Chapter 4 – Visions of Fire
"Hey Luke, get a load of this!"
Luke popped the lasagna in the microwave and went back into the living room. "What's up?"
Trapper pointed at the television screen. "I just turned on the TV to play 'Bounty Hunter,' and this was on the six o' clock news!"
The image of a newscaster on the screen was swiftly replaced by an outdoor shot of some sort of store, bullet holes piercing the glass in a few places and police cars everywhere. A voice-over provided the details.
"Police are searching for four suspects involved in a jewelry heist in Denver early this afternoon. Witnesses told the police that four men, each wearing the costume of a Star Wars character, entered the store and fired several rounds, then demanded the jewelry cases be unlocked. The thieves left the store in an unmarked maroon Chevy Astro with over a million dollars worth of unmounted gemstones. No one was injured during the robbery…"
Luke shook his head. "If they're in Star Wars costumes, it means they were from around here."
"It's the stupid Sons of the Sith, I'll bet," Trapper grumbled. "They give Star Wars fans a bad name. Some people want the conventions shut down, thanks to them."
Images of Star Wars characters were flashed across the screen as references for what types of costumes each thief had worn. The gunmen had worn trooper costumes, one stormtrooper and the other scouttrooper, while the man who had actually cleaned out the cases had been dressed as an Imperial Royal Guard. The getaway driver, apparently, had been a Darth Maul look-alike.
"All either masked or make-upped characters," Luke noted. "It'll be hard to identify them. I wonder why they want gems."
"Drug money, maybe," Trapper replied. "At least half of them are addicts, I hear…"
"If it was drug money they were after, they wouldn't go for gems," Luke countered. "They'd have to find a fence for the gemstones, get their steal appraised, and all that takes time. Someone desperate for drug money would most likely rob a convenience store or snatch a purse for quick cash, not waste time on other merchandise. Whoever did this either wants big money for a big project, or they're after the stones themselves rather than their cash value."
Trapper hummed a little as he digested that thought. "Maybe they're after guns. They sell the gems, use the money to get weapons…"
"That begs the question – why do they want weapons?"
"Let's change the subject," Trapper said nervously, turning off the TV.
The microwave chimed.
"I have a better idea," Luke said, going back to the kitchen. "Let's have dinner. Afterwards we can watch a movie or play some games…"
"We can watch 'The Sixth Sense,'" Trapper suggested. "Just don't tell Dad you let me watch it."
Luke arched an eyebrow. "Nice try."
"Aw, c'mon, it's not even really gory!"
"You can work that out with your dad. For now, his rules stand." Luke pulled another movie out of the DVD case. "Now THIS one looks interesting. That looks like Han."
"That's 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,'" Trapper replied. "And yeah, that's the same guy who plays Han Solo in the Star Wars movies. Those are cool movies too. Want to see one tonight?"
"Sure, I'm game. Set the table and we'll watch this after we eat."
Trapper gave a whoop and went into the kitchen to get plates.
Luke glanced out the window, feeling a sudden little chill. Somehow he got the feeling that the jewel robbery in Denver was only the edge of an approaching disaster. And somehow he felt as if there was something he needed to do to ward off the crisis, but he didn't know what.
Break…
Brigham pulled over in front of a Sinclair station about a dozen blocks from the convention center. "Right here. Don't ask me what they were doing here, but over the past few weeks I've been seeing an awful lot of them around here."
"Thank you, Brigham," Fett replied, exiting the Chevy Impala and heading toward the gas station.
"Be careful!" Brigham shouted at his back before driving off.
Inside the convenience store, a party of five black-clad men and women had clustered in a corner, whispering in hushed tones as they loaded up on beer. Fett edged closer under the pretense of selecting a case of soda, trying to catch their conversation.
"Master Ramirez wanted at least three new recruits at the meeting tonight," a young woman in red-and-black painted stormtrooper armor said with a touch of unease in her voice. "I didn't have any luck…"
"Bull#$," a man in a Darth Vader costume grumbled. "You didn't try."
