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Chapter Text

13 BBY – The Death Star

“I’m afraid to report that Project Blackwing was a failure, your majesty.”

The emperor’s eyes glowed gold, lips curled into an unimpressed sneer. It was a ghastly expression, shadowed heavily beneath the thick folds of his midnight black cloak, and the doctor gulped in nervous anticipation. The emperor was not known to be a forgiving man – especially not after a failure of this magnitude. This project had been a particular joy of his over the past few years, and one which was instrumental to his plan; he had made sure to impress this onto his scientists, whose passion for the experiments (and desperation to live) nearly rivalled his in their magnitude.

Evidently, such unspoken threats had not been enough.

After a long, pregnant pause, the emperor sighed and leaned back into his throne. No bother. Darth Sidious was a calculating man by nature and had planned for such a setback, as irritating a setback it was.

“I hope you understand, doctor, that this failure is not one I take lightly.”

The doctor clenched her datapad with white-knuckled fingers. Her voice shook as she responded.

“Of course, your majesty.” She wet her lips as she nervously presented the tablet. “The experiments are not at a complete loss, I assure you. But with the outbreak… I’m afraid the facility was all-but destroyed. We will have to start anew if we have any hope of reaching success.”

The emperor snarled as he snatched the datapad from the woman’s shaking hands. “What of the troops that were stationed on Dandoran?”

“Destroyed, your majesty.”

His eyes narrowed. “All of them?”

The doctor nodded dumbly, half-frozen from fear. More curious now than irritated, Palpatine sent out a subtle tendril of the Force to poke at the woman’s mind and latched onto the memory that played on nightmarish repeat behind her eyes.

It had been a bloodbath. A simple mistake of breached containment allowed the virus to spread to a stormtrooper on guard outside the main laboratory, and within mere hours, the entire facility had been placed on strict lockdown as nearly 75% of the platoon stationed on site had been infected, reduced to dumb, lumbering undead.

Had they remained as such, the facility may have survived until dawn. As it would turn out, however, his scientists, incompetent as they were, had managed to achieve some semblance of success amidst such a catastrophic failure. The zombies, acting in tandem as a sort of hivemind, began to change, rapidly adapting to their surroundings and gaining the intelligence to navigate the facility, operate doors, and, eventually, handle weapons. It was a small miracle that enough staff survived to call for backup, and a greater miracle still that the outbreak was contained as effectively as it was.

The emperor sat back for another long moment, thinking. Perhaps this travesty had a silver lining after all.

“How many ground staff survived the outbreak?” he finally asked.

“Eleven, your majesty – four members of my team, three of another, and four of the guards stationed within our wing of the facility.”

He hummed lowly and tilted his head in mock consideration. The doctor grit her teeth, fighting back her rising panic. This was it. It was only a matter of time now before the emperor killed both her and her team for their negligence.

Now that she thought of it, though, perhaps such a fate was justified for the terrors they could have wrought upon the galaxy with the sickness, even if such nightmarish experiments were performed at the emperor’s behest.

The emperor nodded and steepled his fingers atop his knees with a considering look. “Are your remaining numbers sufficient to continue work on this project?”

That… wasn’t what she had expected to hear.

“I’m sorry, your majesty?”

He didn’t deign to respond, only continued to regard her with that same heavy stare as before. A shiver ran up the doctor’s spine; that look had a distinct weight to it, as if the emperor was somehow seeing past her, to parts of her not even she herself could see. She had heard of this effect from others who had returned alive from a meeting with the man and was in no way pleased to be experiencing such a feeling first-hand.

She nodded slowly. “I suppose with funding-“

“You will receive it.” With a wave of his hand, the footfalls of his ever-obedient, red-robed guardians sidled across the metal footpath. Her time was up. “I will relocate your team to a more secure facility. Don’t fail me again, doctor.”

Struck with a wave of relief more potent than any she’d felt before, the doctor bowed deeply at the waist, averting her eyes as the emperor’s throne spun to once again face the brilliant array of stars spread out beyond the confines of his throne room.

Still, that feeling from before did not fade, even as she was escorted back through the Death Star to the hangar bay where the remains of her team waited in agonizing terror for her return. The emperor’s instructions – and threats – had been clear. Either her team succeeded in their mission to achieve immortality, or their fate would be far worse than those who had been killed in the aftermath of their first failure – even if the galaxy was put into unimaginable peril as a result.

No. She would not allow that to happen. This time, they would not fail.

Chapter Text

4 ABY – Home One

Luke was, to put it lightly, on top of the world.

The mission to rescue Han from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt had been a resounding success – even better than Luke ever could have dreamed. Having grown up on Tatooine as the first freeborn of his family, Luke was more than well-acquainted with tales of Jabba’s cruelty; it was under the gangster’s leadership that Tatooine continued to function under a system of slavery even after the Republic had long-since outlawed it, a mistake which had directly caused the death of his grandmother and lead to his father’s eventual fall to the Dark Side. What might have been a simple in-and-out mission had ended up with the permanent toppling of Jabba’s crime empire, and the deaths of some of the galaxy’s most notorious criminals – Jabba included. Killing the slug during the rescue attempt was a pitiful retribution for a crime so severe, but Luke took an uncharacteristic amount of pleasure in snuffing out his existence, regardless.

It was hard to reconcile his preconceived image of Anakin Skywalker with the imposing figure of Darth Vader, and it was even more difficult then to imagine a younger version of Vader as a slave on the same sorry planet Luke himself had grown up on. Nothing about the emperor’s right hand would indicate such a past; he had wealth and influence beyond measure, and the power to enact his will wherever and whenever he so pleased. Luke supposed that was by design. Not even Vader himself wanted to remember the life he had led before the Empire, not that his son could wholly blame him.

