A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
Episode IV
THE SINS OF THE FATHER
It is a period of civil war. The fledgling REBELLION has scored its first victory against the evil EMPIRE, capturing the plans to the feared DEATH STAR.
Meanwhile, on Coruscant, the Imperial capital, the royal heir, LUKE PALPATINE, and his sister LEIA, are the terror of the Imperial Court. Luke has been raised to ensure the tyrannical hold the Empire has over the galaxy never falters. Leia, disregarded for being second-born and a girl, bitterly contents herself with keeping her brother on a tight leash. For now.
Meanwhile, their birth father, the evil lord DARTH VADER, watches his children grow ever stronger and more deadly, and begins to regret what he has wrought.
When the twins hire a smuggler to get them off Coruscant in secret, committed to a course of action that will seal their fates, Vader's only hope of saving his children may lie in two of the unlikeliest of places: smuggler HAN SOLO, and the Empire's worst enemy, the leader of the Rebellion...
—
The Tantive VI had fought valiantly to the last but in the end, Darth Vader boarded the vessel with his stormtroopers in tow. He'd hoped for a little more of a fight; by the time he boarded, there was nothing but a token resistance left to mop up. And not many survivors.
The stormtroopers brought him one of the remaining officers. The man wore a brave face, but Vader knew panic when he saw it.
One of his own officers approached. "The Death Star plans are not in the main computer."
Not the answer that Darth Vader wanted to hear. He seized the ship's officer by the neck and lifted him until his feet left the deck. "Where are those transmissions you intercepted?"
The officer struggled to breathe, his feet starting to kick in vain. "We intercepted no transmissions. This is a consular ship. We're on a... diplomatic mission." Vader knew how often "diplomatic missions" covered for military purposes. He'd used the same ruse himself more than once, long ago. "If this is a consular ship, where is the ambassador?"
The officer died rather than answer him. Useless. Vader tossed his body aside and turned to his officer. "Commander, tear this ship apart until you've found those plans and bring me the ambassador. I want her alive!"
They scurried to obey. Darth Vader strode down the hallway. I know this is your doing. Are you on board this ship right now? Are you an "ambassador" now?
He'd have to wait and see who this "ambassador" was, if she was the woman he sought.
#
The Palpatine twins were bored, and anyone who worked in the Imperial Palace knew the best place to be when that happened was "as far away as possible."
The Emperor was away, leaving his heir, Luke, nominally in charge of the palace. Mostly, this was really was nothing more than an excuse for a "state dinner": the prince, his sister Leia, and whichever of their fifty to sixty closest friends were available. The evening had involved enough wine and Corellian brandy that the noise level was high and the mood boisterous.
Nonetheless, the prince was sulking at the head of the table, sprawled with his legs draped over the arm of the chair, careless of the goblet in his hand. Leia was at his side, as she always was, leaning over the back of the chair to whisper something to him. He whispered something in return, and she glared at him. Rumors in the court said that both were receiving Sith training from their father, Darth Vader, but neither acknowledged it publicly. There was something of the uncanny about them, in any case, perhaps in the way they seemed to communicate with each other without words, or move as one when faced with a common target.
A casual observer would not think them twins. Although they were both slender and both favored red and black clothing, Luke was the fairer of the two, with his light brown hair and bright blue eyes compared to his sister's darker hair and piercing dark eyes. The true similarities lay deeper. Quick-witted, quick-tempered, and quick to hold a grudge, Luke and Leia were equally dangerous on a sparring ground and in a ballroom.
And, perhaps, in a dining room.
Luke swung his legs around, his black boots thudding on the floor as he sat up. The dinner guests turned as he leaned forward on the table. "This is dull. Who wants to race?"
A murmur went around the table, overdressed guests looking at each other.
"Oh come on." Luke stood up, leaning farther. "Fifty thousand credits to anyone who can beat me. TIE fighters, here to the Financial District and back. Anybody?"
At the mention of that much money, a few braver souls looked around. A couple of potential pilots stood up.
"Excellent. Come on, we'll get suited up." He grinned and it made him look younger than his nineteen years. "I'll even let you have first pick of the ships."
