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unfinishedslurs · 7 months ago

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The boy stops in his tracks. “I know you,” he says, tilting his head curiously. He’s not tall, but he’s regal nonetheless, dressed all in white. Something about him makes Leia’s hair stand on end, and although she hides it she feels a stirring in her own chest. I know you like I know my own soul, she thinks wildly, and wonders where it came from. Has she gone insane?

“That’s nice,” she says, and shoots him anyway.

He deflects it in a flash of light, a glowing blue laser sword appearing in his hand like magic. She’s only seen one of those before, and it’s Vader’s. If this boy is anything like Vader, she realizes, she’s in deep shit.

She’s smart enough to know when she’s outmatched. Leia makes the tactical decision to run for her life.

Later, as she’s getting the hell out of there, she wonders why he didn’t try to stop her.

She remembers being young and tugging on her mothers skirts, demanding to know why their guest was so sad. “Does he not like it here?” She’d asked, and then, trembling, because Kenobi always seemed saddest around her. “Is it…because of me?”

“Oh, Leia,” her mother sighed, lifting her into her arms. “It’s not that, I promise.”

“Then what is it?”

“Master Kenobi lost a child under his care, years ago.” Breha’s eyes grew deeper, darker. “It was not his fault, but he blames himself. You remind him of that child, that’s all.”

Leia had quieted at that, contemplative.

The next time she’d seen Master Kenobi, she had given him a hug. He didn’t seem to know what to do with that, so she resolved to give him more of them. “He’s lonely,” she’d told her mother. “No one should be lonely.”

Looking at Obi-Wan Kenobi now, the memory seemed so far away. He’d aged thirty years in the ten it had been.

He looks, Leia thinks with a small twinge of regret, very lonely.

“Leia,” he greets. “It’s been a long time.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Leia sees a glint of white.

Kenobi freezes in his tracks. “Luke?” He whispers, and through the distance Leia can hear it as if he’d been speaking directly into her ear.

Master Kenobi lost a child under his care, her mother whispers in her head. He blames himself.

In an instant, Leia understands everything.

Kenobi is still staring at the boy he’d lost so long ago when Vader cuts him down.

Later, as she’s pacing around on the Falcon to Han muttering darkly about Princesses and supernatural abilities, she rememberers the way the boy collapsed, as if all his strings had been cut. Vader was too occupied with him to even look at her as she shot at him desperately.

Luke. She hates him more than she hates herself.

“They know where you are,” he hisses frantically. “They’re coming for you. You have to run.”

“Wait!” Leia quickly pulls up their sonar. Nothing yet, but it would explain the distant queasiness she’d felt since they’d landed. She tended to trust her gut. “How do you know? How much time do we have?”

“Not important, and not enough,” he says. “I have to go, and so do you. You need to leave yesterday.”

“How do I know I can trust you? I don’t even know who you are.”

He pauses. “Call me Skywalker.”

“That’s not an answer, Skywalker.”

“Yes it is.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but there are faint voices on the other end, drawing nearer.

“Shit,” Skywalker mutters. “I have to go. I’ll be in contact, okay? Don’t ever tell me where you are, or where you’re heading. Vader and Palpatine aren’t shy about reading minds. Just leave as soon as you can, and figure out the rest.”

“But—“

It’s too late. The comm has disconnected.

She stares down at it, disbelieving. How would the Empire know they’re here? Why should she trust a stranger who somehow got her personal comm code?

Gut feeling or not, on paper this was a perfect location. Supplied, armored, and most importantly, extremely well hidden. There was no real reason to think it would possibly be found out.

It’s probably a trap. Almost definitely a trap.

Han sticks his head in the door, a sour look on his face. “Hey Princess, can you tell these idiots—“

She makes a decision then and there.

“We’re leaving.”

“What?”

“We’re evacuating, effective immediately.” She pushes past him, and he follows so close he’s nearly stepping on her heel.

“Why? I think it’s pretty cozy here. Actual sunlight doesn’t hurt, either.”

“Apparently too cozy.” She grabs the first person she sees, a pilot who stares at her with wide eyes. “Emergency evacuation. Spread the word to pack everything you can and leave, I’ll let you know where we’re headed when we’re in orbit.”

