Hope Reborn - Chapter 12

Boba Fett stood before the imposing form of Darth Vader. He was confident in his abilities, but he wasn't a fool. If Vader wanted him dead, he would be. Luckily, this meeting was due to his employment in a private matter.

"The information?" Vader asked.

"Luke Skywalker." Boba Fett pulled out a tablet. It flickered to life and projected a familiar planet with two suns. "Raised on Tatooine by Owen and Baru Lars. Moisture farmers. Locals said he was a bit excitable, but a good kid. Best pilot in the area. Last seen in the company of a hermit named Ben Kenobi. They left the planet on a Corellian Light Freighter owned by a known smugger named Han Solo. The ship is called the Millennium Falcon."

Fett waited for any sort of response. He subtly rested his hand on the grip of the blaster on his hip. They hadn't bothered to disarm him. If Vader wanted him dead, he wouldn't be going down without a fight. It had been a while since he faced a Force User.

A leather pouch zipped through the air. Fett caught it. The clink and heft of Imperial Credits felt good in his hand. He had never worked for Vader before. Usually, he counted the pay on the first job for someone. He didn't have a death wish.

"Leave." Vader ordered.

Boba Fett inclined his head. He made sure his systems tracked Vader as he left. His armor wasn't pure Beskar. The alloy could slow down a lightsaber enough to give him an extra moment of action.

Slave One was already prepped for takeoff. He had the ship off the Imperial Destroyer as fast and smooth as possible. Just to be safe, he programmed three quick jumps to random locations before he set course to a space station to scan the ship for trackers.

There was only one place he knew would do good work. Qi'ra ran a tight operation.

~ꬸ~

The only downside of flying the Falcon was that it wasn't subtle. As such, he decided to borrow a smaller freighter that had been converted for passengers. Bo Katan and her crew had a surplus of ships they had in reserve for various jobs. He decided not to ask too many questions about where they got them. The XS Stock Compact was an older ship that was a scaled down version of the XS Stock Light, which had been used by merchants and smugglers since the Old Republic. They were cheap, decent on speed, and were incredibly easy to maintain.

Its cargo hold had been converted into a small lounge and extra sleeping quarters. There was even additional seating for passengers. Granted, all of the welded pints were rough and the wall that split the space was made from the side of a large crate, but it worked. No one would look twice at it.

Navarro had a small Imperial Contingent that was rather low-key compared to their usual operations. The closest settlement had a hub for the Bounty Hunters Guild. For some reason it also seemed to be a place that smugglers and criminals found attractive. The fact that some of them had bounties apparently didn't matter to them.

Luke circled the settlement a couple of times before he got clearance to land. They didn't care why he was here, just that he paid the landing fee. One of the guards stomped over to him once Luke was out of the ship. The guy was either a really ugly human, or some sort of alien he had no experience with.

"Ten Credits per hour." The guard barked. "Five hours paid in advance."

"I already paid my fee." Luke waved his hand.

"You already paid." The guard shrugged.

"In fact, I paid for the entire week." Luke added.

"Paid the whole week." The guard grumbled.

"It's not worth you time to file any reports." Luke continued.

"Get out of here." The guard said. "This ain't worth my time."

Luke smiled as the guard stomped away. Now all he had to do was find the Imperial outpost, break-in, find Ventress, and get away. Simple Enough.

~ꬸ~

The Imperial shuttle landed outside of the Lars Homestead. Owen and Baru watched in horror as a squad of Stormtroopers marched from the shuttle. Behind them strode none other than Darth Vader. Owen stepped in front of his wife. He wasn't deluded enough to think they both could survive. At most, he hoped that he would give her a chance to escape.

Darth Vader came to a stop in front of them. Even with the helmet, they could see the glare he shot at the sand that already had caked his boots. A wave of his hand cleared the grit away. Any grain that came close to him hovered just out of reach.

They stood in silence with only the sound of Vader's breath.

"Owen." Vader growled.

The man in question flinched. Darth Vader was a nightmare. A boogeyman that was more myth than man. The monster that destroyed the Jedi Temple if Ben was to be believed.

Owen nodded in reply, not trusting his voice.

"Who is Luke Skywalker?" Vader thundered.

Owen stood up straighter. All rational thought vanished.

"Don't touch him." Owen glared at the Sith Lord. "Don't you dare touch him."

