Chapter Text
CHAPTER THREE
FORCE
An interaction that, when unopposed, will change the motion of an object.
The Death Star exploded brilliantly, silently, and the last thing Obi-Wan heard before his X-wing threw itself into hyperspace was Han Solo shouting at him through the comms.
"Kenobi! Did Darth fucking Vader just blow up the Death Star?"
Did he?
Obi-Wan stared blankly out into the billowing blue mindmeld of hyperspace, but it was the explosion of the Death Star that was seared into Obi-Wan's eyes.
He did, didn't he.
Darth Vader had blown up his Empire's own death-dealing terror as little more than an afterthought. Vader had tried to tear him to pieces through the Force, clawing at him with the ferocity of a starving, rabid dog. He could feel the Force pulsing around him, weeping like a wound open to the bone, the remnants of his and Anakin's bond like the stump of a severed limb.
LIAR! LIAR, LIAR! His ears were ringing with Vader's screams. MY CHILD, HE LIVES!
It wasn't the unsettling brass of Vader's vocoder that rang in his ears, though. It was Anakin's voice. Older, rougher, angrier––but it was Anakin's voice. Not Vader. Not Vader.
Was it Vader who blew up the Death Star, then? Was it Anakin? Is that why he felt like he should be reporting back to Master Windu about the newest Star Destroyer that Anakin had wrecked?
Years he'd spent convincing himself that Anakin was dead and Vader had risen from the ashes. But now, both were too close for comfort: Vader, with Anakin's voice and Anakin's rage and Anakin's son…
Luke.
Obi-Wan blinked, looking down at his unsteady hands through glassy eyes. Obi-Wan had slipped once, too furious for his own good, with one misstep in their disastrous duel, and Vader had torn out of him everything he'd wanted to know. Or––hadn't known.
YOU TOOK––?
Vader hadn't known. Somehow, somehow, by the luck of the Force, Vader hadn't known that man he had inexplicably saved on Tatooine was his own son. He'd taken Luke anyway, but hadn't killed Luke––not yet––and now––Obi-Wan had tried to take it back, tried to lie, but Vader––
A droplet fell on his fist. Obi-Wan slowly stretched out his hands. He was numb to the bone, and no good at piloting, just like he'd been nineteen years ago and clutching a newborn. Just like then, Obi-Wan breathed in, out, and remembered that this was for Anakin's children. Anakin's son was in Vader's hands now. But his daughter was safe.
If only Leia's protection hadn't come at the price of her brother's.
"We meet again, old friend."
In Lars's memory, the boy could barely hear the man over the cacophony of Jabba's court. Drunken shrieking, rattling of dancers' chains, and wailing music; it all echoed through the air in a blur of the thousand memories Lars had of this place, misting into one dim haze.
But Vader––Vader would never forget Obi-Wan Kenobi's voice.
Was he even on Tatooine? Vader wondered. It was dark, cool; Obi-Wan's voice was genial. He breathed on his own, a silver puff in front of him; his flesh-and-blood hands clammy and rough as he clutched his own shoulders. Stealing between the memories of another man, in the cracks between Lars-then and Lars-now and both presences casting long shadows across their own memories, he could almost slip away. Maybe he was somewhere in his own memories, tucked under his quilt in his room at the Temple, Obi-Wan in the front room of their chambers with another master––
A laugh rumbled from somewhere deep in the dark, dank throne room. He couldn't see him, but it didn't matter: sound died, struck dead in a split second. The wet air froze over.
"Jee canta tytung bu Jeedai gee kahka doptkee. Hocan wata uba doth, Kotka Kenobi!"
I thought all the Jedi had died out. Yet here you are, Master Kenobi.
Sweat trickled down his spine. Fear that wasn't his own hammered rapidly at his heart. His breath sped up. His lungs yanked at his chest, whistling with some lingering sickness.
