"It's an amazing sight, isn't it?"
The voice of Leia Organa cutting through the silence of the observation room in the bow of the ship, made Hermione jump in a moment of fright. For how long she had been sitting here, staring out at the empty void, she found hard to tell, but it had to have been a while to lull her in like that. Since being on the run for almost a year, since fighting in a battle where children lost their lives, she had always taken a little longer to relax, to be set adrift like this; the large, colourful nebula out there, though, had done it.
"How amazing it must be, to be able to see it for the first time, not having grown up with sights like this," Harry's girlfriend continued, staring wistfully at the swirling clouds that, for all the witch knew, might only seem like they were close. Distance was hard to tell, in space, where entire galaxies could end up looking like pinpricks on a black background.
"Where I'm from, only a handful of people ever got to see this," she replied, now observing something completely different. As much as she did not like it, she had accepted her best friend was going to stay here, stay with his new friends and his girlfriend; now, she was obviously obliged to vet her brother's romantic partner, like a big sister was supposed to. "Can you still appreciate it? I mean, you've grown up with this, grown up as a princess, you had all these things your entire life?"
"This is just an illusion, you know…" the shorter woman circumvented the question; still, it was easy to feel there was more coming, so Hermione kept her silence, waiting to find out where this train of thought was going. When Leia waved her hand toward a small set of buttons on the wall, the impressive sight behind the transparisteel winked out, leaving behind a swirling blue tunnel in its wake. "Hyperspace, or what it appears like to our eyes when we're travelling through it. It's standard procedure on Imperial ships to keep all viewports opaque during transit to stave off hyperspace madness, but people with more eclectic tastes often like to personalize their vistas with a holoprojector."
Understandingly, Hermione nodded. "With all the good comes a whole lot of bad," the witch agreed, looking into the swirling vortex; looking at it like this, it was understandable that people had gone insane, staring at the roiling mess outside.
"And without all this, to you, radically advanced technology, my home planet would certainly still be around, my people not all but extinct, its remnants not scattered across an entire, hostile galaxy looking to either kill or exploit them," the queen continued, and for the first time, it was easy to see the weight on her young shoulders. Not just the Alderaanians she was looking to gather from exile, but all the downtrodden and oppressed. In some ways, she really was so much like Harry.
"Not scattered across the galaxy, no," she eventually agreed, relieved when the hologram covering the window winked into existence once again, this time showing an image of a windswept gas giant in front of a small, orange star in the distance. Dotted all around were moons, lots and lots of moons. "Where Harry and I are from, humanity is doing its best to destroy the planet, though. And killing, that's a constant everywhere, just like suppression and exploitation."
"You'd like the Ithorians, I think," Leia observed, distractedly playing with the small bracelet on her left wrist, the intricately designed piece of truly masterful Alderaanian craftsmanship now enchanted with a glamour, curtesy of her boyfriend. "Real conservationists, and truly generous, pacifist. As soon as they were technologically capable, they left the jungles of their homeworld to live in floating cities, so they wouldn't disturb the biosphere. They can bring life back to even the worst ravaged of worlds."
"They do sound like nice people," Hermione agreed, still distracted by the reappearance of the hologram. "What is this place?"
It took a while for the queen to answer, and when she did, there was a certain wistfulness she herself was surprised by. "The planet is called Yavin Prime. One of its moons used to hold a rebel base until we were betrayed to the Empire. We had to evacuate, with only a few casualties, though. I hadn't really noticed I missed the place this much."
"Let me guess: Harry had great fun coming in to save the day?"
"He did," Leia agreed, wistfully looking at the large storm ravaging the 'surface' of the gas giant; the 'Eye of Yavin', base personnel had called it. "Well, fun is probably not the right word. He was just as terrified as I was, probably, but he came anyway."
A knowing smile was by now gracing the witch's face. "You've really got it bad for him, don't you?"
By now, though, the queen was beyond feeling embarrassed about her relationship with Harry, and she simply smiled, nodded, and continued to stare 'out' at the planet and its horde of moons. "I do," she just agreed, distractedly. Then, she turned her full attention back on her guest. "I hope I'm not muscling in on anyone's territory; Harry told me there was never anything between the two of you, but… and I'm sure my existence is not making it more likely he'll go back with you, either."
