A/N I posted this last night and just realized that I attached the wrong title to part 4. So, excuse me if you have already read this...
Part Five (A Rebirth of Light) is on the way.
Part Four: Darkness Denied
The stars were black and cold. Black as his father, cold as his heart.
His emotions were complex and far too tangled to sort out, and so Luke skittered away from them, focusing instead on his mother.
Mother... He had so longed for a father, a heroic warrior, a Jedi, a navigator... it hadn't mattered. He'd have taken anything or nothing just to have a father to be proud of, to be proud of him. The desire had been building within him since birth, spilling out until nothing seemed to fill the aching sense of not having the connection that everyone else had.
But mother... that was a deeper longing, and one that he hadn't know existed until he'd seen her face. He'd thought at first it was a trick, some ploy of the Dark Side, but her shock and horror at finding that Darth Vader had been Anakin Skywalker had been real, and painful in its familiarity.
She'd been as shattered as he was.
And so he'd held her in his arms, fierce protectiveness welling up inside him, and he'd looked at his father and ordered him out. And to Luke's surprise, the Dark Lord had obeyed.
Padme had cried herself to sleep and Luke had carried her into the bedroom beyond and laid her down, covering her with a blanket and watching her sleep for a moment. She was beautiful, dark hair curling around her face and her chest moving with her breaths. Holding her had been like holding Leia, pure and sweet and simple. He could feel the same brush against his senses, the same feeling of safety and homecoming that was as elemental as breathing, and as joyful as the voice whispering in his heart... mother, mother, mother.
Luke held that joy to him, cradling it to his soul. But with the joy came a rush of fear. He pushed it down, seeking to control it lest it control him. He recalled Vader, as black as a shadow, as black as death, looming over him, his lightsaber humming so close to his face, his low voice growling, "Don't make me destroy you."
Luke shut his eyes at the memory. I am your father. I am your father. I am your father.
The words tumbled over and over in his head, mocking him. A mother, a father.
It seemed when the Universe gave it gave in abundance.
And now Vader had him. He was trapped.
Ben, he Sent out desperately into the dark night, Ben, help me!
But there was no answer.
Luke felt his fear spiral in his soul. Vader-his father!-had him now.
Once you start down the Dark path forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you, it will...
Would the Dark Side consume him as it had his father? Would it take him, as it had once taken the good man that was Anakin Skywalker, and twist him into something evil?
It was hard for Luke to reconcile what he knew of the man his father had been to the Dark Lord he had become. How could he have ever been a Jedi, a husband, a father? He was desperate to know how it had happened-how could any man fall so far?- but his mother had not spoken and Luke had not asked.
She has been through enough, Luke thought. He heard her stir in the room beyond and extended his Force sense, brushing across her sleeping mind soothingly.
Anakin?
She was dreaming and Luke tried to withdraw but the dream caught him up, dragging him inside.
"Anakin?"
Luke saw his mother sitting in an opulent room, a fire in the grate painting garish colors across the face of the man in front of her.
"I am haunted by that kiss we should never have shared," the man said. "I am hoping that that kiss won't become a scar... If you are suffering as much as I please tell me!"
She reached forward, took his hands and the scene dissolved. They were standing now and his mother was wearing white, looking curiously like Leia as she spoke. "I've been dying a little each day since I met you. I love you, Anakin."
Anakin? Luke stared at the tall man before her in wonder. Anakin? His father! This was his father... and Luke felt embarrassed that he was witnessing so intimate a moment between his parents. He tried to break free from the dream but the scene was dissolving again, reforming...
"I won't lose you Padme. The Jedi can't save you. Only my new powers can do that!"
"Anakin!"
...The landscape was shifting, lurid red glaring across Luke's vision.
"I am more powerful than any Jedi!" Luke heard his father declare.
His mother shook her head. "I don't know you anymore," Padme's voice hitched with emotion. "Anakin, you're breaking my heart! You're going down a path I can't follow."
"Because of Obi-Wan?" his father demanded, the words laden with darkness and suspicion.
"Because of what you've done!"
"The Jedi betrayed me! Don't you betray me too!"
