I'm Your What? (A What-If)

Call me empowered. No, actually, call me Vee.

After starting the Ani/Ami list, http://www.egroups.com/group/skywalkingskywalking , I got anxious to start a new fanfic.

If you're not familiar with Pipes's "What If the Empire(Ep 4-6)went back in time to Episode 1?" you should be. If you are, and you take a quick glance at this thread's title (and you understand my sense of humor ), I think you've got the whole thing figured out.

What if a few Prequel Era characters were plunked down into ROTJ?

Here's the ground rules:
<OL TYPE=1>
<LI> This is an Anti-Triangle fic. The triangle will not fly here, and I'm sure I won't be the person to shoot it down.
<LI> A character whose rightful place is in the Prequel-Era cannot be killed off in the Original Era. (Just the thought of the temporal ramifications makes my head ache.)
<LI> Please ask before you join in; as more people become involved, it becomes harder to work if newbies just jump in the puddle and splash you.
<LI> Do not take on "parts," but instead write from whatever pov works for you and needs to be written. This isn't an RPG.
</OL>

I'm short on time, so I'll do a short bit and then whoever would like to can step in. (The place in ROTJ is after Jabba's sail barge goes down.)

Prologue

Tatooine.

Anakin leaned over the pilot's shoulder anxiously as the ship approached the two warring figures, as if he could will the mysterious black-robed creature dead by focusing on Qui-Gon's every move.

He was not the only one. Both Padmé and a young Jedi stared intently, their faces knotted in worry and helplessness as the two lightsabers clashed amid the billowing cloud of sand.

The ship lowered, the ramp came down. The silence was palpable.

Suddenly, the pilot turned to the young Jedi, his face pale. "That other guy's on the ramp!"

Obi-Wan turned to the others, a ferocity in his voice. "Stay in the atmosphere," he commanded, then gave a lingering glare to Padmé. "You all stay here." With that, he left for the back of the ship.

Everything after that was a blur. Padmé called up security footage on a viewscreen and they all watched in horrified fascination as the two Jedi took on the creature -- each breath kept rhythm with the striking of beams of light, and time took on a distorted, unreal quality.

Storm's coming, Ani.

In that way that he'd always known things, with that ability that had afforded his current position on a royal starship, he again saw the dark wave from his dream.

A sandstorm.

But the silence was unbreakable, solemn, nearly religious.

On the screen, the dark creature drove one of his lightblades into the newly-installed hyperdrive as he collapsed to the floor.

Padmé's face fell, and she lowered her eyes. "I'm sorry, Ani."

"We're losing navigation controls," the pilot muttered under his breath, low and detached by the setback.

He didn't hear either of them. The knowledge was too much. "There's a--"

Before he could finish, they were all knocked to the floor and engulfed in howling and screeching, and an unnatural and sudden silence.

---

Go ahead and play, JG.

(You're welcome to, as well, Geoff, if you want. I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to be exclusive, I'm just trying to make things easier on the writers.)

[This message has been edited by Vee (edited 04-12-2000).]

 

Ooo... can I play? I'd love to see Qui-Gon talking to Luke. And maybe see what happens if Sebulba takes on an old rival... only now the rival has a TIE fighter and a seriously bad attitude. Or what about Watto making a bet with Lando? When in RotJ are we doing this, anyway?

 

The Viceroy stands nervously in the hangar of the battle ship, as the Imperial Shuttle lands. A black, armoured figure emerges, breathing in a deep hiss. "Aaaaah, Load Vaduhh himseffff..."

Vader doesn't say a word, but the Neimoidian drops dead of a crushed heart. Staring down at the body of the temporally displaced anachronism, Vader finally speaks. "That's for trying to kill me when I was nine, slimo..."

But seriously, I'm not about to join up... just a momentary inspiration. Sounds like your thread's going to be fun...

[This message has been edited by Geoff Morton (edited 04-12-2000).]

 

Since editing doesn't up a thread ...

 

&lt;snickers&gt; Really like that scene up there...
"That's for trying to kill me when I was nine, slimo!" LOL!

