#leia: he’s my brother!

[chirpsythismorning]

Somebody said this is Mike watching Willel reunite in the desert 🤣🤣🤣

[bon-sides-sw]

Mommy 💖💖💖

[Uni Au]

[padawansuggest]

Sometimes I remember that Lukas’s own headcanon is that Vader’s power was finally unsuppressed and became a full fledged 40k (meaning that 28k was supposed to be a suppressed number somehow no idk how I just know it’s his own thoughts on it and I accept that because that’s a boss idea okay, it lives in my brain) and therefore when Obi-Wan beat the shit outta Vader by throwing rocks at him he literally beat up one of the most powerful beings to ever exist and I’m like 👁️👄👁️

[kalak]

I like to imagine Luke being just absolutely shit at teaching. I have valid reasons One, he got training from obiwan and Yoda, who were like, half mad hermits who loved trolling luke, Two, luke was kinda a prodigy at the force and he would be confused that his apprentices can't do basic things that he succeeded in in one go. Three, look at Luke and tell me that he would know what child safety is. He grew up on tatooine where they probably gave 5 yos blasters. He'd bring a child to a war zone tell me that I'm wrong,

In conclusion Luke's jedi academy in its infant years was a madhouse of explosions and insanity. Bro must have gotten raided by new republic CPS like 50 times and can you blame them. Also do you think Luke has a teacher's license or a permit to construct a school anywhere or is he just doing shit

[tennessoui]

For the prompt list, nanny/single parent obikin would be amazing!!

(from this prompt list)

(the first time I answered this prompt two years ago, the nanny anakin au was born)

so to do something different, here's some gffa widowed anakin, nanny (sort of) obi-wan!

(2.5k)

It is hard to find time to grieve. There are too many things to do. Too many appointments to make, too many decisions Anakin isn’t sure he’s qualified for. Some decisions are easier than others. For example, the funeral will be on Naboo. There will be two services: a public one to honor Padmé’s public service, and a private one to honor who she was as a person. The casket will be closed, because his wife died when her cruiser exploded. There isn’t much left to bury anyway.

But some decisions are harder. Which flowers should go on her casket. What songs would she want sung and who should sing them? Would she prefer her grave closer to her ancestral home or the home she created in her adulthood?

If she told anyone the answers to these questions, it wasn’t Anakin. But then, the people who knew her best, who loved her most, died with her. Sabé, Rabé, Saché, Yané, all of her handmaidens—an assassination such broad strokes that it was impossible for it to fail.

So Anakin chooses Yali lilies, because Leia’s eyes linger on them the longest. He chooses a small Nabooian folk band to play after her service because their music is the first thing to make Luke lift his head from his coloring books in days. He formally requests that her body be buried among her ancestors, and the Nabierres agree immediately.

And he keeps telling himself that he will grieve, but there is so much to do. 

And then—then there’s after the funeral. Then there’s the rest of his life, sprawling out before him in a long, hazy road. 

There are more decisions to be made.

There are people who have opinions on them now, people who sat back and let Anakin muddle through flower arrangements and kriffing seating charts, who now step in to peer over his shoulder, monitor his every breath.

Should he really move the children back to Coruscant? Does he truly plan to continue to work as a mechanic in the Mid-Levels? Should he not think of the children, their needs? How can he support them on the thin amount of credits he makes? Would it not be better for the children to live on Naboo in the care of their grandparents and their extended family?

It would be what Padmé would have wanted.

Anakin cannot care about what Padmé would have wanted, because she isn’t here. Not to argue with him, not to make her wants known. She is dead. She doesn’t get to haunt him in the waking world too.

“What do you want?” he asks plainly, sitting down across the table from his two children. The twins blink back at him. Leia has finished her cereal. Luke has barely touched his.

“Bacon,” Luke says.

Anakin hadn’t meant for breakfast, but he figures it’s as good of a start as any. “Alright,” he agrees.

He stands once more and goes to the kitchen. It’s not exactly his domain. It was never Padmé’s either. The way Padmé grew up, food was made once you requested it—by droid, by cooking staff. Not by the hand of a Nabierre.

The way Anakin grew up, food was cobbled together carefully, sparingly no matter how much you requested it. And no matter how you cooked it, it always tasted a little like dust, which took the joy out of experimentation.

But the serving staff have been dismissed for the past two weeks to give the family time and space to grieve in private. 

