Second chapter under the new coronavirus pandemic. Hope everyone is staying at home, washing hands and overall being sensible.
It's been tough gathering the motivation to write fanfiction chapters recently. I have this unhealthy obsession of obsessing over the comments I get on any new chapter I post, and I often think that when I don't get any new comments, it somehow means no one is interested in what I'm writing. Despite the fact people still favorite and follow this fanfic regularly, it's easy for me to get caught up in writing for other people before myself.
Don't worry I'm not whining for you to write more comments, just sharing what's going on in my head and why this chapter may have taken a while to come out.
Let's answer a comment:
-RKF22: Yep, me too! Hope their connection stays strong.
Without further ado, let's commence the chapter. If certain details differ from your personal knowledge of other types of Star Wars media, please understand this is all my interpretation. I don't expect you to agree with the changes I make, but please don't point them out to me in a snide or condescending way.
Anyway, enjoy!
Luke groaned in frustration as he took stock of his current situation. In short: he was stranded on an uninhabited planet with precious few resources, his only mode of transportation was half-sunk in a swamp, his astromech was gummed up with mud, and he was supposed to find someone whom he only knew the name was Yoda.
All told, this was not the worst situation Luke had been in. He'd be hard-pressed to find something that could compare to what he experienced on the Death Star or Hoth. Being stranded on Dagobah was more irritating than anything else.
As Luke lugged his supplies and equipment out of his X-Wing and on to dry land, he was intrigued by the strange aura that seemed to float over this planet. It felt like a pulsating power, which he was unable to determine the origin. There was definitely something unusual about Dagobah; perhaps even something dangerous...
Luke set down his long distant communicator and turned towards R2 who was looking quite worse for wear. He had done his best to wipe the mud off the little droid's ports and lenses. Hopefully, it would rain soon so that the rest of the crud washed away.
"I'm starting to feel a little faint here, you know," the little astromech beeped humorously.
"What? Oh, ready for some power?" Luke asked.
He switched on the portable generator and plugged the power cable into the droid's front socket. R2 beeped gratefully in response before falling silent as he let his batteries fill up.
"Now all I got to do is find this Yoda," Luke muttered, half to himself. "If he even exists."
He did not want to doubt the last order Obi-Wan had given him, but Luke could not imagine anyone being able to live in an environment like this one. Dagobah's air was thick with humidity and so cloudy the sun never made it past the upper atmosphere. So far, most of the wildlife he'd encountered was pretty harmless, aside from the swamp creature that nearly ate R2. He figured there were plenty more terrifying creatures just waiting for him to let his guard down.
Luke tried to set all those concerns aside and got out his field rations. He did not have much of an appetite at the moment but he needed to keep up his strength for when he started searching for Yoda.
"It's really a strange place to find a Jedi Master," Luke said to R2, as he gazed at the snaking vines and massive trees that seemed to be the planet's only vegetation.
"Maybe he likes the peace and quiet," R2 squeaked back sarcastically. "Or the mud baths? Or the fish?"
"Yeah, I know what you mean," Luke replied with a smirk. "This place gives me the creeps."
As he bit into his ration bar, he quickly realized his statement did not entirely ring true. Nothing he'd seen or sensed had made him in any way nervous. Luke was more intrigued by this strange energy that the entire planet seemed to be brimming with. It did not feel like the Light of the Dark; it was something else. But what?
"But still… there's something familiar about this place…"
"What is it?" R2 asked curiously.
"I don't know," Luke replied pensively. "I feel like…"
"Feel like what?"
Luke nearly jumped out of his seat in surprise. He quickly turned towards the voice behind him, drawing his blaster as he faced the speaker. As soon as he saw what had snuck up on him, his surprise quickly disappeared.
"Like we're being watched," Luke concluded.
The short, shriveled green creature recoiled behind it's walking stick, letting out a low whimper of fear.
"Away put your weapon. I mean you no harm," it pleaded in a low, raspy tone. "I am wondering, why are you here?"
Luke felt that commenting on the creature's phrasing was the least of his concerns at this point. He slowly put away his blaster, prompting the creature to reveal its face.
