Hey guys!It's been a rough few months for me - college applications, exams, you know the drill - including. many funerals and hospital visits, both - for lack of a better word - expected, and unexpected. So. Yeah. It's been a nightmare.

To all my readers: I apologize for the long wait and I hope you're still interested in this story. A big thanks to all my readers, followers, and reviewers.

Unbeta'ed, will re-edit in the next few days.

Three days previous, on the Executor.

Luke was bored. Being stuck in a hunk of metal for six years tended to do that to a person.

Dad was away again. Or maybe it was Father by now. It had been Dad when he'd left.

He picked at the holo-emitter his father had given him for his last birthday, watching glowing blue animal after glowing blue animal materialize. It was the newest version of the holopet, its state of the art technology capable of containing three data cubes at once, and therefore three different animals. Every kid's dream.

Luke carelessly tossed the emitter into the corner and the pets fizzled, the rancor growling in protest as it flickered. It joined a steadily growing pile of shiny toys that would have other kids salivating. Luke wondered if those other kids would still want them if it meant living off of expensive gifts alone, as his father seemed to believe he could.

He remembered the first time he'd received a present from his father. He'd been five at the time, and his father had handed him a rare practice lightsaber - it had taken a few tries before Vader figured out what was child-appropriate - which he'd taken with wide eyes and an even wider grin. He'd felt so special, having never received anything so extravagant before. He'd turned to his father excitedly, waiting for him to teach Luke everything he knew about combat. His father patted him awkwardly on the head and left him to Jix.

This would soon be the norm of their interaction. The dynamics had shifted a bit after his father developed a split personality, but Luke usually still ended up fending for himself.

Luke didn't really blame his father for having little time for him. The neglect stung, yes, and it was worrisome at times when he found himself in trouble and had to wonder if his father would remember him long enough to do something about it. But his father was a busy man - even if one did persona 'delegate' his work at every opportunity - and he had a lot on his plate. What with political disputes that Luke knew his father still didn't quite grasp, being the immediate target for most of the Emperor's ire - which was, admittedly, not undeserved - and trying to keep two separate, distinct personalities and partial amnesia quiet.

So no. Luke couldn't really blame him. Either of him. Them. Whatever.

To his credit, Anakin did try to spend time with Luke when his flighty, random thought processes landed on Luke. It was just that Anakin was reckless and unpredictable, and his idea of family bonding often involved flying or sparring. Or talking. The first two activities usually ended with Luke bruised and terrified for his life, while all three options always left him with pounding headaches. When Anakin wasn't there - or Luke refused to be psychologically or physically scarred any further - he'd leave Luke with highly advanced machinery that Luke had no idea how to use. Anakin fancied himself a mechanic. Luke did not.

Vader was the exact opposite, and didn't seem to know how to deal with Luke. Having no experience with children or memories of childhood, he seemed to hold the assumption that Luke was fragile and innocent. That left out training and talking about bloody battle or interrogation tactics, which seemed to be all the man knew about. (Luke had insisted it didn't bother him, but his father thought otherwise.) These made for stilted conversations or uncomfortable periods of silence until Vader, too, would default to expensive gifts.

The rancor flickered again. Luke tossed a...mechanical-something... through its head as the door slid open.

"Now what did that rancor ever do to you?" Jix asked from the doorway.

"It wasn't lifelike enough." Luke said, exaggerating an air of snobbery. "Shoddy craftsmanship. A primate with a wrench could have done better."

Jix snickered and made his way over to Luke, sitting down heavily on his bed. "You're a spoiled brat, ya know that?"

"Yes, yes, I know. I get every nice toy in the universe and I'm pampered by everyone from the Emperor to the Hutt's servant boy. Father doesn't even need to be around to take care of me himself." He had been aiming for dry wit, but his mouth curled into a sneer at the end. Okay, maybe he was a little bitter.

Jix paused and gave him a look. "Luke..."

"I know, I know. He loves me, he wishes he could be here, he's just busy." Luke recited the worn lines, burying his face in his pillow. "I get it."

