ooo
Admiral Firmus Piett was plucking on his shirt. He couldn't remember when he had last worn a piece of clothing, that felt so foreign and uncomfortable to him.
It had been so long since his last shore leave (not counting formal military events, he was made to attend to every once in a while), that he had found his civilian clothes no longer in any shape to wear them. His halfhearted suggestion of taking a pilot off duty jumpsuit had been quickly stomped down by General Veers, naming reasons covering everything from security reasons to the relaxation character of his journey, and had ended up with the General offering him the, in Piett's private opinion, most hideous shirt and pants combination he had seen in his life.
The colorful flowers on the shirt made his eyes feel sore when he was staring at them too long, and despite the General's insistence, that they were holiday appropriate, Piett could simply not share the sentiment.
The crew of the shuttle tasked to take him to the nearest space port had not commented on his look, but Piett had seen their lips twitch treacherously and he was sure that only his stern look, that he had preventively bestowed upon them, had stopped them bursting into giggles. Just what he needed, he thought glumly, as he watched the Executor turn smaller and smaller through the shuttle's viewports. He had left the ship for less than five minutes and his reputation had already taken some irreparable damage.
The shuttle crew let him off at the space port, saluting as per regulations and wisely without wishing him a nice holiday, probably picking up on his mood. When Piett boarded the small cruiser, that was supposed to take him to a resort world known for its pristine beaches and excellent entertainment, Piett asked himself for the umpteenth time, how the stars he had deserved such a fate.
He supposed it was really his own fault, all beginning when he had had the apparently impudent idea to see the Executor's Chief Medical Officer to ask for something to ease him to sleep at night. Like a Corellian Slice Hound the CMO had picked up the scent of his small sign of weariness and exhaustion and had not stopped to hound him ever since, insisting that Piett needed a holiday. Something Piett was sure, he definitely not needed.
It had only gotten worse when the CMO had gotten his hands on Piett's history of shore leaves that he had taken (the last one some good five years back, and attending his distant relative's wedding had been no holiday, that was for sure). Piett was quite sure it was against regulations, that the CMO was digging around in other officers' personal files and if it wasn't already, he would make sure it was from now on, at least under his command.
In a particular low blow in Piett's opinion, the CMO had resorted to enlist the help of several other senior officers of the Executor's staff, who had taken up the task with terrifying joy and resolve. Since then Piett found himself unable to eat in peace in the officer's mess or even walk down a hallway without at least one of them bothering him with politely phrased encouragements to acquiesce to the CMO's urges and to finally take at least a week of holiday.
It had gone on for weeks until Piett's own resolve had finally crumbled. Not that he hadn't tried, no. He had brought forward every argument he could think of, from the amount of workload piling up after his holiday, making taking it in the first place not worthwhile, to his sense of duty, demanding him not to use up his entitled leave days, until he even had resorted to playing his trump card to Captain Venka, asking if he felt comfortable handling Lord Vader on his own, to which the Captain merely stony faced replied that he believed a single week could not possibly go that far south as to have a great impact on the bridge crew's composition.
Piett sighed, staring through the viewports of the cruiser into the blue swirl of Hyperspace. He wasn't so sure about that himself. Last night he had even dreamed of returning to the Executor, finding the ship filled to the brim with strangled crewmen and officers. No, he shook his head decidedly. Best not to think of it and Venka and the bridge crew were well trained and should know better than to get on Lord Vader's toes.
Not even Lord Vader, his last hope of getting away with just not taking the holiday, had backed him up. Not that he had overly involved him in his struggle to merely be allowed to do his job in relative peace, but he had been hoping with all his heart, that Vader would simply not sign off on his leave application. To Piett's dismay however, the signed document had appeared in his inbox a surprisingly short time after submitting it and Lord Vader had chosen to not even so much as comment on it.
So Piett had finally run out of excuses and options and had grudgingly booked a week of holiday through the Navy's Leisure and Family Affairs department. Only one week, he repeated to himself like a mantra. Nothing bad could possibly happen during one week.
ooo
Piett had checked into the beach side hotel he had been booked into, wishing himself back to the Executor when he walked through the nauseously colorful lobby and hallways, already heavily missing the sleek and clear outlines of the Star Destroyer. But when he arrived in his room, he had to admit, that it was beautiful. From his balcony he stared out at the deep purple sea, a certain algae responsible for that unusual tint to the water this world was so famous for, reaching as far as he could see. Below his balcony he could watch a variety of species sunbathing on the white sand, littered with colorful umbrellas and in the waves swimmers and others pursuing a surprising array of different water sports.
