Part II -- Marooned
In a thick wilderness area, a battered X-wing fighter lay crookedly on the moss-furred forest floor. To the side, a Firespray-class starfighter lowered a customized TIE fighter with its tractor beam. Lacking landing gear of any kind, it was nearly impossible for a TIE to land on or take off from a horizontal surface.
Once the second fighter was safely down, the Slave settled to the ground close by. The occupants of both vehicles climbed out of their respective ships, Fett pulling a toolbox from his cockpit, Vader striding purposefully toward the X-wing. The transparisteel canopy sprang open, seemingly of its own accord, and Vader pushed it farther open to get at the unconscious pilot. The ship's onboard Artoo unit screamed electronically and uttered a string of insults and warnings as the Dark Lord pulled Luke from the vehicle.
Fett looked up from the X-wing's engines. "Hyperdrive disconnected and fuel cells drained," he informed Vader, his voice grating from his throat like gravel. "He's not going anywhere."
"Good," Vader replied, his own voice echoing eerily through his mask. "Dispose of the hyperdrive generator. We must take no chances."
Fett hefted the unit in both arms and disappeared with it. There was a tremendous splash, then the bounty hunter returned, his armor flecked with moisture. Evidently there was a river nearby.
Vader motioned for Fett to watch over Luke's body. He returned to the TIE and activated the comm, keying it to the Executor's frequency.
"I have secured Skywalker and will be taking him on board the Executor shortly," he intoned. "Prepare for my arrival."
"Yes, my lord," Admiral Piett replied. "I believe you should know that the Emperor has left a message. He wishes you to report to Death Star II as soon as possible..." Then a sudden flurry of static drowned the Admiral out.
"Admiral!" Vader barked.
"...losing you!" Piett replied amidst more bursts of comm disruption. "I'm attempting... alternate frequency..." And his voice petered out as the TIE's comm shut down, fuel cells exhausted.
Vader slammed his metallic right fist into the TIE's plating, leaving a dent deep enough to serve as a banquet tureen. What fool had neglected to fit his comm with fresh cells while readying Vader's TIE? When he got back to the Executor, someone was going to pay dearly for this error. Making a mental note to check the duty rosters, he joined Fett in his watch over the captured Rebel.
Fett exchanged a silent look with the Sith Apprentice, a look that spoke volumes. The hunter was in no way loyal to or afraid of Vader, and he fully expected to be paid for his involvement in capturing Skywalker. He had already received partial payment -- the remote hyperdrive coordinate scrambler he'd used to misdirect the Rebel party was his to keep. But a more lucrative bounty had been promised for his continued participation, and he intended to collect it at all costs.
Vader nodded in mute acknowledgment. Of course Fett would receive his payment. Despite his murderous reputation, Vader was a man of honor. And Fett was quite deserving of that honor, having completed several seemingly impossible missions for the Dark Lord, survived many attempts on his life, and escaped from the gullet of the supposedly invincible Sarlaac.
Skywalker, too, deserved respect. Despite beginning his training so late in his life, he had an impressive command of the Force. Also, he had not only almost single-handedly destroyed the Death Star, he had consistently eluded capture for nearly four years in spite of having one of the largest prices in the galaxy on his head. And to top it off, if Fett's testimony proved correct, he had killed Jabba the Hutt, the galaxy's most
notorious gangster. Vader smiled darkly behind his mask at the unconscious young Jedi. Yes, this young man would prove to be an excellent disciple of the dark side.
/If you can turn him./
Firmly he squelched that traitorous thought. There was no "if." Luke would turn or die. There was no third option.
"Bind him," he ordered Fett. "Strip him of all weapons. We'll use your ship to return to the Executor."
"As you wish," Fett replied.
The hunter would never admit it, of course, but he obviously did not relish spending more time on this planet than necessary. This system, simply defined as Area 51 on most galactic maps, was one of the most legendary (if least explored) Imperial-owned systems in the galaxy. Starships were known to wander into the system and never return, and spacers who survived the journey out rarely escaped without some wondrous, bizarre tale about what they had encountered. Some claimed the sector was a haven for refugee Jedi; others reported weird creatures and mysterious phenomena. The Republic hadn't exactly discouraged jaunts through the area, but they made it clear that pilots traveling the system did so at their own risk. The Empire outlawed all space travel in this region, but there was still the occasional daredevil or shortcut-seeker who slipped through, sometimes living to tell the tale, other times not.
