The Tyranny of Kinship

Chapter 10

Leia spent a very long time alone in the cockpit, crying until her eyes began to hurt. It was like a dam had broken within her, and there was nothing she could do to stem the torrent that came forth but ride it out.

She didn't exactly feel better once it was over, but she did feel a little more grounded. Which she supposed was something. She forced herself to go back to the cabin, where she found Rex and Vader discussing the strategy they'd employ upon landing.

For all the open hostility that Vader had shown to Rex since they'd been reunited in Mon Mothma's office, there was no hint of it now. Indeed, had Leia not known them, she could've easily taken them for any two career soldiers engrossed in the finer points of an upcoming operation.

The spell was broken, however, when they noticed that she'd joined them.

"I'll take over in the cockpit," said Rex, standing. It was accepted safety protocol to have at least one person in the cockpit at any time during a long hyperspace journey, in the event that anything should go amiss. Given how few people actually stuck to this protocol, however, Leia suspected that Rex was just using it as an excuse to escape the near-palpable awkwardness that descended between herself and Vader. It wasn't like she could blame him.

She chose to sit directly across from Vader, because doing anything else would've felt like surrender.

Neither of them spoke.

She hadn't realized that she'd fallen asleep until she was awoken by a dream, the vivid details of it fading as soon as groggy awareness returned to her. Her neck was wedged against the edge of the sofa, already starting to ache; she leaned forward, using the heels of her hands to rub her eyes, and discovered that her back was aching too.

"We will be arriving within the hour," said Vader, who was still sitting in the same place, reading a datapad.

She'd need some caf and analgesics before they landed.

Standing on slightly wobbly legs, she went the lavatory, then set about her other tasks on autopilot. The dream kept slipping further and further away from her, no matter how she tried to grasp at it. Like the eels in the mountain streams that she'd played in as a child.

The only thing she was certain of was that it had involved Ahsoka.

She'd made two cups of caf without even realizing it, and debated going to the cockpit to give one of them to Rex. But she knew, somehow, that she hadn't made it for him. So she handed it to Vader instead, who took it gingerly after setting down his datapad, then sat back down across from him.

Leia finished hers quickly. She'd never taken pleasure in caf the way that her father had, with his specialized roasts from all over the Galaxy. For her, it had always been a matter of practicality, helped along with sweeteners and creamers. The ship had neither on-hand, so she settled for downing the bitter liquid as fast as she could.

Vader was still looking down at his with a bemused expression when she was done, apparently lost in thought.

"I suppose it's been a while since you've had any," she said, putting the mug on the floor and reaching for the small canteen of water that was strapped to the belt of her jumpsuit. She needed to wash the taste from her mouth.

"Twenty years," he replied, before he finally took a sip. He swallowed visibly, grimaced, then followed her example by downing the entire mug.

She handed him the canteen when he was done, which he accepted quickly and drank from in great gulps. It was empty when he gave it back. She wouldn't need to refill it before they landed, though, since she'd be playing the part of a prisoner.

The dream, for all that its details had escaped her grasp, had left her with several questions lingering in her mind. Having nothing better to do, Leia decided that she'd indulge her curiosity.

"Why did you freeze Ahsoka in carbonite instead of just killing her?" she asked.

Vader didn't answer for a several long moments, to the point that Leia thought he was ignoring her. She was just about to tell him off for such pettiness, when he finally spoke. "I foresaw that she might be of use to me when I had overthrown my master. Had I not used the carbonite, he would have realized that she was still alive in short order."

So Rex had been right, after a fashion.

Since she'd already started with this line of questioning, Leia supposed that she may as well continue. "Who was she to you?" Rex's anecdotes had made it clear that Ahsoka and Vader had been close - as comrades, rather than lovers. But Leia had a feeling there was more to it than that.

"...She was Skywalker's apprentice," Vader said.

Leia felt a sudden, unexpected flare of annoyance. "Has nobody ever told you that it's obnoxious to speak of yourself in the third person? You're not some Hutt crime lord with delusions of grandeur."

"You deliberately mistake my meaning," he said, glaring at her.

Leia met his glare, unflinching. "If I am your daughter, then she was your apprentice. If this is your way of denying that fact, then it's below you." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Call yourself whatever you wish - I couldn't care less. But I honestly expected better from you than this pathetic attempt to distance yourself from the realities of the past." And it was true: she had come to respect Vader's self-awareness and candor, despite herself. He had his rationalizations, to be sure - but he'd never used them to try and deflect responsibility away from his own actions.

She wasn't sure who Vader was trying to protect with his disavowal of his identity as Anakin Skywalker. Whether it was some way to distance his present self from past shame, or to shield his past self from his present crimes, or some twisted combination of both. In truth, she didn't even care which was the case. She just knew that it made her blood boil.