It was a bitter truth, but one that, over the course of this past year, Luke had forced himself to accept. Vader’s efforts to seek him out had only doubled after his escape on Bespin, and with their growing Force bond, he was finding it increasingly difficult to disguise his location from his father’s desperate hunt. Luke was no stranger to his father’s sporadic attempts to make contact through the Force, gentle whispers of my son or join me – it is your destiny often surprising him at the most inopportune moments of his day. In these instances, he rarely deigned to respond.

For once, though, Luke was hardly focused on these thoughts, so distracted was he by the elation of finally having his whole group safely back together. As he gently guided his X-Wing into the hangar bay of Home One, he was delighted to feel the brilliantly pulsing Force presence of Leia Organa, his newly discovered sister, alongside the recently recovered Han Solo. Leia, through the Force, was wholly focused, hardly noticing his arrival, and Luke let out a soft curse as he realized the briefing must have begun without him. Leia had warned that the alliance was soon to be assembled, but with the distraction of Yoda’s death and his subsequent heated conversation with Obi Wan, Luke was running far later than he had expected.

There was a strange, nervous air to Home One as he rapidly made his way towards the briefing room. The rebellion was not unacquainted with feelings of mass anxiety or hysteria, especially following their rapid exodus from Hoth, but this feeling was something different, something deeper. He couldn’t quite put his finger on where exactly the feeling originated from, but the Force’s warning was clear.

His good mood faded. Soberly, he entered the briefing room, and after a brief, warm greeting from his friends, settled in to stand watch with one hand hovering over the hilt of his lightsaber.

After a long moment, Leia poked at his side. Eyes wide with concern, she asked, “what is it?”

Luke shook his head minutely, a frown pursing his lips. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling…”

“About the mission?”

His brows furrowed. “The mission?”

It was only after taking a second look around that Luke noticed the sea of people beginning to filter out of the briefing room, conversations alight with a new sort of vigour. Leia was looking at him strangely, and he offered her a brief smile of comfort.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he responded, though it sounded hollow, even to him. “I’m just happy that we’re all back together again, is all. It’ll take some getting used to.”

Leia’s eyes narrowed further, but she didn’t push. “It will be some time before the shuttle is fitted for launch. I’ll be in a meeting with high command for the next hour or so. When it’s over, how about we stop downstairs for a drink – just the four of us?”

It was phrased as a question, but he knew Leia better than that. He shook his head with a gentle smile of resignation. “I’ll be there.”

Leia grinned, satisfied. Then, with a considerably softer expression, she nodded at Han, and then Chewie, before spinning on her heel and reconvening with the other leaders near the holoprojector.

“Come on, kid.” Han slung an arm around Luke’s shoulder and guided him back out into the hallway. “You can help Chewie and me clean out the Falcon while we wait.”

“Actually, I’ve got to head down to medical.” Luke gestured to his prosthetic, gingerly peeling back his glove to reveal the singed mess of wires beneath. “It happened back on Jabba’s barge. I did the best I could, but I’m about as useless with my left hand as they come, when repairing fragile stuff like that.”

The smuggler’s eyes bulged. “What in the world – Luke, when did this happen?”

It took Luke a moment to understand the confusion. His shoulders slumped, blood filling with ice as it did every time he thought back to that wretched duel with his father. “It was Vader. We fought the day you were frozen.

“Good God, kid. It’s a miracle you didn’t lose anything else.”

Luke scoffed. “Don’t I know it.”

As well-meaning as he was, Han Solo was never a man of many words. With a solid pat to Luke’s back and a smile that was likely meant to be comforting but only made his stomach sink further, Han and Chewie left him to his own business, disappearing into the crowd making their way down to the hangar bay in preparation for their mission. Luke tugged back on his glove and continued on to his own destination, even more put-off than he was before.

The medbay was quieter today than he’d seen it recently. There were only two doctors on duty – one he was familiar with, and the other a woman who he was sure he’d never seen before. She sat at a desk in the corner of the room nearest to the rebellion’s few overflowing shelves of miscellaneous medical supplies, typing rapidly away at a computer terminal with her eyes narrowed in concentration. About her buzzed a certain manic energy, an anxiety clearly heightened by whatever she was typing on that computer of hers.

Luke tilted his head, considering. Was this the source of the strange disturbance in the Force he had felt when he arrived?

“Commander Skywalker, we have got to stop meeting like this.”

Luke’s gaze shot to the opposite corner, where Dr. Vale sat at his own desk, fiddling with the open circuitry of a damaged 2-1B droid. The doctor gestured to a nearby chair before delving back into the open panel of the droid’s backplate. He wrestled with the droid’s innards for a few moments, fingers tangled in the wild mess that was its assortment of wires and damaged machinery, before throwing his hands up in the air and shoving it to the side.

“Damn med-droids never last,” he huffed irritably. “I repaired it two weeks ago, and its circuitry is already shot.”

“I could give it a look,” Luke offered. “I’m not half bad with machines myself.”

Vale raised a challenging eyebrow. “I doubt that, given your propensity for damaging that hand of yours. Come on – show me the damage.”

The doctor’s eyes widened as Luke removed the glove. He poked gingerly around the charred hole revealing the hand’s inner workings before removing a miniature tool from his belt and digging deeper into the appendage to disconnect some of the more damaged wires.

“Let me know if it hurts at any point,” the doctor instructed. “I don’t know exactly how much you can feel right now – it looks like that shot fried most of those artificial nerves of yours.”

Luke sighed. “Don’t bother repairing what you don’t have to. I know we don’t have the resources to be patching me up like this every time I get hurt.”

“Don’t say that,” Vale said with a frown. “You’re our best shot at winning this war, Skywalker. You know that. We need you in top shape.”

Of course, Luke knew it. Ever since beginning his training with Yoda, it was just about all anyone in the rebellion could remind him of. Many of the older members of the alliance had once been acquainted with his father; The Hero With No Fear, they called him. Anakin Skywalker - the single most prolific Jedi in recent history. He had big shoes to fill, they would say. There was no doubt he would make his late father proud.

Force, if only they knew the truth.

