Disclaimer: Star Wars Belongs to George Lucas. This is purely for entertainment.
Spoilers: abounding
Chapter 5
Growing up on a
desert world, Luke was accustomed to the sandstorms and more vicious
gravelstorms which unpredictably arose on the horizon, spying them through his
macrobinoculars in time to help his uncle secure their bumpout dwelling before they
hit. A few occasions he'd outraced them in his landspeeder, knowing certain
death befell those caught in the treacherous cyclones of sand and stone,
ravaged skeletons all that remained of their unfortunate victims once the
desert carrion got to them.
But it never rained.
In school he read about rainy seasons and torrential downpours, but on Tatooine
the cloudless skies never darkened, and the twin suns unrelenting rays
evaporated the smallest drops of dew after first sunrise. At times the whole
concept of water showering from the heavens was as difficult to fathom as was
its colder cousin, snow.
By now however, he was a well-seasoned galactic traveler, having seen more than
his share of both, and the heavy drops pitter-pattering noisily on their tent
awoke him before the first dim light reached started creeping across the floor.
Rain gear wasn't an item he remembered seeing.
He held four fingers up against the sloped canvas ceiling. Four days left. Four
days before they reached the base. Four days before they discovered if Home
Fleet knew who was responsible for the Razion's Edge. Four days before a
real meal. Four days until a hot shower. Four days before he could sleep on a
real bed. Four days before his sister had to deal with Han, if he'd come, and
knowing Han, Luke knew he must be near.
Four days, he thought, curling one finger down, and three mysteries.
The first was what had happened the other morning. Leia's feet were healing
well, an odd florescent pink with misshapen layers of new skin, marble-like, as
though they'd been unevenly peeled off. She insisted they looked worse than
they felt, that a badly shaken psyche was the extent of the damage.
The second and third mysteries were alive and well, far enough away to remain
hidden, yet so alien he'd been unable to sort through their emotions or
motivations. They were simply... near. Ever since that morning.
A gust of wind caused the trees above to shed accumulated rain with a loud
clatter, fibrillations rippling the shelter. The noise accomplished what he had
not as of yet, had the heart to do.
Leia came awake and groaned. "Please tell me I'm not hearing that."
"Oh you are," he chimed in. "Pitter, patter, pitter, patter." He cupped a hand
over his ear and pretended to listen closely. "Do you hear what its saying." He
lowered his voice. "I am here to make your life miserable."
"Huh. And I thought you had a monopoly on making my life miserable?"
"Me and the touch-knots."
"Then I'm doomed," she replied, elbowing him before she swept the blankets over
her head and slumped back again. "Wake me up when it stops."
For her sake (and because he wasn't looking forward to a day of rain) he wished
lassitude were a state they could afford. But it wasn't.
"What a great idea," he assented, over-excitedly on purpose. "We'll stay here –
all day - because you know if it's raining first thing in the morning it's
going to see how unhappy we are and not want to quit there. And… Let's see…
I'll give you a rundown on the finer aspects of moisture farming, since you
always say you find it so interesting-"
"I'm up. I'm up," she said quickly.
"You don't want to learn-"
"NO." She bolted upright again, then closed her eyes and swallowed.
"Open?" he asked, unclipping the door. He knew that look by now. Having an
empty stomach first thing in the morning didn't agree with her. Nor did sitting
up too fast, hiking without rests, rations that began with the word 'insta' and
a few other forgotten culprits.
She scurried over his legs into the rain, dragged the vestibule over her head
and crouched with her head between her knees. An early morning false alarm.
"You'll feel better if you eat," he encouraged. He dug around at the foot of
the tent for the last container of carbosyrup. The sooner she got something
down the sooner they'd be on the way.
"I know, I know," she mumbled, holding out her hands out and let the rain fall
into to her palms. She drew them back under the flap and wiped at her face.
"Have you ever tried to eat when you feel nauseous?"
"Not that I recall."
Regarding the carton as though it were poison and fumbling with the seal, she
said, "I feel like I've been gassed with T-238. And I wish you would shoot me
and get if over with."
"No one's shooting anyone today," he assured her.
She swallowed a tentative sip, grimaced and slumped over outside of the
vestibule's protection. "Will you do it tomorrow if I feel like this?"
"Sure," he said. "Tomorrow if it's this bad I'll blast you first thing. Any
preference as to which blaster I should use."
"Ha, ha. Very funny Luke. You're supposed to talk me out of it."
"I learned long ago it was useless to talk you out of anything."
"Good!" Then she said, "I wonder how much worse it was for our mother
with two of us?"
Watching the rain splatter across Leia's coveralls then, he knew that
she had been thinking about their mother a lot lately. He could hear it in her
voice, hear it in the way she brought it up casually mid-conversation, as if
she'd been wanting to but hadn't found the opportunity just yet. His heart did
a little half-twist in his chest. "I don't know." He lifted an arm and tugged
the vestibule out as far as he could. "It's raining on you."
She shrugged without moving to sit up. "I like it. And we're going to be out in
it all day. What difference does it matter."
"True enough."
"I've been thinking about her a lot lately, you know."
He searched her face, trying to read more, sought out her emotions. He sensed
grief and… an unpleasant wave of queasiness he preferred not to share. Under
the circumstances it would be quite natural for her thoughts to dwell in the
past. "Have you?"
"I keep trying to remember her face," she murmured. "What she looked like. It
seems important to me to remember."
Whenever he pictured his mother, tried to draw from ancient memories that were
more of his own creation than real, he saw Leia. "You look more like her than I
do, right?"
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. "Her eyes, her hair." With a sigh she
finally sat up and looked him straight the eyes. "You didn't get her eyes,
but…" Her gaze dropped to his mouth. "Maybe her smile."
He gave her his best cheerful smile. "Like this?"
"The beard wrecks any feminine resemblance." She frowned and reached for the
carbosyrup again. "She was so…sad. That's what I remember most. And
then… then I keep thinking that it wasn't the way she talked to me, or anything
I saw in her face… more... I think I could feel it."
Luke thought about that for a moment. Children were so susceptible to
negativity, and her memories of her mother were a perfect example. Children had
the uncanny ability to see through adults. They picked up on all sorts of
emotions, deceit, mistrust, but a Force sensitive child – he or she would pick
up everything, unfiltered, without understanding why. He had, after all.
"Do you think that's possible?" she asked, plaintively now. "That I knew?"
"Yes. Without a doubt. Do you think your father knew you were force sensitive?"
Or had they just said, "Here, you have to take this child." Had it been Ben?
Another Jedi? Had their mother been a friend of Bail's? Who would they have
been?
"I mean, think about it, you must have events or moments in your childhood you
look back on now and recognize the Force at work, influencing you or your
actions without your knowing why."
"No," she decided. "I don't think he did, although… There were signs. My
favorite household guard was killed at our private docking bay when I was six.
It was one of those, wrong place at the wrong time, things. A faulty engine
sparked an explosion and I knew. I locked myself in my bedroom closet
crying until my Aunt Celly found me. She didn't know what to make of it, what I
kept telling her. Then when my father got home that night… he kept saying I
must have heard it on the holovids but I didn't."
"Ben wouldn't have told him because he knew your father wouldn't be able to
hide the truth from Vader," Luke murmured. "They probably crossed paths on
numerous occasions on Coruscant." He frowned at his inward reflection and said,
"I'm certain Owen and Beru knew, but the chances of Vader finding them were so
remote, and Ben was close enough to keep an eye on me."
"What makes you so sure?"
"Huh," he shrugged. "There were a few times I guess, I knew things I shouldn't
have… like where my Uncle had misplaced his tools, or… once I woke up everyone
up – I didn't know why – I just kept telling my Uncle something was outside. It
turned out to be Sand People, trying to swarm us with a surprise raid. That…
the advance warning saved us, I think. It was the only time my Uncle wasn't
furious at me for acting strangely… that's what he used to call it."
