PART 1: The innocence of youth - Meeting the troopers

Trooper ME-7494 - his friends called him Marvin - really hated his post. He was sure there was no planet that was as dusty and hot and boring and hot and insignificant and did he mention hot? as Tatooine. Marvin often wondered what he had done to deserve serving on such a lame planet in the Outer Rim. Until he remembered that drinking game with the officer and that Twi'lek concubine and he remembered. Oh yeah, that's why.

It wasn't like there was nothing to do on Tatooine. There were hundreds of criminals and bounty hunters and bounties and other scum running around. The sad truth however was that the Empire was not all that interested in the dust ball. Certainly not interested enough to send the reinforcements that would be needed to organize a badly needed clean-up. Not to mention that such action would trigger a minor war with the Hutts and while the Empire was strong and could more then afford to wage such a war, it just wasn't worth it. Tatooine had nothing to offer and thus wasn't worth arguing over.

Still it was unacceptable to have a planet this near to one of the five major trade routes have no Imperial presence at all so there had to be an outpost. And the Stormtroopers, led by one very incompetent but high born officer, were an assortment of the worst. Not necessarily the worst shots or the worst pilots but the worst in keeping their mouth shut, in choosing the right woman to sleep with, in sucking up to superiors or something similar. To be stationed on Tatooine was one of the biggest punishments the Imperial Navy could dish out for troopers that hadn't actually done anything wrong. At the very least, it was very effective in killing your career.

Marvin and his troopers didn't bother to mess with the Hutts or any day to day killings on the streets if it wasn't happening right in front of their eyes. They did however take care that the school, orphanage and hospital that Imperial beneficence had founded was being kept safe and they kept the sand people from bothering the caravans. They had three lines open for those institutions and one for the general public. If someone called for help on the last line, help was sent out three hours late on principle and the people had learned very fast that the Stormtroopers were not city security and calling them for help didn't do any good if you weren't under their explicit protection. Still someone had to be there to watch these lines while most of the troopers where out patrolling and today, that was Marvin's job. He was quite happy about it too as it meant spending time in the shade while his friends had to bake under the two suns.

It was late in the evening when the door opened to reveal not one of the returning troopers but a little boy. He couldn't be older then ten, a native from the looks of it and he looked quite tired. Marvin, who had put away his helmet this morning and hadn't taken it up since as he was on duty alone with no superior peering over his shoulder, looked at the boy curiously. The child looked back at him with equal curiosity.

"Yes? Can I help you?", Marvin finally asked.

"Uhm...", the boy said. "I'm looking for my father."

Marvin scowled, the Outpost was one of the last places lost children came looking for for help. Most of them were actually quite scared of the white armored soldiers. Except for the children of Stormtroopers of course but Marvin didn't know anyone in his unit that had a son that age.

"Well, who is your father then?", he asked.

The boy seemed to hesitate. Marvin almost smiled, not so brave after all, hm?

"His name is Anakin... Anakin Lars. He's working in the Empire."

"Is that so", Marvin said with a bit of amusement. "I've never heard of him. You sure he's part of this outpost?"

"No", the boy returned. He scowled, probably having caught on that he was being made fun of.

"He's not working on Tatooine. He's off planet but my Aunt and Uncle are in trouble and we need his help."

"Well, where are your Aunt and Uncle now?"

The boy looked down again. "They're home. They don't know I'm here..."

Marvin sighed. His gaze fell on the panel where four dead lights clearly showed him that he had nothing better to do. Oh, to hell with it. He'd joined the Empire to bring back order and help some people. He might as well kill some time.

The boy looked like he had traveled far today already. He was probably very tired as well.

"Why don't I take you to the back and you can have some water while I look to see if I can find out anything about your father?"

The boy's face lit up. "Thank you Sir, that would be great! My name's Luke by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Luke. I'm Marvin."

Marvin showed him to the break room of the troopers and because the kid looked like he was starving, he got a sandwich on top of the water.

"Now do you know where your father is stationed?"

Luke began to think. "Well, he's in the Navy, I know that for sure. He's not stationed on a planet, he travels a lot. I think... I think he was in some kind of special unit but I can't quite remember."