“Still.” Vale shook his head as he refastened a panel that had blown loose from the blast. “You’re right. We won’t have the synthskin to fix up that hole for weeks yet. The best I can do is fix the damage and find you a glove with better compression to hold it all together.”

Some of the lightness returned to Luke’s chest. “Thanks, doctor. I’ll make do.”

True to his word, Vale worked slowly and methodically to clean up the wound and repair what he could. As always, Luke was amazed by the sheer intricacy and beauty of the hand; it was so well-crafted that he often forgot it was mechanical at all. The doctors had once warned that his hand would never function exactly as his old one had, that regardless of the miraculous technology that allowed him to continue life with a replacement limb, he would always feel as if a part of him was missing. In some senses, they were right. The adjustment period had been hellish, and it was often a strange sensation to look at the hand that looked so similar to his own with the knowledge that it was nothing more than a series of nuts and bolts imitating the real thing.

It was even more jarring to consider that, at one point, his father must have had the same reservations about his own lost limbs. It was no secret that Vader was more machine than man, and though Obi Wan had never directly admitted to it, Luke had a sinking feeling that he was in part responsible for those losses. If that was the case, his father had likely lost his own right hand around the same age Luke had lost his. The more he learned about his father, the more he realized they had in common. Luke had yet to decide if this was a good or bad thing.

Vale paused his tinkering and, with a hum, began returning his tools to their rightful places on his utility belt. Luke was only mildly relieved for the glove to cover the evidence of their similarities once again.

Now that he was no longer distracted by his musings, the greater part of him had once again tuned in to the strange anxiety emanating off the other doctor in the corner, and he eyed her with curiosity.

“Who’s the new doc?” he asked offhandedly.

Vale’s eyes rose for a brief moment, following Luke’s gaze, before returning to his task with a shrug.

“That’s Dr. Lana Duval. She transferred in about a week ago. No one knows much about her – she’s real quiet-like, but she’s wicked smart from what I’ve seen.” With a conspiratory sort of grin, he pulled in Luke close and whispered, “some of the guys down in Intelligence think she might have been an ex-Imp.”

Luke’s eyes widened. “No shit?”

“It’s nothing concrete, mind you. All Intelligence could pull from her background was the name of some top-secret Imperial experiment known as Project Blackwing – one of the emperor’s little pet projects from fifteen or sixteen years ago.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

Vale shot Luke a look. “Well, obviously. Palpatine has it under lock and key. Not even our guys on the inside could dig up anything on it.”

Luke’s brows furrowed. The warning in the Force was blaring now, and any lingering doubts about the source of the strange energy from earlier had abated; this woman was all but radiating with bad vibes, and combined with this new information, it was making Luke feel extremely uneasy. He was struck by the immediate uncharacteristic urge to pounce on these feelings and confront the doctor with his suspicions, but if Luke had learned a single thing from his time with Master Yoda, it was that patience was, unfortunately, a virtue. He could not afford to act rashly right now; the most reasonable course of action would be to express his concerns to Leia, who had more power to look into the strange new doctor.

He would have to hurry, though. For whatever reason, Luke was struck with the sense that the time to act was rapidly running out.

He shot to his feet so quickly that the chair beneath him began to wobble precariously. He righted it with a bashful grin and began to back out of the room.

Vale quirked a brow. “What’s the rush?”

“It’s Leia,” Luke lied through his teeth. “She needs me downstairs right away – something about the mission.”

His face flushed at Vale’s disbelieving look. Luke had never been the best liar. It was a trait Han made fun of him for on the daily, one that was somewhat endearing until it very much was not.

Vale, thank the Force, was likewise never one to press. “I won’t keep you waiting, then. Just take it easy for the next few days and let me know if something feels out of place. I’ll let you know when the shipment comes in and we can work on replacing that synthskin of yours.”

With a muttered, “thanks Doc,” Luke slunk from the room and turned right down the hallway towards the mess hall, face still red with embarrassment. At times, having the Force as an ally was both a blessing and a curse. Very few people would take a bad feeling of his as a cause of concern to be investigated, as very few people understood the true nature of the Force. Luke couldn’t well explain that he had the ability to see the future and read other’s thoughts without getting a strange look or two.

Leia was one of the few exceptions. Luke wondered at times if she herself was Force sensitive, considering who she was related to, but Leia likely wouldn’t admit it even if she was. She had the uncanny ability to read people at levels that occasionally made others uncomfortable, and her foresight was legendary for its accuracy. Other than that, she’d never expressed any outward signs of having the potential to be a Jedi – not in the way Luke had, anyway.

Leia was already waiting for him in the mess hall when he arrived, flanked by Han and Chewbacca on either side. The three of them all nursed their own drinks: cheap, flowery Alderaanian wine for Leia, and a much stronger finger of Corellian whiskey for the Falcon crew. Luke wasn’t particularly taken with either beverage. Whiskey – or at least the type of whiskey that Han frequently enjoyed – left him coughing and sputtering after a single sip, and wine, despite its much more pleasant flavour, got him drunker far quicker than he would like to admit.

Besides, now was not the time for drinking and pleasantries. Luke slid into the seat directly across from his sister and met her eyes with a solemn look.

“I need to talk to you about something,” he murmured, pointedly looking around to make sure there were no stragglers to hear what he was about to say. “It’s about one of the new recruits – a doctor.”

“Duval?” Leia asked, and then took another shallow sip of her wine. “I was there for her intake. Why?”

“I sensed something off about the ship the moment I landed. I have no doubt that whatever I’m sensing has to do with her in some capacity – I just can’t tell what.”

Leia hummed lowly. “Have you felt this way about any of the other new recruits?”

He shook his head. “No, just her. Do you think this has something to do with Project Blackwing?”

His sister coughed into her glass, clearly taken aback. “I didn’t take you for a gossip, Luke. Where in the world did you hear about Project Blackwing?”

“I’m not-“ He cut himself off, biting back his defensive remark. Patience. “Leia, I’ve got a really bad feeling about her.”

