PART 2: WOULD-BE SENATOR

CHAPTER 6: Arrest

"I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live." —Socrates

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It didn't take long for the news of Darth Vader's disappearance to be broadcast all over the Holonet. Civilians were soon forbidden to approach the area surrounding his crashed shuttle, and Stormtroopers were crawling the street like white-carapaced ants. Meanwhile, a blindfolded Vader, a nervous Opakwa, and the ever-quiet ysalamiri were all stashed in a hidden cave below Crevasse City, along with plenty of supplies suitable for droids and humans.

In two weeks, Alderaan would be choosing its senator. Luke still continued to give speeches so as not to arouse suspicion, but he generally kept them fairly neutral and Alderaan-specific. With as many Imperials around as there were, he knew it wasn't wise to arouse their anger, lest a firefight break out (for the Imperials had insisted on bringing weapons on-planet despite the ban).

Luke knew he couldn't make visiting the Sith prisoner a habit, particularly with so many Imperials around, but he wanted to talk with the Sith Lord. Why exactly he wanted to, he wasn't sure, but he mentally chalked it up to curiosity. Arelis agreed that he should go—Opakwa was under strict orders not to use his comlink except during an emergency, so they never really received any updates—for she was just as curious as he was about the situation of their prisoner.

He got in his speeder on one particularly dark night and drove around Aldera for several minutes, soon confirming what he had suspected would be the truth: he had a tail.

Well, that was easily fixed. Fortunately, his speeder was covered and had tinted windows and tall seat-backs. Anyone driving behind him would never know he was missing unless they actually saw him exiting the vehicle. And he would make sure that didn't happen.

****

A few minutes later, he was hiding in a bush, watching as his landspeeder drove away without him. A couple of years ago, he'd installed a basic autopilot on the vehicle, completely ignoring the fact that it had never been designed to work with one. He was still good at tinkering, and he'd been able to make it work without too much trouble. The person following him would be none the wiser.

Slipping out of the speeder and into the bush had been rather easy, and, since he was wearing a black uniform, his moving form had been hard to see. The autopilot was programmed to drive the speeder around for several hours before finally returning home so as not to arouse suspicion. But he probably wouldn't be gone that long before sneaking back into his craft—that would be a little trickier, but he could probably find a way to distract his tail so that he could slip inside the moving speeder.

It was easy to get to Crevasse City on Alderaan's public transports. However, it was a little more difficult to get to the cave where Vader was held—since he didn't have a speeder, he had to do a lot of climbing.

He was in fairly good shape, though, and he wasn't sweating too badly when he finally walked into the cave. Opakwa was at low power, hooked up to the portable power unit they'd brought for him, but he looked up at Luke's approach and exclaimed, "Master!"

"Hey there, spare parts," Luke said casually, hoping the Basic for Opakwa's Jawaese name would be enough of a reminder that they should keep personally identifiable information down to a minimum.

He allowed himself to look at Darth Vader at last. The man was lying on the ground, still heavily bound around his limbs, his chest, his midsection, and even his neck with the use of strong cables and special stakes which could be retracted with the flip of a switch. A piece of heavy cloth wrapped around his helmet completed the picture, having been put in place so that he couldn't see his surroundings.

"How the mighty have fallen," the young man couldn't help but comment, his amusement leaking into his voice.

"What do you want with me?" the Sith Lord asked, sounding rather angry. Had Vader not been tied down, Luke would certainly have been dead.

Ignoring the Imperial leader's question, the young man queried, "I trust my droid has been treating you well?" Opakwa was supposed to give the Sith Lord nourishment periodically through a nutrient feed and tend to his other needs as necessary, and truthfully Luke had no doubt that Opakwa was treating Vader better than the Sith deserved.

"It is obvious you are ill equipped to deal with prisoners."

"And it's obvious that you are completely without people skills," the young man returned, feeling his annoyance sparked. "Now, let's stop stating the obvious, shall we?" He studied his captive briefly. "We won't be able to keep you like this forever. You will need to move around eventually. Unfortunately, there's not a safer place to put you right now, and in here we can't trust you walking around on your own."

"Where am I?" the Sith Lord asked.

"Trade secret," Luke replied easily.

"What do you want with me?" the prisoner tried again.

"The problem is, I can't kill you—but I also can't let you go. So, I'm afraid you're stuck here for a while. And that's about all you can know."

Vader tried another blunt question. "Are you Luke Antilles?"

