I'm a touch nervous bringing you this highly-anticipated scene towards the end of the chapter. Fingers crossed it's everything you've been hoping for.

Chapter 41: To War

Ariarne had hoped that amidst all the excitement of the growing rebellion and the influx of new allies, her probably inappropriate presence on the rebel base might have been overlooked. She was the luckiest sentient in the galaxy, she knew, to have been rescued from Imperial captivity and delivered to her loving, wise – not to mention rich and powerful – adoptive parents. She knew that very well; Korkie had reminded her enough times. And she missed her mother and loved her homeland but Ariarne had no desire to return now and play at politics in a powerless Senate while such a battle was on their hands. She didn't think she was a born monarch like her mother, nor diplomat like her father. She had the quiet unvoiced feeling she was instead born to be a Jedi, like her birth parents might have been.

But not even Korkie seemed to be willing to train her – "I really don't have enough training of my own, Ariarne, and even if I did, I don't think your parents would be very pleased with me" – and her Day of Demand had sealed the deal: Ariarne would rule Alderaan some day. Which really didn't leave any time to learn to be a Jedi. Her people were not warriors like Korkie's.

Ariarne had been doing well, inconspicuously existing at her father's side during his latest visit to Yavin 4. She helped out where her talents laid – correcting the mistakes in the accounting, and keeping up their inventory, and washing dishes after mealtimes – figuring that no one could ask her to go home so long as she was being helpful. But the return of Cassian Andor with Jyn and Bodhi and news of the aptly named Death Star – the Empire having continued its flair for dramatics – had thrown everything into disarray. Korkie's forceful splitting of the Alliance Council had not helped matters. They were going to war, truly to war, and her father could no longer pretend she was here for academic purposes.

"We will return home," Bail announced, with a heavy sigh, after a terse hallway conversation with Mon Mothma. "Mon is right. This is the end to any pretence that Alderaan is a compliant subject of the Empire. We must return and tell our people that there will be no peace."

Ariarne blinked.

"So I guess I'm not going to the Youth Senate?"

"To your great disappointment, I imagine."

"I've been so enjoying writing all those essays."

Father and daughter shared the faintest smile. But they could not banish the sobriety of the situation. Alderaan was an enemy of the Empire now and there would be no going back.

"I'd rather stay here," Ariarne professed. "I can't do what Mum can do. Be so calm and dignified and… I don't know. I just feel that I'm more useful here. I want to fight."

Her father's forehead creased with worry.

"You are too young to fight this war, Ariarne," he professed. "In a few years, perhaps…"

"What will the galaxy look like in a few years?"

"I don't know."

"I don't think I'll ever get a chance like this again. To be part of something so important."

Her father shook his head and looked so sad.

"I don't think that's true. I'm afraid this war will be a long one."

Ariarne sighed.

"Korkie will look after me," she tried.

"Korkie will be very busy," Bail countered calmly. "And between you and me, the Prince has enough trouble looking after himself. He takes after his father."

Ariarne frowned at the faint disapproval in her father's voice.

"I thought Obi Wan Kenobi was a great hero of the Republic."

"He was," Bail conceded. "But his heroics tended to involve a great many broken bones and concussions."

Ariarne thought of her sort-of-big-brother's crooked nose and conceded the point.

"I don't want to go home," she pressed. "It doesn't feel right, Dad. Maybe we should bring Mum here and-"

"We cannot abandon our people, Ariarne."

"I know. But I'm scared. I just think it would be better if-"

"Our place is on Alderaan with your mother."

And yet it still didn't feel right. It truly, deeply, didn't. Ariarne couldn't explain exactly how she knew, or why it wasn't right, but the feeling was undeniable.

"Dearest Ahsoka! D'you have a minute?"

Ahsoka looked down from where she lay on her belly, fixing a panel on the Alliance's largest cruiser, at the Korkie-in-miniature standing upon the hangar floor.

"Now?"

"Why else would I be here yelling at you?"

Ahsoka conceded the point and vaulted, the Force cushioning her leap, down to ground level.

"I'm sorry to have forced you to strain your princely vocal cords. What's up?"

They fell into step out of the hangar, where the air was full of metallic clangs and intermittent engine roars, and into the shade-dappled forest.