“What do you want me to do about it? Kick her out of the rebellion?” Leia paused at Luke’s crestfallen look, and her expression softened. “I’m sorry – that was crass. What I mean is, even if I believe that you sense something off about the doctor, High Command would never allow me to dismiss her without a valid excuse. She passed all the background checks. Apart from Blackwing, her record is clear.”

“What is it about that project that makes it so secretive? What do you know?”

She hesitated. “I really shouldn’t say. We know very little, and what we do know is heavily classified.”

“Leia, please," he begged. “I promise I won’t repeat it to anyone else. I just want to understand. Something could be seriously wrong here, and it would be gross negligence on my part to ignore it.” Leia considered him for a long moment with her lips pursed, swirling the wine around in her glass. “Alright,” she conceded finally. “I’ll tell you on one condition. If word of this gets out, I’ll know exactly where it came from, and I’m going to let you take the fall for it. It would be both of our hides otherwise.”

Luke shrugged, satisfied. “Understood. It won’t get to that point – I promise.”

“I know, Luke. I trust you.” Again, with those brilliant instincts of hers, what a Jedi she would make if she applied those skills to other areas, Luke thought dreamily.

Someone cleared their throat, and Luke’s eyes shot over.

“Should I… be here for this?” Han questioned quietly.

The siblings both startled. Han had been uncharacteristically quiet this whole conversation; Luke had almost forgotten he was sitting with them. In the singular minute since Luke had sat down, Han had drained the contents of his glass and was now looking longingly at the remains of Chewbacca’s drink, appearing wholly desperate to be anywhere but here.

Some of the lightness returned to Leia’s expression. “Fortunately for you, General Solo, you technically rank high enough to look up this information yourself.”

“What a world.” Han shook his head and, without asking, swiped Chewbacca’s drink from between his hands. The Wookie grumbled sullenly.

“It was nearly impossible for Intelligence to discover anything concrete about the nature of the project,” Leia began, “but we do have an idea about its intended purpose. The project itself was sanctioned under the Imperial Biological Weapons Division around sixteen years ago under the emperor’s orders. Rumour has it, that the goal of this project was to achieve immortality.”

Han scoffed. “What a load of bantha shit.”

“Han,” Luke warned, before turning back to Leia. “I’m assuming the project was a failure?”

“Massively. The total death count is unknown, but only eleven survivors were reported as having returned after the fact – our Dr. Duval being one of them.”

“Did she ever say what happened at the facility that caused it to fall apart so badly?”

Leia sighed, setting down her glass. “She was… traumatized, to say the least. Any time we mentioned the project, she got so panicked she could hardly speak.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed. “And that didn’t strike you as suspicious?”

“Not at the time, no. I still don’t understand what exactly you’re reading from her.”

“It’s just a bad feeling,” he repeated. “I’m going to keep an eye on her. I don’t trust her intentions; background check be damned.”

“Luke, now is not the time for this,” Leia responded firmly. “The alliance has fully assembled, and tomorrow, you’re going to help us make our final stand. We need you focused.”

Luke’s face flushed, chastised. Leave it to Leia to lecture him like a stern parent.

“How can I possibly focus with the Force screaming warnings at me every moment I’m on this blasted ship?” he shot back. “This is serious, Leia!”

“Our mission is serious, Luke! You need to pull yourself together.”

“Why won’t you listen to me?” He turned desperately to Han. “Am I crazy?”

“No, kid, of course not!” Han’s tone was meant to sound reassuring, but his eyes spoke a different story. “It’s just pre-flight jitters, is all. Why don’t you go back to the bunkers and sleep it off for a bit?”

Luke’s heart sank. “This - I can’t believe you two.”

He shot up from the table, heart roaring in his ears. Leia was the only one who was meant to understand him – why wasn’t she understanding him?

Leia half-stood, a plea on her lips, but Luke brushed her off with a scowl.

“I’m going to look into this whether you like it or not,” he warned.

Leia’s jaw twitched, but she nodded robotically. Luke was stubborn like that; once he had his mind set on something, it was difficult, if not impossible, to convince him otherwise.

“I understand,” she bit out. “Be in the hangar by 0400. I expect you to have pulled yourself together by then.”

Luke bit back a sneer and stormed from the room. That hadn’t gone how he wanted it to – not at all. Leia was supposed to be the one that understood his struggle; even if she wasn’t Force sensitive in the same manner as he was, she still empathized and offered support any way she could. Now more than ever, Luke was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, if only to get back at his friends who were refusing to listen to his concerns.

He took the long route back to the medical wing, engrossed in the Force. Vale must have left some time ago; his Force presence echoed dimly from the direction of the barracks. That strange woman from before, thank the Force, was still in the medical centre, her presence alight with a maelstrom of emotions that Luke couldn’t even begin to pick apart.

However, this time, there was someone else in the room with her. He couldn’t identify exactly who it was. They hung on the edge of unconsciousness, their mind a muddled mess of confusion and pain. Luke not-so-subtly removed his lightsaber from his belt as he slunk closer to the room and peered through the frosted glass to the room within.

All of the curtains in the room had been drawn back, revealing the singular mystery person lying prone on the bed closest to Duval’s desk. Luke frowned. Through the distorted glass, it almost appeared that they were tied down with thick black straps, their useless arms and legs fighting feebly against the restraints. Low murmuring filtered through the door – Duval’s low, soothing monotone interspersed with the rebel’s pinched and panicky tone.

Duval crouched over the man’s bedside. Though difficult to make out, it almost appeared as if she was holding a syringe. As she approached, the man’s pleadings only grew in intensity, so loud that Luke could almost make out the constant string of “please, please, please” through the door.

That was all the evidence he needed. Luke ignited his sabre at the same moment he charged through the door, meeting Duval’s startled expression with a grin of pure satisfaction. Of course, he had been right all along. He could almost picture Leia’s face once he marched Duval to high command in cuffs.

“What in the world – Commander Skywalker?” Duval was quick to shove the syringe out of view.

