They reached Coruscant a week later. The skyline was hazy with smog, but something in Leia leapt at the sight of it—hadn't Padmé said that Vader was there, right now? Would Luke be with him?

But then they sailed past the capital city, and the feeling was gone.

The communications post was further south, surrounded by crags and mountains and cliffs. It was the natural home for the hawks, Padmé had explained—plus the terrain made it difficult for large groups of ranged attackers to get near.

But everyone here, coincidentally enough, had some sort of experience in climbing—even if Leia and Evaan's was simply the rigorous pathfinding lessons mandatory on Alderaan. And they weren't a large group.

"How fast will they be able to send reinforcements?" Leia had asked at the briefing.

"By land or by sea?"

"Both."

"Not fast enough to catch us."

Staring up at the jagged cliff they were supposed to scale, Leia hoped her mother was right.

It was twilight by the time they arrived, and although the starlight was bright, Leia found herself clutching her lantern tightly. The Ghost docked at the base of the cliff for just long enough for everyone to unpack the climbing gear, then they were off again. They'd be back at sunset, but until then they didn't want to risk staying out in the open for too long.

"Don't want to risk getting hit by falling boulders, more like," Leia muttered, eyeing the dark cliff above her. She tugged nervously at the rope attached to her harness, but they held her firm, despite how badly they chafed.

Evaan heard her complaint. "It's basalt. It's a harder rock than the chalk cliffs that were near Alderaan," she stated in what might pass for a reassuring manner. "It's less likely to crumble underneath us."

Han, on Leia's other side, grunted. "'Less likely' ain't impossible."

Evaan's gaze cooled considerably as it flicked to Han. "Then you'd better be careful."

"Be quiet," Leia said, just before the call came to start the climb. Her lantern rattled against the rope as she heaved herself up. "I'm trying to focus."

"As you wish, my lady."

"Sure, Your Highnessness."

She wasn't sure which of them sounded more sarcastic.

But the six of them made it to the top soon enough, even if Leia wanted to die by the end of it. She slumped onto a rock and tried to catch her breath, ignoring Han's jabs.

They were all crouched behind a rocky outcrop a little way from the edge. Behind it, Leia knew, stood the communications tower, a tall grey monstrosity that didn't seem to understand the meaning of centre of gravity. Leia had caught a glimpse of it on the way up.

The leader of the mission was a scarred man with yellow eyes unnervingly large for his face, named Lokmarcha. He seemed to be doing his best not to sneer at Leia and her exhaustion—not to sneer at all of them, in fact—but his best wasn't very good.

"You all know the plan," he said.

"Wow, I dunno. Blow up the tower?"

"Thank you, Solo." A muscle twitched in Lokmarcha's jaw. "We're to seize the outpost's store of gunpowder and, yes, use it. But we need a distraction while we do this.

"So, one team will sneak into the cellar, where our spies report they keep their gunpowder for use in the cannons."

"They have cannons?" Leia burst out. She hadn't noticed those on the way up, though it had been dark. . .

"No, Princess, they're gonna blow the Ghost outta the water with magic."

Leia scowled at Han. "Just because you're an idiot who doesn't believe—"

"Anyway," Lokmarcha interrupted. Leia felt he was starting to like her less and less as the night bore on. "One team will do that, while the other team causes a distraction so that the other team can do that."

Evaan scoffed. "A distraction will just bring Vader down on our heads. Can't we do it stealthily?"

"Vader won't be able to come quick enough, if everyone does their jobs. If you have a problem, you should have brought it up at the briefing."

Evaan pinched her lips together, but conceded the point.

"Now, I'll be with Team One and handle the explosives. Chewbacca," he nodded at the man, "you seem strong enough to carry a few barrels; I'll need you with me. Kidi's got the layout and numbers memorised, so she'll be with us too." He tilted his head towards the sixth member of their group, a pale-haired woman who looked a lot younger than she was. "As for the distraction, well. . ."

He curled his lip at Leia, Han and Evaan. "You three seem talented at disrupting things. I'm sure you'll do fantastically."

"What's the distraction supposed to be?"

