Chapter Text
Twenty-four hours and another double shift later, Piett found himself stumbling towards the Officer's Lounge on weary legs.
He needed caf and he needed it now. After so many hours of Ozzel flinging insults at him and dumping every possible bit of workload on him, he felt overly drained. Like his brain had melted. Or burst. Or both. Not to mention the following reviewing of the Army drills and the subsequent draining talk with the hangar master about the needed changes for the battle exercises.
The hangar master hadn’t been happy about the last-minute adjustments.
Piett hadn’t been happy about the hangar master.
Long story short: They had both been unhappy.
In the end, they’d scowled at each other until they had found a solution acceptable for all parties concerned, which had taken a veeeery long time.
Shuffling through the corridor, Piett was positively sure he would soon break the thin line between being absolutely tired to going absolutely apeshit if he didn't get his caf on time.
Or punch Ozzel in the face. Or both.
As he rounded the corner, he nearly collided with a huge stack of datapads on two legs, jerking back in surprise. The mountain of datapds skidded to a halt, the datapad on the top sliding dangerously close to the edge.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Sir!", the datapads cried. Piett blinked in confusion until a distinctly human head with deep brown, unruly hair, peeked around the pads, looking embarrassed.
"I'm sorry, Sir", Lieutenant Gavin Oon-Aii, first and only Aide-De-Camp to Lord Vader, repeated. "I'm afraid I can't really see people crossing my way at the moment."
Piett suspiciously glanced at the swinging mountain of plasisteel that the younger man balanced with tremendous effort in his arms. "Yes, it does certainly look like that", he said.
The Captain arched an eyebrow. "I don't mean to pry, Lieutenant, but what on earth are you doing?"
The datapads shifted a bit. "I was just about to deliver these to Lord Vader's office, Captain, Sir."
That definitely made Piett perk up.
It wouldn't do to belay any of His Lordship's biddings. All orders from the Supreme Commander were best fulfilled as fast as possible if you liked to keep breathing and see another day. However, the poor boy was already staggering under the weight of the datapads, looking partly concentrated to keep them from falling and partly exhausted.
Sighing, Piett made a decision. Caf could wait for another four minutes.
Sleep is for the weak.
He carefully picked up the top stacks of the pads, relieving the Lieutenant of some of his burden, before gesturing with his head towards the lifts. "Do come on, Lieutenant, I don't have all day."
He was rewarded with a beaming smile. "Oh, thank you, Sir!", Oon-Aii noted, happily making his way over.
Piett couldn't help but smile fondly at the youths back. The young man was a miracle himself, always cheerful and high-spirited despite having to deal with Darth Vader on a regular basis. Respectful, well-mannered and with an eye for details, the Captain could see why people said Oon-Aii was the perfect aide. Even Lord Vader had to see something in the young man - after all, he was still alive.
He remembered his first meeting with the Lieutenant all too well. At first, everyone had wondered that Lord Vader had chosen an ADC. Not that the Supreme Commander didn't need one, as even the Sith Lord had plenty of paperwork to do, but it had been a shock to the crew to simply see Darth Vader bring - and tolerate- one himself.
He also vividly remembered how Lord Vader had summoned the top brass of his officers and, with a small wave of his hand, had ordered the unassuming (and at that time, quite pale and nervous) Lieutenant forward.
The Dark Lord had simply boomed "This is Lieutenant Oon-Aii. He will serve as my personal aide aboard the Lady” and left it at that. Naturally, none of the officers had dared to question Lord Vader. And so, the new position of Aide-De-Camp to his Sithness, Lord Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, had been born.
When the lift went down, Piett eyed the man beside him in contemplation. As rumour had it, dozens of crewmates had tried to get the pleasant young Navy officer to spill the beans about how he’d come to be in their lordship’s employ, but to no avail.
The Captain, being of a curious nature himself, had also tried his luck, of course.
However, every time the topic of conversation had veered dangerously close to Oon-Aii’s debut of career, the Lieutenant had gotten quite pale-faced and stared at him with such a haunted look in his eyes that Piett hadn’t had the heart to ask any further.
Obviously, the young man still had to deal with some kind of Vader-induced trauma. That was something Piett could easily accept.
Torn out of his musing by a chime from the lift, Piett ordered his sluggish brain to once more give its attention to the present, moving out of the lift and towards Lord Vader’s office.
At their destination, after a moment of fumbling for his code cylinder, Oon-Aii managed to get the doors to open, so they could enter the Lieutenant’s outer office, which was directly connected to Lord Vader’s business chambers by a small door.
They quickly dumped their respective piles of datapads on the young man’s desk.
The Lieutenant made a relieved huff. “Thank you again, Sir, for all your trouble. I don’t know if I would have managed on my own. How can I be of service in return?”
Piett just nodded tiredly. “Never mind, Lieutenant”, he said, giving the datapads one last hard look. “But before we go: What are these tons of data about?”
Oon-Aii simply shrugged, making a casual wave with his hand.
“These? Oh well, you know…”, he answered nonchalantly, “…just some information about the Skywalker incident.”
Startled, Piett wiped around to stare at the young man. The search for the rebel pilot named Skywalker (who had blown up the Death Star, also known as the Skywalker Incident), was something Lord Vader was positively obsessed about.
And an obsessed, short-tempered Sith Lord was nothing Piett wanted to – or could, in his sleep deprived state – deal with in the next few hours. It was a mystery to him how the Lieutenant could keep his usual sunshiny attitude in moments like these.
The Captain gave the other naval officer a searching look. “Don’t tell me you have to stay here and review all these”, he muttered, picking up two datapads at random after a moment of hesitation. When no complaints were forthcoming from the Lieutenant, Piett guessed his rank as Captain was probably high enough to warrant access to the data the lad had collected. As he was skimming the text, his eyebrows steadily wandered up.
That was interesting. Quickly, he highlighted some of the text.
To his surprise, Oon-Aii answered his question in the negative, tearing him back to the presence. “Not to worry, Sir, I’m off duty for the time being. Lord Vader wants to review the information in person. He should be down momentarily.”
Right. Lord Vader. Skywalker Incident.
As it was, Piett wouldn’t have made it to Captain if he didn’t know when it was time for a strategic retreat. He put the pads down again.
In a matter of minutes, he helped the Lieutenant arrange their dumped piles of datapads into one neat stack, placing the pads he had skimmed only moments ago on the top.
Time to leg it. Ushering the other man out of the room, he gave Oon-Aii a small smile. “Why don’t we just head to the Officer’s Lounge, young man?”, he suggested. “I’m in dire need of some caffeine.” He eyed the other officer. “And I’m sure you haven’t had any breakfast yet with all those tasks His Lordship wants you to do.”
The Lieutenant laughed. “You know what, Sir? As a thanks, paying for your caf is the least I can do.”