There was still good in his father.

The thought came to Luke as he was sitting in the lounge, gaze distant - the room still bathed through the window in the dim light of the muted city - the fingers of his artificial hand fidgeting restlessly with the straps of the survival pack laid out on the table. His mind was working feverishly, ignoring his danger sense blaring to distraction, anxiety clenching in his gut.

The animosity that leaked through the Force felt alien, as though Vader were forcing out his aggression - Luke could only assume - for the sake of the Emperor, whose cloying, cankering presence Luke could identify nearby, even though it was muted, and cloaked in darkness. It singed the edges of his tenuous connection with the dark lord, invading, imbuing the fragile link with an added tinge of dread.

But through it, past Palpatine's invasiveness and his own locked-tight mental shields, Luke caught it again, faintly: there was still good in his father, somewhere deep down.

In the end, the deciding factor on whether or not to leave was the explosion.

Han was standing at the water dispenser, a bulb of water in his hand, in the middle of saying, 'Here's the thing, kid' before he took a sip; Leia was in the corridor, returning from warning Barton Meade of the danger he could be in - insisting that Luke not show his face, lest any of the workers see him and recognize him, and that was after she had foisted a capsule of black hair dye on him and a set of contacts that turned his eyes dark brown.

She was just coming around the corner, nearing the lounge when Luke leapt to his feet, no longer hearing Han over the single tone warning of the Force, the decision made. The choice was to… run.

The straps of the survival pack were in his fist. His free hand seized Solo by the sleeve, spinning the other man around, the drink bulb flying.

"Luke, wha - "

"Run!" Luke ground out, his voice raw fire. "Down to the speeder - go!"

Leia appeared at the corner, her face and sense alarmed. Luke nearly crashed into her, shoving the survival pack into her arms. "Run!" he repeated.

It was twenty steps to the stairwell, the door slamming shut at their backs when the first explosion ripped through the building, thunder shuddering through the walls in a violent tremor.

They ran, stumbling, panicked noiselessness down the duracrete stairs. The harsh blue lights flickered overhead and then went out completely. As Solo cursed, alternately running, tripping, and fumbling for his pocket lumen, a second explosion rumbled ahead, rattling the stairwell and sending fine dust falling around their heads.

"Are you sure Vader wants you alive?" Solo snapped, breathless.

Luke shook his head, the gut-wrench of more deaths twisting his stomach, more innocent lives lost - because of him. "I don't think he knows I'm here."

That, or this aggression didn't originate from Vader.

"The factory employees - " Leia ground out, her voice distressed. "We have to help them - "

"It's too late to help them," Luke snapped back, his eyes scanning the stairs in the warped light. She could not feel what he could feel….the sick nausea of so many deaths. It didn't make sense, really. If they were looking for Luke, they would want to take prisoners and interrogate them, not murder them outright…

Unless the Emperor's strategy was precisely this: systematically murder people to flush him out of hiding.

Luke swallowed, coughing against the thick dust, cold sweat on his face. They were nearly to the door. He felt ill. He could hold out against many things, but murdering innocent people would eventually drive him to surrender, and perhaps Palpatine knew it.

He didn't have long to dwell on it. Han, ahead of them, was hissing for their silence. They had reached the bottom of the stairs, the space plunged into darkness once again as Solo switched off the light. Reflexively, Luke reached out with his senses past the stairwell, to the dark streets beyond, scanning for any sign of danger. It seemed clear.

Silently, Han, his blaster drawn, keyed the door open. The underground street before them was darker than Luke remembered. The cheap sodium lights of the cantina's signs, casting their garish glow in eye-searing colors, no longer lit up the space. All that remained for light was the greenish hue thrown by sporadic streetlamps, showing an uncharacteristically empty street.

"It's clear," Luke whispered. Solo nodded shortly, and motioned them forward. They keyed the bay for the speeder and Luke said to Solo, "I'll pilot."

Han frowned, looked for a minute like he was going to argue, and then nodded. Leia slipped into the back seat, her sense and expression strained.

The sound of the speeder starting, once they were in the vehicle, seemed to announce their presence on the empty alleyway. Luke cringed, his sense fanning out to catch any spike of alarm in the Force that would indicate they'd been spotted. There was nothing yet. They wouldn't wait around for it to happen either.

He pulled the vehicle out of the bay and down the empty street, keeping his speed even to avoid attracting attention.

