Benduday. 22.10.22

Leia narrows her eyes when she pushes the blaster further into his forehead. "Alright, Amnedor. We've got your base until Rebel control. Explain yourself."

"Doctor."

"What?"

"Doctor Amnedor." He sniffs. "I did not suffer through years of education and poor postings for you to forget them."

"Answer the damn question," Han barks. Luke grimaces and exchanges a look with Wedge. Interrogation isn't the Alliance's style, but it's all they can do, in this case. They need to find out what happened—what the Empire has done to Astewan. It had been a small, productive farming planet. When they arrived, it was a wasteland.

"What question is that?"

"What happened to the planet, and what was your involvement?"

"The Empire's innovative farming pesticides leaked into the aquifers in the planet's core," Amnedor says calmly. "Altogether, that blend of chemicals was quite the cocktail. I was brought in to study the effects."

"Brought in from the Inquisitorius programme?"

He wrinkles his nose. "The Rebels know about that now, do they? No matter. It has been decommissioned. This was my opportunity. I have been studying the effects of this dark water for years; a few concerned Rebels will not stop me."

Leia glares at him. "You have driven refugees off this planet in their thousands," she says, voice cutting. "All of them report memory difficulties, slow to recover."

"But they do recover, Your Highness, do they not? Unfortunately, it seems the humanoid brain is more robust than the chemical. One requires constant drugging to maintain one's memory loss." He hums. "And, of course, constant drugging for too long would poison said individual, so it must be a very delicate balance—"

"Is that what you've been doing?" Luke interrupts. "The Empire poisoned an entire world and its water source and they—you—have been using it to experiment on memory erasing drugs?"

"It was necessary," Amnedor says. "There are many ways to make a population forget their troubles with a government—entertainment, propaganda, glory—and the Empire uses all of them. But on a backwater planet like this? The misery was great enough to turn it into quite the rebellious hotspot. Much like Mimban was when it was originally subjugated. Consistently erasing a population's memory through the groundwater they drew from was a far simpler solution to the problem than simply bombing it. The toxic side effects are regrettable, of course—dead farmers can't farm!—but that was where I came in. Do you know the potential there is if we can replicate it in rebellious hotspots around the galaxy?"

Luke stares. Leia spits, "That's sickening."

Amnedor smiles thinly. "Are you sure there are no traumas you would like to forget, Your Highness? I cannot imagine the guilt over failing Alderaan can be easy to carry."

Han rears up. "Look, pal, you have no right—"

"And you, Skywalker." Luke freezes. "You would be an ideal case for an individual use for the drug. A powerful Jedi, hm?" His gaze flicks down to Luke's empty belt, as if he still stands like he expects a lightsaber to be there. Cuffed to his own desk, in his own lab, and Amnedor still somehow manages to dominate the conversation. "The Empire could use someone like you."

"I'm aware," Luke snaps. The memory of his father's offer, of Bespin, of that hand reaches out to him, sharpens. He wouldn't mind having that one erased. "It's not happening."

"Not when you were radicalised as a child, no. But if those memories were erased—without killing you—and you were in Vader's hands? Do you know what I did for the Inquisitorius? I worked on the drugs they used in training and conditioning new recruits? Obedience, pain, focus, all of those. You would be a powerful replacement."

"Good luck with that, pal," Han says. He raises his eyebrows at Leia, nodding at the blaster in her hand, but she shakes her head. They do need him alive, for now.

"They'd have to erase the name first, though," Amnedor muses. "Inquisitors never had names. Skywalker—"

"You think you could remove my name?" Luke snaps. "Skywalker is a slave name, hell no!"

Amnedor raises his eyebrows. "Touchy."

"Just stun him and let's get out of here before the Empire shows up, Leia," Han says.

Leia shakes her head. "The antidote—or the means of producing it—might be in here somewhere. He needs to tell us."

"You are running out of time," Amnedor informs her.

"And patience," she snaps. "Tell us."

"I don't think so."

"The more you stall—"

"The more I win." He smiles. "Turn around, Princess."

Leia doesn't have the time to before a stun blast echoes through her. She slumps to the floor. Han shouts but gets hit too; Wedge follows. Before Luke can react, hands are on his shoulders, binders around his wrists. Stormtroopers file into the room, blank and faceless. One of them uncuffs Amnedor, who stands, rubbing his wrists.

"We have made contact with the five-oh-first, sir."

"Excellent." Amnedor turns to Luke, the only one still conscious. "Did you think I would have such an important station here without backup?"

They hadn't. Not really. But they'd been prepared—the rest of the Rogues were scouring the skies—

"The rest of you have been captured too, do not worry. This will be a satisfying victory to deliver Lord Vader. But I do believe you are what will finally get me the promotion I deserve." He waves a hand. "Take him to the subject rooms and assign him a number. With Lord Vader on his way, we do not have much time."

"No!" Luke bucks in the grip, tearing himself away, reaching for Amnedor with his bare hands. "You can't take—"

He wakes up strapped to a table.

Something is pinching his nose. He struggles to breathe for several long seconds before he gasps; the moment his mouth is open, a bottle is shoved against his lips, and he swallows it without a thought.

"Good. Taking your dose without a struggle is a good sign." Luke opens his eyes to see Amnedor looming over him. "Can you describe to me what this feels like? No one ever has. I am curious."

Luke groans, heart pounding. "Go to hell."

"Is Astewan not hell already?" he muses. "I know the effects are very rapid. Can you feel it?"

Luke can. It scares him. The galaxy is slipping out of his grip, growing less and less focused with every passing moment, and now—

Amnedor is doing this for Vader. Luke's father. He will do it again and again, every day, to make sure Luke never remembers being a Jedi. To make him something else. To make him forget his own name.

This chemical is poisonous. This will kill Luke.

Does Vader care? Will he, when he learns the full truth? When he watches his son deteriorate, closer and closer to death, will he change his mind?

Luke doesn't know. He doesn't know yet if there is an ounce of good left in Anakin Skywalker. But as Amnedor forces another dose down his throat, and Luke spins into oblivion, his life hangs by that imaginary, insubstantial thread of hope, nonetheless.