Star Wars
The Truce at Bakura
by Kathy Tyers
CHAPTER 1
Above a dead world, one habitable moon hung suspended like a cloud-veiled
turquoise. The eternal hand that held the chain of its orbit had dusted its
velvet backdrop with brilliant stars, and cosmic energies danced on the
wrinkles of space-time, singing their timeless music, neither noticing nor
caring for the Empire, the Rebel Alliance, or their brief, petty wars.
But on that petty human scale of perspective, a fleet of starships
orbited the moon's primary. Carbon streaks scored the sides of several ships.
Droids swarmed around some, performing repairs. Metal shards that had been
critical spaceship components, and human and alien bodies, orbited with the
ships. The battle to destroy Emperor Palpatine's second Death Star had cost
the Rebel Alliance heavily.
Luke Skywalker hustled across one cruiser's landing bay, red-eyed but
still suffused with victory after the Ewoks' celebration. Passing a huddle of
droids, he caught a whiff of coolants and lubricants. He ached, a dull gnawing
in all his bones from the longest day of his life. Td--no, it was yesterday--
he had met the Emperor. Yesterday, he had almost paid with his life for his
faith in his father. Yet a passenger sharing his shuttle up to the cruiser
from the Ewok village had already asked if Luke really killed the Emperor--and
Darth Vader--single-handed.
Luke wasn't ready to announce the fact that "Darth Vader" had been Anakin
Skywalker, his father. Still, he'd answered firmly Vader killed Emperor
Palpatine. Vader had flung him into the second Death Star's core. Luke would
be explaining that for weeks, he guessed. For now, he merely wanted to check
on his X-wing fighter.
To his surprise, it was overrun by service crew. Behind and above it, a
magnacrane lowered Artoo-Detoo into the cylindrical droid socket behind his
cockpit. "What's up?" Luke asked, standing to catch his breath.
"Oh. Sir," answered a khaki-suited crewman, disengaging a collapsible
fuel hose, "your relief pilot's going out. Captain Antilles came back on the
first shuttle and went on patrol immediately. He intercepted an Imperial drone
ship--one of those antiques they used for carrying messages back before the
Clone Wars. Incoming from deep space."
Incoming. Someone had sent a message to the Emperor. Luke smiled. "Guess
they haven't heard yet. Wedge wants company? I'm not that tired. I could go."
The crewman didn't smile back. "Unfortunately, Captain Antilles touched
off a self-destruct cycle while trying to release its message codes. He is
manually blocking a critical gap--"
"Cancel the relief pilot," Luke exclaimed. Wedge Antilles had been his
friend since the days of the first Death Star, where they'd flown in the final
attack together. Without waiting to hear more, Luke spun toward the ready-
room. A minute later, he was hopping back and pulling up one leg of an orange
pressure suit.
Crewers scattered. He sprang up the ladder and into his inclined, padded
seat, yanked on his helmet, then touched on the ship's fusion generator. A
familiar high-energy whine built around him.
The man who'd spoken climbed up behind him. "But, sir, I think Admiral
Ackbar wanted to debrief you."
"I'll be right back." Luke closed his cockpit canopy and ran an Alliance-
record speed check of his systems and instruments. Nothing flagged his
attention.
He switched on his comlink. "Rogue Leader, ready for takeoff."
"Opening hatch, sir."
He punched in the drive. An instant later, the dull ache in his body
turned to ferocious pain. All the stars in his field of vision split into
binaries and spun around each other. Crewers' voices babbled in his ears.
Dizzily, he reached down inside himself for the quiet center Master Yoda had
taught him to touch...
To touch...
There.
Exhaling one trembling breath, he measured his mastery of the pain. Stars
shrank into singular gleams again. Whatever had caused that, he'd deal with it
later. Through the Force, he quested outward and found Wedge's presence. His
hands moved on the X-wing's controls almost effortlessly as he steered toward
that end of the Fleet.
On his way, he got his first good look at the battle damage, the swarming
repair droids and tow vessels. Mon Calamari Star Cruisers were plated and
shielded to withstand multiple direct hits, but he thought he remembered
several more of the huge, lumpy crafts. Fighting for his life, his father, and
his integrity in the Emperor's throne room, he hadn't even felt the gut-
wrenching Force disturbances from all those deaths. He hoped he wasn't getting
used to them.
