Luke's story

[Luke]

(Still haven't come up with a good title! If you read Atoz 77's stores you've seen Luke Caeli as a mostly minor character. This time I'm going to turn the tables. This story takes place a couple of years later when Luke leaves the Odysseus. Taking a hard look at it, it's probably more like a StarWars story than STar Trek. Sorry about that.)

Stardate 55103.1: Lieutenant Luke Caeli arrived on the bridge of the USS Odysseus just behind his friend, Lt. Rosh, the ship's security chief. While Rosh went to the tactical station to begin his shift, Luke went straight to the helm position to make sure the starship was on course. Then he went over to the command chair where Commander Fawkes was sitting.

"This is next week's helm department duty roster, sir," he said, handing the First Officer a data pad.

Fawkes glanced at it. "Good, lieutenant. Before you take your station, the Captain wants to speak to you in the ready room."

Oh great what have I done now, thought Luke, as he acknowledged the order and turned away. Walking across to the left side of the bridge, he pushed the call button and waited until the Captain said, "Come in."

Luke walked in. The ready room was pretty small just room enough for a desk and three chairs. Captain Atoz was at the desk reading something on his computer screen. "Good to see you, Mr. Caeli," he said."I've got good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"

Luke thought about it only for a second or two. His uncle had raised him not to be afraid of bad news. "I'd like to hear the bad news first, sir."

Captain Atoz turned off his computer and stood up. "The bad news is that a ship the size of the Odysseus is authorized to have no more than three lieutenant commanders."

Well yes, Luke was thinking. There was already Lt. Commander Weir (Science Officer), Lt. Commander Pierce (Ship's Doctor) and Lt. Commander Vespis (Chief engineer). He knew that already. How did that affect him? Did that mean...?

"That brings me to the good news," the Captain said as he walked around the desk."Your promotion to lieutenant commander has just come through. Let me be the first to congratulate you."

The Captain was shaking his hand and Luke's head was buzzing because he couldn't believe it. "Thank you sir," he said.

"It's a very sad day for me because it means you'll leave us," Captain Atoz said. "You've been assigned to the USS Mercury, but you've got three weeks of leave coming before you have to report."

Luke threw a little party that night in Ten Forward to celebrate with all his friends. He kept looking down at the three pips (two shiny ones and one dark one) on his collar as if he couldn't believe it was true. Then about eight o'clock Ensign Penner came in with a subspace message. "I think it's bad news, Luke," she said sadly.

Luke read the message. It said, "Come home right away. It's about our father. Signed Leia." He wasn't sure what to think. His father Aulus Ankorius had died twenty years ago when Luke was ten years old, leading an uprising against the Republic of Romana Magna. Everyone called him a traitor, and that was one of the reasons Luke had applied to Starfleet Academy when he was old enough. Why would his sister be sending him this message now?

***

"Romana Magna Space Central to USS Odysseus. Cleared for standard orbit." Luke could have taken a shuttlecraft home, but that would have taken over a week and Leia had said it was urgent. Captain Atoz said that the Odysseus could spare two days out of its way to drop him off.

"Acknowledged, Space Central," Ensign Penner said at the Comm station. Then she cocked her head in surprise and turned to Luke who was standing behind her in civilian clothes -- a loose, buff colored tunic over a long sleeved body suit the same color. "There's a communication for Patrician Equites Lucius Ambulator Caeli. Is all that you?"

Luke did a sheepish grin. He had never told anyone on the ship that his family were senators and that he himself was a knight. In Starfleet, that kind of thing didn't impress anybody. "Yeah, that's me. Let me see the transmission."

On the communications panel, a viewscreen opened with dramatic fanfare, and there was his uncle Marcus Beneficus, looking extremely impressive in his senator's toga. Penner whistled in admiration. "Luke, it's good to see you again!" his uncle said. "What did your sister tell you?"

"Hi Uncle Bene. Leia just told me to come at once. Is she there?"

