Rebel Pilot: A Star Wars Story

Chapter 13

"So where exactly is the emperor right now?" Leia wondered.

"On Coruscant. Doing Emperor stuff," Vader said in his serious voice that was almost comical given the very Anakin-like nature of his sentence. "He never does much else, as he prefers not to be seen by his people, as he is quite scarred and deformed."

"Dramatic," Anakin muttered. Vader turned on him.

"Would you like me to reconsider my decision to allow you to live?" He threatened.

Anakin rolled his eyes. "How many times have we been over this now? If you kill me you won't exist. This has got to be, like, the fourth time I've said that."

"Call me dramatic one more time and I will take my chances," he said menacingly, pointing in Anakin's face.

Anakin couldn't quite hold back his smirk at the irony, a small laugh escaping him, but he didn't say it out loud. He made a very scary Sith.

"You're thinking it," Vader growled.

"I'm literally you. You can't blame me for thinking like you," Anakin argued. "Come on. You're an Imperial officer. You can't say you've never secretly rolled your eyes at a pompous idiotic official –"

"Tarkin," Vader grumbled.

"Yes, like him! Wait." Anakin considered the implications of that, and then huffed. " Of course Tarkin works for the evil empire. Why am I not surprised?"

"You are comparing me to Tarkin!"

"I am not! I hate Tarkin, and I can't really hate you cause you're me, so there's a difference!" Anakin defended.

"If you want me to be flying this thing to Coruscant for this treason-commiting suicide mission, both of you shut up! Or I'll just crash it on the nearest planet, which is currently..." Han checked the data on the screen. "Mustafar. Awful place."

"I hope to never go there," Obi-Wan agreed.

Older Obi-Wan winced. "Yes, let's hope you never have to."

Vader reeled on older Obi-Wan. " Have to? You're still in the mindset that Mustafar was necessary?"

"Well I couldn't just let you keep murdering people!"

"But then I kept murdering people!"

"I didn't know that!" older Obi-Wan cried.

"Well, if you had just stabbed me like a normal person, maybe I would have actually died!" Vader shouted. "Instead you decided to chop me up and cook me like your dinner!"

Older Obi-Wan winced. "I didn't want to, Anakin."

"Whoa whoa whoa." Anakin put his hands out. "Dial it way back. What does he mean by 'chop me up and cook me like your dinner?'"

"It was nothing like dinner," older Obi-Wan muttered. "Fire is preferable for cooking, you fell into lava."

"Oh, like, we were playing 'the floor is lava' back before I turned to the dark side?" Anakin said hopefully.

"Yes," older Obi-Wan said with a nod. "Except it was after you turned to the dark side. And you lost."

"Again with your awful half truths, Kenobi!" Vader turned to Anakin. "Your loyalty to him is unfounded. The moment he learned that you had discovered the true power of the dark side, he cut off your legs and allowed you to sink into lava–of the literal kind–and catch on fire."

Anakin's eyes widened and he looked to older Obi-Wan.

Older Obi-Wan looked down guiltily.

"I did what?" younger Obi-Wan asked, his eyes slightly wider than normal. Through the Force, Anakin could tell his emotions were racing far more than he was allowing to show.