"Perhaps," the young man said vaguely. "Perhaps not. It doesn't matter."

"You know about the ysalamiri."

"Necessary for catching and keeping a Sith Lord, I'm afraid. You don't like them, do you? They make you a weak mortal, just like the rest of us."

The Force user was getting angry again. "Release me, you worthless—"

"Don't call me worthless," Luke hissed, his eyes flashing. "I said I couldn't kill you. I never said I would have any qualms about damaging your dignity by removing your mechanical limbs. I have an affinity for machines and could probably even do it without harming them."

The Sith Lord asked resignedly, "What do you gain by keeping me here?"

"Your being here means there's one less Force user ruling the galaxy. It means there's just a little bit more hope for good to prevail."

"So, you are a Rebel."

"No," Luke said, shaking his head though Vader couldn't see it. "I am not affiliated with the Rebels, which is not to say that I'm not sympathetic to their cause."

"What is your cause? Democracy?" The term was spoken with disdain.

Luke didn't rise to the bait. He said calmly, "My cause is giving the galaxy back to the people. You Force users have taken control of it for far too long."

"The strong are the ones who should be in power and decide what is best for the weak."

"You need to know what it feels like to be weak to know what the weak need," the young man returned. "Even if the weak don't know what's best, they'll at least try to stop all the tragedies the Empire has been promoting. Unprovoked massacres, discrimination against women and aliens, rampant political assassinations, slavery—" He paused at the last word before saying, "The Empire has been bloodying its hands for far too long." He shook his head and sighed. "But of course, I shouldn't expect a monster like you to understand."

"To me, you are the monster," Vader said quietly.

Opakwa, protective of Luke as always, started to protest, "Mast—"

But Luke cut the droid off by holding up his hand. "I still have my humanity, something you left behind years ago when you started killing innocents."

****

Luke didn't have as much trouble getting into his speeder as he thought he would, as he managed to catch it slowly taking a corner. Once he was inside the vehicle, he took it off autopilot and went straight home. He didn't know why, but his conversation with the Sith Lord had aggravated him. He had talked more than he should have. But there was little he could do about it now.

Still, his frustration meant he wasn't very aware of his surroundings when he walked down the dark hallway and into his bedroom...Which meant that when a pair of arms went around his neck and a vibroblade glistened by his throat, he froze instead of reacting.

"Don't scream," a female voice whispered into his ear, "or I'll cut your throat."

But it was dark, and she didn't see his hand slip into his uniform pocket. Softly but with a slight triumphant smirk, he told her, "My right hand is grasping a thermal detonator; kill me, and we'll both die."

He felt the woman stiffen behind him; she obviously hadn't expected to find him this competent. But still, she didn't move the vibroblade away from the front of his throat. "We're obviously at a stalemate, then."

"Obviously," he acknowledged. "What do you want?"

"Where is Darth Vader?" she breathed into his ear. "He's not in the building."

"Haven't you seen the news? His ship crashed, and he was either taken prisoner by someone or escaped—"

"Don't lie to me," she hissed, her grip on him tightening. "I know you know where he is."

"I'm a politician," he scoffed. "Why would I be involved in his disappearance?"

"I've tied up your mother," she informed him, a threatening edge to her voice.

"I can't give you information I don't have," Luke insisted, though there was a note of fear in his voice that he couldn't hide.

"I don't know how you subdued Darth Vader," she snarled, "but I plan to find out. I'll leave your mother alive here for the servants to find, but you are coming with me. You are under arrest in the name of the Emperor...We'll see how well you stand up to the Empire's best interrogators on Coruscant."

As the mysterious woman—who was calling his thermal detonator bluff, knowing that he had no desire to blow himself up—dragged him away from his home, he reflected that she could not have been the person following his speeder—this woman was good, and if she had been following him, he would never have noticed.

****

She blindfolded him and strapped him to a chair in her ship. He tried shifting slightly and found that his bindings were not ones he would be able to free himself from.

The woman apparently noticed his movement and said, "No matter how hard you try, you won't be able to get out. I learned from the best."

"Hmm. Apparently so," he acknowledged gruffly, shifting just a little bit to test his restraints one more time, knowing even as he did so that it was in vain. "You know my name—what's yours?"

There was a pause before she answered, "Arica."

He smirked. "Fine. Don't tell me."

"You can call me Arica," she said, an edge in her voice.

"Fine. I will. Arica."

They were quiet as she got clearance to leave from Alderaanian Space Traffic Control. A few minutes later, Luke felt the shudder that meant the ship had jumped into hyperspace.