Lokmarcha rolled his eyes. "You have pistols and swords. You'll think of something."

He pulled a timepiece out of his jacket pocket and showed it around. "We'll all meet back here in three hours, to get back down the cliff as fast as possible. For the time we have, it will be close, but we ought to be just far enough away to escape the blast. Be on time, or we will leave without you. Is everything clear?"

Absolutely not.

Leia nodded. "Yes."

Chewie, Kidi and Lokmarcha were away within moments. Leia, Evaan and Han were left to plan.

Or freak out, in Han's case.

"This is crazy," he kept saying. "You're all crazy."

"You decided to come on this mission, you know."

"I was crazy!"

Leia said quietly, "You're here for Luke, remember?"

Han hesitated. "I— The kid's not worth—"

"Well I'll be sure to tell him you said that," Leia said coolly, "when we rescue him. Now, we need a plan."

Evaan snorted. "Lokmarcha was right. All we really need to do to distract is disrupt. We could run up the stairs to the top of the tower screaming and shooting everywhere, and that would work."

"Yeah, as well as get us all killed!" Han shook his head. "Nah, we need something that strikes at the heart of what they're doing, stirs 'em all into action, without training all their attention on Rebel scum. There's a difference between distracting them, and bringing them down on Lokmarcha's head."

"The hawks."

Evaan and Han turned to her in synchrony. "What?"

Leia turned to Han. "You said we needed to strike at the heart of what they're doing. They're here to protect the hawks, and the communications. What if we set the hawks free?"

"That would force them to round 'em all up again."

"But the hawks won't go," Evaan said. "They're highly trained—they deliver messages near-flawlessly, don't they? They won't leave their aerie for anything except to do their jobs, then come straight back."

"So we scare them out." Leia was starting to smile now. She tapped the handle of her pistol. "We fire a volley of shots, scare them half to death. I don't care how much training they have, if we get them scared enough, self-preservation will take over and they'll flee."

"Well that's just great, sweetheart," Han bit out. "But we've still gotta get up there without dying. You got a plan for that?"

Leia frowned. "Yes. . . of sorts."

"Creeping up the stairs and stabbing people ain't a plan!"

"Yes it is, and shouting is not a part of that plan. Make sure to whisper."

"You—" Han slammed his mouth shut when they heard another set of footsteps traipse down the stairs, no doubt to investigate the racket he was causing. Evaan scowled at him, but violently gestured for the two of them to get back. The spiral staircase worked in their favour in that the Imperials barrelling down the stairs had no idea where they were until they were right in front of them.

This Imperial was no different. Evaan killed him before he even had the chance to scream.

"You know," Leia said, trying not to look at the copious amounts of blood they kept leaving on the stairs, "even if we're being quiet about it, someone's going to notice all the dead bodies in our wake."

"This was your plan, Princess."

"I'm not a—"

"Then we get in as soon as possible, then get out as soon as possible," Evaan said. "And make sure we're ready to fight our way out. We'll need to."

They got in as soon as possible.

Fortunately, the aerie was deserted when they went in. Fortunately, because if there'd been people inside they'd have had to fight from the moment they entered, and Leia was a bit distracted at that moment.

The aerie was massive.

Logically, it would have to be—it was the top Amidala-knew-how-many floors of the tower, and the thing had been built for it. Not to mention that it was the main aerie for comm hawks in the whole of the Empire.

But knowing those things and seeing those things were two very different experiences.

The room was well lit despite the darkness of the night; yellow lanterns hung from every beam on every floor, casting the place in a golden glow. The door they'd entered through wasn't even the bottom floor of the aerie—they were standing on some sort of mezzanine, and over the railing she could see another platform beneath them, and another, and another. There were even more above them, with three wooden spiral staircases linking the different levels. Large cages were stacked on every floor, with the hawks all huddled inside them, heads under their wings in sleep. A few of them emerged to blink at them.

Leia was broken from her awe when Han reached for his pistol. "Don't!" she hissed at him. "You'll just alert everyone to our presence, and the birds can't even fly away when their cages are still closed!"

"Like all the dead bodies haven't done that already!"

"Are the cages locked?" Evaan asked, examining one herself.

