That was an old trick too. Wolffe shot his hand out and grabbed the errant ankle, pulling hard and laughing when Bly shrieked and had to twist to cling on to his bed.

Below them there was a loud groan and an ominous creak.

“Will you guys knock it off?” 

 Wolffe froze, but was too late to avoid the blunt force that slammed into his lower back. The air shoved out of his lungs, and he dropped Bly’s foot in favour of curling over.

“Kark it, Fil,” he coughed. “You kick like a rancor.”

Fil grunted then jabbed his toes into the small of Wolffe’s back again for good measure.

“You’re ruining nap time,” he said, voice muffled. “We’re supposed to be resting .”

Wolffe scoffed and uncurled slowly, sticking his tongue out at Bly, who had scrambled back onto his own bed and was looking smug.

“Nap time’s for tubies.”

Fil stabbed viciously at the mattress again.

“Yeah,” he said. “And I wouldn’t need it if you and Blitz hadn’t been so kriffing loud last night.”

Wolffe froze and scowled. He’d told Blitz he was making too much noise, but their brother wouldn’t know the meaning of quiet if it punched him in the bucket. They kept failing stealth simulations because he either didn’t know or didn’t care what the difference between a popper and a detonator was, and for all Wolffe’s efforts, he carried over the same attitude to conversation, too.

Bly brightened. “I heard that too, what were you doing?”

Wolffe scowled even more, feeling his shoulders bunch up to his ears. “ Nothing .”

He hadn’t pulled off a lie in his life, but that wasn’t going to stop him from trying. It was better than the alternative of actually admitting that they’d stolen one of the practice droids and been trying to programme it to go for the trainers instead. If his brothers got wind of things, there was no way that Fil wouldn’t sell them out to kiss ass, and Bly just couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

Cody...well, Wolffe never quite knew where he stood about these things. Sometimes he’d veto ideas entirely, the downturn of his mouth a deathknell to even the best laid plans. Wolffe knew when he was beaten. But on better occasions Cody would get a special glint in his eye, one that always reminded him of light bouncing off a blaster barrel, and suggest something that would magnify the chaos instead. He had the best sabaac face of them all, so it was always better to have him on side. 

Wolffe had spent many hours trying to figure out what cast the odds of getting Cody to loosen up a bit. Until he knew for definite, it was imperative he kept this one under his bucket. He felt good about the plan; Blitz had done a real number on the wiring, so the job looked seamless. But they’d need the whole squad to pitch in if they were gonna get it to work. He wanted to make sure this thing was airtight before he pitched it.

“Why don’t you pull your pod closed if you’re so tired?” He asked, sticking his head over the edge of his own to glare at Fil properly. He got a glimpse of Fil’s pillow-creased face before a socked foot shot towards his face. “ Hey.” 

“You’re deflecting, vod,” Fil grunted. 

“ Vod ?” Wolffe scoffed, scrubbing his sore cheek. He wrinkled his nose. “The hell’re you tryin’ to talk like one of those Alpha ARCs for? Hopin’ they’ll adopt you if you ask nicely?”

There was a short silence, long enough that Wolffe chanced another peek over the edge. Fil’s ears had flushed dark, his expression mulish. Wolffe scented weakness and grinned.

“Bet they’d be nicer to me than you are,” Fil said, the furrow between his brows deepening.

Wolffe snorted. “The Alphas aren’t nice to nobody, ‘ specially not scrawny regs like you .” 

“That’s not true!” Fil’s voice was shrill. 

As Wolffe opened his mouth to reply, Bly made a sharp sound of warning that he was too caught up in amusement to heed.  

“The Alpha class get to break the rules , Fil. You just kiss the manual.”

There was ringing silence from the bunk below, instead of the sharp quip that Wolffe had expected. For a second, the only sound was the harsh burr of Blitz snoring on the next level up. He glanced automatically at Bly, who scrunched his face and cut his hand in a line across his throat. 

Then Wolffe heard a distinct sniffle, his stomach dropping. He scrambled back to the edge of the bunk and stuck his whole head over the edge, something cold and awful spreading inside him, extinguishing his humour in an instant.

“Hey, are you crying?” 

“ No, ” Fil said, wetly, struggling to turn over and hide his face. His breath hitched so hard Wolffe could see his ribs jump.

