Beyond - Legends Meet the Skywalkers

Need more of this please!

 

Seconded.

 

A/N: Hi all! My apologies for leaving this hanging for so long. It has been a trying spring/summer at work for me, and honestly I clean forgot I hadn't updated this in ages. But hopefully this will make it up to you. Thank you all for the kind comments, I'm glad you're enjoying the fic! Much more to come, fear not. In the meantime, my fellow old EU fans will probably enjoy this one...

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CHAPTER 4

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The door to the Executor's stellarium had been locked for exactly twenty-one minutes and forty-seven seconds. In the adjoining officers' club silence reigned supreme, challenged only by the thump of Piett's heart, the rustle of cards, and the periodic growls of Han Solo.

"If she's not out in five minutes I'm cutting the door down," the Corellian snarled, drawing Skywalker's attention from the hand he had been contemplating.

"She's fine, Han. She's in no danger." He dropped a datachip on the table. "I see your favor from Talon Karrde and raise you a recording of the time Jacen put the crystal snake in Mara's boot."

"Like hell she's not," Solo growled, but dragged his eyes away from the door.

"Admiral, it's your move," said Skywalker calmly.

Piett studied his hand without enthusiasm. He had accepted a spot at the table before realizing that his companions scoffed at the notion of playing for mere credits. What the Sith; in for a TIE, in for a Death Star. "I see your recording," he said, picking up the very last sample-sized flask of real Whyren's on the ship and adding it to the pot. He'd been saving it for twenty years to celebrate the day he made it back to Axxila, but it wasn't as though the galaxy proper had any shortage of the stuff; and besides, it wasn't every day a man had a chance to win not only the favor from Karrde and the recording, but a genuine scrap of the original Rebel flag from the base at Yavin IV, a certificate entitling the bearer to a free one-night stay at the Magisterial Suite of the Kaadara Grande Hotel on Piknar, and the framed state portrait of the Emperor still hanging on one of the bulkheads of the officer's club.

Skywalker, as dealer for the round, opted for a randomization. Piett gave a disgusted grunt as his King of Coins transformed into a totally worthless Four of Sabers. He threw his cards in; at the rate this pair went, if he stayed in the betting they'd win the Executor herself out from under him. Skywalker raised an eyebrow at Solo.

Solo eyed his cards, then the datachip. "Does Mara know you have that recording? Last I heard she bought Jacen off for five hundred credits."

The revelation that Solo's teenage son was an accomplished blackmailer failed to surprise Piett at any level.

"Won it from her fair and square," said Skywalker, a slightly-too-bright beacon of innocence. "She'll tell you so herself."

Solo grunted. "She's still buying that Jedi-Masters-don't-cheat-at-sabacc line of yours, huh?"

"Amazing what you can get away with when you have such a straight-up honest farm boy face." Skywalker winked at Piett, who glared, full of sudden suspicions as to whether Jedi could manipulate card randomizers as well as minds. There had been a distinctly mercenary glint in Skywalker's eye when the Emperor's portrait was added to the pot.

Solo rummaged in his pockets for something to stake, and Skywalker suggested, "There's always the deed to the Falcon."

"Dream on, kid." Solo glared once more at the entrance to the stellarium. "I'm gonna need it for the getaway any second now."

"You've got his lightsaber, what more do you want?"

Solo glanced at the hilt sitting next to his elbow, the final concession he had demanded before--not at all graciously--agreeing to this private tete-a-tete between his wife and his father-in-law. He had also insisted on the Princess taking his blaster, though after Vader's demonstration in the hangar Piett couldn't imagine what protection Solo thought this would give her. "Not much, just five minutes with him unconscious in a carbon freezing chamber." He plunked a key chip on the table. "Combination to Booster Terrik's exotic weapons locker on the Errant Venture."

"Call. Double-autographed copy of Face Loran's promo portrait for The Little Black Bantha Cub." Skywalker slid a dog-eared printed card forward, depicting a revoltingly adorable child astride a bantha and gazing in tragic-looking raptures up at an Imperial flag; an enormous childish signature sprawled across one corner and a very tiny adult one skulked in the white border. Piett wondered how much of Skywalker's luggage was dedicated to arcane betting materials for Rebel-style sabacc. "Anyway, has it ever crossed your mind that you maybe had the whole carbonite thing coming?"

