HEREDITY 3 By Kondoru
Thanks to JP for betaing
Standard Disclaimers
The address Leia was directed to was a farm deep in the mountains of the southern continent. "So my father's taken up Nerfherding?" She asked Artoo.
Artoo for once had no reply to that.
There were no nerfs as far as she could see, but a herd of shrak fled when she plonked the Falcon down in their field.
A surprised looking girl in a rough fur coat came running up.
Leia strutted unnecessarily down the ramp. "Take me to your leader" she announced grandly. (Or as grandly as someone with an astromech droid who was making silly whistles behind them could manage.)
She was led up a muddy track to a big stone built farmhouse. It looked like something out of an old picture. The eaves were low and brooding, and the cobbled yard full of defunct machinery.
The girl led her to a porch as big as an aircar.
She pushed her way through a forest of boots and waterproofs in the porch and found herself in a farmhouse kitchen. The room was low and dark, with flagstone floors and an immense wooden table in the centre. The walls were hung with a miscellany of old pots and pans, a dusty stuffed fish in a glass case was next to a rack of huge and wicked looking knives. It was very domesticated looking. She was having difficulty in imagining her father in this distinctly organic environment. His natural habitat was a scrapyard.
But she remembered the many machine parts stacked outside. No doubt there was a real farmer somewhere here, -Anakin merely worked on machines as it was his lot as a cyborg to do.
The table was crowded with arcane and possibly mythological kitchen equipment. A grey haired old human woman was stood doing something to a pie. She shooed off a black furred Lothcat which had jumped up on the table.
"Why hello there" she looked up at Leia. "I didn't hear your aircar on the drive."
"They just landed a big ship in the South Hendrer field." Fur coat laughed. "I'm going to have to spend today in rounding up the Shraak." She didn't sound too bad about it. "Didn't you see the landing field just below the house?"
A Twi'lek child poked his/her head out from under the table. Leia wasn't interesting enough, so they retreated back into the darkness.
Leia decided not to apologise. "Where is my misbegotten sire?" She demanded.
The teenager doing the washing up at an immense stoneware sink turned to her. They seemed to be male in spite of the long brown hair. "I'm sorry, Miss. I don't know you."
Artoo gave a gleeful little shriek.
Long-hair recognised Artoo, of course, "Oh, it's Artoo-Deetoo. What are you doing here?"
Of course the boy would be one of Anakins droid freak friends, wouldn't he?
Artoo gave a long explanation in Binary, which of course the lad understood.
"You're here to visit Anakin Skywalker?" He looked up, and recognised the young woman whose face had been all over the holos these days. "And you must be Princess Leia Organa-Solo?"
(But of course, with the picture quality of Holos these days, it was not surprising he didn't recognise her...)
Grey hair shook her head to herself "Anakins got some odd friends" But luckily Leia didn't catch that.
"He's in his office." Leia was pointed to the corner of the kitchen. Leia decided to keep silent until she knew just what was going on here. She was ushered down a dark uneven corridor smelling of herbs and wet shrakskins and gestured to a door.
It bore a crude carved sign.
JEDI GRANDMASTERS OFFICE.
Leia, of course didn't knock, but barged in like a Wookie at an Ewoks picnic.
Her father was stood by the window, fiddling with something mechanical in its light. He turned to her with no hint of surprise.
(Of course he must have sensed her when she stepped out of the Falcon, if not when she had dropped out of Hyperspace.)
Anakin Skywalker resembled an older and insolenter version of Luke. Perhaps giving him the long overdue bacta treatment had been a tactical blunder. He was dressed in grubby grey trews and jacket, with a much mended tactical vest on top, pockets bulging with mechanical bits and tools. His feet were bare. Luke had the decency to keep his mechanics covered up...Darth Vader didn't care.
He bore a metal band inscribed with archaic runes around his neck. The Force blocking collar Leia had found in the Jedi temple relics in Palpatine's hoard. Luke had been very angry when he had found the use she had put it to.
