Luke couldn't say exactly why he agreed to go on the commando mission across the river. Even when Eclipse asked him point-blank he couldn't manage a satisfactory answer. He hadn't been asked to join by her. Rather it had been Senator Consantius who'd told him about the mission, which was being kept very secret because of the security breach that had nearly gotten Luke captured and Ferol killed.
"Your Jedi talents will help the team in ways nobody else can," Consantius had explained. "We'll need them, especially, to make sure General Eclipse gets back safe, since she's determined to execute this herself."
When he tried to justify his decision to Eclipse he mostly reiterated the senator's argument, though he refrained from using the word Jedi. She listened to his flimsy reasoning with her face pinched into a scowl, and when he finished she merely said, "It's your choice. We head out at 2100. Pack everything you think you'll need for at least two days. And no, you can't bring your droid."
And that was that. Luke left R2-D2 in the care of Nevetts and Trake and compiled a kit of equipment, borrowing some anti-cold gear from Drasca, who was still laid up by a concussion from when his would-be kidnappers had attacked her from behind. Because of the secrecy of the mission he hadn't been able to explain why he needed her things, but she'd wished him good luck anyway.
It was nice to have friends, or at least comrades-in-arms. He'd have preferred she say May the Force be with you, since he was definitely going to need it, but he'd take what he could get.
There was no good way to cross over to South Antea, but the least bad one required them to move in the middle of the night. It also required them to attach themselves to the maglev line jutting from the underside of the west suspension bridge. Once cars had been magnetically locked to the rail line, suspended above the Benton, and propelled across the river by magnetic charge. The infiltration team was doing essentially the same thing, except without the car or the charged propulsion. No, they had to ascend to the bridge's underside via long fiberchord reels, then hold tight to magnetic clamps that secured them to the lowered rail line. And then, using arms and legs alone, they had to push themselves over the hundred-meter span while hanging upside-down like one of Yavin's woolamanders dangling from a tree.
For Luke, it was right next to the Death Star run as the most harrowing experience of his life (and he wasn't even being shot at). The crawl seemed to last forever. The wind cutting beneath the bridge was strong, fast, and extremely cold. Despite his thermal gear, his teeth chattered in his shivering head. Once he dared looked down into the water a hundred meters below, but all he saw was featureless black that seemed more lethal than the star-dotted expanse of space.
This was the same bridge that Ferol had died beneath, and the woman was on Luke's mind as they made the crawl over the Benton. Before she'd known who he was, she'd been rude. Afterward, she'd been more friendly. A cynical man would have seen that as someone trying to cling close to a hero, no different from banal celebrity worship really, but he chose to look at it another way. By being a hero he brought new hope where it hadn't been before. In doing so, he allowed people's better selves to shine.
That was the better way to view it, though a cynical voice in his head (probably Han's) told him that if people were really so great they wouldn't need somebody to urge them to decency. But Han wasn't the same man Luke had met in Mos Eisley; heroes rubbed off on him too.
When the awful traverse finally ended, he and the other soldiers unlocked their magnetic clams, released their fibercable spools, and made controlled descents down to the opposite riverbank. The Imperials and PPM patrolled their end of the bridge just as the Rebels did theirs, so they moved along the debris-strewn bank until they found a spot shrouded by shadow by which to move uphill.
They skirted the outside of the city. Though frigid and snowlogged, the streets were still watched. They crept in single-file, Luke in the middle of the six-person line. In the darkness he could barely make out Juno Eclipse three meters ahead of him; a dark helmet sheathed her platinum hair. Slowly but surely they worked their way uphill. Several times their lead scout called the rest to halt and they dropped themselves into the dark snow and waited for unseen enemy patrols to pass. Every time they paused Luke's heart pounded in his chest; the nighttime silence roared in his ears. Antea's winter night seemed a total inversion of his hot sun-scorched homeworld, and he found himself aching for Tatooine.
The night was long, and when the infiltration team finally reached the hills above the city there was only the faintest hint of dawn in the sky. Despite Luke's wracked nerves, everything proceeded smoothly until they made the final ascent through wooded hillside to the crest on which the two missile launchers were being constructed.
Using the darkness of the forest as cover, Luke and the other five Rebels spread out across the treeline and used their macrobinoculars to mark the motion-sensors spread around the towers' bases. There were no Imperials on patrol; instead, lights were on and bodies could be seen shifting inside a shack surrounded by construction equipment.
