Royal Palace in Aldera
Alderaan
14 years after the formation of the Empire
The young man screamed in anguish and fell to the floor along with his dismembered right hand, his face contorted in anguish. Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, looked down on upon the Jedi padawan with a sneer. When the Jedi Order was at its apex, such a boy would never be permitted to wield a lightsaber in battle.
"Where are the Organas?" he demanded, stepping closer and moving his red saber to the young man's throat. "Tell me, and I will permit you to live."
Which was a lie, of course.
"Jump into a vat of eel flavored pudding, your lordship," the youth hissed back, surprisingly coherent given the agony twisting his features.
"As you wish," Vader said, and raised his lightsaber to chop off the boy's head. The man's brown eyes widened at the sight of the saber, and then, incredibly, his gaze shifted to the left of Vader just as, just as...
The Sith Lord spun around just in time to block a saber blow from a man of some thirty odd years, short, with dark blond hair and blue eyes, who had appeared out of nowhere.
Vader chuckled in satisfaction; it was really very boring not having anyone interesting to fight, and this man might be more competent than the pathetic man on the floor behind him.
He moved forward with lethal grace and lifted a hidden eyebrow. "It appears that there are yet a few more Jedi padawans who are eager to taste death at my blade."
The man facing him actually rolled his eyes and said, "One of the oddball things about you are your speech patterns. I know you didn't talk like this when you were Anakin Skywalker, so why are you so formal now?"
Casual disdain shifted instantly to stunned fury.
"How do you know about...?" he demanded angrily, and then, not waiting for an answer, surged forward to attack the young man with all his strength. No one, NO ONE, was permitted to remind him of the weak boy who had lost all that he loved. That name meant nothing. Nothing! He would cleave this man in half, and then fourths, and then eighths, and then...
To his considerable surprise, his opponent blocked his attack with ease, even as the young man's Force presence bloomed to full strength. Vader retreated a step and stared down with incredulity. This was no padawan. This was a fully trained Jedi. This was a Jedi Master! He had never seen him before. Who was he? Where had he been all these years?
"Who are you?" he rasped, reaching out into the Force and attempting to invade his adversary's mind.
The man grinned insouciantly as he batted the Sith's mental attack away with the ease of bantha swatting a sand fly with its tail.
"All will become clear in time, Lord Vader," he said, "but for now, let's fight!"
The Jedi advanced, lifted his green saber, and the battle began. The two parried, and struck, and blocked, and danced around one another until Vader found himself, to his chagrined outrage, retreating. The Unknown was an incredibly skilled fighter and seemed to have a preternatural instinct for Vader's moves. It was as if they had fought before, but he knew he had never laid eyes on this man!
"Now!" the Jedi suddenly yelled aloud, just as the Force sounded a claxon warning in Vader's mind. It was too late; from behind him, a blue saber lashed out and cut off his legs at the knees. He fell with a cry just as his dark blond opponent sliced off his right cyborg arm.
He crashed to the ground with such power, such fury, such strength, that the floor shook beneath him. He looked around wildly; a short woman with a strangely familiar face stood nearby, her eyes narrowed, her hand clasping a blue lightsaber.
"Sleep!" the man stated firmly, both audibly and through the Force.
Darth Vader fought the mental command for two seconds and then, his brain overwhelmed at the loss of three limbs, overcome at what had come to pass, obediently slumped backwards and slept.
Han Solo, former Corellian scumrat, owner of the Millennium Falcon, nascent Jedi, sat up cautiously from his position on the floor, cradling his injured arm in his lap. Who were these people? What was going on?
/
Millennium Falcon
Docking Bay 6
Aldera
Alderaan
30 minutes later
"Is the med kit still in the galley?" Leia asked as she helped Han Solo onto a couch in the main crew area of the Falcon.
