Jedi Master Luke Skywalker felt a thrill of joy to be in his X-wing again with Artoo-Detoo behind him. After having to fly a standard shuttle with his Jedi students as passengers for so long, with no speed and no firepower, he had almost forgotten the pure joy of flying solo in a faster machine.
Luke grinned suddenly as a memory of Master Yoda surfaced. Reckless is he, the much older Jedi had told Ben in the swamps of Dagobah so long ago now. Never his mind on where he was; what he was doing…
After so many years of hardships and tests of the Force, Luke had almost gotten rid of the recklessness that had so characterized his youth. Almost, but not quite.
Artoo beeped at him.
Laughing out loud, Luke answered, "Yes, Artoo, it is nice to be back in the X-wing. Just keep an eye out for that convey while you're at it, okay?"
Artoo warbled an indignant reply that Luke didn't bother to try to translate.
Focusing his own attention back to what he was in the X-wing for, Luke sobered. A mysterious convey of about six ships had been making havoc of the New Republic's shipping freighters. They would drop in-system, attack, board the ships, steal the cargo, and leave as quickly as they came. So far there were only droids as living survivors. At the urging of the Senate, Luke's twin sister, Leia Organa Solo, President of the New Republic, had requested that he take some time to help investigate the mysterious pirates. Eager to help out his sister, he had agreed and now, urged by a vision in the Force, he was at the edges of Known Space, near the remote planet of Tangoria.
And here he had been for four hours.
He could wait. A Jedi must have patience. The New Republic envoy would arrive any moment, and if his vision had been correct, so would the pirates.
Artoo suddenly gave him a trilling warning.
"I see it, Artoo," Luke soothed the little droid. Across from Tangoria's nightside, and Luke's position, the New Republic envoy had dropped out of hyperspace. As arranged before he had left Leia at Coruscant, Luke set his comm unit to a select frequency and toggled it on. "New Republic envoy, this is New Republic X-wing AA-589 on the dayside. Please report status."
A relieved woman's voice soon answered him. "New Republic X-wing, this is Bothan's Sting reporting all green. Crystal Gleam and Alderaan both report green as well. Going downside now."
Luke frowned. Alderaan was here? She hadn't told him…
Switching to another, more private frequency as he kept his senses stretched across the space around the envoy, he said, "Nice surprise to see you here. You should have told me."
Silence answered at first, then Leia's voice replied, "Sorry, Luke. I didn't know myself I was coming until after you departed. A…friend had her ship taken in for repairs but needed to come out here so I volunteered."
In the distance, the three ships began to swing out to where Luke waited for their run down to the planet. He watched them grow closer, a distant sense of disquiet invading his thoughts. In a preoccupied tone, he said, "Just be careful."
"Luke? What is it?" His sister asked, her tone worried.
And suddenly he knew.
"Abort!" He snapped. "They're coming in right in front of you!" And even as the three ships began to loop around, he wondered if he was crazy…No one jumped in-system that close to a planet…
And then there they were, six gleaming ships with no insignia between him and the now-retreating New Republic ships. If the pirates were caught off-guard with their quarry already running from them, they quickly recovered to put on speed to catch up with them.
His eyes narrowing, Luke toggled his comm switch again to a broader frequency. "Unidentified ships, this is New Republic X-wing AA-589. You are to identify yourselves and power down for boarding and questioning."
A harsh male voice spat, "What? You must be joking!"
Luke smiled grimly and eased his throttle up. Picking up speed, he began to draw closer to the six ships. "Not lately. Again, I repeat, you are to identify yourselves and power down for boarding and questioning, or risk being fired upon."
"You can't fire on us!" The same male voice growled.
Luke raised an eyebrow, silently urging his X-wing to gain on the ships faster. At the rate he was gaining, he would barely catch up with the pirates before they would get within firing range of the Republic's ships…and his sister.
"My opinion differs from yours then," he answered. "You are encroaching on New Republic space and committing suspected acts of piracy. As a New Republic military official, I have every right to fire on you."
"You don't understand!" A new voice broke in, almost sounding panicked. "We're hauling a special cargo…"
"Shut up!" The original male voice broke in. "We don't have to tell him nothin'!"
Ignoring the exchange, Luke calmly repeated, "Power down and prepare for boarding or risk being fired upon. Your time to decide lasts as long as it takes for me to get near you."
"Go suck a guut egg!" The male spat at him before shutting down the transmission.
"There's our answer, Artoo," Luke said tensely. "Hang on back there." With a roar of his engines, he applied the full speed of his X-wing, the acceleration momentarily pushing him into his seat and flipped the switch that would let his wings rise into the position that gave the X-wing its name.
Catching up to the ships faster than they expected, he once again tried to reason with them. "What is your answer, Unidentified ships?"
In response, two of the smaller, more maneuverable ships looped around and started firing on him. Prompted by his danger sense in the Force, Luke quickly inverted a loop of his own and dived to avoid the laser fire. Hanging onto his dive for just a few seconds, he flipped the X-wing to the portside and curved it upward, coming up behind the two ships and opening fire as well.
Sensing extreme panic from the minds inside the two ships as they swung almost desperately out of his range, Luke frowned. Something was not right here. But the pirate captain was obviously not going to give him time to try to figure it out as the lead ship, a reoutfitted Mon Cal Cruiser, began to spat ion charges at him.
Immersed into the Force, Luke easily evaded the blasts of blue and used his advantage of smaller size to swoop under the belly of the Cruiser. Arming his missiles, he fired four of them quickly into the aft section of the belly and began to crawl for distance. The first two torpedoes hit and took out the shield in that section of the ship while the last two finally impacted mere seconds later to punch through the aft and explode.
The explosion was strangely and disturbingly out of proportion for simply hitting the aft of a Cruiser. Luke quickly twisted his X-wing around to observe the huge fireball that was trying to leak into space. He interestedly noted that the three ships near the Cruiser were trying to get away from it as fast as possible but even he could tell that they would not succeed.
"What have you done? We were carrying an exploding gas! You've doomed us all! You…" And then the voice was silent, the lead ship exploding into billions of pieces, the fireball and shockwave taking the other three ships with it.
And Luke realized with a wave of horror that the shockwave of gas and fire was heading his way as well.
"Luke! Get out of there!" He heard Leia's panicked shout as he spun the X-wing into a fast retreat, stretching out with the Force, trying to find a way to help his ship go faster than the doom that was catching up with it.
Wincing slightly, Luke hit the button that would propel Artoo out of harm's way toward the planet; Artoo was equipped with fitted rockets that would just barely get the droid out of the way. He knew that this was one race he was going to lose even as he urged all the power in his engines to travel faster, have greater speed. As the fireball engulfed the X-wing, he sent one final good-bye to his sister…sensed the other person who was with her and at the same moment sending her a farewell as well. Then he knew only blackness.