I
A pair of ships jumped out of hyperspace with a sudden lurch, flying in formation toward the pulsing sun of Circarpous Major. The lead ship was an X-wing class snub fighter. The second was a Y-wing, both models employed almost exclusively by the Rebel Alliance.
"Everything okay back there, Artoo?" Luke Skywalker called into his communicator. A cheerful beep from the stubby 'droid locked in position behind the cockpit assured Luke it was.
They passed close to Circarpous V, a vast, cloud-shrouded globe. The planet was listed in Luke's library as being mostly unexplored, save for a single Imperial scouting expedition. According to his computer readout, the Circarpousians also knew the planet as Mimban.
Luke's intership communicator dinged for attention. "I'm receiving you, Princess."
Princess Leia Organa, former Senator of the now obliterated world of Alderaan, piloted the Y-wing craft. "My port engine is generating unequal radiation pulses."
Even when bothered, to Luke, Leia's voice was as naturally sweet and pleasing as sugar-laden fruit. "How bad?" he inquired with a frown.
"Bad enough, Luke." The words sounded strained. "I'm losing control. I don't think I'm going to be able to compensate. We'll have to stop at the first base on Mimban and have the problem corrected."
"You can't make it to Circarpous IV?"
"Not at this rate. It's imperative I make our meeting. This system is vital to the Rebellion, Luke. Resistance groups from all over the Circarpous system are going to be there. If I don't arrive, we'll have one stang of a time getting them to surface again."
Luke hurriedly began a check of visual readout charts and records. "There's nothing in the listings about Mimban on either Imperial or Alliance tapes, Leia. In fact," he added with a glance at the murky green-white sphere, "Mimban might not even have an repair station at all."
"It doesn't matter, Luke. I have to make the conference. I'm going down while I still have some real control. Surely, in a system as populous as this one, any world with a breathable atmosphere's going to be equipped with facilities for emergency repair. Your data must be old or else you're searching the wrong tapes." A pause, then, "You can prove it by shifting your communicator monitor to frequency oh-four-six-one."
Luke adjusted the requisite controls. Instantly a steady beeping filled the small cabin.
"Sound familiar?" she asked him.
"That's a directional landing beacon, all right," he replied.
A puff of yellow-orange gas flashed brightly from the Princess'
Y-wing, expanded, and vanished. "Leia!"
Her small ship was curving away from him. "Lost lateral controls completely, Luke! I've got to go down!"
Luke rushed to match her glide path. "Try to shift power!"
"I'm doing the best I can. Stop moving around, Threepio, and watch your ventral manipulators!"
A contrite, metallic, "Sorry, Princess Leia," sounded from her cabin companion, the bronzed human-cyborg relations 'droid See-Threepio. "What if Master Luke is correct and there is no station? We'll be marooned forever on this empty world, without companionship. Without knowledge tapes. Without… without lubricants!"
"You heard the beacon, didn't you?"
Luke saw a small explosion. "Leia!" The Y-wing dove surface-ward at an abruptly sharper angle. "Leia!" Only static answered his frantic calls.
Then the interference cleared. "Close, Luke. I lost my starboard dorsal engine completely. I cut port dorsal ninety percent to balance guidance systems."
"I've cut power to slow down with you."
In the Y-wing's cabin Threepio sighed and gripped the walls around him firmly. "Try to set us down gently, please, mistress Leia. Rough landings do terrible things to my internal gyros."
"They're not so good on my insides either," the Princess shot back, lips clenched tightly as she fought the sluggish controls. "Besides, you've got nothing to worry about. 'Droids can't get space sick."
Threepio could have argued otherwise, but remained silent as the
Y-wing commenced a stomach-turning roll downward.
Luke followed rapidly. There was one positive sign: the beacon signal was not imaginary. It was there. But he didn't feel confident. "Artoo, activate the tracker. Let me know if you spot anything unusual on our way down. Keep all your sensory plug-ins on full power." A reassuring whistle filled the cockpit.
They were at two hundred kilometers and descending when Luke jumped in his seat. Something pushing at my mind, Luke's thoughts spun. A stirring in the Force emanating from below. Got to relax, the way Obi-Wan taught me.
Luke's sensitivity was far from perfectly attuned. He sincerely doubted he would ever attain half the command of the Force Kenobi had possessed, though the old man expressed great confidence in Luke's potential. Still, he knew enough to categorize that subtle tingling. It sparked an almost palpable feeling of unease in him, and it came from something - or several somethings - on the surface below. He couldn't do anything about it now. The only concern of the moment was hoping the Princess' ship would set down safely.
The sooner they left Mimban, the better he'd feel.
Despite her own problems, the Princess took time to relay coordinate information to Luke. He tried to identify something he'd spotted below as they entered the outer atmosphere.
