Chapter 3: Ootmian
He returned to the boardwalk and, though he knew it made no real sense, stood where he had arrived and touched the Force. It was irritatingly patchy, insubstantial still.
Luke sighed. He did not have or know how to work the machine, how to again release the fogging light. But this place, though he felt that he should stay in case anything else happened, was unsafe. The stormtroopers were everywhere in the city, their senses seeming to be physically tainted with the feel of the evil of the Empire.
He began to head for his ship. He and Corran, chasing the almost forgotten "artifact smugglers" that had the machine, had come in their X-wings, and the two fighters should be at the main Coronet docking bays, in 55 and 56. And with his ship...he could go somewhere else, see what the exact state of the Empire and Rebellion and galaxy was. And he would feel more comfortable.
Luke was halfway to the spaceport when he saw a squadron of six stormtroopers pass through an alley onto the street he was on, and knew a Force-user was near, with its attention on himself. He looked up and stretched out with his senses, and knew that the squadron was coming up behind him, the Force-user not far behind and joining with them.
The squad drew level with Luke in a few seconds and one gestured with an armored hand--arrogant--for Luke to stop. He did, his back to the busy street, facing a blue-black durasteel and glass building, its entrance twenty floors up at the level of the skylanes.
"Where're you going?" The metallic voice asked.
"To the spaceport," He replied, calm, knowing this was the truth.
"What's your name?" The lead trooper asked, and a subordinate handed him a datapad as though to check the name Luke would give against a list.
There was no one around , and the glimmer of the Force-user at the edge of his awareness was far away, to far to help if it was a friend or to attack if it was a foe.
"You don't need to know my name." The lead stormtrooper's mind was weak; his was the type of soldier who did what they were told, and no more.
"I don't need to know your name," the trooper said absently, and the Force was moving behind his hidden eyes.
"I can go about my business."
"You can go about your business."
"You can go about your business." They began to turn away and another man slipped between their ranks and stood before Luke. He was short, dressed in a green and brown tunic and black pants, and carried no visible weapon. The Force moved dark and angry within him.
"This is the one!" He snapped to the stormtroopers and they turned back in unison and held their blasters at the ready.
Luke could sense both that this was a hostile dark Force-user, probably hired, trained or both by the Empire, and that the little man's skills were considerably less than his own.
"Where are you going?" The dark Jedi asked the same question his troopers had, obviously the one of the most importance, for some reason.
Luke answered the same way he had before. "The spaceport. What does the Empire mind in that?"
"What's a grown Sith doin' out here alone? Don't think I can't know."
It should be apparent to this man, Luke knew, that he, Luke, wasn't a Sith. But this was not the time to emphasize that mistake. The Imperial's eyes flicked to his squad at this hesitation, and then the command;
"Take him."
The troopers raised their guns and the Force-user his hands, and Luke felt an invisible grip at his throat and his last breath catch within. Fear threatened for a split second.
Without moving Luke pushed the little Sith away, knocking his thoughts from attack and his head against the hard armored ankle of one of the stormtroopers. He scrambled up holding the back of his neck, and the trooper he had unbalanced clicked the setting on his blaster and fired a stun bolt. Luke dodged it, sent a wave of Force energy against them before a second bolt could be fired, and began to run for bay 56.
Behind a corner now, the Force-user seethed with anger, throwing off the effects of the wave though his troops were mostly nervous and trying to retain their dignity after falling like so many young trees in a windstorm. Luke Skywalker just wanted off this world, to set his course for somewhere far away and to sit in the darkness of hyperspace and think about what could have happened so that the Empire won. It seemed so wrong to hm.The warped state of the Force and something inside and attuned to his own reality told him this should not be. Where, what battle or significant event or faulty decision of his own had made this place?
On the outside, the visible bowl of the docking bays, the faded sign that said 56 and had the spaceport master's old dog lounging below it, and the silver shape of Luke's X-Wing within faded white walls was just as it had been when he and Corran had arrived from Yavin, but something still was wrong.
Quickly as possible Luke crossed to the ship, climbed and pushed the ladder away as he slid into the familiar confines of the cockpit. The ladder was a resource of the spaceport; they would see to it after he left.
He'd decided quickly to go to Dagobah. Before, he had thought Mon Cal, Reecee, just to see the state of things, but he saw the state now. Yavin 4 was out of the question; the praxeum undoubtably wasn't even there. So on Dagobah he could hide from the Empire, and possibly Master Yoda would be there and he could get some answers.
Luke turned for his crash webbing and the ship disappeared from around him, flicking out like a hologram when you flip through channels and each image flashes out of existence after the other. The Force was disturbed, was lost and then again was there and wrong.
Luke fell through where his ship had been, instinctively rolled when he felt the ground catch his body, seconds before gravity would have slammed him against it, came out of the roll on one knee and stood.
Looking back, the X-Wing was obviously and irrevocably gone. Brief confusion was replaced by brief realization that the ship really had no reason to be here in this Imperial-held world. Luke and Corran had not arrived here in these ships, they were but residue, a glitch...
Luke closed his eyes and breathed a nearly silent sigh for a moment, his right hand clenched and his mind fighting itself. Fear leads to the dark side of the Force, yes, but as much so does confusion, a sense of helplessness, lonliness. Luke mastered these things and turned away from what he had thought was in the docking bay and slipped out, aware of the Sith and his squadron of stormtroopers still trailing him.