Chapter Text
They landed just outside of where they'd first entered the hive, on the flat expanse of desert that now hosted three ships: the Ark Angel, the stunning silver ship that Vader had come in and, a little farther away, a nondescript shuttle. It was clearly modified, but not much, and was all in all much more boring a ship than Luke had expected any of Aphra's contacts ever to fly.
Landing wasn't elegant. Aphra was still held against his body in an awkward horizontal position, and his wings weren't meant to carry two people at once: he'd had to work twice as hard to get them over the spires and down here without the still-unpractised muscles in his back spasming and giving out on him. By the time they were within two metres of the ground, something in him—or rather, in his back—gave up. They half-landed, half-toppled to the sand.
"Ugh," Aphra spluttered, shoving herself back to her feet. "Good going, Luke."
"Glad you appreciate it," Luke mumbled back. He was exhausted. Every part of him felt like it had been through a mangle. He could hardly see out of one eye; at least his cheek had stopped bleeding at one point. Probably around the point he got burned by the stray flames from Aphra's flamethrower.
His head spun. His wrist, where the chain had whipped around it, was red and aching. He thought his heart might give out from the sheer stress of being in so much pain.
When he tried to stand, his foot did give out. He collapsed again with a cry.
"I can't walk," he said through gritted teeth. He didn't want to look at the foot that Aphra had shot—how long would that take to heal? He didn't want to think about it—but Aphra did, and her audible intake of breath wasn't reassuring.
"I'll help you," she decided, as if there was a decision to make there at all, and slung his arm around her shoulders again. Together, they limped towards the nondescript ship, whose landing ramp was conveniently down. Aphra keyed a code in beside the door to open it, then they limped inside.
The inside of the ship was more notable—more interesting, at least. Projectors whirred, throwing holos of different places, items, texts onto the walls for close study. There were sheets pinned up to give them a better surface to project onto. The walls were bare behind them, but in the central area that they stumbled through was a comfortable armchair and a rug stuck to the floor, with another holoprojector, turned off. Luke's gaze skipped around and landed on an alcove with a few holos. He didn't get a good look at the people in them, but there was a middle-aged woman who looked a lot like Aphra, there.
"Through here," Aphra said. They went through another door and into a small refresher. She set Luke down on the toilet seat and rummaged through a cupboard, emerging with a medpack.
"You know, I have a medpack in my—" Luke began, but Aphra cut him off.
"That's the emergency stuff. This guy has proper funding—he has the good quality stuff. And never uses it, because he's too caught up in the big ideas to worry about petty things like maintaining his fragile human form, so there's plenty for us to pilfer."
She slapped a bacta patch on his cheek, hard. Luke's vision blacked for a second, dizzy from pain. Next, she slapped one on his wrist. She shoved some painkillers at him, which he swallowed dutifully, then offered him a piece of fabric, folded over several times.
"What's that?" Luke asked, hesitating to take it.
"A scrap of an old towel. Bite it."
"Why?"
Aphra reached for Luke's boot and yanked it off his foot. His groan was loud enough to rattle the door in its frame. He put the old towel in his mouth and bit down.
Aphra grimaced. "You might want to go to a medcentre for that one."
"Why did you shoot me in the foot?" Luke tried to ask. It came out pretty muffled—whyiooootmeiuhoot?—but Aphra clearly got what he was going for.
"I needed a threat! He wasn't gonna take me seriously if I shot you in the arm, was he?"
"Shut up." (Shtup.)
"Never." She studied it closely. "We can disinfect this now and try to keep the burn clean, but let's keep the bacta away from it—let the medcentre do the reconstruction for it. Don't worry, I'm sure your princess sister can foot the bill for that. Now hold still—do you want some more painkillers?" Before Luke could say anything, she moved on. "You're right, you've already had the maximum dose."
She got out some disinfectant wipes and started cleaning his wound. Luke did his best not to kick her in the face.
"There you go!" Aphra said what felt like an age later, once he was so thoroughly bandaged he felt he could fall off the highest spire of the hive and bounce without breaking any bones. "No need to thank me."
Luke spat out the old towel. "Thank you," he said anyway. Pain and irritation at her flippancy aside, he appreciated the gesture.
Her cocky smile wavered, somewhat. "Switchy's just outside—I heard him come in through the door. You should probably be off soon, though I don't think Vader will be here very quickly. You want a head start, don't you?"
"Yeah, but—" Before he could say anything in response to that, Aphra stood up, opened the fresher door and waltzed out.