Oooh! This sounds like a fun idea! Can I join too? Um, because I'm being seized by really insane ideas: are you willing to go for a Love Triangle? Not the Ani-Obi-Ami kind (not a fan of it either) but a Han-Leia-Obi kind? Obi's kinda cute at that age, y'know. Just for laughs?

Anyway, whether you go for it or not, just count me in! I wanna see how little Ani's going to take to his kids. Or his bad-@$$ older self. Oh GOD! That'll keep me laughing for days.

 

Go ahead, Skysong -- and yes, a HLO LT is okay.

 

Lando was about to steer the skiff off toward the valley where the Millennium Falcon had been patiently waiting for... the Maker only knew how long they'd been on this dustball of a planet. Lando had lost track at a month. He would be glad to get off it, that was for --

Behind them, the sound of Jabba's barge going up had become a drone, but suddenly, the sound changed, became a roar, then the whistling sound of a crashing ship.

"Lando, turn around."

"Already on it," he muttered, and noticed to his chagrin that he was already on it. Since when did I decide to do the Brave Rescuer bit for a living?

As they swung around, he caught the glint of the sun on a smooth metal hull, rounded slightly along the oblong...

A Nubian! It was a Nubian! Damn, he thought. When he'd been a kid, he'd thought those were the finest ships in the galaxy, and he still wasn't sorry to get to see one up close.

Up too close.

He swerved at the last minute. The Nubian and the skiff barely missed each other, and the skiff was tossed to one side like a toy. It landed in a dune.

"Nice landing," Han cracked. "You didn't do this to my ship, did you?"

Lando turned to make a retort, and he caught sight of Luke Skywalker's face.

Luke's eyes were wide and confused, and Lando could almost see his mind trying to put things together, like sparks jumping around on a circuit board. He shook his head. "I don't understand it," he finally said.

Leia also looked troubled, though she'd looked pretty troubled in Lando's opinion ever since Jabba put her in that ridiculous gold bikini. (Lando didn't have much problem with skin, but he could think of a hundred things more flattering. And had, though he knew better than to ever say anything of the sort.) "Where did that ship come from?"

Lando shrugged. "Orbit, maybe?"

Luke shook his head. "It was flying low. It wasn't coming in -- it was trying to take off when it crashed."

Han was already denying it. "Luke, my eyes aren't at their best, but even I would have noticed something that size coming through."

Lando agreed, but said nothing.

"Whoever they are," Leia said, they'll be in trouble if we don't get to them pretty soon."

On that point, there was little argument.

----------------

Amidala of the Naboo -- Padme Naberrie, she corrected herself, remembering that she was still in costume -- was more than a little uncomfortable.

The ship finally came to a stop against something. The wind, so loud a moment before, had gone ominously silent. But that wasn't why she was uncomfortable. The landing had thrown her across the cockpit. She'd rolled around Ric Olie and landed against a panel with some kind of control that stuck out of it, and was pressing into her shoulder. Anakin, who had been standing beside her, had somehow maneuvered behind her, and absorbed most of the blow, but he was just enough shorter that he'd been clear of it. She was sure he had to be hurt worse, but the way the ship was canted, she was having a hard time moving away.

Finally, she rolled to one side, hoping that she wouldn't find the boy crushed beneath her.

He was smiling, but his eyes were faraway. "You all right?"

"Shoulder's sore. What about you?"

He pushed himself away from the wall. She could see that most of the switches he'd hit were, luckily, small. One had torn his shirt, and drawn blood, but he was all right.

"Is everyone all right?" she called generally.

There were murmurs around the cockpit, then Sabe -- Queen Amidala -- appeared at the door, holding on to it to avoid spilling down the slanted floor. "Eirtae twisted her ankle," she said, not putting on much of a regal act. "But the rest of us are unharmed."

"And our... visitor?"

"Is temporarily stunned from his encounter with the hyperdrive, but I do not trust it."

With an effort, Anakin climbed the floor, and reached the door where Sabe was standing. He bowed a little bit, and Amidala was sorry to see that he looked frightened. "Your Majesty, may I see Qui-Gon?"

