Blast off
By SJ  27-05-00/21-11-00  (skyjade@oricom.ca)

________________________________________________________________________

Disclaimers: None of those characters belong to me.  See my front page for
more details. (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Quasar/3702).

Vader catching Luke after the blast-off from Mos Eisley is Rebel Mom's 
cheryl@wiegand.org) idea.  All rights attached
Thanks for your suggestion, my friend.  This story wouldn't have come to be 
without it. :)
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part 1/3: Blast off


No matter how Solo had bragged, even 'he' couldn't escape the claws of an 
Imperial Star Destroyer.  
They all lurched forward and rammed into something or someone as the ship was 
caught in the powerful tractor beams of the huge ship and sucked into its 
landing bay.
Luke watched horrified as the doors of the landing bay clanged to a close in 
front of them, efficiently cutting off their escape route.  His heart sank into 
his boots when he saw the gathering Imperials troops that were just outside the 
ship.
"I thought you could fly circles around those guys!" he accused Solo.
"Hey, watch your mouth, Kid.  I would have if not for your unceasing 
questioning." Solo defended.  
Luke could feel that even the dare-devil pilot didn't like the look of things 
out there.
"Can't we do anything?" he asked, suddenly shivering in unexplainable fear.  
"Like what?  Hide?  They probably already know about our presence.  They've seen 
us board, and they've already scanned us for the number of beings aboard."
"How do you know?"
"I just know." Han said cryptically.  
His wookiee growled something unintelligible.
"Hiding would be useless anyway." Ben's calm voice said from behind him.  
Luke shivered even more as he noticed the tone of voice of his mentor.
"Well I'm not giving up without a fight." Han shot, drawing his blaster.  
"I'm afraid you will die if you resist, Captain Solo."
"I don't care.  I'm not giving them a chance to send me to the mines." the pilot 
spat.
"I wanna fight too." Luke said, suddenly feeling like he needed to do something.  
He wasn't going to stand by and watch the others die.  
"You won't last even one minute, Kid." Solo sneered.
"I'm not ending up in the mines either." he defied, taking hold of his 
lightsaber.  
Solo seemed to consider.  He threw a look at the crazy wizard who seemed lost 
in his thoughts, then focused back on the determined farm boy.  
"Very well, but at least use a blaster.  That way, you'll take out more of them 
before they get you."
Solo unstrapped the blaster he kept under his console and gave it to him.
"Thanks." Luke nodded seriously.
They had barely finished to discuss this point when a shrill sound indicated 
that the troops were about to barge in.
"Take cover in the corridor." Solo told his companions.  "If we can trap them 
into a gullet, we'll take out more of them.".
Luke agreed and followed the lumbering form of the tall Wookiee.  
This was his first firefight.  He could only hope that for once he wouldn't make 
a fool of himself.
He crouched low behind a strut of the bulkhead and waited nervously.  Old Ben 
was right behind him.  
"I wish it didn't have to finish like this, Luke." he told him.
"Me too." he agreed sullenly.
The troopers finally blasted their way through the hatch and came up in the 
corridor.  Solo and the Wookiee cut down many of them with their accurate aims, 
but many more kept coming.  
Ben stood up and began deflecting with his blade the bolts of energy that came 
close to him.
Luke looked at him, mesmerized, then he suddenly felt an awful crawly sensation 
in his brain.  
*Who are you?* a disembodied voice asked.  
The shock of hearing that voice brought him back to the present ; he instantly 
noticed the trooper who was standing in front of him and bending down to take 
the blaster from his loosened hold.
Luke reflexively fired, then he hurried to stand up and back away from the 
enemy.  
He ran smack dab into another armored man who hit him hard in the back with 
the butt of his gun before sending him back against the bulkhead.  
Luke violently impacted with the metal, braining himself good.  He crumpled to 
his knees ; the troopers used his half-conscious state to cuff him and bring him 
out with the other stunned prisoners.  

Lord Vader watched with great interest as his troopers gathered the prisoners 
from the outlaw ship.  He had finally recovered the darn droids from the 
princess' ship ; he had also gotten a bonus with this latest catch.
Obi Wan.
His old mentor had aged a great deal since he'd last seen him, but he would 
still be able to exact a sweet revenge out of the man who was responsible for 
his losses.  
More sounds of fight and pain attracted his attention ; he lifted his eyes 
just in time to see his soldiers shove a young man down, gathering him with the 
other prisoners.  
The boy was clothed in the drab clothes of a moisture farmer and, he technically 
noted, he looked quite inoffensive.  He watched him land rather roughly on the 
deck, his bounded hands making it difficult for him to stop his fall, then his 
soldier reported and gave him the boy's weapons.  
The blaster was of no consequence, but the other weapon...
The boy had been wearing a lightsaber at his hip! 
Vader took the weapon in his gloved hand and studied it.  
Not just any lightsaber, he realized ; it was his old weapon from before the 
accident.  
He turned again toward his enemy, then toward the boy.  
Who was he?, he wondered in sudden, dark interest.  What was his connection to 
Kenobi?

Luke's head was swimming wildly from the double impact with the bulkhead and the 
deck, but he was slowly recovering his senses.  He pushed himself to his elbows 
and began to study the situation.
Not good, he mentally cringed.
The others were also coming around and their group was covered by more weapons 
than he dared count.  He spotted Ben, then the black figure that was practically 
looming over the old man.  
Somehow, he had the creepy feeling that Darth Vader, dark lord of the Sith, was 
looking at him and not at the fallen Jedi Master though.  
He lowered his eyes and kept himself from moving again, not interested to 
attract the darksider's attention.

Fair-haired, blue eyed... Vader had an eerie feeling about that boy.
Unable to wait any longer, he pushed a jolt of adrenaline in Kenobi's brain 
while he pulled him to his feet with the Force.  He took hold of the old man's 
clothes as he pulled him closer.  

Luke noticed that Ben was slowly coming around.  Vader changed his hold on his 
robes and instead grasped his throat.  That made him react.  
"Hey, leave him alone!" the young Jedi interjected indignantly.
He had barely begun to stand higher when something slammed into him and pushed 
him back down on his back ; his unprotected landing knocked his breath out of 
his lungs as well as added to his collection of black and blues.
Luke painfully rolled on his side while he reflexively folded over himself to 
fight his sudden asphyxiation. 

"I will deal with you later, boy." Vader warned darkly, satisfied with this 
first confrontation.  
Whoever the boy was, he was a puny youth, nothing more.
He refocused on his enemy.  
Between the boy's intervention and his action, the old man had finally woken up.  
He tightened his grip on his throat.  
"Who is the youth?" he immediately demanded.  "Why did he have my old 
lightsaber?" he asked angrily.
To see that weapon again had been enough to make his blood boil, but to know 
that the old man had dared give it to somebody else had made him explode.
"Leave my apprentice alone, Vader." Obi-Wan gasped.   "It's me you want and 
you've got me."
Vader threw him away from himself toward an empty area of the deck, then tossed 
him his lightsaber.
"Don't entertain any hopes, old man.  You have a few minutes left to live at 
most.  Answer me." he spat.  

Luke slowly recovered from his unexplainable push and resulting pain, then 
slowly sat up as he watched the face off that was taking place.  
Somehow, he could feel Vader's fury more than he could feel his mentor's 
courage.  

The moment Vader turned on his blood-red lightsaber, he felt a strong current of 
fear, but, when he focused to find its origin, he discovered that it wasn't 
coming from his enemy.  
Strangely enough, it was coming from the mysterious boy.
There was more to him than what Kenobi had said, he decided.  It was the second 
time in three days that he had that weird feeling of deja-vu and he could feel 
that he shouldn't dismiss it.  Who did the boy remind him of?, he annoyingly 
wondered.  
He let out his hatred and viciously attacked the old Jedi, pushing him to his 
limits within seconds.  
"Who's the boy, Kenobi?" he demanded again.
"A simple farm boy." the other gasped as he tried to deflect his ferocious 
slashes.
Other furious slashes followed ; they nearly took off a limb or two.  
Vader felt the boy's indignation, then wasn't surprised when he felt more pain 
coming from him.  
The youth's scream attracted the Jedi's attention and he himself used that 
distraction to cut his ex-mentor's leg off.

Ben collapsed on the deck, his face twisted in obvious torment.  
"No, Ben, come on, defend yourself." Luke entreated him earnestly while he 
nursed his new injury.  
Solo turned to look at him and rolled his eyes.  "He's done for, Kid." he told 
him quietly.
"No.  He's a Jedi." Luke reminded them.
The Wookiee seemed to disagree with him.
In the hangar, the troops remained silent.

Vader brought the tip of his blade under Kenobi's chin.  
"For the last time, Kenobi, why is that boy linked to me?  If I dig around his 
mind, you know what will happen to him.  Do you wish that for him?"
"No... " Ben pleaded, unable to face the idea of his protege faced with the 
awful side-effects of a very deep mind probe.  "Luke doesn't deserve any bad 
treatment.  He's a good kid. He..." 
Vader sent him a mental image of the boy caught in excruciating mental torment, 
exactly like what would happen if the darn Jedi didn't give him his answer.  
It broke his former teacher.  
"He's your son, Anakin." he told him, lowering his head in shame.  
He had vowed to protect that boy... and he had failed, he admitted.

The shock of the news combined with his fury upon hearing his hated name made 
Vader slash off another limb.  
"No!  Stop!" the youth's voice came from behind him.  
This time, he'd jumped to his feet, meaning 'serious' business.  Vader knocked 
him half-conscious again and told troopers to keep him in check.  They pulled 
him away from the two smugglers and held him in a strong grip.  
The Dark Lord turned back toward the broken Jedi.  
"My wife was pregnant?"  
Just as he mentioned her, the fiery princess from Alderaan came back to his mind 
and everything clicked into place. 
The eerie feeling of deja-vu when the princess had stared him down, the strange 
uneasiness he had felt upon gazing into her chocolate brown eyes which had 
reminded him so much of---
"She has had twins... and Princess Leia Organa is in fact Leia Skywalker, my 
daughter.  Isn't that so?" he demanded.
Obi-Wan didn't answer until Luke half-consciously screamed in pain.  
"Leave him alone..." the Jedi weakly pleaded.  "Yes, you are right..." he 
admitted.  
He knew it was the end now.
"And your failure is complete, old man." the dark lord crowed jubilantly.  "I 
shall reclaim my children and take back what you've taken from me." he promised.
"Anakin---"
His former teacher's last warning was cut off when his red blade sliced through 
him, terminating the last of the Jedi.  
"Nooo!!!!" his recovered son screamed.  
Okay, he decided, now it was time to deal with that unexpected discovery.  
He turned around and walked toward his rebellious son who was straining against 
his guards' holds.  
"No, how could you?" he spat.  "You monster, I'll---"  
He backhanded him, silencing him.  
"Hey, leave the kid alone." the up-to-now silent pilot exclaimed.  
He almost regretted his daring remark when he turned toward him.  
"You smugglers are a pestilence for honest business men and women.  I should 
kill you both right here, right now, but I have heard that they need slaves on 
Kessel.  I'm sure you and your Wookiee will be up to it." he scorned.
"Never!" Solo snarled and charged the dark lord.  
A blaster shot caught him clean in the chest.  
"Han!---no, Chewbacca, don't---" his son warned.  

The Wookiee had barely climbed to his feet when he followed his partner into 
another world.
"NOO!" Luke shouted, feeling both relieved that his newfound friends wouldn't 
live in the hell of Kessel, but suddenly realizing that that left him totally 
alone with the dark lord, well, at least as alone as it could be when one was 
surrounded by hundreds of imperial troops.  
The dark lord ominously turned back toward him.  He didn't say anything, as if 
pondering his fate.
"What are you waiting for?" Luke challenged him.  "Kill me too and be 
done with it."

Even though his son's eyes were full of tears, his face was red with fury and 
his heart was filled with dark feelings.  He pulled once more against his 
captors' grips.  Vader chuckled at his amusing defiance.  
He would soon learn that there was no way out of this.
"If I wanted you dead, boy, you'd already be." he said coolly. 
He brought his hand to his son's jaw and tilted his head to have a better look 
at his bruised features.  
Luke pulled out of his touch while trying to step away from him; it elicited 
more chuckles from the dark lord.  
"You're a feisty little one, but you'll soon learn respect." he assured him.  He 
turned to the guards.  "Come with me."
He then swirled around and headed for his quarters.  
"Destroy the bodies and the ship." he told his officers, then he and his 
prisoner were gone.
  
Luke fought against the others, trying to delay them, but he wasn't strong 
enough.  
What was going on now?, he wondered.  Why was Vader saving him when he'd killed 
both a Jedi and a hotshot pilot?  
They reached Vader's quarters and Luke was forced to his knees.  At first, he 
resisted the troopers' pushes, but when something swiftly knocked him behind the 
knees, he couldn't hold himself up anymore ; he fell hard on his knee caps.  

"Leave us." Vader said to his troopers, his intimidating gaze never straying 
from the boy's face.  
Once they were alone, he paced around him, studying his son's reaction to this 
attempt of intimidation.  His son was defiant, but not that self-confident.  He 
could easily feel his fear.
"What's your name?" he finally asked him, making him jump at the suddenness of 
the command.
The youth glared at him.
"Kiss a---aaah!"  

What in Hell had hurt him this time?, he muttered inwardly once he stopped 
shrieking in pain.
"Show respect, boy.  That way, you will stay out of trouble.  So what's your 
name?"
Luke remained silent, but when he felt the pain build up in his spine, he 
relented.  "Luke Skywalker.  Look, I'm just a farm boy who got caught up in all 
this.  What do you possibly want with me?"

Vader chuckled under his mask.  
Most delightfully naive too.  He would be easy to seduce.
To do so, he chose to flatter his son's bruised ego instead of crushing him.  
"I can feel that you're a great pilot, Skywalker, and my squadron commanders are 
in need of conscripts.  You shall be one of them."  
The boy gaped at him.
"What, but I---"
"You will be trained and taught what you need to know, and you will become an 
imperial pilot ; I have no doubt that you will qualify for one of my personal 
squadrons." he added as if in afterthought.

The kid was speechless.  
Him?  In Vader's squadron?  No, he had heard wrong.
To his utter surprise, his bonds opened by themselves.  He drew away from the 
living objects.  
Vader loomed above him.  
"Just so you know, boy, your freedom is in my hands.  If I wish so, I can either 
let you free, or lock you up.  Am I clear enough?"

Vader expected the farmboy to cringe in fear, but instead he glared at him.  
"Free?" he sneered.  "I'm not free.  I can not go back home, can I?"
Vader could only take this much from the insolent child.  He grabbed hold of his 
tunic and brought his face very close to his face plate.  
"You don't have a home anymore, Skywalker, except here, aboard this ship.  I 
suggest you never forget it." he warned in a low, threatening voice.

The words stung Luke, and not just because of the dark threat.  For a moment, he 
had forgotten that his aunt and uncle were now smoldering corpses that would be 
blown apart during the next sandstorm.  
He felt his eyes become watery but fought back his tears.  He wasn't going to 
break in front of Vader.

Darth Vader saw and felt the sudden grief in his son.  He wondered what it was 
about since his strong son, he could already feel that he was strong, couldn't 
possibly be breaking up after a verbal threat.  No, it had to be something else.  
He reached out and entered the boy's mind.

Luke flinched as he became aware of the other's mental invasion.  He struggled 
against his grip while trying to push him away from his mind.  If only Ben had 
had time to teach him, he thought desperately.

Vader was very pleased with his son's reaction.  So the boy already knew a bit 
about the Force; enough to feel it in action in any case--- and to use it to a 
certain extent, he realized when Luke managed to slow down his probe for a few 
seconds.  He was easy to control though.  

