Even as Luna backed away from the lesser princess, she was reaching out with the Force. She could feel Twilight’s confusion, sadness, outrage, and more than a twinge of fear. The young alicorn genuinely didn’t understand what was going on, couldn’t conceive of how Luna could justify what she was doing. Poor naïve little filly. This world was no place for one such as her. That she couldn’t see that only made it worse.
“Go home,” she repeated. “That is a direct royal command. I cannot spare the time to escort you personally, but I have every confidence you can return however you came.”
Twilight’s grey helmet showed no emotion, but Luna could sense her intentions behind it. The young princess was evaluating her options, wondering if she had some spell that could immobilize her elder. Wondering if she could return her to Equestria. Wondering whether the power of Harmony would cleanse her mind of this “taint”.
“I will not be returning,” Luna said. “Not yet. I will not live the life of a slave merely awaiting a beating from her masters.”
“Yeah, I heard Vader prefers to skip straight to strangulation. Real improvement.”
“My service to Vader is a means to an end. Life on Equus under occupation is just an end for me.”
“And it isn’t for me?”
“A place for everypony, and everypony in her place,” Luna quoted. “As we have different talents, so too are we suited for different roles. Your method of fighting the Empire is heroic but hopeless and will lead to nothing but your death. You have died here had I been anyone else. And that would have been a great loss to our planet. You would do much more good preparing Equestria for the future. That is why you will return there immediately.” She was almost at the doorway by this point. “And if I see you here again, you will be in direct violation of a diarch’s command, with all the consequences that implies.”
Luna turned and, without a further word, walked right out.
“Mistress,” one of Luna’s Stormtroopers saluted her return. “The area is secure. We have encountered no further opposition. Three prisoners have been taken.”
“Oh?” Luna raised an eyebrow.
“Security staff of the building, my lady. One unconscious, two locked in an office.”
“She fights to incapacitate rather than kill,” Luna thought. “How very… Equestrian of her. Principled, but ultimately self-defeating against the Empire.”
“I see,” she said allowed. “And those documents the intruders were taking? What of them?”
“Several were destroyed in the crossfire. However, we were able to piece back together most of what was lost from the security footage. We have a copy awaiting your inspection.”
“Excellent. And have you inspected the other files?”
“Only to a limited degree, ma’am. We have been busy.
“I see. Well, you’ve done… acceptably,” Luna’s compliment was grudging. “Summon a speeder at once. We need to return to the surface with our data and prisoners for a quick analysis. And the wounded will need to be dropped off for appropriate care. While it’s on its way, make ready to burn this facility to the ground. We most likely cannot stop our quarry from learning of an attack on their dealer, but we can at least reduce what they can learn to rumors and a pile of ashes.”
“What of the bodies of the thieves?”
“They are an irrelevant distraction. See to it that they go up flames with the building itself.”
That was a questionable order, destroying potential evidence like that. However, Stormtroopers were trained to obey, not question. So the man just saluted instead.
“At once, my lady.”
“Very good.”
“We received a notice from Sector Command,” the hologram of Cadence was saying. “Not half an hour ago. The Empire is halving all taxes, tariffs, and quotas imposed on Equus, effective immediately. Just like you said, auntie.”
Sitting back on a comfortable couch, Princess Celestia took a sip of her tea and nodded at the hologram of her niece.
“And our rebuilding aid?” she asked.
“We’re assured current levels will be maintained without interruption,” Shining Armor answered, still looking mistrustful. Celestia supposed she couldn’t blame him.
“I take it that you two are beginning plans for troop withdrawals worldwide?”
“Of course. Nopony wants to see any more ponies coming home in body bags. We may have to maintain a few outposts, though.”
“We haven’t quite finished calculating it all out yet,” Cadence finished the thought. “But we’re definitely going to be pulling as many back to the homeland as we possibly can. Their families will want to see them again.”
“How’s the situation in Equestria? Is everything proceeding smoothly in my absence?”
