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When Captain Firmus Piett heard the distinctive sounds of Lieutenant Garanl Hemph hurrying towards him, Piett resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.
Hemph had sustained an irreparable injury to his leg, making him unfit for active duty as either pilot or trooper, but had secured himself a cushy position as Admiral Ozzel’s aide. The injury also made the sounds of the clicks of his boots on the polished floor of the Executor’s bridge quite distinctive. He was not the most competent officer and Piett wasn’t looking forward to listening to whatever had Hemph in such a hurry.
Piett only turned around from his position in front of the main view port after Hemph had skidded to a halt and caught his breath. Nodding tersely at the sketchy salute, Piett waited with his usual Sabacc face for Hemph to make his report.
“Internal security reports that we most probably have a spy aboard, sir,” Hemph said incredulously, as if he couldn’t quite believe that such an event could actually happen aboard the Executor.
For once, Piett didn’t have to drag the rest out of Hemph.
“They say he was a stowaway on the shuttle from Dentaal, sir. He slipped out off the shuttle during guard shift change. They only caught onto him because several weird incidents were reported from section C.”
“Such as?”
“Food gone missing, sir. A break-in at laundry. An attempted break-in at weapons storage. Unauthorized power usage in unused areas.” Hemph’s voice dropped to a whisper. “There is footage, sir. That’s how Security figured out the spy is a ‘he’. And human.”
Piett thought very longingly of the bottle of Corellian whiskey stashed underneath his bunk.
“I’m sure Admiral Ozzel has already assigned a taskforce, Lieutenant.”
“He... uh, was the one who sent me, sir. Something about Lord Vader...?”
Ah, yes.
Piett couldn’t fault Ozzel for his reasoning. Getting Vader on the scent of an intruder who was probably even a rebel was a formidable plan. Not only would it ensure success, it also would have kept the Sith Lord occupied, making everyone’s lives a bit easier for however long the spy managed to hold out.
Sadly, Lord Vader had left for an urgent mission to Fondor shortly before the shuttle in question had landed. Since Lord Vader didn’t deign to report to anyone and had barely managed to throw a “Ready my shuttle for departure. I have an urgent mission.” Piett’s way, Ozzel couldn’t know that.
Piett deliberated. He could hand this off to his First Officer or he could…
Vader wasn’t due back for at least two standard cycles. The Executor was the biggest ship in the entire Imperial Navy but as Hemph had pointed out there were clues. They had practically cornered the spy already.
Lord Vader would be very pleased. And Piett… caught a glimpse of himself in the transparisteel of the bridge’s viewport.
How hard could it be?
*
Harder than just marching into the unused areas of section C that the power usage had been reported from, checking out everywhere the rebel-spy had been caught on camera, and setting traps baited with food at the mess hall as it turned out.
The - presumed - rebel spy wasn’t that stupid. Piett wasn’t sure whether he should be annoyed or happy about that. On the one hand it would be a disaster if he failed before Lord Vader returned. Probably one he would pay for with his life. On the other the thrill of the chase started to make the blood race in his veins.
Oh, how this reminded him of the days he had been hunting pirates off of Axxila. And while life with a Sith Lord aboard your ship was never boring, this was something else entirely. Piett had missed it.
In a decision Piett knew was stupid and might cost him his life, he decided to keep hunting the spy by himself.
In person.
Piett just really hoped that he was right with his hunch that the spy didn’t seem intent on causing immediate damage.
Though that didn’t exclude the possibility that the infiltrator was planning something bigger. But Piett doubted it. Every minute the spy spent aboard the risk of capture grew and hinging a plan on staying undetected for days?
No, this did not seem like a deliberate scheme. In fact Piett was pretty sure that this hadn’t been planned at all. Or the spy would not have risked exposure by food gone missing.
So probably not a spy or rebel at all but an unfortunate stowaway?
Still, a clever one. And dangerous or not, Piett would lose his life if Vader found out that the Captain of the Executor had decided to hunt an intruder on his own. And failed to catch them.
*
A standard ship cycle later, Piett leaned his head against the metallic wall of Corridor 42 in Section C, Subsection 1 and breathed deeply.
Any sighting, any suspicious activity was reported to him. The moment Piett arrived, the spy was nowhere to be found. Since he had given the ‘no-kill’-order Piett was not surprised that the intruder hadn’t been captured yet. But he’d honestly had more faith in his crew to actually manage to shoot someone with blasters set to stun.
But then again, most personnel didn’t carry service blasters at all on their regular duties. In any case, Lord Vader was expected back in less than half a standard cycle. Piett would die then. Even if he called in the troops now and flushed the infiltrator out.
The story of the Captain on the hunt was surely all over the ship by now. Piett had no illusions about that. Still, the whole affair felt very personal and Piett was reluctant to stop. Either way he wouldn’t help his case.
He just wanted – no, needed – to finish this by himself before he died.
Piett also felt oddly protective of the stowaway, knowing that even if he was captured alive, he would be lucky to be summarily executed soon after. More likely there was torture at Vader’s hands in his future.