A voice called up. "I'm back here, Ani. I'm all right."

"Master, I...

 

Luke knew what it was he felt, but it didn't make sense. There was no doubt about it -- his father was on board that ship. There was a kind of resonance to Vader's presence that he couldn't mistake --

Aren't you jumping the gun? he asked himself. He might have been lying, trying to distract you with... with what he said...

It didn't do any good. He had, as instructed, searched his feelings, and known it to be true. He just didn't much like it.

Concentrate. Bespin is in the past. Keep your mind on where you are and what you are doing.

His father was on that ship.

The resonance was there, but... but it was different. He'd thought that what he felt around Vader was the cloud of hate and anger and

(desperation)

fear, but all of that was gone now, and still, it was unmistakable. The pulse of energy was surrounded only by a vague nervousness, a little sadness...

What was happening?

He was already off the skiff, and halfway to to the ship. Leia was close behind. Han's eyes weren't quite where they needed to be, even though he'd landed a few good shots, so he and Lando were a little further back, along with Chewie, who was wounded. The droids had stayed put.

A flash of light appeared near the rear of the ship, and a black form fell out of it. This time, Luke did feel a wave of terrible hate and anger, with none of the other things he associated with Vader. The idea that the thing might have been Vader, just by its cloaks and movements, didn't occur to him. He knew better.

The gangplank lowered, and before it even came close to the ground, a long-haired main in a tan poncho leaped out of it, somersaulting down to the desert floor with a lightsaber ignited. It was green, like the one Luke himself had just built.

A powerful surge went through the Force, and Luke understood, though he understood nothing else, that this man was a Jedi Master. A wordless request came to him, and he knew that his help was requested.

He ran to the other man, who had abruptly stopped and sheathed the lightsaber. A frustrated breath escaped him, then he turned, looking entirely unsurprised to see a Jedi. "I don't believe we have met," he said. "I thought I knew nearly all the older padawans. I am Qui-Gon Jinn."

The name meant nothing to Luke, nor did the word he'd used. "Luke Skywalker," he said. He was tempted to say "Jedi knight," but bit his tongue. Yoda had not given him permission to use the title, and he'd really only used it to --

Jinn's eyes narrowed. "Skywalker?"

Two more figures were running down the gangplank, a younger man in long brown robes and a small, dusty boy... Luke's eyes widened as he again felt the distinctive surge of energy.

"Say nothing," Qui-Gon Jinn instructed him.

Luke felt he had little choice but to obey.

At any rate, Leia had crested a dune, and was also headed over.

The three of them arrived at the same time.

-------------

"Are you all right, Master?" Anakin asked. There was another man with him, a young man, about the same age as Obi-Wan Kenobi (who had introduced himself very briefly, in an irritated tone of voice). Anakin's eyes went to the new person, like metal to a magnet. He couldn't explain it, but there was something...

Then something else. A lady came over the dune, and Anakin felt the same thing. Only he couldn't look at her. She hardly had any clothes on. He'd seen ladies looking like that at Jabba's place and it always made him feel like taking a bath, but this one... he couldn't look at her at all. It was like looking at his mother in one of those things. He took off his shirt, keeping his eyes averted, and held it out to her. "Here," he said. "You'll get burned."

"It's all right."

"Please..."

"It won't fit."

He realized she was right, and put his shirt back on, still looking at his feet.

Kenobi's voice came across. "Here, Miss. My young friend is right about getting burned."

Anakin saw a flash of dark brown cloth, and looked up with relief as the lady put on Kenobi's big robe. Now that he could look at her, he thought she was pretty, and tha

 

You know...the cover for this would look really cute in anime/manga form &lt;Skysong pictures the manga version of Anakin (as drawn by Kia Asamiya) sweatdropping when Luke drops the bomb -- awwww! KAWAII!&gt;

I'll jump in when you guys are through getting them introduced (and maybe get two Sithlords to um, meet?) or whenever you guys feel ready. &lt;evil, evil, evil grin&gt;

 

Looks like Pipes and I have started a trend, huh?