"Ahh…" a laboured sigh whisked past Hermione's tightly pinched lips. "I want to be angry with you, and I don't want to. Of all the people I know, he is the one who would most deserve to just be happy. He wouldn't be, coming back with me. I won't be, either, but have to try, at least."
"For your parents?"
"Mmm-hmm," the witch replied, turning toward the hologram, behind which the maddening swirl of hyperspace was hidden. And in that moment, she found herself at an answer she had not expected to come out like that, but now suddenly felt profoundly true. "Yes, for them. Mostly for a sad, lonely boy who never knew his parents, only the skewed ideas others had of them, either as heroes or villains, ridiculous teenaged nemeses."
After that, they fell into silence, caught somewhere between companionable and awkward. Hermione felt, like she had probably overshared just a bit, until her reverie was broken by a small, gentle hand on her shoulder. In a moment of fright, she jumped around, to be met only by the understated, warm smile of one Leia Organa.
"For what it's worth, I think he cares much more about you being here than any of that."
OOOOOOOO
"Can you believe that customs inspector?"
"Yeah, I mean his people were right there, listening to him talk about becoming a bounty hunter… really shameless."
"And the instant hero worship…"
"Yeah, I know…"
The two junior officers, members of the party that had met the Imperial customs vessel's boarding and inspections team who were loudly discussing the… inspiring performance of said team's leader, had barely left hearing range, when, despite the heavy topics that had been discussed quite a lot recently, the group broke out in laughter. For as embarrassing as the officer might have been, at least to the Imperials and their constant recruitment advertising, to people not sympathetic to the New Order, he was mostly just one thing: extremely entertaining.
"A bounty hunter?!" Leia mimicked the inspector's overly excited tone. "You must have seen a lot of the galaxy then. They slip past us, it's your job to catch 'em, right? Makes us colleagues, really. Who would I be to question my colleagues, my valued comrades in arms?"
"Yeah, Boss," Javoc jumped in on the action, painfully bumping his fist into Harry's shoulder in the way Arden otherwise might, but which the Dathomirian was continuing to refuse doing, just like she was holding out on any other sign of friendly affection for him. "Are you going to be thinking about customs officer Verrinam when you're recruiting next?"
For a few moments, the captain pretended to think it over, until he shook his head with a put-upon sigh, like he was truly struggling with the decision. "Normally, I would say no… but today, I'm going to be so bold as to say no. You heard the guy talk; he'd be blabbing out secrets the moment we bring him in on them. He can't tell anyone about Sanctuary specifically, but even the Emperor hearing there exists a planet completely undetectable, absolutely unassailable and outside of his control could make things really difficult for us."
"I'm still just amazed you managed to place an entire planet under the Fidelius charm in the first place," Hermione commented from behind the command chair, where she had been relegated due to her complete lack of any applicable skills in the starflight department.
Harry shrugged, the way he was wont to do when he was feeling ill-at-ease with any kind of praise. "It wasn't that special, really; not that many people knew about it, and I didn't do it alone. Leia and Arden help… ow!"
In a momentarily rare gesture of… affection, the Dathomirian witch had punched him in the upper arm, hitting the exact same spot Javoc had, earlier, while his girlfriend and best friend were both looking at him rather sternly, though both chose not to comment, at least for the moment.
"Take us into orbit around the other moon," the captain ordered quickly, his effort to avoid whatever situation that had just turned into only receiving increasingly intensive scowls from two pairs of eyes. "We'll take the Twilight down to the planet; watch personnel at all times."
The captain of the freight/starfighter carrier seized from the pirate gang that got them into the whole Consortium chaos in the first place, saluted sharply. She was a rather young Imperial deserter, whose non-human heritage and unfortunate, pre-birth choice of sex had barred her from the higher echelons of power in the Navy, trapping her in a rather junior position on the Bastion. As far as Harry was concerned, though, her low-level command experience made her more suitable than any others available to fill the post, and Mercer had heartily agreed.
"No patrols, though; we don't want to spook anyone, Imperials or pirates," he continued his instructions, receiving a quick nod in reply. "Now, I'll return your seat to you."
"Thank you, sir," the officer replied, taking back the spot he had only just vacated. "Any estimates on how long you are going to be taking down there?"
