury, but he had gotten neither.

Instead, the clones mostly looked at each other, looked at Vader, and shrugged. They couldn’t — thankfully — remember most of what they did when the chip held complete sway. The chips had been mostly dormant for years, which meant they didn’t feel terribly different with them out, except for the fact that they were now all for the Rebellion’s plan to overthrow the Empire.When Rex carefully ventured to ask how they felt about Vader, Fives spread his arms and said, “Well, he didn’t know, did he?”

Rex looked like he was torn between throwing something at Vader and throwing something at Fives.

“And he took care of us,” Hardcase offered.

“And he didn’t try to kill General Kenobi that much,” Cody added. “No more than we tried, anyway.”

“Until he did,” admitted Kix. “But Jesse told me General Kenobi didn’t fight back much, so he must have had a plan.”

“You could look at it like General Skywalker did him a favor,” said Tup.

Rex sighed deeply, put his head in his hands, and dropped the subject.

At the time, it occurred to Vader that he probably had troops who were more loyal than he deserved, which was a sort of thought he hadn’t had in a long time.

It was an Anakin Skywalker kind of thought.

Which obviously meant nothing.

“Do you think we’ll have reached Tatooine by the time she finishes?” asks Luke, turning away from Piett to look expectantly at Vader, disregarding the fact that Vader had been in the medbay exactly as long as him and was not, in fact, present when the bridge crew finally took them into hyperspace.

His years of experience as a starpilot crisscrossing the galaxy give him enough information to answer anyway. “I believe so.”

“I have a question.” Lando raises a hand and immediately shrinks back behind Chewbacca when Vader’s gaze swivels toward him. After a moment, he works up the courage to move into the open again, drawing his cape around him like a shield. “I am wondering how exactly we’re supposed to, er, liberate Tatooine and grab our dear friend Han without alerting the Emperor to…” He seems to search for words. “Let me put it delicately — the Lord Vader’s more treasonous tendencies?” Dragging his eyes from Vader’s mask, he turns to Luke. “Luke baby? I assume you have a plan?”

“If it’s anything like his last plan,” Leia says, still perched on the examination table, “we’re better off without it.”

His last plan has an almost one hundred percent success rate so far! Artoo chirps, taking on a deeply insulted tone.

“Well, I think it was entirely reckless, if it isn’t too bold of me to say,” Threepio puts in, twisting his head toward Luke.

Luke folds his arms. “My plan is amazing. We’re on the Executor, we’re not dead, we’ve got an army…” He flings his arms wide. “What could be better?”

Leia glares. “We could be home!”

“Oh, please.” Luke, apparently also having an impulse to be tall during times of conflict, climbs up onto the neighboring examination table. Vader sighs deeply through his respirator. “And for your information, Leia, I do have a plan.”

# # #

Kitster was having a peaceful day. Well, as peaceful as days get on Tatooine. Frankly, he’s just enjoying the fact that nothing’s blown up today. No runaways have shown up at his door either, which is a change from the norm.

He is just thinking about risking a nap — it’s not like he gets much sleep at night, what with running the most active branch of the Freedom Trail and doing what he can to make the Imperial battalion that have been squatting in Mos Espa since the Death Star was destroyed — when his comm goes off. It’s Maru on the other end.

“Kit. You’ve got company — I sent them along to you by the tunnel.”

Without replying, Kitster turned away from his and Rilli’s bedroom hurried through the hideout — a cave system that opened up on the ridge bordering Mos Espa. “Who is it? Did you vet them?”

“I did,” she says, sounding offended at the doubt. “But it wasn’t necessary.”

“And why,” Kitster says, unlocking the tunnel trapdoor, “is that?”

“Oh, you’ll see. They should be almost to you.”

Kitster hauls the trapdoor open and is immediately greeted with two upturned faces. One is half hidden by tousled sandy colored hair, and the other is square with copious amounts of brown hair falling in twin braids around it.

Kitster isn’t overly connected with the Alliance as a whole, but he’s connected enough to recognize them both on sight, especially since their faces have been plastered on Imperial wanted notices for the better part of three years. “Princess Leia?” he manages, helping her out first. Then — and this one is more difficult — “Luke Skywalker?”

“Hello.” Luke’s voice is bright as he scrambles out of the tunnel, dusting himself off as he gets to his feet. “I guess you would know our names, huh? The Empire really wants to kill us both.”

“Yes,” Kitster says faintly, taking in Luke’s face. He has lighter hair and different jawline, but he still looks so much like Anakin did — at least, as he did in the holonet broadcasts that reached Tatooine, recounting the Hero With No Fear’s latest exploit. “That, and… other reasons.” Reasons too complicated and painful to go into now. How did you explain to a child that you were his dead ipu’s best friend, that you hadn’t seen him since you were both slaves, and that you wouldn’t even have known he was dead if it hadn’t been the biggest story on the holonet for months after Empire Day?

Besides, he’s furious at Owen and Beru for never comming and telling him that his best friend had a living son, and it would be awkward to explain that when they’re both dead. Especially to their nephew.

Luke narrows his eyes at him. “There’s no way… There’s just no way.”

Kitster blinks as he leads them toward the main cave, where the fire pit is and where he and Rilli keep their bedroll. An opening in the rock ceiling, soot stained from the fire, lets in a shaft of sunlight. A fragment of blue sky looks down on them like an eye. “I don’t understand. Why did you come here? There’s an Imperial presence on Tatooine — you could be in danger.” And they could put the Freedom Trail in danger, but Kitster’s not going to bring that up yet. Surely these two leaders in the Rebellion — even if they are still children — have a good reason for this risk.

Instead of answering him, Luke stops beside the fire pit, Leia at his side, and folds his arms. His demeanor is so like a grown up version of nine year old Anakin that Kitster does a double take.

That’s when Luke seems to inflate. “You know!” His voice is explosive. Kitster has time to be thankful that they’re too far from the city to be overheard before Luke yells, “You know Anakin Skywalker is our ipu too!”

Kitster blinks a few more times. “...Yes? You… didn’t?” Then the pertinent possessive adjective hits him. “I’m sorry — our?”

“Yes, our.” Leia says it like she’s admitting to a horrible war crime. “I’m not a blood Organa. Unfortunately.”

Before Kitster has time to adjust to that new piece of information, Luke stalks closer and says, “And did you know he was a Jedi?”

Kister takes a long step back. “Sure? I’m sorry, what is this —”

“And did you know our amu was Padme Amidala?” It’s Leia yelling this time. She draws herself up to her not-at-all-considerable height.

“And,” Luke adds, giving Kitster no time at all to respond, “did you know Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader? ‘Cause it seems like everybody kriffing knew except us!”

Kitster takes several more stumbling steps back until he reaches the nearest boulder and sinks down onto it. His breath comes in short, fast gasps. “No…” He fights for oxygen. A wave of dizziness makes the room tip sideways. “No, I think I missed that part.”

“Oh kriff. We went a bridge too far. Leia, help me hold him up.” Luke is suddenly by his side, pushing him back upright. The room rights itself, and Leia comes to Kitster’s other side and pushes a canteen of water into his hand. He takes it but doesn’t drink from it.

“On the bright side,” Leia says to Luke over Kitster’s face, “at least we weren’t the last to know this time.”

“That’s kind of insensitive,” Luke reproaches. He leans down so that his face enters Kitster’s — admittedly blurry — field of vision. Kitster does his best to focus on him, even though he’s still not certain he’s not going to throw up. “Anyway, Mr. Kitster, do you want to hear about our plan to liberate Tatooine with my ipu?”

Kitster’s definitely going to throw up. Or maybe pass out.

There’s the sound of Leia swatting Luke on the shoulder. “And that wasn’t insensitive?”

# # #

By the time Luke manages to calm Kitster down enough to listen to their plan, an hour has passed, and Leia is close to vibrating out of her skin. Vader is all alone — well, relatively — on the Executor with all her friends and her new aunt and uncle.

The new relatives are a concept she’s not going to think about too closely. She doesn’t want to end up slumped on a rock next to Kitster. There’s still too much to do. She can have her reaction later.

Though she may need to have it far, far away, since the reaction might involve shooting Vader in the head several times, which would probably put a damper on her relationship with Luke.

Her brother.

No. She’s just not going to think about that right now. Even if it is kind of a nice thing. She’s always wanted a brother.

As Luke finishes relaying the plan — such that it is — to Kitster, he is silent for a long moment, staring straight ahead with the expression of a man who has just had his world torn down from multiple directions and is still adjusting.

Stars, Leia knows how that feels.

“That,” Kitster says, scrubbing his hands through his hair like he’s trying to shake himself awake, “is a truly insane plan.”

“Hey!” Luke draws himself up to his full height. “It was my idea!”

“And mine,” Leia adds, equally insulted. Honestly, everyone's a critic. It’s like they have all forgotten that she and Luke are high ranking members of the Alliance. They were instrumental in blowing up the Death Star, for Force’s sake! Doesn’t that earn them a little credibility?

Apparently not with the crew of the Executor, which is to be expected, she supposes.

“Well.” Kitster is still rather waxy looking beneath his tan. “If there was any doubt that you were Anakin Skywalker’s children…”

“Does that mean you’ll do it?” asks Luke.

“Are you going to try it even without the Freedom Trail’s help?”

“Probably.”

“And are you sure about… Darth Vader?”

“Yes,” Luke says, at the same time as Leia says, “No. But I’m sure about Luke.”

Kitster pushes to his feet, wobbling only slightly. “Then let’s get to it.”

# # #

Commander Konstantine is pleased. It’s been a quiet day thus far in Mos Espa. If he were a suspicious man, he would say it has been almost too quiet. But he is not a suspicious man. All he wants is to do his job, even if this job is a demotion.

He is not to blame for Agent Kallus’ defection. The man was impossible to read when he wasn’t plotting the downfall of the Empire; how was Konstantine supposed to have predicted that he, of all people, would turn traitor?

Of course, the Imperial military wasn’t in the habit of listening to excuses. So to Tatooine Konstantine went. And it’s been a living hell ever since. The locals haven’t ever heard of the word “compliance”.

Or “order”, for that matter. Or, frankly, “authority” in general.

Oh, they understand Jabba’s authority well enough, but that’s only because he’s a fixture. A fixture who implants bombs in sentients (Konstantine has been fruitlessly trying to get command to authorize that for free Tatooian civilians as well) and commands an army that has absolutely no qualms about throwing people in the Sarlacc Pit.

And even Jabba is routinely attacked by the members of the so-called Freedom Trail. Why, just last week a transport ship full of slaves bound for the Wobani work camp — each quarter Jabba is required to send the Empire a portion of his slaves — was sabotaged and crashed in the Dune Sea. By the time a squad of stormtroopers and Hutt enforcers made it out there, the ship was already a burned out wreckage, empty of slaves, with the shape of spread wings painted on its hull in crimson.

It was enough to give Konstantine ulcers. It did give him ulcers.

Today is thankfully far quieter. Konstantine is just considering leaving the western tower of the Imperial complex and going inside in the cool when the front section of the retaining wall — the one that borders the main thoroughfare of Mos Espa — explodes in a fountain of rocks, dust, and fire.

People clad in black with a streak of red face paint slashed across their eyes flood into the courtyard, just as a bomb somewhere within the complex goes off.

Konstantine is just fumbling for his comm to sound the alarm — even if the explosions have pretty much done that for him — when a cohort of fighters streaks overhead, arrowing in the direction of Jabba’s palace.

Some of them are TIE fighters, with crimson wings spray painted over their hulls.

Where did these terrorists even get TIE fighters?

# # #

“I am entirely against this,” Vader said, like he had been saying for the past twenty minutes. Zev is getting a little bored. A Sith Lord should at least be interesting, to make up for their karked-up murdering tendencies.

Of course, Vader isn’t shaping up to be a typical Sith Lord.

Luke, lost among the liberated rebel fighters and busy fending off Chewbacca, who keeps trying to cram a helmet onto his head, sighs with the force of a whirlwind. “Ipu, we went over this.”

Vader folds his arms and remains silent. People jostle around him in the crowded ready room, which is… Zev is just not going to address it. It’s too strange. Somehow — it’s probably Luke’s fault — he’s even starting to get used to Vader, though whether or not he feels comfortable enough to bump into him is something he’ll just have to find out later.

Luke shoves Chewbacca and the helmet away again. “This is all part of the plan. The Freedom Trail needs us to back them up.”

“And you can’t come because we don’t want you,” Leia adds from the other side of the room, trying and failing to stop Chewbacca from putting the helmet on her head instead. Zev ducks behind the nearest rebel — a brawny man whose broad frame is enough to hide him from Chewbacca. He doesn’t want a helmet.

Luke shoots a glare at Leia. “That is not why he’s not coming.” Turning to Vader, he says, “That’s not why you’re not coming, Ipu. It’s just because you stand out.”

It’s like Luke’s actually worried about Vader getting his feelings hurt.

Honestly, it’s almost funny that Zev thought Luke was sensible once. He should have figured out he was insane — as all the best rebel pilots are — when he shut off his targeting computer and flew straight at the Death Star.

And you get to help us blow up the palace, AN1, Artoo adds from his customary place at Luke’s side. You’ll like that.

“Yes.” Vader seems to sigh heavily through his vocoder. “Thank you, Artoo.” He reaches out, catches Luke before he can dodge away, and crams a helmet down on his head. “Be careful,” he says, voice gruff and carefully monotone. “If you or Leia are hurt, I will personally tear the planet apart rock by rock.”

“Joy,” Leia says, pushing past him.

“No, you won’t.” Luke stops in front of Vader instead of pushing past him. “That would be Dark Side, remember? You would honor us by helping Tatooine instead. I know you would.” There is complete confidence in his voice.

The look Vader gives him is decidedly irritated, even through his mask. “There are many that would disagree with you.”

Near the ready room door, Leia raises her hand before Lando — who is still operating under the assumption that it is a good idea to avoid kriffing Sith Lords off — can shove it down. “I am one of those people.”

“We know, Leia,” Luke says without looking at her. “Those people,” he adds, loudly and pointedly, “are just wrong.”

Then — with a casual suddenness that makes Zev consider sitting down and just questioning his existence for a while — Luke wraps his arms around Vader in a hug. The entire ready room falls dead silent. Zev wishes he had a pin so he could drop it and see how loud it was when it hit the ground, but he also wishes Luke would stop hugging the Emperor’s attack dog.

“I’ll see you when you come to ‘reinforce’ Jabba,” Luke says, drawing away from Vader, who has gone very still. “Be careful, Ipu. Okay?”

Vader sets both hands on Luke’s shoulders. Something like a wheeze creaks out of his respirator. “You as well, little one.”

That’s it. Zev is just never going to recover. By the time the war ends, he’ll be a shell of his former self, locked inside a mental institution.

Dad appears by his side, laying a hand on his shoulder before Zev can dodge away. “I’m glad,” he says in a low voice, “that we can finally fight on the same side.”

Zev just stares at him, feeling his mouth fall open. No, the mental institution is definitely going to come before the end of the war.

# # #

By dint of her life experiences, Oola’s definition of a hopeful turn of events differs from most people’s. For most people, bombs raining down on their home — well, more like prison, in Oola’s case — and tearing holes through the ceiling, forcing Jabba, his court, and most of his personal guard to flee to the secured central keep of the palace, wouldn’t be considered good news.

For Oola, however, this is more hope than she’s had in months. She doesn’t know exactly what possessed the Freedom Trail — because the fleeting glimpse she had of the red painted fighters overhead confirmed that this attack could be from no one else — to execute an all out attack on Jabba’s palace, but she doesn’t really care.

As the rhythmic thump of explosions sounds overhead, coupled with the sound of fighting from outside the keep, Oola stays crouched behind Jabba’s throne, carefully avoiding the massive grate that covers the pit beneath the keep. All of Jabba’s animals — from the nexu to the great rancor — will have fled there when the fighting started.

And Oola didn’t live this long by being stupid enough to stand on the grate.

Bib Fortuna emerges from the comms room. He is decidedly disheveled from the flight to the keep. His lekku, normally wrapped around his neck like a stole, hang long down his back, and frankly Oola is just waiting for him to trip over them. That would put the perfect cap on a day that is already going much better than she anticipated.

“It’s done, my lord Jabba,” he manages, still panting from running. Oola’s not certain he’s run that fast in the last decade. “The Empire is coming to help us — Darth Vader’s ship is in orbit above our planet. We’re saved!”

Assuming Vader doesn’t feel like murdering everyone he sees, including allies. Oola sighs through her nose. Well, the revolution was fun while it lasted.

# # #

Being taken captive in your own facility is humiliating. Still, Konstantine supposes it is better than being dead, so perhaps he shouldn’t be complaining. Though, if he survives this, he’s almost certainly getting enough demotion.

Or an execution.

Really, it’s not looking great in either direction.

“You’ll hang for this,” he tells the Freedom Trail runner who seems to be in charge of the band of rebel scum that’s neatly overwhelmed his troops.

The runner, whose black hair is spiked with sweat, raises his eyebrows. “Only one of us is tied up, my friend.”

“Yes… Well…” That is an unfortunate truth, but Konstantine draws comfort from the fact that, tied up as he is, he’s still maintaining proper military posture. Even if he is sitting cross legged in the midst of his similarly restrained subordinates.

Honestly. What do they pay these stormtroopers for, if not to prevent situations like this?

Although… Konstantine is not entirely sure they pay the stormtroopers at all, which could admittedly be part of the problem.

“Kitster,” says one of the other runners, a bright yellow twi’lek who, judging by the tally marks tattooed on the inside of her forearm, makes a hobby of killing Imperial soldiers. “We’ve got Imperial troops at the gate.”

“Aha!” Konstantine cannot keep a smug smile from spreading across his face. “You’re surrounded! You should surrender now — perhaps out of the goodness of my heart I can convince them to be merciful.”

Kitster — what a ridiculous name! — gives him a look that is somehow patronizing. Drumming his fingers on his gun, he says, with a smile that is much more smug than Konstantine’s own, “You know what, Imp? You’re right. Let them in, Lira.”

Konstantine doesn’t know why this Lira responds to the command with a smile as wide as a tooka’s, but it makes an uncomfortable shiver run down his back.

However, relief chases the shiver away when, a few minutes later, the doors to the mess hall where they’re being kept rumble open to reveal General Veers, surrounded by the elite squad of ARC troopers that Vader keeps. The rebels part before him as he walks in, but no one shoots.

Maybe they’ve already surrendered.

“Thank goodness you’re here,” Konstantine says, desperately trying to figure out the best way to spin this story — the way that doesn’t get him shot on the spot. “We were betrayed! Rebel spies set off bombs and destroyed our defenses from the inside, clearing the way for —”

“I’m aware. That is not what I’m interested in.” Veers smiles pleasantly. From within the neat ranks of troopers, a tiny twi’lek appears. She is wearing stormtrooper armor that is too big for her, and a grin that is several fangs past disturbing.

Konstantine blinks hard. When the scene doesn’t change, he blinks again. “I’m sorry?”

“You should be,” the twi’lek says placidly, examining her fingernails. They are painted with chipped blue polish. How old is she? Why is she here? “You’re a xenophobic bigot. You really might want to examine that. Also, you have a big nose.”

Konstantine chokes. “Sir?” He looks to Veers, who continues to smile. Konstantine suddenly feels very, very small. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, nothing of too much importance,” Veers says, still utterly calm. “Just a little operation. Nothing for you to concern yourself with. However, I do have an important question for you.”

Questions are good. Konstantine can deal with questions. What he cannot deal with is the way the little twi’lek keeps looking at him like he’s dinner. “What is it, sir?”

“Who are you loyal to?”

Konstantine blinks a few more times. There is definitely one correct answer to this question. “The Emperor?”

Veers unholsters his blaster, which is a terrifying development. “Wrong answer. Try again.”

Konstantine didn’t rise through the ranks of the Imperial military without being able to read a situation and adjust his loyalties accordingly. “You?”

Veers sighs. “No.”

Konstantine squints. His next words come in a slow, hesitant trickle. “Lord… Vader?”

“No,” Veers says. “Though that was my vote.”

A flutter of panic builds in Konstantine’s chest. This is one of those games where there isn’t a correct answer. Those are the kind of games that end in a demotion or in an execution. Sometimes a demotion and an execution, which is frankly overkill. “Um…”

“The correct answer is Luke Skywalker.” Veers sighs again. “I know. It was Lord Vader’s doing.”

“But that’s… that’s…” Konstantine’s words die in a sputter, mostly because he suddenly remembers that insulting the person holding you at gunpoint isn’t usually the best plan.

“Treason?” Veers guesses, lifting his brows so high they nearly meet his iron gray hairline. “Yes, that’s what I said. As did Admiral Piett and several of our rebel… friends?” He glances over at the twi’lek questioningly.

She shakes her head. “Too soon. We’re not there yet.”

“Indeed. Colleagues, then.”

“I can live with that.”

“But — but — but —” Konstantine isn’t entirely sure what he’s trying to say, but it’s definitely something in the genre of appalled.

“Besides,” Veers says, as if Konstantine hadn’t said anything at all, “Emi has been enlightening me about making teenlings feel heard.” He gestures to the tiny, predatory twi’lek as he speaks. “Apparently it is crucial to meet them where they are and engage with their interests if possible.” He shrugs, in a what-can-you-do sort of way. “And my son Zevulon’s — Zev’s — current interest is treason, so I didn’t have very much choice. You understand.”

Konstantine did not, in fact, understand, but he wasn’t stupid enough to say so. Instead, he uses his limited breath — fighting off hyperventilation will do that to you — to ask, “Are you going to shoot me?”

“No.” It’s the twi’lek — Emi — who answers. She sticks her lips out in a dramatic pout. “Luke said we couldn’t.”

“And,” Kitster adds from Veers’ side, “we’ll need you to answer comms from your superiors so they keep thinking everything is fine.”

Konstantine is beginning to wish that these people would at least be clear about their plan if they’re going to defeat him. “I see,” he says, not seeing at all.

“We’ll also need to know where you keep the spare uniforms and armor,” Veers says.

“Why would you possibly want to know that?” asks Konstantine, forgetting his position for a moment and letting the full weight of his incredulity fly into his voice.

Kitster gestures to himself grandly. “To outfit the new Imperial complement on Tatooine, of course. We couldn’t have the Empire thinking anything’s wrong. We’ll need your security codes and your command cylinders too.” He smiles wider than Emi. “Thanks!”

# # #

Vader isn’t going to pretend that he didn’t fantasize about walking into Jabba’s palace. He did — when he was Anakin Skywalker, at least. As Darth Vader, he put such childish dreams aside.

Or, at least, he tells himself he did. But when he steps over the threshold of the keep, flanked by Admiral Piett and Luke and Leia — picked up on his way into the palace — he is forced to admit that his nine year old self is alive and well.

There are worst realizations he supposes.

“Lord Vader,” says Bib Fortuna in his hissing voice, unwisely moving in front of Jabba. He apparently thinks the danger is over. “I see you have put down the rebel threat. We are forever in your debt.”

Vader looks back and forth between Leia and Luke. Piett, only recently recovered from his fainting adventure, shakes his head in the same way a teacher might upon finding that their student did something monumentally stupid — like push their stylus up their nose or try to eat their flimsi. “I’m afraid you are gravely mistaken.”

Bib Fortuna makes a small confused noise. “I’m sorry?”

“Yeah… It’s a little late for an apology.” Luke bounces on the balls of his feet, which is entirely inappropriate behavior given the gravity of the situation, though Vader would rather die than tell him that.

The bouncing is… It is rather endearing.

If Luke is a cork, gently bobbing in the current, then Leia is still enough to be a rock, stubbornly sitting at the very bottom of the river. “Where’s Han?” she snaps, with exactly as little preamble as Luke included in his original proposition to Vader.

There’s a long stretch of silence. Then Bib Fortuna says, hesitantly, “Solo?” at the same time as Jabba bellows out, “Kill them!” in Huttese.

He is slightly faster on the uptake than his majordomo.

Vader ignites his saber, reaching out with his free arm to shield Luke and Leia, and prepares to make puzzle pieces out of every enemy in the room, but Leia shoves his arm down and snaps her blaster up. In the span of the next blink, two round holes appear in first Jabba’s head and then Bib Fortuna’s. The two beings sway where they are for a moment before slumping over sideways in an anticlimactic sort of way.

All the Hutt forces freeze in place. Vader freezes too, mostly because he's certain that if he moves at all, some of his troopers will end up propping him up again.

Leia drops her gun arm, letting out a long breath that ends in a grin as she turns to Luke. Pushing the flyaway wisps of hair out of her face, she says, “You were right, Luke. That did make me feel better.”

Utterly forgetting protocol — and possibly that is an effect of his chip being gone — Fives hits Vader repeatedly on the arm with the back of his hand. “You saw that too, sir?” he asks. “Right?”

Before Vader can answer, Rex, who is standing on his other side, sighs deeply. “Fives, I really want to know how you think someone could miss that.”

Fives peers around Vader. “Hey, you just found out I was still alive, and I just got un-mind controlled, okay? You can’t be exasperated with me this quickly.”

“Oh, it’s like flying a jetpack, Fives. You never forget.”

“That’s accurate,” Cody says, nodding with the air of tired experience.

Fives ends up glaring at both his brothers. Vader would tell all three of them to get their heads in the game, but he’s still trying to process what he just saw.

It is entirely possible that his daughter is his new hero.

Luke steps forward, waving hello to the assembled forces. A twi’lek slave girl with green skin waves back at him, and he beams at her. “So…” Luke clasps his hands behind him, bouncing on his heels. “We accept your surrender?”

There’s the clatter of dozens of weapons falling to the floor.

“Well, that was easier than I expected,” Lando says, surveying the keep with a critical eye. “I was certain someone would die.”

“Yeah,” Zev agrees from beside him. “My money was on Firmus.”

Piett pulls in a deep, calming breath. “As I have said, only my friends call me Firmus.”

“And you’re my dad’s best friend, right? What does that make us?”

“Given your relationship with your father, I was operating under the impression we were enemies.”

“I’m sorry.” The slave girl, who had been crouching near Jabba, gets to her feet. “I’m really confused.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry.” Luke swipes his hands through the air, like he’s erasing some previous mistake. “You’re being liberated! I don’t know if that was clear.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Sorry. But you are! All thanks to the Imperial branch of the Rebel Alliance. But that’s a secret. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Especially Mon Mothma,” Zev says, nodding sagely. “I’m pretty sure she thinks we’re dead.”

The slave girl just stares at them, blinking like some circuit in her brain is shorting out. “What?”

Chapter 9: Sometimes You Have to Be Vulnerable: On Showing Your Loved Ones Your True Self

Chapter Text

“Wait until I can be sure it’s safe,” Vader says, putting a hand on Luke’s shoulder. He reaches out to do the same to Leia — the idiot — but she ducks away and forges forward with the kind of single-minded purpose that makes all of the dead Hutt’s men part before her. If Vader wants her to stay in one place, then he’s just ensured she is going to do the exact opposite.

“Chewie, help me.” She can see Han, set up against the far wall. He’s still in carbonite, playing at being a wall decoration, and his face is twisted into the same frightened expression as it was the last time she saw it —

If she weren’t here to rescue him, she’d probably kill him for worrying her so much.

“Or,” Vader says, having the audacity to sound exasperated, “you could completely ignore me.”

Leia makes a rude gesture behind her back as she drops into a crouch and reaches for the controls that dissolve the carbonite. “Chewie, Luke, catch him.”

“Do you think he’ll still be angry with me?” Lando asks nervously. Leia turns around long enough to see Zev step in front of him. When she frowns in his direction, Zev just gives her an openhanded shrug.

“What?” he says. “I’m a forgiving person. I have to save all my dislike for my dad.”

“I’ll be sure to tell him you said that,” Piett says, joining Zev in front of Lando. Leia narrows her eyes, not sure if this is some stupid Imperial version of annoying her or if he’s just trying to help Veers curry favor with his son. It may be both.

“Princess,” Vader says, with infinite irritation and infinite affection (how dare he). “You should wait until my men secure the room.” As he speaks, clone troopers are spreading out, clapping the various Hutt soldiers in binders as they do. No one resists, which Leia can’t blame them for. She did just shoot their daimyo in the head.

“I could do that,” Leia says in response, exchanging a look with Luke. Luke just sighs, shakes his head, and braces himself to catch Han. He’s at least learned that arguing with her is pointless. “But I’m not going to.” She twists the release knob.

There’s a hiss and a puff of acrid air as the carbonite dissolves, swiftly followed by a fit of hoarse, aggressively manly coughing. Leia dodges out of the way just in time to let Han collapse into Chewbacca. Luke guides his fall as best he can and tries to take him by the arm, but Chewbacca just grabs him and crushes him against him, roaring something unintelligible in Shyriiwook.

“Chewie?” Pale and sweaty, Han reaches up to grip Chewbacca’s shoulder. “Where am I? I can’t — I can’t see.” He takes a second to look around with wide, staring eyes. “People sound really mad.”

At that moment, Fives stops yelling at the nearest Hutt soldier and shoots Leia a sheepish look. She gives him a flat stare back, which somehow makes him shake his head like she’s being adorable.

Leia hates being adorable.

“You’re fine, Han,” Luke says in his most soothing voice, raising said voice in an attempt to drown out the squabble that has erupted between a rebel fighter and an Imperial. “You’re safe. We rescued you!” Here he grins like a sunbeam, though Han can’t see.

“About time,” Han manages shakily.

You can’t know how long it’s been, Chewbacca admonishes.

“I know the three of you. It’s been a while.” He pauses to swallow and brush sweat from his face. “Leia. Where’s Leia?”

“I’m right here.” Leia tugs him away from Chewbacca, grabs him by the front of his stupid white shirt (he never dresses appropriately for his rank, no matter how many times Mon Mothma asks), drags him close, and kisses him full on the lips. She kisses him like they’re having an argument, and Han kisses her like he’s content to let her win (for once).

“And that,” comes a voice in the background — she is certain it is Fives because all clones might still sound the same to her but Fives is the only one of them who would say that — “is how Her Highness kisses people who aren’t her brother.”

Leia does not stop kissing Han, and thankfully Han seems to be ignoring all background noise, but she vows to get revenge on Fives as soon as the opportunity presents itself. Everything about this is unfair, from Luke being annoyingly accurate in his assessment of Vader to Vader having the audacity to sleep with Padme Amidala sometime in the not-very-distant past.

But nothing in her life — certainly not in her personal life — has ever been fair. So. She can adjust. With Han back, she can probably do anything, especially if she can point him at the people who annoy her.

“Fives,” someone who sounds like Rex groans.

“For the last time,” Luke says in his most petulant voice, “Leia and I were never in love! And if we were, it’s Ben’s fault, not ours.”

Raising his voice to be heard over various clones squabbling over if it was incest or not (Leia is going to kill every single one of them), Vader says, “If you could be persuaded to stop mauling my daughter’s face, Solo,” and everything stops.

“That was…” At Vader’s side, Owen winces and Beru puts her head in her hands. “That was one way to put it.”

Han jerks away from Leia and manages to bundle behind him with minimal tripping, which is impressive given his blind state. With his free hand, he gropes for Luke, manages to snatch hold of his sleeve, and dump him behind him as well. “Leia, where is he — I can’t see him, I can’t —”

“Han! Han, it’s okay! He’s okay!” Luke manages to push forward to grab his arm. Ahead of them, on the other side of the huge ventilation grate that takes up half the floor — and Leia doesn’t blame it, Hutts have a stench — Piett pinches the bridge of his nose. Meanwhile, Vader stands motionless and useless, probably planning more murder and mayhem, but Leia swears if he so much as breathes on Han with his stupid respirator —

“Luke, where is he?” Han yells again, blundering in a vaguely sideways direction, toward the grate. “Chewie, get me a gun!”

“No, Han, you don’t get it!” Luke digs his heels in enough to force Han to let go. This, of course, allows him to tighten his grip on Leia, not that she’s trying to get free. “He’s on our side now.”

“That’s highly debatable,” Lando objects. Then he claps a hand over his mouth as Han whips around in the direction of his voice.

“Lando?” Han jerks forward with so much confidence and fury that Leia wouldn’t have believed he was blind if he didn’t nearly step on a pretty green twi’lek half hidden behind Jabba’s throne. “You slimy kriffing traitor, when I get a hold of you —”

Several things happen at once. Lando ducks lower behind Zev and Piett. Han staggers onto the grate in the middle of the room, dragging Leia with him. The twi’lek leaps to her feet and yells, “Stay off that!” at the same time as Vader booms, “Keep away from it, Leia!”

“What?” Leia half turns back, just as a Hutt soldier breaks free from Cody’s grip and hits some kind of mechanism hidden in Jabba’s throne.

“It’s a trapdoor!” the twi’lek shouts, at the same time as Han shoves Leia aside, sending her tumbling to the floor and rolling off the grate.

That’s around when the grate reveals itself to indeed be a trapdoor by opening up under Han and dumping him into a pit of unspecified depth.

“Han!” Leia screams out, joined by Luke, Chewbacca, Lando, Zev, and even the twi’lek. Artoo lets out a stream of binary swears while Cody tackles the Hutt soldier to the ground again, and Threepio just keeps muttering, “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” to himself over and over like a prayer.

“I’m okay!” Han calls after a few horrifying seconds. His voice floats up from the depth of the pit. “Who the kriff puts a hole in the middle of their floor?”

As Leia scrambles toward the edge of the pit, a cacophony of rumblings growls and muted roars meets her ears and makes her freeze. A second later, Han yells, “And who keeps predators in a hole in the middle of their floor?”

“Hang on, Han!” Luke lurches toward the edge of the pit.

“Absolutely not.” Vader waves a hand, and Luke goes flying backwards, landing on the floor as gently as a feather.

“Hey!” Leia spins toward Vader, ready to tell him in a few choice words that would have scandalized her mother exactly what she thinks of him, but then she is shooting backwards and settling onto the floor a safe twenty feet from the edge of the bit.

Vader stalks forward, sweeping off his cloak and tossing it on the floor in one motion. “You’re both worse than Snips,” he says, as if they have any idea what that means, and leaps into the pit.

Leia races back to the edge, Luke on her heels, just in time to see Vader back up against the nearest craggy wall, shove Han behind him, and ignite his lightsaber as a mixed multitude of nexu, animals Leia can’t easily identify, and a hulking beast with a wrinkled face and massive teeth converge on them both.

