"Wrong, something is," said a voice like rough swamp treebark, soft into the evening. "Too close they are."

"What is Luke doing anywhere near Naboo?" wondered a second voice, gentle and etherial as the wind, but dark with worry. "For that matter, what are both of them doing there?"

"Dangerous this is," said the first. "Foolish it was, whoever called them there."

"There are clouds everywhere I look, Master Yoda," the second whispered. "Who would have done this? Who could know? I fear...Luke may be in terrible peril."

Tired eyes gazed up through swamp fog, as though seeing far beyond the stars. "In all paths, danger there is. Bring him to Darkness, if knows the boy he does. Kill him he might, if recognizes the boy he does not. Destroy him he may, regardless. On a saber's edge, all balances now..."

"What?"

Wedge Antilles' flinch was obvious, even over the ready room holoscreen. But then, the accusation and loss in Princess Leia's tone was enough to make anyone feel guilty, no matter how involved they were "I-I'm sorry, ma'am--really, I can't say it enough," the Rogue pilot explained. "But he gave me orders--he wanted me to come back and warn the Alliance."

"Warn us?" Leia breathed in disbelief, still trying to process the news. "Warn us that he may be dead or captured? Burning skies, I told him this was a bad idea...!"

"Hey, take it easy, Your Worship," Han cautioned from his chair. They were aboard one of the Alliance cruisers, with which the Falcon had docked to drop off the Princess. Leia sat across from them, staring into the holoscreen at the apologetic Wedge. "Sounds like it got pretty tough out there--the kid did what he had to do." As usual, Han covered his sadness with practiced neutrality, but there was a pensive edge to his face that had been there from the moment the news was reported.

"But Luke could still be out there!" Leia protested whirling on him. "If he wasn't shot down and wasn't captured, he could be trying to make it to the rendezvous! An X-wing can't possibly carry enough fuel to follow us here, even if he knew which way to go. We've got to try to find him!"

"As much as I wanna help the kid," Han interjected, "do you even have any idea where he is? Even if he's not in some Imperial brig, we don't have the first clue where to look."

Realizing this, Leia's face fell, her shoulders slumping. "You're right..."

"Your Highness," Wedge offered, trying to lift her spirits, his voice crackling a bit over the comm. "The moment you figure out how to help Luke, me and the Rogues'll be right behind you. Hells, you wouldn't be able to stop us from coming along!"

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Leia replied, giving a wan smile. "I do appreciate that."

"No problem, ma'am. And...if you can...please let me know if you do get anything."

"I will. Thanks, Wedge." With a sad sigh, Leia signed off--then buried her face in her arms. "Oh, Han...I can't believe he's gone..."

"Hey, hey, Highness-ness!" The moment the smuggler realized that the princess was crying, he was up and out of his seat in a heartbeat, coming over to touch her shoulder. "Hey, don't crank up the waterworks just yet--we can't write Luke off that easy. I mean," he went on awkwardly, "sure, he's a farmboy from a dustball, an' he's a bit dumb sometimes, but he's not that easy to take down. I'm sure he'll turn up."

"I can only hope you're right," Leia sniffed, dabbing at her eyes. "Stars, look at me...sitting here bawling when I can be working! I've got to go notify Command--we can get word out to every Alliance outpost on this side of the galaxy. One of them will have to hear something about Luke..."

Leaving a very befuddled Han Solo standing over her chair, Leia headed rapidly for the door. There were still tears in her eyes, but her face was set with purpose and determination.

Darth Vader reacted out of instinct, the moment he sensed peril and spotted the grenade at his feet--a burst of the Force scooped up the small explosive and sent it hurtling back the way it had come, straight out the broken window. "Get down!" he roared to the foolish gawkers standing there in the room.

Only the Gungan and the old woman had the sense to listen to him--the alien dropping to cower on the floor and the elder falling to rest on the couch. The others--the younger woman and the Rebel pilot--stood like kesh-stalks, staring at him stupidly, as the grenade blew.

All of the windows on that side of the house were knocked out by the force of the blast, shards of glass hurtling inward at them. The thunderous noise finally sent the pilot and the woman to the floor, the boy trying to shield the matron from the hail of glass. Vader himself was sheltered by the heavy door he pressed up against, as the concussive wave and the roar passed through the dwelling.

For a moment afterward, there was silence--the elder woman gasping for breath and the young pilot staring up at him with large, angry, startled eyes.

Then there was distorted voices and the rumble of many footsteps. Blaster fire barked out, gouging the walls around them, as whoever approached laid down covering fire as they came from two directions--the front door and the nice new hole in the wall.