"Oh Luke. That must have been so hard for you."
He sighed and leaned back. Leia's natural capacity toward compassion touched
him. "He didn't know any better, he was trying to do the best he could. As an
adult I understand that, or try to understand."
"He was trying to protect you."
"Yeah. He was."
She hugged her stomach. "It won't be like that for us. Not with a Jedi Uncle
Luke."
Jedi Uncle Luke...
He covered his smile with his hand. The crooning was rather endearing, although
at the moment Leia looked least like the politician she was than he'd ever seen
her. "I don't even know what sort of guidelines the Jedi used to follow with
their offspring. I guess we'll figure that out as we go along?"
"I guess we will."
He thought her 'we' was a good sign, a really good sign. Opting not to push
that line of conversation, he picked another unpopular topic instead. "You
haven't told me about Han yet. I'd sort of... well, like to know what happened
before I see him."
"It's between us," she said.
Luke detected the note of dismissal in her voice.
And it affects all of us, he thought.
"It's really hard to explain," she said plaintively. "It's complicated
and…oh..." She shoved the carton into his hands and heaved her body up. "Oh,
this isn't working. I'll be over there."
"That's okay," he mumbled to himself, eyeing the tent and their gear wearily.
"I'm a master at decamping on my own."
The dismal day
only worsened.
"There's no way we're going to get down there," she judged, with a glance.
Luke peered forward again and tried to ignore her agitation. She'd barely
spoken to him for most of the day, resorting to monosyllabic responses when
needed, and now that she was speaking, it was to dispute him. He continued
peering over the cliff and frowned, at her mood and at their impending
challenge. The white wall dropped indefinitely into a ravine – or valley – he
couldn't tell in the poor visibility. If they'd arrived at this point
yesterday, it would have been a good vantage point. He might have even been
able to spy the mountain they were aiming for. But as it was with the fog and
rain...
"Leia, it'll take us a day or two longer if we go around it."
"But how, are you planning on-"
"Levitating us down," he finished, shaking his head. "Not unless you want to
end up splattered at the bottom." He could make out the treetops about thirty
metres below, and their expanse stretched as far as he could see left and
right, so there was no telling if they'd find an easier way down in either
direction. The drop-off was steep, but rocky enough that they should be able to
scale it, although the packs would make it difficult. "We've got syntharope.
We'll just tie it to...." He looked around for a strong anchor, and decided one
of roots dangling over the side in hapless pursuit of soil would do. "This.
It'll work."
She dug out the coil of rope from her pack and held it up. "It's not long
enough. It won't work."
"We'll manage." He took it and tied a slipknot around the root, then tugged on
it to make sure it was secure. "I'll go first," he said, sliding his legs over
the side and twining the rope around his hands. "When I yell, you go."
Appearing miffed at having been left out the decision planning, she lectured,
"Well, be careful!"
"I will." He started his descent. Of course it was much more slippery than he'd
anticipated. The soles of his boots slid off the wet stone, the skin of his
fingers was quickly scraped raw. He gave up on trying to brace his body away
from it and instead tried to ignore the jagged rocks scraping his chest. The
gusts of wind were so fierce the pellets of rain felt more like needles than
water. As she'd warned, the diminishing rope looked not long enough, but he'd
assumed there would be some sort of ledge or abri. So long as he reached it
before the line ended, or else he'd have to climb back up, with his pack
on. A wiser man would have let her send the pack down afterwards.
A level outcrop materialized just above the canopy, almost wide enough to hold
them both with about one metre of rope to spare. He shouted to her. There was
no audible response, but the rope swung alive from side to side like a dancing
snake, and he reached out to steady it for her while he watched for her feet.
He held his breath until he saw them, and then held it again until she was
within reach, grabbing her waist and holding her to him.
"Wha...what n...n...now," she shivered, red-cheeked with windburn.
It was cold, so high up with wind and rain. He mentally envisioned the knot
he'd made, undoing the loose end of the rope. It was simple to picture, slide
the end through this loop, and back around, and... pull. He caught the
end in his free hand and searched for a new anchor along the slick rock face,
decided he'd have to create one. "Can you scoot down?" he asked.
She crouched and locked her arms behind his knees while he ignited his
lightsaber and drove it through a protuberant section of rock, creating a
fist-sized tunnel round enough to pass the rope inside. Once he'd coaxed it
through, he retied the slipknot and descended again, thinking, just drop
through those boughs and hope there's no thousand metre gully hiding on me.
It was slower going, curving his body around the highest leafy branches, unable
to see down or up once immersed in them. They all twisted into awkward
positions to accommodate the rock wall they'd been forced against, creating a
claustrophobic realm of wood, dark leaves and cliff side. It felt more like a
gymnastic exercise than a descent, but eventually, he touched his feet along
sloped earth over the rock between the branches, tipped precariously toward the
jungle's floor yet another fifty metres below. There was nothing he could do
but lie flat and hang on and there was no chance Leia could hear him if he
shouted, so he sent out a mental prod to go ahead .
And waited.
And waited.
Fifteen minutes later, he still couldn't see her, though she was swearing
loudly.
"How's it going?" he shouted into the canopy.
The response was muted, but a moment later he sighted a leg, and heard another
swear, Corellian at that. Then another leg appeared. The rope was too far away
for her to possibly be attached to it. He cupped his hand around his mouth and
shouted again. "Are you all right?"
"You can see me?" she called. Her torso and head were above the 'y' of the
branches she was strung between.
"Yup." Is she stuck?
In response, she yelled back. "I can't hold on and I can't see anything."
Watching her legs scissor as though treading air to stay aloft, he gauged the
distance between them. He wrapped the rope several times around his arm and
leaned out as far as he could. "Okay, let go."
"Are you crazy?"
"I'll get-"
Leaves and water showered onto his head in the commotion. He swiftly caught the
strap of her backpack, jerking her in the same motion backward onto the slope
with a thud. She groaned and struggled to roll onto her stomach, but only
succeeded in sliding further down with nothing to hold on to. He dragged her up
beside him so that she could reach the rope, then let her go and relaxed his
shoulder while he caught his breath. "I'm afraid to ask how long ago you lost
the line," he huffed.
She rested her head and caught her breath too. "Thanks. Let's just say solo
climbing with this much weight isn't easy and…" Her eyes followed the course
laid out below them. "Oh my. That's still a long way down."
"Yeah it is." The ground looked odd from so high above, almost as though it
were moving and shifting, black and devoid of shrubs or plants. And these trees
were gnarled and stockier than the others he'd seen. More like... Dagobah. And
what he'd thought was ground was not. It was water. It was swamps.
Leia was saying, "It looks awfully muddy down there..."
"We're going to get a lot muddier than this," he interjected.
Deciding they shouldn't attempt this without the rope, he searched for some
purchase for them while he set it free, but found none. The boughs they'd
climbed down through were now out of reach, and the twisted trunks stretched
far enough away from the slope that he'd have to take a flying leap to get to
one, and even then his arms weren't long enough to stretch around. Time for
plan B. "Uh...what do you think about sliding?"
"You're kidding?" She peered down. "Luke, I can guarantee you my physician
wouldn't recommend this."
He winced. It was too late to turn back. "And I suppose you have a better
idea?"
"I did. You weren't listening to-"
He flipped onto his side and lifted his free hand. They could argue or get this
over with. "Wrap your arms and legs around me, I can slow us down."
She looked fearfully down, up, then at him. "Are you sure?"
Rolling his eyes, he let the rope slip through his fingers a little. "One...two...."
"Okay, okay," she muttered, scooting over.
