26 The Epic: the GIRL ON BORROWED TIME

Eva excused herself and called up Vader aboard the Executor. He was no longer occupying the Death Star. It was ready.

Vader wouldn't speak to her while he was on the bridge. His life size hologram eventually lit up her quarters as she awaited him in the low light. She began, "The Emperor already heard from Commander Igar on Endor, about the rebel in custody. He's waiting for the Alliance's fleet, massed at Sullust, to begin move out…It's just too soon for him to see Luke." She whispered the little bit she could coax out of Aloo, though it could hardly have been helpful. The Emperor does not sleep when you are near.

Vader stood with fists rested on his sides. "You've been drinking."

For a few moments they stared at one another in silence.

"How… how did you find Luke?" she ventured.

"He turned himself in."

First she blinked, then scoffed and averted her eyes to the ceiling for a time. When she looked back, her dismay was full blown. "I don't believe you!" Her composure fell apart in an instant. "You and the Emperor already have everything! Can't you both just let him alone- just this one time? She lowered her head, and her voice began to crack. "One person?" She was actually begging him.

Vader hesitated to respond.

Trust had been snapped like a twig. After all this time, she was nothing in Vader's eyes, no one deserving of the truth. In a flight of sentimentality Eva recalled the first time she had set eyes on Luke, what seemed ages before on Arda-2; against a vibrant sunset, climbing down from his X-Wing in his orange jumpsuit, fresh-faced and enthusiastic (she actually met him an hour later inside the mining facility, but liked to picture otherwise). His wholesome awkwardness was disarming. He'd felt an affinity for her immediately, and that was part of the problem that put her here. Those were her last hours of innocence, before Doum asked her to report to him…

Luke was not that naïve anymore. "He won't turn." Eva's voice sounded defeated. "He won't side with you and you'll have to kill him. Your own son."

She brought her sleeve to her face to catch a tear before it fell. "What would Padmė think of you?"

That had set him off. If she were anyone else ( and weren't practically the Emperor's consort), she would feel his anger crushing her throat as well as burning in his words. "Skywalker's purity is taunting you, as Padmė once did to me. Get over it."

If it was at all possible, his deep voice became more menacing still, "…Where is Palpatine now? Is he sleeping? Now is the moment for you to deliver."

Eva's hand hesitated over the control to end the transmission. There was something irreversibly final about what she was about to do…

Done.

'Enticement…to lure Luke out,' the Emperor had said.

Five more hours.

She gazed out her viewport at the massive ship Executor in the near distance, afloat in the shadow of the Death Star. The glowing blue lights marked thousands of rooms… and Luke was somewhere there, captive in one of them ( though certainly not privy to an actual window). There was a huge chasm between the likelihood of his wanting to face Vader, and turning himself over to an infinite nest of Imperials.

But the three of them were hellbent on confrontation. The moment was fast descending with unanticipated clarity, and how much of the rest of the galaxy would they tear apart with them? Four hours.

Vader would spend the remaining time listening to intelligence on the Rebels and meditating. Luke would spend the night in the holding cell, meditating and questioning himself, then finding a serene calm. The Emperor was up to who knows what.

Right when she was ready to retire, thinking she might actually be able to sleep from sheer exhaustion, Palpatine sent for her requesting a tea service.

In the Throne Room, the Emperor was in the middle of a transmission. "When the Rebel fleet arrives, do not engage them. Hold them at a distance from the Death Star, for I have a special demonstration planned," he told Admiral Piett. Palpatine's wrinkled hand reached over to the glowing comm tab on the armrest of his throne, and ended the communication.

He rose and made his way down the wide stairs, past the turbolifts, and six of his Royal Guard, to the small, private couple of rooms in the opposite bay of the control tower. "At last the work of generations is complete. The great error is corrected. The day of victory is at hand. The day of revenge. The day of the Sith."

At the door to his sleeping quarters he paused and looked back to her, standing on the red carpet of the well-appointed receiving room (still holding the untouched tea service). "Warn me, of anything amiss. I want to rest…a couple hours at least. And in turn, in the future…I will watch over you."

She was inebriated. She was a hopeless protector compared with the Royal Guard. What was his game, leaving himself at his most vulnerable before her?

She had the hours remaining to think over all the possibilities to make of the situation. Fixed to a velvet chair in the dim ante-chamber, not taking her eyes off the bedroom door left slightly parted, the blackness beyond…

In the end she did nothing.

She recalled the gentle breeze stirring the cloth of his black robes, on that garden terrace back on Coruscant. Her arms overflowed with the flowers Palpatine had cut. "When you left Arda-2 years ago you were very different person. All you wanted was for someone to watch over you. And instead, you were put out to fend for your very life."

"Vader…that man is dangerous," were Aloo's last words to the Emperor, as he returned to the Throne Room.

"But I am more so."

Solemnly Eva stood with the others. The corridor was now filled with most of the Greater Courtiers, four Royal Guards and a few crew. With the echo of footsteps approaching, those present stiffened and fell silent.

Luke was in handcuffs and walked before Vader and several stormtoopers, as though he knew the way. His thin frame was so vividly slight to Vader's towering bulk -extraordinarily brave in the face of an unfair galaxy. Eva was relived he didn't seem to notice her, hapless as she felt just to be standing there. Luke destroyed the Death Star. They'll never let him go. He had to be punished.

Vader's helmet abruptly tilted in her direction as the as the tubolift doors closed with a dull thud leaving the two of them alone - the most uncomfortable turbolift journey of Luke Skywalker's life.