Chapter 17: Makacheesa
Dorin was an orange world, a brighter orange than Yavin, thin of atmosphere and possessing the appearance of a gas giant instead of something substantial, the muted colors adding to the illusion of depth. Despite the impending landing, Luke had asked Han and Kit to meet him in the common room while Chewbacca waited for permission to enter a trajectory to Lando's base.
"Just watch this." Luke said. He indicated an alcove on the back wall where, last time he had seen the Falcon in his world, there had been a rack of blast helmets. There was now a shiny machine panel, some kind of security system control.
Luke held his hand toward it as if he were going to use the Force on it. He did touch the Force, feeling the strange imperfections and holes it had generated in this world. His mind touched warpings, tiny waves or whirlpools with ripples spreading throughout from them, the entire fabric of reality threatening to seethe. He found one of these familiar, took it and touched it to reality as if doing the same with the pure Force to push or create lightning.
Luke opened his eyes. There was the white blast helmet sitting in the empty niche, like when Ben Kenobi had taken it to put over young Luke's eyes.
"Ay!" Han exclaimed. "My security system!"
Luke released the Force and the panel flicked back to normal. Only then did he show a thin smile.
"What did you do?" Kit asked.
It worked.
Chewbacca yowled something from the cockpit. Han looked up. "I know it's not easy to translate from Shriwook to Kel Dor!" he yelled. "But that computer can do it! Just wait a sec!"
Han had called Lando before they arrived, confirming that he did know something...at least a few people who could get Luke what he wanted. How Lando knew them, Luke didn't bother asking. Now the Falcon cruised through the upper clouds of Dorin in the company of two black cloud cars.
Lando Calrissian's keldoryn mining, secondary to similar operations on Bespin, was based on a false island half repulsor-lifted and half floating, almost soaring on wide metal wings. Each tower jutting up from the black base held spikes and spires as if all modeled after a strange, dark theme, though in reality the spikes exuded a warmth that changed the state of the keldoryn into liquid. Raindrops of it three or four times the size of those water formed dripped into collection basins all across the city.
The cloud cars guided the Millennium Falcon to a wide dock within the midst of the towers, where it settled and released gray contrasting steam into the orange sky. Familiar, with memories behind the scene that only Luke could see, Lando Calrissian and his cyborg assistant Lobot met them at the edge of the dock. The air was thin, enough so that Luke began to breathe as if in combat, regular and monitored.
There were Imperial stormtroopers with Lando, four of them standing like unperceptive droids. Han approached Lando hesitantly at first, more business like than desperately seeking help from an old friend.
"Greetings, Han!" Lando smiled brightly, seemingly unaffected by the sparse air. "Welcome, all of you, to my humble establishment. The Empire has kindly provided us with escorts, protecting from any attacks by unpleasant natives raiding keldoryn."
They began to walk toward a door in the nearest building, to all eyes an odd business party.
"So you found something the stuff is good for." Han commented, inside where oxygen was not so rare. There was a tenseness and a waiting Luke could sense. Lando was planning something. Not another betrayal, certainly not; the presence of the stormtroopers seemed to purposefully say that there was no deception on the Empire's part.
"Well, it's definitely explosive in a methane atmosphere." Lando was saying in response to Han, wearing a smile that seemed to say there was a story behind that discovery. "But it also might be used as a mild relaxant for humanoids, for either medical or wartime purposes. The difficulty is in exporting it. The Empire sanctions it but the Kel Dor aren't sure yet; we may have to change location at any time. But no danger now. Completely peaceful negotiations are nearly finished."
"Well you've made yourself into quite the respectable businessman, haven't you?" Han laughed. The dark hallways of the floating city had closed over them now. Light and noise erratically emanated from laboratory-like rooms on either side. Han and Lando bantered good-naturedly as they continued through, though Luke stayed silent. This was less finished looking than Cloud City; smaller, dark and with bare rivets and strange walkways above and below, like the lower levels of Lando's other establishment. Lando stopped at a rough door where the hallway curved in a perpendicular direction. He said something to the stormtrooper entourage then opened the door and beckoned the others inside. It was a small hanger, the orange clouds rolling at the end of a black tunnel holding a modified cloud car.
