A/N: Come on, that was barely even a cliffhanger by my standards. And just to say how sorry I am, and to say thank you for the very warm reception, I am not cutting this post into two chapters like I should. Meaning, no cliffhanger. :)
CHAPTER 2
It was Skywalker alright. Though twenty-five years had left their mark, Piett had needed only the name to see straight through them to the boyish face that had appeared at the top of the agenda on every Death Squadron command meeting and planning session for three years. Skywalker – what memories that name conjured. Reports of friends and comrades lost at Yavin, the attack on the Rebel base at Hoth, the late unlamented Admiral Ozzel, the madness of the asteroid field, Vader's terrifying silence in the aftermath of Bespin, scores of sleepless nights and dogged searches and false leads and arrivals five minutes too late and rumors and bounty hunter scum…
…and what the hells could have sent this man racing into Vader's reach the moment he had word of his return?
"What a pleasant surprise," Piett managed. "After all this time."
"I'm here to see Vader." Skywalker projected pure calm, but Piett had seen that deliberate façade in his own mirror too many times to be fooled. The man was agitated, working hard not to show it – and at his waist, just peeking out from behind the dark long coat, hung what was unmistakably a well-used lightsaber.
Piett's stomach swooped. Twenty-five years ago Vader had been in his physical prime (or as close to it as a man in a life support suit could get) and Skywalker had been a callow youth, lucky to escape Bespin in only two pieces. But Vader was now an aged man, and Skywalker's scuffed weapon warned that he would no longer have the advantage of experience either.
He ought to be pleased at the prospect of being rid of Vader, at long last. But against all odds, Vader had improved with age. Perhaps it was all those years in the wild of uncharted space, dependent on his crew for survival, but truth be told Piett had thought him much changed even immediately after Endor – as though Palpatine's death had broken some sort of curse. For one thing, nobody had danced the midair jig since then. And he had shared too many troubles with the man for too many years to turn his back now.
No – for better or for worse, Piett was on Vader's side. Damn him.
"Lord Vader is not here," he told Skywalker. "He is on Eriadu liaising with the planetary officials." He knew better than to try lying to a Force-sensitive – but with any luck Skywalker would take his ship out to chase him down, and they could bring one of those functioning batteries to bear; or Vader could join the battle in space. Physical strength counted for nothing in a dogfight.
"He's coming." Skywalker's eyes blazed with disquieting conviction. "He knows I'm here."
Piett pursed his lips in dismay. If that was so – and even though Skywalker was a mass murderer, it was hard to picture him lying – then Vader had given his orders knowing full well it was no Emperor's Hand come to call.
But perhaps Vader just didn't want to admit he was also too old for this sort of thing.
"He may be several hours coming," Piett argued, though he didn't think for an instant it was true.
"It's been twenty-five years. I can wait a few more hours."
Piett shoved all his chips into the pool. "If you intend to stay, you'll do it under arrest, Skywalker. There's no statute of limitations on your warrant." At least he could go to his grave in the knowledge they'd finally caught the slippery son of a Sith, albeit a quarter-century too late –
Skywalker laughed. Whatever toll the years had taken, his eyes looked as young as they had the first time Intel had handed around holos of the pilot who'd destroyed the Death Star. It had made Piett's gorge rise, that far-too-young face. It had made him wonder what had gone so wrong that a boy like him would end up doing a thing like that.
"Fair enough, Admiral. I surrender." And to his surprise, Skywalker took the lightsaber off his belt and offered it, the emitter facing towards his own body. "Break out the binders too, if it makes you feel more comfortable."
From just about anybody else this would have been sarcastic bravado. From Skywalker it sounded sincere. That was worse.
"I don't think that will be necessary." After all, the man hadn't exactly been dragged aboard kicking and screaming…besides which, Piett didn't have any binders. Fleet admirals rarely had occasion to arrest anyone in person. "This way."
He led the way towards the lift to the vacant bay control room, affording a broad view of the hangar through its window. Inside, he turned the lightsaber over in his hands and wondered what to do until Vader got there.
