Galaxies Apart
Forty Four
YOU WILL KILL DARTH VADER.
The lightsaber slipped into him so easily and quickly that the first notion the others had that Mara Jade had done it, finally obeyed Palpatine's last command, was the green blade emerging from Vader's central chestplate.
By then, it was too late.
"NOOO!" Ben Skywalker screamed, as Vader toppled to the floor below.
Ben's own saber was ignited an instant later. Face contorted with hatred and a lust for instant revenge, he leapt into Mara Jade, his blade sweeping around in a decapitating swing she could never hope to parry.
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Two hours earlier
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"Warning," that maddeningly calm computer voice spoke up once again, "temporal disturbances appearing in immediate vicinity. Time displacement effects may be experienced within station interior."
No-one was particularly taking that in. No-one was doing much of anything, including breathing. They had just watched a Death Star's superlaser blast impact them dead centre…and yet…
"We're alive," Luke whispered, and then, as his words penetrated even to himself, "we're alive?"
"You don't hear me complaining," Han said. He was leaning against the nearest command console for support, his heart thumping so loud in his chest he was convinced that was what the Imperials had been able to lock onto.
"How? How in the worlds?"
"The station absorbed the blast," Jacen said slowly. "It must have redirected it someh…" he felt his mouth go dry as he glanced upward, "…look!"
The holo above their heads displayed the greatly enlarged portal and, slowly but surely moving toward it, the massive bulk of the Death Star.
Only now did everyone seem to realise that with all the certain death they'd been convinced they were facing, the various weapons they had pointed at each other were still primed and ready. Despite this realisation, none of the weapons were lowered.
"Oh come on," Han threw up his hands in disgust at seeing this. "Didn't we just leave this party?"
"Nothing's changed," Jacen replied coolly.
"Oh, really?" Han said, sarcasm fairly dripping from every word. "That's weird. I could have sworn we're looking at going from us going back in time to save the galaxy to an Imperial Death Star travelling back in time to blow the timeline and any hope of the Rebel Alliance ever resurrecting itself all to hell. Or did I miss something?"
Luke lowered his saber, deactivating its blade with a flick of his finger. "He's right," he told Jacen. "Situation's changed. We have to stop the Death Star from going through that portal."
After a second's hesitation, Jacen's blade swooosshed back into nothingness also. Chewie and Mara likewise lowered their weapons. There was a look that passed between the human and the Wookiee that suggested this would not soon be forgotten.
Jacen raced to the main console, spinning dials. They saw immediately that something was wrong. "I can't get the station to resize the portal," he said, looking worried, "that superlaser blast dumped trillions of joules of energy into its systems. Pumping it into that portal out there was the only thing that kept us from disintegrating. If I stop it or make it smaller…boom."
He was holding something back. Luke reflected without much satisfaction that he was getting to be something of an expert in detecting that. "What else?"
Jacen licked his lips. "Even with the portal draining the excess power…there's still way too much energy being conducted through the systems. This whole place is gonna come apart sooner or later…probably sooner."
Han grabbed his tool bag and nodded to Chewie, who slung his bowcaster. "Well it's been educational, but it sounds like it's time to skedaddle, ladies and gentlemen," he said briskly.
"If the station is going under, this will be our only chance!" Jacen said desperately. "We're not going to get another shot at this!"
"We don't need another shot," Han replied calmly. "We need to be the only ones who go through that portal."
He nodded to the holo of the Death Star with a casualness he didn't even come close to feeling. "And that means removing the competition before it gets there."
"Take out a Death Star? In two ships?" Jacen asked incredulously.
"Got a better idea?" Han countered immediately, raising his eyebrows at his son. When no response was forthcoming, he spread his hands in triumph. "Didn't think so. So let's go. Hangar bay, now. All of us. Goldenrod, you gonna keep up?"
"Master Solo, I am a protocol droid, not an athlete! I could not possibly-!"
"Fair enough," Han said equitably. "Chewie?"
"What are you doi-aaagh! Unhand me you hairy oaf!" Threepio squawked indignantly as Chewie scooped him up and cast him over his shoulder effortlessly, as if the droid were a robotic damsel in distress. The ceaseless complaints about this being an outrage were soon silenced with a dextrous flick of a finger to the 'off' switch on Threepio's upper back.
