A modest 4500 words after my rubbish work week. But the story marches on and you guys keep me going.
Chapter 40: The Dream
As the planets turned and the galaxy seemed to come infinitesimally closer, Korkie felt, to something momentous, the rebellion continued to swell and grow with increasing pace. It was a headache for intelligence and security on Yavin 4 – how to know an Imperial defector from Imperial spy? – but Korkie welcomed the reinforcements. The eager new rebels did not yet know it but they had the battle of a generation on their hands.
Korkie and Cere were supposed to be investigating evidence of the planet-killer and yet Korkie seemed to spend more time than was sensible shaking hands and pointing out directions to the 'freshers or fielding complaints from the long-time rebels about erroneously parked ships in favourite landing spots. No one ever asked him to exploit his Force sensitivity aloud but he knew that Mothma felt much better about a newcomer if he or Ahsoka had sat down for a cup of tea with them, so an insensible amount of time too was spent sipping tea. Cere, thankfully, could be spared out field, but hadn't had any luck thus far in bringing forth evidence of the horrible vision she had glimpsed in her former Padawan's mind. The others in his Mandalorian contingent had been put out by the delay in their plans to reconquer their homeland but their memories of the Night of a Thousand Tears were fresh enough that no one disagreed with the plan to defer their homecoming until any planet-killers had been dealt with. Which meant that it was a time of searching, and shaking hands and small talk over cups of tea, and waiting.
"You have to tell Mon," Ahsoka advised. "What if this thing ends up over Yavin 4 and you have to explain you've kept it a secret?"
Korkie gave her a pointed look as they scrubbed dishes in the canteen sink.
"If this thing turns up over Yavin 4, Ahsoka, our deaths will all be imminent and it won't matter if anyone hates me for keeping secrets."
He placed his mug on the rack to dry.
"Look, I'm not planning to keep it quiet forever. But the more people who know, the greater the chance that the Empire hears about it, gets unsettled, speeds up the building process and starts blowing up planets. As soon as we find some useful evidence-"
"I'm giving you a month," Ahsoka declared. "Then you've got to talk, evidence or not. To Mon at least. I'm not asking you to make a dinnertime announcement."
"That is a completely arbitrary deadline."
"How else am I supposed to set one?"
"You could just trust me."
"You're making this up as you go, Korkie."
Which was entirely true. But wasn't everyone else?
"You're still my superior in Alliance rank," he grumbled. "Tell her yourself, if you want, General Tano."
And Korkie knew of course that Ahsoka didn't want to, and that at her core, she was just as uncertain as he was. They were strange times in the galaxy, with the figment of a planet-killer looming over their heads.
Strange and wondrous times.
Korkie saw Cham and Hera Syndulla finally embrace and join forces after years at odds as to where to fight their war. He shook the hand of the Hammer of Ryloth and was pulled into an unexpected embrace of his own.
"The boy who saved my life!" Cham exclaimed. "And still so kriffing skinny!"
And only days later Korkie met a man who had briefly been his childhood hero in a distant war before that war had become his own: Rahm Kota, Jedi Knight and aligned with the Kryze autocracy's stance on the clone army from day one. He had fought the war against the Separatists with a contingent of nat-born volunteers and worn the disfavour of the Jedi Council with impeccable grace.
"Getting a bit old, all of us," he'd gruffly apologised to Korkie. "But well-trained soldiers, here for the right reasons."
Korkie had told Mon Mothma he didn't need a cup of tea with Rahm; he was to be trusted.
And Korkie met young soldiers, soldiers who perhaps had not even been alive when war was declared in the Republican Senate all those years ago.
"Ben! Ben! I remember you! Lillee, this is Ben who rescued us!"
A young woman streaked along the tarmac, her older sister mortified behind her.
"Asta, that's not Ben, that's the Prince Kryze, you can't just-"
"Ben, it's honestly an honour."
The young woman clasped his hand.
"You saved my whole family. Our little brother was named after you."
Korkie was flooded by the warmth of the memory as their skin touched.
"Asta."
The four-standard-year-old who could move objects without her hands. Who had wept a flood of tears into a ragged purple blanket.
