Chapter Thirty-Five: Masters of Death

Star Wars + Harry Potter Crossover

A/N: Chap 34 review responses are in my forums as normal. Also, a note on the Imperial Ship:

The ship in question is a brute, no doubt. The ship is based upon the frame of an Eclipse-class dreadnought with dual primary weapons—a single superlaser component (the DS had six, I believe), AND an ion pulse cannon. It is roughly 18 kilometers long. The addition of the pulse cannon to the Eclipse is my own invention, but otherwise the Eclipse is cannon in the SW legends (old EU). And to be clear, it was Thrawn who convinced the emperor that a fleet of such ships would be both more economical and efficient than a single death star.

Chapter Thirty-Five: Masters of Death

Harry tried not to look at Leia's face as they slogged their way painfully through the forests toward the bunker. The princess was one of the strongest people he'd ever met, but her one weakness was the suffering of others. Though he had himself thoroughly closed off to the Force, he knew it was much harder for her to do that. And in the Force, he had no doubt she was feeling the deaths of thousands upon thousands of their fellow rebels.

All he had to do was look up into the evening sky to see the flares of light that marked another Alliance cruiser dying.

The sounds of the forest around them were muted, as if the insects and animals understood just how desperate their situation was. "Potter, Arjuna is slipping."

Harry sighed, motioned for a halt and walked back to their line of wounded. Rafael Arjuna was forty-one—a former international Quidditch star whose wife and daughter died in Armageddon, he never had the heart to look at another woman and instead dedicated himself to fighting.

He'd suffered a blaster bolt in the back while fleeing on brooms, but managed to make it to the shuttle. However, the Apparition out of the falling, powerless shuttle exacerbated an already deadly wound.

The man had paled and sweat ran off his head. He was muttering to himself in Portuguese but otherwise didn't move. Leia knelt down on his other side and placed her palm over his forehead, taking a reading in the Force. The fact she simply sat back was as eloquent a statement on his condition as any words.

Harry didn't bother to talk, he simply held the man's hand until the muttering stopped and he went still. Overhead, one last flash of light heralded the end of the Battle of Endor—the Alliance lost, and lost badly.

"When we get out of this, I am so kicking the Emperor's arse," Harry said with feeling. "I'm going to Force-crush his man-bits, transfigure his robe into an angry, anally-fixated ferret, and then I'm going to fire an Avada Kedavra down his throat."

"Amen," some of the other wizards intoned. Though the words might have been half-in-jest, the tone and feeling was completely serious.

"Take any potions he has," Harry said when the man was gone. "We can't afford to leave any behind." Once anything of use was taken, Harry transfigured the body into a small child's action toy and put it in his pocket for cremation later, if there was a later. "Let's get moving, we're close."

They were within sight of the bunker, just within a few hundred meters of where they temporarily camped early in the day when they thought they might actually have a chance of winning, when they saw a large, white shuttle lifting off the platform. Leia gripped Harry's arm in a deathly grip. "Luke's on that shuttle!" she said. "And so is Vader! Harry, what are…?"

"General, Guerin is here!" Schmidt interrupted. "I'm picking up his tracker!"

Harry looked at Leia. "We can't do anything," Harry said grimly. "The kid knows what he's doing. We have to trust that."

Shaken, Leia merely nodded, and in a second had herself composed again as they searched through the forest for their lost fighter. It didn't take long, nor was it hard to figure out what happened.

When they came across the teen, they found him half-buried in the remnants of a shrub he fell into from a great height. His wand arm was gone at the elbow, and his left leg at the knee. There was a black hole burned through the centre of his chest and one entire side of his face was black and swollen, as if struck but a large, cybernetic fist.

"Oh, Toby," Harry muttered.

The boy's eyes snapped open, before drooping immediately. Well, one eye opened. The other was too swollen. "Is that…is that Potter?" the boy said weakly.

Harry didn't bother to move him. "I'm here."