"No. I don't think the birds are creative enough to open this." Leia demonstrated her point by untwisting the wire that bound the door shut and letting it swing open. Well-oiled and maintained, it didn't so much as squeak as it did—and the birds were equally functional in that even with freedom beckoning them, they didn't so much as twitch. "Where do we need them to go?"

Han pointed with the barrel of his pistol. "Up there." She glanced up; sure enough, there was a large skylight in the ceiling, a canvas covering pulled across, open to the stars and the moon. The sight of it tugged at something inside her, the way she imagined it tugged on the tides—a yearning, almost, or a building of something under her skin. She took a deep breath.

"Then let's go." Stepping back into the role of leader easily enough—she was used to ordering people around, as an albeit inexperienced leader of Alderaan—she pointed to Evaan. "You take the lower levels and open the cages there; Han, you take the middle levels; I'll take the top." Something inside her wanted to get closer to the moon. "We'll meet back at the bottom. Shoot from there, make them want to fly up."

"Who died and made you Empress?"

But Han's objection was in vain. Evaan was already running down the stairs, and Leia was on her way up as well.

She hit the next level running and skidded to a halt in front of the first cage. She was trying so hard to move quickly that she fumbled to unwrap the wire, stabbing the tip into her thumb and drawing blood as she did, but eventually it worked and the door swung open. Then she was onto the next one, and the next, and the next.

Up to the next level, and the next, and the next—

She began to sweat, heat radiating off her face. A cool breeze brushed against the back of her neck. It stirred the strand of hair that had come loose from their braids, and she could've sworn she heard a voice with it, almost her mother's voice, but not quite—Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

Leia kept going.

She wasn't sure how much time later she hit the top floor, where the skylight was so low it was barely inches above her head—she was short, this was low; did the handlers have to bend over when it was closed?—and one cage left. She eyed the single bird inside it for a moment; it eyed her back.

A convor.

What was a convor doing in a cage for Imperial comm hawks?

She undid the cage.

The convor chirped, almost as if it was thanking her, twitched its wings, and took off. It nearly hit the canvas as it went, tearing a long gash in it with its claws.

She stood at the skylight—slanted, so she could see out into the night—and watching it go until it was a speck of dark grey against black. She could see everything up here: the specks of light in the tower below her, the rolling clouds, the deep, deep blue of the sea.

Then the clouds parting, and the moon and stars came out again.

She gasped a little as the moonlight hit her face, and again there was that stirring inside of her. It was a baptism; it was like coming home. A faint smile touched her lips. Here, up in the crisp night air, the sea crashing away beneath her, a breeze playing across the skin of her face, she felt truly—

A shot.

She whirled round. Han and Evaan had started shooting, their bullets barrelling out of the pistols. They lodged in the wooden beams of the tower, but they kept firing anyway. Already, several hawks had taken fright and were spinning up towards her, away from the shots.

She ducked as they soared out over her head. She turned to watch them, dark shadows against the night.

"You coming down here or not, Your Highnessness?" Han shouted up.

"Someone will hear you," she reprimanded on instinct, then realised how stupid that sounded and shut her mouth.

She was too high up to hear, but she imagined Han snorted. "As if they haven't already!" he called back up, lifting his pistol for another shot. "Now, get down here!"

"Wait!" Evaan barked, putting her hand on his arm to stop him firing. "I hear—"

The door burst open.

Leia couldn't help the shocked gasp that tore from her lips at the Imperial troops who filed in, their off-white uniforms bright against the dimness, yellow in the light.

Han and Evaan didn't waste a moment. They both turned their pistols on them, and fired.

Several men went down immediately, blood marring the fronts of their shirts, but more just kept coming, firing bullets of their own. The two retreated up the steps, up onto the next floor, but more men streamed out of the door on that floor so they were chased up, and up, and up. . .

Another shot—this one hit a target. Evaan couldn't contain her cry as it went straight into her bicep, but she just gritted her teeth and kept firing.

Leia surged onto the steps herself, yanking out her own pistol to fire a few shots, but they all went wildly off; she was too far out of range. She went down the steps further—

"No, Leia!" Evaan shouted. "Stay back, stay out of range!"

