Stuck on Repeat: Darth Vader and the Twin Terrors
Summary: Leia Organa is stuck in a time loop, repeating the day of her interrogation on board the Death Star. As she keeps defying Darth Vader, he keeps killing her. Yet every time after dying, she wakes up on the same morning again. How did she get stuck like this? How could she possibly convince Vader to spare her life and maybe even let her go? Well, apparently now she has all the time in the galaxy to figure it out.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, a certain farm boy is going through a similar experience. All Luke Skywalker wanted to do was get some power converters from Tosche station. Yet he has to chase after droids, rescue his family from Stormtroopers and listen over and over again to an old Jedi shamelessly lying to his face about his birth father. There's only so many iterations of this pointlessly repeating day a young man can take before he'll do something crazy.
AN: I love a good time loop story and I haven't read the most obvious one yet - Luke and Leia repeating the very beginning of their adventures. It started out as a very serious story. No surprise here, seeing as Leia keeps getting killed by Vader. I take a darker turn on Luke's development as well. However it got surprisingly funny as time went on. Which I guess is not surprising. If you have all the time in the world to try out different things, coupled with boredom and a total lack of consequences, things are bound to get a bit crazy. Especially when you're a teenager. One thing's for sure, Vader has no idea what'll hit him with those children!
Chapters will be of very different lengths as I'll separate POV's. I have already written the complete story, just need to edit chapters a little so there will be regular, probably weekly updates.
If you like this story, please be so kind and leave a review. Follow&Fav to not miss an update and take a look at my other stories. They're mostly about Star Wars and Twilight (I even managed a decent crossover and it's not terrible!).
XxX
"The ignorance of the Jedi... They claim to follow the Force but they close their hearts to its true call."
-Darth Vader to Luke, Chapter 12
Chapter 1: Interrogation
Day 1 - Primeday
A pair of bright neon lights came to life at the ceiling and shone down on the crumbled body of Leia Organa, lying on the metal stretcher serving as her bed. She woke up slowly and for a moment she was disorientated but it didn't take her long to remember where she was. The memory of her ship, the Tantive IV being boarded, the casual slaughter of her crew and complete disregard for her position shown by the Stormtroopers and their black armoured Commander, Lord Vader. She'd been thrown in a detention cell on board Vader's Star Destroyer.
Yesterday she'd been transferred to the Death Star. She'd been questioned about her involvement with the Rebel Alliance and her mission to secure the plans of the Death Star but she kept to her story of merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time. After all, her diplomatic immunity protected her.
Her hopes were quickly sinking but still she was determined not to give them anything. She hadn't received any food or water and she was sure the Imps kept flashing the lights in her cell for the sole purpose of keeping her awake and sleep-deprived. But if they thought that would be enough to make her talk, they had a thing coming at them!
Leia looked around the empty cell. She spotted eleven tiny marks in the wall next to the stretcher where some previous prisoner must have started counting the days he was stuck here. Not even two weeks. She gulped, thinking how the prisoner had likely left the cell.
The lights went out again and Leia lay back tiredly. She managed to get maybe half an hour of sleep before she woke up again. She thought she heard footsteps passing by her door and sat on her cot tensely for a few minutes but it was a false alarm.
Now fully awake, Leia couldn't stay still for much longer. She started pacing across the small cell, wondering about her fate, about whether or not the droids had made it to the planet and how she could possibly get out of this situation.
They would be back to question her, she knew. The last Imp had already threatened that they had more... persuasive methods if she refused to talk. She didn't want to think about what that meant but if she wanted to be prepared, she had to.
So that's why the young Princess spent the next couple of hours carefully constructing a cover story in her head. The Star Destroyer must've extrapolated her destination from her flight vector when she left Scarif. They knew she'd been with the fleet of the Rebellion where the plans for the super weapon were first retrieved. They would have enough proof of it but she was still a royal. They would have to treat her with respect and if the trajectory calculations were all they had against her, she could make a case for her innocence. As long as they didn't send some savage like Vader to interrogate her who didn't give five klicks about law or protocol, she should be fine.
Lunchtime and dinner passed without anyone but Leia's stomach noticing.
At last, it had to be late in the evening, the metal doors to her cell swished open.
Leia's heart sank as the sound of heavy automatic breathing reached her ear before the full form of the Dark Lord appeared in the doorway. Of course they would send Darth Vader.
