OK friends, another scene of less action, more angst, but, alas, it's plot development and there's a lot of L/V, so enjoy, and thank you for the feedback/favs and follows! It really does motivate me to update faster. :)
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There was still good in his father.
The thought came to Luke as he was standing, both hands locked on the handrails on either side of him, eyes intent on the floor, willing his leg to lift his foot and take a step. The two-one-bee droid stood to his left, slender appendage poised by his arm in case he fell.
Luke inwardly cursed his inability to shift his weight to the opposite foot, and thought distantly that there was still good in the man under all that black armor, the thought following right on the heels of wondering how he was going to make good on his plan to escape from the ship when he couldn't even walk.
"Now the left leg, sir," the droid repeated, endlessly patient, as only a programmed machine could be. Luke paused to remember which was his left leg, trying to ease his weight to the opposite side. "That's the way, sir," came the bland compliment when he managed to shuffle his foot forward.
His head ached. It was from the effects of the brain injury, he'd been told. The sutures from the surgery had only recently been removed, superficial pain remaining around the surgery line. The rest of his head felt as though it had been tightened into a vice, pounding for release against his temples.
He managed another shuffle forward. His arms, holding onto the bars, were trembling now from the exertion of this short exercise.
What it meant to him that there was still good in his father was still unclear. The anger, a tight knot in his gut that ratcheted tighter, depending on the dark lord's proximity, would not abate. Luke knew anger was of the dark side, knew he couldn't afford to feel this way without slipping over...and yet...he felt it, raw and uncontrolled.
A stray memory fired, patchy scenes from weeks ago, when he and Han had gone to rescue Leia. His memories were a jumble. Luke felt he could not distinguish between what had been reality and what had been a dream. His memory of those last hours was poor, with large sections missing. He remembered the lightsaber...and Vader cutting off his hand. He couldn't remember arriving, or the moment he met Vader, however. Much of the trip to Third Moon was a blank, but he remembered talking to Han.
The Corellian had accused him of using himself as bait against Vader, to draw him away from Leia. Luke had defended, saying he'd supposed he couldn't avoid him forever.
Actually, I think avoiding him forever sounds like a pretty darn good plan, Han had snapped. And then in a quieter voice, his hands gripping the speeder's controls as they careened though the canyon. You're going to get yourself killed, kid.
Luke had allowed for the possibility, but he knew Vader wanted him alive. Many things were probably worse than simply being killed. Yoda had tacitly made it clear that being captured by the Emperor was probably one of them. Luke could imagine a few more as well. But he knew he'd never forgive himself if there was something he could have done to help Leia….and he didn't do it.
I can't avoid him forever, but I will still try, Luke had offered, seeing the set in his friend's jaw - the moody scowl that was a mask for the worry.
Can you really resist the pull of meeting the man who's supposedly your father? Solo had been skeptical. The man who's also the enemy your Jedi teacher wants you to hurry up and kill?
Luke had started to object, but silenced when Han gave him a knowing look. I don't need to satisfy a personal vendetta, if that's what you're thinking.
You're angry - even I can see that, Solo had shrugged, facing forward again, holding up a hand without turning when Luke opened his mouth to deny the accusation. Don't bother lying to me about it. I can tell you are, and I can also tell you I think it's affecting your judgement.
Anger. The emotions rolling off Luke had been so apparent, even Han had picked up on them. Luke felt like an insect under a microscope.
I think acknowledging it first-off would be a good start, Han had told him, slipping into lecture mode. You know, 'hey, I'm angry, I need to punch something and I'll feel better'. It does wonders.
Luke had reminded him that Yoda had told him emotion was a dangerous emotion for a Jedi to have.
See, kid, that's the thing. Han had looked nervous to have this conversation, as if he'd not known how Luke would react.
As if he were afraid of him.
You have the emotions. What do you do with them? Just bottle them up inside and wait for them to explode everywhere?
Luke had felt offended that Han seemed to think he couldn't keep in control. He could manage it, dispel it. Through meditation...
Don't kid yourself, Luke. You are pushing the feelings down and ignoring them. Trust me - it's not healthy.
After a long silence, in which Luke had not known how to answer or what to say, Han had cleared his throat again. Look, kid, I know finding out Darth Vader is your father is not exactly a trip to the Coruscant Carnival, but you can't ignore that it is a thing - he is a thing that you have to acknowledge.
Luke remembered shaking his head, confusion undermining his resolve to do what he needed to do. I don't want to face him. If I do, I'm afraid I'll have to kill him. And - he had broken off, clamping down on his lower lip. I don't know if I can do that. Not to my own father, no matter what terrible things he's done.
Even to Leia? Or you?
Luke had paled at that. Please don't ask me that, Han.
