Galaxies Apart
Forty Two
He watched them.
They scrambled here and there, exchanging jokes and banter, throwing tools to one another. He watched how the boy - so young in Wookiee terms, let alone in human - would wait until he believed his father was looking away, and would gaze at him with such sadness in his heart it was all he could do to stay quiet. The boy's looks reminded him very much of the expression his own son Lumpawaroo wore every time his father's hand rested on his shoulder by the treetop docking station, an unspoken affirmation of love and regret that once again they would be parted.
Han was kind, of course. He had made excuses for stopovers at Kashyyyk at the flimsiest premise to give him a chance to spend some precious time with his family. He had offered more than once to cancel the life-debt sworn to him and allow Chewbacca to be with those he loved. But in doing so, he proved that no matter how mighty a friend he had become, he would never understand the Wookiee ways fully. Chewbacca could no more discard that life debt than he could stop breathing. And so he was destined to travel with Han amongst the stars, protecting his friend from any harm that would come his way.
For this reason he was often suspicious, if not downright hostile, of passengers they picked up; Han had his fine qualities, no doubt, but not paramount within them was a tendency to associate with fine upstanding citizens. So when the Jedi had joined their party on Tatooine, he had reacted with his usual mixture of standoffish hostility and protectiveness toward his captain...
...for about an hour.
How in the galaxy Han failed to realise who this young man really was, Chewbacca had puzzled over in his silent way for a long time now. It was so obvious - the looks that sought approval, the body language, even that lopsided Solo smile that Han had practically invented.
Yoda had known, of course. His old friend the Jedi Master knew most things. In a quiet moment before his death, he had instructed Chewbacca to keep the truth to himself.
"His own journey to make, the young Jedi has," Yoda had said. "Choose his own time, he will."
The thought struck him that perhaps his friend was so blind to the truth because in all the time he had known him, Han had never discussed children. He had been an adoptive uncle to Chewie's own brood, of course, and an affectionate uncle at that. But Chewie considered that deep down, Han Solo harboured serious doubts about himself as a person that all of his bluster served to mask - and fairly high up on those doubts, he would warrant, was the notion that he could ever serve as an effective father figure to anyone.
"What has you so quiet, furball?"
Chewie growled at some length in response with a few hand gestures thrown in. Han's eyebrows rose in mock indignation. "You kiss Mallatobuck with that mouth?" he said. "Hand me that hydrospanner, will ya? And where in the Maw are Luke and M-"
"Right here," the answering call came. Right on cue, Luke and Mara had returned from their voyage back to the Falcon. Chewie saw Han's tension levels plummet by about three hundred percent; allowing Mara Jade access to his ship without he or Chewie there had just about been the most trusting thing he'd ever done.
"Master Luke, you're back!" Threepio burbled excitedly, walking in that erratic way of his over to the returning pair, hefting a crate of power couplings between them.
Chewie lumbered over. Luke sighed gratefully and mouthed a thanks as he simply reached down with those massive arms and accepted the crate from their grasp as if it weighed nothing.
"Remind me again…why you didn't...come along?" Mara wheezed. Chewie hnufed a response that left her none the wiser. "So glad I...asked," she grimaced.
"What took you so long?" Han asked, not entirely seriously. "We were starting to think maybe you were-"
"Stop right there, Solo," Mara clipped instantly, much to Han's delight.
"How we doing?" Luke asked, patting Artoo's dome by way of greeting; the little droid had wheeled itself to his side also.
Chewie had carried the couplings to the main power relays. He was already slotting them into place in the grid, heaving them out of the crate with dizzying efficiency. The systems would fire just fine without them, but the technology they were dealing with here was who knew how old, and worked on capacitors. The couplings would greatly reduce the time it would take for the power to build up.
Kyp held up a hand to Luke's question, much to Luke's obvious surprise. Chewie slotted the last relay into place into the grid, forming a complete feedback loop.
The result was immediate.
Every single light, every console, wall panel and readout surged into life. The omnipresent thrumm they had all learned to ignore over the last few hours seemed to stutter, to choke, almost like a speeder bike engine trying to catch...and that may have been the best analogy, for a second later the engine caught with a roar that sent a quake through the floor.
"Systems now online," a hitherto unheard computer voice sounded, startling them somewhat.
