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A hand reached up to grab Vader’s shoulder, interrupting his inane conversation with Perrin. A welcome interruption; the temptation to strangle his son’s father in law was growing stronger by the minute. The Sith Lord turned, and found, to his intense disappointment, that he was now conversing with Mon Mothma’s sleemo banker friend. “Mhy Lord, I have shomething very important to tell you. Importaint to the suhrvival of the Empire. Not here, though. Too many pehople here." The man looked around in a sloppy imitation of suspicion. Vader rolled his eyes behind the lenses of his helmet. Lots of people thought they had vital information for the Empire. Few of them actually did. Vader would normally have strangled the man for his presumption, but Padmé would be quite angry if Vader spoiled his son's party with an impromptu summary execution.
“Surely anything you have to say to me would be better said tomorrow morning when you have regained sobriety.” The Dark Lord’s tone was as dry and cutting as the sandstorms of the desert where he was born. In the unlikely event that the idiot's information held any value, well and good. If not, Vader could choke the fool to death in private.
“Yeah, yesh, that’s true. I should call my car and get my driver to take me home. I can talk to you tomorrow.”
“Yes, do so now.” Vader commanded.
The banker turned to make his somewhat unstable way out of the party.
As Vader turned, he felt the force as a shiver between his shoulder blades. Letting his gaze follow his intuition, Vader saw the art dealer who’d sold him that preposterous Chandrillan statue. He was glaring at both of them, practically reeking of ill intent in the Force. Suddenly, Vader knew that if he let the drunken banker go now, he’d be very unlikely to talk to him tomorrow. Or ever again, for that matter.
Vader took full advantage of his huge bulk to catch up to the banker, unapologetically pushing past many wealthy and self-important guests.
Vader still couldn’t remember the banker’s name, even though he should. He’d always had trouble with remembering names, and infuriatingly he could feel this one in the back of his brain, eluding him. He firmly grabbed the much smaller man by his shoulder. “Changed of plans. I will return you to your home myself.”
He steered the banker towards his speeder bike. The former Naboo royal starship, now the Skywalker family’s yacht, had been equipped with a compliment of four foldable 614-AVA speeder bikes trimmed in chrome and glossy black. Each of them had been heavily modified by its primary user. Vader’s and Padmé’s had an extended saddle and footpegs for a passenger to the rear of the driver, primarily for the use of the children. Vader mounted his bike and gestured for the banker to get on behind him. He pulled the banker’s arms around his waist and commanded “hold on to me TIGHTLY and do not let go. And do not even THINK of vomiting on me.”
Vader twisted the throttle and his bike shot up in to the vivid orange and purple of a Chandrillan sunset. The banker, predictably, vomited, but he managed to direct his sick off to the side, fouling himself but not the Sith. Vader used a bit of the Force to make sure he would not fall off. “And now, you will direct me to your domicile.”
The trip got complicated very quickly. Vader went to his speeder bike’s maximum altitude, hoping to get out of sight of the party and over the mountains as soon as possible. Behind him Vader’s passenger shivered. “Lord V—v-Vader can we go down. I’m c-c-cold.”
“Not until you direct me to your home, foolish sot!”, Vader snapped.
Unfortunately, Vader needed Sith telepathy to parse his drunken passenger’s attempt at directions. At least he was able to find out the man’s name - Tay Kolma - without the embarrassment of actually asking. Unfortunately, this distraction meant that Vader didn't notice the burst of hostile intent heading toward their position untl it was almost too late. Someone fired two blaster bolts from behind him.
“Hold on” Vader boomed, as he jerked his bike to the side just in time to avoid the blaster fire. The shots missed, sizzling into the Chandrillan mountain snow instead.
Whatever remained in Kolma’s stomach also went into the snow.
Vader whipped his head around - a muffled “ow” as Kolma got thwacked by Vader’s helmet - and saw a uniformed woman driving a late model luxury speeder. She had the canopy down and was aiming at Vader and Kolma with a heavy blaster pistol. She snapped of another shot, but her aim was off.
Kolma looked back too. “Hey, that’s my kriffing speeder!”, he shouted.