"Well," he said. "Lord Vader will be delighted to see you, I'm sure."
Either Skywalker missed the threat or just didn't care. "You're very loyal to him." He paced up and down the room, arms clasped behind his back and the long loose coat swinging behind him. The mannerism reminded him so much of Vader that, under other circumstances, Piett would have been tempted to laugh.
"I have served with Lord Vader for many years." That was a good stock answer.
"You probably know him better than I do."
Piett frowned. Was it just his overwrought nerves or had Skywalker sounded…almost…envious?
"I would have thought you of all people would have been glad to see the back of him, Commander."
Skywalker gave a little laugh. "You're in good company. It isn't Commander anymore, though."
"You'll forgive me if I don't follow the insurrectionist promotion boards." Piett did not bother about sounding diplomatic. Skywalker could afford to be diplomatic; Skywalker had not devoted three years of his life to obsessively hunting Piett, reviewing reports about Piett, studying holos of Piett, watching his fellow officers be throttled because they'd let Piett escape…
"I resigned from active duty eighteen months after Endor." Skywalker abandoned his pacing and leaned forward on his palms on the rim of the viewport, staring out into the hangar.
"Why?" Piett blurted. Skywalker turned a raised eyebrow towards him. "Surely…surely the war can't have ended so quickly." Surely the Empire can't have been that weak.
"It didn't. I had other things to pursue." He turned his gaze back to the window. "I fought for the Alliance because I believed it was right, not because it was what I aspired to do with my life."
Again Piett saw that young face that had so disturbed him. Back then – occasionally, privately – he'd used to wonder about the ifs. What if the boy had grown up on a more civilized planet, within reach of the Empire's light? What if he'd transmitted that application to the Academy that investigators found drafted in the computer terminal of his blasted-out home? What if the stormtroopers on that recovery operation had had the common decency not to slaughter two ignorant farmers in cold blood?
He had never allowed those questions to linger; they were too much like empathy, and empathy with Rebels was treason. Besides, from his perspective, the Rebellion always took the form of blips in scanner readouts – occasionally, if they were close enough, of rundown ships gunning away from the Lady for dear life. Intellectually you might acknowledge that the corvette your gunners had just liquidated had contained several hundred sentients with dreams, fears, hopes, loved ones. But what you saw was a flash of plasma and atomized matter.
Face to face with the enemy for the first time, Piett dared to ask. "What did you aspire to be, if not a Rebel?"
Skywalker smiled mournfully. "I wanted to be like my father."
Intel had been clear that Skywalker was the orphan of a Jedi. Piett could imagine the rest. The boy had grown up with a gaping father-shaped hole in his life, pouring into it the stories others told him or that he told himself; and of course the man of the stories had been a splendid hero, a rescuer of the oppressed, a fearless victor against overwhelming odds – an ideal that likely bore little resemblance to the man as he'd actually been.
What if his father had been there? Piett hastily dismissed the thought. Skywalker's father had been a Jedi traitor. His death had been in his son's best interests, though Skywalker had chosen to deny that fact.
But what boy wanted to believe he had a monster for a father? A weight like that crippled a child. In Skywalker's place, Piett might not have fared any better. "Do you think you've succeeded?"
Skywalker stared out the viewport. "I'll find out soon." He straightened up and paced down the room, back again, leaned at the window.
"You intend to kill him, don't you?" Piett clenched the lightsaber in his hand, though he doubted he could stop Skywalker from reclaiming it if he chose.
Skywalker shot him a startled look. "My father?"
"Lord Vader," Piett snapped.
Skywalker relaxed slightly. "Of course not."
Just as though it went without saying that two mortal enemies could get along perfectly well provided they took a twenty-five-year break from one another. "Then what are you doing here?"
Skywalker's composure cracked. He laughed, sat down in the closest chair and ran his left hand through his hair. "I didn't exactly plan it out. I just blasted out for Eriadu. I suppose I need to see if it's really him."
