"She's running just great, Han." Luke Skywalker flipped switches on the Millennium Falcon's control console and watched the stars reappear as she dropped effortlessly out of hyperdrive into normal space.

"What'd you expect?" Han Solo grinned and gave the Falcon's pilot seat an affectionate love pat. "You think blowing up one crummy Imperial death star is enough to rattle this baby? Not on your life."

Luke, suppressing a laugh, turned his attention to locating Hoth on the navigations computer. It was there, with the course already laid in and plotted. Millennium's milk run to the neighboring system meant the new rebel base would at least have adequate supplies of food while their forces regrouped and made repairs. But the trip had also served to check out the Falcon's aging systems and to be certain she'd remained spaceworthy after her encounter with the Emperor's former doomsday weapon.

"Hoth in two hours and fifty seven minutes," Han announced. "I just wish you guys had chosen a better resort spot for the new base. Snow and I have never gotten along all that great, you know?"

"I'll pass your complaint along to command," Luke promised. "You've probably got a lot of company. I'll bet even--"

A warning light blinked on above their heads, and a high-pitched alarm began beeping with each flash. Han sat up and began searching the starfield in front of them.

"What is it?" Luke asked, searching too but seeing nothing other than the stars.

Han's fingers flew over the console's controls. "Some kind of a ship," he announced. "A big one."

"But it can't be," Luke breathed. "It's impossible. They can't have found us out here, not this soon!"

"Well somebody has." Han slowed Millennium's speed, then pointed out the faceted viewport. "There. See it?"

Luke squinted, and finally spotted a tiny wedge of light far in the distance. A wedge roughly the shape of an Imperial star cruiser. "We're too close," he cautioned. "If we've spotted them, then..."

Han shook his head. "They're dead in the water," he said, apparently oblivious to his own anachronism. "No lights, no power. No life forms."

"A derelict?"

"Uh-huh."

Luke, still dubious, checked the sensor readings himself. "It could be a trick."

"Maybe. One way to find out."

Han kicked in the sublight drive and nudged the Falcon forward again.

Luke frowned. "I'm not so sure that's a good idea. We should report in first, and come back with a few X-wing fighters for escort."

"Use your head, kid. If this is a trick that cruiser will tail us straight into the base. Like you said, if we spotted them..."

In a few minutes, the Falcon had maneuvered within docking distance of the huge, wedge-shaped war cruiser. Luke gaped as they overflew the broken turrets, fire-blasted gun emplacements, melted scaffolding and charred flight bays.

"Did it come from the Death Star battle?" Luke wondered. "I don't remember seeing it there.

"No way." Han manipulated the Falcon's controls to bring them around facing the battle cruiser's ruined starboard side. "Look at her. That bird is at least half a century old. Whatever war she died in happened a long time ago."

Luke nodded, realizing that Han was right. The pitted and scarred cruiser was old. And though it superficially resembled the ships flown by the Empire today, there were differences.

In the middle of Luke's musing, something made him gasp and raise a hand to his forehead. A thought... a _presence_... had reached out from the dead ship somehow. It had touched him.

"What is it?" Han was staring at him, concerned. "Luke, what's the matter with you?"

"Nothing. I mean I thought... Han, can we find a bay that'll still let us aboard that ship?"

Solo's expression clearly questioned his companion's sanity. "Any atmosphere that wreck may have had will have leaked out a long time ago, kid. Besides, I told you, there's nobody aboard, unless you want to count a lot of vacuum-preserved Imperial skeletons."

"That's where you're wrong," Luke told him. "There is someone aboard. Or some thing. I can feel it."

Han scowled. "Oh come on, Luke. I told you I don't believe in all that Force hocus pocus. Just a lot of superstition."

Luke gave him a knowing look. "Yeah? And if I'm right, then what? We'd be taking a bigger risk."

"Huh? I don't follow you."

"If someone is aboard -- someone who can fool your life sensors, then maybe this is a trick after all, and we'd still be leading them straight back to Hoth."

Han made a face. Sometimes this kid Skywalker could be a real pain... but he was right.

Fifty years old or not, the ruined Imperial cruiser had a working artificial atmosphere. It was impossible of course, and made Luke even more suspicious of a trap, but they docked the Falcon in one of the few serviceable bays and made their way into the dead ship with blasters ready at their sides.

