Star Wars belongs to Lucasfilm Ltd., itself property of The Walt Disney Company. I make no lucrative nor commercial use of my writings in relationship with the Star Wars license.

Luke ran along the deck in rank with his squadmates, his helmet under his arm. Around him, other pilots were hurrying to their ships, the alarm blaring in their ears.

"What's happening?" Luke heard Vil ask Lt. Tanbris behind him.

"A small group of X-Wings are attacking the ship. Desperate survivors of the last assault, in all likelihood," the officer replied. "They're acting frantic and disorganised, but analyses of the attack show there might be a risk, and they're too small to be hit by turbolasers."

Next to Luke's ship stood a familiar shape, and he smiled seeing the small droid working on his snub. When he saw him arrive, Weefour uttered a series of happy bleeps.

"Everything ready, bud?" Luke asked. The droid whistled in what sounded like an affirmative. "Thanks!"

Weefour rolled away, directed by a mechanic. Luke put his helmet on, then climbed down into the TIE's cockpit and started preflight checks. The fighter's temperature was still warm from its previous flight.

He looked up through the octagonal windscreen. His stomach tightened when he caught sight of Darth Vader striding on the deck, his black cape floating behind him, everything in him screaming of danger and future destruction. The man climbed down his ship with surprising agility, considering his size. Luke looked away.

He was surprised Lord Vader was leading them even though they were only dealing with a few Rebels. Perhaps things were more serious than he had thought.

His checks complete, he was soon cleared out by flight control, and his TIE launched into space together with the other ships. He got into formation, Vader's voice giving them instructions through the comm.

"Stay close to weaponry and shields generators. It seems to be their primary target."

Closely following Chaser, Luke obeyed. He moved aside as a blast shot where he had been half a second before. Three Rebels were heading their way with heavy fire, and the both of them had trouble evading them. They flew a moment in that tight spot before three TIEs joined them. They cornered the X-Wings, and it looked like they would soon be destroyed; but in an incredibly daring manoeuvre, the Rebels turned around and fired at them, taking out two Imperials.

"They're madmen," Chaser said, his voice strained.

With gritted teeth, Luke watched out for him as best as he could. They stayed close to the generator, warding off countless attacks. The Rebels really were desperate, their assaults unpredictable and wild, and Luke had to pay extra attention in order not to lose control, relying way too much on his instincts as he escaped close call after close call.

Dark Curse and Cosmo soon joined them, but the Rebels were getting backup, too. Proton torpedoes fired in the air, and Luke noticed with dismay they had homing devices as one tailed him in the sharp turn he took. He spun and stayed close to the shield, exhaling a sigh of relief when it finally crashed down on the Star Destroyer.

"Shooting Star, I have one behind me," Chaser called him as he made circles around the command tower. "Grinder manoeuvre?"

"Roger," Luke answered, grinning both at the perspective of the manoeuvre and at hearing his brand new call sign.

He positioned himself behind the two fighters, shooting at the Rebel while taking care not to get into an angle where he could hit Chaser. He came closer to his enemy, the both of them tangled into a spin while Chaser took distance. The Rebel managed to escape him, only to end up into Chaser's range; Luke made a sharp turn away while the two engaged in combat, keeping watch of his ally and ready to take on their opponent should it get away. Finally, after such a few exchanges, they managed to corner the Rebel snub and to shoot him down.

"Phew, thanks," Chaser said, perfectly expressing Luke's own feeling, just as another couple of Rebels took them in chase.

Far too slowly for Luke's taste, they managed to take them down, but it felt as if there were always more enemies coming. Luke could feel fatigue slowly creeping on him, tension in his shoulders as he wasn't left any moment of respite.

"Starboard shield generator hit!" a voice rang through the comm.

Fear crept on Luke. For the first time, the very real possibility that they could not make it hit him in full force. It wasn't panic, like he had felt upon being confronted to combat for the first time, but a slowly-settling realisation happening while he was in full possession of his mind. In a sense, it was even more frightening.

