Chapter 4

Tending to the biology experiments occupied the rest of the evening for Luke, and Artoo and Threepio promised to keep an eye on the samples overnight. Everything looked fine in the morning, and the readouts on the scanners indicated they had gathered a full set of data. But, in all the rush of getting ready and carefully packing the scanners into their case, he completely forgot about the sample tray until the armored speeder had joined a busy traffic lane.

"Wait, wait!" Luke called to the pilot. "I forgot something! Can we turn around?"

Robi, who was sitting beside him with his blaster across his lap, turned to look at him, radiating disbelief.

The security officer, sitting opposite, didn't even look up from a datapad. "Let's just get to the school, and then we can arrange for a droid to deliver whatever you have forgotten," he said.

"No, this is my biology project," Luke said. "It's important. I need to get the samples signed off." He undid his seat restraints and crawled over until he could lean his head between the front seats, causing much protest from the stormtroopers. "We need to go back!"

"Uh … it's a little difficult to turn around here," the pilot said.

"I've done it before," Luke said, pointing. "Just drop out of the lane and do a reverse turn by that apartment tower."

The pilot dutifully attempted this, causing all of them to be thrown around as the lumbering vehicle struggled to complete the tight turn. Robi's blaster slid off his lap and bounced against the window as they reversed direction, causing another trooper to quickly try and secure it.

"It's all right!" Robi insisted. "The safety is on!"

"Yeah, we'd all be dead right now if it wasn't," the security officer said. "How did you even pass training?!"

"Leave him alone," Luke said, sitting back. "We're in a critical situation right now!"

Everyone looked at him like he was a few sand grains short of a dune, but he didn't care. They obviously didn't remember what high school was like.

He directed the pilot to land in his father's hangar bay, and then sprinted to the elevators, dodging around a train of mouse droids. He paused only to glance longingly at his own speeder, sitting unused since the start of this whole kidnapping saga. Maybe if he hadn't been distracted with trying to adjust his morning routine to accommodate for the armored escort, this wouldn't have happened.

When he arrived in his bedroom, he went straight to his study desk, only to find an empty tray. A quick glance around the room revealed his breakfast dishes had all been taken too, and his discarded pyjamas had been placed on his bed.

"No … no, no, no …" He was already turning around and intending to run down to the service droid pool, hoping the samples would still be intact. But he barrelled straight into his father on the other side of the door.

"Arg! Move!" Luke shouted.

His father only raised a hand, lifting him a short distance off the ground. He flailed his arms desperately.

"Please!" Luke amended, realizing he'd been rude. "I need to get down to the service droid pool!"

"Why?" his father asked calmly.

"They've taken my biology project! I need to get it back!"

"What did this project look like?"

"A collection of fruit samples in petri dishes. They were on a tray on my study desk!" Luke struggled against his father's hold again. "Please! I need to hurry!"

"You will not find them with the service droids," his father said, letting him down. "I threw them away. I thought you had left food rotting on your desk. It wouldn't be the first time."

Luke stared at his father, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. "You what?!"

"My apologies. No matter. I am sure you can explain to your teacher what happened."

Luke shook his head. "Explain to my teacher … no! What galaxy do you live in? Do you have any idea what you've done!?"

"Calm down."

"No!" Luke threw his hands in the air. "Why were you even in my bedroom?! Do I go into your room and throw things away? You have no right to do that!"

"Perhaps you should have labelled it."

His father actually sounded amused.

"You're not even sorry! You don't understand! You haven't just wrecked my project. This is going to destroy the last remaining scraps of my friendship with Ben! He wanted to do the experiments, but I insisted I would because he's done so much work for the project already and … oh, why am I even trying to explain this to you?! You have no idea how difficult my life is." Tears were threatening to well up, and Luke turned away, desperately trying to keep a hold on his emotions. Part of him knew he was overreacting, but this week had just been one thing after another. He didn't know how much more he could take.

"One day, when you know what real problems are, this will not seem so bad," his father suggested, causing Luke to clench his fists. He stormed off towards the elevator, not trusting himself to reply.

Ben was unloading a portable dejarik game into his locker when Luke finally arrived in the hall. It was tempting just to wait until he was gone, but he knew this wasn't going to get any easier if he stalled. And besides … he didn't only have bad news to deliver.

