It is Your Destiny…
The Eclipse
Han proceeded half-heartedly with the battle plans for Endor. There would be two teams: a ground assault team that would disable the shield generator protecting the super weapon, and an aerial assault team that would destroy the massive target once it was exposed and unprotected. The Millennium Falcon would fly lead on the aerial assault team and Arch had produced a pilot out of nowhere that he swore was the best around. Lando Calrissian was a dark-skinned man that looked arrogant and swarthy and shook Han's hand with a cockiness that made the Corellian want to check his pockets for his cred shard afterwards.
"Lando," Han was saying as he pointed at the illustration of the Empire's weapon, "you'll have to dodge those superlasers. These Jedi know how to-"
The door to the conference room slid open, stopping Han mid sentence and causing everyone to turn and look. At the entrance, dwarfed by the large doorway, stood Leia. The busy-ness of battle prep and the focus it required to meticulously plan two highly synced missions had allowed Han to let go of his anger for a while, shelving it somewhere in the back of his heart and mind. However, now suddenly faced with the woman that had by all intents and purposes betrayed him wholly, willfully and irreparably, a torrent of emotions was unleashed inside of him and he felt his heart drop down to his knees.
"Leia." A voice called her name and Luke stood and made his way over to his sister.
Leia, who had only glanced upon Han, was now peering in another direction, as she stood stoically at the entrance of the room. Following her gaze, Han realized she was staring at Arch. Of course he had heard of Leia's accusations and outbursts regarding the young Jedi. But her assertions held little weight for him now. Besides, Arch had been indispensable during the planning of these attacks. It would do everyone little good to have Leia sowing fear and dissension within his ranks now when they were so close to battle. He drew in a breath, shoving his personal feelings aside while refocusing on getting this mission done.
Luke and Leia were speaking in sharp, hushed tones and Han watched with an impatient and an impersonal stare. After giving them just a moment, he cleared his throat and said, "Excuse me, we're in the middle of a strategy session at the moment. Can't this wait?"
"Han," Leia breathed, desperation filling her tone and swamping her features.
He held his hand up, stopping her. "I'm sorry, but we don't have time for interruptions." Although not nearly in the tone that he had used to greet Luke earlier, Han still felt as if the universe had tilted sideways as he spoke to Leia with feigned detachment.
"But you're being deceived," she said, glancing at the others and toward Arch.
When her eyes came back to him he winced. For all he had prepared himself for, he didn't realize how hard it would be to remain angry with her. But maybe that was part of her deception, too? He drew in a breath and said coolly, "I guess on that point, you would be the one to know."
She halted, for she had been approaching him and her expression clouded over with confusion. "Han," she tried again.
"There's always darkness," Han replied with a sigh. "Dark Side and Light Side, and you know what? They don't concern me so much anymore. All I want to do is blow this damned monster laser out of the sky and then…" He wanted to say, and then to disappear forever, but he didn't. But the look on Leia's face said she had heard his words just the same. "Anyway," he continued, "I'm sure they'll still have plenty of light and darkness for you to fight over after this mission is complete. And I'll gladly," he paused, these words out of all of them, choking in his throat. But he forced himself to continue, "I'll gladly leave you to it."
"C'mon, Leia." Luke had slowly approached his sister and urged her on by grabbing her arm and pulling her toward the door. "Come with me."
Leia tried at first to shrug Luke off. The confusion, the hurt and the betrayal that Han saw written all over her face was almost enough for him to yell at her - yell every single thing that was going on inside of his head and heart. Questions and accusations and biting words intended to hurt her as much as she had hurt him. But he said nothing.
Finally, Leia turned her eyes on her brother and Luke led her slowly out of the room. As soon as the door had slid shut, Han took a moment to reign in his emotions. He would have to slide a door shut on that part of him for now.
After only a short pause, he cleared his throat, turned toward the remaining members of the group and continued, "As I was saying…"
The Eclipse, a few hours later
Han was walking along the corridors of The Eclipse. After his debrief meeting, he had visited the hangar bay, the munitions officers, checked in on the Eclipse's deck officers and was now heading to the Medical Bay to ensure they were prepared for incoming wounded once the fighting started. He sighed, concentrating solely on the sound of his footsteps as they echoed in the hallway.
