A/N Wow. A full inbox. REVIEWS! hoots manically
This is only my second attempt at Star Wars (andif you havne't read my first, "Masquerade", please do), so let me know if I break canon. I don't have a beta (hint hint) so all mistakes are my own.
Onward...
Part Two: To Dream in Daylight
Tatooine was hotter than she remembered.
The sand was blinding white. The wind chafed her face and sent her short hair flying. The speeders and foot traffic churned up a dust that coated her throat and made her choke. Her emotions were a confusing mixture of grief and elation. Grief for Anakin, who had been a slave here, who had lost his mother here. Elation because she was going to find out about his son.
Padme took a transport to Anchorhead and rented a speeder from there. She was travelling from memory. She had only visited the Lars homestead once but she had come here many times in her dreams. She slowed the speeder, taking in the group of buildings huddled in the shelter of a large outcropping of rock. Some of the outbuildings looked ramshackled, unused and half-buried in sand. That didn't seem right.
She slowed more, approaching the place where Shmi was buried. The grave was there, and beside it, two others. Padme frowned. She stopped the bike and slid to the ground. There were so many memories here. It was here that Anakin had started his decent into darkness. She remembered his flat eyes and toneless voice,
I killed them all. They're like animals and I slaughtered them like animals. I hate them!
How had she been so blind?
She turned away but a voice from behind her made her whirl.
"Stand where you are!"
She froze. A large man stood, half-hidden by a scree of rocks a few feet from the grave markers, and he was holding a blaster on her. Padme's hand twitched for the weapon she'd bought in Mos Eisley but it was in her pack, hanging from it's straps of the speeder bike.
"This is my land," he continued. "You're trespassing here."
Padme held up her hands. "I didn't mean to. I was a-a friend of Owen Lars."
"Owen's dead," the man said, indicating the graves. He stepped out further from the rocks. He was tall, near twice her height, and with the compact frame of a man used to hardship. He wore the loose dune-colored clothing of a farmer but his eyes were hard and the hand that held the blaster on her didn't waver.
"I am Padme. Padme...Skywalker." She had never called herself by her husband's name in life and she felt a thrill of satisfaction in using it now that he was dead. "I'm looking for a boy who used to live her," she continued.
"Skywalker, eh?" The gun lowered fractionally. "You related to Shmi?"
"I was her son's wife."
"You must be Luke's mother then," he said, dropping his arm and holstering his blaster. "We thought you were dead."
Padme winced but ignored the question implicit in that comment. "You know Luke?"
"Yeah. Him and my son Bigg's were friends. I'm Wiggin Darklighter." He stepped forward, his large hand engulfing her own.
"Do you know where Luke is now?"
Darklighter's face hardened. "He ran off a year after Biggs did on some fool mission to save the galaxy. Haven't heard from either of them since."
Padme sighed, disappointed. "What about Obi-Wan Kenobi?"
"Old Ben Kenobi?" The man's eyes narrowed. "That old crackpot lived up in the hills not far from here."
"Can you show me?" Padme asked eagerly.
Darklighter shook his head. "I got better things to do then galavant around the desert." Padme began to protest but he cut her off. "I'll draw you a map. But not tonight. Too close to dark, raiders will be out. You'll stay here tonight."
And with that he turned and walked toward the house.
Padme followed, walking the bike to the nearest outbuilding and securing it inside. She shouldered her pack and went into the house.
The house was as small as she remembered it; clean, but with the air of a space that had not been used in some time. There were two bedrooms, and Wiggin directed her to the smaller of the two. She went inside and shut the door, setting down her pack and surveying the room.
Like the house, it was small. Cramped, like a child's bedroom. A child...had this been her son's room?
Padme crossed to the dresser and opened the drawers, eager for any sign of her child. But there was nothing- nothing in the dresser, or the closet, or the bedside table. Everyhting had been emptied out. Padme sighed and sank down onto the bed, and rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling overhead.
How many times had her son done this, gazed at the ceiling and wished it was the sky? Had he dreamed of being a pilot like his father? Had he longed to travel to the stars?
So many questions, and all without answers.
Padme sighed again and rolled toward the wall. A glint of metal caught her eye and she reached out, curious. Tucked between the mattress and the wall was a small metal object. She pulled it out and exaimined the minute curves and angles of the tiny toy ship.
She smiled and clutched the toy to her breast, closing her eyes and imagining a little blond boy playing pilot. She felt suddenly filled with hope.
Some questions had answers after all.
