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The flight to the Death Star was a short yet awkward one.
Usually, Darth Vader would have gladly taken this rare chance to pilot a spacecraft himself instead of having someone else chauffeuring him around. But there was a small escort of Stormtroopers aboard the Lambda-class shuttle, and Vader did not plan on letting them anywhere near Luke Skywalker. The boy was far too valuable a prisoner to be left in the care of anyone except for a fellow Force user.
Additionally, Vader could not be sure that the troopers wouldn’t harass Luke – there was good reason that during their last night on Endor, Luke had been locked away in a cell to which only Vader possessed the security codes that were necessary to open it. Vengeful Imperials, when confronted with the Rebellion’s poster boy bound and defenceless, could yet throw a wrench in the Emperor’s carefully laid out plans. It was already a wonder that Luke had not been harmed when he had first surrendered to the guards who were posted at the shield generator’s main entrance.
Engines roaring, the shuttle took off from the shield generator’s main landing platform and began to ascend through the atmosphere. While the Stormtroopers held on to the safety netting that clung to the shuttle’s walls and ceiling, Vader simply let the Force steady him against the vehicle’s bucking climb. In front of him, Luke mirrored the Stormtroopers as best he could, even though the shackles still kept his wrists bound together tightly.
He looked so vulnerable clinging to the only thing that offered him support among the interior equipment of the shuttle. So small in his sleek form-fitting black clothes and his polished boots that looked like they were about a number too big for him.
Vader quelled the urge to reach out and steady the boy with a hand on his waist.
There were no windows to admit the slowly fading blue of the Endor sky or the light of the stars winking to life against the dark backdrop of space. Under the synthetic glare of the shuttle’s glowstrips, Luke’s hair was of a matte, tidy brown. Life with the Rebellion – life in space – had robbed it of its sun-bleached glow, its wild radiation blond that Vader remembered from their first face-to-face encounter on Cymoon 1.
Life on Tatooine had given Luke that polish of unbridled light. Life on Tatooine and then on countless other planets had led them to this exact moment – sharing an uncomfortable silence in a Lamdba-class shuttle as Vader led his son to the slaughter.
His son. His child. The very person he had sworn to protect, to love and to cherish, on that fateful day decades ago when he had met Padmé in front of the Senate building and she had told him the wonderful news.
Groaning and grinding, the shuttle finally left Endor’s atmosphere. The shift from the forest moon’s gravity to the shuttle’s artificial one was seamless, yet Vader felt it in his bones. From here on out, the ride would be smoother, requiring no more handholds. Luke too seemed to have noticed the change, for he let go of the safety netting to stand tall and upright once more, his back to Vader.
Such confidence. Such grace. A true Jedi knight, calm and remote and untouchable.
The Stormtroopers at Vader’s back knew better than to talk among themselves when on duty, but he could sense their minds running wild with speculation. Was the prisoner being transferred to the Death Star for interrogation? Or, as Darth Vader’s presence implied, for public execution? Maybe the Emperor himself would supervise the broadcast of the gruesome holo-images that would inevitably result… and certainly, it would be a view to enjoy.
Vader rested his hands on his belt, trying his best not to clench them into fists. During the minutes of still flight that followed, he channelled the fear, the rage, the possessiveness he felt, and turned them into strength.
“Security codes transmitted to Death Star base,” the shuttle’s pilot announced over the speakers. “Starting landing approach now.”
As they drew closer, the Death Star’s gravity field began to grip at the shuttle, to tug at Vader’s insides. Without seeing it, he could sense the enormous machine of destruction looming over them, then all around them as the shuttle dove for cover in a landing bay.
The small spaceship’s floor bucked again as an invisible turbulence gripped hold of it. The Stormtroopers and Vader were prepared for it, already steadying themselves with their respective means. Luke, however, was not.
Gravity shifted, the floor tipped, and Luke went stumbling backwards with a yelp. His shackled hands flew out in front of him, towards the safety netting at the wall closest to him, but too late – they grasped at nothing but empty air.
