7 months after the Battle of Yavin
White daylight smoldered to red and faded toward night. Its dimming was the only marker of time's passage within the sealed room. It seemed as though Juno had spent a minute and forever telling the end of her tale.
Darkness swelled around them. Her face seemed to fade before him but Luke could feel her emotions as clearly as his own. He knew her loneliness and grief, her regret, the memory of love that haunted her. More than anything he felt the immediacy of the pain, which she'd tried to bury for the past year and a half but only cultivated inside until it grew to strangle her. It was not just the completion of her story that made this revelation. He felt, sure as anything, that the Force was at work.
"That's it," Juno said after she'd recalled her last meeting with Leia. "That's all there is to tell." She'd stopped crying; in telling her story she'd emptied herself of emotion. Her tone was peaceful, but it was the peace of death.
Silence swelled like darkness. Just as softly Luke said, "Thank you."
"There's nothing to thank me for."
"I know this was difficult for you to remember. To relive. I never imagined how hard."
Silence, darkness. When she spoke again bitterness tinged her voice. "Are you satisfied? You came all the way to Peralta, got stuck in this war… tonight we're probably going to die. Just so you could find out your Jedi hero was Vader's puppet all along. Was it worth it?"
Her opinion was clear, but to Luke the answer was not so sure. As Juno had related her story with mounting bitterness and grief, flecks of it had echoed in his mind long after she'd passed them by.
Juno had asked Starkiller, "You think he used to be a Jedi, then?"
And he'd replied, "Maybe. I think he used to be more than what he is now…"
"He's the Emperor's right hand. How could he have been more?"
"Not more. Better. He used to be better and knows it… I think it's why he hates his life and wants to change it."
Juno had denied anything good could come from Darth Vader. Everything in Luke denied it. Vader had killed his father, killed Ben, killed hundreds or thousands or millions of people he'd never met. Vader was a monster, as inhuman as his hard black armor.
And yet Starkiller, who had been sculpted in Vader's image, had insisted, "There's still a man beneath that armor. And if he changed once, he might change again."
Impossible. Juno refused to countenance it. She believed that Starkiller had thrown himself into that doomed hangar because of a compulsion coded into his brain, maybe his very genes, that demanded he save his maker. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps that fallen former hero had been no hero at all, just a puppet for the Dark Lord.
But Luke knew all he had accomplished. The proof of it was writ in the phoenix crest around which the Alliance rallied. Maybe he was being foolish and naïve; Juno would surely think so. But in his heart, and perhaps in the Force, he knew so much good could not have come from evil's toy.
Which left only one option. Just as Starkiller had birthed the Alliance, so he must have died through his own choice.
"Vader isn't you," Juno had told him. "You chose to leave the Empire, leave the dark side, because you'd found a better path. Vader must have had plenty of opportunities to turn away by now but he hasn't. And that means he never will."
"You're right. I know you're right. But… is it bad that I want you to be wrong?"
He'd followed that desire to the end. And a Jedi's dying wish had to mean something.
It was so dark in their room now. Juno's features had been reduced to a pale blur. Though he knew she'd get angry, Luke told her, "I think you might have it wrong."
"What are you talking about?" Yes, there was the anger. At least she had gotten some strength back.
"I can't believe Starkiller was Vader's puppet when he died."
"Well believe it. I know what happened. I was there. I knew him, and I-" she choked on the next word.
"I've felt the Force myself, just a bit. I know how it flows through you… the clarity it gives. I can't believe someone with Starkiller's power could be manipulated like a toy.
"You have no idea what Darth Vader is capable of."
"I have some. He killed my father, and my teacher. I told you that already."
"You did," she admitted, chastened but unrelenting. "If it weren't for Starkiller, your friend Kenobi would still be alive. Did that occur to you? Maybe Bail Organa and Alderaan and lots of other people would still be around to. All the evil that Vader's done since Shenandor… it's all on Starkiller."
Her words cut deep for their harsh tone, and for their truth. But Luke found his initial conviction was hard to shake. Was it naive wishful thinking, or was it really the Force?
"I believe he made a choice," he insisted. "He must have had a reason."
"Reason is whatever his maker decided for him."
"That other clone rebelled against Vader. I thought that was supposed to be the perfect one. Why would Starkiller be any more under his sway?"
