Chapter Eleven
"Take the boy to the detention area," Vader ordered Han, the black orbs that passed for eyes on the mask never wavering from Kenobi. Han moved around the kid and pulled his hands behind his back, completely ignoring the boy's objections and his cries to "Ben" for help. Grabbing the kid's arm, he pulled him away.
The old Jedi glanced worriedly at his young charge, but didn't say anything, knowing full well that Vader would comment nastily on anything he could say to reassure Luke, and being young and naïve, Luke would be far more inclined to believe the towering, ominous bulk of Vader. The Sith did not have his reputation for nothing, after all.
Once they were alone on the freighter, Obi-Wan allowed a sad smile to curve his mouth. "Hello, Darth."
The boy muttered in a language Han didn't know all the way to the detention level, and it was grating on Han's nerves.
"Look, kid, if you're going to insult me, at least do it so I can understand you," he finally snapped.
The boy fell sullenly silent for a few moments, then said, "My name's Luke."
Han blinked, and looked the boy full in the face for the first time. "What?"
"My name," he repeated, big, familiar-looking blue eyes staring back at him. Where had he seen those eyes before? "It's Luke, not kid."
Han rolled his eyes. "Whatever."
A stormtrooper walked up to Han. "Lieutenant Solo, the Princess wants to talk to you."
Han stopped in shock. The kid nearly tripped at the abrupt halt. "She wants to talk to me?"
"Yes, sir."
Han swore and continued down the hall. He shoved the kid into a cell by the Princess's, ignoring his yells of, "Princess? She's here? Where?"
He entered Leia's cell. "Yes, Your Worshipfulness?" Han snapped at her as she watched him enter.
She glared at him. "Well, I was going to thank you for helping me after – after Alderaan, but if you're going to snarl at me, get out again!"
"Fine!" he replied. "I only did it because I was under orders anyway. It's not like I like you or anything!"
"Good!" she hurled back. "Because I don't like you either. Force knows no one on this forsaken ball of metal would know how to deal with a display of proper manners!"
She turned her back to him, yet still she yelled, "I saw that!" as he rolled his eyes heading out the door.
He checked on the kid before he left, making sure he was secure. "All right, kid?"
"What happens if I say no?" he asked, blue eyes piercing Han shrewdly. Now they really looked familiar.
Han stepped in side the cell. "Do I know you, kid? Or a relative of yours, maybe?"
Luke gave him a strange look. "No. I mean, I've never seen you before, my parents have been dead for years, and my aunt and uncle never left Tatooine."
Han shook his head. "That's so odd. I'd've sworn I'd seen those eyes of yours before." He paused. "And maybe a bit of your facial structure . . ."
He gave himself a mental shake. "If you say no? Then I tell Lord Vader, and he comes down see to you and your complaints personally." He leaned forward a bit an dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "If I were you, kid, I'd just say yes." He winked and left the kid alone.
"My name is LUKE!" followed him down the hallway.
The first thing to cross Vader's mind after Obi-Wan's greeting was, Darth? Is he trying to be funny?! No one called a Sith Lord Darth. They called him my lord or Lord Vader to his face. They called him Darth Vader or simply Vader behind his back. But they never, never had the audacity to attempt to call him just Darth.
He chose to simply ignore the fact that Obi-Wan had spoken altogether. He wasn't a Padawan anymore; he didn't have to acknowledge every word that left Obi-Wan's mouth.
"I have been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is complete. When I left you, I was but the learner. Now, I am the master." He swung before Obi-Wan could get a word in edgewise.
Vader remembered vividly how much damage he and Obi-Wan could cause in a space as small as the Falcon; lightsabers were not built to be used in confined spaces full of sensitive wires. Vader, however, was not about to let that stop him. He made a mental note to pay Solo for the repairs and made a large sweep if the hold, which sent sparks flying from several different spots.
Obi-wan barely managed to leap out of the way – he was slightly out of shape, Vader noted, and he was getting on in years. Vader had a very large advantage, being bigger, younger, and stronger, and he was going to use it as much as he possibly could.
"How did you manage to convince Wookiee to work for you?" Obi-Wan panted, parrying Vader's next hard blow, with effort. "After what you did to Kashyyyk?"
Vader grinned maliciously under the mask. "Trade secrets," he replied.
"Force persuasion," Obi-Wan guessed flatly.
"You've gone senile," Vader sneered. "You've forgotten that mind control does not work across such large distances."
"I thought you could do anything," Obi-Wan commented.
Infuriated, Vader entangled Obi-Wan's blue lightsaber with his own crimson one and forced it aside, then pressed his free arm across his old Master's throat, backing him against a wall. Obi-Wan struggled to slip free or to get his blade up, but Vader's grip did not yield a millimeter. "That," he hissed, his mask close enough for Obi-Wan to kiss if he wanted to, "was before."
They both knew before what. "My apologies. Am I confusing your skills with those of Anakin?"
Vader stepped back and Obi-Wan immediately took advantage of the situation to bring his blade up in a classic Soresu defence. Vader delivered a jarring blow, putting all the power of the Dark Side and his mechanical limbs behind the swing. Unfortunately, it didn't shatter Obi-Wan's arm. The old Jedi just gritted his teeth and tried to maneuver around Vader, all the while attempting to keep Vader's lightsaber tightly occupied and unable to slash him to pieces.
He nearly made it.
As he neared the door, his grip on Vader's blade slipped, just for half a second, but it was enough for the Sith to yank his blade free of the entanglement. Obi-Wan managed to duck the swing, but when Vader unexpectedly stopped short and turned it unto a backhand slash before Obi-Wan could blink, the blade caught him at the neck with a lethal flash.
"That name no longer has any meaning for me," Vader informed the corpse of his old Master.
When the body vanished before his eyes, the stunned Sith wondered who he was trying to convince: Obi-Wan, or himself.
Then he wondered why he was wondering such a thing.
Shaking himself out of his oddly melancholy, introspective phase, Vader left the Jedi's nondescript brown robes and lightsaber lying on the floor of the Falcon. He he looked back over his shoulder and called the blade to him. He ran his fingers over it, his fingers recalling every line of the well-crafted weapon. He had known Obi-Wan's lightsaber almost as well as he had known his own.
Furious with himself, he clutched the blade hard enough to put dents in the handle. He was not upset over this; he had been praying for it for years. What was wrong with him?
Clearing his mind of such un-Sith-like thoughts, he headed for his meditation chamber, intent on immersing himself in the Dark Side of the Force.
Luke sat in his cell, staring hard at the white door, wishing it would open. He focused all his energy, as Ben had taught him, and put it all into wishing the door would open.
He hadn't really expected anything to happen. It was just something to do while he sat here, bored out of his mind. When the door actually did open, he sat in shock for a couple moments before scrambling out of the cell and into the hallway.
Now, where was the Princess?
In his meditation chamber, Vader felt the surge in the Force. His eyes flew open.
