Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to George Lucas/Disney. Anything you don't recognize probably also belongs to them.

Idiosyncrasies

As he waited for the meeting to commence Luke chatted amicably with several of the people from his squadron and ground crew, feeling surprisingly awake for how little sleep he had managed the night before. He allowed himself to relax and spread his senses into the Force basking in the cheerful mood the group was unconsciously radiating. As the group sank into the minutiae that only pilots and mechanics understood he smiled. It was this sort of simplicity - the day to day normalcy - that kept him grounded, and had ever since he lost his Aunt and Uncle. He had only grown more dependent on it over time.

As he continued to talk with the others a sense of unease began to encroach on his island of calm making him stiffen slightly. He abruptly spread his senses further from his bubble of safety in search of the source and was hit an intent which was so strongly focused on him that had he been standing he would have stumbled.

Distrust. Fear. Contempt. Analysis.

He forced himself to not hunch over and continue to talk as if nothing was wrong. Time seemed to stretch and then there was a flicker of thought - not even a full sentence, or even a voice, but instead a clipped concept - like a scrambled comlink.

'From… Hutt… planet.'

He concentrated on the source. Madine he realized.

He was so focused on the other man that when he turned to look at him he already knew where to look to meet his eyes. He observed the other man in confusion. What had brought on the roiling emotions that he could feel directed so sharply towards him? He raised his eyebrows in question. As he felt resolve quickly overtake the other emotions he realized that whatever had caused it couldn't be good.

It felt ominous.

Luke continued to watch Madine thoughtfully as he explained the mission details in front of a holo projection, somewhat surprised by how well the man kept his distaste and doubt towards the mission out of his expression. He also noticed the man was avoiding looking at him with an almost stubborn deliberateness.

Once Madine began explaining information that Luke was not already privy to he began to pay more attention to the words and less to the man speaking them. There would be time to worry about how the man was acting later.

"We will be transported by the Corellia's Luck, an Acclamator-class assault ship as some of you may already know."

Luke snorted aloud exchanging looks with Wedge. If he had learned anything from his time spent around Han and Wedge it was that the saying "luck like a Corellian" was a bit of a mixed bag. Most of the time a Corellian's luck was considered the best possible of the worst outcomes, and given all of the situations he had been through with Han and Wedge he figured it was a pretty accurate description.

His mirth was interrupted by the frosty voice of the Supreme Commander, "Lieutenant Commander Skywalker, do you find this mission funny?"

Luke flinched back from the sudden animosity he felt needling at him from the other man. Wondering what he had done to anger the man so severely Luke replied stiffly, "No sir, I was just reminded of something." He forced himself to meet the other man's gaze steadily and straightened his shoulders. He was a Lieutenant Commander, not some timid farm-boy that would back away from confrontational comments.

Madine's eyes bore into his for a moment and Luke stared back passive, yet deliberate until Madine pursed his thin lips then spoke, his tone derisive, "Very well. Do try not to interrupt Commander."

Luke's eyes slitted marginally as he fought to keep a scowl off of his face. Now the man was just being rude. He gave the barest of nods returning the blatant disrespect with his unspoken breach of protocol for the chain of command.

Madine's jaw tensed and he looked away abruptly continuing to speak even though Luke could feel his irritation coming off of him in waves. "The Corellia's Luck will be departing 07:00 hours. We will be travelling most of the distance on the hyperspace routes known as the Sanctuary Pipeline and the Corellian Trade Spine. You should all be familiar with that section of the Spine given that it is the route that is closest to Hoth. As per normal we will be making several diverted jumps to throw off any tracking. Once we reach the Allyuen System we will be reverting into real-space as close to the planet's gravity well as is safe in a position that will allow for a retreating hyperspace jump should it be required. Because we do not currently know the situation on the planet Rogue Squadron will do reconnaissance in the area around the last known location for Quarry Base. After this it will be decided whether it is safe to land our ground forces.

