Chapter 10

The Sith fortress was an ominous, angular monument against the rapidly dimming dusk, the fiery rays of the dying sun casting red light like bloodstains upon the jet-black stonework. The stronghold seemed almost alive, breathing, watching the planet silently through all-seeing eyes. As the night began to fall and the shadows lengthened, the building seemed even more foreboding, as if it gained strength and further sentience from the darkness.

It was enough to make even a normally stalwart R2 unit shudder in his tracks with unease.

Artoo Detoo hated this place. Even though he was a droid and technically not supposed to sense the Force, something about knowing this building was the headquarters of the Sith Order made his circuits quiver. The aura this bastion exuded wasn't measurable on any of his sensors, but it impinged on his logic processor like a cold fog anyhow.

He hoped the Skywalkers were okay. He liked Luke a lot, even though the young man had a penchant for getting himself into tight spots. Luke treated droids with respect and care, never acting as though Artoo was a mere machine and incapable of thought and emotion. Artoo thought such respect a fair trade-off for occasionally working the hotshot Rogue out of a troublesome situation.

And Vader… he remembered Vader before he had donned the armor. Having managed to escape the terror of memory erasure, Artoo recalled Anakin Skywalker quite vividly. Adventuresome, loyal, always appreciative of a partner-in-crime, even a mechanical one… in short, he'd treated Artoo as well as Luke had. And when Vader had entered the base, Artoo had recognized him long before anyone else had figured out that he was Luke's father. Sure, the armor hid his body, but no other biological life form walked with that unmistakable gait or used quite that same inflection as he spoke.

Luke and Vader had been the most memorable and respectful masters Artoo had ever known, and to think that some harm might have come to them…

Midnight rolled away from the Desert Angel, hydraulic fluid smearing her glossy black plating. She bleated at Artoo in a tone a droid would have recognized as nagging. In her opinion, he should stop standing around and do something useful, like change the X-wing's fluid filters.

Artoo shook his dome and crooned worriedly. Luke and Vader should have been back by now, he told her. It shouldn't have taken so long for them to get in, blast the Archives into oblivion, and get out. They must have gotten into some kind of trouble.

Midnight would have shrugged dismissively had she possessed shoulders. She replied that humans frequently got themselves into binds, and that they usually managed to get themselves back out without a droid's intervention. If Luke and Vader needed their help, they would comm them for it. Until then, she advised, the best thing they could do to aid the two men was to stay put and ensure their ships were ready to fly.

Satisfied that she had talked sense into her comrade, she turned around and headed back to the Angel.

Artoo had had enough, however. Sure, Midnight could be calm and sensible about this. She didn't know the Skywalkers like he did. To her, they were just the latest in a long string of humans whose orders she followed to the letter. Artoo, however, was fiercely loyal to the two men, and if either of them came to any harm… he wouldn't let himself process that theoretical data.

He charged the other astromech, clanging roughly against her and knocking her down. Stunned, she stared up at Artoo with a single yellow photoreceptor as he proceeded to tell her off. She may not think it their responsibility to watch over the two Jedi, he said angrily, but in his opinion a droid did everything possible to protect his or her master, even if it went against orders or normal programming. And if she just wanted to sit here and clean hyperdrive engines while the Sith kicked the Skywalkers around, fine, but she wasn't going to hold him back from going to help.

Firing a magnetic tow cable, he hauled Midnight back to her feet. Then he turned and headed for the fortress.

Midnight gave a droning sigh and trailed after him, uttering a string of moaning complaints as she went.

Break…

Luke watched the unfolding duel with growing horror. Kain couldn't kill his father! He refused to accept that possibility! But the longer he watched, the more he realized that, without Luke's aid, Vader would likely lose this battle. For all his years of training, Vader couldn't match the brutal ferocity that fueled his opponent.

Vader parried a blow, struck… and recoiled with a sharp shout of pain as Kain's blade bit into the flesh of his left shoulder. Charred cloth gaped open to reveal the blackened line of the wound.

"Father!" Luke cried.

Palpatine laughed all the harder. "There is no escaping it, Skywalker. Your father thought he could abandon the Order, but there is no escape from the power of the dark side. All Sith who leave the Order eventually meet the same fate… destruction."

Luke seethed with anger – toward Palpatine, toward Kain, toward an Order that delighted in the pain and suffering of others, toward the whims of fate for separating the two of them in the first place. He gripped his saber all the while, staring at the laser wall, wishing he were on the other side, fighting at his father's side. The barrier could only be a fraction of a millimeter thick… but it might as well have been a meter of solid stone.

Kain lunged again, and this time Vader blocked the strike with relative ease. The Sith hissed and brought his free arm up, blades extended. Vader ducked the swinging arm and retaliated with a feinting strike to the legs. Kain didn't fall for the diversion but moved swiftly to parry the slash to his stomach.

