by Alex Wheeler
Star Wars – 0 ABY
Rebel Force #2
Hostage
by Alex Wheeler
CHAPTER ONE
Day never came to the swamp. The dank air, thick with swirling fumes, shrouded the land in eternal fog. The distant sun emitted only a dim glow, turning the sky a sallow green that matched his skin. Until, all too soon, night fell once again.
He, who had devoted his life to the light, now lived in darkness. It seemed the universe liked a good joke.
And so he laughed.
"Too dark to see my breakfast, it is," he chortled, stirring some rootleaf and gnarltree bark into the bowl of butcherbug stew. He wrinkled his nose at the foul stench. "Perhaps lucky, I am, hmm."
He spoke to himself often here. Another joke: That he, who had taken such joy in others, was alone. Alone in an empty swamp; alone on an empty planet.
Alone, yet not alone: He still had the Force.
It was a Padawan's first lesson: Learn to trust your senses—and learn to reach beyond them. He did not need light to see.
Nor did he need to see the faces of his allies to know they were there.
"Waiting for you, I have been," he said softly, hunched over the makeshift stove. His stew bubbled over the flame. Another Padawan lesson: When the time comes to eat, eat. Food runs out. So does time.
His modest hut had been empty for a long time. For many years, his shuffling footsteps had been the only ones to cross the threshold; his halting wheeze had been the only breath to mist across the still air.
He was alone still—and yet, not alone.
"I have failed, Master," the voice said.
He shook his head. "Failed, we all have," he said. "Succeed, we all may. Undetermined, the future is." He had seen the future in his dreams. Cloudy visions of blood and fire, terror mixed with hope, death with awakening.
"I have much to tell you," the voice said urgently.
He rummaged through a pile of junk, pulling out a misshapen spoon. He had crafted it himself from a fallen gnarltree branch. "Patience, Obi-Wan," he said, finally turning to face the spirit of the fallen Jedi. "Talk, we will, hmm, yes. But first, eat, I must."
As Obi-Wan Kenobi's shimmering figure looked on, casting a soft glow of light around the dark cave, the great Jedi Master Yoda shuffled over to a narrow wooden table. He lowered his frail, stooped body onto a wobbly stool.
And he ate his breakfast.
"He's powerful, Master Yoda," Obi-Wan said. "I can sense it within him. Young, but—"
"Young, yes." Yoda nodded. "And old, too. Yes, yes. Too old?" Never had a Jedi begun his training as an adult. Brought to the Jedi Temple as infants, they grew up knowing nothing but the Jedi way. In Yoda's long memory, only one exception had been made on this front. One Padawan so promising that it seemed foolish not to train him, though he was already nine years old, with memories of a different world and attachments to a different life.
The Jedi Council had allowed the training to proceed, though they'd had their doubts. Rather than trusting his judgment, Yoda had put his trust in Qui-Gon Jinn—and Anakin Skywalker.
Yes, they had all failed, one way or another.
"He's impatient," Obi-Wan admitted. His face was webbed by deep creases, his eyes underlined with dark hollows. Death had not relieved him of the burdens he carried. "And stubborn."
"Remind me, that does, of another young Jedi."
Obi-Wan frowned. "No. The boy is nothing like his father."
"Not Anakin," Yoda said mildly. "You." He smiled, remembering the brash young man who, from the start, had wielded his lightsaber like it was a part of him.
"The boy must be trained, but he is impulsive," Obi-Wan said. "Courageous, bright, loyal, yes—and yet, quick to anger, impatient. Perhaps too willing to choose the easy path."
"Human, he is," Yoda pointed out. "Flawed, all living beings are."
"He has greatness in him," Obi-Wan said. "Of that I am sure. But as to what form the greatness will take…" He hung his head. "I was sure about Anakin, too. Once."
"Responsibility, we must all take," Yoda said firmly. "You, for your choice. Me, for mine. Anakin—only Anakin—for his."
Obi-Wan paused, the guilt plain on his face. Yoda knew he blamed himself. For Anakin, for Darth Vader…for all that followed.
