notes: 1) I'm on a freaking roll.

2) Okay, here's the big one. I actually made a massive edit to the story. Basically, Leia doesn't know who Luke's parents are yet - ergo she doesn't know they're siblings. In Part 3: Chapter 1, now, Kitster and Chewie hide Luke's true parentage from him, claiming that his mother was a "nobody from Naboo" and that his father was just a navigator on a spice freighter who just so happens to have had the same name as Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight. So Chewie knows. Kitster Banai knows. Luke and Leia do not.

3) Because of 2 I had to edit a bunch of other chapters to take out all references to the "secret" Leia was keeping from Luke. I might have missed one or two, though, so if you read through and catch one, please let me know!

4) I hope you enjoy, and I'd love to hear any feedback you have!

CHAPTER 9

"It's no use!"

Luke slammed a clenched fist down on the console before him, anger burning hot and gold in his eyes, the desert screaming in his chest. Beside him, Chewie warbled a comforting, soothing sound—but Luke only flicked his eyes angrily over at the Wookiee and scowled.

"We're never going to find this facility."

They had been looking for three hours—three long, grueling hours of flying between drifting chunks and hunks of rock and ice, scanning visually and with instruments for any energy readings, any artificial lights, any glimmer of starlight off of durasteel and plastisteel.

Only they had found nothing. Nothing but rock and ice and black, empty space.

Luke had tried to use the Force. He had closed his eyes and emptied his lungs of air, cast his mind and thoughts out into the ether and searched for life. All he had done was given himself a headache.

"It's no use," Luke went on. "I can't use the Force. Not on purpose. Not in a situation like this. I don't know how to."

Chewie huffed, then wrote on his notepad. Luke took it from him, and read, Didn't you do so on the Imperial ship?

"That was different," Luke protested.

How? Chewie asked.

"We were in physical danger," Luke said. "It was all instinct. I don't—I can't seem to do it again."

Have you tried?

"Of course I've tried!" Luke said hotly. "What do you think I've been doing?"

Trying to do what you think the Force asks of you, was Chewie's reply. Not actually using the Force.

Luke gnawed at his lip. "Okay," he said slowly, and then sank into his mind.

"Leia?" he called.

"Yes?" she asked, sullen.

"Will you help me?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

Luke sighed. "Leia…"

"I don't think this is a good idea," said Leia shortly.

"But—"

"You don't know what using the Force will lead you to," said Leia. "You don't…" She trailed off in frustration, before adding bluntly, "I'm not going to help you."

"What about on the Imperial ship?"

"That was different," said Leia. "That was you."

"I'm not more important than Han."

"Yes," said Leia bluntly. "You are."

"Fine," said Luke bitterly. "I'll save Han on my own."

He withdrew from Leia—and cut his connection to her. He could still feel her existence, sitting in the back of his mind, but no longer could he sense her thoughts and feelings with a passing question. For half a second, an instant, a breath, he felt a flash of Leia's surprised pain at their parting—but then it disappeared behind the wall he had erected between them.

Angry, smarting, hurting, Luke closed his eyes again. "Okay," he said, taking a deep breath. "Let's try this again."

He breathed out. Breathed in. Out.

And this time, he listened.

He listened for fire. He listened for a siren's song. He listened for Light, or Dark, or anything in between. He listened…

Chewie grunted. The engines hummed. The vents buzzed. The console beeped once, twice, three times. A shield alarm went off, then was silenced.

Outside, the asteroids tumbled endlessly through the vacuum of space. The ice groaned silently. The absence of air devoured itself. It was a thousand sounds all at once, all deafening, all absolutely, utterly, entirely quiet, the sound waves destroyed in a ravenous maw.

Within, his heart beat. His lungs shushed with air. His blood rushed through his veins. His spine popped as he stretched.

Listen, Luke told himself. Find out what using the Force actually is.

It was…it was—what? It was what?

It was fire, was it not?

It was heat.

