In the controlled chaos that was two vast fleets disentangling who'd been at each other's throats for the better part of an hour, a lone fighter, dipping all too close to the still expanding cloud of debris that had been the galaxy's most monstrous battlestation previously, was easily overlooked.
Likewise, from below another metallic object entering the atmosphere of the Sanctuary Moon was hardly noteworthy, even if it was somewhat larger than most fragments that had made it this far already. As far as any planet-based sensors were concerned, it was coming in in a continent-sized cloud of chaff.
Unfortunately, the same held true from inside the cockpit. Without the Force, Luke really wouldn't have liked to perform that particular piece of blind flying.
With the Force, however, the young Jedi weaved through the wreckage and kept going, making good use of the fact that in his chosen landing area most higher obstacles were alive or at least covered in live vegetation and the beacon he was homing in on was his sister's bright, familiar presence. It was probably for the better that TIEs – even advanced ones – didn't come with an astromech, though; R2-D2 would have definitely had something to say about a pilot steering his ship through atmospheric entry with his eyes mostly closed.
Oo oo oo oo oo oO
As landings went, it was definitely a good one since the young rebel could walk away from it unimpeded; much like his first touchdown on Dagobah, however, he would probably need help to extricate his borrowed ship from the surrounding vegetation if the latter ever was to make a return trip – the tiny glade had been the place closest to the bunker that could just barely fit the TIE and Luke didn't feel like hiking far to see his friends and family again.
He could have landed right on top of the bunker, too, of course, but that might have raised awkward questions and perhaps even more awkward friendly fire and the young Jedi wasn't in the mood for that, either. It was tiresome enough to have an AT-ST jerk its guns towards him for a split-second, before his sister swept across the clearing in front of the bunker it was guarding and nearly bowled Luke to the ground with the impetus of her embrace.
Piett and his Chief Med had known what they were talking about, the young rebel had to admit ruefully, adrenaline – and the Force – had carried him this far, but now the exertions of the day were starting to catch up with him, with interest. Too bad there still were a number of things that needed settling, first.
Always the perceptive one, Leia soon switched her hold to 'at arm's length' and gave him a critical once-over.
"Luke? What happened to you?!"
"Long story." A quick look around showed not only Han, Chewie, Zev and Jix – all sporting identical relieved grins or the Wookiee equivalent, respectively – and a few Alliance soldiers he knew by sight, but also a handful of captured scout troopers within earshot.
Better keep to the absolute basics, then. "The Emperor is dead. Vader is withdrawing his fleet from the battle. I … Leia, what is Ackbar doing? Have you heard?"
Dark eyes narrowed at the evasion, his sister nonetheless gave a sharp nod. "Yes. Come along, I'll show you."
Cool, grey, uniform Imperial architecture was starting to look unsettlingly familiar. The single display in the tiny command center of the bunker showed a holographic map of the system, the likes of which Luke had seen all too often, too, today. He let Leia explain the details to him, regardless.
"Everyone is holding their fire, right now. Ackbar is drawing the fleet together, here. Vader's here. He still has enough Interdictors to keep the system locked down, but even if he turned them off for some reason, I don't think Ackbar would have our ships leave immediately. We still have a lot of ejected pilots and escape pods out there."
"Excuse me, ma'am," the young soldier manning the console interrupted, "you're not going to believe this, but just a minute ago Vader made a general broadcast and said it would be more efficient if both fleets did the sweep of the system together. And then he offered to return all of our survivors they found, if we did the same with theirs and also included all prisoners made on the moon here in the exchange."
There were few things that could render the former Alderaani senator speechless, but a non-aggressive Sithlord was apparently one of them.
The pause made it easier for Luke to answer the inevitable question preemptively.
"It's a genuine offer. Vader honestly means to end this fight – if we let him."
"Why w… . Of course. He doesn't want to fight a two-front war until he has secured himself the throne, properly."
Huh? Before the young Jedi could open his mouth to refute that motivation, another voice beat him to it.
"If he wanted to remove the military threat the Alliance poses, here and now would be the perfect place," Zev said with an unshakable, based-on-solid-fact conviction. "The Death Star was as much hindrance as help in the battle so far, the way that idiot Jerjerrod used it – not that I'm sure it could ever be a truly efficient weapon against small and mobile targets. Take that thing out of the equation and the Alliance is still outgunned almost ten-to-one. Admiral Ackbar has some advantages in speed and agility and he knows how to use them, but barring a miracle, he can't win against those odds, he can only make it a very costly Imperial victory. Lord Vader can afford another Giju, though."
And therein lies the crux of the matter. By the time Luke had left the Lady, his father had been about to call in a holo-conference – the blank mask and mechanic voice easily simulated from his ship's databanks, he had to do nothing for that but mouth his text – to inform the rest of the commanding officers of the Emperor's death and to draw them in line with his ceasefire plans. As the ex-lieutenant – albeit one with a genetic predisposition towards a good sense for tactics – had just pointed out, all those Imperial Captains and admirals would have to accept the deliberate loss of a huge strategic advantage for that, though.
If anyone had argued, or, Stars forbid, even disputed Vader's place as next-in-line for the Throne, things could have turned ugly, real quick, there. His father was frustrated and in pain already and the Dark Side fed on those emotions with relish; to aggravate him further would not only result in the instigator's messy death, presumably, but might also shift the balance back towards the Dark. There had been no manifest explosions of temper so far, but Luke dreaded to find the warm dark flames turned back to their initial searing iciness, next time he reached out in their direction.
With a conscious effort, he pushed his mind on a more positive track. If all that careful pruning and shuffling of ranks in the last few months had worked out, on the other hand, the avoidance of a senseless waste of lives would make a powerful counterargument, as long as the alternative tactic wasn't shot down – literally! – by a distrustful Alliance.
