Millennium Falcon:
Vader looked out of the viewport and noticed that there were six tie fighters that were tailing Luke. He looked at Han and pointed to the tie fighters, "Solo move us behind the six tie fighters that are pursuing Luke and hit them with whatever we have."
It was clear to Vader that this Darth Vectis would stop at nothing to kill his son even if it put his men and his ship at a tactical disadvantage. Just as Vectis would stop at nothing to eliminate his son, Vader would also stop at nothing to protect his son. "For some reason they aren't even targeting us," Leia said over the comlink.
"He doesn't care about us he wants Luke dead above all else," Vader replied.
"Obi-Wan who has Padmé?" Vader demanded.
"I am with her for right now. Try to avoid any insane maneuvers or spins," Ben said over the comlink. Vader saw that Leia and Ahsoka had eliminated the six tie fighters that were on Luke's tail. Vader sighed as he looked at Han, "We need to get onboard the Executor so that we can safely deliver our child but I cannot risk Luke's life."
Vader looked out of the viewport as an additional four tie fighters got onto his son's tail.
"Dad I am just going to make a jump to hyperspace," Luke said over the comlink from Vader's starfighter.
"Luke you cannot be guaranteed a safe jump if you do it without proper calculations you know that," Han yelled. Vader glanced at Solo thankful that the younger man was willing to voice opposition to his son's reckless plan. He was finding that the young ex smuggler was growing on him. The man was a good pilot and he was loyal to his wife and children. He was glad that Padmé and the twins had enjoyed protection from reliable allies in the time that they had been apart.
"I am not going to put the safety of my little brother or sister at risk and if these fighters are hyperspace capable for any insane reason, they would be crazy to follow me."
"Luke, I have customized the hell out of that hyperdrive if you are going to lightspeed skip in my ship you are doing the repairs," Vader said in frustration.
"I love you dad," Luke said as the comlink went static.
Four of the tie fighters pursuing Luke appeared to have followed the boy into hyperspace. Great, thought Vader this group of futuristic Imperial followers must have incorporated aspects of Thrawn's tie defender program into their tie fighters. Vader looked back at Solo in frustration, "I think I kind of like you kid. You are a dam good pilot. I just wish my son had listened to you a moment ago."
"Dad I don't sense that he is dead yet," Leia said over the comlink.
Vader looked at Solo as he spoke, "Contact the Executor and tell them to bring us aboard as soon as it is safe to do so. Request the best doctor on the ship and a medical team on standby in the hanger bay for when we arrive," Vader said.
He wanted to go and find his son but his wife needed them and they were about to welcome their new child into the universe. Vader had missed the birth of his first two children but he was going to be dammed if he would miss this one. Luke's life was not in his hands he would search for him once he had ensured that his wife and other two children were safe. For now, he could sense that his son was not in immediate danger. His son would contact him when it was safe to do so. Thankfully unlike Leia, the boy still had a working lightsaber and he had the modifications on his starfighter.
Executor:
Firmus Piett observed Death Squadron's heavy bombardment of the enemy vessel. The large dark vessel was firing back at the Executor and the other five Imperial Star Destroyers, but the shields of the Executor were holding just fine against the enemy firepower. Fighters had been deployed to prevent enemy fighters and bombers from becoming a threat to the fleet. "What of the freighter?" Piett inquired.
"They are flying to the other side of the Executor so that they won't get caught in the crossfire."
"Sir it appears as though their shields are down to thirty percent."
"Where are ours?" Piett asked.
"Ours are at eighty percent but the Avenger is down to fifteen percent they have taken the brunt of the bombardment."
"Order Captain Needa to move his ship away from the bombardment."
"Sir the enemy ship is preparing to go into hyperspace," said another young officer.
Piett was not at all surprised, even though the ship was more advanced than any of the ships in their fleet they were outnumbered six to one. With the firepower of the Executor, the enemy ship had no chance of a victory against them. It could take on one or two Imperial class I or II-star destroyers but five Imperial Star Destroyers and a dreadnaught were almost impossible odds to overcome regardless of how sophisticated your vessel was.
"Of course, they are going to flee they don't have what they wanted. Open a channel to all of our ships."
"Done sir!"
"This is Admiral Piett on my command I want maximum firepower directed towards the propulsion systems on that ship. Fire on my command before they get to hyperspace."
Millennium Falcon:
Han Solo watched as a massive barrage of firepower impacted the engines of the mysterious star destroyer just as it lurched into hyperspace.
