Galaxies Apart

Ten

He wasn't what you would call an accomplished spy. No-one in their right minds would consider him to be an experienced espionage agent for the Rebel Alliance.

"Are you serious?"

He pushed the package across the filthy table. "I mean it. This data wafer contains the names and locations of the members of the Rebel council. Do you want it," he continued, waving the thin strip back and forth tantalisingly, "or don't you?"

He stared into the muzzle of the blaster.

"So you're interested?"

His negotiating partner smiled, revealing a row of pointed incisors. Being a race of six-foot plus voracious needle-toothed horned carnivores, Devaronians had very little work to do on their image in order to intimidate.

"You could say that," the Devaronian grinned, waving the blaster back and forth.

"So let's do business."

This warranted a quirky, puzzled smile. "You don't seem to understand the situation here," the Devaronian said slowly, in a voice he usually reserved for dealing with droids.

Lifting his blaster up, he gestured to it and remarked, "This is a gun. Now…the procedure we're dealing with here is your classic double-cross. I'm," he patted his chest with his free hand, "the experienced criminal, taking advantage of the naïve, out-of-his-depth small fry."

He paused.

"That's you," he said, for clarification.

"So," the spy said after a second's thought, "you - as the experienced criminal - are going to double-cross...?" he waved a hand for confirmation. Seeing the Devaronian nod encouragingly, he pressed on, "…me out of this information in this wafer here-"

There was a muffled blamm.

The Devaronian slumped forward.

Wedge Antilles tapped his forehead. "I get it!" he exclaimed. He stepped away and walked out of the Mos Eisley cantina, without bothering to cast a glance back at the smoking corpse.

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Wedge sighed. "…understand, yes. Only too well, I assure you. Well, thank you for your valuable time, Dravis."

He cut the transmission, frustrated. His primary mission to uncover the Devaronian traitor had been a success, yes, but yet another smuggler had just told him the same damned story - we don't work for free. Trying to tell them that the Empire was about to drop the hammer on their kind was thus far falling on deaf ears.

Wedge Antilles, unaccomplished spy, also happened to be one of the most experienced operatives left alive in the Alliance. He hadn't volunteered for this mission, that was for sure; but with opportunities for combat at a bare minimum there had been little else to use a space pilot for.

The Alliance was all but dead.

His X-Wing cleared the planetary atmosphere. Wedge immediately felt a little better. A boy raised on a space station never felt as comfortable on dry land as he did in the wide black yonder - his father had told him that on more than one occasion.

His father had also maintained that the Empire would implode in a matter of years. That didn't look like being so accurate.

His son was doing his bit. Sure, the Alliance hadn't been capable of causing the Empire more than minor inconveniences here and there over the past few years, but they were still there.

The Empire was still oppressing its citizens so brutally that common sense dictated something had to give. Surely. Sometime.

Wedge grinned. The Alliance wasn't prepared to wait for that to happen.

If Ackbar's latest planworked...he dared to hope that it might, and shivered at the thought. He laid in the course for his next destination. Tatooine grew smaller and smaller behind him. His Artoo unit bleeped. Hyperspace was moments away.

Hadn't Luke Skywalker come from there?

Wedge shrugged away the thought. Skywalker had vanished after his torpedoes had missed, and only rumours of his whereabouts had surfaced since - rumours of a mercenary for hire, someone who got the job done, someone they rumoured had the Force behind him.

Wedge's jaw set as he recollected the Battle of Yavin. He'd been so certain that Solo's heroics had cleared Luke a path for the exhaust shaft. But it wasn't to be. Even with the chasing TIEs off his back, of course, the shot Skywalker had to make hadn't been easy - hell, some of the pilots had called it nigh on impossible - but it was there.

He remembered Skywalker's fateful boast at the briefing before they had engaged the Death Star.

I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home. They're not much bigger than two metres…

Wedge wondered if the words had come back to haunt Skywalker, in whatever life he was leading now.

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Luke sat up, eyes wide-

"Ow!"

He rubbed his head, gingerly exploring the lump that was forming there already. The ceiling in this place were little over five feet high at its highest point, even less than that where he now lay.

Where was this place?

It was warm; the heat, although muggy, was welcome. He had a vague memory of coldness teasing the edge of his sluggish brain.

There was an aroma pervading the place that he couldn't define, exactly. It was almost as if the room smelled of everything at once, as if his nostrils were inhaling the very odour of-

"Alive, he is!"

"Ow!"

Luke did remember that voice, but hazily. Certainly he had never seen such a creature before.

The little guy stood three, maybe four feet at the most, gnarled green skin sprouting white wiry hairs. Two hairy ears extended like sentries above that squat frame, over a face full of expression and vibrancy, dominated by two large, soulful eyes filled with experience.

"Who are you?"

The creature waddled over, gave him a sharp glance and poked him with a damp stick in the ribs.

