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CHAPTER 25

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Leia stood on a transmission pad in the main comms chamber, eyes on the lifesize holo of Mon Mothma being transmitted from Home One, its shimmer the only light in the darkened space.

"I don't know what tell you," Leia admitted, shaking her head. "It makes no sense, on any level."

Mon hesitated for a second. "I understand that Luke admitted to the murders?"

A scowl of confused frustration wrinkled Leia's brow. "He has, but…why would he do it, Mon? He had no reason, no motive."

"He's put himself in a very precarious position, Leia." Again Mon hesitated. "I…question whether he may have done it on purpose."

"…On purpose?"

"Leia…if I were to ask you to step back from this…from him—"

"No. Absolutely n—"

An alarm claxon drowned out her refusal, as the comm-room door slid aside, admitting a wide shaft of bright light from the main bridge's entry corridor which dimmed Mon's hologram as Leia turned.

Captain Hollis leaned in, voice tight. "We have a breakout from the main detention—"

"Luke?" Leia prompted.

Hollis nodded. "He's been out for minutes already; someone's only just managed to raise the alarm."

Leia turned quickly to the hologram. "I'll get back to you."

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"Report?" Hollis had already returned to the Bridge to crouch at the edge of the main crew pit, by the time Leia entered.

"Information's still coming in, sir. We have all eight guards in the detention level accounted for—all unconscious but alive. We don't have a time-scale, though."

"Who sounded the alarm?"

"A droid from the main security center. The cell feeds were set on a cycle; when cell nine came up, it was empty. He sounded the alarm immediately."

Leia drew level with Hollis. "The last time the feed was positive?"

"Seven minutes ago—that's the standard rotation time gap."

That was bad; you could get a long way onboard a Star Destroyer in seven minutes—especially if you knew your way around. Leia lifted her comlink from her belt, unthinkingly reaching out for Han's presence onboard as she spoke. "Han? Luke's out."

She listened to him loose a long run of curses…and eventually interrupted, since they didn't seem to be stopping any time soon. "Where are you?"

"Security hub library. I was just sifting through the security database from earlier on, to see if I could turn anything up."

"Stay there!" Leia said quickly. "He's had seven minutes—where would he go?"

"He'd…hold on."

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Han was already rising, letting the chair behind him fall away unheeded as he set off for the main security hub three rooms away.

Han didn't bother to interrupt the five droids and one sentient officer on duty as he entered, and no-one turned, everyone staring at their consoles with fevered concentration, skipping between live corridor feeds and timed footage. They were already receiving orders and beginning a fast sweep through corridors and open spaces, looking for their fugitive.

They wouldn't find him, Han knew. Kid had grown up on Star Destroyers since the age of eleven; he knew every nook and cranny, every access hatch and repair tube.

But Han had the edge—because no matter how the kid got there, he knew exactly where Luke would be heading.

Putting Leia on hold, he commed Wedge Antilles.

"Commander Antilles," Wedge's voice lilted as he spoke, as if he were running.

"Wedge, it's Han. Where are you?"

Wedge's voice came back slightly confused, but alert. "Me? I'm on level fourteen heading for the main hangar. We've been ordered to—"

"Turn around. Go to the 'tech repair bay and get to Luke's freighter."

"The Falcon?"

If the kid had hijacked a Star Destroyer and taken it all the way back to Rishi to pick up that beaten-up old freighter, Han knew damn well he'd take the time to go down to the docking bay for it now. "Get in, get her airborne and fly her out. I'll get your clearances and tube exits to an external bay, now. They'll be in place by the time you get to the Falcon."

"What the hell's going on? We've just had an All-Points alarm—is this something to do with Luke?!"

"Just do it, Wedge. I'll ask Hollis to clear the rest of the squadron to take out the TIEs. Those are the only ships that he might have pre-coded access to, so we need 'em out of the bays. They're not what he'll go for first, though. Comm me when you're space-side."

"Seriously? He'll just take another ship—he can fly a fighter."

"But he can't activate any." Han was already moving from the security suite in the bowels of the ship, heading up to the action—or at least where he figured it might start. "I'm heading down to engineering; we'll instigate a full lock-down on all ships. He can't counter it because he doesn't have the codes—they're Rebel codes."

"What the hell does he have, to trigger an All-Points alarm? What's going on?"

"Just get the damn freighter off the hangar floor, now! It's the only unlocked starship he can guarantee the location of, and it's his. I know him, he'll go for the Falcon."

"Alright, I'm going, I'm going."

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The good thing about an undermanned Star Destroyer was that, with a little creativity and lifelong familiarity, you could slip through repair corridors and obscure shortcuts without seeing another soul—especially if you could detect those active, wary minds long before they even saw you.

Luke was barely three levels from the repair hangar and so the Falcon, mentally going through the correct series of internal access chutes which ran like arteries through the center of any Star Destroyer to route deep-storage ships to an outer bay and so open space, when the comlink at his belt chimed. So confident was he of reaching the Falcon, that he actually activated it.

"Hey, sis." He knew it was her; she'd been trying to get him to reply to her by one means or another for a while now.

"Luke, stop."

"Sorry, I get the feeling I've overstayed my welcome."

