This chapter is a little shorter than the previous one. Enjoy!

The next morning, Kobayashi strode towards Vader's quarters and paused when he reached his destination.

"Little One," he said as he knocked on the door.

He felt grogginess overcome him... why was he suddenly sleepy? The door slid open soon afterwards and his explanation was clear: Vader looked half-asleep. "Huh?"

"I have a lot to tell you," Kobayashi said quickly as he grabbed the Sith Lord by the wrist and entered the room.

"What is it?" Vader mumbled.

"You're going to be starting school," Kobayashi smiled.

The look he got in response was confusion.

"What's school?" Vader asked innocently.

"School is where you learn," Kobayashi explained. "You'll learn what the Empire is and what the Rebel Alliance is… all sorts of things! It'll be fun, don't worry."

Vader still looked a little confused and then he pouted. "Does that mean I'm going to be stuck in here?"

Kobayashi laughed. "Well, sort of. I've already come here to teach you your first major lesson."

"What lesson?"

"Lesson #1: Never go on the bridge," Kobayashi said very sternly before laughing again.

"Why can't I go on the bridge?"

"You see this…" Kobayashi trailed off and then sighed. He grabbed a bag that he had been carrying with him and dumped the contents in front of Vader: a small table that sat a little above the ground, a whole score of data pads, a few books, and some holocrons.

"Now before I go into any explanation on what an Empire is or anything of the sort, let me just tell you what your school routine is going to be, okay?" Kobayashi said. Vader nodded and the lieutenant continued, saying, "In the mornings, you will be taught Galactic History and Basic Physics by Lt Cdr. Kerrick Chelcu. Next are Foreign Language and Galactic Politics from yours truly. Then you will have a lunch break and after that, Lt. Ooke Tunrott will teach you basic mechanics and Ens. Jifo Hu will then teach you the sciences. Ens. Marrax Mothezsh will teach literature to you, and… I believe that is everything."

Vader looked like he had been sentenced to life imprisonment. "What?"

"So, let's go eat breakfast and then your classes begin!" Kobayashi smiled and then led Vader to the mess hall.

Palpatine frowned. He had been trying to contact Vader ever since those disturbances began. A powerful Force-sensitive was in the same vicinity as Vader and Palpatine wanted to make sure the threat was eradicated. However, even when he contacted Vader's private comlink he didn't get a response. The whole situation was vexing. Either way, Vader would be reprimanded severely for his lack of awareness.

Still…

The more Palpatine pondered on the two issues, the more they seemed connected.

This required further investigation.

It was the first day of Vader's schooling and Kerrick was already late. Wonderful.

Cursing under his breath, Kerrick ran down the corridor, narrowly missing a collision with Capt. Mentzer.

"Lt Cdr. Chelcu, where are you going?" the captain snapped. "You should be on the bridge."

"Sorry, captain, I'm a little busy with Lord Vader," Kerrick explained, leaving the captain seconds after.

He finally reached the turbolift and sped down to the officers' quarters. When he arrived, he ran to the door and knocked feebly before shrugging and opening it.

Vader sat in front of his cot, staring at all of the school data pads and books that Kobayashi had brought him. The boy looked comatose. He was also extremely pale. However, the moment Kerrick took a step forward Vader leapt into the air and tackled the poor Imperial officer.

"Oh, please don't let them get me!" he cried out.

"W-what?" Kerrick stuttered, completely winded. "What are you talking about?"

"T-the politicians!" Vader shouted. "I saw the book and they're swarming in my head get them out get them out!"

Kerrick blinked a moment before laughing his head off. "Wha—you're scared of a bunch of schoolbooks?"

Vader pouted, trying to make it look as if it were a capital offense to laugh at such a matter. "But—but they're—I hate politics!"

Kerrick only laughed harder. "Well, don't worry, Little One. I'm only teaching you Galactic History and Basic Physics. No politics from me. Kobayashi will teach you that."

"Who's Kobayashi?"

