EMPIRE'S SON

Pax Blank

PROLOGUE

It came out of hyperspace in a blaze of color and power, the accompanying contingent of smaller security ships whipping into real-time about it as the small flotilla came to a halt with the kind of pinpoint precision only ever accomplished by the military.

It was Nubian, the new ST12000, a big, sleek yacht designed for the high-end market and every bit as luxurious on the inside as the outside. About it were six small frigates and two fighter wings, everything spotless, as befitted the travelling mode of the Alderaanian Royal Family.

A big contingent, they were firing up sublight engines and closing ranks now that they had their bearings and had synchronized systems again. Unusually large, considering their destiny—though in truth, it was their destiny which had prompted it.

Still, refusing to attend the State Celebration on Coruscant to commemorate seven years of Imperial rule—the planet had now been renamed Imperial Center in the Emperor's effort to claim it, though no one referred to it as such privately—was not an option, even for Bail Organa, ruler of Alderaan and its representative in the Imperial Senate. Or rather, what was left of the Senate seven years after Supreme Chancellor Palpatine had taken the Chair and declared himself Emperor in an overwhelming, lightening-fast coup.

Bail, and therefore Alderaan, had been on the wrong side of that coup but had survived, if only because the upheaval in those first few years had necessitated a certain leeway for those in the public eye.

But such allowances were long gone now as the Emperor gained ever tighter control, and Bail knew full well he had to hide his dissent from prying eyes or end up a near-pariah, like Mon Mothma, long his advocate in the Old Republic's Senate.

And he had other reasons to be anxious too, as the glowing orb of Coruscant came slowly into view on the bridge of the yacht—reasons far closer to home and heart.

Fifteen stories below, the door to the sumptuous living quarters slid smoothly back into its cavity, turning Queen Breha's head toward it as a small model of an Alderaanian zero-g fighter was guided in at stomach height to an accompanying 'vrrrrrrr' of engine noise, the small boy who held it before him now beginning a slow pass of the room, trailing the toy along the walls, one eye closed.

On its path, the small toy made a brief detour to trail across the surface of a low table scattered with colored pencils and creased, smudged pictures, every one of which Breha would keep to pin in bright drifts across the walls of his room, always the proud parent, encouraging her son endlessly in this, as everything else.

"What do you have there?" Breha asked, smiling indulgently to hide her unease before her son as he continued his circuit, his mop of blond curls and round apple cheeks all that were visible with his head tilted in applied concentration as he continued his loop, answering absently without looking up.

"This is a fighter—my fighter. I'm the pilot flying the fastest ship in the galaxy."

"And who gave you that?" Breha smiled.

"Captain Antilles," the boy said, of Breha's second cousin and loyal family retainer, always close to hand.

Though even Raymus Antilles didn't know the truth about Luke's heritage—even that was too much of a risk to take. As, in Breha's mind, was bringing her son here to the Imperial Court, even if only for a few days. But the 'invitation' had been very specific: the Alderaanian Royal House was commanded to attend the three-day celebrations to mark seven years of Imperial rule.

Seven years—the boy's lifetime. Knowledge of that only made Breha more uneasy, but she hid it before her son, for his sake. "And where are you flying to, little pilot?"

"Home," he said absently. "At a hundred thousand million clicks—faster."

"Faster than that?" she asked indulgently, wondering whether he had picked up on the nerves of herself and her husband anyway. He'd slept only fitfully for the last few nights of their journey, though generally he loved being on the yacht.

"But you've not even seen Coruscant yet, little pilot. Don't you want to see the center of the Empire?"

He shook his head decisively, slowing to a stop, big blue eyes still on the toy in his hand. "It's all…shadows and tangles," he said without looking, clearly struggling to put into words the thoughts in his head. "Like a forest at night."

His mother stilled, unsettled, before smiling again, her voice brittle. "Forests are beautiful places, Luke, even at night. Enchanted; full of fairies and sprites."

"And monsters and ogres," he muttered, still without looking.

As the slow turn of the yacht brought the majestic phenomenon of the ecumenopolis of Coruscant into view at the edge of the room's viewpane, Breha set forward and took her son's hand in hope of dispelling his reluctance, feeling the slight pull as he resisted.

"Look—look, here it is now. See how beautiful it is? It's never dark on Coruscant, Luke. Look at all the lights!"

"Look at all the shadows in between." He pulled back against his mother's hand, uncharacteristically reluctant, his usual bright anticipation at seeing any new planet completely quashed. "I don't like it."

Normally he was bouncing off the walls with excitement at this point in any journey, dashing between the Bridge and the exit ramp, whipping himself up into a whirlwind of animated enthusiasm. Was this just a childish mood, or something deeper?

"Luke, how can you not like it, you haven't been there yet." Breha crouched down to wrap her arm about him, giving him a slight squeeze as he leaned into her comforting presence, reassured as only a child in the arms of his mother could feel.

"It's…shadows," he repeated inarticulately, leaning into the curve of her neck as he wrapped an arm about her. "Shadows and tangles."

The Royal yacht came to rest on the black-slabbed landing platform of the near-completed Imperial Palace, a huge, hulking ziggurat whose massive, angled walls of blue-gray stone stood a mile square at their base, casting deep, far-reaching shadows in the evening light. Hunched upon the brooding bulk of the main building, a second stage of near-equal proportions rose skyward in angled banks so vast that they seemed absolutely without scale. Only the vague lines of endless scaffold from which construction droids worked day and night gave any true sense of the whole structure's immense scale.

Built to awe rather than inspire, its daunting magnificence declared the unassailable supremacy of the new Empire...and absolute power of its Emperor. 

Glancing out across the bleak austerity of its imposing grandeur, Bail Organa, Viceroy of Alderaan, steeled himself for the days ahead. The ramp had lowered to face eight parade-ground rows of white Imperial armor, lined with just one narrow row of familiar chalcedony-blue, the livery of House Organa. Bail glanced to his son, brought to the entrance ramp by Breha, her worries hidden with iron will behind her sweet, serene face.

"Three days, Luke, that's all," he assured, unsettled by Luke's solemn silence—though in truth, he didn't know whether he was seeking to reassure his son, his wife, or himself.

The usual formal pleasantries were exchanged with the Emperor's representatives—the man himself was seldom seen, even here—before Imperial pilots boarded the yacht to remove it to a more remote site, 'due to the number of vessels attending the celebration,' of course.

Which meant that now they were effectively stranded in the Palace, just like every other dignitary here. Even without an appearance, their glorious Emperor was adept at reducing the most influential of figures to precarious vulnerability in the name of palace protocol.

And so the endless tirade of functions and festivities began, a show of Imperial solidarity before a deeply wary public, all empty smiles and nervous glances, nobody daring to speak the truth and have the Empire's wrath turned on their planet—those who were even allowed to attend.

The Emperor had long since stopped bothering to court any non-human species, going as far as to turn a blind eye to the outrageous exploitation of many on Rim worlds which fell nothing short of slavery. Bail had long been a critic of Imperial policies in this, but it had achieved little other than to gain Alderaan a reputation as recalcitrant and fractious. Neither Bail nor Breha regretted their stands in the name of democracy, though as time passed they had both become aware of just how dangerous such dissent was becoming, particularly with a young son to protect.

So here, now, they conspired to have Luke remain always in the apartments which had been supplied to the Alderaanian Royal House within the Imperial Palace for the duration of the functions, desperate to protect him. To have refused to bring him would have only drawn attention to the boy—better to keep him hidden in plain view, hoping that the Emperor's legendary dislike of children would mean that although they had followed to the letter the command to attend, they would not need to expose him to any more danger than necessary.

The fact that Darth Vader, Palpatine's henchman and more importantly, a Force-sensitive, was not attending the event had been an indescribable relief to himself and his wife; both knew that the son they raised as their own was the product of an illicit union between a long-dead Jedi and a fellow Senator whom Bail had known well and missed deeply, Amidala, the abdicated Queen of Naboo.

When Bail had taken the boy from Kenobi, the Jedi Master had identified the father as his old padawan. Skywalker had been acknowledged by all as a powerful Jedi despite his youth, and it was clearly expected that his son too would be an exceptional Jedi—if they were to train him.

Amidala herself had protected the father's identity to the grave, aware of the gravity of their transgression; Jedi were strongly discouraged from making any emotional attachment, Bail knew, due to the ties, ambiguities and distractions it caused. Children in particular were strictly censured. It had long been known that the direct offspring of a Jedi tended to contain abnormally elevated levels of midichlorians—a concentration notably higher than the donor parent, inducing an unprecedented connection to the Force in all its facets.

As such they were considered inherently unstable, their attuned abilities too great to control, generally thought to be a high risk to train as opposed to those with natural, spontaneously occurring Force sensitivity. Though there had not been such an individual for generations, Bail had heard whispers that the last unfortunate was secreted away by the Jedi and spent her entire life interned within the confines of the Jedi Temple, certainly never ill-treated, but constantly constrained, her every action monitored by the Council. Who would want such a stifling fate for their child, even with the best of intentions of a greater good?

Even if she were alive, Amidala's son—one of twins—would still be in mortal danger in the new Empire simply by virtue of lineage; Jedi were now considered enemies of the state subject to summary execution, and in the weeks following the coup it had become sickeningly clear that this edict applied to any and all Force-sensitives, regardless of age and training. It was telling indeed that the first act of the new Empire had been the total genocide of a unique race, accomplished with cold precision and unconditional prejudice.

Bringing his adopted son to Coruscant then, had been a daunting prospect for Bail—far more so if Lord Vader had been stalking the halls of the Imperial Palace.

Highly placed in the Emperor's Court, Vader had been charged with the annihilation of all Jedi and had followed this command with legendary zeal. The surviving Jedi whom Bail had occasionally helped to avoid Imperial 'justice' had all claimed that Vader was Force-sensitive, perhaps even a fallen Jedi—the reason for his unprecedented ability to track and single out remaining Jedi.

Though none knew the history of Bail's adopted son, many of these fugitives had realized very quickly when in his company that the boy was Force-sensitive, all turning to Bail with somber, regretful eyes and warning to keep the boy hidden. Master Yoda, who had been present when Kenobi had first handed the newly born Luke over to Bail, had cautioned in solemn, serious tones that the boy must remain safely distant from Coruscant until he was old enough to be brought to Yoda by Master Kenobi for training.

His late father had been an incredibly powerful Jedi, only just finding his feet as the galaxy about him crumbled, still testing his limits when the coup had been launched. It had always been accepted that Anakin Skywalker was different; that he had, in some way, a destiny to fulfill linked with the old prophesies from the Journal of the Whills. When this did not happen, it was Anakin's son on whom anticipation of the prophecy fell.

Exactly what happened to him following Palpatine's coup no one seemed willing to say, though Bail had an idea that his Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, knew the truth. Presumably he had fought and fallen alongside his fellow Jedi, despite his exceptional ability.

Because of his father's aptitude, it had often been implied that Luke would one day be expected to train as a Jedi—that he would lead the covert Rebellion that Bail had spent years surreptitiously supporting and funding. To have a Jedi—a particularly gifted Jedi—stand at the head of such an army would, he knew, not only be a counter to Vader, but a rallying point for those who needed such icons to follow.

Leia too would be closely watched, they hinted, her own destiny carefully shaped. It was Luke though, on whom both Kenobi and Yoda had seemed to concentrate their expectations.

Such a heavy fate hanging over his son's head filled Bail with dread sometimes, to the point that he occasionally wished that he'd upheld his original choice to take Luke's twin sister instead. But having contacted Breha and talked it through, their decision had changed, and he had not for a single moment regretted taking Luke.

Just six days old when Bail had brought him to Alderaan, hiding Luke's arrival had been so easy in the upheaval of Civil War. Breha had gone into seclusion for a few months, before his 'birth' was announced as if he were the natural child of the Regents. It had necessitated his birth certificate listing Luke as five months younger than his real age, but the boy was small and fine-boned, delicate like his mother, and the discrepancy had never been queried.

And every day—every day he grew a little more; so fast. Already Bail could see the hint of a headstrong, idealistic young man in the spirited, inquisitive child who ran with such buoyant irreverence through the hushed halls of the Alderaanian Royal Palace, upending Court and terrorizing his tutors. His son had become the center of his life—so brimming with eagerness and optimism, with an unstoppable enthusiasm for, and curiosity about, everything.

Bail smiled warmly at that, aware of how often he felt like he was trying to hold on to a whirlwind. So much so, that he worried about taking Luke to the ever-solemn Master Yoda for training when the time came; fretted that his son would run endless hoops around the venerable Jedi and make the poor creature's life one long, head-spinning string of answers to endless questions as to 'why?' and 'how?'.

And just as much, he worried simply that he would miss the boy—that he would miss this tiny tornado of endless energy and boisterous exuberance. Often the only reason that Bail could carry on this distasteful pretense day after day was in the hope that ultimately it would provide a better galaxy for Luke and his whole generation.

Luke had been hidden for so long in plain sight that surely, since Vader—the only known Sith and therefore the only possible threat to Luke's anonymity—would not be in attendance, it would be less obvious to simply brazen out the trip for three short days, they had reasoned.

Three short days… Now that they were here, every one seemed an eternity.

Having attended functions throughout their final day, tired and wired, with plastic smiles frozen on aching faces, Bail and Breha were returning to their apartments to change for the massive State banquet which would be held tonight. Behind them, their honor guard of four Alderaanian troops were closely flanked by two dark-uniformed Palace Guards, but they were far enough back that Bail felt, if not comfortable with their presence, then at least not threatened by it.

This final night of the celebrations would be the first time that the Emperor himself would be attending, a rare personal appearance from the reclusive man who held Court by night and seemed forever reluctant to step into the light of day.

Once again, at Bail's casual request to the Emperor's Adjutant, Saté Pestage, he had been able to excuse his son from the banquet due to his young age, the poor boy having spent the last three days cooped up in the austere, oppressive surroundings of the cavernous, soulless suite of rooms assigned to the Alderaanian Royal House. He'd remained quiet and subdued, somehow knowing not to make a fuss or a noise, not at all the usual bright, excitable seven-year-old Bail knew and loved.

"Almost done," Bail murmured to his wife in reassurance. "One more night and then we're gone."

"And next year?" Breha queried, tiredness audible in her voice.

The celebrations were an annual event and though this was the first time that Luke's age had led to his being included on the invitation, it clearly would be standard from now on. Bail sighed heavily, turning the last corner of the tall, cavernous hallway leading to the sumptuous apartments—

And froze, heart in his mouth.

Eight scarlet-robed Royal Guard stood to smart attention outside the door, the six Alderaanian guards who were presently on watch there eyeing them with wary, helpless stares, everybody tense.

Bail set forward at a near-run, rushing into the apartment and heading for the door before which a further two Royal Guard stood without turning, Pestage, the Emperor's adjutant, in the doorway.

He burst into the room, breathless—

Luke sat on the long, heavy chaise, back very straight, still small enough that his feet were dangling clear of the floor, hands clenched nervously on his lap. Abandoned beside him on the dark, richly brocaded chaise were pencils and paper, a flash of vivid color in the unrelentingly gloomy chamber. His pale blue eyes turned anxiously to his father as Bail stepped forward and though he clearly wanted to run to Bail he held his place, frozen to tense immobility.

Opposite him, dressed in heavy black robes and a claret-colored cowl, sat the Emperor.

He turned, pale yellow eyes regarding Bail with arrogant amusement, his thin, reedy voice grating up Bail's spine. "Ah, Senator Organa. You have an intriguing son—quite captivating."

For several seconds Bail could only stare, voiceless, hearing his wife rush into the room behind him, hearing the slight inarticulate sound, half-shock, half-fear, escape the back of her throat—

Then he gathered his wits and bowed deeply to cover his unease. "Your Majesty, this is an unexpected honor."

"Really? Unexpected?" There was a note of dry derision in the Emperor's tone as he stood in a rustle of raven robes and Bail remained silent, afraid that anything he did would condemn his son, terrified his own guilt would be written over his face despite years of political expertise.

He knows nothing—how could he, without Vader? Stop panicking and think!

"Forgive me, Your Majesty; you have met my wife, Queen Breha, of the House Antilles. And this is our son, Luke." As he spoke, Bail reached out his hand in invitation but Luke remained frozen, hands together, small fingers tightly laced.

"We have been speaking, your son and I," the Emperor said, turning to the boy as he ignored Bail's words completely. "It seems we have a great deal in common. And Saté tells me that you have kept the poor child cooped up in these apartments since your arrival, Viceroy."

"At your indulgence, Your Majesty, I feel he is perhaps a little young to…"

"Nonsense," Palpatine dismissed without allowing Bail to finish. "The sooner a child learns his place in the galaxy, the sooner he will settle, don't you agree?" The last was issued with permasteel behind it, Palpatine already turning away, a response neither expected nor encouraged.

He looked to the young child, who withered back, eyes wide as the Emperor rose, casting a dark shadow across him. "Come, boy. I will show you my Empire—and I will tell you your place in it."

Luke glanced to his father in alarm, looking for assistance, but Palpatine spoke out before Bail could reason a reply. "Your parents must make ready for the banquet tonight. I will take you to the roof and show you the Oval, the building they will travel to, less than a mile from here in the grounds of my Palace."

When Luke still didn't move the Emperor's voice came sharper, twisting like a knife in Bail's knotted stomach. "Stand up!"

"It's all right, Luke," Bail assured quickly, trying hard to hide the fear in his voice, hearing the pounding of his heart in his breath. "It's fine, really. You can go—we'll be right here. It's fine."

Palpatine smiled a death's-head grin, spoiled teeth against wan flesh. "You can watch your parents' speeder leave, on its way to the Oval. Wave them goodbye."

Luke lowered his dangling feet down from the massive chaise, blond curls bobbing as he stood uncertainly, hands clasped to his chest. He was desperately scared and clearly aware of the tense atmosphere in the room, of the fear rolling off his father and the overwhelming confidence of the dark-dressed man with the yellow eyes.

He took a quarter-step forward, eyes to his father…

A pale, withered hand reached out from the Emperor's black robes, long fingers bone-white, nails curving to yellowed claws. "Give me your hand, child."

Both Bail and Breha remained somehow upright as their son reached tremulously out, his small, delicate hand engulfed by the Emperor's, the action both controlling and claiming in the same moment.

And what could they do but stand aside as Palpatine set forward, Luke reaching out as he passed his mother to trail the tips of his fingers across her powder-blue gown, the two Royal Guard at the doorway falling into place behind their son as he glanced back through their ranks, pulled reluctantly forward by the man who held him now.

The Emperor paused imperceptibly, eyes meeting Saté's, who lowered his gaze in a half-nod of acknowledgement.

As they turned the last corner out of the apartments Bail reached out to grab his wife, who had set forward with a broken cry. Holding her to himself, he whispered reassurances he wished he believed. "It's all right—it's all right, Breha. He'll be back within the hour. He'll be fine. He'll be fine if we can just brazen this out."

He steered her firmly away, trying not to make a scene before the eight Red Guard who had remained at the doorway to the apartment, knowing it would only endanger their son further. The Emperor knew nothing—without Vader's Force sensitivity he had no reason to suspect Luke of being anything more than he seemed: Bail and Breha's son. This was simply a power game, a chastisement for Luke's non-attendance during the last few days' official events, probably pointed out by Pestage.

Still, it had brought home to Bail his son's vulnerability here and he simply couldn't risk Palpatine's further interest. With hushed encouragement he walked his wife through to the dressing rooms where their somber, dark evening clothes were laid out ready, motioning for Captain Antilles to follow.

Breha collapsed down onto a chair, trembling hands to her mouth, torn inside by the sight of her son being led away. Bail was barely able to console her, himself still struck by the memory of Luke's eyes, wide with fear and confusion as to why his father would tell him to go—would let the stranger take him.

As Captain Antilles leaned in, Bail whispered, "We need to smuggle Luke off-planet tonight—quickly and quietly, the moment he gets back. Get him to one of the Corvettes and hit lightspeed. Don't return to Alderaan—go to Tatooine. Find Kenobi."

Captain Antilles nodded without blinking, though he did think to ask one more question, glancing to his cousin Breha. "Yourself and the Queen, Sir?"

Bail blinked, not having thought any further than his son's safety; in removing Luke they condemned themselves too, but the alternatives were too horrific to consider.

His whole life, his plans—for his son, for his wife, for his people—everything was turned upside down in an instant…but the sight of Luke's hand as Palpatine's had engulfed it, of the fear in his son's eyes, was burned into Bail's thoughts.

