Revealed Identities

Chapter 19: Making Plans

Luke and Anakin ate their rations in comfortable silence. Luke wondered what it would have been like to grow up living with his father if Anakin had never turned.

"How are we going to get rid of Palpatine?" Luke wondered after he and his father had finished eating. Anakin closed his eyes and seemed to go into a sort of trance. After a few moments, Anakin opened his eyes, looking directly at Luke, but not really seeing him.

"The Force will only show me that you and I must work together. When you are ready, then we will know."

"Did the Force tell you how long my training will be?" Luke asked slowly.

"No, but probably six months, three at best." Luke's mouth opened and closed.

"That long?" He mumbled incredulous.

"We already have an advantage with your being apprenticed to me, plus some training that you have already done. Luke, to become a Jedi when the Republic still stood took many years." Anakin explained.

"The Emperor is sure to notice that we're here within that much time." Luke pointed out.

"We're not staying here. I'm not an idiot Luke. Listen, we are going to wait here until Jallishka and Opregash find us. It will be safer if we journey with them. I know that they will come and find us. It will only be a matter of days."

"I don't see how we will be safer, and besides, what about my friends? I told them to wait for me." Luke started to think that Wedge had been right, that he had gone nuts for thinking that there would be an easy solution. He had hoped that his father would be able to fix their problem simply. It had been a foolish thought.

"Listen, your friends will only be a distraction to you during your training. It will be best to leave them here. You can not tell them where you are going. I do not trust them."

"But I do!" Luke said exasperated.

"I am sorry Luke, but we cannot take the chance. If the Emperor finds them...it is best that they not know." Luke closed his eyes and sighed.

"Fine." He muttered.

"Good. Now, first things first. We must start your training right away. It's best to start with improving your patience while attuning your awareness of the Force." Anakin began to explain how to go into a simple meditation. Luke listened attentively, finally realizing what he was getting himself into. Several hours later, Anakin and Luke both tensed at the sound of an approaching ship.

"It's Jallishka and Opregash." Anakin said, sensing their presence through the Force. "Gather your things. The sooner we get off of this planet the better."

Leia stifled a yawn as she came into the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. Han turned around.

"How's our favorite prisoner doing?" He asked.

"Out cold. We gave him 30 units of proetisttal; Nekem won't wake for another couple of hours." Leia explained.

"We're coming out of hyperspace now." Han told her.

"Good. We can land on Gefoga in less than two hours. That'll make it easy for us to get him into the Alliance strong hold there."

Han pulled the Falcon out of lightspeed...

...right in front of a Super-Star Destroyer.

"You've got to be kidding me." Han groaned. He got Chewie on the comlink. "Chewie, we've got trouble." Han explained the site he was seeing, and it didn't take Chewie long to figure out that he should go and man the guns. Han didn't need to ask Leia to take her position at the guns either. All of them wondered how the Empire knew that they would be here. Leia had her suspicions.

'Vader. He tricked Luke into thinking that he had really turned, and the Empire tracked him here,' Leia thought bitterly to herself. She was angry as well. Since she had learned about Darth Vader's relationship to her, she had resented it with all her might, but with Luke's optimistic outlook, she had begun to hope that there was more to Vader than met the eye. It seemed she was wrong. A stream of TIE fighters swarmed around them. Chewie and Leia took out five of the TIEs within a minute. These were obviously not very well trained pilots.

"You would think the Star-Destroyer would have better goonies in those TIEs." Han yelled to his friends as he did a 90 degree dive, making two TIEs crash into each other. "Not that I'm complaining." Han added. Han tried to swoop around so that they could try and pass the TIEs to get around them to the safety of the other side of the planet when the controls bucked underneath his hands.

"Dammit!" He said, slamming his fist down hard on the accelerator, but it didn't help. "We're caught in the tractor beam! They're sucking us in." Chewie grumbled something.

Leia looked out her viewpoint with rage. She hated Vader for tricking Luke into this trap. But she hated herself for starting to hope that there had been something more.

Anakin felt Leia's presence as soon as she had entered Gefoga's orbit. He felt her rage. Despite Luke's lack of ability to control the Force, he could feel something was wrong as well. Luke placed the last of his bags into the Yetanaan Cruiser that Opregash had come in. He turned toward his father, a question forming on his lips.

"They're here." Anakin said simply. He didn't have to explain to Luke who he was talking about. "The Emperor has them."

Pain flashed across Luke's face, and Anakin sighed. His son had the same weakness as himself. He couldn't bear to see anyone close to him in pain. It had been the key in turning him to the darkside.

"We have to help them." Luke said suddenly. Anakin opened his mouth to tell Luke that that would be a foolish idea, but seeing Luke's face made him change his mind. Yes, Luke was definitely his son. Anakin could tell Luke the rationalities of why it would be suicidal to rescue his friends, but when Anakin thought about it, he agreed with Luke. Leia was his daughter, and he wanted to help her. Besides, when did he ever do anything that was considered rational?