Vader was already angry enough from the delay and interference. Now, these stupid men had the gall to toss explosives around and shoot at him? And they had blown a hole in this house, her house--

With a roar, he ignited his lightsaber and turned into the nearest laser blasts, deflecting them back at the fools who fired them. There were at least six, crouched in the hall beyond--familiar white armor, trimmed with markings of red and black. An Imperial Special Operations crew--stormtroopers with brains. But that wasn't saying much; stormtroopers still followed their orders to the point of stupidity--even facing their own Lord Darth Vader.

But even their numbers were not enough--far from enough. It was like facing a droid army--but these troopers' aim was even poorer than the droids. How pathetic! He would not spare any of them--they attacked him, they were fools, they damaged her house, they interfered with his business...!

In a short series of parries and turns, he had mowed down half of the hallway troopers with their own deflected blaster fire, and beheaded the rest; it had hardly taken him three of his measured breaths. More waited outside, beyond the ones he had slain, but for now they could wait--for now, he would see to the noncombatants in the fireplace room.

The two familiar women--yes, he knew them well, though they could never recognize him now--were crouched down before the couch, embracing one another as blaster fire flew over their heads. Binks, the Gungan, was hiding behind the short caf table, shouting something as troopers began to climb in the broken window wall, blaster rifles spitting fire.

There was a burst of emotion and strength through the Force; the boy--that stupid boy!--was risking all to run across the firefight for his fallen blaster, completely disregarding the soldiers now drawing a bead on him. The trooper with a Lieutenant mark was the first to raise his weapon and fire at the pilot.

"Fool! Stay down!" Vader commanded, a push of the Force swatting the youth off his feet just in time to avoid the blast of laser fire. The Sith Lord heard a yelp and sizzle as the hot energy clipped the boy--pain sliced through the Force, but on the floor the pilot still moved strongly, so he was not badly damaged. Vader's intervention had kept him from taking the blast full-on.

The troopers began to correct their aim--but then Vader swept in before the young pilot, the deadly hum of his crimson blade sending the laser fire back at the soldiers. One, two, three steps and four troopers fell--easy as dismantling droids. One step, turn, two steps, and the rest were gone; four more scattered below, but they were easy pickings. The Sith Lord merely locked his saber on and hurled it, its Force-controlled arc taking it through the bodies of each man in turn. It smoothly returned to his hand, humming as he pivoted from the window to survey the room.

The Naberrie women and the Gungan had not moved; the boy had found his blaster again and was pointing it straight at him--but his aim was wavering and his left arm was held close to his side. The blackened spot on the back of his shoulder told of where he'd been grazed.

"You're pointing that the wrong way, boy," the dark lord growled, impatient with the child's stubbornness. "There are still more out there."

"I should kill you," the young pilot snarled, hand tightening on the blaster's grip. "You killed Ben--you killed my family--"

"I have killed a great many people, young one," Vader retorted evenly, "and one more will not concern me in the least, if you do not lower the weapon. Unless you actually think you can defeat me." He raised his lightsaber casually in one hand, daring the youth to take a shot at him.

Teeth gritted, the boy's arm stayed rigid for long moments, his hand shaking...until, reluctantly, he lowered the blaster to his side. His pale eyes never left Vader's face, glaring with all the fury he could never actualize.

"That's better," Vader stated, lowering his own weapon though he did not deactivate it. "Now; I have come here for one reason only--there was a message sent from this location from one Anakin Skywalker. Who is responsible for this, and where is he?"

"You won't find him!" the boy snapped. "You'll never--!"

"There is no one here by that name, my Lord," said the eldest woman, surprising them all by the strength in her voice and bearing as she stood up--Jobal Naberrie, who had once served him dinner and teased kindly at him...

"Do not try to deceive me," Vader cautioned, casting those memories aside. "I was generous in sparing your lives in this attack; I could just as easily let you die in the next wave."

"It is no lie, my Lord," Jobal replied evenly, her bearing firm though her face was streaked with old tears. "No one lives in this place, and no one has come here to our knowledge. My daughter and I come periodically to see to its upkeep, but no one besides us has set foot here in many years."

"You," Vader rumbled, turning to the young pilot. "You came in regards to the same message I interecepted, did you not? What did you find here?"

Unsurprisingly, the youth's chin came up, his jaw setting in defiance. He did not answer.

"Don't try my patience, brat," the Sith Lord growled, half-raising his saber. "I can pry the answers out of you--or perhaps one of the ladies would be kind enough to share with me...if I press them."

The younger woman gasped, but the elder merely gazed at him, hiding her fear behind a regal bearing. The boy, on the other hand, bristled like a nexu and leaped between Vader and the women. "Don't you touch them!" he yelled, raising his blaster again. "I don't care what you do to me--you leave them alone!"

