As she continued to retreat from the diabolical visage of her former Master, Danaé realized that in her attempt to probe his feelings for some small seed of goodness still alive within his spirit she had failed to think strategically about her position in the government building. The corridor in which she now found herself reached a dead-end only ten meters away. Her lack of attention had allowed him to drive her into a last stand.
"There is no escape, Danaé," admonished the dark figure that once was Oga Trill. "Your destiny cannot be evaded any longer. Come with me and claim the glory that is rightfully yours!"
He was correct about one thing: there was no escape. She would have to bring him back to the light side or fight him. There was no other way. "I will not join you, Oga. I will not."
"Do not make the same mistake your father did," he growled. "The power of the Force is yours to harness. It is yours. Claim it! It is your destiny!" With quick strides he closed the distance between them and attacked, launching a barrage of fierce strikes with his shimmering red lightsaber. "Search your feelings," he said between arcs of his swings. "You know it to be true."
Danaé felt the Force flowing through her body with ease, guiding her blade with expert precision to parry away the entire assault. "No, Oga," she said, being careful that she did not call him Master. "It is you who are mistaken. I do not know how you succumbed to the dark side or why, but it is not too late. It is never too late. It is you who must join me. You were once a great Jedi, and you can be one again. I will help you. Open your feelings and release the darkness within you. You are my friend. I will help you. I will always help you."
The man who formerly had been her beloved tutor only laughed as he continued his attack unrelentingly. "Foolish girl, you are still mired in the misguided notions of your father. He knows nothing of the true might of the Force. He never came close to realizing his potential, even those few times he used its power. I do not want your help, for it is my path that controls the future. The Jedi are weak, and I will be weak no longer."
With a great act of will Danaé squelched the tears building in her eyes while she swung her green blade in a brilliant blur to deflect away all of his strikes. "Please, Oga," she beseeched. "It is never too late. Come with me and I will help you."
"No, Danaé, it is you who will come with me," her opponent said. Another barrage of strikes from the red blade drove her nearly to the wall behind her. "You must join me. It is the only way. Do not compel me to follow the other route, although I will do so if I must."
Danaé's defenses continued to hold – barely. She didn't know how much longer she could sustain this. As much as she had improved with the lightsaber in recent months, Oga was one of the greatest swordsmen in the history of the Jedi Order. "The other route?"
A grim frown crossed Oga's face. "If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed."
"Then you will have to destroy me," she said. Danaé used a quick counter-attack to drive him back a few steps, then found herself entirely on the defensive again. After her probing in the living Force, after begging him to come with her and abandon the darkness, she had found no sign of goodness within him. And now it seemed as though he meant what he said – if she did not surrender, he would kill her. On his face and in the Force she found no evidence of any weakness or regret. He would do it. He would not falter. The man she had loved like a member of her own family never could have done such a thing. Oga Trill was truly gone.
"Why, Danaé?" asked her former Master solemnly without reducing the ferocity of his attacks. "I do not wish to destroy you. I am proud of you now, and I will be only more proud when we have completed your training and your path to your destiny is fully underway. It cannot be any other way. You are the woman you are today because of what you learned from me. You are my apprentice – past, present, and future."
Danaé snapped aside another strike and strode backward several steps until her back brushed against the wall at the corridor's dead-end. You are wrong, she thought. You are very wrong. I have learned from many people besides you. My mother. My sister. My brothers. Master Kenobi. Master Windu. Master Yoda. All of them have made me who I am today, not just you. Her former Master still stood a few paces away, his ruby laser sword at the ready. With a deep breath Danaé drove the last of the hope and regret and sorrow and fear from her spirit and found again the true, profound serenity she had attained for the first time in her life on Dagobah. "No," she said sadly. "I am not yours."
In Danaé's awareness the myriad possibilities crystallized in her mind's eye. She could see the shatterpoint as clearly as if she had known how to find them all her life – she could see the man before her for the mortal enemy he had become and could perceive the fatal weakness he did not know he had.
In that moment she acted.
Danaé clamped down her emotions and refused to feel anything when she charged forward, her emerald blade gripped firmly in both hands and raised above her head. As her impossibly fast attacks began, her opponent gaped at her in shock. The sight tore at her soul, so she closed her eyes and drew solely upon the purifying warmth of the light side of the Force. Although she knew he wouldn't hear, not with his own battles to fight, she willed the message into the Force anyway. I love you, Daddy.
---
When Kessa closed the medpac and sprang to her feet, Sarré remained kneeling at Bryon's side, holding his hand in both of hers and whispering silent prayers and pleas that he wouldn't die. Through the cacophony of the skirmish between their soldiers on this side of the barricade and the attacking brownshirts beyond she heard a panicked discussion begin behind her.
"We have to retreat now," Will Graff was saying. "We don't have a choice. We can't hold this position much longer."
"He can't be moved," Kessa shouted angrily. "Moving him that way might kill him."
"We don't have time to waste, Corporal," he snapped. "If we don't retreat, we'll all die along with him."
"We'll just have to hold, then," Kessa spat.
Graff leaned down and put a hand on Sarré's shoulder. "Say your goodbyes," he said. "We have to retreat."
"I'm not going anywhere," Sarré growled. "Not without Bryon."
"We'll be overrun and you'll be killed," Graff replied flatly. "Do you think that's what he would want?"
Sarré's fist flashed up and smacked his hand off her shoulder with a powerful martial arts blow. "How dare you! You have no right to speak to me that way!"
"I'm going to order the retreat," Graff said. "The choice is yours."
Sarré stared viciously into his eyes and unleashed all of her fury. "I won't leave him!"
Graff flinched and looked at Kessa. "If you have any alternative, now's the time to suggest it."
"I have an idea that will work, but you have to promise you won't have me charged with insubordination," she said.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he shrugged, "but go ahead."
Kessa snatched her comlink from her belt and tapped in a code. "Command, come in. Command, do you copy?"
"Copy, this is Command," replied the male voice of a communications officer.
"Command, this is Brevet Captain Kessa Brittin. I have field command of Alpha squad. I am ordering you to send an evac gunship to my location immediately."
The voice on the comlink paused. "Copy. But I can't do that, sir. The standing orders prohibit it."
"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear," Kessa snarled. "This is Brevet Captain Brittin in command of Alpha squad. I am countermanding the standing orders on the authority of Major Skywalker, who is gravely injured. Unless you would like to be held personally accountable for his death, I suggest you do as I ordered." Just as she finished a laser blast smacked into the barricade just off Kessa's shoulder, helpfully emphasizing her point.
The voice paused again. "Copy, Captain," he finally said. "A gunship will be at your location momentarily."
Graff gaped at Kessa as she snapped the comlink to her belt again. "You should be court-martialed for that," he bellowed. "I can't even imagine how many regulations you just violated!"
