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For all that everyone else is still reeling in everything that’s happened from Starkiller to their narrow escape, but Leia… doesn’t have the option or the time.
(She never has, never does.)
Where do they go from here?
She isn’t surprised when Poe comes to sit next to her, after finishing his conversation with Rey and checking in on Finn and Rose. Good kids. Good heroes for a new generation.
It seems Vader has been right for once.
She’ll need to check soon, though. That’ll be… fun.
“General,” he says. “I—”
Leia just waves he hand.
“Not the time, Dameron,” she says. “Maybe once we know where we’re going.”
And there’s the fact that she’d pushed off making him take a mental exam after he got back to D’Qar. She could feel her son on him, and she knows from personal experience how terrible having your mind invaded is.
“But—”
“ Commander ,” Leia says. “We’ve all made bigger mistakes, and we need to figure out where to go.”
Poe sighs.
“Okay, Leia,” he says. “I was actually just talking to BB and…”
“[My sister has a droid watching comms constantly for distress calls from either side to either aid or eradicate, depending on hostility,]” BB-8 says. “[That has not changed, or my notices would have. And, for your request, that means that her blanket invitation to the nearing star system, with two planets and three moons hospitable and even welcoming to most sentient flesh-beings.]”
“But, less pressingly,” Poe says. “We think that our distress signal was in fact shadow blocked.”
BB-8 does the BB equivalent to a nod.
“[It was something that I had been working on with BB-9E before they betrayed us,]” they say. “[Except we could not get it to work for in-system calls. For instance, the MFs said that they got the call, but the Millennium Falcon was in the system.]”
The droid turns their head away.
“[BB-9E had a need for perfection, so I doubted that they would use it, and have not been able to recreate it alone,]” they say. “[I apologize and will try to work on it.]”
Leia just smiles at the BB unit. If C-3PO and herself were both made by Anakin Skywalker, then she has every right to call this droid her neifling, and it had hurt the astromech a lot when BB-9E had gone with her son to the First Order.
“Thank you, BB,” she says. “This is more than enough to give everyone back a little hope. But I think that you need to catch up with your family, first. After… yes, shadow blocking could be useful.”
For espionage, instead of wiping people out.
BB-8 does the equivalent of a nod again.
“Okay,” they say.
Leia turns to Poe.
“And you spread the word about the blocking and our next move. I think you’ll find trust in heroes more unshakable than it should be.”
Poe nods.
“I’m on it,” he says. “And you.”
Leia smiles.
“I need to get this ship pointed in the right direction,” she says. “And then to… call someone important.”
Luke, if possible. Vader, most likely.
Poe just nods again, and, with that, Leia makes her way to talk with Chewie about their new course.
Poe sighs. Okay. He can do this. He’s done plenty of rousing speeches before.
But he’s never kriffed up this much, either.
Blast it. Leia trusts him. And she said she wanted hope. So he could talk one-on-one, but this is more powerful. Like he has any idea what he’s doing, now.
In truth, his head’s been off since Be- Kylo had… anyways. Speech.
“Hey, everyone,” he calls. “I have, amazingly, good news.”
Everyone turns to look at him, some distrustful after his last stunt (to be fair, Holdo’s refusal to explain still makes no sense), most a little disbelieving.
Finn and Rey look up from what seems like a very important conversation in the back of the room.
“Our allies didn’t abandon us!” he says. “The First Order were just using a new signal blocking tech. It’s called Shadow Blocking, and Beebee here found out about it when they were on the Supremacy with Finn and Lady Tico.”
Mostly true. BB-8’s suspicions were confirmed by having seen BB-9E there.
“And we have somewhere safe to stay,” Poe continues. “It’s safe, unmapped, and settled by allies.”
Someone steps forwards.
“Where?” they ask. Poe looks to Beebee, Artoo, and Threepio, they all nod or do their equivalent.
“The Droid Colony,” he says.
The moment Leia is alone-ish and done with her necessary duties for the moment, she calls for Luke (who doesn’t appear), and then for Vader.
“You spoke to her, didn’t you?” she asks. Vader nods, and she sighs. He had mentioned tracking his sibling, recently.
She sighs.
“Of course you did,” she says. “I could see it in her eyes. Our fire.”
Vader just away.
“Kylo’s future is clouded, now more than ever,” he says, “I… you know that I’d never dare ask your forgiveness, and that’s why I have never told you unail after, but… Leech Bonds, they… they can wrap around you until all of your perceptions are warped, and… here’s the thing, General, when they break…”
Good to know. Not really. She can never forgive Vader for what he did, but she has begun to understand him.
“Maybe,” Vader continues, “Maybe there still is hope… but he is lost, now, and he revels in it… I’m so sorry, Leia.”
Huh. Leia. He never calls her that. Just Senator or General.
She files that for later, shaking her head and turning to Tico, Finn, Rey, and Poe.
“They’re the hope, now,” she says. Vader smiles.