TheBridge

The warm hand on his arm was something he could trust. Piett knew this even before he was fully awake.

It had been a long time since he’d felt any sort of security and trust like this. Lunders. Lunders had been a reliable soul. But that was over ten years ago now.

He opened his eyes to blink Max’s face into focus. The General was very good with neutral expressions, but Piett had learned to read the man over the past year. Currently, the skin around his eyes was tight as he watched the Captain wake up and the corner of Piett’s mouth curled a little.

“I’m not…dyin’, Max,” he murmured. “Thanks ta you.”

Veers smiled resignedly. “I just…it’s a bit more stressful being on this end of things, Firmus. Hoping the Doctor is right and that you just need time…”

“She’s right,” Piett told him firmly. “Air we close then?”

“Yes,” Veers replied, glancing over his shoulder to the cockpit. “I’ll be needing you to contact the ah…the Wookiees you apparently know in about five minutes.”

Thus far Piett hadn’t had to say more than a few words to anyone or make some noncommittal noises.

This was well because his current vocal abilities rated between the level of life long smoker and hangover whisper. He lifted a gloved hand and cautiously felt his lymph nodes again. Still as swollen as before.

If he could get through this shift he would be able to go back to his quarters, take a hot bath and go to bed.

And maybe that would satisfy the Lady who was not best pleased with him for ignoring her repeated nudges to see Henley. His data pad vibrated gently in his hand once more and he ignored it. She’d been sending him sullen images of sick individuals, and then articles she was pulling from the holo net regarding what happened to people who ignored colds for too long.

This was followed by scans she’d apparently filched from Henley’s records (nothing was sacred to his Lady apparently) showing him several different occasions when Piett had had a chest infection.

“I am aware , Lady of mine,” he hissed. “This is not that…” he broke off to cough as unobtrusively as possible and then strode to the viewport to head off any questions as to the cause of his cough.

The image she placed on the data pad was that of a smug faced woman.

These men, right here and now, they only had her.

And so, to save them, to save the man she loved with her soul, Leia had….let go.

She had stepped forward, past Wolffe’s grasping hand and closed her eyes, raising her arms.

She listened.

She felt the rough terrain beneath her boots.

She smelled blood and sweat and ozone.

She could hear her own heart beat in a thunderous rhythm.

They had nothing else, these people dear to her.

But they had her.

The Force is with me…

“Can I pour you a snifter, General?” Weslan asked as the harried looking aide hurried back, arriving at the same time as a small group of troopers approached with a figure in the middle of them. No, two figures. One rather large—built along the lines of Ellery—and the other very slight indeed.

“Not for this…incident I think,” Veers answered with distaste, but the other officer was as oblivious as ever.

“Captured their commander,” Weslan said, sipping at the whiskey and grimacing at the burn. “Ah that’s the stuff. Figured that perhaps Lord Vader might enjoy disposing of him personally when he arrives.”

Veers stiffened and threw a look over at Travis who shook his head ever so slightly. He’d not known that either. Weslan was the senior General after all and just the sort of person who enjoyed hoarding information to make himself look more important.

The slight figure was shoved with great force to land on the scrub grass before Veers and Weslan. He struggled slowly back to his knees—this task made more difficult with his hands cuffed behind his back.

The bigger prisoner growled at this but didn’t move with the blaster rifles pointed at him.

“I was promised that if I surrendered, my people would be spared,” said the man on his knees, looking up at Veers not Weslan. “If there is any honor left in the Empire, I expect that promise to be kept.”

Weslan snorted in derision and drank again.

“Listen you Rimmer pissant. You threw in your lot with the wrong people. And you will pay the price as all traitors do.”

But Veers was intrigued. This was the one who had held off his forces for two days when he should have been destroyed within hours. He’d clearly run rings around Weslan strategically.

An alert went off on the console and they both looked at it then at each other.

“First one breached then,” Firmus growled, lifting the blaster rifle and heading to the door. “It has to be now or never, Sola.”

“Then you come and say good bye to them,” she answered, wishing she could weep. But this was not the time.

He nodded without speaking and both of them exited out the back of their humble little home here on Beruda. They’d had a relatively happy three years here, for a family constantly on the run and alert for their dark hunter.

Luke and Leia were both waiting as they’d been instructed, packs on their backs and lightsabers at their belts—the parting gift from Obi-Wan when he’d given the infants into their care.

They were the same height, but there the similarity ended. Leia had dark hair and eyes to Luke’s bright blonde and blue.