"Let me go!" Luke snapped, straining against the dark lord's vise-like grip.  He 
could 'see' where the Dark Lord was in his mind.  
He had no right to be there.  This was his mind, his private memories and hopes.  
Then, it was too late; Vader had entered his secret corner.  
Infuriated beyond belief, Luke pulled his leg back and moved to kick the dark 
lord where it would sure hurt.
Before he could connect though, the darksider pushed him away from himself ; 
Luke landed roughly on his back side.  This new pain added itself to his sudden 
headache.

Vader loomed closer, feeling very annoyed with his son now.  
"Next time you try something like this, Skywalker, you will regret it."  
He let the furious youth think about his threat, then he spoke again.  
"You don't have any real reason to resist my offer, pilot." he commented 
seriously.  "You have yearned to join the Academy for years now.  I am giving 
you this opportunity, and to even do it faster than the regular conscripts."

Luke sulked.  
Yes, he had wanted to become the hottest pilot in the galaxy, but he had wanted 
it to be a choice, as a free citizen.  Now, it was being forced on him, and he 
had no choice if he didn't want to find out just how cruel the dark lord could 
really be.  
"Exactly." the other said, reading his thoughts.  
That incensed the youth.  He whirled his head toward the dark lord and yelled at 
Him:  "Get out of my mind!"
"Or what?" the other taunted him.
Luke didn't waste time and jumped to his feet to attack the dark lord.

Vader chuckled as he saw how easily his son could loose his control over his 
dark feelings.  
In time, he noted, this would be most useful.
He easily stopped him from doing any damage, grabbed him by the neck and began 
to squeeze his throat.  

Luke's eyes bulged in terror as he felt his windpipe being constricted.  He 
fought for air, his feet still kicking in an attempt to free himself.  
The grip around his neck tightened up.

"An imperial pilot never shows any aggression toward his commanding officer, 
pilot, and especially not toward me."  
He minutely tightened his grasp ; the boy began to wheeze from lack of oxygen.  
"Is this pleasant, boy?  Or this?"
Luke screamed his last available breath as unbelievable pain coursed from his 
spine and into every inch of his body.  
"Remember this the next time you'll want to stray out of line." Vader warned 
him. 

Luke's fight had gradually decreased in intensity until he was almost hanging 
limply from the other's hand.  His skin was a disconcerting shade of blue, and 
he wanted nothing more than to give into the dark nothing that was at the edge 
of his awareness.  
At least, he thought resignedly, he would die and be free from Vader... 
He welcomed the unconsciousness that followed this thought.

When his son's head slumped against his hand, Vader let him go.  The kid landed 
hard on the floor ; he groaned as his head hit the deck, rousing him awake in 
the process.  
"This will be all for now, Skywalker.  I will check on you later."

The door opened again.
Luke realized that he was still alive, if dangerously out of breath.  
Sith!, he cursed woozily, Vader hadn't killed him.
"Take him to the pilots' conscripts quarters and make sure he's taken in charge 
by an officer."
"Yes, my Lord." the stormtroopers bent down and picked up the half-conscious 
farm boy.
Luke didn't resist; he sulked.  
If only he could be dead... out of this nightmare... 
*What would be the point of your death, boy?  I want you in one of my squadrons, 
and I shall have you.* Vader told him in his mind.
Luke's eyes opened in shock upon hearing his enemy in his head.  That had been 
him in the ship---- and if he could do this, then...
*I'll keep an eye on you; a very close eye, young one.*
Great.  Now he truly was in for it, he grumbled inwardly.  No way he could 
escape under Vader's nose.

In his quarters, Vader smiled under his helmet.
*Clever boy.* he sent his son, then he cut the mental conversation.
He now had another business to attend to: his daughter.
He had to find the rebel bases, but he was also going to ally her to his cause.  
Unlike her brother though, he knew that it would be time consuming in her case.
Hence, he decided to begin to work on her right away. 

******

He went down to the detention levels and took a sample of a mind-weakening drug 
with himself before entering the princess' cell.
Now that he knew that she was his daughter, he wasn't going to torture her 
anymore than necessary... for the moment.
No, instead he would probe her through the Force.  
He focused on the young woman as he entered the block.  She was indeed very much 
like her mother.  The same hair, the same eyes, the same young face.  
The same ethereal beauty.  
The same determination and defiance too, he thought annoyingly as he met her 
furious glare.  
"You have no right to do this, Vader.  The Senate will not sit---"
"No longer represents any danger for me, Princess." he interrupted her boring 
tirade.  "Now, enough games.  If you know about my reputation, you know that you 
can't lie to me without my knowing about it.  Where are the rebel bases?"
"You must be deaf, Vader." she spat defiantly. "I've told you I don't know 
anything about those."
Vader sighed threateningly and crossed his arms, allowing her to see the 
injector that would be used if necessary.  
"I tire of this game of yours, Princess.  Either you tell me the truth by 
yourself, or I'll find my information another way, but you won't like it."
The threat seemed to reach the young woman's mind, but she kept her composure.  
"You'll waste your time then." she spat.  
"As you wish." Vader rumbled.

Before Leia knew what to expect, something slammed in her senses and knocked her 
half-conscious.  Vader was instantly beside her, injecting her with the drug, 
then resting his hand against her temple and cheek.  
She tried to cringe away from him, but she couldn't move on her own volition.  
Then she felt it, the horrible sensation that something was burning its way 
through her mind.  
She had been trained in the ways of spirituality, especially in the prospect of 
such an occurrence, but she had never faced such strong mental powers.  She was 
helpless in their face.  
She tried to protect her information anyway, but it was only purging her from 
her remaining strengths.  She had lost the battle before it had even begun.

Vader fought his way past his daughter's weak shields, then roamed freely 
through her memories.  He easily found the information he was seeking.  He also 
discovered that his daughter had been with his wife while his son hadn't.  She 
didn't know about her brother.  
How interesting.  
He remained in the princess's mind for almost half-an-hour, long enough for the 
drug to lose its strongest effects while he probed her lightly thanks to her 
weakened state.  

The moment Leia felt her strengths come back to herself, she worked on getting 
her shields back up.  She literally wrenched her mind free from the dark lord's, 
then bent over as the worst headache she had ever suffered slammed into her 
brain and skull.  

Vader gasped at the power he felt from his daughter's wrench, then reintegrated 
his senses.  
She was also very powerful.  Both of his children were incredibly strong in the 
Force.
"I've won, girl." he crowed sarcastically.  "I've told you that you shouldn't 
have resisted."
"Then get out and get it over with." she spat between two moans.
"That would be too easy, Leia.  You are too skilled and intelligent to be 
wasted.  Now that I have you, I'm not letting you go." he coldly told her.  
"I will never help you." she moaned. 
"We'll see.  Perhaps you'll have changed your mind in a few days."
He stood up and left without another word although he felt his daughter's 
burning glare in his back.  
Soon, the steel kitten wouldn't have enough strength to do even this much, he 
thought darkly.  
He left orders to make sure that she didn't get any sleep nor any food except a 
nutrient shot in two days.  

******

Luke's full awareness came back to him in the lift.  The troopers were talking 
between themselves.  For a moment, he considered trying something, but he 
suddenly felt an ominous warning in his mind.  
Vader really kept an eye on him, he realized in horror.  
He relented and simply pulled himself straighter.  The stormtroopers noticed it; 
they released their holds on his arms but kept their blaster rifles at the 
ready.  
The lift stopped ; Luke didn't need any prodding to know that he had to step out 
of it.  He walked out into the corridor, his guards right on his heels.  
Everything looked the same around him; the walls, the decks, the men, 
everything.  
How in heck had he ended up here?, he wondered.   
Uh, no, he knew the answer to that question, he reminded himself.   No, the 
question was more, why in heck was he here?  He should be dead... He simply 
couldn't understand why he was being saved.  That conscript thing didn't seem 
like a good excuse since Solo had been an accomplished pilot and would have 
perfectly filled in.  
Unless, he realized, they wanted them young and naive like himself.
Probably easier to crush, he conceded glumly.  

They reached a door which opened upon their approach.  Luke crossed it, and 
stepped into the pilot conscripts' quarters of the Star Destroyer.  No men were 
lounging around like they probably were in the volunteers' quarters.  Here, they 
were locked up in their quarters when they weren't serving.  
They were prisoners.
An officer stepped in front of him, close enough to intimidate him.  
"Has he been tested?" he barked to the troopers.  
"Lord Vader has told us to bring him here.  He wants an officer to take charge 
of him."
The taller man looked down at him ; he took his time to scrutinize him until 
Luke felt like he was being dissected under a magnifying glass.
The man made a face as if he were disgusted by what he saw.  
"Very well.  The others are in the training rooms ; I'll take care of him.  Come 
with me."  he snapped.
When Luke failed to follow the man, his guards shoved him forward in 
punishment.  The officer ignored him as he stepped behind a computer desk.  
"First rule, pilot:  obey all and every one of the orders given to you."
Luke didn't answer.  
"Step in the circles and put your hands on the prints." the officer ordered.    
Suddenly having a bad feeling about this, Luke reluctantly obeyed.  He 
uncertainly rested his feet in the two metallic circles that were embedded in 
the floor.  
The moment he was in position, two manacles clamped around his ankles, 
effectively immobilizing him.  The same thing happened to his hands when 
he touched the handprints that were on the high desk.  
Luke instinctively pulled against his restraints, making a fool of himself.  
"Cut it out." the officer snapped.  "Your name."
His name?  What---
A sharp shock of electricity shocked his hands and feet.  He yelped in pain.  
"If I repeat myself even once, pilot, you will get acquainted with a torture 
droid." The officer sneered meanly.
"Luke Skywalker." Luke answered, his fear taking control of his body and mind.  
He had never heard of such droid, but he had no doubt that the man in front of 
him wasn't bluffing.  Not with what cruelty he had just been through.
The officer typed some things, sometimes throwing a look at his charge.  Luke 
was still straining against his restraints, but more out of reflex than 
anything else.  
The computer beeped and a card came out of it.  The officer took it, then 
stepped around the desk to stand beside the young man.  
"You are now number 1138T.  Nobody aboard this ship nor anywhere in the Empire 
will know you as anything else but your number.  You will be a TIE fighter 
pilot, and as such, you will have to behave like one."
"How am I---aaah!"
The officer shocked him with both his bonds and the tip of his control stick.  
"Unless you are given the order to talk, you remain silent, 1138T.  You will 
learn everything you need to learn, and everyday, you will be tested.  At 
the end of each day, if I or other officers judge that you haven't learnt, you 
will meet our little droid friend.  Do you have any questions?"
Luke took a moment to consider.  
Yes, he had one.  How was he going to get out of here?  This was pure hell... 
and for how long?..  
He asked his question.
"How long does this last---aaah!" he yelped.
"It's: "Yes, Sir", then your question.  In your case, I think it'll take many 
months before we can actually trust you with a fighter.  Any other questions?"
Luke shook his head.  "No, Sir."
The magnetic field that held him in place died out and the manacles around his 
ankles retreated back into the floor.  His wrist cuffs didn't do so though, but 
he was free to move.  
"As long as you will earn punishments, you will wear those." the officer 
explained curtly.
In other words, Luke realized, they'd be able to punish him with the pressure of 
a button.  
Terrific, he muttered inwardly.  
The officer turned on his heel.  "Come with me."
Luke followed him into another room.  This one was equipped with a simulator.  
"Get in and put on your headset."
Luke obeyed, kind of eager to try the machine, but annoyed already to be bossed 
around.  
He closed the canopy, effectively cutting off the view of the officer, then 
studied the controls.  
'Almost like his skyhopper.' he reflected.  "It'll be easy."
"Show me what you can do." the other told him flatly.  
The simulation began in earnest, with a flock of x-wings coming right for him.  
Luke grabbed the stick, flipped it, then began to systematically eradicate the 
enemy.  
This was his first time aboard a simulator, and it was great!  It was like a 
game for him, shooting fake enemies while demonstrating his up-to-now laughed-at 
piloting skills.  
For a moment, he could forget where he was, what had happened, and simply 
enjoy the feeling of piloting a spaceship.  How he had dreamed about it, and 
now, he was almost, almost doing it.  
Every time an enemy showed up on his screen or manifested its presence, he 
managed to avoid its fire and destroy it.  Sometimes it was slightly difficult, 
but sometimes it was downright easy.  
When the screen and the commands died out, he realized that the simulation was 
over.  
Already?, he wondered in surprise.
He sighed, leaned back in his seat and popped his canopy open.  The officer he 
had left alone was now surrounded by two of his colleagues and the three of them 
were giving him strange looks.  
What had he done this time?  
He checked the chrono on the wall.  
He realized that he had been in there for almost an hour and-a-half.
That long? he gaped, then shrugged.  He hadn't been aware of the time.  The only 
thing that had mattered had been his flying and the enemies.  
"Where are you from?" his officer asked him.  
"Tatooine,... Sir."  
He remembered to add the "Sir."
"Have you ever flown in combat before?"
"No, Sir."  
The officers shook their heads, then his supervisor pulled away from the group 
and led him out of the room.
He locked him in a cell before returning with his comrades to discuss the 
impossibility of what they had just seen.

******

As soon as he returned from the bridge, Vader called up the file of his son.  
Well, well, well, they had tested the boy and he was already rating higher than 
their best pilots, just as he had thought he would be.  
He indeed was his son, he thought proudly. 
He also was rebellious, he noticed as he read the psychological report.  
He would have to crush that, he decided, and quickly before the boy got into too 
much trouble and ended up dead... He needed an opportunity, an event to make the 
boy step in line for good.
Of course, with the security measures that were in place already, whatever his 
son tried, he would be punished before he himself even had a chance to intercept 
the order and do something about him... unless..., he considered wily, he 
created the opportunity for him.  That way at least, he'd know when to send an 
order to bring his son to him.  
Yes, he surmised, it was his best option.
He reached out and easily entered his son's sleeping mind.  The youth was not 
sleeping well, having nightmares about his 'family' and him.
He found his subconscious and taught him a thing or two about his cuffs, then 
he withdrew.  
He knew that as soon as he could, his boy would try something, and if his plan 
worked, he would be warned of it because of its impossible nature ; he would 
thus be able to customize the punishment.  Moreover, it would allow him to begin 
his son's Jedi training by revealing this ability to him.
After this, he would be ready to begin his real training, with him.

******

The next morning, Luke awoke early, at first extremely confused about where he 
was, then he spotted the cuffs around his wrists and remembered the previous 
day.
The awful, very dark previous day.  
In the space of ten hours, he had gone from being Luke Skywalker, hopeful 
farm boy from Tatooine, to a mere number in the imperial conscript ranks.  Sure 
he had had a great time in the flight simulator, and he knew that he had been 
very good, but that didn't make up in any way for his loss of freedom.  
He had never imagined that he would someday become a prisoner.
He brought his hands under his head and closed his eyes.  
If only there was a way out of those cuffs..., he thought grimly. 
Suddenly, an image of Ben manipulating troopers with the Force came back to him.  
It seemed to be telling him something.  He knew that he had the Force; Ben had 
told him so, but he didn't know how to use it... unless...
Something occurred to him.  
He sat up, tried to relax his entire body and mind, then rested his finger on 
the lock of his wrist cuff and slowly pushed on it.  To his amazement, it moved!  
He continued to imagine it moving until he was out of this first one.
Incredulous in face of what he had been able to do, he tried it again, with the 
same results.  
He hid his cuffs under his hard mattress then selected the tallest uniform among 
those that were hanging from the wall.  
He had to hide the fact that he had freed himself this far.  
When his door opened, no one could tell that he wasn't wearing his cuffs 
anymore.

