Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.
Chapter Eleven
Arrival in the City of Clouds
The Millennium Falcon, Space
"Captain Solo, this time you have gone too far," Threepio insisted as the group watched the Imperial Star Destroyer begin to leave. Chewie growled at him irritably, making the golden droid cross his arms stubbornly.
"No, I will not be quiet, Chewbacca. Why doesn't anyone listen to me?"
Han turned to Chewie. "The fleet is beginning to break up," he said, ignoring Threepio. "Go back and stand by the manual release for the landing claw."
Chewie barked, struggled out of his seat, and climbed out of the cabin.
"I really don't see how that's going to help," Threepio continued to complain. "Surrender is a perfectly acceptable alternative in extreme circumstances. The Empire may be gracious enough..."
Spotting Neena reaching for a nearby blaster in order to shoot Threepio at the mention of surrendering, Luke leaned over and shut him off, stopping his flow of words in mid-sentence.
"Thank you," Han exhaled.
"I'm gonna sell that damn thing if it suggests surrendering to the Imps again," Neena threatened, scowling bitterly at the droid. The others didn't blame her, as they were all fed up of being stuck in the small ship, hearing Threepio advocating giving in to the Empire.
Luke ignored her, looking at Han. "What did you have in mind for your next move?"
"Well, if they follow standard Imperial procedure, they'll dump their garbage before they go to light-speed, then we just float away," Han explained.
"With the rest of the garbage," Luke noted wryly. "Then what?"
"Better to slowly starve to death in space than die quickly at the hands of the bucketheads," Neena declared. Her expression was dark. "Those bantha-suckers don't get the satisfaction of killing me!"
"I'm with ya, Siren," Han agreed. "The guys'd never let me live it down if I got killed by an Imp that doesn't know that handle from the mouth of their blaster." Neena snickered.
Luke sighed, crossing his arms and looking pointedly at the other man. "What then?" he repeated, forcing his tone to stay calm.
"Then we've got to find a safe port somewhere around here for the repairs," Han shrugged. "Got any ideas?"
"No," Luke replied flatly.
"Might help if I knew where we were," Neena added dryly.
"The Anoat system."
"The Anoat system," Luke repeated. Neena groaned loudly. "There's not much there."
"There is one thing," Neena contradicted him, looking annoyed. She jabbed a finger at a computer mapscreen on the control panel. "There's Lando."
Han smirked, "That could work," he mused.
Neena scoffed. "Will we trade your arm or your leg to pay him, then?" she huffed. Han made a face back at her. Luke wore a puzzled expression as he peered at the section Neena had indicated. Small light points representing several systems flashed by on the screen.
"The Lando system?" Luke asked, brow crinkled. "I've never heard of it."
"I envy you," Neena told him seriously. Han rolled his eyes.
"Lando's not a system, he's a man," Han corrected him. "Lando Calrissian. He's a card player, gambler, scoundrel. You know the type."
"If there's an illegal enterprise to be found, Calrissian has his hands in it," Neena inserted. She hesitated and reluctantly corrected herself. "Except for slavery. I'll give him that. He does have some principles."
Luke looked wary at the explanation, but didn't reveal his thoughts.
"Bespin," Han read. "It's pretty far, but I think we can make it."
"A mining colony?" Luke read.
"Yeah," Han nodded. "A Tibanna gas mine. Lando conned somebody out of it. We go back a long way, Lando and me." He thought briefly of Tobias Beckett, and Qi'ra. Crimson Dawn, Dryden Vos. He patted the wall at the memory of L3. But there were other memories too. Heists, bets. A strange friendship that had linked them together forever, like it or not.
"Can you trust him?" Luke asked seriously.
"You can't trust any smugglers, hun," Neena snorted. "But smugglers are better than Imps."
"The siren's right, we can't trust him," Han agreed. "But he has no love for the Empire, I can tell you that."
Chewie barked over the intercom. Han quickly changed his readouts and stretched to look out the cockpit window.
"Here we go, Chewie," he said into the intercom. "Stand by. Detach!"
