Getting to Alderaan via Tatooine was no mean feat. As a farmer who made my bills and had modest savings but no more, I possessed neither the money nor the sway to charm my way onto a transport. Cold, hard credits were required, which I didn't have. This meant I had two options: either indenture myself for a while to make up the money—which was tantamount to selling myself into slavery—or sell just about everything I owned.
Or I could just take the clunky old freighter that swooped into Mos Eisley two days later to pick me up. The man exited the hatchway, wearing clothes that immediately marked him as off-world, if not as an off-world prince consort. On his lips was the same lively smile as ever, though I detected notes of strain within him.
"Hey, kid."
"Han." We did the handshake-half-hug thing. Han Solo, Viceroy of Alderaan, had aged well since I last saw him in person three years ago. At forty-six, his hair was mostly still brown with occasional flecks of white that merely seemed stately, and he had but a few fine lines around his mouth and his honey eyes.
"All ready?" asked Han.
"Yup."
"You didn't… ah… wanna bring anything?"
"I have my lightsaber." I said this very quietly. I also wore a tunic and pants that would help me easily maneuver, should it come to that. While Leia's secondary message had assured me that there isn't any immediate danger, that had hardly proved comforting. It implied danger would follow. What kind, though… that I'd have to wait and see.
I still disliked waiting and seeing, for all my Jedi training.
"Good," Han uttered gruffly, looking me over, brow still faintly furrowed. He didn't get the whole Jedi-no-possessions thing; he never had. "Well, you look good, kid," he offered.
"Thanks." Lucky for me, I had aged pretty well here on Tatooine. I was close to my mid-thirties and looked perhaps a bit younger than that. Yet the man in the mirror always seemed to me far too youthful for this life.
"Come on, then. We'll get goin'."
"Yep."
OOO
Takeoff proved problem-less. Han had never said so, but I knew he'd kept the Falcon's former… illicit registration up to date, even after leaving smuggling for racing prior to his marriage to Leia. So the Imperials found no problem with it. Soon enough, the electric blue swirl of hyperspace whirled about the view screen, and I could ask.
"So, what's this all about?"
"What'd she say it was about?" Han evaded, staring fixedly at the controls—too fixedly.
"All she said was that 'there's hope' and I needed to get to Alderaan right away."
Han huffed out, a gruff and discouraging sound. "This woman. I swear to the stars…" He looked up from the panel suddenly. "She's on it again," he announced.
I groaned. "Oh, Force…" On it again could only mean one thing: Leia wanted, yet again, to re-found what her parents had started and failed at. This wasn't cruelty. It was just fact. Bail and Breha barely had things off the ground before Tarkin caught onto them, captured Bail Organa in the act, and rounded up all of the senate rebels. Game over.
So why did my heart begin to beat faster at the idea?
"What's she come up with this time?" I asked with resignation. This would be Leia's third try at this over the years. And in this case, I didn't think the third time would be the "charm".
"Another great one. Apparently, Erso is dying."
"Sorry to hear it." That has been Leia's first attempt at all of this. Getting the Rebellion to re-found to destroy the Death—now "Peace"—Star once Galen Erso sent a message through the now-executed Saw Guerra to our tiny little group. Erso said he'd built in a flaw.
But it was pretty hard to destroy something when all you had was two battered-up X-wings and one pilot (me) and absolutely no way to get the Death Star plans. Game over, again.
Han nodded, then continued, "Apparently the dying guy managed to get her a transmission through Holdo. Anyway, he got the plans. Or so he says."
Thump.
Thump thump. My heart galloped a bit harder. "He—he does?"
"Oh, kriff, Luke. Don't go there. Y'sound just like her. I'm countin' on you to talk her outta this insanity, not inta it. Y'know, you all might not be thinkin' about Cess, but I sure as blazes am. Won't roll the dice on her or any of it." Never again was the unspoken.
Cess, also known as Padmé, his daughter and probably the greatest love of his life besides the Falcon and sometimes Leia. I often thought that Han poured all his frustrations with this life and his wife into love for Padmé, but I never said so. It was hardly my place, when she adored him back in equal measure. And why not? They were just alike at heart.
"Of course not," I agreed calmly. "I wasn't suggesting we should. I was only surprised."
"Erso's dying. He felt guilty. So he got the plans to try an' assuage his conscience after Chandrila, Paucris Major, an' Jakku (though why they wasted their time there, I'll never know). But that don't mean we should do a thing about it. Nobody in their right mind's gonna take any action now."
I recognized a hidden truth in his words. Naturally, Darth Sidious's durasteel grip was felt throughout the worlds of the Empire. With fifteen years of the Death Star's reign and continual threat, he'd been able to gain complete submission and servitude from every world in the galaxy. I was lucky to live on Tatooine, a world about which so few cared, a world that held no useful resources. If I'd been a farmer on Ivera X, or Umbara, or even Hullzel, I would have been given impossible quotas to fill, and once I failed, been put into work camps, my land taken away as I slowly starved to death… And of course, the suffering only fed the power of the Sith and the darkness; fed Sidious; fed his apprentice, Vader; and fed the young Prince Palpatine, Sidious's grandson, who even now was no doubt training under their combined evil tutelage.
But Han wasn't just saying rebellion was useless and that no one would dare. That much was pretty obvious. One whisper of defiance and… boom. Who would have the guts, besides Leia? Han was, inherently, saying that he felt terrible for his wife's grief-driven courage and that he wanted me to gently let her down. Though Han hated talking about emotions and remained continually gruff (except with Padmé, when he turned mushy as a soft-bread), he did care. He cared so deeply.
"Yeah," I vowed to him. "I got it."
He nodded back at me, the unspoken said.
OOO
"Luke!" Leia rarely smiled. So it hurt to see her smiling now as she came towards me amidst the flora and fauna.
Our meeting spot, in the depths of one of Alderaan's most beautiful rainforests, was as concealed as concealment got. I actually had been to the palace a few times, but knowing bugs possibly remained, we refrained from speaking of anything of substance there while I played "Luke Whitesun, old friend from Riosa".
I did my best to smile back at her, accepting the hug she meted out. Like Han, it had been three years since I saw her in person. She also looked good—both externally and in truth. Radiant. Hopeful.
More hurt, again.
"Hey, Leia," I sighed, when at last she let me go.
"How have you been?" she asked.
"Same as usual." Mentioning the whole Biggs thing did no good. Besides, she actually didn't know about him at all. Given we were persona non grata once I met Leia and Han (and I'd still been slightly broken-hearted), I'd actually never spoken of Biggs.
"That bad, eh?" Han deadpanned from the sidelines.
Leia shot him a blazing look, and the tension snapped between them like a rubber band in the Force. Han, for his part, shot her a cocky grin back. I felt like an interloper in this.
Or a mediator. Leia looped her arm through mine. "I hope he didn't have enough time on the flight to turn you against me," she mused.
I didn't answer that one. Turning to the Viceroy, I suggested, "Hey, Han, why don't you give Leia and me some space to catch up?"
Han tromped off with little invective but much emphasis in a look he shot me when Leia wasn't looking. Leia huffed. "He's been like this all week. He just doesn't understand."
I didn't answer that one, either. "Why don't you tell me about it?"
Leia smiled, and then began.
OOO
Author's Note: Tomorrow—a few new chapters, including one that reveals Luke's anti-slavery activities!
~ Hope
