Chapter 51: Occupational Hazard
It was another stressful day of work at Coruscant Space Traffic Control.
The poor saps that went about their lives here were overworked and underpaid, especially so over the last few months. Yet it was the best job positions they could possibly hope to acquire, everything better being reserved for those that knew people in positions of power, everything else they could access being far worse than their work here. Every day they directed the traffic going in and out of Coruscant airspace, though as of late it was all in and no out. Captains and pilots of various ships were getting angry, some making various threats if they didn't get to leave soon.
Every moment someone had to explain away the delays, often needing to lie about when the planetwide grounding of traffic would be lifted. No one could answer why this restriction was put in place, for that knowledge was far above the pay grade of everyone here. There was a lot of yelling through the radio, and the voices were blending into one another for those walking past the employees. Extra security had been brought on at the entrances, just in case some desperate fool tried to get inside the control tower and take their frustrations out on the workers.
Naturally, with everyone present on edge, an earthquake was the last thing they needed.
"Everyone! Get under cover!" a stormtrooper yelled.
Workers dropped what they were doing and got beneath their desks, just in case the ceiling came down on top of them. But while they were worried about danger from above, the real threat was from below. The earthquake was the result of stone moving beneath the foundations, and in the basement thick slabs of granite burst out of the floor. Naturally this set off an alarm, though only stormtroopers could hear it through the radios in their helmets. When the first wave of stormtroopers entered the basement they stopped in their tracks, confused by the slabs of not-so-solid rock where they didn't belong.
"What the-"
The granite slabs shattered into dozens of tiny pieces, launched at the stormtroopers with deadly speed and accuracy. The entire wave of stormtroopers were struck down, and Toph stood atop the granite she'd used to break into this tower. Dozens of armed men and women were brought in with her, and they quickly claimed the blasters by the fallen stormtroopers, since those weapons were better than anything they carried. They also picked up the helmets, the ones that weren't damaged by granite anyway, so that they could listen in on imperial communications.
"Response team alpha come in. What's the situation down there?"
Toph took one of the helmets and put it on to respond. "Um, yeah, your guys are meat now. Better send your best down here before we totally wreck the place."
The radio went silent, a sign that the imperials had switched frequencies and cut out the fallen stormtroopers' gear. But Toph could tell that they had taken her advice, feeling the vibrations from dozens of more stormtroopers coming down from the higher floors. She signaled for the others to take defensive positions, aiming their new blasters into the only stairwell out of here. Toph tracked the incoming stormtroopers, and smirked when they didn't charge in blindly. They threw several small orbs down the stairs first, and Toph used chunks of rock to catch the orbs and throw them back upstairs.
The flashbangs and smoke bombs went off in the faces of the stormtroopers, much to their surprise as they were instantly blinded, though their helmets protected them from the smoke. Many of them fired blindly into the stairwell, expecting the intruders to be coming up after the initial counterattack. Toph knew better than to do that, and didn't need to anyway. She gathered the shattered pieces of granite and merged them into a large spike of rock, hurled it up at an angle through the ceiling, piercing through the thin metal and skewering some poor sap before shattering into deadly shrapnel.
The not so subtle attack drew attention to the new hole through the building, and the stormtroopers started shooting into that instead. Now was the time to go up the stairs, since through the vibrations Toph knew no one was aiming in that direction anymore. The sounds of blasters firing covered up the rushed footsteps going upstairs, and at the next floor Toph's people opened fire. There was still smoke in the stairwell, so they fired wildly into the smoke, trying to hit everything they possibly could until the stormtroopers started shooting back.
More reinforcements were coming down the stairs, which Toph saw coming as she did some more earthbending. "We've got more of them coming down!"
The third wave of stormtroopers was still three floors higher, and were carrying more sophisticated equipment. It didn't help them when the wall exploded, showering them in shrapnel and burying the bodies in rubble. A second rocket came flying into the hole, hitting the inner side of the stairwell and exploding, tearing open access to more of that floor. The few stormtroopers that survived both rockets were left stranded on the higher stairs, unable to go down any further. But they could still shoot into the stairwell, and so they needed to be eliminated.
