Chapter 4: Flight
Luke again took to the streets. The crowd flowed around him, varied individuals with the human Corellians prevalent, none knowing what Luke kept as his own; the knowledge of his own true world. He knew not to reveal to anyone, even potential allies, his point of origin, for they would not believe him.
A block and a half from the spaceport was an information center/hotel complex, and Luke entered it. Inside it was a clean, modern reception room all in shades of silver and red, and twin flights of stairs curved up to a bank of turbolifts and the entrance to the hotel, and below in the curve of the stairways were the wide spaced tables of a small restaurant. Immediately to the left a Drall sat behind a long counter tapping at a datapad with its stubby, clawed fingers.
Luke went to the Drall receptionist and the alien looked up and blinked its moist black eyes.
"I need passage off Corellia." Luke said, and the Drall pulled a thick book onto the desk beside them.
"Where to?" It asked in a high female voice, though the gender wasn't evident on its thickly furred body.
There would be no passenger liners to Dagobah. "The Outer Rim."
The Drall nodded and looked down at the book. She had slid a claw down the page and looked back at Luke for a second or less when her customer jumped up, kicked against the counter and backflipped off it, and a beam of intense energy inbedded itself in the counter. Her datapad screen shattered, and the Drall fainted off her stool.
Luke had known the stormtrooper squadron had followed him, and his only surprise was that they would so readily shoot in a public place like this. All heads turned in the restaurant's dining area as the stormtroopers spread themselves in a half-circle formation against the wall, and the mien of the room became one of agitation and wondering immediately.
The Sith entered behind his squad looking bedraggled, his black hair messed and all his attention focused on his quarry. "Stop! The Emperor commands that a personage of your occupation be brought under guard for questioning--"
'A personage of my occupation.' Luke laughed to himself, though it was with a grim humor. This was the Jedi Purge mentality, dangerous and very, very predictable. But it meant, as he had known, that the Sith knew what he was, and nothing would prevent them from destroying him except a fight lost, not the proximity of innocent, normal people or that Luke's background and motive were unknown. They would not hesitate to kill him.
For a moment there was a standstill. Then the Force-user stepped forward and shouted in his high voice; "Don't move!"
Luke activated his lightsaber.
The Force-user gestured to his troops and moved back into the alcove of the double doors into the complex, and the troopers opened fire. Red howling bolts lanced from their blaster rifles, and the unsheathed green blade in Luke's hands sent each back to its owner as patrons of the restaurant fled the scene, back inside or up the stairs, screams and shouts adding to the thrum of the lightsaber and shriek of the lasers, loud in Luke's ears.
Fifteen seconds and the troopers were down, two dead, five clutching hands or legs or bodies seared by their own fire, and the Force user stood watching Luke with hatred in his eyes.
Luke jumped to the right, deactivating his lightsaber for freedom of movement though quite willing to use it again if the opportunity presented itself. Llightning escaped the Sith's fingers and crackled over where Luke had stood before, though he escaped it now by a foot or more.
Luke's opinion of the Force-user's powers went up a notch, and again his lightsaber was live in his hands as his opponent stalked forward. Nearly all from the restaurant had fled; a group was left at the meeting point of the two stairways frantically waiting for the next turbolift, some peering cautiously over the edge of the stairs to see the conflict below, one crying. Farthest from the entranceway one still sat, a large, strange alien, looking more like it should be in a dark cantina rather then this place. Luke noted it and backed up a step into the shadow of the right stairway, opposite the alien, the shadow taking the Sith's sense of sight from him.
A heavy chair from one of the restaurant's tables smashed against the stairwell above his hiding place, and before a second could come, aimed better, Luke stepped out and threw the Force against the chair. It caught the Sith on the chest and head and threw him backwards sprawling into the entrance area. He did not get up.
