Luke's dreams were plagued with nightmares.
He'd seen how traitors were personally dispatched by Palpatine before, and suddenly he couldn't stop seeing Leia kneeling in that same spot, head bowed, eyes hollow and broken. His father's cooling corpse lay in the background as he turned the lightsaber over in his hand and lit it, watching it plunge into his sister's chest, the loyal Imperial to the last—
Leia woke to a violent distress echoing in her mind.
She kicked the covers off instantly and bolted for the door. She knew it wasn't an attack, an assassination; she'd experienced that before, and she knew what it felt like when her brother was in shock and mortal terror. This was different, more familiar: Luke had had a nightmare.
She stretched out with her feelings briefly to assess where he was, what exactly was going on. Her father was still asleep in his bacta tank, his mind calm in a way it never was while awake. In stark contrast to that calmness was Luke's anguish; he was shielding it from their father, and trying to shield it from her, but that flimsy barrier crumbled easily.
He was nearby—on the front landing pad.
She grimaced, pulled on some slippers and padded out. Lightning flashed beyond the windows, the rainstorm having built into its regular scheduled frenzy, and that was the light by which she spotted her brother.
He was sitting cross legged next to the speeder with his head bowed low. The rain drenched him, darkening his silk pyjamas and pasting his hair to the back of his neck, but he paid it no heed. He just sat, staring out over Coruscant.
She pulled one of the doors open and just stood there for a moment, wrinkling her nose as a few droplets flew in to splash her. She didn't say anything—she knew he knew she was there—and hoped he would say something first.
He didn't.
She sighed, and commented, "You know you're just begging for an assassin to take a pot-shot at you, right?"
"They could try." There was a little arrogance in his voice, as always, but it was an earned arrogance. Anyone who'd ever tried to assassinate them had died, either by their father's hand or theirs.
In fact, what worried her was that it wasn't more arrogant than it was. His voice was otherwise dull, flat.
"Yeah, and you're not playing fair by luring them in like this. Besides, those are nice pyjamas. Are you just gonna stand there and let the rain ruin them?"
He rolled his eyes at that, a faint smile tugging at his lips, and conceded. Once he'd stepped back inside, the door shut tightly behind him, she raised an eyebrow. "So, are you gonna tell me what that was about, or. . .?"
He was still silent, so she asked mentally, What's wrong?
Nightmare, came the curt response.
She scoffed at that—tell me something I don't know.
No reply.
Frowning, she pushed further. Was it the desert again? That would explain why he'd made a point to sit in the rain. . .
But that didn't ring right. They'd both dreamt about that barren, endless desert for so long, she knew all too well the feelings it evoked: the helplessness, the confusion, the sense of being lost. Like, for a moment, she didn't know who she was.
She knew exactly who she was. She was Leia, daughter of Darth Vader, sister to Luke, and heir to this entire galaxy.
So she wasn't surprised to hear the curt reply, No.
Then what was it?
No response.
Luke. What—
It was about you and Father, alright?
It was the tension in his voice that gave her pause, the fraying anger she knew so well but had never had directed at her before. He reserved that for the people who deserved it—Rebels, traitors, particularly annoying Moffs.
This must have shaken him more than she'd thought.
Though the fact she'd found him standing in a rainstorm was proof of that.
She was about to ask him to show her the nightmare when he said, "What do you think of Father's. . . revelation?"
"Revelation?" she asked.
He smirked—enough for her to hope that the storm had passed. "Shut up. You know what I mean."
Her smile fell. "I do. I. . . don't know how to feel about it. Angry," she added, "of course. Palpatine created everything Father is today—why would he ever doubt his loyalty enough to betray him in a way that would guarantee his disloyalty?"
"That's a riddle if I've ever heard one."
"And yet you know what I mean, so answer the question, idiot." And, before he could argue that she hadn't directly asked him any question, she said— "The question being, what do you think of it?"
He laughed, but sobered quickly. "I don't know either," he admitted. "If Father trusts that what Aphra found was accurate, then I trust him"—Yes, Leia thought, of course you do—"but I want to know why it was there. I can't believe it was what we're all convinced it was. Palpatine has never hurt us before now, nor Father. Why should we—" He swallowed.
Why should we not trust him?
"You're right," Leia realised. "He hasn't hurt us for failing him." Not that they'd ever failed him, not severely, but that was beside the point.
But Luke looked struck by it suddenly. "He hurts the Inquisitors," he pointed out.
"Yes, but we're above them. We're better than them. They're nothing."