He salutes and scurries off.

“Woah, hey now.” Han snatches at her elbow until she turns around to face him. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a new informant. He told me the Empire knows we’re here. They’re coming for us.”

“And you trust this person because…”

“I don’t have a choice,” she snaps. Someone runs past them, holding three packs filled to the brim with rations. “It’s either he’s lying and we’re not in danger, or he’s telling the truth and we’re going to die if we don’t listen. It’s not exactly hard math.”

It could be a trap of course, but he hadn’t suggested any sort of direction or destination to follow, and Leia wasn’t inclined to share. Especially not after his tidbit about Vader and Palpatine reading minds.

He squints at her. “That’s not it.”

“What?”

“I don’t believe you,” he insists. He’s so infuriating. Leia doesn’t know why she hasn’t kicked him out yet.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do, and you’re either gonna tell me why, or find a different transport when we head out of here.”

“Who said I was riding on your hunk of junk?” She demands. She actually was planning on going with them, since the Falcon has more than enough room for all the supplies that can’t fit in the other ships and none of the trustworthiness of the other pilots, but Han doesn’t need to know that.

“Well?”

Damn him. Damn him for knowing how to read her. She doesn’t know when she let that happen.

“I feel it,” she admits, defeated. “Something tells me he’s trustworthy. We’ll wait and see if it’s right.”

He studies her. She holds her head high, but inside she’s jittery at the scrutiny. They don’t have time for this.

“Yeah, all right,” Han finally says.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” He rolls his eyes, like she’s not acting absolutely insane by putting all her trust in a random man she’s never even met. “Now come on, Princess, weren’t you the one who said we had to hurry?”

What is it about this man that makes it impossible to tell whether she wants to punch him or drag him into the nearest supply closet? They don’t have time to find out.

“So there’s good news and bad news.”

“Bad news first,” she demands.

“They know there’s a mole.”

“Shit.” Of course they know, how could they not? She should have been more careful, less obvious about the correlation of their movements with the Empire’s plans. “The good news?”

“They’ve tasked me with hunting down this ‘pathetic rebel spy,’” Skywalker says, humor in his voice. “That should buy me some time.”

Leia can’t quite stop the snort she lets out. “Seriously?”

“Yep. You’re speaking to a professional mole-hunter, here.”

“Well congratulations on the promotion, Skywalker.”

“Thank you,” he says grandly. Then, quieter, “It won’t last, Princess. They’ll find out eventually.”

“I know. Just hang in there, it will be over soon.”

“Will it?” He asks, suddenly sounding very young. She realizes that she has no idea how old he is. She doesn’t know anything about the man who has saved them more times than she cared to admit, and the idea rattles her until they sign off.

Later, she looks up the name Skywalker in their archives. There are a few results, but only one sticks out.

Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight and hero of the Clone Wars. Killed at the hands of Darth Vader. There are gossip articles too, speculations on his relationship with the pregnant Senator Padmé Amidala, who died around the same time Skywalker did. The baby, it seems, died with her.

Unless he didn’t.

It’s ridiculous. It’s impossible. The idea is so ludicrous that Leia almost rejects it entirely.

But it makes sense. By the Maker, it makes sense.

The child of Anakin Skywalker, it seems, would be a powerful Force user indeed. Powerful enough for Kenobi to take the baby and run. Powerful enough for the Emperor to want him for his own gain. Powerful enough to send Vader after Kenobi and take the boy himself.

Maybe even powerful enough to shield his mind from Vader and Palpatine’s intrusions.

Powerful enough to hide the fact that he’s a spy.

Leia sinks into her chair, covering her face as she laughs.

Maybe Luke isn’t so bad after all.

“No, no, no,” she mutters, digging through the smoking wreckage of the TIE fighter. “Don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.”

“Princess…” Han lays a hand on her shoulder that she immediately shrugs off.

“No, he’s not dead. He’s not. Luke!”

A faint cough answers her, and she’s so relieved to hear it she could cry. Behind her, Han starts bellowing for a medic and, “Some damn help here, do you expect us to move all this ourselves?”