Kyp beamed delightedly at Luke. "That's how we're doing," he said, and pointed.
The targeting console for the holo-map of the galaxy was undergoing a transformation. New reticles were appearing. The modification nodules and toggles looked as if they were actually growing new parts, as if the technology itself was a living thing.
"Not bad," even Han Solo had to admit. "Not bad at all."
"We're only just warming up," Kyp assured him, fairly bounding over to the targeting console. "Watch this."
They looked up into the circular expanse that formed the projection space of the holo-imaging system. Since their arrival in this room they'd grown accustomed to the wonders the galaxy map could produce at the spin of a control. So it was without much reaction they watched as the galaxy sprang to life around them once more.
"Zooming in..." Kyp said. The map obeyed his command, starfields expanding crazily around them as their birds-eye view of the galaxy swooped through the plane of stars, clusters of them flashing past in an instant, until-
"An asteroid field?" Solo asked.
"Oh…" was all Luke said. He had anticipated what was to happen next.
Kyp spun one of the new controls. They watched the field rotate, spin...and beheld the sight of the smaller asteroids zooming toward one another until they impacted. Rather than fly apart, though, they stuck together. Gradually, the asteroid field was shrinking into less and less component parts, bigger and bigger asteroids, until-
A blinding, searing flash of light. Kyp's hand froze on the dial.
"Alderaan," he said softly.
They stood in silent reverie. The Shining Star of the Core Worlds. For centuries of Old Republic governance it had been, along with Coruscant, the very epicentre of galactic civilisation. Dominated by stunning natural landmarks, by ancient mountains of unrivalled beauty and grasslands immense in scope and teeming with life, it served almost as a natural counterpoint to Coruscant.
Kyp clicked the dial forward. The controls responded partially to his physical commands of them, but only partially; the machines sensed his intentions through the Force, and through that medium he was able to manipulate the gigantic holo above them in a manner so precise it would have been beyond traditional methods.
The Death Star appeared in orbit.
Luke turned to him. "Don't," he implored. "I don't want to see it. Please."
"This is how you're going to operate the time portal?" Mara asked.
Kyp nodded. "The holo targets the time and space co-ordinates. Before..." he flinched at the memory, realising to his surprise that he hadn't actually thought about it in some time now, "...a personal portal was used, one that connected direct to a planetary surface. I can expand that to a portal big enough for us to fly through. It'll be generated outside the station."
"So this is it," Han said. He was keeping his voice steady with some effort. A sense of unreality still clutched at him about this whole deal, as if merely busying himself in some form of a plan had been enough to satisfy him compared to the life of a fugitive he'd previously been living. Now that they were actually set to do it, he found himself struck dumb by the sheer enormity of the idea.
But not for long.
"Well, what are we standin' around here waiting for?" Han grinned. "Fire her up and let's get the hell outta here!"
He would remember that moment, that single glorious moment with a horizon of possibilities stretching out before them, as the last moment when that romantic notion of going back and fixing the ills of the galaxy seemed as simple as setting a course with the Falcon's navicomp and his friends at his side and flying through.
After that, it all started to go wrong. Very wrong indeed.
Luke was the first to say it. "I hear ya, Han, but...where exactly, and when exactly, I guess...are we going?"
Everyone looked at everyone else. Even Artoo let loose with what sounded for all the world like an embarrassed whistle.
"We have to put history back on track," Kyp said firmly. "That means the Death Star has to be destroyed. Luke's torpedo has to do the job it was meant to do."
"Right," Luke said. He always warmed to the topic of how he'd been cheated out of that particular moment. "So we need to go back and stop that...what'dja call it?"
"The proton inhibitor," Kyp supplied. "Right. My guess is it was placed sometime before Alderaan, so we need to track the Death Star's movements before then and get aboard somehow, find that inhibitor, and..."
He trailed off. He looked up. They all did.
They all looked up at Alderaan.
"Oh...oh..." Kyp said, through a throat suddenly parchment dry. He was utterly stunned at his own stupidity.
"When you say put history back on track..." Luke said slowly, "...do you mean we have to allow Alderaan to be destroyed?"
Kyp didn't respond. "If that was how history originally played out, then the answer is yes," Mara Jade observed. Luke could have screamed at her for her dispassion. She must have sensed his feelings, for she glanced at him, radiating puzzlement.
