//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: To Walk The Sky and Catch The Moon // by Celestial king turles //------------------------------// Chapter 4 PREVIOUSLY:  "S-sir… look." Shining turned and froze, gaping. Twinkleshine turned her head to look as the medics, about to lift her onto the chariot, also froze, one of them gasping in horrified amazement. Everypony who could look stared, unable to pull their eyes away. The morning sky above was perfectly clear and cloudless, the mighty summit of Mount Canter splitting it like a giant knife. Further up, bright azure darkened toward deeper navy blue, a gentle, soothing gradient in the heavens. Above the mountaintop, almost like a crown, a golden shard of sunfire cut a crimson gash in the deep blue sky.  A few minutes earlier... Cold. Heavy. Piercing. Pain. If there were words that better described the sensation that closed about Luke Skywalker as he fought against the Thing that assaulted their ship, he wasn't sure whether or not he wanted to know them. Its presence coiled around him, relentless and merciless like a Krayt dragon, seeking to crush, to stab, to subjugate. It felt like an entire planet had pressed its weight on his shoulders, bearing down on him with one, all-encompassing demand: KNEEL AND SUBMIT. To someone like Luke, who had only just been ordained as a Jedi Knight, the sheer power behind the attack was insurmountable. The only thing that kept him from collapsing under the strain was the solid, black, towering monolith of power that was his father; a pillar of support that he could lean on. He stood like a stalwart rampart of the Force, holding the worst of the Thing's mental lashes at bay. Even so, his presence was no less bone-chilling; cold wrath radiated from his form like the icy cliffs of Hoth. It had not escaped the notice of neither father nor son that the Thing had adopted a particular hatred of Luke, and had directed the worst attacks at him — strikes that had sent him to his knees from the pain. Anakin had sent his own crushing strike towards the Thing, and it had backed off. Still, It kept a constant pressure on Luke that was only withheld by Anakin’s cold anger, tightly controlled and protective. This palpable aura of wrath honestly made Luke a little uneasy.    Still, he would rather face that than what lurked outside, waiting to claim them.  He focused, and sent out his own lashing tendril of thought against the Thing as a follow-up for Anakin’s own strike. For a moment it receded but it actually seemed surprised. Huffing slightly off Luke exclaimed to his father. “We have to do something, otherwise we’ll crash.” “I know.” Anakin replied, his tone carrying slight hints of frustration and anger. “Which is why we'll make sure it won’t succeed.” Instantly he started to plan. “At the moment, we are in a deadlock, " he began, audible strain in his voice, "We can defend against it separately, but — " he paused as he fended off another strike. "But striking back alone yields little to no reward, and our ship is still being pulled. I alone would normally have the strength to sever the grip it has on us, but with my injuries…" He left it hanging. It was clear to Luke that Anakin was struggling to admit he wasn't strong enough.  "So what do you propose?" Luke asked his father. Anakin paused for a brief second then continued. "There were times when Obi-Wan and I pooled our strength against a task that neither of us could take alone, called on the Force as one. I believe we can do the same, and together we can relinquish its hold on  us." He hesitated for a moment then added, in a more subdued tone "I… Would understand if you are adverse to this method. We can try something else." The ship rattled again as Luke considered Anakin’s plan. Far away, he could hear Obee yelling that they were in the planet’s gravity well. Making his decision, he nodded. "OK, Father. Tell me what to do. You lead, and I'll follow." Anakin, to his credit, only froze for a split second of surprise at his son's acceptance. Immediately he shook it off and together they made for the bridge, where the droids were at the controls. Ahead, the silver mass of the moon dominated the viewports. "Report!" Anakin barked at Obee.  "We're less than two thousand kilometers from the moon now!" The droid cried. "Course unchanged! At this rate we'll make contact in less than three minutes!" "Not if we have anything to say about it," Anakin snarled. "Luke, gather your strength now! When I say so, focus it on me!" Luke nodded and gathered himself in the Force, as next to him his father did the same. Their powers peaked in seconds, and both readied for the next step.   For a single, eternal moment, both father and son stood there, twin suns in the Force, radiating power in all directions. Then they reached for one another, focused on each other, and the singular goal they shared. Luke felt his father next to him reach out, and he reached for his father in turn. The tendrils of power met between them then conjoined, and they stood united in thought and the Force. The Force. The Father.  The Son.  