It took Luke longer to follow. He had to hop to the door, for one thing, with his foot bandaged, but once he reached the door, he found Aphra had left a set of crutches next to it for him. Where she'd got those, he didn't know, but Aphra could always find opportunity where there was none. Grateful, he slipped his hands into the crutches and limped out from there.
The main living area was empty. Luke looked around it more intently. There was a galley in a corner at the back, but otherwise the living area was simple in its armchair and rug, other than the sheets hanging on the walls and holding projections of dozens of seemingly random images. With the door open, they drifted in the breeze, and Luke thought he heard footsteps.
"Aphra?" he called. "Oh, hi Switchboard." The droid was standing quietly at the back of the room and nodded at Luke's acknowledgement. "Aphra?"
"Yes?" said a voice. It wasn't Aphra's.
A man stepped out of a corridor that must lead to the cockpit. He was slightly taller than Aphra, so of a height with Luke, with brown skin, kind eyes, and a bald head. His trousers were beige, as were the robes he wore over them, with his sleeves bunched up over his elbows and hand wraps around his forearms and palms. He looked both a great deal like Aphra and exactly like the sort of man to own a ship like this.
"Where's Aphra?" Luke asked.
The man chuckled. "I presume you mean Chelli and not me."
"Chelli?" Luke shifted on his crutches. He was in too much pain to think too hard right now.
"My daughter," the man said. At Luke's blank look again, he said, "The—ah—rogue archaeologist? She led me to believe you were her partner."
Luke's mouth fell open. "You're Aphra's dad?" He should have guessed that earlier, but… Aphra had said she didn't speak to him. Luke had started thinking he must be even worse than Vader. "The Jedi expert?"
"Indeed." He looked satisfied by that description. "I was led to understand that you're interested in the Jedi yourself—that you are a Jedi? Or rather, trying to be. I'd be very happy to help you with your research. I was in the sector, and I came as soon as Chelli commed me for help. She… so rarely does."
"Aphra's first name," Luke said, "is Chelli?"
"Did she not tell you? I suppose she hates to get too close to people. I was delighted to hear she had a partner, even if you were going your separate ways for now. Little Boop has always been of the… independent sort."
Boop? Aphra's dad said it casually—a nickname.
Luke's mouth fell open. That was where the Geonosians had got that name from.
Aphra's dad shook his head. "I shouldn't repeat her mistakes." He held out a hand. "Doctor Aphra, at your service. Doctor Korin Aphra, that is."
Luke propped himself up on his crutches to offer his hand in return. "Luke Skywalker."
"Any relation to the Jedi from the Republic, Anakin Skywalker?"
Luke's throat went dry. "Yes."
"Nephew? Cousin?"
"Son."
"Fascinating. I had thought the Jedi Order were utterly stringent on their no attachments rule in the last century of their existence." Before Luke could process that, too, Korin moved on. "But we can discuss that later."
"Where is Chelli?" Luke interrupted.
"I presume she's left. You were going to go your separate ways, weren't you? For safety reasons, if nothing else."
"Left?" She'd hadn't said goodbye.
Korin's smile was sad. "That is what she does."
Luke couldn't argue with that.
Still, he picked up his other crutch and hurried as best he could into the cockpit, where the viewports all around him provided a better view of the outside. Aphra was wandering towards the Ark Angel, her hands in her pockets, looking up at the spires of the hive in thought.
Luke made to call to her, then realised she wouldn't hear him. It didn't matter. A moment later, she turned around to give her dad's ship that same searching look. Her gaze landed on him.
He lifted his hand and mouthed, Goodbye.
She grinned and saluted. Then she walked up the landing ramp of the Ark Angel, out of sight.
The tension in Luke's shoulders eased.
"Incoming transmission," said a mechanical voice. Luke turned. Switchboard had followed him into the cockpit. "Sender: Doctor Aphra. File title: Plans."
She'd definitely made a copy of them for herself before sending them to Switchboard, Luke knew. But even that just made him smile.
"Incoming transmission," Switchboard said again, jerking Luke out of his reverie. "Sender: Queen Karina. Message content: Good luck."
Luke's smile widened. "Tell her thank you," he said. "Tell them both."
"Roger roger."
"A bizarre droid," Korin said, stepping through to the cockpit with them. "But if I know Chelli, it will be a fine droid, too." He settled into the pilot's seat and reached for the controls. "Where to next? My assumption would be a medcentre, I confess—I know one nearby. As I said, I was working in the sector when Chelli contacted me, and it has been useful in the past to know where the nearest medical facilities are."
