A/N: I apologize for deleting and readding those last few chapters in my story, however, I noticed a glaring plot hole and had to rectify it as soon as possible. Enjoy. A/N
Luke knew that eventually, he would have to face up to his war crimes on Takodana and his killing of innocent beings. He was unsure exactly how, if or when he would admit to his heinous acts alongside Vader
And so he continued to reach out to Leia, to let her know that he was approaching so the Rebels were aware of his precense. Though it was secondary in his mind, Luke saw on the Falcon's scanners that he was approaching none other than his own home planet of Tatooine.
Was it a coincidence, Luke briefly wondered, that it was Tatooine where the Rebel fleet was bound, with Leia expecting his return? It didn't matter, all that mattered right then and there was finding his friends again and standing with them to the end.
Aboard the shuttle TydiriumLeia was deep in meditation as she guided the Rebel fleet along their trajectory, sensing Luke's presence growing nearer.
Leia... I'm coming...
Luke...
Through theradio of Tydirium, an alarm could be heard blaring inside the command ship Home One.
"We've got a single vessel entering our trajectory!" General Madine exclaimed.
Leia jolted with a start, realizing exactly who it was.
"Wait! Stop!" she shouted, "It's Luke!"
"And the Falcon!" Han yelled.
Sure enough, the approaching freighter did not attempt to engage the Rebel fighters or cruisers in combat, however, several X and Y Wing pilots opened fire on instinct.
"No!" Han and Leia shouted in unison, as Chewbacca let out a great howl.
However, every single laser bolt fired at Luke's stolen fighter halted in the midst of their course, suspended in the vacuum of space.
Then, one by one, Luke sent each jet of laser fire flying to the side, streaking across space out of sight.
"Commander Skywalker to Home One," Luke said into his radio as soon as he'd patched a signal, "I repeat, Commander Skywalker to Home One."
"Commander Skywalker has returned!" Admiral Ackbar announced, and a cheer rang out throughout the fighters and cruise ships.
Luke gazed out the hatch of his TIE Fighter and saw at the forefront of the fleet the repainted shuttle Tydiriumsensing Leia's precense aboard. Han was there, and Chewie, and...
There was something different about their dynamic, Luke knew. Lando wasn't there, he was aboard the mother ship Home Onenor was anyone else, yet Luke sensed something different between Han and Leia besides the love that had existed before.
He slowly steered his craft towards Home One as the blast doors slid open to reveal the hangar.
Following Luke, the several dozen Rebel fighters began to dock aboard their capital ship, their mission accomplished.
"Luke, hey Luke!" Several rebel pilots were swarming towards him, Lando Calrissian at the forefront. Luke had to shake each of their hands, give a fudged explanation of how he'd escaped from Vader. Let them think he had broken out of his chains and ran away
And so, painstakingly, he lied and told them of how Vader had tried to convert him by torture and had forced him to witness terrible crimes, all while in his mind replaying the massacre he'd helped lead on Takodana, the body of the little red-haired boy cut up by Vader's remorseless blade...
He'd never been more grateful to hear Leia's calling of his name, and that was saying something.
He turned in weary relief as she, Han, Chewie and the droids made their way over to him.
"All right, give the Commander a break," Lando said as he directed the pilots aside with the help of security patrols.
"Luke!" Leia grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the group.
"Hey, kid, you really scared us, taking off like that!" Han exclaimed as he hugged his friend. Chewbacca covered them all with a giant Wookiee hug and howled.
Luke closed his eyes as he embraced them all in return, trying to push away his intense guilt. A Jedi can't afford to live in the past, he told himself, he had to focus on righting the present.
As he held them all close, he again sensed that something had changed. He looked to Leia as they released and asked, "What's going on."
"Let's take it inside the Falcon," Leia replied.
And they proceeded through the entrance of the Rebel Alliance's best ship that had now once again been into the belly of the beast and out again.
Sitting down in the passenger compartment around the holochess table, Han said to Luke, "Listen kid, I know you've been through hell with Vader and the Empire, but there's something we want to tell you first." He looked to Leia expectantly, who nodded and said to Luke;
"Listen, I know with what you went through this isn't a good time for this kind of news or anything but..." she paused and went forth with it. "I'm pregnant."
Luke leaned back in his seat, this information piling on top of everything he had been forced to process. Leia pregant, adding a baby in the midst of the Galactic Civil War, a baby to carry on the legacy when they were both gone...
And Luke allowed it all to go. It didn't matter that he was a Jedi, or that he'd aided with mass unprovoked murder, or that they were docked on a warship, or that the threat of Vader loomed over them all.
His sister was pregnant and he was going to be an uncle. No matter what else, this was something to celebrate.
"Congratulations, I'm happy for you both," Luke said, allowing for the first time in too long a genuine smile to form. "Your baby is going to be a blessing."