"Sir, now the right foot."
The voice of the medical droid brought Luke back to the present. He realized he'd been leaning heavily against the hand rail, gaze and mind distant. The droid must have repeated his instructions several times for them to register.
"Sir?"
Luke swallowed, looking down at the floor. "I'm…" he coughed. "I'm here."
"Let's get to the end of the carpet and we can be done for the day," the droid offered.
Luke eyed the gray rug, merely five feet distant. He could do this. He would do this, because every small gain in physical rehabilitation meant freedom was closer to his grasp.
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The hangar at the Manarai shipping facility was a hive of chaos and activity, at its peak travel time, mid-Coruscant day. To arrive at this time of day had been part of the plan.
The shuttle had made it through planetary security without mishap, past the scanner ships hovering like gate-keepers in the troposphere. Vargas' fake ID codes for the ship had passed muster: Their collection of Rebel soldiers was nothing more than a mostly-human crew assigned to Receiving in one of the many fruit-packing facilities-a job typically done by droids, but filled by sentients when the smaller facilities couldn't afford an initial massive investment in technology.
The ramp lowered and Han walked down, holster empty, looking casual.
"Captain Tuul?" A bored officer in olive Imperial uniform and rank bars that indicated he was a sergeant, stepped forward. He was flanked by two equally bored-looking stormtroopers, weapons casually resting in the crooks of their elbows. Han supposed the shipping facility's closer proximity to the massive Imperial Palace had something to do with the extra military security.
"That's right." He kept his voice casual as he stepped forward to the retinal scanner. The forged contact lenses-that was where Vargas's real skill came in-were so thin, one could not see the line with a naked eye. They had turned Solo's eyes green. The eye color, along with his hair dyed nearly black, slicked down and held in place with pomade, did wonders to change his appearance. Still, he turned quickly, to avoid giving the officer a clear view of his face.
The scanner pipped quietly. Solo held his breath. If this didn't work….
The light flashed green.
The officer waved him off, already half-turning. "Complete your crew's entry scan," he told Han. "Public transports bound for Gaftelen leave every forty minutes. The droid will need a restraining bolt on-planet."
The officer walked off, leaving the two stormtroopers still standing guard. Han nodded at them both, remembering the Death Star, when he and Luke had burst into the detention center…..
He shook off the thought, went back up the ramp again, unhurried. The "crew" were standing at the corridor, silent, waiting. Their attire was non-military, vaguely shabby; they carried no weapons, since they would be confiscated at the Customs checkpoint anyway. "Ready?" he asked, a half-sardonic smile lighting his features.
One by one the ten shuffled out to the scanner station, followed by Leia, her hair covered in a tight shawl, light gray and unmemorable. Chewie brought up the rear, Artoo rolling along behind.
By the time the scanner had pipped green on the Wookiee, and spewed out the appropriate ID chips for all of them, the two troopers did not linger.
Once they had gone, Solo shot a quick glance to the nearest visible security camera, turned to Antilles and gave a short nod.
Wordlessly, the crew gathered their gear, headed to the exit, with the steady tide of human and alien arrivals in a long queue, while Solo battened the ship.
He caught up to Leia, shouldering his pack as he did so. The Coruscant afternoon was hot, and the facility was stuffy with the sweat of hundreds of human and alien bodies. "See where these transports are?" he asked over the din of the crowd.
Her eyes scanned briefly, without turning. "The exit's up ahead." They dumped their packs on the rolling conveyor belt, stepped through the scanners. Artoo trundled forward, beeping indignantly, through the droid scanner, stilling momentarily as the restraining bolt was installed on his silvery dome.
Simple, Han thought, eyeing the crew up ahead, nodding to the beefy G-47 droid as it placed the restraining bolt's owner in his hand.
"Remember," it intoned, though Solo was already walking away. "Removal of a droid's restraining bolt is in violation of Code 377-4B and is punishable by…." He didn't hear the rest. The troopers standing like statues at the scanning machines barely even glanced at Chewie, much less the rest of his crew.
"Next transport to…" an even female voice announced over the PA system, "Gaftelen in five minutes. Next transport…."
Solo watched Leia's gray-scarfed head bob ahead in the crowd, next to Klivian, the flood of beings sweeping out to Landing Platform 42.
The platform was only slightly less crowded. There was open air there, though, and Solo gratefully caught the slight stir of breeze that attempted to lift his pomade-slicked hair. The landing pad was roughly thirty meters wide, jutting out of the shipping building ten stories above the surface. Curious, Solo craned his neck. Above him, exact copies of the platform extended another twenty stories, as well as to the left and right of them, each pulsing with crowds of humans, droids, and aliens.
