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The smuggler’s shots sent Vader’s ship careening madly away from the Death Star. When he finally recovered, it was only to witness the spectacular destruction of Tarkin’s pet monstrosity. The blast hit the TIE seconds later. After that, his life shrank to the buttons and switches before him and the fight to stay alive.
The Force was with him. Captured by the moon’s gravity well, the ship fell down to Yavin IV’s green surface. The TIEs solar panel wings hit the atmosphere and stabilized its mad fall for long enough for Vader to turn his deadly plummet into merely life-threatening one. Scream of air — mighty din of snapping wood and durasteel — and finally, a deafening silence.
Crumpled and twisted in a ball of branches and struts that did not resemble a cockpit anymore, in agony so intense he hadn’t felt its like in twenty years, Vader opened his mouth to cry out.
The words did not come. Mom, Padmé, Obi-Wan – they were all dead, lost to him in ways even Force could not bridge. There was no one to hold his hand in his final moments. The only one left: himself.
The Force had no mercy to give him a quick death. The next time he became aware, it was to a blast, followed by a high-pitched scream. For a confused moment, Vader thought it was him who screamed. But, no. The keening sobs that followed had nothing in common with the sound of his own voice, no matter whether natural or modulated.
A child. His addled brain had finally made the connection. A child, and in considerable pain. How was that possible? Apart from the rebel base, the moon was unpopulated. Did he, by some impossible chance, crash into the rebel base itself? But then, he would hear more than just a single child’s cry.
He paused. The fact that he was even able to reason in such detail made him realize that his own pain had lessened. His suit, yet again, fulfilled its design specifications. An array of drugs and stimulants, administered by an automatized system, maintained his body in functional condition for as long as possible. Even heavily damaged, Darth Vader should be able to continue executing the Emperor’s orders.
He took stock. His left humerus shattered, left forearm prosthesis damaged but still mobile; left leg dislocated at the hip, right leg’s durasteel femur bent out of shape; the casing of his breathing apparatus cracked and leaking fluid, but still functioning at sufficient level for survival; mask cracked but functional.
A branch impaled through his lower torso.
Unless rescue came soon, he was effectively dead.
The child’s cry did not cease.
Vader summoned his lightsaber, and laboriously cut himself out of the tangle of wood and durasteel. The branch through his stomach he left where it was, only trimmed it to enable movement. Even through all the chemicals, every jostle to it sent a wave of agony through his body.
A cautious application of Force reset his left hip in its socket. Vader considered straightening his right femur, but rejected the idea: if the durasteel spur snapped, he could sever his femoral artery.
Thus freed, he pulled himself upright and followed the cry toward its source. He was not sure what he would do. Perhaps he could end the child’s suffering. His own was quickly mounting, whether because of his movement or because the drugs were running out, he could not tell.
Thankfully, he did not have to walk far. He found the child just outside the wrecked ship. He stared at the small body lying on the ground and wondered whether this was some twisted kind of Force vision.
Looking at the boy’s face was like looking in the mirror - if the mirror somehow showed an image over thirty years old.
It was clear why the child cried. His right leg had been amputated at the knee by extreme force. His knee and everything still attached below was a shattered mess of bone and flesh. The foot lied a step away, as if the boy had fallen after the force hit. He must have; the flesh of his other leg was shredded on the inner side, although the leg remained attached.
He’d expected the explosion would be bigger, Vader thought, numb. Perhaps the explosive within it was too low quality, or in a too small amount. Perhaps the idea was that a mutilated slave was still of use, while a dead slave was lost profit.
The boy whimpered. Vader’s eyes slid back to his face against his wishes. The boy stared at him, eyes huge and glassy. He was clearly in pain; just as clearly he was terrified of him. This wasn’t a new experience for Vader. Children feared him as a rule, not as an exception. Yet somehow, this instance felt different, knowing who it was that looked at him and saw a monster.
Himself.
Vader did not allow himself the weakness to wish otherwise. This was no Force vision, shape shifter, clone, or drug-induced hallucination. Vader still remembered the location where his own slave chip was taken out of.
He lowered himself to the ground - more of a collapse. His torso spasmed in agony and the world turned from red to black. But, action was required. If he didn’t do something, the boy would bleed out.
When his vision returned, Vader stretched out his right hand toward the boy. “Take my hand,” he ordered.
The boy complied. When his palm clamped on Vader’s prosthesis, Vader took his lightsaber into his left arm. Ignoring the pain and the way the two halves of his humerus moved against each other, he angled the saber and with a swift movement severed the shattered knee of the boy’s right leg.
