Part II: The Millenium Falcon

Chapter 3 – Darkness Descends

The tidal wave of dark energy that crashed into her was as brief as it was intense. Never had she had access to such power. Never had she lost herself so completely in that power.

But the dark surge that had so utterly overwhelmed her in that instant was gone as suddenly as it came; as though a black hole had appeared and sucked it away so thoroughly that some of her own essence was pulled away with it. She was left grasping at the fractured pieces of her personality, desperately and frantically reconstructing her very self.

With a gasping breath she broke back into the conscious world, instantly aware of a huge pair of hairy arms supporting her and two warm hands painfully grasping her own.

"Hurts," she managed to mumble, before she even opened her eyes, focusing on the one sensation that was, without doubt, completely physical.

"Arica? Are you all right?"

She was surprised by the amount of worry she heard in the man's voice. One hand released its grip and patted her non-too-gently on the cheek.

"Arica, what's wrong?"

"It hurts!" she bit out, finally opening her eyes. The pilot's face hovered inches from her own, his eyes not bothering to hide his concern. Chewbacca's whiskers brushed against her as he moved closer to her side.

"What hurts? What is it?" the pilot asked anxiously.

"My hand."

The pilot glanced down. "Why? Did you scrape it when you fell?"

She looked at him, confused. "No. You're holding it too tight."

For a moment he stared at her blankly, then quickly disengaged his fingers. "Oh, sorry."

"Thanks." She gave him an annoyed look as she tried to rub the circulation back into her hand.

"I think she's all right, Ben. How are you?" For the first time, Leia noticed the old Jedi, sitting beside her. Luke was leaning over him, a hand on his shoulder—clearly worried—but the Jedi's attention was focused on her, worry etched into his brow.

There was silence for a moment as the Jedi studied her face. She found herself very uncomfortable under his scrutiny, and looked back at him suspiciously; why was he so worried, anyway?

"I'm fine," she snapped. "Really," she added, more softly.

The old Jedi nodded, seemingly satisfied with her well-being, though somehow she felt it had very little to do with her own insistence. The pilot straightened and stepped away from her, and Chewbacca slowly released his hold. Luke, who had been glancing back and forth between them, took this as a sign to refocus the attention on his mentor.

"Ben?"

The Jedi waved a hand at the boy. "I'm perfectly all right, Luke. I just need a moment."

"But what's wrong? What happened to you, Ben?"

The old man shook his head. "I'm not sure. I felt a disturbance in the force. It was as if millions of voices cried out at once...and were silenced."

The room was quiet and Leia found herself staring at the Jedi. The pain he felt seemed to emanate from him in waves, mixed with a large amount of worry and anxiety. He didn't even know who had been hurt, she realized in wonder, and yet he mourned for their suffering. Then he sat up a bit straighter and Leia could almost feel his emotions shift from intense worry to an almost…peacefulness. Certainly not joy, but… Leia couldn't put her finger on it.

"Is that what you felt, Arica?" the Jedi asked her.

"N-no. Not exactly." For some reason she felt almost ashamed to admit to the influx of dark power she had experienced.

He held her gaze for a moment, then turned back to Luke. "Why don't you continue practicing?" He held up a hand forestalling the boy's objections. "I'm perfectly all right, Luke."

Luke nodded reluctantly and—with an almost suspicious look at Leia—turned back to his exercise. The pilot and Chewbacca had returned to their seats, the Jedi whispered instructions and encouragement to Luke, and Leia was relieved to have been forgotten for the moment.

"How did you find us?"

Leia nearly jumped at the soft comment. She turned to find the old Jedi still focused entirely on Luke. Had he even spoken?

"How did you find us?"

This time she saw the Jedi's mouth moving and was amazed at his ability to split his concentration so well.

"I followed Luke," she said just as quietly, working through in her mind how much she should tell him, not knowing how much he already knew.

She doubted anyone else noticed the old Jedi's slight grin. "And how did you find Luke?"

"I sensed him in the force." She paused, again choosing her words. "He shines."

"Do you see him shining now?"

"No. I can't…I mean, I can't see him that way without…help." She silently begged for him not to ask anything more; she wasn't sure how she would explain.

"Would you like to see him that way again?"

Leia's breath caught in her throat and she could feel her pulse quicken. "Yes," she whispered so quietly she wasn't sure he had heard until he responded.

"Try to sense him again, as you did when you had help."