He was standing in the crowd, keeping an eye out for their transport within the shipping lanes. The lanes were multiple layers deep, criss-crossing in a blur of vehicles, speeders and large transports.
"Good timing, Boss." It was Wedge's voice beside him. The X-wing pilot's black hair fell over his forehead, and he shook it free.
Solo half-smiled. The gray boxy transport had exited a traffic lane and was approaching their landing pad. "Couldn'a timed it better if I tried."
"This transport to Gaftelan," the female voice announced as the riders rushed the open doors.
Solo dropped himself into the seat next to Leia on the lower level, Artoo wedging himself into the narrow space between seats across the aisle. "You ever visit here?" he asked in a low voice, eyes scanning the teeming city as the lumbering transport lifted off.
She permitted herself a small smile, her gaze following his. "Of course. Many times. Just not - " she broke off, glancing back at him, probably conscious of sounding like a snob. "Just not from the vantage point of public transportation."
Solo smirked. "Right," he amended. "I forgot who I was speaking to."
She looked away, unriled at his sarcasm, her gaze trailing across the view of the massive skyscrapers, the monolithic structure of the Imperial palace dominating the landscape in the distance. Even if one had visited the city planet dozens of times, the sight was still awe-inspiring.
"What about you?" Her voice was so quiet, he almost hadn't heard her. She was looking at him again, studying the strange color of his eyes.
"Me?" Solo shrugged, dismissive. "A handful of times. Through less than legal channels usually." he glanced through the viewport again, not bothering to add that he'd usually spent what time was here in the shadier sections of the underworld, daylight and open air usually a thing a smuggler hadn't been privy to.
Now, if they were - he shouldn't say lucky exactly - he would get to see inside the palace itself, so long as things went according to plan.
Han swallowed, sobering at the thought, thinking about Luke again. There'd been no sighting of the Executor thus far, on Coruscant or anywhere else. It was possible Vader had chosen to transport Luke to Imperial Center through means other than his personal Super Star Destroyer, which meant it was possible that the kid was already on Coruscant, in the Emperor's grasp. Solo cringed at that.
He remembered his last conversation with Luke, where he'd not-so-subtly pointed out the kid's angry, self-destructive streak. The gundark in the room was that Luke felt some sort of attachment to Vader for being his father. Solo had asked him if he thought Vader held him in the same regard.
Luke had hesitated. I don't know why he wants me alive. I - he'd broken off, his eyes flashing. I had hoped…wished it was because he wanted to know me as his son. His eyes had flickered to Han. That's childish and naive.
Han hadn't answered. He could see the pain in Luke's eyes. Childish or not, the hurt was real.
"This is our stop," Leia nudged him. Han jolted, realizing the transport was slowing in its descent to the ground level of the city. Canyon-like walls of the buildings extended so far up toward the sky, buildings crammed impossibly close together, that the warm afternoon sun had disappeared, and the landing platform stood in shadow, lit by yellow glow-lamps, as if night had already fallen.
"Gaftelan," the computer voice announced their stop. Solo turned slightly and caught Chewie's eye, standing to exit.
Telfor Fruit Packing Company was in the middle of the next city block. Its faded sign, unlit, hung over the main factory doors, a large bay housing, at the moment, only one goods transport vehicle. This particular branch of the business dealt in domestic distribution. The interplanetary commerce arm was located closer to the shipping facility they'd just left.
There was a reason Han and his crew had come here, and it was not just because the small warehouse was located within a five kilometer radius of the Imperial Palace.
"Captain Tuul?" A short man with dark skin and a neatly-trimmed white beard stepped down from the entrance of the office area. He was dressed in a high-collared shirt of dark gray, and dark slacks, shoes polished to a shine. He reached Solo in four quick strides, hand extended. "I'm Barton Meade."
Solo shook the man's hand, gesturing quickly to the twelve people and one droid following behind him. "The crew you requested, Mr. Meade."
"Ah, yes," the man ushered them in quickly. "Please come in."
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Telfor Fruit Packing Company was a front for an Alliance safehouse, and Meade himself, though his family had been for thirteen generations packing the rare Bacca fruit from the only place in the galaxy it flourished - orchards near the Manarai mountains - and had profited handsomely from it, was himself a front man for Alliance activities that occurred near the palace. Which was really, a very dangerous place to be.
Meade led the crew into the factory's living quarters, through a narrow corridor - every inch of real estate at a premium this close to Imperial Headquarters. "I apologize for the lack of windows on this wing," he announced regretfully. "But, on the brighter side, you can all take comfort that this level is above ground."
Leia had smoothly taken charge, diplomatic chit-chat really being her thing and all, and she was walking closely behind Meade, even as she shed her gray scarf and draped it around her shoulders. "No need to apologize," she murmured. "We're grateful for your help."
