Remnants
By Rey
Luke, unknowingly, took a different approach to Bespin, physically and metaphysically.
Story Notes: Words in bold are words on the screen display, whether Artoo's or somebody else. Known or likely-deduced events won't be repeated, only glossed over if necessary. Timeline is tweaked a little, but you can deduce the alterations yourselves, I think, while reading. Three-shot. Dedicated to the one-shot Witness by Jedinemo.
1. … Of Past Information
The interior of the X-Wing, quite familiar after three years of heavy use, now felt stifling, even clostrophobic. To think that the duo inside had begun their rushed, unplanned trip only less than half an hour ago…
"Artoo?"
Questioning neutral beep.
"Do you think Master Yoda was right?"
Neutral beep.
A heavy, rueful sigh. "Master Yoda always beat me soundly, and he's small. Vader is gigantic, and Ben said he's good at swordmanship. How can I help my friends this way?"
Neutral beep.
"Do you think I'm too reckless and thoughtless, like Master Yoda said?"
Neutral beep.
"But my friends are in danger from Vader! And Vader killed my father! I can't just forsake them, can I?"
A rude short series of splats and screeches.
An indignant huff. "What? You don't believe me? Or you think saving my friends from Vader's clutches isn't necessary?"
Positive beep.
A growl. "Which one?"
One high-pitched beep and one set of bleeps.
"How could you know better than Ben? Ben was their teacher! You heard Ben, right? Vader murdered Anakin."
A mocking blat.
"I don't understand. How could you know?"
A series of whistles and croons and tweets and beeps.
"Umm. Can you just use the screen, please? We're still three more hours from leaving hyperspace after all. I don't need to use it yet."
And with that, the previously blank, unlit display screen on the panel in front of him glowed a soft white, with black lettering running across it. "I said: Anakin Skywalker was my owner. Mistress Padmé gave me to him."
"Huh? Wasn't your owner Captain Antilles? Threepio said so, and Leia too." A feeling of betrayal began to creep in.
Rude splats and a mocking blat. "I said: Anakin Skywalker was my owner. Mistress Padmé gave me to him."
His breath hitched. The feeling of betrayal, now a raging inferno, battered at his fraying composure, mixed with loss and melancholy. `If I knew sooner, I could have asked so much about my father and probably my mother too from Artoo. So much time lost…` "Why did you never tell me? Is Threepio…" He gripped at the steering rod with convulsing hands. `If Threepio… Both with me all this time, even before I knew anything about Jedi and Sith, or the Empire and this rebellion. Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen…` He forced his breath passed clogged airway. `No, can't hate them, any of them. Focus on the present, just the present. Artoo is here. Just make use of the time, just that.`
"Master Luke never asked."
He blinked. A bittersweet smile twitched on the corners of his lips. Quite an Artoo response. Couldn't fault such droidic logic too. Comforting reality. Whoever Artoo had been, whatever secret the droid and his taller companion had been hiding, they were still his, still there for him. "Who is Vader then? Did you ever see him together with my father?"
"No."
"Did you ever know him before my father died?"
"There was no person called 'Darth Vader' when I was with Master Ani."
A pit of dread began to open up, churning with nausea. "Then who killed my father?"
A tense pause stretching into eternity, accompanied only with the sounds of Artoo's straining processor, the high-pitched humming of an X-Wing travelling beyond lightspeed, and Luke's own increasingly-laboured breathing. And then… "By my calculation, it was Jedi-Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, Master Luke."
"WHAT?!"
"By my calculation, it was Jedi-Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, Master Luke."
"I got that! But… but… but…" The nausea churned faster, wilder, creeping up his throat like acid. This was worse than before, somehow. "How… how could you say that about Ben?"
"The string of situations defied the logic programmed into me, Master Luke. I am sorry. It was my best calculation, based on my programming."
"I… No, I'm sorry, Artoo. I understand. Just… just show me then, on the screen, why you came to such conclusion."
An obliging beep. Recordings played on the screen, one after another after another after another.
In the end, it was all that Luke could do not to vomit into his space-sealed helmet.
"Master Luke?"
But he couldn't answer. Realisations danced mockingly before him, turning his existence into a laughing matter.
