by Martha Wells
Luke tweaked Wedge’s pain perception.
Too much to juggle. Luke’s own aches began to ooze up from under control. “Got it,” he grunted.
“Got what?” Wedge asked dreamily.
“The view,” Luke said. “Jump on the count of three. Jump hard. One.” Wedge didn’t object. Clenching his teeth, Luke eased into a closer accord with the saber. So long as he focused on the saber, he could maintain control. “Two.” Keeping up a steady count, he felt the saber, the crystals, and the critical gap, all as parts of the universe’s wholeness.
“Three.” Nothing happened. “Jump, Wedge!” Luke cried.
Weakly, Wedge launched himself. Luke swept in. One crystal soared free, reflecting a whirling green kaleidoscope onto the X-wing’s upper S-foil.
“Ooh,” crooned Wedge’s voice in his ear. “Pretty.” He spun, clutching his right hand.
“Wedge, reel in!”
No response. Luke bit his lip. He stabilized the tumbling saber and deactivated its blade. Wedge’s tether stretched taut, high above the other X-wing. His limbs wobbled randomly.
Luke slapped his distress beacon. “Rogue Leader to Home One. Explosives disarmed. Request medical pickup. Now!”
From behind the A-wings, hanging back out of the danger zone, a med runner swooped into sight.
Wedge’s body rose and sank with each breath as he floated upright in the Fleet’s clear tank of healing bacta fluid. Much to Luke’s relief, they’d saved all his fingers. Surgical droid Too-Onebee set the control board and then swiveled to face Luke. Slender, jointed limbs waved in front of his gleaming midsection. “Now you, sir. Please step behind the scanner.”
“I’m all right.” Luke leaned his stool against the bulkhead. “Just tired.” Artoo-Detoo bleeped softly beside him, sounding concerned.
“Please, sir. This will only take a moment.”
Luke sighed and shuffled around a man-high rectangular panel. “Okay?” he called out through it. “May I go now?”
“One moment more,” came the mechanical voice, then clicking sounds. “One moment,” the droid repeated. “Have you experienced double vision recently?”
“Well …” Luke scratched his head. “Yes. But just for a minute.” Surely that little spell wasn’t significant.
As the diagnostic panel retracted into the bulkhead, a medical flotation bed extended itself from the wall beside Too-Onebee. Luke backstepped. “What’s that for?”
“You’re not well, sir.”
“I’m just tired.”
“Sir, my diagnosis is sudden and massive calcification of your skeletal structure, of the rare type brought on by severely conductive exposure to electrical and other energy fields.”
Energy fields. Yesterday. Emperor Palpatine, leering as blue-white sparks leaped off his fingertips while Luke writhed on the deck. Luke broke a sweat, the memory was so fresh. He’d thought he was dying. He was dying.
“The abrupt drop in blood minerals is causing muscular microseizures all over your body, sir.”
So that was why he ached. Until an hour ago, he hadn’t had a chance to sit still and notice. Deflated, he stared up at Too-Onebee. “But it’s not permanent damage, is it? You don’t have to replace bones?” He shuddered at the thought.
“The condition will become chronic unless you rest and allow me to treat you,” answered the mechanical voice. “The alternative is bacta immersion.”
Luke glanced at the tank. Not that, again. He’d tasted bacta on his breath for a week afterward. Reluctantly he pulled off his boots and stretched out on the flotation bed.
He awakened, squirming, some time later.
Too-Onebee’s metal-grate face appeared at his bedside. “Painkiller, sir?”
Luke had always read that humans had three bones in each ear. Now he believed it. He could count them. “I feel worse, not better,” he complained. “Didn’t you do anything?”
“Treatment is complete, sir. Now you must rest. May I offer you a painkiller?” he repeated patiently.
“No thanks,” Luke grunted. As a Jedi Knight, he must learn to control sensations, and better sooner than later. Pain was an occupational hazard.
Artoo beeped a query.
Guessing at a translation, Luke said, “All right, Artoo. You stand watch. I’ll take another nap.” He rolled over. Slowly, his weight pushed a new furrow into the bed’s flexible contour. This was the down side of being called a hero. It’d been worse when he lost his right hand.
Come to think of it, the bionic hand didn’t ache.
