Chapter 18

Polis Massa Outpost - Medical Facility

Luke and Leia found Obi-Wan with Han and Chewbacca waiting in the corridor. Han looked decidedly bored, and Chewbacca was grumbling about being hungry.

"Well?" Han asked. "What's goin' on?"

Leia and Luke looked at one another, shaking their heads in amazement.

"It's just incredible," Leia replied at last with a smile. "He is completely healed; you'd never know he was ever injured."

"How come he had to wear that get up anyway?" Han asked.

"I was actually hoping Ben here might be able to fill us in on that," Luke replied, looking at Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan had realized that it was only a matter of time before the question was asked.

"We were just on our way to the refectory," Obi-Wan told the twins, avoiding the question for the moment. "Care to join us?"

"Sure," Luke replied. "I'm starving."

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"So the surgery was a success," Han said.

Leia nodded. "Yes, it's like he's a different man."

"Is he?" Han challenged. "Just because he doesn't look like Vader doesn't mean he isn't Vader."

"He still has far to go," Obi-Wan spoke up. "But he is definitely showing signs of abandoning the Dark Side."

"I agree," Leia said. "He's not the same person he was. And it isn't just the physical changes; he's changing on the inside too."

"Ben, what happened to him?" Luke asked.

"I told you all about his fall to the Dark Side, Luke," Obi-Wan replied, sipping a cup of tea.

"Yes, we know all about that," Luke replied. "I mean, physically. What happened to him that he was forced to depend on artificial means in order to survive?"

Obi-Wan felt his stomach tighten in anxiety at the thought of answering Luke's question. How do I tell them the truth without making them hate me?

"When your father chose to become Palpatine's apprentice," Kenobi began, "one of his first…assignments was to go to the planet Mustafar, a violent, volcanic planet in the Outer Rim. I went there to confront him," he continued, deliberately leaving out many of the most horrific details. "And we fought. It was a long, grueling fight. Your father was enraged, totally immersed in the Dark Side. He had spent the night killing, and his blood lust had driven him mad with rage. It was a terrible fight; your father was like a brother to me; but I had no choice but to defend myself, to try to destroy what he had become."

"What about our mother?" Leia asked. "Did she know what had happened to him?"

Obi-Wan hesitated before replying, realizing that he would have no choice but to tell Luke and Leia the whole, horrifying truth.

"When I found out about Anakin's atrocities, I went to your mother. I thought perhaps she would be able to tell me where she was. I did not know that they were married- no one did. I told her what had happened, how he had turned to the Dark Side, how he had helped Palpatine slaughter the Jedi; but she refused to believe it. She loved your father so deeply that she could not believe he would do anything so evil. After I left her, I knew that she would immediately go to find Anakin, and she did. I had hidden on board her ship, knowing that she would take me straight to him. When he saw me leaving her ship, your father believed that Padmé had betrayed him, that she had brought me there to kill him."

"You used Mother to get to Father?" Leia asked hotly. "You put her in that kind of danger knowing what he was like? What he had become?"

Obi-Wan was silent, having no answer for her question. Yes, he had used Padmé to find Anakin, with no thought to her safety.

"I suppose I did," Obi-Wan replied at last, his eyes cast down to the cup of tea sitting before him. "But I was desperate. You have to understand; your father had just murdered hundreds of younglings at the Jedi Temple! He was a tremendous danger to the galaxy, an enemy of the Republic!"

"And our mother was expendable?" Luke asked his blue eyes cold as ice.

"Of course she wasn't!" Obi-Wan replied. "I didn't mean to imply that she was! It was the only way to find Anakin, and if I had to find him, we had to do our best to stop the Sith from taking control of the galaxy."

"But you didn't stop them," Luke pointed out. "The emperor has been in power for my entire life, and our father was there at his side!"

"You still haven't told us what happened on Mustafar," Leia remarked. "What happened to him that resulted in injuries so terrible that he needed to wear that mask in order to live?"

"Well, as I was saying, your father and I fought," Obi-Wan continued. "He got cocky, as he was often prone to do, and made a jump over a river of lava to reach me on the other side. While he was airborne, I …I used my lightsaber and incapacitated him."

"Incapacitated how?" Luke asked.

"His legs, below the knees," Obi-Wan replied, the memory of Anakin's screams of pain still echoing in his mind, "his flesh arm below the elbow. He fell onto the shore, and within moment the heat from the lava …ignited his clothing. He was engulfed in flames within seconds."

Luke and Leia were speechless, too horrified to react. Leia reached over and took her brother's hand for support, and noticed that he was trembling as much as she was.

"And you left him there?" Luke asked, his tone accusatory. "Left him there to burn to death?"