(Padmé’s parents have been given a schedule for visiting hours for that exact reason.)

Anakin locates the pan; then, he locates the package of bacon strips.

When he glances up, both twins are watching him over the edge of their barstools, tiny faces showing both skepticism and incredulity.

“I want to know what you want to do,” Anakin says, raising his voice as he places the pot over the heating plate, the meat in a moment later. “Do you want to stay here with your grandmother and grandfather? Do you want to go back to Coruscant?”

The twins are quiet. Anakin twists his neck to look at them again, and they’re looking at each other, silently communicating the way only twins can.

“Where will you be?” Leia finally asks, looking at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes, bottom lip already jutting out.

Anakin blinks. “Wherever you are,” he answers.

“You won’t leave too?” Luke asks rather tremulously.

Anakin takes the pan off the heated plate and turns it off with a decisive flick of his wrist. “Of course not,” he says. “Come here.” He crouches down and barely has enough time to open his arms before the twins are there, pressing in as close as they can get to him. He holds them back just as tightly in return.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises into Leia’s hair. “Not without you two.”

—-----------------

It becomes apparent fairly quickly that this is, by necessity, a lie.

The twins don’t want to stay on Naboo, which Anakin is secretly incredibly grateful for. He doesn’t want to either, but he knows he’d just be called selfish should he express the opinion.

But the twins don’t want to go back to Coruscant either. This makes sense as well. It would be incredibly jarring for them to go back to living in the quarters they shared with their mother, her Upper Coruscanti apartments in the nicest district of the planet, without her there.

Anakin wishes it were as simple as sticking a pin on a planet and deciding to uproot the entirety of his family to live there. 

But it’s not.

Perhaps if he were still young, nineteen, newly free and in love with the taste of that freedom, it would be.

But he’s a widower now. He has his children to think about, their futures. Any planet he chooses must have what they need as well. 

And they are four year olds who have just lost their mother. Their needs are numerous.

What makes the decision for him in the end is that his boss knows a man from Stewjon, who is willing to hire him. Who is willing to pay a premium for his expertise with mechanics.

Anakin doesn’t know the first thing about Stewjon, other than that it’s an ocean planet in the Inner Core and his dead wife always said the Senators from Stewjon were so frigid and tight-lipped because they spent the first few days of each visit trying not to be seasick on the Senate floor.

Anakin isn’t sure why this is the very first thing he tells the man—his potential boss—he meets behind the counter in the mech-shop on Stewjon.

He’s left the children with their grandparents for the week—long enough to fly from Naboo to Stewjon, meet with his potential employer, interview, apply his work practically, and fly back out.

He’d explained to both twins why they had to stay on Naboo. He’d explained many times. That hadn’t changed the betrayed look Leia had worn as she saw him off. It hadn’t wiped the tears from Luke’s eyes.

“Ah, well, I can’t say I’ve heard that one before,” the mechanic says. He sounds amused, and Anakin is incredibly shocked to hear a Coruscanti accent. Everyone he’s spoken to since arriving planetside has had such a heavy brogue that he’d honestly struggled to understand their directions to the shop—Kenobi & Sons.

Anakin lets himself look again at the man behind the counter. He’s rather clean for a mechanic, he decides. His beard is red, a common factor around these parts apparently, but his beard is short and neat, trimmed to accentuate the strong lines of his jaw. His eyes are a stormy blue, the kind of blue that matches the Stewjoni ocean.

“Between you and me though,” the man smirks and leans onto the counter with his elbow. His tunic is dark gray, white starchy fabric peeking out beneath the v-necked collar. “I’ve never been a fan of Stewjoni politicians anyway.”

“Oh?” Anakin asks, sidling a step closer to the counter. The man has the beginnings of gray at his temples, and his eyes are lined with wrinkles. They don’t make him look old though, Anakin decides. They make him look…well-lived.

“I’ve not a head for politics much at all,” his future employer shakes his head slightly with a small smile. His eyes flick up and down Anakin’s face, lingering on his lips and then lingering longer on the scar over his brow. Anakin feels rather flushed under the inspection, and he shifts his weight forward until he’s leaning up against the counter too.

There’s something about this man that’s rather…magnetic. It pulls him in. It makes him want to linger.

