Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Firmus Piett, Captain of the Star Dreadnought the Executor, informally known as the Lady, was having a very strange day.

A not altogether unfamiliar situation considering who his immediate superiors were, but a situation that had unfortunately become much more commonplace as of late. A timeframe that corresponded one to one with the arrival of the Lady’s latest Head Engineer.

Luke Lars, a strange young man—a boy, really—who had been brought aboard by Lord Vader himself and immediately given carte blanche concerning any and all matters in hardware and star ships, his authority in that area superseded only by that of Lord Vader. Something the young man had instantly put to use by drastically overhauling the entire complement of TIE fighters in the Lady’s possession, a move that—surprising most Crewmates and Officers aboard the ship—had gained him high favor with Death Squadron’s Pilots.

After that, Luke Lars had risen through the informal ranks of the Lady seemingly overnight, establishing himself quickly as someone both highly competent and firmly in Lord Vader’s favor, surviving altercations with the Lord’s infamous temper time and time again, regardless of the severity of the news he bore or the irreverence with which he addressed the dark Lord. The amount of danger Lars blatantly disregarded on a near daily basis was… disconcerting, to put it mildly. Not in the least because the young man now informally outranked damn near everyone aboard the ship.

Oh, as a Captain he still outranked the Head Engineer without question, and on any other ship there would be no doubt as to who was in charge, but the Lady’s hierarchy tended to work two-fold. There was the hierarchy of the standard Imperial Navy, with her Officers, Pilots and Crewmates, and then there was the informal hierarchy governed solely by Lord Vader’s favor. And that hierarchy was both as informal as it was deadly when disregarded.

For the longest time Piett had felt comfortable in position in both, as a Captain he was second in rank under Lord Vader only to Admiral Ozzel, someone who he privately thought made an excellent example of what not to do when aboard the Lady, with all the blatant disrespect he regarded Lord Vader with. As for the informal hierarchy dictated by Lord Vader, well, he had gained his position aboard the ship solely on his own merit and Lord Vader’s approval, which solidly put him somewhere comfortably high in that rank order as long as he didn’t make any fatal mistakes. And for the longest of time, that was how it had been, with there hardly being any discrepancies between the two hierarchies asides from a few exceptions here and there that could mostly be dealt with by remaining polite to his subordinates as he gave them orders and remembering to take suggestions of the lower ranks seriously. Something he was hardly averse to doing in the first place.

Not now though, Head Engineer Lars’ arrival had shaken up life aboard his ship until he hardly recognized it. Still. The young man certainly had proven his credentials over the course of the last few months, both mechanically and, surprisingly and blessedly, in managing Lord Vader’s infamous temper. A skill so invaluable that even the Officers less than fond of Lars’ more… eccentric characteristics were willing to put with him if it meant a lowered risk to their collective necks.

Which is why Piett now found himself following a cheerfully chirping mouse droid through the corridors of the Lady to where its master was ostensibly located.

Piett sighed as he strode after the small droid, its paint scheme marking it out as one of the many mouse droids Lars had commandeered and modified in his quest to keep the Lady running as smoothly as possible. Outfitted with a whole armament of sensors, tools and scanners, the veritable army of little droids was apparently key to Lady’s improved performance over the last few months, with them reporting back anything they deemed suspect to their master if they weren’t capable of handling the situation themselves. An arrangement which, to the consternation of a number of Officers who considered them little more than pests, marked them as untouchable as their master due to their status as extensions of his work.

It also made them the go-to solution for tracking down the wayward Head Engineer whenever he needed to be found and didn’t answer his comm, something which was necessitated by the understated vendetta the young man seemed to have with both his office and proper means of communication.

After the fourth time he’d gone missing for two days before being found holed away somewhere in a crawlspace, elbow-deep in the Lady’s wiring, a solution had had to be found though, and Lars had consented to wearing a removable tracker on his person of which his mouse droids had the frequency.

Which is why Piett now found himself following said mouse droid as it skidded around the corner before peeking back around as if to make sure he was still following. A mouse droid which he had been following for well over ten minutes now, all the way from the bridge on which it had been stationed to the ten levels or so down that he’d had to go to get to a half-forgotten maintenance corridor. After another two turns he finally began to pick up on the signature humming and soft muttering that usually marked out the presence he was looking for.

When the little droid came to a halt under a ceiling vent from which the humming seemed to originate and cheerfully spun in a couple of circles, he knew he’d found his target. He eyed the ceiling as he pressed his lips together in distaste. In a vent. Again.

He sighed through his nose in an effort to suppress his annoyance with the Engineer and promptly rapped his knuckles against the grate in a parody of a knock on the door. The humming stopped immediately and when it switched over to muffled cursing as something began to stumble closer through the vents, he could nearly find a smile as he pictured the young man having to untangle himself from whatever position he had managed to get himself into. By the time the vent grate swung open with a squeal of the hinges and a familiar messy blond head with a disarming smile popped out, Piett had almost forgotten his annoyance. Almost.

Still, he affected his best unimpressed blank look as Lars made his best attempt at a salute while hanging upside-down from a vent.

‘Captain Piett, sir!’ Lars greeted with a boyish grin. ‘What brings you here?’

‘That would be your lack of response on your comm unit, Engineer Lars.’ He folded his arms over his chest in his best impersonation of Lord Vader and preened a little inside when the young man looked sheepish at the mention of his comm unit. ‘I have attempted to reach you three times over the past half-hour to notify you that the Officer meeting is starting in—’ he cast a glance at his chronometer, ‘—twenty minutes. It wouldn’t do for you to be late.’

‘Right,’ Lars mumbled as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, looking even younger than usual with the gesture. ‘Sorry, sir. I left my comm with Emmy when I went into the vents to prevent it getting crushed in the tight spaces. I guess I didn’t realize how far I’d wandered away from her.’

Those eyes were entirely disarming and entirely unfair in Piett’s opinion. How was he supposed to stay stern with the boy when it felt like kicking a tooka kit every time they grew large and contrite? He grumbled to himself somewhere deep inside his own head where the youth couldn’t hear, but evidently something still showed up in his posture as Lars shrunk back a bit further into himself. Berating himself for growing soft, he nonetheless relaxed his posture as he motioned for the Engineer to get out of the vent.

‘Well, you better find a solution for this issue soon, Engineer. I have a ship to run and a duty to fulfill, herding you towards the meeting room whenever there is one isn’t a part of either,’ he groused as Lars worked himself free from the grate with an impressive black flip.

Lars, menace that he was, merely gave him a wide grin as he straightened out. ‘Yes, sir!’ The grin softened into a grateful smile. ‘Still, thank you for coming to get me either way, Captain. You wouldn’t believe the earful Lord Vader gave me the last time this happened.’

“Earful”, Piett thought, with a light shiver down his spine. Not “strangling”, not “threats”, no, “earful” is the word he chooses. The manner in which Lars seemed to interact with Lord Vader always held a hint of that. A casual mention of something that was thought unthinkable before he arrived.

He quickly brought himself back to the present when Lars gave him that piercing look, a look he always seemed to get whenever the mood of the room shifted too rapidly for anyone’s liking. ‘Yes, well,’ he cleared his throat as he gives the scruffy Engineer a once over. ‘That… earful might still be in the cards for you, seeing as we hardly have the time left to freshen up.’

Lars groaned at those words as he hastily began to dust himself off. ‘Don’t remind me, sir. Please tell me I at least don’t have any engine grease on my face this time?’ He looked up hopefully but Piett’s eyes immediately caught sight of a black smear that marked the young man’s face with a grimace.

‘I would, but I’d be lying. Here.’ He fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it over. ‘You can attempt to fix your appearance on the way there. Right side, on your cheek. We’re running out of time as it is.’ Unmentioned went the fact that while Lars could likely come in ten minutes late and only gain a reprimand, Piett would most likely gain a hard to erase strike against him in whatever mental file Lord Vader kept of his men. A fact that quickly hastened his steps.

Lars, thankfully, only nodded before falling into step besides him. ‘Yes, sir.’

They proceeded to the meeting room mostly in silence, Lars preoccupied with attempting to rid himself of as much grease and dust as possible before having to face the shadow of the Lady and all her Officers, something that he seemed supremely unconcerned by. Piett wished that he could share the young man’s confidence, but fact remained that before Lars arrived, if there was ever a “moment” on the Lady for executions? Officer meetings were it.

But that was before, and while no one knew how far Lars’ influence on Lord Vader went, so far it had either not been tested, or it was effective enough that Lars’ influence was on a level that was terrifying in and of itself.

Not that you would know, just looking at the young man himself, who was currently busy softly cursing at a particularly stubborn smear.

‘Fucking— would it kill you to just come out!?’ he muttered under his breath and Piett had to fight off a smile at the young man’s antics.

‘I doubt it will respond regardless of the language used, Engineer Lars,’ he chided playfully, earning him an amused huff from the younger man.

‘Maybe not, but it certainly makes me feel better,’ he fired back before going pensive. ‘Also, sir? If it isn’t too forward, I have a question I’ve been meaning to ask.’

He raised an eyebrow but inclined his head in permission. ‘Ask away, Engineer.

Lars nodded his gratitude and turned his pensive stare back ahead. ‘I’ve been going through my predecessor's notes and the course in imperial military policy, and from all what I’ve gathered, the Engineering Corps is not considered a part of the official chain of command, nor treated as such informally—’

Piett felt his blood run cold at those words, before stifling that reaction a split second later. Fuck. He could guess where this was going.

‘—and I was wondering why it’s necessary for me to be present at all these meetings and exercises despite not being an Officer in the chain in any capacity?’ Lars finished, oblivious to Piett’s brief flare of internal panic.

Putting on his blandest “just-following-protocol-nothing-exciting-here” airs, Piett prayed to whatever higher power that would listen that he could pull this off. Lars has proven himself to have a scarily accurate nose for lies and misdirection that, while it served him well, could spell disaster for the tenuous peace Piett and his fellow Officers had found aboard the Lady.

‘You’re quite right in your observations, Engineer Lars,’ he agreed with a bored tone. ‘However, the matters discussed during Officer meetings frequently intersect with the work done by the Engineering Corps, so it is considered good form for the Head Engineer to be granted access so that any new policies can be discussed and refined before they are implemented instead of having to submit to extensive back-and-forth after the fact. It streamlines the process and keeps the ship running smoothly.’

None of which was a lie, mind you, but it was also not remotely why anyone insisted on Lars specifically joining these meetings. Nor would it hopefully be mentioned that his predecessor preferred the afore mentioned back-and-forth to ever having to step foot into the meeting room.

Thankfully, Lars merely nodded his assent and thanked him for his explanation without further comment and Piett released an internal sigh. Crisis averted. The others should be thankful. Which, considering they’d nearly reached the meeting room with still some time to spare, they’d better be.

Heading inside the meeting room, Piett noted with immediate relief that Lord Vader had yet to arrive, though most of the other Officers were already there. With all eyes on them as they entered the room, the manner in which the heavy atmosphere immediately lightened as soon as Lars entered the room was inescapable, with even the Officers throwing derisive looks at the Head Engineer’s appearance relaxing imperceptibly.

Piett grinned bitterly as a couple of them caught his eye and gave subtle nods of gratitude. The Engineer evidently had his detractors, but no one could deny the positive effect he had on Lord Vader.

Well, he grimaced as he noticed Ozzel and a couple of his cronies glaring daggers at the young Engineer from his place at the table, almost no one.

Before any unfortunate comments could be made, however, Lars’ head snapped up towards the door and the entire room straighten up on freshly ingrained instinct.

Not a second later, the door slid open and the sound of a respirator filled the room as the temperature dropped.

Lord Vader strode into the room, and everyone rose in greeting and respect.

With their commander here, the meeting began, but no one missed how, for just a split second, Lord Vader’s attention lingered on the scruffy presence at the corner of the table.

After that the meeting room seemed just a little bit warmer.

Luke was bored.

Bored-out-of-his-mind bored.

He understood that meetings of this kind were most likely vital to keeping the ship running, but for the life of him, he couldn’t bring himself to care when Admiral Ozzel was prattling on and on about something or other. Whatever it was, it was delivered so dust dry that even a Desert Child like him was tuning out.

