Glaring venomously, Luke snarled, "Reading my mind, were you?"
The man before him rumbled, "It was not very hard." He held a hand up. "You can ask questions after you are taken into your cell."
Carefully guarding his thoughts, Luke began to ask if they were going to share a cell, but then he clamped his mouth shut. If he seemed overeager, their sharing cells might be made even less likely.
A pair of Stormtroopers scanned both of them for weapons. Luke was surprised that Mara had actually done what he had suggested, getting rid of all her weapons except her lightsaber.
Luke smirked to himself. Most of her weapons were probably of the illegal, hard-to-get, and expensive nature, and she probably just didn't want them to be confiscated.
And she knew as well as he did that any attempt at resistance would only worsen their situation. If that were possible.
"Tell the bridge to prepare for the jump into hyperspace."
"Yes, my emperor," the Imperial that had backhanded Mara bowed and walked briskly away. Mara could have sworn there was a skip in his step.
The two were then cuffed and roughly shoved in the direction of the exit.
"Easy there," Mara grumbled. "We're fragile, valuable cargo. Hurt us before it's time, and you'll be sent off to the spice mines of Kessel...If you're lucky."
Luke rolled his eyes as she continued her angry but quiet rambling, still finding himself somewhat surprised that she hadn't grabbed someone's blaster and started shooting.
He tried to think about more pleasant things, but his thoughts were racing uncontrollably.
They were doomed. Doomed to die, doomed to turn, or doomed to eternally wish that they had turned.
As he was heading towards what would be his prison for stars knew how long, he attempted to put up a Force shield, so that he wasn't broadcasting his emotions to every Force sensitive in the galaxy.
He noted that Mara, despite all of her false bravado and outward anger, had a glimmer of what Luke could have sworn was fear in her eyes.
He only caught vague feelings from her, but it seemed that her past was coming back to her because of the Imperial setting and their captor.
Luke hoped that she would be able to deal with it alone for the time, although he would attempt to discuss it with her later...That is, if she let him.
All too soon, they were at their cell. The Stormtroopers stayed outside to guard them, and their tormentor followed them inside, the door hissing shut ominously, as if warning them of what was to come.
"You're supposed to be dead," were the first words that left Luke's mouth, though another major thought that was tormenting him was: I thought you had turned. Luke's words were somewhat accusatory and were more than a bit bitter. He stared unwaveringly at the man in front of him. The words hung in the air for a pregnant moment, until Luke spat, as if it were a curse, "Father."
Darth Vader stared at his son. The years had changed him, which could prove to be an inconvenience. The farmboy naïveté was still there, but it lurked below the surface, buried beneath layers of experience and grief.
After probing, Vader found that Luke's Force presence was brighter than it appeared to be and that his son was shielding himself.
Vader also sensed in his son hostility buried beneath the surface, which could be a possible benefit for him if he could get his son to use his anger...And if he could get Jade to turn, that would be another incentive for the boy to do so as well.
The Sith Lord, however, had to admit to himself that they were not children anymore, and he himself wasn't as young as he used to be. Luke was a little too thin for his liking—Vader instantly reprimanded himself for the overprotective parent-like thought, steaming at his moment of weakness.
Vader remained silent, and the only noise in the bland room was that of his mechanically forced breathing.
Since his father and Mara didn't appear to have anything to say out loud, Luke continued with another almost accusation, this one more sorrowful. "I thought you had returned to the Light at the end...But you are no longer the Anakin Skywalker that I thought I had known."
Darth Vader felt a dark satisfaction. His son's naïveté was showing more clearly now. "Do you really think that I would have turned so easily? That two meetings would be enough to reverse my entire character? I see I underestimated your intelligence." That comment caused Luke's eyes to narrow in anger and Mara's to slit into challenging slivers.