The master. ––He thought, Lars thought, the boy thought, all at once or none at all. He clenched his jaw to stop it from chattering until it whined. He inched as close as he dared to the grate in the wall, bare inches above the floor, and peaked into the throne room through a forest of legs. He clasped the decorative screen of the grate, iron cool and rough under his sweaty palms, knuckles white.
Lars, Vader remembered as something tugged at him, an unfamiliar pulse drumming in the back of his mind. It was Lars's start of shock at seeing his own hands. Child's hands, too, crusted with dirt. Not more than ten.
A beat. Lars's young heart pounded a tattoo against his ribs.
"We are a dying species, I admit," responded Obi-Wan, his voice too steady, deadened with some sort of wretched humor. "But I was one of the lucky ones."
Vader snarled somewhere deep inside himself, struggling to maintain the patience to see through the memory. He couldn't yank too hard, or he'd rip Lars's mind to pieces. Besides––what was Obi-Wan Kenobi, his butcher, compared to the unholy relief of a few moments fully flesh?
Jabba laughed again. Vader's rage couldn't manifest when only a sliver of himself lived in the boy's mind, trapped in the boy's body: terror was scratching at the inside of his throat, clawing at his eyes. The boy wanted to cry; Vader realized belatedly.
"An haku see mah kougine pateessa, coo maban mah Rotta nei? Ahsoka Tano an bu Jeedai Poiouey Skywalker?"
And what of my old friends, who returned my Rotta to me? Ahsoka Tano and the Jedi Knight Skywalker?
Vader felt nothing. The boy felt nothing. Every thought and feeling had fled. His grasp loosened on the grate.
And, then, suddenly, he could feel the sharp press of cool metal against a barely-healed cut on his nose as he forced his face as close as it could go to the grate. His blood and breath pounded in his ears.
"I am afraid that both were lost," said Obi-Wan. Finally, he laid eyes on him, and hated him all the more for it. Obi-Wan looked as he had looked in all of Vader's memories; there was a streak of gray through his auburn hair and his robes were ragged, but he was––straight-backed, proud, and free. "But not all hope is."
"Kaa, Kotka Kenobi?"
"I'm sure you remember the despair you felt when young Rotta was taken from you, Master Jabba," replied Obi-Wan, with a dip of the head. The court was quiet as Jabba rumbled in agreement. "And that you would not wish that on any father."
"I humbly entreat you, in the name of the late Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, who saved your son, to help me in my quest to find his lost son."
Lost. Lost son––LOST––
"An haku che copah hatkocanh uba wamma che mah cuee kouoioy yauma du boonowa rin Skywalker, Kotka Kenobi?"
And what price will you pay for my most generous help in finding young Skywalker, Master Kenobi?
"I have many skills you would find beneficial, Master Jabba."
Vader's rage was drowned out by a strike of gut-churning fear––but not his own.
"Copah," whispered the boy to himself. Price.
His breath hurt him, now, and his chest ached when his back slammed against the stone, cold bleeding in through his sweat-soaked shirt. The raucous noise of Jabba's court was fading into fog of Lars's mind. Misty memories were burning away with the dawn of a new one, where Vader could see the glitter of sand grains and taste blood and the glint of steel in the light of the twin suns––
––"You gotta forge on here?"
Anakin Skywalker's son. Lost. So lost Kenobi went begging like a starving dog to the table of Jabba the Hutt. But not dead. Not dead.
Vader tasted the thrill of adrenaline like blood in his mouth. Skywalker. His son. Out there, lost but waiting––if Kenobi couldn't find him, Skywalker was safe for now, and a hunt for him would alert the galaxy at large…
A strong twist of a spanner brought Vader back.
Vader blinked at the glowlamps hanging above him, the red of his mask once again tinting his vision. How long had passed? Lars was somewhere to his right, but that meant nothing. The mechanic had never been bothered by schedules before.
"You never saw Kenobi again." It wasn't a question. Vader was sure of it––too sure of it. He would have to make sure the hasty bond he had created between them was fully separated.
