How much time for conversation do we have before we embark for the Death Star? Forgive me for squeezing a lot in. I had requests to fulfil.

Chapter 46: With You, Always

"Here's your pay. You saved our lives and we appreciate it."

Han counted out the credits, looking a little guilty. They had split the credits, the last time they had stood together like this. Fifty-fifty.

"I don't have any use for credits anymore," Korkie reassured him. "I'm where I wanted to be."

Han shook his head in wry disbelief. He had seen Korkie's nose broken and been the one to fly Korkie to safety after the blaster bolt struck his shoulder. But the rest of his scars were new.

"It's a hell of a life you've chosen."

"It will be a good life, I think."

Han eyed the preparations in the hangar around them.

"Don't know how it can be a good life if you die on this suicide mission," he muttered.

Luke, beside them, stopped pretending that he wasn't eavesdropping.

"You said the last one was a suicide mission," he pointed out. "And here we are!"

Han grimaced.

"The galaxy doesn't owe you any more luck, kid."

"Luck doesn't exist," Luke told him. "Come on, Han, stick around! We could use a pilot like you."

"No thanks, Luke. Sorry, Korkie."

Korkie shrugged.

"You don't owe us anything."

Han was not quite able to meet his eyes.

"Thanks."

The smuggler stacked the last of his supply crates and beckoned a reluctant Chewbacca.

"Take care of yourself, Han!" Luke hollered at his retreating back. "Seeing as that's what you're good at!"

Han waved off the insult.

"May the Force be with you," he bade them, with wry sincerity.

They stood in silence and watched the two figures disappear into their ship. Korkie could admit, quietly, that it had flown brilliantly well.

"Aren't you mad?" Luke pressed. "At all? He doesn't care if we all die today, he just wants his credits paid and-"

"Of course he cares," Korkie countered. "He just finds it hard to have faith in this sort of thing."

He turned away from the departing crew and joined Luke at work on his fighter. Its former pilot was in the med-bay, being treated for burns, and would not fly again for a very long time.

"It's hard to be an optimist when you grow up like he has," Korkie went on. "Some kids have it far worse than Tatooine and a loving family, you know."

"Tatooine and a crazy family," Luke corrected, half-heartedly.

"Not crazy."

"Dad is crazy sometimes."

"Everyone's crazy sometimes."

Luke sighed.

"Why d'you have to be so damned reasonable all the time, Ba'vodu?"

"Don't worry," Korkie reassured him, ruffling his hair. "I used to be a brat just like you."

Luke ducked Korkie's hand and got back to work.

"Well," he reasoned, stoically, "if Han never comes back, at least I don't have to listen to him and Leia flirting anymore."

Korkie sputtered and nearly choked on his own tongue. He'd been more than a little preoccupied by weeping Ariarne and wounded Ahsoka and hadn't for a moment noticed-

"Flirting?" he repeated.

Luke nodded sombrely. Korkie shook his head in faint disbelief. It was just like Leia, he supposed, to have such good and yet simultaneously such terrible taste in men.

"You shouldn't have told me that," Korkie admonished him. "I'm supposed to be focusing."

The Death Star was orbiting slowly but surely towards them. They had to get these battered fighters off the ground again and work some sort of miracle. He and Leia could have a good long chat after all of this was over.

"I feel obliged to tell you that your son has found himself a fighter."

"Yeah, thanks. I've seen. I-"

Anakin had glanced up only briefly from his work on his own wounded fighter and then gave a sudden double take. His spanner clattered to the floor. That wasn't Kix. That was-

"Rex!"

He leapt to his feet and embraced the captain with a clattering of metallic limbs.

"Star's sakes, no one told me you were alive!"

He was grey-bearded now, the scar of his chip removal faded, and dressed in mismatched civvies and bits of armour. But he was still Rex. The closest thing, Korkie aside, that Anakin had ever had to a brother.

"Ahsoka and some rebels tracked me down on Seelos years ago," he recounted. "Been working here ever since. But it's been a pretty hectic cycle. Can't blame anyone for forgetting to mention me."

Anakin raked a hand through his hair.

"It's been the craziest cycle of my life," he agreed. "Since I lost all these, I suppose."

He gestured loosely at his prosthetic limbs. Rex's countenance darkened, his jaw tight.

"The Emperor?"

"Yeah," Anakin recounted curtly. "Should have died. Should have been me, not Obi Wan. But Ahsoka saved my life. Put me back together."

