Chapter 5
Yoda rose from meditation and reached for his cane. For the past several hours he had been listening and waiting, following the progress of the ship he knew was en route to Dagobah. Now that it had landed, it was time to go outside and greet his unexpected visitor.
He hobbled out the door of his hut, carefully picking his way through a scrabble of rocks, and halted about ten meters from his guest.
"Boba Fett," he greeted. "Many years it has been. Changed much you have."
"You really thought you could hide forever, old one?" Darth Kain rasped mockingly. His outline was barely discernable against the damp darkness of twilight, the lights of the hut being the only illumination. If it hadn't been for the slightest gleam of gold across his glossy armor, he would have been totally invisible to the eyes.
"My intention to hide forever it was not," Yoda replied. "But then, know that I suspect you do."
Crimson fire flared, and Kain's saber bled light in a pool around him, reflecting in splashes from his armor, the swamp water, and the chrome finishes on the Slave.
"You don't frighten me, old one," he snarled. "The Jedi are as good as extinct. You and your pitiful attempts to train the Skywalkers are but the last fitful, dying gasps of the Order." He swung the weapon before him and assumed an offensive stance, ready to attack at any moment. "The Sith are the true masters of the galaxy now… and I am the true master on this world."
"You master nothing, Boba Fett," Yoda countered, leaning on his cane and gazing calmly upon the man. "Rather, master you the dark side does."
Kain growled in anger. "Boba Fett does not exist!"
"Exist he does," Yoda retorted. "And never meant to be a Force user was he." He pointed at Kain with a clawed finger. "Not strong enough were you to master the Force, let alone its dark side. Conquered you the Force has, enslaved you. Taken you the madness of the dark side has, and soon consume you it will as it has consumed your master."
"The dark side makes us powerful!" Kain cried. "And that power will destroy the Order that murdered my father and kept the entire galaxy bound in their thrall!"
"Destroy the Order it may… but eventually, destroy you it shall."
Kain flung his left arm forward, releasing a river of white-hot lightning. Yoda's hand came up to block, and the energy balled up inside him as he absorbed the raw power his foe had unleashed. He reflected that same power back at Kain, who caught it along the edge of his saber.
"Look upon yourself, Fett. See what you have become. If see you now your father could, weep he would."
A cluster of stones, the smallest of which was as large as a man's head, hurled themselves at Yoda. He drew on the Force and leaped high, spinning once before landing upon the fallen rocks. Kain growled at his failure to hit the Jedi.
"I'll never know what my father would do if he could see me now, will I?" demanded Kain. "Because your lackey Windu killed him! And don't deny it, old one, because I saw it with my own eyes!"
He charged with a feral roar. Yoda sighed and drew his own weapon, parrying that first slash. He was getting far too old for this.
/Hurry, Skywalker, Vader/ he urged quietly. /Know how long I can hold up I do not./
-
Three ships emerged from hyperspace over the green sphere of Dagobah. The fighters of Luke and Vader led the way, dropping toward the planet's atmosphere, the Falcon close behind.
"You've got to be kidding me," Han grumbled.
"Nope," Luke replied. "No planet is too humble for a Jedi."
"Not a bad place," Lando remarked. "Would make a nice safari stop."
"For a Hutt, maybe," Forenze retorted.
Vader was silent as they descended toward the planet. Almost a year ago he'd left Dagobah in a fit of anger. Now his anger toward Yoda had cooled (if not his anger toward the Code), but that didn't do much to quell his apprehension at their reunion.
"What's Yoda like?" asked Leia. "I hear he was a legend in his own day, but I'm not even sure what his species was."
"If it's any consolation, your Highness, no one knew quite for sure what species he was," Vader told her.
"Well, how would you describe him?" she asked.
Evidently Luke couldn't resist. "How do I put this? Let's see, men like Yoda are in… shall we say… 'short' supply."
Vader couldn't help it. He burst into laughter.
"That's mean!" Leia chided, even though she was also laughing.
"It's the truth!" Luke protested.
"All right, that was funny, but unless someone gives me coordinates for where this Yoda lives, we're going to be walking all over the planet," Han cut in.
"I'm sending them to you now," Vader replied, keying in the numbers.
