This was written after a brainstorming session with HeartOfStars (whose own version of this is over on AO3) about a post-ESB fic set on Umbara.
Spoilers for the Umbara arc of TCW, of course, and minor (very embellished) references to what happened in the canon Thrawn novel.
Barren Umbara: When Luke and Leia go on a scouting mission to Umbara several weeks after their lucky escape from Bespin, things go wrong. Badly.
The Falcon swooped into the atmosphere and settled on a plateau of flat land barely wide enough to fit on, Luke staring out the viewport the whole way. He'd known that Umbara was a planet in permanent night, he'd known that its people were called the Shadow People, but...
"We won't be encountering any locals," Leia assured him, shoving her blaster into a holster at her side and zipping up her jacket. "The old capital is near here, but they've more or less abandoned this part of the planet, since some business a few years ago with the Empire taking control of the mines."
"I'm not scouting for locals. I'm just... looking." And look he did. When the landing ramp thudded to the ground, and Chewie made a keening noise that Luke thought might mean good luck, he had to stare at the thick darkness beyond, illuminated only by the ghostly red glow of some sort of tree or plant. "Why did they abandon their capital?"
"There was a battle. A few uprisings against the Empire. Someone called Nightswan was involved—I'm not sure. It was before I joined the Alliance."
She tossed him a glowrod; he caught it with his right hand, fumbled, and dropped it.
"Kark."
"That was a bad catch," she teased, then frowned at his expression as he went to pick it up. "Are you—"
"I'm fine."
She didn't look convinced. "Your hand—"
"Is fine. Works perfectly fine." He flexed his prosthetic to illustrate his point and winced at how strange it still felt. At the ridiculous amount of strength it had compared to his natural hand.
She sighed. "If you say so. But I know this is your first mission since Bespin, I want you to know..."
He gave her the most withering look he could summon. He didn't think he did a good job, but she got the hint.
"...that I have utter faith in you," she changed hastily, trying for a smile. "But that I'm also here if you need it."
"I don't need it," he muttered.
"You don't need me?"
He paused.
Sighed.
Smiled at her, even if the muscles in his face ached and were out of practise. "Of course I need you."
She squeezed his shoulder, then headed down the ramp. He followed closely. A shrill whistle called out after them.
"No, Artoo!" Luke called back, not turning to face him. Even by the light of the glowrod, it was dark; Luke felt trapped in his own little red and white bubble. Leia looked ghastly in this light: pale and bloody. "You can't navigate this terrain easily, remember? You'll have to stay with the ship."
Whatever screeched swear word Artoo sent out after them was lost to the undergrowth as they advanced forwards, and shadows swallowed the Falcon whole.
Luke unconsciously stuck very close to Leia as they forged ahead. He could hear... whispers, at the edge of his consciousness, feel a deep, intrinsic terror that wasn't his, see—
He gasped and spun around.
"Luke?" Leia's hand on his shoulder, warm and dry and grounding. "What is it?"
Luke stared, but the darkness yielded no answers.
He could still hear the whispers. He could also hear the screams.
"Something..." He tried to steady his breathing. "I think something terrible happened here."
"The uprisings?"
A stormtrooper's helmet looming—no, a clone trooper—
"Older than that," he murmured. "But not by much."
He shook himself. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's nothing."
"It's not nothing," she insisted, but she was looking at him, not the eerie plants. "You've been... on edge for a while."
He shrugged. Or rather, he tried to. "We're in a war."
"And Bespin affected you more than you want us to know," she countered. "Luke, I... I understand that you don't want to talk to me about it. But you have to know that we don't blame you at all for what happened, with Han—"
Luke flinched.
Leia stepped forwards, the light from their glowrods merging and forming a single sphere around them. Seeing her now, red and white against the darkness, he could imagine what she'd looked like in the carbon freezing chamber on Cloud City the way Lando had described: terrified, heartbroken, and steadfast.
She wrapped her arms around him for a moment and he sank into her embrace, burying his face in his shoulder.
"It's not your fault," she whispered. "It's Vader's. He's the monster. He orchestrated it, and he—everyone like him—will fall."
Luke jerked back.
He's the monster.
"Luke?" she asked.
Everyone like him will fall.
Luke averted his gaze. "Yeah," he said dispassionately, taking a step aware from her. Their spheres of light diverged. "They will."
You do not tell her because you know she will reject you.
He flinched bodily when he heard the voice. It sounded like Vader's voice had in that waking nightmare during their escape, calling him son, but it was... softer here, more persuasive. And Vader was not on Umbara.
It couldn't be Vader.
Perhaps there was more Vader in him than he wanted to believe, then, he thought bitterly.
Perhaps that vision on Dagobah had been right.
He raised his glowrod. "Let's go scout out a good place for our base," he said.
Leia looked disappointed, but obliged.
"There's an abandoned airbase the Umbarans then the Republic used during the Clone Wars," she said. "It's not too far from the capital—"
"Then shouldn't we be concerned? If the Empire is controlling the mines..."
"The Empire abandoned Umbara a long time ago," she assured him. "Just after the uprisings. The warring left the mines unusable, so everyone—the Imperials and the locals—had to leave to find profit elsewhere."
"What's in the mines?"
