"Whoa!" Luke pulled gently on reins, and leaned over to pet the pure white neck of his equine mount. What did the Diswalti who loaned the animal to him call her? Jingles? Yes, that was it. "Good girl, Jingles." At least she smelled much better than a tauntaun.
It had been a long, solitary trek through woods heavily overgrown with tall, dense trees that allowed only slivers of sunlight to pierce their overlapping foliage. Few birds sang or mammals grunted, their noise seemingly absorbed by the thick leaves. Even the clip-clop of Jingles's hooves on the narrow path was muted.
Luke tried to relax, to stay calm and keep his Force sense open, hoping he would be allowed to glimpse whether his attempt to rescue his friends would end in tragedy or success. But he kept coming up against those same strange Force-free bubbles he encountered during the firefight with the stormtroopers. As soon as he passed through one, another would spring up to take its place. It made the journey uncomfortable, not to mention disorienting.
Finally, the path broke free of the forest and a burst of dazzling late afternoon sunlight nearly blinded him. At the same time the Force flooded back, heightening his senses to an almost painful degree. When he could focus, he saw he had found his destination, just as the Diswalti who loaned him the equine had said.
A large stone castle, some two kilometers distant, rose in the middle of the clearing. A thick wall of polished black stone, as high as ten Wookies standing on each other's shoulders, surrounded the main hall of the castle, topped with turrets with sharply conical roofs. But what most caught Luke's eye was the lone tall tower soaring high into sky, capped with another, smaller turret just big enough to contain a single room. He used his macrobinoculars to bring the details into sharper focus. HoloNet transceiver arrays were just visible, crowning the steeply tilted blue tiled roof.
This had to be the lair of the Beast. And it meant the Beast had a direct means of communication with the Emperor. Palpatine surely knew by now that Han, Leia and Chewie were firmly in his reach. Luke knew it was possible, of course, but it came like a kick to the solar plexus to have absolute proof.
A low, long canine howl came from the woods. The equine danced sideways, her dark eyes damp with fear. She tossed her snowy head, causing the bells on her harness to softly chime. "It's okay," Luke soothed her, although he felt nothing of the kind.
He had one chance to make this right. One chance to – yet again- get his friends out of a trap that was meant for him. Only this time, he doubted that the Emperor wanted just a location.
He took out his comlink, and keyed it to the frequency Han had assured him was secure and unable to be sliced by any Imperials trying to listen in. "You there?" he asked, keeping his voice low.
"I am here, Master Luke, if you are referring to me. Although I am not quite sure what you mean by there. If you mean if I am onboard the Millennium Falcon, then I am able to answer in the affirmative." Threepio's voice boomed over the comlink's tinny speaker.
Luke bit back his smile. Even in a crisis, Threepio was….Threepio. "Good. I am activating my comlink's holorecorder. Stay on this frequency and monitor the image feed. Be ready to bring the Falcon in at any moment. The nav computer should be able to use the images to find a safe place to land."
"Master Luke, I am programmed for human-cyborg relations. I am not an astromech droid. The idea of having to interface with this ship's computers!" The horror in Threepio's voice couldn't be more apparent.
"You're fluent in over six million forms of communication, right?" Luke whispered in the comm.
"Of course, Master Luke! But I thought you said the Diswaltis spoke Basic? They might be using the Orlanheim dialect. I am told it can be quite difficult for humans from the Core to understand the difference in vowel pronunciation. But since you are from the Outer Rim you should—"
"So think of the nav computer as yet another language," Luke said. "Are you telling me you can't master a simple Corellian freighter's binary code?"
"Well!" Threepio huffed. He was silent for a minute, a most unusual occurrence in Luke's experience. "I suppose I can try to remember the most rudimentary communication basics, if I must."
"So please try." Luke shook his head. Threepio had complained of the Falcon's onboard computers' rudeness throughout the entire journey. Luke had a suspicion the Falcon's systems took their cues from Han when it came to interfacing with Threepio. "Han has a beacon call spliced into the Falcon. All you need to do is make sure the ship is ready to receive the signal when Han provides it, and then stays on course. We're counting on you, Threepio."
"You're counting on me, Master Luke? Oh, you won't regret it! I will ensure that this most recalcitrant ship obeys my every command and—"
Luke shut off the comlink. He'd wasted enough time as it was. He regarded his options. Those smooth polished walls were too high for even a Jedi to jump over. Nor did they appear to have any potential foot- or handholds for climbing. And he doubted storming the castle with just his lightsaber would impress anyone. It would only get him killed.
Another howl from the forest, louder this time. Jingles whinnied, and pawed the ground with her right hoof. She tossed her head, ripping the reins from Luke's loose grasp.
"Easy, girl!" He reached out a hand to pat her neck, and then made a grab for the fallen reins. Jingles reared high into the air, her front legs pawing at the sky. Caught off balance, Luke slid off the equine's back, his fall broken by layers of moss and dead vegetation. Jingles took off at a dead run, the reins flapping madly behind her. She disappeared into the forest, the faint chiming of the bells of her harness soon dissipating.
Luke looked up. The sun was quickly disappearing behind the castle's main hall. He'd been warned that if he ventured into the forest, he needed to find a secure shelter before the last rays of light faded. It seemed Jingles felt the same way, if her sudden flight toward home was any indication.
There was only thing left to do: knock at the castle's front door and demand his friends be returned. Then Han could use the beacon call, the Falcon would swoop in, and they'd fly away. It was a terrible long shot, but so was hitting the Death Star's thermal exhaust post.
Hopefully, "Jedi mind tricks" would be enough to at least get him inside so he could search for Han, Leia and Chewie.
Or not, if the inhabitants of the castle had more of those Force bubble things lying around.
Only one way to find out.