Wiggen Darklighter was a man of his word. When Padme woke the next morning she found a sheet of plasticeen etched with the markings of a map. Padme ate from the dry rations she'd bought in town and set out for Obi-Wan's house on her speeder.
The "house" was really a cave in the cliffside and Padme landed her bike in the ravine, climbing to an entrance choked with rocks and debris.
Inside was dark and spare. No man had disturbed it, nor had any animal made the cave its den. It was as though some of Obi-Wan's power still lingered here, protecting this place.
Padme looked around, noting the bare pallet on one wall and the trunk opposite. She moved to open the trunk. There was not a lot inside; a spare robe, a blanket, a bag with some coins inside.
That was all that was left of a Jedi's life.
Padme took the rough brown robe out of the trunk and sat with it in her lap, remembering Anakin's wry-humored teacher. He had died three years ago- around the same time that the Death Star had been destroyed. She wondered if he had helped Luke do it, if he had trained her son the same way he'd trained Anakin.
It's all Obi-Wan's fault. He's jealous! He's holding me back!
That memory, in this place...it was too much. Padme buried her face into the brown cloth and cried.
Padme had no contacts on Tatooine. It might be the closest inhabited world to Naboo but it was light years away as far as diplomatic connection was concerned. Still, she was a politician born and bred, and that meant knowing the right people to talk to. And those people directed her to the Blockhouse, a seedy cantina full of space pirates and hotshots.
A week later she was meeting with a freighter captain named Raben.
Raben and his ship, the Ebon Wing, had been contracted to ferry supplied from the the planet of Rix to the Imperial base on Marantha. But strangly, the supplies always turned up mysteriously short. It wasn't by a lot, but a careful eye could see that somewhere between Rix and Marantha a little bit was skimmed off the top. Captain Raben was a smuggler.
And Padme had a good idea just where the smuggled goods were going.
She'd approached his navigator, a taciturn Mon Calimari, and asked for a meeting to discuss "mutual interests". They had agreed and she sat now, back to the bar, determines to get off this barren world and find her children.
After some dancing around the topic Padme came to the point. "I want you to take me to the base."
"What base?" Raben asked innocently.
"You know what I'm talking about," Padme answered. "I can pay."
"You assume I'm for sale."
Padme leaned back. Not just a smuggler then. A true believer.
"Look, I need to get to the base. I have...information."
Raben's eyes took on a spark of interest. "What kind of information?"
"The kind that can't be shared."
Now that got his attention. "Who sent you?"
Padme took a wild guess. "Bail Organa."
She saw his eyes narrow and thought for one breathless moment that she'd made a mistake. A lot of human races looked the same, but Captain Raben had the dark looks and the slightly tilted eyes of and Alderaani.
"How do you know Lord Organa?" he asked fianlly. Padme breathed out a sigh of relief and answered with the truth.
"We served together in the Senate."
Raben's face relaxed. He gave her a nod. "All right. Tomorrow, noon, hanger three. Don't be late."
The Ebon Wing was a large freighter, but Raben and Jaxson, the Mon Calimari, were the only sentients on board. A half dozen droids rounded out the crew.
Padme was ordered to stay in her quarters until after they had taken aboard their freight on Rix. Jaxson did not trust her, and his open hostility was a little hard to take. Raben himself was riding the fence. He wouldn't tell her the location of the base. She wouldn't tell him why she wanted to find it so badly. They had reached an uneasy understanding.
Padme knew their understanding would fall to peices if she was found here. But curiousity had got the better of her and she'd had to come down and see first-hand what it was Raben and Jaxson risked their lives for.
She stood in the cargo hold, amongst hundereds of boxes. Lashed together, stacked against the walls, row after row of small white boxes. They were too small to be weapons. Food perhaps, and maybe gear as well. She went to the nearest box and pried it open. It wasn't food. It was a blanket. Padme frowned. So, the captain and the navigator risked Imperial justice for blankets?
Battles are won on trifles. Obi-Wan's words came back to her.
Padme smiled at the memory of Obi-Wan's chagrined face as they stood in the Palace on Naboo and discussed Jar-Jar's role in the battle with the Trade Federation.
Her eyes travelled down the hanger, taking in a battered Y-Wing secured by docking clamps in the corner. An even more ancient astromech sat beside it, apparently in sleep mode.
The astromech made her think of Artoo. She wondered if he was still functioning. Were he and Threepio-
"What are you doing here?"
She jumped, spinning guiltily. Jaxson stood behind her, huge eyes narrowed and arms crossed in front of him.
