LUX BONTERI

Lux woke up in a dark room. He stared around, but his eyesight was blocked by streaks of nut-brown. Oh, his bangs. He tried to move a hand to brush them away, but his arm exploded in agony as he did, causing him to cry out.

"Wonderful," he muttered through gritted teeth, checking the bones in his arm. "My shooting arm's broken, I don't have any guns anyway, and my escape chances are just about everything to one."

Using the other hand to get the hair out of his eyes, he realized that he was in a prison cell, lying on a metal cot with an elevated area as a poor excuse for a pillow. Well, it's time to turn into the Lux Bonteri that you were before you became the Senator for Onderon, he thought, who was always so great in a crisis. The guy that Ahsoka fell for.

Acting on instinct, he took off his removable sweater sleeves and ripped them up, which is easier said than done with only one hand. Then he took two eating utensils from a tray of food, long grown cold, to complete the sling. At least, now he would look a little more dignified than with an arm that would hang loosely – and painfully – at his side.

He sat up with some difficulty, mostly due to a large bruise from a kick to the stomach: a parting gift from one of the prison guards. His arm was in bearable condition thought, thanks to his training as part of the Onderon Rebels.

But even the thought of the Rebels inevitably led to the thought of Ahsoka. She always was calm, collected, and was always ready to go down fighting if that was what it took from her to achieve victory. And so beautiful. He loved her so much.

"I love you," he whispered, tasting the words on his tongue. They had been his final words to her. And now she was probably out of his life for good. A tear left a little wet trail down his cheek at the thought.

Suddenly a little slot in the wall opened to reveal the portion of Storm Trooper helmet at eye-level. "Get up. The Emperor wishes your presence."

He was then roughly pulled out of his cell. Marched humiliatingly up to the bridge, his uninjured hand paralyzed by a handcuff, he soon stood before the Emperor, who sat in a stately, throne-like seat that told one who was in charge.

"Well, young man," said Palpatine in a strange voice, "are you ready to discuss the small matter of young Tano?"

Lux hated the way the Emperor called him 'young man', as well as how he claimed that Ahsoka was but a 'small matter', but said nothing to confirm it.

"I'm sorry, your lordship, but as I said earlier, I don't know what you're talking about. We parted ways several days before your troopers escorted me to your office. I haven't seen her since and I don't know where she is right now." Well, it was was truthful enough.

"Then, in that case, it is of no concern." With the smallest shift of his hand, the handcuff came undone. Motioning him towards the window, the cunning Emperor looked up at him. "She will become tangled in our net in good time. And I can assure you, it is tightly woven."

"What do you mean by that?" Lux was sure he knew the answer, but half of him refused to believe it, and the other wouldn't compute.

"I mean, Senator, that we will catch her eventually. But you have the power to stop all of this madness. I have seen something in you, something that I do not come across very often in the Senate. You have the potential to rule the Empire in my place when I am gone."

"M-me? But, I'm just a Senator! What in me could possibly convince you that I could–"

"You have extraordinary talents, young Lux," he interrupted. "And I do not care to admit it, but I am old. I will have left the galaxy in a few years, and I need to ensure that the Empire survives.

"But Ahsoka is a direct threat to all that I have worked so hard to accomplish! She will jeopardize the security of the people. Do you wish that, Lux?"

"No," he found himself saying involuntarily. "It has to be for the people's gain."

"Good. Then will you take up the training I have to offer? Then I can have your arm mended as well," he said. The Emperor's voice sounded like some unknown cloth, tumbling down in smooth swaths that one couldn't help but want to use.

He's trying to use that mind trick on you! Yelled a part of his conscience. You can resist it! Don't trust him!

He shooed the mental cry away, for it spoke a lie to him. He looked at the Emperor with a sly smile. "I am honored to accept this training, Emperor Palpatine."

Lux Bonteri was gone.