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Han could have predicted how the meeting would go down—a total shitshow. As it is, his prediction is true to form.

He'd never met Darth Vader personally (obviously, else he probably wouldn't still be alive) but it certainly hadn't been on his bucket list to do before he died. Still, he could see how it was certainly an experience. However the novelty had long since worn off as the meeting prolonged indefinitely.

Even Han was starting to get a little unnerved. Which was saying something. Very few things in the galaxy truly got under Han's skin—most of them involved beautiful female spies, some great encounters, and some even more climactic betrayals.

By his side, Wedge appeared to be having a mental breakdown—as he had been for the majority of the morning.

Han didn't blame him; unlike Han, Wedge had a long and illustrious history with the Rebel Alliance. Fortunately most of that wasn't common knowledge, else he doubted Wedge would be alive right now, looking like he might just melt into the floor out of sheer terror.

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, the only one who appeared even marginally composed was Luke.

For all intent purposes he could have been discussing the whether with a jovial old man on a park bench for all his expression showed. If there was any discomfort in the blonde, there was no outward manifestation of it. Instead, he eyed the room—and Vader—with a clerical eye, offering brief but relevant insights, nodding along quietly as the Sith Lord rattled out commands, giving absolutely nothing away.

Han was impressed, to say the least.

"The package in question is of infinite value—if I suspect it to be tampered with, you'll find I will not be so benign in our next meeting."

"Of course," Luke agreed, serious. "All jobs are handled with… discretion and responsibility. As long as you pay us we're very happy to meet any of your requirements—or, well I suppose in this case, as long as you don't kill us." He ended, blinking and smiling somewhat cheerily. "The point still stands."

Han felt somewhat sick.

"See to it that you do." Darth Vader returned, grave and austere—it appeared either he was immune to humor, or he hadn't understood the joke. But then, it appeared that the dark lord only had too modes: incredibly serious and incredibly angry. This was probably better than the latter.

And with that, the dark lord swept to his feet, cape billowing behind him like blank ink as he left the room with a certain conclusiveness that Han actually had to give him so begrudging respect. The guy sure knew how to make an exit—and for that matter, and entrance as well.

As soon as it appeared Vader was not going to make another appearance, Han let out the breath he'd been holding all morning.

"Holy krith spit." He heaved, slumping back into his chair. "Is every meeting going to be like that?"

"Probably," Luke replied, gathering up the data pads still on the meeting table. "So let's try not to have too many of them."

Wedge joined Han, slumping low in his chair. "Can I not be here for the next one?"

"Can I second that?" Han added.

Luke looked between the two of them. For a moment, Han thought he might call them out on being such sissy's. Instead, the blonde shrugged. "Yeah, sure."

Han balked. "You're serious?" And then, blinking rapidly, "You're alright with meeting with him alone?"

"What happens if he like, eats you?" Wedge agreed, horrified.

Luke rolled his eyes. "He's not going to eat me," He scoffed. "Where did you even get that idea?"

Wedge shrugged. "Back on Correllia there was this myth that he sacrificed human babies and drank their blood."

Luke looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

"What!" Wedge protested. "I mean, he follows that crazy religion thing, right?"

The blonde paused at that, looking thoughtful. "… I don't think that has anything to do with it." He said, at great length.

Han wondered if there was actual tension in the air, or if he was just imagining it. The smuggler shrugged. Actually, it was probably residual from earlier. The space smuggler stood up, cracking his back.

"Well, if that's over and done with," He began without preamble, looking tellingly at the door.

"Yes, great idea!" Wedge leapt to his feet. "Let's get the hell out of here! Never heard a better suggestion in my life!"

With that, he ushered the blonde out of the meeting room, and into the equally ominous and sterile looking hallway.

.

SESSION VI

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CATS ON MARS

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"It was the most terrifying experience of my life!" Wedge bemoaned, flopping himself unceremoniously upon the table.

Leia sniffed, deftly maneuvering her plate out of the way in the nick of time. "Must you do that?" She sniped, eying him with disdain.

"I second that motion." Han raised his beer, sprawled out in the seat next to her. Across from him, Chewie gave a mournful sound.

"What? No!" Han sputtered, directed towards his Wookie friend. "That's not even close! Trust me, Chewie, there is nothing more terrifying in the galaxy than that guy. I swear he was like… looking into my soul with his eye-less sockets."

Wedge snorted. "I'm sure he has eyes." He cut in. And then, horrified, "But maybe they really do suck your soul or something."

"The both of you are being foolish." Leia interrupted with great finality. "Underneath it all, he's probably either a droid or another fool ensnared into the Empire's trap."