Kessa only looked sadly into his eyes. "If it saves his life, it's worth it. And no one knows the truth but you."
"I'll keep my promise," Graff sighed as his glare became even angrier. "But Corporal, don't you ever do that again! Ever!"
Kessa nodded and looked at the ground. "Understood, Captain."
---
With Chewie at his side and barely more than half of their thirty Army regulars still alive, Han led a rapid retreat through the wide opening of a docking bay of the government building's hangar. Dozens of brownshirts were surging forward after them, the enemy's blaster fire zinging past their heads or smashing into the walls and ground. The Republic soldiers returned fire, but the casualties they caused seemed to make no dent in numbers against them.
Behind him Han heard the drives of the enormous Navy transport roaring at full readiness – the starship could take off as soon as he gave the order. He looked quickly over his shoulder to see Lando and Leia hustling the last of the refugees up the boarding ramp. Their mission had succeeded. The refugees were about to be evacuated.
But Han didn't want to give the order just yet. The squad of Special Forces troops led by Leia's brother hadn't caught up to them, and he'd been unable to raise them on the comlink. His orders from Major Skywalker were clear: evacuate immediately, no matter what. But Han couldn't bring himself to abandon the Special Forces to the enemy. Maybe if he could hold off the brownshirts just a little bit longer, the Special Forces would get here.
Han and his men stood their ground just inside the docking bay. For a minute they managed to keep the brownshirts from advancing, but soon the barrage of incoming blaster bolts from the enemy simply became too much and their men began to fall. They retreated again into the docking bay, keeping enough distance from the brownshirts to ensure they would be able to reach the boarding ramp in time.
Suddenly an explosion rocked the docking bay. Han turned around to see that one of the blast doors on the side wall had been blown open and brownshirts were pouring through with blaster rifles blazing. Instantly Han made a decision. "Birks! Chewie! Take half the team and stop them! Now! Go!"
Chewie nodded and burst toward the new enemies with Sergeant Birks and eight Army regulars on his heels. Their blaster fire stopped the brownshirts' charge in its tracks. That gave Han and the six regulars with him just enough time to retreat toward the transport again.
With his group retreating from the docking bay's wide opening and Chewie's holding a weak position on the flank, Han realized both groups couldn't make it. There were too many brownshirts and not enough time. If they continued this way, both groups would be captured, and he wasn't about to let that happen.
"Chewie! Break off! Get on the ship! Now!" Chewie looked over his shoulder and growled a negative. Han met his eyes and yelled back. "No! Chewie, get onboard. That's an order!"
While still firing madly at the approaching brownshirts, Han watched Chewie and his four survivors rush up the boarding ramp of the transport. Han snatched the comlink from his belt and barked into it. "Transport Alpha, you are green. Repeat, green. Get out of here."
The reply from the transport's captain was filled with reluctance. "Understood, Captain Solo. May the Force be with you."
Then Han heard Leia shouting from the top of the boarding ramp, which had raised from the floor and already was almost halfway up. "No! No," she cried. "Stop! We can't leave him!"
Han wished he could turn his back on the three surviving soldiers at his side, run to the transport, and jump aboard in the nick of time. But he couldn't do that – not if he wanted to respect himself as a man and an officer ever again. "It'll be okay, Princess," he shouted back. "Take care of her, Chewie."
The Wookiee's soaring roar of acknowledgement and pain tore through the air. Leia stared in disbelief, tears streaming down her cheeks. She tried to run down the closing ramp, but Chewie wrapped his enormous arms around her waist and held her back. Frantically she stretched out both arms toward Han and screamed to him over the thundering of the transport's drives. "I love you."
Han flashed his best lopsided grin before he shouted back, "I know."
In the next instant the transport lifted off and flew over his head with a deafening rumble. He caught one last glimpse of Leia's tear-soaked face as the boarding ramp sealed shut. Then Han turned to face the brownshirts who'd surrounded him. The enemy soldiers had stopped firing, but he and his three companions had no chance. Han took a deep breath, bent down to place his blaster rifle on the ground, and stood again with his hands held up in surrender.
---
Danaé eyes popped open when the Force told her it was over. Her father's personal technique had worked to perfection, as she had known it would. Without conscious thought she deactivated her weapon.
In that same instant the meaning of what she had done crushed her with the weight of a thousand ingots of aurodium. Oga Trill was dead. And she had killed him.
She slumped to her knees and stared down at the body of her slain opponent. In her heart she knew she had done the right thing, the only thing she could have done. He had turned to evil and had left her no choice. Her life or his, darkness or light, hatred or love. Danaé had done her duty as a Jedi – exactly what the Master Trill she had known and loved would have wanted.
But that did not make the awful truth any easier to bear. Tears began to stream down her cheeks and sobs wracked her shaking body. "Why, Oga? Why?" Hiccups and gasps dragged air into her lungs as she screamed into the quiet air of the deserted hallway. "How could you do this? Why?"
Her mental controls weakened and then collapsed and her emotions poured into her mind with the rush of a mountain avalanche. Unable to do anything else Danaé gazed at the lifeless face of her dead mentor and cried.
---
Darth Vengous retreated several steps under the furious barrage of strikes from the boy. Finally her provocation had achieved its intended effect. The boy's rage had overpowered his Jedi training and he now attacked her with reckless abandon. So much like his father as a young man, Skywalker's son was utterly out of control – and vulnerable.
The boy surged forward again, his blue blade swinging wildly at her head. Vengous parried away the offensive, then stepped precisely to the side and out of his line of attack. When the boy turned to face her, she suddenly launched the strongest, fastest offensive yet. Her arcs barely missed as the boy sought frantically to defend himself. It was only a matter of time now. Only a matter of time.
After the boy ducked and rolled away to avoid a near-decapitation, Vengous charged to attack again as he sprang to his feet. "Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side," she sneered.
"You haven't beaten me yet," the boy growled, his turquoise laser sword slipping around her parry and spearing toward her chest.
Vengous slid easily to the side and swiped his weapon away. "Perhaps not, young Skywalker," she
said. "But you do not yet know the
measure of my powers."
The boy's eyes widened in shock when she pressed another blistering attack. Her blade arced high and low, in and out, over and under. The boy was talented, certainly, but he was no match for nearly two decades of Sith expertise – especially now that he had lost all control over his emotions. In a matter of seconds she had him totally confounded, his defenses lost and his position hopeless.
With a single swift arc of her scarlet blade she cut through his right arm just above the wrist.
The boy's severed hand, lightsaber still ignited in its grip, flew across the docking back until it fell to the floor and the deactivating weapon clattered away. Screaming in agony, the boy collapsed to the floor and clutched his arm to his chest with his remaining hand.
Vengous strode the two paces to him, smiling broadly as she towered over the
prone, defenseless Padawan. She lowered
her shimmering red lightsaber until its tip hovered at the boy's throat. "And now, young Skywalker," she crowed
triumphantly, "you will die."
