Title: They Call Him Vader
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters, settings or anything else from the Star Wars universe.
Warnings: OC, poss. AU
They Call Him Vader
Tatooine wasn't the planet Arden would have chosen to touch down on for re-fuelling - his working relationship with the Hutts being more strained than was strictly safe - but empty fuel cells and not personal choice dictated the move. Tatooine always had fuel to sell and a bar to drink in, and if he could keep his head down and his blaster off, he should be fine. A little extra slipped to the port authorities paid for hushed mouths; what the hell, his last job had paid well, he could afford it.
He took a few minutes to double-check the locks on the cargo bay, then headed out. Mos Eisley was noisy and crowded; stinking of hot bantha shit under the double suns, and Arden curled a lip in distaste as he moved through the rank streets, heading for the cantina he'd visited once or twice before. He found it down a cool alleyway, shaded from the bright heat.
Inside, a Bith band was playing music too jaunty for the setting: dark bar, scattered beings keeping low over their drinks and conducting business in a hundred different languages, but always in the same hushed tones. He kept his eyes down and went to the bar, ordered a drink and overpaid for it in something that wasn't Imperial credits, but the bartender nodded and served him anyway.
He sipped his drink, picking out different conversations in languages he'd semi-learned from the trading routes over the years; a Twi'lek girl was being recruited by a slavemaster for the resident Hutt, a Rodian bounty hunter was picking up a job, and at the other end of the bar a group of spacers were discussing the latest news in Basic. Dangerous, he thought, in times when even lawless Tatooine had ears for the Empire.
"...new general..."
"...Emperor's pet, he hasn't got any real power, he's just another lackey, another useless general..."
"Oh yeah? Tell it to Caamas."
Arden knew what they were talking about, all right.
"They call him 'Vader'," he said, just loud enough to be heard by the group. They fell silent in an instant and looked at each other, all of them wary.
"They call him 'Vader'," Arden said again, moving closer.
"You been listening?" said one of the spacers, tall and broad and mean-looking.
"You've been talking pretty loud, my friend; I was at the other end of the bar and I couldn't help overhearing."
"Overhearing, eavesdropping: I don't make much distinction," said the guy, glowering.
"Hey, excuse me, I just heard you talking and thought I'd offer some information," said Arden.
"What do you know?"
"About Vader?" said Arden. "More than you, I'd wager."
"Hush," another spacer warned, glancing around the cantina uneasily. "You want to get us all killed?"
"I'm not passing comment, just telling the facts," said Arden, shrugging. "If you don't want to know, that's fine."
He turned to leave, but the spacer said, "Wait. What do you know?"
"About what?"
"About...about the man they call Vader."
"You so sure he's a man?" Arden said, leaning forward on the bar, warming to his tale. "You ever see him?"
The spacers shook their heads; no, they hadn't.
"He wears this suit - all black, long flowing cape, the works - and a helmet. You can't see any bit of him. And he breaths like this." Arden made an exaggerated breathing sound, low and menacing. "Gives you the creeps."
"Why? Why does he wear the suit?"
"Some people say it's because he looks too terrifying to be seen without it. Like maybe he's some kind of terrible alien thing."
"How do you know this? You're just making it up," the big spacer snorted.
"I'm not," said Arden. "I've seen him myself."
"How?"
"Got interviewed for a cargo job that fell through. Saw him with my own two eyes." It was almost true; he had seen him - the fleeting glimpse of him walking along a corridor, black cape trailing, and he knew it was Vader because of the way the troops stood straighter and looked sharper at the sight of him.
"Vader," mused one of the spacers, and he shivered and took a long gulp from his pungent-smelling drink.
"Darth Vader," said Arden, playing his trump card.
"Darth? You mean he's Sith?"
"That's impossible! The Sith been extinct for a millennia," the big spacer scoffed. "You're spinning us tales, cargo-boy. You never saw him."
"Darth Vader," Arden stated simply. "It's the truth. He uses the Force to choke the life out of anyone who disobeys him. I heard he killed the Skywalker boy - you remember Skywalker? - I heard that."
"The Force! Pah, that's Jedi poodoo!"
"It ain't!" protested a guy to the back of the group who hadn't spoken before. He had a grizzled white beard and the dried-up look of an old man nearly ready to be grounded for the last time. "I seen Jedi during the Clone Wars, and before. I seen 'em use that what they call the Force - they did amazing things with it, terrible things!" He was drunk, and his voice carried over the warning shush-es of the others.
