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Han’s voice over the comm was barely audible over the crackle of static. “—can keep scanning, but the interference is pretty strong.” Leia heard a faint growl in the background. “Chewie thinks it’s some kind of magnetic thing.”
“In the atmosphere?” Leia asked, frowning. “We didn’t pick up anything like that on our way down.”
“I was there, remember?” Even the distortion of the comms couldn’t entirely mask the annoyance in Han’s voice. “Whatever it was, it happened after you and the kid left the ship. And, by the way,” he added, before another roar of static drowned him out, “if th… … … rking, then we can’t… … ...are here too.”
“What?” she asked, but the interference finally overwhelmed the channel entirely. She cut the link but left the comlink on standby, so that any further communications from Han would come straight through rather than waiting for her to answer it. It was a feature that she rarely used, since most of her trips tended to involve either diplomacy or stealth, both being situations where sudden interruptions would be inconvenient at best and deadly at worst.
This trip, however, was neither of those. In fact, this was more like a trip to the Aldera Museum of Art and History.
“Can we go see the tombs?” she eagerly asked her father, practically dragging him by the hand through the Hall of Wisdom.
Her father laughed. “Easy, Lei-lei. We’ll get there in time.”
“But I want to see it now!”
His pace remained frustratingly slow. “There are things to see along the way, and if you rush, you’ll end up missing them.”
Leia groaned in exasperation. She wasn’t going to get her way on this, and in the meantime was going to have to look at a bunch of old murals instead of something exciting.
She didn’t pay enough attention at the time, Leia reflected sadly. By constantly racing towards the future, she missed too many things in the present moment. The murals that she dismissed as boring when she was a child were nothing but ash now.
So are my parents.
She fought back the familiar howl of grief making its way up her throat: the howl that, if she let it escape, would empty her out until there was nothing left.
Enough. Focus on the here and now.
Remaining stuck in the past would also cause her to miss the present moment.
In this particular present moment, Leia wasn’t the one who was racing ahead, overcome with excitement: that role belonged to Luke, who hadn’t paused for breath since they entered the massive stone structure that, according to him, was an ancient Jedi temple.
To Leia, however, it felt more like a tomb. Silent, motionless, and empty.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was some peril lying in wait for them in this place, but that may have had more to do with the fact that, due to the trouble with the comms, they were without backup.
These days, Leia exited a room only one of two ways: charging out with a do-or-die task ahead of her, or running with a deadly danger behind her.
At least Luke was happy. He had been chasing rumors of places where he could find any remnants of the old Jedi Order to which he was the sole heir, and this was one of the first ones to pay off. Leia supposed that, if there was any chance that something similar survived of Alderaan, she would be just as eager to find them.
It had been only a handful of months since they became orphans: when Luke’s small world and Leia’s expansive one were both destroyed by the Empire. Luke seemed to be handling it better than she was, but she also got the feeling that he was merely avoiding the trauma by masking it behind the thrill of yet another adventure.
Look who’s talking, Princess Repression.
“Leia!” Luke’s voice was muffled by distance; the stone walls here were remarkably good at absorbing any stray sounds.
“I’m on my way!” she called in reply. Following a twisting path of hallways, she found her friend in front of a mural full of images that seemed largely abstract.
“Something’s interfering with our comms,” she said as she joined him. “We probably won’t be able to get in touch with the Falcon again until we’re back outside.” She gave him a pointed look. “So we should probably hurry.”
Luke nodded absently, still staring at the mural. “There’s writing on this, but it doesn’t seem to be in Basic. Look.” He shone the glowrod at an area near the ceiling several meters above them.
Leia squinted to see. The letters, though full of loops and curls, certainly weren’t the familiar curves of Aurebesh, but something about them looked…
“It is Basic,” she said after a moment, “it’s just a different writing system: a variant of High Galactic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something this stylized, though.”
“What does it say?” Luke demanded eagerly.
“Give me a second.” For once, she wished that Threepio was here to help translate. “All right, here’s what I think it says:
Beware the traps that lie ahead:
Your eyes shall blind you,
Your desires shall deprive you,
Your comfort shall injure you,
But trust in the Force
And the maze shall free you.”
“Maze? What maze?” Luke asked with a frown.
“What do you mean?”
“All of the halls here have been a single path. There aren’t any other corridors branching off of it. That’s like the opposite of a maze, isn’t it?”
Leia blinked in surprise. He was right: even though the hallways turned corners in almost random directions, there had only been one route: forward. She thought back to her studies. “I’ve heard of cultures that have something like this,” she mused. “A twisting path that leads to a central point and then back out again. It’s supposed to be meditative.”
“Slow down, Leia!” her father called after her. “You’re going too fast.”
Luke smiled, excitement beginning to overtake him once more. “Meditation. That definitely sounds like the Jedi. Let’s go.”
“Did you miss the whole ‘ominous warning of doom’ part?” Leia asked incredulously. “It literally said that there were traps.”
Luke shrugged and indicated the lightsaber hanging from his belt. “I’m sure we can handle whatever traps a thousand year-old temple can throw at us.”
Leia sighed. “I have a bad feeling about—”
Her comlink was suddenly full of the noise of static, with Han’s voice shouting over it. “—came around the cliffside before they could spot us, but saw a TIE Advanced there—looks like it arrived just before we did.”
She exchanged a glance with Luke. The Empire.
Leia spoke into the comlink, hoping that Han could hear it: “We’re on our way out. Meet us at the backup rendezvous two kilometers from here.” It would be a hike, but better a long walk through the woods than being captured.
“Wait,” Luke said, the color draining from his face. “Did you say a TIE Advanced?”
The realization hit Leia a second later. “Vader’s here.”
“The ship landed by what must be another entrance,” Han confirmed. “I don’t know which is worse: leaving by the way you came in, which is currently surrounded by stormtroopers, or going out the other side and risking a run-in with Darth Vader on the way.”
Something in Luke’s expression hardened. “We’ll take our chances with Vader.” Leia saw him rest a hand on the hilt of his saber. “This is a Jedi temple. He doesn’t belong here.”
Leia wasn’t quite as sure about their chances of survival, but it would be far easier for Han to distract one person—even a one-man-army like Vader—than it would be to distract whatever forces were stationed outside.
Besides, if she was being truly honest with herself, if there was a chance to make Vader pay for his part in the destruction of her homeworld, she wasn’t about to turn that down. “Take care of his TIE fighter if you can,” she told Han. “See if you can draw him out, then run. We’ll still head for the rendezvous.”
“Be careful,” he warned.
“Absolutely not,” she couldn't resist snarking. Shutting off the comlink, she gave Luke a slightly nervous smile. “On the plus side, with that mask of his, we’ll at least be able to hear him coming.”
Luke clipped his glowrod to his jacket and drew his lightsaber. “Let’s go, then.”
“Wait,” Leia said. “Don’t turn it on yet. The noise will make it harder to hear him at a distance.”
Luke looked like he was about to argue with her, but then nodded grimly.