"If you're heading to the repair bay let me save you the trouble; the Falcon's already gone. She's outside the Destroyer. There are no flyable ships… You might be able to hotwire an escape pod into releasing, knowing you, but if you do, we'll just pick you up on tractor beam."

Luke pursed his lips as he slowed to a stop, fuming. Then he pressed the comm to transmit, barely holding his temper. "I really, really think you should bring it back."

"You know I'm not going to do that."

"The Falcon belongs to me."

"Come out, and we can talk."

Unseen, he shook his head briefly. "Fine. You want the Falcon—keep her. I'll get my own ride."

"Everything's locked down, Luke. Everything. You don't have the codes."

"I have one, and it's all I need." He flicked the comm-line closed, and started moving again. He didn't want to turn this into a face-to-face fight with Leia or anyone else, but they were narrowing his options by the minute, and with every new challenge the lessons of survival that had been drilled into him over the years sharpened, taking precedence over lingering doubts.

If he couldn't get to his first choice to get out, they had only themselves to blame.

Heading away from the Falcon's hangar he altered his course from long familiarity, heading at speed towards the base of the Destroyer's Command Tower: Plan B.

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He reached the secondary bridge at the base of the Command Tower and skidded to halt, hands out flat to stop himself from slamming into the routinely sealed doors. Stepping to their side he took a half-second to gather himself; more speed, less haste. Still breathing heavily, he keyed in a Hand override code, uncertain whether it might have been discovered and nullified; he could force the doors if necessary, but it would be difficult to close them afterwards—particularly when he needed them to be airtight for this to work.

The dual sets of heavy security doors slid obligingly open to a dark and still room. Entering, Luke spun about and slapped the lock panel, then keyed the activation of the secondary outer blast doors which sealed any Destroyer's Bridge. They slammed shut with satisfying force, their massive central lock engaging with a powered thud and plunging the unused room into pitch black

Both doors could be disengaged from the main Bridge high above, of course…but he wasn't about to let that situation continue.

Set into the main body of the Star Destroyer's bulky body mass, the dark and idle room was a duplicate in every respect to the primary Bridge near the top of the Command Tower, designed to be fallen back on if the more vulnerable primary Bridge was damaged. Its only difference was that instead of the standard run of exterior viewports, it sported a series of presently blank viewscreens which when active presented multiple views from surface lenses about the ship's vast hull, to simulate the primary Bridge view. Other than that, it carried the same full access to all systems that the primary Bridge did, high above—and as such, it also responded to the same hard-wired override codes.

Luke crossed the room without slowing despite the gloom, and stepped off the walkway to land in the lower level of the inset pit crews which held the main consoles, all dark and deactivated. Reaching the Ops console he hit the trigger to bring it online, then keyed in the sixteen digit Command Protocol code which was hardwired into every Star Destroyer in the Imperial fleet. Immediately lights across the darkened room lit as the entire Bridge activated in sequenced banks, consoles and monitoring stations initiating links and flashing their status as they came online. Designed for an emergency situation, Luke knew from memory that the entire secondary bridge could move from dormant to full-link in around eight minutes.

If they didn't cut him out before that, the links would be active—and with a direct line to the mainframe and functioning Command Protocol codes, he had control.

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On the Bridge, Leia stood close to Lyto at the Tactical console, whilst Captain Hollis crouched to the edge of the crew pit.

"Any sign of him?"

The burly Byssic narrowed his all-black eyes. "His comlink was abandoned in turbolift nineteen-E. That carriage was keyed to open on six consecutive levels, so he could have exited at any of those points. I'm sending the locations to the tactical teams now."

"Which two would have given the easiest route to a hangar bay," Leia asked, aware of Han's hunch. "It'll be one of those—probably the harder one to reach."

"Levels twenty-six and thirty," Lyto said. "I'm locking down all connecting turbolift clusters which serve those levels, now. I'll free them up when I have voice confirmation from a tactical team."

"Lock as many doors as you can, too," Leia added. "He has a lightsaber so it won't stop him, but it—" Sensing a brief flare of shock she turned about to look to Lieutenant Taff, at the Ops console.

Taff rose in confusion, looking to Hollis. "Sir, I have aberrant readings on…sir, the secondary Bridge at the base of the Command Tower is coming online!"

Hollis glanced to Leia. "Would he know how to control a Star Destroyer?"

"I don't know," Leia admitted. "Probably. Would the secondary Bridge override primary Bridge commands?"

"No Ma'am," Taff shook his head. "Primary Bridge commands always take precedence."

"Well then what's he doing?"

"Maybe he doesn't know that," Taff suggested.

It didn't matter, Leia knew. They had a position for him. She moved quickly from the command pit's lower level, using the Force to enhance her jump and bring her smoothly clear and onto the Bridge's main walkway. Lifting the comlink from her belt, she keyed for Han as she kept moving.

"Han? We have him, he's on the secondary Bridge."

"That's not good."

"They can override anything he does there from the primary Bridge," Leia assured, glancing briefly back whilst she headed for the door and the turbolift beyond. "Lyto—reactivate a ride for me!"

She was inside the turbolift in seconds, only now listening to Han's reply. "Say again?"

"I said, he has a set of overrides—he has full overrides for everything!"

"We've disabled all the Imperial overrides," Leia assured. Still, she was beginning to tense again.

