Revealed Identities

Chapter 16: The Chase

Jallishka watched un-nerved as another Noghri approached Luke's ship. He wasn't sure what to do. If he attacked the other Noghri, then he would be thought a traitor. He did not wish to fight his own kind, but he knew that he was assigned to protect young Skywalker at all costs, and that had come from Lord Vader himself, so he was sure he would be able to explain himself. Silently he approached the other Noghri. He recognized her and called out to her.

"Opregash, clan Ruklend, if you sabotage the ship, you go against Lord Vader's orders." Jallishka called out.

"Who's there?" Opregash whirled around, her senses on edge.

"Jallishka, clan Mortio." Jallishka said as he stepped out from his hiding spot.

"What's this about Lord Vader's orders?" Jallishka noted with a frown that she tightly gripped a knife in her hand. Jallishka hoped he could explain quickly.

Luke grinned as he amused himself by picturing his father and Artoo strolling along together. He kept picturing Darth Vader which, surprisingly, did not make it a horrible thought but rather quite comical.

"What are you grinning about?" His father asked curiously.

"Just an amusing thought." Luke replied, his grin fading at his childish thinking.

"Care to enlighten me?" Anakin asked politely.

"Not really, no." Luke answered truthfully. Anakin shook his head and followed Luke back to the hangar where their ships laid docked. Jallishka appeared from behind Luke's ship as they got closer. Anakin and Luke watched in silence as he called out to another Noghri.

'The Emperor must have tracked you again.' Anakin sent through his and Luke's Force bond so as not to attract any attention to themselves. Luke's hand reached for his lightsaber, but his father gripped his hand lightly. 'I know this Noghri. If I can get close enough to her, she will know who I am, and obey me.'

"What's this about Lord Vader's orders?" Opregash demanded. They watched as she pulled a knife out.

"He ordered-" Jallishka began to explain, but the other Noghri cut him off.

"Lord Vader is dead, and according to files, it is your fault. You were not there to protect him as you should have been!"

Jallishka froze in place, his confusion giving Opregash enough time to throw her knife. Anakin stopped it mid-air with the Force.

Opregash looked around in confusion and spotted Anakin and Luke. She became angry at herself as she realized that she had allowed her guard to drop enough so that others could stop her actions.

"This is none of your concern sorcerer." She said, her voice firm.

"Yes it is Opregash. I do not appreciate when my orders are not obeyed, and I think that you should know that I am far from dead." Anakin spoke in a rich tone that captured one's attention. She moved close enough so that she could smell him.

"Lord Vader?" Opregash gasped as she inhaled Anakin's scent, recognizing the same blood as the former sith lord. He smiled.

"I will explain things later. As for now, I do hope that you have not done anything to my son's ship." Anakin said pleasantly.

She shook her head, now turning her attention to Luke, linking his scent to Anakin's.

"We must leave here now. There are others that are following me, and I believe that they are no friends of yours." Opregash blurted out in a rush.

"What are you talking about?" Jallishka asked. Luke's Jedi sense picked up on what Opregash was talking about a second before it happened. Lasers started to fly around the four of them. Anakin and Luke pulled out their lightsabers, and began to head for cover under their ships.

"I guess with my failure, the Emperor no longer fully trusts the Noghri." Jallishka said wryly, as he headed for his own ship.

"Split up, confuse them." Anakin directed as he jumped into his ship. He flipped the shields on upon entering. Luke hopped into his X-wing, receiving a few terrified beeps from Artoo. Artoo didn't need to be told to flip on the shields; he had done it immediately when he saw the laser blasts begin to fly. Luke watched with a bemused expression as he witnessed the two Noghri both jump into Jallishka's ship. Opregash was clutching her right arm as though she had been hit.

Anakin's ship lifted off and hovered in the air for about five seconds, and then soared away as a blur. Luke followed suit, heading in the other direction. Jallishka and Opregash, Luke saw before speeding off, headed in the general direction as his father.

He suspected they thought that would take the brunt of the blow away from him. In less than five minutes he had three ships on his scopes. They were catching up on him quickly, and Luke wondered how that was possible.

"What's going on Artoo?" Luke asked incredulously as the ships gained with incredible speed. Luke looked at the control screen as Artoo informed him that their pursuers had left from another port not far away. Luke sighed. That seemed reasonable. If they weren't sure exactly which space port he had landed on, then they would have been spread out, which meant that his father and Jallishka probably had tails now too.

'Father, is there anyone following you?' Luke sent through their mind bond.

'Besides Jallishka? No.' Anakin sent, his thoughts turning to worry. 'How many are on you?' He asked.