“Ipu!” Luke hurls himself into the pit before anyone can stop him.

“Luke!” Owen jumps in next, with Beru right behind him.

Han! Chewbacca is next, landing with a heavy thud.

LUK3! AN1! Artoo fires his boosters and rockets down into the pit, leaving Threepio dithering at the edge and wailing about how he can’t jump and curse his stiff metal limbs!

At that point, Rex steps up to the edge of the pit, curses with great feeling, crams his helmet on, draws his two blasters, points at Fives, orders him not to follow him under any circ*mstances, and leaps down to join the rapidly evolving scrum.

A moment after that, Lando tips his head back skyward and clasps his cape more tightly around his neck before jumping down after Rex, shouting, “I said I was sorry, Han!” as he falls.

Leia stares down into the pit, which contains one hundred percent of her surviving lawful family and a large chunk of her adopted family. She weighs her desire to not save Vader with her desire to save the others. Then she checks her blaster — because she’s not an idiot — and pauses to send a quelling glare at the motionless Imperials, daring them to enact some kind of double cross while she’s gone.

She jumps.

# # #

Piett eyes the pit into which the entire Skywalker family, along with a not insignificant number of hangers-on, have thrown themselves and considers asking for a transfer.

“Let go.” Zev is a struggling bundle of arms, legs, and exceedingly pointy elbows as Piett grips him by the scruff of his jacket and refuses to let him jump into the pit.

“No,” Piett says, wondering if, as Vader’s admiral, it’s his responsibility to also go help Vader and if Vader will notice if he doesn’t. “Your father would murder me.”

“I’m going to murder you.”

“I welcome you to try.” Piett glances over at Cody, who has a firm hold of Fives. Zev and Fives exchange mutually persecuted looks. “Do you think we should help them?” asks Piett.

Cody lets out a long sigh. Down in the pit, a nexu pounces on Luke only to be bodily dragged off him by Vader and Owen working as a team. Though blind, Han has picked up a long femur from the bone littered floor and is gamely clobbering anything that gets close over the head with it while shouting Leia and Luke’s names over and over again.

He’s only hit his allies a few times.

“No,” Cody says at length. “I think they have this handled.”

“Was Lord Vader always like this?”

“Yes.” Cody sighs again. “It was worse when he and General Kenobi were together, if you can believe it.”

Vader leaps onto the back of the biggest creature — a rancor, if Piett is identifying it correctly. Owen yelling, “Get off the rancor, you idiot!” confirms his suspicions. Luke, apparently incorrectly interpreting this as permission to be a complete fool, jumps at the rancor from behind and starts climbing up its spiny back.

Piett hesitates. “Are… are his children worse?”

Cody leans forward slightly, assessing the situation. “Yes. There’s two of them.”

# # #

Vader hates having children. Truly. When he was young — and naive and stupid and various other negative traits — having children seemed like a dream come true. Like utter blessings.

The reality is something closer to a perpetual heart attack.

Not even bothering to reprove him, Vader uses the Force to drag Luke off the back of the rancor and sets him as gently as possible down behind a nice rock outcropping that he’s been desperately trying to keep the most vulnerable members of his family behind.

His family is — predictably — incredibly kriffing stubborn. As soon as Luke is safe, Leia sprints out into the open, howling something unintelligible as she sprays the rancor with blaster fire. Vader is just about to stab downward into the rancor’s head when it bucks hard enough to throw him off. As he hits the ground hard enough to hear something in his suit crunch, he flings out an arm and sends Leia skidding into Luke, helpfully (if briefly) incapacitating them both. Then he jerks to his feet and grabs Han, who managed to get himself right in the middle of the fight again. Ignoring the loud protests and the many kicks to his shins — does Han realize his legs are metal? — Vader flings him behind him and spins again to face the advancing animals.

He would have thought that even animals trained to hunger for sentients would turn back at the sight of a lightsaber, but apparently Jabba breeds them to be stupid.

Looking at his own children, who are trying to get out and fight again, he’s starting to think he breeds them stupid too.

Bisecting a nexu who makes the mistake of leaping at his face, Vader fights his way to the front of things again. Owen and Beru seem offended when he uses the Force to shove them further away from the hub of the battle, but Vader has absolutely no intention of telling Luke and Leia that he actually got their aunt and uncle killed this time.

It has nothing to do with the fact that they’re the last remaining link to his past. He doesn’t care about them.

Anakin Skywalker might though.

People keep trying to get in front of him. Even Rex, who once had the good sense to at least fight next to him, keeps pushing forward.

Vader is not going to climb out of this pit and get blamed for more people getting killed or maimed or put in carbonite (though Han was his fault, if he’s really being honest).

With a wordless bellow through his vocoder, he sweeps his arms back and sends a Force shockwave back behind him. Everyone ends up a nice fifteen feet away from the nexus of battle, which finally gives him space to move.

Honestly. It’s like they think he can’t handle a few bloodthirsty animals by himself.

Even if it’s possibly more than a few, he can still handle it.

A nexu leaps up and locks its jaws around his arm. He wrests himself free, but the nexu manages to take a chunk of his suit and his prosthetic arm with it, leaving a sparking clump of exposed wires behind.

That’s entirely fine. Behind him, Beru is overreacting, screaming his name. The arm might not be responding like it should, but he’s been fighting one handed for over twenty years. It’s not even his dominant arm.

A minute later, some unidentifiable spiny creature hurls itself at his face. He knocks it aside, which means he’s preoccupied when the rancor’s claw bears down on his face and catches him right in the eyehole of his mask.

The fact that the blow tore a hole in one side of his mask and damaged his respirator isn’t ideal, but it’s still fine. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka both used that exact same strike, and he survived just fine, although the damaged respirator may have been why he lost both those duels.

Someone is still calling his name, as if they don’t realize it’s very hard to hear him over the pounding in his ears. It honestly hard to see them too, past the neverending blur of his lightsaber and the blood leaking into his eye.

Oh, that’s what is in his eye. Interesting.

Vader drives his saber upward into the rancor’s throat and stabs it through the eye for good measure — see how it feels — and cuts his saber in a sweeping arc, beheading a horde of anooba that were bent on devouring him down to his bones (the joke was on them, he was more metal than meat, although if that nexu didn’t stop gnawing on his leg, he was going to be made of significantly less metal).

Then the spiny creature from before, evidently one to hold a grudge, slams into his chest with enough force to knock him onto his back. There is the distinct sensation of the thing mauling his chestplate and electrocuting itself in the process. Vader swats it aside with a grunt, but a descending sort of groan from his life support systems reaches his ears.

Which. Is not quite as ideal as everything else.

But if he can survive almost being drowned in his own base by a feral redheaded child, he can survive this.

What follows next is a long, red tinged blur. At some point, it dawns on him that he can’t really see properly, but the Force is enough to keep him from accidentally stabbing an ally.

Some enterprising creature rips the rest of his helmet off. There’s a lot more breathing after that than Vader expected, but he’s mostly too busy to really examine it.

An uncertain amount of time later, he finds himself lying on his back, staring upward at the distant ceiling of the palace keep. Nothing is actively trying to eat him, so he must have killed everything.

Heads appear in his blurred vision. Luke is closest, brow furrowed with concern.

“Is he okay? Ipu, are you okay?” There’s the vague sensation of a hand shaking his shoulder, which hurts, but talking isn’t really something he’s feeling equal to at the moment, if he can even talk.

Distantly, he hears an argument taking place over his head.

“Stop touching him, Luke!”

“No, I’m not going to stop, he’s hurt!”

“If he’s down, can we please just kill him?”

Several voices at once shout, “No, Han!”

“He needs medical attention.”

“Are you volunteering to carry him out of here? Because I know I can’t lift him.”

“Six clones together couldn’t lift him.”

“He hates the medical facilities on the Executor. Won’t use them.”

“Then Kix can make him, Fives.”

“Have you ever tried to make the General do anything?”

“We’ve got Luke now. He’s magic.”

“Hey, his eyes aren’t yellow! That’s a good sign, right?”

“They’re barely open,” comes a cutting voice Vader manages to recognize as Leia’s.

“It still counts!”

“He looks a little bit like you, Luke.”

“Really, Aunt Beru?”

“Can we please focus? If we can’t get him back to the Executor then —”

Three voices at once — Beru, Owen, and Luke — say, “I know someone. She lives right here in Mos Espa.”

“Oh ho no, I know her, and she’s swindled the Rebellion about seven times —”

“Try about seventy,” snaps Leia.

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Wait —” this voice sounds like Han’s “— are we talking about Peli Motto?”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything! I just… she… maybe dated Chewie for a bit. It ended badly.”

“I can’t take you anywhere.”

“Can we please hurry? He needs help.”

“Oh, he’s breathing, he’s fine.”

“Leia.”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

There’s the crunch of several pairs of boots against the ground and the grunts of people climbing up out of the pit.

“Chewie, make yourself scarce.”

Just before Vader loses consciousness, he hears Chewbacca roar in agreement and Luke say, “It’s going to be okay, Ipu.”

Vader’s last thought is that it is most certainly not going to be okay. He’s hardly set foot on Tatooine in twenty-five years, but even he’s heard of Peli Motto. She could teach a Jawa how to cheat someone out of their money.

As he passes out, Vader manages to wheeze, “Don’t let Luke bargain with her, we’ll have no credits left.”

He’s not sure if anyone heard him.

Chapter 10: How to Handle Status Quo Changes With Grace and Calm

Chapter Text

“Anakin.” A voice wiggles its way into his mind, persistent and nigglingly familiar. “Anakin. Do wake up. I understand you’ve been through an ordeal, but I’m getting rather bored. I may take to haunting the corridors, and I do mean that literally, so please —”

He lurches upright with a fist thrown in a savage left hook that sends pain shooting down his arm and into his back. His fist passes through a person-shaped mist of bluish light.

The blue light resolves into Obi-Wan’s face, which is pursed into an infinitely familiar judgmental look. “Punching ghosts does seem to be a very you reaction,” he remarks, drifting sideways.

Anakin just stares at Obi-Wan. Then, a delayed yell of terror ripping out of his throat, he scrambles backward until he reaches the edge of the table he is on and tumbles to the floor. On the way down — before landing painfully on his elbow and jarring his shoulder — he recognizes it was a drained and opened bacta bed, which is disturbing in and of itself.

Just as that fact hits him, the floor hits him, and he ends up sprawled on his back, chest heaving. Obi-Wan, still glowing like some Force-forsaken lamp, appears in his field of vision, leaning over slightly to look him in the eye. “Are you quite finished?”

Anakin hauls in several breaths. “I’m in hell. That’s the answer. I’m dead. Force, I can’t even get away from you in the afterlife.” He rolls over and crawls toward the bacta bed, reaching up and grabbing the edge so he can haul himself up onto his knees. “I always knew we’d end up in the same place. Bet you thought you wouldn’t go here when you died, though. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have thrown yourself at my lightsaber and —” His gaze falls on his hands. They’re the same cybernetic prosthetics that he has had for over twenty years, but they’re uncovered — free of his gloves and thick life support suit. He looks down, and his bare chest, thick with scar tissue, meets his gaze. Emerging from a set of loose shorts are what little is left of his legs, merging into the thick metal legs that have held him up since Mustafar.

“Ah.” Obi-Wan wanders around to the other side of the bed. “I was wondering when it would hit you.”

“You —” Anakin clings to the bacta bed, trying to get his feet under him “— are the worst. Even after all these —” He breaks off to reach up with one hand and feel his face. His durasteel fingers meet flesh, tracing over his nose and lips. There’s no mask or breathing apparatus cutting into his skin, but when his fingers drop to his throat, he feels some kind of metal implant, so well constructed and attached that it’s nearly flush with his skin.

Obi-Wan is talking, and it takes effort to really hear him over the screaming inside Anakin’s head. “That fluffy haired mechanic — Peli, I think they called her? — is better than they gave her credit for, and she and Beru are quite a force of nature together. Turns out you never needed that suit at all. I suppose none of us should be surprised that Palpatine found it amusing to put you in it anyway and give you the cheapest bacta he could find. Are you in less pain now? I heard Beru saying that you should see a significant reduction now that you’ve been in actually functional bacta.”

Anakin opens his mouth, tries to answer, shuts it, and decides to just focus on breathing. He lifts his hand and wiggles his fingers back and forth, focusing on the way the light shining from the circular room’s large windows makes the metal of them glint.

Obi-Wan keeps going. “Turns out our illustrious Emperor also had you addicted to some kind of drug — I suppose he must have told you that it was medicine. That’s why Luke and the others kept you out for so long. Kix and Beru didn’t think you’d survive being weaned off it otherwise, but you should be thinking more clearly now. Although I can’t see how we’ll notice much of a difference — you’ve never exactly been a clear thinker in the past. But now that the chips gone —”

Anakin manages to snag onto that. “Chip?” His voice is hesitant, stuttering, but by the Light, it’s his voice. It’s deeper than he remembers, but maybe that’s a function of age. After all, the last time he heard it he was twenty-three years old — exactly half his lifetime ago. It hits him then that he’s thinking of himself as Anakin, not as Darth Vader.

Anakin Skywalker is not so dead after all, it seems. “Removed?”

Obi-Wan grimaces. “Oh. I was hoping you’d figured that out already. Well, you see —”

Anakin lurches all the way to his feet. “Chip? In my head?” He stretches back over his memories. The last twenty-three years are still there, but they feel like a dream. It wasn’t him who did all those things, was it? But it had to have been because he remembers them. A chip. “I had a chip in my head? Like the clones?”

Obi-Wan is backing away. “Well, yes. From the beginning, apparently — though Beru thinks it became less active after you discovered Luke was alive. In hindsight, that makes quite a lot of sense, and I only wish —”

Anakin staggers toward him as Obi-Wan practically falls over himself getting away. Apparently he doesn’t trust death and apparent ghosthood to protect him from Anakin’s wrath.

That’s smart of him. “You dismembered me and left me for dead!” Anakin howls, chasing him around the room at a hobbling run. “You didn’t even check! How in the hell did you think — you idiot!” He snatches up a scalpel from the nearby table, not wanting to know who used it or how, and hurls it at Obi-Wan’s head. Ghost or not, he ducks. “And then you don’t even have the decency to stay dead after making me kill you, and chip or not, I felt so guilty and lonely. You’re the biggest kriffing — if Ahsoka had been there, she would have set your head on so straight that it —”

“Anakin? Master Obi-Wan?” A voice from behind Anakin pulls him up short. He turns, still gripping the next nearest thing to him — a portable scanner — in preparation to throw it at Obi-Wan.

Ahsoka is standing in the arched doorway of the room, one foot up on the short step leading into it. Her gaze flicks from Anakin to Obi-Wan and back.

Anakin blinks several times. “Snips?”

She nods. “Anakin?”

“Yeah.”

“No chip now. Still going to try to kill me?”

He winces, shooting a glare at Obi-Wan, who spreads his hands in a chip’s fault, not mine gesture, which Anakin is going to kill him for later. “No. Sorry… sorry about that?”

She presses her lips together. “And you, Master Obi-Wan? Not quite as dead as previous reports?” Her teeth show a little. “Again?”

Now Obi-Wan winces. “This is entirely different than the Rako Hardeen incident —”

“Well, you’re making excuses, so it’s definitely actually you.” She refocuses on Anakin, folding her arms. “Luke’s going to be excited you’re awake — mostly because he’s had to deal with me raking him over the coals for the past three weeks.”

Three weeks. Anakin sways a little. He shudders to think of what chaos Luke might have accomplished in three weeks.

“Needless to say, the Imperial branch of the rebellion is thriving,” she adds.

Ah. That kind of chaos.

“Everyone’s waiting to see you,” she says. “Which I have to admit isn’t a sentence I thought I’d be saying anytime soon.” Ahsoka presses her lips together. “You know, Anakin, I’m dealing with a lot of complicated feelings right now, and apparently my grandmaster’s ghost — as if that’s normal — and you acting like a tooka caught your tongue really isn’t helping, so —”

“You got… big,” Anakin says. “I mean — you grew up.” Across the room from him, Obi-Wan puts his ghostly head in his ghostly hands.

Ahsoka just stares at him for a long moment. “Oh Force. It actually is you.”

# # #

Leia is also having many complicated feelings. After all, it’s not every day that you discover that your biological father is not dead like you always thought and is, in fact, the genocidal maniac who has been the demon hunting the Rebellion down for the past twenty-three years. Who is, in fact, the very person who held you back from disemboweling Grand Moff Tarkin when he destroyed your homeworld with a weapon of nightmares.

It’s not every day you gain a brother, lose a legacy, rescue a lover, and discover that the man you thought was a monster is just as much of a victim as any clone you’ve ever met.

A chip in his head. Is that enough? Can that really excuse his every action?

Everything Leia believes — has to believe, if she wants to be in the same room with the clones from the Executor — says yes.

But that does not mean she has to be nice about it. Not yet. “You were out a while,” she says to Vader — Anakin, Father, whatever — in the most biting voice she can muster.

Luke, who is — predictably — as close to Vader as possible without occupying the same space as him (and then only because it is a physical impossibility, glares at her from his position on the round stone table that dominates the center of the palace’s council room. It must have been rarely used during Jabba’s reign, since it is the only place in the entire palace that isn’t choked with his rank stench. “He was recovering,” he says indignantly before Vader even has a chance to respond. “And coming down from a drug high that Aunt Beru said he’d been on for about two decades. It’s a miracle he’s up and about now!” He twists around slightly to smile dazzlingly at Vader, who just stares down at him like he is some kind of strange and rare wonder of the galaxy. Even beneath the tangle of scar tissue that covers his face and makes convolutions around his eyes, Leia can still pick out shades of Luke in the shape of his jaw and the blue of his irises.

It’s very irritating. “Even so,” she says, “we could have used him.” She narrows her eyes at Vader. “It’s not exactly easy, liberating a planet.”

“Oh,” Fives says from across the table, leaning on his elbows, “is someone mad their ipu wasn’t around to help them out?”

Leia gives him her most withering look. Rex, standing beside him, correctly interprets this as the unspoken request it is and whacks Fives on the back of the head.

She isn’t upset at Vader for not being around to help handle Tatooine. Light knows she, Luke, Han, and Chewbacca are more than equipped for something like this, especially with all the help they had, and Tatooine is already unrecognizable. No, she’s angry at him for leaping into a pit full of carnivores to save Han, for not letting her help, for daring to get himself half torn apart, for being scarred and vulnerable when she wanted him to look like a monster under the mask, for making her feel sorry for him, for having a chip in his head, for lying motionless in a bacta bed for three weeks, and for worrying Luke sick.

And she’s angry at herself for wanting a father badly enough to almost maybe forgive Darth Vader for being Darth Vader.

“I’m…” Vader clears his throat awkwardly. He seems to be looking at a spot beyond Leia. On his other side, Ahsoka keeps looking there too — and rolling her eyes — but there’s nothing there. Maybe everyone’s going crazy. Maybe Leia’s already gone crazy, and this whole thing is a fever dream as she lies in a padded room in some asylum. “I’m very proud of all the two of you have accomplished.” He rubs the back of his neck — scarred too, and peppered with cybernetic implants that make bumps beneath his loose shirt and trace the length of his spine. “And I’m very… surprised by the direction things have gone thus far.” Here his hand goes to his face, metal fingers feeling his skin as though it’s foreign, and Leia supposes it is — and there’s that Force-cursed sympathy again. “But,” Vader goes on, “there’s something we’ve yet to discuss that’s, um, crucial to the survival of the Rebellion.” He says Rebellion like it actually matters to him.

Leia can’t believe she just heard Vader use the phrases thus far and um in almost the same breath. “And what would that be?” she asks from between her teeth. Beside her, Han slumps low over the table, massaging his temple with one hand and muttering about how nothing ever goes smoothly.

“It’s not a huge problem,” Vader says. “Well…” He hesitates. “It might be. Do you remember the Death Star?”

Several people choke at once. Luke cringes visibly. Threepio’s circuits spark, and his eyes flash as he spontaneously reboots. Peli, who Leia drafted into the Rebellion as vengeance for all the times she scammed them, tries to slink away, but Lando — well accustomed to how to deal with people drafted into the Rebellion, since he was more or less drafted himself — catches her by the back of her jacket. All the Imperials around the table — Veers, Piett, and a few other high ranking officers — suddenly become absorbed in the ceiling.

Ahsoka tips a hooded look toward Vader. “Where are you going with this?”

“There’s a second one under construction.”

“There’s what?” bellows nearly everyone in the room, until the sentence becomes an amalgamation of everyone’s voices. Vader winces at the noise.

“Let it never be said that the Empire is creative,” Han says in his most sardonic voice. “Well, I’m moving to the Rim, who’s with me?”

“You’re already on the Rim, Han,” Luke says.

“Then I’m moving to the rim of the Rim. Another Death Star. Stars, it’s like we’re the galaxy’s punchline. Or punching bag.”

“You’re being a downer,” reproaches Luke from his cross legged perch on the table. He never can sit normally. “Remember hope, Han?”

“I’m the voice of doom, Luke. That’s my role.”

“And doesn’t he play it well,” Lando says, still struggling to hold Peli in place.

“Still not talking to you!” Han calls.

Vader regards the room with a tired, irritable sort of expression that is familiar in a way Leia can’t place.

Until, that is, she realizes it’s an expression she herself wears often.

Her life is incredibly unfair. “I hope you have a plan for dealing with this,” she growls out, splaying her hands flat on the table in front of her. “Or at least a location, so we can deal with it.”

Vader smiles — actually smiles. The effect is so unnerving that the entire room falls silent, less because Darth Vader is showing positive emotion and more because, even scared, his smile is like a copy of Luke’s.

Leia’s ingrained recalcitrance makes her scowl in return. “What?”

“I’ve got both.” Vader shrugs. The movement is just as unnerving as his smile. “Location and a plan. We’ve got six months before this station is operational, and I know for a fact the Emperor will be visiting it when it’s finished. I’m meant to be there as well — inspiring the troops or some such.” His grin is positively evil now. Leia blinks — hard. If she needed any confirmation that Vader and Anakin Skywalker were different people, this serves as more than enough. “We destroy it then, and the Empire will crumble. It doesn’t function without Palpatine.”

“That’s all well and good,” Han says, “but how exactly do you propose we win an all out assault on the most powerful weapon in the universe? We barely did it the first time, and I somehow doubt we’re getting hold of its blueprints this time.”

“Oh?” Vader arches a brow ridge. “Because I can tell you that a veritable armada of spacers that operate on the Outer Rim have been harrying the construction process from the very beginning.”

“Oh, not them,” Zev implores suddenly. “They’re useless. Mon Mothma’s asked them over and over again to join the Alliance, and they always turn her down. Only out for themselves.”

“Maybe,” Vader says. “But if anyone knows the ins and outs of this station, it’s whatever captain is leading them. And I know just the spacer who can help us find him.”

“Oh Force.” Ahsoka leans her elbows on the table and puts her head in her hands. “Please — anyone but him.”

“What’s the matter, Snips?” Vader slides her a sideways grin, which forces Leia to reassess her entire worldview once more. Everyone else except Luke and Rex look away — it seems somehow indecent to watch Vader be in a good mood. “You and he get along so well.”

“I don’t care if you are an amputee,” Ahsoka says. “I will beat you into the ground, old man.”

“You can try.”

“Please — a nexu managed it. I think I’ll be fine.”

“Getting back to the point,” Leia says, metaphorically gripping the point between her clenched teeth, “even if we can get the plans and get the Rebellion ready to attack inside of six months, how exactly are we supposed to get enough firepower to really put up a fight? In case you’ve forgotten, the Rebellion isn’t exactly thriving right now.”

“Yeah, um.” Luke clears his throat. “I wasn’t going to mention it, but you did sort of… decimate us not very long ago.”

Vader clears his throat and looks down. “Yes. Er, sorry about it.”

“Well,” Han says, “if you’re sorry.”

“Hey, we agreed we weren’t going to hold what he did under the influence of the chip against him,” Luke says.

“No, you agreed to that.”

“I have a plan for that too,” Vader interrupts. “For our army — or lack thereof.”

“Oh, do you?” Leia rests her chin in her hand as elegantly and cuttingly as she knows how. “What would that be?”

Vader presses his thin, scarred lips together. “Ahsoka… do you remember the night of Order 66?”

Ahsoka narrows her eyes. “Anakin, you’d better be going somewhere with this.”

“Oh, I am. Because I remember it — pieces of it now. Remember it as myself, not as Darth Vader. I hadn’t before now. I don’t think the chip was as operational as Palpatine wanted it to be that night, and I think…” He hesitates. “Well, I think I may have tricked myself. Tricked Darth Vader, I suppose.”

“Ipu?” Luke tips his head back a bit to look at his father. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m trying to say there was a plan Padme and I had put in place not long after… Well, not long after Ahsoka was accused of murder. Just in case we ever needed to get someone out —”

“No, hold on.” Han raises a hand. “When Ahsoka was accused of what now?”

Ahsoka just smiles at him with all of her sharp teeth. “Don’t bother your pretty head with it, Han.”

“When you say get someone out…” Rex leans forward a bit so he can see Vader better. “General, do you mean…?”

Vader actually beams. “Yeah, I think I do. I mean, the clones burned the Temple afterward — none of the Jedi survivors had enough time to actually count the bodies before they had to run, and —”

Leia freezes. “Are you saying that… that you saved the Temple younglings from the Purge?”

There’s dead silence in the room until Vader looks her in the eye and says, “Yes. I think I did. And I think I sent them to Naboo, to Padme’s family, just like we always planned. They’ll be all grown now, and I can’t imagine they have any love of the Empire, so with them and people from prisons like Beru and Owen’s that we liberate —”

A glowing blue figure materializes in the exact center of the table. In the midst of her brain screaming that ghosts aren’t real and he’s dead, Leia picks out the familiar outline of Ben Kenobi’s grizzled face and beard. He crosses his arms, eyes more alive than she ever remembers them being, and bellows, “You did what?” at Vader.

At this point, Vader climbs onto the table too, making everyone except Luke jerk back, and shouts, “Is nothing I do acceptable? I kill them and you dismember me, but I save them, and you yell at me?”

“That’s not the point at all!”

“Then what is the point?”

There’s quite a lot of screaming after that, and only some of it is from the argument blooming between Vader and the ghost of the man Leia met exactly once when she was ten and never forgot.

Luke is the only one who doesn’t look shocked at Ben’s appearance, so she directs a quelling glare at him through the narrowing gap between Vader and Ben. He just gives her an openhanded shrug.

This is not where Leia saw her life going.

Chapter 11: Reunions: The Good, the Bad, and the Heart Attack Inducing

Chapter Text

Sola doesn’t like to think about what she’s lost. That’s a hole that’s entirely too easy to fall down, and frankly, she has better things to do, like taking care of the family she has left.

And she has more than many people, which is another reason she tries not to think of the sister, brother-in-law, and child that are missing from the long table that she is currently setting for dinner. She still has her parents, her husband, and her two daughters. That’s plenty of place settings.

She wants to be grateful. Grateful gives her hope. Hope keeps her fighting.

And fighting means that maybe someday she can help bring down the Empire that killed Padme, Anakin, and their baby.

As she lays down the last plate, the chime of the doorbell at the back door sounds through the house. Fighting down the instinctive wave of panic — they don’t have anyone hiding in the house right now, and besides, Imperials come to the front door, not the back — Sola smooths her dress and tries to remember if she or anyone else invited company today. “I’ll get it, Mère,” she says as she heads back through the kitchen. Mère is putting the finishing touches on dinner, caught in the shaft of late evening sunlight, and she lifts her head from the pot of stew at Sola’s approach.

“One of your friends?” she asks, lifting an elegantly sculpted eyebrow. This is, of course, her way of asking if it’s someone from the Rebellion.

“I didn’t invite anyone,” Sola answers, ducking through the archway that leads to the small vestibule — crowded with the detritus of a busy household — where the back door is.

“One of Pooja’s, then?”

Sola pauses to throw a grin over her shoulder. “Pooja’s friends come up through the floor, Mère.”

“Ah yes, I always forget. So like her aunt.”

Sola’s smile tightens at that. Twenty-three years later, and it still hurts. If she’d known having a sister would hurt so badly, she would have asked Mère and Père to send her back as soon as the midwives finally let her into Mère’s room to meet baby Padme, all those years ago.

Feeling entirely unsuited to having company, Sola pulls open the heavy rosewood door.

A man with horrible burn scars is standing on the doorstep, flanked by two men and a woman who have been the main character of most Imperial wanted posters for the better part of three years, two middle aged men in plain clothes who stand like Imperials, and a togruta woman who is wreathed in a cloak.

Sola freezes in the doorway, trying not to gawk but certain she is failing. The man seems to be all scar tissue, and both his hands are prosthetics. She’s busy trying not to imagine what must have happened to him and attempting to remember her manners when the man says, “Hey, So-So. Long time, no see, huh?” in what is the most awkward tone imaginable.

If Sola had been frozen before, she is positively stone now. There’s only one person in the galaxy who calls her that — who has the absolute gall to call her that, even though he knows it annoys the ever-living kriff out of her —

The man’s features, though burned and distorted, resolve into someone impossibly familiar. Sola forces her voice to work. “Ani?”

He grins at her — grins, like he’s not a ghost standing on her doorstep. “Yeah. And look.” He pushes the sandy haired boy forward — Luke Skywalker is his name, but he’s not… He can’t be… There are other Skywalkers in the galaxy, there have to be — first and then the girl, who is Leia Organa, who shouldn’t be here, who should be stars and stars away from the Midrim. “These are my kids. Luke and Leia.”

Sola forgets how to breathe. A whining fills her ears, almost drowning out the sound of her mère’s approach. “You…” Her mouth is dry. “You… and they… and you’re…”

Naberrie women don’t faint.

Unless, apparently, they have a very good reason.

Sola topples backward. Her last conscious moment is filled with the sound of very familiar Amatakkan curses and the sensation of hard prosthetic arms catching her.

As the blackness washes over her and swallows up everything else, she hears an imperious voice that must be Leia’s saying, “I told you there was a better way to break the news. That’s the very last time I let you and Luke make any of the plans.”

# # #

Luke surveys his previously unknown aunt and previously unknown grandmother, both of whom are currently unconscious. With infinite care, Ipu laid them both on the kitchen island after picking them up from where they fell in dead faints as soon as they figured out who he was.

“You know,” he says, “that could have gone better.”

From Ipu’s other side, Leia gives him a look. “No, really?”

“Sarcasm isn’t really going to help, you know.”

“It helps me.”

“I’m not sure how much better you think it could have gone,” Veers says, eyes roving around the kitchen like he expects there to be booby traps. Given that Luke’s never seen a more idyllic kitchen — all cozy stone walls and sun drenched marble counters — he’s certain there probably are booby traps. “I was expecting at least one instance of cardiac arrest.”

“As was I,” Piett agrees.

“Wow.” Han looks back and forth between both of them. “You two are real rays of sunshine, you know that?”

There’s movement from the far archway, the one that leads out of the kitchen. Luke turns toward it just in time to see a broad shouldered man with iron gray hair appear, take in the scene in one glance, snatch a knife from the counter, and hurl it in Ipu’s direction. Luke has just enough time to yell warning and try to call on the Force before Ipu snaps his hand up and catches the knife with the Force and with the same level of casualness as other people might catch a ball.

Peering past the blade, he grins in the man’s direct with the deepest fondness. “Ruwee. Père.”

Ruwee freezes, hand halfway to the knife block again. After a long moment, he creaks out, “Ani?”

“Please don’t faint,” Han interrupts, earning himself a sideways glare from Ipu that should still him but does not. Apparently, half the threat of Darth Vader depends on the mask, which Ipu doesn’t have any longer.

“I…” Ruwee coughs. “You’re dead. I’m dreaming.”

“You know,” Ipu says, “that’s exactly what Mère said.” He nods to Luke and Leia. “You’re never going to believe who they are.”

Han raises his eyes to the ceiling. “This is a recipe for more fainting.”

Ipu grabs him by the back of his vest and drags him behind him. “And you kissed my daughter, so you’re on thin ice.”

“Luke kissed her too, is he on thin ice?”

There’s a thump from Ruwee’s vicinity. Luke looks back at him to find him passed out on the floor.

Han throws up his hands. “What did I tell you?”

Ipu raises an arm and points at Han. “The chip may be out, scoundrel, but Force choking is not off the table.”

“Ipu,” Luke says. “He’s like my brother. You can’t kill him, I’ve already said.”

“Yes, and he must be like Leia’ brother too, since she keeps kissing him.”

“Oh, you have to let that go,” Ahsoka snaps, forging toward Ruwee.

“I will kill and eat you,” Leia says flatly. “Both of you,” she adds, with a harsh glare in Luke’s direction.

He’s about to send a cutting retort her way, maybe climb onto the currently crowded kitchen island for emphasis, but a scream from behind them cuts him off. Luke turns again to see a woman not many years older than him — in her early thirties, perhaps — who bears a striking resemblance to Leia standing frozen by the back door vestibule.

“Ah.” Ipu clears his throat, studying the woman for a spare second. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, that’s your cousin. You’ve grown so much, Pooja-girl. Please don’t faint.”

“Naberrie women don’t faint,” she says, very much in the tone of someone who is about to faint.

Luke gestures vaguely behind him, where his newfound grandmother and aunt are reposing. “That’s what they said.”

“You’re Uncle Ani?” Pooja says this with a raised eyebrow and a hand straying toward her bodice, where Luke is certain there is some kind of hidden weapon. “You don’t look like him.”

“Well, that’s a little insensitive,” Luke says, at the same time as Piett says, “He’s been through a great deal.”

“What, exactly?” Pooja still doesn’t drop her hand.

Piett opens his mouth, poised to explain, but Ipu just says, “A little number called Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

That’s about when Obi-Wan himself makes an appearance, materializing less than four feet from Pooja’s side. “That,” he says, folding his arms, “was entirely uncalled for.”

Ipu raises one of his prosthetic arms and gestures to his two prosthetic legs with his other hand. “So was this.”

Pooja gives Obi-Wan one wide eyed look, lets out a gasping little laugh, and folds up on the floor.

Everyone surveys her. Ahsoka presses her lips together and looks back and forth between Obi-Wan and Ipu. “Great job, you two,” she says in the particular tone of voice Luke has learned to fear. “You’re four for four. You want to hunt down the rest and try to make them pass out?”

“I place the blame for that one squarely at Obi-Wan’s feet,” Ipu says.