Vader was not one for regarding foolish rumors. And at any rate, they would not be here long. Once they had Skywalker aboard the Slave...
An ominous hiss attracted their attention, and they turned to see the Artoo unit sitting at the Slave's computer jack. Evidently the droid had made his way out of his X-wing socket and had been sitting at the input point for some time, spewing useless information and conflicting commands into the Slave's main computer. Before either
man could act, the computer core overloaded and blew, belching a geyser of gray smoke like a tombstone before expiring with a fading whine.
/No!/ Vader screamed mentally as he stared helplessly at the ship that was now little more than a glorified scrap heap, useless without its computers. How could this happen? Everything had gone according to plan. Luke was in his clutches. The Rebellion was flying into a trap on Endor, happily unaware that they were on the cusp of
extinction. And now... they were shipwrecked on the one world that made Tatooine look like a distinguished Core planet.
/Perhaps it's for the best./
Furiously he crushed the notion. Where were these contrary thoughts coming from?
Fett drew his blaster in anger.
"Save your fire!" Vader ordered. "It is too late."
Reluctantly he lowered the weapon, but he radiated fury like a leaking reactor.
The droid tootled merrily as it turned its dome to regard the two men, as if to say "What are you going to do about it? Send me back to my X-wing without supper?"
"Blasted droid," raged Fett.
***
A few dozen miles away from the landing site, a Boba Fett impostor was every bit as irritated as the real deal.
"A little to the left!" a snowtrooper wannabe advised him. "No, that's crooked too. Right then. Ohh, that's even worse!"
Jason sighed in exasperation and looked down from his attempts to hang a mirror-encrusted paper-mache model of a TIE fighter from the center of the warehouse ceiling. "Emily, you are royally tickin' me off, ya know? Will you shut up and let me hang this thing or ya wanna come up and do it yourself?"
Emily stared up the ladder at him. "What, a big tough man like you can't do something as simple as hang a disco ball?"
"I never said I couldn't," he shot back. "But if you think you're so much better at it than me, I'll get down and let you have a shot at it."
"Nah, I prefer to watch you make an idiot out of yourself," she replied smugly. "You might wanna tweak it just a little so it hangs... whoops! Nose dive!"
"Just shut up or you're gonna be wearing this thing!"
"And ruin your brother's beautiful artwork?" She feigned dismay. "Honestly, I am appalled that you would so readily destroy the product of three days of Patrick's hard work!"
"I told you to --"
"Knock it off already!" shrieked Liz from the DJ table. "Geez, can't you two be civil for two consecutive seconds? You fight like Han and Leia!"
"He started it," Emily claimed at the same time Jason insisted "She started it."
"Place is looking nice," noted Patrick as he entered the building carrying a dripping cooler. The front of his Jango Fett armor was slick with moisture. He set the cooler down by the refreshment table, propped it open, and pulled off his water-saturated gloves.
"Yeah, no thanks to these two," Liz grumbled. She unhooked her Zam Wessel veil so Patrick could actually hear her. When Liz wasn't yelling, which was rare, her veil tended to muffle her words. "All the refreshments ready?"
Patrick grunted ascent. He hadn't gotten many of the vocal genes in the family.
"What was that? I didn't hear you!"
"Take off the headphones," suggested Jason.
"You can it!" Liz snapped.
"I said yes," Patrick replied.
"You would be able to hear him better if you at least lowered the volume on your Walkman, Liz," Emily pointed out. "Besides, it can't be good for your hearing to have 'Best of ELO' playing in your ears at max volume 24-7."
"They're my ears, not yours," Liz shot back.
"Everything's in shipshape!" announced Steve, peering out from behind a speaker. "Sound system, players, karaoke, lights, everything's hooked up and running. Place looks like a raging geek's pipe dream. Snacks're hot or cold as needed. All that's missing are the guests." He turned to Emily. "My makeup smeared?"