A plume of blue flames was shot into the building, cooking the remaining stormtroopers inside their armor. Azula followed the flames into the severed stairwell, having leaped from another building with blue flames burning from her feet. She was followed by the bounty hunter on jetpack, who's missiles had opened the way, and Boba Fett landed shortly after Azula. They heard more stormtroopers coming down, and Azula threw more blue flames upward, resulting in more men cooked alive. Boba hopped over a damaged portion of the walk, heading further into the building on this floor.
"Is this the right level?" Azula asked.
Boba looked around the area opened up by the explosions, but it was nothing but cubicle farms as far as the eye could see. "Must have aimed too low, there's only civilian terminals down here."
After keeping the stairwell above her full of blue fire, Azula hopped over the hole to join him. "We'll need another route up."
Hearing rushed footsteps coming from the other side of this floor, Boba took cover and drew his blaster. "We've got company."
"Cover me," Azula said. She started moving her arms in circular motions. "I need a second."
Not knowing what she had in mind, Boba stayed behind cover and fired at the first stormtroopers that appeared from around a corner. He heard the distinct crackling of electricity, and in his peripheral vision was the light it generated. By then the hallway ahead was full of stormtroopers, and Azula came out from behind cover, pointing one arm to unleash a bolt of lightning. The electricity jumped from one stormtrooper to the next, taking out the entire squad in a single shot. The bodies fell to the floor in a big pile, their blasters and equipment fried by the sheer voltage.
"That's one way to commit a war crime," Boba said, certainly impressed by the sheer carnage from one attack. "Get enough of them together and you could beat my record for most kills at once."
"This is nothing," Azula said. "I've slaughtered more Hutt mercs on Tatooine than I could ever care to remember."
While they held onto this floor, the stormtroopers higher up fortified their positions. Unfortunately, they were paying attention solely to threats from outside, ignoring all other possible directions threats may come from. Two new employees on their first day of work were completely ignored, and they were behind a stormtrooper fortification along with the other workers on the upper floor. While every other civilian was keeping their heads down, Mai and Ty Lee kept their eyes open for an opportunity, wishing they could have brought their armor instead of wearing employee uniforms for disguises.
Mai snatched a smoke bomb from a stormtrooper's belt and threw it at the others, and the detonation filled most of the room with smoke. Already reaching for a holstered blaster, Mai took it and opened fire. Ty Lee stayed behind Mai and struck at the joints in stormtrooper armor, getting through the vulnerable spots to strike at the pressure points beneath them, paralyzing the stormtroopers close enough to still see the girls. Once the nearest stormtroopers were down Ty Lee got closer to Mai, who had picked up another blaster and tossed it to her friend.
In the confusion the actual workers scattered, fleeing from the smoke and the blasters firing every which way. When the smoke was clearing Mai and Ty Lee had taken cover behind some cubicles, and were shooting at the stormtroopers trying to recover from the chaos. Once they did they fired back at would-be saboteurs, only to find that the targets were no longer there. Mai and Ty Lee were retreating into the building, keeping ahead of pursuit and firing when they could. They were never in the same spot for more than a few seconds, constantly running and gunning.
"They're going to catch us sooner or later," Ty Lee said.
"Not if-" a tremor in the building interrupted Mai. "-everyone plays their part."
Far below them Toph was making her way up the building, rising with thick spikes of granite piercing through the floors one by one, taking the earth she needed with her. She and her people cleared out the stormtroopers they came across, their numbers thinned by Azula and Boba Fett intercepting some of the reinforcements sent downstairs. More and more stormtroopers were being deployed to the lower floors to deal with the threats down there, the officers not caring how many bodies it would take to get the job done.
So while all the attention was facing down, no one inside the building was looking up. Dropping from a transport flying above the building, Aang and the two droids plummeted for the antenna-topped roof. He summoned a whirlwind beneath them to slow their fall, eyes briefly glowing blue with the Avatar State for the power he needed to carry all three of them. C-3PO was screaming all the way down, and R2-D2 was letting a high-pitched squeal. Their screams went unnoticed amidst the blaring sirens below, and they were somewhat muffled by the whirlwind around them.