"I tried to help," the boy said, tears rolling down his face. "He and…and Vader were fighting. I followed him, trying to help. I Apparated to the fight and tried to curse Vader, but it didn't work. My curse, I mean. I couldn't make the killing curse work. I…" He stopped talking and coughed weakly. The cough ended in a wet gurgle and a stream of blood from the corner of his mouth.

"Vader kicked my arse, Toby," Harry said. "I know you tried your best."

"Wasn't…good enough," the teen said as his eyes started to droop. "Never was good enough. Please…please tell her I'm sorry. So sorry."

Toby Guerin, age seventeen and convicted rapist, died. It was a case of unfortunate timing that the Imperial squad broke out of the forest and shouted "Halt!" as the teenager breathed his last.

With a scream of sudden, uncontrollable rage, Harry spun and slammed both hands into the ground. Before the squad of Imperials could fire, long, narrow spikes of transfigured stone shot up from the ground like spears, impaling every enemy soldier in front of them. The rest of the fighters stared at the display, but Harry just took a deep breath.

"Gloves are off, gentlemen," he said aloud. "Don't cast a spell that doesn't kill," he said. "And don't miss. Leia, are you ready?"

"I'm ready," she said as she gripped her lightsaber.

"Okay, when we get to the main doors, I want a mass Alohamora. And then I want every single one of you to cast Apis Scutellata Fervere. Do you know what that spell is?"

Around him, the wizards grinned hungrily. "We know," Schmidt said. "It is a good choice."

"I don't know," Leia pointed out.

"You'll find out shortly. Everyone form a half-circle around Leia and I, disillusion and then Apparate in that formation."

When they were ready, he took Leia's waist. She kissed his cheek. "Good luck."

"We'll need it."

With a loud pop the decimated force of Wizards and witches appeared directly in front of the bunker door. As Harry suspected, they all felt the strange, fuzziness of artificial gravitons, but that would not be enough to stop them. Harry and twenty-one other wizards cast the unlocking charm at once, casting aloud so everyone could coordinate. The mass of magic did not just open the door, it slammed it open so hard the servitors in the wall sparked and blew out loudly.

"Apis Scutellata Fervere!" Harry and the others cast aloud again.

Leia watched, astounded, as the tops of their wands began shooting out hundreds, even thousands of angrily-buzzing little insects that swarmed so thickly into the building it looked as if a cloud of writhing oil was cleaning the halls. Instantly they heard screams of alarm from within. "What were those?" Leia asked.

"Killer bees," Harry said. "A stinging insect from Earth. Let's go, people!"

The bees did nothing to the fully armoured Stormtroopers. However, the marines and officers were another story. The wizards rushed in, casting killing curses and exploding bone curses at anyone in white armour, while not even bothering with the uniformed men writhing on the ground. Most, in fact, were not even moving.

Once secured in the bunker, Leia began looking over the various consoles with a professional eye. Unlike the wizards, Leia was also trained in electronic espionage and made quick work of one of the communication stations. "Walk me through what you're doing." Harry said.

"All Imperial communication stations log signals," she said. "For ISB review, mainly. I'm stripping out the monitoring protocols so I can signal the fleet without having the secure channels compromised, and this will help."

She removed a small data chit from her borrowed biker scout waist pouch and slipped it into a receiving slot on the console. She put the signal on speakers, but heard nothing.

"Is it working?" a witch asked.

"It is, there's just no one left to signal," Leia said sadly.

She started to turn it off when a voice said, "This is Millennium Falcon to Task Force Endor. Are you receiving?"

Harry stared, dumbfounded. Leia responded quicker. "This is Task Force Endor receiving. Verify security code."

"Herf Aurek Nem five-five twenty-three."

"Han?" Harry asked aloud, spelling out the Aurebesh letters.

"That you, Potter? Where are you?"

"The Imperial platform," Harry said. "There are TIEs everywhere. Be careful."

"Right, hang on to your panties, we're coming."

The signal clicked out. Leia, meanwhile, was scanning through something else until she said, "Aha!"

