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It's hopeless, utterly hopeless for the Rebellion. An attack that was supposed to end this war went about in the worst way possible, as the Empire had somehow figured out the Rebellion's plans. Worse yet, Darth Vader and his master have captured Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia Organa.
Looking out at the vast expanse of space is a welcome sight for Leia after being forced to watch the same news holo playing up the Empire's crushing blow to the Rebellion. It's a pretty weak move from Vader, as seeing the holo doesn't make Leia feel defeated. She knows that the Rebellion isn't over, and there'll still be a war to fight. If anything, Leia only feels angry at this attempt at torture, and her anger hasn't subsided as she stands in the Emperor's viewing room on the Imperial Star Destroyer.
"So, who talks first?" she questions sardonically to the only other people in the room. In her peripheral, she sees the dark figure of Darth Vader walking to her side. The Emperor doesn't appear to be moving from his chair. Old man's too fragile to get up anyways.
"You'd be surprised at what I am capable of, Princess Organa," the Emperor quips, mockingly spitting out the word princess. It stings a little for Leia, as she's a princess of nothing, but she's more preoccupied with the fact that the Emperor's reading her mind.
"Why'd you bring me here?" she asks, shrugging off her concern over the Emperor's mind-reading. She thinks more carefully, however.
"What do you know about the Force, Princess?"
"Enough."
The Emperor cackles lowly. "No, young Organa, you do not. Because if you did, you would have already seized the power within you."
Leia scoffs, "This is ridiculous."
"You are strong in the Force, just like your father."
"My father is Bail Organa, and he never had the Force."
"No, your real father."
Leia knows he's referring to her birth father. She's known that she is the adopted daughter of Bail and Breha Organa and the secret daughter of the late Padmé Amidala, but she's never known who her birth father is. Not that she cared to know, as the little information she learned about him cemented him as the person who betrayed her birth mother and therefore someone who wouldn't care about Leia. She’s certain that her birth father is not a Force-user.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Emperor Palpatine.”
“You are quite stubborn, Princess, just like your father.”
“Whom you know nothing about.”
“On the contrary, Princess,” the Emperor rises from his chair and creeps his way to Leia. She turns her eyes away from the stars and to the Emperor. Leia won’t give him the satisfaction of her being too afraid to look at him. “I’ve witnessed your father grow from a weak Jedi to my most powerful apprentice.” He trails his eyes upward beyond Leia, and Leia follows his line of sight to Vader, still as a stage.
Leia laughs. It’s not an amused laugh nor a joyful one, but it’s a bitter one that has an empty ring to it.
“Why are you laughing?” the Emperor spits.
“Do you expect me to believe that?” A wicked grin appears upon Leia’s face, “I think watching that damned holo again would be less of a waste of time than this.”
Leia can see it in the Emperor’s eyes, that spark of annoyance, and it feels good to see it. Then the Emperor chuckles lowly, and Leia feels a wave of pressure fill her head like water in a container as the Emperor disappears with the room.
It feels like forever and also a minute as Leia sees the visions of Padmé Amidala during her final moments. She could almost feel the heat of Mustafar as Padmé tries and fails to get through to her love and the father of her child, Anakin Skywalker. Leia wants to cry out as Anakin suffocates her mother, but the cry dies in her throat just as Mustafar fades away.
The weight of what she’s witnessed forces Leia to her knees. Her mind inevitably connects the dots - Padmé was her mother, Luke said that Anakin was his father, and he and Leia both know that Anakin is Darth Vader.
“This is a trick,” Leia protests, but the words are not spoken with any conviction.
“No, daughter, this is enlightenment,” Vader says, his heavy hand coming down upon Leia’s shoulder.
Suddenly, what feels like a burst of energy runs through Leia. She slaps Vader’s hand away and stands up to face him. “You had me tortured,” she seethes, “You destroyed my home!” Leia reaches her hand out and pushes Vader, who barely budges. “You could never be my father!”
Vader grips Leia’s wrist, and there’s a tense pause. His grip is crushing, but he probably doesn’t notice, more machine than man. “Search your feelings, Leia, you know it to be true.”
Leia doesn’t want to search her feelings, but she can’t ignore the pull at her heart that comes with hearing an unwanted truth. “What do you want from me?” she questions through gritted teeth.
“Join me, daughter. You and I have the power to bring the galaxy to order.”
“Never. Not under tyrants like you and the Emperor.”
Leia swears that Vader’s mechanical breath sounds like a sigh, “Very well. Perhaps I could convince you, then.” Vader spins Leia to a nearby monitor showing various types of maps. Leia sees several blinking red dots on the radar map. “It was no trouble finding the remnants of your petty Rebellion. Soon, they, too, will know the true might of the Empire like your fallen comrades.”
He’s not bluffing, as the maps indicated that the ships are headed towards the system the Rebellion was to go in the event of a retreat. If she listens closely, Leia can hear the low chatter from the comms of the Imperial ships and the conversation about the ships’ proximity to the Rebel forces. They’re close, but not enough that the Rebels can see them.
