XII. A Slight Detour
"I don't feel safe anymore," said Padmé. The heavy concern in her face was starkly visible to an old man, but well-hidden from an arrogant young one.
Obi-Wan Kenobi smiled wryly. "That is a common reaction," he said, "to one assassination attempt after another."
The closer Ben came to the netherworld of the Force—and there was no denying its closeness, now—the more powerful he became in dream, and the more his visions obeyed the command of his spirit. Still trapped in his desert-blasted body, still fighting the ravages of the sickness that would claim him, there was little he could do in these dreams. His spirit was still chained to his body, and he could go only forward and backward to where he had been. Qui-Gon spoke of the immense freedom of the netherworld of the Force, of leaping and bounding through the threads of space and time like current through wires, like a ship of unparalleled speed racing through a hyperspace lane, surging past and beyond a thousand light-years of blackness in the space of an hour.
For now, he was content in these moments to follow the threads of his life, and to let the seas of dream renew him in spirit. Dark things had come to trouble him; but always in the Force there was an inexhaustible fountain of light. He stretched out toward his happy memories, let them heal the black rupture in his spirit that had broken open in the cantina.
"Through the Force," said Master Yoda to someone, "things you will see. Other places. The future…the past. Old friends long gone."
But were those words themselves the past? No—they were from the future, he sensed. A possible future, at least. That meant Yoda had survived, somehow. That brought him comfort, too.
Ben was an old man, but he was still young to the boundless tapestry of the Force. It was all so vast, even to a Jedi master. With calm, he centered himself on those words, let them shape his thoughts.
"Old friends long gone."
Across time and space, he pulled away from Yoda's voice, from the blurred image of a mysterious swamp world, teeming with life. He returned in an instant to the round blue room on Coruscant where he had frequently traveled in his recent meditations. He arrived disoriented, still reeling from the vastness of the Force, and heard her speak again.
"I don't feel safe anymore," said Padmé. Obi-Wan's dismissive smile brought her only a little ease and comfort. Ben was sick to see it.
"That is a common reaction," said young Obi-Wan, "to one assassination attempt after another. Your continued work seems to be having an effect, then. You've become quite popular with the wrong sort of crowd." His flippancy was off-putting. But Ben remembered his own arrogance, his false humility. He could not have known, as that young man, what it really meant to feel unsafe. He sympathized with her fears, he remembered. But a young master in the bloom of his strength did not feel her fragility, could never fully understand it.
He understood now, and it hurt him sorely.
"Obi…it's not the Separatists," she said. "It's…it's Anakin."
Even as a young man, that unsettled Obi-Wan.
"You're right to be concerned," he said. "He's very strong, but he's become reckless. Impatient."
"There's some darkness in him," she said.
"I haven't felt it," said Obi-Wan. Ben could see, now, the weight of Palpatine's strength upon him—upon all of the Jedi. Looking back with the eyes of a master, he could now perceive the fog drawn over his own senses. It was the same fog that had driven Dooku away. The fog that had laid the Jedi low.
"I haven't felt anything," said Padmé. "But I've… seen it with my own eyes. He's troubled."
"That he is," said Obi-Wan. "We have discussed this matter. I thought it as well to let it go, but…"
"Me?" asked Padmé. "I'm 'this matter'?"
Obi-Wan sat beside her. There was such gentleness in his voice. "As you well know," he said, "I'm in no position to lecture him. Not after…"
"That…wasn't your fault," said Padmé. A darker vision, a darker place, threatened to pull Ben's dream backward, to another world and another pain nearly as deep. He held to the light that was here, resisted it.
"I know that," said Obi-Wan. "Most days I believe it. But if I could teach Anakin one thing…there is such a thing as too much patience."
Ben bristled, now, at those words.
"He's so young," she said. "In many ways he's still a boy. Too much patience is not his problem, believe me."
Obi-Wan laughed, but his smile was sad. "It was my problem," he said.
Padmé crossed to the balcony. Even in the dark of night, the light-bloom of a thousand passing ships cast a constant, shimmering glow across the tiled floor where she walked.
"The Duchess," she said. "Did—did you love her?"
"Yes," said Ben in his mind.
"Yes," said Obi-Wan, too, without hesitation.
"How did you do it?" Padmé asked. There was sadness and fear in her voice. "What is love without attachment? When you care for someone that much—how do you let go?"
Obi-Wan thought back to his training, thought back the number of times Qui-Gon had broken with tradition—then the number of times he had broken with Qui-Gon in turn.
