Chapter 69 - Detective Skywalker

Anakin turned, appraising the room again.

"What!" Lando stood, flabbergasted. He was shaking his head, and looking like he might puke. "No. No. No."

Anakin hadn't suspected this Lobot character of anything nefarious before. The man had a cool aura in the Force.

"Lobot doesn't have a thing against Han," Lando spoke again. "There's no reason why he would do this." He tried to type a message into his wrist communicator, and waited for a reply that didn't come. He was frustratingly starting to tap on the device when Anakin suggested another plan.

"Take me to his quarters," Anakin ordered.

Lando looked down and gulped. "L-Lobot doesn't really have quarters."

Luke and Leia both gave him dirty looks.

"I tried. He insisted it would be a waste of space, since he doesn't sleep. Lobot hasn't been himself since he had to stop fighting that implant. He's mostly computer now. But he wouldn't turn against Han."

"Where does he spend most of his time?" Anakin revised the question.

"Wait! Aren't we going to go after them?" Luke protested.

"Go after them where?" Obi-Wan calmly countered, and Luke deflated.

Anakin knew the best way to help their friend was to figure this mystery out. And the best place to gather clues is either your suspect's quarters, or his work space.

"Lobot works everywhere, but he spends most of his time in the Central Computer Hub." Lando got up and pointed with his finger. "It's this way."


Anakin followed Lando to a round building in the middle of the city. He waved at a security droid and the doors all opened for them, one after another.

"This is it." Lando waved at the last room they entered. "I know it isn't much, but like I said, Lobot is a man of few needs."

Anakin walked in and took in the motherboard in front of him. The space didn't have any personal effects, and there was no keyboard to access the computer in a normal way.

"Is this how he accesses the main computer?" Obi-Wan asked, referencing a neural interface helmet, attached by wires to one of the only sets of outlets.

Anakin right away ignored the device and looked at the built in screen, which featured computer coding, all in binary.

"Uh, no. Lobot's implants connect him to the computer constantly. I didn't even know we had one of those, to be honest."

"Get C3-PO in here," Anakin ordered. Luke stepped out of the room and returned a short while later with the golden protocol droid.

"Yes Master. What may I help you with?" said C3-PO.

Anakin pointed up at a section of the display. "The coding is changing. Do you see a pattern, or is it just me?"

"Oh, yes. The baseline codes are being rewritten. You either have a virus or a hacker. I'm glad R2-D2 isn't here. He would've connected to these computers without thinking, then who knows how he would've been affected."

Lando's eyes went wide. "Lobot. He mentioned something to me today about time missing on his chart, then he told me to ignore it. I thought it was strange, but I didn't think... Wait. Is this what is affecting Lobot? I know the man's mind is more computer than human, but could a hacker really be controlling him?"

"There's one way to find out." Anakin stepped closer to the neural interface. "Did his implants blend with the computer here fully?"

Obi-Wan looked back and forth between the two of them. 'What are you thinking,' he asked over their bond. The question was written all over his face as well.

"Yes. He said once he doesn't even have to be on Bespin. The computer here is still constantly feeding him information."

"Wait! You're not really going to…" Obi-Wan protested.

Anakin reached out and held the neural interface. "I need to see what's been affecting him. If it's a virus, I can learn it's coding. That way we can isolate it from out here. If it is a hacker, I may be able to seal him in one of the subroutines while I'm in there."

"And what if it attacks you?" Obi-Wan asked.

"I don't have computerized implants. They won't be able to affect me." Anakin said. 'Maybe lock me in a folder, or give my brain a powerful zap just for trying, but we won't mention that.'

Obi-Wan looked at him as if he could read those last thoughts. Anakin knew he couldn't. His shield's were up. After a moment Obi-Wan sighed and nodded. "Alright. You'll go in there. I'll have C3-PO continue to monitor the network, and I can communicate anything significant over the bond."

Anakin nodded, and began to attach the device to his head. Fortunately this was a newer model neural interface, and wouldn't require him to shave his head to use it. He gave Obi-Wan a thumbs up, and he pressed the button to activate it. Anakin's vision went white.


Anakin's head spun. His nerves tingled and all he could hear were clicks and whistles. Then, as his brain adapted to the signals the machine was sending, he found he was standing on a metal floor. Ahead of him was a path, along with two others to his left and right. Each path was to a different part of the computer, and each intersection had a hand panel on it to access whatever was within.

Anakin didn't know which way to go without any sort of reference, and he knew, if it was an intelligent hacker in the system, he didn't have long before they discovered his presence, so he picked left at random and ran to it's panel.

When he touched it a holo was projected in front of him. He found that at will, he could change that holo, making it wear another uniform or be another person altogether.

Anakin reached for his bond with his old master. 'Obi-Wan...'


Obi-Wan sat with Lando and Luke, watching Anakin do the foolhardy thing. 'Again! Why does he always find the difficult way of doing things? And why do I always agree? It does feel like the only way at times.'

Obi-Wan looked at Luke. The boy was nervously glancing back and forth between his father and the screen. "3-PO, can you see him? His consciousness should be in there somewhere."

The droid hadn't stopped looking at the screen of binary coding. "No, I haven't found him yet."

"Hmm," Luke sighed. "I'll help."

Obi-Wan knew his nephew couldn't interpret binary coding any faster than the droid programmed for such, but he also knew the boy needed something to do. His own memories of carelessly watching Qui-Gon get struck down, while he could do no more than sit and wait were troubling enough. Obi-Wan knew Anakin better than to believe him when he said there were no risks to this. 'Anakin, you better make it through this, or I'll…'

His thoughts were interrupted when Anakin spoke through their bond. "Obi-Wan…"

"Anakin. Anakin, what's happening? Are you well?" Obi-Wan interrupted.