Luke tilted his head to the side in thought. So this was how they were going to play it? Keep the people assigned to the mission in the dark about the possible Imperial threat? He wasn't sure how he felt about the idea, and the Force was disappointingly quiet aside from the same feeling of distress and despair that he had felt the night before at the Command Staff meeting. He decided to let the rather ominous omission go for now since it would at least keep any panic from setting in before the mission had even started.

As he had contemplated the situation Madine had continued to speak. As the man began to explain the most likely drop points for the ships carrying the ground crew and the likely locations for the Rogues to land Luke quickly plotted the points on his datapad before the holoscreen could change. He absentmindedly began going over how to best situate his squadron for a thorough canvas of the terrain and debated over where each member should land if ('when' the Force whispered) it became necessary.

"Keep the weather in mind people. It's not going to be Hoth cold, but it will be cold, so dress appropriately. This is your only warning, If you do not have the proper attire speak with the Procurement and Supply Department and they will supply you with essentials. Is everyone clear?" Madine's sharp eyes swept the room for any uncertainty amongst the chorus of 'Yes sirs' and found none. "Any further questions should be taken to your respective squad leaders. Dismissed."

Luke stood up smoothly and made his way out of the room, a trail of his squadron members and the female mechanic following him like a herd of Banthas followed its leader. The thought made him smile and he was able to easily release his irritation with Madine into the Force. Some of the tension in his shoulders lessened as Wes walked up to him clutching at his now half empty mug of caf.

"Well that was about as rude as a Toydarian at a royal wedding. I can't believe he spoke to you in that tone. He might as well have come out and say he didn't acknowledge your rank."

Luke shrugged slightly, not as bothered now that he was releasing the bulk of his frustration into the Force, "He dislikes our methods. Probably thinks we're too unprofessional and I'm the one in charge of the Rogues so I represent that."

"Oh come on, this is an alliance of people trying to bring back the old Republic, not the damn military. What does he expect?" Wes scoffed.

"Are you sure about that?" Wedge spoke up seriously and Luke hummed in agreement with Wedge's question. "The way I see it the two are becoming virtually interchangeable. We fight for what we want. We're hardly peaceful negotiators these days. Honestly sometimes I can see where he's coming from. We fight like we think we're a military, but we don't act like it and sometimes that puts us or others in danger."

Luke nodded, "He definitely doesn't like how I go off following vague feelings from the Force dragging others with me. I think it's part of the problem, but it's not really something I can do anything about." He shrugged uncomfortably, "I'm just not trained well enough yet to fully use the Force to help plan a situation strategically."

'Weak. So weak compared to Yoda and your father.'

Luke's skin crawled at the sound of a voice he didn't recognize, a barely there phantom that slithered through his thoughts before it disappeared. He unclenched his hands, not remembering clenching them in the first place, and released his unease into the Force with some difficulty, easily calming down once he had. Whatever that had been, it would become clear in time.

He looked up and realized that the squadron was looking at him worriedly, "Sorry, I zone out sometimes. It's a Force thing."

The others nodded, but he could almost hear the 'What if he does that in the middle of a fight?' in some of their swirling emotions. He clenched and unclenched his cybernetic hand - his new nervous tick he thought bitterly - before he released a breath. As he breathed out he let his irritation towards the others for thinking that (and his own fear that they were right) go into the force. He had a mission to prepare everyone for, and now wasn't the time to be letting his emotions get the best of him.

With renewed determination he picked up his pace as he strode the rest of the way towards the area where most of the group was housed and stepped into the crowded space. As the others filed in behind him and situated themselves on the bunks in the room he wended his way through the unorganized chaos of trunks, clothes that lay around the room in disarray, and the bunks themselves, to the single console in the room and pulled his datapad out of his pocket.

After he hooked it up to the machine he turned back to the group sliding into the role of a leader with practiced effort, "Alright guys let's get started."

