"At night the sea began to rise in waves of death."
—Agamemnon
Chapter Nine: Waves of Death
"So," Luke sat down and crossed his hands behind his head, laying one leg on top of the other. "When will I be able to shoot lightning out of my hands?"
"Not for a while." Connan grinned, sitting on a bench in front of a dejarik board. Carth sat down beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist and huffing tiredly. Mission leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. "It stings like the dickens the first time you do it."
"Not ever." Obi Wan contradicted. "It is a very Dark ability, and I would not have you use it for anything."
"Then why did Connan use it?" Luke asked. "She doesn't look Dark."
"Oh? And how would you know what Dark looks like?" Connan asked, raising an eyebrow. "Trust me, when people make the distinction between Dark and Light, you quickly learn that the differences are not in the features, or in the abilities, but in the mentality."
Luke blinked. "I don't follow."
Connan frowned, leaning backward into the bench. She crossed her legs and scratched her head. "Say… I need to get past some Gammoreans. Say I need to get to the hostage they were holding inside the sewers."
Mission snickered.
"All right," Luke nodded.
"Say I don't want to waste the time of killing them the long way, because if I took too long then it would take even longer to break into that Swoop Gang base and steal that prototype engine."
"What would be so bad about that?" Luke asked, frowning.
"Well, winning the opening swoop race to win the hostage Jedi would have been really exhausting, and we might not have gotten off the planet on time because I was busy sleeping."
Luke gave her a disbelieving look, chuckling along awkwardly with a howling Mission and a laughing Carth.
Carth laughed one more time before taking in a deep breath. "Okay, he gets it."
"So, if I was fresh out of grenades or mines, and I had the Force, I could just paralyze them by choking them and cut them down while they were thrashing around." Connan finished. "Quick and easy."
"And that's the Light way to use a Dark power?" Luke asked. "Okay, so what's the Dark way?"
"Choking a defenseless person slowly to death because they couldn't pay their debts."
Luke blinked. "Really?"
"Really."
"Those are pretty distinct."
Connan shrugged again. "They're not all polar opposites of each other. Sometimes a Jedi is aggravated and just wants to be out of the fight, so they pick the quickest way. Sometimes someone did something to someone a Sith loves, and in their anger they do things they wish later they hadn't."
"And some people exercise the self-control needed to avoid such troubles altogether." Obi Wan snapped.
"Self-control and suppression are often synonymous."
"What's so bad about that?" Luke asked.
"I don't like getting the headaches that come with suppression."
Carth shook his head. "Stop fighting. It's going to take us three days to get to Alderaan, and if you're like this the whole time I think I'll go crazy."
Obi Wan shook his head. "We should get started on Luke's training, at any rate." He pulled a small remote-like droid out of his pocket and turned it on. "We'll start with how to handle the lightsaber."
XXXXX
Connan sat next to Han in the cockpit, being unable to sleep any longer. She'd woken up sick to her stomach, and after stumbling her way to the refresher, wandered into the cockpit to find Han still awake.
"What are you doing up so late?" She asked as she sat down next to him.
"I could ask you the same thing, but I saw your rather impressive dash to the refresher. Do you get sick in the middle of the night often?" He replied.
"Nowadays," Connan replied. "It's become sort of a habit for me."
Han sighed. "And why didn't you go back to sleep after?"
"Can't."
"Insomnia?"
"Something like that."
Silence for a few minutes. Then: "You've been going to the food replicator off and on all day today."
Connan glanced sideways at him. "I'm a hungry woman."
Han smirked. "Are you sure?"
Connan looked at Han and said nothing. The man took the hint and changed the subject. "So really, how did you make the lightning come out of your hands?"
Connan shrugged. "I don't know the mechanics of it." She replied. "I think that I just pull the static around me into my hands and blow it out onto someone else."
Han laughed. "Okay. Now how did you really make the lightning?"
Connan sighed. "You think I used an implant or a sleight of hand or something?"
"You had to. You expect me to believe that you could actually make lightning by yourself?"
"I don't know," Connan grinned. She reached out with the Force and gripped onto Han's blaster. "That depends on what you believe about that floating blaster."
Before Han could respond she yanked the blaster out of its holster and hung it limply in the air.
Han stared, open-mouthed, and waved his hand above and below it, checking for strings. Connan rotated it around his head once and bobbed it up and down. Han reached out to grab the blaster from the air, and it landed right into his hand.
Han gawked. "How did—what—how was that—"
"Whoo!" Connan stretched. "Suddenly I'm tired. I'll see you tomorrow, Han."
She left before he could get another word out.
XXXXX
Three days later Obi Wan finally turned on the remote's firing system, and taught Luke how to use the Force to see its next moves.
