He got out and slammed the door shut just in time. The shatter of transparisteel made his heart leap into his throat, and air whistled out of the corridor, into his room. The suction force of the vacuum just behind the door yanked him against it for a moment, head slamming into the metal, but he scrambled for the lock and typed in the code he'd input when he'd set himself up in the room. The door locked and sealed.

It was a spaceship. All the doors had to seal fully against a vacuum.

He heard the thud and tinkle of the vampire landing in his room and imagined all that shattered transparisteel shooting out of the hole, slicing past him like sharp rain. He imagined everything in his bedroom shooting past him: the bedsheets, his small tokens from home, any clothes he'd dumped on the floor… Floating in hyperspace, never to be seen again.

"Luke?"

He looked up. Padmé and Artoo were still waiting outside for him, and now Padmé was frowning in concern. Luke had no doubt he looked awful: missing a button, still stinking of brains, vomit, and blood, tears streaming with fear.

He looked at them both and croaked, "Run."

As he did, there was the first screech of metal behind him. The vampire was testing the door.

Padmé frowned, stared at the door—then, when a second thud left a fist-sized dent in the metal, she gave a strangled cry, stumbling back with her hand on her mouth.

"Vampire. Through the viewport." Luke grabbed her other hand and didn't wait for her legs to respond before he started running. She loped inelegantly for a few steps before she caught up with him, Artoo zooming along behind them. "Run."

"Did you get your shower?"

"No!" He turned the corner and stopped abruptly. They were far away enough now that the thudding against the door was indistinguishable from the thudding of Luke's own frightened heart, and he tried to swallow. "Which door was Wedge's? And the others? I—"

Thankfully, his mother was more level-headed than him. Despite all his private excitement about being on an adventure by himself for once, no sister or father to condescend to him, something in him crumpled with relief when she used their grip on each other to lead him forwards and bang on the door that yes, now he looked at the number, he was sure was Wedge's.

There was a moment without a response. Panic jumped like a jungle frog in his throat, but Padmé just knocked again, harder, and called out in a cold, clear voice, "Commander Antilles, we have uncovered more grave danger, get out here!"

Wedge stumbled out of the room, clearly dishevelled. He looked as bad as Luke—he hadn't been able to stop long enough to clean off the gore either, then—but Biggs, just behind him, looked marginally better. They'd caught him just going into the shower, it seemed: his hair was damp and still splattered rivulets onto his shirt, which clung to his chest. Luke averted his gaze, only to find his mother's gaze catching his. Even in the midst of his terror, he appreciated her mirth.

"What happened?" Wedge demanded.

"Are you alright?" Biggs asked, catching Luke's eye and misinterpreting why his cheeks were red.

"A vampire broke into Luke's room via the viewport," Padmé said for him. "He's coming. Now. We need to—"

"Via the viewport?" Wedge got out. "We're in hyperspace—"

"Yeah, how did he survive—"

"It didn't stop him! And the locked door won't stop him for long, so we need to—"

"Get the others," Padmé interrupted them all, her voice one of a queen. "We need to get off this floor. Off this ship, if we can. But above all, we need to go."

In the silence that followed her words, and the way Wedge and Biggs scrambled to obey them, Luke heard a sound he wished he hadn't: a snap-hiss, a loud thrum, and the screech of heat through metal.

"He has a lightsaber," Luke said.

Wedge gaped at him. "A what?"

"Don't find out," Padmé said. "Run."

No one exactly wanted to argue with her. Artoo screeched and whirled around on his wheels before haring off in the opposite direction; Wedge and Biggs followed Luke when he sprinted after them. The crash of a lightsaber through metal vanished for a moment; Luke swallowed. The vampire had finished the first cut.

It didn't matter. Keep running. They rounded the corner, to where the other Rogues were staying. Artoo stopped dead; Wedge slammed into his back, cursing. Biggs, meanwhile, had the misfortune to trip over the body itself.

Luke's stomach swelled and started throwing vomit at its walls and up into his mouth again. The first thing his eyes zeroed in on was the neck: death-white, and punctured with two, neat holes.

Recognition came later, and long after it came to Biggs and Wedge. Biggs rolled over and scrambled to his feet, smoothly recovering from his trip, and knelt next to the corpse, breathing hitching. Wedge stopped nursing his undoubtedly bruised knee to kneel beside him as well, leaning on Artoo where Artoo rolled up to offer support.

"Hobbie," Biggs whispered. Wedge reached for his wrist—he clearly didn't want to touch that bloodstained neck—and felt, futilely, for a pulse.

