Chapter 20:
The Megonite Crystal
Adrian pulled himself stiffly from the cold floor. A strange, thick, gray mist hung in the chamber's air. He turned to face Luke, but the Jedi seemed to be frozen, his gaze upturned and his arms outstretched. The makings of the megonite crystal glowed green before him, but nothing moved.
"In between space and time are you," came a small but gravelly voice from behind him. He whirled around, but first noticed his own form and that of his wife lying on the floor before he turned to the source of the words. "All is stillness in this place."
Adrian looked down then, to see the glowing, transparent, almost holographic image of a diminutive green alien with large, human-like eyes and long, pointed ears staring decisively up at him. "Recognize me, you do not?" the alien asked. Adrian stared back at him for a moment.
"Yes. From Coruscant--a very long time ago. The Jedi Temple . . . You were the Grand Master of the Council, no?"
The alien chuckled. "Quite right, you are, Your Excellency. Called Yoda, am I. You helped to destroy my order, all that I had worked nine hundred years to build. And then much, much more have you destroyed."
Adrian then began to realize what had happened to him, and where he was. "Yes," he admitted, looking away.
"And now you willingly sacrifice yourself, and give over your dream of ruling an Empire, to try to save other beings--both human and otherwise--throughout the galaxy?" the Jedi Grand Master asked sternly, slightly raising a spectral gimer stick at the Emperor.
Adrian shuddered a bit, but then gathered his wits about himself. "Yes," he answered firmly. "It's happened, hasn't it?"
"Not quite," Yoda answered. "Not so easy, it is. Not for you."
"No, I suppose not," the Emperor muttered, waiting for the Jedi alien to wreak eternal damnation upon him.
"Far from finished with your work are you, Wilhuff Tarkin. But first, you must gather strength you do not have. Reap from your destruction, you must."
"I don't understand . . . "
Yoda approached, and stared hard up at the Emperor. He raised his gimer stick again. "You must first seek absolution from those you have harmed. Only then will you have the strength and the knowledge to carry on."
Adrian took a step backwards. "But I . . . There are literally billions of beings that I . . . I-- I can't possibly . . . There's not enough time! Not in the entire universe! Not for what I've done!"
"You didn't listen!" Yoda accused roughly. "Time does not exist for you right now. And size matters not!"
Yoda stepped aside, and out of the mist came forward the image of a young girl. "You probably don't remember me," she began, addressing the Emperor openly and directly without any formal courtesies. "I'm Anakin's friend, Jabitha, from Zonama Sekot. Your first military defeat, remember? You had it coming." She then opened her small, clenched fist to reveal what appeared to be a miniature sky mine, which she promptly hurled at Adrian. He tried to move aside, but quickly found that he could not. The device struck him in the solar plexus, where it exploded and burned through his robes. "You killed my father!" Jabitha snarled as the Emperor winced in pain, grabbed at the spot, and doubled over. "And then you rained fire down on our world form your warships and forced us to flee. Not many of us survived. You abandoned me in the ruins. I stayed with my father's body, and soon joined him in this realm." She took a step backwards, then. "Do you know what it's like to be small and helpless as fire rains down on you from the sky?"
As young Jabitha's image dissipated, Adrian found himself pelted by a barrage of fireballs that seemed to rain down from the apex of the obelisk. He crouched to the floor in a futile attempt to shield himself, only to be struck squarely in the back of the head.
His next sensation was the damp cold of the chamber floor. Adrian stirred, and stood up. Jabitha's image had been supplanted by that of a small Omwati boy. Adrian recognized him immediately as ten-year-old Pillik, recoiling inside at the memory of his viciousness toward the youngster and those like him. He stopped a few feet away. "Governor Tarkin, I represent the Omwati people you destroyed, and speak for the scourge you laid upon our world." He stepped a bit closer, stretching out his small, avian arms. "And this is what you did to me." Adrian recalled that he had ordered the boy electrocuted in front of his classmates after failing his examinations--after he had first kicked him mercilessly across the classroom floor. "See my bruises, and my burns? My people and my planet share my agony, and my sacrifice."
Ever since Luke had touched him, removing the influence of the Dark Side of the Force, Palpatine's lingering Sith poison, he had been feeling more and more. And now he nearly doubled over in shame and remorse for the atrocious outrages he had inflicted upon tiny, helpless beings not much different from his own grandsons. He stooped down, arms open to the boy. "Come here, little one. The Jedi is right. You have a strength far greater than my own."