"Not these," Han said quickly. "They're…I can't remember their name, they're a set of Hand-dedicated command codes that old Yellow Eyes had hardwired into everything during manufacture. Do you remember anyone ever talking about them—the Rebel techs who cleaned the system?"

"Hold on, I'm linking this comm to Captain Hollis, on the Bridge."

"Hollis," came the Captain's tense reply.

"Han?" Leia prompted, wasting no further time explaining.

Han too, kept it short. "Hollis, there's a hardwired override on all Star Destroyers—did your techs find it?"

"Lyto?" Hollis prompted to his tactical officer.

"I…have no specific data on that. We disabled about thirty hidden back doors in the main system that—"

"No," Han interrupted, slowing as he dredged up fragments of old memories. "No, it's…it's not part of the main system—that's the point. No-one knew it was there except Palpatine and his Hands. It's hardwired. It runs independent of all other systems specifically so that it won't show up on any programming check, and you can't deactivate it unless you physically cut the system out. Command Protocols! That's what he called them—Command Protocols. If he gets to any core console that has a line into any military vessel's main logic system, he's in and has priority over—"

As he spoke, the turbolift car that Leia rode in blacked out and jolted to a stop. Furious, she reached out in the darkness to slam her fist against the closed doors. "Son of a—"

"Leia, you there? Our power just went down."

"Mine too." She was already pulling her saber from her belt and slicing the blade down between the locked doors as she spoke. With a little encouragement from the Force, they slid back. She was leaning out through the open space trying to get her bearings and some sense of distance to the nearest floor when emergency power flared a wan light inside the car and it stuttered to moving again, automatically rising to the nearest exit and rotating to the doors, which opened onto a low-lit corridor and two shocked-looking crewers. They jumped back as she stepped quickly out, their eyes on her lit lightsaber.

Deactivating it, she set off down the dim corridor at a jog.

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"Leia?" It was Han, the telltale jolt in his voice indicating that he too must be running. "Where are you?"

"Level thirty-one. You?"

"Practically on the other side of the ship, aft of the lower hangars. It's gonna take me a while to get there."

"How hard will it be to cut my way into the secondary Bridge?"

"Pretty hard. It'll have separate pressure and shield-rated blast doors, and an internal override for the locking system. You'd have to basically cut or blow the doors apart."

"Go to engineering, see if you can cut him out of the Destroyer's systems from there, or at least override the doors to get me in. Hold on." She switched channels as her comlink pipped. Captain Hollis' voice resolute.

"We have the two nearest tactical units and a tech team on their way to the secondary Bridge. Will you need more?"

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By the time she rounded the corner of the little-used corridor which led to the secondary Bridge the tactical teams were already there, the directional lights on their helmets casting bright flares as they watched the four-man tech team who had pulled multiple wall panels to either side of the massive blast doors in an attempt to splice a physical override into the system.

She could sense her brother inside, a mix of grim determination and regret—guilt even.

Reaching the doors, she pressed the wall comm which would link her to the Bridge beyond. "Luke? Luke, don't do this. Talk to me."

Nothing.

"Luke, what are you going to do, where are you going to go?"

Silence. If anything, the determination she could sense deepened. Releasing the connection, she looked down to the techs. "How long?"

The nearest looked up. "It's kinda more like, is it even possible. It's a Bridge door, they're built specifically to withstand this kind of forced attack."

"Get it open."

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He let them waste time trying to set up a delicate multi-wired bypass splice into the other side of the Bridge doors whilst he watched the instrument consoles within the crew pit come online. A little longer; he needed a little longer.

Clamping his jaw, he stopped at his side of the massive blast-rated shield doors, and closed his eyes. The Force flooded in to his perceptions, dizzying him sufficiently that he lifted a hand to the cool metal to steady himself. He didn't like it, this feeling; didn't like giving it control. Didn't like the fact that his original intent to use it to rip free the wires that they'd so carefully spliced in, was instantly infused with the knowledge that he could do the same inside their heads, with arteries and nerves. A more permanent solution, some part of his mind reflected logically.

With her sense in the Force so close—the dense mass of the shield-rated doors was nothing within his perceptions—he remembered his sister's words just days ago: "You know, there was a faction within the Jedi Order who believed that the Force is neither good nor bad. It simply exists. It's how we use it—our intent and motives—which define it."

Which meant what, exactly? That he defined the Darkness, and not it him? That the thought was his, and couldn't be blamed elsewhere? That he controlled it…that he was it?

He flinched away from that last, angry at himself, for dredging such thoughts up now, when his attention should be on the moment. At Leia, for her constant pushing…at himself once again, for allowing the situation to come to this.

Hand curling to a fist, he focused the Force to tight, pinpoint intent…and wrapped it around the spliced wires to pull them free in a fast jerk, hearing muffled yelps of shock through the blast door.

Open to the Force, he sensed his sister's burst of frustration. Sensed her step forward in a swirl of eddies, drawing the Force in about her with easy grace. In the complex, energy-written vision of the Force, he saw her rest her hands against the opposite side of the blast door, her stance almost a mirror-image of his, intending to rip them free by force.

His lips twitched, mind still sharp with anger as he sent his thoughts out into the void.

-A tug of war? Raw power…really?-

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The sense of her brother's dark amusement came to Leia a second before his words, all wrapped about with resounding certainty. His confidence in himself was practically nil, but his faith in the Force—in his ability to channel it—was absolute.

