2: "I Have a Bad Feeling About This"

C-3P0 was having the worst day of his life.

Surrounded by sand, the only thing he knew for sure was that he and Artoo weren't going to make it out of this desert intact. Every move he made sent unpleasant grating sounds up through his frame and his joints were so corroded with grit and dust that he could barely move properly. Whoever had constructed Threepio had obviously never intended Threepio to be in a desert environment. Artoo had not complained once since they had left on this idiotic journey, but surely the astromech droid's treads were suffering brutally in this abrasive environment. A series of rocky forms rose out in the distance to their left. To their right, the dunes sloped off into infinity. The thought of navigating rough, rocky terrain horrified Threepio. The sand dunes were endless, but at least they were smooth.

To Threepio's horror, he noticed Artoo making a beeline towards the rocks. He quickly scuttled over to Artoo to convince him to take an easier route, when he noticed several forms in the distance. There shouldn't be anyone here in the desert, he thought to himself.

"Artoo! Artoo, look! We're saved!"

The domed droid blatted a response and kept heading towards the rocks.

"Why would they be looking for us? No one knows we're here!"

Artoo paused, rotated the top of his dome and let loose a series of high-pitched beeps.

"You're not making any sense. Who is this Obi-Wan Kenobi anyway?"

Artoo twittered.

"I've had enough of your ridiculous secret mission. I am going to get us rescued."

The astromech shrieked at him.

"How would you know what kind of dangerous beings live on this planet?"

Artoo beeped.

"Tusken raiders? Are you sure?"

Artoo tweeted an affirmative.

Threepio gave another longing look at the crowd of wavy beings and then decided to err on the side of caution. Rescue was a tempting offer, but disassembly was not. He cursed the droid's logic and followed him towards the rocks.

Artoo could tell that the squad of stormtroopers were quickly gaining. At this moment, he almost wished they were actually Tusken Raiders. Though dangerous, they weren't interested in droids. Threepio continued to fuss and complain behind him, but Artoo was focused on the stormtroopers.

Artoo wished they had landed further out into the desert, allowing the winds to obliterate their direction of escape from the pod, but such had not been the case. They were leaving a very obvious trail behind and the absence of wind was not helping. Soon they would be in the hands of the Empire and the plans would be theirs.

The prince had insisted on taking a much more indirect route to Alderaan in order to avoid the main shipping lanes where Imperial vessels would most likely have been found. Artoo had been present when Captain Antilles had insisted that they take a direct route so as to appear completely ordinary. Eventually, the prince had decided that any facades they adopted would only serve to make them more obvious and put them in more danger. He had insisted that, although they would arrive behind schedule, it would be for the better. Whether or not the prince's course of action was correct or not, the truth of the matter was that the prince was either captured or dead and everyone on the ship was no more.

He had failed in his mission. Nonetheless, Artoo continued to head for the rocks, for Threepio's sake. Were the protocol droid to panic, the situation would only worsen.

Luke hadn't expected Vader to be so accommodating. A blaster bolt, a slash from his famed Jedi lightsaber, a crushing telekinetic end—the fame of Darth Vader's cruelty was vast. A tiny cell in the bowels of some Imperial stronghold seemed almost hospitable in comparison. The fate of the crew of the Tantive IV was unknown, but Luke suspected they were all dead or would be dead shortly. He had been led away by Vader personally and had not seen any of his compatriots since the previous day.

The trip had been silent and cold, as if he had already died and his body was merely being ferried to its final resting place. Assured that his bonds had been secure, none had paid him any mind. Several half-formed escape plans had flashed through his mind, but all had collapsed under the crushing reality of his situation. There was very little room in the lambda-class shuttle they had traveled in and, unless he had been able to subdue the eight occupants, including Vader, all simultaneously, he hadn't a hope of taking two steps before he would be slaughtered.

His decision to be patient had seemed to impress Vader, or at least surprise him somewhat. As the squad of stormtroopers had gathered him up to transport him to his cell, Vader's glance had lingered on Luke for a brief moment. At first Luke had assumed that he had just misread Vader's blank stare. Without visible eyes, it would be impossible to see where exactly someone was looking, yet still Luke had felt some kind of cold flickering at the base of his skull, as if a pair of infinitely vast eyes was peering deep into his very mind.

Rumors of Vader's near-mythical powers were commonplace. It was well known that he had been a Jedi, but no specifics could be found. Facts in Imperial databases were sketchy around the time of the formation of the Empire. Descriptions of a vicious army of Jedi were found here, but contradicted there. Names of heroes were also labeled as villains. Based on pure, incontrovertible fact, it seemed like the Empire suddenly arose out of nothingness and quickly became the dominant government in the galaxy. Luke knew that couldn't possibly be true, but he had never been able to find any reliable facts with which to fashion a logical narrative of events before the Empire.

