CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Bryon unclipped another concussion grenade from his belt and clicked the timer with this thumb. He handed his blaster rifle to Sarré long enough to throw the grenade out into the mass of brownshirts swarming toward them from the gloomy clearing, then started shooting into the closest ranks of the enemy soldiers again.
The first troop transport had landed and unloaded its sixty brownshirts. The second was lowering into a final hover, and the other three were moving into position around the shield generator building. Tankships zoomed around the clearing, blasting away at Bryon's troopers with their heavy cannons. After his order to regroup a minute ago most of the surviving Special Forces had managed to make it back to the building or into the forest. Too many, though, hadn't made it this time.
Bryon had just gunned down another brownshirt when he heard the blast door squeal and hiss open behind him. He glanced quickly back to see Winter leading the way out.
"Mission accomplished," the white-haired intelligence agent told him.
"So I heard," Bryon said, motioning the droids into a corner of the alcove so they'd be out of the line of fire.
"Everyone present and accounted for."
"Good. Not so lucky on my end."
Han hustled up to Bryon's side. "How is it out here?"
"Bad," Bryon replied. "Really bad."
Han looked out into the clearing, then looked back. "Yeah, no kidding! What happened?"
"Two waves," Bryon said. "The first as you went in. The second about a minute ago."
"I don't care how bad it looks," Han said. "I say we fight to the bitter end."
Bryon couldn't help but smile when everyone – Sarré, Leia, Danaé, Lando, Chewie, and Winter – nodded in agreement. "All right," he said. "Concentrate your fire on the brownshirts from that transport that's just landing right now."
Everyone affirmed the orders, and their little group began to fire a barrage of blaster bolts at the dozens and dozens of enemy soldiers in the dark clearing. Bryon knew it wouldn't be enough. Not even close to enough. But it was all they could do.
And then it happened.
Without warning the clearing erupted in a blaze of green laser bolts and fiery explosions. The troop transports on the ground incinerated in massive fireballs, and the ones about to land did too. The tankships were shot out of the sky, sent hurtling into the ground or careening into the wide tree trunks. Cannon bolts slammed into the formations of brownshirts, spraying bodies in all directions.
The onslaught ended a heartbeat before the indistinct white shapes whizzed by at blindingly high speed, followed a second later by an enormous sonic boom and the squealing whine of starfighter drives pushed past atmospheric maximum.
"Alpha Leader, this is Renegade Leader," said a familiar voice over Bryon's comlink. "I hope we're not too late."
"Negative, Renegade Leader," Bryon replied. "Thank you."
"No need for you to thank me," Fel said. "We'll do another pass or two until everything's clear down there. Oh, and please tell Solo he owes me, and he's not getting away lightly this time."
"Copy, Renegade Leader." Bryon clicked off the comlink and turned to the others. He'd set the volume to be audible over the firefight in the clearing; with the skirmish abruptly ended, the words had come through loud enough for the others to hear too.
Leia was laughing. "Tell Fel he can have whatever he wants. Anything!"
"Careful what you say, sweetheart," Han said, scowling. "He might demand my firstborn or something."
At Bryon's side Sarré laughed. "I haven't slept in weeks. At this point he's welcome to ours!"
Bryon laughed too, and everyone began to cheer and cry and embrace in celebration of their victory – and staying alive.
---
Mara didn't really perceive what happened in the moments after she thumbed the switch of her lightsaber to deactivate the blade. All she could think about was her choice – and how close, how terribly close, she had been to making the wrong one. She had been at the very brink of slaying the one person in the universe who mattered more to her than anything. Luke. She almost had killed Luke.
"I'm sorry," she gasped. "I'm so sorry."
"Shh," he said, brushing the hair off her face. "It's all right."
Mara realized she was slumped on the throne room floor with her burned left hand clutched to her chest. Luke was kneeling with her, holding her shoulders in his arms and resting her against his chest. "Luke… I…"
He bent down to kiss her forehead. "You don't have to say anything. You're back. That's all that matters."
"No, it isn't," she said. "Luke… I…"
He smiled, and nodded once.
"You never doubted me, even for a second?"
"No."
Mara smiled back. "I love you."
"And I love you."