"We need Luke," Obi-Wan said. "But if we proceed too quickly…if we make the wrong choices…" He sighed. "I sense great power in him, perhaps greater even than Anakin's."
"Search inside yourself," Yoda said. "Know the answer, you do."
"He is too old for us to shape," Obi-Wan said slowly, as if sifting through his thoughts as he spoke. "He is neither Padawan nor Master. He has grown into his own person, without our help or interference—now we must give him the space to grow into his own man." Obi-Wan sighed, gazing out at the murky bog, then up at the stars. "He will be tested—I cannot save him from that. He must be tested. Perhaps this was our mistake with Anakin. Not that we found him too late, but that we put too much upon him too soon. We burdened him with power he could not control, with responsibility he could not bear. This time, we must be cautious—let Luke become the man he needs to be. And hope that this is the man we need him to be."
Yoda nodded. This was the same judgment he had reached. "Ready, he is not," Yoda said. "Patient we must be."
They could not let fear of Luke's future prevent them from training the boy. But they could equally not let their own eagerness for a champion fool them into seeing something that wasn't there.
And, of course, Luke was not their only hope.
There was another.
CHAPTER TWO
Princess Leia Organa felt a prickly tingle run up her spine—someone was watching her.
She didn't turn around. "See anything that interests you?" She kept her eyes focused on the datapad in her lap, but the screen might as well have been blank. She hadn't been able to concentrate for hours. The closer they got to their destination, the faster her thoughts seemed to swim away from her.
"Not a thing, Princess." Normally, Han Solo's sarcastic drawl made her want to put her fist through a bulkhead. But at a moment like this, Han's voice—his presence was almost a comfort.
Almost.
"Well?" she snapped. "What is it?"
"You asked me to let you know when we dropped out of hyperspace," he reminded her. "This is me, letting you know."
Leia suppressed a shudder. Or, at least, she tried to.
She heard Han take a step into the cabin. Then another. "Leia…"
"I'll join you in the cockpit in a few minutes," she said coolly, keeping her back to him and her posture rigid. "I want to watch the approach."
"It'll be a rough one."
"I think I can handle it."
"You think you can handle anything," Han countered. "That's the problem."
"No, the problem is you trying to tell me what I can and can't do." The banter was making her feel more normal than she had all day. Guess being trapped in space with a nerf-herding laserbrain has its advantages, she thought.
"Maybe you forget, Your Highnessness, but I'm captain of this bird. That means I say what everyone can and can't do."
"And I say I'll be joining you in the cockpit in a few minutes," she said, durasteel in her voice.
She heard his footsteps retreat toward the door. "You know, you don't have to do this."
Leia brushed a hand across her cheek, enraged to find it dotted with moisture. She shut her eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. Then she finally faced him. "Yes," she said, in a low, dangerous voice. "I do."
"Suit yourself, Princess." He snorted. "You always do."
She waited until he was gone, then w
rapped her arms across her chest, encasing herself in a tight hug. "Pull yourself together," she murmured. "It's just another landing."
And it would be. Landing on Delaya would be total routine—but to get there, they would have to make it through a dangerous storm of debris. Millions of whirling meteors, some no larger than her fist, others several times more massive than the Millennium Falcon. A collision could prove fatal.
Except it wasn't debris, Leia thought. It wasn't trash.
It was all that remained of the planet Alderaan. What had been a thriving planet, home to two billion people, was now nothing more than a few rocks spiraling through the emptiness of space.
Leia set the datapad beside her on the bunk. She twisted her hair back into two long braids and wrapped them around her head. Then she stood.
She wasn't ready—but the moment had arrived, ready or not.
It was time to go home.
Han muttered a silent curse as Leia climbed into the cockpit. With the densest debris field this side of the galaxy to navigate, the last thing he needed was a distraction. Especially the worrying-about-Leia kind of distraction.
He wasn't supposed to have to worry about anyone but himself. And now, all of a sudden, he was mixed up in this ridiculous Rebel Alliance business, saddled with a handful of trouble-making passengers and their annoying droids.