It was life.

Fire. It was fire.

Find the fire.

Luke searched within himself, looking for that ball of blue fire he had found in himself those days ago on the Imperial ship. He crept along his ribs, snuck between his muscles, edged up his spine, searching all the while. Searching, searching…

Heat blossomed in his fingers, starting at the tips of his nails and then slowly spreading into his palms, up into his wrists, toward his elbows. It was a soft warmth, a gentle warmth, a familiar warmth, like curling up beneath a blanket beside the fire on a cold desert night. It was like sinking his hands into a sink of warm water. It was like comfort, and gentleness.

It was like home.

I'm here.

The voice was a woman's voice—a voice he recognized as if from a dream. Or a dream of a dream. It was a voice he knew he should know—would know, if only he could stop and think.

But stop and think he could not do. He had to search, to find. He had to save Han.

Han.

Yes, he was doing this for Han. He was going to save Han, in spite of what Leia said and suggested. He could not allow Han to simply die. He couldn't. He had to do what he could—whatever he could—to save him. And if that meant risking himself, then so be it.

But you're risking the whole galaxy, a soft, tenuous, sneaking voice whispered.

I won't Fall, Luke told the voice. I won't. You can't make me.

We shall see, a new voice whispered in his ears and mind. We shall see…

Luke's eyes snapped open. "That way," he gasped, and pointed to the left of the ship. Chewie quickly changed course, directing them underneath a large, floating chunk of stone embedded through with crystals of ice. He howled—and somehow, somehow, even though he had no direct translation, he knew what Chewie meant.

You found it? the Wookiee had wanted to know.

"Yes," said Luke. "I found it."

It had been less a finding of the medical facility, and more a finding of life. A spot within the asteroid belt teemed with it—rang with it, echoed with it, shouted with it. The Force vibrated around it, echoes of something long-past and long-gone reverberating through the space where the Force existed in an almost tangible way.

It's there, thought Luke. It has to be there.

But what else is there?

Chewie nudged them around a final asteroid, massive and spinning—and there, gleaming in the starlight and the Falcon's lamps, was a sleek, well-kept facility half-buried in the rock of an even larger asteroid.

"There," Luke said, grinning. "We found it."

Chewie huffed—and Luke found he could no longer understand the Wookiee.

"Huh?"

Chewie scribbled on the notepad, then took the controls once more, guiding them toward the medical facility. Luke looked down and read quickly, No, you found it.

Luke smiled. "I guess I did," he said.

Their comm unit crackled to life, and an official-sounding voice said through the speakers, "Unidentified vessel, turn back now. This is private property, and you do not have authorization to be here."

A beat. Chewie looked at Luke, and Luke looked at Chewie—then realized what the Wookiee wanted him to do.

"Oh!" Luke exclaimed, and reached for the comm. He pressed the button that allowed him to talk, then spoke into the comm.

"Hi. Sorry. But we can't turn back. We have someone injured on-board who needs medical attention at once, and you're the only place within days of us that won't shoot on sight. Please, help us."

"Negative," came the instant reply. "Turn back now."

"Please," Luke said again, hating sounding like he was begging but not knowing what else to do or say. "Without your help, he'll probably die—and die painfully."

"Negative," came the same reply, followed once again by, "Turn back now."

"What can we do or say to get you to help us?" Luke asked.

"Turn back now, or we will be forced to escort you away from the facility, Mr. …"

"Skywalker," said Luke—before glancing frantically at Chewie. He took his finger off of the button, then said, "I shouldn't have told them that, should I have?"

Chewie shook his head and groaned. Luke screwed his eyes shut tight, and clenched his teeth. "Damn," he whispered.

What was going to happen now? Were they going to be reported to the Empire? Was he about to be found out? Was he going to be betrayed and turned over to the Emperor?

Or did whoever was manning the facility not know the surname Skywalker? Could he possibly be in the dark about what that name meant? What it portended? What person it was attached to? Could he possibly just be stupid, and unable to put one and one together?