It was nothing they hadn't prepared for. They used sensor-jamming devices, left stabbed into the frozen ground, to disrupt the motion sensors. Cover of darkness allowed them to approach the bases of each tower. Insulated gloves and vibro-cutters made short work of the electrified security fences, and each of them carried a pair of nergon-14 charges that magnetized to the skeletal base of each tower. The hardest part, for Luke at least, was keeping his shivering hands stable as he did the work.
Once charges were laid and activated, they retreated to the treeline. The guards in the security shed hadn't noticed them at all; likely their minds were on staying inside and keeping warm. Luke, still shivering against the bitter cold, spared a melancholy thought for those men and their simple, relatable desires. They had no idea what was about to happen to them.
They fell back deep within the forest, partway down the slope, but could still peer through the treeless branches and see the rise of the missile towers. There was no warning before Juno Eclipse triggered the detonators. She just did.
The dual explosions were absolutely staggering. Skeletal trees became silhouettes against a gold-and-white inferno. Fire billowed into the sky and flashed heat that actually tingled feeling back into Luke's frostbitten face. He stayed crouched in the woods, awed and captivated by the sight of the leaping flames, the roiling smoke, and the collapse of the towers.
Neither of them fell right away. Rather, the left tower tipped in one direction, the right tower the other. It looked for a moment like they would remain that way, bent apart but still upright. Then the half-completed missile launchers affixed at their peaks pulled them fatally off-balance. The left tower snapped audibly a fire still writhed at its base, then fell further left and crashed into the forest. When the right tower broke it fell forward, toward the downhill slope, the city, and the Rebels crouching in the frigid woods. People shouted; everyone scrambled to move. A dozen trees were snapped beneath the tower's weight, partially softening its fall before it smashed into the ground and continued to slide downhill, leaving a trail of bared earth and broken forest in its wake.
When it finally stopped the hillside was silent, though fire still coughed and cracked above them. Juno Eclipse shouted, "Report!" and the other five Rebels shouted back their names, affirming that they'd survived. Luke was the last to do so.
Then alarms started wailing. They heard the buzz of an airspeeder rising toward the hill. With another shout, Eclipse commanded them to retreat down the hill and into the city.
The escape was where everything finally went to hell.
Their enemy might have been lax in securing the missile towers, but now they were roused and angry. PMM airspeeders took to the sky, flying beneath the shield dome to skim the treetops and scout the forest with blazing searchlights. The six Rebels scattered without even meaning to; despite being stripped for winter the woods were a dense, confusing tangle, and Luke and the others had to leap over fallen logs, dodge trees, and push through stabbing branches to escape the sweep of the searchlights.
Sometimes even that wasn't enough. As Luke allowed desperation and physical momentum to rush him downhill he felt the heat of laserfire, smelled smoke, and heard a scream. He stopped his tumble by half-falling into a tree and looking toward the sound of the noise. An airspeeder hovering not forty meters away pumped more blasts into the woods, and Luke felt with grim certainty that one of his comrades was dead.
There was no time to mourn or wonder who. Like the rest of them, Luke was chased to the bottom of forest and into the city streets. The airspeeders did not relent their chase but they did hold their fire. That was minor solace; as Luke attempted to slip through alleys and lurk in shadow, he repeatedly had to duck behind storage crates, dumpsters, and parked snow-covered landspeeders to escape searchers on Aratech speeder bikes. They moved easily through the winding, hilly streets, carelessly elevated above the ankle-deep snow and slippery icy.
Cold air raked into his lungs. Every desperate breath was painful. He'd lost track of his companions and felt completely alone. One misstep, one tiny bit of bad luck, and the hero would be finished.
The city streets curved along with the rise and fall of hills, and Luke did his best to slip through alleys and work his way down toward the river. He doubted the bridges would be passable now, and when he dared glance skyward, using chasing noise from overhead speeders, he saw daylight encroaching in the sky. Some way, somehow, he'd have to find an empty building in which to shelter during the day.
He was stilly moving carefully, pondering his bleak possibilities, when he heard the sound of a blaster-fight.
There was clearly fire being returned as well as sent. Luke crept through the pre-drawn streets until he found a cluster of stormtroopers, all white and Imperial, firing into a down-sloping alley. Luke approached them from the rear. Three sets of backs were angled right at him, so vulnerable.
It felt a lot easier to shoot down a TIE from behind. He reminded himself that his comrades, fellow Rebels who depended on him, were desperately trying to stay alive in that alley.
