Part II: The Empire's Revenge
Three Years Later
Chapter Eleven: Crystals
A dark figure strode through the ruins of the dark world on the very outer edge of the galaxy.
The planetoid the figure walked on was too small to be a planet in its own right. It was in fact nothing more than a large rock in the outer debris belt of the galaxy, a remnant of the galaxy's formation billions of years before. The dark figure wore a complete EVA suit, since there was no atmosphere to breathe. Even underneath the helmet and thick suit, however, there was no mistaking the figure for anything other than a woman.
The planetoid made a full rotation every three hours. As the woman carefully crested a rocky hill, the full stretch of the galaxy came into view, dominating the sky with the glowing brilliance of a million suns. It was among the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
She blinked and turned from the image to concentrate on her walk. At last, after an hour in her suit and 15 months of searching through records so ancient some were just faded images of faded copies, she discovered what she was looking for.
The ruins were ancient—according to the Emperor's records, even older than the Jedi. The structure appeared crystalline in nature, though the crystals had long since blackened under the onslaught of dust from the surrounding belt. She approached one of the diagonally-leaning spears and rubbed it with her thumb. Many centimeters of soot and debris came free at the touch. Underneath that, sparking under the light of her helmet, appeared to be a shining gleam of white crystal.
The entire ruin was composed of these diagonal spears of crystal.
She continued into the structure, careful to avoid falling. Because of its nickel-iron core, the planetoid still had a relatively strong gravitational pull. She did not want to risk a fall if there was no one within a hundred light years who could help her.
Once inside, she removed a thin rod from her utility pack and attached the head of a lamp to it. The lamp produced a significant brilliance that lit the interior of the whole structure. The ruin appeared huge, as large as the Emperor's main audience chamber. As the light shone out, the surrounding walls seemed to capture and absorb the light, giving the entire space an eerie white glow muted only by dust and soot.
She began the climb down the odd pedestals that formed an impromptu set of stairs until she stood on a platform composed of one giant pillar of crystal. In the center of this platform rested a mesh of thin spears of crystal shooting across each other at 90 degree angles, forming a space underneath. Unlike all the surrounding crystal, though, these spears of crystal were green in color.
The woman crossed the platform, grabbed one end of one of the crystals, and kicked at the base. Her insulated boot bounced away without even scratching the crystal. She pulled, kicked and hit, but could not break the shards. Finally, in frustration, she removed her blaster and fired.
The nearest crystal cracked under the blast and fell to the floor with a thud felt more through her boots than heard. She continued firing until she exposed the space underneath.
The space was a bier, and resting upon it was the ancient, mummified skeleton of what appeared to be a human man. The man wore a shirt of gold thread, still untouched by time, and a thick kilt lined with ancient symbols completely alien from any language the woman had ever seen despite her extensive research in languages.
Then she saw the symbol. In a way, it resembled a side-ways Aurebesh letter enth. Only the ends were connected to form a sideways 8 shape. It was, among many ancient civilizations, a symbol for infinity. It was also the sign of Pal-awa, reputed to be the most powerful single creature to ever live.
In her research, the woman had read many legends of Pal-awa. According to the Followers of Pal-awa, one of the early Force user movements that predated the Jedi, Pal-awa could fly through the air like a ship, was able to move mountains, and was invulnerable to anything known.
Until, on this very planetoid, a substance was discovered that could hurt and even kill the great Pal-awa. His enemies lured him here, disabled him with the green crystals, and buried him alive in open space, surrounding by his only weakness-thus ending the reign of the most powerful creature in the galaxy.
She pulled her hand-sensor from the utility pack and took a quick look at the green crystals. Even just with a minimal scan, she detected at least 23 elements never previously recorded in the galaxy. The scanner suggested the item was of extragalactic origin. "Just like you, Kale," she whispered to herself.
The woman gathered an armful of the green spears for study and duplication, turned and then began the long walk back to her ship. As soon as she reached it, she took one last look at the wide swathe of galaxy that had swung back into view again.
"I'm going to kill you, Kale Naberrie," Mara Jade said to the stars above. "I'm so sorry."