While the others hurriedly packed their meagre belongings in preparation for the trip back, Luke approached Jacen once more.
"That portal isn't pointed at five years ago anymore, is it?" he asked quietly.
"No."
"Let me guess. You can't change it."
"Right," Jacen agreed, throwing his backpack containing his sleeping mat over his shoulder. His saber hilt was still hanging by his side. He met Luke's accusing gaze with not a waver. Clearly Luke didn't believe a word of it, but just as clearly Luke hadn't a hope of gaining the technical know-how with the control consoles to prove anything in the time they had remaining.
"This isn't over," Luke promised him, as they gathered the last of the equipment.
"No," Jacen agreed, sadness suddenly evident in his voice. "But it's getting close to the end. Can't you feel it?"
Casting one last look at the wonders of the control room they'd called home these last few days, Jacen turned on his heels and began to jog in the direction of the hangar bay.
Luke followed, the others alongside him, wishing fervently that he didn't share Jacen's feeling. The end was coming, in one shape or another, and he was sure of only one thing: that not everyone among them would be there to see it.
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90 minutes later
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"A ship…" Luke panted. "There's a ship…docking…"
They had been running for some time. Chewie was in the lead, his long and measured Wookiee strides eating up the distance, his breathing measured and controlled. He looked as if he could keep this up all day.
Luke and Jacen were next. Luke had kept himself in excellent shape these past five years and was satisfied with his fitness, but he knew that without the Force to assist him he would be struggling. By contrast, Jacen seemed to be enjoying the exertion.
Trying to show how good you are? Luke wondered. Trying to make me think twice about pulling a saber on you again, is that it?
Han, Mara and Artoo were bringing up the rear. Artoo would never have been able to keep up had the terrain been anything but polished metal; as it was, he had simply utilised his twin manoeuvring thrusters to propel him along, rotating them ninety degrees so they were horizontal. They weren't massively powerful, but they provided enough speed for him to keep up without problems. Luke spared a moment to wonder why Artoo didn't seem to use them for vertical flight as some astromechs did.
Han and Mara were feeling the pace, undoubtedly, but both were receiving assistance they did not even realise was there. Luke had attempted to reach out to Han's mind and body some time ago to boost his stamina and relieve some of his fatigue, only to find a Force presence already occupying that position – Jacen's. Content to allow the son to help his father, Luke switched his full attention to Mara. He could do the same for her…but being Force sensitive, the option to assist without her even realising it did not exist the way it did with Han.
He sensed her pride and her independence flare up instantly at his gentle inquiry, as he made his intentions plain to her. He expected her to recoil and rebuff his offer, but after a moment where she seemed to weigh up her options, he was surprised to find her stepping aside mentally, allowing him some small measure of access to do what he needed to do in order to aid her.
Thank you, he said silently, as her pace quickened and her breathing eased.
In this way they had covered the considerable distance between the control room and the hangar bay in remarkable time. Having travelled this route only a short time ago, Luke recognised the final few twists in the corridor that signalled the end of their journey…and when he did, he and the others had heard the unmistakable sound of retro rockets firing.
"It's the Empire…" Han replied, gasping for air, but somehow managing to increase his pace even as he unholstered his blaster, "…gotta be. They'll cut off our escape route. We have to…get there."
Less than a minute later, the entire group finally came to a halt in the hangar bay. As Han had feared, an Imperial shuttle was just coming to rest on the deck, its twin ventral fins completing their switch to dorsal positions.
"Get ready!" Han shouted, taking aim at where the entry ramp would soon open. Chewie stood with him, his bowcaster at the ready. "Here they come!"
"He's here…" Jacen murmured. Luke felt his young companion's Force presence ratchet up in intensity to a massive degree. Puzzled and curious, Luke extended his mind questioningly into the shuttle's interior, intending to discover how many stormtroopers were-
Luke.
His mind recoiled in surprise.
I've waited so long for this.
Two Force presences? Two Jedi? And one of those presences…Luke took an involuntary step back and his fingers found his lightsaber reflexively…one of them contained the blackest hatred he had ever felt in a living being.