"I really hope you two can't feel pain!" Aang shouted over the wind.
"If I said we do, would it matter?!" C-3PO shouted back.
It didn't, though Aang wasn't about to admit it. Drawing upon the Avatar State again, his eyes and tattoos glowing bright blue, he intensified the whirlwind to slow their fall further. Aang landed gently on his feet, having done so from a fall more times than he could count. R2-D2 attempted to activate rocket boosters that hadn't worked since the Clone Wars, and the result was a sputtering of thrust that only got it upright before hitting the rooftop. C-3PO simply fell right on his face, suffering some dents but was otherwise fine.
Aang spent a moment to lift C-3PO back onto his feet, and he saw R2-D2 connect to a port on some machinery nearby. "Is it working?"
R2-D2 beeped a short quip.
"He does this sort of thing all the time," C-3PO translated. He heard more beeps from the other droid. "And he's in the system, should only be a moment before he's got control."
Aang looked around for any imminent dangers, but it seemed that everyone else was drawn downstairs, just as he could have hoped. "How do you have such good technical skills? You make it sound so easy to break into this stuff."
This time C-3PO paraphrased what R2-D2 said to them. "Inside and out, since when?" He waited while R2-D2 elaborated. "I think I would remember being part of the Republic with you." More beeps followed, and now C-3PO was taken aback. "Memory erased? When did that… Oh, I suppose I wouldn't remember, if it did happen."
"I didn't realize droids could get amnesia," Aang said.
R2-D2 squealed something really loud.
"They know we're in their network," C-3PO translated. "They'll be figuring out our location any moment. And R2 isn't done yet."
"Stay behind me," Aang instructed.
"Of course," C-3PO said, immediately complying.
They didn't have to wait long for company. A rooftop entrance had its door thrown open, and stormtroopers emerged with blasters drawn. They were immediately struck by a powerful gale that pushed those in front into those behind them, some of them falling over on top of their weapons. It was followed by a thick mist that seemed to appear from nowhere, the water coming from clogged drains around the roof. Blasters were fired blindly into the mist, though the shots went wild until the commander of this squad slapped the back of someone's helmet.
"Don't damage the equipment!" the commander ordered. "We need that on-"
Struck down midsentence by a powerful fireball, the commander fell before anyone realized what had hit him. Aang moved unseen in the mist, manipulating the wind around him to silence his movements, striking down stormtroopers one by one with fireballs and gusts of air. The order for restraint went unheeded, and the stormtroopers fired whenever they saw movement, and some of the shots narrowly missed Aang. Someone decided to throw a thermal detonator, only for it to be caught by the wind and thrown back into the squad.
The explosion took out several stormtroopers, and the shockwave dispersed the mist. A few stormtroopers were still standing, until Aang hit them with enough wind to blow them off their feet. One of them even cleared the edge of the rooftop, though Aang wasn't looking when the poor sap fell to his demise. The other ones stayed down, though Aang made sure of it before doing anything else. He turned to the open door and slammed it shut, then used an intense flame from his hand to weld the door to its frame.
Once that was done Aang turned his attention back to the droids. "Are you two okay?"
"I am not damaged," C-3PO answered. He heard R2-D2 beep something excitedly. "And R2 has finished transmitting the message. By the time the imperials decrypt what we've sent, we'll be long gone."
"Good, then it's time to bug out," Aang said. He held up his mechanical hand, using the communicator built into it. "Mission accomplished people. Finish what you're doing and get out of there."
While Aang airlifted the droids away from the rooftop, fighting continued within the building. The lower half of the building was in chaos, much of it wrecked beyond repair, courtesy of Toph hurling granite through walls and Azula frying the power grid with lightning. By this point the remaining stormtroopers were bunkering down in the parts they still controlled, having exhausted their numbers already and needed to wait for reinforcements from outside. Those reinforcements were only minutes away, but by then the intruders would be gone.
