Star Wars 1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

I.

Emperor Palpatine's piercing eyes went wide as he thrust out his hands, and fired one last salvo of dark energy into his apprentice. He leaned over the fallen knight, and expressed the core of his anger in the simplest possible terms.

"I have not been... _embarrassed..._ in decades."

Darth Vader rolled onto his side, the last tendrils of blue electricity playing out over his black armor. A low groan echoed from his mask as he struggled to his knees. Acrid smoke rose from his body.

"Rise," the Emperor said through gritted teeth. "Rise, you fool."

Vader remained on his knees. The smoke around his hunched shoulders expanded and faded into a haze. His normal, thunderous breaths came as metallic wheezes, and still he did not move. This was not defiance on the Dark Lord's part. He simply lacked the strength to stand.

The Emperor turned his back on his apprentice in disgust, and with a slow malignance, made his way back to his throne. Vader managed to keep his head upright, and watched his master. The Emperor moved up the staircase, his shrouded form silhouetted against the enormous panoramic viewport that showcased Coruscant's dazzling cityscape.

Vader summoned everything he could-mechanical strength, human adrenaline, the force-and rose to his feet. He pulled his dark cloak closed from both sides, concealing arms that clutched his midsection against the pain. A moment later, the Emperor reached his throne, and turned in a way that was at once both frail and regal before lowering himself into it. He looked back at his apprentice, surprised that he had actually willed himself to stand.

"So. Your ineptitude _does_ have limits, Lord Vader. Let us hope for your sake we have reached them."

With tremendous effort, Vader returned his arms to his sides and straightened his back fully. "I will not fail you again, my master."

"Were you to achieve the immortality of the Sith, you could hardly accomplish enough to compensate for the damage you've done." The Emperor leaned further back into the shadowy recesses of his throne. He let out a dry, serpentine sigh that seemed to mark the turning of a page. Vader sensed that the greatest danger had passed, and his master was prepared to move on to further business.

"The Death Star," the Emperor said, "was a monumental feat of planning and labor. Funding and resources." His yellow eyes shone. "Time and power."

"Its loss," the Emperor continued, "is a setback, but the setback is not limited only to those terms that can be measured."

Vader said nothing.

"The Death Star was to be the culmination of all the strength and potential of my New Order. Its destruction could now bring everything into question. Everything we have achieved will seem vulnerable to attack. If the rebels can destroy our greatest weapon, our subjects will begin to question what else they can do. What else they can destroy."

"I stand ready to redeem myself, my master."

"I hope so."

"What is your bidding?"

"Your failure at Yavin has allowed a pathetic band of criminals to graduate from a minor nuisance to a perceived threat."

"I will find and eliminate them."

"Understand this, Lord Vader. These idealistic fools won at Yavin through a miraculous intervention." He leaned forward. "You know of what I speak."

"I know what I sensed," Vader said. "A Jedi. Untrained. Unrefined. But the force was strong with him."

The Emperor's face contorted into a hideous scowl. "Find this... _Jedi_. Use every resource at our disposal. And deal with him as we have dealt with all the others."

"Yes, my master."

"And when you find him, you will undoubtedly find the rest of this rebellion."

The Emperor smiled. "Leave none of them alive."

II.

Baroness Varica Econa, former Alderaanian ambassador to Commenor, sat at her large desk, surrounded only by a profound silence. She was the _former_ ambassador, because she represented a world that no longer existed. The silence that crushed down on her was because she had dismissed her small embassy staff that morning, and now, in the late evening, she was the sole occupant of a dimly lit office.

The day before, each member of her staff had used the embassy's holonet resources to confirm the inevitable: that every Alderaanian they knew outside of this office was dead.

Varica took a long sip from her tumbler of Whyren's Reserve, the clinking of the ice cubes sounding loud amidst the quiet. The amber liquid warmed her, and reinforced her already comfortable inebriation. Had she been prone to talking to herself she would have proposed a toast.

_ To pacifism._

She snorted softly as she set the glass down on her desk, and pushed a lock of blonde hair out of her eyes. Most Alderaanians frowned on libations, believing it could only obscure one's harmony and enlightenment. But she'd never been much like most Alderaanians, hence her dead-end assignment at a token outpost.

Commenor was a major trade center and maintained virtually no regulation over the nature of that trade. They believed policing their economy could only slow the flow of credits. Luxury consumer goods and financial products were sold alongside weapons, spice, and slaves. Just before the Clone Wars, when Viceroy Organa stated his world would boycott any system that condoned the slave trade, the Alderaanian ambassador to Commenor was ejected.

It was only two years ago, when Senator Leia Organa reopened diplomatic ties with Commenor, that the embassy was reestablished. Alderaan officially lifted its embargo, but decades of bad blood staunched the flow of trade, and the people of each world found little desire to visit the other's planet. With no trade, and no travelers, the embassy served no purpose she could name.

_ Except for being my purgatory._

She strongly believed that Leia had engineered the entire summit with Commenor just to maroon her here, in a useless job where she could have virtually no impact, and achieve nothing.

It was the perfect revenge, tailored precisely for Varica.

She deserved it, of course, but even if she hadn't crossed her cousin so severely, it was unlikely her fate would have been much different.

The fact was, she was a pretty poor excuse for an Alderaanian.

And she had taken pride in that all of her life.

It had not made her many friends, whether it be at court or elsewhere, but at a very young age, she began to question the purpose of the tranquility Alderaanians so revered. What did it do? What did it accomplish?

She was an ambitious girl on a world where the greatest ambition was to do nothing. The vast majority of Alderaanians railed against this notion, but despite whatever colorful terms scholars used to describe their slothfulness, Varica could never embrace that lifestyle-a lifestyle that the few people who achieved positions of authority on their world made it their sole mission to uphold and protect.

Leia and her father had been the two greatest such authority figures, and their willful agenda of opposing the Empire while leaving their world defenseless had now resulted in nothing less than the death of their entire civilization. The failed experiment of a utopian society had reached its inevitable conclusion.

It was a known fact that Senator Leia Organa had been off world aboard Alderaan's consular ship _Tantive IV_ when Alderaan was destroyed. The ship was reported lost with all hands shortly before the Alderaan tragedy. It was reported immediately after the tragedy that Leia had been in collusion with the Rebel Alliance, and that her ship had been destroyed while they were engaged in terrorist activities.

As Varica stared at the words glowing on her holonet screen, she was shocked all over again. Leia Organa, a rebel.

Varica never thought she could be so impressed by her peaceful cousin.

_ So you finally found a reason to fight. But as usual, your actions were too little, too late._

Still, it became immediately clear to Varica that whatever actions Leia had taken now held the key to her future. With the Empire's declaration-however dubious-that the bulk of Alderaan's citizenry had been collaborating with the rebellion, she had no doubt that Alderaanian survivors would become pariahs, or worse.

For her, the Rebel Alliance was the only game around, and she intended to join them. At least they were out to achieve something-and had already achieved something so monumental, that it had captured the attention of the entire galaxy-if the scandal bytes 'Death Star' stories were to be believed.

Whether or not the Alliance had actually destroyed the Empire's planet killer, their goal was certainly to carry out more military strikes against the murderers who had annihilated her planet. This was an agenda she could absolutely get onboard with.

She opened up a communications channel, and input the security code for the Royal House of Alderaan. She began typing her message.

While they didn't know it yet, Varica represented the rebellion's best chance to grow their forces and capitalize on their newfound status as a force to be reckoned with.

And she had no compunction about using that fact to leverage a leadership position within the Alliance.

III.

"Princess Leia?" General Jan Dodonna said, looking at her from the opposite end of the large stone table. Leia wondered if the ancient Massassi had been forced to endure staff meetings in centuries past.

They had gone around the table, hearing enthusiastic strategies and reports from the various division heads. Evacuation of the Yavin base was nearly complete, and the nearest Imperial warships could not hope to arrive for another twelve hours. They would be long gone by then.

There was a positive charge in the room, and with good reason. They were in an entirely new league now. With the destruction of the Empire's premier super weapon, there was a saturated confidence - a conviction that anything they decided to do could be done. They just needed a plan.

And the materials. And the ships. And the men.

And the money.

"Your highness?" Dodonna repeated. Commander Willard cleared his throat in discomfort.

"Yes, General," she said. "I do know the ambassador."

Dodonna smiled, his long white beard giving him the air of a magnanimous wizard. "That's excellent. Do you wish to handle the negotiations, then?"

Leia didn't respond immediately, but she also didn't exhibit any of the normal body language to show that she was thinking about it. She simply stared at the table.

"Perhaps we called this meeting to soon," Willard interjected. "Have you slept, your highness?"

Leia had not slept. The last time she had slept was onboard the Death Star, when Vader called off his torture droid and she had collapsed into black unconsciousness. After that - after Alderaan was destroyed - she had escaped with Luke and Captain Solo. She had reviewed the Death Star plans on the flight to Yavin, and then helped to oversee the actual assault. And when they won, and she had expended any last shreds of energy in jubilant cries of victory, she had _then_ proceeded to officiate at the award ceremony. She then went on to celebrate their victory at the impromptu party afterwards.

And when she finally left the festivities, and had finally laid down on the cot in her quarters, she closed her eyes.

And watched Alderaan blow apart.

Her eyes had snapped open again. It still seemed so surreal, the notion that everyone she had known and loved and hated in her youth was dead in an instant. No suffering. No regrets. No goodbyes. No professions of love. No oaths of vengeance.

The candle was snuffed. The lights went out, and only smoke and ash remained.

That same night, on her cot, exhaustion had closed her eyes again, and again she watched in exquisite detail as the verdant laser bored into her world, exploding it into chunks of rock and earth that hurled themselves at her mind's eye, so much so that she had thrown her arms up in front of her face as she lay there, alone, in the dark. Alone even as the celebratory sounds of patriotism and victory echoed from the great hall and through the corridors.

She was the only Alderaanian at Yavin base. For all she knew at that moment, she was the only Alderaanian left in the galaxy.

And now, a message with the security code for the Royal House had been received, and there was one member of her family confirmed alive.

And it had to be her. Because the universe hadn't tormented her enough.

"It's all right, Commander," Leia said. She cleared her throat. "Varica Econa and I grew up together, in the high court."

"Baroness Varica Econa," Mon Mothma said, as if remembering someone from another lifetime. "I remember her being there, when I would come to see your father. Striking young woman."

Leia nodded.

"I don't recall seeing her in recent years," Mon Mothma said.

"She became Alderaan's Finance Minister, very briefly," Leia said. "Then she was reassigned, and became our Ambassador to Commenor."

"Difficult assignment," Willard commented. "Alderaan and Commenor have had chilled relations for decades."

Leia swallowed. "All academic now."

A silence settled over the table. As though the hollowness in Leia's core had expanded to engulf the room.

Dodonna looked down at his weathered hands. "There are no words. I just hope you know how profoundly sorry we all are."

Leia nodded again. It occurred to her that she had not cried since just after it had happened. When she had sat on the steel bench in her detention cell, cradling her head in her hands, and feeling as if it too would explode.

Leia sighed, and pulled her thoughts back into the present. "I'll set up her extraction and handle the negotiations. But it would be best if some or all of you were present at the meeting. Varica and I have always had very different philosophies. With all that has happened - with our past history together - I think we would all benefit from other, more objective perspectives."

"So it shall be, then," Mon Mothma said. "If Ambassador Econa has what she claims to have, it would be exactly what we need to bring the Alliance to the next level. We must do everything possible to make an agreement."

"Agreed," Leia said. She would definitely need to sleep before having _that_ conversation.

"Good," Dodonna said. He smiled cautiously. "And have you had an opportunity to pass along our business proposal to your friend the smuggler?"

Leia put her face into her hands.

IV.

"I ain't got time to discuss any non-profit work with you, sister," Han Solo said, hooking his thumbs into his gunbelt. He stood on the temple hangar deck in front of the _Millennium Falcon's_ open gangway. All around them, rebel crews hustled about, loading every last important belonging into their motley collection of transports and freighters.

"Maybe you didn't hear," he said, "but the guys who built that battle station we just lit up-got friends. And those friends got ships. Lots of them."

"So why wait around?" Leia asked.

Han looked beyond her head, craning to scan every corner of the hangar area. "Waiting on the damn fuel truck." He came down off his toes and refocused on Leia. "It's been great, Princess, but Chewie and me gotta gas and go." He fixed her with a brazen smile. "Maybe you could put in a good word for us. Bump us to the top of the heap?"

Leia smiled regretfully. "I wish I could, Captain. But Alliance ships have to receive first priority."

Han's brows narrowed. "Yeah, yeah, I see how it is. Do whatever job it is you have in mind or be the very last ship off this rock-right?"

"So you _do_ want to hear our offer."

"Forget it. Me and the Wook contributed more to your revolution in two days than most of these guys will in a lifetime. Now I didn't get greedy and take extra for helping the kid blow that thing-

"Because we refused your demands," Leia interjected.

-so you do your part," Han continued, "and get us fueled up on the quick time. It ain't asking much."

Leia sighed. "Hear me out on the proposition."

"Fuel me up."

Leia crossed her arms. "I can't prioritize non-Alliance ships. Especially when there's a fuel shortage."

Han snorted and shook his head. "You rebels can't negotiate worth a-

His head whipped up sharply. "How big of a shortage?"

Leia shrugged. "I don't know to the liter, but I know the General thinks we may have to leave some of the older ships behind. I'm not sure where that leaves you." She looked over the _Falcon_ appraisingly and frowned. "Even if you _do_ join."

Han gritted his teeth and pointed his index finger at her. "I need that fuel."

Leia took his hand in both of hers. "Then join us."

Han's face softened for a moment. Then he pulled his hand away. "This is no way to start a partnership."

"Then how about starting at five percent?" Leia asked.

"Five percent of what?"

"Five percent of the purchase price of all black market goods you procure for the Alliance."

Han's eyes lit up, then narrowed. "You idealists really are out of touch," he said. "Finder's fee is ten percent standard."

"But with us, your work will be constant," Leia reminded him. "And with our success against the Death Star, our ranks will grow by leaps and bounds. You'll be supplying an army. Think of it."

Han was nodding in spite of himself. "I'm interested," he said. "But I ain't signing up. I'll be an independent contractor. Same as before."

Leia shook her head. "You can't be part of our operation and not be a member."

"Then count me out."

"Come on, Han. We checked you out. You can barely work on the fringe because of the bounty from the Hutts, and now your involvement at the Death Star has made your ship a priority target for the Empire."

Han pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. "How big of a priority?"

"A million credits big."

Han's eyes went wide. "No way."

"I'm afraid so. But that's only the half of it. Literally."

"Please. Don't say it."

"Jabba matched the offer," she said regretfully. "You know how proud the Hutts can be."

Han swore and marched up the _Falcon's_ ramp. He stopped midway and spun around. "I am really starting to hate you people," he said. "I shoulda told the kid and the old man to kiss off back in Mos Eisley and gone about my business."

"But you didn't, and now you're a hero. I'm very sorry."

"Yeah. I'm sorry, too."

"You have nowhere else to go, Han. You need our protection-

Han's eyes blazed.

-our support," Leia quickly corrected. "And we need you, too. Come on. We'll make it worth your while."

Han came back down the ramp and stood toe to toe with Leia. He glared down at her, and she looked straight back at him, cool and totally unintimidated. Han felt simultaneous and conflicting impulses to hit her and kiss her. _Just like the start of every other shipwreck relationship I've ever had._

Han pushed that notion out of his mind. It was one thing to get stuck joining up for business reasons, but he'd be damn sure not to make any personal attachments with these philanthropic whack jobs. As soon as he staked enough to pay off Jabba he'd be a distant memory.

"Fine, Your Worship. Sign me up."

Leia nodded. "Wonderful."

"Yeah, wonderful." Han shook his head, and then his roguish smile returned. "You're not a bad negotiator, but you've still got a lot to learn. You're just lucky I was already thinking about the financial benefits of sticking around."

"I'm sure you're right."

"Always, sister." He leaned in closer. "Stick with me and maybe you'll pick up a few things."

Her face betrayed annoyance. "I look forward to it."

Han put a hand on his chest and bowed at the waist. Leia shook her head and walked away. She waved at a passing hover-tanker and it pulled up alongside her. She gestured to the _Falcon_ and the driver nodded. He maneuvered over to _Falcon_ and Han met him as he hopped down from the cab.

"What kept you?" Han asked.

The crewman answered as he unhooked the large hoses for fueling. "You kidding? Every ship we have has to lift off today. They're running me ragged."

Han clapped him on the back. "Hey, nothing personal, pal. I just want to make sure we get our share of the gas before you run dry."

The crewman latched the coupler to the _Falcon's_ fuel port. "Well, no worries there. We took on fuel right before the battle. Enough to last us three months. Now we're gonna end up leaving most of it behind. Damn shame, really."

Han's jaw dropped and he turned to watch Leia's small figure recede into the crowds of people hurrying about the base. Embarrassed anger welled up inside him.

He took a deep breath, blew it out sharply, and smiled.

_ Oh, you'll pay for that, sweetheart. _

V.

Armand Isard flicked his wrist, lightly tossing a datapad across his enormous black marble desk. It slid to a halt in front of the raven haired young woman sitting across from him.

"Another one," he said.

She picked it up.

"Read the headline," he said.

"Palpatine Murders Defenseless Billions."

"And the byline."

She looked back down at the pad. "Voices of Reason Drive a Coward to Genocide."

He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"It's drivel," she said.

"You're not here to critique."

"Then why am I here?"

Isard glared at her.

Her mismatched eyes - one blue, one red - met his glare unflinchingly.

"You told me you addressed this, Ysanne. I need to be able to count on your word."

Ysanne quelled the urge to fire back at him. Her jaw worked for a moment, and then she answered levelly. "I located the last scandal nest inside of a day and turned it inside out. The entire staff of that rag is now enjoying the ministrations of our interrogation droids."

"And yet I read more of their lies. Are you sure you found the right traitors?"

"It's a rather large galaxy, Director," she bit out. "Did you consider that there may be more than one basement worth of miscreants out there?"

His face reddened with anger, but instead of eviscerating her, he smiled. "Naturally. But a father must keep his offspring on her toes."

She sighed with a sharp exhale. These patronizing exercises were growing as tiresome as they were insulting. She doubted that he was truly playing with her and testing her responses. He was genuinely blaming her for not instantly extinguishing all holonet dissent against the Empire, and wouldn't acknowledge the absurdity of that until she waved it under his nose.

"So then," he said. "How will you handle this next batch?"

Ysanne scanned the text. "Based on the overtly earnest style of ranting, I'd say they're more Alderaanian survivors."

Isard shook his head. "I fear we may be going through this exercise for months to come."

_And you'll blame me for that_. As he had taught her to do with others, she would manage his expectations.

"Years, more likely. I just got the vetted figures back from the Census Ministry."

"And?"

"Forty-thousand Alderaanians are confirmed as being off-world at the time of the planet's destruction."

He closed his eyes. "They'll be sniveling for decades."

"I agree. It's exhausting to even contemplate." _Particularly_ _since you'll have me mopping up after them instead of focusing on the actual rebel threat._

Isard opened his eyes and leaned forward. Ysanne knew by his expression that he had just struck on an idea. She cleared the propaganda piece from her datapad and prepared to start taking notes. He might not be the paragon she had believed him to be in her youth, but when it came to the ideas—the concepts and strategies of intelligence—he was absolutely a force to be reckoned with.

His voice was distant with thought. "Refugee camps. Mandatory internment." He turned in his high-backed chair to look out of the viewport. His view of the Imperial Palace was stunning, but he had long chosen not to keep his offices within it. "Alderaan had become the epicenter of the rebellion. Her citizens were unfriendly to the New Order. Patriotic backlash against the survivors will be fierce."

He turned back to her. "We must collect them all." He smiled. "For their own protection."

"What about the Alderaanians serving amongst our forces?"

He considered for a moment. "Round them up as well. There aren't many of them, and we can't risk having compromised soldiers - especially now."

Ysanne nodded. "I'll add them to the list and begin immediately."

"Delegate it. I need you on the scandal rags."

Ysanne's chin came up. "I'll do both. This is too important."

He shook his head. "It's a simple matter of having regional governors send out troops to gather the Alderaanians. Our sweeps will surely miss a few troublemakers who will continue to sow doubt amongst the Emperor's subjects. Each time one group flares up, I need you at the ready to stamp it out."

Ysanne had no intention of delegating the assignment, but there would be no gain from arguing the point with him. "Very well."

"And forward me a copy of that census list."

"Yes, sir," she said.

Isard's comm system pinged. "Yes?" he asked.

"Excuse me, Director," a man's voice said. "We've intercepted a communication coming out of Commenor that you'll want to see."

Isard turned to his monitor as the data queued up on his screen. His jaw dropped. "Is this Econa's claim even possible?"

There was a moment's hesitation. "Yes, sir. The transfer was made immediately after the Alderaan incident. Because it went to the Corporate Sector, we were unable to intervene."

Isard punched the desk. The relationship between the Galactic Empire and the Corporate Sector was complicated, and until the rebellion was crushed, the Emperor seemed to be putting any plans to assert himself on hold.

Ysanne studied her census data. "I sorted the survivor list by highest governmental rank. After Leia Organa, the next name is Baroness Varica Econa."

"What do you know of her?"

"She was their ambassador on Commenor. Beyond that, this is the first mention of her I've come across."

"Become an expert on her. Immediately."

She pushed back her chair and stood. "I'm on it. Who do we have in the Commenor system that can take custody of her?"

Under normal circumstances, they could just send in a squad of stormtroopers, but given the stakes here, they needed someone from their own ranks who they could trust to bring her in alive.

Isard called up a report. His back straightened and his level of tension rose a notch. "Agent Moss."

Ysanne winced. There were some harsh people serving under her father, but most of them she felt she could reason with, or at least exert control over. After encountering Moss in debriefings several times, she still had no idea what made the man tick. She just knew the vicious force he always found it necessary to deliver.

She spoke carefully. "This is a little delicate for him. Isn't there another asset we could call on?"

He shook his head. "Not without an extra day's delay. We can't risk it." He exhaled slowly. "I agree that Moss is not known for this type of work, but he's loyal to me. He'll do as I say."

She nodded.

He tapped out the order and sent it over the net. "He's been dispatched. I want you to meet him at Folor in two days and take possession of Econa."

She eyed him questioningly. "You don't want him to bring her all the way in?"

"Loyal or not, the man isn't entirely sound. And she's Alderaanian royalty, armed with a massive grudge. If she also has their traditional ability to run off at the mouth..." He looked at his daughter warily.

"No one knows how easily a man like Moss can be provoked."

VI.

A _Lambda_-class shuttle dropped from the belly of the Imperial Star Destroyer _Accuser_. Its wings folded downward into its three-point deployment as it headed for Commenor's atmosphere.

Sitting on a cushioned bench in the main hold, Lieutenant Tycho Celchu gently tugged at the stiff collar of his grey dress uniform. He was the commander of a TIE fighter squadron, and was rarely expected to wear his formal naval uniform. But given the tragedy at Alderaan, his wing commander had strongly urged him to take shore leave, and officers on shore leave were expected to make a professional impression.

And he was not the only one taking advantage of Commenor's facilities. He was packed in shoulder to shoulder with officers from every department on the ship. Most seemed very much at ease. Smiles and low laughter came easily, and they were clearly anxious to dive into whatever degree of debauchery they thought they could get away with planetside.

It had been six days since his home world's destruction. But onboard the _Accuser_, it was just a report. A news byte. A major one to be sure, but since so many of his countrymen were pacifists, it was rare for Alderaanians to be in the service. He knew of no other Alderaanians on the ship, so there was no one he could relate to on the unprecedented subject.

Tycho had actually been speaking to his family via holonet video feed when the planet was destroyed. For days afterward, he fought the absurd temptation to dial up his home and reestablish the channel. It seemed like it should have been that easy.

The men in his squadron discussed Alderaan regularly-conspiracy theories about the true motives behind its destruction, who would benefit the most-but just as quickly the conversation would shift to sports or women. Each topic was of no more concern than the other.

If anyone bothered to remember Tycho's heritage, they usually had the good sense to move any Alderaan talk to another room. He knew there were those men in the Imperial service who saw Alderaanians as weak, idealistic nerfs. They would shed no tears on her behalf, and worse yet, may have even taken amusement from the event.

Tycho had functioned in a numbed haze for those first five days, interacting-and listening-as little possible. This isolationist behavior was almost certainly what had prompted his commander to insist he take some time off.

Tycho had agreed, but it wasn't until he actually stepped onto the shuttle that he realized he had nowhere to go, in the absolute worst possible sense.

_ I can never go home again. _

That realization cored him hollow. His stomach clenched and his chest felt like someone was standing on it.

As the shuttle bounced gently through Commenor's atmosphere, he felt a panic try to engulf him. He clasped his hands together in his lap, and focused on breathing, and nothing else. It was about the only task he could handle at the moment. He knew if he could keep it together for another few minutes, he could walk off the shuttle, check into a hotel, close the door behind him, and disintegrate into grief. It was all just a few minutes away.

"I'm just glad to be taking leave on a core world," one officer said from across the small hold. He recognized the man as Lieutenant Raynor from gunnery. "I was supposed to take leave on Alderaan next week, but my travel agent said all the rooms were long gone."

Several men laughed. Tycho kept his eyes on the deck.

"Terrible shame though," Raynor said. He grinned and snapped his fingers. "You've all heard that recycling efforts will continue in the Alderaan system, right?"

Some of the men chuckled in anticipation of the joke.

"Apparently, you can take a vacuum-frozen Alderaanian and use him for-

Tycho lunged across the hold and grabbed the black clad officer by the throat. Before anyone else could react, he hauled Raynor off the bench and slammed him into the bulk head. As Raynor gurgled and tried to pry Tycho's fingers loose, the other officers got past their momentary shock and intervened. It took three men to wrestle Tycho back to his side of the hold.

"What the hell is your problem?" Raynor rasped, rubbing his throat. He made to move in on Tycho, but his comrades held him in place. Tycho was being held down in a sitting position by his shoulders, his chest sharply rising and falling. Tears ran down his face, but his blue eyes were hard and bright with rage.

An authoritative voice cut through the fervor. It was a commander, and the only man who had not gotten to his feet after the fight broke out. He spoke impatiently from his seat. "Well he's obviously an Alderaanian, you imbecile."

Raynor glared daggers at Tycho. "I don't give a damn what he is. He-

"Shut your mouth, _now_," the commander said. He now rose to his feet and walked up to Raynor. "And if you don't call me sir the next time you address me, I'll finish what he started."

Raynor's eyes fell to his boots. "Yes, sir."

The ship shuttered gently as the landing skids touched the deck. The pilot announced over the intercom that they had landed on Commenor.

The commander turned to Tycho. "And as for you, Lieutenant. You need to develop a thick skin promptly. Remain here a moment." He addressed the other men. "The rest of you are dismissed. Do not embarrass our ship while you're here. Go."

The gangway ramp opened and the officers filed out silently. Tycho remained seated.

The commander exhaled sharply. "You're an Imperial soldier from a rebel planet. You had better get used to the insults. They won't stop anytime soon, and the next time a fight breaks out, I can guarantee you'll be brought up on charges."

"It's only been six days, sir," Tycho said. "How can I be expected-

"Six days, six years-it doesn't matter. No one in this fleet has a speck of sympathy for dead rebels. And you need to make a quick peace with that fact, or you'll have a very serious problem."

Tycho felt sick again. "Sir, may I have your leave to go?"

The pilot emerged from the cockpit. There was a strange intensity about him. "Commander, an order was just issued that you'll want to see."

The commander pointed at Tycho. "Wait here." He joined the pilot and disappeared into the cockpit.

_ How can this be my life now? I'm a decorated pilot and a loyal officer._

He closed his eyes and focused again on his breathing.

A few moments later, he heard footfalls approaching, and opened his eyes.

The commander held a pistol in one hand, and shackles in the other.

"On your feet, Lieutenant."

"Sir?"

"Now," he said sharply.

Tycho stood.

"Turn around slowly."

Tycho continued facing him. "Sir, what am I-

"I'm not one of your peace-loving cousins, boy. Turn the hell around right now or I'll burn you down."

Tycho turned around and faced the grey bulkhead.

_ I won't live this way. _

"Put your hands on your head."

He did so.

"By general order 266, all Alderaanians serving in the Imperial military are to be placed under arrest."

Tycho felt the first shackle close around his right wrist.

He whipped his elbow back hard, cracking the commander's nose and sending him reeling backward.

The commander staggered and then found his footing. He swung his gun around to bear on Tycho. Tycho crossed the hold instantly and made a deflection jab that knocked the gun hand away. The blaster shot went wide, but was deafening in the small hold. He snapped a kick into the commander's knee, dropping him to the deck. A vicious punch in the temple laid him out cold on the deck.

Tycho dropped down on one knee and picked up the pistol just as the pilot came running out of the cockpit, blaster drawn. On instinct, Tycho fired.

The blaster had been set to kill, and a ruby bolt ignited the man's black tunic into flame. He made a gurgled cough that brought up blood and steam, and then collapsed to the deck.

Tycho stood for a moment, chest pounding, waiting for any other attackers. After several seconds, no one else came. He cautiously moved into the cockpit. There were no other crewmen onboard. He saw that the shuttle control board had been locked down.

He stepped back over to the downed pilot and checked for a pulse, but there was nothing.

_ I have to get out of here._

He tucked the pistol in his belt, pulled his officer's cap back on, and walked briskly down the shuttle's gangway.

_**To be continued... **_


	2. Chapter 2

I.

Armand Isard's office-one of several he had secreted throughout Imperial Center-appeared from the outside to be a typical business office. He had taken one floor in a building with over five hundred floors. The very plain, but substantially reinforced outer door had a small plaque beside it that read _Galactic Exports_. There was a holocam and microphone set up where visitors could announce themselves. Hidden behind the plain-looking walls there was also a full suite of sensor devices so that a visitor could be thoroughly scanned before being granted admittance.

None of this gave Lord Vader a moment's pause. As he moved down the corridor, black cloak flowing behind him, he didn't even break stride when he reached the fortress-like door. With a wave if his hand, he used the force to trigger the door's locking mechanism, and it quietly slid aside for him.

The young woman at the reception desk began to reach for her comlink.

Vader stopped and looked directly at her. "Not a word," he said.

She shrank back in her seat, a look of terror fixed on her face.

Vader turned to Isard's office door and made a small gesture, causing it too to slide open for him.

Isard's head snapped up as Vader billowed into the room.

"My Lord," he said, sounding both shocked and vexed. He shot to his feet and his eyes moved to the reception area behind him. He said loudly, "I wish I had known you were coming."

"Had she alerted you, you would have found yourself minus one agent." The door slid shut behind Vader and he came to stand directly in front of Isard's massive desk. "A man who controls so much information needs to be surprised on occasion. The Emperor needs to know you can still adapt to the unexpected."

Isard struggled to offer a small smile. "Of course, My Lord."

Vader's echoing respiration filled a brief, but uncomfortable pause in conversation. Through the large viewport behind Isard, countless lights sparkled in the Coruscant evening cityscape. Billions of people went about their business as the second and third most powerful men in the galaxy stared at one another in silence. Vader finally asked, "What news of the rebellion?"

Isard nodded, grateful to be moving onto more typical business. "Our teams have just started going over every facet of the abandoned base on Yavin."

"What leads have you uncovered?"

"Nothing reliable yet. We've found a few cases of datacards, filled with information about past transactions, suppliers and contacts. These are likely fabrications left behind by the rebels, designed to send us on fool's errands throughout the galaxy. They had ample time to cover their tracks and remove or destroy any sensitive materials. Their base was so far off of the galactic shipping lanes, that we had no capital ships in the area to stage a follow up attack after the Death Star was destroyed." Isard paused and took a quick glance at Vader to see how he reacted. His iron mask was, as always, implacable.

Isard continued, "We will push on and do a complete inspection anyway, of course."

"I am not interested in the dead end mission at Yavin base. Speak of the lead you just received from the Praaja system."

Isard's eyes widened just noticeably, and gave another careful smile. "I must take care to remember that My Lord maintains an impressive intelligence network of his own."

_It is_ _necessary, _Vader thought,_ to ensure I do not receive my only information from yet another over-ambitious man who believes himself my rival_.

"Access the file sent over by your probe droid," Vader said.

Isard called it up on his desk monitor, and then fed it into the larger display on his wall where they could both view it easily. A freighter sat on a snow-covered world. The telltale measurements and statistics from the Probot ran in the lower right corner of the image.

"That ship," Vader said.

"It's a Corellian YT-1300," Isard said. "Its registry is naturally forged, but based on the patterns of hull damage and carbon scoring, we matched it to the freighter that blasted its way out of Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine two weeks ago. It was then captured at the Death Star two days later. You know all of this, I'm sure."

_Far more than you realize._

Vader pulled a datacard from his belt and held it out to Isard. "I will share with you one additional piece of information that you do _not_ know," Vader said. Isard leaned in despite himself. Lord Vader had been quite correct – he was not a man who encountered unexpected information often.

Isard took the card and popped it into a slot on his desk. The image on the wall monitor changed to a TIE fighter cockpit POV shot. The TIE was racing through a metal trench, an X-Wing starfighter directly ahead.

"The Death Star," Isard said. He looked at Vader with wonder. "Your flight recorder?" To have access to the Dark Lord's personal ship data was unheard of.

There was an explosion just out of view to the left of the cockpit. A moment later, the point of view went crazy as Vader's fighter was hurled from the trench. The cockpit view rapidly spun from the Death Star's surface to open space—back and forth, again and again. The rapidity of it was beginning to make Isard nauseous.

Vader said, "Freeze the recording at twenty-two-thirteen point five-six."

Isard did so, and the monitor showed a small, slightly blurry image of a freighter racing through space. It was a YT-1300.

"They destroyed the Death Star?" Isard breathed..

"No," Vader said, "but they were a crucial accessory." He had shared his information with Isard—against his usual practices—to make his next point painfully clear. He pointed straight at Isard. "I want the vessel captured intact, and her crew undamaged. They are to be delivered to me untouched. I will conduct the interrogations personally."

"Yes, My Lord," Isard said. "The destroyer _Fearsome_ is less than one hour from Praaja at maximum speed. If the ship is still there, we will have her."

"See that you do," he rumbled. Vader turned his back on Isard and began to walk out. As the door slid aside for him, he turned around, this time to make his ultimate point.

"After you capture that freighter, your absolute top objective is to discover the identity of that X-Wing's pilot. Let nothing interfere with your efforts, and deliver the information directly to me."

II.

The planet was cold, but not nearly as cold as Han was lead to expect in his mission briefing. To call it a briefing, even, was generous. Some aging desk jockey gave him three minutes worth of bad intel before handing him a suitcase full of credits, and the coordinates where he could meet whatever degenerate thieves and murderers had agreed to sell a warship to the cause. They didn't even get the name of their contact.

Praaja II was mostly covered in snow, but it wasn't as bad as some of the blizzard moons he'd been on, where the snow fall was so dense you could hardly see two meters in front of you. The atmosphere was calm, with a gentle, frosty wind that barely bent the scrubby pine trees that dotted the landscape. Massive, jagged mountains filled the horizon in all directions. Han had landed the _Falcon_ on a patch of flat land, and now stood with Chewbacca in front of the open gangway.

The intel he'd gotten was bad because it failed to mention the coordinates of the meeting were on the planet's equator, where the temperature was only a hair below freezing.

And it was that same bad intel that had him wearing this ridiculous coat.

Chewie growled a comment, and then his mane shook as he laughed.

Han shot him an annoyed look. It was pretty much all he could do, given the way the bulky coat restricted his movement.

"Eat it, pal. Old man winter back at the base told me I'd pass out if I even walked off the ship without heavy thermal gear."

The coat was bright orange and had rings of insulated padding that ran across his chest and arms. And it was a long coat, reaching down past his knees. He'd barely managed to get his gun belt over it and around his waist. He'd love to take the stupid thing off, but it was too late for that now.

Across the snowy field sat two ships. The sellers were sailing in a Mobquet Medium Transport with modified engines and weaponry. The second, larger ship was an old DP20 Corellian gunship, which Han was to purchase for the Alliance.

Several men - and a couple of Barabels for muscle - were fanned out in front of the two ships. The leader had a dark beard and wore a beat-up bombardier jacket with a fur collar. He smoked a cigarra with a sweet aroma that had already wafted across the field. His men all carried their blaster rifles casually - but Han knew they were ready to dance all the same.

Han recognized the smoker as Niles Ferrier, a mid-level ship thief. His reputation for straight dealing was questionable, even amongst the fringe community. He again cursed the feeble preparations made by the Alliance.

"Solo," Ferrier called across the snowy field. "You look like a landing beacon." His men laughed.

Chewie clutched his bowcaster, and growled low and menacingly.

"Didn't know if you could find me, otherwise," Han said.

Ferrier took a pull off his cigarra, making the tip glow brightly. "Thought maybe you'd traded coats with an Alderaanian refugee or something."

Han sighed impatiently, giving off a puff of steam. "I'm gonna spend the whole ride home wondering how one man got to be so funny. Can I buy the ship now?"

Ferrier gestured with his hand, sweeping it across the horizon. "I don't see your money anywhere, Captain. You went rebel about three hours ago - don't tell me you don't remember how these deals work.

"Nobody's gotten rusty here, chief." Han nodded to Chewie, who let out a prodigious howl. A moment later, a half-dozen rebel commandos with assault rifles tromped down the gangway. Han gestured to the sergeant, who threw a black duffle bag out onto the ground a few meters in front of them, but still well away from Ferrier's boys.

"Not much of a toss there, soldier," Ferrier said.

"Send one man over here to count it," Han replied. If they had just sent the bag over, there would be nothing to stop Ferrier from running with the cash and both ships.

Ferrier nodded in appreciation. "Still a Corellian, I see." He turned to his lieutenant. "Radachek - go have a look - we'll cover you."

Radachek made his way over and zipped open the bag. A minute or so later, he gave Ferrier a thumbs up.

"All right then, Solo. Come on over with the Wook and take a tour of the gunship. I think you'll be surprised at how clean she is."

_And let you get us alone amongst your guys? I'll pass._

"Your reputation is solid, Ferrier. Take the cash and go. We'll give her a full shakedown when we get to friendlier skies. Right now we need to be on our way pretty quick."

Ferrier shook his head. "And I want to _keep_ my rep solid, Solo. If you think this bird ain't commensurate with what the rebs paid for, people will hear it. If you got any objections I want a chance to take care of them before we seal the deal."

_Right - you're the people's ship thief._

Han held up his hands. "Ain't my purchase or my war, chief. I'm just making the pick up. You got her here, she obviously flies, and that's all I need to know on my end."

There was a long quiet as both sides eyed each other from across the field. Han let his hands fall back down by his sides, and brought his right hand to rest on the butt of his weathered DL-44.

Ferrier broke the silence with a low chuckle. "You're no nerf, Solo - that's for sure. But for a wanted man, you put yourself in some chancy situations. Especially in that crazy coat."

Han took a firm grip on his pistol. "That right?"

Ferrier's men slowly began to spread out, forming a broader base of fire. The rebel soldiers did the same, but all stayed under the cover of the _Falcon's_ saucer-shaped hull.

"Here's the thing," Ferrier said. "That bag has a hundred grand in it, but your hide is worth ten times that."

Han nodded impatiently. "Yeah, yeah genius. And you can have me, and the reward, and your ship, _and_ my money, and be the cleverest, scummiest ship thief in the rim. Right?"

Ferrier's expression hardened. "Something like that." His men all brought up their rifles, and Han's boys did the same. Han and Chewie didn't even shuffle their feet.

"You really think I didn't figure on this kind of garbage before I even considered showing up here?" Han asked.

Ferrier shrugged. "So what've you got?"

Han calmly plucked his comlink off of his belt. "I got friends." He thumbed it on.

A harsh squeal answered him. He immediately tried other frequencies. There was no change.

Ferrier barked a laugh. "Can't get in touch, eh? Nice work, Radachek."

His lieutenant looked at him and frowned. "Wasn't me, skipper."

Ferrier turned to Radachek in surprise. He yanked out his own comlink and got the same jamming squeal. He flipped it off and considered, his expression becoming extremely concerned.

A faint roar could be heard from way up in the sky.

Han and Ferrier each gave the other a wide eyed, knowing look.

A second later, TIE fighters screamed through the clouds, raining emerald energy bolts down upon them.

III.

On the rooftop of the Commenor Grand Hotel, Winter kept her macro-binoculars fixed on the Alderaanian Embassy just below and across the street. It was dark out, and with the embassy's interior lights on, she could easily see Varica Econa through the large window behind her desk. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since Econa had communicated her intention to join with the Alliance.

Winter spoke to her partner from behind her binocs. "Her head's on the desk and there's an open bottle of booze right next to her. I think it's safe to say she's passed out."

Spotter looked through his own binocs. "I guess if there was ever a time to for an Alderaanian to get hammered, this is it."

_No, this is a time to keep our wits about us_, Winter thought. _But as usual, Varica has made this all about herself. _It would that much harder to extract her if she was falling-down drunk.

"Boss," Spotter said. "I've got one Imp approaching the main entrance. A suit."

Winter swung around, causing her view to shift into a blur of walls and windows until she fixed on a young naval officer with blonde hair just before he passed through the embassy's lobby doors.

"Did you catch the rank?" she asked.

"Lieutenant," he answered.

Winter thought this might be nothing, but she couldn't afford to take the chance. Varica had set things up so that she _had_ to be successfully delivered to the rebels before they could benefit from what she was offering. _To ensure that_ _she too_ _will benefit_. _Even with the death of our world, she hasn't changed._ Winter sorely doubted that the Baroness would fit in any better with the Alliance than she had at the Alderaanian court.

Winter stuffed her binocs into her vest and pulled out her blaster. "I'm going in," she said. She checked the power pack and then snapped it back into the butt of her pistol.

Spotter was already busy attaching a small v-shaped stand to the end of his sniper rifle's barrel. He placed it on the roof ledge and took aim at the embassy window.

"I'm going to see if I can talk our way past this guy," she said. "Keep me updated on the comlink while I'm headed in."

"Roger that," he said. "Shot parameters?"

"I don't want to draw any attention, but we have to get her out at all costs. If it looks bad-even for a second-burn him down and then cover our exit."

* * *

><p>A few minutes later, as Winter entered the embassy lobby, her in-ear communicator chirped an alert. Spotter's voice immediately followed.<p>

"Boss – it went bad. They're struggling over a weapon. She's blocking my shot. Say again – I have no shot."

Winter pounded up the stairs, blaster in hand.

IV.

Tycho walked quite cautiously into the embassy. He was well aware that an Imperial officer was the last person any Alderaanian survivor wanted to see right now. And while his people were largely peaceful, and the idea that he would be attacked by a diplomat seemed absurd, the tragedy they had all suffered was unprecedented, and he couldn't rule anything out.

But he had nowhere else to go, and this was the one place he could think of where someone might be willing to help him. He had just killed a fellow soldier and attacked a superior officer. He felt completely justified in doing so, but he knew he'd be executed for treason if he were captured by the Empire. They would probably even use his Alderaanian heritage to make a connection between him and the rebellion. _And then torture me for intel that I can't possibly provide._ He pushed the thought from his mind and forced himself to keep moving up the stairs to the offices of the Ambassador.

He emerged into the main foyer, which had creamy white marble floors and walls paneled with luxuriant red-gold wood made from Alderaanian spruce. Paintings of some of the natural wonders of his home world lined the hallway. Were he not stressed nearly to the point of panic, any one of these images could have easily reduced him to tears.

Embassies were often used to arrange emigration, and his long shot hope was that the officials here would be willing to create falsified identification cards for him. It's not as if he could return to Alderaan, but if they could at least make him appear to be a civilian refugee, he could get transport off Commenor and try to make his way to the outer rim, or some area that had only a token Imperial presence.

_And do what? Live what kind of life? _

He passed through the foyer into a small office space with six deserted desks. With no world to serve, the officials had apparently moved on. He felt foolish for thinking anyone would be here, and then immediately began to feel fearful that any Imperials looking for him would start at this embassy.

At the rear of the room was a closed door with a thin beam of light showing underneath. The plaque on the door indicated it was the Ambassador's office.

Tycho knocked lightly at first, and then progressively heavier. But there was no answer. He took a deep breath, and then hit the entry switch.

The door whispered open, sliding into its recess. At the center of the room was a desk. Blonde hair cascaded across it, from a woman laying completely still.

_Oh, please, no._

Tycho's first instinct was that the Ambassador had taken her own life. The door slid shut behind him as he crossed the room in two long strides and pushed a lock of hair aside to see her face. He saw no obvious trauma and placed two fingers on her carotid artery.

Her pulse seemed a bit slow, but was otherwise strong, and he could now feel her gentle exhalations on his wrist. She was merely asleep.

It was then that he noticed the half empty bottle of Whyren's Reserve to her right.

_Or completely smashed_, he thought.

The ambassador coughed suddenly, and her eyes fluttered open. She looked up at Tycho.

Her chair then launched backward and she shot to her feet unsteadily.

"Easy," Tycho said. "I thought you might be hurt."

Her eyes took in his uniform, and her expression went from fear and surprise to utter rage.

She yanked open a drawer and reached for the pistol inside. Through the haze of alcohol, she fumbled her grasp on it and nearly lost her footing trying to take aim. Tycho closed the gap between them and easily caught her wrist before she could bring it to bear.

"Stop, please," he said calmly.

She tried to throw her body away from his. "Imperial pig-get the hell off me!"

Tycho held on. "No, listen to me. I'm an Alderaanian."

She continued trying to wrench free of his grip, and Tycho wondered if in her inebriated state, his words were getting through.

"I'm a defector."

"Frack you," she slurred back.

He looked deep into her eyes and willed her to listen. "Please, I need your help. I killed an Imperial and I have to get off this planet."

She stopped struggling, her eyes looking confused as she digested his words.

The office door opened again and Tycho turned around. A woman with white-blonde hair walked in.

Her blaster was leveled squarely at his face.

"Winter, wait!" Varica said.

Tycho pulled Varica to the floor as the blue stun bolt leapt from Winter's blaster. He went for his holstered sidearm, and flinched as the window behind him exploded into shards of glass. A rifle shot singed his hair and struck the desk, blowing wood and splinters into his face. He and Varica were knocked to the floor.

Winter slid across the top of the desk and came down knees-first onto Tycho's chest, forcing the air from his lungs with a grunt. He was still thoroughly disoriented as she jammed the muzzle of her pistol into his temple.

_At least it will be over_, he thought. _This is my out, and it will be quick._

"Stop," Varica croaked. She coughed as she pushed herself upright.

"Explain fast," Winter said.

"He said he's a defector."

Winter looked at him-pessimistically, but carefully. "Why should I believe that?"

He looked at her eyes, and in some strange way, felt as though he was seeing a mirror image of his own. There was the same loss. The tension in her brow eased just noticeably as she seemed to realize the connection.

"I swear," he managed. He tried to fill his lungs to speak more, but she was still on him. "I've lost—

He went into a coughing fit.

"Winter, get off him," Varica pleaded.

She scowled at Varica, and then eased her knees off of Tycho and onto the carpet beside him. She took the opportunity to remove the sidearm from his holster, tucking it into the back of her waistband.

Tycho needed a few breaths before he could speak. "I've lost everything," he said hoarsely. "Same as you both. Please help me."

* * *

><p>Spotter watched the scene below intensely. Winter had the Imp cold, but she was hesitating. His own finger remained tight on the trigger, the crosshairs framing the Imp's head. The first shot had been skewed by the resistance of the window, but he had made a nice opening, and would not miss a second time.<p>

Winter raised her comlink to her lips, her eyes never leaving the Imp. "Spotter, stand down. The suit is friendly."

"Can you code in to confirm?" he asked. He didn't want to take any chance that the Imp was leveraging her to back him off.

"Epsilon gamma nine," she said.

He let out a ragged sigh. "Roger that. But you better clear out fast." His rifle shot would have been seen and heard.

"On our way out," Winter said. "Bring the speeder to the rear of the embassy."

"I'll signal when I'm there," he said. Spotter quickly disassembled his rifle and jammed its components into a duffle bag. He got to his feet and walked back towards the access hatch that would get him off the roof top and back into the hotel.

The roof was covered with vertical shapes, including chimneys and large exhaust ducts. As he passed one such duct, a large, solid arm locked around his neck from behind, and ensnared him so tightly that his feet flew out in front of him while his head and torso remained in place. Before he could react-even think-he took two stabbing blows to his back. The first was so quick that he had barely registered the breach to his right lung before the steel blade had also punctured his left. He tried to scream, but he could no longer hold any air to scream with. The vice-like grip released, and he crumpled downward, onto his side. His vision was filling with large black spots from loss of oxygen and blood. Heavy boots crunched across the roof top in front of his face, and Spotter knew they were moving towards his people.

That was his last thought before he died.

_**To be continued...**_


	3. Chapter 3

I.

Han threw his arms up to shield his face and head as the TIE fighter cannon shots struck the ground in front of him, kicking up huge clumps of dark earth and white snow. The lead fighter and his wingman roared past with a deafening sonic boom that knocked Han off his feet and flat on his back.

As Han laid there, a second pair of TIEs passed overhead, raining fire down towards Ferrier's men. _This just keeps getting better._ _Some moron rebel is gonna pay for this._

Han lifted his head to get up, and found himself looking straight at the large black money bag, still sitting out on the field between the _Falcon_ and the stolen gunships.

Han rolled over and into a crouch. _If I'm gonna get shot up, I want a chance at my cut, at least._

"Chewie – cover me!"

Another first mate might have balked, or demanded to know who he was supposed to cover – the strafing fighters or the traitorous pirates.

But Chewie simply stepped out into the open ground as yet another pair of TIEs tore through the sky towards them. Green energy bolts tracked along the ground, peppering the snow with black holes to either side of the Wookiee.

As Han scrambled across the ground on his elbows and knees, Chewie brought up his bowcaster and took aim. As the fighter closed to nearly point blank range, Chewie fired his bolt straight into the pilot's canopy. It pierced the transparisteel and exploded a split second later, blowing out the octagonal window and shooting fire from every vent and opening on the fuselage. The fighter went into a cartwheeling spin and exploded against the ground a kilometer away.

Ferrier's crew had scattered in the face of the attacking TIEs, leaving Han wide open in his grab for the cash. He moved desperately across the field - as best he could in the insane orange survival coat the rebels had given him - and was now only a meter from the money bag.

A blinding energy bolt struck it dead on, the thunderclap blowing hot dirt and cold vapor into Han's face. The bag exploded into flaming confetti, with a hundred grand worth of smoking credit chips raining down all around him.

"Damn it!" Han yelled, punching the ground. He got himself turned around and into a running crouch, racing back towards the _Falcon's_ open gangway not twenty meters away.