Kark it. He’d done it again. Pushed too hard and put his great big foot in it. It felt like he’d come out of the tube wrong sometimes, like there was simultaneously too much of him and not enough of the good bits. He’d made Gree cry the other day, too, had pulled just a little too hard when they were sparring and then suddenly found himself trying to calm him down before the trainer noticed. He was always doing that; barrelling straight over the line and not realising until it was dust behind him.

It made him good at simulations. He didn’t think it made him a very good brother. 

He twisted his hands together and looked beseechingly towards Bly, who fixed him with an unimpressed glare and gestured at the lower bunk. 

The message was clear: Go fix it . For a moment, he was tempted to just retract his pod, but...that would be cowardly. And if he didn’t make things up now, Cody or Blitz would force him to later. Probably from a headlock.

He sighed and dutifully clambered down a level until he was hanging off the ladder by Fil’s head. He was still curled up and sniffling, but with a stiff sort of awareness that told Wolffe he was fully alert and primed to start swinging if he didn’t get this right. They always had to be ready to turn tears into anger, to prove that you weren’t someone too weak to leave behind. 

“You can say vod if you wanna,” he began, cringing at the way the words sounded coming out of his mouth. 

Fil snorted and didn’t turn to look at him.

Wolffe took a deep breath. “S-just… why ?”

Fil shuffled. “What?” 

“Why do you wanna talk like them? They don’t do nothin’ for us.” 

Wolffe didn’t know how true it was, but he’d heard that all 100 of the Alpha class were still kicking. Alphas didn’t get sent to reconditioning if their scores dipped, didn’t just disappear . And the trainers even called them by their names. 

Wolffe might have respected that more if it had ever trickled down to the rest of them. He’d always be a plain old CC until the day he died and there was nothing anyone could do about that, no matter who he spoke like. 

Fil finally rolled over, displaying a damp tear streaked face. He scowled at Wolffe. 

“I dunno. It’s not even about them,” he bit out. Wolffe saw the way his shoulders hunched and thought lie . He only just managed to restrain himself from sinking his teeth into it and let go. “I just…they say it like they’re part of somethin’.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They say it like they’re something…more, I guess,” Fil shrugged, swiping a sleeve under his nose. 

“More than us , you mean,” Wolffe said. He’d been aiming for outrage, but was surprised by the meek little voice that came out of him. 

Fil had been watching the Alphas for a while. Lots of cadets did. Wolffe could understand wanting better for yourself - hell, he wasn’t exempt from that - but seeing that dream in another clone classification felt a lot like wishing yourself away. Like wishing your brothers away, too. 

“If you want another squad just say it,” he muttered, through a throat so tight it hurt. He’d been bunked with this squad since their second cycle - practically batchmates, since none of their original ones had made the cut. That was a long time in the projected shelf life of a clone. Despite his better judgement, he liked them most of the time.

Fil made an exasperated noise. “That’s not what I -” 

Above their heads, there was a clang, then a thump. Wolffe shot to attention, but didn’t anticipate Fil doing the same. Their shoulders collided, nearly pitching him off the narrow bunk entirely had Fil’s hand not caught the back of his collar.

“I told you I heard something,” Bly hissed. 

The huge ventilation tunnel spanning the length of their dormitory ceiling shuddered again, creaking as it swayed ominously. There was the echoing thud of a foot connecting to the inner wall.

Wolffe snorted. 

“It’s just some of the tubies sneaking out,” he said, sinking back to lean against Fil’s pillow. 

“Badly,” Bly said. “Have they got a full set of armour on or what?”

Fil was frowning, still craning his head upwards.

“Where the hell are they going?” He muttered, tracking the tunnel to where it disappeared into the far wall. “The only thing that way is the shower block.”

There was another clang, before the maintenance hatch for their dormitory popped open. A small body wriggled out, before swinging to grab the surface of the nearest pod on the uppermost level.

Wolffe studied the cadet that had just dropped into their midst. The gangly, colt-like limbs on 'em made him wince. With legs like that he was either approaching a stint in the growth acceleration chamber or had just come out of one. Wolffe pitied him regardless. Judging by his height and the extra fat he still had in his cheeks, he was probably only a cycle behind them. Most interesting was the shock of pale blond curls in disarray as the cadet nimbly scaled the pod latches on the wall opposite and landed on the floor. 