"We'll get out as soon as you send a comm confirming that Luke is off-planet. We'll go immediately after the State Banquet, but we need to brazen this out until then or they'll suspect something. Make preparations with the guards—we'll commandeer the transport which brings us back to the Palace and go straight to the landing platform. Be sure there's a transport prepped and tell the yacht to make ready to run—quietly."

Raymus Antilles nodded briskly and left, mind already racing with what needed to be done.

He was in the turbolift, thoughts on tactics and timings, when the scarlet-robed Royal Guard who had remained outside the Organas' apartment turned to enter, intent on carrying out the Emperor's commands to the letter.

Luke stood on a high, open balcony near the top of the daunting bulk of the Imperial Palace, its dim, faceted sides scaling endless stories before trailing into open pipework and scaffold which stretched up into the cold pitch of night, the tiny lights of construction droids weaving in and out of the hulking construction far above. Staring along its vast, open structure, a stray memory burst with absolute clarity for Luke, sending an involuntary shiver up his spine: that of a dead kobuck he'd come across that spring in the open ranges close to home, whose pale, delicate bones had pierced through its decomposing hide. This place too seemed a dead, skeletal thing, bones breaking through its hulking carcass.

Led through endless halls of identical, dark-dressed stone, the dark man's fingers tight about his wrist, Luke had no sense of where he was any more, or how to get back to his parents and safety. He stood as far as he reasonably could from the cloaked man, his back to the corner at which the wall and the open balcony met, his fair curls whipped up to disarray by the high wind which pierced the dark shadows and sheeted across the sheer drop before them.

"Look," the dark man intoned, vibrant yellow eyes searching Luke, leaving him more and more anxious. "Look anywhere, in any direction. This is my Empire—everything in it belongs to me. Everything."

As he spoke he made an expansive gesture with his arm—and in the next second he'd grasped Luke's wrist, yanking him forward and lifting him up, helpless.

Luke gasped but didn't cry out, shocked by the speed at which the black-robed man moved. He was hauled up and out, his feet hanging precariously over the towering drop for long, breathless seconds before he was placed with solid force on the carved slope of the balustrade's handrail. He slipped and scrabbled, struggling for grip, forced to grab at the arms which grasped tight about his ribs, holding him at the very edge of the precipice.

"Everything here is mine, to do with as I will. Even you," the dark man said ominously, leaning in to Luke from behind and forcing his balance off so that he had to press back against the man's shoulder to keep from lurching forward, desperately unstable. The hands which held Luke loosened and he gripped tightly to the dark man's arm, his slight form buffeted by the high winds which whistled through the open scaffold. One foot slipped forward off the handrail, the back of his calf smarting and stinging as it grazed against the edge of the carved stone, his shoe lost to the drop, disappearing into darkness.

"Stop!" Luke's voice was small and scared and angry all at once, breath stolen away by the wind.

The dark man paused as if realizing. "Are you afraid?" His voice was a mocking dare as he loosed his hands, his hold slackening completely. "Stand up, child—I won't let you go."

Luke struggled to maintain balance, hand grasping uselessly at the loose folds of the Emperor's sleeve as that last support was pulled away to leave him balanced precariously on the uneven surface, hand outstretched over the terrifying drop into darkness.

"Is that so hard?" the dark man asked—and Luke turned to realize that the hands he'd thought would be close behind him were gone completely, loose at the dark man's sides, and Luke was alone on the narrow ledge, no support, no safety…completely alone.

Heart in his throat, he turned in slow, deliberate movements, taking two cautious steps along the narrow, angled stone to the high wall at the edge of the balcony, the winds dragging at him as he grabbed it like a lifeline. He crouched, moving his grip to the handrail, finally balanced enough to scramble down to the safety of solid ground, heart pounding against tight ribs, adrenaline burning his throat.

"You let me go," he said, bewildered. "You said you wouldn't let me go and you did."

"I lied," the dark man said easily, completely unmoved by Luke's breathless disillusionment. "That is my first lesson to you and the only one that I will ever give you for free: I cannot be trusted, child. Nobody can. Ever."

There was the cut of a blade in those words, delivered like a blow with neither guilt nor accountability, and Luke was left to uneasy confusion beneath them, legs still trembling, as the baleful man continued.

"You are alone in this life, child, remember that. No one will help you, no one will defend you, and no one will provide for you. Whatever you gain, it will be by your own hands and your own will. You are utterly alone."

"My mom…"

"...is nothing," he spat, derisive.

In that second, fed by fear and fury and the adrenaline of the moment, Luke's lips narrowed to a terse line and his hand balled to a fist as he pulled it back to deliver a roundhand blow at the man who had spoken so harshly of his mother.

The dark man caught it mid-swing as if it were nothing at all, long fingernails digging into Luke's wrist as he hoisted it up, almost yanking Luke from the floor as he shook it. "What a malicious little streak of temper you have. You need to learn respect."

"Let me go!" Luke fumbled uselessly at the unyielding grip on his arm, soft skin bleeding beneath the drag of those nails. "I want my father!"

The grating sound of mocking laughter fell on Luke from above as the old man effortlessly twisted him about by the arm he held and dragged him forward, locking Luke in place between his body and the heavy carved balustrade as he pressed behind him, leaving him helpless against his tormentor's strength. "See? There are your parents, child. Down below."

All defiance was instantly forgotten as Luke saw the distant figure of his father walk over one of the scattered landing platforms set into the angled walls of the palace far below, to the enclosed executive speeder which waited. Still in the pale grey suit he had worn earlier, his father was little more than a distant speck against the unremitting black of the polished basalt landing platform, his mother close behind, the train of her powder-blue dress lifted and tugged by the squall. The memory of the warm brushed silk, soft against his fingers as he'd reached out for her when the dark man had led him away, made something inside Luke twist and snap in fear. 

He stretched on tip-toe to shout out to them, wriggling one arm free to stretch his fingers out across the dark divide. But they didn't hear, the wind which howled through the open pipes of the scaffolding whipping the words away into the night as soon as they left his mouth.

The sedan speeder set off at a graceful pace from the platform.

"Say goodbye, child," the dark-dressed man said with expectant relish.

Still standing on tip-toe to see over the heavy balustrade, Luke was taking a breath, about to shout his father's name…when the speeder exploded in a violent blast of color and fury, the heat of the shockwave rumbling past a split-second later to rake through the curls of his hair, leaving the word, the memory, the hope dead, stolen away in a blazing, sun-bright instant.

Just three weeks into her eleventh year, Leia Skywalker pulled her loose hat down against the all-pervading rays of Tatooine's twin suns, squinting against their brilliance and the mirages they conjured... But no, there really was a man walking alone and on foot across the plains, heading for the homestead, the distortion of the heat haze making him appear to float just above the pale sand.

She turned to run the short distance to the edge of the sunken courtyard, yelling the whole way. "Aunt Beru—Aunt Beru! There's a man walking alone…walking alone in the suns."

Wiping her hands, Beru came from the kitchen, looking up from the sunken well of the courtyard, barely shaded as the suns began to sink. "Do we know him, sweetie?"

Leia turned back, pulling her hat off to reposition it, short, chocolate brown locks bleached to pale highlights beneath the fury of those suns. Her skin too was a rich, dark tan from years of play beneath them, her pale trousers and short white tunic dusted with a fine layer of dry sand, as everything was here, inside and out.

"No…no, I don't think so."

Uncle Owen had come from the garage now, drawn by the noise. "Leia, would you quit yelling like a Tusken."

Leia glanced back across the plain. The man had grown closer, his feet firmly on the ground now. Dressed in a long cloak, its wide hood pulled up as defense from the relentless suns, he walked with an easy, measured pace, unyielding even to Tatooine's incredible heat.

"There's a man…"

Uncle Owen was already climbing the worn steps out of the courtyard. He slowed as he reached the top and was finally able to see for himself, and his perpetual frown deepened, lips pursed to a thin line.

"Leia, go inside." He rested one hand to her shoulder to hurry her along, turning to Aunt Beru below. "It's Kenobi."

"Can't come here and expect… We can protect her—can you? …Safe here… Rubbish! You're talking rot, with your theories and your maybe's…"

Then came the man's voice again, quietly insistent. She knew of him, of course—had heard her aunt and uncle, as well as others in Anchorhead, speak of his eccentricities—but she'd never met him. In fact, she was surprised Uncle Owen had let him in the house, after all that he'd said.

There was the low thrum of the main room's holoprojector activating…then a long, fraught silence, in which Leia could hear the muffled sound of a holo: a voice talking about Coruscant, about a celebration there…a news-holo maybe, from the tone of the voice. It paused, then played again, exactly the same words. Curiosity overtaking her fear, Leia cracked open her door and leaned into the hall. From there she could see the glow of the holo on the far wall of the living space…could see the edge of the image itself. It was a zoomed, shaky image of a wide balcony, beings with rich clothes and somber faces stood well back, looking down.

"There!" The cloaked man paused the image. "There—you see him?"

"Where?"

"There—the boy dressed in black! Wait, he comes forward in a moment. Palpatine pulls him forward."

There was a prolonged pause, and Leia risked leaning round the corner again to see the shaky image, but was forced to pull back quickly as her uncle straightened, voice dismissive. "That could be anybody."

"We've enhanced the image and…"

"You said he was dead." Her uncle's voice, brusque as ever, broached no argument.

"We thought he was. The palace declared at the time that there were no survivors of the assassination."

"Well then…"

"We know it's him, Owen—we're sure. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. It's just not safe here anymore."

"Of course she's safe. Who'd look here?"

"Anakin might. Owen, if he knows he has a son, he may know the complete truth. If the boy's alive, then we have to assume that he's been on Coruscant, hidden, since Bail Organa's death. And we simply can't afford to..."

"Bail was killed four years ago, and whatever he knew died with him—the boy probably knew nothing."

"I can't afford to take that chance, Owen. I'm sorry."

"It's not your decision to make."

"… Are you seriously telling me you'd choose to take that risk on Leia's behalf?"

Leia frowned at the mention of her name, aware from the tension in their voices that everyone was acutely serious.

Her aunt spoke out, voice trembling with emotion. "Owen, we knew…we always knew that this might happen."

"Beru, he comes in here with some barely visible image and says it's the boy…"

"Owen, we have to think about what's best for Leia now… Owen, please."

"He just comes in here and…"

"Wait…" There was a rustle of rough cloth as the cloaked man turned slightly and Leia paused, holding her breath. "She's listening."

Aunt Beru came quickly into the hallway as Leia retreated, but she didn't shout or scold when she caught her. Instead she gathered Leia up in a hug so close it stifled and scared her. "Oh, you will always be my little piri, Leia. My little desert flower."

"Is something wrong?"

"No, sweetheart, nothing's wrong. You just have to go away for a while, that's all. Oh, I'll miss you so much."

"I don't want to go." Leia heard the near-panic in her own voice.

Aunt Beru leaned back to smooth a wisp of hair from Leia's face and tuck it behind her ear. "I don't want you to go either, sweetheart, I really don't. But we can write all the time, send messages and pictures—you'll do that, won't you, you'll send me lots of pictures?"

"But…"

"And Ben will look after you, he really will. He'll take you somewhere safe. Come and meet him, sweetheart, come and say hello."

Leia held back against her aunt's pull. "I want to stay here."

"But you'll get to ride on a starship, Leia, won't that be fun? A real starship in space!"

Leia softened a little at that, looking back towards the living quarters where the man had leaned around the corner, smiling sadly. He crouched to her level as she allowed herself to be coaxed in by her aunt, his hand out to her. His greying hair was streaked with dark blond, more of the same in the salt-and-pepper colors of his gruffy beard. And his eyes, like his voice, were kind and gentle.

"Hello, Leia, I'm very pleased to meet you. That's a nice hat you have."

She softened a little at his praise. "It keeps the suns from my eyes… You should wear one."

"I should."

"And you shouldn't go walking in the desert alone. Everybody knows that."

"You're very right."

"…Do you have a starship?"

"No, but I have a very good friend who has one, and she's waiting at Mos Eisley. Would you like to see it, maybe take a ride? Perhaps we can sit you in the co-pilot's chair, have your first lesson—would you like that?"

"…Yes."

"Leia," her aunt's hand rested reassuringly to the small of Leia's back, "this is Ben Kenobi. He's been here on Tatooine for a long time now, helping us to keep you safe."

"Helping?" Leia bunched her features in doubt. She might not have met him, but she'd sure heard her uncle talk about him. "But Uncle Owen says he's crazy."

Behind Ben, her uncle straightened uncomfortably, and Aunt Beru let out a horrified, "Leia!"

"No, that's all right," Ben said, amused. He leaned forward conspiratorially. "I'm incognito."

"Is that another word for crazy?"

"Leia!" Both Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen spoke out this time.

Ben only grinned beneath his beard, fine lines creasing about his eyes. He winked at her, as if sharing some common joke.

"But why do I have to go?" Leia wailed, clutching for Aunt Beru's skirt.

"You just have to, sweetheart," her aunt said, voice breaking.

Before her, Ben Kenobi tilted his head. "Leia, something very important has happened, a long way from here…but because of it, we know you're not safe any more. Not here. I'm going to take you somewhere where you will be. That's why I'm here."

"To where?"

"I don't know yet. But I know that you'll be safe there…and I know that we have to go today."

"I have school tomorrow." It was a last-ditch protest and she knew it.

"You'll learn lots of new things, Leia—I promise."

There was something in his voice that hinted at more than sand-dusted schoolrooms and the same old text on the same old datapads…

Her aunt leaned in, gently pushing to try to turn Leia about. "Why don't we go and pack some things, Leia, so you're all ready to go."

Leia's momentary fascination dissipated. "But I can come back, right?"

Her aunt and uncle remained silent, but the cloaked man—Ben—nodded, his smile visible beneath that sandy-blond beard. "Well, we need to sort a rather large problem out first, and it may take quite a while, but I certainly hope so. Perhaps by that time, you'll be able to fly your own ship back, what do you think?"

For the first time since Ben had arrived, Leia smiled, taken by the thought that she would do just that.

It was just another ramshackle launch bay on the edge of Mos Eisley, but when they entered through the battered, sand-scoured door, the starship which rested within caught Leia's eye immediately, its sleek lines and gleaming finish too clean and too new for its surroundings.

She was tired and she was dusty, and Ben had taken to carrying her across town to the spaceport, her bag over one of his shoulders, her head rested against the other. But she turned as he entered the bay, nothing more elaborate than a banked dish hollowed from the ground, Tatooine's all-pervasive sand making a credible effort to reclaim even that.

And then the woman walked from the ship.

Wearing a beautiful shift dress of pure white and a wide, golden chain about her neck, she glided down the ramp towards them, smiling beatifically. Tall and straight, with fine features and russet hair, she had a face Leia instantly trusted.

Ben leaned forward to put Leia down, straightening with a quiet groan. "Leia Skywalker, this is Mon Mothma, a very good friend of mine. She'll take us to our rendezvous, where the Alliance are waiting. That's where we'll stay from now on—with them."

Leia barely heard, squinting up in awe at the woman's serene expression…and the words came easily. "Are you a queen?"

The woman glanced to Ben, her regal features softening further. "No, I'm not a queen, Leia… I'm a politician—or rather, I was."

"You're not any more?"

"No, I gave it up to travel with a very special lady, on General Kenobi's suggestion."

Leia glanced back to Ben…General Kenobi?

"We should...get underway," Ben said, glancing about.

Mon looked immediately to him. "Is there something wrong?"

"No, but the sooner we can get Leia under the protection of the fleet, the better I'll feel."

They turned to walk to the ship and Leia glanced up from between them, reaching out across Ben to run her fingers along its smooth, spotless hull.

"Ben said I could sit in the co-pilot's seat and learn to fly," she tried, not really expecting to be allowed, having seen the ship. Still, if you didn't try, you never got anywhere.

Mon Mothma glanced to Ben over her head, and even Leia heard the embarrassment in his voice. "I said…uh—well, I thought..."

Mon's hand rested on Leia's shoulder, her warm voice tinged with amusement. "Well then, we'll have to see what we can do. I wouldn't want to be responsible for a Jedi Master not keeping his word." 

Leia glanced briefly up, rolling that word about in her head: Jedi. They were, she'd been taught at school, the betrayers, the traitors… But always, Aunt Beru had rebuffed such things with quiet scorn, and even Uncle Owen, who had zero interest in dealings outside of Anchorhead, never mind Tatooine, had dismissed it out of hand, grumbling about governments and spin.    

Aunt Beru may have been being her usual tolerant self, but Uncle Owen? He had a mean streak the width of the Dune Sea, so if he still said it was a load of eopie dung, then the matter was pretty much settled, to Leia's mind. What wasn't settled, was why her teacher and her history texts were wrong. She glanced up, about to voice her question, but the conversation had moved on about her, as Ben leaned slightly forward to place a hand to Leia's back.

"Thank you, Mon…Leia?"

All of Leia's questions were forgotten in the flare of realization that she was actually going to get a chance to sit in the pilot's seat, and fly. She, Leia Skywalker, was going to be a pilot! Nudged by Ben and knowing her part, Leia smiled genuinely. "Thank you, Mz Mothma."

"You're very welcome, Leia—and I think you should call me Mon, since we'll be seeing a lot of each other."

Eyes everywhere as she held on to the rough fabric of Ben's cloak, Leia allowed herself to be guided up the ship's ramp, the gracious tone of his voice already familiar enough to be soothing.

"I very much appreciate all that you're doing, Mon—and so will Leia, though she doesn't know it yet."

As they stepped into the cool interior Leia was barely listening, endlessly impressed by the pristine ship. Unheeded, Mon's voice held a grave tone, edged by steely determination. "Well, as you say, it's our duty to prepare her, Master Kenobi. And if so, then we should prepare her for anything…and we should start today."

 CHAPTER ONE

Coruscant, four years later

Shore leave—finally!

Lieutenant Han Solo stepped off the transport and pulled at the high collar of his standard-issue officer's uniform, undoing the top three buttons as he walked to the edge of the platform, a two-day leave pass and twelve weeks' pay burning a hole in his pocket.

The trooper at the guard box ran Han's passcard through the system and handed it back, saluting smartly. "Have a good weekend, Lieutenant."

Han glanced about; back on Coruscant after his third run to the back of beyond, he knew he was near the Mosiin province, but that was about it. "Any interesting night-life around here?"

The stormtrooper looked him up and down a second, but they were close enough in rank that he answered honestly. "How interesting are you looking for, Sir?"

Han shrugged, glancing at the distant lights. "I got two days—it'd better be pretty damn interesting."

The trooper nodded his head to the side. "Try the Dyging district, near the Palace. There're a couple of good cantinas there, but they're way down in the depths. The Atlas is good if you're looking to gamble your money, the Dirty Dug's good if you want something in return."

"Thanks." Han turned, gesturing with his hand. "That way?"

"Go down ten levels and you can get a public speeder. It's not really the kind of walk you should do alone, Sir."

Han nodded, turning and setting off into the night as his breath misted before him. How the hell did he always seem to get shore-leave on the part of a planet that was winter?

The Dirty Dug had four bouncers on the door, but by the time he got there, Han had already taken off his Imperial Navy jacket and pulled on a more comfortable pilot's jacket he had from his time on Carida. It still singled him out as Imperial Navy, but this far down in the depths, there was a galaxy of difference between being a grunt and being an officer. He shoved the dress jacket into his duffle and pulled up his collar, paying the speeder cab and stepping out into the Coruscant night.

On his fifth drink and finally getting that warm glow, Han leaned back against the bar and took in the room;: it was big and smoky—so smoky you could probably get high on the fumes without actually bothering buying the spice sticks. A tough childhood growing up the hard way under the scant care and absolute rule of a smuggler, bounty hunter, con-man and all-round lowlife bruiser named Garris Shrike, still let Han pick out the various types with ease. The booths against the walls were mainly pushers, dealers and buyers, looking to ply their trade with minimal trouble. The rowdy crowd who sported fast-draw holsters and confident grins were smugglers and gamblers, looking for the next job or spending the credits they'd earned on the last one. Moving between them all with the smooth grace of the predators they were, smelling out their prey and providing living proof of the age-old adage that a drunk and his credits were soon parted, were the frails and the twinks, looking for a trick.

He sighed comfortably, leaning back; somehow the Academy had never quite gotten that deep-rooted sense of feelin' right at home in a joint like this out of Han.