"No," said Lars, not looking up from the wiring at his arm's port.
Vader hefted himself up to sit––smooth and painless, he noted approvingly. His control box, slimmed down from Lars's previous repairs, was completely insulated inside and the wires sealed thrice over. More than thorough.
"I need a forge," said Lars, "and some good metal."
Vader cast a critical eye at Lars, who had more of the same gray insulation in hand. He was delicately twining it around some wires.
"What for?" Vader asked distrustfully, examining more of Lars's work. Both Lars and he had done well. He, in his technique, if Lars had remained unaffected by the search of his memory. "The materials on the Devastator are more than adequate."
He'd been out for longer than he'd thought, Vader realized with distress he refused to acknowledge. Lars had had the time––and Vader had been out of it enough––that the casing of his entire prosthetic port had been stripped and insulated. Even inside, against his skin, which was wrapped again with cotton.
There was a creep up his spine. This was––well done. Done too well. It may completely stop the charge of his master's lightning from reaching his flesh. Was this state he found himself in not his punishment?
No. Not anymore. Vader snarled beneath his mask. His son was waiting for him, heir to his Empire, and Kenobi and Palpatine's corpses would rest at his feet for their lies. He needed to be stronger than ever.
Lars lifted up Vader's disconnected arm. It was strange to see the strange black mismatched metal that Lars had fitted him with on Tatooine as opposed to the gray durasteel he was used to for so long.
"I need to redo these. Melt them down and mix 'em with something less conductible," Lars said,
"Any more lightning and you'd probably be dead."
The Emperor was too precise for that. But––wearing him down with infinitesimally stronger shocks…that was certainly Palpatine's playbook.
"Very well," said Vader, almost absentminded. Bounty hunters first, supposedly for Kenobi. He needed to deal with Tagge, then. "Attach the arm quickly, then. It will do for now." He added, impatiently: "Don't bother with disconnecting the nerves."
Lars grumbled but complied and Vader didn't even bother to grit his teeth. With a snap and a spark of electricity, his nerves reconnected with a flash of pain that made his spine seize as Lars drove the prosthetic back into his port.
Vader rotated his left arm and stood as Lars sat back, wiping off his gloves with a rag. With a flick of the Force, one of the locked drawers hissed opened. An ingot placed itself in Vader's hand.
He offered it to Lars. "This will do best for your alloy."
Lars took the ingot from his hand, tracing over the Imperial stamp, gaze dragging to the cache in the open drawer.
"What did you do to get this amount of beskar?" asked Lars. "Skin every Mando in the galaxy?"
Vader ignored him.
"There is a forge above the brig. The beskar will be for your use at zero-three hundred hours in two day cycles. Do not be seen," Vader commanded.
Lars dropped the ingot, which hit the slab with a clang and turned to leave before Vader had even dismissed him. Not that it would've mattered.
"Obviously."
One problem solved but bigger ones were at hand. Tagge would soon be calling.
A day later, the remnants of the Death Star still burned brighter than the setting sun in the indigo sky of Yavin IV, and the party had yet to die.
"Wanna drink?" offered Solo. Stars knew how he'd found Obi-Wan. He'd sequestered himself away from the frenzy, cross-legged on an ancient, moss grown pillar and trying unsuccessfully to meditate in the scant few hours before the remnants of the Rebellion left the planet with the Empire quick on their heels.
Needless to say, Solo had sniffed him out faster than a Utapaun bloodhound.
Obi-Wan cracked open an eye when Solo plopped himself down on the pillar, unmarked bottle in hand, and Chewbacca next to him with an agreeable greeting.
"I can't believe there is still any alcohol left on this planet, let alone base."
"But this is the good stuff, old man!" Solo waggled the bottle in front of him, before uncorking it with his teeth. "They call it Rebel moonshine."
Obi-Wan's nose wrinkled. "It smells like ship fuel."
"Probably is," agreed Solo, taking a sip before handing it off to Chewie. "One of the pilots told me they make in their boots."
