CHAPTER THREE
BACKDRIVE
is a component used in reverse to obtain its input from its output. This extends to many concepts and systems from thought based to practical mechanical applications.
Tarkin may have been a fool, but he wasn't stupid. There was a very important distinction there, Vader felt. That was why he sent Lars from his quarters and proceeded to repair his armor.
Lars had been merciless with the demolition of the padding, but sensible: there was virtually nothing left around his protheses, but it did not extended past the insert port and expose his ruined flesh to the elements. Lars had cut into slices into the protective padding to remove the durasteel rods plating his remaining stumps as an exoskeleton to support the armor's weight, but had apparently soldered the heavy weave back together. The cushioning around his control box hadn't been touched.
Vader's own troops may not have blinked at the damage––Vader regularly came in with damage––but Tarkin would notice the difference of his limbs and new panelling and switches on the box, and report to the Emperor.
That could not happen.
The descending arms from his pressurized chamber fetched the helmet and armor, padding, gloves, gauntlets, and grieves, but Vader stopped the process with a flick of the Force before it could remove his new limbs.
For once, he wished he had a mirror in the pod. Not to see his charred flesh, no, that was an old sight––but what was new was that he could twist, now, barely but there enough, creaking open unused muscles and bones, and didn't even need to shield himself from the pain with the Force.
The exoskeleton had been removed, as well as the bulge of his control box. Once his armor was off, his shoulders and back were bare and completely free on anything but flesh.
His new limbs no longer yanked and pulled downward on the old stumps of the bone they were connected to: his upper body, which he had built with so much strength to bear the weight of the armor, lifted his arms with more than ease. They felt barely there, or maybe like they should be there, and it was awakening long-forgotten memories of his flesh body.
The stumps themselves Lars had bound expertly to protect from the rub of the newly-installed port, both on his legs and arms. The gauze and cotton Vader was almost surprised to see: that was more luxury on Tatooine. It was nearly unheard of.
The wires beneath the limbs were so neat and streamlined, a bare dozen bound and unobtrusive underneath his skeletal bones, Vader wondered whether or not Lars was in fact on the run from Roche Foundation, which would beg to give him a galactic prize for revolutionized medical engineering.
If Vader ignored the sight of the control box and the jut of his metal lung from his chest cavity, it was almost like a real body.
There was a spark of––of something, in him. Wonder, maybe––but Vader shielded himself from that quickly. He had more important things to do.
Before the droids could begin to attach his armor, Vader was nearly overwhelmed with the realization that he could mostly dress himself. He still could not bend at the waist without crushing his own vitals, but he could easily slip on the top half of his own padding, and even assemble the gauntlets and gloves himself. His new hands were dexterous and strong, despite their unique nature; they held the heavy, laden weight of his armor without a problem.
The rest of the suit assembled around him easily, hiding the new nature of his attachments. He even slid the outside of a replacement control box panel to hid the new sequencing Lars had fitted in. But the second the breastplate and pauldrons went on, Vader felt it again: the suffocation, the weight, the knowledge that he could not even lift his arms above his head with the addition.
Rage battled with good sense as the helmet was fitted over his head and his ocular receptors turned the entire world red. He longed to demand Lars to return, to forge new armor that was light as his new limbs, to whittle down the control box until it was little more than a button.
And he could do it, Vader knew, he knew Lars had the ability, and he didn't question it. If Anakin Skywalker could build a protocol droid as a slave in a desert, why couldn't the boy remake his armor? If Vader had any doubts whether or not he would snap Lars's neck for the changes, it was gone now. The difference was night and day.
The thought dawned on Vader like new water splitting a dry creekbed: perhaps Lars could do that, too. Maybe Lars could modify his helmet so he could see the difference between the stars and the sun once again.
Base One, Yavin IV…
When Obi-Wan saw Mon Mothma's face, older and lined, it didn't occur to him that it wasn't a dream. He looked, instinctively, for Padmé but saw only Leia and that was how a bittersweet dream rushed into a sweeter nightmare.
