Chapter Text
“I’m sure you’re all aware why we’re gathered here today,” Leia Organa said to the assembled members of the Rebel Alliance. Han Solo, for one, did not know why, but Leia had told him to be there, so he went. Besides, thought Han as he kicked his feet up on the table (which garnered a number of disapproving stares), it might be fun.
“Frankly,” Leia said. “The alliance is broke.” She pulled up a slideshow on her holoprojector. “As you might have figured out, it is very hard to get credible income when your organization is wanted all across the galaxy. Going along with that, it is hard for individual members to get jobs when they are associated with said organization.”
“So how are you proposing we fix that?” General Dodonna asked from across the table. Han snorted. Obviously Leia wouldn’t have called them all together if she didn’t have a plan. Leia fixed Han a glance, her eyes screaming “behave.”
“I’ll get to that in a moment.” Leia responded. “For now, I would like to turn your attention to this.” She changed slides.
“This is our ComeFundUs page on the holonet. As you can see, we have a significant amount of donations. However, the frequency at which we get donations has been rapidly decreasing.” Han didn’t even know that the Rebellion had a donation page. Pulling up the holonet, he noted with some amusement that the Empire had their own page. “Help displaced Stormtrooper families” the page said. “Millions of families left without any income after the destruction of the Death Star, donate now to combat the economic depression caused by the Rebel Criminal Alliance.” Han let out another chuckle, but quickly smothered it before Leia noticed.
“I’ve had some people analyze the numbers, and we’ve discovered a trend when it comes to spikes in donations,” Leia said. She clicked a button and the projection changed to a bar graph.
“Whenever the Alliance makes the big headlines, people notice us. When they notice us,” she changed back to the ComeFundUs slide. “They donate.”
Han raised his hand. “So you’re saying we can’t make more money until we blow up another Death Star?”
“At this rate, unfortunately yes.” Leia sighed. “The destruction of Alderaan and the destruction of the Death Star were the two biggest events that brought people’s attention to us.”
“Well, we can’t very well cause another planet-destroying event just for money’s sake.” Mon Mothma interjected. “People need to notice the Alliance so they can donate to us? So what do you propose we do to get their attention?”
Leia grinned and clapped her hands together. “We orchestrate a scandal.”
Han sat up in his chair. This ought to be interesting. The room broke out into chatter, some were excited, some were nervous, and some even looked angry.
“I think that’s a great idea.” Han said loudly, drawing the attention of the people assembled inside. “Are you thinking about the kind of scandal in the tabloids? Like, I don’t know…” he rubbed his hand on his chin. “‘Emperor Palpatine and Mon Mothma’s secret love child revealed!’ or “Darth Vader is actually a twenty-five year-old Twi'lek woman!’ Or even better: ‘Han Solo voted hottest man in-” Leia cut him off there. Mon Mothma stood off to the side looking horrified. Han shot her a wink.
“We want something relatively believable,” Leia said. “It needs to gain sympathy for the Alliance and it needs to be something we can easily reveal to be false when the time comes.”
“Paternity tests are quite easy to take.” Admiral Ackbar said. “Maybe the love child idea isn’t too bad.”
“Absolutely not,” Mothma said. Han thought it was a great idea, but obviously there were some haters in the room.
“Ackbar does make a good point,” Leia said, tapping a finger on her chin. “Maybe whatever we orchestrate should be able to be “proved” and later disproved with a simple test.”
“Like a paternity test!” Han exclaimed. “My ideas are good. I guess it doesn’t have to be Mothmatine’s love child. We could do something else that’s stupid, like “Luke Skywalker is the son of Darth Vader.”
Mothma looked ill when she heard the phrase “Mothmatine,” but Leia looked thoughtful. “You know,” she said. “That isn’t a terrible idea. Provided that we get Luke’s permission, we could very well use that as our scandal!”
“Why tell him?” Han said. “Let him be as surprised as everyone else. That’ll make his reaction authentic, and people won’t get the idea that he knew all along but was hiding it.” Leia looked hesitant.
“That’s a fair point, but we don’t want him believing that it’s actually true. We’ll get his initial reaction and then tell him afterwards.”
“Great, then it’s settled,” Hera Syndulla said. She was sitting next to Han at the table. “Luke Skywalker is Darth Vader’s son.”
The sound of breaking glass drew everyone’s attention. Luke Skywalker stood in the door of the meeting room, stock still and utterly flabbergasted.