"Asta, I'm terribly sorry. My name's not actually Ben. Korkie Kryze. It's an honour, regardless."
Asta did not look in the least put out by the deception.
"So he was a prince, after all!" she crowed, turning to her sister. "You were right, Lillee!"
She turned back to Korkie with a bubble of laughter.
"Lillee was in love with you, Prince Korkie, she spoke about the magic prince who came and rescued us for years-"
"Asta!"
"Lillee, it's a compliment. You've got great intuition. Do you think you could get my sister an intelligence job, Prince Korkie?"
Lillee was saved further embarrassment by the arrival of the Princess Ariarne, who liked to complain about hanging out with adults all the time – as though she wasn't fifteen-going-on-fifty herself – and was always eager to meet someone resembling her own age. The Princess of Alderaan was her adoptive mother's daughter and wore exquisitely tailored dresses – although she had compromised on the convenience of combat boots – amidst the unkempt crowd of rebels in scavenged military apparel.
"Don't ask Korkie for a job, he's always in trouble," Ariarne advised. "The most outspoken member of the Advisory Council, these days, and a great source of embarrassment to my family."
Korkie rolled his eyes.
"Nice to see you too, Princess."
"Does everyone here have a royal title?" Asta asked.
Ariarne shook her head.
"I'm the Princess of Alderaan. Korkie, technically, is not a prince."
"That's only because my planet has been colonised and my mother is dead," Korkie pointed out a little sourly. "Ariarne, meanwhile, would not be the Princess of Alderaan at all had I not hand-delivered her to her adoptive parents."
The teenager bristled.
"You can't just go around telling everyone I'm adopted."
Korkie rolled his eyes.
"It's on the public record, Ariarne."
"You save my life one time and have to remind me about it every day-"
"-for the rest of your life," Korkie finished, with a smile and a pat upon the diminutive princess's head.
"Anyway," she grumbled, shrugging off Korkie's condescending hand and speaking now to the newcomers, "What I meant to say is that it's nice to meet you. I can speak to my father about an intelligence job."
Lillee cut in before her eager younger sister could accept.
"I was thinking maybe we earn the intelligence job, Asta. Although we appreciate the offer."
"Admirable," Ariarne conceded. "Now, what's this about being in love with Korkie? I have to warn you that he is perpetually single and completely unwilling to date-"
"I'm not in love with Korkie," Lillee protested hurriedly.
"-despite my best matchmaking efforts," Ariarne sighed. "Now, before we start that argument, shall I show you where to leave your bags?"
The Empire-hating galaxy was in love with Korkaran Kryze. Rebel media called him Prince Korkie – no longer his correct title, but with a more romantic ring to it than Mand'alor – and broadcast him in all his golden-haired glory, running about the galaxy causing Imperial headaches in Kryze-painted armour. He seemed to seldom put his helmet to any actual use; his smile and his voice won him more battles than his belt of mismatched weapons. Most rebel cells would be honoured by his visit. But Saw Gerrera knew that Korkie Kryze had come to Jedha to cause him trouble.
"What do you want?"
Korkie was gazing at something over Saw's shoulder looking vaguely daydreamy and not at all as intimidated as he should have been by the militia leader's curt demand.
"Who's the cute redhead?" he asked.
Saw turned in bewilderment.
"Who? You don't mean Kestis?"
"Fixing the droid over there."
Saw wheezed out a breath of laughter despite himself.
"Yeah. Cal Kestis. My best crusader."
He caught his breath and went on.
"Trained by Cere Junda. A real Jedi. He defeated the Ninth Sister before he came to me."
"Oh?"
Korkie raised his brows, eyes still fixed upon the young Jedi.
"Good for him."
"I don't think you're his type," Saw informed him. "Something about a Nightsister."
At this, the Prince finally sobered, his gaze finally falling to meet Saw's.
"Just my luck," he sighed. "I hope you don't mind me poaching him for some Alliance work?"
Saw bristled.
"I certainly do mind. He's good. And he's mine."
Korkie grinned, clapping Saw on the shoulder with a dismissive hand.