"You'll just stand there, Skywalker, and let your father die?" inquired Palpatine.

Luke stared at the tyrant, outraged. Didn't he think Luke would do something if he could only get past the barrier?

The Emperor shook his head as if disappointed. "You've truly gone the way of the old Jedi Order, then? Abandoning your very family for the sake of some laughable greater good?"

Luke wanted to break the old corpse's teeth and a few choice bones as well, but he resisted. Palpatine was provoking him, trying to goad him into reacting foolishly. He couldn't allow himself to act rashly, to give the dark side opportunity to take root…

From the opposite side of the laser wall came a flash of scarlet, a startled cry, a triumphant cackle…

"FATHER!"

Vader clutched the smoking stump of his bionic right arm, sheared off to the elbow. Kain laughed again, a cold wicked laugh that seemed to cloud the very air around him as he raised his weapon for the fatal blow.

Luke lost his grip on his fear and anger, and both emotions stormed through him like a cold black fire. He flung out one arm, and his lightsaber skittered across the floor and flew into his hand. Extending his senses, he located the mechanisms that produced the laser wall and crushed them to rubble with the Force.

There was no room for thought now – only cold, deadly instinct.

Kain glanced up, startled, as Luke charged at him, weapon held high, a look of merciless determination on his face. For the first time, Luke could feel a hint of fear bleeding from the Sith's mind. Vader, too, stared at him, utter horror in his posture and thoughts.

The last might have stayed Luke's hand, but Kain blasted a stream of Force lightning into his father's chest, flinging him aside like a rag doll. Vader fell to the shard-littered floor and was still.

Luke screamed, throwing all his strength into a slash that Kain deflected only with difficulty. Even through the chrome-visored mask Luke could read his opponent's fear, and he took an irrational pleasure from that. He bore his teeth and struck again.

The room flashed and strobed with light, azure and crimson blades raining sparks as they hammered away at each other, the polished steel floor and gleaming crystals reflecting the light a thousand times over like a rainbowed fire. Again and again Luke and Kain lunged, struck, parried, feinted, their footwork flawless as they moved in a deadly, frenzied dance. All around them the Force pulsed and screamed as it ebbed and flowed through the two men.

Luke swore under his breath. He was making no headway in this battle. He needed a distraction.

The table lay on its side amidst some broken shelving a few meters behind Kain, two of its legs bent at strange angles. That would serve nicely.

He reached out with the Force and blasted the table at Kain with all his mental strength. The Sith staggered and fell to his knees as the projectile struck him a heavy blow to the shoulders. Luke raised his saber for the final cut…

"NO!"

A rod of green energy caught his blade as it fell. Startled, both Luke and Kain turned to stare at Vader, who'd struggled to his feet and blocked the blow at the last minute.

"Luke," Vader said in a voice distorted with pain and fear, "don't! It's what they want you to do!"

Luke stared at his father, the fury that had filled him moments before evaporating. His father was a mess, smoke rising from his scorched robes, his right hand totally gone, his left hand trembling as it stayed Luke's weapon… but he was bound and determined to keep his son from killing the man who had caused him so much pain.

He stared at Kain now, suddenly sickened by what he had almost done. In killing Kain in anger and fury, he would have succumbed to the dark side. Obi-wan had warned him of this… and he'd nearly let him down. Shame filled him, and he backed away.

"Good!" Palpatine applauded, entering the room and clapping, unable to contain his glee. "You've discovered the power of the dark side, Skywalker."

Luke gazed up at the Emperor, realization striking. So he'd wanted this. He'd wanted Luke to kill Kain. He didn't care if he lost his apprentice… so long as he gained Skywalker's soul.

"Now unleash your anger," the Emperor urged. "Strike Kain down and take his place – your rightful place – at my side."

Kain stared at his master, hot fury and shock pouring off of him like a dark energy. Vader extinguished his blade and stepped back, waiting for Luke to make his decision.

But Luke had decided before Palpatine had even made the offer.

"Never," he replied, thumbing his blade off and clipping the saber to his belt. "I'll never join the dark side."

Palpatine's smile wavered, then vanished altogether.

"You've failed, your Highness," he told him. "I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

Vader's hand gripped his shoulder. /You frightened me badly, my son./

/It won't happen again, Father. I promise you./

Palpatine's face was twisted into an expression of utmost fury. "Fools. Fools the pair of you. Don't you know what I can offer you? Look around you. There is power here, glory, the eternal strength of the dark side. Don't you know what I can give you?"

"Yes," Vader replied. "We know. And that is why we reject all you offer us."

Lightning exploded from Palpatine's hands. Vader shoved Luke to the floor as the tendrils of electricity slammed into the walls, splintering shelves and causing Holocrons to rain down and shatter. The shelving – wooden, to the Sith's disadvantage – burst into flames almost instantly, making the entire room glow with golden light as if purging it of darkness.

