Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Star Wars movies, shows, books, comics or games. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not for sale, or rent. The Mobile Armors, and later Mobile Suits mentioned in the story are inspired by the various Gundam shows. They obviously belong to their respective creators, and, or copyright owners.
Chapter 8
=FG=
Part 1
=FG=
7.5 ABY
Gollan II defense station 21
high orbit above Coruscant
Coruscant system
At nearly two hundred and fifty meters long, a B-12 Bacta Transport was a familiar sight. This one was sparkling new, likely one of the first in the class built by the Federated Empire. The ship was just small enough to be safely held by the traffic control station's tractor beams, and the inspection station Luke was on board. One of a few Golan II battle stations orbiting Coruscant was refitted with powerful specialized sensors to allow rapid cargo scanning by small and medium freighters. Fuel and Bacta transports counted, if just barely.
When Luke landed, leading a group of specialists handpicked by Madine, he almost went for his lightsaber at the sight of the welcoming committee. More than a few wore Stormtrooper armor, though it was painted green. Many of the officers in charge had Imperial uniforms as well.
The explanation for that was simple. Part of the personnel was the same people who had run the station since they were initially assigned to the post under the Empire. No one had bothered to supply them with new uniforms. The others were New Republic personnel, especially the soldiers masquerading as Stormtroopers. The painted Stormtrooper armor was much better than what the New Republic issued with them before they got assigned to their current posts.
At a closer look, their armor plate was significantly thicker than what Luke was accustomed to when facing Stormtroopers. The same was true for the few times he had to masquerade as one of them. After the current crisis got resolved and the New Republic could straighten up its supply lines, everyone in the system who needed them might get good quality Republic armor and uniforms.
The next surprise arrived in the guise of a small Imperial party to act as liaisons between the inspection team Luke led and the Imperials they would be inspecting. In hindsight, that was an excellent idea and a good way to mitigate the odds of further unpleasantness.
Luke didn't even want to think about how the new Imperials acted more reasonably than the New Republic leadership. He knew politics could be a dirty business, but what he had experienced today was something he still couldn't get to grips with.
Before anyone could disembark the shuttle that brought them in, Luke already knew who one of the Imperials was. Anakin Skywalker walked in as if he didn't have a bother in the world, followed by a pair of heavily armed and armored troopers. Compared to them, the soldiers in Stormtrooper armor looked like ill-equipped militia from an impoverished world like Tatooine instead of people stationed at the heart of galactic civilization.
"Jedi Skywalker," The counterpart of Luke's late father nodded. He had a bemused, almost awkward expression on his face.
"Knight Skywalker?" Luke asked warily.
"Let us go with Anakin? It might be easier that way, considering the circumstances. Unless it would be too presumptions for me to call you Luke?"
"That might be for the best." Luke reluctantly agreed. "Should we expect trouble?" He waved at the first transport that slowly fell in position in front of the hangar, held in place by tractor beams.
"I don't expect intentional tampering as your General Madine fears. Substandard, or even contaminated, Bacta due to corruption? That might happen." Anakin grimaced. "We have far to go to clean up all the issues and people who caused it that brought the Republic low."
That unexpected admission caused murmurs among the specialists behind Luke.
"That's why it's standard procedure to scan all the Bacta and other supplies at delivery before distributing them to the units or facilities they're meant to go." Anakin continued.
"I'm not sure what to say to this."
"Use the Force and see if it would guide you to an interesting transport for us to check," Anakin suggested. "No one could slink away from such a high-profile case."
"You're telling us people could do so otherwise? What crazy state are you people running?!" One of the soldiers wearing Stormtrooper armor exclaimed.
"As a friend said, we're running the Republic with the serial numbers filled out. The Federated empire had many of the same problems that brought the Republic low. They will destroy us if we don't solve them. My understanding is that the Galactic Empire failed in that regard. Wasn't that one of the many reasons for the current state of this part of the galaxy?"
"That's not how I would put it!" Luke protested.
"You're supposed to use the Force to search for suspicious transports." Anakin chided him.
Those simple words took Luke back, hitting him hard. It reminded him of what he lost because of the Empire and the Sith and what he could have had. And that was something he pointedly tried to avoid. After all, there was no point in dwelling on the past. You couldn't change it.
It was just that now the past had come back, opening all kinds of wounds people didn't even know they still had.
