As the two groups approached the space station, the TIEs started to pull ahead of the Lambda shuttle, evidently intending to enter the station first. With a mental shrug, Luke signaled his wingman to follow his lead and did the same.

Accommodatingly, the largest hangar bay of the station had been decorated with a large Imperial Crest on one side and an Alliance Starbird on the other, clearly designating the respective landing places. For a pair of vessels lacking landing gear, the two TIE Interceptors came down smoothly. Not to be outdone, the two X-wing pilots did their best to execute a flawless, synchronized landing, too.

Helmet off, life-support gear next, strip the suit to the waist and raise the canopy, wriggle out of the suit and step into proper boots, then slide down the ladder to the ground. Loose-fitting flight-suits and long familiarity with the cramped interior of their fighters let the two Alliance pilots hit the ground in a respectable outfit in less time than it took the Imperials to shed their helmets and life-support and exit their ships, if not by much. There were tiny handholds worked into the struts supporting the dagger-shaped wings, Luke noted with interest (or maybe regular features serving as improvised handholds), allowing the TIE pilots to work their way towards to the ground without jumping the entire distance.

While waiting next to their vessels for the respective shuttles to descend between them, the fighter pilots used the time to study their opposite numbers. One of the men in Imperial pilot-black was a non-descript, medium-sized man Luke thought he'd seen fleetingly in the Lady's fighter bays; the tall, sharp-featured man on the other side, though, every fighter-crazy kid in the galaxy could have recognized: Baron Soontir Fel.

Luke shared a look with Wedge the moment before the rounded arrow-head of the MC-20 shuttle descended between them, with Han at the helm apparently dead set on setting down precisely in time with the Lambda. The following minute the young Jedi spent wondering why Fel had not only returned his scrutiny but turned an even longer considering look on the Corellian rebel pilot.

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Further musings were cut short by the hiss of opening shuttle hatches. The rebels were exiting their ship rows of two, with Han behind Leia and Madine following the much shorter Bothan, and were joined at the bottom of the ramp by the two X-wing pilots plus General Calrissian and a pair of droids.

Lord Vader descended from his shuttle like a storm cloud, all billowing black, a quartet of high-ranking officers at his heels; the TIE pilots fell in smartly behind them once they'd reached solid ground.

A querying lick of flame brushed against Luke's mind – Safe? Healed? Problems? – but barely awaited the answering thoughts before the official round of introductions began.

There was hardly any need to point out Luke, Leia, Han, and Calrissian to the Sithlord – or the latter to anyone else – but proper manners had to be obeyed and so those four were just as painstakingly introduced as were Madine, Fey'lya and Wedge, and likewise the six other Imperials Vader had brought with him.

Leia, Madine and Fey'lya were officially speaking for the Alliance High Command; while Han and Calrissian as generals and Luke and Wedge as highly decorated flight officers stood in for the Alliance troops. An uncharacteristically silent C3-PO (thanks to dire warnings that one wrong word might not only spell destruction for the garrulous droid but also for the galaxy's best and only chance at peace, voiced by at least three different sides and sufficiently in advance for Threepio to jabber himself through the first shock) was to take minutes while R2-D2 would "ensure privacy against uninvited parties – any objections?"

Lord Vader spoke for himself, obviously; while according to his curt address, two admirals represented the Imperial Navy, two generals the Army (the pilots didn't stand for anything but themselves if the name-and-station-only introduction was anything to go by, but at least Luke found out that the second one had earned himself the designation Black Two, which was saying something!).

The young Jedi recognized exactly one of the flag officers by name and voice – Admiral Harrsk was a short, compact man with greying dark hair – the rest were unknowns. After a moment of irritation, the lack of familiar faces was only practical, though: the Sithlord was an unavoidable cause of offense, but to additionally bring along the Butcher of Hoth for a first-time meeting might have left the wrong impression (provided the man was in any shape to follow the invite). Likewise, even Lord Vader might run into tough luck, presently, if he tried to convince his ship to let her admiral walk into danger without her. The local administrator-turned-not-quite-voluntary-host for the occasion was terrified enough without a 19 kilometer behemoth of a warship trying to crawl into his hangar bays.