Solo, who had tried to ask questions of his rescuer as they made their way back to the Millennium Falcon , and been firmly shushed, rolled his eyes skyward and said, "Yes, it is in the galley; not that I have any idea how you know that..."
"Because Luke and I are from the future," Leia said, gesturing with her hand. The med kit floated from its position above the cupboard above the stove in the galley, and whisked over to the dejarik board, where it settled meekly into position and opened.
"The future. Right."
She patted his arm and then began rummaging around in the med kit. "I know you are in shock, Han, which is no surprise given what has happened to you, but think about it; we are obviously well trained Force users who literally appeared out of nowhere. Given that, time travel is the most likely explanation, don't you think?"
"You are both very powerful, too," Solo said enviously.
"I have had a lot of training," Leia said, quickly finding a vial of hypospray and injecting it into the patient's – into her husband's, no, not her husband, this was a different form of her husband – right wrist, directly next to the sealed, swollen, seared flesh where his hand had been only an hour before.
He winced as the pain med burned through his veins and bit down a curse. Leia gestured again, and Corellian whiskey (also in its accustomed place) flew from the galley into her hand. She retrieved a cup as well, and poured a good dollop in.
"Drink this," she ordered Solo.
He hesitated. He needed to figure out what was going on, but on the other hand, even with the hypospray, he was in serious pain...
"Go on, one drink won't zone you out completely," she said seriously.
He sighed and carefully poured the whiskey down his throat, just as his other savior, the dark blond man, walked into the room with Darth Vader, Darth Vader, Darth Vader, floating behind him sans legs and his right arm. Behind him floated said legs and arm.
Solo shook his head and groaned aloud. "Am I already drunk, or are you seriously bringing Vader with us?"
"Yeah, we are bringing him with us," the Unknown said, marching over to Han's favorite chair and gesturing toward the floating cyborg, who obediently lowered onto the chair. A moment later, the Jedi was rummaging around in an obscure chest where he found a roll of wire, which he proceeded to wind around and around the chest of the black torso, with its multitude of blinking lights, so that Vader was bound to the chair. The Sith Lord's dismembered limbs were now in a heap on the floor looking vaguely pathetic.
Solo shook his head incredulously and poured himself another drink with his left hand, just as the Falcon lifted into the air.
"Where are we going?" the woman asked.
"I don't know. I explained the situation to Chewbacca and told him to decide where we are going. I trust him," the man said.
"Excuse me," Solo said, sitting up a little more and wincing at the pain in his stump. "Now that we are here, can you please tell me what is going on? Who are you? Where were you trained? Why in the Maw did you bring Vader with you instead of stabbing him through the heart? He is gonna kill us all when he wakes up, you know."
"That is true enough," the Sith Lord rumbled suddenly, causing Han to jerk in alarm.
The two newcomers turned as one to gaze upon the now one limbed machine man and the woman sighed and said, "So you are awake now."
"I am," Vader agreed, angrily pushing against the wire tying him to the chair. "You will rue the decision to spare me until the day you die, though I promise you that day is not far off."
"And once again, we are off to the races with the stately threats," the man said wearily. The dark blond gestured and a stool danced over to him, whereupon he sat down on it and gazed directly, unnervingly into the Dark Lord's eyes in spite of the helmet between them.
"Let's start with introductions," he suggested. "My name is Luke Skywalker. I am the son of Anakin Skywalker, who became Darth Vader, and Padme Amidala Naberrie Skywalker. I am from about 20 years in the future."
Vader ceased his battle against the wire and slumped back against the chair, his hidden eyes wide with wonder.
"That is...that is impossible..."
"Nope, it isn't," the woman said. "Padme didn't die on Mustafar. Kenobi carried her to a medical facility on Polis Massa, and she gave birth to healthy twins. Sadly, she died directly afterwards, but the babies were fine."
"Twins?" Vader croaked.
"Yes, I am your daughter Leia," the woman explained calmly. "Though not your daughter, of course; we are from a different timeline, so your daughter is like, what..."