"No idea. Just continue laying low, have the Skiprays do some unobtrusive snooping around, but nothing more overt. We'll be in contact once we know more."
"Aye-aye," she snapped off, already turning around and dispensing orders to the various forces under her command; yes, this one had indeed been a very lucky find, Harry decided. Within minutes, the first surveillance flights would be cruising across the system, trying to sniff out the pirate group they were looking for. And if, doing that, something else worth pursuing came up, no one would complain, either.
Following behind the wizard, the small group that was actually planning on going down to the planet was now making their way toward one of the enormous hangar bays the pirates had transformed the cargo areas into, making the ship a rather potent carrier, though at the cost of hull integrity. Where the vessel would, due to its sheer bulk, once have been able to shrug off substantial punishment, it was now as flimsy as the atmospheric shielding all around the large bay doors made it appear to be. In one of the rear-most spaces available, Harry, Leia, Hermione, Javoc, Corsek, Arden, Jane… well, there existed the remote possibility it was not such a small group anymore. Still, the Alderaanian Twilight (not that they were going to introduce themselves to the spaceport authorities thusly) proved more than adequate to house them all, at least for the short span of time it was going to take them to get down to the planet.
Indeed, everyone but the Twi'lek was soon gathered in the small conference, while she did what she did best and liked doing most, these days: flying them to the surface. And on a backwater, such as Tatooine, even with the somewhat surprisingly strong Imperial presence, no one particularly cared about port speeds, ingress vectors and other such nonsense the more 'civilized' planets liked to waste their citizens' time on. At least that was what Mercer had once said about places like this one, and he should know. After all, the deserter had grown up on a planet not too dissimilar to this ball of sand, if not in surface features, then at least in character. He did not like talking about it, obviously, but from what little Harry's first officer had let slip, it always sounded like his home was more of an industrial wasteland rather than a climatic and geographic one.
"What is the plan, Boss?" Arden eventually asked, fixing him with her hard eyes from across the table, where she had sat down to be as far away from him as she could possibly be. "Are we going to be trawling through every charted and uncharted system along the Old Corellian Run until we find what could be one of multiple bases?"
Dismayed at her continued hostile attitude (though maybe it was sweet of her, showing in her own twisted way how much she cared), Harry shook his head, then began talking. "We're going to be doing the most important thing, at least for our long-term plans, first: finding a source for lightsabre crystals. It'll free up Luke to go on whatever new mission Alliance High Command might have for him. While we're doing that, I'd like our resident Dathomirian to shake down a local fence we know the pirates used from my interviews with them."
Apparently able to overcome her current antipathy for the captain, if only to receive orders to intimidate or cajole someone, the witch questioned, "How scared do you want him?"
"Enough to get us a fair deal and keep her from blabbing on us, not enough to have her make stuff up just to make you stop," Harry replied curtly. If she got the poor fellow too wound up, after all, his intel was no longer all that good. Centuries of experience this galaxy had gathered in torture and other underhanded methods of getting people to talk certainly attested to that. Obviously, there were the witch trials on Earth to think about, too. Under torture or for fear of death, suddenly otherwise upstanding neighbours became pawns of the devil. That was aside from the morally questionable place one put oneself in when resorting to such means.
"And take some credits with you, some of the nova crystals, too," he eventually amended. "I'd rather have her as a possible future contact, rather than an enemy."
"Fine," she grumbled in response, re-sheathing the knife Harry had not even noticed her pulling. It really did seem like they were going to have to find some kind of outlet for Arden's violent impulses, or maybe something to ground her.
"What is this planet, anyway?" Hermione inquired, looking somewhat lost within the entire discussion. "The way you're talking about it, it sounds like the old wild west on Earth. The authorities couldn't be allowing that, could they?"
"Oh, they're doing more than allowing it, I bet," Javoc jumped in. "I've served in a place like this; at least some of the higher-ups will have some deep pockets the local thugs are always delighted to fill. That's not even mentioning the likes of Jabba and the other Hutts; they can pay bribes that would fill even the deepest pockets to overflowing, if it keeps the Empire out of their business. Our dear friends from the Zann Consortium do the same, or I'll eat Corsek's old boot."
