Once again, your reviews are keeping me going. Sorry about the slow chapter progress - I feel like I've been asleep all week.

But this one's funnnnnnnn! Hope you like it :)

Chapter 53: Tooka and Mouse

The destruction of Weapons Factory Alpha on Cymoon had obviously been the work of rebels and was likely, if Trilla had to guess, the work of a rebel with the Skywalker sort of nerve. She was old enough to remember the wild crusades of the Hero With No Fear – the explosions and crash-landings and headaches from the Jedi Council and in particular from Obi Wan Kenobi, who had begun to rapidly grey during that era of galactic history. And Leia Skywalker had been observed all but feeding stormtroopers to rock-renders on Sullust only a few lunar cycles ago, so it looked like the gene had carried.

A Corellian light-freighter had been sighted on Cymoon and although it didn't match with any current registration in the official databases – which of course only listed about half of the ships flying around the galaxy at any given time – Trilla knew it instantly: it was the ship that had nearly blown her to bits over the Death Star.

Jabba never liked to give away his intelligence but the promotion to Emperor's apprentice had its perks; the title of Darth Gelid opened many doors that had once been closed to a mere Inquisitor. In the end, Trilla did not even need to make a visit to that hellish sand-ball to menace him personally. The Hutt conceded that the ship was well-known within his own database and that he currently had several bounty hunters invested in the pursuit of the Corellian smuggler Han Solo.

"If your intelligence leads me to Leia Skywalker, you will be rewarded with your indebted smuggler," Trilla promised.

"Alive?" the Hutt's reedy translator inquired. "Solo must be delivered alive."

"Solo will be delivered alive," Trilla agreed. "By whichever of your bounty hunters is ready to pick up the crumbs. You understand I have more important business to attend to than to deliver him myself."

An unimpressed harrumph, but no argument, from the Hutt.

"I require the contacts of every bounty hunter who has data on Han Solo," she concluded. "We will find them together."

"We should have taken her back to Hoth," Chewbacca groaned, for perhaps the tenth time.

Han agreed with him. But it didn't mean he wanted to hear it.

"It wasn't my decision, Chewie," Han sighed.

It was a clumsy effort at self-consolation. Sure, Leia was nearly twenty-standard and was allowed to make a stupid decision if she wanted to; Han wasn't suicidal enough to fight against her. But it hadn't been easy to watch her walk away, down the Falcon's ramp and into the seething crowd, and had been harder still to watch her be swallowed up and lost from his sight. They'd been on Caluula an hour and she could have been anywhere. Could have found a ship and left already.

Han should have been doing the same. They'd refuelled and the necessary maintenance was done. Never mind that Han was still sticking his hands in the engine bay like there was something left to do. There was no reason to stay. But he had a bad feeling about this plan of Leia's and it felt wrong to turn his back on her completely. She might have left already, but was probably still on-planet. Finding the right ship wouldn't be easy.

"We're out of spare spark plugs," Han announced, feeling the burn in his thighs as he eased himself up and out of the engine bay. "Be stupid to fly without 'em."

He neglected to mention that he'd used their last spare spark plug to replace its almost perfectly functioning predecessor. But he didn't suspect he was fooling Chewie. The Wookiee knew him well enough, gave an approving nod.

"There's a parts shop on the far side of the port. Let's go."

Alright, so finding a ship out of Caluula hadn't exactly been quite as easy as Leia had told Han it would be. There weren't many in the way of benevolent Force-signatures and the malicious-but-suggestible crowd required a whole lot of effort that Leia wasn't going to put in unless she absolutely needed to. But there was no rush. It was a relief to be out of the Falcon and on solid ground, where she could make her own decisions and didn't need to explain or defend them to anybody – by which she meant Han.

Leia purchased herself some food that was finally not out of a space ration kit – she'd apologise for the superfluous expenditure when she returned to the Alliance, make it up to them with extra austerity – and tried to enjoy it. The rich tang of the noodle soup somehow didn't seem to reach her. Something felt gnawingly wrong. It was a bit pathetic, wasn't it, to feel so uncomfortable travelling alone? She was well-capable of managing this. Stars, she'd been only nine-standard when she'd run off to Mos Eisley by herself and caused all of her caregivers a collective sort of heart attack. Caluula wasn't exactly full of upstanding citizens but it was better than Tatooine. She'd have her route to Mako-Ta easily sorted by nightfall.

