Galaxies Apart

Forty Three

"How long have you been here?"

Ben raised his head. He had been slumbering a little, which in an Imperial medbay was not the easiest thing in the galaxy to do; the beds were made with such sharp corners that you

He checked the chrono display on the medical readouts. "Nine hours," he said, feeling some measure of disbelief at that himself.

The Too-Onebee medical droid glided smoothly over to where Vader lay, its calm demeanour and graceful movements seeming quite out of place in these stark surroundings. "Your vitals have improved considerably," it said, delicate surgeon-thin fingers working controls, "your prognosis: full recovery, but I must ask that you attempt to get some rest."

If Vader minded being dictated to by a mere droid, he kept a lid on it. "Very well," was his only response. Satisfied, Too-Onebee glided off again.

"The Force is with us," Vader observed.

"Yes."

"How?"

"I made a deal with Thrawn."

"You killed the Emperor."

Again, it was an observation, not a question. "Yes," Ben admitted. Strangely, he felt no great pride at the act. He had killed many times, in warm blood and in cold, and the act had always sent a thrill of excitement through him. Not here.

"I did it for you," he said quietly.

Vader rose. Even now, even here, he was still an imposing figure, and it was all Ben could do not to take a step back as his father got to his feet. Too-OneBee's immediate protests were silenced with a raised hand; the droid's arms went limp as Vader deactivated him with a stray thought.

"I am not what you would ask me to be," he told Ben.

"You're my father," Ben replied.

Vader looked away for a moment. "Yes," he said eventually. "That much is true. But I cannot be what you need me to be."

Ben flushed, anger rising within him. "And what do I need?" he asked, turning away from Vader and walking a few steps, the better to get distance between them.

"Do you know?" Vader asked.

"What are you talking about?"

Vader's mask was, as usual, blankly impassive. "Why did you travel back, Ben?"

Memories of the discovery of Site Zero in his original timeline flashed across Ben's memory; the station's capabilities…his decision…and his final showdown with the much-vaunted Master Skywalker shortly before he had walked through that magic doorway to the past.

"I never mattered," he said. "I was…a galactic accident. A leftover remnant of the evil scheme of a Dark Jedi who should have been killed. Instead I was left alive, to slowly realise what I was…and what I could never be. But in the past – I could write my own future. I could-"

"Take your revenge?"

He shrugged. Why be afraid to say it? Only for the Jedi was revenge forbidden, and it had been a long time since Ben had pretended to be a Jedi. "Sure," he admitted.

"Then why hide yourself away? Why accomplish your mission to change the past and destroy Yavin IV and then just fade?"

"I knew no-one would believe me if I came out with the truth," Ben said. "I wanted to gain Palpatine's trust slowly, build up his confidence in me before I…"

"That," Vader cut him off without hesitation, "is a lie."

Ben was all set to fire back in his own defence, to ask Darth Vader how the hell he knew what was lies and what was truth…but something inside him crumbled at the thought, a part of him that knew his father was right. Since they'd met, Vader had demonstrated an innate ability to see into Ben's soul in a way no-one, not even Luke (to his eventual cost) had been able to. The simple statement of fact was spoken with such conviction that Ben simply couldn't muster a retort.

Will he be able to see into Luke's soul in the same way? Ben wondered, a flash of jealousy raging through him at the mere thought of it.

"You could have come to me," Vader went on. "You would have known from your history that I was engaged in a galactic search for my long-lost son. You could have come to me at any time, taken Luke's place. Instead, you hid yourself away. I wonder…would you ever have emerged from that exile, if the Noghri sent to you hadn't forced you to reveal yourself?"

Ben flinched at the words, recoiled from the truth behind them. "It's not that easy," he muttered, still with his back to Vader.

"No," Vader agreed. "The Dark Side of the Force, despite what some would say, is not easier. Quicker to learn, yes, but just as formidable to master as the Light. And unlike the Light, it carries much larger burdens with each step on the road to understanding."

Ben closed his eyes. As he did so, a memory seared itself across his mind's vision. It left an impression so strong that Vader felt it, would have felt it from a hundred thousand miles away.

"They died screaming," he whispered.

As Ben's thoughts were transmitted through the Force, Vader suddenly found himself reliving the closing moments of the Battle of Yavin IV. That mysterious ship had come from nowhere, obliterating one wingman and causing another to crash into his TIE, sending him spinning in a crazy loop away from the Death Star.