Luke felt the sharp backlash of Anakin's anger striking out, pinning his mother in place, choking the breath from her.
"No!" Luke started forward, even as he could feel his mother struggling for air. The scene darkened, lights began to burst across his vision and, horribly, Luke felt the mirror of his mother as she twitched and jerked in the bed across the hall. She was suffocating, the life draining from her.
Luke wrenched himself from the dream, ignoring the sick sense of dizziness that nearly knocked him off his feet, struggling across the hall to her room.
"Mother!" Luke shouted, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her. "Mother!"
But she would not respond. She was locking in the dream, frozen in the moment when the man she loved had used his power against her.
Luke entered her mind again, fighting his way against a black miasma towards her. "Stop! Let her go! Mother!" He could feel her slipping, flickering, dying... "FATHER!"
And a dark presence like a riptide crashed into him. He got a vague sense of awesome power and barely controlled fury before he tumbled end over end out of his mother's mind. Luke snapped back to himself with a sickening jolt. He fell to his knees beside the bed and wretched.
His mother had stopped struggling and laid quiet and still. Luke laid a trembling hand to her forehead, remembering that crashing, awesome power. If Vader was hurting her... He extended again, bumped against that dark presence. It turned him back, expelling him gently. Luke opened his eyes, withdrew his hand. That brief touch had revealed a bewildering conflict of emotions... Hurt, anger, self-loathing, but above it all a love so powerful and demanding that it Forced that awesome power towards gentleness, calmed the darkness into something soothing and quiet...
He loved her. Vader loved her. No, Luke corrected himself, Anakin loves her. His father was still there. He still lived.
There is still good in him, Luke realized. The Emperor hasn't driven it from him fully.
An idea was niggling at the back of Luke's head but he was too exhausted and sick to consider it. He cast one more glance at his mother's sleeping form before stumbling to the room next door and collapsing across the bed and into sleep.
Darth Sidious sat in his shadowed throne room and meditated on the words that had ripped themselves across the Force- Father? That's not true! It's impossible! NO!- and shook him from sleep. The boy's pain was sweet and so very potent. It intoxicated him, leaving him wanting more. The Force swirled around the boy, catching in eddies and currents of destiny.
An apex was approaching.
The Sith toggled a switch on the arm of his throne and a holo of his kneeling apprentice snapped into view.
"Lord Vader," he acknowledged. He did not bid him to rise, not just yet. Vader had had the boy for almost a full day and not reported to him. Such disobedience would not be tolerated. Still, he would be given a chance to atone. "I sense a disturbance in the Force."
"Yes, my Master," came the noncommittal reply. The Emperor felt his annoyance mount. Did his apprentice think to deceive him?
"The Skywalker boy has been found."
"My son is in my custody." Palpatine did not miss the slight emphasis on the possessive pronoun and he narrowed his eyes, reaching out to search Vader's thoughts. He felt only the smooth walls of a closed mind. It had been many years since his young apprentice had trusted him enough to allow him free access to his mind but the exclusion had never bothered him until now.
"Why I was not told of this immediately?"
"My apologies, my master. I thought to turn him myself and present him to you as a Sith." The words were true, but there was deception behind them. Vader was hiding something from him.
"I wonder, Lord Vader, if your feeling on this matter are clear?"
"They are clear, my Master."
"Good," Sidious responded smoothly. "Then you are to bring the boy to me, here."
For a moment Palpatine felt his apprentice's resistance, and something else... a fleeting image, quickly hidden behind Vader's shields... what was is?
"As you wish, my Master." Vader genuflected again and the holo connection was severed.
The Emperor sank back, considering. The boy would be brought to him. Vader's resistance was a trifle. He would obey like the slave he was. But there was something else, something besides the son that troubled his recalcitrant apprentice.
Sidious reached out, pulling the Dark threads to him, watching the tapestry of the present weave itself into all the possible futures. What was it? What?
And suddenly he saw it, blossoming across his consciousness like a dark flower. Yes, of course.
The Emperor let out a triumphant laugh. He'd found the lever to ensure both Skywalkers' loyalties.
Now, to employ it.
Darth Vader stood in the wreckage of his quarters. His rage had finally abated enough for coherent thought but Vader was far from calm.
