Chapter 10: Dust
A/N: Thanks so much to Treenahasthaal, I Love Dance, Arya of Ellesmera, and Glace96 for reviewing!
Han kept the Millenium Falcon as level as he could during her atmospheric descent. They had barely been able to avoid or shoot down the ships trying to disable the Falcon, and only then because Han had dropped out of hyperspace early.
As unpleasant as it looked, the dusty atmosphere of Xandra worked towards their advantage. The ship's database noted that it contained some metallic compound in it that obstructed sensor scans – but that also meant that it was nearly impossible to get visuals from more than a few kilometers away or detect without the aid of the Force the landing beacon that the Falcon was currently making her way toward.
It was convenient to have a Jedi wife at times like these, on an unfamiliar planet with no map or directional guidance other than "feelings". As famous as the Solo luck was, there was no harm in confirmation, particularly when a brother-in-law was currently at the nonexistent mercy of the Empire.
Han sat in silence for a little while, making only minor adjustments to the ship's course. Eventually, the ship broke through the clouds, and Han could see a nearly empty landing platform at the edge of what appeared to be a small town. The drab shades of the grey ground, the grey sky, and grey plant life matched the low, drab, buildings.
"Doesn't look like a vacation spot," he commented.
Syal smiled sardonically. "Afraid Skywalker's having the time of his life sipping ruby biels on the beach without you?"
Han turned his attention to the controls, and they touched down roughly, but miraculously in one piece.
To Han's surprise, there had been no reaction from the local inhabitants. No blasting turbolasers, no armed security forces coming to arrest them for landing without authorization. He could see the same confusion mirrored on both Leia's and Corran's faces, although Syal showed no surprise.
"Syal, is it safe for us to leave the ship?" Han asked. Even if they could not trust her answer, it was unlikely that they would run into a trap, seeing as Leia picked a virtually random beacon off a planetary surface that stretched for hundreds of thousands of square miles.
"Oh, yes. The locals are harmless. The Empire doesn't bother keeping tabs on these small rural towns, anyway." Han glanced at Leia, who shrugged.
Just in case, they decided to bring Syal.
The air of Xandra was dry and smelled stale, as if the wildlife hadn't quite been able to keep up with the task of filtering and it had grown old without use. It was warm, though, with the morning sun rising over a long, jagged mountain range that bordered the horizon, struggling to penetrate the dull swirls of dust.
There was a square, compact building to the left of the docking bay labelled "Customs" over the doorway – not illuminated or lit but merely painted. Inside, there was a thin, balding man seated at a simple wood desk. He gave them a short stare then dropped his eyes again to the slightly unkempt pile of flimsies sitting in front of him.
Leia approached the desk. Han edged forward a bit in case the man pulled out a blaster, which was beginning to look less likely every passing moment.
"Excuse me?" she asked politely. The man looked up. "We've just landed."
He shrugged in indifference. Han and Leia exchanged looks of uncertainty.
They left the building and made their way onto the narrow dirt streets of the town, walked by only a few Xandrese. Most were human, and all had their heads down. The few they tried to approach responded with blank stares or fearful silence.
Xandra had an unearthly feel, as if nobody was really there and the dry wind had blown away not only the dust but souls with it.
Back in the Falcon, Leia had commented uneasily that the Force felt strange on Xandra. Han hadn't known what she had meant. The Force always seemed weird to him.
"Syal," he asked. "Do you know what's going on?"
Syal Antilles shook her head. "I do know that you're not going to get anything useful out of anyone here. I'm pretty sure the other side of the planet is halfway coherent, but at least you were lucky enough to land close to the Imperial garrison. Officially, Xandra is neutral. But nobody cares enough to come close enough to figure out that the Empire has a small base."
She paused for a moment. "I'm still at a loss as to how you're planning on rescuing Skywalker. Even if it's small enough to hide from the New Republic, it's not small enough to overpower with two Jedi if you're planning on taking him alive, and sneaking him out isn't going to be easy."
Leia shrugged. "We'll figure something out. We've got the element of surprise, after all. Even if they did try and blast us into space dust up there, I'm sure they didn't actually expect us to land in one piece."
"How's he doing?" Fel asked the sole medical droid in the compact medical bay of the Frost Shadow. The ship he had stolen from Admiral Talinia had been been stocked with medical supplies but not a bacta tank.
The medical droid swiveled its white triangular head over to look at him. "The patient is badly injured."
Fel glanced down at Luke's battered and still form, stretched out onto one of the beds. "I figured that out for myself, oddly enough."
The medical droid continued as if there had been no interruption. "He has numerous lacerations, contusions, burns, and fractures. Likely psychological damage as well. He is also suffering from copious blood loss."
"And that means?"
"Without bacta, he will last another day, perhaps two."