"I know," Luke argued, "but—"
"But?"
He looked up to meet her eye, and she regretted her tone.
Argumentative tactics were to be used against Imperial senators, against the nobility, against Palpatine in their lessons. They were not to be used against her brother.
But she'd used them against her father that evening. . .
She looked away, suddenly unable to meet his gaze.
"It's nearly dawn," Luke said, breaking the awkward silence. He attempted a smile; she attempted one in return. "We should get some sleep before the interrogation in a few hours. We'll probably need it."
"Yeah." She nodded. "I agree. And Luke—" She paused. She hated this hesitancy between them, when she knew him as well as she knew herself. Vader's revelation had knocked the breath from both of them and sent them spiralling into uncertainty. "Just. . . be careful tomorrow. I have the feeling the Emperor knows that something's wrong."
"He mentioned it to you?"
"In a way." She grimaced; he laughed. It was a nervous laugh, more a gasp of relief than something with humour in it, but it alleviated tension nonetheless. "Oh, shut up."
"It's just—" He shook his head. "I don't know what to do. I'm so confused."
She hugged him.
He was wet, and now she was wet as well, but she squeezed him all the tighter when he hugged her back. His downcast, lost expression. . . his tone of voice. . . he'd needed a hug.
And maybe she'd needed one too.
"I'll see you in the morning," he murmured. "You sure you'll be alright?"
She hated how well he could read her, but she loved it as well.
"I hope so," she whispered back. "Force, I hope so."
He rubbed her back gently, and she buried her face in his chest. For a moment, they both felt almost safe.
But, truth be told, they both had a bad feeling about this.
Dawn saw a stiff, awkward speeder trip to the Imperial Palace, Luke and Leia pointedly not looking at each other.
They arrived at the Palace still in that same silence. Luke tried to break it by offering Leia a smile as they exited the speeder, and she smiled back. But he could still feel the tension as they walked to the throne room behind their father, further apart than usual.
Luke spent the whole walk building up his mental shields, wall by wall, piece by piece. He looked exhausted, he knew, but held himself rigidly anyway. He hadn't slept much the previous night, and now he felt like death.
But he couldn't let himself broadcast his thoughts. He couldn't let himself betray his family.
The heavy doors opened at their approach; they wasted no time with approaching the throne. Dawn tinted everything gold through the large windows, setting off the diamonds in the ceiling like sparks raining down. Palpatine was a shadow against it; fitting, considering the feel of his creeping presence through the Force. It felt calm for now—mildly curious, which set Luke on edge, but it didn't seem too relevant to them. Just. . . calm.
The calm before the storm?
He shook himself minutely. He was getting paranoid.
"Lord Vader, children," Palpatine greeted as they stood their places off to the side, Vader standing directly on his right. The Inquisitors who were meant to be present already were—the Sixth Sister's head was turned towards Luke, mask revealing nothing. "You're here. Good. We can begin."
There was a light tap against Luke's mental shields. He instinctively strengthened them, then realised it was Leia and relaxed.
You don't have to look so on edge.
I'm trying. Not all of us are stellar actors. Because he could feel the conflict and tension roiling inside of her as well—it just didn't make it onto her face.
No. Some of us are terrible actors, and are going to get the rest of us killed.
He flinched, then felt her regret a moment later. Surreptitiously, she slipped a hand into his and squeezed.
She let go immediately after, but the gesture helped.
Palpatine waved his hand to the red guards in the room. "Bring them."
They bowed, and four left momentarily. They were soon back, escorting two humans. One—a young woman with a plait that was half falling apart—walked unaided, albeit slowly. Her pain resonated in the Force.
The other was dragged. He didn't seem conscious.
They were both dumped onto their knees at the bottom of the stairs, in line with where the Inquisitors stood. Palpatine stared down at them with narrowed eyes—Luke could tell he was going to enjoy this.
The woman lifted her chin to sneer at him. Even the barely-awake man stirred his head slightly to glare. They had the same pinched features, the same pale hair, even the same shredded uniform of a project overseer on Kuat. He assumed they were siblings—twins, even, from the similarity in ages.
Like him and Leia.
"Velt, your name is, isn't it?" Palpatine asked with faux politeness. "Omul and Teela Velt. Your father was an overseer on Kuat as well; you took over his job between you five years ago, after he died under mysterious circumstances."
The faked regret in his voice as he said mysterious circumstances made it perfectly clear what had happened. The man must have had Rebel sympathies as well.
The Rebels stayed silent.