~~Empire~~
~~Empire~~
The tauntaun was an odd creature, Kale thought to himself as he rode the beast across the frozen seas of Hoth.
Where it had exposed skin, the skin was scaly, and yet it was covered in thick white fur that had the same properties as fiber optics to transmit Hoth's dim sunlight directly onto the creature's dark, scaly skin underneath. They produced live young but not milk; in essence they were furry reptiles with warm blood and live young. It was something to think about as Kale went on his daily patrol around the perimeter of the Rebel base.
Kale Naberrie was eighteen years old. He turned eighteen right there on Hoth, and on that day put on the Rebel uniform for the first time. Prior to that, he served as helper, courier, and heavy lifter—lifting things like boxes, transport crates and occasionally a fighter ship in need of maintenance.
Now, two weeks after his birthday, he rode patrol along the perimeter of the base in the coldest place he had ever been. He could not have been happier. The cold did not bother him, and the white sun, though distant, still warmed him inside.
"Hey kid, you there?" Colonel Han Solo's voice said from the com badge on the back of Kale's glove.
"Here."
"How you holding up?"
"I love it."
"You're weird, kid. I'm freezing my bloodstripes off. There's not enough life on this rock to fill a space cruiser. I'm heading back."
Kale nodded and started to voice his agreement when he saw a streak of light flash down a few hills away. "Han, I just saw an asteroid I better check out. I'll get back to you as soon as I can."
"Alright. See you back at the base."
Suddenly the tauntaun started howling in fright and jumping from foot to foot. "Whoa there, girl, what's the matter?" Kale asked.
Suddenly he heard a shocking roar and looked up in time for his face to meet a massively broad claw. The force of the impact sent Kale sprawling into the snow. He looked up as the wampa snapped the tauntaun's neck. The massive bipedal creature then crouched low as it turned its attention back to Kale and charged.
Kyle stood to meet the attack, braced his feet in the snow and ice as good as he could, and as the creature came into range, delivered a ringing uppercut punch.
The wampa flew backward twenty meters and landed with a loud thud and exhalation of breath in the snow. Kale walked past his mount, sorrowfully touching the dead creature's head as he moved, until he stood before the wampa. "Wanna try that again?" he asked.
The wampa did not move.
"Okay then."
Sometimes being super strong and nearly invincible was just fun.
Suddenly he heard an incredible loud, piercing shriek that brought him to his knees. It was a sound unlike anything he had heard before. Moments later he felt an intense heat from within his coats and heater vest. He pulled his winter coat open and suddenly jerked his head back against the bright green light shining from within his vest.
It was his crystal that Ben had given him three years before—the crystal from his ship.
He held it up, and again it seemed to shriek at him. In reflex, he threw the crystal to the north and threw it hard.
If the crystal had significant weight, it could have traveled under Kale's throw several hundred kilometers, possibly even into low orbit. However, wind alone was enough to slow its passage regardless of the power of the throw behind it. The crystal only traveled twenty kilometers before it hit the hard-packed snow and ice.
The crystal rested there for a moment, before the snow and ice beneath it began to melt and actually vaporize under an intense heat. In just seconds, the green crystal melted below the surface of the frozen ocean.
A gradual hum grew from the ground below, like one of the many earthquakes the tectonically active planet experienced. The icy surface began to crack and groan. Suddenly a spear of white crystal a centimeter wide at the tip and ten meters wide at the base thrust up from the snow and ice at a 90 degree angle. Nearby, an identical spear shot out of the ground at the same angle, but in exactly the opposite direction. Similar spears sprouted from the icy ocean of Hoth growing both in size and frequency.
Twenty kilometers away, Kale both heard the rumbling and saw the white flashes of light in the sky. The flashes were so bright the whole sky darkened before them. He did not know what was happening, but felt an overwhelming, instinctual need to see.
His feet lifted off the ground as he propelled himself into the air. He did not go high, though. Like his first and most beloved teacher, Ben Kenobi, Kale Naberrie did not like heights. He knew it was an irrational fear since heights could not really hurt him. His fear lay more in the lack of control he felt on the occasional times when he flew.