It was difficult not to break into a full run: going unnoticed might be their only shot of escaping, and so they needed to sacrifice speed in the name of stealth.
That feeling of impending peril increased until Leia felt like someone was breathing down her neck.
Breathing…
She stiffened. “Listen,” she whispered to Luke as the sound of Vader’s notorious respirator became audible.
“He’s behind us,” Luke whispered in reply, sounding confused. “But I thought he entered through—”
“Run,” she said, giving him a shove to propel him forward.
There was nowhere to go but forward, their steps pounding against the stone floors, nearly skidding into the walls as they rounded the corners, and always, just behind them, was the steady in-and-out of that horrible breathing.
Torture, loss, all of my nightmares, all of my grief and anger—
It would almost be a relief to be caught again, to not have to run and run and run—
She still ran, turning corner after corner, hoping that there was eventually an escape, eventually a change—
The corridor was getting lighter.
At last.
They must be nearing the exit. With every step, the light grew brighter and brighter.
Wait.
It was too bright. She couldn’t see Luke ahead of her.
“Leia, wait!” her father cried.
She turned one last corner, stumbled—
—and landed face down on the carpet.
Leia groaned, rolled over onto her back, and scowled at the ceiling of her bedroom.
I can’t believe it. I just fell out of my bed like a toddler.
Was it worth it to even try to go back to sleep? She sat up and checked the chrono on her bedside table; no, she might as well get up. She was going with Father to his meeting with the Onderon ambassador today and she was still a little rusty on the planet’s history. She took notes the other day but hadn’t reviewed them in depth yet.
She wasn’t especially surprised to find Father already awake. He was seated at the table in the kitchen, reviewing what were probably his own notes for the meeting.
Leia hadn’t even finished taking a mug out of the cabinet when she heard him say, “you don’t need caf, Lei-lei.”
She ignored him and moved to turn the maker on.
“It’ll stunt your growth, you know.”
She couldn't quite ignore that one. “I’m pretty sure that the ‘being the tallest Organa’ shuttle left the landing bay a long time ago,” she remarked.
“You’re too young to drink that stuff.”
Leia rolled her eyes and turned to face him. “I’m nineteen, Father.”
An amused look appeared on his face. “What?” she demanded.
“You’re not nineteen anymore, Leia.”
“I—” She paused, and then laughed. “I can’t believe that I forgot.”
Her father stood and gave her a hug. “Happy birthday,” he said, giving her a kiss on the crown of her head—a fairly easy gesture, seeing as he towered over her. “My favorite daughter is growing up.”
Leia snorted. “I’m your only daughter.”
“But not my only child.”
“You didn’t say ‘my favorite child,’ though.” She wriggled out of his arms and pushed the mug down the kitchen counter to put it just out of his reach. “Besides, I’m pretty sure you tell Luke that he’s your favorite son.”
“It’s that attention to detail that is going to serve you very well in politics, my dear,” Father said, reaching not for her mug but instead for the caf maker. He pressed the button to turn it off.
“I learned from the best,” she said, shooting him a glare for meddling in her morning beverage plans. “That Senate office of yours is going to need some substantial redecoration once I take over, though.”
Her father laughed. “My little girl turns twenty and suddenly she’s making plans to run against me.”
Leia grinned wickedly. “Oh, I’m pretty sure that won’t be an issue. Chancellor Mothma’s second term is ending soon.”
“That might be a bit beyond my ambitions, though I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“You’re the Vice Chair,” Leia insisted, crossing her arms over her chest. “Everyone’s saying that you’re the strongest candidate to replace her.”
“And I had to be nearly blackmailed into taking the role of Vice Chair, remember?” Her father headed back to his seat at the kitchen table.
She sat down across from him. “If you’re not interested in running for Chancellor, then why are you spending this morning reviewing applications from a handful of individuals known for their successes in running galactic-level political campaigns?”
Father looked slightly chastened. Leia grinned even wider. “I learned from the best, remember?” she asked.
“It’s just an exploratory committee right now,” he protested.
“Well, since you’re working on that, I guess I’ll have to be the one to take the lead in the meeting with the ambassador today,” she said smugly.
He looked up from his work. “Leia, I told you that the meeting was rescheduled for next week, remember?”
She frowned. She hadn’t remembered that. “Oh. I guess I forgot.”
“It sounds like you need a bit of a break.” The look in his eyes was one of mild concern. “You’ve been working far too hard lately.”
Leia sighed. She couldn’t exactly argue with that. Sometimes it felt like she was always in a hurry, running and running, always in one direction: forward.
(These days, she exited a room only one of two ways: charging out with a do-or-die task ahead of her, or running with a deadly danger behind her.)
She started in surprise.
What danger? I’m probably one of the safest people on Alderaan.
“Is Luke up yet?” she asked, dragging her thoughts away from… from whatever that was.
“You just missed him, in fact. He’s out doing his best to give me even more grey hair.”
“All that grey makes you look distinguished,” Leia protested with a grin. She didn’t share Luke’s love of pushing his modified speeder bike to the limits of what the laws of physics made possible, but she did enjoy flying at high speed as well, and felt a small stab of regret at being left behind.
(“Slow down, Leia!”)
Where did that come from?
She stood up again, still feeling a bit disoriented. “I suppose I’ll go for a walk around the estate, then. Hopefully that will clear my head a little.”
Father nodded. “Luke won’t be gone for long, though, so keep it brief. Even if it is your birthday, you’re still not getting a reprieve from your lightsaber exercises.”
Leia blinked in confusion. “My what?”
Faster.
Impatience wasn’t an appropriate quality in a Jedi, but it didn’t stop Luke’s heart from beating in that old familiar rhythm: faster, faster, faster…
Besides, he was at least acknowledging that he was impatient. That was better than nothing, in his opinion.
Not that Ben would accept that as an excuse, he thought with a wry smile; Luke was very familiar with the Jedi Master’s lectures on the value of patience and foresight, usually accompanied by a mildly exasperated look on his face.
But Ben wasn’t here, so Luke let himself indulge in some very un-Jedi-like elation at the thrill of weaving his speeder bike around and through various obstacles, using the Force to anticipate every twist and turn in the maze of Beggar’s Canyon.
(“All of the halls here have been a single path.”)
Halls?
(“That’s like the opposite of a maze, isn’t it?”)
Luke frowned and swerved around a heavy tree branch just in time; even so, a bit of the dense green foliage broke off against his left shoulder and upper arm. He just hoped that it wasn’t one of those trees with leaves that irritated the skin.
It was unlikely, though: the trees in this region of Naboo were almost universally benign.
(Wait, wasn’t I on Tatooine?)
He cut his bike’s speed so that he didn’t have to spend quite as much of his attention trying not to crash. His mind went to some pretty strange places sometimes.
That’s probably what I get for being so impatient: my thoughts get too far ahead of me.
Well, like father, like son, I guess.
Speaking of which, it was time to head back home. Father was probably waiting for him, and if there was anyone in the galaxy even more impatient than Luke himself, it was Anakin Skywalker.