This spurred the table into a wildly off tangent conversation about fools they knew who have fallen into the Empire's ideals. Wedge, apparently, knew quite a few of them. Leia tuned out after they erupted into an argument over whether men were more susceptible to the Empire's bullshit than women, turning her head to glance out the large windows. Behind the panels the rest of the galaxy swirled hypnotically in the distance, and twin suns scoured the planet beneath them with great ire.

To be quite honest, she had even less of an idea what to think of Darth Vader than her companions.

They were all quick to agree that he was by far the most horrific thing to exist in reality and not in some deep-space horror movie, and that he was undoubtedly some kind of droid overlord.

Leia didn't believe that for a second.

Of course, she didn't have anything to base this theory off of. Just a niggling feeling in the bottom of her stomach—something uneasy wrestling inside her that had nothing to do with fear or apprehension.

He reminded her of something.

Leia let out a breath.

He reminded her of Luke.

On the subject of the blonde, it appeared that no one had seen neither hide nor tail of the elusive pilot since they'd docked back into Venetus cruiser. However, she must have heard the illustrious tale of their encounter with the Dark Lord of the Sith at least a dozen times—most of which from people who weren't even there—half of them probably complete lies. But from what she'd heard from both Wedge and Han, he had been the only one not to be secretly shitting his pants. Or, for that matter, effected at all.

Han said he'd even smiled.

Leia shook her head.

She had to go and find him.

The princess stood abruptly, surprising her companions out of their conversation—which had long since turned into an argument. "So none of you nerfherders have seen Luke?"

Wedge shook his head. "Like I said, he split when we came in. You check his room?"

Leia frowned. "Yes. About an hour ago—doesn't look like he's been there since he got back."

The dark-haired boy sighed. "Ah, well… you never know with Luke. I'm sure he'll turn up eventually."

She snorted.

Great.

Eventually. And when was that? In the next Coruscant year?

She waltzed out of the mess hall, entering the corridor with an undeniable fear curling behind her ribs. She didn't know why it was so important for her to find Luke—they were right, he'd show up eventually. But something in her was held in terror; a fear that could only be allayed once she set her sights on the blonde.

Almost on instinct, she found herself wandering over to the docking bay.

Leia blinked, startled when she realized her surroundings.

She hadn't meant to come to this part of the ship, but she'd been distracted in her feelings and tumultuous thoughts. You'd think she'd have gotten used to these strange, overwhelming feelings and thoughts that didn't feel like her own; she'd certainly had them long enough to become familiar. Yet each time they always took her breath away.

A noise broke her out of her reverie.

It was a drill. And it appeared to be coming from one of the ships.

Her feet led her towards a row of fighter jets, where an array of sparks flew out from the belly of a conspicuously out of place x-wing, bouncing off the flooring.

She came to a halt at the base of the craft, admiring it in passing. It really was a great ship—it was clear Luke took incredible care in it. That said, no one would ever catch her dead in one of those. She doubted anyone even knew how good of a pilot she was; it had more to do with an aversion towards all the guns.

The drill stopped, and Luke rolled out from beneath the x-wing.

"Leia," he blinked, not looking all that surprised to see her there. Then again, he never seemed all that surprised to see her, even when she was sure she was sneaking up on him.

Leia bent down to wipe an unsightly smudge of oil off his cheek. "The one and only."

Luke pushed out further, until he could sit up straight. "Did you need something?"

She shrugged, folding her arms. "Not really," she returned, moving to lean against one of the other x-wings. "But I did want to hear your version of the meeting—there's about fifty different ones, most of them completely made up."

Luke laughed. "I don't doubt it." He said, shaking his head. "There's not much to say. It was about as much as we had expected—he was very vague on what, exactly, we were retrieving. Although he certainly did stress how important a package it was… and how dead we would be if he found out we'd tampered with it."

"Standard procedure, then." Leia mused. "Surely it can't be that easy."

"I thought the same." Luke agreed, shaking his hair out to get all the dirt and dust out, and in the process making it look more haphazard than usual. "But I don't know what he'll do for further security measures."

Leia turned her eyes toward the ceiling. There weren't any cameras in this part of the docking bay, nor were there a particularly large amount of them on the ship to begin with. Still, she doubted it would be hard to get access to them. Not with Vader's resources.

"We'll have to be careful." But then, they already knew that.

Luke nodded. "We'll be fine if we stick with the plan. We really do deliver the package—make it out like all we're after is the money."

She turned her attention towards the blonde once more. "And where in this plan do we retrieve the documents?"

"The end." He smiled. "Just leave that to me."