"Too bad, Gerrera."
He sauntered down towards the Jedi, ignoring Saw's rising protest.
"We've got something big coming up," he called over his shoulder in explanation. "Proper big. I need him more than you do."
Cal had sensed the presence before he approached him; Korkie Kryze was a radiant and somehow faintly familiar presence in the Force. He half-jogged across the sand, a well-worn Jedi cloak flapping about him, the sun glinting upon his hair as he shielded his eyes from the glare. The hand he extended in greeting was no prince's hand; the knuckles were grazed with 'saber burns and his palms as calloused as Cal's own.
"Cal Kestis?"
"Yeah. Hi."
"Korkie Kryze. Exiled Mand'alor. Special Forces Commander and Advisory Councillor for the Alliance to Restore the Republic."
Cal raised his brows appreciatively.
"That's quite a resume."
Korkie's eyes sparked.
"Just wait until I get my planet back."
He sobered, then.
"I'm sorry not to have met you earlier. I've heard you did great things for the Hidden Path. I had to move on, myself. I…"
A wince of pain in the Force, waved away by an expressive hand.
"I've heard also that you've done great things for the Partisans. I'm hoping you could be convinced to do great things for the Alliance, too."
Cal frowned, interest piqued.
"Worthwhile project?"
"The most worthwhile job I've done in all my time," Korkie affirmed. "Have you seen your Master since she came back from Devaron?"
"No."
"Ah."
Korkie grimaced, looked for the words.
"They're making some sort of planet-obliterating superweapon," he outlined, waving an illustrative hand. "With all this kyber."
Cal blinked.
"Right."
"I know. It's not exactly easy to conceptualise. But anyway, we need to destroy it before it's operational."
"How big is it?"
"Like a moon, Cere says."
"She's seen it?"
"Indirectly."
Cal almost laughed with the absurdity of it.
"It'll take some dismantling."
Korkie shrugged.
"Yeah. We're working on finding some plans. We're not exactly sure how to go about dismantling it yet."
Korkie paused, arched a brow.
"Sound worthwhile?"
Cal conceded the point with a grin.
"Yeah. Sounds worthwhile."
"Excellent," Korkie declared briskly. "Cere's already on board. We'll just need-"
Cal frowned.
"I didn't think you and Master Junda got along."
"Did she say that?" Korkie asked.
Cal shrugged uncomfortably and wondered why he'd brought it up.
"She didn't have to," he admitted. "There had to be a reason you left the Hidden Path and never came back."
"Well, I suppose…"
Korkie sighed, and gave a gracious but bruised half-smile.
"I didn't cope all too well with the whole Trilla-Second Sister thing. Especially after she killed my boyfriend."
Cal really shouldn't have brought it up.
"Oh. Sorry," he faltered. "I didn't know she did that."
Korkie gave an elegant shrug.
"No matter. Everyone in the galaxy has a wound like that these days."
"That's probably true."
"Besides, I can no longer claim any sort of moral superiority over Cere," Korkie went in. "I owe her an apology, truth be told. I actually tried to kill Trilla, which is far worse than she ever did."
Cal gave a gentle smile. He knew that grief and that anger. Extended a nudge of warmth through the Force.
"We all make mistakes."
"That's very kind of you to say," Korkie replied graciously. "Gerrera informs me you're an excellent Jedi."
Cal snorted.
"Do you suppose Gerrera knows much about excellent Jedi?"
"Saw Gerrera is an excellent terrorist," Korkie reasoned. "Which is why your training will come in handy when it comes to the big demolition job. Besides the fact that I've heard you're much better than I am in combat with Inquisitors."
Cal folded his arms, pensive.
"Gerrera won't be pleased to see me go."
Saw Gerrera was a righteous warrior and boasted the necessary madness required to take it to the Empire in battles anyone else saw as futile. But Cal knew that it made formal collaboration with the Alliance impossible. Gerrera was not one to take orders from a senator from Chandrila – or anyone else, really – and Mothma had made it clear that she would not, under any circumstances, tolerate the deaths of civilians.
"He won't," Korkie agreed. "But that won't stop you."