"I don't like the smell of this," Han complained as they rode the ancient bay lift that groaned toward the upper decks. "Even the emergency lighting systems came on when we docked. No derelict could go on functioning by itself for that long."

"Which supports my feeling that someone is aboard," Luke said. "I think you're beginning to believe, whether you know it or not."

"Swell," Han grumbled. "That means if this is a trap, we just walked straight into it."

The elevator doors dragged themselves open as he spoke, and a deep voice rasped, "Well put, Captain Solo."

The hooded figure in front of them lifted a hand, and Solo's blaster went flying from his grip before he could squeeze off a shot. Luke, less trigger-happy than his companion, simply dropped his to the floor, knowing that it would be of no use to him. The Force was very strong here -- and it was the same presence he had sensed from the Falcon's cockpit.

"Who are you?"

"Do you not know? " The figure, its face never clear beneath the shadow of a large grey hood, sent Luke the mental image of a smile and chuckled to itself. "You have searched for me a long time, Luke Skywalker. You may call me 'Father'."

Suspicion narrowed Luke's blue eyes. "You're not my father. My father is dead."

"Hardly an obstruction to those who know and use the Force. I have come to train you, Luke. To show you the ways of the Force. To make you a Jedi."

Luke, who had taken a step out of the lift, heard Han's cautioning whisper behind him. "Don't listen to him, kid. This still smells an awful lot like a setup to me."

Again, Luke sensed the mental smile. Then he felt a far stronger emanation lash outward from the robed figure toward the elevator, and the man who still stood within it.

Han Solo cried out. Luke spun in time to see him double over in pain and sink to his knees on the elevator floor. The lift doors slammed shut, cutting off Luke's intended step back to Solo's side. Then abruptly, controls rumbled back to life and sent the elevator plunging back toward the flight bay below.

"You don't need him," the figure that had called itself 'Father' rasped to Luke. "He is an unbeliever, and unbelievers can only do harm to our cause."

Luke took an involuntary step backward, bumping into the closed lift doors. "Who are you?" he demanded, fighting to control the squeak that threatened to come into his still-too-youthful voice. "Who are you really?"

"I told you."

"You're lying. You're not tall enough to be Vader, but you have to be someone close to him. I can sense that much. You belong to the Dark Side. The wrong side."

"Tsk tsk," the hooded figure clucked. "Be careful of your tongue, young one. That's one more thing we shall have to teach you."

"We?"

"Mm. Yes. Vader and I. You were astute to ascertain that connection. And Vader is right. The Force is very strong with you."

"More than he knows," Luke said. He felt no confidence in his own boast, but somehow it had seemed the right thing to say.

'Father' laughed, a hollow sound that echoed off the ship's dead walls. "Come, young Skywalker," he commanded. "I will show you the pleasures of the Dark Side -- and the power."

Luke felt himself drawn forward against his will, and found he was following the grey- robed form down a hazy, ruined corridor, through a broken door and into a cavernous room that had once been the ghost ship's engineering section. Power wells, long dormant, intersected the huge room vertically at regular intervals; conduit and wiring, suspended in the final moments of their long-ago death throes, hung limply from the ceiling.

"I will prove to you the superiority of the Dark Side, Luke Skywalker," the mysterious figure said to him. "Behold."

Something rumbled just above Luke's head. An enormous conduit, hanging half-torn from the ceiling by thin metal fingers, lurched and began to tear loose from its precarious moorings.

Luke felt several emotions flood in upon him all at once. Fear -- verging on panic because he'd found that his feet were rooted, unable to carry him out of harm's way. Fury -- because he had allowed himself to be trapped so easily. Determination -- because Han and Obiwan before him had taught him that no situation was ever hopeless. And something else. Something dark and gnawing that was far stronger than any of the others.

While 'Father's' taunting laughter accompanied the snapping sounds of the breaking supports overhead, Luke forced himself to calm. A familiar voice seemed to float into his consciousness then.

_Close your eyes,_ it said. _Concentrate. Let go._

Slowly, he drew in a breath, released it, and with it, the intangible something he had so long held in, tightly bound within himself.

There was a scream of twisting metal, and without seeing it, he knew the conduit had torn

free. But it did not fall on him. His own mind had pulled it free, and his Force had sent it...

