Conference Room
Former Imperial Palace, now New Republic Headquarters
Mon Mothma, interim leader of the New Republic, glanced down at her holopad with a sense of relief. This meeting had been stretching for two hours already, and most of the sentients in attendance were growing restless. There was only one last issue on the agenda, though it was an important one.
She turned her attention on the slim figure of Luke Skywalker; the galaxy's lone Jedi, dressed in black, with his lightsaber at his side, who was seated near the main door of the room. Given that many of the former Rebellion's most valuable leaders were present, she was very thankful to have a powerful, well trained Force user protecting them.
Luke, in turn, was pleased to be of service, but he was also really bored. He hated meetings. It was a pity that Leia was on Delaya instead of here, because while they had a strong twin bond, they were still working out how to communicate without words, and a boring meeting would be a great place to practice. Not that she would like him bothering her during a meeting. She always got a lot more out of these things then he did.
"Commander Skywalker," Mon Mothma said, drawing his attention. "I understand you wish to address the Council regarding..."
She broke off as one of her aides, a female Pantoran, rushed into the room, her skin even bluer than usual in her frantic excitement.
"Lady Mothma!" she squeaked. "My heartfelt apologies at this interruption, but this is most urgent. Relinka Spetzv has the most remarkable guests and I ... oh, Commander Skywalker! You are here!"
Luke blinked in bewilderment. "Um, yes?"
By this time, a random aide had turned on the talk show, which now appeared on a giant holoscreen at the end of the table.
There was a communal gasp of astonishment, and Luke felt his mouth fall open. Who was that?
/
Back at the studio
Relinka glanced quickly at a side screen which showed that the number of people watching the show was rising exponentially. Awesome!
"So what you are saying," she said, "is that you traveled through time..."
The main door into studio suddenly flung open and eight security sentients rushed into the room with blasters raised.
"You!" Commander Yalf snapped at the intruders. "Hands up!"
Relinka turned and glared furiously at Yalf. The Togruta was a personal friend and she liked him, but really, of all the times to interfere! Whoever these imposters were, they were ratings kyper crystals! Why did Yalf have to be so diligent!? There was no sign these people were dangerous in any...
A loud buzzing jerked her attention back to her surprise guests and Relinka squealed in shock. The fake Luke Skywalker and false Leia Organa both had lightsabers in their hands and as Relinka and Winter watched incredulously, the twosome leaped forward and deflected stun bolts, cut blasters in half, and administered careful kicks and shoves until all eight guards were on the floor, some of them gasping, some of them unconscious from deflected stun bolts. To Relinka's enormous relief, no one seemed injured. At the very least, there were no random appendages lying here and there, which was rather a miracle.
Before her staring eyes, "Leia" reached out a hand and an undamaged blaster leaped into her hand, which she pointed at the guards who were awake.
"Luke, block the doors," she ordered, and "Luke" gestured toward two couches and two chairs in another part of the studio. Before Relinka's shocked eyes, the furniture rose into the air, floated over to the door, and arranged itself in a tidy pyramid. She turned back toward "Leia" and now her mouth gaped open. The five conscious guards were obediently entering a large storage room, but the three sleeping ones were floating through the air into the same room.
"We'll let you out shortly," the 'princess' said cheerfully to the guards. "We won't hurt anyone, but we've got a job to do."
The door slammed shut and, just for good measure, a large sculpture of the late, unlamented Emperor Palpatine, which was tidily covered with a large piece of black cloth, fell over and moved across the storage room door.
"So," 'Luke' said, walking over to stare directly into the holocam. "I just want to say that there is no need to panic. We aren't going to hurt you. We have some important information that must be shared, and then we will be on our way."
"And Commander Luke Skywalker," 'Leia' said, "If you're watching this, don't rush over and try to get in here. It would be too ridiculous for you to start fighting your older Alter."
"And Princess Leia," the male intruder added, "our profound apologies. We're certain this is the right course to take, but I know it is going to really annoy you."
The twosome walked over to a small couch and sat down again, and Leia said, "Sorry about that, Winter and ... Relinka, right?"
/
Conference Room
Former Imperial Palace, now New Republic Headquarters
"Commander Skywalker?" Mon Mothma said sharply. "Do you have any idea who these people are?"
Luke had risen to his feet along with everyone else in the room, and he stared at the holoscreen at the man who looked like him, except older. He reached out in the Force and felt a surge of incredulity as he found the other individual nearby – the Holonet studios were close to the palace, after all. He felt like...
"He feels like me," Skywalker said in a disbelieving voice. "He feels exactly like me, except more powerful and...older..."
/
Back at the Holonet studio
"Your name is Relinka, correct?" Leia repeated.
"Correct," Relinka admitted in a wavering tone. She suddenly felt as terrified as the first time she had been in the presence of the now dead Emperor Palpatine. It was shock, she realized in the 10% of her brain which was moderately rational. She had been so certain that these people were insane or actors or tricksters, but that display of Force power, well...
"Are you really another version of Princess Leia Organa?" Winter asked, her blue eyes narrow, her head tilted thoughtfully.
"I really am," Leia responded with a glowing smile at her friend. "Do you remember that time when we were eleven and we smuggled those four loth cats kittens into the Palace and managed to hide them in your closet for a week before C-3PO found them and threatened to tell my mother, so we had to find good homes for them, and you cried for three days?"