"Hurry." Lando said, rushing to the car. "They think I'm showing you a view. Chewbacca this is going to be a little tight, I'm sorry."
The five of them crowded into the car that had been expanded to fit four. Luke sat in the rear section with Kit and Chewbacca, the Wookiee's great head bent against the ceiling. Lando guided the ship out and down through the clouds.
"Thanks, Lando," Luke said after a time.
Lando took from the center console a tangle of black rebreather masks and handed three back. "Put these on." He said. "Weird atmosphere down here. I'm just helping out the cause. And I owed Han a couple favors."
"You never offered an repayment before, you swindler." Han growled.
"Well the Empire wasn't monitoring my background operations before."
"So you're only helpful when it help yourself, I get it. Disgraceful."
"But don't you remember the exchange on Iego? I was right there with you..."
Over their talk, Kit asked Luke, "So what was that you did with the Force on the ship?" He ducked then as Chewbacca lifted his furry arms to fit a rebreather mask over his muzzle. Luke tried to shift closer to the window.
"It happened by accident when I first got here, like a, a glitch in the world. There's corresponding, glitches in the Force, like places where my world is making itself known. I think--Chewie, stop moving!" The Wookiee roared and settled down dejectedly. "I think I can do that on purpose, to change things in this universe."
Kit nodded and smiled. "That could come in handy."
"Yes it could."
The cloud car settled onto the rusty surface of Dorin in the midst of corrugated buildings and a few small green trees. It was a shanty town made for off-world trade, basically a collection of 'port-minders houses, a few stores, and a cantina. The streets were mostly empty of people; it was an overcast, quiet day in an arid part of the world. The group, under Lando's leadership, made for the cantina, their breath hissing quietly behind the rebreathers.
There was, on the dusty wall inside, a flimsi-and-charcoal drawing of Darth Vader. It was a good enough likeness of the black mask that typified him, just a little flat or with a line to long or at the wrong angle, and was held up by rusting metal nails pushed into the wood.
A sharp silver dart thunked into the picture beside Vader's right eye.
Luke, Lando, Han, Kit and Chewbacca entered through the swinging door from the murky clouds of Dorin, and a few heads turned then went back to their drinks. In the near corner, the Bothan who had thrown the dart bared his fangs behind a slimy-looking breath mask. He was one of the few offworlders in the room, though with the party of humans, Wookiee and Nautolan some balance was created. Most of the patrons were Kel Dors, natives, their black eyes and sharp toothed round mouths usually hidden by dark lenses and masks if they traveled around the galaxy . Most of these were dressed in uniform that probably denoted space-port workers.
Lando told the group to wait for him at the bar and went to sit next to the Bothan. This personage appeared to be a typical member of his species, besides the amphibian looking mask, dark eyepieces hooked around his canine ears, and a silver blaster across his back with a dart tip at the end of the thick muzzle. Luke didn't care who Lando knew if that being could connect him to the Rebellion. He fancied he would have taken the word of a two-headed Hutt.
At the small bar, Han was trying to bridge the language barrier by furiously pointing at the drink he wanted. The Kel Dor rotated its teeth and gestured with its heavy arms for him to go away, until Chewbacca leaned across the counter and roared. Many heads turned across the cantina and the Kel Dor barkeep seemed to become able to understand. Kit Fisto laughed and his head-tails ruffled.
Looking back at Lando, Luke saw the other man quickly gesturing and talking to the Bothan. Han realized that he couldn't drink with the rebreather on anyway and slammed the glass down on the counter angrily, the Kel Dor looking smug.
"Han," Luke said, because Lando had gotten up to leave. The Bothan threw another dart as they passed out the door, and it missed Vader and fell into a Kel Dor's soup.
Outside, Lando told them, "He's willing to help, but there aren't many of them, and they're all pretty scared about being found."
There were, mostly because they all knew chances of finding another option was massively improbable, various statements of agreement.
"We'll meet up with him tomorrow."
They walked to the cloud car through the orange mist, small figures under an overhanging sky.