“Luke, it’s me,” she sobs. “It’s Leia. You’re at the Rebel Base. You’re safe.”

More coughing, and there’s a worrying rasp to his voice when he says, “You know…my name?”

“I figured it out.”

“Smart.” This time, the coughing is so bad Leia and Han both wince.

“Shit, kid,” Han says, moving another piece of rubble. “Don’t talk. We’re gonna get you out of here, all right?”

“Stand back,” Luke chokes out.

“What?”

“Stand back. Please.”

Han protests, but something in Leia knows they should listen to him. She drags him back, and motions everyone else to fall back with them. They do, albeit reluctantly.

“Clear,” she calls, hoping Luke can hear her.

The TIE explodes.

“Fuck!” Han goes back in, Leia on his heels with the terrifying feeling that she’d just allowed Luke to die, before they both stop in their tracks. Around them, the broken pieces of the TIE are floating.

And curled up in the middle is a man dressed all in white.

“Luke!” She pushes past Han to start dragging him out, and after another moment of staring around them, he helps her.

As soon as they get clear, the pieces fall to the ground with a clatter. Luke falls limp with them.

Han is still looking at the TIE. “Can you do that?” He asks quietly.

Leia pauses her examination of the unconscious man in front of her to glare at him. “Is that what you’re most concerned with right now? Really?”

“Excuse me for asking, Princess!”

“It’s white,” Luke grumbles, pulling at his hospital gown bitterly. “I hate wearing white.”

“Should I be offended?”

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t even. You look great and you know it. I just feel like I never left.”

“Well,” she says gingerly. “I guess it’s a good thing you got sick of it. If we went around in matching outfits all the time, people might think we’re twins.”

He snorts. “Yeah, right.”

#star wars #star wars fanfiction #luke skywalker #han solo #leia organa #imperial luke skywalker #exactly when luke was taken by the empire is totally up to speculation it could honestly be anywhere from newborn to 5 #as for why luke has his dad’s blue lightsaber here instead of like a red one or smth- well you see your honor I thought it would be a slay #but also when you think about it for more than 5 seconds you’re like actually yeah that’s sick and twisted of palpatine and vader actually #you’re carrying your fathers most treasured weapon #you don’t know your father once fought the rise of the very empire you stand to inherit with that blade. you don’t know who he defended #you don’t know your father brought about the end of the republic with that same weapon #he killed the younglings with it. he fought his closest companion with it #you’re carrying what was once your fathers most treasured weapon. you are your fathers most treasured weapon #just as your father is a weapon now #also I didn’t make it clear but obi-wan has his ‘strike me down and I become stronger’ moment like he still dies on purpose to cause proble #but when he saw luke he couldn’t look away. he had to see him with living eyes one last time #can u tell I had So Many Thoughts on everyone else’s perspective in this fic too #han is having a constant crisis in the background because 1) force is real 2) princess is annoying AND pretty which sucks for him #in particular and 3) pretty princess is learning to use the force and is hot while doing it. Chewie is laughing at him. life is hell #good lord did not mean to put an entire essay in the tags. i love their super special twin powers (cosmic entity that binds their souls)#edit: GUYS I FORGOT TO NAME THE FUCKING AU #AND WHEN I TRY AND FIX IT IT GLITCHES OUT ON MEEE 😭😭😭

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grimm-the-tiger · 8 months ago

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I made this post a little while ago listing some facts about shipwrecks that probably only I find interesting, so now I’m back to talk about some of them. Specifically, the Olympic. The Olympic was the namesake of the Olympic-class liners, whose most notable member was the Titanic. Out of the three Olympic-class ships - Titanic, Olympic, and Britannic - only one of them was actually unsinkable, and that was the Olympic.

Over the more than 20 years of its existence, the Olympic was never once in real danger. The Olympic was the danger. On its fifth voyage in September 1911, Olympic was running parallel to the HMS Hawke, a British warship designed specifically for ramming things. Olympic suddenly turned to starboard (right side of the ship if you were facing towards its front), catching Hawke’s commanding officer off-guard; he wasn’t able to avoid the collision and ended up ramming the other ship. Olympic was left with a substantial hole beneath the water line (although flooding was for the most part averted due to its bulkheads actually working properly, *cough* Titanic *cough*) and a slightly less substantial hole above it. Hawke, meanwhile, had its entire bow caved in. Olympic made it back to port just fine under her own power, while Hawke almost capsized. Somehow, no one was seriously hurt or killed.

