Chapter 5 - Realm of Darkness, Part 2
(He found them when they were four. He began taking them on assignments when they were eight. A decade later, Vader has trained his children to be perfect. The time has come for them to conquer an Empire.)
(Takes place approximately three years after Part 1)
Sitting in her cell aboard the Death Star monstrosity, Pooja Naberrie knew someone would come to question her soon. The plans she'd been ferrying to the Alliance were back in the hands of the Imperials, but that wouldn't be the end of it. As a former Senate member, they had to think she was a key member of the Rebellion, which, Pooja would admit she was.
But they were crazy if they thought she'd reveal the secrets of her fellow rebels.
After hours of solitude, the door finally slid open, and a pair of stormtroopers entered the cell. They grabbed Pooja's arms hard enough to bruise, and practically dragged her out and down the hall. The room they left her in had three chairs and a table, with no obvious recording equipment, torture devices, not even any restraints.
Somehow, that made her more nervous, not less.
It was a further hour of waiting before more company arrived - a pair of humanoid figures, no larger than she was, completely encased in the garb of Inquisitors. Obviously, her interrogation was going to consist of mental stress and strain. A sudden burst of anger encouraged the Senator to go down with a final show of defiance.
"Torture me all you like, but I won't spill anything." Pooja snarled. The two black-armored figures turned their heads slightly to look at one another, and gave the impression of amusement.
"Now why would we want to torture you, cousin?" The female one asked. Pooja blinked.
"What did you call me?"
As one, the pair of interrogators reached up and pulled their helmets off, revealing them to be humans of no more than nineteen or twenty standard years old. The boy had blonde hair and blue eyes, while the girl was a brunette with brown. Both of them were smirking at her, and Pooja couldn't help but find each to be slightly similar to something in her memory.
"Who are you?" She demanded.
"We are called the First Son and First Daughter," the boy told her.
"But our names are Luke and Leia," the girl added, pulling out the two chairs opposite where Pooja was sitting.
"You won't recognize us, as we've never met," Luke went on, taking a seat.
"But you have met our parents - Anakin Skywalker, as he used to be known, and Padme Naberrie Amidala." Leia finished, her gaze never leaving Pooja's.
The Senator gaped, half her mind protesting the words, while the other half accepted them as the reason why the siblings appeared so familiar: Leia looked to be nearly the spitting image of her Aunt Padme, while Luke was highly reminiscent of the Jedi Knight who'd once protected her. "Why...?"
"Are we telling you this? Simple. We want a message delivered to your Rebel Alliance, and decided that family was the best option in this case." Luke's words took a minute to fully register in Pooja's mind.
"You- you- what?!"
"Oh come now, Senator, this can't be that difficult for you to grasp." Leia rolled her eyes. "Hopefully our message makes more sense to you - tell Mothma, Organa, or whoever else is in charge your Alliance, that we're interested in getting rid of the Emperor."
This admission was enough to snap Pooja's mind out of the frantic scramble it was in, and return her to some semblance of coherency. "You are?"
Luke smiled at her. "Now she's thinking straight. Yes, the old coot's starting to get a bit moldy upstairs, if you know what I mean. He made a fantastic bid for power back in the day, but since then all he's done it wallow in it, allowing the government to grow stagnant and corrupt."
"It's one thing to gain control of an entire Galaxy, but he's done next to nothing to ensure that control will last," Leia emphasized. "We saw this Rebellion coming as eight year olds."
"So, our father's begun planning for removing the immediate power at Palpatine's disposal, and ordered us to lay the groundwork for making a deal with your Alliance - if and when we succeed in kicking the Emperor off his throne, and take control of the Empire ourselves, we want to make sure you people are willing to hold off shooting at us-"
"At least until there's been enough new action for you to make an intelligent decision over whether or not we're better for the galaxy that Palpatine was."
"What action are you planning to take?" Pooja asked with suspicion.
"Oh, you'll like this - first off, we're going to get the Senate up and running again." Leia grinned. "After new elections have been held in every system, of course. Want to make sure we aren't just letting the same old corrupt officials as before back into the decision making process."
"Then it's a matter of cleaning out all the Imperial bureaucrats and getting some intelligence and hard-working types back into the government offices and military." Luke added. "All of Palpatine's anti-alien laws and regulations have got to go, too. One of our trainers once told us that diversity breeds knowledge, and we have a Sith saying that follows along those lines:"
"Knowledge is power-"
"-and power is strength."
"So, will you deliver our message or not?"
Pooja continued to stare at them in shock.
"...I think we might have broken her, sis."
"...I think I have to agree."