Leia ducked. The lightsaber shifted in her slick palms and she gripped it tightly to compensate, staggering a little when the next blow came. She pushed back, teeth gritted, the blade sizzling the ends of the hair that that escaped her simple training plait—

And Ahsoka hooked a foot behind her knee and she went sprawling.

She collided hard with the mountain grass, blinking up at a blue, blue sky. There was no breath in her lungs but she yelped anyway when Ahsoka summoned her second lightsaber back to hand and hooked it to her belt.

"That was faster than usual," she noted, turning away. The mountain range surrounding Aldera afforded beautiful views and she peered down at the city now, allowing Leia the grace and dignity to get up without scrutiny.

Leia scowled at her back. "Yeah, well, I'm tired."

Ahsoka flipped her first lightsaber in her hand, careful not to touch the activation button when she caught it. "You've been tired all morning."

"I didn't sleep well."

"May I ask why?"

Leia pinched her lips together.

"A dream," she admitted. "I think— I think Luke was under stress."

Ahsoka shrugged. "That makes sense. You're twins—there was a pair of twin Jedi during the Clone Wars, and they shared emotions, dreams, experiences often."

Leia frowned, though, so Ahsoka pushed, "Do you think it was a vision?"

Leia tilted her head and thought about it, automatically pulling her legs into the crossed position she used while meditating.

"...yes," she said cautiously. She knew not to take visions too literally, but that that didn't mean she shouldn't act on them at all. "It was a sunny-rainy day on Coruscant, the Imperial Palace was bedecked in coronation colours, and..."

"And?" Ahsoka prompted.

Leia flattened her lips and said, "And Luke was Emperor."

Ahsoka was silent for a moment, before she turned away from the view of Aldera to look at Leia. "I see. Was he... Sith?"

"No!" Leia snapped immediately—she knew Ahsoka was still worried about Luke, and his darkness, Angel or not, but— "No, never."

"You said that he told you Palpatine was intent on training him, didn't he?"

"He did but— ugh. Luke's resisting that, he won't ever turn to the Sith. I know that." She met Ahsoka's gaze fiercely. "I've been teaching him what I can about the Force, but he said that there's a deal between Vader and Palpatine that Luke won't be trained until he's ready, whatever that means, which Luke thinks is just his father's way of keeping him away from the Emperor. He's never had any interest in becoming a Sith." She shook her head. "He won't let himself become one—he'll blow his cover and publicly join the Rebellion first."

Ahsoka let out a breath. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure. I trust him with my life."

"You trust him with a lot more than that, every time you meet up." She smiled. "Maybe I'm not the person to talk to about this. You have another Senate session to attend to tomorrow—you should ask him yourself when you're back on Coruscant."

Leia nodded. "I will." she decided.

Ahsoka smiled a little, then. "I can't deny that he's done a lot for us," she admitted. "The Tarkin initiative chip alone has already provided us with invaluable codes—there's been so many successful attacks on those bases—and he's armed us, he's funded us... I should trust him more."

"You should meet him," Leia shot back with a smile. "You won't have any doubts then."

Ahsoka smiled.

"Maybe," she said. "I'd like that."


Luke had taken every advantage of the fact that his father wasn't on-planet that night. He'd hit three places: Moff Ghadi's prized house of collections, full of the riches he'd pillaged from hundreds of planets, which were easy pickings for any Force-user who so much as set their mind to it; Imperial Military Headquarters themselves, to steal, copy and replace datachips and datapads' worth of information on fleet movements and codes; and then he'd hit IMH's kitchens, because by early morning he was starving.

And if he was taking on too many challenges in one night, been chased down by too many security guards and fallen far too many levels to be good for him... it was a decent stress relief.

He didn't want to think about that vision.

When he finally rolled into bed, the beginnings of sunrise starting to creep through his blinds, he slept until noon.

He could've slept longer, but noon was when his father returned to poke his head in his room and demand why he wasn't up yet. Being woken by a booming voice right above his head was not fun.