"Of course it's him." Was he going to spend the rest of his days answering that question?
"And if he's who I think he is," Skywalker added cryptically.
"Those are questions worth risking your life for?"
"It wouldn't be the first time." Skywalker looked up at Piett. "What about you, what do you think of him? You must be closest to him of anyone."
"I don't think close is the word for it." Piett ignored Skywalker's nod at an opposite seat. No Rebel prisoners were going to play host to him on his own ship. And Skywalker was his prisoner. Maybe if he told himself that enough times, he'd believe it.
"Do you think he's a good man?"
Piett stared at the Rebel, eyebrows lurching. "I beg your pardon?"
"You've been with him for decades." Skywalker's gaze remained nailed on him. "Do you think he's a good man?"
He had to force himself not to gape. "I – I would not presume to –"
"To have an opinion about a man you've worked with that long?" Skywalker's eyebrows arched.
"Why are you asking me this?"
"I asked him at Endor," said Skywalker. "I want to know if the answer has changed."
"At Endor? Were you not busy giving an encore of your famous performance at Yavin?"
"No. I was with him on the Death Star."
A dim memory flared – a shuttle with an old clearance code, requesting to land on the Sanctuary Moon, and Vader's ominous leave them to me. "Lord Vader captured you on the forest moon."
"Not exactly. I turned myself in."
His eyebrows lurched again. Skywalker's mouth quirked, as if to share Piett's disbelief at his younger self's colossal stupidity. "How did you escape?"
"He let me go."
Vader had never breathed a word about this encounter. Piett took himself back to those initial weeks after Endor – that strange mingling of relief and grief that he had thought he sensed in the man and assumed was his own hyperactive imagination. Had Skywalker had a part in…whatever change had been effected?
"Lord Vader is a hard man," he said at length. "But for the past many years, not a cruel one. Such hardships as we have faced can alter lives. And…" He paused, for what he wanted to say still felt like treason. But Skywalker would hardly mind. "I think that the Emperor incited the worst in him. The removal of his influence has permitted better tendencies to flourish." He allowed his purported prisoner a civil little smile. "On occasion, I even suspect he likes me."
Skywalker had hung on his every word; now Piett saw an agony of hope in his eyes, hastily hidden. "Thank you. I'm glad he's had you."
Piett blinked at this comment from left field, and was still trying to figure out what the hell should be done with it when Skywalker twisted to the window. A lambda shuttle loomed outside the bay doors, making its way to a landing. Piett glanced at a chrono. Only half an hour – then Vader must have been already en route when he took the call. Skywalker stood abruptly, gripping the edge of the console until the fingers on his left hand turned white. The shuttle set down, the ramp extended, and the next moment a familiar towering black form sped out, headed for the lift.
A shuddering, deep breath drew Piett's attention back to Skywalker, now leaning heavily forward on his hands, his head down and eyes closed and mouth set, as if doing battle with some dragon deep inside. Why did he really come? Who would choose this?
The door of the observation office opened. The familiar rhythm of the respirator filled the air.
"My lord," Piett began – but he stopped right there. Vader did not, at this moment in time, seem aware there existed any such man as Firmus Piett. He had frozen in the gangway, his entire attention riveted on Skywalker. The Rebel had yet to move or look up. Warily, Piett backed out of the line of fire, planning to make his escape once Vader stopped blocking the only exit.
Silence stretched between the two archenemies for more than a minute, Skywalker's breathing nearly as harsh as Vader's.
Vader took a step forward. "Young one…"
Like a shockball bat to the side of his head, the thought hit Piett that Vader was at a loss for words. What in blazes happened on that battle station?
Skywalker looked up. Wet tracks ran down both sides of his face; he made no effort to conceal them. He seemed unable to even speak. Vader approached and settled a strangely gentle hand on Skywalker's shoulder. Skywalker's gloved right hand seized Vader's wrist, and there they stood in silence for what seemed an eternity. Sheer consternation chased all thought of leaving from Piett's mind.