He promised me that I would train the boy myself. He promised!
Vader stilled the petulant voice in his head. He had known that his master might decide to break Skywalker himself and he had taken pains to prevent Sidious from knowing that he had the boy, or at least to delay that knowledge. But despite Vader's best efforts, his master knew.
But he did not know know the true reason for his apprentice's livid emotions, not yet. And if Vader moved swiftly, perhaps not ever.
The Dark Lord touched a comm panel on the wall.
"Admiral Piett, report to my quarters at once."
He did not wait for a response, merely flipped the comm off and began to pace the floor, Forcing the debris of broken glass and twisted metal from his path. He had hoped to have more time, but his master's summons left him little room to manouver.
A chime sounded and Vader used the Force to open the door. Piett stepped inside, his eyes flickering over the mess and Vader noted with satisfaction the flush of fear that stained the officer's palid cheeks. Nevertheless, Piett kept his voice admirably steady as he said, "You sent for me, my lord?"
"I have a mission of a sensitive nature that I would like you to see to, personally."
Piett's eyes brightened a little and Vader could almost hear his ambitious mind at work. "I will assist you in any way that I can, my lord."
"Good." Vader began to pace again, cutting a wide swath through the room before doubling back again to face the admiral. "The female prisoner- the one that is currently residing with Skywalker- I want you to take her to my personal estate on Bain. She is to be moved secretly and no one is to know where she is going, or indeed that she even exists, do you understand?"
Vader fixed Peitt with a stare that made the man gulp. "Yes, my lord."
"The prisoner is a queen and she will be treated with the honor due her station. She is to be carefully guarded and closely watched at all times. You will stay with her until I send for you. See to it immediately."
If Peitt was chagrined at being relegated from commander of the Fleet's flagship to baby sitting Alliance prisoners, he gave no sign of it. He simply gave a precise military bow and a murmurred, "Yes, my lord."
Vader waited until he'd left the room before pressing the comm again.
"Have prisoner Skywalker brought to my personal training room."
A few moment later Vader stood in the training room, waiting for the troopers to bring him his son. The room was adjecent to his quarters, and the one concession he had made to his condition outside of them. The chamber was equipt with an air purifier capable of filling the wide space with the heavily oxygenated air that he needed to survive outside his mask. Vader spent many hours here, testing his skills against the inept attacks of battle droids.
Vader had not had a real challenge in decades. Even his duel with Obi-Wan aboard the Death Star had been disappointing; too short and clumsy to be truly gratifying. He had not had a truly satisfying encounter until Bespin, and only then because of the heady whisper of potential that he could see in the boy. There was anger there. Yes, and raw talent that was undeniable. The boy would make a powerful ally if he could be turned...
Vader's mind spun with possiblities; dark destinies unwound in his inner eye. Finally, a companion to rule the galaxy at his side, a dark son to stand beside him.
When he had first learned of the boy, Vader had been furious. His son had been kept from him! Obi-Wan had known. He'd brought the boy to the Death Star, and then sacrificed himself to ensure the boy's escape. He'd lied to his son, told him his father was dead and that Darth Vader had killed him. His outrage burned bright at the mere thought of Obi-Wan tainting his child with his Jedi lies.
And his anger spilled over to another. For Sidious had known too, Vader was sure of it.
How long had his master suspected? How long had he been lied to?
Vader had found out by accident. He had been reviewing the security transmissions recieved from the Death Star in the days before its destruction, in the hope of divining the identity of the culprit. The external monitors had revealed nothing and so he'd gone back further, sifting through images until the sight of himself dueling his former master made him stop.
He'd watched, a sick sense of cheated disappointment twisting in his gut, as Kenobi deliberately lowered his guard and then simply vanished. He watched it over and over, his resentment growing each time he watched his former master look away with a slight smile, lower his saber, and disappear. He watched it half a dozen times before he realized that that smile had not been meant to taunt him. Kenobi had been turned away, looking at another.
He had panned through the monitors until he found it, the image of a slight, blond youth rushing forward, shouting a denial as Darth Vader's saber whistled through the place the Jedi had just been.
Who was that boy?
