Work Text:
“Your Highness, I…”
“Silence!” I bark. Then, “Not you,” I say to WA-2V, “YOU,” I snarl, slamming the heel of my fist onto the controls in front of me. A panel lights up with more flashing red lights than I’ve seen since firefly mating season on Yondu-III.
A klaxon silences, but the constellation of warning indicators remain.
I glance out at the golden glare pouring through the view ports. Far to starboard, a plane of shimmering light and a wavering halo spreads out like a sheet of polished polychrome. Beyond it looms a blackness deeper and more complete than even the Sith could possibly imagine. A blackness sure to haunt my dreams. A blackness into which the pieces of our pursuer have vanished forever, consumed in relativistic slow motion. Only a hair’s breadth and my own reflexes have saved us from that horrible fate.
I drag in a deep breath and hold it for several moments before slowly releasing it and turning my attention to the controls and the bewildering array of alarms. “Status report!” I bark.
“I’m sorry, Princess,” 2V says, “I am not programmed for this.”
I grunt. “Just get us out of here. That way.” I point in a general direction away from the black hole still threatening to swallow us. “Tell the computer to plot a course.”
“To where?”
“Anywhere.”
Moments later, 2V says, “There’s a problem.”
“Problem?” My gaze snaps to the hyperdrive, the only panel not a pulsating blaze of red. With the exception of a few amber flickers, it seems functional. Though for how long remains to be seen. “What sort of problem?”
“Nothing is in the right place.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The navicomputer shows the nearest systems out of alignment.”
I frown. I’ve read about the strange effects of black holes, the way they distort local spacetime, and why hardly anyone ever goes near one. “Out of alignment?”
“The navicomputer cannot be sure of the locations of any objects in the vicinity. It is highly dangerous to go to lightspeed.”
I groan. So much for my bid for independence. I toggle a distress signal, bring the sublight engines to two-thirds, just short of the teeth-clattering rattle they’d developed near the event horizon, and settle back to watch the accretion disk slowly drop behind us.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I whisper to no one in particular.
Some time later, a chirruping alarm drags me out of my doze. “Report,” I mutter.
“Princess,” 2V says, “a ship has arrived! We are saved!”
That remains to be seen. “Not necessarily,” I say. “That could be anyone. Pirates. More of whoever it was who’d tried to catch us. More pirates. Mercenaries. Smugglers. Oh, and did I mention pirates?”
2V ignores my spat of sarcasm. “We are being hailed,” she says instead.
I toggle the comm. Surely the time has come for bald-faced honesty. “Leia Organa here,” I say, “who’s this?”
“Anakin Skywalker,” comes a male voice, “Republic envoy. I picked up your signal and detoured to investigate. What’s your status?”
Skywalker. That name seems vaguely familiar. I push the thought back. I have more pressing matters. Like a ship still coming apart all around me. And I’m out of space tape.
I exchange glances with 2V. “Republic?” I whisper. There hasn’t been a Republic in nearly twenty standard years. “Someone’s optimistic.” I toggle the comm and say, “We were pulled too close to that black hole and the ship is damaged.”
“I’m reading…” Skywalker pauses. A low whistle comes out of the comm. “...almost everything.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” He’s right, of course. Almost every system is failed or failing, and the hull has so many cracks, I imagine I could see through them.
“But your hyperdrive looks operational,” Skywalker adds.
“We’re having navigational problems.”
“I see,” he says, clearly unconvinced. “What sort of assistance do you need?”
Another alarm blares and my ears pop. “We’re venting atmosphere,” I said. “I, uh, don’t suppose…”
“Say no more,” he interrupts. “I propose...wait...hmm.”
“What?”
Something in the bowels of the ship groans again.
“You won’t like it,” he says.
“I already don’t like it,” I spit back.
“Here’s what I want you to do…” His ensuing instructions strike terror into me the likes of which I’ve never felt.
“You can’t be serious,” I say when he’s finished.
The ship groans and creaks again.
“You’re out of options,” he says.
I swallow a curse. “Fine,” I say. “But if you’re wrong, my ghost will haunt yours forever.”
I spared a glance at 2V and wasted no further time. I scoop up my satchel and walk on wobbling legs to the port airlock. I have a very bad feeling about this. After several deep breaths, I breathe out as much as I possibly can and smack the big, red button. The one my elders have always told me never to push.