His eyes, roving the crowd, paused at the booth in the corner, mainly because the small glowball at the center of the table, which was the only light in the booths, was broken, so its lone resident was in shadows. The bright tip of a spice stick flared momentarily, lighting its occupant's face in an amber glow. Not much more than a kid, he was maybe fifteen at the very most, with wild, fair hair and a fading bruise on his jawline that looked like it had already turned every color of the rainbow. Slouched back, he had his booted feet up on the table, ankles crossed, the empty shot glass balanced on his lap already filled with ash. Head resting on the back of the seat, he stared up at the ceiling with the stump of a spice stick in his mouth, looking way too comfortable in a joint like this.

Han's eyes lingered as he tried to categorize the kid, but he just…didn't fit; didn't quite fit any of the types here. Probably a twink, cruising for a trick; yeah, he was the right age, right build—fresh-faced and old-eyed. Han set his head to one side in consideration; kid sure didn't seem to be trying too hard though. Maybe he was just a buyer—the shot glass on his lap already had three stubbed spice-sticks in it, and the kid didn't look like he was planning on leaving any time soon. Han turned away, resuming his scan of the room to look for something a little more to his tastes, the kid instantly forgotten.

The night passed and the bar filled and the room got so noisy you had to shout to be heard, but Han liked 'em like that, so he was grinning at one of the working girls who had hit him up for a drink and was starting to talk business when the conversation behind him, shouted over the noise, drifted into hearing.

"Hey, hey! Someone's tryin' to hit on Spice-boy!"

"No, really?"

It was the amused enthusiasm of that last voice which caught Han's attention.

He knew instantly who they were talking about, and as the evening had progressed, he'd ended up pushed further and further along the crowded bar towards that last dark booth, so he only had to take a step to the right to get a view, pushing the pink-haired frail who was all over him to one side.

Sure enough, a big burly spacer was leaning over the table in that last dark booth, weaving slightly, a Weequay half a step behind him, egging him on. Clearly the kid had ignored him once, because now the burly human was pressing forward and nudging him none-too-gently. Han didn't hear what the guy said, but the kid glanced up this time, singularly unimpressed.

What was weird was that despite the incessant noise, the kid's quiet, clipped voice carried perfectly. "My name? It's 'Get-the-hell-out-of-my-face, nerf-breath'."

About the same moment as Han pulled a brief face, amazed at the kid's lip, he heard the two spectators at the bar beside him both go, "Yeah!" and "No way."

It took a good three seconds for the brawny spacer to register the insult, then he let out a roar—

And all hell broke loose.

The kid was grabbed by the scruff and hauled bodily out of the booth, several patrons around him knocked back in the flurry as the drunk spacer backpaced, still hold of the kid by the scruff, drinks and curses loosed as the knock-on effect spread outwards like a wave. In the center, the big spacer had dragged the kid clear when he suddenly staggered back a few steps, clutching his midriff. The moment he was loosed, the kid took a half-step back and landed a high kick on the spacer's jaw as he bent double, snapping his head round with a resounding 'clack' of teeth.

Grimacing, Han got his first real glimpse at the twink—and realized just how much of a kid he really was, less than shoulder-height to the drunk spacer, slight and slim and seriously outgunned. In fact, if the kid had any sense at all, he would have taken the opportunity and made a run for it because clearly the spacer, who was probably carrying twice the kid's bodyweight, was now madder than all hells.

Instead, as the guy straightened and powered forward, arms wide, the kid made a few fast steps on the spot to set his bodyweight in anticipation, bracing. Han flinched at the coming blow, wondering if the kid had a death-wish—

Then the big spacer was staggering to the side and the kid hardly seemed to have moved, save for a half-twist to drop a fast knee into his opponent's side as he passed, making the spacer stagger into a heavy table, winded. Dragged half-round with him when he'd made that last blow, the kid caught his balance, hand out before him in warning as the thickset spacer rose with a roar, upturning the table.

"Don't—" That was as far as the kid got. The big spacer plowed forward—

The kid pulled off a lightening fast snap-kick to his throat, dropping him on the spot, leaving him gasping for air…

Han had no intention of interfering, simply enjoying the show with everyone else, when the flash of something bright and reflective caught his eye in the Weequay's hand as it advanced on the kid's back—

"Hey!" Han pushed through the crowd, close enough to reach out as the Weequay pulled his arm back to make a strike for the kid at neck-level, a vibroblade humming in his grip—

Hand tightening about the Weequay's wrist, Han yanked backward, twisting it against its natural movement. The wicked blade fell to the floor with a heavy metallic clatter as the kid twisted about and dodged to the side in anticipation.

The Weequay turned on Han with a guttural growl as Han backed up a step, hands out to calm him…

Then a high-powered shot rang out, flashing over the heads of the melee and forcing everyone to duck. The band, which had continued merrily on through all of this, finally stuttered to silence.

Han turned…to see four stormtroopers at the doorway, blasters trained on the crowd.

Great; he'd been on leave all of four hours and he'd managed to get himself arrested… Just great.

All four of them got detained, their ID's taken before they were even loaded into the back of the transports, Han and the kid in one and the two spacers in the other. The Weequay muttered something in patois as he passed, and the kid shouted something back in pretty passable Weequay as the trooper restrained him, voice weary. Clearly this was the end of a long shift for him.

"Hey—hey, you're in enough trouble as it is."

"I'm in trouble? Have you read that ID?" The kid knocked at the trooper's hand but he didn't loosen his grip.

"Yeah I read it. Aren't you a little young for Intel?"

The second trooper laughed, the sound rough and metallic coming through his vo-coder.

The kid turned, voice ice. "Back off, trooper."

This time the troopers found it less amusing. The one who had hold of the kid's arm shook him roughly. "Hey, you want to make it resisting arrest too?"

The kid glared and for a moment Han thought he might actually make a go of it… Then he suddenly seemed to calm and let out a short laugh. "No, what the hell, I got nothing else to do tonight."

So now they were sitting on bunks to either side of a cell, Han wondering how the hell two days' leave had managed to go so spectacularly wrong. Four hours was a new low, even for him.

The cell was small and plain, no allowance for creature comforts made, so each of them sat at opposite sides on the hard shelf-like bunks, as the kid chewed his nail and stared silently through the clear plasteel wall and into the empty security corridor beyond, lost in his own thoughts. Han couldn't work out whether he was putting on a very passable indifferent front for his cellmate's benefit, or whether he really was that unfazed. Maybe the latter; twinks in any port got themselves arrested on a weekly basis. Most of the troopers knew the ones on their beat by name.

Slight and sinewy, this one wore dark hide pants and a fitted gray shirt, casually undone halfway down his chest, effortlessly dissolute. He turned slowly to Han without blinking, and Han held his eye a few seconds before he looked casually away; he wasn't gonna be stared down by some pint-sized juvenile.

The kid watched him a few seconds more before, distractedly, he patted the pockets of the dark, fitted jacket he wore and pulled out a small pouch. Glancing from the corner of his eye, Han frowned; surely not…

The kid pulled a slim, neatly twisted roll and an engraved pewter strike-lighter from the bag. Depressing the strike until the end glowed, he absently lit the spice stick.

"Sith, kid, what the hell you tryin' to do, get us shot?"

The kid looked to Han for a few seconds, as if remembering he was there, then turned away again to stare into nothing.

Han pursed his lips. "Fine. You know what? Go right ahead and get yourself shot, I don't care. Let 'em take you out back and try to knock some sense into you. Hell, it might even work."

"It never has before."

Han turned away, annoyed at the smartass backhand comment; fine, if that's the way he wanted to play it, let him. He glared at the empty corridor…and lasted all of three seconds before he turned back again, finger pointing. "Hey, in case you didn't notice, it was me who pulled that Weequay with the vibroblade off your back."

The slight kid glanced back, looking Han over through the haze of smoke from the spice stick. "I already had him pegged."

Just at the moment when Han had taken a breath to tell him a few home truths, the kid added quietly, "But thanks."

It was blunt but sincere, and Han relaxed again, studying the kid. Now, looking closer, despite his bruises and his dark-rimmed eyes he was way too well-dressed to be a twink, though he still had that worldly air about him. Had a Coruscant accent though; definitely upper-class refined.

"You local?

Again the kid took a long time to answer, as if trying to decide whether to admit even that much.

"Hey, makes no odds to me," Han said in reassurance. "Look, just ask 'em not to press charges 'cos you want to enrol in military school when you're eighteen. They know that you won't get in with a record, an' if they think you want to join up, they'll go easy on you."

"I'm sure they'll let me out any time now," the kid said with quiet, understated confidence.

"Whatever. Just tell them the military school thing, okay? Tell 'em you're tryin' to get into Carida."

"Like you did?"

Han frowned, surprised, and the kid nodded his head toward the patch on the arm of Han's old flight jacket. "Carida."

Han shook his head. "It doesn't say Carida."

"It has a pale blue rim with a gold edge on the unit patch—that means you trained on Carida."

Han nodded; kid was good. "Don't tell me—military family, right?"

For a moment Han thought the kid wouldn't reply, then he nodded. "You could say that."

Rich kid then, Han thought. Probably end up at Carida one way or another anyway. "How old are you?"

The kid took a long drag on the spice stick. "Too old."

It should have been funny, ridiculous even…but Han frowned at the grim cynicism in that remark. "You worried your folks'll find out?"

He'd seen a few of them on Carida—the insular, reticent ones from wealthy families. Those whose arrogant, career-military fathers and pretentious, over-ambitious mothers pushed them to be something they weren't. You soon realized that despite their wealth, you actually pitied them.

"Listen, if you don't want your folks to know, just plead the Carida thing. Tell the duty officer who processes you that you regret everything and you realize you were in the wrong…but lose the spice stick," Han added pointedly.

"It's fine," the kid dismissed evenly without turning. He paused, glancing to the empty corridor as he stood. "In fact, here's my ride now."

Han frowned—and seconds later, the heavy door to the detention block slid open and a mature man in a seriously expensive suit walked into the detention center's corridor, glancing worriedly through the clear cell walls.

"Luke?" The man paused before the cell door, turning to the Duty Officer with undisguised scorn in his voice. "Open the door."

It was the speed at which the duty officer complied that piqued Han's interest.

"Are you all right?" The man glanced the kid up and down as he walked calmly from the cell without answering. As the kid passed him, the man took the spice stick from his mouth and dropped it to the floor, stubbing it out beneath hand-stitched boots without comment from either of them. "You said you wouldn't do this again."

"No, you said I shouldn't do this again."

"If he finds out…"

"I'm sure he already knows by now," the kid said cynically, then paused, turning. "Are you staying there?"

Han rose quickly. "Me? No, not if the door's open."

The well-dressed man frowned at Han, cool gray eyes beneath trim, dark hair, greying at the temples. For a moment it seemed like he was going to argue the point, but the kid was already leaving the detention block. Han passed the older man, treated to a haughty stare but not stopped by either him or the duty officer. Kid was clearly from a very wealthy family, he reflected.

Just how wealthy became clear as he stepped out into the sharp dawn air and saw the stately closed-top ambassadorial speeder double-parked outside the stationhouse, a military speeder ahead of it and another behind, the small flags on its wings denoting serious rank. Two very badly disguised plain-clothes bodyguards stood beside it, eyes everywhere, hands resting very close to the openings of their carefully tailored jackets.

Considering the area, Han didn't blame them.

The well-dressed man stood expectantly beside the open door of the speeder and the kid paused, turning to Han. "I'd offer you a lift, but trust me when I say it would be very bad for your career—and your health."

Han shrugged, dragging his eyes away from the smart sedan and the plain-clothes minders. "Well, my career's already shot, but I kinda like my health so I guess I'll start walking." He looked the kid up and down. "Thanks, kid, it's been…interesting. I always like to spend half my leave in a detention center. Reminds me of home." He paused, suddenly unwilling to leave, freshly aware of how slight and young the kid really was, little more than shoulder height to Han. "You gonna be okay? They look pissed."

The kid glanced to the sedan, casually dismissive. "They're just worried I'm going to make a break for it. I'm tempted to, just to see what they'll do."

Han looked to them, unsure if the kid was joking or not. "They look awful twitchy."

The kid remained still, suddenly talkative, clearly reluctant to get into the speeder. "That's because they're listening to every word we say and now they're worried I might do just what I said. Like you are."

The suited man took a half-step forward, arm outstretched. "Luke?"

The kid paused for just a second more, then walked away without another word, the door auto-closing as the well-dressed man entered the sedan behind him. The two minders gauged Han with professional appraisal before turning away.

Stood in the light dawn drizzle, Han watched them enter the speeders before and behind the big, blacked-out sedan, then the whole cavalcade set off with smooth precision, leaving Han to gaze at the military registrations as they rose upwards.

He stared for a few moments more before pulling up his collar and setting off into the breaking dawn, eager to be gone before the stormtroopers who were watching from the viewpanes of the stationhouse behind him changed their mind.

CHAPTER TWO

Eyes dead ahead, Han Solo marched into the Deck Officer's neatly arranged office onboard the Star Destroyer Gauntlet, coming to a halt to snap off a quick salute as he clicked his heels. It was three weeks since his planet-leave, and to date no word seemed to have been passed on about the whole debacle, so he'd actually begun to think that he'd gotten away with it. Which would have been a good thing, considering that he already had a court-martial hanging over his head.

Then this. Hauled into the D.O.'s office in the middle of his shift without a word—never a good sign.

If it had been his own Wing Commander then at least Han would have had a chance to get his side of the story out. Commander Tory was a good officer who'd come up through the ranks the hard way, and wasn't above cutting a little slack for the pilots in his Wing. But Han and his wingman had been ordered in from a standard duty flight by higher powers, and Han sent immediately here on landing, still in his flightsuit with his gloss black TIE helmet beneath his arm.

"At ease, Lieutenant." The Deck Officer was reading his automemo with exaggerated interest, so Han was left to stare dead ahead for a ridiculously long time, waiting for the punchline. The D.O. didn't even look up to deliver it. "Says here you're awaiting a hearing on a General Charge of serious misconduct and gross insubordination."

"Yes, Sir."

The D.O. leaned back to study him. "That's quite a litigation."

"It's presently just a charge, Sir. Nothing's been tried yet."

"Are you telling me you didn't do it?"

"I'm saying it hasn't gone to trial yet, Sir."

The D.O. stared for long, dry moments, voice disbelieving. "You realize you could get drummed out of service for trying to help some Wookiee, though?"

"As I said, Sir, it hasn't gone to trial yet."

The Deck Officer glared at him, but Han was used to that particular stare from his superiors, so held the man's stare without flinching.

Eventually, the D.O. rolled his eyes back to the automemo. "Well, at least by the time it does, you'll not be an embarrassment to this ship."

"Sir?"

"You're being reassigned, Lieutenant," the D.O. said unceremoniously. "You're going planetside."

Han scowled; what the hell? "Reassigned?"

"Friends in high places?" the D.O. asked contemptuously. "Family connections? Or did you just sleep with the right Senator's daughter?"

"…Reassigned?" It was all Han had to say.

The Deck Officer stood, throwing the automemo across the desk at Han. "Put your thumbprint to the memo and pack your kit, Lieutenant Solo. You're someone else's problem now."

Something was very wrong, Han knew… On a big scale—the kind that made his palms sweat.

He'd read the reassignment about two dozen times now, and he still couldn't quite work out what the hell kinda joke someone somewhere was trying to play here.

He was presently dressed in his best olive green Navy dress uniform, starched collar scratching at his neck as he followed two guys in dark blue uniforms down a corridor big enough to fly his TIE down and then some, wondering what the hell was going on. He'd been following them for quite a while now, but then it was a big building…a very big building.

The imposing pyramidal bulk of blue-stone Imperial Palace was, as every kid brought up under Imperial rule knew by heart, three hundred stories in total, and right now Han felt like he'd walked about half of it. He'd already spent over two hours in the main military complex at its base whilst an assortment of ever-more-senior officers had dropped by to glare at him and study the reassignment memo, before managing to hand what was very clearly a headache of massive proportions on to somebody else. Finally, when they seemed to have run out of people to blame—and damned if they didn't seem to have tried everyone in the whole place, whilst Han had waited—they'd commed up to the people on other end of the reassignment mandate.

Another hour in which, by the sounds of it, the people in question tried very hard to offload this problem onto someone—anyone—else, before they finally seemed to have run out of options and said, "Bring him up."

So here he was. In the Imperial Palace—the actual Imperial Palace. Not really the kinda thing that happened to your average TIE pilot. Particularly not the kinda thing that happened to one awaiting court-martial.

They'd taken turbolifts up and across so many levels now that Han no longer had any idea of where he was, other than to note that the ubiquitous white-clad stormtroopers had given way to a more ornate dark blue palace livery. The occasional span of windows which seemed to run floor to ceiling for twenty or thirty levels in a single span, now showed the highest levels of the most elite buildings on Coruscant slowly falling away, so they must be within the body of the second stage of the three-stage behemoth by now, Han guessed. Plus the Spartan corridors had gotten wider and, if not more ornate, then certainly grander in scale, their dark mosaic marble floors increasingly complex. He had a feeling that the higher they went, the more ridiculously immense the cavernous spaces would turn out to be, which made it just as well that they were maybe just halfway up, 'cos he already couldn't take much more of this. All in all, he was now so far out of his depth that he was almost to the point where he wondered whether, if he just went for it and shouted something outrageous into the hushed reverence of the austere, fifteen-story atrium he was crossing right now, he might actually wake up.

Then the blue-dressed guards had peeled off the echoing atrium and into a long corridor housing what were clearly private apartments, several per corridor. The third had its tall doors already open, and they marched into a dark wooden interior hallway hung with a long run of large canvases, abstract splashes of muted tones in the dour, windowless space.

The first room they entered, just inside the door, was a welcome relief from the endless corridors of sparse austerity, its dark gloss walls covered with whiteboards and auto-uploading calendars and pieces of flimsiplast marked with arrows and urgents and the occasional 'LOOK!' tag, and whilst the wide desks were inlaid and polished hardwoods, they were scattered with the kinds of everyday paraphernalia and clutter which any working office would have. Two men in black military uniforms looked up in unison, their expressions a mixture of confusion and mild interest.

"Yours, I believe," one of the guards said dryly, then turned about and left without another word.

Glancing to the men's chests with the swift, automatic skim that any conscript had, Han noted that despite their youth they were both Lieutenant Commanders, so he made a brief salute and waited for the poodoo to hit.

The nearest man, the younger of the two, made a sort of semi-embarrassed half-salute as he stood, looking Han up and down. "Lieutenant Solo, right?"

"Second Lieutenant, yes, sir."

"You, uh…don't happen to know who sent you, do you?"

Here we go: it's all been a terrible mistake—some kinda mix-up at HQ. Go back down the ten million levels you just spent the last two hours getting up, and don't come back. "No, sir."

"Ah…see, neither do we."

Han was left standing to attention and staring at the two men, who stared back, obviously at as much of a loss as he was. The silence stretched to excruciating lengths…

"Um…" The younger man stepped forward again. "I'm Gorn…Therne Gorn—of the Ixtlar Gorns. This is Ashtor, from the Kailor Ashtors—big family." Gorn paused, his eyes remaining expectantly on Han.

"Uh, Han…Han Solo."

"Of…?" The younger man stared, clearly awaiting a run-down of Han's social status and pedigree. He seemed friendly enough to Han, it was just that they were obviously on different pages here. 

"Uh…Corellia?" 

"I…don't think I know the Corellian Solos. Are you…part of the aristocracy there? Or politics perhaps…commerce?"

"Not even nearly…sir."

Gorn straightened, smiling. "Oh, that's okay—between ourselves, we don't really use military rank much, not inside the apartment. Except when Indo's around, of course."

"… Okay then." Han heard the bemusement in his own voice.

The next protracted silence was saved by the sharp click of footfalls down the hard tiles of the corridor outside, and Han turned to the first familiar face he'd seen all day.

Gorn too seemed relieved. "Oh, sir, this is the man who had the commission. I told them to send him up until we sort this out, but it all seems in order. We're trying to track the originator of the commission now, without much luck. His name is Lieutenant Solo, sir. Lieutenant, this is Viscount Indo."

Han nodded. "Yeah, we met."

Gorn frowned, surprise audible in his voice. "Really?"

"Yeah." Not having the slightest idea as to how to greet a viscount, Han settled for a nod, since the man wasn't military. "You came to pick that kid up from a Trooper's Sector House in the Dyging District."

The guy—Indo—hadn't changed. He still stood pole-straight, immaculately dressed with that same sabacc stare, ninety percent superior and nine percent condescending, with just a twist of jaded distain. "I believe you're mistaken, Lieutenant."

"I was the pilot who got dragged in with him, remember?"