Luke was just fleetingly grateful that he'd had the presence of mind to store his stolen goods in one of his many hidey-holes around the city before he came home to crash. If his father had seen them...

Well.

That'd be an awkward conversation.

It was still long past noon by the time he was lucid and ready to do something with his day, but Luke had made a promise to Veers and he intended to keep it, as soon as possible.

Zev lived about a half hour's speeder journey away from Luke, a few levels down, so it wasn't too long before Luke was settling his own speeder down on the landing pad outside and jogging up to the door to jab the bell, fidgeting as he did, glancing around.

Zev opened the door pretty quickly, a datapad held loose in his hand. Luke smiled.

"You look terrible," Zev said.

Luke scowled. "Hello to you too."

"Come in, by all means, Luke," Zev said, stepping back from the door, "but seriously. How much did you sleep?"

Luke grimaced.

"I tossed and turned for a long time," was all he said, which... was true. Even after he'd slapped on some bacta patches, even after the exhaustion that had been last night, he still hadn't been able to sleep for all the thoughts crowding his head.

"You alright?" Zev asked knowingly.

Luke ignored him. "I came here to ask you that question," he said baldly. "Not that I'm not thrilled to be visiting anyway, I would've dropped by soon anyway, but I went to see my father on the Executor yesterday, and I ran into yours."

Zev's face instantly shuttered. "I see."

"He said that you seem distant or... preoccupied, recently," Luke pushed.

"I'm the distant and preoccupied one?"

"Apparently. He asked if I would check up on you."

"Instead of doing it himself?"

Luke's shoulder sagged. "Yes," he said, reaching out to squeeze Zev's arm. Zev sighed and led him into the living room, where they took a seat on the sofa in front of the window. "But I wanted to see if you were alright."

"I'm fine!" Zev said, leaning back against the cushions. Luke raised his eyebrows; Zev wasn't meeting his eyes.

"Are you sure?"

"Luke, you're the one who didn't seem to sleep at all last night and on closer inspection looks like he got run over by a speeder-bus."

"Yes, and you're the one who's avoiding the question."

Zev sighed. "You're right."

Luke leaned in to listen better, taking his friend's hand.

"I..." Zev closed his eyes. "I've spent so much time studying and training to be a soldier. To join the Imperial Army like my dad and be good, and serve the Empire, and..."

Luke said nothing; just waited for him to finish speaking.

"I don't want to join up anymore," he said simply. "It's... I've lost my passion for it, and walking around the Academy grounds with you the other day was so awkward because I was trying to be enthusiastic about it for you, but—"

"Zev, I didn't want to be there either. Trust me. Getting shot was the most interesting part of that experience."

Zev laughed. "Alright, I feel a lot better then. But... I just don't want to go to a military academy. I don't want to keep killing inn—" He cut himself off.

Luke's spirits sank and soared simultaneously.

He said, "You don't want to keep killing innocent civilians."

Zev jerked his head up, but when he found only a calm understanding in Luke's gaze he let out a shaky breath, smiling.

"Yes," he said. "I— I know the Empire is good, I know the Emperor's purpose is grand—" The lie screeched in the Force.

"I've met the Emperor," Luke said baldly. "His only purpose is sadism."

Zev's eyebrows shot right up. "Are you allowed to say that?"

"Absolutely not, please don't repeat it." He trusted Zev not to—Zev had met Leia, even if they hadn't got along brilliantly, and had kept his discretion—but it was best to make that clear. "But... I understand what you mean, about being disillusioned with where the Empire goes, sometimes."

Zev lifted his chin to look at him then, eyes narrowed.

"Luke," he said, "your father's the Emperor's heir apparent, isn't he?"

Luke's vision came barrelling back to him.

He swallowed.

"I suppose," he said. "But I don't have any say over what's happening, if that's what you're asking. I don't—"

"No," Zev said. "That's not what I'm asking. Luke..."

Luke clapped him on the shoulder so suddenly they both started.