Her heart soared, and she tried to reach out and embrace him too. She found, though, that she didn't have the strength. "Luke…"
"I know," he said. He pulled her closer, and in the Force she felt him wrap his awareness around her like a warm, protective cocoon.
She knew he was shielding her from a million disturbing sensations in the Force from whatever was happening in the palace and city around them. She'd felt glimpses of that turmoil during their duel, but her combat concentration had been so intense she'd shunted them all aside. Now that she'd yielded to him, though, those perceptions ought to have roared back into her mind. But they hadn't, because he was protecting her.
Mara let him, and for once it didn't bother her at all.
"I thought… I thought I knew what I was doing," she said. "I thought I had everything under control."
Luke nodded. "The dark side is strong that way. It doesn't only cloud the Force. It clouds judgment too."
"I know," she said, hot tears running down her cheeks. "I know. But I let it happen anyway."
"You did what you thought was right."
"Yes."
"And then along the way you lost perspective, only you didn't know it at the time."
"Yes."
"It happens to everyone, Mara," he said. "It happened to Obi-Wan when Qui-Gon was murdered. It happened to my father more than once. No Jedi is perfect."
She nodded, and with great effort took his hand in both of hers.
He looked down for a long moment at their clasped hands, then into her eyes. "Certainly not me."
Her left hand, the back of it blistered and burned, was atop his right hand – his cybernetic hand. "Luke, stop…"
"Something happened at Jabba's palace."
"I should have told you."
"What happened?"
Mara told him everything. About Jabba. About the vision at the officers' ball, and the slain Sith. About the nightmare that had led her to flee him and go to Naboo. About the last vision that had sent her to Vyhrrag. About the enemy generals. About Argis.
When she finished Luke kissed her tenderly. "You're right – you should have told me."
"I… I was wrong."
Luke tried hard not to smirk, but it didn't work.
Mara grinned. "I wouldn't get used to hearing that if I were you. And try not to enjoy this too much, all right?"
"I won't. I promise."
"I'm so stupid," she sobbed. "How could I not see what was happening to me? How could I be so blind?"
"You had information. You had to act. I would have done the same thing."
"I suppose so. But that doesn't excuse it, Luke. It can't."
"No. Of course not," he said, wiping away her tears with his thumb. "Listen to me, Mara. The important thing is that you understand now. You won't let it happen again."
"No. Never."
"Everything will be all right."
"I'm so sorry," she said. "I never meant for it to come to this."
"Of course you didn't." With his free hand he cupped her cheek in his palm. "Next time, let me help you."
"I will. I promise."
He closed his eyes for a long moment, and the Force surged. "We need to go. We don't have much time."
Mara closed her eyes and drew on the Force. It was cool and soothing, not like the boiling heat of the wrath she'd carried with her until just a few minutes ago. She opened herself to the purifying energy, and it gave her what she needed. Not power to inflict her will, but an ally in her struggle against exhaustion and pain. She felt her body regaining strength, and slowly she sat up. Her chest still throbbed and her hand still stung, and every muscle ached as badly as she'd ever felt before. But none of it mattered to her. Not now.
She looked up. "Luke?"
He already was on his feet. "Yes?"
"I need your help."
Deep down inside she still expected him to gloat at her admission of weakness. But he didn't. He simply smiled a warm, caring smile and reached out his hand to her.
Mara took his hand and pulled herself up. She wrapped an arm around his waist and let him wrap both of his around her when she swayed a bit. She leaned her head on his shoulder and took a deep breath.
Luke kissed her forehead. "Are you ready?"
"Almost." She took another deep breath. "Do you think Anakin will ever forgive me?"
"For what?"
"For how I treated him. For all the hurt I caused. And after all that, for being a hypocrite."
"Of course he will."
"You promise?"
"I promise." Luke smiled. "He loves you like family, Mara. He would forgive you anything, just as he would any one of us."
She nodded once. "I… I know. It's just… Right now, I don't feel worthy of it."
Luke leaned in and kissed her gently on the lips. "Mara, will you be my wife?"
She blinked. "Wh – what?"
"Marry me, Mara."
She stared at him in disbelief. After what she'd just done to him? Had he gone mad? He must have. It was the only explanation. She was about to tell him so when she remembered what he'd said. Unconditionally.
"Yes, Luke," she said. "I'll marry you."