"Why, it's my favourite Sithi princess," he leered at her as if he was addressing a delinquent five year old "come for cookies?" (It was obvious cookies were the best offer she was going to get this year.)
Leia managed not to punch him one and stepped inside the door.
Anakin gave a big smile "Cuddle?" He held his cybernetic arms wide in invitation.
Leia well knew that the specifics for Anakins top of the range mechanical limbs included the useful information that they were powerful enough to crush a Rancor. Idly she wondered who had signed such potent weapons over to a rather unstable man.
Leia stepped back shaking her head.
Anakin touched his collar to show he had not the Force. It was such a joke. Everyone knew that he didn't need the Force to cause mayhem. But Anakin loved playing the penitent...And submissive.
So Leia with only the slightest of shudders, gave the Galaxy's most notorious man a big hug, putting her arms affectionately around his neck. And deftly removing the collar. (It was unlocked, as she had guessed correctly.) She felt her father shudder as Force awareness flooded though him.
"Thanks, daughter." He replied ironically.
Leia handed him back the collar with a smile. Anakin donned it with unseemly haste.
Leia smirked happily at his discomfort.
Anakin glowered back but was distracted by the sight of Artoo in the doorway, (The astromech droid was whistling happily, as if he had seen an event he could use to chasten or blackmail Leia in front of others with.)
"Oh, Artoo! It is my Artoo!" he chundered gleefully. Artoo chirruped and warbled just as happily. Anakin hugged the astromech droid. He and the little robot went way back. Like Artoo, he was a relic of the Old Republic...Like Ms Tano.
Where was the Jedi?
"Ashoka around?" Leia was rather fond of the Jedi woman. (When she was not fangirling Anakin...)
"She's off hunting Akul," Anakin gave the standard answer to the query `where is that damned Togruta? `
"Ah." Of course the ever independent Ashoka would not be here. "Who are your friends?" Leia asked curiously.
"Oh those, that's my Darth Vader fan club." He gave a laugh, "actually they are Force sensitives. Come to train with old greyback here." (He gave the old term for a renegade Jedi. It was true wasn't it?)
"Be indoctrinated." His estranged daughter chided.
Anakins healed face bore a hurt expression. "That's not a nice thing to say. I teach them to think for themselves." He paused, "or do you Alliance yobs not permit that?"
"Hah!"
"Some are young and some old. All are free to bring their families." He smiled. "I don't steal younglings. And they are free to come and go as they please. Yes, it's remote here but I'm not running some Monastery." He paused. "I wanted a good environment for them to live in...Not like Tatooine." He smiled wryly.
"I'd like to see you get sand underneath your cybernetics." Leia suggested sadistically.
"Humph" Said Anakin. "I assume this is not a social visit to see how well your old fathers doing?"
"Go kriff yourself, you walking scrapheap." Leia said without really meaning anything.
She well remembered the sore covered `thing` that the Rebellion medics had pulled from the failing life support suit that Luke had dragged from the exploding Second Death Star. It was a grotesque lump of meat, studded with wires and tubes. It had smelt rather bad too, of rotting flesh. There was no way Darth Vader could be saved.
And Leia couldn't feel sorry. She felt gratified that her arch enemy had been laid so low.
She had wanted him dead.
Luke wanted him to live.
Leia modified that to wanting him alive and suffering. (He seemed to be doing a lot of that without any help from her.) And she had plans. Her threats of using Ysalmiri had pulled off. Denying Darth Vader access to the Force was Leia's ultimate revenge against the monster who had tortured her, -not once, but twice, though he had been cleared of the destruction of Alderaan and everything and nearly everybody she had cared for...He certainly was a willing party to that event. He was a soulless monster who was capable of nothing but destruction. He did not deserve the Force, the spiritual energy that he had abused so much.
Deprived of the Force he would die in misery...And Leia Organa would get her ultimate revenge.
