PART 5: JEDI
CHAPTER 18: Cavern
"Something's happening...I'm not the Jedi I should be. I want more, and I know I shouldn't." —Anakin Skywalker, Revenge of the Sith
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"Where is Luke Skywalker?" Vader growled.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" Bail insisted, trying with all his will to stop himself from prying at the Sith Lord's fingers with his own. Moments ago, Vader, a redheaded woman, and a group of Stormtroopers had burst into his home. Now, he was being held up in the air with Vader's hand in a vice-grip around his throat, and his newly-returned daughter was being restrained by the group of Stormtroopers and the woman—with the latter pointing a blaster at her head.
"Liar," the black-armored man said in a low voice. "You know where the adopted son of Arelis Antilles is."
That the Sith Lord was angry, there could be no doubt. But Bail—though he had heard many stories of the Sith Lord's cruelty—and though he had seen the man in states of extreme unhappiness—had never heard of or known Vader to be encompassed with the fury that presently had hold of him. To call Darth Vader enraged would be to put the matter lightly.
"L-Luke Antilles?" the Alderaanian managed in a strangled voice. "I don't know where he is. What—what do you want with him? He's just a boy—"
"Leave my father alone!" Leia pleaded, only to have the blaster at her head jabbed into her temple in warning.
"Be quiet," the redhead said harshly.
"If you are not willing to tell me where he is," Vader said slowly, "then I will have to extract the information from your daughter."
The Sith Lord's fingers withdrew, and Bail was dropped onto the floor, where he remained, dazed, for a few moments before Vader's words caught up to him. "She doesn't know anything," he said hurriedly as he rushed to his feet. He felt consumed by a sudden panic. "She hasn't seen Luke Antilles since before the Emperor's—before Palpatine passed away."
Vader's helmet turned to him. "I can sense your deceit. Do not underestimate the power of the Force, Organa." He gestured for the Stormtroopers and the mysterious woman to start taking the struggling Leia away.
"Father!" the girl exclaimed, trying desperately to get free.
"Leia!" Bail called out as she was pulled from the room. He started to step toward her, only to find himself stopped by an invisible barrier.
Vader was looking at him. "You can reveal Luke's location to me, or she can. But rest assured, I will get that information."
Leia was already gone, and now Vader was stalking from the room.
His heart constricting, Bail found himself crying out after the Sith Lord in desperation, "Anakin!"
Darth Vader swiveled toward him, and Bail felt there was a new chill in the air. Coldly, the man draped in black said, "You forget, Organa, that that man is dead."
And then the harbinger of darkness was gone.
Bail fell to his knees, whispering, "No..."
****
Han Solo was approaching the Organa residence with a handful of freshly-picked flowers (he was a softie at heart, though he hated to admit it) when he saw Stormtroopers and a redhead in a black jumpsuit dragging his kicking and screaming girlfriend away from her home.
Knowing it was a matter of 'shoot first, ask questions later,' he brought his illegal holdout blaster up almost instantly, and he shot down two Stormtroopers before the weapon was jerked out of his hands by some invisible force.
Protests hovered at his lips as he watched the blaster fly away from him, only for the words to die unsaid when he realized that it was Darth Vader who had pulled away his weapon.
"Han!" Leia shouted. "Run!"
But before he could even think of escape, the woman in black was at his side, her left arm shooting around his neck and pulling his head down low enough for her to press her blaster into his temple. "Don't move."
Knowing that it was useless to try to get out of the woman's strangle-hold, Han said reluctantly, his hands in the air, "All right."
The redhead looked at Darth Vader. "Maybe we should take him with us as well, Your Excellency," she suggested. "It might get her—" she jerked her head in Leia's direction, "—to talk."
The Sith Lord inclined his head. "Very well. Bring him with us."
The woman took Han toward the group of Stormtroopers where Leia gave him an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Han," the young woman whispered.
"What do they want?" Han asked in a low voice.
But she simply looked worried and didn't answer.