"He's dead," he said.

Luke could have told them that. Hobbie was an empty cadaver in the Force—emptier than inanimate objects, even, because he had once been full.

He looked to his left. They all did. The door to Hobbie and Diric's bunkroom was wide open, and Diric lay dead on the floor as well, eyes sightless.

"There's more of them," Biggs said. He sounded like he was choking.

"We already knew that." Padmé's voice was forcibly calm. She too made to kneel next to Hobbie, reaching out to close his eyes, but Wedge waved her away and got to his feet.

"No," he said. "We can't stop."

"Wedge, your friend—"

"That vampire is coming," Luke said. Fear made the edges of his voice ragged.

Padmé paused, then nodded. She looked down at Hobbie, and the compassion in her face broke Luke's heart.

"We knew there were other vampires," Luke said. "We need to go." He glanced behind him. "We can't waste time—"

"If there are other vampires, where are we running to?"

"If we can get off this floor and onto another one, I can get in contact with the ferry staff. They know who I am; they'll have to listen to me." Padmé's fingers flicked out as she rattled off her plan, ticking off the steps one by one. "So, we need to get off this floor. Drop us out of hyperspace. Perhaps there, there'll be an escape, but so long as we're in space the vampires will be able to follow wherever we run—"

"That's not true," Luke said.

"What?"

"There's a section of the flight where vampires can't survive. When we drop out of hyperspace to adjust course and the starlight comes in. We need to make sure that they don't cover the viewports for that."

Padmé grimaced. "The ferry company have been sued for skin cancer before, Luke—"

A crash behind them made him yelp. "Would they like to be sued for exsanguination?"

"We don't have time!" Wedge snapped. "Come on! We'll get to another floor and—"

They got the gist of his plan, which was good, because he was already running. The stairs were ahead of them. They only had a few more moments to go—

An announcement crashed over the loudspeakers. It barrelled into Luke like an out-of-control speeder.

"We have received reports of a breach into space on Level 5. All passengers have been evacuated, and this floor has now been sealed off, for passenger safety. If you have any questions or concerns—"

"Evacuated!?" Padmé shrieked, with all the entitled fury of a regular passenger.

When they reached the stairs, the blast doors were indeed sealed tight.

"That's why it's so empty," Luke realised. "There's— there's no one else on this level, they've been evacuated." Did they know about vampires? Was the breach they were talking about the recent breach in Luke's room, or just a cover-up? How could they have missed them in their evacuation?

Should Luke have stayed in the lounge with everyone else after all?

Had there even been an evacuation?

"We've been in situations like this before," Padmé said, forcibly calming herself. Maybe she had. "Artoo—you know what to do."

Artoo immediately rolled forwards, but the blast door didn't have a port for him to plug into and control. Once Wedge and Biggs caught onto what they intended, they glanced around wildly.

"Is there a turbolift?" Biggs asked. "Or—"

Luke pointed. "The trash compactor."

Artoo didn't waste precious time looking at him in confusion the way the others did. He chirped a few whistling affirmations and shot for the control panel. The opening was narrow, designed for waste and not humans to slide down it, but they should be able to squeeze in…

"Luke," Padmé said uncertainly, "are you sure?"

"I doubt the vampires are watching it."

"I can't blame them."

"If Artoo can get it open, I'm happy to go through," Biggs said, stepping forwards. That didn't make much sense—Biggs was the tallest person in the group, narrowly beating Wedge—but Luke didn't question it. If Biggs could fit, he supposed, they all could; if he couldn't, at least they found out now, and not when everyone else was knee-deep in garbage.

"Can you get it open, Artoo?" Luke asked.

Artoo whistled that Luke should know better than that. The cover on the garbage chute flew open. Biggs immediately dropped to his knees, stripped off his blaster—it was bulky at his side, and he handed it to Luke with a gravitas and reverence that made Luke's heart pound even harder—and stuck his feet in.

"Wish me luck," he muttered, glancing up at Wedge.

Wedge still looked stunned and pale. He was glancing behind him as if he'd lost a limb and was wondering where he'd dropped it.

"Good luck," he managed, swallowing harshly. "We'll be right behind…"

Biggs pushed off and slid into the chute. Luke heard him swearing and squeaking as he slid down and tried to surreptitiously push him downwards with the Force. He swore and squeaked less, and they all heard the splash as he landed at the bottom.

"Are you alright?" Luke called down, sounded more concerned than he should. His mother, at least, had the wherewithal in this situation to give him an amused look.