'Three. I can take them. They're just gaining fast, that's all.' Luke tried to reassure him, but it wasn't working.

'I'll head back towards you.' Anakin said.

'That's not a good idea. I'm sure the group that attacked us at the spaceport is already flying your way. They must have alerted another group because they didn't appear on my scopes until I entered the Yurtal region. Besides, they were already in Terrian Formation so they were expecting me to fly by.' Luke explained.

'Terrian Formation? That's a standard smuggler's tactic.' Anakin sent.

'Yes, but didn't the Empire also deal with smugglers?' Luke wondered.

'Of course. But usually not as public as this. And you did say that they were gaining quickly. I don't like the sound of them gaining on you that quickly. X-wings may not be the best of ships,' Luke made an indignant grunt, 'but they should be able to outrun most smugglers.'

'Well, I do have an ex-smuggler friend,' Luke momentarily wondered what Han and Leia were up to 'whose ship is quite capable of outrunning starships.'

'You mean the freighter that got sucked into the tractor beam?' Anakin sent to Luke in realization.

'Yes that's-' Luke cut off his sentence as a blast racked his ship.

'Luke what happened?' Anakin's "voice" sounded worried.

'I'm not sure. It seems that the upper right exhaust vent was hit, and instead of creating a hole, the heat of the blast acted as a weld and closed the vent opening. It must have exploded due to building pressure. That's the only thing that I can think of that could have happened.'

'What else exploded with it?' Anakin wondered.

'I'm not sure.' But Luke wasn't worried about what else exploded at the moment. He couldn't see his pursuers anywhere on his scopes. Luke looked around in his seat, but the small windows on either side of him didn't help. 'I can't see any of them. It's like they just vanished.'

Luke looked down at his scopes again, and realized the reason that the other ships had disappeared. 'There are four heavily armed ships coming in fast from the other way.' Luke sent through the link, doing his best not to sound panicked.

'That's it! I'm turning the ship around.' Anakin's worry had increased a hundred fold.

'No!' Luke sent, annoyance in his voice. 'The ships have probably high-tailed it in your direction.

'They won't expect me to be coming back then.' Anakin argued with Luke.

'But-' Luke felt a sudden jolt as the connection with his father was lost. 'Father?' He asked worriedly. What had happened?

Had his father been hit? He didn't know, but he had a bad feeling about it, whatever had happened. He tried to use his radio, but it wasn't working.

"Artoo, see what you can do to fix the radio." Artoo beeped that he would work on it, but Luke didn't dwell on what happened to his father for long because the approaching ships had all formed a circle around him. Luke spotted a reactor field in front of him. He dove for the area, hoping that his pursuers would at least have the intelligence not to shoot at him and start a nuclear reaction.

Luke was right with his assumption that they wouldn't shoot at him, but they were gaining on him as the other ships had done. He wondered why his ship had been going so slow, and he realized it was because of the ship's injury. A beep from Artoo made his fears a reality. His ship was not only slowing down, it was going down. Luke made a sharp turn to the left, his new pursuers still not shooting at him. Pulling the front of his ship up, he barely managed to clear the reactors below him and managed to crash land into brush instead of the reactors.

His radio fuzzed, and Luke realized that Artoo had fixed it. Though it was a little too late, for his pursuers were already landing and surrounding his ship. With no other option, Luke opened the hatch of his ship and jumped out of the X-wing. Before he had gone two steps, a familiar voice called out to him.

"Luke!" Luke spun around to see Wedge Antilles come running out of one of the four ships.

"Wedge!" Luke hollered back, a smile gracing his face.

"You're alive! We tried contacting you on your radio-" Wedge began. Luke interrupted.

"It's busted. Listen, we need to help my friends. They're in a great deal of trouble." Luke said seriously.

"We saw the group of fighters on your tail. Seems we must have scared them off." Wedge gave Luke a searching look. "Luke, what's going on?"

"I'll explain as we go to help out my friends." Wedge nodded as he led Luke into one of the ships.

"So why are you in these ships?" Luke asked as he looked around the nicely furnished ships. Luke looked around sheepishly at the ship. He hadn't realized in his panic that these ships were not at all used for fighting, and unless the owner had paid a good sum of money for a license, they were not supposed to have anything besides defense weaponry.

"I guess that's one that I'll have to explain as we go too."

Luke followed Wedge down a small, dimly lit corridor. Luke felt his head swim as the ship took off. How was he supposed to explain to his friends that they were rescuing ex-sith lord, Darth Vader? Not to mention the little fact that he happened to be Luke's father.

Luke sighed. He really hoped that he would be able to get out of this one.

Next part...How to Piss Off an Emperor