****
After returning from one of his morning jogs, Luke found Obi-Wan and Yoda waiting for him by their hut. Despite the vigorousness of his morning routine, the young man was barely sweating; his body had been rather fit even before he had come to Dagobah. But he had certainly been growing more skilled in using the Force by the day, and he was starting to feel like maybe—just maybe—he could do this whole Jedi thing. Upon seeing his masters, however, a sense of foreboding struck him, and he wondered if maybe that feeling was some kind of Force insight.
The two Jedi Masters exchanged a strangely significant look before Obi-Wan turned toward Luke. "We would like you to come on a walk with us, Luke."
After looking from one Jedi to the other, Luke found his mouth dry. As he tried to work moisture into it, he said, "All right."
The young Jedi-to-be was familiar with much of the area surrounding the Jedi Masters' hut. As they walked away from it, he saw a lot of ground he knew well, but then he found they were taking a path he'd never really treaded before. Frowning, he tried to figure out why he had never been this way. Reaching out to the Force for an answer, all he could sense was that he had a feeling of aversion toward this path. Perhaps that had been what had always turned him away from the region.
Their journey was quiet. Luke felt as if perhaps he should be asking questions, but he was being suffocated by the nearly-overwhelming urge to turn around and forsake the path they were traveling. He even found himself being hit in the head with a few vines as he neglected to watch where he was going. His two mentors must have noticed, but they didn't comment.
And then suddenly, they were there. Where 'there' was, Luke wasn't sure, but a feeling of significance seemed to swell up from the place. He and his masters stopped moving, and his eyes wandered the region, finally resting on it.
It was a dark, dead tree with many gnarled roots at its base. The giant roots formed a cave on one side, and the tree was surrounded with water. It was like a black fortress protected by a great moat—to enter it could only mean doom.
Luke trembled and then looked to Obi-Wan and Yoda, both of whom had moved to sit on a large root.
"Something isn't right here," the young man said softly. "It feels dark...cold." He took in a shallow breath. "Like death."
Yoda was poking his gimer stick into the ground solemnly, and he looked up to gesture toward the cave. "In there, you must go. Strong, that place is, with the Dark Side of the Force."
"It is a domain of evil," Obi-Wan added softly.
Trying to work past the knot in his throat, Luke queried, "What's in there?"
"Only what you take with you," Yoda answered.
The young man turned his eyes back to the dark and forbidding cave, feeling his skin crawl. He could sense that there was something horrible in there. It repelled him, and he wanted to walk away from it, but it also attracted him. He knew he had to enter.
He moved his hand down to his side, unclipping his lightsaber from his belt.
"Your weapon—you will not need it."
Luke looked at the little Jedi Master and then at the cave. He felt as if the Force were screaming at him now, and he shook his head. He would not leave his lightsaber behind. He did not want to be defenseless.
He walked forward, brushing aside some vines, and then, gathering his resolve, he entered the cave.
The tree cave seemed to be saturated with darkness. It oozed out of the slimy walls, the cave's slithering denizens, and the swampy ground at Luke's feet. Though he was but a few feet in, insects and reptiles seemed to permeate the cave, along with sodden vegetation and the wretched darkness. Knowing he couldn't go very far without light, he lit his saber and held it out before him. A lizard was crawling on part of the wall near him, and he made sure not to disturb it.
He pushed forward, going deeper into the cave. He nearly put his hand against a large spider on the wall and brought it quickly back to himself when he saw the arachnid's eyes glitter in the light his saber was giving off. This place gave him the creeps, and it wasn't just because of the Dark Side's presence.
As he continued, he found himself struck by the eerie quiet of the cave. It felt like death, he'd told Yoda, and the description seemed apt. The tree was like a giant tomb, the home of evil spirits.
And creepy creatures, he thought to himself as he saw a formidable-looking snake arching its neck. He passed by it quickly.
His boots squished against the ground of the cave as he walked, a constant yet unwelcome sound. He was a stranger to this cave, and it felt as if the cave knew it. Every noise he made was alien to this silent tomb.
After some amount of time—he was not sure how long, as the cave seemed to warp his perceptions—the area around him widened, and he came upon a chamber that oddly brought to mind the cavern where he'd kept Vader prisoner. That cave, however, had been visually appealing, and this one was most definitely not.
The back side of the chamber was swallowed by darkness, and Luke paused, squinting as he tried to visually penetrate the blackness of the room.