That was not much to go on. But all Marvin had to do was keep the boy entertained until his relatives turned up to get him so he played along.

"Is he a Stormtrooper like me? We're easy to recognize, same designer", he said with a grin.

"Nope, my father doesn't wear... white armor."

The way he pronounced the word 'white' stuck Marvin as odd but he let it slip.

"Alright if he's in the Navy, do you know which ship he's stationed on?"

"Uh... A big one? I don't know, I think he changes ships too."

"You don't change ships unless you're degraded or promoted frequently", Marvin informed the boy as gently as he could. "Didn't your father ever tell you how to contact him?"

Luke looked away again and mumbled something.

"What was that?"

"I said he doesn't know where I am..."

Marvin leaned back. At first he had thought the boy was just playing a trick on him to get something to eat or get out of the sun. Maybe he was a runaway or maybe he was even distracting Marvin while some of his dirty little friends went to look in the main room for something to steal. Not that they would find anything. But the way Luke had looked so hopeful when he'd promised to help and how he was slumped down now, admitting his father didn't know him... Marvin was beginning to believe it was no hoax.

But if that was the case, it was even worse. If he wasn't a Stormtrooper or a technician, then his father had to be at least an officer. Marvin seriously doubted the guy would be thrilled to have a dirty rat like that from a home planet he probably despised come up to him and ask for help for his poor family. Nope, not a good idea.

"Are we talking about a father that's desperately searching for you out there or one that doesn't even know you exist?", Marvin asked with all the tact taught at Imperial Academy.

Luke stared at him with his mouth open for a moment, thoughts racing. "I... I don't know", he finally admitted.

"Well kid... I hate to break it to you but an officer, especially a higher ranking one, might be a bit suspicious if a nobody like you comes up to him and claims to be his son."

"But... But it's not like I'm after his money or something!"

"You did mention your family needed some help. What with the sandstorm season and everything, it's not hard to guess what kind of help you mean." Marvin looked him up and down, the boy didn't look like he came from the richest sort.

"Why don't you contact your mother instead?"

"My mother is dead", Luke mumbled, seemingly becoming more depressed with each passing minute.

"Well, alright... Were they at least married?"

"What?"

"Your parents. Where they married? Even if you're as poor as a church mouse, your father might still help you out of obligation to your mother if they were on good terms."

"I..." And now Luke looked like he was close to crying. "I don't know..."

The boy had obviously never thought about the matter in this way. Never thought his father might not want him. That maybe he was lucky being pure human and not a half Twi'lek son of a whore.

Marvin actually felt a bit of pity for the boy.

"Alright look... Just calm down, okay? We'll sent a message to your relatives to pick you up."

"They don't live in Mos Eisley", Luke sniffed. "And they... They're not connected to the..."

"Okay, I get it." His relatives wouldn't be able to pick him up today and traveling in the dark was very dangerous with all the sand people around. Geez, what a mess.

"Look, you can sleep with me in the barracks if you want. It's rather cramped and we'll have to share the room with thirty other sweating bodies but it's safer then out there on the street. In the morning, we can look up your relatives. How does that sound?"

Luke nodded hesitantly and mumbled a thanks.

By now the first patrols had returned. Luke got a lot of curious stares when Marvin took him with him to the barracks and the trooper got a lecture from his superior but in the end Luke was allowed to sleep with the soldiers. He didn't pull a face at the bland rations and even joined in a card game with some of the troopers. It was during that card game (Marvin was losing miserably) that the boy noticed a poster hanging between the maps and wanted pictures littering the wall.

"Is that Darth Vader?", he asked with wide eyes.

Marvin turned to look at the poster. It did indeed show Darth Vader, red lightsaber held high and how he was rushing forward to battle with all types of Imperial troops behind him. It wasn't a real picture, just a well colored recruitment poster out of some backwater planet paper that one of the troopers had used to decorate their living room.

"Lord Darth Vader", the trooper next to Marvin (his name was Monger) corrected Luke with no small amount of pride. "That's right. Frightening, isn't he? I bet none of these disgusting sand people would dare to sneak up on him."

