It is Your Destiny…

The Pride Of Tarlandia, Deep Space

Grand Admiral Thrawn ended the transmission and stared out of the viewport for a long moment. "The only true failure is not being prepared," he said. "Vader? You know what this means?"

"Yes, Admiral."

"So, where is it? Where should I mark our heading?"

Darth Vader's ventilator breathed in and out and then in and out again very slowly. "Naboo," he said slowly. "We will find my children on Naboo."

The Eclipse, en Route to Coruscant

"What is wrong with you? How can you shut her out when she needs you the most?"

Han shot a glance at Luke. "Needs me?" he asked. "Needs me for what? Your Jedi mumbo jumbo futuristic nonsense?"

Luke, for his part, at least looked genuinely confused. "What?" he asked. "What are you talking about?"

Han, Luke and Chewie were all in a small conference room aboard The Eclipse. Han was trying unsuccessfully to write up his end of battle reports. Shutting his computer down, he turned to fully face Luke as he spoke. "Look," he began with a sigh. "I don't know if you know and I don't really give a shit. But…" Han ran his fingers through his hair. Trying to find the words to say what he was about to say still didn't come easy to him. "Goddess, this barve still sounds crazy even after all this time."

Chewie chirped his opinion.

"What?" Luke pressed, clearly confused by both Han's behavior and Chewie's comment.

"Look, Leia did some time-traveling, future-bending shavit and only hunted me down, played me like a fool and…I don't know, tried to rope me into some nonsense, mind-warping non-reality that she had been planning for…ever, maybe. Hells, I don't know."

Luke furrowed his brow at Han and looked at him like the crazy person he must've sounded like. But then the kid's jaw dropped open and his eyes narrowed as if in suspicion of Han's story as well as his sanity.

"I don't know!" Han exclaimed again, raising his hands up in frustration, fed up with it all. "Ask him!" He said, standing up and pointing to Chewie.

Han paced along the walls of the private conference room while Chewbacca eloquently described his Solo and Skywalker time traveling tale of love and marriage.

When Chewie was finished Luke stared at him for a long, long moment and then said, his voice low and incredulous, "How do you know all of that?"

"What?" Han said, spinning around to look at his friend, non-friend, friend again and now nearly non-friend again. "You knew?" He asked Luke incredulously.

"Well," the young Jedi said, trailing his thumbnail down a line on the conference room table. "Yeah, well, for a while now, I guess."

"That's just great!" Han replied, throwing his hands into the air again. "Who else knows? Madine? Cracken? The cook at the little Corellian restaurant that I like? The guy that cuts my hair? Who?"

"Calm down, Han," Luke said pointedly. And then turning to Chewbacca, he asked again, "Who told you?"

Chewbacca warfled his response as if Luke had lost his mind.

"Me?" He said, pointing both fingers to his chest as if in reiteration as to who 'me' was.

The Wookiee barked his response and added a few colorful remarks on his opinion of Jedi, the Force and time traveling in general.

"I know, I know," Luke said tiredly. "You're preaching to the preacher here, Chewbacca."

"Why do you look so put out? What's going on now?" Han asked, halting his pacing to stand by Luke's side. He pointed at the younger man and continued, "And don't forget, I want to know how long you've known this. And wait a minute, how could you have not known if you were the one who told Chewie?"

"I think we better all sit down."

Luke then began to slowly unfold his tale to the two rapt beings sitting alongside him in the small conference room aboard The Eclipse. At least all the parts he thought he knew and understood. There was still so much that didn't make sense to him. Facts and events that their purpose in all of this had still eluded him.

"And so you were playing all high and mighty with Leia for telling Artoo?" Han supplied once Luke had finished.

Luke nodded. "Right. While all the while I had apparently told Chewbacca."

Chewbacca howled his amusement.

"And all apparently…for me?" Han asked.

Luke looked at him questioningly.

"I mean, you two told Yoda and old Kenobi about the Force-y stuff and all the Light and Dark Side shavit, right?" Han then stood and began to pace the room, talking out loud almost as if to himself. "So the messages the both of you left separate from that..the messages to Artoo and Chewie...they were for one purpose and one purpose alone."

Han had stopped walking and was looking at Luke. Luke nodded his head, reluctantly agreeing with Han's assessment. "To give you and Leia a fighting chance to find each other again." Luke held his hand across his mouth, diving deep into his thoughts. He had chastised Leia so vehemently about what she had done only to find out now that he had done the exact same thing. What version of the past, he wondered, what must've happened to make it so fundamentally important that Leia find the man that was to be her husband?

"This is just perfect," Han said as he plopped down into one of the conference room chairs.

Luke had known that there were things that he still didn't understand about what had made him and Leia travel back in time. He had thought it was all about the "Force'y" stuff, as Han had so eloquently put it. But apparently he had underestimated, if not wholly dismissed, the absolute importance of true love.

Ignorance is not a Jedi's enemy, Master Kenobi had taught him, only failure to accept that you are wrong and that you do not know everything, that is the real enemy.