***
Luke was having a pretty good day, all things considered. He had just come back from patrol, and was still high on adrenaline from racing his buddies in his X-Wing. Breakfast that day had been better than normal (Luke noticed that the quality of food had been going down ever since Hoth). He was still reeling from the incident at Cloud City a few weeks back, but he was steadily recovering. The fact that his father tried to contact him via the Force every night wasn’t exactly helping his sleep schedule, but caf existed for a reason. Speaking of, Luke headed over to the mess hall to refill his cup.
Scanning the room, he noticed that neither Han nor Leia were sitting in their normal spots. It was almost lunchtime, but they were nowhere in sight. Luke spotted Chewie sitting in the corner, intensively focused on a Dejarik game with whatever poor soul had decided to challenge him.
“Hey Chewie!” Luke called, waving at his friend. “Have you seen Han or Leia?” Chewie growled in response as he made his next move on the holochess board.
Luke frowned. A meeting? Nobody had told him. Chewie spoke again, telling Luke that it should be almost over, and he could probably stop by to see his friends.
“Thanks, Chewie,” Luke said. After downing and refilling his caf, he headed out of the mess hall.
As he walked down the hallway, Luke could hear chatter from the meeting room. He could pick out Han’s voice from the noise, and wondered why they’d told him but not Luke to attend. It’s not like I had to go on patrol this morning.
As Luke pushed open the door, a single sentence froze him in place.
“Luke Skywalker is Darth Vader’s son.”
***
“Are you gonna come in, or what?” Han asked as Luke stood frozen in the doorway, broken glass littering the floor under him. Had he done that with the Force? Han made a mental note not to stand by windows with Luke.
He hoped that the kid wasn’t too sore about not being invited into the meeting. Leia had figured that he needed the extra sleep, and looking at Luke now, Han could understand her reasoning. Dark circles lined his eyes, and he was holding yet another cup of caf. Didn’t I see him drink two of those this morning? Han thought.
“Right.” Luke said nervously. “So… what’s going on?”
“We just figured out that Darth Vader is your father.” Leia said calmly. A couple of the Alliance members suppressed chuckles.
“What are you - how did you - what do you mean?” Luke stammered. He kicked the glass aside with his boot before walking over to sit on Han’s other side.
“Relax, we’re just kidding!” Han said, slapping Luke on the back. Someone was a bit high strung today.
“Well, not exactly,” Leia said. “We’re going to release to the public that you’re Darth Vader’s son. Even though we know it’s not-”
“What?” Luke jumped up out of his seat. “Why would you do that?” He looked angry, and a little bit betrayed.
“Are you okay?” Han asked, pulling Luke back down. “Like, actually?”
“I’m fine,” Luke grumbled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Long story short,” Mon Mothma said to Luke. “The Alliance needs money. Leia figured that whenever the Alliance is at the front of headlines, people make more donations to us. We figured that if we orchestrated a scandal involving the poster boy of the Rebellion, it would gain us a lot of attention. We will eventually reveal that it was all a “misunderstanding,” and untrue.”
Luke was speechless. He took a couple gulps of his caf before asking, “So… you don’t actually believe… that?” Everyone laughed.
“Of course not,” Leia said. “But we’re going to fake a paternity test, so the rest of the galaxy will believe it.”
“What about my f- uh Vader?” Luke asked. “Won’t he… see through it?”
“If he responds, all the better.” Hera replied. “If even the Empire takes notice, you can bet the rest of the galaxy will.”
“Picture this,” Han said, taking hold of Luke by the shoulder. “The hero of the Rebellion, shocked to discover that his sworn enemy is actually his father. It will gain you sympathy, and people will see it like a holo drama. They’ll be invested! And the Alliance will reap the benefits, because we’ll tell them that we’ll release more information the more they donate.”
“Maybe not exactly that last part,” Leia said. “But yes. We won’t be begging for donations, we’ll just make sure everyone knows we have a ComeFundUs page once we’re at the forefront of the news.”
“Right…” Luke said, unconvinced. “I don’t know. I don’t think I need that kind of attention. Won’t people start to think…”
“Oh, don’t worry. They’ll believe it.” Mon said. “People will eat up anything you tell them. We’ll reinforce it with the fact that you’re both Force users.”
Luke didn’t look reassured.
“We’ll leak the story to the net in two days,” Leia said. “Luke, let's speak after lunch. We need to prepare you for your statement.”
***
Luke walked out of the meeting room slowly, a sickening feeling in his stomach. Mon Mothma’s words lingered in his brain, “Oh, don’t worry. They’ll believe it.”
That’s what he was afraid of. What would they think of him? This was exactly what he didn’t want to happen… Well, maybe not exactly. There was no way he could have predicted that this would happen. Much more, he didn’t need the whole world comparing him to his father. What if they thought Luke was like Vader?
This could only end very badly.