His father, the winner of the Boonta Eve Classic at the age of nine, one of the greatest pilots in the galaxy—and the person who taught Luke everything he knew about flying, the Force, and being a hero.
He sped up again.
Faster. Faster. Faster.
Why sit still when there are so many exciting things to see?
At least today wasn’t going to be the usual routine of training and meditation and chores: it was Luke’s twentieth birthday, and his parents were going a little overboard with the festivities.
Their house at Varykino was going to be mobbed with people soon: his cousins, Auntie Sola, Uncle Darred, his grandparents—even Grandmother Shmi was coming, which was a rare treat since they were the ones who usually visited her on Tatooine. Not just that, but there were even more people coming who, despite not being biological family, were just as much a part of Luke’s life: Biggs and Camie (who were both arriving with Grandmother Shmi), Ben, ‘Soka, Rex and some of the other vets from the 501st, a few of Mother’s friends from the Senate like Bail Organa… Luke was looking forward to seeing everyone, but it was going to be a lot of people.
So maybe some more time by himself was a good idea.
Luke laughed a little. It wasn’t often that he felt like that.
(“There’s nothing here for me now.”)
Why did he feel sad all of a sudden? There was nothing to feel sad about: his life was practically perfect. He couldn’t imagine it being any better, in fact.
To his surprise, Leia was waiting for him when he arrived back at the garage.
“What are you doing here?” he asked as he got off the bike.
Leia scoffed. “Waiting for you. What did you think I was doing?”
“No, I meant that I thought you were arriving later, when the party started.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a skeptical look. “You really think that Mother and Father would let us be anything other than offensively early to our own birthday party?”
Our?
Luke suddenly felt like he was in a daze… as though something had blurred and he was standing in two places at once.
“Are you alright?” Leia asked.
He blinked away the strange sensation and gave his sister a smile. “I’m okay,” he said. “I think one of those branches hit me harder than I thought.”
Leia’s laughter was quickly followed by a frown. “Listen, Father was saying something about lightsaber exercises—”
Luke groaned. “Really? Even today? You’d think we’d get a day off since it’s our birthday.”
“Apparently not,” Leia said wearily. “So we might as well hurry and get this over with. Come on.”
Anakin woke up in the place that he loved more than anything: in bed next to Padmé. His wife always looked like an angel, in his opinion, but especially when she was sleeping. He could watch her like this forever: bathed in morning light and smiling peacefully.
Of course, if she was awake, he could do a lot more than just watch. Fortunately, he had a solution for that: he snuggled up next to her, brushing his lips against the soft skin of her neck, working his way down past her collarbone—
He halted his progress when he heard her laugh. “I was in the middle of a wonderful dream,” she said sleepily.
“So was I,” Anakin said, resting his head on her chest. “I’m still dreaming, in fact.”
“Mmmm,” she murmured, running her fingers through his hair, “I think I like yours better than mine.”
“Just wait: I think you’ll find that my imagination can be very creative.” His demonstration, however, was cut short when she sat up in bed.
“I think we will have to wait, my love,” Padmé said. “There’s a lot happening today, remember?”
Anakin frowned as he sat up. He actually didn’t remember, but it wasn’t like it mattered. “What if we canceled?”
She smiled at him, an expression that still made his heart beat a little faster even after all these years. “I think our guests might be a little annoyed if we did that.”
Anakin emitted a tiny whine of annoyance, though it was really just for show. If the universe arranged itself so that it was just him and Padmé and no one else, he would have been satisfied, but he also enjoyed watching her command the attention of an entire room, and feeling proud (and, okay, also a little smug) that at the end of the day, she was and always would be his. He would always be the one that she chose above everyone else.
“Obi-Wan is probably going to arrive precisely on time, isn’t he?” he asked—more musing out loud than actually asking. They both knew the answer.
“Probably to the very nanosecond,” she agreed, standing up and trying to put her hair into some kind of order.
“Really, the only things that have ever delayed him from anything were a literal war and a Mandalorian Duchess—”
“—and you,” Padmé added.
“Usually for very good reasons!” Anakin protested. “That reminds me: speaking of the Duchess, is Satine coming?”
“Unfortunately, she couldn’t get away from her duties. On the bright side, that means you’ll have Obi-Wan all to yourself.”
Anakin grinned. Sure, teasing his former Master about his ‘girlfriend’ was entertaining, but he liked it better when it was just the two of them: when Anakin was reminded that, no matter what came their way, they would always be the best of friends.
In all the years they had known one another, Obi-Wan had never let him down.
That was why, after successfully rescuing his mother from the Tusken Raiders on Tatooine and telling her that he had fallen in love, Anakin knew who he wanted to tell next.
There had been a slight delay—he’d had to go rescue Obi-Wan on Geonosis first, of course—but once they had teamed up and defeated Count Dooku, Anakin shared the news that he was going to marry Padmé.
Obi-Wan was overjoyed—how could he not be? Jedi Master or not, he was always on Anakin’s side, even if it meant going against the rest of the Order. Anakin never thought that it would be possible to enjoy arguing with the Jedi Council, but it turned out to be really fun watching Obi-Wan stand up for him while shooting down every objection that those stuffy old fossils made, and finally putting all of them—even Yoda himself—in their place.
So, in the end, Anakin got to marry Padmé and stay a Jedi, and then he and Obi-Wan and Ahsoka and Rex and everyone else went to fight the Separatists and ended the war without losing a single battle. Hell, even Maul turning up again was more exciting than anything else: the former Sith tried overthrowing Duchess Satine so that he could take over Mandalore, but Obi-Wan showed up in the nick of time and saved the day (and had to endure an absolute barrage of teasing from Anakin and Ahsoka and Cody about the very dramatic—and very public—kiss that Satine had planted on him after it was over).
After the war ended, Anakin stayed just long enough to see Ahsoka pass her Trials and become a Jedi Knight, and then left Coruscant to spend the rest of his life on Naboo with Padmé.
And everything since then had been perfect.
He didn’t care about or even notice what was happening in galactic politics. He was content to let Padmé do the caring about that for both of them, and since she was always happy, it implied that the galaxy was at peace and all was well.
She opened the window, filling the room with the smell of flowers. With a childhood in the desert and an adolescence spent in the somewhat-sterile halls of the Jedi Temple, being around this much greenery was still a marvel even after all these years.
He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He was amazed that he could breathe so easily.
Why is that a surprise?
In his wife’s arms, he had known nothing but serenity every day for over twenty years.
He couldn’t believe that it was possible for anyone to be this happy. But he was.
He buried his face in her hair, inhaling her scent. “What did I do to deserve all this?” he murmured.
He felt Padmé laugh. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.”
For all of his whining on their way back to the house, Luke was actually pretty excited about lightsaber lessons.
“This time, we go two out of three, okay?”
Leia nodded, though she kept feeling distracted by… by something. She couldn’t figure out what it was: it felt as though she was doing all of this for the first time—which was ridiculous, of course. She and Luke had been trained in the ways of the Jedi since before they could even read.