She scrutinized his Darth Maul makeover carefully. "Nope. Still can't understand why you don't just wear a mask and avoid the hassle of face paint, contacts, rubber horns, and shaving your head."
"'Cause I like authenticity."
"If that's so, just get your whole face tattooed," retorted Amethyst as she appeared from behind the second speaker, hands folded across her scouttrooper breastplate.
Steve laughed. "Thought about that, but I have a phobia of needles."
"So who's still missing?" inquired Jason, giving the disco TIE a final nudge before nodding in satisfaction.
"Liberty, Sparky, Zack, the Church family, the other four Troopers, and our fearless leader," Steve replied. "Hope Austin brings his kid. The tyke's a lot of fun."
"He's not a tyke," Patrick corrected as he poured a bag of Salsa Verde Doritos into a bowl.
"That's right; he's nine now!" Emily said wonderingly. "He's growing up so fast. Too bad about Austin's split with Melissa. She wasn't half bad."
"Where have you been this last eon?" demanded Liz. "Melissa divorced Austin four years ago!"
"And besides, we're the reason she divorced him," Amethyst added, jabbing her chest with her thumb. "She couldn't handle us rabid Stargeeks, so she flew the coop."
"Too bad," Emily replied sadly. "She had the makings of a true fan if she'd only opened her mind to the saga."
"You just want her to come back 'cause you think she's hot," Steve teased.
Emily punched his shoulder. "Do not!"
"You two are truly disgusting," Jason griped as he descended the ladder. "Bad enough that you're both gay, but you don't have to rub it in at every opportunity."
"Just 'cause you're homophobic..." began Steve.
"Am not!" Jason protested. "But do you see the rest of us broadcasting our sex lives?"
"True Star Wars fans have no sex lives," Zack announced as he entered the warehouse, his Count Dooku robes flowing behind him. "Don't wanna risk lip-locking with a long-lost sib."
"That makes seven of us!" Jason noted. "Leaves... lemme think... eleven to go 'fore the whole fan club's here."
"You can count to eleven?" Emily gasped. "That's a new record, Jason! You've been practicing, haven't you?"
"Bite me!" Jason snapped.
In a thick wilderness area, a battered X-wing fighter lay crookedly on the moss-furred forest floor. To the side, a Firespray-class starfighter lowered a customized TIE fighter with its tractor beam. Lacking landing gear of any kind, it was nearly impossible for a TIE to land on or take off from a horizontal surface.
Once the second fighter was safely down, the Slave settled to the ground close by. The occupants of both vehicles climbed out of their respective ships, Fett pulling a toolbox from his cockpit, Vader striding purposefully toward the X-wing. The transparisteel canopy sprang open, seemingly of its own accord, and Vader pushed it farther open to get at the unconscious pilot. The ship's onboard Artoo unit screamed electronically and uttered a string of insults and warnings as the Dark Lord pulled Luke from the vehicle.
Fett looked up from the X-wing's engines. "Hyperdrive disconnected and fuel cells drained," he informed Vader, his voice grating from his throat like gravel. "He's not going anywhere."
"Good," Vader replied, his own voice echoing eerily through his mask. "Dispose of the hyperdrive generator. We must take no chances."
Fett hefted the unit in both arms and disappeared with it. There was a tremendous splash, then the bounty hunter returned, his armor flecked with moisture. Evidently there was a river nearby.
Vader motioned for Fett to watch over Luke's body. He returned to the TIE and activated the comm, keying it to the Executor's frequency.
"I have secured Skywalker and will be taking him on board the Executor shortly," he intoned. "Prepare for my arrival."
"Yes, my lord," Admiral Piett replied. "I believe you should know that the Emperor has left a message. He wishes you to report to Death Star II as soon as possible..." Then a sudden flurry of static drowned the Admiral out.
"Admiral!" Vader barked.
"...losing you!" Piett replied amidst more bursts of comm disruption. "I'm attempting... alternate frequency..." And his voice petered out as the TIE's comm shut down, fuel cells exhausted.
Vader slammed his metallic right fist into the TIE's plating, leaving a dent deep enough to serve as a banquet tureen. What fool had neglected to fit his comm with fresh cells while readying Vader's TIE? When he got back to the Executor, someone was going to pay dearly for this error. Making a mental note to check the duty rosters, he joined Fett in his watch over the captured Rebel.