All were one. All were focused on a single, unifying goal. Slowly, Luke-Anakin hefted the mighty power he/they wielded, and with a single thought, brought it to bear on his/their foe. To say she was shocked would be a great understatement. For the first time in a thousand years, she had witnessed something unprecedented — she would even call it  impossible, were it not happening in front of her. In the silver vessel slowly drawing towards her, close enough that she could make out more of its sleek profile, the two beings on board somehow merged.  No… not merged — that would be more along the lines of mixing two different things, to the point the separate components were inseparable and indistinguishable. This was more like combining, as the two beings had joined together to become one concentrated force — one, yet still separate. She could still perfectly make out the hated, sunny brightness of the Younger and the dim, yet strong smoldering of the Elder. It was incredible,  and clearly the prelude to some kind of counter —  And then it hit her, with all the force of a falling meteor. An airless gasp came out as her legs began to buckle, and the ground cracked under her hooves. it was as if a mountain had actually dropped into her back and was about to crush her. What was going on?! She looked up and saw that the silver craft, just seconds ago inching towards her, was starting to crawl away through the skies. They were pushing against her and the moon, offsetting her pull — and hoping to distract her focus, no doubt! She pulled more of her power together, as much as she could without risking backlash from the seal, and then threw her will at the vessel with a soundless demand. Come HERE!!!!! The vessel jerked to a halt in its tracks, started moving towards her again, then stopped for a final time, shuddering under the two opposing forces. She wrenched and yanked on the ship with as much power as she could muster, but it remained stubbornly fixed above her, unyielding. To think these beings were able to defy her so! It angered her, infuriated her; yet in her heart she could not help but feel a bit of jealousy. That kind of camaraderie was something that she hadn’t experienced since… since… White wings spread before the coming dawn, and there was a gentle smile under the rainbow mane. "Shall we go,  _____?" Hate boiled in her gut, and she felt bile threatening to rise in her throat. Those hated memories, that she had done her best to discard! That these… these foreigners would make her again recall that thrice-damned teaser of a mare that she once called sister! Enough was enough. She would pull the ship before her, drag the two occupants before  her hooves, and have them beg for mercy. Then, she would teach them the truth of her very name. Screaming in fury, she poured more of her strength into the spell. The ship began to slowly crawl towards her again… then it stopped as the Two redoubled their efforts. Without thinking, she put as much into her horn as she could, straining at the seal binding her to the moon for more of her power. The ship once again began to move again, but this time sideways, swinging in a slow arc towards the planet below.  As she pulled harder still, the ship halted, poised exactly between the world and the moon, stubbornly refusing to budge. Within, the Two continued to push, as she continued to pull.  It was a complete impasse, a clash of wills that would not budge either way. Between them, a knot of power grew, the warring energies twisting, tangling and knotting together into a mass of stress upon the fabric of the universe. Both sides could feel the strain building in reality and life itself, as the power built up with nowhere to go, like gas in a nebula trapped together by gravity, slowly compressing and reaching further towards the threshold of fusion. It was as if a long rope connected them, straining and growing more taut with each clash of push and pull. Inevitably, the contest reached a breaking point. All the pent up energy was at critical mass, the strain at maximum — one more clash would release its disasters upon the world.  And without fail, the clash came, and the fabric of creation itself screamed from the tearing, soundless explosion. A blast wave of raw chaotic energy roiled through space and over the planet below. None would be able see the spectral blast as it raced over the surface of that world — but all with the gift felt it.  On the moon it was no different. For a moment that lasted an eternity, the Prisoner knew only agony— shapeless, formless and all-encompassing as the backlash of their duel made itself known. The moon itself groaned under the strain of the blast. Finally, the storm passed, and she regained her senses. As she looked up, the first thing she saw was the vessel spiraling and rocketing away towards the world below. She let out an airless screech of rage and frustration as her one hope of salvation and getting off her beloved yet accursed moon was taken away in an instant. All caution and reason thrown to the winds, she spread her wings and kicked off the ground  towards the falling vessel. For a brief instant, she was airborne for the first time in a millennium. Then, she felt something cold and hard wrap around her hoof, and she was suddenly yanked back to the ground. Turning to look, she stared in mounting horror and panic at the pitch black chain, with a nimbus of multicolored lights flickering and sparking around and upon it, wrapped firmly and tightly around her hind leg. She tried—ineffectually to shake it off, when another chain burst out of the grey soil to bind one of her forelegs. A third chain quickly joined its comrade, then another and another. The realization came to her in a flash of terror — the seal that had kept her bound, momentarily stunned as she was by the explosion of magic, was making itself known. And it—was displeased.  