"What's the terrain like?" Wedge asked instead, pushing past Luke. His frame was shaking slightly, so Luke let it slide. "Is it safe to follow?"

More splashing and sloshing echoed up the tunnel; Luke and Padmé exchanged a grimace at the thought of coming out into that. Who knew what had fed into there?

"It's gross," Biggs said. His light-heartedness helped, at least. "It's gross, but there's not a dianoga in sight."

"What's a dianoga?" Luke wondered aloud.

"Alright then." Padmé looked at Wedge, then Artoo. "Wedge, you should go next. You're the next largest."

He still looked like more ghost than man, but he nodded. Luke readied himself to push him down as well.

Artoo shrilled. Luke jumped about a foot in the air, moments before the garbage chute opening slammed shut again. "What? What happened?"

The override had just come through. Manually, they'd shut the chute off. They really wanted this floor sealed off, then, he'd tried his best—

"Alright, Artoo. No, it's not your fault." Luke swallowed. "If they've closed all breaches and they've started monitoring them manually… they must know someone's trying to escape?"

"Not necessarily," Padmé said. "Random breaches—"

"Yeah." Wedge nodded. "They're just doing their jobs and making sure the hatches stay closed."

"So, how are we going to get out?" Luke asked.

Padmé looked from Wedge, to Artoo, before she finally settled her gaze on him. "We're not."

"That can't be true," Wedge objected. "We can get in contact with them, surely? Or Biggs will tell them we're still up here. They have to come and save us."

"Maybe." Padmé pinched her lips. "But we'll have to survive until then."

"Then let's find somewhere to hide!" Luke insisted. "We can survive until they come to save us. We have to."

"How, Luke?"

He still had Biggs's blaster in his hand. He hoisted it to make his point. "I'm not defenceless. Nor is Wedge. And you're definitely not."

His mother didn't reveal any of the million weapons she no doubt had hidden on her at that moment, if his father's stories were anything to go by, but she smiled again, her eyes searching his face. "I love you," she told him.

"I—"

"Did you hear that?" Wedge asked. A little insensitively, but he'd just watched his squadron get decimated, so Luke would forgive him that.

Luke tilted his head and turned to look. "What?"

"I thought it was a thud." Wedge swallowed. "If there's anyone else on this floor—"

"They might be dead by now," Luke said.

"Or undead," Padmé added.

They all looked at each other. They were hunted—and Luke realised suddenly that he had no idea what had happened to the vampire who'd broken into his cabin. The vampire with a lightsaber.

He should have caught up to them by now.

"We need to find a defensible position," Wedge said. No one argued with him.

The defensible position they chose was one of the cabins. Luke stepped in and wrinkled his nose to find another corpse there, that of the man he'd met earlier that day. Hugh, his name had been. His eyes were glassy, his face bloodless. For once, probably not wholly because of the two neat punctures on his jugular: the front of his neck was also slashed, with what looked too clean to have been teeth. A blade, then.

Well, that boded poorly, but this was the first cabin door they'd found thus far that was both unlocked and unbroken, so they filed in, shoved the body (through gratuitous use of the Force) into the refresher, and perched on the blood-soaked bed. The smell stuffed Luke's nostrils, but he saw how his mother moved away to sit on the only blood-free piece of furniture—the armchair in the corner—so he took that seat for himself. He was already covered in blood and brains; might as well add to it.

The armchair was facing towards the viewport, and Padmé stared out into the abyss of hyperspace. Luke did too, nerves knotting his stomach. Now that he knew that was a perfectly viable way in, he wouldn't be comfortable ever again.

The vampires had to find them, first. Luke couldn't sense any nearby—though if ability to hide from Force-sensitives was one of their many adaptations as hunters, he didn't know—and he knew from the stories that Force-sensitive ones hunted through the Force, while non-Force-sensitive vampires hunted through smell. That was one advantage of the blood-soaked bed, he thought to himself, wrinkling his nose again. That ought to mask the blood still pumping through their veins.

And if they did manage to find them… the door had a lock. If it was the vampire with a lightsaber, they might have problems, and the many ruined doors along this corridor proved that locked doors were far from a flawless defence, but it would buy them time to fight. The vampire would wear themselves out working on the door. Then, Luke could throw them back with the Force, and they could all make a run for it.

Theoretically.

Nausea threatened. He hoped Biggs could get through to the staff on the other decks soon.

Padmé had stopped staring out of the viewport pensively and was now rummaging in her pockets. Luke wasn't surprised to see her pull out a slim blaster, silver and elegant in a way no blaster had a right to be.