---
Jedi Master and apprentice stood side by side, their lightsabers forming whirling discs of turquoise and violet in front of them. The barrage of incoming lasers from the brownshirts' blaster rifles met the impenetrable wall of light and scattered away in all directions in a kaleidoscope of color. As the onrushing soldiers drew closer, more and more blaster bolts began to sail straight back into their ranks. With each meter forward the squad lost another member.
No conscious thoughts guided Anakin's hands as his blue laser sword danced masterfully through the air, slicing and arcing with impossible speed to repel bolts and deflect many back at the shooters. Through the battle meld he could sense Mara's equally brilliant flow in the Force as her purple weapon did the same. In only a few more seconds the brownshirts would be close enough to begin the melee, when he and she would spring in Force-powered leaps to opposite sides of the enemy formation and converge on the center.
The nineteen remaining brownshirts in the squad stood no chance against the power of Vaapad.
Anakin took a series of four slow, calming breaths to prepare for his onslaught against the soldiers. He stilled his racing heartbeat and quieted his troubled mind. For the moment he even cast aside his aching desperation to save Bryon; it would have to wait until the task at hand had been accomplished. He perceived Mara imposing on herself a similar calm and readying her stance for the jump.
In that exact instant – in that precise moment when the deadly attack was to begin – right after he had restored a measure of Jedi Master tranquility to his tumultuous thoughts – just when he could least afford it to happen – an unrelenting rolling wave of dreadful emotions assaulted Anakin through the Force.
He felt Leia cry out in a heart-rending anguish he had not sensed since Jarren's death and the grief-induced miscarriage she had concealed from everyone in the family but him.
He felt Danaé collapse in soul-searing despair, and knew immediately she had been forced to kill Oga Trill, her old Master – the worst possible act a Jedi could ever have to perform.
He felt Luke stare in unspeakable horror at the stump of his right arm, where the iridescent blade of a lightsaber had severed his hand just above the wrist.
And in that same instant he understood something with complete and utter clarity. He had known all along that the Sith were out to destroy him – to rise to galactic domination by slaying the Chosen One and disproving the ancient Jedi prophecy, as the Sith Master already had tried once to do. And he had assumed since the beginning that failing this they would try to kill Padmé, hoping that the loss of his beloved wife, the very essence and center and solid base of his soul, would drive him to death or the dark side.
But Padmé was not the target.
His children were the targets.
All of them. Bryon. Leia. Danaé. Luke. All of them.
As the split second wave of horrifying emotions and its accompanying vision of nauseating clarity ended, Anakin sprang high into the air in a twisting triple back-flip that brought him down squarely on his feet at the precise midpoint of the left side of the squad of nineteen brownshirts. Simultaneously Mara landed opposite him across the enemy formation. With the shock of his children's pain and the appalling revelation piercing him to his very core, Anakin's turquoise blade began to strike high and low, back and forth, across and through. Brownshirts fell like prairie grass to a scythe.
But Anakin did not see brownshirts. He saw the Sith. They were trying to take his children from him, and he was not about to permit it. The Sith would not succeed. He would kill them. He would kill every last one of them.
With one swing of his shimmering turquoise laser sword four brownshirts died – and Anakin smiled.
---
The firefight at the barricade had become so intense that the screech of blaster fire was deafening and thick smoke filled the air. Sarré was propped on the barricade next to Bryon's body, firing blindly through the haze in the direction of their opponents. Kessa was at her shoulder, doing the same. Around them the Special Forces soldiers sent volley after volley of laser fire at the enemy.
Suddenly a rain of deadly lasers flew downward from the sky into the smoke beyond the barricade and the roar of a gunship's atmospheric rocket-drive shook Sarré's ribs in her chest. The barrage of cannon blasts continued a few more seconds, then ceased. A battered, pock-marked medic/evac gunship swerved into view through the smoke and dropped into a hover just behind the barricade. An Army officer in gray battle armor shouted to them from the open side of the gunship. "Go! Go! Go!"
In an instant two Special Forces soldiers snatched Bryon's body under the arms and carried it between them toward the gunship. To the sides Sarré saw other troopers doing likewise with the rest of the casualties – some dead, some wounded. She and Kessa ran to the gunship at full speed, arriving just ahead of the two men carrying Bryon.
"Major Skywalker needs a field bacta tank! Now!" ordered Kessa.
"In the back," a medic waved to them from the opening that separated the gunship's main hold from a rear cargo area. "Follow me."
Sarré, Kessa, and the two soldiers rushed after him.
"This one," the medic pointed to a metal container along the wall, one of six such containers in the small space. "It's free. Put him in there and I'll be back to check on him."
"We've got it," Kessa told the two soldiers. "Thank you."
The two men eased Bryon's body to the ground, saluted crisply, and hustled back through the opening to the main area of the gunship. From there Sarré heard Graff's voice shouting instructions. "Hurry! Go!" He paused. "All clear. We're aboard. Get us out of here!" Almost instantaneously the gunship's rocket-drive roared to life again and the vehicle jolted as it soared away into the sky.
"Help me! Quickly!" shouted Kessa to Sarré over the drive's thundering rumble as she began to tear at the clasps of Bryon's armor with her fingers. "We need to get this armor off. We need to do it now!"
With Kessa on the left, Sarré kneeled on the right and began to undo the fasteners. Her mind flashed back to the last time she had taken off his armor for him – in a bedroom in the Lake Country about a month ago. The contrast to now made her want to scream in agony.
After a few seconds they had succeeded in removing the chest and back plates of the armor. "Good enough," Kessa said as she ripped the breather device from the medpac out of his mouth too. "That's the only place the bacta needs to get, so we can just leave the rest on. Come on, help me get him in there."
Sarré grabbed under Bryon's arm and lifted. The incredible weight of his mostly armored body caused her to stagger, nearly losing her balance. They dragged him several paces to the field tank the medic had indicated. A little over two meters long, a meter across, and half a meter deep, the metal container had a set of blinking lights on its exterior panel.
"Open," said Kessa clearly in the direction of the panel. The lid rose swiftly with a whir.
Sarré tugged with all her strength to lift Bryon's utterly limp body over the edge of the field tank. She and Kessa managed to do it, though, and his savagely bloodied torso slid easily into the thick yellowish liquid. Ungracefully Kessa heaved his legs over the edge too and let them slosh into the tank. Bryon sank into the translucent goop.
"Close," Kessa said, and the lid obeyed with another whir of its servomotor.
"How will he breathe?" Sarré asked. "Won't he drown?"
"He would eventually, yes," Kessa replied. "But the medic will be back soon and in that time it's fine. In fact, a little bacta in his lungs might actually help at this point."