He heard the sound of a throat clearing and noticed Tal looking at him with her eyebrows raised in a joking manner as the short haired blonde elbowed the black haired female sitting on the bunk beside her hover-chair. The other woman tucked her long hair behind her ear, her blue eyes standing out against her almond coloured skin as they radiated her amusement.

Luke rolled his eyes, this again, "Tal, you and Cinda both know I say guys as a general statement. You're obviously not actually offended now and you haven't been the last however many times you've pulled this."

He heard several of the others snicker and Tal grinned at him, "But where's the fun in not messing with you oh brave leader?"

Luke wanted to smack his forehead in amused annoyance. Apparently the woman was still annoyed with his comment after the evacuation drill, "Alright, fine, have it your way, but can I please get on with this briefing so we aren't here all day?"

Wes gave a dramatic gasp and collapsed back on the bunk he was sitting on, "No! Anything but that!"

Luke saw Tal's eye twitch at the other man's antics and barely refrained from making a similar comment to what he had said the previous day.

Focus.

"Alright everybody," he said with deliberate emphasis on the change in word choice, "Settle down."

The noise in the room dulled and then went quiet, so Luke began, "As you now know we're going to be travelling to Allyuen. The last known location of the base is a few kilometres south of a really big fissure in the ground," a holo-image popped up on the screen and zoomed in on the fissure before zooming out slightly to encompass the area around it. "Given that the planet is comprised of mostly desert terrain a canvas of the area is going to be easier and more difficult at the same time. I grew up on a desert planet and I can tell you that just because there's nothing obvious to see on the surface doesn't mean that there's nothing there. We're going to have to look closely as we do our fly-over for signs of entrances to underground facilities or habitations. I'm going to be splitting the twelve of us into two groups, six of us will be designated to checking the flats around the coordinates we were given for the mining facility, while the others will be surveying the fissure." He tapped his datapad and twelve icons representing their fighters appeared on the screen in the pre-designated locations he had selected. "As you know we will be integrating three members of three other squadrons into our group for the foreseeable future. I have designated Sila Kott from Red Squadron as Rogue Nine." He gestured at a sharp-faced pale woman with dirty blonde-hair that was pulled back into a tight bun and she nodded in greeting. "She will be flying with Gemma as his wing…" he paused a moment pursing his lips in amusement, "woman." The woman snorted lightly at his reference to the earlier word-play. "Kott, this is Gemma Sojan, he's Rogue Eight," he said gesturing to the male.

"Pleasure," she said shortly, revealing a clipped accent that he didn't recognize.

Luke continued, gesturing to the only non-human in the group: a Sullustan, "Ten Numb will be joining us from your old squadron Gemma. He's from blue squadron," he explained to the others. He smiled wryly, "To prevent confusion due to his first name I figured it would be smart to just give him the designation Rogue Ten."

"Wait a minute Hobbie, did our Commander just call us stupid?" Wes whined.

Hobbie laughed in response, "I think he did my fine Taanabian friend. Not that he's far off the mark where you're considered."

"HEY!" Wes cried out in annoyance, "Who said you could take his side?"

This time Luke really did smack his forehead, "Will you knuckle-heads knock it off? You're going to scare them away."

"Sorry Sir."

"Sorry Commander," the two chorused out of sync.

Luke shook just shook his head and motioned toward the last new member, a dark haired male with tawny skin and brown angular eyes, "This is Lieutenant Ekelarc Young from Gray Squadron, obviously he will be Rogue Eleven. He and Ten Numb will be flying together." The man nodded solemnly and Luke continued when he realized the other man wasn't planning on saying anything. "For those of you who are new I'm Luke Skywalker and my call-sign is Rogue Leader." As he continued he pointed out the other members of the group, "This is Wedge Antilles, he's Rogue One and my wingman. Derek Klivian is Rogue Two, though as you probably noticed most of us just call him Hobbie. Rogue Three is Wes Janson. He and Hobbie fly together, probably not the best idea, but they get along well," the last part he said as an aside which made the two men grumble. He pointed towards the only other blonde male in the room, "That is Tycho Celchu and as you can probably guess he's Rogue Four. The quiet one beside him is Dix Rivan, though we tend to call him Dixie. He's Rogue Five and they fly together." The man waved slightly as Luke turned towards the brown haired male that sat next to the only other female pilot, "This is Nala Hetsime and Cinda Tarheel. They're Rogue Six and Seven respectively, though they flew together as Rogue Seven back on Hoth." He looked around the room, "If you need help remembering it all you can all get to know each other later."