He pushed himself up a few inches so that she could get a leg and arm beneath
him and around his back, and when she had him in a tight stranglehold, he let
go of the rope. The Force embraced them, enhanced the drag caused by his heels
and the bulky shape of his pack. The mud was as slick as oil and he hadn't
taken into account how much more difficult it would be to slow down two people.
Midway down they careened out of control. Changing tactics, he no longer sought
to slow them and instead concentrated on steering them straight for the water
and away from the trunks waiting to pulverize them at this speed. Right before
they began free falling over the edge of the slope, he shouted "let go," and
shoved her away.
The water slammed into his chest so hard it knocked the wind from him, and it
took him a moment to ascertain which direction was up in the blackness. When
his head broke the surface and he gulped air into his burning lungs, coughing
up fetid water and sludge in between breaths. Leia emerged beside him, neck
deep, choking out the same sickening fluid, murky with decaying plant life.
"See... I told you we could do it," he coughed.
"If that's what you call slowing us down," she sputtered, "I'd hate to see what
full speed is like." Warily, she studied their new environment, and then
screwed her eyes shut. "I can't decide whether to start screaming or crying."
Thick brown vines draped down and between the trunks rising from the water, and
a variety of serpents dangled amidst them, flicking their tongues in curiosity
at whoever had entered their domain. It was too dark to make out much else. A
metre long watersnake danced across the water, pausing to hiss at them before
continuing on its way.
Making her start screaming was a tempting idea. It could scare off everything
in the immediate vicinity - or make them all swim over to see what it was. He
hurried forward to grasp her hands, sharing her distaste and wariness for the
swamp. There was something about swamps in general that gave him chills, reeked
of evil. Nothing beautiful ever grew inside them, the life that flourished
tended to repulse him, and he remembered quite vividly that something enormous
had almost eaten Artoo on Dagobah... He tried not to think about draigon slugs,
metre long leeches, swamp monsters or worse even, that something capable of
taking off his leg with one bite was swimming his way already. With that
disturbing thought he unclipped his lightsaber and activated it beneath the surface,
just in time to slash at a long tentacle creeping toward his leg in the eerily
greenish illuminated water. "Let's get out of here," he said. "As fast as we
can..."
"I think, "she said shakily, not budging an inch, "that I just felt something
swim by my leg."
"Commander
Halla Ettyk," Han boomed loudly as he entered the makeshift and decidedly
spartan office hidden in the back of the control centre. The office was
comprised of two chairs, a desk, three console units and a few light fixtures.
"What a surprise to see you here."
The dark haired woman who served as a member of Airen Cracken's
counterintelligence unit looked up from her pile of paperwork and regarded him
with unwelcoming grey eyes. Halla Ettyk had last served as the New Republic's
prosecutor at Tycho Celchu's trial for his alleged treason and Corran Horn's
death. It was later discovered that Corran Horn was alive and well, and the
real traitor within Rogue Squadron was identified. She and the New Republic had
both issued formal apologies to Celchu, but the public embarrassment had yet to
fade from the holovid headlines. "General Solo. On the contrary I'm not
surprised to see you here."
Undeterred by her facetiousness, Han sank without invitation into the deep
emerald chair across from her desk. Her hair was arranged neatly in a sleek
coronet of braids, the current fashion among Alderaanian women. He knew very
well who'd started the trend, felt his heart seize up. "Han," he prompted. "And
congratulation on the promotion."
"Han then. Thank you, belatedly. It was some time ago."
"Sorry to have missed the inaugural celebration."
"It was very low-key," she corrected. "As for you these days... You were
charged with insubordination if I've read the reports correctly." One over plucked
eyebrow arched. "Accusing a decorated Admiral of, how did you so eloquently put
it, 'bashing out his own targeting system' in a room full of his inferiors."
He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully as if it were news to him. "Did I really say
that?"
"The charges were dropped under orders from Madine," she clarified. "Not
because the Admiral has a forgiving nature. Now what are you doing here?"
"I thought it was time we had a chat?"
"The charges were dropped? You don't need a lawyer."
"That's not what I'm here to chat about."
Her voice dropped to a hush. "Solo, you know I can't talk to you."
"Halla, history is about to repeat itself and you know it."
If the dig bothered Halla she hid it well. "Has it occurred to you that I'm
here to make sure it doesn't?" she said calmly.
He shook his head. "You know as well as I do that Luke wouldn't have done this,
that Leia wouldn't have had anything to do with it."
She skirted a glance into the passageway. "If you're here on a fishing
expedition I can't give you what I have," she said tersely.
He got up and closed the door, making sure it clicked. Then he waited a moment
for footsteps outside. There were none. "Not on the record," he persisted,
returning to his seat. "Off the record."
"Even off the record…" She sighed and nervously twirled her writing stylus
between her fingers. "My hands are tied. You're here strictly to assist in the
search and recovery, not to assist in the investigation, and you certainly
can't claim to be objective here."
"It's not even objectivity that's at issue," he countered. "It's simple fact.
They had nothing to do with it."
"Leia Organa, yes" Halla replied, nodding. "But we can't rule out Skywalker."
"Based on what?"
"It's confidential."
He was so sick of having the words classified or confidential thrown
at him he almost snapped. Leia had said once that despite her role in the
Celchu fiasco, Halla was an honest woman and could be trusted. Now he was
desperately hoping she had been right. "After all these years I'd say I know as
much about Luke and Leia as anyone," he breathed.
"Of course you do," she agreed.
"I'd be inclined to think I know anything SpecForce thinks they do." It was
hint, and as near to admitting he had information as he was willing to go. At
best he was hoping for a little game of you tell-me-what-you-know-and-I-might-tell-you-what-I-know,
though he had no intention of letting it go that far.
"There's no way you could," she said curtly, holding up her hand. "And if I
tell you anything, you'll brief them before we get a chance to question them.
Don't bother to patronize me by suggesting otherwise." She pushed over a
wide-screen datapad with a cartographic view of the areas surrounding the base
across her desk. "I know you're heading out with the scout teams tomorrow
morning aren't you?"
"Bright and early."
"They're sending out three teams, right?"
"Yeah," Han said, mildly surprised she knew already. He'd left the planning
session directly before coming to see her, and no one had passed him on his way
in.
The HOS had traced the last known trajectory of the escape pod to a hundred
kilometre square area about a two weeks hike from here, though all efforts to
find the pod had been fruitless. Assuming the pair was within a few days of the
base, they'd decided to send out teams down to meet them.
"And you're with the…" She studied the readout, tapped the tip of her stylus on
the screen. "The centre team?"
"Right again," he replied. "Luke has an uncanny sense of direction. If they're
on their way I say they'll be heading straight for the North peak. It's the
most direct course from where they went down."
"A Jedi's sense of direction," she mused. She picked up another datapad and
scrolled through the pages. "Don't they call that area the memory wipe zone?"
"I've heard the rumors. Everyone's equipment fails and erases their data. They
end up disorientated or lost. It's probably some electro-magnetic variance in
the soil they haven't picked up yet and figured out how to compensate for."
"Well I agree that's probably where you'll find them. And we simply can't take
the chance you decide to brief them independently."
Han leaned in and rested his elbows on either side of the datapad. "And when we
do find them?" he chided. "What am I supposed to tell them? That for the last
two weeks they've been headed for an arrest?"
"It's strictly preventative custody until this matter is sorted out," she
clarified. "There is a difference."
"Preventative custody," he exclaimed. "Yeah… That's gonna go over real well.
I'd hate to be the security officer in charge of Skywalker's detainment."
"We're working out the logistics as best we can. And…" She leaned forward,
matching his tone. "If Skywalker is innocent I'm sure he'll comply. He'll want
this to be cleared up as soon as possible."
