Prince Xizor's private office
Scruffy Office Building (secret base for the Black Sun criminal syndicate)
10 km from Imperial City
Imperial Center
The next day
"All is prepared, my prince," Guri stated, her hands clasped behind her in a parade rest position.
"Excellent," Prince Xizor replied, lifting his eyes from his datapad. "And my second fleet is standing by?"
"Yes, my prince. Six parsecs out from Imperial Center."
"Good," Xizor murmured absently, shutting down the holopad and rising to his feet. He shot one last glance around the room, which was decorated with a lavish opulence appropriate to the leader of Black Sun, the foremost criminal syndicate in the galaxy. He would miss this room. It had proven a safe and secret haven when he had needed a little quiet away from his servants and minions in his personal palace in Imperial City.
The tall Falleen strode forward and ran his right hand down the immense opee sea killer statue which rested near to his desk. It was made out of Alderaanian marble and given the destruction of its native planet, the sculpture was worth millions of credits. He would send some minions to collect it once he was safely away. It was too heavy to bother with now.
Guri, the human replica robot and his second in command in Black Sun, waited patiently by the door. She was programmed to be patient. She would indeed stand for hours, her beautiful face calm, her long blond hair perfectly coifed, if he so desired it. But now he did not. He must flee Imperial Center for safer havens now that Darth Vader had returned.
Xizor's teeth clenched as he turned abruptly and strode out of the door with Guri at his heels. Vader! The cyborg Sith was responsible for the death of Xizor's entire family due to a biological weapons experiment gone wrong almost a decade previously. Vader had ordered the destruction of an entire city on Xizor's homeworld to prevent the spread of the rogue pathogen and Xizor's family had perished along with many of its subjects.
Xizor hated Vader with a deep, abiding, and vengeful passion. He would make the Dark Lord of the Sith pay. Eventually.
But not now. It was clear from news and spy reports that Vader had quickly consolidated his hold on Imperial Center after taking out the threesome previously in charge after Palpatine's death. No, it was time to flee, to gather his strength, before Xizor found a way to destroy the Sith and take over the Empire on his own terms.
Emperor Xizor. It had a nice ring.
The shuttle waiting on the roof of the grungy cloudscraper looked ordinary enough, but it was augmented with additional weaponry and shields. Guri would pilot the ship into hyperspace and they would rendezvous with a Black Sun fleet. From there, they would proceed to Ryloth, which was currently under Black Sun control after the death of Jabba the Hutt left a power vacuum in that region of space. Tatooine was, of course, another option but no, too much sand. It was so rough, and coarse, and irritating.
Xizor strode in and settled with a happy groan into his opulent private chair. He quickly strapped himself in, and then began the chair's twenty minute massage protocol while the shuttle's protocol droid poured him a drink of emerald wine. Even if he was fleeing for his life, there was no reason to do it without appropriate luxury.
Xizor leaned back as the mechanics of the chair back massaged his aching muscles. He closed his eyes as the shuttle lifted into the atmosphere at Guri's command. He was tired. The last few hours had been frenetic as he gave orders to loyal underlings, arranged for his escape from Imperial Center, and killed a few random minions to show that he was as tough as Darth Vader.
Not that he really was. Xizor had plenty of self-confidence and skill but realistically, Darth Vader was a one man army. It was quite irritating of Palpatine to have died unexpectedly from pneumonia the previous year. Xizor had been plotting to turn the Siths against one another and then, bam, an illness had taken the old man out. Of course, Palpatine had been old and wrinkled and quite a smoker. It was, perhaps, not so terribly surprising.
But it had been inconvenient.
Outside the shuttle, Xizor watched as the purple sunset gave way to greenish clouds which gave way to the darkness of space, interspersed with the steady light of distant stars. He leaned back and closed his eyes, thinking hard. His immediate underlings in Black Sun, known as Vigos, were toiling away, preparing to consolidate Black Sun holdings on Imperial planets just in case Vader moved quickly against Xizor.
