TheBridge

When was the last time she’d been able to just stand still and appreciate the beauty of nature?

“Ma’am?”

She turned her head to see the young Lieutenant from earlier standing at a respectful distance—-the light of a pale blue nebula reflecting off his lean features.

“Do you need anything?” the boy asked her.

She smiled.

“No, thank you. Just…enjoying the view.”

He turned to look at it himself, hands clasped behind his back.

“It is not something I ever tire of,” he agreed. “I just wondered, ma’am, if you needed rest. Most of the others are sleeping.” He gestured back toward the lift which led to the passenger berths several decks down.

“Mm.” Shmi pressed her fingers to the viewport, appreciating the coolness on her skin. “I did rest, thank you. What of you Lieutenant…?”

“Piett,” he answered, holding out a hand. She shook it, appreciating the firm grip. “I’ll get some kip soon, thank you.”

She was gaining speed and he watched the Destroyer ahead of them—-no doubt her bridge was wondering what in the nine hells the Super Star Destroyer was doing.

They passed the other ship so closely that their shields almost touched. But then they had a clear lane ahead.

“Lightspeed!” Piett ordered.

The pilot pulled back the lever and the Lady shot into hyperspace.

His crew was too professional to break into cheering, but he could see the jubilant looks and claps on the back they were giving each other.

“Course, Captain?” asked the pilot, doing her utmost to look at him without openly grinning.

“My Lord?” he inquired, turning to Skywalker as he tugged his jacket a little to straighten it.

“Dantooine,” he answered calmly. “Well done, Captain. Cut it a little close there, didn't you?”

Piett very carefully did not allow his mouth to curl at the edge.

“We all learned how to do Axxilan chicken, sir,” he replied in a neutral tone.

This earned him an eyebrow from Skywalker.

“Indeed,” he said. Piett did not allow his gaze to waver, holding eye contact.

“I’ll need to hear more about that. Another time,” Skywalker told him, then he turned and strode from the bridge. And he may not be wearing it any longer, but Piett could almost see that long cape flowing behind him.

“Veers?” Obi-Wan asked her. “How is he?”

“Done with all the surgeries,” she said. “He’s still in medbay, but should make a full recovery.”

The Jedi Master nodded and then appeared to hesitate.

“What is it?” Sola asked, feeling infinitely weary.

Neither she nor Firmus had slept well the last three nights. Worry for Max, Matthew having nightmares, and her husband being needed to help fill the workload due to Ozzel’s absence meant they slept in snatches.

“There are things I need to tell Anakin,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Things that…I really can’t convey through you. Both for security reasons on my end and because…well he’ll have questions and you can’t answer them.”

Understanding swept her.

“You want me to arrange a meeting between you two. Is that wise, General Kenobi?”

He raised his eyebrows in resignation.

“Wise or not, there’s no way around what I need to say if we’re going to be allies in this endeavor.”

That was going to be…explosive. She hoped the ship would survive this conversation.

His gift for command was in full evidence as he spoke with various tech crew and junior officers, delegating jobs and taking their reports. Then his eyes lifted and he saw her watching him. His mouth curled a little and he said something to the people in front of him before he bent to a much smaller someone at his side and then both of them approached Sola.

She pulled back into the shadows under the catwalk so they could have some margin of privacy, sadly not enough to snog him unconscious, but she wrapped her arms around him, the hard surface of the dented cuirass digging into her.

“Firmus,” she murmured. “My darling…”

“I know,” he replied, burying his face into her shoulder for all too brief seconds. She could see the flecks of dirt in his hair and the back of his neck.

And that was all they would get for the moment. He lifted his head, ghosting his lips across her cheek as he did so and turned to draw the wide eyed child close to himself.

“This is Matt. Matthew, this is my wife…” he hesitated, hazel eyes a little uncertain as he looked at her.

“Miss Sola works for now,” she told the boy. He was dressed in clothes that were clean but too big for him, and it was clear from his far too solemn expression that he had seen things a child should never have to. She started to piece some things together about her husband’s damaged cuirass and the way this child was clearly quite attached to Firmus.

He was down the ladder with practised speed and running for the place he’d last seen Piett. There were too many bodies, flung about as though by the hand of a tempermental giant.

Veers swallowed the bile as he breathed in the powerful scent of ozone and copper and raw meat.

Please, please, please…

He forced himself not to look at broken bodies far too small to be in the midst of a conflict like this. He tuned out cries and shrieks of agony and loss.

Because he’d just spotted a dust covered Imperial boot—-a boot that moved, thank the Force .

The General dropped to his knees and began to heave at the debris covering his friend. Moments later, Havell joined him, blood trickling from a gash in his cheek and more relief coursed through Veers.

With the big Sergeant’s brawn added to the effort, they freed Piett in no time.

He was wheezing and struggling for breath not only because he’d been flung under the rubble, but also because the back of his cuirass was dented impressively.