Winter stared into Leia's face and nodded. "No one else would know that, I suppose. And it was five days, not three, though the last couple of days I think I only cried at night."
"My dear friend," Leia said fondly, reaching out to pat Winter's hand. "I haven't seen enough of you, or your Alter, rather, of late – you have been busy with the husband and the kids."
"I'm married?" Winter demanded in surprise.
"Yes, to Tycho Celchu. He's a pilot..."
"I know who he is. He served at Hoth and Endor. Wow, that's..."
"Excuse me," Luke interrupted. "I hate to break up this chat, but we have a job to do, Leia."
"Oh right! Sorry, Winter. If we have time, we can talk later."
"Sounds good?" the white haired woman returned doubtfully.
"Ok," Leia said, turning back to face the holocam. "We are indeed from a different timeline, and we are in our early 30's, whereas the current Princess Leia Organa and Commander Luke Skywalker are 23. We have some information to share which is vitally important. First, Luke Skywalker and I are biological twins."
Silence fell in the studio for twenty seconds before Relinka managed to pull herself together enough to squeak, "What?!"
"We are biological twins, as are the current Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa," Luke explained. "It is quite well known that Leia was adopted by the Organas, and I was raised by my father's step-family on Tatooine, but the back story to our births is complicated..."
"And tragic," Leia added.
Luke grimaced. "Very, very tragic, yes. Our father was a Jedi Knight named Anakin Skywalker, and our mother – and this will be interesting to the current timeline counterparts, because you don't know this yet – our mother was Padme Amidala Naberrie. She was a queen of Naboo as a teenager and then a Senator. Amazing woman."
"She really was," Leia agreed. "We've done many jaunts through time and have met her a few times. Wonderful lady. Smart, politically savvy, absolutely devoted to democracy. Incredible."
"So she and Jedi Skywalker had an affair?" Winter demanded, looking scandalized. "I thought that the Jedi weren't supposed to have 'attachments' that resulted in children."
"That's right," Luke said, rolling his eyes. "They weren't. Which is why they married in secret at the dawn of the Clone Wars. So they were married, not randomly sleeping together. But since the Jedi were total idiots..."
"Really, Luke, you are going to give your present day counterpart a heart attack," Leia remonstrated.
"Well, they were. I mean, I admire the old Jedi Order, but the no attachments thing was so so so stupid. It's no wonder some of them went more or less crazy, including our father."
Relinka had allowed her eyes to shift to the audience numbers, which were rising so quickly that her brain was on the verge of exploding with joy, but this last remark caused her to turn back with an exclamation of surprise.
"Your father went...crazy?" she asked.
"Erm, yes," Luke said, "and this is the part that is going to make the current twins mad, because, well, Princess Leia, at least, really doesn't want this known yet. She's processing. But we know that to save this timeline, this information must be revealed."
The truth is," Leia said, her expression dark with sorrow, "that our father, Anakin Skywalker, spent the first nine years of his life on Tatooine as a slave. So he was kind of a mess emotionally. He also had incredible power with the Force. Like amazing, amazing. So the Jedi scooped him up and hauled him here to Coruscant to be trained, but he left his mother behind in slavery, and he was kind of the odd sentient out, because most Jedi were taken to the Temple as babies and toddlers..."
"Which is also insane," Luke interpolated.
"It is crazy!" Leia huffed. "I have four children of my own, and the thought of giving any of them away, never to see them again, is truly horrific. Anyway, Palpatine became Chancellor of the Republic about the time Anakin, age nine, was brought to the Jedi Temple. Palpatine was a powerful Dark Side Sith Lord in his own right, and he figured out quickly that Anakin was strong and messed up emotionally, a perfect potential apprentice. So he buddied up to our father, and basically groomed him, and when Palpatine seized power, he convinced our father to join him."
Winter was always pale, but now she was paler. "Are you...are you saying that your father worked for the Empire?"
"I'm afraid so," Luke said sadly. "It is weird really; our mother was a total devotee to democracy, and Leia and I both feel the same way. Our father was definitely the black shaak in the family."
"How did he die then?" Winter demanded, shaking her head as if to clear it. "I mean, I realize all this happened about the time we were born, but I have never seen anything about Anakin Skywalker joining the Empire..."
"He is mostly dead, but not really dead," Luke said unhappily.
"Well, he is really dead now, since Endor," Leia pointed out.
"Oh right. On every other trip back in time he's still been around so it is hard to remember that this time he is gone, which is kind of sad because..."
"Not many people would think it is sad, Luke," Leia remonstrated. "I am guessing that only one person thinks it is sad."
"True. Anyway..."
"Where was he?" Relinka demanded, leaning forward. "You say your father was working for the Empire for literally decades? Was he one of the Emperor's advisors? Was there any family resemblance, because I don't remember anyone looking like either of you?!"
"Well, he used to look a lot like Luke," Leia said. "I take after our mother. But then..."
She trailed away and looked sadly at her twin, who continued, "Then he got into a fight with Obi-Wan Kenobi, and had his legs and remaining arm cut off, and fell into lava, and was hauled off to be encased in black armor and a helmet for life support, and..."
Winter cried out in shock and Relinka turned completely white behind her make-up, and stuttered, "Your father...your father...was..."
"Darth Vader, yes," Luke said solemnly. "Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader."