With the maneuvering of a lever, the bluish streaks of hyperspace reverted back to stars through the viewport of the Millenium Falcon, showing the passengers the dead system that served as the Rebellion's rendezvous point. There were already several other rebel ships in the area; a feat that normally wouldn't be possible due to the Falcon's topnotch astrogation computer. The other ships beating the quick Corellian freighter was a simple matter of security. After all, having a ship bearing two of the Rebellion's top leaders leap blind into a system without an escort had all of the potential to be a devastating loss.
"Were we followed?" Leia asked as she strained in her crash webbing to look over the shoulder of Chewbacca.
Scopes are negative at the moment, Chewbacca replied in his usual growl. Save for a few other Rebel ships.
With a flash that surprised a few of the people aboard the Falcon the rest of the Alliance fleet soon appeared. The hulls of the various ships were "decorated" with carbon scores of various sizes, the result of the various impacts of lasers from an assortment of ships. It was the first time that Han Solo, Chewbacca, Leia Organa, and Obi-Wan Kenobi had been able to truly study the devastation that the Imperial fleet had wrought on them. One of the lumpy outgrowths of one of the surviving MC80's was nearly wiped off of the ship due to the heavy turbolasers of the Star Destroyers, and three of the eight engines of a Corellian Corvette had been disabled by a particularly pesky flight of TIE fighters. Yet the worst of the damage was relegated towards the sole surviving Acclamator assault ship. The Star Destroyer ancestor was marked with several hull breaches from serving as a shield for the rest of the transports. It was fortunate that the ship had been manned with a skeleton crew, but there were sure to be many casualties in that crew.
"We weren't ready for capital ship combat, weren't we?" Leia rhetorically asked as she continued to survey the damage.
"They knew what they were doing," Obi-Wan stated as he too viewed the Alliance fleet. "Their sacrifices must be honored, not mourned or avenged. With their help, we were able to escape from the clutches of the Empire."
"Listen to him, your worship," Han Solo said as he kicked on the sublight engines as he prepared to pilot the freighter towards the Alliance flagship. "I still may not be entirely into this revolution, but at least I'm still alive for the moment." This comment made Chewbacca growl a response. "I know how you stand on this issue, buddy, but I'm still not entirely certain that this whole rebellion thing's going to work," Han replied to his friend's statement. "I know the stories of the battles of both Kashyyyk and Alaris Prime and how you served with the Jedi on both of those missions. What I don't understand is how you could fight with this guy," Han said as he pointed to Obi-Wan, "at Alaris Prime and then just a few months ago call him a 'damn fool' like you barely knew him."
Knew him in his youth or not, Chewbacca replied, you have to admit that going through a tightly guarded Imperial battlestation alone is a pretty foolish thing to do.
"It is only foolish if one is unsure of the results," Obi-Wan replied to Chewbacca, silently reminding himself that he had entered the combat with Vader fully intending to sacrifice his life.
"A handy philosophy for a Jedi," Han stated under his breath.
"I am certain that you have operated under that philosophy before in your smuggling career," Obi-Wan countered.
Han shut his mouth, unable to properly counter the Jedi Master's statement and at the same time unwilling to concede defeat. "I've just got landing clearance from Home One," Han said a few seconds later, hoping to change the subject.
Home One's main hangar was almost a miniature version of the entire fleet that could be partially seen through the light blue force field that protected the pilots from the vacuum of space. X-wings sat with hideous looking carbon scores on them, a few had an S-foil or two sheared off from the assault. Astromech droids that had been welded to their starfighters by an extremely close shot warbled and "screamed" to the technicians and repair droids that struggled to free them."Artoo? Artoo, where are you?" Threepio said as he struggled to get his voice heard over the din. "I do hope that you and Master Luke are fully functional."
"From the reports that I heard," Obi-Wan said as he turned to face the anxious droid, "Luke was completely unharmed during the battle. A lot of other pilots weren't so well fated, however," Obi-Wan added as he passed a Y-wing missing one of its engine nacelles that gave the fighter/bomber its nickname.