“Get a medic over here!” Veers ordered. “Piett. Firmus . Where are you hurt?”

She swept him with her gaze and it was very clear that Anakin was before a tribunal of one.

He had put aside most of the suit—the pieces that he was able to—in favor of wearing the more comfortable attire that anyone serving with General Anakin Skywalker would have recognized.

Her eyes locked onto his like a plasma missile and Sola fired her opening salvos.

“Padme tried to explain things about the Force to me,” she told him in chilly tones. “And over the years, I have spoken with Obi-Wan when I can because I have two children who need to understand it.”

He could not help the tightening of his jaw at his old mentor’s name and Sola saw this, eyes narrowing.

“I do not know much,” she continued, stepping into his space and lifting her chin to keep his gaze. “But I know this—-if I had that power, it is I who would have been hunting you, Vader .”

He would not flinch. Much worse had happened to him than Sola Naberrie’s wrath. But to see her there—feel the hot fury pouring off of her, to see all that was familiar and yet not—-it was like his flesh was being stripped from his remaining limbs.

Piett lost track of time, his world narrowed to the scope and the steadiness of his hand.

A denton was lobbed and both of them dove as far apart as possible.

Explosion.

When his sight cleared and his hearing started to come back he could hear Sola screaming his name.

He knew immediately he’d been hit with the shrapnel.

Just the leg , he thought.

“I’m here. I’m here, Sola!” he called, his voice sounding odd and far away. He rolled to his knees and fired again, even though he knew it was hopeless.

Sola staggered to him, blood at her hairline and on her arm.

He tossed his blaster rifle aside and drew his side arm, firing as rapidly as he could.

Another burn to his side and it knocked him to the dirt.

And then the figure they’d been running from for over a decade came into view.

Piett hated feeling useless.

“You are though, darling, at the moment,” his wife informed him sweetly.

He couldn’t help the laugh even though it caused healing tissue to pull painfully.

“Thank you so much for that, Sola…”

She grinned and paused in putting away the breakfast dishes to come and place a kiss on the top of his head.

“Remarkably, if you rest as ordered, you heal faster. Shocking I know.”

He sighed, but silently acknowledged that she was correct. While his wound was healing very well now, the blood loss had left him quite tired and Dr. Jax was adamant that he be made to take it easy.

He thus had three tyrants doing just about everything but sit on him in order to achieve that goal.

Leia was still curled beside him, reading one of her favorite stories from a data pad. Firmus was awake, but still flushed and far too bright eyed. Sola didn’t like how pale the rest of his skin was, and he seemed as though he was part of the mattress, his body limp and drained.

“Mom,” Leia said, and even at seven, she knew how to share a silent, concerned look.

“Leia…is doing a marvelous job…reading,” Firmus managed, doing his best to muster a smile for his daughter.

“Naturally,” Sola agreed, smiling at their girl. “Leia, could you give Dad and I a moment?”

Leia pouted as she slid from the mattress.

“You know I can feel when you’re scared,” she said, a frown wrinkling her pixie face.

Sola sighed internally. “Yes, honey, I am aware that I have Force sensitive children. Doesn’t mean you get to be in all the adult conversations.”

“I need to get supplies for Dad,” she informed the twins seriously. “You need to stay here to watch out for him, all right?”

They nodded in tandem.

She bit her lip as she pondered her next move, but decided they all had to do what it took. Sola pulled two blasters from her bag and handed one to each of them.

“They are not toys,” she said gravely. “They are to be used only to defend yourselves and Dad. This here, this is the safety. If you press it like this, the weapon can fire. This is stun. I’m locking this setting.”

“What if we need to kill them?” Leia asked, brown eyes utterly sincere. Her fierce little girl. So ready to do what it took to protect her people.

“You are not the ones with that responsibility yet, my sweet,” Sola said. “Please trust me on this.”

The enemy had to pull around sharply to avoid hitting each other and then bank to follow him into the atmosphere.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he muttered, shooting glances at his display to gauge where the TIEs were behind him.

They broke into space and the twins gasped simultaneously.

“I see it!” he yelled.

The Empire was not messing around. A Victory class destroyer. Karking, karking hells.

“He’s….he’s there,” Luke quavered.

“ What? ” Sola exclaimed, throwing a glance over her shoulder. “Luke—-”

“ Vader ,” Leia choked, and Piett longed to hold them and comfort them, but right now it was all about getting a clear hyperspace lane.

“Oh Stars, Firmus,” Sola whispered as he put as much distance between himself and the destroyer as he could.

“Keep the TIEs off me for ten more seconds!” he ordered as laser fire scorched by their vessel.

The speeder pulled up to park beside the big old garage and Dad stepped out.

“Hi!” Luke yelled down.

As usual, he couldn’t startle Dad, who angled a knowing look up into the tree with a grin.

“Hello, Luke. You got higher today I see.”

“Yep!”

“You going to stay up there or do I get a hug?”

