Author Note: COVID-19 struck our household and I am in my third week of symptoms. My brain is weary and my back is aching, but at least I have no serious breathing or lung problems. I am thankful for that. Several other people here are also sick but I seem to have the worst of it for now, which isn't surprising since I am the oldest person in the house. J
I have a couple of other fics to work on but my brain is sluggish and this chapter, while not particularly original, was easy and fun to write. So voila.
The Cloud City of Bespin
Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, gazed down dispassionately at the howling Corellian Han Solo, who was attached to a scan grid. The grid was designed to send increasing jolts of electricity into its subject's torso, inducing tremendous levels of pain. The man's agony was a pleasure to feel in the Dark Side of the Force, but the real purpose was to draw Luke Skywalker to Bespin. If Luke Skywalker was anything like his father Anakin, he would have visions of his friends' pain and come rushing to the rescue.
Only to find his true father, Darth Vader, waiting for him. Anakin was quite dead, after all – the last vestiges of that weak boy-man had been burned away in the fires of Mustafar.
He turned his back on the writhing figure of the smuggler and strode out into the corridor, where Boba Fett and Lando Calrissian, the administrator of Cloud City, were waiting.
Calrissian he dismissed with casual ease – the man was too interested in saving his own skin to do anything to oppose a Dark Lord of the Sith.
Fett was also wise enough not to counter Vader, but the Sith intended to treat him with at least a modicum of respect. It would not do to irritate a very competent bounty hunter. Nonetheless ...
"You may take Captain Solo to Jabba the Hutt after I have Skywalker," he snapped.
"He's no good to me dead," the hunter grated out angrily.
"He will not be permanently damaged," Vader assured him. It was true. Based on the increasingly loud screams, Solo was in great pain but the torture was not designed to permanently harm.
"What about Leia and the Wookiee?" Calrissian demanded.
Surprising. Vader had not thought Calrissian would dare to even ask that question.
Vader turned on the Baron, his cape swirling menacingly, "They must never again leave this city."
"That was never a condition of our agreement!" Calrissian declared indignantly. "Nor was giving Han to this bounty hunter."
"Perhaps you think you are being treated unfairly?" Vader began, then froze. Something was wrong. The screams had stopped, and ...
/
Luke Skywalker should, at this point, be quite used to the Force grabbing him and dumping him in esoteric places and times. But this time he was a little pissed off.
His four month old daughter Beru was teething and not sleeping well. Mara was exhausted and thus Luke had agreed to walk the baby up and down their living room while his weary wife slept.
So that was what he was doing until suddenly he was yanked from his living room and into a torture chamber.
Of course, he knew from experience that he would return to exactly the same spot in his timeline, but still, it was jarring.
Not as jarring as being tortured, of course.
The stormtroopers who were overseeing Solo's brutal treatment hardly had time to be surprised. Luke Skywalker had his lightsaber lit in two seconds, had their heads off five seconds after that, and the Jedi shut down the scan grid five seconds later.
Solo looked up in relief, which morphed into astonishment.
"Luke?" he demanded groggily. "Is that ... that you? How did you get here? You look different somehow!"
"It is kind of me," Luke replied, quickly releasing his friend from the straps and helping him stand up. The Corellian wobbled slightly but managed to stay upright; fortunately, he hadn't been tormented too long. "It is complica ..."
He froze in position at the sound of two lightsabers clashing in the corridor, which provoked a torrent of Huttese imprecations from the Tatooine native.
"Come on!" he ordered, racing out into the corridor with Solo staggering behind him with bewilderment and lingering pain.
Darth Vader had long prided himself with his ability to deal with sudden changes in fortune. His muscle memory and ease with the saber protected him from sudden death, but his opponent was a gifted one and his mind a maelstrom of confusion.
Leia Organa, dressed not in her white outfit but instead in tan robes, an older Organa with her hair piled in a simple bun, was battling him with a blue lightsaber, which was ridiculous. Even more ridiculous was that another Leia Organa, the one he had captured only hours ago, was behind her in the corridor.
What in all the foul sands of Tatooine was going on?
"I've got him, Leia," Luke Skywalker said firmly, leaping into the fray and stepping in front of the (other) princess of Alderaan. "Shut the doors, will ya?"
"I've got it, Farmboy," another voice called, just as a series of doors clanged shut at both ends of the corridor, leaving Darth Vader, Calrissian, and three startled stormtroopers trapped within along with the original Han and Leia.
A moment later, just to increase the level of confusion, the armored form of Boba Fett fell dramatically into the corridor. The Mandalorian bounty hunter had made the mistake of trying to hide in a room where Mara Jade Skywalker was waiting, and had received a vibroblade to the neck for his pains.
