Jabba's Palace

Tatooine

6 months later

Darth Vader thundered rapidly down the entrance tunnel of Jabba's Palace. Two Gamorrean guards had attempted to block his way seconds ago, and had been thrown against the walls for their pains. Now, anyone within visual range was running for his or her pathetic life.

Ahead of him, he could hear roaring, screaming, trumpeting, and howling. He swept around a corner and into Jabba's throne room, and then froze in horror and fury. The bulbous Hutt was sitting on his dais, staring down through a grate in the floor. Around the grate were the usual horde of scum and villainy. And next to Jabba, chained by the neck, was Leia Organa, clad in the skimpy and uncomfortable outfit of a slave dancer.

Bile rose in the Dark Lord's throat, even as the Dark Side snarled and growled within him. He raised a hand towards Jabba, intent on choking the life out of that monstrous slaver who had dared to lay his slimy mitts on his daughter. But at that moment, Leia looked up and saw him. Her eyes widened and she pointed downward.

"Luke's in there!" she shouted, though he heard her through the Force, not with his augmented ears. There was a tremendous amount of noise, though he now could recognize the roaring ...

His heart clenched in genuine terror, and he somersaulted forward past the roaring detritus that lurked in this loathsome Hutt lair. There were gasps of terror as the scum finally noticed his presence. But his focus was on the cavern below the Throne Room floor.

With a snarl of rage, he cut a large hole in the grate and dropped through, landing right next to Luke just as the boy lifted his lightsaber in time to take off one of the rancor's large and very dirty claws.

The beast howled in fury and reared back, even as Luke looked up with a genuine smile on his face, "Father! Welcome!"

Vader maintained most of his focus on the enraged rancor, but a good 17.3% of his attention was on his entirely too insouciant son.

"Are you injured?" he demanded, even as he used the Force to pick up a large sternum lying on the floor and hurl it accurately into the rancor's eye. It snarled in rage and pain, and batted its eyeball.

"I'm Ok," Luke called back, "though I think I might have cracked a rib when I fell. I will say that I'll never quite look at my rancor plush the same. This thing is ugly and stinky and slobbery. I'm going to need a thorough steam cleaning after we're done in here."

The rancor was looking at them both dubiously now, as if aware in its pea sized brain that these two creatures were considerably more trouble than his usual meals.

After a moment, however, hunger trumped any modicum of intelligence and it lumbered forward again, its mouth slavering large drops of spit. One of which splashed across Luke's gray shirt.

"Oh, yuck!" the boy yelped, even as he leaped into the air, elegantly flipped, and slashed his lightsaber through the rancor's front left appendage. It howled again, and managed to catch the boy with its other claw, knocking Luke to the ground.

Vader's rage exploded. He lifted his hands and thrust with the Force toward the rancor. It was lifted up and hurled against the far wall with such power that part of the wall collapsed. The rancor fell to the ground, rolled over on its side, and croaked dismally. Then it was still.

There was a gasp above them, and in the sudden silence there was the familiar, and surprising, sound of lightsabers above.

Luke rolled to his feet and glanced up.

"Ben and Ahsoka!" he yelled. The boy shook some of the slobber off of his clothing and leaped straight up, grabbed the remaining grating, and flipped into the room.

Vader shook his head incredulously and also leaped, though admittedly with less elegance, into the Throne Room. His first thought was that the room was filled with more lightsaber users than had been together since the fall of the Old Republic. His second thought was that he needed to make sure that his daughter was safe.

He spun around, slashed off the heads of a couple of beefy and idiotic guards, and then gasped in unaccustomed surprise. Leia was standing a meter away from Jabba, her hands grasping the chain which attached her to the crime lord. The rest of the chain had been looped around Jabba's fleshy neck, and the tiny princess was pulling the garrote tighter and tighter.

Behind her, Captain Han Solo was busy with his blaster, keeping her safe from untimely interruption. Jabba was gasping, straining, his large mouth flopping, until, with one final convulsive heave, he groaned and stilled.

Vader shook himself out of his brief reverie and joined the fight. On his side - ridiculously enough - were Ahsoka, Luke, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, the giant Wookiee Chewbacca, Leia Organa and Boba Fett. On the other were hordes of Jabba's minions.

