AUTHOR'S NOTE: Once destined to be just a cute Han and Leia spec, tying in some knowledge we've gained from Ep. I. Now something else. I've fleshed out the Luke subplot more, and that's added a whole new dimension to the thing. Aw, hell, I have other things I should be writing. Anyone wanna take this over? Say it in the reviews section, leave your e-mail, and I'll tell ya where I was going.
REFERENCES: to MJ Mink's "The Long Road Home," which can be found at http://members.xoom.com/LynM/; a fabled planet called Sith. A slight reference to FernWithy's Encounters/Father's Heart series; Naboo being an Imperial prison-world (the speeder-bike thing was more from ROTJ).
SUMMARY: The palace at Theed, some holovids, and the Jedi Council. Bad words, but I wrote 'em and I'm 17.
************************************************************************
The majestic halls loomed over Luke Skywalker's head, ill-lit and full of dusty air.
What could possibly be here? Password, his ass.
Naboo, it turned out, was an Imperial prison-world. He'd always thought it a fable, just as Sith was a fable. There was no magical planet, Sith was just a Force sect -- so why wouldn't Naboo, the Emperor's homeworld, be just as fictional? And why would his father want him here?
The streets had been deserted and fearful, full of Imperials scattering beneath the woodwork like scorpions on the sand, with the occasional crazed prisoner running rampant in the middle of the street.
Would his life's work be to correct the mistakes his father had made?
Was the password a prisoner-release code?
Or maybe, Anakin was still Vader and this was some weapons code and he was going to unleash terror from beyond the grave. What a cruel, cruel thing to do; you'd think someone who was dead would not wish it on anyone else, Dark Side or not.
Maybe it was a bank account password? The Alliance paid so poorly, after all.
The palace at Theed was the safest place to be. It seemed that no-one dared to enter it. Had it been one of the Emperor's residences? he asked the Force, but of course he received no response, other than the realization that the people outside did not avoid it out of fear, but of reverence. Nobody really respected Palpatine; it couldn't be his ... and everyone knew Vader lived on the Executor. Well, *he* knew.
There was still an eerily-familiar feeling to the the entire thing, as there had been on Dagobah.
He was drawn to the walls, and Artoo followed him, beeping happily. Paintings, etchings, sculptures, and other sentimental regal baubles lined the other wall; he stood before the wall which was a standing timeline of monarchs and their spouses, imaging so clear that one felt as if they were right before you, hundreds of people from different times. So many ... and as he came to the second-to-last, end-dated fourteen years before Luke's birth, there was a King Veruna -- or, as the placard below the image truly read, "Adlai Ennefi, King Veruna" -- and below him the names of those in the image with him. The last, end-dated in the same year he was born, a young *girl*, really, no older than he was now ... .
His eyes caught hold of the name on her placard.
Padmé Naberrie *Skywalker*, Queen Amidala? That meant her even-younger husband was--
No.
They were so *young*, it was so unfair, Anakin had appeared to be *ages* older when unmasked!
Was he sent here to realize that it didn't take age to fall into evil?
(Maybe it opened his mother's bank accounts.)
Say the image before him was of his father at nineteen years of age. Most of the images were of old men and women, very few were young, so one got the impression that these were recent images -- say the image was only as old as Luke, twenty-two years! He suddenly felt robbed; had things gone differently, his parents would have had years left, decades. He began to wallow into his grief, for the first time since he found the truth, really mourning what he'd never had.
Artoo warbled suddenly to warn him, but it was too late. He felt the business-end of a blaster pushed square into the base of his neck.
Shouldn't have let my guard down, he thought to himself.
"Who are you?" the person, a man, asked. "How did you get in here?"
"I'm Luke," he said, his voice more bitter than it should have been. "I walked in. You?"