"Yes," Obi-Wan replied. "I didn't have the heart to kill him. Perhaps that makes me a coward, but your father was like a brother to me, I couldn't do it. Believe me, I have lived with the guilt of that day for the past twenty years; don't for a moment think that it didn't break my heart to see him become what he did. I loved Anakin like my own brother; it ripped my heart out to have to try to destroy him. But what choice did I have? He was a murderer; he even turned on your mother, and may have killed her had I not been there to stop him!"

"You're lying!" Leia cried at this point. "He would never harm our mother! He loved her more than anything! He loved her so much he sacrificed his soul to save her!"

"Yes, that is true," Obi-Wan replied calmly. "But when be believed that she had betrayed him, he snapped. He reached out with the Force and tried to choke her…I saw it with my own eyes! If I hadn't stopped him, he may have killed her. I hate to have to tell you this, truly I do; but you don't seem to understand the circumstances in which I found myself. Your father was a monster, a heartless killing machine. I was the only one left to try to stop him. And all I ended up doing was making things worse," he concluded sadly.

Neither Luke nor Leia were able to reply at this point; the emotions that Obi-Wan's story evoked within them prevented it. The tragic senselessness of it all was what hit them the hardest. Their father had sacrificed everything, everything; and what did it all come down to in the end? He had lost the very One he had sold his soul to protect.

"I…I can't deal with this right now," Luke stammered, standing up. "This is too much to handle." He looked at his sister, sensing that she felt the same way. He held out his hand to her. "Coming?"

Leia nodded and stood up, putting her hand in his. She wiped an errant tear with the other hand as the two of them left the table without another word.

Obi-Wan watched them leave, feeling the anguish that he had suffered on that terrible day so long ago all over again, the pain of it just as fresh.

"Quite a story," Han commented. "You know I remember Anakin Skywalker," he added. "When I was a kid, he was the biggest hero around. We all wanted to be Anakin Skywalker when we grew up. What a waste…such a damn waste."

Obi-Wan nodded. "Yes, that is exactly what it was," he agreed. "A terrible, tragic waste."

Imperial City- Coruscant

Emperor Palpatine had read the report from the late Governor Tarkin so many times he felt as though he had it committed to memory. The details of his apprentice's betrayal were still so shocking to him that there were still moments when he thought he would awaken and find that it had all been a terrible dream. But it was no dream; Vader was gone, he had defied his master, and aided a known enemy of the Empire to escape the Death Star. Not only that, he had absconded with the rebel band that had come to rescue her!

Palpatine knew all the details, he had read the reports of Vader's act of sabotage, of treason, of insubordination; but he was still puzzled by one simple question: why?

Why had he risked everything to save a haughty Alderaani princess who had been a thorn in the side of the Empire since before her eighteenth birthday? Why had he chosen her life over his, for there was no doubt that Vader realized he was risking execution for his treasonous actions. Why? Compassion was not the way of the Sith. Darth Vader was a Sith, of that Palpatine had no doubt. He knew the blackness of the Dark Lord's heart; knew the emptiness of his soul. So why would he be moved to save the life of someone who offered nothing in return? An enemy? A mere child? A mere …child?

Palpatine suddenly felt a hammering within his decrepit old body as his heart began to race. Padmé Amidala was carrying Anakin Skywalker's child when she had died…or so it seemed….Was it possible that her death had been a ruse to fool Vader and his master? Palpatine's sinister mind raced as he thought of the possibilities; if the offspring of Anakin Skywalker had indeed survived, that child would pose a grave threat to the Sith; such a threat that she or he would have been hidden away, concealed so that Vader would never know she existed. Was Leia Organa that child? Was that the reason Vader had done everything in his power to protect her? It made sense- in fact it was the only logical explanation that Palpatine could conceive of. Darth Vader was not a man prone to compassion or mercy; his cold-bloodedness was well known throughout the galaxy. What he had done on the Death Star was unheard of, illogical, and completely out of character for the Dark Lord. They were not the actions of a Sith; they were the actions of a father protecting his child…

Palpatine stood up from his throne and walked over to his computer terminal. He brought up the Imperial intelligence network's file on the Princess Leia Organa. A holographic image was part of this file, and this was what he was most interested. He had only seen Leia Organa in person once in his life, and that was when she was a young girl. Now she was a young woman. Looking at her image now, he was astonished to see the resemblance she bore another young senator Palpatine had once known: Padmé Amidala.

"So, Lord Vader, it seems you have learned the truth after all these years," Palpatine muttered with a frown. "And now you have found your child." He considered his options for a moment, and then a smile formed on his gruesome face. You will pay for your treachery, Vader, he vowed silently as an idea formed in him mind. You will pay with the thing you love most, and you will learn the price of betrayal.