TheBridge

Luke blinked at this.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You want us to meet in person with a Sith Lord who has been trying to kill me?”

“Not kill you,” said Piett swiftly. Veers glanced at him. “Our orders were to capture you alive on pain of death. You were not to be damaged at all if we could help it.”

Well.

Interesting.

“Do you know why?” Luke asked, rubbing his fingers over the hilt of his lightsaber.

Veers gave him a very cynical look.

“You imagine that Lord Vader shares reasoning like that with us, Skywalker?” he asked.

Luke sighed. He had already experienced too many near misses with Lord Vader hunting him. Surely he wasn’t the only Force sensitive that Vader could be hunting?

Unless—

Unless Vader knew .

Piett opened his mouth to reply when a golden protocol droid came fussing up to them.

“Princess Leia! Oh Princess Leia! We have been looking for you everywhere!”

The girl rolled her eyes and held up her commlink.

“Yes, Your Highness, but you said you do not wish to be disturbed when speaking with the Imperial Captain.”

“Well what is it, Threepio? What’s happened?” she asked, hands on her hips.

“Captain Solo and Chewbacca have returned!” the droid answered and if it were capable of wringing its hands, Piett rather thought it would. “And General Madine is here and wishes to take their passenger, but you said that…”

Piett held his breath. Was it possible…?

“Right,” said the Princess, “I see. I’ll take charge personally.” She turned to Piett. “Are you up for a detour, Captain?” she asked.

“If that is who I think, then absolutely,” he answered.

Max closed his eyes briefly and breathed out.

“Do you miss him too, Lady?” he murmured. He’d taken to speaking to her as Firmus had. She had not yet been as receptive to him, but he wasn’t offended.

She was Piett’s Lady and that hadn’t changed in the two months he’d been missing and presumed dead along with his entire team.

And now Venka too was gone. Veers hated the barely suppressed glee that Ozzel walked about with these days. And while it was tempting to believe that the Admiral had perhaps had a hand in getting rid of a Captain he hated passionately, the General didn’t think that Ozzel had the ability.

Something else was going on here. Something that had him wear a blaster at all times, even on board ship.

Further, Vader had not appointed a new captain. He’d placed Venka as acting captain with the promise to look over promising candidates for the coveted position on his flagship.

But two months was ridiculously long by Lord Vader’s…standards for promotion.

Did he think Firmus might still be alive somewhere?

The Captain had also been a strange choice to oversee this particular landing party, but Piett obeyed his orders.

And then they’d been jumped.

Scraps still felt he should have seen it coming—-what good was he as a security lead if he couldn’t see the threat to his Captain?

They’d fought so hard. Two of their number had been critically wounded before capture and Scraps had known they wouldn’t survive.

And his Captain…

He’d never seen Piett in action like that. He was a star demon in human form—fighting viciously and without restraint to protect his people. Matt was pretty sure he’d killed six cell members before they took him down with three stun shots.

Which was the moment Matt had surrendered, because where Piett went, so did he and he needed to be alive to do so.