Disclaimer: Don't own it. But one day…
A/N: Story time! To a question in the reviews, I decided to combine the first two chapters for better length and then uploaded a new chapter 2. My plans for interlude chapters probably wont come about; they'll be standalone pieces.
STAR WARS
Another Time, Another War
Chapter Three – Luke's Story
Aliit ori'shya tal'din
"Family is more than bloodline."
~ Mandalorian proverb
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
JEDI TEMPLE, CORUSCANT
A second heart, a second liver, altered sensory orgrans, altered biochemistry, and skeletal density far beyond human standard. Luke Skywalker hadn't just been augmented. He had been practically rebuilt. While Healer Nexia Dene had been well taught by Master Yu-Cas, but all her training and experience couldn't prepare her to offer a diagnosis on what the Sith had happened to the boy. The only answer would be Luke's own testimony. After Luke had been taken in, Ahsoka had him immediately reported to the medical wing for a check-up. The first thing Nexia had noticed was the abundance of bones that had been broken and badly healed and scar tissue, but the modified physiology was rather difficult to miss.
The boy in question lay on one of the beds, hooked up to a plethora of medical equipment measuring pulse, heart rate, blood levels and neurological activity. He was obviously uncomfortable, not least because the family that had long thought him dead crowded around the bedsite, along with Yoda, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. Perhaps it was the mixture of Jedi and political training that prevented the reunion from degenerating into an over-emotional tear-fest like a bad holodrama. So far, aside from a few teary hugs and joyful welcomes, the Skywalker family had been largely content and accepting of the situation, and were now more curious as to what had happening in the ten years since Luke's disappearance.
Nexia's Nautolian features creased into a furrowed brow as she again examined his physiology. "I don't understand what happened to your internal biology. It's like you were rebuilt. No traces of artificial midi-chlorian manipulation though. Your count has still increased since you were last scanned though."
"They modify you." Luke muttered under his breath. "So you don't die too quickly. As for the midi-chlorians; just training and practice in the Force."
"I didn't know that could happen." Luke's mother, Padme said surprised.
"The Force is like a muscle." Obi-Wan answered. "Once you reach your initial ceiling, so to speak, if you continue to train and practice eventually your connection will grow stronger."
Padme nodded. Leia –Luke's sister- spoke up next. "Who are 'they'? The ones that kidnapped you?"
Luke nodded. "The Tsarik."
"The tsarik?"
He paused, considering how best to give voice to the concept. "They're a race originating in the Unknown Regions." Luke began, "Every planet and culture's beliefs about boogeymen in the night coming to steal away children in the night originate from them."
"Why?" Anakin
"Because they are the boogeymen that come in the night to steal away children." Luke answered quietly.
LARS MOISTURE FARM, TATOOINE; (TEN YEARS EARLIER)
The twin suns of Tatoo I and II hung overhead in the midday sky, and the orbs of intense orange bored down on ten-year-old me, the heat bit hard into the back of my neck and tinged it pink it with the beginnings of sunburn. I didn't pay it any mind, for the last three years with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru on the desert planet had long since toughened me against things as trivial as sunburn. The farmboy lifestyle had worn off on me very much.
I had been sent to Tatooine for my own safety three years previously. Assassination attempts on the Skywalker family had prompted the decision until the culprits had been found. When I wasn't helping on the moisture farm I would either be communicating with my family via a high-end and very expensive HoloNet transmitter, or limited training in the Force; meditation, reflex honing, and expanding my Force senses. It was less intensive training than what would be expected at the Temple, but Anakin had insisted that his children wouldn't be forced into the Jedi life if they didn't want to be.
Currently, Uncle Owen had asked me to go out with a droid to run diagnostics on the moisture vaporators on the outskirts of the farm. The overbearing droid, T-9B7, would look over me as I did the mechanical work since Owen and Beru were too busy to come themselves. I worked away, perfectly content to daydream about exciting starpilots and swashbuckling heroes whose ranks I one day hoped to join. As most ten-years-olds would.
There was the faintest ripple in the Force that my fledgling senses could barely pick up, yet alone recognise it for what it was: a warning. There was a single gunshot and the scream of a damaged T-9B7. I spun around to find the unlucky droid face-first in the sand with a charred hole in its back. I followed the shot to its source; and there was a monster.
It was humanoid, vaguely reptilian. Hairless, pure white scales made up the thing's skin, rippling over a mass of thick muscle and dense bone. Amber eyes with narrow pupils looked upon me with a look of curiosity and malice.
Owen and Beru Lars would find the remains of the broken droid a few hours later, with no signs of where the ten year old boy had gone.