"And where are we headed exactly?" It was Han's voice, on edge. Perhaps he was nervous after Luke's tale of landing on the transport in the sky lanes.

"Down," was Luke's only answer.

"Your funeral, kid," Solo grunted at him, just as a burst of green laser fire lit up the dark.

Luke had just a moment's warning from the Force to jerk the speeder to the left, to the surprised shout from his passengers, leaning into the throttle full-force, any thought of stealth instantly forgotten.

"Go faster - go - go!" It was Han's voice. Luke saw, in the peripheral part of his focus not centered on dodging the heavy laser fire behind them, that Solo was gripping the plastene seat hard enough that his knuckles were white.

The speeder leapt forward, servos whining in protest as Luke threw it into a turn it had not been designed to make. He pulled the throttle back as far as it would go, the green-tinged street lamps blurring into a swampy haze. "Get on the navigator," he barked to Han. "I need an entrance to the lower levels, something…."

"You've got two more on your tail," Leia snapped grimly from the back. Luke's eyes flicked to the scopes. They were smaller swoops, manned by, near as he could tell, two stormtroopers.

Another flash of laser fire from one of the speeder bikes. "Is this thing armed?" Luke's fingers flew over the controls, while his other hand leaned into the throttle. Weapons…. "Han, find something that shoots!"

"Yeah kid," Solo was still flicking at the navigator, and dropped his hand down to another set of buttons. "Rear quad guns? That'll do." His thumb pressed the firing button. On the rear scanners, a brilliant orange flash lit up the dark.

"You missed," Leia announced tersely.

Han twisted around to give her a poisoned glare. "I'd like to see you do better, your Highnessness!"

"Switch me places and I will," she shot back.

"Guys!" Luke snapped in exasperation. He jabbed at the firing mechanism Solo had just vacated. "This isn't the time or place." This time, he hit the swoop. The speeder spun out of control, catching his buddies in the process. The explosion was a blinding fireball that blanked out the viewport for a minute - Luke was flying blind - and propelled their own speeder forward, Luke wrestling the controls, in order to keep from careening into one of the dilapidated buildings.

"Han, get me navigation. We need a point of entry."

Solo smacked the screen. "Our best shot is probably the sewers, kid."

"Sewers?" Leia's voice echoed in audible disgust.

Solo sneered back at her. "For present company too proper to take this guided tour of Coruscant's underworld, might I suggest you disembark - "

"Stop arguing!" Luke snapped, with a little more fire than he meant to. His nerves felt frayed, and their bickering was keeping him from being able to think. "I just need it to be quiet for a moment."

Everyone silenced. Luke raised a hand to the console and realized it was shaking. It had been that close: his friends nearly caught in the Emperor's closing web. Something about having them along with him made him nervous in a way he knew he would not be if he were alone.

He could not hold out against a threat to Han or Leia.

"Point three kilometers to the right, kid," Han's voice was even now, all business. "Sharp turn. Might be kind of narrow, but I think we'll make it."

Narrow was an understatement. Luke turned, a little too fast, into a sloped tunnel, its mouldering, dripping roof just barely clearing the top of the speeder, the navigator lights illuminating crumbling brick infrastructure just inches away on each side.

"It we get stuck…" Leia warned, her threat trailing off to give Luke the silence he needed to concentrate on piloting the tunnel.

"Kreth," Solo muttered. But Luke had already sensed it: they were being trailed by another swoop. He grimaced.

"Okay, hold on tight."

He leaned into the throttle again, the tunnel ahead of him blurring into a smear of gray as they picked up speed. It took a good deal more concentration to pilot at this speed in such a confined space. He didn't want to think of what would happen if the swoop fired at them. The sewer gases might vaporize them all.

Apparently the pilot of the swoop wasn't an idiot. He kept pace with the speeder, but did not engage his weapons. Up ahead, a turn loomed, and Luke banked sharply, barely cutting his speed in time. The swoop nearly slammed into the wall behind them.

"Slight drop up ahead," Han announced, eyes on the navigator, bloodless fingers still gripping the seat. He would never admit it, but he couldn't stand to be the one in the passenger seat. It made him nervous. Luke focused his eyes, unblinking, reaching out with as much as the Force as he felt was safe, considering Vader and Palpatine were casting out their mental searchlight to hone in on him.