"Luke! There's something up ahead. The sky -"
Entering Mimban's troposphere, the immediate reaction of both ships to the thicker air mass verses the vacuum was anything but normal. They plunged into an ocean of liquid electricity. Gigantic multicolored bolts of energy erupted from empty air, contacted the hulls of the two ships, and fomented instrumental chaos where order had reigned seconds before. Instead of the blue-tinged canopy Luke expected to sail through, the atmosphere around them was drenched with bizarre, perambulating energies so wild and frenzied they bordered on the animate. Behind Luke, Artoo-Detoo beeped nervously.
Luke's instruments flaunted a farrago of electronic nonsense. The madly bucking X-wing was held in the grip of unidentified forces powerful enough to toss it about like a plaything.
Tense moments later, the chromatic storm vanished behind him as if he'd suddenly emerged from a waterspout, but his controls exhibited what were probably permanent manifestations of the electronically addled.
A quick survey revealed what he most feared: the Princess' fighter was nowhere in sight. "I've lost the Princess. Artoo, I know the tracker isn't functioning now, but it should show us Leia's precise course before the anomaly knocked out our systems. It'll take us in at an exact pursuit course, and if we're lucky, we won't land on the opposite side of the planet from her and Threepio." If we're lucky enough to land in one piece.
Trying to control his drunken ship with one hand on the manual controls, Luke activated the communicator with the other.
"Leia! Leia, where are you?"
"No control, Luke," came her static-sprinkled reply. He could barely make out the words. "- trying to - down in one piece -"
"Leia?" Luke flipped the switch. "Leia?"
Gone, no matter how frantically Luke cajoled the communicator. His attention was diverted as something in one overhead panel blew out in a shower of sparks and metal fragments. Dense clouds enveloped the ship. There were flashes of light, the rumble of thunder, and water droplets pelting the cockpit windows. Artoo whistled.
"Clouds are obscuring my vision - sheets of rain, lightning - better activate repulsors before we locate the ground the hard way." A series of beeps reached Luke's ears. "I'm switching off engines. We're going in on a full glide." Just like in my old Skyhopper back home!
Swerving, the fighter dropped. As the lush surface of Mimban rushed up at him, Luke caught rolling, twisting glimpses of mountainless green swaths interwoven with veins and arteries of muddy brown and blue.
Though he was utterly ignorant of Mimbanian topography, the green and blue-brown of rivers and streams and vegetation seemed infinitely preferable as landing sites to the endless cerulean of open sea or the gray spires of young mountains. Luke was starting to believe they might actually survive touchdown.
The tracker screen showed the Y-wing still on the course Luke plotted. His chances of setting down close to Leia's ship were looking better.
Despite the demands on his mind, Luke couldn't help but consider the energy distortions that ruined their instrumentation. The fact that the rainbow maelstrom was confined to one area - an area very close to the location of the landing beacon - raised questions as intriguing as they were disturbing.
Luke's ship plunged recklessly into the thick floor of dirty gray cumulo-nimbus clouds. Rambling flashes crackled as he broke out of the bottom layer. The air was thick with rain, but not so bad he failed to make out the terrain below. Altitude was running out fast. He barely had enough time to pull back on the atmospheric controls before something jolted the fighter from below. That was followed instantly by a series of similar cracklings as he clipped off the crowns of the tallest trees.
Artoo whistled erratically. Eyeballing his airspeed indicator, Luke said, "I know, Artoo. I'm firing the braking rockets." He nudged the ship's nose down ever so gently. Violent jolts shook him despite his flight harness. A green floral wave of branches crested ahead. There was a loud crack and a violent stop punctuated with the groaning of metal. Then darkness.
Luke blinked. Ahead, the shattered foreport of the fighter framed jungle with crystal geometry. All was quiet. As Luke tried to lean forward, water caressed his face. That helped to clear his mind and bring the scenery into sharp focus.
Craning his neck, Luke noted the metal overhead was neatly peeled back by a thick cracked limb of an enormous tree. If by chance the fighter had slid in slightly higher, Luke's skull would have been cleaved off just as neatly. A bit more to port and the broad bole of the tree would have smashed him back into the power plant. He had escaped decapitation and fatal compression by a meter either way.
The ship's just a bunch of scrap metal now. It'll certainly never fly again. Got to get out of here. Got to locate Leia and Threepio.
Undoing the g-locks, Luke slipped free of the harness. Even moving slowly and carefully, he felt as if every muscle in his body had been grabbed and pulled from opposite ends to the near-breaking point.
Turning to his left, Luke keyed the exit panel. It failed to respond. He threw the double switch on the manual release and jabbed the emergency stud. Explosive bolts fired. The cockpit hood lifted. Luke recovered his pistol. A querulous beep reached him. "Artoo…"
Artoo's curved metallic hood looked down at him, the single electronic eye studying Luke as the squat 'droid wiggled anxiously. "Yes, I'm okay. I think."
