A bit of everything and everyone, here. The Battle of Mako-Ta was a Wookieepedia find and not my invention, but I've taken a few liberties with Leia's role.

Enjoy :)

Chapter 57: The Beginning of the End

"What do you-"

"Everyone."

Luke faltered, came to sit cautiously beside his friend. Their legs dangled over the edge of the grounded ship and into the Dagobah mist. Ariarne had seen a lot of strange things, he knew. But she'd never said-

"Everyone?" Luke repeated. "Like, the whole galaxy, or…"

Ariarne dropped her head, rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

"I don't know. I see you and me and Leia and Han and Korkie. I see the whole Alliance, I see fire, I see…"

She gave a heavy sigh.

"I suppose it's about time we had our turn," she admitted, with a groan. "Why is it always Korkie who's in trouble?"

Luke shrugged. Korkie had been in trouble, more or less, for as long as Luke and Leia had been alive. He remembered those precious visits when he'd come to them hiding wounds and tears and praising their circuses and performances with a big smile while Shmi or Anakin or Beru – stars, even Owen, on occasion – hovered and tried to insist the children leave Korkie alone and let him drink some tea and get some rest. Luke had seen him as his sort of superhero cousin, too brilliant to ever be stuck on Tatooine as their family was. He'd not seen then, as he knew now, that Korkie had been hopelessly lost. And it was just so kriffing unfair that he should still be hunted by enemies when he'd finally started to rebuild his home again.

"The galaxy's unfair," Ariarne sighed, in answer to her own question, or perhaps reading him.

"Would it help if we practised defeating Korkie's enemies?" Luke offered.

The hint of a smile quirked at Ariarne's lips. Her hand came to rest upon the elegant handle at her belt. Their lightsabers were inextricably tied to Dagobah, forged from the metal of wrecks that had long been lost in this swamp, cut and warped and polished to a reluctant gleam. Probably not the finest metalwork in the history of the Jedi Order. But it had felt right. The newly forged weapons had not left their hips in the short days since their construction.

"I should meditate," Ariarne muttered. "But I guess maybe…"

She managed a wry smile.

"Moving meditation still counts, right?"

Luke grinned and rose to his feet. They weren't really supposed to be sparring; Master Yoda was taking them still through the sabre drills and katas of young Initiates, the foundations of Shii-Cho, Form I. Luke could not help but think of the years he had wasted on Tatooine, fighting Leia with fencing posts. But the Jedi Padawans of old had never known their families.

"Come on then," she challenged. "Or are you still half-asleep?"

"More like two-thirds-asleep."

Ariarne stood with a humming blue blade held low by her side. Luke propped himself to his feet. He knew that when Ariarne was in a mood like this, she would flatten him. It was probably why Master Yoda had thought her dangerous. Visions resisted but not forgotten.

Luke gave himself to the meeting of their blades, in slow rehearsal of their simplest katas and then faster, more freely. Together, they would become strong enough to change the galaxy. No matter what Master Yoda said about the illusion of power. About stillness and acceptance. Every day, Luke felt more on the verge of a great change.

"Suboptimal," Tiber muttered.

Tiber Saxon, Leonn was learning, did not have much in common with his late brother but he did share Gar's talent for curt understatement. The floor of the hangar – Gar Saxon's gifted Imperial star destroyer being the most secure base they could manage in their exile – was littered with beskar and pieces of organic matter.

They had now used up the last of their Dizonite captives. The weapon, so impressive in its first trial, functioned less effectively from a distance. The residual pieces of charred bone were not particularly problematic. But the gasping, agonal breathing of a sentient reduced to a shrivelled-out husk…

It was suboptimal. A Mando'ad would probably manage something of a fight-back before they perished and in any case, the method of destruction was so ugly that it would probably jeopardise their chances of popular support.

"It will be fixed," Tiber snapped, shutting down his data-pad. "Wren will have ideas."

Leonn knew better than to speak his mind. Sabine Wren might have had ideas but would surely not be inclined to help them. She'd destroyed the plans in her Academy days and her convictions would only have strengthened.

But Tiber seemed to read his silence.

"She will have no choice, Verd, but to comply."

"So it only fries you," Fenn clarified, "if you're wearing beskar?"