And yet it had quite the opposite effect. Without the Force Anakin could remain at spiritual ease He could concentrate on learning to use his new limbs, he had a chance to become a human again. Not only that, people regarded him as being helpless. (He wasn't) and so demanded his pardon.
They regarded Anakin as purged of his Dark Side.
Both he and Leia knew that the Dark Side was still very much with him. It wasn't something you could shake off with any ease, not after over two decades of complete immersion in it.
(And the Dark Side was strong in her, she had come to realise.)
"I suppose you want dinner?" He asked.
"Yeah, maybe, unless I will get food poisoning here in the mud." Leia had only snacked in two days. If she could get a square meal off of her father...
He led her out and up a couple of steps to a new corridor, this one wider, evidently the public part of the farmhouse.
"This is the parlour," he gestured her inside. "I will be back in a minute, just tell my friends you are eating with me."
The parlour was a well kept room but had a telling unlived in smell. There was a coloured Shili carpet on the floor, and the big stone fireplace was decorated with faded dried flowers.
Leia sat down on the chair. It wasn't a bad place, though still old fashioned. It reminded her uncomfortably of her Alderaanian childhood. Naboo was not a dissimilar world. It was one of the conservative human occupied core worlds.
Leia had a good look around. There were some sentimental pictures of shraak and droids, and many of the family. She also saw a picture of Anakin, Luke and Leia by his side. She recognised her dress, the picture had been taken at one of her gala balls. Unusually Luke had come along. He did not like such events. Anakin had not been invited but it was never easy to keep him away. (The bastard had attended her wedding to Han in disguise. Han, that scoundrel, had just laughed.) Leia had not been permitted to kick her errant father out. The media loved `The Hero With No Fear` It was one of the heartening sentient interest stories of the end of the war, The villain who loved his son, and who protected him from the arch enemy at risk to his own life His harsh trial, his reformation and eventual healing.
And who had known that it was one of the Greatest of Jedi under the mask? A Man so great, he could even come back from the dead?
Truly the Galaxy loves a redeemed sinner.
Anakin was six inches shorter than his evil alter ego but he could still make an impressive entrance, in his long brown Jedi robes. And this event was a good time to see the happy family.
She remembered `Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Master, Hero of the Clone wars and widower, with his adult children, Luke and Leia. `
(Really it should have been something like `Darth Vader, renegade Sith, cyborg and war criminal with his deeply ashamed adult children...) but she didn't say anything to him...Not yet.
She had remembered Anakin had been in deep conversation with the Gungan Senator...of Naboo. So he had been seeking political asylum on this planet?
A Twi'lek woman, evidently the mother of the youngling in the kitchen came in bearing a tray of food.
Leia had resolved to spurn the food offered but it smelled so good.
"Your daughter is such a wonderful woman," She said.
Anakin beamed. "She takes after her mother." He said in a manner that clearly meant `she takes after her father`
"Yeah," was all Leia trusted herself to say.
"Help yourself." Anakin told his now hungry daughter. He let her fill her plate before taking the rest for himself. This was one of many ways in which Anakins life had improved dramatically; He could now eat and drink again. It had been a miserable (And messy.) part of his rehabilitation, getting his long atrophied digestive system to work again. But Anakin was determined not to live the rest of his life on protein shakes, he had resolved to show everyone he was indeed a human under the cybernetics.
He poured some wine from a dusty bottle with a faded handwritten label, evidently home brew.
Anakin handed her a glass and raised his in a toast. "To the Jedi of the future," He laughed.
Leia had to smile. "To the Sith of the future." she returned archly.
"Confusion to em all!" Anakin countered.
They ate in silence.
A sticky pudding later, Anakin settled down to tea and business. "Now, daughter...just what is on your mind? I sense great turbulence...Concerning me."
(You don't sense anything, -not with your Force damping collar on...)
Now it was out. "I came here to talk to you about this!" she slammed the chip down on the table, making the teacups dance.
