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Vader never was that infuriated. Luke was finishing his TIE’s adjustments, when the other’s presence plunged into him like a torpedo at full speed. Mainly positioned as a back-up Black Esquadron pilot, Luke almost never left the Executioner. Reasons remained unclear, the conundrum unsolved. As an aid of Vader, he had to be… making up excuses to save about a hundred of people his superior was about to choke.
Silence hung in the air, a sword ready to cut off Luke’s head. The words to start a conversation didn’t come to mind at all.
“Sir?” he finally spoke out, trying to hide the worry.
“You must be in the office. Tarkin—”
Tarkin was a big pile of Hutts’ shit, Luke believed. Since his temporary assignment on the Death Star, he ran into the old withered and clearly marasmic man at least three times a day, each of them more unpleasant than the previous.
And Luke was fond of princess Leia, a damsel in distress he could lend a hand. Just a little.
“I’ll be back, sir. The communications here probably died out after the short circuit we endured from the intervention.”
Vader watched him, eyes hidden behind the mask. His gaze might leave a laser hole, two, in particular, in Luke’s face, but now the anger and rage in the air were diluted with… curiosity?
“So, you know about the problem with electricity powering?” Sith asked with profound suspicion in his voice.
“I assumed,” precipitation in his body rose, but Luke postponed wiping his palms off his trousers and kept eye-contact, trying to look as innocent as possible. Oh, such a big thing didn’t work as planned for sure.
“And that single circuit opened the jail-cell of the prisoner, drew power from main lasers and jammed communications?” Luke’s face became just a bit silly, big shiny eyes staring into the void above Vader’s head.
If he didn’t want to be choked, he needed to make out an excuse for his thoughts.
“Probably, the Rebellion could do it simultaneously when our defence system suffered from an electricity overpower, unable to properly operate.”
“And they opened the cell?”
“They might have a slicer?” Luke’s answers sounded more questionably with every passing second. “Who was the prisoner? Someone important?” Luke’d been here all day, he must pretend that. An ugly playwright he was, but the scenario should’ve sounded a bit more plausible to duck the death away, now lingering just behind his shoulder.
“Princess Leia Organa, isn’t she your old friend?”
“We talked twice,” and Luke didn’t lie. But she was such a cheerful creature he couldn’t watch her being signed to a death sentence. “I’m uninformed about her, as an aid of a Senator, being arrested.”
“She’s a rebellion soldier!” Anger, again, this time laced with accusation. “And someone let her go.”
“I have no idea about this crime, sir,” Luke tried to shrug nonchalantly.
Not a single thought in his head. Should he start praying? Was it the last second he lived in the Galaxy?
“And you don’t know who shut down the compensator to allow the laser to burn itself while charging?”
“I’ll start my research in the office, sir.”
“You know, Padme…”
Naboo was a peaceful place, always guarded by an angel, now lying in the tomb. He didn’t visit her for long, for years, perhaps, the last three being awkwardly crammed with duties about watching their son.
“He took a lot after you.”
They both had a mole on their right cheek, and that smile… Only a resemblance of her in him made Vader’s heart ache. It should’ve been Padme raising their child. He wanted a son, probably, the one that was walking on the Executioner with a restriction to participate in warfare personally coded thoroughly in his ID. The office routine was just enough to tie him in the system with reasonable safety.
“He’s got your smile. And your temper. And, I’m afraid, political tastes,” Vader added now sourly. Dead people didn’t answer, especially Padme didn’t. Even if she was back here on Naboo, resurrected, he would try to slap his face, at best. At worst, she’d ask for an immediate divorce and take their son somewhere in the Rebellion, where his safety would be violated. “I know I should reveal the truth. He’s nineteen already, I married you at his age, the best day of my past life,” his hand grasped air as if trying to catch Padme’s touch. “But he deserves to meet you first. Soon, my Angel, he will.”
It was a promise, a vow lingering in the air with obligation Vader put on himself. Luke believed he was an orphan, and he never knew a single fact about his mother besides her stunning beauty.
The time to prepare the ground had come. But, first of all, one big useless war machine needed to be destroyed before his son committed any more war crimes.