"You're mistaken," Indo repeated coolly. "Luke doesn't leave the Palace without permission, he never visits the likes of the Dyging District and he certainly doesn't find himself in Sector Houses."

Han was suddenly, intensely aware of the fact that the room had fallen to uncomfortable silence. Great—fantastic start. "Right, yeah…you're right."

The viscount didn't blink an eye, so the uneasy silence remained until Gorn finally sought to break it. "The Viscount's Luke's primary adjutant and tutor, Solo. He's always been with him, since Luke was a kid."

Indo turned that cool, fixed stare on Gorn, instantly correcting the familiarity of the aide's tone. "Luke was never a 'kid,' Lieutenant Commander Gorn; he was a minor. Where are Lieutenant Solo's commission details?" Indo took the proffered datapad, scanning through it as Han stared.

Sure as hell looked like the same guy to him, Han reflected—and the kid had been called Luke. This was getting uncomfortably weird. Seriously, what were the chances of his meeting the guy again, like this?

Indo glanced up from the automemo. "This seems to be in order…"

Gorn shook his head. "That's what we thought. I checked it, but…"

"I think I see what's happened here," Indo said ominously, something in his voice indicating that he'd realized where the commission had come from. Didn't seem that interested in sharing the fact though, Han reflected. Indo looked to Gorn. "Take Lieutenant Solo round and show him where he can and can't go. You should arrange for the correct ID cylinders too." Indo looked Han up and down as he turned to leave. "And point him in the direction of a decent tailor—that uniform looks like it was standard issue."

Han turned to Gorn, keeping his voice low as Indo left the room, those precisely spaced footfalls receding. "What the hell's wrong with standard issue? 'Course it's standard issue, I'm a pilot."

Gorn brightened. "Really, you were a pilot?"

"I am a pilot," Han corrected.

Gorn winked amiably. "Yeah, you see any TIE fighters here, pilot?"

Han pursed his lips, freshly sure that some kind of terrible mistake had been made and he wasn't even supposed to be here. Gorn chatted on regardless, his manner bright and genial. "I'll get you to a tailor this afternoon, if we get time. Indo's pretty up on keeping everyone in line here—if you don't have a decent uniform by the end of the week, he'll come down on you."

Han glanced down the wide corridor outside, seeing no sign of the viscount. "He the boss round here?"

"Pretty much. He's not military, but he's the Senior Adjutant, so he generally does all the hiring and firing, and makes sure that everything runs smoothly—and he has the contacts and the status to back it up, so it's best to keep on his good side. We'll get you set up with a few tailor-made uniforms by the start of next week, don't worry."

"What's wrong with the one I got on?"

Gorn laughed easily. "No one wears standard issue here, Solo, and absolutely no one in an adjutant position wears olive drab—you stand out like a sore thumb. You have to wear duty dress here. Black though, not drab."

"Why not drab?"

" 'Cos you're an XO now, pal—special commission. We wear black…all special commissions wear black uniform. Have you been paid yet?"

"No."

"Indo'll arrange for a sub of your first month's salary—two service uniforms'll cost about that much."

"A month's salary!"

"Yep. Then you'll need to get maybe two off-duties up to Indo's exacting standards in case you have to go plain-clothes, and one full dress, for State occasions… I guess you should have an XO pilot's uniform too, in case you're needed to fly."

"How much is that little bundle gonna rush me?"

"Well, let's just say you won't get much change from half a year's salary. But we'll start off with just the service uniforms, 'cos a lot of people don't last too long here."

"Thanks," Han muttered, scowling. "That makes me feel so much better."

Gorn set out of the office with Han in tow, and they'd barely walked a few steps before Gorn turned again, chatty as ever. "You're a real mystery, Solo. No one knows who you are. How'd you get a commission here?"

"It just kinda arrived, I think."

"Seriously, commissions as XO's in the Imperial Palace don't just kinda arrive," Gorn grinned, clearly fascinated. "C'mon, how'd you get it?"

"Like I said, it just arrived yesterday, out of the blue."

Gorn slowed, looking a little closer at Han. "You know that people spend their entire career and half their fortune trying to get a commission in the palace, don't you?"

Han shrugged. "Yeah…ironic, huh?"

Gorn shook his head, amused, as they continued down the long corridor. It was cold and impersonal, echoing their footfalls back to them like walking through a stately home. Han couldn't see a single damn reason why anyone would want a job here, though judging from his accent, Gorn's probably very wealthy family clearly didn't hold with that view. And speaking of parents...

"So, this Luke kid, he's Indo's, right?"

"Luke? No, his last name's Antilles. He's a ward of court."

"A what?"

"You know, ward of court. No parents, no living relatives. The Emperor's his legal guardian, but Indo actually looks after him. He always has…that's what people say. Someone once told me it was Indo who brought him to Court, but I don't know if that's true. I've heard that Indo knew his family, but then again, most people say Luke came to Court sort of, four years ago, and I'm pretty sure that's not right, either. Well," Indo shrugged casually, "most people don't say anything because Luke keeps a pretty low profile, but if you listen when Luke and Indo talk… I dunno. Myself, I'm pretty damn sure Luke came to Court much earlier. But he was definitely here when he was eleven, 'cos that's when the assassination attempt was."

Han stopped dead. "Wait a minute, the what?"

"Yeah, the Rebels tried to assassinate him when he was eleven. First time Luke was seen on Coruscant, they say, and there was an assassination attempt just a few months later, aimed right at him. A kid—can you believe that?"

"Why him—why the kid?"

"Oh…" Gorn looked quickly away, as if he'd been caught out. "Just…he can do stuff, you know? There were still a few renegade Jedi fighting with the Rebels at the time, so they must have known. They must have, because they actually sent Jedi on the raid. I heard that it was when the last member of the Jedi High Council—the Grand Master or something—was killed, right here in the palace."

"Okay, wind back… Do stuff?"

"Uh, you need to talk to Indo about that." Gorn glanced down, then awkwardly moved the subject along. "Don't get me wrong, Luke's fine, he really is. He's just kind of a little…wayward sometimes. Indo can handle him though; Indo looks after Luke a lot. He pushes him hard, but basically that's his job and, you know, Luke's a smart kid, he can take it. You probably did see Luke at that stormtrooper Sector-House, though—I mean, he's basically a good kid, he's just…you know, a bit unruly. Who wouldn't be?"

Han nodded; there you go. Rich kid, family hobnobbed with Viscounts, had a tough break and got left on his own, but fell on his feet when he ended up here. Got spoiled—way too much of everything around here except discipline, Han figured. Now the kid was growing up enough to start really going off the rails…enough, in fact, that this Indo guy had pulled a few strings and got the kid a few military babysitters.

Gorn shrugged as he set forward again. "He tends to sneak out a lot—Indo goes crazy. I swear, that kid can squeeze through the gap under a door sometimes." Gorn glanced up and down the corridor nervously, lowering his voice. "But we're not allowed to talk about it, even between ourselves—Indo's rules. Why was he in a Sector-House this time?"

Han didn't miss those last two words. "Oh, he got in a fight in a bar."

"Really? Why?"

Han grinned. "Honestly? Some stashed-up spacer was hittin' on him—great big guy."

"Seriously? What'd Luke do to him?"

"He was pretty good in a fight actually. He was holding his own in a tussle with a guy who was twice his size, and…I seriously suspect your pretty good kid was off his face on spice."

"Probably why he didn't just kill the guy," Gorn said casually, before glancing meaningfully back to Han. "Oh, and never, ever give him…y'know, stuff to smoke. If Indo finds out you've given him spice, you're out. Discharged on the spot. All the stuff from your apartment's waiting for you at the main gate in a storage box, and it's all you'll have for a long time, if you know what I mean, 'cos you're out of the military entirely and you won't be working in the Core systems again, that's for sure. No references, no pension, nothing. The last guy wasn't even military, he was Count Sofani, of the Mydos Six Sofani's? When Indo found out, he had Intel officers turn up at his apartments and basically march the man from the palace and escort him off-planet there and then. By the time Sofani got back to Mydos, all his accounts had been frozen and—what do you know—all his debts had just been called in. Within the week, Intel had dug up some very damning information about Sofani's political dealings—enough to have him detained at the Emperor's pleasure, I heard. Bankrupted and ostracized the whole family—no one dare even talk to them any more. C'mon, I'll give you the tour. Have you been given an apartment yet?"

"Uh, yeah, I haven't been there though… About the Sofani guy who ended up in detention…?"

"Oh, don't worry about it, just, you know, don't ever cross Indo. Or Luke…but that's different. You'll be fine with Luke. He's kinda the instant incendiary: big explosion in the moment, then it's all over. Indo's more the slow-burning fuse type. Where's your apartment?"

"Uh…base structure, main palace…I'm guessing that's the lowest chunk, right?"

Gorn grinned again, rolling his eyes. "Level, what level? All staff and aides are in the base structure."

"Uh…one-sixty, north quadrant, I think. Is that far?"

"One thing you'll learn pretty quick around here, Solo: everything's far. Except Indo, of course—Indo's apartment is nearby," Gorn added amicably as he set off down the dark-panelled central corridor of the soulless apartment again. Beside him, Han felt he should tip-toe quietly, like he was in a museum or something. Gorn's explanations weren't helping either. "Okay, these are the State Rooms—in other words, nobody ever uses them. Luke uses the library for lessons—eight 'till eight, every single day if he's in the palace, but that's it. If he disappears, check there before you sound the alert…and the roof—always check the roofs—of the ziggurat and the turrets…but you'll need permission to go into the turrets."

"Wait, go back a bit—I thought this place was Indo's?"

"Indo's? No, his is two levels down."

"So you're saying this whole place belongs to…the Antilles kid?"

"Yeah, but he's not really here that often these days. He tends to move with the fleet a lot, which is good, because he gets itchy feet when he's in the palace. You won't mind fleet travel though, 'cos you've got your space legs, right?"

"Yeah. Uh…seriously, this is the kid's?"

"It's really not very grand compared to a lot here. This is pretty average, believe me. He wouldn't even have this much if he didn't need some of the rooms for official stuff. Plus the Emperor likes him reasonably close and the higher up the palace you go, the bigger and better the apartments."

"He lives here on his own? How the hell old is he?"

"He's fifteen. He got his own apartment a year or so ago when he was in the Emperor's good books—always a rarity. He'd just come back from D-Eight-Red—in the Ringali Nebula?" Gorn shrugged when Han shook his head. "It's some specialist military base, training elites. Luke aced the course in less than a year—in fact, just over six months—but then Indo had expected him to. When he came back, he had some fragment of information on Lord Vader or something, and he wouldn't let it go. Kept on digging, like he does. Eventually he turned up something pretty big to take to the Emperor and…well, long story, but the upshot was that the Emperor assigned this apartment to him."

"So he lives alone in an apartment, aged fifteen?" 

Gorn nodded. "We look out for him though—that's our job. It's much easier now, too. When I first started Luke was in one of the rooms in the guest wing of the Emperor's apartments in the turrets, and only Indo was allowed into the apartments. The rest of us were sixteen levels down in the upper ziggurat, so it was just impossible. Okay, so the room we're in now, this is the Red Room. If someone has an official appointment, you show them into here to wait, and you always wait with them."

Han blinked at the brisk change of subject, glancing about him. Like the rest of the dour apartment, it was orderly and austere, the walls a dark gunmetal gray scagliato which had been buffed to a dull sheen, the high ceiling pale gray. The ascetic furniture was oversized and unembellished, all stark, hard corners of burnished metal and flawlessly polished ebony, not a single fingermark in sight. 

"Why is it the Red Room?"

"Used to have a big red canvas up on that wall," Gorn replied, pointing. "I have no idea where it is any more. They change a lot." He continued his dizzying crash-course with no apparent concept of the fact that this was way too much to take in all at once. "It doesn't happen often that Luke gets visitors, but we're getting a few more as he gets older, and if we do, you damn well better get it right, 'cos it's usually one of the Emperor's lackeys and believe me, they're just going to go straight back and report every detail to him."

"Show 'em to the Red Room, right," Han said, trying to commit it to memory.

"How far they get down this enfilade depends on how important they are. Red Room is just general: aides, military, people like that. This room is-"

"What the hell's an enfilade?"

"This is—a run of big, formal rooms that lead one into the other. All the apartments belonging to members of the Emperor's Household have them here, even the minor ones like this." Gorn started a slow walk through the long run of empty, pristine, echoing chambers, offering a running commentary as he did so, which left Han feeling like he was taking the five-credit tour. "So this second room is where you bring slightly higher dignitaries, high-ranking military, officials, Governors, that kinda thing: you walk them into here. We rarely get them…the occasional Moff maybe."

"Am I supposed to remember all this?"

"Yep. Third room here is titled visitors, so that'd be Lords, Ladies, Counts, that kinda stuff. If Indo were an official visitor, he'd be shown into here. This final room is where you show your actual royalty to: princes, rulers, that kinda thing. We've never had any of those, of course—except the Emperor, and he can pretty much go where he wants. It is his palace, right?"

"Wait a minute…you get the actual Emperor in here?"

"Oh yeah, a few times now."

"The actual, real Emperor?" Han checked, disbelieving; there were a good few guys in the squadron who were convinced the man didn't really exist.

"I told you, he's Luke's legal guardian. Luke's folks are all dead. He stays here in the palace under the Emperor's wardship. He always has."

They'd walked the length of the long enfilade now, and came to a slow halt at the far side of the final room before a wide, tall wall of hand-rolled mercury-glass mirrors. Distorted by the irregular imperfections of the multiple small panes, their reflections were lost among the stark, broken shadows of the dark room about them. Brief slivers of the white winter sky beyond the banked windows fragmented the image further, into an ever-changing mosaic of near-abstract diffractions.

"Through there are Luke's private rooms. You don't, on any account, ever go in there without permission. He goes crazy."

Han studied the reflective wall, its sliding, flush fit doors barely visible in the endless mirrored panes. "Have you been in there?"

"Sure, yeah, lots of times, but never without permission. There's another three rooms past there, and it's the same deal as out here; the further in, the less public—you only go into the one you're invited into, right?"

Han gave something between a nod and a shrug. "Whatever."

"Oh, and don't ever give Luke a stylus. Indo'll come down on you big-time for that."

"A stylus?"

"Yeah, you know, an ink stylus, for handwriting and stuff."

"Yeah, I know what a stylus is," Han deadpanned. "Why can't he have a stylus?"

"He just can't." Gorn shrugged enigmatically. "Watch he doesn't steal them too. He gets 'em all the time, but we have to take them off him…well, Indo does—don't you try. Masco once tried to take one and ended up with it rammed through the center of his palm…left us soon after that. Uuh…I guess the rooms back there are kinda…different. Don't stare."

"Different how?"

"Depends what his mood is. We don't put a lot of furniture back there."

Han stared at Gorn's reflection in the mirrored wall. "What the hell does that mean?"

"We just…don't. Indo's the only one who goes past these doors without permission. The rest of us can go in as long as we have permission. The doors'll open when you get your cylinder transmitters for clearance. You just gotta walk up, like this."

Gorn walked toward the doors, and at the last moment Han heard a smooth snick as some internal lock was released. He glanced inside as the glass doors slid smoothly open, but little was visible, the windows obviously set on full privacy so that the rooms within were dark. Han had a vague impression of the continuation of the enfilade, the rooms joined by archways. One carved and upholstered chair was visible, laid on its side in the gloom of the nearest room, but aside from that they seemed empty. Weirdly, Gorn made no move to righten it. Instead he simply backed up, and the doors automatically slid shut on unseen runners.

"He like it dark?" Han asked, frowning.

Gorn shrugged, unperturbed. "Today he does—well, for about three weeks actually. Indo keeps going in and raising the privacy shields and Luke keeps yelling and shouting and putting 'em back down."

"Great," Han muttered unenthusiastically. What kinda mad house was he in now?

"He's okay mostly," Gorn said with an easy shrug. "Just, y'know, if it looks like he's gonna go off on one, comm Indo. That's the one thing Indo'll never get at you for; you can comm him any time, day or night, if you even think Luke's gonna throw a fit—any time at all. In fact, he'll come down on you for not comming him."

"Go off on one?"

"Sure, you learn to spot the signs and just give him a wide berth until it's over. Best not to get involved. Things get broken and, you know, it's good if it's not you."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Gorn just shrugged, heading back through the cold, formal rooms. Han took one glance back at the wide sweep of the dark, undulating mirrors before he followed, less sure than ever. "Maybe I shouldn't shell out for those uniforms just yet."

Turned out they had all the time in the galaxy to get Han to a tailor; he did nothing but sit on a chair in that damn staff room for the next three weeks.

He'd been there for less than one of them before he realized that not only had someone made a mistake, but it had been a cruel one…and he needed to correct it. He needed a transfer out of here. He was a pilot, not a babysitter for some rich kid who, admittedly, Han hadn't seen much more than the back of his head maybe three times since he'd arrived. But still…

After the second week, in which no one turned up to tell him what precisely he was supposed to be doing, and Gorn just kept on telling him to basically keep his head down and draw his paycheck, Han started looking for an out.

Of course, it turned out that the only one with the authority to initiate and authorize his transfer was Viscount Indo, who pretty much ignored him even if Han was in the same room as the guy…and maybe the mystery wiseass who had somehow connived to dump him here in the first place.

It was only when Han realized on reading the flickering automated wall calendar one day, that the kid hadn't even been in the palace for the last two days—and he only realized that because Gorn started getting antsy about word of Indo's return—that Han started looking into ways to extricate himself from a job that seemed, basically, to consist of sitting in an office with Gorn and Ashtor and listening to them discuss yet again just who had upset whom, who had slept with whom, who had landed a bigger apartment or a promotion, and who was out on their ear.

Enough was enough. Cushy number or no, he needed to get himself out without making the court-martial that was hanging over his head any worse. What he needed to do was apply a little of that legendary Solo logic…and fortunately, he seemed to have all the time in the galaxy to do it.

By the time a month was up, that court-martial was starting to look like a pretty reasonable alternative…

CHAPTER THREE

"So, I worked out what you're doing here," Gorn said with a self-satisfied grin one morning as they entered the apartment together, each carrying a mug of hot caf. Gorn was, as ever, immaculately turned out, all crease-free and starched. Han, much as he'd suspected, seemed capable of making even a thousand-credit tailor-made uniform look a bit frayed at the edges—but then that was pretty much like he felt himself, most mornings.

Gorn's words woke him up though. "Seriously?"

"Yep. Indo left his personal log open on his datapad when he left the office for a few minutes last night, and I happened to browse a page or two. Seems Luke went on one of his little walkabouts a month or so ago, and this time he managed to get into the main military hub and slice an access into the mainframe, using borrowed command codes. Whilst he was there, he reassigned Commander Hotil—you don't know him, but he hacked Luke off a couple of months back—to some Outer Rim research station in the back-end of nowhere, requisitioned a high-end military swoop to be delivered to the SD Immortal—that's our usual ride—and apparently logged a little personnel-shuffle of a certain Lieutenant Solo."

"So this is the kid's fault?"   

"Yep."

"What the hell did he do that for?"

Gorn shrugged. "Dunno. You said he met you in some cantina a while ago, right? Maybe he liked you."

"Well then, why would he bring me here?"

"I dunno." Gorn slowed down to stare at a huge canvas on the wall as he added distantly, "Maybe he didn't like you. Is that new?"

Han glanced to the canvas, dark red and black in frenzied, broken bands. "Wasn't it in the library?"

"Was it?"

"Speaking of where things should be, shouldn't I be in the military—I mean the actual military, actually flying."

"And getting shot at? Why would you want that?"

" 'Cos I like flying."

"What about the getting shot at?"

"You know, it's starting to sound more and more appealing when this is the alternative," Han said acerbically. "At least I was doing something. I had a career…not necessarily going to plan, but still."

"This is a great career. You'll make it up the command levels far faster here than you ever would flying. You just have to put your face about, network a little."

"Do I seem like the kinda guy who networks to you? Anyhow, I don't want to be stuck behind some desk, I want a Flight Command. I want my own Wing."

"Don't worry, you'll get a promotion pretty quick. Indo doesn't like to have the lower ranks on Luke's staff, so he'll hustle your name through if it looks like you're staying. And the duty rotation is only two years here—Indo doesn't like people hanging round much longer than that."

"How long have you been here?"

"About two years—but I keep my head down, so I figure I might make another year yet. I've had two promotions, and if I leave on good terms, I'll get another then, as a handshake. Plus I'll have made the kind of connections that keeps them coming—not that I intend leaving the palace. But if you can stick it out, you'll probably get the same."

