Luke wiggled his fingers and toes, shifting a few centimeters to relieve the sharp pressure of the rock pinned against his shoulder. He took some small comfort in the realization that his appendages seemed to be working. He blinked some of the dust out of his eyes and turned his head as far as he could in the direction where he had last seen his sister. She was in slightly better shape than him, having ducked down before the cascade of falling rock buried them. She was seated in an air pocket between two boulders, her hands tucked behind her neck in last desperate attempt to protect herself from the landslide.
"You okay?" Luke croaked, coughing out brown spittle.
"You mean other than being trapped under ten tons of rocks?" Leia responded with a weak smile. "I suppose so." She squinted to get a better look at him. "You're stuck."
Another rumble sounded above them, sending down a shower of pebbles.
"We've gotta get out of here," Leia said, her eyes wide as she shifted into a tight crouch. "Let me…"
"No." Luke saw her closing her eyes to concentrate. "Leia, using the Dark Side to get us out of here won't accomplish anything."
"Don't be stupid, Luke," Leia snapped back at him as the rocks above shifted again. "You'll die. We'll both die."
"I'd rather die that have you claimed by the Dark Side," Luke said simply. Leia stared up at him, tears in her eyes.
"Not like this," she whispered. "Please, Luke, let me. It can't end like this."
He gave her a warm smile, gasping as another small tremble pressed one of the boulders tightly against his foot. "It won't. Here, just let me help you." He closed his eyes, concentrating on her presence and the Force all around them. Though it appeared barren, even the Tatooine desert was teeming with life, and Luke felt the power all around him. He heard voices, simultaneously right next to him and impossibly far away. "Trust the Force, you must, young Luke." With a slight tremble, the rocks above him began to lift, enough to free his arms. Leia reached up and grabbed his hand, watching in wonderment as beams of sunlight began to penetrate their rocky prison.
"Help me," Luke said to his sister, squeezing her hand as he opened his mind to her. He could feel her struggle, fear still trying to drag her into the abyss. "You can do this, Leia. Find your courage." She straightened her shoulders, looking into his eyes as she took a deep breath and buried her terror, letting her power in the Force join with his. Together, they carefully sent the rocks tumbling harmlessly down into the canyon.
Luke used his arms to push himself up on top of the rock pile, tripping slightly from exhaustion as he knelt down to pull Leia up behind him.
"Let me." Luke turned around, seeing Solo standing behind him. Relieved, he stumbled down the slope towards the ship as Solo lifted Leia to her feet, offering a hand as they tripped along down after her brother. As they reached the canyon floor, he swiftly picked her up, ignoring her protests as he followed Luke at a dead run towards the Falcon.
"We're not out of the woods yet, sweetheart," he said, setting her down on the bench in the lounge unceremoniously before he tore into the cockpit. "Luke, you're on the quad lasers. Chewie, see how much power you can divert to the shields." Shuddering, the ship lifted slightly and Solo zipped away down the canyon.
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Vader, or Anakin, he wasn't really sure anymore, took a deep breath, trying to rid himself of a crushing headache as he guided his shuttle in a beeline for the Imperial flagship. His intended flagship, he thought bitterly for a moment, before realizing that he simply didn't care. None of this mattered. The power, the ability to strike terror into the hearts of even the bravest men and women with his mere presence: it was never what he wanted. It was just a consolation prize, and a terrible one at that. It had cost him his family, any possibility of ever being happy. He hardly recall what happiness even was.
He'd made so many mistakes, losing his mother, losing Padme, losing Leia. He laughed bitterly as he thought about how Luke had saved his life. The boy only stopped Leia from killing him because he hadn't had the chance to get to know Vader. Had he been more familiar with his father, he probably would have helped Leia carry out her execution.
He sank into the familiar comfort of despair, the pain that had sustained him for so long.
Then he felt a ripple of terror tremble through the Force. He recognized the presence of his children, again in danger. He gripped the controls of the shuttle, considering turning back, when he sensed a bright light enveloping the twins. Love.
First it was a tiny spark, and then the power grew like sunbeams at the start of a summer day. Anakin thought of Padme, the smile on her face as he caressed her belly, feeling the life….lives…within. He thought of Shmi, holding him in the middle of the night and stroking his hair as they slept. For a moment, he found himself intensely jealous of his children. He knew he was undeserving, but he wanted to feel that again, to know that someone cared so deeply for him.
The star destroyer loomed in front of him. His plan was unchanged since he had taken off from Tatooine, but as he grew closer to the Emperor, the pain and fear and anguish that the old Sith's presence wrought fought back against the transformation taking place in his soul. He couldn't let the Emperor have him again…he couldn't.
