As far as secret bases went, one could do worse. One could be lost in some frozen wasteland or baking to a crisp in a desert; heck, this particular base didn't even have the pervasive muggy heat of the Yavin IV jungle--or the assortment of large snakes.

But it was dry, dusty, and plunked down in the middle of nowhere on a planet in the middle of nowhere; if one was looking for amenities, comforts, or things to do on weekends, one was--to borrow the smuggler phrase--sith outta luck.

It was places like this that made Luke Skywalker miss even the dull, chore-filled days on Tatooine--at least then he could beg an afternoon off and cruise up to Anchorhead to hang out with his friends, doing what kids do. Here, there really wasn't much of what could be considered a town for about a hundred kilometers in any given direction, nor were any of those towns likely to be friendly to strangers.

Plus he and the other pilots weren't kids any more, no matter that Han Solo never let the nickname drop. So no, going cruising in a landspeeder looking for neat gulleys to dash or rocks to jump was not an acceptable pastime for an X-wing pilot who was supposed to be on call.

Luke leaned back in his chair, setting his heels up on the porch railing of the barracks compound. The building had apparently once been a barn at some point in its long life, but with the addition of some lockers and a truckload of spring-set bunks, it served as sleeping quarters for the majority of the men stationed here. The place was made of wood, apart from the newly-installed wiring and some solar panels in the roof; come to think of it, the entire little "town" the Rebels now occupied was made of wood, much of it constructed years before they ever arrived.

Thin, dry, brittle wood, just like everything else on this planet. The land was flat for miles around, populated by lizards and insects and overgrown with scrub, thorny bushes, and stunted conifers. And there was no sand--Luke would have found sand quite tolerable--just baked, rocky soil which gave vent to an all-pervading dust that rose in clouds whenever vehicles passed, clinging to everything and rising to near-asphyxiating conditions at the slightest breeze.

Considering the lack of cover, and the fact that the thin wooden buildings gave them and their equipment absolutely no shielding, an idiot with a corroded scanner and one functional eye could spot them from orbit.

The higher-ups asserted that this was a temporary stopover, until they found another place to hide. The same thing they'd said about the last two bases, as they went scurrying with Imperials nipping at their heels, losing men with every emergency evacuation. Only five months into his grand campaign against the Empire, starting with his opening number on the Death Star, and Luke was becoming disheartened to see the utter lack of impact the Rebellion was making.

Now I'm getting depressive, he scolded himself, as his thoughts fell into that dreary line once again. That's it--time for a distraction. I wonder what Leia's doing...

He dropped his heels to the porch with a klomp! and rose to his feet, heading across the packed earth "courtyard," not bothering with a hat. On Tatooine, he would have described this weather as pleasantly cool; but many of his fellows, having not had the advantage of a desert upbringing, laid about on their bunks with cold drinks and fans--when they weren't expected to be suited and flight-ready at a moment's notice.

He stepped furtively into the farmhouse that was their current command center, hoping by the sound of things he wasn't disturbing some dire and important High Mucky-Mucks' Meeting--those tended to happen on an unscheduled basis. But it was sort of sad--and funny--to watch poor Leia and the commanders trying to hold court in what had once been someone's kitchen, with schematics and maps spread out over the stovetop. The living room was the only space large enough for the scanning and communications equipent.

Hoping he wasn't going to bother anyone, he leaned cautiously around the doorframe and poked his head into the room. Nobody was in the kitchen--odd, since Leia and General Rieekian were usually putting their heads together about something in there. Curious now, he wandered down the hall toward the nearest source of human noise, the living-room-turned-intelligence-center.

Luke pulled the same careful move, peering around the doorframe to be certain he wasn't interrupting something he shouldn't. Inside, Leia, the General, and several of the commanders and communications staff were all bent over one of the intel consoles, crowded into what looked remarkably like a sports team huddle. Their voices were low and urgent.

"Uh...hello?" he hazarded--they didn't seem to be doing anything terribly important.

He received only a few glances from the others, but Leia turned to face him. She didn't quite smile, but she did look glad to see him. "Luke," she greeted simply, beckoning him over. "Just in time--I was about to send for you. I think you should see this."

That got his attention--since when did a pilot get in on what the higher-ups were worried over? Admittedly, Leia did let him sit in on a lot more than the other pilots...

"What's up?" he asked, coming to her side. "We have trouble incoming?"

"Maybe, after this," Leia admitted frankly. "One of the old transmitter beacons we sometimes use as a message drop just decided to wake up and beam us a message."

Luke blinked. "And that's bad because...?"

"Because anyone in the vicinity--Imperials included--can trace that highly unshielded, barely encrypted signal right to our location," General Rieekian informed him, nodding in greeting to the young pilot. "The beacon knew where we were, and sent the message directly to us."

"Or rather, directly to Artoo," Leia added, gesturing to the little droid parked next to the console, plugged in. The astromech turned its dome to regard Luke and whistled a hello.

"Hi, Artoo..." Luke glanced at the screen, then back at the droid. "So what are you doing receiving odd transmissions, huh?"

Artoo chirped a brief string, sending a translation to the monitor he was plugged into.

"Emergency communications?" Puzzled, Luke looked to Leia.

But it was the General who answered. "Near as we can figure, someone was able to rig this droid with an interstellar-level hypercomm receiver--like it says, some kind of emergency message system, raw text only. Whoever's on the other end sent the message to the Old Republic transmitter beacon, which then fired it off to the droid--instead of just holding the information in memory storage, like we've done occasionally in the past."

Leia nodded. "And whoever did that would have to have access to Republic codes to activate the beacon, since the Empire shut down all the old, unmonitored relays. Considering the contents of the message, I'm not exactly surprised."

"So...what's it say?" Definitely intrigued now, Luke leaned over the console again, trying to sort through all the technogarble of receive and decrypt to find the body of the message.

"It's very brief--just a surface address and what seems to be an invitation--but we're not sure what planet the address is from," Leia replied, taking a deep breath and pausing before she went on. "Then there's...the reason I thought you should be here. The message...it's from Anakin Skywalker."

All the breath rushing out of him at the sound of that name, Luke nearly sat down hard right where he stood.