Disclaimer
– All characters are property of Lucasfilm.
An AU story, at the time of
ANH - what would have happened if Biggs hadn't jumped ship and had mouthed off
at the wrong moment
about Luke's piloting skills?
Again, thanks to Brigantia
for the read through.
Shooting Stars
Chapter Seventeen
The docking bay floor
reflected three winded, nervous expressions from its glossy surface. They kept
their heads bowed as they sprinted across, as silently as possible. Luke and Biggs had shed the
hard stormtrooper shoes and all but padded along, Leia crouched between them.
"Storage cartons." Biggs
whispered, and with a hand around Leia's wrist dragged them behind the blocky
shield.
Luke took gulps of the air
as silently as possible as his gaze locked onto Biggs. He was flushed, but it
was a healthy colour, not like the sickly contrast of pale fright and red
anger. Biggs critically studied his friend. The lines that had been forming
around his eyes were gone, the blue gaze was deeper and his mouth managed to
curl into a smile as he saw his friend raking his eyes over him, "Not bad. I
think we lost them."
"I hope so, " Biggs agreed,
"I don't like our chance out here in the open. Sitting womp rats."
Luke nodded, but the smile
had split into a grin, "Sorry." He murmured, "I just…" he looked nervously at
Leia, then shrugged, "I didn't expect to ever get the chance to do this again.
You died, and then I was sure I was going to die. Now I feel…"
"Alive?" he ventured.
"Yeah. It's great."
Leia snorted, "Savour it
while you can. I hear footsteps."
Biggs spared her a scowl,
but dipped further behind their shelter. Luke had pressed his back up against
the crate and was checking the power on his blaster, just like old times. He
flipped a bang of blonde hair away and narrowed his gaze and bit his lip.
Just like old times.
Biggs knew he was wallowing
in the past, but just for a minute he'd give anything to be back in the fields,
running between the tall, willowy plants with training blasters.
That time, he knew, was
long gone. His friendship was the only thing remaining of their time on
Tatooine that meant anything anymore, and he swore he would protect it. Kenobi had made him swear it,
but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. It went without saying. He remembered the
old man's words… "I sense you are an honourable man, Biggs, but I must
ask something more of you than your courage."
Biggs had met his gaze
stoically, as he had been trained and as he had always done. "Go on."
"I must ask you if you are
willing to lay down your life for your friend."
When his answer had come,
it had never really been in doubt, but the swiftness and sincerity surprised
them both, "Absolutely."
Kenobi had nodded, looked
immeasurably old, "You know of his true parentage, don't you?" He'd nodded,
"Luke does not. You must see to it that he does not discover it before you
escape. I fear he might go willingly back to Vader if he knew. He is confused,
you must protect him. From the Imperials, from Vader, and from himself. Can you
do this?"
Biggs had swallowed hard,
but looking over at his friend, pacing the room nervously, the answer had again
been unsurprising. "Yes. I will. But how can he not know? I nearly… stars, I've
been that close to just letting it slip."
"I know. It was only the
will of the Force that stopped your tongue." Biggs had looked dubious. "One
more thing, my friend, that I must entrust you with. I am going to divert
Vader. I doubt I will be coming back, but there is a secret I cannot carry to
my grave, " he had smiled sadly, "Luke has a twin sister. Leia."
The shock had been like a
punch to the stomach, and he had unwittingly turned and gaped at them - the
twins - before Kenobi had called his attention back. "Tell him. He needs to
know. You must choose your moment wisely, but I cannot keep anything more from
him." Biggs had nodded. "And… when he is ready… tell him I am sorry. Again."
The moment had been sealed
with a swift handshake. Now he was entrusted with the lives of the twin
children of Darth Vader. It was laughable, but he didn't have the humour for
it.
The footsteps were clearly
audible now, chiming against the hard deck like a death knoll.
"On three."
Luke nodded, "On three."
Leia looked confused.
Luke's expression, he realised, now he looked for it. "No, wait-"
"One."
"But the bay-"
"Two."
"Listen-"
"Three!"