“I’m taking you into High Command,” Luke growled, levelling the blade at her chest. She eyed it with trepidation.

“Thank the Force,” the man on the bed sobbed, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. “Luke, she’s – she’s crazy.”

Luke’s heart dropped. The man on the bed was Hobbie, one of the youngest members of Rogue Squadron – and one who he was almost certain had died during the Battle on Hoth. Hobbie had clearly been a patch job; from what he could see, just about every inch of his upper body was covered by a bacta patch or a stretch of gauze, and his left pantleg was tied in a knot just below the knee, revealing the stump of what used to be his left foot. His eyes were red and swollen from crying, but the relief that screamed at him through the Force was enough to reassure Luke that he had gotten here just on time.

The relief at seeing Hobbie alive was short-lived, however. Duval had pulled up the hem of Hobbie’s shirt, and the exposed, blistering skin underneath was marred with veins as black as pitch, spreading from one small prick just above his left hip bone.

“She stuck me with something, man. I don’t-“ Hobbie coughed wetly, small droplets of blood spattering onto the collar of his shirt. “I don’t feel so good.”

“What was in that syringe, doctor?” Luke demanded, rounding the bed so that the tip of his sabre was mere inches from Duval’s exposed throat.

The doctor’s anxiety spiked. “That’s none of your business, Skywalker. You have already been treated. I suggest you leave.”

“Not a chance. You work for the empire – who sent you?”

“A bold accusation.” Her eyes narrowed. “If I did work for the empire, you must understand that your rebellion would already be doomed.”

The Force tugged at his awareness. Somehow, despite being not even remotely Force sensitive, this woman’s mental shields were durasteel strong, but in her fear, a single image was allowed to slip through: a man, shrouded in darkness – his only visible feature beneath the thick black cloak being a pair of glimmering, golden eyes. Though he’d never had the misfortune of meeting the man face to face, he recognized the figure all the same.

“The emperor,” he breathed, and it was as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head. “The emperor sent you.”

The woman smiled – a farewell kind of smile, like she was seeing her fate and meeting it head on – and spread her arms wide. “He has a plan. I see that now. Even if you kill me now, you will meet your destiny all the same.”

The Force roared in his ears. Luke had power in this moment: power over life and death… the power to end this woman’s life if he so pleased. It would be all too easy to slash down and bisect her body with his blade, or to reach out and choke the life out of her in the same brutal manner as his father. This, he thought, must be the Dark Side. The quick and easy path. And Force, was it tempting.

But would it be quite so bad if he did it in the name of the rebellion?

Duval pouted mockingly, a fire breathing to life in her eyes. “Oh, but you can’t kill me, can you? Emperor Palpatine told me about you – about the Jedi. Your pacifistic ideals are what brought ruin to the Old Republic, and they will bring ruin to this pitiful rebellion all the same.”

That was the final straw. Luke’s anger spiked and he slashed out with his lightsaber. It cut cleanly through Duval’s arm and embedded somewhere in her midsection. The smell of burnt flesh filled the room.

The doctor laughed as she fell to the floor, writhing in pain, and the syringe clattered onto the tile. It was half-crazed, like she couldn’t believe Luke would stoop so low to actually attack her. The Dark Side receded immediately, and Luke was left with the worst feeling he’d felt all day; the Force was oily and slick – something was terribly wrong.

“The good Dr. Vale was wrong,” Duval crooned, clutching her remaining hand to the oozing wound at her side. “My project was a success. What glorious immortality we found! Rejoice for your friend who will soon discover this for himself.”

“No…” Hobbie’s eyes locked onto the sprawling maze of blackened veins and infected flesh at the site of the wound that had rapidly begun to spread upwards towards his more vital regions. “What the hell did you do to me, you old witch?”

“The antidote!” Luke pleaded, allowing the blade to slink back into its handle. “Where is it?”

Duval shook her head slowly. “There is no stopping the sickness once it has begun.”

All at once, an array of red, flashing lights illuminated the medical wing. Startled, Luke fell back a step and reached out into the Force, searching for the source of the emergency, but all that came to the forefront of his mind was panic. Footsteps pounded from outside the door, rebel personnel running to and fro with their guns drawn. The minds of those closest to him were muddled, but over it all, Luke sensed an immediate, all-encompassing danger.

He wheeled on the doctor, rage in his eyes. “What have you done?”

“There is no stopping the sickness once it has begun.” The doctor smiled once more, crumpled to the floor, and died.

Chapter Text

4 ABY - Home One

Luke stared at Duval’s crumpled body for a long moment, uncomprehending. All lingering vestiges of her panic had long faded into the stream of the Force, and when he looked closely, her face almost held an expression of peace. Strange, considering how desperate she had been to live not even a moment ago. Whatever the emperor had threatened with must have been far worse than the fate she ultimately received.

At Hobbie’s mournful cry, Luke startled free of his contemplation, but when his eyes finally fell upon the bound figure on the bed, he was forced to look away again, choking back bile. Hobbie’s wound looked far worse than before. The blackened veins pulsed dangerously underneath the skin. With each panicked heave of breath, they seemed to crawl an inch further across the young pilot’s flushed chest.

Luke sucked in a steadying breath and moved to release Hobbie from the bindings. The man was crying in earnest now, eyes trained on anywhere but the infected mess from where the doctor had stuck him.

“Hobbie, what the hell happened?” he asked as he deftly untied the expert knots fastening the pilot to the bed. “I thought – we thought you died, man!”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Hobbie responded through hiccups. “I crashed, but somebody must have taken me in, ‘cause the next thing I know, I’m strapped to a table somewhere in the rig with that karking psycho standing over me!”

“Force…” Luke murmured, helping Hobbie prop himself up against his pillows. “She must have had you down there for days – weeks, even.”

Hobbie’s eyes were wide, glazed over with pain and exhaustion. “I thought I was a goner. She had all sorts of crazy stuff down there – and I mean crazy, Luke. It was a compact lab full of all sorts of nasty looking liquids... I don’t – she must have stuck me with whatever she was brewing down there.”

