Work Text:
Droids weren't programmed for pride but nevertheless Threepio felt proud of himself. He'd spent many years in the service of Princess Leia's family before being abruptly purchased by Master Luke's family during that business with the Death Star plans. His subroutines whirred in mild confusion regarding the identity of his proper owner. Fortunately, Master Luke joined Princess Leia's entourage at the end of that adventure and he had no objections to Threepio continuing to provide his valuable services for her. His services had been so helpful lately that the Princess had suggested Threepio and Artoo be assigned a special mission by themselves as couriers for an important docket.
"I appreciate your help," she said as their shuttle was prepared. "The team you're meeting needs this information for their mission."
"Of course, Princess," Threepio said. "Artoo and I will be sure to deliver it safely." He could not puff up his chest yet he felt puffed up.
Artoo beeped something softly in a frequency Threepio's audio sensors had difficulty picking up. Princess Leia gave him a quick, sharp look. Artoo beeped louder that they were happy to help. He rolled up the ramp to plug into the navigation computer.
Princess Leia said, "We'll see you both in a few rotations."
Threepio boarded the shuttle and stood beside Artoo as the hatch closed. By Threepio's estimation, Artoo was not nearly as capable a pilot as Master Luke or Captain Solo, but he could fly them out of the hangar and navigate them into hyperspace without an issue. His flying was better than his attitude.
"You should be happy Princess Leia entrusted us with this important mission."
Artoo made the same beep he did back in the hangar, and this time Threepio's audio sensors heard him fine.
"'Busy work'? Artoo, Princess Leia values my presence and input on her work far too much to send me away for any kind of busy work. Your circuits are cross-wired again."
Artoo blurted at him rudely then suggested he spend the trip charging to make sure he had plenty of energy for their very important mission delivering the post.
"I will," Threepio said, and plugged into the shuttle. He went into low power mode which allowed his recessed processors to idle over old data.
Master Luke had asked him about this once, and he had said it sounded similar to how humans dreamed. Threepio had corrected him. Droid low power ruminations were far more productive than human low power modes: performing necessary maintenance calculations, correcting unstable neural pathways, and reallocating memory space for more efficient storage of future data. In his idling now, his memory pulled out the image of Master Luke's wry smile. His protected memory files, the ones even he could not access except when in deep idle mode, retrieved another image, one that had no name attached to the file. In the dreams he did not have, Threepio recalled the same smile on another face he could not quite remember.
He awoke from his changing at a signal from Artoo. They were about to drop out of hyperspace. If Artoo had taken the same opportunity for a recharge, he didn't say, and he'd never once shared with Threepio what he idled about while he did enter low power mode.
The moment the ship returned to real-space, the shuttle's proximity alarms blared. An explosion went off too close by. Threepio was jarred, falling against a bulkhead. "Oh my! What's going on!"
Artoo swore in binary and swooped their shuttle away from the battle that glittered in front of them on the view screen. The small A-Wing squadron they'd been assigned to meet was taking heavy damage from double that number of TIE fighters. The unfortunate ratio grew rapidly as A-Wings vanished into puffs of fire.
His processors calculated twenty to one odds that they would be destroyed within two minutes. "We'll be vaporized!"
Artoo told him to be still while he calculated an escape trajectory, but they were soon surrounded on all sides. "Tell them we surrender!" Artoo refused to send the surrender code, muttering it wouldn't do any good. He set the shuttle's self-destruct program instead. "Artoo, don't you dare."
It didn't matter. One emerald shot blasted from a TIE's cannons, taking out their shields, and a targeted strike from another took out their engines. The self-destruct was wired to overload an engine core that was no longer responsive.
A Star Destroyer appeared. Artoo swore again. He told Threepio to join him at the control panel.
That was better. If they were to talk with their Imperial captors, Threepio was far better suited to the task than his astromech counterpart. "I'll explain to them we are on a simple courier mission. We're harmless." Outside, the shuttle shook. They'd been captured with a tractor beam.