Luke laughed. "That… sounds good." And as he heard the door shut and the landing ramp retract, as they lifted into the sky, he asked, "Where were you before?"
"Tatooine!" He'd never heard that word said with so much excitement before. "It has a surprising history with the dark side, back before it was a desert. And I'd heard rumours there was a Jedi there, but naturally those are almost always false. I was much more interested in what I could find in the archaeological record…"
Luke blinked. "I'm from Tatooine."
"Oh? Do you know anything about its history?"
"I tried to research when I was younger but… no." Luke settled into the co-pilot's seat beside him. "Not really."
Geonosis shrank below them. Luke glanced out of the viewport for one last look back at it, and his heart swelled. He remembered his first thought, when he first looked at it. That thought still held true: it looked like home.
"It's a travesty that it's not better known!" Korin said. "The legacy of the dark side and wars it waged on the landscape is still evident today…"
The stars streaked into hyperspace. Luke watched them whirl, listening intently to new stories of home.
Aphra walked through the Ark Angel and took her seat in the cockpit. Her dad's ship peeled away from the surface, and she allowed herself a moment to watch them leave. The Ark Angel seemed very quiet without Luke, but she knew that effect would pass. She'd been on her own for far longer than she'd known him.
He'd probably guessed that it was a copy of the Death Star plans she'd sent to him, not her original draft. She glanced at her datapad, lying at her side, and smirked to herself. Someone was going to pay her handsomely for those. If Luke sent those ones to the Rebellion, then it wasn't quite the exclusive item she'd want to sell her copy as, and she'd also have lost the buyer that would have been most desperate to get their righteous hands on them, but that didn't matter. She'd find out a way to get their worth out of them anyway. She always found a way.
Except when Vader called her bluff.
She swallowed, glancing back at her dad's ship, now a speck in the atmosphere. Vader had sensed her conflict, whatever that was supposed to mean. He knew she couldn't—or rather, didn't want to—kill Luke.
He wasn't supposed to know that!
That was weakness. And it was a weakness that was out there. Vader knew about it. Luke knew about it. Anyone else could guess if they heard the story.
But the weakness was gone, now. She couldn't wait to hear how Luke handled her dad. They'd either get along brilliantly, or Luke would jump ship as soon as he got to Alderaan. Either way, it would be entertaining. She wished him—and Switchy; she was gonna miss Switchy!—luck.
When her ship lifted off, finally, after she spent far too long moping, the cockpit shuddered. Geonosis shrank into a tiny yellow ball beneath her. Just another planet. Just another adventure survived. Nothing more than that. The black tapestry of space was in front of her, and she could smell opportunity.
She jumped to hyperspace. The universe blurred behind her viewport, and she had peace.
Spinning in her chair, she went back to the living area. A few things had fallen off the shelves in the lift-off; she gathered them in her hands and stuck them back in their assigned slots. One of them, she hesitated on. Sana's dig notes.
She'd left Sana. Just like she'd left everyone else. She clutched them to her chest and took a breath. They smelled like dusty old flimsi, of course. What else would they smell like?
She put them back on the shelf.
Maybe, she decided. She'd run into Sana again, someday. That was inevitable. So… maybe.
Her comlink bleeped.
Frowning, she tugged it out of her pocket and flipped it on. The sender ID read Boss.
Her heartrate skyrocketed.
There was nothing he could do to her over message. Over comm call, maybe! But not message.
Besides, he hadn't written anything threatening for once. In fact, he'd written, I have a new job for you.
Before she could message back to reject it, or to ask how he likes being buried in sand and droid parts, or something else incredibly witty and Doctor Aphra-like, he continued.
Protect Luke Skywalker. If he comes to any harm, I will come for you.
Aphra paused. And she hated the small smile that tugged at her lips, but she couldn't wipe it away.
She asked: How much am I getting paid?
He replied with a sum immediately. It made her fan herself. She didn't even think about her answer.
Accepted.
She was playing with fire, wasn't she?
No matter. She'd run into the kid again—of course she would. Between him and her dad, she gave them a week max before they got into some sort of life-threatening danger, and it was apparently her job now to protect him. She didn't think Luke would mind. So long as she didn't mention who had sent her, of course.
She switched her comlink off and stood there, in the middle of an empty ship, breathing hard. She looked at Sana's dig notes sitting on the shelf.