Back further, to a desperate fire fight. Back to a near escape from a trash compactor. Back to a young man dressed as a Stormtrooper, entering the cell of a Princess and declaring, "I am Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you."
The words had rung through Vader's soul. Skywalker. It couldn't be.
But it was. And just like that his whole world changed.
He'd been obsessed, driven to find out everything he could about his long-lost son. The boy had grown up on Tatooine, in the care of Owen Lars, the son of his mother's husband. His guardians had been killed by Imperial troops, searching from the droid in which Leia Organa had secreted the plans for the Death Star. The boy had not been there when the interogation had taken place and for that Vader was profoundly grateful. The boy had escaped the fate of his aunt and uncle and had left Tatooine soon after. He'd come to the Death Star in search of the Princess and had helped to pull off one of the most daring escapes Vader had ever seen.
Later, he had become a pilot for the Rebellion. It had been his Force presence Vader had felt in the moments before the final destruction of the Death Star.
And in the moment he knew that he had a son, the future opened up before Lord Vader. He could have it all; freedom from the bonds that enslaved him to his master, and power-the power to shape the galaxy as he saw fit. They would rule together; the Emperors Vader.
And now that he knew his wife was alive, they could all be together.
The swish of the door brought Vader out of his dark musings. He motioned the troopers to leave and Force-locked the door behind them. Only then did he look at his son.
Luke was afraid. Vader could sense his fear; but he could also sense his son's mastery over it. He felt a swell of pride at Luke's control. The boy had come far since their dogfight over Yavin IV. Then his hold on the Force had been clumsy, tenuous. Now he was confident, his signature blazing across the Force with a presence that could not be denied. He'd recieved training since then, Vader realized. But from who?
"You master has taught you how to hide your fear."
Luke jumped at the boom of the vocoder in the silent room. He recovered himself quickly, holding himself with dignity, his emotions revealing nothing.
"But you must learn to release your anger, young Skywalker," he went on. "Only your rage will make you powerful."
"As powerful as you?" Luke challenged and Vader felt a spark of amusement at the boy's presumption.
"You could not hope to compete with me, boy." Vader growled. Not yet, he added silently.
Luke did not answer. He half-turned from him to study the arrangement of lightsabers that hung on the wall beside him. Vader watched his son's eyes caress over each one and wondered what the boy was thinking. Did he believe the collection was some sort of macabre assortment of trophies? Or just the creative outlet of a bored Force user? He felt grim amusement as his son's eyes lit onto the bottom saber, the one that he had dueled with on Bespin.
Vader had retreived it and brought it here. He used the Force to call it to his hand. The hilt fit his prothetic hand perfectly, and he held it for a moment, remembering.
"I builtthis lightsaber when I was your age," he said, then immdeiately regretted it. It was a roundabout admission to a life he'd left behind. But hadn't he already laid claim to that life when he's named Luke his son?
"Yes, I know." Luke tilted his head to the side, studying his father. "Ben told me."
"Ben?"
"Ben Kenobi."
Vader hissed at the name. "Yes. I'm sure Ben told you many things." The vocoder could not convey sarcasm but Vader was sure that Luke could not miss the anger and betrayal that trembled around his words. The boy looked away and Vader knew he had touched on a sore spot.
Yes, my son. How does it feel to be lied to by a Jedi?
As though sensing his thoughts, Luke's chin came up. "I only knew him for a few days. He didn't have time to teach me much." The defense of his old master, combined with the unspoken accusation behind it, only served to fuel Vader's fury.
"How fortunate that he was not given the time to lie to you any more that he already did."
"Lie to me? By what, teaching me the Force? By being my protector and my friend? Or for trying to keep me from becoming like you?"
"Obi-Wan was my enemy," Vader said flatly. "He could not reach me directly and so he used my son to pursue his own petty revenge."
Luke shook his head. "That's not true. Ben wasn't your enemy. And he didn't hate you. He felt sorry for you." The boy paused before delievering the cutting blow. "And so do I."
The lightsaber that Vader was clutching suddenly flew across the room.