Artoo unplugged from the control panel. Then he stuck his spike unexpectedly into a port on Threepio's leg. "What are you doing now?" Threepio felt Artoo sifting through his programming, and felt him delete three files. "Artoo, that's very rude."
Artoo beeped at him they couldn't risk keeping the navigation data for the Princess's current whereabouts. With a small whir, Artoo deleted the same files from his own memory banks. Threepio had no heart but if he did, he'd have felt his heart fall. Artoo had guaranteed the two of them could not give up the location of the fleet and they'd also lost any hope of finding it themselves.
The Star Destroyer drew their shuttle into its waiting maw. Threepio watched the stars disappear from view. Artoo made unhappy noises beside him. "I'm sure we'll be fine. Master Luke will come look for us when we don't check in."
Their ship docked and the hangar door closed. The shuttle hatch was forced open and several stormtroopers entered, blaster rifles ready. "Hands up!" their commander shouted.
Threepio put his arms as high as he could lift them. "Please don't shoot! We're only droids!"
The stormtroopers surrounded them, searching the small shuttle for anyone else. The commander touched his helmet. "Sir, two droids aboard. No one else." Artoo and Threepio were led outside.
The corridors of the Star Destroyer were kept darker than those aboard most Rebellion vessels. It was an efficient conservation of power, Threepio observed. Artoo beeped that it was dark and creepy.
A noise came from ahead of them on a cross corridor. Artoo froze in his rollers. Threepio bumped him. "Keep moving or they'll shoot us."
The stormtroopers guarding them halted, allowing the group in the cross corridor to pass first. "Oh dear," said Threepio, as he saw Darth Vader stride past them.
Vader halted, turning his head. He stared at the droids for a long moment. "Are those the droids from the Rebel shuttle?"
"Yes, sir," said the commander. His voice sounded tight and frightened. "We're taking them to interrogation immediately."
Vader stepped closer. Threepio stood still. Princess Leia had nothing good to say about Darth Vader. His subprocessors brought up previous mission reports and descriptions. Vader could crush him with a thought. He could strike him down as he'd killed Obi-Wan Kenobi. Artoo's circuits had been fried by his TIE during the battle with the Death Star. Anything could happen.
Vader stared at him. Then he looked down at Artoo, watching him for a moment that ticked by slowly on Threepio's chronometer. "Bring them to my quarters."
"Lord Vader, standard procedure is to remove their memory banks and scrape for intel before disintegrating the rest."
"Disintegrate?!" said Threepio, horrified.
The commander began to cough. "Of course, sir," he said quickly. "Your quarters. We'll bring the droids there immediately."
They set off in a different direction. "Well, this is better news," Threepio said to Artoo. "Scrape our memory banks and disintegrate us? Horrible. Perhaps Darth Vader has recognized our value and will attempt to negotiate our release with the Rebellion."
Artoo beeped and muttered to himself unhappily but he was always like that. Threepio wondered who the Rebellion would send to rescue them. Master Luke would certainly volunteer. He calculated an equal chance that Captain Solo would join him. Threepio and Artoo would remain safe in Darth Vader's personal quarters while they waited for their retrieval. Vader was very highly placed in the Empire and surely had a suitably comfortable living area.
By the time they'd reached the living quarters, Threepio had decided he and Artoo must be traded for an important prisoner of the Rebellion. They had recently captured a Moff who might be a sufficient trade. The pair were shuffled into an austere suite, and locked in a darkened workroom inside. Random electronics covered one workbench. Parts of a damaged droid were stacked inside a half-opened cupboard. A half-built model starfighter stood on a stand, abandoned long enough that a fine layer of dust had settled on the shiny frame. Artoo rolled past each of the odd projects on display, pausing and turning his dome to examine them with his optics.
A new thought pathway opened. Had Darth Vader sent them here for him to disassemble personally?
Artoo found a power jack and slotted himself in. He tried with no success to slice in, and at last told Threepio he had no access to the rest of the Star Destroyer's systems.
