Saga Saga - OT To Shake the Stars--ANH Fan Novelization

Author’s note: I have been rereading the novelizations and am struck by all of the other things over the years that have enriched the context of the original movies. The novelizations grate me at certain times, whether talking about the degeneration of humans until they become Jawas or claiming that Palpatine was a kindly and benevolent guy who had evil advisors and lost touch with the common man. So I decided that I am going to write novelizaitons of each of the OT. Hope you enjoy. Also, this is my way of coping with having to rewrite the wars part of Star Wars in my AU series.

To Shake the Stars

Episode IV
A New Hope

PROLOGUE

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

At a famous crossroads, one man declared himself to be the savior of the Republic. Resilient in the face of adversity, wise in the face of calamity, and powerful in the face of weakness, Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine gazed upon the immolation of his government and declared that the first Galactic Empire would rise from the ashes.

There was no stopping him; he had the Grand Army of the Republic under his command and he had seen to the disbanding of the traitorous order known as the Jedi. The emergency powers given to him at the start of the Clone Wars had only been added to and much of the Senate had been desperate for the security of that totalitarianism to continue. Voices cried out in opposition, but within days of the first Empire Day, they began to fall silent. Some, like Fang Zar of Sern Prime, were arrested en masse. Others, like Senator Amidala of Naboo, disappeared with a disconcerting lack of fanfare or explanation.

A few saw the wisdom in banding together and biding their time. Many factions sprang up, but a few formed a treaty. Corellia, which had recused itself from the Clone Wars for purposes of ‘meditative solitude,’ became the sponsoring homeworld of the Senator whose accords that formally organized the Alliance to Restore the Republic. They called themselves the Alliance in brief.

The Empire called them Rebel scum, traitors, and marked men, but too often could not put an end to them.

It had taken one man and his unstoppable convictions to begin the Empire and it would take many people of unwavering intentions to end it.

CHAPTER 1
A Hope in Hell

The mottled brown marble of the world was unremarkable from orbit. Devoid of oceans and verdant swaths of plant life, it seemed invented by a child who had no concept of ecology, but was the product of a calamitous climate. No fleet stood guard over it and no civilization had laid claim to it.

Tatooine was a world that no one wanted, but it was today the last redoubt for many desperate men and women and the wall against which one Imperial commander could pin the fleeing rebels.

The two ships on an inbound course could not have been more different. A CR90 corvette, just over one hundred meters in length, skittered through the dark between the stars ahead of an Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer that was ten times its size and many times its superior in firepower. Like a Tenoo mouse only expending enough energy and speed to reach the safe haven of its hole, the corvette’s purpose was evasion. There was no change in its altitude and it had continued on the same vector since entering the system at a sunlight engine’s equivalent of a flat run.

The Star Destroyer, flying under the designation of the Devastator, was in no such haste. It was gaining on its quarry and firing patiently, not to obliterate the craft, but to disable it and overtake it. The meager artillery of the corvette attempted to retaliate, but with a casual efficiency, one bolt hit home.midships. The ship did not stop immediately, but its doom was made certain in that surgical strike.

The chase was over; the hunt could begin.
—-
See-Threepio was sure that there had been a time today when the klaxons weren’t blaring, but he could not immediately call them to mind. It was not his place to engage in tactical affairs and he had only been brought along to advise on matters of protocol and interpret for any of the parties involved.

He was sure that few people on board the Tantive IV were aware that they were listening to alarms originally based on ritual chants that dated back six thousand years. They were likely to be so accustomed to the keening that the noise was an annoyance instead of a sociological relic. At the moment, Threepio’s mechanical mind was registering a 3% drop in processing efficiency due to the layers of input. Had he been given sufficient notice, he would have been tuned up and given the latest software updates, but Captain Antilles had called him into service on an urgent matter and he had responded without hesitation.

For all of the urgency of the mission and the deadly peril in which the crew and passengers found themselves now, there were few androids on board the corvette who appeared to be adequately perturbed by the situation. Behind him, another Threepio unit toddled dutifully towards their next posting and his own counterpart, an Artoo astromech whose signal needed decoding in the presence of other sentients, rolled ahead of him without seeming to notice the rocking of the ship or the increasing frequency of shots that found their marks.

The universe was going slightly mad and See-Threepio was the only one who seemed to feel a sense of urgency.