For some reason the older man looked uncomfortable. He glanced at Ensign Penner as if there was something he didn't want her to overhear. "I'll explain everything when you get here. Beam down to the Rubicola transport station. I'll send a car to meet you."

"Okay, see you soon." The viewscreen went blank,leaving Luke more confused than ever. Why hadn't Leia called? What was the big secret? And why was he being asked to go to Rubicola, a small city over a hundred miles from the capitol?

[Atoz 77]

Looks pretty good so far. One slight correction -- going by my timeline, by the time Luke made lt. commander, Ensign Penner would certainly be at least Lt. j.g., but that's a mere quibble. Don't even bother to edit. No more comments, then, until you type THE END...

[Luke]

Luke's bags were already packed. He said goodbye to everyone on the Odysseus, probably for the last time. It was after midnight local time when he materialized on the platform in Rubicola. Apart from the technician at the controls and the customs official, the terminal building looked pretty deserted. The customs man took one look at Luke's ID disc and recognized the name Caeli at once. He snapped to attention, clicking his heels together. "Welcome back, Patrician. If there is anything I can do to be of assistance sir, please let me know." He didn't even bother to scan his luggage for contraband.

"Thank you Citizen," Luke said. He was uncomfortable with the special treatment but glad to be speaking Latin again after so many years away. "A car was supposed to be waiting for me."

"I can check, sir," the customs man said and he flipped open his ephone. "No, sir. Nothing." Immediately a thing that Luke had taken for a tall, slender stack of pipes (maybe modern art) sprang to life, and he saw that it was a droid. "Bee Nine, see this Patrician into a taxi," the customs man told it. The droid said, "This way, sir," picked up Luke's duffel bag and marched off. Luke hoisted his small shoulder bag and followed it towards the exit.

Before he had left the planet to enlist in Starfleet, robots were just becoming fashionable for minor household tasks. They were called droids even though they didn't look anything like people. They weren't very smart, they were basically like PDAs on legs. Bee Nine gave him a quick rundown on the local weather forecast as it placed his bag in an autotaxi. "Have a pleasant evening... (click!) have a pleasant morning, sir," it said.

Luke sat in the autotaxi, wondering what had happened to the car that was supposed to pick him up. Well, he could just check into transient quarters for the night and call Uncle Bene...

Suddenly the driverless car started rolling away down the street. "Stop," Luke said. "I haven't given you a destination yet." The taxi picked up speed, hooking a sharp right at the next corner. Luke pushed himself off the seat, grabbing at the control panel. "Manual override!" he shouted, but the car was not responding to voice commands at all. Instead, it kicked into higher gear. Luke was smashed against the seats and into the roof as the car bumped over the sidewalks, wobbling from one side of the street to the other at better than sixty kph.

Luke desperately held on as he tried to find the an access panel to the onboard computer. He found it and it was welded shut!

WHAM! The car must have been doing nearly eighty kph as it grazed the side of a garbage disposal truck and kept going, tearing off part of the fender. The big wheels kept spinning carrying the car towards the Appian tunnel.

Luke grabbed the steering wheel, but it was locked into the hydraulic servomechanisms. He couldn't so much as budge it. The servos! He couldn't get to the computer, but he might be able to get to those! Twisting around, he brought his feet up and kicked the panel until it came loose. Then he reached inside and found the two pistons which fed the steering system.

The taxi slammed into lamppost, tearing it loose and dragging it a few feet before letting it go. The car skewed across the road, aimed straight at the massive concrete wall that lined the tunnel. Luke desperately tugged at the left piston. The mechanism screeched and suddenly the car skidded sideways and into the mouth of the tunnel.

Luke had no time to congratulate himself. He was kneeling with his hands inside the panel, his face barely high enough to see through the windshield. The car kept zig-zagging from one side of the tunnel to the other, trying to smash itself into the concrete walls. It skewed into the left lane, where a big truck was coming the opposite way. Luke gasped and tugged at the other piston. The car swerved to the right, scraping the right side of the tunnel and tearing off another part of the body.

