Invisible Smoke ➵ l.s. (editing)

five

Leia storms from the ship's cockpit. She passes Luke on her way out, startling him. "Your friend is quite a mercenary. I wonder if he really cares about anything... or anyone."

"I care..." He trails off as Leia continues away to another part of the ship.

The young princess searches the other rooms onboard the ship for her friend. She finally found her in the ship's sleeping quarters, staring blankly at her feet, which hung off the side of the bed. "Ellie?"

Leia speaks in a soft, gentle tone, but gains no response. Elara continues to stare down, oblivious to Leia's presence in the doorway.

"Ellie," Leia sits down next to her, "you okay?"

Elara turns away from her. "I'm fine."

Leia almost didn't ask– the glimpse she caught of her friend's bloodshot eyes gave it all away.

"Ellie," she gave her friend a comforting hug, and, unexpectedly, Elara turns back around and tightly embraces her. "I'm here."

Leia didn't blame her for crying, they did just lose everything. As much as she hurt, she couldn't cry, because she's always been the stronger of the two, and didn't want her best friend to see her break.

Elara sits back up, wiping a tear from her face. "Leia, do you remember when we were kids, when we had sleepovers how we would always sneak out into the gardens," she reminisced, "and count all of the stars?"

A small smile forms on the edge of her lips. She didn't think she could smile anymore – she'd cried so many in the last few days that she felt she couldn't get her lips to smile anymore.

"Yeah," Leia responds, a smirk prying at the corners of her lips, "and I also remember that you always fell asleep and I had to drag you around the gardens to wake you up."

"Didn't you drag me up the stairs once?" Elara's smile turned into a bigger one – one that poorly concealed her attempt at hiding laughter.

"Yes. And the you woke up, freaked out, and rolled back down the stairs!"

The ship flew gracefully over the dense, foggy jungle of Yavin 4, the moon where the Rebel base was hidden – tucked away from the Empire.

They soon land in an ancient hangar amongst the other Rebel ships, in a building that once housed an ancient temple.

The two young women ran ahead of the group, and quickly hop aboard a military vehicle. The vehicle escorts all five from Falcon to another part of the base.

An older man, an Organa family friend, greets the two women. He gives both of them a brief embrace before speaking. "You're safe! When we heard about Alderaan, we feared the worst."

"There's no time for our sorrows commander," Leia quickly responds, and gestures toward Artoo, "we must use the information in this Artoo unit to plan the attack."

"They likely tracked us here," Elara glances back at Han and Luke for a brief moment, then back to the commander, "it is important that we get this done as quickly as possible."

°°°°°°°

The Rebels gather into a briefing area, where an electronic screen projects the plans contained in Artoo.

General Dodonna begins to speak. Every person in the room quiets down and listens intently to his words. "The battle station is heavily shielded and carries a firepower greater than half the star fleet," the screen zooms further into the plans, "It's defenses are designed around a direct large-scale assault. A small one-man fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defense."

A young pilot addresses the general with a question – something he thought may be a flaw in the plan. "Pardon me for asking, sir, but what good are snub fighters going to be against that?"

Dodonna quickly answers. "Well, the Empire doesn't consider a small one-man fighter to be any threat, or they'd have a tighter defense," the plans further zoom in to reveal a small trench – which houses the station's fatal weakness, "An analysis of the plans provided by Princess Leia and Miss Aldridge has demonstrated a weakness in the battle station."

Elara glances briefly down to Artoo – who stood eagerly next to her. He watches eagerly to see what the Rebels put together from the information he'd protected. His seemingly proud demeanor – something unusual in a droid – made a small smile form on her face.

Dodonna continues on, now explaining their plan of action for the attack. "The approach will not be easy. You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point," the electronic display highlights a small hole, no more than a few meters wide, "the target area is only meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station."

Murmurs of disbelief echoed through the small room – and Han waves sarcastically in the back of the room – clearly disinterested in the entirety of the plan. "Only a precise hit will set up a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes."

The crowd of pilots and other personnel began to rise from their seats. "Man your ships! And may the Force be with you!"

a/n
I hope you all enjoyed!! We are almost to the end of anh and I have big big plans for this story through esb, so stay tuned!!

also i have some one shots for this story in the works, and i will be going back and editing this story so if you see any mistakes they will be fixed soon.

thank you for reading and don't forget to comment and vote if you enjoyed! this book is really close to 1k and I want to thank you all so much for that 💓