Dagobah
In the same clearing as the day before, Leia sat cross-legged with a look on her face that told any who looked that she was deep within a meditation.
"Discovered by the Aing-Tii monks, flow walking was," Yoda told her. "Allows you to view, events occurred previously it does. But, affect them, you will not."
Leia gave a distant nod.
"Focus," Yoda instructed her firmly. "Think of what to see. Flow along the currents of the Force, you will. Read Its' intentions. Important to remain attached to reality, it is, or risk losing yourself, you do."
Leia nodded. Her concentration deepened as she immersed herself in the flowing sensation of the Force.
Force techniques came to her with an ease that Ezra had always grumbled about. She was completely unaware that she was already high-level Knight in skills wise, and some fo things Yoda was teaching her would not have been known by Masters. Flow walking had been confined to Yoda and Kit Fisto, in the last days of the Republic. Both of them had taken months to learn it. Leia had started learning it two weeks prior, and was disappointed with herself for taking so long to be able to try it out properly.
For a second, her form blurred as Yoda watched. While the small troll gave a rare smile of approval for his young apprentice's success, Leia managed to catch a glimpse of her mother. She had focused on a moment she had been a part of, and remembered well, for her first try, on Yoda's advice. None of the occupants of the patched tent she had materialized in noticed her.
Sola, alive but weary by the war and constant running, was passing a young Leia an old locket. "It's been passed through our family to the youngest daughter for five generations, now," Sola said in Nubian, the words translating themselves in Leia's mind as easily as if she had last spoken it yesterday, instead of several months. Newly-turned nine-year-old Leia beamed proudly as her mother helped her clasp it around her neck. "My sister wore it, and now it's your turn." Ryoo (who would have disappeared by the end of the year, presumed dead during an attack on their camp) and Pooja both grinned at her as she showed it off.
Suddenly, Leia was yanked from the past into her proper time. Images flashed behind her eyelids. They were terrifying images that she could barely take in. Han, sinking into a smoking pit. Luke and Neena surrounded by stormtroopers. A city in the clouds, with the shadow of the Dark covering it. She could sense her friends' pain and terror.
"Han!" she cried as the images flickered through her mind. "Luke! Neena!" Her eyes snapped open, and she panted as if she had just sprinted fifteen miles straight without pausing for a breath, or using the Force to help her.
"Hmm," Yoda tutted disapprovingly. "Control, you must learn. Control."
"I saw... I saw a city in the clouds," Leia stammered shakily, her expression half-wild.
"Mmm," Yoda hummed in reply. "Friends you have there."
"They were in danger," Leia said.
"It is the future you see," Yoda told her. "Visions of the Future, prone to was Obi-Wan."
"Will they die?" Leia asked. Yoda closed his eyes and lowered his head.
"Difficult to see," he muttered. "Always in motion is the future."
"I've got to go to them!" Leia declared, scrambling to her feet.
"Decide you must how to serve them best," Yoda told her. "If you leave now, help them you could. But you would destroy all for which they have fought and suffered."
Leia froze for a second at that. Then memories of her family and friends, made fresh by her short foray into the past, pushed themselves to the front of her mind again. She clenched her jaw, and continued on her way.
"I might not," she called over her shoulder to Yoda. "And losing them is not an option."
She didn't see the worry in his eyes at that, having already started to Force sprint back to the cottage to get her things.
Cloud City, Bespin
The powerful pirate starship blasted through space as it headed toward the soft pink planet of Bespin before it finally arrived at the gaseous planet.
Huge billowing clouds formed a canyon as the ship banked around them, heading towards the system's Cloud City. Suddenly, two twin-pod cloud cars appeared and moved toward the Falcon. The speeders drew up alongside the starship.
One of the cloud cars opened fire on the Falcon, its' attack rocking the ship. Inside the ship, Chewie barked his concern.
"No, I don't have a landing permit," Han snapped into transmitter. "I'm trying to reach Lando Calrissian." More flak burst outside the cockpit window and rattled the ship's interior. Luke looked worried, and Neena was glancing towards the gun turrets.