"Unidentified ship," came a different voice over the comm, "you are clear to land."

Chewie grabbed the notepad and wrote quickly, then shoved it into Luke's lap. It's a trap.

Luke nodded. "But we have to get Han help," he pointed out. "Maybe we…I dunno, let them stabilize him, then steal him back, and make a run for it?"

Chewie huffed. Shook his head. Nodded.

It's the best plan we've got, he wrote, and then piloted the Falcon toward the indoor landing garage, separated from the outside lack of atmosphere by a forcefield.

They landed with a hiss of decompressing air and the groans of the landing struts. Chewie looked at Luke, and Luke looked at Chewie, and offered him a shaky grin.

"Well?" said Luke. "Let's see if we can pull this off."

They rose, and walked together to the infirmary, where Han was lying unconscious on the bunk. He had yet to awaken after he had blacked out from the pain—which was at once a blessing and a curse.

Chewie gathered him into his arms, then allowed Luke to lead the way back out of the infirmary and toward the landing ramp, which hissed as Luke lowered it and opened the door.

A welcoming party was standing at the foot of the ramp. It consisted of two guards dressed in identical garb—long, dark trousers, blue shirts, black vests, and rounded helmets—with blasters in their hands and vibroknives on their hips; a human woman wearing a doctor's coat over a blue turtleneck and a black pants; and a short man with greying hair and sharp, blue eyes. He was wearing no rank insignia or sign of leadership, but Luke could tell by the way he was holding himself—the way his shoulders were squared, the way his eyes stared at them with flat emotion, the way the guards behind him shadowed his every move—that he was the one in charge.

"Welcome to Polis Massa, Luke Skywalker," said the man, folding his arms behind him. "I've long wondered if you would find your way here."

Luke frowned. "Um," he said. "What?"

The man raised his eyebrows. "You…" He trailed off.

Chewie howled, and the man looked past Luke to the Wookiee. For a long second there was only confusion—and then, like the flicker of flame on the end of a match, there blossomed recognition.

"Chewbacca?" the man all but squawked.

Chewie growled.

"He—" The man swallowed, then nodded. "I expect more information later," he said, his eyes falling on Han. "I see that you have an injured companion, though."

Chewie warbled a reply.

"This way," said the man, and the two guards stepped silently to the side to allow the man and the doctor to pass.

Luke looked at Chewie, confused. "What was that all about?" he asked as Chewie started down the ramp once more.

But Chewie only shook his head and followed the man out of the hangar and through the large, double blast doors, into a long corridor, down another hall, and then through a second door. It opened up onto a clean, sterile hallway splitting two surgeries, one on either side, with bays of windows overlooking the rooms.

"I will let Amara take you the rest of the way," said the man, motioning to the doctor at his side. Chewie nodded, and continued to follow her as she led the way out the other side of the hall, disappearing behind the door as it slid shut.

Luke made to follow as well, but was stopped by the man's hand on his shoulder. "Luke," said the man, and Luke turned with confusion and concern.

"How do you know my name?" he asked.

The man smiled, but the gesture was grim. "You announced it to us plain and clear," he pointed out.

Luke blushed. "You seem to know me, though," he went on.

The man sighed. "I know of you," he said.

"How? Why?" Luke demanded.

The man motioned to the guards, and they saluted and left, the door hissing as it shut behind them.

"My name is Carlist Rieekan," said the man, "and I knew someone who was dear to your mother."

Luke frowned. "But my mother was a nobody," he said. "Just somebody from Naboo."

The man's eyebrows crawled up his forehead. "Is that what you were told," he murmured, looking away from Luke and down into the left-hand surgery. The door had opened, and Chewie appeared, still carrying Han, the doctor and a handful of droids behind him. It had not been a question.

"Hm," said the man, folding his arms over his chest. "Well," he said, "I will not be the one to tell you the secrets that have apparently been kept from you. I trust Chewbacca with my life, and if he has not told you about your parents, then there is a good reason for that."