He continued to speak. "I saw my chance to kill my pathetic, deteriorating fool of a master, and I took it. But I underestimated Palpatine, and his Force-drawn lightning wrecked havoc on both my suit and my body...It has taken all of these years, and the use of many medics, for my body to heal back to the state it was in before Palpatine attacked me."
Mara's feathers were really ruffled now, but a look from Luke caused her to close her mouth. There would be plenty of time for insults after Vader finished the story of his resurrection...And Mara certainly intended to get a fair share of insults in.
"It was all too easy to convince you—a boy eager to see any good in his father—that I had turned in the end, for if I wanted to get myself back to my former state I couldn't have you slicing my body to pieces...Faking my death, was, as you might imagine, difficult in the state of pain that I was in. But it worked, and when we arrived at Endor, I quickly exited the ship while you were in your state of sorrow. I killed a nearby Rebel pilot, returned, and placed the body in the Imperial ship in 'my' place, with a Force disguise over him that fooled you easily in your pointless grief." Vader seemed pleased with himself. "Then I implanted a suggestion in your mind that you should burn what you thought was simply the suit, and after the last trace of evidence from the Rebel pilot was gone, I took the dead pilot's ship and flew close to the ground so that the trees would mask it from wary Rebel eyes.
"I went to a small planet in the Unknown Regions that contained several loyal Imperial soldiers that had not heard of Palpatine's death. There was also a well-equipped medical facility there that could tend to my needs. All my time since has been spent healing and gathering loyal Imperial soldiers. I have acquired a rather large fleet by showing myself to a few select high Imperial officers who willingly turned their fleets over to me. All aboard the Eradicator are one hundred percent loyal to me, and all know of my existence. None tell."
There was a lull, as Vader seemed to mull over whether there was anything else they needed to know. "Ah, yes, I have also designed a few ships such as the Tatin fighters, Imperial Assault Frigates, and H'tis fighters."
"More death-causers?" Luke shot unflinchingly.
"If that is what you wish to call them."
"Monster," Mara muttered under her breath. "Low-voiced, hack-breathing, heartless—"
Ignoring the redhead next to him, Luke inquired, "So you've taken on the mantle of Emperor, now?"
"—one-minded, half-witted, armor wearing—"
"I am Palpatine's successor. I merely took his place as Emperor. The Grand Moffs and Grand Admirals wanted a more powerful-seeming leader, and they were quick to bestow the position on me. Their only regret is that they dare not cross me in even the most trivial of matters, as they did with Palpatine."
As Vader spoke, Mara still continued, "—nerf-herding, helmet-wearing, unfashionable, funeral-colored, cowardly, booted, fiendish, villainous, obnoxious, vile, mean, wretched, corrupt, perverted, depraved, immoral—"
"Are you done yet?" Vader's helmet-covered eyes were upon her, and she felt suddenly uncomfortable, but she nonetheless added a bit more for good measure.
"—nefarious, infamous, abominable, heinous, detestable, horrible," she was beginning to wind down, "—terrible, atrocious...wickedly evil...sorry excuse for a Sith Lord!...And an emperor!"
"Now that the poor attempt at a thesaurus has run out of things to say, perhaps we can carry on a conversation like normal adult human beings?" Vader's eyes practically shot out laser bolts from beneath his mask.
"Maybe I like thesauruses," Luke muttered. Mara's ramblings had lifted his spirits, even if only a tinge.
"And maybe I like people who like thesauruses," Mara returned, though she did so louder than Luke.
"And maybe I would like the two of you to stop behaving like children," Vader told them stonily. They could feel his anger building up.
Luke glanced at his father casually and spoke in what could pass for a conversational tone, devoid of anger. "You've changed, Father."
"As have you." There was a brief pause before Vader walked over to the door. "I have other matters to attend to. I will leave you here to consider whether you wish to turn or die. Those are your only options."
And then he left.
"Well, isn't he just Mr. Bright and Sunny," Mara stated under her breath.
"Take the opposite of that, and you have my father down," Luke said with a sigh.