"Obi-Wan," gasped Mon, clasping their hands together, "We heard from Bail––and then Alderaan––we thought––"
Obi-Wan blinked, surprised, before he realized that Mon was relieved to see him alive. He didn't think anyone had been relieved to see him, alive or dead, in nearly twenty years.
"I'm here," Obi-Wan assured, "and so is the princess."
He didn't add that Leia Organa was more important than ever. Maybe because she was the only person in the galaxy Obi-Wan had left, or maybe because she was the only hope the galaxy had left.
Mon's gaze searched over his worn, craggy face. Obi-Wan had long stopped mourning his past looks, but that wasn't what Mon was looking for.
"I'm sorry to ask this of you," she said, "but the preliminary scans of the Death Star have just come in. And it's going to be a shot in the dark to take that monster down."
No.
"Please, Master Kenobi," Mon said––begged. "I remember what you did during the Clone Wars––"
"So you'll remember that was Anakin, not I," Obi-Wan interrupted, and the name felt like acid on his tongue. Across the room, Leia looked up curiously at the name. "I am no pilot."
"But you are a Jedi," Mon said. "And it is a Jedi we need."
Battlestation DS-1…
The room went quiet when Vader strode in, which was a common response. What was not common was the surprise across the senior staff's faces.
"Ah, Lord Vader," said Tarkin, sounding pleasantly taken aback. "We received a message from Admiral Montferrat that you went down."
"I did not stay down," Vader rumbled. Obviously. "What is the status of the plans? And the princess?"
"That is what happens when you insist on dogfighting with the troops," Tarkin continued, ignoring Vader. Vader bristled at the chiding, but said nothing. "But I am pleased to see you were recovered. You may be in a TIE soon again. The princess is on her way to Yavin IV in a cargo ship."
"She escaped?" Vader asked, shades away from scathing. There should be nowhere to escape to on an orbital battlestation.
"Purposely," Tarkin insisted, voice icy and the Force breaking like shattered glass with his irritation. "A tracker has been installed in the ship."
Clearly Tarkin had failed to get any information from Princess Organa. Still, it wasn't a poor plan.
"We will be beginning our approach to Yavin IV, where we will destroy the Rebellion once and for all," Tarkin promised, pale lips curving up in something not even Darth Vader would call a smile.
That was worrying.
"I will return to the Devastator and follow with the fleet," announced Vader in a show of initiative that surprised Tarkin, and displeased him. He wanted this to be an overwhelming victory for him and his machine, no fleet involved.
But Vader's modified TIE was being prepared on the Devastator, and there was no way he would be able to shuttle it aboard the Death Star without arousing suspicions. Besides, Lars was a decent engineer and Vader was mentally assembling a list of projects a mile long for him to start working on. If all went to plan and Lars was aboard the Death Star when it blew, it would be a complete waste.
"That should not be necessary," Tarkin informed him. Ordered him, more like. Darth Vader took orders from one master and it was time Tarkin realized that he complied, not followed.
"By this time, the Rebels have no doubt decoded the plans and know the Death Star's hyperspace capabilities," Vader said. "They will be evacuating, and the fleet can intercept the survivors."
Tarkin's lips thinned in dissatisfaction, but the Force was thrumming with his eagerness. He cared more for the destruction than he cared if Vader happened along on the Devastator for the jump.
"Very well," he dismissed, impatient, but it truly didn't make a difference. Vader would have followed anyway. "The Devastator and its armada will meet us at Yavin IV. We jump in a standard hour."
Yavin IV…
Was this what Padmé felt? Obi-Wan wondered. When he held her hand through the throes of labor and she sobbed from pain and something deeper, was it that she knew nothing was left, not even her Republic?
He was not Anakin. He could not land half a battlecruiser in Coruscant. He was not Padmé, either, who could turn tides of galactic politics with a single speech.
He didn't even think he was General Kenobi, anymore, who could broker peace and plans from imagination into reality.
But he was a Jedi, and he had been a Knight, so he would fly his last.
The Devastator…
True to his word, Lars's modifications were done by the end of the hyperspace jump and the ship moved from his personal hangar up to the Black Squadron's hangar. Vader entered the hangar where the Black Squadron was assembling, an engineer at the console of each TIE fighter, running preflight checks.