And Leia was afraid, so she did what her friend said.

There was no way any of them could go down from here. They'd be peppered with bullets before they took two steps. So Han and Evaan were forced up, up towards Leia, even if none of them would have anywhere to go once they were there.

Not that Evaan ever got there.

Leia screamed when the bullet hit and she went down, clutching at her side with a shout of agony. Han's eyes widened; he grabbed for her hand, tried to keep her from falling backwards, down the steps into the oncoming surge. He missed by inches.

Evaan fell against the troopers. One of them lifted his pistol just long enough to send a bullet into her head, before continuing onwards.

Leia let out a sound that wasn't quite human. There she stood, next to the skylight, bathed in moonlight, watching one of her friends, a fellow Alderaanian, die in pain.

She'd already failed Alderaan. She'd failed Luke.

And now she'd failed Evaan as well.

That stirring was back, an itching, more like, prowling under her skin—

She screamed, and let it tear out of her.

A sudden wind barrelled down the stairs. Han had the presence of thought to drop, grab the railing, as it thundered past him; the troopers did not. They were caught by the full force of it, flying back into other troopers, into others—

They fell like dominoes.

Han got up and kept running.

But by the time he made it to Leia, so the troopers had managed to recover. They were still coming, and Leia still had that itch under her skin, and—

"How the hell are we supposed to get out?" Han snapped. Leia whirled on him, breathing hard, tension in every line of her body. "Nice work, Princess, getting us stuck up here—"

But Leia wasn't listening anymore. Her eyes had snagged on the canvas crumpled next to the skylight—the canvas with the tear in it the convor had made.

Leia drew her sword, and hacked at it further. One strike, two strikes, five—it came loose. She seized it, one end in each hand, before that wind could carry it away.

"Grab onto me!" she told Han. He gaped at her, at her makeshift parachute.

"Are you crazy, lady? I ain't—"

She didn't wait for him to finish. She took a running jump, and leapt.

And she was falling.

The cold air smacked her across her face, the canvas crumpled in her hands, she was falling—

A wind-snatched curse, then a weight slammed into her and she was falling again, Han's arms wrapped tightly across her torso. She tried to squint below her, against the raging winds, at the ground rapidly nearing them—

And then that thing tore out of her once more.

The itch, the pressure under her skin, was gone. There was nothing but cool, clean air, filling her parachute and lifting them up, high above the tower, the rocks surrounding it. She choked on a scream, but it was delight—her arms may ache like nothing else, her eyes may sting with tears, but this. . .

Yet they were losing height fast. The ground still grew closer, in dizzying detail; she shouted and the wind caught them again, sending them spinning around—

To look straight at the tower as it imploded.

Rocks shattered outwards at the base, but the upper levels just. . . fell. The air around it was thick with frightened hawks as it plummeted to the ground, landing with a resounding boom.

Leia wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

They'd—

Chewie, Lokmarcha, Kidi, they'd actually—

"Leia!" Han shouted in her ear. "We're about to go over!"

"Go over?" she shouted back. "Where!"

"Look!"

She looked down. Her eyes blew wide.

She could see the others below—the rendezvous point was just underneath them, with Team One sheltering behind the rocks from the explosion. They stared up at them with wide eyes as they sailed on, losing height but never slowing down, not soon enough to—

To avoid going over the cliff.

They were over it now, then past it, nothing but a deadly drop onto jagged rocks underneath. Leia closed her eyes in terror. What— what was going on?

She knew exactly what was going on. And somewhere deep inside her, she knew exactly how to fix it.

She was the daughter of Amidala, Goddess of the Sea. She was a demigod. The moon, the wind, the tides—it all called to her.

The wind had obeyed her commands.

The sea must.

They were descending fast, now—and there. There was the Ghost, the ship they were due to return on; there was where they needed to go.

So Leia reached for that stirring inside her, the feeling of cool moonlight on her face, and shouted once more.

There was an almighty splash. They didn't hit the water; the water hit them. A massive column of it reached up to seize them out of the sky, and drag them into the fathoms below.