This was not her lucky day.
Leia stood up to him bravely and did her utmost to glare down at him like she would at any politician.
"Lord Vader! I must protest this treatment of my crew and me. It is entirely unbecoming of-" The words got stuck in her throat when Vader stepped in fully and she noticed a round interrogation droid following him before the doors closed again.
"Don't mind the droid, Princess", Vader said mockingly. "Please continue with your rant. It is highly amusing."
Leia pressed her lips together and said nothing. She didn't recognize the droid's model but the mere fact that it was equipped with several sharp looking needles left her no doubt about its purpose. Also she'd heard about what the Empire considered civilized interrogation methods. The victims were only harmed very lightly but the supersensory drugs made sure every touch, even that of cloth to skin, would feel like having your flesh peeled from your bones.
"No answer?" Vader asked at her silence. "Very well then. In that case, why don't you tell me where you sent the plans for the Death Star?"
She glared at him for a few seconds.
Vader didn't ask a second time. He merely made another gesture and the droid approached her with one needle threatening to pierce her arm. She moved to the far side of the cell and opened her mouth to protest - but not a single word got out. She touched her throat in shock and then blanched because she felt a resistance, as if another, invisible hand was holding her. Then suddenly there was no ground under her feet anymore and she slowly rose to the air, the pressure building around her throat. She stared at Vader wide-eyed. The Dark Lord hadn't even lifted a finger.
Then there was a sharp pain as the needle pierced her skin. She feebly tried to slap it away but it was too late.
Shortly after she was dropped to the ground. For a moment, nothing happened. Then her skin started to itch. The itch turned into a burn, spreading from the tiny mark on her arm. Her head started to hurt too as the poisoned blood was pumped into it and she let out a pained moan.
"Where are the plans?" Vader asked.
Leia swayed and reached for the wall for support, unwilling to fall to her knees in front of Vader even as the muscles in her legs started to burn as if she'd just run a marathon.
The Dark Lord took a step forward and reached for her. He touched her chin with his hand and tilted her head up. The gesture would've been gentle in any other situation, though his touch itself disgusted her. But with her skin now hyper-sensitive, it felt as if he was skinning her lower face.
She whimpered but still refused to let loose of the scream in her throat.
"Tell me where the plans to the Death Star are hidden", Vader asked again.
Leia grit her teeth against the rising pain building up in her head as she refused to answer.
"I... won't... tell!" she grit out.
The pain barely let her look straight and she was sure if he touched her again, she would die. But he didn't move closer. He even stepped away but before she could feel any sort of relief, she felt another pressure against her head. It was barely noticeable compared to the ridiculously great weight her hair suddenly had but it was still there.
She remembered… her first friend, a girl named Winter, playing with her when she was younger. Her mother sitting with her in the palace garden, teaching her the names of various flowers. A trip to the waterfalls of a famous holiday resort.
She vaguely wondered why she would remember those good times now when she looked up and saw her own reflection in the black lenses of Vader's mask and she realized with a start that it was him who made her remember. He was doing – something! – to her head and the pain, the drugs, they were just there to disguise his real technique.
Lea panicked. She had to stop him, she had to find a way to distract him before he dove any deeper and found – WHAM!
Leia felt like she'd been hit by a speeder. She let out an involuntary cry as she was thrown to the ground, the floor burning on her palms as if she'd been thrown onto hot coals. Her face exploded in pain so terrible she couldn't see. She felt some kind of burning fluid run down her flayed face and somewhere at the edge of her drug-addled mind she realized she'd been hit and was bleeding.
Leia summoned all the strength she had to glare roughly in the direction where she suspected her interrogator. She tried to get up to at least die on her feet but her legs wouldn't follow her command.
"Where are the plans?!" Vader asked again, quite a bit more annoyed now.
The Princess continued to glare.
Her legs felt like jelly but suddenly they were moved for her as Leia found herself lifted into the air again. Ironically the touch of that invisible hand wasn't painful at all. It was driving the air out of her lungs, sure, but it didn't feel like her throat was being ripped out as it would've had someone so much as tickled her neck with a real hand.
"Don't make me ask again", the Dark Lord growled.
"The plans... the plans", the Princess grit out between gasps for air, "you will never... get them... Vader!"
