Chapter 5 - "War... is a hunger. And there are spirits in the galaxy whose hunger is never satisfied' (Darth Traya)
"When you get there, do not go sightseeing." The voice explained slowly as if to a dim-witted child. "You time is extremely limited."
Luke nodded, but nausea rose in his throat. This was it. There was no going back now.
"How long can you hold it?" he asked instead of acknowledging the fear.
"I already told you." The voice said and sighed deeply, but because it was pressed through clenched teeth it sounds more like a hiss. "That depends on you." There was a slight pause, a hesitation as brief as a blink of the eye. "I cannot promise that it will be right beside him, but you will land close to him. I advise you to end it as fast as you can." It finished and lifted the hand.
The gleam of the knife was too much.
"Wait!" He snapped a hand out and locked around the wrist. "How do I know when time is running out?" His heart thundered like he had just run a mile, and skipping every second beat as if it was threatening to give out.
The yellow eyes above him were disturbingly calm.
"Oh, you will know." The voice said with a hint of grim humour. "What Vader did to you..." The figure tapped lightly at the robotic hand before it peeled Luke's fingers off its wrist one by one. "What that felt like, is nothing compared to what will happen when the connection starts to break."
The figure peeled off the last finger, and lay the robotic hand down beside Luke as if nothing had happened but there was a warning tightening of the fingers around Luke's wrist before the figure pulled back.
"You and he are the same." Luke said to delay for just a few more precious moments, and just enough time to strangle the fear. "Why are you doing this? Helping me?"
The seconds moved past in the unbroken silence for so long that Luke started to think that he was not going to get an answer. The presence then moved slowly back narrowing its yellow eyes at him from above the knife.
"He and I are nothing alike." It finally said. "And I am not helping you." The deep voice rumbled softly. "I am helping me."
When the lightsaber's metal handle hit the floor, the metallic sound carried mercilessly far into the empty room. It shouldn't have sounded that loud was the first thought that registered in Luke's mind. Somehow it sounded like a door slamming shut behind him.
In a way it was.
Anakin's hand lazily reached out and dread clawed at Luke's heart, when his lightsaber seemingly by its own will jumped into Anakin open hand. Suddenly all he could hear was that mocking voice inside his head.
'Your time is extremely limited'
The scars on his arms already burned stronger now in a silent warning. He swallowed thickly, and tried not to look at it, when Anakin clipped his lightsaber to the belt along with the one he took from the dead Sith. The blue saber remained activated in Anakin hands, and kept Luke very still.
The phantom pain in his wrist increased, but he dared not move. He knew from experience not to antagonize his father.
How much time did he even have left?
"That's better." Anakin remarked dryly and Luke wanted nothing more than to punch that mocking smile off his face. Anakin must have seen his frustration, because he quirked an eyebrow and the smile widened.
Anakin took a more relaxed stance, and slowly lowered his guard. As a small mercy Anakin moved the blade back so the heat of it no longer stung the soft skin of Luke's bare throat. But the deadly blade was still humming softly too close from comfort. He eyed the lightsaber at Anakin's belt. He had to get that back.
But how?
"Who are you?" Anakin asked from the other side of the gentle blue light, looking at Luke with the same contempt Leia had reserve solely for Han when they first met. Anakin looked him up and down, with a bored expression.
Luke had the uncomfortable feeling of being judged and found wanting. It wasn't exactly flattering, and to his surprise he could feel his cheeks redden in embarrassment.
"Isn't it customary to introduce yourself first?" He bit back, doing his best to pretend that there wasn't a lightsaber inches from his throat. Through the force he felt Anakin's signature increase and reach carefully for Luke torn shell of a force presence.
The attempt was muted through the 'cloak' that hid his real force signature. The touch was light and cautious, as though Anakin thought if he was careful Luke wouldn't notice the intrusion, but he did. Luke tried not to react to it, but for some reason it called forth the image of cold deadened skin and yellowed teeth.