"Defend yourself!" he snarled. Luke barely had time to call the saber to him and thumb it on before the Sith attacked. His first blow sent Luke stumbling back. The boy pushed against him, disengaging and attempting to regroup but Vader allowed him no time. He struck, a crashing blow with the full weight of his body behind it, and Luke was driven to his knees. A vicious twist and a kick disarmed Luke and sent him sprawling to the floor. Vader held his blood-red saber to his son's throat and this time the boy could not contain his fear. It spilled out into the Force, dampening his father's anger.
"Your skills are insufficent to match me. Do not insult me again." Vader said harshly. He stepped back, deactivating his lightsaber. Luke got slowly to his feet, humiliation stiffening his movements. The blue eyes he tuned on Vader were bright with anger.
Good, Vader thought. Now, to make him use it.
With a wave of his hand he activated two battle droids. They skittered forward, blasters humming as they powered up and prepared to fire. Luke called his saber to him once more and stood ready. The first blaster bolt sizzled across his saber, and he deflected it easily. Then the next and the next but still, he did not attack. He held his anger in check and merely deflected the bolts. Vader frowned behind his mask, mentally adjusting the droid's speed. The droids responded and the bolts increased. Vader watched with interest as his son tried to deflect the fire the droids were sending. Luke was moving as fast as his Jedi reflexes would allow, but even then he could not block them all.
A blaster bolt caught him in the shoulder and Vader heard his hiss of pain and a felt the momentary flagging in his concentration. But then he drew himself up again and deflected the next dozen. Sweat was pouring down his forehead, into his eyes, but he stood his ground and refused to reach for the anger that hung around him like a cloak.
The second blaster bolt caught him below the right knee and he almost lost his footing before he shifted his weight back. The rhythm of his lightsaber did not falter. It wove in a stacatto before him, sending blaster fire into the walls. But his parries were wider now, more frantic. He was tiring, and Vader could see by the way Luke drew the saber closer to his body that he knew it too.
"Give in to your anger. It will make you powerful," Vader said. Luke's focus rippled and a bolt hit his prosthetic hand, sending his lightsaber flying. For a moment Luke seemed to crumble, his fear and anger blossoming bright, but he fought them back. He called the saber back to his hand and stepped forward, moving impossibly fast now. Blaster bolts flew in all directions as he took first one step, then another, towards the droids. A calm seemed to decend over him and Vader could feel the Force flowing through him, deflecting the laser fire before it even hit his blade. One more step took him within range of the first droid and he swung, decapitating it neatly. The other droid followed its companion, crumpling to the ground in a heap of metal and wire.
Luke stood for a moment, trembling with exertion and breathing deeply. And then the younger man faced his father, looking him steadily in the eye.
"You will not turn me so easily," he said. Vader nodded, impressed and oddly pleased.
"Very well, Jedi Skywalker. We shall see what the Emperor makes of you."
Luke had barely returned to his room before he realized something was wrong. His mother was gone.
He extended his Force-sense, searching the ship for her, but she was not there.
Father? No answer was forthcoming. Father? he tried again. Mother is gone.
Yes, I know, came the brusque reply.
You know? But- And then Luke understood. The test in the training room had been a distraction, an excuse to get him out of the way. Rage filled Luke and he struggled to contain it. Where is she? he demanded. WHERE?
She is safe. That is all you need know.
Luke felt his father break their connection, leaving him to stand in the middle of his mother's empty bedchamber, shaking in futile fury.
Calm, he told himself. Only in peace can the Force flow freely. Yoda's words brought him no comfort. To find his mother and then to have her plucked away so cruelly, it was too much! Luke turned and blindly walked into the fresher, stripping off the grey military jumpsuit he'd been provided and stepping into the sonic shower. And what had his father meant about the Emperor? Was he being taken to Coruscant? Was that why his mother had been removed from the ship?
Luke reflected on their prior meetings, both on Bespin and on the Executor. Vader didn't feel any different. His presence was just as dark and suffocating as the first time they had met. But Luke could not forget the Vader he had encountered in his mother's mind, the way he had held her, the way his mere presence had soothed her. He could not believe that his father meant her any harm.
