PART 3: PRISONER

CHAPTER 9: Revelation

"Wait a minute—how'd this happen? We're smarter than this!" –Obi-Wan Kenobi on his and Anakin Skywalker's imprisonment, Revenge of the Sith

****

Darth Vader, Mara Jade, and the Imperial guards left Alderaan on the deceased ruler's shuttle. They were briefly quiet in memory of the deceased dictator, but Lord Vader was not one for sentimentality, and soon he had Mara Jade informing him of what had happened in his absence. She began with major galactic events, but he seemed more interested in something else.

"The would-be politician—Luke Antilles—was he captured?" the Sith Lord queried.

"He was, my Lord," Mara confirmed. "He displayed an amazing resistance to interrogation techniques. It was his mother you saw in the cave—the one who..." She trailed off uncomfortably, the incident that had occurred in that cave hitting her hard once again. She soon composed herself, however, and began to talk again. "Well, when we brought her to see him, she was forthcoming with your location. It seems she couldn't handle the...haggard appearance of her son. The Emper—we...discovered that, for all his anti-Force user talk, Antilles was actually Force sensitive. We were also able to determine that he spent some time on Haodis and that before that he lived on Tatooine for a few years. The name he held before being adopted by Arelis Antilles was Luke Skywalker, which the Emperor thought was significant."

After the utterance of her last sentence, Mara Jade could sense the shock rolling off the Sith Lord before he made an endeavor to hide it. Apparently, the name was just as significant to Vader as it had been to Palpatine. It meant nothing to her, and she found herself wondering what was so special about a name.

"Skywalker? Are you sure?" Darth Vader asked her darkly.

"Relatively sure, my Lord." He hadn't assumed the title of Emperor yet, so she wasn't calling him 'Your Excellency.' Still, under the circumstances, she felt ill at ease calling him by the lesser honorific, but he was accustomed to it and wasn't correcting her.

"And he is still alive?" the Sith Lord prodded.

Mara nodded. "Yes, my lord. He should have received a mechanical hand by now, and a physician should be seeing to his wounds."

Vader looked at her sharply. "Did he have all of his limbs removed?"

"No, my Lord. Just his right hand was cut off."

The Sith Lord's thoughts turned inward, and he did not say much else for the rest of the shuttle trip.

It was just as well. Mara was still trying to get over the death of an invincible man at the hands of an inconsequential woman.

****

When the door to his cell opened, Luke didn't look up. He suspected it was just the medic again. He wasn't responding very well to some of the medical droid's treatments, it seemed. And his refusal to undergo a bacta dip was frustrating the droid. It wasn't that he wanted to irritate the robot—for an Imperial machine, it was actually quite kind. It was just—he'd lost the will to live. There was nothing more for him. He wouldn't be able to escape, and there was nothing he could do to help Alderaan.

When a deep voice spoke his name, he looked up in surprise.

Darth Vader was standing a few feet in front of the doorway. So, Palpatine or Mara Jade had told the black behemoth his real name. The last thing he'd had for himself was truly gone.

"So, it is true," the Sith Lord stated thoughtfully. "You are Anakin Skywalker's son." He looked at him for a second before adding dryly, "And you are in terrible shape."

And the boy was. He was nearly naked, his head was shaven, his face was unshaven, he was missing a few teeth, and he was covered in bruises and burns and half-healed wounds. The only part of him that looked normal was his right hand. Ironically, that was the only part of him which truly wasn't.

"My father is dead," Luke said quietly in a rasping voice, lowering his head and taking his eyes off Vader. "And I assume that now my mother is, too." Within him, he could feel his hatred for this man simmering. If he could go back in time and kill this man, he would. He regretted ever deciding not to.

"Perhaps not everything has proceeded the way you think it has," Vader told him. "Your mother is dead, yes, but she was killed for murdering the Emperor."

The young man's head shot up. "What?" His mouth gaped open in surprise. His mind was racing.

"Yes, the Emperor is dead." The Sith Lord didn't exactly sound displeased. "The use of ysalamiri seems to have been particularly helpful for you and your mother."

Luke allowed the ghost of a smile to briefly touch his lips, realizing what exactly had happened. If the Emperor was dead, that meant everything he and his mother had done had not been for nothing. It was the Emperor who was known for a fondness of technological terrors, not Vader. Perhaps Alderaan still had a small chance. Even if Vader were interested in the Death Star, surely he would be kept busy for a while with people who were scrabbling for power...

"But you are wrong about one thing," Vader noted. "Your father is not dead."

The young man shook his head adamantly, though it hurt to make even the slightest movement. "My uncle told me—"

"Your uncle?" the Sith Lord queried.

"Owen Lars," Luke said softly, his throat aching with the words. Vader already knew his name and probably where he was from—it would be easy to go from there and find out who he'd lived with on the desert planet...And what was the point in holding back information now? "He was...killed. So was my aunt."

"What happened to you after that?"

The boy hesitated, not sure how much more of himself he wanted to give to this monster. But he went ahead and answered the question honestly. "I was enslaved by Jabba the Hutt."

Though Luke didn't see it, Vader's fists were clenched at his sides. "And you say it was your aunt and uncle who told you your father was killed?"

