It was a few hours before the physician returned, accompanied by two stormtroopers. "Get up and get dressed," Quester ordered brusquely, tossing a jumpsuit on the bed. "Hurry up."
Luke slid out of bed, then sank back against the edge of it. How long had it been since he'd asked his legs to hold him? They were shaking, and he felt nauseous. Under the impassive gazes of the troopers, he struggled to dress himself with trembling hands while Quester packed datapads and medication in a satchel.
"Where are we going?" He hadn't expected his seed of an idea to come to fruition so soon and tried to hide the elation in his voice.
"Lord Vader is not coming here. Instead, he has ordered that you be brought to Coruscant, there to be presented to the Emperor as his new student."
His hands froze in mid-motion, dropping the soft slipper to the floor. He stared at it, unable to give himself the mental command to bend over and pick it up. Coruscant? No...oh no oh no...
... It is you and your abilities the Emperor wants...
And now the Emperor would have him. Unless...
Quester knelt, slipping the shoe onto his foot. He stood and met Luke's horrified gaze. The brown eyes were unreadable, implacable, and Luke shuddered at the cold resolve he saw in them. "Coruscant?" he whispered, and Quester stared hard at him before cuffing his wrists, turning away to nod to the troopers.
They proceeded through the hallways. This time there was no audience, no jeering, no scorn. This time Luke was invisible, another faceless prisoner of the Empire. And this time there was a docking bay, a ship...freedom, if he could manage to win it, one way or another.
It was a mid-size shuttle, not luxurious but built for speed and distance. Luke paused as he was led on board, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the mirrored finish of the interior hatch. His face was bruised and discolored, though he didn't remember being struck. He looked old and tired, and he barely recognized himself.
"Move it." A poke in his back enforced the command.
The uniformed pilot and copilot waited in the cockpit while the trooper inspected the ship. Luke was strapped in, the binders still clamped tightly around his wrists. He listened to the conversation between the pilot and the bay controller, closing his eyes as the familiar hum of engines warming reminded him of his x-wing and how he longed to be piloting again. But his fighter had been abandoned in Cloud City...just as he had been.
He remained still and silent through take-off, imagining that he was on the Falcon and that Han and Chewie were at the controls, that it was Leia sitting next to him, not his healer, his abuser. Drifting into a drowsy state, he paid little attention as they sped through space until a voice came over the intercom.
"Doctor, you asked to be advised when we were at our hyperspace jump-point. We're almost there."
Luke stifled a yawn, leaning slightly against the seat that Quester vacated. He opened his eyes, dismayed that he was still so tired. Evidently the feeding tube had been pumping drugs into his system as well as nutrients. He had to fight against the urge to relax. He had to focus on releasing his binders and finding a moment when he could—
The sharp report of a blaster ripped through the cabin, and he jumped, automatically fumbling to release the constraining lapbelt. Another blast sounded, and he was free and on his feet, futilely trying to rip off the cuffs. Staggering toward the cockpit, he stopped and stared in horror at the two bodies slumped in their chairs.
Quester dragged the pilot and copilot to the floor, kicking them out of the way. "Sit down or I'll shoot you, too," he snarled. "I don't need your help to find Raylan. If he's still on Saarn, I'll track him down."
His surprise passed immediately. This wasn't quite what he had planned, but it would work. "You can't do everything yourself. You need a navigator - hell, you need me to get to the Alliance base without being shot down." He held out his hands. "Unlock these."
Quester hesitated.
Luke shook his head impatiently. "I want to get to Saarn as much as you do. Let me go and I'll help you find Raylan."
A shadow passed over the physician's face before he reached a decision and quickly unfastened the binders. Luke dropped into the pilot's seat. "I'm the better pilot," he declared flatly.
"And I've got the blaster," Quester stated as he took the copilot's chair. "Try anything and you're dead."
There was nothing he needed to try, and he wondered if Quester truly didn't understand what he'd done. The Imperial officer had just murdered two Imperial soldiers and was fleeing with a Rebel prisoner to the Rebel base, where the prisoner would become a free man and the doctor would become the prisoner.
And would find, contrary to his desperate hope, that there was no son for him to rescue.
After the new coordinates were plotted and entered and the jump to hyperspace made successfully, Luke glanced at his copilot. Quester's face was ghostly white, glowing with a cold sweat. His gaze flickered to the side, where the dead pilot's booted foot was visible.
"Feeling guilty?" Luke asked.
"Yes." Quester gave him a tight, humorless smile. "I do have a conscience, despite what you may believe."
"I know you have one. You also have the ability to put it aside when it becomes inconvenient."
Like I'm doing.
"I'll do anything for my son."
It was a simple statement, but it made Luke wonder why his own father didn't feel the same. He knew that one day, if he was lucky enough to have a child, he too would do anything to protect his son or daughter. But Vader didn't feel that way. Vader left his son in the hands of a fiend — a fiend who had once been a sane family man and a healer.
"His loss changed you. You were a decent person before that, weren't you?"
There was a long silence before: "I thought I still was," Quester whispered painfully, "until... you. And now I have lost everything - my position, my self-respect. But all my sacrifices will be worth having my son again."
"Will they?" He could only imagine a love that could command such a high price, and he envied Quester even as he feared the obsession such a love could create. I always wanted a father... I wanted him so much that I was obsessed with tracking down him… and his killer.
"Yes," the physician said with finality.
"You'll be a prisoner." Without a son. It was what Quester deserved. So why did he feel regret at the realization?
...you are betraying Quester as you betrayed the Alliance...
"I don't think so. I saved you. I killed two Imperials and rescued you."
