Reborn: A Dark Omen
Everyone was seated and secure in the cockpit of the ship when the Falcon departed from Docking Bay 94, and when the Corellian freighter left the atmosphere, it was met by an Imperial cruiser ready to take the ship down, as was ordered, and it began its attempts to do so by firing upon the ship. Patiently, Han awaited for the coordinates to be calculated on his navicomputer so that the ship could make the jump to lightspeed, a phenomenon the likes of which Gandalf and Luke had never seen before. This process took a little time however, and Han explained how it was done the best.
"You've gotta be precise when you map out your route, or you just might find yourself flying right into a star or a planet or anything of that sort. Trust me, it ain't easy. Luckily, when it comes to lightspeed, the Falcon is one of the best there is, just watch." The cruiser shot at the battered pirate ship, giving everyone except the pilots the feeling that they would be obliterated in seconds, while on the other hand, Han and Chewie attempted to maneuver the Falcon to the best of their ability out of the way of the blaster fire coming from the Imperial cruiser, though it was necessary to keep the ship as still as possible when jumping to hyperspace, which meant that the cruiser was able to successfully hit the Falcon a few times. At this point, Han's ship was losing its deflector shield and losing it fast, and just before the lone Imperial ship was able to strike the final blow on the shield, the lightspeed coordinates came online on the navicomputer's glowing interface. Of course, all of this technical lingo was all but unknown to Gandalf, who barely had any understanding of what was going on, since the technology of Middle-Earth was primitive compared to the machinery and scientific achievements that were prevalent in the galaxy.
"Punch it, Chewie!" Solo shouted as his Wookiee co-pilot quickly pulled back a lever on the starship's control board. It was then that the Falcon's hyperdrive roared to live in a glorious crescendo, while the ship's speed grew faster by the millisecond. The stars outside the ship grew to look like tiny, blue streaks in the void as the ship rocketed forward, blasting off into one of the convenient intergalactic highways known simply as hyperspace. The passengers aboard the ship bucked their head during this process, with Gandalf feeling like it was the most magnificent experience of his life, nearly. The hyperlane that the Corellian ship had just entered bore a strange-looking, blueish-purple hue, which was the standard for hyperspace. The crew and the passengers all exited the cockpit after Solo put the ship on auto-pilot, settling down from the adrenaline rush in the ship's lounge area situated in its center. There, Threepio and Artoo were residing during the escape from Tatooine, being just as stunned from the experience as the rest were. The crew and passengers went about the next few hours normally, with Artoo and Chewie playing a chess-like game Dejarik, Han checking the progress through hyperspace periodically, Obi-Wan talking to Luke and Gandalf about the Force, explaining more how it worked, and teaching the former a few useful lightsaber techniques with a blaster remote. The boy, however, was restless and too unfocused. He was missing all the shots he was supposed to deflect.
"Looks like that thing ain't workin' so good for you huh, kid?" the smuggler laughed with rhetoric in his voice. Luke, a little annoyed, looked over to Han with a grimace, which made him laugh even harder. Han wasn't always crude, but he was when he wanted to be. In fact, he was just about anything when he wanted to be, and not exactly in a free-spirited way, but more along the lines of a lone-wanderer way. He cared about nothing but money, himself, the Falcon, and Chewie. The Wookiee was his only family, and if anybody ever hurt that towering hairy brute, they would most definitely witness the full wrath of the scoundrel known as Han Solo. He was sort of an underground celebrity, really, and so was his ship, which made it even stranger that none of the passengers had ever heard about him. Celebrity or not, Solo almost always put himself on a pedestal, an action that reflected upon his demeanor.
"Well why don't you give it a try then, if you're so observant," Skywalker retorted, sending Han into a more criticizing nature.
"Not a chance. Those things are nothing compared to a good blaster," the scoundrel remarked, which gave Obi-Wan an annoyed look.
"Oh, please, those guns are all but uncivilized hindrances," the old Jedi said. "I can tell you this, a lightsaber has saved my skin more times than a blaster ever has. Luke, when you deflect the blaster fire, try not to use your eyes. They can deceive you. Use that blast shield, over there."
Kenobi pointed over to a red-and-white helmet setting on a counter-top in a corner of the room, and Luke obeyed him, grabbing the blast shield reluctantly. Obi-Wan, on the other hand, leaned over to Gandalf, who was seated next to him.
"After Luke, I think it might be best to have you try," said the old man. This startled Gandalf a bit, as he was surely too old for that kind of exercise.
