Sacrifice
It took just one hour for the news to spread from High Command to Lieutenant Salla Zend.
Waist-deep in the mechanical viscera of her pride and joy, the Starlight Intruder, she focused on the new fuel line Prisht had set aside for her on her last trip to Nar Shaddaa. It was something she had unintentionally neglected the past few weeks, while the stragglers from Echo Base had limped to Home One and the assembling fleet. She had been so focused on the Mercs that had survived Hoth that she hadn't had a spare moment to think of her baby.
That baby was squalling loudly now.
I'm here, darling, she silently soothed the Intruder. Don't you worry your pretty brains about it.
There was more to this therapy session than just taking care of her ship, though. The stress of the Falcon's return and all its impending questions weighed heavily on them all, but particularly to Han's abandoned XO, working diligently to hold her flight together. The vast majority of the Mercs were former contractors who had signed on specifically to follow Commander Han Solo. Without him, there was a note of unease in the air.
Salla was many things, but she was not Solo. His leadership style was chaotic and unique, and while there was a great deal of admiration heaped on her after her efforts at Hoth, she didn't have the same charisma Han did. She could feel the restlessness of her people as they awaited news of their commander's whereabouts.
Loyalty was fierce to the underdog of Alliance Starfleet Command.
I'm going to get him back, the princess had said yesterday. And I will need your help.
That was a nice thought, and precisely what Leia had needed to say to forestall outright mutiny in the bay after returning with the commander's ship and the commander's first mate but without the commander himself. Add to it the anti-Jedi sentiment that was starting to run rampant through the squadron after Han and Leia's obvious split, and the climate was particularly precipitous.
Sighing, Salla tried to refocus on the task at hand. Until she was fully debriefed, Leia wouldn't be able to save anyone, and the Mercs would need clearance from High Command to go on any such rescue mission. Salla could wait until she knew more.
For a little while, at least. Until she started kicking down doors.
She heard bootfalls approach her position, but threw a greased hand above her head to stop whomever it was from approaching too closely.
"Not now," she said, and resumed her inspection.
But the visitor didn't politely stop as she had expected, trudging up to the Intruder's underbelly with a tone that bordered on panic.
"Salla," Wedge Antilles whisper-shouted. "Get your ass down here."
"Go fuck yourself," she quietly responded, but climbed down the service ladder anyway, grabbing a rag from the decking and standing to her full height as she trained her eyes on Antilles. "What?"
White, brown-haired and stocky, Antilles might have been better suited to competitive gymnastics than starfighter command. His generally kind demeanor betrayed none of his quickness in battle, and she had formed a grudging alliance with the Rogues' XO over the past few weeks.
When she had first joined the Alliance a year ago, she had instantly disliked all of the Rogues. It felt strange to her that the core group of the Alliance's premiere squadron were all white male humans, and while there wasn't anything inherently wrong with that, it bespoke the same fucking elitism that the Alliance claimed to be actively fighting to against. A remnant from the Imps, perhaps. She didn't have great experience with groups like that.
Salla had kept her distance.
The thing was … they weren't bad, once you got to know them. They were genuinely good people with impressive skills in the cockpit. And after some soul-searching—and one very angry screaming match with said XO about a certain distasteful betting pool—she had gotten it through their damn skulls why their jockeying and bantering made some people uncomfortable.
Since then, they had cleaned up their act, and Antilles in particular had done some real outreach, trying to diversify the squadron that was ostensibly his—like the Mercs were ostensibly hers—after the evacuation.
So when she turned to look at Antilles now, she saw a minor inconvenience, a kind of competitive rival, and something like a friend. An annoying one, to be sure, but a friend nonetheless.
"There's news," he said, waving her over to a dark corner of the bay.
She followed, but cocked an eyebrow at his secrecy. "About Han?"
Shaking his head, he glanced around the immediate area and then caught her eye again. "No, about the twins."
