Weird Nice Ship

Hoth

20 minutes later

"Luke," a familiar feminine voice stated worriedly. "Luke!"

Luke Skywalker groaned and muttered and groaned some more. Ugh, ouch. His head hurt. His leg hurt. Things generally just hurt. He really wanted to sleep.

"Come on, Kid," Han Solo said, shaking the youth's arm. "Wake up. You gotta wake up!"

Luke forced his eyes open and gazed in bewilderment for a long moment. He was lying on a bed, and Leia and Han were staring at him, and …

He sat up so suddenly his head began throbbing in protest, "Did … was that …"

He couldn't finish the sentence, but Leia nodded grimly, "Yes, Vader's here."

"What in all the sandblasted grottos of the Jundland Wastes is Vader doing here?" Luke yelped indignantly, going for anger over fear. "This is crazy!"

Leia's face was drawn with worry, but she managed an indignant snarl, "It was a set up, no doubt, though how he drew us here, I don't know."

Luke looked around rather hopelessly. The four of them were in what appeared to be a bedroom, with one comfortable bed, on which he was lying, a refresher in the corner, a small table, a tiny kitchen complete with cooling unit, and soft lights. On the floor, near the refresher, Chewbacca lay apparently unconscious.

The youth jerked slightly in concern, "Is Chewie Ok?"

Han sighed and walked over to nudge the giant Wookiee with his right boot, "Looks like he got stunned a couple of times instead of once, or he's drugged or something. He's breathing fine and there are no wounds, but he isn't waking up."

Luke groaned, rose to his feet, and took off his coat and threw it on the bed. What had happened? He knew he had felt a pull to Hoth, only to discover that Vader was here? Had he somehow been deceived by the Dark Side?

The door to the cabin slid open and Darth Vader strode in, two meters of imposing black armor with his dramatic cape flowing regally behind him. At his waist were two lightsabers, his own and Luke's, and he casually held Han's blaster in his left hand.

In spite of himself, Luke took a tiny step back. He hated this man, hated him for murdering his father and for destroying old Ben, but up close the man was huge and intimidating and Luke wasn't even trained in the Force. Han moved to stand protectively in front of his sleeping co-pilot. Leia, on the other hand, took a brave shuffle forward.

"What do you want, Vader?" she demanded, her chin lifted to stare directly into that blank mask.

The Dark Lord was silent for a moment, his own gaze focused solely on Luke.

"I want," the deep voice stated finally, "indeed, all that I require, is that young Skywalker leave the Rebel Alliance."

There was a pause and Luke managed to access his inner snarkiness, "Like, through death?"

The great head shook negatively.

"No harm will come to you," the behemoth stated with what might be construed, for him, as a gentle tone, "but you must not return to the Rebellion."

Luke just blinked at him for a long moment, even as Leia huffed.

"Don't be absurd, Vader," she snapped. "You want us all dead."

"Princess Leia," Vader responded, finally turning to look at her. "Your existence or lack thereof is of no concern to me. The same is true for your smuggler compatriot and his co-pilot. You have my blessing to depart immediately in that dilapidated object you call a ship if you can succeed in lifting off, which is, given its pathetic state, rather unlikely."

"Hey, your Lordship," Han began indignantly, only to be interrupted by Luke.

"Listen to me, Vader," the nascent Force user snapped. "I will never leave the Alliance until the Empire falls, until democracy is reinstated, until the Republic is restored."

The gauntleted right hand waved imperiously, "You are foolish, young one, to imagine that the Republic was a bastion of righteousness. It was mired in corruption and incompetency. Whatever rises from the ashes of the Empire will no doubt be as inept as the Republic, but it matters not. You, young Skywalker, will be kept safe, whether you appreciate it or not, whether you want it or not. Your continued survival is my sole priority now."

"Why do you care what happens to me?" Luke replied incredulously. "You murdered my father, you killed Ben Kenobi – you have to want me dead too!"

Vader took a quick step forward, "Who told you that I murdered your father?"

Luke's eyes widened in disbelief, "Ben did, that's who! What, you're going to deny it? Even on Tatooine I knew you were the Empire's enforcer, and I know a lot more now. It wasn't like Anakin Skywalker was the only Jedi you murdered – you've laid waste to entire civilizations as Palpatine's right hand … man, or machine, or whatever you are."

There was a long pause that followed this impassioned statement, and Luke realized, rather late, that he was running off his mouth at Darth Vader himself, who held two lightsabers and Han's blaster.

But the Sith merely stood stock still, staring at him, immovable.

"Vader," Leia said, drawing the cyborg's attention to herself, "you've been devoted to the Empire for decades. Do you really imagine we believe you'd just turn your back on the whole government and let it fall into disarray?"

"I was … devoted, as you put it, to Emperor Palpatine," Vader hissed. "He is dead now."

"So the old man keels over from old age and you just decided you were done?" Han asked skeptically. The Corellian nudged Chewbacca gently with his foot again, and was relieved when his co-pilot stirred slightly.

There was a bona fide snort from the Dark Lord's vocoder, "Palpatine did not 'keel over' as you put it. I killed him."