But now the car was damaged enough by all these minor collisions that its wheels were scraping sparks from the fenders and it couldn't go more than about sixty kph. The engine was probably burning. He couldn't keep this up forever. Keeping his eyes on the road, with one hand he reached back and snagged the strap of his carry on bag.

The taxi emerged from the tunnel heading onto the Atlantica Causeway. Desperately Luke felt inside his bag for his comm badge and pressed it. "Caeli to Odysseus. Beam me up now!"

The soft voice of Lt. N'maste replied, "Please stand by, commander. As you are no longer assigned to this vessel, I must get authorization..."

"It's an EMERGENCY!" Luke yelled, as his hand slipped off the hot piston and the taxi crashed through the restraining rails of the causeway, plunging down towards the ocean, twenty meters below...

And the next thing he knew, he was materializing on the familiar Odysseus transporter pads.

[Luke]

Luke was in the captain's ready room with Captain Atoz and Commander Fawkes. "What you're suggesting just seems very unlikely," Captain Atoz said frowning.

"Malfunctions happen all the time," Fawkes said sitting to his right.

"Even the safety override?" Luke said. "And why was the access panel welded shut?"

"Maybe to keep passengers from vandalizing it," Fawkes said.

"Why would someone want to kill you and make it look like an accident?" the captain said.

Luke shook his head. "I don't know."

Just then the door slid open and Ensign Penner came in. "I've been checking the news reports, sir. The wreckage of the autotaxi is being picked up now. It was totally destroyed."

"Have you been able to contact Leia?" Luke said, still wondering why his sister hadn't called when he arrived.

"She doesn't answer," Penner said. "No one seems to know where she is."

"Can you find her location from her ephone?" Luke said, starting to get worried about his sister's disappearance.

"Sorry. Civilian ephones aren't meant to be used as locators. It's a privacy thing. If she answered it I could triangulate her signal, but..." She let that trail off. "I also did a search for any mention in the news of your father, Aulus Ankorius Caeli. There hasn't been anything except that one of the conspirators from twenty years ago was just released from prison. A man named Antonius Septimus Sevilius."

"Yeah, I remember him," Luke said. "I went to school with his son, Gaius." He thought for a minute. He certainly wasn't going to find any answers sitting up here on the ship. The best place to start was Uncle Bene's.

***

Luke beamed down late that afternoon on the patio in front of the house of Patrician Senatorius Marcus Beneficus Caeli. Strictly speaking, this was against the law. On most planets it was against the law to materialize anywhere but an authorized transport station, but Starfleet was usually given an exception. The planetary sensors would pick up his unauthorized beamdown and the authorities would contact the ship to ask the reason. And after all he had already cleared through customs so it was no big deal.

A droid opened the front door, painted pale blue which was his uncle's favorite color. "Greetings, sir," it said. "Do you have an appointment?"

"Tell Uncle Bene his nephew Lucius is here." There was a click as the droid relayed the information by radio to the house's comm net, and a few seconds later doors slammed open and the senator himself was rushing down the hall along with his assistant, a rat-faced man named Mustellus who was wearing an old-fashioned pointed Phrygian cap with ear flaps.

"Luke! Are you all right my boy? I thought... we heard you'd been killed!"

"No, uncle, I'm all right," Luke said as they went inside to the atrium. "Have you heard anything from Leia?"

"Leia?" his uncle said. "Why no... Didn't I tell you? She's on vacation in the Alps. You know how she loves skiing this time of year."

"Why isn't she answering her ephone?"

Bene smiled a politician's smile. "You know how your sister gets when she's having fun," he said. "Maybe she met a man and doesn't want to be bothered."

Luke nodded although he wasn't satisfied with that answer at all. "She sent me a message and said there was something new about our father. Do you know what she meant?"