"It won't work."

For the first time in the conversation, the Jedi turned to her. "Humor me."

Leia shrugged and closed her eyes. Without reaching for her master, she stretched out her senses for Luke's presence. Suddenly she felt a soft nudging at the edge of her mind and she hesitantly opened herself up to receive—what must be—the old Jedi's power. Expecting the experience to be similar to her connection with her master, she was surprised by how gently the power flowed through her.

"Arica, open your eyes."

Leia did so and was immediately assaulted by the brilliance of Luke's presence. It was concentrated almost wholly in his own person, but small tendrils of light snaked out along the lightsaber he held and—even more faintly—to the remote which hovered a few feet away.

"Luke, let's try something else." The old Jedi moved across her line of vision and distracted her immediately from Luke. The Jedi glowed as well, not with the same radiance as Luke, but in a way, Leia felt, that was even more impressive. Whereas Luke's energy was almost completely within himself, the Jedi's seemed to stretch out to every corner of the room and beyond. As though he was constantly, intrinsically, connected to the universe as a whole.

Leia barely noticed what new exercise the Jedi was trying with Luke, focusing instead on the amazing interplay of lights as the two interacted. When the Jedi sat beside her again, she kept her eyes on Luke, vaguely aware that he was now wearing a helmet.

"Do you always see him like this?" she asked, breathlessly.

She thought she heard the Jedi chuckle. "I don't see him like that now."

Leia turned to him in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"Arica, everyone relates to the force differently, simply because we are all elementally different. I can sense Luke's strength, just as I sensed yours, but I perceive it much differently than you do."

The Jedi spoke again to Luke. "Luke, stop trying to predict where the remote is going. Rely on your senses, your instinct."

For a moment the light surrounding Luke seemed to expand, encompassing a wide area around him. There was a pause and then the remote attacked again. This time Luke parried every shot, flawlessly.

"He's so powerful. I wish I could have his power," Leia breathed.

As the Jedi rose to congratulate Luke, he leaned down and whispered in her ear. "Arica, look at yourself."

At first Leia didn't react, almost afraid of what she would see if she did look. Then, slowly, she lowered her eyes to her hands…and froze.

The light that shone back at her, her light, was nothing like Luke's—his was a bright white, hers was heavily shaded in areas by gray or black streaks—and yet it was nearly as intense. It seemed like an eternity that she stared at her hands, confusion and disbelief crying out in her mind. What could it mean? Was it a remnant of her master's power left clinging to her presence? Surely, it couldn't be her own…

The sound of beeping and a growl from Chewbacca interrupted her thoughts. The pilot was suddenly brushing past her. "We're coming up on Alderaan," she heard him say. Chewbacca followed him out towards the cockpit and she was left watching the light fade slowly from her vision.

"You know, I did feel something," Luke was saying, excitement in his voice.

The Jedi answered warmly, "You've taken the first step into a larger universe."

It was the last thing she heard before she was left staring at her ordinary, calloused hands, clenching tightly at the fabric of her pants, as though clinging to the light that had already disappeared.

It took Leia a few moments to regain her bearings once the vision faded. Everyone was moving out of the room and she had to concentrate, trying to recall bits of conversation that had only skimmed her consciousness at the time, before realizing that they must be switching to sublight engines. Internally chastising herself for her significant break in concentration—her life often depended on being aware of everything that went on around her, at all times—she quickly rose, following Luke and the Jedi to the cockpit. There was no particular reason for her to be there, she knew, but she had always found a strange pleasure in seeing the stars blink back to tiny specks when a ship came out of hyperspace. As a passenger she rarely got to see it, and—though she sometimes wished for one desperately—as yet her master had not offered her a personal ship. So for the split second when she felt the slight flutter in her stomach that signified their emergence into subspace, she was disappointed at having missed it. The feeling was quickly replaced by alarm when the ship jerked suddenly.

She immediately distinguished the sounds of several objects hitting the deflector shields and—bracing herself against the shifting movements of the ship—she rushed the rest of the way to the cockpit, where she found the pilot and Chewbacca moving frantically over the controls.

"But what could have destroyed an entire planet?" Luke was demanding as the pilot nudged him out of the way.

Leia glanced up at the viewscreen. They seemed to have come out of hyperspace right into an asteroid field with nothing but empty space beyond. Unless the pilot was completely incompetent, which she doubted, that meant something was horribly wrong. Alderaan was gone.

