A Left Turn at Albuquerque

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around and mash together for my own demented author amusement – sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters and concepts remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.

Authors Note: I know I said at the end of the last chapter that we would be returning to Dana's little adventure and the mystery of the hidden CIS base in this chapter, unfortunately the plot bunny had other ideas. Instead, we're going to be staying on Tatooine in this chapter I hope you don't mind.

Chapter Eighteen

Obi-Wan's Cave

Tatooine Surface

A Few Moments Earlier

Obi-Wan Kenobi groaned as he started to pick himself up off the floor of the cave that the Force had told him to take shelter in. Despite his best efforts he hadn't been able to remain in his meditation position as the very ground itself started rumbling and thrashing about like a bantha caught in the mouth of a kryat dragon. Even for someone like him – who had encountered a fair few seismic disturbance during his years as a Jedi first when he'd been Qui-Gon's padawan and then Anakin's master – the quake had been a very powerful one. One that had seemed to go on and on until the Hutt installed seismic stabilizers finally managed to dampen down the subterranean shockwaves.

Clearly the alien weapon that caused them had to have been incredibly powerful to have generated such a powerful shockwave. A part of him had to wonder just what kind of weapon it had been as he had never heard of a weapon that could be so powerful as to overwhelm seismic stabilizers for what had to be a good seven or eight minutes. Whatever it was I hope the Empire never gets its grubby little hands on it. They've got enough weapons as it is without needing to add whatever that was to their arsenals of death and destruction, he thought wincing at all his new bruises as he made his way out of the cave to his speeder. He hoped that Owen and Beru would have something at their farm to help treat his bruises otherwise he would have to take time from helping Luke – who was sure to wake up soon – and spend an hour or two in a Jedi healing trance.

Releasing the pain from the extensive bruising into the Force he carefully climbed back into his speeder and attempted to restart the engine. The engine groaned and coughed and for a few moments Obi-Wan thought that the battered old thing wasn't going to start – he really had to look into getting a new speeder as his ability to repair this one was reaching its limits, Anakin had always been the mechanic not him though he knew enough to get buy – then it rumbled to life. He began guiding the speeder up the relatively narrow canyon towards where he could exit and resume his journey to the Lars homestead and Luke.

He was about two thirds of the way along the length of the canyon, just passing the hollow in the ground that had long ago been the drop pool of an ancient waterfall, when a strange sound caught his attention. A strange rumbling, cracking sound that wasn't like anything he had ever heard on Tatooine before. He paused the speeder in mid-air and looked around, a puzzled look on his face, for the source of the strange noise.

Almost immediately he realized that the sound was coming from the hollow he had just passed. He looked at it to see that the surface of the hollow was visibly vibrating like a drum and cracks were starting to appear in the surface. What in the name of the Force, he thought confused a moment before an especially loud series of cracking sounds came from the hollow and he couldn't help but stare in dumbfounded shock as a crack as wide as he was tall suddenly bisected the lowest deepest part of the hollow a few seconds before a hissing, screaming jet of high-pressure steam began shooting out of the crack – the violence of the jet quickly beginning to eat away at the edges widening the fissure.

Then it happened.

With a loud boom like a million proton artillery shells detonating at once the entire surface of the hollow exploded into the air in an eruption of steam, sand, and rocks ranging in size from small pebbles to boulders as big as his head. Reflexively he created a shield with the Force to protect himself from the sudden rain of stones and dirt, the projectiles bouncing off the barrier of concentrated telekinetic force each hit making him wince slightly as he felt the strain the shield was under. Holy nerfherders he was really out of practice doing this, he was really going to have to practice and meditate a lot more to regain his old skill and power levels with the Force as something told him he would need them.

Then something else hit the shield. Something that looked like mud. Mud on Tatooine, he thought incredulous before more chunks of mud impacted the shield each increasing the strain on him not to mention the fact that the mud stunk in away that he hadn't smelt in a long time not really since he'd been a padawan and trapsed through the swamps of Naboo with Qui-Gon and Jarjar on the way to Gonga City. Feeling the bombardment of mud end he mentally pushed outward with the Force making the dome of mud and stones fly off in all directions.

When he could see the hollow again what he saw shocked him even more than seeing the steam and mud. The centre of the hollow was now filled by a seething mass of bubbling water that hissed and foamed as it rose in a dome before cascading outwards in walls of bubbles and steam. Before his shocked eyes he saw the water fill the hollow and begin cascading over the lip at the lowest edge sending a river of steaming hot water outwards.