The hatch flies open and between the outrush of air and 2V’s help, I fly out into space. And keep going. Skywalker’s ship hangs a couple hundred meters above me. I drift toward it and eventually pass out.
My eyes fly open. Above me, a pair of hazel eyes peer at me from beneath an unruly mop of dark brown hair. I groan.
“That was close,” he says.
“You don’t say,” I grunt. It could be worse, of course. And it still might. “Thank you,” I add.
“You’re welcome,” he says.
I sit up and brace myself on one hand. My head spins briefly, my vision blurs, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them again, I can see the mottling of hyperspace out the viewport behind Skywalker. I climb to my feet and he helps me up. I sway a little and he offers a steadying hand.
“I can manage,” I say. I could be wrong, but I have too much pride to admit it. Besides, the future Queen of Alderaan should be able to stand on her own two feet. On the other hand, she should also know when to ask for help. Instead, I lower myself onto a nearby bench.
He casts me a considering glance. “What brings you here? Or is that prying?”
“I was running away,” I admit. At his raised eyebrow, I add, “It’s personal.”
“I see,” he says. This time, I sense that he does. He leans against the bulkhead and crosses his arms, studying me. I don’t like it. Still, there’s something about him, a connection between us that I just can’t quite put my finger on.
“Fine,” I say, “I’m the Princess of Alderaan.”
“Princess? You mean, Organa?”
I nod.
“Hm. I didn’t know the Senator had a daughter.”
“What? How can you not know that? Everyone knows that.”
“I’d know if Bail had a daughter,” he insists.
I cross my arms. “Is that a fact?”
“It is.”
“You’re from the Outer Rim, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m a Jedi.”
“Jedi? But they’re supposed to be gone.”
“Gone? Hardly. What makes you think we’re gone?”
“Because Darth Vader’s hunted down all the ones that evaded Order Sixty-Six.”
His brow furrows. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
My own brow furrows. “How can a Jedi not know about that?” This is starting to feel like a trap.
“Humor me,” he says.
I lean back and tell him everything I know about that, watching his eyebrows creep progressively toward his unruly bangs.
“That’s quite the story,” he says at length. “I’m sure Senator Palpatine would be very interested in hearing it.”
A chill runs down my spine. If even half the things I’ve heard about the Emperor are true, I’d rather kiss a Wookie than enter his presence. Taking me to him will be nothing short of a trap. “That won’t be necessary,” I say, keeping my voice as neutral as possible. Which, despite my years of training, is probably not neutral enough.
His eyes widen. “You’re from the future.”
“I’m...what?”
“It all makes sense. What you said. The way you talk about current events and things that haven’t even happened as though they’re your own history. The curious ways supermassive black holes warp spacetime.” He regards me for several long moments while my brain crashes into itself.
I tip my head back and close my eyes.
“Is something wrong?” he asks.
“I’m thinking,” I say. “Can you take me back?”
After a pause, he says, “I don’t know. It might be possible, it might not. But first, you need time in a bacta tank.”
“Why?”
“Do you have any idea how much radiation pours out of black holes?”
I shake my head.
“A lot. Too much.”
“How much is too much?”
“You don’t want to know,” he says. He turns, walks to the flight deck, and taps on a panel. “There,” he says at length.
“There what?”
“Course correction,” he says.
“Where are you taking me?” I’m not sure I want to know the answer.
“Coruscant.”
“What? Why?”
“Two words,” he says, “bacta tank. After that, two more words, Jedi Council.”
“But there is no...oh never mind.” A thought occurs to me. If I’m really in the past… “Promise me something,” I say.
“I’m listening.”
“Don’t listen to Palpatine.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “Why not?”
“Because he’s avaricious, manipulative, and very good at telling people what they want to hear.”
“And you think you can prevent this rise to power and this Galactic Empire?”
“I can try.”
He leans a shoulder against a bulkhead and considers. “Well, a fifteen-year-old girl…”
“I’m sixteen,” I interrupt.
“A sixteen-year-old girl is not going to do it on her own.”
“So you’ll help?”
“First, we’ll see what Master Obi-Wan and Master Windu have to say. Second, we’ll see what the Jedi Council has to say.”
I sigh. “I suppose that will have to do.”
Perhaps this wasn’t going to be as big of a trap as I’d feared.