They turned their cards up, and Solo scowled as his run of Staves slammed into the duracrete wall of Skywalker's Idiot's Flush. "Whose side are you on anyway, kid?"

"I'm just saying"--Skywalker scraped the pot over to his side of the table--"suppose you had a carbon freeze chamber handy and some cousin of Isolder Chume decided to dance the tongue tango with Jaina right in front of you--"

Solo brandished Vader's extinguished lightsaber at his brother-in-law. "Mention that Hapan scumbag again and I'll send Mara copies of those godawful poems you wrote for that Ysanna chick way back when." He put the lightsaber down to shuffle, muttering under his breath, "Fianceé-stealing sonofahutt…"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. Be a shame if Leia ever found out the reason you ducked out of the Dubrovna conference was because Xaverri What's-her-name commed you from the cantina down the street."

"Dubrovna?" A newborn akk pup could not have rivaled Solo's wide-eyed who-me innocence as he suddenly became absorbed in dealing. "I don't remember visiting Dubrovna."

"Amnesia," Skywalker told Piett, "caused by a sudden onset of marriage. Besides"--returning his attention to Solo--"imagine how good you're going to look once Father realizes who his son-in-law could have been."

Solo brightened. "There's that."

Piett surveyed his latest lackluster hand, brain elsewhere. "Isn't Isolder Chume the Crown Prince of Hapes?" He was trying to work out how Solo came out ahead in such a comparison. Or any comparison, really.

"Prince Consort, now that he's married," said Skywalker, and Solo added with wicked satisfaction, "His wife's a real witch."

"Can't knock her taste in men though."

"Men ain't the word I'd've used, kid."

Piett glanced between the two sniggering overgrown adolescents. "I'm afraid I don't follow you."

"See, what happened was--" Skywalker paused, then shook his head. "Never mind. It'd take too long."

Solo slapped his cards together with a pleased look and tapped the bottom corner of the stack on the table. "What do you gents feel like losing this round?"

"Let's see how much you really like that hand." Skywalker, that mercenary glint back in his eye, casually tossed another datachip onto the table between them. "One vintage Black-Alpha-level Ubiqtorate security clearance."

Piett, who had taken an opportunity to fortify his nerves with starshine, choked on it. "Did you--did you just bet your wife's Imperial operative codes?"

Skywalker shrugged the shrug of someone who knows his ex-assassin wife is several hundred lightyears away from his jugular. "I live on the edge."

Piett shook his head, but Solo grinned like a krakana, leaning casually forward on one forearm. "Too bad for you you're still an easy read, kid."

And he rolled Vader's lightsaber forward.

Skywalker whistled silently and sat back, gaze traveling to Piett, who stared at his hand with the expression of a man trying to decide whether to grab the ticking thermal detonator and attempt to dispose of it, or just run like hell. "You do realize," he told Solo, "he's almost certainly going to kill you?"

"Gotta match the stakes," said Solo. "Besides, it ain't a game of Rebel sabacc until you bet your neck."

Piett eyed him an instant longer, pressed his lips into a thin line, and tossed his cards in. How these maniacs had lasted even two weeks during the war would forever escape him--

Something crashed against the other side of the sealed stellarium door. All three men jumped; then Solo bolted towards the hatch, cards scattering as he snatched the lightsaber off the table. Skywalker caught his elbow. "Han--don't. It's all right."

"Yeah, sure!" Solo barked. "They're probably just playing Daddy-Daughter smashball in there!"

"She needs to do this. Like I needed to."

"Wonderful! That really sets my mind at ease!" Solo's face contorted in his trademark exaggerated delight. "How 'bout we have her stick a fork in a power socket too, just so she gets the full experience? Unless Old Raisinface plans on popping the casket next."

He stuck a thumb over his shoulder at the bulkhead. Piett tried to ignore the way the portrait of the Emperor suddenly seemed to be scowling in his direction.

"Han, if she's throwing things at him, it's a good sign. Otherwise you two would be divorced by now." Skywalker clapped Solo on the shoulder and sat back down. Solo had enough faith in the Jedi's sixth sense to refrain from charging the door again, but the spell of the game had been broken and he stayed on the balls of his feet, thumb on the saber's ignition key and one eye hanging on the hatch.

"How do you know it's her throwing things at him?"

"Because Lord Vader doesn't have to," Piett told him.

Solo huffed. "Are you his admiral or his publicity manager?"