Subtly glancing around the room, he noticed that he wasn’t the only one who was paying less than full attention to the Admiral. Both General Veers and Lieutenant Suba seemed to have tuned out and were going through their notes, while Captain Piett kept an impressively blank face with only the eyes looking just slightly too glazed over. He probably shouldn’t have felt as satisfied as he did with those observations, but knowing that even the people with decades more experience in these kinds of things found this to be dull and uninteresting pulled some of the weight off of his chest.

Still, even a cursory glance around the room could tell anyone that he was by far the youngest person in the room, his eighteen years of living often being less than just these people’s careers.

And yet.

He glanced over to the imposing figure cut out of gleaming black plastisteel and flowing armor weave.

And yet he had somehow, inexplicably, caught the eye of Darth fucking Vader himself.

Suns and sand, he’d built a rapport with the man and inadvertently insulted him to his face without apology and he’d still been brought aboard the Exe— the Lady the minute he’d agreed to take the job offered. He’d half expected it to be a joke when he’d been told a shuttle would arrive in three cycles time to pick him up, but he’d told Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru anyway and packed his bags half on hope and half on something he couldn’t even name.

When a lambda-class shuttle had landed out by the vaporators with none other than Darth Vader walking down the ramp to greet him, it’d felt like everything he hadn’t even known he’d been waiting for. He’d gotten his wish though, he’d gotten out.

Out of the place where Anchorhead was the biggest town around. Out of Tatooine, a planet so far out in nowhere that it seemed even the galaxy had forgotten it. Out amongst the stars.

Out into the unknown.

And boy, was it unknown!

The very day he’d arrived he’d been handed over to a stern-faced Sergeant who’d been given strict instructions to get him up to date on everything imperial and military as fast as he could without compromising Luke’s new duties and responsibilities. And Suns, hadn’t that been intimidating!

But Vader had pulled him aside not long after and told him in no uncertain terms that while he may need to understand the jargon and systems the Lady worked by, he’d been hired to be an Engineer first and foremost. The Head Engineer. Meaning that the Engineering Corps aboard the Lady now worked under his command, not that of the policies. If he built decent ships and kept the Lady in pristine shape, he could print hardcopies of the rulebook and space them if he wanted to.

Luke hadn’t wanted to, he found the idea to be just a bit too excessive, even for him, but he’d taken the message to heart.

So, when the former Head Engineer had looked like he was about to faint at some of Luke’s ordered changes to the TIE fighters, he’d repeated Vader’s instruction with the addendum that if Vader now drew issue, he could take it up with Luke. That had gained him looks both horrified and pitying, which had confused him at the time but he now thought he understood better, and had prompted everyone to get to work.

It’d been touch-and-go for a bit when the Pilots of Death Squadron had shown up to see what the “rookie Engineer” was doing with their fighters and whether or not they needed to space him for what he’d done, but a combination of explaining to them what he was doing like it was another episode of Scrap Hunters and telling them that he had orders from Darth Vader had them backing down fast.

Though they had asked him to fly the TIE himself before they committed to anything, which, fair, he could understand that. The fact that he would get to make his first space flight was just a bonus at that point.

But what a bonus it had been. Flying around the Lady with nothing but void all around him at speeds you couldn’t make atmospherically had been nothing shorts of breathtaking and the fact that he was essentially supposed to show off his handy work to an audience was only secondary to just how happy he’d been just… flying.

After he’d made sure the Pilots would be suitably impressed with what was going to be their new fighters, life aboard the Lady had gone a lot smoother. Both his Corps and the Pilots now respected him and the Officers of the ship seemed to be getting comfortable about having someone so young, yet so high ranked, amongst them.

Though at the moment he wished they’d been a little less comfortable with him, he thought as he turned his attention back to where Admiral Ozzel was still going on about… something.

His attempts at getting his mind back on track were thwarted when he felt the distinct sensation of someone watching him set the hairs on his neck on end. Turning to face the direction the sensation was coming from, he locked eyes with two opaque red lenses set into a distinctive black mask. Vader had apparently noticed his lack of attention but before Luke could even begin to feel anything about that, the mask tilted slightly in a manner he’d swear to all the Suns and Moons was amused. And after that the only reasonable emotion to feel was indignity, really.

He made sure to glower back at the man who’d become his superior and scowled when he could swear that only made him even more amused. But before he could think of any way he could retaliate in a manner that wouldn’t be inappropriate in an Officers meeting, his attention was forcibly drawn back to Admiral Ozzel’s monologue.

‘—and while our expenditure on the Stormtrooper complement aboard is within... decent… parameters, I believe we could whittle down the cost to two thirds of that by simply outsourcing the production for their necessary hardware to individual contractors,’ Ozzel finished with a grand gesture to the hideously complicated graph he put up on the projector. ‘I have already solicited various companies for their estimates and all believe that they could produce the necessary items within the range of—’

What that range was, Luke would never know, as that was the moment a furious General Veers decided to inject himself back into the monologue— err, conversation.

‘Now hold on just one minute, Admiral,’ came the interruption so icy Luke was surprised the General’s breath hadn’t become visible yet, though his eyes certainly resembled flints of ice closely enough. ‘I would like to know who, exactly, authorized you to make these kinds of decisions in the Imperial Army, as I know for a fact that I haven’t seen any kind of notice appear on my desk to inform me of it.’

Admiral Ozzel, either a very brave or very foolish man—Luke was leaning towards the latter—merely scoffed at the dangerous tone of the General. ‘I hardly need authorization to regulate expenditures aboard my ship, General. Besides, these are mere suggestions—’

‘Expenditure,’ growled Veers, ‘Authorized by the Army. Admiral,’ he spat out as an afterthought.

Ozzel still seemed unfazed and even almost amused by the General’s clearly thinning patience. ‘Authorized by the Imperial High Command, you mean, General,’ Ozzel corrected with a smirk, and even Luke, as new to the internal military politics of the empire as he was, could see that this was a blatant challenge and dismissal of authority of a very dangerous man.

Luke liked General Veers, the few times they’d spoken so far was when maintenance was needed for one part of military hardware or another that couldn’t be handled solely by the army’s own Engineers. When Luke had finally gained the courage to make suggestions for a couple of improvements to whatever they’d been working on, he’d been very accepting of Luke’s authority when it came to all things mechanical, which was more than could be said of some other Officers aboard. Still, he didn’t doubt that the man was very dangerous, and wouldn’t take Ozzel’s challenge to him and his troops lying down. And he wasn’t quite sure how these kinds of rivalries were usually handled within the military.

He doubted it was very pleasant.

Looking quickly around the room to gauge the reactions, he saw that most of the present Officers’ faces had either gone ashen or perfectly mask-like. Luke grimaced. It was as bad as he had suspected it to be then.

General Veers formed some kind of icy retort but Luke’s attention was drawn away by what felt like a slowly wakening presence on the opposite side of the room. Whatever Vader was thinking, Luke doubted it was anything pleasant with the way his lenses were now solely fixated on Ozzel, the bulk of the man stilled to the point that he might as well be a statue.

Or, Luke swallowed, a predator preparing for the kill.

He knew of Vader’s reputation, and while he thought that some of it might’ve been blown a bit out of proportion, the one time he’d asked, Vader had straight up admitted to executing his subordinates himself when they failed him badly enough. He didn’t know the extent of what Vader considered “failure” but from the way the man tended to fuss—even if he tried to be subtle about it—he guessed “endangering one’s troops” fell squarely under that definition.

And if even Luke could see the hazards of what Ozzel was suggesting, he had no doubt the Supreme Commander could too.

Still, as begrudging as Luke was feeling on the subject, he had to concede Ozzel one point. With the state of the Stormtrooper armor as it was now, you honestly could just consider cost over everything else, because the quality sure as fuck couldn’t suffer any more than it already had.

It was only when the room fell silent and he looked up to see everyone staring at him that he realized he must’ve said that last bit out loud.

Uh, oops?

A static like noise that made everyone else in the room flinch drew his attention back to Vader, who was once again looking at him with that stupid helmet tilt that Luke could swear meant the man was silently laughing at him.

‘Care to explain your statement, Head Engineer?’ the man asked in what was definitely a teasing tone but just made everyone else blanch. Huh. Weird.

Still, he’d been asked a question.

‘Yes, milord,’ he said with a quick nod, pulling out his own datapad on which he’d been putting down everything he’d learned over the last few months. Pulling up the file on Trooper armor that was honestly just what Biggs would’ve called a “bitch list” rather than any proper kind of plan, he pulled every complaint and idea back to the forefront of his mind.

‘I’ve taken a couple of looks at Stormtrooper armor over the last few months and quite frankly, I can’t believe we’re sending men out into the field with that,’ he jerked a thumb in the general direction of where he thinks the armory is roughly located, ‘As their only protection between them and any number of hostile situations.’

Tapping out a few commands on his screen had the holoprojector he’d built in spit out a crystal-clear schematic of the armor in question. Another few taps had the thing light up like fireworks with the highlights he’d added to indicate problem areas. Putting the pad flat on the table to stabilize the projection, he put up the list of his complaints next to it.

‘Highlighted areas are the places I’ve found flaws, critical failures waiting to happen, poor quality materials, or just plain bad design,’ he rattled off while pointing out the relevant colors.

‘Engineer Lars,’ General Veers interrupted, apparently having regained some of his lost composure and now looking somewhat puzzled. ‘You’ve highlighted the entire schematic.’

‘Yup,’ he agreed happily, earning him a somewhat amused look from the General and a downright hostile one from Ozzel. ‘Your Troopers’ armor is what we would call on Tatooine—I’m sorry to say it, sir—absolute trash. Frankly, if I’d found it while I was still working in the junkyard, I would’ve given it up as a lost cause made of poor quality materials.’

Whether it was his lighthearted delivery of some really bad news or just the jokes he’d thrown in there for good measure, he couldn’t say, but fact was that the heavy atmosphere in the room lifted and some Officers could even find it in themselves to chuckle along with his punchline. Suns, even Veers looked like he was barely suppressing a smile and that had to count as some sort of success, right?

He continued in good spirits now that the tension from earlier had disappeared and pulled up another file into the corner for quick access. ‘I’ve got another file with the improvements I could make but I think that’s probably best for another time,’ he explained to the room at large before turning his attention to Vader. ‘Or would you rather I do the entire explanation in one go, milord?’

A jerking movement seemed to go through the entire room as if everyone only now remembered the presence of the Supreme Commander and really, Luke didn’t blame them. Vader’d been awfully quiet throughout the entire meeting so far, but he too seemed to have cheered up a bit along with everyone else, as he merely inclined his head at him.

‘We are all here already, Head Engineer,’ Vader rumbled in that tone of his that reminded Luke of the song the dunes sang whenever the winds were just right. ‘If you can explain your reasoning in its entirety, it would be a waste to call a second meeting when just one will do.’

Taking the implicit permission for what it was, Luke quickly nodded his head and enlarged the current schematic. ‘Yes, milord. I’ll start by explaining what’s bad with the current version and how we can fix that before moving on to any improvements.’

Tapping the upper part of the schematic, Luke zoomed in on the helmet until all his individual grievances with the thing were clearly displayed instead of looking like just one big blob of color. ‘First up: the helmet. Or as I like to call it, the bucket of travesty and tears.’

The quip earned him another round of scattered laughter amongst the Officers and he grinned at the reaction. Perhaps giving a successful presentation of this entire thing was more up his alley than he’d thought. If he just treated it like any other episode of Scrap Hunting and squinted his eyes until his current audience resembled Biggs behind the camera instead of the empire’s top brass, he’d probably get through this just fine.

‘My first issue with the thing is the air filters and the hermetic seals.’ A tap on the screen faded out all the other highlights and he spun the schematic round once for everyone to see what he’s talking about. ‘Look at this. Who designed this? How drunk were they? I assume they must’ve been drunk, cause frankly, sirs, it’s the only reason I could find for the components basically being as effective as paper mâché at what they’re supposed to do.’ He took a moment to thoroughly scrutinize the component and sneer in disgust. ‘At least paper mâché would’ve been cheap too, I suppose.’