Then, an innumerable amount of chains came forth, wrapping and constricting around her body like steel pythons. The more she struggled, then more chains appeared, tightening their grip refusing to let her from ever escaping. It got to the point where she felt pain from all sides, like it was squeezing her very life to near crushing levels. To be put in such an insulting position almost forced her to cry. The ground split, opened wide into a gaping maw. Light of a color that had no name streamed from within, waiting. The chains began to pull taut and drag her in. No matter how much she struggled it was all for naught.  The Moon, so easily swayed against her, would not soon let its prisoner slip away. She soon found herself between the two jaws of the massive crevice, still unable to pull free. Slowly the two walls of stone began to slide inexorably shut, and more and more of the sky continued to disappear from the Nightmare's view. The last thing she saw, as she let out one last defiant, terrified scream, was the little speck of the vessel as it fell into the world's atmosphere, and she raised a hoof towards it in a useless gesture of escape. Then the jaws shut, and all she knew was crushing blackness and silence. “Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Screamed Teefour as his metallic body was sent flying out of the medical center and pelted by the broken instruments and scrap metal that fell from their containers and piles. The ship around them heaved and rocked and groaned like a wounded bantha, sending containers, tools and droids tumbling this way and that. Anakin stood in the middle of the chaos, seemingly unfazed as he cradled the unconscious body of his son, overwhelmed by the feedback of the explosion. It had taken Anakin, with his three-and-a-half decades of experience with the Force, everything he had to remain even a little functional through the onslaught of mental turbulence that had ensued. It made sense that Luke, strong as he was but relatively inexperienced, would not have been able to do the same.  Even so, Anakin couldn't help but be proud of Luke, who had held his own against the Thing outside, and had ultimately pushed the struggle to detonation, hoping to incapacitate the creature. Given that he could no longer sense the Thing, Luke had been successful in that at least.   “Sir, sir!” Obee shouted, taking him out of his musing. “We have a problem! The ship has been thrown off course and we're caught in the gravity well! We'll be hitting the atmosphere in minutes!" "What of the deflector shields?" Anakin asked. "Functional, but sporadic and irregular! The angling subroutines are jumbled up!" Meaning, Anakin thought, they would have to be set manually— on a constant basis, or the ship would burn up. It wouldn’t be an easy task, even for him, and with no guarantee of success.  He looked down at Luke, still slumped in his arms, and quickly came to a decision.  "Prepare a lifepod, and bring Kyugee." He hefted Luke over his shoulder, and followed Obee to one of the escape pods. Obee put a spike into the controls, and the hatch opened with a hiss. As Anakin carefully set Luke inside, Kyugee arrived with an inquisitive bleep. Anakin motioned to the droid. "Go inside," he said. Another questioning beep from Kyugee. "I must concur," Obee added. "We need to know what it is that you intend for us." Anakin nodded. "I will attempt to land the ship safely. However, given the state…" He hesitated for a moment, then continued," I cannot guarantee success. I can at least ensure that Luke survives, by putting him in this pod. You," Anakin pointed at Kyugee, "Must go with him. Assist him in any way necessary and possible. I do not know what you will face… but I wish you the best."  Kyugee warbled sadly, then beeped an affirmative and trundled into the pod at Anakin’s gesture. The hatch slid shut behind him, and Anakin peered through to take what might likely be the last ever look at his son. At that moment, Luke’s eyes flickered open; bleary and unfocused. "...Father… what…" "Be safe, my son. We… " Anakin stopped for a second.  Behind him, he heard Obee call, "We're about to enter the atmosphere!" Anakin looked back at Luke, who was becoming more lucid. "We will see each other again. I swear it." "Father, what —" Luke had seemed to finally catch on to where he was. "Wait, father —" Anakin pressed the release button and watched as the pod jettisoned. It tumbled through the slowly brightening void, plasma trails already starting to form as it righted its course. He watched only for a second more before turning and striding onto the bridge. Obee was already at his post, spike inserted, working furiously to maintain the deflectors. The ship around them bucked and jolted in the free-air turbulence, and already the view of the cockpit was obscured by a shroud of flame.  