Luke bit his lip worriedly, glancing back out into the hallway. The red lights continued blaring, warning sirens blending into a cacophony of muted noises just outside the blissful confines of the medical wing. The panic in the Force was growing to an unbearable level, coming from so many separate places he could hardly understand a word of it.

“I’m worried you weren’t the only one she got to,” he admitted. “Stay here. I’m going to check out whatever’s going on out there.”

Hobbie whimpered, looking for all intents and purposes as if he was about to spring right out of the bed and follow him out, injuries be damned. “Don’t leave me here, Luke. Please, I can’t be alone right now.”

Luke gently pushed him back down, sending waves of soothing energy to him through the Force. Even if he couldn’t sense it outright, Hobbie quieted somewhat, and allowed himself to be tucked back under the blankets.

“I’ll be right back, I promise. Here –“ Luke reached onto the nearby shelf and shoved a first-aid kit between Hobbie’s waiting hands. “Try to patch yourself up a bit while I’m gone. There should be a disinfectant in there.”

“Alright.” Hobbie laid back, resigned. “Alright, I’ll wait.”

Luke patted the pilot’s remaining knee and slunk to the door. It opened with a near-silent swish, and immediately, the blaring of the alarm filled the room with an unbearable level of noise. He stuck his head out into the hallway, looking left and right, but saw no signs of anyone. There were no echoing footsteps or shrill screams. It looked as if the entire ship had been abandoned.

His brow furrowed, and he closed the door behind him, locking it from the outside. Impossible. The corridor had been jam packed with people sprinting to and fro just a moment ago – where in the galaxy could they have all gone? He reached gingerly out into the Force and began to follow the glow of signatures coming from somewhere aft, picking his way down suspiciously empty hallways bathed in the glow of red strobes.

After a long moment, he reached a fork in the hallway, and stopped, eyes blown wide. Down one hallway was more of the same – emptiness and dreary lighting. Down the second however…

Force, Luke could only equate it to the brutal scene of a murder. No, not just a murder – a mauling.

Blood coated the walls, ceiling, and floor in a medley of reds and browns and pinks and whites; it had spurted, flowed, and smeared across just about every blank surface within ten feet of what remained of the body, falling in droplets and chunks alike. The body, if it could be rightfully called that, had been ripped apart into segments and violently gnawed on. Bones stuck up from the pile of flesh in haphazard segments, appearing as if they had been entirely picked clean. And, from the scene, a singular pair of shoeless, blood-coated footsteps meandered off in the opposite direction, disappearing into the distance.

The bile crept up again, but Luke forced it back, holding his sleeve over his nose to keep the smell away. This… this would constitute an emergency, he thought sardonically. It was no wonder this portion of the ship had been vacated so quickly and with so much abject terror, yet so many questions were still left unanswered. Why had no one come to retrieve them from the medical wing? Han and Leia knew where he’d gone, and it was protocol for all patients to be evacuated first in an emergency, given that it would take them much longer to flee the scene. And, even more importantly, who in the world could have done something like this? Where were they now?

This wasn’t one simple murder case. Something was seriously wrong on this ship.

Thoroughly creeped out, Luke snuck back to the medical wing and let himself in, locking the door behind him. Hobbie’s face dropped at Luke’s crestfallen look.

“What’s going on out there?” he asked, voice tremoring.

“Someone died,” Luke bit out, eyes trained on the empty hallway distorted through the glass. “Violently.”

Hobbie sat up straighter, the gauze falling from his hands. “Who? Who died?”

Luke hesitated. “I don’t… know.”

“You don’t know?” His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? What did they look like?”

Luke grimaced and squeezed his eyes shut against the image of the blood-soaked corridor. “I mean, there was hardly a body left for me to identify. It was pulp – just flesh and bones and a massive pool of blood.”

All of the colour rushed from Hobbie’s face. He fell back against the pillows and shook his head slowly. “Force, this is insane.” Then, with a sneer, “I bet you this is all that Dr Duval’s fault. That lady was bad news, Luke – I’m glad you took her out.”

“As she was dying, I sensed an image from her memories of a man in this thick black cloak – you couldn’t even see his face, it was so dark. She was terrified of him.” Luke shuddered and turned to face Hobbie again. “I think it was the emperor, and I think he sent her here.”

“No. That’s impossible. The emperor doesn’t know where we regrouped after Hoth.”

Luke cut him off with an irritated look. “Ok, look – it doesn’t really matter who sent her. Either way, we’re in a lot of danger right now. I need to get you off this ship before whoever killed that last guy comes back for us.”

“Luke, I really don’t think I can move right now.” Hobbie gingerly peeled back the gauze, revealing the horrendously infected expanse of his abdomen. At the injection site, the skin had begun to turn a disgusting shade of green-grey, and the veins had only continued to darken across his entire torso. “I think she might have poisoned me.”

“That doesn’t look like any poison I’ve seen,” Luke murmured. “We need to find Dr Vale. He’d probably know better than me what to do with this.”

“Can you com him?” Hobbie suggested.

Luke shrugged. “I doubt it. Most of the doctors don’t carry personal coms on them while they’re working. We could try contacting the rest of the squadron – see if any of them ended up with him.”

“That’s up to you. Duval stole my com when she took the rest of my flight suit.”

“She took all your stuff?” Hobbie nodded sullenly. “Even your blaster?”

“It’s gotta be down in the rig with the rest of her equipment,” he decided. “Why? You think I’m gonna need it?”

“I really hope not,” Luke sighed. “Just take mine for now. I don’t want you defenceless.”

Hobbie accepted the weapon uncertainly. “What does that leave you?”

At this, Luke finally allowed a thin grin to stretch across his face. “I have the Force, and my lightsaber. I think I’ll be alright.”

