Chapter Text
I.
As far as days went, Luke was having a pretty shitty one, even by his standards.
“Keep up, young one,” his father said, tugging on the cable that secured Luke’s bound wrists to his utility belt. Luke stumbled, but kept pace. There was nothing else for him to do.
He thought wistfully about his X-Wing on the other side of the planet and wondered idly if he was fast enough to outrun his father should he manage to get his binders off and escape. That armour had to weigh him down and Luke had always been faster than most. It was a desperate thought, but perhaps it would work?
“I would not attempt to run,” his father said, answering the question Luke hadn’t said aloud. “You would succeed in nothing but delaying the inevitable and most likely getting yourself unnecessary injured in the process.”
Luke huffed. “Are you reading my mind?”
“I hardly need to. You are projecting so loud anyone with an ounce of Force sensitivity would be able to guess your intentions.” He didn’t turn around, but his father tilted his helmet slightly to throw a question over his shoulder, “did your Jedi Master teach you nothing of shielding?”
“He did,” Luke snapped indignantly, trying to wrangle his shields tighter around his mind. In an instant he felt the familiar dark, icy presence of his father in his head. With the ease of swatting a fly, he knocked down Luke’s shields and stepped over the rubble. Luke strained in an attempt to push him out. It didn’t work, but he did manage to at least halt his father’s assault on his mind, stopping him in his tracks, and keeping him at an arm’s length.
In the forest, his father hadn’t even stuttered in his quickly set pace, but Luke found himself stumbling from the combined effort of keeping his father out and watching the ground where he was walking. Luke tripped over his feet, and was sent careening into his father’s back.
Luckily, he managed to catch himself before the collision. His father stopped and looked at Luke as he righted himself.
“It seems you are not completely abysmal at creating a shield, but if you cannot even walk and keep your shields up, then you lack the ability to withstand a physical and mental assault from an experienced Force user. We will have to correct this with time.” His father began walking again with no more to say on the matter, tugging Luke along.
Luke followed, more sullen than before after the insult to his training. He could concede that shielding wasn’t his strongest asset, but not for lack of practice. Every day during his meditations he practiced building, tearing down, and rebuilding his mental shields, but that was all he could do- all he had been taught to do on his own. Without Yoda, Luke had no one else to practice with. There weren’t really an abundance of Force sensitives on a rebel base he could ask to push and prod at his mind to help him learn to make it more secure.
We will correct this with time.
Why did that thought fill him with both dread and excitement?
They walked only a little further through the forest before a clearing opened up around them. A sleek, nondescript Imperial shuttle sat in the center. As they approached, the loading ramp lowered.
Luke was surprised to see a man walk swiftly down the ramp.
“Lord Vader,” the Admiral (if the insignia bars on his chest were correct) said, bowing before his father. “I see your mission was successful.”
“Admiral Piett,” his father replied, “By the will of the Force it was. We are leaving immediately to rejoin with the fleet. Prepare the shuttle.”
“Of course, my Lordship. As you wish it.”
Admiral Piett saluted sharply and quickly turned to go back up the shuttle ramp.
Luke watched him go with mild amusement. He had heard of the almost reverent way his father’s men regarded him, but it was even more overdramatic to witness in person.
“Luke, come.”
“As you wish it,” Luke mimicked, “my Lordship. ”
Even through the helmet, he knew his father was giving him an unimpressed glare. Luke just smiled cheekily in return.
“Enough of your cheek,” his father said, waving a gloved finger in Luke’s face, “get on the ship.”
Luke continued to smile, but a sharp push in the Force sent him on his way up and into the ship, his father close behind him.
The ship was small inside, but nice. Luke had never been inside an Imperial shuttle before. He didn’t know where he was supposed to go, whether his father planned to place him in a detainment cell or let him stay in the passenger lounge.
But as soon as the loading ramp closed, his father detached Luke’s binders from his belt, but didn’t release the binders themselves.
“You may roam freely so long as you do not try to escape. Should you try, our Admiral will pay for your rebellion with his life.”
Well, that answered his question. Luke was allowed to roam the ship so long as he did not try to escape. He hadn’t planned on it at the moment, but now with the Admiral’s life in his hands, Luke had no choice and his father knew that.
Luke let his feet carry him to the cockpit so he could examine the navigation system, something he loved to do in ships he was unfamiliar with.
Always a mechanic, Han used to say whenever he geeked out over a new ship. Luke felt a pang in his chest over the thought of his dear friend.
As he neared the cockpit, he stood in the doorway and watched Admiral Piett work on prepping the ship for take off.
“Is that a V-17 advanced targeting computer?” Luke asked, stepping into the cockpit to get a closer look at the rare, expensive piece of equipment.
Piett, who hadn’t heard his approach, jumped up at the sound of Luke’s voice, his face a mask of shock.
“Sorry,” Luke said, holding up his still bound hands in apology. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
That didn’t seem to placate the Admiral at all.
“How did you escape Lord Vader,” Piett asked, his eyes wide and already reaching for his blaster.
“I didn’t,” Luke explained. “He didn’t say I had to stay in the passenger lounge, so I decided to explore-”
“Passenger lounge? Young man, you should be in a detainment cell!”
“I’m not sure that’s necessary. Where am I going to go on this ship? Out the garbage chute?”
His attempt at levity did nothing to reassure Piett that he was not, in fact, attempting to take over the ship. If anything, the man looked more on edge now.
“I can go back-,” Luke tried, taking a step back the way he came, but he felt himself collide with something large and hard before he’d managed more than a step.
Luke knew it was his father before he even turned his head up to smile ruefully at him.
“Sorry,” he apologized.
HIs father ignored him (like usual), and turned his attention on the Admiral who was now standing military straight, a hand to his forehead in salute.