Han rolled his eyes, but Gorn had a point, clinical as it was. He wondered briefly whether he could stick out two years around here on the off-chance that he might get that promotion, before dismissing it. Fast track or not, two years in that office would shoot all his reflexes to hell, completely aside from the fact that he'd be brain-dead from listening to Gorn's endless gossip.

"You said you wanted a Command rank," Gorn continued, still craning his neck to look back at the canvas. "I don't think that was in the library, you know. I think it was in Luke's rooms. He must have arrived back after our shift change last night."

"Where does he go?"

"This time? The Outer Rim. I think I've heard him mention the Horuz System a few times—the Emperor has some pet project going on out there. Very hush-hush." Gorn leaned sideways as he walked, to see into the Red Room at the far end of the dark corridor, its stark austerity broken by the brief splashes of vivid color from massive canvases. "Yeah, he's back. He'd had some new artwork delivered—it was stacked up in the enfilade."

"He buys art?"

"Yeah—good stuff too. If he's just opened that new delivery, he'll have hung it in his own rooms, behind the mirrored wall. But it's so full in there that he has to put something elsewhere to fit new in now, which is why there's so much art on the walls out here."

"That kid has way too much allowance."

What he didn't appear to have, Han was beginning to realize, was a life of his own.

Luke Antilles, as it turned out, was intensively tutored to a strict regime laid down by Viscount Indo, a run of specialist tutors appearing throughout the day from eight in the morning to eight at night, seven days a week—unless he was, as Gorn referred to it, 'at the Emperor's call,' which may mean he was gone for hours or days with no apparent notice. Though that didn't excuse him from lessons, it seemed. Instead, Indo travelled everywhere with him to assiduously ensure that time was laid aside for study late into the night if necessary, continuing via holo-link to the Viscount's exacting expectations.

Based on what else Gorn had said, how exactly Indo managed to get the kid to sit down for any lessons, Han didn't know. But in fact, Gorn said that all his tutors described him as an exemplary pupil. Apparently the kid was smart and fast, with a good head for languages and technology. Which was just as well, Han figured, since the amount of spice he'd seen the kid smoke in the Dirty Dug cantina had to have taken a fair few brain cells out all on its own. Gorn had also said that the kid applied himself to study simply because the Emperor had told him to, in no uncertain terms, adding in hushed tones that while there were very few people who could ever dictate to the kid what exactly he should and would do, the one person who could, every time, was Palpatine.

When Han had asked what the Emperor thought of the rest of the kid's wayward behavior, Gorn had shrugged, typically unconcerned. "I think as long as Luke does whatever the Emperor says whenever he says it, Palpatine's not interested in anything else…and as far as Indo's concerned, if Palpatine doesn't specifically ask, we don't offer. House rules."

The Viscount himself had arrived back in the apartment late yesterday evening, a sure sign that the Antilles kid must be in the palace somewhere, since Indo never seemed more than ten paces away from the kid. Sure enough, Luke had walked past the office that morning, eating breakfast on the move—the kid never seemed to eat at a table, wandering corridors with a plate or sometimes just a napkin in his hand, or sitting perched on the console table outside the library, between tutors.

Gorn had leaned backwards in his chair to watch him pass, then stood to press 'update' on the automated wall chart, which flickered then refreshed, now fully loaded with the day's arrangements. "Yep, he's back—they're already filling his days, poor kid. I should have known—Sini, in the Cabinet Office, she said that the brass are all here, and they're looking nervous. Apparently there was some kind of prison break somewhere, or something."

"Did you know he was coming back?" Han asked.

Gorn glanced briefly to Ashtor, who was still staring at the schedule. "No, we never know anything, unless we're actually going with him."

It hardly surprised Han that the kid had reappeared and nobody even knew. Fact was, Han saw him pretty much the same amount whether the kid was in the building or on another planet. The only difference was that if he was here, he appeared briefly first thing in the morning after Indo arrived, was either in lessons or gone all day, then eventually reappeared late at night, spending more hours in the library with Indo and some tutor or another, before locking himself up behind that mirrored wall.

Still, as morning wore on into afternoon and the automated wall-chart flickered up ever more arrangements, the generally easygoing Gorn slowly devolved into a nervous panic. By the time night fell, one final appointment uploaded and Gorn stood, rolling his eyes. "Great, now he's summoned to a conference tonight. I'll bet he's gonna go walkabout…I can tell. Damnit. Keep your eyes and ears open."

"Walkabout?"

"He's going to disappear—head out for the night, after the meeting's over."

"Head out where?"

"Anywhere. He hates the palace at the best of times, and this meeting's with the Emperor. That always gives him itchy feet." Gorn glanced to Ashtor. "Maybe I should request extra guards?"

Ashtor raised an eyebrow, tone dryly disparaging. "Yeah, like that helps. You're better just keeping it to ourselves and hoping he gets back by morning."

They fell to silence at the sound of footsteps coming back up the wide, echoing hallway.

Carrying a scarlet-lined black jacket over his shoulder, the kid walked quickly past without a sideways glance, but by now Han hadn't expected anything more—

Then the light steps on the hard terrazzo tiles paused, and the kid backstepped into the doorway. Everyone stood, as the kid frowned at Han.

Han froze, aware of the confusion on the kid's face. He knew this had all been some terrible mistake…

Then the kid's eyes lit with recognition. "Han Solo—the pilot!"

"That's right."

"You were getting a dishonorable discharge."

"Uh…no."

"I looked you up on the military records system. Some commander…Nyklas…recommended a dishonorable discharge for gross insubordination and disobeying a direct order. Something about a Wookiee?"

"Oh, that discharge," Han said. "Wait a minute, I haven't even had the disciplinary hearing yet."

"Oh it's a discharge. You were out." The kid nodded as if this was old news.

"I haven't had the hearing yet!"

Kid grinned, unconcerned—and Han was reminded anew just how young he really was, slight and fresh-faced, but still with that unsettling, worldly air—and way too amused at Han's predicament. "What can I say, file said they held it in your absence—they do that a lot—you're out."

Han glanced down. "Man, do you know how much I paid for this damn uniform?!"

"I took your file over," the kid said matter-of-factly. "Got you transferred to the palace. You're fine."

Han hesitated. "So I'm not out?"

"No. You were re-commissioned here."

So that was why the kid had… Han glanced up. "Uh, about that…"

A second set of footfalls sounded and Viscount Indo came to a halt at the door, one hand out to guide the kid forward without touching him. "We're late, Luke."

Kid didn't even look. "Just a guess, but I think they'll start without us."

"Do you want to have to explain to the Emperor why you're late?"

The kid glanced to the side, instantly evasive, and Indo nodded. "Neither do I, which is why we should go."

Luke looked to Han. "We should take our new Lieutenant with us."

"No, really, I'm fine here," Han avoided quickly.

"He's a pilot, Luke, not a trained aide," Indo said disdainfully. "He shouldn't even be here."

"What, all he has to do is sit in a chair and nod. That's all anyone does at these things."

"I very much doubt that the Lieutenant can be trusted to do even that," Indo disparaged.

Han felt his hackles rise at the Viscount's tone. "It's all I've done since I've been here, anyway. I seem to be managing pretty well."

Luke grinned. "See?"

Indo ignored Han entirely. "Luke, think very carefully, the Emperor is hardly in the best of humor as it is. Do you really want to be the one who's forced to take responsibility for this man's actions when he performs some inevitable faux pas?"

"Thanks a lot," Han said, offended.

"What, he has to sit in a corner." The kid was warming to the idea now, clearly amused at the ruckus he'd started.

Indo kept that sabacc-face intact. "I'll ask you again, think very carefully. What do you know about this man?"

"I know he pulled a Weequay with a knife off my back."

"In a cantina in the Dyging district."

The kid took a step back, affecting scandalized disbelief. "Are you judging a man by the cantinas he drinks in? This, from the man who said I should never trust snap-judgments?"

"I am judging a man based on his military and civilian record, neither of which shines. And this isn't the time for this discussion."

"You're right—Solo, put your dress uniform on, we're late."

Han took a step forward—then stopped, suddenly wondering how the hell he'd ended up arguing to go. "Actually, I gotta go with Indo on this…"

Indo turned. "Viscount Indo."

The kid grinned wickedly. "See? He's a natural! Just get him in his dress uniform…"

"Luke, you're prevaricating."

"What, it takes ten minutes…"

Next thing Han knew, he was fastening up his dress jacket and wondering how the hell he'd gone from arguing against going to whatever the hell this meeting was, to walking down a corridor fiddling with the collar of his brand new dress uniform. Damn Indo, for annoying him so much he'd argued to come. He stared daggers at the man's back as they traversed endless corridors on their way to whatever the hell meeting this was.

The kid drew alongside him, grinning impishly. "I can make that work for you if you like?"

"What?"

"That stare—I can give it a bit of…presence."

Han frowned, uncertain what the kid meant by that. Before he could ask, Indo turned, clearly not happy with his charge speaking to Han at all. "Luke, put your jacket on. We're nearly there."

The kid pulled his jacket on as Han fingered at his own stiff collar one last time. In truth, he hadn't expected to use it this soon…hell, he hadn't expected to use it ever. He glanced down as realization hit him that the kid was wearing a military jacket which would had to have been tailor made, so young was he…

Han did a fast double-take, then looked quickly away. But he hadn't missed the subtleties of it.

At first glance or to the uninitiated, the uniform was the same as any of the multitude of Special Commission Officers who milled about the palace: black, side-fastening jacket and pants, black boots. The first clue differentiating it from any other Special Commission uniform was the fact that it carried no rank, its only insignia a narrow silver bar to the edge of either side of the collar. Because of that, Han had peripherally taken in the fine black grossgrain trim on the edges of the jacket and the outer seam of the pants. They were subtle indicators, but then they were meant to be. Together, they identified their wearer as belonging to the apex of the Imperial Intel agency, the elite branch that supposedly acted in tandem with, but everyone knew actually existed in barely disguised rivalry to, the more visible Imperial Security Bureau.

Part military, part political in its power base, the infamous Ubiqtorate occupied the pinnacle of the Imperial power machine, its structure and numbers a closely guarded secret even within the regular military. They operated with absolute authority in both civilian and military sectors, their status unequalled. Always respected but seldom well-received, they were as likely to wear civilian clothes and melt into the background as they were to wade in and demand total control… And the kid was, what—fifteen?

Playing toy soldiers, Han reflected wryly. How could it be anything more?

The vast ceiling of the outer waiting room was set with an ornate plaster circle within a square, painted with a muted rendition of rolled maps and old-fashioned octants, quadrants and astrolabes, gilded gold against dark midnight blue. The rest of the room was relentlessly austere, the high walls a dark, liver-red scagliola which made even the massive proportions of this room seem overbearing, its rows of plain ebony chairs lined with neat precision to either wall.

Han was still staring up at that incredible painted ceiling when Indo leaned closer, voice barely a murmur. "Let me make this very clear, Lieutenant Solo—you will do exactly as I tell you. You will follow my lead in all things. If I stand, you stand. If I bow, you bow. You will keep your head and your eyes down, and your mouth firmly shut, until you know what you are doing…which may be some time, I fear."

The Antilles kid half-turned, grinning. "And don't get into any conversations with the Moffs—you never know which one's about to sink without a trace, and if they go down, you don't want to get caught in the backwash."

Han glanced around at the assortment of serious rank and command insignia on display by men who milled about with stern, worried faces—so much so that Han didn't know who he was meant to acknowledge first.

Beside him, Indo murmured quietly. "Don't salute—unless one of them talks directly to you, which I very much doubt."

Luke had moved forward of them a little by now, heading directly for the tall doors to the far side of the crowded room, which were closed and watched over by two blue-robed guards. He didn't slow as he reached them, but at the last moment the two guards stood aside and he walked through the opening doors without comment, into an even larger chamber beyond.

Now this was majestic, Han reflected. The kid's quarters were big, but they were cold and they were dark and they were somber. This was what a palace was supposed to look like. Easily three stories high, the vast oval room had a floor-to-ceiling run of tall, narrow windows along one side, the space between each window set with a towering reeded pillar in crimson-veined granite. Faceted leaded lights refracted the scarlet tones of the setting sun across a huge oval table, which echoed exactly the proportions of the room itself, obviously built specifically to fit. A series of dark portraits of vast proportions hung on the opposite wall, their inhabitants glaring imperiously down on those convened below, who encompassed the cream of Imperial military, the kind of uniforms that Han had never actually seen before, save in holopics. 

Immediately they entered the room, Indo turning to his left, taking his place among a line of what looked like other aides, most of them in Imperial uniform. Still, they made plenty of space for the Viscount, shuffling back respectfully to either side. Han followed, having to fight a little to gain his place, giving a few quiet sorry's and 'scuse me's.

The kid, it seemed, had done exactly what he'd warned Han against, setting out across the lengthy room without slowing, weaving through the military brass who were gathered without sitting around that flawlessly polished oval table, arrayed with datapads and memo cards and other assorted proof that the room's inhabitants were industriously busy on the Empire's behalf. The kid nodded occasionally as he passed through them—even spoke to a few—then paused to lean on the edge of the table and study the big, complex holo of what looked like a set of schematics, lit up in 3D in the table's center.

Han leaned to the side, where Indo was watching intently. "So how come junior gets to rub shoulders with the brass?"

Indo didn't turn, his full attention remaining on Luke. "Firstly, don't call him junior. Secondly, he has years of knowledge of the political landscape at this high level, as well as in-depth knowledge of the personal and professional lives of everyone present. When you have that—and his rank—you can enter the floor."

"Rank?"

Indo's eyes, still on Luke, narrowed. "Did he just pick something up?"

Han scowled, turning back to the kid, who was moving away from the table now. Indo had taken a step forward, obviously intending to go after him, when the tall double-doors of the vast oval chamber opened again and two actual Red Guard walked in to stand to its sides—actual Red Guard! You never saw…

The hollow tak of something hard against the stone floor seemed to reverberate somewhere in the center of Han's brain as everyone abruptly stood parade-ground straight.

The man who walked into the room, a gnarled but polished cane in his right hand, broke off any other thought Han had.

Dressed in robes of dark, rich brown, overstitched with heavy embroidery in black and blood-red, and wearing a ruby-red cowl, the cloaked man passed slowly, a slight stoop to his step… But he still had the presence to reduce that room of high-ranking, influential men to anxious silence—and Han with them.

The man didn't once look to the side, didn't deign to acknowledge anyone there as he walked slowly to the head of that long table, his face hidden in the shadows of his richly stitched cowl and silhouetted by the fading light of the tall windows…but every man in that room bowed low as he passed, and even Han didn't need any prompting from Indo to do the same. It just seemed…proper. An unspoken demand that required no further prompting.

An aide dutifully pulled out the carved chair at the head of the table and, still silhouetted from Han's viewpoint, the Emperor, the actual, real Emperor—and make no mistake, it was the man himself—sat.

At a nod of allowance from that heavy cowl, the officers about the table took their seats. Han almost sat then, but Indo's iron grip clutched at his arm and stopped him. It wasn't until all those about the table were seated that the aides about the sides of the room seemed able to do the same. Han was briefly seized by the sudden, absurd worry in the solemn atmosphere that he might miss the chair behind him and topple to the floor, bringing all eyes to him…but he made it just fine, letting out a silent sigh of relief, wondering why he felt so edgy.

He glanced again to the man who spoke in low, gravelly, demanding tones…yeah—that's why. 

The tense, strained atmosphere never left the room, but eventually the meeting began to settle down to business and the straight-backed men about the table fell into discussion about some new piece of hardware and the problems therein—which seemed many and complicated. Han had stopped listening, instead glancing around the room with a slow shake of his head. Who'd've ever thought in a million years that Han Solo would get inside the Imperial palace—legitimately!

He was still congratulating himself when beside him, Indo let out a low, slow, worried word within an anxious groan. "No…."

Han turned, seeing that Indo was still watching the kid. Luke was in a chair whose back was against the tall windows, neither sitting with the brass nor to the back of the room with the aides, his seat almost level with the Emperor but well to the side. Seeming to pay little attention as the military's finest ran through their presentation, he was instead glancing around the room as if looking for something. Han scowled, wondering what the kid was doing… Then he noticed the stylus in his hand, and Gorn's warning came back to him: "Don't ever give him a stylus…"

On the massive oval desk, as well as datapads, there were neat sheaves of flimsiplast placed with careful precision in purpose-made, open topped boxes between every two people, and the kid's eyes had fallen on them. He straightened a little…and beside Han, Indo tensed.

"Luke…no." It was murmured so quietly that Han barely heard it…but bizarrely the kid glanced up to Indo.

Luke scowled, but settled back into his chair, glancing around again, clearly looking for something else. He looked briefly to the wall behind him, eyeing the long drapes of pale fabric which edged the tall bank of windows, and for the first time, Han heard the starched-straight Indo curse under his breath as he leaned forward, voice no more than a whisper but deadly serious. "Don't you dare…"

The kid stared for a few seconds longer, seeming to consider it…then sat back again, scanning the room. Failing anything else, after a moment or two, he turned his left hand palm-up and began to write on it with the stylus he held. 

Beside Han, Indo's shoulders slouched in relief, the momentary panic clearly over. For the next two hours, as the brass discussed developments regarding some kind of super-weapon that Han had never heard of, the kid sat with the stylus. For a while, Han figured he must be making notes, though if that was the case, why exactly Indo had practically had a fit was a mystery. Whatever he was writing, eventually the kid seemed to have covered the palm of his hand, and began writing on the back, then moved up to his wrist, then—and this was weird— failing any other space, he wet his thumb and wiped his palm clean to start again…

At the end of the meeting as the Emperor stood and dismissed his Generals, the kid quickly made to leave with the rest of the men present. But as he crossed to the side of the Emperor, a hand shot out from that dark robe and clutched at his arm. Beside Han, Indo stiffened, halting as the kid did. He took Han by the sleeve of his jacket, subtly guiding him to the door but remaining in the room. "Stand still and keep quiet."

The big chamber slowly emptied of officers and aides until only Han and Indo were left to one end of the huge room, with Luke and the Emperor at the other, the Emperor keeping hold of the kid's arm, which was now raised slightly as if in defense, as Luke remained immobile, eyes down.

When the doors finally closed, Palpatine dragged the kid around before him. "It seems you had trouble maintaining even the most fundamental level of concentration this evening."

"No, Master."

It was the first time Han had heard anything even approaching nerves in the kid's voice. The first time he'd seemed his age.

Hand still tight on the kid's arm, the Emperor's features remained hidden by distance and the shadows of his cowl, but his eyes…as he briefly tilted his head the light caught them, ochre yellow and almost glowing, completely focused on the kid he held.

"No? Where exactly did the prisoner riot originate?"

"Cell block twenty-one-eighty. That's a political block."

"Where did the firefights occur?"

"The hangars close to the station's equator."

"Specifically."

"Eighty-four-G, eighty-five-G and the superlaser's Fire Control Room."

"What were Lemelisk's revised degradation levels on the station's primary power?"

"Seven percent in orbit, two percent in deep space. Fifteen under battle conditions."

"Equatorial firepower?"

"Changed to forty guns per linear mile, a mix of low-range laser, pulsed turbolaser and ion turrets."

"How many manned?"

"Seventy percent can be manned. All can be changed over on a selective cluster configuration to the new Sienar predictive analysis system for auto-targeting."

"Distance of projectile shields from the surface?"

"Six hundred feet."

"Tiling rate?"

The kid hesitated—and the Emperor instantly released his wrist to launch a heavy backhand slap across his face, sufficient power behind it to make him stagger a step to the side.

Han stared, shocked, as Indo's hand tightened on the sleeve of his jacket, though the Viscount's eyes remained down, face calm as the Emperor railed at the kid, harsh voice openly scornful.

"You're useless to me—a waste of my time and effort. Stand up straight! Look at me when I speak to you!"

Luke straightened, chin rising beneath the Emperor's baleful glare.

Those pale eyes narrowed for long seconds before Palpatine spoke again, his tone dripping acerbic disapproval. "Always the disappointment, when I had such hopes for you. Weak little blue eyed boy…will you ever grow up?"

The kid remained stock still, back straight, face completely neutral as he held the Emperor's eyes. Han stared, riveted to the spot even without Indo's hand, unable to believe what he was seeing.

The Emperor turned away, dismissive. "Get out."

The kid bowed mechanically and backed up before turning to leave, face a perfect mask as he passed Han, eyes dead ahead, his cheek scarlet from the blow.

