On the Wings of Valkyrie

Chapter III

Luna walked out of the club and onto the dimly lit street. It was the extremely early hours of the morning, a few hours after midnight, and she was on her way back to her ship. The two girls had decided that they would just live off the freighter Luna owned so they wouldn't have to worry about grabbing things if they needed to move quickly and could make sure no one sabotaged it at the same time.

It took a bit of a walk, but Luna eventually made it to the hanger bay the freighter was resting in. A small smile graced her features when it came into sight.

The ship was called Artemis's Illusion. It was Corellian made, and one of the few ships Luna actually owned. Practically all of the ships Luna had under her own name—or more specifically Eclipse's—were fighters, and therefore, not exactly practical. The Illusion was the only ship that was completely hers that wasn't a fighter and held a special place in her heart as it was the ship she learned to fly in. The Tantive IV had also been under her name, but Luna had a feeling that it had always been meant to be Leia's. Vader had said it was Luna's temporary after all, so it wasn't beyond the possibility that he planned to give it to Leia at some point. Bottom line: the ex-Shadow wasn't going to take something that belonged to someone else.

Besides, Luna had owned the Illusion longer, and it had countless updates: it could give the Millennium Falcon a run for its money when it came to speed, had a cloaking device, the shields were beyond military grade, and the weapons systems.... Well, Luna could give just about anything and anyone a nasty time. If she had the Illusion when they had been escaping Mustafar, it would have been a far better fight, even if she wasn't completely used to fighting in something freighter sized.

Another upgrade it contained was the cargo hold had been somewhat turned into a hanger—an update she'd never valued all that much until she'd needed it to get to Naboo on time. That was where the singular fighter Luna had brought with her was: hidden under a tarp in the cargo hold.

She had honestly wanted to bring more than one of her fighters, but the Illusion could only carry so much and it was likely she would need the cargo bay for something other than fighter transportation—especially since she hadn't been planning to pick up any friends. Luna had been forced to decide upon one, so she chose the Delta-7 that Vader had gifted to her so many years ago. She had always loved the Delta's design and would have prefered to use it more, but it had mainly been a collector ship considering she had always been required to use a TIE model, one of the many restrictions of working as an Imperial. She could only use unmarked fighters in the extremely rare occurrence of doing a job outside of the Empire, and therefore only had a few for such purposes. It was likely no one save Vader knew she owned such an outdated ship, and it was rather unlikely an old Jedi fighter would be traced all the way back to a wayward Shadow in any case.

Another benefit was that Luna's droid, R2-KT, could also fit in and fly it—something the girl had, again, been immensely grateful for on Naboo.

Needless to say, Kaytee had made the trip. She had been Luna's constant companion, giving her sympathy and always trying to help. Luna had never been more grateful that the last person who had owned the R2 unit hadn't wiped the droid's memories. Kaytee's personality matrix remembered up to some point during the Clone Wars. She wasn't Artoo, but she was as close as you could get. Part of Luna wondered what it would have been like for the two R2 units to have met up again, surely it would have been a heartfelt reunion. Well, heartfelt for the organics, happy, at the very least, for the droids. Luna knew for a fact that some people on Earth shipped Artoo and Kaytee, and she found herself included in that fraction more often than not.

Too bad it hadn't happened.... Luna drew her mind from that particular avenue of thought as she boarded the freighter.

"I'm back," Luna called out as she raised the ramp before walking to the mess hall.

"Welcome back," Ahsoka replied, putting a data pad on the table as she looked up. "How was work?"

"He wants to make me their main singer now."

"Great," the once Jedi muttered sarcastically. "I don't think you should be working there."

"We need the credits," Luna reminded her as she grabbed some food that was honestly no better than protein sludge, "but I agree. I can take care of anyone there but that doesn't mean I really want to. How was your day?"

"The usual."

"Any Imperial movements we can hit?"

"Well, there's a cargo shipment from a factory in a few days, but we'll have to hit it before it leaves the factory."

"Perfect."