Their father had handled most of the fundamentals, but as they got older, someone with a little more expertise (well, someone with a little more patience, really) was needed to supplement their studies.
Fortunately, this particular Jedi Master had quite a bit of experience with teaching Skywalkers.
Obi-Wan Kenobi didn’t actually live on Naboo, but he visited with enough frequency that Leia’s parents had set aside a bedroom just for him. He was practically a member of the family.
And yet, for some reason, when she followed Luke into the expansive room where they typically conducted their lessons, her first thought upon seeing the Jedi Master was: he looks younger than I remember.
She fought back a laugh. Obi-Wan wasn’t even sixty yet and his hair had already gone mostly grey—something that he jokingly blamed on their father. “Really, it’s a wonder that I don’t look as old as Master Yoda by this point,” he would sigh with as much mock-tragedy as he could inject into his voice.
“All that grey makes you look distinguished, old man,” Father would always reply with a snort of laughter.
It took quite a few years before Leia and Luke discovered that the galactic stereotype of Jedi involved a reputation for calm and patience, rather than the snotty younglings that their father and his former Master tended to act like in the other’s company.
Right now, however, Obi-Wan was practically the embodiment of serenity. “Before we begin,” he said, “I think some birthday greetings are in order.”
Almost simultaneously, the twins pounced on him. Other than emitting a brief ‘oof,’ Obi-Wan took the somewhat-undignified group hug with mostly good humor.
“What, no presents?” Luke said when they finally released him; Leia gave her brother a sharp elbow to the ribs.
Obi-Wan held up an index finger. “Later. Right now, you need to go through your warm-up exercises.”
As Leia settled into the first stretching position, she felt Luke flick her ear with the Force. She gave him a telekinetic shove in reply.
“Funny,” Obi-Wan remarked dryly, “I had thought that the two of you were turning twenty today, not three.”
“Sorry, Master Obi-Wan,” they responded in unison.
“All right,” he said after another few minutes had passed. “Draw your sabers and start with the first kata for Form III.”
To Leia’s surprise, there was a lightsaber hanging from her belt.
Why is that a surprise?
She remembered making it, remembered the first time she pressed the switch and saw the room around her fill with that comforting blue light, and remembered all of the times since then that she had practiced with it… but she still couldn’t shake the feeling that she had never seen this weapon before.
“Is something wrong, Leia?” Obi-Wan asked.
Leia unclipped the saber and looked at it uneasily. “I don’t really know what to do with this.”
“You place too little faith in your own abilities, Leia,” Obi-Wan said, looking sympathetic and kind as always. “Rather than dwell on your past or worry about the future, center yourself in the here and now. Think not about what you have done or might do, but about what you can do in this exact moment. Do you understand?”
“Yes, General,” she replied, and then froze, uncertain of why she had called him that.
“‘General’?” Luke laughed.
Obi-Wan chuckled. “Well, that certainly takes me back. I haven’t been a General since before you were born.”
Luke was still snickering. “What, are we playing ‘Clones Versus Clankers’ now?”
Leia flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry. I’ve been having trouble concentrating today. My mind keeps going in all kinds of weird directions.”
“That’s all right,” Obi-Wan reassured her. “Perhaps meditation would be a better activity today than saber practice.”
“Or you could finally tell us the story of the Battle of Mandalore,” Luke said, the note of teasing in his voice suspiciously similar to Father’s when he was teasing Obi-Wan about that particular incident during the Clone Wars.
Obi-Wan managed to keep a straight face. “Sit,” he ordered both of them.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Leia steadied her breathing and did her best to clear her mind. The Force was there, all around her, surrounding her and inside of her, binding her together with the entire universe.
(“Trust in the Force, and the…”)
…and the what? There was something she couldn’t remember, something that would make everything clear, something important… if only she could—
“Leia, come on,” Luke said, tapping her on the shoulder. “Mother’s calling us.”
Leia blinked away the aftereffects of her meditation, unsure of how much time had passed. “Where did Obi-Wan go?”
Her brother shrugged. “Probably meditating or calling the Council or something. We’ll see him later when the party starts.”
“Luke,” she said hesitantly as he helped her to her feet, “does anything about today seem weird to you? Like time isn’t moving the way that it should, or like you don’t recognize things that you see everyday?”
He paused and, just for a moment, Leia could see a flicker of doubt in his eyes.
But only for a moment; Luke smiled a little bashfully and shook his head. “Look on the bright side: it might be weird, but at least it’s not boring.”
“I guess.”
“No point in worrying about it now anyway.” He slung an arm over her shoulders as they walked back to the main part of the house. “You know, I always thought that by the time I turned twenty, I’d be desperate to get off this rock… but I’m not.” He laughed softly. “Hell, if we were stuck here forever, I wouldn’t really mind—that’s how happy I am right now. How about you?”
“I… I’m not sure.” Something about the word ‘forever’ had given her a sudden chill.
But Luke was right: there was no point in worrying about it now. She smiled and elbowed him in the ribs again. “I suppose as long as you were here too, I wouldn’t mind that much.”
She heard a woman’s voice from down the hall: “Now where are—ah, I see them coming.”
“Leia fell asleep while meditating,” Luke said.
“I did not!” Leia protested, shrugging his arm off.
“You were snoring.”
“I do not snore!”
“How do you know? You’re asleep when it happens.” They had almost reached the door to the sitting room, so Luke appealed to a higher authority: “Mother, you’ll back me up on this, right?”
The dark-haired woman who met them in the doorway held out her hands in mock-surrender. “I’m going to go ahead and invoke diplomatic immunity in this particular case.”
“Fine,” Luke grumbled. “At least Father can’t use that excuse.”
Leia was once again overcome by a wave of confusion.
Wait, who is she? She isn’t my mother.
No, of course she is: as far back as I can remember, she was there. Beautiful… kind… but sad.
But she was only a dream, nothing but images and feelings…
Leia shook her head to clear away the sudden daze. She was apparently having a very weird day, if her mind was spending all of its energy inventing complete nonsense.
Besides, she was pretty sure that she had never seen sadness on her mother’s face in her entire life. Annoyed, certainly, but never sad. There had never been anything to be sad about. Their lives were practically perfect.
Then why did Leia feel so strange?
The day, like most other days, had passed in a pleasant blur. When he first moved to Naboo, Anakin had been nervous that the lack of missions or battles would leave him feeling bored and unsatisfied; however, being with Padmé had made him so happy that he barely noticed the change of pace.
He wasn’t entirely idle, of course: tonight their house was going to be full of what might be every person Anakin had ever met in his life (well, all the ones that he liked, at least). He was looking forward to it, but couldn’t help feeling just a little bit apprehensive about the whole thing.
While Padmé was off dealing with a hundred little details, Anakin passed the time by tinkering with Artoo in the sitting room. Something in the droid’s treads had never been quite as responsive as Anakin preferred, especially given the number of non-piloting activities Artoo usually participated in. He had asked Artoo at one point if he would prefer to go with Ahsoka so that he could have a little more to do, but the droid declined, opting to stay with Anakin instead. Threepio, meanwhile, had accepted the offer to stay on Coruscant as a permanent part of the Chancellor’s support staff, and by now was the longest-serving droid there.