"Naw, kid, you got it all wrong." The Corellian grinned and leaned in conspiratorially. "See, he actually thinks you're the freak clone of Palpatine, and he's off searching for the monster that would finally have the guts to eat you an' free good ol' Uncle D from having to look after the Emperor's spawn."

The pillow met Jix's face.

"What are you doing here anyway?"

"Checking on you, brat." Jix swatted the pillow away. "Someone has to make sure you're not, I dunno, planning to go on a bender in Nar Shaddaa or something."

"I'm ten," Luke deadpanned.

Jix shrugged. "The laws're pretty loose."

For a moment, Luke thought about it. Not Nar Shaddaa, but perhaps somewhere else... somewhere that wasn't on this ship, but close enough that he could sneak back before he was missed...

"You know - " he began and stopped when Jix's holo-comm beeped. The man turned away and activated it, muting the sound. Ther person on the other line talked frantically, voice rising in what sounded like panic. Jix tensed and cursed vehemently.

"What is it?"

Jix dragged a hand across his face. "Uncle D didn't tell Palpatine where he was going...or that he was going. His Majesty is throwin' a huge fit, preparin' to call in bounty hunters and all." He made a frustrated sound. "Look, I gotta go. You gonna be okay on your own?"

Luke flopped back onto the bed and waved him off, making a noncommittal noise in his throat.

"Right. See you later, kid."

As Jix's footsteps faded away, an idea began forming in Luke's mind.

Luke did not, contrary to the logical course of action that should have been undertaken due to his parentage, have a squadron of armed stormtroopers at his beck and call. In fact, he did not have guards of any kind, and rarely even had babysitters. There could have been many reasonable explanations for this, but Luke suspected that it was because his father simply forgot he existed unless he was within eyesight, in which case Vader would be more than enough to neutralize any threats without the help of an armed guard.

Fortunately for all parties, Luke was not a particularly curious or mischievous child - having had most of the curiosity inherent in children stamped out of him once he realized that most of his father's life, and by extension most of the things Luke associated with as he'd clung to said father like a limpet in his early years, fell firmly under the category of 'things he did not want to know about' - and rarely did he wander off on his own, having honed a keen survival instinct borne of the combination of violence and mental disorders that was his father's life.

Luke was an obedient, mature and sensible child with a passive nature that Reesa Doliq would have diagnosed as the kind of accepting mindset that came from years of traumatic experiences of the will-and-sanity-breaking sort.

Unfortunately, during the rare times that Luke managed to forgo ethics and survival instincts, as any other child was wont to do, Luke was very capable of getting himself into disastrous situations. As Luke was now almost ten, thus entering the boundary-pushing preteen years which would eventually grow into rebellious teenage years, those rare moments of disobedience tended to crop up more often. At least, this was how he justified slipping past the security system and guards and hijacking a ship off-world in the name of breaking the monotony of the Executor. The fact that the security system was generally meant to prevent infiltrators rather than deserters worked in his favor; Luke was out of the mothership long before anyone would notice.

In the end, Luke decided on Alderaan for two reasons. The first being that it was near enough to the ship that he wouldn't be left searching for it but far enough that, were he to be spotted, word would not reach the Executor immediately. The second was that it was a peaceful planet with a relatively clean reputation, so it was unlikely that he'd run into serious trouble if things went wrong.

And that marked Luke's first ever bid for preteen rebellion.

In all fairness he never expected to be kidnapped by a bald alien with a vaguely stalkerish obsession with his father and several worryingly pedophilic tendencies towards the Alderaanian Princess.

And there's the first Luke POV since chapter 10. Hope you liked.

Bit of an interlude there, the action will pick up in the next chapter.

Questions. 1: What do you think of Luke?

2. What do you expect will happen in Alderaan?

3. Is there anything you want to see in this story? More Leia, more fluff, more mind games, more split personality craziness?

Next chapter will be up sooner than this one, promise.

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