"Still keeping up with your resolve not to speak?" Palpatine mused. "I suppose you think you're strong, holding out this long, but everyone breaks eventually."
Luke ground his teeth together—he knew Palpatine was trying to scare them, and wasn't above using lies to do that, but these fallacies annoyed him. Strength had nothing to do with how long someone held out.
Especially when the information gleaned was false, anyway.
"The interrogators haven't got anything out of you so far, but we will get it. If you are hiding Amidala's whereabouts, I can assure you—"
Luke stopped listening to his grandstanding long enough to study the twins: the way the man, even barely aware of his surroundings, subconsciously shifted to shield his sister from the Emperor; the way the woman laid a gentle hand on his head to keep him down and resting.
"Luke?"
He broke himself out of his reverie. "Yes, Master?"
"Begin."
He swallowed. He knew what Palpatine wanted him to do.
Actual, physical torture was not his forte. He disliked inflicting pain. It disappointed his father, he knew, which only made Luke angrier at himself—the one thing he never wanted to do was disappoint him—and yet he just couldn't. He couldn't do it. It destroyed him to do it.
But, fortunately for him, he was very good at sensing people's emotions.
Even if they shielded information from him, they couldn't shield how they reacted to what he said.
And if that skill was required to protect the Empire. . .
So be it.
He took several careful steps down the stairs, his black boots clicking against the floor loudly. It echoed in the room much the same way the rasp of his father's respirator did.
He watched Teela Velt's expression stiffen as he approached, her eyes widening infinitesimally, but it wasn't enough.
"I will ask you once," he said coldly, stopping in front of her. "Do you know where Amidala is?"
It was a hunch, wording it like that instead of an outright demand for the information. These two had clearly been highly placed spies, so it was possible they knew where the coded messages had come from.
But he didn't think this attack had been Amidala's idea.
There was no answer from the woman.
He reached for the Force. The dark side was a pervasive thing, coiled and hissing in the back on his mind. Most days it whispered; now he fed it to a roar, and felt his chest grow cold.
Now he could feel the emotions, like brightly-coloured heat signatures on an infrared readout. The violet of Leia's concern, the dark, dark blue of his father's pride and the Emperor's satisfaction. But he was focused on the sharp yellow terror inside Velt, like the edges of a flame.
He decided to push for the flame's core.
"You are Rebels," he started slowly, rolling the words on his tongue.
Velt didn't react. Her horrified gaze was fixed on his. "Demon," she hissed.
"You're Rebels. Your father was a traitor to the Emperor"—he fought to keep his face impassive, detached, from the idea of being in that situation—"so when he was assassinated five years ago, you thought the logical thing to do was become traitors yourselves."
His voice wasn't mocking, but the words were. That terror reddened into something akin to anger—anger born of defensiveness—before blooming into the crimson stain of hatred.
"Your brother"—a brief flash of lilac worry for him; good, that was exactly what he needed—"has received no more than he deserves, in my opinion." That was a slight extrapolation, but a necessary one. "As have you. Your terrorist actions and leadership caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths on Kuat alone, even without accounting for the chaos and terror spread by guerrilla attacks throughout the rest of the galaxy."
He waited to let the guilt fester for a moment, only to find none. Interesting. So that had been expected, not a loss of control on the Rebels' part, as they'd assumed. Most of the Rebel Alliance tried to be more noble than that.
Most of them.
"Has Amidala abandoned their high-handed ideals?"
He waited for the same lilac worry for her leader, like the one she'd felt for her brother, but there was none. Her mind was colourless—indifferent.
She stayed silent.
"I'll take that as a no," he said into the cloying quiet. He could feel the room's attention on him—Vader and Palpatine knew he'd found something. "To my original question." Confusion clouded her mind. He explained, "You don't know where Amidala is. You weren't even working for them."
Sudden, explosive panic, flashing every colour in the spectrum like the pulsating of a sun's corona—
"You were working for Saw Gerrera." He smiled tightly. "And Saw Gerrera's a nuisance, but more useful to us alive and active than dead." It made it so much easier to mobilise Imperial citizens against the terrorism threat when they had men like Gerrera making themselves their enemies already.
He turned his back on her, but couldn't resist throwing one last jab over his shoulder— "So, with this uprising failed, you've been fighting for the last five years for nothing."
"Not for nothing," she spat. Her rage was incandescent by this point. He turned back to face her. "I fight because I refuse to kneel before a tyrant and his executioner!" She glared at Palpatine and his father, then her eyes shifted to him and Leia. "Nor their future replacements."