He’d only seen a few mutations before, and none so dramatic as this. No wonder the poor kid had learned how to sneak around - you certainly wouldn’t miss him in a crowd.

“Uh, you lost?” he asked, coughing out a laugh at the way it made the cadet jump and wheel around. He caught a glimpse of the usual big brown eyes, a pair of eyebrows drawn together over them. There was a tight, resolute downturn to the curve of their mouth, a ready wariness in the hunched line of their shoulders.

“ No.” They said, gaze flicking rapidly between each member of their rapt audience. Wolffe stifled another laugh at the squeaky pitch of their voice - it was hard to imagine they’d ever sounded like that. “I have an appointment.”

“An appointment ?” Bly didn’t even try to hide his amusement. “Nobody ever told me this was an office. Who’re you booked in with, kid?”

The cadet kept his back to the wall, and Wolffe didn’t miss the way he catalogued the door, or scoped out possible routes back to the maintenance hatch. His shoulders hadn’t relaxed down from around his ears yet, his hands tight fists at his sides. Wolffe had to admit, he didn’t know if he’d be able to go uninvited into another squad’s dorm with any more swagger. There was something scrappy about this kid - an unpredictable mixture of fight or flight where either impulse might win.

“You’re Cody’s new pet, aren’t you?” Fil said suddenly. “The one he keeps trying to socialize.”

That rang a bell. Cody had been ranting about this new cadet he’d found in the detention laps for the last two weeks, convinced the kid was either going to commit a murder or become the victim of one if someone didn’t do something about it. Wolffe had wanted to question why that someone had to be Cody, but there was no point wasting the breath - Cody was a sucker for charity cases. It was why he was the best of them, unilaterally deferred to when the chips were down. There weren’t many people in this army who you knew would always come back for you, squad or not. Maybe it was because their whole squad had been strays, once. While the choice to be together had never been theirs, the choice to become a unit had. Cody had taken that mentality and run with it.

The cadet brightened a little bit, in a desperately hopeful way that was kind of disgusting. “Is he here?”

Instead of answering, Bly tilted his head, studying the new arrival with rapt attention. “Wow, I thought he was making you up.”

Wolffe wrinkled his nose. “Why would he do that?”

Bly shrugged. “I don’t know, I figured it was just a polite way of telling us to kriff off.”

Wolffe stared at his brother in naked disbelief. “Cody’s never been polite in his life.”

“And he told you to kriff off to your face this morning,” Blitz said, poking his head over the edge of his pod. “I heard him. What are we talking about?”

“Cody’s new passion project,” Wolffe told him. “Apparently they have an ‘appointment’ together.”

The cadet’s expression had been slowly softening into crestfallen the longer none of the other pods popped open, but the moment Wolffe spoke a spark of anger lit again, his teeth coming out.

“My designation is CT-7567,” he snapped. “Cody was going to take me to watch the aiwhas.”

Wolffe caught Bly’s eye - the lack of a name spoke volumes. Either this cadet was so far in the shit he was on performance rotation and didn’t have a set squad of his own, which was practically having one foot over the threshold of the decommissioning bay, or his relationship with his squad was the thing on the rocks. Neither prospect had a long lifespan attached to it.

“He got pulled back by our trainer,” Blitz said, taking pity on the kid. He ran his hands through his sleep-mussed hair and yawned until his jaw cracked.

“Is he okay?” ‘67 asked.

Fil rolled his eyes. “Yeah, he’s fine. Just doesn’t study hard enough for his galactic history modules.”

‘67 folded his hands into his sleeves, scrunching and relaxing the material over and over again. His eyes drifted back towards the maintenance hatch. He was going to try to run, Wolffe realised. 

He turned to look properly at Fil, gesturing just the slightest bit towards the kid. It had been a long time since they’d gone aiwha-watching, but it had been their favourite thing to do a few cycles back. They only really swarmed when it was storming, the danger of navigating the slick rooftops worth it for the way the pods drifted lazily on the huge waves and rolled to let the pelting rain tickle their undersides.

Cody had never taken anyone out there, of all the miserable tagalongs he’d acquired over the years. More than anything else, it sealed Wolffe’s decision - whether they liked it or not, 7567 was here for the long haul. 