A moment later, that thought was proven false as a contingent of soldiers sprinted past them. A curious move, as they would not be taking on passengers until after landing, but Threepio supposed that they, like R2-D2, moved forward with an unspoken sense of purpose.

A thunderous boom interrupted the klaxons and he tilted his golden head, photoreceptors searching for a visual cue, but the explosion could only have one source.

“Did you hear that?” he demanded of the stoic astromech, who tootled and beeped calmly in response. “They’ve shut down the main reactor. We’ll be destroyed for sure!” His arms flapped briefly in consternation, a reasonable response, really. “This is madness.”

The stocky, barrel-shaped Artoo whistled a reassurance while another contingent of soldiers joined the group heading towards the main hatch. Artoo’s dome swiveled, observing the same signws of heightened security, but his tone was still blase.

“We’re doomed,” Threepio elaborated glumly. “There’ll be no escape for the princess this time.”

That, finally, seemed to penetrate the thick carapace of his optimistic counterpart. The response clearly wondered what more they could do.

A sudden clanging prevented See-Threepio from rendering an opinion on the matter. Halting in the middle of the corridor, both protocol droid and astromech fell silent and waited for the hammer to fall.
—-
Not one of the soldiers on the Tantive IV had any illusion about what would face them when they were taken aboard the Devastator. All of them had been at Scarif and some had made the mad scramble to close the door between themselves and the Sith Lord whose name was as infamous as his deeds.

They had escaped Scarif just out of reach of Darth Vader’s saber, only to be captured at Tatooine by Vader’s flagship. They arrayed themselves along the corridor that was likely the point of entry for Imperial troops, but all of them knew that this was the last of the barriers that could stand between them and Vader’s insatiable rage.

The youngest of them had barely finished his training with the Home Guard. The oldest remembered where he was when the Empire was founded. All of them were here for a single purpose: to give Princess Leia time to fulfill her mission.

Less than a minute later, sparks began erupting from the door and soldiers sighted along their blaster barrels, ready to fire the moment they had a target. The hatch blew apart in a roar of fire and belching smoke. The vanguard flinched away from the shrapnel that resulted and only saw the first of the laser fire in their peripheral vision. The white-armored stormtroopers were first to fall, not prepared to find themselves resisted within meters of their entrance. Their shots went wide or high at first, but once the smoke cleared and their training took over, the casualties quickly began mounting on the rebel side as well.

Trooper and traitor fell alike, their bodies littering the corridor to only momentarily hinder the progress of the invading Imperial troops. Fleeing rebels had a clear path, whereas their opposite numbers stepped indifferently over the fallen foes and friends alike, only interested in driving all inhabitants of the ship into the a place where they could be numbered, identified, and dealt with.

The passages now swirled with smoke that partially concealed the Imperials, but the defenders of the Tantive continued firing indiscriminately, hoping to take down one of their pursuers before they found themselves another hiding place. Hoping to not be the next target, two droids crossed between the forces as though following a walk signal at a pedestrian crossing. They made it to a transverse hallway just before another explosion collapsed the space they had just vacated. This time, Artoo’s what-can-I-do whistle began at a higher pitch and Threepio approved of his partner’s sudden understanding of their predicament.
—
No one had asked for the corridor to be cleared, but by the time the Sith Lord stepped foot on the corvette, the bodies neatly lined the passageway. He strode forward past the sentries and his mechanical breathing quickened slightly as he turned his face-shielding helmet to and fro. Perhaps he was counting the cost or admiring the ratio of allies to adversaries among the fallen.

At Scarif, Lord Vader had moved relentlessly through the corridor, murdering without discrimination and striking without hesitation. Single-minded, he had penetrated every defense until he stood helpless in the wake of a craft that he had been powerless to detain.

Here, with the craft disabled and on his personal capital ship, he moved with no less purpose, but steady attention to detail. He cataloged every unfamiliar face and sought for those whose names and crimes he could identify.

The Dark Lord at Scarif had been inescapable. Here, in the Outer Rim, he was unstoppable.

 

Fantastic start! I am going to love this since I also enjoy the aspects of novelizations that include 'missing scenes' or introspection or extra dialogue.

Your descriptions are very vivid and the title instantly caught my attention.

 

There is definitively a professional type of quality in your writing.
Images drawn with words, details that offer great depth to the movie it describes.
This is a novelization I could get on board reading.