One bright spot.
It was time to re-create the ancient Jedi art of self-healing. Yoda’s sketchy lessons left much to be imagined.
“I’ll leave you, sir.” Too-Onebee swiveled away. “Please attempt to sleep. Call if you require assistance.”
One last question brought Luke’s head up. “How’s Wedge?”
“Healing well, sir. He should be ready for release within a day.”
Luke shut his eyes and tried to remember Yoda’s lessons. Booted feet pounded rapidly past the open hatchway. Already focused deep into the Force, he felt an alarmed presence hurry up the hall. As carefully as he listened, he couldn’t recognize the individual. Yoda had said fine discernment—even of strangers—would come in time, as he learned the deep silence of self that let a Jedi distinguish others’ ripples in the Force.
Luke rolled over, wanting to sleep. He was ordered to sleep.
And he was still Luke Skywalker, and he had to know what had alarmed that trooper. Cautiously he sat up and gingerly slipped down onto his feet. With the ache localized at one end of his body, he could diminish it by willing his feet not to exist … or something like that. The Force wasn’t something you explained. It was something you used … when it let you. Not even Yoda had seen everything.
Artoo whistled an alarm. Too-Onebee rolled toward him, limb-pipes flailing. “Sir, lie back down, please.”
“In a minute.” He poked his head out into the long corridor and shouted, “Stop!”
The Rebel trooper spun to a halt.
“Did they decode that drone ship’s message yet?”
“Still working on it, sir.”
Then the war room was the place to be. Luke backed into Artoo and steadied himself with a hand on the little droid’s blue dome. “Sir,” insisted the medical droid, “please lie down. The condition will rapidly become chronic unless you rest.”
Imagining himself pain-racked for the rest of his life, and the alternative—another spell in the sticky tank—Luke sat down on the squishy edge of the flotation bed and fidgeted.
Then a thought struck him. “Too-Onebee, I bet you’ve got—”
Large enough to hold a hundred, the flagship’s war room was almost empty. A service droid slid along the curve of an inner bench, passing between a light tube and glimmering while bulkheads. Down near the circular projection table that dominated the war room’s center, near a single tech on duty, Mon Mothma—the woman who’d founded and who now led the Rebel Alliance—stood with General Crix Madine. Mon Mothma’s presence gleamed visibly in her long white robes and invisibly through the Force, and the bearded Madine’s confidence had grown since the Battle of Endor.
They both looked in Luke’s direction and frowned. Luke smiled halfheartedly and gripped the handrests of the repulsor chair he’d commandeered out of the medical suite, steering it down over the steps toward them.
“You’ll never learn, will you?” General Madine’s frown got flatter. “You belong in sick bay. This time we’ll have Too-Onebee knock you out.”
Luke’s cheek twitched. “What about that message? Some Imperial commander burned a quarter million credits on that antique drone.”
Mon Mothma nodded, reprimanding Luke with her placid stare. A side console lit, this one a smaller light projection table. Above it appeared a miniature hologram of Admiral Ackbar, with huge eyes bulging at the sides of his high-domed, ruddy head. Although the Calamarian had commanded the Battle of En
dor from a chair under the broad starry viewport on Luke’s left, Ackbar felt more comfortable on his own cruiser. Life support there was fine-tuned to Calamarian standards. “Commander Skywalker,” he wheezed. Whiskery tendrils wobbled under his jaw. “You need to consider the risks you take … more carefully.”
“I will, Admiral. When I can.” Luke reclined the floating repulsor chair and steadied it against the main light table’s steel gray rim. An electronic whistle rang out from the hatchway behind him. Artoo-Detoo wasn’t letting him out of photoreceptor range for thirty seconds. The blue-domed droid had to take the long way around. Eclipsing tiny blinking instrument lights, he rolled along the upper computer bank to a drop platform. There he downloaded himself, then rolled close to Luke’s float chair before delivering a string of rebukes—probably from Too-Onebee. General Madine smirked behind his beard.
Luke hadn’t understood a single whistle, but he could guess at this translation too. “All right, Artoo. Pull in your wheels. I’m sitting down. This should be interesting.”
Young Lieutenant Matthews straightened up over the side console and turned his head. “Here it comes,” he announced.