"I know we made a sort of truce," Korkie ventured. "That we were going to stop harassing Anakin about the rebellion. But-"

Ahsoka's heart sank and Korkie must have sensed it; he paused in his speech, grimaced, and tried again, his words laced with apology.

"We have to try again, don't we? Now? With all this ahead of us?"

Ahsoka sighed.

"I don't know."

"I think we have to," Korkie pressed.

Ahsoka had been determinedly not thinking about this very conundrum for several weeks now. She gave a grim nod, unconvinced.

"I think he might be ready, 'Soka," Korkie went on. "He's been freeing slaves on Tatooine."

Ahsoka tutted.

"It's one thing to cause trouble with the Hutts, Korkie, and another to face the Emperor."

"I'm not asking him to face the Emperor-"

"Aren't you?" Ahsoka challenged.

"He's the best pilot who's ever flown!" Korkie protested. "And if we're going to somehow blow up this monstrosity-"

Ahsoka forced out a laugh.

"Best pilot who's ever flown? Your dad's laughing in the afterlife. Come on, Korkie. We've got Hera. She's plenty good enough."

Korkie ignored the joke.

"I think we need someone really special. Someone with Force-sensitivity."

"Well, I know you're rubbish," Ahsoka grumbled, "but I fly pretty well. Who says I can't do it?"

"We don't just need pretty well, Ahsoka. I know it sounds crazy. But I feel like we need him."

"Right."

They glared at each other in the stalemate of rare disagreement. Korkie cracked first.

"I could be wrong," he conceded. "But if I'm wrong and we do blow that thing up without him then the war will have begun in earnest and we'll need him anyway."

Ahsoka cocked a brow.

"Like I said. You're asking him to face the Emperor."

At this, Korkie finally faltered, sighed, and dropped his hands.

"Yeah. Yeah, alright. I guess I am."

And the thought of it was just too horrible for Ahsoka to bear.

"I don't think that's the answer, Korkie," she appealed. "All these years in hiding, all these years away from combat… And even when he was at his strongest, during his Knighthood-"

"That wasn't him at his strongest," Korkie retorted. "He was a twenty-one-year-old emotionally-wrecked insomniac being groomed by a Sith Lord. I think he's been healing, all these years. I think he can do it."

But what if he couldn't? Ahsoka had failed him once; she'd left the Order and left him on his own, oblivious to his suffering at Palpatine's hands. She'd saved this life that night in the Chancellor's office and stuck prosthetic limbs onto his broken body but she was a long, long way off ever making up for that failure. The kindest thing she'd done for Anakin all these years was leave him the hells alone, to be with his children, away from this war.

"I don't want to be the one who makes him do this," she confessed.

Korkie sighed but did not argue.

"Fine. I'm sorry to have asked. I'll do it. We've really not got any time to waste before we go to Scarif."

Ahsoka looked at him and wanted to agree. To tell him to go and kriff him for ever having asked her to have anything to do with it. But it wasn't right. For they were going to Scarif and they were starting a war and that war would not end with the destruction of the Death Star. That war would not end until the Emperor was destroyed. And somehow, even after they had watched the galaxy crumble, even after she had seen him in pieces, Ahsoka knew that her former Master was the Chosen One.

"He won't listen to you," she pointed out glumly.

Korkie raised a brow and said nothing.

"Fine," Ahsoka sighed. "Fine. I'll do it."

Korkie bit back his smile but could not disguise his crashing relief.

"I'll come with you," he offered.

"No. Your troops need you for Scarif. I'll be fine on my own."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure," Ahsoka resolved. "I'll stick around long enough to make sure your shebs don't need saving on Scarif. Then I'll go. I promise."

Korkie shook his head.

"I'm not going to need saving. And if I do, Ba'vodu will sort me out. You're better off leaving before the battle starts. We don't want you getting tangled up or tracked."

Ahsoka sighed. It was a perfectly rational plan but it just didn't sit right.

"We're not risking bringing the Empire to that family with us," Korkie pressed. "They've hidden all these years."

A groan and a nod.

"You're always right," Ahsoka grumbled. "And I hate you for it."

Korkie slung an arm about her shoulders.

"You don't hate me. You're the love of my life."

