Chapter 4
The lizard darted across the stone floor, its white skin almost luminous in the darkness. It paused briefly to sip from a puddle, then raised its head to regard its queer guest with wide green eyes.
Vader found himself sullenly hating the animal – why, he wasn't entirely certain. Something that might have been a reason teased at the edges of his mind, but slipped away as lightning-fast as the lizard when he tried to grasp it. So he simply continued to let it simmer, taking some scant strength from his anger, a lone candle against black despair and the mind-numbing pain in his back, shoulders, and chest.
The lizard, deciding he wasn't a threat, scurried over to where the Dark Lord knelt on the stone cobbles, only steel manacles fixing his arms to the wall keeping him upright. Vader felt his anger toward the creature begin to boil over as it actually started crawling up his leg. He hadn't the energy to try to shake it off, however. He barely had the strength to raise his head at the sound of footsteps approaching. His captors... more torture? What more could they do to him?
Voices... boots against stone... nothing. Whoever it had been, they had been on different business.
A blur of white crossed his vision. The bold lizard had made it as far as his mask and was investigating the uncracked lens of his mask. Too weak to shake the beast off, he merely slumped his head again, giving the creature free reign.
His moan of pain, of rage, of utmost despair, was almost silent – his tormentors had destroyed his voice synthesizer long ago. But the sound still carried, in a fashion, outside the temple and to a landing freighter...
Break...
Luke jerked his head up from reading over a datapad on Jabesh's terrain. There it was again – the pain, the suffering. And it had been close! Weak, yes, but still very close.
He frowned slightly. When learning Vader had been pursuing Master Nova, he had assumed it was Nova's pain he was feeling. Now that he knew Nova had never crossed paths with Vader – and now that he had died at the hands of stormtroopers – he had no idea who could be suffering at Vader's hands now. Was he tormenting one of the locals for information? Was he taking out his anger at being stranded on his own men? Or... he really didn't want to consider this last possibility, but... perhaps it was the Dark Lord himself, injured from a crash or accident, maybe trapped somehow?
Pushing the datapad away, he reached for his lightsaber. The weapon gleamed slightly in the artificial light of the Falcon's passenger hold, battered but elegant, an artifact that had once belonged to his father. His father... who had met his doom at Vader's hands. If it was Vader who was in pain, Vader who needed his help, could he bring himself to help him? Help the Dark Lord, the murderer of his father, the beast who had slaughtered Jedi and so many others without a second thought?
He sighed and clipped Anakin's lightsaber to his belt. He would cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, he just wanted to see what Vader was up to... and hope that, if he had to cross blades with the Dark Lord, luck – no, the Force – would be with him.
Han stepped into the hold and motioned for him. "Luke, we've landed. Let's go."
Luke stood and followed Han and Chewie out of the Falcon. The steel-colored sky overhead ruthlessly poured rain upon them as if seeking to beat them senseless with water, slicking the cobblestones beneath their feet and drenching them to the bone. The instant they disembarked and left the protective shelter of the underside of the ship, Luke's tunic became soaked and clung to his skin and his hair became plastered to his scalp. Han didn't look much better, of course, and Chewie... well, Luke could count himself lucky that he didn't have to share quarters with a co-pilot who smelled of wet fur.
Thick feral jungle walled them in on three sides, almost seeming to herd them toward the foreboding rain-slicked temple ahead of them. The ruins of the edifice were menacing enough, especially to Luke – again he sensed that weird blankness in the Force, all the more emphasized by the life-teeming rainforests surrounding this pocket of void. But there were other sights that chilled the three of them, not the least of which was the tangled wreck of what had once been an Imperial shuttle, now a heap of twisted, blackened metal.
"Stang," muttered Han, approaching the shuttle with blaster drawn.
"The Amalthea," Luke noted, catching sight of the shuttle's name etched onto a half-melted shard of metal that jutted from the mess. "This has to be Vader's shuttle. Do you think he crashed?"
"Looks more like it was bombed while it was still on the ground," Han noted.
Chewie stepped into the forest briefly, then gave an urgent bark.
"What is... holy stang," muttered Han as he caught sight of the white-armored body sprawled in the moss.
Luke felt a chill slide down his spine as he scanned the jungle. Stormtroopers lay scattered throughout the area, their armor gleaming with rain and blotched with char marks from blaster bolts. Some were missing pieces of armor and had already been set upon by the local scavenging beasts; these Luke tried not to look at too closely. Others still clutched blasters, no doubt continuing to fight even in their death throes. But there was no sign of whoever had ambushed the Imperial soldiers, not even a body.