"I didn't know he was so tall!"

"They exaggerate a bit in the media", Marvin said, mistaking the boy's reverence for fear.

"No they don't", Monger said. "I heard he's well over two meters tall. Can look a Wookie in its eyes without having to look up."

"That's... pretty cool", Luke said and smiled a bit hesitantly. "He's fighting for the Empire, isn't he? Right now, out there?"

"He sure is, kiddo. Lord Vader is the best commander the Navy has to offer. People don't thank him often but because of him, thousands of worlds can sleep peacefully. The separatist scum, the Jedi traitors or just organized crime, somebody has to take care of them. That's what he does."

Luke looked back to the poster and Marvin wondered if he'd ever seen a comic before, he looked quite fascinated with the picture.

"Do you know where he's fighting now?", he asked in a small voice.

"Dunno, news don't get here regularly. Last thing I heard he was in Corellia."

Luke just nodded, looking very serious.

Marvin forced a smile and clapped him on the shoulder. "Now you've got him started, Luke! Monger is our local Vader-Fanboy, he won't stop talking about his idol for the rest of the evening."

"What - I - I am not a fanboy!", Mongar called out. He flushed red and everyone laughed.

"Hey, didn't you apply for Death Squadron before you were stationed here? Didn't work out so well, did it?", another trooper asked, laughing.

"Hey, if it weren't for that Duro asshole bounty hunter giving me a bad leg, they would've taken me!"

More laughing.

"Death Squadron only takes the best, you barely grazed through the academy!"

"That's the name", Luke said suddenly though in the general chaos and laughter, nobody else paid attention to him. "That's the name of the special squad my fa-"

Marvin hurriedly put a hand over Luke's mouth. He led the boy away from the card table.

"What were you going to say back there?", he asked angrily.

"The special squad my father works in! I remembered it's name, it's Death Squadron!", Luke said excitedly.

"You mean to tell me... That your father, Anakin Lars, works directly under Lord Darth Vader?"

The boy nodded happily but his face fell a bit when he saw Marvin's expression.

"What about it?"

"Well, it's true, only the best get into that squad. Entire civilizations have surrendered just seeing that fleet in their orbit. I would take a guess and say they also get paid better in there. After all it's possible for a Lieutenant from outside to become a simple Officer in Death Squadron and consider it a promotion. Do you remember that talk we had about your father and how he might not appreciate the... situation you come from? If your father is really working there, a scandal like that could damage his career and get him thrown out. It wouldn't just be careless to contact him, it would be dangerous. Do you understand?"

"I... I think so..."

"Good. Now I don't want to hear anymore talk about that, alright?"

Luke nodded, a bit intimidated and they returned to the others. Soon after that the boy claimed he was tired and Marvin showed him where he could sleep.

The next morning Marvin fully intended to search for the boy's relatives. He went to look for their address. It was just one minute that he wasn't watching Luke, just one minute and the next time he turned around, the boy was nowhere to be seen. Marvin called for him and asked every Stormtropper that crossed his path but nobody had seen him. The child had slipped everyone's notice and had made his own way into the most dangerous city of Tatooine, Mos Eisley. He was searching for a ship that would take him to Corellia.

XxX

Hyperspace

Starkiller awoke with a start when he felt a shift in the Force. He was alert instantly, his body moving on its own. He rolled out of the hard bed into the small space between bed and door. Any assassin approaching was more likely to do so from the the side with the door so by moving this way he had a good chance to avoid a weapon rushing down at him and get the bed between him and the attacker. This instinct had saved his life before. It was only PROXY threatening him these days but Starkiller knew as his training progressed he would get more important missions and gain more enemies.

But the droid wasn't there to kill him this time and Starkiller could detect no other threat either. Remembering that they were still in hyperspace and he had examined the ship thoroughly with his senses before entering, no foreign threat could've invaded since he'd gone to sleep.

The warning from the Force must've been caused by other reasons. Unfortunately Starkiller could only think of one.

Feeling dread fill him, the boy quickly left the tiny living space and crossed the corridor that lead to the cockpit on the right side. Only PROXY would be there now in standby. They had taken Corton to the medical bay across from Starkiller's room. This was were the boy was heading now.