"I-" she began. She felt the ship shift beneath her feet. "We're dropping out of hyperspace."
The Mon Calimari opened his mouth to answer but his comm cracked on. "Hey Jax, get your fishy ass up here and help me navigate this thing."
Jaxson glared at her as though daring her to say anything. He made his way to the bridge and Padme followed.
"Something's wrong," Raben was saying when she entered. "There's a system-wide communications blackout." Padme looked out the viewport. The ship had come to a stop outside a system she did not recognize.
"Why would the Rebels be jamming the comms?" Padme asked.
Jaxson gave her a sour look. "They aren't," he answered. "The Imps are. It means they've found the base."
He glared at her accusingly and Padme felt her heart turning over. Her children could be on that base!
"Can we get closer?"
"Not without being spotted. It's no good, Skywalker. We've got to leave."
"No!" She'd spent too much time getting here. She couldn't leave, not now that she was so close!
"Jaxson, come about," Raben said, ignoring her outburst. "Prepare to jump."
"Wait!" Padme pleaded. "I have to get down there." An idea came to her. "The Y-Wing, the one in your hold- I'll buy it!"
"That piece of trash?"
"I'll give you five thousand for the ship and the astromech."
Jaxson harrumphed. "It's worth twice that."
She turned to Captain Raben, the desperation clear on her face. "Please."
He shrugged. "It's your funeral."
Padme fished out the last of her credit chits and threw them into the captain's lap; then she whirled and ran toward the cargo bay.
Within minutes she had retrieved her bag and loaded the astromech, an old R-8, into the navigator position. She slid into the pilot's seat and the droid released the docking clamps. Captain Raben's voice crackled through the comm in her helmet.
"I'm transmitting the coordinates of the base to you, as well as the passwords and all Areight's access codes. Good luck."
The hanger door slid open and they glided into space. Behind them the frieghter wheeled, and then it blurred into hyperspace.
The base was under attack.
Star Destroyers blockaded the sixth planet of the Hoth system, and Padme could only stare at the gargantuan ships hanging against the white expanse of the ice world.
"Areight, can you hide us in the moon's shadow?" The droid hooted and carried out her order.
The Rebels had turned their ion cannons on the nearest ships, trying to punch a hole through the blockade. As she watched a transport lifted from the surface and broke through the atmosphere. Two X-wing fighters flew before it, laying down cover fire and engaging the fighters that broke from the Star Destroyers to attack. The transport broke free. It shot past her hiding place and jumped into hyperspace.
A second transport followed. Then a third. Padme watched them fight through the Imperial blockade, her heart lifting with each ship that burst past her.
The Star Destroyers did not pursue. What were they waiting for?
As though in answer one last ship broke orbit. It wasn't a freighter; its configuration was flatter, shaped more like a racer than a cargo ship. Imperial fighters formed up, firing on the ship as it raced past the Star Destroyers. The Rebel ship danced away, twisting to avoid the laser blasts streaking past. The Destroyers wheeled, following.
"Follow that last ship, Areight. And don't get us too close to those fighters."
They followed behind the last Destroyer, lagging just out of sensor range. An asteroid field loomed ahead. The Rebel ship darted into it, followed by a dozen Imperial fighters. There was a flash of light as one of them collided with an asteroid and exploded into peices.
"Is that Rebel pilot crazy?" Padme exclaimed. Areight apparently thought so, because he sheered up, coming off the Star Destroyer's tail.
Unfortuately, a new formation of Imperial fighters had just scrambled out and one of them spotted her, breaking formation and turning on her ship.
"Evasive maunuvers!" Padme shouted as the fighter fired on them. Too late. The laser ripped into the starboard engine and sent them spinning out of control.
"Areight!" Padme screamed. The droid beeped at her, trying to wrestle the craft under control. They rolled end over end until finally Areight managed to even them out. The ship slowed, then stopped. Padme looked around, dizzy and disoriented. They had flown clear of the Star Destroyers and the asteroid field. The fighter was no where to be found; apparently he had thought he'd done enough damage to destroy them. Had he?
"Damage report."
The droid brought the systems up onto the screen. The starboard engine was gone and the port engine was down to twenty percent. Worse, they were leaking coolant.
"That's not good," Padme muttered. "Is there anywhere we can go for repairs."
A planet appreared on the screen,a gas giant orbited by a station.
"Take us there."