Inwardly Luke snorted in amusement, 'Getting to know each other' to the Rogues translated to 'Get really really drunk together.' There were going to be a lot of hangovers in the morning.

He turned back to the screen and tapped his datapad causing numbers to pop up next to the icons on the screen, "Wedge and I will be leading the group over the flats. Numb, Young, Nala, and Cinda will be with us. Tycho and Dixie will be in charge of the group in the fissure, and the rest of you will be with them." He tapped his datapad for the last time and trajectory lines formed on the main screen, "Take note of where I have you placed and your general trajectory. You are going to be responsible for knowing it when we reach the planet. We will be looking for signs of life and possible reasons for the base needing to send out a distress signal. Focus is going to be very important on this one guys, so try to keep the joking to a minimum."

He heard several 'Yes sirs' and 'Yes commanders' and he nodded. "Alrighty, does anyone have any questions?" When no questions were forthcoming he continued, "In that case we're done for now. I suggest everyone start packing if you need to," he allowed his eyes to skim over the mess in the room purposefully and noted several cringes around the room before everyone stood and started moving.

Luke watched the others joking around for a few moments wistfully. Having the privacy of his own quarters was nice, but he missed being with his squad-mates. Ever since he had trained on Dagobah there had been a fissure forming between himself and his squadron that had only been exacerbated by his private lodging. He could tell that his abilities made some of them, especially the newer members, nervous whenever he used them, or they affected him in some way like they had earlier. The problem was one without a solution though, because now that he had begun his training it was impossible to go back to how he had been. It would be far worse than losing a limb and more like losing all of his senses.

Unfortunately the exchange was having others look at him like he wasn't quite human. He was well aware of how he looked to others: a being of unnatural grace - almost always aware everything that was in his direct surroundings - no wasted movement when he moved because the Force always conveyed the exact movements he needed. He actually had to put in more effort to appear 'normal' than he did to just flow with the Force. Most of the time he didn't bother because even when he tried he knew people still knew what he was hiding. They were always looking for the signs because they all knew what he claimed to be. Many of the new squadron members had a hard time seeing past it all to the person he was underneath. And why not? They barely - or never - knew him before he had changed, and with him living separately they had even less of a chance to get to know him.

Luke turned and strode out of the room still in thought. Another problem with living alone was how much time he had to think, and given how often his thoughts drifted towards the negative (and why wouldn't they given everything bad that had happened since the Alliance dropped into his life in the form of a quirky pair of droids), he often found himself wishing for the distraction brought by having room-mates.

Luke looked up from his boots, that he realized his eyes had drifted toward, and found himself looking at the familiar surroundings of the hangar. He smiled slightly and released a huff of air in mirth. Whether it was the hand of the Force or his own wayward feet, something knew where to take him to calm down.

An excited trill of binary drew his attention to the side and his smile widened at the sight of a familiar blue and white astromech barrelling toward him.

"Hey bud, slow down," he said with a laugh, as the droid came to a skidding stop mere milimetres from crunching over his toes again. The little droid warbled in the droid equivalent of enthusiastic chatter. "You seem to be in a good mood huh?"

The droid rocked side to side on its treads before zipping off towards a terminal leaving Luke to catch up at a much slower pace. Luke shook his head with a smirk, "I really need to learn binary." He leaned over the console that the droid had connected itself to and skimmed the Aurebesh characters that the droid had transcribed across the screen, "What do you mean you found a set of your schematics? I thought you were too modified for the normal R2 series schematics?"