Sabine gave a miserable nod. Fenn rubbed at his forehead as he tried to make sense of the news. Korkie, however, looked rather pleased.

"Well, that's fine then, Sab'ika. We can all just quit wearing it."

Bo-Katan rolled her eyes.

"We weren't all raised by Jetii, Korkie. Our armour is our culture. It's our life. And I'd rather die than wear cheap plastoid."

Korkie quirked his brow, a twitch of his lips as though tempted to argue, but cast his eyes down to the mug of tea in his hands upon the desk and held his tongue. That ancient armour had saved him before. Had saved the ones he loved.

"Alright," he conceded. "No matter. We'll destroy the weapon."

"And all of the planning data," Ursa pointed out.

"And all of the planning data," Sabine affirmed, eager to make amends. "I know where to go. Ahsoka traced Saxon to the Moraband system. There was a skirmish when she tried to take the prisoners back and his destroyer took a lot of damage but they didn't have the forces to finish the job. She doesn't think he'll have made it far."

Fenn frowned.

"Why is Saxon sitting in the Outer Rim testing weapons on a crippled star destroyer?" he asked. "That doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't you do your maintenance first?"

Bo-Katan shrugged.

"I never thought Tiber was as smart as he pretended to be."

"I don't know that he's that stupid," Fenn reasoned. "How did this get out, anyway? The news of the weapons testing?"

Blank expressions from the table around him, and no answers.

"Couldn't this all be a trap?" he pressed.

There was pensive silence but no argument. Sabine's jaw was clenched tight with frustration. Bo-Katan slumped back against her chair. But Korkie looked up with a smile.

"I like springing traps."

There were crow's feet crinkling at the corners of his eyes. Fenn wished he didn't notice these sorts of things.

"Not sure you should be the one springing it, Korkie," Bo-Katan mused. "Sabine can lead the mission. She deserves a chance to make this right. My troops and I will be support enough. And there are still rebel forces around Dizon Fray that would lend a hand if we needed it."

Fenn knew the answer before Korkie even opened his mouth.

"Of course it should be me," he countered. "I'm the Mand'alor. I'm supposed to be looking after you all."

"You're supposed to be leading us all," his Ba'vodu corrected him. "Which means surviving, Korkie. And juggling more than just one battle at a time."

Korkie gave an extravagant roll of his eyes.

"Tiber Saxon is not going to kill me."

But Bo-Katan Kryze was not amused.

"You're not invincible. There's no reason to push your luck."

"I think you're underestimating this mission, Ba'vodu. You'll need me."

"I think you're underestimating your troops. We'll be fine."

Those blue eyes broke off their mirrored glare and fell upon Fenn. He realised, dimly, that he was being asked to break the stalemate. Bo-Katan Kryze thought him a voice of reason. Korkie thought him a friend. Fenn feared he was rapidly losing his ability to be either.

And what was the sensible decision, anyway? Korkie was not invincible but he had a way of convincing the galaxy that he was. He had defeated Gar Saxon and it was perhaps right that as the Mand'alor he would directly meet his next challenger in Tiber. He'd been brilliant in battle on Krownest that day. But all the same, he'd nearly fumbled it, hadn't he, one moment from victory? A blaster left in Saxon's hand, Ursa Wren's rifle bolt through Saxon's chest. Fenn thought of their journey across the plains and the piles of drafted legislation in the Mand'alor's office and knew that Korkie was more a pacifist than a warrior, no matter how tough the galaxy had taught him to be. That he wanted to fight Tiber Saxon to protect Sabine, and his Ba'vodu, and that he wouldn't be able to rest if he wasn't there beside them in that battle. And Fenn wasn't sure he had any right to argue he stay.

He gave Bo-Katan an apologetic smile.

"I'll look after him," he offered.

"By the stars, Fenn," Korkie groaned, although not without a trace of a smile. "I really don't need-"

"Didn't the two of you nearly get yourselves killed on a scientific scouting excursion?" Bo-Katan argued. "Another outing, by the way, which is beneath the Mand'alor."

"Didn't you hear?" Korkie asked mildly. "We found good soil."

Bo-Katan threw up her hands, defeated.

"No one listens to any reason in this place."