Hatred directed squarely at him.
The ramp descended, and the shuttle doors hissedopen.
"Now!" Han shouted, squeezing off a few covering shots with his blaster as Chewie did the same with his bowcaster, the bolts peppering the entranceway to the shuttle-
-at least, that was what both had intended.
What happened instead was that Han's blaster and Chewie's bowcaster both leapt from their grasp, flung far across the hangar bay floor, hopelessly out of reach.
"What the hell!"
"I'm sorry, father."
Han turned to Jacen, not believing what he had just heard. "You did that? Why?"
"Because this isn't your fight," Jacen replied.
Two figures dropped from the shuttle, no more than fifteen feet from them.
Ripples of shock went through all assembled. The nightmarish visage of Darth Vader was known and feared throughout the galaxy, of course, but it was his companion that caused Han, Chewie, Mara, even Artoo, most astonishment.
The snap-hiss of Luke and Jacen's lightsabers flaring into life was simultaneous.
"You…" Luke hissed at Vader.
"You," Jacen hissed at Ben.
"Son," Vader returned.
"Nephew," Ben returned.
Han felt an all-too-familiar sensation of his head spinning. He could have sworn, for one crazy minute, that he had heard Darth Vader call Luke Skywalker-
"What did you call me?" Luke choked, advancing on the Dark Lord, his saber drawn. "What did you say?"
"I called you son," Vader replied. He made no attempt to move, to draw a weapon of his own. He did not even seem to possess a lightsaber.
"You killed my father."
"No," Vader said it as if it were the simplest thing in the world. "I am your father."
"It's true," the doppelganger of Luke said, stepping between the advancing Luke and Vader as if to block off the attack that was surely forthcoming.
"And just who are you meant to be?"
"Your clone."
"My clone?" Luke's mouth twisted in a savage smile. "Is this meant to be some kind of delaying tactic? Some sick joke? Is this the best the Empire can come up with? You even called him nephew," he continued, indicating Jacen, who stood silently, saying nothing. "How is that possible?"
The other Luke smiled. It was not out of kindness. "Because she was your sister."
Luke seemed to stop, for just a second, before shrugging it off with a laugh that sounded somewhat less sure of itself. "So let me recap here. Darth Vader is my father. Leia was my sister. And I have a clone. Who's my mother? Chewie?"
"Search your feelings. Ask the Force. Learn the truth," Vader spoke up.
"I don't have to!" Luke snarled back, again gesturing at Jacen. "He's from the future! Do you honestly think he wouldn't have told me if any of this were true?!"
And there it was. The moment when Luke Skywalker's entire universe turned upside down. Han Solo felt it, as clearly as if he had been a Jedi himself. Saw it in Luke's entire body. And in that moment, despite the presence of the most feared man in the galaxy only a few feet away, Han Solo found himself fearing for Jacen for one simple reason.
Luke Skywalker was going to murder him.
Luke turned to face Jacen, his blade turning with him. Jacen was still silent. Luke took a step toward him, and another. His hands were shaking, Han saw. The blood had drained from his face.
"So tell me," Luke said, too quietly. "Tell me it isn't true, Jacen."
"I'm sorry, Luke," was his reply. "I wanted to tell you. I really did. I begged Master Yoda to allow me to tell you, but he wanted to-"
That was as far as he got.
As Luke hurled himself at him, shouting incoherently, Jacen was forced to back-pedal frantically, his saber flashing this way and that. Luke's blade seared and soared through the air, a humming, glowing ribbon of vengeance hellbent on burying itself in Jacen Solo's body and extinguishing his life forever.
"You lying, cheating, little bastard!" Luke was screaming, tears of anger streaming down his face, sheer fury fuelling his attack as he drove Jacen back. Jacen was surviving, but only just.
Han's blaster was still more than a hundred feet away across the deck, sent there by Jacen himself. Han saw Chewie tense his immense Wookiee frame, ready to launch himself at Luke. His mouth framed a desperate cry of no, for despite his terror at the danger to his son's life he knew with a terrible certainty that in his single-minded determination to murder his opponent Luke would surely slice the Wookiee in two without a second thought.
Rescue came from the least likely source Han could have imagined.
