Hey, folks. Still chuggin;' along with this story, even with the 14 to 17 hour workdays!

I was very excited to discover that this story has insprired an artist to do an anime-style comic of a scene in Chapter Ten. She's also done some sketches of my favorite Luke-Vader story, "Equally Cursed and Blessed," by Mina. Check out this link:

http://valvar(dot)livejournal(dot)com/1996.html

(Note: you have to replace the two "(dot)" with "." before this link will work. This site kept deleting the rest of the link if I put the periods in.)

And be sure to let the artist know how wonderful she is!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

As Vader strode back to the Med Center, he pondered the Mon Calamari's words. Could he reverse the block now? Instinctual or not, he knew his talents lay more toward acts of destruction than healing. Even before he had adopted the code of the Sith, he knew this to be true. The Living Force and its adaptations to the healing arts had never been his to readily command.

Nevertheless, he must try, or his efforts to save Luke's life would be in vain.

And that particular outcome was totally unacceptable to him.

By the time he arrived in the Med Center, Tharell had just completed the placement of a protective cuff over the severed end of Luke's arm. An artificial hand such as Vader's would have to wait until they reached the Executor, as such was beyond the limited technical abilities of this small settlement. Vader paused at the doorway, out of his son's line of sight.

"How does that feel, young man?" Tharell asked.

Luke flexed his arm at the elbow, eyeing the device at the end of his arm with what looked like distaste. "Okay, I guess, except for the fact that I'm missing my hand," Luke said. He looked up at the healer and sighed. "I'm sorry, I know you've done all you can do to help. Thank you."

Tharell inclined his graying head in acceptance. "I know you find it difficult to believe at this point, but you are an extremely lucky young man. Very, very few survive an attack by a callustium, even among the members of this community."

Luke smiled wanly. "I guess 'lucky' is all in your point of view." He waved his injured arm weakly. "I assume I have Lord Vader to thank for this?"

Tharell nodded. "A lightsaber is particularly well adapted to preventing the further spread of its toxin." He ran the medical scanner quickly over Luke's body again, his almost skeletally thin fingers dancing fluently over its controls after he had finished the brief scan. Tharell nodded, seemingly pleased with the readings. Looking up at Luke, he said, "I assume by your question that you do not remember the incident?"

Shaking his head, Luke said, "Not much, anyway. It's all kind of a big blur after I touched that plant. And my head still feels fuzzy, like all my senses have been numbed or something. Is that an effect of the toxin as well?"

The healer raised his eyebrows, obviously curious. "If it were an effect of the toxin, you would already be dead." He looked at Luke more closely. "You have a most peculiar aura about you, young man. Forgive me the intrusion, but are you by chance a Force-sensitive?"

Luke gave the healer an anxious glance, clearly not knowing whether he should trust the man or not. Seeing the boy's distress, Vader moved into the room.

"Yes, he is," Vader replied for him as he approached Luke's bedside, his tone an oblique warning.

Luke started visibly, as if surprised to find Vader so close.

The healer bowed deeply to Vader, obviously knowing he had overstepped his boundaries. "My apologies, My Lord. I ask for information only in an effort to assist my patient."

"Your dedication is commendable, Healer," Vader said, unbending somewhat. "I thank you for your concern, but now that the boy is stable, I require time with him alone."

Tharell bowed again. "Of course, My Lord. I shall be in my office if you need me."

Luke refused to look at Vader, instead watching the retreating back of the healer as he ambled out of the room. "I guess this is where I'm supposed to say 'thank you' for saving my life?" Luke asked.

Vader crossed his arms, looking down at his son. "Would you rather I had not?"

Luke shrugged, his eyes still averted. "I assume you know by now that it was kind of a wasted effort." It wasn't a question.

"It need not be."

Luke looked up then, clearly startled. "You mean these people actually have a cure for my illness? The legend of the roborant plant is true?"

"No," Vader said. "It has not yet been discovered. Although the search for that particular plant is one of the primary reasons I established this settlement."

Luke shook his head. "I don't understand. You set up this place?" His eyes swept the green-on-green of the carefully tended room.