"So long as we don't let Korkie drive or fly anything," Fenn reasoned, "I think we'll all be fine."

"Friends, dignitaries, allies…"

Mon Mothma stood tall and proud.

"What you have seen today is strength. The fleet is our hidden blade. When it is needed, we will be here for you."

As Leia Skywalker had graduated from runaway desert rat to unsanctioned rebel leader – she invited herself to enough meetings of the Alliance Council to be basically an honorary member of the Alliance High Command, these days, and no one had kicked her out yet – she had gradually transitioned from trusting her gut to trusting the system. The rescue of Ahsoka Tano and the Princess Ariarne from the Death Star, followed by her successes on Cyrkon and Llanic and Cymoon and her rather infamous escape from Darth Gelid on Caluula had bought Leia the grudging respect of her fellow rebels but she had by no means the history, the credibility nor the general charisma to command obedience in the manner that Korkie had done for years now. Leia existed within a chain of command and would be rewarded for her successes. Mon Mothma had not become the Chief of State overnight.

And so, Leia had ignored her trepidation over the development on Mako-Ta. At each level of command, the security checks had come back clean. The comms were well-encrypted and seemingly untapped. Forays into Imperial intelligence showed nothing. The boxes had been ticked in an orderly manner and the new Alliance Fleet had been produced and displayed precisely according to plan.

But Anakin Skywalker had told his daughter to always, always trust her gut – "I can already tell your instincts are much better than mine ever were" – and he had been right, blast it.

"Some sort of computing error on Yavin's Hope. The ship's not jumping, Admiral."

"No hyperspace capability on Defiance."

"This is Independence, Admiral, and we seem to be-"

Stuck. Each and every warship in the new fleet. Hovering over Mako-Ta on what was supposed to be their day of triumph, unable to move on.

"Something coming out of hyperspace, now-"

The confusion had turned quickly to terror when the Imperial forces had arrived. It had transpired very quickly that not only had the Alliance Fleet been robbed of their hyperspace capability, but their onboard fighters suddenly trapped behind doors that would not release.

Confusion. Terror. Then anger, coursing hot through Leia Skywalker's veins.

They had been betrayed. Leia knew this with sudden certainty. There were blaring alarms overhead but everything was strangely quiet in the Force around her. They had been betrayed by someone who had offered friendship and resources and in doing so had become a channel for Imperial intelligence. By someone who did what was easy, not what was right. By someone who had emanated fear, when Leia had spoken to her only moments before Mothma's speech.

She turned to General Cor.

"Where is Queen Trios?"

She knew as she asked that he would not have an answer for her.

"Star's sakes."

"Skywalker, where are you-"

"Call Han and Chewbacca back from Kafrene, will you, General? We'll need all the help we can get on this evacuation."

Evacuation should have been the only priority. Darth Gelid's own Death Squadron was closing in on the sabotaged, immobilised Alliance Fleet and would soon be shooting them like womp rats trapped in a burrow. They had to find a way to get those ships moving again. But as Leia unclipped her blaster from her belt and stalked through the diplomatic hangar on Mako-Ta, she could admit her intentions weren't quite so pure.

"Let me guess. Your ship's the only one that still flies?"

Leia stood with her blaster trained firmly on the Queen Trios of Shu-Torun. She sensed the arrival of the royal guards before she saw them. Met them with blaster bolts as they rounded the corner towards their monarch and her ship. Didn't give them a moment's chance. And fixed her weapon once more upon the traitor.

A steadying, shaking breath. She had come a long and terrible way from that nausea on the Death Star, watching Han drag stormtroopers onboard the Falcon and strip them of their armour. War was a fact of life and she was going to fight it and win it.

"I had no choice."

The Queen was as young as she was. Younger, perhaps. Young like Padme Amidala had been, when she had assumed the throne of Naboo. But her mother would never have been a trembling-lipped coward like this. Tears tracking silver down her face.

"Shu-Torun would be in pieces if the Empire chose it. They told me they would protect my people if I complied. Please. They killed my whole family. They spared me. I was never meant to rule. My older brothers and sisters could have ruled, maybe, but I… I can't do it. I can't do it alone."

Leia did not waver. Satine Kryze had been spared, on the blood-stained marble in the palace of Sundari. Her sister had abandoned her. She had been alone.