At the moment however, they had identical expressions of anxiety as they watched their adopted parents come toward them.

And, being Force sensitive, they knew immediately what her husband was going to do.

“No,” Leia said immediately, glaring furiously up at him. “No. You can’t leave us. DAD .”

Luke was quieter but no less vehement. “Please don’t, Dad,” he pleaded. “Come with us…”

“Skywalker?” Veers coughed, and suddenly there was a light. The General had activated the small light attached to his blaster and it blinded Luke momentarily.

“Sorry,” the officer apologized and he set it down so that it shone upward and gave some illumination to their new prison.

“Kark,” the General stated, and Luke agreed with the sentiment. Then, ever practical, Veers turned his attention to Luke’s trapped leg.

“All right,” he said, crouching and examining the heavy rock. “Are you bleeding?”

Luke concentrated. He was trying to corral the Force but his own mind was skittering with the sharp agony and it was hard to be cohesive.

“Do or do not. There is no try.”

“No,” he gasped. “That’s something. It’s not a compound fracture. Yet at least.”

Veers nodded, bent on one knee to examine the stone. The General appeared unhurt which was a mercy.

Luke had managed to exert the Force enough that he’d created a small cave for them. Getting out of it with him in this state was going to be a trick.

Leia was left with Captain Rex, the faithful clone commander who’d been with them all along. Together they began to recruit.

There was resistance to Palpatine’s reprehensible policies all over the galaxy. But it was largely through terrorism as people were angry—and understandably so—with the evil he had wrought.

Thus, it was an ever escalating conflict of hatred and cruelty.

The Empire slaughtered thousands on Bothawai. In response, Rebel cells blew up a third of the shipyards at Kuat—-hundreds of thousands of Imperial crews died.

It was reported that captured Rebels were interrogated and either executed or sent to the slave mines all over the galaxy.

So Imperial officers were hunted like prey. When captured, they were tortured and died in agony—their bodies often left as a warning.

Leia knew that she couldn’t be the only Rebel leader who saw this and hated it. If they were to change things—if they were to win—-they must be different from Palpatine and his minions.

The Resistance needed a leader to rally around. But it could not be some warlord or vengeful former monarch. She could not bear the thought of overthrowing Palpatine merely to put another much like him in his place.

So she and Rex came up with a plan.

He looked to Piett’s unnaturally white face. The Admiral was deeply unconscious, Henley having given him the strongest drugs he had to fight the pain Piett had been experiencing.

Most faithful officer and friend.

“Has anyone else been stricken?” he asked. Henley shook his head.

“No. And before you ask, I have pulled up the medical records for every person on this ship who was at the banquet.”

Henley’s mind was sharp as ever. That was indeed what Anakin had been wondering.

“You believe this was…deliberately targeting the Admiral?”

He could feel the waves of Leia’s anger as she fought the dark pull of rage.

“A poison of such a rare nature?” Henley asked drily. “Absolutely. It would be expensive and hard to acquire. Whoever did so would not want to make a mistake.”

Anakin bent and kissed Leia’s head. He reached for Piett’s other hand and gripped it firmly even though the Admiral wouldn’t know he was there.

“How long do we have?” he asked quietly.

“Not long,” the Doctor answered, meeting his gaze with the grim countenance of a man who knew the hopelessness of his situation.

“Then I’m leaving now,” Anakin said, and with a final grip to Piett’s hand he released it and left the room.

Their campaign here had been largely successful. Piett had come planetside with his detail to view the area, when a last ditch attack had occurred. Their forces had easily overcome it, but not before a blaster shot had struck General Veers in the head as he was directing his people.

Piett had been mere feet away and promptly swung his own rifle to take out the shooter before he sprinted for the spot where his friend had disappeared—

—in time to see Max topple into the water where the furious river carried him away.

But General Max Veers’ life had been upended about a month previous when he’d been ordered by Vader himself to bring a small squad of his most trusted men to Naboo of all the out of the way places.

He’d arrived as surreptitiously as possible to the coordinates he’d been given and found that they were high in the mountains overlooking one of the many beautiful lakes the planet boasted. Here, he was greeted by a tired looking man who looked vaguely familiar, and it took Veers long minutes to realize this was because he’d seen his face on most wanted posters in the Empire.

Obi-Wan Kenobi.

If only that had been the most shocking revelation.

