Chapter 25
Luke awoke to darkness. His eyes quickly adjusted and he could make out the ceiling of his bunk on Home One. He rolled over and could just make out the form of his sleeping roommate on the other bed. Luke's body was still sore from the day's events on Vrogas Vas. Han had claimed Luke had a guardian angel. Luke said it was the Force that had protected him.
Three squads of X-Wings, including Luke's, had been above Vrogas Vas practicing drills when suddenly a lone TIE fighter emerged from hyperspace. It was Darth Vader. Vader made quick work of several of the fighters, and the loss of fighters quickly rose. Despite the presence of three squadrons, no one could land a hit. Vader was too fast. Too skilled. Luke knew it was the power of the Force.
So Luke disobeyed orders and flew his fighter straight at the lone TIE fighter. He was determined to end Vader, but the TIE had swerved at the last minute. Luke's X-Wing had hit to the side instead of dead on. The two ships went spiraling down and crashed on Vrogas Vas.
Luke quietly got of bed. He pulled on a grey jumpsuit and slipped into some boots. He made his way into the bright corridor. He felt sluggish as he made his way through the ship. He had been plagued with a bad headache for hours now. Yet that wasn't why he walked into the medbay.
The medbay was quiet. Luke didn't spot any sentient attendants, just the med droids. None of them bothered him as he made his way over to the bed where Leia slept. He kicked off his boots and curled up in the chair next to her bed.
Han and Chewie had brought both Luke and Leia to the medbay as soon as the Millenium Falcon returned from Vrogas Vas. The medical staff quickly dismissed Luke after applying some patches and bandages and giving him a few shots of medicine. He only had some scrapes, sprains, and a light concussion. They were going to place him on medical leave for two days. Leia had a bad fever, and the med staff decided to keep her overnight for observation. All the tests they had run had come back negative. The doctor theorized it may be stress or anxiety related from being on the battlefield.
Luke hoped that was it. Winter had told him on the Falcon what had happened. Leia had met with Darth Vader on Vrogas Vas. Winter said he had grabbed her, and the two stood that way for several minutes. Leia had been screaming, tensed in pain at whatever Vader was doing to her.
"Sorry," Luke whispered to his sister. If only he had aimed his ship better.
He hoped the doctor's were right in that it was only a bad fever plaguing his sister. Only just the stress of the battlefield. If it was something else, something to do with the Force, then not even Luke would know how to fix his sister. He may call himself a Jedi, but he barely knew anything about being one.
He awoke several hours later. Sana Starros was shaking him. He blinked a few times before stretching out. His neck hurt from sleeping in the chair. Sana told him to leave, but Luke protested.
"Skywalker, you're going to do her no good if she wakes up to see you looking half dead and passed out in the chair next to her," Sana remarked.
"Half dead?" Luke asked.
"Yes, that's what you look like. Go eat and go get some sleep. Proper sleep. In a bed. Preferably in your bunk."
After swinging by the mess hall, Luke made his way back to his bunk. Perhaps Sana was right. Luke didn't feel completely well. He hadn't healed yet. When he returned to his bunk, his roommate Wedge was gone. Luke shuffled into the room and kicked off his boots. That is when he noticed his commlink on the floor giving off a soft buzz. He picked it up. His mother had sent him a message.
He sat down on his bed and pressed the button to send a call to her. He had to wait 40 minutes until she accepted the call. He started to fall asleep when the com beeped and he heard his mother's voice.
"Luke?" she called.
"Hey mom," he mumbled drowsily.
"Were you sleeping?"
"I just dozed off for a second while waiting for you," Luke responded. The line was quiet for a moment. Luke could imagine his mother frowning.
"Are you getting enough sleep? They're not pushing you too hard?" his mother asked.
"No. No. I'm fine, Mom. I just didn't sleep well last night. Bad headache. I had a bit of a . . . rough landing in my fighter." Luke hoped that placated his mother. Again the line was silent for a bit. Guilt was slowly seeping up inside Luke. He didn't like lying to his mother, but he also didn't want to over worry her either. Plus no matter how he worded it, his mother would freak out to learn he done a nearly-suicidal crash into Darth Vader in an attempt to kill him.
"How's Leia?" she finally asked.
"She's sick," Luke said a bit nonchalantly as he was ready to get the conversation away from his crash, yet he immediately regretted it.
"Sick?" His mother's voice was laced with worry.
"She's fine. Just a fever. She's sleeping it off right now. She already saw a doctor. They're going to check with her when she wakes up," Luke lied.
"Luke," his mother said softly. "Just . . . just take of her, all right?"
Luke agreed and explained he had just visited Leia an hour earlier. He then moved the conversation to how his mother was doing. She explained the relief efforts on Brolsam were running smoothly, and she had almost finished training her replacements.
"I should be able to return soon," his mother said.
"That's great," Luke replied.
"I need to go, but Luke? You know you can tell me anything, right?"
"Yeah . . . I know."
"I love you," she said.
"I love you, too," he replied and the call ended.
Vader sat in his private medical quarters aboard the Devastator. The room had been specifically made for Vader. It had been sealed off and now super oxygenated air flowed through the room, allowing Vader to take off his mask. He sat hunched over in a backless chair as droids took off the top part of his armor and suit. During his duel with Karbin, he had received a lightsaber blow to his back. While he wasn't physically injured from such a pathetic blow, his suit was in need of maintenance.