He sighed again, opened his eyes, took another sip of emerald wine, then sat up suddenly in shock. Outside, in near space, loomed the gigantic form of a Star Destroyer. What was Guri doing? She had been instructed to take a longitudinal route to the northern pole of Imperial Center, where the Imperial Fleet was less dense. There was no reason to be this close to an Imperial Star Destroyer.
The Falleen Prince bit his blue lips in exasperation and quickly removed his safety straps. The protocol droid gibbered something about safety in flight, but he ignored it as he strode toward the cockpit, palmed open the door, and stormed in.
"Guri, what ...?" he began, before trailing off in shock.
"I am sorry, my prince," the disembodied head of his human replica droid said from where it sat tidily on the co-pilot's control panel. "I was unable to stop them."
Xizor reached for his blaster even as he noted, peripherally, the body of Guri lying in a pathetic heap to one side of the cockpit.
Before he could squeeze off a shot at any of the three other sentients in the cockpit, the blaster was yanked from his hand with incredible power and then soared into the hand of the individual in the co-pilot's seat, a small armored form with a mask in the shape of a glitterfly.
"Put your hands up," a voice ordered, pointing the blaster at the stunned prince. The voice was distinctly feminine and young, her form slim and slight.
Xizor raised his hands slowly even as he looked carefully around the cockpit. Another armored figure sat in the pilot's seat and its mask was one of a ... it looked like a loth-cat?
The other figure stood leaning casually against one wall and its mask was merely gray, similar to a Mandalorian though not as stylized. This individual also held a blaster, which was pointed straight at Xizor's heart.
"Very well," Xizor replied nodding carefully. "I surrender to the inevitable."
"Good," the standing minion snapped, "Sit down right there."
Xizor obeyed and allowed his hands to be manacled behind his back, his legs chained together. They were taking no chance.
"And may I ask who I have the honor of hosting?" he asked courteously, his eyes fixed on the female. The voice had been young and feminine and the Falleen were capable of producing pheromones on will that were very enticing to females of the human and near human persuasion. He would speak politely, and exude the appropriate chemicals, and with any luck at all the woman could be persuaded to assist him in escaping his bondage. He smiled slightly even as he focused on the appropriate cascade of chemicals. He noted the skin on his left arm shifting red. Good.
"Yuck!" the (male) pilot suddenly said in a startled voice. "What is that?"
"It is odd," the woman replied, her mask pointed at Xizor. "It's like a chemical attraction of some sort ..."
"Huh," the standing minion commented. "There are rumors that the Falleen are capable of sending out pheromones which can strongly attract members of the opposite gender."
"Yuck!" chorused Xizor's other captors.
"Cut it out," the woman stated, even as her mask lifted off her face and hovered in the air. "Or I'll knock you out. Ick."
Prince Xizor's mouth hung open, "Leia Organa!"
"Also, Ziwi, of the Corellian Super Beings," she replied with a sly grin.
"Why ... what do you want?" the alien sputtered, his eyes wide in shock.
"We're turning you over to Vader," Leia Organa stated viciously.
"Now Leia," the pilot commented, taking off his own mask (also without using his hands). "Don't be mean."
The boy, and he was merely a boy, with dark blond hair and blue eyes, gave the furious and frightened Falleen a reassuring smile, "We won't let him do anything too horrible to you."
"You are fools," the Black Sun leader stated with a glance at the Super Star Destroyer looming nearby, "if you imagine you will have any influence over Vader."
"We have quite a bit of influence, actually," the youth replied in a sunny tone.
Xizor clenched his teeth and glanced at Guri, whose blue eyes were looking around the cockpit with interest. This was very bad.
The situation seemed even worse ten minutes later, when Xizor found himself being paddy frog marched down the ramp into a landing bay where, sure enough, a two meter cyborg stood waiting.
"What were you thinking?" Darth Vader thundered. Xizor actually flinched in terror before realizing that the Sith's attention was on the Corellian Super Beings.
"Calm down, Father," the youth replied insouciantly.
What?!
"You were off planet," Organa continued impatiently. "We received word that Xizor was about to flee, so we took the opportunity to collect him. We were in no danger."