"Doonium. A thick vein of it, right under the capital." She grimaced. "I'm surprised they haven't returned yet to try and salvage what little they can of the mines—between the destruction of the Death Star, and all the new ships they're building, they need all the doonium they can get."
"But they're gone?" Luke said.
"They're gone," Leia confirmed. "Now, let's go."
They were walking for what felt like hours, but Luke supposed Chewie hadn't wanted to set the ship down too close to the base in case of traps. He couldn't stop staring around at the vegetation around him: great, frond-like or even tentacle-like plants twice or thrice or ten times his height, with bulbous things glowing red at their tips. He pressed his hand to the trunk of one of them; it felt warm enough, but far smoother than any other tree he'd seen in his years with the Rebellion.
The undergrowth was a bit more familiar, but in an inconvenient way: plants with flat, circular leaves; stones; roots curling everywhere trying to trip him up. Artoo certainly couldn't have navigated this terrain, and it was slow going trying to wade their way through, when...
Luke shuddered.
"Luke?" Leia paused, up ahead of him. "What is it now?"
He'd already stopped three times because of this, but this time he actually turned. That... rasping sound, the wind in the fronds, the crunch of heavy footsteps—
"What do you see?"
Nothing. He saw nothing—
Is one of such talent truly going to ignore the well of power he has at his disposal? the voice taunted. Luke shuddered again.
Then he turned back to Leia. "Nothing," he called ahead. "Nothing, I just thought I heard—"
"Wait." Leia frowned. "I think I do hear something."
He froze. "What is it?"
She gave no reply, face pinched in thought as she stilled, stared, eyes flicking to the right...
He followed her gaze, but saw nothing but darkness.
But...
The Force is always here, to enhance your abilities, elevate you above the mundane lives around you—
If he stretched...
He was shaking, he realised, his prosthetic hand especially. He couldn't summon the peace of mind to reach the Force but the Force was always there anyway so he seized it with grubby fingers, cringing at the cold and—
He screamed.
"Luke!"
He blinked, fiercely. The glowrod dropped; his knees hit the dirt right next to it and he squinted against the light.
"Luke?" Leia was fussing. He shied away from it. "Luke, you shouldn't have let them send you on this mission."
"I'm fine," he insisted. It'd been four weeks since Bespin. He was fine. He was fine.
"What did you see?" Leia asked.
The image of Vader's mask, illuminated by red—just like it had been in that chamber—swam before his eyes.
"Nothing," he said, and forged onwards.
"We should stop to rest," Leia said. Luke didn't say anything; just let himself crouch, and take a few deep breaths.
"How much farther to the airbase, do you think?" he asked.
Leia looked ahead, and glanced at the small holo of the map they had.
"Another standard hour," she offered. "I'm not sure."
He nodded, and took a sip of water when she offered him the bottle. His hand didn't shake this time; he made sure to hold it very gently with his prosthetic so he didn't accidentally squeeze it too hard and send it spurting everywhere.
He passed it back after a moment, and they exchanged a look. Luke looked away just as quickly—cast his eyes about instead, as far as he could see.
"That looks like a sarlacc," he commented of one plant, up ahead. It... really did, one large, bud-like mouth lined with teeth at the centre of a mass of snaking vines. Thinking of Tatooine, of home—even of a deadly part of home—calmed him a bit.
"That's probably a vixus," Leia said. "Don't touch any of its vines, it catches its prey by seizing them and dumping them into its mouth."
Luke grimaced. Definitely sounded like a sarlacc. "Fun..."
He jerked, then, a cold feeling trickling down his spine. Braced himself against one of those trunks and pushed himself up.
Leia frowned. "We might want to rest for longer, Luke, that was barely a few minutes."
"I know," he said. "Something's coming."
"What?"
"Something's coming," he insisted. His nerves were a fried jangle, fear jittering in his gut, and he tried to take deep, deep breaths, but...
Something was coming.
"Luke, are you sure?"
They both heard it then: the screeching, so loud and abhorrent in the quiet darkness that Luke's eyes pricked with tears, and saw the three shapes of—
"I'm sure," Luke said.
"Take cover!" Leia snapped.
They both dived to the side, but those things dived lower; one came straight for Luke's face and raked its claws across his back before he twisted his arm and shot. The bolts skittered off in a shower of sparks; it soared away, chittering angrily.
The next one came immediately after and this time Luke was caught in the chest, thrown back through the trees. He heard shouts and blasterfire from near Leia but there was a hideous face in his and long fangs—
He reached up and seized that face with both hands. His blaster clattered to the ground.
And he shoved at it.
It shook his hands off and roared, ear-splitting, right in his face. His head rang.
He came back: right hand going straight for the face, thumb on the chin and fingers gouging right into the eyes—
It tried to pull away but he tightened his artificial grip with all his might—
And then his other hand called his blaster to hand.
When the thing screamed, the bolt went right down its throat and out the other end.
He kicked; its smoking corpse rolled to the side and he was up again, flexing his right hand. He didn't want to look at what was on the end of his fingertips.
Leia.
He whipped his head around at the sound of another scream; Leia was clutching her arm, teeth bared in a snarl as she unleashed crimson blasterfire right into the creature, but still every bolt just sloughed off. It could sense she was cornered: she backed up, farther and farther, heel slamming into a trunk—
Luke shot at it. It spared a moment to hiss at him before Leia got it in one of its eyes and it turned back, snarling—
The third one came for a second pass. Luke tried to keep it away with a hail of bolts but it kept coming, right at him...
