I'm a Skywalker too!
By: Tellemicus Sundance
Chapter 01

23:1:11 GrS
Tatooine

The starship was nothing like what Luke had pictured in his mind it would look like. He had long dreamed of leaving the dusty, gritty sand world of Tatooine, flying out beyond the atmosphere and exploring the stars out there. In his childish imagination, the starship was always something state-of-the-art, shining in the suns' light and perfectly portioned, dainty in appearance but strong and fast.

Well, the starship he was heading towards was definitely something impressive, but Luke was far from eager or even interested in approaching it. The fact that he was being dragged on the ground with the grainy sands slipping inside his clothes only heightened his discomfort. But even that wasn't what was really scaring him, it was the fact that he knew, somehow, that the one who had grabbed him and was taking him had bad intentions for him.

Luke had been busy out in the sands near his Aunt and Uncle's farm. He hadn't been able to sleep for some reason. There was this strange buzzing energy that was bubbling up inside him, making him restless. It was dark and cold outside, the most dangerous time for anyone to be out and wandering. But Luke had been confident that nothing would happen if he kept the homestead within sight. It wasn't like he planned on going far, he just wanted to alleviate some of his energy.

He didn't know where the creepy creature had come from. One moment, Luke was peacefully pacing around the outer perimeter of his aunt and uncle's farm, stargazing longingly. Then, he had been entangled by a stun net and collapsed limply to the ground after the net had discharged its electrical shocks, temporarily crippling his mobility. That had been scarcely an hour ago, and he was still unable to feel much of his body. In fact, he was surprised that he was even still conscious following that horrible experience.

"Another one for the market," the being dragging him reported as he reached the bottom of the ramp into the ship. Though he couldn't clearly see it, Luke could already tell that the ship before him was a murky black color, bulky and tall, with a pair of VTOL engines on either side of its large but narrow profile. The lights within the cockpit above him were glowing weakly, barely visible from even this short distance.

"Throw it in the hold," a voice above them answered, in the same slightly snarling tone as his captor had spoken. "This'll have to be the last one. The Minister is demanding we return."

"What's happened?" the first one asked as he continued up the ramp, still dragging like a useless sandbag further into the ship.

"Apparently, we've been a little too successful in our raids recently," the second one said, pride evident in his voice. "The Empire has been receiving increasing reports of insurgent activity and treasonous acts all along the Rim, everywhere we've been recently or so we've been told."

"Ah!" the first one said, pausing only to open a doorway they'd reached. "So, the Empire's blaming us for sparking more rebellion then."

"That is what was implied, near as I can tell," the second said, no more disturbed by the accusation than his partner was.

"Well, it doesn't matter," his captor said. "With this batch, we're sure to reach our quota."

Any further conversation was abruptly cut off as they reached a small holding cell. The being dragging him quickly unwound the stun net and shoved his numbed body through the small entrance. Luke's breath was momentarily knocked from him as he landed heavily on the unforgiving durasteel floor, the ringing clang of the cage door slamming shut sounding quite deafening to his ears from behind him.

He didn't know how long he laid there, numb and unable to move. But he did know that after a relatively short amount of time, he could hear a dull roar start up as the entire ship started trembling. 'We're taking off!' he realized.

Finding a strength he didn't know he had, Luke was soon able to push himself off the floor. As he looked around his small cage, he spotted a cracked viewport nearby. Careful of his protesting body, Luke moved over to the window and stared out into the beautiful blackness beyond. His eyes widened greatly and his jaw dropped as he saw his first true vista of the incredible cosmos that was beyond his little sandpit of a homeworld. 'So many stars! …Beautiful!'

Then, without warning, the stars suddenly shifted into long lines of light. Then, just as quickly, those lines twisted into a mesmerizing vista of blues, whites, and grays as the ship's engines let loose a mighty roar. The slave ship had just jumped into hyperspace and young Luke Skywalker's destiny was forever changed.

23:1:13 GrS
Alderaan

As the princess of the ancient and noble House of Alderaan, heir of the planet, and the future leader of its people, Leia Organa was expected to conform to numerous traditions and regal expectations that her adopted ancestry was famed for. But the problem was that Leia was just…different.

