Main Bridge

Executor

In space outside Bespin

"They'll be in range of our tractor beam in moments, my Lord," Admiral Piett informed his black cloaked superior.

"Did your men deactivate the hyperdrive on the Millennium Falcon?" Darth Vader rumbled.

"Yes, my Lord."

"Good, prepare the boarding party, and set your weapons for stun."

"Yes, my Lord," Piett replied immediately, and glanced at an absurdly young officer standing stiffly nearby. Had he ever been that fresh faced? "Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir," the boy responded, and ran off eagerly.

The Sith Lord turned back to the window to stare out at the lights of the Rebel ship, the Millennium Falcon, while Piett retreated a few steps to stare at the tractor beam control panel. Dimly, he heard his superior muttering to himself something about "Luke" and "come ... me" but that was fine. Vader was allowed to talk to himself if he wanted. Piett's job now was to make sure nothing went wrong at this vital juncture. On the one hand, it seemed impossible that something could go wrong. The hyperdrive aboard the Rebel ship was deactivated, the TIE fighters were herding the Falcon toward the tractor beam...

But, but, but, Luke Skywalker was involved in this particular operation and based on the eighty-nine command meetings Piett had attended which had addressed the predilections of the young rebel, where Skywalker was concerned, anything could and probably would happen.

On screen, the green dot which was the Millennium Falcon entered into the flaring little lights representing Executor's tractor beams and trembled, and shook, and...

"My Lord," Admiral Piett stated, his voice shaking slightly in spite of himself. "The Millennium Falcon has been captured by the tractor beam."

Darth Vader turned around and for a brief moment Piett was smacked with a weird wave of, what was that posture, that attitude? Satisfaction? Happiness? Joy?

"Come, Admiral," the Sith ordered, and his tone was definitely pleased.

"Yes, my Lord."

/

Main Hanger

Executor

Firmus Piett stared incredulously at the battered freighter now resting on the pristine floor of the Executor's main docking bay. He had, of course, seen holos of this thoroughly irritating ship but he had assumed the images of the ship were of poor quality. Surely nothing that looked that bad could actually be spaceworthy, much less escape much of the Imperial fleet through an asteroid field outside Hoth! But no, he was disgusted to observe that the ship looked, if anything, even worse than its holo. It reeked of carbon scoring and was smoking slightly, no doubt from multiple hits by TIEs. It was embarrassing that this vessel had caused so much trouble!

"Skywalker is on board and seriously damaged," Darth Vader informed the troopers who were prepared to storm the Rebel craft, which pulled Piett's attention away from the freighter and back to his superior. "If it is necessary to stun him, use the lowest level possible. If he does not resist, assist him out to me. Use a higher level stun on everyone else."

"Yes, sir," the trooper captain responded with a snappy salute, and the man and his dozen troopers carefully moved forward to the ramp, which had, oddly enough, lowered obediently as soon as Vader entered the bay. Probably more of that crazy Force stuff.

Two minutes of tense silence followed. Piett heard the sound of three stun shots, which reverberated in the echoing bay, and then two figures appeared at the top of the ramp and began slowly making their way down to the floor. One was the trooper captain, notable for the blue stripe on his white armor, with one strong arm around his companion. The other sentient, Luke Skywalker, a surprisingly slender young man dressed in a tattered uniform, had his right arm bound against his chest in some kind of sling. His dark blond head drooped forward and his entire posture spoke of pain, suffering, and hopelessness. Piett felt a brief, unwelcome, stab of sympathy. Luke Skywalker had destroyed over a million Imperial troops on the Death Star but still, being the focus of Darth Vader's personal attention was an unpleasant prospect.

A moment later, the slim form of Princess Leia Organa appeared in sight, her hands bound, with one trooper in front of her and another behind her.

Piett felt a great wave of weariness wash across his body, so strong that he swayed a few millimeters. It was over. Luke Skywalker was finally in custody...

In one smooth movement, the battered young male Rebel shoved the trooper captain (fairly gently) off the ramp and onto the floor and then, before Piett's stunned eyes, did a somersault to land a few meters from Vader, even as his green lightsaber lit midair. The two men surrounding the princess also tipped off the edge as if propelled by a giant, invisible hand, the girl's binders fell off, and she jumped forward, did a double flip with a random loop thrown in, and landed next to Vader with her own blue lightsaber flashing. Both Rebels immediately engaged the Sith Lord, who had managed to get his own red blade lit quickly enough to keep from having an arm chopped off, but only barely.