It was easy to pick out Lars, mostly because he sitting atop Vader's TIE Advanced. The other engineers were at least competent enough to busy themselves and the Black Squadron pilots knew better than to question Vader. However, the couriers and servicemen were scurrying around him, caught between horrified and fascinated, the Force informed him.
Lars hadn't changed into a uniform, either. He was still in his dusty desert gear, tied off at the waist and singlet revealed, completely against regulations; if that wasn't bad enough, sand was spraying down on the floor whenever he moved.
"Chief Engineer," he called as he strode up. "Prepare my ship for takeoff."
Lars looked up from what he messing with––straightening out one of the panels; non-essential business, Vader was pleased to note––and naturally scowled at the sight of him. Still, he leapt down and over to the console, where he pulled up and ran through the preliminaries in record time.
"Is it ready?" Vader demanded as he readied himself in the cockpit. Lars climbed half-way up the ladder, just outside the cockpit, a mobile calibration box in his hands as he checked the readings between Vader's TIE and the console on the hangar floor.
"I pulled the torpedoes from my X-wing." Vader watched as Lars kept his eyes on the dashboard, hands still busied. His voice was neutral and easily disguised by the clamor of the hangar. "They're installed behind the laser cannons. You have one shot. Pull to the left straight after. When it goes off, it'll blow the left wing, knocking you out of your flight path like you were hit from behind."
Vader nodded, satisfied. His blood thrummed, anticipating the hunt. He had done well selecting Lars. The man had thought it through, and his Force presence held steady, unconcerned, the usual drag of heavy smog weighing down his presence and keeping it anchored.
"Prepare for the seal," Lars called, stepping down and away. At Lars's command, Vader's hatch closed, and the rest of the squadron moved in quick succession. The support staff moved out and away from the hangar into protective banks, and last to go was Lars, who went sprinting for cover, as Vader pushed the TIE into a hover when the magnetic clamps released.
The shield opened the hangar to space, and Vader blasted out, the Black Squadron fanning out in formation about him. He barely paid attention to the men sounding off, trusting the Force to keep track, before ordering the formation. The squadron pulled in seamlessly into a vertical cross as they left the shadow of the Devastator.
For a moment, Vader simply breathed in. He hadn't realized the haze of Lars's Force presence hung so heavily off him, distracted as he was by his own pain under Lars's modifications, until the shroud slipped off of him. Finally, finally, he could stretch and reach out beyond the horizon, feel the milling of a million souls aboard the Death Star and the thousands down below on Yavin.
And the furious rush of the X-wings moving to swarm the Death Star.
"Gun it," Vader ordered, and the Black Squadron obeyed, pushing the speed of the TIEs to scream as they moved to engage the X-wings. They broke formation quickly, but perfectly, each pair of wingmen taking the X-wings on two at a time.
Vader's wingman, Sigma One, was used to Vader's pace and kept to him strictly. It was getting more and more difficult to lose him in the traffic––he took down three X-wings in as many shots as he flew a tight ring around a Rebel Squadron, herding them into it––which was a shame, because Vader didn't terribly want to the man down under friendly fire.
Vader loosed himself into the Force. He would find answers there.
Four. Five. Vader didn't keep track of how many kills he kept, but the Force marked their deaths with a quiet shiver that felt cold even in the dead of space.
Vader moved in and out, carefully situated himself closer and closer the trench run the Rebels were moving for, desperately, and he was inches following another X-wing into the trench––he needed to end this soon, the kill was his, and it was waiting for him, Vader could taste the blood in his mouth––when suddenly the Rebels parted.