Fil rolled his eyes, but he was almost smiling.

“Sure, been a while since we snuck out,” Bly shrugged, catching the silent conversation. 

“Hell yeah,” Blitz said. “Where are we going?” 

7567 had gone very still, like he was stood in the crosshairs of a KiSteer rifle. 

“To see the aiwhas, idiot,” Wolffe scoffed. “It’s not the kid’s fault that Cody’s late.” 

“Hell yeah, ” Blitz said again, stretching until his spine popped. “I’ve got a theory, do you think if I -” 

“ No, ” Wolffe said forcefully, in unison with Fil and Bly. Almost as long as he’d been out of his tube, Blitz had been trying to find a way to ride the aiwhas like the longnecks did. They’d been finding ways to stop him for just slightly less time than that. 

“Aw, you guys are no fun,” Blitz muttered, but there was no heat in it. He’d swung himself onto the ladder and made it most of the way towards the floor before 7567 found his voice again.

“Why would you do that?” he asked, voice brittle. He was still frozen, eyes darting between them. Distrust was the winning emotion on his face, but there was that unwilling edge of hope again, that even the experience of having a mutation on Kamino hadn’t managed to smother. Wolffe had said it before, he’d say it again: disgusting. He could entirely see why Cody was ready to put his commendations on the line for this little brat.

“Because if you’re one of Cody’s, you’re one of ours,” he shrugged, clambering past Fil to slide down the ladder. He popped open their wet weather locker and yanked out two of the coats inside. He threw one at ‘67. “That’s how squad works. Now suit up.”

They didn’t take ‘67 back through the ventilation shaft - a cycle ago they would have, but in the months that had lapsed since they’d last tried, they’d grown too much for it to be comfortable. They used the maintenance halls instead. Less secure, maybe, but they were on good terms with old ‘99, who in turn kept the droid fleet sweet, so they were unlikely to be ratted out by anyone.

“You don’t have to creep around like that, kid,” Bly was saying to him, as they cleared the stretch underneath training hall 3.

‘67 looked like he might bite. “Don’t call me kid . I’m barely younger than you.”

Wolffe stifled a laugh. He wanted to hold the cadet up by his ankles and shake him around until he really fought back, just to see what would happen. There would be time for that, though, once he stopped believing it was really a matter of life and death and loosened up a bit.

“Gotta find yourself a name, if you don’t want kid to stick,” Fil told him, flanking his other side. “Some clones in our cycle have got some real unfortunate ones cause they weren’t quick enough.”

‘67’s scowl deepened into something more hurt than mad. “No chance of that. My squad won’t even give me a stupid one.”

Wolffe felt that funny wrench in his chest again. Was that what the younger squads were doing? Only taking names when they’d passed group consensus? More proof that a single cycle between clones could be akin to an ocean. 

“So pick your own,” he heard himself say. 

“What?” ‘67 asked, looking at him like he’d grown a second head.

“Pick your own,” he repeated. “Don’t let ‘em have that over you.”

“You can do that?” ‘67 sounded deeply sceptical.

“Course you can,” Blitz said. “I wasn’t going to let any of these idiots pick for me.”

Wolffe laughed. “Yeah, we’d have ended up as Idiots One, Two, Three and Four.”

“I’d have been Idiot One,” Bly told ‘67, grinning.

“Like hell you would,” Fil retorted. “ I’d have been Idiot One.”

‘67’s voice was flat. “Aren’t there five of you?”

Bly’s grin grew wider. “Yeah, but Cody would have been Big Idiot.”

Their laughter carried them until they were out on the rooftop, when they had to start concentrating to stop themselves getting blown off into the oblivion of Kamino’s oceans. Wolffe went first - he was one of the surest on his feet, and he’d been out here the most often. It took a little longer on this new route, but he figured his way to their usual spot easily enough, where the wind was a little less brutal with the facility fully at their backs. The views out over the long, desolate horizon were best here too, letting you see the huge tidal waves roll in.

“I don’t see anything,” ‘67 muttered, casting a hand over his forehead like keeping the rain out might help him see better.

“Just give it a minute,” Bly said, tracking the rolling water and the loud, slamming booms as each wave hit the platform stilts all those meters below. “Aiwhas like the massive ones, lets ‘em really surf.”

“Got a platform beater coming!” Blitz shouted, gesturing. “Look at the crest on that!”