"Yeah, It sure is," Han grinned.
How ironic, Vader reflected as he stood with Admiral Piett and a captain on the Executor's command bridge overlooking the Tatooine system, that this was where the endgame battle would take place. The site of Luke's death and the end of the Rebellion would culminate above the world where it had all started for both of them; where at different times Luke and his father had discovered the Jedi path.
Actually, it was quite fitting. The Jedi would end here just as it was intended long ago.
"Preparing to initiate long range cannons," the captain reported.
"I shall oversee their final destruction aboard my fighter," Vader informed Piett, "I am leaving you in charge of all operations aboard my Star Destroyer." He was not content to watch each explosion one by one aboard the Executor, he needed to be a part of the action, see for himself the death of each and every Rebel. Especially Skywalker and the Princess.
Piett swallowed, startled by Vader's addressing of him. Vader was leaving him to command the main command ship during the final description of the Rebel alliance. The end of the war rested in his hands, as did the deaths of the millions of Rebels aboard the dozens of craft and vessels hovering in orbit of Tatooine.
There was nothing to say but the obvious.
"As you wish, My lord."
Vader turned without another word and headed off the command bridge for his personal advanced TIE Fighter.
"You may fire when ready," Piett said to the crew below deck, clasping his hands anxiously behind his back.
Luke was suddenly struck with a sharp pain to the head as he sensed what was coming.
He leapt to his feet and raced to the Falcon's exit as Han and Leia raced after him.
"Luke, what is it?" Leia called out.
At that moment, alarms began blaring as Admiral Ackbar said into the intercom, "Imperial fleet detected! All pilots man your fighters!"
A fast, infinitely stretched laser the color of Luke's lightsaber blade grew across the vast infinity of the stars and abruptly struck a nearby bull cruiser.
"Oh, no," Luke groaned. "I better get to my fighter."
He had a terrible feeling that the end was coming. He may not have a chance to see Han and Leia again. He looked back at his two greatest friends, blinking back tears. Artoo came wheeling alongside his master, ready for what was to come.
"May the Force be with you," he choked, "all of you."
"I believe in you, kid!" Han said, not wanting to hold anything back, "If you want to credit your Force-thing, fine, but I believe in you. You saved me from Jabba and you destroyed the first Death Star. You taught me what it means to..."
The hangar of Home One rocked with explosions as the TIE fighters subjected it to heavy ammunition.
Around the main cruiser, the Star Destroyer fleet was tearing apart the other vessels.
"All craft, prepare for emergency evacuation!" Admiral Ackbar shouted into the intercom as his fellow officers took off to their own transports. Ackbar however, refused to depart until he knew the rest of the personnel aboard was safe.
"We're under heavy attack and we've already lost three of our own cruisers!"
The Mon Calamari officer sighed with grief as he watched the fleet he'd built nearly-singlehandedly crumble into dust and atoms. There was little they could do against a surprise attack of this magnitude.
As Vader blasted fighter after fighter, thoroughly enjoying himself despite the high stakes, he appreciated the fact that despite his escape, Luke had essentially served as a beacon to lure Vader and his fleet to his friends. Luke would die knowing he had caused his own side's total defeat.
Vader noticed an Imperial shuttle similar to his own flying towards him. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before it opened fire. He realized with annoyance that it was shuttle Tydirium, stolen by those infernal Rebels.
It mattered not. The loss was nothing compared to what the Rebellion would face today. All the hard work of those treacherous Senators had started.
The last of the original Delegation of 2000, Mon Mothma herself, was aboard. She would know her doom now, the ultimate price for plotting against the government that provided her home planet with defense and order.
But that meant nothing compared to his own son and daughter, now trapped within the burning hangar of Home One.
This was it. If he killled them now, there would be no more chance to train either of them as an apprentice. The last of his family ties would be gone forever, swept away like the debris from the Rebel ships and fighters into the unknown vacuum...
No. He had allowed such sentimentality to rot his brain for too long. The last legacy of Padme would be gone and Vader would at last truly break free of his final restraints.
He aimed his laser cannons directly at Home One's main command station.
Henceforth, you shall be known as Darth...Vader...
He fired, sending those green jets of doom at the besieged Home One.
Mon Mothma saw the blasts coming before they reached her. She had served the true, Galactic Republic her entire life, whether it was in power or not. She knew that the Rebellion would die today, but she told herself that the spark of hope would never fade.
One day, another army would rise and topple the Sith and their reign of terror. The light never died, her friend and colleague Padme Amidala had taught her that...
The good will win in the end, Mothma thought, as always. She braced herself as the command center erupted in inferno and was blasted away.
"You'll pay for that!" Lando yelled with sudden anger and shock as he saw the north wing of the Mon Calamari cruiser split into segments of flaming debris.