"I did!" she hissed. "But I was trying to be discreet, ya know? The cops in this town must be Rebel sympathizers; if someone breathes a word about the Sons, they slap handcuffs on them. And I can't do much recruiting in a jail cell, ya know?"
"I hear Jenna's got a likely prospect," a man in black-and-red Jedi robes offered. Fett made a careful note of the man's hair – black with white stripes, obviously dyed, and looking a lot like a dead skunk Fett had seen on the highway that afternoon.
"Really?" asked the Vader wannabe, intrigued. "Who?"
"No one I know," he replied. "Polowski, your cousin still interested?"
"Cousin got himself arrested," the Vader impersonator replied. "Doing two to five for possession of H."
"I have a friend who's planning on coming tonight," a woman in black leather with Sith tattoos on her face replied. "That's two down."
"The meeting starts in an hour," complained the last groupie, a being swathed from head to foot in black rags like a dark-side Tusken Raider. "Where are we going to get another recruit in that time…"
Fett cleared his throat. The five of them turned and glowered at him.
"I couldn't help but overhear…" he began.
"Get the &# out of our conversation!" Polowski snapped.
"Shut up," hissed the woman in leather.
"You're Sons of the Sith," Fett went on.
Skunk-Hair lifted an eyebrow. "What's it to you, friend?"
"Robert," Fett replied. "And if you're looking for a recruit, I'm very interested."
The Sith-Tusken bent over to whisper in Skunk-Hair's ear. Skunk-Hair nodded once and eyed Fett curiously.
"All new recruits are required to go through a test. Are you willing to submit to a trial to gain admittance into the Sons of the Sith?"
Fett nodded.
"You're not squeamish, are you?" asked the trooper. "The trial can be pretty gruesome for the uninitiated."
"Hardly," Fett replied.
"Then meet us at the old lodge at White Deer Lake tonight," Skunk-Hair replied. "It's about a mile down the river from the new lodge. Make sure you're not followed. We won't tolerate intruders."
"Understood."
Skunk-Hair shook his hand. "See you there."
Fett paid for his soda and left, mulling over this new information. A gruesome trial… why did he get the feeling that this would end up as Vincent's fate? All the more reason to infiltrate their meeting, however. Hopefully he could find a way to snatch the cat and fight his way out. After all, who would believe a bunch of stoned fans who claimed Boba Fett crashed a private meeting – and seeing as the meeting was something illicit, why would any of them risk blowing their cover just to blab about supposedly being attacked by a bounty hunter?
Seeing an end to his hunt at last, he set off on the walk to the lodge.
Break…
Silence.
Blessed, peaceful silence.
After a lot of whining on Rachel's part, a prolonged and exasperating pursuit through the house, and a masterful job at suppressing his urge to resort to violence, Vader had finally managed to put the kicking and squirming little girl to bed. Now, staring at the mess the two of them had managed to make in the house, he reveled in a moment of private silence. Never mind that Rachel's dolls and figures were still scattered hither and yon throughout the living room and kitchen, that pieces of chicken nuggets and Oreos were still ground into the carpet, that books from the bookcase lay open all over like shot birds, or that the DVD cabinet was still lying on the floor, a casualty of Rachel's headlong flight from the dreaded torment of bedtime. He figured he earned a few minutes to simply savor a rare moment of tranquility.
/Maybe it's a good thing you never raised Luke yourself/ he thought as he finally roused himself to activity and lifted the DVD cabinet to its proper place. /You don't have the patience to deal with children for one night, let alone eighteen years./
It took a few minutes to clean up after the wild chase. When he'd finished the task, he idly flicked on the television and skimmed through the channels. There had to be something on fit for him to watch. He'd seen that blasted fish movie so many times now he practically had it memorized. He needed something, anything, to counteract it.
An image of some sort of title showed up on one channel, words that started out as vague outlines against the black screen then slowly illuminated as a voiceover explained:
"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups – the police who investigate crimes, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are there stories."
/Now this is more like it/ he thought, and he set the remote down. "Law & Order" seemed about as far from "Finding Nemo" as one could get, a difference he appreciated greatly.
