Chapter 7 - Bright Eyes Blinded
An explosion.
Then another.
And yet another one.
The loud, thundering noises deafened him, even if he had covered his ears with his hands and pushed as hard as he could, so hard his palms hurt and his skin was all sweaty and clammy.
Hidden beneath a table, he just wanted it to be over. His Wookie friends were screaming, shots were fired everywhere, people died outside his house, right where a couple of hours earlier he was peacefully playing in the yard, behind his house with his dad working to make him a new, bigger bed because he was all grown up and his baby bed wouldn't fit anymore, then the flying things came and his dad had ordered him to hide and don't leave the house while he fetched his lightsaber.
He never used his lightsaber, not even when he had to cut large chunks of wood from trees to build things or repair the house.
Something was wrong.
And dad would be very angry with him, because when his hands weren't enough to cover the screams of the dying Wookies and the loud booming of the explosion, he moved away from under the table and towards his bed, grabbed his pillow and wrapped it tightly against his ears, but it didnìt work either.
He tried to push back the tears that stung so bad in his eyes, he tried to be a big boy and not cry but the noises were too much, he couldn't stand them. He wanted the calm forest back again, he wanted his daddy and his friends and he wanted to play again outside.
He didn't want the Empire, the bad guys destroying everything that he loved.
One of those flying things crashed near the house and it shook, and it was only after a while that he realized he was screaming at the top of his lungs, so loud the sound of the crashing ship was. From his place beside his small bed, he saw the flames rising from the crashing site through a window, not too far from the house, and he moved away from it.
It was past time to try to look like a big, tough boy. He wasn't much more than a baby, a scared baby that wanted his dad to hold him and make the bad guys go away.
Yes, he just wanted the bad guys to go away.
But in an unique moment of silence, he could hear the heavy steps of a single man approaching and suddenly the room spun around him, like when his dad allowed him to play with his chair that spun and made the world all whirly.
He dared to look outside in the courtyard and saw a big man in a black cape and mask, a scary mask that made him whimper in fear. He had a lightsaber too, like his dad's, but the blade was red. He was the guy his dad always talked about, the guy that had helped the Emperor putting the Jedi down.
The guy that scared dad so much.
Tears welled up in his eyes when his father turned on his own lightsaber and charged against the bad man and their swords clashed. Then they fought, hard, mercilessly, and all he could see was a blur of blue, red, black and sand moving around the place, with the planes still crashing around them.
Then something happened: his father faltered and lost balance, enough so the evil man could step closer and grab him by the neck.
He hid. Again, behind the cupboard.
He didn't want to see any of this.
Hoping it was just a bad nightmare, he gathered his knees to his chest and hugged his legs, hiding his face from the world outside.
The heavy stomping came closer, the cloth closing the door moved and the evil guy came in the house. "Come out!"
That voice, so metallic and electronic made him cringe and again he felt the world spin around him, just like earlier. He was scared to death.
"Come out, I know you're here!" he shouted as he moved the furniture using the Force. There was blood on the tip of his now dusty boots. "Show yourself or I'll tear this place down!"
That man had killed his dad. He had taken his dad away from him, like those slavers had taken his mom away and she had never returned. He was alone, and that man wanted to kill him too. And wether he remained in hiding or went out and confronted him, he was dead too.
Quite a grim thought for a five year old.
The man turned off his lightsaber and through the mask he was wearing, it seemed like he sighed. "Very well. Commander, bomb this place, burn it to the ground. I don't want to see this place on the maps anymore when you're done with it."
The fear suddenly transformed into rage, pure anger flew in his veins as he suddenly wished he could hold his lightsaber and kill that man that had taken away what remained of his family from him. He wished it so hard that suddenly the shiny piece of chromed metal was in his hands.
The table he was using as a hiding spot flew away on the other side of the room and the man stomped towards him. "Call back the TIEs!" he bellowed in his radio and slowly kneeled in front of him. "Hey, so that's you making all that noise in the Force, uh? A boy. You're Marek's offspring I guess. Well, I thought this presence in the Force was his Master but apparently no, you're just a kid. A helpless kid without parents."
The boy clutched the handle of the Sith's lightsaber and looked down at his feet to avoid looking at the terrifying mask of the man.