Still, he had to see what was happening. He "pushed" against the air behind him, and suddenly he was zipping through Hoth's thin, cold atmosphere toward the site of the crystal's landing. The ground flew by a few meters under him, forcing him to rise when it did over the many mountain ridges.
Finally, though, he reached the site of the crystal's landing.
Kale landed as normal, with a crash that sent him sprawling into the snow. He quickly picked himself up and stared in shock.
The single green crystal had somehow created a massive fortress, easily as large as the rebel's main hangar, or possibly even larger, all made of brilliant white crystals. It was the most beautiful thing Kale had ever seen, and he did not even bother to try and resist the pull of it. He walked toward it with a sense of both excitement and fear.
If asked later, he would never be able to recount the journey into the fortress. He could not remember what path he took or how. His memories of the fortress did not begin until he stood on a platform overlooking a massive open chamber of glowing white crystal, with what looked like a panel before him filled with different crystals all shaped like his first one, but of a clear white.
He took one of the crystals and slid it into a slot in the crystalline panel that appeared made for just that purpose.
A glow formed in the center of the open chamber. It expanded and grew and took on definition, until at last Kale found himself staring at a face at once familiar and alien.
The face seemed to look directly at him, and when the hologram's lips moved, the whole fortress seemed to thrum with his voice. "My son, you do not remember me. I am Jor-El. I am ... your father. By now you will have reached your eighteenth year of time as it is measured on Earth. By that same reckoning I will have been dead for many thousands of your years. The knowledge that I have, of matters physical and historic, I have given to you fully on your voyage to your new home. These are important matters, to be sure, but still matters of mere fact. There are questions to be asked and it is time for you to do so. Here in this Fortress of Solitude we shall try to find the answers together." The face paused and then said. "Speak."
Kale asked the question that had haunted him his entire life. "Who am I?"
The face smiled compassionately. "Your name is Kal-El. You are the only survivor of the planet Krypton. Even though you have been raised as a human being, you are not one of them. You have great powers, only some of which you have, as yet, discovered.
While it is forbidden for you to interfere with human history itself, your leadership can stir others to their own capacity for moral betterment. They can be a great people, Kal-El. They wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason
above all—their capacity for good—I have sent them you. My only son."
Kale—Kal-El—stood transfixed upon hearing the names and places of his past. Krypton. It was not a planet he had heard of. "You said I was on Earth. But I didn't come to anyplace called Earth. I landed on a planet called Tattooine and was raised on the planet Naboo."
The face lost its smile. "My son, this cannot be. I chose Earth because you would be safest there. The names you speak of are in a galaxy on the other side of the known universe from where I sent you. It is a galaxy of strife and discontent, constantly fighting among its own. Your mother Lara and I would never have chosen such a place for you."
"I'm here," Kale said. "I have always been here."
"And you have suffered," the hologram said, somehow sensing the shadow of loss within Kale. "I see that you have lost much and experienced much pain your mother and I would have saved you from. Oh my son, I grieve for you in spirit."
Kale bowed his head a moment. "I've lost the family that raised me," he admitted. "And the Sith want me dead."
The face of his father stared down at him with a firm line to his chin. "The Sith know what you are?"
"They know they can't kill me like normal people."
"And the Jedi?"
The fact that Jor-El even knew the word made Kale feel slightly better. "The Jedi are almost extinct. The last of the Jedi masters is actually here on Hoth training a new apprentice."
"Then bring this Jedi master before me."
"I will."
~~Empire~~
~~Empire~~
When Colonel Han Solo found Princess Leia Organa in the mostly unused cafeteria, he expected her to be drinking caf and reading over flimsiplast procurement reports or tactical summaries. Instead, he walked in and found her dancing.
There was no other way he could describe the exercise she was performing. With the little green frog constantly jabbering to her about the Force, Leia spun, twirled and leapt about with all the grace and agility of the best Twi'lek dancers in the Imperial Ballet. She moved with her eyes closed and a glowing blue lightsaber in her hands, making intricate patterns of light that seemed to harbor a message Han simply wasn't smart enough to read.
