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Luke has a bad habit of getting in over his head.
Yeah, he’s aware of it; he just tends not to care since he can almost always get himself out of it again.
Luke and Biggs played a bit too close to the junk heap and got stuck? Luke was able to wave down Old Ben, who was wandering by, and used his eopie to drag the fallen beam off them. The accelerator on his pod that Uncle Owen didn’t know about got stuck? Well, he supposes that he wasn’t going to always be able to keep it hidden and jumping out of it so it can ram itself to bits on the canyon walls is a great way to hide the evidence. Wander into a sandstorm while running away from Jabba’s tax collectors? He always carries a spare sand cover in his boots, and he still had a full water canteen; they didn’t. Luke joins the Rebellion in a tribute to his Freed Grandmother, Shmi? Well…. Uh…. at least he had Aunt Beru’s blessing.
Kinda.
Maybe not.
He didn’t really have Aunt Beru’s blessing.
Not explicitly , anyway.
But Uncle Owen was always complaining about Luke never listening to them and taking them as a good example, and Luke once caught Aunt Beru wrist deep in the gut of an escaped slave, digging to find an unexploded chip.
Of course, then he heard that the Rebellion had intervened with a Hutt shipment, which was Tatooine code for ‘those suicidal maniacs let loose a hundred slaves,’ and if you ask Luke, that’s exactly what his Aunt Beru supports.
That then spiraled when he heard that Biggs was applying to the Imperial Academy, and then Biggs expressed some Rebel ideas, and Luke echoed him, and now he’s in the Imperial Academy to spy on the Empire for the Rebellion.
Yeah… over his head.
Uncle Owen had argued with him for hours when Luke told him about his acceptance into the Academy, but Aunt Beru had a knowing look full of pride and of sadness and Luke just had to stand his ground.
So, he’s at the Imperial Academy for piloting and engineering.
And he loves it so much he hates it.
He’s acing the flight sims, he’s been able to take apart and put back together a now-modified tie-fighter, and he’s top of all his classes… except it’s all a trick by depur to slip a collar onto his neck. It’s a trick that, if he didn’t know about depur, would have worked on him. Heck, it had been working on him only a year ago!
However, Luke was now older, smarter, and sneakier, like Ekkreth. He could pass the Rebellion information like how TIE engineering works, the current training focuses at the Academy ( why do they want so many engineers with an understanding of large space station maintenance?), and the general propaganda that the Empire feeds their students.
Luke could also do things like piss off depur by being too good at his lessons, apparently.
A nobody farm-boy upstaging many of the students– the heirs– of the proud, rich, and powerful. Not a good way for Luke to get any allies or friends. And then there was his stumble in Imperial Politics class ( Luke couldn’t say that Slavery was acceptable as a compromise to war with the Hutts. He couldn’t ), and now he was staring down at his posting.
Assistant Engineer to Lord Vader, The Executor.
He doesn’t know who he pissed off specifically, but he knows that from the list, they were powerful enough to damn him.
The Executor, the ship that has the casualty rates. That Executor.
And Vader. Lord Darth Vader. Known for ruthlessly hunting down Jedi and Rebels alike. That Vader.
Luke was so kriffing screwed. This was worse than the time both Uncle Owen and Old Ben caught him attempting to pickpocket a depur and his feet had barely touched the ground from the way the two had hauled him to his Aunt by his ears.
…Maybe he could comm his Aunt and ask to go home? He’s pretty sure she would encourage it.
Or maybe he shouldn’t be a coward and go through with it. Since when has Lukka Ekkreth backed down from doing what is right? Heck, he didn’t back down eight months ago when Biggs dared him to lick a battery.
He can do this.
Or so he thought until he was looking up at the ridiculously tall shadow.
Who was going to tell him that Vader was 7 feet tall? He feels like this should be in the orientation packet.
He snapped into a salute, “Assistant Engineer Skywalker, reporting for duty, Lord Vader.”
It was very strange to see the black cyborg stop in its tracks. Is his respirator supposed to be that quiet?
“Skywalker?” The giant monolith finally said after a moment too long of silent staring.
Oh stars, Luke has managed to piss off the big black kriff-off attack dog.
He tries to stand a little bit straighter as if that would save his ass if Vader decided to melt him with his mind like the rumors say he can. “Yes, sir.”
The shell of pure rage very, very slowly looked him up and down.
There was sweat beading on the back of his neck.
There’s no way that he could be reading his mind, right? Like, Vader can’t look at him and see his memories of committing treason, right?
Oh stars, he can. Vader knows, and Luke tenses in preparation. Maybe he can punch his life support panel and run? Sure, he won’t get far, but by Ar-Amu he can do a kark load of damage. He’ll make them inconvenienced for months by his lifeless body getting somewhere really annoying to clean up. Bet he can take out the elevator on his way out?
“At ease,” Vader said.
It takes Luke a moment to do so, mostly because he was expecting the words ‘Rebel Scum’ and a lot of screaming.
Luke doesn’t know what to do next, so he does the one thing that tends to get him in trouble. He runs his damn mouth.
“I was notified that you needed assistance in the maintenance of your TIE, which is unsurprising considering the average TIE’s shoddy workmanship.”
Luke, unfortunately, can never pass up the opportunity to insult Imperial Engineering.
“You think you can do better?”
Why is he not choking yet? Well, since he is still breathing, he might as well make that the Empire’s problem.
“Yes,” Luke said. “The hydraulics are already a three-part tragedy on their own.”
Vader peered down at him, “This is my personal TIE. The hydraulics are fixed. They are the first problem any semi-decent can identify.”
“Have you replaced the hydraulics with the permasteel-bronze alloy or did you fix the pressure problem by thickening the permasteel-iron alloy?” Luke asked.
“Why would you replace it with permasteel-bronze alloy?”
Luke grinned, the boyish one that has his Aunt sighing because he might just charm his way out of this one again. “Because it fixes the cooling problem with the fluid.”
Vader stares at him for a very long time, “Demonstrate that. Now.”
Luke knows he should be terrified, but five minutes ago he was imagining the best way to bypass his codpiece to get a good kick in before he dies, so he thinks he’ll be fine. Or, at least, able to die doing the thing he loves.
Luke pulls out the mildly illegal (in Imperial space, which he is currently in) energy drink from his pocket (hey, he thought he was being summoned to meet his executioner and this would be a great last meal) and cracks it open with one hand.
Luke gives the weirdly chill mass murderer a feral grin, the one that makes Uncle Owen blanch and Old Ben mutter that he has already served his time. “Let’s get started then!”