It wasn't until they'd cleared several steps past the outer room, empty now save for Red Guards, that Han found his voice and turned on Indo. "Seriously, was that for real?!"

Indo kept his eyes forward, rasping a quick, "Quiet!"

They walked several corridors in silence, Han still reeling from the shock of the Emperor's actions. Occasionally he glanced to the kid, who kept his head down, jaw tight. They were a good ten corridors away before Indo said calmly, "Tell me the tiling rate of the station's shields?"

The kid didn't turn. "Ninety-seven percent of total surface area."

"Luke, you can't dry up under pressure like that. You have to keep a clear head."

"I know."

"It gains you nothing and causes endless problems."

"I know."

"The one person you always need to impress…you'd never do this with anyone else."

"I know that."

Han couldn't keep quiet any longer. "Hey, lay off the kid. I'd've forgotten my own name if the guy was in my face like that!"

Indo turned on him. "That guy is His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor, and if you ever refer to him as anything else in my presence again I shall have you court-martialled, do you understand?"

"Fine, whatever. That's just one more fact to add to my 'guaranteed memory meltdown' scenario."

Luke glanced to Han, face laced with confusion, and Han wondered in that moment whether anyone here actually stood up for the kid, ever.

Certainly Indo seemed more put out by Han's validation of the kid's actions than what had just happened as a consequence. "Thank you for your considered opinion, Lieutenant Solo. However, Luke has lived here practically all his life. The Emperor is his mentor and his Master, and Luke has lived under his roof and his guidance every day for many years—" he turned to the kid, voice stern but calm, "and so he should no longer make that kind of error—ever."

"There were three hundred-eleven changes to the schematics this time," the kid said, irked. "Three hundred-eleven! Does that sound like a near-operational battle station to you…or does it sound like someone trying desperately to cover over the cracks? And why do I have to remember them anyway? I'm never going near the damn thing again. This is all just part of Tarkin's little play for power. The Tarkin Doctrine." He said the last as a disbelieving aside, voice scornful. 

Han frowned. "Tarkin Doctrine?"

Luke turned, his hand briefly going to his face where Palpatine had struck it. "An exercise in the blindingly obvious written by a man blinded by his own ambition."

"Are you saying that the Emperor is wrong in his ratification of the document?" Indo asked calmly.

"No!" Shock and denial were evident in the speed at which the kid replied, before his voice calmed a little. "No, I'm not saying the Emperor is wrong—of course I'm not. I'm saying that Tarkin's as guilty of political opportunism as those he criticizes. I'm saying that his battle station is too big to possibly police its construction, let alone its actions in pitch battle. He couldn't even put down a riot in his own detention center… No one even knows if partial plans were transmitted, or who to—it was a fiasco!"

"Have you spoken of your concerns with the Emperor?"

Luke glanced down, silenced, and they walked on for a while before Indo spoke out again. "You'll spend an extra two hours tonight going over the minutes of the meeting and the changes to the schematics."

"What?"

Han too turned his head. "What?!"

Luke glanced to Han, amused at their shared dismay. Han was granted a less-than-impressed glare from Indo though, who had clearly expected Han to back him up rather than side with Luke, before he turned back to the kid.

"Unless you'd like to face the Emperor equally unprepared tomorrow, you will take the time to learn this—because I can guarantee you that he will quiz you further the next time he sees you."

"Fine," the kid said, resigned.

They reached the Red Room in the apartment before Indo spoke again, his tone as businesslike as ever. "Go and change—I'll have dinner sent up, and the information transferred to your datapad in the library." He paused to lift Luke's wrist. Han saw a glimpse of his hand and realized that the kid hadn't been writing on it at all, as he'd assumed. Instead, for a split second, drawn in fine black ink on the kid's palm, Han saw a scratchy sketch of the nervous faces of two of the Moffs who'd been sitting opposite the kid at the table earlier. On the back of his hand as Indo turned it, was another sketch of one of the Red Guard who had been standing by the door.

"And wash that off," Indo said dismissively.

The kid took his hand back and walked forward to his own rooms without comment.

"Luke?" Indo's tone softened. "Do you want ice for your cheek?"

"No, it's fine."

"Luke?"

The kid paused, and Indo took a step towards him, hand out. "Stylus, please?"

Luke sighed and shook his arm…and the stolen stylus dropped from his sleeve. He passed it over without comment before continuing on alone into the gloom of his private rooms, the door closing behind him.

Indo watched until the kid had gone, before turning to walk away without comment, leaving Han to stand alone in the empty grandeur of the cold, dark enfilade.

"Crazy," he muttered, as he headed back to the relative comfort of the small office to the front of the apartment. "Absolutely crazy."

"Medication." Indo spoke without further explanation as he walked into the library.

Han had come down there ten minutes ago when Indo had commed the staff office to check that there was someone sitting with the kid to make sure he was studying whilst Indo was out of the apartment, and Gorn had informed the viscount that of course there was, at the same time gesticulating wildly for Han to go find Luke.

He'd found him exactly where he should be, elbows leaned on the wide library table, which was spread with several datapads, an assortment of datacards, and even what looked like three authentic fossils in a dark red stone. Underneath the nearest were what appeared to be the smashed remains of several more datacards, their fragmented pieces ground into the flawless glasslike sheen of the polished wooden desktop. Han had glanced at them a few seconds, but made no further comment. Seeing no point in getting involved when he fully intended to be out of here at the first opportunity, he'd simply sat down, giving a brief half-shrug when the kid had looked to him from under unruly bangs.

"Indo sent me," Han had said simply.

"Of course," the kid muttered dryly, turning back to his datapad.

They'd sat in silence for a few minutes before the kid started scrabbling around the remaining datacards and pulled one out, having to put his thumbprint to it for clearance when it was loaded into the datapad. "Here. Communiqué ten-forty-four point nine-two: The Tarkin Doctrine."

"What's that?"

"What I was talking about earlier—Grand Moff Tarkin's rewriting of the glaringly obvious. Palpatine gave him command of the Outer Rim Territories Oversector for it."

Han looked uneasily at the datapad. "Should I be seeing that?"

"No," the kid said. "You want to read it or not?"

Unable to resist, Han took the datapad and scanned the document, ignoring the kid's amused comment of, "You are such a pushover."

To: His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Palpatine
From: Governor Tarkin, Seswenna Sector, Eriadu
Regarding: Increasing the security of the Empire.

Your Majesty,

It has recently come to my attention that what had previously been the quiet grumbling of malcontents on backwater worlds has become dissidence in more civilized systems …

Uneasy at looking in the first place, Han began skip-reading,

…Imperial Fleet … all-encompassing … swift, systematic response to rebellion… respond to threats quickly … bypass any delays caused by political opportunism …

Average stuff, Han thought—nothing new. It was about here that he slowed though, feeling his throat constrict as phrases started jumping out:

… rule through the fear of force … cow thousands of worlds … one undeniable and overwhelming symbol … a weapon so powerful … subjugate a thousand worlds … force enough to dispatch an entire system, power enough to shatter planets … let fear keep systems in line …

I am ready to begin work to implement these steps at your word.

Han looked up to see the kid watching him closely. He glared back down at the datapad. "Seriously, you believe this crock?"

Luke shrugged. "The Emperor does. Clearly he can read something of value between the lines."

Han slid the datapad back onto the wide desk. "Yeah, I can't see it myself."

The kid grinned. "Maybe that's why he's Emperor and you're not."

"Is this guy for real?"

"Tarkin? His ego's about as overinflated as his ambition, but he's serious."

"What the hell is he even…" Han straightened. "The superweapon! It's the one they were talking about in the meeting today!"

"It's codenamed the Death Star."

… Power enough to shatter planets…

 "They've actually built this?" 

The kid nodded casually. "They've built it."

… one undeniable and overwhelming symbol…

 "Does it work?"

Luke took back the datapad, shrugging. "They've already fired the PoC near Kessel."

"The what?"

"PoC—proof of concept. The superlaser capable of destroying planets." He said this as if it were nothing, quickly taking the conversation back to his original reason. "The point is, Tarkin seriously thinks that just because he can build some scaled down skeletal shell, he can deliver the real thing and make it capable of offensive and defensive action. But the real thing has fifteen thousand laser cannons, a hypermatter reactor, twenty-four command hubs… They've been making literally hundreds of changes week in, week out. This thing has one-hundred-twenty-three hyperdrive field generators tied into a single navigational matrix, just to make it move. Proof of concept isn't proof of viability. Tarkin's a military strategist, but his ego's too big for him to hand control of this project over to specialists like Sienar or Kuat. Instead, to keep it secret, he's farming it out piecemeal, with no one company viewing the whole project, whilst Tarkin's relying on a small group of specialists who are, and I can tell you this for a fact because I've met them, basically scared for their jobs, their careers and their lives. As many problems as they're highlighting when they finally get these systems together from all these separate contractors, how likely do you think it is that they're bringing the really big ones to him—the ones that could take months or even years to iron out? They have major power issues; that superlaser they're so proud of can only fire a full pulse off once every twenty-four hours and the hypermatter reactor and the field generators eat so much power that the shields can only tile at ninety-seven percent of surface area. Those are problems I can see—me!"

"You think it won't work?"

"I think they'll be able to point it at something and fire it off. I think they'll be able to move a lot of troops on it and launch them from what's basically the most expensive military platform ever built. Beyond that…"

Han waited, but the kid didn't say more. He wondered, for all the things Indo had checked and re-checked that the kid knew…had he asked the one relevant point? "Do you think it's right?"

"Right?"

"To build something like this—something capable of this kind of destruction."

Luke's eyes narrowed just slightly. "Palpatine does. That's enough for me."

"It's not a trick question, I'm just asking what you think."

"I think Palpatine's the Emperor, which means he's the one you should ask that of…but of course, you shouldn't ask. He's the Emperor—you do as he tells you."

"But I'm asking you," Han maintained doggedly. "What if your finger's on that button?"

"Medication."

Indo's arrival forestalled any further discussion, the Viscount's eyes narrowing momentarily as he looked from the kid to Han. Luke had already reached swiftly out to pull the datacard from the pad before the door was fully open, so that by the time Indo entered, Luke's head was resting in his hands as he stared coolly at some random screen, tufts of pale blond hair sticking every which way through his fingers.

Indo stepped forward, placing down the glass of water he carried to lift the fossil and look at the broken datacards beneath. For the first time, Han realized that the kid had been using one of the sharper fragments to score into the table's polished surface the image of a woman, her features no more than a scratched outline.

Indo used the side of the fossil to push at the shattered datacards. "What were these?"

"I believe they were phacopida from the Devonian period on Chad," the kid said dryly without looking up.

"I mean the datacards, not the fossils."

"That I don't know…I was bored. I assume that somebody used a hammer at some point to get our old phacopidas here out of the ground…I thought it was only fair that they get their turn at hammering something else."

Indo's eyes flicked to Han, who straightened slightly. "Hey, they were like that when I got here."

With a final glance to the ruined datacards, Indo put three small blue pills onto the table beside Luke. "Tablets."

"I don't need them tonight."

"In that case, what difference does it make if you take them?" There was a no-nonsense tone to Indo's voice which indicated that this was a regular nightly contention.

Luke looked up, eyes full of mischief. "Sneaky. Is this some kind of reverse-psychology thing to baffle me?"

"No, this is a higher concept, it's called the truth. Take your tablets." Indo lifted the glass of water and held it out. The kid hesitated a moment, so that Han thought he might make a go of it, then sighed and took the three small tablets, placing them on his datapad screen.

Han watched, fascinated, as Luke spent long moments arranging them in a neat, straight line, taking care to position them equidistantly, eyes half-closed in judgment whilst Indo waited without comment, as if this too were a nightly routine. Finally, Luke took the glass and took all three in quick succession, a brief gulp of water between each.

"Mouth," Indo said simply, and the kid opened his mouth as Indo leaned forward, clearly checking he'd actually swallowed them.

The ritual over, Indo walked across the room to settle on a chair. "Have you downloaded and read the minutes of the meeting?"

"I'm doing it now."

Indo stared for a few seconds. "I presume you've already done your compulsory reading?"

"Yes."

"To chapter seventeen?"

"Yes."

"Did you finish your coursework?"

"Yes."

"Languages?"

"Languages are coursework," the kid replied without looking up.

"Did you complete them?"

"Yes."

"Astrophysics?"

"Astrophysics is also coursework."

"All nine pages?"

"Yes."

"Did you write the debrief report for Admiral Dern?"

"Yes."

"Have you eaten supper?"

"Leave me alone." It was said quietly and without hostility, but somehow the kid seemed to get across the point that he meant it, and Indo fell silent, activating his own datapad without further comment.

Han stifled a grin, aware that he would've gotten antsy after the first question. Still, now that he'd actually seen them together, they seemed to have a relaxed, if businesslike manner between them, comfortable without being familiar. There was an ease to it though, a palpable informality. Based on what Gorn had said, maybe the Viscount was the only constant in the kid's life—beside the Emperor, of course. And having finally met him, Han wasn't at all sure if that was a good thing.

When he rose to return to the staff room, Gorn was still there, sitting at his desk despite the late hour.

"Indo's on the kid's case again already," Han said as he walked in.

Gorn shrugged. "Indo's always on the kid's case—it's what he does."

"Maybe if he gave him a break occasionally, the kid wouldn't be so much of a problem."

"Ah, go easy on the guy, he's had it pretty hard, from what I've heard."

"What have you heard?" Han asked. You could always rely on Gorn to know the gossip.

This time though, Gorn didn't smile. "You know his wife died in childbirth, right?"

Han straightened slightly. "I didn't even know he'd been married, let alone that he has a kid."

"He doesn't. His son died, about five years ago. Only child."

"Really?" Han actually felt a pang of sympathy.

Gorn nodded, glancing to the door as he lowered his voice further. "He was fourteen. Indo had dedicated a huge amount of time and effort to him, using this intensive syllabus system. Got him through the best schools, with the best grades—had great plans for him. Eventually Dubrail—that was his name—Dubrail earned a place at the J. Aubrey Academy on Corulag. You heard of it?"

"No."

" The Inter-Planetary Academy of Excellence in Leadership, that's what it styles itself—and it's not exaggerating. It's basically the fast-track to a serious high-end career in the military. I'm talking Admiral or Moff by your forties, that kind of level. They take about a hundred candidates a year, all boarding, and let me tell you, they have the choice of the absolute best. Places are incredibly hotly contested—I once heard the application rate was over three hundred per place. That's basically everyone who can make the grade. Dubrail made it with flying colors, in the top ten percent on the entry, and stayed up there every test, they say. I mean the kid was made—he had it all, his whole life lining neatly up in front of him, everything Indo wanted for him. A year and a half later he was dead." Gorn shook his head. "Fourteen years old…tragic waste. Indo took it really hard—who wouldn't? Kid was his life, he did everything to get Dubrail ahead, moved mountains, you know? Then just like that he was gone. Indo was..."

It was barely a noise, but Han reacted all the same with a quick jerk of his head, letting Gorn know someone was outside. A second later Indo entered, that sabacc face perfectly in place as he looked to Gorn.

"May I presume that Lieutenant Commander Ashtor is on duty tonight?"

Gorn straightened. "Yes, Sir. He starts in…"

"He started five minutes ago—or rather, his shift did. Inform him that I will make a note of such in the log, and I expect him to remain behind to inform me of his reasons tomorrow morning."

"Yes, Sir."

Indo glanced to Han. "You are dismissed, Lieutenant Solo. Lieutenant Commander Gorn, please remain until Lieutenant Commander Ashtor arrives, and ensure that the office is sufficiently secure on your departure—I trust you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Lieutenant Solo…"

Han paused on his way out; he hadn't seriously expected to get past anyway.

"May I assume that you have already signed a non-disclosure contract on entering the palace?"

"I dunno. I pretty much signed my life, my liberty and most of my vital organs over to the military when I joined, if that's what you mean."

Indo smiled dryly. "In the meeting today, you were privy to highly sensitive military material—information that could compromise the security of the State. It will not be the last time. You appreciate that whilst here, you will be expected to comport yourself with exceptional discretion…in every way."

"Meaning?"

Indo held his gaze without blinking. "You know where the library is, Lieutenant Solo—you're free to use it to look any of those words up, should you feel the need."

Han held the Viscount's eye for long seconds, his brief burst of compassion for the guy already spent…but it was late and he was tired, and it would be so very easy to pick an argument right now—and he was betting Indo knew it.

In the end, he gave a brief lopsided grin and walked away, reflecting on Gorn's claim this morning that two years would secure Han's much-wanted promotion. Seriously, he'd be lucky to make it two months…

Watching the Corellian closely, Viscount Indo stepped back in invitation as Lieutenant Solo hesitated for a moment…then walked through the staffroom door and headed for the main exit. Indo stared after him, eyes narrowed. He disliked Corellians at the best of times. They tended towards stubbornness in the face of recognized authority and rules, which was hardly conducive to palace living, and certainly not a suitable role-model for an already unruly and impulsive Luke Antilles.

It was no easy feat to begin with, to hold the boy steady beneath both Palpatine and Vader's critical eye. It had taken unorthodox methods at times, but he had done it—still did it, every day. And now, having achieved the near impossible, he was loathed to have a new face come in here and begin to rock the whole, precarious structure.

But Indo would wait this one out. He could, of course, have the Corellian removed tomorrow, should he so wish. Could have him marched from the palace tonight—or simply 'disappeared'… But he wouldn't. Luke had gone to the trouble of actually breaking into the military hub down in the palace's main ziggurat in order to track down a man he had met for only a few hours because, as he had argued when Indo had confronted him with the magically appearing commission documents on the day of Solo's arrival, he trusted him—or he thought he could.

So for Indo to step in now was obviously ill-advised, if he didn't want Solo to become a bone of contention between himself and Luke. That would be quite unacceptable—and quite unnecessary.

The Corellian would, Indo very much suspected, quickly prove to be an undesirable influence on Luke…and then he would be removed one way or another, as so many others had been, at the Emperor's convenience.

And Indo would have done nothing. His hands—and just as importantly around Luke, his mind—would be clean, and Luke's frustrations and anger aimed elsewhere. Which would enable Indo to maintain that all-important stability…here, at least. And after a few weeks, a month perhaps, the dust would settle and old routines would hold sway again. Until next time.

In the meantime, Solo was a minor inconvenience, another face which would come and go. There had been many over the years; the Emperor had seen to that. Providing stability for Luke—or indeed any sense of reassurance or continuity—was the last thing on the Emperor's agenda. 

And Luke…well the boy had no concept of such anyway, so he didn't miss what he had never learned to expect. The deaths of Bail and Breha Organa—and Indo was one of the very few who knew the facts of the Organa's supposed assassination—had left the boy to face the trials of growing up without the protection that their position could have afforded him. Though perhaps even that had been an illusion. Once the Emperor had found him, Indo suspected that the outcome for Luke would have been much the same whatever his lineage. Certainly the boy had been quickly disassociated from any link to his heritage as Bail Organa's heir, in order to ensure his invisibility, and therefore his usefulness.

Luke had been forced to find his own way under Palpatine's uncompromising authority, harsh lessons indelibly written into an impressionably young mind. Yet the boy was blindly loyal and utterly dedicated despite, or perhaps because of, all that Palpatine had done. He felt no gratitude towards his mentor—it was, after all, Palpatine's fault that he was here and alone in the first place, and Luke knew it—but formative years beneath the Emperor's manipulations had left Luke desperate to please a man whom he was now old enough to realize would only ever find him lacking. A fact which had only fed Luke's recklessness as he grew.

For his own part, Indo had recognized his place in the scheme of things very early on, just as the boy had known his, clarified by the Emperor with his customary cutting accuracy and effect, no allowance made for the child's age.

Indo had been the stabilizer here, he knew. The constant. His duties, when they had finally been engaged, had been clearly laid down by the Emperor, and Indo had held assiduously to them—and because of that, had remained when so many others had been removed from the boy's life. Or perhaps it was the fact that, like Saté pestage, who also knew the connection between the silent, huddled little ragamuffin of those first few years, and the assassinated heir to Alderaan's throne, Indo also knew the value of silence.

He was, essentially, a tutor. A guardian, charged with taking an eleven-year-old boy who had received no formal education and no real contact with the outside world for four long years, having lost even the most basic social skills and parameters under Palpatine's close influence, and easing him back into the galaxy.

There were very few who would even remember the unknown, pitiably neglected boy under Palpatine's control in those early years, let alone associate him with the capable young man in the black Ubiqtorate uniform, after four years of Indo's influence. Perhaps that was the truth of why Indo had been allowed to remain when so many others had come and gone: he was very, very good at his job.