So he did what he had to. Luke stepped out from behind cover, lifted his DH-17 pistol, and shot the three stormtroopers in rapid succession, left to right. When their bodies had clattered into the snow he traipsed forward and tentatively called, "It's me. You're clear."
He was unsurprised to hear Juno Eclipse's muted curse. "Get in here, Skywalker."
He hopped over the prone bodies into the alley and was immediately staggered by the sight of another Rebel commando lying face-down. Eclipse was bent over him, left hand on his still back, right one hoisting her own weapon. One more commando was behind her, standing tall, aimed at Luke's chest.
"Whoa, hey," Luke held his weapon to the side. "I'm friendly."
"Put it down, Persey," Eclipse said. "Don't want frag the Hero of Yavin."
"Sorry." The man lowered his weapon. "All this fighting's got my blood going."
"Good. It'll keep you alive." Eclipse stood up. "Let's get going."
Luke gestured to the body. "What can we do for him?"
"Nothing. He's dead. Now let's go."
Even Persey winced at that, but he followed Eclipse down the alley and so did Luke. Dawn was still coming slowly, and the streets became delineated between long stretches of shadow and waning blocks of gleaming snow-glare. As they continued their way downhill the streets remained mostly empty, with only occasional speeder bike patrols whipping past. In the morning quiet it was easy to hear their approach.
Eclipse seemed determined to press on toward the river. As the shadows shrunk Luke said, "We're going to have to find a place to hold up for the day, aren't we?"
"We will," Persey said, though it sounded like a question.
"There will be plenty of abandoned buildings by the river we can hide in," Eclipse said. She led the way, never looking back at them.
"How are we getting across?" Luke asked. "The bridge?"
"We still have the equipment. We'll wait until it's dark."
"They'll be more guarded now, General," Persey warned.
"It's still the best way."
Neither man was convinced, but they followed her further downhill. The sun rose higher, chasing away shadows and turning the snow a gleaming rose-gold. Soon Luke could clearly see the brilliant ripple of daylight on the river.
The warm, dazzling gleam was enough to lift his spirits, so of course that was when things went bad again.
They were attacked by PPM soldiers who'd been lying in wait. The three Rebels were trapped as soon as they entered a small, empty city square. Luke and Persey immediately raced for cover inside the rim of an emptied fountain, while Eclipse took shelter in the entry nook of a nearby building. The PPM had both entrances to the square covered and aimed to catch the Rebels in a crossfire.
Body bent under the fountain's lip, Persey shouted, "Hold on, I've got a grenade!"
He took it in hand, but before he could even rear up a laser blast took off the top of his skull. Luke watched in horror as Persey's eyes froze wide and his face went slack. Death pasted his face in a permanent shock before he finally tipped to the side. The side of his head rested on the fountain rim but those awful eyes kept staring at Luke.
More laserfire impacted on the inside of the fountain, jarring Luke back to his senses. He looked up and saw soldiers not just in the square's south-side entrance but above it; two men with rifles perched on a rooftop.
Without even thinking Luke scooped up the grenade, tapped the timer, and let it fly.
He'd never had a great throwing arm. When he'd tried to blow up that AT-PT on the first day of fighting he'd botched it and nearly gotten two people killed. Maybe the Force was with him today, because the explosive arced perfectly into entry mouth and exploded above the troopers' heads.
Smoke and debris filled the square. All firing from that direction stopped. Despite a tug of shame, Luke left Persey's body in the fountain and raced for Eclipse. She'd had the same idea. Using the smoke as cover she switched positions and was now half-hidden behind a thin lamppost and popping laser blasts at the north exit. Luke fired too, though he could hardly see what he was aiming at. The PPM soldiers returned spurts of fire but someone's aim, probably hers, was truer. Within seconds all shooting had stopped.
Eclipse immediately spun on Luke. "Come on, we keep going!"
"We lost Persey," he told her as they hurried over the fallen soldiers in the north passage.
"I know," she growled. "We're the only ones left."
Luke tried a mental tally. "Are you sure?"
"Yes. Now come on-"
That was when a laser blast took her from behind. Rather than spear her in the back it caught her in the left flank, just below the ribs. Her face wrenched in pain; Luke caught a whiff of burnt flesh as she fell into him. At the same time he looked back to the fallen soldiers they'd just passed and saw one struggling to his knees, blaster raised and aimed.
Snarling, Eclipse whipped up her own weapon and popped off a chain of shots. The man collapsed backward with three smoking holes in his chest.