"She must have been mistaken." Bene took Luke by the arm and moved closer as if he didn't want to be overheard. "Listen Luke, I loved my brother, but what's past is past. Do you know how difficult it has been for me to keep my position in the senate when everyone knows my brother tried to overthrow the Republic? Please, I don't want to talk about it anymore. Let it rest."

"I understand uncle," Luke said, putting on his best smile. "While I'm on leave I think I'll catch up on a few old friends. Do you have a transport I can borrow?"

"Of course, of course," Bene said smiling more broadly. "But spending all that time in Starfleet you may be out of practice with a groundcar. I'd feel safer if Mustellus drove you around."

Luke took another look at the assistant's face and doubted if HE would feel safer. "I think I can handle it, uncle."

[Luke]

The car was an old Jupiter 9 that ran on hydrogen cells. Luke was able to get directions to where Gaius lived in the Germanicus district. It was an old neighborhood of solid gray concrete buildings and narrow streets. It was night by the time he got there. As Luke got out of the car, he reached into his shoulder bag and took out his force saber. It was a small rod about five centimeters in diameter and 28 centimeters long. He hung it from his belt where it could lie unnoticed in the folds of his loose tunic, but he felt better having it.

Gaius was sitting on the stoop, smoking a druzweed cigarette that made Luke wrinkle his nose. "Hi Luke," he said. "Long time no see."

"Yeah sorry I haven't kept in touch," Luke said.

"Luke, I don't want any trouble," his schoolfriend said. "My dad is..."

"It's too late for that, boy," Antonius Sevilius said, standing in the doorway. He looked up and down the street as if he were afraid of something. "You'd better come inside."

All three of them went inside into the sitting room and sat around a table. Gaius made tea while his father started talking. "You've got to remember this was twenty years ago. The planet had been a Federation Protectorate for fifty years, and we were just about to be admitted to Member status. A lot of people still didn't like the idea. We tried to vote it down, but when that didn't work..."

Luke nodded impatiently. He didn't need a history lesson. "Look I don't blame you for what you did, Citizen Sevilius," he said. "You did your time in prison. I just want to know who led the uprising."

"He took to wearing a black mask," Antonius said. "It distorted his voice. We didn't find out who it was until that night we assaulted the council chambers. We nearly won, too. If it wasn't for Marcus and the Knights Protectors..."

"Marcus?" Luke said. "Do you mean my uncle, Marcus Beneficus? He was there?"

Antonius tilted his head as if he was remembering something. "Funny thing. I always thought..."

All of a sudden the sitting room window blew out, raining glass all over the room. There was a hollow thump and Luke saw a plasma grenade spinning around on the table like a top. Without even thinking, he snatched it up. How long did he have before it exploded?

The other two men were shouting in panic, scrambling for the doors. THINK! Luke said to himself. Nothing in this building would shield them from a plasma explosion, but... Spinning around, he yanked off the lid of the teapot and threw the grenade inside. Desperately his fingers darted over the keypad of the hotplate. Ten seconds later, the grenade went POP! as the boiling water overheated its timer.

Then there was a burst of gunfire. Romana Magna was a century behind most Federation technology. It had never put much research into energy weapons, relying on tried and true projectile weapons. Luke ducked under the hail of tracer bullets, but Antonius and Gaius weren't so lucky. They both went sprawling on the floor of the entryway, dead.

Luke rolled across the hallway and gunfire chewed up the floor behind him. A sneering voice said, "Come out, kid. There's nowhere to run. You're the last loose end to tie up." It was Mustellus, Uncle Bene's assistant!

From the sound of things, there were at least three of them. Well, Luke had one edge they weren't counting on. Taking a deep breath, he sprang to his feet and ran straight down the hallway. Mustellus grinned at such an easy target, raising his pistol to take aim.