"You won't."
He looked up, seeking out the source of the voice. There, in the copilot seat, a glimmering light coalesced, revealing an image of an old man dressed in the traditional robes of a Jedi. "Anakin," he said gently.
"Obi Wan." His face was changed, weathered from years and hardship, but his presence was undeniable. "Obi Wan, I'm….I'm sorry."
"I know." Obi Wan settled back into the chair, gazing ahead at the sight before them. "Anakin, I never stopped loving you as my brother. Never."
"How is that possible?" A lump formed in his throat, and for a moment he wished to be alone. Forgiveness at this point was almost more painful than condemnation.
"Someday you will understand. But that was why I cared for them. I loved you, and I loved your children."
"Thank you." His voice was just a whisper, still impossibly deep through the mask.
"And now we have one last mission."
"I thought you hated flying."
"I do. Especially with you."
"Well, you can feel vindicated this time," Anakin told him. "As you so often predicted, we are indeed going to crash."
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Palpatine stood in the bridge of the Executor, relishing the terror his presence brought to the crew. They were tracking two ships, one containing Vader and one containing his children. Palpatine ordered both to be brought in unharmed, their occupants imprisoned in special cells that the Emperor had designed himself. He had already settled on Vader's punishment- the former Jedi would watch his children become slaves to the Emperor, and then he would die in agony. It was fitting.
He could sense Vader's turmoil as the shuttle grew closer, reaching tractor beam range. The appearance of a child, then children, was unexpected, but Palpatine thrived on the unexpected. He even grudgingly admitted that the Jedi had been remarkably clever in concealing them for so many years, but he had won in the end. As he always did. He stepped up towards the viewport as the tractor beam activated, swinging towards the small shuttle.
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Anakin found himself slightly amused that while Obi Wan was already dead, beyond the reach of any possible danger from a space battle, he still gripped the armrests as Anakin juked the shuttle downwards, whipping up to escape the grasp of the tractor beam and zooming in closer to the hull of the enormous ship. He shifted power to the shuttle's shields, expecting a barrage of blaster fire, but none came.
"So he's trying to capture me now," he muttered. He dodged to the right, zipping under the massive ship and reappearing on the starboard side.
Obi Wan chuckled. "I dare say you're enjoying yourself." Concentrating, Anakin didn't respond, but shoved the throttle forward to send them into a stomach wrenching drop. He checked the shields as he pulled hard around to face the star destroyer head on.
"Vader!" Palpatine's voice echoed in his head, and Obi Wan looked at him with concern. "Come to me, now."
"Yes….master," Anakin spat out, reaching up to shift the shields to the front of the shuttle as he accelerated towards the bridge's viewport.
"Doesn't that thing have shields?" Obi Wan asked, sounding surprisingly nervous for a ghost.
"You underestimate me," his one-time apprentice responded as they drew closer. "It's just the bridge shield we need to think about now."
"Just? I doubt there's enough fire power on this thing to even scar it, much less take it down."
"Master Kenobi," Anakin responded reproachfully, "Aren't you forgetting something?" With an invisible smile behind his mask, Anakin pictured the schematics of the ship. It was intended as his flagship, and he insisted on being deeply involved in its development. Most of the engineers and designers assumed that his constant oversight was based on his mistrust of their work, but in fact he simply enjoyed the puzzle of matching metals to systems to wires. And now he knew exactly where he could make a small adjustment that would send the Empire collapsing like a house of cards. There. Using the Force, he pulled away the power source for the shields, taking a nanosecond to enjoy the sensation of anger, betrayal, and fear boiling off the Emperor before his ship plunged through the viewport, annihilating the bridge in a burst of flames.
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"Father," Luke mumbled, watching out the viewport for any enemy fighters as they dashed through the canyon. He wondered briefly if he should offer to help fly, having traversed this territory at highly unreasonable speeds many times before his departure for the Rebellion. He shivered with a brief chill, and then felt a warm presence wrap itself around him before fading away.
"One down!" he heard Han crow through the comm system. "Not sure what happened, but that big mother is going down!"
"We still have two more to worry about," Luke reminded him tersely, wondering how exactly Solo intended to get them out this time. Then, quietly, he whispered, "thank you, Father."
As the enormous Super Star Destroyer foundered, the vacuum breach to the bridge creating pressure differentials that began splitting the hull, the other two disgorged TIE fighters towards the surface.