"Stang, the far side of the planet," Han grumbled. "I hate night landings."
"There's a big field not far from his home," Luke offered. "It should be big enough for the Falcon."
As the starcraft began to circle the planet, Vader had some time to think. He had yet to reveal to Luke and Leia that they were brother and sister. He had told himself he was just waiting for the right moment, but in actuality he was stalling because he wasn't sure how they would react. It wouldn't be as big of a shock to Luke, but Leia… even though she had forgiven him for his part in her interrogation and the destruction of her homeworld, the revelation that Vader was her father would still shake her. Maybe, though, knowing Luke was more than just a friend but a sibling would soften that blow.
/Then again, that might be a shake-up all its own. They were physically attracted to each other at the beginning, and they've shared at least one romantic kiss that I know of…/
Something blasted into Vader's mind and body at that moment – a wave of agony, rage, depraved glee, resignation, sorrow, and an unspeakable blackness. He cried out involuntarily, writhing with the pain, sweat pouring down his brow. Pain… suffering… the dark side… Kain… someone was in agony… wounded… burning… dying…
Luke gasped for breath over the comm. Whatever had hit Vader, he was feeling it as well.
"Luke!" Leia shouted. "Are you all right!"
"Luke! Darth!" Han sounded frantic, a rarity for the scoundrel. "What's happening?"
"Forget Luke and Darth!" Forenze shouted. "We've got company!"
A black Firespray roared up from the planet surface, guns blazing. Vader barely had the presence of mind to swerve and dodge the fire.
"What's Kain doing on…" began Luke. "No!"
"Yoda!" Vader realized, and he punched the throttle, streaking toward the planet. Luke was a breath behind him.
"What about Kain?" demanded Han.
"Let him go!" Leia ordered. "We have to help Luke and Vader!"
Mist closed its smoky fingers around the Angel, obscuring his vision totally and wreaking havoc with the ship's sensors. He extended the Force in an aura around the fighter, sensing the proximity of trees and other obstacles, deftly moving to dodge said obstacles without reducing his speed. All the while the sense of horrible pain became stronger.
A terrible sight met his eyes when the Angel dropped out of the mist to land. Yoda's hut was in flames. The mud and earth around the blaze had been churned up as if by a stampede's passing. Trees bore ugly slash marks from lightsaber blades, and huge stones lay displaced all around as if thrown.
He was out of his fighter's cockpit the instant it touched down, running for the burning house. The intense heat of the inferno drove him back, though. Was Yoda trapped inside? If so, he had to save him…
"He's not in there," Luke said breathlessly, coming to stand beside him. "I just know he isn't!"
"Then where is he?" demanded Vader.
The others burst into the clearing, staring wide-eyed at the mess Kain had made of the area.
"Stang," Han breathed. "This must've been some huge battle."
"Everyone split up," Leia advised. "Search for Yoda. Be quick, he could be hurt."
"How many places on this planet can a short Jedi hide?" grumbled Forenze.
"I'll go back to the Falcon and get some lights," volunteered Lando, suiting actions to words.
"Grab a medkit while you're at it!" Han shouted at his back.
Dazed, Vader turned to scan the scene of the titanic struggle. Where had Yoda gone? He was still in so much shock, he couldn't think straight. He'd never considered that Yoda could die, could be defeated in a fight…
Chewie bellowed.
"Found him," Han announced grimly. "Forenze, we need your expertise."
"What's the matter…" she began, jogging over. "Stang! No, don't touch him, you never touch an injured person until a doctor looks at them, you idiot!"
Feeling a great surge of relief, Vader ran toward the far end of the clearing, where Chewie and Han stood by a great tree that had been half-felled by a brutal lightsaber slash.
"Don't look," ordered Forenze, voice rough, putting up an arm to halt their progress. "This could haunt you for life."
"He's our Master," Luke said firmly, and he stepped around her. Vader followed suit.
Yoda lay in a pool of murky water, so still that for a dreadful moment Vader feared he was dead. Burns covered his body. One arm hung at a crazy angle as if broken. His left ear had been sheared off entirely, and the entire left side of his face was black with saber burns. A little ways away lay his lightsaber, smashed against a rock and its components scattered in the mud.