She waited, and when he didn't continue, she rolled her eyes and prompted him with, "I'm going back to work."
"No, okay. Wait," he said, grasping her bicep and stopping her retreat. "It's just … it's hard to … it's weird."
"Look, Antilles, I don't have time for gossip. I've got a ship to get ready for a rescue—"
"Darth Vader is Luke and Leia's father."
She lost traction of the verbal pathway she had been on and snorted with a half-laugh. "That's the dumbest bullshit I've ever heard."
He grimaced at her loud tone. "Will you keep it down—?"
"Did you get into Jdrak's spice, again, Antilles? Holy shit—"
"Shut up, man! I'm being serious!"
Shrugging, she said, "I'm not a man, so."
He took one more glancing look around him and then brought her closer, ducking his head to imply confidence, but coming off as comical because Salla was taller than he was by quite a few centimeters.
"It's not bullshit, It's the truth," he whispered. "Mon Mothma just admitted it to High Command."
Squinting, Salla tried to discern his angle. Whatever else was going on, Antilles seemed truly earnest. Either he was being honest, or he was playing one of his stupid pranks, and if so, she would stun him senseless here in clear visual of every deckhand in the vicinity and laugh as he drooled all over the decking.
"Darth Vader."
"Yes."
She paused, then said, "Okay. How did Mon Mothma learn of it?"
"The princess told her. There's a recording."
"Have you seen it?"
Wedge pursed his lips in answer.
"Who told you?" she asked, more forceful now, sure she was on the right track to disprove his stupid joke.
He paused, looked away. "The new guy. Tycho."
"So how do you know it's the truth? He's been here for two seconds."
Wedge nodded in short little movements, looking as if he was debating with himself whether or not to answer her question honestly. On an inhale, he stepped so close to her that their faces almost touched.
"Think about it," he said, slow and low. "We saw with our own eyes how he goes after them. You saw what I saw in Zone 266. He … he finds them everywhere they go."
"The Empire has probes out all over the galaxy. That's how he's found us."
"And he keeps letting them escape," Wedge urged. "Those two, specifically. They always get away."
Salla blinked, and Wedge pressed the advantage.
"He used beta blasts, not turbolasers. Rieekan said they used fire to smoke them out of the Command Center instead of just dropping a thermo missile on it. Gatma swears up and down that she saw the Executor follow the Falcon into the asteroid field. He doesn't wanna kill them. He wants to capture them."
"That doesn't mean they're his children. C'mon, Wedge."
"No, but it makes sense, doesn't it?"
Shaking her head, she said, "You're out of your—"
But he interrupted her again. "Why is Han the only one in carbonite, Salla?"
She stopped, closed her mouth. The question had occurred to her, too. And with a dearth of information about the events that occurred after Hoth, it was the largest of the great many questions she had. There was something particularly punishing about taking Han away from the twins. It could have been the price on his head … except Chewie had an equivalent death mark, and he had returned unscathed. What was it specifically about Han?
"He also chopped off your boyfriend's hand," Salla reminded him. "That's not exactly Father of the Year material."
Wedge's ears turned pink, but he didn't fall for the trap.
"We don't know what happened, but what we do know makes a lot more sense if he … if they are …"
He trailed off, and Salla's brain trailed off with him, running down coincidences and lucky breaks and the odd sense of pieces of an unfathomable puzzle clicking into place.
She stood motionless for a few more moments, and then whispered, "I want to talk to this Tycho."
Leia could feel Luke in the corridor outside Home One's main briefing theater, a circular venue with hard benches and few creature comforts. Sitting on the lowest bench on one side, she faced an audience of seventeen people. Members of High Command, some high-ranking military leaders, a few new faces she didn't recognize. They sat with noticeable discomfort, staring at her with suspicion and hands conspicuously hovering over their blasters. One woman was nearly shaking in her anger, and she bloomed a deep burnt orange when Leia reached out in the Force.