It took me away, far away, across the big galaxy. It took me to its home. My new home. A world called Xiora; a harsh world of deadlands and deadly forests. I was to be taken there and placed into the savage wilderness. For sport. For their amusement. For their fun.
But first, I had to be…prepared. A normal, boring old human wouldn't last a day. So they opened me up and made me better. But what they did physically didn't hold a candle to what they did mentally. They try to condition you for the wild. They show you a thousand nightmares and fears and anxieties. They show you everything bad it the galaxy; the Force screamed in pain. So I did the only thing I could do to keep my sanity and keep the impossible weight and pain from overwhelming me completely. I took my connection to the Force, what little there was, and severed it. No more Force.
And then they dropped me into the wild; ten years old and so completely, undeniably, alone. By all accounts I shouldn't have lasted a day. But a higher power, or the Force, or sheer luck and coincidence had decided otherwise for me. I found water; I found food. Skills Anakin and Padme insisted I learned proved invaluable in setting up. But then there was the predators. Some were big and deadly in the traditional sense. Then there were smaller ones, twice as deadly. No animal or insect could be trusted in the forest. Some were as big as freighter ships with six legs and purple skin. Some were the size of a fingernail and a bloody shade of red. Everything that could move could kill. But again, something kept me alive. I always managed to escape alive; if not unscratched. Most nights fear and terror saw me to sleep with while the Force was denied to me, the seductive, insistent dark side was a constant companion, whispering, murmuring, black tendrils creeping across my soul.
I should've died. Could've. Would have, if it hadn't been for the voice in the night, the little ray of light in the dark forests. One day, the whispering began speaking not of the dark but of the light. Eventually, the whispers became stronger and stronger, as the spirit giving them sound grew as well. Eventually, he appeared. A Jedi who had died long ago and yet remained on the living world.
Qui-Gon Jinn.
He drove the darkness back and showed me how to rise above it. He taught me how to feel the Force again. How to survive. How to live in the deadland and flourish. How to fight back.
And then he was gone again, like a breeze in the wind. I was alone again, but now I had the Force and the fire to win. To escape.
Three years after being dropped into hell, the time had come to escape, heralded by a girl. Shira Brie was another unlucky soul taken by the tsarik for their games. I found her in the desert, near-death and alone. And as she recovered, we waited, and we planned. The tsarik came down to the planet on battered shuttles, and we hoped to steal one and affect an escape from the nightmare world.
Shira didn't make it to the shuttle.
What happened then?
I got lucky; pure coincidence had brought me into the path of the Aing-Tii monks. They took me in, nurtured me back to health. And they even taught me about their view of the Force. They didn't believe in light and dark, but a rainbow of colours. I realised that there was more to the Force than what the Jedi taught; and I knew that, for the time being, I wasn't to go back to the Jedi. I wasn't ready. So when the time came to leave, I began to travel the galaxy, seeking out old places of learning and the Force and began my studies. I learned from the Fallanassi, the Zeison Sha, the Theran Listeners and many more besides. I got into trouble, saved the day. Over time, I developed into something more, a figure of urban myth and legend. I couldn't go back to the Jedi, not yet. I wasn't ready.
There was the Yuuzhan Vong; a race from beyong the galaxy, who abhorred all technology. I stopped their invasion plans when I came across one of their agents – Nom Anor- and helped one of their Shamed Ones, Vua Rapuung reveal the truth about their religion and then helped them settle on Zonama Sekot – a living planet that had been birthed from their own homeworld.
I fell into trouble with Han and Chewie; the two got into debt with Jabba the Hutt and I had a death mark after sabotaging one of his extortion rackets. Naturally, we fell in together for a time, and never quite went our separate ways, at least not entirely. We would keep meeting up, finding some devilish new trouble to embroil ourselves in.
There was Sinkhole Station; a call from the Force drew us there to discover the Mind Walkers, unknowing sentinels to the monster of the Maw; a being called Abeloth, a creature that wished for the universe to bow down in love and worship of her. We stopped her…just.
Exar Kun, a long dead dark-sider whose spirit remained in the Massassi halls of Yavin IV, had made a similar call across the galaxy. I ended up simply collapsing the temple on top of him.
The most recent "super-threat" as Han had taken to referring to them as were the Domain. A race of synthetic humanoids – basically a droid race made up of a sapient higher class and several non-sentient lower ones –orginating from somewhere in the Unknown Regions, although their creator race had driven them from their homeworld and forced them to live in a migrant fleet; they hoped to emerge into the greater galaxy and upgrade it to their specifications. Their entire battle class went up in flames. I should really check to see if they've rebuilt…
And all the while, I was breaking up slave rackets, taking down militias and bringing criminals to justice. I became an honest-to-Force vigiliante.