He'd never really spoken of what had happened that night. Had a hard enough time even thinking about it. Rex, perhaps understanding this, didn't ask any more.

"There are a lot of lives owed to Ahsoka Tano in this hangar."

Anakin smiled.

"I can believe it."

"She's okay in the medi-bay?"

"Yeah. Getting some well-deserved rest."

At this, a wave of relief rushed through Rex's Force-presence.

"If we didn't have a planet-killer on the way I'd take you to see everyone. Cody's here somewhere. Arguing with Korkie about basic health and safety protocol, probably."

Anakin grinned.

"Hasn't changed, then."

Rex joined him at work on the fighter. General Dodonna had offered up several available fighters – available being a generous term, given all of them were damaged in some capacity – whose previous pilots were incapacitated in the med-bay. Luke had been quick to claim one and no one had made to stop him. Anakin could only count himself lucky that Leia, at least, for all her talents, had never been a keen pilot. Luke was a child, still, in Anakin's eyes, but he could not deny that the rebellion was full of children just like him, dressed in orange jumpsuits, ready to fly. He could not deny that the rebellion stood no chance without them.

"I've realised I can't stop the kids doing what they want anymore," Anakin admitted. "I mean, maybe I could lock them up somewhere but… Mon and all these freedom-loving rebels would probably let them out."

Rex gave a knowing smile, sobered.

"Plenty of kids Luke and Leia's age fighting these battles."

"Yeah. I've seen."

"They'll meet Sabine, hopefully. Only a year or so older, I think. From Krownest. She did the Scarif mission. Different ship to mine."

Rex gave a hapless shrug.

"I'm sure she and the crew made it out. I saw them jump. Just didn't jump back here."

Anakin could read his regret so easily. I should have been on that ship. He'd known that feeling himself a hundred times. Known it most of all in the bizarre week gone past. He should have been at home with Owen and Beru. Should have been at Ahsoka's side, fought back the Emperor's apprentice. Should have been with his runaway kids, who seemed to have survived their trip to the Death Star only through a series of bizarre miracles…

"Being tailed maybe," Rex muttered, his mind, too, adrift with worries. "Used a quicker set of calculations to go someplace else."

He waved a hand.

"They'll be fine. Zeb'll be flying, Hera will be planning their route, Sabine will be pretending the crying baby drives her up the wall when really she's as soft as any other Mando'ad…"

"Baby?" Anakin repeated. "A baby went to Scarif?"

"Jacen Syndulla. Son of the captain. Hera."

At this, Rex cracked a weary smile.

"Remember the name," he advised. "She might be the bravest sentient I know. Liberated Lothal pregnant, had to watch her riduur die, and kept on fighting through it all. Kestis keeps telling her he's got some safe haven he can take her and the baby to, but they're not going."

"I know the name," Anakin mused. "Her father-"

"Yes. Cham Syndulla."

Anakin dropped his head. Hera had been only a young child on their mission to Ryloth during the Clone Wars. Had beheld the weapons of the Jedi with such awe. Thought them soldiers of some great might.

"And here I am," he muttered. "A coward for the first nineteen years of their lives."

Rex shrugged.

"You're allowed some time off, General."

Anakin didn't know how he felt, exactly, hearing that title again from Rex's mouth. Rex had fought all these years without him. Anakin couldn't help but feel he deserved to be at the bottom of the pile, the lowliest soldier. Who was he to tell anyone what to do?

"And no," Rex told him, as though he had read his mind. "I'm not sure I could get used to calling you anything else."

Their eyes caught Luke across the hangar, running his hand along his given fighter.

"Do you think he'll be annoyed if I tail him all battle?" Anakin mused. "Do nothing except keep him safe?"

Rex snickered.

"I thought you were supposed to be our ace pilot who was going to blow this thing up."

"It's been a while," Anakin confessed.

"As long as you don't leave it to Korkie," Rex muttered, with a conspiratorial smile. "He's saved a lot of lives across the galaxy, that kid. Grown into a proper brilliant soldier. But he flies a fighter…"

He searched for the words.

"Passably, but with a complete lack of flair?" Anakin suggested. "I know. I never could teach Obi Wan either."

Rex grinned.

"I'll trust you and Luke to get out there and show him how it's done."

There was a lot of work to do and very little time. Luckily, Korkie had the best mechanic he knew by his side again.