The plot of the show – which, this episode, concerned a counterfeit flu vaccine being distributed throughout New York City and leading to over a dozen deaths – didn't interest him as much as the insight into Earth's legal system did. If this show truly represented the legal process, then it would seem that the system was flawed. It amazed Vader that someone obviously guilty of murder could be freed to walk the streets again on a mere technicality. Such things would never have happened in the Empire. If the counterfeiter in this show had been arrested on an Imperial world, he would count himself lucky to be granted the luxury of a trial.
But then again, it seemed there were just as many loopholes available to the prosecution as there were to the defense. When the defense attorney in this trial sought to suppress the evidence against his client by claiming the detectives had, according to the search warrant, searched the wrong storage locker, the prosecution countered by saying that, since the searched locker was being leased by the defendant's sister, only she – not the defendant – could accuse the police of unlawful entry. The legal system seemed to be an elaborate game of chess, played more by the lawyers than by the plaintiffs and defendants themselves.
The general theme of the show seemed to be that the system, even if it wasn't foolproof, worked, and that at least it ensured that every man sent to prison had been proven guilty.
Just as the trial began winding to a close, a scream pierced the night.
Vader was on his feet and halfway up the stairs before the first scream could cease and another begin. That had come from Rachel's room! For a moment he cursed himself, wondering if an intruder had slipped into the house while he'd been occupied.
Rachel was sitting straight up in bed when Vader flung open the door, her eyes so wide the whites showed all around the green-brown irises. Her blankets were snarled around her as if she'd been thrashing around. Vader quickly scanned the room, but there was no sign of an intrusion of any sort.
"What is…" he began.
"I want Mommy!" she bawled, clawing her way out of bed and flinging her arms around his knees.
"She's not back yet…" Vader tried to explain.
"Mommy!" she wailed.
There was no use trying to reason with the girl. Something had frightened her badly. She must have had a nightmare, though what could have induced it he had no clue. Maybe the Oreos weren't agreeing with her stomach…
But this could be no ordinary bad dream. Rachel was past frightened – she was hysterical.
Prying her arms from around his legs, he knelt before her and tilted her head toward his, forcing her to look into his eyes. Cradling her face in his hands, he sent a pulse of the Force into her, urging her to open his mind to her, to let him see what had so shaken her.
He flinched and cried out, recoiling from the brutality of what couldn't be a nightmare. Pain… suffering… fear… anger… fire… consuming flames that dominated his sight and raged with mad fury all around…
/It's not a nightmare/ he amended. /It's a vision/
Rachel continued to sob wildly, burying her face in his shoulder. Shaking himself free from his trance, he held her, trying awkwardly to get her to calm down, assuring her that everything was all right and that no harm would come to them, but nothing could placate her. It wasn't that she wouldn't stop crying – she couldn't stop crying.
/Of course she can't stop crying, you idiot/ he told himself. /She's five years old! If that vision was enough to unnerve a Sith Lord, then no wonder she's so terrified./
Rachel's body quaked with fear and sobs. Reluctantly, Vader did the only thing he could think of to calm her – he reached into her mind and situated himself between her presence and the disturbing premonition. Taking infinite care so as not to disturb any other memories, he excised the vision from her brain, drawing it into his own mind. Her nightmare was now his memory.
"Everything will be all right," he told her.
She sniffed loudly, burrowed into his chest, and relaxed. The most she would ever remember of this night was that she had awakened from some nighttime disturbance and fallen asleep again in Vader's arms. There would be no recollection of a flaming vision.
When he was sure she was sound asleep, he laid her back in her bed and rearranged the covers over her body. On impulse he retrieved her Wookie doll from the floor and placed it in her arms. This little girl was going to need all the comfort she could get this night.
Then he went downstairs to make a phone call.
Break…
Luke had just seen Trapper off to bed and was about to check out "The Sixth Sense" for himself when the phone rang. With a shrug he picked up the receiver. Austin hadn't forbidden him from answering the phone…
"Hello?"
"Hey Luke, it's me," Austin said from the other end. "The meeting with the syndicate just ended. I'll be home in two hours or so. You two have a good day?"
"Just fine," Luke replied. "How was the meeting?"
