Chapter Text
The Forlorn Hope
“I think we’ve got a welcome party,” Ruwee said, ducking his head out of the boarding ramp.
After they had made contact and established their identities, Rebel Command had directed them to coordinates in the Outer Rim. “Dock with Forlorn Hope,” Mon Mothma had said, something playful in her voice. “They’ll be able to accommodate you for now.”
As Padmé followed her father down the ramp, she understood Mon’s tone. Behind her, Ryoo gasped, “Aunt Sabé!”
Ryoo threw herself across the distance between them, and Sabé caught her with a laugh, barely rocking on her feet. “We thought something awful had happened to you—and then we thought maybe you were at that medical station, but then it turned out—” Ryoo seemed to remember herself all of a sudden, and peeled herself away from Sabé, glancing over her shoulder at Padmé.
This time Sabé was the one to close the distance. She caught both of Padmé’s hands, and Padmé squeezed hers in return, knowing deep in her gut that if she were to fall right now, Sabé would catch her. Conversely, that helped steady her knees. “I heard that you had gone missing,” she said.
Sabé shook her head. “We couldn’t get back. We met up with the Rebel Alliance instead.”
“I’m so glad,” Padmé said. The words were too small to hold what she meant. She had left Anakin—Darth Vader—behind her days ago, but she still felt hollowed out.
There was a hand on Padmé’s shoulder, and then Sabé was smiling in recognition, leaning forward to kiss Jobal on the cheek. Padmé let the happy flurry of greetings carry her away.
Some time later, Padmé finally told Sabé the whole story.
“And that was it? Home free?”
Padmé chuckled, her voice hoarse with talking. “I’m not home yet,” she said.
“Sure you are.” Sabé reached across the space between them, taking her hands. The cabin was dim and warm, a rare private space on a ship fitted for war. “You’re with people who love you. That’s home.”
Padmé’s head fell forward, curls spilling around her face and hiding whatever expression was there. Sabé reached out and pulled her easily against her shoulder. “I’ve had my world ripped from under me,” Sabé crooned. “I’ve had the person I’d choose above anybody taken from me.”
Padmé made a distressed noise into her jacket. “Tonra?”
“I told you, Tonra’s all right. He’s with one of the other ships right now.” She carded a hand through Padmé’s hair. This wasn’t something they talked about; at least, not with each other. That unspoken truth lodged sharp in Sabé’s throat now, but it wasn’t the time. She couldn’t claim loyalty to Padmé as her queen or even as her leader right now; Padmé was adrift in a way that Sabé had never seen her.
Adrift, uncertain of her path forward, but knowing that she didn’t want to turn back. Sabé thought of Padmé’s false funeral, all those years ago. The Rebellion took its imagery from the starbird, from rebirth in the flame. But Naboo’s symbols were different. Water was life, was death, was change, was the cycle of all things; the dead queen and senator had been arrayed as if she were becoming one with the waters of Naboo.
And, in time, the waters had brought renewal: a new spring of hope.
“You’ll find your feet, Padmé,” Sabé promised fiercely. “Whatever life you want, I’ll help you make it, if you’ll have me.”
Padmé lifted her head, then, and her eyes were too sharp on Sabé’s face. She didn’t flinch away from it, but smiled at Padmé. The other woman reached out, tucking her fingertips under Sabé’s chin. She examined Sabé’s face, and Sabé knew what she must see: eyes so similar to her own now bracketed with crow’s-feet, cheeks hollowed and eyes jaded by war. “You left me behind,” she said wistfully.
“Never,” Sabé said.
Padmé leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Sabé’s neck, and their cheeks pressed together. Sabé closed her eyes, a tear slipping free, now that Padmé couldn’t see. “My hands are still yours,” she whispered. My heart, too, she thought, but there had never been a time when it would be fair to either of them to say so.
“I think,” Padmé said, “that I would like to try lending you mine for a while. You know the ground much better than I do, these days.”
A laugh burst free of Sabé’s throat, and she pulled back to look at Padmé, grinning. “All right, we can try that. But I can’t imagine you taking orders for long.”
The corner of Padmé’s mouth quirked, and a spark of mischief lit her eyes. “As long as you’re not ordering me to clean carbon scoring—”
“Are you never going to forget that!” Sabé said, and suddenly they were laughing together like they had when they were girls.
(“Did you know?” Padmé would ask, much later. “Did anyone tell you what happened to me?”
“They couldn’t have kept it from me. Luckily, Bail wasn’t cruel enough to try.”
There was silence for a long time. Then, Sabé: “I wanted to tear the galaxy apart looking for you, but I knew what you would have told me to do.”
Fingers on Sabé’s wrist stroked patterns, tapped out a thank you in one of the old codes of their youth. Sabé’s hand caught Padmé’s, lifting those fingers to her lips in a thanks of her own).
The universe spun on, and one tiny wrong was made right.
Elsewhere on the ship, Ryoo found the lounge haunted by the technicians onboard and set about making friends.
Largely, this consisted of letting them beat her solidly at sabacc, then coming back to take the pot while they all laughed and jeered at the most overconfident of their number. By the end of the evening, she had a table full of fast friends and some idea of where someone with her skill set might be needed on board this ship, as well as who she would have to talk to.