“I see them, I see them!” ‘67 cried, flapping his hand in the same direction. Sure enough, as the wave swelled, there was the low, carrying croon of an aiwha pod, before their great, grey bodies came shooting out of the frothy wave head, first five, then ten, their huge wings beating lazily to help them keep pace with the waterline. 

The pod leader, a huge, grizzled thing with chunks out of its wings, bellowed and rolled as the wave started its downward trajectory, spinning once, twice, before tucking everything in tight and bombing back into the water, the rest of the pod following. The resulting spray was so fierce Wolffe barely had time to get his hand over his face before it got them.

‘67 was shrieking with laughter, a huge smile splitting his face from side to side. “That was amazing !” 

A looming shadow fell behind them. They all froze.

“What the heck is this?” 

Everyone apart from ‘67 relaxed.

“Hey, Cody,” Bly said, giving him a lazy two-fingered salute. “We thought we’d take your cadet for a walk.”

“That’s my vod’ika, get your own,” Cody growled.

Wolffe groaned. “Not you, too. Why can’t we make up our own word?” 

“Do you like karkhead better?” Cody asked. He was still in his training armor, and looked mad as hell about it. He’d clearly hightailed it straight from his remedial to the dorms and then come here directly when he’d found it empty. Wolffe might have felt bad about his panic had it not been clearly rooted in Cody not trusting what they’d done with ‘67 in his absence.

“That’s not very nice, ‘67 has a perfectly fine head,” he retorted, dodging the kick that quickly followed.

“I meant for you ,” Cody said, eyes raking over ‘67. When he was satisfied that his squad hadn’t managed to break him, he sniffed. “Have I missed many?”

“Just the best pod dive we’ve ever seen in our lives,” Bly crowed.

Cody made the mistake of trying to kick for a second time; Bly bypassed the foot and latched around his thigh, and they both went down with shouts and lots of scuffling, clearing out Blitz as collateral.

‘67 stood in the middle of the chaos looking thoroughly bewildered.

“Shouldn’t we stop them?” He asked Fil in a small voice, one arm coming up to wrap round his stomach. “I - I don’t want ‘em to fight cause of me.” 

Fil grinned. “This isn’t fighting, kid. C’mere.”

And to Wolffe’s surprise, ‘67 came, scooting to fit into the small space between him and Fil, where he’d clearly figured out the best warmth would be.

 Fil turned to look at Wolffe over ‘67’s blond head, satisfaction on his face.

“This is why I call you vod , you know,” he said, gesturing back at where their squadmates were tussling in a puddle. “When I said it made me feel part of something, I meant that when I say it, it feels like this. I don’t want a new squad.”

And standing there in the rain, wet through despite his gear and cold to the bone, with his idiot brothers and their strange new tagalong, Wolffe could almost get it.

Alderaan’s beautiful green and blue coloring from space drifted into her mind’s eyes, and she squeezed her eyes shut and pushed the feeling of despair away.

She couldn’t mourn her planet, people, and parents now.

Leia had to stay strong, to show she was undaunted, untamed still by the Empire’s mercilessness.

Darth Vader himself had tortured her.

Grand Moff Tarkin had obliterated her home.

But she would not break, she would not give in.

Because that was not who she was.

As long as she had hope, the Rebellion would live on. They would live to bring justice to her people, and all the other planets suffering under the Empire’s regime.

She had often heard Cassian Andor (may he rest in peace) say that Rebellions were built on hope, and she agreed whole-heartedly.

She jolted and fixed a stern glare on her face as the door to her cell opened, revealing a rather short stormtrooper.

“Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?” she snarked.

“Huh?” the trooper said. “Oh, right, the helmet…” surprisingly, the trooper took the helmet off and revealed the face of a boy around her age, with shaggy, sun-bleached blonde hair and startling blue eyes.

“Princess Leia?” he asked.

Leia raised a brow, and nodded.

“I’m Luke Skywalker, I’m here to rescue you,” the boy quickly said, glancing behind him. “I came with Ben Kenobi-”

“General Kenobi’s here?” Leia asked, startled and pleased as she shot up onto her feet. Ben had gotten her message! R2 did it!

“Yes,” Luke replied. “We have to move fast, because the pilots who were taking us to Alderaan have been imprisoned too.”