"Whoa!" Han cried hastily. "Wait a minute! Let me explain."
"You will not deviate from your present course," a voice growled through the intercom.
"Rather touchy, aren't they?" Threepio commented. There was a clang as Neena kicked his leg out of annoyance. She swore at the pain that subsequently shot through her toe.
"I thought you knew this person," Luke huffed, hiding his nerves.
Chewie barked and growled at his friend.
"Well, that was a long time ago," Han said defensively in reply. "I'm sure that he's forgotten all about that."
"Oh great," Neena groaned. "You kriffed him over? We're doomed."
"Permission granted to land on Platform Three-two-seven," the intercom voice announced.
"Thank you," Han snapped back. He snapped off the intercom with an angry scowl. Chewie looked at him and grunted. Han turned back to the worried prince, spy and droid.
"There's nothing to worry about," he insisted unconvincingly. "We go way back, Lando and me." No one looked particularly assured by his claim.
"Who's worried?" Luke asked dryly.
"Me," Neena replied immediately.
Han scowled at her, his ears flushing slightly.
The clouds parted to reveal a full view of the city as it bobbed in and out of the cloud surface. The cloud cars and the Falcon made their way to the gleaming white metropolis' landing platform.
With the cloud cars still guarding it, the Falcon landed on one of the Cloud City's platforms.
When they were all armed as they stood on the platform. Behind the humans (who were in front), Chewie surveyed the scene warily.
"Oh. No one is here to meet us," Threepio noted.
"I don't like this," Luke grimaced.
"Well, what would you like?" Han huffed.
"Well, they did let us land," Threepio pointed out.
"Look, don't worry," Han sighed, raking a hand through his hair. "Everything's going to be fine. Trust me."
"It's not you we don't trust," Neena told him.
Lando Calrissian, a suave, dashing black man in his thirties, led a group of aides and some members of the Cloud City guard out onto the landing platform. The group, like the other citizens of the city, was made up of a motley collection of aliens, droids, and humans of all descriptions. Lando had a grim expression on his face as he strode onto the landing platform.
"See?" Han gestured at the man approaching them. "My friend." He turned to Chewie to whisper, "Keep your eyes open, okay?"
Chewie growled as Han walked down the ramp. Lando and his men headed across the bridge to meet the space pirate.
Lando stopped ten feet from Han. The two men eyed each other carefully. Lando shook his head.
"Why, you slimy, double-crossing, no-good swindler!" he cried. "You've got a lot of guts coming here, after what you pulled."
Han pointed to himself innocently, mouthing, "Me?" As Lando moved threateningly toward him. Suddenly, he threw his arms around his startled, long-lost friend and embraced him firmly.
"How you doing, you old pirate?" Lando laughed. "So good to see you! I never thought I'd catch up with you again. Where you been?"
The two old friends embraced, laughing and chuckling.
"Well, he seems very friendly," Threepio said brightly.
"Yes...," Luke replied slowly, still feeling wary. "Very friendly." He glanced at Neena, seeing unease and tension lining her spine. She shot him a tight smile, jerking her head towards Han and Lando with a silent inquiry of "Shall we?"
He nodded, and began leading the way down to the others. I have a bad feeling about this, he thought, wishing Leia were there. He had a feeling that a Jedi would be a good help right then.
Dagobah
While her friends unknowingly walked into a trap, Leia was loading a heavy case into the belly of her small ship with the Force. Artoo sat on top of the X-wing, settling down into his cubbyhole with practised ease.
Yoda stood nearby on a log, looking stern. "Leia!" he called to her. "You must complete the training." She revelled for a second in his correct phrasing, before dismissing it.
"I can't keep the vision out of my head," she explained, frustrated at his lack of understanding. "They're my friends. I've got to help them."
"You must not go!" Yoda insisted.
Leia was too distracted by her worry to detect the genuine concern for her in his voice. "But Han, Luke and Neena will all die if I don't."
"You don't know that."
Leia was so stunned by the sound of the familiar voice, she lost her mental grip on the box and it fell to the ground as she looked toward the voice in amazement.