"Master, I'm fine. I think I'm in personnel records, but there are no signs of anything amiss here. Ask 3-PO where the files are being altered, and if he can guide me there.'

"Yes," Obi-Wan cheered. "He's in there."

Lando looked up at him confused. "How did you…?"

"It's over our Bond." Obi-Wan explained.

"Jedi hocus pocus," Lando muttered.

"That's good. Did he say what he found?" Luke asked.

"He's in personnel records. He asks if you can guide him to the changing code."

"Oh, yes. Here he is." C3-PO said. "Let's see. The file being tampered with now is marked 'Unit 1 RAM.' Let's see, without immersing myself in this network, there is no way I can tell him how to get there."

"Can you plug into it? There are ports here." Luke suggested.

"I have a firewall that will protect my systems if this is a virus, but a skilled enough Hacker will be able to break through that. Until Master Anakin is able to confirm what this is, I don't feel comfortable exposing myself to an unsafe network."

"Oh come on. It's for Dad. If you get hacked I'll rewrite your coding myself," Luke begged.

"I think, if it's at all possible, I'd prefer your father to do that. I wouldn't want to end up singing show tunes again. But you have a point. Alright, for the Master." C3-PO stepped towards the panel.

"That was one time," Luke moaned.


Anakin stood there, tapping his fingers impatiently as he waited. Then suddenly a little yellow light appeared. It flew like a bug around him, then off to the side.

"C3-PO, Is that you?" Anakin asked.

The light buzzed. Then it flew around him again, and led off to the side.

"It is you. Alright, show me where to go?" Anakin took off running after the light as it flew quickly through the maze.

Anakin stopped when the light came to a rest on one of the dataports. If this was the real world, he would have been out of breath running so long. "Is this it?" he asked. "Where am I?"

C3-PO buzzed, but gave no other answer.

With nothing else to do, Anakin put his hand on the datapad, The world went dark around him as he was thrown into the file.


When Anakin opened his eyes, he looked around and seemed to be in a hangar. In Front of him a large Cargolift Vessel was being boarded by numerous sentients of different species. As he walked through them he noticed that no one turned to look at him or reacted to his presence. He wondered what was going on. A cargo ship wasn't ideal to transport passengers, but it wouldn't be the first time.

Anakin was about to wave his hand in front of a Thelothian to see if he'd respond, when he heard one of the passengers go, "Oof." He stumbled and fell over.

Instinctively, Anakin reached out to help him up, but his arm met only air. The man, and likely the whole hangar were holographic. Anakin smacked his head, 'Of course, you're in a computer.'

Near the entrance to the ship there was a man wearing an expensive leather coat and hat. He stood talking with what looked like his crewmen.

'A captain,' Anakin thought that might be where to find out what was going on.

Behind the captain a young boy, barely ten years old, sat and appeared bored of the whole thing. Anakin thought he might have been giving him eye contact for a second, but then he reached up to the captain and pointed to the fallen man that Anakin was still standing beside.

The captain motioned with his hands and two of the crewmen turned to walk towards Anakin. They grabbed the man off of the ground.

Anakin followed them to where the captain was standing. They made the man stand off to the side, where his back was to the hangar wall. The captain walked up and looked at him more closely. The man looked to the ground. Anakin knew this would not go well for the poor man, but he was unable to interfere. If this was a recording, he was only an observer.

The captain sauntered back to his men and one of them pulled a blaster from his belt and shot the man dead in the chest. It was all very sudden and even though Anakin saw it coming, he still stood there and gawked at the sight.

Anakin wasn't the only one reacting. Nearby the crowd of slaves being loaded into the ship trembled from the horror of one of their own dying. Yes, that part was becoming clear to Anakin as he watched. These were Slaves, and the crewmen surrounding them were Slavers, Poodoo who made a living kidnapping innocents and taking them to sell, either on the black market where slavery is illegal or a public auction house in places like Mos Eisley. There was a Youngling in the crowd of slaves who screamed. She was held back by a woman, another slave, with tears in her eyes.

To further prove what this was for him Anakin heard the captain turn to the boy and say, "It's for the best, now. That one would never survive the trip. He'd die, then we'd lose half the stock to whatever disease he's carrying."

The boy looked back with a sad, helpless look in his eye. For a second his eyes looked identical to the slaves who were being loaded again, like nothing had even happened.

What Anakin saw became black again. As the scene changed around him he remembered where he really was. 'These might be security footage, or some type of recorded history. It's just, I've never heard of Bespin being a part of the slave trade. So where are these holos coming from, and why are they here?'


Hello Everyone.

I know my story here isn't even remotely canon, but I do hope you'll enjoy it. It was fun to write. I don't think any hacker or computer virus has ever controlled a Cyborg to this extent in StarWars before, but in the world of Syfy, it is believable, at least to me.

In writing the inside of the computer, I was inspired by some of the Myst type computer games I used to play way back when. And I will explain more when I'm done, but I am combining canon and legends here. Mostly canon, but a few pieces of Legends were so tempting, I've been able to write them in.

I doubt any of you will be able to guess where I'm going with this yet, but if you think you can, go ahead and leave a note in the comments or reviews. I love to hear what you are thinking as you read. I am not completely sure how long this story line will take. This chapter didn't take me nearly as far as I thought it might. But in the next chapter you and Anakin might find out what's going on inside the computer, and where these strange files are coming from.