"You don't know who I am?" Anakin asked almost as if they had met in a more peaceful setting, as Luke felt his presence pull back again, and with it the slight taint discolouring the edges of his father's bright force presence. Because the taint of the dark side was already there, suppressed, but there.
Was it already too late? Or had a part of Vader always been in there somewhere like a dormant nightmare just waiting for the right moment to come out. Luke's heart sank, and there was an aching disappointment to it.
He recognized the same feeling he had gotten on Bespin.
It tasted like defeat.
Vader...Anakin how much were they really the same person? Through all this he had somehow convinced himself that Vader and Anakin were two very different people, but this disturbing switch from one personality to another made him doubt. It was disturbing how complete the shift had been from the murderous rage to the calm appearance of a Jedi knight.
The change had been so instantaneous and so smooth that it seemed practiced. As if he had done it before.
"Anakin Skywalker." The Jedi in front of him introduced, taking Luke's silence for ignorance. "I am surprised you don't know me. I am also called the her-
"Hero without fear." Luke finished for him, with another stinging twist in his chest and added before he could stop himself. "You were supposed to be different."
So very different.
"What? Taller?" The smirk was back, accompanied with a cocky attitude that didn't fit at all with what Luke had imagined his father to be before the fall. Luke turned his head to the crumbled body not so far away from them. The nameless Sith that was missing more limbs than were still attached. Anakin frowned and followed his eyes.
"…Dooku?" He said sounding halfway insulted. "You killed him."
"When I kill someone, I don't mutilate them first." Luke replied just above a whisper, feeling more disappointed than he thought he could still feel. His robotic right hand throbbed and he stretched and curled his fingers as a self-reassurance. Apparently the limb-cutting part of his father's personality had been there before Vader.
He wasn't sure what he felt about that.
"Trust me, he had it coming." Anakin said with a ghost of the anger from before and his eyes darkened. "And as for you. Tell me why I shouldn't kill you?" He continued, and the anger staining his force presence with a cold touch grew stronger. "You tried to assassinate the chancellor."
"I thought the Jedi didn't believe in killing their enemies." Luke recited from a text he had read somewhere in the chaos after Bespin. Aside from that sentence the text had been a useless thing. It had been all about ethics with nothing close to resembling combat technique. It had been so void of conflict of any kind that it had been painful to read. "Or does that only count for you when Obi-Wan is looking?" he added.
"So you know him."
"He has a better reputation than you." Luke stared at the place where his old teacher had fallen. Kind, patient and loyal. He mused with a melancholy thought. He was everything you would want in a teacher and a friend…even if he was always a liar
"Liar?" Anakin for the first time looked startled and Luke's heart missed a beat when he understood to his horror that he had spoken the last words aloud. "Who are you?" The lightsaber came close again, too close.
Luke looked back into the waiting eyes of the man he had only ever wanted to save since he learned the truth. There was a painful clench at his heart when he looked into his father's eyes. The taint was already there to, in Anakin's, natural blue.
The yellow.
Vader's yellow.
"Vader." The word escaped Luke unwillingly. Was he already too late? How far could you go down the path of the dark side and still come back whole?
"…Your name is Vader?" Anakin asked.
Hearing that name, spoken by him… Something in Luke snapped.
The force rushed to Luke, and threw outwards. A violent storm erupted out of nothing, rushing to all sides at once. The ground gave and the power of the blast ripped through everything around him.
Anakin threw his saber up in a block. His arms strained under the enormous pressure, but against all odds he held on. Astonishment warred with the fury within Luke at the impossible sight. No one should have been able to block that, no one had ever done before!
But Anakin was not only blocking it, Luke saw his opponent shift his weight and the grip move to another angle. He was going in for the counter attack. Luke couldn't afford to let him. He stretched his connection further into the force to that barrier he never wanted to break.