He glanced to the left frantically.
Just as the creature above him dived.
Just in time to see Leia drop her blaster.
Just in time to see her opponent leap, fangs out—
No.
No, he took a deep breath and felt the scratches on his back ache, tried not to focus on his utter terror—
Good, something said, and any sort of praise or warmth in this moment eased something in his chest.
But when both the creatures froze in midair, twitching, choking—
He felt so, so cold.
Leia was staring at him. Luke was staring at his hands. His breath rasped in, and out.
In, and out.
In, and out.
In, and out.
He released the creatures.
They shot away faster than he could blink.
He staggered around; looked for his glowrod to avoid Leia's gaze. There it was, at the base of the tree: he scooped it up and held it out in front, so the minutiae of her expression were hidden by sharp, black shadows.
"What was that?" he whispered.
"Might be a banshee. They were in the briefing."
Luke nodded. That made sense. That made sense.
Leia still wasn't looking at him.
"Shall—" He took a deep breath. "Shall we keep going, then?"
He was still shivering, he noted.
Leia slid a hand onto his shoulder and patted it lightly, like she barely wanted to touch him.
"Yeah," she said. "I think that's our break over."
"Your arm?"
She glanced down.
"Maybe a short break," she concluded. It didn't look like a deep scratch, but it was bleeding. "Help me tie this up."
They reached the airbase soon, thank the Force. It was strange: one moment they were fording through the undergrowth—narrowly avoiding hitting another vixus; that thing had loomed out of nowhere—then the next the ground was clear and compact. Luke stumbled forwards, looking up—
He almost flinched when he saw the red light hit something tall on his left, but Leia forged right for it, and he stared. It was not a person, not... whoever he'd thought it would be. The strange cold and clammy fear that lingered on Umbara was getting to him.
Instead, as he saw when he followed Leia, it was a... post? Far taller than a person, and now that he looked there were several around the airbase, all set at equal intervals, surrounding the buildings like dull guardians in the bloody light.
"Once we boot up the generator and get the power back on, these will form an electric fence round the perimeter," Leia said, smiling a little. "It's part of why High Command wanted this base so badly."
"Do we have to get the power back on?"
"No. We just have to look around." She drew her blaster back out of her holster, then. She didn't wince as the motion aggravated the wound in her arm, but he saw her face tighten slightly. "Come on."
Before he followed, Luke glanced up at the post again, then at one of the massive plants nearby. He thought he saw... something shimmying along there, all in white, but then he blinked and it was gone and he was cold again. "Couldn't someone climb one of the plants and drop over the fence?"
"One or two, maybe," Leia admitted over her shoulder. "But it's better than no perimeter defence at all. Now come and help me scout it out."
"I have a bad feeling about this," Luke said.
Leia paused, then, and turned to him. "Do you want me to comm Chewie?" she asked. "We can get out of here, request they send someone—"
"It's not because I'm not ready," Luke said, though he knew he really wasn't. "I just..."
He looked around.
Trust your instincts. What do you see?
"I don't see anything amiss," Leia said, frowning. "But I trust your feelings, Luke. If you think we shouldn't—"
"No," Luke said quickly. He swallowed. He— he didn't know what he was sensing, but— "No, it should be fine. Let's— Let's keep going."
Your fear will make you powerful.
Luke turned away, and strode towards the base.
It was a ring of buildings around a central tower, which seemed to be the command centre. Each building was the same oval shape but they all clearly had different uses: they walked past a building with a large hole in the wall, which Luke was pretty sure was meant to be a hangar.
It sat empty. He swept his glowrod around the edges of the hole: the metal had been completely blown apart by something, though the presence of patches of newer metal suggested that they'd at least started repairing it before the place was abandoned.
The beam of his glowrod moved on, into the shadows and the... emptiness.
It was... odd, being in an airbase with no ships, he thought, glancing around. All that he could really describe this place as was barren, the buildings minimal, the landing pads devoid of things to have landed on them. The barracks nestled beside the hangar still had bunks in, but looking around them Luke felt... strange...
"What happened here, again?" he asked. "To have it abandoned."
"Well, the Umbarans had it before they defected to the Separatists and the Republic invaded," Leia said. Her glowrod beam alighted on the entrance to the tower, a silent watcher looming over them, and she made a beeline for it. "Then the 501st legion took over the airbase in order to take the capital, but the Jedi leading them was a traitor and..." She grimaced. "I don't know the details, but there's a clone captain who fights in the Rebellion often—he told me that apparently the Jedi turned to the dark side and set the clones against each other. It was a massacre. After that, the Empire operated the place for a while, then left after the Nightswan uprisings."
The 501st legion, Luke realised.
In the Empire, he was pretty sure the 501st were Vader's Fist.
If they'd been under the same leader during the Clone Wars...
Had...
This Jedi traitor...
Had he been his—
Had he been Vader?
Was he the spawn of the person who'd— who'd caused all this pain and fear and death he could sense hovering around here?
He didn't know why he was surprised. It wasn't exactly the worst thing Darth Vader had ever done.