Not bad for someone I cobbled together out of junkyard scraps.
The sun was setting when Padmé found him. Anakin blinked and looked around, surprised to see that the sun was setting. “Hmm,” he said. “I guess I lost track of time.”
She gestured at the spanner he was holding. “You always lose track of time when you’re working on something.” Her smile chased away any unease he had been feeling. “You should clean up, though: our guests are arriving soon.”
Artoo stuck out his pincers and grabbed the tool out of Anakin’s hand, then left with a cheerful whistle.
Anakin shrugged. “Looks like I’m done cleaning up.” He could have sworn that he had brought more tools, though…
Padmé went to the door to the hallway, apparently looking for someone. “Now where are—ah, I see them coming.”
There was a brief flurry of conversation just outside when Padmé met them in the doorway.
“Mother, you’ll back me up on this, right?” a familiar-sounding young man asked.
Mother?
Padmé laughed. “I’m going to go ahead and invoke diplomatic immunity in this case.”
“Fine,” the boy scoffed. “At least Father can’t use that excuse.”
Father?
Anakin tried to shake off the sudden disorientation, but it only grew worse when a pair of young adults entered the room behind Padmé.
The boy. The girl.
(“The Force is strong with this one.”)
The girl, in fact, was staring at him with a similar expression of confusion, as though Anakin wasn’t the person she expected to see. She looked even more startled to see Padmé, though any further reaction was stifled as his wife enfolded her in a hug.
“My twin suns,” Padmé sighed happily. “It feels like just yesterday you were tiny enough that I could hold both of you at the same time.”
Luke laughed, sounding a little embarrassed. “I bet you could probably still manage it.”
Luke. That’s right. Luke and Leia. Our children.
He had been so anxious during Padmé’s pregnancy, but it ended up working out without any complications at all. Sure, they were both surprised to discover that they were having twins, but now Anakin couldn’t imagine his life without either of them: these two luminous beings that shone in the Force brighter than stars.
“You know,” he said, “by the time I was your age—”
“You were a General and a Jedi Knight and had already married Mother,” Luke recited. “You’ve been telling us that ever since our last birthday.”
Anakin couldn’t help feeling a little petulant. “Well, obviously that’s a sign that the two of you need to catch up.”
“But if we do that,” Leia pointed out with a wicked grin, “then we’ll end up moving out, and you and Mother will be so bored without us.”
“I take it back!” Anakin said quickly, trying to make it sound like a joke, but the idea of his children ever leaving was enough to send him into a brief panic.
He looked around frantically. Where was Padmé?
(“Is she safe? Is she alright?”)
She was fine: she was still standing between Luke and Leia, still looking at Anakin with the same expression of adoration that she always had…
“Come on,” Padmé said, taking him by the hand. “Our guests will be arriving any minute now.”
He nodded and let her lead him out of the room.
Everything was practically perfect.
Then why was it suddenly so hard to breathe?
Leia was honestly surprised that this many people could even fit in their house.
It also seemed like everyone had arrived all at once, which meant that it was nearly impossible for her to be sure that she had greeted every single guest. At least she had found the really important ones: Grandpa Ruwee and Grandma Jobal peppered her with questions about her non-Jedi studies, an all-too-familiar experience that she was thankfully rescued from by the intercession of her cousin Pooja; she spent some time sitting with Grandmother Shmi, who had given her a japor necklace as a birthday gift, accompanied by about half a dozen stories about how it had come into her possession, the process of carving it, and the folktales that related to it; and she teamed up with ‘Soka to ambush Obi-Wan with another hug.
Giggling, Leia made her escape before she could become the recipient of a classic Kenobi Lecture, and nearly crashed headlong into Mother and one of her friends from her days in the Galactic Senate.
“Leia!” Her mother reached out a hand to keep her from falling over; once they had both recovered, Mother gestured at the tall man standing at her side. “You remember Bail, don’t you?”
Senator Organa smiled warmly and shook her hand. “Good to see you again, Leia.”
“I…” Leia didn’t know why her stomach had leapt into her throat. For some reason, she felt like she was waiting for Senator Organa to say more, to say the right thing, only neither of them knew what it was.
Her heart was racing.
(“Slow down, Lei-lei…”)
“Is everything alright, dear?” Mother asked.
“I… I need some air,” Leia said, and hurried out to the balcony.
Now that the sun had gone down, the lake reflected back the warm glow of the lights of the house and the cool glow of moonbeams on its surface.
She wasn’t the only one who had decided to take refuge here: Father was leaning on the balcony railing, staring out over the water.
He turned to look at her; Leia didn’t need the Force to tell her that he was feeling just as off-center as she was.
“Are you alright?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he extended an arm towards her. “Come here.”
She buried her face into his shoulder—well, more like his chest, since whatever height-related genes her father possessed hadn’t passed down to his children—and tried to release her agitation into the Force.
She was supposed to feel safe, she was supposed to feel loved and cared for—and in a way, she was: she had never felt more loved, right here in the arms of someone who had vowed to move the universe itself if it would keep her safe.
But something about it just felt wrong.
“What’s on your mind?” Father asked.
The thing on her mind felt completely bizarre, but she said it anyway. “Do you ever feel… do you ever feel too happy sometimes?”
He laughed. “If I did, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t complain about it.” But something in his words sounded hollow.
She heard a burst of laughter from inside, the loudest of which was from Senator Organa.
(“Leia, wait!”)
“This is all too good to be true,” she blurted out.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that… I don’t think this is real.” She stepped out of his arms. “I don’t think you’re my real father. I think this is some kind of dream.”
She braced herself for her father’s denial… but it didn’t come.
“You’re right,” he said at last. “This is too… perfect.” He closed his eyes, as though trying to hear something from very far away, and actually stopped breathing for a moment.
For some reason, the Force trembled around them and Leia felt a sudden chill.
“Of course,” he said, opening his eyes again. His voice was somehow deeper… colder… and strangely familiar… “Another Jedi illusion.”
The temple.
Leia remembered.
Which meant that… “Vader,” she breathed in horror. “You’re Darth Vader.”
Father—Vader—turned to look at her. His eyes were full of bitterness and anger—and recognition. “I shouldn’t be surprised to find you involved in this, Princess.”
“I don’t understand,” Leia continued, unable to keep from thinking out loud. “I can see why I would want to pretend that Luke is my brother, and why Luke would want to pretend that his father was still alive—”
“His father?” Vader’s expression (it was strange seeing him with expressions) grew confused, though it was still more angry than anything else.
“—but why would you pretend to be Anakin Skywalker?”
“Because I was Anakin Skywalker!” Vader snarled.
“No!” Leia exclaimed, feeling like she had turned to stone. “No, that’s impossible: Luke said that you killed him, not that you were him!”