Without pause Leia drew her lightsaber from her belt and toggled it on, pushing the blade through the dense steel of the outer blast door in a flare of power. So unyielding was the dense metal that it took long seconds to heat red, boiling away from the blade and dropping in molten clumps on the floor as the techs clambered back.

The downward pressure required to force the energy blade a fraction down towards the blast-rated door's massive central lock was enough to tense her arms, shoulders and torso—but the blade moved, the heat from the molten metal's backwash sizzling a few loose strands of hair as she leaned in, focused on her task.

How long? Three minutes, to cut entirely through both? Five?

She was still calculating when the grind of automated pressure doors further down the long corridor behind her leaked into her hearing over the hum of her saber, as multiple heavy doors along the corridor slid back to lock themselves into open position.

"Hey Hon," Han's voice came over the open comlink at Leia's belt. He was still in engineering, trying to disable whatever the hell override Luke had engaged to cut into the Destroyer's systems, with about as much success as Leia was having in reaching her brother.

It didn't sound like he had good news.

"Don't know what you're doing to hack him off, but I thought you might want to know that Luke's just locked all the main pressure doors throughout the ship open. We can't close 'em again. Even the emergency auto-cycle's been shut down. Wait….no, there are two doors closing now, near you."

He had control—he had control of the ship's systems! Leia pulled her lightsaber free in a flare of liquefied metal, to glance to the closed pressure doors at the far end of the corridor. A second later, she sensed her brother's words within her thoughts.

-Sorry, sis. Time for me to go. Or rather, time for you to do the same-

Beyond the turn of the corridor at the locked-open turbolift shaft doors, they heard the distant grind of other doors locking closed. Everyone paused, waiting…..

Something changed—a pop in her ears which for some reason made her whole body tense—

"Woa—hey!" It was Han, on the comlink. "Leia, get out of there—I'm serious! An outside maintenance hatch just opened one level down from you—he's opened the corridor below you to space!"

Leia braced—then frowned. He'd put on a good show in the detention cell, letting her see past that tightly locked-down exterior to the Sith that dwelled within…but she'd seen more than that—more than he'd meant her to. "We're okay."

"Listen to me, he has one internal pressure door locked shut both sides of the breach. If he opens those, you and the five levels above and below you are all open to vacuum. Get out of there!"

Coming into her thoughts just as Han finished, her brother was amicable and amused.

-I guess you've worked out that you're one button-push from a serious lack of atmosphere out there. Just wanted to underline the importance of you getting your people—all of them—to escape shuttles in the next minute…

Leia arched an eyebrow, tilting her head in concentration to reply.

-You're bluffing. You wouldn't kill me-

A brief pause, in which Leia could sense his thoughts rushing in a flare of aggression which made her brace…but as suddenly as it had formed it was gone, washed clean by a moment of genuine amusement. She could almost see him smile and nod his head.

-Oh, good call-

"Leia?" Han's voice had risen a notch. "It's happening on level twenty-five… fifteen… nine… he's doing it all over the ship. He's trapping everyone in restricted pockets between closed pressure doors with open airlocks between 'em."

-And there's my reply. Time to get your people moving-

Leia held still a moment longer, lips pursed in frustration as he continued.

-I've unlocked escape pods throughout the ship. Get your crew off, now. In two minutes time I'll vent the entire ship, then this Destroyer is launching to lightspeed. And its next stop will be Kuat, Imperial territory-

She frowned, eyes closed.

-You wouldn't do that with me onboard. You wouldn't hand me over to Palpatine before, and I don't believe you'll do it now-

-True—which is why you'll be on the first escape pod. I'll relock half of the others, and when I sense you're clear, I'll release them again. If you don't leave in the next minute, I'll start opening hatches at random across the ship. Believe me, I will do it. Without flinching. I'm waiting-

She knew damn well that she had her own inbuilt immunity, even with a Sith…but everyone else onboard didn't. The darkly amused sense of him slid back into her mind, tinged with a deadly serious edge.

-Patience isn't my strong point-

Fuming, she backed up a few steps, shouting aloud. "Out! We're bugging out!" Lifting her comlink to her mouth, she spoke to Han in engineering. "Han, sound the general alarm—all personnel to the nearest evac point. Tell them the escape pods will all be released and activated inside of a minute. Then get out yourself, by the nearest pod."

"The engines are accelerating,"

His worried reply came as she was already striding down the corridor, gesturing to the Rebels about her.

"Hurry it up, then. Move!"

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Luke watched the evac pods stream from the Destroyer in coordinated waves. Victory left him oddly distant, as if he were operating on autopilot, doing what had to be done, putting lessons drilled into him for years into practice without any sense of connection to them:

Need to leave?
Get out of the cell.
Source a ship.

Accomplished that? Extrapolate:
Limit your opponent's ability to pursue.
Hinder their ability to respond.
Reclaim any lost collateral.

Long-term or personal goals:
Protect Mara whilst negating her ability to continue her mission.
Limit Leia and Han's risk by distancing yourself from them.

He could check them all neatly off from his mental list; text-book.

So why did he feel empty?