"It was productive, if a little boring," said Austin. "Trapper go to bed already?"
"Just a few minutes ago."
"Good."
A beep issued from the receiver.
"What was that?"
"Sounds like another call coming in," Austin replied. "Press the 'Flash' button on the phone to answer it. I'll go ahead and hang up; we can talk tomorrow."
"See you when you get home," Luke replied, and he tapped the 'Flash' button. "Hello?"
"Something urgent has occurred, Luke," came Vader's voice.
Luke frowned slightly. Though he felt that his father had made considerable progress over the last week and was by no means the Dark Lord that he had faced on Bespin, he didn't see why he would be informing Luke of an urgent occurrence. He'd thought it more likely that Vader would contact Fett about something monumental.
"Did you get word of an Imperial transport?" asked Luke.
"No. It regards Rachel."
It was a good thing Vader couldn't see Luke now, because he'd probably be rather incensed by his son's triumphant smile. The Dark Lord had definitely developed a soft spot for that little girl.
"This evening," Vader went on, "Rachel had a vision, no doubt induced by the Force."
"Are you sure?" Luke asked. "It could just be a nightmare."
"Trust me, Luke," Vader replied. "I know nightmares, and I know visions." The ensuing pause made Luke wonder just what kind of visions Vader had experienced in his life.
"What was this vision about?" he pressed.
"Fire," Vader replied. "A great fire, one that filled her field of vision. Fighting, fists landing, weapons going off, people being injured. And…" Another pause.
"And?" Luke inquired. "Go on, spit it out."
"And somehow, we were in the middle of it all," Vader finished.
"'We' as in 'you and I?'"
"You and I, and Boba Fett. As well as a great sense of danger directed at the three of us."
Luke shook his head. "Poor little girl. She must be scared out of her wits."
"She's asleep," Vader informed him. "I took the liberty of erasing her memory of the vision."
"Altering her memory's a little extreme…"
"I'm NOT risking her sanity for the sake of a vision," Vader said harshly. "Rachel is Force-strong; she's going to be dealing with a lot in her life, whether or not she is eventually trained. She doesn't need this on top of it."
Luke sighed, conceding the point. "What are we going to do?"
"Forewarned is forearmed," Vader replied. "We will inform Boba Fett of the circumstances, and we will all exercise caution from this point forward."
The phone beeped again.
"One second, I've got another call," Luke told him.
"Does Austin's phone have three-way calling?" Vader asked. "If it's Fett, we should both speak to him."
Luke located the appropriate button and pressed it. "Hello?"
"Luke?" It was Jason.
"Yeah, I'm here. Vader's on the line too."
"Good, just the men I wanted to talk to," Jason said with considerable relief. "Have either of you seen Boba Fett today?"
"No," Luke replied.
"We were about to call your house and speak to him," Vader explained.
"He's been gone all day," Jason replied, beginning to sound anxious. "He walked out about ten-thirty, and we haven't seen him since."
"Oh great," moaned Luke. "Just what we need."
"Have you spoken with anyone else in the fan club?" asked Vader.
"Sparky says he stopped by his house, asking about a cat," Jason answered, his tone of voice suggesting that he thought it bizarre that Fett would be asking about an animal. "Brigham and Cody say he visited their dorm about six or seven o'clock, and that he milked Brig for info on the Sons of the Sith. Brig dropped him off at the Sinclair station on Eighth and Granite, and that's the last anyone's seen of him."
"Sithspawn," hissed Luke. "We've got to go find him!"
"I'll expect you at the corner of Eight and Granite in no less than ten minutes," Vader told Luke. "We'll find Fett together."
"I don't have access to a car," Luke informed him.
"Fine, then I'll pick you up," Vader rejoined. "Expect me in five minutes or less."
"What am I supposed to do?" demanded Jason. "Call the cops?"
"That's the last thing we need," Luke told him. "No one can know we're on the planet. It'll cause a panic."
Jason muttered something unintelligible and hung up.
"Do you think Fett disappearing has anything to do with the vision?" asked Luke.
"I don't know," Vader confessed. "But I have a bad feeling about this."
"Me too," Luke replied.