Using Artoo's center leg as a brace, Luke pulled himself up and out. Clearing his legs, he got to his feet and stood on top of the grounded
X-wing. He rested his back against the curve of the great, overhanging branch.
A mournful whistle sounded. Luke glanced down at Artoo clinging securely to the metal hull nearby. "I don't know what you're saying, Artoo, without Threepio to translate for me. But I can guess." His gaze turned outward. "I don't know where he and the Princess are. I'm not even sure where we are."
Slowly, Luke took stock of the surface of Mimban. Dense growth rose all around, clumped in large pockets rather than presenting a continuous front of jungle foliage. There was ample open space. Mimban, or at least the section where he'd come down, was part swamp, part jungle, and part bog.
Fluid mud filled most of a languid stream to the right of the ship. It meandered in slow motion. To Luke's left the trunk of the enormous tree towered into the mist. Beyond lay a tangle of other tall growths fringed with bushes and tired, drooping ferns. Gray-brown ground bordered it. There was no way to tell from a distance how solid the surface was. Bracing himself with a hand on a small branch, Luke leaned over the side of the ship. The X-wing appeared to be resting on similar terrain. It wasn't sinking. This was some comfort to Luke, since without a ship he was a rotten flier.
Smiling slightly to himself, Luke crouched and peered under the limb. The double wing on the port side of the ship had been cleanly snapped off somewhere back in the forest, leaving only twin metal stubs. Both engines on that side were also missing. Unequivocally, Luke was grounded.
Crawling back into the ruined cockpit, Luke unlocked the seat and shifted it to one side. He rummaged behind it for emergency rations, his father's lightsaber - which he clipped to his belt - and a thermal suit; the last because, despite the tropic appearance of some of the vegetation, it was decidedly cool outside.
A survival backpack was strapped to the backside of the seat. Unbuckling it, Luke filled its copious interior with supplies from the compartment.
When the sack was stuffed, Luke sat on the edge of the seat. He picked up the handheld tracomp. Preliminary observation revealed no sign of the Princess' Y-wing. Yet in the damp, foggy air it could have touched down ten meters away and still be effectively invisible. She probably landed or crashed slightly ahead of him. Lacking any other information, Luke had no choice but to continue on foot.
Pulling himself clear of the cockpit, Luke used branches for balance as he climbed down to the broken stub of the port double wing. He lowered himself carefully to the ground. It was soft, almost springy. Pulling up one foot, the boot sole was already coated with sticky gray gook that resembled wet modeling clay. But the ground held, supporting him. Artoo joined a moment later.
Using the nose of the ship as a crude guide, Luke set the tracomp and they started off, leaving the wreckage of the X-wing behind, angling a few degrees to starboard. Luke had only one chance of finding the Princess' ship. If it didn't lie close along the path he took, if he missed it and passed, he could trod the surface of Mimban for a thousand years without seeing her again.
"If the original plotting tape was accurate and Leia didn't alter her course of descent at the last moment, the tracomp ought to lead us to them."
Luke now directed all his attention to keeping to his predetermined path. He knew he could easily lose his way. A deviation of a tenth of a degree could be critical.
Luke mounted a slight rise. Through the fog and mist he glimpsed monolithic gray structures. Those queer battlements off in the distance… There's something about them. I don't think human hands raised those walls. Their uniform steel-gray color made them look as if they'd been constructed from giant slabs of rock. Luke couldn't be sure this far away whether their color was true or distorted by the shifting fog. Soaring gray towers were inlaid with black stone or metal and boasted misshapen domes.
He paused, tempted to change direction and explore. However, the Princess waited not in that eldritch city but somewhere further on, in an environment that at any moment might prove hostile.
Luke saw a stirring in a clump of rust-green bushes ahead. Straining every sense, he dropped to one knee and removed the lightsaber from its place at his waist. The vegetation rustled violently. His thumb slid over the activation stud. Artoo beeped nervously alongside. "Stay back, Artoo. Something's coming through the brush."
Abruptly, the greenery ahead parted. Out walked a Mimbanite. It was a large dark brown ball of fur roughly a meter in diameter with patches and stripes of green covering its body. Four short furry legs supported it; ending in thick, double digits. Four arms poked clear of the upper surface. The modest tail was naked.
Two wide eyes peering out from the bristly fur were all that showed of a face. They grew wider as they settled on Luke and Artoo-Detoo.
Luke waited tensely, finger poised over the lightsaber switch.
The creature did not charge. Instead, it produced a startled, muffled squeal and whirled. With all eight limbs propelling it, the creature shot back into the protective brush.
Luke rose. His finger slid clear of the saber stud and he reattached the weapon to his belt, smiling.
His first confrontation with an inhabitant of this world sent it fleeing in terror from him. Maybe the wildlife hereabouts, if not actually benign, was something less than dangerous. With that in mind he continued on, his stride a bit longer, a touch more self-assured. His posture was straighter and his spirits considerably higher, raised by the stoutest of buoys. False confidence.