"You need to fix this, Trios."

She nudged the Queen with the cold barrel of the blaster.

"Fix it now."

The Queen shook her head.

"I had an engineer do it. Not me. I don't know how-"

In a surge of frustration, Leia struck her with the weight of the blaster and grasped her by the collar, dragged her aboard her ship and to its control panels.

"Fingerprint, please."

The Queen was like a ragdoll in her hands. Leia felt as though she was somehow outside of her body. It couldn't be her, could it, grabbing this weeping wreck by her bony wrist and pressing her finger into place? Letting her collapse in a heap with blood streaming from her nose to cry at her feet?

But there was work to be done. A fleet to be saved. The Death Squadron had been slow to commence their fire – Gelid was being a sadist, most likely, and allowing the rebels the time to realise how monumentally trapped they were – but there was the sound now of heavy fire against futile shields.

"There must be some kriffing way…"

Leia's fingers flitted across the control panels, searching desperately. Computing had never been her thing, blast it. She'd learned a little at Ackbar's side constructing those blueprints but nothing here followed the Alliance's now familiar pattern of organisation.

"Where's your engineer, Trios?"

"He-"

Stars, she was pathetic. Tears and snot and blood running into her mouth. Had Leia really struck her hard enough to make her bleed? She'd not meant to. She'd just meant to hurry her along and-

"He killed himself."

Her narrow shoulders collapsed with sobs.

"He didn't want to see-"

"I don't blame him," Leia muttered.

Looking skywards, Yavin's Hope was in pieces. General Willard had been on board. Thousands of voices crying out in the Force. Leia forced her gaze back onto the screen. She selected an icon and was asked again for a security key. Something important.

A flicker of hope in her chest.

She grabbed the sobbing monarch's hand again.

Fingerprint accepted. Dual authentication required.

"Kriff's sakes."

Tried, against her better judgement, another of the Queen's fingers.

Fingerprint already used. Dual authentication required.

"Where's your engineer?"

The Queen looked at her, aghast.

"I told you, he-"

"But where is he? He still got hands?"

She sounded, Leia was dimly aware, entirely callous. Cruel, even. But what else was she to do? Wasn't this the only way?

"You think we left him lying around?" Trios asked, voice shrill. "He's in the morgue and you're not touching him and-"

Leia was about to enquire as to the location of the morgue when her comm trilled, not with the low bleep of shared radio communications but with a direct call. She pulled it from her wrist and jammed it by her ear so as to continue her wrestle against the computer security.

"Yeah?"

"It's Han. Where in the hells are ya? We've just flown into this shit-show with the distress call and it doesn't look good."

"Main hangar on-planet. Trying to get the ships moving again. Can you do some heroics and buy me some time?"

"I'm flattered. But no kriffing chance. Not much we can do about this whole fleet of sitting ducks against the Death Squadron. We're coming to get you."

Leia's hand slammed against the control panels in another futile bid to access the locked file.

"Han! I need you to get to the medi-centre on planet and find the morgue and-"

"Nope. No time. Whatever you're trying to do, it's too late. The whole fleet will be nothing but space dust by the time you've unlocked them. We're coming to get you now."

"But I-"

"Sit tight, Leia. Please. We'll be there real soon."

And the tenderness in his voice broke something in her then. He cared. She was here turning into some sort of monster and he cared. She sank down upon her heels beside the bloodied, weeping monarch and felt tears hot behind her own eyes.

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

She offered a scrap of cloth from the pocket of her jacket, the sort she kept to stuff blaster wounds with. The Queen accepted her pathetic offer with a shaking hand. Blotted at the blood on her face.

"Will you come with us?" Leia asked. "Or wait for Gelid to collect you?"

The young Queen looked at her in slack-jawed shock. She had expected, Leia realised with a lurch, to be killed. When she realised she was to be spared she took a slow, steadying breath.

"I made my choice, Skywalker. To protect my people."

Maybe she should have killed her. Maybe she was going crazy. Maybe she should have been meditating on kriffing Dagobah. But she'd chosen her path.

Leia gave a curt nod, rose to her feet, and fled for the Falcon.