Hobbie kept an eye on the strobing hallway while Luke tore around the room like there was a fire lit under him, collecting a hodgepodge assortment of medical supplies into a small red backpack he assumed belonged to Dr Vale. He was at a bit of a loss, considering the disinfectants didn’t seem to be helping Hobbie’s injury in the slightest, but he threw as many into the bag as there was room for, alongside an excess of gauze and sterilizing wipes, before zipping the bag shut.

As gently as he could, Luke helped ease Hobbie onto the stray wheelchair sitting in the corner. It was an older model, one that required the patient to be pushed, rather than propelled by an engine, but it was compact and quiet. He dropped the bag onto the pilot’s lap, checked the hallways for intruders once more, and then wheeled Hobbie outside.

Thankfully, the blaring alarm had ceased, leaving only the softly pulsing red lights to indicate that anything was wrong. Still, it was an eerie atmosphere. Rarely would Home One’s hallways be vacant like this; even in the middle of the night, workers on the graveyard shift scuttled around to maintain communications and guide the ship ever past the watchful eyes of the empire, and maintenance droids sidled around their daily rounds.

Hobbie was tense on his seat, his blaster clutched between white-knuckled fingers. Every so often, they would pass a stray streak of dried brown blood on the floor, or some personal effect abandoned in a haste to escape, and his shoulders would stiffen a little more. He jumped at every sound, and from what Luke could read of his errant thoughts, he was terrified that the yet-faceless boogie would jump them from around a corner and he would be powerless to defend himself.

Luke empathized. Hobbie was down a limb and burning up with the infection spreading from Duval’s mystery injection. There was no doubt that he would have succumbed to his wounds had Luke not come around; in fact, without medical attention, his odds of survival were still dangerously low. Still, Luke was determined to at least bring him to Dr Vale. If anything, the doctor would know how to slow the infection long enough for Hobbie to be taken off of Home One and to the more well-equipped medical frigate, where he could finally be looked at by someone with more than just a baseline knowledge of combat medicine.

Spreading out his awareness to assure they weren’t being tailed by anyone, Luke took out his communicator and set it to the frequency used by the Rogue squadron.

“Rogue squadron, this is Luke Skywalker. Anyone read?”

Static answered for a long moment. Luke’s heart raced in anticipation, his hands going sweaty around the communicator. If Rogue squadron had already packed up and shipped out, they’d be in pretty deep shit. Luke’s X-wing was hardly large enough to fit two people in the cockpit and taking an escape pod was akin to suicide this deep in space.

“Rogue squadron, this is Luke Skywalker” he repeated, voice breaking. “Come on guys. Is anyone there?”

“Holy shit –“ The static broke, Wedge’s voice crackling over the speaker. Luke all-but slumped to the wall in relief. “Luke? Luke, It’s Wedge – where the hell are you?”

“Force, Wedge, am I glad to hear your voice. What the hell is going on out there?”

“I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on,” his second admitted. “Those alarms went off and everyone scattered.”

“Someone’s dead, Wedge. Down by medical.”

Wedge sighed, and it crackled into static. “That, I did hear. Listen, Luke, most of us are holed up at the barracks. We couldn’t make it to our rooms, so we boarded ourselves into the Blue squadron common room.”

Luke sucked in a breath. “Dr Vale wouldn’t happen to be down there with you, would he?”

‘I’m sorry, man. He was with us for a while, but word got out that people got injured down at the canteen, so he left to help out.”

Luke gave Hobbie a sideways look and silenced his microphone. “What do you think, Hobbie?”

“I don’t know, man.” Hobbie sucked his teeth and adjusted his grip on the blaster. “I got a bad feeling about this… the canteen sounds like bad news.”

Luke had to agree. It appeared that quite a few people still lingered around the cafeteria, but there was an energy emanating from that direction that he didn’t quite like. If the murderer was anywhere on the ship, it was most likely down that way.

He unmuted his mic. “Wedge, is there anyone down by you with any sort of medical experience?”

“Your best bet is probably Tycho,” Wedge responded after a moment. “He’s no Dr Vale, but he’ll do in a pinch. Why? Are you hurt?”

“It’s not for me – it’s for Hobbie.”

“Hobbie?” There was the distinct sound of crashing on the other end, and then voices. “Holy shit – Hobbie, you there?”

Luke grinned and passed the com down to the younger pilot. “Yeah, I’m here,” Hobbie responded breathlessly, “and boy, do I got stories to tell you guys.”

“How bad are you hurt?” It wasn’t Wedge that spoke, but Tycho. His voice wavered nervously.

Hobbie’s face fell. “It’s pretty bad, Tych. The odds aren’t looking good for me.”

“Fuck that,” Tycho growled. “We’re not letting you die for real this time, Hobs. Bring him in, Luke; I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, guys.” Luke took back the com from Hobbie’s shaking fingers. “We’re on our way now.”

With that, he shut off the communication device and returned it to its proper place on his belt. Blue squadron was two levels down and a hell of a walk in the opposite direction. They would have to hurry; Luke was getting the distinct feeling they were running out of time.

He spun on his heel, bee-lining towards the nearest elevator. Of all places to hole up, one of the barracks was likely the best option – thank the Force for Wedge’s quick thinking. Each squadron was allotted one common room fitted with its own kitchen and fresher; all of the individual rooms branched off from the common space down a hallway on either side – a hallway which never re-entered the main corridor. And, unlike most common spaces on Home One in particular, it had a door which locked from the inside. It was an easily fortified space, and one where they could exist for a good while without ever needing to enter the ship at large.

Their biggest issue, however, remained to be Hobbie. His face was ashen, and his hands trembled around the blaster. He needed medical attention desperately, but their only doctor was lost somewhere around the canteen where the majority of the threat was located. Force, Luke wished he knew anything about who they were up against. Was it a solitary murderer, or a group of infiltrators? What was their purpose? Who were their targets?

He awaited the elevator anxiously. It was a risky move taking the elevator while he didn’t know exactly where the perpetrator was. Not only was the elevator ridiculously confined, but it was also noisy; any person within fifty feet would hear its chime as it arrived at its destination. The barracks were on the same level as the canteen, making the elevator a glorified homing beacon for any murderer on that floor.