Despite himself Piett's mood lightened, that was until he decided to check in with Captain Venka to see how things were going in the past couple of hours of his absence and he had discovered that the sneaky Captain had chosen to have Piett's comlink disabled so that he was no longer able to access the Navy's communications system.
His worry somewhat increased, but unable to do anything to alleviate it, Piett decided to take a walk. Maybe he could get himself into something more of a holiday mood and expel the dark thoughts about what could be going wrong at this very moment from his brain. Walking down the shore side promenade in the bright sun for a while, Piett picked a small bar, offering a stunning view on both the sea and the busy promenade. It also happened to be seemingly the only one that was not filled to the top with flowery decoration, but sported a somewhat more subdued interior.
Sitting down he ordered a cocktail, that to his dismay arrived in a carved out fruit and decorated with an selection of tiny umbrellas, but once he had gotten rid of all the excess of decoration, it was almost adequate. Piett leaned back in his seat watching the passersby on the promenade going about their holidays and despite his worry, he found that he could relax a bit.
Maybe the CMO and the others really did had a point and some holiday and relaxation was exactly what he needed. Halfway through his cocktail, Piett had a look at the other patrons of the small bar he had chosen. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves, well maybe all except one. A young dark haired man, judging by his looks he could probably be Corellian, sat just two tables away from him, his drink untouched and the longer he watched, the more Piett thought that something about the man was off. He stared at his chrono quite often and seemed to have no eye for the beautiful sea view or for the hustle and bustle of the other holiday makers.
Piett shook his head, he was supposed to be on holiday and should relax himself. He turned his attention back to his drink and picked up a datapad on which he had loaded some books. Maybe for the first time in years he would actually have time to read something other than battle reports, strategic analyses or requisition forms.
Some ten minutes later however, the scraping of a chair on the ground made him look up again from his pad. The young man had gotten up, quite rashly so and, taking a look around in the bar, he made his quick way to the exit. Piett followed him with his eyes. Outside the bar the man bumped briefly into another guy, a young blonde one. For a moment he thought he had seen the dark haired patron reached for the other man's pocket, but it was hard to see.
A moment later the blonde man entered the bar and, looking around only briefly, sat down at the exact same table the other had just vacated. A deep frown was now edged on Piett's face, but he quickly lowered his gaze down to his datapad when the blonde man, more a boy really, looked around the bar himself. After a moment Piett dared to look back up, seeing the boy fiddle with a small satchel and Piett was sure that he had not had it with him, when he had entered. It all looked highly suspicious, like the two had been exchanging something in secret.
Piett stared at him, seeing his features was difficult in the dim light of the bar compared to the bright sunlight outside, so it took him a moment until realization hit him with the impact of a vessel in hyperdrive. It was Skywalker. Piett took a deep breath, staring over at the boy. He tried to reason with his brain, there was no way Skywalker would just pop into a random bar on a resort world. Maybe it was just his overworked mind playing tricks on him, after he had been so rudely snatched away from his daily missions, so many of which had centered around that very rebel, that he now started seeing him even here. But even though he could only see the boy's profile now, the longer he looked, the more he was sure of it. He had sat through too many intelligence meetings that had sported the boy's face at the top of the agenda to not be sure.
All of that suspicious behavior of Skywalker and the dark haired man, there must be something to it. Whatever was going on, the rebels were clearly planning something and Piett was sitting right in the middle of their operation. With one hand Piett reached into his pocket to grasp his comlink and he automatically keyed in the priority frequency to Lord Vader. It wasn't until he was finished and ready to activate his comlink, when he remembered that he could not reach Lord Vader or really anyone that could possible help him now, to finally capture the elusive rebel.
Frustrated Piett stared back into Skywalker's direction, what was he supposed to do? While he was still contemplating his chances of secretly contacting local law enforcement, Skywalker got up. His heart beat faster, he couldn't let the rebel get out of here, outside on the packed promenade he would easily loose him. Skywalker was already halfway to the door, he needed to act quickly. Without thinking too much about it, Piett got up too and took the short distance at a run. Skywalker turned at the noise, but he was too late to avoid him when he lunged himself at the boy in full force.
ooo
"This is all your fault," Piett hissed, staring in disbelieve at his handcuffs, before looking up at the boy, to throw an angry stare at him.
"Is it?" Skywalker shot back, his blue eyes flashing at him. "It's not like I jumped at you!"
"You and your rebel 'friend' were planning something. I had to stop you from carrying out your plans," Piett fired up. "Besides, you punched me."