As he pumped his legs to close the gap, the seconds each stretched into micro eternities. He cursed his long heavy coat, which caught the air like a scoop, slowing him considerably. Chewie was herding the rebel soldiers up the ramp and waving wildly to Han to make his way there.

Behind him, Han heard the rising howl of a TIE fighter.

_If I survive this, I'm roasting this jacket and the old nerf who gave it to me._

He looked over his shoulder just as the pilot opened up, dual cannon shots tracking across the snow, shooting steam jets out of the ground that would reach him well before he reached the _Falcon_.

II.

TIE pilot Alpha Six watched as his squadron mate, Alpha Three, took a hit from the Wookiee's small arms fire. Three's fighter spun off sideways, spitting sparks and flame as it raced towards a fiery death on the horizon.

Three was a greenie – fresh out of the academy – and was a sloppy driver to boot. His loss was no major tragedy where Six was concerned.

Still, Six had never needed any special motivation to kill rebels, and now he could avenge his squadron mate – whose actual name he could not recall – to sweeten the pot.

_Just look at that crazy ass down there_, he thought, watching some guy in a loud orange jacket – the thing was positively glowing – scramble across the field. _You make a damn fine target, Orange Man. _He snapped off a quick shot that just missed, but blew up some small piece of ordnance right in Orange Man's path. Six roared by the rebel, and then pulled his ship into an arc that would bring him back for another pass.

As Six lined him up in his crosshairs, a new order came over his comm. system. _"Priority signal: All rebels are to be taken alive. Repeat – all rebels to be taken alive."_

Six jammed his thumbs down, unleashing a staccato of emerald cannon fire towards Orange Man, who was currently huffing it back towards some ancient junk freighter. Six grinned as he spoke. "Transmission was garbled, command. Please repeat." _Those intelligence guys can spare me a body or two._

Six held his breath and watched with exhilaration as his shots tracked towards Orange Man. He imagined the moment when they would consume the rebel, turning him into an orange cloud of ash and flame.

And it was just prior to that moment that an X-Wing starfighter swooped in front of Six's canopy, filling it with red laser fire.

As it turned out, Alpha Six made for a damn fine orange cloud himself.

III.

Captain Luke Skywalker hauled back on his stick, pulling his X-Wing out of the dive as the debris from the exploding TIE fighter crackled against his shields.

Luke's wingman, Dack Ralter, whooped enthusiastically. "Nice shot, boss."

"Thanks, Ten," Luke replied. Red Ten was Dack's call sign.

Luke maneuvered his fighter to come up behind the next TIE, and risked a quick glance back at the _Falcon_, just in time to see Han run up her gangway.

Luke's heart was racing beneath his flight suit. This was only the second skirmish he'd been a part of since the Death Star. And while that was arguably the best first-mission piloting of all time, he still had a nagging fear that it was somehow beginner's luck, and that the rug would be yanked out from under him at any moment, exposing him to his men as a sham.

_And worse that that, I could prove to be a lousy leader, and maybe cost some of my friends their lives._

But shooting that fighter off of Han's back did a world of good for his state of mind, and Luke used that boost of confidence to put his focus squarely on doing the job, here and now.

His heads-up-display went from green to red as he got a lock on the TIE he was pursuing. Luke triggered the shot just as the other pilot juked to break the target lock. Luke's shots caught the outer edge of the TIE's hexagonal wing instead of the main fuselage, but it turned out to be more than sufficient. Luke's cannon blast blew out the inset metal panels at the top of the TIE's wing. The pilot lost control. He struggled to keep his ship flying level, but instead fell into a shaky arc of descent. The descent ended when his good wing caught the peak of a pine tree, summersaulting him forward and against the trees, where he exploded.

Luke checked his tactical computer. After his own kills, plus those dealt out by his pilots, the twelve TIEs that had ambushed Han were now reduced to seven.

Red Squadron itself was only eight fighters strong after their casualties at Yavin. Luke and his executive officer, Wedge Antilles, were the only surviving members of the squadron that had attacked the Death Star. The other six pilots were pulled from other Alliance groups to form the current team.

They had been assigned to cover Han's back for the gunship purchase, and were hiding behind Praaja II's moon when the destroyer _Fearsome_ burst out of hyperspace and started launching TIE fighters to the surface. The jamming blanket that the destroyer laid down had made it impossible for Luke to send a warning signal to Han. Luke had ordered his squadron to enter the atmosphere on the far side of the planet, giving them the element of surprise when they intercepted the TIEs.

And now that they were planet side, ship to ship communication signals were strong enough to break through the jamming. Luke opened a channel.

"Red Leader to _Falcon_ - come in."

He heard a moment of howling from Chewie before Han cut in. From the breathless quality of his voice, Luke was certain that he had just collapsed into his seat after sprinting up the ship's ramp and through its corridors.

"Some outfit you got us hooked up with, kid," Han said. "This is the worst planned job I've ever been on, and I've seen it _all_." He coughed and took a few deep breaths before continuing. "What's up there waiting for us?"

Luke tucked in just aft of his wingman to give him cover. Dack was firing on a TIE that was making a strafing run at the old Corellian gunship on the ground. Dack's shots filled the air all around the eyeball-shaped cockpit without hitting home, but as the TIE maneuvered to get away, it flew straight into a laser bolt that blew it apart.

"We've got a Victory destroyer, mark deuce," Luke told Han. "They carry two squadrons, so after we handle this group, we'll have another twelve waiting for us up top."

"Perfect," Han said, as the _Falcon_ blasted off the ground, her afterburners leaving a black stain on the snow. A moment later, the top quad guns opened up with a flurry of red bolts, scattering the TIEs in the immediate area. Luke was pleased to see that his pilots now had the Imp squadron down to four ships. He imagined that this far out on the rim, they were not encountering the Emperor's finest.

"Do we have any men on the gunship down there?" Luke asked.

"No," Han said. He quickly filled Luke in on Ferrier's treachery and its interruption by the Imperial ambush.

Wedge Antilles' voice came over the channel. "Lead – this is Three. Do we want to take a chance at capturing the gunship?"

Luke checked his sensor display. The Corellian DP20 gunship was sitting idle on the ground. The model had a notoriously bad engine warm up time – a fact Han had tried to impress on the rebels when they informed him of the purchase – and Ferrier's men couldn't get it off the ground in any kind of a hurry. The TIEs were having a field day with the large stationary target, and Luke watched as the engines were systematically slagged by their strafing runs. It would never be flown by pirates or rebels ever again.

"Negative, Three" Luke said. "The damage is too heavy. Red Leader to squadron – break contact and burn hard for space. Make your exit one-hundred-eighty degrees from the Vic Star. With any luck, she won't be able to close the gap in time."

"Hey, kid," Han cut in. "Vic Stars are pigs, but those dozen eyeballs will be there to meet us, guaranteed. Have your boys go for long range torpedo locks so we can chisel them down before we engage."

"Negative, _Falcon_" Luke said. He braced for Han's reaction, and the smuggler did not disappoint.

"Why the hell not?" Han demanded. "Torps ain't just for Death Stars, you know."

"Han – go to secure private channel."

Han barked an angry laugh. "There's no time for this." He flipped some switches on his end. "Okay, it's just us. Look, kid, I know you're a new squad leader and you want to call the shots, but—

"Han, cool it. We don't _have_ any torpedoes. I just didn't want to say that on the open channel and let the Imps hear it."

"You don't— Han had to process that for a heartbeat. "What the hell is the matter with these people? There's better ways to die, you know - and you're still welcome to sail with Chewie and me."

"It's not like the Alliance is withholding them," Luke explained. "They just don't have any left after Yavin."

Han exhaled sharply. "Fine - I'm carrying some Arakyd K-twelves, but I'll tell you what - I'm tacking them to the bill."

Luke rolled his eyes. "Whatever it takes, Han." He went back to the open channel. "Okay, Reds - let the _Falcon_ lead us out of atmo. Form up to cover his aft."

As the _Falcon_ blasted through clouds and into the stratosphere, the eight X-Wings spread out behind him. The remaining TIEs from planet side pursued, but after the trouncing they'd been given, they were giving the rebels a wide berth.

A missile launched from the _Falcon's_ starboard mandible and streaked towards space. A few seconds later, another fired from portside. Then another. Luke watched as three eyeballs in orbit winked off of his tactical display, one after another.

* * *

><p>By the time they hit the black of space, Han's missile shots had evened the number of fighters facing off, and with the <em>Falcon's<em> dorsal and belly guns blazing, he and Red Squadron easily broke through the Imperial TIE formation. With the Victory destroyer still well out of range, they jumped into hyperspace without difficulty. All of the rebels had survived and none had been captured.

But Luke hardly felt triumphant. They had no Corellian gunship, and no money bag with which to buy another. He was relieved that they would all return safely, but he couldn't help but wonder what kind of welcome they would receive from their superiors.

IV.

Varica worked at her computer as quickly as she could. She would have killed for a strong cup of tea to cut though the remnants of her alcohol-induced haze, but the adrenaline rush from her botched fight with Lt. Celchu had done plenty to enhance her focus. She just wished Winter would stop pacing.

"We need to move," Winter said. "Now."

Varica didn't look up. "I need two minutes and then he'll have his ID." One of the functions of the Alderaanian Embassy is-was-to provide Alderaanian nationals with official identification documents and travel permits. She had taken a quick holo-pic of Celchu, and was now creating a false replacement ID card for him, under the name of Kalen Pine.

"He's not our problem," Winter said.

Tycho wisely remained silent, standing off to the side and trying his best to be non-threatening. Varica was certain he was also trying to gauge the connection between these two women. She continued working.

"Your man hasn't signaled yet, anyway," Varica said. "Until he brings the speeder around there's nothing to do but wait anyway, correct?" She noticed Tycho perk up at the use of the word 'signal.' _I should have said 'call.' It would have sounded less military. I'm sure I'll hear about that later from Miss Perfection._

"Who are you?" Tycho asked. "You're obviously Alderaanian, but there's something else going on here." He looked significantly at the blown out window where the sniper had fired in at him.

Winter fixed him with a hard look. "Don't ask questions. I came here to pick her up, and I thought she was in trouble. You say you're one of us and you're leaving the service, and for the moment, I'm willing to go with that. But our business is not yours. As soon as she hands you that ID you're going to walk out that door and that will be the end of it. Clear?"

Celchu nodded. "It's just that you're the only Alderaanians I know now. And I have no idea where to go. Or what to do."

Winter let the statement hang for a moment, and then said, very simply, "I'm sorry."

Varica thought Winter's sympathy was sincere, but of course, she was completely unwilling to do anything about it. _Standard Alderaanian procedure_, she thought. _You're tougher than you used to be back at court, Winter, but you still can't act on what's right without a committee and a week of meditation. _She returned her focus to the ID.

"What's your profession?" she asked him.

His mind was elsewhere and he answered absently. "Squadron leader."

She stopped and looked at him. "No, for the ID, I have to put a profession. I assume you want something more civilian?"

He shook his head to clear it. She noticed then that he seemed to be tearing up. He swallowed before speaking hoarsely. "Network engineer. At Novacom."

Varica nodded approvingly. "That's good. Thousands of people worked for Novacom."

"I know, believe me. My father ran the company."

Varica smiled at him. "That's why you chose Kalen as your first name. Kalen Celchu is your father?"

Now Tycho smiled. "Yes." A tear escaped from the corner of his eye and he swiped it away. "Did you know him?"

"When I was Finance Minister. We met at-

"We need to focus," Winter interrupted. "Finish his ID and let's get him on his way."

Varica was about to snap at her, but instead bit it back, and returned to her work. She was on the last field anyway, and recognized the urgent need to put the finished ID in Tycho's hand. "Done," she said. She transferred the document to a special card printer behind her, and a moment later, it produced an embossed card, complete with picture ID and the holographic stamps of Alderaan and the Galactic Empire."

"Congratulations, Mr. Pine," Varica said.

Tycho gratefully accepted it. "I can never repay you, Ambassador. Thank you."

Varica locked eyes with him, and took note of how blue they were. "It's the least I can do."

"Good luck," Winter said. "And lose that uniform."

"That's my next stop," he said. He nodded to her, took one more lingering look at Varica, and then turned to walk out.

_This is ridiculous_. "Wait," Varica called.

Winter turned her head sharply. "Stop it. This isn't your decision."

Tycho had paused in the doorway. "What isn't?"

Winter's hand gripped the butt of her pistol. "Nothing. Please go."

"Of course," Tycho realized. "You're with the Rebel Alliance, aren't you?

Varica stood. "Winter, for the love of—

"Shut up," Winter cut her off harshly.

Tycho held his hands up. "Please – let me join you. I'm a hell of a good pilot."

Winter shook her head. "You're on the wrong course, Lieutenant. I don't know anything about—

"Stop, please – don't deny me this." Tycho's face and voice became desperate. "We've lost our _world_. My fiancé's dead, my family is dead. I need to do something—

"There's nothing—

"Damn it, Winter—Varica cut in with disgust.

"Shut up," Winter fired back.

"Here's an Alderaanian who wants to do something – wants to fight instead of just laying down, but you can't make a fracking call—

"_Shut up!"_ Winter shouted at her. She pulled out her blaster and pointed it at Tycho's face. "Leave this room. Leave this building. Do not turn around."

Tycho regarded each of them. He then turned his back, and shook his head bitterly. And without another word, he walked out.

"Idiotic waste," Varica said softly.

Winter checked her communicator. There was still no signal from Spotter. She thumbed it on. "Spotter, this is Targeter, come in."

She got no response. Varica could tell she was worried. Given Winter's usual unflappable confidence and composure, Varica felt a quickening of her own heart rate.

"Let's move," Winter said.

V.

Winter and Varica emerged from the Embassy's rear exit a minute later. Winter had draped her vest over her gun hand. Something was wrong, and with the stakes being what they were, she had resolved herself to shoot without question at the slightest deviation from the norm.

She gestured down the street. "Go right," she said. They would head for where the speeder was parked. If Spotter was there, they'd leave together. If he wasn't, he'd be left behind.

_I hate this_, Winter thought. _If Varica had let us run this sensibly, and not made herself the damned centerpiece, I could've acted like a human being to Celchu, and not had to entertain ditching Spotter at a moment's notice._

As they walked briskly down the sidewalk, Winter could see the shape of her rented landspeeder come into focus. The nose of the speeder was not vibrating at all, which meant it wasn't running. Which meant Spotter hadn't come.

Any one of a thousand things could've held him up, but that fact that he wasn't answering her at all had her very much on edge. Her stomach clenched as she became more and more certain that she would have to leave him behind.

"Cross the street," she instructed. "It's the blue SoroSuub."

She and Varica stepped around a large and shiny black swoop bike idling at the curb, and crossed. Winter approached the speeder's driver side door, while Varica walked around to the passenger side.

As Winter keyed in the code to open the doors, she heard the deep footfalls of heavy boots, and her eye was caught by a tall man walking down the sidewalk on Varica's side of the speeder. He had the look of a swooper, wearing a skull-fitting black dome helmet with dark windscreen glasses that completely obscured his eyes. A long black coat caught the wind as he moved. He had a long nose like a predatory bird, and wore a long red mustache that ran down both sides of his mouth. The rest of his jaw line was covered in red and salted stubble. A long, unkempt main of red hair flowed out of the back of his helmet, and bounced on the air as he walked with purpose. He was trying to spark a lighter to the cigarra in his mouth and was having no luck. He stopped to cup a hand around it to block the wind. When he stopped walking, the heavy clomping of his boots gave way to silence.

He had stopped right near the end of their speeder.

Winter flipped off the safety on her blaster and watched the swooper as she pulled open her door.

"Come on," she said tightly. "Let's go—

A vibroblade struck Winter in the chest. The impact made a hard, sharp sound, and the hilt quivered between her breasts. She looked at it with utter confusion. She'd barely even seen the man move.

As the pain began to blossom in Winter's sternum, Varica screamed.

And then the man was upon her.

_**To be continued...**_


	4. Chapter 4

I.

Captain Soontir Fel lowered himself into his TIE fighter's cockpit, then reached up to pull the top access hatch shut. Having already sealed his black flight suit and helmet, he now felt doubly isolated from the rest of the star destroyer _Devastator's_ crew. The suit was his life support system, as a TIE fighter had none of its own, and the vacuum seal eliminated all sounds accept his own breathing, which echoed metallically within his helmet. The fighter hung twenty meters above the hangar deck in a deployment rack, and he watched through his canopy as the deck crew milled about below, tiny and soundless.

The _Devastator_ was Lord Vader's command ship – although rumor had it that a new, massive flagship was under construction at the Fondor shipyards. Captain Devar ran all day-to-day operations, and was, in Fel's estimation, a competent commander. But when Lord Vader was aboard, Fel noticed a tendency to overcompensate on matters of discipline and readiness. In keeping with that, Devar had ordered Fel's squadron to man their fighters thirty minutes before reversion to real space, rather than the customary ten that they observed on normal missions.

In theory, they were supposed to use this time to review mission parameters and specs for the enemy craft they would likely encounter, but Fel knew the rebels had long since fled the Praaja system. He had studied the reports as well as they could be studied, and he was ready to do whatever was required of him. He knew he could say the same of the rest of his pilots in the 181st fighter group, which he had every intention of forging into the Empire's elite squadron.

And because they were so prepared, he felt comfortable killing the next half hour with studies of a different nature.

He reached into his gauntlet and pulled a small data card out of it. He plugged it into the auxiliary data port on his flight computer, and a document appeared on the display.

THE ALDERAAN SPIRIT NEWS SERVICE

Issue #2

REBEL ALLIANCE DEFEATS IMPERIAL NAVY AT YAVIN – PLANET KILLER DESTROYED WITH ALL HANDS.

Fel was well aware that such 'scandal bytes' were strictly forbidden by the Imperial military. He had confiscated the first such article he'd read from one of his pilots. He felt the infraction to be minor, despite what his superiors might have said, and he squashed the issue. To address the matter, he punished the man with a particularly menial and filthy engine maintenance assignment.

Then he read the article himself.

It gave an account of the destruction of Alderaan. It was written by survivors who were off world at the time, and the writers made no pretense of being objective. The article roundly rejected the notion that the majority of the planet's population were rebels. They acknowledged a sympathetic leaning, but countered that they were a pacifist society, and that if any citizens had joined the rebellion, or acquired arms, or had given material aid to the rebels, it was an extremely small minority. To annihilate the entire world on account of the alleged actions of a few was a wild abuse of power, and a complete abandonment of human values. The article called for all people on all planets to rise up against the genocidal Empire. Et cetera, et cetera.

Some of the sentiments struck home with Fel, who considered himself to be, at his core, a moral man. But at the same time, news had broken about the Alderaanian royal family being significantly involved in the rebel leadership. And while Fel would agree that the action taken against Alderaan was an overreaction of galactic proportions, he could not remove the fact that the planet's leaders had called down the wrath of the Emperor with their treason. If anyone was most responsible for this horrid chain of events, it was the Organas.

And this next article – written by supporters of the rebel movement – confirmed that Princess Leia Organa was now leading the rebellion.

Fel continued reading the new article. He was impressed—despite himself—with the supposed tale of heroism aboard the Death Star. A smuggler, a farm hand, and the last of the Jedi Knights took on ten legions of Imperial troops and sprung Leia Organa from her death row incarceration. The exaggerations were ridiculous – two people swinging across a reactor shaft on a bit of standard-issue cabling, for example—but regardless of the accuracy, this tale of adventure was definitely passing the time. He was fascinated by the details of the Battle of Yavin (as the rebels had taken to calling it). But what really captured his attention was the description of the trench run strategy, and the ultimate success of a first-time combat pilot – the afore mentioned farm hand, conveniently enough. The reporter was not given the proper name of the farm hand—ostensibly to protect the young man and his family from Imperial reprisals—but the article stated that the farm hand made the killing shot against the station, and was given command of his squadron following the death of the former lead seat. The writer ended with a prediction:

"ONE CAN EXPECT THAT THIS HEROIC FARM HAND AND HIS SQUADRON WILL SPEARHEAD THE MOST DIFFICULT ATTACKS AGAINST IMPERIAL TYRANNY."

It was pure speculation, but it made perfect sense. If this account of the Death Star battle was true—and Fel suspected the key facts were—then this squadron was the one his 181st would have to beat. Anticipation swelled in his chest. He knew this contest between the best pilots on both sides had just become his greatest personal goal.

_This is the opportunity I need to finally silence those who still doubt what I can offer the Empire._

Fel had been a farm hand himself, not so many years ago, on Corellia. He attended the academy on Carida and became a flight officer. He proved himself in battle countless times against pirates and terrorists like the rebels. He ultimately returned to Carida, having ascended to the head position overseeing pilot training.

He had manufactured some of the most talented pilots the Imperial Navy had ever seen. But two of them had managed to completely derail his career.

Biggs Darklighter and Hobbie Klivian.

These two men were given their first assignment as officers aboard the cruiser _Rand Ecliptic_. And only days into that assignment, they mutinied, and defected to the rebellion.

_I_ _bet both those little bastards flew the trench at Yavin_. He shook his head in realization. _I'm damned lucky the rebels didn't credit either of them with the destruction of the Death Star_. _Forget my career—I would have paid for that with my skin._

But regarding his career, the defection had been damaging enough. He was promptly drummed out of the academy, over concerns that he wasn't inspiring loyalty in his cadets. He was reassigned to a dead end assignment on Borelias, commanding the "One-eighty-worst," a motley group of pilots who had offended the wrong powerful men during their Imperial careers.

Fel had immediately set about whipping them into shape, by restoring discipline, skill and honor to officers who only weeks before had called themselves "the Emperor's forgotten." He drilled and drilled and drilled them again in the flight simulators. He then gave them a break from all that with some drills in live craft. They ran kilometers every day, and practiced small arms fire at the target range.

But no missions came. Six months passed.

And then, one week ago, an opportunity arrived.

Rebel squadrons were raiding the outpost at Ord Biniir. The 181st was assigned to the responding battle group, if only because Borelias was on the way to Ord Biniir. The star destroyer had dropped out of lightspeed for ninety seconds, giving Fel's squadron just enough time to rack-up in the docking bay before blasting back on course for Ord Biniir. He had been advised via comlink that the 181st was to be a reserve force, and would almost certainly not be deployed.

But the rebel pilots proved to be more of a challenge than anticipated, and eight minutes into the battle, Fel received the order to launch.

The rebels were making runs on the Ord Biniir fortress using Y-Wings. Fel had been letting his pilots sim against Y-Wings as a warm up, before the real dog-fighting exercises began. The 181st dusted two squadrons of wishbones with only one of their own ships lost. The few surviving rebel pilots retreated into hyperspace.

Now he was back, his squadron permanently assigned to Vader's command ship. But there were still many powerful men in the Empire who would never look past the black mark on his record.

His comm unit pinged. "Fel," he replied.

"Captain," the dispatcher said. "We have arrived in orbit of Praaja II. You are ordered to leave your squadron docked, and proceed alone to the planet's surface. Coordinates are being fed to you now."

* * *

><p>Fel eased the hexagonal wings of his TIE fighter down onto Praaja's surface. TIEs were not designed for surface landings, but the soft snow made it possible for him to settle the craft to the ground with relative ease. After shutting down his ion engines, he popped the top access hatch with a hiss of vacuum. He placed his gloved hands to the left and right of the opening and hoisted himself up to sit on top of the ball-shaped hull. He triggered the release valve on his helmet, and this time the hiss came with steam, as the warm air from his environmental flight suit met the freezing temperature of Praaja II. He pulled the helmet off, which was fully integrated with the rest of the suit. He let it hang from the rear neckline, and it rested solidly against his broad upper back.<p>

The sun was setting on the snow covered world, and he could see the last orange sliver of it over the peaks of the surrounding pine trees. The mountains were backlit, and could be seen only as massive, jagged black silhouettes on the horizon. The battered Corellian gunship the rebels had abandoned was also nearly consumed by shadow.

And standing in the snow field before it was a solitary figure. The last vestiges of sunlight gleamed on his black metal helmet, and his long cloak flapped gently in the cold breeze.

Fel slid down the round hull, his boots impacting solidly with the hard packed snow. He walked at a calm but quickened pace until he stood before Lord Vader.

Fel bowed at the neck. It was all the motion his flight suit would allow. "How may I serve you, My Lord?" He kept his head bowed until Vader responded.

"Imperial Intelligence," Vader rumbled, "has advised me against using you for any vital assignment. A number of your protégés at the Academy have betrayed us, and defected to the rebellion."

Fel lowered his gaze to the ground. "That is true, My Lord."

"And there is another development of which you should be made aware." Vader produced a small data pad and handed it to Fel.

With apprehension, he looked down at the report.

FROM I.S.D. _ACCUSER_ – URGENT – CELCHU, LT. TYCHO, RESISTED ARREST (MANDATED UNDER EXECUTIVE ORDER 266). CELCHU ASSAULTED HIS SUPERIOR OFFICER AND MURDERED A CREWMEMBER. NOW AT LARGE ON COMMENOR.

Fel felt his stomach sink. He continued reading.

CELCHU SPOTTED OUTSIDE ALDERAANIAN EMBASSY FIVE HOURS LATER. SEE ATTACHED IMAGE FROM COMMENOR LAW ENFORCEMENT.

Fel opened the image, and saw his former student Celchu standing alongside a blonde woman. They were on a city street, standing alongside a blue landspeeder.

FEMALE SUBJECT IS ECONA, AMBASSADOR VARICA, OF ALDERAAN. BARONESS OF THE ROYAL HOUSE.

And then Fel read the last, damning piece of information.

ECONA IS A CONFIRMED CONTACT WITH THE REBEL ALLIANCE.

Fel was instantly convinced that he was about to die.

"Captain Fel," Vader said. "I have already executed the commander of the _Fearsome_ for his incompetent handling of this situation."

Fel looked at Vader and swallowed. He'd heard rumors of the Sith Lord's legendary temper from the junior and mid-level officers he'd served amongst, and his tendency to exact the ultimate price from those who failed him. As he looked at Vader's impenetrable steel mask, he instantly knew that the rumors were entirely factual. The end result for displeasing this man would always be final.

"I understand, My Lord."

"I sense that you do," Vader said. "And that is wise."

Fel remained at attention as Vader stared back at him. The sound of his mechanical respiration was only slightly diminished by the chilled wind. Fel began to feel a glimmer of hope that he would not be killed, and he wondered where this meeting was headed.

"You will take command of this investigation," Vader said.

"Yes, My Lord," Fel answered instantly, although his mind was already forming questions in rapid fire mode. _Why a pilot? Why not a fleet commander? What about Intelligence?_

"I want a pilot," Vader said, having perhaps read Fel's mind once again, "because it is pilots whom we will be hunting."

"Yes, My Lord."

"You achieved my attention at Ord Biniir," Vader said. "Your squadron, by all accounts, was a group of miscreants that were never to ever see active duty again." Vader pointed at Fel's chest. "But you are driven, Captain. You pushed those men to their limits until an opportunity came, and when it did, you acted—decisively, and effectively."

"I am honored, My Lord."

"You have something to prove, Captain. And I want you to prove it while advancing the Emperor's most important objective."

Vader's next words caught Fel completely off guard.

"It is a Jedi you will be hunting."

II.

Luke set his X-Wing's landing skids down onto the hangar deck of the _Freedom_ _Hauler_. _Free Haul_, as it was called for short, was a Class-4 bulk freighter, and the largest single ship in the Alliance's rag tag fleet. The loading bay had been cleared of all non-essential cargo and equipment, as was now capable of holding nearly twenty star fighter-class ships at a time.

It was not generally used for that purpose, however. Because it was the one cruiser in the fleet that could accommodate a fair number of ships, _Free Haul_ had become the de facto meeting place for senior staff conferences, as the various people involved could land their own craft in the same spot and meet there. When not meeting, the senior officers would take their shuttles or fighters back to their own respective light cruisers and carriers, which might only be able to hold a few small fighters or one transport shuttle within their own small cargo bays. _Free Haul's_ size and accessibility had made it the functional headquarters for the Alliance, until another permanent base could be established.

Luke looked to his right, where his executive officer, Wedge Antilles, had just opened his flight canopy and was pulling off his gauntlets. Luke and Wedge would be attending today's meeting, which would involve a full report on the Praaja mission. The rest of Red Squadron's pilots had each returned to their own designated carrier ships, where they were billeted and would await further orders. The current system of housing troops and equipment had created all kinds of logistical problems, many of which Luke was sure would come up at the meeting.

Luke and Wedge had landed immediately adjacent to the _Millennium Falcon_. The Corellian freighter's main ramp was already down, and Luke could see Han walking rapidly towards the meeting area, his orange survival coat slung over his left shoulder. His aggressive strides and the way the long coat bounced on the air demonstrated quite clearly that he was still very put out by the numerous mishaps he experienced during the mission.

Luke hopped over the side of the cockpit and slid down the sides of the ladder, his flight boots squeaking along the edges for braking until he let off and dropped to the deck.

Wedge was waiting for him, helmet tucked under his arm.

"Ready boss?"

Luke nodded. "Yeah, sure thing. Let's go."

"You're not worried, sir?" Wedge asked.

"I wasn't," Luke frowned. But the truth was, he had been giving the meeting an inordinate amount of thought since the mission ended. He looked down across _Free Haul's_ expansive hangar to where four portable conference tables had been set up in a square pattern in the middle of the deck. Several of the Alliance brass were already seated and waiting. "I mean, we got everyone home alive. No captures, no security threats. That's got to count for something, right?"

* * *

><p>Admiral Koss looked across the table at Luke and Han incredulously. "I must have missed something, Captain Skywalker, so I will ask you one more time. Where is the Corellian Gunship we contracted for?"<p>

Han started to answer, but the Admiral held up a staying hand. "I said Skywalker, Captain Solo – we've heard quite enough from you already."

Han grinned and shook his head in disbelief.

"It was destroyed, sir," Luke answered. He was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the Admiral's tone.

"Before lift off?"

"Yes, sir," Luke answered. He looked again at Leia's empty seat, as if willing her to arrive. They had been informed at the start if the meeting that she had been delayed, and they had begun without her.

And then Koss had proceeded to filet the empty handed mission commanders.

"Then I am still unable to understand," Koss said, painfully slowly, "why you do not have our money."

Luke cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. He had not been given a chance to change out of his flight suit, and he felt as though he was sweating buckets within it. "As Captain Solo stated earlier, the money bag was struck by Imperial fire during their ambush."

"Interesting," Koss said, looking significantly at Han. Han chuckled softly to himself and sighed.

"I'm glad you're so amused, Captain," Koss said, putting more edge into his voice. "Because I cannot, for the life of me, understand why that money ever left your immediate possession if you were not already standing on our ship, command codes in hand, inspection complete."

Han jabbed his index finger at the Admiral. "That's the most accurate thing you've said yet, Admiral—

"Mind your words, Captain—

-and anyone who's ever done a deal on the fringe would know that you just made my whole argument for me. The key part of it was when you said you can't understand."

Koss waived a dismissive hand. "Yes, yes. Fortunately for this organization, I have never been a criminal, and the _tragic_ side-effect is that I cannot understand your lowly criminal tactics."

Han grinned again, but his eyes remained hard. "Admiral, you can't understand anything that wasn't taught to you in a Carida lecture center. Twice."

Commander Salm, who lead the Alliance's Y-Wing bomber division, shot back in his seat, the feet scraping harshly against the deck. He stood and crossed his arms. "You're way out of line, Solo."

Han ribbed Luke with an elbow. "See, kid? Our best and brightest are already forming an alliance of their own."

Salm's face contorted and reddened, either from anger, embarrassment, or a combination thereof. "You want to repeat that, smuggler?"

Han sat back casually in his seat. He slung his arm around the back of Luke's seat, and his other around the shoulders of a small man named Timmons, who was keeping the meeting minutes. Timmons cringed uncomfortably and continued typing on his data pad.

"I hate repeating myself, Salm, but I'll rephrase it for you." He turned to Timmons. "You with me, chief?"

Timmons nodded nervously, never looking up from his pad.

Han turned back to Salm. "You're a mediocre pilot and an incompetent leader," He shifted his gaze to Koss. "You work from the same cookie cutter training book the Admiral here swallowed whole at the Imperial Academy decades ago."

Salm was about to dive across the table for Solo's neck when the rest of the chairs scraped back and the assembled officers all shot to their feet.

"The Princess Leia Organa," Timmons announced formally. Leia stepped over to her chair, and was about to sit when she felt the tension hanging over the table.

Salm kept a deadly glare fixed on Han. Koss looked as though he was choking on his dinner. The smuggler sat for several heartbeats after the rest of the men had risen, and then languidly stood, as if a hover bus he'd been waiting for had just pulled up. He hooked his thumbs into his gunbelt, and continued speaking to Salm. "And just to clue you in, wishbone," he said, "that credit-a-kilo academy training book needs to be dumped in you wanna beat an enemy who'll outgun you every time. Playing by the standard rule book doesn't work in a rebellion. But maybe you already figured that out at Ord Biniir."

Salm jaw quivered, and he looked as though he might literally burst. He then stormed away from the table. Koss muttered the word 'animal' but remained where he stood, looking generally ill. Luke kept his eyes fixed firmly on the texture of the portable conference table, and wished desperately that they'd be attacked, struck by an asteroid, or that any other event would transpire that could immediately end this meeting.

Leia looked around the table from face to face, her brow knit with concern. She sighed, and finally turned to Koss.

"So I see you started without me."

Koss put his hands behind his back and straightened his stance. "With all due respect to Your Highness, I will not continue this meeting with this smuggler in attendance."

Leia glared at Han. "Captain Solo will be spoken to about showing _all_ of our patriots the proper respect."

"Respect is earned," Han said. "And the Admiralty here planned that gunship buy like it was a grocery run. He risked all of our hides-

Koss jumped in. "There is risk in any military operation-

"Which you mitigate," Han said. He turned to Timmons. "That's the right word, right?"

Timmons nodded, and continued typing.

"Which you mitigate, Admiral," Han said, "with intelligence and research. You had no identity on the seller, who is a known double-dealer, you picked out a ship that can't lift off in a hurry, and you even had bad intel on the planetary weather conditions-

Koss slapped the table. "Yes, speak on that Captain. Let Her Highness hear the _intelligence_ you brought to the table with your opening remarks on your new favorite coat.

Han sighed. "Like I said, I hate repeating myself, Admiral. And it's all on record." He patted Timmons' shoulder.

Leia looked at Timmons. "What was said, Ensign?"

Timmons scrolled back up on the data pad until he reached Han's first comments at the meeting. He opened his mouth to read them, then closed it again. He cleared his throat nervously, then opened his mouth again.

Leia spared him. "Summarize for me, Admiral."

Koss gestured down at the orange survival coat, which was wadded up into a ball and sitting on the floor in the open square space between the four conference tables. Several of the officers around the table were staring at it uncomfortably. Others couldn't seem to look at it at all. "The smuggler suggested that his Wookiee used that survival coat as a... toilet... before he brought it to the meeting."

Leia turned to Han, her face set in stone. "That better have been just a suggestion."

Han shrugged expansively, as if only the galaxy's finest philosophers could answer such a question.

Leia rested her forehead in her hand and spoke tiredly. "This meeting is adjourned," she said. "We'll reconvene tomorrow to discuss plans for the establishment of our new base." As Han started to turn away from the table, he heard Leia's terse words directed at his back. "Captain Solo, I will speak with you in private."

* * *

><p>Leia lead Han to a far corner of <em>Freedom Hauler's<em> docking bay. She stopped behind a stack of crates.

"If you wanted to get me someplace private, sweetheart, I could have tossed Chewie off the _Falcon_ for a while."

Leia spun around. "In your dreams, Solo."

Han grinned. "Without a doubt."

Leia rolled her eyes. "Are we even now?"

"Even for what?"

"For me tricking you with the fuel shortage bit back on Yavin. Are we done now? Can we move on?"

Han was genuinely confused for a moment, and then snorted and shook his head. "You think I was just out to embarrass you back there?"

"It worked," Leia said.

"Well, your royalness, I hate to break it to you, but _sometimes_ I take an action that's unrelated to you."

"Is that right?"

"Difficult concept for a princess?"

Leia looked at him for a while before she answered, and Han immediately realized his error. She answered before he could rephrase or backpedal.

"I guess I'll have to get used to it. Since the world I represented is dead now."

"I'm sorry, Leia," Han said. "I didn't mean it like that."

"It's fine."

"Look, I've been around a lot - in the military and on the fringe. And that Koss is a second rate relic. He probably only joined up because the Imps put him out to pasture and he wants to be important."

"He's a fleet officer, Han. He doesn't have intelligence experience and he certainly doesn't have black market experience. That's why we need you, and why we need your input at our strategy sessions."

Han smiled cockily, but Leia put a firm hand on his chest before he could speak.

"But you won't be able to make a single positive change if you make an enemy of everyone who doesn't measure up to the Han Solo standard. This a new movement, and to be frank, we got it off the ground with the people who were willing to fill positions. We didn't get to pick solely from the elite."

Han nodded. "I read you, sister, but there's something more you ought to be doing."

"And what's that?"

Han's face turned completely serious. "You gotta watch after our boy."

"What?" She was totally confused.

"_Luke_," Han said. "He's still just a kid and he got thrown to the gundarks at that meeting. You take a guy like Koss who can't plan mission worth bantha crap, and who loses the rebels a bunch of money, and now he's looking for a fall guy. He made Luke feel like a failure - it was plain on the kid's face."

Leia found herself surprised by Han's earnestness. She also noticed for the first time how nice his eyes were, and the small scar under his frowning mouth. _Focus on business_. "I'll talk to him," she said.

"He's leading men for the first time in his life," Han said. "In combat. I mean hell-I don't think he's ever even managed a farm stand before. He can't afford to think his commanders aren't behind him."

Leia agreed, and she felt a new respect for Han for making his point. "I'll talk to Koss, too. We're asking a lot of both of you, and you deserve our support."

"I can handle Koss and any other empty suits in this place. Just make sure they treat the kid all right."

"I will. And you'll treat _all_ personnel professionally. Everyone here chose to be here to fight the Empire, and everyone deserves respect. Agreed?"

Han threw a hand up. "Sure. Yeah. Agreed."

"Good," Leia said, relieved to have reached some level of understanding. "Because I have your next job lined up."

Han scowled. "I didn't get paid for my last job, Princess."

"This one will be easier, and the money is right." Leia gave him a big smile.

"Trust me."

III.

When Varica shrieked, Tycho immediately drew his pistol and pointed it at the swooper's back. The weight was wrong, and he remembered that Winter had taken his powerpack.

The swooper grabbed Varica's wrist and shoved it back up between her shoulder blades. As Tycho ran to close the distance, he wondered why Winter—who was standing just on the other side of the speeder—had failed to respond.

When she fell down to her knees, he noticed the hilt of the knife jutting out of her chest. She still held her blaster, but was staring at the knife in bewilderment.

Tycho slammed into the swooper with all of his body weight behind him, knocking the man off his feet and taking Varica and himself down in the tangle as well.

Before Tycho knew what was happening, the swooper had brought a crushing right across his temple. He was dazed by the impact, but instinctively brought up his right arm to block the next blow. His forearm struck the swooper's forearm, which proved to be miraculous, because when his vision came back into focus, he saw a large vibroblade just above his nose, the point shaking from exertion as the assassin strained to drive it into Tycho's face.

The swooper lacked expression of any kind. Tycho could not see through his mirrored glasses even though they were inches away. He wasn't smiling or gritting his teeth –Tycho couldn't even tell if he was breathing heavily. But he was on him, exerting everything he had to bring the blade down into Tycho.

Varica screamed again, this time for help. Tycho, laying on his back, looked underneath the speeder to where Winter was. She was sitting now, leaning heavily against her side of the vehicle. Tycho had to assume she was dead. No help would be coming.

And then, suddenly and inexplicably, it did come.

A blue stun bolt nailed the swooper in the left shoulder. He twitched violently and then rolled off of Tycho, and lay convulsing on the ground. Tycho lunged forward and pulled the knife out of the man's grip. He looked over at Varica, expecting to see Winter's blaster shaking nervously in her hand, but the ambassador was cowering behind the front nose of the speeder, eyes shining with borderline hysteria.

It was then that Tycho heard the rapid footfalls of multiple people approaching. He looked past Varica and saw four local policemen running over, their weapons drawn.

_Did they hit the assassin by mistake? _Tycho asked himself.

The first of them skidded to a halt in front of Tycho. Tycho flinched, expecting an attack, but the man spoke with concern, not noticing Tycho's apprehension.

"Are you all right, sir?"

Another one went to Varica's aid, while the remaining two dropped down next to Winter. The one with Varica seemed to be in charge. A patch on his uniform identified him as Sgt. Narris. "Filsen, help the Lieutenant to his feet and then secure the criminal."

That's when Tycho remembered his uniform, and how much weight it had carried just hours ago. How much weight it still carried with locals like these.

Tycho loaded his voice with just the right degree of Imperial condescension. "Be careful with that one," he said to Filsen. He then moved around the rear of the speeder to where Winter was being attended. One of the officers was applying pressure around the area the blade had penetrated.

"Make way," Tycho said. They moved aside for him and he couched down in front of her. She was pale – even for someone with her fair natural coloring. She was gingerly touching the knife's hilt, but seemed unable to go any further towards its removal. Her other hand clutched her blaster in a white knuckle grip. Tycho doubted if she even still realized she was holding it. She was breathing in sharp, shallow breaths. Her blue eyes were glazed over with tears, and she seemed to be holding off the panic that had already engulfed Varica.

"Hang in there," he said. Winter was wearing a dark blue button down shirt. Tycho tore it open at the midsection, causing buttons to skitter in the street.

The blade was stuck firmly into a dark metal mesh that covered her torso.

Tycho laughed with relief. "You're wearing armor."

Winter could barely manage a whisper. Her tone and expression immediately killed Tycho's smile.

"It got through," she said.

Tycho noticed the dark stain around the point of impact, and when he brought his hand away it was bloody.

"How bad do you think?"

"I don't know," she said. A tear rolled down her cheek and along her jaw line.

"We've signaled for an ambulance, Lieutenant," Sgt. Narris said.

That comment pulled Winter out of her haze. "No," she said, using a voice that was firmer than any she'd exhibited since the knife struck her. She tried to lean forward, but winced in pain and collapsed back against the speeder.

Tycho immediately understood. If she were taken to a hospital, reports would be filed. There would be interviews by the doctors and the local constabulary. Her ID would be processed.

And then the Empire would get involved.

Tycho stood and shook his head, again playing the part of the stalwart Imperial. "Negative. This is a matter of Imperial security. I'll take her to our own facility."

Filsen was perplexed. "The Empire has its own hospital here?"

"That is not your concern." He gestured to the fallen swooper. "Just make certain that scum is handled. Assaulting a woman," Tycho said, and then added for good measure, "Imperial operative or otherwise – is a contemptible offense."

Sgt. Narris now looked confused as well. "You don't want him in your custody? He tried to murder your agent."

This was starting to get out of hand. He didn't like the way these men were looking at one another, exchanging meaningful glances – indicating disapproval of his decisions.

Tycho let out his best sigh of frustration. "I do not have time to address your local riffraff. Take him and do as you will, but we cannot be delayed." And with that, Tycho pulled open the rear speeder door. He hooked one arm behind Winter's knees and another under her shoulder, and scooped her up in his arms. He carefully laid her on her back across the back seat. Winter looked at him strangely, as if she were seeing him for the first time. He gave her a reassuring nod, and then pulled back out of the cabin and shut the door.

On the other side of the speeder, Varica still stood on the sidewalk. She was rubbing her arms while looking furtively from one man to the next, and then always back to where the swooper lay on the ground. Her feelings of panic still had not subsided.

"Varica," Tycho said firmly. She shuddered, and then looked at him.

"You will accompany us," he said. He gave her the same encouraging nod he gave Winter. She sobbed, and then nearly lunged for the passenger door. She got in and slammed it shut.

Tycho glanced at Narris. He wanted to thank him for the rescue, but knew the majority of his colleagues in the officer corps would not have even spared him a second glance.

So without further comment, he dropped into the driver's seat and fired up the engine.

IV.

Sgt. Narris watched the young Imperial officer shut the door to his speeder. He was by far the strangest Imp he'd encountered in months. Sure, he was a bit haughty, but the urgent concern for a colleague - a woman, no less - was unlike anything he'd ever seen.

_I bet he's bedding her_, he thought smugly. _Imp suits take all the best women. Any local cop on any world could tell you that._

As the speeder moved past Narris and down the street, he got an unencumbered view of Filsen, who had his blaster trained on the fallen swooper. The huge man had stopped twitching and was now laying still on the sidewalk. He had not yet been handcuffed.

Narris was annoyed. "Filsen - get some cuffs on that bruiser. He may be out now, but you don't want this big frack waking up in your cruiser with-

Imperial Special Agent Moss shot forward and upward. The dark shape of his arm was a blur, and he thrust a large blade straight through Filsen's throat and out the back of his neck. By the time Filsen's knees had buckled, Moss had yanked out the blade. And by the time Filsen began his sack-like drop to the ground, Moss was already on his feet, and clutched a small, shiny ball in his hand.

To his credit, Narris got a shot off. Even more to his credit, the shot struck home, hitting Moss in the left bicep and spinning him half way around, his knife clattering on the sidewalk.

But Moss' single-mindedness was absolute, and he paid the impact no more attention than a light shove amidst a bar room brawl. With his other arm, he spiked the ball hard into the pavement in the middle of the police squad. It shattered like a glass ornament, and a large green cloud blossomed up, instantly enveloping them all - Moss included. Moss yanked his long black coat up over his head and dropped down into a crouch beneath the coat's tarp-like shelter.

And before Narris could line up another shot, the green gas morphed into orange flame, curling and rolling and roaring through the air around them. He barely heard the screams of his men before they were drowned out by his own, as fire washed over every inch of him.

Moss dove out of the fireball like a bird from a burning barn. His torso was bent over with his coat shielding his head, a plume of dark smoke rolling off his flame-retardant flak jacket. Once clear of the fiery carnage, he righted himself and ran through the street to where a powerful, jet-black swoop bike idled. He vaulted over the rear of it and landed with his legs straddling the seat. He sharply twisted the handlebar accelerator, bringing a seismic roar from the engines as he kicked off the brakes with a stomp of his boot. The big bike launched forward and tore down the street with a deep howl.

As the cool wind whipped across his stubbled face, Moss looked down the canyon-like boulevard for his target. He passed other vehicles in traffic like they were standing still. He could see the Ambassador's blue speeder not two blocks ahead. As the powerful swoop bike closed the gap, he pulled another sphere out of his coat.

_**To be continued...**_


	5. Chapter 5

I.

Tycho Celchu drove Winter's rented landspeeder down Grand Plaza Avenue on Commenor. His eyes routinely flicked up to the rear-view display, checking to see if they were being followed. Tycho repressed the urge to tear through the traffic, and instead settled into the pack, coasting along at a casual speed and not calling any attention to their speeder.

Commenor was a planet-wide metropolis, much like Coruscant was, but the main difference between the two was that Commenor's cities were constructed upon the actual planetary surface. On Coruscant, airspeeders were the dominant form of transportation because you traveled miles above the planet's gravity center. With skyscrapers built upon skyscrapers, Coruscant's crust had not been seen in so long that it was practically mythical. But on Commenor, if you weren't headed for space, travel was usually restricted to ground craft like landspeeders.

Winter was laying across the back seat. The knife was still in her chest, but she had not lost consciousness, and Tycho was becoming increasingly convinced that her body armor had slowed the blade enough that it had not gotten through to any vital organs.

Alderaanian Baroness Varica Econa sat in the passenger seat, still a coiled spring of tension and fear. She sat ramrod straight in her seat, clutching the dash and her arm rest. Her eyes darted around constantly. Tycho thought it likely that she was suffering from acute post-traumatic stress.

Tycho started to reach for her, then hesitated. He didn't want her to leap out of the car in a panic. "Varica," he said.

She shuddered at the voice, but slowly turned to face him.

"It'll be all—

The deep thrum of a swoop bike rose sharply from behind them. Tycho looked into his rear view display and felt his heart stop.

_There's no way._

The man in black – the assassin – roared up behind them and to the left, his red main of hair and long coat whipping in the wind behind him, his eyes shielded by impenetrable windscreen glasses. He raised his arm, and Tycho saw what looked like a grenade in his hand.

"Hold on!" Tycho shouted, and wrenched the steering wheel to the right, throwing Varica and Winter towards the passenger side of the speeder. They cut off the LandSoar 66 gliding next to them, forcing it up onto the sidewalk where the hurdling nose of his vehicle sent pedestrians diving for cover.

The grenade struck the section of road Tycho has just vacated and bounced up under the repulsorlift manifold of a freight truck. An explosion blossomed under the truck, sending its rear end straight up on a jet of flame that drove its front end straight down. The truck completed the summersault and landed flat on its back, skidding and sparking along the pavement.

Tycho threw back the shifter and planted his boot on the accelerator. Everyone was sucked deep into their seat backs as they blew past the burning hulk of the truck and launched forward. Varica shrieked in a manner that put her earlier efforts to shame, while in the backseat, Winter grimaced against the pain of the sharp changes in inertia.

The instincts of most civilians were to slam on their brakes in a moment of uncertainty or danger, and Tycho immediately found he was racing into a sea of red brake lights. He whipped around them and maneuvered through the pack of slow or stationary obstacles with expert skill and cat-like reflexes.

The thunderous roar of the pursuing swoop bike rose behind him again as the black rider shot past the wrecked truck and came up upon them from the other side. He reached down into a holster double-strapped to his calve and pulled out a heavy blaster pistol. He leveled it at Tycho's driver-side window just as they each realized they were about to plow into a stalled Robo-Bus. The swooper banked his bike left as Tycho threw his wheel to the right to avoid the bus.

Tycho shot past the front of the bus and immediately brought the wheel around full left and came over hard to ram the swooper, as he was emerging on the front side. The black rider clamped down tight on his handbrakes, nearly catapulting himself over the front of the bike. Tycho cut through the air in front of him and broadsided another landspeeder. With the violent slap of metal on metal, he glanced roughly off of it and then righted himself to run straight with the road.

"Stop it!" Varica screamed.

"Damn it, will you get a hold of yourself?" Tycho shot back. "You're some kind of rebel."

Varica turned away from him and shuddered quietly to herself.

The swooper came up directly behind them and fired his pistol into the rear windshield. The first two crimson bolts glanced off the curved glass, leaving black score marks on the surface. The third shot blasted the window apart, throwing broken shards throughout the cabin.