“Then let’s get moving,” Leia ordered, smartly adjusting the folds of her dress and marched out of the cell. Luke followed her out, and nearly crashed into her back as she froze - in joy and horror.

The former emotion came from the sight of the still tired-looking Obi-Wan Kenobi (did he ever take that nap she told him to do?), and the latter from the arms-crossed form of Darth Vader, who looked rather sulky(?) at the moment.

“Hello Leia,” Ben sighed as he turned his back on Darth Vader . “It’s good to see you again.”

Leia’s mouth had opened from the shock of this sight, and Luke rocked back and forth on his heels.

“Um,” he said. “You know Ben too, huh?”

Leia nodded faintly, the phantom pains of fire running through her veins as she stared warily at Vader.

What. Was. Going. On.

“Leia, I hate to drop this on you like this,” Ben winced. “But may I introduce you to your twin brother?” he vaguely waved a hand at Luke, and Leia swiveled her head around to meet the blonde’s sheepish and nervous expression.

She had…a brother?

She hadn’t lost all her family after all?

She suddenly gasped, whipping around on Ben, and exclaimed; “Was he who you’ve been with for all these years?”

Ben had a soft smile on his face. “Yes, I have been protecting Luke all his life - minus the days I spent saving your life.” the smile turned genuine. “I seem to be doomed to prevent Skywalkers from killing themselves.”

Leia’s brain froze.

Skywalker.

That’s right - that’s Luke’s last name.

Which meant her birth father was…Anakin Skywalker.

Wow.

She would always call Bail and Breha Organa her parents, and she loved them fiercely, and she had never really been all that interested in her biological parents, but there was a sense of connection to hear her birth father’s name.

“If we’re all done ,” Vader’s impatient voice made Leia tense, and she blinked as Luke’s hand rubbed her arm. She glanced at him, curious, and he seemed to be avoiding looking at Vader as much as she was. “I thought Luke had some “friends” he wanted to rescue.”

Leia glanced inquiring at Ben. Why was Vader helping them?

“I’ll explain later,” Ben promised quietly as Vader turned on his heels and quickly walked off. Leia warily followed, sticking close to Luke’s side, as Vader savagely punched in a code into two other cells and stepped aside before the doors opened.

Luke ran into the closest one to them, and Leia heard his light laugh and a happy, warm growl from inside. Her brother (brother!) came back out with the lumbering form of a Wookie.

She blinked. Her brother sure had a variety of friends.

In the second cell, a human male basically threw himself out, fist aloft as he gave a challenging yell - before pausing at Luke being hugged by the Wookie, Ben’s amused, tired expression, and her unimpressed one.

The man opened his mouth, looking briefly confused, before blurting out; “What the kriff’s going on?”

“You are being rescued,” Vader said from behind him, and the man yelped and spun around, stumbling backwards and nearly toppling into Ben in the process. “Why I am aiding your escape is none of your concern, and I advise you to take it .”

“Hi Han!” Luke called as the Wookie gently set him down. “You okay?”

The man, Han, slowly tore his gaze from Vader and looked disbelievingly at Luke. “Okay, if this is some big plot to get me to believe in the Force, you may have convinced me because how in the nine Corellian hells did you get him to help you?” he gestured wildly to Vader’s immovable form that seemed just as unimpressed as Leia did.

She shuddered at that comparison.

Luke exchanged a look with Ben, and shrugged. “It’s a long story.”

Han seemed to be struck speechless, but at the Wookie’s growl, he shook himself out of it. “Okay, okay, right,” he muttered. “I’m not gonna look a gift bantha in the mouth. We gotta find our weapons and get to my ship.”

“Down the corridor, and in the safe.” Vader emotionlessly answered, sticking his thumb over his shoulder. “Luke’s lightsaber, the Wookie’s bowcaster, and your assortment of blasters and vibroblades are in it. Don’t procrastinate.”

Han slowly raised his hands up. “Alright, alright, come on Chewie, Luke. Time to get our stuff back!”

Luke gave Leia a smile before handing his stormtrooper helmet to Ben and rushing off after Han. Leia furrowed her brows when she saw there were no Imperial officers or stormtroopers present.

Huh.

She crossed her arms and stalked past Vader, training herself to not respond to his presence. She was still suspicious about his help, and would treat what he said like she would a loaded blaster, but she wasn’t stupid to use what help she could.