The Princess focused on that hope with all her mind, focused on her victory that the plans were gone without thinking about where they were. She would not betray her friends, not ever. She would… breathe… She would… now the pressure was becoming real uncomfortable… Never…snap.
XxX
Day 2 - Primeday
A pair of bright neon lights came to life at the ceiling and shone down on the crumbled body of Leia Organa, lying on the metal stretcher serving as her bed. She woke up with a start and laid very still for a moment. Only after several seconds had passed and she did not hear the sound of mechanical breathing did she sit up slowly.
She looked around the empty cell. She spotted the same eleven tiny marks on the wall next to her stretcher where some previous prisoner must have started counting the days he was stuck here. It was the same cell on the same station then. She was still a captive of Vader's.
Leia wrapped her arms around her torso and tried to suppress a shiver of fear. It was just a nightmare, she tried to tell herself. But it had felt so real. She could hear that death rattle of his, she could smell the leather, hear the whirring of the interrogation droid. And the pain, oh the pain!
Leia was quite unused to suffering but she had been taught how to act if she ever were to be caught. Her diplomatic immunity protected her. They couldn't do anything too severe to her. They couldn't...
She remembered the feeling of those invisible hands around her throat, gliding through her torso to grab her heart and squeeze her lungs. She remembered the trail of blood running down from her eyes and the slimy worm of something intangible wriggling through her brain that was numbed by the drugs. She remembered the casualness with which he snapped her neck.
It was just a nightmare. Maybe the situation in general, the death of her crew (all dead, all dead, all her fault!) or the fact she hadn't eaten or drunk or really slept since her capture the day before was getting to her. Maybe it wasn't even a natural nightmare. She'd heard that Vader could read minds and influence them. Maybe he had been sending the nightmare to further loosen her up before her interrogation?
Hours passed. Leia remembered Vader had come in the evening the day before - in the nightmare. She was restless, pacing across her cell. The lights went out, plunging her into darkness. She tried to sleep some more, she needed her strength. But just when she closed her eyes and calmed her breathing, the lights went on again.
At last, the doors opened and just like in her dream, Vader stood in the frame, the round droid hovering next to him.
"Lord Vader", she said calmly, too shaken to muster up the indignant fury she'd wanted to assault him with, "the behaviour of you and your men has been a disgrace to the Imperial Navy. I am under the protection of diplomatic immunity…" She trailed off, having forgotten what she'd wanted to say. Somehow she had expected him to interrupt her by now.
"Oh, please continue", Vader said after a few seconds. "You were about to explain why I should spare your life."
She remained silent.
"There is only one, very slim chance that you can get out of here alive and that is if you tell me where you sent the plans of the Death Star", Vader continued, staring at her from behind his menacing black mask.
And Leia knew then with absolute surety that if she remained silent now, he'd tell the droid to drug her and then, and then…
Leia remained silent. She would not betray her friends. Not ever.
One hour later, Leia Organa was dead.
XxX
Day 3 - Primeday
A pair of bright neon lights came to life at the ceiling and shone down on the crumbled body of Leia Organa, lying on the metal stretcher serving as her bed. She woke up with a start and immediately jumped to her feet, looking around in panic. She was still in the cell. Still in that thrice-cursed cell and any second now Vader would come in and-
No. She did not know where these nightmares came from but she was no longer convinced they were mere dreams. Maybe Vader had sent them to terrorize her, maybe she was sleeping right now but the visions always followed the same timetable. That meant she had hours until Vader came to interrogate her. Hours to prepare for what might be the last conversation in her life.
So what could she say? What could she say to distract him, to give him just enough information that he'd leave her alone?
He wanted to know where the plans were. Fine, she could play that game.
In the evening, when Vader entered her cell, Leia was ready. She met him pacing like she did the first time with the same angry accusations. However, she had prepared different words this time.
"Lord Vader, my treatment at the hands of your troops is a disgrace. There is no reason for them to imprison me here!" she claimed.
"I'm sure there's not", Vader mocked her. "It's all a misunderstanding. Why, I'm sure it'll all be cleared up – as soon as you tell me where you send the plans for the Death Star."
"I don't know what you're talking about", she huffed. "Captain Antilles was responsible of all systems of the Tantive IV, including the communications relay. You have to ask him if he's sent or received any transmissions. But oh no, you can't do that, because you already killed him!"