For a few more seconds he was spellbound watching as for the first time in many thousands of years liquid water flowed across the surface of Tatooine. Water that was hot and steamy meaning it was coming from deep, deep underground where it had obviously been trapped for a very, very long time. It had to have been to have gotten so hot. Until that was something had happened that released it, something that had shattered whatever rock was overlying the deep level aquafer it had to have been trapped in.

Abruptly the Force began screaming a warning at him and he looked up the canyon. His eyes widened in shock, horror and fear as he beheld a wave a steaming water – turned the colour of caffe by dirt and sand – nearly one and a half meters high coming barrelling towards him at high-speed pushing a shockwave of warm, moist air ahead of it. Knowing he had only seconds to save himself from the flash flood he directed the speeder upwards and pushed the throttles to full. With a roar of power from the aging engine the speeder burst into motion like a startled mynock.

He only just made it as a mere moment after the speeder moved the flood passed right through where he had been, steadily filling up the canyon with a raging mass of hot water, sand, boulders, and dirt. Clearing the lip of the canyon Obi-Wan found himself gazing upon an unbelievable sight. The desert landscape had been transformed into a scene from some kind of hell as everywhere he looked there were jets of steam and hot water blasting to the surface and he could even see – off in the distance – right where the missile had impacted – a huge mud volcano spewing a mixture of hot, thick sulphurous mud and water onto the surface of the planet. Overhead the sky was rapidly darkening as the masses of rising steam condensed around the fine particles of sand and dust that filled the atmosphere of Tatooine, forming clouds and if he wasn't wrong soon it would – for the first time in countless millennia – rain on Tatooine.

"All this from one missile," he said softly gazing at the scenes around him in shock. Whatever the warhead on the alien missile had been it had clearly been far, far more powerful than he had previously believed as to have had this effect the deep level seismic shocks from the blast had to have not only torn apart a previously unknown deep aquafer but created numerous stress fractures in the overlying rock. Fractures that the superheated water and mud released from the aquafer was now using as a conduit to reach the surface. What the long-term effects, if there were any, of these hydrothermal eruptions would be on the rest of Tatooine he had absolutely no idea – it would probably depend on just how much water had been trapped in the aquafer – though it was obvious that it was going to cause quite a lot of heartache and chaos for a lot of the planet's population, especially if the flash flooding started to affect the main settlements.

As he continued to watch the unfolding chaos Obi-Wan had to wonder if the aliens – whoever or whatever they were – had known that their missile would have this effect? That the blast would shatter a deep level aquafer and trigger what was shaping up to be a massive series of hydrothermal eruptions? Eruptions that between the massive quantities of steam and the hot water coming up were certain to cause absolute chaos across at very least this continent if not the entire planet. Somehow, he didn't think that they had been aware that this would be the side-affect as something – some intuition from the Force itself – told him that they hadn't. Still the fact that the weapon had done this made it clear that it wasn't something that anyone should really have, and definitely something that the Empire should be prevented from getting their durasteel hands on at all costs.

A deep rumble the likes of which he had not heard in a long time reached his ears. Now what, he thought looking around as he heard it again and this time, he placed the sound. It was thunder, and it was coming from the rapidly growing and expanding storm clouds. Storm clouds that were growing faster than any he had seen from the amount of moisture suddenly condensing in the dusty atmosphere. Mentally Obi-Wan shook himself, chided himself for getting distracted by the sight of the ongoing hydrothermal eruptions, before resuming his journey to the Lars homestead…

…hopefully he would get there before the rain began.

Lars Homestead

A Few Minutes Later

Owen Lars looked worriedly at his nephew as he lay nearly motionless on the living room couch. Only the gentle rise and fall of his chest let him know that Luke was still alive and was just deeply unconscious from the sudden strain of reflexively using the Force to protect himself from a rain of dirt and rocks. He was so out of it that he hadn't even reacted to the violent seismic shocks that had a short time ago rattled the Lars homestead and from the alarm that had sounded started a fire in the vehicle bay. Thankfully it had been a small fire that he'd easily put out with a portable extinguisher before it could reach the fuel tank for their speeders.

The fact that Luke had not reacted at all, and still showed no sign of waking, had him deeply worried. He could only hope that that crazy old fool Ben could do something to help him, something to bring him out of this unnaturally deep and long period of unconsciousness. Then suppress Luke's latent Force sensitivity again as he didn't want his nephew going off on some foolish, idealistic crusade with that foolish former Jedi Master. That would only get him killed.

