Luke heart was beating a brand against his ribcage, but he tried to steady his breathing. If he didn't, he'd be caught.
Even if flashes of the forge were coming to mind, Uncle Owen's lifeless body, the mangled mess left of Aunt Beru's—
He squeezed his eyes shut as quick, orderly footsteps jogged past him. He'd sequestered himself away in the deepest, darkest alleyways he could find and run through there trying to avoid the regiments of troopers that kept marching past. They didn't seem to be looking for anyone to a casual observer, but he'd overheard one of their conversations as they passed too close to his hiding place for comfort. They were still on the alert for him.
But. . . why?
Why, why kill his aunt and uncle, why burn the forge, why hunt him down? What had they done?
What was going on?
Tears leaked out from under his eyelids; he didn't dare try to wipe them away. His hands were filthy from all the mud he'd had to crawl through, and he didn't want any motion to give away his position, behind the bins, in the dirt just round the corner of the main street.
Because the footsteps were getting closer.
He buried his face in his knees as the two troopers came into the alleyway. Their off-white uniforms brought the image of Biggs, shining and laughing in a sun that had long since ducked behind clouds, wearing that same uniform, to mind. Would he ever see his friend again?
The two troopers were coming closer still. They'd almost passed his hiding place—he could see their torsos, the low-slung belts, the pistol and cutlass they both had sheathed there. So close. Only a few moments, then they'd pass by—
"Hey, who're you?"
He'd been spotted.
There was a hand in his hair, and he was yanked out in the open none-too-gently, a snarl easily rising to his lips.
"It's the kid—!"
He didn't give them any more than that moment. One of the man's cutlasses had its hilt at his eye level; he reached out and ripped it from the sheath, holding it out in front of him.
The trooper he'd stolen it from scoffed. "You've got to be kidding—"
He swung the cutlass, Uncle Owen's voice ringing in his mind—What do you think you're doing? Aim for the body, boy, not the blade—and the trooper's words were cut off with a bloody gargle. His white clothes blossomed red.
The other trooper was staring at him. "You—"
Luke was already running.
Running, running away from the fact that he'd just killed someone, that there was a stolen cutlass in his hands, that there was a vengeful Imperial trooper on his heels who he'd have to lose in the maze of alleyways.
But what was the point?
The thought flashed into his mind as he darted round a corner, into a thinner, even more disgusting alleyway; he stumbled, only to quickly regain his balance and keep running.
Even as he wondered: What was the point of running?
Uncle Owen was dead. Aunt Beru was dead. He had no idea why he was even running—or why he'd just killed someone. All he knew was that he was scared and lost and alone. He had nowhere to go.
Nowhere to go. . .
Alone. . .
Solo. . .
Han Solo.
A smuggler keen to avoid Imperials. Who had a ship in the second port, far away from Vader. Who might—might—help him.
He swallowed, his breath already a flame in his throat, then abruptly turned right at the intersection he'd expected to go left at.
He needed to go to Mos Eisley.
He'd long since lost his pursuer, so by the time he'd reached Mos Eisley Port he'd allowed his pace to slow. His lungs no longer felt like they were trying to eject themselves from his chest.
It was raining lightly as he scanned the docks, eyes eventually alighting on a small vessel—much smaller than one of the Imperial ships—docked at the end. It seemed to be falling apart at the seams, whatever paint it'd once had long since scraped off. Its two sails were closer to yellow than they were to white, greyish and saggy in the damp.
But even from this distance he could see the name painted on the side: Millennium Falcon.
He released the breath he hadn't realised he was holding, and set off forward.
This place was a lot more rundown than Bestine Port, but that just meant it repulsed Imperials—and attracted smugglers and other criminals. The owner of it made a good deal of money accepting bribes and keeping his mouth shut when he saw unsavoury business going on.
It all conspired to set Luke a little on edge, a little off-kilter, as he jogged through it. But it was a short time before he was standing in front of the ship's hull—carved in the shape of a falcon, funnily enough—and peered up. He squinted against the rain.
There was a man standing on the edge of the deck; Luke could see him silhouetted against the clouds. Incredibly tall, and not quite broad enough for his height, even from this angle Luke could tell he would tower over him. It wasn't Han Solo.
Have I got the wrong ship?
Please, please say I haven't got the wrong ship. . .
The figure lumbered closer to the edge and peered over, looking straight at Luke. He fought the urge not to fidget under the gaze.
The figure turned, and roared something indiscernible. There was another, sharper shout—this time in a timbre Luke recognised. That was Han Solo.