Firstly, she was a tomboy, through and through. She'd much rather go running barefoot through the grass and woodlands, climbing the mountains and swimming in the mountainside lakes and ponds, and go flying on her pet thranta. Learning to be a 'proper lady' bored her to death, sitting through hours of lessons on etiquette, studying the many different physiologies and languages of the Coreworlds and Inner Rim worlds, enduring Imperial inspections and their 'order and control' philosophy, all of it just wasn't for her. She hated being trapped in this stifling life and position that she was brought into. Though, to his credit, her father Bail Organa did his absolute best to accommodate her and teach her, persevering through her childhood rebellions.

But that wasn't the only reason she was different from others. Sometimes, not too often but frequently enough, she would get sudden…feelings, urges, an awareness of something happening around her or beyond that she just couldn't or shouldn't know about. One of the early and major instances of this phenomenon was when she younger and somehow saved one of her companions from slipping on a wet patch on a bridge and falling to her death, even when she was physically too far away to reach her in time. Other times, she dreamed of a vast desert and young boy about her age there, though she was never able to ever see his face. And it was this particular strange feeling the seven-year-old girl was dwelling on now.

She was banned to her room this particular night by command of her father. She and her friend Winter had decided to pull a prank on one of the Ministers, but when the prank went awry because of the damage inflicted, she was sentenced to spend the night in her room and not be allowed to attend a party in the Grand Ballroom. After get again by her father and once again sent back to her room, Leia dreamed again of the desert, but this time very differently.

She dreamed of the boy getting ambushed and quite literally dragged into a spaceship and thrown into a prison cell. Needless to say, Leia awoke very concerned and unable to remove the images from her mind. In a desperate attempt to get the unhappy dream from her mind, Leia decided that she'd be a bad girl again and slipped out of the Royal Palace, over the wall, and out into the city beyond. She was heading for the Gingerbell Blossom Festival, hoping to have a good time.

Leia was now walking down a deserted street towards where she could the festivities were already underway, if all the lights in the sky and the loud, happy din up ahead was any indication. She was dressed in some simple clothes that wouldn't have been out of place on some normal girl her age and hiding her face under the hood of a light jacket she was wearing over her street clothes.

As she was walking, Leia was suddenly struck by an uneasy feeling. Normally, she wouldn't have paid these feelings any attention, she'd been raised to do by her parents. They always told her that if she followed those feelings too closely that bad things would happen to her and those around her. Perhaps it was because of the nightmare she'd had just last night, but she slowed in her walk until she came to a stop, trying to…feel where she felt this bad feeling was coming from.

"Well, well, lookie here, boys!" a loud voice said from behind her, causing Leia to spin around to face her stalkers. It was a trio of thugs. Just based on their clothing, Leia could easily see them being from the wild Outer Rim territories. One of them, the first speaker probably, had a hold-out blaster in his hand and pointed at her. "I do believe we've found ourselves a little runaway princess!"

"What do you want?" Leia demanded, unconsciously slipping in her 'princess voice' as she glared at them. Though she was backing away from them, they moved quickly to encircle her. "Leave me alone!"

"You're coming with us, Princess," the lead thug said, grinning in a way that quickly made Leia feel uneasy and scared. "Senator Ask Aak wants to speak with you."

"I'm not going anywhere with you or that dirty senator!" she snapped out, glaring at the speaker even she hunched down slightly in preparation to run.

"Kid, we can do this the easy way or the hard way," the speaker said.

But even as he said it, one of the others yanked out his own blaster and pulled the trigger, shooting out a stunner beam at the little girl. In a split second before the man did so, Leia felt an inexplicable sense of danger shooting through her. With that feeling of danger came a burst of speed and agility that she hadn't known she possessed, allowing her duck down into a crouch as the stunner flew at her.

"Go away!" she yelled. Even as the stunner passed over her, she was turning and throwing out her hands in a defensive manner, as though trying to push him away from her. Somehow, without even touching him, this act sent the assailant flying backwards into the wall of the nearest building several meters away. When this happened, the feeling of power that she hadn't even noticed rising up to the surfaced vanished.

Despite herself, Leia couldn't help but stare at the man in confusion, then down at her hands, unable to believe what had happened or how. And in this momentary state of confusion, she never noticed the second stunner beam that the third thug shot at her. She collapsed to the ground lifelessly as her world faded into blackness.