He diligently purged the air from all the corridors, then sealed the doors back up in sequence, not bothering to repressurize them. When the nav-computer buzzed to pronounce the lightspeed calculation complete, Luke activated the sequence from the helm console and watched the stars drag to whorling blurs as the ship accelerated beyond retaliation.

He was still staring blankly at the console when he heard a brief hammering against the Bridge's outer blast doors, barely loud enough to carry past the inner ones in the thin atmosphere beyond the Bridge.

Halfway between amazed and annoyed, he glanced at it, then away, back to the consoles. It was immaterial if someone had decided to play hero and try to stay behind to stop him; blindly foolhardy, and clearly not even vaguely thought through. He didn't even need to bother dealing with them—the vacuum in the corridor would do it for him, when their pressure suit ran out of air.

Dismissing it he looked back to the console, calling up star-charts for this part of the Rim. He'd programmed the first short lightspeed jump with nothing more in mind than getting safely back into Imperial space. He now needed to calculate a course addendum to tack onto the first jump with minimum time outside of lightspeed, because being in Imperial space no longer equated to being safe. For that he needed to reach the nearest loyal port, which would be Kuat and its shipyards. If he could drop out on the edge of the shipyard's military no-fly zone then he could safely make contact, and a crew could be shipped out to bring the Star Destroyer into Kuat's military shipyards. Inputting lightspeed jumps like this was one thing, as it was an automated sequence taken out of sentient hands, but to actually try to fly a Star Destroyer on his own when it dropped back into realspace was patently—

That knock on the blast doors again, this time louder and a little more desperate.

For want of something better to do, Luke walked over to the ops console and keyed up the security view of the corridor outside the blast doors. Its lens had started to frost at the edges in the freezing vacuum, but there was still enough of an opportunity for Luke to see some idiot in a full vacuum suit stood alone in the corridor outside. Shaking his head, Luke turned and walked away; they'd run out of air eventually—or freeze to death first.

He glanced back to the helm console, mind focusing on star charts and distances and—

The comlink set into the door activated with a hiss of static, and Luke ignored it. A few seconds later it pipped, as whoever was in the vac-suit managed to patch their suit's comm system into it.

"Luke?" It was Han. "What the hell, let me in. It's freezing out here!"

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Luke keyed the outer blast doors, and realizing, Han stepped closer to the inner ones. The outer set closed behind him, trapping him in the narrow space between both sets whilst Luke waited for the pressure to equalize, fuming the whole time, before he could finally release the inner ones.

Han stepped forward in a cloud of cold mist which rolled across the deckplates and tumbled into the empty crew pits as he pulled his helmet free. "Finally! It's cold enough to freeze your—"

"You idiot!" Luke yelled without preamble. "You know where I'm going, why the hell are you here?"

"Seriously? You know I just spent the last year looking for you, right? You think I'm just gonna let you waltz outta here—"

"Back to the Empire!"

"—and have to trail all over trying to find you again," Han continued without pause. "Cos let me tell you, you're not easy to track when you go to ground."

"Well let me give you a hint: look for the Emperor—I'll be right there!"

"Seriously—you're seriously even considering going back to that yellow-eyed son of a nek."

"Why, you want me to stay with your Rebellion like a nice, docile prisoner?"

"You're not a prisoner."

"Well then why was I in a detention cell?"

"Because you'd just claimed you'd killed two men!"

"I'm not even gonna get back into this argument," Luke snarled, turning away. "I'll leave it with the fact that your happy-huggy Rebels seemed pretty damn reluctant to let me leave."

"I think that's because you're taking their Star Destroyer," Han said dryly.

"It's the Emperor's Star Destroyer," Luke stated unequivocally. "And if you and your friends had left my freighter where it was, this wouldn't have been an issue. But no, you just had to take my freighter out of there!"

"Well don't you know how to throw a tantrum." Han glanced down into the empty crew pit. "You can't fly this thing on your own, you know that, right?"

"Of course I can't fly it on my own. I can program a jump and exit from lightspeed at the nearest Imperial military base, though." He turned as he spoke, stepping off the drop into the command pit without a pause, catching his weight lightly as he landed between the consoles. "Now I'm gonna have to program a drop out of lightspeed close enough to a planet between course-changes so we can do a stop-off, and I'm gonna have to work out how to reinstate the atmosphere in some of the vented corridors and try to track down a damn shuttle somewhere after I just let them all launch, to get you off of the ship before I go on to the Imperial base. I can't drop back out in the Rim systems, it'd take too long in real-space. If your Rebels actually have another capital ship nearby I can't defend this thing under fire on my own…" His voice trailed off as he stared at the Ops console, thoughts on how to achieve all this.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, you think I'm leaving? Did I not explain the 'hard to track you' thing clearly enough?"

Luke's attention remained on the console, though his voice raised slightly as he shook his head. "Did I not explain 'going back to the Emperor' clearly enough?"

"Okay, could we possibly just pretend we've had this whole argument for the last nine hours, and come to our usual truce where you stop griping and just accept that I'm not going anywhere. Where you go I go, you know that. That's how it is."

Luke looked up, voice quieting. "Except it's not. Not any more."

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"Congratulations. As ever, you're exactly where I don't want you to be, doing exactly what I didn't want you to do."

Still in his full vac-suit, Han leaned atilt against the wall, arms and ankles crossed. "Well hell, don't that just make two of us."

