Note: I wrote this before Episode III so discrepancies in that timeline are entirely the fault of my imagination and do not do to much to effect the story.

Chapter 11: The Storm

Up in space there was chaos. A Star Destroyer floated serenely above and to the right of the Falcon and had discharged at least a few squadrons of TIE fighters and a Skipray Blastboat, and they all angled to swarm the Falcon like hungry mynocks. Casually, Han flipped the ship around and made for the space beyond the curve of Dagobah. Lasers splashed against the aft shields.

"Set the coordinates, Chewie." Han muttered, and the Wookie grumbled and moved his furry hands across the controls.

"How'd you find us?" Luke asked.

" I owed Paqs Patra a rescue. He said you were a friend of his."

On cue the Orion appeared overhead and a comm click gave Han some signal to curve out toward deep space. The TIEs were fading behind, victims of range and the greater speed of their prey. But now the Star Destroyer was turning toward them, and it was a race to see whether its turbolaser banks would come into range or the rebel ships would be released from the gravity shadow of Dagobah first .

"We're gonna make it." Han muttered. Chewie growled something, and Han cursed and turned the ship around.

The reason was evident as the Orion rotated into view. One of the two engine tubes was no longer spilling efflux, and wounded as it was the TIEs were surrounding it.

"Get to the guns, kids." Han commanded.

Luke got up to make for the dorsal laser turret, but Kit did not move. For the entire flight the Nautolan had been silent, staring into space with his wide black eyes.

"Don't go after him." Kit said.

Luke glanced at him. "What?"

"You don't sense it? He draws us into a trap."

The Orion was rotating slowly, occasional laser bursts coming from it, many more pouring in. Luke hadn't concentrated on Patra; he had been simply trusting him. Certainly Kit would have noticed any falsity from Patra first as there was no friendly label on him in the Nautolan's mind.

Han, as usual, made his own decision completely disregarding the Force-users in his company. "Space it. We're going back." The Falcon turned around, Han's manual foreword lasers flying out at the Imperials now turning for them while harassing Patra's wounded craft.

Luke went to the dorsal turret, as much to support Han as for the view. The Nautolan, he noted, did not move to follow. Luke still could not detect, with any senses, deception from Patra. Fear and anger; no deception.

In the swiveling laser turret Luke fell into the rhythm of picking off TIEs as they arched, in predictable attack patterns, over the Falcon spitting lasers. As the Skipray Blastboat, a large two-winged ship arming ion cannon and proton torpedoes, came toward them the Falcon went into corkscrewing evasive maneuver paths, making it harder for the TIEs to follow and for Luke to shoot them.

"Watch that Star Destroyer." Luke commed. The big ship was getting close--not close enough to use a tractor beam, but close--and the other Imps were obviously trying to stall them around the Orion until it arrived.

"Trust me, I'm watching it." Han grumbled, then could be dimly heard clicking through comm channels looking for Patra's. Luke took out another TIE. A proximity alarm flashed--the Destroyer entering tractor range.

"Han!"

An explosion filled most of Luke's viewport with white and orange and red light. The laser turret shook around him, and Han immediately turned the Falcon away from the Star Destroyer and broke for open space. A single curse came over the comm. There was no sense of loss of Patra, but it was too late to see what the explosion had been if not him, and Luke didn't trust the Force anymore, not in the state it was.

It struck him as a strange thought, that such a thing as that should cross his mind.

In the next moment the Falcon jumped into hyperspace, and all was stars and quiet.

When Luke went into the cockpit Han was looking suspiciously at the Nautolan Jedi. Chewbacca was running diagnostics at his console, his alien sense wary.

"I do not understand a lot." Kit was saying. "I know we are fighting an enemy, and the Jedi are gone, correct?"

Han looked more suspicious. "An enemy. That would be the Empire..." He was visibly wondering why Kit did not know about it.

"Empire." The Nautolan repeated, brooding on the concept.

Han swung around in his chair when Luke entered the cockpit and sat down. "And do I know you from somewhere? This barve must've got hit on the head too hard and doesn't know where he is. You– " and suddenly he pulled his blaster and propped it on the chair arm pointing at Luke. "Luke? You should be dead." He glared.

Momentary panic fled before cold calm. Luke raised his hands a little. "I suppose I should but strange things have happened. I came here from another universe–Patra trusts me." He could sense's Han's deep wariness and subtly smoothed his mind, using cracks the pirate did not, at this point, even know where there in his mental armor.

Han took some time to think about that. He peered at Luke as if to make sure of his reality. "Makes more sense then you surviving Yavin, I guess. But I've heard a lot of weird things in this galaxy, and that's got to be the weirdest." He turned back to the console, seemingly to double check his copilot. He shuddered inside, keeping his face sabacc-blank. Luke felt immediately sorry for him.

"You're from the Old Republic, aren't you." Luke said to Kit then. It was a sudden suspicion. "What was happening when you came here?"

"The Jedi Council was disbanded. Senator Palpatine declared himself an emperor and the Jedi traitors. We were being hunted down."

Luke nodded. "The Jedi purge. This is the aftermath of that. Those ships were from Palpatine's Empire. When I was here I was part of a rebellion against them."

The Nautolan's head-tails quivered, maybe a sign of confusion. If he had been going to say something, Han interrupted.

"Wait. Where are you from?"

"The future." Luke said. "No, the present, but an alternate present where ten years ago the rebels defeated the Empire."

"The Empire is evil." Kit said. "If it is, was, can be defeated I would be honored to aid in it. For my world. For your fallen friend."

"Well I'm sure we'll need you. I mean if I can even find the Rebellion." But Luke's spirits were rising, here safe with allies.

"We will." Han muttered.

"You'll help?"

"Sure. To make the place more interesting."

Finally, Mara saw Darth Vader step out of the ruins of Yoda's home. The sounds of his lightsaber and crashing around them had stopped, abruptly, a minute or so ago, replaced by rasping breathing. Yoda's death had been just a surge in the Force, and maybe a sense of peace that had passed over Mara without touching her.

Vader dropped from the gigantic trunk of a fallen tree to the ground next to Mara.

"The mission is complete." The Sith's deep voice intoned. He began to walk across the furrowed ground toward their shuttle. Mara followed, the vornskr limping behind them.

"There is but one Jedi left." Vader continued. "And he will be ours. The Emperor will make sure of it."