"What's your name?"
The boy muttered something that Vader's hearing aid couldn't capture. "Louder. I can't hear you."
"G... Galen."
Vader nodded, as much as his stiff neck allowed him. "Good. Now... give me my lightsaber back and maybe I'll spare your life. Then we'll see what happens."
The boy thought about his words. If he behaved bad, he was dead. He knew it. If he went on with him maybe he had some chances to survive, but that meant probably that he could have killed him in any situation, without a reason. But there was a chance to live.
Maybe.
And for a five year old little boy who had just witnessed the death of his father by the hand of one of the most evil people of the Galaxy, second only to the Emperor, that was enough.
He handed him his lightsaber.
"Good. Come with me. This is no place for a kid."
"Where are we going?" dared to ask Galen as he followed the big man ahead of him.
"My ship. I'm going to train you in the ways of the Force. You've got power, Galen. Much more power than you can understand, but you'll grow and you'll became greater than anyone." he looked back at the child and, beneath the mask, smiled. "And from now on, your name will be Starkiller."
Needless to say, waking up that morning was harder than the usual.
I jolted awake, sitting up straight on the bed, covered in sweat and out of breath. A sensation I hated with all my heart.
I dropped back on the bed and sighed, wiping away the perspiration, from my eyes and forehead, and sighed. "Shit..." I murmured. "Damn it Kento..."
"Who's Kento?" asked Padmè, now awake.
"A Jedi Master that left the Order and lived on Kashyykk. I just..."
She turned around and looked at me, still drowsy. She had gotten used to waking up at weird hours because of my dreams, but it still upset her quite a lot. Mainly because weird, Force-induced dreams in my meant a lot of troubles.
"What did you see?" she asked, calmly.
I rubbed my eyes to take away the sleep and the remnants of the dream before answering. "I think it was the Rebellion of Kashyykk. What was that, fifteen, fourteen years ago?"
"Fourteen, yes."
"Right, I think it was that because I don't really think Vader would move his ass to go to Kashyykk just like that... because he wants to raid the Wookies. Kento was there and... he fought him but Vader killed him. Problem is... Kento had a kid and I think it's the guy we're looking for."
Padmè made a strange face. "You think Vader sort of adopted this kid?" she asked. "You think he's able to take care of a child?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know. That... that man is capable of everything, he's guided by blind rage, pain and hurt and he's the right hand of the Emperor. Seriously, I think that if Vader wants an apprentice, he's got the guts to go against the Emperor's decisions and have one."
"Wow..."
"I just hope I'm wrong because... I know we haven't heard from Kento in more than twenty years, at least Jax met him after the Purge and before the Rebellion but... I just wish it wasn't true because if the guy in our video matches an older version of the kid I saw..."
"It's gonna be messy."
I nodded. "Yeah. I mean... I didn't know Kento so well, he left for reasons I was never told before I got to know him a little better so... But it would suck, having to kill the son of one of our own."
"Even if this boy now is a disciple of the Emperor?"
Good point. First of all, we had to find him, then we had to see what to do but she was right It was not like I was reluctant to take action against him, but knowing that he was probably the son of a Jedi... it sucked.
During the years I had come to the idea that indeed we should have been guardians of peace, like I had told Luke and Leia the other afternoon, but that we were too inclined to pull out our weapons and sort of wipe away every kind of threat, instead of try to understand it and maybe act towards a more peaceful ending of the situation.
Well, I was sure that, once I had the confirmation that Galen Marek was the guy we were looking for like my dream made me think, everyone else would want to go on his trail and catch him before he killed another one.
Two weeks had passed since Kota's attack on Nar Shaddaa shipyard, two weeks before we had received the report of what had happened and the full footage we spent hours analyzing and deconstructing just to find a face.
Bet that if I had taken a nap that afternoon, we could have saved a lot of time.
And embarassment on my part.
I chuckled, at the thought of what had happened the night before, still feeling slightly awkward for my unwanted intruding in Jane and Ferus' very private conversation.
"What's up?"
"I was thinking about Ferus." I replied, sitting up. "You know... he kind of softened his behavior towards me during the years yet he's still ice cold towards Jane and then..."
"And then you catch them having sex? How long do you think they've been doing this?"