"Enough," Vader intoned.
He extended his gloved hands toward the combatants. Taken by surprise, Luke and Jacen found their lightsabers ripped from their grasp. Both whipped through the air and landed in Vader's grip, deactivating themselves along the way. He clipped them securely to the belt that formed part of his suit.
Red-faced with anger and exertion, Luke was not about to let a little thing like being disarmed distract him from the task at hand. He launched himself physically at Jacen, fully intent on getting his hands around his throat…except he never got there. His body simply paused in mid-flight, his outstretched hands flailing at nothing, before like a puppet with its strings cut he promptly crashed to the floor.
When he got to his feet, Vader was standing before him. Luke's white-hot rage finally deflected itself to a new target.
"Get the hell away from me," he snarled.
"You need time," Vader told him. "Unfortunately…ironically…that may be one thing we do not have."
"Luke…" Jacen tried again.
YOU WILL KILL DARTH VADER.
Mara, until now performing her customary role of stepping back and scanning events unfolding with a keen eye for spotting when danger was threatening to come her way, pressed her fingers to her forehead. The command had been resurfacing in her subconscious since the Emperor ripped himself from her body. She had hoped Palpatine's death would have stopped the words from spiking through her mind – if anything, they had gotten stronger.
No-one noticed her discomfort.
YOU WILL KILL DARTH VADER.
I am not your slave, she forced herself to respond. Her words sounded weak and distant next to the towering presence of the Emperor. He was laughing at her. He found her pretence of free will amusing. He always had.
Luke and…the other Luke…were shouting at one another now. The words reached her ears, but not her brain; they were swallowed by those five all-encompassing words repeating over and over, over and over, over and over and over and over and over and over-
Han had edged over to Chewie. He spoke to his partner in a low voice. Chewie growled a reply. Han spoke two words. With a final, reluctant growl, Chewie backed off from the scene unfolding before him, towards the Millennium Falcon.
YOU
"No!" she said.
WILL
"No," she repeated.
KILL
"No…" she begged.
DARTH
"Please, no…" there were tears in her eyes, mocking laughter in her mind.
VADER
She was trained to be invisible. Her Force powers were weak compared to those she shared this hangar bay with, but in one area – blending to the background – she could hold her own. It was this talent she used now, calling the Force to her, extending her hand.
One of the lightsabers clipped to Vader's belt was in her grasp a second later. The Dark Lord of the Sith, one of the most powerful men the galaxy had ever known…never noticed.
"You did this?"
"He did this," Jacen confirmed. He was standing alongside Luke now, facing Vader and Ben. "He destroyed everything. He's the reason for all of this. For Leia's death. For Jaina's. For Yavin IV."
"Why?"
"Because I hated you," Ben told him, defiantly. "All of you. I hated your perfect lives and your heroic deeds. I despised the New Republic and all it stood for. I wanted to spare the galaxy from its weakness."
"Enough," Vader said again.
"Who are you to tell me to-"
"I am your father," Vader reminded him. "I will not allow you to bait yourself into a fight you will deliberately lose."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because you want to die," Vader told him, as if it were the most plainly obvious fact in all the galaxy.
"I can help him with that," Jacen promised.
"Revenge is not a Jedi concept, is it, nephew?"
Jacen shrugged. "This entire timeline is about to be overwritten like it never happened. A little bit of revenge on a monster like him won't even matter."
"And what of me?" Vader asked.
"You?" Luke spat. "You're the biggest monster of all!"
"No…" Jacen turned to Luke, "…Luke, you don't understand. Darth…Anakin…grandfather…he came through for you. As things were meant to have happened. He turned on Palpatine – killed him. For you. To save you."
"It's true," Ben said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.
"If I can do that," Vader went on, "how can you be so certain that Ben is a monster?"
"This is crazy!" Luke burst out. "All of this! It's crazy! I can't deal with this – any of it!" he pointed a finger at Vader, "You should never have come here! You were my hero my entire life! My dead, heroic pilot father! You should have stayed dead-"
It was at that moment that the green blade spurted forth, slicing clean through Vader's chestplate like it didn't exist.
"NOOO!" Ben Skywalker screamed.