Luke took a deep breath and slowly approached his own locker. "Hey, buddy," he said, quietly. "Weekend tomorrow, huh?"

"Hi," Ben said, not looking up.

"So … um … I have some good news and some bad news. What do you want first?"

Ben glanced up. "How bad is the bad news?"

Luke stared at the floor and mumbled quickly. "My father accidentally threw away the experiments."

"Luke! What?! How did that even happen? Did you leave them unattended?"

Luke raised his hands. "I still have the data from the scanners! I'll talk to Ms Triseeta!"

Ben frowned. "So what's the good news?"

"Tesa thought you were cute."

Ben didn't stop frowning. "And?"

"And … she gave me her comlink frequency to give to you. Said to call her if you want to go out while she's here."

Ben's expression still didn't change.

"What's wrong? You didn't like her?"

"Why would she like me?" Ben asked, sounding suspicious.

"She has a thing for smart boys, apparently," Luke said, reaching up to close his locker.

"Didn't Juno tell her I was a charity case?"

Luke struggled not to roll his eyes. "Juno didn't mean that at all. And besides, it's not like Tesa is the daughter of some queen." Luke realized just what he was implying, and hastily backtracked. Stars, he'd been living on Coruscant too long. "Not that it would make any difference either way if she was."

Ben closed his own locker with a bang. "Did she really want to go out with me? Or did you and Juno suggest that she should ask the humble peasant boy out just to be nice?"

"The humble peasant boy?" Luke said, unable to believe what he was hearing. "Ben, I have actually been a peasant boy, and how you and your father live is a hundred times better than that. Where did you get this chip on your shoulder?"

"Forget it," Ben said, raising his hands at Luke's tone.

"I can't believe you're going to turn down a date with a girl like Tesa because you think there's no way she would actually be interested in you," Luke said, pointing at Ben before he knew what his hand was doing. "This is the same thing that happened with the shooting. You just keep telling yourself you're not good enough and there's no room for anything else."

"Can you blame me?! I'm surrounded by all these amazing people! Tesa has won awards for her shooting and she doesn't even like blasters! You can shoot even better than my father! He wishes you were his son, not me!"

"What? Ben! Your father never said—"

A droid arm waved in the space between them, and they both looked at the owner of the metal hand. B-60 stood beside them, torso lights flashing.

"Are you two aware class began two minutes ago?"

Luke sighed, and Ben turned away.

"No, thank you for telling us, B-60," Luke said. Another minute and maybe they might have actually resolved this argument.

Unfortunately, B-60 had no sarcasm detector.

"You're welcome. Now leave the locker hall and go to class before I summon one of my new armed security droid friends to escort you."

Ben had a dejarik meet at lunch, and Luke felt like being alone, so he found a quiet study desk in the library and tried to figure out if they could still somehow pass this biology project without redoing it all from scratch. There was still no sign of Ophelia, but he'd seen Greein in a couple of classes that morning, so he was hoping they could find enough time to finalise what they would do over the weekend during the class after lunch.

He arrived early for it, taking his usual seat at the Group 2 lab table. Juno was the next to arrive, and she smiled at Luke.

"Hey. How did the experiments go? And did you tell Ben about Tesa?"

"I did," Luke said. "But he didn't believe she really would ask him out, because he has an inferiority complex." He rested his head against his folded arms. "And my father threw away the experiments."

Her ears flattened in surprise. "What?"

"I should have seen it coming, judging by how the rest of this week has gone," Luke said.

"What are we going to do?"

Before he could answer, Greein bounced up, looking annoyingly happy. Ben was close behind him.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here," Greein said. "My parents were freaking out. I had to argue to be allowed to come today." He patted Luke on the back. "Ben told me what happened with the experiments. Don't worry. We'll get an extension and I'll redo them this weekend."

"I can't believe they still don't know where Sunny is," Juno said. "I saw on the HoloNet that some of his fanclub are threatening to hunger strike if he isn't returned by midnight."

"I know. It's been three days now," Greein said.

Ms Triseeta entered the room then and closed the door behind her.