"Hey, leave my boots…"
"More to the point," Harry interrupted, having heard enough of their sibling-routine to know this would otherwise waste too much time, "Tatooine is a desert planet, around 1% surface water. 200000 inhabitants, give or take. A backwater, full of criminals and subsistence farmers, and not much more. At least that's how Luke tells it. The tourism brochure I got off the HoloNet advertises the exotic vistas, fascinating wildlife and cleansing, arid desert climate. Only a few larger settlements, and with the sand people around no one really wants to venture out too far into the wasteland."
"In other words," Leia surmised from her seat at his right hand, "a perfect spot to hide a few pirate ships from undue attention. I don't like the Imperial presence, though, it's gotten heavier since I was here last. They could drive away our pirates before we ever find their lair."
Looking at the paltry fleet presence that had all of them, himself including, worried, Harry shook his head, "It's more than I would have expected for a place like this, but with the ships they have available these Maelstrom Plunderers could sweep away the Imperial forces in this system easily and keep some of the Navy's ships for their own use. I'm more worried about how professional they seemed to be. The few Kisc captured had no idea about any further outposts, and even Fen admitted the Consortium's data was far from complete. They could have a battleship waiting around here somewhere, for all we know."
"Good thing we brought the carrier and the M14s, then," the queen commented wryly. "It's no use theorizing further, we won't be finding out anything more about this by talking about it. We have people out there looking out for any clues, Arden is going on a fact-finding mission. The rest of us are meeting Luke for our own tasks."
Hermione's small smile at the other woman's short speech went mostly unnoticed, save for by Harry and Leia herself, he could see. Whatever had amused his friend, though, Harry found hard to tell.
OOOOOOOO
The Alderaanian Twilight was breaking the atmosphere when the hail reached Jane at the helm. Currently, she was the only one in the cockpit, bar the random R3 unit assigned to the ship for now.
"Alderaanian Twilight, do you copy? This is Skywalker."
"Hi, Luke," the excited Twi'lek responded to the greeting, taking a moment longer to remember she actually had to actually take to the incoming communication before she could be heard on the other end. Composing herself, just for a tiny little second, she pressed the appropriate button on the proper console, doing her best to not crash them into anything before they even reached the surface. "Hi, Luke. I'm Jane, it's nice to meet you."
"Oh uhm… hi." Flustered, he was definitely flustered. Why, though, she was not quite as certain. "Sorry, I was expecting Leia, or maybe Harry. Uhm… hi, Jane, nice to meet you, I'm Luke. Though you already know that one…"
Petering off, the young Jedi must have been clearly able to hear the steps coming up behind her in the cockpit, so he was forewarned when, all of a sudden, Leia appeared beside her.
"Luke," she greeted her former co-Jedi trainee. "Nice of you to join us. You have coordinates for us?"
A light, airy chime answered that particular question. "It's my aunt and uncle's moisture farm," he told the small group now gathered in the cockpit. "Around Ben's hut, there isn't really any free space to land, so I… well, I just thought I should go back there at some point."
"We're right behind you," Leia assured him, straightening her spine, though whether by conscious choice or as some subconscious response to the steel in her voice, Jane did not know. Indeed, the Twilight was now forming up behind the young pilot's X-wing, making for what had to be one of the weirdest wingpairs in the entire galaxy: a VT-49 Decimator following behind the Alliance's premier starfighter, making not only their difference in size and style a sight to behold.
It took surprisingly long for even the slightest hint of the Lars homestead to appear on the horizon, and when the two small buildings that were the only above-ground sign of occupancy there did finally show up, they were already almost upon them. Practically moments after they had first shown up as dots in the distance, and assault ship and snubfighter were already setting down on the compacted sand all around. Even with the limited view from the canopy, it was easy to see what fate these buildings and their owners had gone through. And while she had gotten a first-rate education in the depths of depravity sentients could go to, she was continually surprised. Not even the broken, burned remains had been removed. A bit like the place was so haunted, not even the desert scavengers would come near it.
That first impression of the site, however, was immediately quashed upon leaving the ship: Harry's feet, Leia by his side, had barely touched the hot desert sands beneath, when the first bullet impacted his armour. Obviously, they were not clad in the full garb formed out of repurposed stormtrooper gear, but each were protected by at least a helmet and an Imperial officer chest piece, hidden under long tan clothes to ward off the sun. Despite the comparatively paltry protection all of this provided, a standard slugthrower was still more paltry in comparison. Luke, caught in the middle of the ponderous act of leaving his fighter, was somewhat worse off: while he managed to ward off the first bullet with his lightsabre, getting a dash of molten metal on his arm as a reward, the second one hit home. With a cry of pain, the young pilot fell down from his own craft, clutching his right thigh, blood seeping out of the wound.