Luke nodded. "He was a navigator on a spice freighter."

"No, he wasn't, Luke. Your father was first a Jedi and then became a Sith."

"No, that's not true," Luke whispered. He could feel this conversation was going into dark territory, and he wanted to stop it, but he couldn't. Though he found himself fearing the words Vader was about to speak, he also felt a morbid curiosity toward them as well.

"Your father was called Anakin Skywalker until he began to follow the ways of the Sith. And then he was transformed—"

Luke felt his pulse quicken; he felt as if he couldn't breathe.

"—and he became Darth Vader."

The young man closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands. "No..." He might have cried if he'd had any tears left, but he didn't.

"Search your feelings, Son," the Sith Lord said with a strange gentleness. "What do they tell you?"

"Leave me alone," the boy said in a low voice. When Vader didn't move, Luke looked up and shouted, "Leave me alone!" The words scratched his sore throat like the claws of a krayt dragon, but he didn't care. He wanted the hated dark man gone.

The Sith Lord nodded and left quietly, leaving Luke to his thoughts. But the damage was done, and somehow Luke knew Darth Vader had spoken the truth.

****

The death of the Emperor and the traitor status of one Arelis Antilles from Alderaan were announced at a press conference, and a great memorial was held for the Emperor on Coruscant. Vader was too busy to see his son—what with the memorial arrangements and the vultures who wanted to ascend to Palpatine's throne, it was hard to even find a few minutes for much-needed meditation. The title of Emperor was rightfully his, and he would make certain it remained so. He did, however, instruct a human medic to force his son to take a bacta dip. He knew it must hurt for the boy to even wear clothing, and Luke was likely facing calcification of the skeleton from all the electro-shocks he'd been given. He made sure to send Mara Jade in to talk to the boy, however. He didn't think it was good for him to be only in the company of medics.

The first time Mara went in to Luke's cell, she found him sitting quietly on his cot. He had finally put on a pair of black pants, and many of his wounds were mostly healed, though he would have some massive scars. Some food and water sat in front of him; both were almost untouched.

"Skywalker?" she ventured, trying not to stare at his bare chest. She wasn't quite sure what had gotten into her.

"Antilles," he returned quietly. He felt like the name Skywalker had become poison, and he wanted nothing to do with it.

Mara ignored his correction; Vader referred to the man as Skywalker, so that was what she was going to call him.

"Vader plans for you to be moved to a better cell soon. We're having something fixed up for you right now. It will be further from the throne room but closer to Vader's quarters."

"What's going to happen to me?"

"I'm not sure," Mara said honestly. "I don't know what Vader wants with you, but he seems to want you to be well-treated." She suspected Vader wanted him as a Sith apprentice, but she didn't think it was her place to point that out.

"My mother's dead," Luke stated flatly. He didn't know why, but he felt like he had to say those words. It was as if he were trying both to convince himself that it was true and that it wasn't. He wanted it to be a lie. He needed for it to be a lie.

"I know," Mara replied, the statement making Vader's prisoner wince. The words 'I killed her' were hovering on Mara's lips, but she did not let them leave there. Instead of letting him know just how he was rendered an orphan, she took pity on him and said, "We've got your droid. I don't know what you did to him, but he seems to think some offworlders were holding Vader hostage rather than you and your mother."

The hint of a smile brushed the young man's mouth, and he said mysteriously, "Indeed."

The Imperial was quiet for a few seconds before speaking again. "Your mother killed the Emperor, Skywalker; she couldn't be allowed to live."

"She did what she thought was best," he said. He clenched his eyes shut and lay back against his bed. "Kriff, Jade, I miss her so much...But even if it would bring her back to life, I can't say that I would wish what she did undone."

Mara Jade's face flushed in anger. "She killed the Emperor, Skywalker. He was my master—he was—he was the ruler of the galaxy. Don't you understand? You can't just go around killing galactic leaders. That's called anarchy."

The young man sat back up. "We would still be in a republic were it not for your master," he responded calmly, though his blue eyes burned with a strange fire. "Besides, how can you support a monster who would build a planet-destroyer?"

The woman's eyes narrowed. "How do you know about the Death Star?"

"Even in a galaxy as big as this one, it's hard to hide a moon-sized space station," Luke said dryly. Though the Empire had put forth a valiant effort. Not that he would admit it.

"The point of the Death Star was fear, Skywalker. It was a tool meant for keeping people in line."

"And you don't think the Emperor was willing to use it?" the young man snorted. "Imagine how many innocent people would have died when he destroyed his first planet. And why would it stop there? Why not just destroy every planet with potential dissenters on it?"

"The Emperor would not have—"

"If you do not believe that possible," Luke cut in, "then you did not know your Emperor."

Mara glared at him. "You're insufferable. Did you know that, Skywalker?"

"I may be insufferable, but I seem to have been made for suffering," the boy muttered beneath his breath, more to himself than her. The fire in him was gone, leaving him only with fatigue.

She stared at him for a few moments, struck by the strange change in his mood. "Just be glad you survived those interrogation sessions with all of your sanity. Most people aren't nearly that lucky."

Luke watched her leave; for some reason, he was almost sad to see her go.