Good characteristic for a shopkeeper to have, though Anakin privately decides that the man before him has a face that’s wasted on mechanics, buried under some ship’s underbelly in a backroom.

“Me neither,” he admits, a moment too late to sound anything but highly distracted. It makes the man smile again though, a flash of straight white teeth.

“Is there anything you do have a head for then?” he asks. His tone is light, airy, rather teasing.

This is the strangest interview Anakin has ever had.

“Um,” he says. “Well. There’s mechanics.”

“Oh?” The man’s eyebrow lifts at an elegant angle. He props his chin on the palm of his hand and looks up at Anakin through his eyelashes. “Then why come here to us then?”

“Um,” Anakin says, and not because the man looks rather unfairly flattering like this, amber eyelashes in sharp relief against the blue of his eyes.

They’re interrupted by the sounds of clattering in the backroom, stomping and cursing. The man before him straightens with a slight sigh and picks up the closest flimsipad. “And what brings you in here today, sir?” he asks rather loudly, pitching his voice back to the other room of the shop pointedly. “Problem with your speeder? Serving droid? Cruiser? If it’s your astromech droid, I regret to inform you that I’ll have to refuse you service on account of the fact that I don’t particularly care for them.”

Anakin thinks he splutters, but whatever noise he makes is definitely drowned out by the rather irritated shout of Obi-Wan! that comes from the back.

A moment later, a man storms through the door, looking annoyed. "We will service an astomech if that's what's broken, Obi-Wan."

Now this is a man that Anakin can believe is a mechanic. His nails are blackened with oil, and his bare, burly arms carry smudges of the stuff. He’s much broader than the man—Obi-Wan—that Anakin had been talking to. He’s bald with a reddened scalp and a rather large red beard that’s the antithesis of the other man’s in every way. His clothes are dirty, loose, and the color of ash. He looks older too—whereas Obi-Wan could easily be in his thirties, this man must be pushing fifty.

He snaps at Obi-Wan in a language that Anakin doesn’t understand. Obi-Wan shrugs and hands over the flimsi pad without argument.

“Um, actually,” Anakin says, feeling incredibly wrong-footed. “Which one of you is Kenobi?”

“I am,” both of them say. Obi-Wan’s smirking slightly. The other man’s voice is louder, carrying that Stewjoni accent so obviously lacking in Obi-Wan’s speech.

The older man closes his eyes as if he’s praying for patience. “We both are,” he says. “Though if your ship’s malfunctioned, sir, I’m the Kenobi you want to see. This one’s good for naught but magic tricks.”

“I have been told I’m rather good at other things,” Obi-Wan turns his smirk full-force at Anakin, dropping his eyes to Anakin’s lips once more.

“My name is Anakin Skywalker,” he says very quickly in a very normal tone of voice that is most definitely not a squeak. “I’m here to interview for a position. As another mechanic.”

“Oh,” the older Kenobi says.

“Oh,” the younger Kenobi says in a much different tone.

The older Kenobi pinches at his nose for a moment before turning around the counter and offering his hand. “Ben,” he says. “Ben Kenobi.”

Anakin takes his hand and shakes it, eyes traveling back to Obi-Wan. Is he supposed to shake his hand too?

“I’m the Son in the sign,” Ben says gruffly as if that answers his question.

“I’m the reason it’s plural,” Obi-Wan adds, busying himself with the contents of the counter. From what Anakin can tell, the man is just messing up the carefully organized piles of receipts. 

He decides that he would rather not get the job than point this out to Ben.

Ben huffs out something in Stewjoni that sounds downright insulting, but that doesn’t stop Obi-Wan from smiling sunnily up at Anakin. “My brother enjoys bitching and moaning that I came back home when I was seventeen, but he’s awfully quick to foist his children off on me when he’s called to shift at the rig offshore and Marci’s off-planet too.”

Anakin blinks. He feels like that’s the safest answer.

“Only thing good that blasted Jedi Order ever taught you was how to handle younglings,” Ben says, and then spits on the ground as if the words themselves have left a bad taste in his mouth.

Anakin blinks and wonders if he should say something to remind the brothers that he’s here. For an interview. “And my magic tricks,” Obi-Wan rolls his eyes slightly before catching Anakin’s eye and winking. With a wave of his hand, a flimsi-sheet flies over the counter and into Anakin’s chest. He catches it unthinkingly. “Would you like to sign in, sir?” “Get out of here,” Ben barks, snatching the flimsi from Anakin’s hand and pushing it back to the counter. “Like I said, the only one’s impressed with that is the younglings.”

