Chapter 11

I don't own Star Wars.

The comm stretched into uncomfortable silence as Luke froze. His mind felt like a broken data chip, one that kept returning a critical processing error.

Lord Vader's countenance slipped from indulgence towards impatience. "Well, what is it?" The Supreme Commander finally asked.

Luke panicked. "I apologize mi Lorda." Luke said quickly. "Good bye!"

Luke reached for the button to end the call, but Lord Vader did not allow it.

"Stop! Are you...injured?" The dark lord asked. "What is wrong with your head?"

Kriff. Luke self-consciously touched his half-peeled scab. He thought he'd done a better job of hiding it under his hair. Stupid short Emperiolo haircut. "Nothing, mi Lorda." Luke denied. "I fell down."

Lord Vader didn't look like he was buying it, in so much as Luke could read a helmet over a holocall, but just as deliberately decided to allow the lie to pass. "I see. Why have you called?"

Luke was grateful for the reprieve. "Um." Luke's mind raced as he tried to deflect. "I, um...the holonet said you left Tatooine. Where are you now?"

Lord Vader drummed his fingers on his desk. "The Exactor is currently orbiting Nal Hutta along with the Pride of Tarlandia and the Devastator. We are anchoring Hutt Space, while the rest of Death Squadron sweeps the Triellus Trade Route to the Sallin Corridor. As I am sure the holonet has reported."

"Oh," Luke said. "Um, wizard." More silence stretched. Luke opened his mouth. "Why is it called Death Squadron?"

"Death to all slavers." Lord Vader said.

"Oh," Luke said again stupidly.

The silence dragged on.

"Was there anything else?" Lord Vader asked expectantly. Luke wasn't sure what Lord Vader wanted, but he got the distinct feeling that the dark lord had been anticipating something, and Luke was failing to deliver. Luke really didn't want to talk about Motti with Lord Vader though. His lord would think he was useless.

"Um...is Lieutenant Jir around?" Luke asked awkwardly.

Luke swore the temperature dropped in the comm suite. Luke heard a shuffle offscreen, possibly Jir, but Vader held up a hand and the rustle stopped abruptly. "Anything you have to say to Lieutenant Jir can be said to me."

Krith, Luke cursed. Well there was no helping it now, might as well spit it out. He fidgeted, trying to look everywhere but at Lord Vader on the screen. "Ace got broken." Luke began. "An...an older cadet pushed him and he…he…"

"The droid what?" Lord Vader asked impatiently.

"He kinda-fell-into-a-pit-and-it-was-really-far-and-now-he's-hurt-real-bad. Mi Lorda."

Lord Vader looked at Luke blankly. "Your droid was pushed into a pit."

"Yes mi Lorda. He's broken."

This actually seemed to interest Lord Vader. The hulking shadow straightened. "What are you requesting? Do you need credits? Parts? A new protocol unit? I will send them."

Luke was alarmed. He already owed Lord Vader so much. How could he possibly accept more? The debt would never balance. "No, no! I don't need anything! I just...how can I stop Ace from being hurt again?"

Lord Vader leveled his gaze back to the camera. Luke felt like his glare flicked again to the scab on Luke's forehead, which was silly because Lord Vader's eyes were behind a mask.

"I see. You are being bullied."

"No." Luke denied instinctively.

"Do not take me for a fool" Lord Vader warned. The lord pointed at the wound on Luke's forehead. "You have been injured, your droid damaged. You now wish the bullying to cease, and so you have called the Lieutenant seeking his assistance."

"Yes," Luke confessed unwillingly.

Lord Vader stared intently as Luke squirmed. Finally, Luke spoke again. "Um, mi Lorda, what do you think should I do?"

Lord Vader seemed inordinately pleased. "Destroy them," the Supreme Commander advised, clenching his accusatory finger into fist.

Luke took a step back.

Lord Vader's attention seemed to be caught by something offscreen. "I am not advising him to 'make friends.' Such platitudes are worthless."

Luke heard a faint voice in the background. He thought it might be Lieutenant Jir again.

"No. Never. Why should he talk to a teacher?" Lord Vader almost sounded offended. "If the boy can't handle a petty squabble like this then he is not worth my time."

Luke cringed. Definitely a mistake to talk to his Lord about Motti. "I can handle it!" Luke insisted "I will, uhhh, destroy them. Sorry mi lorda, sorry to take up your time." His hands itched towards the comm controls again.

Lord Vader did not allow Luke to be dismissed. His helmet swivelled back to the screen. "Your thoughts betray you. You are afraid. You don't believe you can win. You are too small, too weak."

Luke wondered if he was being tested. He bit his lip and tried not to look down too obviously at his slight frame, but he couldn't help a flashback to the way Motti's crony slammed him into the rail when he tried to save Ace. "I...I will do your will Lorda."

Lord Vader growled. "Cease your abasements. If you do not believe in your victory then the battle is already lost. I will share some advice. This is a Sith teaching, from my Grandmaster Darth Plagueis." The Supreme Commander held up a hand to forestall any questions as Luke opened his mouth to ask what an 'abasement' was.

"Tell me what you regard as your greatest strength, so I will know how best to undermine you; tell me of your greatest fear, so I will know which I must force you to face; tell me what you cherish most, so I will know what to take from you; and tell me what you crave, so that I might deny you.

"It means," Lord Vader explained, "that if you cannot face your opponent head-on, you must find another weakness to exploit. What does your enemy want and how can you take it away? What does he fear, and how can you become his nightmare?"

