Hi guys! I'm concluding the Princess on Lothal arc with this chapter. Also, giving you a lot anticipation for the following chapter, because your next update is probably in a few weeks. Today's my last day of summer. School tomorrow. :'( I also need to catch up on writing chapter, and then I will start posting again.

Thanks so much for the kind support! I got a lot of great feedback last chapter, and I will be answering questions and stuff at the end of the chapter.

Disclaimer: Star Wars is owned by Disney and Lucasfilm. I only own the plot of my story.

(Published 9.4.18)

Chapter Twenty-Two: It's a Long Way to Alderaan

3 BBY

The Phantom landed.

"Over there, sir!" said a stormtrooper to Lieutenant Lyste.

He drew in a breath. "This is the rebel ship we've been looking for." He turned to his men. "Set weapons for stun."

Instead of the rebels, the Princess, her aide, and two stormtroopers walked out. The Princess gave a dry look.

"I'd think you'd be pleased to see me, Admiral," she said.

"Of course, Your Highness! Very pleased," Lyste sputtered. "Just… surprised."

Luke peered past the Imperials, trying to make it subtle. Sabine, Ryder, and Chopper were making their ways to the closest gravity lock.

"This brave trooper saved us both from those Rebels," Leia continued. "He deserves a medal."

Luke silently cheered as a lock popped off one of the ships. Sabine rushed in to pilot it.

"As you can see, your ships are safe and sound right where you left them," said Lyste.

Leia gave a sour look. "If you're trying to impress me, Lieutenant, you're doing a miserable job of it."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't know?" She gestured to Sabine's ship, which was off the ground. The Lieutenant's head jerked around and his eyes went wide.

"I didn't authorize that!" he yelled. "Who's piloting that ship?" The Imperials caught sight of Ryder and Chopper trying to dismantle the gravity lock.

"Sir, rebels!" one of the stormtroopers yelled.

"Blast them!" commanded Lyste. The troopers began to shoot at Ryder and Chopper until suddenly, blaster fire rained from one of the corvettes. Thanks, Sabine, Luke thought. Dust flew up from the sand and he covered his face so not to inhale any.

The walker shot at Sabine's corvette, rocking it. Suddenly, Luke heard gunshots and looked up. Hera was here. Two torpedoes shot from the Ghost and hit the closest walker, damaging its core and sending it toppling to the ground.

Kanan and Ezra acted just as Sabine's ship lifted off the ground. Kanan whacked the nearest trooper and the lieutenant. Ezra jumped onto the other trooper and punched him in the helmet repeatedly until his helmet had been flung off. With the trooper groaning on the ground, Ezra wiped his hands and walked calmly back to them.

"Okay, that was…" Luke said as Ezra calmly slid his own helmet back on.

Kanan looked up. "Sabine's away. Let's get out of here."

All four of them saw what was looming in front of them. "I'm not sure we're going anywhere," Ezra stated nervously. The walker, the same one that had been knocked down before, was staggering to get back up. Meanwhile, the other walker was trying to take care of the Ghost, but Hera was too quick of a pilot for it.

Kanan turned to the three kids. "Secure the third ship. I'll handle the walker."

"Handle the walker?" Leia asked, dumbfounded. "How?"

"Just trust us! Go!" said Ezra, running. Luke briefly shrugged and ran alongside him.

Kanan ran as fast as he could through the smoke, taking out his lightsaber. Luke watched as it ignited, seeing the plasma blade of a lightsaber for the first time.

With graceful ease, he sliced through the walker's first leg, then another, bringing the walker down with absolutely no other way to get back up. The other walker turned its attention away from the rebel ship and towards the Jedi.

"Did you see that?" Leia said excitedly.

Luke looked on in a trance. My father… could do that? No, that can't be right.

"If you like that, watch this!" Ezra bragged. Moving closer and reaching out his arms, the blasters of two stormtroopers who were cornering Ryder were pulled out of their arms. Ezra caught one while the other hit him in the head. Leia picked one up and, aiming it at the troopers, she fired.

"Get down!" she yelled to Ezra, who nodded and moved to the side. After a few tries, the two were down.

"Not bad… for a princess," Luke grinned.

She glared at him. "Yes, well, you've got to defend yourself. How about you?"

Ryder pulled another gravity lock off a ship and Kanan ran over and took his helmet off. He got in while Chopper and Ryder, again, unlocked it.

An Imperial troop transport rolled in. "I'll handle this," said Leia. She turned to the lead trooper. "Thank goodness you've arrived. The rebels are stealing my ships!"

He ignored her and said something into his comlink: "AT-AT 36, you have new orders - shoot to kill. I repeat, shoot to kill."

Luke bit his lip while Leia begged, "No, you can't!"

"I'm sorry, Your Highness, but we can't let your ships fall into rebel hands." He said back into his comlink, "Destroy that ship. Now!"

The Ghost swooped back in for another shot, but it hardly penetrated the tough armor. More torpedoes, and the walker had been severely weakened. Luke didn't notice when the third and final ship lifted itself from the gravity lock.