Three fun facts about this situation: Violet Jessop, a woman famous for surviving the sinkings of both of the Olympic’s sister ships, was onboard the Olympic when this happened. This incident also reinforced the idea that the Olympic-class was unsinkable. The famous postponement of the Titanic’s maiden voyage also occurred because of this incident; a propeller shaft was damaged in the collision, they needed a new one ASAP, and, well, the Titanic was right there...

Four years later, WWI broke out. The Olympic was requisitioned as a troop ship, given 6-inch naval guns, and sent on its way. In 1918, while travelling to France with a literal boatload of American soldiers, Olympic spotted U-103, a German U-boat chilling on the surface of the ocean. Olympic opened fire on U-103, which immediately crash dived to keep from dying, then turned to ram the U-boat. Olympic hit U-103′s conning tower and tore open the hull with its propellers. U-103′s crew decided “fuck this” and abandoned ship; Olympic didn’t bother to stop to pick them up, so a nearby American warship did instead. It was later found that U-103 was preparing to torpedo Olympic when they’d been spotted, but they couldn’t flood the torpedo tubes in time. Olympic remains the only merchant vessel in WWI recorded to have sunk an enemy vessel (which would become a more common occurrence during WWII, to the extent that the Nazis apparently tried and hanged at least one captured British merchant captain for ramming one of their U-boats. The Nazis were ones to talk, considering they rehired the man who sank the Carpathia and was notorious for war crimes that included things like “drowning surrendered enemy crews by forcing them to strip and stand on the roof of his submarine, then diving the submarine” and “attacking designated hospital ships that made it very obvious they were hospital ships”).

Following WWI, while Olympic was being refit for civilian service, a sizeable dent was discovered below the waterline. It was later concluded to have been caused by a faulty torpedo, most likely fired by U-53 while the Olympic was travelling through the English Channel.

Olympic collided with another, smaller ship, Fort St. George, in New York Harbor on March 22, 1924. There’s not much information on how badly Olympic fucked Fort St. George up, just that Olympic apparently fucked around a little too much and found out, because the collision broke its sternpost (support post in the back of the ship; think of it like a central pillar in a structure), forcing the entire stern frame to be replaced.

On November 18, 1929, Olympic was cruising not far from the Titanic’s wreck site when the whole thing began shaking for two minutes. This was later found to have been caused by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Newfoundland.

The Olympic’s last hurrah (and casualty) was on May 15, 1934, when it collided with the lightship LV-117. Olympic had known the lightship was in the area, but didn’t know where exactly it was until they were right on top of it. Olympic’s captain immediately ordered a hard turn and the engines slowed, so Olympic wasn’t moving particularly fast when it did hit LV-117 (about 3 and a half miles per hour), but Olympic was fucking huge, and the people onboard barely noticed when they practically crushed the lightship under them. Only four of the eleven crew aboard LV-117 survived; four went down with the ship and three died in Olympic’s hospital (yes, these things had hospitals; I told you there were fucking huge).

Olympic was fully scrapped in 1937, forever going down in history as both the only Olympic-class ship that was actually unsinkable and the one with the longest reign of terror. Good God, man. I understand sinking the U-boat, but you didn’t need to bring like four other ships down with you.

#shipwrecks #shipwreck #shipwreck shenanigans #titanic #rms titanic #rms olympic #history #no wonder everyone thought titanic was unsinkable #with a track record like the olympic's i'd think it was unsinkable too #the conspiracy theories about the titanic are also complete bullshit #if anyone ever walks up to you and tells you the titanic was swapped for the olympic by the rothschilds #do me a favor and punch them in the nose for me #it's anti-semitic bullshit propagated by people who don't understand the basics of nautical engineering or history #the conspiracy that jp morgan sank the titanic is slightly less insane #but if you walked up to me and unironically started spouting it to me i'd keep walking #jp morgan sucked but there are easier ways to kill your business rivals

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