Luke Skywalker was thrown backwards in agony. His body writhed in a pain that he hadn’t ever imagined possible as the Emperor’s Dark Force lightning traveled over his skeleton. Wave after wave of pure and un-tempered anguish pounded against him, sending his body into uncontrollable convulsions across the polished deck of the Emperor’s Throne Room. The throne room that Luke had fully been willing to die in.

But not like this.

While preparing for the mission, he had imagined his own triumph and the Emperor’s distress as the Rebel Fleet swooped in to destroy the second Death Star from under their feet, taking with it the most evil being in the galaxy. He knew that the emotion probably wasn’t fitting for a Jedi, but he would allow himself that small pleasure. Surely sacrificing himself to ensnare the Emperor in a death trap from which he could not escape was penance enough.

He had also hoped, in the dark of night while he lay awake on his bunk, that he would be able to rescue his Father, and bring him back to the Light Side of the Force. He had felt the good in him during the battle at Coruscant as Prince Xizor’s fleet fell under the turbolasers of the Imperial Navy. It would have been a simple task for Vader to capture him there, but the Dark Lord had spared him. Luke had felt the conflict, even across the distances of space, as Vader had stood on the bridge of his Star Destroyer, the internal debate raging within him.

All this flashed through the young Jedi’s mind in the few scant seconds that had passed since the Emperor’s lightning had first struck him. A few seconds that already felt like a lifetime of pain. Luke wasn’t sure that it hadn’t been a lifetime; his thoughts were muddied and confused. He had attempted to use the Force to block the jagged blue-white streaks of pain that had shot out of the Emperor’s hands, but his shock, and the sheer power of the Sith Master’s attack had quickly overwhelmed his hastily erected defenses.

Luke had thought he had come so far in his training. He knew, in his mind, that he would never be as powerful with the Force as Yoda, or perhaps not even his first master, Obi-Wan Kenobi. But he had thought he was much stronger than this. He was almost overwhelmed with his feeling of failure, as the structure of accomplishments that he had built up came crashing down faster than a house built out of sabacc cards. He fought against that feeling, trying to anchor himself to something, anything that could replace the pain.

As if sensing Luke’s thoughts, the Emperor spoke again, his gravelly voice seeming softer now, in comparison to the screaming sounds of the Dark Force lightning.

“Young fool… only now, at the end, do you understand.” He said, as Vader dragged himself up from the deck, his normally shiny armor dirty and smudged from his battle with his son. Holding his injured hand close to his body, his breath ragged, he slowly and painfully moved towards his master.

The Dark Lord of the Sith looked down at Luke, his child, who had been kept hidden from him for all those years. It had been a complete shock to him to find out about Luke; Obi-Wan had covered his tracks well. And now to find out that he also had a daughter, one who could be equally powerful in the Force, had sent his mind reeling. It was amazing that he hadn’t felt her in the Force before now, and even more so that his Master hadn’t either.

Vader hadn’t been able to lift a visual image from Luke’s mind earlier. The young Jedi had clamped down his defenses firmly on Vader’s attempts to pull it from him after that first initial betrayal. Vader had tried another tactic to distract his son, but the fury of Luke’s attack had startled even him, and he hadn’t been able to try again, he had been too busy concentrating on the battle before him. Indeed his son was powerful, as he allowed his anger and hatred to take control of his actions. It had been all Vader could do to hold him off at the beginning, and Luke hadn’t let up at all, eventually knocking the Dark Lord down, and severing his hand. The same hand that Count Dooku had sliced through, so many years ago. It had been Vader’s first real injury, the first of many that had converted him from the man he had been to the machine he now was.

But now, with Luke writing in agony on the deck, the Emperor’s Dark Force lightning playing over his body, the young man’s mental defenses were down. Vader probed his mind quickly, searching for that elusive image of his daughter. For if Luke were to die here, then Vader would need to know her identity in order to begin to search for her, so that he could turn her to the Dark Side and overthrown the Emperor. Vader looked over at his master, seeing that the old man was totally immersed in his punishment of Luke.

As the Emperor moved down the stairs towards them, Vader dug through Luke’s pain and agony, into the center of his son’s being, where Luke held his dearest memories, his greatest hopes and fears. Searching, searching for the face that would help Vader in his mission to take over the Empire and rule the galaxy. There! Vader nearly collapsed as the shock of his daughter’s identity hit him full force.

Leia...

to be continued...

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