The subsequent battle was complicated and confusing. The two Rebels - Skywalker and Organa, most definitely, but they looked weird. Like older or something? Didn't Organa have longer hair? And how could Skywalker be running around, much less fighting, when Vader had beaten the tar out of him? Both were deliberately staying fairly close to Vader, which on one hand was insane because...Vader, but on the other hand Piett couldn't order his troopers to fire because if a bolt hit the Dark Lord, well...

There was a sudden clattering sound and the Admiral spun around in time to observe ten hapless armor clad forms roll down the ramp of the Falcon, whereupon the ship lifted up, turned around, and flew toward space. Piett managed to order his troops to shoot at the ship – that was safe enough – but her shields were strong enough to stop blaster fire. The admiral snarled softly to himself but the tractor beam was still in operation. The ship would not be gone for long...

There was a sudden howl of rage and pain and Piett turned around to discover that Darth Vader, Sith Lord...Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith... Darth Vader, Commander of the Imperial fleet, had been defeated.

Well, de handed. One of them anyway. His right one. He was now standing very still with Skywalker's lightsaber at his throat and Organa's at his back. His right hand was smoking and sparking on the floor of the formerly tidy bay, and the Sith's saber hilt was in the left hand of Skywalker.

Piett surreptitiously bit his cheek hard to make sure he wasn't dreaming. Ouch. Nope, he was awake. This stunk.

"Don't move," Luke Skywalker informed his cyborg captive. "I won't kill you because ... well, you know why, but I won't hesitate to take off the rest of your limbs if necessary, which would hurt."

"I might kill you," Leia Organa informed them all from her position at Vader's back. Piett stared at her gloomily. He had been right about something being off with the princess. Her hair was quite short, only shoulder length, and the heiress of Alderaan was famous for her flowing locks.

"Behave, Leia," Skywalker remonstrated.

"What are you?" Vader hissed in fury, his mask fixed on the countenance of the Skywalker.

"I am Luke Skywalker," his assailant informed him calmly, "but not, of course, the one you just beat to chaos. I'm from the future, more than a decade, but the Force keeps throwing us back in time to solve timeline problems. This one's was that the tractor beam managed to lock on the Falcon before R2D2 fixed the hyperdrive so naturally we got pulled out of a fun dewback jousting tournament and thrown here on extremely short notice."

"Time travel is impossible!" snarled Vader, which was, Piett thought, somewhat reasonable, but also somewhat silly. Because realistically, Skywalker was not injured, and he was supposed to be a mess.

"So the Falcon just went into hyperspace," Organa commented.

Piett shot a horrified glance at his holopad, which he had been clutching absentmindedly, and discovered that the woman was entirely correct. Somehow, some way, the tractor beam had been overridden by secret codes emanating from the Falcon...

"We're going to surrender now," Skywalker declared, his eyes on Vader's insectoid mask, "but before we do, I am going to give you one, and only one, warning. If you so much as lay a finger, corporeal or incorporeal, on my sister, I will yank that vocoder out of your helmet and jam it down your scarred throat. Is that entirely clear?"

Admiral Piett's horrified gasp was echoed by the lieutenant at his side and every stormtrooper within auditory range. Skywalker was ... threatening Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith?

The admiral waited for something to blow up randomly but it became apparent, a few seconds later, that Vader's attention was on something other than the threat.

"Sister?" the Sith repeated in a tone which was dumfounded even through his mask.

Leia Organa turned off her lightsaber and tossed it to Piett, who caught it foolishly, and turned with what could best be described as an impudent smile. "Luke and I are twins, Lord Vader."

Again, there was silence for a full thirty seconds, and then, to Piett's incredulity, his masked superior took a stunned step back. "Impossible!" the bass voice croaked. "Impossible!"

Skywalker shook his head, his expression judicious, as he too surrendered his saber to an abnormally brave stormtrooper and allowed his hands to be placed in binders. "Unlikely, yes, impossible, no. About one in 100 human pregnancies result in twins, and we were just lucky enough to be in the 1%. Of course, in other ways we are more or less in the one millionth percent, like in Force Sensitivity."