A few Rebels couldn't win against a full Imperial Star Destroyer, he raged. That was ridiculous.

Completely surrendering to his instincts, he gave himself even more to the fight. A X-Wing attacking Silver fell under his fire, relief seizing him every time enemies exploded around him, crashing down on the white-painted surface of the gigantic ship. Maybe it would be over soon. Maybe in a few minutes they could go back home, the threat neutralised.

"Black Five, this is Black Four," he heard into his comm. There was a strange accent in his wingmate's voice. "I'm being sandwiched, you think you can help?"

Slightly below him on his left, Chaser was indeed cornered between two Rebels, and had trouble evading their fire.

"Sure thing, hold on," Luke replied before darting in his direction.

He fired off Chaser's opponent and joined him in formation, before the two of them separated, trying to force their enemies to do the same. The fight was now more evenly matched, and the two pairs of fighters soared into space, both trying to push their enemies in a place where they could take them down.

Luke let out a groan of discomfort. He had been split up from Chaser, and was tightly engaged with one of the Rebels. He couldn't get rid of it, even less shoot it, despite all his efforts. He could feel the Rebel was just as tense as him, but smiling in exhilaration, certain it was but a question of time before Luke fell under his fire. A wave of hatred overcame him.

"Kriff –" he heard Chaser through his comm, a slight hysterical edge to his voice. "I can't shake it!"

Luke swallowed, trying to catch a glimpse of his wingmate, who seemed to be in just as bad a position as him. Heart pounding in his ears, a foreboding knot in his guts, he staked it all and jerked up before firing blindly, attempting to startle his opponent into making a mistake. The X-Wing couldn't follow him, less agile than a TIE, and Luke finally managed to get a shot at him, feeling a weight lift off his shoulders when the Rebel blew up not too far from him.

Without losing a moment, he turned to join Chaser, darting full throttle to help him. His bad feeling intensified as he kept his eyes straight on the two ships grappling in front of him. There was a spike of panic, a scream in the comm, and Chaser's fighter went up in flames.

Luke set out after the Rebel, his throat choked up with a restrained howl. It wouldn't get out – not after – it wouldn't destroy any other of them. Luke would grind it into pieces before, he would make sure it would never cause any damage again –

Chaser's killer went out in a bright explosion, its debris disintegrating as they fell on the hull's shield.

Luke took altitude and attempted to regain control of his shaking hands. His heart was beating so fast it was painful, and he felt sick in his stomach. He flew in circles, seeking to help out anywhere he could, but the fight was slowly dying down. Only a handful of Rebels were left now, slaughtered or brought in one after the other by the remaining TIEs, who were still outnumbering them by far. Soon enough, Lord Vader called off the fight and ordered them to retreat.

This time Luke was among the last to come in. Some of the fighters around were badly singed, but casualties didn't seem to have been too high: of the three squadrons that had been sent out, Luke counted about thirty pilots who had come back.

Eleven from his own squad.

Luke took a glance at his squadmates without crossing any gaze. The flow of incoming pilots had stopped, there would be no one else coming back. As usual, the ones who had looked at each other, taking in the losses.

Luke already knew.

Eleven was good, he told himself. It meant nearly all the squadron made it.

Images of Chaser's fighter blowing up in the middle of space were stuck on his retina. Yet he still expected him to get out of his snub and punch his shoulder with a barb. He kept staring at the empty stack next to his own TIE, as if it could bring back the lost ship and its pilot...

He distantly heard Vader congratulating them. For once, the cold spreading in his chest didn't seem to come from his commanding officer's proximity. He looked at his chrono. The fight had barely lasted fifteen minutes... He remembered the instructors at the Academy telling them most rookie pilots didn't last long in their first battle. But Chaser wasn't a new pilot, this hadn't been his first battle... between the two, it was Luke who was the rookie.