Madine and Mothma leaned toward the screen. Luke craned his neck for a better view.
IMPERIAL GOVERNOR WILEK NEREUS OF THE BAKURA SYSTEM, TO HIS MOST EXCELLENT IMPERIAL MASTER PALPATINE: GREETINGS IN HASTE.
They hadn’t heard. Months, maybe years, would pass before much of the galaxy realized that the Emperor’s reign had ended. Luke himself was having a hard time believing it.
BAKURA IS UNDER ATTACK BY AN ALIEN INVASION FORCE FROM OUTSIDE YOUR DOMAIN. ESTIMATE FIVE CRUISERS, SEVERAL DOZEN SUPPORT SHIPS, OVER 1000 SMALL FIGHTERS. UNKNOWN TECHNOLOGY. WE HAVE LOST HALF OUR DEFENSE FORCE AND ALL OUTERSYSTEM OUTPOSTS. HOLONET TRANSMISSIONS TO IMPERIAL CENTER AND DEATH STAR TWO HAVE GONE UNANSWERED. URGENT, REPEAT URGENT, SEND STORMTROOPERS.
Madine reached past Lieutenant Matthews and poked a touch panel. “More data,” he exclaimed. “We need more of this.”
The voice of an intelligence droid filtered through the comlink. “There are corroborative visuals if you would care to see them, sir, as well as embedded data files coded for Imperial access.”
“That’s more like it.” Madine touched the lieutenant’s shoulder. “Give me the visuals.”
Over the central light table, a projection unit whirred upright. A scene appeared that brought up a fresh rush of pain-deadening adrenaline. Yoda would rap my knuckles, Luke observed soberly. Excitement … adventure … a Jedi craves not these things. He stretched toward Jedi calm. A terrified world needed help.
At the center of the tableau hovered the image of an Imperial system-patrol craft of a sort Luke had studied but never fought, projected as a three-dimensional network of lines that gleamed reddish orange. He leaned closer to examine its laser emplacements, but before he could get a good look, it silently spewed out an explosion of yellow escape pods. A larger orange image swung ominously into the viewfield, dominating the scene by its bulk: far larger than the patrol craft, stubbier than the Rebels’ sleek Mon Cal cruisers—roughly ovoid, but covered with blisterlike projections.
“Run a check on that ship’s design,” ordered Madine.
After approximately three seconds, the intelligence droid’s monotone answered, “This design is used neither by the Alliance nor the Empire.”
Luke held his breath. The huge attack craft loomed larger over the table. Now he could make out half a hundred gun emplacements … or were they beam antennae? It held fire until six crimson TIE fighters vectored close, then the fighters lurched simultaneously and slowed. Fighters and escape pods began to accelerate steadily toward the alien ship, evidently caught in a tractor beam. The scene shrank. Whoever recorded those visuals had left in a hurry.
“Taking prisoners,” Madine murmured, clearly concerned.
Mon Mothma turned to a shoulder-high droid that had stood silently nearby. “Access the embedded data files. Apply our most current Imperial codes. Locate this world, Bakura.” Luke felt relieved that even the Alliance’s knowledgeable leader had to ask for the system’s location.
The droid rotated toward the light table and reconnected its socket arm. The battle scene faded. Star sparks appeared in a conformation Luke recognized as this end of the Rim region. “Here, Madam,” the droid announced. One speck turned red. “According to this file, its economy is based on the export of repulsorlift components and an exotic fruit candy and liqueur. Settled by a speculative mining corporation during the final years of the Clone Wars, and taken over by the Empire approximately three years ago, to absorb and control its repulsorlift production capacity.”
“Subjugated recently enough to remember independence well.” Mon Mothma rested her slender hand on the edge of the light table. “Now show Endor. Relative position.”
Another speck gleamed blue. Forgotten at Luke’s shoulder, Artoo whistled softly. If Endor was a good bit out from the Core worlds, Bakura was still farther. “That’s virtually the edge of the Rim worlds,” Luke observed. “Even traveling in hyperspace, it would take days to get there. The Empire can’t help them.” It was strange to think of anyone turning to the Empire for help. Evidently the Rebels’ decisive victory at Endor doomed the Bakurans to an unknown fate, because the nearest Imperial battle group couldn’t help. Alliance forces had scattered it.