All day, he followed the orders, learning how to fly supposedly touchy 
maneuvers, how to check the readiness of a ship, as well as all kinds of 
imperial regulations.
By the end of the day, they were taken down in a hangar bay where they were 
shown the crafts in which they would train.  
They were rigged with auto-pilots in case they had to shock one of them 
unconscious.
Luke pretended to pay attention to the fighter and the officer in charge of the 
group, but he was in fact focusing on the ship that was at the far end of the 
hangar.  
Techs had just left it and it was ready to fly.  
When the group began to line out of the hangar, Luke dawdle in the back, then he 
broke into a flat out run for his freedom.  
Behind him, the officers activated their remote controls, but it didn't work.
"Stun him!" someone shouted.  
Luke poured every bit of speed out of his already straining muscles.  He had 
almost made it to his target when a stun blast slammed hard into his back.  
He flew off the floor and roughly landed on his stomach, but he was unaware of 
that.

When he recovered his senses, he first became aware that he was strapped onto a 
chair, then he spotted the black, shiny ball that was waiting in the corner of 
the cell.
He knew he was in a cell.
An officer was also standing in front of him.
"How did you get out of your cuffs?" he asked him, forcing him to meet his eyes.
Luke remained silent.  
"I can assure you that you will tell us in an hour." he sneered in his face.    
"Trying to escape was a foolish thought." he finished, releasing Luke's hair.
He left him alone before the boy could defy him.  The droid hummed to life and 
floated closer.  
Luke tried to cringe away from it. 
Now he knew that torture droids really existed, he thought in horror,  then all 
he could do was shriek and squirm under the droid's assault as it generated 
agony in his body.  

When the officer came back, an hour later, he found a very different 
sight from the one he'd left inside the cell.  
The boy was bent over in obvious torment and semi-consciousness, his uniform was 
torn in many places, and the droid was smashed up against the wall---
Upon seeing this, the imperial stepped back in shock ; he called troopers inside 
the cell.

Luke was still drifting in and out, not completely aware of what was going on 
around him.  The pain had been enshrouding his very soul for gods knew how long, 
then it had suddenly stopped and he had been allowed a bit of respite.  
Not for long though since the officer had come back inside to check on him.  
"What have you done?" he asked the youth, staying behind the safety of three 
fully armed troopers who were aiming at the bounded boy.
"I... I don't know..." he whispered.  
Luke thought that he was talking about the cuffs, then he realized that 
something else had happened.  He forced his eyes opened and spotted the remains 
of the droid.
He gaped slightly at it.  
He hadn't done that, had he?..
"Call Lord Vader ; he's asked a report on this one if strange things happened."
Vader?, Luke gasped.   "No!  Not again..." he begged weakly, desperately.  
That was the only thing he could do since he didn't have enough strength left to 
even struggle against his restraints, but he wished he had.  He really didn't 
want to meet again with the Dark lord.  
The troopers, whom were still aiming at him, received the order to take him to 
the Lord's chambers.  
No matter how spent he was, Luke tried to resist them ; it earned him a black 
and blue under the left eye.  It matched his smaller one from the previous day.

******

Vader watched with interest as the boy was carried once again inside his 
anteroom.  His strengths had been sapped away from him this time, yet he was 
still trying to resist him.
"Take off his cuffs and leave us." he told the troopers. 
They removed Luke's cuffs, then threw him down ; he grunted as he roughly landed 
on the deck.  
Vader studied him through the Force.  
He was resilient, that was sure.  Despite his state, he was trying to get up.
Any other being, he thought in clinical interest, would be content to remain in 
this position.
"You haven't heeded my warning, Skywalker." he told him darkly.  
He turned on his lightsaber ; the boy immediately registered the particular 
sound and tried to cringe away.
"You will learn not to stray out of line." he dangerously promised him
He inflicted a first cut on his son's uninjured back.  The boy howled in agony.  
Four more cuts followed the first one.
Luke shrieked in absolute agony.  
"AAAAAH!!!  PLEEEAAAASE!!" he pleaded.  
Vader didn't cut him again, satisfied with this first plea for mercy.  
Now, the kid knew now that he couldn't defend himself against him.
"You don't want to suffer anymore, boy?  Then prove your loyalty to me and tell 
me how you've freed yourself from your cuffs."

Luke had to force himself to remain conscious.  
It hurt so much... What had Vader said?..  he wondered in confusion.
"Well?" the dark lord asked, the blade coming nearer once more.  
Luke panicked and tried yet again to move away from it.  He was unable to even 
inch away ; he remained flat on his stomach.
"I... I don't know---AAAAAH!!!!"
The sudden slash of fire that appeared at his wrist was worse than any other cut 
he had previously felt.  Before he could try to understand what had happened, he 
found himself shoved upward and to his knees.  He forced his weakened body to 
hold the position.  
His eyes then fell on his right, extremely painful stump.  They widened in 
horror and instinctively searched for the hand that was normally attached to it.  
It was laying on the floor, less than a meter away from him.  
He stared at it dumbly, his brain hardly registering the fact that the dark lord 
had just cut off his right hand.  
The awful burning of his wrist made it more real for him ; he squeezed his 
injured stump under his left armpit.  
Why?.. he wondered.  
"You've lied to me." Vader told him, stepping into his field of vision, his 
blade wavering dangerously close to him once more, implicitly threatening him 
with the lost of another limb if he lied again.
Although he hadn't lied the first time around, Luke reminded himself.  
He glared at the dark lord.  
"I haven't lied." he growled.  
The lightsaber reared up again ; Luke reflexively threw himself aside, landing 
hard on his wounded arm.  He hissed upon landing, then hurried to defend 
himself the only way he could:  he pleaded with all his heart and soul.
"No, please!  I swear I haven't lied!  I don't know how I've freed myself, 
please!" he begged to the black-clad monster who was ignoring his pleas.
Vader's blade came within millimeters to hurt his left shoulder, then it 
held its position.  
Luke tried not to breathe too hard in fear of pushing his skin against the 
burning blade.  
As it was, it singed his clothes.  
"If you haven't lied, boy, tell me what happened."
"I've just... pushed the locks ; I imagined that the cuffs... would open, and 
they did." he finally managed despite the different pains that were assaulting 
his senses.
"Imagined?" the dark lord asked.  
His blade remained close to his arm.  
"I've seen it in my mind." Luke gritted as another jolt of pain ran up from his 
wounded wrist and into his right arm.  
Vader's blade swiftly shifted position and practically rested against the hollow 
of the youth's throat ; Luke pressed himself against the unyielding deck, trying 
to put as much distance as he could between his skin and the burning blade.  
Vader shifted stance and stood ominously over him, easily pinning Luke's legs 
under his left, booted foot.    
Luke winced as fresh pain coursed within his body.  He didn't move for fear of 
running that blade through his throat. 
He didn't want to die, he realized.
"You're a Jedi." Vader stated.  
"No---"
The blade inched closer.  Luke practically melted into the decking, not ready at 
all to die. 

It satisfied the dark lord.
"I'm not a Jedi; my father was." the youth hurried to explain.   
Drops of sweat ran down his face and plopped onto the deck.
"Then you have the potential." Vader said, not moving back to a safer position.  

Luke felt his muscles complain against the strain that he was pushing on them; 
he was in no shape to hold himself this tightly against the floor.  
"Was Kenobi your master?" Vader asked him.
"He hasn't had time to train me." Luke said, careful to keep his throat still; 
he barely whispered his answer.  
He could smell the ozone of the ruby blade which seemed portent of very bad 
things for him.  
He resolved he'd do anything to keep that blade away from himself.

Vader remained silent for a long while.
As he had surmised, his son hadn't known that a Jedi could feel another Jedi so 
his excuse to break him was perfect.  He hated to hurt the youth by taking his 
hand, but he knew that once this was done, he would behave.  Besides, hated or 
not, he always did whatever he had to do to reach his ends.
Otherwise, he wouldn't be the Empire's second in command and its future ruler.
At least, his son was behaving now.  He hadn't attacked him once, instead trying 
to avoid his blade, and he really was cringing away from it at the moment.  
He was slowly recovering his harder edge, but his terror was still clear on his 
face.  
When he noticed the slight quiver that began to animate his son's body, he 
decided to put an end to this third confrontation.
"From now on, Jedi, your every day report will be done with me, alone."
He inched just a bit closer, close enough for the energies to bite slightly into 
his son's skin.  
Luke clenched his teeth tight as he tried to push his head further backward.  
"I will keep an extremely close eye on you ; I suggest you keep this in mind 
before you try anything else." he warned him.
When his boy winced again thanks to his slight burnt, he shut the blade and let 
him go.  
He knew that he would heed his warning this time.

Luke felt his muscles uncoil, much like springs, and his different pains 
assaulted him.  He couldn't tell whether his wrists, his burns, his cuts or his 
remnants of shocks were the most agonizing of the lot.  
The only thing he knew was that he felt absolutely awful.
"Do you understand?" the dark lord asked him.
Luke forced himself to nod, though weakly.  His body remained in a slackened 
balled-up position, slowly shifting in obvious torment.  
When the door opened again, he wondered what would happen next to him.  
Was the punishment over?.. or was there more to it?..  After all, he'd been 
taken from one torture room into another...
He heard Vader step away from him and do something on a key pad.
"Take him to the medcenter.  Give this to the medic." he heard him say.
Then he groaned loudly as the troopers lifted him off the floor and carried him 
outside.  

Vader watched his son leave.  Once he was out of reach, he contacted him through 
the Force.
*Do not reveal your identity as a Jedi, Skywalker, or...*
He felt his son's horror at what entailed the threat.  
Yes, he was broken now.  It had taken him a good scare, but now, the boy would 
truly be ready to begin his imperial and Jedi training.
It was perfect.  
He would give him a few days to get use to his artificial hand, the best model 
the medic would be able to find, then he would begin his real training.
Meanwhile, he would set about breaking his daughter.

******

In the medcenter, Luke hissed as the droid disinfected his numerous cuts.  Vader 
had given orders to treat him like any other new conscripts, which meant that 
not much gentleness was in store for him.  
He gritted his teeth against another sound of pain.  
Darn it, didn't they have less stinging stuff in their cupboards?, he wondered 
in frustration.  
"Stay still." the cold voice told him.  
"I 'am' still." he argued.  
He was as immobile as he could be with a pain-wracked body and a right stump 
that still throbbed thanks to its recent trauma.  
As he sat on the edge of the bunk, nursing his right arm in his other arm, he 
wondered why Vader was taking such an interest in him.  
Sure, the dark lord was the destroyer of Jedis and stuff, but then, shouldn't he 
have killed him already?  He said that he wanted him in his service, but why go 
to all the trouble of breaking him and keeping an eye on him like he did?  
Killing him would settle his problems much more quickly.  
Unless, of course, the dark lord only wanted to play with him, untrained Jedi 
child that he was.  Perhaps he wanted to torment him like he had probably done 
to his pairs, although he himself had never known them... ; yeah, perhaps Vader 
was bored of his victory and needed someone to torment and hurt to be happy.  
Just his luck, Luke thought sarcastically.
If only he could do something----darn medics, he thought as he yelped in 
thorough discomfort.  
He took a deep breath to acquire a better control over his pain.  He refocused 
on his thoughts.  
He knew now that he wouldn't be able to do anything against the dark lord.  Even 
worse, if he didn't want to be hurt again, he would have to satisfy him.  
After seeing the dark lord in a dangerous/threatening mood, he didn't want to 
see him in an angry one.  
He wasn't interested to loose another limb.  
The medical droid set his cleaning tools away.  
"Lay on the bunk now." he told him.  
Luke didn't argue, though he braced himself for what would be painful.  Slowly, 
very slowly, he laid back on the raised head of his bunk.  
He clenched his jaw as his back touched the soft mattress.  
He decided that he was going to sleep in a sitting position tonight.  
When he was able to relax enough and focus on something else but his body, he 
noticed that the droid had picked up an artificial hand from a compartment on 
his tray.  
At first, Luke cringed away from the contraption, then he realized that he had 
no choice anyway.  He was even lucky to be given this much considering his 
situation.  
"Rest your arm on the platform beside your bed." the droid told him.  
Slowly, reluctantly, Luke obeyed, wincing as the moving muscles pulled at his 
burnt flesh.  
Without any word, the droid began to work on his stump.  He first gave him a 
local desensitizer, then began his reading to fit the mechanical hand to his 
arm.  
When that step was completed and it began to fit the hand to his natural flesh 
and bone, Luke glumly reflected that it somehow linked him to his captor now, 
not completely human anymore... part machine, part man...
Some time after the first steps of the binding itself were completed, Luke let 
much needed sleep claim him.  

A fiery, burning sensation tore him out of his slumber; he awoke with a yelp.  
At first extremely disoriented, Luke frantically looked around himself to find 
the source of his new torment.  
His panicked eyes rested on the shape of the medical droid which was standing 
beside his bunk.  
"The desensitizer is wearing out." it told him.  "Can you move your fingers?"
What was he talking about? Luke wondered as he gritted his teeth in pain.  Why 
would he have to---- Oh... yeah, now he remembered.  
He was in a medcenter, being fitted with a new hand... 
"Can you move your finger?" the droid asked again. 
Bracing himself, Luke turned his eyes toward his new hand; it looked quite 
natural, but it wasn't.  He could still feel where the prosthesis ended and his 
flesh began.
"It hurts." he told the droid.
"The tissues are still inflamed.  It will hurt for a few more days at least.  
Can you move your fingers?" it asked again.  
When Luke tried to do so, the inflammation ran up all the way to his shoulder.  
He gasped in pain.  
"It hurts too much." he told the droid.  
The robot picked up his probing stick and began to stimulate each finger in 
turn.  Since it touched the reflex centers, Luke's new hand demonstrated its 
functional state despite the pain it caused him.  
When it was finished, Luke wanted nothing more than to kick the droid away from 
himself.  It turned away from him and gathered its instruments.  
"Don't move." it told him, then left him alone.  
Without anymore painkillers, Luke's body quickly became his main, most demanding 
preoccupation.  
Never again, he promised himself.  He would never defy the dark lord again, nor 
the imperials for that matter.
Two troopers came inside his small room.  
"Get up." they told him.  
Luke groaned, forced himself to his feet and slowly shuffled his way toward 
them.  They grabbed hold of his biceps, which made him hiss in reaction, then 
they walked him swiftly back to the conscripts' quarters.  

When they reached their destination, Luke had almost passed out again.  
He woke up though when the troopers shoved him against the main console.  His 
fresh, sharp pain brought him back to a more conscious state.  
"So he's still alive." an officer sneered.  
One of the trooper handed him the same card he had given to the medics.  
"Can you handle him?" he asked the man.  
"I only have to lock him back in cuffs then you can drop him in his cell."
While the imperials had been talking, Luke had slowly, painfully pushed himself 
to a more or less standing position.  The trooper grabbed what remained of his 
suit's scruff, half-strangling him in the process, then pulled him where he 
could put his hands in the prints.  
He yelped in pain when his right hand lightly grazed the counter.  
"Put your hands in the prints." the officer ordered darkly.
Luke did so, wincing at all the unpleasant bolts of pain that ran through his 
arms.  
He yelped when the tight cuffs clamped down on his wrists ; it put way too much 
pressure on his right one.  
"State your number." The imperial told him.  
Out of pride, Luke tried not to let his pain filter through his voice.  
"1...1...38...T." he said slowly.  
His hands were released from the counter; the troopers took hold of his biceps 
yet again.  
Thirty seconds later, they shoved him into his cell; Luke landed hard on the 
bed, hitting his head against the wall in the process.  He slumped on the 
mattress and remained there, too spent, too tormented to move again.  
Some time later, he fell asleep, or perhaps he fainted; he wasn't sure which...