The others were heading back to their quarters, but Luke didn't feel like following them. He looked at them from afar, heard a short and shaky laugh, too strong to be anyone else's than Boomer's. He hoped nobody would notice him staying behind.

He didn't want to move. He didn't want to talk, to pretend.

They didn't throw him a glance, and soon enough, he was the only pilot left in the hangar. Mechanics walked around him, tending to the crafts, but nobody questioned him or – even more peculiar – asked him to move out of the way. It was as if they didn't see him, as if he was a ghost. Luke indeed no longer felt part of the living world...

A questioning bleep, a bump into his shins tore him from his stupor. He looked down and managed a small smile for his droid friend.

"Hey," he whispered, setting a hand on the astromech's dome.

Weefour whistled again, an inquiry Luke couldn't make out the details of.

"You're right, buddy," he said anyway, letting the words flow from his mouth as if they had bypassed his mind. "I – I should go and – and take off my gear – bring it back..."

His sentence died out. He took a deep breath that had trouble going through his tight throat.

He looked at the closed hangar doors again, knowing the emptiness that lay behind, and was overwhelmed by the need to move.

"Come," he said to Weefour, his metal comfortably cool under Luke's hand as they left the hangar.

.

Darth Vader strode in the corridor, his mood foul enough to be sensed even by the most Force-blind individuals. Officers and troopers alike stepped aside to make way to him, and fear followed him like a shadow, but he hardly paid it attention. Fury simmered in him, boiling and ready to explode on the ones responsible for this debacle.

All the officers stood up when he entered the briefing room, their face as pale as sheets. They held themselves with perfect poise, but for once this did nothing but irritate Vader further. He didn't want to deal with pompous decorum.

"I want to know every detail about this glaring breech of security, now."

The men shakily sat down save for one who swallowed before answering, standing at perfect attention.

"More in-depth analyses of the attack have shown the Rebels were most likely coming from Praadost II, my lord. Stray ships that survived our previous attack..."

"That is impossible," Vader cut him off. "They were all destroyed or captured. I saw to it personally."

The man swallowed.

"That is what stood out of the reports, sir, considering the angle of attack and their behaviour. They were too few and too badly organised of it to be any kind of planned operation."

Vader turned away from the officer and paced around the table, his hands behind his back. He was certain there had been no Rebels left in the base he had stormed with his troops. It was impossible they had hid: the soldiers had explored every inch of the base, seeking both enemies to kill and prisoners to make. Even if they had somehow missed a spot, Vader was certain he would have heard their lives shining in the Force. The base had been completely empty when they had left it.

If this was the truth, it only left one possibility.

"Then there must be another hideout on the planet's surface. Captain Bolvan," he addressed a man with black hair, "contact the Praadost authorities and obtain their consent for a full sweep of the planet's surface."

The man acknowledged him.

"Have any of the attackers been brought in for interrogation?"

"Yes, sir, two of them."

"Good. Send me the data you already gathered on them, but do not go further than preliminary interrogation; I want to question them myself. What about the damaged shield generator?"

Another officer answered, a captain with a square jaw, answered.

"Superficial degradation only, my lord. The shielding was not affected, and repairs are being made as we talk."

That was good, Vader thought, slightly calmer. The thought of a handful of snub fighters damaging his flagship was infuriating. He was glad to know that would soon be remedied. Perhaps the situation wasn't as disastrous as he had thought.

"Send all relevant documents to me. You are dismissed."

He exited the room, leaving his officers behind. He walked towards his quarters at a measured pace, deep in thought. Much remained to be discovered about the Rebel assault. Strategically and tactically, this sort of suicide mission made no sense. Vader doubted there had been any higher command behind it. It would have been far more clever for any undiscovered Rebels to keep a low profile and wait for an opportunity to evacuate.

Unless there was another goal behind it. A diversion, or sabotage. It could be that the attack was but a clumsy attempt to divert their attention from something hidden on planet, a Rebel project of some kind. Another possibility was that they had sought to drive them away: had they succeeded to bring down their shield generators, Devastator would have been forced to leave combat and rejoin Kuat for extensive repair. It could be that whatever they knew of the secret Imperial weapon Vader was tasked to protect had been concealed there...