Luke had discarded the stormtrooper armor and was fiddling with an object she recognized as a lightsaber. He turned it on, and a blade as vividly blue as Ben’s fizzled into existence. Luke had a small smile on his face, but it seemed to be tinged with sadness.

“Nice lightsaber,” she told her brother, bumping her shoulder into his.

“Thanks,” he replied. “It was my - our - dad’s.” his eyes darted nervously over to Vader.

“Really?” she asked. “Anakin Skywalker’s?” Luke hummed, and disengaged the blade before clipping it to his belt.

“Ben gave it to me before we left Tatooine,” he explained as everyone crowded into the turbolift.

“That’s nice,” Leia wistfully said. She wished she had a memento of her parents, like her mother’s amethyst earrings, or her father’s long, blue Senatorial cloak.

Anything to remember them by.

But it was all destroyed on Alderaan.

Luke once more glanced at Vader, and that’s when Leia noticed the rising tension in the turbolift. But Ben and the Sith were stiff, facing forward, while Han and poor Chewie were stuck in between them.

“Did you even have a plan?” Ben tersely asked.

“Yes.” Vader bit back sharply - almost defensively, Leia noticed with a raised brow. She exchanged a look with Luke as Vader continued; “I will go on ahead and demand another meeting with Tarkin for Luke’s custody - he will deny it, and you will all use that time to get to the smuggler’s garbage bin of a ship.”

Han’s offended “Hey!” was drowned out by Ben’s annoyed sigh.

“It’s always by halves with you, isn’t it?” he muttered. “You don’t think Tarkin or the Emperor will be suspicious of Luke, Leia, Captain Solo, and Chewbacca’s miraculous escape?”

“I will blame it on you.” Vader shot back with zero hesitation.

“Even in my prime I wouldn’t have been able to do such a thing.”

“You sell yourself short - you have been escaping my grasp for nearly two decades. It’s not much of a stretch to believe you could do it again along with many others.”

“You think too highly of me, Darth.”

Leia shot a disbelieving look with her companions. What was going on ?

“Okay!” Han then shouted with a wave of his hand. “Let’s just do his Sithyness’s plan since it’s the only one we got!”

“ Sithyness ?” Vader scowled as Leia snickered. Luke had a smile while Chewie gaffled with laughter. “You won’t call me that again, Solo , unless you want your windpipe crushed.”

Han stared at Vader. “I’ll remember to write that down.”

Chewie rumbled something, and Han scoffed. “I do not! ”

“If he asked if you have a death wish,” Leia deadpanned. “I think he’s right.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion , Your Worshipfulness!” the smuggler shot back.

“Announcing it to the entire turbolift is an invitation, nerf-herder .”

Han scowled before turning to Luke, who seemed to be trying to hide in Chewie’s shaggy, brown fur. “I really hope that reward’s gonna be worth it, kid.”

“If money’s all you care about,” Leia tartly butted in. “Then money is what you’ll get. I doubt you even care about anything but yourself.”

Han opened his mouth to argue back, but Ben slapped his hand over it as the turbolift doors opened and Vader stepped out, towering in the doorway as he scanned to hallways.

“It’s clear,” he rumbled. “Make your way back to the hangar. Leave Tarkin to me.”

Han wasted no time to leave the turbolift, with Chewie bending over to accommodate his gargantuan height. Ben exited next, and Vader snapped his mask to him and lowly hissed; “You better keep them safe, Kenobi. If not…” he clenched his hand. “There is nowhere you can hide that’ll keep you safe from me.”

Ben gazed sadly at Vader. “Believe me,” he murmured. “I would punish myself if I ever let anything happen to them.”

Leia and Luke exited last, and Leia curiously glanced at Vader and Ben.

They seemed to have struck an agreement that resulted in Vader helping them.

Luke seemed to hesitate, looking back over his shoulder at Vader, who was staring intently at both him and Leia.

Leia grabbed Luke’s hand and gently pulled him along, and saw Vader slowly turn away to go confront Tarkin.

Whatever the reason on why Vader had helped them, she wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.

They had the plans for the abomination they were on, and they were going to destroy it.

For Alderaan.

For the Rebellion.

The destruction of the Empire was near.