Obi-Wan slides him a bad tempered scowl. “Ah yes, blaming me. That’s so unusual for you. Why, you’ve never done that before!”

As Obi-Wan and Ipu square off, looking like they’re about to repeat whatever duel ended with Ipu missing several limbs, Ahsoka cups one hand over the edge of her vision, like she’s trying to block out the developing argument. “Was he always like this? Even when he was Vader?” she asks Piett and Veers helplessly.

Piett lifts a tired eyebrow. “My lady Jedi,” he says, “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

# # #

Hunter never spared much of a thought for what his retirement might look like. Frankly, he didn’t think he would make it to retirement, and he certainly didn’t think his retirement would begin with Tech — tragically-dead-Tech, fallen-to-his-death-Tech, Plan-99’d-Tech — showing up on Pabu with Omega, Crosshair (in-the-hands-of-the-Empire-Crosshair, angry-to-the-point-of-angina-Crosshair, hates-Hunter’s-guts-Crosshair), and a gaggle of Jedi younglings in tow.

Given that Hunter had been planning on a desperate rescue of Omega and Crosshair, possibly one that ended in him getting Plan 99’d, it was almost insulting for Tech to resurrect himself just to outdo him.

All these thoughts swiftly left his mind after Tech informed him — in his typical laidback deadpan — that he’d acquired these younglings from Quinlan Vos on the Path (Hunter didn’t feel like asking for more information at the time; he already felt like his brain was coming out of his ears listening to Tech’s explanation) who had acquired them from the Nabooian Queen’s Guard who had acquired them from the Naberrie family, and wasn’t that a can of worms Hunter didn’t want to unpack.

Luckily, he didn’t need to. Luckily, it was perfectly acceptable to just settle the younglings in on Pabu, and it was equally as acceptable to tell the residents of Pabu that Jedi were extremely useful to keep around, especially in the event of another tsunami.

It wasn’t a quiet retirement — his batch made sure of that — but it was still a retirement. It wasn’t without stress, from the Empire expanding outward each year to Tech and Phee getting married (which was more stressful, Hunter couldn’t say), but Hunter didn’t have many complaints.

Life settled into a routine that remained unbroken for the better part of twenty years. It was nice. It was comfortable. And it showed no signs of changing, until today.

Until a Rimmer man and woman showed up with an Imperial star destroyer, saying Anakin Skywalker had sent them to pick up Padme Amidala’s Jedi younglings, assuming they would like a part in overthrowing the Empire.

Hunter blinks at the man and woman, who introduced themselves as Owen and Beru lars. “Isn’t he… dead?” This is perhaps not the most pertinent part of what they said, but it is the part Hunter tripped over the most.

Beru shrugs her shoulders. “You’d really have to ask him that.”

“We were dead too,” Owen adds — unhelpfully. “For a while.”

“According to General Rex,” Beru goes on, “you and your brothers were rather dead as well.”

Hunter considers this. “Well kriff, all right then.”

# # #

Sheev awakens with an irritated jerk. The Force is loud around him, like a jabber of birds, and it makes his ears ring as he lies back in his bed, drawing the silken sheets around him. The palace — once the Jedi Temple — is filled only with its usual nighttime sounds.

There’s nothing that should have awakened him. And yet.

Out of habit, he reaches out through the Force and prods at Vader, who startles as though also dragged into wakefulness. Sheev is not above finding petty satisfaction in knowing that his apprentice is awake as well.

Master? comes the instant, obedient response.

Lord Vader. Sheev is not as adept in mental communication as Vader is — an eternal source of displeasure — but he still manages to convey the impression of his words. How goes the hunt?

After a short pause, Vader replies, It goes well, Master, but I still need more time. The boy has proved… evasive.

Perhaps that is why the Force is so unsettled. The boy has kicked holes in Sheev’s plans before — quite like his mother in that regard. Just get it done, he tells Vader. Bring the boy to me.

Your wish is my command, Master.

# # #

Anakin rolls over in his berth — well, in the berth Beru all but shoved him into after they got the Jedi younglings, who are not so young any longer, settled — and nudges Luke, who inexplicably flopped into the berth next to him and fell asleep several hours ago.

“Luke.” He nudges slightly harder, wondering if he’s going to need to call Leia to wake his heavy sleeping son with more violent means. “Little one, wake up.”

Luke turns over, teeters on the very edge of the berth, and would fall out if Anakin didn’t have a firm grip on the back of his shirt. “M’awake. W’going on? M’ready. M’fine.”

Anakin heaves a sigh. He keeps having flashes of understanding for Obi-Wan, and it’s unpleasant. “Oh, nothing. Palpatine just spoke to me.”

Luke startles hard enough for Anakin to lose his grip and thumps onto the floor. “Oh kriff.”

Chapter 12: How to Deal With People From Your Past While Moving Toward Your New Future

Chapter Text

As a young man, Hondo cared very little about the governments he lived under. In fact, he paid them no mind at all unless they got in the way of his business ventures or happened to do something he could exploit for profit. Even the Clone Wars weren’t much more than a blip on his radar. The most irritating thing about that time were the Jedi — well, and a few Sith — who seemed intent on making bothering him their job. And he couldn’t even drum up very much ill will toward them — the Jedi, at least — because most of the ones he meant were so likable. Dangerous? Yes. Vaguely homicidal at times, even if they pretended otherwise? Absolutely. Possessing both the power and the ability to either dismember him or lock him up? Certainly.

But fun at a party? Definitely.

That was perhaps why he felt personally offended when the Purge happened. All those potential party guests, wiped out in a single night? It didn’t bear thinking of. He poured out a drink for them and toasted to them, and then he had begun the long process of figuring out how to live under an empire.

As it turned out, it was much more difficult than living under a republic. For one thing, there was far less fun to be had — even apart from the lack of Jedi. There was even less money, which was perhaps worse.

As it stands now, the best venue for both fun and money Hondo has found is his nightclub on Canto Bight. It’s a bit more legitimate than he would like, but illegitimate operations continue to grow less and less profitable when weighed against the danger of the Empire’s eyes turning on him.

It’s not every pirate they do this to, of course. As far as he can tell, it’s only him and the unmitigated witch who stole his ship, half his crew, and his territory to go on her do-gooding missions who rate this kind of special attention.

Hondo supposes that he called Obi-Wan Kenobi his best friend one too many times for the Empire to let him go unwatched.

As for the witch, she’s just a pain in everyone’s kriffing tail — from the Empire to the spice dealers to the everyday people she tries to guilt into joining her crusade. It’s a miracle she hasn’t been caught and executed already.

Trying to keep his thoughts off her — he finds he drinks less when he does that — Hondo slips away from the late night crowd filling his nightclub and ducks into his office to review the books, as is his habit. After all, when it comes to dealing spice under the table, it’s easy to get ripped off. And it’s easy for people to notice you’re ripping them off if you’re not careful.

As he shuts the door behind him and makes his way toward his desk, a small sound — the sound of someone shifting from one foot to the other — reaches his ears. Adrenaline rushing, he spins, snatching for his gun, and is greeted by the glow of a decidedly red lightsaber and a face that, beneath copious scars, is familiar.

“Anakin… Skywalker?” Hondo takes several long steps back, until he bumps into his desk. “I thought you were… well, I heard you were dead — terribly sad, terribly!”

Anakin shrugs. “I got better.”

“I see. Very impressive, my friend.” Hondo’s gaze skips back to the lightsaber. “I do seem to remember your lightsaber being, ah, a different color. One that did not, ah, bring to mind that dreadfully irritating Count Dooku.”

Eyeing his lightsaber for a moment, Anakin says, “I’m working on it.”

“Admirable.” Hondo coughs. The office walls seem to be closing in on him a bit; it’s really too small to fit a resurrected Jedi and his lightsaber without giving Hondo a heart attack. “What brings you here? And back to life?”

“My children, mostly,” admits Anakin.

Hondo coughs again, and this time it turns into a choke. “Your what now? Forgive me, my friend, but I was laboring under the impression that — prior to your untimely demise, now undone, obviously — you had not experienced the joys of — that is to say, you hadn’t, ah…” He flounders, snatching for a way to put it that a Jedi will understand. “You are celibate, are you not?”

“Not nearly so much as all of us would have liked.” Something — some form — made of light materializes at Anakin’s side. In a moment, the shape becomes familiar — after all, Hondo spent the better part of two days recapturing him after various escape attempts once — but no less impossible. A delayed scream rips from Hondo’s throat. Years of spice use come back to bite him all at once and send him into a fit of coughing until he’s gripping his desk for support. “Kenobi?”

“In the flesh,” he says, still blue and still entirely immaterial.

“Try again,” retorts Anakin, snorting.

Perhaps Hondo’s high. Perhaps that’s the cause of all of this — a bad run of spice. “But you… you… you…” He gestures vaguely, his words failing him for entirely different reasons this time. “You!”

“Yes.” Obi-Wan lifts an eyebrow. “Me. I am dead, if that is the sentence whose conclusion you’re so endeavoring to reach. Thank you for the reminder.”

“I killed him,” offers Anakin, in exactly the same chirpy tone Hondo remembers him using whenever he berated Obi-Wan for one of their failed escape attempts.

“I let him kill me,” Obi-Wan corrects, holding up a single finger. “And as he did with all his homework assignments, he left the job unfinished.” He spreads his arm, shedding a corona of light. “As you can see.”

Anakin slides him a sideways look. “You know, if your homework assignments were interesting, I might have finished them.”

“And maybe if you weren’t such a kriffing nightmare as a child, I wouldn’t have gone gray early, but here we are.”

“Really? I can’t know things like that about him. It makes it so much worse that the Rebellion spent twenty years petrified of him.” Someone else steps into view, materializing from the shadows by the storage locker where Hondo keeps his personal belongings. It’s a young woman, small enough to step over if you were in a hurry, but despite that, something about her makes Hondo want to take a step back. As the faint light falls over her face, Hondo’s stomach drops.

Princess Leia Organa, one of the most wanted figures in the Rebellion.

In his nightclub.

When the Empire is already watching him.

It’s times like this when he understands why fate is pictured as a woman. Because apparently Lady Fate is laboring under the impression that he cheated on her and is intent on taking revenge.

Someone else, a towheaded young man with unassuming features and blue eyes that shine brightly in the dimness, moves into view. “Come on, Leia,” he says with a lopsided grin. “The Empire is terrified of me, and I wasn’t exactly one for school either. Aunt Beru had to drag me sometimes.”

“The Empire is not terrified of you,” grunts Anakin. “At most, they’re irritated by you.”

“No, Ipu. That’s you. And you find me delightful, don’t even pretend.”

Anakin just glares, and Hondo finally places the man’s face. He knows it from a wanted poster that’s been circulating the holonet for the better part of three years.

Luke Skywalker, destroyer of the Death Star.

Fate really does hate him. “A thousand pardons,” he says, spreading his hands, “but I just remembered that I, ah, have a business to run, and this business doesn’t involve a visit from the ISB, so if I’m afraid I’m going to have to request that all of you leave before things become unpleasant — I do have bouncers, after all. Lovely men, but perhaps not to be tangled with.” He gestures toward the door. “It is truly wonderful to see you both again and to make the acquaintance of such courageous rebels, but I am not a rebel. I am only a very old former pirate, so —”

There’s a thud on the table behind him. Hondo turns to see Ahsoka Tano crouched in the exact center of it, leaving bootprints all over his flimsiwork. By all accounts, she was hiding in the ceiling vents.

“Lady Tano?” Hondo eyes her. She eyes him right back, with the exact same predatory gaze that made him fond of her in the first place. “Were you not… also… dead?”

Ahsoka gives him a raised brow ridge. “Didn’t Ezra ever mention me?”

“Wait.” Leia holds up a hand. “He and Ezra know each other?”

“Oh, Hondo knows everyone,” Ahsoka answers offhandedly. She’s still watching Hondo with that particular glint in her eye — the one he remembers seeing right before she upended all his plans.

“Yes, I do,” he agrees, drifting towards his office door before he remembers that Anakin and Obi-Wan — well, Obi-Wan’s ghost — are still standing in front of it. “And now I can happily add Luke Skywalker and — ah, that is your son, Skywalker! I thought it was an amusing coincidence before — Leia Organa to that wonderful list. As I said, though, we must say our —”

“We need your help,” interrupts Luke. “There’s a pirate crew, harrying the Empire. They have information we need, but the captain isn’t interested in working with the Rebellion. We heard that you know him — or used to. And that he stole half your crew.”

“And my ship,” Hondo snaps. Not that woman. Not that witch woman again. Not even for his Jedi friends. There are limits. “I asked that kriffing woman a thousand times if she was tangentially related to the Nightsisters of Dathomir, and every time she denied it, but a man knows. Lording about as if she’s the kriffing queen of the galaxy, never letting anyone see her face, taking my crew and all my loot? No.” He folds his arms. “She’s bad for business. It is completely out of the question, Skywalker. Even for you. The great Hondo Ohnaka doesn’t associate with his enemies except to exact revenge.”

“You don’t want to say no to Luke and Leia,” says Ahsoka, lazily resting her chin in one hand. “Or me.”

Hondo sighs. “If you will remember, Lady Tano, I was quite successful in turning you into a business opportunity —”

“I’m trying not to remember that.” Ahsoka shows her teeth. “You don’t want me to remember it. But that’s not the point. The point is Luke and Leia know Darth Vader. Personally. He’s very — how do you say? — attached to them.” She drums her fingers against her cheek.

Surrounded as he is by Jedi and rebels, Hondo suddenly feels very unsafe. “I remember you being a better liar, Lady Tano.”

Ahsoka points toward Anakin. “He’s Darth Vader.”

As if to prove her words, Anakin waves his red lightsaber. Obi-Wan only pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m getting better from that too,” says Anakin with a smile that is two steps past terrifying. “But I could, you know. Relapse.”

“Ipu,” Luke says in a wheedling tone.

“Luke.” Ahsoka holds up a hand. “The adults are talking.”

“Ahsoka.” This is said in an annoyed tone.

“I’m sorry.” Leia leans toward Luke. “You’re objecting to our father finally putting his past as Darth Vader to good use?”

“Our?” Hondo chokes, at the same time as Luke groans, “Leia.”

Obi-Wan folds his hands into his misty sleeves. “Ah, it’s so wonderful to have everyone back together, isn’t it? Now, where is this witch captain you speak of?”

Hondo gives him a dark look. “You may be my best friend, Kenobi, but I will still kill you.”

“Been there, done that, got the annoying poltergeist,” answers Anakin. “Where’s the witch?”

Giving in is probably easier than going up against one living Jedi, one dead one, and Darth Vader himself. Probably trying to outfight the destroyer of the Death Star himself isn’t the best move either. “She’s in the Outer Rim, certainly kriffing up every lowlife’s chance at a decent profit.”

“I like her already,” says Ahsoka. “But we need a more specific location.”

Just as Hondo opens his mouth to answer, Anakin stumbles back, one hand going to his head.

“Ipu?” Luke’s brow is an immediate furrow of worry. “What’s wrong?”

Anakin casts a single glance in Obi-Wan’s direction, and they have a wordless conversation — a talent of theirs that Hondo remembers hating. A split second later, Obi-Wan says, “We need to get back to the Executor.”

“What?” Leia turns sharp eyes toward him. “Why?”

Anakin’s answer is a single word, spat from between his teeth, and that one word is enough to make Hondo regret every single choice that led him to get dragged into yet another Skywalker-Kenobi-Tano debacle.

“Palpatine.”

# # #

“This isn’t going to work,” Leia says, tucking herself deeper into the corner she and Luke found among the chaos that is Ipu’s personal communications room. “It’s going to blow up in our faces, and we’re all going to die. That’s a fact.”

“You know, you should be careful saying stuff like that,” says Luke as he folds his arms and watches Ipu, several clones, Uncle Owen, Ahsoka, and Ruwee Naberrie collectively work to lock an equal parts shell shocked and skeptical Han into Vader’s deactivated but reassembled — courtesy of a reluctant Peli — suit. While Ipu technically could have fit back into it, Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen both forbade it after Ipu offered and glared at Obi-Wan, like it was somehow his fault that Ipu even thought about it. “Last time you said that about one of my plans, you ended up looking really stupid.”

Leia pins him with a glare. “This is Vader’s — our father’s — plan, not yours.”

“Yeah, but we come from him.”

“That does not mean he knows what he’s doing.” She waves her hand vaguely to encompass the Executor. “All this proves that.”

“Hey, it wasn’t his fault —”

“The man didn’t clock a Sith Lord —”

“Oh, like you would have —”

“I like to think —”

“Leia, it’s only easy for you because you’ve always known Palpatine was evil — it was entirely different when —”

“Oh, please —”

“It was!”

“Hey!” Han’s voice cuts their argument off. He’s almost in the suit. Only his face is visible, looking rather red and sweaty. “Could we all focus on me, please? I’m the one who gets to have a nice chat with death himself!”

“I’ve had tea with him,” offers Obi-Wan from his perch an improbable distance from the floor. Luke thinks he’s taken to floating just to annoy Ipu, who keeps peering up at him with narrowed eyes. “Once or twice. It was supremely unpleasant, but he’s hardly death.”

“Besides, you’re not going to be the one talking,” Anakin adds. “You’re going to just be saying what I feed to you, while everyone else stays out of range of the camera’s eye. Do you think you can handle that?” The cool look he follows his words up with seems to indicate he does not, in fact, think Han can handle it.

Luke rolls his eyes. Beside him, Leia seethes.

“Of course I can handle it,” answers Han, with equal coolness. “I’m a phenomenal liar.”

Leia snorts. “That’s debatable.”

Han throws her a wounded look. “I thought you were on my side. You know, you’re more like your father than —”

“Don’t finish that sentence.”

“Here.” Ipu steps in between them and shoves the suit’s mask over Han’s face, latching it in place. “Problem solved.”

Uncle Owen raises an eyebrow as Han takes a disoriented step back. “Did that make you feel better? Heal some of your issues?”

“No.” Ipu cracks his knuckles. “It did make me feel better about him sucking my daughter’s face off.”

“I did not —” Han begins at full volume before realizing that his voice is modulated like Ipu’s used to be. He falls silent for a moment before coughing a few times, a sound that’s strangely garbled by the suit’s vocoder. “Well. That’s strange. And how did you see in this thing? Everything’s red, and there’s all these readouts — too many for me to —”

“You don’t have the Force.” Ipu has the expression of a tooka who just outsmarted the mouse it was chasing. “You’re just not quick enough on the uptake.”

Han turns toward Ipu. Whatever glare he’s giving him is magnified tenfold by the mask, but Ipu doesn’t flinch. Finally Han twists to look at Leia and says, “I hate Force sensitives.”

“Wonderful.” Ruwee squeezes pass Ipu and turns Han toward the big holotable set up in the middle of the room. “You and the Emperor will get along swimmingly.”

Just then, the holotable flares blue, signaling an incoming call. Luke shoves off from the wall, Leia following him, and hurries across the room, to where most everyone — from the high ranking clones to the Naberries to Piett to even Hondo are gathered. They’ve picked a spot neatly behind the holotable, out of Palpatine’s view but unfortunately — or fortunately, depending on how one looked at it — squarely in Han’s view.

“This is it,” Ipu says when it’s only him and Obi-Wan left near Han. He claps him on the shoulder. “Don’t screw it up, or else we’re all dead.”

“Thank you,” answers Han in a flat voice that is greatly helped by the vocoder. “That is really kriffing helpful.”

“Look on the bright side: you might die.”

“How is that a bright side?” Han’s voice is only a few notes below a screech.

Ipu shrugs. “I didn’t say it was a bright side for you. May the Force be with you,” he adds before hurrying to join everyone else out of view. Obi-Wan floats after him in a leisurely fashion, as if he needs to hide and can’t simply dematerialize.

At prompting from a tired but on edge Piett, Han answers the call, immediately dropping to his knees like Ipu instructed him to.

Which isn’t horrifying at all. Reflexively, Luke tucks himself closer to Ipu, ignoring it when Ipu does the gazing-at-him-like-he’s-a-miracle thing again.

A huge hologram of Palpatine’s head bursts into view, soaring up toward the room’s ceiling. Everyone behind the hologram takes a long step back, clumping together like they’re all old friends rather than recent allies, and there’s the muffling feeling — like someone’s stuffing Luke’s ears full of cotton — of every Jedi in the room lays a shield over everything. Ipu’s shield, directed at Han, is the strongest of all, overlaying everything else with false intentions and sensations.

It’s so seamless that Luke could almost believe that nothing had changed. That Ipu was still Vader, that the Imperials were still a monolith of oppressive figures, rather than people like Piett and Veers.

Of course, being huddled next to his recently resurrected aunt and uncle breaks the illusion somewhat. So does having his ipu’s — formerly Darth Vader’s — hand firmly knit in the back of his shirt as Ipu whispers into a comm connected to Han’s earpiece.

There’s something about Luke’s life that smacks of divine comedy, and one day, when he’s very old and gray, he’s going to laugh about it.

He’d laugh about it now, but then the Emperor would hear, and they’d all die.

That wouldn’t be particularly funny.

“Master,” says Han in Vader’s voice, parroting what Ipu is whispering into his earpiece. “I await your bidding. What are your commands for me?”

Near Luke, Leia mimes throwing up. Ahsoka leans closer to Ipu and whispers, “‘I await your bidding?’ Where was that attitude when Obi-Wan was around?”

Obi-Wan materializes next to her. “I am still around, little one.”

Ahsoka flaps a hand at him, careless to how it passes through him. “Irrelevant. But, Force, Anakin, did you actually talk to him like that?”

Ipu lifts his comm above his head to keep it out of Ahsoka’s range. “He’s going to hear you,” he hisses, though it’s unclear whether he’s talking about Han or Palpatine. “Stars, you didn’t grow up at all, did you?”

Han’s gaze, perplexed even through the mask, flicks briefly in their direction. Ipu shoves the comm back against his mouth. “Don’t say that, you idiot!”

“Apprentice.” Palpatine’s voice is like an insect crawling into Luke’s ear, dry and scratchy and wrong. “I hear from my moffs that there was an insurrection on Tatooine. One you put down. Personally.”

“Yes, that is true,” says Han, again repeating what Anakin coaches him to say. “A rebel cell attempted to overthrow the Imperial contingent on Tatooine, but they were dealt with. Swiftly and without mercy.”

Leia cranes her head over her shoulder and mouths the last phrase at Ipu with exaggerated, mocking facial expressions. Luke steps on her toe. Only years of training stop Leia from crying out, but they also add her in quick retaliation in the form of an elbow to Luke’s ribs.

Aunt Beru steps in between them.

“I see.” Palpatine’s hooded head tilts. “And what were you doing near Tatooine, apprentice?”

“My search for the boy,” Han answers. “I thought he might have returned to his homeworld, but I was wrong. Unfortunately, I’ve lost track of him.”

As one, everyone looks at Luke and Ipu, who are currently standing less than a foot apart. Obi-Wan coughs pointedly. Ipu gives him a hooded look.

“The search for the boy is taking too long,” says Palpatine. There is a not at all concealed note of anger in his voice. “One would almost think you were deliberately hiding him from me, apprentice.”

There’s a muffled snort from someone in the depths of the huddled group — probably from Fives — followed by a muted stream of amused chirps from Artoo and a whispered but no less superior, “This is not a laughing matter, R2-D2,” from Threepio.

“He’s got it all upside down,” murmurs Zev, ignoring the quelling glare Veers directs at him. “Luke’s hiding Vader.”

“I assure you, Master,” says Han. “I am hiding nothing. Everything I am, everything I have, is yours. It has always been so.”

Obi-Wan drifts over to Ipu. “I left you alone with this man?”

Ipu slides him a sideways look and briefly mutes his comm. “Yes. Bad decisions were made all around.”

“Perhaps.” There’s a smile in Palpatine’s voice. “If that is, then you must find him, and you must bring him to me — before the Death Star brings us our final victory. He will bear witness to the end of the Rebellion. Do not disappoint me.”

“I swear it, Master,” Han says. “The boy will be yours.”

“Two weeks. You will find the boy by then. Try to remember what happens when you fail me, apprentice. It should not be hard, as you are still recovering from the last time you disappointed me.”

Han, possibly because Ipu directed him to or possibly just by instinct, dips his head. “I will do all that you have asked, Master. I swear it.”

“We shall see,” Palpatine says, and then the hologram flickers out.

In the moment of silence that follows, everyone looks at Ipu. Ipu lifts his gaze from his calm and lifts both eyebrows. “What?”

In a swift flurry of movement, Leia closes the distance between them and thumps against Ipu’s chest, wrapping her arms around him. Luke almost yanks her away — one can never tell when Leia might decide to stab someone — before he realizes it’s an embrace, not a murder attempt.

Ipu hugs her back, stumbling back a step from the force of her hug, and turns wide, vaguely panicked eyes toward Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, who just shrug helplessly.

“I believe you were a different person with the chip in,” Leia says, muffled against Ipu’s shirt. “And I forgive you, and I’m sorry I tried to shoot you, and I want to kill that kriffing monster.”

Ipu clears his throat and pats the top of her head awkwardly, still sending pleading looks in Obi-Wan’s direction. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. We’ll… we’ll kill him together.” He glances at Luke. “The three of us. As a family.”

From the center of the group, Hondo, who had been pinned between Cody, Rex, and Echo — with Kix’s hand shoved firmly over his mouth — finally wrests himself free, tearing Kix’s hand away. “I have changed my mind,” he announces to the room at large. “I have decided I want no involvement in this venture. I hope there are no hard feelings, please do know I hold you all in the highest regard —”

Ahsoka snags hold of his arm as he makes a break for the airlock. “You don’t have a choice.”

Piett gives Hondo a look full of fellow feeling. “Welcome to the Rebellion.”

Chapter 13: How (Not) To Teach Your Children About the Facts of Life

Chapter Text

“I would like to state for the record,” Hondo says as they all huddle in the transport they took from the Executor’s hangar, “that I did not consent to being here.”

Sitting beside him, Zev leans back against the wall. Exciting as all this is, being stuck in close quarters with his father is starting to grate on his nerves. “Yes, Hondo,” he says. “We know. We knew when you tried to steal a TIE fighter. We knew when you kicked my dad in the groin and tried to commandeer this shuttle. Thank you for that, by the way.” He rolls his head to direct a smile at Dad as he waits in the forward section of the shuttle. “That was… healing for me.”

Dad gives him an unimpressed look. “We’re on the same side now, Zevulon.”

“Zev.”

Dad draws in a deep breath and opens his mouth.

Leia, sitting across from Zev and beside Luke, Vader, and Han, raises a hand. “No. You two cannot do this. I won’t have it.”

“Oh, so you can fight with your dad, but I can’t fight with mine?” Zev crosses his arms. “That’s a double standard.”

Next to his foot, Artoo beeps. PADM3 excelled at double standards too.

“Oh Force.” Obi-Wan, floating near the forward section of the ship, pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s a testament to what Zev’s experienced in the past few days that having conversations with the ghost of one of the great Jedi Masters of the Clone Wars is merely a blip on his radar. “I had forgotten about that. She was the worst person to have an argument with.”

“Try being married to her,” Vader says, leaning back against the wall with half lidded eyes. If Zev wasn’t still leery of directly addressing him, he’d ask him when the last time he slept was.

Obi-Wan narrows his eyes. “I thought we agreed to avoid that subject.”

“Oh, is someone still touchy about that?” Vader raises the stray hairs that are all that remain of his eyebrows. “Did your dedicated Council member self want to be read in on the situation?”

“I would have liked to have been consulted before you —”

“Oh, don’t you dare pretend like you would have had a good solution. I seem to remember a certain Mandalorian duch*ess and how your only plan was trading barbs or avoiding her — and I think we both know you two were more than friends.”

At this point, Zev is leaning forward, and so are Luke, Leia, and Han. Even Dad is trying to conceal an interested look. Zev can practically see Hondo’s ears perking up.

Leia gives Obi-Wan a wide smile that’s closer to a wolf’s grin than anything else. “Would this be duch*ess Satine of Mandalore.”

Obi-Wan folds his ghostly hands primly in front of him. “That is immaterial.”

Leia purses her lips. “So that’s a yes.”

Just as Obi-Wan opens his mouth to respond, the proximity alarm screams out once before there’s the jolt of another — larger — ship forcibly docking with their drifting transport. With a resigned air, Hondo checks his chrono. “That took her longer than usual. Typically, her witch senses alert her to someone encroaching on her territory much sooner than this.” He directs a sunny smile at Vader. “I hope you know I will immediately throw you to the proverbial wolves.”

Tiredly, Vader stands up, tucking a placid Luke and a resistant Leia behind him and facing the transport’s rear hatch, which is already showing the telltale signs of someone on the other side cutting through it with a laser torch. “Yes, Hondo, I assumed it would be business as usual.”

Hondo takes a long step to the side, hiding himself behind Dad’s broad frame as he moves to stand beside Vader. “How dare you make such a libelous yet accurate assessment of my mode of operation,” he says, not sounding particularly offended. “Kenobi, are you still letting him run wild?”

With hooded eyes, Obi-Wan gestures to his translucent body. “Clearly.”

That’s when a black-edged chunk of durasteel detaches itself from the rear hatch and topples inwards with a floor-shaking thud that moves Obi-Wan to dematerialize hastily. A massive hangar, curved in the style of Hondo’s old saucer-shaped flagship, opens up beyond the gap. It’s chock full of crates and commandeered fighters and transports, mostly of the Imperial variety.

Naturally, what Zev notices the most is the closely clustered group of pirates — all women of various species — standing on the other side of the gap, all pointing blasters at him and the others. Their sharp gazes pass right over Vader and Dad — unrecognizable sans Vader’s suit and Dad’s uniform — and Luke and Leia — mostly unseen behind Vader — and fix on Hondo, who spreads his arms and calls up a gregarious laugh.

“My ladies!” he says. “It is a delight to make your acquaintance again.” He addresses a young Pantoran with bright gold eyes and lilac hair in many dozens of braids especially. “Nyssa, my darling! How are you?”

Nyssa gives him a look that’s flatter than flimsi. “You mean since you promised to show me the stars and instead marooned me on a moon so you could steal my share from the Pantora bank job that I arranged?” She tips her head to one side, braids falling over her shoulder. “I’m great, thanks.”

“You know what they say about forgiveness,” Hondo tries, as Leia glares at him.

Nyssa powers up her blaster. “You know what they say about the effectiveness of a blaster shot to the head.”

Hondo ducks lower behind Dad, holding up his hands. “Is it possible for us to talk about this like civilized people?”

“We already did. Captain told you not to show your sorry face in her space again, or else.” Nyssa takes aim. “Welcome to else.”

Vader jerks forward, in the brazen sort of way that makes Zev think he doesn’t actually remember he’s no longer wearing an armored life support suit. “My ladies,” he says, “while I’m sure this man has wronged you in uncountable ways and while I’m sure we both share the burning desire to keelhaul him, you can’t kill him. He brought us here against his will. We’ve come to parlay with your captain.”

Nyssa looks him up and down. “And who are you?”

Vader opens his mouth, but Luke, apparently uncertain of exactly what he’s going to say, steps in front of him, dragging Leia with him, and says, “We’re from the Rebellion.”

Nyssa eyes him and Leia without the faintest hint of recognition. Clearly, she and her friends don’t spend their free time checking out wanted posters on the holonet, which Zev supposes makes sense. From what he remembers, this pirate crew composes a good chunk of the current wanted posters, so there’s not much reason for them to keep up with the ever-shifting collage of faces. They already know they’re among them.

“We don’t work with the Rebellion, says Nyssa, while her compatriots nod along. “Captain doesn’t like them.”

Han sighs through his nose. “And why would that be? We’re very nice.”

Nyssa narrows her eyes. “You’re interfering. And self-righteous.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Leia says, lifting her chin. “Not all of us can have criminal records.”

Luke touches her arm. “Leia, we all have criminal records. It comes with the territory.”

“My point,” Leia answers through her teeth, “still stands.”

“So does mine,” Nyssa says, with no small amount of cattiness. “We don’t work with the Rebellion, so we’ll be taking Hondo and sending you on your way.”

“Hey, you can’t have Hondo! He’s ours.” Luke has his immoveable face on. Zev sighs and readies himself for a fight. Nyssa doesn’t know Luke, so she’ll probably think she can persuade him. Zev, however, has watched Luke use that look on Imperial officers, and has only narrowly escaped from the ensuing firefights. He’s relatively sure Luke used this same look on Darth Vader himself, and that got them all here.

Luke will win this standoff. The only question is how much shooting that victory will entail and how fast Zev will need to run.

Instead of responding, Nyssa lifts a finger to her ear, face darkening as whoever is on the other end relays information to her. She drops her hand and lifts her blaster higher. “From the Rebellion, are you? Then why did our long range sensors just pick up a star destroyer lying in wait for us?”

As one, everyone turns to look at Veers, who gave Piett the necessary specs on a saucer class ship’s long range sensors to help him to gauge where in the quadrant the Executor would be out of range. Veers turns to look at Hondo, who shrinks back a bit.

“How was I supposed to guess that the witch had enhanced the sensors?” he says, spreading his hands. “I would have expected her to break them!”

“Take them,” Nyssa snaps, gesturing with her blaster.

The pirates surge forward. Vader looks on the edge of drawing his saber, and Zev certainly isn’t going to stop him.

Then Obi-Wan materializes, eliciting a volley of screams from the pirates and sending them jerking backwards. Ignoring them, he folds his arms and taps one misty boot. “I told you working with Hondo was a bad idea, Anakin.”

Vader draws his burning red lightsaber, which sends the pirates scrambling back farther. “You know, I thought you’d be less annoying dead, but now you can just show up wherever you want and berate me!”

“I couldn’t do that before?”

Vader growls. “Locked doors worked before!”

“Ipu.” Luke tugs on his sleeve as the pirates regroup. “What’s the plan?” He makes a vague gesture at the lightsaber. “It can’t involve that.”

Leia sticks her lips out in a pout. “Why not?”

Before Luke can answer, Vader throws up a hand. The pirates go flying backwards into the cargo hold, skidding across the floor. “Scatter and try to make it to the bridge!” He grabs Luke and Leia — leaving Han to hoof it on his own with Artoo rolling along behind him — and pelts across the cargo hold with more speed and grace than someone in possession of no organic limbs should be able to achieve.

Zev stands where he is for a moment, even as the pirates begin to pick themselves back up. He cranes his head back over his shoulder to look at Dad. “Is he crazy?”