Luke lowered his hands and walked back into the open space where Sith and chair lay immobile against the hard floor, the latter skewed and on top of the former. The little Sith wasn't dead, just knocked out, and Luke passed him by, returning to the service desk. The Drall was hiding behind her counter, and as he drew near she scrambled, wide-eyed and fearful, to remount her high stool and turn the book of departing ships toward him, her finger shaking as she pointed to "Espera Karva; departure 16:40 to Sernpidal City, Sernpidal."
The Sith was behind him again. The Drall pointed and tried to say something, and Luke smiled to reassure her. Behind him there was a loud thump, and the Drall dropped to the floor again.
Turning around he saw all he expected to see, though it still looked strange. The alien from the corner had one foot clamped down on the little human's back, and when the Force-user raised his hands to execute a Force push the long claw of the alien's middle toe was poked into his back, and his hands returned to the floor. Luke's smile for the Drall became one of triumph, and he reached with the Force into the Sith's mind--he struggled and again the claw cut in--and knocked him out again.
"Thank you." Luke said, and extended his hand to the alien, who clasped it for a moment and took its foot from the Sith's back. It was a large creature covered in short, white fur, its body tilted forward with the thick legs and clawed feet like a fulcrum between the tail and front section, with golden ribbed wings folded along its sides and a multitude of limbs. The head was beaked, though when it opened its mouth it could be seem to have almost a second covering inside that the beak overlapped and protected, more like a snout, and had large green and back eyes. It had humanlike arms and hands, with which it had shaken Luke's hand, above a second set of arms with long claws and curved scythes of bone. The wings had their own claws with hooks and small-clawed fingers. It wore no clothes, being covered in fur, though a sheath and blaster were belted to its right leg, and it was not Force sensitive and nearly twice as tall as Luke.
"You're welcome," it said in a deep, throaty voice, the mouth working behind the sharp edges of the beak to produce accented Basic. "You need a trip offplanet."
Luke nodded. There was no hostility to the alien's word. He was willing to help because he knew what it was like--to a point--to be in Luke's position of fleeing a planet.
"We've got a ship. If you're ready to leave now we can get out of here before your friends bring reinforcements."
Luke glanced at the stormtroopers, and there were two out of five left, the other survivors gone certainly to call more. He told the first name he could think of; "I'm Corran Horn. I'll go with you if you're headed my way..."
The alien began walking toward the doorway, claws clicking on the floor. " I suppose that depends on where your way is." He tilted his head and looked at Luke.
"Dagobah." Luke ventured.
"Never heard of it. But we'll get you there. I'm Captain Paqs Patra the Second of the Orion. Call me Patra and don't throw up in our ship and I'll get you wherever."
Luke smiled and the alien bobbed his head once in confermation and led the way out, picking his way through the remains of the stormtrooper contingent casually. Luke studied his strange form again and decided he really didn't know enough about him, not even his species, but nor did he have time to ask. There was really no reason to trust Paqs Patra the Second at this moment, but there was nothing to say he couldn't be trusted, and his actions against the Sith seemed to say he was good. As soon as he got to Dagobah--at least now that portion of the half-formed plan would work--this messed-up galaxy could forget he had ever existed. Too quickly rose the question of what he would do if Master Yoda wasn't there, or could do nothing to change the state of the predicament he was in.
Paqs Patra's ship was in docking bay 143, a medium-sized craft like Kyle Katarn's Raven's Claw. The docking ramp opened onto a cockpit/living area with walls of black metal like the outside of the ship, and the bow and ceiling were decorated with the many lights and indicators used on starships to track themselves through the near-infinity of the galaxy. Behind this room were hatches to a refresher and cargo bay, and the ion engine tucked between the ship's long drive tubes.
Patra's footclaws clicked on the metal as the alien crossed the room and settled before the control console, in a sling of crash webbing, the fingers of his wings curled around a brace above his head and his long body, his four arms darting along the console prepping the engine.
Luke looked back for a moment, out over the walls to the multicolored city towers, and for some reason, as the ramp went up and he lost the view of Coronet, a feeling like a sickness told him he would never see this safe haven again.