His hand came up to support the other, feeling the power rising and rising to a breaking point, he met Anakin's eyes for a split second, and unleashed the power. In what happened next, Luke could only describe as what he imagined it must feel like to be the centre of an explosion.
Cracks as wide as his arms tore the floor apart and flung pieces of the bended metal into the air at breakneck speed. A great piece of metal ripped from the floor and thundered against the great glass wall. The ferocity of the storm pulled at him, making him stumble to the side to avoid falling.
He saw his father get slammed back violently by the sudden force, saw Anakin's eyes widen in surprise before the back and his head hammered into the wall with a sickening crack.
And everything was suddenly very still.
In the wreckage of the once pristine room, Luke fixed his eyes on the crumbled form, half expecting him to get up again. Sparks flew from the control station Anakin had rammed into, the small burning lights rained down on the still body. It remained still aside from his chest moving in shallow breathing.
Luke gasped in relief and exhaustion. His lungs were convinced he had just run a mile and air heaved in and out through Luke's clenched teeth. His muscles shook and his lungs burned. For a terrible moment the world blurred out of focus and it finally came back everything was spinning. A clammy hand found his forehead, he closed his eyes breathing in once, twice, and then he forced himself to move.
The first step was a stumble. 'Too much'. He thought, trying to make his steps steadier. He had used too much energy on the wrong target. Still the force was ready when he called it again, pushing his stumbling walk into a sprint.
With a horrible taste at the back of his throat Luke bolted past the fallen Anakin. His eyes fixed ahead and away. His hand swung to the side as he passed, he felt the familiar touch of the lightsaber as it flew back to him and settled in his palm. It was comforting in a way nothing else was these day, just as pleasant as the sound of it coming alive in his hands.
It almost made the sickening taste in his throat disappear and almost made him feel safe.
Almost.
The room blurred around him and his feet moved faster and faster. The lightsaber turned between his fingers, coming forward in his hands to stretch in front of him and leading the mad dash towards the monster that had destroyed everything.
Lightsaber leading, he attacked, but this time Sidious was ready. Both Anakin and Obi-wan were down and out. There was no one still aware that the hidden Sith had to put on a show on for.
Luke heard the cracking of lightning before the purple light stung his eyes. The cracking of the lightning bolted past where he had just been moment before. He kicked out, sending him back and out of its deadly path when another wave shot out scorching the floor black in seconds.
A pillar of lightning tore loose from the Sith's hands and Luke threw the saber left to block it. The
lightning rammed into the saber, the force of it threatened to rip it right out of his hands. It shook and twisted under the assault.
Then finally the roaring lightning died in Sidious hands, and the attack stopped.
"Who are you?" Sidious had risen from the chair. The bindings were gone, and he stared a Luke with all pretences gone. Lightning danced between his fingers, but he did not attack again. Luke didn't move, recognizing it for the wordless threat. "I know everyone in this little game." He said and narrowed his eyes at Luke and then to where Anakin had fallen. "And yet here I am in the dark."
The lightning around his fingers grew to cover his hand and twisted and turned around them like a poorly reined beast. His fingers curled and uncurled around it like the legs of a dying spider.
The question hung unanswered between them and Sidious expression darkened. Luke crooked his head at the man before him, using the break to judge the distance between them. That force lightning was a problem. It was not only impossibly fast but it had a nasty bite to match.
This was the situation he had hoped to avoid. Despite his best efforts there had been no knowledge of Sidious close combat abilities. There had not been a single eye-witness account to be found anywhere in his own time.
Not one.
He did not want to think too much about why that was.
Sidious brow furrowed and he took a step forward in the long robes. It was not ideal wear for close combat, but he did not look worried at all.
"You are going to tell me." He said with the conviction of a man used to getting his way with everything he put his mind to.
Maybe because he was used to it, Luke mused and followed the enemy with his eyes as he began circling him. Sidious had after all been ruling the republic for some time already. Sidious looked smaller than he remembered though, Luke thought to himself as he mimicked Sidious circling path.