Dad shakes his head. “Yes.”

“He was, ah, worse when he was younger,” offers Hondo, watching Vader grow smaller.

Zev takes off running. There doesn’t seem to be anything else to do.

At this point, all he wants to do is not get shot and — hopefully — beat his dad to the bridge.

The latter objective is more principle than anything else.

# # #

When Han was small, he daydreamed about what his life might look like in the far future, when he finally shook the dust — and slime — of Corellia off his feet. He daydreamed a lot, and he had a multitude of pet scenarios that he liked to visit on a regular basis. They were creative. Some were even outlandish.

However. None of them even came close to mimicking how his life actually turned out. If he could go back in time and tell his child self that in a couple of decades he would be sprinting through a pirate ship with a princess, a Tatooian hick turned Jedi, an opinionated astromech, and Darth Vader himself (and that, somehow, all three of those people were related to each other), his younger self would have laughed in his face and probably stolen his wallet for good measure.

Nonetheless, here he is, towing Leia along behind him to compensate for her tiny little legs and keeping one eye on Luke to make sure he doesn’t wander off and start another offshoot of the Rebellion among the unlikeliest people in the galaxy. Vader could, of course, outpace everyone, but he is deliberately slowing down to stay near his children.

It would be endearing, if he would make it less obvious that he’s slowing down for them.

A blaster shot impacting with the wall beside Han’s ear as he lurches around a corner neatly steals that annoyance from his mind. Yelling, he hauls Leia sideways at the same time as Vader makes a grab for her and Luke, even snatching halfheartedly at Han, which is touching. Ignoring everyone’s attempts to shield him, Luke wriggles free of Vader’s grip and steps back out into the corridor they just vacated and directs his best glare — which, when compared to Leia’s, isn’t really a glare at all — at the cluster of pirates chasing them.

“We came to ask for your help,” he yells.

“Then why,” howls Nyssa in response, firing again — Luke’s Jedi reflexes are all that save him — “did you bring a kriffing star destroyer into our backyard?”

“It’s not dangerous! And, in all fairness, you weren’t supposed to know about it until we could explain. It’s just that Zev’s dad is kriffing incompetent!”

“Hey!” Zev appears in the opening to the corridor across from them, jerking back before Nyssa can shoot him. Veers is just behind him, not looking nearly as winded as Han feels, which, given that he’s about thirty years older than Han, is just irritating. “You can’t talk like that about my dad!”

Luke flings his arms out to his side. “Yesterday you called him a fascist and an absentee father!”

“That’s just what he is. It’s not an insult. And I can say it, you can’t!”

Apparently deciding to ignore this encouraging sign of familial loyalty, Veers grabs Zev from behind at the same time as Vader bodily picks Luke up. “I am not absentee,” Veers snaps, flinging something like a look of fellow feeling in Vader’s direction. “If anything, you are an absentee son. I would have showed up at the school plays, if you hadn’t run away from the school and joined the Rebellion!”

“Oh, you’re always throwing that in my face!”

“Fight about this another time,” Vader shouts, in a display of what Han feels is stunning hypocrisy, given his every interaction with Obi-Wan Kenobi. “Run now!”

As the pirates split off into two groups, one half dashing after Zev and Veers and the other half chasing Han and the others, Han purposefully puts himself at the back, mostly to keep Leia from turning right around and giving the pirates a piece of her mind for shooting at her brother.

Han would like to think Leia has an accurate enough conception of her own mortality to not do that, but the past three years have taught him that she does not.

They race down the curving corridor that hopefully spirals inward toward the bridge, dodging blaster shots all the way. Artoo keeps up a steady scream as he glides along beside Han, keeping a breakneck pace, but after a while, the scream starts to sound more like a gleeful whoop than anything else. His ideas of fun have always been strange, and if he is indeed Vader’s old droid, that makes him make much more sense.

No wonder he’s always gotten along with Luke so well. Aside from the brief moonlighting as a genocidal maniac — and apparently that wasn’t even Vader’s fault — Vader and Luke are basically the same person.

“This way!” Vader skids to a halt, the heavy boots he fit over his prosthetics clomping against the floor. He forces an airlock open, shoving his fingers into the gap and ripping it the two halves apart with the screech of resisting durasteel. Han has time to very briefly wish he had prosthetic arms that gave their owner the strength to bench press a TIE fighter before Vader is bracing himself against one side of the doorway to hold the airlock open and shoving all three of them through the opening. Artoo skims in after them, and Vader throws himself through a second later.

The airlock slams back together just as the pirates come into view, cutting off the curses they hurl in Han and everyone else’s direction.

Han braces his hands against his knees, breathing hard. “Well,” he manages, “that went well.”

“That,” Vader says, “is the last time I let anyone other than Piett do anything regarding the Executor.”

A clear, carrying voice behind them makes everyone jump. Han, along with Leia, snatches for his blaster, and Luke draws his lightsaber. Vader doesn’t draw his as he spins around, but that is probably because a red lightsaber is not going to help their case any at this particular moment.

Upon whirling around, Han is greeted by a vaulted space — the dome set into the top of the saucer. There are more pirates clustered about different consoles — still mostly women, though there are a few men scattered about — and a slim woman stands in front of the ornate captain’s chair. A long red coat of nerf leather sweeps around her legs, and a gold mask shaped like a shriek hawk's face and beak obscures her features.

The mask does not, however, conceal the judgment that’s written in every line of her stance. “Welcome to my bridge,” she says, folding her arms against her chest. “I take it you found it all right? You must have experience with this class of ship. Most Imperials get lost along the way.”

“And get shot,” adds a young blue twi’lek in the coat and hat of a first mate. “Most of them get shot.”

“Well, you’ll be pleased to know that your people gave it their best try,” Vader says. Then, apropos of nothing, he says, “Your name wouldn’t happen to be Numa, would it?”

The twi’lek lifts a brow. “And what business is it of yours?”

Vader nods. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I have a couple of friends who are dying to see you, and they don’t even know it.”

“Fascinating, I’m sure.”

“Names are Waxer and Boil.”

Numa blanches. “You… How do you know those names?”

“We told you,” Luke says. “We’re part of the Rebellion.”

“Oh, and you managed to commandeer an entire star destroyer?” The captain tilts her head to one side. “I’ve heard better yarns from drunk spacers.”

Numa touches the captain’s shoulder. “Waxer and Boil are clones,” she whispers. “Imperials don’t learn clones’ names.”

“And if we were Imperials,” Leia says, “we would have shot all of you already. We’re here because we want to talk to you. Not kill you.” She narrows her eyes. “Though my desire for violence is rising the longer you talk.”

At this, a smile twitches on the captain’s lips. “I see.”

“Please just listen to us,” Luke says, taking several inadvisable steps forward. “You know about the Death Star. You know what’s coming for the galaxy, and I think you know that you need help. You’ve already been trying to take it down on your own, and it hasn’t been working, has it?”

“You know a lot about us, little one,” says the captain. Han can’t help but catch a similarity to Vader in the tone of her voice toward Luke. What is it with this kid and charming violent leaders?

“Well, you’re not exactly subtle,” Han offers. When the captain’s masked gaze turns on him, he adds, “No offense. We’re all big fans of your work.”

“If we wanted to attack you,” Vader says, “we already would have. And if we were trying to sneak onboard, we couldn’t have done so more incompetently.”

The captain nods. “I can’t disagree with that. Fine. I’m willing to listen.” She reaches for her mask. Jerking a little, Numa reaches out a hand to stop her, but the captain waves her away. “It’s fine, Numa,” she says, answering the question of the twi’lek’s name. “I don’t do business with people I can’t trust with my face.”

“And if we end up not being able to trust them?” asks Numa.

“That’s easy,” the captain replies. She smiles at Han and the others as she unties her mask. “We’ll just shoot them.”

Han is gathering a snarky response when the captain’s mask finally falls away from her face, revealing a middle aged woman with curly brown hair swept back in a braid. She has slender eyebrows and a gracefully pointed chin. Though she’s no longer young, she’s no less beautiful for it.

She looks rather like Leia.

Vader’s mouth falls open. His face turns whiter than the snow on Hoth. “Padme?”

Beside him, Obi-Wan materializes, similarly open-mouthed. “Padme?”

In a querulous and incredulous beep, Artoo says, PADM3?

The woman’s brow furrows. “Who the hell is Padme?” she asks.

# # #

“Move over.” Zev, having fought his way to the bridge much later than any self-respecting rebel ever should have, hops up onto the console that Leia and Luke, along with Han, have commandeered. He shoulders into the space between her and Luke, setting his chin on his hand and watching the drama unfold before them. “So. How long do you think they’re going to keep doing this?”

Leia twirls a lock of hair around her finger and shakes her head. “I have no idea.”

“Do you think they’re ever going to include us?”

“Luke, they didn’t even include us in our own genealogy until recently.”

Ever since Obi-Wan blundered into visibility once more — honestly, he always manifests at the worst of times, and Leia is certain it is on purpose — the bridge has been in chaos. Vader — Father, and Light, she is not calling him that — is chasing the pirate captain around and around the circular bridge, with her people trailing after her and Artoo bringing up the rear, burbling like he just got the best gift of his life. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan is dithering about at the captain’s side while he floats several feet off the ground.

It’s very clearly putting everyone who isn’t used to having a ghost hanging around on edge, but Obi-Wan makes no effort to dematerialize.

Last of all, Veers is set up near the bridge’s entrance, possibly in an attempt to cover their exit. He has one hand locked around Hondo’s coat collar.

Neither of them look happy about it, but that could also be due to the untraditional way they entered the bridge — namely by tumbling through a vent in the ceiling and landing with a thud that Leia can’t imagine was easy on their old bones.

Come to think of it, she has no idea how old Hondo is. Given that the Clone Wars were over two decades ago and everyone has been acting like Hondo was a fixture in the galaxy long before they broke out, she’s inclined to think he’s much older than he looks.

Tearing his eyes from the scene before him, Veers asks Hondo through his teeth, “Is this something your Ezra Bridger would have done?”

Hondo puts his nose in the air. “I cannot believe you are focusing on these petty things when something so important is unfolding before us.”

Veers sighs. “It helps that I don’t understand what is… unfolding.”

Hondo lays a hand against his chest. “How can you be so uninformed? Don’t you see? The witch has been the lovely Padme Amidala this whole time, and now she and Anakin Skywalker are reunited!” Hondo wipes a tear from his eye as the alleged former senator of Naboo climbs on top of her captain’s chair and attempts to brain Vader with her blaster while Vader holds off the other pirates with the Force. “You know, I always knew they were in love — Skywalker, he, ah, talks in his sleep when he is drugged.” Hondo smiles. “Young love. It was so beautiful.”

Vader pauses in trying to climb onto the chair next to the captain and throws an aggrieved look in Hondo’s direction. “You tried to sell me to the Separatists!”

“That had nothing at all to do with my affection for you and Lady Amidala,” Hondo yells back. “I’ve always rooted for you both!”

“Oh kriff you,” Vader responds as the captain leaps from her chair to a console, howling out a swear at him along the way. “Padme, it’s me. I can explain about the whole choking thing, and if you give me ten minutes, I can find a way to blame it on Obi-Wan!”

Obi-Wan floats four feet above the ground and glares down at Vader. “How in the stars are you going to manage to blame it on me?”

Vader stabs a finger at Obi-Wan in exactly the same way he used to stab it at moffs in the Senate. “You left her for dead!”

“I took her to a hospital to have your babies.” Unwittingly revealing just how much he and Vader must have rubbed off on each other in their younger years, Obi-Wan jabs his finger at Luke and Leia. Luke looks ruffled; Leia just hunches her shoulders and scowls at the finger. This is yet more she and Luke have been left out of. No one has even bothered to introduce them to the woman — who happens to look very little like the Padme Amidala found in old footage — that is currently running about the bridge like a chicken with her head cut off.

“Yeah, and then you left here!”

“No, and then she died, and then there was a little problem called the Empire, and I had to leg it out of there with — again — your children!”

“And you left her body, didn’t you?”

“I left it — her — with her security staff!”

Vader dodges past everyone else and appears to attempt to whack Obi-Wan on the back of the head. “Nabooian security staff? In the middle of galactic upheaval when they knew she’d be next on Palpatine’s hitlist? You kriffing moron, they faked her death! And then she got amnesia somehow and never showed up at whatever rendezvous they set up. Obviously!”

“Oh, obviously? You thought she was dead too!”

“Excuse you, I have the chip for an excuse. All you have is, what? Momentary brainlessness?”

“That’s it.” The captain takes a flying leap off the console and attempts to tackle Vader to the floor, wrapping both arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. The force of the impact knocks Vader sideways, but he manages to keep on his feet, grabbing the captain’s arms in both hands — possibly more in an effort to stop her from falling than to loosen her grip.

“Oh, yeah.” Vader staggers further sideways. “This is definitely her. Stars, I can’t breathe. Padme, is this revenge for what I did on Mustafar because I said —”

“Are you sure she’s not related to your Aunt Beru, Luke?” asks Zev, looking back and forth between Luke and the captain, who is still hanging from Vader’s back. “You know, by blood.”

Luke leans forward a little to look at him. “Zev, what makes you think I know anything concrete about my family?”

Zev opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, the other pirates seem to give up getting close to Padme and cross the room to surround the console where Leia, Luke, Han, and Zev are. Leia finds herself looking down the narrow barrel of a blaster. She’d be more concerned about it, if she hadn’t stared down dozens — even hundreds — of blasters in her life.

This particular one needed a good cleaning. It was a miracle it was still in working condition, frankly. She raises one eyebrow at the pirate. “Did you want something?”

“Clearly,” Luke says, “they want tips on how to successfully hold a bridge against intruders, since they’re not very good at it.” He presses his lips together and shakes his head. “You need to cover your vents.”

The way he says it — so perfectly innocent yet cutting all the same — makes Leia remember all over again why she loved him long before their newly discovered blood relation made her affection automatic.

Han lays his hand on Luke’s shoulder. “Has it ever occurred to either of you that antagonizing the people holding guns to our heads is not the best idea?”

“Not even for a second,” Luke replies. “Why?”

Limbs still knotted around Vader, the captain, clearly endeavoring to maintain some sense of dignity, frees a hand to briefly gesture at Luke, Leia, Han, and Zev. “All of you, relinquish your weapons, and you —” she directs this part to Vader “— unhand me, or your pack of whelps discovers what good shots my crew are.”

As Han inflates at being called a whelp and Leia opens her mouth to point out that hitting someone from two feet away doesn’t make anyone — certainly not a pirate — a good shot, Vader whirls around to face her and the others. “No, Padme!” He throws out both his hands in a warding sort of motion.

The pirates around Leia and the others are flung toward opposite ends of the bridge, but rather than having a reasonable reaction to seeing such a powerful display of the Force, the captain just climbs atop Vader and makes a valiant attempt to brain him with her blaster.

Fending her off with one hand, Vader yells, “You can’t hold your own children hostage!”

“I don’t have any children!”

“Now,” Obi-Wan says, drifting into view, “I don’t think it’s possible for you to have missed it, even if you are suffering from some kind of deep amnesia. I was there when you had them, and I can assure you it was difficult to miss. Childbirth leaves a distinct —”

“Shut up!” This is said by Vader and the captain at exactly the same time, and it is almost charming how instantly Vader’s face lights up when he realizes the two of them just spoke in unison.

How he manages to look up at the captain like she hung the stars in the sky when she’s currently trying to jam the butt of her blaster through his eye is a mystery that Leia isn’t certain she wants to solve.

Because if this really is her biological mother, it means that not only is the great Padme Amidala not nearly the strategic genius Leia thought she was (how does the woman who took back her own palace at fourteen think that going hand to hand — or, really, blaster to face — with a seven foot tall Sith is smart?) but also that Leia has had her life threatened by both of her birth parents, which is amusing but not the kind of amusing fit for public consumption.

“All right, Padme — Padme — angel.” Vader manages to catch Padme’s blaster, along with her hands, as she brings it down toward his nose. Holding her in place, he gazes up at her with a strange little half-smile that Leia might describe as lovesick, if she were in the business of applying positive adjectives to Vader’s expressions. “Compromise, all right?” With his free hand, he gestures to Zev and Han. “The scrawny one and the man-whor* — they’re not related to you. You can threaten them.”

“My lord,” Veers says, in the closest thing to a raised voice that Leia has heard from him since she met him. At the same time, Luke lowers his eyebrows and says, “Ipu,” in a wheedling tone.

“Right, right.” Vader sighs. “All right, the scrawny one you can’t threaten either. So just shoot the man-whor*.”

Leia gets to her feet, balancing atop the console and putting one arm in front of Han. “Don’t shoot the man-whor*!”

Han directs a tired, straight-lipped look at her. “Do you ever get the feeling that your father is just never going to like me? Am I not a better option than your brother? No offense, Luke.”

Luke waves him off, still focused on Vader. “None taken.”

“If I don’t get an explanation right kriffing now,” spits the captain, still perched on top of Vader, “I’m going to shoot you right in the face and —”

This has gone on long enough, beeps Artoo above the noise of the other pirates demanding to know if the captain still wanted them to start shooting and above the noise of the captain telling them to shut up. If you want an explanation, PADM3, you should have asked me. AN1 and OB1 are useless, you should remember that.

The captain stares down at Artoo, having temporarily forgotten that Vader still has both her hands and her blaster trapped between his own. “And what is this hunk of scrap metal?” she asks roughly. “Another one of our many and sundry children? Or is he the kriffing ghost’s?”

The kriffing ghost in question, Obi-Wan, strokes his beard. “You know, you’re closer than you think with that first part.” Directing a narrowed eyed look down at Artoo, he adds, “And don’t think I missed the insult, you infernal museum piece.”

“Hey!” Tearing his eyes away from the captain, Vader frowns at Obi-Wan. “You can’t talk to him like that.”

“Oh, what are you going to do? Kill me?”

Zev leans over to Leia, still keeping a weather eye on the other pirates as they pick themselves up off the floor and assume the expressions of people who are really hoping their captain doesn’t order them to go near the crazy Sith again. “Do you think he’ll ever give up on the ‘you murdered me’ jokes?”

Leia purses her lips. “Knowing Obi-Wan? No. There’s a reason Vader killed him in the first place, I think.”

Having overheard her, Obi-Wan pivots toward her and opens his mouth to make some kind of response that will no doubt unintentionally prove Leia’s point, but Artoo — probably to forestall any more interruptions — lets out a long wordless screech that makes Obi-Wan and everyone else snap their mouths shut.

With a self-satisfied little shuffle, Artoo magnetizes himself to the floor and flicks on his holoprojector. A colored hologram — but tinted with blue — appears, hovering a few inches from the floor. It’s a shaky, first person view of some kind of utilitarian apartment. Whoever is behind the camera moves through a narrow doorway into a dimly lit bedroom furnished only with a bed and a single bedside table. The walls are more personable, covered in posters of podracers and starfighters, and the table has tools and half disassembled comm links and datapads on it.

The tangle of covers on the bed and the shapeless form beneath them, marked out by a barely visible scrub of tawny hair, signal that the room is not unoccupied, despite the quiet.

“Wait a moment.” Up above the hologram, Obi-Wan leans closer. “This is the Jedi Temple.” After a pause, he says, “Anakin, this is your room.”

“Oh Force.” Without even needing to look at her — or apparently expend any effort at all, which shows that he definitely wasn’t trying when he fended her off before — Vader lifts the captain off his shoulders and sets her down on the floor beside him, entirely ignoring her outraged squawk. “Oh Force. Artoo, not this footage, I told you to delete this footage —”

Luke grins. “Oh, this is the blackmail footage.”

Catching Vader’s eye, Leia gives him her most innocent smile, the one Han always says makes her look like a nexu trying to convince a nerf that she’s really quite harmless. “Well, then we have to see it. It’s our family history. Isn’t it, Father?”

The strategic term makes Vader clap his mouth shut, just as she knew it would. Behind her back, she laces her fingers with Luke briefly as they exult over mutual victory.

If she has to play dirty to uncover scraps of their recently discovered parents’ pasts, she will. She will understand where she comes from, as well as she understands her Alderaani side.

Currently, she’s just hoping this blackmail footage isn’t the sort that’s going to make her want to claw out her eyes afterward. She’s only barely coming around to the idea that Vader is her father; the idea of getting even a glimpse of him making her and Luke is enough to make her want to take a stroll in hard vacuum without a spacesuit.

Vader seems to compose himself. “I know you’re manipulating me,” he says with a lifted chin and shining eyes, “but I don’t care.” With a resigned sigh, he leans back against one of the consoles, idly lifting one hand and throwing up some kind of barrier with the Force that keeps the other pirates back and using the other hand to hold off the captain as she remembers her burning desire to acquaint his face with butt of her blaster.

The footage continues, the audio loud enough to mostly drown out the commotion surrounding Artoo. The person behind the camera comes to a stop beside the bed. A slim white hand comes into view and shakes the sleeping hump beneath the covers. “Ani.” It’s a woman’s voice, gentle and urgent all at once. “Ani, wake up! Ani, Obi-Wan is coming!”

That rouses the hump. Someone — Anakin Skywalker — jerks upright, pillows and blankets falling away as he explodes into wakefulness. His hair is sticking up in every direction, with the clear remnants of some truly abominable haircut visible, but thankfully he is fully clothed. Small mercies, Leia supposes.

Anakin throws a terrified look in the camera’s direction. “What? He can’t be coming here, it’s my kriffing room after all! It’s like he still thinks I’m a padawan!” Swinging long ungainly legs out of bed, he climbs to his feet and appears to attempt to scoop whoever is behind the camera up into his arms. “It’ll be close, but I can get you out the window, and then there’s a ledge. We left Artoo at your apartment, so if you can comm him, he’ll take the speeder and —” His gaze falls on the camera. “Padme, why is your holorecorder pinned to your nightgown?”

With a burst of half stifled laughter, the person behind the camera — Padme, apparently, and Leia isn’t even going to touch how she feels about that — says, “Because there’s no one else around who’ll preserve these memories for us.”

Anakin gives her a hooded look. “And these memories would be…?”

“You making a fool of yourself.”

“Threatening Obi-Wan is a low blow.”

“Yes, well, I needed you up and awake, and you’re impossible to shift in the morning, so…”

“What could possibly be so urgent that you needed to send me into cardiac arrest at six in the morning?” Anakin scrubs at his hair and sinks back onto the bed. “You’re on leave, and it’s not like there’s anything I can do to get you out of the Temple quickly. Unless you want to try the ledge thing.”

“This nightgown is very thin, and it is very cold. And leaving isn’t the problem.”

“Then what is the problem?”

“You remember last month?”

Anakin presses his lips together. “You’re going to have to be more specific. A lot happened last month. Are you talking about your assassination attempts, the incident on Geonosis, the duel with Dooku, me losing my arm, me getting knighted, us getting married…”

“Our wedding night. I’m talking about our wedding night.”

Leia recoils. “Oh Light. I’m not listening to this.” Except there’s not exactly anywhere to go, especially considering Hondo and Veers are still blocking the door.

“It’s a very natural and beautiful part of marriage,” Luke tries, even though he quails beneath her glare. “What? It’s what Aunt Beru told me. What did Breha tell you?”

“Many things,” Leia says with folded arms. “Namely, don’t.”

“Well, you’ll have to at some point if you and Han —”

“I can’t talk about this with you.”

“Is it awkward?” asks Zev, with the sort of smile that begs for a punch in the face. “Since you kissed him?”

“He kissed her?” This is from Hondo, who, after turning shocked eyes toward Luke and Leia, twists to look at Vader — clearly blaming him. “That is very inappropriate.”

Obi-Wan tears his eyes from the recording long enough to say, “And this from the pirate?”

“Former pirate,” Hondo corrects. “Now respected nightclub owner.”

“And spice dealer on the side,” Leia adds.

“Oh, is someone dealing again?” The captain turns dangerously widened eyes in Hondo’s direction. “And here’s me thinking I told you if I caught you dealing again, I really would kill you.”

“Later, angel,” says Vader, unconscious of the outrage that explodes across the captain’s face at the endearment. “I need to get you under the scanner on the Executor and see if Kix can figure out what the kriff Obi-Wan did to your brain.”

“What I did?” comes Obi-Wan’s insulted cry from up above them all. “Maybe it was the oxygen deprivation from when you choked her!”

“The Executor?” Unlike Obi-Wan and Vader, the captain, like everyone else on the entire bridge, has latched on to the most important piece of information in what Vader said. “Darth Vader’s star destroyer?”

There’s a short stretch of silence. Then, Vader says, clearing his throat, “No. Mine.”

“Oh, nice one, Ipu,” Luke says, in a rare show of sarcasm. “Very convincing. She’ll really believe that.”

As the captain seems to grow a foot taller and moves to power up her blaster, the raised voice from the recording pulls her up short, catching her attention for reasons Leia doesn’t feel ready to parse out.

Because as much as she would like to meet her biological mother — who also happens to be the hero of her childhood — Leia isn’t sure she’s at all prepared to get to know the person who fell in love with Darth Vader of all people. Even without the chip, he still grates on her nerves, and if she hears Luke say it is because they’re the same person one more time, she’s going to gut him.

“What do you mean you might be pregnant?” demands Anakin on the recording as he paces up and down the bedroom.

“Well, Ani, when a man and a woman love each other very much and also happen to be very sleep deprived and very distracted, they sometimes forget —”

“Oh Force.” Anakin runs a hand down his face. “Obi-Wan’s going to kill me.”

“Are you planning on sharing this little life development with him?”

“No, but…” Anakin shifts. “He can usually sense when I’ve screwed up. Somehow. I don’t know how.”

The ghostly Obi-Wan takes a moment to look down at Vader. “Oh, if only that were true, we could have been spared a lot of trouble.”

In the recording, Padme unclips her holorecorder and passes it to Anakin. He gives the lens one confused look before pointing it at her. The Padme of twenty years ago…

Well, Leia can’t deny that she looks exactly like the captain of this ship — just younger.

She also looks quite a lot like Leia herself, with just a bit of Luke in the softness of her eyes and the curve of her jaw.

Which makes sense, of course, since Leia can trace out the shape of her own face in the line of Vader’s jaw and the strength of his cheekbones.

“So why exactly am I recording this terrifying moment?” asks Anakin as Padme busies herself with a datapad. “This seems like something we might not want to remember.”

Padme jerks her head up. “Bite your tongue! We are too going to want to remember this.”

“What? As the day you got impeached or the day I got kicked out of the Order?”

“Oh please. That wouldn’t happen immediately.”

“You are way too calm.”

“I’ll panic later.”

“When is later?”

“After you give me your med scanner and some privacy. I’ve got the right program loaded. Now I just need blood.”

“Whose?” Behind the holorecordor, Anakin takes a step back.

Padme gives him an exasperated look. “Mine. Stars, and they made you a general.”

“Oh, Obi-Wan and about half the Council agreed it was a bad idea, but…” The camera makes a shrugging movement. “What can I say? My cunning and battle prowess convinced them.”

“You lost an arm, Ani.”

“Details.”

Padme heads in the direction of the fresher attached to the bedroom. “Go away.”

The recording goes black for a moment, but then restarts. This video is clearly from somewhat later in the day, with the sun starting to stream through the bedroom’s narrow windows. In a hurried movement, Anakin runs up to the fresher door and knocks loudly. “Padme. Padme.”

“In a minute.”

Luke glances at Leia. “Still don’t believe she’s your amu? With that tone of voice?”

Leia silences him with a sharp elbow to the ribs and refocuses on the recording.

“No, Padme. No minute. Obi-Wan’s at the door.”

In the present, Obi-Wan floats down to the floor and comes to a rest next to Vader. “I was?”

Vader sends him a thin smile. “One of the many times you interrupted our mornings together.”

“Killing me wasn’t just revenge for the dismembering, was it?”

“Not so much, no.”

The captain holds up a tightly clenched fist. “Shut up,” she says through her teeth, in exactly the same tone as the Padme of twenty years ago demanded a minute. “I’m listening.”

On the recording, Padme tears open the fresher door, nursing a pricked finger and clutching the datapad and scanner in her other hand. “But I don’t know if —”

“There’s no time to know. You need to —” The sound of an outer door opening reaches the bedroom. Abruptly, Anakin shoves Padme back into the fresher, slamming the door shut before she even has time to respond. “You need to hide.”

“Oh, kriffing brilliant strategist you are,” Padme says through the door. “Thank goodness you’re dressed.”

“Oh stars,” Leia moans and buries her head in Luke’s shoulder.

Luke pats her absently. “Natural part of life, Leia.”

“Disgusting part of life, more like.”

“Oh yeah,” Han says to himself, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “We’re going to end up adopting, aren’t we?”

He deserves a sharp kick to the shin for that, but the recording is too distracting for her to really take aim.

The view shaky, as though he is running, Anakin enters the apartment’s main room, which appears to be a combined kitchen and living room. Obi-Wan — a younger Obi-Wan, with a frankly embarrassing mullet that is messy from sleep — is already in the kitchen, taking advantage of Anakin’s caffpot.

“Oh good,” he says. “You’re awake. The Council’s called a meeting with all the on world generals to discuss our strategy. You can bring Ahsoka — it’s a good learning experience.” Scooping up a mug of caff dark enough to look more like engine oil, Obi-Wan drains it with the same vigorous energy of someone taking a shot of alcohol. “You look like you slept well.”

“Well, I —”

Obi-Wan forges forward toward the bedroom. “That must have been wonderful. I did not sleep at all. Are you interested in knowing why?”

Anakin leaps into action, following him into the bedroom. The camera view shifts as he puts himself between Obi-Wan and the fresher. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan is eyeing the unmade bed and the floor, which is scattered with discarded clothing.

Leia spies a crumpled gown just as Anakin apparently does, since he kicks it under the bed before Obi-Wan’s eyes fall on it. As Leia reflects on the new discovery that Anakin Skywalker, and perhaps by extension, Darth Vader, is very like Luke when it comes to deception — in the sense that he is bad at it — Anakin says, in a resigned sort of voice, “What kept you from sleeping, Obi-Wan?”

Turning on his heel, still holding his caff cup in one hand, Obi-Wan says, “I’m so pleased you asked. Do you remember giving the entire 501st leave for the duration of your time on Coruscant?”

Anakin coughs and shifts. The camera shifts with him. “Maybe?”

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, yes. Yes, I do.”

“And when the Coruscant Guard called you last night to let you know that roughly thirty percent of your battalion had been put in the drunk tank — or well, several, all across the city — for disturbing the peace and the rest of your battalion was besieging the guardhouses until a Jedi could come and arrange their release?” Obi-Wan spreads his hands expectantly. “You…?”

Anakin coughs again. “I was very, very tired.”

“They were spread across thirty guardhouses, Anakin! It was one in the morning.”

“And I’m sure they had a very good time.”

“The next time the 212th gets into trouble —”

“They never do.”

“I’ll have Cody arrange it. You’re handling it.”

In the present, Obi-Wan turns very slowly and glares at Anakin. “Oh, you were tired, were you?”

Vader lifts his chin. “Just because your night was loveless and filled with intoxicated men doesn’t mean mine had to be. And you deserved it! Look at you, barging in there. A complete disregard for my privacy, for boundaries.”

“It’s almost like we lived in the same apartment for a decade!”

“And then I moved out, and look! You’re still drinking my caff! Even dead, you’re still —” Vader makes a vague gesture “— stuck to me!”

The Obi-Wan of twenty years past studies the holorecorder in Anakin’s hand. “Why are you videoing this?”

There’s a moment of silence, as if Anakin froze, before he replies, “I was making video lessons. For Ahsoka.”

Obi-Wan looks him up and down. “In your nightclothes?”

“It was a spur of the moment decision.”

Waving away Anakin’s words, Obi-Wan strides forward. “I don’t have time to parse that out. Just let me use your fresher, and then we can go?”

There’s a muffled intake of breath from behind the camera. Anakin remains squarely in front of the door. “Why do you want to use the fresher?”

Obi-Wan pulls up short, squinting at Anakin. “I don’t care what it looks like, Anakin. I shared a fresher with you when you were a teenling, if you’ll remember. At this point, however atrocious it is, I won’t even notice.”

“That’s not — my fresher is clean!”

Beside Vader — and notably no longer struggling — the captain gives the tiniest shake of her head, as though disagreeing. Leia narrows her eyes and braces herself.

Back in the recording, Anakin says, “Besides, that’s not an answer to my question! It’s just a criticism. I know those come most naturally to you, but —”

“That is entirely unfair,” Obi-Wan interrupts. “If one of us is overcritical, it is more likely to be you. You have an extremely negative outlook on life — you never can keep your mind on the moment.”

He says all this with an entirely straight face, completely missing that it is, in fact, another criticism.

No one listening misses this, however, and Obi-Wan ends up shrinking under the weight of several dozen skeptical looks, as by this time even the other pirates are invested in the scene unfolding.

The captain still remains dead silent.

“And if you must now,” Obi-Wan in the past says, with a superior lilt to his words, “I need to make myself presentable.”

“You mean you need to style your hair.”

“I mean that spending the night herding drunk clones and their brothers back to the barracks is not conducive to a professional appearance. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Wait!” Hands are thrown up in front of the camera. The view shifts again as Anakin steps sideways away from the fresher, forcing Obi-Wan to turn with him, until his back is to fresher and to most of the bedroom, including the door.

Obi-Wan has the eyes of someone now nearly caffeinated enough. “What? What is it?”

There’s another short pause. “I need to talk to you,” says Anakin.

“And it can’t wait?”

“No!” As Anakin speaks, the fresher door inches open, and Padme appears, her eyes widening when she sees Obi-Wan. On tiptoe, she slips into the bedroom and casts a desperate look at the door, making a circular motion with her finger.

Stall him.

Leia has made that exact gesture to Han whenever she’s trying to sneak past Mon Mothma.

Her life is one big cosmic joke. That has to be it. It’s the only possible reason her biological parents ended up being the nightmare of the Jedi Order and the child queen of Naboo.

“No, it can’t wait,” Anakin repeats. Leia can hear that he’s grasping at straws, but apparently in the past he acclimated Obi-Wan to that particular tone so well that he didn’t even notice — at least, that’s how it seems. “I need to talk to you now. It’s about… Padme.”

Behind Obi-Wan, still cradling the datapad and medscanner, Padme stops in her tracks, turning wide eyes on Anakin. The shape of a swear forms on her lips.