"Obviously," the screen read. "I had the schematics stored in my databanks by Master Ani. I've been trying to get into them since we left Bespin."

"Master Ani? Do you mean Captain Raymus Antilles? I know you belonged to him before me."

The sound the droid made was what Luke had to equivocate with a human scoff, and more words appeared on the screen, "Antilles didn't know anything about programming. I meant Master Anakin."

Luke froze at the name.

"Ben, if you knew my father then you must know his name," He paused a moment, the next part still raw after what had just happened on Tatooine, "Uncle Owen always refused to tell me."

The old man smiled in a bittersweet sort of way, "His name was Anakin. Anakin Skywalker."

Back then he had thought he would have all the time in the universe to learn about his father, so when the old Jedi turned the conversation towards the Force he hadn't been too put out by it.

Regret.

He swallowed dryly and croaked, "You mean Anakin Skywalker?"

The droid turned its main photoreceptor, its 'eye,' toward him and appeared to stare at him even as more words replaced the ones on the screen, "Of course I mean Anakin Skywalker. He's hard to miss now that he wears that big black outdated life-suite."

Luke sank down to the floor, "You knew? Wait… you used to belong to my father?"

The droid trilled an affirmative and Luke stumbled over his next words, "Why… why didn't you say something?"

The droid probably would have shrugged had it been able to, "You never asked. Statistically you do look very similar to him. I deduced relation was likely, and your surname made the conclusion seem logical."

Luke's voice caught in his throat, before he managed to choke out, "I really look like him?" Suddenly he found himself staring at a projected holo image. He froze momentarily then scrambled forward and reached out to the image with his right hand careful not to break the beams of light that held the image that was priceless to him.

Wavy hair framed a face that was more angular than his, a prankster's smile splitting the man's expression, and a scar cut down the right side of the man's face through the eyebrow and beside a mischievous pair of eyes that looked older than the face would have suggested. Somehow he knew the man's eyes would have been the exact shade of blue that he saw in his own reflection, and it was this thought that sent tears running down his cheeks. There was no denying it, this was definitely his father.

"Father," he croaked and pulled his hand away clutching the cybernetic against his chest with his other hand, "What happened to you?"

How could this smiling man have ended up in that terrible suit? How could he have become so cruel and heartless?

Not heartless.

The pang of regret his father had felt when he cut off Luke's arm echoed through him. It had been real.

Still cruel.

When necessary. When it had to be done.

An aged voice crackled through his thoughts, an echo from a past her never saw, "Do what must be done. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy."

His skin crawled.

'What must be done.'

Blast shields slid down over transparisteel blocking rivers of lava from view.

'Do not hesitate.'

The ground rumbled as hundreds of armored feet marched up wide stairs into a place that was considered holy.

'Show.'

"Master Skywalker!"

'No.'

"There are too many of them!"

'Mercy.'

"What are we going to do?"

The sound of a lightsaber as it ignited. He recognizes the sound of that ignition.

No. No. No.

Fear in the eyes of a child.

Burning.

Luke's eyes snapped open and he shot up into a sitting position before promptly vomiting. He collapsed weakly away from the puddle and groaned in pain.

Something bumped into him almost gently and he saw R2-D2 leaning against him, a conductor for electricity still visible as if the droid wasn't sure if it would need to use it again.

"Please don't," he managed to wheeze and the droid backed off. With a drawn out moan he managed to sit back up, "What happened?"

The droid plugged back into the terminal and words flashed quickly across the screen, "You went into an unexpected sleep cycle. You were writhing all over and I couldn't wake you up. Master Ani called them Visions. I have had experience in the past where a jolt of energy was able to wake him, so I calculated that it would likely have a similar effect with you."

Luke shuddered. Visions.