Padmé watched as Anakin entered the room. Ahsoka was directing her to push. She noticed Vader taking her arm as he spoke, "She is like the rest of her family, isn't she?"
"I should have stayed on Home One."
Vader laughed as he kissed her forehead "At least I get to be here to see her birth. There is no doubt it is another beautiful little girl."
"She is going to be as stubborn as her dad and as mouthy as her brother and sister," Padmé said with a smirk.
Vader looked at his wife as he spoke, "Without a doubt my love. All I know is that I need you to push Angel."
Ahsoka looked at him as she spoke, "Have you ever delivered a baby before Skyguy?"
The Sith Lord shook his head as Ahsoka spoke, "I can see her head push Padmé! Push now!"
Padmé screamed as Vader held her hand. The Jedi prepared to receive the new baby as Vader saw Obi-Wan at the door. He smiled, "You were there when the twins were born right Master?"
Obi-Wan pointed to the corner where an all too familiar astromech droid sat as he spoke, "So was R2." Vader looked at Ahsoka as she approached with the crying baby that she had cleaned with water from a water thermos. She placed the baby in a blanket as she spoke, "This is one beautiful little girl."
She passed her to Vader. Vader looked into the chestnut eyes of his new daughter as he realized that she had his blonde hair. "She has a balance of both of us."
"Let me see her she just almost killed me," Padmé said.
Vader passed her to his wife as he spoke, "What are we going to call her?"
Padmé looked at her husband as she spoke, "I named Luke you chose Leia's name."
Leia who entered the room spoke, "Dad you named me?"
Vader smiled, "The bet was because I thought we were having a girl and Padmé insisted we were having a boy. We betted that whoever was right would name the baby. She chose Luke as a name and I chose Leia."
Padmé looked at Anakin as she spoke, "A lot of people died that mattered in my life. Some who really shouldn't have. One was Cordé her name was Cordyn but we called her Cordé. She was my decoy who was killed on Coruscant in that assassination attempt right before the beginning of the Clone Wars."
Vader frowned as he thought back to the night that he had chased down Zam Wesell with Obi-Wan.
He looked at her with a smile, "And you want to honor Cordé ?"
"If that is ok," Padmé said. Vader kissed his wife's forehead in response, "Of course that is ok."
"Can we call her Cordé Tano Skywalker?"
Ahsoka's eyes widened as Padmé looked at Ahsoka. She smiled, "Ahsoka has saved both our lives plenty of times and she did deliver our Cordé. Cordé Tano Skywalker it is."
"I-I don't know what to say," Ahsoka said as tears left her eyes.
Vader approached his former padawan as he spoke, "Ahsoka please continue to look after them for me. I am so thankful that you are there for us."
Vader could feel the landing gear of the freighter engaging below his feet as Han entered the cabin. Vader did not need Han to tell him that they had docked with the Executor and it was clear to the occupants of the entire freighter that they were now onboard and that their tense ordeal was over.
"there is a medical team just at the bottom of the boarding ramp," Han said.
"Send them on up," Vader replied.
Tie Advanced x1:
Luke dropped out of hyperspace for the fourth time with only one surviving tie fighter on his tail. He cringed, hyperspace often allowed him and his pilots to escape swarms of Imperial tie fighters after their raids. If tie fighters were equipped with a hyperdrive in the foreseeable future, their opportunities for success in the war would dwindle. He engaged the last tie fighter and destroyed it as he prepared to make one last jump to hyperspace before reinforcements arrived at their position.
He made the jump as he frowned realizing that the lightspeed skipping had led to some unanticipated damage to his hyperdrive. His father was going to kill him for causing such damage to his own personal craft, Luke thought to himself. Luke was unfamiliar with the system that he was heading towards and it was not even recorded in Imperial charts. Luke only hoped that there was a spaceport where he could get repairs before rejoining his family.
The long-range com was damaged so no matter what, Luke would have to land and repair the com to contact his father especially if there was no possible way for him to repair the hyperdrive. He only hoped that hyperdrive was salvageable for him to escape because although Luke was sure that he had left a dead trail for his new enemies, he knew that anything was possible especially if they were in fact time travelers as his father suspected. If this new enemy was from the future, they likely knew things about him that even he did not know. He cringed at the thought of how disadvantaged he was. He was flying a state-of-the-art Imperial starfighter and he was a powerful Force sensitive, but he was facing an enemy with what appeared to be refined Imperial technology. How did he compete with that alone?
Executor:
Leia Skywalker sat in her father's quarters with Han Solo and Chewbacca. her father was in the sickbay with Ahsoka and Ben.
