Star Wars - Truce At Bakura (by Kathy Tyers)

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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.
At moments like these, moisture farming for Uncle Owen back on Tatooine
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."
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. 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. 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 - - 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
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 Endor 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 shoulder, 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 it toward
him. "Admiral," he said, "I doubt we can afford not to go. An in-vasion 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."
"She's right, Commander," wheezed the small ruddy image of Admiral
Ackbar.
"I'm not helping anyone if I'm just lying down." But he had to shake his
reckless reputation, if he wanted the respect of the Rebel Fleet. Yoda had
commissioned him to pass on what he had learned. To Luke's mind, that meant
rebuilding the Jedi Order... as soon as he got the chance. Anyone else could
pilot a fightership. No one else could recruit and train new Jedi.
Frowning, he steered to the lift platform, rotated his chair, and
answered Mon Mothma and Admiral Ackbar as he rose. "I can at least help you
put together the strike force."
CHAPTER 2
The higher-ups continued to confer as Luke floated toward a hatchway. The
gray-furred guard, a Gotal, flinched as he saluted. Luke remembered that Gotal
felt the Force as a vague buzzing in their cone-shaped perceptor horns, and he
accelerated to keep from giving the loyal Gotal a headache.
Artoo shrieked behind him. Out in the corridor, Luke decelerated his
float chair and let the little droid catch him. Artoo grappled the chair's
left stabilizer bar and towed it along, spouting electronic st atic.
"Yes, Artoo." Luke leaned one hand on Artoo's blue dome. Gratefully he
let himself be herded back to the medical suite. He pictured a thousand alien
ships converging on... on a world he still couldn't imagine. He wanted to see
it in his mind's eye.
And to know why the aliens took prisoners.
Once inside the ship's clinic, he pulled off his boots and sank back down
on the flotation bed. Its "give" underneath him felt inexpressibly good. After
a glance at Wedge's bacta tank, he shut his eyes and imagined he could hear
all the way to the war room.
Let them worry. He was finished, for a while. Literally.
Artoo beeped something interrogative. "Say again?" asked Luke.
Artoo wheeled over to the open hatch and reached out a manipulator arm.
The door slid closed.
"Oh. Thanks." Evidently Artoo thought he'd like to undress in privacy.
Evidently Artoo didn't know he was too tired to undress. He pulled his
legs up onto the bed. "Artoo," he said, "get a portable data screen from Too-
Onebee. Access those embedded data files from that message drone. I'll take a
look while I rest."
Artoo's reply dropped disapprovingly in pitch as he wheeled away, but
less than a minute later he rolled back, trailing a wheeled cart. He steered
it to Luke's bedside and extended a connector into its input port.
"Bakura," Luke said. "Data files."
As the computer analyzed his voiceprint to confirm his security
clearance, Luke stretched out and blinked. He'd never so appreciated normal,
single vision.
A cloud-frosted blue world appeared on the screen. "Bakura," said a
bland, mature female voice. "Imperial Study Survey six-oh-seven-seven-four."
Cloud cover swirled closer. Luke's vision dropped through it to hover over a
vast range of green mountains. Through a deep valley, two broad parallel
rivers cut the mountains and wound down to a verdant delta. Luke imagined
rich, damp smells, like on Endor. "Salis D'aar, capital city, is the seat of
Imperial governorship. Bakuran contributions to Imperial security include a
modest flow of strategic metals...."
So green. So wet. Luke shut his eyes. His head sank.
... He sprawled on the deck of a strange spaceship. A huge reptilian
alien, brown-scaled with a blunt, oversize head, tromped toward him waving a
weapon. Luke ignited his lightsaber. Heavy with the Emperor's fingerprints, it
slid through his grip. Then he recognized the big lizard's "weapon" a
restraining-bolt Owner, used to control droids. Laughing, he leaped into
fighting stance. The lizard's Owner whirred. Luke froze in place.
"What?" Disbelieving, he looked down. He had a droid's stiff-jointed
body. Again the alien raised its Owner device....
Luke fought back to consciousness. He felt a powerful presence in the
Force and sat up too quickly. Invisible hammers bashed both sides of his head.
The screen stood dark. On the foot of his flotation bed sat Ben Kenobi,
robed as usual in unbleached homespun, shimmering under the cabin's faint
night glims. "Obi-wan?" Luke murmured. "What's happening at Bakura?"
摘要：

StarWarsTheTruceatBakurabyKathyTyersCHAPTER1Aboveadeadworld,onehabitablemoonhungsuspendedlikeacloud-veiledturquoise.Theeternalhandthatheldthechainofitsorbithaddusteditsvelvetbackdropwithbrilliantstars,andcosmicenergiesdancedonthewrinklesofspace-time,singingtheirtimelessmusic,neithernoticingnorcaring...

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