What do you think I'm going to do to you? Leia wanted to ask her. Why are you so very angry at me?
She tried—oh, how she tried—to imagine what this might feel like to someone who had lost family or friends to Vader, who had the same burning hatred in her veins as Leia herself but without any grasp of the context or nuance of the situation. How that very understandable hurt could burst into rancid hate so quickly that she would discard all Leia had done for the Alliance and simply see them as the progeny of her worst nightmare.
Empathizing didn't seem to help much. Not now when they had spent an entire thirty-six hours running through this rigamorel. In some ways, Leia wished they had not stopped at the rendezvous to get Luke medical care before racing to Tatooine. This trial of public opinion, this bureaucratic nonsense in the face of her very deep self-loathing and fragile composure without the lightning rod of Han Solo there, was trying her last nerve, and the separation from her brother was becoming untenable…
Suddenly, Luke was there, and it was like the galaxy fell back into its correct orbit. Bright as a clear, cloudless day, he radiated warmth and gentleness without even trying, without even being aware of it. His starlit eyes took in the situation with cool, calm, practiced ease and she grasped onto it tightly to help pull herself from the spiral of her own impatience. He caught her eye immediately and smiled brightly, his new hand snugly fit into a black glove, his stride unhurried.
Took you long enough, she sent him and he chuckled.
I was trying to be nice, he said. They weren't taking the hint.
She rolled her eyes. And see where that got you?
It was easier now: speaking without actually opening their mouths. She hated to credit the monster for anything, but it did appear that with every succeeding engagement with Vader, their connection with the Force and its unlimited capabilities seemed to grow stronger.
Speaking of.
"Gentlebeings," Mon Mothma said, and it was with command and control. Leia had always envied the way Mon could bring focus to a chaotic room with one word. "Let's begin."
Is this going to be as bad as I think it will be? Luke asked her.
Probably worse, she returned.
For a brief, awkward moment, no one spoke. A thread of grim satisfaction ran through Leia as she watched her former compatriots sit listlessly on their bench, unsure how to broach the subject at hand without appearing too fearful of the two Jedi suddenly sitting cooperatively in front of them.
What a horrible situation they all found themselves in.
Predictably, it was Jan who broke the silence. His small, beady eyes were trained on hers and he spoke with clipped consonants and a bite to his tone.
"Commander, Princess. What on earth has been going on?"
Satisfaction disappeared, and Leia grappled with the very real possibility that she herself could not adequately answer this question. It was so bizarre, this entire sequence of events, and if anyone thought too deeply about it, all manner of bad emotions were bound to be released.
Hilarious, she thought to herself, though she knew Luke could hear her. She wasn't shielding from him at all. The bad emotions have already been released. This room feels like a furnace.
Had this meeting happened before the confrontation with Vader on Hoth, she would not have been able to feel the presences in this room, much less understand on a very real but invisible level how these beings were feeling. And now, after the fight on Bespin, she could understand their distrust. She shared it in many ways.
Did she trust herself? Absolutely not.
There were only two reasons she was able to hold still and answer these questions. One was that she needed Alliance resources to rescue Han. There was nothing more important, more imperative, to her than that.
And the other reason was that she was leaning heavily on Luke's strength to appear rational, calm and unfazed by the minefield of triggers littering the deck around her.
"Truthfully, General, we know about as much as you do," she said.
"Clearly more," the new High Command member, General Madine, retorted with an angry side-eye to Luke.
She continued as if she hadn't heard him. "We are committed members of the Alliance and we have returned to base. There is no ulterior motive. We simply wanted to be together when these recent events came to light. I'm sure you can understand why. It has been … traumatic."
No one said anything in response to that, and that was somewhat encouraging. She sat back with false confidence, knowing the hard questions would come. But she was most interested in bridging the gap in their understanding of the twins' allegiance. In the long run, this was her cause, and she wouldn't be pushed away from it, period.