Except, no one around here seemed to think he was. Furthermore, no one, not
even Madine, would tell him why. Mon Mothma was away from Home Fleet and out of
contact. since being oblique was getting him nowhere, he decided to be blunt.
"Halla what does Rieekan have on him?"
She sighed and shook her head.
"Damn it, Halla -"
Abruptly, she eased out her chair and headed for the low fridge unit in the
corner. "Would you care for a beverage? Water, one of those mystery fruit
juices they're so fond of here?"
He was so taken aback by her civility in the face of his battering he merely
nodded.
"Water or juice?" she repeated.
"Water."
She returned with two glasses and a pitcher, filled both glasses halfway and
handed him one. "You know I'm from Alderaan, right?"
"Everyone does." He'd never had more than a few fleeting cross room glances
with Halla outside Leia's offices, but it was common knowledge. Everyone had
heard of the star criminal prosecutor, hugely successful on Alderaan, off planet
to cross-examine with a witness when the Death Star had destroyed it.
"Well, we actually have more in common than you think."
"We do, huh?"
"Did I ever tell you my father was from Socorro?"
Okay, Han thought. This is way off topic. Socorro had been
settled by Corellians a few thousand years back, and was a giant volcanic ash
ball with next to no natural resources. He wouldn't go so far as to say that
left them with much in common. "Really?" he asked, thinking he'd play along for
a few moments. "Then you've got some Corellian blood running though you?" Diluted,
he amended.
"Half. My father attended the University of Aldera. That's where he met my
mother. After he finished his schooling he decided to stay on Alderaan, though
his missed his home, told the old stories when I was growing up. He made
Socorro sound like a paradise."
"Nothing changes perspective like a few decades."
"Ever been there?"
"A few times. "
"I had a chance to see it for myself a few years ago," she told him. "My father
used to say, ofax ets burrin tehn, but I never understood the expression
until I visited."
The air is too heavy here, he translated. "That's weather," he told her.
"Have a windy day you need a ventilator to keep from inhaling the ash and
whatever the factories spew out."
She sipped her water and stared him straight in the eye over the brim of her
glass. "Personally, I thought the air there was too polluted."
"You weren't used to it. You didn't grow up there. Places like that you've got
to grow up there to be used to it."
"Alderaan was very clean. The industrial emissions were strictly regulated by
the government. Visitors always remarked on how pristine the air was."
Why, Han thought, does she have this fixation with air? He took a
deep breath. The air was fine, a little stale from being recycled, but
perfectly safe. "So uh… where did you go on your visit to Socorro?"
"Madra," she replied. "It's at the base of the Rym Mountains."
"Madra," he repeated. He'd only seen travelogues. "Well, it's supposed to be
beautiful there but I've never been. I've only ever been to Vakeyya."
"On business?" she asked, seeming genuinely interested and without a trace of
guile.
He almost laughed. Vakeyya was a smuggler's haven, but she wouldn't necessarily
know it. Not many outside of the orders did. "Yes, business. But you enjoyed
your stay?"
"Yes, aside from the air, as I was saying. My father was planning a return
visit when Alderaan was destroyed. He hadn't been there in over twenty years. I
guess I went back for him… though at the time I thought I wanted to see where
he came from, what my heritage was all about."
"I'm sorry Halla," he said, no longer playing at small talk. "I take it you two
were close." He took another deep breath. Air?
The prosecutor imitated him, making her inhale more of an exaggerated sigh, as
though she were remembering her deceased parent.
What in the gods names is going on, Han wondered? The air is too
heavy here… Well, off world, Socorran's used the expression to describe
worlds where the air was dangerous, methane based, too low in oxygen. Dangerous,
dangerous, Han thought, rapping his knuckles on the edge of her desk. But
she can't mean to breathe. To talk? He looked overhead at the ceiling and
studied it, moving from each corner of the tiny office, down the walls, to the
light fixtures. They were being bugged? And Halla…
Halla knew the details of his meeting already, didn't she? He started looking
around for some sort of audio feed on her desk.
"You're right," she said nodding her head slowly and following his gaze. "We
were very close."
Suddenly, Han found himself struggling for words to make the conversation as
casual as possible. "He was a good man?"
"Yes, he was a good man. Honest, patriotic to his adopted home world, caring, the
sort of father who believed in allowing us – my brother and I - to make our own
mistakes without stepping in until we were over our heads."
"Or he liked to let you learn the hard way."
"Perhaps. We could never hide anything from him. Believe me, I tried, and he
always knew what we were up to, always managed to catch us red handed and then
he had a saying for everything." She smiled. "Kas tulisha abia al port il
ke'dem. That was his favorite."
Chaos opens the door to opportunity and fool? While her vocabulary and
syntax were off, Han got the gist. "Sorry, I'm a little rusty. I can't remember
that one."
She shook her head. "Forgive me. I've digressed. My mind was wandering before
you even arrived. Today is, or would have been his sixtieth birthday."
He considered asking her to take a stroll to the Falcon to where they
could talk in private, but that would arouse too much suspicion. Even supposing
whoever was listening in had a linguistic background in Old Corellian, they
were skating on thin ice.
Someone in the New Republic counterintelligence believes this was a set up
too and thinks they can flush out whoever did it.
"My condolences," managed, wondering if Ley'kel or Rieekan even knew. He
doubted it. Not if whoever was in charge wanted the investigation to appear
legitimate and if they were bugging everything. He caught Halla pointed to her
desk chrono, took the hint. "I should get going."
"I'm sorry I can't be more help."
"Right," he said, pushing himself up. For good measure he decided not to sound too
pleased with how their meeting would gone. "Know that you're making a
mistake."
"I'm doing my job Han," she retorted.
"Yeah sure," he snapped on his way out. "The Empire was big on that excuse."
It wasn't until he was almost at his quarters that he started wondering if
today really was her father's birthday.
It was dark.
By the time the scant light that poked its way through the tree coverage began
to wane, Luke had had no choice but to admit they were going to be stuck inside
overnight, and he was starting to agree with his sisters repeated claims that
this had been a stupid idea, that they should have gone around the long
way. After swim-scouting for a half-decent place to stop, they selected one on
a tiny island of ground between two large trees that looked like the calcified
Gnarltrees on Dagobah. There was a large enough space between two exposed roots
for two people to fit, and the curve of the trunk partially blocked the rain.
Luke kept half expecting Yoda and his gimer stick to magically materialize in
the mists.
The prospect of spending the night out here was so dismal, even Leia had given
up berating him, collapsing over her pack and shivering while she wiped at the
rivulets of greenish water streaming down her face and neck.
He did the same and scraped his nails along the fuzzy yellow fungi carpeting
the trees. It was strange. His senses were going haywire, his danger sense
tingled without reprieve, and some overactive part of his brain was thinking
they'd magically been transported to a world he knew. A scaly tail flicked up
into the air beside them, then slapped against the water and vanished.
Leia jumped and tucked her arms and legs into her as closely as possible away
from the edges if their island, blaster in hand.
He held his lightsaber ready. "We'll be all right here," he assured her,
"unless you want to keep going in the dark."
"No," she muttered between chatters.
He shrugged, sighed, and flipped his lightsaber around in his hand, watching
her huddle and shiver. Then he debated whether it would be worth it to change
into dry clothes for a few hours, or at least end the sloshing and squishing in
his boots. He opted to do neither. "We could sit together," he offered. "It'd
probably be a lot warmer than freezing at opposite ends."
"I'm soaking wet."
"And I'm dry?" He held up an arm and squeezed the sleeve of his coveralls, let
the water drip onto his lap.
Then she sighed. "What's the difference? We'll probably be dead before the sun
comes up. We're sitting bait."