The next day, she cleaned up as well as she could and knocked on the comms chief’s door. She had been surprised to realize there was such a large communications staff on board; her sabacc friends hadn’t told her whether this was just happenstance, or if this ship handled a lot of intelligence.
The comms chief was a Bothan with grey whiskers and keen eyes. She listened intently as Ryoo laid out her case, then laughed. “Ryoo, was it? I’m glad you’re taking this so seriously, but we’ll take whatever hands we can. Of course, Padmé Amidala’s niece…”
“I don’t want to be taken because I’m her niece,” Ryoo said, lifting her chin. “I love her, but I’m here to do the work that’s needed, not be coddled.”
“Of course not. I only meant that it’s no surprise to find the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” The comms chief held out her hand. “Welcome to the Alliance to Restore the Republic.”
Ryoo shook it, feeling the rightness of it spread through her chest.
Onoam
Sunset flooded the courtyard with light as red as blood. Pooja stood once more before the statue of Queen Mushta. Behind her, she heard a heavy step, and the familiar wheeze of Vader’s breath.
“Is he dead?” she asked, her voice brittle.
“He is,” Vader said, dark satisfaction curling in his voice. Pooja’s lips twisted, and she reached out to catch herself, shaking. She couldn’t regret her part in Byrit’s death, couldn’t even regret that he was gone when they had spent so long under the same roof; all she felt was the crushing relief of a prey animal in the moment a predator is felled.
Vader’s tread moved closer, the hem of his cloak trailing through the fallen flowers that scattered the courtyard. He stopped just behind her. “He has made his last mistake, but we must move quickly.”
“Do you still want to protect me?” Pooja said, not looking at him.
His breathing was always so steady; he had no expression she could read. The longer his silence went on, the more she wanted to scream. “I will not let you come to harm,” he said at last.
“But I’m not your priority, am I? It’s her; it’s your wife.”
“I will keep you both safe,” he said. “I will convince her to come home, and everyone will be safe.”
“How will you convince her?”
“She will listen to reason—she must understand—”
“I have an idea,” she said quietly. Vader’s pacing paused, and she turned to look at him. She drew her shoulders back. “Help me become the new Moff. Help me make Naboo actually safe. She loved this planet; maybe if she won’t listen to your words, she’ll listen to your actions.”
She didn’t know what she was doing; how could she hope to manipulate Darth Vader? Sooner or later, he would realize that this wasn’t going to work. Hope and terror choked her. Maybe, in the meantime, she could at least get a foothold. “I can’t do it alone,” she said. “I have the people on my side, but I don’t have the military, and I don’t have the ear of the Emperor.”
“I know a few...reasonable men in the military,” Vader said. His hands were tucked at his waist, and he sounded thoughtful; it was not a tone she had often heard from him.
“Is that a yes?” Pooja said.
Instead of answering plainly, Vader looked at her for a long moment. “You would have been a good queen,” he said.
Pooja knew she would not. The Naboo did not prize queens who clawed for power, or who played dirty games with politics. They would despise a queen who allowed herself to be a pawn for a dark Force user. She did not intend to appeal to them as a queen would. “Lord Vader,” she said, filling her voice with steel. “Will you support me?”
To her shock, Vader folded into a half-bow, holding the position for a few, theatrical moments. “Yes, my lady,” he intoned. “I will support you in this. Naboo will be ours, and it will be safe.”
Home One, stationed in the far Outer Rim
“What do you think this is about?” Luke said, scrubbing a hand through his hair and craning his neck along the hall.
“I don’t know,” Leia said. Luke looked like he wanted to run down the corridor, but he was holding to her steady pace. It was strange to have just the two of them summoned, these days; usually the summons also included Han and Chewie, if they were with the fleet. “It didn’t sound like a mission. I don’t like that Mon is being so cagey.”
“She didn’t seem cagey to me,” Luke said. “She seemed...uncertain. Like she didn’t know what to say.”
“That’s worse,” Leia pointed out. Luke shot her a reproving look, which she ignored. She was allowed to be as much of a pessimist as she wanted, thank you very much.
They had been directed to a conference room, but it was nearly empty when they stepped inside. Leia frowned, taking in the woman seated at the far end of the table. She was dressed in much the same way Leia preferred: a utilitarian jumpsuit with a vest on top, her dark hair braided and coiled behind her head. Leia put her at late twenties, possibly a little younger.
She had only a second to take in these details before the woman lifted her head and stared at them in what Leia could only describe as awe. Behind Leia’s shoulder, Luke shifted, then raised a hand. “Hey,” he said. “I’m Luke Skywalker.”
The woman lifted a hand to her mouth, and to Leia’s horror and confusion, her eyes overflowed with tears. “It is you,” she said. “I’m sorry; give me a moment. Please sit down.”
“What is this about?” Leia asked warily, settling at the seat farthest from the stranger.
Luke sat much closer to the woman, his own expression open and friendly. “Oh, and this is Leia Organa,” he said.
“My name is Padmé Amidala,” the woman said. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”