I became the Darkslayer.
TRAINING ROOM, JEDI TEMPLE, CORUSCANT
The evening, Luke reflected, had gone surprisingly smooth. The family had accepted his explanations without question, the Jedi also. The Jedi had also said that he along with Han and Chewie were welcome guests for as long as necessary. They had even accepted his warning of the Sith returning and an ancient evil. They were in the process of making preparations, intending to search worlds with ties to the Sith for clues and chasing up leads for finding out about the other threat. Luke wondered if he had anyone to ask for clues. Nothing came to mind, and Luke simply opted to slip deeper into his meditation. Stress was beginning to build up and while meditation didn't particularly help, it was better than nothing.
And so he sat cross-legged in one of the temple's many training rooms; Luke had taken most of his armour and was dressed in something that vaguely resembled a pair of black Jedi robes. He would go back to his ship in the morning and retrieve clothing that wasn't designed to accommodate body armour.
Luke sunk deeper into his meditation, feeling the Force flow and ebb around him. He sank deeper into its currents, drinking in everything it allowed him to see, to perceive. He could feel the planet rotating under him, spinning in a galaxy of stars, he could feel the life forces of all the organisms on the planet, tied together in a web of invisible strings. The Force is everything, and everything is the Force. While the being who had told him of that belief had been steeped in the dark side, he felt there was a kernel of truth in that somewhere, although obviously not the way the Potentium intended.
Dimly, he felt the presence of another approaching. He pulled himself out of the current enough to turn his attention to the source of the spark. A Jedi of course. Ahsoka's apprentice. Did he know her name? Probably not. He pulled away from the Force entirely and turned his full attention to the newcomer. Luke hadn't had a good chance to see her on the rooftop the day before, but now he could drink in her appearance. The flowing, shimmering red hair; the jade green irises which held a light of determination and passion, although there was something else in those eyes, something deeper he couldn't identify. Luke could tell held the figure of a lithe dancer too, hidden in the folds of baggy robes. She was easily one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen.
She stood there, uncertainly, obviously wondering how best to proceed, what to say. Luke decided to take the first step and stood up. He walked over to where the girl was, and extended his hand with a warm and welcoming smile. "I'm Luke."
"I know who you are." She said, with an almost-bite. She seemed to catch herself. "I'm Mara. Mara Jade."
"Pleasure to meet you, Mara." Luke said, still smiling. Mara made no move to take the hand, so he lowered it slowly. "What can I do for you?"
"Nothing. I was sent to check up on you." Mara replied quickly. Too quickly.
"No you weren't." Luke said pointedly.
"I-," Mara began to retort. She deflated. "Alright, I was curious."
"About?" Luke asked with interest.
"You." She grated, obviously uncomfortable.
"Me?" Luke cocked an eyebrow. "Why? I'm just a boring old wanderer. Nothing interesting."
"You've spent years travelling the galaxy learning about the Force and having adventures. How is that not interesting?" Mara asked incredulously. Luke noted she made no mention of his kidnapping or subsequent escape. Either she didn't know the details, or hoped to focus on what amounted to positives with Luke.
"Because it really isn't." Luke said sagely, with the air of somehow far older and wiser than his years. "Travelling, wandering, yeah it's fun to start with, but eventually everything just catches up with you and makes you tired."
"I'm sorry." Mara said quietly. "I didn't know."
"It's alright." Luke shrugged. "You don't understand how brilliant a normal life is until you're on the other end of the sarlacc pit."
"I wouldn't really call my life normal." Mara hedged.
"Maybe not. Stable, though. I haven't had a real home for close to ten years." Luke chuckled. "Unless you count my ship. It's got a bed and refresher, but it's not something to live out of."
Mara nodded in understanding and the two fell into an awkward silence. Luke decided to try another avenue of discussion. "Any particular reason why you charged me on the rooftop?"
Mara blushed, almost the colour of her hair. "Heh. I don't know what came over me then. I was over-eager."
"Perhaps." Luke agreed amicably. He wouldn't say it, but the impression he had gotten through the Force hadn't been one of eagerness to bring him to justice. More closer to say, murderous intent. She had wanted to kill him.
"So are you staying with the Jedi now?" Mara asked quickly, hoping for a change in subject.
"For the time being."
Another silence. "You were raised on Tatooine weren't you?"
"More or less." Luke replied. "Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru tried their best, but something was always going to go wrong with trying to protect a Jedi kid who was the son of a master and a politician."
"So…you're a farmboy then?" Mara asked teasingly, with a mischievous glint in her eye.
"In a manner of speaking. Bit rusty though. Haven't seen a vaporator in years." Luke laughed easily.