"Can I suggest a temporary truce, Lord Vader?" Skywalker inquired politely after the two men had exchanged a few more blows. "I mean, these are not ideal quarters for a fight, if you get my drift. We need more space to make this really fun."
"Certainly," Vader agreed a little hesitantly. "Hold your fire."
"That especially means you, troopers," a red maned woman ordered, emerging from the side room. "No random shots or you will find yourself very dead."
"Jade!" Vader snarled, taking an angry step forward. "What are you doing here?"
"What are any of you doing here?" younger Leia demanded, moving over to wrap a protective arm around Solo. "Who cloned me?"
Older Leia shot Luke a horrified glance and nodded, "I suppose it totally does look like that, doesn't it? I am not your clone, and Luke is not the other Luke's clone. We are from the future. The Force keeps sending us through time and space to deal with problems of various kinds."
"In this case Bespin, again," Luke said with a galaxy weary sigh. "I hated it the first time and to keep ending up here ..."
"Don't whine," Leia scolded. "We just saved Han and Leia from torture!"
"What about Chewbacca?" Han asked anxiously.
Luke and Leia exchanged worried glances.
"He is back in the cell, and he won't sustain any permanent damage, but I am afraid we have to deal with a maniacal Sith Lord before we run off and rescue him."
"Leia," Mara suggested, "maybe you should guide Other Leia and Han and Calrissian out of here and Luke and I can keep Vader busy."
"No," the twins said simultaneously.
"No," Luke continued. "He seriously might kill you because, reasons."
"Time travel is impossible," Vader intoned rather belatedly. This whole situation was bizarre and bewildering and quite ...
"You always say that," Skywalker stated briskly, "but it should be obvious that I am way more trained than the Luke in this timeline could possibly be, and I look every one of my 30 years. Your Luke is only like 22 and young and fresh faced."
"You still look fresh faced to me," Mara declared, striding forward and planting a dramatic kiss on her husband's cheek.
Vader took another outraged, horrified step forward and Luke lifted his prosthetic hand, "Stop, Vader, just stop. Mara, you are provoking him."
"I love provoking him," his wife replied with an impish smile.
"Excuse me," younger Leia said weakly. "Are you and Luke ..."
"Married, yes, and we have children," Mara said cheerfully. "I do hope this particular traverse through time doesn't take too long or I'll start leaking milk. I'm breastfeeding twins."
Vader felt himself blanch behind his mask. Mara Jade, married to his son? And they were both Light Siders in a future timeline? How could this possibly be?
Breast milk?!
Older Leia chuckled at this and then shook her head, "Look, we are on a time crunch without any idea of exactly how crunchy. At some point, we're just going to disappear so we need to get you out of here, Han and Leia, and Chewie as well, of course. And 3PO."
"Is there another Han Solo around?" Solo demanded, looking around uneasily.
"No," Older Leia said briskly. "So far, only Force Sensitives are able to do this whole time jump thing which is too bad. I would love to have my Han along for the ride."
"I am not a Force Sensitive," younger Leia declared shakily, leaning further into Han's comforting bulk.
Her counterpart turned to lift an irritable eyebrow, "Excuse me, did you or did you not just see me fighting with Darth Vader with a lightsaber? I'm not nearly as good as Luke, but obviously I'm a trained Force sensitive, or I would have had my head lopped off in two seconds flat."
Solo leaned back into Leia, though it hurt his sore torso, "How can Leia be a Force Sensitive? I thought it was like, really rare!"
The twins exchanged unhappy glances.
"I always hate this part," Leia said gloomily.
"Yep," Luke agreed, "but there is no avoiding it. Leia, you are a Force Sensitive because you are Luke Skywalker's twin sister."
Time stood still, and space. The walls began trembling slightly, causing the three hapless stormtroopers to look around for some place to hide. Calrissian took a cautious step away from the Sith Lord but held his ground.
"What!?" howled Vader and younger Leia simultaneously.
Luke continued, though he kept his eyes on his Alter Father, "So, Anakin Skywalker married a lady named Padme Naberrie Amidala ..."
"She was a senator of the Republic," Older Leia said helpfully.
"Yeah, I have heard of her!" Leia agreed, her eyes wide. "But how did we end up ..."
"She got pregnant," Luke explained patiently, "and gave birth to healthy twins but tragically died right after giving birth. The Jedi had fallen and the Emperor had risen to power, so we were separated for safety."
"The Organas couldn't have a biological child," Leia continued, "So they adopted me, you, us, and Luke was sent to ..."
"Tatooine, which totally sucks," her brother complained. "Tatooine is a horrible place to grow up."
"Well maybe if you could shield, it wouldn't have been necessary to exile you to that backdesert," Leia pointed out snidely.
"Sand is rough and coarse and irritating, and it gets everywhere," Luke groused.