The sound of footsteps behind him caught his attention and he looked over his shoulder to see Beru had returned from the kitchen holding two mugs of caffe. Silently she offered him one, he accepted it with an equally silent nod of thanks. They had been together so long that they usually didn't need words to understand each other.

"Any change," Beru asked looking worriedly at Luke's motionless form.

"Nothing," Owen replied, glancing back at his nephew. "Did you get through to that old fool?"

"Owen, I know you don't like Ben, but you should stop referring to him in such a manner," Beru told him firmly, more than a little irritated with the way Owen always referred to Obi-Wan/Ben Kenobi in such a disrespectful manner. Anakin's fate had not been Obi-Wan's doing though Owen could never see it, just like he couldn't see – or rather refused to see – that Luke was not a moisture farmer and never would be – he had too much of Anakin in him along with a sizeable dollop of Padme's sense of justice and fairness – no matter how hard he tried to make him into one. "But to answer your question yes, I did get through to him. He's on his way here as we speak."

"Good maybe he'll be able to get Luke out of this unconscious state," Owen said, "and then suppress the Force in him."

Beru rolled her eyes. "Owen, you know that is not going to happen," she told him firmly, quite fed up with how obstinate Owen was being on this particular issue, as much as she loved her husband, she knew that he could be far too stubborn and opinionated for his own good sometimes. "While neither of us is a Jedi you know as well as I – from what Anakin told us about the Force before his death if nothing else – that once someone's mind is opened to the Force there is no going back."

"There has to be or Luke's going to go off and get himself killed."

"I know your worried about him Owen, so am I, but we cannot keep him here forever. Luke isn't like us he isn't a farmer he never has been, and he never will be no matter how hard you try to turn him into one. Now that he has used the Force, even though he probably doesn't even realize what he did, we have to let him go. We have to let Ben take him for if we don't then some darksider will."

Owen started to open his mouth to protest that he didn't want that old fool to start teaching Luke to be a Jedi but stopped before he could speak. As much as he wanted to repute what Beru was saying, as much as wanted to protect Luke as he had done ever since he'd been brought here when he was only a day or two old, he knew he couldn't. Just like he knew that no matter how much he wished otherwise he couldn't make Luke a farmer and that all the blocks to him finding a new life for himself he'd put up – by refusing to let him transmit any applications to the Imperial Academy – were really only delaying what was inevitable.

"When did you get so wise?" he asked her a moment before a deep rumbling boom echoed through the homestead prompting both of them to look up in surprise and confusion.

"What in the world," Beru said looking around as the rumble came again. "It's coming from outside."

"Stay here with Luke. I'll go see if I can find out what that booming sound is," Owen told her as he stood up, wincing at the slight stab of arthritis in his knees, the legacy of spending a lifetime here on this moisture farm. Beru nodded and took his place allowing him to slip out of the room and begin making his way back to the open to the air core of the homestead.

It took only a few moments to arrive and when he did, he immediately knew something was wrong. The area which should have been flooded with light from the twin suns was instead darkening rapidly and when he looked up, he didn't see the familiar heat-bleached but clear sky. Instead, the sky was thick with a dark grey boiling mass of cloud unlike anything he had ever seen in his life before indeed it was something that no modern Tatooine native had ever seen. The mere sight of those dark boiling clouds was enough to send a shiver of real fear down his spine.

A brilliant flash of light rent through the clouds followed less than a heartbeat later by another of the deep booming rumbles. The light he at least recognised as he had seen it enough times during the worst sandstorms – lightning. Realizing that there was going to be a storm of some kind he moved over to the far side of the shaft – skirting past the mass of rocks and dirt that had earlier fallen to a specific control panel that was only really used once or twice a year during the worst sandstorms. A tap of a control caused a powerful whirring sound to begin echoing through the shaft and a pair of huge durasteel doors began to slowly close sealing the shaft and the homestead rooms beneath off from the coming storm.

After a few moments the durasteel storm doors closed completely momentarily plunging him into darkness. Seconds later however artificial lights whirled to life and restored the illumination. With the main storm doors now closed Owen began throwing switches that closed all the other storm doors over the other windows and light wells as well though he left the speeder garage ones up for a moment as he guessed that, given the urgency with which Beru had called him, old Ben would be coming via speeder instead of the Eopie he normally used when he trekked to the east ridge – where he would sit and watch them from just beyond the edges of the Lars claim so Owen couldn't just chase the old fool away.