Why Piett even felt that way or why this was so important – he wouldn't touch that one with a lightsaber as long as the Emperor’s reach across the Galaxy.
“Are you alright?”
The voice intruding into his thoughts sounded human, male, young, and had a distinctive Outer Rim accent.
Piett’s grey eyes met bright blue ones.
The person the voice belonged to was indeed human, male, and almost painfully young. The mismatched uniform pieces and the weary, cautious gaze let Piett come to one conclusion. Apparently his hunch had paid off. This was no hardened rebel or first class spy. Someone willing to risk capture for being compassionate towards his captor would not…
Piett let his head fall back against the durasteel wall again and belatedly realized that he hadn’t answered the question.
“No.” Piett gave a self-deprecating laugh. “In a matter of hours Lord Vader will return. Then he will kill me because instead of flushing you out and shooting you immediately, I have taken the liberty of going after you myself, potentially endangering the ship and her crew. And I still didn’t shoot you on sight just now. So no, I’m not alright.”
“I’m sorry.”
A mechanized blerp drew Piett’s gaze to the young man’s companion. A Clone-Wars Era astromech that was in desperate need of a paint job gave another series of bleeps that Piett had no chance of understanding without a translation unit.
The young man chuckled and put a hand on the astromech’s dome.
Piett looked at him, questioning, but the young man shook his head.
“Artoo isn’t very happy right now. I’d rather not translate that.”
Before Piett could answer, the infuriating young man continued.
“It’s been fun but I guess you got me now.”
Piett squeezed his eyes shut again. Damn his old heart.
“Hangar 3 is the least occupied. A transport shuttle leaves daily at 1700. Since you have experience as a stowaway, surely you will manage.”
Piett pushed off the wall and walked off briskly, not bothering to look anywhere but straight ahead. He wasn’t going to be alive much longer but he was damn well going to fulfill his duties as Captain of the Executor to the last.
He had work to do.
Yet before Piett had reached the end of the corridor, hurried footsteps sounded behind him.
“Wait, please.”
Oh, for… Piett halted, heaving a deep sigh. Behind him the footsteps stopped.
“Did you just… but you said you’ll be killed!”
There was genuine worry in that young voice and Piett’s heart squeezed again.
“So will you, if you do not get out of here.”
A bleep from the astromech behind him had him whirling around again.
Blue and grey eyes met again.
For a moment they stared at each other.
Then the young man turned to go and Piett’s ears rang with the echo of his own shout.
Apparently his mouth had reacted before his mind had fully caught up with what his eyes had seen.
A lightsaber.
The youth was carrying a kriffing light saber.
The blue eyes dropped down to where Piett was staring. A chagrined expression appeared on that way too young face.
The young man winced.
“I swear, I’m not a Jedi.”
“Then why do you carry the weapon of one, young rebel?”
Captain Firmus Piett, officer of his Imperial Majesty’s Navy and in command of the Executor, the flagship of Lord Vader’s personal fleet was fully aware that there was a betting pool about him among the soldiers of Black Squadron. Maybe even further.
It contained bets on the answer to one single question:
What will make Captain Piett lose his Sabacc face?
If anyone but a too compassionate, young Rebel-Jedi had faced Piett in this moment, they would have known the answer now.
As it was, the two men stared at each other in shared horror.
Well, facing certain death together sure made for a strange bonding experience, Piett thought giddily.
As if prompted by a silent command they both turned towards where Darth Vader loomed over them. Just how that man could become so utterly quiet and actually sneak up on someone, Piett couldn’t fathom. Though Piett suspected the answer was “The Force” - as with most things concerning his commanding officer.
“It was my father’s.”
What? Oh. The young man was answering Lord Vader’s question.
Why weren’t they dead yet?
“What was his name?”
Piett had never heard Vader’s vocoder sound like the roar of the Executor’s engines combined with the hardness of the durasteel of the ship’s hull before.
How the man next to him was still able to answer coherently, Piett didn’t know but he’d known seasoned officers, older than Vader – presumably – who hadn’t been able to. If nothing else, the young man had guts.
“Anakin Skywalker. You killed him.”
Piett wasn’t even surprised anymore. That wasn’t guts, that was a death wish. And – that was no spy. A rebel certainly – with that attitude – but no spy.
Sneaking a glance at his superior, Piett came to the realization that he had as good as ceased to exist for both men.
The way they were staring at each other, Piett was sure that the Executor and the Galaxy surrounding her had as well.
The respirator cycled several times before Vader answered.
“I did not. Your father is still alive, young one. What is your name?”
That was the softest Piett had ever heard the vocoder sound. Vader must have barely whispered it.
Yet before the young man could answer the astromech suddenly shot forward, beeping and warbling angrily, bumping into Lord Vader’s leg.
Piett and the young rebel jumped back and Vader had already raised his hand to get rid of the attacker when he inexplicably lowered it again.
“Do not take that tone with me, droid. Your memory banks are obviously in need of wiping.”