 

Well, she IS a published author.

This is going to take you a long, long time. Great start!!

 

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha What a semi-anticipated joy to have you respond first. I always look forward to your thoughts. I live for missing scenes and dramatic irony and especially introspection. The title is from the radio drama version of ANH, with “A Wind to Shake the Stars.”
@ConservativeJedi321 Thanks! I’ve gotten published with several genres, including sci-fi, but none of it involves a battle scene at all. Closest were a Nutcracker sequel with defeating a sorcerer and a collection of holiday stories in space. So I’m enjoying trying out more epic scales for this project. I hope you continue reading and enjoying and being so kind about the effort.
@LLL Yes, but as I was just telling CJ321, I don’t write people jumping in an X-wing and blowing something up. Swan maidens taking the subway is not on the same level of intensity as anyone being stabbed by Darth Vader. Thanks.
–
Author's Note: Shorter chapter this time, but I really wanted these two pivotal scenes to be this time.

Chapter 2
Focal Points

Leia, Princess of Alderaan, would have preferred more privacy for the task at hand, but every place that she was likely to find it was where the EMpire would look for her first. Her private quarters had a comm that could have easily transmitted the data, but communiques could be intercepted. Similar obstacles kept her from using the ship’ central computers or making a break for one of the escape pods.

She would have preferred privacy and silence, but deprived of both, she had summoned one of the astromechs through a channel that would appear to be a maintenance request instead of a cry for help. Within minutes, the Artoo unit had approached her in a side corridor on the starboard side of the blockade runner. Instead of a state-of-the-art long-range communications unit and readouts, she had the beeped status reports of a droid who had been slightly used during her father’s last term in the Republic Senate.

That was the point, really. Vader had stalked the soldiers who delivered these readouts and personally come for the Tantive IV and he would be blind to the possibility that one of those mechanicals who got in the way of the invasion was his actual quarry.

Father had given few details to her when sending her to the Alliance. A stated purpose and a set of coordinates was all that she had required and that should have been enough. She had been courier entrusted with such simple missions for years and it was certainly within her capabilities as the Senator form Alderaan. Now, with that original mission impossible to complete, she found herself providing a stated purpose and a set of coordinates to a droid whose designation she only knew from the responding unit listed on the maintenance request.

Her breath was ragged as she reached out a steady hand to store the data tapes. She brought it under control within seconds with a familiar grounding exercise and began remarks that must needs be brief and impassioned, but unrehearsed.

A stated purpose and a set of coordinates, she recalled, knowing that the audio was unlikely to pick up the sounds of blaster fire and the screams of the dying that she had heard on her way here. She ended with a bald plea for help as another explosion–closer this time–caught her attention. She glanced instinctively over her shoulder, but finding no approaching phalanx of stormtroopers, she refocused and turned to end the recording.

A glint of metal shone in her peripheral vision and she turned to see one of the 3PO units. It was curious, but inoffensive and as unlikely to draw attention as this astormech. She ducked out of sight before the protocol droid could remark on her presence there and was rewarded a moment later.

R2-D2, having attended to the matter that had called him here, rolled towards the droid, whistling and beeping.

“At last!” his counterpart snapped peevishly. “Where have you been?”

The short answer must have implied either “at work” or “none of your business.” It didn’t faze the scolder.

They’re heading in this direction,” he continued. “What are we going to do?”

She had never heard such a fussy droid. Having an extensive knowledge of the correct procedures for a given situation due to his programming, the Threepio began prophesying doom.

“We’ll be sent to the spice mines at Kessel! Smashed into who-knows-what!”

Given what awaited her once Vader’s agents found her, she would have welcomed something as simple as a prison sentence, but she had seen and heard too much to think she would be given that kind of mercy. Artoo gave his interpreter a moment of consideration, then wandered off, feeling no urge to entertain more of these worst-case speculations.

“Wait a minute!” Threepio blurted out. “Where are you going?”

The Rebels at Scarif had passed those tapes from hand to hand in danger of their lives and now she had done the same. Lowering her white hood to blend in more effectively, she slid further into the shadows of the corridor.

The plans were on their way to her father’s old friend and if she found herself a target, it was a comfort to know that her captors would be gloating over the trapping of the entirely wrong person.
-
The chaos had come to a halt. Where Rebels had sprinted and stormtroopers had marched minutes before, prisoners were driven forward at blasterpoint and no fire could be heard in the passageways.