Connan helped too, putting in opinions and other suggestions where needed. She often wandered around the ship aimlessly, and spent a lot of her time in the cockpit with Han and Chewbacca (who liked Connan so much he told her to call him Chewie).
This day Connan sat with Mission and Carth in the main hold, watching Luke follow the remote around with his saber.
"No, you're far too tense." Connan called. "Loosen up. Your moves will be too jerky if you're so wound up during a fight."
"Something is firing at me," Luke growled. "There's reason for me to be tense."
"No, there's reason to be alert." Obi Wan corrected. "Keep your senses open."
Luke nodded, shaking his shoulders out and trying again. He stared at the remote with determination.
And the world exploded.
There was a shrieking in Connan's ears, deafening her. She covered her ears, but the loud screaming was in her head, and closing her ears seemed to make it even louder.
She dropped to the floor as her chest welled up in sudden pain. Beside her, she could somehow hear Carth cry out to her, and hear Luke ask of Obi Wan was all right.
And then it was gone.
Carth had picked Connan up when she collapsed and was now seating her back on the bench. She opened her eyes and stared at him.
"Carth."
Carth sighed in relief. He leaned his forehead onto her chest and breathed.
"What happened?" Mission asked. "What that your Force Precognition again?"
"No." Obi Wan answered for her. "That was definitely not Precognition."
"It felt like someone was screaming in my head." She shook her head. "No. Not someone. Millions of someones."
"There has been a great disturbance in the Force." Obi Wan wiped the sweat from his forehead. "As if a million voices suddenly cried out in terror."
"The next second the voices were gone." Connan finished. "Something bad has happened. I know it."
Carth pulled his head up and sat beside Connan, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into his lap. She went with only a small cry of surprise, but settled down nicely enough.
"You'd better get on with your exercises." Obi Wan reminded. Luke went back to the remote and the lightsaber.
Carth waited until Luke was focused on the remote until speaking quietly. "What do you think it was?"
"Think?" Connan scoffed. "I know what that was. I was on Malachor when it was destroyed, you know, and the destruction of Katarr was only a couple hundred lightyears away from us at the time."
Carth stiffened. "You don't mean—"
"That a planet was just destroyed? Of course I do." Connan replied. "What I want to know is who destroyed it, and why."
"You don't want to know what was destroyed?"
Connan huddled closer to Carth. "No. I have a sickening feeling that I already know which one it was."
Carth opened his mouth to add more, but Han strode into the room, looking proud of himself. He took a look at Connan—pale, wrapped up in Carth's arms—and blinked. "You look terrible, sweetheart. You should eat something."
"I'm not hungry."
"Here." Han completely ignored her, handing her a packet of food. "I was going to give that to you, anyway. It'll settle your stomach."
"But I'm not hungry." Connan replied as she opened the packet and bit into the cookie-like food inside.
Carth sighed.
"Well," Han said as he sat down beside Obi Wan and crossed his legs. "You can forget your troubles with those Imperial slugs. I told you I'd outrun them."
Luke deflected an attack from the remote. Obi Wan rubbed his cooling forehead and watched silently. Carth worried over Connan, who was busy eating the food Han gave her (which, though she would never admit it, did settle her stomach a little). Mission had long ago gone over to watch R2-D2 and C3PO play dejarik against Chewbacca.
"Well, don't everyone thank me at once," Han drawled. "Anyway, we should be at Alderaan about 0200 hours."
Connan crumpled up the package that used to contain food and set it onto the table next to them. She stood up from Carth's lap and made her way toward Mission, who was watching the droids battle the Wookie in dejarik.
"Now, be careful, R2." C3PO cautioned. R2 beeped at him to "be quiet" and moved.
R2's monster killed Chewbacca's, and the Wookie cried out angrily.
"Careful, guys." Connan warned.
"He made a fair move." C3PO defended. "Screaming about it can't help him."
"I'd let him have it." Mission grinned. "It's not too wise to upset a Wookie."
"Why not?" 3PO asked. "No one ever cares about upsetting a droid, ma'am."
"That's because a droid don't pull people's arms out of their sockets when they lose." Han replied.
Connan laughed. "Hah! Too true."
"Wookie are known to do that." Mission advised.
Chewbacca folded his arms behind his head and looked smug.
"I see your point." C3PO replied. "I suggest a new strategy, R2. Let to Wookie win."
Chewbacca added in something to the remark along the lines of "yeah, listen to him," and made another move.
Connan's attention switched back to Luke, was started blocking shots from the remote. He reacted a second after the remote did, and often barely deflected the attacks. For a long while the remote just bobbed up and down, skidding from place to place to make Luke jump.
