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Prologue
17 BBY
Perhaps it wasn't particularly Sith-like, but the moment Luke started wheezing Vader was up in arms and panicking.
His son's asthma was the reason they as good as lived on a Star Destroyer, rather than the castle Vader's master had built for him on Mustafar. The location on the volcanic planet was advantageous as far as Vader's meditation was concerned - the pain and anger he associated with the area was more than sufficient to fuel the Dark Side of the Force - but the high amount of ash in the air had turned out to have a negative effect on Luke's lungs. The first time he'd struggled to breathe, Vader had nearly killed the medic in his panic. When the boy was only six months old, they'd been forced to move onto the ship.
Now, he mastered his fear long enough to search for Luke's inhaler. His son took a few deep breaths, and Vader tried not to worry or crowd the child while he calmed down. Soon enough, Luke's breathing had levelled out again.
Vader would have sighed in relief had the respirator allowed for such irregularity. Luke was fine. It was fine. Everything was fine.
He couldn't find it in him to refuse when his son tilted his head back to look up at him and raised his arms in the distinct motion Vader knew meant he wanted to be carried. A small huff escaped him as he bent down, undetected by the vocoder, and held Luke against him as he strode through the corridors.
He felt the wondering thoughts of some of the stormtroopers on duty at how less threatening he looked when toting a two year old boy around on his hip and scowled under the mask, the expression tugging at the damaged skin on his face. But then Luke rested his head against his chest, and all malicious thoughts fled his mind.
How could I have helped created something so precious? was a question he asked himself every day. He didn't know the answer. Luke was nearly all Padmé's doing; he was sure of it.
It wasn't until he reached the set of rooms that adjoined his that he realised Luke had fallen asleep. He gently nudged him awake when he did, and set him down on the large bed in the centre of the room, taking care to pull his spaceship-patterned duvet up to his chin. He watched for a moment as Luke shifted in his bedsheets, and opened wide blue eyes.
Vader turned to address the stormtrooper on duty. TY-529, who his son had taken to affectionately calling "Ty", was an especially competent member of the 501st - he had to be, as Vader would entrust his son's safety to no one but the best whilst he was otherwise occupied and couldn't do it himself.
"See that he doesn't escape his rooms again," he ordered. How Luke had gotten out and about the ship in the early hours of the morning in the first place was beyond him, but his son was hardly a predictable person. Force knew Vader had never been, even when he was still Anakin Skywalker. "I will come for him in the morning."
TY-529 nodded and saluted. Vader left the room and returned to the meeting he'd stormed out of unexpectedly when he'd received word that his son was gone from his rooms.
The meeting itself was a wreck. It had never been a more fervent wish of Vader's that he could Force-choke Governor Tarkin - at least that would solve the debate the Emperor was apparently having over who to give control of the future Death Star to. Vader knew that the super-weapon itself was a waste of time anyway - the power to destroy planets was nothing compared to the Force - but it was Palpatine's pet product, and so much had already been invested into it that he doubted his insights would be of any use in dissuading his master from further participation in this venture.
So he was already in a dark mood when he stormed back to his quarters, intending on making use of his meditation chamber to draw on the Dark Side further. But something gave him pause.
Luke wasn't in his rooms.
He didn't need to look to know this - the exploding supernova that was his son's Force signature was conspicuously absent from the adjoining chambers. Nevertheless, he marched in to see for himself anyway.
A man - a probe of his unconscious mind revealed him to be TY-529 - was lying prostrate on the floor, his stormtrooper armour notably absent, with only the uniform underneath it. Vader's gaze immediately shot to the bed. The sheets were ruffled and tousled, the covers flung back. And Luke was gone.
Vader turned, his cloak snapping at his heels, and marched back into the corridor of the Star Destroyer. He searched the ship with the Force, ignoring the lesser imprints left by the Force-blind crew and troopers and focusing on two particularly bright trails.
Both of which converged and joined in the room he'd just left.
Luke's he knew like he knew the engine of his TIE fighter - he'd felt that blazing presence when he was still a foetus in his mother's womb, had felt it haunt his thoughts in the days between the moment he last saw Padmé and the moment he got Luke back, had relentlessly protected and cherished it in the two years his son had been alive. He was so used to being in close proximity to it that it seemed a thousand times brighter than the Force signature it was mingled with.
But he knew that signature as well. As familiar as the surface of Tatooine - carved in excruciating detail on his memory, despite the time that had passed since he last interacted with it. His old master's Force presence felt the same as it always did, and a part of him ached at the memories it brought up.
You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!
He clenched his fists. Obi-Wan. Of course it would be Obi-Wan who sought to abduct his son, steal him away, teach him to hate his father. Of course the old man wouldn't have given up so easily.
The man had already turned his wife against him - why not his son, too?
After all, it had been Obi-Wan with whom he'd found Luke two years ago, his son only a few days old. He'd heard the rumours that his old master was in a system in the Outer Rim shortly after being released from the medics' care, and fresh from being told by Palpatine that he'd killed his beloved Padmé, he'd gone hunting the man who had taken everything from him.
He hadn't managed to kill the Jedi Knight. But he'd found something far more precious than revenge.
And now that very precious something was gone.
He would kill Obi-Wan this time. He would kill him. How dare he take his son, Padmé's son, their child-
He would finally kill him for this.
Vader searched for the lingering traces of the two escapees. Neither was still on the ship - he'd been gone three hours how had Obi-Wan gotten them off the ship so quickly how were they already gone - and he barked out commands for the Star Destroyer to be moved in pursuit as soon as possible.
He returned to Luke's rooms. Being in there without his son was a strange experience - and one he did not intend on repeating, he decided as he drew his lightsaber. The hum of the crimson blade made his mask vibrate in an oddly calming way, and the arc of light it made burned against his retinas as he slashed it experimentally in the air. He slashed it again, and stormtrooper TY-529's head rolled across the floor.
Luke might be upset about the "disappearance" of his friend Ty when he returned, but the man had failed him. He had allowed Vader's son to be abducted by a dangerous renegade, and was obviously a liability amongst the 501st - a legion that was meant to be the elite of the elite.
(A part of Vader knew that the man had been skilled, had likely been severely outmatched and been knocked unconscious as a result. The rest of Vader didn't care. This was his son.)
This was Luke.
Luke, whose golden head of hair looked so much like his father's once had, who smiled when he saw Darth Vader and laughed when the Sith Lord picked him up, who cried when he saw droids being taken apart, who insisted on being able to watch the stars turn to streaks of light every time they made a hyperspace jump, whose blue eyes were always wide and guileless, who had garnered the fondness of every stormtrooper assigned to guard him, Luke, Luke, Luke-
The body was still cooling when Vader swept from the room to harass stormtroopers and officers into moving faster, working faster, finding his son faster.
By the time the night cycle on the ship had ended, at least seven more personnel were choked to death or used for idle lightsaber practice. And little Luke Skywalker had still not been found.
