Chapter 15 – For Her
She was horrified. Disgusted. Appalled.
At him.
The truth… the sickening truth…
It was too much to bear.
For her. For him.
Anakin!
"Anakin?"
Vader blinked once. He felt lightheaded, and he realized it was because he wasn't breathing. He took a shuddering breath, his restored lungs filling with air.
"Did you hear me?"
It was Kenobi. Vader stared at him blankly, unable to speak. His eyes drifted back to the girl, and for the first time he really saw her. Pale skin, almost ivory in complexion, dark brown eyes, voluminous hair. She was short, but her presence was commanding.
It was her. He saw it now.
"You," was all Vader managed to say. His mouth felt dry and his tongue twisted. He was sweating, it suddenly feeling very hot in spite of the freighter's chill.
"No," the girl – his daughter – said. Vader winced. She sounded shrill, her voice quavering just like hers had been when she had learned. "That's not possible."
She couldn't believe it. How could she? It was too horrible to believe. Too horrible… too painful…
I don't know you anymore!
"I know this might be a shock –"
"Might be?" the girl snapped.
Kenobi raised his hands. "Leia –"
"You kept this from me? From us?" She gestured to the boy, not to him. She wouldn't look at him anymore. She couldn't look at him anymore. "How could you?"
"I didn't intend to deceive you," Kenobi said. "Of course I wanted to tell you, but the timing was never opportune."
"Opportune?" the girl echoed, incredulous. "Opportune? You've had weeks! You could have told me back on Yavin! You could have told me after what happened on the Chimaera! You could have told me on Dagobah!"
"Yes, but –"
"You had no right!"
"Leia, calm down," the boy entreated. He placed a hand on her arm and the girl seemed to temper a fraction. "Let Ben explain."
The girl shook her head. "I don't want explanations," she said, her fiery tone belied by a trembling lip. "I just…" She turned to him and shuddered. Vader felt sick at the look of revulsion on her face. "I just want to be alone."
The boy feebly tried to stop her, but she shoved him away and marched toward the door. Kenobi didn't interfere, his expression grim as he watched her go. The door sealed shut and the Jedi turned to him.
"Well?"
Vader felt a rush of indignation at this. "Well what?" he snapped.
"What are you going to do now?"
He was caught off guard. Kenobi wasn't telling him what to do as he so often had in the past. He was presenting him with a choice.
A choice.
When was the last time he had had a choice?
He looked at the boy. Whereas he had seen her in the girl, he saw the Jedi in him. The innocence, the naïveté. Skywalker.
To do what's right.
That's what he had said. That's what the boy wanted of him. That's what Skywalker would have wanted as well. He had always wanted to do what was right, even though he had been wrong about what was right more often than not. But it hadn't been his fault. He had been deceived. Lied to. Manipulated.
He hadn't had a choice.
Now he did.
"Out of my way," Vader rumbled to Kenobi.
The Jedi was surprised. "Where are you going?"
"Now," Vader said.
"If you want to go after Leia –"
Enough of this. Vader swiped his hand and pushed Kenobi aside. He vaguely registered the Jedi crashing against the side wall before Vader stormed out of the room. But whereas the girl had taken a left, he took a right down the hallway toward the main hatch.
He pounded down the exit ramp into the Chiss hangar. He wasn't quite sure what he was doing, but whatever it was, he did it with conviction. Anger and passion intermingled with remorse and dismay, the combination a lethal tonic which intoxicated his senses and invigorated his spirit.
The expectant look on his face.
The disgusted look on hers.
They fueled him. Inspired him. Drove him.
"You!" he bellowed to the first person he came across.
The Chiss turned to him and his red eyes turned wide. He stammered something in a foreign language.
"Thrawn," Vader said. "Take me to him."
The Chiss hesitated and Vader resisted the urge to grab him by his throat. He exhaled and spoke with forced calm.
"Mitth'raw'nuruodo. The grand admiral. I need to speak with him."
The Chiss nodded vigorously. He extended a hand before scampering away, presumably to take him to Thrawn.
A minute later he was marching through a set of reinforced double doors, to the bridge, he belatedly realized. It looked quite similar to the bridge on an Imperial Star Destroyer, although somewhat smaller in scale with fewer officers and even fewer superfluous stations. At the far end of the bridge by the viewport was the same trio who had first greeted him. Thrawn stood beside Commander Vanto as he spoke in low tones with Admiral Ar'alani. Hearing his arrival, the grand admiral half-turned to see him.