"I'm the man who has stayed on his good side for twenty-eight years," said Piett. "You managed…about two seconds, wasn't it?"

"Two seconds?" Solo looked affronted. "I'm a hell of a lot faster draw than that."

"My point precisely, Captain."

Solo leaned in, a beaming sun of sarcasm. "It's General, actually."

"My profound apologies. The Rebellion must have been harder up for senior officers than I thought."

Solo started to bluster, but at that moment the stellarium door cycled open and the conversation was interrupted by the dulcet tones of a Chief of State in high dudgeon.

"--wouldn't know a constitutional precedent if it kicked you in the codpiece!" The Princess fumed through, Vader looming on her heels a moment later. Piett instinctively leapt to his feet and backed up a step in response to his highly developed sense of self-preservation; Solo, on the other hand, took two steps closer. Either the bravest husband or the brashest idiot this side of Corellia; Piett's money was on the latter. The imperturbable Skywalker stayed where he was and raised an eyebrow at his father.

"Tell me again how I'm the disrespectful one?"

"You both are," Vader grunted, with no particular malice. Piett noticed his gaze still trailing after the Princess as she stalked over to the bar, shoved Piett out of the way with a scowl--ye gods, if looks could kill hers would be a Death Star--and snatched a bottle from behind the counter. The next moment she flung a hand to her throat, eyes watering.

"What is this, Echo Base vintage?"

"Don't worry," said Skywalker, "your taste buds go numb after the first shot or two."

Vader's mask spun from daughter to son. "How is this a reason not to worry?"

The Princess, ignoring him, took another swig. "Ah. You're right."

"I do not think you should--" Vader began.

"You," said the Princess sweetly, "can stay the hells out of it." She tipped the bottle back again, but a moment later slammed it down on the bar. "Kriff that is awful."

"Brings back memories, don't it, Your Worshipfulness?" Solo had joined her by the bar. "Course, we got Darth Nostalgia here for that." He fired his maddening lopsided smirk at Vader.

"If you wish to revisit the past I would be happy to oblige you more thoroughly on the detention level, Solo."

"Tempting, but"--Solo wrapped a possessive arm around the Princess and leaned back on his elbow against the bar--"I don't think you want to tick off my wife quite that much. Gonna have to come to grips with the situation, Pops."

Vader, with nothing but a flex of his right hand, contrived to suggest that the aspect of the situation he most wished to grip was Solo's throat. A shade of alarm intruded on the Princess' face. "Easy on the swagger, nerfherder." She wove her arm around his back, pulling herself in against him more closely. "I'm not interested in raising three kids on my own."

"Want to find a cabin and shoot for four?" Before Vader could even bristle, Solo dipped her in one arm and swooped in for the longest, loudest tongue-writhing that had ever disgraced this ship. Piett looked away with a disgusted noise.

Vader loomed over his son. "I hold you responsible for this."

"Me? What did I do?"

"You are her brother. You should have protected her from being seduced by such a disreputable oaf."

Skywalker winced. The Princess, still lip-locked with the oaf in question, burst out laughing as Solo hauled her back upright, purple with wrath. "Who died and made you the galaxy's marriage expert?"

Vader flicked a finger. His lightsaber ripped itself out of Solo's hand, spun around in midair, and hovered within what would be striking range the instant the blade ignited. "Are you volunteering, Solo?"

Solo's hand darted for his blaster, but it was still on his wife's hip and she had too much common sense to draw it, so his gaze turned to Skywalker--who wasn't even watching. The Jedi had gone back to studying the remains of the last hand of cards as if all was well with the world. "Some backup you are, kid," Solo growled, and Piett couldn't fault him.

Skywalker made a slight gesture. The weapon arced backwards and re-hooked itself to Vader's belt.

"What are you, nuts? Why'd you give it back to him?"

"You already lost it." Skywalker pointed to the cards he had laid out. His triple Princes had outscored Solo's Royal Wedding by two points. Piett hoped to the stars Vader wouldn't bother to wonder what the connection was between his lightsaber and a game of sabacc. "What are you going to do with a lightsaber anyway?"

Solo eyed it with regret. "They make great arc-welders."

"They make better guillotines," Vader thundered, turning towards the door.

"Always gotta have the last word, don't you?" Solo bellowed after him.

Vader spun, forefinger locked and loaded. "There are plenty of ways to ensure that you do not, Captain. Do not tempt me to demonstrate them."