He swallowed, trying to ignore the rapid beating of his heart as he looked her up and down, hunkered over on her knees, and said coolly, "Look where you are now."
But—
It had been easy to forget last night's turmoil while he was interrogating her. He'd slipped into the role without a thought, taking those chaotic emotions and using them for the dark side, to serve his master.
Now, it all rushed back at one word:
Tyrant.
His father had used it to describe Palpatine.
Tyrant.
A man who placed a transmitter in the body of his most trusted servant could certainly be called that.
And—
Future replacements.
He was aware the shock was showing on his face, a caricature of just how much the words shook him. He was thankful only Leia was at the right angle to see it—there was a tap on his mind, are you alright—
Was— was this Rebel calling Leia a tyrant?
Leia would be a fantastic Empress. That was fact. She'd trained in it, she was born for it, she was brilliant. It was almost her birthright. That this lowly, insignificant Rebel, would dare insult his sister—
And—
Executioner.
Was that what she thought his father was? A common executioner, someone who flaunted their power, murdered anyone who disagreed and justified it with law? Useful only to their master as long as they obeyed? That was the sort of person Luke would despise.
But then he thought about it.
He thought of the endless campaigns his father had been on—the death toll. Collateral, he'd called it, or Rebels getting what they deserved.
He thought of the transmitter, built in to shut him down the moment he stepped out of line.
He thought of the Super Star Destroyer whose construction these very spies had overseen: the Executor.
And finally he thought of himself, as his father's future replacement.
It was an honour, he told himself. If he was good enough—
—if he was violent enough—
He didn't know.
Leia was still tapping on his mind.
He didn't know anything.
There was a storm in his chest.
"You don't know where Amidala is," Palpatine mused behind him. "Unfortunate. You did well, Luke, to understand this before we wasted our time." Luke hadn't looked away from Velt, face still shocked—her confusion grew with every moment. "Dispatch of her."
His lit his lightsaber.
The confusion turned to terror.
But he couldn't run her through.
It was ridiculous, but she'd instinctively shifted so her brother, now drifted back to unconsciousness, lay on the floor behind her. The positioning harkened back to his nightmare.
A twin sister staring up at him as he ran her through, the prone body—dead or alive?—of a relative behind her.
Teela Velt looked nothing like Leia. She was nothing like Leia.
Leia was worth so much more than her, she was his sister, and Teela was a Rebel spy who'd brought this on herself, deserved it—
But even as the lightsaber hummed in his hand, he couldn't bring himself to move it.
He couldn't run her through.
"What are you doing, boy?" Palpatine asked. Curiosity, worry, a slight snap of anger. "Kill her!"
Kill her, a voice in his head said. It might have been Leia or his father; he didn't know.
His thumb hovered over the activation button. He was about to switch it off—
And there was a sickening snap.
It jerked him out of his daze, taking a half-step back. Velt had collapsed to the floor, neck at an odd angle. She was dead.
He turned to look at Leia, who nodded at him.
Then he looked up at the throne.
His eyes found his father first—even with the dark side rapidly bleeding away from him again, he could feel his disappointment. His gaze shifted to Palpatine, and he flinched.
The Emperor was staring at him with enough malice to make his skin crawl.
He lifted his hand.
A scream ripped out of Luke's throat. His knees hit the floor hard, his nerves alight. The Force Lightning subsided after a moment; through the ringing in his ears, he could just make out Palpatine's voice, coming closer.
"I gave you an order, boy. I expected it to be followed through." Luke, pushing himself up on shaking muscles, saw him lift his hands again. "You have never had a problem with this before."
Leia stepped forward. "Master, he—"
She was thrown to her knees as well by the lightning, though it let up quickly. "And you. I will deal with you later—you do not interfere with my justice."
Luke saw Leia bow her head, saw her mouth the words this is not justice, but he was glad she didn't say them aloud.
Palpatine turned his attention back on him. Luke met his gaze stoically.
He refused to scream as the onslaught began again, but he heaved, hands scrabbling for purchase on the floor. He could feel the Inquisitors staring at him in a surprise and glee, and a violent resentment rose in his gut. It was them who were meant to be tortured this way, not him, he was Luke—
He had no name.
Neither did they.
He'd never taken such offence to it before, but now it felt like a punch to the gut. He was above them, except he wasn't, and he hated them because of it.
And he hated his father, too, for never giving him a name—but also for never telling him otherwise.
And when he forced himself to look up at Palpatine, tears streaming down his face, he hated him more than anything.