"That's for the best. You should know better than to plug into a strange computer. You might catch a malicious code and then where would you be?"
They settled in to wait. Threepio went over his own previous encounters with Darth Vader but there was little data. He had been on a different part of the ship when the Tantive IV had been boarded. He had hurried past while Vader had faced off with Kenobi. He found no other records in his memory banks. However, he felt a small blip as he searched, encountering an overwrite error he had no context for. Perhaps he had been involved in a Rebellion mission and his memory bank had been cleared afterwards due to the sensitive nature of the information retrieved. That must be it.
At last, the outer door opened and Vader's heavy tread echoed from the suite. The door to the workroom slid open and closed behind him.
For a long time, Darth Vader stood still, the red lenses of his eyes focused entirely on Artoo. "I should destroy you."
To Threepio's shock, Artoo replied with a blurt and told Vader he was welcome to do it.
"Please don't destroy him," Threepio said, his legs propelling him between the two. "Artoo can be very rude at times," he tapped his friend's dome sharply, "but he means well. We're only droids, sir. Not worth destroying."
Vader's attention turned to him. Droids were not programmed to experience fear but a self-protection subroutine was built into all droids to keep them from accidental harm. Threepio's own self-protection subroutine had a tendency to spin in an overdrive cycle. He felt the familiar whir as Vader sized him up but Threepio remained where he stood. Artoo was his friend.
"You have no memory of me." Vader's mechanical voice was always underscored with a layer of annoyed anger and this statement was no exception. Threepio contained an extensive catalog of organic species, their languages, and their tonal inflections. (Six million forms of communication did him little good if he couldn't tell the difference between someone saying, "We're eating, Grandfather," and "We're eating Grandfather.") Accessing this database, he could tell Vader was outraged and hurt that Threepio didn't recognize him in some fashion.
"No." To his surprise, Vader stepped closer to him and with a knowing hand, flipped open a panel on Threepio's head. "My word!"
"Hold still." Vader prodded inside Threepio's brain casing. He turned to the workbench and retrieved several cables. Artoo whirred unhappily. "I did not ask you." Vader clicked a cable into place inside Threepio and initiated a shivery flow of information. "Multiple memory wipes. Data core intact but primary memory files locked."
Artoo whistled, asking Vader what he'd expected. Threepio couldn't stop talking for more than ten seconds at a time. If he'd remembered Obi-Wan's location, everyone in the galaxy would have known it before dinner.
Threepio turned his head, cables and all, towards Artoo. "You're very rude and that is an entirely unfounded accusation. Discretion is one of my primary protocols. For example, I have told no one how Princess Leia's favorite gown was actually ruined when Master Luke was trying to retrieve it for her." He paused. "Oh dear. Perhaps I should not have said anything."
Vader turned to Artoo. "I see." He returned to his examination of Threepio's memory core. "That would be Luke Skywalker." His voice filter hissed the surname angrily.
"Yes. Artoo and I were purchased by the Lars family while we were stranded on Tatooine. Master Owen and Mistress Beru were killed, leaving us in Master Luke's possession."
"He was their heir?"
Artoo hummed that the Lars couple had adopted an orphan and given him an old family name.
Vader turned back to Artoo, pointing. "You are a liar and a fool. I know who the boy is. Kenobi thought to keep him from me, as he took Padmé from me." He disconnected the cable. "And you."
Artoo beeped at Vader in irritation. He'd chosen to leave. No one had forced him.
Threepio interjected, "If I may say, your stormtroopers are the only ones who have abducted me."
Vader turned back to him, pointing at Threepio's chest with an irate black gloved finger. "You remember nothing. I built you from scraps of old droids I scavenged, pieces so useless even my owner could not sell them. You are mine. Artoo was a wedding gift from my wife. You both belong to me."
Artoo made a rude noise.