"Well, I guess if you don't wanna go into the military you can always become a politician!" he said, faux-cheerily. "Then if there's anything you're unhappy about, you can complain about it until some grumpy bureaucrats finally get around to fixing it."

Zev grimaced. "You think I wanna be a politician?"

"Good point." He just grinned. "We'll find some other way to change the galaxy, then."

Zev caught his gaze and his hand in his and smiled, some tension easing out of his shoulders. "You and me, Luke," he said. "We'll do it."

And for a moment, Luke wanted to tell Zev everything.

Everything.

The secret he couldn't tell his father. The situation he couldn't tell Han. The stress he couldn't tell Leia.

He could tell Zev.

Except he couldn't.

He wouldn't put that pressure on him. And... he couldn't risk it.

So he just smiled.

"You bet we will."


The sun was already starting to sink by the time he left Zev's, so he didn't bother returning home before going to see Han—just headed straight for the hidey hole he'd dumped his stolen goods in the previous night and headed straight for the tooka shelter.

They hissed when they saw him. He tossed them a few treats and watched them scamper.

His comm buzzed with an incoming message from Leia—she wanted to meet as soon as possible, to discuss... something. She wasn't specific, but Luke had the looming feeling that he wouldn't like it.

When Han arrived, Luke was already on edge. Seeing those injuries made it worse.

"What happened to you!?"

Chewie roared something. Luke frowned; his Shyriiwook wasn't brilliant, but—

"You're one to talk, kid, you look like shavit yourself."

"You got into a firefight on Nar Shaddaa?" He whistled. "I'm surprised you're still alive."

"I resent that, kid, I'm plenty good at staying alive."

Luke and Chewie exchanged a knowing glance. "What happened, Chewie?"

He rolled his eyes at the response he got. "An old partner you swindled came looking for retribution?"

"Hey, it was an honest scam—"

Luke stared. Han stopped talking, but didn't backtrack.

"You gotta give me a bigger cut than this, Luke," Han pushed. "I got a price on my head now, old debts I gotta pay off—you're paying me well, but not well enough to save my neck."

Luke studied a fresh pink scar along his cheek. "Nor your handsome face, it seems."

Han glared.

Luke grinned. "Here," he said, passing over the bag. "The datachips, you give to the Rebellion. Doubt you'll have any need for those. But some of the trinkets..."

Han frowned into the bag. "Rob another museum?"

"Yeah. Some should go back to their planets and peoples of origin, but others..." He swallowed. "Others are from cultures that have been wiped out." Ancient cultures, long dead cultures studied by archaeologists... or cultures the Empire had destroyed. "I figured you'd be able to tell which ones were which?"

"Do I look like an anthropologist, kid?" Han dragged out a small statue of what looked like a dianoga, carved with unsettling detail in enamel and gold. He stared at it for a moment, as if he wanted to bite it and see if it was real like the people in the holodramas did.

Luke smiled a little, at that. "I was talking to Chewie."

Chewie sniggered.

"You hit a lot of places last night," Han commented, still rifling through. He'd dumped the statue back in—Luke winced; he was no expert, but if Han wanted to sell these somewhere he figured they ought to be in decent shape—and now was viewing a bracelet built for a species with much thinner limbs than most humans. "You alright?"

Luke blinked. "Well, no, I fell three levels." And his bruised body would not let him forget it. "But I'm fine. I'll live, and I've got all the treatment I need."

"No, I mean..." Han huffed to himself, tossing the bracelet back into the bag. "You— you work best when you're stressed."

Luke tilted his head.

Chewie laughed, and growled something more. Luke frowned when he understood.

"I push myself more when I'm stressed or upset?" He scratched the back of his neck, avoiding their eyes. "What makes you say that?"

"A year of working with ya, kid."

Luke snorted. "Well, okay. Maybe I do. I just... had a weird day, yesterday, and went to rob IMH instead of trying to sleep when I was too distracted."

Chewie asked if he'd managed to sleep well at all, even then.

"...no."

"You don't look like you did, definitely."

