Galaxies Apart
Twenty Three
Luke licked his lips in anticipation. "Two minutes," he said, making preparations to bring the Privateer out of hyperspace.
He wanted to be able to turn around and see the look on Yoda's face before they left the realms of superlight travel.
He wanted a clue.
Footsteps told him that the cockpit had gained a third occupant. Mara Jade had, apparently, deemed that her presence was justified amongst the mere mortals she was forced to share her passage with.
"Mara," Yoda greeted her with an infuriating politeness.
She carried herself like she was royalty. Thinking back, he angrily discounted any similarity between the arrogant semi-Jedi and the small, immensely strong figure of Princess Leia.
Jade was nothing next to her.
Over the past few years, Leia's legacy had weighed heavy in Luke's mind. He replayed the brief time they'd spent together over and over in his, his guilt-ridden conscience refusing to let the memories fade.
His nightmares of the trench run were not the only recurring dream he experienced. Visions of Base One on Yavin IV listening to the reports of the battle, hearing the death cries of each Rebel pilot, realising that he, Luke Skywalker, had missed the exhaust port.
The superlaser blast had taken three seconds to impact.
What kind of hell had she went through in that time?
Had she cursed his name?
"My Master-" Jade began.
"…is a monster and a murderer," Luke finished.
The flash of anger from Mara he expected. The sadness from Yoda he didn't.
"Never give in to anger. The path to darkness it is."
"Justice isn't anger," Luke retorted. "One minute until sublight," he added, as his console beeped.
"That emotions are just, do not presume. More complex than that the galaxy is. Soon, you will know this all too well."
His interest piqued, Luke wanted to ask what he meant. Before he could, Mara tried again, shooting him a poisonous look he was all too happy to bat back.
"The Emperor wonders why you would prefer to travel here than to meet him face to face."
Yoda chuckled. To Luke, the laugh sounded genuine.
"Why through his Hand does he meet me, rather than face to face, if so keen is he? That, tell him."
"Ten seconds," Luke said, as his navicomputer chirped at him.
This was it.
The Privateer ceased to be a theoretical tachyon burst and began existing in the stately world of sublight astrophysics once again. The mottled starfield of hyperspace vanished, and stationary points of light took their place. Luke hardly noticed.
His hands tightened around their controls. His eyes widened. He hadn't known what to expect – a forbidden planet, an ancient civilisation, a nebula, a quasar cluster, a desolate moon, a black hole.
As far as he could tell, they'd dropped back into normal space alongside a gigantic TIE fighter.
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"What's our ETA?" Kyp asked, again.
"About five minutes less than the last time you asked," Han called from the cockpit. "About an hour, kid. Settle down."
Good, the young Jedi thought, as his welding instrument performed another piece of microsurgery on the prostrate form of C-3PO. It had taken him years of sweat and blood before he'd been able to regain these co-ordinates.
He wondered what the Gluyeu who'd sold the data to him was up to now. Certainly he was in no rush to return to Ryxx - before he'd left the system the Death Star had dropped out of hyperspace. He didn't know whether it was there for him or not, and hadn't felt the urge to find out.
Everywhere in this horrible, warped reality hurt him. He'd seen planets that should have been teeming with life and culture nothing more than worlds of slaves and overlords.
He'd seen asteroid fields where there should have been planets.
The Death Star had rampaged across the galaxy, and now there were two of them…he shivered to think of it. And to think that the root of all this suffering was a device used in the construction of planetary shield generators.
An simple piece of technology, in the wrong place. At the wrong time.
The time portal had been re-programmed so that anyone following the initial traveller would find themselves arriving helplessly late and stranded a year from the event.
Jedi were far from helpless, wherever they were, and he had been no exception. After arriving on Coruscant, he'd used the Force to trick his way into some money, and from there into a modest job and a place to live.
Keeping his use of the Force to an absolute minimum - the Imperial Palace and its occupant loomed large, all too near where he lived - he'd scraped together enough credits to buy himself a ship and set up as a small-time smuggler.
Just like Han Solo must have done.
As time went by, he stopped having to worry about where the next meal was coming from. But he couldn't settle in this time. He'd be betraying them all if he did. So he kept a constant ear to the ground, gathering as much information about this new galaxy and this new history as he could.
Luke and Han had proven themselves nigh on impossible to track down. He'd been forced to abandon searching for them and concentrate on regaining the co-ordinates for Site Zero any way he could.