At the center of this storm’s eye, Vader had found his own method of controlling the madness. Raymus Antilles, captain of this ship and a familiar face to anyone who traveled with House Organa, was currently suspended half a meter in the air, his eyes bulging as his hands scrabbled at his throat. The gloved hand that easily circled his neck and tightened its grip slowly remained firmly in place and the Sith Lord who felt tendons and muscles straining and bones shifting felt no fatigue in the effort of hoisting the man.

The stormtrooper charged with delivering the results of their search did not stop to wonder if Lord Vader had given the man a chance to confess before assaulting him. He turned to Vader without giving the Rebel another thought.

“The Death Star plans are not in the main computer,”

Vader’s helmet jerked in an expression of irritation as he focused once more on his prisoner. “Where are those transmissions you intercepted?” he demanded.. “What have you done with those plans?”

The man’s response wheezed through a constricted airway that was likely to be completely blocked if Vader continued his pressure. “We intercepted no transmission.” Groans were the next thing to escape his vocal cords, but he persisted in the desperate lies. “This is a consular ship. We’re on a diplomatic mission.”

He was saying nothing that couldn’t have been gleaned by running a transponder check or looking at the markings on the hull. Vader felt both fists clench and she bones that had shifted now collapsed.

“If this is a consular ship, where is the ambassador?” he growled.

The death rattle was his only response. A moment of disgust was quickly overtaken by a more natural rage and he flung the corpse into the nearest bulkhead.

“Commander, tear this ship apart until you’ve found me those plans.” The troopers stood at attention, but he could tell by the quickening of their pulses that they would obey as much out of self-preservation as duty once he had finished his orders. “And bring me the passengers. I want them alive.”

There was no stay of execution for those already captured, but for the moment, no lives were as easily cast aside as that of Captain Antilles.

 

Excellent first scene with Leia's sense of purpose and urgency. Vader's frustration with the plans not being found is also well done.

 

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha. Thanks. I haven’t forgotten this fic. I blame the Kessel Run and certain distressed Alderaanians.

Author’s note: I got sidetracked by the Kessel Run and very depressed rebels. I’m back and will be updating this much more regularly. Thanks to Disney+ for letting me compulsively watch scenes 20 times in a row to notice if Leia’s wearing binders or not and other such things.

Chapter 3

Strikes and Counterstrikes

Leia was no stranger to stormtroopers. Her mother the queen had kept them off the streets of Alderaan, but it was expected of a young royal to travel to allied worlds and not all leaders had been as fortunate. In her time, she had witnessed military parades in which armor gleaned and formations of troopers were a show of the Empire’s unity, but there was no ignoring holos both public and censored that flaunted Imperial might in a much less regimented minor. The holonet was fond of showing criminals escorted efficiently to halls of justice, but the Alliance disseminated recordings of troopers with armor spattered with blood quashing uprisings with anything from fists to heavy artillery.

The squad approaching her position was more relaxed, as though strolling through a ship-wide game of hide and seek and happening to find that they’d brought their weapons along. The near-silence and unhurried pace could only mean that the rest of her people were captives or casualties.

Her hand tightened on the grip of her blaster at the thought, a sense of purpose eclipsing regret. The slaughter that had started at Scarif was finally at a standstill and there was some relief to be found in that knowledge, but she had to give the droids time to escape and that meant letting the troopers win this round. With his quarry captured, Vader would become single-minded and putting herself within striking distance of the Dark Lord’s iron fist or blood-hued blade was a risk worth taking if the plans made their way to General Kenobi.

She sidestepped on a long inhalation, blaster raised to the ready and jaw set. The lead trooper drew up short several paces away and she withdrew, goading him into an approach.

“There’s one. Set for stun.”

He was interested in prisoners, but the Princess of Alderaan had no such restraint. She leveled the gun and fired a single bolt that knocked the speaker off his feet. And then she fled on foot, knowing she would not get far, but not intending to be anything more than a target.

Her muscles seized as the blue bolt struck her flank and she crumpled, one leg trapped beneath her and her gun hand outstretched.

Darkness swept low over her as a second trooper optimistically said, “She’ll be all right. Inform Lord Vader—“

The captive princess succumbed to oblivion before he finished the command.