I really like this idea...can't wait to see where you guys take it!

 

Hey this looks great! Has some very interesting possibilities. Best of luck Vee!

 

Also, I liked to see just how much of an old fossil Han thinks the young Obi-Wan is.

 

Amidala inspected the hole carefully, getting as close as she could without placing herself inside.

The door swooshed shut behind her and the distinct rustling of Sabé's costume came to a stop at some distance from her.

"Master Jinn knows," she admitted, her voice quiet, her eyes on the figures in the sand.

Sabé's voice was tinged with disappointment. "I didn't tell him or his padawan, Your Majesty."

Amidala rose to full height, and faced her bodyguard. "I know, Sabé. You served me well."

Their eyes wandered back outside.

Sabé motioned to the elaborate dress she wore. "Shall I change out of this?"

Amidala watched as a scantily-dressed woman accepted the padawan's robe, and frowned. "No, we do not know who these people ally themselves with -- it might be best to play these roles a bit longer."

"Does Her Majesty wish for her handmaiden to assist the Jedi?"

"Sabé..." She nearly corrected her for the formality, but sighed and came to terms with it. If they behaved as if the Master Jedi knew while in these others' presences, and let such small lapses in, they might slip in a critical moment. "Yes, she does."

Sabé grinned, and nodded slightly in obeisance. "I shall send Padmé immediately."

The Queen of the Naboo brushed past her handmaiden swiftly and outside into the sand.

--

If I finish my epiphany paper on Portrait of the Artist before 9 PM CDT, I'll do another post tonight. However, please go ahead and post as if I were not trying to do so -- I know myself pretty well, and it's not very likely. Also, I will be away tomorrow night and Saturday to register for my fall classes. (Don't let my thread die while I'm gone, please. )

[This message has been edited by Vee (edited 04-13-2000).]

 

Taking a five-minute break from writing the Analysis from Heck. I ran into my English teacher from last year while at the school board building and sent myself into a fit of insecurity, so it's taking longer than I thought.

Passing the torch.

 

C-3PO was very confused by this mess. How could a ship appear out of nowhere? It was impossible, except if the ship came out of hyperspace, or it had a cloaking shield. Cloaking shields didn't really work 'cause you couldn't see out of them, and the ship appeared too close to a gravity well to have been in hyperspace, threepio reasoned.

He decided to take a look around this ship.Oh, my goodness. What happened to their hyperdrive? They won't be leaving here soon.

Stumbling around the ship, he ran into the astromech storage room. There, he saw a shut-down artoo, sitting on the rack, even though R2-D2 was supposed to be on the Falcon. He rapped the shell, and artoo suddenly started up, wheeling around.

"R2-D2. What are you doing on this ship?"

beep-dowip notship

"What do you mean, where did I get my shell? They must have given you a memory wipe, the Maker knows why."

kowowl

"I was not 'just functional' the other day! I have been totally functional for years, you twerp! Master Luke will have your hide-"

hwert-rong tyip wer nik

"What do you mean, 'Who is Master Luke'? Do you know who these people on this ship are? They might not be friendly."

jin-gon bon-b dol-a anasky

"But Master Kenobi is dead! I saw it with my own sensors! This is madness..."

-----------------------

Tell me what you think of this. I ussually don't write fanfic, and don't have a lot of experience. In my opinion, what I wrote is not very good.

--Mr. P

 

In orbit above the Sanctuary Moon.

Vader sat in his meditation chamber aboard the Executor. He was meditating, he supposed, but he could find no single focus for his anger, no particular hatred to energize him. He was tired. So very tired.

It mattered little. He had a job to do, and he did it. He bullied Jerjerrod, and threatened the pathetic troopers assigned to outside construction, and had somehow pushed the Death Star back onto schedule. The Rebels could now begin using it as target practice at their leisure.

He shook his head. His thoughts had taken a morose turn -- and sometimes a disturbingly faithless one -- ever since Bespin, and he did not care for it at all.

Luke... He whispered his son's name into the Force, but nothing came back to him. Join me, my son.