A familiar Force presence brushed against his senses, interrupting his musings. He stopped walking, surprised to find him here rather than in his quarters with the rest of his squadron, and looked around to find him.

There, in a small recess in the bulkhead, the small shape of the boy was sitting, facing the viewport. He was still dressed in his flight suit, and his helmet lay discarded at his side. An astromech droid Vader thought he recognised was standing next to him. He hadn't noticed Vader's arrival, giving him ample leisure to watch him.

He was sitting with his arms around his knees, his shoulders sagged in defeat and grief, his head tilted back as gentle starlight washed over his features. He was staring at space with a faraway look, and silvery tears streamed down his face without a sound.

The droid uttered a low, mournful noise. The boy turned his head to look at it for a few seconds, then put his arm around it and leant on it, his back starting to shake with silent sobs.

Transfixed, Vader couldn't look away, hit by the waves of helpless anger and distress the boy broadcast through the Force. The cause of his grief was hardly difficult to guess, especially knowing they just came back from battle. Casualties regularly happened, and were especially frequent in fighter squadrons. Rarely, however, did pilots display their grief in the middle of a corridor, or showed such raw feelings in public. Vader was suddenly reminded of how young Lars was, much younger than all his other pilots.

The very age his child would have been, had it lived.

Bitter irritation rose in him. The emotion coming from the boy resonated with him in an all too familiar way, hitting places inside him he had thought stripped of all sensitivity. Memories of another young man forced to grow up too fast, with too heavy a burden on his shoulders and too much pain in his heart, struck him uncomfortably. He too was well acquainted with sorrow and with grief.

He clenched his fists. What right did that boy have to weep when he was lucky enough to live, a chance his own child had been stripped of? Could he not appreciate the worth of the gift he had been given, did he have to make such a pathetic display of his misery, as if he knew anything of pain?

Taken by a cruel urge, he stepped forward, determined to humiliate him and remind him of his insignificance. Before he could utter a word, however, the droid bleeped a warning and the boy looked in his direction. His cheeks coloured and he jumped to his feet.

"My lord."

His voice was still hoarse, his eyes puffy and red with moist tracks obvious on his cheeks, but he attempted to pretend nothing was out of the ordinary nonetheless. The harsh words Vader had prepared to lash out against him died on his tongue, surprised by the rigour of his shining gaze.

"A rather odd place for stargazing," he said instead.

The boy looked away towards the viewport, his embarrassment obvious. In his presence stood out a touch of resentment, a strange dissonance with the rest of his feelings and with his behaviour. It intrigued Vader.

"I found it when I was grounded."

He seemed subdued and quiet, very different from the unruly, brash young man Vader knew. His distress was obvious to anyone with a grasp on the Force, to anyone with eyes really, yet he tried so hard to hold himself together Vader found himself unsettled. The droid gently bumped against his shins and the boy set a soothing hand on it, a tiny smile stretching his lips. A pang went through Vader's heart.

"Who died?" he asked.

Lars pressed his lips together. "My wingmate. Chaser. He –" He broke off and took a deep breath. "I apologise."

"You were close to him," Vader guessed.

Lars nodded, still looking down. Once again a spike of irritation shot through the Force. Vader found himself unable to look away from him, fascinated by his vulnerability.

"I should go back to my quarters," the boy said, his desire to leave strong in his whole posture. He turned away and crouched to pick up his helmet.

"Stay."

Lars froze, then slowly stood up. He didn't turn back to face him but reached out to the viewport pane, stars shining under his black glove. His hand closed into a fist and he sighed, bowing his head as he leant against the transparisteel.

"Why can't you leave me alone?"