*****

Threepio had many functions and abilities, but his most basic programming was as an assistant and when he was assigned to a counterpart, he was bound to stay at that being’s side until the assignment was completed or an overriding command was issued by his superior.

This was his only explanation for why he was still toddling along after an eccentric astromech who paid as little attention to the imperial troops as the protocol droid. The labor pool supervisor had paired him with the unit in completion of the day’s duties and while the circumstances had changed drastically, the orders had not.

This fact did not keep him from lodging frequent and informal complaints with his counterpart, especially when their next destination proved to be the ship’s row of escape pods. One had already detached from the ship, but Artoo extended an appendage with casual ease and latched onto the control panel.

“Hey!” Threepio squawked. “You’re not permitted in there!”

He might have cited the exact guidelines for use of craft in which the security clearance level required was named and exceptions were detailed. Had they more time to find a safe place to hide, one of the extenuating circumstances might even apply here. But for the moment, protocol was clear on the matter and this R2 unit was possessed of too many loose wires to see reason.

“It’s restricted,” he explained before laying out likely consequences. “You’ll be deactivated for sure.”

Artoo, having endured such nattering lectures from Threepio and his ilk many times, blasted and beeped a response that would have made some blush.

“Don’t call me a mindless philosopher, you overweight glob of grease,” Threepio snapped, pushed past the point of civilized discourse, glancing over his shoulder in agitated anticipation of another attack. “Come out before somebody sees you.”

Already inside the pod, Artoo swiveled his head to fix the lanky droid with his optic sensor and countermanded the orders with absolutely no authority to do so.

“Secret mission?” the golden droid scoffed, shaking his head in exasperation. “What plans?” Artoo moved slightly to allow room for one more passenger. “What are you talking about? I’m not getting in there!”

His absolute conviction was reassessed a moment later when the blaster fire resumed. A bolt struck perilously close to his cranial plating and another caused a shower of sparks to encourage his sense of self-preservation. The droid equivalent of anxiety spurred him to accept the new course of action for now. He ducked his head in resignation and shuffled into the vacant spot.

“I’m going to regret this,” he lamented.

Whatever his feelings on the matter, he found the hatch closing behind him and Artoo released the pod before Threepio had even taken the time to strap himself in.

Had the protocol droid believed in a higher power, he might have called on him at that moment, but he could only thank the Maker that he was headed for anywhere but the doomed blockade runner.

*****

“There goes another one.”

The first time an escape pod had hurled itself past the Devastator’s gunnery turrets, the officer had fired a warning shot. When the maneuvering thrusters had fired as the passengers tried to dodge, a second well-aimed burst of laser fire had disabled the pod’s engines and the craft would be retrieved once things had calmed down.

This second pod arced lazily towards the planet without a

clear trajectory and his superior leaned forward to scan the sensor readings before giving a diffident shrug.

“Hold your fire.” At his look of mild confusion, the man nodded towards the readings. “There’s no life forms aboard. It must have short-circuited.”

Its current vector was for a location identified on maps as the Jundland Wastes. There it would remain, another insignificant piece of debris littering the least remarkable place in the Empire.

*****

Threepio, having finally secured himself in a chair and having spent several minutes beyond the reach of enemy forces, was feeling much better. He still had no plan, no sense of direction, and no sane companion, but surely, they could take refuge on the planet below for now and find a way home later.

He peered through the viewport as the Tantive IV and the Star Destroyer that had overtaken it shrank into the distance. “That’s funny,” he commented. “The damage doesn’t look as bad from our here.“

Artoo gave a more technical assessment, but it wasn’t enough to make Threepio forget their deliberately uncontrolled descent and all the attendant dangers of unshielded pods.

“Are you sure this thing is safe?”

Artoo pointed out that no part of the pod was on fire or filled with stormtroopers. Threepio resigned himself to the lesser of two evils.

*****

Leia awoke with her cheek still pressed to the deck where she’d collapsed and muscles she couldn’t remember possessing in spasm. She blinked, eyes struggling to focus as the muscles slowly unclenched, and finally found herself staring at a boot.

As her breath rushed out of her suddenly, the toe of the boot shifted slightly and a shadow fell over her. Moments later, a gauntleted hand found her wrist. In the seconds it took for the trooper to feel for her radial pulse, she registered that the blaster was gone. A bruised feeling in her fingers suggested it had been kicked away, but she was just conscious enough to know that the pain was widespread and unlikely to last very long.

