Dust kicked up as she stepped out into the bright sun, the winds causing street merchants to grab for the tarps shielding a few goods from the tiny grains determined to lodge their way in. Leia hadn't known exactly what to expect from the Imperial-occupied city that was exporting crystals that had once been used to power Jedi lightsabers, but now that she was there, she could practically feel the beaten down and desperate spirit of the people. Just like so many others across the galaxy that suffered under Palpatine's reign.
"… once considered a sacred city for a variety of different religions spanning back to the High Republic and perhaps —"
"Fascinating," Solo grumbled, effectively cutting C-3PO's history lesson short as he and her family's protocol droid followed Leia and Luke out into the surprisingly chilly open air. Chewbacca had remained on the ship, opting to stay out of the Imperials' line of sight so that they didn't risk closer scrutiny on a rarely-free Wookie roaming about. Luke had encouraged Threepio to stay as well, but that particular wish had been lost to another sharp squabble between the two men on if Solo would be leaving during their search. He'd lost that one, and while Leia hadn't approved of the Sith's son's methods, she had agreed with the reasoning. All intention was to get in, snoop around, and leave again undetected, but if they found themselves in any other scenario outside of the best of them, they would need a quick exit.
Leia turned to Luke who stood in earth tones rather than his usual blacks, blue eyes scanning from beneath his hood that shadowed his face.
"Remind me why you needed to come along?" Solo snapped at something Threepio said, but it was Luke that cut in.
"We'll take the long way around to the old temple's entrance. The majority of the mining is happening in the northern sector, so we'll aim for the southern entrance to avoid as many prying eyes as we can."
"And stormtroopers," Leia said quietly.
"That too."
"If I may," Threepio interjected, "according to my archives the temple was destroyed two standard years ago."
Solo balked at that. "You couldn't have said that before?"
"It's fine," Luke answered, waving the worry off. "We're here to see the site. The temple doesn't matter."
There was something in his tone that caught Leia's attention. He was lying. Why or about what exactly, she wasn't sure, but he was lying.
He rocked forward, starting into the crowd, and she joined him, not letting him take a full lead of their little band as he was likely accustomed to doing. "These people think it mattered," she said quietly. "The pilgrims that used to travel here for a central location of their faith likely think it matters too."
"Most of them are dead," Luke ground out, his voice tight and controlled. "You may be here to get a feel for the people, but I need to understand exactly what we're up against. The temple doesn't matter to me. Only stopping the flow of crystals out of the ruins."
His pace quickened and Leia's lips twitched down. He was still lying.
—-
There were planets under Imperial control and then there were Imperial-occupied planets. The difference could be seen in the number of troopers filling the cities and in the very visible Star Destroyers that hovered close enough to the surface at times to kick up windstorms below. If a planet were to be occupied, the goal wasn't loyalty. No, it was well past that point. The goal was subjugated.
Jedha was an occupied planet in every sense of the word. Jedha City was a step further. It was strange. Just a year before, Luke was sure he would have had an excuse for the violent reaction in the streets and the beaten down spirit of the people. Peace came at a cost, after all, and a firm hand secured peace for the ages. Now, though, he kept his thoughts carefully tucked away as they wound their way through markets filled with beggars and desperate people of every kind. Strangely enough, he had to fight the urge to do something seeing a stormtrooper extract a tax - legitimate or not - from a trembling old woman with a basket full of hardened fruit. All interfering would cause the woman was more heartache.
And then another variable was added. A boy. He was small but nimble, and he moved with accurate speed as he slipped passed the trooper and plucked the payment directly from his gloved hand with no subtlety to cover his tracks. He picked up speed, the white clad stormtrooper followed with a shout, and Luke firmly and deliberately planted his feet, fighting the strange sensation that was only growing.
Leia did not.
"Princess—!" her protocol droid squeaked, his voice half cut off as if he remembered the word of the day was discretion.
Luke and Solo were already on her heels though as she darted after the child being pursued by stormtroopers and rounded into an alley after them.
"Blast it," Solo swore softly at the scene. The kid hadn't quite made it to the small hole in the wall that he would have been small enough to scoot through. Instead one of the stormtroopers had caught hold of him, hauling him back roughly by his dirty hair. The stolen credits lay scattered on the alley floor.
Leia stalked right past the trooper bent over for the fallen money with purpose and authority that she didn't actually have there. "Let him go!"
The trooper turned what was likely a startled expression hidden behind his mask, but it was quickly boiling over into irritation. "Move along, Lady. This doesn't concern you."
The Alderaanian princess stood firm and Luke glanced at Solo. "Stay here," he ordered softly, and though a flicker of confusion followed him the smuggler did as instructed as he started into the alley.