Vader put his hands on his belt, stalling for time. How much did he dare tell the boy? "In a manner of speaking. I brought the inhabitants here and provided basic supplies. The actual creation of the dwellings was accomplished by them."

"Creation." Luke looked sharply at Vader. "The healer asked if I were a Force-sensitive. Are there Jedi living here -- is that how all this was done?" Luke waved his good hand in the general direction of the room's living walls.

Vader did not reply.

"Fine," Luke said, his right hand plucking angrily at the fabric of his medical tunic. "Go ahead and give me the stone wall act. I'm actually getting kind of used to it." He looked around the room, his back stiffening slightly when he evidently did not find what he expected to find. Eyes narrowed distrustfully, Luke asked, "Where's Han?"

Vader fought back an emotion that felt almost like jealousy, and when he didn't reply immediately, Luke swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, swaying slightly. Vader moved to steady him, and the boy froze, staring belligerently at him.

"Your smuggler is unharmed." Vader's voice came out harsher than he'd intended, and his chin jerked violently upward almost of its own accord. "Even given his own persistent efforts to the contrary."

After a few moments of staring at Vader, Luke nodded, seemingly mollified.

Vader was vaguely surprised that the boy appeared to believe him, even without the ability to access the Force to verify the truth of his statement.Curious.

Luke said, "You implied there was a cure for me?"

"Yes," Vader said carefully. "Although there is a . . . minor issue that might interfere with that cure."

Luke rolled his eyes. "Of course there is."

Vader almost smiled behind the blankness of his mask. His son's sarcasm was a mirror image of his own on many occasions. Few would dare respond in such a manner to a Sith lord, and Vader found it somehow . . . refreshing. "Very little in life is simple, child. You do not yet have the years behind you to have comprehended that fact."

"Well, I'm not likely to have the years in front of me now either, am I?"

Vader sighed. Refreshing only to a point, it would seem. "I believe your affliction can be cured, Luke, but we must both utilize the Force in order to facilitate your healing. However, after your encounter with the callustium, you became delirious -- dangerous in your instinctual use of the Force -- and it became necessary for me to disrupt your access to it."

"Disrupt?" Luke looked puzzled. "Is that why I didn't sense your approach earlier?"

Vader merely nodded.

Luke shook his head. "I never knew I was accessing the Force at all. But now that it's gone, everything feels . . . deadened somehow." He looked up at Vader. "But you can reverse it, right?"

"I believe so."

He watched as his son's eyes widened. "You believe so? I hate to say this, but you're not inspiring a whole lot of confidence here."

The boy was still perceptive, even without the use of the Force. In truth, Vader did not feel confident that he would be able to perform the reversal, and even if he could, he knew that it would require opening his own mind to Luke in order to accomplish it. What would normally not be an issue between a father and son was very much an issue here. Vader still felt it unwise to let the child know of his true parentage. This was a dangerous world, and short of physically restraining the boy, he couldn't take the risk that Luke would still take flight once faced with the truth. Yet, the attempt must be made or he would risk losing his son forever. Vader somehow knew that the longer they delayed, the more difficult the reversal would be to accomplish.

Luke drew in a deep, steadying breath. "I guess we should just get this over with." He looked up into Vader's mask. "What do you need me to do?"

Vader nearly asked the boy to lie down, but he suspected that Luke would be even more uncomfortable in such a vulnerable position. As it was, the boy was perched on the edge of the cot like a bird poised to spring into the air at the slightest provocation, and Vader did not know how much of that was simply nervousness at the Dark Lord's proximity, or merely another facet of the boy's ordinary behavior. There was so little he knew of his son, and he again cursed Kenobi for depriving him of so many years . . . and so many layers of his son's personality.

Shaking his head slightly, Vader said, "You need do nothing but relax." He brought his gloved hand up, but halted the motion when the boy's eyes widened. "I will not harm you, child, but I must touch you to obtain an acceptable level of rapport between us."

Luke trembled slightly, but Vader guessed it was as much due to his ongoing physical weakness than any outright fear of him.

At least the Dark Lord hoped that was so.