“I don’t know, your man looks impressed,” Obi-Wan says slyly, even as he pushes himself away from the counter and around the edge of it.

Anakin isn’t sure what he looks like. He doesn’t think impressed is the word he’d use though.

When Obi-Wan brushes past him, the static electricity in the air jumps between their shoulders. Anakin feels as if he’s been shocked.

Obi-Wan must feel it too because he stops only a few inches away and looks at Anakin. For the first time, his expression is open. Curious. Considering.

“Get!” His brother insists, and Obi-Wan obeys, throwing one last look over his shoulder at Anakin before he slips out the door.

The shop feels somehow much bigger now that the other man has left. Ben sighs and rubs a hand down his face. He looks older now. More worn. “So that was my brother,” he tells Anakin wearily. “Who you would most likely see frequently if you were to take this job. I would understand completely if you would like to start by talking compensation.”

[varpusvaras]

Being away from Alderaan was always hard.

It had been hard back when the Republic had still existed, and it had only become harder after the Republic had fallen. But Bail had never complained, and he wouldn't start complaining now. He had too much to do for that.

Still, even he couldn't go on forever, with looking after his family and Alderaan, with trying to uphold some sort of sence of justice in the Imperial Senate, and with hopping from one Rebel base to another. He wasn't getting any younger, and some days he could truly feel it. Sometimes some sorrows just felt too heavy.

It had been difficult for him to concentrate on other things during the past days. His mind kept replaying the image of the destroyed city, and of the sorrow in Fox's eyes. Kamino had not been his home for many years, and had perhaps never been truly his home to begin with, but it had still meant a lot of things for him, a lot of things many people would conflate with him.

Above all else, Kamino had connected him and his brothers. The brothers, who seemed now to be truly lost to him.

Bail was increasingly glad for Breha and Leia, for his whole family, for holding each other together. The three of them were what held Bail together, after all, through all of this, when in all honesty, he just felt out of breath.

The meeting came to an end. Bail turned to look when Mon put her hand on his arm.

"You look tired", she told him. Bail hummed.

"I've heard that's what happens when you have a toddler", he said. Leia had just started to take her first steps without holding onto anything, and had started to try out words a while ago. No matter how tiring children were when they were small, Bail found that he was increasingly reluctant to seeing her grow up either, even if seeing her learn new things every day was more exiting than anything. Perhaps that was just the duality of parenthood.

Mon smiled slightly. There were new shadows under her eyes as well.

"I know that very well", she said. She gave his arm a light squeeze. "Go home. We all need you rested, your family included."

Yes. Going home sounded wonderful. Bail nodded, and was just about to tell her the same, or ask if she wanted to come visit them soon, when-

-when he could've sworn he felt something tugging at the back of his mind.

It was a strange feeling, though familiar at the same time. Many times he had felt the same when he was with Leia, her curious eyes watching him and her mind reaching out to him in a way Bail couldn't properly answer to, other than to try and aknownledge that he had felt her. There was a certain feeling to it, when a child, still unconsciously doing so, reached out, compared to when someone with years of training would do the same.

But Leia was not here. Bail stopped, and looked around. He watched his fellow Rebels, mingling around, getting ready to leave or move out elsewhere in the base that still needed establishing and work, and he listened.

There. He glanced at Mon.

"Just a moment", he said to her, before hurrying off, away from the meeting room and down the still barely lit hallways of the base, and eventually, he could hear it out loud as well.

A child crying. Bail had become extremely responsive to such a noise, lately, and he quickened his pace even more as the sound gripped at his heart.

There was a room, tucked away from the commotion of the rest of the base, furnished to look like a spare room. There was a droid there, leaning over a small bed, making a low, calm humming sound, which was almost completely drowned out by the crying.

Bail almost ran the last steps. The droid noticed him then.

"Oh, hello", it said, in a vaguely female voice. "I'm C-EER4, refurbished medical droid. I was told to look after the child for a moment."

Bail was barely listening to the droid.

There was a small baby on the bed, his little fists grabbing thin air as he cried, tiny tears rolling down his round cheeks. He was younger than Leia, clearly, by several months. Entirely too small to be left alone, even with a droid.