"Oh," Sarré said. "Okay." Then she slumped to the floor of the gunship and stared at the sealed metal container that held Bryon's mutilated body. Kessa sat down next to her and took her hand, but didn't say anything. Sarré continued to stare, letting tears stream freely down her cheeks. Her teardrops splashed against the front of her jumpsuit, its white and bright red colors now streaked with huge crimson swaths of Bryon's blood. Since he'd squeezed her hand when she'd told him about the baby, he'd given her no other signs of life. He hadn't coughed or tried to speak. He hadn't moved his fingers or hands or arms or legs. His eyes hadn't opened. Maybe it was already too late. Maybe Bryon was already dead. Maybe the squeeze hadn't been a promise to live, but a farewell. Sarré began to cry even harder, still staring helplessly at the field tank.
If it weren't for the blinking panel on the side, she would've thought it was a coffin.
---
Danaé had no idea how long she had been kneeling over the corpse of Oga Trill when a sharp rip of pain sheared through the Force and blasted her into immediate readiness. Even before she could understand what she had perceived she sprang to her feet, snapped her lightsaber handle into her palm, and ignited the shimmering emerald blade.
After a moment's contemplation she realized it was Luke. He had been injured. Badly, but not fatally. Exactly how she couldn't tell, but she knew it was serious. Serious enough that if the enemy who had harmed him was still there, his life would be in imminent danger.
With a final somber glance at her slain Master, Danaé broke into a run down the dimly lit hallway. Powering her feet with the Force she nearly flew along the stone floor, surging toward the center of the massive government building. Quickly she stretched out her feelings in the Force to search for Luke. After a few seconds she determined he was still on the far side of the structure where he had been sent when she had come to this side.
Knowing she wouldn't be able to find his exact position until she was much closer, Danaé tried to stretch out further with her feelings to check on the others. But the blazing currents of churning energy in the Force were too frenetic for her to penetrate under these conditions, when she needed to keep so much of her concentration on her wounded brother. With a quick deep breath she suppressed her anxiety about them and focused solely on Luke again.
His presence in the Force remained strong, but it was riddled with pain and anger and fear. She'd never sensed him in this kind of emotional turmoil before, even on other occasions when he'd been injured. And she had no doubt that he was in grave danger.
Locking her awareness to Luke's signature in the Force, Danaé pulled more of its energy into her body and ran faster than she ever had before. The walls sailed by in a blur and her blazing green weapon hummed bright arcs through the air as her bounding strides carried her along with awesome speed. She ran as if her life depended on it – because she knew her brother's did.
---
Leia strained against Chewbacca's arms around her waist. The boarding ramp door was closed, but still she struggled and squirmed to get away, as if somehow she could get to Han. Yet the Wookiee held her tightly. "Let me go," she screamed in agony. "Let me go, you big walking carpet!"
Without a sound Chewie released her from his grasp. Leia stumbled forward and slumped face-first into the upright surface of the closed boarding ramp. "No! No!"
Behind her she heard Chewie wroof a quiet warning to someone. The new arrival spoke anyway. "Senator Organa, are you injured?" asked Calrissian.
Leia spun around and glared at him. "You left him! You left him! What kind of friend are you? Get out of my sight, Lando," she said coldly.
Calrissian did not say a word.
Leia turned around again and began to beat her fists on wall of the transport. "You left him," she sobbed, new tears flooding from her eyes. "You left him. You left him."
The pain stung at her hands as she pounded them over and over and over on the metal wall. But she didn't care. No amount of physical pain could possibly overcome the stabbing anguish in her heart. Finally her body made her stop and she collapsed to the floor in a heap. She stared at the throbbing, stinging, piercing red splotches on her hands and fought the urge to find her blaster rifle and make someone – anyone – pay for what had happened.
Then she felt herself being hauled to her feet in Chewie's arms and pulled into a fierce embrace. Lando's hands rested gently on her shoulders as she cried into the Wookiee's fur. "We'll rescue Han, Senator," said Calrissian as reassuringly as he could. "I promise."
---
Boba Fett stood patiently in a mechanical room deep within the hangar facility. His arms were crossed over his chest and his blaster rifle was slung over his shoulder by its strap. He was beginning to grow impatient, but he had not become successful by giving in to such emotions. So he simply waited.
Finally the door to the room swished open and a group of brownshirts entered. The sergeant leading the group removed his helmet and walked straight to Fett. "We have him," said the Vyhrragian officer, a former mercenary and an acquaintance of Fett's of many years.
Fett kept his own helmet on. "Very good. Bring him in."
Two brownshirts came through the door dragging a man restrained in stuncuffs between them. The captive was dressed in the black covert-operations fatigues of the Republic Navy. It was definitely Solo.
"Well done, Sergeant," Fett said, waving them forward. "Over here."
As the pair of brownshirts hauled him ahead, Solo glared at the bounty hunter. "You won't get away with this, Fett!"
"Save your breath, Solo," said Fett snidely. "You'll need it to beg Jabba to spare your life."
Before Solo could react, Fett flicked his wrist and a small dart shot out from a chamber concealed within the armor plating on his forearm. The dart stung Solo in the side of the neck. After only a second Solo's eyelids sagged and his body hung limply in the brownshirt's grip.
Fett waved his hand and the brownshirts released Solo, who fell forward and smacked face-first to the stone floor. After confirming that Solo was alive and in the deep slumber imposed by the dart's incapacitating toxin, Fett strode over to the sergeant, reached down to a pouch on his belt, and withdrew two glimmering aurodium ingots. "Your payment, as promised," he said.
The sergeant nodded his thanks. "Why does the Hutt want Solo, anyway?"
"Retaliation for his anti-smuggling ops with the Republic Navy," laughed Fett. "Why else do the Hutts do anything, but vengeance or profit?" Then his voice became entirely serious. "Have you thought about becoming a bounty hunter? Most of my colleagues are far less competent than you. I could use a reliable partner, and you'll live longer than doing mercenary work."
"Maybe when this war's over," the Vyhrragian officer replied thoughtfully. "For now, the pay's top notch and there's been little danger. I'm happy enough."
"To each his own," Fett nodded. He extended his hand and the sergeant shook it. "You're sure your superiors won't notice they're missing a prisoner?"
The sergeant grinned mischievously. "What prisoner?"
Fett slapped his old comrade on the back and laughed heartily.
---
Luke watched in horror as the Sith Master drew her shimmering red lightsaber to the side and swung it powerfully downward through the air toward his throat. So surreal was the moment that he didn't have any time to contemplate his own death. He just knew he was going to die, and that was it.
At the very last possible instant a blazing turquoise laser sword appeared only a hairsbreadth from Luke's face and collided with the scarlet blade with an ear-splitting screech and a shower of sparks.
In the next instant the blue blade heaved the red one away and Luke rolled to the side to safety. He staggered to his feet to see his Master squaring off against the Sith Master, their lightsabers humming and whirring as they prepared to engage. Pinning his severed wrist against his abdomen, Luke reached out with his left hand, closed his eyes, and called his weapon into his palm with the Force. He opened his eyes again as he ignited the blue blade and tried to steel his strength to join the fight.