And yet her bad feeling did not let up. Her father had taught her to trust these feelings. That a feeling like this was how he'd saved Shmi's life from the Tusken Raiders. But Leia did not have the benefit of any such clear vision. She had no idea at all what she was supposed to do about this faintly queasy sensation. She resolved to find a way off Caluula fast and strode out of the hospitality district and back into the sentient crush of the port proper.

"Excuse me, I'm wondering about transport to-"

Leia's voice strangled and died. She caught a glimpse of a dark cape over the shoulder of the Nautolan merchant - or, more likely, pirate - she was propositioning for a ride. No native of Caluula wore a kriffing cloak like that. Only the Sith had such a flair for dramatics.

"Never mind. Unless you're leaving right away?"

The Nautolan clicked her dissent and waved her off, grumbling about a waste of time. Leia turned sharply to her right and continued through the crowd, keeping the Sith apprentice in her peripheral vision. Darth Gelid. She recognised her clearly now. The crowds were parting for her. Everyone knew of the atrocities on Namzod and the Sorca Retreat. The massacre of the Benathy.

Had she truly come for her? Leia would not have thought herself important enough for the Sith's attention except that she could feel her reaching out for her in the Force. Star's sakes. Leia slowed her breath and fell back upon the first lessons that her father had ever taught her. Shielding, silent, invisible. She didn't have to go to Dagobah and play Jedi. She knew enough.

But although Leia could shield, the rest of the crowd had neither the skill nor the inclination. How many sentients had Leia spoken to since leaving the Falcon? How many more had glimpsed her face? So many. Too many. They would be pointing the Sith apprentice in her direction. Leia groaned her frustration and felt her shields falter. How was she supposed to find a ride now? She wasn't going to win this stupid Force-sensitive version of tooka and mouse. And if she got herself killed on the day she left him, Han would think her such a kriffing idiot.

It was the thought of Han that startled Leia back to her senses. Her ability to shield wasn't all she had on her side. She'd learned with Hera and Sabine on Lothal and later from her allies in the Rebellion – grudgingly, she'd learned from Han – and become a rebel with useful skills in the months since the destruction of the Death Star. She couldn't duel like the Jedi of old. But she could blow a weapons factory into a firework display.

Leia tightened the heavy rucksack about her shoulders and made for the wharfs. There would be exclusively droid-occupied loading docks somewhere. She wasn't going to be the mouse. She would be like the assassin-spiders on Taris, and spin herself a fine web, an inhospitable greeting that Darth Gelid would never anticipate.

"Kriff's sakes, Chewie. Look who it is."

Han felt his vague anxiety over Leia's departure turn to real, cold, fear. Karking hell. There was no mistaking Boba Fett's ship, parked out of obvious sight on the outskirts of the port.

"Let's go, then."

"You don't need to tell me twice."

They turned, spark plugs forgotten, Han's jaw clenched tight. Leia Skywalker had turned him into the biggest idiot in the karking galaxy, loitering on Caluula for no kriffing reason, a ready target for Jabba's bounty hunters.

"Never should have kriffing stopped," he grumbled, beneath his breath. "Should have been off as soon as we touched down."

But talking wasn't going to get him out of there. Han strode faster, a hand on the blaster at his belt. They'd spotted the ship but not the bounty hunter. Fett could be anywhere. Would be close. He was the best of Jabba's bounty hunters by a kriffing parsec.

"Nearly there, Chewie."

Han grunted with the impact of a pedestrian hurrying in the opposite direction; the contact turned him to look over his shoulder. The bustling crowd, the steel ocean that was too much like Corellia. The storage units on the water and the floating loading bays tethered to the docks. He turned back towards the Falcon. Made it a few steps further. And then the deafening crash of an explosion.

They stumbled and coughed but did not lose their footing. Han turned, bewildered, to find himself unharmed. Fett had a flair for detonators, he knew. But this was far beyond that scale. The explosion had occurred a few hundred metres distant from them, blowing a holding bay into a ragged silhouette illuminated against the grey sky with orange flame.

Just as they'd blown Weapons Factory Alpha on Cymoon. Han would recognise Leia's pyrotechnics anywhere. He felt his heart catch and seize in his chest.

"Kriffing hell!"

He turned to his companion, breathing hard. Said something no wanted smuggler and chaser of freedom in his right mind would ever say.

"Chewie, you get the ship. I'll go get her."

Trilla felt the cold floor against her face and debris on her back. Heard the ringing in her ears and for a brief, terrifying moment, saw nothing. She blinked, breathed, cursed. Threw the concrete and durasteel from her body with a cry of pain and a deep pull in the Force. Felt her shaken brain slowly begin to fire again. Saw the rubble around her as the understanding sank in.