Skywalker found words first, none too dignified. "Are you fracking immortal?"
Piett heard a sound he hadn't known Vader could make – at least, he thought that odd hiccup in the respirator was a laugh. "Assuredly not."
"This vanishing-for-two-decades act is getting old."
Vader squeezed Skywalker's shoulder. "I have no intention of repeating the performance."
Skywalker nodded and straightened up, mopping his face quickly with his sleeve. "Good. I think your admiral would disapprove."
Vader, thus made to realize he and his obsession had an audience, skewered Piett with a stare. In his fright Piett's fingers tightened on the lightsaber, which happily provided him with something to say. "Ah – my lord – he was carrying this." He held out the lightsaber not so much towards Vader as away from himself. What the hell was going on here?
Vader took the weapon and handed it casually back to Skywalker. "Have you made a practice of volunteering to be arrested?"
"Only when I know you're coming to bail me out." Skywalker restored it to his belt with a smile.
"And supposing I had not arrived in time to dissuade someone from executing you? You have no friends aboard this ship, young one."
Skywalker raised an eyebrow. "Maybe I'm better connected than you think."
"Indeed. Where did you obtain that operative recognition code?"
"A friend."
Vader hooked his thumbs in his belt and loomed. "Are you aware that your friend was a trained assassin answerable only to the Emperor?"
Skywalker widened his eyes. "No shavit?"
"None, young one."
Joy, thought Piett, glancing at the ship out on the pad. Perhaps Skywalker had been a distraction all along. Perhaps he'd return to find his bridge full of slit throats.
"Kriff," said Skywalker. "Guess I should have let Han run that background check before I married her."
Dead silence answered this comment; the respirator even paused. Piett counted four heartbeats before Vader said… "Jade?"
"Jade Skywalker," said Skywalker. "What, no congratulations?"
Piett really should have skedaddled, but this bizarre conversation between the erstwhile second-in-command of the galaxy and his ex-Rebel adversary held him rapt with its hooks.
"Young one, that woman has orders to –"
"Kill me, yes, she reminds me twice a day or so." He sat back on the arm of the chair, enjoying himself to no end. "You know what that makes you?"
Vader regarded Skywalker in – horror? The man could feel horror?
"Her father-in-law," Skywalker supplied.
"I am aware of the relationship," Vader snapped. "What I want to know is what possessed you to initiate it!"
"What can I say, it was love at first death threat – "
Right then, like a podracer at 800 klicks an hour, the full import of what he'd heard belatedly slammed into Piett's brain.
"My – my lord – forgive me, but am I to understand that – that he's your – Skywalker, I mean, is – "
Vader glanced at him. "Is it such a world-shattering concept that I could have a son, Admiral?"
"Yes, actually, it is," Skywalker retorted. "I'm sorry, Admiral, he doesn't communicate these things well. Believe me, I know."
"You should demonstrate more respect, young one," Vader boomed. His index finger, never on the sidelines long, sprang off his belt toward Skywalker's nose.
"You think I'm disrespectful? You should have heard Leia when the transmission came in from Eriadu City. Even Han didn't recognize all the names she called you."
Vader waved a hand in dismissal. "I expect such behavior from your sister."
Piett had to sit down.
"You could at least try to break it to him gently," Skywalker reproved. "Admiral, your pardon."
Piett waved the apology off feebly.
"In the same way you are breaking yournews to me?"
Skywalker inclined his head. "Fair enough."
"Your sister is…well?"
"Very."
"And has not yet had the sense to rid herself of that Corellian nuisance?"
"Married him. Three kids."
"I see."
"Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin."
Vader's respirator stumbled. Skywalker produced a pocket holoprojector and switched on a holo of three dark-haired teenagers. "Jaina and Jacen are twins. Anakin's a couple of years younger."
Vader took the projector and studied the fresh faces of his three grandchildren. Piett felt a stab in his chest. Vader had always stood aloof – even when the man was at his homicidal worst, there had been a sort of consolation in believing that he was an invincible superman, that no pain or fear could touch him. In this moment he seemed almost frail.