Obi-Wan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Oh Light. Again? It’s too early for this, Anakin. I told you before, it’s only natural —”

“But it’s not going away,” Anakin interrupts. As he speaks, Padme seems to recall the gravity of the situation and starts moving again, heading in the direction of the rack where several extra cloaks are hanging. “It’s getting stronger, in fact,” he adds.

Padme pauses beside the bed to scoop up yesterday’s gown. Lacy underthings spill out of it, almost hitting the floor before she catches them.

Luke buries his head into Leia’s shoulder to muffle a horrified scream. Leia pats him absently and says pointedly, “It’s a natural, beautiful part of life, Luke.”

Obi-Wan sighs in a great gust. “Oh, dear. We’re going to be late to the meeting, aren’t we? Listen, Anakin, it is still only natural. She’s a beautiful woman, and you’re a young man. So of course you’re… feeling things for her.”

“Oh stars,” Vader mutters under his breath, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “Why do I have to relive this?”

“You don’t need to feel guilty about these feelings,” Obi-Wan goes on. With every word he says, Leia feels her inside shrivel up smaller and smaller. “Or even certain… urges. As I said, it’s only normal.”

Behind Obi-Wan, Padme looks like she just stepped in something truly disgusting. Her face wrinkles up, and she tries to cover her ears with both hands, but laden as she is with her gown, datapad, and medscanner, she isn’t successful. Instead, she shifts from foot to foot like the hem of her nightgown suddenly caught fire or like she’s a wild tooka caught in a trap. So upset is she that she seems to have entirely forgotten that her goal is to get as far away from Obi-Wan as possible.

“What’s important,” continues Obi-Wan, much to everyone’s — both past and present — horror, “is that you don’t act on them. You’re a Jedi; you have to remember that.”

It is at that moment that Padme’s datapad lights up. She manages to snatch a look at its screen, and a relieved grin spreads across her face as she turns it around so that Anakin can see it. In bold text, it reads negative.

“I can’t believe,” Obi-Wan in the present says, “that the day I so kindly gave you that talk, your wife was taking a pregnancy test behind me.”

“Needless to say,” Vader says, sneaking a sidelong glance at the captain, “I acted on the urges.”

“It’s safe to say, sir,” Veers puts in from the bridge’s doorway, “that we all noticed.”

Back in the recording, Obi-Wan continues to ramble on — in skin-crawling detail — about maturing and dealing with complex feelings. It’s eminently clear that he’s reciting most of it from resources he no doubt desperately gathered when Anakin was a teenling, and it is also eminently clear that he does have some personal experience in the subject as well.

Leia is absolutely going to corner him about that later, after she processes this latest familial revelation. She’s getting more used to them now. It shouldn’t take long at all.

Though in a year or two, she’s probably going to have a nervous breakdown, but she suspects all of them will, which means she’ll at least be in good company.

While Obi-Wan talks — and while Anakin takes periodic steps back — Padme scrambles toward the bedroom door on soft feet, snatching up a cloak and draping it over herself. With the hood up, it entirely hides her clothes, datapad, medscanner, bare feet, and face. With a brief, sympathetic grin in Anakin’s direction, she beats a hasty retreat. As soon as she’s gone, Anakin jerks forward and shoves Obi-Wan toward the fresher.

“Oh, look at the time! Thank you for that talk — really, it was very helpful — but we’re going to be late if you don’t tame the rat on your head. Yes, go, now.” He all but throws Obi-Wan into the fresher, ignoring his confused protests.

The recording ends on a blurred shot of his vaguely nauseated looking face.

The hologram flickers out after that, leaving only a self-satisfied Artoo. He swivels his photoreceptor to look at the captain, who is now standing and staring at nothing, like a person in a dream. Remember now, PADM3? he asks.

“Padme?” Vader moves to the captain’s side, reaching out to touch her shoulder with the sort of gentleness that makes it difficult to maintain the level of dislike that Leia is aiming for. It’s not even necessarily about him any more; it’s the principle of the thing. She has to balance out Luke somehow.

Besides, the gentleness might actually be closer to caution, given how close the captain came to bashing Vader’s head in just a few short minutes ago.

“Padme,” Vader says again. “Please tell me you remember me. And our children.” He gestures toward Luke and Leia. “It’s been a long time, and I’m sorry about the choking, I sweat that wasn’t actually me, and I’m sorry about losing our children, but I found them. Or — they found me actually. It could even be argued that they kidnapped me, but that was probably a good thing because —”

The captain whirls around and throws both arms around Vader’s neck, leaping up into his arms with such suddenness that even with his cybernetic legs, he’s thrown off balance, staggering back. In a second, she is knotted around him again, though this time for entirely different reasons. She kisses him with the same ferocity that she earlier tried to kill him with, and he kisses her back with equal passion.

No one on the bridge seems to know quite what to do with that. The other pirates, except for Numa, busy themselves with looking at anything except their captain — formerly the nameless and masked pirate queen of the Outer Rim and presently the former and presumed dead senator of Naboo — kissing Darth Vader like the stars themselves will burn out if she ever stops. In contrast, Numa is staring, but with the expression of someone watching a terrible podracer crash: mixed horror and fascination. Veers has respectfully averted his eyes, but Hondo is in the midst of applauding loudly. Zev has followed his father’s example, and Luke is alternately hiding his face and watching the scene through his fingers. Han is studying both Vader and Padme with a clinical air, like he’s trying to pick up new techniques for next time he kisses Leia.

Forcing herself to look at them, Leia has to admit that they are quite good at the whole kissing business.

A split second later, she realizes she just had that realization about her parents, and is disgusted by and furious at the galaxy all over again.

A natural and beautiful part of a marriage, her foot.

Just when it seems like Vader and Padme will suffocate from kissing each other for so long, Padme starts to shrug off her pirate’s coat with Vader’s eager help, and Leia puts two in two together and gets a scarring answer.

“For the love of the Light,” she shrieks, leaping to her feet and calling on all the lofty authority she learned from Breha, “remember yourselves! And remember where you are, for kriff’s sake!”

“And remember who is watching!” Luke begs, clapping both hands over his eyes. Leia has a feeling he’s coming around to her view of these things.

Their voices are enough to make Vader and Padme spring apart with such speed that Vader almost drops Padme on the floor. As she clings to his arm for support, Padme turns a shining, reddened face toward Luke and Leia and beams. Now that she remembers who she is, she looks entirely different from before — softer, somehow. “My babies,” she says in a disbelieving whisper, drinking them in. “My Luke and Leia. You’re all right. You’re both all right.”

Luke gives her a shy smile in return. “Hi, Amu.”

The way Padme looks at Leia is enough to make her forgive her for what she was just forced to witness. She chooses the title that fits on her tongue best. “Mother.”

Padme keeps staring at them both for a long moment, seeming unable to move. Then, without warning, she lurches around to face Obi-Wan. Leia would say she looked like her pirate alter ego again, if not for the fact that this particular expression is much, much more frightening than anything she saw when Padme still thought she was a pirate captain.

As Obi-Wan seems to go more transparent — whether from shock or terror, it’s impossible to tell — Padme spits out, “You.”

Chapter 14: The Healing Power of Community and the Importance of Surrounding Yourself With Likeminded People

Chapter Text

For once, the morning on Dagobah has dawned clear and sunny. As Yoda shuffles out of his hut, reflecting that the moist ground isn’t squelching quite so much between his claws when he leaves the rock pathway he painstakingly constructed, he tips his head back toward the sun and narrows his eyes against its glare. In full sunlight, the swamp where he makes his home is still a tangle of vines, snakes, and predator-ridden mudholes of indiscernible depth, but that is immaterial.

What really matters is that the sunlight makes it much easier to hunt for food — especially now that his senses of smell and hearing are finally starting to deteriorate. Already he can see dozens of frogs huddled around the edges of the nearest pond or settled in rows on rotting logs.

Tapping his gimer stick against the soggy ground, Yoda allows himself a sedate smile. Today will be a pleasant day.

That’s approximately when the roar of a ship’s engines fills the air, deafening even to Yoda’s muted hearing. The trees around him bend and snap in wind kicked up by thrusters. All at once, the swamp falls into shadow as the sun is blotted out, and pockets of blue light from firing thrusters replaces its rays.

Yoda looks up again. There is a huge ship hovering no more than two hundred feet above it head, shaped like a saucer and made of durasteel that has seen more than its fair share of carbon scoring. Shielding his face against the wind and thruster fire, Yoda manages a strained, “Kriff, what the,” as he tries to decide if sheltering in his hut is worth it.

Before he can come to a decision, a voice blares out from the ship. It’s so loud that it drowns out the wind and seems to come from the very air itself.

Yoda stiffens. It’s a very familiar voice, though it is reaching certain strident tones and using words he never heard when he knew it before.

“There you are, you absolute and utter waste of midichlorians,” thunders Padme Amidala — or what certainly sounds like Padme Amidala. “I’ve been crisscrossing the entire stars-forsaken Rim looking for this planet. Are you using the Force to purposely confuse all ships’ navicomputers?”

Yoda had, in fact, been doing that to all ships except for Luke’s, though he can’t say he had much faith that Luke would come back.

“Oh, that’s just like you,” snarls Padme. “First you tell Obi-Wan to kriffing murder my husband — and he does, only he stows away on my ship to do it because he’s a lowdown, lousy, slimy sneak — then you run away and abandon Bail and Obi-Wan with the Rebellion, then you leave Han and Leia and Chewbacca for dead, and then to cap it all of, you have the unmitigated gall to hide when I’m looking for you.”

Unmitigated sounds more like a Padme Amidala word than the various expletives. Yoda hurriedly runs back over the last conversation he had with Obi-Wan, wondering if there’s a way he could have misunderstood She died after she gave birth to Luke and Leia.

Then Luke’s voice rings out from the ship, giving Yoda more important things to think about. “Go easy on him, Amu,” he says in the particular wheedling voice he used when he was trying to wiggle out of work when Yoda was training him. “He’s old.”

“Yeah,” comes another female voice — one that Yoda realizes with a start that he recognizes as Leia’s, known to him from the dreams of her and Luke that have assailed him throughout the years. “You might send him into cardiac arrest.”

As Leia’s voice fades away, Yoda mentally eyes his preconceptions about how the last fight for freedom and justice in the galaxy might go. None of them included Padme Amidala coming back from the dead and somehow finding her children and stealing what looks like Hondo Ohnaka’s ship.

He folds up those preconceptions — neatly, so they don't wrinkle. With how unpredictable Padme so apparently is, he doesn’t want to make it so he can’t take them out again if she appears to die for a second time.

“Get up here, you wrinkled old frog,” snarls Padme from high above, interrupting his thoughts. “I want to talk to you about what you’ve been teaching my son.”

“I didn’t tell her,” adds Luke, rather apologetically. “Obi-Wan was the one who squealed.”

“He didn’t want to find out if she really could beat him into the ground even in the afterlife,” says Leia.

“Now!” Padme’s voice overtakes everyone else’s again, as the ship descends close enough to the ground for the ramp that extends from its underside to thump against the soggy ground. “I have other stops to make.”

While Yoda is reflecting that over nine hundred years of life is a satisfactory number — as he doesn’t particularly expect to survive long after he sets foot on the ship, especially not since he had a hand in taking the twins away from Padme — Obi-Wan materializes next to him, a sheepish look passing over his face.

“She’s very difficult to say no to,” he offers, with an open handed shrug. He doesn’t look nearly so apologetic as Yoda feels is appropriate. “You remember.”

Yoda narrows his eyes. “To check for vital signs, who taught you?”

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. “You did.”

Rather than address this particular oversight, Yoda says, “Check your apprentice’s vital signs too, did you?”

Narrowing his eyes right back at Yoda, he replies, “That was a low blow. I hope they give you a hard time,” before disappearing.

# # #

From the outside looking in as he stands at the edge of the bridge with Zev and the droids, Han can understand why Yoda seems to be quaking a bit in his boots — well, claws — when he walks onto the bridge at long last.

The recently-resurrected-because-she-was-never-actually-dead Padme Amidala is settled in her captain’s chair, one leg crossed over the other. She’s still in the same clothes she was wearing, but her leather coat is arranged about her almost like the skirt of a gown. Perched on either arm of her chair are Luke and Leia — the second Padme stopped trying to kill everyone, Leia warmed up to her an instant, which was almost hilariously predictable — and looming behind everyone, one elbow laid proprietarily on the back of Padme’s chair, is Anakin Skywalker, still bearing a red lightsaber. Owen and Beru are at his right side, giving Yoda appropriately fierce glares.

All that’s really needed to make them all look more like would-be galactic conquerors is some kind of mastiff at Padme’s knee for her to stroke slowly and meaningfully.

Han should probably find a way to acquire one for them, since they do make effective persuasion tools.

“Yoda,” says Padme, with exactly zero preamble. She looks out at him from beneath sharply angled brows. “It’s so good to see you again.”

A wizened form at the other end of the bridge, Yoda twitches his ears as his large eyes track toward Anakin. “Darth Vader he is not, I see.”

“No.” Padme smiles sweetly, though her demeanor suggests that there are fangs hiding behind her curved lips. Beside Han, Zev takes a wise step back, and Threepio dithers a little, murmuring about how he hopes this doesn’t turn into another incident. “It’s amazing what a little love and understanding and forethought can do,” Padme goes on, drumming her fingers against her knee. “Though I understand you prefer to hippity hop straight to dismemberment. It must be a Jedi thing.”

Behind her, Anakin chokes briefly before resuming his impassive stare. A second later, Obi-Wan materializes halfway between Yoda and the captain’s chair, looking back and forth between him and Padme. “I think,” he says to Yoda, “that I will be blaming this situation entirely on you, as I was only operating under your orders.”

Before Yoda can reply, Padme says, “Nice try, limb stealer. You’re both just lucky I managed to put my family back together, or you’d be joining Obi-Wan in the afterlife, frog.”

At her side, Luke raises his hand. “I think my contributions are being ignored.”

Owen cuts his eyes over to him. “Given that your contributions involved you putting yourself in mortal danger multiple times,” he says, “you should be glad your amu is memory holing them.”

“Lady Amidala —” Yoda tries, but Padme interrupts him.

“Lady Skywalker,” she says, folding her arms in front of her.

“Captain Skywalker,” amends Anakin.

Looking a little dizzy, Yoda says, “Captain Skywalker, why here, am I?”

“Haven’t you heard?” Padme gets smoothly to her feet. “We’re going to destroy the new Death Star, kill the Emperor, and restore freedom to the galaxy.”

Yoda purses his lips. “Do that, how will you?”

Padme tilts her chin up and smiles again, even more dangerously this time. “The Skywalkers and their friends are calling in their favors.”

# # #

“All right.” Hera leans forward in her captain’s chair, setting her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands beneath her chin as she regards Omega, grown tall and womanly in the years since Hera saw her last. “Explain to me how you’re still alive.”

Omega shrugs a little, giving her the trademarked little smile Hera remembers. “It’s complicated.”

Hera gives her a flat look. “Rex told me you all were dead, and now you’re saying this whole time you’ve been on some place called Pabu?”

“We needed to be dead, or else Hemlock would keep looking for us.”

“Hemlock’s been dead for years. I heard two clones killed him.”

Omega clears her throat. “That would be Tech and Crosshair.”

“So you didn’t need to be dead.”

“No, we still did. There are other reasons.”

“And what would those be?”

Smiling again, Omega says, “Little Jedi. Well, not so little any more.”

Hera stills. “What?”

“It wasn’t my idea,” offers Omega. “It was Padme Amidala’s family’s.”

“Whose family?”

“I told you it’s easier to show you than it is to explain.”

Hera flops back into her seat, tipping her head back to stare at the Ghost’s ceiling. “Omega.”

“Another person who isn’t dead is Luke Skywalker.”

Hera sits up straight again. “But Mon Mothma said —”

“Well, she made an assumption,” interrupts Omega placidly. “He’s not dead, and he’s got a plan to overthrow the Emperor and destroy the second Death Star.”

“Oh, and is it anything like his last plan?” Hera, unlike at least half of the rest of the Alliance, has no stars in her eyes when she looks at Luke Skywalker. She’s raised enough idiot children to know one when she sees one. With every year she lives, she has more sympathy for her mother and father.

“Kind of, actually.” Omega’s eyes sparkle. “Look, Hera, do you remember the time my brothers and I rescued your mother and father without asking for any payment in return? That really dangerous mission that almost got us all killed?”

Stiffening, Hera says, “Oh, don’t you dare —”

Omega leans back, folding her hands behind her head in a way she certainly learned from her brothers. “I’m calling in the favor.”

Hera gives her a flat look. “You know, I offered to pay you.”

# # #

Being a guerilla fighter in a rebellion against a galactic empire has taught Bo-Katan to expect the unexpected — and to usually shoot it between the eyes with a blaster. Even so, nothing could have taught her to expect Ahsoka Tano to batter down the door of her and her squad’s underground bunker in the wee hours of the morning, and it was only a feat of self control that stopped her from putting a hole between Ahsoka’s eyes.

When Bo-Katan manages to at long last restore calm to the bunker — mostly by dint of yelling over everyone else — she faces Ahsoka and asks the first question that comes to her mind. “What the hell, Ahsoka?”

Ahsoka grins in response. The spark that Bo-Katan saw during the Siege of Mandalore, before everything went wrong, is back in her eye. “I’ve got a favor to ask you,” she says brightly. “And you owe me,” she adds — as though Bo-Katan could ever forget.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Bo-Katan says, “What have you gotten into now?”

“You’re one to talk,” replies Ahsoka without missing a beat. In the dimness of the bunker, her eyes glow just a bit. It would be disturbing, if Bo-Katan weren’t used to it. “It’s not for me, exactly. It’s for Luke Skywalker.”

Bo-Katan narrows her eyes a little. It’s her automatic response to anything involving Jedi other than Ahsoka — even half trained ones like Luke — but she’s willing to make an exception for the Empire’s Bane. “I thought he was dead.”

Ahsoka rolls her eyes. “Mon Mothma really needs to shut up about that. He’s not dead — though he came close when I got a hold of him. Regardless, we need your help. He’s got a plan to take out the Emperor and the Death Star in one fell swoop. You in?”

Bo-Katan tips her head to one side, considering. “We don’t really work with the Rebellion.”

“This isn’t exactly the Rebellion.” Ahsoka smiles in a way that Bo-Katan can’t translate. It’s unnerving. “If it helps, you’ll be working with the person who killed Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Blinking, Bo-Katan says, “He’s on our side?”

“Yep!” Ahsoka is still a bright ray of sunshine in the middle of the dark bunker. “Come on, don’t pretend you aren’t a little bit pleased about that.”

Bo-Katan will not pretend, nor will she pretend that she doesn’t have a little vindictive thrill of pleasure at knowing she outlived Obi-Wan Kenobi, a thorn in her side ever since he turned Satine’s head all those years ago.

“And,” Ahsoka says, since she’s never been able to resist getting the last word in, “you do owe me.”

Bo-Katan sighs through her nose, raising an eyebrow at Ahsoka. “Fine. Where do you need me?”

“I’ve got a ship. Well, two. Wait —” Ahsoka raises her eyes upward, counting. “Three, actually — now that Hera’s in.” As she turns back toward the entrance to the bunker, ready to lead the way out into the open air, since apparently they’re going now, she turns back and says, “So working with Darth Vader won’t be a problem, right?”

# # #

“If it helps,” Lando says as he stands awkwardly before the ruling council he left behind on Cloud City after what he has since referred to as the Vader Incident, “I don’t want to be here either. Luke made me come — and he liberated you after the Empire came and occupied you after I left, so you owe him.”

Lady Syatha, the head of the council, leans forward in her chair, resting both her elbows on the long silver table that separates her from Lando. Her many dozens of braids, bound with silver cord, fall over her dark shoulders. “Yes, Lando,” she agrees. “We owe him. Not you.”

“Ah.” Lando holds up a finger. “But as I am Luke’s friend, I have the power to operate as his representative.” He thinks he is Luke’s friend. He hopes he is Luke’s friend. Given that Luke takes pains to protect him from Leia’s verbal and physical attacks — which are thankfully growing less frequent — he thinks he must be. Of course, it’s entirely possible, given what he has seen of Luke, that the kid is just biding his time and waiting to attack when Lando’s guard is down.

“Mm.” Lady Syatha continues to look unimpressed. “And why is Luke Skywalker not here to call in this favor himself?”

“Oh, so you don’t think he’s dead?”

Lady Syatha eyebrows climb toward her hairline. “Why would we have reason to think him dead?”

Lando clears his throat and makes a note to tell Leia that Mon Mothma hasn’t yet deigned to share her feelings about Luke’s fate with Cloud City. “You wouldn’t, of course. And he isn’t here because he’s on Kashyyyk with Han Solo.”

Lady Syatha’s eyebrows do not return to their usual elevation. “Why?”

“Oh, because he’s helping Han call in another favor.”

“With the… Wookiees?”

Lando nods. “Do you remember Chewbacca?”

With a pained look, Lady Syatha says, “Yes.” Her tone reminds Lando that Chewbacca, when under stress, rarely bothers with the proper way to open a door, so he can only imagine the veritable string of broken and ripped open doors Chewbacca left in his wake during his escape from Cloud City six months prior.

Wishing he hadn’t just reminded her of something so unpleasant, Lando says, “Speaking of remembering people, what’s your feeling on Darth Vader?”

# # #

With a sharp yell, Luke ducks behind one of the scattered chairs in the great hall Chewbacca’s uncle (or perhaps he was a cousin, nephew, brother, or grandfather — it was impossible to tell through his thickly accented Shyriiwook) led them too when they arrived at his clan’s village — a web of bridges and buildings in Kashyyyk’s tall trees. The platter Chewbacca’s mother — or possibly aunt — hurled at his head shatters against the chair’s tall back.

“What did you say to them?” he yells to Han, who is huddled behind another nearby chair, over the din of what sounds and looks like Chewbacca’s entire clan, all bellowing at them and appearing to be arguing over whether or not to string them up from the forest canopy. He thought — stupidly, foolishly, blindly — that he was fluent in Shyriiwook, but apparently, Chewbacca has been speaking slowly and in the most simple terms for the past three years. It’s no wonder he’s always on edge, if his normal mode of speaking would be the profane levels of eloquence his clan appears to be reaching.

“I just said, ‘Hey, I saved Chewbacca’s life, about eighty-five separate times, would you be willing to help him and me overthrow the Empire?’ and they went crazy!” Han pokes his head up briefly to yell something at them all in Shyriiwook that Luke can’t even begin to understand. Judging by the way they all go even wilder, it was nothing complimentary.

Han jerks back down. “I’m starting to feel really unappreciated here!”

Luke uses the Force to block a barrage of fruit — they appear to have caught the clan right in the middle of their evening meal — coming from their flank, flung by a horde of Chewbacca’s nieces and nephews, just going by their diminutive size. “And I’m starting to realize just why Chewie didn’t come! I don’t think he’s ever told them what he’s gotten up to since he left home.”

Han winces and sucks air in through his teeth. “So maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the bit about him being a slave of the Empire and being dumped in a mudpit to eat the soldiers they didn’t like?”

A bowl shatters two inches away from Luke’s head. Shaking shards out of his hair, he snaps, “That would have been good!”

“Do you think now’s the time to tell them about your dad?”

As the patriarch of the clan bellows something that sounds terrifyingly like Tear their arms off!, Luke says, “Well, we can’t exactly avoid it!”

“Good.” Han claps him on the shoulder and looks deep into his eyes. “Then, since you managed to turn an entire ship full of Imperials to our side, I nominate you.”

“That’s not fair!”

Han wiggles a finger next to his ear. “Too loud, can’t hear you!”

“You’re a kriffhead.” Luke spares a glance at Chewbacca’s clan. Several of them are picking up knives from the long carved table, meaningfully. Snatching hold of an idea that he thinks might allow him and Han to leave without any puncture wounds, he asks, “How do you say Padme Amidala’s husband in Shyriiwook?”

# # #

“This is a terrible idea,” says Obi-Wan — ever present at Anakin’s side as always.

Anakin pauses just short of the front door to the stone cabin he managed to track down amidst the ruins of Dathomir, carefully hiding his presence in the Force. It was concealed beneath layers and layers of Nightsister enchantments, but after seventeen headaches, he managed to find it. “What could go wrong?” he asks.

Obi-Wan gives him a flat look. “You used to hunt him. A lot could go wrong. For instance, he would stab you in the throat.”

“He could, but remember, this is the little kriffhead who flooded me out of my own fortress. I want him on my side. Besides, I don’t even look like Vader any more. It’ll be fine.”

“You know, I flooded you out of that same base too,” says Obi-Wan, folding his arms. “And I don’t get nearly enough credit for it.”

“First of all, I wasn’t even there, and second of all, you did it by accident. This kid did it maliciously.” Anakin stretches out an arm and knocks on the door.

After a long pause, the door opens to reveal a redheaded man with scruffy hair and an even scruffier beard. His gaze tracks over them both before settling on Obi-Wan. “Master Kenobi?” His voice creaks a little.

Anakin flicks Obi-Wan an exasperated look. “It’s like I’m not even here.” He waves his hand in front of the man’s face. “Yes, hello — pay attention to the corporeal one. He’s already dead, that means he lost the game. Cal Kestis, is it?”

Cal gives him a wary look. “Maybe.”

“Great.” Anakin considers the best phrasing for his question and decides that the simplest terms are best. “Do you want to help me overthrow the Emperor with my family?”

Cal blinks several times. “I’ll have to ask my wife,” he says. As if on cue, a Nightsister with short white hair and eyes that know murder intimately emerges from the shadows behind him. The fact that she has a toddler on her hip does not make Anakin feel any more certain that she won’t try to kill them both — even Obi-Wan, who is already dead.

Smiling a little, Cal adds, “She’s not a huge fan of Jedi.”

Anakin thinks back over his personal history. “Me either.”

# # #

Lying on her back on the holotable in the Executor’s communications room, Padme absently twirls the stylus from her datapad between her fingers. “All right, so who’s left? If that Mon Calamari prince is still around, I think he’d help us. What about the Rylothian branch of the Rebellion? Do they get along with Mon?”

“They don’t get along with anyone,” says Anakin darkly from his position across the room from her, sprawled gracelessly across one of the consoles. Piett and Veers, present as they are at all official meetings, are peering down at him like disappointed parents. “Except with grenades and blasters.”

Stretched out on the floor — because apparently no one in this family can think in a vertical orientation — Leia says, pursing her lips in false sympathy, “Oh, is someone still mad at the freedom fighters?”

“Leave him alone,” Luke says, floating in a cross legged position above Leia and unnerving Piett and Veers greatly.

“Oh, you always take his side —”

“Only when you’re being a kriffhead.”

“That’s so unfair —”

“Well, if you would just —”

“Children.” Anakin puts both hands over his face. “Stop bickering.”

Somehow, this shuts them both up — even Leia. After a moment, Leia ventures, almost timidly, “So are we missing anyone?”

Anakin removes his hands from his face and tips his head toward Padme. “You remember Saw Gerrera? He's good at what he does, yeah?”

From the other side of the room, the Batch and Phee suddenly rise up in vast, righteous fury. “No,” they all say at once, almost deafeningly.

“Besides,” adds Hunter, seeming to calm himself down with effort, “he’s dead.”

“Thank the stars,” spits Phee with a certain amount of venom, while the rest of the Batch — even Omega — nods along.

Padme, along with Anakin, gives them a wide eyed look and decides she doesn’t want to know. “Well, forget Saw then,” she says. “Is there anyone else?”

“Well…” Anakin shifts a little. “There is this planet that swore allegiance to me and my bloodline.”

As one, everyone in the room snaps their heads around to look at Anakin. Sitting up, Padme sets her chin in her hand and regards her recently reacquired husband. “They what?”

# # #

Leia stands at the foot of the transport they took down to Honoghr and watches with delight as the Noghri, having enthusiastically lauded her as Lady Vader, prepare to go to war against the Empire. The well oiled machine that is their military is enough to soothe away the indignation of being called a Vader.

Twisting around, she beams at Anakin — Ipu — and pretends not to notice the way he lights up at the sight of her smile. “I think I love them,” she breathes out as they Noghri start loading themselves onto the other transports sent down from the Executor.

# # #

Mon Mothma has given up expecting things to make sense, and she has also given up trying to figure out why people keep disappearing and not answering her comms. Leia, Zev, Lando, Chewbacca, and Threepio are resilient enough and work well enough as a team for her to hope they’re still alive, and she can’t imagine anything killing Ahsoka or Rex. But if they’re alive, why haven’t they returned home with Luke? If they were captured by the Empire, why haven’t there been any ransom demands?

If Luke’s alive, why hasn’t he turned up with his bright smile and his self assured idealism, bragging about how his ludicrous plan did work?

Now that Hera has also stopped answering her comms, Mon is starting to wonder if maybe the Empire has commissioned some new, stunningly effective assassin.

All she knows is she needs answers. She needs them quickly. She needs to know more about the ghost branch of the Rebellion that seems to be emerging, talked about in whispers throughout the galaxy.

And she needs people to answer their kriffing comms.

At long last, she found something approaching a lead: rumors that Tatooine is not nearly so under Imperial control as the holonet and official reports are leading the galaxy — and the Emperor — to believe. Mon isn’t entirely sure how this might connect to the disappearance of the Death Star destroyers, their friends, and one of the heroes of Lothal, but at this point, she’s willing to believe they all took a side trip together and decided to liberate Tatooine on the way. That does seem like something Luke would do.

Even so, she didn’t believe the rumors until someone actually did answer their comms — though the answerer wasn’t any of the people she was hoping to hear on the other end of the encrypted call, made over Rebellion channels. Instead, it was a young man’s voice, chirpy in a way most people’s aren’t these days. After confirming her identity, he cheerfully invited her to Jabba’s palace for a meeting.

Turning the phrases Jabba’s palace and we have tea over in her head, Mon accepted, not entirely sure this wasn’t all an elaborate plot on the part of the Empire to murder her.

This suspicion persisted right up until the moment she was ushered into a wide windowed room in Jabba’s palace that had cushions scattered about the floor, sunlight streaming in, and a full tea service set up on a low table. The young man she spoke to, who introduced himself as Kitster Banai, leader of the hitherto unknown Tatooian branch of the Rebellion, briefly outlined Tatooine’s situation — how they had thrown off the Empire’s chains with outside help and maintained a careful cover to keep the Empire from finding that problematic fact out — and invited her to sit down, pouring her tea with a juxtapositionally expert air.

After a few minutes of quiet sipping — necessary for Mon to gather herself — she manages to find her words. “If you don’t mind my asking,” she says, “are you and your people the new branch that I’ve been hearing rumblings about? I understand if you want to work independently, but our victory depends on our unity.”

Kitster smiles at her over the edge of his teacup. “We’re a new branch, yeah, but we’re not that branch.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“You will,” Kister replies, unnervingly and unhelpfully.

Mon tries again. “You mentioned outside help. Who would that help be?”

Smile deepening for some reason, he says, “Oh, just my brother.”

“Your… brother.”

“Yes.”

“Where did he get the resources?”

“Oh, from his boss. Well.” Kitster shrugs a little. “Former boss. They’ve had a falling out, though his boss doesn’t know it yet.”

“I see,” says Mon, not seeing at all. “And he managed all this alone?”

“Not quite. He had his two kids help him.”

“Kids?”

“Yeah. They’re real whippersnappers. His daughter killed Jabba, though.”

Mon almost chokes on her tea. “I’m sorry?”

“Oh, don’t be. He was a real kriffhead.”

“No, I mean —” She sets down her teacup. “I’m afraid I’m very confused. There is a certain amount of… unrest,” she says, managing to settle on a word that at least somewhat describes the situation, “in the Rebellion right now, and I’m simply wondering if perhaps you could provide some answers.”

Kitster gives her a wide eyed, innocent look. “Well, I can't, I'm afraid.”

Mon stands, sighing. “I understand. Thank you for your time, I —”

“But she can.” Kitster points to someone behind Mon.

Mon turns.

Padme Amidala stands on the other end of the long room, large as life and much less dead that Mon remembers her being at her funeral.

Several things Kitster said click into place at once. Mon sways.

“Hello, Mon,” says Padme with a large smile that belies her nerf leather coat and the giant blaster she wears slung across her shoulders. “Did Kit tell you I’m one of the leaders of the Imperial branch of the Rebellion?”

Someone else emerges from the archway behind her. It takes Mon a minute to recognize the person as Luke, mostly because he’s flanked by Anakin Skywalker.

“Hello,” Luke says. Then, pointing enthusiastically at Anakin, he says, “Look, it’s my ipu! My plan worked, just like I said.”

That’s when Mon faints.

Chapter 15: Reconnecting with Old Friends and Leaning on Your Family When Confronting Your Demons

Chapter Text

Piett sits perched — with perfect military posture — on the parapet of one of the towers of Jabba’s palace. The suns beat down on him, but even so he doesn’t deign to unbutton even the topmost button of his starched green uniform.

Much has changed, but that does not mean he will allow his appearance to slip. He is the admiral of the most technologically advanced star destroyer in the galaxy, right hand to Darth Vader, and somehow inexplicably a high ranking member of the Imperial branch of the Rebellion. He must be a credit to his titles.

Besides, the only thing standing between him and a mental breakdown is the way he can still see his reflection in the toes of his shined boots.

At his side, Max has completely abandoned the dignity of his own titles and is stretched out on the parapet with his jacket cast to the side, revealing his black undershirt. One arm cast over his face to keep the sun out of his eyes, he asks, “Did you ever see things turning out this way, Firmus?”

Piett purses his lips. “How — exactly — do you think I could have predicted this, Max?”

“You always have been good at seeing things coming ahead of time.”

Piett twists toward him. “But this?”

“I will admit that Luke Skywalker surrendering was a bit unexpected.”

“He didn’t surrender,” Piett objects. “He walked onto the Executor and took charge.”

“History will tell it differently.”

“That’s because no historian will bother to try to follow the child’s logic.”

Max props himself up on an elbow and squints at Piett, considering. “I suppose you’re right.” After a pause, he says, “How do you figure history will remember us?”

Piett tips his head toward Max. “As Darth Vader’s loyal soldiers.”

“Come off it — truthfully, how do you think they’ll remember us?”

Piett sighs deeply and stares toward the pale blue horizon. “Idiots. As idiots.”