“Is there a problem, Admiral Piett?” His father asked, slowly.
The man looked between Luke and his father with obvious confusion. “Sir, I mean no disrespect, but should the prisoner not be in a detainment cell where he cannot escape?”
Luke looked back to his father, silently begging him to not to do that.
“I have Luke’s word that he will not escape,” his father explained to the Admiral’s dubious expression. “He knows that if he tries, many lives will be lost in the process, perhaps including yours Admiral and he is too much a Jedi to allow that to happen.”
The Admiral gulped and nodded, taking Luke’s father’s word for it but still looking incredibly confused about the whole thing.
Luke figured that was reasonable. How often was it that Darth Vader spent years searching for a single person, having the person escape him several times, but then allowing them to roam free on his ship after being caught. It was a conundrum for anyone who didn’t know the details, and it seemed that Piett did not, no matter how much his father trusted him.
Plus, his father was right. If his escape meant the lives of many, including the Admiral, who, despite it all, Luke found himself liking, then he would stay prisoner to his father. Whatever that meant.
“Luke, find a seat in the passenger lounge. We are taking off.”
Luke did as he was told and quickly strapped himself in. He wondered idly as he felt the ship being its ascension, what his father planned on doing once they reached his Star Destroyer. In their reluctant game of cat and mouse over the years, they had never discussed an actual plan for what ‘join me and I will complete your training’ actually meant besides the implication that Luke would fall to the Dark Side, something he resolutely planned on not doing. Every other time Luke had been captured, he had managed some miraculous escape and avoided his father another day. He wasn’t sure how he was going to pull that off this time.
As he felt the ship reach cruising altitude, Luke found he disliked being alone in the passenger lounge. Something deep in him was pulling him toward the cockpit, toward his father. Luke didn’t fight it.
This time when he entered the cockpit, no one turned to look at him, although he was sure at least his father had registered his presence.
Luke stood behind his father’s chair and looked out the windscreen into the inky blackness of space.
“Where’s your Star Destroyer? Are we not rejoining your fleet?” Luke asked.
It was silent as both occupants ignored him.
He tried again.
“Once we get wherever we’re going, can you send someone to retrieve my X-Wing? I made a lot of modifications on that thing. I hate the thought of it rusting away on that planet.”
Silence again.
“Is there at least food on this thing? I haven’t eaten since before I left to make this journey.”
Now he was just talking to see if he could get anything out of his suddenly mute companions. Piett surprised him by speaking up.
“You are right, my Lord, he does talk a lot.”
Luke couldn’t cross his arms with his hands still in binders but he huffed loudly to make his annoyance known. He could feel the amusement rolling off his father.
“Ha ha very funny.”
“We are rendezvousing with my fleet in the next system over. Admiral Piett and I needed to arrive discreetly so as not to warn you of our arrival.”
“Smart,” Luke conceded. “I was definitely caught off guard.”
“As for your X-Wing, perhaps it can-”
But his father didn’t get to finish that thought before alarms started blaring.
Around them, small fighter ships were appearing out of nowhere and immediately started firing on them. They weren’t Rebels or Imperials. Luke didn’t recognize the ships at all.
“Admiral Piett, prepare the jump to hyperspace! Luke, go strap yourself in!” His father commanded, beginning to quickly flip switches.
But Luke’s feet were rooted to the ship floor.
“Who are they?” Luke asked, as their ship tipped dangerously to the left with the force of being hit by a shot.
“Pirates,” his father answered, tersely, swinging the ship so quickly that Luke almost lost his balance and went flying into the wall.
“Pirates? What do they want?”
“Most likely nothing” Piett barked from his spot in front of the hyperspace coordinator, “except to blow us from the sky!”
“Luke! I said go strap yourself in!” His father yelled, sending a push at Luke through the Force.
And as much as Luke wanted to comply, the ship was now rocking so hard under the weight of the pirate’s attack, that it was almost impossible to walk. Luke was barely hanging on to the back of his father’s chair.
“I-,” he began, but Piett cut him off.
“Sir, we’ve lost both rear shields and they’re focusing their attack on our thrusters! We won’t survive a jump to hyperspace if we get hit much more!”
Luke could feel his father’s anger burning brightly through the Force. He was livid, but not about the danger he was in himself- he was furious that the pirates were putting Luke’s life at risk.
He felt the familiar dark tendrils of his father’s presence surround him, pulling Luke close to him.
“Sir, the thrusters! Without them, we’ll be pulled back into the planet’s gravitational pull.”
His father was furiously silent as he tried to wrangle the ship to do what he wanted, but it was difficult. They were incredibly outnumbered and unprepared for the attack.
Luke could feel the ship failing, falling back toward the planet they had just left. They were going to crash right into its surface.
Another shot rocked the ship and this time Luke did go flying sideways, knocking into the cockpit wall and banging his head and shoulder painfully on the way down.
“Luke!” His father called, fear coloring his words in a way Luke had never heard before.
“Sir!” Piett yelled.
There was another bang! as the ship was hit again. Alarms were blaring. Luke was being tossed around the floor like a pebble in a sandstorm. With his hands still in binders, he couldn’t even use his arms to steady himself. After another hit tipped them again, Luke rolled sideways and smacked his head again on something hard he couldn’t see.
This time, he was left dazed from the ringing in his ears. Stars blurred in front of his vision. Distantly, Luke could hear the alarms still blaring and the sounds of space battle, but his head was full of cotton.
The ship was crashing, that much was evident. He wondered idly if he was about to die.
His father wrapped himself more protectively around Luke at that thought, to an almost crushing degree.
Everything was too much, too loud.
The last thing Luke registered before he lost consciousness was something large and solid curling up around him.
And then the ship hit the planet and Luke was lost.