Seconds later, the superlaser beam had lanced out, and he had been buffeted not just by the physical shockwave, but by the emotional resonance of the Force reacting to the deaths of many thousands of sentient beings and billions of life-forms as Yavin IV was reduced to so much floating flotsam. Their screams had indeed rang loud.

One such scream, one among the multitude, had been from the mouth of his own daughter…

"I thought…I always had to believe that there was something I could do that he couldn't do," Ben said. "And one day it was all so clear to me; he couldn't fall to the Dark Side. He'd been given the opportunities, but he couldn't. And in that moment I saw my chance to finally eclipse him."

"I fell for love," Vader said. "You fell for hate."

"Sometimes," Ben told him, "they're hard to tell apart."

With that, he walked out of the medbay, leaving Vader alone with his thoughts.

---------------------------------------------------------

"ETA?"

"Fifteen minutes."

Sitting in the central chair on the Death Star's bridge, Thrawn did not respond to the news. His hands were steepled in front of his face. Pellaeon guessed the gesture was not one born of inner peace. It had been less than two hours since they had dropped from hyperspace at the pre-arranged co-ordinates and Ben Skywalker, good to his word, had provided the subsequent course heading he had promised would lead them to their destination.

Their destination. Pellaeon winced. As to that…he blew out a breath, softly for none to hear. He had grown accustomed to the unusual extremely quickly in his relatively short tenure serving under Grand Admiral Thrawn (as he had now been rechristened), but this mission all but beggared belief. Personally, he would have bedded in at Coruscant and focussed on attempting to take out the Alliance's Death Star – to end this resurgent civil war in one stroke.

Instead, the Grand Admiral had taken the one vessel capable of matching the jewel in the Alliance crown and thrown it halfway across the galaxy. Pellaeon grunted. As ever, had it been someone else – anyone else – he would already be harbouring doubts.

The side doors to the bridge whooshed open. Ben Skywalker and Darth Vader stepped through, escorted as always by stormtroopers – ysalamiri-free stormtroopers, however. Vader had healed his supposedly grave wounds astonishingly quickly with the restoration of the Force. Pellaeon took a long step to his left, so as to fall within the sphere of influence of Thrawn's personal ysalamiri.

He should have let you die…

"Lord Vader," Thrawn inclined his head politely. "You seem remarkably recovered."

"The Force is strong," was all Vader said in reply. Thrawn's hand was resting on the ysalamiri. If it was a reminder, it was an effective one.

"Tell me about this installation."

The instruction – it had clearly not been phrased as a request – had been directed at Ben. Pellaeon saw the younger man's eyes flash at the offhand manner with which he was being spoken to. The sheer arrogance of these Jedi, or Sith, or whatever the hell they liked to term themselves, never failed to irk him.

"What would you like to know?"

"Do we know who built it?"

Ben shook his head. "We were able to get the portal systems running. But the core memory…it's so old, so unlike anything we saw before. Doesn't match any known galactic technology."

"Then perhaps it hails from beyond our galaxy."

"Beyond our galaxy?" Ben repeated doubtfully. "How is that even possible?"

Thrawn was studying him intently. "In the future you are so fond of describing…you never encountered any such races?"

"Should we have?"

Thrawn smiled. There was no humour whatsoever in the expression. "Forgive me – for a military man, the temptation to know how the future will unravel is too tempting to ignore."

"And yet you're willing to destroy the only means to find out yourself," Ben observed. "Isn't it tempting to have the means to control the past, view the future?"

"At the cost of making the present meaningless?" Thrawn countered. "If we can change the past at a whim to suit ourselves, we make every choice in life hollow."

"There's no event in your life you'd like to change the outcome of?" Ben pressed on.

"Of course there is," Thrawn conceded. "But what are we as beings if not the sum of our experiences, of the choices we have made in our lives? If I go back and rewrite my own past, who do I become?"

"Someone better?"

Thrawn smiled again, almost pityingly this time. "I thought we were talking about me," he said mildly. "Time travel is not an answer to personal regrets. And so, much as I would care to discover who built this marvellous station of yours…it must be destroyed."

Silent until that moment, Vader spoke. "My son is on that station."

"You have another," Thrawn replied.

Their lightsabers had long since been confiscated. Ben's hand itched to call his weapon to his side now. He felt the same urge radiate from his father. Since the Force had been restored to them, Ben had been amazed at the apathy of Vader's attitude. The Dark Lord of the Sith seemed past caring about the loss of his power, his rank, his Navy…his entire way of life.