******

In his quarters, Vader reached out to check on his son's status, like he had 
done the previous night.  
He had definitely broken him this time, both mentally and physically... but 
perhaps just a trifle too hard on the physical side.  After all, he mused, the 
boy would need his strength tomorrow.  In his actual state, he would be 'lucky' 
to wake up at all. 
But he could do something to make sure that he would be in better shape.
After all, he wanted him to learn what he had to learn as quickly as possible, 
which meant that he wouldn't have a day of respite after his latest ordeal.  
Once again, he found the boy's subconscious and quickly taught him how to put 
himself in a healing trance.  
He set the sound of an alarm as his signal to come out of it.  
Less than five minutes later, he felt the Force's healing energies around and 
inside his son's body, bathing him with their powers.
He wouldn't be painless tomorrow, he evaluated as he withdrew from his mental 
contact, but he would be functional.  
He let him to his recovery and contacted his daughter's mind.  
It was strange how their minds felt similar while different.  They were both 
stubborn, but if he had found the breach in his son's armor, namely his pain, he 
would find it in his daughter as well, he promised himself.  
She was extremely tired now, and hungry, but he could feel that she wasn't ready 
to cooperate, even with some pressure of some kind.  
Perhaps tomorrow night then... three days of starvation and lack of sleep would 
wear his steel-kitten down, he had no doubts of that, and if not three, then 
four.  
He was not in any rush anyway, he mentally shrugged.

******

The next day came by too fast for Luke.  An alarm clock he had yet to see went 
off, literally tearing him out of his deep, very deep sleep.  
He rose his head in shock ; his back and shoulder immediately complained.  
"Slow down, Skywalker, slow down..." he croaked to himself.  
He reflected that he'd rather say in bed, but he knew he had to get up.  He also 
knew that he was better to do it at his pace than be pulled off his bed by an 
officer.  
Slowly, very slowly, he rolled onto his right side then pushed himself to a 
sitting position.  
That simple exercise informed him that he could move, yes, but it hurt a lot.  
Just not agonizingly so like yesterday.  Ditto for his hand.  
He pushed himself to his feet and shuffled his way toward his fresher.  He 
noticed the new uniform that was hanging on his hook.  
"Great" he muttered, "more exercise."
Ten minutes later, he discovered that putting on fresh clothes was indeed an 
exercise, something he had never thought could be as difficult as it was proving 
to be for him at the moment.  
He had barely finished to lug on his last boot when his cell opened.  That was 
the signal to go out.  
Reminding himself what the consequence would be if he showed a lack of 
cooperation, he forced himself back to his feet and joined the other conscripts 
in the corridor.  

Throughout the day, he learnt how to apply the principles he had been taught the 
previous day, then he ran through simulation after simulation.  
Even though he liked that part of the training, he was eager to get out of the 
simulator since every second spent in it proved to be the cause of a fight 
against his pains.   Every time he shifted too quickly and every time he rubbed 
his clothes against the rough fabric of his seat, one or many jolts of pain ran 
up to his brain, threatening to suffocate him, but, he knew he had to perform, 
he knew he had to please the dark lord, so he always fought them down and 
retained his focus.  
Since the exercise was to see on which level each new pilot truly was, Luke 
remained in the simulator until he met his match in the most advanced 
challenges.  He still won though.
When the simulator shut down around him in stand-by mode, he was drenched in 
sweat, slightly out-of-breath, and extremely tired.  He checked the chrono on 
the far wall.  
He had been in the simulator for almost four hours.  His fellow conscripts had 
long since then left the area to begin another exercise.  
He was once again alone with the supervisor who had been assigned to his group 
and himself.
He decided to take a moment to rest and let his body recover from its long day--
"Get out of there." Cholk snapped.  
Luke snapped his eyes open, unaware that he had closed them, and stood up.  He 
yelped as his body reminded him not to move this fast, for his sake.  
He slowly climbed down the short steps and stood there.  The officer stepped 
close enough to practically touch his nose with his own.  
"Where have you learnt to fly this well, 1138T?"
"In Beggar's Canyon on Tatooine, Sir." he answered as energetically and 
deferentially as he could manage in his actual state.  
"You maintain that you've never flown in combat before?"
"I have only piloted Skyhoppers and speeders, Sir.  I am a mere farm boy."
The officer rose his left eyebrow in warning.  
What?, Luke wondered uncertainly.
"You are what?" Cholk asked sarcastically.  
Oh, right.
"I am an imperial pilot in training, Sir.  I used to be a farm boy."
The other grunted in satisfaction.  
"You don't know anything about military protocol, do you?"
"No, Sir."  
The officer took a step away from him and began to read on his pad.  When he 
noticed that Luke was watching him, he threw him a sharp look.
"Who's told you to be at ease?" he growled.  
Luke straightened himself and held his stance.  His back and shoulders 
Complained ; he tried to ignore them.  
After long minutes of silence, his supervisor sent him back into the simulator 
to continue the advanced training.  

******

In the mess hall, the only place where the conscripts were allowed to chat with 
one another, Luke distractedly listened to the others as they talked about their 
latest exercises.  
They had learned how to pull drop-kick maneuvers.  
This was one of the easiest technique to pull in such a fighter, he reflected 
tiredly.  
He picked at his food, which he still hadn't managed to identify, pondering the 
events of the day.  
He had been kept in the simulator and put through exercise after exercise of 
supposedly advanced techniques, but once he had been told how to achieve them, 
he had always done them with as much ease as the snap of his fingers.
His left fingers.  His right ones, which were now resting on the table beside 
his plate, still hurt too much to attempt even this little action.  
He sighed and looked up ; the man in front of him hurried to lower his eyes back 
to his plate.  
Luke pursed his lips.  
He knew he bore an ugly black and blue under the left eye, the result from 
yesterday's trials, and a few cuts from the droid were also visible on his face, 
neck and left hand.  
It was part of Imperial policy not to allow troopers any demonstration of 
sympathy when one of theirs was punished, so his fellow conscripts couldn't 
show him in any away that they were sorry for him.
But that didn't keep Luke from feeling their sadness where he was concerned.  It 
came through his senses as clearly as light through his eyes.  
It was eerie.  
Deciding that he wasn't hungry, he put his spoon down and pushed his plate away 
from himself.  
He closed his eyes and tried to gather up the energy he needed but didn't have; 
his injuries had sapped him all day long and now he only wanted to sleep.  
Two troopers came in at the moment.  
The quiet hub of the room turned to silence.  Luke opened his eyes and followed 
everyone's glance.  The soldiers talked with the supervisors in charge that 
night ; they indicated where 'he' was.  
He didn't know how he knew that, he just did.  
Hence, when the troopers came closer, he was ready.  
"Come with us, 1138T."
He slowly stood up, forced himself to stand straight, then walked in front of 
the troopers without any more prompting.  
He knew that his companions were watching him leave, fearing for him.  
He couldn't say he was that reassured himself ; he just didn't have any other 
choice.  

******

Fifteen minutes later, he was standing in the dark lord's anteroom, alone.  
At first, he had been surprised when the troopers had left him and he hadn't 
known how to react, but after a few minutes in the deserted room, it had dawned 
on him that it was test.  
Vader wanted to see how far he could trust him.  
Luke decided not to test how far he could push the dark lord's tolerance.  
He quietly waited for him.  
Many minutes later, although he didn't know how many, he felt a dark presence 
grow closer.  The bubble in the middle of the room split open to reveal the dark 
lord of the Sith in all his dark glory.  
Luke hurried to straighten up.
"Wise choice, young one." the darksider told him.
So he had been right, he thought, it had been a test.  
He didn't speak though; he knew now not to speak unless told to.  
The dark lord beckoned him closer.  Luke reluctantly obeyed ; he stood as close 
as he dared to the dark lord's raised enclosing.
"How do you feel today?" he asked him with just a hint of sarcasm in his cold 
voice.  
"I hurt a lot, my Lord." Luke told him truthfully.
"Hmm-hmm." the dark lord nodded.  "And yet,"  The screen behind him turned on, 
bearing Luke's results of the day.  "you have performed quite well.  How so?"
"I have fought my pains, my Lord. I..." he hesitated.  
"Yes?"
"I didn't want to be punished again." he admitted, mentally cringing away from 
the words.  
They revealed a weakness and, in the imperial world he now knew, a weakness was 
either punishable or eradicated from one's personality.  
In this case, Luke thought, he had no choice but to reveal it and wait for his 
punishment ; he couldn't lie to Vader anyway.  
To his surprise, the dark lord didn't make a case out of it.  
"It is an excellent reason to behave." he told him seriously. "It's a shame 
you didn't understand it upon our first meeting." he commented.
Luke barely tilted his head in answer, too shocked to do anything else.  
What was going on?
The dark lord gazed at him a while longer, then turned toward the screen.  
"I can feel your confusion, boy.  You are, for one thing, wondering about your 
training today."
"Yes, I am, my Lord." he admitted, fighting his remaining shock as well as his 
fresh anger at having his thoughts read like an open book.
"About the protocol and regulations, it's quite simple.  You answer to me, 
hence, some things might differ from the things you learn ; those things are 
meant for the stock soldier, and, unless you haven't understood this yet, you 
aren't in this category."
"It seems so." he admitted, thinking about his private session.
"Yes, that's a good clue." Vader agreed, invading his mind yet again.
Luke's anger rose another notch; he kept it in check.  Vader seemed to ignore 
his state of mind.
"You are unlike any other cadet the supervisors have ever trained, Skywalker.  
You are already better than some of our actual pilots, but you don't know 
anything about imperial protocol, procedures and regulations, and you certainly 
cannot be trusted with a TIE fighter yet."
True enough, Luke conceded.  The temptation to run away would be too strong.
"That is why you will continue to exercise in the simulator." Vader answered his 
thought.
Luke began to literally fume in outrage.  
Vader continued.  "You will have the same formation than the rest of your group 
in the morning, but you will report to me for the rest of the day.  I will take 
care of your piloting skills." he finished seriously.
As the last word entered his brain, Luke blanched in shock.  
Trained by Vader??!!  Why? he wondered silently, suddenly feeling terrified.
"Because you're a Jedi ; only another Jedi can train you to your full 
capabilities." Vader answered his unvoiced question.  
Luke's shock turned to anger at having his mind read yet again.  At least the 
officers couldn't do that, he reflected in annoyance.
Vader continued.
"Cholk and the others would only stall your progress." he scorned.  "I'll make 
sure it doesn't happen."
Luke openly glared at him this time, fighting hard to hold his tongue.  He 
didn't want to be hurt again, but he wanted the privacy of his mind.

Vader studied his son, chuckling inwardly at the ease with which he had conjured 
up the boy's anger.  
His family's anger.  
He would teach him to use his anger, as well as his hatred and fear. He'd first 
do it through dog fighting sessions, developing his sensitivity and 
reflexes, then, when the time would be right, he'd transfer those abilities to 
other skills via other exercises.
This should be fun, he decided as he studied the reddening features of the boy.  

Since the dark lord didn't answer to those thoughts, Luke's mind started down 
another path.
Great, he thought, not only would he deal with the darksider on a regular 
basis, but he'd also be isolated from possible new friends since he'd be culled 
from the regular group.
"No." Vader told him.  
Luke's cheeks definitely flushed scarlet in indignation this time.  

Vader decided to teach him something about the control of his anger.  It was a 
good thing, but only as long as it didn't creep into the skin.
He leaned closer to the boy and warningly waved his finger at him.  
"Watch your thoughts, Skywalker, or..."
Suddenly realizing that he had crossed a limit, the youth took a step backward 
and worked on recovering his cool attitude.  
Vader leaned back in his seat, satisfied.  
In time, the boy would know how to let his anger build up inside himself without 
changing anything in his complexion, only his eyes.  
"You will not be isolated from the group." the dark lord continued as if he 
hadn't changed subjects.  "I will train you, but I will not have anything to do 
with your ranks and assignments.  You will be evaluated like every other 
conscript.  For the officers, I will be taking care of you because you are a 
little brat who has to be broken, nothing more."

Luke wondered how many times brats were allowed to live instead of being 
executed.  
"Not very often," Vader conceded, "but it has happened a couple of times, when 
the pilot presented much potential, like yourself." 
Luke felt his anger rise again at the mental invasion, but this time, he fought 
to keep it discreet.  
His eyes flashed at the dark lord.

Better, Vader smiled secretly.  His son was a terribly fast learner.  He could 
only hope that his daughter would be too.
"Since you've already broken all the records we have while causing more trouble 
than any other conscript in imperial history," he explained to his greatly 
annoyed son, "you more than qualify for this special circumstance."
His tone grew colder.  "But I won't tolerate this status for long.  There are 
twelve days left of theory teaching before the training focuses only on the 
piloting skills.  You have until then to show yourself trustworthy and behaved 
on all aspects, Skywalker.  After this, I won't tolerate any straying.  Am I 
clear?" he asked, leaning closer to the temperamental youth.

Luke swallowed hard, the meaning of those words settling into his mind.  
He had twelve days to accept his new status and embrace it as if it were his 
willing choice or he would pay... and unlike his companions, he'd probably live 
to regret it.
"Exactly." Vader stated ominously.  "Any questions?"
"N---no, my Lord." he said fearfully.  "I won't displease you."
He certainly wouldn't anger the dark lord, he promised himself.  
"Good." the darksider clipped, straightening up in his seat.  "We begin 
tomorrow.  Dismissed."
Luke saluted, ignoring the complaints of his aching body, then turned away from 
the dark lord.  
He felt Vader's gaze on his back for as long as he stood in his sight.  
Outside the anteroom, the troopers were waiting for him.  
They brought him back to the barracks.  

******

Alone in his quarters, Vader mused about his son while he called up the report 
on his daughter.  
The boy was clever, that was sure.  He knew that he was involved in a very 
peculiar situation and he somehow knew that it would be noticed, sooner or 
later.
This was something Vader had to avoid at all costs.  If the Emperor learnt that 
he was spending a lot of time with a conscript, or that he kept a rebel leader 
in his quarters, he knew he'd be uncovered and his plan would fail.
But he wasn't the last Dark Lord of the Sith for nothing.  
The boy would quickly rise to a level of efficiency so high that they would have 
no choice but to select him for his own squadron, which meant that his 
presence around him would be justified.
As for the girl, no one was going to be aware of her presence aboard.  
Princess Leia was about to die.
He finished his programming and set it on standby, then he stood up and exited 
his quarters.  
It was time to take care of his daughter.

******

He stepped inside the princess' cell; she didn't stir... much.
"Are you ready to cooperate, Princess." he asked her without any preamble.
"Never..." she said weakly.
Vader crouched to be at eye-level with the slumped form of his daughter.  
"Then, Leia, you will be responsible for the death of Alderaan."
Her eyes snapped open in horror.  
Vader saw that she was thinking about the Death Star.  
"No, not the Death Star.  It would be too swift... how many citizens are there 
on your dear planet, Princess?" he asked surly.  
Her eyes grew wider and she really tried to push herself to a sitting position.  
She was too weak to do so and was forced to remain in a more or less horizontal 
position. 
"No, you wouldn't..." she whispered, her voice scratchy from dehydration.  
"Never is long, Princess, but forever is also long... And I can kill one of your 
citizens for as long as you'll refuse to collaborate."
"No, please..." she begged weakly.
"Can you bear the death of a child?  Of a mother?  A brother?  A friend?" he 
asked seriously.  
He added a Force compulsion to his dark threat, breaking right through his 
daughter's practically non-remaining barriers to strike her heart's chord.
Leia slowly shook her head, speechless in front of Vader's cruelty.
"Can you live with yourself knowing that you've caused those deaths and that 
similar ones will follow?"  
The princess's features were now as white as her clothes.  
"I don't think so." he stated.  "Now, do you surrender and collaborate?"
"You're a monster." she breathed, stricken.
"Do you?" he asked again.

She closed her eyes, unable to believe that she was about to say the word.
"Yes..." she whispered.  
She let her head fall back on the steel platform, her remaining strength 
abandoning her.  
She wished she could die, she wished she could save her people in another 
fashion, but she knew that she had no other choice.  
Her senses eluded her.  