"My parents?" Luke asked. "What about them? My father was a navigator on a spice freighter."

"I'm sure he was," said Carlist.

"And my mother was just some nobody from Naboo. That's what they said."

"Of course." Carlist turned and smiled at him.

"I know there was an Anakin Skywalker who was a Jedi," Luke went on, the words tumbling out of his mouth almost faster than his tongue could form them, "but he wasn't my father. In the billions of people in this galaxy, there just so happened to be more than one person with that name. My father was a nobody, a navigator on a spice freighter. My mother was just somebody from Naboo. I'm not special. I'm a nobody too. Just a nobody from Tatooine."

Carlist's smile grew. "I know," he said simply, and reached up to clasp Luke on the shoulder. "Now if you will excuse me, I must go speak with Chewbacca."

He left, leaving Luke alone in the hallway. Luke turned and looked down at Han, now lying stretched out on the surgical table, shirt cut open to reveal the nasty blaster wound in his stomach. His head lolled to one side, his eyes were closed, and he was unusually still, but for the slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. The doctor and droids bustled around him, preparing for surgery.

Luke turned away.

The surgery on the other side of the hall was dark. For some reason, though, it drew Luke's attention—drew his eyes as if he were a moth to flame. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he stepped forward, toward the windows overlooking the surgery, gaze roving over the table and the medical instruments arrayed across the counters and hovertrays.

"Push!"

A woman screamed.

Luke gasped. For a second—just a second—he could have sworn that the lights were on in the surgery, and that a woman was laying on the operating table, a white gown hiding her nakedness, her legs bent and spread while a matronly midwife droid stood at her feet.

Luke turned and left the hallway, following after Carlist, though not knowing where he was or where he wanted to go.

He meandered until he came upon a juncture of halls. He stared around at the different options of places he could go, trying to decide which direction to take. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply—and heard a baby cry.

His eyes snapped open. The sound had come from the left, and he turned now in that direction, peering down the corridor for any sign of life. There was nothing but cold durasteel and gleaming transparisteel, doors and walls and brightly-lit ceilings.

He turned left, his mind made up. The hall curved to the right, then to the left, then down. Luke followed it lower and lower, until he realized he was likely buried beneath the surface of the asteroid itself.

Doors appeared suddenly to either side of him, marching down the corridor every dozen or so paces. Frowning, wondering just where he was—and why he had seen no one since he had left the surgery—he tried a door. It was locked.

"Push!"

Luke tensed and whirled around. "Who's there?" he called, staring back the way he had come, then turning and peering ahead of him. Nothing moved but the air as it cycled through the vents.

A baby's cry echoed down the hallway.

Luke took a step back—then stiffened his nerves and steeled his resolve and stepped forward one step, two steps, three.

The baby's cry came again, sounding muffled and from within the second door on Luke's left. He walked forward and tried it—and found it unlocked. Frowning, heart beating in his throat, Luke opened the door.

He was standing at the entrance to a large databank that stretched back and back and back, filling most of the room with wires and durasteel panels and blinking lights. A terminal interface sat on a desk only a handful of steps away, the screen black.

Luke walked into the room, the door sliding shut behind him. He pulled the chair out from under the desk, sat, and rolled himself over to the terminal. He powered on the screen, waited for it to boot up—and when it did, found himself staring at a search bar.

He hesitated. Then, curious and thinking about Carlist's strange reaction to his name, Luke typed Luke Skywalker into the interface.

A single file appeared on the screen. It was titled, Luke Skywalker: Birth Records.

"What the kriff?" Luke whispered, and selected it.

For a moment the screen was blank. Then a wavering holoimage appeared on the screen—and a shock of confusion and terror sprinted through Luke's mind and heart. It was the exact same woman he had thought he had glimpsed laying on the surgical table across from Han's surgery.