"Anakin Skywalker is dead," he grit out, and Leia felt gooseflesh prickling across her skin. A warning. "I killed him."

She sneered, using the wash of disdain to quash the fear that squirmed to life in her belly. "If only I could so easily hide from the past by changing my name and claiming some kind of metaphysical suicide," Leia said, her voice like ice. "Is this another tenet of your religion that I can look forward to embracing when you finally convince me that it isn't an evil, loathsome cult?"

"You know not of what you speak," he said, more softly, and some warmth returned to the cabin.

"Maybe not," she said. "But I want to make one thing very clear, Lord Vader: your personal identity issues mean nothing to me. I have no reason to believe that a man named Anakin Skywalker would be any more or less contemptible than the man named Darth Vader. So all you do when you speak of your own past as if it belongs to another is make me question your sanity. And then I begin to think that I've thrown in my lot with a madman, which makes me question the wisdom of relying on you for anything. Religious instruction or otherwise."

Vader was silent for several long, tense moments, a scowl twisting his handsome face into something entirely unpleasant. She found herself wondering just how often he'd worn that expression under the mask. And also what he'd look like if he actually smiled. Not a smirk, or one of the bitter, empty imitations he sometimes wore. But a true, genuine smile.

He'd shine as brightly as the sun, she was sure. The thought made her glad to have never witnessed it.

"I may well be mad," he said at last, his hands relaxing out of the fists they'd made. "It is in the very nature of madness to believe oneself sane."

"How comforting," said Leia, flatly.

"I will not offer you empty reassurances," Vader replied. "Our destinies are intertwined. Neither of us can escape that now - for good or ill."

With a sigh, Leia stood and turned away from him. "Let's go rescue your apprentice from the prison you made for her, then."

Their descent to the planet's surface went off without a hitch, which was only to be expected when they had an insider like Vader to help them. All of his security codes were up-to-date, after all.

Leia could admit that it was something of a nice change, given the risk and toil involved in acquiring what often turned out to be unreliable codes. She wondered how long they'd have such a trump card.

Vader had given the pseudonym "Lars Quell" over the comm, and done a surprisingly passable impression of a typical scoundrel. It was surreal to see the Sith Lord slip into an Outer Rim accent and speak with anything less than absolute formality.

"Reusing code names goes against standard protocol, sir," said Rex, once the comm channel had been closed and they'd initiated descent.

"The Empire does not employ Zygerrians," Vader replied dryly.

Leia guessed that there was a story behind the exchange, but didn't care enough to make inquiries.

Within minutes, they landed on the planet's surface.

Mustafar looked different to him.

The planet had been a birth-place, of sorts - had given him power with the reminder of all that had been stolen from him. And yet, it now seemed somehow...diminished. Like the mining planet it had once been, rather than the hellish embodiment of Vader's very existence.

They had landed only meters away from Vader's fortress. Leia was taking in the surroundings with an expression that was carefully neutral, and yet somehow still haughty. She quirked a brow at him once she was done, saying, "This is a little much, even for you."

"The aesthetic is incidental," Vader said. "Though it has proven to be an asset in the past."

"Incidental to what?" she asked, dubious, while unconsciously pulling at her bindings. Both she and Rex were wearing them in order to maintain the ruse.

"Now is not the time. If you are still curious once our task is completed, I will elaborate."

Vaneé came out to meet them, his suspicion clear in the Force despite no outward sign of it in his demeanor. A foolish potential saboteur or thief would perhaps be convinced by the appearance of Vaneé being the sole line of defense. They'd quickly discover that killing the servant proved fatal, as he was the sole being - besides Vader himself - who could deactivate the security system.

"Lord Vader is not in residence," Vaneé said, in his usual serpentine manner. "I will require confirmation that you are who you claim."

"Indeed," said Vader, before he unholstered his blaster and shot Vaneé in the head. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Neither Rex nor Leia were surprised; he'd explained the purpose of Vaneé's death while they had still been aboard the ship. But Leia still did not look pleased.

"Such is the mercy afforded to those who serve Darth Vader," she said, as Vader undid their restraints.

"I suppose you'd have found it less objectionable if you had been the one to pull the trigger," Vader retorted. "Since I know you understand its necessity."

"He's not wrong, Your Highness," said Rex, rubbing gingerly at his wrists. "There was no alternative. He recognized you the moment he saw you, and would've insisted that any mask you wore be removed."

Leia's mouth tightened, though she raised no further objections. Vader understood that her discomfort came from a misplaced sense of honor. The weight of murder hung lighter when undertaken in the heat of battle. Premeditated murder no doubt struck her as a greater evil, despite the outcome being identical either way.