"The easy way," one of the thugs said, sneering at the downed child.

23:1:15 GrS
Hyperspace, Corellian Run northbound

Traveling through hyperspace wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Once the initial awe of the sights and realization that he was traveling across the galaxy had faded away, boredom had quickly set in. Luke grew sad, fearful, and angry as the hours crept ever so slowly by. With nothing to amuse himself with, his mind was forced to entertain itself.

He wasn't allowed to speak to either the slavers or any of his fellow slaves, none of whom he'd gotten a chance to meet or even seen yet. The first time he'd tried to ask the Zygerrian slavers some simple questions they had beat on him for several painful minutes. He wasn't allowed to make noise, or he'd be beat. He wasn't allowed to move about inside his cage too much, or he'd be beat. And he most definitely wasn't allowed to ask for any extra food or 'special privileges', or he'd be beat especially hard.

With nothing else to do, questions quickly filled his head. Where was he going? Why had these Zygerrians come to a dust ball as remote as Tatooine? Why had they taken him? What was to become of him? What was happening back home? Were Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen worried for him? Did they know what had happened to him? Could they somehow find a way to get him back? These questions and so many more, most without answers, bounced around his head for the better part of the four days they'd taken him.

Shaking his head, Luke forced himself to clear his mind of questions and thoughts. Thinking so hard about so many questions that had no immediate answers was getting him nowhere. All he could do now was try and get comfortable, to wait until the slavers arrived at their destination. When they arrived, then he might be able to finally get some answers. But until then, he would have to wait.

Taking a deep breath, he finally released his fears and doubt, resting his chin into his hands as he sat against the wall of his cell. Relaxing, he…felt something. It tingled at the edge of his awareness, just out of his grasp but close enough to be noticeable. What was that? Did it matter what it was? It wasn't like he could use it to open the door to his cell. As that thought passed through his mind, he pictured the door and the locking mechanism that held it shut, seeing it suddenly flip open as the door swung open slightly. The thought brought a small smile to his face. If only it was true…

Click!

Startled out of his thoughts, Luke looked up and stared, blinking in disbelief. The door to his cell was unlocked and swinging open gently.

Hyperspace, Hydrian Way southbound

Awakening from her stunned slumber, Leia first became aware of the fact that she wasn't in her own bed. The size and shape of the bed she lay in made that abundantly clear, it was hard and quite uncomfortable. The bedsheets weren't pulled up to her chest, as her parents were wont to do whenever they came into her room and saw them not so. The pillow under her head was every bit as uncomfortable as the bed, only just soft enough to not irritate the neck. But above all, the bed she was in smelled like unwashed urine and old alcohol, extremely unpleasant.

Sitting up in a jolt, Leia quickly reached up to rub the dream sands from her eyes. This brought to her attention the fact that her hands were handcuffed together in loose manacles. They were clearly not designed for someone with wrists as small as her own but still tight enough that she couldn't escape. Where was she? What had happened?

"Mother? Father?" she called out, looking around the bedchamber she was in.

The bedchamber was small, somewhat cramped, and very simple with only the bare necessities, especially to her high-born upbringing. With only the small and smelly bed she was lying in, a series of cabinets underneath it, a desk and chair to one side which had a viewport over it, and pair of doors in the farthest corner one of which were likely the room exit and the other having a small refresher behind it. In a way, this simple set-up was a very nice change of atmosphere. But that thought was something that she refused to acknowledge as fear and uncertainty dominated her mind, especially when she saw the distinctive swirling blue-white colors of hyperspace glowing outside the viewport.

Climbing out of the smelly bed, she get to her feet uncertainly. Her legs felt weak and didn't seem to respond as they should've, which is what caused her to stumble and collapse in an undignified manner on the floor. Hoisting herself unsteadily back to her feet, she stumbled over to the desk, climbing up into the chair and staring out of the viewport window. To her horror and rising fear, her initial assumption had been correct. She was on a starship currently in hyperspace, likely very, very far from home! Those thugs really had kidnapped her! That thought caused a spark of anger to flare up in her.

"Father's going to be very mad," she muttered to herself, still staring out the window.

