Jobal Naberrie could not stop her tears, clinging to her equally grieved eldest daughter. His long arms around them, awkwardly patting their shoulders in comfort, Jar Jar Binks kept a steady vigil, ears and eyestalks drooped with failure.

"Mesa so much sorry..." the Gungan murmured. "My no goodda nothin'. Mesa can't eb'n protectin' poor Lukie...mesa so sorry..."

"It's not your fault, Jar Jar," Sola whispered. "None of us could have done anything--not against that...that...Sith." She spat the word like the dark curse it was.

"He'll never stop," Jobal choked, anger and grief clouding her careworn features. "He's the one--he killed the Jedi. He killed poor Anakin...he stole my Padme from me...destroyed their lives...and now he's taken the last piece of my baby I had left...!" Struggling to stand, the old woman leaned heavily on her daughter. "I can't let this go on--someone...has to stop this...stop him..."

"What can we do, Mother?" Sola demanded through her tears. "We have nothing--we're not even Jedi, and look how easily he destroyed them!"

"Ussen Gungans woulda help," Jar Jar offered, "but wesa got no more grand army. Wesa lost allem tings, dat Palpy took an' kill 'em. All wesa got left is ussen courages--so wesa helpen anyting we can do. Mesa helpen 'specially--mesa no more stayin' home hidin'!"

Jobal was silent for a single, long moment, before she turned her tearful gaze sternly to both Jar Jar and Sola. "Ruwee...knows a man," she stated quietly. "He knows how to contact that man, but he has never risked it before. That man...is a member of the Rebel Alliance."

Sola's eyes bulged. "Mother! You can't be thinking--!"

"I'm not going to sit back and watch any more--I've lost too much!" the elder woman snapped, fire growing in her eyes. "I may be an old fool, but I'm not going to let my grandchild go without a fight! Your father can ask that man to put us in contact with the Rebel Alliance, and they're the only ones who have any chance of standing up to the Empire and Vader. I've heard rumors there are Jedi left, and they're with the Alliance. It's our only hope. It's Luke's only hope."

"Dem badEmpires, dey no likin' yousa do dat," Jar Jar warned, though he seemed eager to do it himself. "Isa maxi risky bombin'--muy dangerous."

Sola nodded in agreement, though she knew better than to try to talk her mother out of anything. "Mother...you know if you do this...we won't be safe any more."

"No one is safe," Jobal said, with a small snort of sad amusement. "Vader was right about that, at least--this place is no longer safe for anyone. The whole galaxy isn't safe any more." She met her daughter's eyes once more, full of regret. "We'll have to leave Naboo. All of us."

"At least...Darred will be able to get us offplanet," Sola told her. "He's had emergency arrangements made for years, in case...something happened. And Pooja's been wanting to leave for a long time now--I half expect she wanted to join the Rebels herself. It's Ryoo's family I'm worried about; they've put down roots...it'll be hard for them to leave, but...if they stay..."

"I think they'll understand," Jobal assured her, taking both Sola and Jar Jar's hands. "One day, when this is over, we'll all come home--together. Luke will be with us, and we'll be a family again. I swear it on my daughter's grave--I will not let that monster hurt us any more..."

Luke was still somewhere between terrified and furious, even though he was calming down. With the adrenaline of the fight gone, he was stuck in a sort of weary daze, exhausted from all that had happened; his upper arm and shoulder throbbed where he'd been scored, and he was getting motion sickness from being crammed in a small, dim, stuffy compartment with no windows and no fresh air, as the Imperial speeder rattled on to parts unknown. He'd lost everything--his pack of belongings, his weapons, his self-esteem...

And he was kicking himself--and the wall--for being so stupid and so helpless. Vader--his worst enemy, murderer of his father and family--had captured him like he was nothing more than an errant child. He had been too overwhelmed and horrified to do much of anything. The way Vader could dodge and deflect blaster shots, for spraint's sake--the way he had cut down those stormtroopers like so many weeds, in a handful of heartbeats...it was both frightening and awe-inspiring, making Luke wonder if the Jedi had been anything near that powerful. If that was what Vader could do, no wonder the Jedi were extinct.