Vader took a step forward, causing Luke to raise his lightsaber menacingly.
"Is this true?" the Sith demanded of the visitor from the future. "Is Leia Organa of Alderaan truly your sister?"
Luke gazed at him sympathetically, "Yes, she is. I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" younger Leia demanded, her voice cracking in outrage and exhaustion, "Why would he be sorry?"
"Because," Older Leia explained sadly, "Darth Vader used to be Anakin Skywalker, and he is our biological father."
Vader stared into the face of this woman who was from the future, who wore the face of his angel, his Padme, and suddenly the walls were shaking and the floor was rumbling.
"Cut it out!" Luke yelled, reaching out to give his father a hard slap on the skull with the Force.
Vader did stop, more out of surprise than anything else. That hurt!
"He can't be!" younger Leia cried out in anguish. "It's impossible!"
Older Leia turned her grim stare on her counterpart, "Listen, now is not the time to grieve this, you got it? It is what it is. Scream and yell and wail about it later. It's the truth; Vader is your biological father, and Luke's father. Your Luke is on his way here because Vader knew about him, not you. Which is hysterically ironic, but it is what it is; he tried to use the anguish of his daughter to draw in his son ..."
There were choking noise from Vader's vocoder, but Leia swept on, "You and Han need to get out of here, and we'll hold keep Vader in check. Mara, please get them out and ..."
"Stop Other Luke from coming, I know."
"How could you?" younger Leia demanded, her eyes now fixed in outrage on Vader's helmet. "You were a Jedi Knight! Luke idolizes you! How could you?!"
"Feel free to be outraged," Luke said sympathetically, "But be outraged on the Falcon. Vader is a serious mess, but the Jedi were partly at fault, and of course Palpatine as well. I mean, he manipulated Anakin for years, and then he killed Padme, our father's great love, so..."
"No!" Vader cried out, his voice anguished even through the vocoder. "No, he did not kill her. I did. I choked her, my angel, and in my anger, I killed her."
Luke rolled his eyes in exasperation, "And of course Palpatine told you that, right? Listen, Father, that is not what happened. Leia and I have been sent back to Polis Massa twice."
"Polis Massa?" young Leia asked in bewilderment.
"It was a medical facility, derelict now. We were born there. We know what happened, Father. You were dying after being burned in lava on Mustafar. Palpatine reached through the bond between you and Mother and drained her Life Force to sustain your life while you were being placed in life support. The first time we went to Polis Massa, we cut the bond, and we felt you die! The second time, Leia was with Mother and I ended up on Coruscant with you. I killed Palpatine and managed to save your life. You did not kill Padme – he did."
This time the walls started shaking so hard that the troopers were knocked off their feet. While Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, had the Force tantrum of the ages, Mara yanked Han, young Leia and Calrissian out of the door , whereupon Lando led them toward the cell blocks to rescue Chewbacca and C-3PO.
Luke and Leia sat down and waited with a mixture of exasperation and sympathy as Darth Vader fell to the floor and rocked for a full ten minutes.
When the Sith had finished spewing his rage and hurt and anguish into the galaxy, he was startled to actually feel a hand on his armor plated shoulder. He looked up to see his alter son sitting next to him, his face full of commiseration.
"I'm sorry," Luke said quietly. "Leia and I have met Mother a few times, and she was amazing. I am not surprised the galaxy seems very empty without her."
"You ... you met her?"
"Yes, several times," Leia continued. "Our last trip was way way back to when Anakin Skywalker ... you were only a child of nine, the day you met Padme in Watto's junk shop. I must say, you were very cute."
Vader shuddered again, this time in embarrassment, "I was not cute."
"You were adorable," Leia replied firmly, "which is part of the reason I can talk to you instead of attacking you with a lightsaber. I mean, I hate your guts in your current manifestation, but we've met enough versions of Anakin Skywalker and even Darth Vader to know that losing Shmi, followed by your dreams of losing Padme, were instrumental in leading you over the edge. And Palpatine, of course. We cannot forget Palpatine. He pushed you off."
"I will kill him," the Dark Lord responded with unnerving calm. "I will kill him for taking her away from me, from my children, from the galaxy."
The twins exchanged startled glances.
"That is an awesome idea, of course," Luke said diffidently, "but it won't be easy, right? I mean, I've met the dude. He's a very strong warrior in the Force."
Darth Vader gazed blankly at the wall and nodded his head, "Yes, he is, but nonetheless, I will kill him. And if I die in the process, so be it. I would welcome death if it will destroy the man who took the love of my life."
Luke hesitated for a moment before speaking, "We never quite know how long we have in a timeline but if we are still around, we can help out."
"I think," Leia commented cautiously, "that this time around, we will have time. I sense it."
"Me too."