"You want me?" Gandalf laughed as he pointed to himself, while Old Ben nodded. "I can't possibly –"
"Gandalf, I still carry one with me. If I can use one, you can. Come on, let's show the younger ones how it's done," Obi-Wan jokingly interrupted, hoping that the old wizard beside him would play along for a laugh, which he did. After Luke was able to deflect the blaster fire on Kenobi's terms with his new saber, Gandalf decided to give it a try with Obi-Wan's lightsaber, which he happily lent to the wizard, who grabbed the long handle with his dominant right hand and moved over to the center of the room.
"I'll just… pretend that it's Glamdring," the wizard mentioned as Luke and Old Ben looked on with confusion, but paid it no mind. Gandalf remembered that old sword, which reminded him of when he took down Durin's Bane, the great Balrog that had pulled him down through the depths of Moria. Deflecting the blaster fire was a whole other animal, however, because Gandalf had to be quick and agile, something that might be hard for an old soul such as him, but the wizard remembered something: he was a Maiar, an unending spirit that worked beyond the physical form. Whether this gave him strength in thus reality or not, he had to try to tap into thus power. Obviously, this gave Gandalf a stronger hold on the Force, which could be used to his advantage. Luke looked over to the wizard with the blast shield helmet in hand, motioning for Gandalf to possibly take it.
"Do you need the blast shield?" the boy asked, though Gandalf shook his head in the negative manner, wanting to do this deed by himself. He grasped the handle with his off-hand, viewing the spherical blaster remote that floated mid-air before him. As the wizard pressed the button that started up the lightsaber, the cobalt-blue blade protruded from the silver-and-yellow, metallic handle, jolting the weapon to life. The hum coming from the saber gave the environment a sense of power, focusing the wizard on the field of vision alone in front of him.
"Trust your senses, Olórin," a voice in Gandalf's head instructed. 'And trust in the Force."
As the voice said this, Gandalf had closed his eyes and took a calm, deep inhale, releasing any stray thoughts that would otherwise distract him.
"The Force..." he whispered. When he opened his eyes, Gandalf was greeted by three distinct pew-sounds, which were the standard sounds of a blaster. At the same time, three red blaster bolts were fired from the floating metal ball. It was then that Gandalf had to act. One went to his left, the other to his right, and the third towards the bottom of his body. With three swift strokes, Gandalf moved the lightsaber to those positions, deflecting each bolt of blaster fire with precision and grace. Suddenly, two more emerged quickly from the remote, one headed for the wizard's head, and the other aimed at his right shoulder, but yet again, Gandalf beat the ball at its own game. Finally, a single blaster bolt was fired upon the old wizard's stomach, but just as soon as it was fired, Gandalf positioned the blue lightsaber in a horizontal manner parallel to his torso, thus deflecting the final bolt from the blaster remote. Obi-Wan, with a sheer expression of honest shock-and-awe, stood up to confront Gandalf the White.
"Gandalf… how did you do that?" whispered the Jedi.
"I just accomplished what you've been instructing Luke to do," he admitted as he looked over to where Luke was. "Trust in the Force. You've done well so far, but there's still much for you to learn, just as Obi-Wan says."
Luke hanged his head in agreement, which was noble and wise to do. Luke hadn't known Gandalf for that long, but he did recognize that the wizard had been through a lot, and held a great amount of wisdom, however unorthodox the surroundings were to him at that point. Young Skywalker, like Kenobi, was perplexed to see Gandalf carry out the act of deflecting the blaster bolts so gracefully and clean. Even Han had something to be a wide-eyed about for a moment, but then passed it off almost immediately.
"I know, I know, it's just that I've been on edge a little, lately. What with my aunt and uncle, and my–"
"That shouldn't interrupt the potential that's within you, though," Obi-Wan said before the boy could finish. "You need to train yourself to let go, and don't think I'm not sympathizing with you Luke, because I am. When I was younger, I fell in love with a girl named Satine. She was the Duchess of Mandalore, now have you heard of Mandalore before?"
"Y-yes, I have," the boy answered.
"Good, then you most likely know how strong the culture is, there. Now, I knew Satine since I was around your age, at a time when I was instructed to protect her, and when I fell in love with her, she returned the feeling. Luke, I loved her so much that I told her I would leave the Order for her. She was truly the light of my life, but she was taken from me... killed by an enemy of mine in the Clone Wars. She died in my arms, and your father was there for me when it happened. Trust me, Luke, when I say that he and one other have caused me more pain in my life than you will ever experience in yours. They've taken my lover, taken my master, and most of all, taken my friend. I don't mean these things as a misjudgment of your case, Luke, for I'm very sorry for your loss. I mean them as a lesson, and as the truth."