The easy part was done now, the dark lord reflected in dark satisfaction. 
As he had thought, Alderaan was his daughter's weak point and he had only had to 
push on it the right way to win her over.  Now, he had to pretend that she was 
dead.  
He stormed in the corridor, turned on his lightsaber and cut down the guards 
that were standing guard outside his daughter's cell.  
"She's dead." he growled the moment he reached the command station.
"What?  My Lord?"
Two more guards died.  
"I've given specific orders to keep her alive, and you've failed.  I do not 
accept failure, captain." he spat at the man and his two subordinates. 
Two seconds later, they were also dead.  
He called the troops who were off-shift and ordered them to come back on the 
double.  
While he did so, he reached out and transferred his makeshift program into the 
system.  
According to it, Leia's vital senses had been extremely weak, too weak for her 
to survive without some extra nutrient inputs.  
When the troops arrived, they saw the carnage and stopped in their tracks.  
"Next time I ask for a prisoner to be kept alive, make sure you succeed. " he 
warned them.  "Otherwise, you shall share the fate of your companions who have 
failed to keep Princess Leia alive."
"Yes, my Lord." the man in charge of the group said worriedly.
"Clean this mess up." he ordered.    "I'll try one last thing with the 
princess."
The terrified men immediately set to work and spaced the bodies.  
Meanwhile, back in Leia's cell, Vader picked his daughter in his arms, then he 
focused and created an alternate image of himself around him.  
Once he was ready for the final part of his masquerade, he exited the cell.  
Inside, a three-dimensional image of the princess was still slumped on the bunk.
"Jettison her." he told the troopers.  
As if he didn't mind about the procedure, he made his way toward the nearest 
lift.  Through the Force though, he manipulated the minds of the two men who 
manipulated the image, making them believe that they were holding the true 
princess.  The other guards who saw them also believed it, and even the cameras 
picked up the image of the dead princess.  
Leia Organa was no more.  

******

Five minutes later, he brought his daughter, Leia Vader, in the spare room he 
had furbished during the past days.  Except for the bed, the rest of the 
furniture was from his other apartments.  
He set her on the bed and woke her up.  
"What?.." she moaned.
"You need to rebuild your strength, girl.  We'll begin your training tomorrow.  
Until then---"
"What training?" she asked him, opening her eyes.  
The young woman realized how close he was and immediately backed away from him, 
at least as much as she could given her weakened and horizontal status.  
"You'll see." he told her.  "Eat, get rid of your dress and cut your hair."
Leia gaped at him, stilling on the bed.
Cut her hair?  Why?, he heard her think.
"You are an imperial now, Laila, and as such, you cannot have long hair."
"My name is Leia." she argued as vehemently as she could manage.  
"Leia's dead." he stated with finality.  "Unless we are alone, your name will 
now be Laila."
Leia's anger rose and gave her enough strength to sit up and glare at him.  
"Who do you think you are to change my name and push things on me?" she spat.
"It is not who I am, but what I'll do if you don't do as I say." he reminded 
her.
Leia's glare hardened.  
"For every disobedience, one----" he began threateningly.

"Okay, okay, I get it, Monster." she muttered, laying back on the bed.  "No need 
to bring that up." she snarled.  
It wasn't really like her to do that, but then, it had never been like her to 
give into Evil's demands.
Vader straightened up and backed away from the bed.  
"I will check on you tomorrow.  You have three things to do until then ; don't 
forget any of them."
"Don't worry, I won't." she muttered as she closed her eyes to hide herself from 
the truth of the situation.  
Vader exited the room.  She reopened her eyes and spotted a small glass ball on 
the night stand.  
With more energy than she'd felt in days, she pulled herself up once again, 
picked it up and threw it with all her strength against the door.  It shattered 
into tiny pieces upon impact.  

On the other side of the door, Vader smiled in satisfaction.  
She too could easily be angered, he now knew, which meant that she would be easy 
to train.  
Now he had to get some rest and meditate on the future.  
With his two children in his grasp and under his control, he had some serious 
planning to do.

******

Leia glared for a long while at the closed door and broken glass.  
How could she have ended up in such an horrible situation?..  Now, she had no 
choice but to obey the dark lord until she could escape.  
First thing first though, she had to eat.  
Her eyes rested on the bowl of fruits that had been left on the night stand.  
Five minutes later, they were gone.  
Still feeling hungry, she looked around the dark room.  She, who was used to 
pastel colors, found it quite difficult to accept the suddenly dark environment.  
She sighed and pushed this thought out of her mind.  
She couldn't do anything about it for the moment, she reminded herself.  
She saw the other morsels of food on the desk.  
She weakly stood up, held onto the back of the chair, then the desk until she 
could sit down.  
She ate the three ration bars in record time.
Tasteless food had never tasted so good, she reflected in a rye mental tone.  
While she swallowed her last bites, she noticed the books that had been lined up 
in the book case.  
Fighting techniques
Shooting tips
Spying secrets
Commanding with success.
Etc.
She frowned and took a moment to study the books.  
What did this mean, she wondered?  
Vader certainly didn't want her to plan an escape, did he?  So,... why had he 
left such books in her reach?  
Perhaps he was just teasing her, she decided.  
She picked one up and opened it.  
No, the cards really were about accuracy of aim.  
She gazed blankly at the cards for long minutes, uncomprehendingly--- until she 
snapped out of her daze.  
Whatever he was planning, she decided, wasn't good for her.  
She sighed, closed her eyes, then turned around and resumed her visual study of 
the room.  She saw the closet on the nearby wall.  
It was probably empty, she decided, unless... yeah, right, there had been this 
strange request concerning her gown...
She slowly stood up, glad to see that she could do so ; she was still shaky but 
she could at least shuffle around.  
She opened the closet.  Black flight suits were lined up in a neat array.  
The antithesis of her whites, she thought.  
She had never really liked black clothes, had always thought that it didn't help 
her complexion.  
It looked like she'd have to get used to this new look, she sighed sadly.  
And, thinking about looks... 
She brought her right hand to her right bun... she had to cut her hair... her 
hair which her mother had taught her to care for and twist into different hair 
styles... Not her surrogate mother... her real mother, when she had been very 
young... She had never dared cut her hair so as to have this reminder of her.  
She went into the small fresher and stood in front of the mirror there.  
The face that stared back at her was gaunt, tired, the eyes devoid of their 
usual fire.  
She looked horrible, she decided with a pout at her reflection.  
Her hair were also quite a mess, a shadow of the neat buns she had worn when she 
had been captured.  Her days of sleeping on them hadn't done them any good.  
Slowly, she pulled the pins from her hair, releasing the thick strands.  
Five minutes later, her chocolate hair was hanging loose to frame her childish 
face and slender shoulders.  
It was at times like this that she really looked her age.  She was barely 
eighteen, despite what most people thought.  
For a long moment, she gazed at her reflection.  
Deep down, she knew why she kept her hair long; with some imagination, she could 
imagine seeing her mother again.  She looked very much like what her memories 
told her of her.  
She spied the glint of vibroscissors on the edge of the small shelf.  Vader had 
planned this all right.  
For a moment, she toyed with the idea to finish herself right then and there, 
but the thought of her people suffering because of her death stilled her hand.  
She couldn't convince herself to die with this on her mind.  
She picked the scissors the right way, took hold of a first strand of hair, and 
froze.  
She looked one last time at her reflection.  
"Forgive me, Mother." she prayed, then cut her first strand.  

For almost two hours, she cut her thick hair to a shorter style, first 
shortening the strands, then using the best skills she could muster to design 
the short strands into some sort of look.  
When she put the scissors down, she could barely recognize herself.  Her hair 
were short enough that she couldn't bind them anymore, but they were still long 
enough to allow her some kind of airy style.  
It was just a short one.  
She looked down at her feet and saw the long chocolate strands of hair.  She 
felt her tears come to her eyes even as her legs gave under her.  She collapsed 
among her hair, letting go of the despair and frustration she had held back for 
the past days.  
She was truly dead now..., she realized.  
At first hesitantly, then with shaky hands, she slowly unzipped her senatorial 
gown and slipped it off her shoulders.  It puddled at her hips, completing the 
sight of her hair.  
What was going to happen next?, she wondered.  What would she have to do to save 
her people?  Would there ever be a way out of this nightmare?  What had she done 
to deserve this fate?
She cried for a long time until her mind became a blank and she just sat there, 
listless.  

She didn't move for an hour, perhaps two, then mechanically cleaned up the small 
'fresher, gathering her hair in her gown while making sure to keep one long 
strand for herself, then she put the rest in the small incinerator that was the 
trash bin.  
She brushed her tears away, picked up her strand, and looped it around her hand 
as she made her way to the bed on which she finally collapsed, spent both 
physically and psychologically.  
Her blanked mind pulled her into uneasy sleep in record time. 

******

A few kilometers away, Luke awoke, his eyes filled with tears.  He brought his 
hand to his eyes and wiped them clear.  
Whoa..., he mentally gaped, awakening further.  What had happened?  He had gone 
to bed feeling quite tired and distraught, but nothing that would make him 
cry... he never cried, he reminded himself.  
His uncle Owen had always scolded him hard when he had cried so he had quickly 
banished this reaction from his life...
So, why now?  
Sure, Vader had threatened him, had given him an ultimatum, in short, had 
terrified him, but he hadn't felt the need to cry while he had been awake.  
He had been more angry and frustrated than sad.  
For long minutes, he tried to understand what had just happened.  
Finally, he gave up ; he turned on his other side, adjusted his only blanket to 
be warmer, then closed his eyes and went back to sleep.  
The next days would be tough and he needed what little rest he could get.

******

Too early for him, his alarm clock went off, rousing him from deep sleep.  
At first, he grumbled and turned around on his pillow, then his upper back 
reminded him where he was exactly.  
He woke up completely, groaned again, and rubbed his eyes.  
Where had the night gone? he wondered.  He didn't really feel rested, merely as 
tired as when he had gone to bed.  
Perfectly aware that he had no choice but to get up and prepare for the day, he 
sighed, slowly pushed himself to a sitting position and scratched his head.  
'You have twelve days to become a good imperial pilot.' Vader had said, perhaps 
not in those words, he reflected glumly, but the message had been clear all the 
same.  
Twelve days.  
A little over two weeks.  
It would be a feat to remember if he pulled that off, he thought.  
Oh, he would try to behave, to learn and live by all the regulations, but he 
also knew how impulsive and anti-imperial he was... It would take him more than 
12 days to change that... many more days in fact.  
But he didn't have those days, he reminded himself, and if he didn't want to 
lose another limb or be tortured again, he would have to make do.  
"Right." he muttered.  "Let's roll."
He painfully stood up and began to prepare himself for the day.
Like for the previous day, putting his clothes on proved to be quite a 
tormenting exercise.  

******

Princess Leia awoke with a gasp of pain, feeling sharp needles of fire digging 
into her back, chest and right arm.  
She instinctively whirled around to see what was tormenting her.  Nothing.  
She was alone... in the room she remembered from the previous night.  
As her senses came back to her, the strange pain disappeared as if it had never 
been there in the first place.  
What had that been? she wondered.  
Her eyes rested on the dark suit she was expected to wear.  
'Vader.' she thought darkly.  
Vader had done something to her to wake her up.  The next time she'd see him, 
she'd suggest him to provide her with an alarm clock instead of relying on his 
tricks.  
It wouldn't even be a problem for him to find a decent clock, she sneered 
mentally as she laid back on the bed.  Considering everything that was already 
in her 'room'... it wouldn't be a problem at all... 
She went back to sleep.

******

In the conscript's training room, Luke did his best to register everything that 
was said by the officer.  
Unlike his companions who could take it slowly since they would have a period of 
drilling/adaptation, he had to follow all those rules right away.
The officer began to talk about the protocol surrounding the higher officers. 
'And Lord Vader.' Luke thought to himself.  
"Stand straight, keep your mouth shut, be deferent and you won't be 
disciplined." their trainer said, repeating their lesson from the previous day.  
One of his companions rose his hand.  
Luke shook his head imperceptibly.  
'Wrong idea, man,' he thought.  
The officer naturally came down on the poor man.  
"Is that what you consider keeping your trap shut, pilot?" he snarled.  
"No but---"
"Shut up!" the imperial growled, prowling closer to the other young man.
Luke watched the confrontation from the corner of his eye, just like every other 
conscript in the room.  
"You do not argue, you do not ask questions, you wait for orders, do you 
understand, you stupid piece of poodoo?"
The younger man was speechless.  The officer continued his tirade, using his 
victim as an example for the group.
"You dumb, no-good parasite, I've asked you a question.  Answer me!" he ordered  
"Y-y-y-yes, S-s-s-ssir." the other stuttered. 
'Hard to be deferent when you're being insulted,' Luke reflected.  
"Go in front of the group." officer Terk commanded.  
The conscript, Jal, hurried to leave his rank, too struck to argue.  He stood in 
front of the group.
"Turn around.  Now, 3267M, and all of you losers," he said, turning his glare 
toward the rest of the standing group, "if I say you're a mynock, you're a 
mynock, and if I say you're worse than a pile of shit, then you are worse than a 
pile of shit.  What are you?" he asked the young man.
"I...I..."
Luke sympathized with his companion; it wasn't easy to insult himself that way, 
especially to please a stupid officer.  
"Would a seance in a discipline pen help you?" Terk asked, walking closer to the 
nervous pilot while indicating Luke with his thumb.  
It angered the young farm boy to be used as an example, but he remembered what 
the dark lord had taught him and he remained still, not letting his emotions 
show.
Jal's eyes flitted his way, then flew away from him in terror. 
"I'm worse than a pile of shit." the terrified conscript half-whispered, 
lowering his head in shame.  
"What?  I didn't hear you?  Stand tall." Terk snapped.
The younger man obeyed and repeated his answer, loud enough for everybody to 
hear.  Luke saw tears of outrage slide down his cheeks.  
"Oh, guys, look here!" Terk called to the rest of the group.  "We've got 
a woman in the group."  He turned back toward the poor conscript and snarled: 
"Cut those out, pilot, or I'm sending you to the kitchens."
Jal made a supreme effort to keep himself from crying, and it succeeded, but 
Luke could see in his eyes that he held a grudge against the man.  
He hadn't chosen that life; he was who he was and they had to accept it.  
His thought came through Luke's mind so clearly that the young Jedi briefly 
wondered if it hadn't been his own thoughts.  
Jal was finally allowed to return to his place and the drilling session 
continued.  
Luke resumed his attentive behavior but he promised himself that he would speak 
with the young man.  