Just as he pulled the trigger, Luke dropped his head and went into a forward roll. The bullets whizzed through the air where he had been. Luke rolled upright again, slamming his shoulder into Mustellus' abdomen and knocking the breath out of him.

The other two men emerged from the sitting room with submachineguns. Luke was still moving, thankful for all his combat practice sessions with Lt. Rosh. He lunged towards them as his right hand whipped out the handle of his force saber and ignited it. The blade of energy about half a meter long made a whining sound as it slashed through the air in an arc. The two men yelped and jumped backwards, their guns cut in half and one of them missing a hand. Then Luke was out the door, running for his car.

"Stop him!" Mustellus shouted.

Three droids were coming down the street carrying semiautomatic infantry carbines. They started shooting at Luke. He ran towards the car, skidding across the hood with bullets smashing into the roof and side windows. He actually had the driver side door open when the tracer bullets hit the hydrogen fuel cell and the car went up like a roman candle.

The shock wave from the explosion threw Luke across the street. A bit of shrapnel had struck him in the meaty part of his left leg and it hurt like blazes. He crawled into a narrow dark alley.

The droids were still coming after him. The alley was hardly more than a meter wide, not even wide enough to swing his force saber. Luke would be a sitting duck it they caught him here. He gritted his teeth against the pain as he hopped as fast as he could to the other end of the alley.

All at once Luke saw the silhouette of a droid behind him in the alley entrance. It opened fire, but he was almost to the end now. He dove headfirst into the street and scrambled around behind the wall, ready to attack it when it came after him. But more bullets started ricocheting off the concrete wall behind him. The other two droids had run around the building to cut him off. Luke turned to run, but this end of the street was a dead end blocked by a metal mesh fence. He was trapped!

The two droids marched towards him, shooting as they came. At this range, Luke could deflect the bullets with his force saber, but he couldn't keep it up for long especially not as they got closer. His arm was already getting tired. Desperately he reached in his pocket for his comm badge and pressed it. There was no contact. They had a communications disruptor field up. They had thought of everything!

Suddenly a pair of headlights stabbed through the dark. A car came streaking down the middle of the street and ran into one of the droids, crushing it like a tin can. The second droid turned to see what had happened, but it didn't fire its gun because it hadn't been told what to do in this situation. While it was confused, the car drove up beside Luke. The passenger door flew open. A woman's voice said, "Are you doing to stand there gawking all night? Get in!"

Luke jumped into the car. It crashed through the mesh fence and took off.

[Luke]

The car was a speeder, running on silent hoverfans. As it sped off towards the expressway, Luke looked at the woman who had rescued him, but it was dark in the car and he couldn't see much by the panel lights. "Thanks," he said.

A few minutes later she flicked on the ceiling light. "You're Leia's brother," she said as if she hadn't recognized him until now. "What the furg is going on? Where is Leia? She hasn't answered her phone for three days."

The woman had long brunette hair gathered at the nape of her neck to keep it out of her way. She also had a star-shaped tattoo below her right eye, right on the point of her cheekbone. Luke recognized her now. She was Jenna Stella-Lucis, one of Leia's friends. They were around the same age. Luke had once had a crush on her, but she had always been a party girl. The last time he had seen her she had been going out with a gladiator. Right now she was wearing a purple suit that hugged her female curves like a body stocking.

"Hey dork, my eyes are up here," she said.

"I... I don't know where Leia is," Luke had to confess. "But something really dangerous is going on. And my uncle has something to do with it."

"Your uncle the senator?" Jenna said.

LUke nodded. "His assistant just killed Antonius and Gaius Sevilius, and he tried to kill me."

"I guess that means you're not invited to the reception," she said. When Luke just looked blank, she added, "He's hosting a reception at his house for the high council tomorrow. He didn't tell you?"

Luke shook his head. He didn't know what to think anymore. Part of the problem was space lag. It was 8 o'clock in the evening local time, but he was still running on ship time, where it was more like noon. Since he had come home, he'd been kept running around in different time zones until he wasn't sure where he was. At Jenna's apartment, he bandaged his leg as best he could. Then he sat down on the sofa to think and fell right to sleep.

