Books, Christianity, And Hobbies

On his knees in a room of dusty, old documents, Luke broke down into shattered sobs. The entire life he built up was a lie crumbling in front of his eyes and around his feet. Some days he would look around, still not fully reconciled that he had left Tatooine at all, still feeling like the 18 year old who was safe at home but wanted nothing more than adventure. Some days he would look in the mirror, see the shadows of blood dripping off his hands and a manic smile on his face, and see a stranger. Still other days he would look at the legacy of his father, given to him by Obi-Wan Kenobi, and feel the weight of a dead culture he was meant to revive but knew nothing of. He pushed forward despite it all, despite not knowing himself anymore, and relied on the knowledge and hope that his father was a Jedi and would be proud of him.

Who could be proud of him now? Son of Vader, disappointment of the Jedi, a sham of a rebel who longed for the approval of a father who would never give it.

Luke couldn't deny what Vader told him. He looked through the Alliance records, now scattered at his feet with his hopes and dreams, and Obi-Wan only ever had one student: Anakin Skywalker. There was no mention of Vader before the rise of the Empire, there was no mention of Anakin Skywalker after it.

Obi-Wan lied to him. Broke his trust. Sent him to kill his own father.

Luke curled forward, bent over and no longer able to support his own weight. He could barely breathe from all the dust and tears. How dare they. How dare they! Obi-Wan and Yoda, they lied to him. His aunt and uncle lied to him! His own father cut off his hand and let him fall to his death!

"Luke?"

He vaguely sensed Leia kneeling in front of him, but he could not focus on her. Not when his mind was filled with betrayal and grief and fear and anger.

"Oh, Luke."

She pulled him up and into a hug, and Luke clung to her, the only friend he had left who hadn't lied to him, and could only choke out apologies he could barely hear.

"You have nothing to apologize for."

"It's my fault."

"It's Vader's fault."

"He was after me."

"That doesn't make it your fault."

"I'm his son."

"He - that can't be true. Don't listen to him, Luke."

Luke pulled away, took a deep breath, and started rambling while he started pulling up the articles to prove his point. "Obi-Wan, he told me he trained two students. Anakin and Vader. Anakin died and Vader betrayed the Jedi. Only, Leia, I can't find any mention of a Vader anywhere in the Alliance's records of the Jedi! And Obi-Wan only had one student: Anakin Skywalker"

He watched Leia as she combed through the articles he handed her and he continued speaking when she looked back up to him. "I know I shouldn't believe him, Leia, but he wanted me to join him in defeating the Emperor and ruling the galaxy. He hasn't done that to any Rebel Jedi before me. He has no reason to offer that to the Death Star Destroyer. He had no reason to do anything but kill me immediately. But he didn't."

"Maybe you're just good enough to have gotten away?" Leia asked, her eyebrows drawn together.

"You know that's not it," Luke shifted so that he could sit down and draw his knees up to his chest. "I'm the rebel son of Darth Vader. Han is in the hands of Jabba because of me, you were tortured by Vader again because of me, and I lost my hand because I was stupid enough to try and fight him head on."

"Listen to me, Luke Skywalker," Leia reached forward and grabbed Luke's face, forcing him to look at her. "Even if you are Vader's son, that doesn't mean any of what happened is your fault. Vader is the one who put Han in carbonite, Vader is the one who tortured me, Vader is the one who cut off your hand. Maybe you shouldn't have walked into the trap, but Vader has been doing this for over 20 years now. None of his actions before now are your fault, and neither are these."

The group sat silent as Luke told his story. From Obi-Wan telling him Anakin Skywalker was a Jedi Knight, betrayed by his other student Darth Vader, to his training with Yoda, to his encounter with Vader on Bespin, to his research afterwards. The pile of treats in the middle slowly disappeared as Luke talked, people reaching for food while never taking their eyes off Luke. Finally, Luke finished with the scene Leia had walked in on and her introducing Luke to this group. Everyone was silent as Luke sipped on a cup of water someone had placed before him at some point while he was talking.

Eventually, the silence was broken by the smuggler. "Well, I do think that settles it. Rivoche makes all the final decisions, but you definitely belong with us, kid. Here," the smuggler dug something out of his vest and tossed it to Luke, "you clearly need a drink after all that."

Luke caught the small bottle of what appeared to be expensive alcohol as the smuggler continued talking. "Name's Jhacob Monterrat, youngest brother of Jhared Monterrat, admiral of the Devestator. I smuggled people and information out of the Empire and out of slavery, and now I'm a captain of a small fleet, smuggling arms and supplies for the Rebellion."

"My name is Amber Comark, oldest daughter of Moff Jesco Comark. I was a spy until I needed extraction. Now I work in Intelligence and specialize in undercover work. I help lead this club with Rivoche," said Amber.