It was unlike anything he'd ever seen before. Its forehead was bonny and ridged, with wisps of whiter hair at the base of two large, pointy ears. Its hands and feet consisted of three claws, or large nails, Luke was not sure. It wore a torn and worn out looking cloak; its color had faded with age and was covered in grime.
However, what most caught Luke's attention was its eyes. They were green but seemed to possess swirls of gold in the irises. They possessed an inscrutable quality which Luke could not describe. They seemed to reflect profound wisdom and knowledge, only they belonged to a sentient swamp creature who appeared to have a few screws loose.
"I'm looking for someone," Luke finally answered.
"Looking?" it answered, its eyes widening with excitement. "Found someone you have I would say, hmmm?"
It let out a low chuckle as if it was exceedingly proud of its own joke. Luke could not help but smile. To think he'd actually been worried about this thing. He felt bad calling it a thing since it was clearly sentient, but its bizarre speech pattern and demeanor was hard to take seriously.
"Help you I can. Yes, hmmm." the little creature offered.
"I don't think so," Luke replied distractedly. "I'm looking for a great warrior."
Luke almost missed the imperceptible twitch in the creature's ears when he said that.
"Oooooh, great warrior?" it chuckled as it moved closer to Luke. "Wars not make one great."
As the creature moved closer to Luke, he was struck by how odd its Force presence felt. In fact, it could almost be described as a lack of presence, which was impossible. Every single lifeform had a Force signature, which varied depending on who or what they were. It could only disappear through training, or in death.
Luke was quite sure he was not speaking to a ghost, meaning this creature was disguising its Force presence, which made even less sense. How was this little green hermit able to do something that even Luke, a trained Jedi apprentice, was still learning to master?
"Something disturbing you, is there?" the little creature asked, snapping Luke out of his thoughts.
It was eying him with a searching gaze which made Luke pause before he quickly came up with his response.
"Nothing, I just… noticed you're very calm minded."
"Oh yes," it answered with a chuckle. "Much training it requires."
"Someone taught you?" Luke was intrigued.
"Yes, my friend: Yoda."
Luke could not believe what he was hearing. This little creature had met Yoda?
"You know him?"
"Hmmm, take you to him I will," it said with a knowing smile before releasing a shrill laugh. "Yes, yes. But now, we must eat. Come, come."
And without any more explanation, the creature took a small lamp out of Luke's bag and proceeded to waddle away from the camp, using it to light its path.
Luke watched it move away, unsure of what he was getting himself into. Though at this point, he did not have much of a choice.
"R2, stay and watch after the camp."
And Luke followed the mysterious creature deeper into the swamps of Dagobah.
"Can't you see what you're running towards?!" Chewbacca growled angrily to Han as he struggled to keep the Millennium Faulcon stable.
"I saw them! I saw them!" the smuggler snapped back, trying to set the coordinates for the jump to lightspeed with one hand while keeping an eye on the approaching enemy ships.
As far as they could tell, most other Rebel ships had managed to escape the sector, but the Empire seemed determined not to let the Faulcon go. That was the only explanation for sending three Star Destroyers after a single ship.
"I hope you're not planning to blast your way out of this," Leia said from behind Han's chair.
"I couldn't even if I wanted to, princess," he replied, raising the deflector shields. "But I can still outmaneuver them."
"Stop calling me prince— "
Leia could not finish her sentence as Han performed a last-minute nose dive, avoiding the incoming Star Destroyers which narrowly missed the one that had been tailing them. That took care of the larger ships, but the TIE Fighters were still on their tail.
"At least now we've got some breathing room," Han muttered. "Prepare to make the jump to lightspeed."
As Chewie and Leia wordlessly flipped the correct switches and levers, C3-PO entered the cockpit, having recharged his depleted power core. He was still missing his left arm, which he carried in his right hand as he teetered in.
"Sir, I feel I should tell you— "
"Not a good time, 3PO," Han shouted back, executing a sharps turn to throw off the TIE pilots. "Everyone strap in."
"But sir—" 3PO tried to protest but was cut off by a sudden jolt from incoming Imperial lasers.