Tycho involuntarily ducked down lower in his seat, and then saw that he was coming up on an intersection. He swung the landspeeder to the right and came off of Grand Plaza onto a narrow side street that was barely more than an alleyway. It ran between large buildings and provided little maneuvering room.

"Sithspawn," Tycho gritted.

The swoop bike, by its size and nature, was far more maneuverable than the landspeeder, and the black rider had no problem making the turn after them and coming up on their tail. With their rear windshield gone, the deafening roar of the swoop's engines completely filled the landspeeder's cabin.

Tycho reached out and grabbed the back of Varica's head. "Get down!"

Varica readily complied, letting Tycho direct her downward and then assuming a fetal position with her hands wrapped protectively around her head. Winter couldn't move, and as she was sprawled flat across the back seat, she didn't need to.

Several seconds passed, but no blaster shots rained into the cabin. Tycho took a quick glance at the rear view and saw the rider soaring along behind them with both hands on the handlebars, his blaster apparently holstered.

"What the hell?" Tycho asked.

Winter swallowed and managed to speak over the din of the swoop's engines. "He's… herding us somewhere. Wants Varica. Alive."

"Hell with that," Tycho said. "Brace yourselves!"

Tycho stomped on the accelerator, launching the speeder forward with increasing speed. There was a one second gap before the rider responded, and then with a throaty howl of his engines, he soared forward to close the gap again.

Tycho stomped on his brakes.

The swoop's front end rammed the rear of the speeder, making an impact that rattled Tycho's teeth and threw him against the steering column.

Laying on her back across the rear seat, Winter watched as, in the blink of an eye, the assassin flew over the top of the speeder, his heavy black boot catching the lip of the roof and causing him to be hooked down against the front hood of the speeder. He struck it with shoulder and helmet and then rolled into the street in front of them.

The crumpled swoop soared past immediately after, glancing off of the roof with a deep clang before flipping end over end through the air. The swoop's destroyed chassis overshot the downed assassin and smashed into the street, exploding into a pile of burning scrap.

Tycho gunned the accelerator.

Amazingly, the assassin had not lost consciousness, and had thrown his arms around his head to shield himself from the swoop's flaming destruction. As Tycho brought his speeder blasting toward him, the assassin scurried behind a dumpster.

Tycho swung into the side of the dumpster with a flurry of sparks, making it roll on its caster wheels. It knocked the assassin off of his elbows and knees and dragged him underneath. Tycho held the wheel hard to the left to keep the container rolling along the ferrocrete wall, sparking as it went.

After twenty meters, he nudged the wheel to the right and released the dumpster. Free of its drag, the speeder launched forward.

They tore out of the alley at full speed and Tycho tucked back into the traffic flow on the main road.

* * *

><p>Back in the alley, Special Agent Moss pulled himself out from under the heavy container. His helmet was scuffed and his flak jacket torn to shreds. He had lacerations on the left side of his face, and at least some of his left ribs were broken. With his right hand he placed a cigarra into his mouth. With his left, arm held protectively against his rib cage, he flipped open his communicator.<p>

II.

Ysanne Isard stood in the jungles of Yavin IV, her communicator pressed against her ear. A hundred meters behind her, Imperial technicians crawled over every inch of the Massassi temple that had been the Rebel Alliance headquarters only a week earlier. Between the humidity and the fruitlessness of their efforts, she was already in a foul mood. The message she was receiving now pushed her over the edge.

"Are you fracking serious?" she demanded into the comlink. "You were outdone by a couple of women? _Alderaanian_ women?

She stopped to listen.

"An Imperial lieutenant?" She would not have been surprised to hear that some officer on leave tried to intervene and ingratiate himself to a pair of blondes, but she was extremely surprised that this lieutenant survived three seconds with Moss, and _then_ maintained sufficient interest in the ladies to get into a deadly speeder chase across Commenor City. Officers on shore leave were generally just looking for good times and loose women, and this had become a lot more than he would've been bargaining for.

Unless he too was a rebel spy.

Her comlink chirped. She had a second message coming in from Coruscant.

"I need to end this transmission," she told Moss. "Just consider yourself fortunate that we still need of your services on the Alderaan project. Otherwise we'd be terminating you, and not with a fracking handshake and a box for your things, either. Now make yourself useful at the embassy and then get back on schedule with the project."

She closed the channel without waiting for a response and picked up the call from Coruscant. In the background, she heard the faint but enthusiastic shouts of one of her techs, who had apparently found something of interest.

"Go ahead," she said.

"Hello, Ysanne," Armand Isard said. "Was that Agent Moss on the other channel?"

"You know it was," she answered impatiently.

"True enough."

"And I suppose you've also heard about the mystery naval lieutenant who plucked Econa out of his grasp," she said.

"Not much of a mystery," Armand answered. "Lt. Tycho Celchu of the _Accuser_ – a TIE squadron leader. He was apprehended as an Alderaanian national about ten hours ago. He assaulted a commander, killed a crewman, and escaped. We caught him on a security holocam entering the embassy shortly after. Twenty minutes after that he jumped Moss and the rest I assume you know."

Ysanne gritted her teeth and fought down the explosion she wanted to unleash at him. She was only partly successful. "I don't know a damn thing out here on the rim. You reroute me from the Folor meet, and now I'm out of touch pursuing a meaningless assignment. Our priority targets are being missed by the swoop freak you ordered to—

Behind Ysanne, an explosion ripped out of the side of the temple, blowing chunks of stone and mortar through the air. Along with the debris, three men tumbled through the sky like rag dolls, dead before they crashed through the tree tops to the ground.

She did not turn around, and put a finger in her ear to block out the noise. "I can be far more valuable elsewhere."

"What was that sound?" Armand asked.

"That was a booby trap," she said curtly. "Third one in two days. Oh, and we also found a schematic for a new base that they're building. The coordinates are in the middle of a black hole."

"Ysanne—

"I want you to stop wasting my time. I want to be allowed to make a contribution of actual importance. I want—

_"Ysanne."_

She closed her eyes. She closed her mouth. And she waited.

Armand let the silence hang for several long seconds. She imagined he was staring at a chronometer, letting some prescribed amount of time pass that would move the break in conversation from awkward to intimidating.

"You're through then?" he asked.

She swallowed. "Yes, sir."

"Anyone talented enough to tap into this conversation would assume that because you are my daughter, I allow you a bit of leeway when you become frustrated."

"Father—

"What they would be interested to know is that, in fact, I grant you less. If you ever speak against me again—

"I'm sorry, Fath—

_"If you even interrupt me,"_ he hissed, "if you so much as contradict me, I will have you shot through your girlish head and fed to a pack of neks."

She felt a lump rising in her throat. It made her sick to be so choked up with emotion, but she felt paralyzed by it all the same. She knew better than to speak, and knew she couldn't even if she wanted to.

"Report on your findings when you have covered every cubic millimeter of that base. If rebel explosives kill every man you have, signal for more and continue. But get it done. And Ysanne?"

She tried to answer, but only managed to clear her throat. Apparently it was sufficient.

"Never call me Father when we're working."

III.

Luke stood at the podium in the pilot briefing room. The briefing room was actually a large utility closet aboard the _Freedom Hauler_, and the podium was an empty crate. But in a strictly utilitarian sense, the space worked well as a private area to address his squadron. Luke had spent the last thirty minutes going over all aspects of their next flight op.

"Now that mission details have been completed," Luke said, "I wanted to take a minute to welcome our new pilots." Red Squadron had been operating at a deficit since the Battle of Yavin, and with the addition of these four pilots, they were now back up to twelve, the standard compliment for a fighter squadron.

Luke smiled. "It's nice to be whole again."

One of the pilots crossed his arms and fixed Luke with a cold gaze. "Not new, sir."

Luke frowned. He noticed that the four new pilots all looked angry. "I'm sorry?"

"We're not 'new.' We've been members of the rebellion since the beginning. I want it known that we're not replacements or greenies. We've seen combat – probably more than most of you here now."

Hobbie Klivian and Evett Moonseeker each shifted in their chairs, clearly irked by the comment.

_I tried to be welcoming and now I've offended these veterans. I have to fix this before it creates a rift in the squadron._

Luke swallowed, and then cleared his throat. "What's your name, flight officer?" he asked.

The pilot was tall and stout, with a shaved head and a stubbled face. His arms remained crossed as he answered. "Trask."

Wedge Antilles, the squadron's executive officer, turned in his seat and looked directly at Trask.

Trask caught Wedge's eyes and then added, "Sir."

"Well, Trask," Luke said, "I simply meant you were new to our squadron. We respect and appreciate the experience you men bring. It will be an honor to fly with you."

There was an uncomfortable pause before Trask answered, "Yes, sir."

The other three pilots remained stone faced. Luke had planned to ask them to each introduce themselves, but now felt anxiety growing in his chest. He just wanted to get out of there.

As if on cue, the intercom chirped.

"Captain Skywalker, please report to command center."

Luke looked at Wedge, who nodded in reply to the unspoken order. "Lieutenant Antilles will address any remaining operational questions."

Luke couldn't have been any happier to be called away.

* * *

><p>Luke walked out of the briefing room and the heavy steel door slid shut, leaving the squadron members behind. An uncomfortable silence hung over the room. Wedge stood and slowly turned to face Trask. "If there's nothing further?"<p>

Trask smiled. "Just one thing, Lieutenant."

"Why am I not surprised?"

Trask stood up. He cut an imposing figure, standing half a head taller than Wedge. His duty fatigues had the sleeves rolled up to just below the elbow, showing thick forearm muscles and hands that could easily be imagined as hammer-like fists.

"I just want to say I meant no disrespect to any of you guys. I know you're all here to fight, and we're more than glad to do our share," he said, gesturing to the three other men. "I just want to make sure we're given our due, if you know what I mean."

"Captain Skywalker explained himself very clearly," Wedge said. "I trust that's the end of the issue?"

Trask let the question hang for a beat longer than Wedge felt comfortable with. "Yes, sir."

"Very well, then," Wedge said. "Dismissed."

Hobbie, Janson, and the other pilots filed out of the room. Trask's guys also walked out, leaving him and Wedge alone.

Wedge smiled warily. "Still more?"

Trask cocked an eyebrow. "Off the record, Lieutenant?"

"Fine."

Trask cleared his throat. "When we were transferred over here, I thought we'd be reporting to you."

Wedge gave him a hard look. "You are."

"Yes, sir – but we both know that ain't what I meant. I can't believe the brass passed you over for a rookie. I mean, the kid lands one lucky shot and now he's running pilots who earned their wings before he ever took a shave?"

Wedge turned away from him and considered his response. "Okay, off the record, Trask – and let's drop ranks for a moment."

"Love it, Antilles. What do you got?"

"I've got a question. Do you respect me?"

Trask nodded emphatically. "Hundred percent. You've been around the world a few times. You earned your way up through the ranks." He leaned forward. "You've flown more than a single space battle."

"So my judgment – as a pilot, as a soldier – is solid?"

"Rock solid, Wedge."

"Good. Then listen to this judgment. Luke Skywalker is the bravest, most instinctive pilot I've ever seen."

Trask gave an amused smile. He shook his head. "And here I thought we were having a real talk."

"We are," Wedge shot back. "You say you respect me with one breath, and then say I'm full of crap with the next. Do you really think I'd fly under a man who didn't deserve a command?"

"I think you're a hell of a loyal guy, Antilles, and that kid is lucky to have you. I think you put a lot of stock in the chain of command."

"I do. And everyone else had better, too—

Trask held up a staying hand. "I know we gotta have a chain of command, but it has to be a meritocracy, too, if we're gonna win this thing."

Wedge scoffed. "You want to talk about merit? Luke took a bigger chunk out of the Empire in one day than the whole Alliance did since inception."

"Antilles, the kid's a hero, I love him for what he did, but got lucky, and now he's in way over his head."

Wedge shook his head. "You're wrong. He may be new, but he's the best we've got. You need to give him a chance."

Trask shrugged. "Trouble is… I only got one life to lose. And I ain't losing it on account of nobody's mistake. Hero or otherwise."

IV.

Samson Apgar, twelve year veteran of Seinar Weapon Designs – administrative division – frowned nervously at the Imperial commander standing in front of him. The commander was tall, with brown hair and a small scar across his chin. He looked around the small foyer at the front of the weapons depot, mostly nodding to himself, but occasionally furrowing his brow in disapproval. His companion – who the commander had identified only as his assistant, stood imposingly, glaring directly at Apgar.

Apgar swallowed. "Forgive me, sir," he said, "but I was never informed of any inspection."

The commander paused in his visual sweep of the foyer and slowly turned to face Apgar. He looked thoroughly disgusted.

"Use that mound of bantha dung you call a brain – just for a minute—and then tell me why that statement was moronic. And insane."

Apgar couldn't muster a response. He had never heard of an inspection at Seinar. They were really just an unofficial extension of the Imperial military anyway. But then again, he had only been promoted to Site Manager two months ago, and it was possible these things had gone on above his pay grade, and without his knowledge.

Despite the appearance of this impatient commander and his… large assistant… he knew he should verify with the regional director before opening the security door to the weapons warehouse.

"I take your meaning, sir," Apgar said, reaching for the comm. switch, "but you must understand that I have regulations to—

The assistant rumbled low in his throat. Growled, really.

The commander was outraged. "You're quoting regulations to me? I'm Imperial Intelligence—I _wrote_ the regulations on every—don't look at him, man, look at me!"

Apgar pulled his eyes away from the assistant's ferocious wall of muscle and fur and forced himself to look at the commander.

The commander sighed. "I take it you've never seen a Wookiee before?"

Apgar shook his head. "No, sir. Not up close."

"Top notch laborers," the commander said. He picked a long stand of fur from his uniform sleeve and held it against the light. "Not the best man servants, though." He turned and rapped the Wookiee across the chest with the back of his gloved hand. "I told you to press _and_ clean my uniform. If I'm covered in you, I'm liable to smell like you, too."

The Wookiee glared daggers at his master.

"Oh, you have a problem, then?" the commander challenged.

The Wookiee howled out something beyond Apgar's comprehension, but it was clearly laden with anger and defiance.

The commander laughed and shook his head in amazement. "Well, savage, if that's your attitude then it's inspection duty for you."

The Wookiee bared his fangs and growled with a vibrating upper lip.

Apgar's head came up. "Excuse me sir, but he's not qualified to handle—

The commander shot out a hand and pointed directly at Apgar. "Quiet." He folded his arms across his chest and smiled coldly. "Obviously I will be directing his every move – but as I said, these Wookiees make for excellent labor."

He held out a hand to the Wookiee expectantly. "Pad," he demanded.

The fur covered giant pulled the device from his satchel and handed it over. The commander in turn handed it to Apgar.

"I want these items rolled out onto the tarmac within five minutes," he said.

Apgar began scrolling through the list. "But, sir – these items need to be securely—

"You have your orders. Are you about to disobey?"

"No, sir, but the ordnance is highly explosive and—

"_Move, you mynock stool!"_

In a panic, Apgar took the list, punched in his code at the armored warehouse door behind them, and scurried into the warehouse. The heavy doors clanged shut behind him.

Han Solo removed the officer cap from his head and wiped away a thin layer of perspiration before replacing it. He let out a long breath.

"Well partner," he said. "It's about to be show time."

* * *

><p>Lakaron Minor was little more than a big round rock in space. Seinar often created storage depots on such worlds, which were uninhabitable and well off the beaten path of established space lanes. On Lakaron, they had implemented an atmospheric shield to provide heat and oxygen around the depot and its offices and barracks facility. There was also a large landing pad where transport ships could make and receive deliveries.<p>

Han and Chewbacca stood on that landing pad in front of their stolen Imperial infantry carrier, and watched as Apgar and his men cautiously pushed out four hover-skids of proton torpedoes. Han noted that all of the supposed warehouse workers were wearing sidearms.

_Apgar still ain't convinced. Probably rounded up all his security guys on the hop and had them roll out the torps, in case we try anything unsavory._

When the floating platforms of torpedoes were lined up on the landing pad, Apgar and his men - eight of them - came stand before Han and Chewie. The security guards' hands never strayed far from their holstered blasters.

"This is everything on your list, Commander," Apgar said. "But I still don't understand why this alleged inspection is not being conducted inside of our secure facility."

Han could tell from his tone that he was feeling emboldened, now that he had some muscle behind him. They'd have to be fast.

Han pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes in the very model of impatience. He sighed. "Because, idiot, we need to inspect the I.E.T on these protons, and doing that inside, amongst thousands of explosive warheads, doesn't seem like a great idea now does it?"

Apgar's eyes went wide at the mention of I.E.T and his men began to exchange worried glances.

Impact Endurance Threshold referred to a warhead's ability to withstand minimal physical impact without exploding. If a torpedo fell out of its rack from one meter off the deck, you wouldn't want it to detonate inside your ship. But when the warhead struck a hull at full speed, you would definitely want to see some bang for your buck. The I.E.T controlled what impact level was safe, and what level caused explosion.

Apgar stammered before he could get out some words. "S-sir, we can't possibly conduct such tests safely within-

"Young man, I wrote all the regulations on field testing and everything will be fine." He turned significantly to Chewie. "Provided Mister Slippy Fingers here can try not to have any more incidents."

"Incidents?" Apgar asked.

Han waived him off. "Classified. Anyway, the damage was only moderate—minimal loss of life." Han pointed to a crate. "Start with that unit," he ordered. "J-9."

Chewie walked over to the hover-skid and began removing a slender crate that contained one torpedo.

Han stomped his boot on the tarmac. "I said _J-9_, you incompetent flea bag. That's J-8. I thought you animals had great hearing."

Chewie growled to himself as he yanked the proper crate from the stack. He set it down roughly on the tarmac. One of the security men swore under his breath.

"The impact tests start _after_ you open the crate, genius," Han said.

Chewie crouched down and put two giant paws across the top of the narrow crate and fixed Han with an angry glare. Without shifting his expression in the slightest, the Wookiee squeezed, causing a resounding crack as the crate's outer casing shattered in his enormous hands.

Several of the security men took involuntary steps backward.

Han put his hands on his hips. "That just cost you a day's meal rations."

Apgar tried to be the voice of reason. "Commander, please."

"Don't fret," Han said. "You can't appease these aliens. The Old Republic let them run around off the chain and you saw how that worked out."

Chewie stood up menacingly. The pieces of broken crate fell away from his hands and arms, and the gleaming metal tube of the torpedo was now firmly in his grasp.

One of the security men turned and ran for the building. Apgar turned after him and made as if to call him, but then turned back to Han and Chewie in a panic. Han pretended to let it go unnoticed.

He looked at Chewie imperiously. "Are you finally ready to work?"

Chewie howled a brief response and Han nodded.

"Fine, then." Han looked down at his data pad. "Test number one will be at two meters."

Chewie took the torpedo, turned it over in his hands so that the warhead was pointed downward, and then held it out away from himself.

Han didn't look up, but held up a hand as if he were about to call a race. "Prepare to release on my mark."

"What in the Emperor's bones are you doing?" Apgar gasped.

Han looked up, shocked. "Language, man! That's your lord and master you're referring to. We're doing the two-meter test – you may want to stand back."

Two more of the guards took off running for the building behind them.

"You'll kill us all," Apgar said. He was now visibly trembling.

"Simmer down," Han replied. He turned his back on Chewie to address Apgar directly. "Despite what you may have heard, these Wookiees are total cowards."

Apgar's eyes went wide as saucers as he watched Chewie's reaction. Han continued without turning around.

"This oaf won't do anything to—

Chewie's roar cut through Han's speech like a blow torch.

Han turned around to see Chewie with the proton torpedo held over his shoulder like a spear, the warhead pointed directly at Han. His eyes were bright with the very image of murderous rage.

Han shook his head. "This again?"

The remaining security guards drew their pistols and Apgar practically threw himself into their line of fire.

"_Don't shoot, you'll hit the warhead! Run!"_

They sprinted for the building, Apgar with his hands over his ears.

Han watched until they had nearly reached the blast doors before turning back to Chewie. "Now!"

Chewie gently set down the torpedo he'd been wielding and then ran to meet Han at the rear of the first hover-skid.

"Okay, pal—push," Han grunted as they maneuvered the floating stack of torpedo crates towards the entry ramp of the shuttle. It floated silently up into the hold. The ship was designed to be used as an infantry carrier, and since they weren't carrying any infantry, there was just enough room for the four skids. They tromped down the ramp to grab the next one.

They had just finished loading the second skid when the alarm klaxons sounded. A moment later, Apgar's security men came charging out of the depot's doorway, weapons drawn.

Han was still at the top of the ramp and Chewie at the bottom. Han reached inside the doorway and hefted a large weapon. "Chewie," he called, and then tossed it down into his waiting hands.

Chewie leveled the bowcaster and took aim at the charging security squad. He fired once, and the explosive projectile struck the tarmac at the center of their formation, blowing them up and away from each other in a dazzling fireball.

Han pulled his pistol from its holster and laid down suppressing fire as the next squad tried to leave the building. His continued and well-placed shots kept them pinned in the doorway.

Han yelled to Chewie over the blasts. "They can't fire as long as there's a pile of warheads between us and them." He snapped off a few more shots. "We'll leave the fourth skid behind to cover our exit. Can you manage the third one by yourself?"

Chewie roared an affirmative and made for the skid. Han continued firing each time a guard tried to peek around the corner of the armored door.

Chewie began pushing the third floating platform up the shuttle gangway. Han's sharp eyes spotted a single boot edging out from the side of the doorway. He closed one eye and took the pistol in a two-handed grip.

The scarlet bolt sizzled through the unfortunate man's foot, eliciting a scream that Han could hear from the hundred meter distance between them. The man grabbed for his boot and fell on his side across the open doorway. Han took mercy and held his fire as his compatriots dragged him back behind cover.

_Better think twice, boys,_ Han thought.

Chewie roared that he was safely inside and Han slapped the door control, causing the ramp to ascend from the tarmac. He weaved through the narrow openings left in the hold between the pallets of torpedoes and dropped into the pilot's seat. Chewie's huge shaggy paws were already flying through the pre-flight sequence.

"Not bad, partner, not bad." He looked out through the side of the canopy and saw that the remaining guards were now running out onto the landing pad, waiting to clear the remaining skid of torpedoes before opening fire. Han didn't waste any adrenaline on that score, though. Their hand blasters would barely scratch the military shuttle's armored hull.

As the first shots hit home, an alarm sounded from the control board. Chewie growled in response.

"It's nothing," Han said. "They're like gnats on a gundark."

Chewie growled louder and gestured more urgently at the display.

Han's eyes went wide. "Well where the hell did they come from?"

Two TIE fighters came into view over the horizon, their shapes rapidly growing as they tore across the landscape. They opened up with their cannons, the emerald bolts strafing across the barren rocky surface towards the shuttle.

And towards the remaining skid of torpedoes.

_**To be continued...**_


	6. Chapter 6

I.

From inside the cockpit of their stolen Imperial shuttle, Han and Chewie watched with wide eyes as two TIE fighters raced towards them, lasers chewing up the planetscape and tracking straight for them.

Or, more importantly, straight for the stack of proton torpedo crates sitting on the landing pad right in front of them.

Han shouted, "Emergency lift off. Now!"

Chewie reached up to the ceiling and threw a lever. He roared an affirmative to Han, who punched a large key on the control panel and yanked back hard on the flight yoke.

The craft burst off of the ground. The force of the displaced air and dust hit the hover-skid holding the torpedoes, bouncing it away from the shuttle, but closer towards the incoming line of fire.

The TIEs shimmered as they passed through the environmental energy dome into the base's artificial atmosphere. Their firing never slowed for instant, despite the wild waving of two of the guards. The rest of the Seinar guys were just hauling ass away from the stack of torpedoes, unwilling to accept that if they blew, not so much as a flea would be left alive within the radius of the dome.

"Maximum shields!" Han cried.

The green energy bolts peppered the landing pad on a straight line towards the shuttle's previous position, and struck the torpedo crates not one second later.

The explosion was immediate and catastrophic. A huge blue fireball erupted on the surface and instantly vaporized the two unshielded TIEs. It slammed Han's shields like a supernova and hurled the shuttle towards the heavens, spiraling and flipping away from the planet.

Any torpedoes that hadn't instantly detonated now launched from the fireball in all directions, free of any target lock to guide them.

While the warehouse had been built to withstand orbital bombardment, it was nonetheless wilting under the immeasurable heat of the explosion. Any workers who were inside had been flash-cooked by blast, and now stray torpedoes were slamming into its vastly compromised armored walls.

Inside the shuttle, Han and Chewie wrestled with the helm to regain control. Alarms rang and hooted from every panel, and sparks rained down on them from ceiling, singeing Han's neck and shoulders. Their forward view was a dizzying array of images that alternated between sky and surface, gas clouds and proton flame.

"Shields are down," Han called over the alarms. "We're not dead – so we must've cleared the blast. Put everything we got left into the lateral stabilizers."

Chewie complied, and their kalidescope view slowed into intelligible images. Their flight trajectory leveled off, and provided a stable view of the upper atmosphere.

Han gripped the flight yoke and waited a moment for his head to clear. He shook off the last of the disorientation and called up a quick diagnostic report. "I gotta see how bad we got hit. I got a feeling…" He cursed. "I hate being right all the time—hyperdrive is completely knocked out. Most of the secondary systems, too."

Chewie growled in frustration. He spun around in his chair and stood up to head aft.

"Have a quick look, pal, but I doubt we can fix it on the move. I'm gonna try to bring the comm. system back online and get a signal to the kid. Cause as of now, we're going nowhere fast."

II.

Luke and the rest of Red Squadron held position on the dark side of Lakaron Major. It was a gas giant opposite the smaller, iron core planet of Lakaron Minor, where Han was undoubtedly running the unfortunate Seinar workers in circles.

They had to maintain comm. silence until they received Han's signal, or, until they picked up something too crucial to ignore on their passive sensors. It had been nearly a half-hour since Han's shuttle had left them to land outside the weapons depot.

On the hyperspace trip out here, and in the downtime since, Luke's thoughts had invariably gone to the incident at the squadron meeting yesterday. The four new pilots who had entered into his squadron seemed almost disdainful of him. Trask's attitude had caught him so much off guard that he could barely even respond.

_Do I just expect to be treated as a hero now? Am I unable to deal with anything else?_

So many people – from the maintenance men to the highest commanders – had heralded Luke as a hero. When he and Han had received their medals from the princess on Yavin, and the assembled hundreds had cheered, he had been instantly infused with the confidence of a man with an army standing firmly behind him. He was given the rank of captain, awarded command of his squadron, and sent to work with a beaming smile and a chest full of pride.

And then the questions came. The procedures. The problems.

The politics.

It had seemed that, given his status as a hero, he was just expected to know things. But he had never commanded men before—had never been in charge of anything save for a few droids on the farm. Until very recently, his dream had been to attend the academy and learn to be a starfighter pilot.

But when Artoo and Threepio had landed on his doorstep and changed his life forever, he had, in the space of a few days, leapt over the years of training the academy would have provided, and found himself commanding graduates of that very program.

The core members of his team—Wedge, Hobbie, Janson, and Zev—were loyal and supportive, but sometimes Luke would say something, and see that look in their eyes. That look that said, 'You sure about that one boss? Because what you're saying doesn't make any sense.' They generally found subtle—and respectful—ways to make helpful suggestions, and Luke gladly accepted their recommendations when they made good sense.

But Trask and his comrades from their old outfit would have no such patience, and based on the way that first meeting had gone, no such respect. Luke was going to have to deal with them carefully.

A message from Artoo scrolled across the comm. display.

Luke smiled. "You wouldn't worry about who?"

Artoo answered exactly as Luke expected, and was, of course, exactly right. Luke shook his head in amazement. This dented up little astro droid had only known Luke for a couple of weeks, and already he had him completely pegged.

"What do you know about Trask?" Luke asked.

Luke read as the lines of text came in from the translator program. Apparently, Wedge's R5 unit, named Flat Top, had gotten wind of the events of the staff meeting, and had shared them with Artoo. Artoo had taken the opportunity during the hyperspace trip to introduce himself to Trask's astro droid, who sported the somewhat insulting name of Rusty. And according to Rusty, that was not the least of the insults he had suffered during his service to Trask, but Artoo said he would hold that tale for another day.

Luke read with great interest as the lines of information flowed down his screen. He made a mental note to be careful about how he treated the droids around the base, as they clearly maintained and shared well-crafted opinions of their human masters.

Luke had only been reading for a minute when the passive sensors chimed urgently. He looked at the readings and his eyes went wide. He keyed the squadron comm. frequency and broke silence.

"We have a security alert from the depot," Luke announced. "Go to full speed and head for an orbital position over its location on the surface. Lock S-foils in attack position."

"Permission to go to active sensors, Lead?" Wedge asked.

_Damn, should have remembered that_. "Affirmative," Luke said. "Full sensors online."

As Luke's control panel came fully to life, his tactical system displayed one flight of TIE fighters – a flight being four ships—and one Carrack-class frigate, whose transponder identified it as the _Spearhead_. The TIEs had been launched from the _Spearhead's _dorsal deployment rackand were headed towards the surface.

"Red Three," Luke said, "take two and three flights and disable the Carrack. I'm taking one flight after those eyeballs."

"Copy, Lead," Wedge said.

The Carrack-class was a medium-strength frigate designed to harass larger capital ships or escort convoys. Its armament was not to be underestimated, but it was also not very well suited to engage snubfighters. If Luke's pilots played it cautious, they could engage the _Spearhead_, do some modest damage to it, and play the battle on their terms to avoid significant losses.

Luke pulled his stick to starboard and came around on an intercept course for the quartet of TIE fighters. Luke commanded One Flight, which consisted of his wingman, Dack, along with Zev Senesca and his new wingman, Bullfren, who had come over with Trask from the old squadron.

"Be prepared for them to come about," Luke said. TIEs had poor maneuverability within a planet's gravity, and if these pilots had any sense, they would prefer to engage the X-Wings in the vacuum of space.

Sure enough, the four eyeballs split their formation before reaching the planet—two going to port, and two going starboard—and came around for a head-to-head run. Luke flipped a switch on his control board and the heads-up-display lit green brackets around the first eyeball, tagging it in the tactical computer.

Luke kept the stick loose, wobbling it gently so that his X-Wing danced around in a random pattern to evade his opponent's targeting systems. The TIE pilots opened up without waiting for locks, filling the blackness of space with verdant energy bolts. Luke had quickly learned from other engagements that this blunt show of force was both typical for Imperial pilots, and highly ineffective against a reasonably skilled pilot. He didn't let the constant stream of lasers panic him, and kept his fighter moving in a tight but randomized pattern towards the eyeballs. A moment later, the HUD went red, and Luke triggered two shots from his wing mounted cannon.

Both shots stabbed through the cockpit and exploded out the back of the craft, sending the two hexagonal wings spinning off on their own past Luke on either side.

"Nice shot, boss!" Dack said. Dack was a fair pilot, but Luke liked having him around specifically because he was the only person in the Alliance that made him feel somewhat mature. Dack was supposedly seventeen, but Luke had a feeling that number was inflated by a couple of years. For Luke, it was nice to know there was someone around that he had more life experience than. In any case, what Dack lacked in seasoning he compensated for with enthusiasm.

Zev exchanged fire with one of the other TIEs, and suffered a shot to his forward shields before breaking away to regroup. Bullfren followed him through the maneuver. The TIE and his wingman took advantage of the break and dove hard for the surface of the planet.

"Lead, our eyeballs are headed for ground," Zev said. "Permission to pursue?"

Zev had lost momentum by pulling out of the head-to-head run, and it would have been a tall order to close the gap in time. "Negative," Luke said. "We're closer to them. Take out that last TIE. We'll try to bag this pair before they reach Han."

"I copy," Zev said.

Luke caught a piece of chatter coming from the group attacking the _Spearhead_. "Red Eight, stay with your wingman," Wedge ordered.

"Respectfully, Lead—that guy ain't keeping up me," Trask said.

_What?_ 'Lead' was Luke's designation, and he was nowhere near the _Spearhead_. He checked his tactical display, and saw that a lone fighter making a strafing run straight at the frigate's bridge. He could easily imagine the turbo laser batteries filling his flight path with flak.

"That's because you're in the frigate's kill zone," Wedge snapped back. "Against orders. Abort immediately."

Trask's answer sounded inappropriately relaxed. "Roger that, Lead."

"It's Three," Wedge said. "Get back on your wing."

_He's definitely going to be a problem_, Luke thought. He would need to make time to review whatever information Artoo had collected.

Luke refocused his attention on the two eyeballs ahead. They were five klicks ahead of them in the gaseous atmosphere, and even though their maneuverability was compromised, they still had a speed advantage. Luke realized that even though he and Dack had been better positioned to catch them, the eyeballs would definitely reach Han's shuttle before they were in the X-Wing's firing range.

"Lead," Dack said. "The eyeballs just reached the surface. They're making a run on the shuttle."

Luke gritted his teeth. "Keep it at full throttle. I want to nail those Imps as soon as—

A large explosion flashed on the surface, so large and bright that Luke could see it with his naked eyes.

Luke's reaction was involuntary. "Han!"

"Lead, we've lost both TIEs on tactical," Dack said.

Luke looked down at his display and saw that his target was indeed gone, along with his wingman. He jabbed at the toggle switch urgently, flipping through all the ships in scanning range until the shuttle reappeared.

"Copy. I have the shuttle, but she's damaged. Course is erratic."

Luke's X-Wing began to shake violently as it was buffeted by the incoming shockwave from the explosion on the surface. Luke pulled back on the stick, bringing her back around into a climb for space. He was so worried about Han and Chewie that he forgot to issue the order to Dack to reverse course, but a quick glance showed that the younger pilot was right on his wing, following him through the maneuver.

Luke keyed his comm. system. "Echo Seven, come in." He received no reply, but watched as the shuttle righted itself and began a solid ascension course for orbit. She appeared to be in decent shape, but the communications were probably knocked out by the blast.

"Red Ten, stay with me," Luke ordered Dack. "We're five seconds from breakout and then we'll escort the shuttle to—

"Sithspawn!" Wes Janson cried out on the open channel. At the same exact moment, a tactical alert pierced through the cabin and Artoo hooted wildly.

Luke looked at the readout and held back a curse of his own. He burst through the last of the gas cloud cover and into the blackness of space.

The massive dagger shape of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer had come out of hyperspace right on top of them. It dwarfed the _Spearhead_ and all of Luke's squadron, which now appeared to be gnats swarming around a massive beast. His computer tagged her as the ISD _Devastator_.

Wedge's voice came through clear and steady on the squadron frequency. "Reds, stay close to the _Spearhead_. The destroyer can't fire on us without hitting their own ship."

It was a sound strategy, but Luke knew the Imps would now have to exercise their only other combat option.

"Three, she's launching TIEs," Hobbie said.

Wedge was weaving in tight spirals over, around and underneath the _Spearhead_ while evading its turbolasers. "How many squadrons?"

"Only reading one, sir."

"What?" Wedge replied. "Repeat that, Six."

"I have twelve – say again, one-two eyeballs now on intercept course."

As Luke and Dack raced to join their comrades, Luke frowned. _Why would the Imps go for an even match up when they could outnumber us six to one? _

He toggled his tactical screen to shift targets from the _Devastator_ to the TIE squadron. Their transponders identified them as Squadron 181, units one through twelve.

"Rat bastards," Trask swore over the channel. "These are the guys who slaughtered our boys at Ord Biniir."

"Cut the chatter, Trask," Luke ordered.

"Oh, I'll cut it, skipper," Trask shot back. "I'll cut it outta their frackin hulls."

"Can it now, mister," Wedge snapped.

"Enough," Luke cut in. "We're taking them on whether we want to or not, so stay focused."

"Here they come," Hobbie called.

The eyeballs came in using a standard diamond formation with three sets of four fighters, one behind the other. But just as they reached the _Spearhead_, they snapped apart into pairs with an intricate set of maneuvers that took each TIE pilot and his wingman in different directions along the Carrack frigate's hull.

"Watch it, Eight," Zev called. "You picked one up."

"He's all over me!" Bullfren cried. His voice broke into static as the TIE's shots danced across his rear deflectors. "My shields are going!"

The eyeball on Bullfren's tail sliced in over the X-Wing's wake and came across the top, raking dual cannon fire up the fighter's spine. By the second burst, the shields collapsed. The third burst blew off the astro-droid's head, and the fourth incinerated the cockpit, snuffing out Bullfren's last pleading words. The fuselage split where the nose met the drive section and the X-Wing exploded into a shower or sparks and debris.

"Frack me," Wedge breathed.

A sharp scream cut through the channel and immediately ended with a burst of static.

"I lost Seven," Evett Moonseeker said. "They herded him right into a turbolaser hotspot."

"Let's pull it together, boys," Luke said. "Nine," he ordered Moonseeker, "you wing up with Red Two and take the fight back to them." Luke nodded to himself as he saw Moonseeker fall into formation with Zev, who had just lost Bullfren. "Don't let them set the pace, Reds. Control the engagement."

Luke and Dack reached the _Spearhead_ and whipped underneath her bow to fly along her ventral axis. Luke selected TIE 181/5 from tactical and came up behind him. The eyeball was chiseling away at Hobbie's shields, matching every move he made. Luke's HUD went green as he closed into firing range, but the eyeball's wingman did a stop-and-drop, hitting his breaking thrusters and dropping beneath Luke and Dack.

"Match him, Ten!" Luke ordered. "I need to get this one off Four's back."

"Copy," Dack said, pulling his flight stick up hard to arc up one-hundred-eighty degrees and put his nose back in the other direction. He rolled the ship and pushed the stick forward to dive into a head-to-head with the pursuing eyeball.

The eyeball beat Dack to the punch, opening up with a shower of fire before Dack was on point with him. Only Dack's shields saved him, and they were down by three-quarters before he lined up his first shot.

But he made it count. The ruby bolt tore off the TIE's top hatch, and the stopping power of the shot ripped the flight chair out of the fuselage, throwing the pilot though the opening and tumbling through space, still strapped into his flight chair. The TIE careened off into the distance, spitting sparks from its empty cockpit.

Dack whooped. "How do you like me now, ace?"

Luke smiled and lined up his eyeball in his HUD. "Four, go to port - now!" Hobbie obliged, and Luke didn't wait for a lock, instinctively firing a high-powered quad shot just as his opponent banked to port to follow the evasive maneuver. The bolts vaporized the eyeball's hexagonal wing and struck the cockpit, which exploded an instant after.

"Nice shot, Lead!" Wedge called.

III.

Captain Soontir Fel and his wingman had been racing along the dorsal section of the _Spearhead_, and in a move utterly uncharacteristic for Fel, they were avoiding engagement with the rebels. This was by no means out of fear or lack of appetite. Lord Vader had given him a very specific mission, and in order to accomplish it, he would need to observe his enemy closely.

It was observation that had brought him here. In the recent engagement at Praaja II, the VSD _Fearsome's_ sensor logs showed that no torpedoes were fired by any of the X-Wings during the engagement, which was unusual, particularly since they closed on the opposing TIEs from a distance. Intelligence further confirmed this when they decrypted a transmission between Red Leader and the Corellian freighter, in which Red Leader admitted that the rebels were out of torpedoes after expending them all at Yavin.

Fel had subsequently ordered the _Devastator's_ intelligence agents to leak the location of a Seinar weapons depot at Lakaron - which stocked proton torpedoes suitable for snubfighter use. The _Devastator_ then lay in wait just outside the system, waiting for the alarm to sound.

_And here we are. _

The need for torpedoes was his wedge to get at the rebels. But with regard to his core assignment from Lord Vader – the identification of the Jedi pilot who destroyed the Death Star – there had been an even more interesting quote from the decrypted communication records. From his former classmate and rival at the academy, Han Solo.

_Torps ain't just for Death Stars, you know._

It could be nothing. Intelligence research had virtually proven that it was a proton torpedo that had struck the reactor core and caused the resulting explosion. Two rebels discussing that fact didn't necessarily point to any greater involvement on their part.

But Lord Vader had also made available to Fel his flight recorder data, which showed a Corellian YT-1300 freighter at the attack. The same freighter that Red Leader had the communication with.

When Fel put this data together, he felt he had a strong case to make concerning this Red Leader.

_Red Leader destroyed the Death Star. He's the supposed Jedi._

Fel had heard the legends, of course, and he was eager to find out what exactly being a Jedi translated to in the cockpit.

He just wished Vader hadn't insisted that the Jedi be taken alive.

Fel had taken up a posture that put enough distance between himself and the dogfighting so he could focus the majority of his attention on monitoring the action around him. He was scanning each of the X-Wings with an advanced sensor package that had been installed in his fighter. It pulled not only the transponder data from each ship, but could also recognize minute characteristics of the hull, such as carbon scoring and specific dents and pitting from the minor impacts a fighter suffered in its travels.

His computer pinged, putting a blue bracket around one of the X-Wings. The display on his readout went to a vertical split screen, with another X-Wing sitting in the opposite box. The same one identified as Red Leader at Praaja.

He had found his match.

Fel smiled tightly behind his flight mask. "On me, Unit Two," he ordered. He threw his TIE fighter into starboard dive and arced around the broadside of the _Spearhead_ on an intercept course with that X-Wing. His wingman followed closely.

Fel activated his private frequency to the Intel division on the _Devastator_.

The reply was immediate. "Sir?"

"I'm sending over the transponder for the X-Wing squadron leader. I want this data relayed to Lord Vader—

"Sir, Lord Vader's fighter just launched."

Fel checked his tactical display and saw that Vader's experimental TIE X-1 fighter had indeed entered the fray. He took a deep breath, and switched the channel.

"Fel to Lord Vader."

There was no response.

"My Lord?" he repeated. For whatever reason, it was now clear that Vader would not be answering. He switched back to the _Devastator_.

"Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I want all rebel comm. signals decrypted and relayed to me on this channel."

"Yes, sir."

"What kind of delay are we looking at?" Fel asked.

"They're still using the encrypt we cracked at Praaja, sir. We can feed you their signals in real time."

Fel frowned. That was damned sloppy of the rebels. "Fine. Execute."

He watched in the distance as his mark fired four scarlet energy bolts simultaneously at Unit Five. An explosion blossomed and Five winked off of the tactical display.

_That was Westor. Damn._

A rebel transmission crackled over the intel channel. _"Nice shot, Lead."_

Fel tightened his grip on the control wheel. That was him. There could be no question now.

But he wasn't the only one who knew it.

Lord Vader's X-1 swooped in behind Red Leader's fighter.

IV.

Varica Econa checked the landspeeder's doors for the fiftieth time, reassuring herself yet again that they were locked. Tycho had parked across the street from a pharmaceutical shop, and he had gone inside to purchase supplies to treat Winter's wound. Varica turned around to face the backseat, where Winter lay, the dagger still protruding from her chest. Her armored vest had slowed the blade's impact, and while the wound did not appear to be life threatening, it could not simply be pulled out without having provisions on hand to stop the bleeding. For her part, Winter had kept still with her eyes shut, breathing slowly and regularly, her creased brow the only indication of her pain.

_Or her fear. Not that I've seen any sign that she has any_. Not beyond a soldier's dutiful fear of failing her mission, anyway.

Varica was impressed, despite herself, with Winter's conduct as a soldier. She still strongly disagreed with Winter's inflexibility where Tycho was concerned—even more so now that this Imperial defector had saved their lives singlehandedly. She saw Winter's inability to step around protocol on behalf of such a man further evidence of her Alderaanian weakness.

But her weakness stopped there, and much to Varica's own chagrin, it brought into stark contrast her own newfound weakness.

In the face of mortal danger, Varica was an utter coward.

It was humbling, after a lifetime of rants against what she perceived to be Alderaanian cowardice, to discover that so many of her countrymen – Winter and Tycho and her dear cousin Leia amongst them – had found it in themselves to kill and risk being killed on behalf of the cause.

As for Varica herself, her heart continued to race even now, as they sat parked outside of a shopping plaza, their pursuer shaken—and possibly killed—nearly an hour ago.

_There is more than one kind of courage_, Varica reminded herself. A soldier carries out orders based on the decisions of others. But it takes courage and conviction to be able to make those decisions—to give those orders—and to be responsible for their outcome. She imagined that not many foot soldiers had the capacity such responsibilities.

But she could. And when she arrived at the rebel base, she would begin proving it at once.

Tycho emerged from the shop, one hand casually in his pocket while the other held a bag with his purchases. He now wore a plain blue jacket and some tan slacks that they had picked up at their first stop after the chase. It had taken all of Varica's willpower to make herself go into the clothier's store—seemingly calm—and buy civilian garb for him while he waited in the speeder, still wearing his Imperial uniform.

Tycho reached the speeder and Varica keyed the lock release. He popped open the door and slipped into the driver's seat. "No problems?" he asked.

She shook her head. Her voice came out small and hoarse. "No problems."

"All right, then," he said. He pushed the large ignition button, bringing the engines humming to life. He smiled encouragingly at Varica. "Let's find a quiet hotel."

* * *

><p>Varica walked out of the Celestial Inn service office and got back into the landspeeder. Once again, she had managed to pull herself together enough to perform a completely ordinary task – this time, booking a hotel room for a party of three.<p>

They had chosen the Celestial Inn for strictly logistical purposes. Most notably, the fact that every room had its own exterior entrance, arrayed continuously around the rim of a circular building. The Inn was also only ten kilometers from the Commenor spaceport – close enough to get them there in a hurry, but not so close as to be obvious if the Imperials started raiding hotels immediately adjacent to the port.

A moment later, Tycho eased the speeder into the parking space allotted to their room. He turned to Varica. "Let's get Winter together. Nice and gentle, nice and quick. Do you have the coat?"

She pulled out a long, grey trench coat that she had picked up at the clothier. "Got it."

"Let's do it."

They each got out of the speeder and stepped around to the backseat doors, each opening their own side. Tycho was on the side where Winter's head lay. She was asleep, or at least appeared to be.

"Winter," he said.

Her eyes opened immediately.

"I'm going to sit you up," he told her softly. "Varica got you a nice big coat. We're going to drape it over your shoulder to hide the knife. Will you be able to hold it away from yourself enough to keep the weight off the hilt?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Good," Tycho nodded. "Varica, let's get the coat over her. Nice and gentle."

Varica eased the coat over Winter's right shoulder, folding it over like a towel, and then carefully draped the end over the hilt of the knife. Despite her caution, Winter still hissed when the weight of the coat touched the knife, causing Varica to recoil sharply and let go of the coat altogether. Fortunately, Winter had already gotten a hand on the coat and was holding it sufficiently away from the knife to keep her pain level manageable. "It's okay," she whispered. She looked at Tycho, almost pleadingly. "Let's go," she said.

Tycho got his hands under each of her arms and half-guided, half-lifted her out of the speeder. Varica quickly walked to the hotel room's outer door and held the key card up to the scanner. The door slid smoothly aside, and she turned to face her two companions. She watched in disbelief as Winter pulled herself together almost instantly. She stood up straight, lifted her chin, and walked briskly to the door. Tycho walked along side her, arm linked through hers as though they were a couple on vacation.

They stepped inside, and as soon as the hotel room's door slid shut behind them, Winter's knees buckled and Tycho just managed to catch her before she hit the floor. Varica grabbed her other arm, and they steadied her on her feet.

They eased Winter back onto one of the two beds, so that she lay flat on her back looking up. Tycho started sifting through the medical supplies he'd bought while Varica just stared at Winter, having no idea of what else she could do.

Tycho returned to the bed with a thick wad of white gauze and a small package sealed in a foil pouch. He also had a plastic stylus about half a centimeter thick, which he handed to Varica.

"Why do we need a data pad stylus?" she asked.

"Just hang onto it for now," he said, already looking over Winter intently. He had ripped the top half of her blouse back in the city, right after the assassin's first attack. He had needed to see her wound, and was not concerned with decorum. Now that the garment was ruined, he saw no reason for further caution, and tore open the bottom half, letting the blouse fall to either side of her to reveal the dark metal mesh of Winter's armored vest. The vibroblade knife had pierced it, and while it was slowed enough by the armor to avoid deep penetration, it was still embedded in Winter's breast bone. Furthermore, the knife had pinned the vest to Winter, and he knew he could not slice it open with anything less than a cutting torch. That left the direct approach.

"Winter," Tycho said. Her eyes blinked open and she found his eyes. She was barely holding onto consciousness.

"I need to pull the knife out," he said. "It's going to hurt like hell, but the good news is I'm positive you'll pass out."

Winter actually gave a one-note chuckle to that.

"After that," Tycho continued, "we'll get this vest off of you in a hurry and dress the wound. Okay?"

Winter's eyes closed and she nodded.

Tycho looked Varica in the eyes. "Take her hand."

She scooted around to the opposite side of the bed and took up Winter's hand in a firm grasp. She was still holding the stylus in her other.

Tycho got up on the bed and straddled Winter's torso, his knees on either side of her ribs. He placed his left hand flat against her upper chest, and put his weight onto that spot, holding the vest—and Winter—down. She grimaced against the pain.

"Stylus," he said, holding out his other hand to Varica. She dropped it into his palm and he rested it horizontally across Winter's lips. Her eyes opened lazily at the touch.

He spoke softly. "Bite this."

Her eyes widened, and Varica suspected that Winter had finally reached the point of fear. Varica didn't blame her in the slightest. Winter opened her teeth to accept it, and bit down.

He looked at Varica. "Steady her."

Varica put her other hand on Winter's shoulder and gripped her hand tighter.

Tycho took a deep breath, and grasped the hilt of the knife with his right hand. He leaned forward into Winter, and without counting down or any further warning, yanked the blade straight out of her chest.

Winter surged beneath him, grunting sharply and arching her back so hard that Tycho was almost thrown off. And just as quickly, she went limp, passed out.

A spurt of blood leapt out of the wound and ran brightly through the mesh pattern of her armored vest.

"Sit her up!" Tycho said, hopping off her and getting his hands under her back. Varica pulled forward on her arm as Tycho lifted, and they got her into a sitting position, her head lolled back in unconsciousness. "We have to get this vest off." He quickly looked at her back, hopping to see fasteners or a zipper, but it was a solid pullover type. "Lift her arms," he said. "Hurry—we have to stop the bleeding."

Varica got on her knees behind Winter and held both wrists up while Tycho pulled the heavy vest up over her head, casting it aside.

"Okay, watch it—I'm setting her down."

Varica moved out from behind Winter and Tycho eased her back against the mattress. She now had on only a white undershirt with a spreading red stain in the center.

"Wad up some gauze," he ordered, pointing to the roll on the adjacent pillow. As Varica started, Tycho got his fingers into the blood soaked tear where the blade had cut her shirt, and easily ripped the light fabric down the center, exposing her pale skin. A rivulet of blood ran down from between her breasts and down her right rib cage.

"Get her cleaned up." Squeamishly, Varica got to work on her while Tycho scooped up the foil package and pulled it open. It was sponge-like, and the tangy smell of the gel it was suffused with wafted into the air.