"I don't know," she snapped. "I don't know about clones, or dark side powers, or the Force. I only know what happened. What I saw. What he did."
Silence, darkness. Very softly Luke said, "He loved you."
"He thought he did," she croaked. "because of whatever Darth Vader put into his head. And like an idiot I believed it, because I wanted to."
Maybe she was right, and Luke was an idiot to for wanting to believe Starkiller was a hero, not a pawn. Every instinct told him Darth Vader was a monster who deserved to be hated and destroyed. But perhaps, against all reason, through the aid of the Force, Starkiller had seen another fate for the Dark Lord.
"What if Starkiller was right?" he whispered, "What if he saw something in Vader nobody else can?"
"There isn't," she insisted with finality. "Vader isn't some boy in a PPM uniform. You can't talk him into doing the right thing. He's a Dark Lord of the Sith. He's the Emperor's executioner."
And the Emperor's slave, from how Juno had described him. But even if he chafed under Palpatine's collar he did his Master's bidding, brutally and ruthlessly, fueled by the dark side of the Force.
It was dangerous and stupid to think he could be anything else, but like Starkiller, Luke found that he wanted to be wrong.
Wanting was all he could do. Darth Vader was far away. Twilight had come to Antea. Soon it would be full night, and they would cross the Benton or die trying.
Destiny was for another time. Tonight was only about survival.
-{}-
It hadn't occurred to Juno that anyone else would try to cross the river tonight, but once the fireworks started it seemed obvious.
The PPM had tried to push across the west bridge two nights ago and been repulsed, partially because the Imperials had withheld their best hardware in hopes of using those missile towers to knock out the spaceport's shield dome. That was no longer an option. The Imperials were obliged to give response for the destruction of their towers, and they needed to get across the river. Two stones, one bird.
Or in this case, two attacks and two bridges. The hideaway Juno and Luke had found was midway along the riverfront between the two suspension bridges, and from this distance they had to use binoculars to make out anything more than the glaring explosions rocking either structure. She had a hard time getting her eyes to fully focus (some side effect of her injuries or the anti-pain drugs) but she spotted AT-PT walkers marching alongside PX-10 CAVs on the west bridge, while an Uulshos LAVr chariot command speeder hung at the south end, out of range of the Rebels' retaliatory fire. On the east bridge she thought she saw a Ubrikkian HAVr Floating fortress lurking in the buildings just past the bridge's end but couldn't be sure.
She did know that the Rebels—her people—on the other side would be fighting fiercely to repulse to dual advance. She also knew that with everyone's eyes on the bridges, they just might be able to get across the river alive.
She still needed Luke's help to slip through the darkness and debris-cover riverbank toward the skimmer-boat he'd claimed to have found. The sounds of explosions and laserfire on either side of them was so furious they could barely hear their own breathing. The flash and glare of explosions reached far, and she was afraid the intermittent light would point them out to any PPM or Imps guarding the river, but whenever she looked back she spotted no one tracking them.
Moving was painful, and when Luke let go of her she fully collapsed onto the bed of the skimmer-boat. A cry of pain escaped her; Luke bent down and asked, "Are you all right?"
"No, I've been shot," she grimaced. "Are you sure this thing actually works?"
"Pretty sure," he said, but didn't elaborate.
This wasn't a boat they were on, just the remains of one that had been stranded amidst the piled wreckage of the bombed-out docks. But as long as its flat bed could stay afloat, it could get them across the river.
A bed, and a motor. The machine gargled as Luke sparked it to life, but it was the most beautiful sound Juno had heard in days.
"Okay, hold on," she heard him say, though lying on her back all she could see was a black sky, faintly sprinkled with stars, and the occasional flash of explosions from west and east.
She felt the boat move beneath her as Luke pushed it toward the water. Then she heard a splash, and the bed buckled around her as Luke hopped on.
She could feel vibrations through the deck. Juno tried to roll onto her good side. "Are we moving?"
"We've moving." He lay on his stomach beside her. "Keep low."
She couldn't sit up if she tried. They were indeed in the water. The boat's motor sputtered but it was propelling them north and cutting against the Benton's eastward flow. They only had to crunch through a thin fringe of ice before sailing through clear water, and it occurred to her that tonight wasn't as brutally cold as the ones before. They were due for a warm front, and snowmelt would explain the strong flow of the river, but she knew a fall into the water meant certain freezing death.