Then it really got interesting. The table Yoda stood on began to rise gently into the air. Nearby, unused water barrels began to rise into the air. All around, objects lifted gently into the air.
"Good, good," Yoda continued to jabber. "Through the Force, things you will see. The past. The future. Let the Force flow through you, and guide your mind."
"Ahh!" Leia squawked and suddenly everything spilled, including Yoda's table. She opened her eyes and saw the Jedi master picking himself up with a wan expression. "Oh Master, I'm so sorry."
"Saw something, you did," he said.
She nodded. "I thought I saw Kale die," she whispered. "I saw a lightsaber through his chest."
"Unlikely this is," Yoda said. "If so, dead long ago he would be."
"Yes, Master." She nodded, and only then looked up to see Han.
He watched a strange play of emotion speed across her face. First a spark of happiness, then distrust followed quickly by haughty indifference. "Can I help you, Colonel?" she asked.
"I was just wondering if you'd seen the kid, that's all," he said as he sauntered in. "Say, those were some nifty moves you had going there. Was that a Jedi thing?"
"Jedi thing," Yoda said, cackling. "Yes. Jedi thing."
Outside they heard an exclamation and a huge crash. Han and Leia rushed out into the hall just in time to see Kale Naberrie apologizing profusely to the pilot of a Y-wing bomber even as he righted the tipped-over ship. "Sorry again," he said. "I was in a hurry."
"Yeah, I know, Kale," the pilot said with a forced smile. The crew of the base was, quite frankly, afraid of Kale. Although he had never given anyone of them reason to fear, those who were on Yavin IV remembered how he almost killed someone using an entire caf dispenser as a club.
Kale looked up, his cheeks red with embarrassment, just as he saw his targets. "Han, Leia, Master Yoda!"
"Yes." "Yes." "Yes."
All three answered, and Leia shot Han an irritated glare before stepping forward. "Kale, what's wrong? Why were you in such a hurry?"
"Something wonderful!" Kale said. "I saw my father. My real father!"
"Hmmm," Han said. "Let me guess. Princess here is Darth Vader's daughter, and you're the Emperor's, right?"
"Whah?" Kale looked so lost Han felt almost embarrassed for even trying. "No," Kale continued. "The crystal. The one Ben found in my ship. It…it…My father wanted to speak with you, Master Yoda. He said I was to bring you before him."
Yoda stood staring at Kale for the longest time. "Time it is, then," he said. "Go with you I will."
"We might as well all go," Han said. "I'd give anything to miss the briefing this evening."
"Is getting out of meetings the only thing you think of, Colonel Solo?"
Han appeared to think a moment, and then grinned. "Not the only thing, Your Highnessness."
"Children, enough," Yoda said with unusual finality. "To Kale's father we will go."
~~Empire~~
~~Empire~~
Darth Vader meditated within his own fortress of solitude: his hyperbaric chamber.
Divested of his helmet and surrounded by a medically necessary mix of oxygen, water, and a mild bronchial agent to assist his breathing, Vader sat with his eyes closed. In his mind, a harsh whisper said again and again: "Is this how you killed my mother?"
It was a question that had haunted him for the past three years, but it brought back memories that haunted him for a lifetime. Standing on the Death Star, with his daughter's fragile neck gripped in the vice of his cybernetic hand, Darth Vader found himself standing again on Mustafar, squeezing the life from his beloved Padmé through the Force. The look in her eyes seared his soul just as surely as the fires of Mustafar had seared his skin.
You told me she died, Master.
And so she did, Lord Vader. The Jedi must have clouded my vision… Darth Vader opened his eyes and realized with all the certainty of epiphany that his master had lied to him the fist time, and did so again the second, and that his fall to the Dark Side had been nothing more than another trick played upon him by the master trickster. Palpatine's power was not brute force, but manipulation and control. And he found in a gullible young Jedi the perfect hand to execute his will.
For a moment, the flecks of orange in Darth Vader's eyes faded slightly.