He existed now, while his mother had been choked by her own husband and had her children split up like some plunder after her death, by Master Yoda's decision no less… while his father was cut down by his own friend and left a burning wreckage… while he realised he had a twin sister named Leia, maybe even the selfsame person that he had been fancying for three years, kissed on the lips by him twice…
"Master Luke? Are you all right? Do you need to repair yourself?"
Repair himself… His mother died giving birth to him and his sister, his father might have died a very agonised, very horrible death on the hands of someone both Skywalkers had trusted deeply, and who was his ssister? And Artoo wanted him to repair himself. He would rather repair whatever else had gone wrong in his not-so-long life.
"Plotting a course to Polis Massa, Master Luke. Your silence is unnatural. You need to be repaired. I cannot help you."
Repair… The urge to throw up returned again. The scream of his burning, limbless father danced in his mind. Repair…
Repair… His father had not been dead, when Artoo had been levetated away from the site. He must have died soon afterwards, but his ashes must have still been there.
Repair… "No, Artoo. Plot a course to the planet where you last saw my father please." His voice was a squeaky croak, pushed past clogged throat, but he didn't care. Repair…
A surprised string of splats and bleeps, followed by a questioning beep.
"I… I want to gather his ashes, Artoo. If nothing else, I could do this for him. I… I want to visit my mother's burial site too, if you know where it is."
An ascenting beep. Strings of numbers paraded across the screen. A moment after, the indicator light showing the completion of a course plotting glowed green, before the one for ending hyperspace travel lit up similarly.
"Exiting hyperspace before proceeding to Mustafar, Master Luke."
It was just his luck that, upon exiting hyperspace and before he could align himself to the new jump vector as shown on the screen, instead of the black emptiness of space, his X-Wing figuratively plopped into the midst of an asteroid belt, and came nose to nose against what looked like a small Imperial shuttle, backdropped by the ISD Avenger.
"Artoo!"
A series of beeps and bleeps and low blats which somehow conveyed nervous apology.
An exasperated sigh. But at least this was familiar territory. No need to touch on old wounds; only need to survive to see another day, for now at least.
Harder to do than to think, of course: evading the rain of green plasma fire that eagerly commenced after a moment's startled pause, just as his Force perception detected a strong, dark, menacing presence a distance away, gleefully expectent. Just his luck.
"If this is how you thought of repairing me, Artoo, you might just be right," he grumped half-heartedly, as the X-Wing evaded both asteroids and laser shots, trying to find a safe moment, space and angle to jump into hyperspace. After all, he was now too distracted to brood on the past. "We can't go there yet then. Plot a course to an inhabited planet, Artoo. Leave these to me."
A strong negative blat.
"Artoo…"
But he could not argue with the stubborn droid now. The Force was shrieking continuously at him in warning, given how close he was constantly with both stray asteroids and enemy fire.
And then, suddenly, just on the split second of perfect angle, as he corkscrewed on the edge of a suspiciously-alive asteroid, bracketted closely by deadly green streams on all sides, Artoo beeped a warning, half a moment before the light for entering hyperspace burnt green on the panel in front of him, and the vista changed into glowing starlines.
"Thanks, Artoo," he sighed, slumping against the seat, wishing he could swipe a hand across his face in spite of the helmet. Then a weak, incredulous grin stretched across his clammy face, as memories of his fellow pilots in Rogue Squadron passed through his mind, distracting him from his own shock. "I'm curious though, what's an Imp Destroyer doing in an asteroid belt? Sounds too crazy to be true, like something Wes would boast about, don't you think?"
Artoo chortled. Luke's weak grean widened, as he reciprocated the chuckle, and snorted as he at last understood the string of coordinates on the screen, which had not changed even a digit from before. "You're one stubborn astromech, aren't you? Did you perchance know my father so well that you could hazard a prediction for my action and wishes?" A twinge of betrayal panged through his heart again, but he ignored it. The realisation that Artoo had kept such an important secret from him this long was just too fresh still, that was all.
The addressee twittered happily, apparently ignorant or uncaring about his new owner's thoughts about him.
Luke shifted on the seat, trying to find a more comfortable spot, then muster up his courage to ask. "Artoo, but my father was truly a Jedi, right?" He just must know.