"You were supposed to stay with Leia!" Luke yelled the words, frustration breaking through.

"Leia can look after herself, believe me."

"So can I."

"Yeah, I was talkin' about bigger deal-with-demons terms, not I can kill a man in three seconds by just thinking about it."

Luke stared for a moment, as the look on Han's face revealed his realization that he probably should have self-edited that before he said it aloud.

"Well thanks for that vote of confidence," Luke growled, offended. "You should still be with Leia, not me."

"Why should I b—"

"Because that makes it all okay, alright?! It makes it…" Luke sighed, lowering his voice. "If I know you're with Leia then I know you'll both be alright, no matter what. I know you'll look after her. I know she'll look after you. And that…makes all the rest bearable. You've got each other. Somewhere, something is going right. I don't want you here, Han. I want you there, with her."

Han glanced down, voice quieting. "I didn't know."

"Well now you do. So go."

"You know we…we're not…"

Luke looked away, dry disposition reasserting in an effort to enforce his usual safe distance. "Oh please don't tell me details."

"No, I mean we're not…together. Well, we are, but…I dunno."

"Seriously—you seriously want to talk about your love life with one of the most screwed-up people you've ever met? Those are your words, by the way. I remember them distinctly."

"No," Han said cagily. "It's just, you know…the age difference."

"Really? You're gonna make me do this? Now?"

"Hey, I told you what to do about your redhead."

"And then I ignored you and did the exact opposite. Screwing it up further in the process, if that was even possible. Yet you're still asking my advice now."

"That's how desperate I am."

Luke sighed. "Fine. Here's my advice: Forget about the age thing. What the hell does it matter, anyway? Seriously…age is the only problem you have? If you've found anyone who'll put up with you on a long-term basis you should grab that deal with both hands, believe me." He paused, still looking to avoid being pulled into any greater involvement. "Plus, if it helps, you're particularly immature—that's why you get on with me."

"Thanks," Han deadpanned. "So…y'know, as her brother, you don't mind?"

"If I did, it wouldn't be on those grounds."

Han pondered… "I guess maybe I have been makin' a big thing out of…wait a minute, what the hell grounds would it be on?"

"None," Luke said, exasperated. "No grounds."

"You just said—"

"It was a figure of speech! There are no grounds, okay? I've just yelled at you for five minutes straight because you should be with her, not me."

"Sure you're not plannin' on blowing my head up any time soon?"

"What, like now? I'm getting that way."

"Thanks."

"But I'll refrain. Mostly because my sister would object."

"What about if she and I have an argument some time, and she contacts you all upset and mad at me?"

"First, I don't think she'll be contacting me any time soon, do you? Second, I really don't think she needs me to fight her corner. Believe me, I've dueled her when she's angry. You're on your own with that one."

Han nodded slowly, uncertain whether to be mollified or not. "Well…okay then."

Luke glanced back to the streaming numbers on the navigation console. "Now that's sorted, we need to get you off the Relentless."

"What? No, I'm still coming with you." Han lifted his arms, hands spread. "Seriously, you thought that would make me leave?"

"That's why I had the conversation," Luke grated slowly.

"No, no, no. Me an' Leia've got the rest of our lives. Right now, I need to get her brother sorted out. Otherwise I really will be in trouble."

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"You know I've been thinkin'," Han started casually—

"Please don't do that," Luke said immediately without looking up from where he hunched to the far side of the desk, stylus in hand, scratching some sketch across a piece of flimsy. "It never ends well."

They sat in the only other room that was still available to them from the secondary Bridge—that of the Captain's ready-room. They'd slept in here as well, last night. No pillows, no blankets, nothing. At least five times during the night Han had toyed with putting his vac-suit back on and going in search of more oxygen, and then the nearest bunk-room. Hell, he'd've happily slept in the vac-suit if it had meant that he could've done so on a bed—it couldn't have possibly been any less comfortable than the two upright chairs he'd had to pull together in the Captain's ready-room. And he'd only had two because the kid had eventually gotten tired of his fidgeting and heavy sighs, and given up his own chair to sleep on the floor.

There'd been the usual dry discussion:

"Here, take the second chair."
"It's fine, I don't need it."
"Take the damn chair before I break it over your head so I can finally shut you up and get some sleep."
"Man, you are snippy past midnight…"

Now, awake, tired, bored, wired, still six hours from Kuat and sat listening to his own stomach growl, Han shook his head. He was trying to keep the kid's mind occupied…or his own; difficult to say. "No, listen, my point is, you an' Leia, you're different ages, right? But Kenobi, he told Leia you were twins. Not just brother and sister; twins. An' he oughta' know, he was there when you were born."

Luke glanced up. He'd rifled through the drawers of the unused Captain's desk hours earlier and come up with a few sheets of flimsy and a stylus, which Han knew from long experience would keep him quiet for days. "How do you know Kenobi was there?"

"He told Leia he was."

The kid glanced down again at the sheet of flimsy, voice dripping sarcasm. "Oh, well, it must be true then."

"Why would he lie?"

"Really? You want to get me started on that one?"

"Okay, why would he lie about that?"

"Is this going somewhere?"

"Yeah." Han glanced down to the flimsy, where Luke's hand had moved to a new spot.