"Lord Vader," he greeted. He did not sound surprised, although the rest of the deck was not as calm as he. Vader could sense the spike in tension as the officers all looked up to watch him stride down the bridge.
"I'll do it," Vader said.
Thrawn raised a brow. "Do what?"
"Whatever you want from me. I'll do it."
There was a pause as Thrawn glanced at his companions. He expressed nothing, neither triumph nor relief. He was thoroughly unfazed.
"May I ask why?"
Vader grit his teeth. Why couldn't Thrawn just be grateful? Did he really have to know why?
Of course he did. Thrawn always had to know why.
"I have my reasons," Vader said stiffly.
Thrawn seemed amused. "I'm sure you do."
He already knew. Perhaps before Vader had known himself.
Because he had known Skywalker. He knew how he thought. How he felt. He knew that he would do anything.
For her.
Δ Δ Δ
Leia arrived in the main hold to find the Spectres plus Han and Chewbacca milling about. They all turned to her when she stepped into the cabin.
"Leia?" Kanan said, standing up from the bench. "What's wrong?"
Even to a blind man, she hadn't been able to hide her distress.
"We heard voices," Ezra said. "Loud voices."
Leia shook her head. She didn't want to talk about it. She couldn't talk about it. Not with them. Not with anyone.
"Leia?" Kanan pressed.
"I don't want to talk about it," she said, the words thick out of her mouth. Ducking her head, she plowed through the main hold toward the opposite hallway. The corridor curved and she found herself in the dusty room where she had consoled Luke a few days earlier. Now it was Leia in need of consoling. Not that she wanted anyone to do that for her. Right now she just needed to be alone. To think. To grieve.
She sat down in the shadow of the humming power converters, resting her back against the cylinder, rippling vibrations running up her spine. It was comforting in an odd way. She wiped at her eyes, feeling the moisture there and growing angry because of it.
It wasn't fair. None of it was. Kenobi and Vader; she wasn't sure who she despised more. The liar or the monster?
To hell with them both. They didn't matter to her. Kenobi said he wanted to train her? He could forget about that now. And Vader…
A shudder ran through her. He had always been fearsome, yes, but never had she been terrified of him as she had been then, when he took a step toward her and she felt an invisible grip around her throat…
It had only been for a moment, a flicker of panic, and then it was gone. But still, Leia couldn't shake herself free from the fear. Vader's terrible presence loomed overhead and lurked in the shadows, out of sight, but certainly not out of mind. It was as if he had followed her here. It was as if he was still watching her, seething at her.
It was as if he was a part of her.
For all the emotions she was feeling, surprise was not one of them. She had denied it, of course, but the moment Kenobi told her she and Luke were twins she had known it to be true. It all made sense. Her bond with Luke. Her perverse fascination with Vader. She had been drawn to them both because, whether she knew it or not, they were familiar. In Luke, she had seen herself. And in Vader…
What had she seen? Brutality, enmity, and bitterness. Sure. But was there not something more? Was there some other reason why she had been so interested in him? Was it just blood, as Kenobi implied?
It had to be. There could be no other explanation. Vader was a horrible man, a criminal of the highest offense!
Her father – her real father, that is – had told her about Vader. Not much, but enough to make her steer clear of him whenever she was on Imperial Center. He had told her that Vader had led the purge against the Jedi and had massacred those who had been in the Temple the night the Empire was proclaimed. Among those killed, Leia highly suspected, had been children. She hadn't thought about it before, but it suddenly made sense. Why else would Kanan be the only former Padawan to have survived? The rest must have been slaughtered.
By Vader. Who else? She certainly knew he was capable.
How could he be her father? And if he was her father, who was her mother? Leia had never given much thought into the mystery of her birth parents. She had always known she had been adopted, but this hadn't mattered much to her. The Organa's loved her as if she were their own, and Leia loved them equally in return. If she ever had any interest in her birth parents, she would chalk it up to innocent curiosity, nothing more.
But now that she knew about Vader, she found herself needing to know the other end of the equation. What type of a woman could love him? Or maybe she hadn't loved him at all. Maybe she had hated Vader, but had for some reason been stuck with him. It wasn't a pleasant thought, but it was preferable to the alternative. That she had loved him. Because if that was true, it meant her mother was complicit, and therefore equally deplorable as Vader. And that couldn't be. It simply couldn't.