This was no way to lead a mission and Han knew it. All of his teams held within them confusion and dissension and few were focused solely on the tasks ahead of them. News of the destruction of the Jedi Temple, of the massive deaths within the Jedi Order rippled through the hallways of the Eclipse. Yet Han did his best to ignore it all. He was precariously perched between his sense of duty to see this job through and a perverse indifference to what happened to any of them, most of all himself. His world had already imploded in a giant ball of fire, what did one more or twenty more worlds matter?
"Han?"
He heard Leia's voice from behind him and his body stiffened. He had known that it would be inevitable that she would come to find him. He stopped, knowing that running away would be useless. As he slowly turned around to face her, he still had no idea what in the worlds he would say to her.
And there she was, standing her ground resolutely. Her face was fully healed and she looked once again beautiful, as he remembered her. His heart wrenched and he damned her for making him feel so keenly this desire even now to quickly forgive her everything without even the simplest of explanations. But he shoved that inclination down, swallowed it and buried it deep.
"Han, I…," she started and then stopped. She seemed to read his mood, although perhaps not understand it. "I don't know what happened. Luke told me about… How you…"
"Do you believe Arch is Sith?" He asked pointedly.
"Yes," she answered hurriedly.
"Do you have proof?"
She shook her head, as if confused by the word. "No, I just…"
"Know?" He asked, damning his vocal chords as they cracked with suppressed emotion. "You just know?"
"Yes."
"You know a lot of things, don't you?" All the words, all the accusations and questions, they fizzled inside of him. For what would they accomplish? Nothing could undo what had already been done. "Look, I can't," he began. "I meant what I said in that meeting. I can't have you disrupting this mission. Whatever Arch is, he's a part of this crew for now and I need him to see my objective through." She said nothing, so he continued, "We're readying the ship to approach the Endor system. I think maybe it would be best if...you left us here."
"Han, please talk to me," she pleaded, her words thick with tears. "I don't care about Arch or the mission, just tell me why. Why are you acting this way, as if I… As if you…"
She had approached him, and she reached out and rested her hand on his folded arms. Abruptly, as if her touch had burned him, he took her hand in his and squeezed it. "I need you to leave me alone to get this job done, do you understand me? I can't say it any plainer than that and you don't want to hear me explain it further. Not now. It wouldn't do us both a bit of good."
"Han, please. I need you." She was crying now, pleading. "Luke is so distant and you… I've been trying to find my father, make heads or tails of where he is or what he's doing and it all seems to be crumbling apart in front of me. And now, the Jedi Temple-"
Her words were broken off by a sob. The urge to comfort and hold her, to pull her hand that he still held inside of his own and draw her into his arms, was strong and palpable. If only she would just leave, he thought. It would be so much easier to get over her if she were not there in front of him to tempt and trick him. That warning trickle climbed up his spine again, but he ignored it this time. The only way for him to withstand this pressure and focus on his mission was to get her to leave. It was the only way he could envision a clean escape. He did not have it in him to resist her.
So, he grabbed hold of her, held her at arm's length enough to see her face and he whispered, "Your father would be the best one for you to talk about what happened at the Jedi Temple." He studied the confusion in her eyes, watched as her mouth opened in an unvoiced question and continued, "Considering that he was there and a part of it."
"Wha-?" She whispered as she stumbled a few steps away from him.
He stood up straight, his arms dropping to his sides. "I was there, on Coruscant when the Temple fell," he said sadly, taking no pleasure in acting as the vehicle of delivery for this news. "Your father was the only one that escaped right before the explosions went off. I saw him myself."
"No," she replied, shaking her head and beginning to take backward steps away from him. "You're lying. You're…something's happened to you and you're lying."
"Ask your brother," he said, tiredly. He was spent, feeling like he normally did at the end of a mission and not at the start of one. He sighed. "Hell, I'll give you the reports. I'm not the only one who saw him."
"This," she said, stumbling away from him. "This can't be."
"Leia," he called to her and she turned slowly toward him, her eyes wide with questioning disbelief. "I just...need you to leave. I mean it."
The Command Deck of the Pride of Tarlandia, somewhere in deep space
"All is proceeding nicely," Thrawn said, his calculating red eyes honed on some point in the distance through the viewport and into deep space.
"The attack of the temple was magnificent," a red-haired woman replied. "And now suspicion and blame are engulfing Skywalker. It is more than I would have given you credit for."
"You'll do well not to underestimate me in the future."
"And you the same," the woman replied, matching Thrawn's haughtiness to a tee.