"Then speak!" Vader snapped. "Before I carve the answers out of all of you!"

When the answer came, it surprised even the dark lord himself--a whistle and a beep, that made him crank his helmeted head around. In the corner, standing innocuously next to a computer terminal--a terminal destroyed by blaster fire--was the squat form of an astromech droid. The R2 unit bleeped and honked irately at him, but its holoprojector lit up with a bright presentation of words and numbers that it projected into the middle of the room. A loyal droid--offering the information to prevent its master from coming to harm.

Smiling grimly behind his mask, Vader read the message to himself. "I see," he rumbled. "A snook hunt, then. This Jedi impostor wishes to lead a merry chase, at the end of which waits a devious trap for the evil Sith." He could almost have chuckled aloud, turning once more to the youth. "And your life is the key, eh, young 'Heir of the Jedi'?"

Eyes widening in alarm, the youth began to draw back.

Still smiling, Vader took long steps toward the boy. "I shall just have to bring the 'key' with me."

Suddenly, the Gungan stepped up in the youth's defense, standing boldly in front of him. "Yousa leavin' him be! Mesa not letten yousa ouch him!" Binks stated bravely--quite out of character for him.

"Get out of my way," Vader growled; thus far, something inexplicable was holding him back from merely taking his lightsaber to these people when they resisted. But his patience was wearing thin.

"Yousa not--!"

"Move!" the Sith Lord snapped, with a sharp gesture. Jar Jar folded aside as if he'd been punched, knocked rolling across the floor. He gasped for air, but could not rise. Ignoring the alien, Vader reached for the boy--

The Force alerted him to the attack coming from the doorway; the remaining Special Ops troopers had finally gotten their act together to try again. The blaster bolts lanced out from the hallway even as he moved; they were aimed at the first, most obvious target--the Rebel standing in the center of the room. Vader deflected the first shots with his lightsaber even as the young pilot gasped and stepped back--but the bolts came thickly now, and his lunge to block them had put him slightly off-balance.

The Sith Lord instinctively threw himself between the boy and the incoming fire, all the while cursing his seeming inability to let these people come to harm. Even as he blocked, his clumsy lunge had set him a single beat off--if he were a still Padawan, Obi-Wan would have had his ears for that! A blaster bolt spanged off the shoulder plate of his body armor, causing him to grunt at the heat of it; the burn ignited his temper, drawing the Force around him.

The troopers had not learned anything. They fell to their own blaser shots as they charged through the door, making their final attack a suicide rather than face their master after a failure; the final surviving trooper actually got within sword range, and was handily sliced in two.

With what seemed to be the last of them, Vader turned back to his business--only to find the young pilot raising his blaster again, near point-blank. The Sith Lord's lightsaber came up--he sensed danger, but not from the boy...behind--!

He swung around, his blade blocking the spray of laser fire--then the young pilot stepped aside of him, and his blaster barked twice; Vader finished his parry as the two remaining Special Ops soldiers fell from the broken wall opening, both neatly shot between the eyes. No deflected blaster fire had hit them.

Somehow startled despite himself, Vader turned slowly to regard the youth. The boy was still glaring at him, but was lowering his blaster. "I didn't do that for you," the young pilot spat. "They might've hurt someone."

The youth's "someone" obviously did not include the Sith Lord.

"That was the last of them," Vader informed him, unconcerned with the fact that he'd just wiped out a whole squad of Imperial Special Ops troopers. "You no longer need the weapon."

The boy glared at Vader's outstretched hand, his fingers twitching on the blaster's grip. Stubborn as a bantha, this child--furious with his own helplessness, but undaunted nonetheless.

"If you wish your companions to remain unharmed, you will comply," Vader stated, his lightsaber still humming at his side. At this blatant threat, the youth folded at last; still glaring laser bolts, he placed the blaster in the Sith Lord's open palm.

"I hate you," the boy whispered, in a very small, very angry voice.

"I'm crushed," Vader drawled. "Now you--and the droid. Come."

Belting his blade and half-turning to the door, he spotted the silver glint of the young pilot's lightsaber, still sitting where it had fallen. Almost casually, he summoned the weapon to his hand; no sense in wasting a perfectly good--

The lightsaber fit to his palm as if it belonged there, a heft and balance in his hand that he had not felt in years--he stared at it, for a moment caught in inescapable shock. He knew this weapon--every gram of its weight, every little scratch and dent, every button on its surface, every millimeter of the grip...