"Bacta patch?" Varica asked.

"Yeah," Tycho said, pressing it firmly against the wound. "I'll need the medical tape – there's a roll in the bag."

As Varica rifled through the bag, Tycho took a moment to take stock of his patient. She was breathing slowly but regularly. He placed two fingers on her carotid artery and found her pulse was steady.

Varica handed him the tape and he set to work securing the patch in place.

* * *

><p>Tycho sat on the edge of the room's second bed, paying only scant attention to the holo-vid news coming over the monitor mounted on the wall. There had been a few seconds of aerial footage of their speeder chase through the city, but the news had quickly shifted over to a gossip story about actress Wynessa Starflare. Their escapades had been more or less dismissed as random violence amongst criminals. The Imperials, of course, would feel differently.<p>

They had gotten Winter settled in the first bed, and she was now sleeping quite deeply. Not surprising, given the shock to her body and the constant adrenaline of being on the run. It occurred to Tycho that he wouldn't have a bed for himself, but he felt so keyed up by their circumstances that he could hardly imagine sleeping anyway.

In the background was the faint sound of the shower running. Varica had decided that she needed a hot shower to calm her down after all they had been though. He didn't blame her. Whatever her role was going to be with the Alliance, it was clear that she had lived as a civilian for her entire life up to this point. He hoped any post-traumatic stress from the ordeal would be short lived.

He thought about that for a moment and almost laughed out loud. _Post-traumatic stress. Like the way you might feel a week after your entire world was destroyed. _

They were all damaged—all three of them. How deeply and to what extent could only be determined with time. And the manner in which they each coped was already beginning to manifest.

The fizzling sound of the shower stopped. It occurred to Tycho that he should probably step outside to give Varica some privacy, but it also occurred to him that with a treason warrant on his head, he was the most likely among the three of them to be recognized as a criminal.

Varica stepped out of the refresher wrapped in only a towel. Her blonde hair was soaked to a dark amber, and her pale skin was pink from the heat of the water, and had a sheen from the moisture and steam. She padded across the carpeted floor barefoot, flicking droplets of water from her hair absently as she went.

Tycho coughed into his fist and did a half-turn away from her out of decorum. "I'm sure you'll want some privacy, but our options are limited." He stood up awkwardly and chucked a thumb at the refresher. "I can swap rooms with you for a minute or—

Varica smiled. "Please. After everything that's happened, the last thing I'm about to worry about is my modesty." She sat on the bed next to him, and the towel slid further up her thighs. Tycho made a concentrated effort to look at her eyes, and nothing else. It was absolutely an effort. He needed conversation matter.

"So I know you can't go into much detail," he said, "but what's next for you?"

She gestured to Winter. "Well now that the ice princess is asleep, we can actually have an adult conversation."

"She's just being security conscious," he said. "In an organization like hers, it's essential."

"I understand confidentiality," Varica said. She placed a hand against her chest, just where the plush towel gave way to flesh. "I've been a statesmen and business executive for almost ten years." She scowled at Winter's bed. "I was handling high-end negotiations and industrial secrets when she and Leia were still finger painting and reading philosophy books."

Tycho sighed. "I don't think any of us will have time for that kind of thing anytime soon." He shook his head sadly. "True Alderaanian pursuits might fade away forever."

She took his hand and squeezed it. "Our survivors will keep those traditions alive – as many of them as they can. But that's not for you and me to worry about."

He looked at her with some surprise. "Why's that?"

"Because," she said, "we're the rare breed of Alderaanian who wanted something more out of life than art and philosophy. We wanted to do something – to make our mark."

He looked away from her and thought about it. _Did I join the Empire because I had something to prove?_

His thoughts were interrupted when she took his chin in her hand and turned his face to hers. "We're two of a kind. Maybe the last two." And with that, she was on him, covering his mouth with hers, filling his nostrils with the scent of her bath.

His mind shouted for him to pull away, but it took longer than he intended before his body complied. But he did break the kiss and pull back.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"You've been through a lot. I don't want to take advantage," he paused to swallow, "if you're having problems with-

"Hey," she interrupted. "I have been through a lot. So have you. I'm a grown woman, and you're definitely a man." Her eyes bored into his. "And I need something good right now. We're not in love, we don't owe each other anything. But we survivors need to help each other."

She pulled at her towel, letting it completely drop away from her body. She put her hands on his chest and pushed him back towards the mattress.

"So why don't you help a girl out?"

V.

It was just before dawn in Commenor City, and Special Agent Moss stood on the sidewalk half a block from the Alderaanian Embassy, not far from where he had put a knife through the rebel woman's chest ten hours ago.

Most of the investigators and scanning crews had left, but there were at least two men still in the building. Imperial men.

He took a device out of the pocket of his long black coat, and briefly stared at the activator button. Without further compunction, he pressed it.

An explosion roared from the center of the building, blowing the windows out into the streets. Fire curled and danced out of every opening, sending black smoke cascading up the brick exterior and into the early morning sky.

He watched for a moment, the flames reflecting vividly in his mirrored glasses. He then shoved his hands into his pockets and walked off, towards his next assignment on Isard's Alderaanian project.

_**To be continued...**_


	7. Chapter 7

I.

Winter woke up from a deep, dreamless sleep. It was dark in the room, and there was a firm hotel mattress beneath her, and a heavy layer of hotel blankets covering her. She was hot, and pushed the covers off of herself. The movement caused a small shot of pain to her chest that ended almost as soon as it began, to be replaced by the relief of the cool air that enveloped her. She reached to the source of the pain, and beneath her cotton tee shirt found a centimeter-thick bacta patch taped securely to her chest. She slowly sat up, feeling that same pain in response to the movement. But it was much better than it had been yesterday – a testament to the Thyferran wonder that was bacta.

She turned to thank Tycho, and through the darkness made out his sleeping silhouette on the neighboring bed. She carefully swung her legs over the side of the mattress and stood up between the two beds. She looked down at him, and was a surprised to see that he was bare-chested. It was then that she heard a second set of breaths, and looked to his right.

Varica lay beside him, her pale naked back visible in the low light.

Winter snorted to herself and shook her head in disgust. She found the bag of replacement clothes Varica had bought at the shops and took it into the refresher with her.

As she dressed, she considered how to handle the situation. Her problem with what had obviously happened between Varica and Tycho was not one of prudishness – she was an Alderaanian after all, and physical intimacy was seen as an act of natural beauty in their culture, and not something to be embarrassed by or shrouded in taboos.

No, her problem was that she now had to figure out to what extent Varica had compromised the Alliance. The only positive element to the situation was that Varica knew next to nothing about their organization, least of all their current location.

But then again, Varica's own secret – the one the rebels were so desperate to bring her into the fold for – was still very much in play.

As Winter shoved her legs into her new pants, she realized she was pretty angry. Varica was a spoiled child – always had been. She had proven on Alderaan that she was not to be trusted, and had been effectively exiled to Commenor as a result. She had betrayed Leia, who was not only Winter's Princess, but was close enough to be a sister. So being angry with Varica was nothing new.

What surprised her was that she was also angry with Tycho, the man who had undeniably saved her life. She had become angry when she saw him in bed with Varica, which didn't make sense, because she certainly had no claim on him. She certainly was not jealous.

_Bad taste_, she thought. _I'm disgusted by his incredibly bad taste_.

In any event, it made what she had to do now that much easier.

Winter walked back out into the dark hotel room and approached the second bed. She jostled Varica's bare shoulder. She moaned slightly and gave no further reaction.

Winter spoke firmly. "Varica."

The former Baroness of Alderaan squinted up at her. "What's wrong?" she croaked.

"We need to move. Get your friend up and get dressed."

Tycho's voice came through the dark, clear and alert. "I'm here. What's the situation?"

Winter ignored his question. "I'll wait in the 'fresher. Be quick."

* * *

><p>Four minutes later Winter walked back out into the main room. Tycho was fully dressed and waiting for her, while Varica sat on the bed, casually pulling on her designer shoes.<p>

"What's going on?" Tycho asked. "Time to move?"

Winter smiled at him, and swallowed before speaking. "Lieutenant Celchu, on behalf of my organization, I want to thank you for all your help. Varica and I have a transport to catch, so this is where we have to part ways."

To her surprise, he smiled. "Not this again. How many times do we need to do this dance, Winter?"

Her smile faded. "This will be the last time. Again, thank you. Thank you for my life." She held a hand out to shake.

Tycho shook his head in disbelief. He turned to Varica. "Are you going to tell her?"

Varica continued lacing her shoes and did not immediately look up.

Winter was getting annoyed. "What?" She cocked her eyebrows sarcastically. "Don't tell me you crazy kids are getting married?"

"No," Varica answered. "But I did offer him a position as squadron leader in the Rebel Alliance."

Winter's eyes nearly blasted out of her head. "Excuse me?"

"Would if I could," Varica said. She finally looked up from her shoes. "But yes, he's coming with us, and yes, I offered him a position commensurate with his former one in the Imperial Navy."

"You're way out of line," Winter shot back. "You have no authority to—

"Winter," she interrupted. "When I make Tycho's acceptance a deal breaker for my joining your group, we both know there won't be any further discussion on the matter. Now stop being a drone and quoting the rules and get your things. We're all leaving together." She wore a hard and confident look. The look of a boss who always has the last word, and always gets her way.

Winter ground her teeth and fought for calm. "Varica."

"It's Baroness," she said. "Or My Lady. Our world may be gone but we need to respect the old customs, don't you agree?"

Winter looked down and exhaled a ragged breath. "May I speak with you in private?"

"You may not. Now get your things and let's go."

Winter looked at Tycho, perhaps wondering if he was finding Varica to be as insane as she did. But the young man was still smiling confidently, convinced he'd befriended the more popular girl in class.

"I'm not leaving," he said simply.

Winter thought for a moment, and then nodded. "Fine."

And with that, she pulled her blaster from her waistband and leveled it at his chest. Before he could form a frown, she blasted him with a full stun burst that threw him back onto the carpet.

"Winter!" Varica shouted.

She calmly shifted her aim to Varica. "Get your things, Baroness. We're leaving."

Varica's voice trembled with an even mix of rage and fear. "You're a fracking maniac. I told you I'm not leaving without him and I meant it." She seemed to remember her leverage and took a challenging step closer to Winter. "He comes, or when your bosses hear about it, it'll be your ass. I promise you."

"You're coming," Winter said. "Alone." She lifted the muzzle of her pistol so that it was aimed directly at Varica's face. "Whether or not you're conscious is entirely up to you."

II.

Darth Vader's TIE X1 Advanced fighter roared up behind Red Leader's X-Wing. The agile prototype responded to every slightest nudge of the control wheel.

Vader's senses had detected the presence of the force-wielder the moment the _Devastator_ had dropped out of hyperspace. It was a familiar sense – the same pilot he had encountered at the Death Star battle. But now, as he closed in on the Jedi's tail and fully focused his attention on him, it became even more apparent what he was dealing with.

_He is but a youngling in a man's body_, Vader thought. _It is as though he only just arrived at the Jedi Temple—full of potential, but near empty of substance_.

The fire within the young rebel was still just an ember, a speck glowing softly in the night and barely visible.

_And easily stamped out._

As Vader's thumbs tightened on the firing controls, he sensed imminent danger. Instinctively, he threw his flight wheel hard over, and made an evasive roll to starboard as a pair of scarlet laser bolts flashed past his canopy.

_The wingman_, Vader thought darkly. Not only had he failed to keep track of the wingman, but he had also rushed into combat without one of his own. It was the type of reckless and aggressive move that was his signature during the Clone Wars. During his other life.

Vader reversed his previous move, pulling the flight wheel to port and doing a corkscrew roll back over the spine of the rebel wingman's fighter. He let the X-Wing slip under him and was already firing before he'd finished the spiraling maneuver. Vader showered the X-Wing with emerald energy bolts. The fighter's shields had clearly taken a prior beating, because the first three shots collapsed the energy field, and the next shots sheared off the starboard s-foils, leaving it wingless on one side. The X-Wing fell into an asynchronous spin that was completely unrecoverable. Vader stoically watched as the ejector seat launched clear of the fuselage just before the remains of the craft ignited into a cloud of sparks and debris.

He reached out with his senses and immediately reacquired the Jedi's essence.

_Now we can finish this. One brash warrior against another._

Vader went to full throttle, rapidly closing the distance between them.

III.

As the starship battle ensued in orbit, a raging fire encompassed the bunker-like weapons depot on Lakaron Minor's surface. The blue proton flames lashed the durasteel walls while blazing tendrils curled upwards and danced about the armored roof.

Inside, all the workers who had taken refuge from Han Solo's explosive exit were dead—baked instantly by the heat of the blast when a hundred and twenty torpedoes all detonated simultaneously right outside their door.

Human beings could only survive within a relatively narrow temperature band. The Seinar Sigma-5 torpedo also had a defined temperature band for safe storage—factory specs showed that the Sigma-5 was rated to withstand heat levels of up to sixteen-hundred degrees. This was problematic, because the proton fire outside had effectively turned the depot into a furnace.

Seinar had constructed the facility with an impressive catacomb-style chasm underneath the main structure, which stretched deep into the planetary crust and housed tens of thousands of torpedoes. Heat always moved upwards, and those lower-level units were staying cooler for the moment. But that fact would become instantly irrelevant if the top-level units superheated and detonated. The chain reaction of explosions would travel straight down the steel chasm and blow every torpedo on the planet.

Had any worker been alive to check, they would see that the metal casings of the top-level torpedoes were now glowing red.

Had any worker been alive to check, they would also see that the depot's internal temperature had just passed sixteen-hundred degrees.

IV.

_"Dack!"_ Luke shouted. He pulled his flight stick to the left and arced back around. Looking over his shoulder, he could see the fading sparks of his wingman's destruction.

"Lead—Three," Wedge said. "I have Ten's life beacon at two-oh-three-mark-seven. He got out in time."

Luke let out a relieved breath. "Well we can't leave him behind. I need options for—

"Watch your aft, Lead!" Hobbie called. "You picked one up."

Luke shoved his stick forward, throwing his fighter into a dive. An unusually sleek eyeball tore past overhead, firing as it went. The fighter had an elongated drive section and aggressively tapered wings. It was familiar, as was the sense of dread it brought to the pit of Luke's stomach.

_He was the one at the trench. The one who killed Biggs and all the others._

Luke pulled the stick back towards his chest and stomped on the throttle control, climbing back after the Imperial ace. His heads-up-display flickered green for a heart beat as he framed the advanced eyeball in his sites, but the Imp instantly weaved clear of his kill zone, bringing the HUD back to its standby color yellow.

Luke's thumb flipped the fire-control switch from quad-shot to rapid-cycle. As the TIE darted in and out of his sites, Luke pulled the trigger, lighting up the black sky with ruby energy darts that filled the spaces above, below and to the sides of the TIE, but never struck home. The TIE then went into an impossibly steep climb and rolled back over the top of Luke's fighter and out of sight.

Luke's voice was urgent. "I can't see him!" he called over the channel.

"Lead, he's right underneath you," Hobbie said. "Go evasive—

Luke's fighter shuddered fiercely as the TIE's cannon bolts struck his ventral shields. The meter showing shield strength plummeted to thirty percent before Luke was able to roll his X-Wing to stand on its s-foils and provide a slimmer target profile. He then twisted around into a reverse climb and shot away from his previous position, hoping to put some distance between himself and the TIE.

But when Luke checked his rear display, his eyes confirmed what his instincts already told him-the advanced TIE was still with him, rapidly closing the gap Luke had just created with his desperate maneuver. The TIE reached weapon's range once again, and he immediately opened up with his lasers, scoring a hit on Luke's fading shields before Luke could dodge away.

Artoo squealed an urgent warning.

"I'm trying, but I can't shake him! Is there any-

A bright flash from the surface of the planet filled Luke's peripheral vision. For a second, the dogfight was forgotten as he looked over at Lakaron Minor.

A blue sphere of energy expanded across the planet, tremendously larger than the one Han had escaped earlier. It was as if an entire continent had instantly erupted. A strange feeling came over Luke, as though all the basic elements of life-the fabric of existence-was buckling.

"Holy crap, the whole installation just blew!" Janson called.

"I have multiple incoming from the planet," Hobbie said. "Tactical can't I.D. them yet, but-

"Twelve, watch out!"

A rocky shard the size of a freighter ripped through space, its lazy pinwheel rotations contrasting vividly with its impossible speed. It trailed sand and pebbles in its wake as it soared away from the planet. It pulverized Red Twelve's X-Wing, smearing metal shards and wisps of flame across its jagged exterior as it careened further into the darkness.

Luke's disorientation began to fade, but was replaced by a new sense of urgency that could not be ignored. Luke felt an undeniable need to pull up, and hauled the flight stick into his chest. As the X-Wing climbed, a trio of massive boulders shot by underneath him. He whipped his head around and watched them pass. The second of the three boulders shattered one of the eyeballs from the 181st as it tumbled inexorably onward.

Luke shot a glance at his rear display, and saw that his pursuer had been forced to break off.

"Orders, Lead?" Wedge asked.

"Yeah, we could use your vast experience about now," Trask piped in.

Luke had to maneuver around another hurdling asteroid before he could respond. "Full retreat," he said. "Everyone head for home as soon as you can find a clear path for your jump."

"What about Dack?" Zev asked.

Luke swallowed. "There's nothing anyone can do. There's no way to mount a rescue in this mess and none of us can take on a passenger anyhow." Luke fought to keep his voice from cracking. "We just have to hope for the best."

"You're gonna hope for him?" Trask laughed. "So much for 'no man left behind.'"

"Shut up, Five," Wedge ordered. "You're one comment short of the brig right now." The comm channel was blessedly silent in response. Silent, until there was a short cry and a burst of static.

"Everhart!" Trask yelled. "Ah, damn it-that was Everhart!"

"Four's gone," Hobbie confirmed somberly.

Zev cried out excitedly over the channel. "Hey, the _Spearhead_ just got nailed."

They all watched in awe as two halves of the Carrack-class frigate fell away from each other. The massive asteroid that had struck it sheared into four pieces. The Star Destroyer _Devastator_ was pulling away from its position near the _Spearhead_, and two of the asteroid fragments plowed into her bow before she could move off. The impact sent clouds of metal plating and broken support struts spinning away from her hull.

Luke rolled his X-Wing onto its side and passed between a pair of boulders. He looked at Lakaron for a second time and was shocked to see a blazing crater in the planetary surface-as if some mythical creature had taken a bite out of the world. The entire solar system had now been littered with a storm of stones that had once been a sizable portion of Lakaron's crust and mantle.

"Everybody get clear," Luke ordered. "I'll see you at the rendezvous."

He got a chorus of acknowledgements, and then watched his tactical computer as one by one, his pilots jumped away.

"You coming, boss?" Wedge asked.

Luke nodded. "I'm right behind you, Three."

With a burst from his engines, Wedge jumped to lightspeed.

Artoo hooted at Luke. "Just a second, buddy." He opened a channel. "Han, come in." He waited a moment, but got only static in response. With all the junk flying through space his sensors were all but useless, so he was not surprised to have no reading on Han's shuttle. He dodged a small asteroid and tried again. "Echo Seven, please acknowledge." There was no time. He just had to transmit and then hope for the best.

He heard Trask's mocking laughter in his mind. _You're gonna hope?_

He pushed his doubts away. "I have an E.V. pilot," he said into his helmet comlink. "It's my wingman, Red Ten. I know I'm asking the impossible, but if there's any way..." Luke trailed off. "Just... do what you can do. And be safe. Good luck, guys. Red Leader out." He broke the signal, and a moment later, emerged beyond the shower of rocks and into open space.

With a ragged sigh, Luke pulled back the hyperspace lever. The star lines encompassed his ship and the acceleration pressed him back into his seat, and with a flash of light, he was in the mottled tunnel of hyperspace.

It had gone worse this time. He'd lost five ships, and given the unlikelihood of Dack's safe return, five pilots.

Once again, he felt no great anticipation at the prospect of returning home.

V.

The rebel X-Wing squadron had just jumped away, but that was of almost no help to Captain Fel's 181st squadron. "Repeat," he shouted over the cacophony of every proximity alarm and sensor alert his TIE fighter had. "All flights return to the _Devastator_."

He had lost at least three fighters since the explosion from the planet. They were maneuvering through a shower of rocks flying at incredible speeds, and as the TIE fighters were not equipped with shields, there was absolutely no margin for error.

A message came over his comm.. "_Devastator_ to Fel, acknowledge."

He bit back an angry response to the interruption. Fleet officers had no appreciation for the balancing act a pilot had to maintain to survive in normal conditions, let alone a disaster like this. "Fel here. Tell the docking bay we're coming back in a hurry."

"Captain Fel – our sensors show the rebel shuttle is still in system. Lord Vader is already in pursuit. Can your squadron can assist?"

Fel risked a quick look at his tactical computer and saw that Vader's TIE X1 was several hundred kilometers away from his position, along with the rebel shuttle he was chasing down. And there were countless kilotons of asteroids between them.

_If Vader wanted us, he would have given the order—and by the time we could reach him, whichever of us had survived would be too late to add anything of value._

"Negative, _Devastator_. We can't navigate this—

A loud pop interrupted Fel as a marble-sized rock shot through his canopy. It struck the durasteel wall behind his head with a sharp ping before ricocheting off and nailing his portside control board, which shorted out, spitting a shower of sparks into his face mask. The vacuum sucked the cockpit's air pocket out through the small hole in the canopy with a whistle. The sparks were pulled in that direction as well, and then faded to nothing after the air loss prevented further combustion. Fortunately, the standard TIE pilot flight suit had its own self-contained life support system, allowing Fel to breathe and stay warm.

"_Devastator_, I'm hit!" Fel called. The vacuum in the cockpit now eliminated the howling alarms, and he was able to listen intently for any response on the comm. unit in his helmet. But none came. "Squad leader to One-Eight-One, I just took a micro-meteor hit – please respond."

No answer. His main comm. system had clearly been destroyed. He was already on course for the _Devastator's_ large underside hangar bay, and he took a moment to look over his damage. It took only a few seconds to determine that in addition to his comm. system, he had also lost guidance controls. That meant he would not be able to re-enter the TIE fighter rack system.

He was going to have to bring her in the hard way.

Fel swooped in under the Star Destroyer and tore into the hangar bay, ducking under the suspended TIE fighter deployment racks. The deck crew scattered as he hurdled past. He eased down on the breaking thruster pedal, slowing his momentum enough to avoid plowing into the rear wall, but without throwing him through the canopy to his death. After being pushed firmly against his restraints, he came to a stationary hover over the deck. He then used the maneuvering thrusters to rotate his craft one-hundred-eighty degrees to face the way he'd come in. Finally, he eased down onto the deck, his solar panel wings kissing the metal plating with barely a sound. It was a text book 'crash' landing, executed masterfully by one of the Empire's finest pilots.

Fel granted himself a rare smile, unfastened his restraints, and reached up to pop the hatch and disembark.

And at that moment, a huge asteroid slammed into the ventral hull of the _Devastator_, just aft of the docking bay.

Fel's entire fighter was thrown clear of the deck, rolling end over end in mid-air. Inside the cockpit, Fel was tossed about like a sock in a clothes dryer, cracking ribs against control panels and concussing himself against the unyielding fuselage.

The TIE finally landed sideways, flat on its starboard wing.

A second later, the interior cockpit burst into flame.

VI.

A medium-sized asteroid that had once been a chunk of Lakaron Minor tumbled serenely though the cosmos. Attached to it, like some small bird hitching a ride on a dewback, was an Imperial troop shuttle.

Han Solo lay on his back underneath his stolen shuttle's flight console. He'd figured that with all the junk flying through the system, this would be a good way to stay off the Imperial sensors while they tried to make repairs-assuming they didn't smash into something before they were done.

He was currently attempting to reroute power to the navigational computer. An electric shock nipped him on the hand, and he yanked it back with a curse. _I_ _hate Imp technology. Only Corellians should be allowed to build starships._

Chewie was in the rear section of the ship, working below the main deck in the engine bay. His bellows echoed out from the open hatch.

"Yeah, I got a spanner," Han called back. "Pop up for it."

The Wookiee's shaggy head popped up through the maintenance hatch. With a sharp flick of the wrist, Han sent the tool skittering across the smooth deck into Chewie's waiting paw. Chewie immediately submerged back into the engines.

Han returned to the horribly organized nest of wires. _Another KDY chop job. I can't believe the Empire pays money for this stuff. If I'd ever paid taxes I'd be outraged._

Han reconnected one of the leads and braced himself for another shock. Fortunately, none came, but unfortunately, the navicomputer was still dead.

A different console, however, did light up.

"Hey, partner—I just got the comm. system back up."

Han pulled himself up from under the console and dropped into the pilot seat. A flashing indicator on his board showed he had a message waiting. He hit the button.

_"Han, come in." _It was Luke's voice._ "Echo Seven, please acknowledge... I have an E.V. pilot..."_

As Han listened to the rest of the message, he ran his hand though his thick mop of hair and let out an exhausted sigh. After thinking about it for five seconds, he punched the headrest of the seat next to his, making it spin in place. "Oh, come on!" he yelled at the now-silent comm. system.

Chewie howled the question from down in the engine bay.

And Han knew what he had to tell his partner. That Luke's wingman, Dack-the only guy in Luke's squadron more fresh-faced than him-got left behind on Luke's orders. Unavoidably, of course, but that wouldn't stop the kid from letting it tear him to pieces on the inside. It would destroy his confidence, and on his next run, or maybe the one after, the self-doubt and second guessing would probably get him killed.

Chewie came up through the hatch and repeated his question, sounding more concerned this time. Han spun around in his chair to face him. "Dack-the kid's kid-you know the one?"

Chewie growled an affirmative.

"He got hit and ejected. He's floating around in this mess and we're the only chance he's got." He shook his head. "It's _exactly_ what I needed-really. Damn fool idealists."

Chewie came and sat down in the co-pilot seat beside Han. He prodded the Corellian with a gentle, interrogative growl.

"Well I'll tell you what we ain't gonna do," Han said, "and that's get killed on a non-paying side job. Release the landing claw and get this crate over to Dack's life beacon-without getting us smashed up."

They'd be visible to sensors, but hopefully the Imps had too much on their plates to worry about one ship. Han got to his feet and jogged into the rear hold. Chewie roared yet another question at his back.

Han yelled a reply over his shoulder. "Getting changed."

* * *

><p>Han's breathing echoed inside the helmet of his extra-vehicular spacesuit. He was vacuum sealed from head to toe, wearing a light grey version of the typical black TIE pilot environmental suit. He stood at the service hatch, gloved hand hovering above the release switch.<p>

Behind him, he'd carefully lashed down all of the pallets loaded with stacks of torpedo crates. Otherwise, when he opened the hatch, the decompression would suck them out into space. More importantly, he'd activated the magnetic components in his boots to keep himself fixed to the deck, lest he suffer a similar fate.

Chewie's voice rumbled over the comlink in his helmet.

"Okay, partner," Han said. "Is the cockpit sealed?"

Chewie gave the affirmative.

"Good. Keep her steady. I'm opening the hatch." Han hit the switch, and the heavy door slid aside, revealing the blackness of space as a backdrop for the chaotic storm of asteroids tumbling through the stars. The cargo hold's air was violently sucked through the hatch, flapping Han's suit legs as it went. He braced himself against the bulkhead, and a moment later it was over. He then poked his head out through the hatch.

Standing out brightly against the darkness about ten meters from the ship was an orange-clad pilot, strapped securely into his flight seat and floating precariously amongst the rocky debris.

Han tapped a button on his chest-mounted control box, and activated the short range transmitter in his suit. "Dack, you read me? You okay?"

The young pilot made no reply. Han repeated his question, and again received only silence. Then it hit him.

_I'm in an Imp ship wearing an Imp suit. He thinks I'm here to capture him._

"Hey kid, wake up," he said impatiently. "It's your favorite Corellian smuggler come to rescue you."

The response was immediate. His orange arms waved frantically from either side of the floating chair. "_Han_ _Solo?_ Is that really you?"

Han gave a pained smile inside his helmet. "Yes, and thank you for using my full name over the open channel."

"Oh, crap, I'm sorry-

"Forget it - we gotta move. I'm gonna throw you a line. You just be ready and catch it."

Han picked up a piece of spare piping that he'd rigged up to a tow cable. It had been fat, solid and heavy, but now, in the vacuum, was perfectly weightless. "Coming at you now, kid-nice and easy." He lifted it over his right shoulder like a spear, and lightly threw it at Dack.

Suddenly, Han was thrown off balance as the shuttle rolled hard to port. His view of the heavens was yanked sideways and he immediately lost sight of Dack.

"Chewie!" he yelped.

The Wookiee gave a sharp and frustrated retort. He had just dodged a sizable asteroid.

Han steadied himself and reactivated his transmitter. "Kid, you okay?"

Dack's response was breathless. "Yeah. Close miss."

"Just hang in there another minute," Han said. "The Wook will put us back into position and we'll try again."

A few maneuvers later, they were ready. Han had retracted the cable to get the pipe back onboard, and now threw it to Dack again. Without gravity, there was no arc in the projectile's flight, and it flew straight as an arrow towards the rebel pilot. To make sure Dack could easily grab it, he'd thrown it softly. The tow cable weaved fluidly behind the pipe as it traveled forward.

"That's it, kid," Han coached. "Just keep your eyes on it-you've got all the time in the-

A micro-meteor clipped the bottom edge of Dack's flight chair, spinning him around like a top. "Help!" Dack cried out. His world view was spinning in rapid circles. "Ah, jeez-I'm gonna be sick!"

The pipe, which had flown true, glanced off of the back of spinning flight chair and was knocked into space, the tow cable kinking into big loops behind it.

"Close your eyes!" Han called. "That'll stop the nausea. And don't worry, we'll get you out of there."

_And just how the hell am I supposed to do that? _Han asked himself._ Without drag, he'll spin like that forever, and he'll never be able to catch a lifeline._

But he'd come this far, and the thought of getting back to base and seeing a devastated Luke drove him to keep trying.

Han thought for a minute, came up with a horrendous and ill-conceived plan, and immediately set about putting it into action. "Chewie, can you control the tow cable winch from the cockpit?"

The Wookiee growled a yes.

"Good. Activate it and pull in the cable."

Chewie keyed the command, and the spool began turning in the opposite direction, bringing the tow cable back to into the hold. As soon as the pipe floated through the hatch, Han grabbed it.

"Okay, stop. Switch the winch back over to manual control."

Han fed out some line, and began guiding the pipe and tow cable in tight patterns across his chest, under his arms, and around his back. _You're a real genius,_ Han scolded himself. _No personal attachments, right? That was the rule. And once again you've screwed the mynock. _

He tied the knot as best he could. He deactivated his magnetic boots, and began to rise off the deck. He steadied himself by grabbing the edges of the open hatch. "Standby for my signal, Chewie. Then get the winch pulling back again."

Chewie gave a startled howl that was half question, half warning.

"No other way to do it, pal. Wait for the word."

And with that, Han took careful aim, and dove out of the hatch into space.

He coasted through the vacuum-weightless and soundless-as chaos reigned all around him. Rocky pieces from the shattered planet moved in all directions through the starlit blackness as Han glided towards Dack's spinning form.

"Get ready, Kid," Han called into his helmet comlink. "I'm gonna grab you. Literally."

Dack was still spinning and sounding ill. "What?"

A second later, Han collided with him, which stopped him from spinning. He wrapped his arms around the chair before it could bounce away from him. He then turned the weightless chair so that he and Dack were face to face. He could see the kid's astonished expression through the oxygen hood that had sealed around his head.

"You're crazy!" Dack said.

"Probably," Han replied. "Get your restraints unbuckled and grab onto me. And whatever the hell happens next, don't let go."

"Roger that," Dack said. With his harness unbuckled, the chair gently floated away from him. He threw one arm around Han's neck and the other under his arm.

"Chewie," Han called into his comlink. "Let her rip!"

Han felt a slight tug on his torso, and then they were coasting back towards the ship. It would be ten seconds or so before they reached the hatch, and Han looked off into the astounding asteroid field. One rock in particular stood out. It was moving in a perfectly straight flight pattern, where as all the others were spinning and rolling as they went. It was also growing larger.

It was headed straight for them.

"Hey, Chewie-you got sensors online yet?"

The Wookiee growled no, and then asked why.

"'Cause I think we've got company."

Han could now make out the shape of a specially designed TIE fighter. Before he could even yell a warning, it sent green laser bolts slicing through space towards them.

_**To be continued...**_


	8. Chapter 8

I.

As Han and Dack floated helplessly in their spacesuits, the advanced TIE fighter's first cannon shots lanced past them on either side. They were tethered to a stolen Imperial troop shuttle and were being slowly reeled back into the hold by a tow cable. Han bear-hugged Dack and then yelled into his helmet comlink. "Punch it, Chewie!

The Wookiee howled an argument - once they got moving there was a huge risk involved with getting them back onto the ship in one piece.

The TIE prototype narrowly dodged an asteroid and then tore past the shuttle, so close that despite the vacuum of space, Han could have sworn he felt the breeze. The TIE pulled into a smooth arc maneuver that would quickly bring it around for another pass. Han knew this was not the time for a debate.

"Forget it, pal - just go._ Now!_"

His first mate complied, firing the thrusters on full. With a sharp tug, Han and Dack found themselves soaring through space, being pulled on a taut cable as if they had just harpooned a space-faring beast.

Dack gripped Han around the torso and, amazingly, let out a giddy laugh. _"Yahoo!" _hecried.

Han would have grinned if he wasn't trying so hard not to die. _I knew I liked this kid._

Another pair of verdant laser bolts passed under them - the TIE had reacquired them already.

_This Imp can fly - and Chewie is barely maneuvering because he's so afraid of whipping us into the side of the hull on a sharp turn. We have to get back inside faster._

"Chewie - throw anything you've got left into the rear shields. Then cut your velocity by five percent."

Chewie growled his doubts.

"No choice," Han replied. "We gotta get inside quick before the shields collapse. Ready?"

The Wookiee roared an affirmative.

"Now!"

The blue glow of the shuttle's afterburners dimmed just noticeably, and since the two floating pilots had no braking thrusters to slow their speed, their quicker momentum brought them coasting towards the rear of the ship. The tow cable went from taut to slack as they glided towards the shuttle.

The problem was, they were heading in too close to the afterburner's blazing ion exhaust, and they were seconds away from being cooked.

In the meantime, the TIEs laser bolts began to pound against the rear shields.

"Chewie," Han called. "Ten degree starboard roll."

Chewie did so, and the maneuver barrel-rolled the ship to the right, letting Han and Dack coast in over the hull the shuttle, and away from the exhaust ports. The new problem was that they were now floating past the open docking hatch and towards the front of the ship.

Han was about to order Chewie to roll her ten degrees back to port to compensate, but the Wookiee had already anticipated the need, and Han smiled as the hull slowly grew closer to them.

"Hang on, kid."

A moment later, they bumped jarringly into the side of the ship - so hard that Han thought his teeth might fly out of his mouth, but considering the unbelievable physics involved with this feat, and the fact that he hadn't lost his grip on Dack, _and_ they were alive and breathing, it was as good a result as he had any right to hope for.

Chewie called out with concern over the comm.

"We're still here, pal," Han called breathlessly. "Just keep that winch turning."

They had shot past the hatchway, and now the tow cable winch was slowly reeling them in, dragging them back along the shuttle's hull towards the glorious light of the open cargo hatch.

When they reached it, Han shoved Dack inside and then climbed in after him. Once in, he got to his feet and then slapped the hatch control. When the door had sealed shut, he called to Chewie again through his helmet comlink. "Chewie, we're in - you can fly for real now." He pointed at Dack. "Keep your gear on 'till I tell you."

The deck shifted sharply beneath their feet as Chewie threw the shuttle into an evasive maneuver. Han and Dack steadied themselves against the bulkheads.

"And Chewie - first chance you get, re-pressurize the cargo hold." A few moments later, there was a soft hiss as air and heat began to flood into the hold. Han kept his eyes fixed on a large, solid red light on the wall. After about a minute, it turned green.

"Okay, kid," Han said. "All clear." They each popped the seals on their helmets and gratefully breathed in the ship's recycled oxygen. The ship shuddered as another blast found its shields. Han motioned to Dack. "Come on." He led him into the cockpit, where Chewie was trying to coax everything he could out of the sluggish transport ship.

"Okay, talk to me - what do we have left for the shields?"

Chewie gave a very short howl. It translated to a very low number.

"Not good. And do we have the hyperdrive?"

Dack didn't need a translator for that one - the Wookiee angrily threw a paw into the air and growled accusingly at Han.

"All right, all right - you can't be two places at once. I read you." The ship shook again as yet another pair of bolts struck home. Han grimaced and tried to form the next question gently. "Weapons by chance?"

Chewie whipped his head around and bared his teeth at Han, a low menacing rumble vibrating in his throat.

Han held his hands up, palms out. "Totally understandable, partner. I'll get to work on them." He turned to Dack and said in a hushed voice, "Sit down, shut up, and do anything he says. Got it?"

Dack stammered, "How? I don't speak any Wookiee."

Han gave him a thumbs up. "Good man. You'll do fine." Then he walked out of the cockpit, leaving a dumbfounded young pilot staring at him as the door slide shut behind him.

A moment later, Han was elbow deep in the weapon control systems, and two moments later, he'd realized it was utterly hopeless. And with the hyperdrive down and the shields about to fail, he had to find a way to shake off this TIE. He frantically looked around the cargo hold for any glimmer of inspiration. It came quite suddenly, from the only thing occupying the hold.

Crates upon crates of proton torpedoes.

He spun around to the maintenance kit he'd been drawing his tools from, and pulled out a micro cutting torch. He thumbed it on quickly, producing a small blue flame from the nozzle. He switched it off and tucked it into his belt, and then reached back over his shoulders and pulled on his spacesuit helmet. After making the seal, Han switched on the comlink from his chest-mounted controls. "Chewie, Dack - keep the cockpit door sealed. I'm gonna depressurize the cargo hold again."

Chewie's sharp, questioning howl came back in Han's ears.

Han grinned wolfishly. "I'm gonna give these torpedoes a _real_ impact endurance test. Just be ready to put every last thing into the engines on my mark. Stand by."

When they had originally stopped to make repairs, Han had lashed down all three of the pallets of torpedoes with heavy duty straps that secured them to the bulkheads. He now jogged over to the pallet of torpedoes closest to the main access ramp at the rear of the shuttle. Using the micro torch, he quickly cut away each of those straps, allowing the third hover pallet to float freely away from the bulkhead. He also cut loose the cables that tied the individual crates to the pallet itself.

Han pushed the hover pallet all the way to the rear of the ship, butting right up against the main access ramp, which was of course closed for space travel.

But it would not stay closed.

Han got behind the stack of torpedo crates and magnetized his boots. He then placed a hand on the control board. "You guys ready to roll?"

Chewie roared an affirmative.

"Stand by." Han punched the emergency open key, and grabbed hold of the bulkhead for support.

The ramp fell away, and with a booming gust, the decompression sucked the torpedo boxes straight out of the ship and into space behind them. Free of their pallet and the interconnecting cables, the boxes scattered high and wide into space, almost immediately blending into the surrounding asteroids.

"Punch it!"

The shuttle veered away sharply, and Han continued to watch the asteroid field from the open hatch.

When the first crate kissed rock, it set off an explosion that shattered the asteroid, bursting it into rock fragments that propelled in all directions. Those rocks struck other torpedo cases, which in turn exploded, making new rock bursts and new explosions. Within three seconds, a cacophony of explosions had lit up the black sky like a Coruscant fireworks show, spraying stone projectiles in all directions. The bursts pulverized everything in their vicinity.

II.

Vader's TIE X1 shook violently as it was pelted by superheated rocks from all sides. Unlike most TIE fighters, his prototype was equipped with deflector shields, but they had already been hammered down by the myriad explosions within the asteroid field.

Vader's senses were screaming warnings like a crowd caught in a fire. Each time he acted to avoid danger, the force would demand that he act again. He couldn't avoid one disaster without leaping directly into another .

A stone the size of a human head slammed his forward shields, throwing Vader hard against his harness. The meteor shattered into dust, but the damage was done. His shields had failed.

Another huge explosion lit the sky above Vader's fighter. A burst of rocks glowing red like hot coals showered down on him. His right wing was punctured in three places, leaving molten-edged holes in the solar panel. He heard and felt several more hits on the hull.

_No one can last in this. I must get clear._

Vader threw his fighter into yet another dive, and pulled up hard to come behind a massive asteroid – one too large to be shattered by even a proton blast. It was tumbling at a glacial pace, and he could easily match its course and use it as a blast shield.

He settled in to wait, knowing his quarry was now walking away free. With so dense an asteroid field between the rebel shuttle and the rest of Vader's combat forces, there would be no way at all to engage them.

_No matter. Those rebels may have known something of the young Jedi or they may not have. And there is more than one avenue to get to him. _

He would simply find another.

III.

Varica stood in a long line of humans and aliens waiting to board the starliner _Jewel of Kuat_, which had just touched down at the bustling Commenor Central Spaceport. She attempted a nonchalant look back over her shoulder to where Winter stood, about a dozen places behind her. Winter had suggested that they not stand in line together, as there was undoubtedly an arrest order circulating for the pair of blonde women. Separately, they would attract less attention.

She had also wanted Varica to be the first person to go through customs, so that if Varica didn't get through for any reason, Winter could 'take action,' whatever that meant. Winter had given her the link and encryption sequence to contact the Alliance, just in case she was arrested and Varica had to go on alone. Aside from that, they had barely spoken since leaving the hotel. The hotel where Winter had shot Tycho Celchu with a stun bolt, and had left him laying on the floor, unconscious and defenseless.

Varica was completely disgusted with her. Alderaanians had to stick together now more than ever, and Tycho was not only a fellow refugee, but he wanted to _join_ them and fight the Empire. And he had saved their lives when that Imperial assassin jumped them outside of the embassy. For her to leave him in such a precarious position - after all that he'd done to prove himself - was the most despicable thing she could imagine.

And of course Winter had turned it all back around against her. On the speeder ride to the spaceport, while Varica seethed in silence, Winter had lectured her about security protocols, and about not getting personally involved with people who hadn't been screened. Winter said that if Varica hadn't filled his head with offers and promises she couldn't keep, that he would have left peaceably on his own, and Winter wouldn't have been forced to stun him. Winter said that Varica's entire handling of this mission had been selfish and dangerous, and that she needed to shut up and do as told until they reached the Alliance.

Varica had nodded curtly in response, and said nothing at all to Winter since then.

For example, she didn't mention the news report she had seen while Winter was still sleeping, that said the Alderaanian Embassy had been firebombed, and that all Alderaanian refugees were being detained for their own safety. She didn't mention that, having predicted something like this might happen, she had brought along a fake ID that listed her origin as Borleias, a minor Alderaanian province that was unlikely to raise a flag in customs. She did not mention that she'd also made one for Winter before she arrived on Commenor to pick her up. And since Winter didn't want to hear any more from Varica, and since Winter was the professional in this arena, Varica had held back Winter's Borleias ID, and left her to her own devices.

She knew for a fact that Winter was traveling with a fake ID that listed her as an Alderaanian. Until a week ago, it was as good an origin for a fake ID as any other. But now it was likely to get her arrested.

_Too bad I'm not worth listening to, Ice Princess. I'm sure your perfect, by-the-book practices will be a big help when customs hands you over to the Empire._

The Duros trader ahead of her was allowed to board the starliner, and the customs agent waived Varica forward. She handed the uniformed man her Borleias ID. He gave it a cursory glance and then tapped it against a reader on his computer terminal. Varica knew it would come up clean, because she had used it on several vacations where she did not wish to travel as an ambassador. A second later, he nodded in bored satisfaction and handed her back the ID.

"Have a safe trip," he said flatly. He looked past her to the next traveler. "Next?"

Varica slung her small travel bag over her shoulder and walked straight towards the starliner's access ramp to join the queue of passengers. She did not turn around or acknowledge Winter, just as she had been instructed.

And a few minutes later, when she heard Winter's voice raised in argument, she gave only a brief, disinterested glance backward to watch her former companion being escorted away under guard. Then she turned back around to face front, and offered a pleasant smile to the steward who took her bag and welcomed her aboard.

IV.

Onboard the rebel bulk cruiser _Freedom Hauler_, Leia stood alone in a corner of the communications room. Her arms were crossed in front of her, and her back faced the scattered technicians working their stations. Her body language was broadcasting a desire to be left alone. Pair that with her high rank in the Alliance, and the combination ensured that no one would disturb her.

_Almost no one_, she thought, as a pair of soft footsteps approached her.

"Your highness," General Dodonna started. When she turned to face him, he made a sweeping gesture to encapsulate the communications room. "For someone who doesn't want to talk, you pick a strange room for solitude."

Leia gave him a small smile. Jan Dodonna's long white beard and kind eyes lent themselves to patience in others, and she was no exception.

"It's not that, General," she said. "Red Squadron is overdue. I've got Luke and Captain Solo out there on their own, and we just intercepted a communication from Seinar that Lakaron Minor - the _planet_ - was destroyed." She shook her head in disbelief.

"That hardly seems possible," Dodonna answered, "now that the Empire is minus a Death Star."

"And then I've got Winter out there - also on her own - picking up Varica Econa. _They're_ overdue, and now all the news outlets are reporting violent attacks against Alderaanian refugees! Galaxy wide." She set her jaw and looked down at the floor, trying to stay calm. "As if we don't have enough to deal with right now. We're homeless, we're grieving." Her voice fell to a sharp whisper. "It's obscene."

Dodonna nodded. "I've heard the same reports. Do you believe what they're saying? That it's private citizens reacting to the Empire's claims of rebel activity on Alderaan?"

"Not for a second," she said. "It's the Empire's doing. Tarkin went too far even for them, and now they have a public relations nightmare on their hands. They need to silent the dissenters, and make it seem that Alderaan was in the wrong and had this coming." She waived the data pad she was holding. The screen showed the glowing logo of the _Alderaan Spirit News Service_. "They need to stamp out the last few voices Alderaan has left-

"Your highness," one of the technicians interrupted. "Red Squadron just dropped out of hyperspace. Captain Skywalker requests permission to dock."

Leia closed her eyes. "Thank the stars."

"Is it just Skywalker wanting to dock?" Dodonna asked. "We don't have space in the hangar for a whole squadron."

The tech's tone and energy dropped a notch. "Only seven ships made it back, sir."

Leia rubbed her temples and sighed. "Permission granted. And get me the deck officer. We need to make sure we clear the hangar of any-

"Excuse me your highness," a female tech cut in. "But I have a long range communication coming through for you." The tech's eyes betrayed her annoyance. "She refuses to give her proper identification, but she said you would know her as 'the Baroness.'

Leia's heart went cold. As much as she wanted Varica safely delivered, she now realized just how much she had been dreading the moment when she'd have to actually speak to her. "Her authentication checks out?" she asked.

"Yes, your highness. She has the clearance codes."

Leia nodded without enthusiasm. "Patch it through to station six."

Dodonna put a supportive hand on her shoulder. "It's a different world now," he said softly. "We are all of us changed. Your people most of all."

She placed her hand over his. "You're right. Thank you."

She sat down at the unmanned station and put on the large headset. She keyed the receiver switch. "Baroness?"

A confident and amused voice - one she'd not heard in years but instantly recognized - came through at once. "That's right. It's your favorite cousin, still alive."

Leia nodded. "It's been a long time. I haven't seen you since that last dinner at the palace."

"The last time we saw each other," Varica shot back, "was when you called me into your chambers and told me I'd been replaced as Finance Minister. Then you sent me to Commenor, as you well know."

"Yes, I do know," Leia answered. "I just needed to be sure you were you."

Varica's chuckle came through the headset. "I love all the cloak and dagger you guys do. I can't wait to get started."

"Me too," Leia lied. "Is Winter there?"

"I'm afraid not. That's why I called. She was arrested at the spaceport."

Leia made a fist that trembled in mid air while she decided where to slam it down. _My oldest friend. My one _positive_ link to home._ She caught the furtive stare of one of the techs, and quickly recognized the need to regain her composure. She took a deep breath and then put her hands back on the console. "What happened?" she asked Varica.

"I don't know exactly."

Leia was about to press her, but she felt a small tap on her shoulder. The male tech was back, and hesitantly held out a data pad. Leia took it from him and glanced down at it. On its screen read the words _Captain Solo is on the comlink._

Leia could scarcely believe the timing. W_hen it rains, it pours_.

Varica was still speaking. "But more importantly, I don't know how I'm getting over to you now, and we need to figure out our next move."

"What's your destination and when do you arrive?"

"Rishi," Varica said. "We should be there in two days."

"Understood. Stand by." Leia switched channels on her console. "Han, are you there?"

His tone was sour. "Yeah, Princess. But I gotta tell you this arrangement ain't at all what was advertised."

She smiled. Compared to walking on eggshells with Varica, even Han's constant complaining was welcome. "What's your status, Captain?"

"In a second," he said. "Did the kid make it back all right?"

"He's docking now. I haven't spoken to him yet. But he's here."

"Fine. Good." Han went on to explain their troubles at Lakaron Minor, the rocky explosion, his rescue of Dack Ralter, and finally their escape. "The Wook is making good progress on the hyperdrive. We should be underway in ten or twenty minutes."

Leia cleared her throat. "Captain, I'm going to need you to come back to us by way of Rishi."

"What? Why?" Han asked. "That's not on the way to the rendezvous."

"I know," Leia said carefully. "But I need you to pick up a very important passenger."

"Listen, sister—

"We would add this to the bill, of course," Leia assured him.

"That's all well and good," Han said, "but we're in a hot ship right now, full of stolen torpedoes. Any port I put into is gonna have a bulletin on us. Even if we could land, we'd have to ditch the ship fast and get a new one. And I assume you still want our cargo."

"If possible, yes." Leia answered. "But the passenger is your priority. Don't worry about the new ship. The woman you'll be meeting is a person of some means. She will absolutely be able to finance a new ship for the voyage home."

There was a brief silence on Han's end. "Means, huh?"

Leia smiled. She could practically see the credits gleaming in Han's eyes.

V.

Luke climbed out of his X-Wing's cockpit and slid down the ladder to the deck of _Free Haul's_ hangar bay. He was met by Commander Willard from the senior staff.

"We're glad you're back, Skywalker. How far behind is Captain Solo?"

"I'm not sure, sir," Luke answered. "We were separated in the battle."

"Well did he get out? Did he secure the torpedoes?"

"I don't know, sir."

Willard frowned.

Luke swallowed. "There was a lot of interference from the asteroids."

Willard looked at Luke like he had three heads. "What asteroids? There aren't any in that whole system." He looked over Luke's shoulder and his eyes widened. "Did you lose _five_ ships?"

