Years later, aboard the doomed Second Death Star during the epic Battle of Endor . . .
Luke Skywalker and I duel with our green and red lightsabers before the Emperor in his throne room. The boy finds a hole in my defense and kicks me down the stairs, away from the throne. I yell as I fall.
Cold laughter comes from the throne. Palpatine turns his throne from the large viewport facing the battle going on out in space. "Good. Use your aggressive feelings, boy." Palpatine is facing us, sitting almost regally, adorned in his hooded black cloak. "Let your hate flow through you."
Luke looks back to Palpatine, then down to me as I stand up, red lightsaber still ignited. He deactivates his and dares me to do the same with his eyes.
"Obi-Wan has taught you well." I advance toward the stairs.
He looks down to me and says, "I will not fight you, Father."
At the word Father, I feel a slight jump in my chest.
I climb the stairs as he backs up. Once we are on the same platform, I say, "You are unwise to lower your defenses!" Simultaneously, I go in for another attack as he reignites his lightsaber and defends himself. As we hold the crackling lightsabers together, he climbs the last few stairs to the throne platform backwards. He finds the opportunity to make a jump away from me and backflips onto a catwalk hanging from the ceiling. As he lands, he turns off his weapon. The look of determination on his face brings back memories of Padmé.
How could I have let her down so?
"Your thoughts betray you, Father. I feel the good in you, the conflict."
I step closer to the catwalk, pushing back my thoughts, and say, "There is no conflict."
He walks across the catwalk, his eyes intent on my masked face, as he says, "You couldn't bring yourself to kill me before, and I don't believe you'll destroy me now."
"You underestimate the power of the Dark Side," I sneer in reply. "If you will not fight, then you will meet your destiny."
As I finish, I throw my activated lightsaber into the air, narrowly missing Luke and slicing through a support holding the catwalk up. It falls, sparks flying, throwing Luke onto the ground. The Emperor rises from his throne, cackling.
I descend the stairs toward where Luke fell.
"Good, good!" the Emperor says from the platform.
With lightsaber in hand, I look for Luke, either to finish him off or to coerce him to the Dark Side. My breathing and the hum of the weapon are the only sounds in the throne room.
"You cannot hide forever, Luke."
He calls from his hiding place, somewhere behind me. "I will not fight you."
I turn around and continue walking, reaching out for him with my feelings. "Give yourself to the Dark Side. It is the only way you can save your friends." I feel the thoughts running through his head. "Yes, your thoughts betray you. Your feelings for them are strong, especially for . . . sister. So, you have a twin sister. Your feelings have now betrayed her, too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the Dark Side, then perhaps she will."
He emerges from his hiding place, yelling in anger, holding the weapon above his head, blade pointed at me. The lightsaber casts a green glow on his face as he races toward me in attack. I feel much anger in him, which fuels him into a wild frenzy. Forgetting all proper technique, he swings back and forth in a mad fury. He strikes repeatedly at me, forcing me back, back, and onto a small bridge over a seemingly bottomless reactor pit. I inhale furiously, trying to get air into my burning lungs. I am hanging onto a rail with one hand, holding myself up just enough to defend myself, with the lightsaber in my other hand. He continues striking, slicing off my right cyborg hand, sending it and my lightsaber into the pit. He relents, seeing that I am defenseless, and holds his lightsaber inches from my chest, sweating and panting due to his exertion.
Cackling sinisterly, the ancient form of Emperor Palpatine descends the stairs toward us.
"Good!" More laughter. He stops at a distance, donning a seriously evil face. "Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfil your destiny, and take your father's place at my side!" His cold, ancient eyes glare at the boy.
Luke looks down at his gloved right hand, clenches it into a fist, hears the gears inside. He looks at my still smouldering handless arm and shuts off his lightsaber. He turns to face Palpatine and says, "Never." Throwing the hilt to the side, he stands upright and eyes Palpatine, shaking his head, and says, "I'll never turn to the Dark Side." He advances a few steps toward Palpatine, who stands, hands folded, sneering at Luke on the stairs. "You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me." He nods slightly toward my still prone form.
They examine each other, both daring the other to make a move. With obvious contempt in his steely voice, Palpatine finally says, "So be it . . . Jedi." He raises his hand, index finger extended. "If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed."