"Good," he said. "Now let's get out of here."
She nodded, and followed along with him toward the wide doors to the throne room and the hallway beyond. It was slow going at first, but soon she simply abandoned her pride and let him lead her.
Mara held onto him tightly. "Luke?"
"What is it?"
"I think we need to work on being more honest with each other."
He laughed. "Yes, Mara, I think we do."
---
Anakin swung another vicious strike at the Sith Master, but Vengous parried it away – then spun around to block the slicing arc from Obi-Wan's blade in Padmé's hands from the opposite side.
Nothing he had tried had worked. Nothing.
Anakin retreated two strides, and with his mind he guided Padmé to do the same. They stood with their enemy between them, now just out of striking distance.
"Good," Vengous said, an arrogant grin spreading across her lips. "Finally, at last, you fear me."
"I'm not afraid," Anakin said. "Not of you."
Vengous laughed. "Then you are a fool."
The Sith Master charged him with two long strides and attacked with ferocious swings of her scarlet laser sword. Her blade slashed high and low in a blistering series of strikes.
Anakin trusted the Force to guide his hands, and his turquoise lightsaber repelled the onslaught with room to spare. In his mind he felt Padmé's desperate urge to assist him, and for a moment he nearly drew her into the fight. Yet Vengous had attacked only him, and she had made no move to threaten Padmé this time.
Why should she? Vengous could slay Padmé in the blink of an eye if Anakin was dead first. All along Padmé had been a distraction.
Only the Chosen One mattered.
Anakin's blade danced in front of him and continued to parry his enemy's barrage. Relentlessly he sought to find a weakness in her technique, an opening to pierce or a vulnerability to exploit. But he found nothing. Vengous' skills were a match for his own – just as she found no gaps in his defenses, he found none in hers.
Perhaps his enemy was right. Perhaps he had made a fateful miscalculation when he had taken Obi-Wan's blade from her instead of snapping her neck while he held it in his bare hand.
Obi-Wan's blade. Padmé's hands. His enemy's throat in his grasp.
There was a lesson there. Somewhere. Anakin was a Jedi Master, but he was not all-powerful or all-knowing. Each day he discovered that he had more to learn – about the Force and about himself.
Frantically Anakin tried to discern the inscrutable message from the Force. Why had it guided him to do what he had done moments ago? What did he have yet to learn? How would he fulfill his destiny, if he could not defeat the Sith Master still raining down blow after violent blow upon him?
Anakin pondered Vengous' words. She had claimed she had foreseen his death at her hands. She had insisted her victory over him was inevitable. She had vowed that only one of them would walk away from this final confrontation alive. She had controlled every aspect of the situation so that no matter what occurred, her triumph was inevitable. She already had defeated him.
And Anakin knew she was right. He had lost. He understood that now.
That was the lesson from the Force.
Sometimes for a Jedi, defeat was victory.
---
Anakin rolled his wrists and turned the parry with his blue lightsaber into a swift counterattack. He arced and sliced with flawless form, pressing a vigorous offensive against his enemy.
The Sith Master fended off his onslaught with perfect form of her own, parrying and blocking and bobbing and weaving to avoid each attack in turn.
Anakin increased the pace of his blows, and slowly he began to circle his opponent.
Vengous matched his technique. Her feet kept her in position. Her hands guided her scarlet laser sword to meet his high and low, left and right. Her eyes were locked to his in a grim stare, and the same triumphant grin remained frozen on her face. Her confidence that he would die was unwavering.
Anakin struck again, and once again the red blade blocked him. Padmé was behind him now – so Anakin surged forward. The terrible efficiency of Vaapad drove the Sith Master backward. It was a slow retreat, but it was a retreat nonetheless. After a few more meters Anakin stopped, set his feet, and held his ground. Padmé wanted to join him, to help him somehow. She did not want to stand by while he fought Vengous alone.
But she had to. Anakin retained his control over her body, and her mind was powerless to overcome him.
In his awareness he felt Padmé cry out in frustration and fear, so strongly that he felt Nyklas ache in sympathy.
Despite the way her suffering tore at his heart, Anakin would not yield.
He had made his choice.
Anakin took his weapon in both hands and continued his attacks on his enemy. Once again he began to circle Vengous, smashing blow after blow into her red blade to dominate her movements.