That little bitch. Definitely Leia Skywalker, then. The kid rebel knew what she was doing. The beacon of her presence, hidden in the holding bay, had been a deliberate broadcast. She had ambushed the Emperor's apprentice and ambushed her well. The blast, surely, would have killed any lesser wielder of the Force.

But Trilla had countered the force of the explosion with her own fire in the Force. Trilla had survived. And she'd teach Skywalker a lesson now.

She rose, stumbling, to her feet. Listened for footsteps but her ears were still ringing. Reached out in the Force. Slippery little-

There.

Trilla turned towards the sharp spike of fear. The rebel had seen her upright, seen that she'd not killed her. She'd lapsed just a moment, and that was all that it took. Trilla's visor was shattered but she could make out the flash of blue on Skywalker's back. She would have her.

She cast a piece of debris at her fleeing victim but found herself moving as though drunk in the Force; the chunk of concrete missed the rebel, became a mere hurdle in her rapid strides. Trilla followed, barely able to run herself. How was Skywalker so kriffing fast? What had she been doing on Tatooine all these years? Trilla was certain no one would be stupid enough to run in that desert.

Another hurl of debris and another. Trilla's aim was slowly coming back into range. The obstacles became enough to slow Skywalker in her strides and the fourth piece, finally, struck her. She cried out as the durasteel knocked the breath from between her shoulder blades, stumbled and met the ground with her hands. Trilla found her 'saber at her belt and ignited it. She had the feeling of being in a nightmare, of running in slow motion, still. But she was drawing closer. The rebel had scrambled to her feet but did not find her pace again. The blaster bolts that she fired over her shoulder were futile and misplaced.

"A noble effort, Skywalker. We will tell the Emperor of your talent, when I bring you to him."

Trilla reached but could not quite tug the rebel towards her in the Force; there was a desperate shove from Skywalker in return. Powerfully Force-sensitive, then, although largely untrained. Anakin Skywalker was a fool, to have allowed his daughter out into the galaxy in this state. Trilla lunged with her blade, missed the rebel by a mere finger's breadth-

And then there was blaster fire again, of a different timbre, from a different direction. Trilla yelped with the sting of a glancing blow but that was the least of her troubles. The blaster fire had been deflected upwards, and what was left of the ceiling crashed down upon her and rattled Trilla's skull all over again. She could make out only the faintest glimpse of another rebel joining Skywalker, grabbing her arm. Trilla staggered backwards and sank with a low groan and then a wounded howl, head in her hands.

Sidious wanted Anakin Skywalker. But his daughter was a prize in herself.

"What a kriffing disaster!" Han cursed, voice ragged as they ran out of the holding bay and into the chaos of the port. "What a stupid karking mess you got yourself into-"

"Got myself into?" Leia repeated. "It's all your fault that I had to-"

"That you chose to-"

"You think I had a choice? I'm sorry if I couldn't stand to listen to another word of your-"

The ground was blown beneath their feet and they sprawled, wild-eyed, against the concrete. All around them, civilians screamed and scattered. Leia pushed herself to her feet, looked around for the offending ship. Darth Gelid had presumably brought back-up, but the strange ship wasn't anything Leia recognised from the Imperial fleet.

"That's Boba Fett," Han told her, tugging her by the wrist further into the crowd. "One of Jabba's. I'm just as popular as you are."

Leia scoffed.

"Are you really? Well, you let me know the next time the Emperor's own apprentice takes a personal interest in your shabby-"

Another peal of cannon fire from the low-swooping ship. Han, stumbling, was barking into his comms. The pilot of the ship, frustrated with the heavy-handed approach, was landing and soon emerged in tarnished green armour in the silhouette Leia knew from her Ba'vodu. He unleashed a whipcord that snagged on Han's elbow, cut hurriedly by the spare vibroblade on Leia's belt – a gift from Sabine.

"Where the hell are ya, Chewie?"

And Han might have been a thorn in her battered side but Chewie was their guardian angel. The Falcon screamed through the air at far lower altitude than any ship should ever be flown, leaving the crowd flinging themselves down just as a wave of grass dipped beneath a violent wind. They leapt and caught the outstretched ramp beneath their feet, collapsed against it with the force of their velocity. Leia cried out with pain as her shoulder bore the impact of her jump. Han had made a more elegant leap – he probably did this shit not infrequently – and grasped the ship overhead for stability, reaching out with his free hand to challenge Fett with blaster fire of his own, as the bounty hunter ignited his jetpack.