She caught his gaze and winked. "You knew that I had this."

Luke nodded. He still had his three blasters on him, not counting Biggs's, and he'd modelled that on stories of his mother. Her preparedness. Leia had insisted. "Father told us enough stories about you."

Her face fell. "I'm glad," she said. "We parted so suddenly, I— It was like watching the galaxy invert, when I found out he was alive. That you and Leia were. That you'd grown up without me…"

"We don't have to anymore," Luke insisted. He stepped forwards and knelt in front of her armchair, taking her hands.

"But we can't get the years back."

"No." He coughed, his throat tight. "We can't."

She smiled sadly at him and stroked his hair. "Did your father say what happened to me?"

"He said— he said you died. The drama of the fall of the Jedi was chaotic. He nearly turned to the dark side but pulled back just in time. Palpatine's plan. You'd been missing previously, and you weren't in the Senate, and you weren't in your apartment with Leia and I, so Father just took us out of our cribs and ran…"

Padmé nodded sadly. "I wasn't in the Senate. I'd been captured by Separatists."

Luke's mouth dropped open. Wedge, still standing awkwardly by the door, turned away and tried very hard not to listen. Luke appreciated the effort.

"Now that we know Palpatine was behind both sides of the war, I suspect it was to push your father, to try to get him to fall all the more easily. But he overplayed his hand. I'd been taken prisoner by Separatists before—I was a prominent senator, who spent far more time in active combat zones than the majority of my peers—so Anakin knew the risks. He hadn't met you and Leia until he returned to Coruscant, busy as he was in the war, but you were safe in the care of my handmaidens, and he had to keep you in mind rather than act rashly. So," she smiled, "after he got some sleep… he started to question why Dooku had put such effort into capturing me now. And when Palpatine revealed himself to him as the Sith Lord, the pieces fell into place, and your father fought back."

She looked down at her hands. "It wasn't enough. The Republic fell, the Jedi were overthrown, and even with Dooku already dead at Anakin's hand, I was still a prisoner. By the time I had escaped, I couldn't go back to Coruscant. My husband and my children—all Jedi, in the eyes of the new regime—were dead. I searched for you for years before giving up hope, but hope cannot last forever."

"Father's did," Luke said quietly. It wasn't a reprimand, and he knew she didn't take it as such. It was an assurance: she was missed. Anakin longed for her.

"But you're alive." Her eyes glistened as she pressed her hands to Luke's cheeks. "You and your sister and your father. And your father is missing." Her face dropped. "That's the thing—I don't know where vampires come into this. I don't know why your father became a hunter."

"He said the Sith were vampires," Luke said. "No—only one of them. Palpatine." He shuddered. "I think he was worried… if Palpatine created more minions, more vampires, to scour the galaxy for you and for us, we would never be safe. I think that's why Father made that choice."

"I think you're right," she agreed softly. "Vampires killed his mother, after all."

Luke had forgotten about that. About Grandma Shmi, and his father's theory of how she died, in the dead of night.

What did it mean that his father was likely dead at a vampire's hands now?

Where did that leave Luke?

Before he could stop it, a sob strangled him. His hand came up to his mouth, and his mother leaned forwards, pulling him upwards and wrapping her arms around him. She pressed their cheeks together and kissed him, her lips cool against his skin.

"We're together," she assured him softly. Sternly. Firmly. "We always will be. I promise you that."

She was being brave for him. He needed to be brave for her. Even if he was just a child, and he didn't have his father, and even his sister was parsecs away for the first time in their lives, he needed to pull himself together.

Padmé's grip on him tightened when she felt him shudder. "It's alright," she assured him. He closed his eyes. Her face drooped, tilting downwards for a moment. Her breath was cool on his neck. "It's—" She cut herself off when Luke stiffened and pulled back. "What is it?"

Luke turned his head towards the door. "Wedge, we need to get out of here right now."

Wedge jumped to his feet from where he'd been slouching. Artoo beeped his question.

"What is it?" Padmé added to the chorus.

"That vampire from earlier. With the lightsaber." Luke swallowed. "He's coming. Now. And that door will be nothing to him, so we need to move. At least we had a chance to rest."

A chance to fall apart.

A chance to pick up the pieces.

"Are you sure we shouldn't stay here? Take our chances?"

Wedge checked his blaster. "Your mother's right. We need to—"

The crash of a lightsaber through the door hinges interrupted him. Luke shrieked.