"General," drawled his son-in-law.

"What?"

"It's General Solo."

Vader stared at him for a full cycle of the respirator before his gaze traveled to the Princess. "Tell me, Princess, do I have Bail Organa to thank for teaching you such execrable judgment in life partners?"

"Hardly," purred the Princess. "I inherited that from my mother."

Skywalker abruptly had a coughing fit into the sleeve of his robe; for which Piett was grateful, as it distracted Vader from his similarly afflicted admiral.

...

tbc

 

Have to ask, what are the rules for Rebel-style sabacc?

 

Priceless, perfect glorious snark. You can tell this family is totally related to one another.

 

Welcome back frodogenic and thanks for giving me a hysterical fit of laughter! Sabacc with Rebel rules... oh man. I just re-read the whole thing and I laughed just as much as the first time.

And poor Piett, who is sitting there slightly overwhelmed as Luke and Han one-up each other, and then Vader and Leia come out and it gets worse... Not that he doesn't throw a few priceless replies himself, "I'm the man who has stayed on his good side for twenty-eight years" comes to mind.

And Vader... oh, poor Vader. I almost pity him here. Getting outwitted by his children and son-in-law at every turn. That must be hard to swallow, after having spent 25 years trying to go back to being the galaxy's most feared figure. I think the moment Han called him "pops" did him in.

I hope DRL gives you a break from work! Thanks for updating, and I'll definitely be around next time you post!

 

1. You may not bet with currency of any form.
2. Value of betting materials is determined based on the following factors: rarity, nostalgia (scrap of old flag), difficulty of acquisition (card with two Face Loran autographs), recreational value (whiskey, hotel certificate), degree to which it empowers the possessor to aggravate the Empire (Emperor's portrait), leverage potential over fellow members of the Rebellion (Mara's recording), and most importantly the degree of risk the player assumes by betting it (Mara's codes, Vader's lightsaber).
3. Jedi Masters most definitely cheat at sabacc.
4. Let the Wookiee win.

 

Heh, yes, I may be relying heavily on personal experience when it comes to snark

 

*bows* Glad you had fun! Hah, yes, Vader barely knows what's hit him already, and it's only getting worse from here. *cue maniacal laughter* Piett, fortunately, is a more flexible sort of person, so there may be hope for him in adjusting to crazy Skywalkers.

Rebel sabacc was a fun invention. I reckoned that there isn't a lot of money in the insurrection business, so the Rebels probably would have had to develop a different betting system during the war, and--voila.

Yes, there is a light at the end of the DRL tunnel, I think. Come October I will transition to working one job full time. Fewer hours, more stability, able to keep my brain all in one place; looking forward to that!

 

May I suggest that you make a post in the Fanon thread about Rebel-style sabacc

 

Outstanding update! I cannot wait for more!

 

This was HILARIOUS!

When does Vader meet Ben?

 

Oh, man. This never fails to make me laugh.

And if Piett ever gets married, he will be the most whipped husband in the galaxy. Because twenty-eight years with Darth Vader would probably turn anybody into a yes-man.

 

This is easily the most entertaining fic I've read. Please let me know when there's an update.

 

Dude, I did not even know there WAS a fanon thread. Where's it at?

 

An author never tells.

 

You know, I always envisioned him as a lifelong bachelor, but this, this has freaking potential. For starters, OBVIOUSLY he'd have his wedding on the Executor...and guess who'd have to officiate?

 

Glad you like it! Update is going up shortly.

 

A/N: A quick note about the setting for this chapter--I am an Army brat emeritus. US military bases and ships have non-denominational chapels, designed so that they can be quickly adjusted to accommodate any major religion or religious denomination. Ages back when I was writing another fic, the passing thought came to me that the Executor probably would have had such a chapel on board.

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CHAPTER 5

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Piett slipped inside the hush of the shipboard chapel gratefully. Given the range of religious creeds that were likely to be represented by a crew of three hundred thousand, the designers had had to be creative. The spaced projection nodes on the walls could be configured to the iconographies of over a million belief systems, and in combination with an elaborate set of localized gravity generators could also project opaque "bulkheads" to shape the interior space into whatever form a particular gathering preferred – circular, pyramidal, spherical, dodecahedral, even the tri-dimensional zero-gravity Enlightenment Maze stipulated by the Fourth Post-Beejian Sanctum of Souls. For Piett it had always been a refuge from the pressures of his command, whether Vader's homicidal rages of yore or the torments of survival in the Unknown Regions.