"I don't know if I bring myself to take a new R2 unit," Anakin sighed, beholding the Alliance's battered offering. "Whatever happened to Artoo? And Threepio?"

Korkie blinked. He'd not thought of those droids for decades.

"Stars. I don't know."

"You don't know?" Anakin repeated, aghast. "Did Obi Wan and Padme just leave them in the apartment on Coruscant to burn with the Republic?"

Korkie placed down his spanner with a scowl.

"Well, there was rather a lot going on that night, Anakin."

Anakin's shoulders slumped as he conceded the point.

"I know, but-"

"Let me think. I'm sure I saw them somewhere…"

Korkie closed his eyes, pressed his fingers against his forehead, reaching his memory back to the days he had spent so many years trying not to revisit. That terrible comm-call from Coruscant and the blur that had followed.

"Padme brought them with her," he recalled, eventually. "From Coruscant. She brought them to Mandalore when she came."

"And then?" Anakin pressed.

Korkie sighed.

"Then we found out that Dad was dead, that you were dead – allegedly – and that the Empire was coming to destroy Mandalore. So, we might have uh…"

He offered an apologetic smile.

"…forgotten about them."

Anakin gaped.

"Forgotten about them?"

"Padme and I brought T9 with us when we fled," Korkie explained. "A medical droid. For the labour."

"You didn't bring Artoo and Threepio?"

"Nope. Sorry."

Anakin was looking at Korkie like he'd committed some sort of genocide.

"You left them on Mandalore to be flattened by the Empire?"

"Along with my mother and my childhood home?" Korkie snapped. "Yes, Anakin. I did."

Anakin grimaced, conceded the point with a sigh.

"Yeah. Okay. Sorry. That must have been a horrible day. But those droids… they did a lot for us, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Korkie acquiesced. "I'm sorry I didn't bring them with us."

"I wonder what happened to them."

It was better, in Korkie's opinion, not to wonder. They were, presumably, fossilised in several hundreds of pieces in Mandalore's lifeless soil.

"I wouldn't be too optimistic about them."

His ori'vod chuckled, gave him a knowing glance.

"When have I ever been known to be too optimistic?"

Korkie snickered.

"Never once in the last twenty-one years, at least," he conceded.

Twenty-one years, since that war had begun. Korkie had been a child at school complaining about a flimsi shortage.

"If we blow this thing up," Anakin declared, "I'll be optimistic about everything."

Anakin tucked himself into the cockpit of the old fighter beside a green-striped R3 unit and hoped that Artoo would forgive him. Just for this one journey. He needed all the help he could get. He lifted off within the tight formation of the Red squadron and glimpsed Korkie beside him, Luke ahead.

The Kenobi family might not have been born pilots but stars, Anakin wished he could have Obi Wan by his side right now. His voice over the comms. Obi Wan had always known what to do, on days like this. When fear reared up and the future loomed terrible and uncertain, Obi Wan had never let it get too big on him. Had always kept sight of what was important. Had always remained grounded in the Force.

Anakin breathed slow and steady. It had been a long time between flights but it wasn't something he'd ever forget.

"All wings report in."

"Red Ten, standing by."

"Red Seven, standing by."

"Red Three, standing by."

"Red Six, standing by."

"Red Nine, standing by."

"Red Two, standing by."

"Red Four," Korkie's reticent Coruscanti drawl, "standing by."

"Red Five, standing by."

His son's voice. Flying into blasted battle.

"Red Eight, standing by," Anakin sighed.

"All wings into attack position."

Anakin pressed his head back against the seat, felt its comforting restraint as his heart rate began to climb. What he wouldn't give, just to hear Obi Wan's voice again.

Luke had never exactly flown this fast. But it was easy. Effortless. The faster he flew, the more everything seemed to slow around him. He wondered if he could hear his own heartbeat. His father had told him about this feeling. Not thinking, just reacting. Being one with the ship. They dropped down low into the trench. Two attack runs had already failed here. It was their last chance. But Luke felt no fear.

"I'm going to drop back and pick those fighters off," his father told him, over the radio-comms. "Don't you slow down with me. You two keep going."

"Copy that, Dad."

"Thanks, Vod."

Luke felt an impossible lightness in his chest. After all these years of fear, his dad finally believed in him. Believed that he could do it. Luke's urged the fighter faster still. He was the lightning cracking over the desert in Tatooine's dry storms. He was the electricity that sparked between his brain and his limbs. He had never felt so alive. He pushed the fighter to its limits and left Korkie behind.