If anyone but Luke had used that line on her, she would have drop-kicked them in the face. As it is, Luke was probably more than capable of handling the task. And… it was Luke. If he'd ever failed in anything, she wasn't aware of it.

But this all just reminded her about how little she knew of Luke in general.

"If you say so," she replied, dubious, but making no move to refute him.

She looked away, then. "What did you think?"

Luke looked at her curiously.

"About… him." She added.

He blinked a few times, and Leia found she was incapable of deciphering the expressions drifting over his face. They were gone as quickly as they came, though. "Ah, well. He was… also what I expected." And then, turning the tables, "What did you think?"

Leia was cut off guard with the question. "I don't know." She frowned, candidly. "He was… cold. And angry."

And then, musing, "But what's there to be angry about? He's the Emperor's right hand man. There's no one in this galaxy with as much power as him—aside from the Emperor, of course. There are hundreds, if not thousands of power-hungry mongers salivating at the thought of his position." She shrugged. "If I was him, I'd be pretty damn happy."

"Well, you're assuming he's another shallow politician in it for monetary gains." Luke pointed out.

Leia raised her brow. "You don't think he is?"

"Not at all." Luke replied, but didn't elaborate.

Leia wondered what he meant by that.

.

.

.

All this talk about the angry sith lord didn't make it any easier to handle his presence.

Leia bit the inside of her cheek as he entered the Venetus cruiser like he owned the place, a small army of troopers fanning out in his wake. Undoubtedly they were going to comb the entire place—maybe even set up bugs. She didn't even want to know how much it was going to cost them to get some illegal degenerate to pick them all out once this was done.

As Han and Wedge had pointed out, Luke did not appear even marginally alarmed at the sith lord's presence.

Actually, he hadn't even looked up.

The Hangar bay was still and quiet as the dark lord of the Sith and his entourage of stormtroopers sieged the bay with TIE fighters. A party of Squad members had posted up by the doors; Wedge and Han the reluctant stars at the center of this brocade.

It was very curious, the way his attention strayed towards Luke's part of the bay for a significant amount of time.

Leia watched, surprised, as he seemed to appraise all of the blonde's modified ships. Eventually he returned his gaze to the party in front of him.

"… Lord Vader." Wes greeted, looking like he wanted to die in a sarlaac pit.

The dark lord made no move to reply; instead, he seemed to search through every one of them. Leia held his gaze, refusing to be cowed into submission.

"Was there something I can help you with?" She stepped forward, raising a brow.

Vader motioned to the troopers behind him. An admiral came forth, looking about as terrified as the rest of them. "Ah… standard procedure, Princess." He explained. "We will have to scan the premises for any security issues; a precaution against the rebels."

Leia refrained from pointing out that the majority of them had been rebels at some point. "Of course." She replied. "Standard procedure." She'd bet a thousand credits that was total bullshit.

And then, with more sarcasm than she had intended, "Shall I direct you, my lord?"

She could almost feel the dark lord's rage. "That will not be necessary."

Quite frankly, she was impressed he hadn't tried to strangle her yet.

With that, he swooped down the hall, cape billowing behind him and troopers fanning out in his wake. She scowled at his retreating form, unable to help herself. There was something… odd about the Dark Lord. And it wasn't just hatred that she felt. She had no idea what it was that curled in the bottom of her stomach, but it only served to irritate her more. Why did she care at all about such a hateful creature?

Unwillingly, her conversation earlier with Luke replayed in her mind.

Speaking of Luke…

She blinked. "Has anyone seen Luke?"

They all looked at one another.

"No idea." Captain Ferrell shrugged. "You check the mess hall?"

"I was just there." Ru replied. "No dice."

Leia scowled further. Typical Luke—disappearing into thin air like a ghost.

Meanwhile, Vader also scowled, greatly irritated with the galaxy at large.

It wasn't hard to ground up information on each of the Squad members. As he had suspected, most were of criminal beginnings. A majority of them were rumored to have been rebels. Fett had been quite clear in his description of them as neutral, however, and evidence proved this to be true. Neutral; though they had never taken a direct stance against the Rebellion.

Well, until now.

"Scan the ship. I want bugs in every hallway. " He commanded one squadron. And then, to the other, "And make recordings of all their security footage."

The admiral bowed, moving towards the main control room.

For the most part, this was rather routine. It could perhaps serve as beneficial in finding the Alliance, for though they had technically severed their connections with the rebels he doubted that such bonds would be so easily broken. Finding the princess on the rebel ship was incriminating enough—even if he had sensed she was enraged at them.