The boy flinched and averted his eyes when Vader grasped his chin lightly, but Vader knew he dare not allow even this small degree of avoidance on his son's part. Not if he hoped to have any success in accomplishing this task. Luke resisted only momentarily when Vader applied gentle pressure to lift the boy's face toward his. "Relax, Luke," he said again, as he sent his mind toward his son's.

Vader had touched the minds of others in his long apprenticeship -- Obi-Wan, Yoda, Mace Windu, to name a few -- and he was always astounded anew at the experience. It was not outright telepathy, at least not among most humanoid races, but merely an exchange of impressions, thoughts or feelings that brushed across one's consciousness like the silken tufts of airborne seed pods in a brisk wind. It took either great skill or grave need to pinpoint actual thoughts amidst the maelstrom of fleeting, ephemeral information, but each mind-to-mind contact was entirely different.

To the young Jedi who had once been Anakin Skywalker, Yoda's ancient mind had felt deep and impenetrable, like the infinite depths of boundless space, while his old master's had been the hardest for him to achieve rapport, as if Obi-Wan, even then, had been wary and distrustful of his only Padawan.

But Luke. . . .

Luke's mind felt like the warm summer breeze of the Lake Country retreat on Naboo, the only place where Vader had ever felt truly at peace.

Vader allowed himself to momentarily bask in that presence, the pureness of his only son's mind, until the tiny threads of darkness attributable to the "wrongness" of Luke's physical condition focused his attention once more. Vader probed for the core of his son's mind, searching for the deadness that he somehow knew would lead him toward the nexus point of his son's Force abilities.

There. A coldness that battered itself against the overall warmth of Luke's thoughts and feelings -- a withered path that reminded Vader of the curving, tortuous course of a blighted stream.

Vader hadn't traveled far down that path of wrongness before he felt, surprisingly, the tentative efforts of his son to reach out toward him, the warm breeze constricting itself into tiny tendrils of incredibly focused thought and purpose.

Curiosity, need, longing.

Disturbed at the solidness of that contact, and leery of Luke discovering more than he was prepared to allow, Vader roughly pulled back, thereby losing the track of Force deadness in his son's mind. He released his hold on Luke's face as if scalded.

Luke blinked, a frown forming on his features. He shuddered once, then said, "I still can't feel you. What went wrong?"

Vader turned from him abruptly. What could he tell the boy? That Vader was afraid Luke might learn the truth . . . too many truths? Or not enough? He gripped the edge of a bio-bed until he felt it creak. Half-truths then, a Lord of the Sith was good at those.

Still facing away from Luke, Vader said, "It is a difficult procedure -- one that I have not attempted before."

"You didn't seem to have much trouble the first time."

Vader turned to him. "It is always easier to destroy than to heal, young one."

Luke merely looked at him solemnly. "For the Dark Side, maybe."

If not for the forced inhalations of his respirator, Vader's breath would have caught in his throat. Vader had turned to the Dark Side in order to save his wife -- the only way he could do so, or so he had thought. Was it true then that the Dark Side could never heal? That the only way he could heal his son was to let go of all that he had become?

No. That thought led only to chaos. The Dark Side made him powerful . . . and it was all he could ever be. When the time came that he dare let himself touch his son's mind fully, he would overcome whatever obstacle was thrown in his path. It was his destiny.

It wastheir destiny.

Vader said, "Rest, young one. When we have returned to my ship, I will try again. And next time, I shall not fail."

The Dark Lord felt Luke's eyes on him as he strode from the room, but he already sorely missed the warmth of his son's Force presence against his.

-----------------------------

Han lengthened his stride to keep up with Laesai. For someone so short, she certainly seemed to cover ground quickly enough. Sorta like Leia, now that he thought about it. Force, for all Han knew, it was some sort of short-range teleportation effect that only women knew about.

But in Laesai's case, she evidently didn't need to be in a royal snit to accomplish it.

"Hey, what's the hurry? You're not tryin' to get rid of me that quickly, are you?" Han gave her his best charming smile and was rewarded with a tilt of Laesai's head and an answering smile.

"Is there some reason that would become necessary, Captain?"