"Good afternoon, students of discovery," she said. "I'm going to come around each group today and review your experiments—" She broke off as the door opened again, and a hush fell over the classroom when one more student appeared in the doorway. It was Ophelia. She looked every bit her usual confident self as she strolled across the room towards the Group 2 lab table.

"Sorry I'm late, Ms Triseeta," she said, taking her seat.

"It's nice to see you, Ophelia," she said. "Glad you could make it."

She nodded, not sparing the rest of them so much as a hello smile. It seemed Ophelia was definitely back.

As soon as Ms Triseeta had finished outlining the class agenda for today, Ophelia turned to face them.

"I know I've been out of touch," she said. "It's … been complicated at home. But … I've finished the rest of the presentation. We just need the experiments and the results." She placed a datapad on the table and pressed a button. It immediately lit up with a holo, showing the project title and all their names, and then she scrolled through the introduction.

"That's great, Ophelia," Luke said, surprised. "Uh … about the experiments ..."

Ms Triseeta arrived at their table, and Luke put both his hands over his face, wondering how he was ever going to make it sound believable that the man in charge of the Imperial military also apparently had enough time in the morning to inspect his son's bedroom for rotting food. But then Greein spoke up.

"Our experiment samples were accidentally destroyed," he said. "But we have all the data. Can we present it without the samples?"

"That sounds like a good opportunity to improve on your process," she said. "Let's go through what you've done so far."

Luke breathed out with relief as Juno brought up the data from the scanners. Their teacher was full of praise for the research and experiment planning, but also had a lot of advice and areas that needed correction.

"If you'd presented this as is with the missing samples, it would have passed, but I want you all to aim higher," she said. "You're good students and I believe you can get this to a top grade if you put in some more work over the weekend and present next week. What do you think?"

They nodded in agreement, and as she moved on to the next group, Juno looked back at Luke.

"Maybe we can meet at the palace again after school? That was really fun."

Ophelia stared at her. "They actually let you into the palace?"

"Ophelia," Luke said, frowning.

"Will your father be there?" Greein said, looking at Luke with shining eyes. "Could I meet him?"

"Unlikely," Luke said. "He's busy with meetings at the military headquarters. They're still searching for the Liberator base. And if he is around, I will tell him to stay on the other side of the palace."

"Why?!" Greein protested. "Come on, please let me meet him. Do you think he would give me his autograph?"

Ophelia stared at him, shaking her head. "Greein, you are so far beneath Lord Vader's notice, he wouldn't remember your name long enough to write it." She looked back at Luke. "I'll just need to confirm with my father that it's all right for me to go, but if not, I can always join you via holo."

"I will definitely be there," Greein said.

Ben didn't say anything, and Luke wondered if he would opt to attend via holo as well. But after the last class of the day, Luke found him waiting at the landing pad with Juno, while Robi and Commander Julius waited to pick him up.

"Biology project still not done?" she enquired, as they walked over to the armored speeder. "I heard about what happened this morning."

"Don't remind me," Luke said. "We're going to have to do the experiments again. By the way, there's two other members of the project team coming as well. Ophelia Halifax and Greein Morta-Clan. They'll be in the system already, as their parents attend palace events."

"Sure thing. You'll need to find another room because there's an assistant's office meeting in the administration conference room. Try the one near the conservatory."

"Will do."

Walking from the hangar bay near the security office up to the main conservatory involved traversing the main entrance hall of the Imperial Palace, and Juno, who had only been here once on a public tour, wanted to stop and admire the view. The palace had been closed to public tours since the day of the kidnapping, so the hall was quiet, and the only other movements were from protocol droids on their way to deliver messages.

The conference room had a long rectangular table with a full-sized holovid at one end, and several projectors. One wall was transparisteel windows, overlooking the conservatory below, and the faint sound of the main fountain could be heard. It was an ideal environment for working on something that required collaboration and focus, and they were well set up with snack bowls by the time Ophelia and Greein arrived.

There was something about being in a room actually meant for the use of adults managing an Empire, rather than teenagers working on a school biology project, that helped Luke keep everyone focused. Ophelia had arranged for her chauffeur to return in two hours, but after an hour and a half, they were running through the final tasks each of them had to carry out over the weekend. They had incorporated all their teacher's notes into the presentation and improved the experiment plans, and everyone had a new food sample and a scanner.