And Ahsoka rolled her eyes and grumbled some protest but returned his embrace, squeezing him hard. She wished there was some way to do it all without splitting up. But the war was beginning and it was all happening so kriffing fast.

"You talk such shit."

"I mean it!"

"Yeah, whatever," Ahsoka grumbled. "I love you too."

Ariarne's bad feeling didn't go away, no matter how many jokes she made about Korkie's perpetual bachelorhood nor how uproariously everyone laughed at her attempts at keeping up with Sabine's lessons in Mando'a over dinner. Tomorrow she was to return to Alderaan with her father and she simply did not want to go. It was wrong. Badly wrong. She could barely eat. Her gut seemed to be tangled in some iron knot.

She wandered the hallways after dinner in an effort to delay packing her bags; the thought of doing so made her queasier still. She didn't know what this might mean. Korkie had bad feelings in the Force all the time – he was rather infamous for declaring them – but he at least had the training to know why he had them and what to do next. No one would listen to her and her stupid stomach-ache. In her fine Alderaanian gowns with the royal accent of her mother, everyone seemed to forget she was Force-sensitive at all.

Ariarne found Ahsoka Tano doing ship maintenance in the hangar long after everyone else had knocked off.

"Are you going to Scarif tomorrow, General Tano?"

Ahsoka placed down her tools and gave a strained smile.

"No. I've got the boring job. An ambassadorial mission."

"On my ship?"

Ahsoka chuckled, patted the hull.

"Your father has very kindly loaned me his ship. He thinks a consular ship might attract less attention than something military in design."

"Good. I hope it serves you well."

"I'm sure it will."

"When are you leaving?"

"First light."

"You'd better get to sleep soon, then."

"You're right. Goodnight, Princess."

"Goodnight, General."

The princess continued in her stroll, turning over the matter in her mind. It didn't exactly make any sense, that Ahsoka would be going on an ambassadorial mission on the eve of the mission to Scarif. She was a more powerful Jedi than even Korkie. It must have been important, then. Couldn't be completely boring. But if she was taking a consular ship she must truly be intending to stay out of trouble, at least of the military kind. It was perfect.

Ariarne knew the Tantive IV like the back of her hand. Better than Ahsoka did, surely. She could be of use on an ambassadorial mission. Safer than fighting. Her parents would approve of the compromise, once they got over the shock.

Korkie had refused to train her, mostly, but at her father's request he had taught her to shield. She'd been practising all these years, eager to impress at his next visit.

Ariarne had a feeling she might just get away with it.

Luke did not know how many hours of his nineteen years he had spent with his hands inside a vaporator and in truth he did not want to. But it was strange to stand here, squinting against the glare of the sun, with the thought that this might be the last time.

"I know your dad's doing something worthwhile out there," Owen conceded, his voice a low grumble. "But I sure as hells miss him when these things act up."

"Me too," Luke agreed.

Owen cracked something like a smile.

"Because you've got better things to do?"

"Something like that."

Luke's attention lapsed; he jumped back sharply as his hand touched a fuse.

"Head in the stars, Luke?"

"You know me."

Onwards they worked, the oppressive blue above them and beneath them the radiant heat from the sand.

"I know we never gave you and Leia much of a childhood, all these years."

Luke looked up at his uncle and did not know what to say. As a general rule, Owen didn't speak much about anything that wasn't the farm.

"But the two of you saved our lives, Luke," the weary farmer went on, eyes on his hands still as he tightened bolts. "Without the two of you, we'd never have had the chance to watch anything grow."

He returned Luke's gaze then, with a crooked smile.

"Everything else out here just breaks down, huh? Dries up in the sun."

He replaced his wrench at his belt, shook out the ache in his leathery hands.

"Anyway. All I'm saying is that you and your sister gave us something great all these years, and I'm sorry we've never given you much in return."

Luke shook his head, dumbstruck. How could Owen say he had given him nothing? For Luke remembered those early years, remembered the days when his father was too sad or too angry when Owen would step in with some big of broken machinery and teach Luke some new trick, something with which to busy his hands and mind. He remembered Owen brushing out and braiding Leia's perpetually tangled hair, his rows as neat as Beru's, if not a little more utilitarian in style.

"But Uncle Owen, I want the braid crown!"