"Thank you, Han."

"No problem!"

Luke sighed, and pulled his hood up. "I hope that's enough to satisfy your debtors for now, Han. If I don't contact you with news of anything else by next week, contact me. I need to go."

"Kid." A hand on Luke's wrist stopped him, and he paused, looking up into his eyes. Han tried for a smile. "I dunno what's going on with you, and I know I don't know enough about you to understand..."

"Not because of you," Luke reminded him gently, "just because it's safer for both of us."

"Yeah, well, Leia does know," he pointed out. "Make sure you talk to her, alright? And if you get sick of whatever situation you're in, need to get out and fly..."

Luke smiled. "Your offer's still open?"

"Yeah."

He slowly prised Han's grip off his wrist. "Thank you, Han. But I'm fine. It's... complicated."

"Uh huh. I'm sure." He stood back. "See you around, kid."

Luke nodded, and started up his speeder. "May the Force be with you," he said automatically.

He missed Han's confused frown as he sped away.


Chewie was right: he hadn't slept well at all. So when he got home, he crashed for two hours and didn't rise again until it was dinner and his father was pounding his fist against his door.

"Luke," he demanded. Luke just groaned and staggered out of bed, hair all a-muss. "Luke, I am concerned about you."

Isn't everyone? Luke grumbled to himself.

"You slept in late."

"I'm a teenager." Luke rubbed at his eyes. "That's what we do."

"Luke..." Vader trailed off. Luke tilted his head up to meet his father's gaze behind the eye plates, frowning. "Come and eat dinner with me. Please."

Luke blinked.

He didn't think he'd ever heard his father say please before.

"Alright," he said, pushing himself to his feet and trying—in vain—to smooth his hair down. "I'll be out in a second."

The cooking droids had made him a shaak steak that smelled delicious, but that he could still only bring himself to pick at slowly. Their penthouse did have a dining room, but since Vader so rarely entertained guests it was only really used for when Luke had friends over, and when it was just the two of them it felt almost cavernous. Usually, his father's presence was more than enough to fill the space, but...

The silence was deafening.

"Father?" Luke asked finally. His father didn't eat, not in front of him—the suit didn't allow that—but he did like sitting with Luke as he ate. It was rare enough that they were on the same planet that they had to take whatever time together they could. "Did you have anything you wanted to talk to me about?"

After a few cycles of his respirator, Vader said, "Yes. I did." He leaned forwards; Luke felt trapped under his gaze, like a fly in amber. "There was another Angel attack last night."

It took everything in him not to cringe and give himself away.

"Luke, I know you want your independence, and I trust you. If you claim you weren't podracing, then I believe you—at least you do not appear to be injured this time."

Indeed. Thank the Force for bacta, the extra sleep, and also Luke's acting abilities. All the visible ones were healed, and now his shields were up tight; his father couldn't sense his pain.

"As injured, at least." Those eye lenses seemed to peer right at him, taking in the faintest remnants of the scratches and bruises. "I assume you had some trouble, whatever you were doing on the streets of Coruscant in the dead of night?"

Luke shrugged. "I ran into someone who tried to mug me. It's fine!" he added when he felt his father's ire spike. "I saw them off! They're probably lost to the underbelly by now."

"Good." His father bought the story without question, and Luke couldn't help a smidgen of relief.

Vader must have picked up on that, though, because he pointed a stern finger at him so forcefully that Luke choked on his steak.

"However," he boomed, "simply because you can somewhat handle yourself, does not mean you are safe."

"Somewhat handle myself?" Luke scoffed, chewing a vegetable in his mouth and making to remind him exactly what had happened at the academy open day...

Then he looked at his father, and understood.

"You're worried about me—about Angel targeting me," he said quietly.

"You would make an extremely valuable hostage. If the Rebellion—"

"The Rebellion prides itself on being moral." Luke hoped his emphasis on the word sounded disgusted and not defensive. "I doubt they'd sink to kidnapping—Angel certainly hasn't kidnapped or assassinated anyone yet." And if Leia asked him to, they both knew that would be the end of this whole stunt.