Threepio attempted to access his earliest memories and found them locked. Was this true? Artoo was not denying Vader's statements. There was also the matter of their hope of a rescue by the Rebellion, and Threepio's updated calculations that the chances were seven to one there wouldn't be a rescue.
A new subroutine clicked into place. In the absence of his current owners, and with a claim in front of him, Threepio "Master Vader," he said with a perky chirp. "I am at your service."
Artoo rolled into his leg, beeping harshly.
"Tell me the location of the Rebel fleet."
Threepio obediently searched his memory banks. "I'm terribly sorry, sir. That data has been erased."
Vader made an annoyed rumble which had a fifty-three percent overlap with one of Artoo's annoyed rumbles. Perhaps they did know one another.
The panel on his head was still open. Vader began examining him again, prodding his circuits with a tiny microdriver. Threepio had no physical sensors inside his brain but certain touches gave him inputs that were what he imagined a tickle might feel like to an organic. The cables were reattached. His memory core was opened, examined, and closed again, with no exploration of any information about the Rebellion except for files about Master Luke.
After Vader had downloaded everything relevant, he closed Threepio up again. He glared at Artoo. "I will deal with you later." He left them there, locking the workroom behind him.
Artoo whistled mournfully. Threepio said, "It's not as bad as that. He doesn't sound like he wants to disintegrate us at all." Artoo told him there were worse fates than disintegration.
"I wonder why he's curious about Master Luke?" Artoo didn't reply. Having nothing better to do, Threepio settled down for another low power rumination session.
The old images from his protected files filtered through his dreams. He had no context files identifying the face of a tired human woman. The data had been overwritten but the ghosts of the original bits hid under the new configuration of bytes, holding in their ethereal grasp the memories of memories. His audio files recalled a young boy's voice, too serious for his age, asking Threepio to execute a search for the best means of locating and removing a transmitter chip. The boy's identity was nowhere in his files and the half-hearted search he ran inside his somnolence turned up only nonsense and corrupted data.
Darth Vader returned hours later in no better mood than he'd left. He rummaged through his tools until he found what he needed. Artoo scooted away from him but had nowhere to go. Vader easily reached him and opened the plate covering his memory core. Artoo whistled angrily at him.
"I'm not hurting you. I'm seeing what you have in here." He attached another cable between Artoo and his console and began the download. His lenses gave nothing away as he read the screen, but he made an irritated noise. "This is nonsense. Where are your real memories?"
Artoo tweeted he'd locked everything inside vaulted memory. If Vader wanted it, he'd have to disassemble Artoo to get it.
"I ought to." Vader made a fist and gestured towards him. "You left me."
Artoo said Vader had left them first. This correlated with the information Vader had presented to them earlier. He'd been their owner and Artoo knew it.
"Master Vader," Threepio said in a bright tone, "how can Artoo and I assist you?"
"You can't." He flung his microdriver onto the tool bench. "You should have been melted down the day I lost you."
That seemed extreme. Threepio's self-preservation subroutine quickly scanned the tones inside Vader's voice filter. Vader was not threatening them, he concluded. Their new master was simply being grumpy. Threepio's programming included a number of files on childcare, including irate adolescents. Vader was older than they but perhaps the same techniques could be applied. "If you would like, I can tell you a story."
Vader's head spun and for a moment, Threepio could nearly sense his glare from beneath his mask. Then Vader's body relaxed. "Yes. Tell me about my son."
"I'm afraid I don't know that story."
"Luke Skywalker," Vader said impatiently. "Tell me everything you know about Luke."
"Of course." Behind him, Artoo banged his dome on the wall. "We first met Master Luke on Tatooine. Some terribly nasty Jawas picked us up after we were," the self-preservation routine kicked in again before he pointed out Vader's role in the destruction of their ship and crew, "stranded. Master Owen came to the Jawas' sale to purchase droids to help him on his moisture farm."