The pilot looked really bad. He was sweating profusely and though his eyes were closed, they were twitching and darting behind his lids. Starkiller only knew the basics of first aid. They did have a small medical droid on board that had covered his worst burns with bacta patches but there hadn't been quite enough on board. In Starkiller's mentality, if he failed he was expected to die. More precisely, he was expected to fight until he succeeded or died trying. Even then, injuries only caused pain and pain only made a Sith stronger.

But Corton was no Sith and the strength was rapidly leaving him.

Inexpertly Starkiller laid his hands on the man's chest. He knew, in theory, that the Force could be used to heal but he had never done so before and had never been encouraged to try. The boy concentrated, gathering his fear of failing his mission, of being stranded somewhere and being delayed because he'd lost the pilot and he held onto those feelings, using them as bait to summon the dark side. The power flowed through his hands. He felt the Force singing around him. Confident, he released the energy.

Suddenly, blue lighting sprung from his fingertips. The lightning coursed over Corton's body. It gave a violent tremble, the pilot's mouth opened in a silent scream – then he sunk back onto the stretcher. The Force gave one last twitch. He was dead.

Starkiller moved back. That had not at all gone as he had intended. He'd wanted to save the man's life. Instead, he had killed him.

The young Sith cursed and drew a hand through his short hair. He hadn't known Corton all that much and in the state he'd been in, killing him had probably even been a relief for him. Or it would've been if he hadn't died through Sith Lighting, which was one of the most painful ways to go. He couldn't even summon any joy at having used such an advanced technique as lighting for the first time with no instruction. His pilot was dead, he had killed a member of his own crew, a loyal Imperial. Putting aside the sheer wrongness of that (he was supposed to be a weapon of the Empire, to protect it not kill it's people) it also left him without a pilot in the middle of hyperspace with a ship he had no idea how to fly.

The Sith let out another curse and made his way to the cockpit. He ignored PROXY who stood at the entrance with his shoulders slumped, lights out to preserve energy. Instead he went to the control panel. Luckily he had to press no buttons to find the timer that told him he'd be arriving at Yag'Dhul in two hours. Corton had said the autopilot could probably handle the landing as long as there were no complications. Like people firing at them. Or too much traffic. Or a stray asteroid.

Starkiller sighed, there was so much that could go wrong. He pulled out a datapad, intend on researching the planet of their destination. What he found wasn't very encouraging. Yag'Dhul had some serious gravity issues during to it rotating in the opposite direction as its three moons. It would not be advisable at all to set a foot on the surface. The only real relevance of the planet lay in it's position at a crossing of two major hyper routes. Corton had been too injured to take them the direct way to Scarl. The navicomputer had a bunch of security measures built in to prevent people from tracking its home port and thus the calculations for a jump into the system had to be made manually each time. As Corton hadn't been up to it, he'd done the next best thing which was turning on the autopilot. With it they were restricted to civilian routes, which meant taking the long way over the Yag'Dhul crossing. The planet had a rather big space station in orbit where civilian and trade ships could refuel. That was most likely where the autopilot would be taking them.

Once there Starkiller would have two choices. He could search for a pilot to take him the rest of the way or he could try to contact his Master. He did have a special code for emergencies but while being stranded in the middle of nowhere on a station over a planet he couldn't enter was certainly not nice, it wasn't a life threatening situation. Starkiller shuddered at the thought of disturbing his Master unnecessarily. He was a Sith student, he should be able to handle something like this! Yes, he would just approach one of the pilots of the civilian ships and lure him in with the promise of money. He did feel a bit bad about it, after all the pilot would most certainly have to be executed in order to keep the position of the Ex a secret but that couldn't be helped. With some luck he'd get a smuggler or a pirate intent on kidnapping and demanding ransom for him. Starkiller didn't like the thought of harming civilians, not after what happened to Corton. He would take the risk of a scoundrel trying to steal his ship (not that they'd manage) if it meant sparing an innocent life.

XxX

AN:

In the next chapter, Luke and Starkiller will finally meet. You can be excited.