"Yes," Pillik confirmed. "Before, you just took it from me and the others. Now, we give it freely. But first, you must understand." The Omwati reached forward then, to touch the Emperor at his solar plexus . . .
A touch of fire, it seemed. It knocked Adrian backwards, and he rolled involuntarily toward the wall as if something was kicking him, blow after blow, and he cringed in agony as his entire being felt as if it were on fire, waves and waves of searing, agonizing fire, with intermittent blows, then more fire. Writing in utter agony, he blacked out again.
But then he awoke, almost immediately, and found his form, though spectral in nature, no worse for the incident. The impact on his soul was another matter. Young Pillik was gone. In his place stood a middle-aged Ghormani woman.
"All we ever wanted from you in life, Governor, was a chance to be heard, and in death, the truth. I represent those slaughtered in your infamous Ghorman Massacre, which you and I know to be a farce. To use such an unfortunate accident to incite rebellion? Just so you could be the hero and put it down? To twist death in such a way--to turn sordid what could have been viewed and even forgiven as quite a chivalrous act--was certainly not your only act of utter cowardice, Tarkin, but indeed it ranks among your most heinous. Ghorman is a now marked world because of what you did--and did not do." Concluding, she approached him steadily, slowly, stretching out her arm, palm out, pressing him back. Adrian stumbled over his own robes, and, once on the ground, stared up at her, now inexplicably unable to move again, fixated on the form descending upon him. The nameless Ghormani woman held her hand above his chest, then slowly pressed down.
Unbearable, searing pressure tore into what he perceived to be his flesh, then he felt the sensation of his eardrums bursting and his ribcage being crushed as he again lost his senses.
When Adrian awoke again, he now realized what Yoda meant by seeking absolution. Yet the torment already bore too hard down upon him. He sat up and bent over with his head in his hands, quickly trying to recount in his mind--Zonama Sekot, Omwat, Ghorman . . . Atravia . . . Calamari . . . Despayre . . . Alderaan . . . The Jedi themselves-- He cried out in anguish.
"Goooooood. That's good. Not that you deserve such catharsis."
Adrian snapped his head up then to face the Atravian warrior standing before him, sword drawn. He'd ravaged the entire sector, he recalled, tauntingly, subjugating the resources planet by planet. He jerked back at the sensation of his right ear being sliced off. The swift Atravian proceeded to hack away at Adrian's specter--at his very soul, it seemed--taking out an eye with one stroke, part of an arm with another, until it seemed that the entire floor of the subterranean chamber ran red with his life's essence. In white terror at the sensation of it slipping away, he finally gave himself over to the blackness.
His next sensation came as a boot to the head, and he couldn't breathe. Seemingly suspended in liquid, he forced his eyes open to stare up at the young female Mon Cal who stood over him. Now he understood that it was his duty to endure the wrath of those he'd wronged.
"I'm Jesmin Ackbar," she said. "From Coral City. And, uh, my people are not pets, particularly my uncle. See here, we're not water-breathers, either, like the Quarren. Do you know what happens when one of our cities sinks, Tarkin? Though you deserve this for eternity, for the sake of my uncle, my world, and the rest of the galaxy, I do hope you gain something from it."
Adrian had always read that drowning ranked as one of the worst possible ways to die, and he'd often used it as a means of execution. But to drown in boiling water . . . the boiling seas of Calamari, made hot with his own turbolaser fire.
He began to retreat further within himself, turning onto his side, drawing up into a fetal ball, and sheltering his head and face with his thin arms when he became aware again. Why couldn't they just let him--no. No, he didn't deserve to die in peace, he knew, to simply fade away as he'd tried to make his so-called enemies do. Something painful welled up inside him, into his chest, his throat, yet he remained unable to let out his grief and guilt.
Something unseen jerked him from the floor then, its stench unmistakable. The spectral Wookiee, his Despayre prison brand burned harshly into his hair and skin, howled a mournful yet triumphant war cry as he heaved the frail Emperor into the air, tore his muscles from the bones, and threw him hard into the far wall. Cries of pain futile at this point, he crumpled to the floor. Then he felt it--a hard blow of energy to his solar plexus that seemed to make both body and soul disintegrate.