He let out a sigh of relief.
"Kid?" Solo was jogging down the gangplank now, a lopsided but slightly awkward grin fixed to his face. "You came? I didn't expect—"
He paused, then, when he got a clear sight of Luke. The tear tracks on his face. The blood on his shirt.
"Please," Luke said, and his voice cracked on the word. "I need your help."
Instantly, Solo threw his hands up and backed away. "Oh no," he said. "If you've got any trouble, I want no part of it, alright? I've got my own problems to worry about."
"Please," Luke repeated, a fresh rush of tears burning his eyes. He took a step forward; Solo took another step back. His hand twitched towards the pistol at his side, and Luke froze, his hands creeping up.
"Please," he whispered once more. Rain spattered onto the back of his neck and down his back. "My aunt and uncle are dead. I don't know why they were killed, they didn't do anything. I don't have anywhere else to go." A beat. Solo didn't try to shoot him, so he pressed, "Take me with you. Just to the next port. I don't have any money, but I can fight, if you need an extra pair of hands—"
"Why do you wanna go to the next port?" Solo still looked sceptical, but now he looked. . . uncomfortable. . . as well. "Don't you have friends here you can turn to?"
Because I'm being chased here, he almost said, but swallowed the words. Something told him they wouldn't help his case. "No," he said instead. It wasn't a lie—Biggs would be leaving soon, and neither Camie nor any of the others were good enough friends to take him in at risk to themselves.
The thought made him cry all over again. No one—he had no one at all.
"Please," he croaked. It was the only word he could cling to. "I don't— I don't know what they'll do to me if they find me." That trooper's shouted threats during the chase hadn't helped his optimism.
Solo froze at the words. "They?" he asked. "Who's they? Whoever it is, I already have a big enough target on my back as it is—"
"No!" Luke lunged forward, only to freeze again as Han's hand twitched again. "No, please, it's the Imperials, you're already in trouble with them, aren't you? This won't change anything."
"I have a tiny bounty on my head for smuggling," Solo retorted. "If they're bothering to chase you, you're in real deep. I'm not getting involved."
"Please." Luke was shaking his head now, his breathing ragged. He was having a full-blown meltdown in the middle of the port, and no one was looking, no one even cared— "Please, Solo, please—"
"Han," he corrected automatically, "but that doesn't matter! Get out of my sight, before you bring them down on all our heads!"
And Luke could only watch as Han, his only hope, turned to walk back up the gangplank.
Only to find his way blocked by the tall silhouette from earlier.
It was a man with long, scraggly brown hair and wrinkled brown skin, a weapon's belt slung across his chest like an accessory—albeit an accessory loaded with the biggest pistol Luke had ever laid eyes on. When he spoke, it was in a guttural language Luke didn't understand.
Han clearly did, though, because he scowled. "You're kidding, Chewie, we can barely take care of ourselves—"
The man—Chewie—cut him off with a snarl. One pointed finger had never looked so deadly, but when he pointed it at Han it seemed almost reprimanding, in a fatherly way. It made Han huff.
"I know he needs our help, he made that clear enough, but—"
Chewie growled something else. Then something else.
Han's shoulders slumped. He looked from Chewie, to Luke, then back again.
Then he walked back down the gangplank.
"Guess you're coming with us after all, kid," he drawled, clearly not happy with the situation. "As long as you want, even—apparently we've been needing a second mate to climb the rigging and help fight off pirates. What do you say?"
It was an obsolete question—after all that begging, there was no way Luke was going to say no. But he appreciated the attempt at grace, anyway.
So he dried his tears, let a smile curve his lips, and said, "Fighting pirates? I'm in."
Over the years, many of his adult acquaintances had come to the conclusion that Luke Skywalker was not an easy person to find when he didn't want to be found. But, somehow, Obi-Wan Kenobi had made do.
He'd seen the blood on Luke's shirt, heard what had happened at the blacksmith's, and now he'd seen Luke's confrontation with the smuggler. Chewbacca had convinced Solo to help him—good. Chewie was a good man. Ahsoka would be proud.
If he ended up taking Luke under his wing—as he was famous for doing to all lost souls, among the Jedi who knew wholly good people when they saw them—then Luke would probably be fine.
But Obi-Wan couldn't take that risk. Not with Ana— Vader having come so close to finding the boy.
Solo hadn't finished packing away the barrels of cargo by the time he'd had his conversation with Luke. It was a simple matter to hide in one of them, and stow away aboard the ship.