She was one of the "hands" that Thrawn had recruited and had been puppeting around the galaxy seeing to his every whim. Yet, she was different. She had been his ace up his sleeve on Byss. Taking care of the fossilized imposter that was Obi Wan Kenobi and also casting doubt upon Skywalker at the same time.
She actually seemed to have a mind of her own and had flourished once freed from the Emperor's domination instead of crumpling and groveling like most of the others. This also made her dangerous. And so Thrawn had begun to make a habit of keeping her close.
"And so now Endor," she said, into Thrawn's pensive silence.
"Yes, Endor. That outer rim planet that will bear witness to our elimination of what's left of the Jedi Order and the Republic's hopes."
"You are sure the others are so sufficiently placed and up to this task?"
Her Sith counterparts. Thrawn had no love for those wild wizards of the Force. Yet they were a weapon in his arsenal, like anything else. He treated them as such, knowing full well that even the most reliable weapons could be prone to misfires. "My faith rests squarely on one," he said. "And of him I have no doubts." It was a half-truth, a part-lie. He doubted and questioned everything.
"You are overconfident."
Thrawn chuckled and readied a scorching reply but was cut off by his comm unit.
"Grand Admiral Thrawn, I'm sorry to disturb you," the tinny voice said.
"Don't be sorry, be quick. What is it?"
"Approaching starship. Fighter class."
"You interrupt me for a single starship? What's the meaning of this, Captain?"
"The pilot is asking to surrender himself to you. He's evading the tractor beam until he has your word. Although we could eliminate him quite easily on your order."
Thrawn's heart skipped a beat and he leaned closer to the speaker and asked, "Who is it?"
"Anakin Skywalker, sir. How should we proceed?"
Thrawn's mind raced. Why was the Jedi surrendering himself to him? And why now? Could it be just a surreptitious coincidence that this was happening at the moment that was to mark his greatest triumph? Thrawn did not believe in coincidences. It was most probably a trap, but of what kind? As his quick mind exhausted the possibilities, he came to one, single conclusion: trap or no, he could not allow Anakin Skywalker to slip from his grasp.
"Sir? Your orders? Capture or eliminate?"
"Capture, Captain," Thrawn said hastily. "Give him my word and let him know I will greet him at the hangar deck. Clear the hangar bay and have my elite guard proceed there immediately. I'm on my way."
"Copy that, Grand Admiral. Control deck out."
"Anakin Skywalker," the red-head said, almost reverently. "This is a very interesting development indeed. Was this also part of your plan?"
"No," Thrawn replied, deep in thought. "But it plays into it very nicely. Very nicely indeed."
Somewhere in deep space
After Han's harsh words and unbelievable news regarding her father, Leia had left. Now she was alone. Alone. Floating in deep space inside of her StealthX with not a single coordinate in the universe to which she would want or like to go. Perhaps she could float out here forever into oblivion. There was no one to miss her or look for her now. How long ago, it seemed, that she had fought those Sith and shuddered at her own mortality. Shuddered at the prospect of leaving Han and her father behind and worrying about what it might do to them. She needn't worry about that now, for one was a traitor to her government and both a traitor to her heart.
She shut her eyes.
Oh how it hurt, how it all hurt her so immensely. What had turned them both? She couldn't imagine it. Her head hurt at trying to imagine it. Han had been so distant. Who or what had hurt him so? And why couldn't he turn to her for comfort? The soothing knowledge that he would be hers no matter what didn't seem to work on her any longer. Somehow the future now seemed more fluid than it had ever been as if a linchpin had broken loose and now all the parts of the universe had come apart and could fall back together in any number of ways.
Hangar Bay 2351 on the Pride of Tarlandia, somewhere in deep space
Anakin Skywalker alighted from his small ship, walked purposefully toward Grand Admiral Thrawn and bowed a very low and respectful bow. "Anakin Skywalker," he said. "I'm at your service, Grand Admiral. I believe we have similar goals and together we may be able to realize them."
"I'm anxious to hear what you have to say, Jedi Skywalker," Thrawn replied. "But first, let me offer you a bit of time to relax and freshen up. It must've been a long trip out here on that old starfighter. You must be starved."
"I'd appreciate that, thank you."
"My…companion here will show you to a guest suite," Thrawn said, indicating the red-headed woman. "She'll be your escort while you're onboard. Anakin Skywalker, meet Mara Jade."