And as she thought about this, Leia was presented with another question. Where was her mother? Was she alive? She had always assumed her birth parents were dead, but here was Vader, mangled and twisted yet very much alive. Did that mean her mother was out there somewhere? If so, should that matter to her? She said she didn't want anything to do with Vader. He may be her father by blood, but she would never recognize him as such. The Organa's were her real parents.
Nothing had changed. Vader didn't matter to her. Neither did her mother. They were strangers to her. She wasn't beholden to them.
And then there was Luke. Her brother. Her friend. She didn't feel any differently about him either. Knowing that they were related didn't matter. Not in one bit.
So why was she crying?
She hadn't even realized until know, but now that she did, it was too late for her to do anything about it. Tears streamed down her cheeks, unimpeded by her halfhearted attempts to wipe them away. Tucking her face in between her knees, she surrendered to the tumult of emotions and sobbed.
Δ Δ Δ
They could all hear Leia crying, but Ben forbade anyone from trying to comfort her.
"No, Luke," he had said. "Leave her be. There's nothing you can do."
Luke fought against this logic, but he knew it was true. He had needed his own space to deal with the truth, and he had to be willing to give Leia hers. Knowing this didn't make it any easier. He felt Leia's anguish as if it were own. Because it was, in a way. He had gone through the same ordeal just hours earlier. Again, he marveled at how close they were to one another. And now he understood why.
The minutes stretched on. They all waited in the main hold, nobody sure what to do. Kanan and Ezra asked repeatedly for an explanation, but Ben refused to give one. Luke was grateful for that. He couldn't imagine how furious Leia would be if he chose to tell the others without her permission. If it were up to her, he suspected she wouldn't want anyone to ever know.
And while Luke understood that, it did hurt a bit. He knew she was horrified of Vader, and in a way, Luke was too, but by not acknowledging him as her father, was she not also dismissing him as her brother?
No, that wasn't fair. She had barely had any time at all to wrap her head around this information. Luke had to let her deal with it in her own time. And just because he had managed to accept it so quickly, if not come to terms with it, didn't mean she would as well. For as similar as they were, Luke also knew they were very different. Their disparate upbringings alone were testament to that. The princess and the farm boy. It was like some sort of fantasy story Aunt Beru would have read to him when he was a kid.
Another five minutes passed before Kanan stomped his foot in frustration. "This is ridiculous," he said. "How long are we going to keep waiting?"
"For as long as we must," Ben said calmly.
"And what are we waiting for exactly?" Han asked.
The question was met with heavy footsteps. Ben turned toward the noise with a wry look. "For this exactly, Captain Solo," he said.
Luke knew who it was before he arrived. Vader's presence preceded him like a shadow. He came to a stop in the circular doorway and scanned the room with his hands on his hips.
"Well?" Ben asked.
Vader's gaze settled on the Jedi Master. His expression was inscrutable to Luke. Was he angry? Determined? Both?
"How did it go?"
"How did what go?" Vader asked.
"You went to speak with Thrawn, didn't you?"
Vader's face hardened. The whitened scars and sunken cheeks made him look gaunt, skeletal almost. He stared Ben down for a moment before looking away. Luke's heart skipped a beat when his cold eyes found him.
"Where is the girl?" he asked.
Luke gulped. Why wouldn't he use her name? It made him uncomfortable. "She's…" He turned toward the hallway where Leia could still be heard crying. Vader followed his example and his expression turned darker still.
"I wish to speak with her," he said.
"Not now," Ben said.
"Who are you to tell me what to do?" Vader snarled.
"I am not telling you, I'm advising you," Ben said. "You know I'm right."
Vader clenched his jaw, yet he didn't refute Ben's assessment. Instead he crossed his arms and took a step into the room. "We leave within the hour," he said.
"Where to?" Ben asked.
"Mokivj."
"For what reason?"
Vader hesitated. "I don't know."
"You don't know?" Ben echoed with a frown. "How can you not know?"
Vader ignored him. "You are coming with me," he said, pointing to Luke.
"Me?" Luke said in a small voice.
"And the girl. Both of you will accompany me."
"Wait just a minute –" Ben began, but Vader cut him off.
"They will not be yours to corrupt, Kenobi. They are coming with me, end of discussion."
