Luke cursed. The X-wing was busted and buried in sand, the droid destroyed, the comm system offline, his locator beacons disabled, and he was stranded on a desert planet not that much differet than Tatooine. Luke tried to reach out with the force, but something was blocking him. A barrier? To the Force? Luke sighed. I never sent out any messages saying where I was going... Yoda and Ben would kill me... And what would my father say? Luke cursed again. At least he had his long-range scanners. For a while, anyway...

Bleep. Bleep. Bleep...

The scanners showed a small settlement about a mile and a half due east. Luke gathered what provisions he could, covered his face and neck with a sand-colored blanket that he knew he would need in the chill of the fast-approaching night and as cover from enemies, and walked off due east with the short-range scanner in hand.

The sun was so hot and the sand so deep that it had been three days already. Almost there... almost there... Luke had no more water left, no more food, and discovered that he had received several wounds during the crash-landing. While they were small, they soon became infected. A scratch on his arm turned to a burning rash, the cut on his lip turned to a burning boil, and the minor wound to his lower chest transformed into a deep, festering wound that began to eat away at his flesh. The scanner bleeped a last few times then shut completely lost. By its last recording, Luke had less than a quarter of a mile left. The chill of night fell and Luke collapsed in the sand.

The two Imperial troopers looked at each other. "A broken-down Rebel fighter? There's no body. Is the person even alive still?"

"No short-range scanners are left. Maybe the person used it to track us. We should head in a stright line back to the base and look hard for anything awry."

On their way back, a quarter of a mile away from the base, one of the troopers looked around. "What was that?" He guided his speeder bike back around. "See, there's something there. That lump just moved." The trooper was soon joined by him companion. "Cover me." The other trooper raised his gun as the first one pulled on the canvas. "He looks horrible."

"Bind him. He's a Rebel. We'll take him back to the base to be with the other prisoners."

"He's not quite like them."

"It's fine. A Rebel is a Rebel."

"Who is that?" asked Captain Carnig.

"A Rebel. That ship we detected was an X-wing class Alliance fighter. We found this man wandering the desert, apparently using a scanner to try and find us. It seemed like a desperate move just to find other people, not to attack us."

"Very well. Heal him up a bit and put him with the rest--" He glared at the staring faces from behind the large, single-cell prison to his left. "Leave us be. Go out into the grounds or something."

Captain Cernig turned to discuss other matters with the two troopers.

The prisoners in the cell began to whisper amongst themselves.

"Did you feel his power?" asked a green-skinned woman with tentacles growing out of her head. The Twi'lek young woman shook her head. "There hasn't been a force that strong since the Emperor and his apprentice took over the Jedi halls."

A Cerean man nodded his head. "He is stong, indeed. And he can't be any more than ten years younger than even the oldest of us..."

"You have to consider that we were taken at a young age," stated a human man.

A human woman shook her head. "He must have been a baby when Palpatine rose to power..." They looked back at the Imperials quietly searching the young embodiment of the Force.

The trooper who had taken the blanket off of Luke called out, "Captain Carnig, sir!"

In a bored tone, Carnig asked, "What is it now, Borka?"

Borka held up Luke's lightsaber. "He's one of them, sir."

Carnig sighed. "So that's why the prisoners acted as they did. They can sense their own... Clean his wounds and dress them. We want him alive for the Emperor when he returns to claim all the prisoners. After that, throw him in the cell with the rest of them. They can tend to him further."

Luke felt a searing pain in his stomach. Did someone find him? Were they trying to heal him? He couldn't come out of his meditation just yet if he wanted the effects of the self-healing to last. They would have to wait for him to regain consciousness. Who had found him? Were they friendly. He hoped so. But why would the Empire have an outpost all the way out here. It's lightyears away from any easy communication...

"Is he doing any better, Hateya?"

The green-skinned Twi'lek young woman turned around to face the Cerean man. "I believe he's meditating, Alden--healing himself. But yes, he does appear to be doing better."

"That's good, very good. He is powerful indeed. He feels almost like Master Kenobi's apprentice, the one that disappeared. Poor lad..." Alden shook his head. "Either way, he's been out for almost a week."

"But his wounds are almost healed; that is fast, even if they will still leave a scar. You are the eldest among us, Alden. What do you think happened to infect his wounds so badly?"

"The sand bacteria must have gotten to him. They are the only infection that can survive in this infernal heat."

The young man laying in the bed stirred. "I think he's waking up, Alden." Hateya looked into the young man's eyes as they gradually opened. "Hello, young Jedi. What is your name?"

He shifted his position and half-way sat up. "Luke..." Luke rubbed his eyes and gazed at the graceful and elegant figure of the Twi'lek woman. "...Luke Skywalker."

"I am Hateya. This is Alden."

"Is he up?" asked a human as he walked over to the corner where Luke was stretched out. Seeing that he was, he stuck out his hand. "My name is Eron. Did you say your name was Skywalker?"

"Yes."

Eron turned to Hateya. "It looks like you were right, Hateya. He does feel like Master Kenobi's old apprentice." Eron turned back to Luke. "Do you know Anikin Skywalker? Is he a relative?"

"I would say he's deffinately a relative. He's my father."

Eron, Hateya, and Alden glanced at eachother.

Luke smiled. "Yes, he did break the rules. He was married and my mother had my sister and me just as the Empire rose to power."

Alden nodded his head. "I was right about your age then. So you were never trained by a master?"

"Yes, I was. Masters Kenobi and Yoda trained me."

"They are still alive?" asked a human woman who ran over to where Luke was. A crowd started to gather.

"Not anymore, I'm sorry to say. Kenobi died at the hands of Darth Vader and Yoda simply died of old age. But I learned much from them." Luke sighed.

"What about Anikin?" asked the human woman.

"Did you know him?"

"Yes. My name is Perdita. I was well aquaintanced with him when his was but a young padawan, but we lost track over time. Rumor has it that he was taken captive by the Imperial troops."

"That's one way of putting it." Luke didn't feel like revealing much about his father yet, so he quickly asked. "Is there anything to eat?"

"Here. It's the best we have," Hateya offered him a small bowl.

Luke grimaced at the goo. It reminded him of Yoda's cooking. But he was hungry enough to eat anything. "So, where am I?"

"The planet of Pahana Warwick, Pahana for short. It is a Jedi prison," answered Hateya.

Luke almost choked. "A prison? For Jedi?" He looked around the large cell. "Then... you are all Jedi? Masters?"

"Not masters, no. We were taken from Coruscant, the home of the Jedi Order, when we were but young trainees, not even assigned a true master to teach us yet. Most of us were anywhere from four to six, except for Adlen, who was ten. Since we were so young, they decided not to kill us. The original purpose of this prison was to change us over to the Dark Side, but it didn't quite work out, as you can see. Are you a master?"

"The only true one left out there, or so Yoda and Obi-Wan told me."

"Then you are our senior, even if not by years. What could you teach us?"

"...Well, I doubt I would make a good teacher, but--"

A man in an Imperial uniform unlocked the prison door, and a captain stepped in. "I see you are awake and fed. Come. You will answer questions."

Luke didn't feel like fighting and followed the man out into the room that lay in full view of the cell.

"Sit."

Luke complied. I wonder if they know that the Empire has fallen... Probably not... Best break it to them easy... But that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun... Luke suppressed a grin.