"No, Luke," said Master Obi-Wan firmly. "Go! Now! Go!"
The Sith Master swung a powerful series of strikes, and with some effort Master Obi-Wan parried them away. "Master," Luke said through a grimace of pain, "I can help. Let me…"
"No, Luke," his Master shouted as he took the offensive against the Sith Master. "Go! This is an order. Go now! Do not disobey me this time."
Luke flinched at the memory of the duel with the young blonde Sith on Xixus half a year ago. Together the two of them had almost been killed, and now Master Obi-Wan was ordering him away from a duel with a much stronger Sith. But Luke also knew he was gravely wounded, and by trying to help he would get himself killed for sure. "Yes, Master," he gasped through his pain, deactivating his weapon and clipping it to his belt. "May the Force be with you."
Retreating slowly without turning around, Luke was unable to take his eyes from the vicious, terrible lightsaber battle between the Jedi Master and the Sith Master. As he reached the door to the hallway, he heard Master Obi-Wan's voice in his mind through the Force. "Run, Luke! Run!"
Luke ran.
---
Mara's shimmering violet lightsaber struck down the last standing brownshirt just as the thundering roar of repulsorlift drives shook the plaza with the strength of a groundquake. She raised her eyes to see three gigantic enemy troop transports lowering into landing hovers only fifty meters away. The stone tiles beneath her feet rumbled from the concussive blasts of the descending ships.
Then she heard her Master's voice. "No," he growled. "No. You will not stop me."
The hair on the back of Mara's neck rose and beads of sweat formed on her brow. Suddenly it felt as though the air around her had become immensely hotter, and at the edges of her perceptions she heard what sounded like the violent wail of a distant tornado bearing down on her. Nausea tightened her stomach and her heartbeat raced. And then she sensed a tremendous surge in the battle meld, a tsunami of energy crashing across the plaza.
"No," Anakin said, louder this time – deeper, fiercer. "No!" His left palm flicked outward into the air, his fingers splaying as the surge in the Force became a deluge of pure power.
Mara's eyes, dragged along in the battle meld, involuntarily followed the direction of his hand – and observed the impossible. The troop transport on the left, a massive ship over thirty meters in length and many thousands of kilograms in weight, was yanked from its repulsor-hover and thrown backward through the air. Like a child's toy tossed aside in a fit of spite, it tumbled uncontrollably across the plaza until it collided with the gray stone building that marked the plaza's far perimeter. A massive explosion detonated, spewing chunks of stone and fragments of ship and equipment in all directions. The churning fireball rose dozens of meters into the sky and fist-sized pieces of debris clanged down on the armor of the two remaining transports. The shockwave from the blast shook the other vessels, sending soldiers sprawling from the open doors and knocking to the ground those who already had disembarked.
The shockwave's strength had dissipated by the time it reached the two Jedi, but the heat of the inferno seemed to cling to them when it arrived. Mara felt trickles of sweat pouring down her skin beneath her robes. Troubled by the disturbing sensation she looked to her Master.
He was staring at the two remaining transports and the dozens of brownshirts deploying on to the plaza from them. His lightsaber was gripped tightly in both hands, his knuckles completely white. His jaw was clenched in determination and his body was poised as if to spring the entire distance to the transports in a single leap. His short gray hair was damp and matted and streams of perspiration ran down his face. Most of all, though, she noticed his eyes – the usual sparkling mischief in the blue orbs was entirely gone, replaced by a grim fire that had turned the color of the sky into the pale transparency of arctic ice.
Mara almost could not find her voice. "Master? What's wrong?"
Anakin did not respond. He did not even look at her. Instead he only stared straight ahead, his chilling gaze fixed to the approaching enemy soldiers.
In the Force Mara could sense the brownshirts rushing toward them. Dozens and dozens of them. Maybe as many as a hundred. "Master? What strategy should we use?"
Still Anakin did not speak. He continued to stare.
Mara felt the searing heat around her grow even hotter and heard the screeching destructiveness of a cyclone surround the two of them. A furious, blazing, terrifying, howling, incomprehensible power tore in circles around her through the Force. Yet in the battle meld she felt nothing unusual, as if everything were ordinary. And then the awful truth became clear in her mind – and she knew the moment she had thought would never come was here. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't. It was impossible. He wouldn't do this. He wouldn't. He just wouldn't. "Master! Please!"
Finally Anakin turned his head and met her gaze. The vacant, deadly calm expression in his eyes stopped her heart.
"Master? What are you doing?" Even as she spoke the words she knew the impossible was reality, and the entire universe was stood on its head. He wouldn't. He couldn't. It had been the most unalterable truth in the galaxy. But everything she thought she knew, everything she thought she understood, everything she thought she believed now was proven false in this single horrible moment.
For the first time in her life Mara felt truly, profoundly, utterly afraid – afraid for her life – afraid for her soul – afraid of the dark side. Afraid of Anakin Skywalker.
---
While the applause echoed around her, Padmé gazed out over the sloped floor of the Senate chamber and marveled at the sight. Never before, in all her years on Coruscant as an observer of the Republic's legislature, had she ever seen it this full. Every star system that had not joined Argis' New Justice movement was represented. Not a single loyal pod was empty. It was astounding.
"Victory is assured," she said firmly when the applause quieted again. "The Republic is strong. Our Army and Navy are far larger and far more powerful than the Vyhrragian legions and fleets at the tyrant's command. Now, with war declared and the Republic dedicated to restoring justice and peace in the Mid Rim, our triumph is inevitable. The enemy cannot hope to long withstand the overwhelming might of our military."
Padmé took a deep breath and continued from the text slowly scrolling on her datapad. "But do not for a moment allow yourselves to believe that victory will be easy. It will not come quickly, and it will not come without cost. As much as we might hope and pray for an immediate surrender, the enemy may not yield even in the face of impossible odds. Countless battles must be waged to strip the enemy of his conquests and drive him back until nothing remains of his domain. Planets will fall and many – civilian and military alike – will perish."
"Our greatest enemy," she said grimly, "is not Argis and his armada. It is time. For as time passes and the war rages, we ourselves will begin to feel the cost of victory. This will be no swift and painless capitulation like the defeat of an overmatched smashball team. We will lose soldiers. Tariffs on trade routes and taxes on wealth transfers will be raised to fund this war – there is no alternative. We will lose starships and machines of war and innocent commercial vessels caught in the crossfire. Our treasury will be strained as appropriations for the war effort necessarily escalate, and countless admirable and essential and worthy projects will be left without financing as every available resource is drawn to our cause. We will lose battles and engagements and skirmishes across the theater of war. Perhaps before all is done we will lose planets and star systems, only to have to retake them again before victory is ours. Time is our enemy, for as the costs grow, the pain of victory will weaken our resolve and drain our spirits. But I will not let time dilute my will toward victory."