"He's a child," Leia countered, motioning to the boy that was still squirming despite the hold the stormtrooper had on his dark hair. "Clearly hungry and desperate. You have your credits. There's no reason to —"
Luke was steps away as the second trooper came up behind her, taking her roughly by her arm. "Looks like a co-conspirator," he offered and his partner nodded. "You'll both face the Emperor's justice."
Leia fought and Luke pulled in a steadying breath, the Force flowing through him and back out to touch the bullish minds beneath the helmets and both fell silent and still, as if frozen in place. "Release them."
Gloved hands dropped immediately, the boy tumbling to the ground in surprise. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Luke registered that he made it to his feet and was scurrying off, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. Not without releasing his hold on the two real threats. So he held on, coming to stand in front of them and speaking firmly with the smallest wave of his hand. "The boy escaped, but you recovered the credits. He wasn't worth chasing. You saw no one else."
"No one else," they agreed sluggishly.
"Go."
And like the good little soldiers they were, the two stormtroopers turned, passing by a gaping Solo like he wasn't there at all.
"What the hell was that?" he demanded, but Luke turned on Leia, and the rage must have made it through his calm mask if her expression was anything to go by.
"You wanted me here to get you through the protocols. That —" he motioned to where the boy had run — "could have gotten us all killed or worse, discovered. Do you know what the Empire does to defectors?"
Her expression hardened and she squared her shoulders, unwilling to back down. "Did you see what the Empire was doing to that child? I couldn't just —"
"Yes you could. You chose not to," he said tightly. "You need to learn, Senator, you can't save everyone. Sometimes to reach a goal you have to make difficult decisions."
"Like striking down a youngling's guardian?" she snapped back.
The blow struck harder than he expected it to and he hardened his expression.
"I hate to break this up, but shouldn't we get moving?" Solo called from the side.
Luke nodded and turned, feeling Leia's stubborn irritation join them as a fifth companion as they moved back into the crowd.
—-
Han had seen his share of oddities in the galaxy. Cultures and faiths and old stories whispered across planets. But every time, they were just that: stories. They might be told to children to instill a set of values or to a dying being that was desperate for a scrap of hope, but they were never true. Even those that claimed to hold powers eventually showed themselves simply to be talented at a slight of hand. It was never real.
The old Jedi religion about an all-powerful Force that governed the galaxy wasn't any different. Or at least he thought it wasn't until the day a kid that stood a good head shorter than him had hauled him off his feet by his throat without ever laying a hand on him. He'd been trying to piece together since that day just how he'd done it, and Han had almost convinced himself that it had been some kind of incredibly clever trick until he'd watched what must have been what the Princess had referred to as a Sith Mind Trick. The kid had bent those stormtroopers' wills in the direction of the exit they hadn't been at all interested in. If Han were honest, he'd probably saved their lives. A shootout wouldn't have been pretty when all their white-clad buddies had come running to find them cornered in an alleyway.
Han wasn't ready to admit he believed in the Force, but he thought he'd inched a little further from blatant disbelief.
They were halfway through the city - avoiding the kid and the Princess' private feud as best he could - when he saw the boy that had them to thank for not being in an Imperial holding cell for the stunt he'd pulled. All dark hair and large, brown eyes, his clothes were tattered and his feet were bare. Han remembered those days.
The boy was watching them, only briefly caught in Han's line of vision, but he knew how this worked. Small and agile, he was ducking into places that kept him out of their line of sight, but they were in his. Why was the question. Typically even a child knew better than to turn over his saviors, but maybe that had just been on Corellia. Han had no idea what loyalty looked like on Jedha.
Without warning, Luke slammed to a stop. Han couldn't see his expression from under the hood that shadowed his face, but Threepio did call out for Leia - a handful of steps ahead - to stop. She whirled, ready to lay into someone for something, but her burning irritation lowered to a simmer when her dark gaze fell on the kid. Despite whatever had been stirred up by Luke's response to her actions, there was something there that caused her to pause. "What?"
The head beneath the cloak tilted a little. "Not sure yet."
"Anything to do with the kid you saved?" Han asked, nodding towards the edge of the crowd where he saw a flash of the boy's dirty tunic as he ducked out of sight.
Luke's back straightened and his shoulders squared at that, but the boy was gone.
Instead, a voice from Han's back sounded in his ear. "Do you wish to have a glimpse into your future?"
The smuggler spun, cursing as he did, and nearly tumbled into the Princess' protocol droid. Leia startled a litte, but Luke remained still, his sharp eyes fixed on the pale ones of a man with dark hair and a walking stick. The man offered him a friendly smile, though his gaze was fixed unseeingly past the kid who was studying him closely.
"Or, perhaps, you see your own," the blind man said and Luke tensed just a little. His head tilted again as he studied the newcomer intently.