At a few deft touches of her fingers to the computer interface, the heavy fuzziness of the graviton generator died. "Brilliant!" Harry said. "Alright, everyone to the landing platform. Schmidt, take a few and retrieve the wounded and meet us up top. It should be a line-of-sight Apparition."

"Right."

Schmidt and three chosen witches and wizards disappeared while the rest of them started toward the turbolifts that would take them to the platform.

The wounded and their escorts were already on the top of the huge platform by the time Harry arrived. They made their way over, watching the vast buzzing of TIE-fighters around the forest. It was only a matter of time before the Empire realized their bunker was compromised. Fortunately, in a strange twist of their luck, the Falcon arrived first. They could tell solely by the roar of the engines and the blowing air thrown up by its approach.

The tough-looking red-head named Bria Tharen appeared from mid-air. "Pass this around and get in," she said, pushing a small flimsiplast into the hands of the nearest wizard.

As the secret was spread, they began to board the old freighter. Finally the slip made its way to Harry and Leia, and when they looked up they could see the freighter. "It looks cleaner," Leia noted absently as they ran toward the ramp.

Once inside, they found themselves among an already good sized Force of rebel infiltrators who were helping with the wounded wizards. Tharen ran in and the ramp began to close before she even made it all the way. She ran down the narrow corridor that went toward the cockpit. Despite the compensators, they could feel a slight pull as the Falcon lifted off.

"I'm going to go talk to Solo, are you alright?" Harry asked.

"Go, I'll help with the wounded," Leia assured him.

Harry made his way toward the cockpit—when he arrived the freighter had just cleared the atmosphere. Solo had a full crew now—his Wookiee companion sat in the co-pilot's seat while Tharen handled weapons and a fourth rebel, a short Sullustan, handled communications. And crowding the space in front of them was a star destroyer showering space with blue ion bolts.

"They caught our wake leaving atmo," Tharen said.

"Yeah, noticed that," Solo said tersely. "Bria, we have a Hutt-dung load of ordinance on this bucket and only one Impstar between us and free space."

"Right. Loading torpedoes."

Harry stood just outside the cockpit, not wishing to interrupt or crowd a crew that appeared to work very well together. Solo flew with casual aplomb, spinning the bulky freighter through the enemy fire with a skill that surpassed any but a Jedi's skills.

"Firing everything in three, two, one, fire!" Bria said.

'Everything' proved to be a lot. Two threads of proton torpedoes shot out from the modified front loading forks of the freighter, ten torpedoes each. Accompanying the hard-point ordinance were blasts from a ventral turbolaser cannon so powerful Harry actually had to grip the wall to keep from falling from the powerful kick back.

Whatever the star destroyer was expecting, it was not a fusillade of twenty proton torpedoes and a barrage of near capital-ship level turbolaser fire. The turbolaser flashed past torpedoes, chipping away and weakening the shields just enough that the ships defences could only with stand the first five torpedoes. The remaining fifteen slammed into the hull at various points, with six aimed right for the bridge in the command tower.

"Yeee-haaaaw!" Solo shouted as they blew past the burning, heavily wounded destroyer. "Now that's some good shooting!"

Free of the imperial blockade, Solo quickly punched the ship into hyperspace before turning his seat to speak to Tharen. As he did so, he spotted Potter. "Ah, Mr. Wizard. How're things?"

"Could be better," Harry said. "That big ship was designed to kill my people. It can rip an object out of the dimensional envelope we use. Our shuttle was under Fidelius and it ripped the magic clear away. It's going to go for Avalon."

Han's grin sobered. "You're probably right. The Emperor has a definite hard-on for you people."

Harry glanced from Solo to Tharen. "Any chance you'd be willing to help me take it out?"

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

Before the attack on Endor, the Rebel Alliance fielded the largest fleet in its history, thanks in large part to the ships recovered from the Imperial Fleet at Avalon. When the Falcon finally rendezvoused at the coordinates Madine transmitted an hour later, the fleet had been almost halved.