Over the laughter of the Officers he started explaining the issues of the air filtration system in the basic layman’s terms with some jokes thrown in there for good measure, and before he knew it, he was back in the zone like he’d never left the Tatooine junkyard. When he’d comprehensively torn the air filtration unit and seals to shreds, he highlighted the next item on his list.

‘Next, the battle HUD.’ At the very mention of the unit he saw the expression of General Veers sour alongside that of several other army Officers. He grimaced at the thing in sympathy. ‘I’m guessing you know of the issues there too, right, sir?’

At the General’s curt nod, he saw several other Officers perk up with interest.

‘For those unaware,’ he addressed the room at large, ‘What we have here is likely the cause behind the wide-spread belief amongst the galaxy that Stormtroopers can’t hit the broadside of a hutt at twenty paces.’ And with that, looks of dawning comprehension spread amongst the other Officers.

‘You see, the way this thing is wired in makes me wonder if whoever designed this either had one hell of a grudge against Stormtroopers, proper wiring, engineering in general or just ran out of wiring when making the prototype, shrugged their shoulders and said “well, I have the entire financial might of the empire behind me, but I just ran out and the stores are already closed so fuck it, I guess” and then just never got any more wiring. Ever.’

The fact that he almost got General Veers to crack a grin at a joke at his Troopers’ reputations expense was probably a good thing, right?

Cutting to the chase, he highlighted another few points that made even some of the Officers frown in confusion. Slowly working his way through every flaw or failure of the armor, he explained every last of his reasons in layman’s terms for highlighting whatever component it was he’d put on the spot. Couple it with a few jokes that would have Biggs booing him off camera and personal anecdotes, and the gathering of stiff-backed Officers started relaxing until even the lower ranked naval Officers felt comfortable enough in their understanding of the armor to start asking pointed question.

After a few rounds of questions and the last couple of explanations, Luke felt confident enough in having made his point about the current quality of the armor that even if his version of the improvements were rejected, the issues would most likely be forwarded to the manufacturer with enough high ranking signature signing off on them that something would have to change.

‘—and then of course there is simply the quality of all the materials used in the armor,’ he continued, zooming the schematic back out until the entire armor was visible again. ‘The plastisteel is honestly of poor enough quality that even back on Tatooine you wouldn’t have been able to pay me enough to work with it. The same goes for the armor weave used in the body glove and the overall quality of the components. Put that all together, add the fact that the armor severely restricts movement and…’ Luke fell silent as he bit his lip, not sure if he should finish what he’d been about to say.

‘And, Engineer Lars?’ General Veers prompted quietly.

He sighed and dropped his shoulders. ‘And I honestly wonder if the empire wouldn’t have lost less Troopers if you sent them into the battlefield in just their civvies, sir,’ he finished with a bitter tone. ‘Restrict a person’s movement like that, paint them a bright white target so that they can’t even blend in and give them armor that almost seems to try harder to kill its wearers than protect them?’ He shook his head. ‘I honestly have to wonder just how many Troopers died because their own armor killed them.’

That seemed to hit a nerve amongst the Officers and even General Veers looked somewhat shaken. Looking through the gathered people, he saw Captain Piett’s severe expression staring back at him, Lieutenant Venka was looking slightly ill and even Lieutenant Suba’s face looked mask like. Admiral Ozzel seemed to have turned an unhealthy-looking shade of puce in the meantime though, and while Luke would like to believe it was in response to the idea of people needlessly losing their lives, he somehow doubted it.

It was the deep rumbling of a vocoder that drew everyone’s attention back to the present with an efficiency that left Luke slightly in awe. Though he supposed that learning how to pay attention the second your superior started speaking was always something the military would teach you.

‘You have made quite the list of all the things you take umbrage with in the armor, Engineer Lars,’ Vader rumbled slowly, and Luke could already feel the challenge coming on. ‘But I believe it is time that you showed us just what you are capable of, and demonstrate what your own work would look like.’

He grinned widely at those words, and accepted them with a dip of his head. ‘Gladly, milord.’

Piett couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this much fun in Officer meeting, if he’d ever had any fun at all.

When Ozzel had begun his presentation, he could have hardly imagined that the man would go as far as to suggest that the 501^st wasn’t worth their upkeep.

Especially, he thought while uncomfortably aware of the dark presence off to his side, considering whose men the 501^st were.

He and every other Officer in the room had just been holding their breaths until Lord Vader finally decided he’d had enough of the posturing fool.

But whether it was intentional or not, Head Engineer Lars had somehow managed to defuse the hostile situation with a single remark before smoothly changing the toxic subject to something far more palatable and pressing to everyone involved.

Well, almost everyone, Piett thought with no little vicious glee as he saw Ozzel’s thoroughly indignant but utterly silent complex. If he didn’t know Lars better by now, he would’ve thought that the young man couldn’t have orchestrated a better way to put Ozzel in his place if he’d tried.

What had begun as Ozzel’s own power trip poorly disguised as a presentation, had ended with him being forcefully silenced by Lord Vader in favor of a younger, lower ranked, subordinate in a snub so vicious Piett had half expected the Admiral to spontaneously self-immolate out of sheer offense. An expectation that had doubled the moment the young man started his improvised (and Piett was fairly certain by now that this whole thing was improvised) presentation by cracking a joke.

Settling back into his chair perhaps just a little too smugly satisfied with the situation, Piett focused his attention back on the young Engineer just in time to chuckle at another one of the young man’s witty quips.

The atmosphere in the meeting room was like nothing Piett had ever experienced before. Lighthearted, relaxed, and with Officers openly asking questions while actually learning something for once. He found himself eagerly soaking up the knowledge that Lars was presenting in an easy and entertaining fashion until he was certain he’d picked up more on engineering in this one afternoon than he had during his entire career. And there was laughter.

Laughter. Piett doubted the meeting room aboard the Lady had ever seen that sound before and yet Lars was bringing it out in spades with quick humor and scathing remarks at the Trooper armor, the target of his ire. The Engineer had been talking for twice as long as Ozzel already, and yet entirely unlike Ozzel, he held the attention of the room effortlessly with just a single schematic and some simple, if effective, color-coding. Something that no doubt compounded the Admiral’s ire at being shown up by an upstart.

After all, Lars had everything right now that Ozzel had been trying to get in these meetings for years; the full attention of a roomful of the most powerful people in the Empire who were currently taking his every word as gospel, up to and including his own ideas. Nine hells, even Lord Vader seemed fully content to listen to the young Engineer explain the full potential of the currently “worse than trash” shield generators.

‘And of course,’ the young man continued, ‘There are a number of things we could do that would vastly improve the Troopers’ morale while functionally being very minor adjustments to currently already existing features in the armor.’ Another few taps on the datapad had the schematic spin around to showcase the IFF transmitter used for Trooper identification.

‘I’ve spoken to various Troopers amongst the 501^st as to what they would wish for in their armor,’ Lars explained while enlarging the transmitter to show the necessary changes for his vision. ‘And one of the features they’d like the most is to be able to add their nicknames to their displayed serial number when using the HUD for identification. Functionally, all that this needs is a program for an interface that would allow the Troopers to add a single line to their own IFF code.’

Lars shrugged and switched over to the next item on his seemingly infinite list. ‘A small change, but one that I believe would do wonders for the Troopers’ morale and spirit—'

‘Now, now, Engineer,’ drawled a voice that Piett had hoped would stay preoccupied with his indignancy for the rest of the meeting. ‘While I’m sure you mean well, you can’t just expect the Empire to waste credits on meaningless fluff,’ a far too condescending Admiral Ozzel admonished.

‘With all due respect, Admiral,’ Lars retorted in a manner that had Piett suspecting there was significant less respect there than might be implied. ‘I would hardly call this meaningless fluff. Morale is one of the most important things there is. People who don’t believe they can win, or who believe they are destined for nothing, become self-fulfilling prophecies. You could have all the power in the world, but if that power is in the hands of someone who believes it will accomplish nothing, it will make less of a difference than a drop of water in the Desert.’

A wiser man would have known to hold his tongue after being so thoroughly beaten, Piett thought as the Admiral visibly geared up for another retort, but let it never be said that Ozzel was in any manner wise.

‘And I suppose you were taught that at the military academy, Engineer,’ the man spat out like it was a damning curse.

Lars merely raised an eyebrow at the frankly pathetic display in front of him, as thoroughly unbothered by the Admiral as anyone carrying Lord Vader’s blatant favor probably ought to be. ‘Not at the academy, no, sir,’ the young man answered easily, gaining him a victorious smirk from Ozzel which was quickly wiped away by Lars’ follow up.

‘But I certainly learned it from witnessing how Tatooine slavers work.’

You could hear a pin drop in the room, but Lars continued on, entirely unbothered by the shock of everyone around him.

‘It’s the same reason why I would suggest prioritizing the IFF alteration if I had to make any improvements at all,’ the young Engineer continued. ‘If there is one thing I know, it’s that names, especially names chosen or earned, carry a great power over people. It’s why one of the first things a slaver does is try to eliminate a slave’s own name, and why one of the most important things a slave owns when they don’t even own themselves is their name.’

With a few idle taps Lars resized the schematic once more but kept the transmitter activated, pulsing brightly within the armor’s chest in a manner Piett could idly compare to a shining heart.

‘Names carry power, sir,’ Lars continues, voice soft yet somehow louder than ever. ‘And what you are named is what you are to the world. I fully believe that allowing the Troopers to name themselves in such a manner is something more powerful than any other improvement I could make.’ At this Lars locked eyes with Ozzel in a manner that screamed as loudly of a challenge as could be heard without ever saying the word out loud. ‘So yes, sir. I would hardly call this “meaningless fluff.”’

Whatever Ozzel’s retort would have been was waylaid by a deep, rumbling voice. ‘You have made your stance quite clear, Head Engineer.’

Piett barely stopped himself from flinching when Lord Vader reminded everyone of his presence, (and since when was it possible to forget said presence!?) with some of his other colleagues being less successful. Everyone scrambled to rise from their seats as Lord Vader shifted his stance at the head of the table, once again dominating the room with an icy ease.

‘You have demonstrated a great deal of promise in your initiative, Head Engineer Lars,’ the vocoder rumbled as Lord Vader inclined his head towards the young man in a rare show of praise to which Lars responded with a grin and a quick dip of his head.

‘Thank you, milord.’

‘Yet,’ his armored superior continued, ‘Will you be able to deliver on it?’

Lars closed his eyes for a moment as his face took on a look of contemplation. After a moment of silence, he opened his eyes and gave a determined nod. ‘Yes, milord, but with all my other duties it would take time. A few months at least, with having to design a lot of components from scratch and all.’

‘Now wait just a minute,’ a frazzled Ozzel interrupted the two men with a clear death wish. ‘You can’t just overhaul something like that! Do you even know what the expenses would be of such a project!? Let alone the potential shift in production and—’

Piett glared with distaste at the ranting man who was clearly grasping at straw arguments at this point to regain some illusion of control or prestige in the eyes of the remaining Officers present, but Lord Vader had evidently had enough of the pontificating idiot.

‘Admiral Ozzel,’ the vocoder growled out in a dangerously low tone. ‘You overstep your bounds. I suggest you do not do so again.’

While Ozzel still gaped like a fish at the reprimand, Lord Vader turned his attention back to the young Engineer. ‘As for you, Head Engineer Lars…’

The young man and every other officer straightened up in anticipation of Lord Vader’s verdict, the suspense hanging thick in the air.

‘As the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Armed Forces, I authorize your development of this project,’ Lord Vader continued, Lars’ face lighting up like the twin suns of the system he came from. ‘Make it a priority over all other duties. You have one month to show a workable prototype, enlist the rest of your corps if necessary, but ensure that it gets done.’

Lars grinned brightly and snapped off a quick salute. ‘Yes, milord!’

Lord Vader nodded his approval before turning to face another man who had been watching this exchange with great interest. ‘General Veers.’

Veers nodded sharply. ‘Yes, my Lord?’

‘You and your men will assist the Head Engineer in this project in whatever manner he deems necessary, is that clear?’

If Veers had any reservations about effectively being made subordinate to a teenager, he didn’t let it show on his face as it broke out into a shark-like grin. ‘Yes, my Lord.’