"Remember," Obi Wan started. "A Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him."
"You mean it controls your actions?" Luke asked, not taking his eyes off the remote.
"It's more give-and-take than that." Connan explained. "It is there to do what you will with it, but if you listen to it, it will show you your path and guide your movements."
Finally it whirled around behind him and shot him in the butt.
Han laughed, leaning back into his chair and slapping his leg.
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." He stated.
Connan snorted, causing Han to give her a look. They still hadn't talked about Connan pulling his blaster away from him and hanging it in midair. He probably spent his waking moments wondering how she did it.
"Is it too much to ask for both?" Connan asked.
"You don't believe in the Force, do you?" Luke asked, restricting his lightsaber and standing straight.
"Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. There's no mystical energy field controls my destiny."
Connan grinned. "You'd be surprised."
"It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense." Han said, looking straight at Connan.
She shrugged. "If you say so. That would make most of my life—and this very moment, convolutedly—a simple trick." She looked back at Carth. "Maybe we're just sleeping right now?"
He grinned. "We haven't even packed yet to leave Atris' Jedi Academy."
"Oh, she's going to be mad at us." Connan shrugged. "Oh well. We'll just trick her into unconsciousness and be on our way when we wake up."
"And nonsense our way off of Telos!" Mission replied. "Because Brianna will not like your tricking Atris off to sleep like that."
"Hmm," Connan rubbed her chin. "We'll have to trick our way over to the other side of the galaxy pretty quickly, or somehow break through Brianna's trick-free mind and nonsense her into unconsciousness, too."
"If anyone can trick Brianna into unconsciousness, it's you, you trickster." Carth joked, kissing Connan on the top of her head.
"Yes, I am the Master Trickster, aren't I?"
"My head is swimming." Han held his hands to his head to show how confused he was at the moment.
"I suggest, Luke," Obi Wan changed the subject tersely, "that you try it again." He pulled a helmet off of the wall and brought it to Luke. "This time, let go of your conscious self…" he placed the helmet over Luke's head. "And act on instinct."
Obi Wan left the blast shield down, blocking Luke's vision.
Luke chuckled in disbelief. "With the blast shield down, I can't even see. How am I supposed to fight?"
"Your eyes can deceive you." Obi Wan replied. "Don't trust them."
At Luke's incredulous scoff Connan shook her head. "Your eyes are simply slower than your instinct, and people tend to lean on their vision more than their instinct. You can't do that if you're a Jedi, who survive more on their instinct that they do on their vision."
Luke shrugged and unsheathed his father's lightsaber, holding a fighting position.
Connan was almost overwhelmed with the memory of seeing Anakin with that same lightsaber, pointed at the droids and enemies on Geonosis. More recently, she was struck with the memory of it being pointed at her.
With a shudder Connan looked away.
Luke stood still in front of the remote, unable to see, and cried out in frustration when the remote shot him again.
"Stretch out with your feelings." Obi Wan explained.
Connan had a completely new debate she was ready to start on, based on the phrase "stretch out with your feelings" and the Jedi teaching that "feelings should be controlled". Whoever made the two and indicated they should be ideal Jedi teachings must have been insane. There's no way someone could control their feelings as they stretched them outward to feel other things away from them. It was simply too complicated.
Connan refrained from starting the debate, however. She had to think that maybe such debates—which she and Obi Wan had held often enough—were what helped Anakin fall in the first place. Those conflicting thoughts in his head must have helped Palpatine convince Anakin to fall to the Dark Side.
And Connan's anger swelled up again.
She hadn't thought about Palpatine for a while, really. She was too busy thinking about other things, like what they were going to do when they reached Alderaan, and trying to get Luke to understand the concept of instinct over vision.
Even now she pushed her mind away from it, focusing instead on Luke as he tried once again to deflect the remote's blaster.
The remotes bobbed up and down in the air before firing a few shots.
Luke twisted the lightsaber in his hands and deflected each one perfectly.
Connan grinned somewhat forcefully. "You see? You can do it."
Han gawked. "I call that luck."
"In my experience, there's no such thing as luck." Obi Wan countered.
"There better not be, because then I'd have the worst luck in the world!" Connan joked. Carth grinned, tugging her close.
"Look," Han droned. "Good against remotes is one thing. Good against the living, that's something else."
The computer in the main hold began beeping, and tore everyone's attention away from the growing argument.
"Looks like we're coming up on Alderaan." Han said.
"Already?" Connan frowned, following Han into the cockpit.
"Stand by, Chewie. Here we go." Han took his seat in the pilot's chair and began pressing buttons. "Cut in the sublight engines."