As one, Luke and Biggs rose
and vaulted the crates, landing solidly and sprinting forward. Leia gave a
frustrated growl and followed, the blaster incongruous to her white, virginal dress.
They ran forwards towards the first line of ships, even as the troopers who had
been behind them rounded the corner and gave a cry of recognition before blue
blaster fire split the air. Stun beams. "Keep running!" Biggs called as he saw
Luke begin to turn and return fire.
He nodded swiftly and
turned again, sprinting forward like a horde of Sith Lords were on his tail.
One, he thought ruefully, was quite enough. Imperial shuttles hunkered down on
the decking, lambda class ones crouched with folded wings and sleeker armed
transports hidden behind screens of supplies and arms.
"Go for the lambdas!" Biggs
called. He whipped the blaster over his shoulder and fire blind at the
troopers. "We don't have time to clear the transports!"
Luke was already running
towards the nearest. Blasterfire chased his heels and then pinged off the
floor, ricocheting around the tall bay loudly.
Leia was lagging behind,
and Biggs turned and grabbed her wrist, hauling her bodily forwards towards the
craft.
Still metres from the
ships, he heard the distinctive snap-hiss of a lightsaber. He whirled,
searching for the noise, and spotted and open blast door at the far side and
the paint of red light just beyond the curve of the corridor.
"Oh… Sith Hell! Run!" He
gave Leia an almighty shove towards the ship and whirled, wondering what he
could possibly do. Frozen in place, the troopers shots winged overhead and Luke
shouted at him. He didn't hear him. He heard… "… are you willing to lay down
your life for your friend?"
"Get onboard!"
"It's locked!"
"Sith!" It was a warning
and a curse, as a large black shaped loomed in the corridor. Biggs whirled back
to Luke and ran after him, ducked beneath the marginal cover of the lambda
shuttles nose. Vader's entrance to the docking bay was announced by the
distinctive hiss of his breather. Watching Luke, it was like somebody had just
twanged an elastic chord; his head snapped around and his gaze locked instantly
onto the approaching figure. Mesmerised, eyes blank, he even took a step
forward. Then another, and another.
Biggs lunged at his friend
and caught him around the shoulders in a death lock, dragging the slighter boy
away from view and muffling his cry with a hand over his mouth. Suddenly he
felt like a traitor. But Kenobi had warned him, warned him he'd need to protect
Luke from himself. From the connection between them that might override
common sense.
Luke struggled frantically,
scrapping his fingernails over Biggs' cheek, "Let me go!" he hissed around
Biggs' hand.
"No!" He snapped in his
ear, "Not like this!! Think, Luke. You don't want to go back, you don't."
"I…I don't?" He went
suddenly limp and his eyes achingly wide with dismay, "No. I don't." Biggs
still didn't let him go. "It's okay now. I'm okay."
Ready to grab him back if
he looked like he was going to bolt, Biggs released him and turned to Leia
where she was examining the door controls. "Just open it!"
She shot him a hot glare,
"How?! I can't just blast it!" She fumed.
The hiss of respirator was
loud now, the sound of feet against decking approaching fast, heavier than the
troopers who had by now surrounded the shuttle completely. Blaster fire echoed
off the hull.
Luke turned suddenly and
ducked around the edge of the ship. For a heart-stopping second Biggs thought
he was really going to run back to Vader, to his father, but he didn't. He
stopped beside Leia and snagged the saber from his hip, lit it and plunged it
into the locking mechanism. Hot metal dripped to the bay floor but the shuttle
door didn't open. "Hurry!" Leia hissed.
"I wasn't deliberately
going slowly." He barked back. Biggs didn't have time to grin. The rapid
footsteps, not quite running, were getting closer. He looked back at Luke and
Leia, arguing but working together, brother and sister with identical
expressions of concentration. Then he looked back at the approaching dark
figure, casting a long shadow over the floor. There was no time.
He stepped out beyond the
safety of the shuttle. At any other time he would have feared giving their
position away, but the point was completely mute now. He brought the blaster
up, and stepped out to intercept Vader.