She silently apologized to Antilles for using him like this but if it saved her life, she was sure he would forgive her.
"Your ship took part in the battle of Scarif. Do you really expect me to believe that you had no idea what your crew was up to? Do not insult my intelligence!" Vader motioned for the droid – oh no, not again, everything but that! –
And there was pain. She tried to keep her story up, she really did but at some point when she was sure she would not survive, she just spat at him how yes, she'd received the plans, yes she'd sent them away and he would never, ever find them and good luck explaining that to the kriffing Emperor!
XxX
Day 4 - Primeday
A pair of bright neon lights came to life at the ceiling and shone down on the crumbled body of Leia Organa, lying on the metal stretcher serving as her bed.
So he didn't buy her innocent act. He'd only gotten angrier when she tried feeding him false information and she was pretty sure he could sense it if she lied when he was in her mind.
But she had an idea now how he worked. He gave her one chance to tell him what he wanted to know. When she failed to deliver he'd drug her. If the pain didn't make her talk, he'd enter her mind but either he couldn't do that for very long or something in her sub consciousness was throwing him out because he never held out very long and he never tried it twice. Instead he would resort to physical violence, highlighted by the pain drug. He would ask one more time then and if she didn't say anything, he'd kill her.
So. What was she to do?
She… She didn't know. She needed more information than just that. She needed to know more about… him. About Vader. How could she distract him? What kind of story would he believe?
Leia was raised as a diplomat, she knew when she was lacking information. She also knew that in order to learn something, she had to give in return.
If Vader was set on giving her this same dream over and over again… It was time she started using it.
Hours passed with Leia carefully choosing her words. At last when her visitor appeared, she did not speak first. She awaited him sitting on her cot, tired but regal and simply looked at him.
Vader met her stare for a few seconds, then closed the door behind him. The droid hovering behind him was revealed but Leia took care not to let her fear show. She did not want to experience that pain again, she really, really didn't want it. But she had prepared herself in case she had to.
"Good evening, Princess. I hope you have rested well because you are going to need your energy", Vader said as a way of greeting, the droid hovering in a ready state by his side. "I will make this easy for you. Tell me where the Death Star plans are."
Leia let out a tiny sigh and stood.
"Lord Vader, I am never going to tell you this information and I think you know that. You will kill me tonight. But before I die, there is something I would like to know of you."
"Oh?
"I want to know why you are doing this. Do you really support the construction of a weapon of mass destruction, a weapon that can wipe out entire planets? Or are you just following orders?"
"You are not the one asking questions here, Princess", Vader replied coldly.
She shrugged. "What does it matter? I'm going to die anyway, won't I? You won't believe my innocence. You're convinced I'm a traitor and the sentence for disloyalty is death. So it doesn't matter what I'll say. Please just tell me this one thing. Consider it a last wish."
Vader remained silent.
Leia sighed again. "Very well, how about this. If you answer my question, I will tell you how we managed to get the plans in the first place."
"You will tell me where they are now."
But Leia shook her head. "I'd die before I do that. I will give you this information or nothing at all. It's not much use to you since the battle is over but it does give you an idea on how the Rebellion works. Your answer may help me to understand why I have to die."
"I already know how the Rebellion got the plans. I know about the traitor Galen Erso and the incompetence of Krennic."
"Then you know the Imperial side of things. Aren't you interested at all in the other side? Isn't that what this is about, gathering information?" she goaded him.
Vader stepped forward, his mask now uncomfortably close to her face. "Speak."
She closed her eyes. It had been too much to hope for that he'd start.
"There was a woman, a young woman named Jyn. She was Galen Erso's daughter. Apparently Galen had given information about the Death Star to a courier who talked to her. She spoke at a meeting of the Rebellion and tried to convince everyone to attack Scarif. But the Council wouldn't agree on an attack. Yet, her speech inspired enough volunteers that she created her own taskforce. When the rest of the Rebel fleet arrived over Scarif and the Imperials closed the planetary shield, it was actually quite detrimental to the plan of the team as their escape route was blocked."
"They would've never made it out alive."
"No, I suppose they wouldn't have. In the end it was good that the fleet decided to come or else nobody would've been there to receive the plans once they had them. The point is though that one person, just one, and an ordinary woman at that, had the power to inspire a fleet that had lost their hope and will to fight. For as long as the Empire continues to rule through fear, this tiny spark of hope will never die. You may kill me but you aren't going to kill the Rebellion."