Anakin pulled his holopad out from his belt and read the chip. He pursed his lips. "How is this causing you trouble?" He asked sadly. "It's never caused me trouble." He paused. "Nor did it ever cause Padme trouble."
"People are asking questions!"
"About my abnormal midichlorian count?" he put down his cup of tea. "Your husbands always lived on his luck." Anakin said without preamble. "Folk like that, -well, even if they are not Force sensitive, and many are, they still may well carry midichlorians in their blood."
"I suppose this is the lecture about the grandchildren you so selfishly want?"
"Oh, no. I was just telling you Jedi lore stuff. And I don't even know if it's true." He gave a laugh. "Let's face it, Most Jedi never had children. I don't think I trust their lore, -lore, I say because as far as I can remember, there was no research. Their lore on heredity."
"And you want me and Han as a guinea pig?" Leia snorted. "Or do you plan on jumping on the first force sensitive human female you may dredge up?"
"Take that back, daughter. I'm celibate." He said, and for a moment Darth Vader was back.
Leia wasn't frightened of `him` "Then what were you doing with Ashoka all those nights? Checking your cybernetics were properly calibrated? That bit's fleshy still."
"Don't you bring my Ashoka into this," he growled. But Leia could see her father was blushing. "You're doctors took semen samples from me you know...Quite without my consent, I might add...What do they intend doing with them?" His eyes were wide. "I don't know."
What he did not say was that he had been sterilised during his time in Alliance custody. It was tactically agreed that the operation could be reversed, indeed would be, should Anakin ever get married. However that was unlikely as he still was mourning Padme.
"Haha."
"I `am` the Chosen One you know...As far as anyone's been able to tell, my genetics are uniquely adapted to carrying midichlorians. Your prying geneticists have studied my DNA ...What do you think they found?"
Leia gripped her biscuit. It was pretty much public record. Her father's genes on her mother's side were ordinary Tatooine stock, nothing unusual there, but on his father's side he seemed to be a completely unidentifiable construct. There was speculation that `someone` had been tampering with him, trying to optimise midichlorians. (But who? Or what?)
And she was also a product of that experiment.
"Just `who` is your father?" She had asked Anakin that before, several times.
He had told her that he was born a slave, and when you are a slave, fathers don't matter. They are a luxury that you cannot afford.
"Do you want to know?"
"Yes," she practically shouted. "What of your darkness have I and my brother inherited? I'm sure you know the wild theories that the geneticists have cooked up? Some of them say you're not even a human. This puts my marriage to Han in a pretty awkward position legally, let me tell you."
Anakin shrugged. "Yoda speculated that it's the Force."
Leia crashed back onto her seat laughing.
"But Yoda was a bit cracked at times. He had spent many centuries in meditating." Anakin quantified. "I wouldn't trust him." He smiled, "Anyhow, my midichlorian count exceeded his...He must have been sooo jealous!" He laughed. "Why do you think you and Luke are both Force users? Padme has no history of the Force in her well documented family line."
It was evident that her wayward father was taking this too lightly.
Leia shook her head. As she had suspected, her father was less than helpful. But such was his nature. Anakin was a slave and so an expert at manipulating his master.
She was now his master. Leia sighed inwardly, He knew that was she to give the word, He would be taken into custody and never see the light of day ever again.
"Anyhow...it's not the Force you have...It's how you use it." Anakin explained patiently. "You can have Darth Vader as a father...or Anakin Skywalker. Dark and Light. Who do you choose?"
"Nature and nurture?"
"Exactly, -your children will have the Force, I think that's a certainty...There will be no brown robed fiends stalking the maternity ward looking to spirit your younglings away to be fodder for the Jedi's wars." He gave an evil laugh, "I made sure of that."
Leia had heard the old stories of Jedi stealing children. This was one less thing to worry about.
"Luke can train them...But I think I would like to be a wicked old grandfather sometimes."
His daughter had to smile. "Let me see what I can do."