Then, before her very eyes, the spinning mass of the hyperspace changed into the stretched-out lines of stars as the ship's frame started trembling. Just as the trembling ceased, the star lines instantly halted into the normal pinpricks of light as the ship shifted out of hyperspace. In the distance, she could see a star, at least one planet nearby, and a long, long line of starships.

Using what little astrological knowledge she had, Leia tried to pinpoint her location based on the constellations. It was hard work, since the vast majority of them differed greatly all through the galaxy. But there were certain well-known ones, especially those that were around heavily used hyperspace lanes. So, with that little bit of knowledge, she was able to identify one such constellation.

"I'm in the Denon system?" she asked herself, trying to fill the emptiness of her prison cell. "Where am I going?"

The hyperspace lanes over Denon were always crowded, like the intersections of two heavily-used streets in any city on any world. The traffic had to be carefully monitored and controlled to prevent any accidents and hyperspace mishaps. At any given time, the traffic jams could last as long as an hour until arriving ships were finally cleared to proceed to their next destination. This made the planet Denon a truly important strategic military and commercial world in the center of the Inner Rim, so the Imperial presence was quite powerful in this system as a result.

So, considering the already obvious long line of traffic, Leia soon lost interest in gazing out the viewport. Lowering herself back to the floor, she turned and carefully walked over to the door. The control panel didn't respond to her pushing the open button, flashing an obvious red warning sign of it being externally locked. Frowning angrily at the door, Leia turned away and began to explore the room.

The desk had nothing of interest to her, just a bunch of papers that looked like some kind of charts and financial statements, numbers and words that flew right over her head. Pushing those aside, she moved on. In the cabinets under the bed, she found a bunch of random clothes that were obviously someone else's, they were far too large for her to wear. Yet as she was digging in the lowest cabinet drawer in the farthest corner, she found a utility belt.

Excited at her discovery, she pulled it out and emptied the cargo pouches. Most of the pouches were empty, but she did find a basic comlink, a datapad, a holo-disk, and a broken glowrod. Shrugging, she put most of it back into its original pouches before securing it around her small waist. Picking up the datapad, she activated it and began scrolling through the information that was on it. As she was gazing at several of the different folders inside its database, one word in particular grabbed her attention instantly.

"Jedi!" she gasped, eyes widening in delight.

She'd heard so many stories about the Jedi, both from her father and everyone else. Most people had never met a Jedi before their arrest, persecution, and extermination for attempting to forcefully seize control of the Republic and execute the Supreme Chancellor. But her father was one of the very few who had met them, many of them in fact, and he always told her that the official story of the Jedi Order that was being broadcast through Imperial space was all a bunch of lies. Needless to say, given the contradicting stories and the overall secretive and magical aura of the old Order, the Jedi had quickly grabbed Leia's young imagination. Whenever she could, she'd find and devour any information about the ancient knightly order that she could get her hands on.

Opening and scrolling through the folder, she frowned. It was the all the same as the other stuff she'd found, the data that was published by the official Imperial sources. Always vilifying the Order and how it'd been toying with and controlling the old Republic for centuries. But then, hidden among the trash of lies, she noticed a few tiny gems of information that had survived the Imperial filtering process.

'The Jedi's power was derived from an energy field that supposedly encompassed the entire galaxy commonly called the Force. The Jedi and many other mystical cultures have always claimed to able to connect and manipulate the Force when they were calm and at peace. But many modern research efforts into this supposed energy field have never turned up any conclusive proof.' For some reason, this tiny bit of information rang a bell in Leia's mind. After only a moment of contemplation, she realized why when the memory of her kidnapping suddenly sprang to the forefront of her mind.

'I pushed that man away…without touching him!' she realized, eyes widening as the datapad fell from her suddenly numb grasp. She remembered now. The power, the sensation of being aware and knowing what was around her, connected to something…greater. She remembered her own shock, during which her grasp of the power suddenly slipped away from her. 'Am I a Jedi too?!' Snapping back to reality, Leia snatched up the datapad again and reread the passage about the Force. 'When they were calm and at peace? What does that mean?'