Ben bit his lip and looked toward the opposite hallway. "Leia won't want to go," he pointed out.
"It is not her decision to make," Vader said.
Luke felt a chill run up his spine at these words. So that's how it was? He and Leia had no say anymore? Did Vader view them as his children or as his property?
"I trust you will tell her?"
Luke blinked a few times at this question. Vader's voice – indomitable and unwavering – suddenly sounded a bit softer. It was only for a fleeting moment, but Luke detected some discomfort from the man.
"Uh… sure," Luke said.
Vader raised his chin. "Good." Sparing him one last long look, he spun around on his heel and departed the main hold.
Δ Δ Δ
The shuttle was small. Too small.
Vader was strapped into the pilot's seat with Thrawn on his right. Behind them was an open hatch leading to a compact cabin. The children were back there in the bucket seats along with Commander Vanto whom Thrawn insisted accompany them.
"Are you sure this is wise?" Thrawn asked.
Vader gave him a sideways look. "What are you talking about?"
Thrawn pressed a button on the control panel. The hatch sealed shut. "This mission will be dangerous," he said.
Vader's grip on the yoke strengthened even though he wasn't currently piloting the ship. There was little need for that when they were in hyperspace. "You have yet to inform me about the specifics of this mission," he said.
"I only refrained from doing so for the sake of confidentiality."
"Meaning?"
"I would rather the other members of your crew not know what we are doing."
"You mean Kenobi?" Vader asked, at once indignant. He though Kenobi was part of his crew? How wrong could someone be?
"And the other Jedi, yes. Jarrus and Bridger are no friends of mine."
Vader said nothing, eyes fixed on the white and blue swirl in front of him. He waited for Thrawn to explain himself, and after a minute, the Chiss finally obliged.
"Now that we are alone, allow me to clarify things for you."
"By all means," Vader said with a bit of sarcasm.
"The Chiss Ascendency is on the verge of fragmentation," Thrawn began. "The families which make up the Syndicure, my own including, have been rivals for time immemorial, but now they are actively turning on one another. There have been a series of infiltrations into our government, the latest of which has created an internecine struggle which threatens to tear us apart for good."
Thrawn paused at this, perhaps expecting Vader to express some sympathy, or at least curiosity. He did not.
"Do you remember the first time we met above Batuu?"
Vader suppressed a growl. He hated how casually Thrawn associated him with Skywalker. "I remember," he ground out.
"I was traveling with an associate of mine at the time."
"Your pilot," Vader said.
"So you remember?"
"I already said that I did."
"I am impressed, that is all." Thrawn said blandly. "And as I recall, you were traveling with your droid. What was its name?"
Stay with the ship.
"Artoo. His name was Artoo."
"Ah, yes. I remember him being an admirable companion. He was quite invaluable to us."
"Get on with it, Thrawn," Vader barked.
"Yes, as I was saying. My associate and I were quite surprised to hear your name."
Vader did remember that. There had been a long pause when he had identified himself, a curiosity at the time, but something that hardly interested him anymore. What was Thrawn getting at?
"The reason is because your name is the same as the one we Chiss use for our navigators."
"You call your navigators Skywalker?" Vader asked, his confusion momentarily supplanting the indignation he experienced at Thrawn's remark. Skywalker wasn't his name. It hadn't been for sixteen years. And it never would be again.
"Skywalker is the rough translation from the Cheunh, yes. Che'ri was a sky-walker at the time."
"Che'ri?"
"Forgive me. My associate. She was traveling with me through the Chaos to gather intelligence about a potential threat to the Ascendency."
Vader nodded slowly. "What is the purpose of these navigators? Why can't you just use one of these?" He gestured at the flashing navcom which automated their journey through hyperspace.
"Such a device would be useless in the Chaos. Out there the hyperlanes are unstable and highly volatile, unlike those which connect the systems of the Empire."
"I see," Vader said. "And so you use people instead. How?"
"The sky-walkers are Force-sensitive Chiss children; girls, typically. Although the Ascendency does not know of the Force as you Jedi do and would not refer to them as such." Vader bit back his frustration at this flippant comment. Was Thrawn intentionally trying to bait him? Because if he was, one more insensitive comment could prove to be his last. Yet Thrawn seemed oblivious to Vader's dissatisfaction. He continued: "Che'ri called it 'Third Sight'. She would tap into that power to navigate Chiss warships through the Chaos."