"Well, you punched me in the first place, what was I about to do," the boy got half up, an angry red flush on his cheeks and Piett followed suit, his bound hands clenched into tight fists ready to lunge himself once more at the rebel, but a loud bang on the door made them both freeze.
"Silence in there, or I'll stun you both," the annoyed voice of a Trooper sounded, slightly muffled through the thick metal.
Piett's mouth opened to fire some sharp commands back, but then he remembered his current predicament and so he clapped his mouth shut again instead returning to glare at Skywalker.
Both of them stared at each other for another long moment, measuring each other up, but then they sat back down on the two metal benches lining the sides of the small holding cell they had been unceremoniously shoved into.
After he had lunged himself at Skywalker to keep him from leaving the bar, things had gone pretty quickly sour. Of course the boy had been kicking and punching to break free, Piett's jaw still hurt, but he had gotten the boy too, as Skywalker's split lip proved. Not knowing his intentions, the bartender however had thought Piett had just randomly attacked the boy and quickly called in some Troopers on patrol to separate them both.
No matter how much he insisted, that he was an Imperial admiral and Skywalker a rebel that he needed to be subdued, he had been unable to prevent to be arrested alongside the boy, as of course they had not believed a single word he had been saying. All thanks to this ridiculous getup General Veers had forced him into wearing, thanks to Captain Venka disabling his comlink and of course thanks to the bloody boy, that had the audacity to claim that Piett had attacked him after he refused to buy spice sticks from him.
Despite his protests, the Troopers had slapped handcuffs on both of them and scurried them off in their transport to the nearest outpost of the local law enforcement, where they had been dismissively chucked into a cell. He had tried to reason with the commander, giving his name, rank and service number, much to the chagrin of the boy, who only now seemed to be able to connect his face to who he was. Unfortunately the commander had not been overly interested in his story and had downright snorted when Piett had urged him to call Lord Vader, insisting that the boy was a wanted criminal and rebel.
To a certain extent Piett could understand him, Skywalker didn't look like he warranted Lord Vader's attention, or anyone's attention for that matter, but he was still fuming over the unprofessional behavior of the Imperials in this sleepy outpost, whose day to day job was probably to look for pick pockets and scammers trying to prey on gullible holiday makers.
The boy had grinned at that, though his smugness had quickly vanished when they had both been pushed into the same cell.
"What are you even doing here? Shouldn't you be running Vader's fleet?" the boy asked with raised eyebrows, interrupting Piett's thoughts.
"Rather, what are you and your rebel friends planning here," Piett shot back. "Who is that dark haired guy you exchanged something with."s
For a moment anger and fear hushed over the boy's face, but he collected himself quickly, a bold smile playing around his lips. "I asked first."
"Holiday," Piett bit out in anger. His mood took an unexpected dive to even greater depths at Skywalker's half incredulous, half amused snicker.
"Holiday? Didn't know, you Imps even did that."
"We do, now tell me what the rebellion is doing here."
The boy grinned even more. "Like I'd tell you just like that."
Piett glared, though he had not really expected Skywalker to tell him anything. It was a shame. Due to the less than inconspicuous arrest of them, the remaining rebels would sure go underground, they definitely had more than enough time.
"But I'm sure you won't be that bold anymore, once Lord Vader is here," Piett shot back angrily.
„It's not like they believed you a single word," the boy huffed disparagingly, but Piett could hear in his voice that Skywalker did not truly believe that himself. It was only a matter of time. Skywalker stared around the cell, measuring the door and the small window, looking for a way out, but Piett would, bound or not, hinder the boy from escaping this time.
ooo
Piett wasn't sure how much time had passed, but it was dark outside, only the light of some street lamps illuminating the tiny cell. Skywalker still sat hunched on the bench, arms hugged around his legs and his head resting on his knees. He was half asleep, but still wary. Every time Piett shifted the boy would stir, sleepy eyes following his every move.
He himself felt like sleeping, but he shared the boy's sentiment of not wanting to sleep in his company wholeheartedly. Thoughtfully he picked at the stupid flowery shirt he was still wearing, wishing nothing more than that he had never left for this hell of a holiday. The only silver lining was that sooner or later even the abysmally stupid commander of this base would check out Piett's service number and then, hopefully, would contact his superior who could bail him out.
Piett shuddered at the thought what Lord Vader would have to say to this. If only he could keep Skywalker in check, that could actually appease Vader enough to not summarily strangle Piett for this whole mess. He let out a deep sigh.