After several long and fruitless minutes of pondering this strange information, she let out a sigh and shut down the datapad. Leaning back against the bed frame, she closed her eyes and tried to relax. All of this thinking on this mystery and trying not to think about her situation was really starting to stress her out. As she finally calmed down and stared vacantly ahead, a strange but warm sensation began to reach her. Without any real conscious effort, she welcomed this warm and comforting feeling, drawing it into her and it in turn soothed her stressed spirit and fearful mind. Then, like a blind man suddenly opening his eyes and seeing the vast and beautiful world around him for the first time, Leia connected to this strange energy and suddenly she knew.

She knew…everything. She could…see, no feel, where everything was. She could feel the presences of many thousands of sentient beings around her, lined up in a long line that must've been several hundred kilometers long. She could feel as some of those presences suddenly flashed away in bursts of immeasurable speed. She could feel the presences that suddenly jolted to a sudden near-stop from those immeasurable speeds. She could feel the blinding aura of many millions of peoples down on the nearby planet, causing the world to shine like a beacon in the new world she'd just entered.

But most of all, she could feel the presence of another. Curious, she honed in on this 'other' person. As she drew closer, Leia began gaining images. The image of a sinister murky black Aurore-class freighter. The image of a cargo hold of sentients locked in far more barbaric prisoner cells than her own. She could feel the fear, the depression, the hopelessness, the anger of those poor trapped souls. Then the image of a young boy with sandy-golden hair in a dirty white tunic, who had somehow slipped out of his cage and was sneaking his way from one prisoner cell to another, opening each one. She recognized this boy. This was the boy from her dreams of sand and desert. But just as she got close enough to make out the boy's features, he suddenly stopped and spun around, seemingly looking right at her!

Before the surprise could fully set in, the surprise that the boy must've also sensed and reacted to her presence, something else happened. A new presence suddenly invaded their little meeting. But unlike the boy's presence, which was mostly bright and warm, even with his current unhappiness and fear staining his aura, this new presence was cold, dark, foul. It was angry, very angry. It was hungry, hungry for prey, hungry for blood, hungry for death. And, worst of all, it was nearby and it knew where they were!

The sudden intrusion of this cold, lethal presence startled her, causing Leia to lose her focus and get yanked back to her corporal body. Jolting forward, she grasped her chest as she gasped, panting heavily in shock and surprise. And even though she'd lost her connection to…whatever it was, she could practically still feel that cold hunger gazing down at her, looking for her. An irrational fear suddenly sprang up in Leia as she realized that she and that boy were in incredible danger.

Black Wind, cockpit

Rygar the Zygerrian was a slaver by trade, but that wasn't all that he was. He was also an Imperial privateer and a pirate. And he absolutely loved his professions. Unlike many in the galaxy, Rygar had benefitted immensely under Imperial rule. He could capture and sell slaves whenever he wished. He could attack and commandeer any private vessel under the suspicion of carrying illegal goods, though more times than not he planted such goods there. And he even had a special license to execute any rebels to Imperial rule without the need for a warrant.

Granted, he still needed to pay out a considerable fee to the Empire for these services. And he was still answerable to Imperial authorities and inspections, but those were minor annoyances at best.

As a pirate and a privateer, Rygar made it his business to always be on the lookout for suspicious vessels and personnel. However, as far as Rygar was concerned, this merely meant that he was always searching for any private starships that caught his eye. Particularly those that had unique engineering features, were very highly-priced or valued on the commercial and black markets, or just were pleasing to his eye. If he wanted them, he took them.

And he'd just found his latest desired vessel. It was a very rare Baudo star yacht that had a very appealing blue and golden hull design that shined under even the faintest of light. It was currently in the line of traffic that was heading southbound, towards the Outer Rim territories, while he was flying northward towards the core. And while he was under a mandate to return with his cargo of soon-to-be slaves, it wasn't an immediate summoning.

"Think we got the time to bag ourselves a new trophy, Zygar?" Rygar asked, glancing over at his older brother as he pointed out his desired target.

Zygar looked over at him for a moment, before looking over at the Baudo critically. After a moment, he smiled, "Easily. Those yacht types are never very well armed or protected. What should our excuse be this time?"

"Hm…" Rygar hummed thoughtfully. "How about the 'magic user' excuse? We haven't done that one in a while." Of course, what he meant by 'magic user' was the Imperial proclamation of locating and educating special gifted children to Imperial standards of behavior and law. These children were very, very rare, so more times than not a search for one would quickly become fruitless and a waste of time.