And what rage she had, he mused, as he took to surveying the ship. She was force sensitive, but clearly untrained. Still, that sort of anger was the makings of a strong sith.

The thought of the princess as a sith almost made him snort aloud.

His steps led him towards the control room, where his troopers were busy combing through the Squad's records.

"Anything to report?"

"No, sir." Replied the troop commander.

Vader nodded, taking a look for himself. There didn't appear to be anything overtly incriminating on the tapes—for the most part, they appeared to be a raucous group of smugglers and thieves. Scum, in other words. He sneered. None of them were worth his time.

Though his thoughts brought him back to his meeting prior.

The blonde proved himself to be capable, the dark lord thought. He could not remember the boy's name, but he did remember he was begrudgingly impressed by his aptitude. Not a complete loss, that one.

The entire ordeal took less than half an hour.

In the interim, his soldiers had placed monitoring devices in all the halls, as well as recorders. He made copies of the security tapes and data logs himself; they may prove themselves useful at some later time.

None of them appeared happy with this blatant intrusion—but, fortunately for them, none of them appeared to be willing to voice their complaints aloud. Pity, he had been in a worse mood than usual, and would have relished the chance to take it out on someone.

He turned, and saw a familiar face scowling against the far wall.

"I want a report two days from now, smuggler." He commanded.

The brunette frowned deeper, but did not complain. His dark-haired companion nervously spoke up for him, "Of course… uh… Lord Vader."

Their attempts at respect were truly pitiful. Most of them had probably never shown it in their lives.

His attention once more strayed to the ships on the far wall. He found the Squad once more begrudgingly impressing him; though the crew themselves were no great spectacle, the ships were truly a sight to see. Some of them appeared to be modified and re-worked cruisers from the days of the Republic. Others appeared to be crafted entirely by hand.

Vader could admire a remarkable ship when he saw one, rare as they were in this day in age. The empire only condoned the use of very few ships for the navy, mostly star destroyers and TIE fighter variations. Certainly there were commercial ships, though they lacked the essence of battle. And the rebels… well, their x-wings looked half-broken at best.

He caught sight of a vaguely familiar x-wing by the rest of the ships, one of significant note. He could concede that this one was far superior to any fighter plane he'd seen—Imperial or otherwise. Even from this distance he could make out the alarming amount of canons lining the wings; large enough to carry quite a bite, but compact and small for better mobility. Combined with the already impressive acceleration of x-wings, he could imagine that this was not the kind of pilot to take lightly in a dog fight.

But then, he doubted that there were any pilots of significance in this crew.

.

.

.

He was wrong.

This Luke character proved himself a worthy adversary to any pilot—including himself.

There was no chance in the galaxy that Vader would actually allow this "Squad" to retrieve something as valuable as the Death Star plans alone. Which was how he found himself joined by two pilots from Squad Venetus, battling their way through a crowd of space pirates. The Squad's search led them to a nearby system of Lok, where rumors have been circulating that a local Pirate overlord had Imperial information that he wouldn't sell for anything less than five million credits.

A proposal like that would have to merit some seriously important stolen plans.

He could only think of one of those.

At any rate, he'd expected to have to do most of the work in this dog fight. He was pleasantly surprised to find that wasn't the case. If anything, the young bounty hunter had done most of the work for him.

It was always remiss to underestimate your enemies, and even though the squad wasn't technically an enemy, he felt it applicable anyway. It was never wise to underestimate anyone, ever. Overconfidence had a way of destroying even the most powerful of men. He had fallen into that trap once, and had no intention of doing it again. The blonde pilot weaves in and out of the ships as if slipping through water; the best piloting he's seen in a very long time. His craft as well, was something to be remarked upon. Darth Vader was not particularly surprised to conclude that the impressive star fighter he'd seen in the hangar bay belonged to this boy. He was, however, taken aback by the boy himself.

For he truly was just a boy—couldn't be a day over twenty, or at the very least, didn't look the part. He wasn't particularly short, but looked smaller when wedged between himself and his fellow bounty hunter; he had a deceptively youthful face, but an old smile. And he was… uncannily familiar, when he had no reason to be. He had only met the boy once, after all.

The boy—Luke—banked his craft onto the landing platform of the pirate base, hopping out of his ship and into the blinding sunshine. This high up in the mesosphere there were no clouds to speak of, only searing light from the system's triple suns. His two companions had to shield their eyes to even see a couple paces in front of them, but his mask recalibrated the moment they had arrive and he could see the two of them quite clearly. One looked like the typical scruffy pilot; nothing remarkable about him. And the other…

"Do you think we need explosives?" Luke squinted into the sunshine, peering up at the vast, dilapidated structure the pirates called home.