"What's he like?" the boy asked with a small, tired voice. Piett stared up in surprise. "Vader, I mean." Skywalker added, as if it had been an afterthought. He had lifted his head and was watching Piett's musings and for a moment he thought the boy had somehow known, what he had just ben thinking about.
"Why would you want to know? Your rebel propaganda already knows everything, don't they?" he shot back indignantly, unwilling to discuss Lord Vader with a rebel. Let alone Skywalker, of all.
The boy sighed. "It's propaganda, as you said. I'd rather hear it from you, before I meet him."
Piett frowned at the unexpected answer. "You already met him on Bespin, I understand."
Skywalker looked him in the eyes, is blue ones full of an emotion that Piett couldn't quite place, was it sadness or longing. "Yeah, we met. We… didn't part on good terms though…" he replied, his right hand clenching and unclenching subconsciously. Piett's eyes trailed to the black glove that was covering the it. His wrist was covered by the heavy binders, but he could imagine what had happened. Piett clenched his fists at the sudden and unbidden surge of guilt, seeping into his stomach. Skywalker was a dangerous rebel, he had destroyed the Death Star and cost countless Imperial lifes, some of which Piett had had personally known.
He still remembered the shocked silence on the bridge of the Accuser when the news of the destruction of the battle station had filtered through. Still, it was easier to project his hatred on a first nameless rebel and then later on a phantom he had been hunting, than on the small, painfully young boy sitting opposite of him. The boy stared at him with pleading eyes, as if some snippet of information could save him from Vader's wrath.
Piett took a breath unsure what to say. "He is relentless and conscientious when it comes to fulfilling his duty and he demands nothing but the highest performance from those under his command," he said, choosing his words carefully. "But he would not expect anything, that he would not do himself and he receives great respect for that."
Skywalker stared at him, still with that unreadable expression in his eyes, hanging on his every word. When Piett had finished the boy nodded. "Thank you," he said quietly. "For sharing that with me."
Piett looked at Skywalker wondering at how honest the boy's reply had sounded, in the dim light he looked even younger than he had before. He opened his mouth to say something more, to ask the boy all those questions someone in his position had rarely the opportunity to ask, had no business to ask really. About why the boy had chosen to throw his life away, when he had picked up the mantle of the rebellion, fighting for chaos and destruction instead of something good. If he really believed, that this conflict achieved anything but the loss of life. If he had ever felt even a twinge of regret at all the death he had caused.
But before he had even half formulated his first question, heavy steps outside on the hallway made him close his mouth again. Both of them were staring to the door as the unmistakable noise of a code being keyed into the keypad was audible and a moment later the door swished to the side, the sudden light falling into the dark cell, blinding them both.
But the light was quickly blocked out by the huge form of Lord Vader, stepping into the open door. The sound of his breathing was echoing ominously in the small cell. For a moment Piett merely stared stunned, but then he got up quickly to his feet, trying to banish thoughts at how ridiculous he was still looking in his holiday outfit.
"My Lord," he brought out, his voice thankfully steady and he offered a small military bow, but Vader seemed momentarily completely uninterested in his Admiral, that he just had the displeasure of picking up from the local law enforcement like a wayward offspring. His masked stare was solely fixed on Skywalker. Piett should have expected it. His misadventures of course blanched when it came to Vader having Skywalker finally in his grasp. Especially after he had been ruthlessly hunting this particular rebel for months and months, even more fiercely ever since the events on Bespin.
A small rustle of clothing from the boy's direction made Piett half turn to Skywalker, who was getting to his feet slowly, his jaw firmly set. He took a few small steps closer to Vader, until he was less than one arm's length away from him, showing more bravery than some Imperial officers Piett had seen, when they were faced with the imminent displeasure of the Dark Lord.
"Well, I guess you have me now," the boy said, staring down for a long moment before lifting his head to look directly up at Vader, his blue eyes burning brightly. "Father."
Piett's mouth dropped open and he was sure that he must have misheard, but then Vader reached out, placing his hand on Skywalker's shoulder in a strangely possessive and still gentle gesture. "Son," his deep voice sounded through the small cell, before he half turned and led the boy from the room, Skywalker following without hesitation.
Piett was left floundering for long moments, until he managed to unbolt his feet from the floor and he hastened after them, barely able to wait the moment for the guards to finally release his hands from the binders, and not listening to their hasty and awkward excuses at their harsh treatment of him, his eyes instead fixed at Lord Vader and the boy walking beside him down the long hallway.
ooo