"My name is Vera Hess, sister of General Valin Hess. I am a mechanic and the group therapist, but I started off as a fighter pilot," said the woman with the tally sheet in front of her.

"I'm Trenka Bast, daughter of General Moradim Bast, chief officer of Moff Tarkin, and I defected after the Death Star blew up Alderaan. I'm training under Rivoche and Amber to be an Informations officer," said the girl sitting next to Zev.

"I believe you know Zev?" Rivoche asked Luke, continuing to speak when she saw his nod. "Then I am Rivoche Tarkin, niece of Grand Moff Tarkin, ring leader of an undercover Imperial spy network and I report to Airen Cracken directly. I lead this group in my down time to help make space for people like me, who faithfully serve the Rebellion despite their Imperial past or familial ties."

"I'm surprised there aren't more than six people, then." Luke said.

"I mean, you do make the 7th," Zev replied.

"You know what I mean."

"This is not the only group of Rebels who have Imperial family or ties, seeing as over half of the Alliance has an Imperial tie one way or another. This group is, specifically, for Rebels with familial ties to high ranking, Imperial military personel," Rivoche interupted smoothly. "Generals, Admirals, Moffs, officers of that nature. Because of the high ranking nature of our connections, this group is secrative in nature in order to protect the Rebels within it."

Luke nodded and the group fell silent once again. He studied the bottle of liquor in front of him, ignoring the stares of the six people in the room, and wished Han was there so he could ask him what kind of alcohol it was. It was expensive, and incredibly alcoholic, but the labeling wasn't in Basic or any other language he could recognize.

After a stilted silence, filled with trepedation and concern from the other people in the room, Zev broke the silence. "Well, my father never cut off my hand or anything, but he did send me to COMPNOR for what amounted to reeducation after I questioned the Empire one too many times."

"Valin held a blaster to my head when I said the Empire should focus on providing for its people over fighting the Rebellion," countered Vera, leaning her chair back on two legs.

"Jhared imprisoned and starved me when he caught me freeing Wookies," Jhacob said before taking a large gulp from the bottle in his hand that Luke presumed was alcohol.

"Mother told me she wished I had never been born," Trenka muttered while reaching for another of Zev's pastries.

Luke shouldn't be smiling. Hearing the awful stuff these people's families put them through should be horrifying. And yet…

"Welcome to the club, Luke," Rivoche said as they filed out of the room a few hours later.

All the pastries and alcohol was gone, plans were set to meet again in a week, and Luke had finally started relaxing with these people. He felt like he belonged, with the youthful idealists who longed for reconciliation and the hardened veterans who griped about familial torture like it was simply an uncomfortably typical family affair.

The small bottle of unopened alcohol Jhacob had tossed him rested in one of his pockets. In his right hand were the final pastries of the night. 7 people in the Rebellion knew his parentage, and they did not hate him.

Jhacob took a large gulp of alcohol. "I still can't believe Vader was dumb enough to think the Rebellion's poster boy would go with him."

"Everyone in the Empire said he was a military genius," Zev agreed, morosely staring at his cookie since they wouldn't let the underage kid drink alcohol. "Turns out, he's only good at killing people."

"I can't believe they let this guy be the Commander in Chief of the military," Rivoche groaned, her head laying on the table next to the bottle of liquor she was drinking at a far quicker rate than recommended.

Luke watched all these former Imperials grouse about Vader, a half drunk bottle of liquor in his own hand. It felt sureal, listening to people complain about Vader's treatment of Luke, not his general attrocities that he has committed.

"I think Luke is winning the Trama Tally," Amber remarked. "None of us have had our limbs cut off by our parent in a fight to the death."

"Technically," Luke interjected, "it wasn't a fight to the death. It was a fight of conquest. He had plenty of opportunity to kill me and took none of them."

"He still raised a lethal weapon against you, kid," Jhacob said, leaning back to stare at the ceiling in dismay.

"Fair," Luke muttered, before downing another mouthful of alcohol.

"And. Fighting your child to conquer them and beat them into submission? That's abusive parenting 101," Trenka snarled, methodically ripping a flimsy napkin into shreds.

Both Zev and Trenka were too young to drink but both wanted ways to distract themselves from their newest club member's family drama. Zev tended to eating sweets. Trenka tended to minor property destruction. Luke numbly thought she would make an excellent demolition expert if given the training.

"She's not wrong." Vera coolly remarked from the corner where she was painting something.

Vera was the only one handling this remotely well and engaging in what she called "healthy coping mechanisms." Next meeting would be walking through different types of healthy coping mechanisms to help the group members find what worked best for them, but as this was Luke's second session, everyone was in favor of letting Luke spill his story while they munched on pastries. Once Luke started spilling his story, they pulled out the alcohol.