Leia reached the door to the tower. The power was down, so it didn't open automatically, but she curled her fingers around the sides and yanked.
It didn't budge.
"Luke, help me with this."
He joined her, and together they yanked and pried at it, but it didn't budge. Luke fell back, knocking shoulders with Leia and grimacing when she cried out; he'd hit her wound.
"I'm sorry—"
You have the power to open it, you know.
He turned away, at the voice.
You can. Embrace the power that is your birthright. Understand, my—
Right, that was it. Apparently he was genuinely going crazy.
Leia said, "Do you think you can open it with the Force—?"
Luke hoisted his blaster. "If we come here, we can build a new door," he decided, and blasted it.
Leia snorted but joined it.
A few minutes later, the door creaked and squeaked in place. Leia gave it a firm kick and it collapsed inwards.
They holstered their blasters again and entered.
"You wanna guess how many creepy crawlies have made this place their home since it was abandoned?" Leia asked. Her grimace was amusing, though he admitted that he wasn't that fond of bugs himself.
"Too many for comfort," he shot back, and her laugh echoed oddly in this dark, dark corridor—they were coming up on something.
"A turbolift," he observed, squinting at the panel, the doors. "Makes sense. Convenient."
"Power's out though," Leia grumbled.
He snorted. "There must be emergency stairs."
"Oh, there will be." She shot him a grin. "But I'm still not looking forward to that climb."
The climb... was not fun, just as Leia had predicted, and Luke was painfully aware that after all that time in the medbay he wasn't exactly in the shape he'd been since he left Dagobah. His calves and lungs burned by the time he reached the top; the shallow scratches along his back were beginning to throb.
If you would use that pain...
No spirit of any Jedi traitor—because that was what this voice had to be, hearing Leia's story, there was no way it was anything else—was going to talk him into treason. He just grunted, and forged on.
Finally, they reached the top.
The command room was round, with the entrance to the turbolift at one end and a briefing table in the centre, several comms units and data analysers ringed around the room. The windows wrapped right around, the turbolift the only break; while Leia went straight for the technology, inspecting what they could salvage, Luke... drifted towards them
The view was, he had to admit, beautiful. In a strange way. The swamping darkness broken by the red bulbs on those plants, like sparks nestled among coal, under the wisps of the clouds and the glory of the stars...
Then he turned his gaze towards the capital, and stared.
It was flooded with light.
Its activity was a flurry in the Force. Transports moved in and around the valley it was situated atop, like tiny shooting stars. He could just make out the shapes of cargo shuttles, ferrying something into the city... or out.
They were escorted by TIE fighters.
"Leia!" he said sharply. "Leia, look!"
She turned to look immediately, and her eyes went wide. "Is that—"
"I don't think we can use this as our base," he said grimly. "The Empire's here."
"Our intelligence said nothing about this!" She stalked forwards, swinging her pack on her arm and yanking a pair of macrobinoculars out of it, pressing them to her eyes. "Why is the Empire here?"
"You were the one talking about the doonium vein," he pointed out. "Maybe they decided they needed as much of it as they could get, and came back."
"Or maybe," Leia said grimly, inspecting the black swathes that seemed to be the mines, "they never left at all."
Luke swallowed. "We'll have to trek back through the undergrowth to get out of here—we don't want to draw attention to ourselves."
"You're right." Leia was already moving her macrobinoculars away from the mines, away from the city, along a winding pass... "But first, we need to get to that capital."
"What?"
"You heard me." She pulled out her handheld holographic map again, and zoomed in on a road through the woods. "There's an old road that leads straight to the capital; we should get as far along it as we can and gather as much information as we can. There's sure to be tanks, transports, travellers—we'll observe whatever there is to see, then take this back to the Rebellion."
Luke nodded. "Alright."
"This discovery could be important," she said, and her eyes had that fervent, excited, hopeful look Luke liked seeing so much. "We could attack the transports for our own use, we could bomb the mines, we could track where they're sending those shipments and find out what the Empire's building."
"Super Star Destroyers?" Luke suggested. "The Executor is—"
"Terrifying," Leia agreed. "But once we know where they are, and what they're doing, we can stop them making more."
She looked at Luke, and softened her voice. "I know it's not an ideal first mission back," she said. "If you want, we can leave now, and the Alliance can send in someone else."
"The Death Star wasn't an ideal first space flight," Luke quipped. He straightened up, and held out his hand for the macrobinoculars; she handed them over and he examined the road for himself. "We can do this. For the Alliance."
"For the Alliance," Leia agreed solemnly. "We'll only walk for a few hours, then we'll turn back."
"Ready to head back down those stairs?" he teased.
Her groan made him laugh out loud.
They set out as soon as they hit the ground again. The road wasn't difficult to find and it was, Luke found, much easier to traverse than the undergrowth they'd been wading through for hours earlier. He doubted she would ever admit it, but even Leia looked relieved; Luke didn't think it would be difficult to cover the distance they'd need before they needed to turn back...
"Look," he said with a forced laugh. There was a thick vine stretched out across the path—several, in fact. And they all led back to one hungry mouth. "Watch your step."
"Another vixus," she observed. "Smart, to put the vines over the road. More traffic that way."
"Does it feed on Umbarans or humans?"
"I imagine it's adaptable. It'd have to be."