Maybe, she'd said. Maybe, for Sana.
But for Luke?
Soon.
When Invader comes to visit us, he does not fight.
It is in his heart. We can see that. When we come close to him, he reaches for his lightsaber but does not activate it. A handful of droids try to stop him from coming through, but he shoves them back without the enormous violence we associate with him, so we order them to let him through. We congregate them around the queen, to allow for a fight to protect her if needed, but we do not impede his progress.
Knowing what we now know—that he is Wormie's father; he is the wicked Skywalker we have hated for so long—we think we recognise much of his behaviour. He beholds our tunnels as if he knows them. As if he remembers them. When Wormie remembered what happened to the senator we chained to the pillar in the arena, he responded as poorly as he did then, with panic and fury. He admitted she was Wormie's mother.
We tried to execute both of Wormie's progenitors once, then. This is disquieting. Wormie is our friend. But if nothing else, Jedi and Geonosians know how much the past is in the past. Most of it is already buried.
So, we watch how Invader behaves. It is as follows:
He attempts to give chase to Wormie and Boop. He fails. Naturally. He cannot fly as Wormie can, and he cannot traverse our tunnels with ease or familiarity. When he reaches his own beautiful ship—and the ship, we remember too—it is the only one left.
He lingers on that ship for a long time. We expect him to leave, and we meet that possibility with both hope and dread. If he leaves, there is no guarantee he will not return with his poison bombs.
But he does not leave. He just dwells on that ship of memory for what we think must be a long time for humans. Perhaps it distresses him. We detect a transmission emanated from the planet that we did not send, so presumably he has contacted someone, but we know not whom or why.
Then, he returns.
He marches through the catacombs with more speed than he ever has before. Within hours, he has reached us again, but we nonetheless had time to formulate a defence if necessary. We have not yet engaged it, but we remain prepared to. If necessary.
In the arena, again, he pauses. It is not difficult to discern why. Blood stains the sand here, and while he cannot feel it, see it, hear it, smell it as Wormie can, he remembers that all the same. We have bad blood between us. We will never call ourselves friends.
But when he reaches the queen's chamber, he does not try to kill us. He stands in the centre of it, before Queen Karina's majesty, and looks up unflinching.
"I am aware you have committed yourselves to joining the Rebellion," he says.
We say nothing. We need say nothing. Wormie has informed him, for better or for worse, that we granted the Rebellion the Death Star plans, because we despise the Empire and wish to see it destroyed.
Invader draws his lightsaber but does not ignite it. "I will not destroy you now," he says. "The Rebellion will soon be destroyed. If you join them, you will too. I do not need to bother with you here."
And yet he bothers with us anyway.
Still, we say nothing. It unnerves him more than anything else, we know, and we enjoy unnerving him.
"Will you be providing droids to the Rebellion, as you did the Separatists? Will you help them mount their puny defences?"
He pauses. He hooks his lightsaber back on his belt. We see his ruined mask tilt up to look at us, and it looks like he is snarling.
"Do it," he orders. "Swell their ranks. Swell their firepower. Turn their pitiful resistance into a credible threat and bring true war to the galaxy again. Keep my son alive at all costs, and perhaps when we have crushed you all I will not destroy you so thoroughly next time. Let him live and watch his friends die, chaos reign, and blood stain the stars all around the galaxy."
He hesitates. He clenches his fists at his side.
"Then he will understand," he finishes. "He will know loss. He will know the false promises of the Jedi. And he will know what I am offering him."
Only now do we say, "Wormie already knows loss. At your hands."
"That is nothing. His kidnappers—"
"And we stand with what he said to you himself," we continue, enjoying how his shoulders tense and he has to take a step back. "You have lost much, Anakin Skywalker. Jedi. Murderer. But you will take from the galaxy before you try to come to terms with any of it. And if you do not come to terms with it one day, you will only ever lose more."
He knows what we are implying. He raises his hand. "My son—"
"We will do what you demand," we say. "We intend to equip the Rebellion and help Wormie, nonetheless."
"Don't call him that."
"And the war of your making will be as brutal as the war that made you," we warn him. "Take care that it does not unmake you, in the process."
He blusters his threats. He shouts his demands. We ignore him.
After his patience runs thin, he leaves. We watch his silver ship scythe through the atmosphere and disappear into the stars above.
We are not afraid of him. Nor is he afraid of us. But he will be.
One day soon, he will be.