"That could work," Zygar said, nodding in agreement. "But maybe we should throw in the old spice smuggling one as a failsafe."

"Good idea," Rygar agreed as he grabbed the controls and removed the autopilot. Rising up out of the traffic lane, he spun the Black Wind around and flew towards the Baudo that had already flown past them. As he was doing this, Zygar powered up the weapons and quickly got a target lock on the vessel, pummeling its pretty hull with blaster fire. Even though the pilot was caught by surprise, the blaster fire still was unable to penetrate the passive shields of the ship, even if they did rock and jolt it fiercely.

The Baudo was forced to go into immediate evasive maneuvers, pulling out of the traffic lane in the process. The Zygerrian pirates followed it relentlessly, blasting away mercilessly. Reaching up to the comm unit, Rygar spoke out in the most commanding voice he could, "Attention, Baudo star yacht, this is Imperial privateer vessel, the Black Wind. You are hereby ordered to cease all activities, shut down engines and shield generators, and prepare to be boarded for inspection."

"Black Wind, this is the vessel, Malastare's Pride," came the voice of the fleeing vessels pilot. "Cease your attack at once! This is the private vessel of Senator Ask Aak of Malastare! You are assaulting an Imperial diplomatic vessel! This is an act of treason! I say again, cease your attack and we will not retaliate!"

The brothers glanced at one another for a moment. Then identical sneers crossed their faces. They were going to enjoy this! "Malastare's Pride, what are the Imperial security codes of the Dustig Oversector?" The brothers didn't actually have such codes. No one outside of official Imperial channels were. Yes, there were many different ways to get them, but the cost of them on the black market just wasn't worth it for many of the smalltime criminals. So, they were quite confident that their prey didn't have the codes either.

And, indeed, there was a very long pause before the pilot spoke up again. "Those are restricted to Imperial authorities only!" Rygar didn't even bother trying to reply. Zygar did it for him, opening fire once again with glee.

Imperial Star Destroyer, Fury of the Empire

He had been kneeling in his personal chambers, meditating on the Force and continuing his endless mission for his dark master. His master had been quite explicit in his commands: locate any Force-sensitive children or teenagers, if they'd not serve the Empire, then to promptly execute them, along with any surviving Jedi from the Great Purge.

On paper, it was a simple enough task. But in execution, it was far, far more difficult to carry out. Most surviving Jedi would've learned many tricks to avoid capture or notice by this point, though they did occasionally slip up here and there. But that portion of his mission he mostly left to his brethren. He was personally more concerned with the so-called 'Children of the Force', those that had the potential to become dangerous enemies in the future if left unchecked.

But he didn't receive his rank of being the Fifth Hunter by being passive about his mission. Already, he had secured several dozen of them into serving the Empire as fledgling Dark Side Adepts, but he'd killed far more of them than he could easily count. The little kids were usually overconfident in their skills and abilities, rarely ever assuming that they were in contact with the single greatest power in the galaxy. Yet despite that, most of them were so self-centered and arrogant that he felt he was doing the galaxy a public service by getting rid of them early on.

The Fifth Hunter mostly kept his base of operations centered in the Denon system. With such a heavily-used hyperspace lane within his immediate proximity, he would easily be able to locate any as-of-yet undiscovered Force-sensitives as they traveled either core-wards or rim-wards. Coupled with his unique Imperial Inquisitorius license, boarding any ships and apprehending those Force-sensitives was an exercise in simplicity.

What the Fifth Hunter was searching for now was a challenge though. He'd grown bored of his self-imposed mission of locating the Children and he was now yearning for a challenge. A true test with a worthy opponent that he could triumph against. Then maybe he could elevated to the next rank of Fourth Hunter and be given even more power and privileges by his master to help him better complete his overall mission.

His meditation was interrupted when he felt something, a massive disturbance in the darkness. The galaxy as a whole was a vast blanket of darkness, despair, and other delectable dark emotions. So, what he was sensing now was the equivalent of a pair of 100watt lights bursting alight in the blackness of a cave. Those blinding lights of pure and concentrated raw power sent out waves all across the galaxy and the Force, like a pebble dropped into a pond, shining like beacons and attracting the attentions of all those sensitive to the nuances of the Force.