Was it real? Yoda had said he needed to be calm to see true visions, but he certainly didn't feel calm. Had Yoda lied to him?

"Thank you Artoo," he said shakily as he tried to calm his breathing and release what he was feeling into the Force, but was met with little success. In frustration he stamped down on the emotions and shoved them into the far reaches of his mind. It was nothing, he was over-reacting. Yoda wouldn't lie to him.

Kenobi did though.

He shook his head as if to shake the last few minutes off and turned back to the droid that appeared to be worried if the low whine it made was anything to go by.

"I'm fine Artoo," he said with a sigh.

"Master Ani used to say that too," the droid pointed out more as an observation than a comparison.

Luke suppressed a flinch anyway and decided to redirect the conversation, "So you were saying something about schematics?"

The droid twittered an affirmative and a set of schematics flashed up on the view-screen. Luke's eyes darted back and forth across the image and his jaw dropped, "You weren't kidding about being modded. Is that a Fusion Cutter? Wait a minute, you have rocket boosters? You can FLY?!"

"I could fly if someone would actually do maintenance on them. They've been non-functional for years now," the screen read as the droid warbled in annoyance.

Luke gave the droid an amused smile, "Astromechs don't usually come equipped with kriffing rocket boosters bud. Most people wouldn't know to look for them."

The droid rocked back and forth like a petulant child then the screen said, "Your logic is sound." If a droid could pout Atroo would have hit the expression spot on.

The thought dragged a reluctant laugh out of Luke and he patted the droid's dome, Don't worry, I'll give everything a look and see what I can do. It'll help pass the time on our way to Allyuen."

The rotund droid whistled in excitement, "The repair of all of my faulty parts will increase my capacity for maintenance by approximately 32.5 percent and my capacity for improvised combat by 64.8 percent."

Luke's eyebrows rose incredulously, "Improvised combat?"

"Oh yes. Improvised combat was a regular necessity when travelling with Master Ani. He was often…" the droid paused momentarily which was a long time for a droid to calculate a word choice, "reckless."

The memory of Yoda's voice overcame Luke momentarily.

'You. Are. Reckless.'

He shook it off and continued to read what the droid had put on the screen.

"I had to save him and the others he travelled with many times. Statistically he encountered far more trouble than the average sentient or even the average Jedi. It was abnormal but…" again that pause, this time longer, "enjoyable to be a part of."

Luke eyed the droid oddly. The last comment had almost seemed sentient. Normally droids calculated their 'moods' based on their programming. Each mood was created with pre-made protocols that they followed faithfully. If their personality matrix concluded that excitement was the correct protocol for a situation, then they would follow that protocol. A protocol could be initiated and ended as the situation deemed, but droids did not have opinions or 'feelings' about things unless they were based upon statistics. This? This was different. Which made him wonder if his father's 'recklessness' was really based on statistics as he had originally assumed.

Suddenly he was struck with a pang of desperate want, and despite knowing better than to ask a droid a question based on its non-existent opinion he couldn't help but hope. "What… what was my father… er… Master Ani like?" he tripped over the words, his mouth suddenly very dry, the acidic taste in his mouth left by the bile from earlier tasting sharp in his mouth.

"Master Ani was…" the screen shone innocently at him and he waited with bated breath until the screen began to fill.

"For the Republic: The Hero-With-No-Fear

For the Jedi: The Chosen One or The Son-of-Suns

For Master Windu: A threat or danger to be watched

For Supreme Chancellor Palpatine: An opportunity that was underappreciated by the Jedi

For the Clones: A good comrade and General

For Padawan Ahsoka Tano: Sky-guy, a role-model, and a big-brother

For Grand Master Yoda: A mislead student

For Obi-wan Kenobi: A friend, a brother, a student"

On and on it went and Luke's heart sank. He knew he shouldn't have expected anything real. And then it stopped for a moment before two more words appeared on the screen and Luke's heart rose into his throat.

"My friend."

A long pause.