It hurt to wonder if Anakin Skywalker had been cut down so easily...or if he'd given Vader a run for his money. Luke hoped his father had done better than Ben--hoped he was still alive, wherever they were going. Hoped that when they got there, his father would put Vader down for good and for all.

He hated the Sith Lord--the fury he felt at the mere sight of that mask was indescribable. That man--or whatever the hells he was inside that armor--was more than anyone responsible for all the losses in his life; his father, his friends, his family, his home...and now, possibly his future and his life. Vader was cruelty and domination personified, a cold, thoughtless executioner--

...and yet, he had saved Luke, his aunt, and his grandmother--even Jar Jar--from what would have been certain death. Luke knew he could never have defended them against all those stormtroopers alone--and that in itself grated on him, that he was so helpless. Some Hero of the Alliance he was.

It confused him, that Vader could so casually cut down his own men. Those troopers obviously hadn't been acting under his orders...but...why would the feared and revered Darth Vader be in opposition to Imperial troops? It made no sense!

He had to admit, he'd never come face-to-face with Vader before, so he'd had no idea what to expect from him in person. But the supposedly evil Sith Lord had been a bundle of conflicts--cruel and protective at the same time, somehow both violent and almost kind. There was generosity to be found in his defense of the Naberrie family--and in the gruff warning the Sith had left behind. How did someone so dark and terrible have any capacity for charity?

And he'd reacted to the sight of Anakin's lightsaber like...like someone had stolen something from him...

Luke didn't have any more time to ponder--the speeder had stopped. Soon enough, the rear hatch was opened, the sudden bright light half-blinding him; he was grabbed by the arms bundled out of the speeder by rough, uncaring hands and his wrist summarily bound in front of him. As he blinked his vision clear, he realized he was surrounded by stormtroopers in the midst of a speeder garage--and his chances of escape had just gone from dismal to abysmal.

Something tingled in his mind again, and he turned his head just in time to see Vader stride by--skies, was this what Ben meant, what strong presences in the Force felt like? If it was, Vader felt like touching a live wire--a storm, a shivering cold.

"Bring him to my ship," the dark lord rumbled in passing, and the troopers were quick to obey, shoving Luke along in the midst of their formation, hurrying to keep up with the Sith. Behind them, Artoo was loaded onto a repulsor sled--honking at the Imperials, of course, but offering no resistance--and pushed along.

Luke cried out once, when a soldier's rough hand struck his injured shoulder--but neither the troopers or their master ever looked back. Oh, this was bad--this was worse than bad, this was nightmarish. He'd been captured by the Empire--hadn't Leia warned him? She was going to kill him, if the Imperials didn't--and if they found out who exactly he was and what he'd done, they'd torture him to death painfully and slowly, and he'd never see Leia or Han or Chewie again...

I really hope I'm dreaming, the distraught youth thought frantically, as they shoved him out into a landing bay where a sleek gray shuttle waited. I hope I'm unconscious from the crash and my mind just made all this up--please, Ben! Where are you? Help me!

Oddly, Vader turned to glance at him as they approached the shuttle ramp; Luke could almost sense the frown. For a long time, as the troopers held him still, the Sith Lord just stared at him, his dark presence a thundercloud on the edge of Luke's fledgeling senses. Unconsciously, the youth began pulling back against his captors, trying to shrink away.

Finally, the huge black figure turned back to the ramp. "Lock him in the rear holding cell," he ordered shortly, striding up the ramp. "And put the droid in a harness. Then clear me for launch."

"Yes sir!"

Luke couldn't tell which of the troopers had spoken--the comm-distorted voices were impossible to identify. But he was shoved onward anyway, up the ramp and into the back of the large shuttle. Once again, he was tossed into a small room--a little less cramped than the speeder's compartment, but still hardly a five-star suite--and the door whirred shut to lock with an ominous thunk.

Against the back wall, there was one flat slab of metal that served as a bed. No toilet facilities, no windows, no food or water. Just a camera sensor over the door and an intercomm unit high on the wall; no buttons, so it was probably used for giving prisoners orders. The whole room was dark gray, almost black, and the only light available came from a single shielded glowbulb in the middle of the ceiling.

Lost, Luke leaned against the wall and slid down it, huddling his knees to his chin on the floor. This was really happening--he was a prisoner of the Empire, captured by Darth Vader himself. He was going to be executed--and worse, tortured and used against his friends. That was the thought that hurt the most.