Padmé swallowed hard and fought back the tears she felt building in her eyes. "I give you my solemn and sacred word that the Republic will prevail and Argis will be vanquished. His insignificant rebellion will be remembered in history – if it is remembered at all – as nothing more than a tragic abuse of power and a poignant admonition that tyranny and terror must be met immediately and unrelentingly from the first moment they appear. Victory is ours. We need only choose to claim it."
"But victory will not come without sacrifice." She clenched the sides of the podium in her pod. "Already thousands of our finest men and women have given their lives to defend the freedom and democracy for which this great and ancient Republic stands. Many more will die for us before this war ends."
She took another deep breath and made herself keep going. "And do not think that my talk of sacrifice is nothing but idle words or mere rhetoric. The burden is one I carry myself. As I stand before you now, in this secured chamber in the protected capital, our military wages a desperate battle at Gimna 3 to evacuate refugees and remove them from the path of Argis' onslaught. At this very moment my entire family is with them." An audible gasp sounded in the gargantuan chamber as the other delegates realized what she had said. "My husband leads squads of Jedi Knights against the enemy, including my son and daughter and his apprentice, whom I love like my own kin. My other daughter, the Senator from Naboo, assists in the evacuation effort, while my youngest son, a major in the Army's Special Forces, commands the operation from the ground, in the very heart of the fighting. This vicious battle still rages, and I do not know what fate it will bring to those I love."
"But I do know that regardless of what may come, even if I should lose someone dear to me, I will persevere. That is what I must do for the Republic, and what one lost to me would want me to do." She clutched the podium even tighter. "It is my duty – the duty I have assumed by standing before you and declaring my willingness to serve. Victory must be achieved, even at great cost to the Republic – and even at great cost to me."
Padmé dug deep within herself and found the strength to continue. "Victory will be ours, but it will be a victory bought with blood and sweat and pain and loss. The cost will be high, but I vow to you that whatever the price I will not be swayed from our objective. Like the Republic, I will be strong. Like the Republic, I will bind my wounds and carry on. Like the Republic, I will not succumb to fear or exhaustion or grief. Like the Republic, I will fight and fight until the enemy can take no more."
"Like the Republic," she said, her voice somehow booming and forceful again, "I will never surrender!"
---
Darth Vengous drove Kenobi backward with another triple-double combination of arcs and slices. The venerable Jedi Master parried the attack away, but she knew she was testing the limits of his defenses. He was strong in the Force, of course, but she was almost twenty years his junior – and stronger.
"You cannot delay the inevitable," she snarled. "Your sacrifice will be in vain, for soon young Skywalker will join you in death and I will have my triumph."
Kenobi blocked another attack, shoved her blade to the side, and retreated two more paces. "I do what I believe is right," he said flatly. "I leave destiny to the Force."
"The Force will not save you today, old man," Vengous laughed as she closed the distance between them and took the offensive again. "Nor will it save your apprentice."
"You assume too much about my aims," Kenobi smiled. "My life is a small price to pay to ensure your ultimate destruction."
"How fortuitous, then, that you are willing to pay it," Vengous said. "For pay it you shall."
The Sith Master set her feet, swung her blazing scarlet laser sword to the ready, and charged. Three quick thrusts drew Kenobi's blade out of position. She snapped his blue weapon to the side and plunged her red blade straight through his chest. For a long moment she held it there, staring into his eyes and grinning in triumph.
Then she deactivated her blade and let Kenobi's lifeless body slump to the ground. She called his weapon to her palm, retracted the blue blade, and clipped its handle to her belt as well. Although the unexpected loss of Lord Malus was an annoying interference with her ultimate design, the trade for the life of Kenobi was one she was more than willing to make. With a final smile of victory, she drew up the hood of her black cloak and strode quickly into the hallway.
---
Danaé's Force-powered strides flew her down the corridor of the government building toward the bright yet pain-riddled presence of her older brother. With each pound of a boot on the stone floors she sensed him getting closer and closer. By the time she realized he was moving toward her too, she had reached him.
She slammed to a halt, cradling Luke in her left arm as he slumped into her. Quickly she scanned the hallway with her eyes and the Force and found nothing. Deactivating and stashing her blade, she wrapped Luke in a fierce embrace. "What happened?"
He raised his head and looked forlornly into her eyes. "Sith… fought…" His voice was hoarse and anguished, and his breathing was hitched. "Tried… but couldn't… said you… and… my hand."
Only then did Danaé look down to his right arm – and couldn't stifle her shocked gasp. Where his hand and wrist should have been was a cleanly cauterized stump, the kind of wound delivered only by a lightsaber. "How did you get away?"
"Master Obi-Wan… made me… go."
Danaé didn't like the sound of that, but she knew there was only one thing she could do now – get Luke to safety. She wrapped an arm around his waist and began to lead him back down the hallway. She walked as quickly as he could manage to keep up, which was remarkably fast given the waves of piercing pain streaming from him in the Force. "We have to get out of here," she said as they reached an intersection. "The hangar is this way."
"Are you… sure?" He looked at her in agony. "I thought… it was… that way."
Her heart skipped a beat when she realized she didn't know. She had no idea which way the hangar was. In her haste to find him she had lost track of her position in the building again. That was not good. Very not good. "Yes, I'm sure," she lied. "Come on, we have to hurry."
They had made it only a few dozen strides down the corridor when Luke screamed in horror, then collapsed to his knees. An instant later Danaé felt it too – the fleeting, shrill whistle of a life spirit leaving a physical form and becoming one with the Force. As the energy surge sailed through her awareness, she perceived its tender, solemn, wistful farewell.
Master Kenobi was gone.
Danaé found herself unable to move. It was almost too much to bear. Just minutes ago she had slain her own former Master, and now Luke's Master was dead too. It was surreal. Incomprehensible. Impossible.
And yet it was true. Danaé closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and reached out into the living Force. She let its energy wash over her body for a soothing moment before she opened her eyes again. Knowing no words of sorrow or condolence could possibly have meaning to her brother right now, she chose the direct course instead. "Luke, let's go," she said simply. "We have to leave. Now."
He looked up at her, his blue eyes pouring waterfalls of tears down his cheeks. Without a word he nodded and rose to his feet. He let her wrap her arm around his waist again and followed her willingly down the hallway.
They hadn't gone more than a few more steps when another tremor in the Force shook their perceptions – a disturbance unlike any they ever had felt before, even in the presence of the Sith. Danaé clutched Luke tightly to prevent them both from stumbling, and then met his distressed gaze. "Daddy's in trouble," she gasped at the very same instant he said, "Mara's in trouble."