The drop ahead was sudden, and straight down. Luke took the downward turn in a stomach-clenching free-fall, reaching out with the Force to detect the point where they would hit ground again. If he was not careful, they'd be nothing but a dark splatter on the sewer floor. He reached out with the Force to slow their plunge. The speeder was nothing more than the boulders he'd sent spinning in orbit while planted in a handstand on Dagobah. He hoped Vader and Palpatine wouldn't be able to track his location, but it was irrelevant really. He had no other choice. Dimly, he heard his passengers screaming as their plunge dropped them down the tunnel, vertical now. Luke sensed the approach of the ground a split second before they hit; twisted the speeder in a nauseating serpentine, until they were level again, careening away down a new tunnel that branched out horizontal from the one they'd just exited.

The swoop behind them was not so lucky. It smacked into the sewer floor, an eruption of vile liquids, and then, a terrific explosion to light up the dark.

Luke's suspicion that an explosion would be deadly for all parties involved proved to be correct. In that moment, he knew it was time to use the Force to his full potential - his location be damned - or they would all die.

As the speeder careened away, the orange fireball shot through the narrow space, the heat from the searing flames lapping at the vehicle, Luke reached out through the Force, creating a shield - a barrier - between the explosion and the small craft. It was difficult to split his attention between flying - not crashing into the sodden stone walls - and keeping the heat and flames at bay. He closed his eyes, gasping at the sensation of the searing heat of the fire, and the sudden spotlight of awareness that was both Vader and Palpatine honing in on him.

They found him. They knew precisely where he was.

Whoops inside the speeder brought him back to himself. Han was hollering, "That was unbelievable, kid!" Leia was laughing in a frightened gush of relief.

Luke heaved a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, saw that the flames were receding behind them, and that there was a possible exit ahead.

"Slight drop?" He demanded, when he could find his voice again. "You said it would be a slight drop!"

"You handled it magnificently," Han grinned, his bravado hiding the jittery aftermath of his terror, as Luke, their speed considerably reduced, took the tunnel branching to their right.

This new passageway opened up to a large cavern of sorts, pitch dark save for the running lights of the speeder. Luke slowed the vehicle to a cautious crawl.

"Where are we?" Leia muttered from the back seat, her voice again the tone of disgust from earlier.

"Who knows, Princess?" Han drawled. "Maybe ten, eleven levels down?"

Luke pursed his lips. "We did fall pretty far."

"Empire'll never find us down here," Solo crowed.

Luke shook his head, eyeing a pack of medium-sized rodents scurry out of the light. "I hate to break it to you both, but… " one of the rodents turned to face the speeder, rearing up about a meter high on its hind legs and baring a double row of razor-sharp teeth, dark fur rippling in aggression, a single white-blind eye reflecting in the glare of the lights. Luke grimaced in repulsion. "Thanks to my little stunt back there, both Vader and the Emperor now know precisely where I am."

"What?" It was Leia's voice, shocked and dismayed. "How can you be so sure?"

Han was tellingly silent, his gaze flicking up to Luke and back down to the navigator. Luke supposed the smuggler had witnessed his fair share of incidents where Luke and Vader had tracked each other through the Force, enough to not be terribly surprised. "We can outrun them, kid." He didn't sound especially confident.

"You can outrun them," Luke corrected. His mind was made up now. He would do whatever it took to protect them from Vader and Palpatine...and from himself. "I want you to take the speeder - go far away from here, in the opposite direction."

"What about you?" Leia's voice was accusatory. She was not letting him out of her sight again. "We're not leaving you, Luke."

"I don't have a choice, Leia," Luke shot back, anxiety for his friends' safety threatening again to override his calm. "When they capture me - I won't be able to - I mean…" he fumbled for the right words. "If anything were to happen to either of you, I would have to give in to Palpatine's demands. I won't be able to hold out against that."

He sagged back in the seat, his ears ringing with the silence of the small cockpit, the knowledge of what Vader had referred to as his 'weakness'. He wondered if his father had any such weakness; a primal need to protect his own.

Luke didn't think so.

He heaved a short sigh. It no longer mattered. His connection to Vader - he could hardly call it a relationship, could he? - was irrelevant; the delusional dreams of a lonely orphan kid. Reality was a slap in the face, but he could accept it. He could set it aside. Time to grow up; become a good soldier.

But not for the Empire. He'd be damned if he didn't go kicking and screaming the whole way down.

The silence stretched. Luke piloted cautiously through another narrow set of tunnels, the speeder splashing down into a deeper pool of muck that sprayed in all directions, splattering filth over the viewport, before bobbing back up to skim over the surface. Luke cringed again. Leia was right. This place was disgusting.