He had never felt more alone.

Ben...please, I need you...someone--anyone! Father...Father, if you're out there...please...help me!

Already priming his ship for takeoff, Vader tried to ignore the bright Force-presence of the young pilot in the back of his shuttle. It was...distracting, being this close to the boy--not only was he strong, but he was putting out enough anger and fear to knock a Star Destroyer out of orbit, had he known how to actualize it. But despite his negative emotions, his signature in the Force remained like a small sun, crackling with energy and emotion.

Vader could sense the youth's faint tendrils of power reaching out--desperate, pleading, searching, touching the Force without even realizing it. He could not reach far, however, and his pleas contained only raw emotion, no words; there was no one to hear him--no one but the Sith Lord himself.

I'm going to get a headache if he keeps crying out like that, the dark lord growled to himself. It's like listening to a wailing infant...

Vader wasted no time once he was cleared for launch, powering his ship to full throttle and breaking the atmosphere, eager to be away from this graveyard of memories and on the hunt for another Jedi--or Jedi impostor. He hadn't had real competition in years; a true Jedi to fight would be a treat indeed.

Impatient to be off, he turned his attention to the droid strung up in the harness in the rear of the cockpit. "I don't want any trouble from you," he growled, his temper quite short from all the happenings today. "You will provide me with the coordinates for the hyperspace jump, or I will make sure your master suffers."

The astromech made a raspberry sound and whonked something very derogatory, but it did obey--for an enemy droid, it was being remarkably compliant. The holoprojector displayed the numbers to him, and he copied them into the navicomputer; it had to be somewhere he'd been before, since he seemed to recall the numbers. The navicom worked, calculating the destination--and when it was complete, the screen lit up.

And Vader sat back in his chair, staring. At first, he was startled--then, he was angry.

Tatooine.

"Blast this impostor!" he snarled aloud, his fist nearly cracking the panel. "What perverse and hellish delight does he take in dragging me through these places?"

Behind him, the droid chirped quietly--for once, not abusive, but an interrogative, sympathetic sound.

"Be silent," Vader growled. "I need no pity--least of all from a droid."

Surprisingly, the astromech complied.

He'd sworn never to return to that dustball planet the first time he'd left it for good--and now here he was, going back again and again...

Wait--did this have something to do with that young Rebel pilot? The boy was from Tatooine, that much was certain. Did this impostor have some connection with him, and that was why the message was sent?

Vader pulled the lever that kicked his shuttle into hyperspace, then glared down at the additional lightsaber clipped to his belt. Scowling, he freed it and brought it up to stare at it, wondering how it had come to be in the posession of a teenage Force-sensitive pilot. Last he'd known...Obi-Wan had taken it, hadn't he? Vader's memories of those last minutes were not clear, but he was almost positive his old master had carried his weapon away.

If Obi-Wan had kept it...why was it now in the boy's hands? Was it--wait, hadn't the boy's presence been near Obi-Wan's when they fought their final battle on the Death Star? The Sith Lord wasn't quite certain--he'd been so absorbed in his old master's demise he hadn't thought much beyond it. So...had the boy been Obi-Wan's Padawan learner?

That answer made no sense--the boy had to be at least sixteen, by the look of him, and yet his level of training was pitiful. No Jedi student with his capabilities would be allowed anywhere near a lightsaber; the youth didn't even have the basic skills with the Force that even a Jedi youngling had. A real Padawan of sixteen years was a capable warrior, raised from infancy to know the Force, and at that age would be nearly a full Jedi Knight.

No...there was something else to this. Perhaps Obi-Wan had merely stumbled across this unusually strong boy while the old man hid from the Empire. If Tatooine was the boy's birthplace, it was a logical place for Obi-Wan to hide--a place Vader avoided. How clever...

But why give the boy this old lightsaber? He couldn't use it, that much was quite apparent; it was more like a memento than a weapon in that regard--the boy had gone for his blaster first. Only something sentimental would cause his old master to give an untrained teenage child such a dangerous weapon with no instruction. Unless...