"Wh… what happened to him, the man who killed her? Is he still out there?" Luke responded, trying not to tear up. Obi-Wan, reluctant to answer initially, gave the boy the best response he could.
"No, he… died. I killed him when I was trying to protect someone… someone I love," the old man said as Gandalf laid a hand on his shoulder.
"I can sympathize, as well. I've lost many friends over the course of my life, and they would not want their absence to cause hindrances for us today."
"Yes, we have to move on, son. Let the Force hold no bars, reach out to it with all of your concentration, and it will guide you to great lengths," explained the old Jedi.
"Oh, Karabast! All that sword-garbage was just luck, for the both of you. If you think that it's that mystical mumbo-jumbo that fueled your success, you've gotta be kidding yourself," Han said as he ate an exotic fruit while relaxing his feet on the navicomputer's dashboard. Luke gave him a look of great disagreement, not understanding the way the smuggler's mind worked.
"Why don't you believe in it?" the boy asked with a naïve tone.
"Because I don't need to, kid!" Han scowled. "Besides, I've never seen anything to convince me that it's real, and even if it is, what's something like that gonna do for me, anyways? As you can see, me and Chewie have pretty much got it made, here. I've said it a thousand times to just about everyone who's tried to lecture me about it before, and I'll say it again: your hokey religions and your ancient weapons are nothing compared to a good blaster at your side."
As Han pointed out his skepticism, Obi-Wan gave a distressed, yet saddened look, sitting himself back down. Gandalf and Luke both looked at him like something was wrong, and rushed to his side as soon as he sat down.
"Ben, what's wrong?" Luke asked in emergency. Gandalf looked at Han, who was finishing off his fruit, with a scorn and the back to Obi-Wan with speculation.
"It surely wasn't –"
"No, no it wasn't him," the old man interrupted, deep in thought. "I've just felt a… a rift in the Force. Something terrible has happened. It felt as if… as if a thousand souls were screaming out all at once, and then were suddenly silenced."
Gandalf too, felt a cold chill down his spine, as if someone had performed a terrible attack. He felt this same way when Osgiliath and Dale had been destroyed, and when the dragon Smaug swooped down on the people of Lake-town, destroying the city, except this felt as if it were on a much grander scale.
"I sense it, as well. Lives have been lost on this day, I can feel it," proclaimed Gandalf, while Solo got up from his relaxed position and walked towards the cockpit.
"Hopeless," he said as he threw the freshly-eaten fruit in a trash bin just outside the door. He shouted out to the passengers and co-pilot to return to the cockpit. "Come on, you bunch of moof-milkers, we're approaching Alderaan!"
At the scoundrel's orders, everyone except the two droids filed back into the cockpit of the Falcon, taking their seats. As the starship left hyperspace, the view outside of the cockpit windows was near-completely black, with the spots of distant stars glittering the darkness, making Solo a little uneasy.
"Well, that's not good. Chewie, check the coordinates. I wanna make sure we're in the right place," as he said this, the Wookiee pulled up some travel data on the screen in front of him, growling with some apparent information to his captain. "Definitely not good."
"What's not good?" asked Skywalker immediately. "Where's Alderaan?"
"That's the problem, kid, there isn't an 'Alderaan'," explained the pilot as the ship passed by a large asteroid field, to Luke's confusion. "At least, not anymore. It's been completely blown to bits."
"Wait, what? How, they'd have to have a whole fleet to do that," responded the confused Luke. "And even if they came, they'd have to –"
"Wait, wait… incoming Imperial TIE Fighter from the rear. Track it, Chewie. Let's see where it's goin'," Han ordered as the H-shaped fighter ship flew above and passed them. This shipped looked strange to Gandalf, as most things had, at this point. Luke pointed out something in the distance, something that might help figure out where the Imperial ship was headed.
"Look, I think it's heading towards that small moon out there, can you see it?" Luke directed to Han as he pointed, and just as he had witnessed, a small grey sphere began to loom in the distance, looking larger as the Falcon continued to move closer to it. Obi-Wan looked on with a knowing expression, realizing what it was that awaited them as they followed the TIE Fighter.
"That's no moon," he said, looking forward, grimly. "It's a space station."