"You seem quite convinced I will kill you."
"If not you then some other executioner. So? Will you answer my question now?"
Vader remained silent for a couple of seconds. Then:
"I command a power far greater than Krennic or Tarkin with their little pet project. The power of the Force runs through the entire galaxy. The true value of the Death Star lies not in its firepower but in the fear it invokes in people. However, the fear does not serve to kill your Rebellion, it serves to strengthen the Dark Side and the Dark Side is what fuels my power."
Leia wasn't sure she understood him correctly as she had only a vague idea of what the Force was but still, what she heard made her shudder.
"So for you, the Death Star isn't a weapon... but a battery."
"Exactly."
She paled. "So it isn't enough to rule the galaxy… you have to enslave it too."
Leia suddenly found herself slammed against the wall by an invisible force and Vader, one arm outstretched, stepping slowly towards her.
"You were right in one thing, Princess. You are not going to leave this station alive. But it will be up to me how quick your death will be. Now you can tell me where the plans for the Death Star are… Or I can show you just how great my power really is."
Leia gasped for breath but managed a tiny smile.
"Do your worst then."
One hour later, Leia Organa was dead.
XxX
Day 5 - Primeday
A pair of bright neon lights came to life and Leia remained laying down with her eyes wide open, mulling over the newest information given to her. She supposed there was only one test left – even if it could result in her worst torture yet.
She had to do exactly the same as before, just ask Vader another question. If these dreams were sent by Vader, he would refuse to give her any more information for the same story that he'd already heard. But if there was something, anything else going on, if Vader wasn't the activator, then she could potentially learn enough about the Dark Lord to find a way to get out of this situation. She just had to stay sane through the torture sessions.
So in the evening when Vader came she took care to choose the exact same words to him as she had before, only this time she had another question:
"There is one thing I'd like to know before I die. What is your actual position inside the Empire? Your title is just that of a Lord yet you've been seen ordering Generals around and now you have authority to ignore the wishes of a royal. What are you to the Emperor and why does he give you so much power?"
"There is no reason you should know this."
"I merely want to know if I'm being killed by some kind of favourite toy of the Emperor or an actual person of importance, that is all", Leia claimed.
Vader made a weird sound that might've been a mistranslated scoff. "My duty is to bring order and safety to the worlds of the Empire."
Leia's heart beat faster. He was answering, even though all she'd told him was that same story about Jyn. Poor, most probably dead Jyn.
"How is it safe for the people to have something like the Death Star hovering over them?"
"The Death Star brings order by making people fall in line."
"So your duty is to make sure the Moffs and other high ranking nobles do their job? Then where do all the rumours about you senselessly slaughtering people come from?"
"My primary role is to eliminate persons of interest. I only worry about the incompetence of Grand Moffs if I run out of opponents or their failure becomes so great the Emperor has to set an example."
"Persons of interest… You mean the Jedi", Leia said, having heard about the purges from her parents.
"Traitors and agitators, yes."
"So they're all, what, terrorists?"
"Yes."
"Even the children?"
"Since the Jedi brainwash their recruits from infancy after they've taken them from their parents, yes, even the children."
Leia was silent for a moment, just staring at him.
"You're disgusting", she said at last.
"The views of a known Rebel do not concern me, Princess. What does concern me is the location of the Death Star plans."
She sighed. Here we go again.
XxX
Day 33 - Primeday
Leia started counting the days. One week passed, then two and then a month. She never managed to keep Vader talking for more than five minutes before he asked her for the plans again. There were moments when the pain was especially strong that she wondered why she didn't just tell him. She had established that he did not experience these repeated days the way she did so what did it really matter? At least the pain would stop. But for all she knew, this information could be the key and if she gave it to him, she would die for real. That she could not risk. She did learn what to say to provoke him into ending her life early though so at least she was able to minimize the time she was being tortured.
She learned much about Vader though. She learned about his views of the Rebels, about the Death Star and the Empire in general. Sometimes his answers were contradicting and she would ask the same question twice with different wording in order to filter out when he stated his real opinion and when he was just echoing the Emperor's. Some of the comments he made though, made her think that he wasn't too fond of the Emperor. Unfortunately she hadn't found a way to use that to her advantage yet.