As ever, it told what was on his mind exactly: a small sketch of Leia appeared in the space of moments, head tilted forward slightly, huge, dark eyes narrowed, that single straight-up line that she got between her brows whenever she was really angry rendered in quick, well-observed detail.

Han let the fact that this was probably what the kid thought Leia now looked like whenever she thought of Luke pass, in favor of his original more positive topic. "What I'm sayin' is, why are you an' Leia different ages, if you're twins?"

"One of us presumably has it wrong," Luke said without interest.

"Precisely!" Han straightened at his side of the desk, forcing Luke to raise the stylus nib from his sketch for a moment as it shook, entirely ignoring Han's lifted index finger. "And based on the fact that everything you got told, you were told by Palpatine, I'm gonna go with Leia's age as being right."

"I'm happy for her." Luke resumed his sketching.

Turned out that some forward-thinking Rebel tech had already initiated a full-range wipe-and-shatter of the Pride's memory banks during the evacuation, saving Han the trouble and coincidentally providing perfectly-aligning time-codes with their withdrawal, leaving he and Luke with nothing to do but stare at the intensely bright vortex of lightspeed outside, and count the hours from their last meal.

That was of course, after Han had exhausted his attempts at trying to get the kid to just stop the ship so that they could both bunk-off, abandon it, and lie low for a while. Sort things out that way—or at least wait for the dust to settle on this latest calamity, to assess the damage.

But every time he tried, Luke's frayed tolerance grew a little thinner, and the kid clammed up a little faster and tighter. Seemed like they were actually gonna do this…so all he could do was what he'd always done with the kid; just…see it through. And hope to all hells that Luke came to his senses at some point.

That they were going back at all was…catastrophic. Dangerous in the extreme. Insane…yeah, he'd go with insane. Insane worked.

But somehow, somewhere along the way, this messed up, wayward, harebrained, willful, self-sabotaging kid who reminded him so much of himself ten years ago, had become a brother to Han. A messed up, wayward, harebrained one, yeah, but…brave. Fearless, in fact. Gutsy and strong-willed and sometimes, surprisingly, secretively caring. He just…hid it well.

And given where they were headed, and a wealth of past form, Han was willing to bet big credits that pretty soon this kid who was like a little brother to him would really, really need someone on his side. And there wouldn't be anyone else near, Palpatine would make damn sure of that.

It was pretty much as simple as that—always had been, for Han.

"Is that it?" Luke asked without looking up. "Leia's exactly the age she thought she was?"

"Ah but listen, she's not the age I thought she was. 'Cos I keep on thinkin' she's as old as you."

The stylus paused. "You just finished telling me that she is the same age as me."

"No listen—what I'm sayin' is, you're the same age as her. You're eleven months older than you think."

"Great."

"That makes you eighteen."

"Fine."

"That makes Leia—who I think of as the same age as you—eighteen."

"Great," the kid said flatly. "I'm still happy for her."

"You can be an absolute kuff sometimes, you know that? Drier than a womp-rat's asshole."

"I have no idea what that means," Luke said, eyes on his sketching. "But I'm guessing any description that ends in asshole can't be good."

"Y'know, I'm not even gonna get into this with you."

"How can you not get into something that you started?"

Han glared, aware that the kid was purposely trying to bait him out of boredom, now. "You just do this for sport, don't you?"

"Practice."

"You don't need practice, you're a natural."

"See, now you're just getting into it with me," Luke repeated back to Han without animosity, still sketching.

Determined to hang on in there, Han stuck with his original point. "What I'm sayin' is, that makes Leia eighteen, not seventeen. I keep on thinkin' that she's the same age as you, and she's not—you're the same age as her…see?"

The stylus stilled as Luke glanced up without moving his head. "Is this conversation going where I think it's going? Because if it is, you really shouldn't be having it with her brother."

Han twitched straight. "No, what the hell! I'm just saying, there's a difference. To me, there is. I'm sayin' I'm…workin' out plans to spend my life with the woman I..think I…wanna..spend my life with. Kinda thing."

Interesting…turned out he did have something on his mind beside boredom.

Luke was still staring, and Han scowled, lips pursing lopsidedly. "Oh don't look at me like that, it's not like you got these kinda' turns of phrase down perfect. At least I can admit it out loud."

Kid held his eyes for long seconds…then went back to his sketching. "Actually I already did. I'd like to think I got the phrasing a little better than that, but I'm not entirely sure. But at least I actually said it to the person in question." He'd moved to a clean spot on the flimsyplast and barely started to draw the outline of a woman's face when his hand slowed to a stop, pressing against the flimsy so hard that it punctured a hole. "It was after I'd said it, that I screwed everything up."

For a few more seconds he remained still, lost in thought…then, as if realizing Han's close scrutiny he shrugged, scribbling the sketch out entirely. "You know me, I screw everything up, given long enough. Didn't even need very long, that time."

"Okay, wait, you had an actual relationship—with an actual, live woman?" Han shook his head rapidly, holding up his hands palms out as offence crept into the glare Luke was giving him. "I mean, yeah, that's great! Really. Where—on Rishi?"

"No. After Rishi."

Han frowned. "After Rishi you got picked up by the Empi…oh."

Kid held that perfectly level stare, making Han realize just how much he'd put into that last inarticulate word.