Suddenly, the Ghost came spiraling through the sandy area, sending dust flying and a strong wind just enough to blow Luke off his feet. The third ship powered on, sending the weakened walker to the ground.

"Who's in that ship?" he groaned, getting to his feet. He caught sight of Leia, who was also getting up.

Ezra was running to the last corvette. Leia and Luke looked at each other and ran after him.

"Time for me to go," Ezra smirked. "And Luke, consider joining up, will you?"

"I'll see what I can do," Luke muttered back, returning the smile. Suddenly, Leia grabbed Ezra's hand and started pulling.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Ezra asked, perplexed and trying to get free.

"Stop that rebel!" she yelled. "He's stealing my transport!" She whispered, "Make it look good."

Although Luke was utterly confused, Ezra seemed to get it. "Oh! We gotta make this look good!" he said.

Leia bowed her head. "You have my permission."

"See you around, guys," said the Jedi, cocking a blaster.

"What?" Luke yelled, not understanding. "Permission to do - " He was met with a stun bolt to the chest. It hurt. A lot. He had never been hit with a stun bolt before.

As Luke got up with a massive headache, he saw Chopper excitedly getting back to the Phantom and the Imperials running towards the two of them. They hardly noticed the rebel ship take off.

"My ships," Leia groaned as Lyste helped her up. "You lost my ships." It was more of a statement than a question.

"I - I'm afraid so," he said quietly.

"You should be afraid!" she yelled angrily. "Just wait until I tell the Senate that the Imperial presence on Lothal is helpless against the Rebels!"

That girl can be scary when she wants to, Luke thought, a smile inwardly growing.

"No, no, no, that won't be necessary," said the Imperial with worry lining his face. "Uh, I assure you, Alderaan will be fully compensated for your lost ships."

"Fine," said Leia, looking down. "Oh, and I'll need your shuttle so I can return home." Luke thought - wait, didn't they take Lyste's shuttle earlier? Yeah, they did.

"My shuttle? Oh, right. Uh… where is it?"

"Lieutenant!" she said scoldingly. "Did you lose your ship too?"

"I'll summon another right away." With that, the Imperials strode away.

"Huh," Luke pondered. "I kind of like heckling the Empire a little bit."

Leia smirked. "Oh, yeah, Skywalker. You know, you could join up. Come with me to Alderaan and we'll try to get in touch with your father."

"Of course, Your Highness," he said.

"Please, call me Leia."

"Then you have to call me Luke."

"So, I know that was Princess Leia Organa, but who was the other kid?" Hera asked when they got back on the Ghost.

"You don't want to know," Kanan laughed.

She gave him a cold look. "Really. Who was it?"

"His name was Luke Skywalker."

Sabine's eyebrows furrowed together. "Like, as in Anakin Skywalker?"

Kanan and Ezra just smiled in response, leaving the rest of the crew in shock.

"Skywalker?"

"Welcome, Mr. Skywalker," sad Bail Organa kindly, though some kind of fear laced his voice. Luke could feel it emanating off him in waves.

"Thank you for welcoming me here, Senator Organa," replied Luke politely.

Organa looked at his daughter. "Congratulations on a successful mission. Anything to say about Phoenix Squadron?"

"They are definitely resourceful," said Leia. "And a good asset to the Rebellion."

"Good to hear!" he said. "Now, Leia, have a shuttle take you back to the planet surface." Leia nodded.

"I'll see you around, Luke," she smiled.

"Hopefully," he said back, waving shyly.

As soon as his daughter had left the room, Bail turned to Luke. "You did well, my boy. Have you considered joining us?"

"I really would like to," he said honestly. "Seeing what happened today, it seems like the right thing. It's full of people who believe in the right thing. My father always told me that no matter how large something is, you can grow larger to meet it." The senator squirmed in his chair at the mention of his father. "Sir… the rebels told me something about my father. I don't know if it was true. They told me that - that my father was a Jedi."

Bail sighed. "Anakin Skywalker was an amazing Jedi, yes. But your father could be someone else entirely."

"That's quite enough, Senator Organa," said a voice and a hologram popped up. Luke nearly cursed; he knew that face. "You have a lot of explaining to do, young man," said Anakin.

To Luke, it sounded as if malice was dripping from his every word.

Oooh, Ani's mad! And just think, I'm leaving you on this cliffhanger for a few weeks. Not on purpose, of course. This just so happened to coincide with school.

Thanks to dawnlight7295, Fsil, sodlorland, colbyshere2008, beanseh, and the brown cow for following/favoriting this story! It means a lot to me.

jedichillwill: I started to like Star Wars after the old canon became Legends, so I never knew the old Thrawn. I already love the new canon Thrawn, so I'm pretty happy with canon right now.

CloneWarsNerd: Thanks for that insight about Thrawn. I couldn't find anything on the internet. THE APPRENTICE LIVES.

Guest: Yeah! Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite installment of Harry Potter. I like to hide easter eggs in my stories, especially for something like Harry Potter.

Remember to follow, favorite, and review! Stay tuned for next chapter where Anakin is an overprotective dad, there's a lot of Skyguy and Snips, and Luke has the weirdest dream...

May the Force be with you and God bless.

-HH