At lunch time, Jal sat alone at the end of a long table.  Luke decided to sit 
with him since he was also an outcast, or so it looked like ; nobody wanted to 
speak with him in case they'd be accused of sympathizing with him.  
"Mind if I sit here?" he asked the other man.
The other didn't look at him.  "No." he shrugged.  
As he sat down, Luke noticed that Jal hadn't touched his plate of gruel.  
"You should eat." he suggested the other.  
The young man rose his head to glare at him.  "Look, Luke, I didn't tell you 
what to do yesterday, so don't tell me what to do today." he growled.  
"Right, but if you don't want to end up like me two days ago, you'll need your 
strength this afternoon when they'll sit you in a simulator." Luke pointed out.  
He hissed as his right wrist complained slightly against the movement he made it 
do, namely pick up his spoon.  
A silence stretched for a long time between the two young men.  
Luke listened to the other conversations and noticed how the other youths were 
all referring to one another by their names.  
That stuff they spat in the face of new conscripts, Luke realized, was in fact 
just one more way to intimidate them.  In fact, the troops knew the names of 
each other, and the officers were known by their names, not numbers.  
The numbers was just his identification code.
He'd know better next time, he resolved.  
"How are you today?" Jal asked him in a low voice.
"I don't want to go through that again." he answered simply.  "Just like you 
don't want to insult yourself again in front of us." he pointed out.
"Yeah, you bet I'll hold my tongue now..."
"You're right though" Luke continued.  "They've forced us to take up their ways.  
They should expect us to---- what?" he asked, noticing the way his companion was 
watching him.
"How do you know that?" he gaped in utter surprise
"Know what?" 
"What I think about this situation?..  I haven't told that to anyone." the other 
pointed out.
'Do not reveal your identity as a Jedi, or...' Vader had warned him.  Uh-oh... 
he had to recover from that slip.  
"Uh... well... how can you not think it?" he offered.  "Only those that couldn't 
make it to the academy don't think about it this way." he shrugged mock-
seriously.
"Right... I guess so... it was just eerie to hear you voice my thoughts." Jal 
admitted.
"Sorry... " Luke apologized.  "But the way you were looking at Terk this 
morning only confirmed to me that you were one of us."
"One of us?" Jal scowled.  
"Yeah, one of us who'd rather be anywhere else... you're not the only one, you 
know?  We'll all be going through this together."
While he spoke, Luke noticed a weird light appear in the other man's eyes.  
Hope, he realized.  
"Unless we could escape." Jal suggested in a whisper, the glimmer strengthening 
in his eyes as he voiced his thoughts.  
"Ssshhh," Luke hissed as he made a shushing gesture with his left hand.  "Don't 
start rumors." he whispered sharply.
He ate in silence until he had quelled his sudden fear.  
"It wouldn't work anyway.  There's no way out, believe me."
The other's hope unfortunately remained in his eyes and mind.
"Unless..."
Luke cut him off before he had begun.  
He had wanted Jal to know that he was with him concerning the morning's 
incident, but nothing more.  He certainly had no intention to get again into 
trouble. 
"No." he told him adamantly.  "I've learnt my lesson." he stated, slowly 
standing up from his table.  "I may share your opinion about that conscript 
thing, but nothing else." he said seriously, then picked up his platter to 
leave.
Through his strange awareness, he had seen Jal's mind form the beginning of an 
escape plan. He had also seen, somehow, that Jal would bring this plan to its 
conclusion, whatever it would be.  
For him, he knew, it would end with more pain at Vader's hand.  
His back seemed to burn again as he remembered what had happened last time he 
had been brought to Vader for punishment.
The one and only time he had promised himself.  
He would hold that promise, he resolved as he walked away from the other's 
table.  
Behind him, Jal watched him leave to join others at another table. 
He was thinking of him as a potential ally, he realized.  He would have to 
convince him of the very opposite.
Throughout the remnant of the meal, he felt his gaze burn into his back until 
they got the signal to assemble.  
Yes, he would definitely have to convince him of the opposite, Luke decided.  
Otherwise...

Luke reported with the others, but once in the simulator room, he was culled 
from the group and directed toward an other room.  
He wasn't surprised in the least to hear Vader's breath when the door opened for 
him.  He forced himself to step inside.  

Lord Vader took a moment to study his son yet again.  He was wearing the gray 
uniform of the conscripts; even though the uniform was designed to look like 
little more than a rag, it looked rather good on him.
Or perhaps his son was making it look good.  His shoulders were straight, his 
chest-muscles rather developed and his whole attitude spoke of contained power, 
power the boy didn't know about just yet.
But today, he would.  
The youth stopped ten feet away from him and bowed his head.  
"My Lord."
"I see you've learnt your lessons." he commented.  "At ease."
"I try to, my Lord." Luke told him.  

Vader walked closer; Luke forced himself to remain still.
"There is no try, Skywalker.  Only successes."
"Yes, Lord."
"One more thing." he said, his voice slightly rumbling now.
Luke mentally cringed; he had a bad feeling about this.
"Nice recovery in the mess hall.  If not for your last comments, I would've 
taught you something else than piloting this afternoon."
Luke could only gape in shock.  
He had known that the Dark Lord could read his mind when they were together, 
but---  
"How do you know?" he asked him in a terrified whisper.
"How?" Vader repeated.  "How?!  Young Jedi, the Force isn't limited to walls, or 
even distances.  I am constantly aware of your thoughts and actions."
Luke understood exactly what this meant.  Vader had more than an eye on him; he 
was following him like his shadow, forgotten yet there.  And ready to punish him 
if need be.  
Something suddenly occurred to the youth.
If Vader knew his whereabouts and thoughts in such details, then... he also knew 
about what he perceived from the others.
"I will let the officers deal with your companions ; if you take part to it 
though---"
"I won't, my Lord, I assure you I won't." he hurried to say, relieved.  
"Good. As you have told him, there's no way out anyway.  I must admit that the 
strength of your sensing abilities surprises me." he told him conversationally.
Sensing abilities?, Luke wondered, raising an eyebrow in confusion.
"Or, how you read your companions' minds with little focus if you prefer." Vader 
explained.  "You are aware of that of course."
"Y-y-yes, but I wasn't sure." he admitted.  
"After this afternoon, you will be sure.  Do you have any questions?"
"No, my Lord."
He had many questions, but he wanted to get away from the dark lord's imposing, 
frightening presence as quickly as possible. 
"Get in the simulator." his tormentor told him.    
Luke didn't waste any time and obeyed him.  
Once in the Flight simulator, he took a moment to find a comfortable position, 
then he strapped in.  
'And on with another rubbing session.' he thought in resignation.
He knew he would ache a lot after the training session, but he could only do as 
he was told to.  
"Snap out of it, child." Vader commented in his mike.  
'Child?' Luke thought annoyingly.  He wasn't a child.
"Compared to me, you are, and, you are little more than a barely grown-up child 
anyway."
Luke fumed but restrained his thoughts.  
"Before we begin, you will have to build a mental wall."
"A what?" he asked.  
"Close your eyes and imagine four walls closing around your mind.
Luke closed his eyes, wondering if that was part of the traditional TIE pilot 
training.  
*Focus your thoughts and imagine the wall.* Vader ordered, speaking in his mind 
this time.  
Chilled out of his musing, Luke obeyed.  

From his control console, Vader monitored his son's shielding technique.  At 
first, seeing the walls was a hard exercise for the youth, but after a few, 
convincing incentives, his son finally managed to see the walls and set them 
around his image of his mind.  
The strength of his shield surprised him.  If he hadn't been inside the shield, 
he might have been blocked out by it.
The Emperor, who didn't know about the boy, wouldn't discover his existence any 
time soon, he thought in satisfaction.  
*Good work.* he praised him.  *Now, the rules are simple.  Every time you'll 
loose, I'll had up push-ups that you'll make after the session; every time 
you'll win, I'll add up time you'll spend healing yourself.  Ready?*
Before the youth could answer, he began the simulation, his 'fighter' coming 
right up behind him and firing three quick volleys.

Luke had barely recovered his mental readiness when he realized that the 'game' 
was on and that he was already loosing.  
He tried to turn the TIE away, to loop over his adversary, but the dark lord 
hung onto his tail like an enraged krayt dragon.  
The system shut down one minute after the fight had begun ; he had lost.  
"That wasn't fair." he muttered.  
"Not fair?  A dog fight is never fair since the best pilot always win.  You 
should've sensed me coming on your tail, you should've felt the danger."
Before Luke could retort, the simulation began anew.  
He felt the danger this time, but still too late.  He twisted out of the way, 
dropped, then kicked over the dark lord, but to no avail.
In the end, he lost again.

"Kreth!" he swore after his fifth defeat in less than twenty minutes.  "I 
thought you were going to train me, not play with me." he complained, his 
frustration taking the best out of him and making him forget his place.
Vader didn't seem to mind, for the moment.
"What would be the point to pit you against the computer ; you're already 
better than it is."
"I know but---"
"Do you want me to add another ten pumps to your score?" the dark lord 
interrupted.  
"No." Luke relented.  
He had already accumulated fifty of them and knew that he wasn't out of it yet.  
"Quit complaining, child, and focus on your sixth sense.  Show me what you can 
do."
And with that the simulation resumed itself.  
The moment Luke felt the tingle of danger, he wrenched his stick aside, 
pirouetting out of Vader's aim, then shifted course to the left to loose him.
"Ah!," the dark lord sneered contemptuously. "you can do better than that, 
child."
Luke's anger rose upon hearing that word again and he focused on his instincts 
instead of reasoning.  
He would show Vader that he wasn't a 'child'.
He managed to elude him for almost ten minutes, a record in itself, but he never 
managed to acquire a position behind him. 
Darn it, how was he supposed to save his life if he couldn't attack? he thought 
furiously as he threw his 'ship' into another loop.
"You could attack, if you were better." Vader taunted, giving him one more proof 
that he could read his thoughts.  
Luke fumed at the hated intrusion, felt a tug through his intuition and flipped 
his ship upside down.  
For the briefest of moments, it looked as if he were going to change his 
situation, but Vader's ship eluded him with as much ease as a fish moves in 
water and finished his beaten up 'fighter'.  
"Shavit!" Luke swore, angrily shoving himself back in his seat.  
He yelped as his back hit the rough leather.  
Vader was way too good for him; he wasn't learning, he was being humiliated.
That was the only thing that was happening at the moment.  
"If you flew as well as you whine, boy, you'd be able to challenge me."
"Yeah, right..." Luke muttered lowly.

At the command console of the simulator, Vader smiled slightly behind his mask.  
His son was downright furious now, which was excellent.  
The boy was good, no doubt about that.  Otherwise, he wouldn't last more than 
ten seconds against him.
He himself was the best pilot that had ever existed, so in a way, his son was 
right that it wasn't fair since he was already challenging him with his full 
capabilities.
On the other hand though, the youth would learn to despise defeat, to use every 
trick he had in his bag, and... most important, to consciously use the Force.  
"You're not relying enough on your sixth sense." he told him sarcastically.  
"Surely you're clever enough to feel its use in combat."
More waves of anger came from the closed stimulator.  
"I'd use it if I knew how." Luke pointed out through the mike.  
"How?  Skywalker, don't play games with me." he growled.  
Now, he thought in amusement, he was going to toy with the boy a bit.  He hadn't 
exactly told him how to use the Force yet, letting him make his own discoveries, 
but the boy didn't know that.  
"I've already told you how, but you don't use it." he scolded him.
"I would, but I don't know how." the youth argued.  
"Watch your tongue." he warned him seriously.  "You already have eighty pumps to 
do and I can easily add to them."
"I'm sorry, my Lord, but I really try to do like you tell me." he hurried to 
say.  
Good, Vader thought.  The boy was learning to defer.  
"Very well, try this then.  Close your eyes, let your feelings flow, and follow 
the guidance of the Force."
"The Force?" he asked.  
"Your sixth sense.  Now, do it."

In the simulator, Luke closed his eyes, focused on his feelings, not his 
thoughts.  
A warning came to him and faster than he had ever done, he grabbed his stick and 
pulled it toward himself.  Another warning came, guiding him toward the left ; 
he followed it.  Then another that made him corkscrew over his pursuer, and 
another that made him veer off.  
"Good." Lord Vader praised.  "You've got the basic idea.  Now let's see how 
you'll do with your eyes open."
The simulation resumed to its previous level of difficulty.  

Throughout the next hours, Luke improved his survival time as he confronted the 
dark lord's skills, but he never saved his life completely.  
They finished the afternoon with exercises against the computer.  With his newly 
discovered sensing abilities, Luke creamed the lot out of the toughest rebels 
the computer could throw at him.  
Since those performances pleased the dark lord, Luke fortunately also earned 
some free time to heal himself, the only time he could do so, he knew.  

******

After supper, he retired to his quarters and set about doing his 'homework'.  He 
decided to heal himself first.  The dark lord had explained how to use the 
skills he had just discovered to hasten his healing.
After those blissful thirty minutes, he took off his suit, braced himself and 
set about doing his 120 push-ups.  

******

In Vader's quarters, Leia was debating whether to get up or not.  She had done 
everything the dark lord had told her to do, he had briefly checked on her 
around lunch time, but otherwise, she hadn't seen him during the whole day.  
She still hadn't figured out what he wanted with her.  
Why had he gone to so much trouble as to simulate her death?.., she wondered 
while she braided her sole remaining strand of hair into an intricate bracelet.  
She had decided that no matter what the dark lord would make her do, she would 
not let go of this last link to her mother.  
She had already lost her in the real world, she wouldn't loose her in her 
memories too.  
Careful not to loose the strands, she wrapped them around her small wrist and 
secured the whole thing with a tight knot.  
Lord Vader came inside just as her teeth let go of the remaining strand.  
She glared at him, hoping to kill him with her deadly look.  He didn't say 
anything.
"Come with me." he told her curtly.  
Having no other choice but to obey, she got to her feet and reluctantly followed 
the dark lord.  
"What do you want with me, Vader?" she asked him as she tried to memorize the 
way in and out... it might be useful someday.
"In time, girl, you will know.  For the moment, you will do what I tell you to 
do and do it well or the agents I've sent on Alderaan will do their jobs."
Leia glared daggers at the back of the dark lord.  
"Let's get one thing straight, Vader.  I understand this and I don't need to 
hear about it every minute that I'm in your presence."
"As long as your attitude will not change, Laila, I will remind you of it." he 
returned coolly.  
He opened a door and invited her to go inside.  
"My name is Leia." she growled in annoyance.  
Once inside though, she stopped in her tracks and gaped in confusion.  
She was in a blaster practice room.  
What was going on?, she gaped.  The last time she had checked in her enemy's 
procedures, bringing a prisoner in a room where she could get her hands on a 
weapon had not been on the short list of cells and different tortures.  
When Vader tossed her a blaster, she almost dropped it in shock.  
"I'm not as stupid as you think, Laila.  This is a practice weapon.  It cannot 
harm anyone."
Of course... Leia realized.  
"Practice for what?" she asked.
"I've heard about your shooting skills, about how good they are.  Now, I'm going 
to find out just how true the rumors are."
A practice remote came straight at her, cutting off her remark.  She jumped out 
of its firing range, grabbed her blaster as she did so, and fired back at it.  

Vader watched his daughter play cat and mouse with the remote, analyzing her 
strength in the Force as he did so.  
She was like her brother ; a strong individual with untapped sources of powers 
stored in her, as well as gifted with many abilities that betrayed the extent of 
those powers.  
For the moment, Leia was a good shot, but in some time, she would be the best, 
just like her brother would be the best pilot ever.  
He had no doubt that their skills would measure up to his owns.
After all, they were his children.
The remote managed to hit the girl in the leg.  
"Ouch!" she yelped.  
"It cannot hurt you."
"Oh yeah?  I ache enough to tell you that it does hurt." she snorted.
"It's set on the lowest setting; it merely stings."
Leia grumbled something about patronizing dark lords.  He sent the remote back 
with its waiting companions.  
"Not bad, but you could be much, much better."
"When I'll get out, I promise to work on that, Vader." she said in a harsh 
whisper.
"You'll work on it right now." he told her.  
"Right?---" she began, then stopped, speechless.  
"First, I'll show you how to use your mind and all your senses, then you'll work 
on it.  Sit down."
Leia was too baffled to argue.  She sat down.  

Like he had done with his son, he made her build up her mental shield, then 
while her eyes were still closed, he made her pinpoint the location of the 
remote.  
With some work, the young woman finally managed to see in her mind where the 
remote was.  
Next, he made her practice her aim that way, then her dodging and duckings.  

She was pirouetting out of harm's way and tumbling on her hands, not quite sure 
why she was doing it, but knowing that she had to do it, when a powerful wave of 
pain overcame her senses.  
She gasped and collapsed on the floor.  
The remotes used the distraction to hit her.  
"Pathetic." Vader commented haughtily.  
Leia's pain didn't go away.  Her back continued to feel as if it were afire.  
"Aaaah!, whatever you're doing isn't going to make me improve myself." she told 
him in frustration.
"Quit complaining and---"
"AAAh!" she yelped again.
Darn it, where did that pain come from?  