The boy screamed. He threw himself into sitting position. Vader’s right arm he pulled to his chest and gripped in both hands. He stared at the newly cut leg. “…why?” he whined.
“The cut is now cauterized. You will not lose any more blood.”
From the right leg, that was. The left was still a threat: although it bled less profusely, the flow was still heavy enough for concern.
That offered a new problem. The TIE was not supplied with a medpack, as it would be a sure waste of material. Vader looked around. What could serve as a bandage?
His eyes fell on the edge of his cape. Yes. That would do.
Cutting a strip of fabric from the cape proved more difficult than Vader anticipated. The pain in his body mounted, and manipulating the cape required the kind of twisting and turning that threatened to kill him - whether by severing something vital in his abdomen, or by heart attack.
Somehow, he managed. He wrapped up the boy’s knee, and collapsed on the ground. He had no more strength left. The pain grew from merely excruciating to debilitating. It was difficult to stay conscious.
He had made a mistake, he thought distantly. Instead of saving the boy’s life, he should have attended to his own. The ship had an automatic emergency beacon, but the model was notoriously faulty. If it did not activate on its own, it needed to be triggered manually.
With no emergency signal, no help would come. With no help, he would die.
Somehow, it did not seem as such a desirable outcome as during his duel with O— with Kenobi.
“Are you… are you okay, sir?”
Vader blinked. The boy, he reminded himself. That was the boy.
“Can I help?”
He must be in pain. A great deal of pain. Vader still remembered.
“Sir.”
“Beacon,” Vader rasped.
“The ship has an emergency beacon?”
“Yes.”
“Is it manual?”
“Fail.”
“Fail… it failed? It might fail?”
“Yes.”
Vader blinked. The boy was gone. No - he sat beside him, white as paper, face stained with tears and snot. Something, Vader thought. There was something he needed to do. “Beacon.”
“It’s working.” The boy sniffed. “Something was wrong with it, but I fixed it.”
He took Vader’s hand again. Vader boggled at it. Did he think Vader needed comfort? Did he want comfort from Vader? Either was bizarre.
The boy shivered. Vader didn’t know whether it was shock of the planet’s temperature. His body had no sensors of this kind anymore. Cape, he thought. The boy could take the cape.
Speech was beyond his reach.
The boy lay down beside Vader. He pressed himself into Vader’s side, Vader’s hand still clasped in his. “It’s gonna be alright,” he whispered. “It’s gonna be alright.”
His next coherent thought was accompanied by the unmistakable smell of bacta. Human hands extracted him, washed him, encased him in his suit. They laid him out on a metal bier and receded.
Vader waited until consciousness reasserted itself. He was alive, and unhurt - as much as he ever was, that is. His mask and his suit had been mended, if not expertly so.
A quiet cough sounded from nearby. “Lord Vader?”
Vader slowly raised himself to a sitting position. To his left, a balding Imperial officer with captain insignia stood beside the door.
“Report,” Vader ordered.
The officer swallowed. “Yes sir. You are on board of the frigate Expectation, assigned to the Gordian Reach sector fleet. The scout we have sent to investigate the sudden radio silence from the Death Star station received your distress call and retrieved you from the surface of Yavin 4. You have been transported to the frigate and immediately treated for your injuries. It is now 26 hours since the Rebel attack on the Death Star.” He straightened to full attention. “Awaiting your orders, sir.”
“Where is the boy?”
The officer blinked. “The boy, sir?”
“The one who has been retrieved from Yavin 4 with me. He has been retrieved, Captain…?”
“Yes!” The officer paled. “The boy! He has also been treated and is waiting in your quarters.”
“Very well. Lead me there.”
As they walked through the ship, Vader contemplated his choices. What should he do with the boy? Had he been just a random Force user, Vader was required to kill him. But being what he was… should he hand him over to the Emperor? The Inquisitorius had been disbanded years earlier, an abject failure. Perhaps, though, his Master would like to prepare him as Vader’s eventual replacement.
Vader curled a lip behind his mask. He did not desire to be replaced. That aside… something within him cringed away from this option. His Master’s teaching methods have been less than kind in the last twenty years. It was one of the few secret criticisms he held of his Master. He exhibited casual cruelty that Vader disapproved of. They were here to rule the galaxy as it should be ruled, not to satisfy petty urges like the indolent politicians of the fallen Republic.
Death was a threat, a punishment, a tool. Not a hobby.