"That's an understatement," Han Solo replied as he too looked at the damaged ships.
"Master Luke! Artoo-Deetoo!" Threepio exclaimed shortly before stiffly jogging to his friends' sides. The excited warbles and beeps from Artoo began relaying war stories.
A nearly exhausted Luke Skywalker walked up to the group of his friends, happy to finally be out of the cockpit of his X-wing after the long flight. "I'm fine, Threepio," he replied to the golden protocol droid. "I'm glad to see all of you managed to get out of that place," Luke addressed the passengers and crew of the Millenium Falcon. "I heard from some of the other pilots that General Dodonna wasn't able to escape. Is there any truth to that?"
Obi-Wan nodded in response to Luke's question. "I'm afraid that it is true. We lost contact with him just before Han and Chewbacca evacuated us from the base. At least we didn't lose any other important leaders back there," Obi-Wan conceded.
"Master Kenobi, Princess Organa, Luke," Kyle Katarn greeted the first few people he saw in the growing group, which now included a few other pilots trying to speak to either Leia Organa or Obi-Wan about a variety of things.
"Greetings Kyle, Jan," Obi-Wan said, acknowledging one of his students as well as the woman walking next to him. "It's good to see that both of you are alive."
"Well it would certainly be odd to see only him," Jan Ors said with a slight smile, "I was his ride out of there."
"It probably wouldn't be odd to see only her, however," Kyle remarked.
"I told you before, there were two AT-STs in a close area. How was I supposed to know that the one that I was targeting was you? At least I missed." Jan stopped as she saw the blank stares of the group, people who were unaware of the source of the friendly banter that had just taken place. "Long story," she explained to them.
"I'm certain that I will eventually hear all about it," Obi-Wan replied.
Kyle Katarn removed the lightsaber from his belt and handed it to Obi-Wan. "Here, it came in handy during the battle."
Ysanne Isard brushed a strand of white hair away from her face as she briskly walked through the halls of the headquarters of Imperial Intelligence. Her eyes; the right one an icy blue while the left was a fiery red, darted throughout the corridor, searching for her destination. Her title of the Director of Imperial Intelligence was only recently awarded to her, an award for her years of service as a field agent under her father. The father that she had set up for execution.
Her destination was a medium-sized room within the headquarters; a dark room that was illuminated only by several holoimages and screens. Two agents sat next to a large control board that was connected to the holoemitters and the video screens, their young faces illuminated by the very machinery that they commanded. On one of the video screens was an image of the white-clad arm of a Stormtrooper holding an E-11 blaster rifle as he fired at rebel soldiers in the jungles of Yavin 4, an image captured by the cameras inside of the helmet. A second later, the image quickly become static as the helmet was struck by a rebel sniper. Ysanne watched the images for a few seconds before deciding to make her presence known.
"What was it that you wanted to show me?" she asked, making the two agents slightly jump in their seats from her cold voice.
"We were analyzing the data gathered by the helmet cameras from the recent operation," the agent replied to his superior officer. "I found something interesting on ST-486's cam." With a few keystrokes on the control board, the image of a rebel soldier racing towards the Stormtrooper appeared.
"A suicidal rebel?" Isard asked, unknowingly echoing one of the final thoughts of the Stormtrooper that witnessed the actions on the screen first hand. "What is extraordinary about--" her voice fell silent as the rebel soldier switched on what could only be a lightsaber, "that…" she mouthed. "A Jedi?" she asked, wanting an additional confirmation of the obvious.
"Yes ma'am," the first agent replied.
"And there's more," the second added as he froze the image as the Jedi's face was clearly visible. "I ran the face through the Imperial database. I went through everything: criminal records both planetary and Imperial, age approximations of missing Jedi younglings, and Imperial service records."
"And you found something," Isard replied.
"Yes we did, and it was in our service records."