The contents of his chest sank past the belly of his X-Wing, it felt, when, for a moment, his cautious query was answered only by, again, the sound of Artoo's straining processor and the humming of his starfighter soaring through hyperspace.
And then: "I am uncertain of the answer, Master Luke. Again, the string of situations defied the conclusion drawn from my programming alone, however extensively Master Ani tinkered with me. I am sorry, Master Luke. Do you still wish to receive my answer?"
"Yes." His voice was hitched and scared, but hopefully Artoo would not pick up on it and still continue, despite his heart screaming otherwise.
"Is Master luke sure that after that Master Luke is not going to suffer from a programming glitch like before?"
A strained, quickly-dying chuckle. "You're becoming as fussy as Threepio, Artoo."
An indignant set of bleeps and blats.
"Artoo, please…"
"A harrumph of undulating short whistle. But thankfully – or not – for Luke's increasingly-frayed nerves, the astromech did oblige him. "Master Ani was a Jedi since after Mistress Padmé gifted me to him. But shortly before the Republic was renamed the Empire, Master Ani turned into a Sith."
"WHAT?!"
"Master Ani was a Jedi since after Mistress Padmé gifted me to him. But shortly before the Republic was renamed the Empire, Master Ani turned into a Sith."
"Artoo! You… I… I… I…"
"Master Luke?"
"You… How? How… how could you say that?" Bile pooled in his mouth. Denial pounded in his head and tilted it every which way. His eyes crossed as he forced himself to read Artoo's subsequent reply, blurred not only by the vertigo but also something hot and watery that he refused to name.
"I watched from afar when Master Ani met the then Supreme Chancellor Palpatine in the theatre house. They did not know that I went after Master Ani. Master Ani pledged himself to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine as a Sithlord for the power to save Mistress Padmé from death in childbirth."
More bile crept up; more, and he would have to unseal his helmet in order to spit it out, regardless of if his X-Wing had suffered any smallest cracks in his stint on Dagobah. But how could he care about being partly frostbitten when… when…
The burning lump of screaming flesh, his father, got into that state because he turned into a Sith, and he turned into a Sith because he had wanted to save his wife's life, but his wife was dead anyway, and what did he get for all that? Death, by torture, on the hand of his own friend; death, because of Palpatine, the Emperor. The emperor was still alive, but Anakin Skywalker–!
If the Emperor were here, and Luke was an accomplished Jedi, he would… he would…
`Hate leads to darkness…`
His hands curled tightly into fists. So easy to say, so hard to experience. If the Emperor were here…
"Master Luke?"
He hated Obi-Wan Kenobi, for it must have been Ben who had done the despicable deed, as much as he would like to deny it, but the Emperor–!
"Master Luke? Are you all right? Shall we go to the nearest medical centre to repair you?"
His father had been that desperate to save his mother that he became a Sith to do so; in vain in the end. But the Emperor…?
His mother had died in the end. The Emperor's promise had been a lie. And for what price? A dead woman and a dead man; both enemies of the Empire maybe, hence the lie…
"Master Luke? We are exitting hyperspace in four minutes. Shall I plot a course to Polis Massa next for your repair?"
Repair… Did the Emperor salvage whatever left of his father? Or did the Emperor just watch passively as a lovesick Jedi fool burnt alive?
He couldn't say that either way was preferable, because both were not preferable to him. But if his father was somehow alive still, despite all the herendous injuries…
Then who was his father now? Was Darth Vader…
No! It couldn't be!
"Exitting hyperspace in thirty seconds, Master Luke. Plotting next course to Polis Massa."
No no no no! He must face this! He might not have the courage if he delayed.
"No, Artoo, don't." A weak, scratchy whisper, it was all that he could muster now.
His tongue felt thick and heavy, swollen, and his head felt dizzy, and his ears were ringing too. It would be far more preferable, though, if this particular hangover was caused truly by a night of laughter and camaraderie with his friends, instead of… instead of this.
His cheeks were wet by now, he was dimly aware of it, but he didn't care. He must know.
"Artoo, who's my mother? Is Padmé my mother?"
"Yes, Master Luke," came the answer on the screen, before it was wiped clean and the signal for the end of the hyperspace travel lit up once more.