Bail didn't think twice. He reached down on to the bed, and lifted the baby to his arms.

The crying stopped. A pair of dark eyes turned to look at up at Bail, and Bail-

Bail knew those eyes. How could he not, when he loved them so?

"What is a clone baby doing here?" He asked the droid.

"He was brought in by a small cell a few days ago", C-EER4 said. "Some of the younger clones were succesfully shipped out from the cloning facilities before their destruction. He was, by their words, the only one of that age that survived."

Bail looked back down at the baby. He was still looking at him, tears now drying on his little face, and there was the slightest tug in Bail's mind.

It didn't take anything else for Bail to fall in love.

"I will take him", he told the droid. "His father is waiting for him at home."

C-EER4 didn't say anything to that. Bail wouldn't have listened to anything, anyway.

The only thing that mattered to him at that moment was the little gift in his arms, looking up at him, with all the trust a child could possibly have.

[victorian-nymph]

Retroactively the scene where luke and leia kiss is so fucking funny cause there is so music no nothing just han, chewie and c3po standing around staring at this scene like they're in a Renaissance painting and they're all in like,, varying stages of grief. c3po looking at han and leia afterwards giving the biggest side eye of all time. None of them know that those two are related but they all react as if they just witnessed something horrific. Which they are they just don't know yet.

[menlove]

those tags are joking but if there IS one thing about me and sw it's that I'm a han/leia hater in a world that wants me to think they're the greatest love story ever told. meanwhile every time I watch them interact I'm like can you stop bothering that woman for 3 seconds PLEASE go do something useful with yourself

[teecupangel]

Just pictured it: Desmond with twelve younglings around his legs and a pair of slings on his chest with the twins inside, carrying a padawan or two under the arm 'cause he's a single dad now and they are all on the run – or at least until Dadsmond can get them all to safety and a responsible, functioning non-Bleed adult in charge while he goes to drive his hidden blade through Palpatine's eye.

And if he ends up acquiring one or several million clones down the road, it's all in the name of the free babysitting service, because we all know that foundlings are the future.

The original "Desmond adopts Jedi Younglings" idea.

So this is now the “Desmond adopts lots of people and they have a flying ‘home’” idea.

For the “Desmond stays in Tython to be a dad” with @fanworldbuildingfun, here’s the link.

Desmond was just trying to find Yoda who was in charge of the younglings in the fucking first place, instead, he has to deal with first upgrading his emergency ship because the last time he tried leaving the younglings in his secret hideout (a planet with coordinates that have been long lost), every youngling joined forces to give him sad puppy eyes and begged him not to leave so he’s left with no choice but to upgrade to a more fortified ship with lots of secret hidey holes and ‘tunnels’.

No.

He was not naming it Monteriggioni 2.

… He was naming it fucking Monteriggioni 2 after he finished adding a smaller emergency ship underneath the main ship now with hologram statues of his Assassin ancestors.

Ugh.

His naming sense was absolutely whacked at this point.

He just couldn’t be normal and named it Aquila…

Or Jackdaw.

Wait.

What was a Jackdaw?

Anyway, during all these upgrading, he got in touch with Obi-Wan to ask for information about Yoda and he gets two newborn twins for his troubles as Obi-Wan swans off to god knows where because of…

Okay, Desmond didn’t know why.

Grief?

Self-imposed punishment?

Lost of hope?

Desmond knew he should look for Obi-Wan and knock some sense into him (probably punch him once or twice, Desmond saw it work… in tv back in his time) but Obi-Wan warned him that the Empire would be looking out for any force-sensitive people to either take in or to kill. Obi-Wan was a danger to Desmond and his children (not his children, charge would be more accurate, no matter what others say) before he swans off to god knows where.

Desmond realized that the children had to ‘stop’ learning the force. At the very least, until he was sure he could upgrade his ship to cloak against any doodah that the Empire had to find force-sensitive people.

How does he do that?

He distracts the kids with games instead, gets a droid to help him take care of them and…

Accidentally build a Brotherhood daycare instead because Desmond’s way of playing is very… stealth and freerun oriented.

Look, he knows it’s weird for the ship to have such high ceilings but he needs them, okay? Can’t do air assassinations if there’s not enough vertical distance, of course.