Jumping from the Ryxx system, he had sensed it. The Force delivered the message to him – Tatooine. He had to get there, and fast.
The rest was, quite literally, history.
Wiping sweat from his nose, he turned his full attention back to the task at hand. Ironically Kyp knew that the droid had been re-assembled in the alternate timeline, on Bespin.
"unit-unit-unit-unit-oooonnnnnnnnnn-line-line-line-" warbled Threepio.
"How do you feel, Threepio?"
The droid's eyes flickered wildly. "not-not-not-not-not-twowwowooo good."
"Hmm…" Kyp mused, mentally reviewing his last few adjustments. Reaching, he reset a circuit board.
"How about now?"
"Better," Threepio said.
Threepio's visual receptors focussed on the face above him, which smiled warmly down and said, "Good. Very good."
"Question: Just what do you think you're doing to my control boards?" Threepio demanded. "Specification: Are you a qualified mechanic? Where's your identification protocol? Demand: You have ten seconds to comply."
"Just keep talking. You're doing fine," Kyp said reassuringly.
"Repeating: Did you hear what I said? Threat: Identify yourself - you have five seconds to comply."
The stranger didn't seem at all fazed. "Designation: Kyp Durron. If you're confused, it's because you haven't been quite yourself for some time. Judging by how you're acting, I'd say you're still not quite there..."
Threepio's droid brain pondered that curious statement. "Admittal: I do seem to have rather puzzling memories of the last few months," he admitted at last. "I appear to have taken some serious damage…" he added, "…which leads me to believe that I have been wounded in action."
"In action?"
"Statement: I am a combat droid, am I not?" Threepio demanded.
Off to one side, until now watching in concerned silence, Artoo Detoo abruptly let loose with a squeal of droid amusement.
Kyp was smiling too. "Not quite, Threepio."
"Rebuttal: I'm afraid I don't believe you," Threepio said. "As such, I will now disable you…oh…"
"What is it?" the voice contained not a hint of impatience.
"Question: Where are my legs?" the droid demanded.
"Right over there," the young man pointed. Sure enough, a pair of golden legs rested serenely on a nearby crate.
There was a momentary silence.
"Query: I don't suppose you would care to surrender?"
"Not right now," Kyp replied. With a sigh of satisfaction he completed his repairs on Threepio's behavioural nodes. "Re-engaging neural net…now."
"Oh, my," Threepio said. "What have I done?!"
Kyp beamed. "Welcome back," he said, and patted the droid's shoulder plating.
"How can I apologise for my disgraceful behaviour?" Threepio wailed, "Please don't deactivate me."
"You don't have to," Kyp assured him, smiling. "You weren't yourself, Threepio. Let's just leave it at that."
"Oh, thank you, Master Kyp. I can't tell you how much better I feel. Thank the Maker! It's a glorious day! A wonderful day!" Threepio gushed.
"No problem."
Artoo, bouncing from wheel to wheel, bleeped and whistled long and loud to his companion.
Threepio's euphoria abruptly vanished.
"Pardon me?" Threepio said, outraged. "It's good to see me making sense again? That's rich, coming from an overgrown scrap pile like you."
The two droids launched into a back-and-forth exchange the like of which hadn't been seen between them in years. You didn't have to speak binary to see that Artoo was overjoyed to be exchanging insults with his old friend.
"Can you two keep it down in here? Some of us are trying to pilot."
"Han!" Kyp called, in some relief. "What do you think?"
"You did it."
"I had a pretty good teacher," Kyp admitted, looking at him. "Well...I will have a pretty good teacher...oh, you get what I mean."
Han glowed with a strange sort of pride. He thought again about the Battle of Yavin. That day should have ended with a victory celebration on the fourth moon. Kyp hadn't wanted to go into all that much detail, but Han didn't need any stimulation to imagine the scene.
The ancient temple filled with Rebel troops, surviving snubfighter pilots from the mission he'd labelled as little more than 'suicide'. He and Luke, walking alongside one another, Han trying not to smile at the ludicrous notion of him being a hero.
Stepping forward to receive medals from the hands of Princess Leia Organa herself. He'd have winked at her-of that much he was certain. Only if Chewie was given a medal too, of course.
That day, flying toward Jabba with a cargo hold full of money, when he made the decision to turn around and join that desperate stand, was the day that Han Solo, scoundrel, had realised there were causes worth dying for.