Once all ships made the rendezvous, they jumped again to coordinates sent by line-of-sight laser communications, in case any of their secure channels had been compromised. Only after fleet was in a position hundreds of light years off any known hyperspace lane did they stop to take stock of what was left.

The Mon Calamari cruiser Ardent now served as the command ship for the fleet. Harry and Leia both shuttled over and were met by a grim, flush-faced Madine. "General Potter," the man said curtly. "I'm glad to see you survived. Casualties?"

"Compared to the fleet, it could have been worse. Solo got us out just in time. Did Ackbar make it out?"

"Home One was not destroyed as we initially thought," Madine said. "It was boarded in force. Gial was able to get a single transmission off that he'd had all the ship's data banks destroyed, but that we should consider all command channels and bases compromised."

Harry and Leia fell in beside the Imperial defector. The man was more than just angry. He was terrified. They walked until they reached the bridge, and from there he led them to a tactical galley where the holographic form of Mon Mothma was talking to a wilted Carlist Rieekan. When they arrived, Mothma's holographic image focused on Harry and Leia. "Oh, thank the Force," she said. "I was so worried you were lost too, Leia. And General Potter. Are you well?"

"Been better," Harry said.

"Mon, Vader has Luke," Leia said.

Mon bowed her head.

"And that weapon can rip Avalon right out of the Fidelius," Harry added. "Mon, it was a weapon designed for my people."

"Actually, Potter, it was designed for the Clone Wars," Rieekan said glumly. "The Ion Pulse Cannon was a Separatist weapon that appeared late in the war on a massive ship called Malevolence. It was a devastating ship and took out almost four sector groups before Anakin Skywalker led a fighter/bomber assault and destroyed it."

"How ironic," Harry muttered. "The fact remains, with that ship the Emperor can pierce Avalon's defences."

"I share your loss, Potter, but right now we've lost almost half the fleet and almost half a million personnel," Madine began. "We…"

"Madine, what the hell do you think will happen when the Emperor gets his claws into a race of people that can teleport? Or control your mind so thoroughly you don't even know you are killing your own wife?" Harry took a deep breath to calm himself. "There's a reason he's so interested in us. We control an aspect of the Force the Jedi and Sith never knew existed, and just like dark siders, magic can be twisted into unspeakably dark avenues. I could kill you and then revive your corpse as a soldier. That is what will happen if the Emperor gets a hold of my people."

That gave even Madine pause. "What do you suggest, General?" Mon asked, ever the voice of reason.

"We take the ship," Harry said. "We board it in force, and we take it. My wizards in support of infiltrators and Alliance marines. A fleet assault obviously won't work, but if we can take the ship, maybe we can turn that weapon on the Imperials, and open the door for the Alliance to strike back."

"First we have to find the ship," Madine said.

"No, we don't," Rieekan said before Harry had a chance to respond. "It will be at Avalon."

"Right," Harry agreed. "We have enough wizards left to cast the Fidelius on as many assault shuttles as we can. And we know that magic does not interfere with your power systems, so we expand the interiors of each to hold thousands instead of hundreds. We hit that ship with everything we can. Heavy weapons, even small armour if we have it. We overwhelm them, and we take it, and we give those bastards a taste of their own medicine."

"They certainly won't be expecting it," Mon admitted. "Especially after the losses we just suffered."

"I will admit it does hold a certain attraction," Rieekan said. "It won't put the remaining fleet in danger, at least not until we're in a position to be more effective. And Mon, we're barely holding on. We need a victory desperately."

"Crix?" Mon asked gently.

Madine looked down in thought at the holographic table. "Okay, I certainly see the need for a victory, and it's a high profile target. Potter, start working on the shuttles. I'll need to know just how much space and weight they can carry before we know for sure just what assets we can commit, but if you can hold it, I'll get it for you. You'll Liaison with Solo and Tharen. They're our best infiltration leaders right now."