The deck officer interrupted them. "Excuse me, Commander," she said to Willard. "Senator Organa told me to advise you both that Captain Solo did make it out with his goals met, and has been diverted for another assignment. His arrival will be delayed."

Willard was visibly relieved and nodded gratefully. "Acknowledged," he said. "Was there anything more?"

She shook her head. "She was called away as we were speaking. There may have been more, but if so, she didn't have a chance to relay it."

Luke leaned around Willard to face the deck officer. "Do you know when the Princess will be back?"

She looked at Willard as if to confirm that this was a strange question. "I don't have knowledge of Senator Organa's schedule, sir."

"That's fine, Danara," Willard said before Luke could reply. "Carry on."

She nodded and walked away.

Willard turned back to Luke and put his hands on his hips. He was annoyed. "Any reason you can't debrief _me_, Captain?"

Luke stammered. "No, sir. I just—I mean—

Willard held up a hand to stop him. His patience was strained.

"You seem fatigued by your mission. Go take a rest. Grab a shower. I'll expect your written report by oh-eight hundred. These losses are getting too costly and I need to understand exactly what happened. So take your time and get the facts right. Dismissed."

Before Luke could manage another word, Willard walked off. The older commander shook his head as he went.

_Why did that go so badly?_ Luke asked himself. _Han got out with the torpedoes and the mission was accomplished._

He heard Willard's most stinging question play in his mind again. _Did you lose _five_ ships?_

It was the losses. Starfighters were expensive and hard to come by.

_And the pilots. Five people gone. Dead. On my responsibility._

His surviving pilots, Wedge, Hobbie, Janson, Zev, Moonseeker, and Trask gathered around him on the deck.

"Orders, boss?" Wedge asked.

Luke was looking ill. He didn't immediately respond.

"Sir?" Wedge asked.

Luke spoke hoarsely. "Head back to your billets and get me your reports as soon as possible. You're all dismissed."

Trask crossed his arms. "That's it?"

Luke looked at him, his expression exhausted and almost pleading.

Trask smelled the blood in the water and bulldozed onward. "No words for the dead? For the men you lost?"

"Now's not the time, Trask," Wedge cut in.

"And when will it be? When can we honor my friends? I lost everyone I had left from my old squadron back there. Do you know what the hell that feels like, _Captain?_"

_Yes_, Luke thought, but dared not speak the words. He was fighting back tears and knew his voice would break if he spoke.

Wedge spoke forcefully. "You're dismissed. Go now."

The other pilots dispersed, heading back to their fighters to fly over to whichever freighter or transport ship served as their makeshift home. But Trask stormed straight towards Luke. His shoulder roughly knocked into Luke's as he walked off. Wedge gave Luke an intense, wide-eyed look. The unspoken question was 'are you going to let that pass?'

Luke shook his head in resignation and put a staying hand on Wedge's arm.

And without another word, Luke walked away.

_**To be continued...**_


	9. Chapter 9

I.

The luxury star yacht slid fluidly into _Freedom Hauler's_ docking bay. Leia stood on the deck, watching it put down, trying to look relaxed. Alongside her stood General Dodonna and Admiral Koss. The welcoming committee had been at Mon Mothma's insistence. Leia had disagreed, but settled on winning a caveat: Mon Mothma would not be present—would not even meet Varica until the following day at the earliest. Leia wanted a tacit message sent to the baroness: _You're not the top of the food chain here_.

The yacht's gangway eased downward, and an odd-looking foursome strode down the ramp's plush carpeting. The first pair was Han Solo in his typical weathered garb, and Varica Econa, dressed to the nines in a deep charcoal business suit and a high-necked cobalt blouse. Behind them were the giant Wookiee Chewbacca, and—looking that much smaller and younger by comparison—pilot Dack Ralter—missing in action until Han and Chewie's daring rescue.

Varica tossed off a jaunty wave. "Leia," she smiled.

Leia kept her hands behind her back and nodded to her. "Baroness. Welcome to the Rebel Alliance."

Varica and Han reached the bottom of the ramp. Leia gave Han a nod as well—she was stiffer than usual. "Captain."

Han sketched a ridiculous bow, bending his torso until it was parallel with the deck and sweeping his arm across his chest. His tone was pure sarcasm. "Your highnessness."

Varica chuckled. Han came back up, expecting to see mild annoyance on Leia's face. He was surprised when she seemed genuinely embarrassed. Admiral Koss' eyes narrowed as if he'd smelled something unpleasant. Han cleared his throat. "If there's nothing urgent, we're gonna go find Luke." He turned around to face Dack. "Let him see you're still walking and talking."

Leia's tone was flat, her voice tight. "That's fine. The three of you are dismissed."

Han looked at her strangely, and after a moment, raised his eyebrows. "Okay." The three of them set off for the crew section.

Varica called after them. "Thanks for the lift, Solo. Look me up some time. I might need another ride."

Han flashed a roguish grin over his shoulder, and then they were gone.

Varica turned back to Leia. Her eyes beamed and she plastered a saleswoman's smile across her face. "So," she said. "Where do we start?"

* * *

><p>Leia lead Varica into her new quarters. She fully expected her to complain and decided to preempt her. "I realize it's not lavish. I realize it's not even middle-class. But please understand that even command officers usually have to share a bunk this size. And this one is all yours."<p>

Varica set her bag down on the cot as the battered metal door slid shut behind her. She looked around at the room. The walls were scuffed durasteel and there was a single light fixture in the center of the ceiling. There was a small desk in the corner and an extremely narrow closet. Leia could only imagine how dark and claustrophobic it must feel to a privileged civilian.

"I wasn't expecting luxury," Varica said. "I can't say I was expecting _this_, but I understand that we're fighting a war on a budget." She nodded as she looked around. "It's clean and it's private. I can live with it."

Leia smiled appreciatively. "Good."

Varica cocked an eyebrow. "Is yours bigger?"

"A little."

She smiled. "I can live with that, too."

_She's being reasonable. That must mean she's about to nail me on something else._

Varica crossed her arms. "I'll need to be brought up to speed on the power structure here."

_First things first._ "We can definitely go over all that, but before we jump into the chain of command, we need to establish exactly what assets you're bringing over."

Varica looked amused. "Straight to business. I'm impressed."

Leia kept her expression neutral. She knew her cousin's views on Alderaanian values, and had a good idea of what she must think of her personally, but she would not be baited into defensiveness. She'd accomplished a great deal here and had nothing to prove to an exiled ambassador with an overblown opinion of herself.

Varica unzipped her designer leather travel bag and fished out a datapad. She struck a few keys and then handed it to Leia.

"Should be enough to buy into this enterprise, I daresay."

The corners of Leia's mouth tugged upward in spite of herself. "Yes," she agreed. "I'd say so as well."

"Good," Varica said, zipping her bag back shut with a sharp motion. "Because I want a full partnership position for my investment."

Leia shook her head in confusion. "Come again?"

"I'm bringing your little organization almost a hundred million credits," she said. "From what I can see, that amounts to many times the actual value of every asset you people have."

Leia held up a hand. "Slow down a minute. This is—

"Simple," Varica cut her off. "It's extremely simple. If I'm going to contribute enough to completely reshape your capabilities, then I want an equal say in how things run around here. Are you the person I should be talking to?"

_She's out of her mind,_ Leia marveled. "First of all, that money belongs to Alderaan. As the ranking survivor from our world, I should be organizing a vote among our remaining people on how to—

"Please," Varica said. "I know you're not that naive. You may be the ranking survivor, but you're also damn near the ranking outlaw in the entire Galactic Empire. You could never lay claim to that money and no bank would have turned it over to you." She crossed her arms. "My business expertise allowed me to act quickly and move those funds to protected accounts in the Corporate Sector before the Empire caught wind and froze Alderaan's assets. Heavens know I didn't get all the money or even most of it, but I doubt a single other Alderaanian even gave it a thought—or would've had any idea what to do even if they had. I mean, what did _you_ do when you first heard the news?"

Leia stepped closer to Varica and let her eyes bore into hers. It was everything she could do not to slap that arrogant look off her face—to not put her head through the wall. _"I watched it happen, _you absurd little twit. They dragged me out of my cell and made me _watch_."

Varica's face changed so completely that it was if Leia had slapped her. "I—I didn't know. How could I know?" She looked down at the floor. "I'm sorry, Leia. I—I'm sorry."

Leia's blood was still boiling. Her hands were still tight fists. "And as for your other comment, I'm sure you're right. You were undoubtedly the first Alderaanian to think about money after our civilization was annihilated."

Varica didn't look up. "It sounds horrible when you say it like that. But you know someone damn well had to do it."

"I do know," Leia said. "As much as I disagree with your ways of thinking, we were all lucky on that day that you had survived. And that you were you."

Varica snorted. "Bet you never thought you'd say that in this life time."

Leia nodded. "Interesting times bring interesting revelations." She put a hand on Varica's shoulder, causing her to look back up. Her cousin's eyes were watery, but Leia stared into them intently. "Are you ready for yours?"

"What's that?"

"Your revelation," Leia said. "What you need to understand, here and now, is that this alliance you're joining... is not a business, or an 'enterprise.' This is a _war_." Leia swept her hand across the room. "This isn't the firm of Organa, Dodonna and Mothma. There's no door to add your name to. We follow a chain of command and we follow orders. Then we fight, and, quite often, we die." Varica looked away. Leia withdrew her hand and let it fall back to her side. "I don't think you have much experience in this arena."

Varica's voice was small and hoarse. "Maybe not. But I have good experience. Valuable skills." She looked at Leia. "There will always be people to manage. Resources to allocate and budgets to be balanced. I can do great things here, I promise you."

Leia nodded. "Those things are important and I know you can be valuable to us. But this is like nothing you've ever done before and you need to learn how to play our game on our court. Are you willing to do that?"

"I'm willing to learn."

"Good."

Varica's eyes flashed. "But I'm not willing to start at the bottom."

Leia smiled softly. "I think that's something we can negotiate."

II.

Luke rolled to starboard as a hail of scarlet laser blasts filled the pocket of space he had just vacated. He wrenched his head around to look out the back of his cockpit, past Artoo's domed head, at the pursuing fighter.

"Artoo, give me an update."

The key stats rolled down the translator display. The news was all bad. _Another hit and I'm ashes._

His comm unit pinged with an incoming message. _One last taunt from the mutineer._

Luke struck the key. "Your orders were to maintain comm silence. Should I add this to your growing list of deviations?"

There was a pause before Trask started speaking. "You never took the time to get to know Everhart, did you?"

Everhart was Trask's wingman from his previous squadron – one of the five pilots Luke had lost at Lakaron.

_I wouldn't know him if I passed him on the street_, he thought. _But I think about him—about each of them—all the time._

"I didn't know him," Luke said. "But I've lost nearly everyone close to me during the last—

Another burst of cannon fire lit the space around his canopy. "Commanders aren't supposed to discuss their personal business with the rank and file," Trask said. "I know they didn't give you much training before throwing you into the lead seat, but you should know that, Cap."

Luke could feel his expression darken. "Thanks."

"Anyway, I'd hate for you to start hearing some big moral tale from back on the farm just to vape you before the big finish."

Trask cut the channel.

"You'll get the big finish," Luke gritted. He thought of the men he'd lost. The confidence he'd lost, and Trask's steady chipping at whatever was left. _I'm not letting him take me. If there's anything I can do right, it has to be this. _He checked his readouts and confirmed that he was operating at one hundred percent speed output.

"Artoo, on my mark, kill the main engines and let us coast."

He'd expected an argument from the scrappy droid, but to his mild surprise he got only a simple acknowledgement.

Luke twitched his flight stick left and right and the ship weaved clear of another pair of laser bolts. _Gotta move now._

"Okay, Artoo. Mark!"

The steady thrum of the engines cut to silence, and he was coasting through space on momentum alone. With the vacuum and its absence of drag, he lost no speed. And since he was already at maximum velocity for an X-Wing, there was no way Trask could close the gap, as his own max velocity was exactly equal to Luke's.

"Route all power to weapons."

As Artoo confirmed, Luke nailed his rudder pedal. His port side maneuvering thruster fired, spinning his nose back around towards his rear as he continued to soar forward tail-first. He came off the maneuver at exactly one-hundred-eighty degrees—with his nose pointed directly at Trask's.

Luke's thumb flipped the fire control over to linked quad shot. _I'll share one last piece of personal business with you, tough guy. _

Luke squeezed the trigger and held it down hard. Four full-strength bolts met on Trask's forward shields, collapsing them. A beat later, a second quartet connected with the cockpit, exploding Trask's ship into a thousand flaming pieces.

Luke's view beyond the cockpit went black, and a line of text appeared across the void.

"SIMULATION COMPLETE."

Luke smiled as the canopy popped open and eased upward. There were hoots and laughter from the other pilots, all of whom were now converging on his simulator unit.

"Great moves, sir," Zev said as Luke climbed out and hopped down onto the deck.

"Thanks," Luke said. "I'll have to remember that one for a similar occasion."

Janson brought both hands down on Luke's shoulders and squeezed. "We're all gonna remember that one, skipper. You do that to an Imp and he'll—

_"Bantha crap!"_

They all turned as Trask's angry voice cut through the exuberance.

Trask yanked off his flight gauntlets and flung them onto the deck. He leapt out of the sim unit and pushed his way through the pilots gathered around Luke. He stopped right in front of him—pink faced and with a vein pulsing prominently in his forehead. Luke wished Trask had left his gloves on, so that he wouldn't have to look at his enormous hands with their bristling knuckles.

Luke felt a lump in his throat and he tried to clear it before speaking. His voice came out croaky. "Problem?"

"Yeah, skippy, I got a big frackin problem, cause that sim unit ain't working worth a damn."

Luke was speechless. _Is he serious?_

Wedge found the words first. "Oh, come off it, Trask. You were hammering the Captain and gloating your head off right up to the moment he smoked you."

Trask shook his head, sending beads of sweat flying off his massive shaved dome. "No way, Antilles. I was pulling the trigger the whole time he was pulling that circus stunt and nothing happened. I had all the time in the world to take my shot, and what? I just didn't? No one here's dense enough to believe that, right?"

As Trask glowered at him, Luke began to hear the voice of doubt—his most steadfast and unwelcome companion. His doubt was always there to put in a word at the worst possible moment. _It's always possible there was a malfunction. I mean, it's crazy that my stunt actually worked. And Trask has been flying for years longer than I have._

Luke looked down at the deck. "I suppose we could have the unit checked for—

"Top of the morning, fellas," Han's voice came through the tension. "I come bearing gifts and reincarnations."

Luke couldn't see past the tightly huddled group of pilots standing around him, but there was no mistaking Hobbie's cry of disbelief.

"Holy smokes, it's Ralter!"

Luke's heart nearly burst through his chest as he excitedly shoved his men out of the way to see the young pilot grinning widely, and with barely a blemish on his flight suit. "Dack!" He laughed, bear-hugging the kid and nearly taking him off his feet.

Han put his arms around each of their shoulders. "These are good times, boys. When friendship and bravery triumph over evil. And out of friendship, I want you both to know that I'm splitting the bill between you—you can each owe me separately and make payment on mutually agreeable terms at a date to be determined." Han pulled back his hands and cleared his throat. "And let's break this up, boys—I'm getting uncomfortable."

Luke looked at Han with a renewed appreciation. "Keep up that balance sheet, my friend. Because I'll think we're going to be in and out of each other's debt for a long time to come."

Before Han could argue, Trask stepped over and slapped him on the back—harder than the Corellian was used to. "Solo to the rescue again, huh?" He flashed a grin at Luke and chucked a thumb in Han's direction. "Don't you ever get tired of being bailed out by this guy? Sir?"

With Han beside him and Dack alive—and standing amongst all his friends and comrades—Luke felt a great weight lifted off his shoulders. He felt as though he could do anything. He grinned right back at Trask. "Never. Han's a great pilot and a great friend. Too bad none of us can say the same about you."

Trask's smile collapsed.

Luke turned his back on him and walked away, not even feeling his feet touch the floor as he strode from the room. "Keep practicing, Trask. The rest of you men are dismissed. Great work."

The squadron pilots were all smiles as they followed their captain out of the sim room, but Han lingered back a moment, studying the enraged loner who was left behind. Trask stared daggers at Luke's back for several seconds before noticing that Han was watching him.

"Something on your mind, smuggler?"

Han nodded. "Usually. But I guess that's never been your problem." He winked at Trask and turned away. As he left, he spoke over his shoulder. "Be good, chief. 'Cause I'll be around."

III.

The Emperor glowered at the shimmering image of Lord Vader's hologram. "So once again you survive to bring word of your failure. You claw your way out of the rubble of lost ships and dead troops and come before me empty-handed."

Vader remained on bended knee. After several moments of silence, he answered without lifting his gaze from the floor. "I will have him, my master."

"Let us hope that you do so before you run out of ships. Or excuses."

Palpatine's finger twitched, and the hologram dissolved and then winked out. The emitter sank back into the floor in front of his throne and a tile slid shut over it.

He turned to his herald, a pallid, ghostly man in purple robes. "Bring Director Isard." The herald gestured, and at the bottom of the long, multi-tiered flight of marble steps, a quartet of crimson-cloaked royal guards stepped to either side of the throne room doors as they slid open. A middle-aged man with dark and strong features entered, wearing the black military uniform of the Imperial Intelligence Service, but without any rank insignia or cylinders. The standard large silver belt buckle with the Imperial emblem was finished in a non-reflective black. He wore the usual black boots and gloves, and while perfectly clean, they too had a matte finish to ensure that they would not shine. This was a man who could step into a dark corner and simply disappear.

When he reached the top landing, he dropped to one knee and thrust his neck downward in a fluid gesture of fealty. "Your faithful servant, Excellency."

"Welcome, Director. You may rise."

Isard stood and looked upon his emperor, whose throne was backlit by a panoramic window showcasing the awesome skyline of Imperial Center. Palpatine's shrouded form was silhouetted, but his serpentine yellow eyes still shone intensely from within the cowl.

"You are ever the spider, lurking unseen in the corner, Director." His yellow eyes twinkled as he offered his most unsettling form of expression – a smile. "What secrets have you ensnared in your web?"

"I was recently paid a visit by Lord Vader, my master."

"That is unusual," Palpatine said. "Lord Vader has little use for a spider such as you. He would prefer to simply ground you under his heel." The Emperor chuckled. "I know you feel the same towards him, but I will spare you the treason of admitting it."

Isard smiled tightly and nodded. "Your Excellency is wise in all things."

"And what did my loyal apprentice require of you, Director?"

"His Lordship ordered me to use all my resources to identify the rebel Jedi."

"That much is not surprising. I gave him the same command."

Isard paused. His brow furrowed as he appeared to consider his next words.

Palpatine's face also contracted, but in anger. "You will dispense with the theatricality, Director. I know you feel no discomfort about implicating your commander and I know you carefully prepared every word you will speak in this chamber. So proceed with efficiency – lest I decide to speed your words by my own efficient means."

Isard swallowed. "Yes, Master."

"_Speak_, Director."

"Lord Vader commanded me to turn over all of my intelligence to him alone."

"He explicitly ordered you to exclude me?"

"Your Excellency was not mentioned by name," Isard clarified, "but Vader was quite clear in his demand that intelligence be given to no individual besides himself."

"What did he say when you refused?"

Isard braced himself. "I did not voice my refusal to him, master."

The Emperor's chin rose and his eyes hardened.

Isard spoke quickly. "Lord Vader knew full well what he was asking of me, just as he knew the impossible position he was placing me in. I saw no immediate gain in reminding him of the realities."

"You feared he would kill you out of anger."

"I did, Excellency."

The Emperor nodded. "It can be an unenviable position you hold, Director. Having to speak displeasing words to the galaxy's last remaining pair of Sith Lords."

"Fortunately, master, my ambition speaks louder than my fear. But my ambition has always been to bring all possible power to your throne—never to sit upon it myself."

There was a long, tense silence as the Emperor considered this.

"As of this moment," Palpatine said, "you will proceed completely counter to the wishes of my apprentice. Lord Vader is to receive no intelligence with regard to the rebellion. Stall him, evade him—provide falsified reports if you must. But give him nothing of substance until I command you otherwise."

Isard bowed his head. "Yes, Excellency."

"It appears the Alderaan Project is proceeding as planned."

Isard nodded, happy to be moving on to more routine matters. "Yes, Excellency. Phase two is nearly complete. The first refugees have already arrived at their new home."

"Deliver them all as quickly as possible. Bringing the survivors together on a new home world is essential to putting this situation permanently behind us."

IV.

Winter threw up a hand to shield her eyes from Commenor's glaring sun as she was led out onto the landing pad by a black-clad Imperial naval trooper. After spending nearly thirty-six hours in a holding cell, the brightness was quite jarring.

As her eyes adjusted, she could see the silhouettes of a few dozen other prisoners standing on the tarmac, with about five more naval troops standing around the periphery. Just beyond them sat a transport ship, but it had not yet lowered its boarding ramps.

_Why are they mixing me in with all these people?_ she wondered. _There can't be this many suspected rebels on Commenor._

The whole thing had been extremely odd. She had spent the last several months trying _not_ to think about what would happen if she was ever captured by the Empire, but even still, this had not gone at all as expected. She had not been interrogated or even threatened. She'd been well fed and allowed regular bathroom access. And they'd let her sleep without interruption. There was no softening up.

She was almost insulted.

As she reached the rest of the group, she did a quick scan of their faces—first to make sure Varica wasn't among them, and second to see if she recognized anyone from the Alliance. She was relieved to come up empty on both counts, but she still felt troubled. There was some slight sense of familiarity in nearly every face she saw. Almost as if—

"Princess?" a voice said behind her. She turned around to see an older woman, whose eyes brimmed with tears. "Are you Princess Leia?"

Winter swallowed and shook her head. "No, but I've been mistaken for her now and then. And I hear she survived, thank the stars."

A tear rolled down the woman's weathered face. "I thought if you were the princess, you might know what they're going to do with us." Her voice choked. "After all they've done… why can't they just leave us be?"

Winter put her hands on her shoulders. "Ma'am, do you know why they've brought you here? What all these other people are doing here?"

She frowned. "We're Alderaanians, child. All of us."

Winter straightened up and looked again at the gathered crowd. And it clicked.

It hit home like a gut punch – one so simple and yet profound in its implications that a few dozen hours of conventional torture would have been preferable.

"They're rounding us up," she said softly. "Whoever's left."

It was the last straw. Winter turned on her heels to accost the nearest guard – to demand an explanation for this sick epilogue to their genocide. She got about two steps before a deep rumble vibrated the soles of her boots and made her palms and even her teeth hum.

She turned to see a large black speeder truck lumber up to the crowd. _Probably bringing more refugees_, she thought bitterly. But as her eyes shifted to the guards, she noticed their tension and alertness. The way their grips on their rifles changed.

_This truck isn't expected. This could be an opportunity_. She casually began inching closer to the guard she'd been about to berate. His attention was fixed fully on the truck, and he seemed oblivious to her.

Over by the truck, the lead trooper had walked up to the cab, blaster held at the ready. Winter couldn't hear the exchange, but the trooper was clearly making an ID challenge. The driver's tinted window slid down into the door.

And a scarlet bolt immediately leapt out, catching the trooper full in the face and blasting out the back of his helmet. He was dead before his back hit the tarmac.

And then it was on.

Winter dropped into a crouch as the other guards opened fire on the truck. A large door in the cargo carrier section of the truck slid aside, and a group of at least ten men spilled out, firing assault rifles as they came. They wore civilian clothing, but their faces were obscured by dark glasses and cold-weather face masks.

With the fluid and precise movements of special ops soldiers, they made fast work of the Imperial grunts assigned to the Alderaanians. The guard nearest Winter had only snapped off two shots before he caught one high in his chest, putting him down for good. As Winter scrambled on her elbows and knees towards his fallen blaster, she felt herself smiling. _Leia sent in a team to spring us when she heard what was happening to our survivors. I just hope we have enough room on our ship to evac all these people._

She got hold of the dead guard's E-11 and looked up just as the last black-clad trooper was taken out. She let out a breath of relief and got to her feet, looking to the nearest rescuer for instructions.

Just as he leveled his rifle at her face.

"Wait!" she shouted.

On instinct, she let her body drop to the tarmac just as the bolt sizzled past the top of her head. The old woman rushed towards her, and the shooter turned his waist slightly to shift his aim. He shot the woman through the neck, and she dropped to the ground, her light frame collapsing to the pavement with barely a whisper of sound.

_"No!"_

Winter's shriek was the first note in the horrific cacophony that was to follow.

The rest of the masked men opened fire into the crowd of refugees.

_**To be continued...**_


	10. Chapter 10

I.

After taking out the Imperials guarding the Alderaanian refugees, the masked gunmen now set to work on murdering those same refugees. They fired into the crowd of civilians systematically, paying no heed to their screams as they burned them down indiscriminately. The large transport ship they had been waiting to board sat on the landing pad like a statue—unmoving, and with its ramps still sealed.

The gunman nearest to Winter squatted down and peered through the tangle of hysterical victims and falling bodies, intensively searching for her.

Laying face-down on the tarmac, she clutched her stolen E-11 assault rifle_. He knows I'm armed. He won't back off until I'm dead._

Winter barrel rolled across the tarmac, all the while keeping her blaster aimed forward. After a meter, she found a clear line of sight to the gunman a split-second before he saw her, but it was enough. She double-squeezed the trigger, and the shots exploded the man's kneecap, bringing him crashing down to the deck on his right side. She raked four more shots up his torso, drilling him from belly to sternum.

She was about to come up on her knee to target another one, but a flurry of red blaster bolts passed over her from behind, dropping two more of the masked killers. Winter turned around and saw several squads of armored stormtroopers charging across the landing field, firing as they came.

This time Winter did stay down, and kept perfectly still.

The leader of the gunmen threw up a hand signal for retreat. They all returned fire at the stormtroopers while backing towards the cargo compartment of their hover-truck. As usual, the stormies couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, and one by one, the gunmen hopped up into the truck uninjured. The leader stood next to the cargo door, holding a heavy blaster pistol in each hand, and laid down an impressive blanket of continual suppressing fire as his men climbed in. After the last of them were aboard, he turned and threw a heavy boot onto the truck's kick panel and hoisted himself up through the cargo doorway.

Winter saw a mane of flaming red hair billowing out of the back of his cap just before he disappeared into the dark interior. Her thoughts immediately went to the recent speeder chase through Commenor City, and to the still-throbbing pain from the knife wound he'd made in her chest.

_The assassin._

The door slid shut behind him and the truck's engine roared as it turned hard around and lumbered away from the landing area. Gleaming white boots pounded the tarmac all around her and a few even vaulted over her as they chased the fleeing vehicle, firing shot after shot at its shrinking shape.

A man's voice – it lacked the electronic filtering of a stormtrooper's helmet—cut through the din. "Cease fire!"

Winter turned her head and saw a green-suited Imperial officer skid to a halt near the first of the victims laying on the ground. As she looked out over the broader scene, she saw there were at least twenty people down. There were low moans from those who had not yet died. The louder, more desperate cries came from those who kneeled over their fallen neighbors—they would have to keep living in this new and hellish existence for another day, when even minutes more seemed unbearable.

A pair of TIE fighters howled through the sky in pursuit of the truck, which was now totally out of sight. The officer shouted to make himself heard over them. "Sergeant, signal the control tower—I want every single medic in the port down here on the double!"

Winter stood numbly and began stepping over the dead. There was no pattern to it. No logic to it. She stepped over victims male and female, young and old. She held the blaster loosely at her side, to some extent forgetting that she still had it.

"Gun!" one of the troopers called out. From all sides they converged on her. Winter was too numb to react in any way, and that had undoubtedly saved her life. An armored hand gripped her shoulder and pushed her down to her knees as another one wrenched the weapon out of her hand.

She said a silent prayer. _Just kill me. Quickly._

"Hold!" The officer called out. "Don't injure her." Without roughness, he took hold of her chin and looked over her face. He found her vacant eyes, and quickly decided she wasn't a threat. He released her, letting her face sink back down towards the ground. He gestured to the group of refugees. "Gather all the uninjured survivors and get them on the transport ship immediately."

A trooper took her arm and hoisted her to her feet. He began walking her towards the waiting transport ship, whose entry ramp was now descending to the landing pad.

_I still get to go on a trip. How lucky I am._

II.

Luke and his executive officer, Wedge Antilles, walked into the main cargo hold of the bulk cruiser _Freedom Hauler_, where Alliance staff meetings were generally held. Given the current lack of proper headquarters, this was the only space large enough for more than a handful of people to meet. And this was to be a big meeting – the one that would lay out the next major plans for the war against the Empire.

At the front of the bay, near the ray shielded docking entrance and the stars beyond, stood a podium with a portable holo-emitter positioned about three meters in front of it. To either side of the podium were conference tables where the supreme commanders could sit when not directly addressing the assembled officers. Those officers being briefed would sit in one of the fifty or so chairs arranged in neat rows along the deck.

Wedge said to Luke, "So you think they've roped off a special kid's section for us?"

Luke gave him a firm pat on the back. "Hey, come on now—you and me have Death Star kills painted on our hulls. Who else can say that?"

Wedge smiled and nodded. Luke also grinned, and took a moment to relish how good it was to feel positive and confident again.

Wedge stopped walking and glanced around, his brow furrowed with indecision. "Well then, boss—where do you want to sit?"

Luke gestured up ahead with his chin. "The wing leaders are over there. We should probably sit in their section."

The pair walked up to Commanders Narra and Salm, who each commanded three starfighter squadrons. Narra had thirty-six X-Wings, including Luke's Red Squadron, and Salm had the same number of Y-Wings. The two veteran pilots were deep in conversation, but broke off at their subordinate's approach.

Luke nodded to each. "Good morning, Commanders."

Narra gave them each a friendly nod. "Morning, Skywalker. Antilles."

Salm, however, was less friendly. He fixed Luke with a cold stare. "Do you need something, Captain?"

Luke's smile faltered slightly. "No, sir—just wanted to say good morning."

Salm's eyes remained hard, and he let Luke's words meet silence for a long moment before answering. "Thank you. You're dismissed." With that, he turned back to Narra and resumed speaking as though Luke and Wedge had evaporated. Narra gave Luke a small, somewhat apologetic smile and then returned his focus to Salm.

Luke and Wedge turned and walked back towards the rear seats, trying to keep the color in their faces from rising.

Luke muttered, "So where's that kid section you were talking about?"

Wedge answered in a low voice. "Salm's probably still angry about his losses at Ord Biniir. And I bet he feels threatened by your big win at Yavin."

"It may be more than that," Luke said. "Han let him have it pretty hard at the last staff meeting, and I think he's lumping me into his camp."

Before Wedge could answer, Luke stopped in his tracks and straightened his stance. Wedge was about to ask why, but immediately followed suit when he saw the pair of striking women coming towards them.

Leia's presence and natural beauty never ceased to impress Luke, but this was the first time he had seen the woman who was accompanying her. She was blonde, and stood half a head taller than Leia. She was almost as beautiful, but in an entirely different way. _This must be the new command officer I heard about._ Apparently, by some miracle, another member of Leia's royal family had survived.

Luke and Wedge each gave a half-bow from the waist. "Good morning, Your Highness," Luke said.

Leia gave him that warm smile that made men want to follow her into danger as much as duty or patriotism ever could. "Hello, gentlemen." She turned to her companion. "Captain Skywalker and Lieutenant Antilles, may I present Varica Econa of Alderaan, Baroness of the Royal House, Ambassador to Commenor," her smile dimmed just noticeably, "and my cousin."

Varica extended a hand to Luke which he took. He was surprised by her firm grip, and also by the electric intensity of her blue eyes. "So you must be the heroic pilot I've heard so much about," she said. She gave him an appraising look from head to toe, and her deep ruby lips curved upward. She turned back to Leia. "Handsome, too. There's a lot I can work with here."

Luke swallowed. "Pardon?"

Leia cleared her throat. "General Econa may want your help with some recruitment programs she's planning." She fixed Varica with a stern look. "It's something that we can discuss—more appropriately—later on." Leia gently prodded her to keep walking.

Varica's eyes twinkled, and she kept her face turned towards Luke for an extra moment as she walked away. "Talk soon," she said. The women moved off towards the podium area.

As Luke watched them go, he realized that his mouth had drifted open and he promptly closed it.

"Well," Wedge said. "That was notable."

Luke shot him a look. "Not a word to anyone."

"Noted," Wedge said.

* * *

><p>Mon Mothma stood at the podium before the assembled officers of the Alliance. Her white robes shone in bright contrast against the star-speckled blackness of space behind her. Sitting at the tables stretching out to her left and right were the council of supreme commanders, including General Dodonna, Princess Leia, Commander Willard, Admiral Koss, and Varica Econa, along with a few others that Luke couldn't name.<p>

"Friends," Mon Mothma said, "I welcome you all to the first full assembly meeting since our victory at Yavin, and our destruction of the Death Star." Behind her, General Dodonna stood and clapped his weathered hands vigorously. Every officer and commander present rose a heartbeat later, and the bay instantly rang with the group's applause, eliciting a bright smile from the commander-in-chief.

Luke leaned towards Wedge and raised his voice over the applause. "See?"

Wedge grinned tightly as he pounded his palms together. "Kid's section my ass."

The applause faded and everyone sank back into their seats.

Mon Mothma continued. "Today we will present the new offensive strategy for our revolution against the Empire. But before we delve into that, I think it necessary to identify the base of operations from where these attacks will be launched." She struck a key on the podium, and the holo-emitter sprang to life. A cloud of bright static burst up in front of her, and quickly coalesced into a roughly spherical image—and it did look _rough_.

Wedge whispered to Luke. "What is that?"

Luke squinted at the image, trying to make sense of it. "I don't know." It certainly appeared to be a planet or a moon, but there was a jagged haze encompassing it, as though the world had been rolled about generously in a bed of shrapnel before being cast into the heavens.

"The planet you are viewing," Mon Mothma said, "is Detritus Five."

That had an immediate effect on the room. From Luke's vantage point at the rear of the assembly, he could see the majority of the veterans turn their heads sharply to face their neighbors, their expressions animated with surprise. Some even looked borderline appalled.

"Detritus?" Wedge asked aloud.

_For once,_ Luke thought, _there's something going on around here that I know more about than my own Ex-O._ Wedge's real-world operational experience had been a serious boon to Luke's command, but it had also made him doubt his own competence from time to time. At least all those nights back on the farm he'd spent studying for the academy had finally come in handy.

Luke was about to explain, but Mon Mothma took care of that for him.

"Detritus Five," she said, "was the focal point of one of the most destructive and costly battles of the Clone Wars. The Republic and the Separatists collectively lost over nine hundred ships in the engagement. Loss of life exceeded one hundred thousand souls."

Mon Mothma hit another key and the image zoomed in sharply, causing the planet to leap forward, bringing the grey haze around it into tighter focus. Luke could now easily make out a heavy layer of wreckage orbiting the planet. Pitted shells of burned-out cruisers drifted in a tranquil orbit as torn-off starfighter wings ricocheted off their hulls and spun lazily away into space. The cone of a battered jet nozzle tumbled about, not losing any momentum as it bisected the long-dead body of a drifting battle droid. Even at this level of magnification, the forest of twisted metal was so thick that Luke could barely catch a glimpse of the planet's surface beyond it.

"Emperor's bones," Wedge muttered.

"This is not a historical image," Mon Mothma said, "but one taken only days ago by our scouts."

This did nothing to quell the atmosphere of concern in the room.

Luke felt someone drop sloppily into the empty chair beside him. He turned as Han blew out a long breath and threw his right boot up onto his left knee. "What'd I miss, fellas?"

A few rows up, Commander Salm stood. "Begging your pardon, madam, but how can we expect to operate a base on a world that's totally uninhabitable?"

_Even on his best behavior he sounds like a jerk,_ Luke thought.

As if reading his mind, Han mumbled in Luke's ear. "There's that legendary imagination of his at work." Han saluted Salm's back. "Man of vision, that one."

"I'm glad you raised that point, Commander," Mon Mothma said to Salm. "Your statement that Detritus is uninhabitable is in keeping with the common wisdom throughout the galaxy. It is that very notion that we're counting on to keep us well hidden there."

As Salm sat back down, Commander Narra's hand went up. "Excuse me, Chief, but even if we could find a way to live on the surface, how are we going to get our ships and supplies in and out? " He gestured to the hologram. "From what I'm seeing here, that wreckage is impenetrable."

"Another excellent point," she answered. She paused and smiled, turning to speak to her council seated alongside her. "This couldn't have gone better if I had scripted it." They chuckled lightly as she turned back around to continue. "Suffice it to say that we have determined an unorthodox way to travel safely to and from the surface. The fact that no one else could be prepared to do the same will be yet another layer of protection for us." She shifted her gaze to take in the rest of the group. "Securing those means will be the responsibility of those officers assigned to Operation Trailblazer. Details will be need-to-know until further notice, but I want each of you to begin making preparations for your teams to make the move to our new base within five days time."

The hologram faded. "We will now present our new offensive goals." Mon Mothma's face became somber. "It would be akin to ignoring the rancor in the parlor if we failed to mention the atrocity at Alderaan." She took a deep breath before continuing. "Every one of you is here because you know the Empire to be a cancerous evil, but I think it safe to say that none of us knew just how abhorrent the so-called Emperor and his minions could be until that tragic day. While the destruction of the Death Star was a monumental victory, the fact that such a weapon was not only conceived and built—but was _used_ against a civilian world—brings into focus the need to step up our campaigns. To ensure that our acts of defiance against Imperial tyranny are not just harassment as a political statement, but are striking at the very core of their dark methodology." She turned to her left, where Leia sat amongst the supreme commanders. "My good friend, Bail Organa…" Mon Mothma stopped short as her voice caught and eyes welled up. She swallowed and made herself continue. "…Of Alderaan, was the first senator with the courage to take a hard line against the practice of slavery." She turned back to the group, eyes tear-filled, but blazing with purpose. She spoke her next words with conviction. "We will continue his work. And there is no one better qualified to direct those efforts than his daughter, who has survived him. She continued his work in the senate, and will continue his work for the rebellion. I turn this presentation over to one of the most skilled and passionate leaders I've ever known: Princess Leia Organa."

There was more applause as Leia relieved Mon Mothma at the podium. Luke thought she looked a little pale. He could only imagine how difficult it was for her to contain her feelings at a moment like this. The applause faded, and she began without preamble.

"The Death Star was built by slave labor." Leia said. "Imperial bases, space stations, and capital ships—all rely heavily on non-human workers, subjugated against their will." She looked out at the assembled officers, trying to make eye contact with as many of them as she could. "As an Alderaanian survivor, I think there could be no better way to honor our world—and no higher purpose for the Alliance to commit itself to—than to stop the flow of slavery that fuels the Empire."

Once again, the holo-emitter cast an image into the air, projecting a galactic map with two words emblazed above the image. "Operation Liberate," she said, "will be an ongoing and aggressive campaign to attack and destroy what the Empire calls 'Labor Academies.'

Luke noticed that Han suddenly sat up a bit straighter. He looked at his friend's face, and where there was normally a smirk, Luke saw only his intense attention to the presentation.

"These facilities, as we all know, are really just large-scale torture centers, designed to break the will of their prisoners before condemning them to a life of slavery." She tapped a key on the podium and dozens of red halos appeared around various points of light on the map. "These are the locations of the Labor Academies. As soon as the Detritus base is established, we'll start hitting them—often and hard. If they shift resources to defend one center, we'll shift our resources to hit another. But we will systematically pound them until the flow of slaves runs dry as a Tatooine river bed." Luke caught her eye and she gave him a barely perceptible smile.

He turned to Han. "Not bad, huh?"

Han nodded, his eyes still fixed on the map. "Not bad."

"This is an ambitious campaign," Leia continued. "The most ambitious we've ever undertaken. It's going to take a steady flow of resources and supplies. But most of all it's going to take people. Good people—male and female, human and non-human—willing to commit themselves wholly to this fight. Recruitment has never been more vital, and to that end, I'm very pleased to introduce to you our newest freedom fighter. As a baroness of the royal house, she has served as both finance minister and ambassador for Alderaan, and now joins us as our Chief of Operations and Quarter Master General. She will provide the fuel that keeps _our_ engine of war running strong. Please welcome General Varica Econa."

There was a polite round of applause as Varica stood from her seat at the conference table and stepped up to the podium. She shook Leia's hand, and as the princess made her way back to her original seat, Varica gripped the front corners of the podium and began speaking.

"It's amazing how much the universe can change in a day," she said. "I've given that a lot of thought over the past two weeks, and I realized that the profound, life-altering changes—the ones that take effect immediately—are nearly always bad. The good changes, the ones that improve our lives in a lasting way, seem to always take time—a lifetime, in many cases."

Luke saw several people nodding in agreement. "When Alderaan was destroyed," she continued, "it was an instant change to the entire galaxy, and it's effect was unimaginably bad. And permanent. It made me realize," she paused for emphasis, "that _now_ comes the real work. The big job. And the size and the scope and the time involved doesn't matter because _this galaxy needs to be fixed_. I can only speak for myself, but I suspect I also speak for all of you when I say if it takes a lifetime, it's a lifetime well spent."

Leia stood slowly and put her hands together, prompting everyone else to do the same. As Luke clapped, Wedge leaned in and said, "Seems like her heart's in the right place at any rate."

Han peeked around Luke to answer. "Much as I hate to rain on this little cheer session, I'm gonna have to recommend you reserve any judgments. I spent two days with her on that star yacht, and believe me, she's got designs for this place."

As the applause faded and they sat back down, Luke asked, "What kind of designs?"

Han shook his head. "Whatever she thinks best, kid. That's what she'll do." He raised his eyebrows. "Every time."

Luke didn't know what to make of that answer, and didn't get a chance to ask as Varica was now continuing.

"As Princess Leia said, I will be making it my personal mission to bring talented and dedicated people into the Alliance. To join a cause like ours, those people need to be inspired." She let her gaze sweep across the audience. "I was recently an outsider looking in, and I can tell you that when I heard about the destruction of the Death Star, I was inspired in a way I'd never thought possible. It kindled something inside me. And we need to capitalize on that victory and kindle the imaginations and the convictions of beings across the galaxy. They need to see that someone is out there, waging a successful war against tyranny."

Suddenly, Varica's eyes locked right onto Luke's, and he was surprised that he felt a little jolt. She kept up the eye contact as she spoke. "Luke Skywalker was essential to securing the Death Star plans. He was essential in rescuing Leia from the Empire's executioners, and he fired the shot that blew the Death Star straight to hell." She held out a hand towards him, and his face warmed as his comrades and senior officers all turned to look back at him. "This is a courageous officer," she said, "and an inspiring leader that anyone can admire. You've been applauding our words. This man's actions—his heroism—deserve that and much, much more."

Luke sheepishly met the gazes of the other officers, seeing a majority of expressions ranging from congratulatory to polite, with a considerable minority showing sarcasm and disdain.

"I'm proud to say that I have recently written a holonet release announcing our victory at Lakaron. The public needs to know that the hero pilot of Yavin is still fighting—and still defeating the Empire at every engagement. The public needs to be inspired, and I believe Captain Skywalker is the man to inspire them again and again as our fight continues."

III.

As Ysanne Isard took in the aftermath, it was all she could do not to laugh.

The rubble from her commando team's explosive entrance crunched under her boots as she stepped over to where they held the three university students. Two girls and a weakling boy had their faces planted firmly into their desktop keyboards as the stormtroopers behind them clamped armored hands around the backs of their necks. The rest of the squad held blasters at the ready, having already secured the rest of the two-room palace just outside the _Invisec_ district of Coruscant. She did a quick visual scan of the apartment's layout beyond the workstation area. Her jaw worked angrily as she took in the band posters on the walls and the half-eaten bag of chips on the couch.

_This is a joke_, Ysanne thought. _But worst of all the joke's on me_.

Because her father was threatened by her ambition and ability, he had relegated her to pointless and ineffectual duties. When she had last complained, he had verbally eviscerated her, and then made things ten times worse. He now had her arresting dorm-room rebels posting pseudo-revolutionary drivel on the holonet. The site these three were posting to had tallied eleven hits in the past month, up from a whopping nine hits the month before.

She was mad enough to pull her blaster and execute them on the spot, but that might create the impression that they were in some way important.

One of the girls started whining. "This won't change anything! People will still write the words of truth. You can't shackle ideas! The chains of bondage can't—

"Take them to the ISB sub-station for interrogation," Ysanne said.

The team leader was a stormtrooper with an orange shoulder guard. "Yes, ma'am."

As his men pulled the prisoners to their feet, the girl with entitlement issues kept crying. "I don't recognize your totalitarian regime! I consider myself a citizen of the Republic and under Republic laws I get a comlink call. I get a call, man!"

Ysanne looked into the dark eye slits of the team leader's helmet. "If you want to beat them at any point, feel free. Just leave enough for the interrogation droids to work with."

IV.

Armand Isard conversed with the quarter-scale image of Lord Vader, which shimmered above the mini-holo emitter set into his black marble desktop.

"These reports," Vader rumbled, "are worthless, Director."

Isard offered a careful smile. "My Lord, may I respectfully say that I wrote those reports myself and all the available intelligence is included. I understand your frustration, but you must understand our enemy is cunning and enigmatic."

"The Emperor expects usable information to be delivered constantly, Director, and so do I."

_You don't even know the half of what the Emperor expects_, Isard thought. _Your star has fallen and I'll stand upon your ashes soon enough._

Isard's smile remained fixed in place. "Of course, My Lord. But with the unfortunate failure to capture any rebel prisoners at Lakaron, we are back to square one in terms of uncovering new leads. It may take some time."

He knew it was dangerous to bait Vader with a reminder of the disaster at Lakaron, and he braced himself for the Dark Lord's response.

It was succinct. "I arrive on Imperial Center in three days. You will have something viable by then or you will suffer the consequences." Vader cut the connection at his end and his image collapsed into a cloud of static and then winked out.

_Three days._

Isard tapped a key and his adjutant's voice came over the intercom. "Yes, Director?" she asked.

"Have my ship prepped for departure tomorrow morning," he said. "I have business off-world and I'll be away indefinitely, so make all the necessary arrangements."

"Yes, Director. Also, I have Agent Isard holding for you on comlink band beta, sir."

He smiled. _This should be amusing_. "Patch her through." He waited a moment and then greeted her with exaggerated enthusiasm. "Ysanne?"

Her tone was flat—almost lifeless. "Yes, Director."

He leaned back into his tall chair. "I trust the raid was a success?"

There was a pause. She was probably getting her temper under control. "Yes, Director."

"How many rebels did we apprehend?" he asked.

"Three, Director. They were all students."

He grinned at the comm mic. "Any casualties amongst your troops?" He thought he could just make out a ragged sigh on her end.

"No, Director."

He nodded. _She's learned not to bite the hand. But there's no need to cut the lesson short. _"Well done, Ysanne. Strip the site to its bones and ship all contents to the ISB forensics group in a lock-box—same as the others. I have additional leads for you to follow up on. I'll be leaving Imperial Center tomorrow on urgent business and I want them all handled by the time I return."

"Yes, Director."

He was about to break the channel when she spoke again.

"May I ask, Director—are these targets of equal value to the one I handled tonight?"

His grin widened. "Yes they are. Good night, Ysanne."

He cut the transmission, and with a low chuckle, he turned his chair to where the COMPNOR-sanctioned galactic news played silently on a wall display. He tapped a key and the sound returned. A woman reporter stood with a microphone in front of the Commenor Central Spaceport.

_"…where masked gunmen murdered seven Imperial soldiers and nineteen of the Alderaanian refugees in their care. This comes on the heels of several other incidents across the galaxy where Alderaanian survivors have been targeted for attacks. While no group has claimed responsibility, the Imperial Security Bureau has uncovered evidence to suggest these attacks are retaliatory, and are being carried out by enraged citizens—citizens who cannot forgive Alderaan's near planet-wide collaboration with the Rebel Alliance terrorist group…"_

Isard smiled once more. For an unpredictable sociopath, Agent Moss was proving to be worth his weight in gold.

And it was all coming together so beautifully. These attacks suggested an existing and boiling anger against Alderaanians by the public, and simultaneously legitimized the Empire's _humanitarian_ policy of relocating Alderaanian survivors for their own protection.

And to keep them best protected, they would all be moved to a remote and secret world. By necessity, there would be no communication to or from that world.

_On that world_, Isard thought, _they will be made silent_. _Silent for all time_.

_**To be continued...**_


	11. Chapter 11

I.

As the staff meeting let out, Han maneuvered his way through the crowd, making a bee-line towards Leia and Varica, who were walking near the front of the departing crowd. He was mad as hell, and it was taking all of his self-control not to shove people aside so he could get in her face.

"Princess!" he called.

Both women stopped and turned around. They each wore a confused expression, not expecting to hear a voice raised in anger so soon after a largely positive meeting.

Han stepped right up to Leia. "We need to talk." He shot a quick glance at Varica. "Can we have a minute, General?"

Leia answered for her. "This isn't a good time—

"I need one minute," Han insisted.

She sighed. "Fine, but—

Han grabbed her arm and almost pulled her off her feet, leading her toward a deserted corridor. Her feet were forced to move at jogging speed to keep up with Han's long strides. She protested angrily at being man-handled but Han took no notice.

When he finally stopped, Leia backhanded his arm off of hers and threw a rough shove into his chest. "You don't put your hands on me, _ever_—you read me, flyboy?"

"Tell you what I've read," Han shot back. He waived a data pad in her face. "Alderaan-blasted-Spirit News Service, issue five. _'The Hero of Yavin Crushes Empire at Lakaron.'"_

"That's Varica's piece," she said. "It's propaganda to drum up recruitment. So what?"

Han laughed bitterly. "You know—I expect this kind of thing from your enterprising cousin. She doesn't know the kid, doesn't care about him surviving this rebellion of yours—she just needs a front man to sell some tickets to this freak show."

Leia shook her head. "I really don't have time for this now."

She started to walk away, but Han blocked her path. He leaned down and put his face right in hers. "I expected more from you."

She shoved him aside and kept walking.

He watched her go, unspent fury still boiling in his chest. He kicked an empty crate lying on the ground. It bounced off the wall and skittered along the deck, but that barely helped.

There was a questioning rumble from behind him. Han turned to see Chewie approaching cautiously, watching his normally easy-going partner seething with anger.

"They're gonna hang the kid out to dry, partner. They're putting a huge target right on his back." He shook his head, too angry to say anything more.

Chewie rumbled again.

Han blew out a lungful of air. "Hell with it. None of my business."

Chewie gave Han a look like he wasn't convinced. That only made Han angrier, but he boxed it up inside and resolved to forget about it.