Luke noticed Threepio entering the room as the droid spoke, "Mistress Leia your father said that he would like you to watch over your mother and new sister while he analyzes the data with Ahsoka and Ben."
"Ok," Leia said.
Leia stepped out of the room to the sight of two armored death troopers. One of the death troopers spoke, "Follow me."
Padmé watched as her husband held their daughter in his arms. She noticed something in him that she had seen when he had spoken of their children to her during their time on the Death Star. Vader looked at her as he spoke, "Isn't she perfect?"
"She takes after both of us. We have the twins who each are almost copies of each of us in appearance and we have this one who is a mix of both of us."
Vader looked at his wife as he spoke, "I want to find a way to be involved in their lives. I am willing to give up what I need to so that I can be a present father."
"Can you see what Sidious has taken from you?" said the voice of Vader's old Master.
Vader turned to see Obi-Wan entering the room with Ahsoka. He nodded his head as he spoke, "He took everything from me. There is nothing that he hasn't taken from me."
"But you can still have it back Anakin," said Ahsoka.
"I cannot just leave everything that I am doing and keep them safe. If I go rogue the children will be in as much danger as Padmé he cannot know that she is alive."
"That is true but are you not still a Sith?" asked Padmé. Vader looked down at his wife before looking back at his friends, "I-I don't know at this point. I have been feeling like I am being torn apart since you all started coming back into my life."
Obi-Wan stepped forward as he spoke, "She still loves you and your children do. I still love you and so does Ahsoka."
"How could you Obi-Wan? You saw what I did to Padmé on Mustafar. You saw what I did at the Jedi Temple."
"Anakin, I raised you from when you were nine years old, how could my feelings for you just die because of your mistakes?"
Vader looked at the older man deciding to change the subject as he spoke, "I assembled my two most trusted officers on the ship. Let's go review this data. The twins just arrived with security."
Obi-Wan saw Leia entering the room as Leia spoke, "I suppose that even with just a blaster I can protect my mom."
Vader unclipped his lightsaber as he spoke, "Hold onto this until I am done."
"Ok Dad," Leia replied.
Leia looked down at the Sith Lightsaber before turning back to her mother. She clipped her father's lightsaber to her belt as her father passed Cordé to her mother.
"Could I have a turn Mom?"
"After I feed her," Padmé said to her daughter.
"When did you last hold her?" Leia asked.
"Right before your dad did. Leia, I think that the three of you kids may do more to bring Anakin back than you may realize."
"Ani could you at least have any tactical meeting you all plan to have with me in the room?"
"Doing that would mean the they are coming here."
"Do your most trusted officers know what is going on?" Padmé asked.
"I briefed them earlier," Vader said.
"Then let's have the meeting here and put all of our minds together on this matter," Padmé said.
Vader looked at his stubborn wife and took in a deep breath as he spoke, "Fine, I will get a holoprojector in here for our use."
"I can see to that right after I do our last check on the baby," said a voice.
A man in a white coat entered the room as Vader spoke, "Besides General Veers, Admiral Piett and my guard nobody else knows the true story."
"And we can trust this Doctor Mattison?" Leia skeptically asked.
The doctor turned to Leia as he spoke, "I know that your father is planning to eventually take the Imperial throne for himself and that is fine with me. The Emperor executed my brother a few years ago for some so-called disloyalty. He was a scientist and I am guessing that he refused to bend his ethics and such an action cost him his life."
"I am sorry," Leia said.
"Still, I am sure there are some in the Empire that have similar resentment towards my husband he is known to choke men to death when they fail or offend him," Padmé disdainfully said.
Vader looked at his wife noticing the anger that was in her eyes.
A few minutes later, A holocom was put just at the foot of Padmé's hospital bed. Cordé had fallen asleep in her arms and Leia stood on one side of the bed. Vader sat close to her while Obi-Wan and Ahsoka sat on the nearby countertop. Han and Chewie stood towards the door as two men in olive green uniforms entered the room. Vader turned as he spoke, "Admiral Piett, General Veers meet my wife Padmé and our daughter Leia and our friends Ben, Ahsoka and Han and Chewbacca."
The two men acknowledged the group as Piett spoke, "Is the little one your newest addition My Lord?"
"Yes, I definitely owe you another debt of gratitude for that shot on Tatooine."
Padmé's eyes narrowed as she spoke, "You're the one that shot me?"
"Why else would it have been set on stun?" Piett asked.
"He knew that I would need a prisoner for questioning once he found out that you were my wife, he was even more thankful that he set the shot for stun," Vader said.