Even if she had to resign from High Command in this meeting, at the very least, she would continue to serve its interests.
"Are we in any danger of the Dark Lord finding us here with you onboard?"
A logical, understandable question, that, and Leia was grateful for Gial's deep disinterest in human relationships. Luke was better able to speak to this point, and she sat quietly while his calm voice echoed around the theater.
"We are both shielding ourselves from him, and have been since the escape from Bespin. We are in no danger of discovery here."
A hushed quiet, then Carlist's warm voice. "And were you shielding yourselves in the past? On Hoth?"
Luke either didn't quite understand the danger of his answer or didn't care, and Leia couldn't quite pick up his thoughts on it. "We hadn't yet learned the technique at that point. We have both mastered it now."
Mon leaned forward, interest clear in her eyes. "And where did you learn this technique?"
"From our master."
Rumbled discussions broke out as Leia had known they would, and she watched Carlist with a deep stab of regret. He had known about their mysterious trip to Dagobah but not their exact destination, nor what they had found there. Or, rather, who.
It was Mon who spoke over the din and called the room back to order. "Who is this master?"
"We can't disclose that information," Leia replied. "Their safety is a primary concern."
And, finally, Jan again. "A mysterious Jedi master? How are we to believe it isn't Darth Vader himself?"
And that was it. That was the entire purpose of this meeting, and everyone in attendance knew it.
Rage filled Leia's lungs, and she forced herself to share it with her brother, to open him to the bitterness and hurt that swelled within her. It was difficult, letting him see the darkness inside her, but he accepted it without a single moment of shock and pushed his deep calm to counter it.
She had known this would be the core suspicion of High Command, but it hadn't helped her prepare for her offense at all.
In a slow, wide pan, she looked at the assembled beings, one by one, judging them for their cowardice and their distrust. Some of them stared back, daring her to react in a way they would expect from the daughter of Darth Vader, a scion to his cruelty. Others quailed under her gaze, terrified of what it meant. And a very few others leaned forward, genuinely interested in their answer.
It was to those that Luke responded.
"Because if it had been Vader, you would have all been dead the minute we came onboard."
The whispers returned, and Leia cocked an eyebrow at him. That was a little harsh.
It's true, isn't it? he responded.
True, yes, but she doubted the likes of Jan Dodonna could have ever accepted such an answer well. Struck mute, he gaped like a falm-fish, and Luke found some kind of sick amusement from it. Leia rolled her eyes and thought about how to settle the nerves of their captive and now-terrified audience. Bail Organa had raised a politician first and a warrior second, and she would not let the blunt edge of Luke's vibroknife ruin any chance they had to continue their work with the Alliance.
"My brother is being flippant," she said into the discomfort that followed. "What he means is that we have both had ample opportunity to fatally wound Alliance High Command since returning, and we have not done so."
Gial scoffed. "One or two of us, I'm sure, but not the entire ship."
"We don't want to harm anyone," Luke chimed in. "It's a moot point."
"You have been in detention, Commander Skywalker," Jan answered for the Mon Calamari. "Telling us that you haven't killed us yet when you haven't had the opportunity to do so is a weak, ineffectual argument for your motives."
What do you think? Luke sent with an expression of tired humor.
Leia considered the situation. She had no desire to perform tricks like a performer in a festival circus. This was a dangerous trap: if they proved themselves too powerful, it could blow up in their faces. If they proved themselves unable to be as powerful as the Alliance feared they would be, Luke's initial point would be discarded. They had to demonstrate that they could be trusted.
Thermo-regulators are probably the best choice, she thought. Makes the point without harming personnel or ruining equipment. We need to be careful.
Luke turned sheepish. So this a bad time to mention that I pulled Madine's blaster from his holster?
She was shocked enough to respond audibly. "Oh, for the love of—"
Shrugging, her brother looked somewhat apologetic but not terribly so, and it occurred to Leia that he might be trying to bring some irreverence to the situation as a kind of comfort to her.
