Getting to Sullust from Dagobah was only a matter of hours. Both were on the Rimma Trade Route, and it was an easier flight than Hoth or Tatooine to Dagobah. Only a matter of hours...but that was hours too many, and once he was in hyperspace, he had nothing to do but think.
Leia. Leia's my sister.
His own realization bounced inside his head, and wouldn't leave him alone.
Leia's my sister. I've got a twin sister, and that's Leia.
Luke had always loved her, from the moment he'd first seen her, even as a grainy hologram shown in the dim light of his uncle's garage. And the first time that he'd seen her in person, it was as if something inside him had just snapped into place, as if something he'd always been missing had just been found, as if she was a part of him that he'd lost and just now regained. And he'd thought that meant he'd fallen in love with her.
Something lit up on his console, and he looked down and bit back a grin.
Why so quiet, Master Luke? Artoo's text reader said. Please don't tell me that you're planning something as foolhardy as what happened the last time we left Dagobah.
"I just don't feel like talking much, Artoo," he said, though he did usually like talking to the little droid during long trips. Artoo was a surprisingly good conversationalist, for all that he was not technically a living being. He was better than Threepio, at least. "I've got a lot to think about, though as far as I know, I'm not planning something stupid." Not like last time, rushing in so unprepared... "But if I do, you'll be the first to know, all right?"
All right, though I don't suppose one droid will be able to dissuade you from whatever it is you want to do. I'll let you go back to your thinking now.
Luke smiled, though no one could see it. "Thanks, Artoo. Just tell me when we get to Sullust, all right?"
Artoo let out an affirmative beep and then was quiet, and Luke was left alone with his thoughts again.
But his thoughts were circling again, centered around something that he should have known and never did.
Twin sister.
It explained a lot, really. Too much. Why he loved her so much from the very beginning, was so protective of her...why he hadn't felt as happy as he thought he should have when she kissed him on Hoth, and why she could hear his call through the Force from Cloud City's belly.
Twins--twins were supposed to grow up together, weren’t they? Supposed to know each other better than anyone else, to be able to know what the other was thinking, and not because of the Force, but because they just knew each other that well. To be able to finish each other's sentences. They were conceived together, born together, supposed to live together and just be twins.
But Luke had met his twin for the first time when he was eighteen. Eighteen! Luke's throat closed for a moment. We were adults. We should have had our childhood, but we were adults when we first met...
Father. Vader. Not only did you deprive me of my father growing up, you deprived me of my twin as well.
But no, that wasn't the way to think of things. Walking that path meant walking with anger and pain and hatred as his companions, and ending up in the Dark Side. He would not go that way.
He'd found her, despite their separation. The Force brought them together despite the differences in their lives, Alderaan princess and Tatooine farmboy. Instead of being angry that he hadn't always known her, he should be glad that he knew her at all.
And he was, because even the thought of a life lived without Leia was terrifying. To be forever without her strength, her light, her unending faith in goodness and doing the right thing...it was unthinkable. She bolstered him when he faltered, and gave him a wall to cling to when he had nothing.
And she was his sister. Now he realized--he had a claim on her, beyond friendship. He may have lost the race for her love, now knew that he never should have entered it at all--it was a good thing that she fell for Han anyway; how horrifying this revelation would have been had he and Leia been more than friends!--but he still had something to tie her to him. They couldn't just drift apart now. Not that he thought they would, with their friendship being as strong as it was, but now there was an extra rope binding them together, and that was comforting.
The light on his console flashed again, and Artoo told him, We are approaching Sullust now. Five minutes to realspace conversion. Would you like to leave it on manual?
"Yes, Artoo, thanks," Luke replied, and the little droid tootled an acknowledgement. But had hours passed already? Apparently so, because minutes later, when he dropped out of hyperspace, there was Sullust, where the Rebel fleet was massing. Something flickered in his sense of the Force, and suddenly he could pinpoint Leia, her familiar bright spirit emanating from the flagship Home One. Of course she would be there--and so he should be too.
Home One hailed him as soon as he was in range, and he flipped the switch on his X-wing's comlink and said, "Commander Luke Skywalker of Rogue Squadron reporting in," and send his authorization code.
"Commander Skywalker!" The communications officer on duty sounded surprised--Luke thought wryly that he probably hadn't expected to have the Rebellion's sole Jedi drop in on his shift. But the officer recovered, and continued, "You're authorized for landing, sir, and here's your approach vector for the officers' bay. Someone will meet you when you get there."
"Thank you, Home One. Skywalker out." He flipped the comlink switch again, and headed for the bay indicated; he knew where it was, and didn't need the map the comm officer sent to his X-wing. He angled the snubfighter, sent it swooping beneath the belly of the large Mon Calamari star cruiser, and soon was winging smoothly into the officers' bay. Someone familiar was waiting for him when he got there.
"Wedge!" As soon as the cockpit canopy was up, he leapt out, landing lightly on his feet despite the distance to the ground. His lightsaber, hanging from his belt, smacked his thigh gently as he landed. But then he laughed and grabbed Wedge in a hug, pounding him on the back, and Wedge was doing the same. He was grinning when he pulled back.