Vader stood transfixed for a moment, before the blade was removed and he crumpled to the deck. Smoke was already rising up from the scorched electronics burning through the huge hole straight through his body.
Mara Jade, her entire body trembling, was left standing holding the lightsaber.
Ben's own saber was ignited an instant later, freeing itself from Vader's belt and finding its way to his hand. Face contorted with hatred and a lust for instant revenge, he leapt into Mara Jade, his blade sweeping around in a decapitating swing she could never hope to parry-
She didn't have to.
In tune with the Force, Luke had sensed Ben's intent. He pushed Mara with his mind, sending her sprawling out of range of the murderous swipe. Even as she tumbled, Luke was reaching out, plucking his own lightsaber from her hand and returning it to his own…just in time to block the first of Ben's attacks.
"She…killed…my…father," Ben said, each word accompanied by violent lunges with his saber and with the Dark Side of the Force as his emotions raged unchecked. "I want her…dead."
"Han! Get her out of here!" Luke called, trying everything he had to stop Ben's advance. His clone had a good twenty years experience over him and was using every bit of that advantage to press Luke into retreat.
Han dragged Mara to her feet and began leading her to the Millennium Falcon. At Han's urging, Chewie had already reached the ship a few moments before; the roar of the sublight engines start-up sequence ripped through the hangar bay.
He was surprised to find Jacen helping him with Mara. Looking back to the battle raging between Luke and…well, the other Luke, Han was horrified by how easy it was to tell the two apart now; you simply had to figure out which one was winning the duel, and winning easily by the looks of it.
"Aren't you going to help him?!" he shouted to his son, over the roar of the Falcon's engines.
Jacen's eyes were conflicted, he saw, but his son shook his head. "He wants to stop us, Dad!" he said. "We don't have time! The galaxy depends on it!"
"But he's going to die!" Han protested, his instincts telling him this was wrong.
"We all will if we don't get out of here!"
With a roar of anger from behind them, Ben lifted his progenitor into the air using the Force and flung him viciously aside like a ragdoll. Han, Jacen and Mara were almost at the Falcon's entranceway now. Han's eyes widened as he saw Ben gather himself to make one of those crazy Jedi leaps-
-blaster bolts peppered where he stood. Chewie, good old Chewie, was using the Falcon's underside blaster. Somehow Ben was able to spin that damned saber of his quickly enough to deflect every single bolt that went his way, but by then they had reached the ramp. Sanctuary was only seconds away.
"Die," Ben rasped.
He twisted his lightsaber around and deflected a blaster bolt. Han and Jacen had time only to watch as it rebounded from the blade and with deadly accuracy struck Mara Jade between the shoulder blades. She went limp in their arms. Han dropped to his knees, trying to get her to stand.
"Leave her!" Jacen was screaming. "She's gone! Leave her! We have to go! NOW!"
"We have to-" Han tried to respond, but a touch from Jacen to his forehead made his vision blur, his arms and legs turn to jelly. His son was able to heave Mara Jade aside and drag his father the rest of the way into the Falcon's interior.
"Chewie, get us outta here!" Jacen hollered. Ben Skywalker was charging for the Falcon at full speed, closing the distance with terrifying ease. He sprang into the air, leaping for the still-open entranceway before it closed-
"Stay here and burn," Jacen told him.
Blue lightning shot from his fingertips, catching his uncle's clone on the chest, reversing his momentum and throwing him back to the deck of the hangar bay. Seconds later, the Falcon had risen into the air, its thrusters firing into life. Before Ben could pick himself up, it was gone through the magnetic field and into space.
A shadow fell across him.
"Remember me?" Luke Skywalker said brightly, and kicked him. Hard. Ben doubled over in pain.
"Get up," Luke said, backing off. Ben did so. They circled each other.
"Your friends left you behind," Ben observed. "To die, here. Alone."
"You destroyed my life. Stole my destiny. Murdered my sister. Killed Mara Jade."
"She killed my father."
"Your father?" Luke smiled. "He may have been mine, fine; I'll accept that. But yours? How can a freak like you even have a father?"
"I'm going to enjoy killing you all over again," Ben promised him.
Sabers flashing, they came together for the final battle.