The bartender came over then, looking grim. "Jedi, is it? You want me to be shut down by the Imperials? If it's Jedi you want then you can get to another spacer dive, I won't have trouble here."
Arden held up his hands peaceably. "Forgive me, my friend, I was just talking. I don't want to get you in trouble."
"Trouble! I'll give you trouble if I hear of Jedi from you again!" the bartender snarled, and he turned away in disgust, but Arden knew that the man's ear would be firmly on him from now on, and that the ear and mouth of a Tatooine bartender were as much for sale as any goods in the market.
"Looks like I outstayed my welcome, boys," Arden grinned, and he downed the last fiery dregs of his drink and slammed the beaker onto the bar. "It's been a pleasure conversing with you, but I'd better be off." He slapped the shoulders of the tall and glowering spacer heartily, and, dropping his voice, said, "May the you-know-what be with you."
Outside, the heated air rolled against his face. Against the alley's opposite wall was a figure knelt and heaving onto the sand. Arden couldn't see its face, because of the hooded robe pulled up and concealing the features in darkness, like an oversized Jawa, but he could smell the sour vomit on the ground.
"You okay there?"
The hooded head nodded a little, and a ragged gasp for air ended in a choke and a wet coughing sound.
"You need some water or something?"
A shake of the head, and the figure slumped, exhausted, against the cool, shaded wall. "Thank you. I'll be alright."
The accent was crisp, Coruscanti, fully clear of alcohol; it was not a voice that knelt and vomited in alleyways. Not a voice you heard way out on the Rim.
"You're a long way from home, my friend," said Arden.
The figure lifted its head so that the hood fell back a little, and Arden caught a glimpse of the man: tawny hair and beard going rapidly to grey, a face aging before its time. The man said nothing.
"I mean Coruscant," Arden explained, talking more for his odd feeling of awkwardness around the stranger than out of sense. "I hear it in your accent. I get around a bit in my line of work. You get to recognise things like that. Accents."
"You hear a lot of news, I imagine," said the stranger, his gaze steady and cool.
Arden was no fool, on edge in an instant. "You heard me talking in the cantina."
"Perhaps," in a way that meant yes.
Arden glanced up and down the alleyway. "Look, I get on with the Empire, okay? I don't want any trouble. I just - I was just telling what I heard-"
"I'm not with the Empire," said the stranger. He hoisted himself up, full head and shoulders shorter than Arden. "Just...an interested bystander."
"Huh?"
"It doesn't matter," he waved away Arden's concern. "I'm getting old," he said, a little absently, and then, softly, "Vader."
The shaded alleyway seemed far removed from the noise and stink of Mos Eisley in the bright sunshine only a little way off. Arden felt as though he'd caught a glimpse of something high and old, something that was at once deadly and pure and which danced just out of his reach, dissipating in the absent smile and shake of the head of the strange old-not-old man like spilt moisture on the sand; dark and quickly gone.
"I..." said Arden, and fell silent.
"Ben Kenobi," said the man, and he held out his hand. Arden took it, reaching for the name Kenobi, which he knew, dimly.
"Arden Shamel," he said.
"Arden," said Kenobi, "I won't forget this day. But you will forget me."
And Arden saw a flash like lightsabers in the eyes of the stranger for a fleeting moment, and Kenobi flashed into his mind with Skywalker, and Jedi, and then it was gone, and the man was a strange old guy who had just picked himself up from the soiled ground smelling of strong drink, and who was reaching out for him like a beggar. He recoiled.
"Hey!" he snapped. Damn Tatooine freeloaders, those who had touched down with no money to get spaceside again, left to beg. He brushed the man away sharply and headed back out into the stinging brightness.
Back at the dock, port authority had prioritised his fuelling and the tanks were nearly full. Arden boarded, spent the time checking the cargo and updating some logs until they gave him the okay to lift off, and he turned his tail to Tatooine with no more thought than a brief and uncharacteristic pang of pity for the poor soul in the alleyway. It was a future that any spacer might face, and he half-wished he'd left some credits behind, but the stars before him stretched backwards as the hyperdrive whined, and Arden Shamel was gone.
A/N: Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed. Feedback of all kinds is greatly appreciated.