"Top shelf stuff, then," Obi-Wan said sarcastically, very sadly aware of the drinking habits of soldiers. He was all-too tempted to join them, but he'd had enough alcohol for several lifetimes. When Obi-Wan landed in the hangar of Yavin IV, he barely remembered how he'd gotten there, but he'd never forget how he was greeted by cheers and the best drinks the Rebellion had.
"So," said Solo, breaking the awkward silence before it grew on them like the moss. "Vader, huh?"
Obi-Wan surprised himself by laughing. He couldn't help it.
"Vader," he agreed.
Solo canted a displeased eyebrow at him. "Seriously? Vader tries to ram you down in the Death Star and then blows it up and that's all you can say?"
Obi-Wan folded his hands in sleeves. "I ran out of things to say about Vader a long time ago."
"I don't believe that," scoffed Solo, before picking up the medallion on his chest and waving it front of his face. "You remember Princess High'n'Mighty puttin' this on our necks instead of Darth Vader, you know, the crazy bastard who actually blew up his own goddamn Death Star? You don't even have anything to say to High Command?"
"I don't expect they'd believe me," Obi-Wan said lightly.
"No one would, which is why I'm pretty sure Vader's going to show up any second and snap our necks for having seen him do it."
For him? Certainly. But Obi-Wan was equally sure that Vader's attention would be easily split between him and his son. Vader––even as Anakin––had never been anything less than obsessive. With Luke in the hairlines of his father's sight, on his ship, and under the weight of his Empire, he doubted––knew––that there was no escape.
Especially when Luke had willingly taken Vader's hand.
"If you're a part of the Rebellion, he's coming after you anyway," deflected Obi-Wan, if only because Solo was probably right, which Obi-Wan very much despised the thought of.
Solo sneered just as Chewbacca roared at him something very degrading about what the Jedi Order had come to.
Obi-Wan scowled at that, before admitting; "Perhaps you're right."
Vader may not have known, Obi-Wan concluded, but he would know soon enough, and after that…
Leia was their last hope.
Tarkin, whatever his flaws, had vision. Grand General Tagge had graphs.
Vader stood next to the viewport of the conference room on the Eliminator, eyes on the movements of the Devastator and its fleet as the Black Squadron carried out drills. He was well aware of the eyes of the newly-promoted entourage of generals, moffs, and joint chiefs on him.
"I look at the state of the Empire and I ask myself, 'How many Star Destroyers could we have made with the resources we threw into Tarkin's Folly?'" said Tagge, from the head of the table. Vader could feel the man's gaze on him but made no move to return the favor. "The Imperial Navy is a sea. It is endless and it cannot be beaten and given enough time turns even the strongest rocks sand."
"Regardless of the Death Star's flaws," Vader interjected coldly. "There must vengeance against the Rebellion. The Emperor will want the pilot made an example of."
"Ah, yes," said Tagge, his smug air polluting the Force. "Lord Vader. What a lucky thing you survived, out there dogfighting with the Rebels. And to think the Empire nearly lost you––for a second time in nearly as many weeks."
Vader turned back around to face him, temper flaring. "There is no such thing as luck. And the pilot who shot down the Death Star knows this."
Tagge looked at him in disbelief. "And you know who the pilot was after minutes of failed dogfighting?"
Vader sneered at him behind the mask. "The Force reveals all it. It was Obi-Wan Kenobi."
Uncertainty danced across Tagge's for a second. Around him, many of the new generals' confusion was filtering into the Force.
"Do you truly think any other pilot could have made that shot, General?" Vader asked. "You remember the Clone Wars, do you not? Of what a single Jedi could do on a battlefield?"
"Our larger plans cannot be based around any individual asset," Tagge snapped, but doubt was creeping out. "Not even a Death Star. Not you, Vader."
"You can ask the Emperor yourself, if you wish," Vader said dismissively. "But I assure you––it was Obi-Wan Kenobi."