"Kidnapping the son of Darth Vader?" His father didn't sound arrogant, or confident, or lecturing when he said that. He sounded scared. "You underestimate your value, my son, and you underestimate their hatred of me. I have no doubt that if they could take it out on you, they would."

"Father..."

Luke put down his fork, then, to put his hand on his father's. Vader clenched his fist underneath it.

"I can take care of myself, I promise. I can stay out of trouble."

"The way you did against that mugger?"

Luke sighed. "Father. I am not going to get kidnapped, I promise you that."

"Would that I could believe that, son, but this Angel has proven... skilled. I have raised the bounty on their head significantly for a reason." Luke swallowed tightly. "They successfully robbed the Palace. They successfully robbed IMH, then caused a commotion in the kitchens to cover their escape..."

Sure. That was why they'd done it.

"They... are not to be underestimated."

Luke retracted his hand. "Then I won't underestimate them. But I am one person out of a trillion on this planet, and I doubt they will come after me."

He held his gaze.

They won't hurt me, he promised over their bond.

Vader lifted a hand to his cheek, and Luke leaned into it, despite the sense that his father was not really looking at him at all. "If I lost you..."

Luke chose not to answer that; just turned his face into the hand, and tried to blink away tears.


"So," a voice behind Han said, and Han cursed every being in this blasted galaxy, "this is the great money-making job you were talking about?"

"How'd you get here?" Han snapped, spinning round with his blaster up. He could hear Luke's speeder fading away in the distance. Sana grinned at him, and a karkarodon would've looked friendlier.

"It takes more than a firefight to distract me, Han," she informed him. "You're not getting out of this that easily. I want my money."

"And I want the Falcon's hyperdrive to stop fritzing, we can't have everything." He trained his sights on her, and knew Chewie's bowcaster was trained on her as well. Two on one, but with that gun of hers those were still decent odds to someone getting hurt.

But Sana just looked to where the kid and his speeder had disappeared into the airlanes.

"This seems to be very profitable for you," she mused.

"Not as much as I'd like, but y'know how it is, I have to take what I can get—"

"What could be even more profitable," she said, "is taking advantage of it."

Han frowned.

She raised her eyebrows. "That's that infamous thief, right? What's-his-name—Angel? There's a bounty on his head to rival yours."

Han snorted. "To rival mine? Ya said I had ten thousand credits, that petty thief has—"

"Thirty thousand, as of yesterday." Sana pulled out a puck and lit the hologram. "And counting. Apparently Vader's taken over the investigation—he's increasingly eager to get his hands on your thief."

"Vader..." Han went cold. Luke... being caught by the death-giver people called Darth Vader... "What's he wanting the kid for?"

"Execution, imprisonment, torture, who knows? Maybe he even wants his skills for himself. But you could make a cushy credit by turning him in. Enough to pay off your debt to Jabba, and to me, in fact."

"I ain't gonna turn the kid in," Han said boldly.

Sana laughed. "Why? Has Han Solo gone soft? Thrown his lot in with the Rebel cause after all?"

"'Course not!" Han glanced at Chewie, who was watching him judgementally, then back to Sana. "But this kid's gonna make me rich. Look at this stuff—a few more weeks, and I'll have all the credits I need to pay off you both." He eyed Sana's blaster. "Unless you decide to shoot me first."

"I like credits more than I like killing. Though I do like them both a lot." She frowned at him. "Two weeks then, Han. For all we know, Vader will have become even more desperate, and offer even more for him. Did you know that this guy broke into the Palace and lived?"

No. He hadn't. But Han didn't let that show on his face.

She holstered her blaster. "Two weeks, Solo," she called over her shoulder. "I'm getting antsy, Jabba's getting antsy, but that's what you'll get. Then, if your little friend's not caught yet, and if you don't have our money..."

She hopped onto a speeder bike and shot him one last look.

"We'll all be outta options."