All Luke knew was that Vader was more than simply a man or a cybernetically enhanced soldier; he was powerful in ways that few understood.

The click of armored footsteps, punctuated steadily with hoarse, mechanical breathing broke Luke out of his reverie. Vader had returned.

Luke stood to face the looming, dark figure, hands clasped behind his back and knees relaxed. A visiting dignitary would not have asked for so much. Vader broke the silence first.

"Your attempt to hide the stolen plans has failed. I know you sent them down to Tatooine on an escape pod. I have a full squadron of stormtroopers on the surface now. They will find them and bring them to me."

Luke remained silent. Vader turned to the troopers behind him who were leading a hovering spherical interrogation droid and waved them off.

"I will deal with him myself."

Luke watched them leave, noticing the syringe attached to the droid's side. He suppressed a shudder. Interrogation droids were illegal and incredibly dangerous. If Vader didn't feel the need to use one, then he had something else in mind. Something worse.

Before he could speak, a wave of physical rage flooded off Vader, smashing Luke against the wall of his cell. His breath flooded from his body in a single whuff and he began choking on nothingness. Struggling was no good since there didn't seem to be anything to struggle against. He was helpless.

Vader lifted a gloved hand and Luke rose with it, ending up suspended against the wall above his sleeping pallet, pinned against the wall like an insect in a museum display.

"Your pathetic attempt to steal the plans has failed. Your rebellion will soon follow. Tell me where the rebel base is located."

Luke gasped, but said nothing.

Vader opened his fist and Luke smashed down onto the metal pallet. Welcome air flooded his straining lungs as he dragged himself into an upright position. "You will have to kill me, Vader," he said, fighting to keep his hoarse voice even. "I will never reveal anything to you."

Vader lifted his hand again, gloved fist poised to strike again. The mechanical voice seemed to resonate deep inside Luke's skull. "You will reveal the location of the rebel base to me." Luke felt probing fingers of thought searching deep behind his eyes. He felt a rising compulsion to speak, but fought it back. Sweat broke out on his forehead as he resisted the mental assault. You will. You will. You WILL. The words echoed endlessly. Luke felt the information rising to the surface against his will. Betrayal of his comrades was hanging on the tip of his tongue.

Summoning every last scrap of will remaining, Luke fought back. A roaring, "NO!" exploded out of him as he forced Vader's influence away from him. His terror and rage at being so violated rose from the deepest parts of his core and pushed Vader out of his mind.

Blackness enveloped him as he lost consciousness. He didn't even have time to see Vader staggering back from the lances of cerulean electricity which had exploded from the tips of Luke's fingers in that brief moment of unbridled rage.

Leia sat up in bed, gasping for air. It took her eyes a few seconds to banish the lingering nightmare images and replace them with the reality of her small living quarters. Her wildly racing heartbeat slowed down to normal speeds as her mind began to lose its grip on the imaginary world it had created while she slept.

Throwing her thin coverlet off, she rose out of bed and began to pace, as she always did when she was nervous. Aunt Beru used to tell her that she should go do chores instead of pacing as the work would take her mind off of whatever was bothering her. Now, she wanted to remember the dream. Something about it had seemed so relevant, so immediate. If she had been more superstitious, she might have believed it could have been a premonition. Now, she just looked at it as a window into her own jumbled thoughts.

There had been a foe. A dark, formless foe. Her surroundings had been so alien as to seem fictional. A green world dominated by towering forms, a massive metal structure silhouetted against a strange sky, a man wreathed in black, and a friend in trouble. Out of the dark came a writhing shadow so consumed by evil that all life around it seemed to shrivel and die. The shadow had called her name and then had approached her with the swiftness of a serpent. Seconds before the oily darkness had reached her, a shining blue light had appeared before her eyes. She had been comforted by the light, but it had not been enough. The darkness reached her, consumed her, destroyed her—

—and then she had awoken.

The gentle thrum of Mos Eisley reached her ears. Even at night, when the sands gave off very little warmth and the air was almost brutally chilled, the city still lived. Beings who favored the cold and darkness conducted business at that time. Speeders, beasts of burden and ships in the spaceport never slept. Leia reached for her traveling gear. "I have a bad feeling about this," she muttered to herself as she gathered up her gear.

She was going to visit her aunt and uncle. Something was very wrong. Giving completely to her rarely-used intuition, Leia Skywalker set out to cross the Jundland Wastes of the Dune Sea.