In addition to the princess, there was Luke Skywalker, who fancied himself some kind of Jedi warrior—and who was lucky he hadn't sliced off an arm with that lightsaber of his. Yet. There was Tobin Elad, the resistance fighter they'd picked up on the way to Muunilinst—an impressive pilot, an even more impressive fighter, a quick thinker, no friend to the Empire…Han might even have enjoyed having him around. Might—if the princess hadn't made it so painfully clear that she found Elad superior in every way that counted. He could do nothing wrong. While Han, as far as Leia was concerned, could do nothing right.
Fine with me, he thought. It was time to start treating this like any other job. He would drop them on Delaya, as promised—but that would be the end of it. He had a life of his own, after all. People to scam, places to go, Hutts to repay.
"Entering the Alderaan system." Han cut the thrusters to reduce speed. "Delaya's on the other side of the debris field. No way around but straight through." The storm of whirling rock loomed in the viewscreen. Delaya lay just beyond. Once it had been Alderaan's sister planet.
Now it was an only child.
Leia's face paled. Luke's jaw tightened. Chewbacca let loose a mournful howl.
Han couldn't blame him. You could almost feel it pressing in around you: death. Two billion lives, gone up in a ball of flame. For a single, horrifying moment, he imagined their faces—pale, terrified, dead—flattening themselves against the cockpit window.
I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced, the old man had said. Like he could sense it happening.
Han shook it off. You're starting to sound like Luke, he warned himself. You're not sensing anything but a rough landing. And if you don't start focusing on these rocks, there might not be a landing at all.
"Better strap in," he warned his passengers. As he spoke, the ship lurched as a large rock slammed into the starboard deflector shield. Caught off guard, Leia toppled forward. Han caught her just before she crashed into an instrument panel. "You okay?" he said, trying to steady her.
She ripped her arm away. "I'll be okay when we land this thing," she snapped. "How about you try focusing on that."
"Yes, ma'am," he said sarcastically. "But only because you asked so nicely." She had some nerve, giving him orders on the bridge of his ship. Who did she think she—
"Whoa!" Han swore, jerking the Falcon sharply to the port side, moments before crashing into a ship-sized asteroid. "Focus. Right. Good plan."
Chewbacca growled at the viewscreen.
"I see it, buddy," Han said, steering the ship around another asteroid. They were hurtling toward him from all sides now. He eased the Falcon through the gaps, diving and weaving to avoid the larger rocks. The smaller ones battered the shields. The ship shook and shuddered, the controls vibrating in his grip. Behind him, somewhere in the bowels of the ship, there was a soft hissing noise, then a loud bang. A moment later, the acrid scent of smoke trickled into the cockpit. "Chewie, the aft deflector must have taken a hit. Get back there and check it out!"
The Wookiee was already in motion. Luke's astromech droid followed closely on his heels.
"Captain, may I recommend that you avoid crashing into anything else?" the protocol droid C-3PO suggested.
"May I recommend you take a long walk through a short airlock?" Han growled, swerving to starboard and then sharply to port, as another flood of debris washed over them.
"Oh dear, my circuits simply can't take much more of this," C-3PO cried, as the ship shook beneath him. "At least the situation can't become any more dire."
Han slammed a fist against the control panel "Don't you know better than to jinx us with—" A blaring alarm drowned out the rest of his words, and the air thickened with a foul gray smoke. "What was that?" C-3PO cried.
Han groaned. "That was the situation about to get more dire. A lot more."
CHAPTER THREE
Chewie's panicked bark came through the comlink.
"What'd he say?" Luke asked, feeling a little green around the edges as the ship swayed and bucked beneath him.
Han ignored him because he was busy keeping the ship from getting blown to bits. Without thinking, Luke clenched his hand around the hilt of his lightsaber. Not that this was the kind of danger he could take on with the laser sword, but reaching for it had become instinctual. The Jedi weapon usually made him feel stronger, ready to meet whatever challenge lay ahead.