"Fourteen," Luke said. "Chewie told me that it has been fourteen years since Palpatine rose to power."
"Time travel is impossible!" Han Solo insisted, his eyes shifting to the whiskey bottle. He must be drunk. Or dreaming? Or drunk and dreaming? But no, he was in way too much pain for a nightmare.
"No it isn't," Luke said cheerfully. "In fact, if you think about it, which I know is hard, because my Alter father just chopped off your right hand, which was very rude..."
"Rude indeed," Leia agreed, stalking forward and glaring menacingly into the great helmet.
"Anyway, it should be obvious to both of you that my sister and I are way too powerful to be from this timeline. I mean, you and Palpatine have wiped out most of the Jedi, Father. Those that are left are at least familiar. Besides, take a good look at my face, and then at Leia's face. Do we, or do we not, resemble Anakin and Padme?"
Vader obeyed in a trance. The boy was indeed so much like he used to look, with dark blond hair, with blue eyes, with a cleft in his chin. And the girl, the woman, she looked so much like his Angel.
"I have...I have living children?" he quavered, and felt a strong inclination to cry, except that he couldn't, because his tear ducts had given up the ghost on Mustafar.
"You do," Leia agreed, and then turned her attention on the injured Solo. "But before we talk about that anymore, let's talk about you, Solo. In our timeline, Han Solo isn't a Force Sensitive, so this is really weird!"
Solo managed to lift one insouciant eyebrow. "That seems unlikely, if you don't mind me saying. I mean, I'm not strong like some people, but my midichlorian count is way above average."
"Well, I am married to the man," Leia retorted, "and I assure you, I would know if he was a Force Sensitive."
Solo blinked and sat up more, surprise dampening the lingering pain in his arm. "I married a woman who thinks Darth Vader is her father?"
"No, my husband, Han Solo, who is not you, married me, and I am Darth Vader's daughter. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't make me super happy, but it is what it is. It doesn't mean you are going to marry my counterpart, I promise you. Every time line is a little different."
"Some are weirder than others," Luke said, lifting Vader's right arm with the Force and inspecting it carefully. "I don't think I've ever gotten so close and personal to one of your limbs, Father. This weighs so much. You should get lighter limbs, you know; there are composites that will function just as well without weighing you down."
"Because naturally we all want him to be even more of a Death Machine than he is," Solo mused sardonically, leaning back and letting his eyes flutter close. He was so tired. So, so, so tired. Also, he was missing his right hand. That sucked.
"Well, that's a good point," Luke said seriously, "except that pretty soon he's going to be on your side, so he might as well be in good shape."
This caused the Corellian pirate/Jedi wannabe to open his eyes and sit up. "Excuse me, what? I get that he's sort of your dad but he is like Dark Side incarnate. No way is he turning to the Light Side, which is impossible anyway."
"The Light Side..." Vader began.
"Is weak!" the twins chorused, and Luke patted the cyborg's chest plate reassuringly. "Yeah, we know, we know, we know. The Dark Side is power, the Light Side is weak, Anakin Skywalker was a lame skrub, and so on and so forth. We have lost track of how many trips through time we have had, but every time we run into Darth Vader, we hear the same boring stuff. And every single time, Darth Vader more or less turns back to the Light Side. It is your destiny."
Darth Vader found himself wiggling again against the bonds, more out of frustration and outrage than an actual desire to escape. He did want to escape, of course, but his brain was buzzing so much at the moment that he wasn't really putting his heart and soul and Force Strength into it.
"I would never turn back to the pathetic Light Side," he intoned, miserably aware that he sounded less menacing than usual. "It is impossible."
"Well," Luke Skywalker said sympathetically, "Once we tell you that Palpatine killed Padme, it always changes your view of the whole situation."
Thirty seconds passed in silence as the temperature in the room seemed to drop 100 degrees.
"What?!"