Lord Vader didn’t bother acknowledging Veers’ response as he turned his attention back to its preferred target. ‘And as for your suggested features for improving morale, Engineer Lars…’

And oh, Piett could already see where this was heading. Feeling slightly lightheaded from a mixture of glee, bafflement, anticipation and slight hysteria, he silently leant forward for the anticipated words.

‘I believe they are a worthy inclusion of this project,’ the Supreme Commander continued, ignoring the strangled noise of indignant rage coming from where Ozzel was standing in favor of Lars’ ever-brightening smile. ‘You have my permission to develop them. Meeting dismissed.’

And with those words, he swept out of the room in a billowing trail of armor weave and darkness, leaving the meeting room to warm up once again in his absence and his Officers to recollect their wits after what they just witnessed.

With a growl of suppressed rage, the Admiral stalked out of the room seconds later, and Piett privately hoped that he’d be wise enough to go lick his wounds instead of further antagonizing an already irritable Lord Vader. If only so that he’d still be around when Lars inevitably upstaged him even further.

A bark of laughter from off to his side startled Piett back to the present, just in time to see Veers give Lars a hearty pat on the back.

‘Nine hells, you gave a good show of it, lad!’ he said between bouts of laughter. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone steal Ozzel’s spotlight like that before! If I didn’t know you any better, I’d congratulate you on the plan.’

Ah, so Piett hadn’t been the only one who’d had that thought. But if anything cemented his conviction that Lars had no idea of what he’d just done, it’d be the look of plain, baffled confusion on his face.

‘Plan?’

And that was Piett’s cue to hastily cut in before Veers gave his own special brand of explanation, one usually peppered with more than a few phrases so colorful that it somehow felt wrong to expose Lars to them. ‘What the General means, Engineer Lars, is that it’s not usually done for anyone to high-jack the Admiral’s presentations like that.’ He offers the confused young man a mild smile as he continues. ‘Especially not in a manner that so thoroughly exposes his ignorance and grandstanding on the subject he was previously speaking about.’

A look of understanding dawns on Lars as he likely begun to see his enthusiasm fueled speech in another light. ‘Oh. I didn’t mean to, though.’

Veers, the menace, just chuckled as he patted Lars’ shoulder. ‘We know, lad. Hell, I’d say even Ozzel knows. But I’d wager that only makes it worse in his eyes, because you weren’t even trying to upstage him.’

If they’d hoped for that to cheer Lars back up, they’d be sorely disappointed as the Engineer’s features drooped into a rather dejected look. Which, asides from reminding Piett once again of kicked tooka kits, was a rather hazardous look for Lars to wear around them should Lord Vader decide to return.

Something which Veers seemed to recognized too, as he squeezed Lars’ shoulder. ‘Come on, lad, cheer up. If Ozzel gets his dander up over this, that’s on him, not you. Besides,’ Veers said with a hint of mischief about him so foreign that Piett nearly did a double take. ‘You hardly have the time to sulk around, remember? Lord Vader will be waiting on that armor in one month’s time, and I know for a fact that once word gets out, my men will be right there with him.’

That got a reaction as Lars immediately perked back up and start excitedly chattering away about the various plastisteel alloys he still needed to test, and even with the extensive lecture he’d just had on the subject, Piett found himself straining to keep up.

Evidently Veers had the same issue judging by his indulgent but slightly bewildered look before sobering up significantly as he caught sight of something. Catching the man’s eye, Veers jerked his chin to indicate a couple of Officers standing on the other side of the room, clustered together and occasionally glaring daggers at the happily chatting Engineer so venomous that Piett had already instinctively moved to put himself between them and Lars before he’d even realized it.

If looks could kill, he thought idly as he met Veers eyes in understanding.

Evidently Ozzel still had more support than anticipated, and he didn’t doubt that they’d take the man’s comeuppance at the hands of Lord Vader out on the young Engineer.

Glancing back at the still happily chattering youth (and he really was just a youth, Piett realized) and once more at his old friend, he and Veers seemed to come to the same conclusion.

And as one, they began herding the young man back out the door, firmly keeping to his side the entire trip down to the Head Engineer’s workshop.

It was only good form, after all.

Time, Luke began to realize, was hard to track on a space ship.

And even with the Lady’s advanced light systems that could simulate a day-cycle, it was still hard to tell when the only view outside the viewports was an endless black void interspersed with pinpricks of light and occasionally a planet.

Still, even with all that, he was rather certain it was very, very late. If for no other reason than that sleep was beginning to drag at his eyelids. Stretching languidly from where he’d spent the last couple hours bent over a drafting station, he leant back in his chair to take a look at what he’d accomplished so far.

The last three days had been a frenzy of interviews with various Troopers of the 501^st to gauge what they wanted from the new armor design and long hours spent drafting and redrafting his designs for the armor.

So far, the design for the boots, greaves, and cuisses had mostly solidified, with extra mobility, protection and utility being the name of the game there. The gauntlets, cuirasses, and vambraces were giving him more trouble though. He sighed. To say nothing of the helmet.

He glared at the design of the original he’d put up as reference next to his own, affront at the sheer shoddy design coming back to the forefront of his mind in full force, as he tried to stare a hole into it.

‘As fierce as your glare is, I doubt having the schematic spontaneously combust would be beneficent, little one,’ said a voice from behind him and Luke made a sound that was definitely not a squeak.

Spinning around, he found the by now familiar dark silhouette of a helmet and cloak in the doorway to his workshop, the slow cycles of a respirator filling the room. Amusement rolled off of Vader in near tangible waves and he glowered as fiercely as he could at the man.

‘Did you just go into stealth-modus to sneak up on me again?’ he blurted out.

‘What is it you are working on?’ the masked man asked, blatantly avoiding Luke’s accusation.

‘Sweet Suns, you did.’ Feeling about as incredulous as he must be looking. ‘You absolutely did.’

‘Luke,’ Vader interrupted his haphazard babbling firmly as he walked over to the drafting table. ‘What is it you are working on?’

Glowering at the man towering over him for just a moment longer in what definitely wasn’t a pout, he eventually sighed and turned back to the schematic he’d been working on.

‘Version two-point-oh of the helmet. It’s a nightmare trying to untangle the systems from the previous design into something more coherent that’ll stand up to a stiff breeze.’ He blew a raspberry at the original in a move that startled an unexpected burst of static out of the vocoder. He grinned up at the man after realizing that what he just heard was likely Vader’s version of a snort.

Vader, who seemed almost determined to ignore him while looking over the design he’d made so far. Looking back at his own work, he grimaced as he spotted a few of the more obvious problem areas. It really wasn’t fit yet to be shown to anyone, let alone the man who would eventually have to judge whether it was solid work or not.

‘It’s only the second draft,’ he started defensively. ‘I’ve still got a lot of things to try out and—’

‘Luke,’ Vader interrupted once more, placing a hand on his shoulder in a solid touch that he found himself softly leaning into. ‘It is already a vast improvement to the original. It has only been a few days. You have time, little one.’

Time…

‘About that,’ he said softly. ‘One month for a whole set of armor? Is there something going on that you need it that fast?’

His answer was a soft gust of static. ‘Asides from the fact that any improvements would be welcomed swiftly, there are other reasons, yes. Though none that you need to concern yourself with, little one.’

‘Still.’ He leaned in a bit more to the comforting touch, heavy with the durasteel hidden in the gloves. ‘A month isn’t that long to make a fully functional prototype, especially not for something that needs to be rated safe for humanoid usage.’ Luke may be new to the way the empire did things when it came to their engineering, but at least growing up on Tatooine had given him a healthy appreciation for things that could be guaranteed to be safe in a place where near everything was trying to kill you.

He’d imagine that that kind of appreciation would likely carry over to the Troopers, for similar enough reasons.

A rumbling burst of static flowed out of the vocoder, something which Luke had recently learned was its best attempts at translating the man’s laughter.

‘You are aiming high indeed, little one,’ the man said in that same flat monotone, but Luke could easily sense the fond amusement under it. ‘If you are intending to present a fully functional prototype in a mere month.’

Luke frowned in confusion. ‘What?’

‘If you recall,’ Vader continued, ‘I merely asked for a workable prototype. Not a fully functional one. And what you have here,’ he said with a gesture towards the schematics, ‘Is already more than suitable if you were to produce it. Even with the flaws it still possesses.’

It took a few seconds for the words to register themselves in Luke’s brain, but when they did, he wheeled around to look the masked man in the lenses. Lenses, which looked right back at him.

‘Workable, little one,’ the man repeated. ‘Not finished.’

He mulled over those words for a moment before accepting them with a curt nod. ‘I’m still going to try, though,’ he felt the need to point out.

Another gust of static accompanied by heaving shoulders; a sigh this time, then.

‘That much I expected,’ he admitted. ‘Though you must understand that it is not necessary.’

He frowned and turned back to the schematic, already planning out the next adjustment. ‘It is, though,’ he objected. ‘If for no other reason than that the Troopers deserve my very best attempt at it.’ He casted a furtive glance at the armored giant still standing closely at his side. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask as well, if it’s okay?’

A reassuring squeeze to his shoulder was his answer.

Taking a steadying breath, he asked the question that’d been on his mind ever since he first got his hands on the schematics. ‘Why is this even necessary?’ he blurted out. ‘I mean, I get why this—' he gestured to his own schematic, ‘—is necessary, but why does it need to be done in the first place?’

He blew out a frustrated breath as he leaned into the side of the man next to him, suddenly feeling all the hours he’d spent laboring over every small detail concerning the armor and running simulation after simulation in the Lady’s state-of-the-art laboratories.

‘I mean,’ he continued on softly. ‘I’m just eighteen. And yeah, I’m pretty good with machines and mechanics and such but, I threw this—' another gesture towards the drafting table, ‘—together on my own in about three days. The empire has entire teams of experts for working on stuff like this. People who’ve likely actually gone to one of those fancy schools instead of hoarding every scrap of data they could find on the holonet like a krayt. And it’s just—’ he made a frustrated sound, yanking his hand through his hair, unable to fully articulate the point he wanted to make.

Vader, meanwhile, remained perfectly silent at his side, only occasionally giving a small squeeze to his shoulder to let him know he was still there.

Still unable to find the right words, he eventually just blew out a defeated breath and settled his own hand over the one on his shoulder, something that earned him a jerking motion as if he’d startled the man, but nothing else.

Finding no words that would be enough to express the riot of feelings inside of him, he decided to simply ask the question he’d so often asked his aunt and uncle whenever there was something about the world he simply didn’t understand.

‘Why isn’t it any better?’

The workshop lapsed into silence after that, the humming of various machines and Emmy’s charging dock only interrupted by the rhythmic cycles of the respirator.

Just when he thought he’d never get an answer, as had happened the couple of times he’d asked Aunt Beru after he finally understood what he saw at the slave market, the comforting rumble of the vocoder broke the silence.

‘Because up until now, little one, no one in power cared to make it so.’

Luke blinked in surprise at those words, glancing upwards from where he’d leaned into Vader’s side, catching the red lenses looking right back at him. ‘Not even you?’ he had to ask.

More static, and this time the hand on his shoulder pressed him closer into the man’s side.

‘I…’ The volume of the vocoder dropped out after that until Luke was straining to hear over the sound of the respirator. ‘I have not cared for anything in a long, long time, little one,’ came the soft admission. ‘A very long time.’

‘Oh.’ Luke didn’t really know what to say to that. He’d gotten the impression before that Vader’d had a tough time of it before Luke met him, no one with that extensive of a life-support system and still serving active duty could not know a thing or two about suffering, but what he’d just admitted to…

‘That sounds very lonely,’ he said softly. Honestly.

The grip on his shoulder tightened until it was almost painful but Luke didn’t mind, the man obviously needed someone right now. And maybe he’d needed someone for a lot longer.

‘It… was,’ Vader admitted, soft enough that Luke could almost believe he wasn’t meant to hear it.

He pressed just a little closer into the solid presence at his side and didn’t think too hard about all the edges and hard bits he felt under the fabric of the body glove.

‘I think I could care enough for the both of us, though,’ he admitted softly.

Another burst of static, that indefinable feeling of fondness he still felt from the man and the death grip on his shoulder eased with a slightly apologetic air. ‘I am certain that you could.’