Today it represented a much-needed escape from the Skywalker clan. It had been about two standard days since the Falcon's arrival. That was forty-seven hours more than he needed to realize that while sharing a ship with Vader was trial enough for any man, sharing one with Vader and his daughter – even one the size of Executor – was purgatory.

The lights were set to dim, and the room was in meditation phase, configured into comfortable seats lining the bulkheads and calm symphonic music misting from hidden speakers. The projectors cast stylized white flowers on the walls, intertwined with some flowing ancient script he couldn't begin to read. He had never seen this particular mode, but it could not have been better calculated to soothe his fraying nerves. Piett lowered himself into a seat out of sight of the hatch and closed his eyes, absorbing peace into his aching frame. There was a scent of incense in the air.

Belatedly, he realized this had to mean someone else was here.

He opened his eyes and spotted a partition towards the front. Further circumspect investigation revealed the resentment-inducing form of the Princess, cross-legged on a plain square of carpet and lighting a series of tapers in a sand-filled tray on the floor in front of her. Half an hour's freedom from the crucible had been all he wanted, and the blasted woman had to interfere even with that –

The next moment his petulance failed him; it had occurred to him why he had never seen the chapel configured this way before. There were, of course, no Alderaanians in Lord Vader's crew.

"You needn't leave." Her soft alto stopped him as he turned to go.

"I don't wish to intrude on your privacy, Your Highness."

"Please, don't consider it an intrusion."

So the she-nexu has sheathed her claws for a change. Wonders never cease. He folded his hands behind his back and approached, reminding himself that this was a person whose bad side he could afford to be on even less than Vader's. "I didn't expect to meet you here, Your Highness. I assumed you shared your family's religion."

"I do," said the Princess. He watched her light another taper of incense, murmuring a musical prayer in an ancient language that – the thought struck him suddenly – was likely to die with her generation.

"I meant the – Jedi beliefs of your brother."

"Being a Jedi isn't a religion, Admiral." The long-shafted vesta in her hand traced a wavering symbol in the air in front of the new-lit taper.

"Well," he said awkwardly, "I have only observations of Lord Vader for my information." Vader was a one-man Inquisition; benighted souls who questioned the existence of the Force in his hearing got catechized instantly and never forgot it.

She paused, lit the next taper, and said, "He's a Sith Lord. If being a Jedi were a religion, he would count as a heretic."

Her calm surprised him. She had spent the past two days erupting with volcanic violence and unpredictability, and Piett had concluded, darkly, that she was her father's daughter – but as the ghostly echoes of Alderaan now reminded him, she had resounding reasons for being short-tempered at the moment. If he had woken up one morning to the news that his estranged father, a domineering sorcerer who had personally tortured him and authorized the destruction of his entire planet, had reappeared from the netherworld after twenty-five years, he might not react with much restraint either.

"Pardon my ignorance," Piett ventured after watching for a few more minutes. "But is there much difference?" She stared at him, incredulous, and he added defensively, "From the outside, they look very much alike. All mystic meditation and lightsabers and arcane wizardry and what have you."

"This is the difference." She blew out the match.

"I see," lied Piett.

She wasn't fooled. "Or, as Han likes to say, Sith are homicidal and Jedi are only suicidal."

In spite of all his disdain for the Princess' crude Corellian, Piett chuckled. "An apt description. Your husband has a most singular manner of expressing himself."

"And quite a way with people, too." The Princess sat back, twirling the snuffed match between her fingers. She favored him with a smile that, for once, did not
mean if you say one more word I'll rip your arms off. "My aunts would have had coronaries if they'd met him."

"How many aunts?"

"Three, on Baba's side. They were determined to make a proper princess of me if it killed them." Her smile faded. "I suppose in the end it did."

Her gaze fell back to the incense tapers, watching the flames consume them.

"Memorial prayers," she said after a minute. "I…needed to go home for a little while."

"I know the feeling, Your Highness. I haven't been home to Axxila in nearly thirty years."

"You'll be back soon."

