Chapter 11: Luke

The first time an adult Luke Skywalker set eyes on his twin sister, he assumed she was an angel or a goddess, a dream from his past come to life in the flesh. Except, she wasn't any of those things, not in the psych ward of the Coruscant Center Hospital with a five inch gash trailing from the base of her palm to the middle of her forearm and the sickly sweet scent of bacta clinging to her skin.

However, as far as infatuations went, he was instantly hooked and there was no undoing it. It was only logical that he would invite her to live with him. After all, he was her only living family, she had few friends, and Etti Durasha, the nearest thing to a mother she'd had, had passed away two years before.

They traded life-stories, small gifts, and as the days wore on, more and more affection to make up for years of missed closeness. Luke felt moved to unprecedented acts of kindness. He promised to take care of her, to protect her. He advocated on her behalf with the Emperor and obtained funds so that she could attend university. In the privacy of his small apartment, he began teaching her how to use her Force abilities and fight Echani-style. He knew his feelings for her were strong when she dared to accuse the Emperor of terrible things and he wanted to believe her. The profound sense of isolation and emptiness that had plagued him through his youth and teen years lifted. He felt whole.

One day during an Echani training session, Leia came down hard on top of him. The straps of her thin shirt fell over her pale shoulder and strands of hair spilled free from her temples. She'd laughed giddily because she'd nearly overpowered him for the first time. On impulse, he'd caught the back of her head and kissed her. Unlike other women Luke had known intimately, Leia was inexperienced and naïve and the sensation of his lips against her own had so shocked her that she had frozen all over like a snared creature. She'd mumbled something about being desperately thirsty, extricated herself and fled for the kitchen.

He'd lain on the floor alone and hungered for a trembling body that begged for his touch without ever forming a single, solitary word.

Afterward they didn't speak of it, but deep down, Luke knew she had been waiting for it to happen, dreaming like a schoolgirl that it might happen and like him, now she was caught in the same moment of wrong/right and something else, something far more seductive. He was a tightly wound coil of sexual energy and power and now her scent, the undertones of her voice, the feel of the skin on the back of her hand, all these things consumed him. The inevitable transpired during another of their sparring sessions. Again. And again. Sparring became more like foreplay, the sex a ritualised submission.

Eventually they shared a bed without pretense and acknowledged what it was that they were doing. They discussed leaving Coruscant and seeking a far away world where they could live as lovers openly but the thorny issue of how to extricate himself from the Emperor's service plagued him and the Emperor refused to release Leia as his ward which meant she had intergalactic travel restrictions imposed on her that were second only to those imposed on paroled criminals and could never leave Coruscant.

It was summer when Luke's orders to report to the Imperial Royal Guard Academy on Yinchorr arrived. Leia pleaded with him not to go. That was the year that the planetary Wildlife Commission convinced Weather Control Network to begin the Coruscanti summer early in order to boost the number of eggs lain by the native hawk-bats. Luke missed the extended summer and the next. The long year of training was gruelling. Memories of his sister sustained him.

When he returned from Yinchorr, no sooner had he disembarked from his shuttle on the Emperor's skyhook than a messenger had approached him with his first official assignment. It had been blessedly simple, a straight hit on a man guilty of funding the burgeoning rebellion. The target met him in the underbelly of Coruscant; he'd been tricked into believing he'd be meeting with a false identification supplier. Luke extracted no useful information, killed him precisely as detailed in the message, and then dumped his body in a gutter.

Only later did he learn that the man was Iolu Praji.

Naturally, he was jealous and angry upon learning she'd taken another lover but he reasoned that she would turn to him for comfort and then everything would be as it had before he left. She didn't. Instead, she refused his offers of comfort and touch and withered away, a pale figure within the shell of a body. He tried to be patient. A month had passed. Then two. Then three. She was still his angel, his goddess, his Leia but she sleepwalked through day to day life and wept when he couldn't see her. She claimed that he'd changed on Yinchorr and it had hardened him. The Emperor told him she would betray him eventually, that she was as deceptive as she was beautiful. He gave him holograms showing her and Iolu Praji making love and talking about leaving Coruscant.

Something in him had snapped. It was never the same between them after that.

"Protector Skywalker?"

"Hm?"

"His Majesty is ready to see you."

Slowly, Luke turned away from the windows overlooking Coruscant, aware of the lower guardsman's nervousness. The Emperor did not like to be kept waiting by his insubordinates. Luke smiled with a touch of superficial charm and motioned for the guardsman to lead the way.

The Emperor's chambers were dark and smelled disconcertingly sweet, like sickness. The Emperor was dying.

It was poison. There was no antidote and no way to reverse the degenerative effects. During his meditations, Luke marvelled that Palpatine had not rooted out the dark malignancy within himself. He assumed that the drugs' initial effect – forgetfulness, disorientation – struck before Palpatine was aware and could see to prevent further damage. Now, feeble-minded and confused, the aging regent was unable to concentrate long enough to heal himself. The Dark Side did not lend itself to healing.

"My boy…"

"Yes Master."

"Have you uncovered anything?"

Luke's sole assignment over the past month had been to investigate the source of the poison, but so far all leads had turned up nothing. At least, those he had interrogated had had little to reveal, even under the pain of torture. They either provided information which was inaccurate, or died swearing they knew nothing. "I'm still searching."

"And your sister? "

"My sister?"

"She's coming to dinner?"

The Emperor was lost in time again. "She'll be here," Luke lied, smiling reassuringly.

"You must not allow your feelings for her to prevent you from your duty. Your father was the same way. Conflicted, easy to manipulate. His feelings for your mother made him weak… in the end."

"You said he died a hero."

"Yes." Palpatine was smiling, almost childishly, his hairless, mottled skin paler than the silk of his pillow. "Yes, that's correct."

Luke wasn't sure what it was he had just uncovered, a lapse in the Emperor's recollection, one more sign the end was near. Palpatine, ill, paranoid and fearful of power-mongering, had dissolved the Imperial Senate. Soon the Imperial Ruling Council would remove him from power and Luke had little doubt they would be easy to control. Eventually.

Then he would become Lord Skywalker. Luke mused over the possibilities as he stepped outside the Emperor's bedchamber. A slight figure darted from the shadows of the corridor.

"Luke?"

"Roganda."

"Have you asked?"

Roganda's desperation had aged her a decade. The birth of her son several months ago had been long and difficult. She'd lost a great deal of blood. On that day, Luke had received one of his most distasteful assignments to date. He'd visited a local medcentre and procured a male child that had been born with a fatal heart condition from the morgue. It had only been dead for an hour and its body was still limp. They knew Roganda needed to see a body. He was the one who had had told her that the son had died.

Still, she didn't believe them.

Luke sighed. "He doesn't know what day it is today."

"If he dies it will be too late. I'll never know what happened to my son."

"You do know," he replied gently. The temptation to tell her the truth was strong. Once the Emperor was gone, when the time was right, Luke would bring her son out of hiding. Then she would become a powerful ally.

"I don't believe you," she said, under breath.

Luke watched her walk away with her head lowered and wondered how much of her current state was an act. If Roganda had somehow managed to poison the Emperor without his knowing, she was more powerful than he had ever imagined. Never underestimate the wrath of a mother separated from her child. He would keep an eye on her for the time being.