A tiny blonde child with inordinate amounts of confidence was hovering nearby as Lord Vader swept in— without his mask —to inform Veers that the Emperor had just tried to assassinate them all and he, Vader, was having none of it since the mite was his son, Luke Skywalker.

Luke watched the battle anxiously, absolutely sick with fear for Ben. The man in black looked so very scary and he was big and powerful.

Further he had armed soldiers with him. Even if Ben somehow beat the man, he’d be shot immediately.

Luke closed his eyes, trying to reach for the power Ben told him he had. He knew he could feel…something…but he couldn’t touch it. It was like an item on a shelf just out of his reach.

Quite suddenly he felt a surge of alarm and he snapped his eyes open to realize that the small officer was mere feet from him. The one who’d ordered the men not to point their weapons at Luke.

“Hello,” he said cautiously, keeping both hands out where Luke could see them. “I’m not here to hurt you, son.”

Luke scoffed at him.

“Oh yeah? Then what’s going on down there? I should trust people who are trying to kill Ben?”

The man’s lean face took on a resigned look. “Fair point. But I’d like to make sure that you are safe. As you can see—-”

He trailed off and slung his rifle over his head and into his hands. Luke jerked his own gaze to where the man was looking, and to his horror saw streams of black clad troops entering the cavern led by a woman with skin like Fellarian chocolate. But her aura was anything but soothing and warm. She bore a strange and different red blade and didn’t even say anything as she attacked the man fighting Ben from behind.

Instead, a small band of townsmen walked cautiously beneath the vast expanse, having lifted their Sheriff from the wagon in order to approach the large house that was the heart of Alliance Ranch.

Max dreaded meeting the eyes of the tiny figure who stood illuminated in the doorway—the bright glow of the rooms behind her shooting out into the yard.

Then the men had passed her and she was directing them into the house where Piett’s room was. She turned back to Max who was waiting for her.

“Come further in,” Leia Organa said, her composure supreme for one so young. She had lost her parents a mere two years before and now, the man who had been such a rock of support to her, might not live the night.

“Doc Henley?” she asked fiercely, the light glinting off of her coiled braids.

“On his way here as we speak, Miss Leia,” he told her, the weight of this night pressing unmercifully on his shoulders.

She nodded, clenching small fists at her side and staring sightlessly into the dancing flames for a few moments.

“How bad?” she said at last, so quietly he almost didn’t hear.

He hated having to say this to her. To this 16 year old who had already borne too much grief. But she appreciated honesty and he would not shirk his duty to her.

“It’s bad,” he said as gently as possible.

“You don’t deserve to die in battle. You don’t DESERVE to die in some honorable cause,” his captor had hissed as Anakin was dumped upon the stone unceremoniously, like an animal to the slaughter.

“You are responsible for the deaths of MILLIONS. Possibly more, and that really does boggle the mind. One man—--man,” he scoffed, “hardly. One MONSTER with galaxies of blood on his hands.”

He was stretched on the stone and shackled to it by wrists and ankles.

“How can you possibly ever feel the depth of remorse needed to atone for THAT, Anakin Skywalker?” snarled the one who seemed to be in charge. He was a Klatoonian with a horribly scarred face and a left arm that was shrivelled and useless. Anakin wondered vaguely how it had happened and had no doubt it had occurred through something he’d done.

“I can’t,” he’d croaked, despising his helplessness. “But I am seeking to live a life spent in atonement.”

“Solo….” Piett started and paused. Han could feel him breathing hard at the effort of gathering himself.

“I won’t….I can’t…walk. Don’t…want you…to be caught.”

“If you think for a Kessel second, Admiral,” Han hissed, “that Her Worship would look at me again if I left you here, you’re farther gone than I thought. I’ll take care of it.”

He said this with great confidence as he always did, though in truth his plan so far consisted of tossing Piett over his shoulder and running like hell. And if they were both going to wait here for full darkness outside, he could at least release the Admiral.

Though that …after three days like this…

“I’m going to cut you free, sir,” he whispered. “And it’s going to hurt like a son of a Hutt. My medkit is back with the speeder but…here.”

He released the sheath for his knife from his belt and felt for Piett’s face with fumbling hands. He felt strangely awkward, pawing at the Admiral who was helpless, even though it was to free him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled as his fingers found the officer’s very dry mouth. “I ah…bite on this, sir.”

Piett didn’t even argue and that told Han how far gone he was. He merely bit down on the nerf leather and Han took vicious satisfaction in cutting the ropes that had caused the man so much pain.