As he finishes the last statement, both hands are raised, fingers extended toward Luke, and he releases the blue Sith lightning, throwing Luke onto a fuel cell. I stand up and walk to Palpatine's side, where he is studying Luke somberly. "Young fool. Only now, at the end, do you understand." He throws more lightning at Luke, who struggles to hang onto the fuel cell. Palpatine descends the remaining stairs toward Luke, releasing him temporarily from the lightning. Blue incandescence radiates around the boy as he tries in vain to stand.
Palpatine advances menacingly, saying, "Your feeble skills are no match for the Dark Side." He stands within five feet of the boy as I reach his side. More blue streaks race into Luke's body. "You will pay the price for your lack of vision!"
The Emperor holds Luke in the lightning as the boy looks up at me, severe pain in his blue eyes. He reaches out to me as he writhes on the ground. "Father, please!"
I gaze at the boy, back to Palpatine, to the boy again, who is yelling in pain. Palpatine sneers as he releases Luke from the lightning for the last time. With calmness in his baggy eyes, he says, "Now, young Skywalker, you will die."
He smiles sinisterly as I look back to the boy, his body still smoking from the lightning. Palpatine bares his teeth as he sends the blue fluorescence that will finish off Luke. As I stare at him, Luke writhes on the ground, still calling out in agony, and I watch the child that Padmé gave birth to, my child, my son, dying. I hear that miniscule part of me that still loves her call out from behind the darkness, Ani, you can't let him die. . . .
I look back to Palpatine, who is sadistically enjoying killing my son. After one final glance at Luke, I reach out and lift Palpatine above my head. He yells as the lightning flies from his fingers toward the ceiling and down onto me. Luke stares in awe as I throw the monster who ruined my life down the reactor pit. Lightning sprays all over the walls as I watch him fall, fall, fall, all the while screaming, until he reaches the bottom. A great blue ball of flame shoots up as I hang on to the railing to support myself.
The Emperor is dead.
I breathe heavily; my life slipping from me from exposure to the lightning. However, mixed with this feeling of impending death is a flooding of warmth, warmth which I have not felt in years. The cold within me is melting. I'm no longer Darth Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith who killed all the Jedi, the monster who did the Emperor's dirty work.
I am Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi who trained under Obi-Wan Kenobi, the man who loved and married Padmé, the father of the twins Luke and Leia.
Luke pulls himself up from the floor and comes to my side. I release my grip on the railing as he rests my head in his lap.
When his energy returns, he puts my arm around his shoulder and helps me walk from the throne room toward the hangar to get us off this ticking timebomb that is the Death Star. I struggle to remain standing, but all my energy is wiped out. I know I don't have much longer. With stormtroopers running all around us and the alarms sounding, I finally collapse onto the ground, pulling Luke with me. He tries to pull me up the ramp and into an Imperial ship.
He feels my weakness and stops pulling, then lifts my head from the ramp and gazes at my masked face. I watch his pained expression through the eyeports in my mask, and I know what I must do. "Luke, help me take this mask off."
With a quizzical look, he says, "But you'll die."
"Nothing . . . can stop that now." I struggle to get out the words between my hard breathing. "Just for once . . . let me . . . look on you with my own eyes."
He examines the helmet and mask, seeing how to remove it. As the mask detaches from my face with a hissing sound, I look up at him and smile weakly. Without the aid of the mask and vocoder, my words come out yieldingly, feebly. "Now, go, my son. Leave me."
He shakes his head adamantly. "No, you're coming with me. I'll not leave you here. I've got to save you."
"You already have, Luke. You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister . . . you were right."
I smile as I close my eyes in submission to the beckoning of the Force.
I feel Luke's sadness flood me. "Father!" There is a tear in his voice. "I won't leave you."
He leans me against the ramp as I feel the last breath slip from my lips.
My last living thought is of Padmé, the woman I loved and never stopped loving, and my children, who have saved the galaxy from the reign of the evil Emperor and, inadvertently, saved me from myself and the grasp of the Dark Side.
***
Ani . . .