Vader threw his craft to the side, surprised; did they have a picked pilot––? It didn't matter, and as Vader cut a switchback upsidedown to follow the craft––in fact, it would be better, he would follow the starfighter down the trench and take him out and the Death Star with one blow, when––
––he breathed in, or the mask breathed for him––but the Force––it was like inhaling the spray of the sea, the calm before the storm, the deep well waiting within––
––it was––
–– I––
It burned. It burned, all over again, like Mustafar, and Vader let out a sound through the mask that could have been a scream as he angled toward the X-wing, abandoning all shields and lasers just to reach the ship, almost, almost there––
At the last minute, the X-wing yanked up and away, and Vader begged to reach it, with the TIE and the Force, he reached and pulled, scrabbling with the Force to pull it in, and Kenobi's Force presence screeched against his like knives slamming and scraping against each other, and screams were ringing in his ears––not his own, no, not Kenobi's, but he realized dimly it was the squadron––but over was something else––
He and Kenobi tore at each other, fighting for every inch of space to shred and stab at their fights, and Vader's rage was eating him alive, burning up through his throat and eyes like the ash of Mustafar, because he was the better pilot, he was the master, he was the skywalker––how could Kenobi dare to challenge him, to crawl out of his hole and think that he would better Vader like he had done on Mustafar?
It grated, sharp teeth gnawing on his still-open wounds, that the two of them duelled and moved in sync, and the twenty years fell away before the Force as Vader yanked and Kenobi pulled, mauling and savaging at each, and Vader couldn't even see the ship for his pure wrath that dripped poison through his veins, and Vader prayed to Force: let him FEEL this PAIN––
and he heard, at once; it felt like he was nineteen and Obi-Wan was scolding him to pay attention in literature––
––HAVEN'T YOU TAKEN ENOUGH?
NEVER––Vader snarled back, and the two of them went tumbling down and barely catching themselves before the trench, climbing back up to claw and tear and when would Obi-Wan bleed like he had––YOU TOOK––YOU TOOK EVERYTHING––
NO! Obi-Wan's voice roared and rattled in his head––and, suddenly, he was no longer hovering over the Death Star––
––it was Tatooine.
Tatooine, against the backdrop of the two setting suns and the three rising moons, his mother's last home hiding underneath the dunes. And towards him ran, blue-eyed and blond curls, wide smile and the Force electrifying around him, not even five––Anakin's son, Obi-Wan's voice whispered, years ago––
––Vader screamed––
YOU TOOK––
––but now, Obi-Wan struggled desperately scrabbled, trying to take back the memory, mind seizing with the force of it, but Vader seized it tight and roared––YOU DARE
and his vision was gone, it was Tatooine again, and smoldering corpses on a pyre, and the boy, the––Obi-Wan's dug in, ripping, ripping the name from his mind before it could cross Vader's and all he saw was the boy, years older now and screaming, crying, the Force shuddering and spinning out around him, air smoldering with power–– - Skywalker, - Skywalker––taking the name from him like he took the boy, the child, his and Padmé's child, who lived, who lived, who lived, and Obi-Wan stole him and––
––YOU KILLED HIM, VADER, PADMÉ'S CHILD I D––
––NO NO NO NO NO YOU TOOK HIM HE IS NOT DEAD YOU TOOK HIM HE LIVES LIAR LIAR LIAR MY CHILD HE LIVES––
Kenobi strung out his mind, ripping and tearing and aching as he hacked apart the bond, Vader screaming and stretching, begging the Force to drag him back, to give him Kenobi and make him talk, about his child, about the child he took and hid and––
––and the Force shrieking, bawling at him, and he dove, suddenly back in the cockpit, moving aside as a cargo ship barrelled out of nowhere, the shots missing him by inches as he took back down into the trench for cover and that was the Death Star, his master's pet, his master, who had lied to him about his child––
––he pulled the trigger, and tasted iron on his lips for the kill as a million men screamed and died and, just like his mechanic promised, the TIE was spinning off with a fantastic kick into space, the Death Star exploding and Kenobi escaping before his eyes.
It was over.
Anakin's son, the echo of Kenobi's own memory whispered in his ear.
Vader tasted blood. It took everything in him not to destroy the TIE and he with it.
Skywalker.
It wasn't over.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: wow, guys! that's it for "six hours." this is the first installation of the series, which is called "three two one boom." be on the look out for installation two, which is all from luke's point of view. after all, where will go from here? what will vader do to try and find his son? how did luke survive his crappy first day on the job? anyway, until then, feel free to follow and hmu on tumblr at sheepfulsheepyardinspace. thanks again for the reviews!