Vader stared first at the boy, then at the girl, then at the minion at their heels.
"Solo?" he hissed dangerously.
"Hey, I just work with them. If you can't control them, don't expect me to!"
"No torture, Lord Vader," the girl stated coldly. "Is that clear?"
The Dark Lord actually shifted back a step and nodded, "Entirely clear, Princess Leia."
"Can I have the weird human replica droid?" the blond youth asked, his blue eyes enthusiastic. "She's very interesting."
"She's an assassin, Luke. Did you leave her loose on the ship?"
"Well, we chopped her head off first," the princess commented.
"Guards, take Xizor away," Vader ordered absently before looking at the shuttle, "Son, why don't you and I inspect the droid together?"
"Sounds great!"
A very bewildered Prince Xizor, Falleen leader of Black Sun, found himself being marched away toward a random elevator. The situation was obviously dire and terrible but mostly he felt astonished.
Darth Vader had a son?
/-
Imperial Holonet Studio
The next morning (early)
Relinka Spetzv took a deep calming breath and plastered on a nervous smile. She was dressed appropriately in dull gray attire, and her hair was a calm brown. She'd even foregone her famous twinkly eye make-up. She was as ready as she'd ever be.
Which wasn't very ready.
"Lord Vader," she began extremely politely, "or should it be Emperor Vader?"
"Lord Vader suffices for now," the cyborg replied calmly.
"So," the woman pronounced, "you have taken control of the Empire. Is there anything you wish to impart to your loyal subjects?"
"There is," Vader announced. "I wish to introduce two individuals who mean a great deal to me."
The current Imperial leader gestured toward a side door, which swooshed open dramatically.
"Host Spetzv, Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker."
Relinka gasped in genuine shock and turned toward the door, which remained ... empty.
There was a huff from the Dark Lord and the Holonet host cringed. Twenty very long seconds rolled by before a white robed young woman suddenly raced into the room, her dark braided hair flying behind her.
"I'm so sorry," the woman said meekly. "Luke got caught up with repairing that stupid droid and Chewie splashed muja sauce on my outfit so I had to change. Anyway, I'm here now and he'll be along in like ... 30 seconds. Host Spetzv, my apologies for my late arrival. I'm Leia Organa."
Relinka blinked in astonishment, "Leia Organa, of, um, Alderaan?"
"Yes," the girl replied, rising to her full diminutive height. She was truly tiny for such a fiery person. "I am the last princess of lost Alderaan."
"And, pardon me," Spetzv replied with a nervous glance at Vader, "are you not a member of that terrorist organization known as the Rebellion?"
"That's us," a new voice proclaimed cheerfully. Relinka turned, like an automaton, to face a young man of perhaps 20, dressed in a practical tan outfit, with dark blond hair and blue eyes.
He was cute!
"I'm Luke Skywalker," the youth continued. "Sorry I'm late."
"Is the droid giving you any problems?" Darth Vader demanded in an ominous tone.
Skywalker looked startled, "No, no. She and R2D2 got into some complex argument about subroutines and it was so fascinating I lost track of time. No, she's fine. Not murderous at all at the moment."
"That is well," Vader intoned, even as he stepped forward to place one great hand on Skywalker's shoulder and the other on Organa's shoulder.
"Host Spetzv, I wish to introduce you, and the myriad peoples of the galaxy, to my twin children, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa."
Relinka's eyes bugged out.
"What?!"
"Darth Vader is formerly Anakin Skywalker," Skywalker explained, his blue eyes flashing with enthusiasm. "He and our mother got married and had us and then things pretty much went to Chaos ..."
"It's very complicated," Organa chimed in. "But the point is that the Empire in its previous incarnation is done. Our father is not going to set himself up as Emperor."
"No, I am not," Vader added smugly, "because my children will rule."
"We won't rule," Organa stated, her head shaking firmly. "We will guide the process of restoring democracy."
"I question the efficacy of democracy," the Sith replied, "but I submit to your remarkable political acumen."