When everyone was officially known to everyone else – no objections were voiced against R2's presence and indeed he was joined in his task by a mouse droid painted an unusual blue-grey – the two groups relocated to a lavishly – if a bit hastily – decorated meeting room deeper inside the station.

Further diplomatic niceties were exchanged, the status quo was set down in record, making the young Jedi wonder if such a tense meeting might actually get dull, contrary to all expectations, but of course, right after that thought, his father made things interesting again by throwing a handful of chips onto the table no one had known he had.

While digging through the wreckage for three days longer, the Imperial salvage crews had not only located plenty of dead bodies but also the rare additional survivor. Six of those had been Alliance personnel.

Lord Vader's offhand offer to return them, too, led the way to the first Alliance condition for a lasting peace: the release of all captive rebels in Imperial custody.

An exchange of all captured combatants was the counter-offer; given the number of Imperials gone MIA over the years and the amount of rescuees identified via their old military files, "it is evident that you have absorbed a substantial fraction of those into your own forces, over time. For those who saw no other alternative, for fear of being labelled traitor in any case, for their involuntary absence, it must be made clear that there will be no repercussions, for them or their families, if they return to their previous allegiance, now."

Leia and Fey'lya bristled – in the latter case, literally – but Madine, who'd left most of the preliminary speeches to the professional politicians, pronounced the amendment "reasonable."

Setting her jaw, the Alderaani princess questioned the emphasis on combatants and demanded a general amnesty for anyone arrested for Sedition against the Empire and similar charges doled out in the wake of peaceful demonstrations.

An amnesty for peaceful protesters was immediately granted, but with the caveat that there would be no overall pardon for violent criminal acts. Leia sharply asked for a further specification and the gleaming black helmet turned slightly to the left.

"Admiral."

"Yes, milord." Admiral Harrsk, hardly slouching before, straightened further. He focused his all-around glower specifically on the princess.

"I have a brig full of pirates, partly caught red-handed while preying on civilian merchant ships, the rest when we captured their main base of operations," the greying man growled. "Will you claim them for your Alliance, too?"

For all his bluster, there was something mulish in the admiral's attitude, Luke thought. Like he really didn't want to give up his (likely hard-won) prisoners but expected to be overruled, a pawn sacrificed for the sake of compromise.

Leia's eyes narrowed.

"If piracy is what they did – no" she said coldly. "I am sure you have evidence against them that we might review independently?"

Something in her tone or her eyes must have struck a chord within the older admiral. He sounded much more agreeable when he said, "Certainly, ma'am."

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A pause for refreshments put an end to the discussion shortly afterwards and the two groups withdrew into separate side rooms. The moment the opposite side was out of sight and R2 had declared the room clear of listening devices, the diplomatic front of icy politeness fell apart.

While the representatives of High Command turned into a snarl of heated accusations of playing into the Empire's hands with unagreed-on concessions and just as searingly cold refutations, Han rolled his eyes, snatched a glass off the sideboard piled with refreshments and sauntered over to the panoramic window to admire the view.

Slightly wary of his own glass of something greenishly amber that Calrissian had pressed into his hand with the firm recommendation that he just had to try it, Luke was about to follow his friend when he saw the Corellian suddenly stiffen, whirl and stalk over to the squabbling politicians.

"He's playing for time," Han said, butting in without any regard for the ongoing argument.

Fur rippling with irritation at being cut off in full flow, Fey'lya rounded on the former smuggler. "Do you have a point, General?"

"We were all wondering why he wanted to talk to us first, instead of moving on Coruscant as quickly as possible. I should have realized it lot sooner – I usually have a good eye for ships and that monster of his took a real beating at Endor, however that happened. If he'd turned up with her hanging all in tatters, the sharks calling themselves Court would have smelled blood and jumped him immediately. By waiting a few days to patch her up and paint over the patches, he can make an entrance that at least looks full strength – bet, it'll take a dockyard overhaul to really get her back into shape, though – and since he had time to kill anyway, he probably thought he could do something useful with it."