Vader supposed he was fortunate that Rex had come along, if only to serve as a voice of reason in the face of Leia's stubbornness. The clone at least understood, from years of hard-won experience, that war was no place for honor.

He put the blaster back in its holster and strode toward the fortress, Leia and Rex in tow.

"Do not stray far from me," said Vader, as they moved down one of the labyrinthine corridors of his fortress. "It's easy to become lost in this place, if one is not intimately familiar with its layout."

"I'd like to say that I can't believe that you actually decided to live in a place like this," said Leia. "But I'm starting to see a pattern in your life choices."

Vader would've pointed out that he didn't actually live in the fortress, so much as use it as a base of operations for when he had to recover from a mission, or wait for a new mission to present itself. But he suspected that this would simply reinforce whatever conclusion Leia had already come to.

A conclusion which, he suspected, was entirely correct.

They continued on in tense silence, until they reached the room which housed Ahsoka Tano.

The first time Vader had faced Ahsoka on Malachor, he had actually been trying to kill her.

It hadn't taken much effort at all, really, to summon up the hatred and rage that he'd needed. With the aggression in her eyes, and the fresh weight of her betrayal, it had been all too easy.

But going through with his plans had not been the will of the Force - evident in the fact that she'd disappeared before his very eyes. One moment, he'd been fighting her, and the next she'd been gone, his lightsaber meeting empty air just as he'd started to plunge through a crumbling platform.

He'd returned to Malachor months later on a hunch, seeking to finish what he'd started. When he'd finally found her, however, she had been...unwell. Malnourished, curled in a fetal position, weeping and muttering. Ahsoka was strong, but even she could not have resisted the ravages of a Sith temple indefinitely.

It would have been one thing, to kill her in honorable combat. But to strike her down when she was in such a helpless state? Vader had found the thought of it...distasteful.

"She won't come near me," Ahsoka had said, tears running down her cheeks. "I'm tainted, like I was before. I've failed her."

"You speak of Mortis," Vader had replied. The only time Ahsoka had ever come close to touching the Dark Side had been when it was foisted upon her. True surrender required one to be wholly willing; on Mortis, she had been as one possessed by a parasite. A parasite that had ultimately killed her.

Her eyes had scrunched closed, then, her body trembling in his arms. "Please kill me, master. I'm so tired."

He could have, if she had once again been staring him down with fierce, unforgiving eyes. Swearing vengeance. But instead her eyes had been unfocused with pain and sadness, her body entirely too thin. It would have been a mercy, perhaps, to grant her request.

Vader was not a merciful man.

So he had brought her to a medical station and overseen her recovery, instead, making sure she would be strong enough to survive the process of being entombed in carbonite. He hadn't known precisely when he planned to thaw her free. For years, the vague future possibility of overthrowing his Master had crossed his mind - ephemeral and distant. And Ahsoka's fate had become another variable in that half-formed ambition. In the event that he ever did finally strike down his Master, he'd once more awaken her. When he'd finally have the time to spend on turning her to the Dark Side.

He owed her the chance to make the right choice, after all, unhurried and without distractions. And in the event the she still refused him, still insisted on clinging to the ideology of the Jedi who had forsaken her - only then would he destroy her.

That had been what he'd told himself, at least, as he'd watched an attendant lead her to the platform. She'd been in much better shape than when he'd brought her in, with something of her old spark glittering in her eyes. She'd gazed up at him impassively, saying nothing.

Accepting her fate with dignity, like a true Jedi.

He'd been caught off-guard by the flare of pride in his chest, and had quashed it as he gave the order to lower her into the device. He'd struck down the attendant once the deed was done.

It had only been afterward that he'd actually looked at Ahsoka's frozen form, and seen the small, sad smile on her face. Etched there in lifeless grey relief.

And now that he was looking at it once more, he thought that it was a little knowing, as well.

"Did you know about her from the start?" he asked, and immediately felt absurd.

'Fulcrum' had certainly been a close associate of Organa's - and Leia evidently knew Ahsoka personally, if not well. The idea that Ahsoka hadn't trained Leia herself was oddly galling, if she truly had known of Leia's parentage. An emotional response, he knew, that was no less irrational than asking a lifeless hunk of carbonite a question.

He let out a harsh breath and raised his arms, using the Force to levitate the heavy gray slab out of the chamber. Rex was unphased by the display of power, naturally, but Vader noted Leia's wide eyes with some amusement. She'd been glib about the Force in the past, yet now it was clear that she'd not seen it in action very often. If at all. Too much confidence from one with so little experience.

He would correct that, in time.