"Excellent. Our first step will be to coordinate a peace treaty between the Empire and the Alliance to Restore the Republic. We wish for a cease fire of all hostilities as soon as possible ..."
Another random door slid open, cutting the princess off, and Relinka jerked in astonishment as a group of masked figures strode into the room.
"The Corellian Superbeings," she squawked.
"What are you doing here?" Vader demanded harshly of the Sand Panther, who stood a meter ahead of his cohorts Ziwi, Kiwi, and the Dalyrake.
"Slavery must be stamped out in the Empire," the Sand Panther hissed. "We insist upon it."
"That sounds great to me!" Skywalker replied agreeably.
"Absolutely!" Leia Organa chimed in, channeling her inner fan girl. "Can I please get your holograph? I just love your work."
There was a disconcerted shuffling among the Superbeings before Ziwi stepped forward, "Sure thing, Princess Leia. Can you hold this disembodied head of the slave trader Rylon Rent? I need to find something to write on."
"Take my holopad," Leia suggested graciously, handing over the pad even as she delicately used the Force to lift the black haired noggin of the slave trader.
Relinka gritted her teeth and worked on not throwing up. Darth Vader, twin little Vaders, Corellian Super Beings, and a decapitated cranium floating in the air. This was just too much for the early morning show.
/-
Restaurant
Sub-basement of the Imperial Palace
2 hours later
"So let me get this straight," Mara Jade mused, her eyes fixed on her glass of blue milk, "you originally took on the personas of the Corellian Super Beings to conceal your true identities."
"Right," Luke Skywalker agreed enthusiastically. "We wanted to be able to go back to our 'normal' lives, inasmuch as our lives could ever be normal, when we wanted to."
"And now," Mara continued, "you want to make it clear that you aren't really the Super Beings so that when you want to, you can slip into your Super Being costumes and run off and do exciting non-political things on occasion."
"Exactly," Luke chortled, taking a bite of a dweezel stick. "Thank you so much for helping out. Your attack on that slave facility last night and the decapitated head in the studio were perfect. No one will think Vader and his twins are the Super Beings when we all met up in Relinka Spetzv's studio on the live Holonet."
Jade leaned back and lifted her eyebrows, "You have a very complicated life, Skywalker."
"We do, and a complicated and bizarre family. But ... I think we're headed in the right direction. Father really isn't interested in ruling and Leia is a phenomenal politician. She'll do a fantastic job."
"And what will you do, Skywalker?"
"Oh, probably stand around looking decorative some of the time, and go off hunting slavers with Father at other times."
"Sounds like fun. Maybe I can help with the slaver part on occasion?"
"You bet."
The red headed former Emperor's Hand and the Tatooine farmboy clicked their blue milk glasses together and smiled.
"Hey, Boss!" a new voice cried out.
Luke turned in his chair and then leaped to his feet at the sight of his old wingmate.
"Wedge! It's great to see you!"
"It's amazing to see you! I seriously thought you were dead and then poof, you show up on Relinka Spetzv's show as Vader's son. Is it really true, Luke?"
The youth's expression shifted from happy to solemn, "Yeah, Wedge, it is true."
"And the princess is your sister?!"
"Wedge, don't even talk about ..."
"And here we thought you had quite the crush on her ..."
"Wedge!"
"And who is this?"
Luke turned with relief to the Silk twins, who had just strolled into the room.
"Brilana and Aralina Silk, may I introduce you to Wedge Antilles, halfway decent pilot and my wing man during the Death Star battle."
Brilana grinned openly, "So, Son of Vader, what about this guy? Is he available? Does he happen to have a psychotic Sith Lord father?"
"Yes, and no," Luke replied firmly.
Brilana placed a hand on Wedge's shoulder, "Let me buy you a glass of blue milk, flyboy."
/
Author Note: First, thank you to those patiently waiting on updates. I have, I kid you not, 4 separate stories I am working on right now. Why do I do this to myself? Second, thank you, precious and wonderful husband, for editing for me! Oh, Xizor and Guri are from the book "Shadows of the Empire" which is quite good. It takes place between ESB and ROTJ.