HEY! IMPORTANT: Now that I have your attention, the last two chapters have been edited. Some things might not make sense if you don't re-read them! (Especially since I haven't updated in forever).
Optional reading: I know it has been awhile since my last update. A long, long while. Thanks to my brother, I have continued this little fic. Thanks to my mom, this chapter is much better than the original chapter 3. Enjoy.
The man who had designed the Devastator's detention block had two goals in mind: To instill fear and a sense of isolation in it's prisoners. He chose the sharpest shades of gray that were intended to cut through the strongest of resolves, light's reflection only glinting with whispered promises of infamous imperial cruelty. The shadows slowly crept across the floor in a dance that imitated the beating of a human heart.
The very walls seemed to loom towards anyone who walked here, feeding off their raw fear that made the walls press even closer. The detention block was specifically placed near the engines, and their dull thrum filled prisoner's ears and seeped into their bones. The darkness nestled into every fiber of their being until they were a product of their environment. A cold, empty shell.
Every part of the detention block was identical except the numbers engraved above the door. When the prisoner of cell C-42 had been marched in by four Stormtroopers, she had kept her head high the entire way. The atmosphere got through to even the toughest trooper, their steps echoing through the loud silence that was devoid of any eerie noises. The mind was quick to make up more suitable ones.
This prisoner, however, knew that though the walls may reach for her, they will never touch, and while the the hum of machinery may be muffled screams, no mouths were shrieking. The shadows may move, but they were not alive. Her mind knew this, yet her heart beat to the same tune as everyone else trapped in the belly of the giant Star Destroyer.
She was alone in her cell. It was barely wide enough for her to lie down, and had nothing but walls and a single doorway. It had slid open slowly, taking a few seconds to roll up. Now she sat, legs crossed, in the center of the room. She breathed in and out, resisting the urge to pull her legs to her chest and bury her face in her arms.
The walls were a dark gray. Dark like night. She had always liked night, it was a chance to be alone with herself and her own thoughts.
Her breathing slowed and the humming filled her ears. She had spent a lot of time in space, but as big as this ship was, the engines were louder, and deeper than most ships. If she were closer, she would not be able to hear above the sound of them. Still, she could not drown them out with her breathing alone.
The air was stale. Breathing was becoming a struggle. There was nothing to distract herself with, and the air itself had turned against her, getting caught in her throat as she fought for oxygen.
She wrapped her arms around herself, not caring about her position. She did not know when someone was going to come for her, demanding information, her life, anything. Everything was going according to plan, but now it was spinning out of her control. If it was going this bad for her, how could it be going well for the droids?
It was pure luck that her ship had gotten away with those plans, but she was starting to doubt it was lucky that they were near enough to intercept the egg from the wounded ship carrying it. Hope. The eggs, the plans, they were hope. She cradled the flame within herself, but it made the dark room even colder.
She had not been surprised that she had been caught. She still wondered if it was the right thing to do, to put the egg in the R2 unit, but she knew that they would not shoot down a life pod with a rare dragon egg in it. There was a Jedi on Tatooine, a Jedi Rider. If anyone could protect the egg it would be him.
Princess Leia was simply a stepping stone in the fight against the Empire. It did not matter what happened to her, the egg was safe and they would get nothing from her. These thoughts were a pale comfort, they leaked into the colorless walls, staining them with fragile hopes. It didn't, however, brighten the room.
She drew into herself, seeking a way out. Even so, the only escape was within herself. She started to grasp at something intangible with non-existent hands, a calm, alive yet passive thing that squirmed away from her desperation and racing heart.
"It would be better if you tried that later," a disembodied voice, clearly male, suggested.
Leia looked up from her folded arms, not realizing that she had drawn into herself. She looked to the side that the voice had come from. There was nobody there, only the gray walls were watching. She turned to the other side and found herself face to face with a ghost.
She threw herself back, barely managing not to shriek. It was still undignified. Looking at the man, she composed herself and stood.
The man had a faint blue glow, and she could see through him to the wall. His expression was serene, and he was wearing the robes of a Jedi. The light he brought glinted off the metal, the blue giving the atmosphere a bit of calm. They were in their own bubble now, almost separate from the ship itself.
"I apologize, your highness. I did not intend to frighten you," the man said. She could not tell what he was thinking, his face was a mask like most other politicians she had met. His gaze was intense, but people she could work with. She could not fight the nothing that had been there before.
"Who are you," she asked, her eyes narrowing.
"My name is Qui-gon Jinn, a Jedi Knight. My former apprentice contacted me. I understand you are in a bit of a... predicament?"
"Obi-wan Kenobi was your apprentice?" Leia's eyes widened, so the man had gotten her message after all. "Is the egg safe? And the plans?"
Qui-gon nodded. "He is very capable. He will deliver them to your alliance. There is little time for this discussion, however, you need to leave here immediately."
"Do you have a plan?" She asked.
"Yes. You need to disable the tractor beam, and quickly go to the nearest hangar when you are done. I can guide and aid you, but I can only do so much," he explained.
Leia nodded. She did not know the ways of the Force, the Jedi were to her an almost extinct group of warriors, legendary heroes and allies to her cause. This man was dead, yet he was still a Jedi Knight. "Can you open this door?"
The man nodded and raised his hand towards the door. It shifted upwards and she stared out the doorway from her cell. It was darker than inside the cell, no warm blue light there. In fact, as she turned back to look at Qui-gon, she realized that he had left her.
Stepping out of the cell was easy. There was a brief flash of freedom that she took a moment to revel in. She breathed in and the air couldn't choke her, she had a way out now. The red light painted her attire as well as her pale face a light red, but she looked wraith-like when she passed out of it and stepped into the shadows.