* * *
"Don't waste my time with
that. Do you know where they are?" Vader paced, hearing every footstep and
counting every second that his son got closer to escape. Never mind Organa or
Kenobi, they could have the run of the station now for all he cared. They could
even take their precious droids with them. But they couldn't take his son.
"Y-yes, sir. We think so.
We've had a lot of false reports of activity. Strange noises and things moving
and… " Vader glared. "But we think they're going down to the main docking
bay…s-sir."
Kenobi. The old man
evidently thought Vader would be interested in a confrontation, but he was not.
In fact, nothing was further from his mind that fighting Obi-Wan again. Perhaps
before Luke… but now, it all seemed only barely above the absolutely
insignificant. Kenobi showed time and again that he had no understanding of
Vader, of who he was or what he had become. And, more than that, the old Jedi
seemed to be unable to decide whether Vader was a mindless killer worthy only
of his pity, or still Anakin Skywalker waiting to be redeemed. He claimed
righteousness and then tried to kill an innocent boy. Now he escaped, and then
tried to institute a confrontation. He was a mass of contradictions.
"Send an extra squad down
and repeat the order to only use blasters set on stun. If any of them
dies then I will have the whole squad executed. Understood?"
"Yessir."
He turned on his heel and
strode for the door. He should clear his mind, but somehow the events of the
last two hours replayed at a furious speed through his mind. Returning to his
quarters to find them empty. Feeling a spear of panic lance through him as he
realised they had been empty for a long time. Putting the station on alert,
barking at Tarkin when he asked 'what was the meaning of this'. Finally
thinking to check for Darklighter, only to find his cell empty except for two
bodies, one with a cauterised wound in his chest. Then, rushing to the safe in
his quarters. Finding it empty. Cursing, searching for Luke, feeling him still
aboard but elusive, as if he was trying to hide. Then, feeling a surge of
emotions so wild and intense he had literally stood stunned for a minute as the
natural bond he had with Luke flared brilliant. And then, once again, his
presence was smothered, only more completely. Professionally. It had been no
surprise when the bridge had called, telling him the princess was gone. As was
Kenobi.
He was nearly out of his
mind with anger. Not at Luke; he could hardly blame the boy for trying to
escape, but at himself for giving the opportunity, for being so rattled that
his control of the situation had slipped.
He had determined to keep
Luke a secret, and yet he had walked through the corridors with him.
He had decided to not show
Luke the more… despicable side of his role in the Empire. And yet hadn't he
held the boy back whilst Tarkin destroyed a whole planet?
He had told Kenobi he
wanted the boy to mould him into a Sith Lord. And yet, now, running full pelt
through the corridors of the Death Star, he was less concerned by Luke's
rebellion than by his fear for his safety. He did, after all, already seem to
have an attraction to injury.
And he called Kenobi a mass
of contradictions. Here he was half the time acting as Vader and the other
half… no he would not
approach that subject.
The docking bay was a war
zone, blaster fire was exchanged between the small nest of lambda shuttles and
a ring of stormtroopers, slowly closing. Most of it was the blue ripple of stun
blasts but some, even from the Imperial line, was the hot red of a blaster set
on kill. His anger surged.
He paused, quested out and
found Luke's presence at one of nearer ships, working frantically. He gave
their bond the faintest brush and a wash of emotions flooded him, so strong his
footsteps faltered.
Fear. That was very real,
but pushed aside in the heat of the moment. Determination. But then, that was a
Skywalker constant. Uncertainty.
He frowned, unsure. And then he felt… longing? Need? He stopped and tried to
gasp around the respirator even as those feelings were ruthlessly quashed and
mumbled shouts could be heard from beside the ship.
Need? Need. It mirrored
Vader's own feelings, so much so that his steps grew faster, more urgent, and
the trooper fire died as he walked into their sites.
A lightsaber snap-hissed
into life, bathing the floor in a blue glow. Dark Lord's of the Sith are never
hurried. Vader hurried.
From the cover of the
shuttle, a figure stepped forward and into the circular light field of one of
the bays illumination banks. Darklighter. He held the blaster tightly in his hand, and his familiar
intense gaze was pointed right at him.
"No further." He said.
* * * *
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as always, is appreciated.