Vader moved before he was even fully aware of his decision to take action. With a swiftness lent to him by the Force, he reached out and caught Luke in a firm, secure hold. One hand went to the boy’s waist, while the other clasped Luke’s forearm and held on tight.
Vader didn’t know if what happened next was the result of his subconscious temporarily taking over or a mere muscle spasm in his mutilated upper arms. All he knew was that it did happen – that the moment he registered Luke’s weight in his arms, he pulled the boy close and pressed him to his armoured chest.
Feeling himself scooped up so suddenly, Luke gave a strangled gasp. Vader could feel his son’s surprise through their no longer dormant bond, his embarrassment, his confusion – even his fear. And there, in the recesses of his mind, buried deep, deep down, something like comfort.
Time slowed to a crawl.
It had been a long, long time since Vader had been able to use his senses without them being painfully stunted. He still could not do so now, but he could vividly imagine what they would tell him about his son’s body in his arms.
Sight, unobstructed by his red lenses, unfettered by the damage his eyes had sustained on Mustafar: the clear, wide blue of his son’s eyes staring up at him, the way the light glanced off his fair hair, off his healthy, youthful skin.
Sound, filtered through human eardrums instead of makeshift artificial ones: all the small noises of fabric shifting against fabric, and the rasp of air rushing in and out of Luke’s lungs and nostrils at each shaky breath he took, in and out.
Touch, not felt via crude prosthetics and layers of leather and plasteel, but instead by real flesh: the warmth of Luke’s body, the heave and fall of his chest, the rapid beating of his heart against Vader’s palm.
Oddly, the thought reminded Vader of the Princess of Alderaan, who’d been backed up against his chest just like that, all but four years ago. Her heart had beat as fast as Luke’s and had been just as strong. In that, the two were very much alike – two birds, small and cupped in Vader’s palm, about to be crushed, but ready to spend the last drop of their lifeblood on freedom.
With that in mind, Vader gentled his touch, lessened the pressure on Luke’s arm, eased the tightness of his embrace. Luke was still staring up at him, for want of freedom of movement to do anything else perhaps. In his eyes swam the same supplication Vader had seen there when he’d first confronted him on Endor.
Come with me, father.
And indeed, for just a heartbeat, Vader went with Luke. For a precious instant that seemed to fill his entire universe, he was just a father, nothing but a father, holding his son in his arms, looking down at him and marvelling at this wonder of a human being that had come from him – his son whom he had sworn to love, to cherish and to protect.
The passenger hold’s loudspeakers crackled to live to announce their imminent landing, and time resumed its usual pace. Luke blinked, swallowed, looked like he was about to say something, but Vader was already setting him back onto his feet. When he had done that and was assured that Luke’s footing was no longer unstable, he withdrew his hands and once more rested them loosely on his belt.
“Careful,” he admonished the boy with a heat he didn’t really feel, but would serve to reestablish distance between them.
Luke sent him a look which told Vader that he understood. His answer he kept barely audible – courtesy of the Stormtroopers still standing behind them, Vader supposed.
“Thank you, father.”
Vader acknowledged this with a nod. As the shuttle gave one last judder, Luke turned away and grasped the safety netting again.
The rest of the landing passed without any further event. Soon, they were grounded, and the ramp at the back of the shuttle lowered to admit them to the docking bay. Vader gestured for Luke to go first, then watched the boy as he strode out onto the ramp, head held high in what Vader knew was merely mock confidence.
The Stormtroopers behind him began to stir, awaiting new orders. Vader let them wait. He could still feel the phantom weight of his son’s body in his arms, the warmth of his gaze, the staccato beating of his heart.
Only when these last traces of their contact had evaporated, too, did Vader set his mind to the upcoming challenge. At a brisk pace, he started down the shuttle’s ramp after Luke, following his son – to victory, or to death.