He sighed.

"This is going to be suicidal. You're barely in tune to the Force to help a great deal..." Anakin began, Luke's face fell, "but it's not impossible to do." Luke smiled. Anakin did a double take, and shook his head. Luke had Shmi's smile. Anakin closed his eyes, and tried not to think of his mother.

"So what are we going to do?" Luke wondered.

"The Emperor has them. That means that they are here on a Star Destroyer at the very least. The Emperor has a fondness for technological terrors. Possibly his new toy called a Super-Star Destroyer. There are heavy security defenses inside that Super-Star Destroyer; a thousand or more TIE pilots are probably fueled and ready to attack; thousands of storm-troopers are armed and inside patrolling the corridors. The Emperor himself is there. How else do you think we're going to get into a ship like that? We're going to go in very quietly. I think that Jallishka and Opregash will be able to help us with that." Anakin turned to the two Noghri. Upon hearing their names, they walked over to him.

"What do you need us to do?" Jallishka asked anxiously.

"Produce bait." He turned to look at Luke. Luke raised his eyebrows. "We'll also have to use Leia. As far as I know Palpatine doesn't know that she is my daughter. We can use that to our advantage, if you can get her to cooperate with us." Anakin directed these last words to Luke.

"I think I know where you're going with this, and I don't think I like it very much." Luke said, frowning at his father.

"Do you have any better ideas?" Anakin countered.

"No." Luke admitted.

"Here's the plan..."

As soon as the Falcon was pulled into the hanger bay by the tractor beam, they dragged Nekem's drugged body from his "room" on the Falcon and placed him in the cockpit. They took a spare blaster and set the switch at a little before the midpoint between stun and blast. It would look as though Nekem had tried to commit suicide but hadn't turned the switch enough to finish the job.

"Do you think this'll work?" Leia asked Han.

"Sure it will. We just hide in the compartments like we did when they caught us on the Death Star, rig the log to make it look like Nekem killed us all, dumped our bodies in space, and took the ship. It's not like we have to get rid of any central power thing or whatever it was Kenobi got rid of on the Death Star. We just wait till they begin the scanning process of the ship, blast some stormtroopers, and off we fly. Don't underestimate my ability." Han said, a smug smile on his face.

They hid in the compartments and waited.

The Emperor smiled as he looked at the Falcon. Admiral Zephery looked away from his despot ruler in utter fear, hoping that the horrific smile on his face was not directed at himself as the Emperor spoke to him.

"How nice of this group to drop by. If I am not mistaken, they are Skywalker's friends. He and his father will be dropping by right on schedule. If the ship's captain pulls the same maneuver he was reported to have done on the Death Star, then they should be hiding somewhere on the ship. The report was sketchy as to where exactly they were hidden."

"I am somewhat familiar with those reports. We had the Death Star's tapes as we tried to identify who was responsible for destroying it." Admiral Zephery thought back to when he had delivered that message to the Darth Vader himself. Questions whirled in his mind.

"What do you wish to ask me?" The Emperor implored.

"Have there been any more results in the explosion that killed Lord Vader?" Admiral Zephery asked bravely. The Emperor laughed, a high and cruel pitch, but reclined from answering the question which left the Admiral feeling even more unnerved than before.

"Stun the prisoners." The Emperor ordered and left. A group of storm-troopers stood, looking after the Emperor.

"You heard him!" Zephery shouted, "Get to work!" The gaping stormtroopers hurried to do their job.

Leia awoke in a detention block, lying on a flat, hard, and very cold metal object that the Empire had claimed as a bed. The last thing that she remembered was the latch to the hidden compartment she had been hiding in opening.

She was going to kill Han when she saw him again...if she saw him again.

'Leia?' Leia jumped when she heard her voice. It sounded like Luke...but it didn't quite sound like someone was talking.

"Luke?" She asked.

'Leia? Can you hear me?' Luke's voice asked again.

"Yes, can you hear me?" Leia asked out loud.

'Leia?' He sounded more panicked now. How could she communicate with him?

*Concentrate.*

"Oh wonderful," she muttered out loud, "As if hearing one voice wasn't enough!" She sighed and decided to give it a shot.

'Luke?'

'Leia! Are you alright?' Luke asked.

'For the moment. What about you? Are you alright?'

'We're fine, and we have a plan.'

'We?' Leia sound wary. 'You're with him, aren't you? He's the one behind all of this!' She said, thoroughly panicked.

'Just hear me out, please.' Leia listened to the plea in her twin brother's voice and sighed.

'I suppose it couldn't hurt.' She sighed after a few moments of thought.

'Here's the deal...'

Next part...Skywalkers to the Rescue