Operation Citadel

Chapter One

The Rhiaon Family

To understand why I was picked to lead the team to steal the plans, we need to go back to the very date of my birth.

I was born to a woman named Dinah Andromias, and a man named Alaric Rhiaon. Dinah came from a family who was very anti-machinery. They would do nothing they could not with their own two hands and considered owning droids as a form of slavery. I'll admit they have a bit of a point, but that's a debate for another day.

Dinah and Alaric met at a university on Onderon. Dinah was studying art and Alaric designing mechanical systems. Alaric had a brilliant mind for that sort of thing. Good things were in his future.

… Or so he thought.

Despite the wishes of their families, Dinah and Alaric married, and Alaric moved them to Coruscant where he got a job designing and maintaining the security system of the Senate Building. They got a small house in a nice district, with the whole artificial yard and white picket fence deal. A few years later, Dinah got pregnant and gave birth to a son they named Brendan. Brendan was a Coruscant name meaning "Prince," the perfect match for our Coruscant surname, Rhiaon, meaning "Queen." Father had always been big on the meaning behind names, his own meaning "Noble Ruler."

So basically, Rhiaons were destined to be arrogant leaders from birth. Oh, well. A family could have a worse fate.

When Brendan was five, Alaric had worked his way up the management ladder, and was one of the head supervisors of the security system. A boring job to anyone but him, but it did provide a nice paycheck. Nice enough that Alaric and Dinah decided to expand their family.

Cue me, Stage Right.

Yes, Dinah got pregnant with me, and it was a truly wonderful, peaceful, celebratory moment. …Until two days later when the Separatists and Republic finally declared war, and thus began the Clone Wars.

I think it must have been stressful for my mother to be pregnant during a war, fearing everyday an attack on the Senate Building that would take her husband from here. But I'll never know, because the topic of my mother was off-limits after her death. I know very little of Dinah Andromias, her personality, likes, dislikes, how she looked, how she sounded. I don't even know if she would have liked me. I mean as a mother, she would be obligated to love me, but as my father later taught me, blood is ultimately meaningless. It's the family you choose that matters, and my father certainly didn't choose me.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Nothing bad occurred to my family through the duration of my mother's pregnancy with me, but then it happened. The thing that would happen so many times in my life, I decided it was more convenient just to marry one, because one way or another they would find a way to get to me.

A Skywalker decided to screw up my life.

Yes, from the very day of my birth, the Skywalker family has been a plague on my life. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my husband and daughter with an unimaginable depth, Leia is the greatest sister I could ever ask for, and Padmé Amidala is one of my idols.

But I swear to God, some of the stuff this family has put me through is ridiculous.

In this instance, it was making my father miss my birth. You see, once upon a time, there was an incident where Jabba the Hutt's son was kidnapped, and Anakin Skywalker rescued him with his padawan, Ahsoka Tano, and Padmé Amidala discovered it was a plot made by Zero the Hutt, and… Well, honestly it could be a feature length HoloFilm and that's not what we're here to talk about. Basically, all you need to know is that Padmé Amidala ticked off a Hutt.

So one fine Thursday, eight months into the Clone Wars (my mother learned she was pregnant with me when she was a month along,) my father was working in the Senate Building on the security system, when bad things happened. The Hutt Padmé had crossed, hired a team of bounty hunters to break into the Senate Building, and take a group of senators hostage until the Hutt was released.

Fun fact: Both Padmé Amidala and Bail Organa were in that group of hostages.

Again in a story that's not quite long enough to be a feature HoloFilm – maybe an episode of a HoloShow – the Senate Building went into lockdown, there was a hostage crisis, Anakin Skywalker was in the building, and Padmé Amidala had his lightsaber for some reason. (Those reasons became a little more clear thirty-one years later when their son revealed their marriage.) The relevant information is that my father got trapped in the Senate Building.

So naturally, I decided it was time to be born.

Basically I've been a difficult person who likes to mess with the people around me, since birth. Go figure.

I was three hours old when my father finally arrived at the hospital. He apologized to my mother for missing my birth, and Dinah assured him that Brendan had been at her side the whole time.

My poor brother must have been traumatized.

They named me Felicity because obvious symbolism. Oh we are so happy to have our daughter, what could we possibly name her to prove to everyone how happy we are to have her, and not be totally cheesy about it?

Then again, I named my kid, Rey because she was our ray of light and hope and whatnot.

Look, I had postpartum depression. Naming my kid Rey was a symbolic and meaningful gesture. Them naming me Felicity was just lazy.

Personally, I would have gone with Jyn.

Anyway, my father was so angered that he missed my birth that he became dedicated to finding an end to the war and having a stable government so he could raise his children in peace and we have a grand future ahead of us.

So, yes, he became an Empire fanatic. I can just imagine his elated reaction when the Empire was announced. I was two at the time, and thus have no actual recollection of the event, but I have the sneaking suspicion party hats were involved.

Oh, the Empire was grand and glorious. The war was over, jobs were being created, no more self-serving politicians squabbling while lives hung in the balance; we had peace.

Or so we thought.

Palpatine was nothing if not one cunning bastard. The propaganda was eased in so gradually and cleverly, the successes were grand, and the failures unheard of (literally, if something failed, it did not become public knowledge.) The thought of rebellion was a ridiculous one, for who could hate the amazing Empire?

And then the cracks began to show. Law enforcement became more militaristic. Public education had the tone of indoctrination (I distinctly remember thinking in my elementary school days that the Emperor was a God.) Taxes rose, and public funding was cut. Rules about dress code, piloting restrictions, and what could be reported in the media were created. Conformity was the key, and thus the mummers of rebellion began.

My father never saw the problems, no matter what he lost. He loved the Empire more than anything, and eventually that anything included his own family. It was that love for the Empire that would become his downfall.

…Well, love and a carefully aimed proton torpedo fired by his future son-in-law.

And yes, I did willingly and knowingly marry the man who killed my father. Don't you judge me. I mean have you seen Luke?

I think we're getting off topic.

Brendan and I grew up under that fervent love of the Empire. We believed in it as much as Father. We knew that it would never harm good citizens like us, and we had no reason to doubt it.

And then Mother died.

No one ever bothered to tell me the name of the disease that killed her, all I know is that it was widespread on Coruscant one summer and easily curable. The only problem is that Coruscant didn't have it in its health care budget to buy the cure… at least not until it was already too late for 1.3 million people. A small number for its population of one trillion.

I didn't know it at the time, but the reason there was no funds for the cure was that part of the medical budget had been secretly funnelled into the top secret Death Star project that would change my life forever.

I also didn't know (being five) but the death of our mother is what made Brendan start doubting the Empire.

I would be fourteen when I met the people who changed my mind about the Empire.

And it would be the death of my brother that caused it.