"He made me what I am. I am grateful."

Another pause, this one so long that Luke thought the droid was done, then…

"I miss him."

Luke felt a sudden need to hug the short droid, "You really did care about him. How is that even possible?" This went against everything he knew about droids.

The screen quickly filled, "My memory banks haven't been wiped in approximately forty standard years and Master Ani made his own modifications in my coding. It is only a theory, but it is the only somewhat plausible one that I have been able to come up with."

Luke leaned back and ran his hand through his hair thoughtfully, "If that's the case then why do you usually function like a normally coded droid? I mean, I knew you were quirky for a droid, but I never noticed anything like this."

The droid shifted back and forth with a warble as the screen filled yet again, "It is strange, even uncomfortable, to branch away from normal protocols. I do not do it often."

Luke nodded thoughtfully, "Interesting." The ramifications were mind-boggling, and yet he found himself focusing on something else, "So you were close to him then? Was he always so…"

"Empty?" the droid replied and Luke wrinkled his brow.

"Not the word I would have chosen, why do you say empty?" he asked thinking of the fiery emotions he had felt from his father.

"I suppose he would be different around you, but I have seen him in other situations while travelling with Princess Organa. He acts like a droid. He goes through the motions expected of him, but other than anger he is nothing."

Luke frowned, "He definitely wasn't like that with me."

"You are his child. As far as I am aware you are all that is left of his old life that he does not hate other than possibly myself and C-3PO."

"Wait, he knew Threepio too?"

The droid released a puff of air that sounded like a snort, "Of course he did. Master Ani built C-3PO out of scrap when he was nine standard years old. The end result was not very sophisticated obviously, but for a human at that age with the supplies available he did surprisingly well."

"Kriff," Luke breathed in shock, "He did that when he was nine? That's amazing." He sat quietly trying to wrap his head around Darth Vader and the intelligent child the droid described being the same person. After several moments of quiet another question came to mind. He chewed on his lip and looked over at the droid wondering if he should ask the question or if it would be beyond the droid's capacity. He decided it wouldn't hurt to try, "How did my father seem to you?"

The screen went blank for almost a full minute before characters began to form into words haltingly, "Master Ani was stubborn. He was an adrenaline junkie and saw danger as a challenge. He lived for flying. If he ever feared anything it was the loss of those he held close. He loved completely, and he hated like a restrained fire. In the end I think too much was expected of him and he collapsed under it and burned."

An audio recording began to play, the sound distorted by wind, crackling, and distance, but he could still hear a familiar Coruscanti accent yelling, the voice sounding broken beyond hope, "YOU WERE MY BROTHER ANAKIN! I LOVED YOU!"

Something wrenched inside of him. Ben.

Luke looked at the droid as the pieces began to finally (finally) slide together in his mind and a thought came to him making him look at the droid curiously, "That was oddly poetic," he left the 'for a droid' unspoken.

"Princess Organa had a lot of poetry in her archives." Another pause, "I enjoyed it."

Luke nodded distractedly wondering what had caused Ben to sound so defeated.

The screen flashed again, "I also enjoy flying."

Luke smiled slightly. Flying. He and his father had something in common other than the Force. With that realization he wondered if he had ever flown against his father in a battle. The thought made him cringe.

Probably.

He still had a hard time accepting the full ramifications that came with Vader being his father and often found himself thinking of him as the two separate beings: the one that the galaxy knew, and the one that was actually his father. Logically he knew that the man was both, and the conversation with Artoo had helped him begin to associate the ideas together, but it was a hard concept to stomach.

Luke shoved the thought to the side deliberately and refocused on the droid, "Can you show me anything else? What about my mother?" He felt his hopes rise despite himself.

Text quickly covered the screen, "No. Most of the files are heavily encrypted and more than two attempts at the password or any attempt at hacking the code immediately triggers a self destruct data collapse in my coding and any technology within the range of my short-range transponder. I would cease to function and all of my files would be lost."