The Pietts make admirals, generals, and colonels. Piett himself did manage to reach the rank of admiral, but he rather thinks he is the first in his family line to add the titles of rebel, right hand to a Jedi, and traitor to the Empire to the mix.

Max joins him in staring off toward the horizon. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re probably right.”

# # #

It takes much waving of smelling salts beneath Mon Mothma’s nose to rouse her from her faint, but when she, arranged nicely on several of the pillows previously surrounding the table in the middle of the room, finally awakens, Amu squints down at her with a disapproving purse to her lips. “I remember you being much harder to rattle in the old days.”

“Amu.” Luke lays a hand on her arm. “She’s already mad at us — well, me. Do you have to make it worse?”

Amu pats his head. “She’s not your leader any longer, darling.”

“No?” This is news to Luke.

“No. You’re third in line for emperor.”

“I am?”

“Of course you are. You were born before Leia.”

This is also news to Luke, but far from unwelcome.

With an irritated huff, Mon sits up, swinging her legs off the couch and glaring at Amu. “In all fairness, that was twenty-three full years ago. Much has happened since then. And one of my best friends in the Senate dying was rattling.”

“Well,” Amu says, tucking a loose curl behind her ear, “I’ve only improved with age.”

Mon looks Amu up and down, probably taking in her nerf leather coat and not insignificantly sized gun. “That’s rather debatable.”

“Oh, Mon.” Amu presses her lips together and squeezes Mon’s hand. “Never change. But you are so lucky my husband wasn’t here to hear that.”

“You mean Darth Vader?” Mon lifts both eyebrows. “The reason the galaxy is in this mess?”

Amu’s face darkens. “Anakin Skywalker, Mon, dear. Please.”

Luke squeezes onto the pillows next to Mon. “I wouldn’t push her on this,” he says in a half whisper. “Amu’s pretty touchy about it.”

“With good kriffing reason,” adds Amu, with a sweet and deadly smile.

Rubbing her temples with both hands, Mon says, “Luke is your child?”

“Yes. And so is Leia.”

Mon blinks. “Oh, well, I assumed that.”

“Why?”

With a noncommittal wave of her hand, Mon says, “Oh, just you and Bail. Leia looked like you, and you and Bail were always quite close, so I assumed —”

Amu seems to inflate. “I’m not a homewrecker.”

“No,” agrees Mon. “You just marry a Jedi who goes crazy and helps a tyrant rise to power.”

“I’m a pirate now, Mon,” says Amu in her most dangerous voice. “I am no longer above shooting people.”

“You never were. Perhaps that’s why you and Anakin Skywalker made such a good match.”

Through her teeth, Amu says, “He wasn’t in control of his actions.”

At this, Mon blinks again and turns to Luke. At the sight of her piercing gaze, he is forcibly reminded of every order he disobeyed to get here and cringes. Then he says, “It’s a long story, my lady. But the important thing,” he adds, since there’s no point in quitting when he’s ahead now, after he’s come so far, “is that I was right, and he was on our side.”

Mon regards him for a long moment. “You’re demoted.”

“That’s fine.” Luke flops flat on his back on the pillows. “Apparently I’m a prince now. But are you going to help Amu?”

Mon sighs deeply and eyes Amu. “I always help her. I started the kriffing Rebellion because of her.”

Amu preens. “And you’re going to finish it because of me too. Come on.” She pats Mon’s knee. “You’ve got to gather your people. We’re storming the new Death Star.”

“We’re what?” Mon scrambles rather ungracefully to her feet. “We don’t even know where it is!”

Amu snorts. “Of course we do. We have Darth Vader on our side. It’s over the moon of Endor, protected by a shield. My crew and I stole the plans ages ago, but we haven’t had the manpower to launch an attack. Now we do, once we sneak onto the moon. In fact…” Amu checks her chrono. “Yes, my husband’s due there in just over a cycle from now. No time to waste!” With that, she strides away.

Left in her wake, Mon stares after her. Peering down at Luke, she tips her head to one side and says, “You know, I see it now. I don’t know how I didn’t guess who you and Leia’s parents were years ago.”

Luke smiles up at her sunnily. He’s finding there is nothing more interesting and enlightening than watching Amu interact with her friends, especially those friends that he knew previous to her resurrection. Before this, Mon Mothma always seemed larger than life to Luke, and the kind of formidable woman that neither Luke nor anyone else in the Rebellion wanted to cross unless they had to. But now, after seeing Amu’s casual teasing and Mon’s quick capitulation, just barely masked by her token resistance, he’s starting to get the feeling that she is only formidable by dint of being one of the last of the original rebel senators left standing. Now that Amu is back, she has also been demoted, and she knows it. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It wasn’t one.”

# # #

Wicket didn’t ask for this. Nobody in his clan asked for it, in fact, but this particular season seems to be full of things they didn’t ask for — from the horrible metal birds descending from the sky to the giants who emerged from inside those birds, with their white skin that no spear could pierce. This is just another in a long line of inconveniences and bad omens, and he — like everyone else — is on his very last nerve.

“You can’t eat them,” intones the giant with pale skin full of scars, like he thinks Wicket might not understand. Wicket is perfectly capable of understanding giant speak — it was brought back to the moon generations ago by the great travelers of old, who went out into the galaxy to see what it held and came back to their clans to tell them that the galaxy as a whole was, just as the elders of that time warned, not at all worth the bother.

Assuming that the scarred giant is just as dense as the rest of his kind — and this must be true, since he doesn’t seem particularly concerned at being surrounded on all sides by the clan — Wicket does his best to speak slowly and simply when he answers, with enough gesticulations that a cub should have been able to understand him.

Despite all his efforts, the scarred giant still grimaces and pinches the bridge of his nose as he turns to the golden metal giant next to him. “Threepio, what are they saying?”

The golden giant makes several jerky, anxious motions with his hands. “It was quite a long speech, Master Ani, and there were several colorful metaphors which do not translate into Basic, so my translation will be —”

“Threepio, please.”

The golden giant gives a wheezy little sigh. “He says if they don’t eat them, the giants with unbreakable skin come into the jungle and steal their people.”

“But we’re not part of the Empire,” says one of the captured giants, from his bound position on a spit above the smoldering bonfire at the center of the village.

Wicket gives him a withering look over his shoulder, taking in the scratchy green raiment of the two giants bound next to him, and wonders if these giants — more than the rest of their kind — think he and his clan are stupid.

“Han,” says the scarred giant. “Let me handle this.”

“No,” the other giant says, wriggling fiercely. “I’m not convinced you’re not going to leave me here to burn.”

“Roast, more specifically,” the scarred giant corrects. “I imagine if they’re going to eat you, they’re going to try to avoid burning you. It would ruin all the flavor.”

“Vader.”

“That’s Lord Vader to you, until you marry my daughter. Perhaps even after, I haven’t decided.”

“I’ll tell Padme.”

“Captain Skywalker. And she is as unimpressed with your criminal past as I am.”

“She’s a pirate.”

“Irrelevant.”

“This is the last time I go on an advance scouting mission with you,” the other giant says and subsides into fruitlessly blowing on the embers beneath him, evidently hoping to extinguish them. Wicket wonders if the giant is aware that his efforts are more likely to fan them into renewed life.

“My lord,” says one of the green clothed giants — the one whose face is pale and purplish like a giant’s corpse and whose expression is as pinched as an irritated elder’s. “Perhaps you could intervene?”

“I’m getting there, Piett,” says the scarred giant. He eyes Wicket then. “If I could bring you a couple more like them — ones I don’t like — would you let them go?”

At this, the other green clothed giant says, “My lord,” in a reproachful tone, and the talkative giant says, “You know Luke’ll be mad at you if you go fishing in the Executor’s brig for candidates for an Ewok dinner.”

Wicket narrows his eyes. “How many?” he asks.

“He wants to know how many you will bring him, Master Ani,” says the golden giant.

As the scarred giant opens his mouth to respond, a giant made of blue light and possessing of the most disapproving expression Wicket has ever seen on someone who isn’t a clan elder appears at the scarred giant’s side. Amidst the screams of alarm from the rest of Wicket’s clan, he turns to the scarred giant and folds his arms. “I thought we left casual murder behind with your unfortunate Dark Side dalliance.”

“Bold words from the man who favors dismemberment.”

“It was one —”

“It was not one time —”

All around them, the clan is in an uproar. Chief Chirpa throws an arm in the air and yells, “The pale giant holds the power of life and death in his hands! He will help us defeat the metal birds and their armor-skinned children!” and Wicket’s mother Leifa cries, “And my son has brought him to us!”

In an instant, the scarred giant is surrounded by the clan’s hunters, and they jostle him over to Chief Chirpa, who lifts one of his many beaded necklaces from around his neck and puts it around the giant’s neck. Just as the necklace has settled against the giant’s strangely armored chest, Leifa climbs the trunk of one of the trees emerging from the village’s central platform in order to reach the scarred giant’s head and lays her own crown of leaves and flowers — denoting an honored elder — on his head.

Bemused, the scarred giant turns around and sends a beseeching look in the golden giant’s direction. “Threepio?”

As Wicket’s fellow warriors hurry to cut down the three other giants — the most talkative one curses when his back hits the hot embers and rolls free of the firepit — the golden giant makes several anxious, incoherent sounds and says, “I’m not quite sure, Master Ani, but I think they believe you to be some kind of god. They spoke of you having power over life and death, and I think — I am not sure — but I think they now expect you to help them overthrow the Empire and free them from imperial occupation.”

“Well, that’s…” The scarred giant tips his head to one side, almost dislodging his crown — if he is a god, he is an exceedingly disrespectful one. “That’s actually surprisingly accurate.”

At this point, the three giants — the would-be dinners that Wicket and his hunters worked so hard to catch — scramble over to the scarred giant’s side, shedding cinders and ash as they go, and the scarred giant, despite his earlier dismissiveness, tucks the most talkative giant behind him with a proprietary sort of air.

“Oh dear. Oh dear.” The golden giant goes stiff as some more of the clan warriors surround him and lift him up on a hastily constructed palanquin. “Master Ani, what are they doing?”

“The pale giant’s prophet,” cries Chief Chirpa, flinging an imperious arm in the golden giant’s direction.

“Just, uh…” The scarred giant shakes his head. “Go with it, Threepio.”

“‘Go with it?’” exclaims the golden giant as Leifa lays a crown of flowers on his domed head as well. “‘Go with it?’”

“Artoo would.”

“Well, Artoo has always acted like he expects people to treat him like a god, but I for one have always been content with my station in life — oh, where are you taking me?” He twists his head back and forth as the warriors carry him over to the scarred giant, glowing eyes staring and somehow terrified.

The blue spirit the scarred giant summoned seems to sigh, his form rippling as he floats at the scarred giant’s side. “I can’t take you anywhere, can I?”

Before the scarred giant can respond, a beautiful girl giant explodes out of the dense foliage surrounding the platform, flanked by a boy giant with a blade of pure light. They both freeze as they take in the scene, seemingly heedless of the way the entire clan lurches back away from them and snatches for their spears. “Father?” asks the girl giant, eyes roving from the scarred giant and golden giant, complete with their royal trappings, to the smoldering fire, and at last to the talkative giant. “What’s going on? And why is Han covered with ash?”

The scarred giant opens his mouth to say something, but what Wicket has to say is far more important. Casting his spear aside, he cries, “They are the children of the scarred god! See, the boy wields the sun itself!”

As one, the clan rushes the two giants, and Wicket himself manages to present the girl giant with his spear, which is the greatest honor he can think of.

Behind him, the scarred giant spreads his hands. “So I think the Ewoks are on our side now.”

# # #

Sheev settles back in his throne and surveys the curve of Endor’s moon, visible through the sweeping view screen in front of his throne. The new Death Star is very nearly complete, and as soon as it is, there will be nothing left for the Rebellion to do and nowhere for them to hide. Soon, assuming Darth Vader has done what he asked, he will even have a new apprentice.

Vader was growing old and soft anyway.

He flicks his fingers to one of his attendants — some stiff officer whose name he never bothered to learn. “Contact Lord Vader,” he says, “and tell him that I am waiting for him and the Skywalker boy.”

As the attendant rushes off to do so, Sheev smiles to himself. Despite the strange occurrences that have been grazing the edges of his attention for the past few weeks, all is still proceeding just as he planned. All that stands against his forces on the moon below are simple tribes of primitives, without the strength or the resources to stop the Death Star from being completed, and soon Vader will bring him Luke Skywalker just as he was ordered to do, solving two of Sheev’s problems — the diminishing usefulness of Vader and the growing necessity for a new successor — at once.

The serendipity of it all is pleasing.

Victory is all but in his hands.

Chapter 16: Sometimes Family Members Create Obstacles to Reunification: What To Do?

Chapter Text

“I just have one question,” says Mon Mothma as she stands with the other Rebellion leaders on the bridge of the Executor. Ipu, Amu, and the rest of the leaders of the Imperial branch of the Rebellion — strangely named, but it’s not as if they can change it now — are on the other end of the bridge, closer to the view screen.

“Is that question ‘how’?” Amu gives a tired sigh, handing Ipu the modified helmet of his suit, which is outwardly unchanged from how it was just a short time ago but inwardly entirely different. It’s no longer a torture device, for one thing. Peli is many things, some of them negative, but Luke has to admit that she really is one of the best mechanics he’s ever known. Even if she did talk the entire time she was working on Ipu’s suit, until Han sneaked up behind her and gave Leia tooka eyes, like he was begging to be allowed to strangle her from behind.

“No.” Mon presses her lips together. “It’s closer to ‘why’.”

“Well, I should think that’s obvious,” says Amu, and doesn’t deign to elaborate further.

Now it’s Mon’s turn to sigh. She turns to Luke, which people have been doing more and more frequently. He’s not sure when he turned into the voice of sanity — comparatively, anyway — in his family, but apparently in the absence of Han, he’s the one people expect to answer their questions.

“We can’t just blow up the Death Star,” he says. “There are clone technicians from the Executor on it. Reassigned months ago to help with construction. They’ve got chips; we can’t just blow them up.”

Mon looks like she thinks they could but shouldn’t, which is very different, but she doesn’t say anything in response.

“So Ipu’s got to go onboard and distract Palpatine while we all get into position, and all that gives Piett and Veers a chance to help evacuate all of them onto the Executor.”

“And any stormtroopers and ISB agents who wish to switch sides,” adds Veers, with a particular pinch to his lips that tells Luke he’s irritated that that category of people keeps being forgotten.

“Yes,” Luke agrees generously. “Them too.”

“And what wonderful additions to the Rebellion they will be,” says Mon through her teeth.

“Indeed,” replies Veers, equally through his teeth. “It will be strange to have law-abiding citizens in your camp, I’m certain.”

“Veers,” Ipu attempts, at the same time as Amu says, “Mon,” in a warning tone.

Everyone falls silent again, and the only sound on the rather crowded bridge is the sound of Ipu’s helmet sealing. Amu keeps both hands pressed on either side of it as she stands on tiptoes to peer into the dark eyeholes. “Are you all right, Ani?”

After so long hearing his unfiltered voice, Ipu’s vocoded words sound strange to Luke’s ears. “Of course, angel.”

Beside Luke, Leia lifts her eyes to the ceiling and mutters something about her life not making sense, and Han pats her shoulder in sympathy.

Personally, Luke thinks everyone should be more adaptable.

“All right then,” says Ipu. “Does everyone know their part in the plan?”

Mon and the other Rebellion leaders give Ipu a very flat look. “We’ve been doing this twenty years longer than you have,” says Mon.

“Ah, there’s the charming woman who got her husband put in prison for her embezzlement.” Ipu endeavors to make even his vocoded voice sound fond. Luke thinks this is impressive, but judging by Mon’s expression, she does not.

“You knew about that?” She raises one thin eyebrow, though that doesn’t disguise how uncomfortable she is.

“Mon, the entire ISB knew about that. We just thought it was funny.”

Mon continues to look like she just bit into a sour meiloorun. “Let’s get moving. The Emperor won’t wait forever.”

“Don’t worry, Mon,” says Amu as she sweeps past Mon on her way to board her own ship, which will then move to the light side of the moon of Endor with the rest of the Rebellion’s fleet — what remains of it, anyway — where there is enough interference from the planet’s gravitational field to protect them from Imperial sensors. “We’ll get your husband out of prison.”

Ipu, also heads off of the bridge, and Luke scurries after him, with Han, Leia, and Zev on his heels. “Don’t worry, Mon,” he amends. “We’ll make sure your husband stays in prison.’

Mon smiles at Ipu, in possibly the first display of positive feelings toward him that Luke has seen her make. “Thank you.”

Amu looks over her shoulder at that, seems briefly on the verge of asking for clarification, but then shrugs and continues on her way.

Everyone else follows her example.

# # #

The sensation of a shield generated by Ipu, Obi-Wan, Luke himself, Cal Kestis, and several dozen Jedi younglings — now grown — is a steady buzz in Leia’s ears. She’s always felt the Force on some level, but it wasn’t until she met Luke that she could put a name to the feeling, which in turn allowed her to name the cold, sick feeling she got in the pit of her stomach any time she was in close proximity to the Emperor, usually during one of his rare appearances in the Senate.

Now, on Ipu’s right side with fake binders around her wrists and with Luke on Ipu’s other side, she couldn’t feel anything through the Force if she tried. It’s like someone’s wrapped a muffling blanket around her head, thick enough to block out even the kriffing Emperor’s Force presence.

It would be funny, if the situation were any less tense.

As Palpatine enters the Executor’s hangar through its largest docking port, flanked on both sides by his scarlet armored guards and clearly feeling like the most important person on the ship, especially when Ipu kneels and pulls Luke and Leia down with him, Leia decides it is just a little bit funny.

Palpatine stops a few feet away from them, regarding Ipu from under the drooping hem of his dark hood. “You have done well, my apprentice,” he says in a throaty hiss. Leia very nearly offers him honeyed tea, not that she has any on hand. “I see you managed to acquire the last scion of Alderaan as well.” He smiles at Leia. “How fortunate.”

“Thank you, my master,” says Ipu. His intonation is so radically different from what Leia has grown used to that it takes all of her training as a spy to stop her from letting out a rather hysterical laugh. “It is only because of your training.”

Though Luke makes no sound or movement, Leia can still pinpoint the moment when he almost loses it and starts giggling. If she were closer, she’d hit him.

“You both will have the great honor of witnessing the end of your pitiful Rebellion,” Palpatine says, addressing both Leia and Luke. “None can stand before the might of my Death Star.”

Leia lifts her gaze to him and almost invites him to tell that to Padme Amidala, but instead she says, “I guess we’ll see, kriffhead.”

This is her, Luke, and Ipu’s job in all this: get Palpatine alone and take him out.

# # #

Hunched down behind a console in the flight control that overlooks the hangar, Han peeps out over the edge of the console and down through the window of the room just in time to read Leia’s lips. Without ducking back down, he rests his forehead against the console and asks, “Did she just swear at the Emperor?”

Sequestered against the back of the console as well, Zev shrugs. “I wouldn’t put it past her. I told you we never should have let her convince Vader to let her come with him and Luke.”

Han blows air out through his lips. “It’s real cute that you think we could have stopped her.” As he watches, Vader gets back to his feet, pulling Luke and Leia with him, and follows the Emperor and his retinue back through the docking port and onto the Death Star. Not long after they leave, Piett and Veers, with a few clone troopers with them, head after them, ostensibly to administrate troop reallocations.

Technically they are doing just that. But as far as Han can tell, they’re really just stealing the people they like from the Death Star, and they have no intention of either replacing them or giving them back.

As a smuggler, Han can respect that. He can also respect the guts it takes to walk into an Imperial stronghold, say, “I’m taking these people, please,” and walk back out before anyone can say, “All right, but for how long?”

“We’re clear,” Han says, getting up. “Go get our Jedi and the rest of our squad to the Falcon. We head down to Endor in five.”

That’s his job in all this: lead the battle down on Endor to take out the shield protecting the Death Star.

# # #

Padme sits in her captain’s chair on the bridge of her ship, waiting for the signal. Her crew is around her, and unfortunately Hondo is too — he wouldn’t let her take his ship into battle without him, and with her memory back, she is unfortunately too soft to just space him, though she will never ever tell him that.

Twenty-three years ago, when the Rebellion was just a germ of an idea, a pin in a grenade that she hoped she’d never have to pull, Padme imagined that it all might explode into a final battle, with the Republic split down the middle for a second time — this time between freedom and imperialism.

She imagined a battle. She imagined subterfuge and desperate plays and alliances.

The picture in her mind, however, did not include Hondo, and it certainly did not include Peli Motto clinging on to Hondo’s arm with a proprietary air. Or Hondo letting her, for that matter. Padme supposes like recognizes like. Scammer sees through scammer. Liar believes liar.

There might have been something poetic or romantic in that, if it hadn’t involved Hondo.

Over the fleetwide comm line, she says, “All of you, hold. We go on my signal.”

Down in the hangar on Mon’s blockade runner, one of the largest surviving Rebellion ships, and in Padme’s hangar are several hundred young Jedi fighters from Pabu, waiting in starfighters for the command to take off and start the battle.

Padme saw Anakin zip around in his yellow starfighter often enough to know exactly where she wanted to allocate most of their Jedi fighters. The Imperial pilots won’t be equipped to shoot any of them down — droids could barely manage it — and they will provide the perfect distraction to keep the Imperial fleet protecting the Death Star busy.

That’s Padme’s job in all this: keep the Imperial fleet from sending reinforcements down to the garrison on Endor.

# # #

“Administrative miscommunication,” Piett says in his thickest Coruscanti accent, which he notices more now after so much time spent around rebels and Rimmers. Behind him, Max doesn’t pause once as he herds clone technicians away from their workstations and toward the docking port where the Executor is connected to the Death Star. “It’ll be resolved very soon — I’ve heard from the Core that their replacements are already on the way, but you know how Lord Vader is about clones. He wants them now, and I’m sure you don’t want me to tell him that you’re the one holding him up.”

At this, the ISB officer’s throat bobs. “No, Admiral, I just — I’m just trying to understand why you’re also taking other officers and troopers not slated for reassignment.” He gestures to his datapad. “We received the communique about the clones, but the others —”

“I apologize,” says Piett, clasping his hands behind him, “but I wasn’t aware Lord Vader needed to ask permission to requisition soldiers. One would think being the right hand to the Emperor would afford him certain privileges.”

As he speaks, Max crosses the auxiliary control room they’re in and grabs Piett’s nephew — one of the less successful Pietts but no less part of the clan — by the collar and drags him out his seat with very little preamble, deaf to his indignant cries.

Piett doesn’t let his bland smile slip. “As you can see, we’re in a bit of a rush.”

This is his and Max’s job in all this: empty the Death Star of all clones and any other Imperials who might feasibly side with the Rebellion or who they weren’t willing to see die in the coming explosion.

# # #

As a rule, Sabe tries to avoid suicide missions. All the handmaidens do, but when their intel warned them of a second Death Star being constructed, it wasn’t a hard math problem to solve. Sabe and the other eleven remaining handmaidens of Padme Amidala could infiltrate the Death Star and destroy it from the inside much more easily than the barely functioning Rebellion could attack it. Sending the information to the Rebellion would be like asking lightning to strike twice in the same spot: it was a miracle they pulled off destroying the first one.

And frankly, Sabe has no illusions about who Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa are — when she explained to Ahsoka in no uncertain terms why she and the other handmaidens wouldn’t be joining the Rebellion, she also explained why Ahsoka had better look after Luke and Leia whenever they inevitably found their way into the fight, or else — and she would rather they weren’t put up against impossible odds once again, especially given that Leia was nearly executed last time and Luke was nearly blown out of the sky.

So this particular suicide mission, while not ideal, is one Sabe can happily make her peace with.

Until, that is, she happens to glance down through a vent grating just in time to see first the Emperor — good, if he dies on this station that means the war is won — then Darth Vader — even better, he would take control in the Emperor’s absence — and then Luke and Leia — oh, kriff it all to hell and back.

Sabe takes a moment to lie flat on her face on the grate, and then Eirtae prods her and asks wordlessly with raised eyebrows if they’re going after Luke and Leia.

Sabe wordlessly answers, obviously, by drawing her blaster and rolling her eyes.

This is her job in all this: save Padme and Anakin’s idiot children from themselves.

# # #

Walking his children into the throne room of his greatest enemy and former master isn’t Anakin’s idea of a good time. It is, in fact, his idea of a bad time. He’s only doing it because if he didn’t, they’d just run in without him, and that would be the worst time.

Needless to say, he is feeling tense as he follows Palpatine through the corridors of the Death Star, moving in the direction of the throne room, so when he catches the briefest glimpse of a face through a vent cover — a face so close in likeness to Padme’s that he knows who it is immediately, even through the grid of the vent — he nearly swallows his tongue.

It’s all he can do to suppress a coughing fit that would have given away to Palpatine that his lungs are healthier than they should be.

Too late, he realizes he should have asked Mon if she knew if Padme’s handmaidens were still alive and, assuming she did, if she had updated them on the new state of affairs.

Going by their illicit presence in the vents above his head, he doesn’t think she did.

In a desperate mental flinging motion, he reaches across his bond with Padme and slams the image of Sabe into her mind, fabricating an additional image — one he is sure is rooted in truth — or the other eleven handmaidens all clustered behind her, heavily armed.

This is his job in all this: reunite his wife with her long lost handmaidens before they get him, the twins, and possibly everyone else killed.

# # #

The mental image from Anakin hits Padme with such force that she nearly falls out of her captain’s chair. As she catches her breath, she pictures the havoc Sabe and the others could wreak if they think they’re backed into a wall — and with Luke and Leia seemingly captured by the Empire, Padme can’t imagine they think anything less.

“Oh, kriff.” She leaps to her feet, heedless of the questioning yells from her crew and bolts first for the armory where they keep the stormtrooper armor they’ve collected over the years and then for the hangar, where she can commandeer a starfighter and transmit Darth Vader’s override control to hangar security on the Death Star. It was easy enough to memorize after he gave it to her; it was her birthday, after all.

This is her new job in all this: prevent her surrogate sisters from killing her husband and preemptively blowing up the Death Star.

# # #

Han raises his hands into the air as the Endor-based stormtroopers close in, backing him up against the reinforced blast door that protects the shield generator. Beside him, Zev sighs deeply and Chewie groans out a swear.

“Hey look, we’re not looking for any trouble,” Han says. This is rather undermined by the fire billowing up from the stormtroopers’ base camp in the clearing past the shield generator, but he feels it’s worth saying anyway. “Come on, guys, can’t we resolve this peacefully?”

“What do you think, rebel scum?” asks a stormtrooper through his helmet’s vocoder.

Han shrugs. “I think you should probably look behind you.”

The stormtrooper falters. “What?”

Helpfully, Zev points.

That’s around when Ewoks fall out of the huge pines surrounding the shield generator and swarm the stormtroopers like piranhas converging on blood in the water. In the pandemonium that follows, a horde of speeder bikes explodes out of the underbrush, piloted mostly by Chewbacca’s clan and led by a clone — or at least, he calls himself a clone, but Han doesn’t really see the family resemblance, so to speak — who whips his bike sideways and skids to a stop at the perfect angle and speed to knock the legs of the stormtrooper Han was talking out from under him.

Leaning over the handlebars of his bike and flipping up the visor of his helmet to squint at Han and Zev, Tech says, “It is not usually considered good strategy to warn your enemies of an ambush ahead of time.”

Han shrugs again. “You had it handled.”

As if to prove his point, a Wookiee wrestles the last stormtrooper to the ground and an Ewok bashes his helmet in with a club.

Tech narrows his eyes. “You remind me of my brothers.”

“Thanks.”

“It was not a compliment.”

Han chooses to benevolently overlook this. “Where are all your Jedi children?”

“They are not my children; Phee and I never legally adopted them, we merely —”

“Tech.”

Before Tech can say anything more, there’s a flash of light and a thud from behind Han and Zev. They both whirl around in time to see Jedi of various shapes and sizes but none over the age of thirty-five spill out through a glowing circular hole cut in the blast door. The foremost one, a young man with a scrub of sandy brown hair, makes an exaggerated motion toward the new hole. “After you, my liege,” he tells Han.

Bemused, Han looks back over his shoulder at Tech, who dismounts his speeder bike and folds his arms. “That,” he says, “is the appropriate way to conduct an infiltration.”

Han decides to overlook this as well. “Let’s move, people,” he calls. “We have a shield generator to blow up!”

# # #

Kitster likes to think he has matured over the years. No longer is he a scrappy pit technician for podraces; he’s a respected rebel leader now.

However, that doesn’t mean he is above laughing like an anooba at the desperate, screeching comms that come in from the Imperial contingent tasked with defending the Death Star. Apparently, they weren’t expecting the backup contingent from Tatooine that they were promised a rotation ago to turn on them and join the rebel fleet that emerged from beyond the far side of the moon of Endor.

While it isn’t their fault — after all, no one knows that Tatooine isn’t still under Imperial control — but Kitster still leans close to the console of the assault transport he’s piloting and says, “What, you didn’t see this coming? I thought the Imps trained you all to be ready for anything,” into the comms.

He leans back in his seat. All that’s left now is to wait for the signal to converge on the Death Star and send a flight of smaller ships into the convolutions of its still unfinished body, through which they could reach the reactor core and trigger a cataclysmic meltdown.

# # #

Palpatine, Luke is finding, is more boring than he expected. Shielded as he is by Ipu, he can’t really sense the darkness in his presence, so all that’s left is an old, old man who really, really likes to hear himself talk.

Luke would be more forgiving, but his knees are starting to hurt from kneeling on a very hard durasteel floor, and it’s taking all of his energy to keep telepathically telling Leia, Don’t move, don’t bite him, please don’t blow this for us.

Palpatine has been droning on for so long that Luke has entirely stopped listening when a sudden silence presses against his ears. He jerks his head up to see Palpatine looking at him expectantly, yellow eyes alight with hungry anticipation that is very quickly bleeding into irritation.

“Sorry, I… I didn’t quite catch what you said.” Luke smiles sheepishly. “Could you repeat that?”

“‘Could I repeat that?’” asks Palpatine. His eyes widen slightly.

“Not that. The bit before.”

For the first time since Luke has met him, Palpatine is struck speechless.

With a frustrated huff, Leia twists toward Luke. “He was going on and on about the power of the Dark Side, and then he said he could teach you that power and enable you to save your friends.”

“Oh.” Luke nods. “Thanks, Leia. That was a really good summary.”

She uses her bound hands to tuck a wisp of hair that’s come loose from her crown braid behind her ear. “Thank you, I thought so.”

“If we could get back to me,” says Palpatine, pushing himself to his feet in one sharp motion.

Beside Luke, Ipu breathes deeply and slowly through his respirator. If Luke knows him — and he does, now — he is counting to ten.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Luke says. “I’m bad at listening to people. My aunt was always going on about it, but, you know, I didn’t listen.” He smiles again, amusing himself for a moment by imagining Palpatine having an aunt. “Anyway, that sounds like a pretty good deal. What’s the catch?”

“No catch.” Palpatine is back in his element again, preening like an exotic parrot. With a lazy motion of one hand, he uses the Force to unhook Luke’s lightsaber from where it hangs at Ipu’s belt and lets it fall at Luke’s feet. At the same time, his binders — never properly locked in the first place, not that Palpatine would know that — slips from his wrists and clatter on the floor. “You only have to kill my old apprentice.”

It is precisely at this moment that Obi-Wan materializes behind Palpatine’s throne.

# # #

The adrenaline that runs through Anakin’s body at the sight of Obi-Wan, fully visible and fully translucent blue, behind Palpatine’s throne is enough to age him a further twenty years.

What in the galaxy are you doing? he demands furiously across their bond.

What am I doing? comes Obi-Wan’s indignant reply. You dragged me here!

I did not.

There’s a long pause, during which Anakin’s mind fills with the sensation of Obi-Wan’s smug satisfaction.

# # #

This is better than winning an argument. This is better than every time he managed to beat Anakin sparring. This is even better than haunting him from beyond the grave.

For a minute, he forgets all about Palpatine.

You got scared, he tells Anakin through their bond, endeavoring to make his mental voice as singsongy as possible. You got scared that you’d have to fight your son, and your first reaction was to get me.

That is patently untrue, Anakin growls. His mask makes his face expressionless, but Obi-Wan was witness to enough of his preadolescent outbursts to easily picture him as nine years old again with his arms crossed, shoulders hunched, and fair brows drawn low over his eyes.

You need me, Obi-Wan sings in his mind.

You’re delusional.

Little Ani needs an adult’s help, he says, drawing out the last word into a melody.

No, I was just thinking about who could give me advice on the best way to dismember Palpatine, and seeing as you’re so skilled at that —

You still lo-ove me…

# # #

Obi-Wan’s singing voice is grating inside Anakin’s mind, even in comparison to Palpatine’s croaking. I’m going to kill you, he informs Obi-Wan.

Can’t, you already tried that.

Watch me. Something surges inside Anakin, and he swears he has felt it before, during that strange week that neither he, Ahsoka, nor Obi-Wan can seem to remember, which left them with the mystery of a planet named Mortis in their starcharts but not anywhere in the physical galaxy.

# # #

Oh, that’s a fine threat. What are you going to do? Kill me again? Obi-Wan takes a step forward.

His hip bumps gently against the back of Palpatine’s throne.

He freezes.

Looks down.

Sees his own body.

Solid.

Dressed in the exact clothes he died in, just sans the lightsaber burn.

He lifts his gaze to Anakin, Leia, and Luke, who are all staring at him exactly in the way you would expect people to stare at someone who just came back to life.

# # #

Anakin can see the exact moment Obi-Wan starts to panic. It comes exactly one second after Anakin starts to panic.

Oh kriff, he and Obi-Wan think to each other at the same time.

Chapter 17: How to Handle Heartstopping Moments When Emotions Run Hot

Chapter Text

Luke is still trying to process the fact that Obi-Wan is here — solid, alive, very much not dead by Ipu’s hand — when Ipu draws his lightsaber with a grand flourish.

Palpatine chuckles, completely unaware that Obi-Wan is just behind his throne, rubbing the part of his hip he bumped and opening and closing his mouth like a beached fish. “Good, good,” Palpatine says in a throaty rasp. “Your own father would strike you down to save his own life. That must make you angry. Use that anger, boy — use it! Strike him down!”

“I…” Luke gets to his feet shakily and draws his lightsaber, while Leia backs up out of his way — for once in her life, she seems to have decided to stay on the sidelines.

