Chapter 45: Reunited
"You carry on to the detention block, I'll go this way."
They were close now, both sensed, to the same area that all the stormtrooper reinforcements seemed to be flooding to.
"Trilla knows we're here," Cere went on. "I'll handle her and give you and the prisoners your best chance."
"Trilla knows we're here?" Korkie repeated. "Aren't you shielding?"
Cere was calm in the face of Korkie's horror.
"No."
They looked at each other in silence, Korkie aghast and Cere with cool determination.
"We'd not have any chance otherwise. I unbalance her. This is why I came."
There was an immovable calm within her and Korkie allowed it to suffuse gently through him. He took a steadying breath, gripped the Darksaber a little tighter.
"Right. I'll see you back at the ship, then."
"Of course."
"Don't do anything completely stupid."
"I won't."
Cere turned to embark back towards the exit. Korkie hesitated a moment, called her back.
"Cere?"
"Korkie?"
She was far from the last surviving Jedi of the Order. But she was the last of an era, the last of her age. The last, Korkie thought, admiring the deep lines in her face and the sinewy strength of her body, of the old warriors. Raised and trained as they should have been, in a galaxy where Light had reigned.
"Thank you for coming," he told her. "And I'm really sorry for all those years when-"
The Jedi Master gave a weary, but genuine, smile.
"Yeah. Me too. We both had more growing to do."
Korkie shared in her gentle laughter.
"Me more than you."
Cere shrugged. She was an oasis in the Force. Perfectly balanced.
"No matter," she told him. "Go well, Korkie Kryze."
Darth Gelid, who Tarkin had begun to fear would never emerge from her obsessive efforts to extract information from the captured Jedi Ahsoka Tano, swept into the control room with billowing cape and in the sort of foul mood that one didn't have to be Force-sensitive to perceive.
"I sense a great disturbance in the Force," she uttered, voice low and lifeless through the modulation of her helmet. "My former Master is aboard this battle station."
It was the most ridiculous suggestion Tarkin had heard since… well, since a troop of rebels invaded Scarif a few days ago, probably. But he ran a far tighter ship than the idiot Krennic.
"Impossible," Tarkin admonished. "You are the last of your strange kind, Darth Gelid."
The Sith shook her head.
"No. Tano survived. And many others. They have been in hiding. Somewhere beyond our grasp. But she is here now."
Tarkin knew the Sith apprentice had been forbidden from executing him but did not push the limits of her obedience by reminding her exactly whose failure that was. The comm panel at Tarkin's desk list up.
"There's been a breach in Detention Block AA-23, Sir."
Perhaps it was not so impossible after all. Tarkin scrambled to mobilise further troops.
"Lock down whatever breach they have. But do not execute Tano," Gelid warned. "She will break after I have destroyed Cere Junda."
Han had known he would die young. Had known he would die somehow stupid, even. But to die aboard an Imperial battle station, drowning in garbage water, with the tentacle of a dianoga around his neck-
The beast released him and he broke through the surface, gasping for air. Chewie pulled him to his feet.
"Thank you, Chewie," he wheezed.
But his co-pilot seemed more bewildered than overjoyed by his survival.
"What happened? Why did it let you go?"
"Didn't you shoot it?"
"I don't think so."
Han surveyed the stinking water and piles of rubbish uneasily. The princess was wielding a metal beam over her shoulder, but the trembling in her arms made it hard to believe that she'd been the one to drive the dianoga away. It had released him so suddenly, as though burned, dived deep beneath the water and perhaps left the chute altogether. Everything was eerily quiet now, without the churning and splashing of the water.
And then, an almighty creak, as the walls began to move inwards.
"Oh, hells…"
What was worse? A tentacle around his neck and lungs full of garbage water? Or squashed to a pancake and shot out to space with the rest of the trash? Han struggled to prop a beam between the closing walls while Chewie threw his bodyweight against them, roaring his frustration. They didn't have a chance. Han looked at the kid princess they were supposed to have rescued and he had only ever been in it for the credits but stars, he felt pretty bad, watching the realisation dawn on her face. She'd swapped an alright sort of execution for a real ugly one.
"Come here, Princess," he muttered. "We'll get you out."