"I've got a good feeling about this," Luke remarked, as he switched off the holovid. "As long as the experiments go well, we'll be done by the end of the weekend. If not, we've still got a few days if we need to revise anything."

"Did you see Group 3 earlier?" Greein said. "They hadn't even started their experiment plans." He smiled at the girls. "Bet you're happy you didn't swap now."

Ophelia rolled her eyes. Then she half-slipped out of her chair as an alarm blared over the room comlink system. It was followed by a soothing droid voice.

Security alert. All visitors, please remain in your present location.

The alarm blared again.

Luke looked around, feeling the air tingle with some sense of … something.

"Look!" Ben said, pointing across the room.

Through the transparisteel wall that looked out over the conservatory, it was possible to see the skyline of Imperial City through the outer conservatory windows. The sun had just set, but the buildings were lit up in stark white as dozens of troop ships flew into the area, spotlights on full beam.

"What's going on?" Juno said. "Maybe they found Sunny."

Luke quickly turned the holovid back on and picked up the remote to tune it into the HoloNet news. But before he could do so, the doors to the meeting room slid open, and Commander Julius entered the room at a full sprint, followed by Lev and three royal guards.

"Oh, thank the Force!" she said, leaning with her hands on the table as she caught her breath. She was looking at Ophelia.

"What is it?" Luke said, staring from Lev to Commander Julius in surprise. The royal guards were moving to flank Ophelia's chair, and she was looking at them in confusion.

"ISB has received a ransom communication from the Liberator Army, claiming Miss Halifax is their hostage," Lev explained.

Greein snorted with laughter. "Well, that's obviously a lie."

"A girl has been taken from a cafe near the Freedom Memorial park," Commander Julius said, straightening up. "She looks similar enough that no one was sure."

Ophelia picked up her comlink, studying the indicator lights. "But my family hasn't called?"

"There is a communications jam in effect," Lev said. "Imperial City is currently under complete lockdown. The kidnappers must still be in the vicinity, as all this has only happened in the last twenty minutes."

While Lev was speaking, more palace staff had entered the meeting room, including one officer Luke recognized as the lieutenant who had ridden in the speeder with him that morning, and two officers in ISB uniforms. One of them was on a comlink, confirming Ophelia's presence in the palace to the person on the other end. Soon, there were at least four conversations going on between the various adults, and Luke looked around the room, seeing his friends were all as confused and unsettled as he was.

"So … should we stay here?" Luke asked.

"I'd recommend we get these young people moved away from the windows, Commander," a guard said, speaking to Commander Julius. "Up on level 8 would be best."

"Agreed," she said. "Go ahead and move them to the conference room on level 8."

Lev walked around the table to stand beside Luke, just as more royal guards arrived. They moved to place themselves in front of the transparisteel wall, and one of them asked Juno and Ophelia to pack up their belongings. Greein and Ben were hastily sweeping their datapads into their school bags.

"It's all right. This is just precautionary," Lev said, reaching out to put a hand on the side of Luke's shoulder. "Commander Julius is the highest ranking security officer in the palace right now, and she's asked Captain Baryuth and his squad to look after your friends. Your father is at MHQ at the moment, and I've already told him you are safe."

Luke glanced over at Ben, who was now flanked by two royal guards. "Ben, is your father on duty?"

"No, he's at home tonight," Ben said, sounding nervous. "He said he was going to make pasta for dinner."

"I'll try and get a message to him when I can," Lev said, in a soothing tone. "All communication lines are currently reserved for military purposes, but as soon as the situation changes, I'll make sure all your parents are contacted."

"What about my father?" Ophelia asked, frowning. "Does he think I've been kidnapped?"

"ISB command are in communication with your family," Commander Julius confirmed. "They'll keep him updated."

Moving them all up to level 8 took ages, as they wanted to take everyone individually, beginning with Ophelia. Lev had to leave shortly afterwards, as he was receiving multiple comlink calls, but Commander Julius remained to supervise the entire operation. When his turn came, Luke was sure to bring the two snack bowls.

The room they were shifted to was also a meeting room with a long table, but there were no windows and four exits. Ophelia and Greein had been moved first, and they were sitting silently. Luke immediately went to turn on the HoloNet, but the royal guard captain took the remote away from him.