Vader rounded on the boy, his mind blanked with disbelief and fury. "Where did you get this lightsaber?" he demanded, his fist locked in the front of the young pilot's shirt, all but hoisting him off his feet, ignoring the fearful cries of the women. "Where?"

When the youth did not immediately answer, the enraged Sith Lord began to shake him, his anger powerful enough to rattle through the very room. "Who gave this to you? Answer me--how did you get it?"

"Stop it. Anakin, stop. You'll hurt us."

The voice jolted through him like an electric shock, clawing at his heart with a sudden stab of old, remembered guilt--enough to make him drop the boy like a hot rock, involuntarily stepping back. The boy was still staring at him, a lot of his fury replaced by fear, those strangely haunting eyes large in his face.

Vader stared back at him, angry that mere memory could cause him to react so. What was it with all these voices from his dead past? Why did he have to be haunted by these ghosts?

"I have no time for this," he growled, gripping the old lightsaber tightly in one hand. "Boy. Droid. Move."

When the young pilot only stared at him, Vader grabbed him by the uninjured shoulder and shoved him toward the door. Stumbling, the boy hissed and snapped out a sharp string of derogatory Huttese--in hopes his captor would not understand--and Vader almost laughed; with one sentence, the boy betrayed himself. While his Basic was spoken in the the flat, casual tones of an Outer-Rimworlder--his origins undefinable--his accent in Huttese was pure, provincial Tatooine, gutter slang and all. Vader would know that dialect anywhere.

It was almost funny; what were the odds?

"Chesko, pidunki," Vader growled, not quite amused, as he pushed the boy onward. "While that kind of language might suit a little desert rat like you, it just might annoy me enough to remove your tongue."

Hooting irately, the faithful little droid rolled into the hallway after them, while the younger of the two women helped up the fallen Gungan. Jobal, however, hurried after them to the front door, tears streaming anew down her careworn face.

"Lord Vader!" she called out, as the Sith Lord forced the young pilot down the steps. "Please--leave him alone! You have your message--take the droid! But please...leave him...!" He heard her sob as she fell, her legs failing her in the doorway. "Must you destroy...even him? Monster! Haven't you taken enough from us?"

Suddenly stung by her words, he whirled on her. "Woman, you know nothing! I never would have--!"

Once again, he was getting out of control. Once again, his mouth spoke without his mind's leave. And once again, the Sith Lord reined himself in, furious at his lapse. "You forget yourself. Do not make me regret sparing your life!" Great hells, he had to get off this planet. It was making him crazy.

But...this was her family. If they were hurt...she would've cried...

"Leave this place," he rumbled reluctantly to the bereft old woman. "And do not return. It is no longer safe. I will not be here the next time."

With that, Vader strode onward, leaving the distraught woman on the porch. Keeping a firm grip on the struggling boy's scruff, he headed for the somewhat damaged speeders parked in the driveway; the kaadu-and-sled had apparently run off when the shooting started. The civilian landspeeder rested on the ground, dead, but the tougher military grade of the Imperial speeder kept it in one piece despite the blaster scars in its hide.

"Do not trouble me," he growled at the boy, as he shoved him into the rear compartment of the large speeder--the section which could be locked, for prisoners and the like. "You live only as long as your usefulness. Inconvenience me in any way, and I'll remove a few limbs to keep you quiet."

Though he was silent, fury and terror warred for equal place on the young pilot's face as Vader closed the hatch on him.

The astromech droid, not nearly as fearful as its master, squealed and honked an endless tirade of abuse at the Sith Lord; Vader only tolerated the noise because destroying the unit would lose him the planetary coordinates of his next destination. It reminded him a great deal of a droid he had once worked closely with--both the attitude and the paint job were remarkably similar.

It was easy enough to lift the droid into the speeder hatch, using the Force; he placed it in the space between the seats, on its side so it couldn't do anything more than spin its wheels and burble at him. The Force would also let him keep tabs on the young pilot closed in the rear; at the moment, the boy's emotions swirled with too much fear, dismay, and helplessness for him to do anything to escape.

Vader closed the door and hit the ignition, and the speeder coughed reluctantly to life. He had the trail of the impostor, he had the 'key' the message described, and he was one step closer to eliminating this...annoying little hiccup and getting back to more important matters. His master might not be pleased that the Special Ops team had been eliminated, but when Vader brought him news of the impostor's demise and the destruction of the Rebels, the Emperor would surely forgive him.

And then there was the boy. Yes, his master might enjoy that little gift...

In the speeder's rearview screen, three figures huddled on the old lakehouse porch, helpless, shrinking in the distance. Forcing back the needle of pain somewhere deep within his darkness, Darth Vader turned his eyes to the road ahead, pushing the speeder to full throttle to escape this haunting place.