On they pushed. It seemed to take forever. Explosions to the left of them, explosions to the right. Though it was painful, she lifted her binoculars and scoured the fight on the east bridge. With ice in her stomach she saw that floating fortress had moved onto the bridge itself. That massive, tubular slab of armor and heavy weapons was commanding the Imperial advance, which had already reached halfway across the bridge.
If the Imperials entered North Antea, everything would be lost. The Rebels simply didn't have enough weapons or manpower to push the enemy back across the river.
She watched in horrified fascination as mortars from the north side of the Benton arced toward the center of the bridge. The explosions were blinding and she had to look away. Thunder was deafening; Luke was shouting something right beside her but she couldn't hear.
When she peered through the fiery glare at the center of the bridge, she spotted one Rebel Freerunner racing ahead. Enemy laserfire peppered its hull, nearly knocking it off the bridge-span, but it swerved madly to keep from falling into the water below.
Juno understood what the Freerunner was doing just before it rammed the floating fortress. Rather than try a head-on ram (futile against such impenetrable armor) the Freerunner cut along the edge of the bridge, then spun halfway and collided with the fortress from the side.
The floating fortress plunged off the bridge first, then the Freerunner. They hit the Benton seconds apart, creating a massive geyser that nearly brushed the bridge a hundred meters above.
There was a tiny lull in the thunder, long enough for her to hear Luke say: "Get ready for waves!"
They came a second later. Violent ripples rocked their shell of a boat. Icy water spilled over the low lip and splashed in Juno's face. Luke locked an arm around her, holding her in place as the boat jerked violently back and forth. The waves tipped them to far in either direction and Juno was certain they'd capsize.
But after a brutal, terror-long half-minute, the waves receded. The Benton became calm again, and they were still afloat.
"Just a little longer," Luke assured.
He let go of her and crawled to the back of the boat to adjust their heading. She craned her neck to look ahead of them, then behind. They were closed to the north bank now, closer to what counted as home. Juno checked the east bridge with her binoculars against and was relieved to see that the Imperial offensive had stalled. From the west side, though, she heard continued eruptions of violence.
As they neared the north bank she found that she fiercely she wanted to live. She'd crossed the river last night not particularly caring if she died; for some reason she couldn't understand, that nonchalance toward death (even, she admitted, desire) had evaporated.
Thus, when laserfire from the north bank peppered the water around them, it filled her with horror. Friendly fire, this close to salvation, was the worst kind of end.
The Benton burst into geysers around them. Waves slapped their fragile boat around, spilling more cold water. A spotlight from the shore slipped over them, past them, then back to their boat, burning white in her eyes.
Then, against the churn of waves, the tang of blasters, and her own pounding heart, she heard a sound she hadn't heard since Shenandor, one that had meant relief and terror in equal turns but at this moment meant only glorious survival.
It was, of course, a lightsaber's hum.
Skywalker didn't have to stand up and swing the thing around. It was enough to simply lie flat on the boat, glowing blue blade held horizontally above himself and Juno. The Rebels on the shore instantly recognized that the Hero of Yavin had come to them.
The firing stopped. Their boat ran aground roughly; its motor still whirred as it tried to thrust itself into the tangle of wreckage and thinning ice that clogged the shoreline. By the time Luke rose to turn the machine off, four soldiers had already clambered over to the boat to meet them.
The one who reached them first was a young infantryman whose name Juno almost recalled. Drek something-or-other. "Commander Skywalker!" he marveled. "What in the hells were you doing on the river?"
That was when Juno remembered that their mission had been top-secret. Luke gestured to her prone form and said, "I have General Eclipse with me. Find her a stretcher. She needs medical attention."
"General!" Drek blurted. "We're on it! Right away!"
As the soldiers hurried for help, Luke dropped to his knees beside Juno and waited with her. He didn't say anything, but her mind rattled with the words she'd uttered to Starkiller, on that rainy Kamino platform: "We are alive. We are both of us so very alive…"
Skywalker was nothing like Starkiller, and that was for the best. But they were so very alive, and that (Juno decided, marveling at the fact) was for the best too.