Near Yoda, her deceased Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi (alias Ben Cerasi) had materialized as a real, slightly shimmering image. The power and shock of his presence stopped Leia. She stared at him in wide, glistening-eyed shock.
"Even Yoda cannot see their fate," Obi-Wan continued with a firm and gentle smile.
"But I can help them!" Leia snapped out of her shock and held her ground. "Isn't that my duty as a Jedi? To protect the people of the galaxy?"
"This is a dangerous time for you, my young Padawan," Obi-Wan warned her. "When you will be tempted by the Dark Side of the Force. It preys on your heartache."
"Yes, yes," Yoda agreed. "To Obi-Wan you listen. The cave. Remember your failure at the cave!"
"But I've learned so much since then," Leia argued. "I know the danger of the Dark, and I have always resisted it! Master Yoda, I promise to return and finish what I've begun. You have my word. But I have to go!"
"It is you and your abilities the Emperor wants, Leia," Obi-Wan insisted. "That is why your friends are made to suffer."
"And that is why I have to go," she replied.
"Leia, I don't want to lose you to the Emperor the way I lost Vader." Obi-Wan's voice was raw as he spoke. Leia's blue eyes shimmered with tears as she met his eyes.
"I will die before I Turn," she vowed hoarsely. "But I won't leave them."
"Stopped the Sith must be," Yoda declared. "On this everything depends. Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as their ally will conquer Vader and his Emperor. If you end your training now, if you choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did, you will become an agent of evil."
"I'm not choosing the quick and easy path!" Leia snapped back. "I'm choosing to save my friends' lives!"
"Patience," Obi-Wan counselled.
"And sacrifice Han, Luke, Neena and Chewie?" Leia's voice was incredulous.
"If you honour what they fight for... yes!"
Leia's lip trembled for a moment, before her shoulders straightened and she lifted her chin. "I won't leave them, Masters," she insisted. Her voice was calm, and even now. "Everyone has their time to become one with the Force and if this is mine, so be it. I am a Jedi, and I will not shy from my fate."
"If you choose to face Vader, you will do it alone," Obi-Wan warned her. "I cannot interfere."
Leia nodded. "I understand." She moved to her X-wing. "Artoo, fire up the converters."
Artoo whistled a happy reply.
Obi-Wan sighed, acknowledging that there was nothing he could do to dissuade her. Leia had always been as stubborn as her mother. But he could impart some more advice, before she went.
"Leia, don't give in to hate – remember that it leads to the dark side." Leia nodded and climbed into her ship.
"Strong is Vader," Yoda warned. "Mind what you have learned. Save you it can."
"I will," Leia promised. "And I'll return. I promise." Artoo closed the cockpit over. Obi-Wan and Yoda stood watching solemnly as the roar of the engines and the wind engulfed them, and their Padawan blasted off.
Cloud City, Bespin
Luke and Neena walked between Han and Lando as Chewie followed a short distance behind. Long shafts of light poured across the corridor between tall, pure-white columns.
"So you see, since we're a small operation, we don't fall into the... uh... jurisdiction of the Empire," Lando explained.
"So you're part of the mining guild then?" Luke quizzed carefully.
"No, actually," Lando replied. Neena felt a sick feeling in her stomach as she noticed how he avoided meeting any of their gazes. She was a spy, and seeking out traps had been the first thing she had learned from Cassian Andor.
"Our operation is small enough not to be noticed... which is advantageous for everybody since our customers tend to be anxious to avoid attracting any attention to themselves."
The group walked into another corridor and headed for a huge doorway at the far end.
"Aren't you afraid that the Empire's going to find out about this little operation and shut you down?" Han asked curiously.
"That's always been a danger looming like a shadow over everything we've built here," Lando admitted. "But things have developed that will ensure our security. I've just made a deal that will keep the Empire out of here forever."
Neena paled at that, realizing what must have happened, and reached for her blaster just as the mighty doors to the dining room slid open. Panic engulfed the rebels at the sight that met them.
For, at the far end of the table, seated just in front of the infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett, was Darth Vader himself.