The unusually cold air turned his breath white when he breathed out. Something must have broken on the ship, it was so cold now it felt like a thousand needles on his skin.
The Sith moved lightly over the dark metallic floor, seemingly unhindered by the cold, his age or the long thick robes draping all the way down to the ground. The arms held lazily down his side were empty. He had not gone for his lightsaber yet, assuming he had one on him.
Green spun in his vision as Luke moved into another stance. The saber hummed just in front of him. It was the first stance he was ever taught and also the one that he always returned to, it was after all the only technique he was sure he did right.
Sidious eyes widened for the fraction of a breath before his face once again was emotionless.
"Who is your master?" He asked, a split-second after there was a flash of purple and then everything happen very fast.
Sidious moved with insane speed and then it was already too late. The sting of the force lightning was as agonizing as it was familiar. Another bolt of lightning ripped through him. The pain was overwhelming and his muscled twisted so violently out of his control that it felt like they were ripping off his bones.
Something cold hit his cheek, he twisted uncontrollably, and everything burned. His hands open and closed, clawing against the cold thing before Luke recognized what it was through the pain. It was the floor, he realized. He had fallen and somewhere, someone was screaming.
But it was alright.
Luke had trained for this
The force rushed to him though the darkness that had closed in around him. Looking like small stings of pure light the force rushed to him, curled over him, under him and on both sides.
Then the pain was gone
When he opened his eyes, he saw the Sith through a blue blur. His heartbeat thundered in his chest so frantically that he could feel it all the way up his throat and he could hear nothing else but its furious drumming. He gaped, and to his shame he couldn't get up. Not right away.
The coldness of the floor and the air that felt colder than Hoth had that night so long ago. The force shield started to flicker as he gained his feet grasping his lightsaber as he pushed himself up. The barrier was already dying before he stumbled to his feet. The blue shield flickered around him, keeping up for a few more moments, and then the light died.
Sidious yellow eyes greeted him from the darkness on the other side.
"Impressive." Sidious curled his fingers lazily as another stream of lightning was called to his hands. "But I don't have time for this. You cannot be more than an apprentice. Who is your master?" He repeated and the lightning jumped from his hands.
In a flash it was too close, but this time Luke was prepared.
He pulled the force to him, feeling the rush of it as it fell on him like a wave collecting at his hands. The lightning shot towards his heart the purple light bathed everything in its flickering hue and the electric cracking.
It reached his out held hand terrible fast.
And stopped.
In his mind it felt like a warm light caught in his hand, but the pain of it was intense.
"I do not have a master." He said and tightened the grip around the lightning trapped in his hand. The rush of having so much power in his palm was indescribable after so many years of running. He lifted his shaking hand ignoring the lightning biting into every nerve and held out the ensnared Darkside
power in front of him aimed at Sidious. "I am not a slave." He said, enjoying the fear in those yellow eyes and let go.
Suddenly, in that same moment, the entire world tilted and the shot went wide.
Through the force there was a choir of screams, thousands of little light went out and there was a rumble so loud that even from this distance it blasted against his ears. His back slammed against the wall but he barely felt it, he jumped back up to his feet startled.
The entire room had turned almost all the way upside down.
"Chancellor!" Someone shouted from the other side of the room. "The glass!"
Luke turned just to see a battered Obi-Wan run to Sidious who once again looked the picture of innocence. Luke had already moved to intercept, when an ominous sound rose behind him. Obi-wan's words echoed in his mind when he threw a look back and saw what was happening.
The glass barrier that had given a view of the battle taking place just outside was littered with a spider web of cracks. A huge line carved the wall of glass almost in half. At its centre was a large piece of metal. It the very one that Luke's blast had ripped from the floor. A dry hard sound came from the glass wall, and it grew louder as transparent fragments rained down from it.
It was breaking apart.
And there was nothing but empty space on the other side.
To be continued