Vader clicked to the next holo, which featured a small redheaded child sitting inside a washing unit and clutching a multitool that his gleeful expression made it clear he was not supposed to have. Wiring hung haphazardly around the little head. "And this one?"
"That's Ben," said Skywalker. "He's ours."
Vader's hand moved as if to reach for the child, remembered whose body it was part of, and jerked back into its proper place. "Is it a current holo?"
"A couple weeks ago. He just turned eighteen months." Skywalker grinned outright. "I forgot to lock the repair kit on the counter. He levitated that multitool out and tried to take the washer apart from the inside."
"I see he has inherited his father's proclivity for wreaking havoc on any orderly system."
"Talk about the Toydarian calling the Jawa cheap," Skywalker shot back.
"Are you suggesting your criminal tendencies are my fault, young one?"
"It's not like I'm the first person in the family to overthrow a galactic government, is it?"
"I will grant that your sister began the enterprise at least a year ahead of you."
"She's an overachiever. Speaking of which, I should probably mention she's Chief of State now."
Piett cleared his throat to reintroduce himself to the conversation at this critical juncture. "Beg pardon – did you say your sister's name is Leia? As in the Princess Leia Organa?"
"That's her."
So much for our chances of a sympathetic reception. Piett swore in torrents under his breath.
"She has Sixth Fleet mobilizing at Yag'Dhul. Sixteen dreadnoughts, plus the Guardian coming in from Fondor."
"The Guardian?"
"An Executor-class Super Star Destroyer," Vader said.
Piett was positive there had been no Guardian on the Fleet rosters before Endor, but had long since given up questioning his commander's routine omniscience. He just pressed a hand to his forehead, feeling the familiar sensation of the future crumbling to pieces before his eyes. "Yag'Dhul. They won't be long getting here, then."
Skywalker turned a steady gaze to Piett. He did not seem perturbed that an entire battle fleet was gunning for the dilapidated ship on which his life currently depended. Then again, if anyone had experience dealing with such a situation it would be Skywalker. "I know. That's why I got here first. "
It needed no Jedi to sense Vader's surge of wrath at this comment. "You should have outgrown such recklessness by now, young one," he snarled. "Depart this ship at once."
"Make me," Skywalker said, in a tone which added old man.
"Do not tempt me." Vader stalked down the length of the control room, perhaps in hope of finding something less consequential than a son to kill at the far end. "I am not so decrepit as you seem to think."
"You're getting worked up over nothing," said Skywalker, who had apparently missed the memo about not condescending to Sith Lords. "She isn't going to blow up this ship once she knows I'm on it."
Vader whirled on him. "You flew into an imminent war zone without telling anyone?"
"Easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Skywalker life motto. Is your holocom working?"
"You have been left to your own misguided devices for far too long," Vader snapped. "I should not have killed Obi-Wan so quickly – "
"Let's not go there, Father." That was what convinced Piett that Skywalker truly was Vader's son – the anger. Though Skywalker kept it muzzled on a tight chain, Piett recognized that dangerous beast. "Is it working?"
Vader made a disgusted noise. "Admiral, take him to the holocom deck and allow him to call whom he wishes. I will be in my meditation chamber. Do not disturb me." He swooped toward the hatch, clearly having had all the insubordination he could take for one day.
As he passed, Skywalker murmured, "I missed you, you know."
Vader stopped for a cycle or two of the respirator. He half turned. "It is good to see you well, son. The admiral will show you to my quarters when you have finished." He pointed a finger. "And then we will revisit the question of forgiveness versus permission."
He precipitated himself away. The hatch shot closed and Skywalker blew out an exhausted sigh as he thudded into a seat, leaning forward with elbows on his knees. "We ought to put you in for a medal," he told Piett. "Twenty-five years and you're still sane. How do you do it?"
"Twenty-eight," said Piett. "I make a point of not provoking him."
"I don't think I can help that."
"Then it's a good thing he likes you as much as he does."
TBC