Nothing. Too far for Luke to hear him. The boy was still largely untrained, and Tatooine was a quarter of a galaxy away. And the boy was definitely on Tatooine. Even through the current morass, Vader was pleased with himself about that strategy. It was partly that he'd managed to keep several leaders of the Rebellion busy with their own affairs for several months, but on the main, it was more personal: whether Luke chose to join Vader or not, Jabba the Hutt was about to keep his longstanding appointment with a Skywalker and a lightsaber. This pleased Vader deeply, no matter what else came of it. Palpatine's treaty with the slaving worm wasn't going to be protecting him anymore.

He slipped deeper into his meditation, casting his mind toward Tatooine hungrily. He saw only glimpses... fires, and a gun, and Luke's lightsaber... and Leia Organa, her arms strained as she...

And was she dressed as a slave? Had Jabba actually dared to enslave the Princess?

Vader smiled. In his brief flash of vision, he saw her pulling a chain taut around Jabba's neck, and that was even better than the lightsaber, more fitting. The slaver killed by a slave that he never should have dared to take. He would have preferred someone tied to his own blood carry it out, but Leia had done quite nicely in the end.

The sweet energy of old vengeance came to him, and he was strengthening himself with it when...

His shoulders straightened; his back went stiff as a corpse. He could smell something on the wind of the Dark Side, a presence both strange and familiar. Along with it were other impossible presences, but this one was the one that he needed to notice, no matter how distracting the others were.

He'd felt the presence only for a brief time. By all rights, it should have long since vanished from the universe. But it had suddenly appeared again, with

(amidala qui-gon obi-wan and it cannot be but it is...)

the others.

Maul.

Vader had taken some of Maul's memories into himself when he'd bonded with his Master, and he recognized the pattern.

The first apprentice Palpatine had raised up. The one Obi-Wan had killed on Naboo.

Vader did not especially care that it was Maul, only that another Sith had entered the galaxy, and if there was one thing he knew and counted on, it was that there could not be more than two. Palpatine would choose one of them to survive and the other to die.

Vader had no intention of allowing that choice to be made.

He would reach Maul first.

He offered no explanation when he commandeered a TIE interceptor, and set course for Tatooine.

It was time, at last, to go home.

[This message has been edited by JediGaladriel (edited 04-13-2000).]

 

Good stuff guys!

And a good catch, Mr. P; I didn't even realize that we now have two R2D2s (duh!).

So we are going to get that Vader/Maul duel, huh? Nice.

Keep going!

 

Great story!! Although I will admit to laughing when Amidala was thrown 'around'
Ric Ollie! I was like "EEEW! Ollie-cooties!"
I love this stuff, and would love to
see MORE REAL SOON!

hint tongue.gif
Marie

 

This is great. Nice Threepio/Artoo scene and that line about Jabba meeting a Skywalker's lightsaber is great.

 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Geneva,Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Darth Pipes:
that line about Jabba meeting a Skywalker's lightsaber is great.

Credit where it's due -- I was talking to a friend of mine after TPM came out. We both agreed that it was perfect that Anakin was a slave on Tatooine in Jabba's territory, but I was having a little trouble figuring out why he later teamed up with Jabba in the matter of Han. We figured there must be some kind of deal to protect Jabba, along the lines of the non-intervention stuff we saw in TPM, otherwise, Vader probably would have taken out all the slavers on Tatooine right along with everyone else who ever breathed on him wrong. My friend said, "Think about it; it's a perfect plan. One of two things had to happen once he sent Han in there and confronted Luke -- (1) Luke turns Sith, and they overthrow Palpatine together and are free to destroy anyone Vader feels like destroying, or (2) Luke doesn't turn Sith, and leads a Rebel force -- which doesn't exactly care about Imperial deals anyway -- right in there. Either way, there's an angry guy with a lightsaber going in."


[This message has been edited by JediGaladriel (edited 04-14-2000).]

 

(I'm supposed to be packing and my mom took a half-day, so I'm typing this very quietly. Last night's AP "analysis" was scrapped at midnight for a four-paragraph article comparing Stephen Dedalus's epiphany to the "100-Piece-Puzzle with 98 Missing Pieces" from Melrose Naboo. Don't laugh; I did an essay on the Snuggly-Bunny Mind Trick earlier in the year and made an A.)