"Transport is in place. Commencing scanning." The specialist nominally in charge of the inspection team spoke aloud from the row of consoles at the far side of the hangar. "There are no active ECM to spoof the sensors. No other active interference. Dispatching probe droids to retrieve samples from each container."
A series of clangs echoed through the hangar as probe droids detached from above and bellow it and headed for the transport.
Luke let the Force flow through him and headed for the nearest console to call a comprehensive sensor feed. Once there, he tried to pinpoint anything that might be of interest. The Force kept feeling odd, with the Dark Side in flux. Luke would be sure it was celebrating if he didn't know better.
The future was changing rapidly, or at least he got that sense. As far as the swarm of transports that the Federated Empire ships disgorged, Luke didn't know where to begin. The Force wasn't feeling helpful.
He, in turn, wasn't sure if this meant everything was all right or if the recent disturbances and the resurgence of the Dark Side shrouded the truth.
Then again, for all the gifts the Force could offer at times, it wasn't a switch that could quickly solve all problems. Coruscant's suffering and darkness affected the force in the region. That sad fact didn't help him find the correct targets to scan. Opening himself to the Force here was inviting a chorus of pain and suffering that was more than a little distracting.
"It's rather unpleasant, isn't it?" Anakin's voice echoed in Luke's head, startling him. He whirled around and stared at the man, who stood where Luke last saw him. His eyes were closed. At a glance, Anakin was busy meditating and submerged himself in the Force.
Luke closed his eyes and tried to focus, only to stare in awe when Anakin let go of whatever he did to control and conceal his power. A shimmering star of struggling light and darkness erupted in the middle of the hangar, drowning everything else in its intensity. The background that was Coruscant simply paled in comparison to this.
The Force itself shook with mixed glee and outrage. It took Luke a few moments to comprehend what he was sensing. Anakin wasn't letting the Force flow through him and guide him. Instead, he grasped it, twisted it in a way that couldn't be natural, and demanded answers. The shroud of the Dark Side, or whatever it was, condensed, focusing on Anakin, and making everything else a bit clear.
Luke took the opportunity to dive into the Force and let it guide him to anything irregular among the transports waiting for permission to land. Instead, it kept pushing him at the pulsing, conflicted star that was Anakin. He didn't know what the Force implied. Did it want him to do something about this painful contradiction? Did it want him to join it? What? Just focusing on Anakin's clashing signature was unsettling. Luke was sure that doing so for long would be outright painful.
=FG=
Part 2
=FG=
Field hospital
Cal-Seti
Cal-Seti system
Cold fire. Blaster bolts sizzled through the chilling air. Screams and death. She was suddenly on a forest floor running. More blaster bolts burned through the air all around her. Something small and furry roared in defiance, only to blow up in a shower of gore.
The world went mad. More fire, pain.
She knew she was struggling to breathe. She was drowning. Someone had their hand on the face, squeezing. She struggled, kicked, and tried to scream. Her eyes snapped open and burned with blue fire.
The next thing Dansra knew, she was floating into a warm bath. Her eyes cracked open, and she relaxed. The Empire wouldn't have bothered wasting a Bacta tank on someone like her. They must have won! A surge of relief calmed down the Sergeant. It took her longer than expected to gather her bearings and for her eyes to accustom to the thick syrup that was the Bacta she floated in. Its viscosity told her much – that was high-quality stuff. Even when the New Republic became a thing, the military could hardly afford such luxury.
Dansra's eyes narrowed at what she could see beyond the tank holding her. She was in what looked like a warehouse turned into a field hospital. There were rows of Bacta tanks lining the walls, with beds and even whole contained operation theaters spread through the middle of ample open space.
There were soldiers standing guard in odd, advanced armor. Ever since Dansra got promoted and shifted to intelligence, she knew about what the Empire was supposed to be able to deploy. Only a handful of elite special forces units would enjoy state-of-the-art equipment like she was seeing. The Empire had long believed that quantity had a quality of its own. When all was said and done, most of the military budget went to superweapons, the navy, and into the pockets of countless corrupt bastards. The Imperial ground forces had to do with rugged, relatively simple equipment. Even then, they usually had the firepower to take on Alliance units and win in open combat.
Further, no one would waste crack special forces to guard a field hospital. If a VIP was here mandating such security, Dansra doubted she would be stuck in the same place.
Her blood froze when she saw two rows of Stormtroopers standing to the far right of the field hospital. They had a few squads of the same over-equipped soldiers keeping an eye on them. Were the Stormies busy getting a medical? What the kriff was happening here? Was she dreaming?