And when something like that was said with that much confidence, well, Luke thought, then it must be true.

The hand slipped from his shoulder and Luke could feel the moment they’d had ending. Half of him wished it’d lasted a little longer, the other half was insisting that any longer would have had him falling asleep against Vader with how tired he was. And Vader must’ve sensed his exhaustion too in the manner he always seemed to know everything.

‘But not tonight, little one,’ he said firmly, confirming Luke’s suspicions. ‘I can feel your exhaustion, you have done enough for today and it is time you retire.’

At that moment his body decided to emphasize the point Vader made and Luke found himself stifling a massive yawn.

‘I think you might be right,’ he admitted begrudgingly. ‘I’ll just save this then and shut everything down for the night.’

Vader nodded firmly, already making his way for the entrance. ‘See that you do.’

Already half with his mind on his bed (and wasn’t that a nice surprise when he came aboard? A real bed instead of a bunk was apparently how a Head Engineer lived aboard the Lady) he nodded tiredly after the man. ‘May the Moons watch over your night, milord.’

He could have sworn the respirator hitched for a moment before the blessing was returned.

‘And over yours, Luke.’

To say that Piett was looking forward to this early demonstration of Lars’ handywork would be an understatement.

For the last three weeks the grapevine aboard the Lady had been abuzz with nothing but the story of how the young Head Engineer, a fresh face aboard the Lady by any standard, had utterly upstaged Admiral Ozzel in the last Officer meeting with the full support of Lord Vader.

The fact that said upstaging had resulted in Lord Vader commissioning said Head Engineer to design an entirely new type of Stormtrooper armor to replace the current version and that, by all accounts, Lord Vader had come out of every inspection of the progress of said project thoroughly pleased, did the rest in ensuring that no one could talk of anything else.

Something that was only compounded by the fact that said Head Engineer had seen no reason to place a gag order on any of the Troopers he’d enlisted in the project, who’d become minor celebrities overnight once they spilled the beans. At least, until General Veers and Lord Vader had cracked down on the cavalier spreading of what was, ostensibly, a highly classified project.

A highly classified project that would have drawn a crowd large enough to fill the hangar in which its first test was taking place in, if not for the fact that Lord Vader had strictly limited the admitted personnel to the Officers present during the meeting and the Troopers already involved with the project.

Something that Piett privately thought was likely a response due to the various Officers caught lurking around the Head Engineer’s workshop during the graveyard shifts, all of whom Piett recognized as having had a sympathetic view of Ozzel’s more… orthodox ideas over whom ought to advance within the military structure and who oughtn’t.

Fortunately, due to the aforementioned Lord Vader, nothing untoward had ever happened and he doubted the Head Engineer was even aware of the debacle. But still, Lord Vader wouldn’t permit the 501^st to fill the entire hangar just to watch the test.

So he’d only permitted a crowd large enough to fill half the hangar, Piett thought sarcastically.

Which may be something of an exaggeration, but not by much. Lars’ friendly and open nature had apparently won him many friends amongst the Troopers, and if the numbers currently present on the upper levels of hangar C-07 were anything to go off of, every last one of them had been eager to help the Head Engineer out when he’d asked for willing Troopers to test his new prototype on.

A test that would be taking the form of an obstacle course, apparently.

Piett eyed the level floor of the hangar where several stacks of heavy metal crates had been spread out to form all matter of towers and blockades in some sort of maze-like structure. Interspersed with tactical netting, smaller emergency patch-walls, and several pieces of assorted rubble that looked like they came from the latest TIE wreckage caused by Lord Vader, the odd material requisitions he’d gotten from the young man a few days ago suddenly were a lot more sensible.

And here he’d thought that the Engineer just wanted that wreckage for stress-relief. Apparently, he’d been mistaken. This time. The young man did tend to have the oddest of hobbies.

Speaking of whom…

Piett checked his chronometer again, noting that the test was scheduled to begin in a mere ten minutes time, and yet the Head Engineer himself was nowhere yet to be seen even as the last of the Officers began to trickle in.

‘Worried about the kid, huh?’

Piett looked up to find Veers walking up to his side. He pursed his lips as he gave a quick nod. ‘The test is supposed to begin in ten minutes time,’ he pointed out. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know where he is, would you?’

‘Getting Wick ready in his workshop and running through the last couple of diagnostics,’ Veers answered blithely. ‘The kid is dead-set on making sure nothing happens to the man just ‘cause the armor malfunctioned.’

Piett sighed in relief at those words and Veers gave him a sympathetic nod. ‘You can stop your fretting, Firmus. The kid’s on the ball with this one. I haven’t seen him this driven since that time he found out our AT-AT walkers don’t have an ejection seat for the operators.’ A shark-like grin overtook his friend’s as he turned to look out over the obstacle course set-up. ‘Really,’ he continued. ‘I just hope that Ozzel has the good sense to stay on the bridge for this one. With the sheer miracles the kid’s pulled these last three weeks in that workshop of his, I’d say it’s only a matter of time before we’re gonna have to start forking over the credits to cover the production costs.’

A fierce sense of satisfaction and pride welled up inside of him. ‘Good,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘I hope he chokes when he has to write off on Lars’ project.’

He’d barely finished his sentence when a hush fell over the hangar, the cheerful chattering of the Troopers falling away to the sound of an approaching heavy durasteel tread and the ominous cycles of a respirator.

The Troopers parted like white curtains to let their dark commander pass through, and—Piett noted in distaste—by proxy Ozzel as well, as he trailed in Lord Vader’s wake. He doubted any of the Troopers noticed the man though, not when their Commander was this close, his presence overtaking the cavernous hangar effortlessly.

Piett snapped to attention instantly and saluted his superior. ‘My Lord,’ he greeted, hearing Veers follow suit besides him.

‘Captain,’ the heavy tone of the vocoder rumbled back as Lord Vader came to a halt besides them. ‘General. I take it everything is in place.’

That sentence was definitely not phrased as a question but Veers nodded anyway. ‘Yes, my Lord. The course has been readied and the volunteers are prepared to take it. We can proceed as soon as Head Engineer Lars gives the signal,’ he responded curtly.

Before Lord Vader could respond a derisive sound was made from behind him, Admiral Ozzel coming into view with a poorly disguised look of disdain fixed firmly onto his face. ‘Speaking of the Engineer,’ the man uttered the word with a sneer Piett privately thought would’ve been best reserved for when said Engineer’s rather protective employer wasn’t around to see it, ‘Where is he? Don’t tell me he intends to be late to his own test of this farce.’

Piett matched Ozzel’s look of disdain one-for-one as he stared the man down. ‘Head Engineer Lars,’ he emphasized the title with a pointed precision, ‘Is currently in his workshop preparing volunteer TC-6012 for the preliminary test of the prototype armor. Sir.’

If anyone besides Ozzel noticed his near-slip in properly addressing his technical superior, no one commented on it, but the Admiral fixed him with a dark enough look that left Piett no doubt that it had been noticed. He decided to ignore the man in favor of Lord Vader, who was currently watching their interaction with fixed attention.

‘If you deem it necessary, my Lord,’ he deferred to the Commander, ‘I can send someone to notify him to start the test at once.’

But Lord Vader merely waved him off with a careless grace. ‘There is no need, Captain,’ he rumbled. ‘Engineer Lars is already on his way.’

How Lord Vader knew that, Piett didn’t know and likely would prefer never to know, but not even a minute later Lars turned around the corner of the hangar and onto the walkway while happily chatting away with an individual encased in a suit of armor the likes of which Piett had never seen before.

Gleaming, pristine white plates of thick plastisteel were fitted over what looked to be a tight-fitted bodysuit comprised of flexible, overlapping reams of some kind of dully reflective, gun-metal gray material. Gone were the cumbersome, loose-fitting hard pieces of the original armor, swapped out instead for interlocking plates that were firmly affixed directly onto their wearer.

Everything looked simultaneously bulked up, and yet much more streamlined and coherent, with Piett suspecting that the main reason for that effect was that Lars seemed to have taken the excess plastisteel he gained from slimming down the plates and poured it all into increasing their overall density.

With everything from the gauntlets and greaves, to the fully redesigned helmet (which Piett noted with some amusement, bared only the most superficial of resemblance to its predecessor. It seemed Lars had been utterly genuine in his disgust with the original design) the prototype seemed to be build with agility, speed and strength in mind.

Not to mention a hell of a lot more thought and care, Piett thought as he marveled at the new design.

Combine all of the above with the fact that whomever was inside that armor moved with a kind of easy and lethal grace that pinged every visual checkmark in Piett’s hindbrain for “predator”, and the overall effect was that the entire ensemble seemed to flow with its wearer’s every movement.

The Trooper came to a halt next to his comrades still in the original armor, and the sheer visual discord between the two nearly made Piett laugh aloud. How could he ever again see the original armor for the battle gear it was when it looked like a cheap costume next to Lars’ creation, one that radiated sheer professionalism and danger?

And as he looked around, he could see that he wasn’t the only one who was having those thoughts. Veers looked like Life Day had come early and he could bet that his old friend was already mentally counting off the days until Lars’ creation would be mass produced for his troops.

‘Damn if the kid doesn’t know his work,’ the man muttered under his breath, still grinning wide, before nudging Piett softly in the side. ‘And I’d say someone else has realized that too,’ he whispered lowly with a sly indication off to the side.

Following Veers’ direction, Piett subtly looked off to his side only to find that Ozzel was doing a distinct impression of someone who’d just bitten into an overripe lemon and was now very much regretting that decision.

As satisfying as that was, Ozzel hardly mattered in the face of what was happening though, as Lars had come to a halt in front of Lord Vader and snapped off a quick salute with his signature grin.

‘All set to go, milord,’ the Engineer reported, looking about as happy as can be. ‘The standard Stormtrooper armor prototype version one-point-oh is ready for its first inspection!’

Lord Vader inclined his head at the young man permissively. ‘So you say, Engineer Lars. Then I take it you can demonstrate your creation’s abilities?’

Lars gave a sharp nod and a toothy grin. ‘Yes, milord!’

With a wave towards the prototype, Lord Vader stepped into parade rest, everyone else following suit. ‘Then proceed.’

Lars nodded and waved over to the prototype Trooper to come closer. ‘Alright, Wick, let’s get started! Just as we discussed.’

The Trooper, Wick, apparently, nodded and walked over to the platform lift that would bring him to the hangar’s lower level, straight to the start of the obstacle course. With everything apparently proceeding to plan, Lars turned back towards them with an expectant look.

‘General Veers, did you find who I asked for?’

Whomever this “who” was, Veers apparently knew exactly what he meant as he nodded once in confirmation. ‘TC-4902, step forward,’ the General called.

Amongst the murmuring of the other Troopers, TC-4902 stepped forward and saluted both his General and the Head Engineer. ‘TC-4902, reporting for duty, sirs. I’m ready to run the course.’

Ah, so that was his angle, Piett thought. Have a Trooper in ordinary armor run against the new prototype to see which one beat out the other. A clever tactic to gain quick support if the prototype won, but somehow, he doubted Lars was looking at it from that angle. If anything, the young man was probably looking to get the comparative data in one go.

Something that was quickly confirmed when Lars began talking again.

‘Alright, TC-4902,’ the Engineer said with a wide grin as he clapped his hands together, ‘Do you have a nickname?’

The Trooper nodded. ‘Chip, sir.’

‘Alright, Chip, it’s nice to meet you,’ Lars greeted, and damn if he didn’t sound utterly sincere about it. ‘And you know what to do?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the Trooper, Chip, confirmed. ‘Run the obstacle course as fast as I can in the route given earlier. Then wait for further instructions.’

‘Exactly!’ Lars beamed brightly at the Trooper. ‘Sounds like you got it down pat. If you’re ready, you can head on over to the elevator with Wick and I’ll get the sensors of your armor synced.’

‘Yes, sir.’ And with that the Trooper made his way for the elevator. Lars pulled out a datapad and began studiously tapping away while keeping up a running commentary.