Awareness most unwelcome, Adrian weakly pulled himself into a corner of the chamber, drawing up again, trying to bury himself in his robes, knowing that the worst was still yet to come. He heard a man in heavy boots pacing behind him. Bail Organa's voice from the beyond stabbed like hot acid into Adrian's ears, and he drew in his breath with an audibly fearful gasp. Of all the atrocities he had committed over the decades, the inability to die had never occurred to him as worse than anything his devious mind had been able to concoct. But of course, he knew, he deserved his own torments, and worse.
"I can't say I speak for my people or my world, but only for myself when I say that this is almost gratifying," Organa began. "Well, well, well . . . the mighty Grand Moff groveling at my feet. Justice at last! Sweet, sweet justice! Humility a bit worse than death, eh, Wilhuff?"
Some of his essence coming back to him, Adrian felt a twinge of rage. Not Organa. He would not, could not take such torment from him.
"A pity Lady Tarkin had to waste away a presumed widow all those years, seemingly free, yet not. And a pity you must leave so soon, so soon after your timely reunion. Of course you knew that you might not survive the making of the crystal, or that you might not come through intact." Organa had been pacing, and he stopped suddenly, raising a finger into the air. "Let's see . . . What was your favorite tactic, Tarkin? Apply the threat to something other than the one involved, was it? You know, it seems to me that if this present endeavor could have a negative outcome for you, it could for Lady Tarkin as well." Organa then walked over to circle the spot where his own carnal form, as well as Typhani's, still lay motionless on the stone floor. He stooped beside the Empress, stroking the long tresses of her hair. "Such a magnificent woman! And yet so unfortunate that she ended up with the likes of you! What a waste! She could come out of this blind, like your daughter, or paralyzed, or brain-damaged, or just plain mad! I can't decide!"
Adrian shuddered. "Leave her alone!" he called out after Organa as he tried to raise up. "She's done nothing to you. Take your grief out on me instead!"
Organa stood, turned on his boot heel, and glowered down at the Emperor. Then he grinned wide and let forth a belly laugh. "You're too dead for an effective target! I'm afraid it's not going to be that easy. But unlike you, I'm reasonable." He bent low over Adrian. "Ask me to spare your wife, and I will."
"What?" The revolting position Organa held him in felt far worse than Pillik's fire or Jezmin's boiling water. Adrian felt as though his insides were turning to liquid.
"Come now, Willie, a little humility won't kill you. You're already dead, remember? Madame Megonite, on the other hand . . . " Organa turned toward Typhani again.
Adrian lurched toward him, but still unable to get up. "No! Please, don't hurt her!"
Organa looked back over his shoulder. "Are you begging me?"
Adrian felt as if he would be ill. Organa took another step toward Typhani, and withdrew a small bottle from his pocket.
"Yes!" Adrian snapped in desperation.
Organa turned back to face him again. "Then say so."
Adrian recoiled into the corner.
Organa removed the top from what Adrian somehow knew to be a bottle of poison. "They told you about what Furgan did to Mothma, no? Well, this is a little improvement, from the realm of the beyond. It, uh, slowly crystallizes the brain, very slowly, in fact. Very, very slowly indeed! 'Could take years. And the pain, the dementia, the loss of body functions, seizures, vision loss, hair loss--it's all rather demeaning. Terrible disease!" He stooped down next to Typhani again.
"Don't do it! She's been through enough because of you and your daughter!" Adrian yelped from his corner. Then, as if retching, it came. "I'm begging you not to harm my wife."
Organa looked over his shoulder. "What? Did you say something to me? I didn't hear you!" he taunted.
Negating his very character, he repeated. "I said I am begging you not to harm my wife!"
Organa stood up. "That is a wonderful sound to my ears. Indeed, I have waited long and suffered much to hear such sincerity in your voice. There, you see, you can be humble. But I have an operation to continue here. Just a moment . . . "
"No!" Adrian shouted, heaving himself at Organa, landing at his feet.
"No, no, not to worry," Organa continued sarcastically as he replaced the cap and pocketed the bottle. "I'm a gentleman, even in death. I won't stoop to the level of the others, or yours--or hers. Dear Padmé would not have me deface my spirit and my memory in such a way," he concluded, referring to Typhani's attack on Padmé Amidala as the first Emperor's Hand. "However," the Alderaani Viceroy continued, "You have tasted only half of the horror that my people and I felt as we watched your technical abomination in our skies."