Only for him to be forced to watch as that cause died.
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Vader's shuttle would drop out of hyperspace and into the Endor system in less than an hour. Moff Tarkin had that amount of time to complete his preparations. This meant the usual spit and polish exercise on the troops ahead of their arrival of their C-in-C.
On another level, however, his preparations took on a deeper significance. His conversation with the Dark Lord of the Sith onboard the Executor had set Tarkin on the road to uncovering the Emperor's little scheme to bring the Rebellion back from the brink of destruction.
One would imagine, then, that Vader would be a natural addition to Tarkin's own exclusive cabal of…enlightened Fleet officers.
He hadn't got to be where he was today by underestimating the deviousness of his peers. None he knew, save of course Palpatine himself, was deserving of less trust than the Dark Lord.
In fact, he hadn't completely ruled out the possibility that this whole affair was nothing more than a convoluted loyalty test concocted by Vader and the Emperor.
No, this was not the time to reveal to Vader what he knew of the loss of the second Death Star, nor the plan he and his allies were creating to deal with it.
Now was the time to utilise Vader's unique talents in foiling whatever ambush the Rebels were no doubt plotting to spring on the Imperial Fleet.
Palpatine no doubt considered himself most astute in creating this golden opportunity. Tarkin's lip curled in distaste. Did the Emperor really think his Navy was so blind as to notice that he was holding the Victory Day Regatta above Endor - a world of no tactical significance, isolated from all major trade routes, and populated with the hugely irritating Ewoks?
Normally Victory Day took place in the Core Worlds and attracted a veritable flotilla of civilian sightseeing ships - none had so far arrived.
In previous years the Emperor himself had performed the opening and closing ceremonies-where was he this time around? Palpatine might as well have ordered the words COME AND GET US painted across the treetops of Endor so big they'd have been visible from orbit and have done with it.
Tarkin, however, was determined that his force would be more than ready for the Alliance. The security measures around the forest moon had already been ultra-tight, given the immensity of the collected risk assembled here. Nevertheless he'd tweaked the procedures wherever he could.
He had ordered that all Imperial ships were to stay on the same side of Endor as his Death Star. If the Palpatine did indeed drop from hyperspace right in the middle of them, then none of the big prizes would be isolated from the protection that his command ship's superlaser provided.
The only protection they had...
Tarkin had been breaking the backs of his crew to improve the charging times of a superlaser blast. He was extremely conscious of the fact that the Mark 2 reactor core carried by the Alderaan was significantly faster than his own.
In a battle involving the gigantic destructive capacity of a superlaser, the first shot fired would most likely be the decisive blast. Tarkin was determined that his Death Star would be the one to fire that shot.
"Grand Moff Tarkin, sir?" his adjutant, an extremely capable young woman called Toranne, communicated from the adjoining administration room.
"Yes?" he said. They hadn't bothered him in over two hours; he felt able to overlook this interruption.
A short pause. Then, "There's someone here to see you, sir. A Commander. He doesn't have an appointment. Shall I inform him of your extremely busy schedule and send him on his way, sir?"
Tarkin felt his previous affability evaporate. "Tell him he is fortunate I do not go any further than to dismiss him, Toranne. I feel almost inclined to clap him in the brig for his insolence."
"As you say, sir," she replied, sounding relieved. He frowned at that.
"Toranne?" he flicked the intercom switch, resting his hand on his face.
"Yes, sir?"
"What is the name of this Commander?"
She told him.
Tarkin wiped blood from his cheek. "Send him in."
The captain of the Imperial flagship sat back in his personal throne. This should prove interesting.
His door opened. In stepped Commander Thrawn.
"Grand Moff," the newly-demoted officer bowed, the epitome of politeness.
"I'm surprised to see you here," Tarkin replied, not bothering to return the greeting.
Nevertheless, there was protocol to consider. Tarkin motioned for Thrawn to be seated. He sat.
"What is it you want?"
Thrawn leaned forward. "How much do you know, Grand Moff?"
"You'll have to be a little more specific, Commander."
"About Sluis Van."
The game's rules were set. It was now Tarkin's turn to move. "Full details were transcribed across the Imperial Net, Commander. I have complete knowledge of the…" and he paused, "events."
The former Fleet Admiral absorbed that hesitation well. "It is my opinion that there was more to what went on at Sluis Van than met the eye."
"Pray continue."