All three conscious Rebels sucked in astonished breaths.

"You killed him!?" Leia asked incredulously.

"Certainly," Vader returned, taking a step back and glancing out the window briefly. He apparently saw nothing of interest, as he quickly turned his attention back to Luke.

"I saw the reports, the actual reports, not what was released to the media," the princess replied indignantly. "He had pneumonia or something and died from it."

"And I tell you that Sheev Palpatine, also known as Darth Sidious, was far too powerful to die of pneumonia," Vader rasped back. "He was foolishly addicted to smoking Shento cigars and contracted pneumonia, on average, twice a year. Each time, he spent the night in the hyperbaric chamber, took the necessary medications and sleeping aids, and recovered easily. But this time, I killed him."

There was a soft growl from Chewbacca and Han reached over to pat his co-pilot gently on the leg, "You Ok, Buddy?"

The giant Wookiee managed to sit up and lean his hairy body against the wall, even as he grunted affirmatively.

"How did you kill the Emperor?" Luke asked skeptically.

Vader took a step back, then began pacing, his hands locked behind his back, "Very subtly. He expected me to try to assassinate him, of course – each Master Sith Lord expects his apprentice to kill him or at least attempt to do so. But he no doubt expected a lightsaber to the chest, or that I would drop a ceiling on him."

"So…?" Luke prompted.

The black monolith shrugged slightly, "I hacked into the droid controlling his hyperbaric chamber. The droid had previous instructions to increase the pressure in the chamber to 2 normal atmospheres so that more oxygen would be forced into his aging lungs, thus promoting healing. I successfully programmed the droid to slowly increase to 6 atmospheres of breathing gases over the course of the night, while also increasing the nitrogen to oxygen ratio. In addition, I bypassed the safety protocols which would disallow such actions. The change was sufficiently gradual that Palpatine slept peacefully until 0500 hours, when the droid dropped the chamber pressure to one atmosphere. The excess nitrogen in the Emperor's blood came out of solution to form air bubbles, which caused embolisms in his heart and brain, killing him."

Luke blinked in astonishment. He hated Vader, hated what he'd done to his father, to Kenobi, to Leia, to Alderaan, but he had to admit …

"That's really smart," he said in awe.

Vader shot him what might have been a pleased look, even as Solo spoke up, "Like really bad bends, right? That's what they call that? Deep sea divers have to worry about excess nitrogen?"

This time, the Sith sounded surprised, "Indeed, Captain Solo, that is correct."

"So you killed Palpatine, which I applaud," Leia said irascibly, "and then decided to, what, come here and wait for us? Why not just take over the Empire right away?"

Again, a huff of irritation, "As I said, Princess, I have no further interest in the Empire. I have killed Palpatine, which I should have done 20 years ago. As for waiting here for you, your arrival was a complete surprise, but clearly it was the destiny of the Force to bring us together."

"If so," Solo said snarkily, "the Force has amazingly bad taste."

Vader took a menacing step towards the smuggler, and Luke spoke quickly, "Why should you have killed the Emperor 20 years ago?"

There was a pause, and the great shoulders slumped even as the cyborg walked slowly over the window to again look out, presumably at the wall of the cave.

"He told me," the bass voice ground out. "He assured me, he convinced me that I had … I had killed her. Even though I felt her. I felt that she was alive!"

"Her?" Leia asked blankly.

"My wife."

There was three gasps and a surprised howl at these words.

"You were married!?" Luke demanded in disbelief. Who would marry Vader? The man was a mess physically, along with being mean and evil.

"Of course we were married," the Sith responded angrily. "I was not one to … engage in casual intimacy and certainly she would never do such a thing as to, er, be involved in an illicit relationship."

"And Palpatine told you that you killed her?" Leia clarified. She looked at the massive Dark Lord with the barest hint of sympathy. She had suffered greatly at his hands. He'd tortured her for hours and held her back as the Death Star destroyed Alderaan, but she admitted that this was pretty vicious of the Emperor, to lie about something like that.

Unless …

"How do you know you didn't kill her?" she demanded. It wasn't impossible given Vader's homicidal propensities.

"Because the child lived, of course," Vader responded, turning his dark stare on her.

"Child?""

"She was pregnant and I was told that I … that I murdered her, and the child with her. If I had killed her, the child would have died in her womb. Once I realized that my son lived, I realized Palpatine had lied to me, he manipulated me, he used me, he convinced me that I had … I had …"

The ship actually began shaking, clearly in the throes of Vader's distress, and Luke glanced around in alarm.

"You have a kid!?" Solo demanded.

The shaking stopped, and Vader turned directly towards Luke, "Yes."

There was a heartstopping moment, and Luke gulped and took a step back.

"No," he whispered.

"Yes, my son," Vader said gravely. "I am your father."

/-

Author Note: I am always trying to come up with new ways to kill Palpatine, whom I loathe quite thoroughly. This one was based on the tragic deaths of Chris and Chrissy Rouse, a father and son diving team who were killed during a dive to a sub off the coast of New Jersey in 1992. Sad story, though strangely fascinating to me.