"Am I glad to see you, Boss," Wedge said, as Luke watched a mechanical arm help Artoo out of his socket. "Funny thing, though, but Princess Leia said that she had a feeling you would be coming in soon, and asked me to meet you and bring you to the meeting that's going on."
"Meeting?" Luke asked, but his mind latched onto she had a feeling. Leia had the Force...well, he already knew that, after Bespin, but here was more confirmation.
"Yeah," Wedge said. "You know the Empire is building a second Death Star? Another of those monsters?" He cast a worried look at Luke, the two of them, and Han and Chewie, the only survivors of the Rebellion's assault on the previous Death Star. "It's bigger than the first one, but it's not complete yet. Anyway, Mon Mothma and Admiral Ackbar and General Madine are planning the attack on it right now."
"Hmm," Luke said as he walked, and cast a speculative glance at his friend. "There's more, isn't there?" Something that was teasing his attention in the Force...
Wedge shook his head. "I'm sure there is, but I don't know it yet. Admiral Ackbar gave me part of the briefing beforehand, since I'm one of the ones supposed to knock out the Death Star's power source, but there are things Mon Mothma's supposed to tell us in the main briefing that I don't know yet. It should be starting soon--you got here just in time, Luke."
Luke smiled. "Good thing," he said. But there was something in the Force, something that he didn't yet have enough experience to decipher...well, he would know it soon. In the meantime, he was getting closer to Leia, and he didn't know what he was going to tell her. His new knowledge was almost bursting out of him, but he probably shouldn't blurt it out when he saw her, in the middle of a briefing.
Especially considering their father. Whom Leia also didn't know about--and while Luke did not think that she would be unhappy to call him brother, she would definitely not be pleased with the revelation of who their father was. He had to think of some--gentle--way to break it to her.
Such a complicated, messed up family they had, and he'd only learned of it himself hours ago! He almost wished Ben had told him years ago that he had a twin sister, but he knew why Ben had not; Vader knew of Luke, but he did not know of Leia, and it was important that he not find out. If Vader and the Emperor should get their hands on Leia, who was without any training in the Force at all...he could not bring himself to imagine the result.
He and Wedge slipped into the main briefing room just after Mon Mothma started speaking. Wedge made his way forward, but Luke stayed in the back, leaning against a wall, not yet ready to confront Leia, not when he still did not know what to say to her.
"Most important of all," Mon Mothma said, "we've learned that the Emperor himself is personally overseeing the final stages of the construction of this Death Star."
At those words, it seemed the Force was shouting at him, as if the phrase "Emperor himself is personally overseeing" was burned into his mind, underlined and circled in red ink. The Emperor was on the Death Star...and he knew with sudden surety that his father was as well.
You must confront Vader, Yoda's voice whispered in his head, and echoed. Confront Vader...confront Vader...confront Vader...
And he remembered his own voice, protesting to Ben, There is still good in him! Because he'd felt it, deep and buried, a candle with little wick left but still alight. If that flame could be nurtured, be encouraged to grow...
Could he possibly be a man that Leia and I would be proud to call Father?
He was pulled out of his thoughts abruptly when he heard his friend's name. "General Solo, is your strike team assembled?"
Luke hid a grin, amused and glad that Han, who had been so reluctant to even join the Rebellion, had now accepted a general's commission in it. But looking at who was seated next to him, Luke could understand the change. Leia had given up the most important thing in the galaxy to her, the Rebellion, to find and save Han, and Luke knew that Han loved her as much as she loved him, if he was able to officially join that same Rebellion and give up the freedom to leave whenever he wanted, just because it was important to her. And Luke was glad, too, that his sister had found a man worthy of her.
"I don't have a command crew for the shuttle," Han was saying, and looked up at Chewie when he made an affirmative noise. "Well, it's gonna be rough, pal. I didn't want to speak for you." Chewie growled, and Luke's grin widened. Of course Chewie would go wherever Han did. Han smiled. "That's one."
Leia leaned forward. "Uh, General," she said with a grin, "count me in."
The Force prodded him forward, and Luke pushed off from the wall, calling, "I'm with you, too!" People in front of him turned around and looked at him, and scooted to the side as he made his way to the front. Leia stood up, and then almost before he knew it she was in his arms, and it felt wonderful to hold her. His sister...
But then she pulled back, and looked at him searchingly, as if she knew he was holding something back. That she would know--perhaps they did not grow up together, but still she knew him, and he was glad for that. "What is it?" she asked, her hands on his arms, still holding him close.
Luke hesitated. What to say? "Ask me again sometime," he said, stalling. He would tell her, but not now. Before he confronted their father, at least, but not now.
Then he was greeting Han, Chewie, and Lando, and while he was happy to see them, especially Han, free of the carbonite and Jabba and the residual illness, his mind was still on Leia, and the coming confrontation with his father, and the problems that came with them. When to tell Leia, what to tell Leia, how to brighten the light inside his father--
I'll deal with things as they come. Father can wait, and so can telling Leia.
He still had some hours yet before he had to think of something, but for now he was with his best friends, with his twin sister. He remembered Master Yoda's admonishments about spending so much time looking ahead that he didn't know where he was.
Leia slipped an arm around his waist, and he slid one around her shoulders, and shared a grin with Han. What would happen, would happen, but there was right now, and with his sister beside him and his friends around him, he resolved to be happy for as long as he could.