‘Chip over there was selected by General Veers to run the course due to how close his physical test scores are with that of Wick. Speed, agility, strength, height and general training are almost exactly the same,’ the Engineer explained, still tapping away at the side of his datapad while something loaded. ‘So if there’s any significant differences in their results, we can likely chalk it up to the different armors they wear. On top of that, I asked General Veers to outfit Chip with the same sensors I’ve outfitted Wick with, so we’ll have all kinds of data to compare once they’re finished.’ He pursed his lips as he gave an irritated jab at his datapad’s screen. ‘If the thing’ll finish syncing that is.’

As if in response, the pad gave a cheery chime and Lars’ face brightened significantly. ‘Ah, there we go!’ He waved over to the two troopers. ‘Alright, guys, down you go!’

The Trooper Wick gave a curt nod and hit the button of the elevator, the platform closing itself off before gliding down its rails to the lower floors. With the test about to start, the entire crowd headed for the rails of the walkway, Officers in the middle and the Troopers clamoring at the edges to get the best remaining spots.

Piett himself found the anticipation of a few moments ago (and had it really only been a few moments?) return full force. Whatever they were about to see, he had the feeling that Lars’ creation wouldn’t disappoint.

Unfortunately, not everyone seemed to think that way.

‘Oh, this ought to be good,’ Ozzel muttered off to his side, just a little too loud considering he was standing right next to Lord Vader.

‘Care to explain your statement, Admiral Ozzel?’ the man rumbled, a subtle air of danger belying the seemingly idle question for what it truly was.

Something that was, unfortunately, lost on Ozzel as the man blundered straight into the trap spun by Lord Vader with all the grace of a drunk bantha.

‘Oh, come now, Lord Vader,’ the man scoffed derisively. ‘I realize that giving young talent the chance to prove itself is always best encouraged, but don’t you think this charade has gone on for long enough? The Engineer has dominated the General and his troops’ time long enough, and it’s time to call an end to… whatever this poor excuse for entertainment is,’ Ozzel finished with a dismissive wave towards the obstacle course.

The temperature on the walkway dropped by several degrees as Lord Vader slowly turned towards the blustering Admiral and Piett could swear even Ozzel’s sneer lost its edge for a second, but before any strangling could take place, a cheerful voice cut in from behind them.

‘I realize this does all look a bit strange, sir,’ Lars cut in cheerfully from behind them, apparently having caught the tail end of the Admiral’s rant, and Piett subtly moved off a bit further to the side so the young man could take his place at Lord Vader’s other side. The temperature rose again to somewhere above freezing, but Piett didn’t dare relax yet as Lars took up his position, all the while still talking.

‘But I arranged this with General Veers,’ the Engineer continued with a quick nod towards the man mentioned, ‘And he personally assured me that this is as close to the official Stormtrooper bootcamp obstacle courses as we can get on the Lady, so we should be able to test the armor against the regular Imperial Academy standards.’ With that Lars held up his datapad to show them the file he’d pulled up, which did indeed have the correct official insignias displayed along the top, before tucking it back into the crook of his arm.

‘We’re doing it all according to regulation, sir, although,’ and here Lars turned slightly sheepish, ‘You’re probably right that I’ve been bothering General Veers a bit too much in order to get it all right.’ He turned towards said man with an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry about that, sir.’

‘Not at all, kid,’ Veers hurried to assure the Engineer, having much stronger survival instincts than Ozzel apparently had. ‘You needed the assistance and we gave it. It’s as simple as that. Besides,’ he said as he eyed the course below. ‘I’m as curious as any of my men to see just what you’ve cooked up.’

Lars brightened up significantly and nodded as he pulled out a comm unit. ‘Yes, sir!’

Tension thoroughly broken, Piett stifled a smile as the temperature evened back out again while Ozzel gaped in outrage as the young Engineer continued on with his preparations, blissfully unaware of the fact that he’d likely just prevented an execution.

Lord Vader, however, wasn’t quite as finished with the Admiral as Lars was.

As the fearsome mask turned towards the still gaping Admiral, Piett could nearly feel the cold fury rise in the air again. ‘Does that assuage your complaints, Admiral?’ Lord Vader growled out through his vocoder, and Ozzel apparently had more awareness of what he’d just escaped than Piett gave him credit for, as he simply shut his mouth and nodded, slightly paler in the face than before.

Lars, still seemingly entirely unaware of what had just transpired, activated his comm and called out. ‘Alright, we’re ready up here. You feeling up for this, Chip?’ he asked as he let the comm switch over.

‘Yes, sir! Ready when you are,’ came Chip’s response.

‘Alright, on my signal then,’ Lars answered, and that was Piett’s cue to focus his attention on the lower deck, the Stormtrooper in question clearly visible on the lift and raring to go.

‘Ready?’ Lars’ voice rang out. ‘Get set…’ The Trooper did so, and even with the vast distance between them Piett could see that the man was chomping at the bit.

‘Go!’

And Chip was off like a shot, skidding around the first corner and throwing himself into the course with a verve usually only matched by corellian hounds just let off their leash. As a dyed in the wool navy Officer, Piett had to admit that he’d never seen the full result of the Troopers training before, but it was exhilarating to watch. Something with which the other Troopers present loudly agreed as they cheered their fellow on.

Hauling his weight over towers, clambering through the various nets and worming his way over, under and through various obstacles, Piett could see that the extensive training these men underwent was hardly the joke some of his fellow Navy Officers made it out to be.

Something which, he thought slightly sheepishly as he watched Chip weave through various blockades, he probably should have realized sooner with the fact that the 501^st was commonly known as Vader’s Fist.

As Chip got into the home stretch of the course, the cheering and whooping of the Troopers got louder and louder to the point that even Piett realized Chip would complete the course in stellar time.

As was confirmed by Lars when Chip crossed the finish line and the young man gave his own cry of joy straight into the comm.

‘Four minutes and twenty-one seconds!’ he called out the time to loud cheering of the troopers. ‘Absolutely excellent, Chip!’

From where Piett stood he could hear the laughter of the Trooper over the comm unit and saw as the man made a small theatrical bow towards the walkway. ‘Thank you, sir,’ the man chuckled over the comm line as he walked back to where his fellow Trooper was waiting in the lift, the hearty clap on the shoulder evidently well-deserved as they switched places.

The cheering died down as Wick, wearing the prototype, got ready to repeat the performance.

‘Wick,’ Lars called out over the comm. ‘You ready to see if you can beat that?’

Piett could see the man roll his shoulders as he gave a firm nod towards the bridge. ‘Just give me the signal, sir,’ he heard over the comm. ‘I’m ready to see what this thing can do!’

‘You got it,’ Lars responded as he tapped a few things out on his pad. ‘Ready? Get set…’

The Trooper visibly tensed.

‘Go!’

Wick shot out of the lift with a speed that caught Piett roundly off guard, and evidently, he wasn’t alone in his reaction as he heard several bewildered sounds from the crowd around him.

‘What in the world…’ Veers muttered next to him as he leant forward. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

Apparently not, as Wick had worked his way through over a third of the course before Piett had entirely registered what was going on. The Troopers cheering him on calling out just as many exclamations of sheer bafflement as they did of support. A ratio that grew steadily in favor of support as everyone realized just what they were seeing.

Wick, in the prototype armor, may as well have gained wings with the speeds he was sustaining. Up, over and through the obstacles, hardly anything seemed to slow him down as he worked his way through the maze with astonishing agility.

By the time he’d entered the home stretch of the course, the cheers were deafening and even Veers was clapping at the performance with grin stretching from ear to ear.

‘Force bless that kid,’ Piett thought he’d caught the General muttering, but with the sheer wall of sound all around him, it might as well have been him talking to himself.

When Wick reached the finish line in what seemed to be little to no time at all, applause thundered through the cavernous hangar, only scarcely drowned out by the sheer volume of the cheers.

When the cacophony of sounds started to lessen from “Empire Day fireworks” to merely “deafening” as Wick walked back towards the elevator, Lord Vader raised his hand to bring everyone back to order with nary a word.

‘Head Engineer Lars?’ he asked once everyone regained their senses.

In response, Lars turned towards him with the brightest grin Piett had seen yet.

‘One minute and thirty-two seconds, milord,’ was the answer.

The sound that proclamation produced was only matched in its memorability by the expression Ozzel wore when it was said.

Luke had felt like he was nearly floating on clouds when he read out the time stamp displayed on his datapad.

He’d expected the armor to have a positive impact overall on the agility and speed of the average Trooper, but shaving off a nearly three minutes off of an already record time? Never, not even in his wildest dreams.

He could feel the pride radiating from Vader when he’d read out those numbers. Even while knowing more about the armor than anyone save Luke himself, he hardly could’ve expected this when even he himself was surprised.

Now, even a full week later and having fine-tuned the armor to as close to perfection as he could get it within a month’s time, it still didn’t feel entirely like it was real. They’d run the test again, of course. Several more times, in fact, with different troopers, situations, goals and while changing every other variable they could think of.

But still the results remained the same: in sheer agility and speed, his prototype armor was leagues superior to the original Stormtrooper armor, due to a combination of being lighter, less cumbersome, and far, far more friendly to its wearer.

With a series of tricks and features he was still proud of himself for inventing, he’d made it so the armor essentially carried itself while worn by a Trooper, significantly cutting down on its burden and even being able to subtly boost the Trooper in all manner of ways.

Ways, that he would have to explain now that his time was up. Vader was waiting, along with the rest of the Lady’s brass, for his presentation on the end product of his month-long excursion through the history of armor development and late-night work frenzies.

Which is why he was now on his way to the meeting room with Wick—once again wearing the prototype armor—in tow in a strange echo of how this bizarre adventure started a month ago.

Taking a deep breath, he noted how despite the fact that he was better prepared for this presentation than the last one by virtue of actually being aware that he was about to give it, he was feeling more nervous than a bantha cow having her first calf.

‘Deep breaths, sir,’ Wick reminded him, sounding more than a little amused. ‘You’ve got this.’

He scowled at the Trooper as they walked down the hallway. ‘Easy for you to say,’ he threw back. ‘You just have to stand there and look pretty. I’m the one who actually has to convince them this is a good idea.’

Wick tilted his head at him in a manner that reminded Luke starkly of Vader, and he just knew that both of those tilts meant they were amused at him.

‘And I’ll look very pretty indeed in this thing,’ the Trooper agreed placidly as he nudged him slightly. ‘Relax, sir, I’d say you’ve got them ninety-nine percent convinced of this thing’s merits already. Now they just want to know how you did it. Not if.’

He glanced up sideways at the man, his own uncertain expression reflected back at him in the black vizor of the helmet. ‘You think so?’

‘Pretty damn sure, sir,’ was the chipper response. ‘This thing?’ He held up a hand to show off the gauntlet molded around it. ‘This thing let me run the exam course in one-and-a-half minutes. I didn’t even think that was possible a week ago, hell, I’d have called you a damned liar if you’d told me it was possible!’ Wick froze for a moment before sharply looking forward again. ‘Uh, no offense, sir.’

He waved the apology off. ‘None taken, Wick. To be entirely honest with you, I can still hardly believe it myself,’ he confessed. ‘I expected improvement, but not…’ He waved wordlessly at the armor the man was wearing. ‘This,’ he finished lamely.

‘Goes to show the kind of talent you’re packing, sir,’ Wick said while turning the final corner into the right hallway. ‘Now then, I just have to stand there, do as you say and let you prod at the armor as necessary, right? ‘Cause I’ll be honest, sir, I’m fucked if I have to give a speech.’

Luke chuckled softly at the man’s worried tone. ‘No, you’re good, Wick. The only who’ll be doing the talking is me and a couple of the other Officers. Like I said, just stand there, look pretty and you’ve got your part down pat,’ he reassured before grinning mischievously. ‘Though you might wanna work on the “pretty” part.’

That earned him an elbow to the side and he snickered at Wick’s antics. ‘Ha ha, very funny, sir. Now are we there yet, or do I have to listen to more of your shit sense of humor?’

He sobered up instantly as they approached the right door. ‘No, we’re here. You ready, Wick?’ he asked as he turned back to the man.

Wick gave a curt nod and stood up ramrod straight. ‘Show time, sir.’

Luke nodded back and opened the door, not giving either of them the chance to lose their nerve, and strode in with Wick marching behind him at his shoulder.

Inside, nearly the full brass complement of the Lady was already waiting on them, milling about for now and chatting eagerly, with Luke catching his own name in snatches here and there. The sight of both him and Wick entering the room drew all eyes towards them, as they made their way to their proper places.