Currently Azula and Boba Fett were in their desired floor, having gone up a few from where they had entered. This floor was somewhat less damaged than the others they had visited, at Boba's insistence when they reached this one. There were various computer terminals on this floor, and the bounty hunter wanted them kept intact, operational, and online. While Boba accessed the computers and perused the information stored here, Azula had been burning alive every stormtrooper that dared to force them out.
"Got it!" Boba announced, ejecting a small disk from the terminal. "Thanks for keeping them off me."
"So what was so important you needed to go behind Aang's back?" Azula asked.
Pocketing the disk, Boba started heading for the nearest exit. "Just the access codes to get my ship out of impound free of charge."
"You're telling me we took extra risk just to save you some coin?" Azula surprised.
"Yup," Boba said. "As long as we were coming here anyway…"
Higher up in the building, Mai and Ty Lee were making their escape. They had eliminated most of the stormtroopers on this floor, and the few that remained had bunkered down around the workers for their protection. The ladies made their way to the stairwell, or what was left of it at this point, and hurried down as far as the damaged portion of the building would allow. When they reached the open gap Ty Lee simply jumped from one damaged piece of floor to another, while Mai had to take more care in climbing down since she lacked the acrobatic skills.
They made it down just as Toph's people were about to leave, and Ty Lee was running up to them while waving her arm. "Hey, don't leave without us!"
"Then haul your butt over here!" Toph yelled back. "Because we are getting out now!"
On the way up here Toph had brought columns of dirt and rocks in addition to the granite spikes, which she had used to crush everyone that stood in her way. Now they would be her express elevator back down, and for everyone else she wanted to bring with her. To the few stormtroopers still conscious and watching, it looked like the dirt was swallowing people whole and dragging them down to an endless abyss. It was a disconcerting experience for Mai and Ty Lee, even more so for the people Toph brought with her, despite having done this when they got in here.
They got out just in time, for enemy reinforcements finally arrived to clear out the intruders. Fresh stormtroopers knocked down the doors at every entrance, threw bombs in ahead of them, which would have cleared the way if anyone had still been there. The stormtroopers rushed into the building by the hundreds, quickly occupying every room and corridor, taking every precaution along the way. But they were disappointed to find nothing to shoot at, only the severe damage and the bodies left where they had fallen.
In the chaos around the building, Azula and Boba Fett had found a hiding place a few buildings over, the former getting there on pillars of flame and the other using a jetpack. "It won't take them long to follow us here. We weren't exactly subtle."
"We'll have to part ways here," Boba insisted. "We're kind of conspicuous."
"Agreed," Azula said. "Just don't try to take your ship and leave on your own. We might need it."
"Not like I can leave yet anyway," Boba said. "But it doesn't hurt to be prepared."
"Just get back to the hideout as quickly as possible," Azula said.
As those two parted ways, they noticed a powerful gust of wind overhead, where Aang was carrying the two droids with the power of the Avatar State. He needed it to make the wind strong enough to carry himself and a pair of burdens, and the gale was loud enough to mask even C-3PO's worried screams. From below they looked like little specs going across the sky, easily missed by the naked eye and quickly forgotten. Aang kept it up for over a mile, and when they landed on a much lower rooftop the glow of the Avatar State left his eyes.
"That should be far enough for now," Aang said.
Having fallen on his face again, C-3PO needed a moment to get back up. "We should still keep moving. It will not take them long to widen their search."
R2-D2 beeped something that sounded reassuring.
"That will help, but we should still be careful," C-3PO said.
"What did he say?" Aang asked.
"Oh, R2 installed a backdoor into their network," C-3PO said. "So once we're in a secure location we can check the status of the imperial search. Or at least the part that is public knowledge."
"Good to know," Aang said. "Now come on. We need to reach one of the hidden paths."
In the opposite direction from the wrecked building, Toph had been tunneling for a short distance. She went straight for the closest preexisting tunnel, part of an ancient subway system that was left flooded and forgotten. She wasn't going to admit it to anyone, but the excessive earthbending was tiring and she wanted to conserve her strength. Once everyone with her had entered the flooded tunnel Toph closed off the path behind them, and from there they could walk a good distance away from searching imperial forces.
