Chapter 45
With a taxi Leia, Luke and Padmé finally arrived at the apartment that was shared by Han and Leia. Of course Padmé could somehow sense that her daughter was kind of nervous before the meeting between her and Han, but from the things Leia had told her about so far it seemed like he was a respected and trustworthy man that wouldn't break her daughter's heart under any circumstances. It had felt very good to have a longer chat with her old colleague Mon Mothma before her friend had to leave to take care of some official business and the former Republic Senator could imagine all too well how stressful the job as the Chancellor of the New Republic must be. But deep down she did have the feeling that Mon Mothma would be able to master this challenge, because she had been a great leader figure back in the days of the Old Republic. Like it had been just yesterday and not so many years ago, Padmé could still remember very well how she lead the little opposition group against Chancellor Palpatine, that one person, who the former Queen had trusted so much for all those years.
She had realized too late what kind of person Palpatine really had been the whole time: a man that never had been in the service of democracy and only cared about achieving his own goals. The former Queen and Senator had spent a lot of time trying to find an answer to whether she could have done anything to prevent the fall of the Republic and why she didn't see the true intentions of the power-hungry Palpatine. But in the end she had come to the conclusion that there had been nothing she could have done to prevent all those terrible things from happening because Chancellor Palpatine had fooled them all and he had taken action in the most opportune moment when nobody had seen it coming.
The taxi finally came to a stop on the landing platform on the roof of the big apartment complex. After some hesitation in her step Padmé followed her children out onto the landing platform and couldn't help but feel a little bit nervous before the meeting with Han. Leia hadn't announced to Han that she would arrive at their apartment with her mother and brother in tow because she wanted to surprise him; and she was a little anxious to see how he was going to react to those two surprise visitors.
Command Center of the New Republic Listening Post, Saarn System
The New Republic Military on the small had to realise quickly that they were totally outmatched against the forces of the Empire and that they definitely had underestimated their enemy. The Command Center was full of debris because of the constant attacks from the Star Destroyers that were now hovering directly over their heads, as the forces of the Empire had been able to swiftly defeat the small defense force that was stationed on the base. Captain Parker was well aware that things weren't looking good for them right now and he had to admit that he did have his doubts that the reinforcements would reach them in time and as one of the last shots had destroyed the sensor grid, they were now basically blind and wouldn't even know it when the Imperial forces would launch their final full scale attack on the base.
There weren't many people still standing at their consoles, a lot of good people had been buried under a big mountain of debris, and Captain Parker really didn't want to take the time now to think about how many people they had probably lost today in this battle, not because any of those people didn't matter to him, but because now just wasn't a good time to do it, as he had to think of an exit strategy for this complicated situation. Under no circumstances he could afford of letting this base fall into the hands of the enemy, and even if it definitely was the hardest decision that he would ever have to make in his long years in military, he would rather blow this whole base to pieces instead of letting any data fall into the hands of the Empire. He was also very sure that nobody would want to fall into the hands of the Imperial forces alive, as they all knew too well that they would be tortured for information that would bring all of their friends at home in grave danger.
Thinking about any alternative plan to this rather radical exit scenario, Captain Parker finally said:
"Lt. Pearson, what's the status of the communications array of the base?" Because of the fact that all stations in the Command Center had suffered huge damage, it took quite a while before the man on the communications console had completed the short diagnosis of the system and judging from the look on his face, the communications array of the base had to be in a pretty bad shape but it simply had to work somehow.
"The communications array is barely functioning, Sir, and to be honest I can't guarantee that our message will actually reach our forces. " He wished that he would have been able to deliver better news and he didn't envy Captain Parker for being in this kind of complicated situation for one bit, but his Commanding Officer would surely make the right decision in the end.
Coruscant
As Padmé looked at the apartment, she thought back to her apartment back from the days as a Senator in the Old Republic for her home world of Naboo. The lift to the upper level of the apartment finally came to a stop; Padmé followed her children out of the lift and stepped into the living room area. They headed right for the couch that stood next to the large window, from where she had a wonderful view of the big city planet and the former Senator of Naboo couldn't help but feel a little bit lost as she looked down upon the skyscrapers.
After a longer silence Padmé said: "This apartment reminds me a little bit of my apartment back in the day when I was the Senator for Naboo, and it seems that not everything has changed here in the capital of the Republic." As the three of them sat there on the couch, Leia couldn't help but think about how Pooja, the niece of her mother, would react when she informed her cousin about this good news and make the family reunion also complete.
AN: Thanks to: KMKLMNS87 for adding me to her/his author alert subscription, adding this story to her/his story alert subscription; Trickymander for adding this story to her/his story alert subscription; Nourseholly for adding me to her/his favorite authors list; Loki's Angel 15 for adding me to her/his author alert subscription and adding this story to her/his story alert subscription; Royann for adding this story to her/his favorite stories list; Thanks .5851 for reviewing this story; Kat 900 for adding me to her/his author alert subscription.