Luke grimaced. "If the Empire seized control of this entire section of the planet in order to control the mines," he said carefully, "is that why the Umbarans are... gone?"
"Possibly," Leia said grimly. "They might be on the other side of the planet. Or... the Empire has a history of destroying entire worlds for their ravenous war machine."
"A history?" Luke shivered. He'd known that—known that in Alderaan's case, they had literally destroyed the world—but to systemically drain systems dry, over and over again...
"They took kyber from Jedha, then Jedha City was annihilated and the moon became a hellscape. They mutilated Ilum. They used the Geonosians as their building slaves then massacred them all. And... Alderaan..."
Luke stepped forwards and put a hand on her shoulder. She leaned into it, but her shoulders were still extremely tense.
"What were they building," he whispered... marvelling, but in a horrified way, at all of this, "that they would strip a planet barren like that?"
Leia smiled bitterly. "The Death Star."
Then, Luke's insides went cold.
"So, Destroyers aside..." He met her gaze. "What are they building now?"
You know.
He flinched.
You know...
"Did you hear something?" he asked.
"No." Leia frowned. "But we should have."
Luke raised his eyebrows, but Leia just raised her glowrod. Ahead of them and behind, there was no one in sight.
Not a flicker of movement.
"This is a major route in and out of the capital. There should be more traffic—we were counting on there being more traffic. Why isn't there?" She turned to point back the way they'd come. "Why is that vixus still there? The Empire wouldn't want to risk leaving it there for unwary travellers if they were using the road regularly. They'd have destroyed it."
"The road doesn't look all that well kept, either," Luke observed. "These rocks would make it difficult for any tank or transport to get through." He kicked one, just to prove his point; it was large and heavy, but rolled slowly away.
Leia shook her head. "I don't like this," she said, backing away towards the vixus again. Luke's gaze was still fixed on the rock as it rolled, rolled, rolled in meandering curves, towards the crest of a small hill. "I think we should turn back after all—"
The rock exploded.
Flame and shrapnel roared towards him; he reared back and shouted when they sank deep teeth into his leg, his skin melting under the heat of it. He distantly heard Leia shouting for him, then he hit the ground hard and—
When he came to, a hideous, hated mask loomed above him.
He screamed. Tears tracked fire down his cheeks as he became suddenly aware of the agony that gripped his leg, his throat raw. That mask turned towards him briefly, then turned away again, to—
Vader held up a hand and a shot pinged off it. Then he lowered his hands again, and the agony constricted.
Luke screamed again.
"Get away from him!" someone shouted. Leia. Luke blinked quickly. No, no, Leia, what if— "You—!"
Vader lifted a hand and— and—
No.
"Leia!" he shouted, turning his head and not even caring when the motion send fresh spasms of agony through him. His head rang. Leia was— Leia—
There was a scream.
Leia was not choking. She was not hanging in midair clutching at her throat, she was...
Vader had...
That Force push had sent her careening right into the vixus.
That writhing mass of— of tentacles was hideous to behold, and Luke almost couldn't compute what he was seeing as one, two, three vines wrapped around Leia and lifted her high in the air, squeezing, squeezing—
"Stop it!" Luke shouted, but of course the plant didn't listen. "Please," he begged someone—anyone—but of course no one was listening— "Please, Leia—"
"Luke!"
"She is unworthy of you," Vader informed him. With delight. "This reckoning has been a long time coming."
Luke stared in horror. Those vines dragged her closer, closer, closer to its mouth...
One of her arms got free—the one with the blaster. She fired wildly at anything she could see, the vines, the mouth, the ground, but everywhere she hit it only glanced off, like those blasted banshees from earlier—
"Let her die, my son," Vader coaxed, almost unheard under the cacophony of Leia's screaming. "You will be all the stronger for it..."
"No," Luke snarled, and lashed out.
The Force was heavy, here, cold and grimy, so all he did was seize it as best he could, and— and targeted—
The vixus head burst like a ripe berry.
Luke shuddered. The vines went limp. Leia dropped to the ground, gasping for breath, and he felt a split second of relief before...
He could sense Vader's... smugness, a rancid satisfaction, and he realised what he'd done.
What he'd used.
Vader said proudly, "You will make a fine Sith, my son."
"No," Luke growled, desperately not looking at Leia as she stumbled to her feet, towards them and— and— "Why are you even here!?"
"As the Princess so insightfully deduced, this mine is of importance to the Empire." Something tightened around Luke's leg and he yelled. "But the moment I sensed you on planet... Your importance to the Empire is far greater, my son."
"That's not true."
Something tightened around his leg and he screamed.
"It is certainly true. You are the most important person in the universe, and once you take your place—"
"I'm not your son!" he shouted. "It's not true!"
Distantly, he thought he heard Leia take a shuddering sigh and he twisted away from Vader to look at her, Leia—
A tight grip seized his chin and twisted him back, smearing his own blood on his face. "You have spent enough time languishing under the foolishness Obi-Wan's lies led you to. Do not compound it by adding to them yourself."
Luke spat in his face.
A glob of blood and saliva landed squarely on one of Vader's eye plates. He jerked back to wipe it off and Luke rolled, biting back a scream at the pain in his leg, "Leia—"
"Luke." She was on her feet again now, blaster targeted squarely at Vader, but he could see she was trembling. Or maybe his vision was trembling. He didn't know. "What..." She took a breath. "Is it true?"