The man spun him around. "Luke *Skywalker*?" Stunned, Luke nodded. The dark-skinned, near-elderly man flung his arms about him. "Your Highness! I never thought you would return!" He pulled back, realizing what he'd done. "I'm sorry ... I'm General Panaka. I served under your mother -- well, I still do, but considering current circumstances--"
"What do you mean, you still do? Current circumstances?"
The older man was taken aback. "That is why you returned, isn't it? Pray I didn't say too much! -- how much do you *know*?"
"I know enough." That wasn't really true, not deep down. "I know who my parents are" -- Now, he thought -- "and I know who my father became."
"But you don't know about the Queen."
Luke pointed to the placard beneath her image in the Hall. "Padmé Naberrie Skywalker," he repeated, deadpan.
"No!" It seemed that madness had crept into the general's eyes; his voice dropped below a whisper. "She's alive, in carbonite ... I thought maybe you knew the password."
It took a moment for Luke to remember to breathe.
Leia and Ani stopped at a hovel's door.
"Are you ready to go inside?" the child inquired, suddenly seeming serious.
"Why would I not be?" Leia felt serious too, but not so alone as she usually did upon feeling serious. She was not alone. Ani was there, and on the other side of the door--
It slid open, and she let go of her guide's hand and stepped ahead of him, into the darkness.
Talk about deceiving appearances.
She stood in a grand circular room. It was in need of cleaning, and most of its light was natural (which would be beautiful, she was certain, save for an encumbering greyness which filled the sky and dimmed the room); beyond the windows, Imperial machinations floated about haphazardly. A bluish glow began to overtake the streams of dust in the air, and it shaped itself into many, many separate, smiling entities. She recognized some without knowing exactly how: Mace Windu, whom Bail Organa had told her was the head of the Jedi Council; Yoda, whom Luke had spoken of; and -- how it was possible she recognized him, she was not yet certain -- a young Obi-Wan Kenobi. It was the Jedi Temple on Coruscant -- but how? It was long destroyed -- surely this was impossible! And more than that, how did she get from *Tatooine* to *Coruscant*?
"What ... ?" she began, and turned around to find Ani, to see if the boy was seeing the same things she saw.
There was no boy behind her. In his stead there was a young man dressed as Kenobi had been dressed when he died, who seemed vaguely familiar, who loomed over her in height (and, of late, in her mind). He sort of looked like Luke ... something clicked.
There were absolutely no blankets, nor any pillows aboard the shuttle. No creature comforts at all. It seemed that the shuttle was stark and cold as the space without. Han kicked an empty panel in frustration, only to jump back when the panel kicked back, and out, to reveal a pile of holovids.
He secretly wondered if they were the sort that he had spent some time shipping around the Outer Rim, but winced at the thought when he realized just who would have been watching them. Carefully, he took one out, pressed the button --
"I came inside to get away from recorders, Anakin," a female voice admonished playfully, then the image came into focus, just above her head. Han whistled low and long. This girl was beautiful -- wait. Anakin? Hadn't he heard that name before?
On the Falcon, when he first met Luke. It had been Kenobi who had said that name. The person who had recorded this was The Father of Luke and Leia? Then why did Vader have it?
Could that have been his bargaining point with Luke: join me, and I'll give you the knowledge about your father that you've been longing for? An odd pact to make with the murderer of one's father, but Luke had always been so blindly admiring.
That must mean the girl was their mother! She was famous -- her words alone gave that way -- but Han dimly recalled seeing her on the holonews. Their mother was famous! Surely someone else would recognize her, upon seeing her, when they returned, and then Luke would finally know everything. It seemed his dead Jedi friends never gave him anything beyond commands.
The Father laughed. He was a kid, Han could tell just by the way he laughed. "How does it feel knowing you're going to be Mrs. Jedi Knight Skywalker?"
"That's Padawan Skywalker--"
"I'll be a Knight someday--"
"--And *I'm* not going to be *Mrs.* anything. *You're* going to be Mr. Queen Amidala."
Queen Amidala?