“More Jedi lies,” he hissed. “Obi-Wan must have told him that, to turn him against me—” He froze. “His name really is Luke Skywalker?”
Leia nodded, her own horror beginning to give way to yet another abyss of fear. “And Padmé Amidala really was—”
“My wife,” Vader finished. He sounded just as reluctant to think about it as Leia did.
Except that she couldn’t not think about it.
I must have imagined it, I only imagined those dreams, I only imagined her face, that isn’t true, that isn’t possible, that—
She clamped her hands over her own mouth to keep from screaming.
“What?” Vader snapped.
No, no, that can’t be, not her, not him, not this—
He pulled her hands away from her face. “Tell me!”
“Then I…” she steeled herself. “Then I am Luke’s sister. We are twins.”
Vader recoiled, letting go of her wrists.
Leia hated this, hated every single part of this, and hated what was about to happen even more: she started crying.
“This isn’t real,” she sobbed. “None of this is real…”
“It is not real… but it is true,” Vader said, finishing her sentence once again. “My children survived…” His top lip curled into a sneer. “And are Rebels.”
“My so-called father is the second-in-command of the Empire!” she spat, her tears vanishing in a rush of anger. “The person who tortured me, who murdered my friends, who held me still and forced me to watch as my world was destroyed!”
“My children are the two brats who are perpetuating this destructive conflict!” he shouted in response. “Who are keeping me from bringing order to the galaxy! Do you have any idea how much I have had to sacrifice in order to—”
“Sacrifice?” Leia yelled incredulously. “Do you have any idea how much you have taken from me? How much you have taken from Luke? Because of you and your precious desire for ‘order,’ you made us both orphans—”
“You are not orphans! You are mine!”
“I would rather die!” Leia screamed.
“What’s going on out here?” Luke asked, joining them on the balcony. “You’re missing the party.”
Leia ran to him. “Luke, we’ve got to wake up! This is an illusion! The mural in the temple said that there would be traps: this must be what it was warning us about—”
Luke took a step back. “What are you talking about? What temple?”
She grabbed him by the shoulders. “Look, I know that this seems real, but you need to remember! If we don’t wake up, then we’re either going to starve to death in the center of the temple or Vader’s troops are going to capture us.”
Vader spoke up. “They have orders not to enter. Places like this are particularly hazardous for anyone without the ability to use the Force.” He gave Leia a glare. “Despite what you may think, I am not reckless with the lives of my soldiers.”
“And I don’t suppose they’d disobey those orders if you happened to vanish for days on end?” Leia asked, unable to disguise the venom in her voice.
“The irony is not lost on me, Princess.”
Luke kept looking back and forth between them as though he was trying to decide who was crazier. “Do we have to deal with this now?” he asked. “Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”
“Luke, please, wake up!” She was actually shaking him by the shoulders now.
“Cut it out!” he cried, wrenching himself out of her grasp. “What’s going on with you? You’ve been acting weird all day, and now you and Father are yelling—”
“Because this isn’t real!” she insisted.
“Your sister is telling the truth, Luke,” Vader added.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Luke said, “and frankly, I don’t care right now.” He fixed Leia with an icy blue stare. “Either come with me and enjoy yourself for once, or stay out here and sulk.” He shifted his gaze to Vader. “That goes for you too, Father.”
It took a few seconds after Luke went back inside for either of them to react.
“That insolent—” Vader snarled. He grabbed the lightsaber from his belt—a saber that Leia was certain had not been there a minute ago. “Fine. If he refuses to break the illusion, then I will destroy it for him.” He charged into the room and headed—not for Luke, as Leia had feared—but for Obi-Wan.
Leia’s first impulse was to intercede and stop Vader’s inevitable rampage, but she managed to hold herself back. None of this was real, she reminded herself.
He swung his saber at Obi-Wan’s head… but nothing happened. The blade never ignited.
With a roar of frustration, Vader pressed the switch again, but the lightsaber remained dormant. He settled instead for trying to club the Jedi Master over the head with the hilt—but his hand was now completely empty.
Obi-Wan turned to him and laughed. “Anakin, what exactly were you trying to do?”
“At least there’s one bright side to this Jedi trap,” Vader snarled. “I get to kill you a second time.” He lunged for Obi-Wan’s throat—
And, rather than getting the chance to strangle the other man to death, found himself hugging Obi-Wan instead.
Obi-Wan released Vader and looked him over with a growing amount of concern on his face. “Anakin, are you feeling alright?”
Padmé appeared at their side. “Ani, maybe we should go rest for a little while.” She took his hand.
Vader sprang back, yanking his hand out of her grasp. “You betrayed me!” he shouted in his wife’s face. He looked wildly around the room. “You all betrayed me!”
“Ani,” said an older woman whose weathered features were serene even in the midst of Vader’s apparent meltdown. “My son, tell me what’s troubling you.”
Vader reacted as though he had been slapped. “Stop this! None of you are real!” He turned the full force of his rage on Luke. “Why are you perpetuating these lies? I order you to wake up and cease this torture!”
Leia dragged Vader by the arm over to the side of the room: everyone else might be an illusion, but Luke was not and it might be possible for something to hurt him. The rest of the gathering turned back to their conversations, including Luke, who was now in the middle of an animated discussion with Biggs Darklighter. It was as though none of it had happened.
And, in a way, Leia herself wanted to pretend that none of it had happened.
But it was too late. Now that she knew the truth, she couldn’t unknow it.
“If we know that it’s not real,” she wondered out loud, “then why can’t we wake up?”
Vader was still glaring at everyone around them as though he wanted to incinerate the entire room. “Apparently we all need to break free of it, or none of us can.”
Leia saw Luke run over to a Togruta woman and practically tackle her with a hug that nearly knocked her over, and heard Vader’s harsh inhale of breath. “You know her?” Leia asked.
“My former apprentice. I—” Something caught in his throat. “These are all my phantoms.”
“Not Biggs,” she said bitterly, “though I’m pretty sure you’re the one who killed him.”
“No doubt for a good reason,” he grumbled.
Leia thought back to earlier. She had woken up on Alderaan, but somewhere along the way it had shifted to Naboo (in fact, her outfits had slowly shifted throughout the day as well, from pajamas to workout clothes to a dress suitable for a party like this). Given Luke’s stories about stunt piloting through the canyons on Tatooine, his part of the illusion had likely started there. “Our three fantasies must have merged into one… yours probably pulled ours in, which is why so much of this is familiar to you and not us.”
“Unsurprising,” Vader said with an arrogant sniff. “My powers in the Force are far stronger than the two of yours combined.”
“Well, congratulations: apparently your phantoms are so amazing that Luke prefers them to us.” She turned to him with a sudden spike of fury. “You had all of this,” she snapped, “all of these people in your life, all of this love, and you threw it away? For what?”
“That is none of your concern.”
“So I guess we’re going to be trapped at this stupid dream party until we die,” she muttered. “Great.”
They both proceeded to brood in silence.