Barton Meade keyed open the next dormitory door, and ushered Vlav and Klivian inside, stepped forward and keyed the next door, nodding to Vargas and Moechen.
When he came to the next door, and ushered the Princess inside, closely followed by Artoo, Meade lowered his voice. "I have made inquiries with my close friend, senator Foss. He serves on two committees with Lord Vader and will know when Vader returns to Coruscant."
"This has to be subtle," Leia warned. "Not like you're digging for information."
Meade drew back. "My dear," he tsked. "I may not be a planetary politician, but I am hardly an arriviste. It will not seem out of place, these conversations."
Leia nodded quickly. "One of our team will join the palace delivery crew, yes?" she asked. The plan would be for the Alliance crew to eventually infiltrate palace staff with Vargas's codes and forged lenses that could fool the retina scanners.
Meade waved his hand dismissively. "Yes, of course. It will all be set up soon."
"Another thing," Han caught his sleeve now. "We'll need weapons for the crew."
"Already being done," Meade reassured. "I will have them in a few hours. In the meantime," he lifted his eyebrows at Solo. "We must keep up appearances. The packing shift begins in an hour."
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"Do you have nothing better to do...than stand there and stare at me?" Luke's tone was hostile, his breathing labored, sweat rolling down his temples as he lifted his leaden left foot to the next stair. This particular torture device was a set of five steps Luke was supposed to climb, which, once he reached the top, lowered escalator-fashion to become the lowest step again. The concentration and the physical effort required to navigate those five steps was demoralizing even without Vader's gaze boring a hole into the back of his head.
"If you're asking me if I prioritize nothing over ensuring the continued health of key players in the Empire's future, then you are correct," Vader rumbled calmly. "This takes precedence."
Luke felt the blood drain from his face. Vader seemed to believe Luke's commitment to him and the Empire was settled, a mere consequence of being here, in this place. He took another laborious step. "Your concern for my health is - " another step - "touching, but misplaced."
The dark lord walked around into Luke's line of sight, crowding out the hovering medical droid, arms crossed. "How so?"
Luke stopped to catch his breath. He leaned his weight on the handrail. "I've never said I would join you."
Vader cocked his head to the side, appearing to be amused at Luke's obstinance. The Too-onebee moved away, its attention on the readouts on the computer screen. The humans' argument was outside the protocol of its programming. "I don't recall giving you the choice." He paused, for effect, probably. "Son."
Luke glared, hot anger flooding him. He turned to face the stairs again, pointedly shutting out the dark lord. "I don't recall asking for your permission!" he shot back.
He stumbled, crashing his shin against the stair. An iron hand was suddenly clamped around his upper arm, lifting him to his feet. It felt less like concern for Luke and more like protection of Vader's investment.
Luke shook off Vader's gloved hand, ignoring him, taking another step and another - pushing himself, because gaining back his physical health was his path toward freedom.
"Luke," Vader's leather gauntlet came down heavily on Luke's shoulder, not in a fatherly way, but possessively, the fingers tightening. "You are my son."
Luke stopped, eyes narrowing as he turned to regard the dark lord. "I won't claim you as my father." He hoped his words cut deep, shook Vader to the core. "A father wouldn't do this to his son."
Their gazes locked for one long, silent moment, more bitter rebukes forming on Luke's tongue, the anger flooding his limbs, making him shake all over.
"Do what, Luke?" Vader's voice sounded unperturbed and even as ever.
Luke ground his teeth, freshly angry that he had to spell it out for him. "This - force someone against their will. Drag me to the Emperor…." he trailed off, words failing him for a moment. He remembered, the thought that had come to him earlier, that there was still good somehow in his father.
"Come with me," he said instead. "Away from the Emperor. Back to the good side."
Vader did not move. Luke did not move. A bead of sweat rolled down his back, his heart pounding in his throat, eyes locked onto those red-tinted goggles, trying to see past the mask to the man beneath.
"You don't seem to understand the power of the dark side."
The spell was broken. "Which is of course the first lesson you will teach me," Luke nodded wearily, bitter sarcasm coloring his tone.
"In due time."
"It won't work."
"Keep your naivete as long as possible if it helps you sleep at night."
"What helps you sleep at night?" Luke shot back, aware that he was unraveling, his emotional reserves spent. He lifted a shaking hand to readjust on the railing. "How can you justify using your flesh and blood as a…" he shook his aching head, searching for the words, "...a pawn in your game? Is that all I am to you?"
He was met with a wall of silence, a glare from that Death's head mask.
"I think," Vader said quietly, turning away from Luke now, toward the door. "That you are ready now to travel to Coruscant. To meet the Emperor and continue with your training."
He stormed out of the room, leaving a shaking Luke staring after him.
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