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Silver flashed at him from all directions, light undulating across it like waves. It made it difficult for Han to find his way out of this Imperial hell-hole, even after he ditched his stormtrooper helmet.
What was with all the silver, anyway?!
Whatever the Muzis were on, Han wanted none of it. He could understand a love of money—that was the only reason he stayed in the Rebellion, the only reason —but this was ridiculous. And so was selling out to the Imperials.
But then, a lot of planets did. Promise of order and prosperity was pretty heady to civilizations overrun with corruption and/or poverty.
Something whirred behind him, low and smooth. Han cursed. He risked a glance behind.
A Muzi, grey-skinned, long-limbed freak in Imperial black, glided just above the floor on silver grav-skates, mere meters away from him.
Han swore more colorfully and turned down the next hallway.
It should have contained a staircase, based on the layout he’d hastily memorized for the break-in, but instead, for the first time, there was an open wall—unfinished construction, enclosed with a silver net. If he’d had breath to spare, Han would’ve scoffed. Flexisteel. Of course. Why not? Wasn’t like organic rope was safer or anything.
A second whirr joined the first. Then a third. The sound was getting closer on all sides—
Fuck it to all hells.
Han grabbed onto the silver railing next to the hole where the staircase should be and leapt over it into the void, straight at the net.
.
.
.
Fuck it.
Luke reached for the Force and wrapped himself in it, then grabbed onto the silver railing next to the hole where the staircase used to be, and launched himself over it into the void.
The net caught him and bowed under his weight silently. Muzis shrieked, caught on the steel walkway below and crushed by the heavy net. His pursuers didn’t let up. They jumped the gap with their grav-skates.
Luke began to climb.
With his weight distributed and moving, the net sprung back the other direction, sending the pursuing Muzis flying back into the skyscraper before they could reach him.
He climbed higher and higher, hand over foot, the metal cold and solid under his palms. The Force rang with a metallic clearness that grew and grew with each floor he surpassed. Some distant part of him that wasn’t occupied with the adrenaline rush of escape or die began to understand why the sentients on Szeniber built such tall buildings out of all the silver metal they could find. If he’d had the luxury to just listen, it would have sounded beautiful.
But his mind was more occupied with tracking the life signatures crawling towards him like spiders in a web, and more racing up the stairs and lifts, gliding with a vengeance just above the floor on their grav-skates. Between them and the silver, he lost track of Han.
The song in the Force grew higher, and petered out just a few levels above him. There was only so far he could climb.
The open stairwell was still beside the net, an open invitation.
Luke dove off the net backwards, head-first into the abyss.
More Muzi screaming, in anger, frustration, shock. Luke smiled to himself. They’d never seen a Jedi before, had they? At least not in a long while. Not in Luke’s lifetime.
He rolled on instinct guided by the Force, the singing of the silver ringing in his ears. A platform rushed past his face. He would have hit it if he hadn’t moved.
Falling.
Falling.
Past endless flights of stairs, past silver flashing in the light. Past gray-skinned Muzis in Imperial black reaching out to catch him.
Two leapt off the stairs into the void with him, long fingers outstretched. Their grav-skates couldn’t handle this distance from a surface; they fell just like Luke.
Well.
Not just like Luke.
He reached out a hand of his own, palm flat out to them, and sent them spinning away, back into the building proper. He never heard them hit the floor, although they shouted. Perhaps their grav-skates meant that they didn’t.
Others had the same idea, though, it seemed.
Luke weaved and ducked, all the time falling, falling, weightless and pulled by gravity at the same time. Here in this building like a focusing beam, the Force was with him, and he was with the Force. Everything else faded away except controlling his fall, except avoiding the hands reaching for him, except this exact moment. Even adrenaline seemed to vanish. His ears rang like bells.
A stormtrooper leapt down at him, the first he’d seen since—
Han. Luke suddenly remembered that they’d come together. How could he have forgotten?
Luke let Han reach him, pulled Han into his lap. He used the Force to push both of them onto the next landing, and they hit the ground rolling. When they stopped, Han was on top of him. Luke’s ears were still ringing. If Han was saying anything, he couldn’t hear it.
“What was that?” Luke asked. He sounded both dreamy and sharp even to himself.
Han took off his helmet.
It wasn’t Han.
The unfamiliar Imp grinned at him, blue eyes all too triumphant.
Luke’s stomach sank to the dirt below the skyscraper.
How could he not have noticed? Was the effect of the silver in the Force that strong? Had he been so distracted? It was Han. Han wasn’t exactly easy to confuse with anyone else.
Something else occurred to Luke like a knife to the gut.
Where was Han, then, if not here?
Shoes clacked towards him. Luke craned his neck to look up—er, behind.
“Are you done running?” It was a woman. Blond. With several rank bars on her uniform. She stood over him, looking bored.
Luke reached out with the Force and came back dizzy. Everything felt refracted, distorted. Echo-y.
“If you have Han, I’m not sure I have a choice.”
“Oh, we do.”
More footsteps. Luke turned his head. A door opened in the smooth silver wall and Han was pushed through, hands bound behind his back, clad in only a black undersuit. The rest of his stolen armor was gone.
“Hey, kid.”
“Hey.” Luke closed his eyes, face pinched. He’d hit his head at some point, and it was just now making itself known. Or maybe it was the Force, not his head.
The Imp on top of him pulled him up and clicked binders on Luke’s wrists, then shoved him forward. Luke went, stumbling. Whatever he’d been doing with the Force, it was fading now that he stood on solid ground.
Hells.
Leia wasn’t going to be happy that they needed a rescue.