Leia caught his arm as he came around the chair. "What are you doing?"
"Entertaining myself, since you wouldn't." He tapped his sister on the cheek. He shrugged out of the high-collared jacket she'd picked for him and handed it to her. It was her favorite, the one with the metallic trim that made his dark-lined eyes edge toward silver.
She scoffed. "You're too drunk to fly a drone, much less a TIE fighter. You're going to get yourself killed."
Luke stood straighter, affecting the pose of a drunk man convinced that he's sober. "As much as I know how heartbroken you would be if anything happened to me, I'm sober enough to fly anything." He made a sound that was suspiciously like a giggle and nodded toward the three competitors waiting for him. "Which is more than I can say for those three. They're gonna be dust."
"Pretty soon you're going to run out of dupes, you know."
"Sure, but not tonight." Luke grinned down at her and she couldn't help but smile back. She hated him a little for that grin. It always got him what he wanted.
"What do you get if you win?" she asked.
He offered Leia his arm and she took it, and together they led the party toward the docking bay. "Depends. What are you offering?"
Leia rolled her eyes inwardly. He was so predictable. Outwardly she lowered her lashes and smiled, pressing against his arm. "Win first, then we'll talk."
"I always win."
While they were getting into flight suits, Luke took a look at who was going to be flying against him. Trip was a hell of a lot drunker than Luke was, and couldn't fly in a straight line sober, so no competition there. Shala was a good pilot, but good in a freighter wasn't good in a TIE, and he knew from… intimate experience that her reflexes were no match for his. Cordeno was the only non-human, the son of the Rodian senator. An inveterate gambler, Cordeno was also his only real competition. Despite the fact that the cockpit of a TIE fighter was designed for a human pilot, Cordeno had adapted well. Plus, the Rodian flew dirty.
This was going to be fun.
The docking bay of the palace always had at least a dozen TIE fighters on standby, on the off chance of an attack on the Emperor. Luke waved the stormtroopers away from the first four, and the competitors climbed up. Luke paused outside the cockpit to give the instructions.
"We're going here to the outer rim of the Financial District and back. First one wins. No heading to the underworld, and no lasers." He looked pointedly at Shala, who gave him an innocent look.
"Traffic's gonna be heavy this time of night, Your Highness," Cordeno said.
"It's fifty thousand credits, Cordeno, I never said it was going to be easy." Luke pulled on his helmet and settled into the cockpit.
Settling behind the controls of any ship felt more like coming home than any place else in the galaxy. In that, Luke took after his father. He flipped the switches to power up the ship, already mapping out a route in his mind. He knew every canyon and valley of the Imperial City, knew where the traffic lanes jumbled and where they stayed clear.
When Leia gave the signal to start, Luke immediately took the lead, soaring into the night sky.
One advantage to racing in a TIE fighter: slower traffic in airspeeders got out of your way in a hurry. Luke laughed as the other vehicles scattered in front of him. His radar showed him what he expected; Cordeno was the only one even close to catching him. The other two were farther back.
Luke swooped down three skylanes and found a clear path. The Rodian followed him—of course, he'd follow every move Luke made. Not far behind Cordeno was Shala, using the same tactic. Trip wasn't even on the radar anymore. One down, two to go.
"Trip took out a building," Shala reported over the comms.
"Looks more like the building took him out," Luke said.
The three remaining fighters screeched through the city with Luke leading the other two on a chase from low to high and back down again. Cordeno narrowly missed clipping the side of a building. Was that a piece of a strut Luke saw fall away?
Cordeno caught up to him and pulled alongside, and yes, the other TIE fighter had picked up an almost imperceptible wobble. Luke filed that knowledge away.
Shala caught up with them when they reached the Financial District. They flew through the lighter traffic three abreast, each struggling to pull away and take the lead. When they reached the outer edge, Luke hauled back hard on the stick, pulling the TIE straight up, then over on its back to make the turn, gravity trying to tear him from the sky.
His face hurt from grinning and he let out a whoop.
The maneuver gave him a few extra seconds ahead of Cordeno and Shala. He dove back down, sprinting through the Imperial Military District back towards the Palace.