The pink-tinged clouds of Bespin billowed past the Duraplex windows of the quarters Padme had been assigned to, smudging into smoky purple along the horizon. It was pretty- like living inside a cloud.
She and Areight had managed to limp their ship here to Cloud City. She had left the droid in the hanger bay to help with the repairs while she rested and ate. With any luck they could be under way before morning.
How long would it take the Imperials to get through the asteroid field? Would there be time enough for her to get there before the Rebel ship disappeared?
She would not think of what she would do if the ship had been captured and her only link to her children was gone.
She forced her body to sleep and a few hours later she rose and left her quarters. She felt a twinge of guilt that she planned to leave without paying. She'd given the last of her money to Captain Raben in exchanged for the ship and the droid. There was nothing left to pay for the repairs here. She would just have to pay the station back as soon as she was able.
Padme made her way to the hanger bay. The first set of doors swished open and she entered the near-empty hanger. Her Y-wing sat on docking clamps on the left side of the door and she walked over.
"Areight, are you done yet?" The little astromech hooted at her and she laughed, thinking about how much he sounded like Artoo.
"Well, hurry up, will you?" she told him playfully.
Behind her the outer doors hissed open. Padme turned. Two troopers clad in white walked through. Her eyes widened.
Imperial troops, here?
She tried to duck behind her ship but it was too late; they had already seen her.
"You there! What are you doing? This is a resticted area!"
Restricted? Since when was a public hanger bay restricted?
"I'm...checking on my droid," she said lamely.
"Come with me." The trooper took her roughly by the arm. Her first instinct was to fight but she fought it down. She might get past one but she'd never get past both of them without her blaster, and that was on her ship.
"Lord Vader, we have successfully infiltrated the station," she heard another trooper report from behind her.
Vader? Padme craned her neck to look but the outer door was already swishing closed. The Stormtrooper pulled on her arm.
"Where are you taking me?"
There was no answer. He simply marched her down a corridor to a lift. Three levels down, then the doors opened and she was herded into a detention cell. The trooper thrust her inside and locked the door.
Padme shouted, pounded on the door, but no one came.
She sat on the bed with a sigh, running her fingers through her short hair. She could not get use to it. The nurses had assured her that it would grow back and she couldn't tell them why it made such a difference to her. All her life she'd had long hair. Her earliest memories were of her mother brushing it; long strokes that soothed her and made her fall asleep. Now that, like so much else in her life, was gone.
Padme sighed, wrenching her thoughts from the past.
She paced the cell. Six steps across, six steps back. Six to the bed and six to the 'fresher. Symmetry. She sighed again. This was a waste of time. While she was being held here-without trial, she mentally added- her children were slipping through her fingers. It wasn't fair and she wanted cry in frustration. She wanted to scream until her throat was raw. She wanted to beat the door with her fists until she punched a hole through.
But she did none of those things.
After a few hours a droid brought her a tray of food. She tried to talk to it but it had been programmed not to answer. Later a different driod came to collect the tray and her eating utensils. This one wouldn't talk either.
A few hours later the lights dimmed and a voice announced station's "night". Padme reluctently laid down to sleep but when she finally drifted off she was plagued by half-form images that sent her bolting up from the bed in panic.
The pattern repeated the next night. And the next.
Padme was sure she would go mad if they didn't let her out of here soon.
Dreams haunted her; dreams of Anakin, dreams of her children.She dreamed of suffering and of death. The dreams were so real, and Padme felt frantic with worry. She rubbed tired hands over her face. She had to get out of here!
And, as if by magic, the door to her cell sprang open and she heard a voice over the intercom announce,"Attention, this is Lando Calrissian. Attention. The Empire has taken over the city. I advise everyone to leave before more Imperial troops arrive."
Padme stumbled from her cell. The lift was still operational and she took it back up to the hanger level and followed the corridor towards the bay and her ship. The station had erupted with activity. The citizens of Cloud City had taken Calrissian's warning to heart; they pushed past her, trying to get to the hanger bays. But the bay doors were locked down. Padme pushed past the crowd to get to the door.
"Areight. Areight!" She heard the hoot of an astromech. She turned. But it wasn't Areight...
"Artoo?" The droid rolled out of sight, pursued by a contingent of Stormtroopers. Padme ducked into a doorway as they past. The doors slid shut behind her and she looked around.
She was in a control room. And it was empty.
Padme rushed forward. There were banks of monitors and control panels on each wall and she began scanning them, trying to find the door release and the docking clamp controls. The monitor to her right flashed and she looked up. A Wookie was in a fire-fight with a group of Stormtroopers. She took in the strangeness of the scene for a moment before going back to her task.