Another shrug of my shoulders. "No idea, seriously. Maybe since Ferus arrived."
"Seven years then?"
I nodded. "Yeah... what I felt yesterday night was really strong, like... I don't know, it's like when we're together, it's the same feeling but at the same time it's different. It has its own distinct rhythm, completely different. It's fast, chaotic, frantic... another galaxy, completely. I never noticed it before, maybe because they always mask it with all those layers of sadness and hate, but yesterday it was like a bomb ready to explode. And it did explode, and the shockwave was strong enough that I wonder how the others didn't wake up, but... yeah, I don't understand."
Padmè sighed and closed her eyes. "I bet now you're going to try and get their situation right." she sounded almost entertained by the thought.
"No. First thing first: I need a shower, I need to get dressed, I need some coffee and I need to find that damn picture to confirm if the guy we're looking for is Kento's son or anyone else. And I want to do all these things before the kids wake up so I can prepare their breakfast." I replied, jumping off the bed. It was still early, the sun hadn't rised yet, so I still had time. "Where the hell did you throw my boxers?"
She laughed softly at my question. "You really think I remember?"
I roamed around the bedroom looking for my clothes, so I could throw the dirty ones in the laundry box. "I don't know, you're the one throwing stuff around when you're eager to get me naked."
"Like you stop and fold all my clothes properly when you are trying to get me naked. Come on Anakin, don't... by the way..." she ducked on her side of the bed and threw her hand beneath the bed. "Here they are." then threw them at me.
"Thank you. I'm going on with my plan, what about you? Wanna join me?"
"In the shower? You can bet!"
I really should stop adding this kind of details to the story, I wouldn't want kids to read this and misunderstand everything.
Anyway, as soon as I was out of the shower, I was back at the computer screen, looking at it with renewed energy and will to meet this guy, to look at him straight in his eyes and see if the Force was guiding me in the right direction or if I was just following a dead end.
By the time the coffee was ready, I had already flicked through one thousad pictures and deleted them too, and when I reached the end of my first cup, two thousand more where gone. Sixty three thousand more to go. At that rhythm, I could maybe be over by luchtime. It was still early, the sun was just rising and I had pretty much all day, but I really wanted to get over it and see what we would have had to do.
And I wished I was very wrong about Galen. For a moment I found myself hoping that poor kid had died by Vader's hands anytime between the Battle of Kashyykk and… well, anytime, I suppose. I couldn't even fathom how growing up with someone like Vader as a distorted "father figure": with the only authority in your life is a psychotic Sith that killed your father in front of your eyes, you're bound to become a killer. And a Sith, of course.
But what worried me the most was the ability he showed with his lightsaber. That guy was a champion, and that scared me. Vader wasn't exactly the best swordsman in the Galaxy, with the cumbersome suit and the injuries sustained on Mustafaar and Daltarra.
Suddenly I came to think that the Daltarra thing happened a couple of years after the Battle of Kashyykk and the supposed "abduction" of Galen Marek.
That guy was now as old as Luke and Leia, if he was still alive.
He could have been my son.
Shit.
And I was trying to find the evidences that disproved my theory because I preferred to think at Galen Marek as dead than alive and at Vader's service.
It was bad.
Second cup halfway downed and I was wondering if wishing that boy's death was a good or a bad thing. And I had deleted two thousand more pictures. At that rate, I was going to develop strabismus by the time I reached the ten thousand pictures.
At the end of the third cup, I decided I needed a break. Padmè had come and gone to her office to take care of some stuff she had left from a meeting with the rest of the founding members of the the Rebellion they had a couple of days before and no one else had yet risen from their peaceful slumblers. I envied them.
After a quick trip to the restroom, I went outside on the veranda, careful not to look or think at the place where Ferus and Jane had their round of furious sex not twelve hours earlier, and enjoyed the last moments of dawn, as the sky turned from red to pink, then left room to the deep blue of the bright summer sky. Each morning, either with good or bad weather, I tried to make it to dawn, even if the sun rose away from the view of the veranda, and see that small miracle that was the birth of a new day.