Wobble or no, Cordeno caught him again just under a thousand meters from the palace. Luke was ready when Cordeno veered and slammed his TIE fighter into Luke's. The side panels clashed and sparks flew. Alarms sounded in the cockpit. With his heart racing and adrenaline pumping, Luke fought to keep his ship under control.
TIE fighters were agile, but as a result had next to no armor. Plus, the controls were touchy as hell. One wrong move, and both of them would go spinning into oblivion.
Or… he realized, one right move. Grinning like a madman, Luke counted off seconds in his head, then swiveled his TIE fighter just the smallest bit, giving Cordeno a solid bump underneath his right panel.
Cordeno cursed into the comms as his TIE started to spiral out of control.
Luke closed on the Imperial Palace as a small flash of fire behind him confirmed that Cordeno was out of the race. Shala was too far back to catch him now.
He landed in the bay several seconds before Shala; in fact, he was already halfway out of the cockpit before she touched down. The remaining party guests cheered for him as his boots hit the floor and he pulled off his helmet. All right, so maybe Cordeno's and Trip's companions weren't cheering, but it wasn't like they didn't know what they were risking.
The crowd surrounded him and something in him glowed warm at the approbation. Leia went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and Shala approached him, her short gold hair ruffled by the helmet. Her eyes were hard, but she offered him her hand anyway.
Grinning at her, he bowed over her gloved hand and gave it the faintest touch of his lips. As he'd hoped, she wavered for just a second before she returned the smile.
The party started to wind down after that.
#
Hours later, Luke woke in his own bed with a vague memory of having gotten there. He wasn't alone. A glance over his shoulder revealed short gold hair to match the warmth of the body pressed against his back. In his arms, where she spent almost every night, and had since they were sixteen, was Leia.
Her fierceness melted away in sleep; she'd probably be horrified to know that. He should tell her someday, just to see her reaction. He brushed a kiss to her temple and she murmured in her sleep.
Their relationship was an open secret in the palace. Who was going to tell them no? They'd talked about it once, long ago, and Leia had rightfully pointed out that neither of them would ever find someone who understood them better. For all that she could be cruel, he loved her. Maybe he loved her because of that cruelty and not in spite of it.
His body stirred and he kissed her again. Half-asleep, she responded by throwing her arms around his neck. When she opened her eyes, smudged with sleep and eye makeup, they were already glowing with heat. She pushed him onto his back and they moved carefully so as not to awaken Shala.
Then her mouth was on his and nothing else mattered. He plunged his hands into her hair, the hair she took down just for him. He told himself that no one else got to see her like this.
Leia would never tell him otherwise, that was the way she loved him. Sometimes she wondered which she loved more, the power he possessed or the way he sometimes was uncertain in wielding it. For now it didn't matter. He would learn, and she would teach him, if necessary.
They stifled their moans in each other's mouths as she took him. She was right, no one knew him better. Their minds felt merged like this, so close they could almost hear each other's thoughts. Leia caught his arms and pinned them over his head and he knew what came next.
"I could kill you right now, you know," she murmured. It was the game that sometimes didn't feel like a game at all, and that made it all the more exciting. "I'd blame it on your girlfriend there." She nodded toward the sleeping Shala.
"But you won't," Luke's breath was already ragged. "You need me too much, Leia."
"Need you? You think I couldn't get this anywhere else?" On the word 'this', she arched her hips in a way that made him see stars.
"Not with the power that comes with it." He loved her, but he wasn't naive.
"I could convince Uncle to marry me. I've seen how he looks at me." She teased him with that whenever he stepped out of line, and she could too. The Emperor had been ogling Leia for years.
"That wouldn't make you the heir."
"But I could give him an heir, and that would make you next to useless, darling brother."
The word "useless" stung a little, made him squirm beneath her. "You wouldn't. He wouldn't. He knows I'd kill him."
"You don't own me, Luke."
"Oh, I think I do." He took a handful of her hair and pulled, just the way he knew she liked, and rolled them over until he was on top.
Leia pulled him back down for another kiss. She'd let him keep thinking that. For now.