She also found out more about the elusive Force that Vader used regularly to kill her. At first she'd thought it some kind of evil magic. Apparently he could draw power from negative emotions such as pain or desperation. The more he frightened his enemies the stronger he was and the fear tactic the Empire employed was essentially just a tool to darken the naturally present energy of the Force everywhere for his advantage.
It wasn't just Vader though. The way Vader spoke about the Emperor made her doubt that the galaxy's ruler was under any kind of influence from the Dark Lord. Rather it seemed to be the other way around, Vader was chained to the Emperor. They may have the same goals but Vader was only grudgingly subservient to the old man.
Since the cyborg made it clear on more than one occasion that he despised weakness, the Emperor had to be more powerful than Vader to control him and not just in terms of manpower. The most logical conclusion was that the Emperor too used the Force that Vader swore was so much more powerful than any man-made weapon – despite wielding one of the most deadly hand-held weapons in the galaxy himself, his lightsaber.
Once she asked him what the Force actually was.
"It is power", Vader answered after a long pause. "It is an invisible energy that can be used by those trained in the art to manipulate their surroundings, their own body or even the mind of the weak."
"And emotions are what fuels this power?"
"In a way, emotions are what activates it. The Force itself exists in every living thing and when dormant is neutral. In its raw, natural form it can still be directed like the Jedi tried to do. However, only when a Force user is feeding his emotions into the Force can he convert this energy into power of the Dark Side, power that is sharper, clearer and stronger than anything else."
"Can every emotion be used like that?"
"Yes. The more powerful the emotions of course, the more efficient. "
"Do the emotions have to come from yourself or can you draw on the feelings of others?" She already knew the answer to this but couldn't very well tell him.
"Drawing on the emotions of others is possible, but harder. The most efficient one is anger, followed by the fear of your enemies. Often it suffices when the confidence of one combatant is greater than the determination of the other."
Leia felt it again in that moment, that wriggling worm in her brain that tried to sift through her memories and she braced herself for Vader's outburst of anger of whatever he found in there, followed by her daily torture session.
However, his touch felt different this time, less than a hand grabbing her brain and more like a feather brushing over it.
"You too have that power in you, Princess. You could learn to wield it. And I see you have already begun to use it in order to protect your mind. How long have you been this interested in the Force? How long have you trained?"
That was new. Leia forced herself to let her calm mask slip and let some of her confusion show, knowing that the best way to keep Vader talking was being honest.
"I don't know what you are talking about, Lord Vader. I haven't trained in the Force. I've heard about it but this is the first time anyone with experience told me about it."
"Although the Force exists in everyone, only a select few are born with any significant talent", Vader explained. "While your shields could be a natural manifestation of this talent, they are too strong for someone who has grown up as pampered as you." He brushed over her mind lightly again and Leia shuddered.
"No, these shields… have been tested many times."
A change came upon Vader then and though for her eyes nothing changed, Leia felt as if the room grew a little darker.
"Tell me, who has taught you to protect your mind?"
Leia had a bad feeling about this.
"Nobody taught me", she whispered.
A second later she was lifted into the air by Vader's power.
"Liar." He tilted his head a bit and the Princess imagined mean little eyes behind that mask examining her with a malicious glint in them.
"Though you have shields, they are still very weak. They won't stop me from entering it, especially not if you're… distracted." He motioned for the droid to come closer.
"This is your last chance, Princess. Where are the plans for the Death Star?"
"I'm not afraid of you, Vader", Leia replied coldly. "And you will find that I have a great deal of determination."
One hour later, she was dead.
XxX
Day 65 - Primeday
By her estimation, Leia had been on the Death Star for more than two months, though if she didn't count the recurring days, it would be just a single one. She honestly didn't remember.
And slowly, Leia developed a plan. She knew it was a crazy plan, she knew that it was desperate but she didn't allow herself to be anything but analytical when assessing her possibilities.
She had a few moments of weakness though. Once she just cried for about three days, begging Vader to let her go, to not hurt her when he came and getting nothing but disgust and more pain for her trouble. She tried to attack Vader, to take him by surprise, grab his lightsaber and kill him with it. The first time she failed immediately The second time she avoided his counter and managed to grab the saber only to discover there was some trick to unclipping it. The third time she got the weapon but got knocked down before she figured out how to activate it… And if she did manage to get the weapon, Vader would just squeeze her heart till she fell to her knees. The torture was always worse after such an attempt and eventually she gave up on that avenue.