Now it just made him feel useless. Luke could neither fly the ship nor repair it, and although Leia was pale with tension, she'd made it clear she didn't need his help either. He could do nothing but watch.
"Chewbacca says the shields are at ten percent power," C-3PO translated. "And that—oh dear. And that one more big hit and we're finished!"
"Then we'll just have to make sure we don't hit anything, won't we?" Han said through gritted teeth.
The Millennium Falcon rocketed up in a nearly ninety-degree climb, shooting past one pitted asteroid, then squeezing through the narrow gap between two more, with meters to spare.
"Watch out!" Leia cried.
"Watching," Han muttered. "Now strap in and keep quiet unless you want to fly this bird yourself!"
A string of chirps and beeps came through the comlink.
C-3PO tapped Han's shoulder. "Excuse me, captain, I hate to trouble you with additional bad news, but if you have a moment I feel I should relay—"
Han groaned. "Spit it out, you rusty circuit brain!"
"The deflector shields are down," C-3PO reported.
The ship shook with such force it felt like it was going to fly apart. And that's if they were lucky: At this speed, without deflectors, even a fist-sized rock could punch through a porthole and depressurize the ship. If it hit the engines, or the laser cannons…
Luke told himself he was overreacting. Surely if things were that bad, Han would let them know it was time to panic.
"Get your vac suits on!" Han shouted. "Initiate emergency procedures."
Time to panic. Luke jumped out of the co-pilot seat, then froze. "Han—"
"No time to chat, kid," Han snapped. "Go."
"But Han—"
Han whipped the ship hard to port. "Even the Jedi can't breathe in a vacuum, kid. Trust me. Get your suit."
Luke grimaced. Did Han have to be so stubborn, even at a time like this? He was laser-focused on the tiny pocket of space just ahead. It may have been the only way to steer the Falcon on its narrow path to safety. But it meant he was missing the big picture. "Han," Luke said firmly. "Look."
The path ahead of them was almost entirely clear. The debris field l
ay behind them. Delaya hovered in the distance, a globe of bluish-violet gleaming in the light of the sun.
Han's face stretched into a crooked grin. "See? Nothing to worry about."
But Luke's relief lasted only a moment. Leia was staring blankly through the side port at the receding debris. It had to be hard, seeing everything she'd lost. Luke searched himself for the right words, something that would help. But he had nothing.
An awkward silence settled over the cockpit.
Finally, Han cleared his throat. "Princess, we'll be landing in about fifteen minutes. Unless you want some time…"
She jerked her head away from the window and glared at him. "More time? I think we've wasted quite enough time on your flyboy stunts. Let's get to work."
Tobin Elad slipped into his cabin, shut the door behind him, and ceased to exist.
The man who bore his name—when it suited him—sat down in front of his comlink. But he paused before switching it on, taking a moment to soak in the silence of isolation.
It wouldn't be accurate to say he enjoyed the solitude.
The man didn't enjoy anything. Nothing made him happy or sad or angry. Emotions were for the weak, for the living. And despite the fact that his heart pumped blood and his lungs filtered air, the man was as dead and empty on the inside as a corpse.
The Commander had seen to that.
He opened a secure channel to the Imperial Center. Almost instantly, Commander Rezi Soresh's face appeared on the screen.
"X-7, report," he ordered.
The Commander had stripped away everything that had once been his life, every face, every name, every memory that had marked him as an individual being. The Commander had emptied him out, and given him only two things in return.
One, a name: X-7. A number, like a droid. Fitting for a creature that lived and breathed only to serve his master's orders. For that was the second thing he'd been given.
Desire. To serve the Commander's every whim. Nothing more.
Never anything less.
"The Millennium Falcon is ferrying Leia to Delaya, in the Alderaan system," X-7 reported in his true voice, blank and toneless. Tobin Elad, the man he was pretending to be, spoke in a dry voice that carried hints of his tragic past. The voice, like the words, had been carefully crafted to gain Leia's trust. But the voice, like the words, like the man, was an act. "The Delayan government has agreed to host her without notifying the Empire of her presence."