"It is not—"
"It is true, Your Highness," Vader declared, naked enjoyment in his tone. He clamped a hand on Luke's shoulder. "Luke Skywalker, your precious Rebel hero, is my son."
"He's lying," Luke whispered, vision blurring again, "he's lying..."
"You know," his father informed him, "that I am not."
Luke turned his face away. But he couldn't look away from Leia's tight expression, the twitching jaw and widened eyes and the wobbling barrel of her blaster...
You know she will reject you, that voice said, and of course it was Vader, who else would it have been, he was a fool... You know that she will hate you, that she will betray you. Soon, you will see: friendships only lead to betrayal, and you will be all the stronger when you transcend the need for it...
He couldn't look away as she mouthed, Bespin.
He nodded in response, choking.
Her mouth flattened in a bitter line, and she raised her blaster higher.
"Let him go, Vader," she commanded. "I won't let you hurt my best friend."
Fresh tears broke the dam and flooded Luke's face as he gazed at her. She gave him a grim smile.
"Hurt him?" Vader repeated darkly. "You should be far more worried about yourself, Princess. He is my son. I will bring him glory, and power, and prestige. You... you brought him down this road, long abandoned for its undetonated mines. I have bandaged his wound and saved him from bleeding to death, and will be taking him to be treated on the Executor, while you..."
Luke glanced down at his leg. Sure enough, it was bound in some dark, thick fabric.
"You are a weakness," his father said, standing from where he'd been kneeling beside Luke. "And a liability."
Leia's face was stone, but he could sense her fear. "I won't let you take him," she said.
In response, Vader lit his lightsaber.
"No." Luke sat up quickly and yelled, gasping for air, clutching at his father's cloak. There was a massive chunk missing from it, strips of it gone, the edges seared as though they'd been cut by a lightsaber. "No, no, please—"
"This is for your own good, my son," Vader informed him, but Luke could feel the savage pleasure he took from this. How much he hated Leia...
Please, he thought at him desperately. Please, please... Father...
Accepting the truth is a necessity, not a bargaining chip, Luke, came the amused reply. He still stalked forwards. Nothing will save her from death, and nothing will save you from your destiny—
I won't escape.
His father paused.
He stood, perhaps a metre away from Leia, and Luke watched as her blaster crumpled in her grip.
Go on, he said.
Luke swallowed, and closed his eyes. He couldn't watch this. I won't escape. I promise. I'll come with you willingly, I won't betray you, I will do anything you ask...
Just save Leia's life.
Vader stiffened.
Observed Leia's face, twisted in defiance, then Luke's, twisted in desperation.
Let her go. Please.
He extinguished his lightsaber.
"We shall head for the airbase," he said. "It is the closest place where Luke can begin to receive adequate medical attention, and the easiest place to summon an Imperial medic and shuttle from."
Leia gaped. "What?"
Vader marched back over to Luke, then bent down and seized his shoulders. Luke glared. "You—"
You will do anything I ask, his father reminded him, almost humorously, then— then—
"Put me down!"
Leia gawked at them both: Vader, hoisting an injured Rebel commander into his arms and that Rebel commander kicking and screaming all the way. It probably looked like some bizarre dream.
Quiet, young one, his father hissed. Luke ignored him, but then the grip tightened and he yelped.
Do not give me cause to think you will break your oath so easily, Luke, he warned. The Princess is not yet safely out of my sight.
Luke fell limp at the threat.
"What are you doing?" Leia demanded. "What are you doing with him?"
Darkness closed in on Luke's mind—Vader's darkness, with an inexorable command.
He didn't hear whatever Vader's reply was.
That horrible breathing was there when Luke went out and it was there when he returned to consciousness: a rhythmic rasping that his brain managed to latch onto long before it could form images or smells. He groaned, reached up to rub his eyes... and stopped.
It was light in here.
He sat up. His leg still hurt, but it felt more like pain on the horizon, distant, than the acute agony from before. Painkillers then. But what...
"Do not attempt to move," Vader boomed, and Luke flinched.
"You got the power generator to the airbase running," Luke observed, head throbbing. It was the first, most inane thought that came to mind. His voice was hoarse.
"A menial task. I am insulted you think it would be difficult."
Luke would've rolled his eyes if his head didn't hurt so much.
"I suppose you're familiar with it?" he said bitterly. His thoughts seemed to jump from island to island, like starbirds riding invisible air currents he couldn't see. "You'll have been here before."
"I had never been to this base before I followed you."
"You were following us?" Luke glared. "That's kriffing creepy."
"It reaped its rewards." That smugness was back, and so was the rancid taste at the back of Luke's mouth; now he remembered... "The instinctive skill with which you use the dark side is to be commended, my son. You—"
"I hate you," Luke said quietly.
His father froze.
"Good," he said finally—awkwardly. "Yet another source of power for you to draw upon."
"Where's Leia?" Luke demanded.
"First, you must explain." Vader crossed his arms, towering above him, and suddenly Luke didn't want to look at him so his gaze darted everywhere else instead: the neat rows of beds in the medbay, the bright lights on the ceiling, the stormtroopers at the door. "Why did you think I would have been here before?"