That was when he heard it a strange rhythmic tapping sound coming from the shield doors a few meters above his head. What, he thought looking up with a puzzled frown as the sound grew louder until the tapping sounds merged into a faint roaring sound. It wasn't a sound he could ever recall hearing as it wasn't anything like the sounds sand from the worst storms made when they hit the storm doors.

A bleep from the console caught his attention. He glanced at it to see a notification that the speeder garage doors were opening from the outside. Ben made good time, he thought guessing that was who was opening the doors. In moments they were fully open and after a minute or so they began closing again as the old Jedi parked his speeder inside. As the doors closed Owen gave the command for that final storm door to close and seal itself, the homestead was now fully locked down until this strange storm passed.

Deciding he might as well wait for the old man Owen waited near the console. A moment later Ben – dressed in his familiar brown robes – appeared and it was immediately obvious that something wasn't right as the robes were much, much darker than they normally were. It took him a few moments to realize why – they were wet. Wet and we're dripping all over the packed synth-stone floor.

"What happened to you," he asked incredulous before a panicked expression appeared on his face as he realized the most likely reason how Ben had gotten wet. "Has one of our transfer pipes burst?"

"There's nothing wrong with your pipes, Owen," Ben answered. "The problem is outside, believe it or not it's raining."

"Raining!" Owen exclaimed, only knowing what rain was from the very few times he'd spoken to Anakin during the Clone Wars – usually when he was between battles and when he wasn't training his apprentice – who had described rain to him. It sounded like something so exotic, water that fell from the sky, especially to someone who had spent his entire life on a desert planet. "That cannot be it doesn't rain here on Tatooine."

"Not normally but after what just happened on one of the old lake beds beyond the dune sea it was inevitable," Ben replied.

"What happened?" Owen asked, hoping he wouldn't have to play twenty questions with Ben Kenobi to get answers as to what had happened.

Obi-Wan/Ben for his part gave a mental sigh. He would much rather immediately go to see Luke, but Owen did deserve an explanation for what was going on outside. Thus, he began by explaining how a group of unknown alien warships had shown up in orbit after one of their own ships had crashed on the surface. How they'd launched a missile weapon of unknown type but whose destructive power was both awe inspiring and terrifying to destroy the wreck despite an attempt by the Empire to stop them. How the missile detonation had completely annihilated the wreck and in the processes triggered massive seismic shockwaves across the area.

"I know about those we felt them here," Owen told him, "though how does that equate to it raining?"

"Because the shockwaves must have not only torn apart a deep level aquafer left over from eons ago when Tatooine had surface water but created numerous fractures and fault lines in the overlying rock strata," Ben replied, "which has resulted in massive hydrothermal eruptions across a sizeable chunk of the dune sea as well as the formation of a massive mud volcano near or where the missile actually hit the surface. Were talking billions of gallons at least of near boiling water exploding to the surface bringing with it steam – lots of it."

"Which has condensed around all the fine sand and dust in the atmosphere to form clouds and now rain," Owen finished for him before a horrified look appeared on his face as he realized what all that water was going to do, not to mention the rain, the horror it was going to unleash across this region. There was definitely going to be flash flooding across this whole region as the baked ground simply wouldn't be able to absorb the moisture falling from the sky or exploding to the surface through the fissures fast enough to stop it.

Plus depending on how long it went on for it could fundamentally alter the climate of the entire planet. Then what would they do.

"Will we be safe here," he asked.

"I would think so the homestead is built on higher ground and sunk deep into granite," Ben replied after thinking about it for a few moments. "You might lose a few of your moisture vaporators though, especially those that are in areas that will be vulnerable to landslips and flash flooding. As long as the storm shields hold against the weight of the rain the homestead should be alright."

"Hopefully they'll hold then," Owen answered. "Come on I'll take you to Luke. Then maybe you can bring him out of this unconscious state he's been in for over an hour."

"I can certainly do that," Ben replied even as he frowned in concern at the fact that Luke had been unconscious for so long, he would have thought he would have shown some sign of recovery by now.

"Good, then maybe you can suppress his Force potential afterwards."

"Impossible."

"I'm not le…"

"Do you want me to destroy Luke's mind," Ben asked Owen bluntly. Owen recoiled as if he had punched him as he said that. Not giving the stubborn moisture farmer a chance to recover he continued. "If I tried to suppress Luke's Force potential in the way that you want me to it would damage him severely possibly even reduce him to a vegetative state. Is that what you want?"