“I’m sure those Rebels are in no condition to fight, so eliminating them will be an easy task. However, I can put a stop to it if you join me.” He lifts his hand to tuck a strand of Leia’s hair behind her ear, and Leia wants nothing more than to break off his stupid hand.
“Like you’d give up the opportunity to destroy the Rebellion.”
“I would to have you by my side.”
The words ring hollow to Leia. He had his chance twenty-three years ago. She narrows her focus on the comms chatter. Joining Vader would do nothing good for Leia or the Rebellion. The last time she gave them Empire what they wanted, her planet was destroyed. However, the Imperials are getting closer and closer to the Rebels.
“I won’t join you,” she says anyway. The Rebellion might forgive her for not stopping this attack on the few troops left, but they will never forgive her for betraying them for Vader and the Emperor.
“I suggest you reconsider, young Organa,” the Emperor remarks snidely.
“Or what?”
With a flick of the Emperor’s wrist, a door in the viewing room slides open with a mechanical whoosh. Escorted in a swirl of the Royal Guard’s red are Luke and Han. Leia’s heart drops when she sees their appearance and knows that they weren’t watching news holos.
Leia almost asks what they’ve done to Han, but it doesn’t take a Force-user to know. The answer for Han is obvious with the streak of blood running down his temple and from the scar on his chin that someone decided to re-open. When Leia sees this along with the swelled black eye and red skin that suggests a burn, she knows that they’ve been torturing him, worse than they did to him at Cloud City. Luke looks comparatively better physically, yet he still has the same fatigue as Han that brings him to his knees. There’s a faraway look in Luke’s eyes, and he doesn’t seem to acknowledge anyone’s presence. Leia keeps her eyes on him, hoping he’ll notice her, but the longer she looks at him, the more Leia feels an unbearable feeling in her, like she is being emptied. So, Leia looks away, shutting in the hot tears that dare try to escape her.
“What did you do to him?” Leia asks, her voice hitching.
“The Force is our greatest weapon,” the Emperor croaks.
Finally, Luke’s eyes lose the glassy gaze. “Leia!” he calls out when his eyes flit to her. Luke tries to stand, but the Royal Guard clamps a hand on Luke’s shoulder and shoves him back down.
Leia spins to Vader. “You let them go now” she demands. A hopeful part of her mind thinks that Vader would be willing to free his son at least.
“Join me, daughter, and they can live for now.”
“Daughter?” Luke echoes quietly. Leia looks back at him, and the two lock eyes. At that moment, everything seems to fall into place for Leia. There’s always been something about Luke to Leia that made her feel as if she’d met him long ago, even though she was a princess on Alderaan and he a farm boy on Tatooine. She knew that he was still on Cloud City; she heard his call to her. Leia realizes that she doesn’t need Vader’s words or the Emperor’s Force projections to know that she’s a Skywalker. All she needs is to look at her brother.
Han begins to weakly chuckle, “You really think she’d believe that, Vader?”
“No, he’s right,” Leia says, as much as she hates to say it. She would gladly have Luke as a brother, but she still doesn’t want Vader as a father.
Han looks at her as best as he can. “Leia, he has to be-“
“He’s not lying, Han,” Luke interrupts. “Just trust us.”
Han closes his mouth, looks back to Leia. The look in his swollen eyes is not one of disgust because she is the daughter of the second most evil man in the galaxy, but it is one of concern, because he knows what Vader has done to Leia.
“Your friends are already weak, Princess. I wonder how close they are to breaking,” the Emperor threatens, looming closer to Leia.
Leia looks at Han, then at Luke. The three know that the Emperor’s threat may not come to fruition if Leia joins his side, and a nod from Luke gives Leia her answer. “I won’t join you.”
The sneer from the Emperor is briefly satisfying. “Fine.” He gestures his hand to his guards. “You know what to do,” he states with a crooked smile.
Faster than it took for the Emperor to give the command, the Royal Guards lift up their activated force pikes and ram them into Luke and Han’s backs. The two fall to the floor, convulsing from the pikes’ painful stun settings. They try to hold in their screams, but it’s only so long before they break. Without hesitation, Leia begins to run to them, only for the Emperor to hold her back with the Force.
It all becomes too much for Leia. She can hear everything at once- Luke and Han’s screams, the Emperor’s maniacal cackle, the crackling of the force pikes, Vader’s mechanical breathing, the chatter of the Imperial comms. Through all of that as well, Leia hears a buzzing like that of a swarm of insects. She wants to do something - cry, scream, hyperventilate until she suffocates - but all she does is close her eyes. Then, she feels something trying to reach out to her.
So, Leia reaches out.
All of the noises stop when a loud snap sounds. Leia opens her eyes, and she sees the heads of the Royal Guards are backward as they slump to the ground. Luke and Han stare with wide eyes at the fallen bodies, and whether their twitches are from shock or the stun of the force pikes is unclear. Leia doesn’t exhibit that same shock, nor does she even feel it. Instead, she feels fascinated. Instead, she feels powerful.
So this is what the Force is like.