"Wedge, do you copy?" Luke asked over the subspace radio. He vectored out
among the big ships of the Fleet. Scanners indicated that the nearest heavy
transport was cautiously moving away from something much smaller. Four A-wings
swooped along behind Luke. "Wedge, are you out there?"
"Sorry," he heard faintly. "Almost out of range of my ship's pickup. You
see, I've got to..." Wedge trailed off, grunting. "I've got to keep these two
crystals apart. It's a self-destruct of some sort."
"Crystals?" Luke asked, to keep Wedge talking. There was pain under that
voice.
"Electrite crystal leads. Leftovers from the old "elegance"' days. The
mechanism's trying to push them together. Let 'em touch... poof. The whole
fusion engine."
Tumbling slowly above the blue glimmer of Endor, Luke spotted Wedge's X-
wing. Alongside it drifted a nine-meter-long cylinder bearing Imperial
markings, fully as long as the X-wing and almost all engine, a type of drone
ship the Alliance still couldn't afford. For some reason, the drone gave him
an eerie foreboding. The Empire never used such antiques any more. Why hadn't
the sender been able to use standard Imperial channels?
Luke whistled. "No, we don't want to blow that big of an engine." No
wonder the transport was moving away.
"Right." Wedge clung to one end of the cylinder, wearing a pressure suit
and connected to the X-wing by a life-support tether. He must have blown his
cockpit air and dove for the cylinder's master control the moment he realized
he'd accidentally armed it to detonate. In a space pilot's lightweight
pressure suit and closed-face emergency helmet, he could survive vacuum for
several minutes.
"How long've you been out here, Wedge?"
"I don't know. Doesn't matter. The view's terrific."
Closing in, Luke reversed engines with care. Wedge held one hand inside a
hinged panel. His head swiveled to follow Luke's X-wing as Luke used short,
delicate engine bursts to match his momentum with the cylinder.
"Sure could use another hand." Wedge's ^ws sounded cocky but the tone
betrayed his strain
. That hand must be half crushed. "What are you doing out
here?"
"Enjoying the view." Luke considered his options. The A-wing pilots
decelerated and hung back, probably assuming Luke knew what he was doing.
"Artoo," he called, "what's the reach on your manipulator arm? If I got in
close enough, could you help him?"
No--2.76 meters short at optimum angle, appeared on his head-up display.
Luke frowned. Sweat trickled on his forehead. Anything small, solid, and
disposable would help. If he didn't hurry, his friend was dead. Already
Wedge's sense in the Force wobbled dizzily.
Luke glanced at his lightsaber. He wasn't about to dispose of that.
Not even to save Wedge's life? Besides, he'd be able to get it back.
Cautiously he slipped the saber into the flare ejection port's feed tube. He
launched it out, then extended a hand toward it across ten meters of vacuum.
He sent it gliding toward Wedge. Once near the target, he twisted his wrist.
The green-white blade appeared, silent in the vacuum of space. Wedge's
wide brown eyes blinked behind his faceplate.
"On my signal," Luke said, "jump free."
"Luke, I'll lose fingers."
"Way free," Luke repeated. "You'll lose more than fingers if you stay
there."
"What's the chance you could Jedi me a little nerve blockage? This hurts
like crazy." Wedge's voice sounded weaker. He pulled in his knees and braced
to push off.
didn't sound too bad. "I'll try," said Luke. "Show me the crystals. Look at
them closely."
"Ho-kay." Wedge pulled around to stare into the hatchway. Letting the
lightsaber drift, Luke felt for Wedge's friendly presence. He trusted Wedge
not to resist this, to let him...
Through Wedge's eyes, and fighting the excruciating pain in Wedge's hand,
Luke glimpsed a pair of round, multifaceted jewels--one inside his palm, the
other crushing inward at the end of a spring mechanism from the back of his
hand. Fist-sized, they reflected pale golden sparks of saber light out the
hatch onto Wedge's orange suit. Luke didn't think the flight glove alone would
keep them apart, or he'd've simply told Wedge to slip out of it. Brief
depressurization didn't damage extremities much.
If Wedge jumped, Luke would have a second at most to slice one crystal
free, and only a little longer before Wedge fainted. Wedge was tethered and
he'd be able to keep breathing, but he could lose a lot of blood. The glimpse
blurred at the edges.
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, Wedgeffwas 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. Nowffwas
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."
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. X'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. Yod
a'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 - - wd 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, limbpipes
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 white bulkheads. Down near the circular projection
table that dominated the war room's center, near a single tech on duty, Mon