"No we won't…" The scaly tail flipped out of the water again, slamming down so
hard a cascade of water rose and came down on them. He dug a glowrod out of his
pack and hung it from a broken branch just above his head. Visibility was nil,
even with the glowrod's strong beam. It had the effect of making the shadows
more menacing, by pointing out how much they couldn't see. "Come sit
over here," he encouraged again. "I think I know a trick or two."
"Warm tricks?" she asked hopefully.
He nodded, and made room for her to squeeze herself beside him. With one arm
wrapped around her he focused his energies on magnifying his body heat,
trapping it around them so that they were enclosed in a small bubble of force
generated warmth. She slumped idly with him for a while, then her chin nodded,
bobbed, until it relaxed against his shoulder. He thought maybe she'd fallen
asleep, but he didn't dare do the same. The tail didn't reappear, but he knew
for certain several hungry reptiles were watching them, greedy eyes gleaming in
the shadows like phosphorous jewels. He kept his thumb on the activator of his
lightsaber.
He had silent conversations with the child in her womb.
Who will you look like, he wondered? Who will you be like?
He tried to picture Leia pregnant and huge, but she was so slender and small
against him it was impossible. How long would it be before he could feel it
kicking against his hand. In some cultures the delivery was a family
celebration, in others, one of those occasions where men were cloistered away
from women as though they'd do more harm than good by being present. He had no
idea what sort of views Alderaan had held, had never actually seen anything
give birth, but found himself hoping Leia would want him to be there and share
it with her.
He thought of his aunt and uncle and wondered why they'd never had any children
of their own. He didn't remember a household tinged with regret; both of them
were too pragmatic to have wasted time ruing over what wasn't meant to be.
Still, he recalled his aunt looking wistfully through his outgrown clothes as
she'd packed them for a charity drive in Anchorhead. He'd been around ten or
so, and wanted nothing to do with clothes that didn't fit or childhood stories
about his first words, determined to grow up as soon as possible. His
aunt had packed the items away, then given him a huge hug and told him it was
hard to believe he'd ever been so small. Maybe she'd been mourning the end of
his childhood. Maybe she'd been sad because there were never going to be any
more infants to cuddle and hold. Fifteen years later, he had no idea.
Out of the darkness came Leia's voice. "There's a spider right below your left
knee."
He looked, saw the webby legs lifting, and used his prosthetic hand to gingerly
pluck it off his leg.
"If it bites," she warned…
"It'll hit wires," he reminded her. He set it on a low branch over it his head.
It eagerly scampered upward in pursuit of a new home.
Leia reached over and traced a ragged fingernail across his synthaflesh knuckles.
"What does it feel like? Is it different?"
He flexed and opened his prosthetic hand. It had taken him almost a year to get
used to it, but by now it was so much a part of him that concentrating on it
jarred him with a novel sense of unfamiliarity. Like new all over again. "It
feels like pins and needles almost worn off, but not quite there yet." Then he
said, "I thought you were asleep. You should really try and get some sleep."
"I will. I was just thinking though..."
"About what?"
"We had a fight," she admitted quietly. "He threatened to leave and I told him
to go right ahead and he did."
He almost asked who, before he remembered.
"I thought he was bluffing," she added. "I didn't really think he'd actually do
it."
Luke unconsciously started clamping his thumb down, then stopped. "What was the
fight about?" This time.
"I was going to Tyshapahl. He didn't want me to go."
"Tyshapahl?" Tyshapahl had joined the Alliance of Free Worlds before it was
restructured into the New Republic, so there was little need for a diplomatic
presence. "Whatever for?"
"They were commemorating a memorial to the victims of the massacre and invited
a New Republic representative. I volunteered."
Massacre? Then he remembered. It had occurred before he joined the Alliance.
A peaceful demonstration had been staged the day the Sector Moff arrived and
Vader had ordered him to use force if necessary to put an end to it. Upwards of
five thousand people had been killed that day. "Someone else could have gone,"
he reminded her. He didn't go out of his way to avoid reminders of his father's
crimes, but he didn't volunteer for them.
"It was important for us to be present Luke. But I didn't… end up going."
"Good."
She leaned up and out of the half embrace. "Why good? Why do you say it
like that?"
"Well why didn't Han want you to go?"
The flicker of hostility waned. "He wanted me to go away for a while."
"With him?"
"No," she retorted sarcastically. "He thought I should maroon myself at the
resort of his choosing without him."
Ignoring the insincere bite, he said, "You decided to go to Tyshapahl instead
of going of on vacation?"
"No – I mean we hadn't planned any sort of vacation yet. It was just an idea."
"Why didn't you? You could have.."
"It's not that simple."
"Sure it is," he said. "They would let you go, you merely haven't asked."
"No." She shook her head. "It's not all about needing a break. It was more for
personal reasons." Her own words caused her to shake her head harder. "Not
personal the way you're probably assuming… or… I don't know. Maybe that was
part of it. We've both been so busy."
"Mmhmm." He dug his arm under hers and hoisted her up to keep her from sliding
off.
She didn't say anything else for few minutes, then murmured so low Luke had to
strain to hear her. "Once upon a time we were a bunch of idealists who believed
we could change the galaxy for the better."
Yes, yes we were, he thought, failing to see what this had to do with
Han or their relationship. He'd heard the line before, many, many times. It was
accredited to a Senator from Kuat, one of the first politicians to publicly
speak against Palpatine and his New Order. The speech had gone down in history
as a pivotal turning point, marking the nascent development of the movement against
the Empire. Luke knew most of it by heart, as did most people who'd joined the
Rebellion. Once upon a time we were a bunch of idealists who believed we
could change the galaxy for the better…And then, my friends, we awoke to
discover…
"Do you ever miss the craziness of the past few years? Never knowing what was
going to happen or if we'd win, but so determined to try we weren't going to
give up while we had breath in our body."
The query stirred a glut of memories. He thought carefully. Miss it? No. After
Mrlsst he'd decided he'd had enough. Being responsible for his own life was one
thing, but having others under his command perish in battle…
It had been more than he wanted.
Being made a General had been more of a curse than a blessing. But he knew what
she meant. War could be therapeutic. It offered an external focus for
grievances, anger, justified the need for revenge. His aunt and uncle were
fresh on his mind, and Tyshapahl's innocents, but there were Ghorman's,
Ralltir's, the countless other planets that had suffered similar demonstrations,
the countless Alliance recruits who could claim parents, brothers, sisters,
lovers, friends among the numbers the Empire had destroyed, murdered, made to
disappear. "We dedicated our lives to it," he said, tightening his arm. "I
guess… it's been the only cathartic outlet we've had. But back to Han." Han was
a safer topic. "He thought going to Tyshapahl was bad idea, and that you should
take some time for yourself - with him - for personal reasons. And when you
wouldn't he took the Sumitra assignment."
"Yes," she said. "That about sums it up."
"And you haven't spoken to him since?"
"No."
Luke was puzzled. Solo would not have backed her into a corner unless he felt
like he had no choice, and even then his actions, leaving, were drastic.
He almost let it go. He stared at the viridescent, almost prismatic mists,
heard a splash a few metres away, and felt the death of whatever had been, the
excited bloodlust of whatever had found a meal. Leia watched with him. He
thought, that people so often said 'I'm fine,' when they didn't mean it, when
they wanted the burden of initiating troubles to rest on another's shoulders.
And she had brought this up, out here no less, where there was nowhere she
could go. "Care to elaborate?"
"I don't know what else to tell you," she mumbled, blowing at drying wisps of
hair tickling her forehead. "Unless you want a mercenary's take on
psychoanalysis?"
"How about plain old Han Solo's?" he suggested, trying to sound cheerful.
"Han's insight is unique."