Vader hauled Luke to his feet and dragged him out the Archive doors.

"Luke," he breathed, his voice trembling with emotion, "I thought I was going to lose you."

"Father…" Luke fell into his father's arms, embracing him. Knowing he had almost allowed himself to be seduced by the power of the dark side, knowing he had nearly suffered the same fate as his father… it was too much to take. He vowed to never make that same mistake again.

Vader's comm beeped.

"Who in the galaxy…" he muttered, pulling the unit from his belt. "Vader."

Hysterical beeping issued from the comm. Luke wondered if the unit was malfunctioning, but Vader, who knew Binary better than Luke, understood what was going on.

"Artoo's WHAT?"

Midnight continued to rant.

"There's no self-destruct to this place!"

More computerized babble.

"Must have been newly installed. All right, go ahead, but tell him to hold off until we're out of the fortress," Vader ordered. "I'll comm you when the time's right." He switched off the comm. "Artoo and Midnight somehow managed to get in. They've hacked into the computers and are working on breaking the code to the self-destruct."

"Smart droids," Luke replied.

Vader leveled a stern eye upon his son. "For all you put me through back there, I should ground you. But I'll save lectures for later. Follow me."

An explosion of dark power flooded their senses, followed by a blast of mortal agony.

"What was that?" demanded Luke.

"Either Kain attacked his master, or vice versa," Vader replied. "As you saw, loyalty is not a strong trait of the Sith."

"I gathered that," Luke said dryly as they ran down the corridor.

The dark side pulsed all around them, screaming in outrage. Pain continued to pound their senses, and Luke felt a sudden surge of emotion. Something urged him to go back to the Archives, but he couldn't explain it.

"I'm going back."

"Luke!" Vader shouted, but Luke was already gone, disappearing down a side hallway to avoid a dangerous encounter with whatever Sith had survived the encounter.

Lightning struck the wall just behind Vader.

"Stang," he hissed, and he kept up his flight. "Luke, please don't be stupid."

Break…

The Archives were a total loss now. Shelves were collapsing in showers of sparks, interrupting the crackling rumble of flames with the jangling crash of shattering crystal. Kain struggled to his feet, his wrath an inferno that matched his surroundings.

The Emperor's face was a mask of fury, and lightning sparked from his fingertips in his rage. He turned to Kain and addressed him in a voice cold with fury.

"Go, my apprentice," he ordered. "Destroy them."

Kain didn't move.

"Go!" Palpatine roared. "Destroy them!"

Kain found his voice. "No."

"Kain, don't backtalk me!" Palpatine screamed.

But Kain was through with taking orders. His master had promised him power, vengeance, the opportunity to avenge the death of his father. He had willingly joined the Sith cause, submitted to the transfusions to obtain the power of the Force, and unquestioningly obeyed the Emperor's every order. He had fulfilled his end of the bargain. And the Emperor had repaid him by willingly sacrificing him to Skywalker's whim.

"You lied to me," Kain hissed. "You would have let Skywalker kill me."

"Is it my fault that you had the chance to destroy him and couldn't?" Palpatine retorted. "Now is your chance, Kain. Now go!"

"You've used me all along!" Kain hissed in realization. "I was just part of your plot to get Skywalker to join your cause! You've played me for a fool all this time!"

Palpatine's eyes flashed in anger. "You fool. You would have made it easier for the dark side to triumph, but it will go on without your aid."

With a scream of hatred Kain ignited his saber and sprang, intent on cleaving the living corpse in two. Palpatine ignited his own weapon and was able to block the blow, but he did so gracelessly, with the jerky movements of one who hadn't raised a saber in some time.

Fire bloomed in his stomach, and he looked down in shock to see a second lightsaber buried in his stomach. The blade pierced his body and seared through his spinal cord, and the sensation in his legs died away as he slumped to the floor.

Palpatine extinguished both blades and stepped away. "The dark side has no place for fools, Boba Fett."

And he turned his back on him and strode away, intent on destroying the two Jedi.

Kain forced himself to breathe, conscious as never before of every muscle in his chest, his torso blazing with agony and his throat and mouth burning with smoke. The fury that had kept him going for years was gone, leaving only pain… and an emptiness that threatened to consume him. He had been betrayed, used and thrown aside…

/Why did I ever agree in the first place? What possessed me to believe that hack? Good stars, what in the galaxy have I done/

Sparks skittered across the floor, landing dangerously close to him. Darkness bled into the edges of his vision. His eyes burned with smoke and tears as he extended a call through the Force. He only had a few minutes to act. Would Skywalker respond?

/If I do one thing right in my life/ he vowed/it will be this./