On the Wings of Valkyrie

Chapter VIII

Luna was worried. No, worried didn't quite cover it.

She could take on three, maybe four, of the Hands at once, but Luke and Leia were iffy for even one. Han was just doing his best to just stay out of their way and not get killed. Considering their positioning, the three Force users were taking on anywhere from two to three or—in Luna's case more often than not to help the other two—four, of the Hands at once. Luna was wary of going into full battle mode with the Sith she was fighting, not willing to leave Luke and Leia's sides.

Luna had half a mind to tell Ahsoka to come on over to them when she had contacted her partner, but she only had so much time to contact the Torguta before Luna had to interfere.

Part of her hoped that Ahsoka would come anyway. Another part of Luna hoped that Vader was somewhere in the area; he would make short work of the Hands with some assistance from either herself or Ahsoka.

Or better, both of them would show up. Luna found it doubtful Vader and Ahsoka would waste time figuring out why the other one was there and would hopefully do a temporary team up. Ahsoka wouldn't want to attack Vader, and Luna found it unlikely Vader would attack Ahsoka.

But it would also be bad if the two met up. For Luna at least. She didn't even want to think of how Ahsoka would react if she found out Luna wasn't who she said she was, and Vader was not someone Luna wanted to meet up with again any time soon.

No matter how much she yearned to be able to sense his presence.... Feel reassured that she was okay, that she could make her own decisions, that it was okay to mess up, that he understood, that in the end, no matter what happened, she could always count on him.

Because she knew that if she were to see him again, those things would be the last things to happen. Their relationship could never be what it once was. Luna didn't even think she would ever be able to step onto the same planet as Vader and not have something bad happen.

Of course, it didn't matter where Vader and Ahsoka were at the moment because they weren't there, and unless Luna planned on the four of them getting killed, she needed to come up with a plan and quick. Thank the Force Artoo was with them

And so, she called on the Force to push all the Hands as far away from them as possible just as Artoo finally got the door open.

"RUN!!!" Luna yelled. The Rebels didn't need to be told twice, quickly racing out the door with Luna hot on their heels. Artoo followed, barely making it under the door after triguring it to close behind them.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" Luke asked as alarms began to blare.

"Well, I was going to steal a weapons shipment, but that's obviously out of the question now!" Luna replied hotly, practically yelling in order for them to hear her. "Thanks a lot!"

"No problem!" Han replied cockially.

"Do you know the quickest way to the main reactor?!" Leia asked.

"Left down the next hall, fifth door on your right! All Imperial bases are made the same, I'd expect you to know that by now!" Luna responded. The three ahead skidded to a stop as they tried to make the turn without running into the wall or falling. Luna and Artoo made the turn far better.

"We do, but we didn't land where we expected to!" Luke informed her. "We were lucky to hear from someone that helped us make it this far!"

"Whatever's in that shipment must have been really important!" Han noted.

"Considering those Hands were making synthetic kyber crystals and the high security on those crates? I'd be willing to bet my ship that those things are full of lightsabers!" Luna told them.

"Lightsabers?! Why the hell would...." Han dropped off, knowing the answer to his question as well as everyone else. Why would Palpatine want that many lightsabers?

To arm his all of the Hands. Force knew how many existed now.

Han cursed in Huttese. "We need to shut this thing down!"

"Ya think?!" Luna replied as they arrived at the reactor room.

"Do we have time for an override?" Leia asked, worriedly trading glances with Han and Luke while her voice was nearly drowned out by the blaring alarm. Luna shook her head, quickly grabbing one of her many emergency weapons and placing it under one of the control consuls.

"Let's get out of here!" Luna yelled, heading back out the door. The others didn't bother to argue with her, figuring that she knew what she was doing.

No one said anything as Luna led them through the base, only shooting stormtroopers as needed. Eventually, they made it out to a different landing pad. Luna expected that it wouldn't be abandoned, but that there would be less soldiers present there than at the other one. Force be willing, Chewie would have left and grabbed the Falcon by now to pick up the Rebels, and Kaytee would be arriving shortly in Luna's fighter. Hopefully, they could all go their separate ways.

But Luna skidded to a halt, throwing her arms out to the side to keep Luke, Han, and Leia from continuing on past her.

If Luna didn't know any better, she would have said there was an entire legion of troopers waiting for them. Needless to say, they probably had over a hundred blasters trained on the four of them

"Put your weapons down!" a voice over a loudspeaker said. She sensed Han step in front of Leia while Luke made a move to step in front of Luna. Luna grabbed his arm to prevent him from moving.

"Get back inside, go right and turn right at the next corridor. It'll get you back to the landing pad you were on when you arrived," Luna whispered.

"What about you?" Luke replied.

"I've faced worse, now get going while you still can!"

Luna knew that they were about to object and that the troopers were losing their patience, so she turned and Force shoved the three humans and droid back through the doorway before using the Force to trigger the door closed.

She then spun around, her lightsaber hissing to life moments before the blaster fire rained down on her.