The attention made him slightly uncomfortable, and he felt more relief than he’d likely admit to when he saw both General Veers and Captain Piett make their way over to him and Wick. Wick immediately snapped off a salute at the sight of his General and Veers returned it with seemingly hardly a thought.

‘Head Engineer Lars,’ he greeted. ‘Trooper 6012. Hell of an entrance you both made.’

That caught Luke off guard. ‘We did?’ he asked dumbfounded. They’d just entered the room, what did they do?

The General snorted and displayed a sharp grin that made Luke think of hunting anoobas. ‘You walking in here with Wick decked out like that—' he jerked his chin towards the fully armored up Trooper, ‘—at your side looking like you’re ready for damn near anything? I’d say you two made everyone sit up and pay attention.’

Luke blinked. ‘Oh.’

He hadn’t thought of it that way, he’d just figured that everyone’d want to see just what he’d been throwing the Lady’s daily routines into chaos for for a month.

‘Relax, kid,’ the General clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I’d dare say anyone would prefer this to having to listen to another one of Ozzel’s budgeting presentations. At least here we know that the one presenting all this actually knows what they’re talking about.’

Captain Piett cleared his throat at those words and turned a scrutinizing look onto Wick. ‘Speaking of which, I take it you understand that everything discussed within this room is highly classified until further notice, Trooper Wick?’ the man asked pointedly in what Luke thought wasn’t much of a question at all.

But Wick merely nodded sharply as he met the Captain’s eyes. (Or at least, Luke thought he did. The helmet made it hard to tell.) ‘Yes, sir.’

Piett’s expression immediately shifted into mild smile as he returned the gesture. ‘Good, we can’t have a repeat of last month, now can we?’

But before either Luke or Wick could have the chance to answer that statement, Luke’s senses caught the first hints of the approaching storm called Vader outside in the hallway. Shutting his mouth sharply, he turned towards the door in anticipation and noticed the rest of the room follow suit out of the corner of his eye.

The door slid open, and looking as larger than life as ever, Vader swept into the room like a thundercloud over the windblown plains of the wasteland. Caught up in the sheer presence of the man who’d become something of an indefinable, but steadfastly positive figure in his life, Luke nearly missed the Admiral stomping into the room after him.

Blinking owlishly at the man, Luke couldn’t help but think that Ozzel looked for all the world like he’d been chewing on bitterroot and was now struggling to remember why. Whatever the Admiral had been up to, Luke doubted it had gone well for him. Silently wishing the man all the best with whatever was troubling him, Luke hoped that his own endeavor was going to go better than whatever had just happened to Ozzel.

Vader took his place at the head of the table, and with everyone seated, it was time for the meeting to begin.

‘A month ago, I instructed our Head Engineer to produce a workable prototype of improved Stormtrooper armor,’ the Supreme Commander began gravely. ‘Now, the allotted timespan has come to an end, and we are here to judge for ourselves the final product.’ He nodded towards Luke and Luke returned the nod with determination coursing through him. ‘Head Engineer Lars, present your creation.’

Luke stood up and pulled out his trusty datapad with grin. Just like Scrap Hunting, he reminded himself. ‘Yes, milord!’

He motioned Wick over and the Trooper stood next to him at parade rest.

‘Trooper Wick here is wearing the Stormtrooper Universal Tactical Armor version one-point-three. It’s already been tested by all standards of the Imperial Military Commission and passed all tests with full marks,’ he explained proudly. ‘This,’ he said as he jerked his thumb towards Wick. ‘Is a fully certified, battle-ready, military-grade suit of armor.’

That sent a wave of murmuring throughout the room. As he’d learnt from various sources these last four weeks, “workable prototype” apparently rarely translated into “actually ready for work” in these circles. Luke grinned brightly. Well, he’d always been a bit of an overachiever.

And a bit of a show-off, a small voice piped up in his head that sounded suspiciously like Biggs. He squashed that voice down even as he felt the slightest bit sheepish, now was not the time.

‘Its main body consists of a tough but still somewhat flexible plastisteel-durasteel based armor weave,’ he continued, ignoring the incredulous looks he was getting as he pointed out the gun-metal gray colored bodysuit. ‘By making it out of individual bands of the material cut along the grain and overlapping them, you get a material that maintains its toughness without sacrificing much in mobility. Effectively,’ he said as he pulled up a couple of files onto his datapad and activated the holodisplay. ‘Making it a body glove under-armor that is both stab resistant, spike resistant, and capable of withstanding up to 50 concentrated shots of an E-11 blaster rifle before it needs to be swapped out,’ he finished as he put up the numbers to prove it.

The room was dead silent as he showed his work, only the steady cycles of Vader’s respirator marking the passage of time.

‘Kid,’ General Veers eventually rasped out. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

Luke shook his head. ‘Not at all, sir. Everything I just said is entirely factually accurate, you can check the files yourself later, if you want.’

The General nodded faintly and Luke took that as his cue to go on.

‘The plating is just a little bit different from the original,’ he informed the Officers as if he was making a confession, drawing incredulous snort from some as he placatingly held up his hands. ‘I know, I know, we all loved the clanking sounds the old ones made, but asides from missing a sound that is practically part of the Imperial heritage at this point, I think I can still make a couple of good points for this version.’

Amongst the various snorts of the Officers, he motioned over to Wick’s right pauldron, and man nodded as he pressed the release catch on the underside of the plate, pulling it free with a click-twist-and-yanking motion before handing it over to Luke.

‘As you can see,’ he said as he held up the pauldron. ‘I haven’t thrown out everything from the original’s image in designing the armor, it’s still a very nice, very stainable white that would give my Aunt flashbacks to when I was eight years old and thought mud was the best thing in the whole wide world.’ And there was the laughter, with some of the Officers who were likely parents themselves pulling sympathetic faces at the mental image.

‘Only joking,’ Luke confessed. ‘Just wipe it down and you’ll be fine.’ He paused for a beat. ‘Probably.’

Over the sounds of laughter and lessening tension, he began explaining the tricks and secrets behind the lightweight armor plating and how, despite it being much thicker than the original armor plating, it still managed to be easier to carry and wear than its predecessors. Not to mention a lot tougher to the point that—

‘—every single last piece has an X-5 armor rating,’ he revealed proudly. ‘Except for the chest piece and helmet, which both have a rating of X-8 and X-7 respectively.’

Most of the Navy Officers seemed appreciative but slightly confused at that piece of info but when General Veers produced a somewhat strangled sounding ‘What?’ at the mention, Luke knew at least one person was appreciative of that little tidbit. Well, asides from Vader that is.

Ever since Luke had been talking the man had practically glowed with pride, a warm background presence that soothed any further nerves he might’ve felt and eased his mannerisms until he was once again casually explaining the nitty gritty details of a suit of armor to a roomful of Officers. It didn’t matter what they thought of his work, the person he’d wanted to impress was already proud of him.

Pride, Luke thought, that he wanted to be worthy of.

‘But more practically,’ he continued. ‘It means that every piece of hard plating only began to show signs of structural failure after five shots from a T-28 sniper rifle at 300 meters—with critical failure at seven—while the chest piece and helmet respectively had a rating of eight-to-ten and seven-to-nine.’

He grinned at the incredulous sound that could be heard from under Wick’s helmet. Evidently the Trooper hadn’t realized the full potential of the armor he was wearing. Not entirely unlike the rest of the room, who were mostly looking at the innocuous pauldron he held in his hands with new respect.

General Veers seemed to have recovered his composure somewhat, seeing as he managed to gesture towards it with single question. ‘How?’

He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck as he recalled exactly how. ‘Admittedly, some of the lab techs probably aren’t too happy with me at the moment, since I had to modify one of their 3D printers to get it like this,’ he admitted. ‘The key to the structural integrity lies in controlling the construction of each piece of armor down to the molecular level. Basically, because the original armor was produced by just pressing molten slag into a mold, it had a regular molecular structure like everything else. Besides the bad quality of the material itself, that also made it easier to get it to crit fail.’

He knocked hard on the pauldron. ‘This one though? This one’s built a bit differently.’

He pulled up another file on his pad, this one showing the info file for the 3D printer, a bright blue molecule model resembling that of honeycomb. ‘If you were to put this thing under a microscope, this is what you would see,’ he explained grandly, feeling just the tiniest bit proud of himself for managing to figure it all out within the time limit. ‘Every last molecule, perfectly in sync.’ He grinned lopsidedly at his audience. ‘The “secret” behind the high crit failure threshold. This is what makes the armor so incredibly tough.’

He switched over to the next file showing an entirely different schematic. ‘Not that anyone’ll get the chance to test that threshold unless they get past the redesigned shield generator,’ he informed the room at large cheerily.

‘Shield generator?’ General Veers asked, sounding just the slightest bit dazed.

He grinned widely at the man. ‘I might’ve gone just a bit wild when designing this thing.’

Piett watched with increasing concern and amusement as Veers’ eyes steadily grew wider and wider with each word Lars uttered until they could’ve mistaken him for a more fish-like species than the human that he was.

He could hardly blame the man though, Lars seemed to be absolutely insistent on pulling miracle after miracle out of his back pocket like it was nothing. Molecular engineering, revolutionized alloys in various kinds of plastisteel and durasteel, hell, he’d apparently just straight up reinvented half the tech used in the armor because its predecessors were “not quite right” for what he wanted from the armor.

Coming into this meeting, Piett hadn’t known in the slightest what to expect with neither he, nor any of the other navy Officers, having even been ordered to attend an Army equipment presentation before. Not that Lord Vader seemed to care in the slightest about the traditional divides between the military branches, though as the Supreme Commander of all of them, Piett supposed he hardly had to bother.

But whatever he’d been expecting, it certainly wasn’t for Lars to march into the meeting room in the company of a Trooper clad in the suit of armor Piett still couldn’t quite believe was real. Molecular engineering wasn’t something people just did and especially not for your standard Trooper armor.

Apparently, no one had thought to inform Lars of that, as the young man cheerfully told them he’d done the impossible and reconfigured half of a field laboratory (if Piett had hoped that the Engineer had called it quits at the 3D printer, he would be sorely disappointed) to do what he needed it to do. A state-of-the-art field laboratory that was the best credits could build, granted, but Piett knew that for all that he loved the Lady in her every aspect, lab work of this caliber was not what she’d been designed for.

Lars, clearly, didn’t care.

A shield generator to top off the already ridiculous amounts of protection he’d managed to cram into the armor. An integrated exoskeleton framework in the body glove to bear the weight of the armor and boost its wearer. Specialized gauntlets and boots for advanced all-terrain work from rock climbing to swimming to space walks. Life support systems efficient and small enough that would make any survivalist green with envy. The list went on and on and yet the Engineer was still talking like he hadn’t even begun to list the truly good parts yet.

Feeling just the slightest bit dazed, Piett chanced another glance at the one man who would likely know exactly what the impact of Lars’ creation was and didn’t make Piett’s blood turn to ice on a regular basis. Veers, for his part, was looking like someone had just repeated slapped him with a fish while telling him the stars were made of ice cream, idiot.

Ah. Right then. That was… reassuring? Terrifying? Piett honestly couldn’t tell anymore and turned his attention back to the young Engineer, who was now practically bouncing as the Trooper handed over his helmet while swiftly clipping a gauntlet plate back in place.

The helmet Lars was holding only resembled a traditional trooper’s helmet in the sense that it was the same stark white with jet black accents and was meant to be worn by Stormtroopers. The individual lenses were replaced with a single broad vizor that took up most of the front of the helmet and wrapped around from ear to ear, tapering in at the edges and having only a single slight indent to accommodate the nose bridge of its wearer. The bulk around the neck and chin, previously caused by the much-despised air filtration unit, had been entirely eliminated, with only two neat rows of backswept vents on either side revealing that there was air filtration at all. But perhaps the most eye-catching detail of the entire design was the softly rounded triangular grating directly over the nose and mouth that swept under the chin. Clearly it was meant to house something like a rebreather and perhaps a vocoder, but Piett couldn’t help but suspect that the design had a distinct individual in mind to whom it paid homage.