Anakin took the pilot's chair and gripped the controls, and as the plasma trails formed around the stricken Nubian, he set to work. He quickly made adjustments to the deflector shields, tweaked the maneuvering thrusters as much as he could, but even so the rattling persisted. Okay, Anakin thought. Time for a change of tactic.   He took in a deep breath, and began to draw on the Force. He once again felt his body rejuvenated, though his body was still feeling the backlash of the past hour, in addition to his continued lack of full recovery from the Emperor's Force Lightning. The odds right now were stacked against him. I’m more exhausted than I initially thought… Anakin could feel his strength flagging and faltering in the face of his challenge. Despite this, he persisted with a stubbornness that rivaled a krayt dragon before a sand storm — defiant before an inevitable, inescapable outcome.  As he wrestled with the Force he began to make a small prayer. Obi-Wan, my old friend... I know what I’ve done was unforgivable. I do not expect you to forgive me for my crimes, but I ask you—no, I beg of you. If I do not survive this… he thought back, to the small reprieve he had with Luke. Five days together did not make up for twenty-three years of absence, no more than one life could not balance out millions. Even so, he was thankful to know his son even for a short while.  If I don’t survive this...please watch over him. That’s all I ask… He briefly thought how fitting it would be, for the ship to burn up and him with it; for the innumerable sins of Darth Vader, a monster born of fire, to be punished by fire, once and for all. He would accept that, for all his crimes. How easy it would be, he thought. He could let go, and let the fire take him, as it should have all those years ago. All those he had wronged over his ill-gotten years as Vader — the Sand People, Dooku, Windu, the younglings, Obi-Wan and all of the other Jedi he had murdered… Padmé… their justice would come at last. All he had done would be repaid. And Luke… Luke… He straightened in his seat. Even now, he could feel Luke’s worry and concern for him radiating from the escape pod, concern for him — Anakin. Not Darth Vader, the monster who slaughtered millions, but the man underneath… his father.  We will see each other again. I swear it. Resolve ignited in his chest. A determination such as he had not felt in two decades flared within, igniting like the core of a star. Let the Force have its pound of flesh some other day. He had made that promise to Luke, and he would keep it. He would not permit even the Force itself to make a liar out of him.  He would see his son again, even if it killed him. Anakin admitted to himself that he had been overly optimistic in his assessment. The old Nubian was a mess. The maneuvering thrusters were shot. The hull was pitted and torn by their journey. The controls and navigation were nowhere near functioning properly. The deflector shields might as well have been made of thin, moth-eaten cotton for all the help they would do.  Landing in one piece was, in a word, impossible. It couldn't be done. But he was Anakin Skywalker. He and the impossible were old friends now. He had conquered the impossible many times before — he could do it once more.  He began to pull in more energy, though it was getting more difficult to the point it was actually painful — he didn’t care. It was either this, or they were all dead. The instant he felt that he was ready, he expanded his senses over the ship. He took in every panel, circuit and wire. He perceived every nick, scratch and burn. He felt the ship as he felt his own body and proceeded to manipulate it as such. He no longer controlled the ship; he was the ship. If the controls themselves were not enough, he would directly influence the ship systems to move as he willed.  The ship began to even out and stabilize in its flight, and the deflector shields began to settle. The flames around them were now held back by the reorganized deflectors, directed and reinforced by the sheer might of Anakin’s will. He could see the walls of flame around the cockpit thin and recede somewhat; the blue sky and clouds now faintly visible. Soon they'd be low enough to see distinct landmarks. And then, he thought grimly, the truly difficult part would begin.  The medical chariot had raced off just as another chariot had arrived with an earth pony guardsmare as its sole occupant. “Sir!” she stated, snapping off a salute. “Her Royal Highness requests your presence at once to organize a relief effort! Step aboard, sir, and we’ll head to the palace.” Shining stumbled on, with help from the guardsmare, and the chariot quickly took off, following the distant medical chariot to the palace. The earth pony quickly caught the Captain as he staggered from the sudden motion. “Are you alright sir?” she asked quietly. Shining gave her a wan smile. “Just a little dizzy from the… event,” he replied, momentarily at a loss for words. He grimaced. “All the same, I’d rather you not mention this to Cadance.” The mare snorted. “Sir, knowing Her Loving Highness, she can feel ya stub your hoof all the way from Manhattan, and this ain’t like that time you got nipped on the tail by that manticore cub.” He snorted as well. “Oh please, don’t remind me of that incident.” “Remember it like it was yesterday — you running round,  little furball latched on your tail…" "Corporal…" "Then she's all over ya to the point — " "OK, OK, I got the picture! " He exclaimed, blushing furiously while the Corporal laughed at his discomfort. Inevitably, he started chuckling too as he recalled just now ridiculous it had all been. He turned to the Corporal.  "Thanks for that. I needed the distraction.” He wasn’t lying either — the humor, even if he was butt of it, certainly eased the tension. It took his mind a little off the events of the past few moments.  He wasn't sure how to exactly describe that single, chaotic moment of agony. It had almost been like somepony had simultaneously tried to melt his horn and rip it out of his skull. Even his first week in boot camp would never compare to that horrible white hot agony that happened not moments ago. The Corporal grinned back. "Laughter is the best distraction from hard times like this. Heard that from a mare that lives in a town down the mountain. Mane looked hilarious  and she was crazy as hay, but can't argue with —” A shout of horror from one of the pegasus drivers interrupted them. The stallion was gaping upwards in terror, and Shining quickly understood why. The streak of red fire they had seen before had brightened and condensed into something like a large star, and was clearly moving, falling. It didn't take much observation to figure out just where it was falling either, given how fast it seemed to be growing.   “This ain’t good, not good at all,'' the driver moaned in horror as they saw the fireball in the sky. Shining could help but agree to that statement as it began to descend towards them at a frightening speed. As it neared Mount Canter, becoming brighter and growing in size, the morning blue sky began to slowly darken as though the evening had already approached by sunrise. Thanks to many years of close proximity to his sister, Shining was familiar with various facts of astronomy, including meteors. Seeing the brilliant miniature sun rushing towards them, one term kept echoing in his head. Superbolide. The term referred to an extremely bright and large meteor, hundreds of times brighter than a full moon, that more often than not would explode midair with enough force that one would need to split and fuse atoms to match. He had read news reports of one such event over Fillydelphia that had happened when he was a foal. The thing had been so bright that ponies who saw it had been seeing spots for hours afterwards, and the resulting airburst over the city when the meteor exploded shattered windows and damaged buildings all over the city. Roughly 1500 ponies were injured badly enough to need medical treatment. That had been at ground level. If the same thing happened to Canterlot, which was halfway up the country's tallest mountain, there was no telling how much worse they would be when the shockwave hit. That, however, wasn't what scared him so much. The thing that froze Shining’s blood at that very moment was that a meteor airburst over Canterlot was likely the best case scenario. After the Fillydelphia Airburst, there had been dedicated disaster response teams of unicorns and weather control pegasi who trained in every major town for various scenarios.  This included defending a city from the blast wave of another meteor airburst, should one fall above them. Canterlot, the ancestral home city of the unicorn tribe, had a unicorn majority in its population. Add the fact that three out of every 4 unicorns living at Canterlot were alumni from Celestia’s School of Gifted Unicorns — himself and Twilight included, and the Airburst Squads had the cream of the crop where unicorns were concerned. Even if most unicorns in the city were incapacitated by that -- that Scream, as Shining started calling it in his head, there were many pegasi trained to divert debris and weaken the blast wave with weather control. The air patrols over Canterlot were no slouch either — many of the pegasi in the airburst defense squads were directly trained by Wonderbolt veterans.   The point was that a superbolide airburst was something they knew about, something they could train and prepare for. If it was something unknown, something that they had never encountered before, they had little hope of quick response. Shining Armor was no idiot— he had been made Captain of the Castle Guard for a reason, and it wasn’t muscle or good looks, but rather his years of dedicated hard work and experience. He was especially gifted in connecting the dots and figuring out things that would have otherwise been unnoticed — a trait shared with his sister. An unknown but clearly artificial object was spotted near the moon. Then the next day, a psychic shockwave hit Canterlot, putting almost every unicorn out of action, and then a meteor falls over the city. All these events took place in the span of ten hours or less. In Shining’s own experience,  there was no such thing as "coincidence " in such matters. The unknown object and the Scream were connected — he had no doubt about that.   