But at the realisation that Thrawn meant to destroy Site Zero with Luke aboard rather than risk him time-travelling, Vader's mood had changed. Ben couldn't help but resent that change. Clearly for his father the prospect of reuniting with Luke was not something he was willing to give up.

Would he be so concerned if it were me on that station?

Thrawn was no fool. The air on the bridge had changed. With a single nod, more stormtroopers materialised as if from nowhere. These troops were equipped with ysalamiri backpacks, their stasis fields activated at present. Thrawn had his hand raised in the air – if it dropped, Pellaeon had no doubt, those fields would be deactivated instantly.

It was a standoff. With the Force at their side Ben and Vader could inflict damage, certainly – but they could not hope to inflict enough before the Force-empty bubble closed in around them…and that would be the end of the matter in short order, as Palpatine's demise had demonstrated.

No-one moved. No-one spoke.

"We're dropping to sublight," the helmsman broke the silence.

The mottled tunnel of hyperspace became the regular smattering of stars. All eyes flicked to the viewscreen and the view of the corner of space they currenly occupied. Involuntary intakes of breath resounded all over the bridge. Even Pellaeon, who prided himself on maintaining the decorum of command protocol demanded from senior officers, let loose a small expression of amazement.

Site Zero was massive. Not so massive as their own Death Star, certainly, but few things were. Its central spheroid hub was perhaps a third the circumference of their own vessel, the symmetrical sails attached to its left and right – which gave it, Pellaeon realised, the appearance of an enormous TIE Fighter – much larger.

A remarkable enough sight. But it was not the scale or shape of the station that drew a reaction from the Death Star crew.

The entire structure was pulsating with energy.

It crackled, sparked, arced and danced along every visible surface. The very space around the station seemed to seethe, fizz and boil at its touch, as if cowering from the power Site Zero was bathing in.

"The portal…" Ben said, before he could stop himself.

They looked closer, and there it was; a shimmering curtain of energy bisecting an area of space a few hundred meters across, no more than a thousand miles or so outside the station's hull. Every few seconds each tendril of power being pumped out was grounding itself to that curtain, reinforcing it, solidifying it.

"Ships?" Thrawn asked.

"Two ships docked with the station," the tactical officer informed him.

"They're still there…" Thrawn breathed, sagging with relief in what was an extremely uncharacteristic open show of emotion from the man. He was all business once again a heartbeat later. "Chamber Master – commence primary ignition."

"Wait!" Vader said, with equal measures of menace and desperation.

Thrawn could have lost his temper. He could have ordered his troops to attack. Most men in his position would have done so. "I understand your loss," he said instead, "but I will not risk everything we have achieved. You may have a place in the Empire yet, Darth. Don't make me cast you aside."

"We have more time," Vader said.

"He's right…" Ben said, a frown on his face slowly clearing to realisation. "Can't you feel it?"

"I don't have time for this."

"Sir…" a technician spoke up nervously, "…ah, we're getting…strange reports from all over the ship."

"Define strange."

"It's time," Ben replied before the technician could speak. "The station is bending time…that portal is drawing so much power. It's a ripple effect."

Thrawn looked to the technician questioningly. The man bobbed his head up and down nervously. "Systems are faulting all over the ship, sir – internal chronos are showing time differences between decks. Deck 48 is almost forty seconds behind Deck 17. Deck 28 is ten seconds ahead of us…"

"Luke and the others are affected also," Vader said. "Time is passing slowly for them compared with us."

Ben nodded. That explained the strange Force presences those aboard Site Zero were registering with him. "Right. For them, we would have set off from Coruscant maybe only a few minutes ago – for us, it was almost three days ago."

"Yet another good reason to remove the source," Thrawn concluded reasonably. "Chamber Master, are you able to charge the superlaser?"

The man nodded. "At the minute, Grand Admiral, yes – but I can't say for how much longer."

"Thrawn, listen to me!" Vader thundered, taking a few steps forward. The stormtroopers to each side of him closed ranks around Thrawn, cutting off his approach.

Thrawn ignored him. "Commence primary ignition," he said again.

"Aye, sir…" the Chamber Master replied, and moved his hand to comply-

-and froze.

Thrawn realised instantly what had happened. "Deactivate stasis fields!" he barked.

The ysalamiri-equipped stormtroopers complied with his order. One was standing within range of the Chamber Master; Pellaeon saw the man come up from his sudden trance as if waking from sleep.

"Stand down or I will shoot you down," Thrawn said, genuine anger in his voice.

"I won't forget this, Thrawn," Vader promised.