Fel sighed. The Frost Shadow had also been equipped with a pair of caged, live yslamiri in the cockpit, but Fel hadn't killed them. He was hoping to keep Luke tied up as soon as he had recovered, to bargain with the New Republic for his safe release. However, it looked like that wasn't going to work.
Fel glanced at the nearest chronometer. They would be dropping out of hyperspace in a couple of minutes, so he would have time to kill the yslamiri before returning to normal space.
As he made his way up to the cockpit, Fel mused that it might have been for the best. Luke Skywalker had an annoying habit of being able to do things he shouldn't, and it might work better in the long run to just surrender and trust him to be a noble Jedi. Which, looking at history, seemed to be a safe bet.
Fel pulled out his blaster and shot the yslamiri, a kinder fate than just shoving them into hyperspace. He glanced at the display. Ten seconds until normal space.
The ship gave a violent shudder.
Or not.
Meanwhile, Lunara was sitting in one of the nerfhide upholstered chairs in the command center. So far, there had been a few inconsequential visitors to Xandra en route from Coruscant. After interrogation, overseen by Lunara herself, they had been promptly disposed of.
Another alarm went off, and she didn't bother getting up. If the crew found anything useful, they would no doubt inform her.
She caressed one of her two lightsaber blades as she waited for something to happen. Like many of the Sith based down on Xandra, Lunara could fight equally well with both hands and wielded one lightsaber in each. During combat, she held a long indigo blade in her right hand, a hue with a bit too much purple in it to match her eyes. In the left, she used a red blade of the same length. With the color identified as Sith, it tended to intimidate the opposition.
She spent the next few minutes in silence, until her comlink chimed. She stretched out a pale arm and turned the volume on. "Lady Lunara," the voice crackled out, "You're going to want to see this. Docking Bay 3."
Lunara rose, if for no other reason than to severely chastise the man that had addressed her so impudently. But as she headed towards the docking bay, she could feel through the Force that something important was going to happen. She reached out her Force sense and felt something . . . curious. It was the dimmed presence of another Force-user. They had captured a Jedi, perhaps? Her master would be pleased.
Lunara entered the docking bay. A small group of armed and uniformed men were surrounding a sleek ship, painted a mottled silver and white. She gave a curt nod to the group. "What is it you wanted me to see?"
One of them led her into the ship. Electrocuffed and with a blaster shoved into his back was a man Lunara recognized from the history holovids as Soontir Fel. Interesting, to be sure, but she was relatively sure that he wasn't Force-sensitive. At least, he was not the one she was sensing.
The man continued on to another room of the ship, however, and Lunara followed. Lying on a bed with no less than six blasters trained on him was Luke Skywalker.
Luke Skywalker stared at the beautifully arched ceiling of the room he was in not by choice, but because he was tied down to a stone table.
It was the type of stone table that funeral caskets and coffins were placed on, cold and smooth, in a room illuminated by eerily flickering candles. The ceiling was a dome of rippling glass in various shades of purple, inlaid with a silvery mineral in a swirling pattern that reflected the candlelight.
The room had an ancient feel to it, untouched by modern technology. Luke wasn't even restrained with electrocuffs or yslamiri, or guards – just plain rope. Not that that wasn't good enough to do the job.
For the first time in a long time, he could feel the Force again, but it wasn't the usual warm bath of light. If he had the energy, he would have shivered at the coldness that permeated the tepid air of the temple.
Luke had had enough experience with battle wounds to feel, even through the terrible numbness, that they had given him only minimal treatment. He probably wouldn't even be awake right now if they hadn't flooded his system with drugs.
Luke remembered a trip to the medics he had once taken after he had accidentally crushed his hand on a mission for the Rebellion. They had given him a numbing injection, but he had been awake when they put the bones back into place. The whole time, he had known there was something wrong; a sharp pain at the back of his mind told him that something was happening to his hand even as the painkiller reduced all feeling in his body to almost nothing.
Luke could vaguely sense the Force, but it would do him no good. He had tried many times to reach for the familiar energy, but whatever drug that they had given him was also killing his concentration.
It was not as though the Force kept slipping out of his grasp. It felt more like he was making random lunges in the dark, and couldn't seem to remember where it actually was or how to get there. Yet he could feel it in the periphery of his mind, and knew it was there.
Luke heard the door creak open. He wondered if the Imperials had come again to make him suffer. It seemed a little counter-productive to give him a painkiller, but he couldn't begin to guess at their plans.
No doubt they would tell him why he could feel the Force again, if not access it. He realized with a painful jolt that he didn't remember how he had arrived in the strange room. The last thing he remembered was Soontir's face, but the image seemed so long ago.