Whatever the location of her firearm and the soreness of her legs, she was in imperial custody.

“In Imperial custody” was appended to causes of death over years of Palpatine’s rule. A senator had suffered a fatal heart attack in Imperial custody. A violent protestor had taken their own life in Imperial custody.

Leia, Princess of Alderaan, was alive and feeling quite unwell in Imperial custody, but she was alive. If the Force was with her, her droids were not in similar straits.

“On your feet.”

She first drew her arms in, flexing her fingers and planting her palms so she could raise herself and straighten her pinned legs. Her jaw clenched again at the effort, but the trooper waited patiently for her to regain some control of her faculties.

She expected shackles and manhandling, but the squad of stormtroopers arrayed themselves around her with quiet efficiency that reminded her of the palace guard. Leia was no flight risk—there was no escaping this time—but she responded to the unexpected courtesy with formality and clasped her hands just below her belt, her gaze forward and her pace steady.

The party’s path led them past the escape pod access corridor and she heard nothing, but the acrid stench of smoke coming from that part of the ship did nothing to assuage her fear for the messenger she’d sent to General Kenobi. A familiar dead man thoughtlessly left where he had fallen barely registered as the door to her left hissed open and the only person with the audacity to attack a Princess of Alderaan emerged.

“Darth Vader,” Leia acknowledged before he could speak, pitching her voice low in disgust and indignation. “Only you could be so bold.” It went without saying that few people were foolish enough to provoke the Sith, but she focused on the legal issue to find more secure footing. “The Imperial Senate will not sit still for this. When they hear you’ve attacked a diplomatic—“

Vader interrupted with equal force. “Don’t act so surprised, Your Highness.” There was a smug lengthening of his words, countering her lightning-quick defense. “You weren’t on any mercy mission this time.”

Of course she was. The Emperor’s servant was notoriously incapable of recognizing any genuine mercy, much less its virtue.

“Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by Rebel spies,” he accused. It did not escape her notice that a thin man at Vader’s back frequently glanced in her direction to gauge her responses. She shifted the tilt of her head, but focused instead on the immediate threat. “I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She would keep any truth from him by a series of minor falsehoods and she began with the fact that the plans’ location was unknown to her and the plans had been sent to another ship before being handed off to her men. “I’m a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan.”

He brandished a finger with such emphasis that she could easily imagine him closing the distance between them and wrapping a hand around her neck. “You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor. Take her away.”

The troopers hurried her off with much more urgency and a shove between her shoulder blades. Princess Leia, who had suffered several catastrophic setbacks in just hours, took some note of the agitation that she had succeeded in causing her foe.

 

Terrific. The dialogue is on point, and the contest of wills and wits begins.

 

I have to love that prologue. Stirring writing. (Of course, there was a way to stop him, but no one did it.)

You get inside the mind of DROIDS so well. Threepio is an interesting character here.

Are you just going through the film and working that way, or are you going through the novel and working that way?

 

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha thanks. I love Leia and Vader’s power struggle throughout the first half of this movie.
@LLL glad you approve. And thanks for the fandom of droid internal dialogue. I’m doing film, with no reliance on the novel that drove me nuts.

Chapter 4
Balance Points


It was a mark of the Empire’s success that Daine Jir was able to speak his mind. On the field of an uncertain battle or in earshot of the enemy, it would have been unacceptable, nay, inadvisable to contradict the Dark Lord.

As the Senator and the Sith took diverging paths, however, Lieutenant Jir fell into step with Lord Vader and spoke with a sense of urgency that usually accompanied an imminent tactical error. “Holding her is dangerous,” he said as Vader gave no indication that he was listening or considering any input. “If world gets out, it could generate sympathy for the Rebellion in the Senate.”

It was a Senate that was rumored to have already produced the leaders of the so-called Alliance to Restore the Republic and while only a handful of members were confirmed, dozens were rumored and any dissent was a threat to the stability of the galaxy.

Vader’s breathing remained steady and unconcerned and his tone implied an almost indifferent self-assuredness. “I have traced the Rebel spies to her,” he understated and

summarized the relentless chase from Scarif to this Outer Rim system. “Now, she is my only link to finding their secret base.”

“She’ll die before she’ll tell you anything,” he protested.