"Get up, Leia!"

Leia scrambled against the slope of the ramp and her fingers finally caught a solid grasp on the floor of the ship above her. She hauled herself upwards, yelping as a blaster bolt found her calf. Nearly there. Close enough to hear Chewie roaring his encouragement.

"Oh, kriff-kriff-kriff-kriff-kriff-kriff-"

She could only take Han's tirade to mean he'd also been hit. But he was still moving behind her, almost stepping on her, and in a jumble of limbs and a blur of wind and blaster fire, the ramp was closed behind them and they were inside.

Leia lay on her back, limbs sprawled, and looked at the ceiling of the ship she'd tried to escape. She'd never been so glad to see the inside of that piece of junk.

"Well. We didn't exactly do that in style, did we, Han?"

Han collapsed next to her, first on his knees and then joining her on his back. They were still flying. They weren't dead. Chewie was saying something but Leia couldn't make out a word. It sounded like they were going to be okay, and that was all that mattered.

"Speak for yourself," Han told her. "The Falcon's all style."

He was looking at her, so close to her, cheeks flushed and eyes bright. Leia wanted to grab him, to hold him. Her voice caught in her throat. She could hardly breathe.

"And her owner has none."

Han opened his mouth to argue the point but was drowned out by another roar from Chewie. These words, Leia knew. The Wookiee employed them often when they were too busy arguing with each other to pull their own weight.

"Is anyone going to give me a kriffing hand?"

They dared not make directly for Hoth and took every random jump their hyperdrive could manage until they floated adrift, deep in Wild Space, and caught their collective breath. Han caught his breath, at least. Leia was somehow managing to be very cavalier about the whole business of being personally headhunted by the Emperor's apprentice.

"Attempted assassination is the highest form of flattery," she told him, with a tight smile, scrubbing at her ash-spattered face in the kitchenette sink.

Han frowned.

"I don't think that's how the saying goes."

Leia shrugged, hobbled to sit, patting dry her face with the sleeve of her undershirt.

"You can barely walk," Han pointed out.

"Just glad Boba missed something more vital."

She took a seat and rolled up the leg of her trouser to reveal a coagulated, but nasty-looking wound in her calf. A tense exhalation escaped her lips.

"Ouch," she admitted.

Ouch was right. Han thought he could see the deep red fibres of exposed muscle. He turned to fetch the medi-kit in a pathetic effort not to look at it any longer. He knelt before her, fumbled with the clasp.

"Let me-"

Leia looked at him with reproach, took the kit from his hands.

"I got it, Han."

"You're unbelievable," he muttered, sitting back on his heels.

And she was. In every sense of the word. She tended her wound with only the faintest crease between her eyebrows, looking down upon it like a misbehaving child, a minor inconvenience. Burnt skin sloughed off as she applied the cleansing wipes.

"Where were you hit?" she asked, without looking up at him.

Han blinked in bewilderment.

"I wasn't."

Leia snickered.

"Oh. Figured you were. The way you were carrying on out there. 'Kriff-kriff-kriff-kriff-'"

Han rolled his eyes, pressed a pad of gauze to a stray trickle of red-yellow fluid tracking down to her ankle.

"I was carrying on because of that."

"On my behalf?"

Leia sounded vaguely surprised. Perhaps flattered. But the flush in her cheeks was probably just because she'd been scrubbing her face.

"I'm honoured, Han. That you stuck around, and all that."

There was no denying it now, the rare earnestness in her voice. He looked up into her dark eyes and dropped his gaze quickly; he felt too much, looking at her.

"Look," Han reasoned, "maybe were right, the other night."

She raised a brow but said nothing.

"We're a good team, I guess. And seeing as you'd be dead already if I'd not come to help you-"

He'd shied away from it, spoiled it; they fell easily back into their old animosity.

"Who said I'd be dead?" Leia scoffed. "Gelid wasn't going to catch me. Didn't you see I'd nearly killed her?"

"You were within arm's reach of her when I showed up," Han countered. "Now listen, please, Leia, for once in your life…"

Perhaps it was because he'd called her by her name. Perhaps it was because he'd pleaded with her. But she looked at him, silent, expectant. And Han knew it was finally time to say what he'd spent long weeks fighting.

"I'm sticking around," he resolved. "With you and the Rebellion. Long-term. Don't you dare gloat."