Oh and the dudes who did his repairs? Clone troopers who went AWOL because of one reason or another. And then the empire learned about them while Desmond was there and… things just sorta happened and now Desmond has a crew of renegade clone troopers?

Who may also be helping take care of the kids?

It’s really a good thing Desmond upgraded his ship.

Along the way, he meets up with a surviving Jedi Master and his Padawan who have… been gathering force-sensitive children as well and Desmond just let them in because he wasn’t heartless. Vanzell Mar-Klar starts training the kids and everybody else in force-related things but he does say Desmond’s kids (not his kids) have become… ‘wild’. Desmond has no idea what that means and Vanzell Mar-Klar seemed a bit wary but mostly just curious so Desmond didn’t really push… for now.

But because there were now force lessons all over the ship, Desmond knew he should upgrade their cloaking system so one of the crew members suggested they go to Bracca as they may find scappers willing to upgrade their ship using parts they have salvaged. They get to Bracca and Desmond notices a young scrapper that just pings gold to him.

And then the Inquisitorius came just as he had been talking to the young scrapper and Desmond thought they were there for them then they attacked the scrapper he was with and…

Well…

Vanzell Mar-Klar definitely looked like Desmond got him the best Christmas present ever even though they left Bracca being chased by the Empire.

Hey.

At least Cal seemed to be just as lost as Desmond right now.

Good to know he isn’t the only poor soul winging it at this point.

[sleepygaymerdisease]

wish my cats a happy birthday todayyyy

[brokenhardies]

im definetly going to write some leia in the school holidays (remember, its kind of a 2020s remake of 17 again but also kind of an original found family story)

[who-knows73]

Not Stranger Things related like my usual content but imagine being a teen in the early 80s and you really like these new Star Wars movies that have been coming out. Any time you try to explain that you're excited for the sixth episode to come out people think it's a show and when you tell them that they're movies they're shocked that they made six of them. Then you have to go through the agonising process of explaining that no, there's only two movies out so far but the first one they released was episode four and they just can't fathom it what-so-ever.

I just think it would be pretty mentally taxing to have to repeatedly explain that when all you really want to do is talk about the plot and characters of these exciting new movies.

[found-the-secrets-in-your-eyes]

I can't rn I just can't

[secondstar-acorn]

Han resigning himself to (incorrectly thinking) Leia is in love with Luke with just. The Deepest Sadness in his eyes

[tossawary]

I don't have any solid ships for Luke Skywalker (I'm willing to be persuaded by any author bringing their best, though) and I think it's partially because Luke is such a vital part of the HanLeia ship to me.

My favorite part of HanLeia as a ship is honestly perhaps that Chewie and Luke (and C-3PO and R2-D2, of course) are Also There, just chilling, just hanging out. A chorus of tiebreakers to be ignored by Han and Leia as they please. "This is the love of my life, and that's my/her brother, Luke, and that's his/my partner, Chewie."

I like to think that Han and Leia cannot fully agree on who brought Luke with them into this relationship, though. Luke IS Leia's twin brother, yes, the other half of her soul. However, Han's argument is that Leia didn't actually KNOW that for years and HE'S the one who drove Luke into this Rebellion mess in the first place, Leia didn't send that initial message to Luke specifically. Han is being VERY stubborn about this just, like, because he can be. It's fun.

[saphronethaleph]

Offer accepted

Leia’s comlink chimed.

She yawned, stared at it for a moment, then two synapses connected and she snatched it up.

“I’m here,” she said. “Is something wrong?”

“Leia,” Luke said. “I’m sorry for waking you-”

“Luke?” Leia asked, now almost entirely awake. “What happened?”

“...you’re probably not going to believe me if I tell you,” Luke replied. “Can you get the command team to the west side of the village as soon as possible?”

Leia held back a yawn, which was a struggle, and checked her chrono.

“Everyone should be asleep, it’s not even dawn,” she said. “Everyone from the command team who sleeps, anyway. I can do Threepio and Artoo, and myself on about… five hours of sleep? Maybe four?”

She paused, thinking. “Chewie might be awake, I honestly don’t know. Han almost certainly won’t be.”

There was a long pause, and Leia frowned.

“Luke?” she asked her brother.

“That’ll do,” Luke decided. “See you then.”

“All right, I’m here,” Leia told Luke, unnecessarily. “Han and Chewie were both asleep, so I got another commander in their stead… what’s this about?”