***

He woke up in the morning to the sound of Jenna's shower running. She came out, dressed in another skin-tight body suit, this one emerald green. He had his turn in the shower while she got them breakfast.

"So how have you been?" she said while they ate. "I heard you're in Starfleet. I bet you've got a girl in every port."

"You must be confusing me with somebody else," Luke said with a rueful grin. There had been one long distance romance with Kikuro Tujimori, but it hadn't worked out. "Are you... are you seeing anybody?"

Jenna shook her head. "I got tired of dating jocks and airheads. I think it's time I settled down with a nice, solid guy for a change." She blushed suddenly. "Why am I telling YOU this? You're my best friend's little brother!"

"We're twins; she's all of five minutes older than me," Luke said. "Listen I've been thinking. If Uncle Bene is holding Leia prisoner somewhere, the best place I can think of is his villa down by Narbonia. Do you want to check it out?"

"That's fifty miles," Jenna said. "What about your Starfleet people? Can they help?"

"This is really nothing but a hunch. I'd rather not involve them until we have some kind of proof." So they hopped in her speeder and took off down the coast road.

***

The villa was perched on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Luke was driving. He figured the approach road would be watched, so he turned off the road and parked down the beach. From there a long stone staircase ran up to the villa. Luke tried to get Jenna to stay with the car, but she insisted on coming with him.

They climbed the stairs without any trouble and crossed the terrace. The heavy outside door on this side was locked. Luke leaned over the parapet. Around on the east side was a little balcony. The door there was open! Luke and Jenna climbed onto a narrow ledge, holding hands to steady one another as they edged around the wall. They dropped onto the balcony and went inside the room.

It was a bedroom, and the bed looked like it had been slept in. Luke quietly opened the other door and stepped out into the hall. Jenna followed right behind him. The dining room was just up ahead. Luke could hear small noises like someone was eating.

Suddenly Jenna cried, "Luke. look out!" A man had stepped out of one of the bedrooms and grabbed her from behind. It was one of Mustellus's thugs from earlier. Luke spun around clutching the handle of his force saber, but the thug was holding a gun to Jenna's head.

The thug smiled and pointed the gun at Luke. That was all Jenna had been waiting for. She grabbed his other wrist and twisted it, using her slender body as a fulcrum she executed a pretty good martial arts throw. The man dropped to the marble floor with a surprised look on his face.

They ran towards the dining room. Leia was sitting at the table eating with one of Bene's droids watching her. She looked up surprised and happy to see him. "Luke, it's a trap!" she shouted as the door to the kitchen kicked open.

Mustellus was standing there, still wearing that stupid Phrygian cap that covered his ears and his eyebrows. Before Luke had time to react, the assistant had whipped out a pistol and fired. A stun beam hit Luke squarely in the chest and he dropped to the marble floor. Just before he passed out, he had time to think that it wasn't a phaser he had been using, it was a Romulan disruptor pistol!

[Luke]

Uncle Bene was pacing back and forth looking really distraught. "Luke, Luke, why did you come back? Why didn't you just stay in Starfleet?"

They were in the living room of the villa. Luke and Jenna were sitting on the floor with Romulan style handcuffs on their wrists. Mustellus was holding Luke's force saber. Leia was sitting in a chair nearby with his two thugs standing over her. One of them had a bandaged stump where his hand used to be.

"My father wasn't a traitor, was he?" Luke said scowling.

Bene looked like he was about to tear his white hair out. "No. I led the uprising, but I wore that mask so no one would know. When we attacked the council chamber, Ankorius fought against us along with the Knights."

"Go on," Luke said.

"I killed your father," Bene gulped. "But I could see we were going to lose anyway. The Knights were too good. So I did the only thing I could do. I put the mask on him to make it look like he was the leader." He moaned as if it hurt him to say that. "Oh I wish I had never got mixed up in all this!"