Then Eclipse's strength deserted her. She tried to gain footing on the slippery passage but Luke had to hold her upright with both hands. When he accidentally brushed her flank she let out a cry of pain.
"Gods damn it all," she hissed in his hear. "Gods damn it…"
"We're almost to the river," Luke told her. "We'll find someplace to take cover. And then-"
"No." She forced herself to look into her eyes. "I'll slow you down. Just… leave me.
"Absolutely not." He tugged her down the alley.
Her legs staggered in time with his own but she wheezed, "I've got my blaster… They'll never take me alive."
"No," Luke repeated.
"It's all right. Mission accomplished…" One over-long lope and her face twisted again. "Gods damn it, let me go."
"Never."
"You just… want to know… what happened to him."
She didn't have to say Starkiller. Luke insisted, "I'm helping you because I don't want you to die. Whatever happens, we're still in this together."
She didn't argue any more after that. Twice they had to hide in disappearing shadows while more PPM patrols searched the area, but eventually they reached the riverside.
Mortar fire from across the Benton had savaged the south bank's entertainment district. Luke was momentarily struck aghast by the blocks of bombed-out low-rise buildings, the charred remnants of docks, and the drifting hulls of ruined boats locked against the river's flow by accumulated ice. Fresh daylight made all of it horribly visible.
It also made Luke and Eclipse exposed. He momentarily left her leaning against a wall and ventured out into the ruined section of city, scouting for enemy patrols. When he found nothing he retrieved her and they shambled together across the debris field for the shelter of some ruined buildings. With every step her pained grunts got louder and louder, and he knew she couldn't move much further.
Finally he found a building left mostly-standing with an entry door halfway open. Power to this section of the city had been cut, so Luke had to lean Eclipse against the exterior wall and use both hands to push the door open.
This looked like it had been the lobby to a small office. There was a counter along one wall, a sofa along the other. He moved Eclipse toward the latter and carefully laid her on the cushions. Once he tugged the door shut, a small window beside the threshold let in the only light.
"Are you with me?" he asked softly.
"I'm still… alive…" she creaked. "How bad is it?"
Luke carefully unpeeled her layered clothes. The blaster-burn had melded the fabrics together, and when he peeled away the final layer Eclipse bit her lip to stifle a cry of pain. Everything on her left flank between hip and ribcage was a charred mess; the stench was as revolting as the blackened tissue streaked with blood.
When Luke controlled the urge to vomit, he took bacta packages from the insides of her jackets and began laying the salve across the damaged flesh as gently as he could. Despite that, she still gnawed her lip to keep from crying out.
When he'd used up her bacta slips she managed to say, "Should've put… a bolt in me… back in the square."
Luke had had enough. "Stop saying things like that! Just stop!"
He'd snapped at her hard enough to quiet her. Her eyes went wide, then narrowed, and she replied, "Better keep your voice down."
"I know," Luke grunted. "I've got a few bacta patches too. I'll add them to yours."
She didn't protest any more as he applied the salve to her side. Bacta wasn't going to be enough; the blaster shot had burned through clothes and skin to damage muscle tissue, and probably internal organs. He gently felt her ribs; those, at least, seemed unbroken.
Now that she was laying on her back the fight seemed to go out of her. Her chest rose and fell regularly. Her eyes peered at the ceiling but heavy lids dragged toward closure.
"It's okay," he said. "You can rest. We can't do anything until night anyway."
She nodded slightly. "You… keep watch?"
"Yes. I might go scout the bank too."
"We can't… cross there."
"There's no way you can go under the bridge. Crossing the river's probably our only option."
"Not a chance."
She was probably right, but he put a hand on her forehead. "I'll scope things out myself. You need to rest."
He expected her to fight him, but weariness was finally claiming her. "Don't go far," she whispered.
"I won't."
He sat beside her and watched as her eyes closed and she drifted into sleep. Even at rest her face seemed set in a scowl. He wondered if she'd ever been an easy smiler. From what she'd told him about her past it didn't seem likely. After everything she'd been through it had gotten harder still, and he didn't yet know the worst of it.
But he wouldn't learn it now. Luke waited for perhaps an hour, the gathered his weapon, carefully peeked through the window to make sure the street was clear, then ventured outside.
-{}-
Juno Eclipse wavered in between sleep and waking. It felt like the edge of life and death.