"The one who brought all of this in here," Kerrick explained. "I guess we never did introduce ourselves, did we? My name is Lieutenant Commander Kerrick Chelcu."

"Hi Lieutenant Commander Kerrick Chelcu," Vader said, taking a deep breath and then whining, "You've got a long name!"

Kerrick laughed again. "No, no, silly, lieutenant commander is my rank. My actual name is Kerrick Chelcu."

"Is a rank something you guys have in the Imperial Navy?"

Kerrick's laughter immediately stopped. "How—how do you know that?"

"Lieutenant Commander Norhek told me," Vader answered simply, causing Kerrick's fear to evaporate.

"Oh… well, let's just get to classes, shall we?" Kerrick said, sitting down in front of Vader.

"So… what are Galactic History and Basic Physics?" Vader asked.

"Galactic History is the study of things that have happened in the past. We study history to learn from our past mistakes. For example, we study the history of the Old Republic so we can learn how to avoid becoming a decrepit and internally rotting government. The Galactic Empire is an example of how we've learned from our mistakes." Kerrick explained as he put all of Vader's books in an organized pile. "We'll just worry about Galactic History for now, okay? We'll discuss physics when we get there."

"Okay…" Vader trailed off before asking. "What's the Old Republic and the Galactic Empire?"

Sighing, Kerrick decided that this class was going to be a lot harder than he had originally assumed.

The boy's head felt like it was about to explode. Reading about things like the Galactic Empire and the stuff that it had done was so boring. Okay, some people did this and the Empire said that's stupid do it this way and they didn't listen and so the Empire sent their army to show them how to do it, fine! After a while, it got pretty repetitive. The boy thought that people learned from their mistakes like Kerrick Chelcu had said!

Thankfully, their time for Galactic History came to an end. They quickly switched to Basic Physics, and the boy's curiosity rose once again. This sounded a lot more exciting than Galactic History!

As the boy started studying his physics, he grew happier by the minute. This was so much easier to understand than Galactic History! At least there wasn't any boring "and after the fall of the decrepit Old Republic in the sixteenth year after the Great Resynchronization…" Unfortunately, Kerrick Chelcu had assigned the boy homework: he had to memorize the emperor's Declaration of a New Order. Yuck!

The name Palpatine had seemed very familiar to the boy. However, his utter hatred for the subject caused him to prevent his curiosity from getting the best of him. Instead, he happily did his physics work. There were just easy equations and rules to remember, not stupid narrators talking about the "rotten Old Republic" or the "mighty Galactic Empire." It was all so boring!

Eventually, Kerrick Chelcu stood up and told the boy that the lesson for the day was over.

"Next, Lieutenant Kobayashi Beillane is going to teach you Galactic Politics and Foreign Language," he informed him.

The moment the words Galactic Politics left his mouth the boy's insides churned. No, not politics, anything but politics…

Ooke Tunrott let out a nervous breath as he smoothed his uniform of nonexistent wrinkles before approaching the door to Darth Vader's quarters. He hadn't faced the Sith Lord alone yet, so he was extremely anxious. He was just an engineer, not a miracle worker! How could he possibly manage to teach Darth Vader about basic mechanics?

The door hissed open and Ooke looked around before seeing Darth Vader sitting on the floor stooped over some homework that the previous teacher, Kobayashi, had assigned. It didn't even seem as if Vader had noticed Ooke entering the room.

This thought was short lived as Darth Vader immediately dropped what he was doing and sat up, looking at Ooke expectantly. His eyes twinkled excitedly and he quickly said, "You're going to teach me basic mechanics, right?"

"Y-yes…" Ooke stuttered. "You see, basic mechanics is—"

"I already know basic mechanics!" Vader interrupted. "Let's go to the hangar bay and work on some of the ships! What are they called, anyway? Can we go now? I want to tinker with some of them! I looked at them yesterday and—"

The Sith Lord babbled on and on about the fighters and bombers in the hangars, leaving poor Ooke stammering to reply. Vader never gave the engineer a chance to speak, so Ooke had to finally take a deep breath and interrupt the rambling.