"I would prefer it if you didn't watch the HoloNet at this time. The images might be upsetting."

"You're kidding me?" Luke said. "Can we at least put it on a music channel?"

"Not at present."

"I don't believe this," Luke said, just as the doors opened again, this time for Juno's arrival.

"He's right, Luke," Greein said, inclining his head towards Ophelia.

"I would rather have the HoloNet," Ophelia said. "I want to see what this kidnapped girl looks like."

Luke rubbed his head, wondering who she was. What if she wasn't famous or wealthy at all, and these Liberator people discovered that?

Ben arrived soon after, but eight royal guards remained in the room, standing on either side of the four doors. It felt a little like being held prisoner. Captain Baryuth was standing at the door behind him, and Luke swiveled his chair around to face him.

"Can we at least get some more food up here? Some pizza maybe?"

"That is acceptable. I'll summon a serving droid."

"Can we have dessert as well?" Juno asked.

"You can have anything here," Luke said. "It's the Imperial Palace. Go crazy."

"Beer?" Greein suggested, smirking.

"No alcohol," the royal guard captain said, using a sharp tone that caused Luke to roll his eyes. Greein had clearly been joking.

His friends didn't need any encouragement, and soon the table was filled with all kinds of food and drink. Ophelia and Greein got into an involved discussion about exotic pizza flavours from their respective homeworlds, and Luke offered some to the guards, but apparently they weren't allowed to eat while on duty. Luke picked up a slice that was mostly cheese, and then noticed Juno was trying to get his attention from the chair beside his. Once he met her gaze, she looked down at her lap.

Catching on, Luke shuffled closer, and saw she'd managed to bring up the HoloNet on a personal viewscreen. But the main HoloNet news channel was filled with a weather report.

Luke sighed, guessing they had implemented the 'everything is all fine here now' news broadcast they reserved for the worst disasters. Fortunately, he knew a few alternative channels where you could occasionally get slightly more accurate news. He carefully slid the viewscreen over to his own lap, and worked on it while pretending to be focused on the pizza.

Soon, he found a news story about the kidnapping and scrolled through it, growing increasingly shocked as he saw how brazen the kidnappers had been. The cafe was filled with patrons, and three droids had popped up out of nowhere and surrounded the girl.

He looked across the table, seeing Ophelia was watching him. He pointed down at the floor, and then placed the viewscreen by his foot and kicked it across.

Unfortunately, as soon as Ophelia picked it up and saw the image of the girl, the game was up.

"She looks nothing like me!" Ophelia said, putting it on the table. "I don't believe this!"

Greein leaned over to look. "Come on. She looked a little like you."

"The only thing we have in common is that we're both human. She's shorter and her hair is much darker. That's a strawberry blonde."

"Just say it, Ophelia," Juno said, rolling her eyes. "She's not as pretty as you. It's okay, you can admit it. You're so shallow you're offended they kidnapped someone less attractive than you by mistake."

"Shut your face," Ophelia said, shoving the viewscreen away. "Oh wait, you can't. You're too busy stuffing your tenth slice of pizza down your trap."

Juno threw her remaining slice across the table, but it didn't quite reach Ophelia. The guard captain stepped forward.

"Give me that, please," he said, pointing at the viewscreen.

No one moved for a moment, and then Luke sighed, standing up to retrieve it.

"I said no HoloNet," the guard admonished, as Luke handed it to him.

"It's not mine!" Luke protested, staring up at the reflective red helmet.

"Who owns it is irrelevant. You were all looking at it."

"I wasn't!" Ben protested, from his place beside Greein, down the end.

"And don't throw food!" the captain added.

Luke tapped his fingers on the table. "How long are we going to be stuck in here, anyway? It's been ages."

"Yeah, there's nothing to do but eat," Juno complained.

"Maybe I could go and get my gamebox from my room," Luke said, looking at the holovid screen.

"There will be no leaving this room for the time being," Captain Baryuth said. He sounded weary.

"Then can one of your squad go and get it?" Luke asked.

The guards moved their heads in the way they often did when communicating with each other on their internal helmet comlink channel, and then the captain said, "We would require Lord Vader's permission."