"I'm sure we could arrange for you to get shipped to a moisture farm, farmboy." Mara giggled. Strange, she didn't strike Luke as the giggling type.
"Well, you'll have to come with me, Red." Luke retorted cheerfully, emphasising "red" the same way Mara had empahsised "farmboy". "Some hard work might do you good, get you out of the temple."
That turned out to be the completely and easily worst possible thing to say, given her next reaction. Her nostrils flared and her green eyes narrowed and a spike of anger slashed through the Force. "Listen, Farmboy-," Where before it had been a jibe of endearment, it was now an insult, - "I work hard, dammit. I'm the best of my group in the Order. Don't come in here with a few fancy tricks and think you're better than everyone else."
Luke raised his hands in a placating gesture. "I'm sorry."
Mara blinked, then blushed again. "I-I don't know what came over me."
"It's fine." Luke promised. "It must be hard, having to live up to everyone's expectations."
It felt odd to be saying that, considering he was both the son of a power Jedi master and a former Senator. By all accounts all the expectations would be on him. But now, ten years without and contact had left everyone unsure of what to expect from him. The thought was pleasantly freeing.
"You have no idea." Mara said quietly. She began to breath in and out in rhythm and her frustration faded from the Force. "Sometimes I just wish I could be alone without… someone being able to find me in the Force."
"How did you do that?" Luke asked.
"Do what?" Mara asked baffled.
"You, like, calmed yourself down." While Luke could draw on the Force for comfort and strength, without meditation he could never seem to wash away frustration or anxiety.
"It's a calming technique. How can you not know that? It's basic…"
"My training was a bit…all over the place." Luke admitted sheepishly, suddenly embarrassed. He could flow-walk, conjure fire and absorb electricity, but this simple calming trick eluded him. A thought occurred to him. "How about a deal?"
"A deal." Mara repeated.
"Teach me that calming trick and I'll show you how to be alone." Luke offered.
"What, like hide my Force-presence?"
"More or less."
"Seems a bit one-sided. You can get calming exercises from a holobook." Mara pointed out.
"Well, maybe I'd rather learn from you." Luke said slyly.
Mara laughed. "And it's not dark side or anything?"
"Nope. Completely begign."
Mara considered. Luke briefly wondered why she was so keen to be alone. The Jedi couldn't be pushing her that hard.
"Okay. Deal." Mara agreed.
Luke smiled. "Great. Where to we begin?"
Mara considered. "Come over...here." She decided before making her way onto the training room floor and sat down, cross-legged. She patted the space in front of her and Luke sat down opposite, similarly cross-legged.
"It's basically a breathing exercise." Mara explained, "The actual name for it is the ox'trep technique, which means "still mind" in old Tython."
"Close your eyes." She commanded.
"Do I get a surprise?" Luke smirked, but did as he was told.
"Only if there's dinner first." Mara laughed, "Now, try to clear your mind of all distractions, and breathe in and out slowly, and try to get a rhythm going. Focus on your breathing and forget everything else, and everything else should just flutter away."
Luke did as he was told. Slowly he began to breathe in and out. In. Out. In. Out. And sure enough, he could begin to feel the stress beginning to ease away. "Wow. That really works."
"You have a good teacher." Mara snorted.
Luke opened his eyes and grinned. "It seems I do." He raised a questioning eyebrow. "Do you want to learn how to hide yourself now, or leave it? It's kinda late."
"Chickening out?" Mara glared. "You promised."
Luke deflated under the eyes. "I know, and I'm not. It's just tricky to learn when sleep-deprieved."
"I'll be fine, farmboy."
"Alright, Red." Luke snorted. "The one that taught this to be called the ability the Art of the Small. Basically, you narrow your Force-presence down and down and down until it's too small to detect. That was you can still access the Force but others can't see you with it to a degree."
"Sounds good." Mara smiled.
"It is." Luke grinned. "Basically, how you do it is…"
In the other side of the Temple, Grand Master Yoda smiled. He didn't know how, he didn't know why, but somewhere, somehow, the dark future he had been sensing for so long suddenly seemed a little brighter. It wasn't much, it wasn't definitive, but someone had just let a little light into their life and it was having an effect on events to come in the best possible way.
Across the galaxy, Darth Sideous scowled. There was something wrong. The future he had predicted and put into motion suddenly seemed a lot less certain, a lot less stable. He couldn't isolate the source but he couldn't help but feel that his Hand was at the heart of it.
A/N: Bit short, but oh well. It got the point across. Now, I need a name for Luke's ship. Something cool and witty, preferably meaningful. As always, read, review and give ideas and constructive criticism in the reviews. Peace out.