Her entire body swam in pain. It was invisible but it surrounded her and wouldn't release. Its current carried her through distance and time and she no longer remembered where she was. Sometimes she thought she was snared by force-fields and suspended in Darth Vader's Empirical as the secret laboratory plunged toward the heart of a sun. Its doomed crew scampered about, desperate to escape, while chattering about an escaped test subject who would kill them all.
Or perhaps she was on Kamino, drenched in rain and chill, bound with iron shackles and helpless before the inviolable Force-grip of Darth Vader.
Or maybe she lay on a soft sofa in a cold abandoned building, dying slowly from the blaster wound that had scorched her abdomen. They said gut shots were the worst way to die. Maybe she was finding out now.
She only knew that she was helpless and needed rescue, but who would come for her? Two blurred shadows slipped around her, refusing clarity. One was young, the other old before his time. One was fierce, the other gentle. One was a hero, the other a betrayal of everything she'd ever loved. One lived, the other was dead. Yet she felt their destinies were twined together, two threads weaving the same rope.
It was such a stupid idea, it had to be brought on by delirium. That was when she decided that the third sensation was true. She was alone on Peralta and dying slowly.
Juno heard the muted crunch of boots on snow. It was great effort to force her eyes open. The crunching got closer; she propped herself up on her elbows so she could look at the entryway. Pale daylight still spilled through the window adjacent to the door. She could see nothing else.
The door opened partway, not with an automatic slide but through the jerky pull of a human hand. Her sluggish heart beat faster. She croaked: "Luke?"
So foolish. Two hands shoved the door fully open. Cold wind and a silhouette filled the bright portal. Her eyes refused to focus but she knew this man was too tall to be Skywalker. He took two steps closer and she recognized his green fatigues and blaster carbine as PPM standard-issue.
She rolled to her side and reached for her kit and blaster, but they were too far away. The man shouted, "Hold it!" and she froze.
Not a man, a boy. Younger than Skywalker even. She saw that when she looked back at him. His carbine was lifted in two hands, slightly trembling. Was it cold or panic? Breath, lit by slanting light-beams, glowed in front of his face as he held his weapon on her.
It seemed a long time before he moved one hand from the barrel of his gun to the comlink at his breast.
"Wait," Juno croaked.
He removed the comlink. "Don't talk. Don't do anything." His teeth were chattering too.
"Please don't," she whimpered. What a pathetic end this was. After all her crimes for the Empire, her successes and failures for the fledging Rebellion, she was going to be captured by a child barely old enough to shave, handed over to his Imperial masters, and tortured until she died.
That was when Skywalker appeared.
Just before the patrolman thumbed his comlink, Skywalker was behind him as a second silhouette. Very gently, the other man said, "You don't want to do that."
The patrolman flinched but didn't spin around. He carefully tilted his head just enough to see the Rebel behind him while keeping his weapon dead on Juno.
"You really don't," Skywalker said.
"Y-you're the ones who blew up the turrets," the patrolman said. "They said two of you got away…. but they never thought you'd get this far."
"As you can see, my friend's badly injured. She's no longer a threat to anyone."
"Y-you're Rebels. You invaded our city. Our homes. You attacked us."
Kill him, Juno thought. You have your lightsaber at his back. Turn it on and kill him!
But Skywalker didn't do that. Instead he said, "It's our home too. Not me personally. I'm from another planet, and so is she, but most of the Rebels here are from Peralta."
"Terrorists. Traitors." The boy spoke without conviction.
"I had a… a friend from Antea. She was killed two nights ago, during the fight at the bridge. Right before she died, she told me how badly she wanted to see this city at peace."
"Then leave… us… alone."
"Tell your… Imp friends that," Juno grunted.
The patrolman's attention jerked back to her. It was the perfect opportunity for Skywalker to turn on that lightsaber and end this, but he didn't. It finally dawned on Juno that the stupid amateur Jedi was trying to talk the patrolman out of this.
"We aren't going to cause any more trouble," Skywalker insisted calmly. "We only brought down those towers because they were going to launch missiles on our head-quarters. We never meant to harm any of the people on this planet."
"Then why won't you all go?" the boy moaned.
"That's exactly what we plan to do. Come nightfall, my friend and I are going to cross the river. You'll never have to worry about us again."
Desperately Juno screamed in her mind: Don't risk it kill him kill him kill him
The boy said, "You'll never make it across."
"We'll just have to find out for ourselves, won't we?" Skywalker actually smiled.
The boy's eyes darted between Skywalker and Juno. He still had the comm in one hand, the gun in the other. All it would take was a trembling finger to end this.
