On the Wings of Valkyrie

Chapter XCVII

Ahsoka was acting off. Now it could easily be due to the fact she was on Darth Vader's ship, but the Sith Lord would have thought that by now she would have perhaps come to terms with the fact he wasn't going to try and kill her.

Really, perhaps Vader shouldn't have tried that one time in the first place. Still, he wasn't about to do it again. Besides, if Ahsoka thought well enough of him to even try reaching out without Luna knowing about it, then shouldn't the Togruta have relaxed now that she had finished what she had come to do?

But no. She seemed to be growing tenser by the second. Under other circumstances, Vader may have been more focused on how he would finally be able to track down Luna and what he'd do once he'd finally met with his apprentice, but something wouldn't let him. Perhaps old feelings that weren't as dead as he thought they were.

"Ahsoka, is everything alright?" Vader asked.

If the Togruta had been anyone else, she would have jumped. Her head snapped up to look at him.

"Fine," she stated, looking away. It was a lie, not that he needed the Force to tell him that. Had he actually taught all his apprentices to always act as though nothing was worrying them?

Leia was still pouring over the stolen data while Luke had disappeared to work on his forms. The Smuggler was busy trying to win against Artoo on the game table. Ahsoka had moved back to a corner, appearing deep in thought as she stared at a wall while Vader had been about to move back to the bridge to think before her odd stance had attracted his attention.

"....So, you defected?" Ahsoka asked after several moments of silence, apparently trying to change the topic. Vader was startled, surprised that she appeared to actually want to converse with him. How long had it been since someone besides either of the twins had taken the initiative when it came to something not involving the Galactic Civil War?

"You could say that," he answered.

"What did it for you?"

"What do you mean?"

"What made you defect? There's always some sort of line that the Empire crosses to make people lose faith in it, after that it's only a matter of time until they leave or die trying. It's the only reason we get defectors, why I can recruit spies. Luna said the Death Star did it for her, but she stayed because of you. So what crossed your line?" Ahsoka asked, hesitant curiosity glinting in her eyes as she glanced at him. "After all you've done for the Empire, what did it for you?"

It was a good question, one Vader hadn't actually considered before. He left the Empire because Palpatine had deemed him a traitor.

But....even as the Sith thought about it, he realized he had long ago lost the illusionment of the Empire's grandeur. How long had he been laying plans and networks inside and outside of the government for Luna's sake? Since the moment he'd found her, Vader had been working against Palpatine, and in extension of the Emperor, the Empire itself. Palpatine had expelled him for treason for sheltering Rebels, but in a way Vader had been committing treason for years.

"Finding out what Palpatine had done to Luna," the Sith answered after lengthy silence. Ahsoka couldn't fully mask her surprise.

"The experiment was pretty awful, wasn't it?" she eventually muttered, turning away once more to collect herself.

"She told you?"

"Bits and pieces. She doesn't like talking about before the carbonite. Actually any point in her life before I met her, really. Hasn't kept me from getting her to talk every so often, especially when she spills something rather....large."