Still faced with stares of incomprehension, Han waved an impatient hand at the expanse of transparisteel behind him. "That's what they started doing right now: painting the patches. You don't waste time on that until you want to look nice!"

The use of paint to avoid unnecessary violence had more Piett's hallmarks to it than his father's, and the young Jedi was pretty sure that his friend had Vader's priorities backwards – negotiations with the Alliance were going to take up some time so why not tidy up the Lady in the meantime – but that sort of inside knowledge would only raise more awkward questions.

And, it was gratifying to see Han get the sort of considering looks that said 'huh, maybe he didn't make general solely for the fact that he's sleeping with a member of High Command'.

Now that the Sithlord's reasoning about the timing had a logically sound explanation, the debate turned back at the issue of Vader's sincerity – or rather lack thereof if he was really just playing for time.

Previously content to simply listen, Wedge cleared his throat and put forward that, based on all previous experiences, Vader's idea of killing time in the presence of rebels would also kill said rebels, so there had to be more to it than that.

Luke was resigned to give another round of repetitive endorsement when Madine turned his attention on the young Jedi – and then blinked in surprise at the first question.

"Jedi Skywalker, your impressions on the men Vader has brought along?"

"They don't trust us," Luke replied, after a moment's consideration. "They trust Vader enough to hope he knows what he's doing, but they don't trust us to keep our word on anything we might decide here."

That answer brought him general attention. The intelligence chief was still quickest with the follow-up question.

"Because we are rebels?"

The young Jedi shook his head. "Because we agreed to these talks only because Vader had us at gunpoint at Endor, with a good chance to destroy us for good. And as with all gunpoint agreements, there's no reason to keep it once the immediate threat is removed."

Indignation and disbelief (more or less visibly expressed) greeted his statement and Luke hastened to explain further, "Well, that's what the left-hand general is thinking – he's the only one I could easily read. The rest has much better shields and if I tried to get anything but the most obvious surface feelings from them, they would probably notice – and Vader would certainly notice."

Has noticed already, I expect, and probably chose to have the man along precisely for being easy to read was another thought that went unvoiced; it didn't keep distrust from briefly joining the disbelief but Madine nodded, satisfied.

"Anything else?"

Luke shrugged, out of immediately noteworthy information and his sister promptly cut in.

"They address him as milord," Leia said slowly – and the former farmboy knew, just knew, that this was going to be one of the details a princess noticed in her sleep while he wouldn't get the significance in a hundred years.

Fortunately, he wasn't the only one the comment left stumped.

"Meaning?" Han asked.

"Meaning he hasn't declared himself Emperor, yet, or they would go for Your Majesty."

The former smuggler shrugged, truly unconcerned or possibly playing devil's advocate, it was hard to tell with the man, sometimes. "Might be habit. I mean, he's been called a lord for the last two decades or so, maybe they aren't used to it yet."

Leia shook her head.

"No," she said with conviction. "If he'd assumed the rank, he would stand on the proper title – everything else would be a deliberate refusal to accept his new status, to his face and in public, too. For all his loathing for the court, Lord Vader knows the rules of the game well enough to nip that sort of dissent in the bud."

Fey'lya and Madine both nodded grudgingly. The Sithlord intended to secure Coruscant first, for a proper coronation in the capital, was the best explanation for the delayed ascension to the throne anyone could come up with before a soft chime announced the continuation of the main negotiations.


A/N: there is no MC-20 shuttle mentioned in canon; by usual Mon Calamari Shipyards nomenclature there should be one, though, given that the main product lines are all numbered with straight tens (MC-30, -40, …), with the bigger the ship, the bigger the number and there's a MC-24 shuttle in the Legacy era.

A/N2: I honestly have no idea what Alliance High Command was thinking to make Han and Lando, of all people, generals, almost right after joining up officially. I know the EU says they earned it by some heroic action or other, but acting the hero does not necessarily qualify one for acting a general – and usually cheap encouragement is handed out in the form of medals, not promotions. My current theory is that they got their ranks right before Endor – and then embarrassed everyone by coming back alive (the Falcon's mission is pretty much a classic Forlorn Hope's job and the strike team might have been considered not much better …).