He lifted her to stand on the beam above their heads, tried to pass up another. They could maybe build a ladder of sorts, as the walls came closer and tensioned the rubbish into rungs.
"Help me out, Chewie!"
But the rubbish slipped and jammed at awkward angles, splintered before the princess – who was still shaking all over and looked like she'd probably not slept in a week – could climb any higher. The walls were moving too fast. The hole that Leia had blasted in the floor of the hallway gleamed impossibly distant. The light at the end of the blasted tunnel in the galaxy's worst practical joke.
And then, through it, a blonde head emerged like a kriffing angel.
Ahsoka woke blearily from her self-induced healing trance. There was a familiar warmth in the Force that she could not quite place.
"Get up, Ahsoka! Hurry!"
"We're here to rescue you!"
Rescue? Ahsoka could not even remember where she was. She'd been hurt. She could remember that she'd been hurt. Very badly hurt. Hurt so badly she'd had to put all of herself away, had to hide, had to forget-
The faces swimming before her were familiar and yet strange.
"Anakin?" she rasped.
But the face was unscarred and the Force signature naïve and hopeful.
"Luke," the young man told her. "Luke and Leia. Get up, Ahsoka, hurry."
Ahsoka accepted his hands and staggered to her feet.
Luke and Leia. She'd heard those names before.
She swayed, steadied herself, and blinked a few times.
Not Anakin and Padme. Luke and Leia.
"Oh," she murmured. "Huh."
"Are you okay, Ahsoka?" Leia pleaded. "We have to go."
Ahsoka managed a nod.
"I'm okay," she mumbled. "But you two…"
The memories were so hazy but she knew who they were. She managed some sort of lopsided attempt at a grin.
"…you two are in a lot of trouble."
"What in the stars is all this?"
A posh accent Han had heard somewhere before. There was a zipping sound and a cable shot down, caught and locked somewhere beneath the water.
"Climb! Hurry!"
Their rescuer extended an arm, urged them upwards. Han grasped the cable and began to climb. He felt a strange pull on his limbs, as though an enormous hand was holding his weight, helping him up. He scaled the cable behind the princess, Chewbacca close behind. The man hauled the princess up through the hole – all but tossed her over his shoulder – and then reached for Han. Behind him, Chewie gave a cry of pain but soon joined Han in a heap on the floor of the hallway they had been trapped in. The walls had closed and pulled out a tuft of fur from his ankle. But they were all kriffing alive.
It was the strangest karking day of Han's life. And that was saying something.
He lay on his back, soaked to his skin in stormtrooper's armour and stinking of something rotten, and he laughed like he'd lost his mind. He came to his senses only when his rescuer's face loomed above him, the man's hands shaking his shoulders.
"We've got to keep moving. I took out those troopers but there are always more. Get up!"
He hauled Han to his feet, again with some strange kind of superhuman strength, his other arm supporting the princess as she sobbed with abandon into his shoulder. Han rubbed the stinging garbage water from his eyes. He knew that face. The two men stared at each other in disbelief.
"Han?"
"Ben?"
Ben laughed aloud even as they began their awkward half-jog out of the detention block.
"Korkie Kryze, actually. But yes. Ben. I met you on Corellia. We were scumrats together."
Han couldn't help but grin.
"I told you I'd get off Corellia someday!"
"And I told you the rebellion would be real someday!"
They jogged past scores of felled stormtroopers and Han could not help but remember Rani Talapa's Iron Cage Super-League and how his friend had beat Razor Rex and made the crowd go wild.
"I hope that's not your ship I saw in Docking Bay 327," Korkie mused.
Han frowned, indignant.
"You bet it is."
Korkie looked at Han with reproach.
"You told me your ship was going to be a beauty."
"She is!" Han bristled.
"I've seen better looking ships in scrapyards."
"You haven't seen her fly yet!"
Korkie gave a grin.
"Fine. I'll take it all back and sing her praises if you can fly us out of here alive."
Cere Junda stood before her former Padawan, blade raised.
Years in meditation on Tanalorr had prepared her for this moment. Had taken away the first and the last of her fears: the fear with which every living creature was born. It would all end today. She was ready.
The first clashes of 'sabers. So much slower, so much more cautious, than their brutal battle upon Devaron. Trilla knew that something was different this time.