"So, is this what you normally do—capture and escort prisoners who may or may not have valuable information?"

"Is this what you normally do—talk your enemies' ears off?" Arica returned.

"I wouldn't know. Can't say I've ever really had enemies before."

"Apart from Vader."

"You're fishing."

"Hm," she said noncommittally.

"Do you really think anyone would be stupid enough to kidnap Darth Vader?" he asked skeptically.

"Perhaps you're desperate."

"You're fishing again."

She sounded annoyed. "I don't know why anyone would think it was a good idea to kidnap Darth Vader, but I do know he would not simply drop off the face of the galaxy without reporting first to the Emperor. Something's happened to him."

"How do you know he's not dead?"

The woman was quiet for a minute before answering, "The Emperor would sense his death."

"Ah, yes," Luke said bitterly, "the ever-vaunted Force powers."

"I studied your dossier—I know how much you hate Force users. What I don't understand is why you didn't just kill Vader after you captured him."

"If I captured him," the young man reminded her.

"Whatever," she said crossly.

"If you read my dossier, then you know that the last thing I would want is to bring Imperials to Alderaan. They kind of put a damper on a person's campaign. And kidnapping Vader would have been sure to do that...And what makes you so certain I did it, anyway? How would I have even known Vader was coming to Alderaan?"

"Perhaps you have really good intelligence," Arica suggested. "Or maybe your whole anti-Force campaign was just a ploy."

Luke snorted. "A ploy to kidnap—but not kill—a Sith Lord, and then...what? Hold him for ransom, only to be killed once he's safe and sound? But wait—my mother is a member of the House of Antilles, and money's never been a problem. So—kidnap a Sith Lord and replace him? But wait—that would require Force powers...Oh, I know! Kidnap a Sith Lord and...play hide and seek with him? I hear they're great at that game because they can fool you into thinking they're not where they are."

"You mock me," the woman growled.

"I'm not mocking you. I'm merely pointing out something important—I lack motive. If I were smart enough to trap a Sith Lord, then surely I would be smart enough to know that this would happen."

"Maybe you were hoping that hiding in plain sight would help you."

"Or maybe I wasn't trying to hide anything at all and was just going about my daily routine."

"You're insufferable, Antilles."

"Well, then it's convenient you're passing me off to someone else, now, isn't it?"

"What about the thermal detonator?" Arica asked abruptly.

"Hmm?" Luke said, puzzled.

"You had a thermal detonator—you must have known someone was coming for you."

"I'm a politician whose main message will tick off those in power," the young captive noted dryly, "surely you don't think I haven't faced a few assassins before."

She was quiet for several seconds, and he suspected she was studying him. "Well, I'm still trying to figure you out, Antilles. I guess that's not my job, though. Pretty soon I'll be handing you off to the Emperor, and you'll be praying you were still with me."

"Perhaps," Luke said softly. He sat there for a few moments, considering. "How do you even know Vader is still on-planet? Aldera has a fair amount of traffic—it would have been easy for someone to take him and run. Wouldn't that have been the smart move, anyway?"

"For someone who's not involved, you seem awfully intrigued," Arica commented.

Luke's jaw tightened slightly. She was right. He was talking too much. Perhaps it was because he didn't want to admit to himself that he was nervous. He had known that interrogation was a very real possibility, and he'd even studied up on techniques to increase stamina specifically for that purpose...And, of course, when he was a slave on Tatooine—

He shook his head slightly, banishing those memories.

"What do they do to prisoners who don't know anything?" Luke asked, mainly to fill the silence. For some odd reason, he found himself admiring this woman. If she'd chosen a different side, she would've been a powerful ally...

"I guess it depends on whether Vader's found or not. But I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you." There was the sound of a small shift of fabric, as if she were twisting to look at him. "You've made too many people angry to last long."

Luke gave a slight nod. She was right.

In preparation for this moment—which he'd known would come—he had considered placing a poison capsule in his mouth—one bite, and he could've killed himself almost instantly. But then the Empire would simply return for his mother, and he couldn't have that. Time was what he was striving for, and a quick suicide would bring little of that.

For that's what he and his mother were truly aiming for—a period of time in which Palpatine put most of his resources into a search for his right-hand man. They had a plan. Perhaps it wasn't a very good one, but they had both felt it was necessary. They had both seen it as their duty. He only hoped it worked.

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Author's Note: Feedback welcome, as always.