"It's scary." She breathed out, breathing back in deeply as though she was
working up courage. "I supposed he'd say he doesn't think I've been handling
all this stuff very well."
Warning bells sounded in the back of his mind. He shifted his leg to escape
whatever was digging into his thigh, and thought of her nightmare. "What
stuff?"
"Everything."
"Alderaan?"
"It's part of it."
"Vader?"
"Sure." Her voice was oddly detached.
He withered inside at the obvious. If he'd been there all along, he would have
known. "Why haven't you said anything to me?"
"I don't know. You never ask for one" she sighed. "When I reflect on it, I
think it hurts you too much to talk about it, but you don't want to admit, so
you avoid it altogether. You... well you avoid discussing the past just as
religiously as you adhere to Yoda's aphorisms. We talk about the future. We
talk about what I might be, you might be. We don't talk about who we were three
years ago."
I hate talking about him too.
Sure, he'd said that scant days ago, but he hadn't meant it the way she'd heard
it. I never will talk about him. A dismal sense of failure tore through
him. But she was right and wrong. He didn't try to bring it up, and no, it
wasn't so much that it hurt.
When he thought about what his father had done to her the rage was too primal.
He wanted to crawl back in time, to those moments on the Death Star when he
supported his father's failing body. He wanted to return to those moments and
carve through him piece by piece, smash his fists against the pale, scarred
skin until it was nothing but a pulp of flesh and bone. Darkness, hate, the
need for vengeance; all those could flow through him as evenly as the light he
followed and dedicated himself to. Vader was a sadistic machine, and if he let
himself forget the man who'd died, he feared he'd crumble at the
realization that the one good thing he'd ever thought he'd done was little more
than a mirage erected to placate his own self worth.
"It makes me angry," he admitted, sensing immediately that the admission
pleased her and wanting to rescind it.
"I'm angry too," she said softly. "Yet I feel as though I can't be angry around
you without you looking at me like I'm about to turn into something evil. And I
can't help it… I can't stop it… I feel like I'm holding it in whenever I'm
around you. It makes... it makes... it just makes everything more difficult."
Words escaped him. Her anger was intense, palpable, her armor against her pain
and the past. He'd felt it the other afternoon and been taken aback by its
contagiousness.
And then," she added. "I keep waiting for him to find some way to hurt me, to
take away everything I have again…"
"Leia he can't."
"I know that. I know I should know that. And I just wish someone would tell
me everything is going to be all right, that it won't always hurt this much,
even if they didn't believe it. For the sake of saying it because for once I
want to hear it. You used to do that."
When I was naïve enough to think it meant something, he thought sadly.
He said it anyways, for the record.
She gave him the barest of smiles. "It doesn't count if I have to tell you."
He swallowed. "Leia, I never intended to make you feel like you can't talk to
me. If I did somehow, I'm sorry."
"No. It's my fault too. I never… You told me once I was the stronger of the two
of us and I never…" She exhaled slowly again. "I never wanted to tell you how
wrong you were about me. I thought you'd be so disappointed."
"You are strong," he insisted. "I'm not disappointed in you. I never have
been."
The assurance mollified her for all of ten seconds. "I'm trying… I really am
Luke." Her face fell again. "Han says I try too hard." She choked out a cynical
half-laugh. "But what does he know? He decided to run away."
Luke didn't know what Han's leaving was supposed to have accomplished? So he
hadn't wanted her to go to Tyshapahl, she hadn't been able to take time away
with him. To the best of his recollection either he or Han had been with her
but for a few weeks here and there for the past five years and without them…
Solo must have expected her to contact him if he left. Yet she hadn't,
because she was too stubborn, too proud. "Maybe he didn't mean trying. Maybe he
meant trying alone. Maybe he meant letting the people who care about you try to
help too?"
"Oh yeah," she murmured. "And where was he when I needed him? Where was he four
months ago? I did need him. I do. How could he not know?"
There weren't any answers for that. Struggling to put confidence into his voice,
he said, "Leia, I know he loves you. I know he loves you and he's not exactly
predictable. He was coming back and you chose this mission. I'm sure otherwise
you two would have…"
Talked? Reconciled? Worked it out? She's pregnant with someone else's child…
"You two have been through too much together for him to walk away now," he
finished lamely.
"No," she said in a quivering voice that rang of self-fulfilling defeat and a
broken heart. "I always knew that some day he would leave, Luke. I just didn't know
when."
"You don't mean that." He hugged her as fiercely as he dared, pressed his face
into her hair. "That's not true and we both know it. And look, I know it's not
the same but I'll be here." She murmured what sounded like okay against
his jacket, and he resolved that when they got out of this mess they were going
to sit down and have a long, long talk. As for Han…
His sister was not the first, nor would she be the last to fall into another's
arms seeking consolation, a respite from loneliness, out of sheer desperation.
He prayed this would be one of those occasions Han's egotistical pride, self
professed, I owe no one ideology that had enabled him to almost walk
away on Yavin IV wouldn't resurface in the worst way. This time, however, Luke
suspected, as Leia believed, that it would.
"There's one good thing," she said. "I love her and it's the strangest feeling,
like it comes from someplace so deep down inside of my heart and soul. I don't
know. And it makes it okay… how it happened, that I don't know what's in store
for me next… Even when all the stuff I don't want to think about slams into me
like a ton of bricks."
"Whatever you decide you it will be your decision," he promised. "I know
you'll have a lot of decisions to make, and I'm not saying I won't have very
strong opinions. She will need to be protected, especially if who we are gets
out, but I know you." There was so much more he could have added, but he had
months, so he simply said, "You'll do what needs to be done." With that last
bit he sought to lighten the mood. "You know what?"
"What's that?"
"In a few months I'm going to be outnumbered two to one by the women in this
family."
She made a vain effort to smile. "If any male I know deserves it, you do."
He drifted off sitting up, though he hadn't meant to, with her head cushioned
by his leg and his hand on her forehead. He had two dreams in a row that were
related - he knew they were related but he wasn't sure how - and completely
different. In one, his sister lay unconscious while he frantically tried to get
her to respond. In the second, she was scooping a tow-headed youngster into her
arms and laughing. In the background of both a voice kept saying tol'hi'denata
over and over.
It was mid afternoon when they finally reached solid
ground. Behind the clusters of sloe coloured limbs was green, green, green.
Green as far as her eye could see. And green, at least on Baskarn, usually grew
on solid ground, which meant walking, and the end of the noxious soupy realm
which had been their prison for fifty hours.
Luke had told her yesterday the swamps were similar to his Jedi Master's home
in many ways, except that each continent on Yoda's planet was covered in a
never-ending expanse of swamp. In fact, he spent most of the morning comparing
the two planets and pointing out fauna and creatures they had in common. She
made a mental note to never visit the Jedi Master's home world, if and
when her brother ever revealed its name to her. Whatever had attempted to make
Artoo its lunch when his X-wing crashed no doubt had a doppelganger here.
Luke had also been telling her details of his grueling training, adding off
hand that their trek couldn't even begin to compare. Each day he told her, he'd
applied himself, focused, and succeeded at trials three days previous he'd
believed beyond his capabilities. Yet his tiny master would only nod, and
present him with a task he would fail, as though his penchant for
overconfidence were a greater threat to him than Vader, or the Emperor. This
Jedi Master, Leia mused, should really have been around in Luke's early years
with the Alliance, when he was ready to hop into his X-wing and take on half
the Imperial Navy at a moment's notice. Luke's reality checks usually came from
herself, Han, or Wedge, his youthful exuberance and determination reluctant to
hear the voice of reason.