The Emperor laughs with a glee uncanny for someone who just lost two of his guards, “Good, Leia, you’ve truly-“
The Emperor doesn’t finish that sentence, as he finds Leia holding her father’s lightsaber to his neck. “This is over.” The Emperor chuckles again. “Stop laughing,” Leia commands, and with the Force, she clamps the Emperor’s mouth shut and tightens his throat.
Leia’s so enraptured with watching the Emperor’s face turn blue that she doesn’t see his hand rise until it’s too late. She practically flies backward, hitting the floor at the end of her flight. Vader’s lightsaber is no longer in her hand, having returned to its owner while Leia fell. Leia struggles to get up, acutely aware of the sharp pain in her spine, but then the Emperor moves to her with a speed she never knew he could reach. He grabs Leia’s head by her hair.
“Do you want to see what I’ve been doing to your brother?” he questions, whipping Leia’s head so hard she thinks her neck might snap like the guards’. Leia locks eyes with Luke, who is also trying to stand. Then, Luke goes rigid, but not by his own choice.
“No no no…” Luke manages in a whisper. His chest heaves, and his eyes glaze over as he screams a cry that Leia has never heard from him. Han clambers over to him, calling out Luke’s name, but he can’t snap Luke out of this. Leia feels Luke’s agony coming off in waves, and she thinks she can feel what he’s experiencing, as her head feels like it is splitting apart slowly. Leia looks over to her father, hoping to see some kind of reaction to this torture his children are enduring, but he has none, remaining as an obsidian obelisk detached from this situation. Vader has no plans to stop this, but Leia does.
“I’ll join you!” she cries out, her voice so loud it echoes in the room. Just like that, the pain stops, and Luke goes limp, barely caught by Han.
“Say that again,” the Emperor requests.
This time, Leia tries to make a show of it, hoping that the Emperor will be more merciful. She fumbles to one knee and bows her head. “I’ll do whatever you ask, just let them go.”
“Leia, no!” Han cries out as he stumbles to Leia. But Leia holds out her hand, and Han has no choice but to stop in his tracks. “Leia, look at me,” he pleads. Leia doesn’t, though, because it’ll only make the pain of what she’s doing worse.
“I pledge myself to you.”
The words seem to bring a change in the room’s pressure. Speaking these words instills the knowledge to Leia that she won’t be coming back from this. She’s given up her cause, betrayed the Rebellion, abandoned her friends and family, but she did it for them, not for herself. Who else has turned to the dark side for the same?
“Good,” the Emperor croons. He lifts up his hand, holding his comlink. “Escort Captain Solo and Commander Skywalker to an escape pod.”
The doors open again, and four Stormtroopers enter to take Luke and Han away.
“Leia, don’t do this,” Luke begs, weakly attempting to fight off the Stormtroopers trying to grab him.
“Stand up, Leia,” Vader orders, “say your goodbyes.”
Leia obeys and looks onto Luke and Han. They drag their feet as the Stormtroopers begin to take them away. She wants to look away upon seeing the hurt and confusion in their eyes, but she will show no fear, no regret, now.
“Don’t do this,” Luke repeats. “Come back to us, Leia.”
Leia clenches her jaw and swallows hard. Again, she reaches out to the Force, relaying one last message to her brother and to her lover.
I’m sorry. I love you both.
They both got that message, as Han struggles more in the Stormtroopers’ grips and Luke becomes more frantic. They’ve both realized that Leia’s choice is final. “Leia! Leia!” Luke cries out, a desperate attempt to get through to her, before he’s dragged out of the room and the doors cut off the sound of his voice.
The silence that follows afterward is overwhelming, but it ceases when Vader orders the Imperial troops to cease their attempt to attack the Rebels.
“This is the first time you’ve followed through on your promises,” Leia jokes, even though nothing is funny now.
“We know when to make a compromise, daughter,” Vader quips, and he again rests a heavy hand on Leia’s shoulder. His touch is like pins and needles to Leia’s skin, and she feels the need to reach out to the Force.
So, she reaches out again.
Vader goes up into the air and with him the Emperor. They struggle to call upon the very power that suspends them right now, and Leia relishes in their struggle. She wasn’t going to show fear, and this isn’t fear. This is anger. This is power.
And soon enough, that power ends when the Emperor calls upon his Force lightning and strikes Leia. She collapses to the floor, the shock paralyzing her, and Vader and the Emperor manage to land gracefully to the floor.
“Young Skywalker,” the Emperor begins, calling Leia by a name she has never claimed for herself, a name that sounds so foreign in this moment, “you clearly have much to learn. However, you are on the path to becoming a powerful Sith, like your father before you.”
And she will be a powerful Sith, Leia resolves. So powerful that she will overthrow her father and the Emperor, and she will end the Empire once and for all. The Rebellion and Luke and Han may never accept that she turned to the dark side, but Leia will not beg for their forgiveness or understanding. All that matters now is that she will keep the ones that she loves safe, no matter the cost.
“I will not fail you,” she promises, but not to the Emperor.