Luke turned away and was quietly sick in the undergrowth. No one embarrassed him by watching or commenting.
Forenze knelt and began cutting away Yoda's charred robes with a small knife. The tiny Jedi groaned and opened one eye.
"Vader… Luke… good to see… you again… it is."
Tears of shame and grief fell behind Vader's mask as he fell to his knees beside his stricken master.
"Don't try to talk, Master Jedi," Leia urged. "Forenze needs to stabilize you before we can get you to the Alliance and a medbay…"
Yoda's good arm came up to grip the medical officer's arm, staying her hand. "Nine hundred I am, Princess," he told her softly. "Lived a long life… I have. Rest I can… forever sleep. Earned it I have."
Forenze hesitated, then lowered her arm. What she had just heard from Yoda was the equivalent of a living will forbidding medical interference.
"Master Yoda, you can't die!" Luke protested hoarsely, kneeling beside Vader. "We need you! We've come to complete the training!"
"Please, Master," Vader pleaded, and he carefully gathered the ancient Jedi in his arms. "We can't go on alone."
Yoda was silent a moment, his chest heaving as if it were taking all his energy to simply stay alive.
"No more training do you require," he said at last.
They stared at him a moment. It seemed too much to comprehend. They were truly Jedi?
Yoda must have read their thoughts, because he shook his head slightly, grimacing as the injudicious movement stretched the burned skin of his neck. "No… not yet. One thing remains." He drew a deep, shuddering breath. "The Emperor." His eye fixed Vader's in a penetrating look. "You must… confront… the Emperor. Only then…. Jedi Knights you will be."
Vader closed his eyes against the remembered agony of Bespin. Confront the Emperor! Yoda asked too much. He couldn't face that monster again. The last time…
"Remember you do, Vader?" Yoda inquired. "Your memory…. revealed it to you… the Emperor did?"
He nodded.
"Unexpected this is… and unfortunate."
"Unfortunate?" repeated Luke. "Unfortunate that he now knows who he is? Unfortunate that he has his past back?"
"Unfortunate… that rushed to face him… he did," Yoda corrected. "Not ready… for the burden… were you, Vader."
"I'm so sorry," Vader whispered, shaking with emotion. "For the Order, for leaving Dagobah… for everything…"
"Vader…" Yoda's mouth curved in a weak smile. "Forgiven you are." He coughed. "Luke… Vader…"
They both leaned in close to catch Yoda's next words.
"When I am gone… the last of the Jedi… you will be. Remember… your training. Remember… and beware the dark side… or suffer Kain's fate you will. Trust in each other… in your bond… for it will strengthen you…"
His final words came so quietly that they had to strain to hear them.
"There is… another… Sky… wal… ker…"
The moment those last words fled his lips, an expression of total peace flooded his features, as if his one reason for living had been to impart that secret. Vader felt the body in his arms relax as the last Jedi of the old Order died.
"Luke," whispered Leia, on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry."
Chewie's enormous paw gripped Vader's shoulder comfortingly.
"Darth…" Han began, but no more words would come.
Lando, who had entered the meadow mere moments ago, stood soberly a few meters away, not wishing to intrude on the solemn moment.
Vader laid Yoda's body on a dry patch of ground and got to his feet. He didn't want to be here, amidst the signs of his Master's violent death. He didn't want to think about it… he couldn't… he couldn't even look at the body again, for that would make it real, final, irrevocable…
/Someday I will be the most powerful Jedi ever! I will even learn to keep people from dying/
His own words returned to mock him cruelly. No, he couldn't make such a vow again! He had sunk so low after her death, had betrayed all he had once stood for, had sold his very soul to the powers of Hell in exchange for his own chains of darkness…
"What the fwup?" swore Forenze.
He followed her gaze to Yoda… or rather, his empty robes. His body had vanished.
-
Han had parked the Falcon in the old training meadow close by, and it was in the freighter where everyone had spent the past four hours. No one spoke much; even the usually chatty Threepio was quiet. Luke himself had spend those four hours in a fog, still trying to cope with the fact that, for the second time in his life, he'd lost a Jedi Master and good friend.