Behind the throne, Obi-Wan holds up a single staying finger, thumps at his hip absently like he’s checking if he’s still solid, winces when he discovers that it does indeed hurt, and then appears to try to phase through the view screen at the back of the throne room. His forehead smacks against the transparisteel — too quietly for Palpatine to hear, thankfully — and he reels backward, turning around with such an earnestly confused expression that Leia seems to choke on a laugh, transforming it into a raw cry of, “Luke, be careful!” to cover it up.

All Luke can think is that Palpatine must not turn around.

Under any circ*mstances.

Possibly ever.

“I… I will not fight you, Father!” Luke says, a statement that is rather undercut by his drawn lightsaber, but it’s too late to take it back.

Ipu takes a few long steps sideways. “You will, son. There is no resisting the power of the Dark Side.” He glances at Obi-Wan and then back at Luke. “No resisting it,” he repeats, a little more emphatically this time. He brandishes his saber. Luke leans back a little, having an uncomfortable flashback to losing his hand.

He has a feeling Ipu is trying to tell him something.

A second later, Leia confirms this suspicion by howling, “Fight him, you idiot!”

Luke considers the best way to approach this mock duel — a way that will keep Palpatine from turning around and seeing Obi-Wan and keeps him occupied until the time comes to blow up the Death Star. When no bright ideas come, all that’s left is to approach the whole thing in the same way he approached giving himself up to Ipu at the beginning of all this.

Throw caution to the wind and improvise.

With a feigned roar of rage, he throws himself at Ipu, who staggers backward — since Luke neglected to mentally communicate his attack to him beforehand — and almost flips over the thin railed bridge that spans the reactor shaft that the throne room is built above.

# # #

As Anakin parries Luke’s mock attacks, while Leia yells rather profane encouragement from the sidelines, he tries to block out Obi-Wan’s panicked monologuing, which has been echoing through his mind for the last three minutes.

He’s not even talking to Anakin any longer.

He also did like to talk himself through things when he was under stress, and clearly twenty years of solitude on Tatooine did him no favors in that department.

It’s all right, Obi-Wan says to himself in a decidedly not-all-right voice. It’s quite all right. You’re solid now, so you just take a step — oh, Force, I forgot that feet make noise, was that too loud? No, he didn’t turn around, it’s all right, so just take another step, that’s right. Do you have your lightsaber? No. Well, that’s a wrinkle, but it’s still just fine. All you need to do is sneak up behind that infernal Sith and wrap your hands around his neck and —

Anakin takes a moment to imagine what might happen if Palpatine were surprised by a strangulation attempt.

It involves a view screen blown outward by an instinctive Force shockwave, followed by the quick and violent explosive decompression of all the throne room occupants.

Which was good in terms of killing Palpatine, but bad in terms of living after that objective was accomplished.

No, he screams at Obi-Wan through their bond, still dodging Luke’s strikes and returning with some of his own. Don’t try to strangle him! Just freeze! Shut up, stop moving!

Obi-Wan does stop moving, but he does it with that particular tilt to his head and pinch to his mouth that mean trouble, that mean he is offended — deeply — that his padawan is ordering him about, and that mean he planning swift retribution in the form of doing the exact opposite of everything Anakin said.

He needs help — someone who can manage Obi-Wan. Light knows he’s never been able to.

The Force swells again, just as the best and simultaneously worst person for the job pops into his mind. By the time Anakin realizes that the impossible is happening for a second time, Satine Kryze, also inexplicably alive, is standing next to Obi-Wan.

# # #

All thought of showing Anakin just why padawans shouldn’t act like they knew better than their masters flies out of Obi-Wan’s mind as he stares at Satine. In his peripherals, red and green lightsabers flash as Luke and Vader continue their duel. A breeze across his tongue tells him his mouth is hanging open.

Satine also opens her mouth — possibly to scream, possibly to say his name, and possibly just to tell him off — and all Obi-Wan knows is that staying quiet is imperative.

He can’t quite remember why just now, what with all the wordless screaming in his head, but he knows it’s important.

So he claps a hand over Satine’s mouth.

This is, of course, the perfect way to enrage her and start an argument.

# # #

Leia can’t believe her eyes. She’s seen Satine Kryze in old holos and in vids of twenty-five year old speeches often enough to recognize her on sight, and while she is very, very sure that duch*ess Satine Kryze of Mandalore died not long before the Empire rose, Leia is even willing to accept that she is somehow alive again. That aligns with how life has been going of late.

What is impossible to accept, however, is the fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi is having a whispered argument with Satine Kryze at this very moment, as if the most feared person in the galaxy isn’t sitting in a throne four feet away from them.

Leia casts a desperate look in Ipu and Luke’s direction, hoping at least one of them will have some sort of idea, but they are so absorbed in their duel that they don’t even seem to notice her.

She turns back toward the throne.

There is a third person there, a very tall man in Jedi robes with long graying hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He’s crammed himself in between Satine and Obi-Wan, and they are both looking up — and up — at him with the expressions of children caught in wrongdoing.

Apparently Ipu had one idea.

# # #

Oh Light, Oh Light, Oh Light, Anakin has no idea how he’s doing this. All he knows is bringing back Qui-Gon was the worst possible idea, even if Obi-Wan is hastily whispering an explanation for where they are and what’s going on — hopefully including the year somewhere in there. He needs help, someone to manage Qui-Gon.

One second too late, Anakin tries to take that thought back.

# # #

When Dooku materializes out of thin air next to Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan swallows a scream. Satine clutches him dramatically. He clutches her right back.

Qui-Gon and Dooku stare at each other for a long moment. Dooku smoothes an imaginary wrinkle in his tailored vest. Qui-Gon fiddles with his mustache. Luke and Vader keep dueling in the background.

Then Dooku whispers something that sounds like, “I wanted to apologize for the incident with Maul.”

Thankfully, the instincts Obi-Wan developed as Qui-Gon’s apprentice die hard, which means he’s able to leap forward and grab Qui-Gon before he can punch Dooku in the face.

# # #

The old man is even taller than the man with the beard, which Leia doesn’t think should be possible, and he has a vaguely corpse-like look to him, with purplish circles under his eyes and gaunt cheeks. That, given that she can only assume this man was as dead or deader than Obi-Wan just a few seconds ago, is about the only thing that makes sense about what’s happening.

By now, she isn’t even surprised when the bearded man lunges at the old man with apparently deadly intent.

Obi-Wan all but leaping onto the bearded man’s shoulders like he is some kind of feral horse that needs a halter does give her pause, however.

If only briefly.

# # #

Whatever you’re doing, Obi-Wan screeches in Anakin’s head, clinging to Qui-Gon with both arms wrapped around his neck, you need to stop!

I have no idea what I’m doing! Anakin sobs back and ducks under a swipe Luke aims — badly — at his head.

He doesn’t dare think that he needs help, but some sort of floodgate has opened within him, spilling out power far beyond his control.

# # #

The last thing Mace remembers is being thrown from the window of the Chancellor’s high rise office at a breakneck speed. He thinks he fell, but the memory is blurred enough that he might be wrong.

A memory that is very clear — crystally so — is the moment he lost his arm to Anakin Skywalker, who chose that moment to reveal a previously unknown love affair with the Republic’s justice system.

Holding his arms out in front of himself, Mace counts them. And counts them again. And one more time, just to make sure.

There are definitely two.

He wiggles his fingers to convince himself.

Then Qui-Gon, who Mace is very, very sure is dead, steps into his field of view, with Obi-Wan hanging off his back like some kind of deranged cloak. He holds out his hands in a calming gesture and says into Mace’s mind, Just stay calm.

An all too familiar cackle — one of the last things Mace remembers hearing before he got electrocuted out a window — reaches his ears. Eyes widening, he turns toward a throne that’s facing away from him. From his vantage point behind it and slightly to the side, he can see a cloaked figure with a demeanor just self-aggrandizing enough for Mace to be sure it’s Palpatine.

He takes a lurching half step forward and is deafened by a mental scream from Obi-Wan. Stop him!

Someone cannons into him from behind and manages to soundlessly shove him to the floor, trapping him beneath a muscular bulk.

A face appears in his field of vision, upside down and with tentacles trailing around it. Kit Fisto, also definitely dead, grins at him.

Mace does not grin back, mostly because he, unlike Kit, has always been capable of understanding the gravity of a given situation.

# # #

Still clinging to Qui-Gon’s neck, Obi-Wan makes a hasty count of the new arrivals. It’s been a long time, but he’s relatively sure Anakin has brought back the entire Jedi Council, including people who died before the end of the war.

As Kit sits on Mace and grins like a cheerful mastiff pup, Plo locks eyes with Obi-Wan. He’s standing nearest the window that overlooks the battle going on around the Death Star. Where’s Wolffe? he asks.

Death did not change Plo. More sharply than he would have if he weren’t hanging off his old master’s neck and trying to keep Jedi — who generally love to express their opinion — quiet, Obi-Wan replies, How should I know?

He knows that’s the wrong thing to say, even before Plo unleashes a telepathic rant that rattles his brain inside his skull.

# # #

Another five minutes into his mock duel with Luke, Anakin has lost count of the people crowded behind an oblivious Palpatine’s throne. All he knows is it’s starting to get cramped, and he’s ceased to recognize everyone who is coming back. The last pair, swiftly following two older men — one broad and strong and wearing worn red armor and the other lean and blind and wearing homespun robes — and what looks like an Imperial pilot, are a young man and woman, dramatically embracing each other.

When their advent is followed by an Imperial droid with long legs and a short torso that Anakin vaguely remembers from a report that reached him around the time Scarif was destroyed by the Death Star, he only blinks.

Apparently, his powers are not limited to organic beings.

That would have been a more earthshaking revelation if Luke hadn’t chosen that exact second to make a wild yet easily dodged swipe at his midsection that makes Anakin’s mind wander to exactly the wrong place before he can stop it.

# # #

When Maul, flanked by his large brother who Obi-Wan remembers too much and his small brother who Obi-Wan remembers too little, materializes, Obi-Wan’s mind whites out. By the time he comes back to himself, he has stopped holding Qui-Gon and appears to be attempting to climb onto his shoulders instead. Qui-Gon staggers sideways and swears into Obi-Wan’s mind — something about his hair getting pulled.

Adi Gallia is frozen several yards away, continually prodding herself in the midsection as if to prove to herself that the holes Savage’s horns left are indeed gone.

It’s a bad time all around.

# # #

Maul does see Obi-Wan, Savage, and Feral, but at the moment, he is too busy feeling his own knees — flesh instead of durasteel — and enjoying the sensation of wiggling his toes to bother with any of them.

# # #

Anakin uses a deadlock Luke has trapped him in to take in the three no longer deceased Dathomirians.

Preempting Obi-Wan’s inevitable accusation, he says, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! to the crowd of resurrectees at large.

Every Jedi in the group turns to look at him.

Anakin Skywalker? comes their unanimous mental question.

It occurs to Anakin then that most of the Jedi present probably died before they found out just who Darth Vader was.

The few who did, mostly crechemasters, surge forward as one silent unit. Obi-Wan all but leaps in front of them, Satine at his side, and throws up his hands.

No! he shouts. It’s not what you think!

And he cut off my limbs, Anakin adds, unsure if he is being helpful or unhelpful, so you can know he really means it!

Obi-Wan needs backup.

Too late, Anakin realizes he shouldn’t have thought that.

# # #

In another life, Obi-Wan might have been surprised when Quinlan, Siri, Bant, Sian, Tholme, Tahl, Aayla, and Bly show up all around him, but as it is, he just yells, Help me keep everyone quiet and hidden! through the Force.

Most everyone jumps to help — probably because they aren’t keen on being dead again — but Bly and Aayla are entirely useless because they both burst into muffled sobs when they see each other and embrace like long lost lovers.

When they start kissing passionately, Obi-Wan draws the conclusion that they are long lost lovers.

After Tahl breaks away from him and leaps into Qui-Gon’s arms, almost putting his back out in the process, Obi-Wan redraws the same conclusion.

Why not, at this point?

He turns around to check on Anakin and is greeted by Ventress, standing entirely too close to him and smiling like a wolf.

It’s all he can do to swallow a shriek, especially when Quinlan grabs him by the waist and swings him out of the way so he can catch Ventress up in his arms and kiss her with enough saliva swapping to make Obi-Wan want to throw up.

# # #

Anakin almost loses his footing on the bridge over the reactor when Ventress appears. It’s only a last minute change in direction by Luke that keeps him from losing one of his cybernetic hands.

Grimacing under his mask, Anakin says, Oops.

# # #

Oops? howls Obi-Wan and the Jedi Council at once.

Thanks! adds Quinlan when he comes up for air.

# # #

Bly being alive germinates an idea in Anakin’s mind that takes root before he has time to consider the logistics of it. No, wait, he tells the Force, but by that time Plo’s Wolf Pack — excepting Wolffe, who must still be alive — appears around Plo.

As the pressure of many more souls queuing up somewhere in the world beyond the physical one builds, Anakin has time to think, desperately, Not here.

# # #

The Force is obliging. The Force is having fun. The Force has found out how to solve several problems at once.

# # #

There’s the strong sensation of someone or something patting Anakin fondly on the head and the impression of a voice saying, Whatever makes you happy.

# # #

As they hurry toward the Executor with the last batch of evacuees, Piett thinks he and Max might pull this off after all.

This was, of course, the most foolish thought to have because not a second after it sparks in his mind, he and Max are surrounded on all sides by clone troopers who weren’t there — at least not corporeally — when he last blinked.

One of them, a clone broader than the rest and wearing armor with blue paint, taps Piett on the shoulder. “I’m Hardcase,” he says cheerfully, snapping out a salute. Looking around at Max, the clone technicians, and the other clones who just appeared, he adds, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen General Skywalker? Or maybe Captain Rex? Commander Tano? I’d take General Kenobi at this point, to be honest. Last I remember, I blew up, you see, so I’m real confused, and I’d like to find my brother Fives and tell him I really am made of rubber. I must’ve, I don’t know, bounced.” He finishes all this off with a broad smile.

This is all the confirmation Piett needs. Locking eyes with Max, he asks, “Lord Vader?”

In a voice of doom, Max confirms, “Lord Vader.”

Piett turns back to Hardcase. “You need to come with us, trooper.” When Hardcase gives him a raised eyebrow, he hurriedly adds, “General Skywalker sent us.”

“Oh, well in that case. Boys, this guy’s got some answers!” He waves his hands to the other troopers, who all draw closer, sending confused looks at their chipped brothers as they do. “No, I know he looks like he’s dead, but General Skywalker sent him — oh, I probably shouldn’t have said that, huh?” Hardcase sends Piett an apologetic grimace. Just as he is opening his mouth to say something else — Piett shudders to think what — he stops short, putting a finger to the comm in his ear. “Oh, sir,” he says, “Looks like we’ve got more for the exfil.” He pauses, brow furrowing. “Hevy? Now, I know you’re dead. What do you mean Cutup is there? Did the eel spit him out or something? Never mind, it’s not important.” He refocuses on Piett and salutes again. “I’ve got troopers radioing in from somewhere they say is a mess hall, a maintenance deck, somewhere they think might be the bridge of this place, and a bunch of other places. Going by how many squads are reporting in, I’d estimate there’s about two hundred thousand of us on board. What are your orders, sir?”

Piett turns the schematics of the Death Stars, which he memorized several days prior, over in his mind. If he’s right, there are clones on three separate decks — likely more. He exchanges another look with Max, who shrugs a little helplessly.

One defining trait of Pietts is they do not make judgment calls. They always defer to their commanding officer.

However, other Pietts don’t work with Force users, and they don’t have to deal with two hundred thousand clones materializing out of the aether.

He made it to the rank of admiral. That’s really all Piett’s ancestors can ask for. “Tell them that we’re commandeering this battle station as stealthily as possible, trooper,” he tells Hardcase. “Tell them to cut the comm lines, internal and external first.”

“Yes, sir.” Hardcase grins and relays his orders.

No other Pietts will be able to claim that they stole the Emperor’s prize weapon out from under him. He reaches for his comm to update the Rebel Alliance.

# # #

Spinning the Ghost out of the way of a barrage of blaster fire and listening to Zeb and Sabine argue over the shared comm line while they man the two railguns, Hera leans close enough to the console’s comm to shout, “He wants us to what?” In the copilot’s chair, Omega winces and covers her ears.

Mon’s prim voice comes through the speakers in response. “Admiral Piett has requested we suspend the bombing run. He says he and an ‘unforeseen attack force’ are well on their way to commandeering the Death Star.”

It makes no more sense the second time around. Hera opens her mouth to say something more, but before she can, a familiar blue haired form appears from midair in front of her, tumbling across the console and almost landing in her lap before ending up on the floor in between her and Omega.

As they both peer down at him, Ezra, older than he was when he disappeared above Lothal, sits up and rubs his bruised elbow. Giving Hera a sheepish grin, he says, “Would it help if I told you I’m just as confused as you are?”

Hera screams.

# # #

Around the time a Jedi with a green knit sweater and a truly abominable haircut is thrust back into the land of the living and makes a beeline for the Wolf Pack — with clearly violent and panicked intent — that is only aborted by Depa Billaba appearing out of the fray and grabbing him by the waist, Anakin takes a second to be glad that wherever all the other clones are coming back to life, it isn’t here.

# # #

The Force doesn’t have a concept of irony, but if it did, it would find what happens next very ironic, given who is rising as the Death Star falls for a second time.

# # #

Even during a galactic civil war, hobbyist astronomers still have to find leisure time to survey the stars. At least, that’s what Lian tells herself as she points her macrobinoculars at the starry sky instead of the perimeter of the almost empty airfield on Sullust, where the Rebellion ships have been using as a refueling station since the decimation on Hoth. She’s supposed to be on guard duty, but she very much doubts that the Empire is going to bother with a backwater like this airfield when the might of the Rebel Alliance is launching a full scale attack on his pet battle station.

As such, Lian has a perfect view of the moment when the Alderaani Graveyard, the debris field left behind when the planet was destroyed three and a half years ago, winks out of existence and is replaced by the blue and green shape of Alderaan itself.

Lian lowers her macrobinoculars, blinks, and lifts them to her eyes again.

The planet is still there.

She reaches for her comm. This is above her pay grade.

Not that she actually gets paid at all.

# # #

Sheev watches Vader and Luke fight back and forth across his throne room. Princess Leia, a continual thorn in his side since the first day she set foot in the Imperial Senate, is still off to the side, hands clasped to her chest in an appropriately damselish posture.

It’s the first time she’s actually reacted in an expected way.

Contentedly, Sheev wonders if he’ll be able to convince Luke to kill her once he falls to the Dark Side. It would be pleasingly poetic.

As Luke gives a raw yell and knocks his father down again — Vader must be tiring because he just stares at some point behind Sheev for a moment before he surges out of the way of Luke’s downward strike just in time — Moff Jerjerrod, the man Sheev put in command of the Death Star, runs into the throne room and skids to a halt on the far side of the bridge over the reactor shaft, not even giving the semblance of a bow.

Sheev pins Jerjerrod down with his gaze and toys with the idea of killing him for his insubordination. Before he can make a decision, Jerjerrod gasps out, clutching at a stitch in his side, “Your Majesty! There’s a situation developing that demands your —”

Sheev makes his voice frigid enough to freeze Jerjerrod’s breath in his throat. “Can you not see I am occupied at the moment?”

“But, Your Majesty —”

“I appointed you to handle all matters regarding this station, Moff Jerjerrod. Unless you would like to be permanently demoted —” and this is a polite way of threatening his life, and judging by Jerjerrod’s expression, he knows it “— do your job and handle them.”

Jerjerrod swallows hard and finally remembers to bow, backing out of the throne room.

With a sigh, Sheev settles back in his throne to watch the rest of the duel — long or short — in peace.

Said peace lasts approximately thirty seconds before it is broken by the sharp ringing of a comm. It is so loud that even Luke and Vader stop in the middle of their duel and turn around to follow the sound.

Leia doesn’t even balk under the weight of Sheev’s gaze. She simply gives him a courteous smile, holds up a single finger, and answers her comm.

# # #

The sound of Leia’s comm ringing immediately throws her back in time, to her first appearance in the Senate as a newly minted representative. She forgot to silence her comm, and Bail called to check on her just as Palpatine began his opening speech.

Going by the way his mouth is hanging open as he stares at her, he is remembering that particular incident too.

“Hello?” Leia says into her comm, endeavoring to ignore the silent scuffle happening behind Palpatine’s throne: a tiny Jedi that looks like a female version of Yoda appears intent on biting through the ankle tendons of the old man — who Leia now recognizes as Count Dooku, from her lessons on the Clone Wars — and paralyzing him, but she is being held back by Obi-Wan and the second man who was resurrected. Leia thinks he might be Qui-Gon Jinn, but she didn’t learn very much about historical Jedi growing up.

“Leia?” It’s Bail’s voice on the other side. Leia freezes. “Are you all right?”

History continues to repeat itself. After a long second, she manages to make her voice work, though it comes out in a creak. “Papa?”

Across the room, Luke mouths, Papa? at her.

Bail’s voice is equally creaky. “Was I dead? The holonet keeps saying it’s the wrong year, and the last thing all of us remember is a bright light in the sky.”

Leia opens and closes her mouth.

“Leia?”

“Is this something you would care to share with the room at large?” asks Palpatine bitingly.

“Leia,” Bail says, “Breha commed Mon to ask what happened, but she just started screaming, and then a tech picked up her comm and said she fainted. It was winter last I remember, but it’s spring now. Leia, are you there? Is that what happened? Were we dead?”

Leia spins together the best explanation she can, weaving together all the threads of everything that’s happened in the past three and a half years into an eloquent summary that she can deliver to Bail without giving him a nervous breakdown. She opens her mouth. Her speech flies out her head as quickly as if it were shot from a blaster. “Um…”

# # #

Flying into the Death Star’s hangar in a TIE fighter her crew liberated years ago was easier than Padme expected. Even wearing stormtrooper armor and having Darth Vader’s security code at ready, she didn’t expect the rest of the infiltration to be as simple — or indeed, speedy — but no one even spared her a second glance. There were alarms blaring deafeningly, and the stormtroopers kept yelling about the decks above them being overrun by enemy fighters.

Padme didn’t remember commandeering the Death Star being part of the plan, but at the time, she didn’t care enough to investigate. She had more important concerns — namely, finding her handmaidens — so all she did was climb into the ventilation system at the first opportunity and strike out in the direction of the throne room.

Her access point must have been closer than her handmaidens because she surges into the shaft above the throne room just in time to see Sabe, her eleven fellow handmaidens clustered behind her, raise her blaster to fire it at the vent just above Palpatine’s throne.

Padme tackles her to the floor of the shaft before she can, receiving a sharp elbow to the ribs for her troubles. In another second, she is crushed beneath the weight of eleven other handmaidens and surrounded by trailing braids, the scent of perfume, and the shape of twelve Nabooian blasters, all pointed at her head.

The vent underneath them creaking ominously, Padme manages to tear off her helmet before anyone can shoot her in the face.

Sabe and the other handmaidens freeze in place. After a few seconds, Yane ventures, “Padme?”

“You unbelievably stupid, reckless idiots!” Padme hisses, still crushed beneath them all. “You’re going to get Ani killed!”

“Padme,” Sache confirms.

# # #

By now, it’s become clear that there’s no point in trying to stop whatever is happening. Instead, Anakin just moves through the running list he’s kept of everyone who has died over the years. He might as well make this work for him.

Just as Leia gives Bail her entirely insufficient answer, the weight of a new soul presses against the door between the spiritual world and the physical one, which might as well be a revolving door for all the good it's doing keeping people in.

Why not? Anakin thinks and opens the door.

# # #

There’s a muted thump. The weight pressing down on Padme suddenly increases, and hair a new shade of brown trails into her field of vision. She manages to twist around enough to see the person on the top of the pile.

Her heart jumps into her throat, and she blinks several times to make sure she’s not hallucinating because of oxygen deprivation — there are twelve grown women pressing down on her diaphragm, after all. Managing to gather enough air to speak, she says, “Corde?”

Corde, over twenty-five years dead, wiggles her fingers in greeting. “Hello.”

The vent beneath them crumples outward and crashes open, sending them all tumbling into open air.

# # #

Whispering from up above her in the vents draws Leia’s attention briefly away from Bail. Squinting, she tips her head upward at the same time as Palpatine does.

The vent directly above the center of the throne room is bulging outward. Leia opens her mouth to yell something to Luke — though she isn’t sure what — but the vent pops out of its fitting before she can.

A tangle of feminine arms and legs plummet through the opening. Just as they land in a heap on the floor, Leia catches sight of Amu’s face amidst twelve other faces — plus a lone blonde woman — that bear a striking resemblance to her.

Her comm slips from her hand and clatters on the floor. Bail’s voice rises tinnily from it, but she can’t hear what he’s saying.

Picking herself up off the floor, Amu dusts off her stormtrooper armor and faces Palpatine, who has lurched into a standing position and is making the same sort of hitching, gasping sounds that Leia imagines a stuck pig might make. “Hello, Chancellor,” says Amu with a polite smile as the other women jump to their feet behind her and pin Palpatine down with the eyes of their blasters. “Did you miss me?”

Palpatine continues to make gasping sounds.

Luke and Ipu are no longer even pretending to fight. Eyeing Palpatine, Luke comes to Leia’s side, scooping up her comm for her and whispering, “Please hold, Mr. Organa,” into it as he does. Ipu moves to stand next to Amu, and he takes off his mask too.

Now Palpatine’s gasping sounds more like choking.

# # #

When Mace starts toward Palpatine’s throne, Obi-Wan thinks about stopping him. He really does.

Then he just puts an arm around Satine, keeps eavesdropping on the mental tonguelashing Jocasta Nu has been giving Dooku since she emerged from the grave, and watches the show.

Mace spins Palpatine around so forcefully that he almost stumbles. Grinning like a maniac, Mace says, “Remember me, kriffhead?”

Palpatine’s eyes snap wide. He takes a few stumbling steps back and clutches at his left arm.

Obi-Wan is just about to lean over to Satine and ask if she thinks they’re lucky enough for Palpatine to go into cardiac arrest when the emperor of the galaxy folds up and collapses on the floor.

# # #

Luke studies Palpatine’s prone form and notes that his chest has ceased to move up and down. He glances over at Leia, who just shrugs, eyes wide. Pursing his lips, Luke lifts her comm to his mouth and says, “Mr. Organa, how do you tell if someone has had a heart attack? Hypothetically.”

“What?” Bail’s voice is so loud that Luke’s ears ring.

“Oh, give me that!” Leia snatches the comm from his hand.

# # #

Anakin stretches out hesitantly to Palpatine in the Force, prodding at him. No answering presence rises to meet his probing. He lifts his gaze to Obi-Wan and the rest of the crowd behind the throne. “Well,” he says.

“My love,” says Padme through the side of her mouth, “weren’t all these people dead?”

Anakin spreads his hands helplessly. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?”

# # #

Mace stares down at Palpatine’s motionless form for a few more moments before turning to look at Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon over his shoulder. “Do you think I did that?” he asks.

Obi-Wan gives him one of his patented flat looks. “What do you think, Mace?”

# # #

Another minute passes, during which no one moves. At long last, Bly can stand it no longer. This is what he’s never liked about Jedi; they think about things entirely too much. “Oh, for Force’s sake,” he bursts out, causing everyone to flinch. “It’s like none of you have ever seen a heart attack before!”

# # #

“I do remember him having a bout with arrhythmia about thirty years ago,” Padme offers. “It wasn’t long after he became chancellor. I think his doctors said it was stress that brought it on.”

There’s a long pause, and then Sabe says, with deep sardonicism, “Stars, do you think it was the stress this time too?”

# # #

“No, Papa,” Leia yells into her comm for the fifth time, prompting generally querulous looks from the occupants of the throne room. “No, no one had a heart attack! Well, no one we liked. I am not being flippant, Mama, if you’d just let me explain —”

# # #

Barriss, who Anakin was neither aware was dead nor resurrected, steps to the front of the crowd, twisting her hands in front of her. She’s much older than she was when Anakin saw her last — around Ahsoka’s age — so she must have survived a decade or two at least. “Do you suppose I should see if I can heal him?” she asks.

A general outcry follows this, and Luminara, also apparently brought back to life (Anakin is going to need to keep a running tally), rushes forward, appearing intent on holding Barriss back if necessary.

“No, you shouldn’t try to heal him, Barriss!” Anakin snaps. “Stars, it’s like you just make it your goal to cause me problems whatever side you’re on!”

“I’m just trying to value life!” Barriss snaps back.

“Okay, then! Value ours and leave him dead.”

“Oh, you haven’t changed a bit, Anakin Skywalker, I swear —”

Anakin’s comm going off interrupts whatever Barriss had been going to say next. Snapping up an irritated finger to prevent her from continuing, Anakin answers it. “What?”

Piett, sounding rather taken aback by his tone, says, “I hope you are well, my lord. I am sorry to interrupt, but I have to bring you a battle update.”

Anakin pinches the bridge of his nose. This is not the time. “What update?”

“It’s over.”

“What?”

“That’s the update, my lord. The battle’s over. We’ve gained control of the battle station, and the Imperial fleet has surrendered.” After a pause, he adds, “If you are able to answer your comm, is it safe to assume that you have also found success in your mission?”

Anakin squints at Palpatine’s body, the assembled crowd behind his throne, and the handmaidens surrounding Padme and tips his head to one side. “We’ve found something, that’s for sure.”

Chapter 18: So You Restored Your Family: Now What?

Chapter Text

Riyo Chuchi, along with every other Coruscant citizen, is accustomed to change. With every revolution around the sun, Coruscant changes more, especially since the rise of the Empire. Riyo has learned to move with the changes, bend to them like a willow in the wind. It is the only reason she has survived so long, and it is the only reason she escaped the mass executions that followed the dissolution of the Imperial Senate.

To put it frankly, she went underground. Deep underground. The Rebellion could have extracted her from the Core, as they did Mon Mothma, but Riyo had no desire to leave. Everyone — all her friends in the Senate, every influential person who opposed Palpatine’s rule — has left Coruscant; it’s her job to stay.

She expected to die here.

What she decidedly did not expect was for Fox, her lover who had died almost fifteen years prior, to materialize out of thin air while she was sleeping and wake her up by landing on her head.

When she finished screaming, waking all the other rebels in her cell, Fox managed to pick himself up off the ground and give her the most ridiculous grin.

“So,” he says, after the second round of screaming, sparked by the rest of the Coruscant Guard reappearing, concludes. “I remember dying. I definitely remember that. How much did I miss?”

It is at that moment that Riyo’s comm rings. She answers it without really thinking first, but the voice that comes through from the other end makes her freeze in place. The comm very nearly slips out of her hand.

“Riyo?” Bail sounds unsure. “Riyo, things have… happened. It’s a long story. Padme made me comm you — I said she should have, but she’s, er, busy trying to revive Mon Mothma, apparently. I’m not sure, it’s very busy here, and Obi-Wan isn’t the best communicator. You remember. Riyo, are you there?”

Riyo lowers her comm a little, taking a deep breath and pressing her lips together as she looks at Fox. “You know,” she says faintly, “I’m honestly no longer sure just how much you missed, Fox.”

# # #

“So…” Piett’s nephew Lylo raises his hand. His blonde head stands out like a bright star amidst all the other officers, technicians, pilots, and stormtroopers who weren’t stupid enough to say, “But I’m loyal to the Emperor!” when Piett, Max, and the resurrected clones asked them if they were willing to support Darth Vader in his coup. These people might not particularly like Darth Vader, but they prefer a warrior who goes into battle and usually wins to an ancient politician who tends to send soldiers to their deaths.

Piett pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yes, Lylo?”

“Are we rebels now? Because I heard people talking about Mon Mothma and the Alliance, and… I don’t know, I — I just want to be clear.”

Lifting his eyes to the ceiling, Piett sighs deeply. He never should have offered to use his connections to get Lylo a position in the ISB. His sister thought it would teach him discretion, and at the time, Piett didn’t have the heart to tell her that nothing, not even the ISB, had the power to teach Lylo to keep his mouth shut. “If I knew, Lylo, I’d tell you.”

“But you work with Lord Vader, Uncle Firmus, so I just thought —”

“Lord Vader,” Max interrupts, “does not tend to inform us of his plans or allegiances until they become relevant.”

Lylo purses his lips. “And he’s going to be emperor now?”

“No,” Piett says. This, at least, he knows. “His sister, Beru Lars, is slated to take Sheev Palpatine’s place as empress of the known galaxy.” As he finishes speaking, he braces himself.

Sure enough, Lylo pipes up again, but this time with the least pertinent question that Piett’s previous question could have feasibly inspired. “Darth Vader has a sister?”

Lylo’s friend, whose name Piett doesn’t yet know, thankfully follows Lylo up with a more relevant question. “Who is Beru Lars, besides Lord Vader’s sister? I’ve never heard of her before.”

“To be honest with you,” Piett offers, “I’m still not sure.”

# # #

Aunt Beru all but digs her heels in as Luke tows her toward Palpatine’s now empty throne. She and Uncle Owen, along with Amu’s family, who are currently engaged in a tearful reunion with Amu’s handmaidens, arrived in the throne room not long ago, bringing with them reports of a complete victory against the members of the Imperial military who remained loyal to Palpatine.

“What if I don’t want to be empress?” she asks.

Across the throne room, Ipu frees himself from the knot of Amu’s family long enough to say, “Well, I certainly don’t want to be emperor. And Padme doesn’t want to be empress.” As Leia struggles free of Jobal Naberrie’s fierce grip and tries to raise her hand, Ipu shoves it back down. “And in the interest of peace, Leia can’t rule.”

“That is so unfair!” Leia’s voice, strident and hoarse with indignation, is loud enough to make the Jedi Council and various other resurrectees still in the throne room cringe and cover their ears.

Ipu ignores her. “And Merè doesn’t want it, nor Perè. It’s up to you and Owen, see?”

Aunt Beru shakes her head. “I do not see.”

Luke all but dumps her in the throne. “Me and Ipu worked it out at the beginning of all this, remember? It’s out of our hands.”

“And mine too, apparently,” says Aunt Beru with a raised eyebrow.

“Whose hands does that leave?” Uncle Owen leans against the back of the throne. Judging by his demeanor, he will settle into his role as Aunt Beru’s consort with great aplomb.