The thought turned his stomach--could the boy be Obi-Wan's son? It was remotely possible...the boy's features seemed hauntingly familiar, though he did not resemble the memories Vader had of Obi-Wan in his younger days. There was the eyes...Obi-Wan's had been blue-gray--would that have matched the pale irises he saw now through his cursedly imperfect viewscreens? And the boy's hair was quite pale as well, likely sun-bleached and only just beginning to darken from time in space; Obi-Wan's had been darker, a reddish color in his memory. And the boy was...small, hardly topping Vader's own shoulder, lean and wiry. Obi-Wan had been both taller, and more solidly built. There was little to no resemblence between them.

Yes, it was patently unbelievable that the boy was Obi-Wan's offspring; his old master was so steeped in Jedi law that he would never commit such a "sin." Obi-Wan would never allow attachments, never stoop to siring a child--his own childish jealousies of years ago seemed stupid in that light. Unless his old mastar was truly desperate for an apprentice to train--a new "Chosen One" to play god with, to shape as a weapon against Darth Vader...but then, the boy should have been trained from birth in that scenario as well.

Or, Vader reminded himself, I'm just thinking too deeply about this, and Obi-Wan simply discovered him by accident and handed the boy the only immediately available lightsaber. It's not like they're easy to build, especially in the middle of a Force-forsaken desert...

Yes, a less complicated solution like that seemed better. Even if the Force murmured at him, the simple answer made much more sense.

Perhaps he could question the boy during the journey--if Naboo was a ways from the Core Worlds, then Tatooine was still further. The trip would be longer, this time; Vader would have ample opportunity to get some food and rest before facing what lay ahead--as well as finding out what the Rebel pilot knew about this whole affair.

Things were going much better, now.

"My dear Admiral Ozzel," the Emperor greeted smoothly, putting a great deal of happiness and camaraderie in his tone--all the better to foster this little illusion of friendship. "I've been anxiously awaiting your comm--have you news for me?"

The hologram of Ozzel bowed smartly, kneeling before his leader. "I have indeed, my Lord Emperor. You requested a report from the prisoner's interrogation, sir. I've just received it a moment ago from the brig staff."

"Good...good...do proceed, Admiral." Palpatine leaned forward in his chair, as if he'd been waiting for this news all day.

"Yes, your Highness." Glancing down at the datapad in his hands, Ozzel began to read off the report. "Officer in charge of interrogation reports high subject resistance, and the use of level four extraction techniques. The subject then supplied the information of his name and rank; Lieutenant Tay Mach, a pilot in the Rogue Squadron--that's Rebellion's top fighter group, your Highness."

"I've heard of them, Admiral," the Emperor said, somewhat sourly. "Go on."

"The mission at the transmitter beacon was mostly data retrieval, then to destroy the beacon. Two other Rebels were also at the scene, presumably the ones who escaped--also Rogue pilots, one by the name of Luke Skywalker, and the other Wedge Antilles, who both took part in the destruction of--"

"What?" Abruptly, Palpatine was sitting bolt upright in his chair, fiery yellow eyes fixed upon the admiral.

Suddenly nervous, Ozzel cleared his throat. "Er, my Lord Emperor...?"

"That name--the pilot! The one who escaped!"

"Ah...Antilles or Skywalker, sir?"

The Emperor's eyes narrowed. "Skywalker..."

"Oh, yes, that one," the admiral went on blithely. "Luke Skywalker--apparently he's the one responsible for destroying the Death Star; the prisoner was clear on the fact that Skywalker is an excellent pilot, with--"

"It can't be."

"Er...sir?"

Palpatine seemed to come back to himself then, fixing Ozzel once more with his baleful stare. "Gather your fleet immediately, Admiral. Go to Naboo. I want you to locate Lord Vader and inform him that he is to report to me in person on Coruscant in all haste."

"Ah, er, yes, your Higness..." Ozzel replied, confused. "But...can't your Excellency contact Lord Vader via your personal comm?"

"I would," the Emperor hissed, "but that fool apprentice of mine has turned his tracker off!"

Blinking, Ozzel stared. "Er...my Lord...?"

Realizing who was still listening, Palpatine calmed himself. "Find Lord Vader, Admiral," he commanded coldly. "And if you find that pilot--Skywalker..."

"Yes, your Higness?" the admiral asked cautiously.

"Kill him."