And Cal could not argue with his confidence. It was a mission too important not to be a part of.
"What about your magick-wielding girlfriend?" Korkie ventured pensively. "Could she be convinced to help out?"
Cal blinked with surprise.
"Who told you I had a magick-wielding girlfriend?"
"Gerrera."
"Why was Gerrera gossiping about me?"
At this, the Mandalorian's faultless eloquence flagged a little. There was the faintest tinge of pink upon his cheekbones as he gave an apologetic smile.
"Ah, I might have… loosely enquired…"
"Oh?"
Cal grinned.
"I'm honoured. Merrin will be impressed. She had all sorts of glamorous girlfriends before she deigned to go out with me."
"Yeah, well…"
Korkie snickered.
"Forget I said anything. I'm not here to cause domestic trouble. Just to end the Empire."
"You and me both," Cal agreed, sobering.
"You got a data-pad on you? I'll upload all the comms and coordinates you need."
Cal reached into his pocket and with the exchange his hand brushed the sleeve of Korkie's brown cloak. There was a great and almost blinding flash in the Force. The garment was even older than it looked. And such history woven into that fabric.
The rising of a young Knight. (An aching whisper, too young.) The clinging grasp of a Padawan far too old to hold onto his Master in such a way. The crying of a child in the arms of his rescuer. A generous blossom of blood. (It is mine. All of it, mine.) The cloak tangled in the bed of a child missing his father star systems away. And the ache of inheritance, a father lost forever. The emptiness of leaving one's home for the last time. This cloak had travelled far, far across the galaxy. Factories and jungle and ships full of refugees. The tears of a nightmare on Tanalorr. The whisper of a river beneath the moonlight in a broken city.
"Are you alright?" Korkie asked. "You look like you've seen the undead."
Cal blinked back to the present and gave a gentle a snicker. Thanks to Merrin, he'd seen the undead far more often than he'd have liked. And yet he could not deny they'd been useful allies.
"Psychometry," he murmured, in explanation. "In the Force, when I touch something…"
"Oh."
"That was Obi Wan's cloak."
"Of course. I never had my own."
Cal nodded pensively. Those memories were of another time, another era. Cal's entire life had been unwritten before him when this cloak had first slipped upon Obi Wan Kenobi's shoulders.
"You've come a long way," Cal voiced.
And it was nothing more than the objective truth, but Korkie fumbled into a genuine smile, softer and yet so much more radiant than his famous Holonet smirk.
"Thank you, Cal," he acknowledged. "I suppose I have."
The rebellion's famous Jedi-Prince was apparently not so well-attuned to the Force as he might have liked to think, Saw Gerrera thought. For shortly after he poached Saw's best soldier and whisked him away to the Republican Senate in miniature, the news of 'something big' that Saw presumed he had been chasing landed on Jedha in the form of an Imperial pilot. Saw had difficulty trusting anyone these days but the pilot's word was proven true, and Saw could not help but think that perhaps the Force was smiling upon him. More so when the news of his acquisition – because the Rebel Alliance, for all their righteousness and overloud democracy, boasted an espionage network second to none – filtered to the Alliance and delivered to him the adoptive daughter he thought he had lost forever.
But the Force never smiled for long, perhaps, on anyone. He'd had barely a chance to try to mend the needless rift between himself and Jyn Erso when the sun of Jedha was eclipsed by a space station as big as a moon.
It was a thing of terrible beauty. Saw felt the shudder of the earth and knew that the galaxy was changed forever. He stood and watched as his fighters scrambled, as his prisoners fought their way to desperate freedom. He would not hold prisoners any longer. The galaxy was a prison enough and he was tired.
Jyn was pulled to her feet by the rebel spy. Saw felt her hand on him for the last time.
"Come with us!"
There was nowhere left for him in this galaxy, where the Empire meted out violence on impossible scale and he was alienated for the violence he dared to wreak in return. In this galaxy where he could trust no one.
Except Jyn, perhaps. He had a feeling he could trust Jyn.
"I will run no longer," Saw told her. "You must save yourself, my child."