"Not even our spies in the Rebellion have learned who Rebel High Command confirmed as the pilot," interjected the new Director of the ISB. The rest of the Joint Chiefs were deadly silent.
"And you don't think that the pilot who destroyed the Death Star won't become a rallying point for rebels across the galaxy?" Vader dared Tagge.
Tagge narrowed his eyes. "I see you want to lead a hunt, Vader. You have forever been little better than your sword. Your armada could not even act to intercept escaping Rebel ships from Yavin."
It was only the Emperor that stopped Vader from snapping his neck, and Tagge knew it––and enjoyed it.
"And you would have rather two armadas be destroyed by the Death Star?"
The Death Star's escort––Tarkin's armada––had been blasted to bits by the Death Star's explosion. His own armada had been able to escape damage with its shields raised; Vader had learned that from the show at Alderaan.
"A mistake," Tagge insisted. "Had your men not been so fearful for your life––or you taking theirs––they should have been able to take the initiative. The amount of men and resources the Empire has compared to the Rebellion is exponential."
"And that is what the Rebellion is aiming for," Vader corrected. "A million men dead is a blow, even to the Empire, General."
A blow he had dealt and one well worth it, but Tagge didn't need to know that.
"Resources is correct, Vader. The fleet's eyes will be on the hyperspace lanes, especially the Outer Rim," Tagge said crisply, with a touch of condescension. "Pirates, smugglers, syndicates––they may have been unchecked in the past, but that is precisely what is supplying the Rebellion. We will starve them out, force them into the Mid-Rim and Core, where our power is the strongest, not away from it."
The Outer Rim––Tarkin's old territory. Tagge's thirst to outdo Tarkin's memory was tangible, but all Vader scented was a weakness. It was enough to quell his bloodlust.
"And what of the fleet?" Vader asked idly. "Since Scarif was destroyed all of the Empire's plans and Advanced Weapons Research were, as well. Rebellion agents went down, too; Rebel Command surely knows. The drydocked Super Destroyers and Kuat Yards are easy targets."
"They always are," said Tagge, brusque, irritation finally breaking through in his voice. Vader made sure to helpfully yank at in the Force. "The fleet stationed there will satisfy. I have command, Vader. You may start your hunt, but let's be clear. You are the lightsaber. I am the one who wields you. You come at my command."
A dressing down in public to humiliate him. How…Kenobi. He let his breathing fill the air, watching as other men began to sweat.
"Of course, General," rumbled Vader. "I serve for the good of the Empire."
Telling time on the Star Destroyer was a pain in his ass.
There was no telling with the suns and stars, of course, and the spaceport in Vader's hangar had been blurred into hyperspace most of the time, anyway. The day and nightcycle lights were no use, mostly because the first thing Lars had done was override them. He'd scrounged up a chrono from a drawer somewhere, but it didn't mean much to him, since he didn't leave the hangar unless Vader wanted something.
Now, though, this pain in the ass was named Maberust, Second Engineer.
Lars pulled himself out of the cockpit and away from the wiring of Mark o7's sensor array at the call of Maberust, standing at the foot of the fighter.
"What now," Lars said, standing on the ladder, wiping his hands off with a rag. He was almost getting used to being interrupted.
"Sir, the reports that were left to you need to be approved," said Maberust.
"What reports?" Lars barked, already not liking the answer. This had Vader written all over it.
"The reports from the armada, sir," Maberust said, with a frown. "With repairs, upgrades, and proposals from each ship. The datachips were left at the terminal in your office, sir."
Vader was way more trouble than he was worth. Lars vaulted down from the ladder to land next to Maberust.
"Sir…" Maberust began, giving him that strange look again.
"Spit it out," snapped Lars, impatiently.
"Sir," Maberust repeated, looking pale. "Have you––have you left this hangar? To–– for your quarters or office or the mess, I mean."
His own shop was so much easier. Lars clenched his jaw. "Just show me wherever the fuck I'm supposed to go."