Her wide soulful eyes studied the dead head of the match. Old chasm-deep grief rolled out from her, as palpable as her hair-trigger temper had been for the past two days. You just choose the best conversation topics, Piett growled at himself, don't you, you idiot. All those years in the Unknown Regions, at least he'd had the comfort of knowing that home was out there somewhere – that the possibility of sitting down to a midnight snack with his nephew, seeing again the view from his childhood bedroom window, walking down Essker Street, leaning on the fence around his old school for a good long reminiscence, and getting a cup of spiced touri at the café down the corner from his grandmother's house existed, even if the odds towered against him. The scope of what the Empire had taken from the orphans of Alderaan staggered him suddenly.

"I'm afraid that must depend on the outcome of your negotiations with Lord Vader," he murmured. His present train of thought had not inspired much hope that said outcome would be positive.

The dead match kept turning between her fingers. Finally she murmured, "I'd be doing the galaxy a favor if I just shot him."

From someone other than the commander-in-chief of the New Republic Defense Force, this would have been a laughable notion; but Piett kneaded his fingers, imagining the Guardian and Sixth Fleet descending on Eriadu on a tide of scarlet death, dissolving the inconvenient Executor into a cloud of twinkling, dissipating vapor. "Would you, really?"

She traced the blackened head of the match with her thumb. "You and Luke are the only two people who'd miss him. I guarantee it."

If only he could argue that point. "Perhaps, but – "

"But what?"

In her monotone he heard the thudding accusation of too many atrocities to count, and struggled against it to collect his thoughts. This might be his only chance to make their case to the only person in the galaxy who could give him and his men their lives back. But what was the case? It wasn't as if he could claim with a straight face that serving under Lord Vader had been an uninhibited pleasure. And all his reasons for serving, all the good he'd believed the Empire capable of, seemed fiber-thin in the face of what she had suffered at its hands. "I can't justify some of the things he did in the Emperor's name. But it was the Emperor who – "

"He stood behind me when Tarkin gave the order to fire on Alderaan." She stamped out each word like a hydraulic press. "He watched two billion people die without lifting a finger. And you want me to excuse that on the grounds that he was following orders?"

He swallowed, half-expecting the ghost of Lorth Needa to materialize and lend its spectral weight to the Princess' case. Ozzel had deserved what he got, but Needa? It had been murder, pure and simple – and gods, how Vader had enjoyed it. He'd taken his time, actually stopped short four times and prodded Needa to apologize again, as if this time he might forgive what should never have been a crime in the first place. And at the end, when he finally tired of the game, that sickening courtesy that was all the more nauseating because none of them had known before that Vader could sound charming when he was in the mood for it: Apology accepted, Captain Needa.

Piett shut his eyes, trying to banish the ghost. "I do not intend to offer a defense for actions which were indefensible, but – "

"No. Instead you're asking for mercy where there should be justice."

"Perhaps I am," Piett bit out. Diplomacy be damned; she didn't have a monopoly on suffering, after all, she didn't understand what it was like to spend three decades trying to live with a man who cheered himself up by murdering people. He'd earned a little mercy, blast it all! "But I have three hundred thousand crewmen to consider. Their fate will likely depend on his. Since I doubt that Lord Vader will try to defend himself, that responsibility falls on me."

She closed her eyes, her mouth pinched shut. Her fingertips went white on the match, threatening to break it in half. "No," she said after a long time. "No, he didn't."

Piett's indignation vanished in a surge of foreboding. "What do you mean he didn't?"

"In the stellarium." She was close to losing control now, fighting on in jolts. "He told me to shoot. If I wanted to." A low, rasping laugh jerked out from her. "Do you know what it's like to want to kill your own father?"

It was the first time he'd heard her use the word father in reference to Vader. He wished he knew whether it was a good sign or a bad one. "No," he said stiffly. "I don't."

She stared at her hands, fresh anger twisting on her face. "The worst of it is I thought I'd finally forgiven him. But the moment he said that I had the blaster out." The match bowed further in her still-white fingers, a whisper of pressure away from snapping. "I wanted to pull that trigger as much as I would have on the Death Star."

"Like no time had passed at all," Piett murmured to his boots. "I know how you feel."

"Oh?" She raised an eyebrow with a sudden flicker of black humor. "Are you in line to kill him too?"

"No," Piett said instantly – a spinal reflex, but an honest answer all the same. "But I felt a little the same way when your brother arrived."

"And what exactly did Luke ever do to you?"