A raspy laugh echoed across the sand. Even the Stormtroopers appeared unsettled. The moment passed as Vader raised his hand. Owen gripped his throat as an invisible hand clamped his airway shut. He was lifted off his feet.

"I asked you a question." Vader said. "I will not repeat myself."

"Luke is our nephew." Baru yelled. "He's a good boy. Leave him alone."

Vader lowered his hand. Owen dropped to the ground.

"Nephew." Vader stated. "Who is his father?"

"My brother." Owen croaked. "Anakin Skywalker. He was a Jedi. One of the many you killed."

Vader stared down the man. He looked over at Beru for confirmation. She nodded. Vader spun around without another word. He strode back to the shuttle with a confused squad of Stormtroopers following after him a moment later. A cloud of sand dropped back to the ground once Vader entered the shuttle.

Owen and Beru watched the shuttle fly away.

~ꬸ~

Luke paused as a shiver ran through the Force. He had found the Imperial Outpost easily enough. Getting there was not pleasant. It was easy to find a speeder. A very drunk Trandoshan had passed out half-way in the seat of one. Luke didn't have a problem stealing it. If he wanted to rationalize it, he was saving the Trandoshan. Flying while intoxicated was incredibly dangerous.

He had to cross a stretch of lava fields. Ash and flakes of dried lava swirled through the air. He had to stop to make himself a mask after a couple of minutes. His clothes were already covered in black streaks. It was official, he hated this more than sand.

The Imperial base was built into the side of a sheer cliff. He could see the edge of a landing pad as well as a hangar a bit lower. This close he had to be careful. Luke moved close to the cliff. His stained clothes acted as improvised camouflage.

He smiled to himself as a set of doors came into view. It wasn't guarded. That made sense considering it was over an hour to reach the nearest settlement.

Luke approached the door carefully. He stopped close by to get a better look. There was a camera dome above the door that was caked with ash. He got closer to see the control panel had a few clean buttons. If he had to guess, someone would have used to punch the code in recently. He was tempted to just blast it to see if that would open the door. It had worked to close the doors on the Death Star. On second thought, it might cause some sort of security measure.

He studied the door. There had to be a switch, or a catch, that he could trigger to get it to open. He raised his hand to reach out through the force. The door opened with a hiss to reveal a distracted Stormtrooper. For a brief moment they locked eyes.

"You didn't see anything." Luke said quickly.

"I didn't see anything." The Stormtrooper replied.

The trooper shifted his attention away from Luke. He scanned the area, sighed, and then leaned against the door frame. Luke watched as the trooper picked up a couple of pebbles. He stepped to the side to avoid the small rocks as the Stormtrooper tossed them out over the lava field.

Luke chuckled. The trooper straightened up and scanned the area again.

"You're going to take me to the prisoners." Luke said.

The Stormtrooper waved for him to follow. Luke stayed a couple of steps behind as they headed deeper into the base. It looked like the lower level was mostly storage and facilities. He saw a couple of technicians, but they didn't seem bothered by him being there. From the looks of it, they were more concerned teaching a small rodent how to do tricks.

Luke stood next to the trooper on the turbo-lift. It didn't move nearly as fast as he had hoped.

"So." Luke said as the lift climbed. "Do you like being a Stormtrooper?"

"Eh." The trooper shrugged. "It depends on the post."

Luke nodded.

"I don't know who I ticked off to get put here." The trooper shook his head. "I do a patrol. I clean my armor. Then I do another patrol. I've been here for three months and the only interesting thing that happened was when I was off duty."

"What happened?" Luke asked.

"Some bounty hunter was snooping around." The trooper snorted. "Why would anyone snoop around here? It's just a bunch of scientists. They only finished setting up all the equipment like last week. Most of the stuff haven't completed their updates."

"You don't know what's going on here?" Luke asked.

"Tenner." The Trooper paused. "TK-210, I mean, says it's something to do with cloning." The trooper chuckled. "Why would the Empire need another place for clones? We've got Kamino."

Luke shrugged.

"Here we are." The Trooper said as the lift came to a stop.

The doors to the detention center opened. Luke stepped into the room out of habit. Eight more Stormtroopers stared back at them.

"See you later." The Trooper said as the door to the lift closed behind him.

"Dank farrik." Luke whispered.