Great thanks and appreciation to LiMiYa
Chapter 43: De Neumont (the Falling Action)
"What ground forces remained fled when they saw the destruction in the sky." Kit Fisto leaned over a podium in the Rebel's briefing room, his head-tails falling around his shoulders, mildly smiling. "Our job is nowhere near done yet. Short-range fighters and even a Star Destroyer escaped our attack on the Death Star. The fight will continue and we are ready for it to do so.
All of you performed brilliantly today. We're going to have a rest and a celebration tonight that you all deserve, and right now there's some people all of us need to thank." Kit grinned and gestured forward. He still felt excited and tired, a little shell-shocked and happy. "Paqs Patra, Han Solo, Bade, Sidi Driss and our Imperial contact Corran Horn!"
They came up the center isle between the rather unorganized half-circle ranks of Rebels. The smugglers looked sheepish, except the Wookiee to whom that adjective could not possibly apply. Bade and Raylsk wore clean, earthtone street clothes because their uniforms were so war-stained, and the Bothan had brushed her hair and fur. A new look, a beautiful and dangerous gleam, had grown in her violet-and-dark eyes since her time at the ion cannon. Sidi Driss wore one of the oil-splashed but resplendent for it orange flightsuits Luke and Kit had called up out of the aether for their pilots, and as he smiled he looked around as if searching for something pleasant he had seen out of the corner of his eyes. Corran Horn in Imperial uniform walked between the ranks with calmness and dignity, without the red-bladed lightsaber he had turned on the true Imperials. The battered, so varied crowd exploded into clapping, whooping, Bothans shouting enthusiastic battle cries. Kit knew what they were doing, thinking, so he shouted with them.
"Our heroes' battles and victories are all of yours! Each of us worked to save the galaxy." The crowd roared. The seven heroes stood to either side of the podium, straight and serious and smiling. Kit quieted then, and gripped the sides of his podium, a former computer console.
"And there is one of us who should be here; should be here, standing in front." Kit's sibilant voice had captured everyone, and now as he injected solemnity into the occasion they all felt it as a terrible, choreographed sadness. "Luke Skywalker is missing in action, working to cut off the head of the Empire. Without Master Skywalker none of this would have ever happened. We'll find out what's happened to him; then the celebration can be complete. A search will go out as soon as possible." The Force had settled, that was the word, maybe half an hour ago as the terrestrial battle subsided. It had returned to an excited version of its familiar state, to Kit's great relief. So Luke had succeeded. But had he succeeded alive? "So think of his work and yours as you go on with your lives. We still need you; the Rebellion still lives on."
"Right." Han Solo broke into the hastily rehearsed speech. "No medals? We better party good so the kid doesn't think we've all been wiped out when he gets back."
"Well spoken." Kit said. "Very well spoken."
Luke casually stole an officer's spaceyacht, docked for repairs now almost completed, out of the Had Abbadon base. He predicted it wouldn't be much missed after the deck officer reported that it was Darth Vader who commissioned the ship.
His father had given him images or memories, each overlaid with a present terrible in comparison. Anakin, tall and with one tight braid lying against his right shoulder, sat across an elegant and simple table from a woman whose features suggested a mixture of kind quietude and hidden assertiveness. Secrecy was wrapped about her and the whole place, and Anakin counted this the moment of happiness and peace against which he judged all others of his life. The present of the place was warring and overlaid with hated beurocracy, and of the woman blindingly, tearingly painful. Luke knew he had found, finally, the face of his mother.
There was another memory where Anakin and another, more refined looking man with red-blonde hair and beard walked through a carpeted, vaulted hall. Anakin had tacked Force sense onto the memory almost as naturally as he did sight, hearing and smell, so Luke could recognize the companion as Ben Kenobi. Obi-wan was saying; "Live in the influence of the Force, Padawan, but you must know when your emotions are moving that awareness toward into a touch with the dark side." The present filled the hall with scorches of laser and plasma, smoke, were those stormtroopers' bodies, the smell of death, and a frightening unleashed happiness.
Luke felt a shiver run through him.
Then Anakin was fighting, just playing with blade combat opposite a Kushiban about the height of Yoda, who jumped about striking with a light purple lightsaber. Anakin loved to fight, because he knew he was good at it. The practice stopped by consent, and Anakin sat on the sidelines with a group of people; the Kushiban, a tall Zabrak female, a blue-skinned Twi'lek, Obi-wan. Anakin enjoyed this time, though even the casual company of good-hearted Jedi could grate on him sometimes. And the overlay of this hurt like that of the other scene in the temple had. Anakin couldn't move that way anymore.
These memories settled into Luke's as if they were old, vivid dreams. He leaned back and ran his hands through his hair. The secrets of the old order Jedi were hidden still, and the fate of a new order secured; Luke had decided what to tell Kit when he got back. Something inside Luke, not-quite-last Jedi Master, had been broken and mended and broken again, and mended in a different way. Again a jumble of thoughts chased each other around in his head and were this time finally capped of by a thought; Life continues as does pain, and dulls pain to an intriguing luster over the soul. Feeling introspective, he thought that perhaps to experience the fight, the strife the death again was the entire point of experiencing it first.