The words were a mere whisper, no louder than a breath, but Vader heard them nonetheless. The boy's anger bloomed, and Vader understood it at last: it was his constant attention that made Lars feel trapped, helpless, overwhelmed by an obsession he couldn't understand.

"You wish I would?" Vader said, less to obtain an answer than to let the boy know he had been heard.

Lars started and shot him a fearful glance, then sighed, staring back through the viewport with a look of utter defeat. Vader probed him through the Force, making him shiver.

He should have been offended, should have lashed out at his insolence. But curiosity was too strong. The young man's shields were nearly non-existent, his grief too strong to hold it in or keep anybody out. Vader had never been so close to understanding him, discovering his secrets.

"Yeah," Lars answered in a strangled voice. "Why are you so fixated on me anyway? I'm nothing special. I'm just a farmboy who keeps messing things up. Why don't you just kill me instead of drawing it out?"

"I have... no desire to kill you."

The words came out of his mouth before he could think them through. He knew they hadn't always been true. He wondered when that had changed, when the way Lars surprised him and unsettled him had stopped irritating him and started intriguing him instead.

"Yeah, right," the boy let out in a shaky laugh. Vader awkwardly noticed the way his fingers absently rubbed his throat. "Maybe you should. I should have died in Chaser's place anyway."

Lars swallowed, and Vader remained silent and motionless. The last remains of the boy's shields had fallen; but now, faced at last with access to the depths of his mind, Vader couldn't bear to come closer.

"I was his wingman." His voice shook, and another flare of pain shot through the Force. "It was my job to protect him. I should have saved him."

He shut his eyes tight, still leaning against the viewport. Once more, unpleasant familiarity overcame Vader.

"Sometimes people can't be saved," he said, perhaps harsher than he should have. He should just send the boy back to his quarters, he shouldn't let himself be affected like this. Oh, he hated both his own weakness and the young pilot creating it. "This is war. People die."

"He used to say that. Lots of good it did him, with an incapable wingman."

There was a touch of anger in his mind, even though his body didn't move. He remained sagged against the transparisteel, his head down, his forehead on the viewport as if he wanted to drown himself among the stars.

"You underestimate your potential," Vader found himself saying, taken in despite all his efforts. "You have the seeds of greatness within you. They must only be given time to grow."

The boy turned back to glance at him, a sharpness to his gaze under which Vader felt strangely exposed. "Are you talking about this... Force thing again?"

"Yes," Vader replied, taking a step toward him. The boy looked away, but didn't move back. "You do not know how exceptional you are. Your skills are still dormant and unrefined, but once you develop them to their full maturity, you will shine brighter than any star in this universe."

Lars bit his lower lip and wiped his cheek with the palm of his hand. He looked up at him, and Vader was startled by the fire in his eyes.

"Would you help me use this... Force to become a better pilot? I won't hesitate any longer. The Rebels deserve to die. I want to defeat them, to defend the Empire the best I can."

Under his mask, Vader smiled in triumph. This was a query he hadn't expected to receive, and victory roared in his chest.

"You will be the best of them all. I will make sure of it."

Lars nodded and smiled at him in a way that made Vader's heart ache a little, before breaking the eye contact to look at his chrono. Vader's chest constricted, his own grief still roaring in his chest, even as the boy's seemed somewhat alleviated. What he wouldn't have given to have his own child look at him like that...

"Oh, I should really go back to my quarters," Lars said. "I don't want my squadron to worry..."

He looked at Vader, who waved him away. "You may go."

"Thank you, my lord." He bowed, then turned around and walked away. A few steps later, his pace faltered and he stopped, turning back once more to look at Vader, more unguarded hat Vader had ever seen him.

"Thank you, sir. I mean it," he said, somewhat clumsily but with a sincerity that couldn't be doubted. "I won't disappoint you."

As only response Vader tilted his head towards him. The boy watched him for a few more seconds, then went on his way.

Vader stayed motionless, staring at him. Discomfort awakened in his chest, mixing up with his satisfaction and the thousand other emotions raging inside him.