"But you ARE mixed up in it," Mustellus said. He finally took off the stupid Phrygian cap and showed his pointed ears. No wonder Luke had never liked him. Mustellus was a Romulan! "Don't be so surprised, Human. We have agents on several Federation planets, working to sow dissension."

Luke glared at him. "But there's a limit to the damage a single Romulan can do."

"You'd be surprised what a single Romulan can do, Human," Mustellus sneered. There was a small table with a computer screen on it. He put down Luke's force saber and activated the screen. They were looking at a video feed from Uncle Bene's other house, namely the reception room where some of the high council members were already gathering. "Do you see the centerpiece on the buffet table?"

They looked closer. It was a vase of flowers shaped like the old goddess Ceres. Mustellus kept talking. "Inside that centerpiece is a concealed device containing a substance we have been experimenting with called thalaron. It is set to go off at nine o'clock when the reception begins. It will kill everyone in the room."

The entire high council wiped out at once! And it was half past eight o'clock now!

Mustellus turned away towards the door. Addressing his henchmen, he said, "There's no need to keep these meddlesome fools around. Kill them all." The two thugs drew their pistols. Jenna gasped in fright and leaned against Luke.

But as if that were a signal she had been waiting for, Leia suddenly slid out of her chair, picked it up and swung it around like a weapon. She caught the first thug unaware in the middle of his back and knocked him into the table. The second thug, the one with only one hand, turned towards her, but Leia dropped the chair and grabbed his wrist so he couldn't bring his gun around on her.

Luke dove headfirst to the floor and snatched up his force saber where it had rolled after the table got knocked over. The problem with Romulan handcuffs is that they clamp your wrists apart like a vise. There was only one thing he could think of to do. He quickly adjusted the energy blade to about twenty centimeters and tossed the saber into the air so that it spun around and came down on the handcuffs.

Jenna hadn't waited. Seeing Mustellus making for the door, she scrambled to her feet and chased him. But with her hands still locked together in handcuffs, she was no match for the Romulan. He caught her and knocked her out with a neck pinch. Then he turned around aiming his disruptor at Luke now set to KILL.

Luke's handcuffs fell off in a heap of wreckage. He set the force blade to full length, one meter, and immediately went into a defensive stance Rosh had taught him. He wasn't sure if a force saber could deflect a disruptor beam, but now was a good time to find out.

But just as Mustellus fired, his Uncle Bene ran in front of him. The energy beam caught him in the back. "I'm... sorry... Luke..." he gasped, and died in Luke's arms.

A projectile buzzed past Luke's ear. The other thug was shooting at him. Hardly thinking what he was doing, he dodged, did a forward flip, and brought the force saber around. The blade hummed through the air and cut his pistol in half. The thug gaped in surprise and Luke slammed his elbow into his jaw and knocked him out.

The other thug was still wrestling with Leia, but she did manage to wrench the gun out of his hand. Luke clubbed him in the back of the neck. Leia jumped up and hugged him gratefully.

In all the confusion, Mustellus had made it out the door, carrying Jenna with him. Luke started to run after him. "But what about the reception?" Leia said. "There's only twenty minutes until that thalaron thing goes off!"

Luke handed her his comm badge. "Call the ship. I'm going after Jenna!"

[Luke]

"Federation Starship, this is Leia Arcana Caeli. This is an emergency!"

Ensign Penner answered in surprise. "We've been trying to contact you for over 24 hours, Miss Caeli. How did you get Luke's comm badge?"

"There's no time to explain!" Leia said. "There's an explosive or something set to go off in Beneficus Caeli's house in the capitol! Thalaron I think he said! You've got to hurry!"

Captain Atoz turned around in the command chair. "Lt. Rosh, can you scan the house for thalaron?"