"So what's your name, anyway?"
Luke turned away from his vigil at the bow to see Han standing a few steps behind him.
"Luke," he said quietly, turning his gaze back to the sea when he joined him at the edge. The stars were a lot brighter at sea. "Luke Skywalker."
Han nodded. "Han Solo—though I guess you already knew that." Luke took it as the joke he was fairly sure it was meant to be, and laughed to himself for a moment, before it died down again.
"Now, uh, Chewie wanted to know why the Imperials are after you," Han said after a moment.
There was a sniggering sound from the crows' nest, where Chewbacca was on the night watch. He shouted something down to Han—Luke recognised the language as Shyriiwook, now, but he still couldn't speak it—who scowled.
Luke answered his question before Han got even more embarrassed. "I don't know," he admitted. "I'd just arrived home when I found all the troopers in the shop and my aunt and uncle dead on the floor. That blond man was leading them. Vader."
"Vader?"
Luke nodded. "Yeah. But I don't know what interest he'd have in the forge." His slid his gaze sideways. "Was he chasing you and we got caught in the middle?"
Han scoffed at the very idea. "No. Vader hasn't got time to chase after a common smuggler like me."
"Well, I don't know why he'd be after us, then."
Han studied him for a moment more, then looked like he was about to say something, only for Luke to let out a gasp.
"Look."
It was barely a flash of colour against the night that swooped over their heads, but Luke knew what it was anyway. Had studied pictures of the birds that so often graced maritime legends, the scarlet plumage on their tails and the tips of their wings, the shape of their feathers and the shape of their flight. He knew they were common, but. . . it was awe-inspiring to see them up close.
"Starbirds," Han said dismissively.
Luke would not be deterred. "I've heard stories about them," he was saying almost before he registered talking, his enthusiasm practically bubbling out of them. "I used to read all these old legends—that they're Amidala's handmaidens, that they're the souls of dead sailors or dead loved ones come to guide your way. They're the symbol of the Rebellion for a reason."
"Just a load of nonsense." Han scoffed again at the thought of it. "And the Rebellion's a bunch of suicidal fools who think fighting the Empire's actually gonna change anything. They're exactly the sort of people to believe in ghost stories."
"They're not—" Luke bit his tongue. He'd already made it clear how passionate about this he was; if Han could see that, and still condemn it, then no outburst from him would ever change that. "They're interesting. I like stories."
"You like the sea." It wasn't a question.
Luke nodded. "I always wanted to sail. The forge was all work, and I liked training with swords, but that was the only thing. I loved my aunt and uncle, but. . . I wasn't happy. I want to be out here, travelling, seeing the world. Just like my father."
By now Han sounded tired, and grumpy, but he indulged Luke anyway with, "Your father?"
"Old Ben told me he was a Jedi."
Han snorted at that. Loudly. "Why am I not surprised?"
"What, do you have something against the Jedi?"
"Nah. I just think a band of mercenaries travelling round and doing good with raised swords is a whole load of poodoo. There ain't any heroes on the high seas, only pirates and people who don't belong here."
The words struck a note in Luke's chest. There ain't any heroes on the high seas.
Han wandered off, below decks, but Luke stayed. The rainclouds from earlier had all cleared. The moonlight was bright, tonight.
"You're right," Luke said quietly to the wind.
Two starbirds were dancing in the air above him now. The souls of dead loved ones come to guide your way.
Uncle Owen. Aunt Beru.
He bowed his head.
The Jedi had been all but wiped out with the rise of the Empire. He knew that. He didn't know when or how they'd been decimated, but after that they hadn't had the strength to stand again a behemoth demanding all trade be licensed with them, conquering anyone who disagreed.
"There aren't any heroes on the high seas," he murmured, surprised at the stinging in his eyes. Silver moon, silver waves, silver tears: he was living in a world of quicksilver, and it was all slipping away from him. The cutlass he'd stolen earlier was still heavy at his hip. "Not anymore."
"My lord, we have completed the search of the forge, as well as the city."
"Have you found Kenobi?" He turned sharply on his heel to face the lieutenant, the words barely more than a growl. "The blacksmith's boy?"
He could tell by the sheer terror on the man's face, the way his gaze kept flicking to the silver-handled pistol at his belt, that he hadn't.
"Have you found anything of use to me?"