The droids pulled the suit off his back and over his head. He clenched his teeth as he felt his skin tearing as it separated from the suit. The droids silently worked as they went about scrubbing the dead skin off his exposed back. Another pair of droids worked on laying out a new top, while a third started repairs on the damaged one. Vader let his mind wander knowing the droids, which he had personally designed and built, would do their jobs well.
His mind went back to the events on Vrogas Vas. A slicing cold anger surged through him. He had been so close. He almost had the boy and the girl . . . He literally had his daughter in his grasp. He stopped at that thought. He had met his daughter. He tried to recall her face, but he hadn't gotten a good look at her. He had been too focused on breaking down her mental shields through the Force to confirm her identity. When he had seen her, the Force was calling to him. There was something about the girl. He had to find out. When she didn't reveal her name willingly, he took matter into his own hands. He tore into her mind using the Force.
He could tell she hadn't been trained in the ways of the Force. Her shields felt natural, not man-made. He was impressed and pleased with his daughter's natural strength, yet at the same time he quickly remembered his anger and annoyance at having to break down those shields. It had taken way longer than Vader thought and wasted precious minutes. If he hadn't been so preoccupied with her, he might have noticed Karbin's approach sooner.
Karbin, Vader thought. His anger felt like blades inside of him slashing through him. He could feel the dark side hovering just out of reach, eagerly waiting for Vader to call upon it. Waiting to soak up his anger and give him power.
The only good thing that had come out of Vrogas Vas was that Karbin was dead. Crushed under a spaceship and rocks. Karbin had called himself Vader's rival, but Vader suffered no rivals. Once Karbin was dead, Vader had seen to it personally that even in death Karbin could claim no prizes. He made sure Karbin's men failed in their attempts to seize the pilot who shot down the Death Star. The boy, his son.
Once Vader was back on board the Devastator, he made sure that Karbin's ship was captured and his officers executed. Karbin's files and personal effects had been collected and purged. Vader would allow no one else to use Karbin's intel to track down his son.
A small beep brought Vader out of his thoughts. He glanced at the table to his right. It felt weird to see without the helmet. The photoptics provided enhanced vision. Seeing with natural eyes now felt weak.
On the table sat a datapad. His glove-less metal hand grabbed it and brought it up to him. It was a report from his agents on Brolsam. A still image filled the datapad's screen. It was a woman, middle aged. Her hair was twisted into a bun on the back of her head. She was looking away from the camera, off towards something the camera didn't catch. Vader knew her the moment he saw her. His breath caught.
Padmé.
She had aged. There were wrinkles by the corner of her eyes and mouth and along her brow. He could make out some graying hair. Yet she still looked as he remembered her. Beautiful. Elegant despite the tawdry jumpsuit.
The images he had pulled from the girl's mind came to him. He recalled large parts of the girl's life on Tatooine, for of course he would recognize that miserable planet anywhere. He saw Padmé along with the girl and the boy. His son and daughter. Luke and Leia. Only a few memory flashes were not on Tatooine. Luke in a Rebel orange flight jumpsuit. Padmé laying on military style bed.
Then came the memory of the girl's fear. Her absolute terror of him, her father. She had known. She had known Vader was her father, and she was terrified on him. What lies had been fed to his children? Had Padmé turned their own children against him? Or had it been Kenobi? He couldn't help but wonder what tale Kenobi spun about the events at Mustafar. What lies did the Jedi spit to woo his wife with their children away from him?
A black rage surged through him. Kenobi had kept his family from him. For nineteen years. Vader could feel the deep gaping wound left from the loss of Padmé and their unborn child. A wound he had tried to cover up and burry deep within himself, but the wound had never healed. He raged seared the edges of his wound, which only made it hurt more. The pain led to deeper anger which led to more power with the dark side.
Vader finally let the Force in. He could feel it filling him. It welcomed and delighted in his anger and pain. A sudden thought occurred to him. Would this horrible wound inside of him heal once he had Padmé and his children back? Would he be able to feel whole?
He hadn't noticed on the dark side in him had diminished from it's brutal rage a moment before. He wasn't aware of the anger subsiding, which just left the pain, the sadness, the unrelenting grief of losing his beautiful wife and the small wonder of his child. He sat there, breathing heavily and naturally without his mask on. Yet they weren't loss. They were out there. A new emotion was lurking inside him, but it was one Vader hadn't felt in a long time. He was no long familiar with it. He puzzled over it for a moment. What was it? Longing? Wistfulness? Hope?
The droids had finished cleaning and medicating his skin. They were ready to put the suit back on. Vader went back to the report from his agents. They wanted to know if they should proceed with the mission. Vader sent them permission to go ahead.
Yes Vrogas Vas had been failure, but it had also been spontaneous. It had not been apart of any of Vader's other plans. He had received the information that the boy was at the planet, and he acted upon it immediately. Luckily this failure hadn't affected any of his other plans. If anything it now allowed him to move a bit easier with Karbin out of the way. Vader put the datapad back on the table as the droids started to dress him back in his suit.