"No, no it isn't," Owen stammered back, deeply shaken by the very notion that his desire to protect his nephew from the Force could destroy him. His shoulders dropped as he finally accepted that there was nothing, he could do to stop the inevitable, Luke would have to be trained by Ben to shield himself from detection by those who would harm him if nothing else. Though he knew his nephew once Luke started to learn about the Force – and learned the truth that Anakin had been a Jedi not a spice freighter navigator as he had always told him – nothing and nobody would stop him from wanted to become a Jedi Knight as Anakin had been before him. "I just…"

"You want Luke to be safe," the former Jedi finished for him. "I understand that, so do I. That's why I brought him to you after Padme's death in the first place. The only way to do that now though is to ensure he is trained to at very least shield his mind from detection."

"Is that all you'll teach him?"

"At first if he wants to learn more well that will be between me, Luke and the Force."

Owen grimaced wishing that Ben would give him a more concrete answer than that. Unfortunately, he knew that he wouldn't get one. All he could do was counsel Luke not to go off on some foolishly idealistic crusade to destroy the Empire or some other such stupidity as he learned the ways of the Jedi. Counsel and hope his nephew actually listened to him for a change. Deciding not to speak again – there was really nothing more to say – he gestured for Ben to follow him towards the living room and his unconscious nephew.

Obi-Wan followed behind Owen through the homestead towards where Luke was lying unconscious in the living room. He fully expected that he would have further arguments with Owen Lars as Luke's inevitable training in the Force began. The other man was far too determined to make Luke a farmer, to keep him from what his true destiny was to do what his father had failed so spectacularly to do and destroy the Sith and restore balance to the Force. He could understand somewhat where Owen was coming from, he wanted Luke to be safe as well, but he knew now that the only way to truly do that was to train him, train him and prepare him as best as he could for an inevitable meeting with the servants of the dark side – which sadly included the cybernetic monster that had once been Anakin Skywalker.

Not for the first time he wondered just what had happened to Anakin on Coruscant when he had been away hunting General Grievous on Utapau. How Palpatine – or to use his real identity Darth Sidious, Dark Master of the Sith – had been able to take one of the greatest fighters for the light and transform him into the raging engine of death and destruction that was Darth Vader. He had long suspected that it had to have involved Padme in some way and Anakin's marriage to her – something he had known about all along though he had never let on to Anakin that he knew, something that he now bitterly regretted as maybe if he had Anakin would have trusted him enough to come to him – but there was no way to know for sure.

Mentally he shook off those thoughts. Now was not the time to remember and wonder on what might have been if different choices had been made. Now he had to deal with Luke and whatever it was that was keeping Anakin's son unconscious after his use of the Force.

Keeping himself as calm as he could he followed Owen through the subterranean hallways and chambers of the Lars homestead to the main living room. Where Luke lay near motionless on the couch – only the rise and fall of his chest giving any indication that he was still alive. Immediately mental alarm bells began to go off in Obi-Wan's head, this wasn't right he shouldn't have been this deeply unconscious for so long.

"Any change," Owen asked a worried Beru.

"No," Beru answered before looking at Obi-Wan and blinking when she saw that he was wet. Before she mentally shrugged, there would be time enough to ask him about that later. "Do you think you'll be able to help him?"

"I will," Obi-Wan answered as he knelt down into the Jedi meditation pose next to Luke. Then he reached out before closing his eyes and probing the young man with the Force. What he saw made his eyes snap open in surprise and alarm. "That can't be right."

"What is it?" Beru asked just beating Owen to the punch.

"Someone or something has pulled Luke's mind deep into the Force," Obi-Wan explained, "like whoever or whatever it is wants him to see something."

"Can you do something about it?" Owen asked.

"I can though it is going to take me quite some time and it will probably exhaust us both."

"Is there anything we can do?" Beru questioned.

"No," Obi-Wan replied before taking Luke's hand in one of his own, before putting his other hand on Luke's forehead. Then he closed his eyes again and let the Force take him.

Owen and Beru watched worriedly as the old Jedi seemed to descend into almost the same level of immobility as Luke. Without speaking they moved to one another and embraced, before sitting together on the other cough to watch, to wait…

…and to hope.

Authors Note: Well, another chapter bites the dust. I hope you all enjoyed it and seeing the beginning of the aftermath of the reflex missile strike on Tatooine. As for what has happened to Luke, who is behind his mind being pulled so deeply into the Force, you'll find that out soon. Until next time.