Leia opening her eyes from a simple meditation exercise marked the end of a short training session aboard the Alliance flagship. All of the other students save her brother had already left the new training room, and he was working on repairing the electrical components of a training remote that had been severely roughed up. A few hours after landing, she had finally been convinced by both Obi-Wan and Luke to at least attend a few of the lessons that Obi-Wan had been giving.
"Something is troubling you, Luke," Obi-Wan said as he placed the completely functional training remote back into its storage case.
"How did you know?" Luke asked in confusion as he finally finished repairing the droid.
"Your thoughts betray you, as do your actions," Obi-Wan answered.
"My actions?" Luke questioned.
"Your father used to repair things when something was troubling him," Obi-Wan said. "What's troubling you?"
"It's about the battle," Luke began as he brought up the memories of his failures above Yavin 4. "I can't help but feel that I failed all of those people in the transports that I was supposed to protect. How many lives were lost due to my mistakes…"
"It's a feeling that almost every soldier in a war gets, Luke," Obi-Wan reassured the son of his former student. "I'm even sure that the clone troopers during the Clone Wars felt the same feelings. No matter what you may think; those transports were not shot down because of some fault that you did, or because you weren't trying to save them hard enough. There was nothing more that you could have done."
"Imperial ID #F1595-S1603; Kyle Katarn," Isard reported the findings of her crew to Emperor Palpatine two days later. The Emperor's unnerving yellow eyes studied the holorecordings of the deaths of ST-486 and his squad as well as Katarn's Imperial service file. Isard also noted that Palpatine's court dancer was also taking an interest in her presentation as well, something that puzzled her. "Graduated from the Imperial Academy on Carida nearly a year ago and defected later. He single-handedly infiltrated an Imperial base on Danuta shortly thereafter and stole the definitive defensive schematics of the Death Star," Isard continued, still wondering why Palpatine would allow a mere dancer listen on such classified information.
It was shortly after Isard had finished her findings on 1/3 of the new Jedi Order when Palpatine broke the silence in his throne room. "A barely trained Jedi breaking into a guarded Imperial facility alone and taking valuable schematics, another young Jedi destroying the very object that those schematics were a part of," he mused.
"Not to mention the unsubstantiated reports of two pilots pulling off 'inhumanoid' maneuvers during the battle," Mara Jade added. "We could assume that one of those two pilots was the same man who destroyed the Death Star."
"Three, possibly four, extraordinarily powerful Force-sensitives are being trained by one of the more proficient Jedi survivor of the Sith's revenge," Sidious stated. "How is it possible that I have not foreseen this?" The question was rhetorical, yet it weighed heavily on the minds of both of the Dark Side users in the room.
"We could always make an attempt at infiltrating their new Order," Mara suggested, hoping that she would be the one to be chosen. With her years of training in the Force, she could easily kill all three or four of Obi-Wan Kenobi's students without even breaking a sweat. After all, they could only have a few months of training at most. Kenobi on the other hand; he would be a challenge to kill, more than likely out of her league.
"No," Sidious rebuffed her idea a few seconds after she had suggested it. "Kenobi would be quick to discover a traitor in his midst. It is far too risky. There are other ways to deal with this rabble."
"The Inquisition," Mara simply stated.
"Yes," Sidious replied. "Every major ground operation we take against the Rebellion will have a Dark Jedi or Sith in a command position," he ordered. "Unless Mohc's prototypes are truly what he says them to be…"
On the New Hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi sat in the office of Mon Mothma, waiting for the meeting that was about to take place. Obi-Wan did think her concerns about the reemerging Jedi Order were justified, but in a way he couldn't shake the feeling of being stuck in bureaucracy.
"Master Kenobi," the auburn-haired leader of the Alliance to Restore the Republic said as she placed a datapad down on her desk. "I assume you know the reason that you are here?"
"You wish to know whether the Alliance or the Order comes first to my students," Obi-Wan replied. "It's a fair question. This new or rejuvenated Jedi Order, whatever you wish to call it, doesn't follow a lot of the rules that the old Order did. I'm not forcing my students to choose between being a Jedi or being a soldier or operative to the Alliance, any choice that they make regarding that will be theirs, not mine."