Luke had never heard Lord Vader say so many words at once. He clenched a fist. The idea of Luke becoming anyone's nightmare was crazy, but he trusted the Lord.

"How do you know what someone is afraid of?" Luke asked with cautious curiosity.

"What does your enemy pride themselves upon?" Lord Vader asked in return.

Luke thought it over. "He's a really good pilot. Popular. He got mad when I beat him in a flight sim."

Lord Vader pointed at Luke again. "Then you already know what your enemy fears and have struck the first blow. They fear you."

Luke was astounded. Motti, afraid of him?

"Do not relent. To pull back now is to expose your own weakness. Channel your fear to strength; strike back a thousand times harder. Take all that they cherish and leave them with nothing."

Luke looked down, thinking hard. It made a twisted kind of sense. In a way, it was what Luke was already doing. Motti cared about his reputation. His position. Luke couldn't take Motti in a fight, but he could destroy Motti as a pilot. And if Motti was too weak to protect his station, then someone else would take it. Someone always did.

"I think get it." Luke concluded. "Win by any means."

"Correct. Such is the way of the Sith."

Luke basked in the approval. "This Sith thing, it's like Kajidic, isn't it?" Luke observed.

Lord Vader tilted his helmet in surprise. He lowered his finger and barked a sudden strangled laugh. "It may well be. Someone has to have it…"

"...why not us?" Luke finished with a grin.

Lord Vader nodded slightly. The comm fell to silence, but it wasn't bad, not like before. This silence felt...comfortable. Luke felt in tune.

Lord Vader spoke again, "Young one, a question for you. There is a planet whose people are still in chains. You could free them, but only at great cost. Perhaps, the price of your own master's wrath. What would you choose?"

Luke considered carefully. If he was still back in Jabba's palace, there was no way he'd ever ever stick his neck out like that. It seemed hopeless. The only way out in a Kajidic was to work your way up, like Cheeslo. Up and up, until you were just below the Hutts. But now that he was free?

"No one should ever be a slave again." Luke said determinedly, "I'd do it even if I was majordomo. Just like you set us free on Tatooine...everyone everywhere should be free."

"Everyone everywhere..." Lord Vader murmured. "Very well. I trust you know now what to with your enemy, young Skee-Waka?"

Luke nodded firmly. "Yes, mi Lorda."

"Good. Then the Force will be with you."

Luke bowed formally, in the Kajidic way. The transmission cut out.

Yes, he knew exactly what he needed to do. And he would hold his head high doing it, because he wasn't a slave anymore, and if Motti hurt him he could hurt Motti back.

Someone had to be Cadet-12, why not Luke?

Vader stared at the inert holocom thoughtfully, his massive gloved hands resting lightly on the edge of the desk.

'Just like Tatooine…'

'Everyone everywhere should be free.'

'Even if I was majordomo..."

Ah, the simplicity of youth. Truth was so uncomplicated when the sum of your experience could be counted in the single digits. Although, to compare millennia of Sith philosophy to the Hutts' banal criminal code...Vader began to chuckle darkly again. The boy was not entirely wrong. Oh, how he could imagine his Master's expression if Sidious ever heard that particular heresy.

Vader was distracted from his musing by an awkward shuffle in his periphery. He sensed a continuing note of stunned disbelief in his two subordinates' thoughts.

"What?" Vader snapped curtly.

Captain Piett and Lieutenant Jir stiffened. The Captain bravely spoke first. "My lord," he ventured, "Shall I, ah, continue with the report?"

Vader narrowed his eyes behind his lenses. "You doubt my advice to the boy," he accused.

The Captain turned an interesting new shade of pale. "Never, my Lord. Though I found it...unconventional."

Vader considered. He appreciated that this Captain Piett had enough survival instinct not to lie outright. Good sense was a short commodity. Perhaps Vader had overlooked some kind of common parental knowledge. "I see," he rumbled, "Do you have children, Captain?"

It was an honest inquiry, but rendered through the vocoder it sounded like a threat. Piett improbably managed to pale even further. "No my lord. Just a nephew. My sister's child, on Axxila."

"His age?"

Captain Piett thought back, matching the Axxilan calendar to Galactic Standard. "Turning eight shortly, my lord."

Vader cupped one hand over a gloved fist below his mask, leaning over his desk. "You will tell me about this nephew."

Lieutenant Jir watched his Captain sweat for a moment under Lord Vader's bizarre inquisition, before silently excusing himself out the sliding door. He needed to contact Luke. A good aide always anticipates, and right now Jir was anticipating many, many calls to make. And a spectacular new headache.

Jir sighed. He also might need to requisition a new comlink. It didn't seem like a good time to ask Lord Vader to give his back.

Angels of Iego, he marveled silently. Their Supreme Commander laughed.

A/N: Hi all! I'm alive! I am sorry for the short(ish) chapter. This was originally just part one, but I have been so busy at work that I haven't had time to finish part two. I figured better to post what is ready now, and not keep people hanging. I was going over my 5k word rule again anyway ehehehe _;;;

I'm going to have to slow down to one chapter a month for a bit. I'm sorry about this :'( The good news is I'm done with traveling for conventions for the year, yay! The bad news is I have a backlog of meetings and my submission stack is higher than my head when I sit at my desk. Boo.

People have left me so many wonderful reviews. I'm sorry I haven't gotten to reply. I will get back to everyone once I'm caught up with work!