Of course, it was pitch black dark in this old tunnel, until Mai and a few others turned on some flashlights. "Does anyone know where this hole leads?"
"It leads away from where we were," Toph answered. "And we're going to take it as far as it goes."
Walking though ankle-deep water, Ty Lee was trying to look for higher ground to walk on. "Can't we keep on with the earthbending?"
"Too much of a risk," Toph said. "They've gotten wise to that before. It's only a matter of time before they recognize it here and use their tricks to find us if I earthbend too much."
"Let's just get out of here already," Mai said.
"Trying to," Toph said. "This looks like the right way…"
Naturally, after such a bold attack on an imperial facility, everyone involved decided to lay low for a while. They didn't dare return to the underground cavern immediately, just in case someone managed to follow them out of the building. Imperial patrols in the area were increased tenfold, making it very difficult to move anywhere out in the open. Even the two earthbenders kept their movements to a minimum, certain that the imperials would be checking for underground tunneling now that they had revealed their presence.
After a week they started to regroup, approaching the cavern at different times and from different directions, doing everything possible to make sure they weren't followed. Aang and the droids were the last to arrive, and they received a warm welcome from the people already there. Toph had arrived the day before, and had spent the time reinforcing the walls of the cavern with whatever scrap metal she could find. Azula and her friends were staying in a ramshackle building that passed for a command center, and once the other earthlings plus droids arrived they could let out sighs of relief.
"I take it the plan worked as well as you hoped," Azula said.
"About as good as it could have gone," Aang said. He earthbent a chair out of dirt and sat in it. "Did we lose anyone in there?"
Standing nearby, Toph nodded. "Three of the people I brought bit the dust. A few others got wounded, but they're getting patched up."
"Good," Aang said. He turned his head to the droids, nodding to C-3PO. "Tell them what you told me."
"Yes, of course," C-3PO said. "While R2 was transmitting our message to the Rebellion, he installed a backdoor into the imperial communications network. We should be able to access public transmissions without being traced back to R2's location."
The little droid beeped something that sounded prideful.
"But he does suggest we use it sparingly," C-3PO added. "Each time we do, there is a chance it may be discovered, and they would delete his access immediately."
"It's more than we had before," Toph said. "I'll take it."
"So what's the plan from here?" Ty Lee asked. "Are we going to hit some other place soon?"
"I don't think so," Aang said. "We used up our one and only surprise attack already. They're going to be ready for us from here on out."
"We can't wait forever," Azula said. "They're going to respond in force. And it's only a matter of time before they find us."
"Sounds like we have no good options," Mai summarized. "It's not like we could just pack up and leave this planet."
"Actually, that bounty hunter says he can get his ship back now," Azula said, deliberately omitting how or why that was possible. "Granted, it would get shot down the instant he tries to leave, but if he figures out a way around that it might help."
"Too bad that's impossible," Ty Lee said. "It sure looks like we're stuck here."
"Believe me, I wish we could just leave," Aang admitted. "But if the Empire wasn't on lockdown before, they certainly are now."
"That is true," C-3PO said.
R2-D2 beeped something that sounded important.
"And it seems they aren't letting ships in now either," C-3PO said. "Including military ships, which is strange. You'd think they'd want as many reinforcements as possible."
"That can't be just for us," Toph said. "I mean, I know we're awesome we've definitely ticked them off, but just because we're here doesn't mean we have people inside their own military working for us."
"There must be something we're not seeing," Mai said.
Aang stood up and threw his arms in the air. "But we have no way of knowing. So until we can figure out a game plan, we might as well get some rest. We're definitely going to need it."
Outside the blown-out wreck that was the Traffic Control, a lone woman observed from a nearby rooftop.