It slowly dawned on the dark lord that something unnatural was going on with his 
daughter.  He wasn't causing her any pain at the moment, and the blasts from the 
remotes weren't 'that' painful either.  
He reached out and invaded her mind.  He immediately found the logical 
explanation to the actual situation.
She was feeling her brother's pain.  
Angrily, he checked on the boy to punish him for his sending, but he realized 
that the tormented boy wasn't doing anything wrong ; the twins' minds had simply 
linked up together upon finding each other nearby.  
He left his son to his remaining push-ups and closed the link between the two 
youths.  
The girl's moans immediately receded.  
She looked up at him and glared daggers at him.  
"Next time you want to push me, Vader, do it another way.  It'll be more 
efficient." she defied him with her most patented glare.
"I'll remember that." he told her coldly, not revealing to her that it hadn't 
been his doing.  

Leia muttered in frustration as she got back to her feet.  If only the evening 
could be over already.  
The slight ache she was now feeling in each and every one of her muscles was 
making it difficult for her to follow her gut feelings, or the Force as the dark 
lord called it.  
The black-clad giant tossed her back her practice weapon.  
"Now, girl, let's see what you've learnt tonight."
Her eyes narrowed in hatred as she heard the moniker.  How dared he?..
The remotes came swiftly at her ; she shot them with pinpoint accuracy while 
avoiding their bolts.  
She did well for ten minutes before they ganged up on her and shot her from five 
different directions.  
She fell to her knees when her tormenting ache cut through her strength.  
"Enough for tonight." the dark lord commented.  
He called her practice weapon back to his hand.

******

Not very far from there, Luke's strength abandoned him when he felt as if he'd 
had been shot from five different directions.  
He collapsed hard on the cold, hard deck, expressing his pain.  
He almost passed out when his head hit the deck, drifting in semi-consciousness.  
Curiously, he became aware of another presence while in this drifting status.
She was a young woman who seemed to feel exactly like he did: angry and 
frustrated by the situation, but having no choice but to do as she was told.  
The coldness of the deck pulled him back to his full senses and he recovered his 
full, tormented senses.  
No matter how long he had been allowed to heal himself, the high number of push-
ups had re-awakened his pains so that he was in a very similar state than after 
his torture.
And he had another ten pumps to finish... He wanted nothing more than to lay 
there and pass out, but he knew he couldn't, nor could he use the Force to 
alleviate his pain.  
The dark lord had made it very clear that any unauthorized use of the Force 
would be severely punished.
Luke didn't want to test the truth of this statement.  
He clenched his teeth, set his hands yet again on the hard floor, gathered his 
waning strengths and pushed.  
He moaned and groaned through the next three, yelled while he did the fourth, 
fifth, sixth and seventh, and closed his eyes during the last three.
Finished!, he thought before letting his body fall back on the cool floor.
He drifted out yet again.

******

In Vader's quarters, Leia didn't resist the dark lord.  He brought her back to 
her room where she collapsed on her bed.  
Even when she had trained at home, she had never felt her singing muscles like 
she did at the moment.  
She let their aching state carry her into a drifting state.  
Her slight pains slowly became worse as the torment she had felt in the training 
room returned.  
She moaned, heard someone else moan, and froze.  
*Who's there?* she thought, unaware that she had sent through the Force.
*Who are you?* a young male voice asked her.
*I asked first.*
*Is that your pain that I feel?* the man asked her.  
*If you mean the burning back, chest---*
*No, that's mine, I know.* he seemed to comment ruefully.  *My legs didn't ache 
before---*
*Wait a minute... I'm feeling 'your' pain?!* Leia exclaimed.
*And vice-versa, I'd say.  How about keeping our torments for each other?* he 
suggested, his mental voice laced with pain.
*If I knew how to make it stop.* Leia pointed out in a very similar voice.  *I 
would.*
*Okay, how is...*
Leia's extra pain disappeared, much to her relief.  
*It's worked.* she told the other.
Silence answered her.  
*Are you still there?*
Still nothing.  
She opened her eyes and was back in her golden cage, laying across her bed after 
an intense if unwilling training session.  
She had to clean up before going to bed, she thought.  
She slowly, weakly pushed herself back to her feet and shuffled her way into her 
'fresher.


Unbeknown to her, her twin brother did exactly the same thing before crashing on 
his bunk for the night.  

******

During the eleven remaining days of theoretical training, Lord Vader split his 
time between the bridge of his flagship, the simulator room where he pushed his 
son to his piloting limits while secretly teaching him about the dark Side of 
the Force, then did the same thing with his daughter, although through her 
shooting and fighting skills.  
He slowly became aware that once together, nothing much would stand in the way 
of his powerful children.
Not even the Emperor.

He wasn't aware of the youths' subconscious communications though.  
Every time one or both young people reached a slightly altered mental state,  
most often at night, they linked up together.  
That occurrence was kind of normal since, at the end of each day, both often 
ended up fighting against their different aches or sharper pains.  
They never realized that they were siblings, nor did they reveal their 
identities for fear of retributions from the dark lord, but, once they figured 
how to communicate without exchanging their physical torments, they began to 
share feelings and hopes.  

******

On the evening of his twelfth day as a conscript, Luke sat up after his 
seventieth push-ups.  
'At least the number has gone down.' he thought in slight relief.
He focused his mind and entered a healing trance to continue what he had begun 
before his physical work-out.  
He worked on his aching back and sore muscles for as long as his inner clock 
didn't warn him to put an end to it.  
When he exited his trance, he felt the young woman's presence through the Force; 
he waited for her to notice him.  
She finally did, around 2200.  
*Hi!* he sent her warmly.  
*Hello!  How has been your day?* she asked him.  
*Like usual: doing my best to learn everything in record time while keeping down 
the number of push-ups.*
*How many tonight?*
*Only seventy.* he told her lightly.
*Hey, that's great!  It means you're improving.*
*Yes, I guess so.  And you?  How many minutes of dodging have you had?*
*Twenty-five tonight.* 
*Then you're also improving.* he lightly pointed out.
*Yeah, and getting stronger... with the work-outs he's putting me through, I 
have no choice but to build up some muscles.*
*That's probably his plan.* he conceded.  
Two nights ago, they had revealed to each other that they were both overseen by 
the dark lord himself.  
A silence ensued until Luke broke it again.
*Can you see the stars from your cell?* he asked her.  
*Yes, why?*  
*I wish I could too.* he admitted.  *I miss their sight.  I'm training to be a 
pilot yet I have seen more stars back home than since I've boarded this ship.*
*Let me show them to you then.* his friend told him.  
Thanks to their link, Luke saw as if through her eyes.  He saw her room but paid 
it no mind.  He focused his attention on the sight that was coming through her 
window bay.  
For a long moment, both gazed at the stars, strengthening their beaten souls 
with their light.  
*Thank you.* he finally told her earnestly.  
*My pleasure.  I guess you should go to bed now and get what little sleep you 
can get.  Tomorrow will be a tough day for you.*
*Yes," he sighed in resignation.  "Thank you.*
*My heart will be with you, my friend.* the young woman sent him warmly.  *May 
the Force be With You.*
*And with you.* he returned in kind.  *Good night.*
*Good night.* she sent in a gentle voice before putting an end to their 
conversation.  
Luke reintegrated his senses and hitched himself onto his hard bunk that served 
as his bed.  He'd take a shower tomorrow morning, he decided.

******

As his friend had told him, the next day wasn't easy.  It was filled with tests 
of all kinds, all administrated by officers but under Vader's watchful eye.  
Luke focused on his task and tried to prove that he had done his job.  

After three practical tests on protocol and procedures, Luke was glad to retire 
to the mess hall where he could share a tasteless lunch with his companions.  He 
plopped down on the bench, thus sitting beside his friends.  
"Tough day, Skywalker?" his friend Curt teased.  
Luke smiled at him.  
"You have no idea, but I'm not going to tell you and spoil you the surprise of 
what's waiting for you at the end of your training." he teased his friends.
"Yeah, that would be so bad." another man, Lance, joked.  "Come on, what gives?  
What are they putting us through?"
Luke shrugged as he took his first bite of his meal.  "Nothing we're not ready 
for." he said cryptically once he had swallowed.  
"I still don't understand why you're going through them already." the man beside 
him, Daved, commented.  
Daved was his age.
"That's because Vader's breathing down his neck." yet another one shot.  
Luke groaned inwardly at the comment.  Count on Bower to be tactless.  
"Well, you've gotta admit that anyone would break records if watched over by the 
dark lord." his closest friend in the group, Jet, pointed out.  
"That," Luke admitted, "and my seemingly natural skills with a bird.  If not for 
that, I doubt that Lord Vader would have bothered with me after my little 
rebellion."
"Hmm, guess so." Daved conceded before funneling another huge bite into his 
mouth.  
"So, what will happen to you now?" Curt asked him.  
"Either I'll qualify for the regular squadrons,... or I will regret this day for 
a long while..." he finished more quietly.  
On the other side of the mess hall, loud guffaws came from a small group.  
Luke's group, as well as the other groups around them, turned toward the 
strangely enthusiastic men.  
"What's wrong with them?" Jet inquired.  
"Kiddo, haven't you heard about their plan yet?" Bower asked him in a low voice.  
"What plan?" Luke asked, leaning closer.  
"Your attempt to escape has galvanized some of us to give it a try." Curt 
explained matter-of-factly.  
Luke gaped at him, then he saw, clear as day, that some of his friends were 
thinking about joining the would-be-escapees.  
He took hold of those men's wrists.  
"Don't do this." he told them seriously.  "It won't work."
"It's almost worked for you." Curt reminded him seriously. "And it was during 
daylight."
"It has been far from working." Luke corrected.  "They have a much tighter 
security than any of us can even imagine."
Bower leaned closer to him as if he were a conspirator.  "If you know so much 
about that, Luke, why don't you enlighten us with your knowledge?"
"I don't know anymore than you do." Luke defended.  "But I do know what will 
happen to the men who will be caught trying to escape... I'd hate to see it 
happen to any of you."
"Death can't be worse than being forced into service." Lance pointed out.  
"But a slow, excruciating death will make you regret your choice for the rest of 
your short life." Luke said glumly.  "Believe me," he continued in his earnest 
voice, "whatever they do, don't go with them.  They can only fail."
Before the others could answer him, the signal to regroup went off in the room.  
Luke bid good afternoon to his companions and rejoined the troopers who were 
waiting for him near the doorway.  

Unlike the other afternoons, Luke faced the simulator's computer ; it kept track  
of his number of kills and defeats as he completed one level after another under 
the watchful eye on the dark lord and his squadrons supervisors.  
Four hours later, he finished the last level, again.  
He checked his score and grunted.  
He'd have to do fifty push-ups after supper.  It was a less imposing number than 
before, but five defeats were still too many now.  
'I should've freed my anger at the end' he reflected seriously.  
For the past five days, he had had no problem anymore to use his aggression and 
fear to improve his sensing abilities, but he was still moot to completely free 
his anger.  
Although it was begging for release.  
He was afraid of the power it was giving him whenever he was relying on it.  
Putting an end to his cogitation, he stood up from his seat and exited the 
simulator.  He then stood at attention, waiting for his next orders, just like 
he knew he had to.  
While he held his stance, he noticed the absence of pain in his back despite his 
actual position.  Last night's session had finished the job, something which he 
was glad for.
He would never be tortured again, he promised himself.
From the corner of his eye he noticed the discussing officers in the control 
room.  
He wondered what their verdict would be ; he hoped it would be positive.  

In the end, they didn't tell him before they left.  
He knew from the way the dark lord had looked at him that he had done well, but 
well enough?  That was the question... 
He was now back in the mess hall with his friends.  
For anybody else, the atmosphere was exactly like the other times before: 
agitated while relaxed, but something was different for Luke.
He knew that something was going to happen between the actual moment and the 
next morning ; he also knew that he wouldn't be able to interfere no matter 
what.
The whole thing was giving him the creeps.  
He listened to his companions while they talked ; he commented here and there 
when they addressed him, but otherwise, he kept to himself.  
By the end of the meal, he couldn't stand it anymore.  He went over to the table 
where Jal, the obvious leader in the secret enterprise, sat.  He stood behind 
him.  
"Well, well, well, Skywalker, have you changed your mind about me and my 
friends?" the older man asked.
"Jal, I must speak to you, alone." he told him seriously.  
"Sit down or you'll attract attention." the other snapped.  "We're alone here 
anyway."
Luke didn't want to sit down with the group, perfectly aware that it would be a 
sign of alliance, but at the same time, he knew that standing up to talk 
wouldn't be a good way to remain quiet about this, if he could remain 
inconspicuous anyway.  He reluctantly sat down between Jal's and another group.  
"Now, what's eating you?" the other sneered.
"You." Luke said in a low voice, careful to keep his voice from reaching anybody 
but the rebellious pilot.  "You're about to make the most insane thing of your 
life."
"If you mean eating this goop they call jelly, yes, I agree with you." he tried 
to joke.
"That's not it and you know it."  Luke hissed in frustration.  "Everybody knows 
what you're planning." 
"As long as the imps don't know about it---"
"That's just it." Luke cut him off.  "I bet you my left hand that they know... 
or do you think that you're the first group to think about this?"
Jal's and his friends' eyes hardened upon hearing this.  
"But unlike the others, we've thought about everything." the pilot growled.  
"Now, Vader's puppet, either you're with us, or against us."
Luke clearly felt the level of aggression rise around him.  
"I'm not his puppet." he defended himself.  "And I'm not against you or with 
you.  You want to risk your lives?  Then by all means, do so.  I wanted to warn 
you, I've done it.  The rest is up to you."
He rose from his seat.  Jal's hand shot out and grabbed his forearm.  
"If the imps are indeed alerted," he warned in a low voice, "I will hold you 
responsible for it, Skywalker."
"They don't need any traitor to know your intentions." Luke told him, easily 
freeing his arm from the other's grip.  
He turned away from the furious group and returned to his place.  
Through his annoyed set of mind, he felt the imperials' eyes follow him back to 
his place, but he was too frustrated to notice that they were making a note of 
what they had just seen.  

******

Not very far from there, Leia took a moment to focus her attention before she 
lunged at the battle droid.  She had to score one hundred points before the end 
of her thirty minutes delay.  She was up to fifty five and had ten minutes left.  
She fired again at the droid, then swiveled on the ball of her foot and hit its 
head while it dodged her bolt.  Next, she kicked it again and again in the head 
before rolling away from its grasping hand.  
Seventy points.
She jumped back in the fray, focusing her aim on its chest to weaken him.  
She barely avoided its sweeping arm that would've sent her flying into the hard 
wall.  
Darn it, she had to win.
She quickly readjusted her aim and shot repeatedly at its right arm until it 
couldn't move anymore.  
She used the droid's distraction to score another fifteen points before doing 
the same thing with its left arm.  

Vader watched her silently from the far wall, pleased with his daughter's 
resourcefulness and quickness of mind.  
It was interesting to see how his twins were very much like one another.  During 
the afternoon, his son had demonstrated just how creative a pilot could be 
during a dogfight, amazing so much the officers who were responsible of the 
final judgments that they had requested the rest of the day to make up their 
mind as to where they would post the incredible young pilot.  
Vader already knew though that his son would end up in his personal squadron; 
that was why he had had a droid make some modifications to the walls that 
separated the pilots' quarters that were closest to his own quarters.  
He had never doubted the boy's  piloting abilities to achieve so much in so 
little time ; he had had doubts about his obedience and drilling though, but not 
anymore.  
He could admit that he was proud of his son's results.
Luke had completed the tests with mentions, proving once again how amazing he 
could be when he wanted or was forced to.  
Just like his daughter he reflected when she reached her final score two minutes 
before the end of her exercise.  
Like her brother, she was now using the Force to improve her score, but she also 
refused to let her anger free.  
They weren't completely given to the Dark Side yet, but they weren't Light 
Jedis, that was sure.  
"Good, again." he told her, activating a new droid which had been repaired 
during the day.
His daughter glared blaster bolts at him, but resumed her exercise without 
anymore prompting.  