The Father's voice, while not completely sombre, became less light. "Oh, right, the big scandal -- the queen and the slave." Like mother like daughter, Han thought. The princess and the smuggler.
Amidala bit her oddly-painted lip. "Ani, I didn't mean it like that."
"I know."
"If it doesn't matter to me, why does it trouble you so much?" She paused. "And really, turn that thing off. I feel like I'm talking to a mask."
"Someday, you'll thank me for being such a faithful archivist."
"No, I won't. Force forbid we ever have a child -- you'd chase the poor thing 'round the galaxy with that stupid thing."
The Father turned the recorder on himself, holding it at arm's length. He was practically Luke, only much taller, whereas Amidala was Leia. "Note to self: do not chase child if child becomes family disgrace and breaks Republic law. It will give Padmé 'I-told-you-so' rights."
The discussion was getting boring. He flipped to another, toward the bottom of the stack, and activated it.
It was a newsreel, nearly as old as Han himself.
Again Amidala was on the screen, along with a young Kenobi (the holovid identified him as such) and a blond kid (identified as The Father -- well, Anakin). It told of the reemergence of the Sith, showed the kid shaking hands with Palpatine, talked of some Jinn guy getting killed. Then that the elder -- younger -- Skywalker was going to be Kenobi's apprentice--
Shit.
Hadn't Vader been Kenobi's apprentice?
SHIT!
"Shit!" Han yelled, throwing the holovid against the wall violently. This explained every last fucking second of the past four years! "Fuck!" -- this is why he was frozen in carbonite at Cloud City -- "Damn it!" -- this is why Luke only had one hand -- "Son of a bitch!" -- this is why Leia was bawling on Endor, this is why she's so out of it, this is why Luke brought him back!
"No-one planned on telling me!"
The questions taunted him: how long had Luke known? How long had they both planned on knowing before telling him? How far into this mess was he, really?
Before he realized what he was doing, he was back in the cockpit, shaking his soon-to-be bondmate awake.
"You!" she spat. *Captain* Solo? Friends *called* him Ani? "Ani, *Anakin*, how could I not see it? Why did you keep me from seeing it?!" It was one thing for fate to have linked them together in a random pattern, but it was another thing altogether for him to use the same sorcery he used to snap necks and murder innocents in order to contact a daughter that had no desire to claim him!
How did he stand before her? Her mind was racing frantically for explanation.
"Am I dead?" she whispered. "Is this the Force?" A pause. "Why am I stuck with *you*?"
"So many questions."
The emotion, which had been thus far suppressed from without, was now springing forth from within. Her teeth clenched together and she shook with tears. "So few answers."
He smiled -- how she hated that he could smile -- but it was a disarming sort of smile. She had trouble imagining the mask, the helmet, the ridiculous costume which was Vader. How did someone change like this? He began to walk to the windows, their grand scale dwarfing even him. She followed, a strategy she'd always considered manipulative and intimidating in politics, but which she feared was exactly what was wanted here.
"You are not dead. In fact, you are fully alive. And no, this is not the Force. You are Force-sensitive, and we are reaching to you *through* the Force."
"We?"
"These are not merely apparitions." He motioned toward the other Jedi. "These are the people who died to hide you from me."
Her eyes swept across what seemed to be a sea of people, of numerous species and races.
"Allow yourself to be trained, young Skywalker--" Windu began.
"Don't call me that!"
"--Okay, *Leia*." Windu lifted his eyes to Anakin as if in apology. Then, to Leia: "Do not let us have gone in vain! We could just as easily have left you and your brother to the Empire's devices and joined the Rebellion outright, but we believed the Force had another path in mind -- we believed in the prophecy. It has been fulfilled."
"Balanced, the Force has been," Yoda added.
"What prophecy are you talking about?" she replied indignantly.
Another figure, a tall man with long, flowing hair, stepped forth. "The Prophecy of the Chosen One. The One who would balance the Force both externally and internally."