Her eyes were stuck upon him, resisting the pull of the rebel spy on her arm.
"Go," he urged. "Save the dream."
For he knew, in a galaxy where he could trust no one else, that for all Jyn's talk of walking with her eyes down and the Imperial flag above her head, that she had not forgotten the dream. That her father had not forgotten it and neither would she. He watched her leave until she disappeared from view and then he watched for her ship. She disappeared in a streak of miraculous silver and Saw had no fear for anything or anyone anymore. He watched the rolling earth rise and crumble and fill his vision. His lungs were starved for oxygen but his rebreather was no good to him now. He detached it and let the dust fill his chest.
He thought of Jyn, the child he had raised to warriorhood. He thought of his sister and he knew that he would not see her again, that there would be no life beyond this cruel galaxy, but thought of Steela comforted him still.
Saw had great hope for the future.
In the end, the evidence they needed came in the unlikeliest form: a jittery former Imperial pilot and the Gerrera-raised lost daughter of Galen Erso, accompanied by a rebel intelligence officer. Cere's relief mingled with something like regret; perhaps she had never needed to hurt Trilla like that at all.
Except, of course, that the Alliance seemed no more ready to hear news of the Death Star from Erso's lips than they had been to hear it from Cere. There were calls for disbandment. To forget the fight forever. There were accusations of deception. Fear, denial, self-interest. Cere could not help but feel the Republican Senate had been born again, with all the flaws of the first.
"Send your best troops," Jyn begged. "Send the Rebel Fleet if you have to."
The dissent degenerated into uproar.
"I say we fight!" Admiral Raddus declared.
"I say the rebellion is finished!" countered Nower Jebel.
"I'm sorry, Jyn," Mon Mothma sighed, "but without the full support of the Council, the odds-"
"Mon," Korkie cut in. "This conversation isn't done."
And the sheer disdain in his voice, the absurd disrespect of interrupting the Chief of State, finally silenced the crowd. Mon Mothma looked at the Mandalorian contingent with sharp gaze.
"Isn't it?"
Korkie sighed.
"Forgive my manners. But this is too important a matter to politely let a bad decision lie."
"Your voice carries no more weight than any other on this Council, Councillor Kryze," Mothma warned.
"I never said that it did," Korkie countered mildly. "But their voices carry great weight. Jyn and Bodhi have both made great personal sacrifice to tell you the truth. The Empire is building a planet-killer. Cere Junda has seen this-"
A wave of eyes upon her. Cere stood straight and silent.
"You've heard of this 'Death Star' before?" Mothma asked, with thinly veiled exasperation, looking from Cere to Korkie. "And neglected to tell us?"
"I was in the process of looking for some evidence," Korkie explained. "Knowing how trusting you lot are."
The gathered Councillors and rebels grumbled their acquiescence of the point.
"These rebels have found the evidence we needed," Korkie pressed. "We have confirmed Cere's vision. We know now that there is a flaw that can be exploited. We know where to get the plans. They have given us the ability to win this war."
"It is their word," Jebel grumbled.
"And I tell you they're speaking truthfully," Korkie assured him. "Have I ever been wrong?"
There was silence in the crowded room. Cere suspected that he had not.
"Besides," Jyn grumbled, "there is the small evidence of the Holy City of Jedha being obliterated."
"That was a mining accident," Taldot's Vast Vaspar interjected.
Jyn narrowed her gaze.
"That was reported as a mining accident."
The point might have been argued long into the night had Korkie not turned directly to Jyn and delivered his verdict.
"If there is to be a schism in the Alliance then so be it," he declared. "I will devote all of the soldiers of Mandalore to this mission and we will go ahead without the approval of this Council."
He cracked a wry grin.
"Needless to say, Jyn Erso, my troops are the Alliance's best."
Korkie had done all he could to end the wearisome argument but of course the meeting dragged on. He fielded rhetorical questions and endured soliloquies on exactly why his leadership would bring ruin to Mandalore – as though any of these Councillors had any interest in the good of Mandalore – and accepted with good grace the declarations that he was just as reckless as his dead parents.