Mara Jade didn't like what she saw, even if this attack was bound to happen, or something like it. The benders from Earth were responsible, and it seemed that at least one more had been added since losing track of the first two nearly a year ago. She had hoped that Aang and Toph would simply lie low and not draw attention to themselves, but apparently it wasn't enough for them to simply survive. They had finally surfaced after all this time, and they had struck from behind all the defenses set up around the capital, just when all attention was focused outward.
She was wearing a dark robe over her usual combat outfit, virtually unseen in all the chaos around the damaged building. The few people that noticed her were quickly dismissed, with subtle use of the Force to persuade them to forget she was even here. She wasn't supposed to be here in the first place, but had wanted to see the aftermath of the attack firsthand. The benders were more dangerous than her master gave them credit for, and she wanted to make changes to imperial facilities that would hamper the use of their abilities.
But the Emperor was having none of that. His focus was entirely on threats from outside, one in particular greater than anything else. Even as the Empire was starting to break apart at the seams, with planetary governors and grand moffs pondering independence, though none had gone so far as to join the Rebellion. The Emperor still ruled the known galaxy through fear and intimidation, but he was no longer the only person the people had to fear. That rival had the Emperor's obsession, and he focused on that while neglecting everything else.
Mara's communicator beeped, and she answered it immediately. "Yes Master."
"Return to the palace at once," the Emperor ordered. "I have a mission for you."
"As you wish, my Master," Mara said. She waited for him to end the call, and then she stood up to leave. "This can't be good."
While she traveled across the city in her personal skycar, she looked out at the cityscape while a protocol droid did the driving. She reflected on her training here, serving as the Emperor's personal servant, being an apprentice in the Dark Side of the Force. But she was not the apprentice her master wanted, and there were lessons he withheld from her, knowledge that would only be granted to a true successor. Mara knew which individual her master wanted, and it was clear that she was just a placeholder until he got his hands on the young Skywalker.
All too soon the skycar arrived at the Emperor's palace, and her presence allowed her to ignore all security. She walked the rest of the way through the building, quickly arriving in the throne room where her master waited. She stood behind the throne and waited in silence, until it swiveled around at the Emperor's leisure. Wearing his usual robe and sitting with both hands on the armrests, Emperor Palpatine set his gaze upon his servant. Mara kneeled before him, wondering what task her master had for her this time.
"What is your wish, Master?" Mara asked.
"You will be travelling to the Endor System," Palpatine ordered. "Construction of the Death Star has fallen behind. You will ensure the work returns to schedule."
Mara hid her grimace at that command, though she was certain her master sensed it anyway. She found this task to be a waste of her time, being wholly unsuited to overseeing a construction project. The latest superweapon wouldn't be operational for several months, and completion was still years away even if the workforce was doubled. Yet the Emperor was diverting more and more resources to it at the expense of other parts of the military, clearly wanting it done as quickly as possible, much to the frustration of those in charge of keeping track of the expenses.
She suspected that Palpatine planned to move his center of operations to the Death Star, once the construction was finished and the superweapon tested on the forest moon of Endor. It would allow him to rule the galaxy from a weapon that could destroy entire worlds, one that could move from system to system via hyperspace to strike whenever he wanted. He would be virtually invincible from a mobile fortress, able to instill fear throughout the Empire, its citizens never knowing where he was or where he might destroy a planet next.
But she wouldn't dare voice her objections to him. "As you wish. I will get the job done."
"Be ready for an attack," Palpatine advised.
"I take it the plan to trap the rebels is still in motion?" Mara asked.
"Not quite as I once envisioned," Palpatine admitted. "But we will make it work, I assure you. Now go. Your transport is the only one allowed to leave Coruscant."
"I will depart at once," Mara said.
She stood up and left the throne room, certain that her master would tend to other matters. On her way out she thought about her assigned task, and there were plenty of better things she believed she should be doing instead. She wanted to be investigating the domestic attack, believing the benders of Earth were the most pressing concern that should not be left to fester. They wouldn't have launched that attack just for the sake of it, that facility was perfect for sending an unauthorized transmission, if they had a droid capable of circumventing imperial programming.
They must have sent something somewhere, and Mara found it frustrating that she might never know who received it.