Luke decided to show Dad just how fast he could come down and flung himself from branch to branch.

He could sense that Dad was impressed if a little nervous about how reckless he was being.

At the last one though, his fingers slipped and he fell.

Instinctively, he put out both hands to break the plunge…

A breath.

The world was quiet but Luke could hear the bugs going about their business in the dirt. The creek behind the house was suddenly highlighted in his ears. The sound of a Thune chewing its cud was almost deafening.

He opened first one screwed shut eye and then the other.

Between his outstretched hands he could see the dirt patch at the base of the tree where he and Leia always started for their climbs.

But it was a good eight feet below him.

“Luke….” Dad said a little unsteadily. “How are you doing that?”

He was floating in mid air. He could sense Leia’s awe and Mom’s shock.

He finished and came out into the living area just as Leia threw her puzzle ball across the room in fury.

“I HATE him!” she shrieked—-five year old rage making her small body tremble. “I don’t WANT him to be my father! I have Daddy! Why do we have to go?”

There was a beat as Luke’s blue eyes filled with tears and Sola met Firmus’s gaze over the heads of the twins.

“I’m sorry, darling,” he soothed, immediately folding her into his arms. She shook and wept.

“It’s not our fault! Why do we have to go? I HATE him!”

All around them, the room trembled.

Holy kark.

“It isn’t your fault,” Piett murmured into her soft hair as he stroked her back. “Not at all. But I am afraid that there are many things beings can do which cause…trouble for others. Even others that had nothing to do with it.”

The house was very tidy—undoubtedly the droid had been helpful—and all delivery boxes and packing material were gone. ND-7 was already humming into the kitchen to clean the bottles as Sola moved lightly toward the sofa where Firmus lay sprawled and deeply asleep.

Beside him was the basket where Luke was sleeping angelically, small hands relaxed on either side of his head. But Leia was snuggled on her husband’s chest, a fuzzy pink blanket covering her and one small hand gripping his sweatshirt, much as she had the very first day Firmus held her.

Something special there, Sola thought. Her husband was clearly exhausted, but his left hand was firmly on Leia’s back and his datapad lay on the floor where it had dropped from his right hand.

Sola brushed a finger over Luke’s round cheek before she carefully pushed the hover basket to the side so she could kneel beside Firmus and press her lips to his.

He stirred immediately, drawing in a startled breath, before his mouth curved under her kiss.

Sola couldn’t tear her eyes from the holoscreen in the small square near the market where she did her shopping.

The horrific images coming out of Coruscant were terrifying.

Smoke rising from the Jedi temple and turning the sun into a bloody orb, casting its red glare over the city.

Troops deploying into suburban areas.

The Jedi were traitors.

And all Sola could think of was that Padme’ was there. Padme’ who was very pregnant with her baby.

She must be so afraid. Her sister’s husband and dear friend were Jedi. Were they being hunted even now?

“I knew he liked you right away,” declared Kalkidan, munching happily on jubal fruit.

“Oh please,” Amal snorted, rolling his eyes. “We all did. Wasn’t hard.”

Sola smiled. Once a week she had taken to bringing a large and simple picnic lunch to one of the few parks found in the city. It was the leftover of a by gone era when there had been a government that cared to do things for the people, and now private entities had the running of it. She loved the huge old trees whose roots went ridiculously deep for water. They were a very slow growing variety and very sturdy. Half of them were over five hundred years old.

The children had a favorite spot under one of these and so she brought simple and nutritious things to share.

Both she and Firmus would happily have allowed the children to eat with them every day, but Amal was insistent that he was the ‘provider’ for his little misfit family. This once a week picnic was their compromise.

He was given his own command four months after being promoted. She’d commented on how swift that seemed and he agreed, but pointed out the grim necessity of needing captains. Many of them didn’t make it past thirty.

Sola had gone quiet at this comment and then held his gaze with intense blue eyes.

“You are not allowed to be part of that statistic, are we clear, Firmus?”

“Dearest…” he’d started, but she was unusually serious.

“I know you’re you,” she’d plowed on. “I don’t ask that you shirk your duty ever. Just…I never thought to find you, my love. Other half of my soul. Please, the galaxy can’t be that cruel.”

She was more raw than he’d seen her.

“Has something happened?” he asked, frowning a little and setting down his tea on the desk.

She bit her lip and looked down.

“Not exactly,” she’d replied after a moment. “Just…Padme’ is under tremendous strain at the moment. This war…” She’d looked up at last.

“She’s married.”

He’d blinked.

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m the only one who knows. Well. Now you, but that’s the same.”

He’d smiled at this.

“And it has to be a secret, but she’s so worried for her husband all the time and I’m uneasy about things at the capitol…Just. Please be careful, darling.”

“My dear most favorite person,” he’d said. “I will endeavor not to be an idiot. I’m so sorry you’re stressed. I wish I could be there to help, though I confess I’m rubbish with politics.”