"Consider it done," Harry said. "Thank you all. We're going to make them pay, my friends. One way or the other, we will make them pay."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

De la Rosa and their secret weapon—the Fidelius-charmed cruiser filled to the brim with explosive warheads—survived the failed assault at Endor. She joined them in their efforts to begin charming the ten assault shuttles in the fleet, which flew into the Ardent's hangar from around the fleet.

The Fidelius was the more exhausting charm, so they did that first, selecting the shuttle pilots themselves as the secret-keepers. By the time they were done, the wizards had to stop and recover. It was just as well, since Avalon was several days away. Already, the Rebels were heading toward the system.

After a night spent recovering, they began enlarging charms. Leia watched attentively as the first team of three expanded the hold in each shuttle to almost ten times its original size—which was large enough to begin with to hold two hundred troopers or two small Starfighters.

"De la Rosa, lock 'em in place!" Harry called from the centre of the casting wizards. Leia watched as Maria went to each corner of the expanded hold and used her wand to carve in a series of runes that 'locked' the expansion charms in place, much like a rivet holding together a joint of durasteel beams.

"General Madine, shuttle one is ready," Leia said into her com.

The former Imperial walked into the expanded hold just minutes later, and then had to walk out again before entering a second time and believing what he saw. "Just incredible," he said at last. "Simply amazing. You know, this crazy plan may actually work."

Harry shrugged. "It has to, General. The stakes are just too high if it doesn't."

Madine nodded. "I understand, General. You will have every weapon at the Alliance's disposal, and every marine and SpecOps team we have. Maybe, just maybe, we can make up for Endor."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

That night, as De la Rosa and Schmidt helped Madine's people load personnel and equipment into the ten assault shuttles, Leia sat in their cramped, temporary quarters and reached into the Force for Luke. Luke, hear me.

The Force suddenly thrummed, and her mind flooded with pain and images of an old, corrupted face with orange eyes and steel teeth laughing. "Jedi," the old face said, voice dripping in contempt. "Jedi."

Desperately, Leia tried to break the connection, but her struggles only seemed to make her twin-bond with Luke stronger. And when it became strong enough, another mind sensed it and pounced. Leia screamed as the Emperor's powerful minded flooded into hers through her link wither brother.

She fought against the intrusion with everything she had, but despite her talent and power, the Emperor had decades of experience and a power to match. He cut through her mental projections as if with a lightsaber, and stabbed into the heart of her memories.

Of blood on the crystals of Adega, and power searing through her until she became more than a mere Jedi. A master of death.

Yes, his mentally sibilant whisper said to her. Yes. I was wrong, Sister. Your father was wrong. Luke will only be a mere Jedi. A Sith when I am done. But you…you will be a master of all the Force can offer. Come to me, Leia. Join me, and your dear brother will live."

How 'bout you join us, a new presence intruded into the link. With the presence came a startlingly clear image of a shrivelled, disgustingly pale Palpatine in odd red short pants decorated with large, garish flowers on a beach making a sand castle. The light side has better parties.

The thrust of the mental image was so startlingly precise and strong that it broke Palpatine's hold easily. She gasped for air and opened her mind to see Harry backing away, frowning in concern. "Are you okay?"

"Harry, he saw what the crystals did to me!" Leia said. "He knows I can do magic and the Force now."

Harry shrugged. "Fuck him. We're going to be killing him soon enough. Next time he attacks you, throw that image of him. Or make up your own. It was an art wizards used to combat a magical predator called a boggart. Make the threat look ridiculous. The more ridiculous and funny, the better. Because if there's one thing I learned, it's that evil cannot stand to be laughed at."

She nodded before leaning over and kissing him passionately. "I'm thinking about another way to keep the dark at bay."

Harry grinned through the kiss. "That works too. Carpe diem and all that."

With that, they started to strip. They were due to reach Avalon the next day.

sp

sp

Author's Note: As always, I just wish to stress just how much I appreciate Teufel1987, JR and Miles for beta reading yet another of my stories. As always, they make everything better.