She stifled a yawn, and took a drink from some caf. “This had better be important.”

“Skywalker knows what he’s doing,” Commander Rex said.

“Yeah, you weren’t speaking to him last night,” Leia muttered, glancing at Luke. “I believe Luke knows what he’s doing, I’m not so sure that what he’s doing makes any kind of sense.”

“You might need to think again on that, Leia,” Luke said. “It turns out, it was surprisingly easy… I think we’re ready.”

He gestured, and Darth Vader stalked out of the pre-dawn gloom.

Leia nearly dropped her mug of caf, but the dark and imposing impact of the scene was immediately and drastically undercut when Darth Vader actually did drop his lightsaber.

“...what in the name of Padme Amidala are you doing here, Rex?” the Terror of the Galaxy asked, his vocoder apparently suffering some strain.

“Who would-” Rex began, his blaster covering the Dark Lord, then he dropped the weapon as well. “...General? You’re – you’re Darth Vader?”

“...yes?” Vader replied, looking down at himself as if he actually had to check. “I believe so?”

Then he did a double-take.

“What are you two doing here, exactly?” he asked, his helmet turned towards Artoo and Threepio. “Is this some kind of reunion? Am I going to see Snips come out from behind a tree? Is Obi-Wan going to appear?”

He sounded slightly frazzled. “Where is Hondo Ohnaka?”

“Father,” Luke said, his voice calm. “Please, allow me to explain as much of the situation as I know myself.”

“I’m not sure how to explain this situation,” Leia said. “What is going on?”

R2 beeped something that indicated that he knew exactly what was going on, and found it very amusing, thank you very much.

“Well, I don’t,” 3P0 said, with a sniff. “Why don’t you introduce everyone, you tin can?”

“Don’t worry, 3P0,” Luke told him. “None of us are in any immediate danger.”

Leia wasn’t sure she believed that.

“Oh, thank the maker!” C-3P0 sighed.

“You’re welcome,” Vader replied, crouching down to pick up his lightsaber.

“...okay, that bit I didn’t know,” Luke admitted. “But I’d better get started or we’ll be here all morning… I went to confront my father, and turn him away from the Dark Side.”

He glanced to his side. “I… don’t know if it’s worked, but I’d say it’s working at the moment.”

“How exactly did you pull that off?” Rex asked.

“I said that the Dark Side forced me to obey my master,” Vader intoned. “Then my son told me, quite passionately, that I was not a slave – that I was a person, and my name was Anakin Skywalker.”

His shoulders moved in a slight shrug. “He also asked me to come with him. As you can see, I chose to take up the offer.”

Vader let that stand for a moment, then pointed in succession. “That is Rex, formerly the commander of my personal legion in the Clone Wars. Those are the droids C-3P0, who I built on Tatooine, and R2-D2, who worked with me during the Clone Wars after a swap of C-3P0 for R2-D2 with my wife Padme Amidala. And that is… actually, I find myself unaware of your current personal situation. The only connection between us that I am aware of is that you are the daughter of one of my wife’s close friends, and that I should probably apologize to you at some point.”

Luke coughed, and R2 made a sort of beeping giggling noise.

C-3P0 still seemed to be in shock, which was fair enough, because so was Leia.

“Furthermore,” Vader went on. “Since I have defected, I will tell you the following. The Emperor is aware of your plans. He has an entire battle group ready to ambush your fleet. The shield protecting the Death Star is to be disguised by jamming. And an entire legion of the best troops the Empire has are waiting in ambush for any attempt on the shield generator.”

“So… what you’re saying is that our enemy has an overwhelming numbers advantage, an excellent tactical and strategic position, and they know we’re coming,” Rex said, having recovered his aplomb slightly and picked up his blaster. “And the only advantage we have is that we’ve got two Skywalker Jedi on our side.”

“I am still a Sith,” Vader replied. “Not a Jedi.”

“Still,” Rex protested. “Because… yeah, they’re karked.”

“This is the place?” Han asked.

“This is it,” Chewbacca agreed.

“Still can’t believe we’re going with this plan,” Han muttered. “Still can’t believe we’re doing what Darth Vader suggested.”

“I know,” Chewbacca noted. “You said.”

“I said because it’s true, fuzzball,” Han retorted.