The Sith Master's defenses were as invulnerable as ever. His blows were accurate and true, but her parries and dodges were equal to the task. Her lightsaber was a brilliant blur of color in front of her as it cut the air in a dazzling pattern of arcs to repel every attack he tried.
At just the right moment Anakin swung his next attack just a little too wide. To his opponent it would have looked like an error – the first small mistake by a dominating warrior. But it was not an error.
Vengous capitalized without hesitation. Her shimmering energy blade unleashed an onslaught of blows – a ferocious offensive unmatched by anything she had tried so far.
Anakin felt the Force pulsing and surging in his body. Parry. Dodge. Block. Sidestep.
His movements were effortless. His techniques were perfect.
The Sith Master's aggressive attacks were ruthless and formidable, but still she had not breached his defenses.
Deliberately Anakin missed a parry. Not one that would harm him, but simply one that let the red blade slice far closer to his arm than it should have.
His enemy's attacks grew more brutal. More violent.
Anakin missed another parry. And another.
Vengous pressed her attacks harder still. Her eyes were afire with hate. Her grin widened in anticipation.
She believed he was weakening. She believed the fatal mistake she had foreseen was only moments away.
Anakin slid his blade out of a parry and counterattacked. He swung his lightsaber with strong, reckless arcs and lunges. He charged forward, and managed to drive the Sith Master a few paces toward Padmé. He fought like a man with nothing left but hopeless, blind desperation.
Vengous was persuaded.
The Force told him it was true.
In that moment Anakin knew he had prevailed. He had found her weakness. Not arrogance. Not anger. Not overconfidence. Not hate.
Selfishness.
Panic and despair seemingly had consumed him, and so inevitably his ultimate failure was at hand. His pathetic Jedi frailties had doomed him. And now, in the seconds before his demise, Vengous cared only about her personal triumph. Her own victory – her killing of the Chosen One – had become more important than anything. More important than being Master of the Sith.
Vengous had put herself first, and duty second.
Anakin would not do the same.
He would do his duty, no matter the sacrifice it required.
He would be a Jedi – without regret.
Anakin swung one more left-right-left pattern of strikes. The last blow clashed with the Sith Master's scarlet laser sword, and his turquoise blade arced downward.
Anakin released his left hand from the handle.
The lightsaber continued to descend to his waist.
Instead of looping it around for an attack or parry, Anakin let the thrumming energy blade hang in the air, out of position and pointed to the side. His empty left hand mirrored the pose.
He was defenseless.
Vengous grinned in exultation.
The red blade dipped into position.
Vengous lunged.
Anakin's gut exploded with searing pain as the red lightsaber plunged into him.
Vengous lunged harder, driving the shimmering weapon forward.
The pain vanished. The Force absorbed his agony. The Sith Master's blade speared all the way through him, but Anakin felt nothing. The Force was his ally to the end.
Anakin waited. The Force did not let him down.
A single heartbeat later Obi-Wan's blue blade swung in from behind his enemy – and it cleaved Darth Vengous' head from her shoulders with a single effortless swipe.
Obi-Wan's blade in Padmé's two-handed grip. It was appropriate, Anakin thought. The two most important individuals of his adult life, aiding in his triumph.
The prophecy was fulfilled.
The Sith were extinct.
Anakin had brought balance to the Force.
The Chosen One was victorious.
The red blade that impaled Anakin through the abdomen retracted with a hiss as the hand holding it fell away.
The blue arc followed through its swing, then vanished as Padmé thumbed off the weapon and tossed it aside. Even as the headless torso of the Sith Master dropped toward the floor, Anakin relinquished all his control over Padmé's body in an instant. She staggered at the sensation of abruptly regaining direction of her own movements.
The corpse of the Sith Master thumped to the floor between them.
Anakin's eyes found Padmé's.
For a moment she smiled – until she saw the hole burned into him just above his belt.
Her eyes met his again.
Anakin's legs gave way, and he slumped to his knees. His eyes never left hers.
Padmé took an awkward step toward him.
Anakin smiled.
Padmé took another step, and another.
For a long moment Anakin closed his eyes, and projected his will into the Force.
Padmé's hands seized him by the shoulders.