"I am truly sorry, Padawan," Cere murmured. "For all of it."
Trilla snarled, lunged. But again, another pause. She was listening.
"I will never leave you again," Cere resolved. "I will be at your side, always. Ready to welcome you home."
"You've lost your mind," Trilla snarled.
Cere dodged and weaved but offered no real counter-attack. She had meditated long hours after Devaron and she knew that she did not want to hurt her Padawan again. She would not let Korkie down. She had told him that she was strong enough to protect them and she was. But she had no intention to hurt Trilla any more than she already had. She had failed her many times and the business on Devaron had been the last of it. Had to have been the last of it.
Korkie scarpered across the hangar, slashing with the Darksaber at the traction beam generator as he passed, a bedraggled stormtrooper, a Wookiee and the Princess of Alderaan in tow. A few moments behind them, running full tilt, another makeshift stormtrooper, Ahsoka Tano, and a dark-haired young woman covering them with dead-eye blaster fire.
They were going to make it.
"I have forgiven you, Trilla," Cere appealed. "You must forgive yourself."
The Sith apprentice's rage – at Cere, yes, but more deeply, more potently, a wave of self-disgust – spilled over. She advanced with a clean, simple strike. Cere saw red, and the Force welcomed her into its arms.
"You waited!" Leia panted, with a wide grin, as she skidded into the hold of the Millennium Falcon.
Han's gaze was focused upon the controls as he urged the ship upwards and away.
"Korkie made me," he muttered.
Leia turned and offered a beaming smile at her uncle.
"Much obliged, Ba'vodu."
She turned back to the viewport, resting a hand upon the back of the pilot's chair as she peered at the asteroid field that must have once been Alderaan. She wrinkled her nose, looked down.
"You stink."
Han scowled.
"Yeah, well, that's your fault."
"My fault?"
"I was nearly drowned and eaten in that garbage compactor you pushed me into."
The smuggler was surely bantha-shitting her. She turned to Korkie and got nothing to the contrary.
"Eaten?" she repeated, turning back to Han. "By what?"
"A dianoga."
She pushed a wave of hair from her eyes, breathed out a sigh of relief.
"Right. Cool."
"Cool?" Han repeated. "I nearly died! We all nearly died, thanks to your bright idea."
Leia folded her arms.
"Well I didn't see anyone else coming up with any."
Behind them, Korkie was fiddling with his comms.
"Anakin! Good news, I've got your kids and your Padawan. Please tell me you've got the plans?"
Luke, who had been sitting on the floor of the hold trying to pull off his stormtrooper's boots, jolted to his feet as Leia, too, came to stand by Korkie.
"Yeah. I've got them."
"You've got the rebellion in your hands," Korkie told him. "You'll hold onto them tight?"
"Obviously."
Leia looked at her brother in sheer, grinning disbelief. Their dad. Their scared-of-everything dad with the rebellion in his hands. Whatever that meant, exactly.
"Bring them to Yavin 4, please," Korkie instructed. "Right away. We're going to need them in…"
He looked uneasily behind them. The space station had barely sent out any fighters in pursuit.
"Well, today, pretty much."
"Hi Dad!" Leia called.
"We're okay, Dad!" Luke contributed.
"And we met Ahsoka!"
"You're idiots," Anakin grumbled, in return.
"You used to be like this," Korkie reminded him. "Giving my father migraines. Remember Geonosis?"
But detached from the banter, the Princess Ariarne sat on the floor with her face in her hands. She looked up at them, her cheeks horribly pale.
"Is it going to follow us? Back to the base?"
Korkie sobered, pocketed his comms.
"I fear so."
"B-b-b-but…"
She rubbed at her tear-spent eyes.
"Then you can't go back! Take us somewhere else! They asked me a thousand times where the rebel base was and I didn't tell them and-"
Korkie knelt on the floor beside her.
"We have the plans now to destroy it. You saved us all, Ariarne. You bought us the precious time we needed. And now we can lure it in and destroy it."
"It will destroy us!" Ariarne choked out. "You didn't see what it did to my planet, you weren't there, you-"
Korkie lifted his head.
"Han, we need to come out of hyperspace with Yavin between us and that moon. Place them in orbit and make them wait to reach us. We just need a few more hours."