"Superlaser is charged, Grand Admiral."

"Fire," Thrawn hissed.

Two things happened concurrently. The first was that the superlaser began its firing sequence, primary beams merging at the point of coalescence perfectly before being propelled unstoppably toward its target-

The second-

"Sir! We have distress calls coming in!" the tactical officer reported.

"Source?"

The officer didn't respond. Couldn't respond. He had gone ashen pale. Pellaeon was at his side in half a dozen steps, even as the viewscreen behind him showed the superlaser beam roar through space and impact its target square and true. Pellaeon didn't see it. He was looking at the status reports coming in from decks all over the ship – status reports fragmented through time itself that showed…

"Dear God," he whispered.

The beam that had torn apart Alderaan and Yavin IV in a fraction of a second, that had yet to find anything it had failed to obliterate…was absorbed by the station, soaking up its titanic energies like a sponge. The energy discharges that been blanketing the region of space ceased altogether for a brief moment.

All too brief.

When they resumed, they had increased in intensity to a degree that made their earlier ferocity seem but a gentle prelude to the storm that was to come.

The Death Star around them began to shake and rumble, as on the viewscreen, they witnessed each discharge earthed itself as before in that shimmering curtain of energy that formed the portal. Helpless to do anything but watch in horror, Grand Admiral Thrawn and the remainder of the bridge crew saw that gateway bend, warp…

…and grow.

Oh, how it grew.

"ENGINES, FULL REVERSE!" Thrawn bellowed. Not only was the portal growing on the viewscreen because it was increasing in size exponentially, but because they were moving toward it.

Helm hollered their compliance. But Pellaeon knew it wouldn't be enough. He knew this because he'd already seen on the sensor readouts the Death Star continuing to move toward that huge, hungry event horizon suspended in space at an ever-decreasing distance.

He sensed Thrawn's eyes upon him. All it took was a shake of the head to tell his commanding officer how hopeless their situation was.

Thrawn whirled to face Vader and Ben. He pointed a finger. "You!" he cried out, and for a fleeting moment Pellaeon thought he was going to order them executed as being somehow to blame for this. He waved to the stormtroopers encircling them. "Get them to a shuttle! Both of you, get onto that station and shut down that portal before we're pulled through!" and as they hesitated, he added, "NOW!"

---------------------------------------------------------

Vader was at the controls as the shuttle pulled away from the Death Star's main hangar bay. The immensity of the portal was lighting up the entire surrounding area now, a miniature sun of space-time flux, dragging all nearby towards it.

But the Force was with them. And the Force was strong.

Through eyes closed with the effort of counteracting that gravitational attraction, Ben murmured, "They won't want us to shut them down."

"I know," Vader replied. There was a strain evident in his Force sense also. It was all their combined efforts could accomplish to prevent them being sucked into that portal. Strangely, the station itself seemed completely immune to the effect.

Ben couldn't help but appreciate the irony. Once, Luke Skywalker had travelled to the station they themselves were now swooping to dock with, a last gamble to prevent Ben from going to the past to change history. Now…

He felt a coldness in the pit of his stomach. At some level since travelling back to the past, he had suspected that the time would come when his father would have to make a choice as to which of his sons he would embrace and which he would discard.

Seemed like the waiting was about to be over.

---------------------------------------------------------

"Shuttle is away, sir. Holding course for Site Zero. Don't ask me how."

"How long can we hold out, Captain?"

Pellaeon consulted the navigational data before him. It did not make for happy reading. "At the portal's current strength, sir…we'll pass through the event horizon in less than twelve minutes."

Thrawn actually smiled. "It appears, my feelings notwithstanding, that I may well get to experience time travel after all, Captain."

"Unless Vader and Skywalker can shut it down in time."

"We had better hope they can," Thrawn said grimly. "Short of their mission being a success, Captain, nothing else can stop us."

---------------------------------------------------------

With their trademark flawless synchronicity, the twelve X-Wings comprising Rogue Squadron dropped from hyperspace…and straight into the craziest scene Wedge Antilles had ever set eyes upon.

He shook it off. Their mission was the same, no matter what light shows were going on. "All right, Rogues," he said, determination giving a steel edge to his words, "this is it. You know the drill. Trench Run. Three ships to each run, rest of us providing cover."

The chorus of copy Rogue Leader came back loud and clear. Wedge and his wingmates swooped down toward that artificial surface even as turbolaser fire began to strafe up at them. His eyes narrowed.

"Let's take this bastard down," he said.