"It was more a ripple effect, if you will. Lord Vader – " Piett belatedly realized that going into the details wouldn't do his present agenda any favors. "Lord Vader was very...difficult to please while we were searching for him," he amended. "We've come a long way together since then, and I can understand the sense of accomplishment that comes with laying old demons to rest. But as I found out when your brother showed up the other week, they have ways of resurrecting when we least expect them…"

He trailed off pensively, thoughts straying to all those horrible moments, Lorth Needa most especially, and to what the Princess had just told him. That Vader might feel remorse for any of the lives he'd destroyed was…a strange thought. Not in his wildest flights of fancy had Piett indulged such a notion. He had trained himself not to expect miracles, not to dream of real justice; Darth Vader answered to no one but their indifferent Emperor, and then there wasn't even an Emperor, so mere survival had become the summit of Piett's hopes.

But it turned out there was somebody who could and would hold Darth Vader accountable for his actions…Vader himself. Piett shook his head slowly. Who would have believed there was still a man's conscience buried in that black-hearted hulk –

– Skywalker. Skywalker had believed it – that day on Endor, he must have.

But how? Piett, like the Princess, could hardly wrap his mind around it when the evidence was shoved in his face – yet Skywalker had somehow found faith enough to gamble his life on it when there was no evidence at all. He'd looked Piett's brand of pragmatic survivalism in the eye and scorned it, preferring instead to risk body and soul on a one-in-a-million chance of winning over someone so entrenched in hate and guilt he'd murdered his own officers and written off entire Star Destroyers with nary a shrug, just so he could get close enough to his own son to maim him.

Neither Piett nor the Princess came naturally by such complete self-abandonment. At bottom, in their own ways, they were both survivors, like Vader himself…but in the reverent hush of the chapel, contemplating the kind of love that could strike an Empire to its knees with a few words, Piett suddenly felt the inferiority of survival. As Vader must have, that day over the forest moon.

He shook himself out of his reverie and found the Princess was watching him keenly. "Well. Just because our ghosts catch up with us every now and then doesn't negate the progress we've made. You didn't shoot him, after all."

"I haven't shot him yet," she said. "He made it clear it was a standing offer." She smiled bitterly at his horrified expression. "What do you think of that, Admiral? Rather outside his usual modus operandi, isn't it?"

Piett looked at his boots again. Redemption, he supposed, was the word for what had left Vader so altered after Endor – but redemption required remorse, and all the guilt and grief that came with it. He wouldn't be in Vader's boots for the galaxy. "I think that for a father to live with the knowledge of having hurt his own child as much as he has hurt you must be a worse punishment than anyone else could lay on him."

She stared for a moment, before laughing again and turning back toward the flickering incense. "As flattering as that would be, there are plenty of indifferent fathers in this universe."

"Indifferent?" He shook his head. "Your Highness, I watched him do everything short of spin the galaxy backwards with his bare hands to find your brother. If he'd known, he'd have done the same for you. That much I know."

She closed her eyes, but the tears sliced free anyway, down over jaw muscles clenched in a rictus of pain, and Piett felt her need to be alone again. He had said as much as he could say, anyway. "I won't disturb you any longer," he murmured.

At the hatch, though, he paused for one last glance, and saw her hold the match to the flame of an incense taper until it relit.

...

tbc

 

Amazing conversation & definitely intricate emotions on each side.

 

Whoa. That was..... Whoa.

 

Your latest updates really leave me speechless. Such fun characterisations and even greater conversations with philosophical depths!

I hope the new job with full hours will give you more peace of mind & quality time to wrote more amazing stuff like this.

 

Here http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...on-7-29-zoos-aquariums-nature-parks.50024318/

 

Superb. Can't wait for more!

 

Wow. I came here expecting to get my fix of hysterical laughter, and while I didn't get that, I'm not disappointed at all with what I found.

I love how you're developing Piett's character in this story, whether he's completely baffled by the SkySolos' antics or deeply understanding what they're going through – because even in the fun of the previous chapters, you did a great job at showing that he's actually very perceptive, very sensitive and, well, very human. And having read this latest entry, of course he was the right person to listen to Leia in these circumstances. He may be on "the other side" with everything that implies, but he's still the person in the galaxy who knows Vader best and he's therefore best placed to explain his actions and feelings... but also to reinterpret things he has witnessed. A lot must make sense to him now, when he remembers Needa's murder and then Vader's drive to find Luke in the same sentence.