There! She pressed the button to release the lock on the door. Now for the docking clamps...
She crossed the room, scanning the controls until a monitor to her right caught her eye. She looked up and froze. A black-clad figure stood with a lightsaber flickering before him. And in front of him...
"Luke!"
She saw her son dart forward and engage the dark figure of Darth Vader. For a moment they looked evenly matched. But then Vader parried, a crashing blow that nearly sent Luke to the ground. Vader was stronger. He was driving Luke back, back towards a gantry.
Padme felt her heart drop through the floor. Darth Vader was about to kill her son!
No! Not if she could help it.
She found the docking clamp control and punched it, pausing only to note the location of the dueling figures before she dashed out of the control room and into the docking bay.
"Areight!" she shouted. The droid squawked an answer from his place behind the pilot's seat. Padme vaulted into the Y-wing and closed the hatch. Her blaster was where she'd left it and she strapped it on quickly.
"Take us under the city. I want to get up into the core shaft."
The Y-wing lifted off and decended quickly through the cloud cover, coming up underneath the station. The shaft was small, a larger craft would have never made it. As it was they could only drift up, inches from the bulkheads on either side.
"Easy Areight. That's right," she urged the ship on.
The shaft opened up. Padme looked up and saw the gantry high above them.
"Get us under that gantry."
She could see Luke now. He was on the deck, Vader's saber at his throat. Then Luke parried, jumped to his feet, brought his lightsaber around in a wide arc.
Vader met it and in one easy movement cut off her son's hand and sent his weapon flying.
Padme screamed. "Luke!" But even now he was moving, crawling back, edging towards the very end of the gantry.
"You've got to get us closer!" Padme shouted at Areight. The ship drifted up and Padme opened the top hatch.
"Luke!" she cried but the wind tore the word from her mouth and sent it away. She could hear Vader talking, the deep drone of his vocoder unnaturally loud in the tunnel. She could not hear the words but she heard Luke scream, "NO! NO! NO!"
Padme slid from her seat. "Areight, take me as close as you can get." She stood up, balancing precariously on the wing, straining to reach her son.
"Luke!" she called again. And this time he heard her. He looked down at the ship hovering just below him. "Jump!" Padme cried.
He looked back at Vader and Padme turned too. She raised her blaster and pointed it straight at the black-clad Sith.
"Jump, Luke!" she urged. She did not have time to register Darth Vader's shocked reaction as the wind pushed the hair from her face and he caught sight of her. Luke fell gracelessly into the cockpit and Padme holstered the blaster and jumped in behind.
"Areight, get us out of here!" she shouted, closing the hatch. The droid fired thrusters and they rocketed forward, down the shaft and through the narrow opening, into the cloud cover of Bespin.
Padme turned to Luke. The boy was half-unconcious and in-shock. "Father?" he muttered.
"Shh, it's all right, son. I'll get us out of this."
A concussion rocked the ship and she turned. Two Imperial fighters were pursuing them, a shuttle flanking them.
"Areight, break atmosphere. See if we can lose them in space."
The droid brought the ship up and they burst through the clouds into the blackness of space. And right into a waiting Star Destroyer.
"Areight, back up!" she shouted. But the shuttle and the Imperial fighters had already closed the gap behind. There was nowhere to go.
They were trapped.
The Destroyer locked onto them with a tractor beam and Padme watched in horror as they were reeled in. A bay door opened and clamps locked around them. The shuttle and the fighters landed and then the doors slid shut, repressurizing the bay.
Padme drew her blaster, determined to fight for her son's life.
The cockpit hatch was opened. She fired. The trooper fell back. She sprang up and slid down the side of the ship, taking refuge behind the port engine as another trooper leaped forward. She fired her blaster. He ducked away, rolled and came up, firing back. The blast hit her in the shoulder and sent her weapon skittering from suddenly nerveless fingers.
"I ordered that they be taken unharmed!" Vader roared. He stepped forward, dark power lashing out. The offending trooper sunk down, obviously dead. Padme reeled.
She pressed her left hand to the would on her shoulder, fighting to stay concious. She levered herself up, the hull of her ship at her back, standing between her son and the Sith.
Vader stepped forward.
Anakin, help me! Padme thought. She cried out helplessly as she slowly sank to the deck. Vader stepped over her and lifted her son easily from the cockpit.
"Luke," she whispered. And then darkness claimed her.