Leia did not gloat. There was something new, unsaid, in this strange silence. Han fumbled for a new pad of gauze. He was going crazy. She'd done it. She'd finally driven him crazy. And now he'd said something stupid and confessed what he shouldn't have and no one would ever let him forget-

"Hey Han?"

"Yeah?"

He lifted chin to look at her but never got his answer. Her lips met his and he was dizzy as a child in love.

"You're alright, Han," she told him, as she pulled away. "You know that?"

He didn't know that. Didn't believe that. She'd been right about- well, not everything, but certainly she'd been right in knowing that this had not been the life he'd dreamed of, when he'd left Corellia all those years ago. He hadn't really grown into the alright sort of man. But for her, he'd try to be.

The news of the incident on Caluula filtered to reborn Mandalore a few weeks after the fact via an irate Anakin Skywalker. He informed Korkie over comms that not only was his daughter ambushing Sith apprentices with explosives but also deliberately keeping secrets from her allegedly over-protective father; Anakin had only heard the news after Ahsoka had wheedled out of the young rebel the reason for her limp, Kix having refused to compromise on doctor-patient confidentiality. Worse still, reported Anakin, she seemed to have plans to venture out again, instead of lying low on Hoth like any sensible rebel with a target on her back should do. She had, apparently, commandeered the Millennium Falcon as her own personal charter and was presently instrumental in the establishment of the new rebel space docks on Mako-Ta. In a small mercy, Korkie deduced that Anakin at least had not been informed that his daughter's fondness was not towards the ship but its pilot, and that things must have been going rather well between them, if Han was volunteering his beloved ship.

"She needs to slow down," Anakin insisted. "I don't think she understands how valuable she'd be to the Emperor. Luke and I would do anything for her. Ahsoka would do anything for her. You'd do anything for her."

Korkie, sitting back at the desk that still felt more like Saxon's than his own, conceded the point.

"Trilla didn't go after her by coincidence," he agreed.

"Trilla?"

"Darth Gelid."

"Oh. Kriff. Suduri? From the Temple?"

"Yeah."

Korkie turned the comm absently between his fingers.

"But on the bright side, Anakin, Ahsoka's looking out for her. Won't let her do anything quite so unprotected as Caluula again, I'm sure."

"You forget Leia doesn't like being looked out for."

"And you forget she's pretty handy at defending herself. It's no small feat to escape how she did."

But the quiet truth was that Korkie was as worried for Leia as Anakin was. She was a talented young soldier but she was Emperor's most ready access to the Skywalker family nonetheless. Palpatine had, presumably, realised that Anakin was still alive. There was no way to know whether the Sith Lord still thought of him as a worthy apprentice. But his current one certainly wasn't living up to his expectations.

"Look, Anakin, I agree we've got to do everything we can to protect her. Things are starting to steady, here. I'll be able to start making visits to the Alliance again soon and start doing my job again-"

Korkie paused abruptly as his office door was pushed open, without knocking, which meant that either Bo-Katan or Fenn had come to visit him. As it happened, both had arrived.

"Sorry, Anakin. I'll have to call you back sometime. Thanks for the update."

He silenced his comm, looked up at his visitors.

"What is it? Is everything alright?"

His default assumption, of course, any time that anything happened, was of something terrible. The Empire's fleet in the sky. The return of Tiber Saxon. His own people rising up against him, another failure of Mandalorian leadership. In reality, the first weeks of his return to Mandalore had been almost mundane. The survivors had been essentially self-governing in the absence of any real policy from Gar Saxon, who had been present to enforce the planet's allegiance to the Empire without neither competence nor interest in governing domestic matters himself. And the population, still, was small. Korkie felt oftentimes more like a town mayor than the ruler of a planetary system. He did not govern the scorched desert of Sundari, nor the blood-drenched soil upon Kalevala. But he would, one day. He had to remind himself of that. That Mandalore would grow every day, and the scope of his leadership with it.

"Fine on my end," Bo-Katan reassured him. "Wanted to show you the updated plan for the planetary shield."

"I was just going to ask if you wanted to take a sparring break," Fenn admitted.

And then, they spoke almost in unison.

"But what was that about the-"

"What were you saying about the-"

"I'm still a leader within the Alliance," Korkie finished, aware of but unable to curb the defensiveness in his voice. "I'll re-engage with them soon. The fight against the Empire goes on."

Bo-Katan's disapproval was swift but not surprising.

"You'll have to relinquish your Council seat," she declared. "I assumed you'd told Mothma already. Your role in this fight is in fortifying Mandalore."