Three figures stepped forward from the void, and his breath caught in his throat. No...
Jabba's Head of Slavery was the first to speak. "You are worthlessss," Darsst told him with dark glee, his tongue flicking in and out of his mouth. The darkness suited him, just as it always had in Jabba's Palace. With his black clothes fading into the background, it was hard to make out his face, though his orange-speckled eyes seemed to almost glow in the darkness cowling him.
Luke found himself taking a few steps backward. His heart was racing, and memories from those wretched years spent as the crimelord's slave were flooding back.
"You ssstupid boy. I ssshhhould have killed you when I had the opportunity. You have amounted to nothing, and you will never amount to anything."
"No—that's not true," the young man replied, but the words were weak, and his knees were trembling. They aren't real, he tried to tell himself. They aren't real. But he thought he could even smell Darsst's musky, unwashed scent, and he felt his stomach revolting at it.
"The Jedi who are training you are fools," the blackest of the figures noted. "They have no power and cannot help you gain any. Join me, and we can rule the galaxy together."
"I can't join you," Luke whispered to the specter of his father. "I can never join you."
Then the figure he'd been dreading to hear from the most took a couple of steps forward. "Luke."
"Don't," he pleaded. He couldn't hear from her. He couldn't.
"You left me no choice. I had to die to save you. And how do you repay me? You take on that monster's name." The voice of Arelis Antilles was filled with contempt. "Did those years I spent with you not mean anything?"
"Mother," he whispered, stepping toward the Alderaanian woman with a raised hand. She scowled at him, and he brought the limb back down. His trembling right hand clenched his saber tighter.
Darsst was approaching him with a whip. "We will punissshhh you for your mistakes, boy. Worthlessss, worthlessss boy."
"No," Luke said in an almost-snarl. He lifted his saber up, glaring at Darsst.
The Head of Slavery cracked his whip. "You think you can beat me, boy?" he laughed harshly. "You are not worth a drop of Hutt ssspit." His voice was mocking, goading.
"Take that back," the young man said in a slow voice as he slowly stalked forward. The Durnalian's face filled his vision; it seemed to be fixed in a permanently contemptuous mask. Seeing it made hatred well up in Luke's heart, and he found himself wanting to wipe that face from existence.
"You are a coward," Darsst cackled. "You could not kill me even if you wanted to. You are too afraid, you worthlessss human."
"I am not afraid," Luke gritted. His blue eyes glinted coldly in the light given off by his lightsaber.
"Ah, but you are afraid. You have always been afraid. Afraid for your mother and yourself and the galaxy...Afraid of your father and the very galaxy you want to protect...Afraid of what you could become. You, boy, are pathetic," Darsst spat.
The young man saw the Durnalian, and he saw the blue blade of his own weapon, and a wave of desire slammed into him for the two to meet. Angry but still fighting an internal battle, Luke said warningly, "Do not call me that."
"Worthlessss," hissed the Head of Slavery, lifting his whip to strike Luke.
And then Darsst's head was rolling on the floor, and his body was crumpling to the ground.
Strangely detached but trembling with rage, Luke stared at the cavern floor. There was no blood—just two pieces of a body that had once been whole. Strange, how easy it had been...
The disembodied head hissed, "Worthlessss!" Then it was silent.
"Good," Vader said approvingly, looking down at Luke's handiwork. "The Dark Side makes you powerful. Hold on to that power, Son."
"Force users," Arelis scoffed. "When you fell in with their wretched lot, you turned your back on everything I ever taught you. You're a monster now."
"Mother," he whispered, moving toward her. She was dead—he knew she was dead—but she was here. She was here.
The Alderaanian was backing away from him in disgust. "I disown you, Luke. No son of mine will follow the path of those inhuman conquerors. I'm glad I died—it means I was unable to see what you've become."
"Mother—"
"She does not know the power of the Force, Luke. She fears it, hates it—but she does not understand it."
"Shut up!" Luke snarled, swiveling toward Vader. This cave was affecting him—his head was filled with darkness. His mind was a murky mass of confusion. He pointed his saber at the taller man. "You are a monster now. You can't understand! She's my mother!"
"She's an apparition of your mother, Luke. Your real mother would want you to use all the power available to you. Feel how your hatred makes you strong, Son."