Little if any exuberance remained when they touched land. After nearly two days
of being buoyed by water, emerging from it was like readjusting to gravity
after being stuck in hyperspace for days on end with broken stabilizers. Every
muscle in her body felt like it had been turned to liquid fire, and her head
pounded as though a bantha had stepped on it. They'd been sprawled on the
ground resting for almost an hour.
Luke wasn't moving much. Beneath the soft brown stubble that covered the old
Wampa scars running along his left cheek, his face was flushed and pinched taut
with exhaustion. She didn't know how many hours Luke had gone without sleep at
this point, how many hours of sleep she'd managed. On top of that, one of the
reptiles with the long tails had gone for his pack and won, gouging his
shoulder in the process. His pack had been the one with the medkit, the
shelter, and the hydro-extractor.
Each time she tried to rouse him he pushed her away and insisted help was
on its way.
What help, she wondered, but he was adamant, so she rested too.
His wheezing intensified. "Hey! There they are."
There was grunting nearby. She pushed back onto her knees, raised a hand to her
face, feeling sticky blood on her forehead, cheek and neck from the knife vines
dangling in the swamp. She spat out the stale taste of swamp residue again and
looked up. Two Yrashu, the same two Yrashu who'd visited their camp,
were gesticulating wildly and motioning for them to follow.
"They've been tailing us for days," Luke wheezed.
She frowned. For days?
"I didn't know why," he stressed. "Just that they were."
The largest one immediately came over and grunted more forcefully, then picked
up her pack, while the female continued encouraging them to follow.
"We must look universally desperate and pathetic," he moaned. "To all species…"
"Can you make it?" she asked, moving to help him up.
He struggled to stand, and she sucked in her breath at the sight of blood
soaking through both sides of his jacket. She looped an arm around his back for
support.
They followed for almost an hour with the odd sight of a primitive creature
wearing a survival pack their beacon. When they eventually arrived at a small
encampment, Leia was amazed to see a cabin surrounded by carefully tended
gardens, flowering plants. A loom with a partially completed shirt, strung taut
hung between to beveled posts. Snares, clay urns, benches were outside the
domicile. It was almost gentrified. Several clay urns were positioned on either
side of the doorway, sealed with a crude form of netting. It was far too
advanced to be Yrashu. Anxious, she patted the pocket of her coveralls to make
sure her holdout blaster was ready.
At that moment, a man emerged from the main cabin, murmured something softly to
the two Yrashu. They set the gear down and continued on.
Luke waved his hand. "Hello."
The stranger was maybe half a head taller than her brother, but less muscular,
wirier. He wore a loose fallow tunic, reaching to his knees and belted loosely
at the waist. The outfit was completed by a threadbare and worn cloak, a
mixture of grey halftones and silver, which was, along with an amber amulet,
the only item he wore that didn't look pitifully homemade. Braided plant fibers
tied back raven hair that was nearly as long as her own, but his beard was grey
enough for her to guess he was long past his youth. "Welcome," the man said. "I
see my friends led you in the right direction."
"Yes, yes, they did. You could say…" He turned to her and shrugged. "We're in
need of some assistance."
Friends, Leia thought, hoping that was a good sign, though she wasn't
about to risk anything based on their character assessment. She couldn't place
the light accent either. And his eyes… His eyes were a brilliant gold. She had
never met a human with eyes that colour, and was so captivated by them she
barely noticed the cylindrical item clipped to his waist.
The two men stared long and hard at each other, and it was then that Leia
became aware of the unspoken dialogue, the undercurrent of the meeting, the
unfamiliar touch of a foreign mind, not Luke's, against her own. The tingle of
power around her was profound and overwhelming.
A Jedi, she thought. A living, breathing Jedi…
The man's eyes flicked up and down over them, absorbing their bedraggled
appearances, Luke's shoulder. "Dry clothes, food, shelter, medical attention?"
Luke appeared to be at a complete loss for words. "Uh… In that order, even."
"Well then," the man said, gesturing to his cabin. "I've been expecting you.
Please, come inside."
The dwelling was well built, obviously by a person of some craftsmanship;
smooth heartwood planks had been used, extending to the ceiling, made
watertight with the addition of heavy thatching. There was a cooking area in
one corner, across from which was a stack of crates stamped with the Kuat
shipyards logo, some of which had been broken apart and turned into shelves for
what looked like stacks and stacks of junk, bowls, datapads, jars filled with
gods knew what. The only bed in the room was across from the cooking area,
padded with some sort of floccose fiber.
The man retrieved a tunic and blanket. "Whatever I have that you can use… I
don't have much but I suggest you warm up first. You must be Luke?"
Leia froze but her brother maintained his composure implacably, stripping off
his clothes with a habitual lack of modesty. She made of point of focusing her
attentions elsewhere.
"I am," he said, as though it were perfectly natural for this man to greet him
by name. "Though you seem to have me at a disadvantage. I don't know who you
are."
The man's brow raised in amusement. "No you wouldn't. You wouldn't have even
been born when I arrived here. I'm Sarin." The brow wandered higher. "I always
pictured you as being older though… I've heard so much about you over the
years."
"Really? Here? Do you mind my asking how?"
"Your base is only a day from here by speeder. I receive wayward visitors from
time to time." Turning sideways, he addressed her. "And you my dear would be?"
"Leia," she replied, sighing inwardly with relief; then they weren't that far
at all, though… what was he still doing out here? Luke was known to be
the last of the Jedi, so upon meeting him, it wouldn't be hard to figure out.
"You're from Tatooine?" Sarin asked.
Luke slipped the calve-length tunic, nearly identical to their host's, over his
head, carefully leaving his one arm free and exposing the nasty mass of
bleeding puncture wounds on either side of his shoulder. "I grew up there."
"Oddly..." The elder man reflected, confused. "I've heard you were strong in
the Force, but never that you had a sister who was too. Leia is it? Not Princess
Leia Organa of Alderaan"
Icy shivers ran up and down her spine, and mistrust tightened her stomach. For
a man who lived in the middle of nowhere, he was very well informed and she
didn't like it. She slipped her hand into her pocket. Sure, their names might
have come up in casual conversation, but not their relationship to one another.
"No one from the base would have told you that," she said.
Sarin headed for his kitchen, selected a bowl and dipped it into the
earthenware pot resting on his stove. "The extent of a Jedi's perception is as
varied as any inherited skills, natural tendencies," he called over his
shoulder. "Mine are more unique." He returned and handed the bowl to Luke.
"Drink this. It may not taste very good but it's quite effective against
anything you may have picked up in those swamps."
Luke took a sip and grimaced. "You're not exaggerating."
"Now let's have a look at that bite," Sarin suggested. "Take a seat on the
floor."
Neither seemed to notice her standing there, still soaked and miserable,
wondering where she could go change that wasn't inside or out in the rain, but
in the next breath all concerns were forgotten.
Her brother sat obediently while Sarin knelt beside him and probed the ragged
wounds. The elder Jedi clenched his hands into fists and closed his eyes. When
he opened them again, they glowed red, as though lit up from within. She could
see the bones through his fingers, veins and tendons. It was almost as though
his hands had a luma pressed tight beneath them, while she gazed upon them from
above. Then he cupped both hands over the wounds.
"What are you-" Luke closed his eyes and groaned. In pain at first from the
contact, but the rigidity of his jaw eased up within seconds. His next groan
was one of relief. When Sarin removed his hands a few seconds later, his shoulder
was smooth and only faintly scarred. With a shrug, the Jedi grabbed an torn
piece of cloth and wiped away the blood from his hands and Luke's shoulder.
Leia was incredulous. Her brother was capable of advancing his recovery for
most injuries but not that instantaneously.
"Holy…" Luke began, touching his shoulder in fascination. "How did you…how…" He
looked up in astonishment. "Why you were a healer, weren't you?"