"Luke, you're going too fast!" Korkie barked. "You'll not be able to pull out in time!"

"It'll be just like Beggar's Canyon back home," Luke reassured him.

Korkie didn't sound the least bit reassured.

"Isn't that where you broke your leg?"

"Well, yeah. I was ten-standard. I've learned a lot since then."

"I'm going to throw up," Korkie groaned.

The rebels were getting dangerously close now. Trilla pursued the X-wings as they dipped low into the trench. If Galen Erso weren't dead already, she'd have killed him slowly and painfully. His plan was suddenly so glaringly apparent, as they raced towards the exhaust port. How these blasted designs had ever been approved-

But it would not matter, so long as the last of these rebel fighters could be picked off. She'd done it twice already and would do it again. The three pilots ahead of her were talented, certainly. In all likelihood Force-sensitive. Trilla didn't know how the Alliance had managed to gather so many blasted survivors. Another snag of anger, channelled effortfully into her flight. Her fighter was far superior to their own. She would catch them.

One round of fire, a millisecond too slow. Dodged by a fighter who yes, certainly, had Force-prescience, and had been trained to use it. How many karking Temple survivors-

And with the slip in her focus, a voice in her mind.

I have forgiven you, Trilla.

It was clear as kriffing day. Trilla gave a grunt of frustration as she narrowly avoided collision with a jutting turbo-laser tower, clenching her jaw. She had killed her. Cut cleanly through her. So why was Cere Junda's voice as near to her as it had been in the days of their training bond?

She took another series of futile shots. One of the three fighters lifted and slowed to tuck behind her, to take its own shots at her.

Fine. That suited Trilla just fine. This fighter had chosen to play the aggressor, but they had given her a clear view of the other two, gunning forward for the reactor. She rocked and swooped dangerously as she avoided the ion streaks flashing behind her. But she steadied. Locked the trailing fighter in her target computer.

I will never leave you again.

Another shot gone astray.

"Kriffing blast it, Junda!"

She was cursing her dead Master and it was a karking disgrace. The day couldn't have got any worse, really, except when a Corellian light freighter swooped out of nowhere, took out her two flanking fighters, and nearly blew her to bits.

Han whooped over his comms, beaming. Got 'em. Saved Korkie's skin. And maybe Luke's too.

"You're all clear, kid! Now let's blow this thing and go home."

Who was he kidding? Chewie was right.

Maybe he didn't see much point in politics, or living whatever the history books called a significant life. But his friends were out there and he wasn't about to sit back and let them be blown into bits of space junk. Least he could do, he supposed. After all that Korkie – and yeah, fine, maybe those two Tatooine desert rats – had done for him.

Luke was so close, now. The exhaust port loomed in the distance. His targeting computer flashed and struggled to latch at their brilliant speed. And then a voice spoke to him, rang clearer and closer than any radio-comms ever could. A voice familiar and yet somehow strange.

Use the Force, Luke.

It was… Korkie, maybe?

Let go, Luke. Trust me.

Luke switched off the targeting computer and looked straight ahead. A frantic message from the base crackled through.

"Luke, you've switched off your targeting computer. What's happened?"

"Nothing."

It wasn't true. Something had happened. Something he could not describe. Something invisible yet enormous. Luke had never felt the Force around him like this before.

"I'm alright," he promised.

He knew, then, that everything would be alright.

He gripped the guns. Breathed. And fired two proton torpedoes straight into the exhaust port. He knew they were good from the moment his fingertips lifted from the triggers, long before they sank deep into the battle station's core.

Luke pulled up – just like Beggar's Canyon, not a moment too soon – and breathed. And the Death Star blew like the beginning of the universe, all over again.

"Great shot, kid!" Han hollered. "That was one in a million!"

And another voice, that strange voice, so near beside him.

Remember, the Force will be with you, always.

There was celebration on Yavin 4 as there never had been before. Celebration unlike anything Korkie had seen in the whole nineteen years since the galaxy had fallen to shit. Celebration a little like that on Mandalore after the defeat of Darth Maul; Korkie had been too shell-shocked, too frightened of the masses proclaiming him Mand'alor, to enjoy it at the time. But he soaked up every bit of it now. He strained his voice over the yelling to speak to his niece and nephew, who were both attached to Han Solo, embracing the smuggler who'd returned and saved Luke's life.