Luke would have swallowed, had there been any moisture in his mouth.
"You command the Five-Oh-First," he forced out. "I assume you were the fallen Jedi who betrayed and massacred them here."
"That," his father shot back immediately, "was Pong Krell."
Luke scoffed. "I've never heard of him."
"Why would you have? Any knowledge of the Jedi is scarce in this galaxy—"
"I wonder whose fault that is."
"—and even then, the Council did their best to suppress any knowledge of Krell. One of their own, who saw where the wind was blowing and recognised the hypocrisy of the Jedi? I may not respect his hatred of his own soldiers but Krell was one of the few who were intelligent enough to realise the many faults of the Order."
Luke snapped back: "If the discontented individuals were so rare, I doubt it was the Jedi themselves that were the problem, rather than the individual—"
"Is that your defence of the Jedi?" Vader snorted. "Is that why you were so convinced the Jedi traitor here was me? I am not the only one who sought something greater; I am merely the only one who succeeded.
"It was common for Jedi to fall during the Clone Wars, my son, as they recognised the Jedi for what they truly were. Their philosophy and empty promises held no substance in wartime, and I am here to do what they could not."
"Massacre innocent civilians and strip worlds barren of their resources?"
"Bring peace," he snarled. "Prosperity. Security. I do not expect you to understand, I know full well Tatooine's education system was lacklustre and you have swallowed Rebel propaganda since you left, but I know full well you are intelligent enough to!" He clenched his fists. "When we are on the Executor, I will see to correcting your education. Soon, you will understand. I have faith in that."
Luke had faith in absolutely nothing at the moment. He wasn't even sure he had faith in himself.
"When we are on the Executor," he echoed dully.
His father fixed him with a look. "That was our agreement, Luke," he said. "You would stay with me, and agree not to try to escape, if I let the Princess go."
Luke had also said I'll do anything you ask, he remembered. He wondered why his father wasn't bringing it up, briefly, but then he figured he'd take advantage of it anyway.
"And have you?" he pushed. "Let Leia go free?"
Vader snorted. "She refuses to leave. If I let her in here, you must convince her to, or I will find other ways of ridding myself of the nuisance."
Luke paled, even if a part of him wished he'd got to see the arguments Leia and Vader had no doubt had. That would've been entertaining—and gratifying. "If you do..." he threatened.
"It is not a method I prefer, for obvious reasons," his father conceded, staring at him with that bug-like gaze. His eye plates looked like the glowing red bulbs on those fronds. "But I will have you either way. Ensure you impress upon her the gravity of her situation."
Luke swallowed. "Yes, sir," he replied sardonically.
"Glad to see you can follow orders, my son."
He glared. "I can also think for myself about things."
He... didn't understand Vader's reaction to that. He just tilted his head slightly, glancing around the medbay of the airbase, and Luke wondered for a moment if he wasn't the only one who'd been having... strange flashes, feelings, since arriving here.
"A far more valuable skill," his father said, then he strode out of the medbay.
Just behind him, in came— "Leia!"
Her gaze alighted on Luke and lit up, rushing forwards, the stormtroopers escorting her on either side making a half-hearted grab at her arm before allowing her to do so. She collapsed to her knees next to Luke's bed and took his hand. He smiled at her.
"Luke," she said, "you're alright!"
"Wasn't that the point of the medical attention?" he tried to tease, but the wince that accompanied it sort of contradicted his point.
She scowled at the reminder—at his leg, propped up on the sheets. "Vader... was right," she said quietly—and reluctantly. "I— I think he did save your life. It was bleeding pretty badly, and if he hadn't bandaged it as quickly as he did, I don't think..."
"Well, he did what he did." Luke tried to wave it away; it was a strange feeling he had in his chest, and he didn't want to examine it in too much detail. "Did he use his own cape to do it?"
She snorted. "Yes. The torn up strips that were left only added to his dramatic presence, I'm afraid."
"I can imagine."
"But enough about capes," she insisted, squeezing his hand. "You were unconscious for a standard day cycle or so, and we need to talk."
"A day? Where have you been?"
"He's been keeping me in the old cells here."
"He's been what?"
Leia shrugged. "It's not the first cell I've seen the inside of, won't be the last. Luke," she leaned forwards, "I... understand, why you didn't tell me."
Right.
That.
He swallowed, and looked away. "I..."
"I understand. And I want to reiterate what I said the other day."
"You mean night?"
"No, I—" She sighed, and glared. "You're not meant for this shadow planet, sunshine boy."
He found it in himself to laugh a little. It didn't have much mirth in it.
"And I don't think you're meant for the dark side, either," she said, softer. "From what I know about it. From what you've told me."
He did smile, at that. It was a futile gesture on her part, but it warmed him to the core.
"Anyway, what I said, just before we were attacked by the banshees..." She fixed him with a look. "I mean it. Bespin was not your fault—it was Vader's. He is the monster, here."
Luke winced, but then—
"And whether you're his son or not, that doesn't make you a monster either."
He blinked. When he met it, Leia's gaze was fierce.
"Look at the clones," she said. "They were manufactured on Kamino, made to fight the Clone War, to follow orders to the letter. But their genetics didn't define them at all. They were their own people, they chose not to follow orders or what they were told they were meant to do, and they saved trillions of lives because of it."