"Got it."
Korkie turned back to the princess.
"You did everything right, Ariarne. And you've done enough. You rest now and we'll take care of everything else."
Ariarne shook her head. She was crying without tears. Her whole body quaking. Korkie helped her up, supported her with an arm across her shoulders.
"Come on. Ahsoka's got the right idea, having a lie down. Let's find somewhere quiet."
But the main hold was suddenly dead-quiet without them, as Korkie and Ariarne padded down the hall. Luke and Leia shared a flitting, guilty glance. The thrill of their escape dissipated into freezing space. The Princess Ariarne was younger than they were and she had been horribly hurt. Ahsoka Tano, Jedi Knight, had staggered immediately into a bunk of her own. And who had the woman been holding off Darth Gelid? There had been no time to stop for her but Leia had felt Korkie's tearing pain as she had collapsed – disappeared, Leia thought, although perhaps it was all some strange illusion – beneath the blade of the Sith. And the fight wasn't over yet.
"So we're destroying the Death Star, huh?" Leia asked, just to hear something in that horrible silence.
"I'm not destroying the Death Star," Han declared firmly. "Chewie and I are dropping you off, getting paid, then getting out of here and forgetting we ever met you troublemakers."
Chewbacca's reply sounded apologetic, but not entirely contrary. Leia's heart sank.
"And are you going to do something useful with all that money?" she challenged.
"I'm going to pay Jabba with all that money and be debt-free," Han told her, unperturbed by her disgust. "Being useful's not my top priority."
Leia flushed with anger.
"I don't know how you can live in a galaxy like this and-"
"Don't lecture me, princess. It's a waste of breath."
"Can't you tell us apart? I'm not the princess."
"Well that's funny, 'cause you act like one. Righteous and self-important and-"
"Shut up, both of you," Luke snapped. "You're not fooling anyone."
And Luke stormed out to the kitchenette, leaving Leia in her embarrassment to pretend that she hadn't understood his insinuation, trying to remind herself that the Empire had already blown up Alderaan and was in all likelihood coming to blow up Yavin 4, and that she really had better things to think about than a credit-obsessed smuggler who barely even remembered her name.
Korkie sat beside Ariarne in a low bunk, the canvas outline of Ahsoka above him brushing against his hair. Ahsoka was in deep, healing meditation and he hoped that Ariarne might absorb a little peace in her periphery. It would take years and years, a whole lifetime perhaps, for Ariarne to come to true peace with this hurt. To build the scars that would never be neat but would hold her together once more. But she was in no state to begin that journey now.
"Let me help you sleep, Ariarne. You need to sleep now."
She shook her head, jaw tight, lips quavering.
"I can't- I don't want to see-"
"I won't let you see anything," Korkie promised. "Sleep, Ariarne."
She had no strength left to resist the Force suggestion and slumped against his shoulder. He eased her, gently, to lie in the bunk. There was no blanket to tuck about her shoulders. He took off his cloak and hoped the fabric was not too rough. There was the hum of quiet sunlight in the Force, and the door to the bunkroom cracked open.
"Is she okay?"
Korkie gave his nephew a weary smile.
"She will be."
"I thought maybe she needed…"
Luke was silhouetted in the doorway, a cup of tea in hand.
"In a little while, perhaps," Korkie decided. "Thank you, Luke."
The young man faltered, dipped his head, closed the door with a gentle wave in the Force.
Korkie might have dozed himself – how long had it been, exactly, since he'd last slept? – but the journey wasn't long enough. It felt like his eyelids had only just shut when they were jolted from hyperspace again. He stood, left the bunkroom, glanced out the viewports. Yavin 4. In the same post-battle mess that he'd left it. But the ships that were left would soon have to fly again.
"Look! It's Dad!"
Leia nearly deafened Korkie with her shriek as she and Luke tore past him and down the ramp. Korkie couldn't find the same joy. He returned to the bunk room, stirred Ahsoka first.
"Hey, Ahsoka. We're back home. Yavin 4."
She woke blearily, raised herself gingerly to sit.
"I don't…" she muttered, blinked a few times. "I don't remember."
"Yavin 4," Korkie repeated. "The Alliance to Restore the Republic."
She nodded as though faintly surprised.