"No," Kyp said. "No, we can't. All those people...we can save them."
Han inhaled. Sure, they had just spoken airily of saving the galaxy. But saving a galaxy was an intangible idea, a pipe dream that couldn't really be grasped by the mind. Abruptly, though, the prospect of reversing one of the greatest war crimes in galactic history brought home even more the scale of what they were proposing to do.
He felt as though the holo of the planet were weighing down on him, every single person frozen in that moment of time, the mothers, fathers, children, all looking to him for action.
He was not the only one with such a feeling.
"We'll go back earlier," Kyp said slowly. "Before they got to the Alderaanian system. Before they captured Mom above Tatooine! If we save her from that, Tarkin has no reason to destroy Alderaan to try and force..."
"Mom?"
He trailed off.
"Mom?" Han asked again. Chewie closed his eyes, every inch of his two-metre frame wishing he could spare his oldest friend what was about to result of that one-word slip.
Luke placed his hand on Kyp's shoulder. He met the young Jedi's eyes. Chewie realised that Skywalker knew, also. "It's time," Skywalker said simply.
"Time for what?" Han asked, going slightly hoarse now with sudden fear gripping his heart. "Y'know if someone around here doesn't start giving me some answers, so help me I'll-"
"Leia is my mother."
Han rocked back on his heels. "But she-" he began, and then realised the silliness of what he was about to point out. "Oh," he settled for weakly, and could only watch numbly as Kyp fished around in his pockets until he produced the personal holo-generator he had shown to Han so long ago now, seemingly, in orbit above Tatooine.
The holo flickered into life. As before, Han gazed at the image of himself, Luke, Leia, Kyp and the girl all standing on Yavin IV, all wearing carefree smiles.
This time he looked closer.
Kyp, no more than eight years old in the picture, was holding his hand. The girl was holding Leia's. And Han and Leia were holding each other's.
He felt his knees give, just a little, and pulled himself together with a visible effort to stop himself sinking to the floor. If he'd considered the idea of saving a planet almost too enormous to contemplate bare seconds ago, it was suddenly dwarfed in scale next to this.
She had been taken from him. He'd had to get used to that, and he'd never quite managed it. Learning from Kyp that they had meant to be together eased his mind somewhat at his inability to cope with her removal from his life. But it hadn't just been Leia that he'd been cheated from. His children had been taken from him.
His children.
"You're my son?" he said. The words seemed to come from a long way away, as if someone had thrown a sonic grenade and he hadn't noticed its effects.
"My name is Jacen. The girl is Jaina. My sister. My twin," the young man he had known as Kyp all this time told him.
Han felt his breath catch in his throat. "Twins?" he said. He felt as though he were about to-
-and with a gasp of pain, Mara Jade went from standing upright to laid out on the floor, clutching her head and crying out in pain. As Luke and Jacen rushed past him to help her to her feet, Han smiled dazedly. "Isn't that my line?" he asked. Chewie shrugged.
"He's dead," she was saying. "He's…dead. He's dead. He's dead."
"Who?" Jacen was asking.
"Palpatine," the reply came.
"Who's dead, Mara?" Jacen asked again.
Luke blinked. "Didn't you hear her?" he said. "She said-"
"Luke?"
Belatedly, he realised the voice that had spoken had not come from Mara. Mara was still prostrate on the ground, clutching her head in distress. The voice had…he turned his head, and felt his jaw drop open.
"Hello, Luke."
"Obi-Wan?"
So it was. Granted, he had never seen Ben Kenobi surrounded by a shimmering blue-white light, but since the last time he'd seen him he'd just been cut in two by Vader's crimson lightsaber blade, Obi-Wan was still in remarkable fettle.
As if in a dream, Luke walked away from the others. Preoccupied with Mara's sudden illness or their own sudden parenthood, no-one noticed his departure right away. "What…how are you…?"
Obi-Wan just smiled. "It's good to see you again, Luke. You've become strong in the Force since we last talked," and his expression changed just a little towards sadness, "very strong indeed."
Luke didn't know what to say. In the years he'd spent in the wilderness since Yavin IV, there were nights alone in the void dreaming of Trenches that he'd begged Obi-Wan to come back to him, to look at him with those eyes full of wisdom and compassion and to tell him what to do. He had possessed such quiet conviction in his voice. He had never seemed fazed or daunted by any task or hardship.