She did not encounter any trouble in the detention block itself. She felt especially relieved when she stepped out of it, however. She had remembered the way out, but every turn she took, she glanced backwards, wondering if she had gone the right way.
It was not complicated, but the detention block felt like a maze to those it had trapped within itself. The silence and lack of troops searching for her wore on her more than any number of patrols would.
As soon as she stepped out of the detention block, she heard Qui-gon's voice right by her ear, though she knew it was really in her mind, tell her which direction to go in. Heading down that hallway, she started to hear the footsteps of several Stormtroopers heading her way. They passed her hiding spot, not bothering to turn their heads, and headed for the detention center.
She sighed when they were out of sight, and started to move out of the doorway. Something held her back, and invisible barrier. She took a hesitant step forwards, her instincts screaming at her to back up against the wall to hide. In that moment, a shadow trooper materialized out of thin air, following in the footsteps of the other troopers. She froze, knowing that she called any attention to herself, she would be caught.
Her brown eyes were wide, her racing heart loud enough for the trooper to hear, and her hands were over her mouth, stifling any noise that her breathing could make. After a few steps he stopped, and Leia was sure that he was going to look her way, but instead she heard the words "The Princess has escaped her cell! If you are hearing this message, go to the detention block immediately and find her." Coming from the trooper's comm.
The shadow trooper stepped forward and disappeared again. It was a long time before Leia stepped out from the doorway, and she was much more cautious this time.
The next hard part of her escape was disabling the tractor beam. She had to sneak past several guards to get into the room where the power going to various parts of the ship was controlled. She could not actually manage to do that, and had to crawl through the vents to get inside.
There was a camera in that room, and she waited for it to move, back and forth, to get a sense of how long it took. Before she got out, she looked for the switch, and saw that it was located, luckily, away from the camera's view.
Leia scrambled to get out of the vent as soon as the camera started to move away. She hastily replaced the cover and stepped into it's blind spot, and pulled the switch deactivating the tractor beam. Then she stood there for a few more moments, long enough for it to pull away, and climbed back into the vent.
She was glad for the times she was able to get away from politics long enough to play and climb trees, it was proving to be more useful in this situation than the hours of debating in the senate.
With that task done, Qui-gon directed her through the vents to a different area of the ship. It was a lot of climbing, and sometimes she feared someone might hear her, others she wondered if anyone was going to notice the tractor beams malfunctioning.
When she did finally get to where she was going, she pushed the vent cover up and looked around. The hallway was probably larger than any other on the ship, it was wide enough for three tanks to travel down side by side, with some room to spare. The walls were the same as the other hallways in the ship, but they were warmer from the more natural light
Leia guessed that this was where Vader's dragon traveled, how it got around the ship. It was a great plan, to go through these passages. She didn't imagine that anyone but the dragon and of course the Dark Lord himself roamed these halls. Since the dragon was able to get off the ship, she assumed that there was probably a private hangar around these halls somewhere, and Qui-gon told her she would find it if she went to the left.
After a little bit of walking, she saw a wide open entrance to a large hangar. It was full of smaller ships, surprisingly. There were lots of unique starfighters there, many but not all of them were an imperial design, but those she didn't recognize having never really been interested in flying. There had to be at least thirty different ships gleaming in the unnatural light, but Leia didn't have time to count.
Next to Darth Vader's TIE advanced was a sleek silver had seen the design before, but she couldn't remember where. She stepped towards it and she recalled a similar design of a Nubian craft she had seen. This one had to be older though, she guessed that it had to date back to the clone wars at least. It's ramp was down, inviting. There was something pulling her towards it, and she couldn't resist it.
Leia stepped on board and closed the ramp. She entered the cockpit and slid into the pilot's seat. There was a sudden feeling of urgency as she did a quick (too quick) pre-flight check and started to take off. "I hope that really disabled the tractor beam," she mumbled before she flew out of the hanger.
Almost immediately several TIE fighters flew after her, but there was nothing to pull her back in. The princess's hand faltered over the navigation computer. She did not know where to go. Her heart said Alderaan, where her home and her father awaited her. Logically, she should go back to Yavin, the empire would not know to look for her there.
There was, however, another option wavering at the edge of her consciousness. A different destination, another future. She typed those coordinates in reluctantly.
The Nubian ship streaked away from the Devastator and the pursuing TIEs before they could land a hit on it. She sighed in relief when the ship entered hyperspace, glad to be out. "Thanks," she mumbled to Qui-gon, knowing he would hear her.
Owen and Beru Lars had raised Luke since he was born. Their only child, adopted or not. Owen had been mad when he had run off with the two droids, but now... He failed. He had failed at protecting the child from making the same mistakes as his father had.
Anakin had always been reckless, way more than Owen had ever been. That was to be expected, they were only step brothers after all. Like a true Skywalker he loved anything that was fast and dangerous. It was business as usual when the fearless teenager entered into a pod race, it was the people betting on him that were unusual. That was how he lost his brother.
Then Luke ran off. Stormtroopers came asking questions about him, and then Darth Vader himself, the man that had (according to Kenobi) killed Anakin Skywalker, had shown up. With only the reports to go by, they still knew that Luke had gotten off world. They did not know whether to be relieved or more worried.
"Do you think he'll ever come back?" Beru asked. There was none of the usual light in her eyes, they both had gone through the day in a sort of daze, they both appeared to be lifeless.
"If he does, it won't be for long. He's a Skywalker." He replied. He wondered how he ever got so attached to one of them, troublemakers, adventurers... Jedi.
Beru had known Anakin, they had grown up together after all. Luke proved himself to be every bit his father's son, but there was always a lot of his mother in him, too, even though Beru had never met her he could tell. They could only pray he had enough of his mother in him.
This can also be found on Archive oF Our Own (AO3), under the same name.
Again, much thanks to my mom, who put life into this fic :)