He knelt beside a trooper wearing the shoulder pauldron of commander. This man lay curled in a fetal position, one hand lying limply in the mud, the other wrapped tightly around something – a comm unit, perhaps? – and held close to his face. His armor was black with char, too widespread to have come from a hand weapon. Close by was a blasted-black crater ringed with splintered trees, and Luke realized that this trooper had likely been killed by a thermal detonator blast.
"Who did this to you?" he asked softly, gently prying the item out of his fingers. It wasn't a comm unit, but a recording device.
"Whatcha got, kid?" asked Han.
"Recording of some kind. I guess this man wanted to leave a record of what happened here."
Han glanced at the body. "Woman, kid. That's a woman."
Startled, Luke's gaze went to the body again. He blushed and averted his face – the blast of the explosion that had killed her had also ripped apart her body armor, exposing an indecent amount of skin. While burns marred most of it, there was enough left to identify her gender.
He thumbed on the recording, and the dead woman's voice came to life, weak with pain and half-drowned by pitched battle and screams.
"Commander Leola of Vader's personal troops reporting... augh... I don't have much time left... bastard threw a detonator at us, I was hit by shrapnel and I'm bleeding to death... my men are in chaos now... they can't tell who's friend and who's foe...
"We were attacked by our own comrades... fellow stormtroopers... they seemed to spring out of nowhere and started shooting... some were on their way to the temple, and I fear they were after Lord Vader... what kind of treachery is this...
"Whoever finds this recording, alert the Emperor... possible coup... if Vader's in danger, the Emperor could be as well... is this Rebel work or an attempt at a takeover... never will know now... useless... useless..."
A sick rattle, then the recording fizzled into a series of blasts and screams that finally tapered off to footsteps squelching in mud... then only the drone of rain.
Han sighed and removed his vest, covering Commander Leola with it. Even though the soldier had been an Imperial, serving the enemy, both he and Luke couldn't help feeling some pain at her death, even if they had arrived far too late to halt it.
"Stormtroopers did this?" Luke asked, stunned. "So it was an inside job?"
"It's not like Vader has a lot of friends in the Empire," Han noted. "I'd say someone wanted him out of the picture so they could gain a little more power."
"Or a lot." Luke's gaze moved skyward, as if trying to pick out Imperial Center through the clouds. "She mentioned this could be a coup. Maybe someone's also trying to take out the Emperor as we speak."
"We can hope." Han holstered his blaster. "Well, we came and saw. Now let's go back."
"Go back? Han, we haven't finished our objective..."
"Come on, do you really think Vader survived this? And even if he did, do you really think I'm stupid enough to hang around here when a pissed-off Sith Lord could be lurking around a corner? We know what went down here. Our mission's complete. Now let's get back to the Alliance."
Luke hesitated. Han did have a point. They had been specifically ordered to not endanger themselves needlessly. And to be perfectly honest, he had no desire to encounter Vader face-to-face if he could avoid it.
And yet, there was a queer feeling... like there was something yet he needed to do...
His gaze moved to the temple. "She mentioned Vader went in there. If he's dead, we should at least verify it by finding the body."
Han gaped. "You want to FIND him?"
"The Rebellion gave us a job," Luke told him. "I want to make sure it's done right. What if we report him dead and he comes back later to haunt us?"
Han rolled his eyes. "All right, but if this gets us in trouble, don't say I didn't warn you."
Chewie barked.
"The lizards? Oh, them. Well, go get 'em."
Chewie ducked into the Falcon, then returned carrying the small cage containing the Jabesh rock lizards Kolton had given them. Han helped Chewie hook the cage to his bandolier, then they set off for the temple.
Inside the temple, it was almost totally dark. The damp stone walls seem to absorb all light. Luke ignited his lightsaber to provide some illumination, the pale blue glow sparkling on the pools of water dotting the floor and on the chips of mica embedded in the stone. Han and Chewie crept along behind, weapons drawn.
Further inside, water covered the floor... and the bodies of four stormtroopers lay half-submerged in the shin-deep water, one of them in two pieces. Luke choked back the urge to be sick even as he recognized the handiwork of a lightsaber. Had Vader managed to defeat the troops who had attacked him?
Chewie raised his head slightly, sniffing the air. He growled softly.
"He smells something up ahead," Han translated. "Human, but with cyborg components. He thinks it could be Vader."
Luke took a deep breath, braced himself, and stepped forward, wading around the bodies and plunging ahead through the dark. White lizards fled before his lightsaber... the Force-dampening creatures that made this place a void in the Force and had quite possibly entrapped Vader...