Unfortunately, it was a risk they would have to take. Hobbie was a useless shot in this state, and Luke needed access to his sabre. It would be impossible for him to carry Hobbie down the stairs and all the way across the ship to the barracks. They would be left too open, too unguarded.

The doors slid open, and Luke guided the wheelchair inside.

The ride down was tense. Luke watched the numbers tick with his heart in his throat and one hand on the hilt of his sabre.

“I’m gonna need you to keep an eye out down here, Hobs,” he murmured, patting the pilot’s shoulder. “You we’re right; I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”

“I’ll try, Luke, but I really don’t feel so good.” Hobbie’s eyes were fluttering shut, his face sagging. Luke gingerly placed a hand on his forehead. It was burning up.

“Force, you’re on fire.” He rummaged through the bag on Hobbie’s lap and produced a slew of pills and disposable water bottle. “Here, Hobs, take these. They should help with the fever.”

Hobbie moaned sullenly and reached out a hand for the pills. It was hardly suspended a moment before it fell back to his lap.

“Alright, alright, don’t strain yourself,” Luke murmured. He guided the pills to Hobbie’s lips before gingerly tilting the water onto his waiting tongue. Hobbie swallowed them down with a grimace.

With a defeaning chime, the doors finally slid open. Luke stuck his head out, surveying their immediate surroundings, before silently wheeling Hobbie out into the hallway. Unlike the main floor of Home One, the living level had a much more personal charm to it. It was where all of the pilots were housed during any situations in which they weren’t on a ground base, and as such could occupy close to a hundred pilots or more at any given time. Many of the walls were plastered with flyers or other such bulletins, hastily written or printed on scraps of standard-issue paper. The tables shoved into the miniscule common spaces still held evidence of games played before the rapid evacuation, with cards and chips scattered across every surface.

As far as rebellion housing went, this was by far the liveliest. In no other base were all the pilots kept in such close quarters, allowing for so much comradery between squadrons that otherwise never got to meet. Luke felt a pang of sadness wash over him at the emptiness of what was usually such a packed living space.

That sadness was short lived. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as a faint pair of footsteps echoed down the hallway immediately to his left. Without daring to see who the footsteps belonged to, he sprinted in the opposite direction and ducked into the nearest room, a miniature meeting space typically used by the commanders during time off. Like most rooms on this blasted ship, the door didn’t lock, but it did have a unique mechanism that darkened its glass on the outside so that the commanders inside could see out, but those in the hallway couldn’t see in. It was as close as the rebellion could get to privacy during their meetings, as they hardly had the funds to completely redo all of the doors on the aged ship.

Luke locked Hobbie’s wheels in place and stowed him as far from the entrance as he could, before taking up a position just to the right of the door. From this angle, he could clearly see about twenty feet down the hallway in the direction of the elevator, even with the darkened pane disguising the finer details of the corridor from his view. From there, all he could do was wait with his heart in his throat as the meandering steps slowly made their way closer.

It took about a minute before the person finally limped in view of the window. Luke strained to make out any identifying mark on their person. They were a pilot, from what he could see, still wearing their bright orange flight suit, with close-cropped brown hair and a brown stubble smattered across their cheeks. In places, their suit was torn and stained with dried blood, and on their exposed neck, a deep, bruised bite mark steadily oozed blood and pus down their collar.

For a split second, he considered opening the door and calling to them. They were clearly injured, probably on the brink of death, and he had a backpack full of medical supplies that could at least alleviate their pain on the way out. But something made him hesitate, made him take a careful step away from the door.

It must have been something in their eyes as they limped closer – or, better yet, a lack of something in their eyes. For one, the mystery person never seemed to blink. Their eyes remained steadfastly fixed on something beyond Luke’s line of sight, but they seemed clouded, blue-grey and milky in the way that a corpse’s eyes would look in the hours after their death. There was no recognition beyond that gaze. They were guided forward without conscious thought, without purpose.

Force, and their body - Luke had to look away as they lumbered by, feeling a familiar nausea rising to the surface. They shuffled forward stiffly, as if their limbs were locked up. One of their arms – the one closest to the bite mark – appeared to be broken. It was the only part of their body that swung freely, as it hardly appeared to be in its respective socket. Like Hobbie, their skin was a sickly shade of pale green grey.

For all intents and purposes, this pilot appeared to be a corpse – a walking, somehow living yet not-quite-conscious corpse.

Luke remained frozen in terror for a long time after the pilot finally lumbered away. This… shouldn’t have been possible. When one died, they were returned to the living Force, not reduced to… this.

With shaking hands, he pulled out his com. “Wedge, you read me?”

It crackled for a moment. “Loud and clear, boss. You close?”

“No, we’re stuck at the elevators. Have you taken a look outside?”

“Not in a while. We’ve tried to keep quiet – keep inside. There’s people walking around outside, though. Pacing.”

“Sithspit,” Luke cursed, clenching his fist around the com. “Wedge, I think I’m going to need you to come get us.”

“I’m sorry – what?” The com crackled as Wedge shifted. “What’s wrong? What did you see?”

“I don’t really know. But whatever it is, if there are others of its kind out there, I can’t defend myself and Hobbie at the same time.”

“Alright.” Wedge sighed and barked out an order that Luke couldn’t make out. Down the line, he heard a rise in voices and the vague sounds of feet scuffling. “We’ll head over now.”

“I need you to hurry. Hobbie’s not looking too good.” He glanced over at the younger pilot, whose head had slumped against the back of his chair. “Bring Tycho. I need someone to look at him right away.”

“We’ll go as fast as we can, Luke, I promise.”

Oh glorious, reliable, dependable Wedge. Luke could cry with relief; the worst of it was nearly over.

“We’re in meeting room 007. May the Force be with you.”

“You too, Luke. Stay safe until we get there. Wedge out.”

The line returned to static, and Luke slumped against the wall.