"Two braids down your back work just as well, kraytling."

"But Uncle Owen-"

And with a never-truly-exasperated sigh, Owen would procure some scrap of fabric to tie a bow and all demands for braid crowns were satisfied.

"You've given us a lot, Uncle Owen," Luke managed.

How could he possibly say enough? For he was going to leave Uncle Owen – going to leave him today. Going to leave him in this horrible place where nothing grew and everything broke and faded and dried out beneath the suns.

"As much as we could," Owen agreed, and dropped the subject.

Han had been in worse messes before but a fifty-thousand credit bounty on his head wasn't exactly good, besides the matter of however much exactly he owed Jabba. He didn't see why the slug couldn't have it in him to be a touch more lenient in this sort of economy. Everyone got boarded sometimes, didn't they? Fat lot of thanks it was for all the money he'd made him over the years.

And making matters worse of course was that the slug had chosen to stake his Empire on this miserable ball of burning sand. There was money to be made on Tatooine but it was just barely worth the credits. Han couldn't get back out into open space soon enough.

"What do you reckon, Chewie? Feeling lucky?"

There was a healthy crowd around a card table in the back of the Methane Fix cantina, the most depraved of its type – and that was saying something – in Mos Eisley. Han sidled over to take a look through the smoke. He'd watch a few rounds. See if there was room for a trick or two. It wasn't a foolproof tactic and anyone worth their credits in Mos Eisley knew not to trust him. But the gambler holding court, a healthy pile of chips heaped before her, was not someone he'd ever gambled with before.

Her face and hair were covered by a white scarf but the narrow sliver afforded of her dark eyes said that she was young. Too young, surely, to be sitting at a table like this with gamblers who'd been swindling their way in and out of trouble since she was a baby crying for milk. Han appraised the crowd around her. They must have let her build up those chips to raise the stakes, to ensure healthy winnings of their own when her luck ran out and they swiped them away. An equally young man stood behind her, hair and eyes bright like some clumsy incarnation of Tatooine itself, hands resting upon the back of her chair.

"You just here for the show? Or do you have the credits to buy in?"

The woman did not lift her gaze from her cards as she spoke and it took Han a few fumbling moments to realise that she had been speaking to him. In his delay, Chewbacca roared a negative.

"Shame," she tutted, laid down her cards, and won another round.

Han gaped as the chips were pushed around the table and her pile swelled.

"Solo doesn't have the credits," a vaguely familiar-looking Aqualish gambler snickered. "He's in negative credits. Got a nice ship you could wager, though, don't you?"

Han blanched.

"No chance."

He'd take on every last one of Jabba's bounty hunters before he gave up the Falcon.

"Another round?" the young woman pressed, disinterested in the chatter.

Han's eyes bulged.

"Sweetheart, you've got a great-looking pile there in front of you. You think the gentlemen here are going to let you walk away with anything more than that?"

She shrugged lightly, appraised her cards with neutral gaze as the next round was dealt out.

"I don't think they're going to like it. But they won't have any choice."

She studied her cards a little longer.

"Not my round," she decided eventually, conceding a small fraction of her pile and laying down her cards.

They weren't half bad. An overconfident beginner could have been forgiven for thinking they had a winning set in their hands. But the chips went around the table and the cards were laid down and her decision had been sound.

"Another."

The buy-in had been growing; Han watched stragglers drop off and the piles of chips grow higher. She raised, raised again-

"You sure this is a good idea, sweetheart?"

"I don't remember asking your opinion."

"I just wouldn't recommend-"

The Aqualish sitting before him with a near unbeatable hand of cards elbowed Han squarely in the stomach.

"Butt out, Solo."

Raising higher, higher. Not the slightest shake in in her hands. She was an idiot. Surely, she was an idiot. The odds of her having a hand that could beat her opponent must have been something like-

"You're kriffing kidding!"

She collected her final armful of chips and rose to shake the Aqualish's hand across the table.

"That's ten thousand, I believe."

Han felt faint just looking at her.

"We're getting the first ride out of here," Leia grumbled, clinging to Luke's sleeve as they pressed through the crowd.

They'd invested, with their earlier winnings, in a set of pistol blasters – it was no good winning ten thousand if you couldn't keep it. But even with a blaster in his holster Luke did not feel safe and he knew his sister sensed the same. There was no sense of celebration between them despite their enormous feat. They were a long way off victory still.