Leia tried to get out of her cell during the long hours she had before Vader arrived but all she did was make her hands bloody trying to scratch on the door and whatever damage she did was gone the next day. The only thing that stayed with her, the only thing that improved were, apparently, the shields around her mind.
That was what she focused on, that was what her plan built on. If she could strengthen her shields enough so that they would withstand Vader's assault even under torture, maybe she could make it through the night alive. She'd analysed his actions and the occasional twinge of emotions she felt from him when he raped her mind and she was almost sure that he didn't mean to kill her. It wasn't a conscious decision on his part, it was… an accident.
Of course this just made her despise him more. She'd almost prefer it if her months long torture were a tactic to draw information out of her. However her death at least seemed to be unintentional.
Leia hoped she could break the circle if she could just survive. She suspected she could survive if she told Vader what he wanted to know. She knew how to be interesting to him now, she knew how to rile him up but also which subjects to avoid. If she told him what he wanted to know, he might let her live. Not long, maybe not even 24 hours, maybe she would be executed by someone else – but at least then there would be no more pain.
But of course she couldn't do that. She would not sell out her comrades, not even for a final death that she started to wish for almost as much as her freedom.
She had to find another way to prevent Vader from killing her. Begging didn't work, offering less important information didn't work, talking to him as if he was a respectable person didn't work. She'd gotten as far as having a decent conversation with him but as soon as he started really breaking through her mind, something got him so upset that he fell into a rage and killed her.
She'd tried to ask him why he was so angry, tried to ask him what he'd seen. There was nothing in the memories that flashed through her mind when he grabbed it that she could imagine raising such a fury. She tried so hard to think about unimportant stuff, like some childhood memories or how her home looked in order to keep him away from any information about the Rebels. She couldn't change that, she couldn't offer anything else. But it must be that lack of information that made him so angry. She couldn't think of anything else it could be.
Every time Vader searched through her head, it was as if he was pulling up everything that was important to her and then carelessly cast it aside. She assumed it was his way of searching for her Rebel ties but he never got further than her home and family before he got too frustrated.
What if she turned things around though? Her childhood hadn't been happy all the time. Like every child she had her own grievances and dark spots.
So the next time Vader killed her, Leia spent the next day remembering all the less good times she'd had on Alderaan. She remembered listening in on her parents fighting, she remembered the jealously of other children her age, she remembered when her father took her to see a Wookiee labour camp, she remembered boring and frustrating lessons. Reluctantly, but figuring it made little difference, she remembered the day she'd found out she was adopted. The betrayal, the anger and the accusations she'd thrown at her parents when they wouldn't tell her where she came from.
Vader had no business knowing this personal information but if it was the price she had to pay for a clean death, then what did it really matter?
When the Dark Lord arrived at her cell with his droid in tow, Leia was already in a very bad mood.
"I will never tell you where the plans for the Death Star are!" she exclaimed almost as soon as he entered through her door.
"We will see about that", he replied and Leia felt the lightest brush over her mind.
Immediately she attacked and focused on all the frustration, anger and betrayal she'd accumulated over the day. She threw it all at him and imagined whatever shields she had around her mind expanding outwards to slam into the Dark Lord.
A screeching sound could be heard and Vader's touch vanished. Leia felt so full of adrenaline she was tempted to tackle Vader with her bare hands.
She'd tried that before though and knew that it neither spared her the pain of torture, nor made it her death any quicker.
Vader tilted his head slightly downwards. Leia followed his gaze and for a moment she was sure her heart stopped. The round interrogation droid laid smashed up to her feet, nothing more than scrap metal.
"So, you're not just a Rebel… but a Jedi", Vader concluded and a moment later Leia felt surrounded by a dark, suffocating power that lifted her up and started to choke her. "A very bad Jedi though. Your attempts to use the Force are pitiful. You must have a terrible teacher."
"Yeah, he's a weakling and an asshole", Leia spat and kicked out with her legs, trying but failing to reach his shins.
"Tell me who taught you."
"Die", she hissed hatefully, then gasped when he used the Force to grab not just her throat but close invisible fingers around her very lungs and squeezed. Then he was in her mind again. Leia had never felt so much hatred for one person. She flung more memories at him; memories of having her skin flayed and her eyes burned, of being hit and having her bones broken. She focused on all the pain she'd experienced and on the wish to throw that pain back at the one who caused it.