"Han," he reminded her with another smile. "And no, none that I know of."

They were still in the courtyard gardens, but had taken a different direction than Han and Vader had taken earlier. Laesai paused, inhaling deeply, as if scenting the flowers for the first time. "I am most sorry, Captain . . . Han," she said, correcting herself upon seeing Han's admonishing finger. "There is always so much to do as a leader of this community, and I guess. . . " she paused thoughtfully, ". . . I guess we are all creatures of habit."

"Hmm. Nasty things, habits, but with a little care and effort, most of them can be broken."

She smiled up at him. "Is that so?"

Han stood straighter. "I have it on the best authority -- mine," he said, giving her a sketchy bow.

Laesai laughed, her deep voice a pleasant counterpart to the garden's mixture of wind, water and bird calls. "You seem very sure of yourself, Han Solo."

"Have to be," Han replied. "Some days, that's the only way you can survive."

She nodded slowly. "Yes, yes, I believe that is very true." She began walking again, although slower this time, down the winding path.

Han may not have been the most perceptive man in the galaxy, but he could certainly feel her suddenly contemplative mood. "Is that what you're doing here?" he asked softly. "Merely surviving?"

"According to the Archivist, the Chronicles state that the Jedi have always survived -- as a way of life, if not an organization." She gave him a sideways look through lowered lashes. "We are exceptionally good at it."

Han stopped, momentarily shocked. "So you really are Jedi?" He shook his head. "Chewie was always tellin' me tales about folks he knew who practiced that hokey religion, but I thought he was pullin' my leg."

Laesai turned to him, raising a delicate, dark blue eyebrow in question.

"Oh, Chewbacca's my first mate. Wookiee. He's been around a bit longer than I have." Han smiled in fond remembrance. "And he makes sure I don't forget that little fact."

Laesai smiled. "It would seem your Chewbacca is very wise."

"Oh, now, don't go tellin' him that. He'll just let it go to his head," Han said fervently. "And there ain't nothin' worse than a conceited Wookiee, believe me."

"I will take your word for that," Laesai said, laughing. She again led the way down the sun-speckled path.

Han looked up through the interlocking branches as they walked, glad to be out of the thrice-damned fog for at least a short time. He frowned. "So why is it that you actually get sunlight in this valley? I thought this whole miserable sponge of a planet was shrouded in mist."

"Oh, dispersing the cloud cover is a rather easy chore for us."

"That Jedi thing again?" Han asked doubtfully.

"Yes, that 'Jedi thing,' at least in a manner of speaking."

Han quirked up one side of his mouth. "Somehow I can't see His Exaltedness wasting his time waltzin' around dispersing mist."

She glanced up at him mischievously. "Lord Vader has far greater strength in the Force than any of us, but with his armor, he is bothered very little by weather conditions. Luckily, minor weather control is something that most of us here can manage even with our limited Force ability." She paused. "Once, it was an integral part of our job."

"Your job was to keep people from getting rained on?"

Laesai smiled. "Or to bring rain in drought-stricken areas. It is very hard for crops to grow without rain." She waved a fine-boned hand toward the greenery of the garden. "Or without the proper amount of sunlight."

Han eyed her doubtfully. "What you're sayin' don't match very well with those lightsaber-toting warriors that Chewie's always goin' on about."

She looked down, taking a deep breath before speaking. "Because we are not true Jedi." She stopped to grasp a branch from a shrub along the path, gently stroking an unopened bud that was surrounded by dozens of deep red-orange flowers already in full bloom.

As Han watched, the bud unfolded instantly at her touch, its velvety petals spreading outward to match those of its neighbors.

Laesai released the now fully opened flower and looked up at Han. "You see, we are all that remain of the AgriCorps -- the Jedi Agricultural Corps." She waved one long-fingered hand to indicate the settlement beyond the gardens. "Darth Vader and our continued anonymity are the only things that stand between us and the death sentence imposed upon all Jedi by the Emperor."

She bowed her head, as if what she had to say next was eminently painful. "As long as the Empire survives, this planet will be our home . . . as I fear it must now also be yours, Han Solo."

tbc