The room had fallen quiet. Luke cleared his throat and looked at Han. "You did...love her this time around, didn't you?" he asked.

Chewbacca barked his unadulterated and unsolicited opinion.

Luke smiled, comforted but not convinced until he heard it from the man himself.

"Nah, kid," Han said, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet up on the conference room table.

Once again the Wookiee offered his take on the matter. Luke just looked away dejectedly.

"I love her," Han then stated simply, rolling his eyes at the ridiculousness of it all. "Now, and before it all went to hell, and apparently even before that." He lolled his head back and looked up at the ceiling.

Luke smiled broadly, absolutely beaming with this news. "That's just...great," he said enthusiastically. "I mean," he dialed it down a bit when Han raised his head back and glared at him. "It's good to know that there's still something to salvage and that our messages maybe somehow worked."

"I'm not sure your sister thinks there's anything left to salvage," Han replied, taking his feet down off the table. "I was pretty rough on her."

"That makes two of us. But if I'm sure of anything, it's this," Luke said but then stopped.

"What?"

The young Jedi took a deep breath. "That this future depends on you and I fixing whatever it is that we've screwed up. I know it more than ever now."

"Great," Han said sarcastically. "Maybe I should just pick up a bottle of wine, play some soft music and I'll have everything fixed up, no problem whatsoever."

Chewbacca hooted a mostly derogatory remark at Han and the Wookiee's opinion of his female courting skills.

"Whatdya mean? I'm as smooth as they come."

"Okay," Luke said impatiently and a little uncomfortably. "First thing we have to do is find her. You haven't sensed the things that I'm feeling from her, and, uh, we'll have to leave the wine and the music for after that."

"Okay," Han replied, looking skeptical. "Where do you think she could be?"

Luke shut his eyes concentrating. "She was far away but now she's on the move. I can't quite pinpoint what her intentions are."

The young Jedi could feel Han and Chewbacca watching him intently. He shut his eyes tighter and concentrated. It wasn't as if the answers to his questions were scrolled across some computer screen for him or that an exact pinpoint on some imaginary map suddenly appeared. The Force didn't work like that. He could feel her determination and turmoil and...something else. Luke shuddered but then dove back in, pushing past the darkness he felt. She was...she was trying to fix things, just as he was doing. But, as always, in an entirely different way. And she was driving toward a purpose. He reached out further. She was heading...

"She's heading home," Luke whispered, not mentioning the darkness that he felt was surrounding his sister.

"Home?" Han asked. "To Naboo?"

"Yes," Luke answered, opening his eyes. "It makes sense. It's where, in her mind, everything was lost."

"Your mother," Han supplied. "She was the glue that seemed to hold all of you Skywalkers together."

"A perfect example of a non-Force sensitive playing a significant role in the Force," Luke said pointedly.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Han stood up and spoke into his comm unit, "What's the ETA to Coruscant?"

"We will be arriving in Coruscanti airspace in less than two hours."

Han looked at Luke and Chewie. "I'm gonna go swing by the hangar and check on the status of the Falcon."

Luke's face brightened.

"But I'm still dang mad at you," he said without any real anger behind his words as he waggled his finger in Luke's face.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Luke replied. "Get in line."

Naboo

Leia set her X-Wing down in nearly the identical spot it had been the last time she had visited Naboo. The wide open field where both her literal and figurative nightmares had begun. Only this time she was not alone. A large capital ship of Imperial design had landed just a few meters away. The idea that she may be facing more Sith, here on Naboo, did not frighten her. She no longer entertained emotions such as fear.

As she jumped down from her X-Wing's opened hatch, three figures emerged from the lowered ramp of the Imperial cruiser. One was a female human with red, flaming hair. Another, a male chiss in an Imperial officer's uniform with a stony expression and perfect posture. And with them was a large, towering figure in a black helmet and cape. She sensed the Dark Side emanating strongly from their direction and...something else.

"Jedi Skywalker, so glad you could make it," the chiss male said.

"Why are you here? What do you want?" She reached out toward them, trying to sense their intentions only to pull back immediately, as if she had been burnt. Something was incredibly wrong.

"You and your twin brother are needed to usher in peace across the galaxy," the chiss said, spreading his arms wide.

"Who are you?"

"Where are my manners?" The chiss laughed. "Grand Admiral Thrawn of the Chiss Ascendancy at your service," he said, tilting his head in a small bow. "This is Mara Jade, formerly of the Emperor's Hands. And this," he held his hand out toward the towering figure in black, "this is Darth Vader. Although, you may know him by another name."

"Darth Vader?"

"Leia," the black figure replied.

And in that moment she knew. Quick as lightning she grabbed the lightsaber from her hip and it thrummed to life with her touch. Widening her stance and holding her weapon in front of her, she asked, "What have you done with my father?"

"Leia," the dark figure said again, taking a tentative step toward her. "I am your father."