They burst into a chamber about the size of the Falcon's passenger hold, its walls seeming to writhe with carved snakes and lizards, its floor cracked and littered with shards of stone and, strangely, metal. In a corner, someone had heaped random pieces of machinery he couldn't identify right off the top of his head, and against the far wall...
His gut clenched. Vader hung limply from steel manacles that had been bolted into the wall low enough that he could only kneel on the stone floor. His armor was chipped and cracked, his cloak and leather bodyglove in rags, and his left leg a mess of shattered cybernetic components. His leather gauntlets had been worn clear through by his struggles against his bonds, and the tears in his bodysuit revealed ugly wounds and burns, some still bleeding. His breathing rasped weakly, no longer the sinister sound Luke had heard in holobroadcasts, but a faint, whining sound.
Seeming to realize he was no longer alone, he slowly raised his head. He locked eyes with Luke a moment, the cracked lens of his mask regarding him, then he lowered his gaze again.
"Luke..." Han began, entering the room. "What's going... oh, stars..."
Chewie made an exclamation of his own.
Luke stepped cautiously forward, growing a little braver. He was no longer afraid of Vader. The man was harmless now, rendered helpless by the presence of the rock lizards and by whatever his captors had inflicted upon him. If anything, he only felt a strange pity for the man. Whatever had happened...
"Someone has a sick sense of humor," Han muttered, kicking the pile of machinery in one corner. Several chilling items went rolling at the blow – an interrogation droid, a stun baton, a branding tool, and other implements of torture. Luke's gut tightened again.
"Who did this to you?" he murmured, kneeling beside the Dark Lord and repeating the words he had spoken to Commander Leola.
Vader slowly turned his head to face Luke, shaking as if the effort took all his strength. He said nothing, only stared as if trying to memorize the young Jedi's face.
Luke only stared back. The thought that this was a slayer of Jedi, his father's murderer, a dangerous Lord of the Sith never crossed his mind. All he saw here was someone in pain, who needed his help...
"He cannot speak to you, Skywalker."
Vader's head lifted slightly to look over Luke's shoulder. An incredibly faint sound that might have been a snarl of rage issued from the fearsome mask. Luke turned, his saber ready.
A black-cloaked figure stepped into the room, leaning heavily upon a twisted black cane. As Luke watched the shadowy being approach, he caught a glimpse of a pale, malformed face and glowing orange eyes beneath. When the man made eye contact with him, he grinned savagely, like a krayt dragon baring its teeth for the hunt.
"He speaks with a voice synthesizer," the man went on. "My men had it removed some time ago. They were getting tired of his screams."
"You're sick," Luke hissed, standing.
"Not sick, Skywalker." He laughed, a cold clotted sound. "Brilliant."
Luke took an involuntary step back. "Who are you?"
He waved the question away. "No one of consequence, young man. Now the man behind you..." He pointed at Vader with a gnarled finger. "He is a different story."
Vader lunged against his bonds, struggling to reach his captor even though his actions obviously caused him great pain.
"Why did you do this?" Luke wanted to know. "If you wanted vengeance against him, why not simply kill him? Why keep him in pain?"
Again that stomach-turning laugh. "Oh young Skywalker, you have NO imagination whatsoever."
Han and Chewie stepped toward Luke, weapons trained on the intruder.
"I would suggest the two of you stay back," he advised. "This is your friend's business. Not yours."
"Answer the question," Luke ordered, keeping his weapon raised. "Why did you do this to him?"
"To bring you here," he replied simply, as if it were the most obvious answer in the galaxy.
Luke froze, stunned. "Me?"
"Of course. Do you not realize, young Skywalker, that you and Vader share a strong bond? That no matter what distance separates you, no matter how much the Force is dampened in your presences, your link with him cannot be severed? He has always been sensitive to your mind, your emotions, and your pain, unconsciously or not. And you... now that you have begun your own training in the Force, you too can sense his emotions and pain. Even across the galaxy... and even despite the presences of these Force-feeding beasts."
Luke shook his head. "I can't be... it's not possible..."
"And why wouldn't it be, young Skywalker?"
"I'm Jedi. He's Sith. We serve opposite sides of the Force..."
"Should that make a difference?" A suspicious look crossed the black-cowled being's face. "Did not Obi-wan tell you about your father?"
Luke turned to stare at Vader. The Dark Lord was staring fixedly at him.
"He told me Vader killed my father," he said quietly. "Why should that make a difference?"
Another horrible laugh. "Oh no, he didn't kill your father. He IS your father."