She folded his hand in both of hers. "I don't care what Vader says your destiny is. It doesn't define you. He doesn't define you. I know you have the strength to go your own path."
He smiled, broadly. Closed his eyes, and a tear slipped out.
"Leia," he whispered, "you need to leave."
She jerked back. "What? No!"
"You have to," he insisted, sitting up despite the pain. "Vader... Vader is going to take me anyway, he already made that clear, but he's willing to let you go. Please, go."
She narrowed her eyes. "What deal did you make?"
"I asked my father nicely...?" Luke tried. She glowered. He dropped his head. "Look, Leia, please." He lowered his voice, glancing at the stormtroopers. "Someone has to take the information about Umbara's mines back to High Command—you know that. They can bomb, they can steal, they can—"
"Yes, yes, stop paraphrasing me. I am not leaving you."
Luke clenched his right fist. It still felt too heavy, too strong, like the hand of a god mismatched with a human's. "If you don't leave me now," he murmured, "Vader will take you away in a much more permanent way, and there's nothing you or I can do to stop it. Please, Leia, I can't bear that."
He leaned in closer, and said, "Someone has to take this information back to High Command. Someone has to tell Chewie and Artoo what happened, and to get off Umbara. And someone has to save Han."
He gave a droll look at his leg. He couldn't escape particularly easily in this state.
"We both know it won't be me."
Leia lowered her head, so that for a moment her face was hidden by hair falling loose from her plait. For a moment, heart twinging, Luke noticed that she'd tied it in a single plait right down her back, for once, instead of the multitude of braids it was usually knotted in—had been knotted in, before he was unconscious. How many times had she done and redone her own hair while she was sitting in that cell, waiting for something to happen? How many hair ties had she snapped in her worry, and how little time had she been given that she'd only managed to throw it back into this once she'd realised they were coming to bring her to him?
When she raised her head again, tears sparked in her eyes and she lay her hand on his cheek. "I love you, Luke."
He leaned into her touch, before gently, gently, taking her hand and lowering it. "I love you too, Leia. Now go and save the galaxy."
"Go and save yourself!" she ordered. "Don't you dare give into him. You are not him. You are not your destiny."
Tears pricked his own eyes, now.
"I know," he said, and couldn't bear to look as they took her away.
Vader watched the Princess Organa leave, her returned pack slung over her shoulder, flanked by two stormtroopers. Her back was stiff, and he could sense her reluctance to go, but she did not look back.
Good. She wouldn't be seeing Luke again, anyway. Vader would make sure of that.
She reached the edge of base, where the perimeter now crackled with electricity. He saw her glance up at the fence, an unreadable look in her eye, before she left through the gate they'd opened up for this. The two troopers slammed it shut behind her.
She stood for a moment, staring back.
But only for a moment.
Then she marched on again, and vanished into the forest, the Zabrak spines looming over her.
"Ensure that she is followed," he ordered to the nearest trooper. "And ensure a homing device is placed on her ship." Knowing where the current Rebel base was could be an excellent bargaining chip when dealing with the matter of Luke's training.
He smiled under the mask, and headed straight for his son.
Stalking the Rebel pair through the Umbaran undergrowth had been a risk, but it had paid off; he could not be in a stronger position. Luke had already shown a great aptitude for the dark side, caught in the net of fear that lingered in the Force, so many years after the clones' massacre; Luke was in his debt now that he'd spared Organa's life, and had sworn not to escape; and, most importantly...
The fact that he had him at all was the fulfilment of a thousand dreams.
The boy was still confined to the medbay, with no windows, but he was still somehow gazing in the direction Organa had headed in. Even when Vader entered, he took a moment to turn to face him, gaze still oddly intense.
Vader hooked his thumbs in his belt. Those priorities would soon shift, he told himself. Soon, the only person Luke would turn to was his father.
"I am looking forward to your training," he told his son. It was true. Luke was so powerful, and he was so very proud of him. "Soon, we will be strong enough to take on the Emperor, and rule together."
"I don't want to rule," Luke said simply, gaze locked on his hands, entwined in his lap.
"You will come to reconsider."
Luke didn't dignify that with a response. Instead, he said, "It was your battalion that got massacred here, during the Clone Wars—wasn't it?"
Vader froze.
Hardcase, Fives, Tup, Rex, Appo, Dogma, Jesse...
It had been a long time since he'd thought of those names.
It had been a long time since he'd thought about the past at all.
Perhaps it was only fitting, he thought, that it should be Luke to bring it up.
"It was," he confirmed curtly. "I returned to Coruscant on Palpatine's behest, and it got my men killed."
There were so many people I couldn't protect, in a previous lifetime.
You will not be one of them.
"I have spent far too long bowing to that man's every whim."
Luke snorted. "And how, exactly, do you propose we kill him?"
We. Vader smiled.
"The very thing that you and Organa were so interested in, when you took that abandoned road," he said, and clamped down on the fury that raced through him just at the memory of that mine, the moment he'd seen Luke go down— "The reason the Empire is so interested in Umbara."
Luke pretended to look impassive, but he did not fool Vader. His head tilted up, his arms shifted into a more open stance, and his curiosity was clear through the Force.
Vader smiled wider.
"I assume that you would not be opposed," he said, "to destroying another Death Star?"