Loved the part about Jabba's death, JG!

Welcome to the party, Mr. P -- and don't berate yourself, because you'll start to believe it.

Actually leaving now.

 

Well, since we just seem to be in the habit of viewpoint-establishing scenes now, here are a couple more...
-----------
The robe was made of some kind of coarse material, and it itched. Beneath it, the ridiculous metal dancing costume was pinching her skin in a dozen places, and deep-steaming it in even more.

She was decidedly uncomfortable.

Yet she found herself accepting the strangers' appearance with no discomfort at all. They weren't here, now they are here, ho-hum, that's nice. And if there were two members of a nearly extinct order standing there as if they had every right and expectation to be there... well, once you accept everything else, are two Jedi really that much of a stretch?

Leia didn't think so.

Until the one who had offered her his robe said, "I am Obi-Wan Kenobi."

At that point, her mind kicked in. "You're who?"

Luke gave her a look that meant something, but she wasn't sure what, then offered Kenobi a conciliatory smile. "She means 'hello and thank you.' It took me awhile to translate it the first time, too."

"It certainly isn't an intuitive translation."

Leia was briefly annoyed, but realized quickly that they were simply bantering. And she had neglected to thank him for the robe. Itchy it might be, but she was glad for the covering. The little boy who had come out with the Jedi had glanced away so quickly that she'd realized how she looked, and become deeply embarrassed to look that way. She had swallowed the humiliation at Jabba's because she had no choice; Leia Organa, princess of Alderaan, had been made into a slave -- a cheap and tawdry one at that. The boy had understood this humiliation at once somehow, and when he'd offered his shirt, she'd thought it the kindest gesture she'd seen in a very long time, though of course an impossible one to take up. The Jedi's offer of a robe was one she could accept, but she would remember that he had not been the first to offer it. When the boy turned and smiled at her after she was dressed, she felt instantly more comfortable. More dignified. More herself.

She straightened her back, and turned to the man who claimed to be Kenobi. "I do thank you, sir. I was surprised at your name. I grew up hearing the name Obi-Wan Kenobi. You must have been named for him."

The young man shook his head, mystified. "To the best of my knowledge, I am the only padawan ever given this name. It is not the practice among the Jedi to create duplication in naming."

The other Jedi turned. "We seem to have experienced a temporal dislocation," he said, as casually as if he were explaining a minor mechanical malfunction. "We'll need to be careful."

The boy moved toward him. Leia wondered if he was the Jedi's son, but didn't think so. "What do you mean?" he asked.

The older Jedi turned around. He looked over Leia's shoulder, and nodded as Lando and Han came into earshot. "Our hyperdrive malfunction had an unintended effect, Annie. We seem to have arrived at a point in the future."

Leia's mind tried to blank again -- ho-hum, so what -- but she didn't let it. Her eyes went to the Nubian. That class of ship hadn't been made for many years, yet it looked new and shiny. She could see a small figure coming down the gangplank, and beginning to walk toward them.

"Why do you think that, Master?" Kenobi asked.

"Reach into the living Force, padawan. The city is very different now than it was even a few hours ago."

"Perhaps it's the past..."

"No. I am almost certain of it."

Leia told him the year.

"That answers it, then."

"How far?"

"Thirty-five years, give or take. We'll need to return."

"Master Qui-Gon!" a high, young girl's voice called across the sand. "Her Majesty does not wish for you to conduct meetings without my presence."

The girl, Leia knew at a glance, and her heart began to beat quickly and furiously. She had dreamed of her, remembered her voice, felt her running in her own blood. She turned to look her mother in the eye.

[This message has been edited by JediGaladriel (edited 04-14-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Jed

 

OOOO!!! You are so cruel! WRITE MOOOORE!

marie
ps: this is awesome

 

Great scene JG!

 

This is hilarious, guys...though you are right, Vee that Ani/Ami isn't really appropriate here (too bad).