"Come on," he said. "Let's grab something to eat."

* * *

><p>Han and Chewie stood at the serving table in <em>Freedom Hauler's<em> mess hall, ladling a passable nerf stew onto their plates. It was noon by the ship's chrono, and the tables were packed with crewman, soldiers and pilots having their lunch. The background hum of conversation was steady and fairly loud, but that didn't stop one man's voice from carrying over it.

"That figures," Trask said to the crewman sitting across from him. "Skywalker's their golden boy, and they gotta prop him up so they can use his mug to con new recruits into signing up. Too bad he can't find his own ass with two hand scanners."

Han straightened up, his back still to Trask, who was seated at a table close to the serving line. Chewie growled a warning to his captain.

_You're right, pal,_ Han thought. _I shouldn't_.

The crewman said something Han couldn't hear, but Trask responded loudly. "Hell, no, brother—he can barely fly." Trask leaned forward. "Do you know that little farm hand rigged my sim unit to fail so he could beat me in a practice exercise?"

_But I'm gonna._

Han whirled away from his tray and moved in towards Trask, who was oblivious to his approach.

"No bantha crap," Trask was saying, his right hand raised in an oath. "My hand to—

Han kicked Trask's shoulder with the sole of his boot, pushing the large pilot off his chair and down to the floor, his cup and cutlery clattering onto the deck with a crash that came across extra loud as the room went instantly silent. Everyone present stood up and stepped back from the long table.

"Up!" Han barked at him.

Trask rose menacingly, his face deep red and murder brimming in his eyes. He kicked the chair into Han's legs, causing the Corellian to lose his footing and grab the edge of the table for support. Trask then dove into Han's midsection, pinning him to the table. He slammed down a massive punch that bounced Han's head off the table top.

_I'm gonna feel that tomorrow._

Trask was about to double-down when Chewie grabbed his wrist with one shaggy hand and a fistful of his uniform with the other. He whipped Trask off of his feet and hurled him across the mess table. Trask's body caught several plates before he plowed into the vacated chairs on the other side, bringing him to the ground in a tangle of tableware and furniture that put the previous one to shame.

That was when a squad of security guards charged in.

II.

Winter stood on the surface of a strange and unknown world, watching as the transport ship that had deposited her there ascended into the bright blue sky. A flock of white indigenous birds scattered as the transport rose into their path. It kept rising until it appeared smaller than one of those birds, and then was gone entirely.

With the drone of the ship's engines now too far away to hear, a new background noise surrounded her, deep and surging. She stepped away from the other Alderaanian refugees who had been with her on the ship—most of whom were still frozen in place by their bewilderment—and walked toward the horizon.

It was barely a five minute walk before she was forced to an abrupt stop. She had come to the edge of a cliff. She craned her head carefully over the edge, and peered downward.

The rocky cliff face stretched down nearly half a kilometer, where it met rough green ocean currents that crashed against it and then back over themselves again, creating a foamy, churning sea that could smash or drown even a seasoned swimmer. The soothing sounds of the waves breaking made a startling contrast to the deadly, natural power surging below. Winter took a step back and then looked to her right, and was surprised to see many more table-top mountains like the one she now stood upon. They were each only a few hundred meters away from her—and from each other—forming a loose chain of landmasses.

Each raised island in the chain stood at nearly the same height, towering above the beautiful, raging ocean below. As Winter spun slowly in place and took in her surroundings, she saw that the ocean covered the surface of this world in every direction for as far as the eye could see.

As she returned her focus to the neighboring islands, she saw that each was covered sporadically with the plasteel domes of standard Imperial field shelters. Dotting the landscape around those shelters were the small silhouettes of people.

_My people. _

* * *

><p>Within three days, Winter felt like she had a solid feel for what many of her Alderaanian brethren were calling the 'Purgatory Isles.' No one knew the actual name of the planet or had any idea where it was located. Each of the islands in the chain were connected by steel footbridges bearing the stamp of the Imperial Engineering Corps. They had all been constructed prior to the arrival of the first refugees.<p>

Winter had promptly decided she needed to visit every island in the camp. They were all covered with the same pre-fabricated shelters, along with mobile refresher stations for sanitation and storage sheds full of field rations for nourishment. Every third island had a mobile hospital staffed solely by Two-One-Bee medical droids. Winter had tried to chat them up, but the fact-finding mission quickly sputtered when she found that the droids were programmed to discuss medical matters and nothing else.

The Empire had seen to every physical need the refugees could have. Food, shelter and medical care were all being addressed to a sufficient degree so that no one should be in danger.

_But they've cut us off from the rest of the galaxy,_ Winter thought. _We're being treated like pariahs. Like we have a plague and need to be quarantined. No one has seen a living being who represents the Empire since being dropped here—and the guards on the transports claimed they were being kept in the dark regarding the plans for us—supposedly for security reasons._

Winter had just finished reconnoitering her twenty-fourth island, and now sat on a rounded boulder to take a break. She took a deep breath and tasted the salt on the air as the wind coming off the ocean blew her white-blonde hair gently about.

For a prison colony, she had to admit that the environs were quite pleasant. The top of each mesa-like island contained a mixture of smooth rock with scrubby plants blossoming from the crevasses, and gritty soil. The soil produced small trees and large-leafed conifers that contained a lovely blue flower at the center. The ever-present sound of the waves breaking soothed her each night as she drifted off to sleep. As internment camps went, it could have been much, much worse. One person she had spoken to yesterday had picked up some anger in her tone and commented that, if the Imperials had really wanted to wrong them, they could've been made to labor alongside Wookiees or Barabels on some forsaken military project somewhere. That thought had given her pause.

But the fact of the matter was that this was not any kind of a life. By her estimate, there were nearly thirty-thousand people on these islands, and none of them had any real purpose to drive them forward in their lives. There was no work to be done, no materials to create art, and no resources for education. There was also no enemy to fight.

_We're all psychologically damaged by what's happened to our world, and to ourselves. If we can't live real life—as a people—then there's no future for us._ Worse yet, with there being no facilities to address mental health, it was only a matter of time before there started being serious problems.

Winter looked at the sun's position in the sky, and figured she had about two more hours of daylight left. Just enough time to take in one more island.

She rose to her tired feet and headed towards the edge of the island. Beyond it, she could see the ridgeline of the next one, though it was situated a good chunk farther away compared to the distance between most of the other islands.

When she reached the edge, she was surprised to find that there was no footbridge. She placed a hand across the tops of her eyes and scanned the island across the sea. As best she could tell, it was totally disconnected from the rest of the encampment.

_But it's populated_. Winter could see the same domed shelters studding the surface of the island, and despite the distance, could make out the shapes of people moving about.

_Why is this group cut off from the rest of us?_

III.

Ysanne Isard watched as the last of her team walked out of the now empty café. This time, the perpetrator had been a busboy, and her technicians had just finished tossing his locker in the small anteroom behind the kitchen that led to the garbage dumpsters out back. She could smell them, and suspected that the cloying stench of rotting food would stay with her for the entire ride home.

_Damn you, Father. You had better be over all this nonsense when you get back from your little trip._

Her father, Armand, was punishing her for taking an insolent tone with him weeks ago. He now had her arresting dissident students and disillusioned laborers—marginal criminals who barely warranted the attention of a single Imperial stormtrooper—and doing so with her full tactical and forensic team. It was like using a star destroyer to issue docking permit violations. The imbalance of talent and resources versus the value of the criminal was utterly ludicrous.

It was humiliating. And that, of course, that was the whole point.

She ran her hands back through her jet black hair and closed her eyes, indulging in a long, semi-cleansing exhalation before striding out of the room to meet her airspeeder. The front door of the café slid aside and she stepped out into the night.

The airspeeder was gone. Her heart dropped into her gut when she saw who was waiting for her instead.

Darth Vader's black cloak and armor made him appear almost as a shadowy apparition. Only the bright, garish lighting of the Coruscant billboards reflecting off the edges of his helmet gave him enough dimension to assure Ysanne he was really there. That, and the iron echoes of his breathing.

"Ysanne Isard," Vader said.

She stared back at him, speechless.

"Answer," he warned her.

"Yes, My Lord," she said, trying to keep her voice level.

He stepped closer to her, and his cloak spread apart, revealing his torso armor and the control box mounted on his chest. "We share the same problem."

She frowned. This was not the tack she expected the conversation to take. "My Lord?"

"We have each fallen out of favor with our master," Vader explained. "And we each need an important victory to win it back."

_He wants something,_ she realized. _He wants something that he knows I don't have to give him_. _That I shouldn't give him._ Otherwise, why the preamble from a… man… who so rarely spoke, and who never explained himself to anyone?

She felt a bit of her confidence returning. "How can I be of service, Lord Vader?"

"Director Isard has been concealing his intelligence from me. His reports are meaningless. He strips every intelligence site bare in every instance, leaving me nothing to draw from. And now he flees the planet to escape me." Ysanne stood half a meter shorter than Vader, and he shifted his gaze downward to face her more directly. The neon lighting played over his impenetrable glass eye guards.

_Here it comes._

"You will provide me with any and all intelligence you come by."

She began shaking her head, but he cut her off forcefully.

"You will include me in every raid. Every arrest."

She swallowed. "My Lord, you must know that I can't disobey my—

_"You will do as I say,"_ he said, "or I will kill you."

She felt her knees threaten to give out, but steeled herself against that. The drill sergeant within her berated her fearfulness. _Think, you little fool. Your mind is your weapon. Use it._

Vader needed her. Killing her would leave him empty-handed. Worse, it would alienate him from her father even further, cutting off any chance at reestablishing a flow of reliable information from the intelligence branch.

She drew herself up. "My Lord, the Director of Intelligence answers to the Emperor himself. Only he can override my father's orders. If I were to bend to your threats, I would be executed for treason. Any other death is preferable to that one."

Vader stepped even closer, so that his chest was almost touching Ysanne's face. He looked straight down at her, and she looked up directly into his cold black mask.

"You would be surprised," he said.

His hand came up from his side, and her breath caught in her throat despite herself. But where she thought there would be a lightsaber, the Dark Lord held a small data pad.

She accepted it, and looked down at the screen.

It was the latest issue of the _Alderaan Spirit News Service_—the most prominent and most circulated source of rebel propaganda in the galaxy.

Vader said, "Finding and apprehending this organization would serve both of us well."

Ysanne exhaled, and began breathing somewhat normally again. _Taking them down would be a major coup, but that alone makes it impossible for me._ "I wish I could," she said. "But my father would never agree to let me handle a raid of this importance. Not now."

"Do not involve him."

She shot him an angry glare. "I need a much bigger team for a job like this—I can't get the resources without his authorization."

"I will provide them. As much as you need, and more."

She shook her head. "I can't. He'd ruin me."

Vader's mask came up as he looked past her to the rundown café standing behind them. "If Isard can reduce you further," he said, "then I have clearly underestimated his abilities."

Ysanne answered in a small voice. "This is temporary."

"Perhaps," Vader said. "But that is entirely up to him. And entirely at his mercy." He tipped her chin upwards with a gauntleted finger. "Take command of your destiny, Agent Isard. Never let your master hold you back."

He released her and turned away. As he moved off, he spoke without looking back. "When you tire of chasing students and dish washers, contact me."

IV.

Armand Isard was deeply troubled—so much so that it took him a moment to respond. Distractedly, he said, "Understood," and then severed the comm. channel.

He sat his desk in a luxury penthouse in Eriadu City. It was one of the dozens of safe-houses he kept stashed around the galaxy, for times when it seemed prudent to make himself scarce. But each safe-house had a fully-equipped and encrypted communications suite, so that he could pull the strings as effectively as he would at his headquarters on Imperial Center.

_Ysanne met with Vader._

He could hardly believe it.

He had a man on her team, of course—someone to keep tabs on her and to keep him informed. And his man had just given him the news.

Armand had been pushing her. Forcing her to take embarrassing assignments, one after another. He knew she was furious at him.

_But to meet with Vader…_

His surprise was already beginning to harden. To darken into a resentful anger.

_I've given her too much. I've allowed her to be my protégé—to learn from the absolute best intelligence agent in the galaxy. And she thinks she should be running around with complete autonomy after only a handful of years in the field. She thinks she is owed something, when her debt to me is incalculable. She wants to be in charge, when I am still in my prime, and my greatest achievements still lie before me._

After their most recent argument, Armand had put her firmly in her place.

And she responded by running straight to Vader. His most dangerous rival.

It was betrayal in its purest form. His anger rose, but beyond that, there was another emotion—one even darker, but tainted with something else. Something barely familiar.

Sorrow. _Hurt._

Armand reviled these types of impulses. In his position, he only allowed himself the emotions that drove him forward. Anything else was a weakness and a distraction. To be the man he had fought to become, and to maintain his position of power, he had to avoid weakness and distraction at all costs.

He had always tried to limit the father-daughter relationship where their work was concerned. But she continued to demand special treatment—to take liberties, in a field where such a thing was unthinkable.

It was clear to him now that he must relinquish all feelings for her, and deal with her as he would with any other agent under his command.

The only question now was how to deal with an agent who disobeyed orders and conspired with Lord Vader.

V.

Leia walked up to the closed supply room door, which was flanked by a pair of security guards. "Open it, please."

The guard on the right hit the release switch and the door slid aside. She turned to him. "You can wait out here—I'll shout if I need you."

"Yes, ma'am," he answered.

Leia stepped into the small room, and the door slid shut behind her.

Han sat on a cube-shaped crate, his face resting tenderly in his hands. Chewbacca sat on the floor in the corner, his enormous shaggy legs and feet laid out in front of him. Most of the remaining space was occupied by stacked boxes and containers.

Using a closet or a supply room was about the best they could manage in the way of a jail cell onboard _Freedom Hauler_. This particular room contained only food and medical supplies, and it had no key operational components that could be damaged. The heavy door Leia had walked through was the only access point. It served quite adequately. In any event, the need for a jail cell had proven very rare in the Alliance.

_Until I adopted this lunatic pirate and his walking carpet, anyway._

Leia spoke in a dry tone. "Looks like we'll have that talk after all. You've gotten my attention—congratulations, by the way."

Han kept his face in his hands—his words came out muffled. "I ain't in the mood, Princess."

Leia crossed her arms. "Too bad. You assaulted an officer, and whether you realize it or not, you did it to force another conversation with me. So now we're going to have that conversation, whether you feel like it or not, because I won't allow a loose cannon to—

"Hate to burst your royal bubble," Han interrupted, "but I didn't just go after the first sap I happened across." He looked up at her, and Leia saw that the whole left side of his face was swollen from the punch he took. "That ape was trash-talking Luke in a packed room. And whether _you_ realize it or not, the kid can't afford any more problems than the ones his commanders keep creating for him."

Leia looked down and sighed. "I spoke to Wedge. He filled me in on the issues with Mr. Trask."

"And?"

She shrugged. "And I think this is a good exercise for a young leader to work through."

"It would be," Han answered, "if that was the only thing working against him. Being the 'Hero of Yavin' is pressure enough, but now you've stacked the damn deck against him."

"Do you even hear yourself?" Leia asked. "Just the other day you were berating me for not giving him enough support. Now we've thrown all our support and confidence behind him—and you're still not happy?"

Han shot to his feet. "Exactly. I am still not happy. Let me ask you this—do you crazy idealists ever do anything in moderation?"

Leia opened her mouth to answer, but paused.

"I'll explain," he said. Leia fumed at his patronizing tone, but he kept going regardless. "By making Luke the golden boy when he's also still the new guy—and, as you just said, an inexperienced commander—you've made him a lightning rod for resentment. Trask is the worst of the jerks right now, but there's gonna be people following his lead—and some of them might even be command officers like that blowhard Salm."

Leia exhaled and turned away from Han to think for a moment. _All reasonable points. So, Solo—you're smart and perceptive while being brazen and impulsive. You can do so much for us—but at a constant cost. And since I brought you in, you're _my_ problem._

Leia turned back to him. His blue eyes evaluated her frankly.

_And you're handsome._

She cleared her throat. "I hear what you're saying, Captain. You're right that, in some ways, we've made things more difficult for him in the short-term. But if Luke is the man we need him to be, he's going to have to rise to the occasion and make it work." She put a hand against her chest. "I know he can do it. I have faith in him." She took a step closer to him. "Have you asked yourself why you have so _little_ faith in him?"

Han's eyes hardened. He also took a step towards her, so that they were practically toe to toe. He stood a full head taller than her, and had to lean down so that she could see his face.

"Like I said, Princess—moderation. It's feast or famine with you people, and it's messing with his head, and I'm telling you it's gonna get him killed."

Leia shook her head. "You're not taking into account that—

"And why didn't you tell him Dack was alive?"

Leia frowned. The unexpected question had brought her up short. "What?"

"Dack," Han repeated. "We saved him at Lakaron. I told you. You never told Luke."

Leia thought back and realized he was correct.

"Luke walked around for days," he said, "thinking he'd left his wingman to die. A kid even younger than him. And all the while that Trask moron was taking shots at him, hammering away at whatever confidence he had left."

She nodded. "After we talked I got slammed with work and never crossed paths with Luke until after you got back—which made it a moot point. But I should have made it a priority to tell him well before then." She looked down at the floor. "I handled it badly and I'm sorry."

Han sat back down on his crate and blew out a long, dry breath. "Sorry's all well and good, Princess, but the main issue is still the same. You people gotta handle him better if you want him to survive for the long haul. You might remind that high-flying cousin of yours that if we lose him, there ain't too many more fresh-faced heroes around here to choose from."

Leia cocked an eyebrow. "Does that mean I have to take your name off the alternates list?"

Han snorted. "Please. I just need to finally pull down a big enough score with you guys. Then I can shower Jabba with enough credits to get him to drop this vendetta against me." He shot her a roguish grin. "So I can get back to the simple nobility of a smuggler's life."

"And leave your new little brother to fend for himself?"

His grin faded a notch. "You keep treating him like you are and he just might come with us."

She answered with an earnest tone. "I'll keep working on it. But there's something else you should consider."

"And what's that?"

"Luke can't keep drawing his only confidence from you, or me, or anyone else for that matter. He needs to find it within himself. And we need to let him."

To Leia's amazement, Han was silent. Apparently that notion had resonated with him, and he wasn't arguing against it just for the sake of ego. Another point in his favor that Leia mentally filed away.

She flicked her gaze over to Chewie and then back to Han. "Are you boys ready to behave yourselves?"

Chewie growled and pulled himself up to his feet. Han also stood. "Always, sister."

Leia smirked. "Right." She rapped her knuckle on the door and the guards opened it. "They're free to go," she told them. "You're dismissed."

The guards departed and Leia gestured hospitably to the door. Han sketched another of his ridiculous bows and then walked out the door with Chewie in tow.

"Oh," Leia remembered as she followed them down the corridor. "I needed to ask you both something."

Han stopped and turned. "Anything, my lady."

"Have either of you seen Threepio? With all that's been going on, I just realized I haven't seen him in almost two weeks."

Chewie's head whipped around to face Han and he growled a sharp question. Leia thought there was something odd in his expression.

Han frowned and looked down. His brow was furrowed in thought. Leia watched him closely, until he finally spoke. "No…" He looked back up at Chewie. "Couldn't be."

* * *

><p>The three of them stood onboard the <em>Falcon<em>, peering into a dark utility closet. Standing inside it was C-3PO, his head cocked to the left with his eyes completely dim.

"I guess," Han started, and then stopped. "I guess we just forgot." He turned to Leia, his blue eyes searching for understanding.

"Let me get this straight," she said. "We send Threepio with you to assist in the Praaja mission. You guys get annoyed at him, and you shut him down."

"Right," Han said.

"You stick him in the closet."

"Right," Han said.

"And then you forget all about him."

Han paused, and then nodded decisively. "Yes."

Leia smiled at him, but her eyes blazed with an almost giddy anger. She spoke through clenched teeth. "Turn. Him. On."

"Sure. Sure thing." Han took a step back and gestured to his first mate. "Uh, Chewie—if you please."

The Wookiee grumbled to himself and reached into the closet, pulling the golden protocol droid out and setting him down carefully on the deck. He reached behind Threepio's back and flipped the switch.

Nothing happened.

She turned back to Han, still wearing that same disturbing expression.

Han mumbled, "Power cells must've drained."

Leia's whispered response came out like a hiss. "Two weeks is a long time."

Han gave a sagely nod. "Yes it is."

VI.

Varica tried to stay patient and professional as she searched Mon Mothma's face for any sign that she secretly—perhaps even unconsciously—wanted Varica to persuade her to change her mind. But there was nothing hidden behind those eyes. No inner struggle, no gnawing frustrations. Just a direct and resolute woman who was sure of her own mind and at peace with herself.

_That kind of tranquility stifles growth,_ Varica thought. _And smothers ambition_. She tapped the top of her desk with agitation. "So Admiral Koss stays on, then," she said.

"Yes, he does," Mon Mothma answered. "I understand all your concerns. But we are not an organization that can easily dismiss a person, unless gross negligence or treason is at play."

"But where do you stand on incompetence?" Varica asked. "I've reviewed his file and the man can't plan a picnic. What do you people do with someone like that?"

Mon Mothma smiled patiently. "What would you have me do, General? Force him into an escape pod just before we jump for Detritus Base?"

Varica turned slowly in her chair, placing her data pad stylus against her lips as she thought. "I see the problem. He knows our plans and where our new base is. There would be no way to ensure security."

Mon Mothma spread her arms apart. "Precisely. And what step would we take to guarantee security?" She raised her eyebrows. "Eliminate him?"

Varica sighed. "No. No, of course not." She looked back across the table at the placid commander-in-chief. "So what do you recommend?"

Mon Mothma grinned widely. "As Chief of Operations, personnel decisions are yours to make, General. I'm sure you'll find a reasonable use for him." She stood, and, realizing their meeting was over, Varica stood as well, trying to keep a scowl off her face.

"Koss believes in our cause and he wants to be here," Mon Mothma said. "He has forty years of fleet experience in both the Old Republic and the Imperial navies. I'm certain he has value. Just as I'm certain you'll find it."

_Right,_ Varica thought. _Maybe he can put up a new coat of paint in my quarters_. She said aloud, "If there's value to be had, I'll find it, and put him to optimal use."

Mon Mothma nodded. "Excellent. Good day, then, General."

"Good day, Chief."

As Varica's office door slid aside for Mon Mothma, a young man stood on the other side, his hand raised and prepared to knock.

"Oh, excuse me, ma'am," Luke said quickly.

Mon Mothma was more than gracious. "Captain Skywalker," she said, grasping his arm and giving it a friendly squeeze. "Always a pleasure to see you."

Luke formed a sheepish smile. "Uh, yes, ma'am—you, too—thank you." He stepped aside and let Mon Mothma glide past. Varica waived him inside.

"Reporting as ordered, General," Luke said.

"Oh, Luke," she said, coming around the desk and wrapping both of her arms around his. "You don't need to be so formal." She led him to one of the two vacant guest chairs in front of her desk and guided him down into it. "We're going to be working together a lot, and when it's just the two of us, I don't see any reason why you can't just call me Varica." She grabbed the second guest chair and rolled it towards Luke's until the sides of the chairs touched. Then she sat down, her face now only centimeters from his. Her lips parted in a shining smile. "Sound good?"

Luke cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah. Absolutely."

_He's adorable,_ Varica thought. _Still has that youthful glow about him._ She had briefly considered seducing him when they'd first met, but she could tell he wasn't nearly ready for her. _Besides, he needs to hold onto that innocent gleam in his eyes—it'll look great on the recruitment posters. _

She had also gotten the sense that maybe Leia had an interest in him—or at least in protecting him. Given her status as a new senior commander, and her troubled past with Leia, now was not the time to pursue anything intimate with Skywalker.

_Not yet, at least._

She began scrolling through a data pad. "Okay, so as you know, we're building a recruitment campaign around you as the Hero of Yavin."

Luke shifted in his chair. "Right."

When he didn't say anything else, Varica looked up at him. He seemed uncomfortable.

His tone was cautious. "So what do I need to do exactly?" he asked. "To help, I mean."

"That's the best part," she said enthusiastically. "Just be yourself. Do your job." She flashed her teeth again. "Win."

Luke looked down at his hands. "I always try."

"And you're doing an amazing job. Everyone thinks so."

His face changed and she could see something was troubling him. "Not everyone."

Varica reached up and put a hand on his cheek. She gently turned his face to look at hers. She whispered, "Everyone who matters." She locked eyes with him to make sure he knew she meant it. Then she let go and went back her data pad. "Whenever you're up, you'll have someone looking to knock you back down. Your first instinct is to wish you weren't up, but what's the alternative?"

Luke nodded. "That's a good point."

"When you produce," Varica continued, "your superiors love you, your coworkers respect you, and your _true_ friends are proud of you." She looked back up from the pad. "The rest are heels. And failures. Forget them."

"I hear you, but… it's hard."

"If everyone likes you, it means you're a cog in the machine. You're the friendly janitor with a strong work ethic and a great sense of humor. There's honor in that, but you're not _changing_ anything. The machine is still the same. Progress means stepping over the people who can't achieve."

"I guess I'm just not that aggressive," Luke said.

"You don't need to be." Varica's stare intensified. "You're effective. You did what no one else could. Aggression is a crutch you don't need. Just keep up the _legendary_ work and don't let anyone stand in your way."

"Yes, ma'am."

Varica smiled. "Sorry. I get a little passionate sometimes. It took me a lot of years being in business to figure everything out. Stars know they don't teach it to you—especially on Alderaan."

She slapped the tops of her thighs. "Now," she said, "I've finished the recruitment one-shot we're going to use, and it's been approved by the council, but I had a few last details to work out concerning your bio, and I need to ask you some questions."

"Sure," he said.

"Tell me about your family. Your parents, any siblings…"

"None," he said simply.

She looked up at him, prepared to make some courteous and regretful comment, but could see in his passive gaze that it was an old story. _A lifelong orphan—that's great for his popular image._

"Any relatives at all? I mean, who raised you?"

Now his expression did darken. "It was my Aunt and Uncle, but," he stopped. He swallowed and continued. "They were killed by the Empire just before I joined up."

_Orphaned by the Empire—that's absolutely perfect_. She stopped her smile from forming just in time. _Damn, that would've been awkward_.

A different part of her mind chimed in. _You could try being a decent human being and remember that normal people actually value their family members._

"I'm very sorry," she offered.

"Thanks. I'm doing okay." He hesitated a moment, and then said, "Besides, you're Alderaanian. I don't need to tell you what it feels like to lose people."

"No," Varica said, trying unsuccessfully to summon an emotion that seemed appropriate for his sentiment. The worst feeling she could conjure was the hollow realization that she felt no loss. _There was never anything there for me to lose. Only my relationship with Leia, but that failure lives on in spite of Alderaan's death._

"You know what," she said, "I think I have everything I need. We're all set here."

"Really?" he asked.

She gave him a reassuring look. "Absolutely. I'll get you a copy of it when we publish. I think you'll be really pleased."

"Sounds great," Luke said, standing up. He looked at her expectantly.

"Was there something else?" she asked.

"Um… am I dismissed?"

She snorted and shook her head. "I'm still getting used to this whole martial hierarchy business. Yes, Captain." She tossed off a playful salute. "You're dismissed."

Luke returned her salute with a bit more seriousness. When he reached the door, he turned back. "Thanks, Varica. I appreciate the talk, and your advice."

A softer smile came to her face. It stood apart from all the others by virtue of it being sincere. "Any time, Luke. We'll talk again soon."

He walked out, leaving her alone with her work. She took a sip of tea and then brought up the template for the recruitment ad on her display.

It featured an artistic rendering of an orange-clad pilot stepping into the cockpit. Above the image it said in bold print, 'THE HERO OF YAVIN.'

It lacked a personal connection. She'd thought so right along, but the council had concluded that proper names could not be used. Even an alias might cause the Empire to seek retribution on falsely-identified relations to the falsely-named hero.

_But now we learn that Luke has nobody back home. No one to place at risk._

The people needed an icon. A hero. And all real heroes had names.

She put the template into edit mode, and began typing. A moment later, she sank back into her chair in satisfaction, gazing approvingly at the adjusted title that blazed across the top of the image.

'CAPTAIN SKYWALKER: THE HERO OF YAVIN.'

Varica logged into the holonet and uploaded the image file. Without any hesitation or debate, she submitted the new version to their entire network of contacts.

_**To be continued...**_


	12. Chapter 12

I.

The thud of a small, distant explosion jarred Winter awake. She pulled open her sleeping bag and came up into a crouching stance—it was the best she could manage within the low-roofed Imperial survival shelter. She exited the small domed metal hut into the dim light of dawn. On the horizon, the sun was cresting the rough green ocean surrounding the cluster of islands.

Two days ago, she had discovered there was a lone island that was segregated from the two-dozen others in the Alderaanian internment camp. She had decided to make her home on the one immediately across from it—at least until she could figure out the story on what her neighbors called 'Mystery Island.'

The explosion she heard had seemed both distant and small, and she was not surprised to find that no one else had emerged from their huts to investigate. She might well have dismissed it also, had her ears not been attuned to small munitions fire. _One of the countless benefits of my time spent with the Alliance_, she thought to herself.

She walked briskly towards the edge of the cliff that faced Mystery Island. Like her own island, Mystery was a table-top mountain with sheer rock walls, and stood hundreds of meters above the ocean's surface. It was inhabited, but no one knew by whom, or why they were being isolated.

When she reached the edge, she found a small but heavy durasteel beam embedded in the dirt. Tied around it was a tightly woven metallic cable. The cable ran clear across the wide chasm between the raised islands, making a gentle loop down towards the water and then sloping back upward, all the way back to the surface of Mystery Island.

Her eyes followed the cable back to its exact source. Silhouetted against the rising sun at their backs, she could make out a small group of people standing near the edge of the far island, near some type of tubular apparatus that she could barely see.

_They must have rigged up some kind of homemade cannon—from whatever they could scrounge together from the materials left by the Imperials._

As she watched them, one person began gesturing emphatically to her.

_He's trying to make contact._

She waved in a wide side-to-side motion over her head. The person waived back, confirming that he or she had seen Winter. Then the person then began pointing downward. Winter shifted her focus down to the durasteel beam. It was then that she noticed a ration pouch had been jammed tightly into the center of the beam. She pulled it out and opened it. Instead of the usual protein bar, there was a handwritten note stuffed inside.

It read:

_Urgent—we are Alderaanian political prisoners. _

_Please anchor cable SECURELY to a permanent structure. _

_When complete, hold both arms straight up over your head to signal us. _

_One of us will come across._

_We are depending on you._

_-Carl._

_Carl?_ It was damned odd, but Winter could see no reason not to go along. It was always possible there was a good reason these people were being kept isolated, but she was not about to start trusting the Empire's good judgment on these matters.

Besides, if things really went bad she could always sever the cable.

* * *

><p>Twenty minutes later, the cable line was secure at her end. Winter had pulled the line until it was taut across the two islands, and wrapped it around the trunk of a strong tree several times, finishing it off with a knot that would tighten under pressure.<p>

She returned to the edge of the cliff and held both arms straight above her head, as if she were declaring a scored goal at a hoverball tournament.

Across the distance, a man sat on the cliff's edge, his legs hanging over the drop. As she watched, he took hold of the cable, and hopped off of his perch. His body was now fully suspended over the water as both hands gripped the cable. Going hand over hand, he began to traverse the gap between the raised islands.

Winter clenched her teeth as she watched him slowly advance, one arm length at a time, his legs swinging from side to side as he moved.

_He must be incredibly brave. He's keeping a measured pace and not panicking. I'm not sure I could do the same._

She knew that, especially over an ocean, there could be a significant gust of wind at any moment. At this height, the odds of surviving a fall into the water were slim at best. And even if he did survive, the severe currents below would swallow him up or smash him into the rocky base of the island.

As he continued to advance, she could see that he was a barrel-chested man with—obviously—strong arms. As he passed the midway-point and was now closer to her side, she saw, to her surprise, that he was middle-aged—maybe fifty or so. He wore the light blue coverall of an Imperial military prisoner.

_Of course,_ Winter realized. _They've segregated the Alderaanian soldiers from the civilian population. _These men would have the skills and the motivation to organize the people, and maybe even affect an escape plan. _The Empire doesn't want the gundarks mixing with the nerfs. _

As he finally reached her side, Winter grasped the cable with one hand and extended her free hand to him, helping to pull him up onto the embankment. He took her hand and crawled up onto the ground. He immediately flopped over onto his back, gasping from exertion. Winter pulled out her canteen, and he gratefully accepted a drink from it.

The man began speaking between heaving breaths. "How many," he started, "of us… are here? Total… population of… the camps?"

Winter squatted down next to him. "My best estimate is about thirty-thousand. They have us spread out over twenty-plus islands."

He nodded. "We have to… find a way out. Before the rest… arrive."

Winter frowned. "Do you know how many survivors there are from home?"

"About… forty-thousand." He took another drink.

She studied his weathered face. It was dripping with sweat, but somehow he seemed familiar. "Are you Carl?" she asked.

He closed his eyes and smiled. "General Carlist… Rieekan."

II.

Wedge Antilles sat alone in his quarters, looking down at a data pad that displayed a confidential file. Access was normally restricted to command-level officers, but Senator Organa had made it available to him, in the hopes that it would be helpful to all concerned. The title glowed dimly across the top of the screen.

PERSONNEL FILE: FLIGHT OFFICER TRASK, FENTON R.

He began reading.

* * *

><p>About an hour later, Wedge stepped into the vacant room where Trask was being detained. The small cabin was totally empty. Trask was lying down on the bare deck, with his uniform jacket off and wadded up behind his head as a pillow.<p>

He opened his eyes and looked up at Wedge. He exhaled loudly and closed them again. "I didn't start it," he said.

"Did you finish it at least?"

Trask snorted. "No. Wookiee tossed me over the mess table like a rag doll." He opened his eyes. "It's like everybody around here's got backup. Like now—you're here on Skywalker's behalf—saving him from having to deal with me. That scumbag smuggler jumped me on the kid's behalf." He shook his head. "I don't know how that farm boy commands so much juice."

Wedge raised his eyebrows. "Want to find out?"

Trask held up a hand. "Help me out, Antilles, and spare me any more of his jazzed-up tales of derring-frackin-do at Yavin. They barely feed me in here and I can't afford to throw up, you know I mean?"

Wedge sat down on the floor across from him. "Listen, whatever your issue is with Captain Skywalker, we need to get it fixed while we still can."

Trask rolled over, presenting his back to Wedge. "I can fit you guys in for group therapy on alternating weekends. Just don't make me tell you where my uncle touched me."

Wedge grabbed his shoulder and rolled him back. "Let me put it another way. Either you and me figure out a way to fix this _today_, or you're gonna spend the rest of this war sleeping in a locked broom closet. Now what's it gonna be?"

Trask came up on his elbows. Wedge saw the first signs of genuine emotion in his eyes. It was something akin to panic. "What the hell am I supposed to do, Antilles? I can't stand this kid. I mean, I can't stand the _sight_ of him—the sound of his voice. It's everything I can do not to go off every time I see him." He grasped Wedge's arm. "You gotta transfer me out."

Wedge shook his head. "Can't."

Trask's tight expression slackened and became morose. "Can't or won't?"

"Does it matter?"

Trask released Wedge and sank back down on his back. He draped his thick forearm across his eyes. "Damn it," he whispered. He punched the wall with his other fist, and then brought both hands up to cover his face. "Damn it, damn it."

Wedge took a deep breath before starting again. "You mentioned your uncle—

"Holy crap, Wedge—I was kidding about that."

"I know," he assured him. "But I do think we should talk about your brother."

He slowly turned his head towards Wedge. "What about my brother?"

"Was he the reason you joined?"

He nodded, his eyes indicating that he was somewhere far away. "I'd told him not to go," he said. "Didn't listen. He never listened. He was stubborn—like me, but it was a killer 'cause he also wanted to be a man of the people, instead of just looking out for himself. I was only ever interested in looking out for two people—him and me. But he left, and I was left out of it."

"He went to Carida?" Wedge asked.

"Yeah." He smiled to himself. "Mister Academy. And while I bummed around from port to port, making trouble, getting arrested—you read the file?"

Wedge nodded.

"He graduated," Trask continued, "in the top quarter of his class. Got commissioned as a junior lieutenant—had his own platoon of stormies."

"Very impressive," Wedge agreed. "Local boy makes good—sets off on a solid career track."

Trask's eyes lost focus again. "Should've been."

Wedge looked down at the deck. "He was killed in the Lortan campaigns?"

Trask swallowed before speaking. "He was."

"Do you know what happened?"

"I do. It took some digging, but I do."

Wedge waited.

"The Lortans had a Tunroth city under siege—they had legions of men—I'm talking thousands—surrounding it. They had tanks, armor—you name it. The major commanding his regiment was a green suit—connected boy, straight out of Coruscant—you know the type. Graduated the year _after_ my brother but went straight to a command position. He ordered a ground assault." His face contorted with anger. "But kept all the heavy armor in reserve."

"How many troops went in?"

Trask's Adam's apple bobbed inside his throat. His eyes pooled.

Wedge put a supportive hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, pal."

Trask blinked and the tears ran down his jaw line. "One battalion." His eyes blazed. "_One_. It was three-hundred troops against ten-thousand fanatics."

"Why?"

His big hand swiped away the tears. "I found out that there's a plaque on the wall at Carida. It quotes the Emperor, saying that one Imperial stormtrooper was worth a hundred criminals. Guess this silver spoon jackass took it for the literal truth."

Trask sat up and cleared his throat. "After his battalion was… gone… they sent in the AT-ATs and wiped out the Lortans. But because that moron was given authority he didn't deserve, my brother got killed."

_And it all starts to come together_, Wedge thought. "I'm sorry, Trask."

Trask sniffed. "Yeah."

"I just hope you realize that the Alliance doesn't spend lives foolishly."

"I know."

"And," he said firmly, "Luke Skywalker doesn't either."

Trask shook his head. "All my friends from the old squadron got killed at Lakaron—in one engagement."

"The munitions depot blew the planet apart," Wedge said. "Turned the whole system into an asteroid field—in the middle of a battle. No one could've predicted that."

"I just…" Trask made a fist and it shook in the air while he considered where to put it. He brought it down into his palm. "I can't shake it, man. I can't shake the feeling that Skywalker doesn't know what he's doing."

"Fine," Wedge said. "So what have you done to help him?"

"What?"

"What have you done," Wedge asked, "to help him learn? How have you shared your experience to make him stronger?"

Trask pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.

"I get what you're feeling," Wedge said. "And why you're feeling it. It makes perfect sense. But you've been a destructive force in the squadron up to now. The way things are going, _you're_ the danger. It's time to take those feelings and channel them into something positive. Be constructive. You know?"

Trask lay back down on the floor and closed his eyes. He rolled in towards the wall, leaving Wedge to once again face his back.

Wedge rose to his feet. "I'll let the guard know that you're free to go."

Trask didn't answer or move at all.

Wedge added softly, "Whenever you're ready." He then left the room, hoping Trask would soon choose to follow.

III.

Armand Isard knelt in front of the image of the Emperor being projected in his safe house on Eriadu. Rather than broadcasting a standard, true-to-life scale replica of himself, the Emperor chose to transmit an ultra-enlarged image of his face. It was shrouded by his cowl, of course, but all of the malevolence he could display with even the most subtle of facial gestures could now be experienced to the fullest by his subjects.

"What news of the rebellion?" Palpatine demanded.

"We have learned from our sources that the Alderaanian woman—Baroness Econa—has indeed reached the rebellion. We must assume that the financial holdings she was able to capture are now at the rebellion's disposal."

The thin line of Palpatine's mouth turned downward. "Then their pockets are no longer empty."

"I'm afraid not, Your Excellency."

"And what do you propose to do about this, Director?"

"The rebels will undoubtedly go to the black market to purchase larger ships—corvettes, star galleons—even frigates and capital cruisers. Such vessels would allow them to engage our forces in the type of warfare that has been impossible for them up until now."

The Emperor waited a long moment before responding. "And?"

"When they make their inquiries, they will find that no ships are available for them to buy."

Palpatine leaned forward. "So you empty our coffers to acquire every derelict garbage scow in the galaxy. You prolong a tiresome stalemate that has already lasted far too long." The Emperor's face contorted into a mask of disgust. "This is detestable."

"Your Excellency—

"_Find them, Director_." His ghastly white face slowly blossomed into a cruel, wrinkled smile. "Unless you prefer a mandatory—and untimely—retirement."

Armand bowed his head so low that his chin touched his chest. "If I may continue, Master, there is more to my strategy, and it _will_ lead us to the rebellion's location."

Palpatine sank back into the dark recesses of his throne. "Then by all means, Director… continue."

"Each and every ship we have acquired is being outfitted with locator beacons and eavesdropping devices. Once the availability of these ships has been made suitably scarce, we will begin to release our trackable ships back into the marketplace. When the rebels buy one, it will lead us straight to them."

The Emperor thought for a moment, and then shook with a hoarse chuckle. "Very good, Director. It may lack the vicious passion I so enjoy, but your plan is practical. And I foresee it will be effective as well." He placed his cold hands together. "And so you live to scheme another day. I'm certain your daughter will be pleased."

Armand's head came up slightly, and his tone carried a note of surprise. "My daughter, Excellency?"

"She is one of your agents, is she not?"

"Yes, Master."

"A promising agent from what I have been led to believe. I trust we can expect great things from the progeny of Armand Isard?"

Armand stared hard at the floor as he spoke. "Perhaps, Your Excellency. Our young are entrusted to us—to be molded by us—and forged into something remarkable. We give them all that they need to become great." He swallowed before continuing. "But some children won't heed the wisdom that's been offered."

Palpatine nodded. "I am, of course, familiar with this phenomenon. A master brings so much to the table, provided his apprentice has the capacity to wield such gifts." His head turned slightly, as if he were looking into the distance. "Provided he does not turn his back on all you have given."

"In the end," Armand said, "we can't always protect them from their mistakes."

IV.

Ysanne sat on the outdoor balcony of her apartment on Coruscant. The night air carried the distinctly urban scent of factory smoke and airspeeder exhaust mixed with the cooking fumes of a thousand species. The summer wind was hot and filthy, but she'd grown up in the thick of it, and so it was home to her and something of a comfort.

She had been outside, in her favorite chair, for hours, trying to figure it out. Vader's offer played over and over again in her mind. And it was a damned good offer.

_If we took down _Alderaan Spirit_ and captured its staff, it would be our biggest post-Yavin intelligence win to date. With Vader reporting it directly to the Emperor, Father would have to acknowledge my role—and my worth._

It was a relatively easy decision from a career perspective, but there was the other perspective that, try as she might, she couldn't ignore. _If I do this to my father, whatever glimmer of… family… we still have left will be gone. Probably forever._

She stretched her neck, letting her head roll back. Her long black hair draped over the back of the chair, and she wondered—again—why she kept going through this exercise. _Why am I agonizing?_

Her father's voice played in her mind. He had once said, '_If you can't stop thinking about a decision you're planning to make, then you haven't planned the right decision.' _

She exhaled sharply. She felt her brow furrow in anger as she finally came to her conclusion. _I can't stop agonizing about going with Vader because some part of me can't live with the outcome—the outcome where I destroy the marginal relationship I have with my father._

While it certainly was marginal, it was all she had in a very large galaxy. And while there would be other big career opportunities, no amount of will or ambition could build her a new life history. _If I let our family die, I can never resurrect it. Not with the way my father is. _

So she would put her own career on hold and ride out his insecurities and his petty anger. She would tell him about her meeting with Vader, and request instructions. She would be burning a profoundly important bridge where Vader was concerned, but she'd arrived at a crossroads where one of two bridges was going down, and she had to choose which.

One more time, she would place her loyalty and her destiny into her father's hands.

_But this will be the last time_, she promised herself. She stood up from her chair and turned to head back into her apartment. _Father needs to drop this ridiculous punishment he's been putting me through, and put me back on a real assignment. Otherwise, I'm out._

She caught her reflection in the tinted privacy glass of her balcony door just before it slid aside for her. She stepped into her dark apartment.

_I can't see a thing. I should've left the lights on._

A realization startled her and stopped her in her tracks.

_I _did_ leave the lights on._

She sensed motion in the darkness and, on instinct, dropped into a crouch.

She felt a small breeze on her face just as she ducked into the path of a knife slashing toward her throat. The blade struck her in the right temple instead, slicing off a section of her scalp and a hank of hair along with it.

She shrieked in pain as she dropped to the floor. From her back, she sent up a flurry of snap kicks, but none of them connected. Then a large hand snared her ankle and wrenched her over onto her stomach.

"Get the hell off me!" she cried. She managed to roll onto her side and, as the blood ran into her eyes, took a look back at her attacker. In the darkness, she could make out the outline of his long coat. He yanked her leg back towards him and then drove his knee down into her spine to pin her down.

She tried to swing her arm back at him, but she couldn't turn her torso enough to land the punch. She looked back again, and she could see a few specks of light reflect off of his swooper helmet and windscreen glasses. Recognition turned her instinctual fear into something different—a horrible sense of hurt and betrayal.

_It's Agent Moss_, she realized. _Father gave him my address_. Her eyes stung bitterly—whether from blood or tears, she would never know.

Moss' gloved fist rose above his shoulder, and though she couldn't see it, she knew there was a large knife clenched there.

He thrust it down.

_**To be continued...**_


	13. Chapter 13

I.

Ysanne braced for the inevitable impact—for the steel of Moss' knife to plunge straight through her back. But even as she felt the air shift with his downward thrust, there was another shift—one that she noticed even through her raging fear. She felt the pressure change all around her, and her ears, full of the roar of adrenaline, popped inexplicably. There was a great gust, and Moss was wrenched from her back and thrown clear across the room.

In the pitch black of her apartment, a lightsaber ignited, casting the room in a crimson glow. Darth Vader brought up his blade with a sharp hum, and the narrow band of light outlined the curvatures and the hard angles of his mask. The Dark Lord made long strides across the open floor in front of Ysanne's bed, past where she lay to where Moss had rolled to a stop.

The huge assassin came up into a crouch as Vader closed the distance between them. As Vader brought his blade back over his shoulder, Moss' hand went to his belt. He tossed a marble-sized sphere through the air.

Ysanne watched in a moment of elongated dread. On pure defensive instinct, Vader swung his lightsaber to deflect the incoming projectile. Laying on the floor near the foot of her bed, she had the wherewithal to grasp the heavy blanket with both hands and roll outward, cocooning herself in it even as Vader's blade ripped through the darkened air towards the sphere—and connected.

She heard a sharp pop followed by the deep crackle of fire billowing and cascading up through the room. Vader's iron roar—one of the worst sounds she had ever heard—cut clean through the din. The light of the flames shone through the blanket covering her face, and in a jolt of warmth, she knew she was on fire. She kicked her legs and swung her arms, casting off the flaming blanket and allowing her to see the devastation wrought only seconds before.

Vader staggered about in the center of the room, a torch from the waist up. He whipped off his cloak, sending it to the ground, smoking and curling in on itself.

Moss emerged from beneath the protection of his cape-like flak jacket, yanking a heavy pistol from the holster strapped to his calf as he stood. Even as Ysanne shrieked a warning, Moss pumped four bolts into the Dark Lord as he twisted about in flames.

The pistol leapt out of Moss' grip and shot past Vader with such speed that it shattered against the far wall. Vader lifted his two flaming arms over his head, both gauntleted hands still gripping the hilt of his lightsaber. Even in the hellish firelight, and with his mirrored glasses hiding his eyes, Ysanne was certain she could see the change in Moss' normally unreadable face. The recognition that he was now drawing his final breath.

Vader's blade whooped downward so sharply, it created an arc of crimson light through the black air. That arc passed straight down Moss' front, through the space between his legs, and then clean through Ysanne's floor. Vader held that pose, his saber pointed downward as the blade hummed between the floorboards. A tendril of smoke rose from the burning fibers of the carpet.

Moss remained totally still for a moment, a black stripe gouged straight down his face and chest. Then Ysanne watched in fascinated horror as the two vertical halves of the man separated, one falling to the right and forward, while the other fell left and backward. Each struck the floor like cauterized meat.

Ysanne remained frozen in place for a long moment before the frantic beeping of an alarm snapped her out of it. From the ceiling, a half-dozen recessed nozzles sprayed a cloud of fire suppressant down into the room. The lashing flames reduced and then extinguished, dropping her and Vader back into total darkness. Her apartment now seemed almost exactly as it always was, save for the Dark Lord's labored breathing, the acrid stench of smoke, and the bisected corpse on her carpet.

Vader rumbled from the shadows. "You will need to move."

II.

Han crossed his arms and looked down at the ferrocrete floor. It was stained with the leaked fuels and coolants of the thousand smuggling ships that had passed through Shug Ninx's garage over the years for repairs and illegal modifications. He could feel Varica Econa's withering stare burning holes into the back of his head as he wondered just how to handle this unexpected turn of events. "Ninx, you guys told me there were two Corellian Corvettes here on Nar Shaada we could buy."

Shug exhaled in frustration and looked away. The industrial light fixtures three stories above them cast a muted green glow over the huge hangar bay, and brought out the speckled skin along Shug's chin and jaw line—a sign of his mixed human and Theelin heritage.

"Not only don't you have two ships," Han said, "you don't even have _one_." He shook his head. "I came a long way, pal."

Shug threw up a hand and came back in his growling voice. "You're barkin' up the wrong tree, Solo—like always. I told you this was Mako's deal."

"Then where the hell is he?"

"I told you, he—

Shug stopped as Warb, the kid who hung around the shop, pushed a data pad into the mechanic's hand.

"Just hang on a second," Shug said distractedly. He turned away with the lanky youth to sort out their business.

Varica gave Han a cold smile. "I'm impressed," she said. "Want to hear my impression?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. "Not even remotely."

"Oh, come on," she said. "Let's assume it's an order from your superior officer."

Han bit back his retort. Leia's cousin was everyone's buddy and casual as hell until things stopped going her way. _Then she reminds you she's your boss_. "I've known these guys for years," he said. "They're reliable." He waived a dismissive hand towards the vast empty space on the hangar deck where the advertised Corvettes should have been, but weren't. "Usually."

"Reliable usually," she said. "Maybe that should be their slogan."

Han didn't reply, but instead walked across the hangar to Shug just as Warb jogged off with his marching orders.

"I'm sorry, Han," Shug said. "I told Mako he could use my place as the point of sale, but that's the only hand I got in this thing. I don't know what else to tell you." He grinned at Han. "But I'm sure Mako does."

Han snorted and clapped his old friend on the arm. It was a subtle gesture between friends with history, and it let him know this was nothing personal. "He always does."

Shug raised his eye brows and tipped his chin towards Varica, who was deeply engrossed in reading economic reports on her data pad. "So what's her story? She with you?"