When the dark lord finally released her for the night, Leia felt ready to 
collapse from exhaustion, again.  
The stronger she was becoming, and the more demanding the exercises were.  
Much like for her mysterious, unknown friend, she thought.  
It was strange how the mere thought of him brought a sensation of well-being and 
completeness.  
When she was talking with him, she could completely forget the horrible 
situation she was involved in.  During the day, she sometimes wished that she 
could contact him, but they had both quickly decided not to do it so as to not 
disturb one another from their activities.  
Instead, they had set a specific hour to contact each other.  
Twenty-three hundred finally appeared on her clock and she entered her 
meditative trance.  
He was there, like usual, but she immediately sensed that something was 
different.  
He was worried about something.  
*Hey, what's wrong?  Has it gone well today?* she instantly inquired.
*Yes, I think so, but something bad is brewing around me.* he said cryptically.
*Like?*
*An attempt to escape.  I know it's going on now, I know all the guys who are 
involved in it, and I can't do a thing to either help them or put an end to it.  
I have a very bad feeling about all this.* he admitted with a mental shiver of 
thorough uneasiness.
*An escape is going on and you haven't joined?  Why?* she queried.  
*To go where?* he asked.  *Vader knows everything I see, everything I think, 
everything I say.  I can't escape him, except here, with you.*
*Like me...* she realized, suddenly feeling ashamed for bringing up this point.  
*I understand... but I had to ask, you know.*
She had, after all, been a rebel for two years now.
*Yes, I know.  How was your day?* he asked her, obviously eager to change the 
subject.
*Okay but he keeps pushing me to use my anger.  Does it also look important to 
him from your end?*
*Yes... perhaps I should have used it this afternoon, but I couldn't.*
*I don't want to be angry like him.* Leia told him.
*Exactly.* he admitted.  *I can feel the power it brings to me, but I don't want 
that kind of power.*
*It's destructive.* Leia completed for him.
*Yes, that's also my feeling.*
*Then I say we continue like this, my friend.* she mentally smiled seriously.
*Agreed.  You know, I really wish I'd know you in person.* he told her 
earnestly.
*Me too... Perhaps some day.* she told him wistfully.
Deep down, she admitted that if she could, she would do everything she could to 
meet him in person.  He seemed like such a wonderful being.
*Perhaps... good night, my friend.*
*Good night.* she sighed, then reluctantly cut her link with him.

******

Luke reintegrated his full senses ; he once again became aware of the tension 
that was permeating his body.  
Finally, still unable to sleep despite his conversation with his friend, he got 
up, went into his small 'fresher and decided to take a sonic shower to relax  
his tensed muscles.  It was the only thing he hadn't tried yet.  
At first, it didn't change anything, but the longer he stood there, the more 
relaxed he became.  
His body had no other choice but to relax under the sonic waves that were 
designed to mimic water's effect, namely clean and soothe the body.
He began to drift into blissful unawareness of his surroundings.  
In a way, it was a good thing since he was finally able to relax, but on the 
other hand, he missed the presence of the guard who checked in his cell and 
reported that he was also missing.  
Perhaps ten minutes later, he did his boxers once again and crawled back under 
his sole blanket, going back to sleep.  

While he slept, the officers and guards who were assigned to the security in the 
conscripts area captured the renegade pilots who tried to escape the ship.  
Jal and his gang made it as far as the hangar bay before they tripped an unknown 
alarm and brought security on their backs.  
Less than an hour later, the remaining pilot conscripts were all roused from 
sleep and gathered in the meeting room.  

Luke was deeply asleep when a vicious grip took hold of hair and bodily pulled 
him out of his bunk.  
"I don't know what your game is this time, Skywalker, but I'm going to find 
out." the voice growled.  
Before a still sleep-confused Luke could ask him what he meant, the officer 
viciously hit him in the guts ; Luke fell to his knees, practically out of 
breath.
What was going on?  Was he dreaming, he wondered. 
The officer cuffed him while he was kneeling on the floor, then hauled him back 
to his feet with a renewed grip on his hair.  
"You and your friends are done playing with us." Cholk, he could recognize his 
voice now, spat.  
Luke complained against the rough treatment, now more awake.  Right, the escape 
attempt, but wait a----
"I haven't done anything." he defended himself in disbelief.  "I've been here 
all evening." 
"Nice try." the other growled, chopping him once again in the stomach before 
pushing him out of his cell. 
Two guards caught his bent-over form when he was shoved in their direction. 
"Let's bring this one with the others." Cholk told the troopers.  
The moment he recovered his breath, Luke resumed his defense.  
"No!  I haven't left my cell ever since you've locked it.  Check the records, 
you'll know it's true!" he pleaded.
He continued to defend himself until, despite his best attempt to slow them 
down, he had reached the room where the others were being prepared for a 
demonstration.  
"Well, well, what have we here?" Commander Nore sneered at him.  "Lord Vader 
will be most displeased." 
"Sir, I haven't done anything, believe me!"  Luke tried again.
The commander checked something on his pad.  He scowled.  
"Then, 1138T, explain where you were at 23:47 if you weren't out of your cell,  
because you sure weren't in it."
"I was!,... Sir," he hurried to add.  
He dug in his mind to remember what he had been doing at---
"I was in my 'fresher, taking a shower, Sir.  Believe me, please." he begged.  
He didn't want to be punished again.  He didn't want to displease Vader.
"Check this out." the commander ordered to his subordinate.  
He then turned toward the young pilot in probation.
"Even if what you say is true, pilot, you have been seen talking with the 
traitors today, as well as a few other times before.  You knew they were going 
to try to escape and you didn't warn us.  Hence, you will still be punished." he 
stated darkly.
"No!  Please, Sir!" Luke exclaimed, fighting against his guards' grips.  "I've 
tried to dissuade them, I haven't cooperated, I swear to the gods I haven't 
cooperated.  Ask Lord Vader ; he knows that I haven't helped them!" he pleaded.  
Nore shoved his face very close to his, his spittle flying onto Luke's stricken 
features.
"I will not disturb our lord for you, 1138T.  You should have thought about that 
before talking with them or deciding to remain mute."
Luke was speechless, horrified that he wouldn't find a way out of this new 
nightmare.
The commander's subordinate came back.  
"The records match his story, Sir." he told him.    
Nore considered unhappily, then he looked at the young, pale-as-a-sheet man.  
"String him up with the other cooperators." he snapped to his guards.  
"No!!" Luke pleaded again.
They fought his renewed resistance by shoving him face-first against the steel-
wall.
He landed hard against the metallic wall, then he was locked in chains and left 
facing the wall in a slightly bent-over position, his back exposed once again 
for whatever punishment was coming.
'No, no, no, no, please...' Luke prayed to whatever god would deign hear him.
Beside him, a few other 'friends' of the guilty group were equally being brought 
in for punishment.  On another section of the wall, the would-be-escapee were 
tightly strung up.  
Luke's eyes landed on Jal's.  The young man was furious while afraid.  
"It's your fault." he told him silently ; Luke understood him despite the 
distance.   
He knew that it wasn't true, but it was pointless to argue.  He hung his head 
between his locked arms and waited for the wall that was behind him to open and 
reveal the assembled pilot conscripts who were going to witness the punishment.  
*Lord Vader,* he sent through the Force toward the dark presence that was the 
dark lord, *please, believe me ; I haven't done anything wrong this time.* 
He could now only hope that when this would come to the darksider's ears, he 
wouldn't add to it.  

******

"The youth's abilities are unequalled, my Lord." General Vem was saying when 
Luke's senses reached Vader's.  
The dark lord spared a second to understand his son's situation.
The boy was terrified, he realized, but not in life-or-death danger.  
He let it pass and refocused on his two officers.  
"I know this, General.  What I want to know is what your decision is." he stated 
coolly.
Admiral Wunnle spoke up.  "We think that the best place to use his talents would 
be in your squadron, my Lord.  His extraordinary piloting skills make up for his 
lack of proper protocol to occupy such a place."
"How much of a lack of protocol are we talking about?" he asked the two men.
"The kind that comes with experience, my Lord.  We have no doubt that being in 
your personal squadron will teach him what he doesn't know already."
"I have my doubts," Vem interjected, "but we would be wasting his talents in any 
other position, so I agree with the Admiral."
"Then it is settled.  General Vem, make sure the boy's file is transferred in 
the right directory tomorrow and find him a good fighter."
"What about the boy?"
"I will transfer him myself.  Is there anything else, gentlemen?"
"No, my Lord."
"Dismissed then.  Admiral Wunnle, I've heard there's been a commotion in the 
conscript area.  What was it about?"
"An escape attempt, my Lord, nothing more.  The renegades are being disciplined 
even as we speak."
And his son was somehow involved in it, he realized.  
"I want a full report by tomorrow morning, General."
"Uh... yes, my Lord." he bowed, then left with his subordinate.  
Now that he was alone, Vader took the time to check on his son. 
The burning, slashing pain of a vibro whip cut across his back, making him 
express pain unlike anything he had done in a long, long while.  
He hurried to block that part of his link with his son.
So the boy was being disciplined.  Again.
He saw in his mind that he hadn't done anything to deserve this treatment ; his 
reputation had merely done the job for him and since the officers had been in 
need of examples that would survive the demonstration, they had picked him 
because of a simple misunderstanding.  
He decided to pay a little late-night visit to the pilot conscripts quarters.  

******

The whip hit his exposed back again, and again, and again, drawing a wail of 
agony every time it struck his already injured skin.
Luke made sure to keep his link with his friend closed.  He didn't want her to 
feel his pain.
Beside him, his companions shared his torment while the guilty group, strung up 
a few meters away from them, slowly died from blood loss.
Behind them, the assembly was deathly silent.  Some of his fellow conscripts had 
fainted, other had been sick, but all of them were forced to watch it till its 
completion.  
After perhaps twenty minutes of torment, the cooperators, as Luke and his 
companions had been labeled, were left alone.  Luke was still standing more or 
less on his feet, but it wasn't the case of his companions.  Two were almost on 
their knees, which was a bad position to reach, and one had completely 
collapsed, spraining his arms in the process since the manacles were welded too 
high on the wall to allow a kneeling position.  
Beside them, the group of renegades had two choices: die quickly after admitting 
their defeat, or die slowly under their companions' horrified gazes.  
Five out of eight men were quickly shot after their admission.  Jal and two 
others kept it up for a while longer.  
Beside Luke, another man's legs gave under him ; the poor guy yelped as his arms 
almost popped out of their sockets.  
'Come on, quit playing with them, you're dead anyway... just say the words.' 
Luke thought frustratingly at the three remaining men.  
It had been their fault if this had happened, if he had been tortured again, and 
he knew his release depended of them.  
Considering the weakened status in which he was, he didn't want to wait for too 
long before it happened.  
He suddenly became aware of an unfortunately familiar dark presence.
Great, he mentally grumbled, 'he' was coming in now.
*Put an end to it yourself by using the Force to convince them.* Vader told him 
in his mind.
*How?* he asked him in a whining tone.  
*You have two choices: either convince their mind, or add to their distress.* 
Given his position, Luke immediately spotted the dark lord when he stepped 
inside the room.  At first, Luke expected him to side toward the officers and 
ask for a report, but instead, he remained behind the terrified conscripts and 
coolly watched the procedures.  
Then, something in his senses changed.  Luke felt the dark lord use the Force; 
he paid attention to what he was doing.  He tracked the locus to a position 
around one of the men's throats--- it suddenly squeezed like a fist would.  
The man immediately began to choke up even as his mind began to ply under a 
strong compulsion to admit his crimes.  
"Aahhh... ahhh... You've won." the traitor finally gasped.  
The choking grip disappeared and the troopers around him shot him dead.  
*Now, it's your turn.* Vader sent him.  
At first hesitant, Luke didn't do anything, but the more time passed, the more 
the two remaining men stubbornly kept their mouth shut, and the more Luke's 
frustration grew until he couldn't bear his own burning pains anymore.  
He closed his eyes, locked his shaky legs to keep from collapsing like his 
friends had, then reached out with the Force.  
He found Martu's mind quite easily.  Slowly, he formed a Force compulsion in his 
own mind and sent it into the other's, pushing him to talk to release them all.
*Say it, say it, you have no other choice and you know it.* he sent to his 
fellow conscript.  
He kept pushing for almost two minutes before he got results.  
The other barely whispered his answer, but it was enough for the troopers.  
They shot the man dead before Luke had completely withdrawn from his mind.  
Thus, he felt his dying pain as if it were his own.  
If not for Vader's Force holding him up, he too would have collapsed to his 
knees in agony.  
*I'll take care of the last one.* the dark lord told him, taking away his Force 
support.  
Luke resumed his fight not to collapse to his knees, nor pass out for that 
matter.  

Meanwhile, the dark lord stepped closer and climbed on the stage.  He approached 
the remaining man in the other group, pointedly ignoring the moaning 
'cooperators'.  He took hold of Jal's neck, freed him from his bonds with the 
Force and carried him forward, holding the struggling man with his right hand.  
Jal fought desperately against his grip, to no avail of course.  The dark lord 
tightened his grip on him before addressing the assembled youths.  
"There is no going back for any of you." he growled menacingly.  "If you are 
intelligent, you will learn from this experience and become good servants for 
the Empire.  If not, you will share his fate in a near or far future."
And with that, he squeezed the young man's windpipe until a sickening crack 
resounded throughout the room.  
Some young men threw up again.  
Vader threw away the corpse of the last rebel, disgusted by its presence near 
him.  He turned toward the men in charge of the group, indicating the 
'cooperators'.  
"Bring them back to their cells except this one." he finished in a darker tone, 
indicating the quivering form of his ward.  

Ten minutes later, the room was empty once again except for the two of them.  
Two troopers were waiting outside in the corridor.  
Beside his pain, that was the only other thing that Luke was aware of.  His 
bonds opened and he became aware that he had also been standing on a floor since 
he landed rather roughly on it.  
The dark lord's boots came closer even as his breath seemed to become louder.  
He was walking closer, Luke realized in fear.  
"Please, no more..." he begged weakly, unable to move any other part of his body 
but his mouth.
"Why did you end up here in the first place?" the dark lord rumbled.  
"Because I... was in my shower when they checked the cells..." Luke whispered in 
an almost non-existent voice.  "They thought that I had escaped..."
"And?" Vader prompted.
"And, because I've talked with the traitors to dissuade them..... without 
warning you... they said I was a cooperator." he finished, his senses waltzing 
in and out of his awareness. 
He still hadn't moved from the spot that had welcomed his tortured form a few 
minutes earlier, but his eyes were closed now.
"I see."  Vader commented shortly.
Luke heard the sound of an opening door.  He felt the troopers' hands grab hold 
of his injured arms before they pulled him back to his feet.  
He yelped on his way back to a vertical position, then whimpered once he was 
standing more or less upright.  
"From now on, Skywalker, keep out of trouble." he heard the slowly receding 
voice of the dark lord say.  "Behave like the elite imperial pilot you now are." 
he finished even as Luke's awareness completely eluded his senses and he fainted 
in the troopers' hold.  
He was done for a while.

******



continued in part 2: Imperials

copyrights: 2000  (skyjade@oricom.ca)
Positive comments are welcome of course, but mean stuff won't even be read.