Fett exchanged a silent look with the Sith Apprentice, a look that spoke volumes. The hunter was in no way loyal to or afraid of Vader, and he fully expected to be paid for his involvement in capturing Skywalker. He had already received partial payment -- the remote hyperdrive coordinate scrambler he'd used to misdirect the Rebel party was his to keep. But a more lucrative bounty had been promised for his continued participation, and he intended to collect it at all costs.
Vader nodded in mute acknowledgment. Of course Fett would receive his payment. Despite his murderous reputation, Vader was a man of honor. And Fett was quite deserving of that honor, having completed several seemingly impossible missions for the Dark Lord, survived many attempts on his life, and escaped from the gullet of the supposedly invincible Sarlaac.
Skywalker, too, deserved respect. Despite beginning his training so late in his life, he had an impressive command of the Force. Also, he had not only almost single-handedly destroyed the Death Star, he had consistently eluded capture for nearly four years in spite of having one of the largest prices in the galaxy on his head. And to top it off, if Fett's testimony proved correct, he had killed Jabba the Hutt, the galaxy's most
notorious gangster. Vader smiled darkly behind his mask at the unconscious young Jedi. Yes, this young man would prove to be an excellent disciple of the dark side.
/If you can turn him./
Firmly he squelched that traitorous thought. There was no "if." Luke would turn or die. There was no third option.
"Bind him," he ordered Fett. "Strip him of all weapons. We'll use your ship to return to the Executor."
"As you wish," Fett replied.
The hunter would never admit it, of course, but he obviously did not relish spending more time on this planet than necessary. This system, simply defined as Area 51 on most galactic maps, was one of the most legendary (if least explored) Imperial-owned systems in the galaxy. Starships were known to wander into the system and never return, and spacers who survived the journey out rarely escaped without some wondrous, bizarre tale about what they had encountered. Some claimed the sector was a haven for refugee Jedi; others reported weird creatures and mysterious phenomena. The Republic hadn't exactly discouraged jaunts through the area, but they made it clear that pilots traveling the system did so at their own risk. The Empire outlawed all space travel in this region, but there was still the occasional daredevil or shortcut-seeker who slipped through, sometimes living to tell the tale, other times not.
Vader was not one for regarding foolish rumors. And at any rate, they would not be here long. Once they had Skywalker aboard the Slave...
An ominous hiss attracted their attention, and they turned to see the Artoo unit sitting at the Slave's computer jack. Evidently the droid had made his way out of his X-wing socket and had been sitting at the input point for some time, spewing useless information and conflicting commands into the Slave's main computer. Before either
man could act, the computer core overloaded and blew, belching a geyser of gray smoke like a tombstone before expiring with a fading whine.
/No!/ Vader screamed mentally as he stared helplessly at the ship that was now little more than a glorified scrap heap, useless without its computers. How could this happen? Everything had gone according to plan. Luke was in his clutches. The Rebellion was flying into a trap on Endor, happily unaware that they were on the cusp of
extinction. And now... they were shipwrecked on the one world that made Tatooine look like a distinguished Core planet.
/Perhaps it's for the best./
Furiously he crushed the notion. Where were these contrary thoughts coming from?
Fett drew his blaster in anger.
"Save your fire!" Vader ordered. "It is too late."
Reluctantly he lowered the weapon, but he radiated fury like a leaking reactor.
The droid tootled merrily as it turned its dome to regard the two men, as if to say "What are you going to do about it? Send me back to my X-wing without supper?"
"Blasted droid," raged Fett.
***
A few dozen miles away from the landing site, a Boba Fett impostor was every bit as irritated as the real deal.
"A little to the left!" a snowtrooper wannabe advised him. "No, that's crooked too. Right then. Ohh, that's even worse!"
Jason sighed in exasperation and looked down from his attempts to hang a mirror-encrusted paper-mache model of a TIE fighter from the center of the warehouse ceiling. "Emily, you are royally tickin' me off, ya know? Will you shut up and let me hang this thing or ya wanna come up and do it yourself?"