A triumphant war cry in the distance, hard as the exact spaces were to make out, announced their attackers, if the choice of weapon and the planet they were on had not already done so; Tusken bandits, or sand people, Winter's mission briefing back on Sanctuary had called them. Perhaps they were even the reason there had been no scavenging, not even by the other native sentients, the Jawas.
"Hermione, stabilize Luke," the captain ordered, the bushy-haired human in the back of the group complying instantly. Just by this alone, it was easy to see this was not the first situation of this kind the two were caught in together. "Arden, cover her! The rest, on me."
Perhaps as a testament to the trust all of the members of these groups placed, if not in each other, then at least in their leader, everyone rushed to follow his orders. Consequently, it took little time, until the direction of the shooting had been made out. Harry in the lead, the smaller team advanced toward a small outcropping, close to which one of the farm's old vaporators stood, forlorn in the desert heat. With each of the two opposing parties hidden behind some kind of protection, this promised to become a protracted firefight, if no one managed to quickly get the first… well, second hit in. Eventually, it was actually Jane who spotted and shot the first of the attackers: a cloth trouser leg riding up and showing dark undergarments had betrayed him, and his low cover opened him up to return fire. Perhaps worried, or possibly out for blood after their first casualty, the Tusken now left their tactically advantageous position.
Armed with great clubs, the repurposed metal alternatively glinting and rusty, a group of perhaps twenty began charging at them, popping up from behind pieces of old equipment, the few available rocks, and even from below the very sand itself. Against the superior firepower on Captain Potter's side, though, they were simply without chance: around a quarter of them, fallen down, screaming in pain, was what it took to make the others realize the folly of their chosen strategy, and what had started as a spirited, furious charge, soon turned into a hasty, disorganized retreat.
"Leave them," the captain called out as the first members of the party started going after their fleeing foes. Letting his shield drop, he amended, "No use in causing further unnecessary bloodshed."
OOOOOOOO
Luke's childhood was… well, it was no cupboard under the stairs, but not anything to write home about, either. Most everything had been ransacked, obviously, searched for clues on the Empire's wild hunt for the droid carrying the Death Star's plans. But since then, the only people who had had the opportunity to scavenge were the Tusken, and it showed: where anyone even remotely aware of and interested in actually selling the more valuable equipment, of which there was actually quite a bit, would not have ripped things out of the walls like the bandits had done, this was just what had happened. Even the Lars' speeder had shared that ignominious fate, with most of its outer panelling removed, likely to turn it into one of the crude rifles the attackers had dropped outside. As far as Harry could tell, though, the vehicle should still be able to fly.
"He's sleeping, now," Hermione informed him, as she stepped through the door of the vehicle bay. There was no need to say, whom she was talking of. They both knew. "I used up all the dittany I brought with me, though."
The wizard shrugged; if that was the price to pay for a friend, even a rather distant one, healing faster, having less pain to endure, that was fine. "Thanks. I'm sure he'll be thankful, once he's up again. Careful, he might imprint on you like a puppy-dog, though. Did it with Leia, last year."
"I'll manage," his best friend chuckled, a fond smile tugging at her lips, even as she shook her head in exasperation at his antics. "She's great, you know; Leia."
The last bit she had added for his benefit, when his expression must have conveyed something less than complete understanding. "I do know."
"Good," she replied, sharing an easy smile with him. It was something he relished, something he had noticed they had been sharing for a long time now: they could row, had done so a few times over their time in school, but they were quickly back to normal, at least if the issue at hand was properly dealt with. And if it was any year other than their sixth…
"Luke is going to be unconscious for a while, I think. Until the morning, most likely," the witch broke into his musings, his remembrance of how much of an arse he had once been over a broomstick, only to easily be forgiven. "Does that alter the plan?"
"No. We would have had to spend the night, anyway. Travelling the deserts at night is dangerous, I'm told."
"Well, then, pitch that tent I hear you've enchanted all on your own."
OOOOOOOO