Chapter 27: For The First Time Again
As they left the atmosphere he could see the ground battles beginning; AT-ATs and those second generation walkers versus snow speeders and the single ion cannon. To quickly white clouds blocked Luke's sight.
I should have told Bade to go for the walker's legs.
I am not deserting them. I'm saving them. I must survive, because I already have!
"Corran." He said then. Luke had been watching this Imperial who thought of himself as Commander Horn of the Imperial space-navy. He was Corran Horn as Han was Han, Luke assumed, taken on a different timeline. He no more knew or believed in his 'real' self then Luke would have had the paradox been presented to him.
"Quiet." But the bearded face turned back toward him for a moment.
Luke answered the unasked question softly, watching his hard reflection on transparisteel. "Yes, I know many things you wouldn't expect."
Their craft slid into the greater silver of a Star Destroyer and crouched there, its curved mechanical limbs pulled close to the body as if in the death curl of an insect. Stormtroopers surrounded the unexpected arrival.
When Darth Vader arrived, it was to an organized circle around the bound Rebel, sour anger rising from Horn standing beside him (anger purely at lack of resistance), and blue eyes dark. Luke stood with his hands before him, centered, paying no attention to anything but his father's mind. This meeting, dark and light for the first time again, weighed on possibilities.
"So," Vader rumbled. "A Jedi hidden in the Rebellion offers himself up to me."
"Jedi," Luke heard Horn mutter incredulously. It was a dead word here.
Luke's voice was even, resonating, testing. "I offer myself to the truth, father." Horn flinched and looked from Luke to Vader, even the stormtroopers drew in stale breath, but the boy did not move. "There was no reason to know, no, not after Yavin. But I am back, now, and soon the Empire will see."
"What!" Vader growled. A shock filled the frame of black armor and then for a moment Vader could not speak. Then a gloved hand swept out toward Horn and his entourage, a violent gesture backed by the force of Vader's body. "Get out! Leave us!"
Horn hustled his people away, leaving the empty corridor and the men dressed in black. Luke looked at Vader. Vader sampled the Force.
Luke felt Darth Vader take power for his own, so the Jedi rode with it when he felt himself lifted and pushed, a wave of darkness that crested with Luke hung at the wall, his spine against that hard surface, and the Sith moved to within inches.
"What do you mean, Jedi?" Vader rumbled.
Luke looked down at his father. At the black lenses and gloved hands twisting the power, and simply said, "I return to avenge the past."
"You are dead!" Red light sheened in Vader's eyes. Killing light, though inside--and never had he seen this before--there was some eternal patience.
This was not what Luke had foreseen. But without the Force such things were not to be trusted.
"I was dead in a wrong world, father. But we can change it. I feel the good within you."
Vader released his hold and turned away. Luke came to the ground smoothly. "Take me to your emperor now."
"I can sense that you have completed your training. My son...And now you give yourself to us." Vader's laugh was in his voice, his deep airy breathing.
"I have." Luke looked up and met the shaded eyes. "I have returned from the dark side enough. You will not turn me now." All plans were washed away, picked apart, in half-remembered words. It was a power of its own right, to speak like this--and therefor it was a danger. Luke fell silent.
"You do not know the power of the dark side. You resist it!" Vader's fist clenched, and anger rose. Only for a moment had he turned toward Luke again, all Imperial presence. Only for a moment had something affected that dark soul. "It can not be resisted."
Luke spoke quickly. "The person you once were, Anakin Skywalker, resisted. There is still hope for him."
A shock from the dark lord, an anger that growled in Vader's voice like thunder on the horizon of a lava-strewn world..."He is dead." Vader turned away from any sadness that might, just might, have shown in his voice, covering it with this overarching anger. Knowledge was an attack on Luke now, a feeling of falling and becoming a pit that was only distinctly connected with a long-ago advantage, taken now with the finesse of a Master turned malignant depravity. "And the Emperor will show you new truth."
"Then my father is truly dead." Luke said, but it was to quiet for anyone to hear, and the turbolift doors at the other end of the hall hissed open.