"Looks like they've changed strategy," Solo reported. "Incoming."
In the lounge, Leia was leaned against her mother's shoulder, breathing deeply as she too felt the lingering shock of her biological father's death. Bail sat on her other side, stroking her hair gently.
"Could use another gunner!" Solo called back to them. Bail stood.
"Daddy, I can do it," Leia said, pushing herself up.
"Not on your life," Bail responded sternly.
"I'm a better shot than you!" she argued, refusing to sit as the ship rocketed around another bend in the cabin. Bail looked desperately at Breha, who shrugged.
"She's right about that," his wife said. With a victorious grin, Leia slipped off into the gun turret while her parents joined Chewbacca and Solo in the cockpit.
The TIEs swarmed downwards, unloading blaster fire into the canyon as the Falcon raced forward. Their aim was hindered the narrowness of the cliff walls, but they still managed to land a few hits, rocking the freighter as it reached the mouth of the canyons and lifted up over the edge of the Dune Sea. Solo tipped the Falcon up to give Leia a better shot at some of their pursuers, and she expertly took down three of them, the explosions slowing the rest of the wing.
"Hold on," Solo shouted as he pointed the Falcon upwards, heading for space. The star destroyers spotted his move and started to maneuver to intercept them, forcing Solo to double back towards the surface.
Luke picked off two TIEs as another squadron of fighters appeared, forming up to surround the Falcon and push them towards the star destroyer.
"Kriff," Solo muttered, "They're boxing us in." He made an adjustment to the shields, using the cockpit lasers to waste a TIE bomber that came screaming from above.
"Luke," Leia whispered into her headset, "They're going to capture us." Shaking, she pushed herself out of the gun turret and ran for the cockpit.
"I can get us out of here," she said hysterically, as Luke came bursting in behind her.
"What are you going to do?" he asked her suspiciously.
"I can move those destroyers. I can get them out of our way." Her voice was high pitched, almost falsetto as she spoke, her hands trembling violently.
"Leia." Luke put his hands on her cheeks, gently bringing her around to face him. "Remember. You can't use the Dark Side."
"I can't just let us all die! I have to!"
"No one wants that, Leia." Luke looked deeply into her eyes. "I'd rather die than see you fall to the Dark Side."
"Me too," Breha said, squeezing Leia's hand.
"And me," Bail added.
"And me." Leia looked over at Han, surprised.
"Hey, we all gotta go sometime, right?" Chewie grunted in agreement. "I don't know about this whole Force thing, but if the Dark Side is the problem the Emperor has, seems like that might be worse than getting killed."
Leia slumped into her brother's arms. "Okay."
"Besides," continued Solo. "This baby had a few surprises left in her." Without warning, he gunned the engines, bringing them around the Star Destroyer and hovering close to the hull. The TIEs followed in quick pursuit.
"You're going to try to outrun them?" Leia said incredulously.
"Nah, I know a little secret," he told her. They dove back down towards the surface, the TIEs on their tail.
Leia and Luke headed back to the gun turrets, picking off as many of the pursuing fighters as possible. "These guys are good," Leia said as a TIE dodged her rain of blaster fire, "Maneuvering those things in atmosphere isn't easy."
"How do you…oh right," Luke responded, hitting a fighter in the wing and sending it spinning into one of its companions. "Wonder where we're going? I suppose we just have to trust the Force."
"The Force, and Han Solo," Leia added.
They were gliding over the Dune Sea, the TIEs buzzing around like sandflies as Solo guided the Falcon expertly towards his secret target. Bail peeked over his shoulder, seeing nothing but sand. He pressed his lips together, hoping the captain did indeed have a viable plan.
Suddenly a complex of buildings appeared over the horizon, rough and dusty from the elements. Solo took a deep breath and pressed the transmitter to identify his ship as they approached.
"Shelter?" Breha asked skeptically.
"Not quite," Solo responded, diving straight for the main structure.
As if on command, a gun emplacement rose out of the ground and began spraying heavy fire all around them. Solo charged the tower, pulling back and straight ahead into the sky as he nearly smashed into the guns. The TIEs behind him, though skilled at atmospheric flight, were expecting neither the sudden ground fire nor the change in trajectory. As more gun emplacements popped up out of the sand, the TIEs rained down, melting the sand into glass as they exploded on the ground.
"What the…."Bail watched their pursuers fall as they sped away towards open space. "How did you do that?"
"Courtesy of our friend Jabba," Solo responded smugly. "I just hope he realizes who he inadvertently helped out there before the Empire shows up to blow him to slag."