Not surprisingly, the scum died early and often, and then the remaining survivors, presumably the ones with an ounce of brains, cut loose and ran.

As soon as the last straggler had left, Vader gestured with one irascible fist, and a clack of Klatooine paddy frogs, which had been huddling in an aquarium next to Jabba for his eating pleasure, were hurled at Obi-Wan Kenobi. The old man, winded from the fight and years of exile in the desert, reacted too slowly and found himself drenched, with three screaming frogs clinging to his cloak.

"What was that for?" Ahsoka demanded, moving forward to assist the shocked elder Jedi.

"How could you let that slimeball lay his foul hands on my daughter?" Vader roared indignantly, even as he removed his heavy black cape to wrap around the slight princess, who had been cut loose from her chains by now.

Leia looked surprised, then grateful, then surprised again as she felt the cloak's weight.

"Thank you. I'm surprised how much this weighs," she said, using the Force to wrap it around her frame. "How on Tatooine do you carry it around?"

"He's strong," Luke said with shining eyes. "You should have seen him throw that rancor."

"I'm waiting for an answer, Obi-Wan," the Sith snarled.

Kenobi blinked, "I'm afraid, ah, that ..."

"We accelerated the mission schedule," Luke interposed cheerfully, "sorry about that. Leia and I were supposed to skulk but then Jabba was going to feed a hapless Twi'lek dancer to the rancor and Leia got mad and punched his major domo in the face and Jabba grabbed her. And I was off trying to find Han so I wasn't around, and when I came back I ended up in the rancor pit."

The youth frowned now, "How did you find us here, anyway, Father?"

Vader's mouth dropped open behind his mask, even as Ahsoka said cheerily, "So your kids didn't quite follow the plan. Not much of a surprise."

The Sith turned to his son, appraising his health even as he spoke, "The bounty hunter Boba Fett has been in my employ this last year, seeking information about both of you. When he informed me that Han Solo had been captured by the bounty hunter Bossk and delivered to the Hutt, I thought one or both of you might make a rescue attempt. Fortunately, I had finished some recent business on Naboo, and was able to be here on Tatooine within hours. And it is just as well that I did."

"We ... sort of ... had the situation under control," Luke said meekly, "though I admit the rancor had me a tad worried."

Vader shook his head incredulously, then turned to the Mandalorian bounty hunter who was standing, frozen, like a gray monolith

"I trust, Fett, that you will remain quiet about the information imparted today?" he demanded in his most ominous tone.

Boba Fett didn't move for a long moment, then lifted one gloved hand to point at Leia.

"Leia Organa," he said carefully, "is your daughter."

"Biological daughter, yes," the Sith responded, menacingly.

"And Luke Skywalker is your son."

"Yes."

"We're twins!" Luke said cheerily.

Fett moved forward a pace, "So you are Anakin Skywalker."

A pause.

"That name no longer has any meaning for me," Vader rumbled.

There were various skeptical sounds, and Ahsoka said, with a toss of her montrals, "Except that you claim Anakin Skywalker's children and call me Snips on occasion. Other than that, no, you have nothing whatever to do with Anakin Skywalker."

"I was a mere child when I watched my father die at Geonosis, Lord Vader," the bounty hunter snarled, "Though perhaps you don't remember that particular battle?"

Vader took a menacing step forward, "It would be difficult to forget. Your father took me prisoner, as well as my children's mother. We, plus Kenobi, were chained to pillars to be eaten by reeks and nexu. Jango Fett chose to align himself with Dooku, and died as a result."

"I haven't heard that story before," Leia said in a surprised tone.

"It must be a Skywalker 'thing' to be nearly eaten by slobbery beasts," Luke chimed in.

The bounty hunter stood still, but all the Force sensitives felt his rage emanating in the Force.

Luke stepped forward boldly and laid a gentle hand on the armored shoulder.

"I'm sorry about your father," he said genuinely. "I know what it is like to grow up without a father."

The bounty hunter looked down at the short youth for a long moment, and then the helmeted head bowed.