"Well I still am," Sarin chuckled, getting up to rinse the blood from his
hands. "Though I've rarely had human patients over the last twenty five years…
but for the few from your base who had an unfortunate encounter with the Hrosma
tigers a short distance away from here."
Tigers, Leia thought, feeling chilled again. She hadn't read that in
the files.
"I've never seen anything like it," Luke murmured, touching his shoulder,
rejoined flesh. "Not even my Master or the other Jedi I trained with…"
"There weren't many of us," Sarin told us. "I was descended from a long line of
healers, of Jedi who dedicated themselves to nothing else."
"Really," Luke breathed.
"Where do I even begin? Imagine if you will, all of your training narrowed
towards one goal, one specialty, and imagine then how proficient your
capabilities in that area would be."
"I suppose," Luke reasoned rapidly.
"Ah but of course," Sarin amended, "the healers of Yashuvhu were already born
with the gift, the ability to see auras, read a person's physical history by
sight alone. We had the advantage."
The recognition shot through her like a bolt of lightening, and her next
movement was to draw her holdout blaster and aim the barrel at his chest.
Luke vaulted forward and settled his hand over the nozzle. "He's not going to
harm us."
She jerked the carbine free of his palm. "Ask him to explain then!"
"Explain what?" Sarin asked.
"Leia," Luke sighed. "The blaster isn't going to do you much good…" But she
held her line of fire and forced him to explain. "Okay… My apologies but she
was attacked by something, by someone who sounded like you and spoke Yashuvhi.
Four days ago...." He took a deep breath. "We haven't been sure what happened.
It wasn't something I could sense… or feel…"
A shadow passed across Sarin's features. "She was?"
"Yes she was."
"Unexpected," Sarin murmured. "I am not the only native of Yashuvhi who was
held at the Korriban station, which…" He leveled his gaze. "I gather you found
as you have yet to ask me how I came to be here."
"Yes," Luke told him.
"As far as I know I am the only survivor."
"As far as you know," Luke furthered, saying more slowly, "If you say unexpected,
it would indicate you have some idea of what we're talking about."
"Rest assured it was not I." The reply was understated, an acknowledgement, but
not an invitation to ask more.
Luke nodded. "I believe you."
"Then he's using some sort of mind trick on you," she put in. "I could hear
him, feel him. This is too much of a coincidence!"
"You don't believe him?" Luke asked.
"No." Her instincts clawed at her, forced her fingers to tighten their grip.
Luke's reassurances found their way into her jumbled thoughts, coaxing her to please
remember she was a guest here. Logically, it didn't make sense for him to
have led them here when they needed help if he intended to harm them. Logically…
Luke might rely on the Force but she would have been dead years ago if she
trusted so easily. "No!"
Her brother countered. "And why would anyone bother to use mind tricks on me
and not you? Why would he have healed me, helped us?"
She mulled that over for a second. He did have a point, or rather two good
points. "He still knows who or what it was. He's not saying."
Luke studied Sarin. "You do know something. I can sense that."
"You are in no danger here," Sarin replied, rising to his feet and going to
fetch another bowl. The weapon turned on him may have well been a spoon or a
feather. "That's what's most important."
"But how…" A new current of surprise seemed to run through Luke, from the hair
on the tip of his head to his extremely wrinkled toes. "The Yrashu! You sent
them to us?"
"That I did. Though I would not have advised the route you chose. The swamps
are too dangerous, even for the Yrashu, as you discovered the hard way." He
came to extend his peace offering. "Perhaps your hands will be better occupied
with this," he suggested to her. "And perhaps you'd like to get out of your wet
clothes."
With a sigh of exasperation she slipped the weapon back in her pocket.
"Is it some sort of mental link, or bond?" Luke was asking. "I thought I felt…"
He shook his head.
"That the Yrashu are Force sensitive?" Sarin finished. "Yes, they are, though
they lack what we would consider sophisticated control. However they are able
enough to serve as my eyes and ears. Over long distances the impressions are
incoherent. I merely instructed them to escort you."
"Like a reconnaissance droid," Leia murmured, clear-sightedness finally
replacing the anxious rush of adrenaline. She supposed his concern for their
well-being should have completely smoothed the vague uneasiness she felt, but
there were simply too many questions. From what Luke had told her and what she
knew of Palpatine, her father even, use of the Dark side was utterly
antithetical to healing. It drained the life away from its users, did not replenish
it as the light side did. Sarin had sent the Yrashu ahead because he was
worried, she could assume that much, though what worried him was unclear. And
if the base was so nearby…
Her twin asked it before she could. "Though you claim to have made contact with
members of our base they've never reported a lone Jedi living here."
"They may have reported me," Sarin winked, "If they remembered meeting me."
Her muscles tightened with apprehension again. "Brainwashing!"
"Oh? And am I the only Jedi who chose to remain anonymous rather than face
certain death," their host demanded, resting his strange eyes on her once more.
"No," Luke said. "You're not."
"The Alliance needed help," she said shortly, anger firing her temper.
If what he was saying was true…They'd been so desperate five years ago. At
least Ben Kenobi had emerged from hiding to teach Luke, as had Master Yoda.
"You had to have known that yet you chose to do nothing. Whose side were you
on?"
"Who am I helping now?" Sarin replied evenly. "It was never meant to be me. My
training was not that of a warrior, and my lightsaber was little more than a
symbol of the order I loosely belonged to. And," he pointed to Luke, "if my
memory serves me, you did receive help and he's standing next to me."
Luke's mouth twitched. "I was one of thousands, not an army of one. I'll do my
best to dispel the myths when we arrive at the base."
"And now that we've found you," she cut in. "Are you going to erase our
memories too?"
"Leia," Luke whispered harshly.
She shook his thoughts off.
Sarin set the unaccepted bowl on the floor by her feet. "Nothing of the sort.
Now I suggest you take what I have offered you before you catch a death of a
cold. In your condition, it's probably not a wise gamble." And with that he
headed for the doorway and swept the netting aside.
"That was smooth," Luke breathed after he had gone.
"This doesn't make any sense," she insisted. "It doesn't! Something's going on
here!"
"You'd prefer to refuse his aid because you think his being here doesn't make
sense? Does that make sense?"
"No," she whispered meekly. But if Sarin was from Yashuvhu it meant what had
happened to her was real. The hatred she had felt directed toward her was real.
Furthermore he knew what it was or was connected to it. Yet... he was helping
them? She began to feel ashamed, even appalled at her behaviour. "Are you sure
we can trust him?"
"Yes." Luke picked up one of the blankets and opened it wide for her. "Now take
his advice before he gets back and get changed."
"Fine," she sighed. Donning a strange man's bedclothes was disconcerting, but
was better than being wet. It took a few minutes to work her way out of her
boots and soggy coveralls, the fatigues and tunic she wore beneath them. When
she was done she took the blanket from Luke, which upon closer inspection
appeared to be made of plant fibers, treated until they were supple and pliable
enough to be woven into a sturdy cloth. She wrapped it tightly around herself,
scooped up the dreadful smelling concoction and went to sit on the edge of his
bed. There wasn't a chance she was going to be able to make herself drink it,
even if it was medicinal.
"You know what I think?" Luke said, collecting the wet items and hanging them
from pegs beside the doorway. "I think you're so exhausted you can't see
straight or make heads or tails of anything."
"Thanks," she grumbled. "And you're in peak form right now."
"Well why don't you lay down and get some sleep."
She pushed the heel of her palm down against the bedding. Her vision was
starting to blur from fatigue, her head ached. Overall she felt ill. To lie
down for a little while would feel so good. "This is his bed. That's not very
polite."
"He won't mind," Luke assured her.
In your condition, he had said. He knew. "What about you?"
"I'm going to go talk to him, thank him, and do the same on the floor."