"We— We have found numerous oddities inside the forge and the blacksmiths' living quarters," he stammered. "We weren't— we weren't sure if they were just personal things, or if—" He took a breath. "Or if it was anything of value. We've collected them—"
"Bring them in here." He gestured around his cabin, the surprisingly large living quarters. Then again, considering they were for the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Navy, perhaps it wasn't so surprising. "I shall inspect them myself."
The lieutenant saw the chance to escape, and seized it with both hands. "Yes, my lord," he said, then scurried off.
The chest of items was brought in, and Vader sat straight-backed at his desk, eyeing it. There was likely nothing of interest in there, but he had to be thorough—
His breath caught the moment he saw the item on the top.
It had been years since he saw it, the blade long since dulled and rusted, the insignia of the Jedi Order barely visible. But he remembered it.
He remembered it.
He wrapped his hand round the hilt slowly, carefully, feeling the memories rush over him. The wind tugging at his hair, Obi-Wan's laughter carrying up to the rigging, the fingers of Padmé's left hand tangling with his mechanical right—
His mood soured abruptly. Unconsciously, his fingers brushed the japor snippet that always hung at his neck.
Why did the boy have his old sword in the forge? What use could he have for it? Who had given it to him?
That, Vader could guess. Obi-Wan.
But why?
"My lord!" another trooper cried, standing to attention at the door. "We have completed our search of the town and offered rewards; no one has come forward about the description you offered for the boy."
Vader paused. "But?"
"But an old man was sighted at Mos Eisley," the trooper continued smartly. "We believe it might be Kenobi, but the troops who went there to sweep the harbour and found nothing, even with the blockade in place."
Vader hadn't been hasty enough in setting up the blockade—he'd known that when he did it, and he knew it now. But Mos Eisley was a tiny port, so he asked tightly, "Do the records say what ships left the harbour before the blockade was put in place?"
"Only one ship left after Kenobi was sighted and before the blockade," the trooper said promptly. "The Millennium Falcon. Captain: Han Solo."
Solo.
Han Solo.
That name sounded familiar.
"Solo was one of Owen Lars's clients, was he not?" he mused. "His name was in the log book." That had been the first thing they checked—the first thing to burn, as well.
"Yes, my lord."
Owen's obsession with propriety was working in his favour. Kenobi, Lars, Solo.
He glanced down at his old sword—Anakin's sword.
Kenobi, Lars, Solo and Skywalker.
Something was amiss here.
"Do the Mos Eisley records offer a destination for the Millennium Falcon?"
"No, my lord. However, it is recorded that Solo is transporting a considerable amount of rum."
Vader smiled, then, and the trooper knew he understood.
It was fairly obvious Solo was a smuggler. And when smugglers were involved with rum, it usually meant they were going to drink it, or sell it for astronomical prices. Considering the Millennium Falcon's recorded crew of two, it was unlikely they would drink all of it.
But there were only a handle of people they could sell it to who would make it worth their money. Trading companies that specialised in alcohol were usually a good bet, and the only trading company's base nearby here was—
"Mindor," Vader ordered. "Set course for Mindor." He had pending orders from the Emperor to sack Alderaan then return to Coruscant as soon as possible for some discussion, but he was sure whatever it was could wait until after he'd had his revenge on Kenobi. By the time he got to Coruscant and back, the trail would have long since gone cold. Especially considering he would be changing his flagship when he next went, which would only extend the procedure.
"Yes, my lord." The trooper snapped a sharp salute, then turned to leave.
"Plot a straight course," Vader added before he could. "Get us there as fast as possible. If the smuggler's taken the route his ilk usually take, we can get there first."
"Sir," the trooper's face was wary; contradicting Lord Vader was practically a death sentence, "the wind is against us. We can't plot a straight course there. We'll have to plot a different course, or wait for the winds to change."
The wind is against us.
The words rippled through him; for a moment, he just stared at the trooper, unable to comprehend what he'd said. Because that. . . that was impossible.
"Sir?" the trooper queried, and Vader snapped himself out of it.
"Plot a different course then," he snarled, "just get us there as fast as possible."
He didn't wait for the troopers answering salute, or for him to turn to leave; he just yanked the japor snippet out from under his shirt and held it up to the light.
A flick of his finger had it spinning. The carved markings were still the same, no scratches, no changes. They were identical to what they'd said when he'd carved it, all those years ago, nothing but love and hope and desire in his heart.
The wind was against them. For the first time in years, the nature of the sea wasn't cooperating with his demands.
He tucked it back under his shirt again, scowling. Dissatisfied. Because something was definitely amiss here.
But maybe when they got to Mindor, he'd find out what.