Dansra tried to remember what happened to get her in the Bacta tank. There was a battle, duh. It wasn't the ones that often plagued her dreams – the hell that was the doomed defense on Hoth or the savage fighting on Endor. Alderaan constantly burns in her nightmares. Can't forget that. Dansra shuddered at the thought. It's been almost eight years, and she was certainly not over what happened to her home and family.
The new Imperials. That singular thought pierced through her mind. Dansra could vaguely regard frantic orders to deploy ground side and deny the enemy the opportunity to rearm their strike craft. As part of New Republic Intelligence and a professional slicer, she was to join the assault, aid it with her talents, then have her way with any captured computer systems. She was in an APC, attached to a Pathfinder strike team. Then there was fire and agony.
The Sergeant's eyes focused on the medics milling around. Some were consulting charts or talking with each other. Others were busy checking up on patients lying on the beds to the left or processing the Stormtroopers to the right.
The dawning realization that this wasn't a New Republic field hospital was chilling. The only thing missing was white uniformed psychopaths from the ISB torturing people. That would come, Dansra knew. She had to break out before that. The alternative didn't bear thinking about.
=FG=
The next time Dansra awoke, she was lying on a soft bed. She could hear quiet conversations and the beeping of various machines. Her nose twitched at the familiar sterile smell of a hospital.
There were no screams of agony, no loud imperial music, or louder propaganda. The Sergeant dared crack an eye open and warily looked around. She was indeed lying on a hospital bed surrounded by medical equipment. There were similar beds around her. She could see a man and a bandaged mummy lying under white covers to her left and right. She warily raised her head and saw two men sitting on the bed in front of hers, murmuring. They wore simple blue shirts and pants, barely hiding bandages and angry red scars.
"You're awake, I see!" A happy, mechanical voice startled Dansra. She tried to jump but only managed to get entangled in her bedsheets.
"Sergeant Dansa Beezer, Alderanni." A spider-like medical droid floated to hover beside her bed. "Second to fourth-degree burns, multiple broken bones, severe concussion, and lacerations. You're expected to make a full recovery. However, you might need to consider either cloned or cybernetic replacement for your right leg. A jet of molten metal from compromised vehicle armor destroyed most muscles there." The Droid informed her with the bedside manner of an Imperial.
Dansra managed to untangle herself and wondered why she felt no pain.
"You're on medium-strength painkillers now, Sergeant. I must further inform you of your current status. You're a prisoner of war, protected by the Federated Empire's Naboo Convention."
Dansra ignored the babbling machine and looked around, waiting for the other shoe to drop. No Stormtroopers were marching to drag her for interrogation. No gloating ISB agents materialized, ready to end this damn charade.
"Our captors are odd, Sergeant," A gruff mechanized voice announced. A Jiivahar in a Pathfinder uniform, without the armor and equipment, hopped in view until he stood on the other side of her bed. He had a Lieutenant's pins on his shoulder.
"Sir? Do I dare ask about our situation?"
"Not as bad as it could be. From what I gather, we aren't going to be dragged to a dark cell to be tortured or shot and dumped into a mass grave." The alien's brown head turned left to right, observing the field hospital. "Those aren't the Imperials we are familiar with and love to hate."
"I have a hard time buying that, sir," Dansra admitted.
"They bothered to fix all our wounded, and so far, they aren't torturing or even interrogating us." The Lieutenant pointed out. "They're either insane, or the galaxy went insane while we weren't paying attention." One of his gripping hands unfurled, and he pointed at something in the distance.
Dansra looked in that direction and saw a large screen showing dead people speaking.
The view of the Royal Palace of Alderaan behind Queen Breha and Senator Bail Organa stunned Dansra. The screen was just large enough for her to read the logo of HoloNet News and see this was supposed to be a live interview with the rulers of Alderaan. That was not something the Imperials would ever broadcast. For years, Alderaan had been a taboo topic as far as the Imperial controlled media was concerned! This made no sense!
"This might come as a shock, Sergeant. However, Alderaan still stands in our corner of the galaxy." The Droid explained after observing her.
"Apparently, that light show everyone saw some time back announced our galaxy was merging with a very odd past." The Lieutenant grunted. "That's one of the consequences. I guess. Their Alderaan not only stands, but from what I gather, their Organa is the leader of the loyal opposition in the Imperial Senate or something like that.
Dansra didn't care. All she could do at that moment was stare at the screen, longing devouring her heart.
=FG=
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