Gods damn it all, why won't you kill him! And then she thought: If you were Starkiller he'd be dead already.
"I know you don't want to kill us," Skywalker said. "You don't want to hand us over to the Imperials either. I can feel that in you. So just turn, walk away, and tell your superiors this block is empty."
The patrolman was trembling. Juno thought he was going to shoot her dead without evening meaning to. But then he lowered both arms. The carbine dangled at one hip, the comlink in the other. He took a deep breath and put the comlink away but kept the carbine in hand.
All Skywalker said was, "Thank you."
The patrolman bit his lip and nodded slightly. Then, without a last look at either Juno or Starkiller, he stepped outside. The sounds of his boots on snow dwindled to nothing. Only then did Skywalker grab the door by its edges and slide it shut.
Juno grunted as she tried to sit up. "We need to go. Find another shelter."
"That's not necessary. He won't be coming back."
"What did you do, use some Jedi mind trick on him?"
"I can't do those. But I… felt it, in my heart."
"So you just talked him out of killing us, is that it?"
"He never wanted to do it the first place. Even you could see that. He never thought he'd be in a battle like this and now he just wants it to end.
"He's the enemy, and now you're trusting him to do the right thing." She shook her head in disgust.
Skywalker looked genuinely hurt. He crouched next to her and said, "He wasn't evil and he wasn't a threat. He didn't deserve to die." After a thoughtful pause he added, "I've killed lots of people, and some of them probably didn't deserve to die either. But I'll do everything I can to avoid that."
She snarled, "That's what Jedi do, isn't it?"
"Yes," he said, "it is."
That was when she broke down crying. Tears were hot on her cold cheeks. She tried to stifle them but they wouldn't stop, nor would her chest stop heaving until Skywalker put his arm around her. She jerked away on instinct, but it only made the wound in her side blossom into pain, and she collapsed into his grip again.
Skywalker waited until she'd mostly stopped sobbing to ask, "What really happened to Starkiller?"
She'd known it was coming. A bitter laugh escaped her. "You wait until I'm on death's door to ask me?"
"You're not going to die here."
She shot him a red-eyed glared. "I didn't think Jedi were patronizing too. I'm a soldier. I'm ready for death."
"You're not ready, you're too ready." Before she could snap a rebuttal he added, "If you die here I'll be dying with you, and I'm not ready to give in just yet. I told him we'd be going across the river tonight and I meant it. I scouted what's left the docks and I found the bed of a boat with a motor attached. I think it will get us across."
"You went to the docks? Somebody could have seen you."
"I waited until the patrolman passed by. He came to see you instead."
She glowered. "You really think we can get across tonight?"
"I don't know." For the first time his voice trembled with doubt. "I figure we'll either get across, get shot and blown up, or capsize and freeze to death in the water."
"What lovely options."
"Well, I listed them in order of declining preference."
She sighed. It only hurt a little.
After a moment of silence he asked, "Will you please tell me what happened to Starkiller?"
"Just in case we die tonight?"
"Yes," he said seriously.
It felt wrong to deny him now. Reliving those last moments on Shenandor Prime would be agonizing, even worse than the blaster wound in her side. Yet if she was going to die soon, she felt she should relive them. It was the worst day of her life, and the day she lost the people closest to her. She was the only one left who'd really known them; it felt right to remember them to someone else. Even if he was about to die too.
But oh, it was hard to tell.
A few more tears ran down her cheeks. She wiped them away. "You're not going to like this."
"So you've told me."
"I mean really, you won't. You came thinking Starkiller could give you lessons on how to be a Jedi, but he can't. I see that now. You're more Jedi than he ever was."
Starkiller would have killed that boy because Starkiller had dealt in violence and death. It was the only thing his maker had ever taught him. This Skywalker was another kind of man entirely.
"I can't believe that." Skywalker shook his head. "All you've said about what he accomplished, the power he could wield-"
"That's not it," she sniffed. "You… you're a Rebel hero. Damn it all, you really are."
"I try to be one, though honestly I'm still not sure what that means."
"It means you give people hope so they can bring out the best in themselves. Even that damned PPM kid. But Starkiller..." Juno choked, but she forced the words through. "Starkiller didn't do that."
Suddenly Luke's hand was in her, holding it tight. "What did he do?"
Juno met his eyes through blurring tears. "He betrayed us," she said. "All the evil the Empire's done since then, all the destruction and death… it's all because of him."