Emily stared up the ladder at him. "What, a big tough man like you can't do something as simple as hang a disco ball?"
"I never said I couldn't," he shot back. "But if you think you're so much better at it than me, I'll get down and let you have a shot at it."
"Nah, I prefer to watch you make an idiot out of yourself," she replied smugly. "You might wanna tweak it just a little so it hangs... whoops! Nose dive!"
"Just shut up or you're gonna be wearing this thing!"
"And ruin your brother's beautiful artwork?" She feigned dismay. "Honestly, I am appalled that you would so readily destroy the product of three days of Patrick's hard work!"
"I told you to --"
"Knock it off already!" shrieked Liz from the DJ table. "Geez, can't you two be civil for two consecutive seconds? You fight like Han and Leia!"
"He started it," Emily claimed at the same time Jason insisted "She started it."
"Place is looking nice," noted Patrick as he entered the building carrying a dripping cooler. The front of his Jango Fett armor was slick with moisture. He set the cooler down by the refreshment table, propped it open, and pulled off his water-saturated gloves.
"Yeah, no thanks to these two," Liz grumbled. She unhooked her Zam Wessel veil so Patrick could actually hear her. When Liz wasn't yelling, which was rare, her veil tended to muffle her words. "All the refreshments ready?"
Patrick grunted ascent. He hadn't gotten many of the vocal genes in the family.
"What was that? I didn't hear you!"
"Take off the headphones," suggested Jason.
"You can it!" Liz snapped.
"I said yes," Patrick replied.
"You would be able to hear him better if you at least lowered the volume on your Walkman, Liz," Emily pointed out. "Besides, it can't be good for your hearing to have 'Best of ELO' playing in your ears at max volume 24-7."
"They're my ears, not yours," Liz shot back.
"Everything's in shipshape!" announced Steve, peering out from behind a speaker. "Sound system, players, karaoke, lights, everything's hooked up and running. Place looks like a raging geek's pipe dream. Snacks're hot or cold as needed. All that's missing are the guests." He turned to Emily. "My makeup smeared?"
She scrutinized his Darth Maul makeover carefully. "Nope. Still can't understand why you don't just wear a mask and avoid the hassle of face paint, contacts, rubber horns, and shaving your head."
"'Cause I like authenticity."
"If that's so, just get your whole face tattooed," retorted Amethyst as she appeared from behind the second speaker, hands folded across her scouttrooper breastplate.
Steve laughed. "Thought about that, but I have a phobia of needles."
"So who's still missing?" inquired Jason, giving the disco TIE a final nudge before nodding in satisfaction.
"Liberty, Sparky, Zack, the Church family, the other four Troopers, and our fearless leader," Steve replied. "Hope Austin brings his kid. The tyke's a lot of fun."
"He's not a tyke," Patrick corrected as he poured a bag of Salsa Verde Doritos into a bowl.
"That's right; he's nine now!" Emily said wonderingly. "He's growing up so fast. Too bad about Austin's split with Melissa. She wasn't half bad."
"Where have you been this last eon?" demanded Liz. "Melissa divorced Austin four years ago!"
"And besides, we're the reason she divorced him," Amethyst added, jabbing her chest with her thumb. "She couldn't handle us rabid Stargeeks, so she flew the coop."
"Too bad," Emily replied sadly. "She had the makings of a true fan if she'd only opened her mind to the saga."
"You just want her to come back 'cause you think she's hot," Steve teased.
Emily punched his shoulder. "Do not!"
"You two are truly disgusting," Jason griped as he descended the ladder. "Bad enough that you're both gay, but you don't have to rub it in at every opportunity."
"Just 'cause you're homophobic..." began Steve.
"Am not!" Jason protested. "But do you see the rest of us broadcasting our sex lives?"
"True Star Wars fans have no sex lives," Zack announced as he entered the warehouse, his Count Dooku robes flowing behind him. "Don't wanna risk lip-locking with a long-lost sib."
"That makes seven of us!" Jason noted. "Leaves... lemme think... eleven to go 'fore the whole fan club's here."
"You can count to eleven?" Emily gasped. "That's a new record, Jason! You've been practicing, haven't you?"
"Bite me!" Jason snapped.