"They're getting closer," Leia warned.
"Oh yeah? Watch this," Han replied cockily as he pulled down the lever to jump into lightspeed.
The alarming sputter of the engine and the absence of the blue swirls of a hyperspace tunnel, quickly told everyone that something was wrong.
"Still watching," Leia commented wryly.
"I think we're in trouble," Han said, almost as an afterthought.
"Good thing you killed yourself making all those repairs back on Hoth," Leia added, to which Chewie could not hold back a short snort of laughter.
Before Han could hit back with a satisfying quip, 3PO's frantic voice interrupted:
"Sir, if I may say so, I noticed earlier the hyperdrive motivator has been damaged! It's impossible to go to lightspeed."
"Yeah, we're in trouble…" Han cursed to himself.
Just as he was about to get out of his chair to try and fix the hyperdrive, Leia pulled him back by his sleeve and pointed to the fast-approaching obstacle ahead of them.
"Look! Asteroids."
As soon as she said that word, a crazy idea popped into Han's head. His instincts quickly took over as he settled back into the pilot's chair and took full control of the Faulcon's piloting system.
"Chewie set 2-7 to 1."
"You're going to go through an asteroid field?" Leia asked in disbelief.
"I imagine the Empire is wondering the same thing right about now," Han said as he accelerated towards the asteroid belt. "With any luck they'll come to their senses and stop following us."
Han was surprised not to hear a reply from Leia. He'd at least expected a chastising for his borderline-suicidal plan. As he glanced back to look at her, she quickly captured his lips in a tender kiss before pulling away.
"For luck," she said with a smile. "I'll go man the turret."
"There's no such thing as luck," Han called after here with a smirk.
"Wow, and I almost came close to believing you meant that," Leia shot back before disappearing up the ladder towards the upper turrets.
"Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately three thousand seven hundred and twenty to one!" C3-PO cried out in distress.
"Never tell me the odds!" Han snapped back as he concentrated on weaving through the more volatile chunks of floating rock.
After several minutes of close calls and borderline suicidal flying, the TIE Fighters that had followed them were eliminated; either because of the asteroid field, or thanks to Leia's precise aim on the turret.
"We're going to have to land," Han spoke, half to himself, half to Chewie. "Keep your eyes out for a good spot."
"Excuse me, sir," 3PO chimed in. "But where are we landing?"
"Wherever is big enough and out of sight," Han answered before spotting what he was looking for. "Over there. That looks good."
As they made their way into a tunnel that burrowed into a large asteroid, C3-PO could not contain his lament:
"Oh dear… I should never have back switched on."
Vader kneeled down as the floating hologram of Darth Sidious appeared before him.
"What is thy bidding, my master?" he asked.
"There is a great disturbance in the Force," Sidious spoke slowly.
"I have felt it."
"The young boy who destroyed the Death Star," the Emperor said contemptuously. "The offspring of Anakin Skywalker. He could destroy us."
"He is just a boy. Obi-Wan can no longer help him."
"Yes. Indeed," Sidious grinned maniacally from under the shadow of his hood. "I congratulate you on capturing him, Lord Vader. However, the Force is strong with young Skywalker. He must not become a Jedi."
"If he could be turned he would become a powerful ally," Vader said, keeping his tone even.
"Yes… He would be a great asset. Can it be done?"
"He will join us or die, master," Vader spoke without a shred of hesitation.
"Good," Sidious grinned sadistically. "We will use Kenobi to break the boy. Once you have captured his remaining friends, he will have no choice but to join us."
Everything hurt. Every muscle, bone and organ in his body throbbed from pain. It wasn't like anything he'd experienced before. Nothing was broken, or burnt, or cut, or torn…
Everything other than this pain was darkness. He could not see; he could not hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor touch. He felt stranded; blind. And when he reached out to the Force to help him see, the Force did not come to him.
Anyone else would have panicked, but this feeling was actually familiar to him. He had been here before: having a wall placed between him and the Force. He tried to search his memories to trace where he'd first had that sensation, though it seemed even his mind was slower to recollect. Every reaction in his body felt like it was reduced to a snail's crawl.