She was small and slight, with dark hair and dark eyes and pale skin. There were tears on her cheeks, and sweat on her brow as she screamed silently. There was not, it seemed, audio with the recording.

Luke watched, transfixed, as the midwife droid reached between her legs and appeared a moment later carrying a small, bloody, screaming baby. The droid placed the baby in the woman's arms. The woman held the baby for a moment—Luke, he realized; that baby was him, if the records were accurately labeled—before clenching as another contraction ripped through her body. Her lips moved, though Luke could not tell what she said. Another figure appeared on the screen, stepping in from out of frame, and took the baby from her.

The new man was ginger-haired and tall, and was wearing a brown cloak over a white tunic and brown leggings, though there were singe marks in the cloth. A lightsaber hung at his side. He turned toward the camera, a smile on his face—and a second thrill of shock and terror raced through Luke.

It was Ben. Younger, with fewer stress and sun lines, with burns and abrasions on his face—but it was, unmistakably, Ben Kenobi.

"What the kriff is going on?" Luke whispered again.

The woman opened her mouth and screamed again, hands clenching at her sides. Confused, Luke watched with a mixture of horror and fascination as the woman—as his mother —screamed, and screamed, and screamed, contraction after contraction ripping through her body.

But I've already been born, Luke thought. What—

The midwife droid bent again, reached between the woman's legs—and lifted a second child.

This child was a girl, Luke saw, small and pink, with dark eyes and a head of dark hair.

A sister, he thought dazedly. I…I have a sister.

"What are you doing down here?"

Luke whirled in the chair, nearly toppling off of it. Standing in the door was another guard, dressed in the same uniform as the others, though his blaster was in its holster on his hip. He was frowning, and his eyes were hard.

"Nothing," said Luke, unsure of how to explain that something—something—had led him there. "I'm sorry," he said hurriedly, turning and switching off the screen just as the woman on the screen—as his mother—fell still, eyes open and unseeing, body going slack.

Luke froze, eyes glued to the screen.

She did not move again.

Dead. My mother died giving birth to me—and to my sister, Luke thought, the weight of that knowledge crashing down over him with an enormous roar.

"Come on," said the guard. "We're going."

He grabbed Luke's shoulder and propelled him out of the chair and through the door, then up the hall. Luke stumbled along numbly, mind churning and thoughts tumbling, unable to calm them enough to think even one thing through.

I have a sister, kept repeating in his head. My mother died giving birth to us, followed.

What did he do with this information, though? What could he do? He wanted to find his sister—but he didn't even know what his sister's name was. How could he find her if he didn't have any clue as to who she was, other than what she had looked like as a newborn?

Perhaps Ben Kenobi would know. That would require him to find Ben Kenobi to ask him, though—and Luke was not about to leave Han and Chewie, as well as his mission to save Leia, to go demand answers about a sibling that might not even still be alive.

Kriff, Luke thought then, despair washing through him. What if she's dead?

He shook that thought from his mind. No, no. He wouldn't let himself dwell on that possibility.

His thoughts led him to another conclusion, though: Leia.

He reached out, tentative and concerned, and touched her mind. She was cold and cut off from him—was ignoring him.

"Leia?" he asked softly. "Leia, I'm sorry."

She did not answer.

"Sir?" The voice shook Luke out of his thoughts and introspections. He looked up, and saw that they had come to a small office. The door stood open, and Chewie and Carlist were inside, the man sitting behind a desk, the Wookiee sitting opposite him.

"Yes?" Carlist asked.

"I caught this kid sneaking down in our records," said the guard.

Carlist's eyes flashed as they fell on Luke. "Really." Again, it was not a question. He looked back at the guard, smiled thinly, and said, "Thank you. You're dismissed."

The guard saluted and departed with one final glare at Luke. Luke stood awkwardly in the doorway until Carlist beckoned him in and to a chair beside Chewie. He sat gingerly, folding his hands in his lap and staring at his interlaced fingers.