"—Excuse me, Little One, but we're not going anywhere," he said before taking another breath. The room was suddenly very hot and he began to sweat.

Vader remained silent for a moment before he crawled under his cot. Ooke blinked, completely baffled. "What… are you doing?"

Vader wiggled back out with half an ion engine in hand. That was the ion engine the other engineers reported missing from the storage compartment!

"How did you get that?" Ooke demanded, automatically treating Vader like a subordinate.

When Vader recoiled, Ooke immediately backed down. He suddenly didn't view the boy as Darth Vader but as a child who was sometimes too curious for his own good. "Sorry… where did you get that?"

"When Lt Cdr. Norhek and I went exploring yesterday, I saw it and wanted to fix it."

"You wanted to fix it," Ooke repeated bluntly. "I see… so what did you do with it?"

Vader stood up and then sat on the cot, putting the part on his lap. "Well, you see, somebody got the wiring to the fuel tank wrong. If this had been actually attached to a ship, it would have set your fuselage on fire and then blown the whole thing to pieces. So I fixed it. I rerouted the power through this wire here and attached it to the electrical component that would go here if this engine were in a ship. Of course, I've still got to find the other half of the engine but when I do I'll have an ion engine ready to go!"

Ooke gaped at the boy. He was practically a technological genius! "How—you—but… let's go down to engineering, shall we?"

The boy leapt in excitement the moment they entered the hangar bay. He carried his ion engine over towards the nearest fighter and immediately began to take apart the fuselage.

"Wait, wait!" Lieutenant Ooke Tunrott called out. "That doesn't need fixing!"

"I'm not going to fix it, silly!" the boy laughed. "I'm going to improve it. What's it called, anyway?"

"It's a specialized TIE fighter," Lieutenant Ooke Tunrott replied. "It's for our highest officer."

"Who's the highest officer?"

"Um… he… his name is, uh…"

The boy watched Ooke Tunrott stammer to find the right words for a while before growing impatient. He wanted to start tinkering on this ship!

Ignoring the blubbering lieutenant, the boy quickly returned to taking the fuselage apart. He had nearly gotten the components out before Ooke Tunrott swatted his hands away. "Stop!"

The boy took a small step back. What had he done wrong?

Ooke Tunrott sighed. "Look, Little One, I brought you here to work in the engineering area of the ship we're on, not the fighters, particularly this one."

"Sorry… what's she called?"

"What, the ship?"

The boy nodded.

Ooke Tunrott sighed. "I don't know to tell you the truth. I don't even know if she was named at all."

"Why don't we name her, then?" the boy suggested.

The boy's instructor seemed hesitant, but he also seemed to push it aside. "I suppose… sure. Go ahead."

Smiling, the boy closed his eyes to think for a moment. She wasn't the prettiest ship he had ever seen, but when he saw her internal work, he was impressed. Whoever that high up officer was, he obviously knew his stuff. The ship deserved a good name. However, when he started really thinking about a name for the ship, he suddenly felt depressed. He wasn't feeling depressed… the ship was. She had a sense of sadness around her. Where was that coming from? What would make her sad? Was it her owner?

"She's sad…" he muttered.

Ooke Tunrott gave the boy an odd look. "What?"

"I mean… she…" the boy took a deep breath. "Poor girl…"

Ooke Tunrott looked completely bewildered.

What could he name the ship? With such a sad demeanor she couldn't have a bouncy name. It had to be fitting for her personality and her owner.

"I know what to call her," the boy said aloud.

"So, what is her name?"

The boy paused, closing his eyes to confirm the name before nodding to himself and looking at Ooke Tunrott. "Her name is Fallen Angel."

"That's an awfully depressing name for a ship," Ooke Tunrott commented.

"I think it's good for her," the boy replied. His somber attitude immediately vanished when the thought passed. "So are we going to the engineering section?"

Ooke Tunrott looked at the ship for a moment before smiling and nodding. "Yes, let's go."