Luke opened his eyes just as another familiar voice said, "Well I'll be damned."

Han Solo, retrieved blaster in hand, had walked into the engineering bay in time to see the enormous conduit tear free and float over Luke's head, coming eventually to hover between him and the robed 'Father,' who had thrown up a hand to force it away.

Han's intrusion, however, had created an unexpected distraction. 'Father' was suddenly forced to divide his attentions in order to ward off the bolt of red energy streaking at him from Han's blaster. The conduit crashed to the engineering deck, shaking the floor beneath them with the strength of its impact. 'Father's' gloved hand seemed to gather in Han's laser bolt and draw some arcane form of power from it: a power that made him begin to glow as red as the energy beam itself. He opened his hand wider against the beam -- and Luke felt the power surge outward from him. Something dark and terrible rode the laser light back toward Han, struck him and threw him hard against one of the dormant energy towers.

"The fate of unbelievers, Captain Solo," the robed figure hissed, "is to die of their disbelief."

The gloved hand came up again, power rising from it like some ugly, slathering beast cut loose from an invisible leash. Luke recognized it; knew its strength, and knew that it would almost certainly kill Han.

Not thinking, Luke started to run toward Han's determined tormentor, intending to tackle him, to do anything to stop his unleashing that terrible fury.

_No, Luke. You must not give in to the evil of the Dark Side. Think. Use the power that is within you!_

'Father' laughed again, a harsh, grating cackle that seemed to come from deep within his shadowy grey cape. "Good-bye, Captain Solo," he said.

Savoring the moment of his kill, he failed to see the heavy electrical cable that had seemingly come to life far above him. It wrenched itself free, sparks snapping greedily from its torn wires, and snaked downward to wind itself around 'Father's' outstretched hand. There was a bright flash of light, a crackling of electricity -- and Luke Skywalker, who had been standing with his eyes tightly closed, opened them in time to see the grey robe appear to fold in upon itself. Collapsing in mid-air, it wafted to the floor, empty.

The electrical cable dangled in the space where 'Father' had been, still buzzing and shooting tiny blue sparks. Floating in front of it, Luke saw the image of a dim, nearly transparent figure, lifting a ghostly hand toward him in obvious fury.

"You have not won, Skywalker," it rasped. "We will return. The Dark Side will always return. And one day -- you will come over to us. To me... and to Vader!"

Fighting back his own fury, Luke closed his eyes again and willed it to be gone.

_Go then!_ he commanded it mentally, Go back to Vader. Back where you came from. With a cry of rage, the ghost disappeared into nothing -- and immediately, the ship around them began to rumble as though in angry response.

Han Solo, who had long ago picked himself up off the floor, was staring at Luke with newfound admiration.

"The cable," he murmured incredulously. "You did that, didn't you? How?"

"Never mind." Luke listened to the threatening sounds of the stressing metal all around them. "We've got to get out of here. This ship is breaking up."

"It's what?"

"It's dissolving, the same as he did. It may never have really been here in the first place."

"Oh come on, Luke. Will you please stop with all this mysticism stuff? I never saw any--"

He was cut off by the sudden groan of more loosening conduit. Debris began to rain down on them from above. Snatching up his blaster, Han ducked for the elevator.

"I think I'm beginning to believe," he muttered. "Let's get out of here."

Moments later, safely back aboard the Falcon and well above the phantom cruiser, they watched the huge Imperial ship glow red and vanish into the star-littered fabric of space. No trace remained behind to offer any clue that it had ever been there at all.

Han was still open-mouthed. "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes..."

"But you did see it. We both did."

"Luke, who was that guy? Where did he come from?"

"From Vader. From the Dark Side of the Force."

Still staring at the empty space where the ghost ship had once drifted, Han said quietly, "I think I really am beginning to believe it..."

"We're going to fight them," Luke said resolutely. "I'm going to take the Jedi training, Han. And somehow, I'll find a way to revive the Jedi order. With the Jedi in force again, we could defeat the Empire once and for all."

Grinning, Han set to work at the Falcon's controls once again. "You know, kid," he said. "I think you can do it."

Humming, the Millennium Falcon banked, circled once, and set course for Hoth.
 

THE END