“It is strange,” Vader said at last. “Why does he still believe that these illusions are real when the two of us have realized the truth?”
Leia had been wondering that as well, and didn’t like the answer she had arrived at. “Because we both know, deep down, that the galaxy couldn’t possibly be this perfect. There’s always going to be strife and pain—because of people like you, I might add.”
“There are two sides to this conflict, Princess. I suggest you remember that.”
Leia fought the urge to sling more accusations at this monster. “Well, for now,” she said through clenched teeth, “we’re going to have to be on the same side if we want to get out of here.”
Vader appeared to be holding back a few insults of his own. “Agreed.” He turned and glared at Luke. “How was this half-trained whelp able to overpower us?”
She could feel her heart growing heavy. “He wants it to be real more than we want it to be false. Unlike us, he believes that things could be better than they are… that things could be perfect.” Luke’s smile was almost bright enough to light up the entire room. “Look at him: for the two of us, this is everything that we’ve lost… but for Luke, it’s everything that he never had.” She took a deep breath. “And admit it: a part of you still wants this to be real too.”
Vader exhaled with a sharp hiss. “And thus the balance of power has shifted to his side.” He looked back at Leia. “You know him better than I do. How could he be persuaded to change his mind?”
Leia didn’t like the way he phrased that particular question, but it was true: she knew Luke better than almost anyone. “The only way we can snap him out of it is to make him want to leave. We might not be able to break the illusion, but it might be possible for us to change it into a scenario that Luke would refuse to accept as real.”
“This place only produces fantasies.”
“I know… but I have an idea.” It was a horrible idea, but it was the best she could come up with. “This is a Jedi temple, right? So it stands to reason that it would show you a fantasy closer to what your past self wanted.” Her eyes hardened. “But you’re not Anakin Skywalker anymore, are you?”
“That man is dead.” To Leia’s surprise, Vader actually sounded a little uncertain.
“Then what is Vader’s fantasy?”
He was silent for a time, but Leia could feel the illusions around them shifting. She could feel the air growing colder, the shadows around them deepening, and the whispers of the dark calling to her.
This was why it was a horrible idea: in order to bring Luke into a fantasy that he would reject, Leia was going to have to help Vader create it. She would have to become a part of it and trust in Luke’s inherent goodness to pull them all out.
The warning in the mural said to trust in the Force. Leia wasn’t sure she believed in the Force—or at least in its benevolence—but she did believe in Luke. Just like on the Death Star or during the battle over Yavin, all she had was the unshakable conviction that he would save the day. It would have to be enough.
Leia took a deep breath and surrendered to the Dark.
Impatience was dangerous, she knew, but it still didn’t keep her from walking a little faster through the halls of the Imperial Palace.
The guards let her enter the throne room without comment, of course. There was only one person who could keep her from her destination, and he was already there.
The designation of ‘throne room’ was a misnomer, since the actual throne had been removed when Palpatine’s brief coup was thwarted. Instead, the room was bare, with massive windows showing the skyline of Imperial Center, as was the preference of the lone figure that stood near them.
As usual, she knelt respectfully before him, keeping her eyes fixed on the ground in front of her.
“Rise, my daughter.”
She stood and looked into the face of her father.
Darth Vader, supreme ruler of the Galactic Empire, the most powerful Sith Lord to ever live—and the person who had taught her everything she knew about power, the Force, and bringing order to a galaxy full of chaos.
He must have been meditating before she came in: steeped this fully in the Dark Side of the Force, his eyes were currently more gold than blue.
She aspired to such a deep connection to the Dark Side, but there was still so much that she had to learn first, and this irritating Rebellion had taken up too much of her time lately.
But it would not be an impediment for much longer.
Soon, everything would be perfect.
“I assume that the incident at Taanab has been resolved?” he asked.
“Yes, Father,” she said, adjusting her posture and clasping her hands behind her back. “The last of the Rebel fleet has been destroyed. Commander Rex reports no survivors.”
He did not appear ready to celebrate that news. “The fleet was the backbone of the Rebellion, but it was not the entirety of their forces,” he pointed out.
“Only a single group remains,” she said. “They went into hiding before the battle began.” Not that it was much of a battle; she couldn’t help her brief laugh of disdain. “Apparently their so-called ‘idealism’ was no match for their cowardice.”
Father, however, still looked troubled. “We will have to expend more resources to find them before they are able to recruit more traitors to their side.”
“Begging your pardon, Father, but that will not be necessary.”
His gaze focused on her, intense as a turbolaser. “You have discovered their location?”
“I was able to apprehend a pair of criminals who were not quite as good at fleeing as the others. It took only a few hours of persuasion before they gave up their compatriots.” That ‘persuasion’ had been deeply satisfying to inflict, though a little messier in the end than she would have preferred. “The last of the Rebellion is hiding in the Yavin system, on the fourth moon.”
He appeared to be pleased with that. “At last: an end to this pointless resistance.” He placed a gloved hand on her shoulder. “You have done well, daughter.”
She wasn’t sure if her face revealed it or not, but inside, she glowed with pride. Making Father happy was no easy feat.
In fact, pleasing their father had become a point of rivalry between herself and her brother, though not one that ever escalated into strife. That would be impossible. The old Sith would have squabbled amongst themselves, sabotaging one another for a brief taste of power, but Father had taught them to rise above such petty desires. They were a family, bound to one another through blood and duty and the Dark Side. They would never betray one another. It would be like cutting off a limb.
It was simple: what was good for Father was good for their family, what was good for their family was good for the Empire, and what was good for the Empire was good for the galaxy.
Therefore, she would obey her father and do her best to make him happy.
“One final battle,” her father said, a rare smile on his face, “and then the galaxy will finally know what true order is.” He made a quiet sound of amusement. “I think I am going to enjoy this fight.”
Leia allowed herself to smile. “As will I, Father.”
Faster.
Luke detested having to wait this long for his ship to be ready. The Rebels were down there on the planet’s surface, and he was stuck here on the Executor waiting for the crew to finish refueling his TIE Advanced.
He reminded himself that strangling someone would likely make the overall process even slower; still, his impatience was growing into what could be charitably called a “bad mood” and the fingers on his right hand kept brushing against the hilt of his lightsaber.
If Leia beat him down to the surface… it was an immature reaction, but he really didn’t want to land on Yavin IV and discover that his sister had eliminated the remaining Rebels without him.
Of course, it didn’t matter who dealt with the last gasp of a bunch of traitors: all that mattered to Father was that they were destroyed once and for all. In fact, this day was so momentous that Darth Vader was overseeing the battle personally.
Perhaps, if he was weaker, Luke would have also resented the possibility that Father would leave him with nothing to do, but he knew better than to be so disobedient.
He had his father and his sister and he needed no one else. They were the only ones that he trusted: no one else deserved his trust, according to Father. Betrayal was the worst injury that a person could inflict, and something to be met with swift and lethal punishment. No one could betray his family and live. That was why the Jedi had to be destroyed. That was why only the most loyal Senators remained alive. No one was exempt: even Luke’s mother had to die for her betrayal of Father. That was what was required in order for the galaxy to be transformed into something greater.