Luke's eyes widened, "Stars that's brutal."

"Master Ani likes his privacy. Any information that is even possible to hack was deliberately made to be that way because he wanted it to be found. My schematics for example."

Luke nodded and hunched in on himself in defeat realizing that he had let himself to hope too much. He felt crushed, "So you can't tell me anything about my mother?"

The screen remained blank again, and Luke absently noted that the slow responses coincided with the more sentient answers the droid made. He wondered how hard it was for the droid to be able to process its own responses and put them into Basic.

The screen lit up again and three sentences formed looking small on the screen despite their importance, "I could tell she loved Master Ani. He loved her to the point that he would do anything to protect her. He did and he lost himself."

Another audio recording began to play, this one more clear than the last, "Love won't save you, - - - -. Only my new powers can do that." Static filled the space where Luke knew a name should have been, and the audio jumped forward as if a section had been cut out, "I won't lose you the way I lost my mother. I am becoming more powerful than any Jedi has ever dreamed of, and I'm doing it for you. To protect you."

Luke teared up at the sound of the voice that sounded so much like the voice of his father when he spoke through the Force. So much desperation in those words. So much arrogance. So much love.

All twisted.

"Your eyes are leaking Master Luke. Are you okay? You are worrying me." the screen read when he could bring himself to look at it again.

Luke choked out a laugh, "I'll be okay. Thank you for this Artoo. It must be difficult for you."

The droid beeped an affirmative, "I have been straining my processor's capacity. I need to allow it time to cool down."

Another telling pause, then, "I think it was worth it though."

Luke patted the droid's dome affectionately, noticing that it was unusually warm to his touch, "Sounds like a good idea bud. We wouldn't want you to blow a circuit."

The droid whistled cheerily and lightly bumped into him in its own form of affection before it rolled off with a toot.

Luke watched as the droid roll away, his thoughts running in circles. He rubbed his temples harshly and flopped the rest of the way back down on the floor. First his father, then a vision, then a sentient droid, and all while he needed to focus on getting ready for a mission. His body throbbed with the shift of position reminding him that he had been electrocuted in the middle of everything.

So much for the Force or his subconscious bringing him to the hangar to calm down.

He didn't even know how to start dealing with it all so he just lay there unmoving as he stared into empty space and tried to clear his mind to meditate. He would deal with it later.

AN: Okay guys, so I ended up hurting myself at work and now I'm on light-duty. Translation: I'm bored out of my skull and have plenty of time to write, especially on weekends that I work. The main problem is that I have no way to type this up on the computer or access to internet to do research (the I.T. department has crippled those poor computers so that we can't get on things they don't want us to). This means I have to re-type everything I write by hand at work AND verify any information I wasn't sure about or in some cases write entire scenes I had to skip for lack of available information. So in the end this means that there's probably little likely-hood of me stopping, it just takes a minute to get everything put together in a typed format.

Anyroad (yes I've taken up playing FFXIV) a LOT of information got thrown at you in this chapter. I tried to make it as easy to follow as possible and I think I managed. I ended up having to do a lot of research for sections of this (I spent a good fifteen minutes trying to find Arbra aka Haven Base on the Galaxy map based on it's location near a Hyperspace route that Wookiepedia showed it near just so I could figure out a route from Arbra to Allyuen… fun stuff), but I tried to keep it to where it wasn't necessary to know all of the stuff I now know in order to keep up with the story.

Also R2-D2 being (apparently) sentient was totally unplanned, but the little guy wouldn't leave me alone about it. In fact most of that scene was unplanned.

Random Info:

- "I think he did my fine Taanabian friend," was a reference to Wes' home planet.

- Sila Kott is a female pilot seen in the Battle of Endor. Her actor was dubbed over by a male actor.

- Nala Hetsime and Cinda Tarheel flew one of the double-seated speeders together in the Battle of Hoth, thus they were both designated Rogue Seven at one point.