After several moments to collect himself and shore up his defenses against the shock of the disturbance, the Fifth Hunter quickly focused all his attention on those beacons. In his mind's eye, he watched as a pair of vessels in the hyperspace lane nearby, a Baudo and an Aurore, that were engaged in a dogfight. Focusing further, he gained a brief glimpse of a pair of children, one on each vessel, a sandy-blonde boy and a dark-haired girl. The girl was actively, if clumsily, scrying in the Force and also watching the boy, who was using small pulses of Force power to unlock prisoner cells.

However, despite his best efforts, it would seem that the children were both incredibly sensitive to the Force, as well as powerful. They both sensed his dark presence at the same instant and instantly withdrew from the Force. It was like slamming a door shut on his face, disorienting and completely unexpected, causing him to reel back in surprise.

Coming back to himself, he instantly stood up and marched out of his personal chambers. Once outside, he moved with a purpose to the hanger bay as he raise his comlink and contacted the bridge. "Captain, prepare my ship. I'm heading out to deal with that dogfight myself."

"At once, milord!" the Captain answered promptly.

Black Wind, cargo bay

Luke wasn't sure, but he felt that the ship had just entered combat. He could hear the loud bursts of noise as the blaster cannons fired and there was a sensation of fast and erratic movement under and around him. But he ignored that for now, doing his best to push the strange sensations he'd just felt to the back of his mind. The arrival of first the warm and bright presence of someone…familiar had caught him by surprise, but the startling arrival of the second and cold presence was like bucket of ice water. It washed away the warm feelings that had washed over him and he was fast to flee his connection to that strange power that he'd discovered.

Shaking his head again, he refocused on his goal: freeing the other twenty prisoners in the hold with him. Most of the slaves were asleep, but after he shook them awake, they were quick to escape from their cages and help him release the others.

The one he had to open now was the last one left, an elderly man with a dark skin tone and pepper-salt hair coloring showing his advanced age and dressed in threadbare rags. But that didn't soften the sharp gaze of something dangerous in his eyes as he watched the young Skywalker move forward and unlock his cage.

"Thank you, boy," the man said, crawling weakly out. Seeing the man's inability to stand on his own, Luke was quick to reach down and help him to his feet. But even with his feet under him, the man still heavily on Luke's small frame.

"What do we do now?" one of the released slaves asked, a young Togruta boy who couldn't have been any older than Luke.

"Find the escape pod and eject," one of the slaves said quickly. "I've worked on this ship type before, I know where they are. Follow me!"

The slaves followed the self-named leader easily as he moved off down the hall, towards a turbolift. But when Luke made to follow after them, the man leaning on him tightened his arm over his shoulder, earning Luke's attention. "Take me to the engine room, boy. I'm gonna get these bastards back for what they did to me—us!"

Though Luke didn't want to oblige the man's demand, he wanted to follow the others and try to escape. But the gaze in the man's eye turned especially piercing and Luke could feel that he was intending to head to the engine room with or without Luke's help. Sighing heavily, Luke shifted the man to a more comfortable position and carefully helped the man walk into the back of the ship.

'Why do feel like I'm forgetting something?' Luke wondered to himself briefly, before forgetting that thought to focus on his task at hand.

(Author's Note) Not the best place to leave off the chapter, but I didn't want to reveal too much about what the rest of the story will be like until at least the second chapter. That's mostly due to a pet peeve of my in regards to this brand of story; authors jumping right into the 'big event' with little to no buildup in tension or introducing the characters involved.

But besides that, this is an idea that's been bouncing around my head for months. I hope you enjoy this story as much I will. Despite using an old plot device, I'm hoping to use a new type of storyline that doesn't fall into the classic plotlines that such an idea inevitably invoke. If anything else, the fact that there's likely going to be two different stories taking place, that should cause enough of a difference to keep you guys interested.

Just so we're clear, I'm using the Great ReSynchronization of Star Wars. So, 23:1:11 GrS roughly translates into the 11th Day of the 1st Month of the 23rd Year, which in turn translates into about 12 BBY. Luke and Leia are about 7 years old at this point.

FYI: I don't intend for this story to be a priority. I still intend to finish up The Lightsaber before really committing to this story or some other one that catches my interest.