Well, whatever powers the kid might or might not have, he'd been taken on this one. Han snorted. "Good try, pal. I clocked your pint sized friend that's feeding you information in the crowd. You're not fooling anyone."
It was like he hadn't said a damned thing. The charlatan took a step closer to Luke and he pursed his lips. "Someone called you here."
And just like that, the spell broke. Curiosity was replaced with that same cold expression Han was quickly getting used to. "You know nothing."
"I know only what the Force reveals to me," the dark haired man said, unworried by the change in stance.
Leia perked up at that. "You're a Jedi?"
"Much more likely a Guardian of the Whills," Threepio piped up. "An ancient order that was tasked with protecting the temple and those that traveled to it."
"There are still those that seek the old ways," their newcomer answered. "Those that seek the will of the Force."
"Chirrut!" a voice called out and Han's gaze darted towards it. Where their visitor was small in stature and pleasantly unimposing, the other that had called his name was a bulk of a man with wild hair and dressed in partial armor. A monk and a warrior. Great. Just what they needed.
The monk waved his companion over and somehow Luke managed to look even more irritated at that. His jaw dropped a bit like he was ready to give an order, but the princess stepped forward.
"I understand your temple was destroyed," she said softly, her tone holding more empathy than Han would have immediately attributed to a royal. Funny thing, he didn't think she was faking it either. He prided himself on being able to spot a tell, and the spitfire seemed genuinely saddened.
"Much of it was," the monk - Chirrut - answered as his friend came to loom protectively at his side. "Not all of it though. Not for those that are meant to enter."
"For a price, though," Han groused, drawing the bodyguard's attention. His frown was pronounced.
"Let's go."
"Baze here used to listen to the Force too," Chirrut said, "but claims he can no longer hear it." He shot his friend a knowing look and received a glare that the other had to know he couldn't see. He turned his pale gaze somewhere between Leia and Luke. "Only because he stopped listening."
There was something strange in the princess' expression. "Will you show us?"
"Leia," Luke snapped at the same time Han managed a small sound of protest.
Even the droid chimed in. "Prin— Mistress, I must protest! The odds that these two are charlatans looking for a way to exploit you are —"
"They're not," she cut him off with more confidence than she likely had a right to have. She turned to Luke, some sort of strange, silent conversation seeming to happen between them. One that he did not look like he wanted to give to. "You know I'm right," she pressed. "I may not be like you, I know people. I'm not wrong here."
With that, the kid's shoulders slumped, and Han knew that once Luke gave to her, it wasn't like any of the rest of them had a snowball's chance on Mustafar.
—
Senator Organa was a clever woman. The adopted - and only - daughter of Bail and Breha Organa, she was royalty on her mother's side, but had decided to follow in her father's political footsteps that were often borderline treasonous. The ISB had watched Bail Organa for years, but had never found the kind of evidence damning enough to go after him. The man was beloved both on and off his home planet, as was his daughter. Mara would need to approach this with care to ensure it did not come back on the Emperor.
The young princess traveled more than most of her colleagues in the Senate, at least according to the records. Most of that travel took place between her home planet of Alderaan and Coruscant on a CR90 corvette that was filed under the Organa royal family's ownership with the occasional trip that was always marked as humanitarian aid in the flight logs. Notes from her father's time in the Senate had shown a similar pattern, and while it was possible that a family full of royals and diplomats cared deeply for the suffering of others that would never have an affect one way or the other on the power they retained, Mara doubted it. There was usually more in her experience, and it usually came down to personal gain at the expense of the Empire.
The CR90 corvette was missing from the docking bay, as was a small transport ship also owned by the Alderaanian royal family. Both had submitted travel logs that put them in route to their homeworld rather suddenly. That had been two and a half standard days prior, giving them more than enough time to reach their destination. Though the Alderaanian logs declared both ships' arrival, a trustworthy contact Mara had on planet could find no sight of the smaller transport. If it had landed, it had left immediately after.
Confirming if the princess had been the one that took the transport was near to impossible without going to Alderaan herself. She simply didn't have enough eyes and ears there to provide that kind of high confidence intel, but if she searched out the transport and it was the distraction, she would waste valuable time in the other direction. That was the job, though, and her hunches were often right.
Mara reached forward, keying in a comm code and the transport details. Unless the princess knew how to scramble her signal, the port she'd actually landed in should have some record of her arrival.
With the time it took for her contact to get back to her, she thought maybe she'd underestimated Organa. The transport had finally turned up on a planet that they didn't have nearly as heavy a presence on. There was no reason to. Jakku was a dust ball that had never proven useful or problematic to the Empire. Perhaps it was time to take a closer look if the Senator had taken interest in it.
There were no sources she could pull from on the planet, so it looked like she would be making a trip there herself to see exactly what was so interesting on Jakku.