He glanced around at the other commandos, then to either side of the draw they were in. It was a minor flaw in the deployment positions of the Imperial legion, a small blind valley through which troops could get close enough to attack by bypassing just a few Imperial guards… with a judicious mind trick from Luke, of course.

Not many troops, though. No heavy equipment. Just men and blasters, with two blaster cannon hauled up the draw.

“Stand by,” Leia said. “Who’s in position?”

“Team Besh, in position,” Rex reported, levelling one of the blaster cannon and being careful not to skyline himself.

“Team Aurak, ready,” Han said, as Chewie readied the other blaster cannon.

“Ten seconds,” Leia said, then activated her commlink.

A commlink set to Imperial scramble frequencies.

“Execute Alderaan,” she said, firmly. “Alderaan, Alderaan, Alderaan. Open fire!”

Rex opened fire, and so did the commandos on his side of the draw. His cannon shot hit the neck of an unsuspecting AT-AT, knocking it to the side and sending up a shower of sparks, and the commandos fired out a volley of shots at troopers and officers before ducking into cover.

At almost exactly the same time, Chewbacca and Aurek team opened fire as well. With different targets to aim for, Chewbacca elected to shoot out the knee of an AT-ST, and it fell over before exploding in a cloud of smoke.

A dozen or so stomtroopers fell in the fusillade of blaster fire, and then all the Rebels were behind cover as the Imperial battalions reacted.

Each had just taken fire from the direction of the other. Each had suffered casualties and taken hits.

And they’d just heard someone give a clear codeword. And when they looked in the direction of who could have been firing… all they saw were other Imperials.

Within seconds, blaster bolts were flying back and forth over the draw, as the Rebels began evacuating back down the way they’d come in. Leia flicked her comlink away from transmit mode, then nodded, and Han took out his own.

“They’re shooting,” he said.

“We’re far enough down the valley,” Rex pointed out. “We can run now, and we’ll need to – go!”

“Admiral Piett,” Vader said, his override codes cutting him on the Executor’s main viewscreen without preamble. “Your assistance is urgently needed. The Rebels have sprung a trap.”

“Lord Vader!” Piett replied, startled. “I thought – there were reports you were missing?”

“I was investigating the Rebel presence,” Vader retorted. “I am ordering immediate orbital bombardment, coordinates seven four two aurek nine, eight three six leth two.”

“But – I don’t understand-” Admiral Piett protested, glancing at the nearest reports.

They showed that firing was going on on the surface, and two defending battalions were already reporting losses.

“I do not require your understanding, Admiral, I require your compliance,” Vader said, his voice like iron. “If your mewling causes our defeat then you will have to answer to me personally.”

Piett could almost feel the forceful grip around his collar.

“Don’t just sit there!” he snapped, turning to the command pit. “Get a shield window ready and open fire!”

The Executor’s port turbolaser batteries opened fire, two volleys blasting into the sphere of the planetary shield, then a third one passed right through the now-open shield window and raised hell on the ground. The explosions hit like the mightiest ground artillery available to the Empire, raising huge plumes of smoke, and harried officers and ratings called reports back and forth.

“Correct north, fourteen,” Vader said, firmly.

“Correcting north fourteen!” one of the officers said, and the turbolasers spat fire again.

And destroyed the main shield dish in a fountain of explosions.

“What?” Piett demanded. “What just happened? Lord Vader, what is going on?”

The channel had already closed.

About ten seconds later, one of the Executor’s escort star destroyers opened fire on it, and Piett lost all track of what was happening.

“All wings report in,” Lando called, flicking a switch as the Falcon closed in on the Death Star, then frowned at his scanners as Wedge and Arvel and the others reported their squadrons ready.

“...well, I don’t know what’s going on there, but it sure looks like Han and the others have pulled something off,” he said.

There was some kind of battle going on in sector 3-7, what looked like an Imperial battlegroup tearing itself apart with turbolaser fire flashing back and forth in every direction and a boil of fighters trying to work out who was on what side. There was also a battle on the surface going on, one far more intense than anything Lando had expected the commandos to need to do.

Or be capable of.

“It looks like the Imperials are doing our job for us,” Nien suggested.

“Yeah, but we’ve still got a job to do,” Lando muttered. “Other squadrons on combat patrol; red group, gold group, all fighters follow me! Let’s pop that grenade!”

He shook his head. “And I thought rescuing Han was chaotic! I wonder who came up with this?”