That Vader understood binary was something that Piett simply filed away under “things that should surprise me but currently don’t”.
“You know Vader?” The young rebel’s voice had risen with his incredulity. He coughed when he realized it.
Several more blips and blerghs and Darth Vader pointed a finger at the droid.
“You will NOT.”
Piett didn’t need to understand any binary to translate the resulting bleeps into “Will too.”
Ignoring the droid, Vader turned to the rebel.
“Your NAME.”
The vocoder emitted the usual timbre and volume.
The young man straightened from where he had turned towards his astromech and faced Vader again, raising his chin defiantly.
“Luke Skywalker. And if my father isn’t dead – where is he?”
Several bleeps had the young man turning towards the droid again.
“What do you mean ‘right here’?”
For the tenth of a second, Piett had a horrible, horrible feeling in his gut but then -
“My name was Anakin Skywalker before I was named Darth Vader. I am your father.”
- he wasn’t sure if that was worse or not.
Memories tumbled into Piett’s brain: of Jedi and supposedly Jedi propaganda, of news flashes from the days of the Galactic Republic, when he’d been young, stories about the Chosen One and the fact that Jedi weren’t supposed to marry.
But it all paled when he saw the heart-broken look on the young man’s – Skywalker’s – face.
“Liar! You’re lying!” he all but screamed.
“Search your feelings, young one. You know it to be true.”
Whatever that meant, Piett didn’t know but it seemed Skywalker (the younger, and Piett did NOT dare think about the implications of this) did, for he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and seemed to calm himself down considerably.
“Who was my mother then?” Skywalker’s voice betrayed that he didn’t feel as calm as he seemed.
Piett’s mind screeched to a halt again. He was trying NOT to think about this, thank you very much and -
a bleep from the astromech interrupted his thoughts.
Before anyone could translate the droid had started a hologram.
A young man with long curly hair who Piett thought looked vaguely familiar and a beautiful young woman stood together on a balcony overlooking a lake in what was clearly a romantic setting.
Both Skywalkers made a noise that Piett was sure they weren’t aware of.
Luke sank to the floor to look closer at the hologram, while Vader had reached out a hand towards it, as if to touch.
“Padmé. Her name was Padmé Amidala and she was from Naboo…”
Vader continued to talk softly to his son (and wasn’t that a sentence that Piett would have never dreamed of thinking) but Piett didn’t hear the rest because he had seized his chance. He hadn’t become Captain for nothing and knew how to beat a strategic retreat when the opportunity presented itself.
On wobbly legs he snuck back to the next fresher where he slid down to the floor and buried his face in his hands.
*
When Piett stepped onto the bridge shortly before Alpha shift, Vader was already at his usual spot, looking out of the view port. Piett took a fortifying breath and stepped up next to him.
As usual Vader acknowledged him with a tilt of the helmet. Piett had to suppress the urge to give up explanations and excuses. These never went over well with Vader and Piett didn’t plan to start now. If Vader intended to kill him, he would and Piett had witnessed enough to know that nothing would deter him.
But before Piett could give his usual report, Vader spoke.
“A shuttle transport.”
Piett thought for a moment.
“A regularly scheduled transport shuttle leaves Hangar 3 every day at 1700 hours, sir.”
“See to it.”
“Yes, sir.”
The helmet tilted again but quite further than usual and Piett nodded back.
For a while both men contemplated the stars in front of them in silence.
Piett supposed that he had just committed treason, though of course there was no proof that Luke Skywalker was actually a rebel.
There were rumours of a young hot-shot pilot who had joined the Rebellion recently who supposedly was the one who fired the shot that hit the Death Star. But no, that would be too much of a coincidence.
And then there was the image of the young man sitting on the floor with the dark shape bent over him, both studying the hologram in front of them.
Piett took a deep breath and excused himself, though Vader – as usual – gave no outward sign to having heard him. Piett had long since learned though that the opposite was true.
Climbing down into the trench where Admiral Ozzel was poring over the star charts, Hemph by his side, Piett contemplated his next move.
By the time Piett reached the two men, his plan had solidified. Vader would back him and that would sell it.
Both men looked up as Piett approached.
“Captain.”
“Sir, Lieutenant.” Piett nodded at Ozzel. “Sadly, the intruder was not apprehended in a reasonable amount of time. Lord Vader is not pleased about the outcome of this training exercise.”
Ozzel’s eyes went wide and Piett felt a bit sorry for the man. The Admiral hurried off, erupting into a flurry of activity, calling out orders as he went.
Well, Piett surmised, maybe this would help the ship and her crew in the long run, teaching them not only to deal with external threats but with internal ones as well.
"But...but, sir," Hemph stammered. "The...the stowaway..."
“Never mind, Lieutenant.”
This time Piett did pinch the bridge of his nose. No one would believe him anyway. And if he ever heard the name Skywalker again it would be way too soon. Sadly, Piett surmised, that was one wish that would not be fulfilled any time soon.
He really needed that drink now.