“Couldn’t tell you,” Luke replies honestly. At this point, he figures the best thing to do is keep moving forward. If he stops to think for too long, he might go mad.

“I’ve learned to just go with the flow,” says Obi-Wan from the midst of the Jedi Council.

“That is a patent lie,” says Ipu. He is opening his mouth to say more when the comm in the throne rings.

Everyone stills. All eyes turn toward the comm and its flashing red light. Aunt Beru watches it like it is a bomb about to go off. “What am I supposed to do?” she asks in a low voice, looking over her shoulder at Uncle Owen.

“I imagine,” drawls Count Dooku from the cluster of people in the corner of the throne room that includes Obi-Wan, a man who has been identified as Qui-Gon Jinn, Yoda who was dragged here from Mon Mothma’s blockade runner, and another man who everyone calls Mace, “that you’re supposed to answer it.”

Some kind of wordless communication passes from Ipu to Obi-Wan to Qui-Gon, and Qui-Gon gives Dooku a sharp kick in the shin. As he curses and jerks back, briefly hopping on one foot, Qui-Gon gives Aunt Beru a placid nod. “At your leisure, Lady Beru,” he says. Then, leaning over to Obi-Wan, he asks, “So how did Anakin acquire a sister?”

“Stepsister,” corrects Obi-Wan.

“That does not answer my question.”

“Well, he never explained it to me either, so I’m in the dark as much as you are.”

“What about his burns?” Qui-Gon lifts both eyebrows. “I don’t remember leaving him like that when I died and asked you to take care of him.”

“Train him,” corrects Obi-Wan. “You asked me to train him, and don’t you even start.”

“He had all his limbs when I died, padawan.”

“I lose things,” offers Ipu in a rare show of support for Obi-Wan. “Answer the comm, Beru.”

Cringing the whole time, Beru does as he says. A miniaturized hologram of some Imperial official, wreathed in velvety robes that probably mark him as some kind of steward, pops up over the arm of the throne.

There’s a short pause, during which the steward appears to shift from foot to foot, as though he desperately wants to adjust his velvety undergarments but feels it would be rude to do so. Then he says, hesitantly, “Who is this?”

It is at this moment that Han, appropriating half of Leia’s personal space and a fourth of Luke’s in retaliation for the Naberrie family — still surrounding all of them — appropriating all of his, says in a sotto voice, “Confidence is key.”

“By that,” Leia offers in an actual whisper, “he means don’t let him write the narrative.”

Aunt Beru takes a second to throw a look of vague horror in Ipu and Amu’s direction. “This… This is your empress.”

There’s another stretch of silence. “Empress?” asks the steward. “Where’s the… emperor?”

Aunt Beru lifts an arm to gesture to Uncle Owen, who helpfully leans into view of the hologram. “Right here.”

Another pause. “That’s… not the emperor. That I remember,” the steward hurries to add.

Aunt Beru bites her lip. “Well, you see —”

Ipu wriggles free of the Naberries’ embrace, with a fierce, “Let me go, Sola!” said in undertone, and moves behind the throne, resting one elbow on its back as he moves into view of the hologram. “Emperor Palpatine has tragically passed away,” he says coolly. “As I succeeded him upon the occasion of his death, I took it upon myself to appoint a new ruler, as I didn’t feel equal to effectively leading the galaxy.”

The steward squints. “Who are you?”

Ipu raises his eyes to the ceiling and sighs. “Darth Vader.”

A nervous little laugh slips past the steward’s lips. “No, you’re not. Darth Vader is a huge black menac —” As Ipu lifts his scarred brow ridges, the steward’s eyes widen, and he seems to think better of what he was about to say. “—ing warrior who is essential to maintaining order in the galaxy. He… he doesn’t look like you. He is very… distinctive.” The steward coughs.

“Oh?” With a smile that reminds Luke of a tooka about to pounce on its prey, Ipu reaches over Aunt Beru’s shoulder and enters some kind of combination into the keypad set into the throne’s arm.

There’s a soft ping on the steward’s end. His eyes widen further.

“Is my command code all in order?” asks Ipu conversationally.

There’s a creak from the steward that might be a strained inhale. “Y—yes, Lord Vader. I’m sorry, I — what happened to Emperor Palpatine, if I may ask?” He — very pointedly, in Luke’s opinion — doesn’t ask what happened to Ipu to make him less of a masked cyborg. “Did an enemy fighter kill him?”

Everyone in the room looks at Mace, who raises his hands in a gesture of innocence. Before Ipu can say anything, Aunt Beru answers. “No,” she says truthfully. “No one killed him. He died of a heart attack. Terribly tragic —” everyone shakes their heads “— and sudden.”

Everyone nods at that part.

“And Lord Vader appointed you as his successor?” The steward has his datapad out. He seems to be taking notes.

“Yes.”

“But…” The steward purses his lips. “If I may ask, just who are you?”

The whole room explodes into silent and desperate sign language as everyone around Luke, except for Leia, tries to wordlessly communicate to Aunt Beru what they think she should say in response. After surveying everyone with a terrified sort of blankness of her face that swiftly hardens into the sort of resolve that Luke remembers from his childhood (the kind that usually meant she was going to pull the hidden blaster rifle out of the wall and hide him in the workshop again), she says, “I’m Lord Vader’s little sister.”

At this, the people in the room who hadn’t already been informed of the specifics of Ipu’s and Aunt Beru’s relationship — mostly the Jedi Council— all turn to look at Obi-Wan, who just folds his arms and glares back at them. “He didn’t tell me about her either,” he snaps. “I had to find out from Bail, who found out from Padme.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Ipu calls across the room, heedless of the steward’s growing confusion. “The day I met her and Owen was a little traumatic — excuse me if I didn’t want to talk about it!”

The steward coughs a little, clearly trying to bring the conversation back to the matter at hand. “My lady — Empress — Your Imperial Majesty, I… There’s a situation at the palace.”

“Ooh,” Leia says, exchanging a look with Han. “Do you think it’s a negative situation? If so, we should absolutely let it —”

Luke elbows her. “That’s technically our house now, nerf herder.”

Leia narrows her eyes. “I have my own palace. Recently… reconstructed,” she adds with a sidelong look at Ipu.

Giving Luke and Leia a quelling look that the steward — judging by the way he shrinks in on himself — thinks is directed at him, Aunt Beru says, “What situation, exactly?”

The steward wrings his hands. “Well, Your Imperial Majesty… Are you aware that the palace was once the Jedi Temple?”

“Yes,” says Aunt Beru without hesitation, even though Luke knows for a fact that she was barely aware Palpatine had a palace before today. “What of it?”

“We-ell…”

Ipu leans into frame again. “Spit it out, man,” he rumbles.

“Something happened not long ago — something that neither I nor anyone else can explain.”

Luke glances around the room at all the recently resurrected people. He has a feeling he knows exactly what the unexplainable event is.

“Empress… Beru,” the steward says, “the Jedi have returned. All of them — even the ones who died before the end of the Clone Wars, if our reports are correct.”

Aunt Beru is silent for a moment. Across the throne room, Obi-Wan tips sideways in a gentle swoon. Dooku catches him and does not look happy about it, but Qui-Gon makes no move to help. Instead, he stands next to duch*ess Satine with his arms crossed and grins at Dooku as he struggles beneath Obi-Wan’s weight. At length, a lady Jedi everyone calls Madame Jocasta — with no small amount of terror in their voices — mutters something that sounds like incompetents and helps Dooku lower Obi-Wan to the floor without throwing his back out.

Ipu sways a little too, but he doesn’t fall over. “Sorry,” he says, and the steward’s eyes stretch wide again, probably because this marks the first time anyone has heard Darth Vader apologize, “but did you say all the Jedi.”

“Yes, my lord.” The steward keeps twisting his hands. Leaning forward a bit, as though what he has to say next is confidential, he adds, “Your Imperial Majesty, their… reappearance somehow displaced everyone in the palace, from the staff to the guards to the court. We all ended up in the courtyard or the thoroughfare outside.” He looks back and forth. “Your Imperial Majesty, the Jedi have locked the gates. They aren’t letting us back in.”

“You’re kriffing right they’re not!” yells the Jedi everyone calls Quinlan or Quin or — occasionally — Why did you have to come back too? He takes a few long steps forward before the one people call Ventress or — usually — Dear Force, why is she here? grabs his arm and holds him back. “That would be like inviting an akul into your house! This is the first positive sign of intelligence I’ve seen in the Jedi as a community,” he adds offhandedly to Ventress.

“Should I call in the military to deal with them?” asks the steward.

“No!” Aunt Beru half rises from her seat, causing the steward to jerk backward in the hologram. Taking a deep breath, she sits back down and repeats, more calmly, “No. No, that won’t be necessary.”

The steward blinks. “Then what should we do, Your Imperial Majesty?”

Aunt Beru glances over her shoulder at Uncle Owen, who only shrugs. Just as Leia is starting forward — presumably to lend her perspective to the situation — Aunt Beru says, “You’re going to apologize to them.”

That silences everyone all over again. Apparently forgetting whatever animosity exists between them, Dooku turns to Qui-Gon and mouths, Apologize?

Qui-Gon just shrugs.

The steward echoes Dooku’s sentiment. “Apologize, Empress? To… to the Jedi. The people group who, er, tried to murder the Emperor — I mean, your predecessor?”

At this, half the assembled Jedi surge forward in righteous fury, with Mace at their head, but Ipu forestalls them with an upraised finger, snapping, “You did come at him with a lightsaber, Mace!”

“Only after he murdered half the Council!”

“Do you want to come over here and tell this guy that, or do you want to just let Beru handle this?” Ipu turns back to the steward and clears his throat. “Go on, Beru. Please.”

Aunt Beru coughs a little. “I said you should apologize to the Jedi, yes. You were squatting in their, um, house, after all. And you did hunt many of them down and kill them before this… event. That was unkind, so apologize to them and then wait for me and my people to arrive.”

As that sentence leaves Aunt Beru’s mouth, Luke finally places the exact tone of voice she is using, which has been pricking him with a sense of familiarity almost since she began speaking to the steward. “Oh stars,” he says, drawing Han and Leia’s gaze.

“What?” asks Han.

Luke just shakes his head. “She’s parenting the Empire.”

“Can she do that?”

Leia gestures toward Aunt Beru. “She’s doing it right now, isn’t she?”

# # #

Ledo, previously the late Emperor’s steward and presently the current Empress’ steward, climbs the steps to the palace's main gate, feet dragging. He can’t for the life of him imagine why the Empress — Darth Vader’s little sister, she said? — wants him to apologize to the menaces of the Galactic Empire, but far be it from him to disobey Emperor Palpatine’s successor, appointed by Darth Vader himself.

In one sense, he always knew this day was coming. The Emperor was old, after all.

Of course, he never expected it to happen quite like this.

Glancing over his shoulder at the masses of servants, soldiers, nobles, and other officials clumped in the courtyard behind him and spilling into the busy thoroughfare beyond — well, formerly busy, now jammed with people and speeders forced to stop dead — Ledo raises his fists and knocks on the heavy durasteel gates. The sound echoes through the inner courtyard beyond them.

A minute passes. Ledo fights the urge to bounce on his heels. It wouldn’t be dignified.

With a heavy thud, the bolt is drawn out of the lock, and one side of the gate creaks open. A bad tempered looking woman with warm brown skin and a cloud of short curls pokes her head through the narrow opening. Scowling at Ledo, she snaps, “What?”

Ledo manages to hold his ground. “I’m Steward Leto, of the Imperial court.”

The Jedi gives him an unimpressed look. “And I’m Cere Junda, of the small subsection of people who have gotten really close to stabbing Darth Vader and would find puny stewards to be very easy targets.”

Now Ledo does take a step back. “I was sent here by the Empress.”

“The Empress?” Cere narrows her eyes.

“Empress Beru,” says Ledo, helplessly. “I must admit I am as confused as you are.”

Cere looks over her shoulder, presumably at whatever other mysteriously resurrected Jedi are gathered behind her. “I guarantee you’re wrong on that count.”

“I won’t argue with you on that point, my lady.”

“That’s wise.” Cere hefts her lightsaber, currently clasped in her hand, meaningfully.

Ledo gulps. “I wouldn’t bother you in your —” he almost says palace before catching himself “— temple, except my empress sent me to deliver something to you.”

“What?”

“An apology.” As Cere’s mouth drops open, Ledo draws himself up into something approaching an appropriate posture. “Lady Junda, on behalf of myself and the rest of the palace residents, I humbly beg your pardon for presuming to invade your home. It was inexcusable.” For some reason, he feels exactly like he did as a boy, when his mother would make him make up with his little brother after an argument.

Cere blinks a few times. Then, still not saying anything, she heaves the gate shut in what seems like a daze.

The gate thuds shut. The bolt slides home.

Ledo makes his peace with sleeping out in the courtyard tonight.

# # #

Turning around to face the multitude of Jedi in the Temple’s inner courtyard, Cere spreads her arms. “Galaxy’s gone mad. I locked the gate.”

Just as the words leave her mouth, her comm rings. When she lifts it to her mouth and catches sight of the identity of the caller, she curses and answers it with a sharp jab of her finger, waving the crowd to silence as she does. “Cal Kestis,” she spits out. “Do you know how many times I’ve called you?”

“In my defense,” Cal says, sounding entirely too laidback about the entire situation, “I was a little busy. And not expecting calls from dead people.”

“Your master’s waiting here for you too.”

There’s a stretch of silence on the other end of the line — the distinctive absence of sound that comes when someone decides to gently tuck an explosive emotional reaction into a box to deal with later. “Oh. That’s… That’s great. Um. So, I should probably explain —”

There’s a scuffling sound on the other end of the comm, coupled with a voice that sounds like Merrin’s yelling, “If you touch him again, I’ll transfer your soul into a dung beetle and squash it.”

“Sorry about that,” comes a cheerful and entirely unfamiliar voice. “I’m Luke Skywalker — the one whose fault this all is. Anyway, my aunt — she’s the new empress, don’t worry, she’s nice — is on her way with the Rebel Alliance and my parents and the rest of my family and all. And Yoda. I should have mentioned Yoda first, probably. So you should all just sit tight, and we’ll explain everything when we get there. You should be safe — Aunt Beru is on the Rebellion’s side, so the war’s sort of over, and she’s told the military and the ISB to stand down. Isn’t that great?”

Luke’s voice and earthshaking surname both echo about the silent courtyard. Cere grips her comm tight in one hand. “Grandmaster Yoda’s alive?”

A pause, and then Luke says to someone on his end, “I think I got you in trouble again — I’m sorry, this just keeps happening —”

“Well, maybe,” says someone in the background that Cere swears sounds like Padme Amidala, except that’s not possible, “if the cursed little frog of a man hadn’t hid out in a swamp for twenty-three years people would be less miffed at him. Just a theory! I could be wrong, of course.”

There’s another voice in the background that Cere vaguely recognizes, though she can’t make out what he’s saying.

Swiftly, the Padme-sounding woman confirms what Cere wasn’t even aware she was thinking by saying, “Watch it, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re not a ghost any more, and I was a very good pirate.”

There’s a flurry of footsteps, followed by a woman with a thick Mandalorian accent yelling, “Leave him be!”

Cal is suddenly back on the comm. “I’m going to have to call you back,” he says sheepishly. “Hang in there, okay? Say hello to my master!”

He hangs up.

Cere stands where she is, still gripping the comm.

Near the front of the crowd, Master Tera Sinube thumps his cane against the ground and shakes his head. “If no one else is going to say it, I shall. Being dead was far simpler than this.”

There’s a fervent murmur of general agreement.

# # #

Having dodged members of the palace staff and a not insignificant number of soldiers the whole way, Obi-Wan manages to squeeze through the narrow opening in the Temple gate. It took more than twenty knocks and requests to enter that quickly devolved from polite to nearly profane for him to get the Jedi on the other side of the gate to even unlock it.

Now he slides into the inner courtyard and finds himself facing the gathered might of the Jedi Order — that is, the part of the Order that wasn’t brought back to the Death Star.

It is a large crowd. A very large crowd.

He doesn’t recognize a good portion of this crowd, which might mean that Anakin managed to bring back Jedi that either died when Obi-Wan was still an initiate or possibly brought back ones who died before he was even born.

Everyone stares at him. Obi-Wan clears his throat and wishes he hadn’t drawn the short straw when the Council was deciding who would be sent inside to explain the situation to the Temple.

And because Anakin had never been granted the rank of master, he was excluded from the drawing, causing Ahsoka to slide the Council a sly smile and say, “Did somebody’s unfair actions come back to bite them?” in the kind of tone that confirmed Obi-Wan’s suspicions that she and the Council will continue to not get along.

“Hello there,” he manages. This greeting is returned with many unimpressed stares. He continues. “Before I bring everyone else in, including a major player in this whole, er, debacle, I need to take a… poll.”

There’s the sensation in the Force of many eyebrows being raised. “A poll?” asks Ima-Gun Di, folding his arms.

“A poll,” Obi-Wan confirms. “Or a show of hands, more accurately. Now, first, who here has heard of or encountered Darth Vader?”

A large number of hands rise into the air.

“Good. Now who here was in the Temple when Anakin Skywalker marched on it the night of the Purge?”

A smaller number of hands this time, combined with the sensation of all the eyebrows rising higher.

“All right.” He clears his throat. “And who here is aware of the significant degree of overlap between Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker?”

All hands are raised. A wave of sheer blinding antagonism hits Obi-Wan through the Force and almost knocks him back against the gates. Popping his lips, he sighs. “Ah. I see you’re all still incurable gossips. That’s unfortunate.”

Considering who is on the other side of the gates, very unfortunate.

“Obi-Wan…” Vokara Che, the twi’lek chief healer of the Jedi Order, steps to the front of the crowd. As she folds her arms and drops her chin to stare him down, Obi-Wan is filled with the same sense of creeping dread that he always felt during his physicals during the war — mostly because he usually failed said physicals and ended up having to call Anakin or Quinlan to help him escape from Vokara before she locked him in a bacta tank. “What’s happening? And what does it have to do with Anakin Skywalker?”

Obi-Wan shifts from foot to foot. “You’re going to laugh.”

# # #

“They didn’t laugh,” groans Anakin, six hours after Obi-Wan introduced him — along with Padme, Leia, Luke, Han, and their rebel friends and leaders — to the Jedi resurrected within the Temple grounds, five hours and fifty-five minutes after the assembled Jedi screamed, “Get him!” and surged forward, five hours after he and Obi-Wan managed to escape from the courtyard and into the Temple proper (leaving Padme, Leia, and Luke to attempt to regain control of the situation), three hours after Jedi chased him and Obi-Wan through the whole Temple and back again, two hours and forty-five minutes after the Council rescued them and barricaded them in the Council Room at the top of the Temple, two hours after Padme and the twins and Han fought their way through the melee to the Council Room, one hour and fifty minutes after Han and Luke sat on Cere Junda (the mob’s ringleader), one hour and forty-five minutes after Chewbacca plowed his way forward and hoisted Padme and Leia onto his shoulders, one hour and forty minutes after Leia shouted the crowd down, forty minutes after Padme finally got a chance to explain how the control chips worked and how they had won the war (“Not the Clone Wars — those are over, keep up, I don’t care when you died.”), thirty minutes after she subsequently verbally eviscerated anyone who dared imply she or the twins might be wrong in their assessment of the situation, twenty minutes after Ahsoka appeared and re-escalated the situation by biting people, fifteen minutes after Rex chased her down and threw himself on top of her, ten minutes after a truce was grudgingly declared, and five minutes after Vokara led Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka down to the healers’ wing, filled the bacta tubs, cursed at them, and left.

Obi-Wan sinks deeper into the tub, until he’s almost up to his nose, with the hospital gown Vokara threw at him floating around him. “No. No, they did not.”

Previously submerged up to her montrals, Ahsoka surfaces and rests her chin on the edge of her tub. “I don’t know why you thought they’d laugh. They never laugh at anything.”

Obi-Wan tips his head back to wet his hair — though what healing benefit he thinks that will have, Anakin doesn’t know. “They expelled you from the Order once,” he says. “Twenty-four years ago. Move on.”

“You might want to remember that you’re not a ghost any longer,” says Ahsoka as she narrows her eyes.

“As if I could forget.” Obi-Wan winces. “I think Cal’s old master’s kick broke some ribs.”

“Move on,” Ahsoka suggests in a mocking voice.

As Obi-Wan opens his mouth to respond, Anakin forestalls the burgeoning argument by saying, “She’s right — you should’ve known they wouldn’t laugh.”

“I didn’t think they’d laugh.” Obi-Wan dabs at a split in his temple. “I just assumed they would be a bit more level headed about the whole thing — at least that they’d let me explain before they attacked.”

Anakin rolls onto one hip, letting his arm dangle over the edge of the tub, and directs a sly smile at Obi-Wan. “You forgot the ‘warrior’ part of ‘warrior monks’, didn’t you?”

Obi-Wan returns his smile with an unimpressed look. “Age has made you no less insubordinate.”

“It’s made me more insubordinate, actually. I’m older than you were when you trained me, and let me tell you, Obi-Wan, I know for a fact now that you were not all-knowing.”

“I hope you know you just called yourself stupid.”

“What’s going to happen now?” Letting her left lekku — boasting a bite mark from Shaak Ti, who was forced to defend herself after Ahsoka saw an opportunity to take vengeance for her voting against Ahsoka all those years ago — dangle in the bacta, Ahsoka lets her eyes drift shut a little. “Are we still an empire? Or a republic again? Or something else?”

Anakin sinks deep into the bacta again. “I don’t know, and I don’t think I care. I’m happy to let Padme and Beru and Leia and maybe even Mon deal with it.”

It is at that moment — as though summoned by some sad*stic twist of fate — that Luke appears in the doorway to the bacta rooms. “Hey, Ipu,” he says, while Obi-Wan immediately submerges to avoid getting called into action or dragged into conversation. “Amu wanted me to tell you that Riyo called from the old Senate building, and apparently all the senators who Palpatine killed are back. And asking questions. Oh, and Han proposed to Leia.” His face explodes into a sunny grin. “Just thought you’d want to know.”

“Oh Light.” Anakin dunks himself under the bacta.

# # #

“We want explanations,” demands a senator whose name Ahsoka can’t for the life of her remember. “More than simply, ‘he had a chip’. That’s rubbish.”

He and the other senators are all clustered in the Temple’s outer courtyard, mingled with the palace staff. As one, they’re staring at Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme like they expect them to have every answer in the galaxy.

In all fairness, they technically do — just as they did in the era of the Clone Wars.

Anakin, still dripping with bacta and looking like a man who had had an eventful several weeks (because he had), droops rather. “Could this perhaps wait until…” He eyes the swiftly setting sun. “Tomorrow?”

The senator who spoke before seems to inflate. Anakin seems to brace himself. Padme opens her mouth to say something caustic. The Force explodes with light all around Ahsoka.

When the light fades from her mind’s eye, letting her see clearly again, there is a woman in a worn blue dress in front of the Temple gates, standing hand in hand with a grizzled man. She turns on her heel, long brown braid swinging over her shoulder, and stares at Anakin. For some reason, Obi-Wan’s mouth has dropped open, and Qui-Gon, by his side as usual, sways a little.

“Ani?” The woman’s mouth spreads into a hesitant and confused smile as she grips the man’s hand tighter.

He turns too, pausing to thump at one of his legs. “I didn’t have this… before,” he hisses to the woman.

She elbows him sharply. “Focus, Cliegg.”

“But, Shmi —”

“Amu?” Anakin’s voice creaks. “You’re… back?”

The woman — Shmi? Anakin’s mother? Ahsoka needs a break — shakes her head and shrugs. “Apparently.”

Obi-Wan rounds on Anakin. “You brought back your parents to deal with this?”

Anakin makes a helpless gesture with his hands. “It’s been a really, really long day, all right?”

# # #

Two days after arriving on Coruscant, Leia sits cross legged on the wide back of Beru’s — formerly Palpatine’s — throne in the receiving room of the old Senate building. Everyone else is busy either cleaning out the Temple, gathering different rebel cells from across the galaxy and informing them of the victory, processing Imperials who switched over to the Rebellion’s side when word reached them of Darth Vader’s coup against Palpatine, or clearing out Imperial prisons on all sorts of different worlds, so it is just her, Beru, complement of clone troopers acting as guards, and Mama.

The moffs who Palpatine tasked with governing the different sectors of the Empire stand in front of Beru’s throne, looking very nervous. “Empress,” says Moff Gideon slowly, glancing around at his fellow moffs, “your communication said the war was over.”

“That’s correct.” Beru smiles beneficently.

Two days on Coruscant has given her and Leia time to raid Amu’s wardrobe, which her handmaiden Rabe apparently secreted away after Amu’s supposed death, so she is resplendent in a white silk dress with a cloak made of ornate silk and organza ruffles that fall on top of each other in a way that is resplendent of the blossom of a flower. Leia herself is in a golden gown with a structured bodice that is embroidered all over with roses. According to Amu, she wore it the day she realized she was in love with Ipu, but Leia’s just trying not to think too hard about that.

Even Mama, standing at Beru’s right side, is wreathed in one of Amu’s old gowns — a green velvet dress with a sweeping cloak and simple violet silk sash, tied just beneath her bust — since she wasn’t able to bring much with her when she and Papa left Alderaan to come find Leia on Coruscant.

Having two complete sets of parents is strange, but it’s better than having none at all, which was Leia’s situation before all of this.

“But…” Moff Isdain presses his lips together. “Please do not take this as disrespect, Your Imperial Majesty, but how is that possible? What about the second Death Star? As far as I can tell, the Rebel Alliance is far from subdued.”

“It’s all in hand,” says Beru. Her smile turns the kind of sweet that might disguise a poison. “Would your empress lie to you?”

The moffs all exchange looks that tell Leia that, yes, it is not unexpected for their ruler to lie to them.

Before they can say anything else, however, Beru adds, “You’re all removed from your positions, by the way. And you’re under arrest.”

Leia can no longer restrain her laughter. She cackles from her perch on the back of Beru’s throne, until she almost falls off and until Mama almost loses her composure and laughs too.

“What?” Moff Gideon takes a step forward. “You can’t be serious. What reason —”

“If she went into the reasons,” Mama interrupts, “we’d be here all night. And my daughter is getting married tomorrow, so that’s simply not happening.”

“The people will riot!”

“The people,” Leia says, recovering from her laughing fit, “have been embroiled in war for the past twenty-five years. I think they’re going to be okay with it.”

“And I have the support of the foot soldiers,” adds Beru. “Mostly because I don’t send them to their deaths. I also have Darth Vader. And the Jedi — sorry, did no one inform you of that? The Jedi have returned. The Rebel Alliance also supports me — mostly because my niece and nephew and sister-in-law both occupy prominent positions in it. I even have the Senate, for whatever that’s worth. So, let’s see…” Beru taps her fingers on the arm of her throne. “Where does that leave all of you? Oh, I know! In prison.” As the clone troopers surge forward, she wiggles her fingers in a playful farewell. “Goodbye!”

While the troopers drag the moffs away, Leia tunes out of their shouts and leans forward to peer down at Beru. “I think,” she says, “that you’re the most interesting aunt I’ve ever had.”

# # #

In the hastily decorated great hall of the Jedi Temple that is filled with slightly confused Jedi and very jubilant rebel fighters, Han wraps his arms around Leia’s waist as soon as she recites the last part of their wedding vows and sweeps her into a kiss so passionate that Bail and Anakin both look away. Padme herself, along with Breha, is so enraptured with happiness for her daughter that she couldn’t bring herself to look away if she tried.

As Han and Leia break apart, with him catching her crown of white flowers before it fell from her head, and face the crowd with broad smiles, Bail whispers to Anakin, “And you’re sure he was the best option?” This query causes Breha to swat his arm, but he isn’t deterred. “You’re very sure?”

Anakin grimaces and gives Bail a commiserating look. “It was him or her twin brother.”

This makes Padme pause in her reverie long enough to hit him on the shoulder.

# # #

“I’m dissolving the Empire,” says Beru.

Mon Mothma settles deeper into her seat in Beru’s receiving room and exchanges a look with Breha and the other rebel leaders — excepting Padme. Breha is smiling like she knew this was coming — the traitor — but the others all look as confused as Mon feels. “I see,” she says slowly. “And… replacing it… with… the Republic? Yes?”

Beru, wearing a heavy white gown held closed in the front with a series of ornately woven black clasps, folds her hands neatly on the shining wood table, painted black, that they’re all seated around. “No.”

Mon purses her lips. She doesn’t know why she’s even surprised anymore. Beru is related to the Skywalkers, and the Skywalkers — a clan that includes Padme and her family, no matter what petty things like bloodlines might say — have brought nothing but chaos into Mon’s life. Somehow, they managed to bring new chaos, in the middle of a revolution. Mon calls that impressive. “Then what are you doing?” she ventures at last, bracing herself.

“Letting every planet form their own independent government,” answers Beru peacefully. “As Tatooine has done. The framework is already there, and this will prevent the bloated bureaucracy that got us in this situation in the first place.”

Mon, who is quite fond of bureaucracy, says nothing.

“We’ll ensure there are still close diplomatic ties between planets, of course,” Beru goes on. “The Rebel Alliance provides a beautiful foundation for that, so thank you, but yes, eventually the Empire will be dissolved, and I will step down. Although, I think Ani may have gotten me elected governor of Tatooine, so we’ll see what happens there. Any questions?” This addition is said in a bright tone that makes Breha snort — badly covering the mirth with her hand.

Giving Breha a sidelong disapproving look, Mon says, “Honestly?” She sighs. “None at all. This is right in line with what I would expect a Skywalker to do.”

Beru smiles, eyes crinkling up. “I’m a Lars, but thank you.”

Of all the ways Mon pictured the Rebellion achieving victory, something like this never occurred to her, but she’ll take it.

Maybe she can actually go home to Chandrila.

# # #

As rebels and reformed Imperials alike shepherd the last residents of the final Imperial prison station off the transports and into the Executor’s hangar — all while doing their best to convince them that the war is actually over — Zev crosses the hangar to his father, who is busy giving the demolitions team that is slated to destroy the now empty station some final instructions. Firmus is with him, and he tracks Zev’s progress across the hangar with no small amount of apprehension in his eyes.

Zev stops just short of the pair. “Dad,” he says, clasping his hands behind his back and wishing — briefly — to be anywhere else.

Dad cuts off sharply and turns toward Zev. “Yes?”

Zev wrinkles up his whole face, gathering his resolve. Then, in a rush, he says, “It was pretty, um, wizard what you did to help us, and you were really loyal to Anakin, but you were really loyal to me and the Rebellion too, and maybe I shouldn’t have said all those things I said when I left home, and there’s going to be a lot of relief work we need to do while Beru works toward dismantling the Empire, so I thought maybe I could stay with you and help. If you wanted. I can go back to Rogue Squadron if not, it’s no problem, I —”

“I would like that very much,” says Dad in a low voice.

Zev looks down, finding that his lips are stretching into a smile without asking his brain for permission first. “Okay. All right. Good, then.”

There’s a sharp sniff from Firmus. Zev lifts his eyes to see him hastily swipe at reddened eyes before telling the demolitions team to move out. Squinting, Zev says, “Firmus, are you… crying?”

Firmus ruffles like an offended bird. “No. No, of course not.”

Dad narrows his eyes at him too. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” says Firmus, in his thickest Core accent. There is moisture on his cheeks. Studiously facing front, he adds, “That was just beautiful. That’s all.”

# # #

THREE YEARS LATER

It seems that every day on Naboo is bright and sunny, just in the opposite way to Tatooine. Sometimes the very air seems wet — Amu calls it humidity — but in the summer, like it is now, the air is dry and warm and smells sweet. There’s only one sun, and it always beams down on the Varykino lakehouse where Amu and Ipu have made their home (and Bail and Breha as well, for they happily transitioned Alderaan to a representative form of government rather quickly after the war ended, primarily because Palpatine had taken the shine from any form of monarchy) like some kind of benevolent angel, making the lake surrounding the house sparkle and shining through the leaves of the trees in the garden in a way Luke will never get tired of.

As such, Luke notices the star destroyer hovering overhead almost immediately — mostly because he was lying on his back on the lakehouse roof when it blotted out the sun and cast the entire lake in shadow.

Recognizing the scarlet markings on its underside, he leaps off the roof and onto the terrace below, which overlooks the lake. There’s already a transport emerging from the ship’s underside, and in just a few seconds, it comes to a neat landing on the far edge of the terrace, forcing Luke to take a few steps backwards.

With the hiss of hydraulics, the transport’s ramp drops open and reveals several very familiar faces: namely, Zev, Piett, Veers, and Cody.

Luke folds his arms and shakes his head at them. “And what brings you here?” He tips his head back toward the Executor. “All of you?”

By now, the entire family has gathered behind Luke — Ipu and Amu; Leia and Han, with Leia carrying one of their twins and Han carrying the other; Obi-Wan and Satine, married quite soon after Han and Leia were; Artoo and Threepio, one cackling with binary glee and the other dithering in Basic; Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, surrounded by the horde of Tatooian orphans they adopted; Rex and Ahsoka, who were busy sparring going by their sweaty appearances; Quinlan and Ventress and the lady Jedi who are something like Obi-Wan’s adopted sisters; Darth Maul and his two brothers, who showed up one day and refused to leave; Qui-Gon, Tahl, and Dooku, who also just appeared and wouldn’t leave, despite the fact that Dooku, Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan weren’t capable of having a conversation without getting into an argument; Padme’s parents, sister, and nieces; and Grandmother and Grandfather, Ipu’s parents, who somehow managed to get Obi-Wan, Satine, and the Oppress brothers to live together in peace.

Piett pulls himself into a military posture, with Veers matching his demeanor. “Well, Prince Luke, with the Empire completely dissolved, all necessary relief work completed, and the political climate of the galaxy finally stabilized, we suddenly found the Executor at a loose end, so to speak.”

“He means we’re out of a job,” offers Veers.

“I see,” Luke says, glancing over his shoulder at Ipu and grinning. “And how did that end up inspiring you to come here?”

Piett opens his mouth, surely about to launch into a lengthy formal explanation, but Zev beats him to the punch.

“They got lonely,” he says. “They miss Darth Vader, and since we picked up Mom and the rest of everyone else’s families, there’s nothing left for them in the Core. So can we live here?”

Luke beams. “Of course you can!”

Ipu surges forward. “Luke, wait —”