Han held her and said nothing. He didn't know much but he knew it was too much for words. Every single one of those newly outfitted Mon Calan ships. Nearly every sentient on board. He held her and felt her tears soak through his shirt. It took a hell of a lot to get tears out of his soldier.

"I guess we go back to the ice-ball and start again."

Her voice quavered with forced bravado.

"I guess so," Han agreed.

Chewie called his contribution from the pilot's seat.

"Get some rest first."

"I don't feel like resting," Leia muttered.

She wiped her eyes, pushed her fly-aways from her face.

"We go back to the ice-ball," she repeated, with conviction. "And we start again."

The news came in a flood as the Mandalorian troops emerged into the Outer Rim. Betrayal and sabotage. An ambush. Colossal losses, both sentient and mechanical. Devastation on Mako-Ta. Korkie scrambled for his comms.

"Yeah?"

A wave of relief rushed through him.

"Leia! Thank the kriffing stars. You're okay?"

"Yeah. Fine."

Her voice was flat but firm. Something contained that she would not tell him. But hadn't he been like this once, fending off calls from Cere and Kawlan?

"I heard the news. It's terrible."

"Pretty bad," Leia agreed.

"Han and Chewie are alright?"

"Yeah."

"Luke and Ariarne weren't around?"

"No. On Dagobah."

"And I heard Mon survived?"

"Yeah."

Small, small mercies. For those who had died had families too. Desperate comm calls going unanswered.

"We're out hunting Saxon. Tiber, that is. But Ba'vodu's already sick of me. I could come join you, if you need?"

"It's okay."

"There must be a lot to do on Hoth."

"No more than on Mandalore, probably."

It was, unfortunately, probably true.

"I'd come to Hoth just for you, Leia," Korkie stressed. "For a cup of tea. Meditation. Whatever you need."

Leia gave something that sounded like a reluctant laugh. Stars, Korkie knew that feeling. Those days of the galaxy pulling nothing but cruel jokes.

"Really, Leia. I'll come."

"No," she sighed. "You do what you're doing. You're the Mand'alor. You're not supposed to be so soft."

Korkie sighed. Everyone seemed to tell him that. He thought age was supposed to harden him but he seemed to be going in the wrong direction.

"Don't be too tough, okay? Let Han look after you."

"I'm fine."

"I know you are. I know you're strong."

"Thanks, Ba'vodu."

And Korkie had the sense that this was somehow the best he could do for her. That Leia was on her own path and there was no pulling her from it. He hoped that she would not suffer as he had; he suspected, quietly, that she would. It seemed the only certainty in the galaxy, these days.

"You can change your mind. You can call me anytime. Really. And I'll come."

A reluctant smile, a flicker of warmth through parsecs of space.

"Yeah. Alright. Thanks again, Korkie. I'll call you."

"A great success, my Lord."

Trilla concealed a shrug in the voluminous pleats of her cape. A success, yes. It had been as she had promised the Emperor; allowing the Rebellion to grow in size had made them easier to eliminate. The damage had been immense and the Alliance was no longer fit to fight any war. If it hadn't been for that blasted ship, a ship Trilla had come to know all too well, she too would have been entirely satisfied with their work on Mako-Ta.

It would be difficult, really, Trilla reflected, to summon the magnanimity to hand Han Solo over to Jabba the Hutt when she finally captured him. The pilot had now given her nearly as many headaches as the bastard prince of Mandalore had in his youth. He'd swooped into the path of the Death Squadron's destruction and had been powerless to curtail the damage but he had flown out Leia Skywalker who had escaped capture yet again. And Trilla would have spared rebel ships aplenty to get her hands on the Chosen One's precious daughter.

"Our work is not done, Admiral Ozzel," Trilla advised. "An organisation that can build a battle fleet must have a militarised base. And your probe droids have not yet found it."

"We are sending out thousands more," the Admiral vowed. "Exploring uncharted regions of the galaxy, leaving no astronomical object-"

"I grow weary of waiting."

Ozzel stood straight and still, gaze fixed somewhere beyond Trilla's shoulder, as though behaving like a statue might spare him from punishment. Trilla spared him not because of his efforts, but because she had a long and wearying afternoon ahead of her.

"I hope your troops managed to secure some prisoners, as instructed?"