He opened his eyes and looked at her.
"It's over," he told her. "We've won."
---
Luke kept his arm wrapped tightly around Mara's slim waist while they hurried through the corridors of the royal palace. She was keeping up with his fast pace rather well, but occasionally she would stumble or slow, and when she did he supported her with all his strength.
In the Force Luke could sense the panicking of Argis' minions, and from their acute fear he knew that Victory Strike must be fully underway by now. Perhaps the shield generator already was destroyed, and the invasion had begun. He couldn't know for sure, but the terror reaching his awareness would fit a frantic evacuation of palace. Regardless, one thing he knew for certain was that no one had any interest in detecting or preventing their escape.
Mara stumbled again, and Luke clutched her tightly and used a quick surge of the Force to keep her upright. All of her rage had drained away now, and the effort of sustaining that fury had taken a toll on her body. She was utterly exhausted, and only her desperate desire to get to safety with him gave her the determination to continue.
Luke tightened his hold on her waist a bit more, and together they kept going.
Soon they exited the palace and made their way to the grove where the speeder bike was waiting for them. Luke pushed the branches out of the way and led Mara into the small gap between the trees. He sighed in relief to see the bike still there, hovering in place on its repulsor.
"Come on," he said to her. "It's time to go."
Mara smiled a little, and nodded. She took a single stride closer to him – and suddenly cried out in pain, clutching her hands to her belly, squeezing her eyes shut tightly against a searing pain, and falling to her knees.
For an instant Luke thought she'd been shot, but his perceptions in the Force told him there was no new physical injury to her body. He rushed to her side, kneeled down, and embraced her shoulders so she wouldn't topple forward on her face. He surged his awareness into her, seeking the source of her terrible pain and giving her the extra strength she needed to keep from slipping into unconsciousness.
"Oh, no," she gasped, looking into his eyes. "No! No!"
Before he could ask what she meant, she opened her mind and revealed to him what she'd felt – and a phantom pain stabbed Luke in the gut. His eyes widened, and Mara reached up her wounded left hand to rest her fingers on his cheek. In that horrible moment he understood.
"Dad," he whispered. "No!"
She could only nod once, tears streaming down her cheeks. She let him deeper into her mind, and Luke realized that as much as she had pulled away from Anakin since Gimna 3, as much as she had strained against his attempts to reconcile, her bond with her former Master remained a powerful center deep within her soul. Even in the worst moments of her brush with darkness she never had severed her connection with him.
Luke slumped forward and rested his forehead on hers. Through that unique bond of love and veneration Mara had felt the mortal wound when even her Master's own son had not.
"No," Mara said again, sobbing. "No. He can't die! He can't! I never got to tell him… No! I need to tell him…"
"Shh," Luke whispered, and kissed her once on her salty lips. "He knows. He knows."
She blinked a few times through her tears, and finally nodded against his forehead. "Yes. He knows."
He pulled her against him and clutched her desperately, and they held their kneeling embrace and cried. There was nothing to say. Nothing they could say. He knew that if they hadn't been with each other at this moment, the anguish would have consumed them. Instead, somehow the solace of the embrace gave them the will to go on.
Luke gazed into Mara's eyes again, and their lips met for another tear-stained kiss. When he realized she lacked the strength to stand, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the speeder bike. Gently he put her astride it, then climbed up at the controls. She wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face against his back, and he fired up the engine. He swallowed hard, and then disengaged the brake and flew them away.
---
Danaé stood with her hands clasped behind her back and watched her brother coordinate the loading of the last four gunships in the dark clearing. After the X-Wings of Renegade Squadron had made quick work of the enemy forces at the shield generator, several sets of gunships had arrived to retrieve their small strike force.
She raised her eyes toward the constellations in the nighttime sky and did her best to soothe away the churning sensations in the living Force around her. Nearly half of Bryon's platoon was dead, and most of the other two dozen were wounded. As many as thirty of the rebels were dead too, and their wounded had been evacuated right along with the Republic's. Hundreds of brownshirts had died, whether from the firefights or the final aerial attack.
The sensation of death and suffering was pervasive in this clearing now. Danaé knew it would persist here for decades. Long after all those who had survived this battle were dead.