Luke considered this as he rested his head against the smooth walls of the shower and tried to relax his tired body. Did the Emperor know that Padme was still alive? Was his father deliberately hiding her from his master? And if so, what did it mean?
Luke stepped out of the shower and towelled off quickly, donning a fresh set of clothes. His mind spun with possibilities. He wanted to ask his father what he was up to but Vader had closed his mind to him. Luke sank down to the floor and looked out the viewport at the starfield beyond.
I have to trust that Anakin wouldn't hurt her, Luke thought. There was nothing else he could do.
Padme rested her head in her hands and, for what seemed like the millionth time, refused to cry. Luke had been summoned by An-No, Vader. He is not Anakin, she told herself- and soon after a contingent of guards arrived at her door.
"My lady, I am Admiral Piett, commander of the Executor. I have been entrusted by Lord Vader with your care. Please come with me."
Padme has assumed that the man was taking her to different quarters, but to her surprise she was led to a shuttle bay. The guards marched her up the ramp but Padme balked at the entrance.
"What is this? Where are you taking me?"
"Lord Vader has instructed that you be removed from the Executor and brought to his personal estate on Bain."
Padme's eyes widened. "What? Why?"
"I have not been priviledged with that honor, my lady."
"What about my son?"
Peitt's head cocked to the side. "Your son?" he repeated. "Ah, Skywalker is your son? Of course. I do not know what is to be done with him, my lady."
Padme stared at him, her mind whirling. Why was she being seperated from Luke? Why?
"I won't go without my son," she said stubbornly.
"Well, that presents a problem for me, my lady. You see, it is my duty to fulfill Lord Vader's commands regarding you. Lord Vader judges failure rather harshly, and permanantly."
If he had tried anything else she would not have given in, but Peitt had unwittingly hit upon Padme's deeply ingrained sense of duty. She could not knowingly shirk her duty, nor cause others to shirk theirs. She sighed and entered the shuttle.
Within minutes they were cleared for take-off. The shuttle lifted off the landing pad and moved into the darkness of space. And Padme sat across from Admiral Piett and tried not to cry.
She had finally found her child, her son, and now she was being taken from him. Would she see him again? Would Luke try to find her? Or would she be kept against her will as a prisoner of Darth Vader forever?
She could not accept him as Anakin, could not accept that the man she had feared and hated could be her husband. It was too cruel. Fate could not be that unkind.
Padme knew that it did her no good to refuse to accept the truth but she couldn't. It was too much...the universe asked to much of her. And so she refused to consider it. And instead she focused on her son, her bright, shining Jedi boy, her Luke.
She had so little tim to talk to him the night before. He had held her, calming her as she cried herself out, laying her gently on her bed and watching over her as she slept. Padme had a vague memory of her sleep being interrupted by dreams but then Luke's arms had been there to comfort her, holding her against the Darkness that threatened to overwhelm them both.
But even as she thought it, Padme felt that her memory wasn't quite right. It has not felt like Luke...it had felt like-
No. She refused to even consider it. Her husband was dead and Darth Vader had taken his place.
But even as she thought it she knew that it wasn't true.
"Admiral? Sir, we have a problem."
The stormtrooper's voice interrupted Padme's circling thoughts. She lifted her head to see Peitt slide from his seat and go to the forward part of the ship. After a moment curiousity got the better of her and she followed. The other troopers did not attempt to stop her as she made her way to the cockpit of the shuttle.
Peitt was leaning over one of the consoles, speaking into the comm.
"My orders come from Lord Vader himself. I cannot allow-"
"The Emperor himself commanded your prisoner be brought to him, and I believe that superceeds your authority. You will turn the shuttle and follow me to Coruscant."
She could not see Peitt's face but she could hear the tightness in his voice when he answered, "Very well."
He toggled to switch, cutting off communication with the other ship. "Open a channel to the Executor. Inform Lord Vader of this immediately."
"Sir, I can't. We are being jammed."
"Jammed?" Piett frowned. He turned, his eyes narrowing as he regarded her.
"Sir, the Succundius is transfering jump coordinates."
"Jump on the pilot's mark," Piett ordered. His eyes did not leave Padme's face. "Well, my lady," he said. "It looks as though you are going to meet the Emperor."