Adrian railed and thrashed about on the floor in the worst agony he had ever felt, as if he were at the core of a supernova, being torn into a trillion individual atoms . . .
At last, the tempest inside him grew quiet.
He heard a familiar, rhythmic breathing sound behind him, and thought that at last it was over, that his long-time friend and ally had come for him, come too late, to escort him out of this place of self-sewn torment to whatever lay on the other side of his mortal life. It seemed to Adrian as if nothing remained to take. He could no longer see, move, or feel anything. Prepared to give himself over to oblivion, he spoke weakly to Vader as he sensed the hulking form leaning over him. "Just let me go, Darth. I'm too weak . . . There's nothing left. They've . . . They've all drained my life essence away. Typhani . . . She's in danger here. Take her back instead."
He could still hear, but did not quite recognize the voice. The sound of the respirator had ceased. "To hear you speak of nothingness! And now your fire will be snuffed out of the universe, just as you tried to snuff out the Jedi."
"Anakin . . . "
"To be nothing! For all your hubris and ambition, and all the terrors you wreaked on me, my fellow Knights, and so, so many others, that should be your fate. Nothingness. Not infamy. Not obscurity. Your essence should be erased from the very fabric of this universe, as if you never existed."
"The pain and shame of what I've done is too great. Let me go, then . . . "
His spectral body and spirit wracked with unfathomable torment, Wilhuff Adrian Tarkin, the twenty-seventh of his namesake, the infamous Imperial Grand Moff who had laid waste to sentience and the galaxy with abandon, only to be Emperor of a shrunken remnant of his former realm for all too brief a time, felt himself begin to drift, to rise above the floor of his cold stone burial chamber, to dissipate, and to become one with the mist.
And yet one encounter remained. One confrontation left that ran deeper in the blood than all the others . . .
Something seemed to gather him up, to bind back together the scattering and shattered remains of his being. No more, he thought. Surely this is the end. Yet he felt himself settle, something supporting him, warmth, comforting arms around him, a familiar presence that drew the pain away, and a kind voice not very much unlike his own. "All I ever wanted when we were young was to be like you. I thank my guiding stars that didn't happen, Adrian."
"Gideon . . . "
"Yes."
"I . . . never meant to--"
"Yes you did."
Adrian fell silent. His brother knew him too well. "I only wanted . . . "
"A legacy," Gideon completed his thought. "You wanted my daughter just so you could be sure to leave a legacy, so you could appear competitive among the taunts and jibes behind you back from other officers with growing families. You couldn't afford to look weak, ever, could you, even if it was your wife who had the problem. Everything a matter of power and pride with you, wasn't it, Adrian? Such that you'd destroy even your own to get it. My, what a black legacy you've left upon this galaxy, and upon the name of our house!"
"What--?"
"I didn't expect you to understand. Uncle Ranulph and I debated over which one of us should come as our family's representative. Father wouldn't think of seeing you."
Adrian had idolized Ranulph, adored him, and could not fathom why he should require absolution from his great uncle, or his own family, other than from his brother, of course. "But you were the only one, Gideon. I never harmed any of the others."
"That is where you are dreadfully wrong, Adrian. You've ruined us all. Uncle Ranulph. Mother and Father. Nolan, Shayla, Valdemar, Paige, Gaston, Weldan, Chantir, your grandsons, little Typhani Eriadu that your younger daughter carries in her womb--all of us! The Mottis, Paiges, and Lemelisks as well! Anyone linked to our name! Do you recall the little Omwati boy you met earlier in your present journey? You see, to Pillik's people, the word tarkin is now part of their language. It means 'butcher-demon.' A fine legacy we have to thank you for indeed."
"I didn't know." Adrian muttered. Now his shame was complete. "I . . . should go now, Gideon."
"Yes. It seems you have quite a task before you, repairing one legacy while building another. You're quite all right now. You've gathered the knowledge you need. Humility, compassion, empathy, all may taste strange and new upon your spiritual pallet now, but they will serve you well in the future if you will allow them." Gideon then rose, and assisted his elder brother to his feet. "Of course, I'll see you again in a few decades. And I do trust that our next meeting will be under better circumstances. I challenge you to make it so."