Korkie blinked.

"After everything I did to get that seat? To advocate for our rights within that alliance?"

Bo-Katan sighed.

"I was grateful for that, Korkie. But it was a different time. A different era. When we were still homeless."

Korkie rubbed at his forehead, disconcerted.

"I'll happily give up the Council seat to another Mando'ad," he reasoned. "But only to someone who's truly invested in this fight. Which rules you out, Ba'vodu."

Bo-Katan lifted her hands.

"I didn't ask for it."

"In any case, I'm still going to be involved," Korkie muttered. "We cannot defend our planetary system against the Emperor indefinitely. I'm sure the plans for the shield are great, Ba'vodu. But there is nothing we can build that could protect us from the Emperor if he puts his mind to destroying us."

"Then maybe," Fenn forayed tentatively, "we shouldn't encourage him to destroy us."

Korkie shook his head.

"He will, sooner or later. The only reason he hasn't yet, I suspect, is because Ahsoka and Leia and the rest of them are all very kindly giving him headaches elsewhere. It's time I returned the favour, really."

"The Mand'alor does not lend out favours," Bo-Katan advised.

Korkie felt his patience run thin and snap. He collected the Darksaber from his belt, set it down up the table.

"Would either of you like it, then?"

"If I didn't know you'd beat me," Bo-Katan grumbled, "I'd have half a mind to duel you right now."

Korkie rose from his desk, came to stand before them.

"What about you, Fenn? You wanted to spar?"

Fenn rolled his eyes.

"Spar. Not duel."

"Someone should go fetch Sewlen from the hospital," Korkie suggested. "She'd be a great leader. Perhaps she'll agree to disarm me."

"That's not how it works," Fenn sighed, as though Korkie perhaps didn't know that.

Bo-Katan had none of the soldier's patience.

"You are being ridiculous, Korkie," she snapped.

"This whole argument is ridiculous," Korkie advised, replacing the Darksaber at his belt. "My mother-"

Something dangerous flashed in Bo-Katan's eyes.

"Your mother," she countered, "my sister, would never have wanted-"

"My mother was going to give me a choice!"

He had raised his voice, felt his chest heave. Forced himself to breathe and find reason again.

"When I won the Darksaber," he recounted, voice low, "my mother was going to give me a choice about what that meant in modern Mandalore. And I know there's no time for constitutional law in the age of the Empire, Ba'vodu. I understand that. So, I'm telling you that I am going to lead, my way, until the Emperor is dead, and then we can unpack it all and argue the point properly and find a good solution. Happy?"

"No."

"That's fine. The Mand'alor does not go about making people happy, I presume, just as he does not lend out favours."

His Ba'vodu was watching him with mingled fury and respect.

"Trust me," he appealed. "Both of you. Please. I'm not abandoning Mandalore. I'm doing what's best for us."

He stepped forward to leave the office, both armoured figures parting to allow him through.

"I'll take you up on the sparring break, Fenn," he added, over his shoulder. "Hand-to-hand, promise. No Darksaber. Then I'll go over those plans, Ba'vodu."

Fenn brightened and followed him from the office. Bo-Katan, who'd been standing with her arms folded and seemingly with plenty of appetite left for argument, eventually turned and followed behind them. Korkie paused as Fenn turned for the stairs down to the dojo, waited for her to draw near. He spoke to her gentle and quiet.

"I don't want to disappoint her either, Ba'vodu," he confessed. "I think about it every day."

Bo-Katan looked at him in a long beat of silence.

"Hard to know what she'd have done," she admitted, eventually.

"I don't think she'd have abandoned the rest of the galaxy," Korkie reasoned. "The rest of her family."

For Satine would have loved any child of Anakin and Padme, but she would have adored Leia. Bo-Katan dropped her chin.

"Probably not," she agreed.

She gave Korkie a squeeze upon his shoulder.

"Don't you threaten to give that up again, you hear me? It means a lot."

"I know, Ba'vodu."

She gave a tight smile and they parted ways. The Darksaber hang heavy from his hip. It meant a lot, certainly. But Korkie still could not say, after all these years, exactly what it meant to him.

Yayyyyy Han and Leia. Apologies (sort of) to Trilla for being such a punching bag this chapter. General Leia is just too good.

Next chapter, we'll hurtle through a bit more early rebellion before we soon find ourselves in ESB territory (!). Can't believe how far we've come. Any requests for little scenes next chapter? Korkie will, of course, give Leia some romantic advice.

xx - S.