"People see the Jedi as warriors," he began, "but that is not what we are. It is only one point of view. We begin our training—"
"Every time you take him away on another mission," she interrupted, "I fear the worst. He's so young, Obi-Wan. I fear one day he'll just never come home. I don't want to be afraid anymore. How do you learn to let go, when you love someone so completely?"
Obi-Wan's smile was sad even then. But there was so much naïveté behind it. He laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. She was warm to the touch, even through the ages.
"The Force binds us all together," he said. "Every one of us. All who live, and all who have gone before us. You never 'lose' anything, when it comes down to it. In the end, Padmé, you can only smile in perfect serenity, and know that for a moment, you were here, in this form, and what you love most in all the Force came to your side. It became so manifest that for a moment, you could reach out and touch it. When that is gone—when even you are gone, as such—you have that for eternity. A memory preserved forever in light itself."
The tears welled in her wide brown eyes. It was still so hard for her. And soon, Ben knew, it was going to get harder.
"And beside all that," young Obi-Wan admitted with a sigh, "we never do let go. Not completely."
Padmé nodded. "Good," she said. "When I am gone…I should like you to remember me."
"On that account there is no danger," Obi-Wan said.
Don't say it.
"And besides…your troubles are many, but you need not worry about that."
Don't say it, you foolish boy.
"Anakin and I will always protect you. I promise."
WHOMP!
The Falcon slammed roughly against the artificial wall of an interdiction field, shuddering as the hyperspace tunnel around it tore itself apart and the ship collapsed back into realspace. Howling alarms were drowned out only by the howl of the Wookiee as Ben was jostled awake hard in his makeshift bunk.
Anakin and I will always protect you.
He was slow to come back. The pilot, Han, was already bounding down the corridor to the cockpit.
"I see them," he barked. "Rout everything we got to forward shields, but don't hit it till I tell you. I'll make the calculations for a second jump."
Ben lifted his body from the bed with some difficulty. From the cockpit, he heard Luke's astonishment.
"What's going on? How did they find us?" he asked.
"These are interdictors, kid," said the pilot. "Looks like some kind of blockade on the Corellian Run. I've never seen security like this so far out."
"GWARRRRRRFFF," said the Wookiee, just as Ben made his way down to the cockpit.
"There!" said Han, jabbing an anxious finger toward a display. "That's our window. Bring us right down to speed with the others, and strap in."
Ben looked out on the Imperial blockade, a backlog of freighter traffic and passenger liners all hauled out of their hyperspace journeys at great expense. Four Interdictor cruisers some distance off hung in eerie silence, their bulging grav projectors arranged to throw a vast net across a swath of common space.
"You really think you can bluff your way through an Imperial blockade?" asked Ben.
Han shot him a glare; but it was a fair question.
"My way through?" the smuggler said, jerking a thumb into his chest. "Absolutely. But the rest of you? Thanks to all the commotion around our little exit from Mos Eisley, they're going to be looking for us."
"And we're just lining up for a sensor scan?" Luke said, incredulous.
"The saving grace of Imperial bureaucracy," said Han. "Lineups. We've got the navicomputer working out a second jump, a slight detour off the beaten track. It's complicated to make the jump this close to their grav generators. We'll have to break and get clear. But they don't know hard we can kick."
"It won't matter if those interdictors lock on," said Ben.
"See that little spot of space between them?" Han said. "We're going through there. We'll make the jump on the far side."
"No way," Luke breathed. Even Ben's mouth drew tight.
"They can't lock onto us back there without letting their net down. If they're under orders to keep up that roadblock, they'll think twice before they shut it down to latch onto us."
Chewbacca barked something doubtful.
"I know it's probably for us," Han said. "They're not going to figure that out till they identify us."
A comms indicator lit up on the cockpit control panel and a voice crackled across the standard frequency.
"Commercial YT, light cargo," the voice said. "Please divert to tractor lane Besh for inspection."
"What was that?" Luke asked.
"They identified us," Han said with a laconic wave of his hand. "Everybody keep quiet. Uh, Negative, negative, Corellian Run blockade. This is not a commercial vessel."
"We know that," crackled the voice. "Divert to tractor lane Besh immediately."
"Chewie, get ready," Han said, sliding control of the freighter to the Wookiee as he stalled for time. "Uh, negative, blockade. Repeat, this is not a commercial flight. This is a smuggling vessel—"
"What are you doing?!" Luke blurted out. Han silenced him with a glare and a sharply raised finger.
"We know that," said the voice.