To avoid that end, he reached out for his sister, trying to convey conviction any way he could. "Leia, the Force does not lie. This can be the turning point. This can change the course of the galaxy without any further bloodshed."
"Hate to be so blunt, Princess," Jix added, sounding anything but contrite, "but the boy is right. Vader would be better off if he went all in now instead of pulling back. Would suit his temper much better, too, he isn't exactly the type to play nice now and stab you in the back months later, and certainly not when the opportunity to clear up things in one decisive strike lies right in front of him."
Chewie rumbled some sort of agreement and Han gave an apologetic shrug. "Doesn't make any sense to me either, Leia. Unless that realization, that the Empire's not going the way it ought to be, made it right to the top …."
"No! That isn't possible!" Denial, sharp and bitter, colored his sister's tone. Before Luke could get really worried about the seething mass of anger he could feel in her mind, though, the former senator bowed to the voice of the majority. "It doesn't matter what his motivations are, we cannot afford to refuse the offer, if there is any chance for sincerity."
Turning towards the young woman at the communications console, she added, "Beezer, can you get me a secure line to Admiral Ackbar …."
Oo oo oo oo oo oO
In the lull that followed while the different members of High Command hashed out the details, Zev – who'd wisely chosen to get out of Leia's immediate line of sight after his bold declaration – managed to discreetly catch Luke's attention.
"Any news, by chance?" the younger Veers breathed, as soon as the young Jedi had eased himself into the nook beside him.
Luke took a deep breath.
On his way towards one of the surviving fighter hangars, he'd tried to get a more comprehensive overview of the Lady's reaction to the Emperor's threat. For starting, he'd asked the man accompanying him, "I'll run into Zev pretty soon. Is there, ah, anything I should tell him?"
Adm. Piett had thrown him a look that had been near impossible to read.
"The armor saved him," he'd said then, "it kept his skull and spine from getting irreparably smashed when he hit the wall with all the force to be expected when eight to five gees were suddenly pulling at him sidewise, because the gravity generators inside the tower had switched to a distinctively non-standard pattern. Sheer stubbornness kept him from suffocating under his own bodyweight until I had talked her into not squeezing him to death immediately."
A brief grimace. "Other people around him were not so fortunate."
Some of Luke's shocked confusion must have shown, since the admiral had grinned humorlessly. "All targets, remember? For old time's sake, I got only one and a half and a chance to talk my way out of it, but if several of the generators hadn't blown out when she pushed substantially more power into them than they were rated for, those eight to five gees would have been deep into the double digits. And that would have turned more than half of my bridge crew into red paste, armor or no."
"He's alive and on the Lady, that much Piett told me," the young Jedi answered truthfully.
A solid weight settled against the wall on his other side and a low Corellian drawl asked, "And what about my favorite uncle?"
"Same, more or less," Luke said softly and caught himself a sharp look.
"There's nine hells of unpleasant possibilities that could be left unsaid in that statement, you realize that, kid?"
The young Jedi sighed. Jix had been quick to pick up the habit of calling Luke kid from Han (while in the opposite direction, Zev had acquired the appellation boy, much to his chagrin), but these days, the diminutive nicknames mostly resurfaced when the older Corellians were worried.
And speaking of worried Corellians ... Han, who'd so far kept at Leia's side undaunted by her roused temper, had just spared a side-glance at the trio lurking in the shadows, done a double-take and was now striding over with sharp purpose in his eyes.
"Kid, what's wrong with you? You're looking grey!"
Luke shrugged. "Just tired, Han. Had a little run-in with a Red Guard and his pike, earlier."
Three pairs of eyes stared at him and the young rebel quickly added, "I'm fine. On the way back I liberated a generous dose of bacta-spray."
"You're not!" Jix and Zev exclaimed simultaneously, shared a startled look and turned their combined focus back on Luke.
"Listen, kid," the Corellian agent started, "force pikes are nasty buggers! I've seen people get up after a touch of those and keel over dead a few hours later, because their heart had gone out-of-sync under the shocks and after some time it just gave up under the strain."
Hazel eyes snapped from Luke to Jix and back.
"Okay, that's it." Han gave the comlink at his collar a violent tap. "Lando, get my ship down here! I need her. Now!"
Without waiting for any sort of acknowledgement, the ex-smuggler next stalked over to the communications console. "Leia, tell them to keep that thought, you're coming up. They obviously need your personal touch up there and Luke here has an urgent appointment with the Redemption."
"The Redemption was destroyed by the Death Star," Leia gave back distractedly, before the rest of Han's speech caught up with her and dark eyes rose up to glare at the tall Corellian, half angry, half appalled. "Han! You can't just commandeer ..."
"Sorry, Your Hignessness, should have thought of that one before you made me a general. I'm pretty sure I can."
A/N: Giju was the site of an insanely costly Republican victory in the Clone Wars. Sounds like the sort of thing a military academy would have its cadets dissect six ways to Sunday, to point out every flaw in the tactics (and hopefully don't make the same mistakes themselves, later in their careers).
A/N2: the human body can stand some 5-20 gees, depending on which direction they come from, for a few seconds of acceleration (or deceleration). Flat on your back, 5-8 gees should be survivable even for a couple of minutes, though data gets rather spotty once you make it past the 60 seconds line. But we are talking gees as a measure of gravity here, not just acceleration; and gravity usually kills people by pulling them towards a hard surface some distance away. The Bridge of the Lady is certainly big enough to stand several meters away from a wall and if you "fall" towards that wall with several times the normal gravity to speed you along ….