Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, and I have enough to deal with without people sueing me, so please just sue someone else instead. Sue the people who don't review, how about that?
A/N: Hey, guess what? You guys are getting two updates this month! No, not tonight. The second one will come on the 25th, my birthday. Probably in the last couple of hours of my birthday, but, still on my birthday. Or birthnight, maybe. And, yes, I am fully aware that I have a terrible sense of humour.
Okay, I know this chapter jumps around a lot, but that's just how it turned out. Also, I apologize for the shortness of this chapter. I just couldn't think of anything else to put in it. Before someone tells me to take something from the next chapter, that would spoil the cliffie, so I can't. Befaore someone screams at me for putting in a cliffie... (Runs and hides away from readers carrying flaming torches and pitchforks).
After many hours of searching, Emerald finally managed to contact Talon Karrde, an information broker who apparently knew something about the elusive X-Wings that had escaped Yavin. Unfortunately, he required them to actually pay him in person, rather than having to deal with Lucifer's fake accounts and other such tricks, which meant that the young bounty hunters had to take a detour to Myrkr. A detour which would take them past Canthion, by strange coincidence.
Kaiden woke up as soon as the disturbance he could feel in the Force started to approach him. He yawned and rubbed his eyes, still half asleep. Gradually he became aware of the disturbance. It wasn't really a disturbance, though. It was more like a hole.
Kaiden shot out of bed and looked around for his lightsaber. It was only for practice and it couldn't actually hurt anyone, but a Bounty Hunter would probably run off screaming anyway. Well, maybe.
The young Prince could feel the disturbance growing closer with each passing second. Yet strangely he never thought to hit the alarm.
Prince Kaiden never slept in. He only differed from his regular morning routine on days when school was not in session and his father was home. That was why, on this particular bright, sunny morning, Chief of Staff Elliot MacPherson knew something was wrong.
Upon entering the young Prince's room to enquire as to the meaning of the delay, his suspicions were instantly confirmed. Elliot pulled out his radio and dropped it, panicking. It smashed into pieces on the floor.
He turned and fled the room, screaming bloody murder at the air. A curious young guard watched the screaming man run past and blinked. He looked down the hall at the room the man had come out of and wondered. On one hand, that was the Prince's room, and had been a number of reported break-ins by Bounty Hunters over the past few weeks.
On the other hand, if he left his post even for a second and it turned out to be nothing, he would lose his job… the Darth Vader way.
The curious young guard, whose name happened to be Russel, decided to take the risk. He checked the area for people who might see him leave his post and found no one. However, young Russel did find almost half a dozen cameras between where he was standing and the door to the Prince's room.
Oh, stuff the job, Russell thought.
He walked as normally as he could towards the door and looked inside. What he saw made him go for his radio as well.
Two days after the destruction of the Rebel Alliance, Lucifer was watching the news again. Emerald was reading one of Quartz's old medical textbooks. She had decided to take over his job as the Medic and actually do something useful on the ship for once. Pyro had been knocked unconscious, tied up and left in a cupboard after Lucifer had gotten sick of him.
"This is Mason Mertanser, with Breaking News. High Prince Kaiden has been kidnapped! Was it the Alliance? Or was it one of Lord Vader's enemies? We go now to Eloise Trace, who is looking for opinions on the matter on the streets of Coruscant,"
Lucifer yawned and turned it off. He couldn't help but feel slightly guilty for not caring; however. He knew exactly what had happened to the little brat who also just happened to be biologically Lucifer's brother.
"Why should I care, anyway? I am not that person anymore." Lucifer thought.
He didn't care about the child, other than mild sorrow that he was about to go through the same thing that had killed his older brother. Yes, that was it. The Prince's older brother who most certainly was Not Lucifer. An idiot couldn't have mistaken Lucifer for a Prince if he tried.
Kaiden woke up on a ship. He was surrounded by other children, most of them appearing to have been living in poverty. Kaiden sneered and looked away, bored. He did not have any wish to socialize with the snot-nosed brats of the dregs of society.
Unfortunately, the hole in the Force still surrounded Kaiden, cutting off his only means of contacting his father, as his comlink had undoubtedly been confiscated. Kaiden sat near a wall and tried to look regal and Princely. He did a very good job of it, too.
On a ship that in wandering through the galaxy in Hyperspace, with no plotted course or fixed destination, many bad things can happen, such as passing through the Hyperspace route being used by another ship at the exact same time as that ship is passing through that exact spot. However, because of the sheer improbability of this, it has never happened once in the entire known history of the Galaxy.
Unfortunately for Lucifer, and very fortunately for the young Prince Kaiden, the Hellrunner just so happened to be passing through a particular area of space at the exact same trillionth of a second that the ship carrying Kaiden to Canthion went through that same area. A Jedi would have called it the Will of the Force. Lucifer called it every horrible word he could think of.
Emperor Palpatine cackled evilly when news arrived of Prince Vader's disappearance. Unfortunately for him, Lord Vader was in the Throne Room, waiting for a private audience when this happened.
A/N: Review if you want me to have a happy birthday! Well, that makes it pretty easy for you. Why wouldn't you want me to have a happy birthday?