"Gideon, wait--!" But his brother was gone. For a long moment, he stood in the chamber, frozen between space and time.
"Hello, Father!" came a small voice from behind him. Adrian spun around to face six spectral youngsters, four boys and two girls. At first, he just stared back at them, disbelieving. Then he sank back to the floor and gathered the children around him.
"You mother told me about you!" he exclaimed, taking each of them to him much as she had done.
"We watched over you, on Vjun," one of the girls told him. "That was part of our purpose."
"Thank you, little one. All of you."
"Prince Organa and the others, they forgive you for what you've done, but now you have to go back and make everything right again." Adrian looked up to see all of those he had faced standing behind his children.
"It is for the sake of those like them that we send you back. My father and I, we ask that you claim your Sekotan heritage. My father knew your mother well before she left Zonama Sekot," Jabitha said, then took Pillik's hand.
"My people still fear you," he said, "and my world still bears some of the scars you left behind. Make it right." Pillik then looked up at the Ghormani woman, who took his other hand.
Standing behind Pillik, Gideon put his hands on the boy's shoulders. "Do whatever you must to change 'butcher-demon' to 'compassionate-leader.'"
"Tell the truth, Governor," the Ghormani woman added. "Many already suspect it anyway. That's all we ask of you now. The truth. Tell the galaxy that you weren't flying the ship that day, and disclose who was, yet was not supposed to be." The Atravian warrior next to her cast his arm about her shoulders.
"And tell the galaxy that the Atravis Sector Massacres were not our own fault. They were yours. Take responsibility for what you did," he challenged. He then glanced over at the Wookiee standing next to him, and placed his other hand on his gray, hairy shoulder. "Oh, and as for my friend here, on behalf of all the Wookiees you exploited, please acknowledge their rightful place as sentient beings in this galaxy."
"And my people as well. We do appreciate what you did for Calamari a few weeks ago, Your Excellency," Jesmin Ackbar added. "But you stole ten years of my uncle's life. You don't know this, but despite that, he still harbors a certain sense of fealty to you. He will gladly be your ally in your future endeavors. Make appropriate reparations to him."
Anakin Skywalker stepped from behind Jesmin. "My son appreciates the shelter of your laboratory for his students. On behalf of the Jedi, I ask only that you allow him to rebuild our Order in peace. We shall not impose upon your territory unless you ask for our assistance."
And then, the children parted to allow Bail Organa to step forward. "Put it back, Tarkin."
"What?" Adrian asked, rising. "But Viceroy, an entire planet, I don't see how?"
"You found a way to destroy. Now you must find a way to rebuild."
"You'll find the way, Father," one of the little girls said, smiling up at him. Adrian turned back to his children then.
"Master Yoda says you have to go back now," the youngest boy said in an authoritative way that reminded Adrian of himself as a youngster.
"I know. I wish there was a way I could take you back with me," Adrian lamented. But surely that reward would surely be too sweet. The touch of his lost sons and daughters had been worth the journey's torments, for their loss had been the worst torture of all.
"We're always there anyway," one of the boys pointed out.
"Yes, that's right. Of course you are."
As the children faded into the distance, Yoda reappeared. "Have all you need, you do," HE informed the Emperor.
"No. A bit of guidance every now and then, perhaps? The Jedi always were so very perceptive."
Yoda looked thoughtful for a moment. "Your true powers are now awakened to you." With that, the legendary Jedi Grand Master turned to leave.
"One more thing," Adrian called after Yoda.
Yoda merely looked back over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow slightly.
"This crystal--will it work?"
Yoda turned his back to the Emperor and started to walk away. "The galaxy lies in ruins. What you do about that is your destiny now. Your legacy, that will be. Work it will."
-- -- -- -- --
Rivoche ran hard toward the obelisk just as the energy was dissipating, but her legs would not carry her fast enough. She scrambled down the narrow stone stairway to find Luke stooping over her aunt and uncle as they lay crumpled on the floor, locked in each other's embrace. "Are they all right? Both of them?" she asked tensely, out of breath.
Luke looked up at her then. "They will be," he assured her. "They just need to rest now. I've put them both into a recovery trance." Adrian lay very weak, but he had survived.
Rivoche nodded, and then she noticed the gleaming megonite crystal, multifaceted, about a meter tall, its surface still crackling with energy, filling the large, stone vessel that had, just hours before, contained only mounds of gray-green moss.