“As smoothly as can be reasonably expected,” Cadence answered. “Considering the present circumstances.”
“Which means only three instances of serious crowd control measures,” her husband said drily.
“I’m sure it will get better now. His majesty has ensured that our burdens will be considerably eased.”
“Mhm…”
Celestia heard the note of doubt in her nephew-in-law, but was thankful he had the sense to keep it mostly to himself. There was no doubt this holoconference was being recorded, if not actively monitored by some ISB agent even as they spoke. It would hardly do to say anything that could be construed as seditious.
“Is there anything else I need to know immediately?”
“I don’t think there’s anything too urgent, you haven’t been gone that long auntie.”
“I know asking you raise both the sun and the moon alone is a lot of work, Mi Amore. Are you holding up well?”
“I’m… managing.” Cadence wiped her forehead. “Just promise you won’t be gone too long.”
Celestia frowned a little. “I am afraid I cannot do that.”
“Right, of course, your assistance to the Emperor. How long do you think it will take?”
“I honestly cannot say. I would prepare to live without me for some time.”
Twilight staggered down the streets of Coruscant in a state of shock, walking numbly amidst the crowds of thousands-strong nightlife. It said a great deal about the underworld that a woman walking down the street in full face-concealing armor was not deemed notable. She wasn’t even the only one doing it – on any of the blocks she walked down.
Princess Luna was alive! Not only alive, but free and walking around the same planet she was on. And, whatever the Empire had done to her had restored a measure of the dark alicorn’s power. The problem being that she had, well, become even more evil than she was when first they met. Nightmare Moon, to her knowledge, had never killed anyone, much less three strangers who just happened to be in the way. She’d tried to scare Twilight and her friends away that fateful night, not murder them with lightning.
And then she was talking about killing the Emperor and deliberately plunging the galaxy into a civil war that could make the Clone Wars pale by comparison! That was insane even if she didn’t care about the deaths of outsiders – their own planet could just as easily become one of a thousand thousand battlefields. All it required was another military commander to crash land in the vicinity and bam! Or maybe someone would take an interest in their magic. Just because it hadn’t really happened so far didn’t mean it couldn’t. Warlords could be very creative in searching for weapons. How could one mare possibly think she could prevent that from occurring?
What was she planning to do, take over the Empire herself?
Confused, disoriented, and frankly at a loss as to what she was supposed to do about this, Twilight continued on through Coruscant’s underbelly. She needed rest. She needed advice. Most of all, she needed time to think.
Inside her cabin onboard the Starry Night, Luna delicately lifted a small metal box up to eye level. It wasn’t much to look at, being an unadorned grey durasteel container she’d taken from a toolbox aboard the ship. But, when it slid gently open, it revealed something very special: the curve-hilted lightsaber formerly belonging to Inquisitor Cia.
The weapon was a trophy, but it was more than just that. To Luna, that lightsaber represented hope, the rewards for perseverance in the face of seemingly unsurmountable odds. She’d been abused, strangled, shot, left to endure the elements, and finally sent off on a fool’s errand into perhaps the single most haunted place in the entire galaxy. Through it all she had endured, never once lost focus, and in the end she had rid the galaxy of the horrible woman that had done it all to her.
One day, she silently vowed, she’d add the lightsabers of Vader and Sidious to this little box.
For now, though, perhaps the weapon could serve a more practical purpose. Her brief engagement with Twilight had revealed a critical flaw with one of her favored techniques. If she threw her lightsaber to cripple the opponent and it was somehow lost, she was defenseless against simple blasterfire. Had the young princess been of a mind to simply kill her, Luna’s mission would have ended then and there. That was unacceptable.
Luna triggered the weapon, and the red blade appeared with a *snap-hiss*. She swung it experimentally. The weapon didn’t feel quite right, lacking the attunement her own blade possessed. After a moment of thought, she deactivated it and tucked it beneath her wing regardless. It might prove useful in the battles ahead.