Another door hissed open and more of his men passed, their gaits unhurried. The 501st had cut a wide swath through the corridors of this corvette and now, with prisoners corralled and the dread moved out of the way, the stormtroopers were merely patrolling in wait for their next orders. Their pace did quicken slightly at the sight of Lord Vader, but neither of the pair spoke a word.

“Leave that to me,” the Emperor’s top lieutenant commanded. As though he had thought of all possible complications in advance, he continued without pause, “Send a distress signal and then inform the Senate that all aboard were killed.”

A diplomatic distress call of that sort would first go to the representative’s homeworld. This scion of a Core World would have been the center of much attention, even if she had never made a name for herself as the youngest member of the Imperial Senate and a strong proponent of refugee rights. The shock waves of her death at such a young age would manifest themselves in public and ceremonial memorials and tributes and while the world grieved and her colleagues lamented the loss of a promising young legislator, no one would pay much attention to what became of all those lost in the tragedy. It would not hold back investigations forever, but it would buy them time.

“Lord Vader?”

They had just rounded the next corner when an aide reached them with a purposeful air to his movements. Vader and Jir came to a halt and all discussion of repercussions were momentarily forgotten.

“The battle station plans are not aboard this ship,” Nahdonnis Praji reported, “and no transmissions were made.”

It was impossible. The plans had been manually handed off to officers on-board this ship so that the last courier died moments after he got the tapes to their intended recipients. There was no explanation for this, but Praji offered one nonetheless. Any officer who had worked with Vader instinctively moved from issues to solutions if they valued their rank or their life.

“An escape pod was jettisoned during the fighting, but no life-forms were on board.”

“She must have hidden the plans in the escape pod,” Lord Vader commented to Jir, who nodded in understanding. “Send a detachment down to retrieve them.”

The Princess must have acted in unthinking desperation, since there was not a solitary chance that the plans would be retrieved before the Empire reached the pod. The Rebellion had to havee coordinated efforts with uncanny skill and speed, which was not typical of them.

“See to it personally, Commander,” Vader ordered with an abrupt turn to stare down his aide. “There’ll be no one to stop us this time.”

If there was a single person left to doubt him on that ship, they had not the courage to say so. Jir did not pause to take his leave of Lord Vader before falling in behind Praji. An assignment of this urgency would require a carefully selected team.

There would not be someone in the way of Darth Vader’s victory here, especially not the men who served him personally.

*****

A CR-90 corvette’s escape pods were things of functionality, not beauty, and Threepio had few words of kindness for their functionality. It was true that they had made a landing and avoided any combustions or tangible malfunctions, but there had been no steering controls. There was no navigational readout to indicate where they had made their landing.

The view from space had implied that Tatooine was a place of dunes, more dunes, the occasional settlement, and yet more dunes. See-Threepio did not revise his assessment of the world once Artoo opened the pod hatch. The glare of twin suns off the dunes would have blinded organic beings, but Threepio’s optical sensors adjusted to the appropriate levels and registered the delineation of various dunes with the help of shadows and patterns that had been created by wind currents..

They were now some one hundred seventeen paces from the pod in a direction that did not seem to matter. An hour’s journey in any direction was unlikely to bring the two droids into contact with civilization.

He could have spent his time cross-referencing known species of desert climates and likely overlapping customs that were incurred by the universal needs of such peoples. His current circumstances were such that thinking of comparative water-sharing communions brought him neither joy nor comfort.

Artoo was keeping up a monologue of his own, reporting compass bearings and the incline of their current dune. Threepio supposed that this was a lower-intellect’s equivalent of a coping mechanism. Or perhaps the stunted creation was merely being an irritant.

“How did we get into this mess?” Threepio began his dune-side soliloquy. “I really don’t know how.”

A literalist programming indicated that he had taken five steps to the starboard side of the corvette and closed the escape pod hatch behind himself. He knew the trajectory of their descent to the planet’s surface. He had already thought of this twice, but he now engaged in more existential ruminations.

As many sentients did in the face of hardship, he decided to blame a creator of some sort. “We seem to be made to suffer,” Threepio lamented as his temperature readings indicated a spike in the outer temperature of his metal frame and the contaminant filtration system raised a concern with his processors. “It’s our lot in life.”