"The Rebel spy network seemed inordinately well informed," Thrawn began ticking off points on his fingers, "they were aware not only of the location but the layout of the shipyards, they knew what our threat response measures were, they managed to conceal an entire squadron of their own troops inside Imperial ranks for a period of several months, they had full knowledge of high-level command codes and operating procedures for the Death Star and," he concluded, "they somehow concealed a base containing troop transports and a dozen snubfighters or more no less than twenty miles from the yards."
"Quite an achievement," Tarkin commented neutrally.
Thrawn raised an eyebrow. "Something of an understatement, Grand Moff. The Rebels had active assistance from the highest echelons of the Empire. That much seems certain."
"A very serious accusation, Commander. Have you any evidence?"
To his credit, the shamed alien showed absolutely no fear. "Nothing duracrete," he confessed, "but my own instincts and experience tells me that I am without doubt correct in my suspicions. My own…" he shifted, "…treatment at the hands of the Emperor seems to confirm them further."
"Your punishment was not so harsh as that given to Commodore Jurstt," Tarkin pointed out.
The temperature of the conversation plummeted. "That," Thrawn hissed, "was an injustice, and I think you know it, Grand Moff. No-one deserves to be cut down in such a fashion. Not from light-years away. Not on a whim. We must move past such barbarism."
For a long moment Tarkin contemplated where to go from here. From Thrawn's views and his anger he would make an ideal addition to the cabal…yet so, for that matter, would Vader.
Then again, there was no disputing that here was a quality officer. Better, here was a quality officer with a huge, career-ending blemish on his record…which would prevent him from ever gaining a position that would threaten Tarkin's ambitions.
Thrawn had been tamed.
"Who do you think is behind all of this, Commander?"
Thrawn didn't hesitate for an instant. "The Emperor himself."
Tarkin nodded, unsurprised. He hadn't even said it like it was in any doubt.
"We think so."
"We?"
"There are less than ten of us. All will be present at the Victory Day Regatta. Palpatine's next move will be to entice the Rebels into attacking us here, make us take heavy losses and retreat."
Thrawn nodded in approval. "Exactly what I was expecting. A signal to the rest of the galaxy that war has been rejoined."
"We cannot permit that to happen. The Navy is not here to play the Emperor's political games for him. Neither am I. Neither is this ship."
Now he focussed on the former golden boy. "I need your expertise, Thrawn, to help handle the Death Star. I never expected you to be assigned here, and I couldn't have asked for you. Now that you are here I can use you…but only in secret. You'll be on the bridge of my Death Star, disguised. We'll give you a temporary identity."
Thrawn seemed satisfied. "Excellent, Grand Moff. If you don't mind I'd like to spend the next few hours going over as much tactical information as you can provide. How many ships we have, their positions, the itinerary of events, orbital data…I can use it all."
"Agreed."
"How well supported are the Alliance? Is the Alderaan all they have?"
Tarkin pursed his lips and pulled at them with one hand, a habit he'd acquired over the years. "Our intelligence suggests their ship resources are almost non-existent…but then again, our intelligence on them may be slightly astray from the truth, if our conspiracy exists. We must be cautious, Commander."
Thrawn accepted this. Abruptly his focus shifted, and he leaned forward in his seat to come face to face with Tarkin. "Grand Moff, on the subject of the Emperor..."
"Yes?"
"I have something to offer you. It will prove invaluable should...the situation change in regards to our servitude to the Emperor."
"And what might you expect in return?"
"Your protection," Thrawn replied. "There was an assassination attempt on me on the troop transport to Endor."
"I had heard," Tarkin replied drily. "You seemed to deal with it quite well."
"Unarmed morons I can handle. Anything more than that, however..." Thrawn stared intently at Tarkin, "I have no wish to die, Grand Moff. Be sure of that."
"I'll use my influence as best I can, Commander. But we both know you have one extremely powerful enemy. I can't guarantee your safety."
"Then give me Rukh."
Tarkin considered it. He disliked the Noghri as a race and had no particular desire to share his bridge with one, but Thrawn's talents would be vital in the near future. Of that there was no doubt.
"Very well," he assented. "I'll make the arrangements. I hope this provides you with some peace of mind, Commander."
Thrawn stood, knowing when he was dismissed. He bowed a little in gratitude, Tarkin was pleased to note.
"Believe me, Grand Moff...with Rukh at my side, I couldn't be safer."