"Luke!"

He seized his nephew by the shoulders, pulled him off Han before he toppled.

"I'm telling you, ad'ik, I had it all wrapped up! And you snuck in and stole my glorious shot!"

Leia, releasing Han, rolled her eyes.

"You have many talents, Ba'vodu-"

"And talking shit is number one," Luke contributed.

"-but there was zero chance of you landing that," Leia concluded authoritatively.

"I didn't sneak in," Luke corrected him. "I left you behind. You were too slow for me."

"Too slow?" Korkie wailed. "We were going plenty fast enough until you decided to gun for kriffing lightspeed!"

He gave Luke a squeeze and a kiss atop his head, undermining his reprimand.

"And, for the record, I would have taken my shot quietly and unceremoniously. None of this dramatic business of turning off the targeting computer."

Luke faltered, confused.

"Korkie, you told me to do that."

"Told you to do what?"

"You told me to turn off the targeting computer," Luke repeated, frowning. "You told me to use the Force."

Korkie shook his head abjectly.

"I told you no such thing. Had I been using our bond to tell you anything, Luke, I'd have told you to piss off and let me take all the glory."

But beneath his teasing he was unsettled, just as bewildered as Luke, who chuckled and shook his head, returning to solemnity.

"I heard a voice, Ba'vodu. I really did. I thought it was you."

Korkie thought inexplicably then of his father.

Use the Force, Korkie.

The advice that an impatient four-year-old Korkie with a training 'saber had heard so many times before, when he'd wanted to use his eyes instead. The advice that Obi Wan had given for practically anything. The mantra by which he had lived his life, and infuriated his riduur.

Korkie shook his head. It surely wasn't possible.

"Oi, come on! We are evacuating! Let's move, soldiers! Evacuate!"

Anakin couldn't help but chuckle at Rex, waving his hands rather as though he was herding livestock, yelling out his weary orders. It was no small feat to overcome the delirious joy and get the rebels on the move again. They might have destroyed the Death Star but the Empire knew exactly where they were.

"Let's go! How many times have we drilled this?"

Slowly but surely, the crowds began to shift and disperse. The advantage of Ahsoka having inadvertently given him such kriffing tall leg prostheses, Anakin supposed, was that he could pick his children easily amongst the still babbling rebels. He caught each by a shoulder and steered them to follow Korkie, who was walking side by side with Cody, his pilot's jumpsuit peeled down and knotted by the sleeves at his waist, an arm slung over the clone's shoulders. Anakin knew him well enough to know that this was not simply an expression of revolutionary camaraderie; he was still jelly-legged from the flight.

"So did you throw up?" Anakin asked him brightly, ruffling his hair.

"Only after we landed," Korkie informed him, looking still a little green but also rather pleased with himself.

"Next time we do something like that, you can stay on solid ground. Putting you in a fighter is more trouble than it's worth."

Korkie waved a dismissive hand. An argument they would have later.

"Where are we going?" Anakin asked.

"All over," Korkie explained, apologetically. "We don't exactly have a readymade second base. But we have a few places up our sleeves."

"We're splitting up?" Leia asked, craning her neck to scan the crowd.

Korkie and Luke shared some sort of knowing glance that Korkie seemed to be quite deliberately shielding from Anakin.

"We'll all find each other again soon," Korkie promised vaguely, giving Leia a pat upon the arm.

"You'll get to meet the Spectres if you come with us," Rex offered, in encouragement. "Hera got in touch. They went back to Lothal. Empire doesn't seem much interested in fighting to get it back, with everything else going on. Not a good candidate for a base. But it'll be okay for a few of us for a short while."

"And," Korkie added. "This will be the fun ship. We can continue the party in transit."

"I never said I didn't want to come with you," Leia grumbled.

Korkie simply smirked and did not explain to Anakin exactly what he was missing.

Go team! Especially Obi Wan and Cere in the afterlife just stirring shit and lending a hand.

Sorry for skipping the medal ceremony. It just made more sense in my head to leg it out of Yavin 4 ASAP.

Hope you enjoyed seeing Rex, 17. I'm sorry to have skipped over so many significant happenings in the lives of Hera and the Rebels crew. We'll get a chance to see them properly soon. Leia and Korkie, of course, will have that talk.

xx - S.