He didn't deny it, and she realized how grateful she was. Yes, she definitely needed a bit more Han in her life at the moment. And if she couldn't have him, Luke was at least reviving that part of her that responded to challenge.
Don't think of him now, she urged herself.
"I don't want to do this," she said out loud as a warning, bringing what had probably been a confusing few seconds for their audience to a close. "But perhaps it will help you understand."
Thermo-regulators, it is, Luke thought, and they both turned their focus above their heads to the climate control lines that crisscrossed the ceiling. Leia brushed her right hand to the port-starboard air-scrubbing ducts and closed them soundly, reinforcing the closure of the ducts with an outstretched palm. To her right, she felt Luke switching the climate controls on the far side of the theater to a noticeably higher setting.
Heat bloomed quickly, and it was only a few minutes before the assembled group began to unbutton their shirts or swipe appendages over the first drops of sweat to glisten on foreheads. Leia focused heavily on Gial; as the only non-mammalian in the room, he was the most susceptible to extreme heat exhaustion, and the last thing she wanted from this stupid demonstration of their control was to land anyone in Medical.
"I think you've made your point quite clearly," Carlist said from her right, and even he seemed uncomfortable with the small glimpse into their capabilities they had afforded them. "Please reopen the ducts, Your Highness."
Lowering her hand, she allowed the climate controls to resume their homeostatic operations with a swift rush of cool air, and turned to the theater at large.
"As I said, I don't like demonstrating this," she said with open hands. "I didn't ask for this power, I didn't ask for anything other than a seat at the table to help defeat the Empire."
Luke reached over and took her hand, and she gratefully squeezed back.
"But this is the reality we must all deal with. We are not your enemy. We were your compatriots, we were your friends and your allies and your colleagues. You trusted us then, why not trust us now?"
"The question is not who you were, Princess. The question is who you are."
The statement was launched by a Bothan in the corner that Leia didn't know, and it was laced with false sincerity. She instantly hated him.
Luke answered for her. "Nothing has changed. We simply understand more about our power now."
"You just adequately demonstrated that you could cut off oxygen to ComCen with barely a flutter of your fingers. How in blazes are we supposed to think that nothing has changed?"
"You were fine with me using that ability to destroy the Death Star," he defended.
"Or when they allowed Echo Base's Command Center to evacuate." Carlist helpfully chimed in.
But Jan was quick to respond, too, and his color was rolling and spitting in distrust. "Oh, and here we go. Yet another declaration of heroism to come out of the utter disaster that was the Hoth base. Spare us, Carlist."
Standing quickly, Rieekan rounded on him so fast Leia barely saw the movement. "Mine was one of the many lives they saved that day, Jan. You dare tell me that sacrifice does not deserve special consideration?"
"What sacrifice?" Tlom Kila shouted from the upper bench. "They sit here today, alive."
Mostly, Luke thought, but he wisely kept silent.
Another voice from the left. "The only reason Vader was on Hoth at all was because he found you. How do we trust that you truly are shielding as you say you are?"
"And even if you were able to shield yourselves properly, how on earth do we expect anyone to follow you into combat now?"
"It's too much to demand of them—"
"They'll mutiny in a second—"
Leia stood motionless, taking in the barrage of suspicion and fear as it erupted around her. She looked from one angry face to the other, watching Jan's pulsing, tremulous energy bounce around the room like a smashball and Carlist's fierce determination explode in a golden glow to engulf the space around him. She watched Gial, still stupefied after the demonstration of their power.
She looked to her brother, his face flushed, his lips moving though she didn't hear what he said.
And then she turned to look at Mon, sitting directly across from her, brown eyes weary and lips twisted into a knowing grimace. Her former mentor stared back, and it was like Leia could hear the words directly from her mouth, though her lips didn't move.
Didn't I tell you? she seemed to say.
She had. Mon had told Leia what she would have to do. Leia just hadn't quite believed that it would come to it.
Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself for yet another horrible loss at the hands of her biological father.
"You talk of sacrifice," she said. And it was low, but it cut across the argument like the sharpest blade that had ever been forged. "Did you forget who here has sacrificed more for this cause than anyone else?"
Horror washed through the congregation, and that's what it was: a church of belligerent, small-minded fools who dug their heads in the sand when the universe did not immediately explain itself to them. Horror, because she did not have to say the name of the planet to invoke its power. Horror, because though many in this assembly had lost some, no one else besides herself and Rieekan had lost it all.
The silence was deafening.
"I did not ask to be born of that bastard," she continued. "And you would be a fool to think I feel anything but self-loathing about it."
Luke swallowed and looked down to his boots. He did not offer any calming energy, simply let her explain her loss the only way she could. The only way they would hear it.
"I was personally tortured by him," she spat. "I was nineteen years old when he injected me with neurotoxins that have left permanent scars on my skin. I did that to keep you safe. I didn't break under torture because I knew that if I did, most of you here would be dead now.
"And when that was insufficient enough pain for him, he held my shoulder down so I could watch the last horrifying moments of my planet before it was destroyed."
It was so quiet that she could hear the frantic, urgent beating of her heart.
"He did that because my loyalty to this rebellion is well-known. He did that because it forced me to make the hardest choice anyone has ever had to make for the good of the galaxy, bar none. And I did it as a teenager."
Carlist sucked in a breath, and she held onto his eyes for the strength they gave her to continue.
"He has haunted my dreams for a year now. He tortured the man I love and gave him over to a bounty hunter to be killed," she whispered. "He cut off my brother's hand because I was losing control of my sorrow for all these same sacrifices I have made."
And it was very clear now that no one would be able to speak against the evidence of her pain. But she wasn't finished.
"He has taken away every single thing I have ever held dear. My innocence, my people, my family. And now he has taken Bail away from me, too, along with the cause my parents died for."
Luke turned to her, worried eyes trying to catch hers. Oh, no, Leia. You don't have to do this.
But she did. She knew that Mon had been right. In order for the Alliance to continue, in order for the Empire to fall, she had to step away. She had to lay Bail Organa's legacy down for any hope of it succeeding. It was larger than her, or her family, or the lies he had told her.
Of utmost importance was its survival.
"I will continue to serve this Alliance in whatever capacity you deem fit, but I hereby resign my position in High Command."
A pin could have dropped and every human could have heard it.
Without another word, she nodded to Luke and together they walked out of the briefing theater in the absolute silence that followed them.
He was nothing but an observer, but the blisteringly hot breeze that blew toward him was familiar. She spoke, tearful, awful things, and all he could do was listen to the words as they floated above the din of the ocean waves.
Come back, she said. Please, Han, come back.
But that wasn't an option. He couldn't come back to her. He couldn't do anything. He could listen, he could hear, but he couldn't feel and he certainly couldn't react to anything she said.
It was like she was screaming. I can't do this. I can't do this. I need you, I can't do this.
He grew warm, the temperature on his not-skin heating to a painless boil, and he had no feelings about any of that, but he noticed it. It would be impossible not to notice it. She was a storm blowing past him and he was a lifeless stone on the landscape. Nothing there to react to.
Han, please, she cried.
There was a time before this eternity of nothingness. He couldn't remember it. Maybe there would be a time after, too, but he couldn't hope for it. All he could do was sit in the heat and observe.
If his past self could see what was happening, he would have found a way out of any prison, any lifeless existence, to meet her in the crucible of her pain. He would have fought heaven and earth and everything in between to help her, to comfort her, to take the pain away from her in whatever way possible.
Han Solo would have raged. Han Solo would have cursed. Han Solo would have killed with his bare hands anyone who had hurt her as much as she was hurting now.
But there was no Han Solo.
There was only nameless, wordless, emotionless him, passively watching, doing nothing.