Danaé also knew that she and her brother and sister and the rest of them had done what had to be done. Ending the war and stopping Argis had been imperative, and violence had been the only option. Many individuals had died in this clearing to ensure that many thousands times more throughout the galaxy would live.
Danaé had done her duty, and she had no misgivings. Not this time.
The repulsordrives of three gunships roared, and the craft rose slowly into the air and flew away. Danaé paced solemnly toward the final one, where Bryon was getting the rest of their small group aboard. When she arrived it was just her brother, Sarré, and Leia still standing on the bloodied, charred grass.
Bryon was holding Sarré's hand. "It's time to go," he said. "We're needed elsewhere."
Leia nodded. "You did well. I'm proud of you."
Danaé was about to add congratulations of her own when a familiar presence reached out to her through the Force. The message was brief, almost hurried, but it was laden with a million different emotions. Love. Pride. Faith. Hope. Sadness. Wistfulness. And maybe, just maybe, the smallest bit of regret.
Unbidden tears poured from Danaé's eyes, and she looked at her siblings. Bryon's face was ashen, his jaw limp, his eyes filled with fear and disbelief. Leia's hands were trembling, her lip quivering, her eyes wide with shock. They had felt it too – as somehow Danaé had known they would.
After what seemed like forever but really could have been only a few seconds, Bryon found his voice first. "Did… Did you… Did you feel it too?"
Leia reached out to steady herself on Sarré's shoulder. Leia was crying now too. "Daddy?"
Danaé nodded. "Yes."
"What was it?" Bryon's tears flowed freely.
Leia looked at Danaé beseechingly. "What's going on?"
Danaé could only shake her head.
"Danaé? What's going on?" Leia was still in denial. "What's going on?"
Danaé pulled her brother and sister into a tight embrace. "It was Daddy," she told them. "He was reaching out to us through the Force because…"
They looked at her desperately when her voice trailed off. Danaé kissed Leia tenderly on the forehead, just like he would have done. Like he must have wanted to do, but couldn't.
"He was saying goodbye."
---
Unconsciousness had overcome Mara by the time the speeder bike reached the Lady Vader. Her eyes fluttered open briefly when Luke hefted her into his arms again, but she said nothing and her head slumped against his chest. Quickly he carried her up the boarding ramp into the starship.
Luke slid her limp body into one of the bunks and pulled down the straps that would keep her in place if they encountered any obstacles on the flight out. There was no time to tend to her injuries, not now. He bent down and kissed her tenderly on the lips, then hurried out into the narrow cabin hallway.
When he got to the cockpit he practically leaped into the pilot's seat.
"Are we ready, Jaytoo?"
From his station in the rear of the cockpit the black-and-gold astromech whistled and toodled affirmatively.
"Good." Luke's fingers flew across the console, activating the ship for takeoff and combat in a matter of a few rapidly pounding heartbeats. "Let's get out of here."
Jaytoo blooped in agreement, then trilled a worried query. "No, she's all right," Luke replied. "She's… a little… shaken up. She just needs to sleep."
The droid beeped in understanding, and went to work scrolling a selection of sensor analysis information on the heads-up data projection on the viewport.
"Thanks, Jaytoo," Luke said. He pulled on the two-handed control stick and lifted the starship into a steep climb into the dark nighttime sky. He kept a constant eye on the scanners and sensors, but soon it became apparent that just like their escape from the palace, the Vyhrragians had far greater concerns than an isolated starship ascending from the forest.
The Republic fleet, on the other hand, surely would have noticed them by now.
Luke confirmed that the Lady Vader's Jedi identifications codes were broadcasting, then flicked open the comlink and waited. It didn't take long for the familiar voice to greet him.
"Lady Vader, this is Rogue Leader. Do you need assistance?"
"Negative, Rogue Leader," Luke replied, not even bothering to try to keep the exhaustion from his voice. "All I need is a docking bay."
"Luke? Is that you?"
"It's me, Wedge."
There was a short pause. "You're cleared to the Invictus, Luke. May the Force be with you."
"And also with you, Wedge."
Remarkably the flight up to the Invictus was uneventful, and Luke easily landed the Lady Vader in one of the small side docking bays. A quick comlink call to Kessa Brittin confirmed they were aboard, and then Luke carried Mara to the medical ward. After a triage droid treated and bandaged the burn on her left hand, Luke brought her to the guest quarters on the destroyer. He laid her down on the bed in one of the small rooms, sat down next to her, and stroked her face.
She opened her eyes and looked up him. "Where… are we?"
"We're safe," he soothed, then wrapped himself around her. "We're safe."
Mara nodded weakly, and rested her face against his chest. Luke pulled her against him and held her tightly. They were alive and they were safe. There wasn't anything else they could do right now. All he could do was hold Mara while she slept, and keep her safe, and never, ever let her go. Luke pulled her just a little bit tighter against him, and held her until he drifted off to sleep too.
---
Padmé held on tightly to Anakin's shoulders. "We won?"
"Yes," he said. "I've brought balance to the Force."
"Oh, Anakin!" She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her forehead to his. "I'm so proud of you."
He smiled. "I know, angel."
Then, suddenly, he slumped into her. Padmé cradled his shoulders in her arms as she carefully kneeled down on the floor. He lay in her lap, looking up at her.
Padmé snatched her comlink from her belt. It worked now, and she tapped in the panic alert. "Hold on, Ani," she said. "They'll be here soon."
He shook his head. "Angel… It's too late."
"No!" She squeezed him to her. "No! It isn't!"
"Yes, angel. It is."
Padmé looked down at his abdomen, and her heart froze in her chest. The lightsaber wound was devastating. Far worse than it had looked at first glance a few seconds ago. "Stay with me, Ani," she pleaded. "You can't die. I'll save you. I can save you."
Anakin reached up a hand and pressed his fingers to her cheek. "I've fulfilled my destiny," he said, his voice already quiet and hoarse. "I've carried out the task I was born to do."
"You don't have to die! I won't let you."
"You can't stop death. No one can."
"You can!"
"No." His hand fell away.
"Yes! Try! You have to try!"
"No, angel. I can't defeat death."
"Anakin! Stop this! You can't die."
His hand rose again, and it clutched the front of her white flight suit and tugged her toward him. "It is the will of the Force."
She wanted to cry out in rage. "Why?"
"I don't know."
"Then why do we have to follow it?"
"Angel, please…"
Padmé saw the anguish in his eyes, and took a deep breath. If he was going to die, she didn't want his last thoughts of her to be frustration and disappointment. "Anakin…"
"You'll be all right, Padmé."
"You can't die. I can't go on without you."
"You must."
"No. I can't."
"You must."
Padmé saw his lightsaber handle lying on the ground next to them. She reached out a hand and picked it up. "I can't, Ani. I can't go on without you."
He let go of her flight suit and rested his hand atop hers. "You will find a way."
"No." She spun the silver handle in her fingers until it pointed at her belly, and she readied her thumb. "You are my life. You are my soul. You are everything. Without you I'm nothing."
"That's not true, angel."
"It is true. I'm nothing without you. If you must die, then I'll die with you."
His fingers tightened around her hand. "No. My death is the will of the Force. Yours is not."
"How can you know that?"
"I do."
She didn't know why, but Padmé believed him. He drew her hand away from her body, and she released the weapon to him. He set the metal handle down on the ground, then took her hand in his. She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. "How can the Force ask me to go on without you?"
Anakin smiled weakly. "The same way it can ask me to leave you on your own."
"I don't understand."
"My choice… my destiny… All my life I've been selfish. I've wanted to be a Jedi and have you. I've wanted to do my duty and have a family. I've wanted to have everything."
"What's so wrong with that?"
"Nothing, angel. But I'm the Chosen One. My destiny – my duty – was to bring balance to the Force. I tried everything I could, everything I could think of… but… there was only one way."
"To put duty above self."
"Yes."
"I understand." Padmé squeezed him tightly. She understood all too well.
"And you must do the same."
She met his gaze. "But…"
"You must. It is the will of the Force."
She swallowed hard. "I… I will do as you wish, Anakin."
He smiled. "In doing so you make your own sacrifice."
"It hardly seems comparable, Ani."
"To us, perhaps not. To the Force…"
She nodded. "How long? How long without you?"
"I don't know. Until your own destiny is fulfilled."
"When? How will I know?"
He shook his head, and when he spoke his voice was hardly a whisper. "I will come for you."