He hadn't realised he was this close. He hadn't felt that close—how heavily had he been shielding? How—

Wedge scrambled back from the door, hefting his blaster. Luke flipped Biggs's blaster into his right hand and his own blaster into his left, then hoisted them ready. The lightsaber pushed down until it hit the bottom of the door.

"What are you waiting for?" Padmé whispered, lifting her own blaster. But she watched Luke closely, eyes narrowed, as the lightsaber carved through a second side of the door. Then the third. Then the fourth…

Before he could deactivate the lightsaber, Luke lashed out with the Force and punched the door clean off its hinges.

The vampire barrelled back and slammed into the opposing wall, the door pinning him down with all the strength Luke could muster. "Go!" Luke shouted, and he leapt forwards, his blasters blazing. Red bolts slagged the metal door and melted through, until he could hear the vampire's grunts of pain—grunts, not screams, because Luke knew he must be healing even as he burned, knew this was nothing but an obstacle to him, but this was all it was meant to be—

"Go!" Luke shouted again, and Wedge and Padmé slipped out of the door behind him to train their own blasters on him. "No, this won't work for long, you need to run—"

The vampire was straining against Luke in the Force, and he was far more powerful. Less than a second later, he had his arm free and sliced through the door in one, graceful swoop. It clattered to the floor in two pieces.

"Now!" Luke shouted.

Wedge and Artoo both did as he said. His mother kept shooting. The vampire stopped to, slowly, turn his plasteel mask on her.

"No!" Luke flung one of the halves of the door at the vampire. It slowed in mid-air, wobbled for a moment, then shot right back and slammed him against the wall.

The air whooshed out of his lungs. Wedge shouted, but Luke struggled to get out any noise through the pain crushing his chest. The metal was still red hot from the lightsaber, and its edge charred and seared his neck. The vampire had an arm out and his gaze fixed on Luke, unwavering. His mother stared, frozen, her mouth wide open.

Then the plasteel mask melted under another barrage of fire. Wedge's yell was almost louder than his blaster shots, and it was enough of a distraction for the pressure pinning Luke to the wall to loosen enough for him to shove the metal away and fall to his feet, stumbling away. Artoo was waiting farther down the corridor.

Luke's gaze alighted on where he was standing.

"The controls," he got out. "The blast doors…" He looked up. All the corridors had blast doors. Of course they did. And the way they'd picked theirs, there was a pair right here.

Artoo beeped his affirmative and plugged in.

"Wedge!" Luke shouted. "Mother! Come on!"

But Artoo's sad beep stunned him.

"What?" Artoo twittered some more. "No, I get it, I mean— You can't get in?" Artoo could do anything. Luke had always assumed that: he was capable of any mischief he and Leia could ever concoct for him to get up to. "I get they don't want people opening the doors and are manually overriding them, but closing…?"

Artoo didn't respond. He didn't need to.

Everything had been overridden. This kriffing ferry was hostile to any hope. His mother was still facing down a monster, his father was missing, Leia was far, far away. Even Artoo couldn't save them. Luke was alone.

Tears pricked his eyes, but he didn't have the luxury to cry right now.

He raised his fist. Felt for the controls. They were items of metal and rock, powered by electricity and the abstract push of a button. Luke felt every pulley, every cog, every moving part in those doors and moved it.

They began to close.

"Run!" he shouted. Artoo's astounded beep was a little gratifying, at least. "Come on!"

Wedge stopped firing, looked over his shoulder, and sprinted towards Luke. Luke looked to his mother—but she wasn't looking at him.

She and the vampire were staring at each other, stock still. Glaring, almost, but the heartbreak that fogged the air made Luke dizzy.

Wedge did the good deed of grabbing her arm to pull her away, and she stumbled a few steps with them. But when the vampire turned to watch them, lighting his lightsaber again, Luke's heart hammered to a halt.

Wedge's bolts had melted clean through his mask. Half of it had been blasted away, the skin underneath pink and rapidly healing. A yellow eye stared out—an unfamiliar eye in a familiar face.

"Anakin," Padmé said and shook Wedge off.

Luke stared. He took a step forwards. Another one. Artoo yelled and jammed his arm into the controls again, as if that would do anything to change the blow that had just been dealt.

But Wedge thundered past them and grabbed them both. "What are you waiting for?" he hissed. "If we can't save her—"

Save the rest of the team. Wedge was a good leader. He was right that if a cause was lost, you had to move on, and Padmé was lost.

But Luke cursed and screamed as the blast doors slammed shut, leaving his parents trapped together on the other side.