The slow footsteps stopped close to Luke. He turned his head a few degrees. It was enough to see the cloaked figure that towered above him. Luke jerked. The man's face reminded him of Emperor Palpatine's, with yellow snakelike eyes bulging out from wrinkled and reptilian features. Yet even as he stared into his face, he could see that the man was not Palpatine.
"I'm glad you've joined us, Luke Skywalker," he whispered, a grin spreading across his repulsive features. "I am Darth Cinerate. You are no doubt wondering why you are here. I had planned to kill you, but I believe you'll prove to be useful."
He paused and took in a deep breath. "Yesssssss," he hissed. "The Force is strong in you."
Before Luke could fully comprehend the fact that a Sith lord was standing before him, Cinerate leaned closer to him and raised a hand crackling with glowing crimson power. He brought it down onto Luke's chest.
The painkiller meant nothing now.
He opened his mouth now, suffocating, in too much pain to scream as the life and Force were pulled out of him.
His senses heightened to an unbearable point. Just when Luke knew his battered body could take no more abuse, it stopped. He managed a choked cry of agony then, drawing in an icy breath. His body was no longer numb.
He lay there shaking in relief and pain. Relief, because it was over, but also because he could feel again.
But before he could defend himself in any way, Cinerate's hand came down upon his chest again and Luke's vision crackled with red lightning.
The Millennium Falcon skimmed low over the barren earth of Xandra, all systems set to minimum in order to avoid detection. Even though some component of the earth and air played havoc with both biological and mechanical sensors, with Luke on the line, the Falcon's occupants hadn't wanted to risk it.
Inside the ship, Leia perched on the edge of the copilot's seat, concentrating for all she was worth on the elusive energy called the Force. Times like these, she regretted not putting more effort into her Jedi training. She felt a momentary stab of emotion distract her. When we get Luke back, she promised herself, I'm going to make time to train at the Academy with him.
Wrenching herself back to the task at hand, Leia sensed a momentary flicker of life. "Fifty kilometers to the southeast," she estimated.
Han glanced at the front viewscreen, and corrected the course. "Hills," he commented. "Makes sense."
Syal had given them a general idea of where the garrison was, but she couldn't pinpoint it. However, Leia, with her rudimentary abilities, could sense how few life-forms seemed to exist on the surface of Xandra. But she realized that the garrison had to have living beings inside it, ones that she could sense. Neither of them had much formal training, but it was fairly simple to sense a cluster of life among the dust.
After barely any time at all, Han landed, and the Falcon was tucked into a small depression on one of the russet hilltops.
It took a surprisingly short amount of time to lock the ship down and pull some photographic camouflage netting over it. It was an overused trick, but almost impossible to counter without advanced sensors.
The four of them set off southeast. There was no trail; they followed the direction of the steadily growing feeling of life. Before long, the dusty earth was kicked up and swirled around their feet, caking the bottoms of their boots and creeping up their clothing. It was nearing nightfall, but the orange sun still persistently spread warmth through the unpleasantly dry air.
Leia's throat was beginning to burn from the irritation. She briefly considered taking a drink of water from the compression bottle at her waist, but all thoughts of her discomfort were driven out of her mind by the shriek of a squadron of TIE interceptors.
They dove to the ground, Han pulling Syal down with them. For once, Leia was thankful for the dust. As they were coated in it, the TIEs probably wouldn't be able to visually detect them even if they were intently studying the ground. Still, she waited with baited breath until the noise of the starfighters got louder and louder, then sharply faded away.
Leia spoke for the first time in the better part of an hour, her voice hoarse. "We're getting closer."
Han nodded in acknowledgement. She vigorously shook out his cloak, but the dirt still clung doggedly to the woven fabric.
They headed up the hillside again. Leia was hoping that they would reach the garrison before nightfall; a glowrod would show up too clearly, considering the fact that the even the tallest specimens of Xandra's sickly plant life barely reached halfway to her knee. The jagged rocks provided their only cover.
Nevertheless, by the time they ascended up another ubiquitous slope, they came upon the source of life. The three of them pressed themselves behind a large rock. Leia took out her electrobinoculars and scanned the low valley that spread out before them.
The garrison was apparently contained in a cluster of interconnected low stone buildings and tall columnar towers. The few windows shone with harsh illumination. Leia would have never guessed that the ancient looking construct was the site of an Imperial garrison if she had not spotted a large landing pad to the side upon which sat a more modern looking durasteel building which undoubtedly housed starships and starfighters.
Han turned to her. "Do you feel anything?"
She nodded. "All the life is concentrated in that building. So, do we have a plan?"
Han opened his mouth to answer, but the words never escaped. He soundlessly slumped to the ground. Leia cried out in surprise, and then saw the dart in his neck. Before she could whirl around, she felt a painful sting somewhere around her back and her vision melted into darkness.
A/N: Next chapter…they reunite with Luke.
Spring break is over :( I'm depressed.