"What did you find?" Carlist asked.

"Nothing," Luke lied.

"Hm," said Carlist.

"You said you knew my mother?" Luke asked, still looking at his hands.

"No," said Carlist. "I knew someone who knew your mother."

"Knew?" Luke asked. "They're dead?"

"Yes." The answer was blunt and sharp.

"Oh," said Luke. "Do you know who she was?"

"Yes." This time, the answer was gentler.

"What was her name?" Luke asked.

Carlist shared a look with Chewie, who shook his head. Carlist sighed. "Chewie makes some good points," he said. "It would be…dangerous for you to know exactly who your parents are just yet."

Luke frowned. "Then my father wasn't Anakin Skywalker?"

"It's…complicated," Carlist said, after sharing another look with Chewie.

"Then explain it to me!" Luke exclaimed, frustrated.

"Not today," said Carlist. "I'm sorry, Luke. But I suspect you already know more than you should. We'll tell you no more today."

Carlist stood. "Now, I believe your friend is being put in bacta here shortly. Would you two like to be there?"

Chewie nodded and stood as well, motioning for Luke to follow suit. He did so, shoving his hands into his pockets and feeling funny.

Just what were they hiding from him, he wondered.

But he already knew the answer to that question, he realized: everything. They were hiding everything from him.

The question now was: why?

~oOo~

Han was in bacta for four hours.

During that time, Luke and Chewie sat by the bacta tank in chairs that had been pulled in from a dining room, playing game after game of cards. Chewie also began teaching Luke Shyriiwook. They started with single words and simple phrases, and by the time the doctor and droids came in once more to begin cycling the bacta out of the tank, replacing it instead with an antiseptic saline cleanser, Luke could introduce himself and wish someone a fruitful evening.

They laid Han out on a table in the corner of the room with a bacta tank, covering him with a sheet, and administered a light stimulant. The doctor left then, and the droids busied themselves with cleaning the bacta tank for its next use.

After ten minutes, Han stirred. He groaned—then opened his eyes, blinking against the dim light.

"What happened?" he asked, sitting up. The sheet fell away from his torso and pooled in his lap—and only then did he realize he was naked, but for a pair of boxers. "What happened?!" he squawked again.

Chewie howled a reply.

"I got shot?" Han echoed, indignant. "No. No way. I don't get shot."

"You did today," Luke said.

Han glared at him. "And here I was thinking you were my good luck charm," he said.

Luke shrugged. "Hey," he said. "You survived. So maybe I am."

Chewie growled, and then launched into a long lecture punctuated with howls and rumbles deep in his chest. Han's eyebrows slowly crept up his forehead and toward his hairline, and he kept glancing at Luke, until Luke shifted uncomfortably.

At the end of Chewie's tirade, Han said, "Well I'll be damned." He looked fully at Luke, then said, "So you saved me, huh?"

Luke shrugged. "I did my best," he muttered, not feeling entirely comfortable with the idea of Han thanking him.

"Huh," said Han. "Well uh…I owe you one then, Kid."

Luke looked up and grinned. "That I can accept," he said.

Han dressed, pulling on his own pants and boots, and lacing up a shirt given to him by a droid. They also gave him a vest, which he pulled on with an air of satisfaction and buttoned with relish.

"I've always been a fan of Alderaanian fashion," he said as he smoothed invisible wrinkles out from his vest.

"That's Alderaanian?" Luke asked.

Han shrugged. "Feels like Alderaanian cloth," he said, "and the cut is definitely Alderaanian."

"Oh," said Luke, feeling strange. Leia was Alderaanian. Had, once upon a time, been the princess of Alderaan.

The droids took them back to their ship. No one bade them farewell, except to give the go-ahead for the Falcon to take off. Luke found this odd—but he said nothing of it. Instead he watched as the small facility fell away beneath the Falcon as she rose higher and higher and higher still, soaring out from the asteroid field and away from the mysteries that lurked within.