The idea of giving the boy over to a man like that… but he had given over himself, hadn’t he?
“Sir! The Emperor is calling.”
Vader spun on the captain. To give the man credit, he did not step back, just stood at attention with his eyes pointed somewhere toward Vader’s left shoulder. “Show me to the nearest holotable,” Vader ordered.
The captain spoke into a comlink and led him to a nearby control room. The three soldiers there gaped at Vader when he stepped through the door, then gladly took the captain’s orders as a permission to escape. The captain himself prepared the holotable to receive the call.
As the image solidified, Vader knelt. “What is thy bidding, my Master?” The ritual words slipped off his lips, like thousand times before.
“Back among the living, I see,” the Emperor said.
“Yes, Master.”
“You would have done better to stay dead, Lord Vader.” The hissed words slashed against him like a whip. “Your gross incompetence has cost us more than you are worth. Report to the Imperial Center immediately.”
The transmission winked out.
What of the Rebels, Vader thought, most likely still scrambling to escape their revealed base and with their fighter squadrons freshly decimated? “Yes, Master,” he said aloud to the empty room.
Or, almost empty. Vader rose to his feet and turned to the captain. The man regarded him with the expression of someone facing a firing squad. Vader idly considered throttling him, to wipe away a witness of his debasement. But… no. He recalled his earlier thoughts. He ought not to prove himself a hypocrite.
“My quarters, Captain.”
“Yes, Lord Vader.”
They arrived with no further interruptions. Vader saw that the captain ceded him his own quarters, as was custom. A small anteroom led to a dining room, a door to the bedroom on the other end. The rooms lacked any personal touches, austere in their ship gray.
Vader did not pay the room much mind. All his attention was on the boy. He sat at the dining table, hands folded in his lap. Somebody had dressed him in a spare Imperial uniform; the oversized clothing bunched on his body and made him look smaller than he was.
The right pant leg was roughly cut off, the stump sticking gruesomely out of the fabric. It has been expertly bandaged; Vader recognized the pillowy pads soaked with highly diluted bacta solution which prepared the flesh for the installation of a prosthetic interface.
The boy looked up. His eyes brightened and he smiled - a van smile, but one nonetheless. The shock of that stopped Vader in his tracks. People rarely smiled at Darth Vader, the Hand of the Emperor. When they did, most of them looked terrified; the rest were ugly, pleased expressions of those who enjoyed his work.
Nobody smiled like this: like he was someone they were hoping to see.
He could keep the child away from the Emperor, Vader thought. A treacherous idea. Right now, any misstep could persuade the Emperor that Vader was not worth keeping around after all.
“Hi,” the boy said. “Uh, sir. Are you alright?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good.”
The boy fidgeted. “Where are we?” he blurted out. “Who are you? Why is everyone so scared?”
“My name is Darth Vader. You will address me as ‘sir’ or ‘Lord Vader’. We are on an Imperial frigate.” He paused. “How did you appear on Yavin 4?”
“The planet?” the boy grimaced. “I don’t know. I was flying a pod in the Boonta Eve race - it’s the biggest race of the year on Tatooine. I was racing against this Dug called Sebulba, and then I…” he looked down at his hands. “I crashed.”
His expression grew sad. “I was trying to help these people - a Jedi named Qui-Gon, and Padmé and Jar-Jar… they needed to fix their ship so they could save their planet.” He picked at his clothes. “I guess I failed.”
Vader found himself wanting to console the boy. “That does not matter,” he said awkwardly.
The boy looked up. “But it does! I promised! I promised I’d help, and I just made a hash of it! And… and mom!” Tears welled in his eyes. “She’ll be— she’ll be so sad…!“
Vader floundered. What was he to say? Yes, his mother would be devastated, left alone in the galaxy. How much worse it must be, to lose a child you had time to learn, than one you had only hoped for?
And, of course, the other way around: just as the mother had lost the son, the son had lost the mother.
It was clear the boy had realized. His tears turned into keening sobs. Vader, at loss, knelt in front of the boy and placed his hand on his remaining knee. The boy slipped off the chair and wrapped his arms around Vader’s neck.
Vader reeled. He closed his own arms around the boy’s small body. He sat back on his heel, so he could settle the boy on his lap.
The world in its shades of red blurred. He was crying, Vader realized in dull shock. He did not think it was physically possible for him anymore.
He ran his gloved hand over the boy’s hair. “I am sorry, child,” he said, the tears muffling his voice even through the vocoder. “I give you my word: you will never be harmed, ever again.”
Vader would make sure of it.