"The first ride out of here who's not going to rob and murder us," Luke corrected her.

The bar was low but it wasn't that low.

"Whatever," Leia grumbled. "Can you sense anyone? Given I've done all the hard work thus far?"

"I did plenty of hard work in there!"

"I played the cards. Come on. What have you got?"

They'd left the Methane Fix cantina and made for Chalmun's. This was a bigger, brighter cantina with music and chatter. Still dodgy as all hells. But better.

"The Wookiee," Luke suggested. "He feels trustworthy."

"We don't speak carpet," Leia pointed out.

"I think he understands Basic."

Leia gave a dour expression but did not argue any further; she presumably had no better idea.

"Excuse me?" Luke ventured. "Sir? We're looking for a ride off Tatooine and we were hoping you might-"

The Wookiee gave a roar that sounded vaguely affirmative and jerked his head, beckoning the twins to follow him to a low table in the corner. Luke stifled a groan as he recognised the human male watching them with expectant gaze.

"You work together?" he asked the Wookiee.

Another affirmative roar.

"He was a dickhead," Leia grumbled, recognising her heckler.

The man, it was obvious, recognised them too. A slow grin rose upon his face.

"The lucky winners! What can I do for ya?"

Leia simply glared; Luke hurried to fill her silence.

"We need a ride to Alderaan."

They'd needed an intermediate destination so as not to give away the locations of the Alliance headquarters on Yavin 4 and had settled on the mountainous planet as the place they were least likely to find trouble with stormtroopers and the easiest place from which to find free transport to Yavin - Bail Organa was a friend of Korkie's, had been a friend of their mother's, and would surely do them a favour. Besides, Korkie had said it snowed in Aldera this time of year, and Luke would give an arm and a leg to see that. (Leia had feigned disinterest, but Luke knew that she'd go as wild for some snow as he would.)

"I can get you to Alderaan," the pilot mused. "It'll cost you ten thousand."

"Ten thousand?" Luke repeated, outraged. "We could almost buy our own ship with that!"

The pilot grinned.

"But who's going to fly it, kid?"

Luke scowled.

"I'm not such a bad pilot myself. I-"

"You'd break your leg again, Luke," Leia cut in. "We'll do it. Ten thousand."

Luke looked at his sister, aghast.

"He's only asking for ten thousand because he knows we've got it!"

"And we only won the ten thousand because we wanted to get out of here," Leia reminded him, voice low.

She looked up at the pilot, gaze sharp.

"I can only give you two thousand now, of course. The rest comes when you get us there safely. Can't have you losing us like you lost your last cargo."

The pilot feigned offence.

"Aren't you a little young to be so mistrusting?"

Leia smirked.

"Aren't you a little old to be in negative credits with nothing but a ship to your name?"

They pilot sat back with a beat of easy laughter.

"Fine, sweetheart. That's fine. Two thousand now and eight thousand when we get to Alderaan."

He leaned forward, offered a calloused hand.

"Han Solo. And this is Chewbacca. I'll have you know that I might be in a little bit of debt but the Millenium Falcon is the fastest ship on this shitty planet. We'll be docking from bay 94 in an hour."

Leia accepted the proffered hand with a curt shake.

"Deal. Let's get a drink, Luke."

They rose from the table and strode to the bar.

"Ten thousand?" Luke repeated. "You know we're going to have other costs, right? To get from Alderaan to-"

"I'm not stupid, Luke. But we need to get out of here and he can take us."

"You didn't exactly look very hard for any alternatives," Luke sniped. "You played your options much better at the card table."

"I am weary from carrying the success of this mission upon my elegant shoulders," Leia declared, affecting the sort of suffering regal airs of their Ba'vodu Korkie. "Two Sunrisers, please."

Luke was about to protest that it was far too early in the day for any Sunrisers but his head was turned by a thrum of tension in the Force. Han Solo, still lounging in his booth seat, had been approached by a blaster-wielding Rodian. Luke turned his back on the conflict and hoped the enormous Chewbacca would sort matters.

"To our freedom!" Leia toasted, forcing Luke's glass into his hand so that they could clink them together.