As he worked on tracing back this memory, his ears picked up the faintest of sounds near him. He could not tell how close it was or what had made the sound but his ears continued to pick up more and more noises, which his brain was slowly but surely able to process.
He could eventually determine with a fair amount of certainty that he was hearing footsteps. Though as soon as he realized this, the footsteps stopped and another sound replaced them. It was a long droning noise which he did his best to try to decode.
However, before he could, something grabbed him and all of a sudden, two slits of light flooded his vision and blinded him. He shut his eyes immediately, waiting for the swirling colors in his retina to settle.
Before he saw anything, he sensed it: the Force! He could feel it again! That was not saying much though. He could sense only the barest trace of it, but its very presence was comforting. With this added sense, he gained more clarity, his memories and senses slowly returning to him.
Once he'd managed to reconstruct who he was, what had happened to him and where he was likely to be, Obi-Wan finally opened his eyes.
He felt a strange sort of pride at having been able to guess where he was without having been able to see or sense his surroundings. The ray shield that separated him from his interlocutor did not leave much room for doubt.
He could not yet focus his eyes on the person in front of him, so instead the old Jedi decided to first take stock of what was closest to him. He was seated in a chair. He could feel his arm was restrained at his side. Though even if his arm had been free, his cell did not seem wide enough for him to extend it fully.
While his eyes had adjusted to the sudden influx of light, for some reason Obi-Wan was still unable to focus on the person in front of him. He had to squint to make out the red-haired woman in front of him.
This time when she spoke, Obi-Wan was able to understand her.
"So this is the infamous Obi-Wan Kenobi," Mara said derisively. "You've made quite an impression. The entire ship is talking about you."
Ordinarily, Obi-Wan would reply with a clever quip or search her emotions to find something he could exploit. However, he lacked the energy for either option. While he was no longer cut off from the Force, his current connection was nowhere near enough to sense someone's else's feelings.
Obi-Wan tried to open his mouth to speak, only to realize it was covered in some sort of material that muffled his voice. His mind was also slowly remembering how to properly enunciate words, in order to not sound completely incomprehensible.
Once he felt he could properly answer, Obi-Wan gave it another try:
"That is very nice to hear."
His pacing was much slower than his usual speech pattern. His tone was also noticeably hoarser. While Obi-Wan tried to concentrate on what his normal speech sounded like, the woman watched him struggle with an amused smile.
"Struggling to remember everything, are we?" she taunted. "You must be wondering just what in the world is happening to you."
Obi-Wan now felt confident enough to start speaking more directly.
"A Sith torture mask, I believe," he replied evenly. "Imbued with dark side energy, preventing me from calling upon the Force."
Obi-Wan did not miss the quick flash of anger on the young woman's face at his knowledge of the device. He could only imagine she had been planning a dramatic reveal of his predicament.
"Have you heard of it?" she asked.
"More than that, I was subjected to it," Obi-Wan replied, recollecting that distant memory. "I believe it was… yes, twenty-five years ago. We had suffered a great defeat on Jabiim. I was captured by Asajj Ventress and tortured for many days. This hood is quite a formidable object."
The woman slowly paced outside his cell, observing the old Jedi's grey-blue eyes, which stood out against the dark mass of the hood like gemstones.
"Though of course, you were younger back then," she continued. "You were in your prime. But now, without the Force to aid you, age is taking its toll. And it does not appear kind."
Obi-Wan had had his suspicions, and she had just confirmed them. Hs blurry vision and aching body all made sense now. Without the Force to compensate, his body was that of an old man, and therefore suffered the ailments of time. The exhaustion and weariness from his fight with Vader on Hoth were still with him, despite however many hours or days ago that was.
"I suppose it would please you for me to say it, so I will humor you," Obi-Wan sighed. "But you have well and truly defeated me. With this hood on, I am but a harmless old man."
"How impressive of you to swallow your pride."
"A Jedi has no need for pride. I do not have the energy to downplay my current situation."
"How diligent. If only your student had showed the same resolve."