He had no frame of reference for how long that life had lasted. A maintenance worker had once observed that his parts predated the Clone Wars by several years, but out of mercy or cruelty, memories of his early years had been wiped clean. His poor long-term memory was a fact that Artoo, the snide little toolbox himself, delighted in mentioning on a regular basis. What he knew was that, of all the things he could remember, they were inappropriately distressing for a droid programmed for etiquette and protocol. See-Threepio’s equals we’re not designed for chaos, yet he too often found himself drawn into scenes of mayhem that were never his own doing.

The contamination was now approaching congestion as he crested the next dune. “I’ve got to rest before i fall apart,” he announced. Indeed, he did not need a range-of-motion assessment to know that he was now plodding instead of ambling. “And my joints are almost frozen.”

Artoo pointed out that his own parts were fewer and more suitable for a change in terrain. He was not as cocky as the astromechs who could use repulsorlifts, but he was currently smug to be more simply and inelegantly designed. It was certainly a sign that he was too low-brow to be consorting with a droid of Threepio’s caliber.

At the top of the next ridge, the two looked out on yet more gentle hills of nondescript particles. If there were any canyons, formed by the long-ago passage of rivers through rock, they were a distant memory or a distant locale. He could see a ridge of mountains, but was not interested in focusing his analytical skills on the geological history of this continent. He was too put out by the indignity of it all.

“What a desolate place this is,” Threepio sighed.

Artoo agreed, then whistled in invitation before swiveling his head and setting off on a new course perpendicular to their current route.

“Wait a minute. Where are you going?”

Instead of a response that translated “south by southwest one hundred sixteen degrees,” Artoo named a distance and proposed track. Threepio’s opticals scanned the destination and immediately spotted a reason for objection.

“Well, I’m not going that way,” he decided. “It’s much too rocky. This way is much easier.”

Artoo ignored him, but came to a temporary halt.

“What makes you think there are settlements over there?”

Artoo had the bad grace to bring up the nomadic tribes of a Mid-Rim planet whose entire religion was based on the spirits they heard in the caves of their northern continent. And then he pointed out the advantages of building a township in less brutal conditions, citing geological surveys. Artoo was being petty and a bit ofa show-off.

“Don’t get technical with me,” the protocol droid admonished.

The next answer was a familiar one.

“What mission?” Threepio demanded once more. “What are you talking about?”

The question of how they had gotten into this mess was quite easy to answer when Artoo began to ramble.

“I’ve just about had enough of you,” he snapped. When Artoo expressed indifference, he waved one golden arm in a dismissive gesture. “Fine. Go that way. You’ll be malfunctioning within a day, you near-sighted scrap pile.” He attempted to add injury to insult with a swift kick to his counterpart’s undercarriage, but a clank was the only result. Threepio still felt some satisfaction in having elicited a response when Artoo squeaked in protest. “And don’t let me catch you following me, begging for help because you won’t get it.”

Artoo speculated on what sort of help Threepio would be seeking instead as he walked away, and then blatted and squealed a lecture of his own. Threepio turned back to take one last stand.

“No more adventures,” he insisted. “I’m not going that way.”

Artoo muttered to himself until Threepio could no longer hear his pointless ramblings about a mission. There were mountains, bare-capped, but imposing in the distance and that was the place the astromech was apparently certain of success.

Several hours later, Threepio was feeling decidedly improper. In spite of several rests and several efforts to unclog the sand from his parts, he found himself even more slow-going than he had been at the landing site. The only sign of life here was the skeleton of a monster who, too, had perished in the heat of the blazing suns. To take his mind off this grim display, he considered the fourteen known religious practices that cursed an unforgiving nature spirit. He had just translated the banishment of drought ritual from Bith into Bothan when he reached his limit and wished that he had a counterpart to discipline.

“That malfunctioning little twerp,” Threepio complained. “He tricked me into going this way.” Then, in an attempt to self-care, he predicted, “But he’ll do no better.”

Lifting his eyes to the horizon, he saw the flashing of a light atop a moving shape. It could not be organic, but moved at a steady pace.

“Wait, what’s that?” He focused a moment longer. “A transport! I”m saved!”

Raising his arms, he lifted his arms into the air and began gesticulating wildly to attract attention.

“Hey!” Programmed as he was, he could converse in six million forms of communication and over one million of those were pleas. “Over here! Help! Please help!”

 

If See-Threepio and Artoo aren't funny ... it ain't Star Wars.

I laughed through the entire last scene of this.

 

Hilarious final scene full of snark.