"Yes." She pulled him closer. "I'll be waiting."
He took a deep, shuddering breath. "The Republic needs you"
"Then I will serve, but not long. Soon someone else will stand forward to lead."
"Our children need you. And our grandchildren."
In her anguish Padmé had forgotten all about Nyklas in the carrier on her back. She looked over her shoulder to see their young grandson waiting silently. His wide indigo eyes closed and his face turned away. Nyklas knew somehow, and could not intrude.
Padmé looked down at Anakin in her lap. His face was ashen and his hands had begun to tremble. His eyelids sagged and he barely managed a smile. She smiled back. "For the children and the grandchildren, then. For our family."
"Thank you."
She leaned down and kissed him tenderly on the lips. "I love you, Anakin."
With a terrible grimace he lifted his face and kissed her back one last time. "And I love you, Padmé."
She cupped his cheek in her hand. "May the Force be with you."
He nodded once, and closed his eyes.
Padmé felt the breath leave his body, and only then did the tears begin to stream down her cheeks. She sobbed uncontrollably, and she could not bring herself to let his limp form go. She held him, and wept.
Anakin was dead.
---
When the small military shuttle landed in the gigantic docking bay of the Invictus, Danaé was there to meet it. She stood patiently to the side until Bryon and Leia finished passing along the documents and datapads to the waiting Navy officers and walked over to join her.
Bryon leaned in to kiss her cheek. "How's the situation up here?"
"Everything's under control," she replied, handing him a small datapad Kessa Brittin had given her. "The last warships in the system gave up well before word of the ceasefire."
"Sarré?"
"Still sleeping off the painkillers."
"Good, on both counts," her brother said. For a moment he paused, then tucked the datapad in a pocket without even turning it on. "Will and Cerule made quick work of the conquest. It was practically over by the time I got back down there. The surrender went smoothly as well."
They began to walk toward the turbolifts on the far wall. Bryon clasped his hands behind his back, and Danae wrapped an arm around Leia and pulled her close.
Leia laughed. "That's an interesting use of the word 'smoothly' if I've ever heard one."
Danaé raised an eyebrow at her brother. "Oh?"
He grinned. "Okay, so there were… a few snags between the ceasefire and the surrender."
Leia shook her head in bemusement.
"You know," Danaé said, "you're almost making me sorry I didn't join you."
Leia wrapped an arm around Danaé's waist and began to describe the hours before the formal surrender. The initial reports had been correct – Argis was dead, and so were all his top military commanders. That had left the chains of command in the dictator's regime in chaos, and it had taken hours to determine that no one of any significance was actually in charge. At the same time the Vyhrragians had revealed that Argis was the last of his line, and the planet's disbanded parliament would have to be convened to choose a new royal family from among the ancient nobility. At Leia's suggestion the rebel's Colonel simply had declared himself Regent for the vacant crown and had ordered the Vyhrragian forces to stand down. Finally, in an irony lost on no one, the Colonel who had fought Argis' tyranny for years had signed the documents surrendering the fallen planet to the Army of the Republic.
Leia finished her account just as they arrived in the small lounge of the guest quarters of the destroyer. They walked inside to find Luke and Mara waiting for them.
Danaé was almost startled by the striking image. Mara gazed out the viewport at the constellations while Luke held her from behind, his arms around her waist and his chin atop her head. Danaé doubted they realized they were replicating the pose in which Anakin had held Padmé so many hundreds of times. It was better that they didn't, probably. That would only make their sense of loss that much more painful – and it already was unbearable.
Luke looked back over his shoulder. "It's done?"
"Yes," Leia said, still holding on tightly to Danaé. "It's over."
Danaé watched Bryon join Luke and Mara at the viewport, and for a moment she thought back to the first time she had been in this room when the Invictus had launched the mission to rescue Leia from Xixus. That had been only a year and a half ago, and yet so much had changed. The other four here with her now had grown and aged in so many ways in that time, and Danaé almost laughed to herself at the difference between the troubled Padawan she had been then and the steady Jedi Knight she was today. So much had changed – and with their father gone their lives would change in infinite and unknowable ways in the days and weeks and months and years to come. And yet the five of them were here, and they were together. Together they would go on. They were family.
Danaé pulled Leia closer. "It's time to go home."