The memory of the dark assault she had experienced earlier rose unbidden, and she steadied herself with a hand against the hatchway, feeling slightly sick.

"The Empire," the Jedi intonted, echoing her own thoughts in a quiet, but firm, voice.

She could sense everyone turning to stare at him, horror and disbelief as palpable as the occasional hits from the space debris. She kept her own eyes on the viewscreen, willing the vision away, willing the truth away.

"No," the pilot said, finally. "The entire Imperial fleet combined wouldn't have enough firepower for something like this."

He sounded so sure that Leia almost wanted to believe him. But she knew better. She wasn't supposed to know the details of the stolen plans, but as soon as she'd discovered that Tarkin and Vader were after the droids, she'd made sure to investigate further. What she had learned hadn't shocked her at the time, in fact it seemed almost natural for her master to have a weapon of such power, but now the full import of the battle station was dawning on her. Her master had the ability to destroy the entire galaxy, the entire universe, if he so chose. The thought was both terrifying and exhilarating at once. She couldn't tell which emotion dominated her psyche. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

Leia glanced around the cockpit silently, hardly listening to the frantic conversation, as the pilot and Luke tried to make sense of the confusion. When she turned to the Jedi, she found him gazing right back and couldn't help but feel that he knew...somehow he knew.

Tearing her eyes away, she looked back at the viewscreen just as a number of alarms began sounding and a small, distant shape materialized.

"It's another ship," the pilot announced. "Can't make out the type yet."

"That's an Imperial fighter," the Jedi stated, a tone of finality in his voice. But Leia didn't need to be told. She knew what it was and knew where it came from. The battle station was complete and operational, and they were heading straight for it.

She glanced again at the Jedi, the pilot, Chewbacca, and finally Luke. Even without her force vision she could sense the light in him: in his face, in his eyes. He was clean and pure and...untainted. She remembered the black streaks she had seen in her own light and a part of her revolted violently against the idea that his light, his strength, become tainted in that way. If they were captured by that battle station, then that would surely be the result. His light would become deeper and darker, till it was more like Lord Vader's simmering volcanic power than the bright light she sensed now.

The thought had barely formed, was barely conscious, when Leia almost physically recoiled in shock from it. Why wouldn't she want Luke to become as powerful as Vader? She had secretly desired that very thing for herself so often that it seemed it was never far from her mind, a constant, dull ache she rarely admitted to, even to herself. But the knowledge couldn't shake the resolve she felt settling over her. Somehow she didn't want that darkness for Luke, and the idea of it happening seemed utterly wrong.

"Go." She said it so softly that no one seemed to hear her.

"It's heading for that small moon...I think I can get him before he gets there. He's almost in range..."

"Go," she said again, this time more loudly, but only Luke turned to look at her, confused.

"That's no moon." The Jedi practically breathed the words, but they could all hear him. "That's a space station."

"It's too big to be a space station..."

"Go. Now." Leia cut the pilot off, forcefully, knowing she had to move quickly. "Get into the escape pods and go. They'll have noticed the ship already, but they may not think to look for pods this far out when they find me."

"What are you talking about, Arica?" the pilot demanded, a rough edge to his voice. "There's no way I'm leaving you with my ship!"

"Yes, you are!" Leia practically screamed. Didn't he understand? Time was running out. "It's your only chance. Leave me here...with the droids and you'll be fine..."

"And what about you?"

"...And I'll be fine," she continued quickly.

Luke's voice suddenly cut in. "Why do you need the droids? The droids have to stay with..."

"Captain, we need to get out of here," the Jedi interrupted, the only calm voice.

Leia sighed, waiting for the other four to move out of the cockpit, but instead the pilot swiveled around in his seat and began adjusting controls.

"I think you're right, old man. Full reverse, Chewie."

"No," Leia cried. "You don't understand. You have to..."

The Jedi's hand on her shoulder stopped her. "We're not leaving you, Arica. Not now."

Leia could feel the fight drain out of her and let her shoulders slump in resignation. "You don't understand," she said quietly, desperately. But she already knew it was too late when she felt the ship lurch, caught tight in the station's tractor beam.

End Part II

A/N: Jacinto – Where did you see this done before?  I'd love to read someone else's take!

Just a warning to the rest of you—Ch. 5 was The Fun Post, gets a bit darker from here on in (not too dark, don't worry)—as you may have guessed from the title of this ch.!