Suddenly a beeping alerted him to the presence of an officer. The computer automatically lowered his helmet and mask, and in a moment the chamber opened to reveal Mara Jade. Behind her lay Admiral Ozzel, very dead.
"This is not my Lifeday, Mara Jade," Darth Vader said as he stood. "I do not require any gifts."
Mara cocked her head, as if unsure it was a joke. "He was ignoring important information on the Rebel whereabouts."
"Oh?" He stepped out of his chambers and looked down at the dead officer. "As stupid as he was clumsy. I take it he still had hard feelings over the Reprisal incident?"
She looked down and nudged the blaster in his hand. Vader did not bother to follow her gaze. "You should have been patient, Mara. He would have made a mistake sooner rather than later, and I would have removed him for you."
"This way the crew fears me too," she pointed out. "The Emperor has assigned me to assist you, and if they're afraid of me, they'll be that much more terrified of you."
"They already are." He swept past the corpse of his former subordinate and led the way to the bridge of the super star destroyer Executor. "You have information regarding the location of the Rebel Base?"
"Hoth System," she said with absolutely certainty. "One of our droids detected a generator there."
Vader nodded. "Very well, Mara Jade. Inform Captain Piett to take the fleet to Hoth, and advise the admiral of his new rank."
"Yes, M'lord," Mara said with a bow.
~~Legacy~~
~~Legacy~~
Han set the speeder down on the flat top of a massive crystal column on the side of the fortress. "And you're saying this just popped up over a few minutes?"
"Yeah, it's neat, isn't it?" Kale gushed.
Yoda allowed Kale to lift him from the speeder and carry him across the maze of pillars and crystals, until the four of them stood again on the platform. Kale took the same crystal as before and slid it into a waiting sheath. A moment later, a massive hologram of a face appeared.
"My son, you have returned," the face of Jor-El said.
"Yes, father. And I brought Master Yoda with me."
His gimer stick in hand, Yoda hobbled to the edge of the platform and regarded the face, which in turn tilted down in the air to return the gaze. "Of Pal-awa's people, you are," Yoda said.
"Yes," the hologram said. "Pal-awa was a son of Krypton, as is Kal-El."
"Only in my earliest youth many hundred of years ago, did I hear of Pal-awa," Yoda said. "A god, he was. But not a good one. Many did he kill. Unwelcome his kind is in this galaxy."
The expression on Jor-El's face was somber, his lips barely moving as he spoke. "It was never our intent for Kal-El to come to you. I have searched through the records of his flight crystal and found evidence of a black hole that redirected his vessel through space and time."
Yoda nodded. "It is as it is. Why ask to speak with me?"
"Because my son may not be alone in your galaxy. His ship followed a similar trajectory as a prison we constructed for three of our worst felons. It is possible that if his ship ended in your galaxy, so too might these felons. I warn you, Master Jedi, that these three would have all the same powers as my son, but with the blackest of souls."
"News of these I have not heard," Yoda said. "But warned we are, with gratitude." He rapped on Kale's knee with his stick. "And of young Kale, what are we to do?"
"He must be trained to harness his powers, both physical and spiritual," Jor-El said. "And once he has mastered his Kryptonian nature, then to your hands I deliver him. For even on Krypton, many galaxies away, we have heard of the Jedi. Perhaps if Pal-awa had been raised a Jedi, he would not have been unwelcome in your galaxy. Now, I ask that you leave, so that I may begin my son's training."
Han started to open his mouth, but stopped when Leia elbowed him. She graciously offered her shoulder for Yoda to ride, since in his age he found walking for long periods difficult. As they were leaving, they saw a bright beam of light shoot down from the pillars above to impale Kale in the chest, lifting him from the floor as more light formed a cylindrical wall around him. Leia thought she caught shapes and events reflected on the interior of the light, including men in red-tinted robes falling some incredible distance.
"So we came all this way for old dad to tell us about some bad cousins of Kale's?" Han said when they finally climbed back into the speeder.
"A grave warning it was," Yoda said. "Invincible, Kale nearly is, and generates strength enough to destroy planets. Imagine three others of his kind, with the souls like that of the Emperor."
