Trilogy (71 page)

He brought her closer still, held her face in his hands.

He looked so tender now, so giving. Was he giving her the power? Could she truly hold it? What was he saying? “Luke, what's come over you?”

“Leia, the Force is strong in my family. My father has it, I have it, and … my sister has it.”

Leia stared full into his eyes again. Darkness whirled there. And truth. What she saw frightened her … but now, this time, she didn't draw away. She stood close to him. She started to understand.

“Yes,” he whispered, seeing her comprehension. “Yes. It's you, Leia.” He held her in his arms.

Leia closed her eyes tightly against his words, against her tears. To no avail. It all washed over her, now, and through her. “I know,” she nodded. Openly she wept.

“Then you know I must go to him.”

She stood back, her face hot, her mind swimming in a storm. “No, Luke, no. Run away, far away. If he can feel your presence, go away from this place.” She held his hands, put her cheek on his chest. “I wish I could go with you.”

He stroked the back of her head. “No, you don't. You've never faltered. When Han and I and the others have doubted, you've always been strong. You've never turned away from your responsibility. I can't say the same.” He thought of his premature flight from Dagobah, racing to risk everything before his training had been completed, almost destroying everything because of it. He looked down at the black, mechanical hand he had to show for it. How much more would be lost to his weakness? “Well,” he choked, “now we're both going to fulfill our destinies.”

“Luke, why? Why must you confront him?”

He thought of all the reasons—to win, to lose, to join, to struggle, to kill, to weep, to walk away, to accuse, to ask why, to forgive, to not forgive, to die—but knew, in the end, there was only one reason, now and always. Only one reason that could ever matter. “There's good in him, I've felt it. He won't give me over to the Emperor. I can save him, I can turn him back to the good side.” His eyes became wild for just a moment, torn by doubts and passions. “I have to try, Leia. He's our father.”

They held each other close. Tears streamed silently down her face.

“Goodbye, dear sister—lost, and found. Goodbye, sweet, sweet Leia.”

She cried openly, now—they both did—as Luke held her away and moved slowly back along the planking. He disappeared into the darkness of the tree-cave that led out of the village.

Leia watched him go, quietly weeping. She gave free vent to her feelings, did not try to stop the tears—tried, instead, to feel them, to feel the source they came from, the path they took, the murky corners they cleansed.

Memories poured through her, now, clues, suspicions, half-heard mutterings when they'd thought she was asleep. Luke, her brother! And Vader, her father. This was too much to assimilate all at once, it was information overload.

She was crying and trembling and whimpering all at once, when suddenly Han stepped up and embraced her from behind. He'd gone looking for her, and heard her voice, and came around just in time to
see Luke leaving—but only now, when Leia jumped at his touch and he turned her around, did he realize she was sobbing.

His quizzical smile turned to concern, tempered by the heart-fear of the would-be lover. “Hey, what's going on here?”

She stifled her sobs, wiped her eyes. “It's nothing, Han. I just want to be alone for a while.”

She was hiding something, that much was plain, and that much was unacceptable. “It's not nothing!” he said angrily. “I want to know what's going on. Now you tell me what it is.” He shook her. He'd never felt like this before. He wanted to know, but he didn't want to know what he thought he knew. It made him sick at heart to think of Leia … with Luke … he couldn't even bring himself to imagine what it was he didn't want to imagine.

He'd never been out of control like this, he didn't like it, he couldn't stop it. He realized he was still shaking her, and stopped.

“I can't, Han …” Her lip began to tremble again.

“You can't! You can't tell
me?
I thought we were closer than that, but I guess I was wrong. Maybe you'd rather tell Luke. Sometimes I—”

“Oh, Han!” she cried, and burst into tears once more. She buried herself in his embrace.

His anger turned slowly to confusion and dismay, as he found himself wrapping his arms around her, caressing her shoulders, comforting her. “I'm sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “I'm sorry.” He didn't understand, not an iota—didn't understand her, or himself, or his topsy-turvy feelings, or women, or the universe. All he knew was that he'd
just been furious, and now he was affectionate, protective, tender. Made no sense.

“Please … just hold me,” she whispered. She didn't want to talk. She just wanted to be held.

He just held her.

M
orning mist rose off dewy vegetation as the sun broke the horizon over Endor. The lush foliage of the forest's edge had a moist, green odor; in that dawning moment the world was silent, as if holding its breath.

In violent contrast, the Imperial landing platform squatted over the ground. Harsh, metallic, octagonal, it seemed to cut like an insult into the verdant beauty of the place. The bushes at its perimeter were singed black from repeated shuttle landings; the flora beyond that was wilting—dying from refuse disposal, trampling feet, chemical exhaust fumes. Like a blight was this outpost.

Uniformed troops walked continuously on the platform and in the area—loading, unloading, surveying, guarding. Imperial walkers were parked off to one side—square, armored, two-legged war machines, big enough for a squad of soldiers to stand inside, firing laser cannons in all directions. An Imperial shuttle took off for the Death Star, with a roar that made the trees cringe. Another walker emerged from the timber on the far side of the platform, returning from a patrol mission. Step by lumbering step, it approached the loading dock.

Darth Vader stood at the rail of the lower deck, staring mutely into the depths of the lovely forest.
Soon. It was coming soon; he could feel it. Like a drum getting louder, his destiny approached. Dread was all around, but fear like this excited him, so he let it bubble quietly within. Dread was a tonic, it heightened his senses, honed a raw edge to his passions. Closer, it came.

