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The Last Moments.
Alarms were blaring throughout the Death Star.
The Imperial soldiers and personnel of the battle station were rushing through the corridors to man repairs, while the station's automatic safety systems switched in automatically to compensate for the massive hull breach and structural damage caused by the collision of the Executor which had crashed into the station, stabbing the Death Star and slowly drove through the stations' hull like a knife blade through flesh, and created a fiery crater.
Blast doors immediately activated, cutting off sections of the station nearest the hull breaches to prevent fires, to reinforce the hull integrity. Many of the officers with some degree of intelligence rather than the usual arrogance and lack of foresight knew these precautions were not going to last. The Death Star was seriously compromised now; the station had been far from complete when the Emperor arrived, and the rebels had already sent a small number of ships into the superstructure.
Memories of Yavin were now coming back. Many on the Death Star knew now the station was doomed. Already thousands of Imperial officers, technicians, technocrats, pilots, gunners, and stormtroopers were caught in the blaze as the crash tore through the hull, releasing large amounts of oxygen in a fiery inferno.
Some members of the Death Star crew were ordering an evacuation from the Death Star. Some would consider it to be mutiny, desertion…but those officers and crew didn't care as they were more interested in saving their own skins.
Only a few people caught sight of Darth Vader being half dragged, half lifted through the corridors of the station to one of the shuttle bays. Neither Luke nor the newly redeemed Anakin Skywalker really cared, and neither was bothered about them being stopped by a stormtrooper or an officer, either.
They had sensed the massive amount of death when the Executor crashed into the Death Star although they didn't know what it was, and they knew the Death Star crew had a lot more on their minds than to bother them.
Anakin had no idea how his son was able to heave him through the corridors of the Death Star, he had to be using the Force, but a part of him was just relieved he was out of Palpatine's throne room. The other part of him actually believed it would have been more appropriate for him to just…die in the throne room; he had been nothing more than a slave to Palpatine - to the Sith - for the last 20 years. He deserved to die in there, and he knew he was dying; the last time Palpatine had tortured him with so much lightning had been when he had gone on a personal mission to discover who'd hidden Luke from him.
As Vader, Anakin had barely managed to survive that; the only reason Palpatine hadn't killed him was that he was still needed. Palpatine had a supernova of hatred to draw strength from, but thanks to the injuries he'd sustained on Mustafar during that duel with Obi-Wan, his abilities had been compromised. If Palpatine killed him, he would need to find a new apprentice, and quickly, or the Sith Rule of Two was in danger. Palpatine had been planning and plotting for a new apprentice to take Vader's place for a long time, but Luke was the prime candidate but Palpatine was flexible.
On that occasion… Palpatine had damaged him to the point where only one hand was working; with that toadying little puppet of his Mas Amedda, Palpatine had taken him back to Mustafar, to the shores of that river of lava, and told him to repair himself while warning him off his personal missions before meeting him on Exegol.
But now…
When he lifted Palpatine in the air and carried him to that turbo shaft while the Sith Master was blasting his son with Sith Lightning, Anakin had taken the brunt of the lightning as he resurfaced from the dark shroud he had lived under for the past 2 decades. Palpatine, when he realised what was happening, increased the intensity of the lightning; Anakin, as Vader, had been on the receiving end of his former Sith Master's wrath many, many times over the years, but always from a distance. Today the lightning had been fired at point-blank range.
His life support system was badly damaged.
His prosthetics were shorted out from the intensity of the electrical discharge where they were hit.
When the lightning had hit his helmet, his head had been battered by it until he had felt as if his skull was on fire.
There was no doubt in Anakin's mind he was dying, and this time there was nothing he could do about it and neither could Luke. Even if they could make it out of Endor's system, there was a chance the nearest medical facility wouldn't be able to save his life. And it was doubtful the Rebels would welcome him into their fold if he and Luke went to them.
But the more Anakin thought about it, his mortality, his actions over the past 20 years, the more he welcomed the prospect of death. He had just… Anakin was tired of his life. He couldn't help himself. Anakin would have wanted to have a chance, even a small one to try to create bridges with his daughter. The idea Leia Organa was his daughter, Luke's twin sister, and that he had tortured his own child just as he had exploded with rage during that duel on Bespin and took his own son's hand off, made him want to be sick.
He wished he had the means to make things better for the galaxy, to make amends for the countless acts of destruction he had thrown at the worlds opposed to the Empire.
He wanted so much he had the strength to cast down the shadows of Darth Vader and destroy the sick Empire Palpatine had forced upon the galaxy after choosing the Sith over the Jedi.
But more than that, he wanted to try to help his son rebuild the Jedi Order and make amends to the countless Jedi he had betrayed and hunted like animals all these years since the moment he took Mace Windu's hand during that terrible confrontation in Palpatine's office.
It took a moment for Anakin to realise Luke had brought him to one of the shuttle bays; his optical sensors had been badly damaged during the lightning blast and he found it hard to concentrate enough to see clearly through them. Suddenly his prosthetic legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground while Luke tried to pull him up again.
Anakin was left on the ground being pulled across the bay's floor until the ground angled up, and he realised he was at the foot of a shuttle ramp.
Suddenly he could feel himself being pulled up, and he distinctly heard his son gasping with the effort of hauling his heavy cyborg armour up.
"Luke," Anakin gasped, hating the sound of his menacing voice through the vocabulator. "Help me take this mask off."
"But you'll die!" Luke protested.
Anakin sighed when he saw, as much as the still damaged optical sensors fail, the same kind of stubborn refusal he himself possessed whenever Gardualla's thugs harassed his mother and he refused to leave her side, or when Padme discovered something she just could not ignore. "Nothing can stop that now. Just for once…let me look on you….with my own eyes."
He could sense his son's acceptance of the command. And he felt and heard his son slowly and gently remove the helmet before he managed to figure out quickly how to remove the mask and take it off, leaving behind the battered, pale and scarred face underneath.
For the first time, father and son looked each other in the eyes without optical sensors in the way. Anakin smiled at his son, feeling the terrible regret he had abandoned everything, threw away the chance of a long and happy life with Padme, with Luke and Leia, with a continual friendship with Ahsoka and Obi-Wan…. He had thrown all of that away, all because he had been terrified of a what-if, which now after what he had been through, what the galaxy had been through, he knew now only too well how empty Palpatine's promises of possessing the power to save Padme was.
"Now, go my son," Anakin croaked while he tried to hide the tears as the memory of himself…so young, stupid, and arrogant, Force choked Padme while she clutched her throat, begging him to stop filled his mind. "Leave me…," he gasped as he felt breathless. He didn't have much longer.
"No," Luke said desperately as he leaned closer, "you're coming with me. I can't leave you here. I've gotta save you!"
"You already have, Luke. You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister, you were right…," Anakin smiled at his son.
He was about to say more, offer a weak apology for all the things he had put his son through when everything started to go dark.
"Father? I won't leave you…," Anakin heard Luke say, but there was nothing that his son could say that could help him now as he fell into the netherworld of the Force. Anakin didn't know what he would find, whom he would be confronted with, but he didn't care if he was alone for his crimes for the rest of eternity.
He had gotten to spend his last moments with his son, that was enough.