Vader noticed Obi-Wan choking on his laughter as he spoke, "You are too amused old man."
"You're not the one that was stunned by a sniper shot. That was the most painful stun that I have ever felt," Padmé said.
"My apologies Milady I was just serving Lord Vader as I do now," Piett said.
Piett stepped forward as he activated the holocom revealing the image of the enemy Star Destroyer.
He looked at the group as he spoke, "I saw this ship during an incident at the edge of known space on Empire Day but that was as you all know a good fifteen years ago."
"Did it just appear and disappear?" Ben asked.
"Yes, it was like it was present in the singularity but then it was not. The entire Star System that we were close to was simultaneously destroyed. There have been at least two other known incidents of a singularity just opening randomly since Empire Day."
"And we didn't see or hear from that ship again for another fourteen years," Vader commented.
"It was as though it was in the singularity that Admiral Piett describes for all that time," General Veers muttered.
"Perhaps it was," Ben said.
All eyes turned towards Ben as he continued, "Think about it, it could have been some portal from the emergence of a black hole or whatever it was that caused the destruction of that star system which is still a mystery to this day."
Vader held up the ID doc as he spoke, "A body was found by agents of ours and this being is not even born yet according to his ID yet his body and identification was floating onboard the still compressed bridge of a Mon Calamari vessel."
"That is insanity," General Veers said.
"Take a look," Vader replied.
General Veers looked at the document in terror, "This is the symbol of the Rebellion and it says official Republic identification card. If that is the case it means that our glorious Empire is…."
"Doomed to eventually fall to the revolution that my own wife is leading against us," Vader grimly finished.
Veers passed the document back as he spoke, "This has to be fake there is no way we are talking about what this implies."
Piett looked at the group as an idea crossed his mind, "Before the Clone Wars my educational background was in engineering and physics and my father is a very accomplished physicist himself. Something I learned from my own studies and his research offers a theoretical explanation."
"At this point all we have until we slice into that data in my wife's droid is theory and what we have so indulge me Admiral," Vader
"The singularity that I observed could cause tunneling through not only space but through the flow of time itself. It is theoretical but some have hypothesized that you can time travel through a newly formed black hole if your ship is able to survive the experience. Maybe the black hole formed in the future and threw them into the past. Perhaps when we saw that singularity opening. What was years for us on our side of the dimensional rift which we would not dare to cross was minutes for them."
"Ok I am a pilot not a physicist but Admiral you are trying to tell me that this guy is from the future?" Han asked skeptically.
"Look at this ID doc the sophistication of his starfighters. The variation in the blasters and the plastoid armor that we recovered from the surface of the planet in your fight. Not to mention the sophistication of his Star Destroyer. Do you have any other explanation?" General Veers asked.
"Well, whatever we do we have to stop him and know that he probably knows our next move before we make it. I will not let him kill my wife, my son or my daughters ," Vader said through gritted teeth
"Lord Vader you are assuming that he knows how things will unfold from now moving forward. That assumption is flawed because of the reality that his presence has created," said Admiral Piett.
"What do you mean?" Vader asked.
"Remember what Yoda always said Anakin? Always in motion the future is and always uncertain," Ben said.
"Wise words and so profound for explaining the reality. The future for this Darth Vectis is just as unknown as it is for us. He may know about some of those who made history in his timeline but the course of history and the events since the day that system was destroyed have been altered. Our lives in this timeline and what they once were have changed and perhaps our destinies as well," Piett finished.
"So, history was contaminated and perhaps it will come with its own consequences," Padmé said.
"The change to history could also be a blessing," Vader said.
"What is the next course of action?" Admiral Piett asked.
"Calculate all possible destinations of my starfighter based on its known trajectory. We need to find my son."
"He will make contact Dad when he is safe to do so," Leia said.
"Assuming he is safe," Vader replied in frustration.
"Ani all of you can sense he is alright stop worrying."
"There is some crazy madman from the future that is obsessed with killing my son do not tell me to stop worrying," Vader replied as he turned and stormed off towards the bridge.
"I am going to follow him," Leia said.
"I'll go with you," Ben said.
Admiral Piett looked back at Padmé as he spoke, "Was he always like this?"
"Whenever his own family and friends are in danger, he loses the ability reason in the heat of the passion and desire to protect those that he loves," Padmé said.
That is it for now, thank you for reading and reviewing. In the next chapter we will see what happens to Luke and find out more about who Darth Vectis is.
-Fallen Jedi 79