Vader took a breath to calm himself. It was quite interesting, actually, although he had no idea why Thrawn was going into such detail with him. So he decided to ask. "Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because it is crucial you understand why the sky-walkers are so important to the Chiss Ascendency. Without them, we would be unable to navigate the Chaos in the clandestine manner in which we prefer."
"Clandestine? How do you mean?"
"The navigator's guild has a monopoly over Chaos travel, or so they believe. The sky-walkers are therefore the Ascendency's greatest secret. They do not want its rivals nor its friends to know that the Expansionary Defense Fleet has the ability to traverse the Chaos without the assistance of the navigator's guild, which might otherwise bottleneck their mobile capability."
Again, Vader nodded. "Alright," he said. Such complex geopolitics often went over his head. The Emperor dealt with such matters, not him. He merely executed his master's will without question. But Thrawn was explaining things clearly to him, and Vader felt able to keep up.
"A few months ago, eight sky-walkers were captured by an unknown foreign entity. The political blowback was, as you can now appreciate, quite substantial. My old patron Supreme General Ba'kif was dismissed from his position by the vengeful Syndicure even though he was not to blame for the incident."
Thrawn paused, and Vader detected some vexation from the typically enigmatic Chiss. He must be quite frustrated by the political shenanigans. Vader could relate to this. He had experienced that same frustration because of the Republic's incessant arguing and perpetual gridlock.
Or rather, Skywalker could relate. Vader had no such qualms with his government. The Empire had done away with such inefficiencies. Now the Emperor made all the decisions without the interference of a squabbling Senate. It was better that way.
"With Admiral Ar'alani's assistance, proffered without the approval of the Admiralty, I might add, Commander Vanto and I tracked these kidnapped sky-walkers to Batuu. An interesting coincidence, if I might say."
Vader didn't share the grand admiral's appreciation of the irony. "So why are we going to Mokivj and not Batuu? I assume you need my help rescuing these… sky-walkers?"
"That I do," Thrawn said. "But the girls are no longer on Batuu. Their abductors learned of our investigation and decided to leave the planet. My analysis from the trajectory of their departed freighter, along with my deductions about their culture, suggest they left for Mokivj. Again, an interesting coincidence."
"And so we arrive on Mokivj and rescue them. Then what?"
"You could come with me to Csilla and be lauded as a hero by the Ascendency, thereby gaining yourself a valuable ally."
"To what end?" Vader asked.
"That is what you must choose."
"You want me to convince the Chiss to make war against the Empire."
"What I want is irrelevant."
"But that is what you want, is it not?"
Thrawn didn't answer. Vader turned to him and saw the Chiss staring blankly out the viewport just as he had been moments earlier.
"Perhaps," Thrawn said finally, "you should confer with your children."
Vader was stunned. He knew about the girl too? How could he know? Had Kenobi told him? No, he wouldn't have. Would he?
Before Vader could so much as open his mouth, Thrawn pressed the button opening the hatch. He spun in his chair and Vader dazedly followed his example to see the two children seated next to each other in the cabin. They looked so small, the girl's feet barely scraping the floor.
"They are your burden," Thrawn told him. "The man I once knew would have risen to that challenge. Will you?"
Unstrapping himself from his seat, Thrawn stood up and left the cockpit. He flicked his wrist, and the hatch sealed shut behind him, leaving a paralyzed Vader in his wake.
Author's Note: Thanks for being patient with me, guys. I actually finished writing this chapter by my typical Saturday deadline, but I wanted to sit on it to edit and make sure I liked where things were at. As an aside, I looked over the last chapter and was dismayed by how many typos I found there. I think I'll refrain from posting as soon as I finish writing in the future to give myself ample time to edit. As I said in the last author's note, school work keeps me from being able to devote as much attention as I might like to my fanfic work (I am writing two stories, by the way, which makes things all the more difficult). I expect to be able to update roughly once a week, but updates are going to inevitably be a bit more sporadic. Anyway, thanks for reading! Things are starting to ramp up in a big way. Thrawn's critical involvement in this story wasn't something I planned on when I started writing (way back when – it feels so long ago now!), but now I'm psyched to have him serve such an important role. Next chapter should feature some more Obi-Wan content hopefully, along with what happens with Vader and his reluctant twins down on Mokivj.