And Shining would bet his entire annual salary that the very same object Twilight saw was the same thing that was streaking toward them at horrifying speeds and… slowing down?  He blinked for a moment and scrunched his brow. Yes, he was seeing it correctly. By now, it should have reached them, but instead it had barely covered half the distance when they first saw it.  “What…” he muttered to himself, trying to process what was happening. One of the pegasi called out, taking him out of his stupor. “Sir look! There’s another one!” What?! He looked harder at the approaching mass of flame. At first, it all seemed to be one single object. Then, to his shock and horror, he could see that there was indeed another meteor trailing behind the first — barely a tenth the size of its larger counterpart, if that, but still burning brightly and moving at frightening speeds.  Shining felt a surge of panic in his chest. Had the meteor broken up!? Had there been another object the whole time, just hiding behind the larger body? He wasn't sure, but the presence of a second projectile meant even more destruction when they crashed. Then something happened that made his jaw drop. The meteor slowly turned. It was slow, but he could see the larger meteor change course, not by much, but enough that it and its smaller counterpart were now diverging slightly. Not only that, it was climbing. Any doubt that the Thing was artificial vanished in an instant as the meteor, now larger than the sun itself to their eyes, not only turned in its flight, but rose slightly, so instead of flying by the mountain at a slight distance… Oh Celestia.  The blood drained from his face as the implications hit home. He immediately turned to the drivers. "Dive now!" He ordered sharply. "Make for ground! It's going to fly right over our heads!" The pegasi followed his orders instantly, bunching their wings and pulling into as steep and fast a dive as they could without spilling the chariot. Shining and the Corporal hung on for dear life as the chariot rocketed towards the ground. No sooner had the wheels touched the ground that Shining leapt out of the chariot with a yell of "HIT THE DECK!"; the pegasi followed his lead, almost too late in fact. The mass of fire and light and something else streaked over their heads, superheated air around it rippling and flashing. Shining felt the heat wash over his back — he was certain that had they remained in the air they would have been cooked alive. The Thing had to have been level with the palace's main towers! It was as though all sound had left the world, leaving the exhausted and stressed ponies perplexed. Some had started to pick themselves up when Shining yelled out again. “Not yet! It's still coming!" Before anypony could reply, the sonic boom, made stronger by the meteor's closeness to the ground, slammed into the city. The very air around them seemed to explode in their ears, knocking one of the drivers clean over from the overload of sound. Shining's own ears felt like someone had driven nails into them and he couldn't hear anything aside from the massive thunderclap; the only way he knew he had screamed was the raw feeling in his throat. There were sounds of glass shattering and screams of alarm, fear and pain filled the air. There was a thin roar as the second meteor rushed over them, quickly followed by another sonic boom, though far quieter than before. There were more screams from the second blast, and then silence once again reigned over Canterlot.  It felt like a war zone, with the eerie quiet after the tumult of chaotic noise. Shining couldn’t hear anything aside from a faint ringing in his ears. He opened his eyes and looked around in a slight daze. He could see one of the pegasi supporting the other, who was slumped unconscious on his partner's shoulder. He looked on in a detached  fugue as he saw the lieutenant's mouth moving, but he heard nothing. Oh, that was it. His hearing had been knocked out by the sonic boom. He should get it back soon, after his ears recover. He could see the Corporal on her hooves as well, squinting a little; she must have looked at the fireball as it passed by. Wait a minute… where…? The unicorn looked to the sky and saw the blindingly bright object heading off into the distant south. He wasn’t exactly sure where it was going, but the smaller piece was heading in the same direction. He hoped that they would land in uninhabited areas and not cause as much damage as he was sure Canterlot had just suffered. He could see shattered windows on the distant buildings, and there was a thin streamer or two of smoke. The prospect of civilians in danger had him try to stagger to his hooves, only to collapse. The Corporal shouted something he couldn’t make out. At least his hearing was coming back a little. He tried to mutter something, but only a few disconnected syllables tumbled out of his mouth.  "...ocked senseless… ...ituation… need medical…" Hey, he could make out words again. Progress! Now if his hooves could just cooperate…  He tried to stand again and was met with as much success as the first time. What was going on? It wasn't like he hit his head or anything! So why did he feel so tired and heavy? Wait… had he gotten a concussion during the scream? Was it just a delayed reaction for him? His scrambled thoughts could only make out one particular fact about all this.. Cadance is gonna kill me. The pegasus lieutenant shouted something and pointed, and Shining turned to look with suddenly heavy eyes. He could make out a few shapes coming from the palace, gleaming with familiar gold armor — guard pegasi,  he assumed. That pink one in the center seemed a little familiar though, and where was her armor — oh. Oh. "Ah, horseapples," He managed to slur out before his brain finally, mercifully, checked out. Luke Skywalker was many things. He was a Jedi Knight, the son of the war hero Anakin Skywalker. He was a skilled star pilot, a high-ranking and well-respected member of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. he had fought on many battlefields of many kinds, and had probably been in every situation that a Rebel could possibly face at least once. Given the choice of career that Luke had selected and the risks involved, it was a bit surprising in hindsight that he never had the need or opportunity to use an escape pod before.  Anytime there was a crisis from where he had to escape, usually because he was being chased by angry stormtroopers, Darth Vader, hungry rancors, Sand People with a grudge, killer droids, Darth Vader, bounty hunters after his head, Jawas, Darth Vader, annoying Force ghosts, Chewbacca wanting hugs, Yoda brandishing a stick, an angry Leia, or Darth Vader, he always had either his trusty X-Wing with Artoo in tow, or the Millennium Falcon with Han’s impeccable/insane piloting skills. Thus, it was actually his first time being in an escape pod — and if Luke were honest, he could have honestly done just fine without the experience. The pod constantly bucked, shuddered, and tumbled in the free-air turbulence in a way that actually made Luke feel sick to his stomach. It didn't help that he was still suffering the galaxy's worst migraine from the Force struggle with that Thing that they encountered, making any attempt to center himself in the Force an exercise in futility. Even the knowledge that escape pods were designed to withstand atmospheric freefall and crash landing without harm to passengers did nothing to calm his nerves, already on edge over his father’s uncertain fate.  The panicked astromech screeching in his ear didn't exactly help matters either.  Luke screwed his eyes shut and silently counted down, knowing roughly when the pod would break through the more turbulent layers of the atmosphere into calmer air. He remembered his training as a pilot — controlled reentry in any vehicle had roughly 90 seconds of turbulence before stabilizing and slowing down. This included escape pods, he remembered. All he needed to do was wait. Sure enough, the pod began to steady in its flight,  and the glowing red haze of flame visible through the portholes slowly dissipated, leaving a steadily brightening blue sky. He could see white wisps of cloud, and mountains far off in the distance.He had to admit -- despite his predicament it was actually beautiful and nearly made him forget where he currently was for a moment.  A sharp noise from Kyugee brought him out of his reverie,  and he turned to look at what had caused such a reaction from the droid. Turning, he could see the Nubian, still wrapped in the fire and smoke of reentry,  streaking away ahead of them, seemingly having protected the lifepod from the worst of reentry. Now it was breaking away from Luke’s trajectory, seeming to aim right at a large mountain that loomed ahead. As they neared, Luke could make out an irregular shape on the mountain side, the gleam of sunlight on polished stone making it clear what it was. A city… the planet’s inhabited! The Nubian, still traveling at nearly nine times the speed of sound, flew over the city in the blink of an eye, Luke's pod quickly following suit. He could make out what were most likely wooden houses and a structure that might have been a palace in the split second he had to look before the pod passed them by. Ahead, Luke could see green fields and rolling hills, and the Nubian moving further away ahead, swiftly passing over what looked like a small town and practically making a beeline for a forest in the distance. The pod dipped lower, being less aerodynamic than the larger ship, and Luke suddenly realized the pod was on a collision course with the town his father had just flown over, as buildings appeared in sharp relief.  "Hang on tight!" He yelled to Kyugee and he tightened the straps on his seat. The buildings rushed by, the pod flying just a few hundred feet over them. Now Luke could see trees ahead, and a tall red building near them, rushing up at him fast.  Despite his faith in the Force, he couldn’t help but make a short prayer.  Ben, if you're watching us now… please help us get through this alive. Then Luke seemed to hear the very last words Old Ben said to him, before going to face his former student one last time. The Force will be with you… always. Then the pod hit the ground, and everything went black.