Danaé didn't have any time to think about why Luke was more attuned to Mara than Anakin. All she knew was that the precarious emotions that had burst from her father were horrifying and the terror that had come from his apprentice was more excruciating than she had thought possible. "We have to get to them," she said. "We have to help them. Come on! Hurry!"
At that very moment, even before they could begin their hobbling journey down the corridor again, a familiar series of bloops and whistles greeted them. "Artoo!" exclaimed Danaé in amazement. "Artoo! Oh! I can't believe it's you."
The blue-and-white astromech trilled and beeped a rapid-fire message. "A side hangar? A gunship? Yes, let's go. Lead the way! Hurry!" As they rushed after the speedily rolling droid, Danaé looked down at Luke, who still was leaning on her for support. "He's amazing," she marveled. "I don't know what we'd do without him."
Luke grimaced in pain again. "We'd be dead."
---
Mara stood rooted in place, her lightsaber hanging limply in her hands. She held her Master's hollow, chilling gaze with a sense of mortal desperation building inside her. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't. It was impossible.
In her Force awareness she perceived the many squads of brownshirts charging toward them across the plaza while the two empty troop transports rose into the sky again. The enemy soldiers had not yet begun to fire their blaster rifles, but with each passing second they drew closer. Anakin seemed oblivious, his face displaying no recognition of the imminent attack from nearly a hundred armored troopers. Perhaps he was just going to stand here and let them both be killed. Fighting together they could prevail, but on her own Mara had no chance.
She had no idea what to do. The scorching savagery of her Master's rage continued to swirl around her in the Force as her desperation reached an intolerable crescendo. She had to do something. It couldn't end this way. She had to get back to Luke. She couldn't die. Not here. Not this way. Her mental controls fell and her feelings were unleashed in flash of hideous torment in her mind.
"You can't do this, Master! You can't!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, the fierceness of her words stinging the back of her throat. "Let go of your anger! No, Master! No!"
Anakin said nothing, his eyes still blazing with white-hot determination.
In that very moment another wave of emotions crashed over them in the Force. This time it was not through the battle meld – Mara knew she was experiencing it herself too. And the somber, regretful, mournful farewell made her knees tremble and her stomach sink in agony.
Master Kenobi was gone.
Before Mara could react to the horrible truth she felt her connection to her Master in the battle meld erupt with power beyond imagining. She could hear the hard-earned Jedi controls on his emotions yield to the volcanic pressure of his pain and grief as his feelings became a supernova of vengeance.
His scream of incandescent denial shook her ribs. "Noooooooooooooooooo!"
And in her own mind Mara felt the heat of his rage purifying her fear and desperation into a burning wrath. Never before had she felt such real, sincere, profound antagonism toward anyone, much less her beloved Master. He couldn't be doing this. He knew better. He was stronger than this – better than this. He couldn't be doing this. He just couldn't. And yet he was. And he was going to pay. He was going to pay dearly. She would make him pay for doing this – for doing this to himself and to her.
And then she realized what was happening. Even if her Master would succumb to his own weakness, she didn't have to give in to the darkness too. She would hold out. She would be strong. Somehow she would…
Yet before Mara could complete her attempt to regain control of her wild emotions she sensed that the squads of brownshirts were now only a few meters from firing range. In a matter of heartbeats a barrage of blaster bolts would assault them at the speed of light, and she and Anakin were not prepared to defend it. If she didn't act now, they would both be killed.
But Anakin acted first.
She watched him finally pull his eyes away from hers and cast his haunting stare upon the encroaching enemy soldiers. His hands did not move and his feet remained in place. But in the battle meld she felt the fire of his fury suddenly become utterly, gruesomely, appallingly cold. His presence emanated the bone-chilling freeze of an arctic night, the life-draining emptiness of deep space. And then she heard his thoughts in her own mind.
"Die! Die! All of you! DIE!"
In those words she learned the meaning of true hatred.
Without needing her eyes she saw all the brownshirts collapse to the ground. The Force roared with the deafening scream of a hundred-odd human lives snuffed out in an instant. They were all dead. Every single one of them. And Anakin Skywalker had killed them – slain them as they ran forward – taken their lives with a simple solitary thought in his mind. He had used the awesome power of the Force to annihilate his enemies.
Mara couldn't bear to think about what he might be capable of doing next.
The burning wrath in her spirit swept through her mind without barriers. How could you do this? she screamed in terror and anguish and rage. How could you? How could you?
In the very next instant she knew what she had to do – she had to stop him. Mara knew beyond all doubt that there was only one action she could take. She hadn't been trained to use the technique against a Jedi, but it was possible. It was dangerous and risky and sometimes resulted in permanent harm; it had been performed only a handful of times in the last century on rampaging rogue Jedi, and then only in the most extreme circumstances. If there were any other way she wouldn't even consider it. But her Master was so powerful, his unlimited hatred so overwhelming, that she had no other means to make him stop. She had no alternative. No option. No choice.
Like the torrents of a flood-swollen river building up behind a failing dam, she collected the surging life energies of the Force into a massive, uncontainable well of energy in her mind. Reaching through the battle meld to touch her Master's mind, she focused her concentration not on his presence in the Force but on the physical elements of his nervous system. When she released her building reservoir of power directly into his mind, the onrushing strength of its flow simply would be too much for a human brain to manage and his body's natural self-preservation instincts would trigger an immediate state of catatonia to protect his mind from complete destruction. Despite his incredible power in the Force, the chaotic state of his emotions left him vulnerable to this attack – he had lost control, and that meant his defenses against her mental assault were weakened too. The amount of energy required to render a normal person unconscious was high. The strength she would need to incapacitate her Master was almost incomprehensible – probably so much that her own mind would cease functioning to protect itself as well. She just had to hope – to pray – that she could hold on long enough to take him out with her.
Mara's eyes met Anakin's again. I will never forgive you for this, she vowed in depths of her soul. Never.
And then she let her mental dam break and sent the Force bursting through her feelings and into his mind with piercing, ripping, shearing pain beyond all possible comprehension. The deep, inky blackness of unconsciousness swarmed her from all sides – and she sensed her Master's radiance in the Force collapsing inward on itself like the blindingly swift pull of a black hole. In her final glimpse of awareness Mara felt the tiniest bit of satisfaction.
She had stopped him.
---
Danaé flew the gunship out of the wide hangar bay and swerved it into a hard turn to avoid the incoming blast of an infantry laser cannon firing at them from its position on the broad boulevard leading to the rear of the government building. Behind her in the co-pilot's chair Luke moaned at the momentum of the turn. "I'm sorry," Danaé said. "These controls aren't responding well, not like an X-Wing's. It's really hard to fly this thing."
"It's okay," Luke groaned in pain. "We don't have shields, by the way. They're not functioning. Do whatever you have to do to avoid us getting hit."
"I will," Danaé vowed through clenched teeth. She pulled the gunship through series of evasive maneuvers, only to find another laser cannon firing at them from a different angle. From his position plugged into the computer socket, Artoo blooped and squealed anxiously.