Vader was only slightly surprised.
As Vader dodged the repeated blaster shots coming from the luxury spreader trying to overtake him, his HUD informed him that there was an incoming call from his wife. Vader answered immediately - Padmé would always come first. Even before the Emperor. Not that Sidious would know that until he'd taken his last breath.
Padmé’s tone was pointed. “Darling husband, do you have a good reason for absenting yourself from your own son’s wedding feast?”
“I’m saving" Vader said as he jinked right to avoid another shot, "a loyal Imperial citizen" , a jink back right, "from Rebel terrorists.” The loyal imperial citizen holing onto him dry heaved.
Another blaster shot. This one close enough to leave a streak of carbon scoring on the left side of his helmet. “Et chu ta!”, Vader cursed in Huttese, then switched back to his external vocoder and told Kolma “hold on to me VERY tightly!”
Vader took his speeder bike into a corkscrew descent, as steep as he dared with the passenger behind him. If he wasn’t burdened by this drunken parasite, he’d be able to go much steeper, probably inverted. But, then, without his passenger, the rebel scum shooting at him would already have been sliced in half.
“Ani stay safe for me. For all of us.” Padmé’s voice came through on Vader’s helmet comm, as the rebel pilot put Tay Kolma’s luxury airspeeder through maneuvers it most certainly wasn’t designed for and managed to keep Vader in her line of sight.
At that point Vader was too focused on the fight to reprimand his wife for using a dead man's name.
Kolma lurched as if he was about to fall off and Vader used the force to firmly yank him back. The drunken fool dry heaved again.
He could feel the rebel preparing to take another well aimed shot behind him. He dived. They’d entered a narrow canyon and he had less space to dodge, but if he went below the treetops, he could weave a course through the pines that the much larger airspeeder couldn't follow.
Then two shots from an imperial blaster cannon passed by Vader after just missing the rebel. Two pines to Vader's right burst into flames.
An unfamiliar male voice came through on Vader’s comm. “Lord Vader, this is Major Montalban; we have visual contact with you and the Rebel scum.”
“Excellent. Engage the Rebel. Attempt to apprehend her alive”, Vader ordered.
“Yes Sir!” Replied the major. Shortly afterwards, Vader heard the whine of multiple Imperial speeder bikes behind him, and a shot from an Imperial blaster cannon flashed overhead.
The Rebel airspeeder pilot broke off her pursuit of Vader as the scout troopers closed in on her.
Vader commend Padmé. “Was the Major’s intervention your doing?”
“Indeed” replied Padmé, in a satisfied tone. “Governor Hollick called me a ‘silly woman’ when I tried to pull him out of the party, but fortunately the major he’d left in charge at headquarters in his absence had more sense.”
“Tomorrow I will have words with Governor Grandron Holleck about his folly”, Vader remarked.
“Should I let him know?”, asked Padmé, her tone light and teasing.
“No, he has chosen ignorance, let him remain in that state.”
“I see” replied Padmé, “I’ll have Vanee and Sabe standing by to clean up the mess.” Vader loved his wife, always thinking of the little things.
Vader made a quick decision. “Unfortunately, I fear that I will be unable to return to Luke’s party. After this incident, I am afraid that I will need to take Kolma to the Imperial garrison in Hanna rather than his estate, and I will need to stay overnight at least.”
“That’s unfortunate” said Padmé sadly. “Luke will be disappointed when you’re not there in the morning, but he’ll understand. Your duty to the Empire always comes first.” Someone less familiar with Padmé would not have heard the subtle bitterness in her tone.
Unfortunately, Vader really didn’t have another option. Kolma's information was clearly important, and Hallack was clearly sloppy enough to let Rebel agents infiltrate his garrison.
The old phrase “another happy landing” drifted into Vader’s head as he landed the bike on one of the Hanna garrison’s duracrete landing pads. Vader shook his head. At least this time he’d emerged from a firefight with his vehicle intact.
Vader had a hunch that tomorrow Kolma would admit something that landed him in a cell, but tonight he'd be going into guest quarters under guard.