"This is a smuggling vessel out of, uh, looks like Mos Eisley," Han said, furiously punching information into the navicomputer. "We caught them on the edge of the Nelvaan system, trying to cross into Chommel sector. We're uh, bound for Imperial Impound in the Core. Top priority."
Chewbacca barked something skeptical. Han's eyes were wide with concern.
"Well, it might, if they're important enough." He glared at the old man and the boy crowding anxiously over his shoulder. "I'm starting to think they're important enough."
The radio was silent for a long, tense moment. The navicomputer let out a friendly beep as its jump lights clicked over to green.
"Amazing," said Luke. "I didn't think a nav could—"
The ship shuddered as a tractor beam took hold. One of the interdictors had moved out of formation and had locked on. Han's eyes darted across the sensors as he ran some calculations.
"YT light cargo," crackled the voice. "Please transmit your priority code now. You have thirty seconds to comply before we neutralize."
"Priority code," Han muttered. "Priority code. Damn. All right, Chewie, rout everything to the thrusters. Auxiliary power too."
"Grrahhhrarrr," the Wookiee warned.
"I know it means no shields," he said. "This is a capital ship. We need everything we got to break a tractor beam this strong."
"Rrrrowf," the Wookie barked, pointing.
Han leaned forward, counted the turbolaser batteries. "Yeah, well, let's hope they're a real bad shot. Buckle up, kid; it looks like we're doing this the hard—"
He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. He didn't like the way it calmed him. The old man leaned over to Han's ear.
"Tell them this impound was personally requested by Darth Vader over Tatooine," he said softly.
Han's eyes went wide. "You sure?"
"Gworf," Chewbacca said, twisting his head.
Ben nodded. "Tell them."
Han shook his head as if it were the wildest thing he had ever heard, then clicked the comms over just the same. "Look, uh, command? This impound was personally requested by Darth Vader. He, uh, he wants this ship immediately. He said so over Tatooine. Right this second." Han's nerves were buzzing. They'd never let him through now that the fear was slipping into his voice.
"YT, stand by," crackled the comms. In the pregnant silence, Han scoffed under his breath. "Aw, this is nuts," he spat.
Chewbacca barked a question at him.
"Just rumours, really," said Han. "Rogue Imperial. No home sector, no rank, no number. A ghost story told by the cartels, some kinda smuggler boogeyman. There's no way in hell they're going to—"
The tractor beam shut down. Han's stomach lurched in momentary weightlessness as the ship's little gravity generators fought to adjust.
"YT light cargo, priority impound," the voice came back. "Please proceed through the interdictor net to Priority Lane One and recalculate your jump. This blockade is a secret operation. Please disavow all knowledge of this blockade in the Core."
Han let out his breath. Chewbacca yipped happily.
"I don't believe it!" said Luke.
Han's blood ran cold as he looked to the satisfied old man, then back to the controls. "All right," he said. "Keep everything on sublight thrusters. I'm going to take us halfway in, then make a run for the jump point."
Chewbacca nodded and routed the power as directed. Han took the helm and wheeled the Falcon over and down towards the first coordinates of their very off-the-legal-grid new course.
"You've bought us one shot, old man," he breathed, knuckles white on the controls. "One shot."
Everyone in the cockpit was motionless as they sped towards, then past, then away from the Imperial priority lane towards the narrow space between the interdictors. The comms crackled once or twice hesitantly, as if the receiving officer were afraid now to question their unusual flight pattern.
"Steady," Han said, sailing towards the gap. He knew exactly when the proximity alarms would trigger; tired of being told how many things he was about to hit, he shut them up with an aftermarket kill switch as they buzzed within two or three dozen feet of the interdictor's command deck. Then he was through, but still holding his breath.
"Priority impound," the voice crackled at last. "You're now in forbidden space. Please stand by for—"
"All right, punch it!"
Chewie's massive paw, straddling both the hyperdrive and the auxiliary power controls, yanked back hard on both, and the cabin lights dimmed for a moment as the ship shuddered and lurched against the refocusing interdictor grid, tearing free of it an instant before it could fully lock on. Even in the stress of the moment, Han revelled in the eerie feeling of freedom as the little ship passed from common space into a tunnel of unspeakably bright energy. He felt the galaxy fall away behind him with exhilaration, felt the freedom and peace of passing into a place without suffering, without beings in pain, and savoured it the only way he knew how: as a simple man who liked going fast.
"This is point five, gentlemen," he said, swaggering away from the controls with a lopsided smirk. "Don't get used to it. We'll be on Alderaan before you know it."