"Ow!" said Luke, for the third time. "What are you doing?"

"Always so tall, are you?" the strange thing complained. "Hold you my little house will not."

"I'm sorry," Luke muttered darkly. "Could you please answer my question, and I'll be on my way?"

"Where?" asked the dwarfish figure, impudently.

"Who are you?"

"I am Yoda," said Yoda, patting himself with his stick.

Luke had to check himself from sitting bolt upright. His sight told him that this creature was knee height, frail and old. Yet it had just proclaimed itself as the last Jedi Master in the galaxy, and one of the most legendary figures of the past few centuries.

"Yeah, sure you are," Luke said, impatiently.

"Judge me by my size, do you?"

"I don't like being attacked as soon as I enter orbit," he said, ignoring the creature's ridiculous claims and trying his best to accomplish the same feat with the stench pervading this hovel.

"Attacked?" Yoda repeated.

"What would you call losing control of your ship for no good reason?" Luke shot back. "The only explanation I can think of is that this Yoda, wherever he is, decided he didn't want company here."

"Always so sure of yourself, are you?"

With a tired sigh Luke pulled off the incredibly rough blanket. "Look, little guy - thanks for taking me in. I was pretty beat up over there. I'll throw you some supplies, or some credits, whatever. But I really have to find Yoda, so I'm gonna be on my way."

He stood up as best he could, body bent almost double from the waist to prevent his head from going through what felt like a flimsy thatch roof. This little guy was able to scratch out a life in this place?

"Why in such a rush are you, Luke Skywalker?"

Halfway to the door, Luke discovered the central roof ceiling wasn't as flimsy as it first appeared. It took him a good couple of seconds to manoeuvre enough momentum for a full one-eighty. When he had done so, the little guy was squatting on his bed, watching Luke with something like amusement.

"How-"

"Luke Skywalker, yes," his healer cooed, "think himself a great Jedi already, he does. Chase every lead to increase his own Force powers he will, so hungry and so desperate for revenge he is. So full of blame. Everything his fault is."

Seeing Luke's amazement, Yoda picked up his stick again and poked him in the ribs sharply. "Why so blind must you make yourself?" he demanded. "Why always with you it cannot be done?"

Luke, feeling very embarrassed and more than a little foolish, spluttered an apology to the Jedi Master. "Why seek me out did you?"

"I want to learn from you. Become your student. I want to – I have to – become a Jedi Knight."

"Why?" Yoda asked.

He hadn't expected that question. Luke paused. "I want to fight the Empire as a Jedi like Obi-wan and my father before me. To restore peace and justice to the galaxy."

"Really?" Yoda nodded. "Your true motives, those are?"

Luke's mouth dried. "What better cause is there?" he answered Yoda's stare weakly.

Yoda didn't hesitate. "Revenge."

The ensuing silence said quite a lot. Luke's head dipped, a fractional acknowledgement of the truth.

"The Empire killed my family," he said defiantly after another few seconds, "the Empire hunted down my father, had him killed for being a Jedi Knight. The Empire murdered my Aunt and Uncle in cold blood. So yeah, revenge. You better believe there'll be revenge."

"The Force," Yoda said slowly, gently, "must be used for knowledge and defence. But used for attack, it should never - never - be."

"Why?"

"The Dark path it is," Yoda responded instantly. "Fear, anger, lust, revenge. Once you start down that path…forever will it dominate your destiny."

Luke shivered. "Like Vader," he said.

"Yes."

"But I won't be like Vader. I'm not evil, like he was. He and I are nothing like one another."

Yoda looked away. "Face him, you must," he said quietly, not able then to look Luke in the eyes.

"And I will," Luke promised, trying to keep the eager note from his voice and mostly failing. "I'll face him, and I'll kill him."

Yoda had said nothing.

His ship, the Privateer, did indeed wait for him nearby. Luke inspected it with amazement. It was only a short time ago this very vessel shot into the depths of Dagobah's teeming-with-life oceans. It would have taken heavy-duty machinery, huge drilling equipment and a repulsorlift bank costing thousands of credits to extract the Privateer within a few days.

Yoda had done it within hours. From two hundred miles away.

Luke would never judge anything by its size again.

Feeling indebted to Yoda, Luke had invited him to move into the Privateer's cargo bay and leave behind his hut. It was freezing in there at night. If Luke lived somewhere so cold, maybe he'd be a little reluctant to talk about size too.

Yoda refused. Despite the little Jedi's urgings to lodge with him in his hut, Luke remained onboard the Privateer. Prior to now he had never fully appreciated the joys of a nine-foot ceiling level and food that remained stationary whilst you ate it.

Nights on Dagobah descended like an ambush. The change startled Luke. Growing up on Tatooine had not been the best preparation for this place. He couldn't figure out why a Jedi Master like Yoda had retreated to a world like this. Had he wanted to? Or had he been forced to run?

And if he had…what had he been running from?