"You're not getting out here," Leia told him, as if she had read his thoughts. "I will not let you off to face the Emperor and Vader alone, and I will certainly not do it here, where at best you'll come out smelling like the worst type of garbage pit, and at worst, food for that pack of nasty animals back in that cavern."

Luke tucked away a small smile. Leia was formidable enough of an opponent on her own. "I don't know," he said carefully. "I feel like I have some experience." He raised his eyebrows. "The trash compactor?"

"Don't remind me," Solo growled.

Luke laughed quietly, though his mood was sober, and his smile quickly faded. He kept his eyes trained on the dark path in front of him. "I wanted to say thank you to you both...for all you've done for me." Emotion welled in his throat. He may not have family - may have a father with a strange and demented version of love for him, but he'd been given the most loyal set of friends. All the times they'd stuck their necks out for him, risked their own lives….it was a love he would never forget. "Thank you," he said again, his voice a whisper.

It was Han's turn to raise his eyebrows. Maybe this was sounding suspiciously like a eulogy. "We're not leaving you, kid," he said sternly. "So put this out of your mind. We're going to get out of here."

Luke expelled another sigh, his mind churning. He could feel the relentless pressure of Vader's mind pushing at him, coming closer, and just behind it the oozing dark maw of Palpatine. He shuddered and mentally pulled his shields tighter. They were following another tunnel now, one with a gradual incline, another set of sharp-tooth rodents scurrying out of the way of the oncoming vehicle and disappearing into the sludge below. It may well be that they could continue their foray through the tunnels for kilometers, past the area of the palace compound, closer to a place of safety, but something told Luke the net was tightening much too quickly for that.

He pulled back on the throttle, increasing their speed, though not quite as much as when they were outrunning the swoops. The tunnel spit them out onto a new level, this one looking much like the previous one, another large cavern reflecting, cave-like, the light of the speeder's running lights in the brackish sludge below.

Han gestured wordlessly to the entrance to another tunnel, the incline more severe this time, and Luke turned, heading up.

This particular tunnel followed a more predictable route, a pattern of inclining switchbacks, opening up wider - three speeder-lengths across now. He increased the speed as the tunnel widened, noticing on the exit paths the return to some semblance of civilization - glowlamps, a street, perhaps, shanties that looked suspiciously like dwellings. He had no idea what level they were on.

There was a flare in the Force. "We picked up another tail," Solo muttered, frowning hard at the navigator screen.

Luke's heart thumped in his chest, as he glanced at his scopes. Not one, he realized. Five swoops were behind them now. "Where do they keep coming from?" he ground out, pulling on the throttle again.

The speeder whined in protest as Luke forced it up the incline, faster now, blurring the scenery around them. He fired on their pursuers as they came too close - and managed to explode one - but noted, curiously, that they weren't firing back.

"Three more just joined them," Leia announced from behind him. Her voice was grim now.

It looked like they had no choice but to head to the surface. In fact, they were being herded there.

"Can you exit off to one of the sublevels?" Han asked, echoing Luke's own thoughts. But no, the next sub-level was bristling with four swoops at the entrance; the next level six sat waiting. As they passed each level, the waiting swoops fell into formation behind their speeder. They were now being trailed by roughly twenty speeder bikes. Too many.

Luke gradually slowed the speeder, delaying the inevitable return to the surface, flanked, as they were, along all sides by Imperials. The jig was up. He started when he felt a heavy hand on his arm; turned half-heartedly to see Han, face grim, peering into his eyes. Leia's hand came from behind, landing comfortingly on his shoulder.

"We're not abandoning you, kid." Han held his gaze.

Luke shut his eyes briefly, allowing himself to feel, just for a moment, the calm, grounding weight of their love.

When he opened his eyes, they were at the surface, the predawn darkness casting the wide, empty street in black shadow, duracrete buildings towering canyon-like above them, the malevolent locus of the Force a knot of darkness, nauseating in its intensity.

Blocking the way in both directions was a barricade of soldiers and ground speeders stretched from building to building.

Standing front and center of all this impressive collection of firepower were two forms, dressed entirely in black; one tall, his immensely proud bulk looming; the other, deceptively wizened, leaning on a cane, yellow eyes almost glowing in the darkness. Luke felt the intensity of that putrid gaze, even from this distance, searing into his soul, gleefully possessive.

The chase was over.