"They did it!" she observed excitedly. She walked carefully up to the crystal, holding her hands out on either side of it, marveling down in awe at the transparent pale green creation. "They really did it!" She could feel the subtle but powerful vibration emanating from the crystal. As she finally caught her breath, she made notice of the temperature in the chamber. "It's too cold," she told Luke. "We need to get them inside."
Just then Ackbar finally arrived at the obelisk, unaware of the events of the past few hours. Breaking their embrace was difficult, but Ackbar took Adrian, Luke took Typhani, and Rivoche led the way to their bedroom on the second floor of the main house. She pulled back the thick layers of faux-fur throws and down comforters as Ackbar and Luke lay the Emperor and Empress of New Impyria into their bed. They instinctively folded into each other as Rivoche pulled the covers snugly over them. She placed a caring hand on her uncle's shoulder as she turned to leave the room.
They slept undisturbed well into the night. Typhani awoke first. Realizing that she was in her bed, and remembering that Adrian had collapsed, she groped madly for him in the dark, finally allowing herself to breathe when she located him. "Adrian! Are you all right?"
He snapped awake, reached up, and took her head in his hands. "Did anyone hurt you?"
"No . . . Who?"
"Bail Organa! Stay down! Where is he!?"
"Bail Organa? Adrian, you must have been dreaming."
"He was there! While we were in the chamber! He had poison!"
"Adrian, no one was in the chamber with us except Luke."
"He must have called them somehow, brought them here, pulled them back from the other side somehow! I once read that Jedi could do those things! I knew this was a trap! Listen, Typhani! We've got to get you to Lumin, quickly! Organa--"
She cut him off, concerned. "I didn't black out until the end. There was no one else there."
"Are you absolutely sure?"
"Yes."
Adrian calmed down a bit, and sat up on the edge of the bed as Typhani turned on her bedside lamp. "They were all there. The pain and the shame of it--all of them! They came back! They came back to destroy me, over and over again!"
Typhani moved beside him. "It sounds like you've just had a very bad nightmare. What happened? Tell me. If you get rid of it, perhaps you won't have it again."
He turned back to her, and recounted the events that had transpired somewhere between space and time as the megonite crystal took form. "What have I done, Typhani! What kind of monster am I?" he concluded, shaken.
"One of Palpatine's creation, if you're a monster at all, which I don't think you are," she whispered reassuringly.
"No! Gideon's right! I've ruined our family's name and reputation forever! And Organa--he challenged me to replace Alderaan! An entire planet, and there was also Despayre. How can I? How can anyone replace entire planets! And how can I continue to live with such a burden of culpability! It's all coming back! I--I can feel it all now!" His voice had started to crack a bit.
She kissed him gently. "Let the burden go," she whispered. "Convert it to energy instead. If you did experience these things in some way, then you've been allowed to come back for a very good reason."
He leaned against her, trembling, his breathing shallow and rapid. He was trying to hold it all back, she knew. She pulled one of their throws over him, around his shoulders, cradled his head into the folds of her robe, then locked her arms tightly around him. "Let it out, Adrian. The regrets and frustrations of your past will poison you if you don't. I know you think it's a manifestation of weakness, but it'll actually give you strength! If you only knew how many times I've given myself over to my anguish in this bed over the past forty years . . . " Then she allowed her own tears to come again. "You're always talking about my strength. Maybe it's because I'm not afraid to wash the pain out of my soul. It's all right. The door is locked, and it's the middle of the night. No one will ever know."
And then she folded over him, stroking and kissing the top of his head, her luxy, dark hair cascading around them both like a protective cloak, as the sleeve of her robe at last grew moist. "Just let it all go, let yourself grieve finally, for Ranulph, for your father, for Gideon, for Alderaan, for the void that Yavin put in our lives, and for all the other horrors that come from war. You must cleanse wounds before they can heal, you know," she whispered, rocking him gently as his first few choked gasps finally settled into quiet sobs, their tears at last blending as so much else they had shared.
-- -- -- -- --
Just after sunrise, Luke spoke to Ackbar as they walked down the central marble staircase into the main reception room. "Admiral, we'd be honored if you would personally take the crystal to the Core Systems orbital station."
Ackbar averted his gaze from Luke. "I'll not be going back with you," he said quietly, but decisively.