***

Meanwhile Luke ran through the villa, chasing Mustellus. Two armed droids tried to stop him, but with a whoosh his force saber cut them in half hardly breaking stride. Down the hallway, out the back door to the parking garage. Uncle Bene had two speeders parked there. As he got there, one was already flying out the gate and turning down the coast highway. Luke jumped in the other one and followed.

Mustellus floored his accelerator, speeding recklessly down the highway and dodging in and out of traffic. Luke had a harder time because he was used to flying shuttlecraft not ground vehicles. But he couldn't let the Romulan get away.

The speeder up ahead clipped the side of another car with a thud. Luke sucked in his breath and waited for the crash worried more about Jenna. But the car straighted up and jumped over the far curve of the road, going straight out into the desert. Luke steered his speeder over the bump and kept chasing him.

The hoverfans of the speeders did just as well over desert sand as they did on the highway. The landscape sped past. Now they were coming into an area with dunes and occasional rock outcrops. Mustellus twisted and swerved, trying to lose him. Luke began to wish the speeder had some kind of gun, but all he had was his force saber.

Mustellus did have a gun, though. Squinting, Luke could see the Romulan look back at him and raise the disruptor and point it at Luke's speeder. He twisted the steering wheel and the first disruptor bolt just missed him, kicking up sand to the right. Mustellus fired again and came closer this time. He fired a third time and almost got him...

But then a pair of legs in emerald green spandex came up and kicked his arm. Jenna was awake, but still handcuffed! The speeder began to wobble as Mustellus tried to steer with one hand and hold her down with the other. The speeder clipped the side of a rock, jumped over a dune and came down with a crash!

Luke skidded his speeder to a stop and leaped out already igniting his force saber. Mustellus climbed out of his wrecked car holding his disruptor pistol. A cut on his forehead was bleeding bright green. Jenna was collapsed against her seat unconscious or worse.

Mustellus started shooting and Luke deflected the disruptor bolt with the blade of his force saber. His whole body felt charged up with adrenalin. The bolts were coming towards him, the saber's energy blade was humming and whining in the air as he swished it back and forth. If he missed just one it was all over...

The Romulan suddenly threw down the pistol and started running. Luke dropped his force saber on the sand and tackled him. Mustellus fought back with Romulan martial arts, but Luke had practiced every day with Rosh on the Odysseus. It was over pretty quick.

And then Luke ran back and pulled Jenna out of the wrecked speeder. Please don't be dead, he was thinking. He stretched her body on the sand but she wasn't breathing. Luke put his mouth over hers and drove air into her lungs. TWice. Three times. He watched her lungs inflate, wondering if he should start chest compressions too. He was trying to decide where to put his hands when suddenly Jenna coughed.

"Hey dork, my eyes are up here," she said quietly.

***

The Odysseus had managed to find the thalaron projector and beam it into space just in time. They had also done a sensor scan and found Mustellus' one man scout ship parked out in the desert. That's where he had been going when Luke caught him.

Uncle Bene didn't have any children, so Leia and Luke inherited his house and his villa. Since Leia was older than him by five minutes, she also inherited his seat on the Senate. "But I don't know anything about being a senator," she complained (which wasn't true; she was doing a great job). "Why don't you take it, Luke?"

"That's a good idea," Jenna said curled up around his right arm. "I've never been a senator's girlfriend."

"I'd have to leave Starfleet," Luke said shaking his head. "I can't explain it but my life is there."

Jenna looked up at him. "Well I want to share your life, at least for awhile. Do they have room for civilians?"

*THE END*

[Atoz 77]

Pretty good! It does feel more like Star Wars than Star Trek, but that's not necessarily a drawback. I like the way you used our discussion of civilian transporter stations. And I like the names you give your characters. I tend not to give that a lot of thought. But... my Latin is a little rusty but is that "Jenna Star Bright"?

[Luke]

Something like that. I tried lots of different variations until I found one that sounded nice. ANd it may interest you to know that mustella is Latin for weasel!