"You're speaking in riddles, old man," Anakin sighed. She would soon figure out she was asleep, and awake incensed and unreceptive to the Force, and then all of his sacrifices, all of their sacrifices, all of Padmé's sacrifices would be rendered worthless, unless someone told her the story.
Kenobi saw this and moved forward. "It's called a 'certain point of view,' actually," he said, smiling. "From the point of view of a skeptic, such as yourself," -- Leia frowned -- "it would seem like riddles. From the point of view of someone who is untrained in the Force -- that's you again -- it sounds like nonsense. So let me just say this: at one time, there were ten-thousand Jedi and two Sith. Now, there's no Sith and one Jedi. Your father balanced the Force externally by reducing the number of Force-users to make the ranks equal. He balanced it internally by making it possible to return from the Dark into the Light. And now, the power of the Force must be balanced out among all. It must be made accessible to *all*, as it was before."
"What?!" she cried. "That's -- that's dangerous! There's no hierarchy anymore, nothing to protect against a renegade student! If anyone could swing lightsabers and crush tracheas" -- Anakin winced -- "there would be no rest in the galaxy! Luke -- he should be a guardian of the Force, teaching those who can use it responsibly, not to anything that has exists naturally and requires energy."
"The Force is knowledge," Windu finished. "Should it be limited to few, or should it be available to all who want for it? Maybe a few will emerge more powerful. Like your father. Like your brother. *Like you.* And certainly the strong will be able to do simple things, like levitating objects, running a little faster, jumping a little higher, parrying and blocking to save oneself --"
"Or racing pods," Qui-Gon added. "And speeder bikes."
Windu continued, ignoring this. "--But left in the hands of few, knowledge is dangerous and potent. The Dark was able to overcome the Light by being held by two powerful, poorly-principled beings rather than ten-thousand average 'good guys.' We should not have had to separate the two of you; the ability to hunt someone down like an animal, or read into their thoughts, from halfway across the galaxy -- that's not how the Force should be used. Shields, sensing people, sending 'images' -- it was all foolishness. It became -- and could again become -- a game, Leia. In all honesty, Jedi were peacemakers; somewhere, we became advocates of holy wars. It was the grand Game, between the Gods and the Mortals. No-one in this room is a god. A Jedi does not crave adventure, nor the glory of power."
"Even with my help, Luke can't train everyone."
"We're not speaking of training," Anakin corrected her. "The greatest wealth, once dispursed, seems less, and has less power. The Force flows through everything and everyone. Some are naturally more talented than others. There are Force-sensitives all around you; Solo, for one. But this time, dispel the myths. Eliminate the Order. Don't let your brother rebuild the Jedi as they were. *Everyone* should be Jedi in the sense that they understand the power of the Force. For too long it was kept from them, to the point where the Force can be written off as magician's tricks. This proved advantageous to Palpatine, and this must be avoided. Something new should emerge from this final purging."
A silence built among the one living and the many dead.
After a pause, she spoke. "Why me? Why didn't you tell Luke?"
"You could say I gave you chores," Anakin continued. "You couldn't handle Luke's, and Luke couldn't handle yours. You are responsible for delivering to each other what I asked. Now ... wake."
Finding herself staring Han in the eyes didn't help to ease her confusion.
"We have to go to Naboo," she managed, the full weight of what had just happened crushing her, while, at the same time, the distance between that place and the here-and-now made it less real.
"No place I'd rather be," was his curt reply, and then he was in front of the controls again.
Somewhere, she feared that she'd spoken aloud in her sleep, or that something else had happened for him to suspect the truth. She couldn't focus on that, though; Han would tell her, try to laugh it off as ridiculous ... wouldn't he?
The only thought that ran through Leia's mind was that, although an i'ealtu dragon may be able to change her skin from yellow to green, the blood still ran both ways with and without nitrogen-3.
Then she remembered that that blood was in *her.*