I hear a voice calling me, a soft voice I would recognize anywhere. There is no need for me to search for the source of the voice; she is standing right before me. She has aged along with me, but is just as beautiful as she was on our wedding day, except now she is one with the Force as I now am. I feel her happiness as she comes nearer to me, smiling.
Padmé . . .
As I wrap my arms around her, I notice that my right arm has been restored. I reach up and touch my head; I have hair and my face is no longer scarred. I also notice that I am dressed in Jedi robes. I had heard many times during my Jedi training that when you die, your body disappears from the physical world, and when you become one with the Force, it is fully restored as you take your true form. I had never really understood until this very moment.
All of a sudden, I feel sadness. As I look down, I see a burning funeral pyre that is crudely made from heaps of sticks. Luke is standing alone, watching as flames lick at the suit that imprisoned me for half of my life, reducing it eventually to ash.
Suddenly, I feel the presence of those whom I had loved during my lifetime: Yoda, Obi-Wan, Mace, Qui-Gon, and my mother, all of whom are smiling at me. I feel the happiness surround me, penetrate me, bind me with all of them and all those who have gone before us, all who are now, and all who will come after.
The white-haired Obi-Wan steps in front of the others. There is somewhere I think you would enjoy going.
I nod and follow as Obi-Wan and Yoda show themselves to the living. I see that, even though we are in a forest at nighttime, there is much rejoicing all around us. Dancing around a large bonfire in a primitive village are multitudes of small, hairy Ewoks and the Rebels of all different species who survived the attack on the Death Star. Among them are C-3PO, R2-D2, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian. I also see my children, Luke and Leia.
Taking a break from the celebration, Luke walks over and leans on a wooden post, seeing Yoda, Obi-Wan, and I smiling at him.
I'm proud of you, Father. Take care of Mother and Ben until I get there.
Leia comes up behind him and puts her hands on his shoulders. Turning around, he sees her, smiles, and looks back to us one more time as Leia leads him back to the festivities. We watch as they celebrate their victory over the Empire, Ewoks drumming on rows of black and white Storm Trooper helmets, everyone singing, dancing, and embracing everyone else.
After Yoda and Obi-Wan return to invisibility, Padmé joins me in watching our children. I put my arm around her as we watch the festivities, which have yet to begin dying down. Luke and Leia return to where we are sitting on a fallen log, and I concentrate intensely, trying to become as solid as I can so I can embrace my children. Padmé does the same and the twins sit beside us on the log.
"I finally feel at peace," Leia says, laying her head on Luke's shoulder. "The Skywalker family is now complete."
Padmé smiles at her daughter. Seeing the two of them together, I notice how similar they are, in appearance and personality: both have chestnut hair flowing over their shoulders; both have soft brown eyes; both are beautiful, strong, independent women.
"Luke, Leia," I start, "your mother and I will be looking after you for as long as you live. There will come a time when we can no longer maintain our individuality and show ourselves to you, but we will always be there when you tune into the Force. Never forget that we love you both very much."
I feel my concentration slipping, as is Padmé's. It is quite an effort to keep our images before them.
"Father, Mother, don't leave us yet!" Luke cries as our images begin to fade.
"Don't worry, son. We are always here for you," I say with a warm smile as I allow the Force to take me into its eternity.
"We love you very much," I hear Padmé say as she follows.
There is no time in this afterlife, just eternity. The most recent people to have died are the most easily seen, but one can feel every other soul who is also one with the Force, just not individually. I know that soon I will also lose my individuality, but I am not afraid. I know that my children will be all right and that they will join us eventually.
There are no material things in this afterlife, but one never gets bored. One can feel everything that is going on with the living, and Yoda says that helping those who ask is part of this afterlife. We feel when they tune into the Force, and since we are of the Force, the Force helps and guides them through us. One cannot feel who specifically it is that is asking for the help and guidance unless one had a strong connection with them during their lifetime. Therefore, Padmé and I are usually the ones to help Luke and Leia.
My life was a tumultuous one, filled with many decisions, both good and bad. However, even if I could, I would not change a thing about it. I believe that the Force has reasons for everything that it does, so I have to believe that everything always turns out for the best.
I leave you with one piece of advice: don't give in to hate, anger, and fear. They will lead to your downfall. Instead, love one another. We need each other more than you could imagine.
May the Force be with you!