Vader let go of her. She could feel… a resonance between him and her, a connection that he tried to break. But Leia held on and she continued to push, so much pain, so much hatred. She wanted to destroy him.
Two seconds later, another burning hot but brief pain was added to her collection.
Leia was dead.
XxX
Day 66 - Primeday
The next day Leia did nothing. She just sat there, exhausted.
Maybe she could defeat Vader, eventually. If she could figure out how she had destroyed the droid, she'd have a chance to measure up against him one on one. If she did it often enough and predicted all his moves, she might eventually win.
But how long would that take? Months? Years? If she destroyed the droid beforehand, she could avoid torture but her death would still be very painful, not to mention that it was emotionally exhausting to gather this much power. And also… She was very aware that what she was using was the Dark Side of the Force, the same thing that made Vader so powerful. Did she really want to risk becoming like her enemies?
Leia told herself that she'd stopped aiming for freedom some weeks ago, that all she could hope for was a good death anyway so what did it really matter?
But it did matter. Somewhere, somehow, it did matter.
Her parents would be ashamed of her.
She felt Vader before she saw him. There was a slight twinge of astonishment, then suspicion, then anger. Always so much anger.
"Who are you?" Vader snapped at her harshly.
Leia slowly raised her head and blinked. "You know who I am."
He was at her cot with two steps and grabbed her by her dress, shaking her like you would a malfunctioning doll.
"How could your presence change this drastically in such a short time? What did you do?"
Leia just stared at him with empty eyes. She was so tired and in no mood for his issues.
"Speak!" Vader demanded and shook her again.
Leia didn't fight back but she didn't say anything either.
At last Vader let go of her and motioned the droid forward. "Fine then, I will make you talk."
She could sense his anger cooling to determination and a tiny bit of fear rose in her. No… That fear wasn't hers. It belonged… to Vader!
The needle pierced her skin and some short moments later the familiar burn began again. She felt Vader's touch on her mind. He seemed to slip in easier but his hammering against the shields she'd erected to protect any vital information seemed less heavy at the same time.
Suddenly the pain ebbed away and Leia blinked away her tears only to discover the droid injecting her with a second fluid – an antidote.
Vader stood at the other end of the room, staring at her.
Numbly, Leia realized that the lingering pain she felt had some kind of echo to it.
She could sense Vader's emotions – and he could sense hers. He could feel himself the pain he inflicted on her. This… connection that suddenly existed between them, it went both ways.
A dark smirk grazed her lips and Leia found she had some energy left in her after all. Enough to swing her legs over the cot and meet Vader's stare head on.
"What's wrong, Lord Vader? Can't stand the taste of your own medicine?"
"What have you done?" Vader whispered and the twinge of fear rose until it vanished completely and Leia felt a dull pain in her forehead as if she'd just run against a closed door. Maybe she had.
"You have no right to ask that question", Leia hissed hatefully. "You, of all people, have no right!" She took a deep breath to calm herself and put back on her political mask.
"Now if you don't intend to torture me further, I suggest you leave, Lord Vader. I have nothing to say to you."
The Princess felt a dark power clash against her, not really attacking, more like a great wave crashing at the shores of her mind. A threat.
"You have made a great mistake, Princess. From here on, it will only get worse."
She folded her arms in front of her, sending him a wave of her own power, a wave of righteous anger, indignation and determination.
"Impossible", she spat.
"We will see", Vader said menacingly. He motioned for the droid to fall back, then with a swish of his cape turned around – and left her cell.
Leia remained standing for almost five minutes, unable to grasp what just happened. Vader… had left. He'd left without killing her. He'd left after just five minutes of the drug administration. He'd barely seen any of her memories, he hadn't gathered any information – he'd just left.
And he'd been scared of her. She hadn't imagined that, had she? He'd actually been scared. Whatever happened to enable Leia to feel his emotions and let him feel hers in return, it had been foreign, unexpected and scary for him.
And Leia still lived.
Feeling as if she was in trance – and maybe she was, maybe this was all a dream – Leia went to her cot. She worked on the wall with her fingernails until she'd added her own tiny scratch mark to the ones already there. Then she laid down and closed her eyes.
One hour later, Leia was asleep.