"There's a thought," Han said. "Maybe they can take out the Emperor."
"A million times worse would such beings be," Yoda said. "Let us hope this prison of theirs remains unfound."
Leia shivered as a blast of snow pulled the open speeder doors wide. "We'd better head back. It's going to be night soon."
"And just leave the kid out here?"
"In no danger is Kale," Yoda said. "Safe he is in his father's hands."
"I guess no sparring for me tonight," Leia muttered. "He's the best sparring partner I could have had. If I slipped and hit him, it didn't hurt."
"You could always spar with me, Princess."
"You don't know how to use a lightsaber."
"Who said anything about lightsabers?"
Yoda sighed and sank lower in his seat. "Home we should go. Tired I am."
~~Empire~~
~~Empire~~
That night, Leia found herself unable to sleep. She dressed in her thermal body suit, slacks and vest, and aimlessly wandered the halls. The night watch nodded to her as she passed by.
In the command center, the three techs on duty smiled as she stepped in briefly. She smiled back and eventually made her way out. Finally, her steps took her back to the cafeteria, where she thought she might get in a workout to tire herself out.
"Expecting you, I was," Yoda said from atop the nearest table.
Leia knew better than to be surprised. "Master," she said with a bow.
"Sit with me," he said. She sat on the table bench. With him on the top, they were of a similar height.
"Grave news you must know," he said, chuckling for some reason. "Grave news. Dying, I am. An excellent student you are, young Padawan, but drained me, these last years have. Leave Hoth, I will not."
Leia felt something inside of her go cold. For the past three years, Yoda had been more than a teacher. He had become the father figure she had lost. He had given comfort and advice when needed most. "Master, if you die, then how will the Jedi continue?"
"Through you," Yoda said. "Many Jedi have I trained, from birth most. In three years, you approach the skills of one trained for twenty. Proud I am of you, Leia Organa Skywalker. Though your heart is that of your mother, your father's power in the Force do you possess."
"I wonder what Luke would have been like?" she asked.
"Stronger, perhaps. A brilliant light in the Force was he. Mourned his loss, I did." Yoda sighed deeply, then reached out a small, three-fingered hand and gently touched Leia's cheek. "Confession I must make to you, Padawan. It was I who drove Anakin to the Dark Side."
Leia shook her head. "It was the Emperor who did that."
"Perhaps." He tapped his gimer stick unconsciously against his knee. "Tell you this, I must. For my own sake. Before the Purge, harsh in judgment was I. The rule of no attachments mine was. With your father, though, such rules were wrong. Love, he did. So strongly it blazed like his power. Those who he liked, loved did he. Moderation, he knew not. It was love. Or it was hate." The ancient Jedi sighed. "Came to me, he did. A dream of terrible loss he had, of losing your mother. Dreamed she died, did he, and the fear of this dream drove him." Yoda looked up and locked Leia in a gaze. "To me he came for guidance. Told him I did, 'Learn to let go that which you fear to lose.'"
"You told him to leave everything he loved," she whispered.
"To all young Jedi, did I say this," Yoda said. "But wrong it was, for Anakin. Blinded was I by my own pride, my own rules. The Dark Side I missed in his eyes that moment. Do anything for your mother, he would have. Lied to him, Palpatine did, but his lies worked only because failed I did."
"What do you think you should have done differently?"
"Accepted that Anakin needed love, above all else. That thin is the line between love and hate. And that your mother made him whole. Allayed his fear, I should have. With Jedi healers and he whole and loved by her side, live she would have."
Leia took the venerable old Jedi's tiny hand in hers. "Master, you have told me many times to look to the here and now. I am here, now. Though my brother is gone, you gave me a wonderful life with Bail as my father. If forgiveness you need, I give it to you freely. But do not feel sorry for what has happened. My father is what he is."
"A fine Jedi will you make," Yoda said. He lifted his stick and touched first each of her shoulders, then finally her forehead. "Leia Skywalker, by the Will of the Force, you are a knight. And a good knight you will be."
