Chapter 2: Irma Haeammon
The point of Corran Horn's lightsaber was held still unwavering as the information broker and Imperial agent Jado Krake thumbed his commlink off. Behind Corran Luke Skywalker watched his fellow Jedi and Jado Krake both for signs of their character, how they would handle themselves in this confrontation. Krake and his coconspirator, who had spoken a second before, the one called Chakra, had something important, all the Jedi's varied sources said, but no one seemed to know what exactly it was.
Corran's lightsaber snapped out of existence and the Remnant agent visibly relaxed, scowling as he pushed the commlink into one of his many pockets. "What do you want?" He growled. He had asked the same question once before, when Corran and Luke had met him in the street, and then their answer had been to watch him, to listen to him talk to his contact. Now Corran replied;
"What's this item your friend up there wants?"
"Uhm, I don' know what it is. I'm just delivery." He took a step as if to move past Corran. Around them people took no notice of the encounter, more concerned with themselves, the ocean view from Coronet or flimsi directions in their hands.
Luke Skywalker lightly put his hand on Krake's shoulder and held the agent between himself and Corran and the metal railing that marked the beginning of the beach.
"Show us the item."
Krake scowled and slowly unlatched the black branded bag at his side, pulling out a flimsi printout and a round metal sphere, the top layered like flower petals set one over another, or like a pinecone, gleaming dark silver. Luke received the two, held the paper flat and read
Leeondro K'Saavis Imperial mech. To Jado Krake, rep.:
To be delivered to Leeondro K'Saavis care of Watchersbane; untested; manufac. Kuat. Call code GBLYYXP2610.
So this thing, this spheroid item in Luke's hand, was an experimental device from Kuat's well-known engineers, packaged specially for the Empire. Luke folded the letter, handed it to Corran to read and took the sphere in both hands. The bottom half was smooth silver, the top ridged with louvers or slits, and no apparent control surfaces.
"You don't know what this is." Luke asked again, though it was more a statement than a question.
Krake had been simply standing beside them during the investigation, though the Jedi know he had considered actions and discarded them. Now the Imperial abandoned that mien and snapped, "I don't know anything about the blasted thing, but I'm getting good credits to deliver it." The agent's big hands grasped the machine and pulled it from Luke. Corran, closer to Krake, moved to restrain the agent but Luke saw Krake's hands moving, clicking the flaps of the sphere up and around the machine like a tri-D jigsaw puzzle.
"Corran!" He warned, and the Force was harnessed to pull the machine from Krake's hands.
The agent held on,still manipulting the machine's sides so when it went off he was a few paces from the Jedi with his hands around the sphere, and his fingers nearly touching Luke's. The sphere emitted something like white light, and Jado Krake threw himself backwards and sprinted from it. Corran was a step away and going after Krake a second later, with the machine in Luke's hands.
Luke Skywalker knew later he should have dropped it, let it go and ran, but the light held his eyes, the way it entered and never mixed with or was dulled by the color of the cloudless ocean sky.
In a flash there was nothingness, whiteness, then again the sea, sky and city. Something to the right moved and there was Corran, ghostly, flickering, crouched by the railing with one hand splayed against the pavement, then his form disappeared. A line of music floated through Luke's mind, something he felt was connected irrevocably to himself, then he was back and the streets were filled again with people.
The machine was gone, Luke's hands empty, Corran and Jado both nowhere on the crowded expanse of the boardwalk.
Luke let himself into the Force, searching the landscape of that encompassing awareness, and they were not there. But the Force itself seemed to be unstable or damaged, flickering in and out of focus or clarity like a crackling subspace transmitter, like the quick image of Corran. Senses, people and emotions were flickers then a jumble, unreadable, then flicker again.
Luke returned to only his mundane senses, knowing that something very strange had happened, and that that experimental machine had done what it was supposed to do.
Beside the warped state of the Force and the absence of Corran and Krake, everything seemed the same, the crowds on the boardwalk and scattered groupings on the beach in this early season. There was no disturbance any type of explosion would have caused. It was as if only Luke himself had been transported to some far off location where his companions weren't. But this was Corellia. A different location in time, then?
The holographic display scrolling above a storefront said the current date, day and time in standard and Corellian, the same numbers but a minute later than when he had last looked at it, when Jado Krake was speaking with his contact.
Quietly Luke walked into the thickness of life that was the city, toward a restaurant he and Corran had patronized before. The owner, a big man behind the bar counter in a corner the Jedi had not bothered with previously, insisted Luke buy something before he answer any questions. Though Luke could have gotten the information easier he ordered a glass of cool water and sat at the bar with his hands around it, savoring the cold. The bar man was dark of skin, dark of close-cropped hair and dark of clothing, though the silver mechanism that was his left arm and wrist ruined any impression of outstanding black he may have wanted to present.
"What year is it?" Luke asked, and the look in his eyes must have told the man not to question, for he only glanced at the Jedi's shadowed face and gave the date Luke already knew. So the sphere was indeed not a time machine. But now was not what it had been, the Force and something else inside told him that.
What to ask? He looked around and saw nothing different.
The bartender followed his gaze, then smiled slightly, leaning his head against one fleshy hand. "You a runaway or what?" His smile widened, his eyes narrowing and giving the wrinkled face the general appearance of a Gammorean's. "A Rebel?"
Luke took a sip of water. "A Rebel?" He echoed, just enough of a question to invite an answer.
The man gave another piggish smile. "Where you been?"
"Outer Rim." Luke slipped a 5-credit chip onto the rough surface of the counter. "Tell me about the Rebels."
The man pocketed the chip and leaned over the counter, the sticky unpleasant smell of alcohol on his breath. "There was an attack on a HoloNet beacon near Dreeklyn, Reecee, something like that. They got fighters and a Mon Cal cruiser now. We got a coupla Destroyers and wiped em out, but I don't know if this means they're comin back or what. You didn't hear that?"
"No." So the Empire was in command here-now? But the time had not changed. "Tell me more about the Empire." He said, prepared to augment the possibly suspicious question with the Force.
The barman was suspicious, and asked, "What's your name, peedunkie?"
"I was never here," Luke murmured, waved his hand, made the man's recent memories into a blank slate, and left. He walked into a world where all he had worked for in the first half of his life, all that his sister, Han, their children, the Jedi had worked for was gone. Stormtroopers stood at each corner in the deep sections of the city, and the black and white flag of the Imperial crest flew from the tallest towers.