After spending many months setting up the Rebellion's new base, Leia was glad to be back aboard Home One and fighting the Empire again.
It had been a tough time for her, having lost contact with her closest friends, not knowing if they were alive or dead. That was the nature of war, with every battle there were people missing in action, their eventual fate never determined. It was worse than simply being killed, for the survivors anyway, left wondering if there was still a chance that the missing individuals were still alive. Every day Leia wondered that if she had done something differently they would still be here, and only her work was able to keep the guilt at bay.
In her quarters aboard the ship Leia was going through the latest reports when a strange feeling hit her. "Luke…"
This feeling was almost instinctive, something she would never admit to anyone beyond simple intuition, never relying on it alone to make her decisions. She couldn't explain it, but she was certain that Luke Skywalker was alive, after all these months of thinking he might be dead. Something had changed, though she couldn't tell what, and had no way to prove it. There was only one person aboard that would believe her, the only one with knowledge of the Force, whom most of the crew regarded as a senile little green man.
"Yes, you feel it too," Yoda said, sitting on the edge of Leia's bed. "His presence in the Force has returned. I do not know how it was severed, but his connection is restored."
Leia let out a long sigh, not wanting to look at the strange alien that taken up residence with her. When Yoda had first arrived, Leia had let him stay on the grounds that he had been Luke's teacher, and his old age surely meant that he had great wisdom to call upon. Since then Yoda had tried to convince Leia that she could do the things Luke could, that her connection to the Force was similar to his, and that she might succeed where he could not. She had largely disbelieved those claims, and considered herself too busy with real work to take on spiritual lessons about the Force.
"Maybe now you can go back to training Luke," Leia said.
"If I could reach him, perhaps I would," Yoda said. "I'm sure you know why that would not be."
"He's stuck on Earth," Leia answered. That was the last planet Luke had been on, and it was very unlikely he had found a way off that rock. "And we don't have the resources to break that blockade."
After the fiasco that was the misguided attempt at a truce, the Empire had greatly increased the number of ships stationed at that backwater planet. The loss of the Executor had hit the imperial navy hard, both in the loss of hardware and life as well as morale. There was no chance of going back there to recruit more of Earth's bending population, and Leia was certain the imperials were forcing them to serve the Empire's interests by now. Specialized squads employing one or more elements had started showing up across the galaxy, albeit in low numbers and only on worlds that augmented their abilities.
"You are low on options," Yoda commented.
"I know," Leia said. She saw a message appear on her computer terminal, marked with high urgency so she read it immediately. "Hmm… I was not expecting that."
The message was a transcript of information transmitted from Coruscant, bounced through several relay points to conceal its destination in the Rebellion. It was from R2-D2, reporting back on the mission given to Mai and Ty Lee, having achieved some measure of success. They had contacted the resistance cell rumored to exist on Coruscant, and discovered that it was led by none other than Aang and Toph. The report didn't say how they got there, but their presence so deep in enemy territory was a welcome distraction.
"Finally, some good news," Leia said. "Every little bit is going to help."
"Planning a big operation, I presume?" Yoda asked.
"You could say that," Leia answered. "We've waited long enough. It's time to make our move. Only thing left to do is pick the target."
There were plenty of targets to chose from, which was the main subject of an upcoming meeting with the other leaders of the Rebellion. Although Coruscant had more security around it than ever before, the forces placed there had left many other worlds relatively unguarded. One planet in particular, or rather one of its moons, was a tempting target. Rumor had it that the Empire was building a new Death Star around one of Endor's moons, though the intel acquired by the bothan spies had been in doubt ever since they had been used to send a message to the Rebellion.
"Trust your instincts, and the choice will become clear," Yoda instructed.
"I know," Leia said. Still, there was an uneasy feeling she couldn't shake off. "Yet I can't help but feel like there's something very wrong in the Empire's movements. It's like they're trying to defend against a bigger threat than us."
"There is one person the Emperor truly fears," Yoda said. "It is someone that could replace him."
Leia knew who that was, and information on his location was scarce to nonexistent. "Vader…"