"Yes, my Lord. Commander Lajaie and twelve other rebels from aboard his cruiser."

An acceptable effort, Trilla supposed. Their Force-blind captives would be easy pickings, if conventional methods of questioning failed.

"Very well. I will make enquiries as to the location of the rebel base. Only once they have been eradicated at their source, Admiral, will this senseless hope of rebellion finally be put to rest."

Ozzel nodded his agreement and scarpered from the room before Trilla could change her mind.

When the survivors of Mako-Ta limped home to Echo Base in battered ships and the young ones spoke of the heaviest defeat in the lifetime of the Rebellion, Ahsoka knew that it would only get worse. She listened as the losses were tallied and those who spoke in the language of money and mathematics deflated at their data-pads. There were murmured questions of how could we possibly- and how long will it take- and where do we even begin? But Ahsoka had a heavy feeling about her in the Force that they were not at the beginning of anything. She had lived through one ending of the galaxy as she had known it and there was the sinking gravity of another ending in sight. She did not know, exactly, in which way all the tenuously stacked pieces would fall.

She watched Leia sweep like a storm across the base in days-old braids, forgoing greetings in favour of curt instructions, somehow years older than when Ahsoka had seen her last. Stars. She'd promised Anakin after Caluula that she'd take better care of his daughter. But there'd been the cry for help from Dizon Fray and Leia was supposed to have been in good company with plenty of supervision on Mako-Ta where no one had planned for combat. Han Solo, at least, following the emerging leader a half-step behind, had done alright in Ahsoka's absence. Another piece of evidence quietly filed away for the occasion of Anakin's inevitable realisation.

"Not a far cry from the old Republic," Rex muttered, sidling from the planning table to find Ahsoka at its fringes. "All numbers. No lives."

Ahsoka said nothing. Was it better to shelve the tragedy of the sentient loss and carry on with the fight? She'd not lived any other way since her distant childhood. But there had to be a better way. Rex had never been made for peacetime and he wore the tragedy of it in his prematurely lined face. In the pigment lost from his hair. In the youth that had been robbed from him by the cloners of Kamino who had manufactured soldiers in the manner of cheap droids.

"I don't think they know any better," she admitted, eventually.

Rex nodded his agreement.

"We could run away to Mandalore together?" she posed. "Early retirement? I hear Korkie needs farmers."

A half-hearted beat of laughter between them. They were in too karking deep.

"The kids need us."

"Yeah. I know."

Mon Mothma was disembarking from her own embattled ship, robbed as she was so rarely of her voice. Years of work and hundreds of allies, gone in a day.

"I don't think we've got all that much longer here," Ahsoka muttered.

Gelid would have been an idiot not to take captives. She'd nearly been too much for Ahsoka, will all of her Temple training. It would not be long until the location of Echo Base came out. She rubbed her arms against the cold; all the jackets in the galaxy never seemed to do much. Rex didn't seem to feel the cold, except in his ageing hands. He flexed and stretched his gloved fingers and nodded in pensive agreement.

"We can't make the mood any worse," he reasoned. "Might as well talk evacuation plans."

They fell into step towards the hive of activity at the base's centre. Ahsoka would have liked to be a farmer, she thought. Even on a land so barren as ruined Mandalore. But there was a fight to be finished first. The ending could not be so very far away.

"Think this war might kill me before the age acceleration does," he mused.

Ahsoka flinched.

"Don't say that."

Rex shrugged.

"Just feels like it's getting to the business end, huh?"

"Mhmm."

She caught his hand for the briefest moment in the swings of their arms.

"You know I'm sticking with you 'til it's done?"

A pulse of warmth in the Force between them.

"I know, Commander."

Ahsoka raised a hand to Mon in mournful greeting. The Chief of State acknowledged both veterans with a grateful incline of her head. Even Leia stilled in her voracious work at the projector.

"The war's going to end soon, Mon," Ahsoka sighed. "Let's get ready."

Oh boy. I've started juggling a lot of plot. I know I've been promising this for a while, but The Empire Strikes Back is very close now. I've never stuck too closely to perfect timelines and decided to tweak things a little.

Next chapter, we've got trouble all over the galaxy. Praying for a good few writing days - my current roster is at the mercy of the on-call sick leave gods.

xx - S.