"I had to forget."
A rush of guilt enveloped Korkie then. If he'd done a little better on Scarif, if they'd had a better idea of what they would do with the plans once they'd got them, perhaps she would have never…
"I'm so sorry, Ahsoka."
She shook her head, managed the faintest smile.
"I remember you," she told him. "Everything about us."
And it shouldn't have mattered but it meant a lot. He reached up and gave her hand a squeeze.
"The rest isn't all that exciting," he reassured her. "We'll fill in the blanks bit by bit."
"Narcissist."
But her smile was so warm.
Korkie knelt, then, by the lower of the two bunks. He would not wake Ariarne. Not from one nightmare into another, as the Alliance went to battle again.
"Sleep, cyar'ad," he murmured, as he lifted her from the bed.
He held her in his arms, her head slumping heavily upon his shoulder. They had travelled weeks together, sixteen years ago, with her tucked against his chest. He had felt her breaths, her heartbeat, every day against his own. From Arkanis to Alderaan. Together. She had been his baby. The closest thing he would ever have, he knew, to a child of his own.
Ahsoka followed them as they made their clumsy way down the ramp.
"Let's go, Ariarne," he murmured. "We'll get you to the medical bay."
She could not hear him but he spoke to her anyway. He has spoken of everything to her, when she had been an infant at his chest. Told her everything that he could never have said to anyone else. Told her what it was like to be an orphan, reassured her that it really wasn't all that bad. Asked her if he was crazy for falling in love with a bartender on Yaga Minor. Asked her whether she thought his parents would be proud of him. Speculated that they would not. Told her that he didn't know what it meant, exactly, when people said that there was always life in the Force. Told her that he struggled to believe it, sometimes.
On the hangar floor, Luke and Leia and Anakin were swarmed by Alliance members; Mothma, already, had the plans in her hand, General Dodonna barking orders over his comms beside her. Ahsoka, still looking dazed, but smiling nonetheless, began to elbow her way towards Anakin. Korkie caught the bronze sheen of Cal's hair in the crowd, as he searched for his own former Master. Korkie caught his eye, gave an apologetic shake of his head. Cal gave a stoic nod in return. He had sensed it.
The hangar was filling by the minute and soon would be a hive of activity again. Korkie would have to find the strength to be a part of it very soon. But for now, he walked with slow, even footfalls as he brought Ariarne to the medical bay. She'd grown sixteen years but he would still support her neck like a newborn in his arms.
Anakin was certain that everyone was looking at him. Whispering. He was a freak. The Hero With No Fear returned from beyond the grave – returned from exile, truly, a cowardly exile – and more machine than man now. No better than the vanquished Grievous. He was conscious of the jagged scar across his eye that made him unmistakable, conscious of his awkward height, conscious of the metallic clank of his every footfall. He was conscious of his two children beside him, who'd already probably done something far more heroic for this rebellion than he had, cutting down a few stormtroopers and collecting a data chip in a mundane treasure hunt, who had barrelled into the hangar with news of the approaching Death Star, and who he could not reproach even though their escapade had nearly killed him.
"We'll review the plans now, General Skywalker," Mon Mothma was telling him, as though he still deserved the title. "Then call a formal briefing. You're most welcome to accompany me now or-"
Anakin caught sight of the peaks of fully-matured montrals through the pressing crowd.
"No thank you," he managed. "Not yet. Take the plans. Whatever you need to do. I-"
Ahsoka felt different, now, in the Force. Wiser, steadier, than he had last known her. But faded too, wounded, with an assault that had reached deeper than her physical self. He could not help it – he reached for their training bond. He found it twisted and tangled but just as real as ever, and felt his shoulders slump with relief.
"Ahsoka! Snips! Over here!"
He reached over and pushed past a rabble of pilots, enveloped her in his arms.
"I'm so glad you're okay. I'm sorry, I-"
He couldn't even really begin to apologise, for truly he owed her an apology for two decades, more, in which he had been gone from her side. But Ahsoka returned his embrace, rested her weary head against his chest.
"I'm really glad to see you," she mumbled.
And Anakin suddenly felt no impostor anymore; he was with her, and thus, he was in the right place. She straightened, looked up at him.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
Anakin frowned.