"Yes, sir."
Lars followed Maberust out of the hangar. A turbo ride ten floors up, hidden behind blast doors, and right above Vader's hangar was the circular office of the Chief Engineer.
It had three-hundred-and-sixty degrees worth of transparisteel windows that loomed down on the engineering bays below it, mechanics scurrying around from ship to ship. A couple uniforms sat at a bank of computers, monitoring the feeds from the dozens of hangars not visible. The feed didn't include Vader's hangar, though.
Lars looked around, unimpressed. It didn't look like any decent engineer had ever worked here, either. Other than the banks of terminals and the ensigns attached to them, there was a holoprojector in the middle and a small, empty drafting table absentmindedly put on one side.
"Where are the reports?" he asked Maberust. His voice made the ensigns start to jump up and start to salute him, and he waved them off irritatedly as Maberust hurried to the holoprojector to insert the datachip.
"The first report is for the Devastator, sir," Maberust said as a blue projection of the ship bubbled into view. "She was far enough away from the Star that she didn't suffer any major damage, and all shields and armaments are at full capacity…"
Lars ignored the rest of Maberust's droning as he flipped through the report himself. Maberust was right; the Star Destroyer was functioning fine, and the support ships housed in the Devastator needed nothing but regular maintenance except for the hundred or so Vader had wrecked.
But out of the hundred TIEs on the ship that had been sent out to engage the Rebels, only sixty of them had made it back. At the very end of the part marked Devastator was a list resource expenditure. Lars stared at the numbers and did some quick figures in his head.
"What's with all the coolant?" Lars interrupted Maberust's monologue. "Those numbers are too high for TIEs. Go through 'em for leaks. Make sure there's no electrical damage."
Maberust stumbled to a stop, fumbling for a datapad. "Yes, sir––but––"
"Salvage whatever you can from Hangar 103 and scrap the rest," Lars said, moving onto the other capital ships. Next up was the Avenger. "Don't waste men rebuilding that shit. Put in an order for new ships and tell anyone who asks it's Vader's fault."
Maberust made a strange noise. Lars continued: "There's too much damage to the Avenger's shields, check the sensor arrays to coordinate with the cannons. Same with the Stormhawk. The Tyrant needs repairs on the hyperdrive, it's lagging. Recalibrate the sensor systems of any new TIEs before launch and keep an eye on the coolant. Run a stress test to see if that's a manufacturer's problem or a mechanic's."
Lars grumbled under his breath as he looked at the reports left––nearly a hundred pages. The chrono on the stand of the holoprojector read that he had a little more than nine hours left until he needed to be at the forge.
A blueprint of a droid unfolded in the next report. Lars had never seen anything like it before: one bulbous eye protruded out of a disk that sat on a body with a dozen legs dangling down from it.
"What does this have to do with the armada." Nothing, probably, and Vader was just making life harder.
"Advanced Weapons Research and Director Krennic were all lost their lives at Scarif, sir," said Maberust, pale eyes looking up from his scribbling on the datapad.
Lars didn't know where Scarif was or what happened, but he could guess that it meant the Empire had screwed up. He zoomed in on a cross-section of the droid's cpu.
"Until a new division can be established, the Chief Engineers have been asked to supervise the projects."
Project Swarm, this one read.
"I will convey your orders, sir," Maberust said, "But night shift is about to start." A pause, before he offered: "You were assigned room 2414 in block e, sir."
Night shift? Lars pulled himself away from the blueprints. Right––and Maberust and the ensigns were waiting for him to dismiss them.
"Fine," Lars said, following Maberust, who dawdled for a moment before finally turning to leave. The turbolift went down one floor, exiting onto a catwalk across a hangar.
Lars stopped dead in his tracks, barely registering Maberust run into him. He grabbed the railing of the catwalk, leaning over, heart suddenly pounding––was it––it was––
He knew that ship. The railing was being crushed beneath his grip. He'd fixed the ship too many times to count.
Slave I.