He would not have missed the shot. That was what Luke used to tell himself.
"We're…we're going to fix it," he said. The glow of the holographic Alderaan still lit the immense interior of the Control Room. Obi-Wan glanced upward, clearly understanding the meaning behind Luke's words. Luke waited for the congratulations, to be told how proud his old mentor was of him for being able to accomplish something like this, an act of such pure goodness that even the much-vaunted Jedi legends of the Old Republic, with all their mastery, had never been able to match.
Instead he watched Obi-Wan's smile and gentle demeanour fell away. "Luke – you have to stop him."
"Stop him?" Luke repeated. "Stop who?"
"Jacen. What he's planning to do – Luke, there are things about this station you don't understand; things about the Force you don't understand…" his expression softened, "…I didn't fully understand them myself until I became one with the Force."
"How can saving Alderaan be a bad thing?" Luke said, not quite believing what he was hearing.
"Someone not so far away from where we stand once said that there was no mystical energy field controlling his destiny," Obi-Wan replied. Luke glanced at Han. Mara Jade had gotten back to her feet, and Han had taken the opportunity to pull Jacen aside – the two were now conversing alone. Luke's departure was still under the radar.
"He was right, of course – the Force does not control destiny; at least, not entirely. But the power of this station to undo destiny…Luke, that goes against everything the Force is. The murder of Alderaan and its people was an unconscionable act of tyranny and evil…but it pushed more fringe systems and undecided groups toward the Rebellion in one swift stroke than a thousand rallying speeches could have accomplished."
"I'm sure that was a great comfort to them," Luke shot back.
"Of course it wasn't. It was evil, Luke. But it was the way things happened. When this galaxy was turned from its proper path, it damaged permanently the relationship between it and the Force. If you allow Jacen to do this…that relationship will worsen further…or it could sever completely."
"What are you saying?"
"Do this, and you may well destroy the Force's link to life-forms in the galaxy. The symbiosis will be broken. Forever. No more Jedi-"
"-and no more Sith?"
Apparently Jacen had ended his conversation with his father earlier than expected. And apparently, Obi-Wan's spirit wasn't as intangible to everyone but Luke as previously thought.
"Is that it? No more Sith? No more of those devastating wars between Jedi and Sith like the three or four the galaxy has already suffered through? No more Sith Lords like Exar Kun, like Malak, like Sidious and Vader and who knows in the future to torture and kill and destroy the lives of billions of innocents? Is that it, Obi-Wan? Is that what the death of the Force will bring us?"
Obi-Wan addressed Luke, and Luke only. "Stop him."
Jacen ignored this. "All the Force has ever brought this galaxy is pain and death. If we can save an entire planet from being used as an example at the whim of a madman who should never have come to…" and again, he trailed off.
"Stop him," Obi-Wan said again, and faded.
"Wait!" Luke called out desperately, but the Jedi Master was gone.
Jacen had that glint in his eyes again. The same glint that had been there when he'd realised the possibility of going back and saving Alderaan. Then, Luke had welcomed it. Now, it seemed slightly manic and not a little intimidating.
"Don't you see?" he turned, his voice raising to address them all. "We've been so stupid! All of us! We can't see beyond our own lifetimes; we're thinking small, too blasted small."
"Saving Alderaan is small?" Luke inquired cautiously. He was liking where this was going less and less with each passing moment.
"Yes! We have a time machine here, don't you see! The ability to go back to any moment in time and improve the future…think of it! What point is there in treating the symptoms of a disease if you can go back and eliminate the disease itself?"
He sprang to the dials before anyone could stop him. Alderaan vanished. The galaxy returned to the view, spinning, the targeting reticle buzzing around its interior like an enraged mrruyshi fly at Jacen's commands, his hands dancing so quickly over the controls that those watching could no longer even see his fingers move.
Another planet appeared overhead. Again, it was one they all could recognise easily; it was doubtful there were many in the galaxy who couldn't discern the planet-spanning metropolis of Coruscant at a single glance.
Seconds later, the viewer homed in on a scene that was familiar to anyone who had grown up in the last two generations. It was a moment that had been holo-recorded from all angles and replayed endlessly in Academies across Imperial space.
Palpatine's inaugural speech as Emperor.