Han pulled them out of hyperspeed, and the Millennium Falcon began jostling around roughly.
"What the—"
"I'm going to be sick!" Connan clamped a hand over her mouth.
"Where are we?" Chewbacca asked.
"There shouldn't be an asteroid field here!" Connan said, controlling her stomach.
"It's just a meteor shower. There's probably been an asteroid collision." Han checked his star map. "It's not on any of the charts."
Connan paled. "Carth—"
"What's going on?" Luke asked, storming into the cockpit with Obi Wan behind him.
"Our position's correct, except there's no Alderaan." Han explained.
"Carth."
"What do you mean? Where is it?" Mission asked.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you, kid. It ain't there. It's been totally blown away." Han replied.
"What? How?"
"Carth!"
The cockpit grew silent finally as people all glanced at Connan.
"If they knew we had the droids, and they knew what was in the droids, and where we got them from, then what would stop the Empire from figuring out where we would be heading with them?"
Han gave her a pitying look. "The entire Starfleet couldn't destroy the whole planet."
Carth grabbed Connan's shoulder and squeezed tightly.
"It would take a thousand ships, with more firepower than—"
A loud beeping interrupted him. "There's another ship coming in."
"Maybe they know what happened." Luke suggested.
"If they do, they're no friend of ours." Connan said acidly.
"It's an Imperial fighter."
Just at that moment the Millennium Falcon took a hit.
Lake gawked. "It followed us!"
"No," Connan shook her head. "That's a short-range fighter. It's been waiting for us."
"There aren't any bases around here. Where did it come from?"
It raced off in front of them.
"It sure is leaving in a big hurry." Luke boasted.
"Or it's leading us away." Connan suggested.
"If they identify us, we're in big trouble." Mission pointed out.
"Not if I can help it. Chewie, jam its transmissions." Han ordered.
"You might as well let it go, it's too far out of range." Obi Wan suggested.
"Not for long." Han growled.
"Can we think for just a minute?" Connan asked. "Call me paranoid, but why would a fighter be this far away from any sort of port?"
Han ignored her, instead speeding along after the starfighter.
Connan sighed. "All right. Don't say I didn't warn you."
"No, she's right." Obi Wan agreed. "A fighter that size couldn't get this deep into space on its own."
"Thank you!" Connan clapped him on the back appreciatively.
"He must have gotten lost, been part of a convoy or something." Luke theorized.
"Well, he ain't going to be around long enough to tell anybody about us."
"Look at him. He's heading for that small moon." Luke pointed.
"I think I can get him before he gets there. He's almost in range."
Connan froze, placing her hand on Han's shoulder and digging her nails into his clothes.
"Han. There are no moons around Alderaan." She said loudly.
"It's a space station." Obi Wan continued.
"It's too big to be a space station." Han said before looking up to study it.
"I have a very bad feeling about this." Luke murmured.
"We need to leave." Connan said. "Now."
"Turn the ship around." Obi Wan ordered.
"Yeah. I think you're right. Full reverse! Chewie, lock in the auxiliary power."
Nothing happened.
"Chewie, lock in the auxiliary power!"
Still nothing happened. Chewbacca growled in frustration.
"What are we still moving towards it?!" Luke cried.
"We're caught in a tractor beam. It's pulling us in!" Han answered.
"There's got to be something we can do." Mission pleaded.
"There's nothing to do about it." Connan replied. "He's already at full power."
"I'm going to have to shut down." Han said, turning around to mess with more buttons. "They're not going to get me without a fight."
Carth's grip on Connan tightened. The closer they got, the more familiar that space station looked to him.
"Connan," He whispered. "That's the ship I hacked into the last time we were here."
Connan nodded. "I know." She felt sick. "What did you say they called it?"
"A Death Star."
Connan shuddered.
"You can't win." Obi Wan stated as they got even closer. "But there are alternatives to fighting."
"Right." Connan agreed. "This is a smuggler's ship, right? There have to be hiding spots for us."
Han looked at her incredulously. She went on. "If you find us a spot to hide, I can make sure we're not found."
XXXXX
Hi, guys! Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving!
This shouldn't have taken so long to update on, really, but my computer is virus-ridden, and I had to completely move my mini-office into the living room where everyone passes and the keyboard is big and awkward and the misspellings are driving me CRAZY.
We won another game in our football playoffs, damn it. We're going to Abeline this Friday. Hopefully we'll lose there.
Oh, yeah, and it's my brother's 18th birthday today! Everyone has to say Happy Birthday to him, because when he goes off to college this summer I get his room. YES!!
Anyway, I'm 1:05:23 of the way through, and I'm on chapter 28. Please review, and I'll see you next week!
Amme Moto