Luke gaped in surprise at the Admiral. "You mean you are going to stay here with them?" he asked.
"For awhile, at least," Ackbar admitted. "Such is not treason. I am retired, and the war is over. We are at peace with these people now. It is time to be at peace with ourselves, and with all that our lives have been. You must help your sister find her family. I will stay here in her place until she returns, and assist with the preparations for the convening of the Galactic Council that the Emperor outlined previously. Perhaps at last all sentient beings in this galaxy can live in peace." Luke characteristically put his fingertips together and nodded in understanding as they proceeded to the estate's courtyard.
Outside, New Republic forces made ready to transport the megonite crystal to its destination. Crews were already in place throughout the galaxy hurriedly assembling the amplification beacons and bringing them on line. Most of the Tarkin household had gathered in the plaza as a New Republic honor guard prepared to load the crystal into a protective durasteel case for its safe transport. Luke walked up to them, and put out his hand to indicate for them to stop.
"No, we can't take the crystal away just yet," he said as he noticed that Adrian and Typhani had come out onto their balcony. He motioned for them to come down to the plaza as well. Adrian came down on his hoverscooter, still a bit too weak from the events of the previous day and night to stand or walk. The Emperor had an odd air about him, but no one could quite place it.
"It's quite a beautiful thing in the sunlight, no?" Adrian commented to Typhani as they inspected the crystal. "I can't believe we actually made this."
"I certainly hope it works, for the well being of us all," she said hopefully.
"I wanted you to see it one last time before we take it into the core of the galaxy, and I have something else important to tell you that I thought you'd like to know. The old Jedi teachings say that a latent diode is bound for eternity, essentially two parts of the same spirit," Luke explained.
Typhani and Adrian beamed, and, as is their habit, drew close to each other. "That's good!" Adrian said.
"We like it that way," Typhani added. Luke could tell that they were both still a bit addled from their ordeal.
"The teachings also say that the members of a diode can see their future in their work," he explained, and extended his hand toward the megonite crystal.
"You mean in the--?" Typhani asked, pointing to the crystal.
Typhani helped Adrian off the scooter, and they faced each other and tentatively placed their hands on the crystal between them, initially afraid that it might burn or shock them. Then, they both leaned forward, and peered down into the flat top facet.
"Come on now, you have to tell us what you see," Rivoche insisted.
"Definitely!" Lyjéa and Lyscithea added. Morgana craned her neck to look over her three nieces' shoulders. The boys crowded closely around their grandparents. Daala and Valdemar stood just behind Typhani, looking over her shoulder.
"Adrian, what is that?" Typhani asked.
"I'm not sure. It looks like some type of overland vessel. Perhaps a watership of some kind, but it seems to be in the water instead of floating above it," he described. As the image became clearer, Adrian and Typhani could indeed make out a large overland ship floating in water, a ship with a black hull, red at the waterline, and a gleaming white superstructure. Atop the superstructure stood four bronze metallic cylinders tilting back at a slight angle, with black tops. What appeared to be either smoke or steam emanated from three of the four cylinders.
"I sense exuberance, some sort of triumph," Adrian observed.
"I sense danger," Typhani warned. "And it's very cold. The water is freezing."
The image began to darken, as if day had turned to night.
"Yes, something's wrong," Typhani observed.
"Wrong with the ship," Adrian added.
The image in the top of the crystal morphed to reveal a middle-aged couple in very strange dark-colored clothing standing close to one another, holding one another, near a railing on what appeared to be the watership they had just been looking at. "The woman," Typhani said, "She's saying, No, I won't go, I won't leave my husband! I won't leave my husband!'" Then the image faded away altogether.
"What was that all about? More things going wrong with large ships? Not what I need," Adrian commented.
"I don't know," Typhani replied, shaking her head and extending her hands, palms up. "But I would certainly never leave you behind on one should I be there."
Adrian turned to Luke, "You say this is the future?"
"That is what the old Jedi teachings say. I have no knowledge of it myself," Luke clarified. He and the others then proceeded to load the crystal into its protective vault for transport to the waiting New Republic ship at Port Tarkin.
"A long time from now, in a galaxy far, far away . . . " Adrian mused as he and Typhani resumed their arm-in-arm embrace, their reunited family and friends looking on. He and his Empress looked lovingly and contentedly at each other, then cast their gazes into the expanse of space above.