Though there remained flaws in his charge. Luke had lost not only his childhood to Palpatine, but his adolescence to the strict rules and conventions which Indo had set in place in an attempt not simply to educate him, but to provide the structure and stability which Luke had needed to survive. Even now, Luke could shift from composed to fractious in the space between heartbeats, or fall into the silent, insular unresponsiveness of his childhood for days at a time…though more recently, he'd found a new way to level and numb the peaks and troughs…

Long years of history that Solo didn't understand—probably didn't even care about. He simply objected, as a knee-jerk response, to the boy's close supervision and way of life without bothering to understand why. He had no idea of what Indo had done for the boy. Of what he did every day, to hold Luke together. To give him, if not actual protection—no one could offer that—then at least a method of coping.

It hadn't always been the case, though Indo had had his reasons.

He had first seen Luke as a frightened child, immediately after Bail and Breha Organa's assassination. At the time, with the whole palace in uproar, Indo hadn't even known who the boy brought to his quarters was, no connection mentioned between the assassination and the young child in Saté Pestage's possession. Few in the palace had even known that Bail and Breha Organa's son and heir was there in the first place; he had attended not a single function during the three-day event.

Why exactly Indo had been chosen as opposed to any other, he didn't know to this day. At the time Indo had, of course, never once met the Emperor in person. He had begun to attend Court only because of his ambitions for his own son, Dubrail, who had already begun to excel in reward for Indo's intensive efforts at education, feeding Indo's hopes of an auspicious career for him. Perhaps he had been chosen because it was known in Court that Dubrail was approximately the same age as Luke, or perhaps because of his successes with Dubrail's education, or simply that his ambitions for his son were clear.

Whatever, Indo remembered vividly the shock which had been hard to hide when he had answered the summons to his apartment door in the lower ziggurat, to see the Emperor's major-domo Saté Pestage standing there…with a child.

Still wearing the heavy formal robes and mult-layered headdress of Court, Pestage had walked immediately into Indo's apartments, the small child being practically dragged along by the wrist, blond curly hair bobbing above sun-tanned skin, half-running to keep up, half struggling to pull free.

The boy had been passed immediately over with only the briefest of explanation, more emphasis placed on the importance of Indo's silence in the upcoming days—at the Emperor's direct command—than on whom the child was or why he was in Pestage's possession. As he had made to leave, Pestage had taken one last opportunity to underline the importance of Indo's silence, and mention had been made of Dubrail—of the boy's prospects. Indo had no idea whether it had been a promise or a threat…but either way, he'd understood the rules of the game.

He'd had little hands-on experience with children this young. In the absence of a mother, his own son had been cared for on a day-to-day basis by trained professionals, who presumably had an interest in such things. Indo had taken an interest in Dubrail's mind, not his material needs. Still, it hadn't taken long for him to realize that the poor child delivered to his door was traumatized almost beyond words.

Uncertain what to do and with Pestage's stipulation of discretion still ringing in his ears, Indo had sent down to the kitchens for food, which the boy had not touched, before, baffled and unsure what else one was supposed to do with children, Indo had taken the boy to the guest suite in his own apartment.

He was, of course, vaguely aware that one was not supposed to leave such a young child without supervision, but had no idea just what such 'supervision' entailed. So he had taken the boy to the guest suite, indicated where the en-suite refresher was, pointed out the bed, and then left, locking him in, aware that he was in reality doing no more to comfort the child than anyone else seemed to have done.

Just before midnight, Indo had returned to check on the boy, to find him still in almost the exact spot he had been left over three hours earlier, crouched down beside the doorway, arms wrapped about his knees. Though he doubted that the boy would sleep, Indo had ordered him to bed, the young boy so small and the rather grand bed so high that a deeply uncomfortable Indo had been required to lift the child up onto it at arms' length.

Pestage had returned in the morning. Not to check on the boy himself, but that Indo had done nothing to reveal the boy's existence. When Indo had unlocked the door, it was to again find the child exactly as he'd left him, huddled up against the head of the bed, fully dressed, eyes swollen and red from crying. Coolly unmoved, Pestage had leaned in closely to look the still-tearful child up and down, then had left without once speaking to him, advising Indo to do the same and to keep the door locked.

As the day had passed, Indo had occasionally heard sobs from the room but seldom entered, unsure what to do even if he had. He took the boy food which wasn't eaten, and tried first ordering him to silence then patting him a few times in vague reassurance… Nothing made any difference.

Should Indo have made the connection at the time? There was no reason to. Early that morning the palace had publicly confirmed the assassination of the Alderaanian Royal Family in a statement that assigned blame for the attack to the fledgling Rebellion, stating that there were no survivors. It had occurred to him, of course, to wonder if the boy was connected to the previous night's events—perhaps the son of an injured guard that Pestage had known—but his attempts to gain anything from the traumatized child were fruitless. The boy remained uncommunicative, either staring into the middle distance or sobbing near-silently, eyes dry now, no tears left.

It was four more days before the Alderaanian Royal House had acknowledged that the Sovereigns' only son and heir had also been on Coruscant, and killed in the assassination.

Then Indo had seen the images—then he had made that connection…and then, he had recognized that it was already too late. He could of course have spoken out. If he had thought that it would have changed anything, perhaps he might have. But by that time, the Emperor had already claimed the boy, and had made it very clear to Indo that his continued 'favor'—and by extension, his son's future—rested on Indo's silence about the boy's heritage.

In fact, Palpatine had sent for the boy the following evening after his arrival. Saté Pestage had returned to Indo's apartments well into the evening, with an unnecessary accompaniment of four Red Guard and a command from the Emperor that he would see the child now. With him, he had brought clothes of a far lower quality than the boy presently wore…and a set of powered clippers. Pestage had ordered the still wide-awake boy to dress, before ordering Indo from the room. When the boy had emerged, pulled forward by the shoulder of his new clothes, his eyes were still red as he'd stared blankly down at the floor before him, his mop of pale hair shorn rough and short.

They walked immediately to the Throne Room, escorted by the Red Guard, passing without pause through the Attendants' Hall, which was as far as Indo had ever previously been, even after five years of Court attendance. Indo had been left with the silent child in the Waiting Room under the close study of Palpatine's scarlet-clad guards, trying to ignore the shallow breaths of the boy who pressed against his leg. It had occurred to him only then that he may be delivering a lamb to the wolves. He'd glanced down at the young boy, who looked up at him in silence, red-rimmed eyes full of trepidation, hair shorn so short that Indo could see where the teeth of the clippers had grazed his scalp, and had felt some helpless need to give hollow reassurance in the face of the child's nerves.

"This is the Emperor," Indo had said, aware that his own nervousness was making his manner unintentionally curt, and the boy more nervous than ever. "Bow when I do, and don't speak unless you're spoken to. Remember this and everything will be all right."

Then the imposing floor-to-ceiling doors had swept open and the assemblage of cold, calculating, curious faces had turned towards them, necks craning for a better view as the boy shrank back. Worried that he might turn and run, Indo had reached down intending to take the boy's wrist and was surprised when a small hand had grasped his like a lifeline.

Momentarily touched by the action, Indo leaned quickly down to whisper his last advice. "Don't show your fear."

It had taken a hard tug to pull the child forward. They came to a halt to the center of the shadowed chamber, the boy very quiet and still, his eyes on the Emperor. He hadn't bowed when Indo had, though he'd stayed very close. Indo remembered shaking his hand free of the boy's, and having felt instantly and uncharacteristically guilty for doing so.

Eventually, after an uncomfortable, protracted silence, Palpatine had risen and walked forward, eyes never leaving the boy, who had surprisingly held his ground as Indo had backed up two steps. Reaching out, Palpatine had taken the child's chin in one pale hand, lifting his face, long nails pressing to tanned skin.

"So this is the boy who requires a patron." The Emperor's thin smile bared pitted, yellowed teeth as he leaned in over the child. "You look very much like your father."

Indo distinctly remembered frowning, uncertain, because it had seemed clear from this that the Emperor knew the boy. Perhaps he should have realized more in the course of the short conversation. Certainly, he had known that something was amiss when the Emperor's words had implied that the boy had been brought to Court by Indo himself, seeking the Emperor's sponsorship. But apprehensive himself, and having no intention of challenging his Emperor or making an enemy of the likes of Saté Pestage, Indo had seen no reason to contradict.

In retrospect—and Indo was one of the very few who knew that even Luke's hidden connection to the Alderaanian Royal House of Organa was by adoption, not birthright, and the boy was actually the son of a renegade Jedi—Luke looked, then and now, a good deal like his father. Perhaps it was this which had always galled the Emperor so. 

At the time, Indo's whole attention had been taken when the child, who had been shock-silent in all his time with Indo, had taken a half-step forward, the most forthright Indo had seen him since his arrival.

A momentary flare of hope had sounded in the child's voice, hoarse from crying. "Where is he?"

The Emperor had tilted his head, glancing once to Indo as if it had been he who had furnished the Emperor with the truth. "I am sorry, child—you are alone now. You know that."

"I want to go home," the boy had said quietly, hands wrapped one within the other and pressed nervously to his chest as he looked to the only man he believed had the power to help him.

Instead, Palpatine had turned to walk slowly away, taking his time to settle once more on his throne, those sharp ochre-yellow eyes studying the anxious boy.

It was a long time before he spoke, and when he did so, it was with absolute finality. "This is your home now. Everything which passed before is gone. You will stay here, with me."

Something had prickled at the back of Indo's neck at the threat implicit in those words, and he had made his one and only attempt at rescue, reaching down to take the boy's shoulder protectively. "Forgive me, Excellency—the boy is still very young to remain in…"

"He will stay with me." Palpatine had not looked to Indo, nor changed his tone in the slightest, but Indo had known with absolute certainty that the boy was lost…and released his grip. As he had done so, the child had backed up to grasp the fabric of Indo's gown, suddenly very afraid, though he couldn't have understood the import of the words.

"Court will retire, for tonight," the Emperor had announced, finally looking up from the boy.

Courtiers had bowed in reverential silence and filed in quiet rows from his presence, until only Indo and the boy remained in the magnificent chamber, facing Palpatine and Pestage, Red Guards at the doors.

As the Courtiers had left, Indo had considered his options, though he'd known he had few.

Either he could object and be forcibly separated from the boy—and probably expelled from Court, which would injure his own son's standing here irrevocably…or he could turn around and walk meekly from the room, leaving the unknown child at the mercy of the Emperor, which in truth he was anyway. That much was clear.

At least, Indo had reflected, if he did nothing and so remained in Court, he could keep an eye on the child, if only from a distance.

He was rationalizing, and even then, he had known it. But in truth there was no choice to make. The Emperor's will was absolute—if he wanted control of the child, then he would take him.

Bowing deeply, Indo had taken three backward steps before he had turned and walked calmly to the door, hearing Palpatine mutter to Pestage as he did so.

The boy, of course, had tried to follow, almost reaching the door before Pestage had caught up with him from the shadows, grabbing him from behind and causing him to shout out in shock.

Indo hadn't paused, hadn't turned…he'd simply kept on walking without looking back, the child's frantic cries echoing in his ears long after the actual sounds were faded by distance.

CHAPTER FOUR

Han glanced down the main enfilade and back to the entrance of the apartment. Indo wasn't about, so Han was comfortable enough here after six weeks that he took a lungful of air and yelled at the top of his voice, "Luke? LUKE!"

Gorn came out from a side corridor at a run, eyes wide. "Geez, Solo—I think Indo probably heard that in his own apartment."

"You found him?" Han asked.

"Nope…you?"

"Yeah, that's why I'm hollering his name like this." He noticed as he spoke that the wide double-doors out onto the Red Room's narrow balcony—more a decorative feature than an actual useable space—were just slightly ajar, and walked over, muttering under his breath.

Sure enough, sitting in silence on the stone floor and creasing the freshly pressed dress suit that Indo had brought up an hour earlier, was Luke Antilles.

Han pulled the doors open. "Don't even try to say that you didn't hear me shouting."

"I heard you," the kid replied without looking. In the fading dusk, the bright tip of a spice stick glowed as he drew on it, a curl of scarlet smoke rising momentarily before it was taken by the wind. Ruby, they called it, because the small, resin-bound crystals, which could be smoked or eaten, were a deep, translucent red.

"You're kidding me, right?" Han said. "Does Indo know you're doing this?"

The kid still didn't look up. "Why don't you scuttle off and tell him."

"Why don't you just put the damn thing out so I don't have to. C'mon, you know the rules around here, what am I supposed to do?"

The kid only looked up at Han and took another long draw. Sighing, Han glanced back inside, then stepped out and sat down on the narrow strip of cold stone floor beside him. "Where do you even get this stuff?"

"The magic spice pixy leaves it under my pillow when I'm a good boy. What do you care?"

Han ignored that completely. "Is that why you sneak out all the time to the cantinas—to pick it up?"

"Nope."

"Where d'you get it then?"

The kid didn't speak, and Han sighed, looking out into the dusk. "You know the last guy you got it off, Count Sofani, he ended up in detention."

"I'll try to muster up a little remorse sometime," the kid replied dryly, eyes on the horizon.

"Hey, the guy got bankrupted and thrown in detention for giving you this stuff!"

"Please—you don't know what he was expecting in return."

Han turned sharply, and the kid shrugged. "No, I didn't. But remember that next time you're passing judgment so freely with half the facts."

"What are the whole facts then?"

"The ones you need to know?" The kid looked skyward in feigned consideration. "Let's see… Well, generally speaking, you don't cross me and I won't cross you…unless I take a personal dislike to you, of course. In which case, it's open season."

"You're all heart."

"Really?" The kid took another long pull on the spice stick. "'Cos most people say I'm all mouth, and I'm pretty sure I can't be both."

"Yeah, actually, I'll go with the mouth thing," Han said. "Seriously, do you really need that thing right now? I ask because you're supposed to be at this…whatever… dinner-convention-ball thing in a half-hour, and from what little I've seen, I'd lay credits down that old yellow eyes doesn't take kindly to latecomers."

"Old yellow eyes?" It made the kid grin at least, his expression just a fraction less guarded. "It's a reception, and have you ever been to one of these things?"

"Hell no."

"Well then, we're back to you not having all the facts, which means you get no say. I've been attending them since I was thirteen, and yes, I can state categorically that I really, really need this right now." The kid's eyes remained on Han for a few seconds more, as if sizing him up. "I'll tell you what though, I'll trade you—you can have the spice stick…"

Han held out his hand expectantly as the kid continued…

"…if you come along tonight."

Han yanked back his hand, and the kid raised his eyebrows knowingly, his expression way too worldly. "Ah, see, not quite as eager any more, are you? Think about what's going through your head right now, Solo. Just how much you don't want to go to some pointless assemblage of dry old men with too many medals, who've talked and talked and talked for so long that they don't even remember what it was like to actually be on the ground with their own soldiers any more—if they ever were in the first place. And we're just talking about the one night here—myself, I've attended easily a couple of hundred of these tortures. That's why I need the spice stick."

"Yeah, but this is, y'know, the kinda stuff you do."

"That doesn't mean I like it."

"No, but since you've done a couple of hundred, I'm assuming that at least you're used to it."

Luke took another long draw on the spice stick, staring at Han through the wisps of red smoke. "You're absolutely right, I see what you're saying here—it is about time you got used to them too."

"Me! I didn't say anything of the…"

The kid grinned into Han's panic. "Pull out your dress suit, Solo."

"Wait, Indo does those things with you. I don't wanna go stepping on his toes."

"From what I've seen, you don't seem too concerned any other time."

"I'm the wrong person for this," Han said emphatically. "Not only do I not know what to do, I don't even care."

"As Palpatine said to me two years ago, it's about time you learned."

"But…this stuff's useful to you, you live in this world. Me, it's wasted on."

"Where exactly do you live and work, Solo?"

"Yeah, but that's just until I get outta here."

The kid rose, all business. "Yeah, I've been waiting for the same thing since I was seven. Don't hold your breath."

"Seriously, I don't belong here—at all! Why don't you give this commission to someone who wants to be here?"

"And why would I do that?"

"C'mon, there are people who actually, genuinely want this job. Requisition one of them—make their year."

"Do I seem like the kind of person who generally goes around looking for ways to make anyone's year?"

"Now's a good time to start. They might even like you for it."

"I don't need to be liked. I've lived this long without it and I get along just fine. Now put your jacket on, polish your boots, and get ready for a fight."

"Fight?" Han stood, his face twisting into a lopsided frown. "I thought we were going to a dinner?"

Luke shrugged, jutting his chin to indicate the palace behind him as he took a final pull on the spice stick, burning it back to the stump before he flicked it out into the darkness. "Around here, it's the same thing."

The reception hall was a long, narrow room with ebony floors and lofty walls dressed with dark, heavy slabs of polished stone, whose spans of stark splendor stretched high above to the midnight blue curves of a ribbed and ridged ceiling. To each end of the solemn and magnificent space was the vaulted semicircle of a massive apse, each lined in dark mercury mosaic, their muted tones reflecting fragmented slivers of those who passed beneath.

Commanding completely one of those huge domed apses was a tribune—a raised dais set apart from the hall and the hordes below, its insinuation clear. Sitting on a heavy, carved seat in regal isolation, distanced from the mill of the masses about him, Palpatine watched with cool curiosity, easily able to pick out one individual in the drifting assemblage. The subject of his attention was almost lost in the crowd, but the boy's own attention, completely centered on the suspect industrialist that Palpatine had ordered him to gain the confidence of, sang out as a pure note in the muggy mud of massed minds.

Luke Antilles had been in the massive hall less than fifteen minutes and had almost immediately singled out his target, following at a discreet distance to study the industrialist's habits—all of which he would doubtless have learned well in advance from Intel, but Viscount Indo had done his job well and the boy knew that there was nothing like confirming the details— until he felt he had his plan of attack. Tonight, it would probably revolve around the boy's own youthful countenance and slight, waiflike frame, enabling him to feign adolescent enthusiasm and awed intimidation, Palpatine knew. The boy would be smiling and charming and so artfully guileless that one could not possibly, conceivably imagine him as anything but genuine.

He hated the man in truth; Palpatine could sense that already. But only in the same way that he hated most: as a kind of reflex action, a last-gasp attempt at self-preservation in a galaxy that Palpatine had taken great care to illustrate was utterly pitiless and relentlessly cruel. And the boy had always been such a fast learner. How well he played these games. In a year, perhaps less, his learning would be at an end and he would be instated as an Emperor's Hand, a life of servitude and loyalty before him—for exactly as long as he remained unconditionally and unquestioningly loyal, of course.

What a find—a gift in fact, brought here to the Imperial palace itself!

Palpatine's thin lips twitched in a momentary smile—yes, a gift in so many ways.

They had tried to keep the boy from him, of course, just as they had tried to keep Anakin from him, but the Dark Side had always served Palpatine well, and it hadn't failed him in bringing the boy to his attention. Another instrument to use as he saw fit, just as his father had been.

He looked so much like Anakin sometimes…though fortunately the boy remained slighter and lighter than his true father, a combination of his mother's inherited build and the hardship of his first four years here dictating his physique. And with fairish hair and blue eyes, he still looked enough like Kenobi that, after many years of judicious influence, Vader remained convinced that the boy was Kenobi's, and Palpatine's supreme game remained intact.

It had been such a simple task, to alter the past of a child already protected by misdirection and lies, to Palpatine's own ends. To give the boy yet another identity, when his own, right down to his significant date of birth, had been so well hidden that he didn't even know it himself. And where better to place the blame than at the feet of the man whom Vader already held responsible for the loss of his wife and his unborn child: Anakin's old mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi. To associate the boy with Kenobi would forever damn and alienate him in Vader's eyes.

And the boy himself… With his lack of knowledge of his true identity and years alone with Palpatine, he accepted anything that his Master cared to tell him.

To change Kenobi's medical records—long since retrieved from the intact database in the razed Jedi Temple—before Vader's initial return had been effortless. As for the boy's past, nothing had been documented in the hope of protecting him, but to be sure, Palpatine had kept him carefully hidden for those first four years, until any chance of a connection or of recognition had died down…and of course, until he was satisfied that his hold on the child was absolute.

Certainly the solemn, insular child whom Palpatine had finally allowed to be seen on the event of the eleventh State Celebration on Coruscant, bore little resemblance to the seven-year-old declared murdered during the assassination of his supposed 'parents.' The chubby, fair-haired cherub had grown sallow and gaunt, hair darkening with age, skin pale from years without the sun. Still, the boy's appearance had been carefully stage-managed to catch the eyes of a very specific audience, sufficient to draw both Kenobi and Master Yoda out of hiding and enable Palpatine to bring to a satisfying conclusion the duel which he had begun with the diminutive Jedi Master eleven years earlier in the Senate Chamber.