He towered over them all now, cowled and robed for the first time in his Palpatine persona. His scars, fresh from the result of the botched attempt on his life by Mace Windu, were as big as crevasses; his yellow eyes huge lakes of malicious intent. It was a case of spectacularly bad timing for Mara Jade, who had been trying to cope with the Force-transmitted impact of his death.
"Shut it off," she said, weakly at first but with increasing strength and anger. "Shut it off. Shut it off!"
Jacen Solo wasn't listening to her pleas. He wasn't listening to anything. He was caught up in the ecstasy of possibilities that had unravelled before him, and primary amongst them this one, sweetest of them all.
"The disease," Jacen said, as Palpatine's gargantuan holo smiled above them.
"Shut it off!"
"Jacen!" Luke said. He had moved to stand close to Jacen. Close enough to convey that he wasn't exactly asking Jacen to do what Mara said. It need not have mattered. Jacen happily spun the controls again, and the holo above them thankfully dissolved into the usual blinding flurry of images and places, before settling on yet another planet. This one Luke didn't recognise.
"Yes," Jacen said softly. "Yes. Perfect."
"Where is-"
The computer voice spoke again. "Time and space co-ordinates confirmed. Planet Naboo. Estimated displacement: Fifty-seven standard years."
"Wait just a minute-"
"Portal generation process started," the computer continued. "Warning: unknown time-dilation effects may occur inside station prior to generation."
"STOP!"
Jacen finally seemed to register Luke's presence. The forcefulness of Luke's shout may have had something to do with assisting this process.
Luke's ignited lightsaber may also have been a factor.
"What are you doing, Luke?" Jacen asked, his eyes fixed on the saber. The blade was poised and ready. Luke was not in a duelling stance, but neither was he relaxed.
"Yeah, just what the hell do you think you're-"
"Han, stay out of this."
"It's okay, Dad," Jacen waved Han back. At any other time he would have smiled in relief at finally being able to use the word to Han. Not now.
"This whole expedition was about changing history back to how it was. Repairing the damage that was done. Now you're talking about going back over half a century. Changing history. Isn't that what got us into trouble in the first place?"
"We're removing the most evil man of the last thousand years from power. Preventing him from manipulating his way into a position where he can cause the deaths of billions. We can stop the Clone Wars from ever happening, Luke. Imagine that!"
"And what then, Jacen?" Luke retorted. "Bad things happened before Palpatine came to power. Where will it end? Are we gonna go back and take out every tyrant, every Sith Lord who ever existed?"
Jacen's eyes flashed. "Why not?" he demanded. "What's to stop us?"
Luke's stance shifted from neutral to duelling.
"I am."
In an instant Jacen's own lightsaber was out and ignited, one smooth Force-assisted motion that the eyes could not follow. Jacen's jaw was set. "Don't do this, Luke."
"Oh dear oh dear!" Threepio wailed in alarm. Artoo let loose with a mournful whistle at his side. Chewie unholstered his bowcaster and growled low in the back of his throat. After a pause, the weapon swung to point at Luke. It was a custom for Wookiee life-debts to be extended to cover the children of those under its protection. He was not about to make an exception.
A moment later, Mara Jade had drawn her own compact blaster. It was pointed squarely at Chewie.
Han took all of this in. "Have you all gone completely insane?!" he burst out. "We're all meant to be on the same side here!"
No one responded. Luke and Jacen began to circle each other, sabers rising and falling, probing for an opening in the other's defensive posture. Han threw up his hands in despair and removed his own blaster, targeting Mara Jade. No matter how crazy this was, he couldn't risk Chewie's life.
"Just when I thought there were no more surprises left," Luke said softly.
Jacen smiled. "Trust me when I tell you – you have no idea."
"Incoming vessel detected emerging from hyperspace," the computer announced. "On holo."
The planet Naboo changed; its blues and greens bled away to be replaced by a uniform grey, its spheroid shape developing a pronounced pockmark in its northern hemisphere. So engrossed were each of the participants in the standoff that it took Artoo's electronic squeal of terror to make them look up and see.
"Warning: vessel has locked weapons," the computer continued, quite calmly.
Luke locked eyes with Jacen. "You really weren't kidding, were you?" he said.
That was all he had time for, before the superlaser beam lanced out and struck them dead centre.