"You tortured me. You made me betray my friends." He clung to that truth, for it was justification for his own treachery. Luke stared at the stars that streamed past them, long, twisting ribbons of light. He had to decide what to do when they reached Saarn, and he prayed that the Alliance would still be there unharmed, that the Empire was delayed. If there had not yet been an attack, there would be soon. He would have to warn them, which meant that he would have to confess his disloyalty, and the Alliance would lose a hero. And what about his torturer? The Alliance would arrest Quester. He could never return to the Empire he had betrayed, and he would learn that his son was indeed dead. Even the sustenance of vengeance would be lost to him. Though he did not yet know it, the physician's life was essentially over.
Or maybe Quester did know.
For the first time, Luke wondered if the cost of his escape was too great, too Dark.
...you will become an agent of Evil...
Luke brushed aside a tear, destroying the evidence of the pain inside him. Pain for his lost innocence, tears for the boy he would never be again. "You're the enemy. I have to denounce you. There's no other way."
The man's face twisted in a terrible smile. "I followed orders, as a good soldier would, but my conscience is clear. Because in the end I was able to arrest Luke Skywalker, enemy of both the Empire and the Rebellion, the destroyer of the Death Star— a traitor and the son of Darth Vader." Quester looked away. "Judge for yourself which one of us the Alliance will find more threatening. When they learn your identity, they'll execute you and give me a medal for torturing you. You'll lose everything if you denounce me."
Now the dark eyes focused on him. "If you have lied, if my Raylan is truly dead, you will replace him. I will never let you go, Luke. Your life belongs to me. So you see, my boy, we either live with the lies or tell the truth and die together. Your choice."
Your choice.
He would have to live with the consequences of whatever choice he made. He could lie and let Quester control him and exist in a world of hypocrisy, basking in the false admiration of the Alliance, while the truth slowly eroded and consumed him. Or he could admit the truth, likely condemning him as well as Quester. Traitor. You are the son of Darth Vader.
Or he could kill Quester right now, and arrive at the base with three dead Imperials and a warning that the Empire was coming. He would be a hero again. No one need ever know that he'd betrayed the Alliance.
"What is a terrorist, really?" he wondered aloud. "Is there a certain number of people you have to terrorize? Or can it be just one?"
Quester didn't answer.
My choice.
He reached for the tattered edges of his Force and felt for Leia, but found nothing. Was the base destroyed? Were they all dead? Or was his ability to use the Force so damaged that he couldn't sense them?
My choice.
A moment after they came out of hyperspace, he had his answer. On their rear, a Star Destroyer, a swarm of TIEs, and X-wings barely beginning to rise from the planet surface to challenge them.
I'm too late.
The traitor, the son of Darth Vader, is too late.
What would the Alliance do with the son of Darth Vader? For he had no doubt that his secret would not be kept— even if he killed Quester— because too many people knew. Captain Starflyer, everyone on board the Executor, the Emperor— his Father Sith Lord.
Himself.
My choice.
And inside him he felt a sudden connection, an acknowledgement. A severed bond. Darth Vader is on that Star Destroyer. The Emperor's Enforcer. The creature who once was a man, who brings so much suffering and death to the galaxy… he is its past and the inevitable evil of its future. My father… yet not my father. Only the soulless, empty husk of Anakin Skywalker remains in that armor.
Anakin Skywalker died two decades ago.
Frantic coms between the planet and the struggling x-wings interrupted his thoughts. Quester tensed beside him. Luke keyed in an Alliance code and added, "I'm Luke Skywalker."
...I'm here to rescue you...
In the end, at that last moment, it was a surprisingly simple choice. It wasn't about him or Quester or Vader. It was about continuing the fight for the freedom of the galaxy. His life was over no matter what he decided, because he couldn't live with the lie of being a hero. He was a traitor to the Alliance, but on this day he could save them. Luke relaxed and didn't look at the physician.
What is a terrorist, really?
With renewed hope, he gathered the Force to him like a weapon, drawing all its power together, focusing it outward, letting it fill the ship, the atmosphere, the spear of it aiming into the heart of the Star Destroyer, and in his head he whispered a final farewell.
Father... I'm sorry I never knew you.
# # #
The messenger died for delivering the message.
The Dark Lord glared at the prone figure as though he could will different words out of the corpse. To have come so close, to have had his son in his grasp, and now this...
Quester was a fool. He should have had more guards with them. With the Force and his innate cleverness, it must have been child's play for Luke to take control of the shuttle and flee to Rebel space, taking with him two soldiers and a perfectly competent physician and security aide.
Now, too, his plan to squash the Alliance in one blow was shattered. He had hoped to use the knowledge of the location of the Rebel stronghold to further Luke's Fall, but he knew it was useless to call the rest of the fleet to Saarn. Warning them was undoubtedly the first thing Luke would do upon his return, and the damned Rebels might already be on the move. Still, Quester had obtained other useful information from Luke. Perhaps identifying the traitorous Bothans would placate Palpatine.
An empty hope. Nothing would placate Palpatine. The Emperor would be furious when he discovered the magnitude of the loss, and discover it he would, for Vader could hide nothing if the Master probed him. There was no reason to delay delivering the bad news, but... he would review Quester's interrogation tapes to see if the doctor had missed recounting anything of importance that Luke may have revealed.
No. To delay was to be weak, though he hoped the Emperor would not sense the treacherous sentiment that was buried in the depths of his heart: The son was free... as the father had never been.
And now the father was condemned to continue his life of servitude.
Vader drew himself up straighter, consciously uncurling his fists. Closing his eyes and focusing on the Force, he opened himself to it, joining the easy flow that brought him both satisfaction and rage, relaxing his mind to replenish his strength and fortify himself for the coming confrontation as his Destroyer burst out of hyperspace, TIE fighters roaring before it-
...Father...
His eyes flew open.
Perhaps his dreams were not dead after all.
...Then, in the blinding flash of an instant—
...I'm sorr—