Unlikely as any connection was, the Alderaanian Royal Houses had begun asking questions within weeks of the boy's reappearance. Clearly they had been tipped off, probably by Kenobi, who had escaped despite Vader's pursuit. The boy himself had long grown up believing himself Kenobi's unrevealed and illegitimate son, so that whilst he'd been encouraged to denigrate and rebuff any connection with his renegade 'father' Kenobi, he also felt no real ties to Alderaan, and didn't react to the Organa's interest—or rather, and more gratifyingly, he had looked to Palpatine to judge what his reaction should be.

Still, to have that division of the boy's attention was intolerable to Palpatine. Alderaan had long been ignored despite its agitation, but this was the final straw. Its government was dismantled and its Royal Prerogative revoked—a lesson to all the Royal Houses that even they were not beyond the Emperor's reach. The planet and system of Alderaan had existed under martial law ever since, a very public lesson on why one did not question one's Emperor—ever.

The boy was his alone, the promise of power which Palpatine had set in motion with Anakin's discovery once again within reach. And what a twisted little amusement to play out; Vader's son, spending every day in close proximity to his own father, neither father nor son aware of the truth.

So oblivious, in fact, that the boy was alive only because of Palpatine's daily intervention. Vader was relentlessly eager to remove his Kenobi's supposed son permanently—but had settled, because of Palpatine's claiming of the child for himself, for making the boy's life utter hell.

Vader, whose power and attunement to the Force had been everything that Palpatine's should have been. Because for all the power he himself held, Palpatine knew that Anakin had embodied more. And that one fact had always gnawed at him: that it should have been him—it should have been he who had held that connection, that raw power, not Anakin.

Palpatine deserved it, he himself and alone, for his own ends. He would have used it, drawn on it without restraint to gain everything he had desired so much sooner—so much easier! It should have been his. He shouldn't need to keep Vader alive, useful as he was. He shouldn't need to rely on anything…that power should have been his.

His lip curled in resentment. Even now, when that connection had been broken and diminished, the knowledge of Anakin's ability still fired a flare of resentment in Palpatine. Even now, he hated that which he needed, for the very fact that he still needed it.

And then his son! A son, carrying his father's power, his father's connection—that same flawless, profound connection, at once magnetic and galling in its intensity.

It had all seemed so promising; Vader's child…Anakin's child. Another chance to own the power that should have been Palpatine's by rights, but this time in its ascendancy, not fractured or tainted, as Vader's was. So he had taken the boy, barely seven, to make that power an extension of his own, to be used at will. And all this in front of Vader. Right beneath his nose, Palpatine had taken the only thing that he knew would ever have been of value to Vader…and mutilated it, blighted it…owned it. Held for himself that one thing which Vader would have valued above all else, just as Vader held that which Palpatine desired: power.

An eye for an eye. Vader held the power which Palpatine knew that he alone so rightly deserved…and Palpatine held his child.

He grinned, settling back slightly in self-congratulation. Not simply held, but so much more… Because Vader hated the boy he believed so completely to be Kenobi's—hated him with a vengeance, with a loathing and a rage so great that simply to be near him was a fuse burning down.

How often had Palpatine already had to step between them when that resentment had escalated into action? How many times would Vader have unknowingly killed his own child, given the chance? How wonderfully, delightfully gratifying to know that—to know that it was he who had instigated it.

Because every day Palpatine looked to Vader and saw a power he could never himself hold…and so every day, he had made it his mission to possess the single thing which would have meant so much more to Vader.

A perfect little game, played out for his own private amusement. And so very useful. Perhaps in those first years, he had been a little…over-zealous, first in taking out his frustration that the boy existed at all, and second that he had seemed so utterly unmanageable. But they had forged a path, he and the child. From the boy's first arrival here as the seven-year-old heir to the throne of Alderaan, to the long hours invested in a unique schooling with no constraints, no conditions, hours on days on years, shaping a mind still young and pliable and placing a thousand tight controls in anticipation of that power blossoming, to his reintroduction to the galaxy as an unknown, aged eleven, Palpatine had been the boy's life. His universe. He had made sure of that. There was no one else—no other focus, good or bad.

When he'd known that he held the boy completely, that his word and his will was law, he'd finally acquiesced and begun to return his little project to the greater galaxy…but there had been problems.

Always, with the boy, there were problems.

It had been a difficult adjustment—but then Palpatine didn't require of him that the boy be comfortable or content, only useful. Still, careful control had been required to manage a slow reintroduction to the galaxy that the boy had been isolated from for so long. A shrewd choice of tutor, of routine, and he had stabilized—though he had never quite readjusted.

Because for all his training, the boy exhibited only brief, erratic surges of intense ability which spiralled into being then fell away within days—hours, sometimes. The connection was there—it blazed into being then flickered to nothing, a momentary flare of incandescent brilliance, like looking at a sun, and then…gone, despite every possible spur. A dismal trail into muddy mediocrity. He could have taken any Force-sensitive child and reaped from them the same assets that the boy now exhibited—already had.

He'd made no secret of this to the child: his disappointment, his displeasure, his open disapproval. It made no difference. The boy maintained that wary air of guarded detachment, torn between the need to please a Master who had always asked everything of him and, as he'd grown, some muted desire for autonomy which he must know by now that Palpatine would never grant.

He knew of course, that the boy had long since fallen back on spice to ease the demands of a pressured existence, knew that it was this which fired such heated guilt and cool validations in viscount Indo's mind as he struggled to control an unstable and impulsive charge. But then he sensed the same in so many facets of the viscount's reserved relationship with the boy, and in truth, such personal foibles were of little relevance. What was important was that Indo obeyed his Emperor's command. That he was loyal and he was reliable, and he was capable of realizing the raw potential that Palpatine had seen in the boy, without ever turning a professional relationship into a personal one.

The spice was of no importance. The boy had come into Palpatine's presence under its influence only once…and never again; Palpatine had made sure of that. Had made his standpoint quite clear.

The boy was still wayward, always unruly, often callous and occasionally malicious—though never, ever with Palpatine. Those valuable early years had instilled deference too deeply, and a healthy fear for the Master who had ruled with an iron rod for so long. It was quite an appealing combination, this knowingly wicked and casually cutting streak—as long as he could rule the boy completely. And if he thought for one moment that he could not…well then, the boy was disposable. Completely.

Palpatine smiled, eyes fixed on the youth whose slight frame left him almost lost in the crowd, his distant disquiet tangible. Fifteen years old, on the very cusp of adult life…and so wonderfully, painfully aware of just exactly how brief his life had the potential to be.

Even standing with his back to the dais, Luke was still uncomfortably aware of his Master's critical eyes on him, a scrutiny which felt like it burned into his back, so intense was it, leaving him edgy and anxious. Eventually, unable to stand it any more, he placed himself beyond his Master's eyes if not his awareness, stepping beneath the sweeping curve of the double-stairway to the center of the imposing hall as he moved through the crowds with a smooth grace, completely at home among the primped masses. All that color and finery beneath the grim and daunting darkness of the massive hall, as if they thought they could ever counter the shadows of this place. All those jewels, some faceted and cut crystal, others in the form of rank and insignia. They were all trinkets of one type or another, designed to tell the same story—that of wealth and power.

He slowed among the leisurely flow of pampered bodies which shoaled unseeing to either side of him. He'd learned a long time ago to be invisible in a crowd; how to make others look away, uneasy beneath intense blue eyes. Standing still in the throng, he closed them now, as he opened his senses to the complex perceptions of the myriad of minds about him, as abstract and as gaudy as the clothes they wore, becoming a blur of senses and motion as he held that massed perception of a thousand thoughts in delicate balance...

His Master said that this was his particular gift: to sense more closely than most. He had spent long hours training Luke to hone that ability, among others… But in all those punishing hours, he had never once taught Luke how to silence the tumult of minds about him, the torrent of incessant voices which mingled to a constant clamor, loud enough to make him flinch beneath their stringent roar.

The echo of too many thoughts in the massive hall, the massed sense of many minds, nervous and wired, self-seeking and serving, took him instantly back to his childhood. To that same sense of being invisible amongst so many, alone in the crowd, an awkward inconvenience avoided and ignored.

It had been a strange prison, that of his youth. For four years, he had been locked, day and night, within the vast, echoing grandeur of the Throne Room, a huge, imposing chamber twice the size of even this stately ballroom. Day and night, month on month, year on year. So long that it became his universe, and his Master…despite his ink-black robes, his dark-dressed Master was so clearly the sun, the thing about which all else revolved. The thing which could give him sustenance or leave him cold…or worse, burn with a terrible fury.

To a child, four years was an eternity. A third of his life lived in that one chamber, either crowded with throngs of people as this hall was today, or deathly silent in the absolute darkness, echoing the myriad of unknown noises which any room threw out in the silent pitch of night.

At times, his prison was shot through with color and vibrancy which he himself had never been a part of, courtiers flitting past like so many dazzling butterflies, and just as ethereal to Luke as a child. Because none of them looked at him. None of them met his eye. He existed outside of their world of comfort and plenty. He starved amid gluttony, he froze surrounded by opulent furs and smooth-spun silk. He bled, without a hand raised to him in comfort.

A surreal existence in which he had been a ghost, a cipher knowingly ignored by all but his dark-dressed Master, until even that attention became craved.

And all that time, his Master had taught. Taught by example, by order, by demand.

There were times when his teachings made no sense to a child too young to understand. There were others when his words had struck so close to home that Luke's head and his heart had ached in empathy, left abandoned and alone for hours in the silence of long nights, too hungry and too cold to sleep, too exhausted to be truly awake.

The Jedi, his Master had taught him with absolute disdain, sought their precious calm in such times. Meditated for hours in their futile quest to strip their being of emotion, believing that too much emotion could cloud the judgment and freeze the mind. Futile goals, his Master had said, because that very thing which the Jedi sought to purge, was the source of true power. Sith power.

Yet in those first months, it had been the brusquely dismissed Jedi teachings, and not those of the Sith, which had seemed to Luke so intuitive and true. There were so many times when Luke would have given everything to purge himself of emotion, crouched silent and terrified in the darkness of that vast, echoing hall as he'd watched the shadows crawl, abandoned and forgotten in the baleful dark of endless nights.

But time… They said time was the great healer, though it had never been that for Luke; never. But it was a teacher; it granted perspective, imposed endurance. And, occasionally, it bestowed clarity. Because too little emotion, as the Jedi advocated—too little, and Luke doubted he would have survived his early years with Palpatine at all. How could you give everything, make that investment, consign every resource physically and mentally to the moment, without the spur of fear, of fury, of grim desperation? Nature had gifted this to every living being, the fundamental expression of existence; the intrinsic ability to endure, to survive, to commit all to the moment, fired by the emotions therein.

In terms of actual, physical time, the years he had been imprisoned in the surreal, shadowed netherworld of the windowless Throne Room were a fraction of Luke's life. In terms of his soul, of their effect upon him, they stretched behind and before him like eternity. A cold stillness at his core, as if those grim and silent nights remained within him.

He remembered distinctly that primal instinct, that drive to survive which had sent him hiding in the darkness, finding the smallest space. The cramped and hidden refuges he'd crush himself into for some semblance of safety.

Or the nights with full moons in which he would chase down the circle of light which shone into his dark world from the high, circular skylight. There were no other windows in his Master's Throne Room—there was no world beyond this one vast chamber… Except when the moon was full. Then, it washed its soft glow through that one high transom, and he used to seek out and curl up in that circle of light…and in the night when he woke and it was gone, sliding silently away, he remembered scrabbling desperately in the darkness to get to it again, that tiny circle of pale moonlight, as if it could protect him from the darkness all around.

Seven years old, alone and afraid, it had seemed like even the light had deserted him—even it now consigned him to the shadows. That was all that was left to him now. He could only huddle, arms wrapped about himself, and listen to every scrape and every scratch in the empty underhangs and darkest corners of that massive, echoing chamber, big enough that it took long, nerve-rending minutes to walk from one side to another, whilst those looming shadows reached out to engulf him as he listened all the while to the creaks and scuffs and grating grinds. The soft drag of imagined footfalls, hidden in a darkness so dense that it writhed with a life all its own. It stalked, it waited, it whispered…

In his childhood, even within fleeting memories of Alderaan, he'd had a recurring dream, a nightmare that he'd stood in the half-shadows on the very threshold of darkness, the safety of daylight just beyond. One step more and he would stand in the light. One step more and he could run free.

And then somehow, without his moving, the darkness would seep about him and he would hear the rasping breath of the creature move behind him, huge and heavy, freezing the breath in his lungs and paralyzing him in terror…then the darkness would close about him, stealing his senses, rendering him blind and helpless—

—and it would pounce.

Incredible weight, raw power, a body-blow which would knock the air from his lungs in a gasp, driving him to his knees. Vice-like, inescapable hold, like claws ensnared in skin and scalp which wrenched him from behind, yanking him bodily back…

Always dragging him back into darkness.

And every night in his childhood, his Master had locked him, alone, into the smothering, impenetrable pitch of the dark Throne Room. Every single night, he had locked Luke into that nightmare…

And every day, the harsh, brutal reality of his life had paled it by comparison.

Absolutely alone, he had dug deep for that primal sense, that resilience, that instinct to survive by any means.

By the time he was eleven, he no longer feared the monster hiding in the darkness.

He'd become it.

Luke blinked rapidly, moving his head just slightly, rebuffing as much as he could the flare of old memories fired by the contact of too many close minds about him. He pushed them away as he always had done, the only way he knew to silence the hoards, the only way his Master had ever taught him. He turned to the one other mind that was louder, the one mind that resonated within the Force: his Master. By concentrating on that one mind, that one connection, Luke could drown out so much else; reduce the blaring din to a distant, clawing clatter at the edges of his perceptions. It gave him strength, that bond, that tie. Pulled wayward thoughts into a kind of focus.

Opening his eyes, Luke started forward again through the crowds, letting them scatter subconsciously before him as he slipped through their masses like a shark on the hunt.

Standing to one side of the heaving hall, body atilt as he leaned against the wall, Han watched from a distance, fascinated. The kid had stood stock still beneath the divided curve of the double stairwell, right in the middle of the flow of people, for almost ten minutes…and not a single one had accidentally knocked him or jostled him, though his back was to the flow. Not one. They all just…drifted to the side at the last moment, without ever looking at him. No one hassled him, no one glared, no one said anything, they just all stepped aside without seeming to register that he was there at all.

The kid blinked suddenly, eyes opening as he shook his head slightly…then he started forward, serious scowling eyes on some old overdressed, overbearing guy who'd just passed him. The man turned—and instantly the kid's expression changed, a shy, deferential half-smile coming from nowhere as he bobbed his head slightly and started up conversation.

Which, given the kid's general disposition, was pretty damn weird in itself, Han reflected. In fact, it was the weirdest thing he'd seen today—and that was saying something. They spoke for a good while as the kid nodded, holding constant eye-contact, the older guy seeming to have an awful lot to say to a fifteen-year-old kid.

Way too much, in fact. Kid was clearly stuck, Han realized. He walked forward to the kid's back, and was getting pretty close before he noticed him put the hand which was by his side behind his back to wave subtly. Definitely stuck, Han reflected.

He stepped in, nodding to the other man. "Sorry, could I…'scuse me, sorry." He turned to the kid. "Uh, Luke? You have a comm."

The kid turned, something a little too intense in his eyes. "What?"

"Comm—you have a comm." Han looked to the expensively dressed man, smiling widely. "Just need to borrow him for a minute."

Kid didn't even pause. "Go away."

The big man, too, seemed put out, looking Han up and down and dismissing him in the same instant. "We're busy here, soldier."

Han nodded, a tight smile plastered over his offense. "Just one minute…important business."

The man raised one eyebrow, disbelieving. "Who?"

Han floundered for a moment, searching his memory for someone who'd put the fear of all hells into the pompous man… Moff Tarkin's name was on his lips just as the kid put out a hand.

"Wait—don't!" He glanced back to the man, voice apologetic. "Let me just…deal with this."

The man rolled his eyes, snubbed. "Take the comm."

"No, it's not that, it's just…"

The man waved his hand in casual dismissal, eyes roving the crowd now. "Take the call."

"Maybe we can talk later?"

The big man looked Luke up and down for a second, lips pursed as if in consideration. "I'm sure."

He set off into the crowds, leaving Luke to smile at his back just a little too long.

The kid waited a few more seconds before turning on Han, that sunny smile instantly gone. "Thanks a lot."

"That's one you owe me, junior."

"Yeah, that was my mark," the kid said dryly.

"What?"

"That was my mark…the man I'm supposed to draw out and read tonight. Thanks to you, I'm going to have to try to follow him round so I can look for an opportunity to start up conversation all over again. That's not gonna look weird at all, now is it?"

Han stared for a good three seconds. "…What?"

"Seriously, do you think I come to these things for the fun of it? I have a job to do, and tonight it's to get that guy talking to see if I can find out whether he knows about the fact that a tenth of the ordnance that his factories are manufacturing falls into Rebel hands, or whether he really is that stupid. I was just being so impressed that he ran a weapons facility," the kid said with dry distaste, "then you barge in."

"You were waving your hand behind your back!"

"Yes! That was me telling you to go away!"

"What, am I psychic now?"

"Clearly not, so I'll say it out loud again, shall I…go away."

"You made me come here!"

"That was just because I didn't see why I should suffer alone." The kid stretched up to glance through the crowd, trying to keep the man he'd been speaking to in view. "Now I can't go back to him for another hour without it seeming contrived, thanks to you."

"Well clearly you don't need me," Han tried. "Does that mean I can go?"

"Remember that whole 'I don't see why I should suffer alone' thing? Now it's double, since you've stuck me here for another hour."

"How can it be double?"

"You want me to stick this thing out all night? Cos I can do that…" Luke glanced about, frowning. "Great, now I've lost him entirely. You go that way, I'll go the other."

Muttering a curse, Han glanced back before he set off. "What'd he look like again?"

"Please—he had a pale green jacket and a red sash on. How long did you look at him?" The kid was already moving off, his slight frame almost instantly lost in the crowd.

Muttering his private opinion of the kid, high-class parties, and life in general, Han set off in the opposite direction.

He'd made it all the way around the massive ballroom—which had taken a good ten minutes—and was halfway through his second loop, cursing at the realization that not only could he not see the red and green-striped lunkhead but he'd also now lost the diminutive kid, when he stopped still, so surprised that he actually did a double-take.

Luke was standing to one side of the hall facing a young man balanced on the very edge of adulthood, as he was. Both were slim with short, dark blond hair and pale eyes, both of a similar manner and comportment, though the unknown courtier wore expensive clothes in pale colors, a complete contrast to the dark, somber suit that Luke wore.

For a second Han thought they might be friends, complaining and consoling each other about having to attend what even he thought was a mind-numbingly dull function—or maybe both kids had some kind of mission here tonight and they were comparing notes… Hell, maybe the Ubiqtorate recruited all their agents this young.

But even from this distance, there was something in the stranger's stance that hinted at a confrontation, though Luke remained as self-possessed and neutral as ever. Han slowed, uncertain what to do, and maybe just a little satisfied that the kid was having as bad a time as he was.

The stranger took a half-step forward as he continued to speak, his head tilting slightly as those fine features arranged into a thin sneer, though his words were too quiet to carry. Luke held his ground unmoved, and uttered some unheard reply. Whatever it was, the unknown youth felt compelled to retreat a short step, leaving Han to reflect that he'd give a week's pay to know what was being spoken—if, of course, he hadn't promised the next six months of it to the shop that had made his damn uniforms.

Luke leaned subtly forward, forcing Aramil to take a quarter-step back in reaction. Sensing the brief flare of Aramil's annoyance at his own retreat brought an undisguised, and very knowing, smile to Luke's face.

Fuelled by that, Aramil found his nerve—and aimed it squarely at Luke. "Don't play your little confidence games with me. I know what you are, Sith. You think you can threaten me with impunity? I'm under Palpatine's protection, lest you forget."

Luke maintained the slightest of empty smiles on his face, though it never touched his eyes. "You're a toy, Aramil—a momentary distraction. Whatever position you think you have, believe me, it's not even nearly unassailable. Swimming in the sea doesn't make you a shark—and you're surrounded by professional predators here."

"Please, spare me the powerplays. I'm untouchable and you know it…and it's just eating you up inside."