Han's tone was definitive. "Not at all." He turned back to make sure she was out of earshot. "But on that subject… Is Salla around?"

"Nope."

Han frowned. "Well, where is she?"

Shug scratched the back of his neck. "Made a run out to Far Darashek."

"But that's clear across the galaxy. Didn't you tell her I was coming?"

Shug gave him a meaningful look. "Yeah, pal. I did."

It took a moment to compute. "Oh." Han looked down at his boots, embarrassed. "She couldn't get far enough away, huh?"

"She said something about heading for the Unknown Regions, but I talked her down." He smirked and punched Han's shoulder.

Han swatted his hand away. "Eat it, grease monkey."

The overhead lights shifted from green to red, bathing everything in ruby light. An automated female voice sounded throughout the hangar. _"Vessel approaching. Clearance code verified."_

"That's Mako," Shug said. "He's in the chute." The chute was the camouflaged and shielded tunnel that ran from Nar Shaada's dilapidated city exterior to Ninx's secret base of operations nestled deep in the lower levels.

Han looked to the far wall, where a cavernous opening was positioned. He had landed the _Falcon_ not far in front of it. After a few seconds, he heard the rising drone of engines echoing out of the chute, and then a small freighter slipped out from its shadowy interior, passing over the _Falcon_ and easing down onto the deck.

Shug made a casual turn so that his mouth was close to Han's ear. "This the first time you're seeing him since the injury?"

Han clenched his teeth and swallowed. _I can't believe I'd forgotten_. "Yeah," he said.

"Don't mention it unless he does."

The freighter's gangway lowered, and Han's old friend Mako Spince appeared in the doorway. Mako, who'd been the wildest cadet at the Imperial Academy. Who'd been expelled for stealing anti-matter from a science lab and using it to blow apart Carida's orbiting moon. Who'd set up Han with his first smuggling job after he'd tanked his naval career—thanks to the rescue of a certain Wookiee from enslavement.

Mako. Who now descended his ship's ramp in a wheel chair.

Han whispered to himself. "Damn it, buddy. What'd they do to you?" He forced a smile onto his face and strode out to meet him. He spoke in a loud, jovial voice. "You know I ought to give you hell about those gunships, but it's so damn good to see you that I'm happy to let it slide." He knew Varica was probably ready to kill him, but right now he couldn't care less.

Mako rolled to a stop just shy of Han's feet. The mane of dark hair that had always framed his square-jawed face was now shot through with gray. After a moment's pause, he slowly put out a hand, which Han grabbed and shook vigorously.

Mako said, "Sorry about the corvettes, Solo." He shook his head. "My vendor got a last minute take-it-or-leave-it offer that he couldn't pass up. We didn't even get a chance to counter."

Varica's irate voice came across the hangar. "We were already paying forty-percent over sticker. What the hell did the competition offer?"

Mako's eyes tracked in her direction. "More, honey. An undisclosed more."

Han blew out a sharp breath in frustration. Then he looked down at Mako. He didn't know what the etiquette was, but he hated feeling like he was looming over his friend. He squatted down so they could talk at eye level. "You got a line on anything else for us?"

Mako smiled, but it barely changed his dour face. He looked so much older than Han had remembered. "I've got a few things brewing. But nothing I can come across with on this trip."

Han nodded. "I read you. Next time, then."

"Next time."

With that, Mako pulled the control stick on his armrest and the chair spun around in a neat one-eighty before whirring off back towards his freighter.

Han's brow furrowed in confusion. "Hey, Mako," he called after him. "Aren't we gonna grab a drink? Catch up?"

Mako stopped the chair, but did not turn around. His voice was dull and flat. "Thought I'd have heard from you before now," he said. "And not just about buying some ships."

With another flick of the wrist, he was back in motion, moving up his ship's ramp. It began lifting shut even as he was still rolling up it.

* * *

><p>Han stared out at the mottled vortex of light beyond the cockpit as the <em>Falcon<em> soared across hyperspace. Varica stepped into the cabin and dropped into Chewie's seat. The Wook had stayed behind to help the rebels plan Operation Liberate, their big campaign to throw a wrench in the machinations of Imperial slavery. He wished his first mate was around—he would've greatly preferred his company.

Varica asked, "How did your friend end up paralyzed?"

Han didn't really want to talk about it, but refusing to answer would only lead to other more irritating verbal exchanges. "Had a run in with some pirates in the Ottega system. Happened just before I took up with the Alliance." Han batted the dice hanging from the ceiling. "I'd meant to get in touch with him, but I never got around to it."

Varica waved off his regrets. "He gave you the full guilt trip back there, but you shouldn't sweat it. He lived by the sword—laid down with the womp rats—whatever you like."

Han felt his temper rising, but instead channeled that reaction into a somewhat patronizing chuckle.

She furrowed her brow. "What?"

"The universe must be real simple for you," he said. "People either act exactly as you would and, by your math, succeed—or they veer off in any one of a million other directions, and then deserve every bad thing that happens to them."

He expected her to bite his head off, or to storm off into the rear hold, but she surprised him by parting her lips with a shining grin. "That's perfect. I need to write that down."

"Wasn't a compliment, General."

"I know. But it's still me all the way through." She gave him a long, evaluative look, as though she was measuring his value. "You're a perceptive guy, Solo. I'm surprised you don't have your own fleet of smuggling ships by now."

Han shook his head. "I never wanted that. Guess we measure success a little differently."

"Your loss," she said. She gave his thigh a mischievous squeeze. "But at least now you get to serve under me." Her manicured hand remained a beat longer than Han might have expected before she pulled back to her side of the cockpit.

Han cleared his throat. He felt his face warming and leaned forward to busy himself with the controls. "Just remember I'm the only one of you saps who gets _paid_ to do this." He turned to look at her. "But on the subject of success and failure, let me ask you this: all this bad blood between you and Leia—your fault or hers?"

She pursed her lips, looked away, and then answered without hesitation. "My fault."

"A failure?"

She nodded and then smiled to herself. "We all have them. That was my _tour de force_."

"What happened?"

"Ask Leia. She'll make it sound vicious and despicable." All mirth vanished from her face as she locked eyes with him. "And it'll all be true."

Han held her gaze, and found he was at a loss for words. Fortunately, the navicomputer's proximity alert cut through the painful silence and gave them both an out.

"Ten seconds to sub-light reversion."

He placed his hand over the hyperdrive lever and eased it forward. The distorted tunnel of light unwound and broke apart into a thousand bolts of light racing past in all directions. He pushed the lever forward one more notch, and the bolts then shrank to individual star points set against the endless black of space.

Han brought the _Falcon_ about, and the star field shifted right as he banked to starboard, bringing their remarkable destination into view.

Detritus Five, site of the new base of operations for the Rebel Alliance.

Detritus had always been a desolate world. The surface was similar to Tatooine's in that it was covered entirely by desert. But where Tatooine had rolling dunes of dense, soft sand, Detritus was all hard scrabble—parched and cracked rock flats that stretched to the horizon in all directions. But, thanks to twenty years without adequate sunlight, the atmospheric temperature had dropped from furnace hot to below freezing. The cause of this was immediately apparent upon approach to the planet.

Detritus was encrusted by three-hundred-sixty degrees of jagged wreckage—the remains of no less than nine-hundred Clone War-era battleships, which orbited the planet from pole to pole. The razor sharp metal fragments and burnt out carcasses of vessels made for a tight-woven mesh that allowed for scarcely a glimpse of the planet's natural surface.

"Home sweet home," Varica said.

Han flipped a switch on the control panel. "Detritus Base, this is _Millennium_ _Falcon_. Transmitting clearance codes." He struck a few more keys and waited.

_"Acknowledged, _Falcon_. The Plow is en route."_

"Copy that."

Ahead of them, the debris field rippled as though an amphibian was swimming through a pond covered with muck and fallen leaves.

With genuine anticipation, Varica said, "I love this part."

A giant, durasteel cone burst forth from the wreckage, scattering hollow fuselages and twisted chassis as it cleared the debris field. Han was both disturbed and intrigued as the body of a clone trooper tumbled past the left side of his canopy, perfectly preserved by the icy vacuum of space.

_"Plow to _Falcon_—we're coming about for reentry. Transmitting coordinates for tractoring."_

"Receiving," Han said.

The Plow used its maneuvering thrusters to rotate one-hundred-eighty degrees, slowly bringing the cone's rear aperture into view. The cone section of the hull was extremely thick, so that it could handle impacts with any floating wrecks. The interior of the cone, however, was hollow. At the center of the aperture was a cylinder-shaped drive section with three glowing exhaust nozzles at the rear. The drive section was short enough that it did not protrude past the rim of the cone, ensuring its protection from impact.

"It's nice to see my money at work," Varica commented.

Han ignored her and brought the _Falcon_ into the cone's hollow interior. It instantly eclipsed his view of the debris field and everything else. His forward floodlights pierced the darkness and tracked along The Plow's drive section as he tucked in off its portside and came to a stop. He spoke into the comm. "We're in position."

_"Standby for tractor beam."_ There was a slight jolt. _"Lock established. We'll clear the debris field in about thirty seconds. Surface Ops has cleared you to land in the north docking bay."_

"Copy," Han said, killing the channel. He turned to Varica. "You know, by the princess's calculations, we're showing up minus a couple of gunships. Who's gonna break the news?"

She gave him a look that was all business. "Your friends, your failure. Your report." With that, she stood from the co-pilot chair and walked back into the hold.

III.

Having just finished hearing Han's report, Leia was fighting off a growing headache when the comm unit on her desk beeped. She reached across her desk—a brand new gleaming white one to go along with their brand new base of operations—and hit the reply button. "Yes?"

_"This is Sergeant Haggitt in the comm center. Excuse me, Your Highness, but I think you'll want to see what's coming over the Imperial News Net."_

"Acknowledged," she said. "Organa out." She turned around in her new chair, and keyed on her new vid display.

An Imperial officer was delivering a statement from behind a podium bearing the sigil of the Galactic Empire. _"… who was killed by Imperial security during the recent attack on Commenor. It was determined that he was, in fact, a known affiliate of the Rebel Alliance terrorist network."_ Inset on the screen was a still image of a dark haired man who looked vaguely familiar. His name, Quinnak Zom, was listed underneath the image.

Leia jabbed at the comm unit again. "Haggitt?"

_"Yes, Your Highness?"_

"Is someone searching our database for this Quinnak Zom?"

_"Yes, ma'am."_

"Very good. Have the information sent to me as soon as it's recovered." Haggitt confirmed and Leia broke the channel again, returning her attention to the Imperial propaganda officer on her display.

_"… at this time we have no conclusive data as to why the rebels would murder Alderaanian refugees, especially given their past collaboration."_ The image of Zom disappeared, to be replaced with a second video feed, this one of stormtroopers fighting off masked combatants at a spaceport. Leia swallowed as she looked upon the dead bodies of her countrymen lying at their feet.

_"We have reason to believe that the Commenor attacks—as well as many of the others reported across the Empire—were perpetrated against Alderaanian refugees by rebel operatives." _

Leia's eyes burned and her jaw quivered with rage. "Are you animals _insane?_" she demanded of the video display.

_"We are aware that some citizens are concerned about the mandatory relocation of the Alderaanian survivors. This new information linking the rebels to the recent attacks makes clear the absolute need to keep the refugees out of their reach. As we work to determine the rebel motive in these abhorrent attacks, the Empire will hold to its pledge to provide amnesty to the surviving Alderaanians, and to keep secret the location of their new home world."_

If Leia had been carrying a sidearm, she might well have drawn it and blown the display to pieces.

IV.

Winter walked former Imperial General Carlist Rieekan up to survival shelter no. 3956 at the Alderaanian refugee camp. She rapped a knuckle on the durasteel dome, and a moment later, a tall, stout man emerged.

"General," she said, "meet Javis Oakborn."

Oakborn had been bearded when he'd first been detained over a month ago, and his once well-kept facial hair was now a bushy mane. His civilian button-down shirt and dark pants struck a sharp contrast to the light blue prison suit Rieekan wore.

Oakborn stuck out a hand. "Pleased to meet you, sir."

Rieekan grasped his hand and answered in his gravelly drawl. "We appreciate your help, friend."

"It's the least I can do."

Rieekan clapped him on the shoulder and they each bent down and climbed inside the igloo-like shelter while Winter stood watch outside.

It had taken a few days, but one by one, they had brought over all of the Alderaanian military prisoners from their isolated island to the main network of isles occupied by the civilian refugee population. The problem was, they had to assume that the Imperials were scanning the surface to monitor the population. They couldn't bring over the hundred or so military prisoners without the Empire noticing that their designated island was empty.

Oakborn climbed back out of the shelter, now wearing Rieekan's prison blues. Rieekan came out a moment later in Oakborn's clothes.

Rieekan smiled at her. "Perfect fit," he said, appreciating Winter's good eye in selecting a body match for him.

She turned to Oakborn. "Now comes the interesting part."

He swallowed nervously, and nodded.

"Come on," she said.

Rieekan needed to coordinate with his men, and left Winter and Oakborn to make their way to the edge of the cliff that faced the military island. The steel cable they had rigged up ran straight across the chasm between the two mountainous islands. Hundreds of meters below, the rough green ocean churned. Massive crests of water crashed into the island's rock walls, where the waves broke in explosions of white foam and mist.

Winter spoke over the distant roar of the currents. "Ready to move house and live the soldier's life?" Like the other volunteers they had wrangled, Oakborn would cross via the cable and take up residence on the military island, making it so that any Imperial sensor sweeps would find the right body count there—and leaving the real soldiers free to operate, and to maintain the element of surprise.

Oakborn's eyes were wide as he stared across the channel. He gave a decisive nod, and took a step forward toward the tree where the cable was fastened. On the second step, his legs wobbled. He then froze for a full second, and grabbed both of his knees. Then he barfed on the grass.

Winter stayed close and patted his back. "Easy, big guy. There's no rush. Let's take our time."

* * *

><p>The refugee transports always landed on one of the three islands that had clearings large enough to accommodate them. Having a total of one hundred and five Alderaanian soldiers at the camp—Winter included—that gave them thirty-five troops to station near each of the landing sites. Typically, each transport ship would be crewed by two pilots and between two and twelve Imp guards, depending on how many refugees were aboard ship.<p>

The good news was that the Alderaanian soldiers would outnumber the Imperial crewmen in all circumstances. The bad news, however, was that they didn't have a single blaster among them. They also didn't have any communicators, so there was no way to coordinate their efforts after the ship landed. The lucky group that encountered the transport ship would have to hijack it on their own.

Winter was sitting under a tree at the edge of a grassy clearing when she heard the drone of a starship's engines above. She looked over at Rieekan, who was sitting with some of his men several meters to her right. His steely eyes remained fixed on the descending craft as he called out, "Take your positions."

A minute later when the ship's landing skids touched down, she tried to look casual while coming up into a coiled crouch. She reached down to the ground next to her and laid her hand on the large stone she'd been carrying around for the past four days. She stared intently at the ship's boarding hatch. _You have to succeed. For the future of your people._

The hatch opened, flipping outward and down until in lay at an angle and rested on the grass. Black clad naval troopers flanked the doorway as the refugees began filing down the ramp. At first, there was a steady stream—at least forty people by Winter's count. As a few elderly people made their way down, along with one mother and her toddler, Winter knew these stragglers would be the end of the flow.

From all sides, groups of men casually walked out of the surrounding trees to greet the new arrivals. One pair even approached directly behind the boarding ramp.

_Here we go._

One of the pair reached up from behind and underneath the ramp and grabbed the Imp trooper's ankle with both hands. He yanked outward, dropping the trooper onto his back. His Alderaanian partner vaulted onto the ramp from the opposite side, charging up the gangway and plowing into the second Imp just as he was raising his rifle. He took a blast full in the chest, but his momentum still carried him forward enough to tackle the trooper to the deck.

The rest of Rieekan's men charged in from all sides.

Winter's lower body tensed and swayed as she prepared to launch herself forward. She hesitated. _Do I go now?_ She cursed herself. _Go now, damn you—go!_

She took off running toward the hatch. The remaining Imp guards had formed a skirmish line at the hatch and were firing heavily into the swarming Alderaanians. Rieekan's men sacrificed themselves in droves, running headlong into blaster bolts to give cover to the men behind them. Winter watched as an Alderaanian broke through the line and knocked over a trooper. Another Imp turned and shot that man dead, but was himself tackled before he could turn back to the mob.

_We're overwhelming them_, Winter thought as she closed the gap.

The Imperials obviously agreed, because the ship suddenly roared to life, and it began to float up off the ground. The ramp began lifting shut as the remaining guards shot and kicked the raiders off of it.

Winter took a running leap upward and grabbed the edge of the hatch with her left hand. As her feet swung about in open air beneath her, she used her right hand to jam her rock hard into the mechanism at the corner of the hatch. There was a screech of metal on stone, and the hatch ceased closing. The wedge of open space that remained open between the ramp and the hatchway was less than a meter wide at the top and considerably less at the bottom where Winter held on. But the ship's upward momentum had ceased.

_They can't lift off with an open hatch._

A blaster muzzle appeared right in front of her face. Dangling from the ship, with the ground twenty meters beneath her, Winter realized she was entirely alone.

The guard smiled from behind his blaster, his bloody nose running over his lips. "So long, blondie."

_**To be continued… **_


	14. Chapter 14

I.

As Winter stared down the barrel of the guard's rifle, a boot kicked the side of his head, knocking him off his crouch. He fired on reflex, and the bolt passed her face with a deafening sizzle that scalded her ear and singed her hair. From her low vantage point—hanging onto the bottom of the hatchway for dear life—she could only see the back of the second man's legs as he repeatedly kicked the ship's last surviving guard into unconsciousness. She could also see that his wrists were shackled at the base of his back.

She shouted over the whipping wind and the drone of the engines. "Try for the ramp release!"

He turned around and flung his shoulder into the edge of the hatchway, striking the appropriate panel and sending the ramp easing back downward. Then he slid down the door jamb to his knees, and Winter scrambled up the ramp, throwing herself onto the interior deck and its relative safety. When she rolled over to look at her rescuer, her eyes widened in complete shock.

Tycho Celchu, still panting from exertion, met her gaze with equal surprise. Then he shook his head and snorted a quick, breathless laugh. "Figures," he said.

* * *

><p>A few minutes later the transport was back on the ground, or more precisely, it was on one of the many flat-topped mountain islands that made up the Alderaanian refugee camp. The two Imperial pilots Winter and Tycho had captured were being held at blaster point under a tree at the edge of the landing zone.<p>

Rieekan released Tycho from the bear hug he'd enveloped him in upon seeing him. He patted Tycho's cheek, still grinning ear to ear with tears shining in his eyes. "Thank the stars, boy." His barrel chest shook with a deep chuckle. "Thank our lucky stars."

Winter was still trying to process. "You know each other."

Tycho gave her the odd, patient smile of a man undeniably vindicated, but with the good graces not to rub her nose in it. "The Rieekan and Celchu families have always been close. The General honored me by sponsoring my commission at the Academy."

"Best damned pilot Alderaan ever produced," Rieekan said. His smile disappeared and he became intensely earnest. "We'll need you, son. Join the Alliance with us."

He shifted his gaze to Winter. "It's all I've been wanting to do."

She swallowed. "Mr. Celchu, I just want to say I—

Tycho held up a hand. "Hold that thought." He turned back to Rieekan. "General, this ship is a KDY-22 light carrier."

Rieekan frowned. "No hyperdrive. It must have been brought here by a mother ship."

"Exactly." Tycho gestured towards the Imperial prisoners. "We put a little pressure on the pilots and found out this planet borders on the Wilderness Nebula. Its interference acts as a natural jamming agent, keeping the camp secret, but also blocks local sensors and ship-to-ship communication."

Rieekan crossed his arms. "So the pilots couldn't have sent word of our little insurrection. But there's a cruiser waiting in orbit, and we've got to get our bird back there before she's missed."

Winter nodded. "Crew compliment was six men. General, we'll need to get you out, of course, and Mr. Celchu will pilot. That leaves us needing three more volunteers."

Rieekan sighed and fixed her with a solemn gaze. "Four, I'm afraid."

Winter shook her head impatiently. "General, I know you must feel a sense of responsibility for the people here, but the intelligence you bring over will—

"I'll be on that ship, Winter," Rieekan said. "But you won't be."

Winter's stared back at him, speechless. Her thoughts went to an image of Tycho, lying stunned on the floor of their hotel room on Commenor, the smoking blaster held firm in her hand. _Does Rieekan know that I left Tycho defenseless?_ At the time, she hadn't known that the Empire was rounding up all Alderaanians. But it didn't change the fact that her actions had almost certainly caused his arrest.

"General," Tycho started, "we can't just leave her to—

"Six _men_," Rieekan cut in. "With radio silence in effect, you know they'll scan us the moment we touch down inside their hangar."

Comprehension came to Tycho's eyes. "And when they pick up a female life sign, they'll know the ship's been compromised."

"Sithspawn," Winter breathed. There were no women in the Imperial Navy. _After all these years, my life is finally impacted by good old fashioned Imperial sexism._ _At least my exclusion isn't a personal retaliation._ _I just don't have the right parts for the part. _

Rieekan took hold of Winter's shoulders. "You were right when you said I feel responsible for our people. That's why I'm entrusting you with command once we're gone. You'll need to get these people organized—so that they can be evacuated on a moment's notice."

Winter was desperate to argue—to find a way to be on that ship and get back to the rebellion—but she knew circumstances made it impossible. "I understand," she said. "And I'll give you the protocols and clearance codes you'll need to contact the Alliance."

"That's risky," Tycho said. "Are you sure we can take the chance?"

Winter gave him a small smile. "I think our people's freedom demands that we do." She reached out and squeezed his hand. "I'm done leaving good people behind."

II.

When Luke and his squadron had been briefed about severe tundra conditions on Praaja II last month—only to find the planet just mildly cold—it had caused Luke to wonder if the similar description of Alzoc III would likewise prove to be an exaggeration. But as his X-Wing was buffeted about by sub-arctic gales, and ice crept in from the corners of his canopy, he realized that, if anything, marketing Alzoc as a frozen hell would be underselling it. The dense cloud cover they flew beneath dumped kilotons of snow, blocking out the sun and casting the skies in a dark purple shot through with grey.

Luke took a deep breath. This was the first mission being flown under Operation Liberate. He would not have been surprised if it had been given to a more seasoned squadron—or to just _any_ _other_ squadron for that matter—considering the very mixed results of their last two missions at Praaja and Lakaron. But Mon Mothma and General Econa had been in his corner, and pushed hard for Red Squadron to spearhead the campaign. So here they were.

_There's a lot of eyes on this one._ That's what General Econa had said to him when she wished him luck the day before they headed out. Alone in his cockpit, Luke shook his head. _As if I could ever forget._

On the plus side, however, was the simple fact that this was the first stab at the Imperial enslavement program, and therefore the enemy had no reason to be on heightened alert. Intel had also shown that the so-called 'labor academies' had only low-to-moderate sized defensive capabilities, and most of those were aimed inward—designed to quell prisoner insurrections as opposed to holding off external attacks.

Luke put out the order for roll call. "All wings report in." The eight veteran members of his squadron—including Trask, who had been unusually quiet of late—checked in, along with the four replacement pilots he'd been assigned to cover their recent losses at Lakaron.

Luke dropped his fighter down to glide along the snow-packed surface of the planet. The rest of the squadron held formation right behind him. "Okay, boys," he said. "We're ten klicks out from target. Lock s-foils in attack position." He reached up and flipped the lever, parting his wings into their signature X.

Directly ahead, a massive granite bluff half hidden by snow drifts rose two-hundred meters out of the ground. The Alzoc labor center stood at the summit—a high-walled fortress with a turbolaser tower at each of the four corner positions. Centered within the walls were slave barracks for the Talz—the native aliens they were holding—as well as the command bunker for the Imperial contingent guarding them.

"Lead—Three," Wedge said over the comm. "I'm picking up additional contacts around the perimeter of the base."

Luke eased back on his flight stick, bringing his nose up to rise above the icy cliff face and past the fortress. Then a heavy pair of ruby cannon bolts lanced up at him, rending the frozen air and roaring past him on either side. He bit back a startled curse and rolled to evade the line of fire. He then got a visual on Wedge's sensor contact.

"Walkers!" Hobbie called. "We have a pair of AT-AT walkers—one east and one west of the base."

Luke brought his X-Wing around in a tight arc that looped around the back wall of the fortress, taking care to remain below the firing radius of the turbolaser towers churning out dense layers of fire. When he swung out on the other side, he saw the rear of the second lumbering walker. Its aft cannon spat a trio of bolts at him and Dack as they rolled left and streaked past it, disappearing into the swirling blizzard beyond.

"Three flight," Luke ordered, "take out the base's gun turrets. Two flight takes the east walker. One flight, on me—we're hitting the west."

"Lead—Eleven," Wes Janson said. "I just hit ours with a full quad shot to the face. No effect."

Luke came out of a long turn and popped out of the fog bank from the side, framing the profile of the west walker in his heads-up-display. The HUD immediately went red and he squeezed down hard on his trigger, peppering its massive flank with scarlet energy bolts as he closed to point blank range. When he finally yanked back on the flight stick and whipped over its back, the only evidence of his blistering attack was the faintest carbon scoring on its armor.

A sharp burst of static cut through Luke's earpiece and clenched his heart. He knew what it meant. "Red Eight is hit!" Zev Senesca cried. Luke turned to his right and saw the black plume of smoke streak down and plow into the snow. Orange fire bloomed and the blackened husk of the fuselage cut a swath through the bleak white landscape.

"Lead—Twelve," Trask said. "Permission to fire torpedoes at the walkers."

The torpedoes were supposed to be held back and then used to breach the fortress outer walls. _But I doubt we'll need a full compliment from every fighter, _Luke thought._ And it won't matter if we all get killed before we have a chance to even try it._ But Trask was in Three flight and they were charged with taking out the laser turrets.

"Good call, Trask," Luke replied, "but I need you hitting those towers."

"Aye, sir," he said.

"One and Two flights," Luke called, "fire one torpedo each at the walker—then check in."

Luke heard a round of acknowledgements as he hauled his stick into his chest and put his fighter into a full vertical climb. Dack stayed right with him. "Okay, Ten," he told Dack, "on my signal we come around and dive straight down at him. Put your torp right into his spine."

"Copy, boss," Dack said.

Luke felt his stomach flip as he dove back towards the surface. A second later, they broke through the cloud cover, and the slate grey back of the walker rushed in at them.

"Now!" Luke triggered his shot and Dack's glowing blue torpedo joined his a heartbeat after. "Evasive," he cried, pulling out of the dive and swooping away from the blast radius.

The torpedoes exploded against its back. The mechanical beast's knees buckled under the monumental impact of the blasts, driving it several meters downward as its massive feet were compressed down into the snow.

But it did not fall. It swung its heavy head to the left and sent a flurry of shots after Luke's and Dack's tails as they sped away.

Wedge's voice came over the comm. "Lead, we're negative on torpedo effect. We hit it with a broadside of four warheads and it barely tipped off balance."

Another voice—one of the replacements Luke didn't recognize. "I'm hit! Ejection system not func—

Another burst of static, and then the empty silence.

"What are your orders, Lead?" Wedge asked.

_Torpedoes can't penetrate their armor,_ Luke thought. _But maybe they don't have to._

"Three flight—have you neutralized the turrets?"

"Affirmative," Hobbie answered. "We're still taking fire from some stormies using tripod E-Webs, but our shields can handle that."

"Good work," Luke said. "Bring your guys around to the north side and stay there until you punch a hole in their wall."

"Lead," Hobbie said, "those walkers will step out around the corner and wipe us out in five seconds. We can make multiple runs at it and keep moving until—

"Negative, Four. We'll give you cover, but you are ordered to _hold that position_." He had a plan, but he didn't want to let on in case the Imps could tap into their comm signal. "Get moving."

Luke could almost hear Hobbie swallow through the comm. "Aye, sir. Three flight, on me."

Luke banked through the snow saturated fog and came around to hang a full kilometer out from the fortress, the front of which stood near the edge of the white-capped cliff face. He pointed his fighter's nose straight at the northern wall, having to make constant corrections to compensate for the buffeting wind. "Flights one and two—come about to my position and slave your targeting computer to mine. Set torpedoes to dual fire mode." He received acknowledgments and the rest of the squadron swooped in from various trajectories to come alongside him.

Luke watched as Hobbie's quartet of fighters regrouped to hover a few hundred meters out from the wall and opened fire. Their torpedoes exploded brilliantly against the armored wall, lighting up the snow-choked sky between them and Luke.

"First volley cracked the armor," Hobbie reported. "We can see fissures in the durasteel, but no breaches large enough for—

"Here they come!" Trask called. "Walker coming around the northeast corner—Lead, get the hell in here!"

"On our way," Luke said. "Red squadron, on me—prepare to fire on my mark." Luke stomped on his thrusters and sliced through the blizzard toward the fortress. The structure raced into focus, just as the lumbering walker's head craned around the corner, its heavy front feet treading the edge of the cliff face.

Luke dropped his HUD's crosshairs to the cliff's edge—right below the walker's feet. "Fire!"

His pair of torpedoes streaked across the gap in fraction of a second and disappeared into the snow bank, only to detonate a heartbeat later. Huge gouts of ice and granite erupted into the air, coating the walker's legs and underside as it stumbled forward, its footing lost. Another heartbeat after that, a dozen more projectiles—six more X-Wings's worth of torpedoes—nailed the same spot, exploding enough rock and snow to throw the walker several meters up into the air.

And when it came back down, the ground beneath it was entirely gone. The walker dropped off the cliff like a stone, riding an avalanche of grey and white. It fell for nearly four seconds before hitting the ground on its side with a wet, seismic thump that rattled Luke's canopy. The impact was so terrific that two-thirds of it was instantly buried within the snow.

_"Yahoo!"_ Dack howled. Jubilant cries filled Luke's ears, but there was no time.

"Cut the chatter," he shouted over them. "All fighters on me. We need to drive that second walker over the edge before he backs away from the cliff."

Luke led the line of X-Wings, ten strong, in a graceful, soaring train past the east wall and around the south. When they rounded the corner to come up along the west wall, the AT-AT commander had his walker reversing from the cliff's edge as fast as its enormous legs could manage. It's armored ass bounced up and down prodigiously as it attempted a panicked, backwards jog.

"Save a torp for the wall, guys," Wedge reminded everyone.

"Roger that," Luke agreed. _"Hit 'em!"_

Luke launched a pair straight into its backside, halting its backward momentum. As he pulled up to pass over its back, Dack's pair struck in nearly the same place, causing it to stumble forward.

"Okay everyone," Wedge called from the rear of the formation, "keep the heat on."

Luke looked at his rear display and began to wonder if they could pull it off. "Dack," he said, "let's you and me hedge our bets. Target the ground beneath its front feet."

Dack laughed. "Love the way you think, skipper."

They came about, dodging the walker's front-facing shots by weaving about wildly as they angled in from above. The torps from their squadron-mates continued to explode against the walker's rear, driving it towards the precipice a few meters at a time. Luke and Dack aimed their crosshairs right between its front feet and let fly.

The two torps struck the snow with a puff and then exploded violently beneath the surface, shattering the white blanket and the stone beneath it.

Wedge and Janson brought up the rear of the main assault and each slammed a pair home, driving the walker's rear end upward and its front feet downward into the disintegrating cliff edge. The walker tipped forward into the rockslide, careening into a full summersault as it tumbled downward along the snowy slopes. It's back bounced off the steep gradient and when its face came back around and struck the ground at the bottom, the entire vehicle exploded, sending its legs flipping away in flames.

When the cheers came over the comm this time, Luke smiled along and did nothing to silence them.

III.

Within the Detritus base central command hub, Leia sat in a conference room with the rest of the Alliance high command. On a large wall-mounted view screen, they watched as an X-Wing launched the final torpedo into the outer wall of the Alzoc labor fortress. When the explosion dissipated, a wide, jagged breach became visible. Within seconds, scores of the giant, fur-covered Talz began spilling out, running as fast as they could into the protective obscurity of the blizzard conditions of their home world.

As Leia looked around the table at her compatriots, and beyond them to the pristine, gleaming walls that could be found in every room of their new base, she couldn't help but be amazed. While past Alliance bases—such as the Massassi temples on Yavin IV—had always been established in existing structures, the rebels had been hampered by the fact that there were absolutely no structures on this barren world.

And so her cousin Varica, former baroness of the Royal House of Alderaan, had suggested that they simply buy a base. And here they now sat, in their brand new SoroSuub G-class planetary installation—available for sale on the open market to governments and corporations, or to anyone else who could cover its enormous price tag.

The G-class base looked like a wheel, with the command center and hangar complex located at the center hub. Spoke-like habitat wings shot out from the center at regular intervals, and an outer ring wrapped around and enclosed the overall structure. The base had been installed on the planet by way of the rebels flying each major component down separately, after penetrating the orbiting debris field with their 'plow' ship—also purchased new. The components were then assembled by rebel engineers on the surface. The feat had required logistics and resources that Leia would never have believed could be attained by the rag-tag group of freedom fighters. And Varica had personally organized and overseen quite a bit of it.

Leia studied the newly-minted General Varica Econa, who was intently watching the flight recorder logs from Luke's X-Wing. Her chair was turned half away from Leia, who looked at the sculpted curve of Varica's jaw line, and the satisfied smile she wore at seeing the mission's success. _As much as I don't care for her personally, her presence here has elevated our capabilities to a whole new level._ It galled her that the money Varica had brought over with her was really Alderaan's money, but the simple truth was that no one else had been in a position to secure those funds within the narrow window of time between Alderaan's destruction and the Empire's subsequent freezing of all Alderaanian assets. Without her particular mindset and skill set, those funds would have vanished, and the rebels would have been limited to low-level harassment of Imperial targets—especially after the high cost of their victory against the Death Star. _We'd probably be operating out of a cave somewhere._

The recording ended and all chairs turned back towards the center of the long, oval-shaped table, of which Mon Mothma sat at the head, with General Dodonna opposite her at the foot.

"Leia," Mon Mothma said, "this is a fantastic start to the campaign. Please pass along our congratulations to Captain Skywalker."

"Thank you, I will."

Mon Mothma turned to Varica. "Let's choose some highlights from this footage and make sure they find their way to our usual holonet outlets."

Varica nodded. "_Alderaan Spirit_ already has it. In fact, I'd also like to—

She stopped talking as the conference room door abruptly slid open, and a young technician stepped inside. "Excuse me, Chief," he said, holding up a datacard. "We located the Zom file."

Mon Mothma gestured to the view screen. "Please load it into the viewer, Sergeant." He did so and then promptly excused himself from the room.

The dark haired man whose face had been shown on the Imperial News Net now appeared on one side of the screen, with his vital stats listed on the other.

"Corporal Quinnak Zom," Dodonna read off the monitor. "Assigned to Toprawa. That doesn't bode well." The rebels had maintained a safe house on Toprawa that served as a communications relay for Alliance cells scattered throughout the galaxy. Their most significant—and final—contribution to the rebellion was to transmit the Death Star plans to Leia's ship, _Tantive IV_. Leia's ship had jumped out of the system with Vader's star destroyer hot on their trail, but the Empire had wasted no time punishing the Toprawan population for their supposed collaboration. Between orbital bombardment and ground assaults, their cities were destroyed and the civilian population decimated.

Leia frowned as she scanned through the personnel profile, down to the all-important status section. She read aloud. "Killed in Action. The cell commander logged it—probably not long before she herself was killed."

"No one made it off Toprawa?" Varica asked.

Dodonna shook his head.

Mom Mothma said, "And yet the Empire claims Zom found his way to Commenor, where he opened fire into a crowd of Alderaanian refugees."

Leia gave a bitter smile. "Before some valiant stormtroopers came to their defense and killed him."

Varica tapped her datapad stylus against her lower lip. "So we assume they took Zom's body off Toprawa and are now holding it as proof that he took part in the Commenor massacre. We also know it's utter bantha crap." She looked around the table. "They want to make it seem like we're the ones attacking Alderaanian refugees."

Dodonna frowned. "That would seem to be a weak position to take."

"It's as ludicrous as it is disgusting," Leia shot back. "With one hand they destroy Alderaan for its ties to the rebellion, and with the other they claim the rebels are killing the few Alderaanians who survived. No one with a firing synapse will buy it."

Mon Mothma formed her next question as gently as she could. "Is there anything we're not already doing to find out where the Empire has brought them?"

Leia shook her head tiredly. "I don't see what else we can try—they can stash away the refugees anywhere in the galaxy. Our sources on the other side say the internment plans are locked down tight—that the whole thing is being run by Imperial intelligence."

"We'll have to hope Director Isard slips up sooner rather than later," Dodonna said. "Giving us something to go on."

"Assuming there's anything to find," Leia said. "Assuming they're not just…" She swallowed, looking ill. "…just blowing ship loads of our people out of airlocks, or—

"No," Mon Mothma said, reaching out to take Leia's hand. "No. They're out there. We just need to find them."

Leia cleared her throat and swiped away the one tear that had escaped her attempts at control.

"They're working an angle," Varica said. "There's another piece to this strategy still coming." She fixed her eyes to the table as she wracked her brain for the answer. "I just wish I could figure it out before they drop it on us."

IV.

It had been days. Maybe even weeks—they never changed the damned lighting in sickbay, so it was impossible to know. He had just floated in the bacta tank, as time marched by in seconds and minutes and hours, crowding together into a continuum marked only by the endless and gentle thrum of the liquid caressing his ear drums, and the infinite monologue of his own thoughts.

A dull electronic tone cut through the gel. He opened his eyes and could make out the distorted shape of a medical tech standing before him on the other side of the glass. The tech pumped his fist up and down, his thumb extended upward. He looked up through the bacta just as a deep clank resonated through the tank. The top lid above opened, illuminating his liquid environs with the brilliant light just beyond. He pushed off the bottom of the tank and thrust himself upward, breaking the surface with a splash. He felt the slap of cold air on his face and shoulders and relished it as freedom.

He had emerged on the second floor of the sickbay, the bacta tank itself being on the first floor below. Two techs took him under his muscular arms and hoisted him out of the tank, rolling him onto a smooth plastic stretcher that lay on the floor beside the open lid. One of them plucked the respirator from his mouth, immediately replacing it with a rubberized straw attached to a canteen. "Drink, Captain—but not too much."

After his fifth swallow he broke off and gasped for air. There was an overhead light that was making him squint, but a man in the stark white tunic of a doctor stepped into view, his head mercifully eclipsing the glare. His face was silhouetted, but his words sounded as though they came through an amused smile.

"Welcome back, Captain Fel."

* * *

><p>One day later, lying on his bed in sickbay, Fel let the data pad he was reading drop to his chest in disgust. His executive officer had smuggled him copies of the last few issues of the <em>Alderaan Spirit News Service<em>, allowing him to read accounts of rebel activities that took place during the time he had spent recuperating. The fact that he got better detailed and more reliable news from enemy propaganda than from the Empire's own sanctioned news bulletins was an irony that had not escaped him.

And the news was not good. Not only had the rebels escaped from the Battle of Lakaron—the battle in which he had lost seven of his twelve pilots, and from which he himself was forced into a bacta tank for _nineteen days_—but they had broadened their offenses with a successful raid against the Alzoc III Labor Academy last week, and three more on other installations since then. In truth, he had difficulty taking offense to these latest attacks. He had always felt the business of slavery to be detestable, and hoped that he could one day achieve a high enough position in the Empire to affect changes to those practices.

But what really incensed him was that it was that same squadron coming at them again and again. The mysterious farm boy-turned-pilot who had destroyed the Death Star had formed a group of rebel pilots that was proving unbeatable. _And as long as he is unbeatable, the 181st remains beaten. _

The rise of the rebel snub fighters had been his own downfall. His flight cadets—Biggs Darklighter and Hobbie Klivian—had defected to the rebellion, bringing their experience and tactics with them to spread amongst the others. These were men he had personally trained and had vouched for as loyal. Their betrayal had made him an instant pariah.

Lord Vader's decision to involve him in the hunt for this farm boy pilot—supposedly a _Jedi_—had certainly been a boon to Fel's languishing career, but it did little to change how other officers regarded him. In order to regain the prestige he had lost, he had deliver a crushing blow to the rebellion.

_There's no better way to do that than to go head to head with the farm boy's squadron. _He deleted the contraband articles from the pad and tossed it to the foot of the bed.

_And then kill them all._

V.

Vader's forceful tone left no room for argument. "I will lead."

Standing next to Vader on the industrial rooftop, Ysanne pursed her lips and looked down, studying the intricacies of her boots. She tried to find the right way to express her concerns. "We do require survivors, My Lord."

Vader breathed ghastly iron breaths as his mask bored into her. "You will have them."

She glanced around at the team Vader had provided—a platoon from his prized 501st regiment, all wearing black-matte stormtrooper armor that was suitable for night ops. The warehouse complex they were in had few businesses running night shifts, so the exterior lighting was minimal in accordance with Chandrila's environmentally conscious anti-light pollution laws. Every few moments, a stormtrooper's eye guard would reflect a sliver of light from some distant light post. Other than that, they had all been virtually absorbed by the darkness, and the occasional metallic click of shifting armor or a weapons check was the only thing to speak for their presence.

Vader's own armor proved quite reflective, its sheen catching the light almost constantly. After the fiery attack by the late Agent Moss, she suspected the Dark Lord had been forced to replace the better part of his attire.

As for her wounds—both emotional and physical—they were improving slightly each day. Her hand went to her temple, where a slash from Moss' knife had caught her in the darkness of her apartment. She had finally been able to remove the bacta patch yesterday, and found that the deep black hair that had once grown there was now coming back in a tuft of white. The aesthetic ramifications of this were the least of her concerns.

The foremost, of course, was that her own father, Armand Isard, had tried to have her killed. She had endured him all these years—his haughty arrogance, his runaway narcissism, the overcompensation for his insecurities—most recently at her own expense as he forced her to lead pointless and embarrassing investigations against student activists and disturbed leftists, who had neither an audience nor access to mental health services. All because she had dared to challenge him by insisting that he allow her to do her duty.

But most importantly, she had maintained loyalty to him despite all these failings, out of a sense of paternal attachment that was the only emotional baggage she had allowed herself in her chosen life as an intelligence agent.

_As of this moment, _she decided, _that baggage has been jettisoned_. She would act for benefit of the state first, and for her own benefit as an extremely close second. There was no other concern or obligation that would register in her thinking.

She bowed at the neck to Vader. "Good hunting, My Lord."

Vader's ruby lightsaber blade cut through the night air with a deep hum. He bent at the knees and swept the blade down into the rooftop. In a fluid move, he spun in place on the soles of his boots until he had completed a circle. He then dropped from sight, like a silent stone, along with the disc he had cut free. The lead stormtrooper dropped a cable through the portal and repelled downward after him, with the rest of the platoon queuing up behind him to do the same.

Ysanne watched as the troopers dropped into the warehouse with quiet and deadly efficiency. _Not only will I stop passing up opportunities to best you, Father, _she thought, _but now I will actively pursue them_.

VI.

Using the force, Vader stopped the falling disc before it struck the floor below, easing it down slowly and silently. As he had sensed, the anteroom they were entering was deserted. A quick glance around at the unlit space and the small blinking indicators on the walls suggested they had entered the east utility room, as planned.

There was a soft zipping sound behind him as the first of his troopers descended into the room. He waited until a full squad had touched down before wagging a gauntleted finger at the room's sealed door, which slid aside. No other order was necessary—it had all been mapped out in advance.

Vader stepped out onto a high catwalk that ran all along the four walls of the large, open warehouse space below. Behind him, his black-clad troopers fanned out to the left and right, jogging stealthily in both directions to create a bird's-eye perimeter around the facility.

Two stories below them, men and women—some human, some not—milled about with purpose and enthusiasm. They handed pads to one another, and crowded around small vid displays at someone's desk. They sat and stood in conversational knots, and argued passionately—not out of anger, but in the way parents or teachers might argue over the best way to rear a child. Their passion was born from differing opinions on a common goal.

In the center of the warehouse, a holo-emitter cast up an enormous glowing orb that filled the empty space above the sea of desks and conference tables. It was a three-dimensional map of the galaxy, but superimposed over the relevant systems were live holonet feeds of current events. The entire display turned slowly on its axis, as though it were a rotating moon. The warehouse itself was dimly lit, and most of the ambient light came from the projection.

Vader looked around the catwalk perimeter, and saw that all of his men were in position. He lifted his arm straight up in the air, his unlit lightsaber clenched in his hand. With a deep tearing sound, his blade burst into existence.

All heads below turned upwards. Eyes quickly widened.

Vader's voice resonated through the warehouse. "No fatalities."

The stormtroopers lobbed hand-sized canisters off the catwalk. Screams blossomed up from the people below, but Vader could still hear the chimes of twenty metal-sleeved Vertigon-9 stun grenades striking the hard floor below. When the grenades bounced and hit the surface for a second time, yellow fog propelled out of both ends of the cylinder, causing it to spin in place on the floor.

As the people below were consumed in the fog, they stumbled and fell. Some who had worked up to a run before the gas caught up with them reeled in a dizzied tilt before their bodies collapsed and skidded along the floor, where all flailed about uselessly.

Vertigon-9 was not a common stun agent, because it left the victim fully conscious. Most often, one would choose to use traditional stun grenades that fully incapacitated the victim, who could then be secured and questioned in an optimized setting for interrogation.

Vader, however, was not noted for his patience. He wanted to start asking questions immediately. The Vertigon gas gave the victim a sensation of dizziness so acute that they could not even sit upright. Through the heavy yellow fog that had settled against the floor below, he could see the writers and editors and staffers of the _Alderaan Spirit News Service_ writhing about on the floor—legs pumping, arms flailing—but no forward motion being achieved.

"Move in," Vader called. His men hooked up cables to the catwalk guardrail and repelled to the warehouse floor. Vader himself planted a black boot on the rail and then vaulted over it. His cape spread out behind him and flapped against the air has he dropped towards the ground like a bird of prey. He landed solidly and was instantly on the move, striding through the bright fog to where an older human male lay across the largest single desk in the room. His knees jerked about in disorientation as he absently kicked various items off his desk to clatter against the floor. He was certainly in no position to resist the iron hand that grabbed him around his throat.

Vader wrested him from the desk and thrust him up into the air, gripping him around the neck and carrying him that way. He surged across the room until he slammed the man's back into the warehouse wall. His eyes bulged with terror, but with the gas, he could not focus on Vader's mask.

"What is the rebellion's holonet carrier frequency?" Vader demanded. "Where is their base of operations?"

The man, who was editor-in-chief of the news service, gurgled uselessly. Vader relaxed his grip enough to allow air flow. "Where are the rebels?"

"They don't give us anything like that," he rasped. "They use an encrypted net mask to—

"You know something," Vader cut him off. "You know what their next target is."

"No," he said, his hands now clutching Vader's wrist feebly. "They send details after the operation is complete and—

Vader brought his arm back and then slammed the editor into the wall again, his head striking it with jarring force. "Give me something I can use or I will peel you layer by layer." He then noticed for the first time that the man's head was smacking into a brightly colored poster. It was an orange-clad pilot climbing into a rebel X-Wing. In bold, block lettering, a title blazed across the top of the image:

CAPTAIN SKYWALKER: THE HERO OF YAVIN.

_Skywalker? _

_At Yavin?_

_The _Jedi_ at Yavin?_

His entire body began to shake.

_How?_

Behind him, the enormous holographic globe that filled the center cavity of the warehouse flickered sporadically. The industrial lamps that hung from the ceiling three stories above swayed with soft creaks. One of the bulbs popped in a burst of sparks.

Vader stared at the poster, the editor held in his grasp utterly forgotten. His fist shook with exertion, and the editor hung completely limp, his spine and windpipe long since crushed. Blood poured from his mouth, ears and nostrils.

Vader remained lost in the poster, his mind reeling amidst what were once impossibilities. He asked himself the question over and over.

_How? _

_**To be continued… **_


	15. Chapter 15

I.

Sitting behind her desk at Detritus Base, Leia narrowed her eyes at the nervous technician standing before her. "What do you mean he's missing?"

The young man cleared his throat before answering. "I opened the container and checked the contents against the manifest, Your Highness. The droid should've been in there—but he wasn't."

She leaned forward across the desk. "He's a gold-finished 3PO unit with a Coruscant accent—who sounds like he's suffering from a nervous disorder and acute constipation. How many of those can we possibly have floating around this base?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Not many, Your Highness, but with this manifest error, we can't be at all sure where he is right now. It's possible he's in an orbiting storage container that still hasn't come down through the debris field."

_Unbelievable._ _I'm buried in work right now, and I know that prissy protocol droid of Luke's could help me sort through it all. _And even though recruitment was way up since Yavin, she still hadn't seen a single profile come across her desk showing a person who could capably serve as her adjutant—a role Winter had filled so perfectly in the past. Loss and regret shot through her chest as she thought of her oldest friend and confidant, now being held prisoner by the Empire.

_Or worse._ She wished Varica could have given more precise information about the circumstances of Winter's capture. She couldn't avoid her suspicion that her dear cousin was holding something back.

The door chime sounded. "Come in," she called.

Mon Mothma and General Dodonna entered the room, wearing grim expressions. The technician snapped to attention.

Mon Mothma's hand brushed his arm soothingly. "At ease, Specialist."

Leia gave him a nod that signaled their business was concluded. "Just find him, please. Make it a priority."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Dismissed."

As he scurried out, Leia shifted her attention to the senior commanders. She gestured to the pair of guest chairs in front of her desk. "More good news?"

"Not exactly," said Mon Mothma, as she and Dodonna each sat down. Mon Mothma held a data pad against her chest. "I was having a friendly chat with the deck officer this morning, and she commented that a good portion of the new recruits who arrived on this morning's transport ship were asking about Luke Skywalker."

Leia gave a soft frown. "Well, I know Varica was planning on talking him up in her welcome speech."

"Correct," Mon Mothma said. "But these comments were made before Varica even came out to greet them. That's when we decided to dig a bit." She set down the pad in front of Leia. "And we came across this."

Leia looked down at the image on the screen—it was the recruitment art they had all agreed on, with a rebel pilot climbing into an X-Wing. "Right, so what's the—

She froze as she saw it.

Leia shot to her feet, her chair rolling sharply away from her. Her eyes crackled with intensity. "She's through. She is gone today."

Mon Mothma held up a staying hand, but Leia had already come around her desk and was moving towards the door. "Leia—

Leia spoke without breaking stride. "This is a complete abuse of her position, and it borders on treason." As the door slid aside for her, Mon Mothma called after her.

"Leia, we don't have all the money yet."

She froze in her tracks and turned around. "What?"