Vader's mask was turned to stare directly, intensely, into Organa's no doubt lovely face, and the great frame almost seemed to be trembling. "I never sensed…"

"Well, I shield better than a drunken shaak, of course," the girl said with an amused glance at her...twin brother? "I apparently came out of the womb shielding, which meant I got to grow up in a palace, and Luke, who broadcasts across the parsecs, was stuck on Tatooine with Kenobi shielding him."

"Kenobi!" Vader snarled, and his nearby shuttle trembled in its place.

"Careful, Leia, them's fighting words," Skywalker declared insouciantly. "Seriously, though, given your predilection for torturing us and our friends, and blowing up our home planets, and chopping off random limbs, I would argue that we were better off where we were than in your less than tender care, don't you think? Well, I know you don't. Hey, can we continue this conversation elsewhere? You should probably get that hand looked at. I've injured my prosthetic a few times and the phantom pain always flares up, which is lousy."

/

The Millennium Falcon

In hyperspace en route to Eriadu

"We need to get medical attention for Luke as soon as possible," Leia Organa insisted. She was an extremely brave woman, but she found herself shaking with confusion and grief and sheer adrenaline after their seat of the robe escape from Imperial Forces. Even now, she shuddered at the memory of the tractor beam grabbing hold of Han Solo's battered freighter. She had only pain and death to look forward to until suddenly three visitors from the future had appeared in the suddenly very crowded cockpit and proceeded to save their skins.

Mara Jade Skywalker cast a sympathetic glance toward her husband's much younger Alter. "Luke, do you feel like you can hang on for a few days before getting your prosthetic? I know my Luke said the pain was pretty fierce after Bespin."

Young Luke Skywalker looked like he had battled with a krayt dragon and had his hand bitten off, which was more or less what had happened, but he managed to ask with a semblance of calm, "Where do you want to go?"

"Eriadu," Mara declared succinctly. "We know that Boba Fett stopped there on the way to Tatooine for supplies. We can probably get Han back."

Chewbacca, who was awake now after being stunned, howled in excitement and Leia stared at the woman in shock. "Really?"

"Absolutely!" Mara assured her.

"Lando, can you set course for Eriadu?" Luke asked, forcing his voice not to tremble. He was in a great deal of pain but to get Han back, he could wait to have his injury attended to.

Calrissian eagerly stormed off to the cockpit to make the required correction, and Mara turned a grave face on Luke and Leia.

"Now listen, I assume I will have time to help you rescue Solo, but it isn't a sure thing. There are some facts you need to know, both of you."

Luke cringed. "Mara, I think it would be better if you and I spoke first..."

"No, it wouldn't," the red headed woman said firmly. "Chewbacca, can you get some moof juice from the galley, assuming you have some on board? If not, anything with sugar and water. Luke needs to be hydrated."

The Wookiee nodded and lumbered away, leaving Luke Skywalker pale and obviously distraught. Mara smiled sympathetically at him but did not move closer; he didn't know her, of course, and a hug would go amiss.

"So first," she explained, "Luke's mother was Padme Amidala Naberrie, whom I know you have heard of, Leia."

The young Organa jerked in shock and turned admiring eyes on her battered friend. "Yes, if course I have! She was a senator of the Old Republic and one of my father's dearest friends. She is Luke's mom?"

"She is," Mara continued concisely. "She married Anakin Skywalker as the Clone Wars began and conceived twins some eight months before Palpatine rose to power."

Luke, who was clearly bracing himself for a discussion of Vader, jolted so hard he would have fallen out of his seat if Leia hadn't had a firm hand on his left arm. "Twins!"

"Yes, you and Leia are twins."

The twosome stared at her, then at one another, and their eyes grew dewy and moist with love and adoration and they hugged and Mara sighed because it was cute, but Luke probably needed to go sleep, and she didn't know how much time she had before the Force whisked her back to her to own timeline.

"But unfortunately, Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and he is your biological father," she said matter-of-factly.

The twins looked up, Leia in disbelief, Luke in horrified understanding.

"What?!" Leia exclaimed.

Luke fainted.