From a speaker at his left, Leia’s voice projected clearly. “How large is the Imperial force at the system?”
Leia was down on Endor’s surface, in the Ewok village. Luke hadn’t known she was listening in, but he should’ve assumed it. He reached out through the Force and brushed his sister’s warm presence, sensing justifiable tension. Leia was allegedly resting with Han Solo, recovering from that blaster burn on her upper arm, and helping the furry little Ewoks bury their dead—not watching for new trouble. Luke pursed his lips. He’d loved Leia all along, wishing …
Well, that was behind him. The intelligence droid answered her over a subspace radio comlink relay, “Bakura is defended by an Imperial garrison. The sender of this message has added subtext reminding Emperor Palpatine that what forces they have are antiquated, due to the system’s remoteness.”
“Evidently the Empire didn’t anticipate any competition for Bakura.” Leia’s voice sounded disdainful. “But now there’s no Imperial Fleet to help there. It will take the Imperials weeks to reassemble, and by then this Bakura could fall to the invasion force—or it could be part of the Alliance,” she added in a brighter tone. “If the Imperials can’t help the Bakurans, we must.”
Admiral Ackbar’s image planted finny hands in the vicinity of its lower torso. “What do you mean, Your Highness?”
Leia leaned against the wattle-and-daub wall of an Ewok tree house and rolled her eyes toward the dome of its high, thatched roof. Han sprawled casually beside her seat, leaning on an elbow and twirling a twig between his fingers.
She raised a handheld comlink. “If we sent aid to Bakura,” she answered Admiral Ackbar, “it’s possible that Bakura would leave the Empire out of gratitude. We could help free its people.”
“And get that repulsorlift technology,” Han mumbled to the twig.
Leia had only paused. “That chance is worth investing a small task force. And you’ll need a high-ranking negotiator.”
Han lay back, crossed his arms behind his head, and murmured, “You step off onto an Imperial world, and you’re an entry in somebody’s credit register. You’ve got a price on your head.”
She frowned.
“Can we afford to send troops, given the shape we’re in?” Ackbar’s voice wheezed out of the comlink. “We’ve lost twenty percent of our forces, battling only part of the Emperor’s fleet. Any Imperial battle group could do a better job at Bakura.”
“But then the Empire would remain in control there. We need Bakura just like we need Endor. Every world we can draw into the Alliance.”
Surprising her, Han closed his hand on the comlink and pulled i
t toward him. “Admiral,” he said, “I doubt we can afford not to go. An invasion force that big is trouble for this whole end of the galaxy. And she’s right—it’s us that ought to go. You’d just better send a ship that can make a fast getaway, in case the Imperials get ideas.”
“What about the price on your head, laser brains?” Leia whispered.
Han covered the squelch. “You’re not going without me, Highness-ness.”
Luke studied Mon Mothma’s expression and her sense in the Force. “It Would have to be a small group,” she said quietly, “but one ship is not enough. Admiral Ackbar, you may select a few fighters to support General Solo and Princess Leia.”
Luke spread a hand. “What are the aliens doing? Why are they taking so many prisoners?”
“The message doesn’t say,” Madine pointed out.
“Then you’d better send someone who can find out. It could be important.”
“Not you, Commander, and it doesn’t look like we can wait until you’ve recovered.” Madine rapped a white handrail. “This team should leave within a standard day.”
Luke didn’t want to be left behind … even though he had all faith that Han and Leia could take care of each other.
On the other hand, before he could pitch in, he must heal himself, and General Madine had suddenly become twins. His optic nerves were telling him to get horizontal soon, or risk a doubly humiliating faint in the war room. He eyed the handrail over the double row of white benches, wondering if the repulsor chair would lift over it. He ached to push the thing’s envelope.
Artoo chattered, sounding motherly.
Luke fingered the float chair’s controls and said, “I’ll head back to my cabin. Keep me posted.”
General Madine crossed his arms over the front of his khaki uniform.
“I doubt we’ll be sending you to Bakura.” Mon Mothma’s robes rustled as she squared her shoulders. “Consider your importance to the Alliance.”