"Yeah, it was really hard. I mean, one day he's teaching me how to shoot people, how to use a jet pack to knock someone off a cliff, how to capture someone without inflicting so much damage that we wouldn't be able to collect the bounty, and the next day he was a decapitated corpse. I suppose I'll never be over it entirely ..."

Luke wrapped a slim hand around Fett's bulging bicep and pulled him gently toward an alcove, "I'm so sorry. Come on, let's talk about it a bit. I've been working with a counselor droid and I know how important it is to express your feelings ..."

Vader stared incredulously as the two walked away, then jerked slightly as Ahsoka spoke.

"Here's your cloak back, Skyguy. Solo found something a bit more appropriate for Leia."

He took the cloak absently and connected it around his neck, glanced at his daughter, and froze.

She was standing a meter away, wrapped now in a green robe, and was embracing Han Solo even as they kissed passionately.

10 heartbeats.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, completely stunned.

The couple broke loose and Leia turned with a sarcastic arch of her eyebrow, "It's called kissing, Lord Vader. It is a form of physical affection between people who are romantically involved."

"You ... you ..." he stuttered, "With ... Solo? He is ... he is ..."

"I know, not good enough," Solo said, agreeably. "Hey, I know that, you know that, but I love her and she loves me ..."

"You are too old for her!" Vader roared indignantly. There were other major problems but he focused on this one.

His daughter's eyes narrowed, "Not that it is any of your business, but I am very mature for my age."

"And I'm immature for mine, so it's not a problem." Solo chimed in, not helpfully.

Vader stared, then swung around to face Kenobi.

"How could you permit this to happen?" he demanded, poking his former master's chest with one prosthetic finger.

The old Jedi shook his head, a slight smile gracing that aged face, "I gave up on involving myself with Skywalker romantic entanglements decades ago, Anakin."

"Yeah, and you're one to talk, Skyguy," Ahsoka said indignantly, "considering you were sneakily carrying on with the Senator, who was 5 years older than you, right under our noses for ages ..."

"We were not, as you put it so inelegantly, carrying on," Vader said indignantly. "We were married."

This provoked surprise from both Kenobi and Tano, and obvious interest from Leia.

"Were you? When? Where" Kenobi demanded.

The Sith rolled his hidden eyes, "At the beginning of the Clone Wars, at Varykino, on Naboo, under the trees on the east terrace ..."

The filtered voice grew rapt with memory, "She wore a white gown and headdress, and she was so beautiful. Her dark hair flowed down, her face was angelic ..."

Solo gently prodded Leia with his elbow.

"Who would have thunk, Leia?" he murmured softly. "You're old man's a raving romantic."

The approach of Luke and Boba Fett broke into Vader's diatribe on his wife's many perfections.

"The plushes really help," Luke was saying earnestly, approaching the small group with his hand still on Fett's arm. "I hug my rancor when I'm feeling really sad, and I throw it against the wall when I'm angry. If you need a stuffed plush, let me know, and I'll see what we have in storage."

Solo shook his head in amazement, "Well, I hate to interrupt all this, but we should leave this vile pit, don't you think?"

Leia nodded, even as she poked her twin in the Force, "Luke, do you want to ..."

"Oh yeah!" Luke said, shifting his focus away from the bounty hunter, "Father, Leia and I have been working more on Force assisted healing and as long as you're here, maybe we can work some more on your injuries? I believe we have a special on healing spleens today."

"Luke," Leia said in a long suffering tone, "people don't actually need their spleens, not as much as some other organs."

"And I fear I no longer have a spleen," Vader said stiffly.

Luke's face drooped slightly, but then brightened, "How about kidneys, then? Leia and I did a great job on this guy who was going to need a transplant but we got him back to 80% normal kidney capacity."

The Dark Lord stilled, overwhelmed. To have functioning kidneys ...

"That would be truly glorious, my son," he said genuinely.

"Ok, then! Let's get back to the ship," Luke said, heading for the exit with the others in tow.

Vader found himself striding beside his former master.

"Kenobi."

"Yes, Anakin?"

"We should discuss how to destroy the Emperor."