He fired at the large, curve-winged TIE Fighter. He would make it pay for what it had done to the cause he had come to follow with a bleeding heart. He'd only been in it at the beginning out of guilt, Lando had to admit. He'd felt he'd owed it to Han to join the side that his friend had believed in.
If a cynical outlaw like Han could embrace a noble cause with such passion, so could Lando. And through it, he'd known friendship, the kind that money and wealth made scarce.
Those were his thoughts as he fired at Vader's fighter, and those were his thoughts as the green streak of rapid fire tore his shuttle apart.
Lando flinched as his surroundings were filled with smoke and gas and he let go.
"LANDO!"
Standing with the others on the landing platform of Home One, Han let out a bloodcurdling scream as he watched his old friend be consumed in a fiery explosion.
They stood there amidst falling chunks of steel and ashes, Rebel ships being crushed as Home One fell under siege. The last and strongest Rebel control ship was sinking amidst the surrounding volleys of fire, descending into the abyss below.
Her eyes filled with sweat and tears, Leia shouted, "Let's get out on the Falcon while we can!"
What a nightmare!" Threepio fretted, "I can't see a thing!"
Chewbacca let out an urgent growl as he grabbed Threepio and began carrying the protocol droid toward the ship as the others followed.
"Take cover!" Luke yelled as he sensed danger.
He wrapped Leia into his arms and pulled her down as the ceiling above came crashing down.
When he dared to look up, he saw the Falcon split down the middle by a fallen column, Han weeping over his destroyed ship.
"We have to beat them!" he yelled vigorously, "We're going to make it through this, and we're going to destroy those bastards!"
Chewbacca let out a mournful cry as he pulled out of the rubble the remains of the crushed Threepio.
"Artoo...Artoo... Arrr..." was all that came out of the broken droid's vocabulator.
Artoo whistled sadly over the loss of his best friend and counterpart. Helping his pregnant sister to her feet, Luke rubbed the top of Artoo's domed head and, as Leia embraced Han in preparation for the end, the young Jedi gazed at the TIE Fighter directly facing them, cannons ready to fire.
They may have been nearly entirely defeated, but Luke knew that he would not allow his friends to die. They would live to reestablish the Rebellion against the Empire and build it up from the ground once again.
He heard the voice of Yoda saying, Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. Size matters not.
And Luke knew that saving his friends mattered more than the size of the fleet surrounding them or the physical damage done to the Rebellion.
Vader could sense his son's thoughts, and his never-ending idealism. He could feel Luke telepathically reaching to him in a last move of desperation.
I don't want to fight you father, but you'll leave me no choice.
Don't do this.
He could see the figures standing in the middle of the descending Rebel cruiser, trying to remain standing and breathing despite the toxic air surrounding them.
Every single Jedi, including your friend Obi Wan Kenobi, is an enemy of the Republic. Do what must be done.
Vader slipped his gloved fingers onto the trigger, concentrating intensely on his targets.
Once more, the Sith will rule the galaxy.
Luke braced himself in preparation, knowing this would be the ultimate test of his strength as a Jedi, both physically and mentally. He was beyond the material dangers around him, as long as he had the Force.
"The war is just beginning," he said to himself as he glanced at Han, Chewbacca and Leia.
And we...shall have...peace...
Holding dear everything taught to him by his Jedi mentors as well as his experiences with the Rebellion and his beloved friends, Luke raised his flesh hand as the laserfire flew their way.
He strained as he struggled to hold the bolts in mid-space, as chunks of wreckage around them flew into the rocky, sandy surface of Tatooine or disappeared towards distant stars.
And in that moment, nothing mattered but his will. His will against Darth Vader's.
Luke was ready as Vader launched a second round. He raised his other hand, his body sliding back as he willed Home One to remain in place.
He was aware of Vader's rage as he glared through the window of his cockpit, from behind his obsidian mask. Luke's joints and bones were about to collapse, but he had to remain strong, for everybody, he was a Jedi, he'd make them proud...
And then came a blast from the Executor, upon the command of Piett, that struck the center of Home One and sent the remaining pieces flying into oblivion.
As the deck below him disappeared, Luke let go of the fire from the TIE Fighter and concentrated solely on his friends, and the debris they remained trapped in, flying towards the surface below.
And as the body of Luke Skywalker fell towards the surface of Tatooine, nearly dead but surviving only by the guidance of the Force spirits, Han, Leia and Chewbacca plummeted in the remains of the Falcon towards the sand below.
Vader's hatred and fury were momentarily replaced by sheer awe as he watched Luke's limp form gracefully descend from the vacuum of space towards the atmosphere of Tatooine, until it disappeared from sight along with the scattered debris that remained of the Rebel Alliance.
And it was this awe that blinded Vader from the chunk that slammed into his wing. As a piece of his Fighter was blasted off, Vader furiously tried to work the controls of his ship as it too began to streak towards the desert hell that awaited.