"You're doing great," Luke said reassuringly, though his voice was sharp and filled with anguish. "Focus on defensive flying. You're doing this exactly right, Danaé."
After another series of dives and swerves brought the gunship clear of the two cannons, Danaé quickly glanced over her shoulder at her brother. He was hunched forward in the seat, the stump of his severed right hand crushed in his left armpit and scowl of intense physical agony on his face. "Can you sense them?" she asked. "Where should we go?"
Luke only shook his head. "I can't sense them," he admitted in frustration. "But it's probably me. I have no concentration right now. None at all."
"I'm too distracted by flying," she replied forlornly. Quickly she had to plunge the gunship into another dive to avoid a concussion missile launched by some unseen assailant below them in the streets around the building. "I guess we'll just have to try to find them. Look for them. Where do you think they are?"
"They were going to be defending the front of the building," Luke said after a pause. "I suppose they could still be there. Maybe they were overrun or something, and that's what we felt." He took a shuddering, rasping deep breath. "I'll find the cannon controls here in case there are brownshirts around. All you have to do is get us there."
"I can handle that," Danaé said. "I think."
Without much difficulty Danaé swung the gunship into a steep climb up and over the high stone walls of the government building. In a matter of seconds they had passed across its roof and emerged on the front side. The enormous statues and tall trees prevented her from staying close to the building, though. Instead she flew a short distance away from the structure, then reversed course and steered them into a straight approach to it again. Once she did, they could see the broad stone plaza that expanded in all directions from the columned façade of the building.
Luke gasped at the sight of several hundred of dead brownshirts. Many had blaster or lightsaber scarring on their tan body armor – but dozens and dozens did not. "What happened here?"
"I don't know," Danaé said gravely. The impression of death in the Force hung over the plaza like an impenetrable fog. Her weak, frantic efforts to probe for her father and Mara in the living Force met with only the muddied soup of the mass fatalities. Meanwhile she struggled to control the unstable flight of the gunship.
Suddenly Luke leaned forward and pointed out the viewport with his left hand. "There!" He waited for her to follow with her eyes. "There! Do you see? It's them. There on the ground."
"Yes," she grimaced. "I see them." Mara's maroon-and-black Jedi robes stood out plainly from the other bodies collapsed all over the plaza, and next to her the cut of Anakin's tan Jedi robes was distinct from the brownshirt's slightly darker battle armor and underlying green fatigues. A shocked, frightened, haunted gaze passed between sister and brother, saying all that words couldn't about the millions of desperate questions racing through their minds, questions they knew they didn't have time even to think about now, much less speak aloud.
"Hurry!" cried Luke. "There are more cannons moving up. Coming from the west."
Danaé spared a quick glance and saw that he was right. She made a decision instantly. "No time to land," she said. "You're going to have to hold us in a hover."
"What? How? I only have one hand!"
Danaé already had wrestled the gunship into a wobbling float on its repulsors. She unstrapped her restraints and stood up. "Artoo," she directed, "you're a pilot. Help Luke as much as you can." Then she put a hand on Luke's shoulder and squeezed it firmly. "You can do this. Just don't tip us over and I'll do the rest."
Luke winced in pain as he pulled his right arm into his lap and leaned forward to grasp the gunship's control stick in his left hand. He closed his eyes and dipped his head, preparing to concentrate in the Force as much as he could manage. "Go," he whispered. "But hurry. Hurry!"
Danaé raced to the back of the gunship and heaved open the massive armored door to the main hold. About five meters below were the motionless bodies of her father and Mara, sprawled lifelessly on the blood-spattered stone of the plaza. Danaé planted her feet apart, extended her right arm, and closed her eyes. In the living Force she sensed them right away – still alive, thankfully, but dim and cold in her awareness, not vibrant and sparkling as usual. But there was no time to ponder it – only to act. Danaé surged her feelings into the Force and seized hold of the two limp bodies with all her strength. She yanked them from the ground and pulled them to the gunship like rag dolls, ignoring the unpredictable, spasmodic dipping and rising of the floor beneath her feet. In only a few seconds the bodies levitated to within the gunship. Without time to be gentler, Danaé simply released her concentration and let them fall to the metal floor with painful-sounding thumps. She slammed closed the gunship's door again and charged back to the cockpit.
"We've got them," she said as she flung herself into the pilot's chair and took the control stick back from Luke. With one hand she pulled the gunship into steep climb into the sky while she strapped in with the other.
He reached over with his left hand to help her tighten the restraints. "Are they alive?"
"Yes," she replied distractedly, concentrating on getting them toward the evacuation transports as quickly as possible. "I can't tell what happened, but they're in the Force. They're still with us."
"Okay," Luke rasped.
Danaé looked back to see tears streaming down her brother's face. "Get on the comlink," she ordered. "Send the distress signal. Make sure they know we're coming, and who we have aboard. That's worth any clearance code in the galaxy."
"Consider it done," Luke said, leaning over to the side console. Behind him Artoo toodled and whistled mournfully.
"Yes, Artoo, the battle's over," Danaé said. "And I don't think anything will ever be the same."
---
When the thunderous applause for her vow never to surrender faded, Padmé took one last long, deep breath and raised her eyes to the enormous chamber around her. There was little left to say, except her final pledge to the Senate and the Republic and her family.
"My fellow Senators, my fellow citizens of the Republic. I have spoken to you tonight from my heart. The road ahead is a difficult one, and while we know with certainty that someday we will reach the end of our journey and revel in our success, we also know that the path we travel together is a dangerous and fateful one. I cannot foretell what tragedies and horrors will confront us before we reach our destination. All I can do is vow once again that my determination will be unwavering and my vision undaunted."
Padmé blinked hard to force away the tears she felt rising in her eyes. "These are dark times for the Republic. We are at war. Our enemy comes from within our ranks and seeks to tear asunder the fabric of our unity. Worse still, he has resurrected and allied with the greatest menace our galaxy has ever faced, the deepest and most despicable evil possible – the corruption of the glorious life energy of the Force for the sinister ambitions of the Sith. There is no greater sacrilege than this. Yet opposing this tide of darkness the Republic stands as an embankment against oppression, a bulwark against tyranny, and a fortress against evil. We must have faith in our institutions, our military, our values, and ourselves. Though we face a grim and painful future, we must have faith in the rightness of our cause and the justness of our principles. Together we will shine the light of all that is honorable and worthy and good in this galaxy upon our enemies, and in the end we will drive out the darkness that confronts us."
"I cannot promise war without death," she said solemnly. "I cannot promise triumph without cost. I cannot promise victory without sacrifice. I can promise one thing and one thing only."
Padmé blinked back her tears again and brought the speech to the only conclusion it rightfully could have.
"No matter how great the darkness, I will always have hope."