Somehow, he doubted the Troopers would mind. Especially should the time ever come that this design hit the battlefield alongside its inspiration.

Pulling himself back out of his musings that were heading down a dangerous track, Piett instead refocused on where Lars was currently explaining the sheer extent of goodies he’d managed to pack into the helmet, to the extent that he could practically see both Trooper and general reach the mutual decision that they’d likely cry if this armor was rejected.

‘And of course,’ Lars continued happily. ‘None of this would be complete without taking into account the Troopers morale! Wick,’ he said as he nodded at the man. ‘You and the others get your IFF code modification. And the sound system inside the helmet can be configured to play both music and audiobooks out of a pre-downloaded library. Try not to get in trouble with it,’ he added with a mischievous wink as the Trooper visibly perked up.

Privately, Piett thought that that might be something of a tall order for the troopers, but he wisely kept his council to himself as he saw Veers already attempt to glare a hole into the poor trooper.

‘There are other things I added’ the young Engineer proceeded with his presentation, either unaware of or ignoring the tension building under his nose. ‘A small pouch on the inside of the chest plate that can hold some small keepsake, an access slot in the gauntlet’s datacenter that would allow for a few extremely small data packages to be added, a few holos or a short sound bite, that sort of thing. Mostly though, I tried to let priority to the wearer’s comfort and safety shine through in the entire design.’

The young man sheepishly pulled a hand through his ever-messy blond hair as he pulled up another file on his datapad. ‘There’s more of course. Many small things that hopefully together will create a big impact, but if I tried to showcase all of them, we’d here until the rest of the 501^st and the Lady’s crew would assume this was a hostage situation. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy my odds if that happened,’ he admitted with a boyish grin and Piett merely rolled his eyes at the mischievous youth, trying to keep a smile off his face and failing miserably.

‘So instead, I made this data file,’ Lars said as he gestured towards the current holodisplay. ‘With permission, I can send this to anyone who’d like to take a closer look at the armor’s full capabilities. And don’t worry, I had one of the older Troopers check that I wasn’t writing down “complete nonsense” as my Uncle called it whenever I texted him, so it should be legible to everyone who doesn’t keep up with the latest holonet slang.’

Considering Piett had seen the sheer decoding that was necessary whenever Veers received another comm text from Zevulon, he deeply appreciated the young man’s consideration.

‘But asides from that…’ Lars shrugged. ‘Are there any questions you have that I can answer now, instead of later?’

Still feeling slightly overwhelmed from the sheer deluge of information he’d gotten, and having had most of his questions already answered during the presentation, Piett could hardly think of a single thing. Unfortunately, someone else didn’t have the same problem.

‘Yes, yes, this is all very impressive, Engineer,’ an oily voice sounded and Piett barely stopped himself from sighing.

‘But you forgot once critical aspect of this all,’ a supremely smug Ozzel pointed out, looking for all the world like the tooka who got the cream and Piett already felt guilty for comparing such delightful creatures to a sleemo like Ozzel. ‘The cost.’

Lars tilted his head in confusion and Piett immediately found a better person to compare to a tooka, or maybe a tooka kit. ‘Sir?’

‘The cost, Engineer,’ Ozzel emphasized again. ‘As nicely as you’ve crafted this…’ he sneered at the suit of armor, and receiving a death glare back from Wick. ‘Thing. You must realize that credits are what make the cogs of Imperial military turn. So tell us, Engineer,’ the man said as he leaned back in his chair, arms crossed victoriously. ‘What is the price tag of this protective marvel of yours? Is this entire endeavor even worth discussing, or did you honestly think that credits were no issue?’

And just like that, Piett wanted his superior dead. Or at the very least slightly maimed. Something for which he doubted he would have to wait much longer if the way Lord Vader was tensed was any indication.

But Lars merely slapped his forehead and made a relieved sound. ‘Suns, I knew I was forgetting something! Thanks for reminding me, sir. Right! Finances. I have the file here… somewhere,’ the Engineer muttered as he began to scroll through his datapad, entirely missing the outraged expression on Ozzel’s face as the man seemingly went through all five stages of grief simultaneously and even invented a couple more.

‘Ah ha! Found it!’ Lars exclaimed happily, putting up a spreadsheet on the holodisplay and scrolling through it slowly.

‘Right, to answer your question, sir, I crunched a couple of numbers and have two answers. The first is that if someone tried to build this kind of armor from scrap as I did, they’d be rather deep in the sarlacc pit.’ Ozzel’s triumphant expression lasted all of three seconds before Lars continued with his explanation. ‘The specialized equipment set up you’d need would cost an amount of credits I frankly blinked twice at and then twice again. But, as General Veers reminded me, the facilities that produce the current Trooper armor already have that set up ready to go, all they’d need is the initial cost of reconfiguration and only a few extra additions needed for the specialization. Asides from that though, and leaving out all else but the raw materials, tech, and time needed to produce a set of armor?’

Piett swore the entire room balanced on a knife’s edge for that second.

‘I estimate that the cost to produce the Stormtrooper Universal Tactical Armor in the version as it stands now is roughly double that of the current armor version.’

Piett blinked. And blinked again.

Altogether, that didn’t seem too bad to him. The advantages were obvious and it wasn’t like the Empire was averse to paying large sums of money for tactical advantages, but then again, those expenditures tended to favor the larger end of the scale of equipment. Much larger.

Would the same be true for rank-and-file trooper’s equipment?

Ozzel clearly didn’t seem to think so. He scoffed loudly and made a show of rearranging his notes for his own presentation. ‘And thus, I think we can all see why the course of the Empire is best left to the older, wiser and more experienced—’

‘Acceptable.’

The deep rumble of the vocoder cut through any noise in the room and made the hairs of Piett’s neck stand on end.

Ozzel sputtered for a moment before turning to Lord Vader with outrage written into his every movement. ‘What do you mean “acceptable?” My Lord,’ he hastily added on in a much more respectful tone.

The dark mask turned towards the Admiral with icy disdain and the room temperature dropped another few degrees to match the Lord’s mood. ‘Exactly that, Admiral Ozzel. I find the price an acceptable one to pay for the added advantages this armor would grant the Empire in battle.’

Rising out of his seat, Lord Vader once more stood to his full height, effortlessly dominating the room with his presence. ‘Head Engineer Lars,’ his Lord rumbled out, the young Engineer straightening up even further at the sound of his title, radiating anticipation and excitement.

‘Yes, milord?’

‘One month ago, I ordered you to create a workable prototype of the vision you had for the next generation of Trooper armor,’ the dark Lord reiterated. ‘Today, you stand before us, not with a workable prototype, but with a creation the likes of which the Empire has yet to see. You chose to preform above and beyond what was expected of you, and in doing so, you saved the lives of countless Troopers in the near future. For that, the Empire thanks you.’ And with that, Lord Vader inclined his head at the young man in a show of respect and gratitude as rare as summer snow and Piett felt like he was witnessing something historic.

Lars beamed at Lord Vader with all the bright strength of the twin suns under which he’d grown up. ‘Thank you, milord.’

Lord Vader nodded sharply at the youth before turning his attention to the General who’d been watching the entire exchange with his lips quirked into a smile. ‘General Veers.’

Veers dipped his head. ‘Yes, my Lord?’

‘You and your men’s involvement in this project has been extended. I am authorizing the production of the Stormtrooper Universal Tactical Armor, effective immediately. I expect the 501^st to be among the first to receive them. Coordinate with Engineer Lars so that the men will know how to operate the equipment properly.’ The orders were snapped off quickly, in the usual no-nonsense manner of Lord Vader, but Piett swore that Veers’ grin grew wider with each word.

‘Of course, my Lord,’ the man agreed steadily, his expression betraying how pleased he was with this new development.

Lord Vader hardly bothered to acknowledge the man before turning back to Lars, who was happily bouncing on the balls of his feet. ‘Engineer Lars, I expect you to compose a production file on the armor and send it to the relevant parties as soon as possible, and— yes, Engineer Lars,’ the man cut himself off when Lars’ expression abruptly fell into something much more troubled looking. ‘Is there a problem?’

Lars looked slightly sheepish at that question and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Well, the file I can certainly do, milord, but, uh…’ He looked up in askance. ‘To where do I send it and who are the relevant parties?’ he finished with a self-conscious smile.

A beat of silence followed that statement that somehow had Piett cycling through various shades of discomfort, understanding and dread at several lightyears per hour. Eventually a sharp noise of static escaped the vocoder that Piett wouldn’t even know how to begin to interpret and Lord Vader amended his statement.

‘You will accompany me once this meeting is dismissed and I will show you,’ Lord Vader ordered, pointing a finger at the young man in a manner so bizarrely similar to the couple of times Piett had seen Veers interact with his son that he automatically shut down all trains of thought that lead to that image before it could show in his expression.

Lars, for his part, looked pleased at the order in a way Piett had never seen anyone who’d been ordered to accompany Lord Vader look.

‘Yes, milord,’ he agreed, snapping off a salute just sloppy enough to irk the part of Piett’s mind that liked things to be neat and precise. Not that he was going to let that show on his face either. He didn’t have a death wish, and besides, he didn’t want the young man looking at him with those dejected kicked tooka kit eyes anyway!

After that the meeting went ahead rapid pace, the last details of the production plan for Lars’ creation hashed out with remarkable speed despite the Admiral’s strenuous and continued objections. The man still didn’t seem to comprehend that he’d been so thoroughly beaten at his own game by the young and still relatively inexperienced Lars, nor did he seem to realize that right now retreat would be the better part of valor.

Lord Vader, for his part, blatantly steamrolled over the man in a manner that seemed to both infuriate and baffle Ozzel in equal turns, with Piett privately suspecting that the man was simply incapable of realizing that anyone could have less respect for him and his opinions than they had for, say, a well-tuned ship.

Or in this case, he thought with an amused smile as Lord Vader once more shut down the Admiral in favor of Engineer Lars, A highly talented and fearless young Engineer.

‘—and I really must insist, Lord Vader,’ Ozzel repeated for the umpteenth time in an increasingly harried tone. ‘This is simply not how things are done and I—!’

‘Admiral Ozzel,’ Lord Vader growled out in a tone cold enough to flash freeze a sun, sending shivers down Piett’s spine and neatly cutting off whatever the man was attempting to say.

‘Do you actually have anything relevant to say?’

The silence in the room was deafening, and Piett was now struggling to keep a smile off his face at the sheer uncomprehending offense on the man’s face.

‘It is clear that you do not,’ the dark Lord answered his own question with an acidity that he hadn’t known the vocoder of being capable of translating. ‘Very well then, meeting dismissed. Engineer Lars, with me,’ Lord Vader snapped as he strode towards the door.

Lars seemed to shake himself out of the same shock Piett had found himself in and smiled brightly at the approaching black storm of a man. ‘Yes, milord! Also, if you’ve got the time, I’ve been looking at some of the AT-AT Walker schematics and—’

‘Tell me on the way there,’ Lord Vader cut in, and Piett’s ears must be deceiving him, because he could swear that almost sounded fond. Lars grinned and eagerly took his now almost familiar place at his Lord’s side, happily going on and on about some mechanism or another as Lord Vader tilted his head to listen with a patience Piett hadn’t known the man possessed.

Watching as the dark titan of a man that was his commander strode out of the room with an excitably chattering teenager at his side, Piett once again felt the entire weight of a couple months’ worth of strange, strange days weighing down on him.

Oddly enough, the weight hardly felt crushing so much as it was reassuring. Life aboard the Lady would likely never be the same as it was before the tempest of change and upheaval that was Luke Lars had arrived, Piett knew that for a fact now.

But as he watched the door slide shut behind his Commander—his Commander, who had been calmer and more tolerant in these last few months than Piett had ever seen him before—and his young protégé, Piett found that he could only look forward to the ways the young Engineer would undoubtedly shake up the status quo even further.

And, Piett thought to himself with no small measure of satisfaction and amusement as he saw that Ozzel was still frozen in that selfsame expression, it would be amusing to watch, if nothing else.

Life on Lord Vader’s flagship had become a series of one strange day after the other the moment Luke Lars had come aboard, and Firmus Piett, Captain of the Star Dreadnought informally known as the Lady, wouldn’t change a single one of them.