Mara was impressed at how blank Obi-Wan's expression remained when she said this. Not even the irises of his eyes twitched to indicate a reaction. She could not sense his inner emotions. While the Sith hood kept Obi-Wan from focusing on the Force, it also kept anyone else out his mind.
"I dueled him on Hoth after he took down my AT-AT," she continued, staying keenly aware of any crack in the old Jedi's façade. "He held out admirably well, though, in the end, his training was far from complete. He even continued trying to hit me when I cut both his legs off. He writhed in the snow like a wounded dog, frothing at the mouth, screaming how much he hated me. Surely you sensed his anger; his fear. They lasted up until the moment I cut his head."
Obi-Wan's expression remained completely unreadable. His entire body was frozen as he kept his eyes locked with Mara's.
"You are lying," he stated calmly.
Mara said nothing. Now it was her turn to keep her expression neutral.
"You are lying and you have revealed so much without me even needing to use the Force. If you had really killed Luke, it stands to reason you would have reported it to Palpatine or Vader. I have no doubt that either of them would have recognized the importance of such information, and certainly would not be so careless as to reveal it just to get a reaction out of me. Now, since Luke isn't dead, he is either captured or he's escaped. Judging by your impatience to try to get me to crack, if Luke truly was captured I'm sure you would also have spun that into an elaborate tragedy. The only logical option left is that Luke escaped from you on Hoth, and you have yet to tell anyone about this because you fear the consequences."
The blood had completely drained from Mara's face. All the carefully crafted mind games she thought she would be playing were blown away. This harmless old man who could not even use the Force had somehow become more terrifying than Vader.
"I knew who you were as soon as I laid eyes on you," Obi-Wan continued mercilessly, his tone like the edge of a razor. "Proud, impulsive, anxious to prove yourself… And your words only confirmed my suspicions. I didn't even need to use the Force to see right through you. I didn't need to move a muscle for you to put yourself at risk of death. If I breathe a word to anybody that you let Luke Skywalker escape, I think we both know how the Emperor will react to that."
Mara was shaking now. The eyes she had thought resembled gemstones were boring into her soul like cold blue flames. She was completely at Obi-Wan's mercy; her life was in his hands. If the Emperor found out, a quick death was not in the cards for her.
As Mara gazed into the abyss, teetering on the edge, close to falling in, she furiously wiped the tears out of her eyes. She looked back at Obi-Wan and was stunned to see that his eyes were no longer cold blue fires, but beautiful, twinkling sapphires.
Even though she could not see his face, his eyes somehow drew a kind and heart-warming smile in her mind. When he spoke, gone was the razor's edge, she could only hear gentility and compassion:
"I would never do that, Mara. Even if I had to sacrifice my life, I would never sell you out to the Emperor. He has corrupted all that I love and cherish, and I refuse to let him take you too. I could sense the conflict within you on Hoth, and I can see it in your eyes now. You are not what he has made you. No matter how much you try to deceive yourself, your heart speaks the truth. Listen to it. Follow it. It will set you free."
Mara's shaking had turned into deep sobbing. Tears streamed down her face; her legs quivered under her. She had to choke out every word:
"I can't… I'm scared… I'm not strong enough…"
"Don't be afraid, Mara," when she heard those words, she remembered where she first heard them. "The Force will be with you. Always."
Mara finally understood. It was like the final piece of a puzzle she'd spent her whole life searching for.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Obi-Wan nodded his head and watched as Mara quickly turned around and walked out of his cell.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes and tried to focus his mind. He silently thanked Rahm for sharing everything he'd sensed about Mara. Even though he could not use the Force, he sent out a small prayer for it to guide her on her journey.
And here we are!
So yeah, I'm sure some people won't like the Obi-Wan part of the fact I didn't have Yoda try to steal Luke's stuff, but that's all just what I felt worked best. I read this comic where Obi-Wan was tortured by Ventress using a Sith hood and it intrigued me as a concept, including what effects it would have on a Jedi. For Yoda, I just didn't really feel like playing too much into his buffoonish side, even though I love that scene as much as anyone in Ep 5.
What did you think? Thoughts? Let me know in a comment, and consider favoriting and following.
Until next time, stay home and stay safe!