Vader did not deign this with a response. He may have volunteered himself onto this mission but he didn't have any intention of actually conversing with either of them.

His companion made a noncommittal noise.

"I think we need explosives." Luke said, after a beat of silence.

"Well, no use crying over spilt milk," Han Solo remarked, throwing out his water stick and making for the entrance, blaster at the ready.

Luke drew his weapon as well, and Vader decided they had the right idea of it. He ignited his lightsaber, surprised to see the blonde jump at the sound, as if he wasn't expecting it. Perhaps he wasn't; lightsabers were extinct, they were things of legend these days. The boy had probably never even seen one—or heard one, for that matter.

He didn't have much time to think more on the matter, because then the pirates had figured out they had company, and began raining artillery fire on them.

He found himself impressed when the blonde ducked and darted his way through the spray, so unnaturally graceful it was remarkable, shooting down the guards with an uncanny aim. He wondered if perhaps the boy was force sensitive; it would certainly explain his incredible agility.

They made quick work of the welcome party, and by the time they had made it into the base proper the majority of the pirates were running for their lives. After all, it wasn't everyday Darth Vader came for an early morning visit. His iconic armor was more than enough to have them all screaming in terror. To that end, the Venetus crew didn't seem to be faring all that well either. They looked just as fearful and wary of him as the pirates—all but Luke, interesting enough. In fact, the blonde hadn't even spared him a glance since they got into the firefight; not even a jump at the hisses and clangs of his lightsaber as it connected with, blaster bolts, flesh or metal.

It wasn't long before they had made it to the main control room, where a very terrified space pirate was attempting to light the whole thing on fire to burn away the evidence. His last remaining crewmates shot horrified blaster bolts their way; they met their end just as quickly as the pirates on the lower floors did.

Han made a move to shoot the leader, but Vader halted his shot with a raised hand.

He rounded on the pirate leader. "Where are the Death Star plans?"

"I—I—" The man sputtered, backing into a control panel, hands raised over his head. "I don't—I—

"Speak with coherency, pirate, or I will force it out of you in other ways." Vader suggested, darkly.

The man nodded readily.

"You received a job from the Rebel Alliance; where is it?"

"I—I don't know what you're talking about—

Vader slashed his lightsaber through the air, searing through the pirate's shirt and burning his chest. The pirate yelled in pain, falling to his knees.

"The plans, pirate!"

At this, he raised his other hand, and the man rose from the ground, held in the air in an invisible grip by his throat. He sputtered and choked, clutching his throat as if he could possibly stop the invisible hand.

"N—No plans," he croaked out. "Cargo…"

"What was that?" The dark lord released his force grip, just enough for the pirate to speak.

"Cargo…" he gasped. "Slaves…"

Vader snarled. "No! The Death Star plans. Where are the Death Star plans?"

He began to shake his head violently. "No p—plans! No plans! I swear!"

This did not appear to help his case any. If anything, it only seemed to make the dark lord even more furious. He rose his hand again, and the man followed, kicking his legs out in terror as he was lifted higher and higher into the air. As his throat closed in on itself, his gasps and grunts descended into unintelligible gurgles.

"Stop it!"

Vader was surprised to find the command had come from the young blonde.

He turned towards the mercenary, and Luke got the impression he was raising a brow at him.

"I know you can tell he isn't lying," he elaborated. "You don't need to do this."

Vader tilted his head, in agreement or acknowledgment, it was hard to say. The piratae dropped to the floor with a heavy thunk, wheezing for air.

"I can?" The dark lord returned, but this seemed to be a rhetorical question. "Ah, so you believe in the Force, then? You think it's real?" He was rather pleased to hear it, actually. It felt as if it had been so long since he had met someone who truly understood it. Unlike those Imperial fools, who all would prefer to believe it to be some kind of imaginary religion.

"Yes." Luke replied, gaze hardened. "Would the galaxy be in the state it was in, if it wasn't?"

Vader said nothing for a long beat of silence. "Astute observation, mercenary."

Then he turned around, ignited his lightsaber, and sliced the pirate leader's head off.

Luke narrowed his eyes. The dark lord turned his gaze back to him, as if he wanted Luke to rise to the bait.

Instead, the blonde turned around. "I'm guessing he didn't actually have any interesting Imperial information, other than slave trade routes." Luke took a look around the room. "We should regroup with the squad and see if our informants have any other leads."

And with that, he simply walked away.

Vader watched him go, begrudgingly impressed once again. That sort of control over one's emotions was commendable.

Just who was this Luke, really?