Han shook his head rapidly. "No, I mean, uh…that's not..entirely…" The word catastrophic came back to mind. Amazing how often it did, with Luke.

"Hey, you were a military Aide working in the Imperial palace when you met Leia."

"Totally different," Han held. "Not nearly as…" He couldn't think of a level past catastrophic, but let's not go inviting trouble—and considering the kid's track record, that sounded like all kinds'a flat-out trouble.

"Well you can breathe easy," Luke grumbled. "Like I said, I screwed it up." He glanced up. "But she got her own back. I guess at least we're even, now."

"Y'know, I'm not entirely sure it works like that."

"Right, so I should follow your lead." It couldn't have been said more irreverently. " 'Cos you're doing great."

Han stared…..and for a few seconds, the kid held his glare with a sabacc-face—then looked back to his sketching just as a smile twitched to his lips. "Okay, that time I was being a womp-rat's asshole."

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The Relentless dropped from lightspeed with calculated precision, coming to an automated all-engines stop at the edge of the Kuat system. Luke glanced once to Han, suddenly nervous, well aware that given the slightest opening Han would try one more time to talk Luke back from his decision—even now. But his bridges had been burned and his options narrowed to this. Wherever he went, the darkness

Shadows and tangles—that's what he'd called the Darkness as a child, when he'd first been pulled into his Master's orbit—and wherever he'd gone since, it seemed he took it with him. Better then, to bring it here. Bring it home.

With a brief, somber nod, he activated the emergency beacons and opened the comm on a military channel. "Kuat Shipyards, this is the ISD Relentless. We are dead in space and requesting assistance."

"….. ISD Relentless, this is Kuat Flight Command. You are presently listed as hostile, and are ordered to power down and prepare to be boarded."

"Flight-Com, this is the Relentless, I say again, we are already DiS. We're running on limited power with no crew. I repeat, we are Dead in Space, running on limited power with no crew. All weapons and generators are powered down, and we require assistance."

"Relentless, you are under active guns and ordered to maintain your current position and status. You are presently in a military zone without permissions. An armed compliment will be at your location shortly. Open all docking bay doors and seals, and order any onboard crew to stand down. Any resistance will be met with deadly force."

"Flight-Com, I repeat, we are unmanned. All docking bays are open and shields are down. I need to speak to the Deck Chief."

"The Deck Chief is unavailable at this ti—"

"You and I both know that an unidentified Star Destroyer in his flight space will sure as hell have brought your Deck Chief out of his office. In fact he's probably stood beside you right now. Tell him if he does one thing right today, it will be this; he will run a code through his executive system; code nine-nine-six-two-gotal-epsilon."

There was a hiss of static as Luke stared at the comm console, uncertain what the response would be—whether he had already been disavowed, and his ciphers rescinded.

"… Sir, I've been asked to make a voice-code check. Please repeat the code, along with your name and rank."

"Identification code nine-nine-six-two-gotal-epsilon," Luke repeated, eyes still on Han. "This is Lieutenant General Luke Antilles."

He could only imagine what was coming up on the Flight-Com's console screen right now—only hope that his codes and ID hadn't identified him as a kill-on-sight target.

There was a crackle and tack of commlines being redirected, then a new voice came onto the line, hurried and apprehensive.

"General Antilles, Sir. Welcome to Kuat military shipyards." The change was instant, from aggressive authority to efficient deference. "This is Lieutenant Howell, the Deck Chief. We'll get a team out to you right away, with tugs to bring you into tractor-beam range. Do you require any other assistance?"

"You can stand down the military boarding party," Luke said levelly. He hesitated; "And get me a secure line to the Executor."

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Palpatine dismissed the officer with a nod of his head, feeling a slow smile pull his lips wide.

Perfect! Perfectly played out, it seemed. Mara Jade—his flawless little emerald and amber jewel—had played her part to perfection. In fact not only had his advocate returned, he had done so in a re-appropriated Star Destroyer. The only unanticipated facet—and knowing the boy, there would have to be one—was that his advocate had not returned alone. There had been a second man onboard—a fascinating addendum, in so many ways. A man whom Intel had already ID'd as the supposedly Killed in Action Imperial aide and combat pilot, Han Solo.

So the renunciation had not been completely as clean as Palpatine had intended. He had hoped that ordering Jade to frame his errant Sith for the murder of Rebels would induce a clean, irretrievable break. With the fast judgment of those around him made crystal clear, antipathy and outrage blaring out of the boy's newfound comrades and battering against his mental shields, Antilles would naturally return to the familiarity of the only life he'd ever known. The only life which had always offered him a clear, comprehensible path.

Palpatine smiled, appreciative of the gift of machination which enabled him to turn every problem into an opportunity. The boy's innate weakness remained, always, his need to connect on the petty, meaningless level of lesser beings everywhere. Jade's report that Antilles had not immediately turned her over to his new comrades had typified the youth's actions to date; irresolute. Still, the fact that he had still sought to protect her even among his new allies had provided Palpatine an opportunity to use that to his own advantage, in order to pry his advocate free and open his eyes to the very conditional aid of his supposed comrades.

And in doing so, drive the youth back to his true calling.

Solo…was a problem. Palpatine smiled; but then, given time, he generally found a way to turn such things to his own advantage.

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