"You sent me the plans, on Tatooine. I brought them back. Like you and Korkie asked."
She looked faintly surprised, rubbed at her eyes.
"The plans," she repeated, uncertain.
"For the Death Star."
He dipped his head, found her eyes.
"What did they do to you, Ahsoka?"
She shrugged, waved a hand.
"I don't know. Asked me a lot of questions. I had to…"
She rubbed at her presumably aching forehead.
"…had to forget. Korkie says it'll come back."
"Who?" Anakin demanded. "Who did that?"
"Emperor's apprentice. She's very strong. That's why I… I think that's why I needed to… I think she sort of broke…"
"Alright. Let's get you to the med-bay."
"I don't need to go to the med-bay."
"You sound like Obi Wan. Remember how he'd be swaying where he stood and tell us he was fine?"
She snickered.
"Clear as day."
But she obliged, falling into step behind him, as he guided her with a light hand between her shoulders.
"Do you even know where the med-bay is?" she asked.
"I assume it's the same place that Korkie carried the princess."
Korkie was returning now, empty-armed, rubbing at what must have been an aching shoulder.
"Princess too heavy for you?" Anakin called out in greeting as they crossed paths.
Korkie gave a bruised smile.
"No. The Wookiee, when I hauled him out of the garbage compactor."
"I'm not even going to ask what you were all doing in a garbage compactor."
"An Anakin-like escape attempt," Korkie told him. "Your kids are crazy, in case you didn't know."
Anakin sighed.
"Unfortunately, I do know."
"Thanks for bringing Ahsoka across," Korkie told Anakin, before turning his gaze to Ahsoka. "Kix is waiting for you."
"Kix?" Anakin repeated. "The clones are here?"
Korkie smiled, perhaps the most genuine he'd managed today.
"Yeah. A few of them."
Another couple of decades worth of apologies he owed. But Anakin's chest warmed all the same.
"Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing," he reasoned, giving Ahsoka's shoulder a squeeze. "You two dragging me out here at last."
"Kix is going to freak out," Korkie muttered, with snicker. "Three walking disasters, reunited."
"Speak for yourself," Ahsoka retorted. "I've got the cleanest medical record here!"
"And I don't have any limbs left to lose," Anakin pointed out. "From here, I think I'm either dead or I'm fine."
Korkie scowled.
"So you're telling me I'm the problem?"
"It's been a while since you've broken anything," Ahsoka reasoned, giving Korkie's arm a reassuring pat. "There's no need for Kix to freak out."
But the medic, of course, after embraces were exchanged and Ahsoka's concussion test administered and Korkie interrogated fiercely as to whether "You're sure you're completely uninjured?", beheld them with a mix of joy and dread. It was, with the substitution of a father for his son, and the loss of several organic limbs, the trio that had brought him so many victories and yet so many blasted headaches.
"You three had better take care out there," he warned. "Or you'll have me ageing at triple the standard rate and I'll be retired by the end of the week."
Sitting in that briefing room, watching as the inner workings of the Death Star were uncovered before them, Luke felt a little like he had at the gambling table in the Methane Fix cantina, waiting for Leia to place down her cards. Flickers of hope, in that cramped room. But so much tension. A two by two meter target. Hit it and the whole thing would blow. Mathematically, the galaxy was against them. But there was a way.
"It's impossible!" murmured Biggs.
"It's not impossible," Luke countered. "I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home; they're not much bigger than two meters."
Leia rolled her eyes.
"Star's sakes, Luke, you can't go around telling everyone you're an ace military pilot just because you used to shoot womp rats like a sadist. The womp rats don't have any TIE fighters to defend themselves."
"I'm not a sadist," Luke protested. "They're pests! Every last one of our cables would have been chewed through if I hadn't-"
The argument came to an abrupt close as their father eyed them, with a stern push in the Force, from across the room.
"All I'm saying," Luke muttered, beneath his breath. "Is that I can do it."
Is the pace a bit hectic? Yes, sorry. Such is the nature of A New Hope. A seriously busy twenty-four-or-so hours in the galaxy. I'll see what I can do about squeezing Rex in somewhere for you, 17. (What was he doing, exactly, during the Battle of Gavin? Do we know?)
Next chapter... you know where we're going.
xx - S.