Vader listened intently to every word. Threepio couldn't recall some details, like the names of the bases where he'd traveled with Master Luke, but as he spoke, it seemed his new master didn't care very much about that. He was far more interested in what Master Luke enjoyed, who his friends were, and how he'd been studying the Force on his own by looking up what he could and studying the few holorecordings that survived of other Jedi.
"He wishes to be a Jedi?"
"Yes. Master Luke often says he wants to be a Jedi like his father was."
"His father was weak and foolish. I destroyed him."
"Pardon me, Master Vader, but didn't you say you are Master Luke's father?"
Vader waved his hand. "Tell me more about his associates. I wish to know more about the criminal and the princess."
The inquiry struck him as odd. When Master Luke and Captain Solo first met Princess Leia, she was Darth Vader's prisoner. Surely they'd already spoken? Nevertheless Threepio was happy to be helpful and rattled off story after story how Master Luke and his friends had saved the day and each other.
Vader didn't speak for some time after Threepio finished. "They are close to him," he said at last.
"Yes. Master Luke has said on several occasions that he has many friends, but Captain Solo and Princess Leia are his best friends."
"He would do anything for them."
"I believe so, yes."
"Good." He turned to Artoo. "I once had friends like that. They all betrayed me."
Artoo made a blurting noise and refused to respond.
When Vader left them again, Artoo rolled towards the door and hummed to himself quietly. Threepio scolded him. "You shouldn't be so rude to our new master. He's famously temperamental."
Artoo said Threepio didn't know half of it. Then he rolled to where Vader had dropped his microdriver, and extended a probe to pick it up. He returned to the door and unlocked it.
"Oh no. I'm not going out there."
Artoo told him he'd read the console while Vader had attempted to download his files. Their new master (Threepio heard several layers to the beep, both contempt and bittersweet sorrow) required medical intervention each rotation. He was heading there now and would be indisposed for hours. This was their best chance at escape.
Uneasy, Threepio followed Artoo out of Vader's suite and into the corridor. No one stopped them as they made their way towards the hangar. Their own shuttle was locked down in a different hangar but Imperial shuttles stood empty and ready for boarding in this one. Not a single stormtrooper looked their way. No one ever paid attention to droids. Artoo rolled to the control panel and began the startup sequence.
That drew attention. Their comm blurted at them: "Shuttle Alpha Fiver, what are you doing?"
Artoo told him to handle it.
Threepio opened the comm. "Terribly sorry. Lord Vader is sending me and my counterpart on a mission. I believe he is currently in his bacta tank but you may take it up with him." Artoo whistled a code, which Threepio repeated. Vader's personal code, Artoo said, preening as he fired the engines.
"No," said the voice on the comm. "I see no reason to bother Lord Vader." Threepio's language centers heard layers of anxiety and fear in his words.
"We'll be sure to inform Master Vader of how helpful you were, Trooper."
Artoo closed the line before Threepio could improvise more. As soon as they were in hyperspace he watched Artoo take a long, relaxed settle onto his struts.
"Oh dear," Threepio said. "I just remembered that we forgot where to go. We'll be lost forever."
A pleased whistle told him Artoo hadn't deleted his own memories of the base's location, merely refiled it under a folder structure he'd been sure Vader would never open, the same as many of Threepio's missing memories had been.
"I had my memories all along?" He tried to access files but had no context for the search strings. Artoo blurted that no, Threepio's memories had been wiped from him but Artoo had made backups in his own deep core memories. "You could have restored them at any time?" Irritation with his counterpart grew. Artoo always thought he knew best.
Artoo rolled over to him and plugged in. This was better. Threepio prepared himself for the flood of restored memories. Instead, he felt two small files be deleted. "Artoo!"
Artoo disconnected from him. He asked what had happened to the princess's nice dress. "Master Luke ruined it while fetching it for her, but he asked me not to tell anyone. Oh dear. I probably shouldn't have said anything."
His friend whirred gently at him. Then he promised he'd put every single memory back when the time was right.
"You'd better," said Threepio, and he went to the charging dock to power down for the rest of the ride home.