Dodonna looked away. Mon Mothma swallowed before speaking. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. She would only turn over half of the funds up front. She promised to release the rest to us after a year."

Leia was shaking. "How could you make an agreement like that? With someone like her?"

"Half was already more than we could have hoped to raise in a decade. We couldn't afford to waste time negotiating when the funds could be seized by the Empire—or she could be killed before authorizing the transfer." She stood slowly. "Econa will be dealt with, but first we need to discuss how to do so without—

Leia stormed out.

II.

Varica Econa stood behind a podium positioned near the rear wall of the main hangar bay, allowing her to look out on the cavernous space. But where there would usually be a few dozen starfighters awaiting a mission, there was now a dense crowd of no less than two-hundred recruits, all newly arrived at Detritus Base.

"You all know what we're up against," she said, "and you know how much we will need to rely on you. You've decided to come here to work and strive and fight with us in spite of all of that." She set her jaw, and felt her chin quiver with emotion as she nodded to herself. "And that makes each and every one of you an exceptional person, and a champion of freedom."

The expressions they all wore—looks of intensity and focus, and of drive to accomplish the impossible—imbued her with feelings of pride and inspiration and ambition that electrified her from head to toe.

"On behalf of the senior commanders and the entire Alliance, I thank you all. Welcome to the rebellion!"

They struck up in an enthusiastic applause that washed over her and echoed throughout the hangar bay. Varica felt a wide smile spread across her face. _This is going to work. _This was her third welcome speech, and as she continually honed her approach, each one had gone better than the last. _They're motivated. They're energized. They'll deliver results, and their success will be my success. _

They would start stacking up wins. And years down the road, when they won this thing, she would be a major player, with more clout and responsibility than Alderaan or even the Imperial Senate could ever have brought her. _I will bring changes. I will make an impact on this galaxy. _

She held up a hand to quiet them, and spoke over the applause that was still winding down. "The deck officers will muster you into units, and you'll be assigned training duty rotations and crew quarters." From the corners of the hangar, the officers moved in with data pads and began calling out names. Varica reached down and killed the microphone pickup on the podium. It was just in time to muffle her own startled curse as a vice-like hand gripped her bicep and roughly spun her to the right. She found herself eye to rage-filled eye with Leia.

"Walk with me. Right now."

The princess turned away and stalked off, leaving Varica to rub her arm, and swallow against the pounding heart that had leapt into her throat. She felt a flash of indignant anger, but it was tempered by intimidation—fear of what unknown offense would be thrown back at her, and what it would mean for a future that had seemed so glaringly bright just a moment ago. She also didn't know how the new Leia—_rebel_ Leia—reacted in the heat of anger. And she was pretty damned sure she was about to find out.

She forced her feet to move forward and follow Leia's long strides. _I'm a big girl. I've been yelled at by the boss before—and I've done my share of yelling at my own subordinates. I'll come through it. _

Leia tore across the deck and into one of the spoke-like habitat wings that shot out from the central hangar. Just after entering the corridor, she turned into a small utility room where a single crewman was manning a monitoring station. "Give us the room."

The Twi'lek turned around, and his eyes widened at seeing Leia, especially in her particular state. He took off his headset and stood. "Yes, ma'am." He nodded to Varica as he turned sideways to skirt around her on his way out the door. He moved off down the corridor and the heavy door slid shut, leaving Leia and Varica alone.

Leia was a coiled spring. Her eyes blazed.

Varica made herself hold her stare. _Here it comes._

Leia's words were thrown at her like knives. "Captain. Skywalker."

Varica's chin dropped she blew out a relieved breath. "Oh, that." She smiled and shook her head in relief. "It's not a problem."

Leia's eyes—impossibly—became even wider. She was about to explode.

_I need to be quick,_ Varica realized. "I had spoken to Luke and confirmed that he had no family. So the usual concerns about Imperial retribution were nullified." She turned and waved a hand back towards the hangar. "And as you can see, using his name has paid off in a major—

"Shut up."

"Leia, stop and think for a—

_"Shut your mouth, _and listen very, very carefully." Leia trembled as she formed her next words, and Varica had the survival instincts not to interrupt. "You have exposed Luke's identity to the Empire. Do you have any idea what that means for him?"

"I don't see how this changes anything for Luke."

_"What?"_

"I don't see how—

"I heard you, damn it," Leia snapped. "I just couldn't believe it came from someone I once credited as intelligent."

Varica's own ire rose. "You're concerned that Luke is a target, yes?"

"Congratulations. Well done. Yes, I am very afraid that one of our most promising officers and selfless heroes is about to have a bounty hung around his neck that could pay for our next base. I'm afraid that he'll be tagged as a priority target in every engagement he fights in." She jabbed a finger at her. "You just did exactly what Han accused us of doing—you painted a target on his back, and you betrayed his trust in our leadership."

Varica shook her head in frustration. "And once again, I'll tell you that nothing has changed." She pointed back towards the hangar. "Every time he gets into that X-Wing—every time he does _anything_ on your behalf—he has a target on his back. Every new recruit who just walked in here with a stupid smile plastered on his face just got one, too. So do you, and so do I. We're _outlaws_, Leia. Or didn't you realize that?"

Leia's chin came up. "I realize that you'll gladly turn over anyone's secrets as long as you can profit from it."

Varica's stomach tightened and she involuntarily looked away. _I knew that shot was coming eventually. The wait's finally over._

"And your argument is bantha crap anyway," Leia said. "You'll say anything to rationalize what you've done—and I don't care who else your line works on, it's not going to work on me."

Varica crossed her arms and leaned forward. "Let's put our past issues aside for one more second. Are you really suggesting that if the Imps catch me buying a crate of vegetables for the mess hall they're not going to torture and kill me? Name or no name? Notoriety or not?"

Leia smoldered and stared her down.

"We all have one life to lose here, Leia. The stakes are the same for all of us. But the simple fact is the people need a hero to rally behind, and they're not going to rally behind a fracking painting. They need a man. And we all decided—you included—that Skywalker is our man."

Leia let out a frustrated breath and looked down at the floor for several moments before responding. "We can do this all night and not agree, but there's one aspect of this situation that's not up for debate. You abused your position and you defied the senior council. And I am telling you, _definitively_, if it happens again, you will be gone, and I won't care what you think you know or what money you're dangling over us. I will personally toss your bean-counting ass out the airlock. Understood?"

The lump in Varica's throat prevented her immediate response, but it didn't matter. Leia nearly bulldozed over her as she stormed out the door, utterly disinterested in whatever her cousin's answer might be.

III.

Sitting in her new office at the Imperial Palace, Ysanne gave what she hoped was a gracious, or at least patient smile to the shimmering hologram of yet another admiral offering his personal congratulations on the sacking of the _Alderaan Spirit_. She had basked in the glow of their attentions the first dozen or so times, but now she was fighting to avoid constant glances at the chrono. The mustached windbag who now occupied her time—Ozzel or some such—seemed like he had called more to deliver a self-centered speech than to praise her accomplishments. She forced herself to return her focus to his unending words.

_"…and if a posting were to open for a fleet intelligence liaison, I would welcome the chance to mentor you personally."_ He seemed to puff up his chest, and there was no mistaking his lecherous smile. _"We would be working very closely together."_

"Thank you, Admiral. You've given me a lot to think about and—

An interrupting ping from the emitter unit indicated a second communication coming in over the net. She made sure to exaggerate her eyes widening at the ID tag on the signal. "Forgive me, Admiral, but I have an urgent signal coming through from the Director."

_"Of course, my dear. We'll speak again soon."_

She saluted and killed the channel before he could expound any further.

The second signal was not actually from Director Isard—she had not heard a word from her father since the news had broken about _Alderaan Spirit_. He had to know what she had done, and that she had teamed up with his foremost rival, Lord Vader. As the hours had turned into days and there was still no response, she'd realized that she actually _wanted_ to hear from him.

_Some part of me needs the reckoning—the recognition that he knows I defied him and that I succeeded where he failed._ It was quite possible that he'd swear vengeance, or disown her as his daughter, or dismiss her from the agency. She also wondered whether she would call him out on sending an assassin to her home, and whether or not he would admit to it.

The open ended silence was gnawing at her more than any imagined reaction she could conjure, and reminded her that for all his flaws, her father was a master manipulator and a dangerous adversary who knew her mind thoroughly. _I need to remember not to let this high point I'm riding lull me into overconfidence. Even though I'm under Vader's protection now, he could still move against me at any time._

She ran the unknown ID tag on the signal and found it was coming from a Captain Prest of the destroyer _Broadsword_ stationed in the Nal Hutta system.

_This is the last one_. She struck the appropriate key on her desk top and another officer fizzled into view. "How may I help you, Captain?"

Prest frowned. _"You're not Director Isard."_ He turned to scold someone out of her view—probably his communications officer—but she knew better than to let something like this just pass by.

"Excuse me, Captain," she said, "but I am Agent Isard, the Director's daughter. I'm handling most of his affairs while he's away on urgent business." It was a lie, but since it should have been true, she doubted the captain would think to challenge it.

Prest turned his attention back to her and nodded his understanding. He continued onward in his clipped, core world accent. _"Perhaps it's just as well I've reached you in his stead. We've arrested a smuggler who claims to have urgent information for the Director's eyes only. Knowing these fringe dregs, whatever he claims to have will be drivel. But he did provide a valid contact code, so I'll let you decide if he merits an audience."_

Ysanne's interest was already peaked. Generally speaking, her father did not hand out intelligence contact codes lightly. "Please put him on, Captain."

_"Very well."_ Prest gestured, and then stepped out of the holo-frame as a wheelchair was rolled into his place. _"Agent Isard, this is Mako Spince."_

The smuggler took one look at her and then reacted very much as Prest had, craning his head up and around to complain to his captors. _"What the hell is this? Isard told me I talk only to him."_

Ysanne injected frost into her voice. "Director Isard is unavailable, and if you don't stop wasting my time, I'll end this call and wait for transcripts from the Captain's interrogation droids."

_"You can't override Armand Isard's—_

"Something to read with my tea, then," she decided. "Goodbye." She reached for the cutoff switch.

_"Wait!"_

She paused. "Yes?"

He sighed in defeat. Then he leaned forward in his chair. _"I just sold the rebels a ship."_

IV.

Darth Vader stood amidst the darkness of Tatooine's star speckled night, his cloak lifting behind him as a low, steady breeze came across the desert from the Jundland Wastes. His black boots sunk into the sandy edge of the dark, wide pit that was once the Lars homestead. He looked to his right, where the rim of the sunken habitat had collapsed, leaving a steep and lumpy sand slope to flow into the pit, half filling it. Standing beyond the pit was the blasted shell of a small domed structure, its once-white walls blackened and pitted. The olfactory sensors in his helmet relayed a faint tang of burnt plasteel and ceramic that had not yet been scrubbed clear by the sandstorms.

_My son lived here._ After three days, he still found the enormity of having fathered a son difficult to grasp. The Imperial information banks had produced shockingly little on the boy. There was no birth certificate, no educational or medical records—not even a taxation ID. Great pains had been taken to keep him off any and all grids. He was a ghost, who, as far as the Galactic Empire was concerned, had never existed. Not until one year ago, when he had submitted an application to the Imperial Academy on Carida. It was withdrawn, almost immediately, but it was enough to put his name into the computer. Enough to tell Vader the first name of the son he'd never known existed.

_Luke._

Someone had worked very hard to rob him of his son, and to keep him in the dark, entirely oblivious of his destiny. All of that ended now.

Vader stepped off the edge of the rim, dropping to the sandy floor below. Now that he couldn't be seen from the horizon, he ignited his lightsaber, the _snap-hiss_ cutting through the night's silence. He had no fear of Tusken Raiders or feeble Jawas, but he was intent on avoiding distractions. Using its ruby blade as a torchlight, Vader stepped through an archway of sun-bleached stone and into the homestead.

The habitat was a small network of tunnels and burrows kept cool by the meters of sand and rock between them and the twin suns above. As he slowly walked through them, the light of his blade played out across the walls and ceilings, casting odd shadows from the few meager possessions that personalized the homestead. It really hadn't changed since Vader had last visited here over twenty years ago. When that useless old stump of a man had rolled out to tell him that he'd bought his mother and, after cornering her into becoming his wife, had then allowed her to be taken captive by raiders. His obtuse son and his cow-eyed girlfriend had given him empty, bored looks on the subject—and again at his mother's burial.

_And these were the fools who were allowed to raise my son_. There was no question in his mind as to who was responsible for this.

_Kenobi._

It wasn't enough that Kenobi had mutilated him and left him to slowly burn on the ashen banks of Mustafar. He had ruined Padme—had turned her against him, and obviously convinced her to keep the birth of his son a secret. And after her death, he had orchestrated a life for his son that robbed him of his rightful seat of power, limiting him to a wasted life of obscurity.

There was no way to know what lies Luke had been brought up with. Did he know anything about his father? Did he know about—

Vader's boot crunched on something. He shifted his glowing blade downward, and illuminated the partial shell of an incendiary charge—standard issue for Imperial stormtrooper field units. _Luke was raised by my enemies. Imperial soldiers have destroyed his home, and killed his guardians. And now he has become a leader of the rebellion. _

The sum of all these facts equaled an irrefutable truth._ My son hates me. In the best case, he hates me as the leader of his enemies. In the worst case, he knows who and what I am, and has been taught to hate me since birth. Either way, forging any kind of bond with him will be nearly impossible._

He heard Kenobi's voice echo in his mind: _You can't win, Darth._ _If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine._

He hadn't needed to kill the old man to give him power—he'd had it from the moment they'd parted ways. Obi-wan had destroyed his family, and in doing so, destroyed his life's purpose_._

Having walked the homestead's meandering route—having looked into every darkened nook and immolated room—Vader emerged from the tunnel into the opposite side of the habitat pit.

And that was it. There was nothing left to be found in this place. Only ashes and missed opportunities.

* * *

><p>A short time later, as he lowered himself into the cockpit of his TIE Advanced, he saw that a light flashed on the control board. He struck the appropriate key, and a line of text scrolled across his computer readout.<p>

It was an urgent message from Ysanne Isard.

V.

The blocky, short range transport ship shuddered as it passed through the upper atmosphere of the Alderaanian prison planet. Tycho made an adjustment to the lateral thrusters, leveling their course.

Rieekan came into the cockpit, straightening the black tunic of his appropriated Imperial flight officer's uniform. "The rest of the team is almost ready," he said.

In the main hold, the other four Alderaanian men had also changed, and were currently passing around a shaver they'd found onboard. They each wore the uniforms of the naval troopers they had killed in order to steal the transport ship. Unfortunately, the uniforms were all severely marred by blood and ripped seams—a natural byproduct of their former owner's violent deaths. The transport pilots had surrendered without resistance, so Tycho and Rieekan at least looked presentable.

"We should break out of atmo in under a minute," Tycho said.

Rieekan nodded, and sat down in the co-pilot's seat next to him.

As Tycho continued to check instrumentation, his thoughts returned to Winter, who they'd been forced to leave behind on the planet. General altruism aside, he couldn't understand why he felt so regretful about that. She had, after all, left him behind—quite forcefully—right after he'd saved her life on Commenor. After her stun bolt wore off, he'd found himself in a jail cell with a half-dozen other Alderaanian refugees. By all logic, there was no reason for him to feel any obligation to her at all.

Rieekan turned to Tycho and raised his eyebrows. "She's a hell of a woman."

Tycho frowned. "Sir?"

"Winter," Rieekan said. "She's got it all, doesn't she?"

Tycho smiled. _I guess the General's renowned perceptiveness isn't limited to combat_. "She's got something, all right."

"If I were a younger man—in this world where so few of our women are left—it would be something to really think about."

"Yes, sir."

"And it occurs to me," Rieekan said, "that _you_ are a younger man."

Tycho cleared his throat, wanting to shift the conversation back to business. It wasn't that he objected to discussing women with his mentor. But after losing his fiancé on Alderaan and finding himself in bed with Varica so quickly after, he was having a hell of a time knowing how to feel about—or even approach—a new romance. "Well, if we somehow manage to live through today, it may well occur to me, too."

Rieekan turned back to the cockpit's canopy, where the blackness of space was just coming into focus through the atmospheric distortion. "Fair enough."

As they emerged into the dark vacuum, something else came into view—the massive arrow-shaped hull of an Imperial star destroyer. Tycho immediately recognized the emblem on its bow—it was the flagship of Lord Vader's destroyer group, the Death Squadron.

"That's the _Devastator_," Rieekan said. It was partially silhouetted against the glowing maelstrom of the Wilderness Nebula, which kept the prison planet obscured and interfered with sensors and communications. The first opportunity to be contacted by the Imperials would be when they were already landing inside the destroyer. By then, it would be too late to escape if their identities were discovered.

Tycho asked, "How confident are we that your security codes will still work?"

Rieekan sifted through directories on the computer screen in front of him. "It's not my code we need to worry about," he said, "although I'm sure it's blown. Last year, I designed the whole algorithmic system the Empire uses to assign codes to the lower echelons." He removed the ID card from the belt of his uniform and began keying in the info. "Once I got a hold of the pilot's serial number, I just had to apply the algorithm and his code was cracked. We'll land safely, for sure." He chucked a thumb back over his shoulder, and Tycho took a quick, uncomfortable glance back at the corpse of the Imperial trooper who lay silently on the deck behind them.

"The rest will be up to our departed friend here."

* * *

><p>Tycho flipped off the safety on his sidearm and then shoved it back into its holster. He kept a vigilant watch of the activity on the star destroyer's hangar deck through the transport's canopy. The cavernous hangar bay's polished steel floors shone under the powerful floodlights set into the walls and ceiling. Most of the bay was empty, with just a pair of <em>Lambda<em> shuttles sitting in the far corner. A handful of Imperial technicians milled about, checking small stacks of containers against their handheld data pads.

Rieekan leaned intently over the cockpit controls, having just input the security code for landing.

Control responded after a few moments. _"Clearance code verified. Lower your access ramp and remain onboard until the deck officer arrives for physical identity checks." _

Rieekan shot Tycho a look, who then craned his head around to look at the men in the main hold. They gave a thumbs up, and Tycho relayed it back to Rieekan.

"Here we go," the general said. He jabbed a control on the comm unit. "Control, this is transport _Iron Side_—we need a medical team down here fast! I have a man down with serious wounds—the damned refugees attacked us when we unloaded the new arrivals."

_"Acknowledged, _Iron Side_. We are giving you priority status for deck officer security check. He will escort your wounded to—_

"Negative, Control," Rieekan interrupted. "This man's going to bleed out. We need the medical team _on site_."

Tycho's heart beat rapidly in his chest as the seconds ticked away towards a full minute without response. Rieekan looked over his shoulder and gave him a silent, confident nod. _It'll work._

Movement outside caught Tycho's eye, and he watched as the turbolift doors across the hangar bay parted to reveal a car densely packed with personnel. An Imperial officer marched out ahead of a pair of medics with a stretcher, but there was still a sea of domed helmets crowded in behind them.

_Maybe they're headed to another floor_, Tycho thought.

But the eight stormtroopers filed out right behind them, their polished boots clacking smartly on the deck plates as they headed straight for the transport.

The comm unit crackled to life. _"Affirmative, _Iron Side_. Medical team will arrive in tandem with the deck officer and security squad."_

When Rieekan looked back at Tycho this time, he didn't look nearly as comfortable.

_"Remain onboard until they arrive. Control out."_

_**To be continued…**_


	16. Chapter 16

I.

Rieekan bounded down the transport's ramp to meet the deck officer and the two medics. The squad of stormtroopers following them reacted, with the first two troops in the formation lifting their rifles at his approach. Rieekan, ostensibly in a panic, ignored them. "Come on, come on!" He pumped his arm vigorously, waving the medics up the ramp. "He's fading—I can't find a pulse."

The medics looked to the deck officer, who grudgingly nodded in the affirmative. They took off up the ramp with Rieekan leading the way. From behind, Rieekan heard the officer issue orders. "Guard all access points," he told the lead trooper. "No one leaves this ship without my authorization."

Inside the ship, Rieekan rounded a corner and jogged past three of his men, all looking battered and bloodied in their stolen Imperial uniforms. The medics paused upon seeing them, but Rieekan urged them onward. "Come on—not them. It's Garrisee, up here."

He approached the body of Corporal Garrisee—an actual dead Imperial soldier—who Tycho was crouched over, his fingers jammed into the carotid artery. Tycho's face was the very portrait of concern as he addressed Rieekan. "I've got nothing, Lieutentant. He's not breathing."

"One side, Flight Officer," Rieekan scolded him. "Let the docs do their job."

Tycho popped up and stepped back as the two medics dropped down on either side of Garrisee, who sported a cavernous blaster burn in the center of his chest. They had just started running their scanners over his torso when the deck officer strode into the hold.

Rieekan shook his head in disgust. "Rebel scum." He pointed emphatically at the unmoving Garrisee. "Blind-siding our boys down there. Star-damned cowards are what they are."

The deck officer raised a hand to calm Rieekan, but that was a fool's errand. This was a man who'd just narrowly escaped his own end. Who'd leapt clear of the snapping jaws of hell. And who needed to vent.

"These so-called pacifists," Rieekan ranted, "who _we_ feed and shelter. They just bit the hand, my friend."

"Lieutenant, if you'll please calm—

"There's only one way to answer this," he continued. He pointed off to the side, as if the Alderaanian refugees were standing around out on the hangar deck. "There's only one response these traitors understand."

The deck officer's face was hardening into a scowl. "Lieutenant, you need to make your report before I—

"Sir," a medic interrupted them. "I don't understand this. The core temperature of this body is abnormally low."

The deck officer was impatient. "So is he dead?"

"He's dead all right, sir. But according to my readings, he's been dead for nearly two hours."

The deck officer's eyes widened, and as his hand moved to his sidearm, Rieekan launched into his indignant objections. "That's totally impossible. The poor bastard was crying for his mother not five minutes ago. Check the sensor scans from when we landed—there were _six_ life readings!"

The deck officer drew his pistol and leveled it at Rieekan's chest. "Not another word." He turned his head to the side and shouted out over his shoulder. "Guards!"

Rieekan cursed inwardly. The preferred plan had been to quietly subdue the deck officer and a small medical team before sneaking off their short-range ship to steal a hyper-capable one. The presence of a full squad of stormtroopers, coupled with the overly-cool body temperature of Mr. Garrisee, had now necessitated a shift to plan B.

The medics scurried clear of the body and a moment later, Rieekan heard the sharp impacts of stormtrooper boots coming from the far end of the ship. The deck officer held out his free hand to Rieekan.

"Your ID badge."

Rieekan's back straightened, and he drew in a deep breath. "Well," he said quite loudly._ "It's a sad state of affairs."_

On that code phrase, the storage hatch immediately to the right of the deck officer swung open, and the sixth life sign the Imperial sensors had registered—from the sixth man on the Alderaanian team (who was very much alive)—fired his assault rifle, the scarlet bolt searing through the deck officer's temple and pitching him into the opposite bulk head.

Tycho had already been poised to draw, and shoved Rieekan clear as he quickly brought up his gun hand, snapping off a pair of stun blasts into the backs of the fleeing medics. Both men dropped face-first to deck.

Rieekan shouted to the three Alderaanians at the opposite end of the hold. "Get that blast door shut, now!"

The closest of the three reached for the control, only to step into a bolt from a stormtrooper's rifle, igniting his chest and hurling him across the hold. As a flurry of shots came through the hatchway, Rieekan's sharp eyes spotted a deadlier threat—a steel canister struck the bulk head and ricocheted into their compartment, clanging along the deck plates until it rolled to a stop.

It was a fragment grenade.

Even as Rieekan began to cry out a warning, strong hands grabbed him under both arms. Tycho bear hugged him from behind and spun him around, throwing him clear of the hold and into the cockpit. He dove on top of Rieekan just as an air-rending shriek tore through the enclosed space of the hold behind them, blowing white-hot steel shards in every direction.

Tycho screamed in Rieekan's ear as his exposed thigh, calf and foot were peppered with flak. Rieekan himself felt the sting of a few isolated splinters, but it was the younger man who'd taken the brunt of it.

But that had been nothing compared to the rest of their team. Tycho's maneuver had propelled them into the cockpit, helping them to avoid the worst of the blast pattern. But as Rieekan rolled Tycho off of himself, he had to force down a gag reflex at the sight of their countrymen, still twitching in agony, each man utterly unrecognizable.

Rieekan hefted his pistol as the first stormtrooper eased cautiously around the corner. The general greeted him with a bolt through his face plate, then immediately shifted his aim over to the blast door wall switch. He fired a second shot, shorting the controls. Two heavy durasteel doors slid out from opposite sides and slammed shut.

Rieekan lurched back towards the flight console. "Where's the damned ramp controls?" he demanded.

Tycho forced an answer through gritted teeth. "Bottom left."

Rieekan slapped the button, and then crouched back down to wrestle Tycho up from the floor. "Come on, soldier. You're the only one who can fly this thing."

He dumped Tycho into the pilot's seat, causing him to groan in pain. "What about the stormies?" Tycho asked.

"We got them bottled up in the aft section," Rieekan said. "They can't get off the ship and they can't get in here."

"And where are we supposed to go?" Tycho asked. "This thing still has no hyperdrive. As soon as we fly into open space they'll blast us to hell."

The burly old warrior clamped a hand on Tycho's shoulder and grinned down at him. "Who said anything about open space?" He pointed towards the open chasm in the center of the docking bay. It was the enormous elevator shaft used by the star destroyer's industrial load lifter—a massive platform that could move ships or heavy equipment or even whole platoons of troopers from deck to deck. "Make for the next level. And buckle up, Celchu." Rieekan dropped into the neighboring copilot seat and strapped in. "We're going to fly at unsafe speeds."

Before Tycho could respond, the wailing klaxons of the star destroyer's alarms filled the docking bay. Clearly the captive stormtroopers had spared a moment to alert the bridge about the intruders. Tycho wasted no time, and jabbed the anti-grav control, bringing the lumbering transport ship floating up from the deck. He brought the bow of the ship around and aimed it at the open elevator shaft. Using the main drive inside a docking bay was out of the question—but it occurred to Tycho that maneuvering thrusters on full was perhaps only slightly insane.

"Punch it," Rieekan ordered.

Tycho used his good leg to stomp on the thruster pedal, and the transport lurched forward. It accelerated at a pace both gradual and fast, much like a high-powered freight train. The technicians working the deck scattered in a panic as they soared across the bay toward the open shaft.

From behind them, a shower of sparks blossomed from the seam of the blast door.

"They're coming through," Tycho said.

Rieekan gripped the console in front of him with both hands. "Head down a level," he said.

The transport plunged through the shaft opening at a sharp downward angle, slipping into the docking bay immediately below.

"And hit the deck."

Tycho turned to him in confusion.

"Literally," the general said. "Full speed."

Tycho said a silent prayer and threw the yolk forward, bring them down hard into the deck. The ship's landing struts snapped off like twigs, and both men were thrown forward against their restraints as the belly went skidding and sparking along the deck. Looking ahead, Tycho could see the growing profile of a gamma assault shuttle parked directly in their path. "Brace yourself!" he shouted.

Screeching across the deck, the transport slammed into the assault shuttle, which was the first in a full formation of ships lined up along side it. The impact pushed the first shuttle into the second, and in an impressive domino effect, each of the shuttles twisted to the right, crashing into its neighbor. This knocked the whole squadron significantly off center, with all ships sliding well away from their original positions. Finally, the scraping of landing gears and the groaning of bent metal abated, and Tycho's transport—and all seven shuttles—slid to a stop.

Tycho let go of the console ahead of him. The nose of their ship had crumpled inward, and the console had wound up practically in his lap. He unbuckled his harness and turned back towards the blast doors. He saw that the sparks from the stormtrooper's cutting torch had stopped. Apparently, high velocity plus sudden impact—minus a safety harness—had equaled a negative outcome for their armored passengers in the aft hold.

Small flames began to lick out from inside the crushed control console.

Tycho hopped onto his good foot and hobbled back from it.

"Come on," Rieekan said. "Let's blow the canopy."

They each reached up to the upper corner where the canopy met the fuselage and gripped a yellow lever. Rieekan looked at Tycho at counted off. "Three, two, one—go."

They each pulled their lever and the canopy bubble burst clear of the fuselage, flipping through the air for several seconds before impacting loudly on some far part of the deck. By that time, the two men were already sliding down the damaged hull to the hangar deck below.

Without the benefit of two working legs, Tycho immediately lost his footing upon landing. Rieekan reached down and threw the young pilot's arm around the back of his neck, hoisting him up to his feet. The alarm klaxons continued to echo through the cavernous docking bay, along with sporadic shouts from crewmembers in the vicinity. Rieekan moved Tycho towards the jumbled collection of assault shuttles.

"First one of these things you think will still fly," Rieekan grunted, "we take."

Movement caught Tycho's eye, and he turned to see a pair of black-clad naval troopers running towards them with weapons drawn. Still holding onto Rieekan with his left arm, he shifted his gun hand and fired several shots in their direction, forcing them to take cover behind some containers on the deck.

"What about this one?" Rieekan asked.

Tycho refocused his attention onto the shuttle directly ahead. Unlike the last one, the canopy had not cracked and the wings appeared unbent.

"Should be good," he said. He turned back and saw the naval troopers coming out from behind cover. The lead trooper fired a smattering a shots in their direction, one of which passed only a centimeter from Tycho's head. Rieekan spun around and Tycho fired another half-dozen shots back at the naval troopers, the last one catching a trooper in the throat and dropping him to the deck. A hundred meters behind them, a turbolift door opened and a full squad of stormtroopers came charging out.

Tycho's view shifted violently as Rieekan turned back around and climbed the shuttle's angled ramp. He felt a sense of vertigo, and suddenly, the pain began to tip the scales away from adrenaline and back towards agony.

He lost a few moments somewhere in there, and now awoke to repeated impacts against his cheeks that had likely begun as firm patting and had just now crossed over into slapping.

"Damn it, Celchu, come on—they're setting up an E-Web out there."

He could hear the dampened cacophony of a dozen-plus blaster bolts striking the hull like an angry hive of hornets. Handheld firearms couldn't do much to a starship's hull, but a mounted E-Web cannon would sure as hell do the trick.

"I'm here," Tycho croaked. He opened his eyes to find the general standing over him, having dumped him into yet another pilot's seat.

"Welcome back. Now we head for open space. I hope you're prepared to show me those ace flying skills I've heard to much about." Rieekan strapped into the adjacent chair. "Just don't pass out on me again."

* * *

><p>Thirty seconds later, the gamma assault shuttle came tearing out of the <em>Devastator's<em> forward launch bay. Tycho kept them tight against the destroyer's ventral hull where the turbo laser cannons would have the hardest time tracking them. The gunners fired incessantly nonetheless, but their arcs were too wide to be a threat—at least until they had to make a break for it.

Black specks began to creep in from the corners of his eyes, and he shook his head briskly to fight them back. Amidst the hundreds of metal splinters in his leg, he just barely felt the syringe Rieekan stuck into his thigh—apparently he'd located the ship's first-aid kit. Tycho exhaled as the pain lessened noticeably.

"Make for the gas cloud," Rieekan ordered, pointing towards the glowing expanse of the Wilderness Nebula. The gaseous phenomenon had masked the Alderaanian prison world from sensors and communication signals, and would shield the shuttle from the Imperials in the same manner.

Tycho banked hard to starboard, soaring away from the destroyer and towards the nebula. He weaved side to side in irregular patterns, trying to throw off the gunners as they blanketed the space around them with heavy energy bolts. A shot found their rear shields, slamming both men forward in their seats.

"Down to thirty-eight percent," Rieekan warned.

"We're there—hang on."

Tycho plunged the ship into the nebula, leaving only a puff of glowing vapor behind as the cloud swallowed them whole.

II.

Soontir Fel sat with Captain Devar in the _Devastator's_ tactical operations room. On the large view screen in front of them, they watched security footage of two men in Imperial uniforms. The younger man was wounded, and limped along with the aid of the stouter, older man. A few blaster shots passed near them, and the older man swung the younger man back around, who fired several shots back at their pursuers. At that moment, both men's faces became clearly visible.

"Freeze image," Devar ordered. He gestured to the older man on the screen. "You'll recognize him, of course."

Fel suppressed his annoyance. He was once again being tested by the captain, who assumed he did not know who the infiltrator was, and wanted to expose Fel's ignorance. As it happened, his response came without hesitation. "Carlist Rieekan. Former general and the highest ranking Alderaanian in the service."

Devar tapped the table with his stylus, no doubt more sharply than he meant to. What he could not have realized was that Fel had made it a point to review the list of Alderaanian servicemen who were purged from the military—a decision he strongly disagreed with. Due to their planet's pacifistic nature, there were only a few hundred of them spread across all divisions, so it made it that much easier to remember the handful of combat officers. Especially the famous ones.

And those with whom he'd personally served.

Fel gestured at the younger man. "And you, sir, no doubt recognize Rieekan's accomplice."

Devar looked down at his data pad for several moments. His face darkened.

_ He has no idea._

"Since you obviously know," Devar bit out, "I'll allow you the opportunity to impress me."

The captain's attitude toward Fel—an acute mixture of insecurity and contempt—was undoubtedly born from Fel's unique role aboard ship. Upon Fel's recovery from the wounds he suffered at Lakaron, Lord Vader had designated him tactical commander of the _Devastator_. This meant that while Devar had ultimate authority over ship personnel and general operations, Fel was in command of the ship's overall mission, and furthermore, had full discretion to determine what that mission would be. It had not made for a happy partnership between the two.

"That is Lieutenant Tycho Celchu," Fel told him. "Former TIE squadron commander and another Alderaanian national. He has been a fugitive at large, wanted for the murder of an officer at Commenor last month." He cast a short, sideways look at Devar. "Perhaps you missed the report."

Devar exhaled sharply. "A star destroyer commander can't afford to wile away his days reading about every minor fugitive in the Empire."

Fel nodded. "Of course, sir." He considered pointing out to the captain that Celchu was, in fact, designated a top priority target by Imperial Intelligence, but decided to let it go. He was a professional combat officer, not a political appointee like Devar. He did not need to stoop to the constant and meaningless verbal sniping that his kind did. Besides, Devar was bringing up Celchu's record on his data pad presently, and would quickly see the facts for himself.

Devar sat up a bit straighter. "Celchu, yes." He fixed Fel with a wolfish smile. "A former cadet of yours, I see."

"That's correct."

"And was it not another pair of your former cadets who mutinied on the _Rand Ecliptic_ and took part in the rebel's Death Star attack?"

Fel fought to keep his expression passive. "I'll remind you that I've trained thousands of pilots for the Empire, Captain."

Devar raised his eyebrows. "That's good to know. I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever trained anyone who hadn't betrayed the Emperor."

Fel said nothing, but he felt his face warming, and his heart rate quickening.

Devar stood back from the table, leaving Fel seething in silence. "As it stands, these two Alderaanians have escaped, and we can only assume they'll provide the location of the refugee center to the rebellion. Secrecy was of paramount importance in Project Ember, and now that secrecy has been lost. So if you'll excuse me, I need to report to my commanders, as I am sure you must report to yours. Assuming either of us survive the delivery of this news, we will need to make immediate preparations to defend this planet."

III.

Armand Isard had returned to his home base on Imperial Center—even under threat of murder by Darth Vader—to make certain he was not seen as having abdicated his particular throne as the director of intelligence.

His own daughter had defected from his ranks, aligning herself with Vader to circumvent and undermine his authority. Against his explicit orders, she had lead an operation to sack _The Alderaan Spirit_, the top producer of rebel propaganda in the galaxy. It was an enormous coup, and the most substantial intelligence victory since the disaster at Yavin.

_And I had nothing to do with it. On the contrary—I blocked them both. I deprived Vader of all intelligence and Ysanne of all resources._ But they had each filled the void for the other, forming a complete and effective force, and were now riding high on their accomplishment. In some faint way, it occurred to him that he should be proud of what a capable operative she'd become under his tutelage, but the louder voice in his mind abhorred the act of treason, and the potential damage it would do to his standing in the Empire.

Armand's own plan to ferret out the rebels had been to spend a fair percentage of the Empire's treasury buying up fleets of secondhand battleships. He had kept them off the market long enough for all to be rigged with eavesdropping and homing devices. The Emperor was displeased with the plan, but Armand assured him of its success. _And to date, I have nothing to show for it._

He turned around in his high-backed chair to look out from his office viewport. It was a few hours past sundown, and he looked past his own somber reflection in the window pane, across the glittering plaza that culminated in the spectacular towers of the Imperial Palace. Where he was due to provide his scheduled status report to His Excellency.

For now, he would focus on the ongoing propaganda campaign and the recent discovery of an unregistered Alderaanian settlement on the outer rim. Now that those refugees had been taken into protective custody and were en route to the secret resettlement camp, the success of Operation Ember was nearly at hand.

He nodded to himself, taking heart from the steely-eyed reflection staring back at him. He was still Armand Isard. Still the finest intelligence agent in the galaxy.

His presentation would go perfectly fine.

* * *

><p>Armand finished speaking and bowed his head until it nearly touched his bended knee. The Emperor, seated on his throne, responded.<p>

"Very well, Director," he said. "With this latest roundup of vulnerable refugees, we will now announce that asylum has been provided to all—

The Emperor stopped speaking and his chin abruptly snapped to the side. "What is it?" he demanded, looking to the shadowy recesses adjacent to the dais. "Approach."

Armand lifted his face imperceptibly and watched as the purple-robed herald moved to the Emperor's side like a silent ghost. He bowed and spoke inaudibly in his master's ear. Armand, whose primary state of being was to be a hunter of information, longed to know what could be so vital that it warranted interrupting His Excellency is this manner.

The Emperor rose from his throne. _"Director,"_ he hissed.

Armand's head rose in spite of himself, and he looked upon the most horrifying sight he'd ever seen—the Emperor's yellow eyes blazing out from the deathly pallor of his face, a white hand reaching towards him with one crooked finger extended.

"Do you realize that a group of Alderaanians has fled the refugee camp?"

Armand's jaw fell and he rose to his feet. "No, I—how, my mast—

There was a blinding flash, and a single jag of blue energy leapt from the Emperor's finger, striking Armand in the chest. He staggered, overwhelmed by the pain that fired every nerve ending in his body simultaneously.

"Your failure could cost us this entire operation!"

The pain receded from unbearable to only excruciating, but now Armand found he had no feeling in his left arm. He clutched at it, just as vertigo overtook him and his worldview tilted upward. He tipped over backward, losing consciousness before feeling his body hit the floor.

The Emperor chuckled softly to himself as he waded over to where his chief spymaster lay prone on the Corusca marble tile. "Come now, Director. Had you been a Jedi Knight, I'd have dealt you many times the meager potency you've just received." He came to a stop, standing directly over Armand's torso. "Perhaps intelligence work truly is a young man's game." Palpatine extended his finger downward, and another quick tendril of lightning crackled into Armand's sternum, who jerked at the contact. The Emperor spoke as if rattling off steps in a recipe. "Heartbeat restored..." He then opened his hand fully and closed his eyes to channel the force. "And now to restart respiration…" Armand's back arched violently as he inhaled a gasping breath.

"Ah, you're back, Director."

Armand tried to sit up, but his chin barely tilted forward before he lost all stamina behind the attempt, and was forced to focus all his energies on simply filling and emptying his lungs.

"You suffered a sudden cardiac arrest, my friend. No doubt your utter failure to perform your duties caused more strain than you could bear." He waved at the royal guard contingent flanking the main entrance and two of them broke off and ascended the stairs to the dais. "My guards will see you to a physician, and after a good rest—say, twenty minutes—you will seek to redeem yourself with extreme prejudice by immediately completing Project Ember."

The crimson cloaked warriors each took an arm and pulled Armand up to stand before the Emperor.

"Make the appropriate announcement first thing tomorrow morning. And beyond that, if you should fail again," he said with a smile, "you will die, and live, and die again… many, many more times by my hand."

IV.

Leia entered the dimly-lit conference room at Detritus base. Several other senior commanders were present, all looking up at the wall-mounted view screen with dour expressions.

"Leia, good," Mon Mothma said. "It's about to start."

She sat down and quickly took in the other faces at the table. General Dodonna was seated at the far end, next to Mon Mothma and Admiral Koss. Commanders Willard, Narra and Salm were present as well, amongst others. She was pleased to see that Varica had opted to sit this one out, no doubt realizing that her actions regarding the Luke Skywalker identity leak had made her persona non grata amongst her peers.

The screen showed a wide exterior shot of the Imperial Palace in full daylight with a news ticker running under it. A general title floated across the top, reading 'Special COMPNOR address.' COMPNOR, or the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order, was the Empire's media and propaganda bureau, dedicated to the control of information—and by extension the very culture—of the galactic citizenry. If _Alderaan Spirit_ had been the voice of freedom, then COMPNOR was certainly the voice of oppression.

A newscaster's voice came on. _"In breaking news, we have just learned that the special address is being given by Armand Isard himself, director of the Imperial Intelligence Service. We now move to the palace audience chamber…"_

Leia sat forward in her chair. She couldn't remember Isard ever making a public appearance before.

The image changed from the palace exterior to an interior audience room, where there was a pulpit stamped with the Imperial sigil. Behind it stood a man they had only seen in still images from his Imperial profile. Isard was a middle-aged man—handsome at first glance, but his chiseled, angular face took on a cruelty that was too pronounced to be attractive. He also appeared tired, as if he were recovering from some ailment. Even still, with his dark features and intelligent eyes, he appeared at once a cultivated intellect and a ruthless killer.

"Citizens of the Empire," he began, "I come before you today to inform you that over ninety-nine percent of the surviving Alderaanians—numbering approximately forty-thousand men, women and children—have been successfully moved to a secure planet, where they can begin their lives anew."

Leia swallowed. _Assuming that's true, what does it mean?_

"I know that many of our loyal, law-abiding citizens, may be angered by the efforts the Empire has made on the refugees' behalf, given their widely practiced rebel collaboration. Others still may question why Alderaan needed to be destroyed in the unprecedented manner that it was." Isard paused. "The fact is that your government is responsible for the countless trillions of lives inhabiting this galaxy, and as a result, difficult decisions must sometimes be made, and important information must sometimes be withheld. With the Alderaanian refugee population now sequestered in a safe location, His Excellency the Emperor has commanded me to at last inform his people of the _entire_ story of what transpired at Alderaan."

Leia looked around the table, watching as her comrades fortified themselves to endure the poisonous words Isard would now pour into the ears of the masses.

"Alderaan—despite claims of pacifism—had entered into a partnership with the Rebel Alliance terrorist group. The Imperial Intelligence Service, under my specific direction, began surveillance of key figures on the planet, including members of the Alderaanian scientific community. In the course of this surveillance, it was discovered that Alderaan had created a bio-chemical weapon to be used against the Empire."

Leia tried to smile at the absurdity, but the corners of her lips had barely turned upward before tears welled in her eyes. _This is absolutely appalling._

"When the Empire confronted the Alderaanian government," Isard said, "and demanded that the weapon be surrendered, it was somehow activated, unleashing a pandemic across the planet that was lethal and highly contagious. The chemical agent was so virulent that the full population would have died within forty-eight hours—not nearly enough time to develop a cure. Furthermore, the agent was designed to last, and could be sustained within the ecosystem for years after the human population had died out." Isard swallowed, his voice heavy with a wonderful facsimile of regret. "To prevent all chances of interplanetary contamination, the Empire had no choice but to completely destroy the planet."

Commander Willard, a fellow Alderaanian, laid a warm hand over Leia's trembling fist. She turned to him as her tears spilled over, running down both of her soft cheeks. Willard, too, had moistened eyes, but he offered her a firm resolution. "This isn't the final word, Your Highness. Our side will be told."

Isard continued. "This information was held back until we could guarantee that the surviving Alderaanians were not carriers—to avoid a general panic. We have achieved this confirmation, and have likewise confirmed that the bio-chem weapon was completely eradicated at Alderaan."

Isard rested his hands at the edges of the pulpit. "Since the horrible massacre of Alderaanian refugees at Commenor some weeks ago, many have been surprised by the revelation connecting the rebels to this vicious attack. Citizens reasoned that Alderaan died as a result of its _support_ of rebel terrorism, and logically concluded that it made no sense for the rebels to attack their allies. In this area, I must limit my comments due to the ongoing efforts to protect the remaining Alderaanian civilians from further attack. But I can say this: Our intelligence showed that Bail Organa was unhappy with the division of leadership in the Rebel Alliance, and was ransoming the bio-chem weapon for a stronger position. The weapon was developed at an off-world laboratory before being delivered to Organa on Alderaan. The scientists who developed the weapon at this remote facility are still alive—and at large. As a result, we believe the rebels are now threatening the surviving Alderaanian population—promising continued attacks—until the scientists come forward and turn over the schematics for the weapon to them."

Leia couldn't physically speak, but even if she could, she didn't trust herself to maintain any semblance of self-control once she got started. She wanted to believe what Willard said—that the truth would ultimately be told to the galaxy. But with the loss of the _Alderaan Spirit News Service,_ there were few avenues open to the Alliance that most citizens would consider trustworthy news sources. At this very moment, millions upon millions sat in their homes, or at their jobs, shaking their heads at the senseless destruction the Alderaanians and the rebels had purportedly brought upon themselves. Even if the Empire fell tomorrow, this twisted version of galactic history would be embraced by countless worlds for years to come—generations, even. She wondered if they could ever un-ring the bell Isard had just struck.

_Even with all our momentum from Yavin, we're now losing the propaganda war. We're losing the fight for the hearts and minds of the people, and without that support—even if it just burns silently in their souls—we can never hope to bring the lasting change the galaxy needs._

She found Mon Mothma's and Dodonna's eyes watching her from across the table, and she knew they all shared the same thought.

_ Something needs to be done. Something defining, that states unequivocally who we are, and what the Alliance represents. An action that declares our ideals so loudly and so irrefutably, that spoken words—lies or otherwise—could never change what we accomplished. _

She cast a glance at Varica's empty chair. Her cousin's reason for being—the driving force behind her every thought and every action—was accomplishment. And she held the purse strings to fund that ongoing quest.

_ It's time for you—for all of us— to deliver._

V.

The _Millennium Falcon_ sat alone on the vast interior hangar deck of a _Dreadnaught_-class capital cruiser. Han looked down on her from two levels above, in the deck officer's observation post. The cavernous bay stretched on in both directions, each side continuing as far as the eye could see, and then fading into darkness before reaching the exterior hull. That was as much due to the minimal lighting being employed, but there was no arguing that this was the biggest ship he'd set foot on since dropping out of the Imperial Navy.

_ You could fit a hundred _Falcon's_ in this baby. Easily._

The standard crew for a Dreadnaught was sixteen-thousand men, but it could be crewed safely by a skeleton crew of about two-thousand.

Mako had flown her here with eight guys.

Han continued to peer out of the observation post uneasily. "How the hell did you manage to set sail in this monster with a handful of crewers?"

Mako sat in his wheelchair, looking quite a bit more upbeat than he had in their last meeting. "That's the bonus feature I was telling you about: slave circuitry. The best. You could fly this puppy with two astro droids and a drunken Ugnaught. They don't make 'em like this anymore."

Han turned away from the window and crossed his arms. "Yeah, no kidding they don't. An astronomic error in the _Katana_ fleet's slave system sent two hundred of these things into the void."

Mako waived him off. "Freak event. There are hundreds of Dreadnaughts still in service today and most of them use the slave circuitry to some extent." He raised his eyebrows. "Does your rebellion have two thousand men, fully trained and waiting around to crew this bird?"

Han nodded, conceding Mako's point. "You might be surprised, but I hear what you're saying." He watched as a bouncing shaft of light appeared out in the dark reaches of the hangar deck. Another of his small crew of rebel engineers had returned to the hangar deck. After two full minutes of walking, the engineer finally appeared, large flashlight in one hand and scanning device in the other. When he reached the _Falcon's_ open gangway, he looked up at Han and gave a thumbs up before heading inside.

_This ship gives me the creeps. I wish Chewie was here._ The Wookiee was once again assisting the rebels with a slave liberation raid.

"Was that the last one?" Mako asked.

"It was."

"Then it looks like your scanning crew found everything in order."

Han nodded again. "It does." Han struck a key on the data pad he was holding, and then held out a hand to Mako, which the other man shook firmly. "Thanks, Mako. The remaining balance was just transferred to your account."

Mako snorted. "My account. If only. But my benefactor will be pleased."

Han cocked an eyebrow. "Percentage?"

"Fee."

"Damn shame."

"Nah," Mako said. "I'm being taken care of."

"Sounds good." Han made as if to say something more—something personal—but then changed his mind. "Well, with any luck, we'll hit you up for another one of these babies later in the year. Revolution is a growth business, you know." He turned to walk back to the _Falcon_.

"Han."

He stopped and turned back. Mako was looking down at his lap.

"I'm sorry how I came off last time. I was feeling sorry for myself. You were being a friend and I was being a jerk." He looked back up. "Anyway… I'm sorry."

Han grinned. "Bygones, chief." He strode out of the door, calling over his shoulder, "I'll contact you in a few months."

Mako waived goodbye. "Anything's possible."

* * *

><p>Still docked inside the Dreadnaught, Han sat in the <em>Falcon's<em> cockpit. He reached over to the comm unit and keyed in the signal. He then turned to his left to watch the patch of starlit space visible though the Dreadnaught's massive hangar door.

The proximity sensor pinged, and a second later, two Gallofree Yards GR-75's flashed out of hyperspace. The oblong transports would land inside the Dreadnaught, unloading hundreds of rebel troops who would become the cruiser's new skeleton crew.

Han would be glad to be off this ship. He was certain it was just the vast, dark emptiness of it that made him so uncomfortable, but part of him questioned whether it wasn't something more. The ship had a history, he was sure, but unlike most pirates and smugglers, Han had never been given to superstition.

He stood up from his seat and headed back towards the open gangway. Unfortunately, he would have to endure this flying behemoth for another two days during its return voyage to Detritus Base. He found the twelve engineers who'd accompanied him on this little jaunt waiting at the bottom of the ramp.

"All set, Captain?" one of them asked.

"Yeah, yeah. Mako's ship just left and our boys are landing any second now. I'll tell you what, though, fellas..." He jerked a thumb up towards the darkened roof of the hangar bay. "I've got a ten-year-old bottle of Whyren's Reserve for the guy who get's these hangar lights going." He turned in a slow circle, noticing again that his line of sight terminated in shadow no matter what direction he looked in. A heavy, metallic creak echoed from deep inside the ship. He and the group of engineers all exchanged a look.

_That's it,_ he decided. _I don't care._ _I'm saying it._

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

_**To be continued… **_


End file.

Star Wars, Adventure, Sci-Fi