—-
He didn't like it. This Guardian Chirrut and his companion Baze were impossible to get a good read on from his vantage. The blind monk was cheerful and played well at being open while simultaneously tucking every real thought and feeling behind a carefully constructed wall. Luke would have required brute force of a manner that typically only the Inquisitors used to get through to those thoughts. His friend didn't bother with the façade, content to glare every chance he had. It didn't matter if one hid and one didn't though. The results were the same: he would give too much of himself away if he were to force the situation. Which meant he had to wait. And be patient. The Force had led him here, he had to trust it to continue that path forward, no matter how much he preferred to do otherwise.
"You're really good with this?" Solo asked from his side as they followed the two Guardians.
"I don't like it," he admitted softly, "but I trust Leia."
"Aren't you supposed to be the one with all the —" his hands danced in a theatrical manner that Luke could only assume was supposed to represent the Force. He quirked an eyebrow and Solo frowned. "You know what I mean."
"Do I?"
Solo snorted at that and Luke's lips twitched up ever so slightly at the corners. The smuggler's eyes narrowed and his lips parted as if he were ready to go off on a grumbling fit when suddenly he seemed to clue in that Luke was toying with him. He weighed that for a fraction of a moment before snorting a laugh.
"No, he's not a Jedi," Leia's voice broke through from a few paces ahead where she walked with Chirrut, his friend Baze on the other side of him, and Threepio just behind her. Luke took a few extra steps to catch up as casually as he could manage.
"Not everyone the Force speaks to is a Jedi," Chirrut answered her. "There are many that still hear it."
Baze huffed, his head on a swivel and his guard up. "Exactly what do you hope to find at the temple ruins?" If the question was directed at Leia or any of the others - or perhaps whoever decided to answer first - it was impossible to say, but it was his own friend's voice that chimed back in.
"They will find what they are meant to find."
"Real sure of that, aren'tcha?" Solo asked, but if Chirrut answered, Luke didn't hear him. In fact, the buzz of the crowds had faded to the back of his mind, moved aside by a stronger hum that reminded him vaguely of a lightsaber on low power. It reverberated through the ground and up through the soles of his boots. He could feel it in his chest and down into his fingers. It left him feeling like he was floating. Untethered either by gravity or anything else. He was simply drifting towards —
A large hang on his shoulder snapped him out of it and Luke moved on instinct, the Force leaping to his command and slamming into the mountainous Baze, but thankfully not hard enough to cause a stir. He hadn't realized his eyes had been closed, but as they snapped open and their surroundings came crashing back into focus, he saw the stormtroopers moving around them. They weren't paying them any mind yet, but if he'd kept moving in the direction his feet had wanted to go, he would have gotten a fair amount of attention. Just past a glaring Baze was a cordoned off entrance to what Luke thought might have once been the temple. Now, it was more of a mining shaft at the edge of the city.
"This way," Chirrut murmured, shuffling his way down a side street, seemingly further away from what must have been an excavation site for the Kyber crystals. Even though they moved in the opposite direction, Luke could still feel the reverberations under his feet.
No one spoke as they made their way to the city's edge and passed through a crack in the wall. The desert winds kicked up around them and Luke pulled his cloak closer to his face. A quick glance placed his companions and verified that they were not only there, but they hadn't been led into a trap.
"Where are you taking them?" Baze grumbled, the winds catching it so that it was difficult to hear.
Chirrut didn't miss a step. "Where they need to go."
"I don't like this," Solo grumbled almost directly into Luke's ear. "No telling who they have out here. A brown cloak and a few minutes laying flat and you could get a jump on someone easy enough."
"We're not going that far," Luke answered automatically, but he couldn't have told him anymore. All he knew was that he still felt it, and as they walked, the trembling beneath his boots grew stronger to the point that he was surprised no one else was reacting. Finally he stopped, dropping into a squat and tugged his gloves off to lay bare palms against the ground.
"What do you feel?" Chirrut called, the wind picking up around him.
Luke's fingers touched something hard. A rock… no. A slab. He began pushing sand aside to find the stone reverberating beneath his fingertips and, somewhere in the wind, he could have sworn he heard his name.
Eyes fluttering closed he pressed his palms flat again and stretched out with the Force. A flicker of warning was all he received as the ground cracked beneath them, splintering out and opening up to swallow them up into the darkness below.
TBC
Notes: This is one of those chapters (that has turned into an arc) that I've been looking forward to for a long time. It's definitely grown and expanded with the rest of the story, but it's also bringing things together nicely.
Just a heads up, I don't know how quickly the next chapter will be out. I have some family stuff about to take precedence. Hopefully I'll still have some time to write though!
Next Time: Mara follows Leia's trail while Luke and the others are presented with a difficult choice.