Luke groaned. If only he had Threepio or Artoo with him. They'd been in here over an hour already, and who knew when he'd finally be allowed to return to his room.

"It's all right, Luke," Greein said, ever cheerful. "I know a game we can play to pass the time. You know that game where someone thinks of a word and everyone else guesses letters?"

"Word detonator," Juno said, nodding. "And they have to guess the word before the thermal detonator explodes."

Greein nodded. "It's like that, except …" He paused to look around at the guards, and then gestured for them to gather in closer. Ben remained apart when they did so. "Except the word has to be something associated with the body of the opposite gender," Greein finished, in a hushed tone. "You can do any species."

"Gross," Ophelia said, frowning.

"No, it sounds funny," Juno said, smirking.

Luke hoped he wasn't blushing.

"The rules are … you're allowed one clue in exchange for two lines on the detonator, and no slang. Proper names for everything."

"I'll go first," Juno said, picking up Greein's viewscreen. She brought up a drawing screen and then propped it up at the top end so everyone could see the projected image. Soon, they were all taking turns to guess letters in two five letter words. When it came to Ben's turn, he gestured to Greein and mumbled, "You go ahead. I'm working on my math assignment."

"You're doing homework?" Greein said, incredulous.

Ben shrugged.

Greein stared at him a moment longer, and then turned back to the viewscreen, deciding to leave it.

Ophelia eventually correctly guessed 'cheek tusks' and then for her turn, she did a five letter word that Luke eventually guessed as 'beard'.

"That's not even a male only body part," Juno said. "Female bothans can have beards!"

"No one asked for the clue," Ophelia said, handing the lightpen to Luke. "If they had, I'd have said it doesn't apply to bothans or wookiees."

"Okay, let's just … play the next round," Luke said, staring at the blank screen. "Uh …"

"Ha, he's blushing," Greein said.

"I am not!" Luke protested. "I'm just trying to figure out how to spell it."

"Think carefully now," Ophelia said, smirking.

Luke rubbed his face, idly wondering how he'd ended up in this situation. Eventually he drew out spaces for five letters and pointed to Juno to start the guessing. Four rounds later, just when Luke was about to add the last line that would explode the thermal detonator, Ben happened to glance up and then he said, "Is it ovary?"

"Oh, stars," Greein said, letting his head fall on the table.

"You're not even playing!" Juno said, pointing at Ben.

"How could you choose the least interesting part of a woman's body?" Greein asked.

"Least interesting?" Ophelia asked. "What do you have against ovaries? Luke, I'm impressed you know what that is."

"I paid attention in that class!" Luke insisted.

"Then why didn't you choose something else?" Greein asked, smirking.

Luke tried to pass the lightpen to Ben, but he handed it to Greein, causing the girls to groan.

As soon as Greein drew out the spaces, Luke began to get a bad feeling about this. It only grew worse as they went around and a few consonants began to fill in. After Ophelia named the letter which made it all too obvious what it was, she raised an eyebrow, looking at Greein. "As if you would even know where to find that on a woman's body."

Greein smirked. "I paid attention in that class too."

"Is this game really the best you can do?" Captain Baryuth asked. He'd gone from weariness to sounding like he was on the verge of quitting his entire career.

"Hey, I just did ovary!" Luke protested.

Just as he said the word ovary, the double doors behind Ophelia slid open with a loud hiss, revealing the towering shape of a Dark Lord of the Sith. In his scramble to push the viewscreen face-down on the table, Luke smeared leftover pizza across his school blazer, and nearly knocked over Juno's glass of soda.

Ophelia spun around on her chair and then quickly stood up, while Juno just seemed frozen. But the most dramatic reaction by far was from Greein, who made a small squealing noise and then his mouth moved like he was talking, but there was no sound.

His father stepped into the room and looked around, while the royal guards all straightened to attention. Luke quickly moved around the table, just as Greein managed to choke out, "Lord Vader! It's … it's been my dream to actually meet you!"

"Okay, calm down," Luke said, skidding in between Greein and his father. "Everyone, this is … my dad. Uh … you know Ben and Ophelia, and that's Greein Morta-Clan and Juno Lilano."

His father didn't look at his friends. He merely pointed from Luke to the corridor. "Come."

"Good idea," Luke mumbled under his breath.