There was something in it...something that spoke far more of a threat than of compliance.
Han tensed, turning to Vader, who paused, twisting slowly back to stare at Luke for long moments. Han felt his own muscles tighten, sure Vader would lunge at Luke, sure the kid would throw himself at Vader if he did, uncertain what to do; whether to grab for the kid to restrain him or launch forward to try to help him.
Then Vader simply turned and stalked out, the door slamming home behind the troopers who followed him, the hiss of the hermetic seal engaging the only sound for long seconds.
"Man, you sure know how to pick your enemies," Han wheezed, letting the words out in a long gasp.
Luke relaxed only slowly, muscles gradually loosing, breathing softening. Still, he stared for a long time at the doorway, an intensity about him which Han had never seen before, a wildness in his eyes.
He eventually sat, hunched in silence for a long time, lost in his thoughts, Han not daring to ask what the hell had just happened.
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No one entered the cell for the next three days. Food came sporadically through a narrow hatch which opened in the wall, Luke always knowing a minute or so before, standing to gaze at the wall as if it were a window. Announcing the arrival of new guards or the changing of the existing ones; any breaks in the routine.
Han didn't ask the kid how he knew this stuff, but he was beginning to accept that he just might, no matter how uneasy it made him feel. Luke was always right about when the food arrived--to the minute.
They'd studied the walls for a long time too, trying to gauge how big the chamber was that their cell was set inside, based on brief glances at the depth of the food hatch; how much of a space the vacuum filled--whether their lungs could take the decompression if Luke forced the door. Han had been willing to give it a try, but the kid had reasonably pointed out that if they'd gone to this much trouble, they would have calculated the size of outer chamber needed to at the very least render its occupants unconscious. Han had to admit it would have been a pretty glaring oversight not to, given the amount of work which had gone into this. Though based on the Death Star design, he was still almost willing to give it a go.
A fair amount of their ample time was also put into trying to judge how long before they arrived at Imperial Center. After some heated debate as to how many days it took to travel from Bespin to Coruscant down the Corellian Trade Spine, Luke had won the argument by default when he pointed out the fact that both of them had been unconscious for the start of the journey, which meant that they had no idea how long they had been traveling in the first place--something of a hindrance in working out how far they still had to go. And that was assuming they'd made no stops--and that they were traveling at a constant point-five beyond lightspeed, both of which were pretty major assumptions.
Too many variables and not enough information, and time was ticking down.
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The sound of the pressure cycling which always marked the opening of the outer door dragged Han awake. He felt groggy, like it was the middle of the night, though they never lowered the lights in here. But he'd had to wake quickly too many times over too many years for it to bother him now, so by the time the inner door grated back he was wide awake and scrabbling upright.
Stormtroopers poured in, too many to count.
Han realized peripherally that Luke had already been awake, standing up before the thick pillar he was tethered to, though he hadn't woken Han. It crossed his mind in that moment to wonder why, but the troopers were jostling Han back now, a blaster in his face.
"Hey, easy pal," Han said, adrenaline pumping.
For a few seconds, there remained a tense standoff as several troopers lined up a way back from the kid, blasters trained on him as Luke held them in a level gaze. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and emotionless.
"Do it," he said simply.
Han frowned uneasily...
The three troopers directly in front of the kid fired, the suddenness of the action making Han cry out as the combined shots threw the kid back to glance off the pillar and hit the ground like dead-weight.
"Luke!" Han was dragged back roughly by many hands. A blaster jabbed into his stomach, winding him, and when he looked up, it was to stare down the barrel.
"This one's not set on stun," the trooper said pointedly.
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To be continued...
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Chapter 4
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CHAPTER FOUR
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"Leia? Leia!" Han shouted out as he was hustled down the ramp of the transport, on seeing Leia being dragged from a second shuttle onto the wide, troop-lined platform, lit up in the dark of the planet's night.
"Han!" She struggled pointlessly against her guards, but that didn't stop her trying. "Let me go! You stupid..."
Her voice was drowned out by Chewie's deafening howl as he saw Han from the ramp.
"Chewie!" Han yelled, elated now. "Hey, ya big..."
The stormtrooper beside him pushed his blaster into Han's ribs. "Shut your mouth, pirate, or I'll shut it for you."
Han didn't care--he didn't care in that moment. They were alive, they were okay. Talk about a roller-coaster day!
They were dragged up alongside him to stand in the center of an impressive group of troopers, all of whom they completely ignored in their relief to see that each of the others were okay. Lando joined them, hands bound, and though he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge the man, in that moment, Han didn't even care that he was there.
"Were you on-board too?" Leia asked, beaming from ear to ear, hardly at her most regal but sure as hell stunning to Han. "For how long?"
"You know me, sweetheart, just can't keep away from a pretty face," he grinned, bobbing his eyebrows.
Leia rolled her eyes as Chewie chuntered his concern. Han brushed it off easily. "Best night's sleep I ever had!"
The stormtrooper in charge of the prisoners turned on them. "If you don't all shut up..."
He never finished his threat. A far greater one than he could ever issue stalked down the ramp of the transport, black cloak swirling about him in the night winds as the impressive phalanxes of troops came smartly to attention.
In the silence, Han glanced around, orienting himself.
They were on a huge landing platform high on the roof of a massive, monolithic building, open to the elements and surrounded by four towering spires which continued up in perfect proportion from the monumental mass off the main structure below, the night illuminated by thousands of lights from the city about it, their reflected glow great enough to obscure the stars entirely. Not that Han needed them to recognize Coruscant--and it would always be Coruscant to him, no matter how many times the Imperials claimed and renamed it.
And he knew the Towers too, had seen them hundreds of times from a distance. A safe distance. Never once expected to see them up close...then again, who did?
The legendary magnificence of the Imperial Palace was laid out about them, in the scale of the landing platform and the troops assembled; in the polished and banded granite slab beneath their feet, delicately inlaid with finely scrolled metals whose design radiated out in a complex pattern hidden by the polished boots of many stormtroopers, in the height of the towers which soared above every other structure even here, immersing the viewer in its casual opulence, a tremendous statement of Imperial wealth and resources on a planet where overt displays of outrageous luxury were the norm.
As vast as it was, the platform was only a fraction of the roof space of the monumental main Palace. The four lofty Habitation Towers which rose up about them from the corners of the building below were each surrounded by private gardens lit up in the night, where full-height trees swayed in the wind, dwarfed by the imposing bulk of the towers themselves. Their intricately-carved stonework, floor upon floor, was thrown into sharp relief by bright lights aimed from the lush gardens at the bases of the towers, the lamps hissing and steaming as drizzle landed on the magnified heat of their huge refracting lenses.