Victory, too, he sensed. Mastery. But laced with something else … what was it? He couldn't see it, quite. Always in motion, the future; difficult to see. Its apparitions tantalized him, swirling specters, always changing. Smoky was his future, thunderous with conquest and destruction.

Very close, now. Almost here.

He purred, in the pit of his throat, like a wild cat smelling game on the air.

Almost here.

The Imperial walker docked at the opposite end of the deck, and opened its doors. A phalanx of stormtroopers marched out in tight circular formation. They lock-stepped toward Vader.

He turned around to face the oncoming troopers, his breathing even, his black robes hanging still in the windless morning. The stormtroopers stopped when they reached him, and at a word from their captain, parted to reveal a bound prisoner in their midst. It was Luke Skywalker.

The young Jedi gazed at Vader with complete calm, with many layers of vision.

The stormtrooper captain spoke to Lord Vader. “This is the Rebel that surrendered to us. Although he denies it, I believe there may be more of them, and I request permission to conduct a wider search of the area.” He extended his hand to the Dark
Lord; in it, he held Luke's lightsaber. “He was armed only with this.”

Vader looked at the lightsaber a moment, then slowly took it from the captain's hand. “Leave us. Conduct your search, and bring his companions to me.”

The officer and his troops withdrew back to the walker.

Luke and Vader were left standing alone facing each other, in the emerald tranquillity of the ageless forest. The mist was beginning to burn off. Long day ahead.

VII

“S
O,” THE
D
ARK
L
ORD RUMBLED
. “You have come to me.”

“And you to me.”

“The Emperor is expecting you. He believes you will turn to the dark side.”

“I know … Father.” It was a momentous act for Luke—to address his father, as his father. But he'd done it, now, and kept himself under control, and the moment was past. It was done. He felt stronger for it. He felt potent.

“So, you have finally accepted the truth,” Vader gloated.

“I have accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father.”

“That name no longer has meaning for me.” It was a name from long ago. A different life, a different universe. Could he truly once have been that man?

“It is the name of your true self.” Luke's gaze bore steadily down on the cloaked figure. “You have only forgotten. I know there is good in you. The Emperor hasn't driven it fully away.” He molded with his voice, tried to form the potential reality with the strength of his belief. “That's why you could not destroy me. That's why you won't take me to your Emperor now.”

Vader seemed almost to smile through his mask at his son's use of Jedi voice-manipulation. He looked down at the lightsaber the captain had given him—Luke's lightsaber. So the boy was truly a Jedi now. A man grown. He held the lightsaber up. “You have constructed another.”

“This one is mine,” Luke said quietly. “I no longer use yours.”

Vader ignited the blade, examined its humming, brilliant light, like an admiring craftsman. “Your skills are complete. Indeed, you are as powerful as the Emperor has foreseen.”

They stood there for a moment, the lightsaber between them. Sparks dove in and out of the cutting edge: photons pushed to the brink by the energy pulsing between these two warriors.

“Come with me, Father.”

Vader shook his head. “Ben once thought as you do—”

“Don't blame Ben for your fall—” Luke took a step closer, then stopped.

Vader did not move. “You don't know the power of the dark side. I must obey my master.”

“I will not turn—you will be forced to destroy me.”

“If that is your destiny.” This was not his wish, but the boy was strong—if it came, at last, to blows, yes, he would destroy Luke. He could no longer afford to hold back, as he once had.

“Search your feelings, Father. You can't do this. I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate.”

But Vader hated no one; he only lusted too blindly. “Someone has filled your mind with foolish ideas, young one. The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force.
He
is your master, now.”

Vader signaled to a squad of distant stormtroopers as he extinguished Luke's lightsaber. The guards approached. Luke and the Dark Lord faced one another for a long, searching moment. Vader spoke just before the guards arrived.

“It is too late for me, Son.”

“Then my father is truly dead,” answered Luke. So what was to stop him from killing the Evil One who stood before him now? he wondered.

Nothing, perhaps.

T
he vast Rebel fleet hung poised in space, ready to strike. It was hundreds of light-years from the Death Star—but in hyperspace, all time was a moment, and the deadliness of an attack was measured not in distance but in precision.

Ships changed in formation from corner to side, creating a faceted diamond shape to the armada—as if, like a cobra, the fleet was spreading its hood.

The calculations required to launch such a meticulously coordinated offensive at lightspeed made it necessary to fix on a stationary point—that is, stationary
relative to the point of reentry from hyperspace. The point chosen by the Rebel command was a small, blue planet of the Sullust system. The armada was positioned around it, now, this unblinking cerulean world. It looked like the eye of the serpent.

The
Millennium Falcon
finished its rounds of the fleet's perimeter, checking final positions, then pulled into place beneath the flagship. The time had come.

Lando was at the controls of the
Falcon
. Beside him, his copilot, Nien Nunb—a jowled, mouse-eyed creature from Sullust—flipped switches, monitored readouts, and made final preparations for the jump to hyperspace.

Lando set his comlink to war channel. Last hand of the night, his deal, a table full of high rollers—his favorite kind of game. With dry mouth, he made his summary report to Ackbar on the command ship. “Admiral, we're in position. All fighters are accounted for.”

Ackbar's voice crackled back over the headset. “Proceed with the countdown. All groups assume attack coordinates.”

Lando turned to his copilot with a quick smile. “Don't worry, my friends are down there, they'll have that shield down on time …” He turned back to his instruments, saying under his breath: “Or this will be the shortest offensive of all time.”