Darth Vader Goes to School

Making Friends

Piett thought he wouldn't hear back again from Vader until he needed him to take a test. But early one morning as he rolled out of bed, he found a high priority message on his comm.

That could only mean one person.

Vader.

He answered it, expecting details on the next test assignment, only to frown at yet again, another unexpected twist in the holodrama his life had somehow become.

"Captain Piett." Lord Vader's image appeared. Even tiny, and as a recording, it seemed to fill the whole room. "I cannot take the boy's insistence that I be his friend. If it continues I may travel there myself to dispose of him."

Piett winced. It wouldn't surprise him of course, but the boy seemed harmless. He didn't deserve to die at the hands of Vader.

"So when you get this message, contact me immediately. I have identified a few candidates who may work as ideal friends for the boy. Then he will leave us alone and I will not have to kill him."

Well. It appeared he would be doing espionage of some sort after all. He just never imagined he'd spy on college students who had no impact on the overall safety and security of the Empire.

That was how, a few hours later, Piett was following around students that, he assumed, Vader knew from his class with said Dark Lord breathing in his ear.

He was tempted to ask how he'd even found enough information on these students to even be able to lead him to the right places. If he had to guess, it was either ISB or more of whatever Vader did to get himself enrolled in school. ISB seemed a bit overkill, but...well. He could never be sure with him.

One student lived on the edge of a waste zone. Even walking the street towards the apartment building, it looked run down. Piett instinctively ducked into shadows to avoid being seen, one hand on the blaster hidden in his jacket.

"What type of district is this?" Vader asked as he crossed a bridge. Beneath him was a bunch of oozing waste. The smell was enough to make him gag.

"This is a waste zone, my lord."

There was a silence, then, "This is not the right person to be Luke Lars' friend. I am sure of it."

Piett stopped in his tracks, frowning at the apartment building. "We have yet to even find this person--"

"Yes, but the boy will somehow find himself skipping into deadly waste, I'm sure of it. Why would anyone live here anyway?!"

"Well...it's probably affordable housing, and school is rather expensive--"

"That is an exaggeration, it is only fifty thousand credits a semester."

Only fifty thousand credits. He debated on explaining that such an amount was actually quite sizable for most people, but he doubted Lord Vader would care. "Alright. Then on to the next location."

The next few candidates were also apparently not good enough.

"No, she clearly has poor choice in friends." He said about a girl who spent most of her time shopping with her friends in the trade district.

"I see...pardon me, my lord, but they seem like normal college students, why--?"

"Because they are far too interested in material items."

He didn't understand how that was a bad thing, but it seemed wiser to drop it.

"He seems too rough for the boy." Vader said of another boy who they watched at a hoverboard park.