But it was not for his own benefit that Korkie willed an end to the clamour. The woman beside him who had spoken so fiercely of her hope for the rebellion was shrinking within herself now, folding weary and grieving into the Force. She had been brilliant, in the past days. And those days had been terribly cruel to her. He rose from his seat at the Councillor's table to his feet.
"This way, Jyn."
The young woman looked at him with caution.
"You were hoping to inspect the Mandalorian fleet, no? I'll take you first to our weapons armoury."
Jyn gave a nod and followed Korkie from the meeting room without enthusiasm. They wound through the restructured temple halls and Korkie felt her exhaustion give way to confusion. They were, obviously, not going to any weapons armoury. Korkie palmed open his bedroom door.
"Captain's privileges. I have my own room. Whereas you would be in a shared dormitory."
He waved a beckoning hand. Jyn stepped bemusedly over the threshold.
"All yours," Korkie announced. "Take as long as you need. Sleep, cry, whatever. I won't be back until well after dinner."
Jyn looked alarmed by the suggestion.
"I-"
"I mean, you don't have to. But I would need a very ugly cry and a terribly long nap after everything you've been through in the past few days."
Jyn nodded faintly and came to sit on the edge of his single bed. It had been long days, Korkie sensed, since she had last slept.
"He told me everything I needed to hear, in that message," she murmured. "Everything I dreamed I'd hear him say."
Her father. Korkie gave a gentle smile, leaned in the doorway.
"What did he tell you?"
"That he never stopped thinking of me. That he never stopped loving me. That he has hope for me and the end of the Empire. That he did it for me."
"Neither you or I will ever forget that."
Jyn shook her head, swiped at spilling tears.
"They took all those years away from us. I lost all those years without him. And then I had hope. This stupid, foolish hope that I would find him again and we could start anew and those lost years would never matter and…"
She sniffled.
"Now he's gone. And nothing is fixed."
Korkie nodded.
"You have taken this rebellion a great step forward to fixing the mess of this galaxy. But you are allowed to grieve, Jyn. You have lost a great deal."
She looked at him with watery gaze.
"You lost your parents too."
Korkie offered her a bruised smile.
"You're in good company here."
The gambling had not been so quick of a ticket out of Tatooine as Luke and Leia had perhaps naively hoped. Their biggest obstacle, of course, was getting off the homestead and into town without attracting their father's worry – Beru gave them a fairly long rein on their market excursions but there was hardly time to win a couple of thousand credits while they were supposed to be buying cooking oil. But when the sand had settled upon Shmi Skywalker's grave and their father had stopped crying while working in the shed at night, a shadow of the once mighty Anakin Skywalker emerged again and he returned to his work freeing the slaves with new determination – bruised even, once, after a fight with one of Jabba's thugs.
"Don't worry," he'd told them. "I won."
And in his quest for freedom for the slaves of Tatooine Anakin Skywalker granted his children glimpses of freedom of their own. They began to hone their craft on small wagers, ironed out their mistakes. They learned of the species they couldn't seem to trick or mind-read. Learned to lose a few hands early and lull their opponents into bigger wagers. Leia was comfortably the better card-player of the two of them – she learned to read not only her opponent's cards but also which of them they would choose to play – but Luke was invaluable by her side, with a deftness at manipulating dice and a particular aptitude for soothing tempers and allaying any brewing ill sentiment before accusations of cheating could be made. They altered the childhood clothes they had outgrown and scavenger visors and resp-masks to avoid recognition either as the Lars twins or as the mysterious successful gamblers from the last week's hustle.
"One thousand credits, Leia!"
Luke spread their winnings out before them on the floor of the bedroom they had so long shared.
"Did you ever think that in our lives we would have one thousand credits?"
"We're not buying a ship for any less than ten thousand," Leia grumbled. "Come on. Enough of this small stuff. We're ready to win big."
Alright, alright, I know you've been waiting to see Luke and Leia actually in action gambling their way off Tatooine and I promise it's coming soon. (I messed up my timing a little bit and was having fun introducing our new cast members and our old friends). Next chapter is all about teenage rebellion.
Hope you enjoyed!
xx - S.