Return of the Jedi: Choose Your Own Adventure
By Mina
10.
"And now young Skywalker... you will die."
Luke clawed breath into his lungs, and screamed, "Stop!"
And, amazingly, Palpatine did.
Luke gasped, feeling his muscles cramp, and he groaned.
"Try again," Palpatine said.
Luke didn't understand for a moment, he simply tried to gain control of his fitful limbs. Then another sizzle of lightning snaked over his body. "S-stop," he gasped.
And the word had cost him, both times he'd said it. Palpatine must know that. But still another strike raked over him. "Try again," Palpatine reiterated, patiently.
"Stop - please!"
Palpatine laughed, a crackling, dry laugh. "Not quite," he said. "I was looking for 'please, Master'."
Luke pressed his lips together, never willing to say that word.
"Hmmm," Palpatine said. And then the lightning came again. Less intense now, toying with him, painful and damaging but not lethal. Luke wondered what Vader was doing, what Vader was thinking - but he'd given something away, he knew, by asking for mercy. A weakness, a chink in his resolve. And Palpatine and Vader would have seen it.
What had he done?
The lightning continued relentlessly.
"Say it again," Palpatine invited, cordially, in-between biting stabs of electric energy.
"No," Luke gasped. "Kill me."
But all he got was another laugh, and the sound of footsteps approaching. Then Palpatine was crouching down beside him, a hand on his cheek. And, Force!, his fingers were cold, cold as a grave, against the burnt skin of Luke's face.
"Oh, my friend, I don't think that's going to happen now." Luke pushed himself away from the Emperor, only to collide with a bank of storage containers behind him. Nowhere to go. "Poor would-be Jedi. And you were doing so well."
"Go to hell," Luke whispered, the words sounding raw, reflecting his anger for his moment of weakness.
Palpatine smiled, pulling his lips back into a feral grin. "There you go," he said. "There's the anger we're looking for." He looked aside briefly, thoughtfully. "But now I fear we must move this conversation elsewhere. I'm afraid your friends may just succeed in destroying my Death Star. And won't they mourn Luke Skywalker, who died aboard this station?"
Luke closed his eyes against the proximity of the man.
"Nothing to add, my friend?"
Luke said nothing, but the question hadn't been directed at him.
"He needs medical treatment," Vader rumbled. More anger flashed through Luke then, at the perversity of his father's moral compass. He'd been about to watch Luke die, and now he was worrying about his injuries.
"And he will get it," Palpatine replied, "once he submits to his master."
Luke swallowed convulsively. "Go to hell," he said again.
"My friend," Palpatine said, "we're already there."
And a sizzle of energy leapt from Palpatine's fingers, over his skull, seeming to pierce his mind - and he fell back, unconscious.
The end.
Everyone lived, but Luke's in even more trouble than he started in. Go back to the start to see if you could have had a happier ending!