The night went on in similar fashion, with Luke telling them about the Jedi who told him his father was dead and the way his father has treated him. The two youngest members were kept away from alcohol by Vera while the rest drunk themselves into something of a stupor. Not the healthiest way to deal with trauma, but they were rebels and almost never did anything the right way ever.

At the end of the night, Zev helped Luke walk back to Leia. True, Luke was not as drunk as the rest of them, but it was still hard to walk when one was crying due to intoxication and trauma.

"Thank you for being there for him, Zev," Leia whispered as Zev handed Luke over to her.

The therapy group watches an Imperial broadcast that Leia sent Luke with. It was two days old, old news to High Command and most of the galaxy, but not everyone in the Rebellion kept up with the latest news from Coruscant. Why would they? They were already in Rebellion against the regime, so they had no need to keep up with the latest news. This time was different, and Luke can feel in his bones that it will shape the course of the war. He'd been feeling decidedly off for the past week, the Force in equally gleeful and mournful turmoil around him. It had to be from whatever would be revealed in the broadcast.

Two middle aged human males were visible on the holoscreen, sitting behind a reporting desk, and they were both very clearly shaken but doing their best to hide it. The Empire doesn't take well to weakness, after all.

"Breaking news out of the Imperial Palace today, Stan."

"That's right, Ford. Just this morning, we witnessed the first public disagreement between Lord Vader and His Majesty the Emperor."

"According to the Imperial Palace correspondent, the two had a minor disagreement over the issue of policy regarding appropriate use of force when facing off against terrorist fleets in the Outer Rim."

"We were not given any further details from the Imperial Palace correspondent, but given the reports of dead officers found in the Imperial Palace, it is assumed by staff that spoke with us that the disagreement was over His Majesty the Emperor forbidding excessive force that puts civilians at risk."

"Right you are, Stan. Unfortunately, we have conflicting reports coming from Admiral Piett, the admiral of Lord Vader's flagship The Executor and admiral over Lord Vader's entire fleet."

"According to Admiral Piett - who was promoted from the rank of captain above Hoth according to reports - Lord Vader said he disagreed with His Majesty the Emperor over His Majesty the Emperor threatening his son with assassination, due to his son being a member of the terrorist group in the Outer Rim for years."

"That's right, folks. Lord Vader, according to staff working directly for Lord Vader, has a terrorist son."

The recording of the broadcast cuts out here, leaving the room in silence. Jhacob silently hands Luke a bottle of hard liquor, hard enough for a normal human to drink himself to death if he drank the whole bottle. Luke, having the high alcohol tolerance that comes with being a Jedi and Han Solo's friend, starts to chug it like he used to chug blue milk.

"This will be fun," Rivoche said as she pulled out her pad to start working on some plan of hers.

"How have more people not heard of this?" Amber asked. "A Rebel son of Darth Vader. People would either be up in arms or celebrating."

"If I were High Command, I would keep it hushed up until I knew what the galactic response would be," replied Zev, eyes glued to the darkened holoscreen. "They want to see if they can capitalize on it the way they did Alderaan and Luke blowing up the Death Star."

Luke set the bottle down, half empty, before speaking his piece. "That's if the galactic reception is positive at all. If the galaxy sides with the Emperor and chooses to believe the Imperial Palace, then the Alliance would be best either keeping it secret or denying the existence of such a person."

"Sucks that we still have to act based on the Emperor," Trenka groused, fiddeling with a twisting cube.

"Agreed," Rivoche responded absent mindedly, before handing her pad to the group, "I found the holonet pages where people are talking about this. Looks like the response is positive, in Luke's favor."

"Hopefully no one actually knows it's me, yet." Luke muttered, attention diverted by the alcohol already impacting his body.

The room is silent for a few minutes as people read the different comments Rivoche has found on the different sites. People are shocked that Vader has a son to begin with, that Vader would let his son be a Rebel, that Vader wouldn't want his Rebel son dead, that the Emperor would want Vader's Rebel son dead, and that the Rebellion hasn't come forward with the news of Vader's son being among them. The conspiracy theorist boards get uncomfortably close to the truth when they theorize that Vader's son was a secret, growing up in the Outer Rim while his father went to war, and kept his heritage a secret when he joined the Rebellion under a name no one could feasibly connect to Lord Vader.

Rivoche, always the pragmatist, breaks the silence. "I think, based on what we're seeing here, High Command is going to try and find the identity of Vader's son so they can use him as propoganda. Since you have not been pulled into questioning, Luke, I think we can assume that Leia has kept your secret. We can also assume she gave us this small clip so you could make a decision now on whether or not you want Alliance leadership to know your identity."

Luke groaned and put his head down on the table, too drunk to deal with this conundrum.

"Use that cool Force ability of yours to sober up real quick, kid. Looks like I gave you the bottle too soon. We can get rip roaring drunk after we decide our course of action," Jhacob remarks, gently patting Luke on the back.