She took a sip and nearly choked; over Luke's shoulder, she had spotted the altercation.

"Luke," she murmured, voice low. "I think our ride just shot someone."

Luke whipped around without thought for subtlety.

"Did he?"

The Rodian was slumped across the table where Luke had been sitting only minutes ago.

"Shot someone dead," he breathed.

The twins exchanged a glance.

"I mean," Luke reasoned. "It's kind of lucky he did. Or else he'd be dead and we'd have no ride."

Leia squared her jaw.

"Just because we can't trust him," she agreed eventually. "Doesn't mean we can't fly with him."

"Just as far as Alderaan."

Leia nodded, fortified.

"We'll be rid of him in just a couple of parsecs."

"The fastest ship on this shitty planet?" Leia repeated, in exasperation. "I knew you were broke but I didn't think you were crazy!"

The Millennium Falcon looked plausibly a millennium old, with battered panels that suggested a great many freighting trips – smuggling trips – gone wrong.

"Are you too good to travel in a ship with a couple scratches?" Han bristled. "Who are you, the crown princess of this royal wasteland?"

"My name is Leia," she gritted out. "And I've built better-looking ships than this in my wasteland of a backyard."

"Funny that," Han mused. "Seeing as you're here asking me for a ride."

"Not my fault Luke crashes everything we make."

"Hey! That's not true!"

"How long you been married for?" Han asked. "The two of you fight like it's been fifty years."

Leia spluttered and reddened.

"We're not married," Luke explained. "Leia's my sister."

And Leia wished she hadn't sensed how Han's Force signature brightened, at that. And she really, really wished the smile upon his face didn't give her some crazy thrill of her own.

"Siblings, huh?"

"You're familiar with the concept?" she asked, disdainfully, and swept past him to follow Chewbacca up the ramp.

Leia huffed out a steadying sigh against a flutter in her chest. She had to get off this kriffing planet and meet some men she wasn't related to. What sort of idiot teenager met one karking man – and a scruffy, creditless, blaster-wielding smuggler, no less – and immediately had some sort of cardiac event? There would be flocks of handsome revolutionaries on Yavin 4, she consoled herself, and she would come to her senses.

"If this thing flies as badly as it looks, you're not getting your ten thousand," she told Han, over her shoulder, without really looking at him.

"And if she flies better?" Han challenged.

Luke squared his shoulders.

"Ten thousand's plenty."

Han waved a dismissive hand, gave an easy smile.

"No matter. Chewie and I aren't in it for the money, right?"

The Wookiee gave something reminiscent of a laugh as they settled down before the flight controls. Han gave a crooked grin and it should have been karking illegal to have a smile like that while talking nothing but lies.

"Find yourself a seat, esteemed passengers, and settle in for the ride of your life."

In the years to come, Ariarne Organa would understand what she had known then, the truth that had lurked behind the terrible sense of foreboding that she had been unable to meet with rational thought. The knowledge which she had been unable to name, to put a shape to. She would look back at her untrained adolescent self and wonder how she could have been so stupid, how she had thought that running away on Ahsoka Tano's ambassadorial mission was any sort of solution. She would look back with self-disgust and rage, ask herself why she had not put words to what she knew and taken action. She could have saved her father. Could have saved her mother, too, had she begged her desperately enough.

In longer years to come, she would understand that perhaps she could not have. That her parents loved their people and their planet too much to ever relinquish their leadership, to ever become refugees. That all she'd ever had was a bad feeling and that Alderaan could not have been evacuated based on the ravings of their agitated princess. In long years she would forgive herself and thank the Force that it had led her to that storage compartment on the Tantive IV and gave her another chance to do something with her life, lifting off into the unknown as the rebels prepared for their assault on Scarif.

For now, Ariarne sat in that tiny compartment with her knees tucked to her chest in the minutes before daybreak, breathing in the faintest scent of her home – the sweetness of her mother's starblossom-flower wax that hung in the royal wardrobes, still entwined with this precious fabric – and shed silent tears for a terrible future she did not yet understand.

It is officially all happening. I'm so excited!

I hope I did Han justice. I've been waiting a long time to bring him back in.

Next chapter, the rebels go to get those Death Star plans. They will, of course, meet some resistance.

xx - S.