Luke looked down at his right hand, which was clenching his saber so hard that, had his hand been real, his knuckles would have been white. But the hand wasn't real—it was mechanical—and there was no indication of the strain his body was going through in its appearance. "Shut up!" he shouted for a second time at the armored monstrosity before him. "You forsook your family—you can't know what it's like. You messed up everything."
And then Luke was striking, his blue blade locking with Vader's red saber. Strike, parry, strike—and then his saber was deliciously plunging through the middle of Vader's chest. The monster's body fell to the ground.
"Good. You killed him. Just like we should have done in the first place. But even then you were too soft-hearted toward those Force users."
Luke stared down at his father's body, noting somewhere in the back of his mind that Darsst's body had disappeared. He fell to his knees, touching one of Vader's gloved hands. "Father..."
"Spawn of the devil, you were. If I'd known you were so tainted when I first found you, I would've left you behind on that planet to live a life of misery. You would have deserved it. Just like he deserves to die. I wish I'd never left that ring for you. The Durnalian was right—you're worthless."
The young man sharply brought his head up, fury etched onto his face. With a lifted hand, he brought his mother up into the air. "I am not worthless," he hissed, quivering.
As she clawed at her throat, she breathed, "Worthless monster." Her body slumped, and he dropped it to the floor.
And then he was rising up off his muddy knees, racing across the slick floor as if he were flying, his saber still clutched in his hand.
Disturbed, angry, confused, sorrowful, he ran through the cave. It seemed to be a never-ending void of darkness, but then he was breaking free of the dark cave's influence, running outside past both Obi-Wan and Yoda, ignoring the words they called out after him.
Eventually, he stopped running. He collapsed onto the ground and began sobbing. He clenched at some mud with his left hand, feeling it slide beneath his fingernails. And then he cried out in pain as his head burst into a vision.
Screaming, screaming, crying out, "No, no, stop, please!" Screaming again.
"Leave her alone!"
A big figure of darkness, quiet, watching, waiting, listening.
"I don't know—don't know—don't ahhhhhh—"
Shrieking, writhing with pain.
Luke gasped as he broke away from the vision. He was on his side, half of his body covered with slimy mud and bits of wet vegetation. Blinking, he was able to make out Yoda and Obi-Wan standing over him. His eyes still burned from his tears, and his heart was still racing.
"Luke?" Obi-Wan questioned, sounding like a concerned father.
Somehow, Luke got to his feet. He wouldn't meet his mentors' eyes. "I have to leave."
"Luke—" Yoda started.
"Han and Leia are being tortured by Vader," he said in a strained voice. His eyes were closed now. "He's doing it because of me. I have to go help them."
"You're almost through with your training, Luke," the human Jedi Master pointed out quickly. "You need to finish your training—if you leave now, you'll be vulnerable to the Dark Side."
"The cave," Yoda emphasized. "Remember your failure at the cave."
"I know I failed," Luke whispered. The experience was still vivid in his mind—indeed, how could he ever remove that terrible picture from his head? "Kreth, Master Yoda, you think I don't know?" He was nearly sobbing again but managed to pull himself together. "But I have to go. They're suffering because of me, and I must save them."
"If go now, you do, then forsake all their efforts up to this point, you will," the alien noted quietly.
"I will not turn. I promise I won't."
"You are too close to the Dark Side right now, Luke," said Obi-Wan gently. He placed a hand on Luke's shoulder. "If you go now, then you will end up becoming Vader's servant."
"There's been too much suffering already," the young man said resolutely. "I won't let there be any more."
But there was a dark glint in Luke's eyes, and Obi-Wan Kenobi found himself very much reminded of Anakin Skywalker.
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His mind was made up, and the two Jedi had no choice but to see him off. They gave him words of wisdom as he departed, but they suspected that their advice fell on deaf ears.
"He was our last hope," Obi-Wan sighed, watching as the boy raised his shuttle into the air.
"No. He goes to rescue our other hope." Yoda looked at the other Jedi grimly.
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Author's Note: I regret to say--there's just one more chapter after this one, and then an epilogue. But thank you for all the feedback you've given along the way. :)