The first hour or so had been full of sympathies and if-onlys – if only he and Vader had stayed to complete their training, if only they had been a little quicker in getting to Dagobah, if only they had convinced Yoda to submit to medical treatment. But in the end, Luke realized that anything done differently wouldn't have made much difference. Yoda had known it was his time, and he had gone peacefully. He wouldn't want his students to blame themselves for his passing.
"What did he mean anyhow?" Han asked finally.
"About what?" asked Luke.
"Something about your bond," Han pressed. "That it made you stronger somehow. I know you two are friends… unless this has something to do with the fact that Vader killed your father…"
"That story is flawed," Vader replied. He was staring out the viewport, hands clasped behind his back, the picture of melancholy contemplation. "Anakin Skywalker was indeed destroyed by Darth Vader, but not in the physical sense."
"What do you mean?" asked Leia.
Vader's head turned slightly. "We have to tell them, Luke. Now is as good a time as any."
"I know…" Luke replied. "Father."
Leia went white. "Father!"
"I am Luke's father," Vader replied. "I fell to the dark side and renounced the name of Anakin Skywalker, becoming Darth Vader. Luke is my son. We are bound by ties of flesh and blood."
"Stang…" breathed Han.
Chewie added a remark of his own, but Luke didn't catch the meaning.
"Well, that adds a whole new layer to this story," said Lando.
"I know already," Forenze admitted. "I heard through the door back in the medbay at Bespin."
Vader snorted. "I should have known you'd do something of that nature."
Leia embraced Luke. "Luke, how long have you known?"
"Since just before Kain captured you and Han," Luke replied. "Yoda told us. We didn't feel comfortable sharing it for awhile…"
"Luke, you could have told me anytime. You know that."
He smiled. "It's not a bad thing at all, Leia. In fact, now that he has his memory back, I finally have had a chance to get to know my father."
She smiled in return. "You've wanted that for years, haven't you? I can't begrudge you that."
Vader had turned to watch them, and Luke thought he looked oddly amused.
"But Yoda spoke of another," Lando put in. "'There is another Skywalker.' Was he referring to Darth, or do you have a twin someplace?"
"I don't know," Luke confessed. "I certainly don't have a twin, but…"
"The other Yoda spoke of is your twin sister, Luke," Vader replied.
Everyone turned to stare at him.
"I don't have a sister!" Luke protested, looking stunned all over again.
"You do," Vader explained. "You were separated from her shortly after birth. Obi-wan hid you on Tatooine, leaving you in the care of my stepbrother Owen. Obi-wan knew that if the Emperor ever discovered the existence of my children, he would either destroy them or use them to further his own base purposes. Thus, even I did not know of your sister's existence until I left Tatooine to visit Naboo a week ago."
He had everyone's rapt attention now.
"Your mother has passed away, Luke, but her family still lives on Naboo," Vader went on. "They revealed to me that she had borne twins, and that your sister was taken to Alderaan to live."
"But that would mean she's dead," Han insisted. "Alderaan was blown up, remember…"
"Leia," Luke breathed. He turned toward Leia with a wondering expression. He knew it was her. Somehow, deep down, he'd always known. She was his sister.
Leia looked away, open-mouthed and stunned. She pressed her fingers to her mouth as if to stifle a cry.
"Leia!" Han embraced her tightly.
"I know," she sobbed. "Somehow I've always known."
"It's okay," he told her. "It's all right."
"Forgive me, Leia," Vader told her. "I wish I could have been there for you and your mother. But I cannot undo the harm I inflicted upon her or our children. I only ask that you give me a chance to try and be a father to you again."
She stared at him a long time, tears flowing down her cheeks. "I have to know," she murmured. "Please. I need to know about her… about you. Why did you do what you did? I have to understand."
He took her hands in his own, her fingers looking fragile in his black-gloved grasp. "You deserve to know, my daughter."
Chewie cuffed Han's shoulder with a bark.
"Oh, uh, yeah, we'll go power up the Falcon," Han said. "Give you some privacy. We'll carry the X-wing and Angel back."
"I have a date with the bathing unit," Forenze said, standing and striding out of the room.
"I have to… uh… I'll go," Lando added rather lamely.
Luke laughed a little as the Skywalker family sat down together for a heart-to-heart discussion, together again for the first time in over twenty years.