Some years before, when I was in prison, I could only see the sunsets. I could only see the days dying, turning into the darkest nights I've ever seen. I could only see the later stages of dawn, when the whole sky began to brighten, and it was of the most depressing things of my jail time. Not only there was the fact that I couldn't be with my wife, that I lost eight years of my kids' life, that I was locked up and useless when the Rebel Alliance needed their best men and women to be always ready to help in any circumstance, I was also forced to see only the end of the days.
Therefor, I tried to see each dawn I could get, at least in the last three years. On Dantooine it was hard to get upstairs in time to see the sun rising.
On the chair where the previous night I had tried to settle down to look at the pictures a thin layer of dew, but I sat down nontheless and sighed. The show was amazing, to say the least.
"Don't tell me you stayed up all night!"
I turned around and saw Leia standing in the doorway.
"Hey, good morning! No, don't worry, I actually went to bed at a certain point. I woke up early and came down here. What about you? Slept well?"
"Not exactly. I kept waking up for a while around two in the morning, but finally I found a comfortable position and slept like a rock."
I cringed, inwardly, knowing perfectly well why she was awake. I had wondered, earlier that morning, if anyone had felt the slight stirring in the Force around the place, but I really hoped none of my kids had felt it.
At that point, I just hoped she wouldn't ask for explanations. Because finding a suitable one would have been tricky, most of all with her: Leia was extremely able with reading others' emotions, and she was like a breathing lie detector.
"Sorry to hear. You know why?"
She shook her head. "No, but I guess that late night coffee didn't help. You slept well?"
"Yeah, like a baby." I lied so bad I was sure she was going to bust me in a moment, but if she did, she kept it quiet. "There's fresh coffee in the pot if you want."
"Yeah, I guess it would be an idea. Where's mom?"
"I don't know, I think in her office. She got up a little while after me and went to deal with some Alliance stuff. Should still be there. Need anything?"
"Yeah, but it's girls stuff, can't help me there."
"Hey, sorry if I don't have a vagina!"
She was walking towards the house and she suddenly stopped and I saw her clearly shuddering at my remark. I bet she was a bit disgusted. "Dad! Really! You should stop saying things like that before I had my coffee, I can't find a proper way to reply!"
"I'll do my best to remember it. Anyone up yet?"
"Don't know. I checked on Lennart and found Lena in his bed, they were curled up together and Len was like drooling all over his pillow. Cute as hell."
"You and Luke did the same when you were younger. I got to see you only a couple of times but your mother told me it's like a family trademark."
She nodded. "I know. Gonna get a cup of coffee then I'll talk to mom. See ya."
"Hope it's still warm…"
Alone again, I looked around and found the tablet I was using the previous night. Sighing, I took it from the edge of the wide balcony and turned it back on, resuming the work.
I wanted to be over with it as soon as possible. Before the others woke up, actually, but the more I looked at pictures, the more I felt that tingling sensation in my fingertips that I was close. A sort of felling that guided me and that made me completely ignore large chunks of pictures that lately revealed to be completely useless, and go straight to the lastest group, the one Artoo had analyzed just after I ran inside the house and that was delivered to the house main server when I had stopped working through them.
I was flipping through the pictures, it was more a mechanical thing more than an actual, active searching, when a particular one hit my attention: it was one of the few stills that weren't blurred, it didn't show the guy's face but only his eyes and the to of his head, the rest was covered by his arm as he slashed his way through a stormtrooper in front of him.
It wasn't enough for a proper identification, but there was something in it that was clearly and unmistakingbly recognizable: his eyes.
Big and bright, like two doors into a wide, dark something I couldn't decypher. I had already seen those eyes. In my dream, earlier that morning, only smaller, and with a different set of emotions lightening them. The shape and the color, a peculiar light shade of brown that I had rarely seen in a human, were the same as the eyes of the kid I had seen in my dream. While in the vision the child looked as if he was blind with fear, in the still he looked like he was still blind, but this time, by something completely different, something more akin to rage, wrath, pure anger… call it any way you wanted.
All my hopes burned to ashes.
We were being chased by Galen Marek.
One of our own.
Shit.
Sorry for the loooong wait, I know this chapter was long overdue and also it's just a tiny filler, but vacation got in the way, also I'm studying for the admission test to university and right now the sport season started again and I'm gonna open my own little dojo with a colleague so… yeah, life's full. And good, fortunately. See ya!