So obviously Luke felt no regret about the impending slaughter of these Rebels. They were traitors. They deserved to die.
At last, his ship was ready. Luke pushed his fighter as fast as it could go, leaving the Executor to shrink into a bone-colored dagger above him. As he neared the surface, he reached out to the Force to sense if any stormtroopers were on the ground below him and, finding none, Luke proceeded to set the jungle ablaze with his turbolasers. If any of the Rebels escaped into the wilderness, they would soon have nowhere to hide.
A massive stone structure ahead of him appeared to be the spot where the Rebels were making their final stand. His ship had barely settled on the ground before Luke was out of the cockpit, his lightsaber already ignited and ready. A good thing, too—a volley of blaster bolts rained down on him from an overhead ledge.
Not that Luke was in any danger, of course: by reflex and the Force, the crimson blade in his hand swept up and blocked the shots. A few bolts—but not all, to his annoyance—even ricocheted back to strike the ones who had fired them.
Further in, he could sense his sister, blazing in the Force like the event horizon of a black hole. Both of them had been stuck on the edge of true communion with the Dark Side, but they had promised one another that if one of them made it across, they would bring the other one with them.
Another wave of blaster fire came his way. Merely blocking the shots was starting to get tedious. Who knew when he would get another chance for this kind of excitement? Grabbing hold of one of the Rebel snipers by the neck, Luke used telekinesis to slam him into the ones standing nearby. One tumbled off the ledge with a scream.
Luke smirked up at the Rebels who remained. One of them, a tall dark-haired man with a mustache, looked him in the eye with an expression that—
(“Hurry up, Luke!”)
Had he seen him somewhere before?
(“That’s no battle, hot shot—they’re just sitting there!”)
His distraction proved to be costly: a blaster bolt hit Luke just below his left hip.
He stumbled to one knee as the Rebels who had shot him fled.
Luke growled through clenched teeth. He wasn’t badly injured, but it did hurt.
(“Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t trust them.”)
“Are you alright?” Leia demanded, suddenly appearing at his side, flanked by a squadron of stormtroopers.
He grimaced as she helped him to his feet. “I was handling them just fine until…” The disorientation hadn’t left him. He shook his head. “Something about this place feels wrong.”
(“Run, Luke!”)
“It can wait until we’ve finished our work here,” his sister said. She ignited her saber—a twin to his own weapon, with the same red hue—and cocked her head in the direction of the entrance to the temple.
The temple?
“Come on,” she said. “Hopefully Father left a few of them for us.” She glanced down at Luke’s injury. “You could get revenge for that, at least.”
He nodded and silently ordered himself to focus. These stray thoughts wasted time.
The Rebels fought for every meter of space inside their stronghold. The longer it went on, the more frustrated Luke became. He did his best to channel that feeling into anger instead, deepening his connection to the Dark Side, but he kept getting distracted.
He rounded a corner and caught sight of the man from earlier: the one with the mustache—
(“The Rebellion is spreading and I want to be on the right side: the side I believe in.”)
“Who are you?” Luke shouted, unsure of why he wasn’t just striding over to this traitor and cutting him in half.
The man didn’t answer, but continued running, quickly concealed yet again by another twist in the halls of this place. It was like a maze—
(“Maze? What maze?”)
What was going on?
(“It’ll be just like Beggar’s Canyon back home…”)
Where were all of these thoughts coming from? Why did it feel like he had forgotten some crucial piece of information?
Why did everything suddenly feel wrong?
Luke kept running, unsure of why it was so important that he find this one particular Rebel.
He finally emerged into a vast open space, which looked like some kind of throne room.
Leia was positioned at the far end of the room, cutting down Rebel soldiers with her lightsaber almost as fast as they could get within range.
But directly in front of Luke, stood that one frustrating Rebel—
(“Luke, you’re going to have to learn what seems to be important or what really is important.”)
This was wrong.
This was all wrong.
What was he doing here? Why was he—
“Biggs?” A name that he didn’t know, and yet a name that he knew so well: a mixture of admiration and love and camaraderie and… and sadness.
(“Hurry up, Luke!”)
But there hadn’t been time. There was nothing Luke could have done to save him.
(A cry of “Wait!” followed by a thousand flaming shards. A friend reduced to ash.)
Biggs vanished.
Luke remembered.
He dropped his lightsaber.
This isn’t real.
He started running in the direction of the only person who he knew was real.
“Leia!” No one stopped him—no one even seemed to notice him.
There was one Rebel that she hadn’t yet slaughtered, one with brown hair and a dark vest and an expression like—
Of course it was Han.
“Leia, stop!” Luke yelled, reaching desperately for the Force to halt her saber mid-swing. “This isn’t real!”
It worked, just barely.
She paused, her lightsaber frozen only centimeters from Han’s throat. “What are you talking about?”
Luke reached her side. “This isn’t real, this can’t be real! We were in the temple, we saw the mural! You need to remember!”
“You need to focus, Luke,” she snapped. “We’re so close to the end and you’re having delusions—this isn’t the time!”
“We’re not a part of the Empire! We don’t work for Vader—we’re fighting against him. Don’t you remember?”
For a moment, Leia’s eyes flashed a sulfurous yellow. “You know what happens to traitors, brother,” she snarled at him. “Do not believe for a moment that I would hesitate.”
“Leia, this isn’t you! Ever since I met you, you’ve only worked for the good of others—you would never do the kinds of things that we were going to do here!”
She started trembling, ever so slightly. “Luke, we… we have to finish this.”
“No, we don’t! Even if this is just some horrible dream, we can’t let the Empire win. The Leia I know would never give up like that.” He felt a stab of regret as he realized what he had to say next. “And you would never join the Empire, not after what they did to you.”
Something in her gaze faltered. “What they did?”
“Do you remember what happened?” He pulled the saber out of her hand and deactivated it. “The Death Star? The droids? Alderaan?”
“Alderaan?” She shut her eyes.
Luke realized that Han had disappeared; in fact, everyone in the room had vanished without a trace. Whatever this dream was, it was beginning to crumble already. He just needed to give Leia one more push.
He just wished that he didn’t have to cause her so much pain. “Yes: Alderaan. Your home. Your family. Everyone… the Empire destroyed it. Alderaan is gone.”
It was the name of her lost home that broke the spell. Leia sagged forward, tears staining her face. “Father…”
“Your father was Bail Organa,” Luke said, putting an arm around her to keep her from falling to the floor. “Not Darth Vader.”
“If I wake up,” she whispered, “I’ll have to remember all of it… all of the pain…”
“I know,” he said, feeling the clouds of his own grief on the horizon, “but isn’t it better to know the truth than to trap yourself in all these lies?”
They stood together, holding one another in silence.
“I—” Leia suddenly smiled as she remembered something. “I knew you would figure it out, I knew you would save us—”
“Well, we’re not exactly safe yet,” Luke pointed out. “We still have to find a way out of here.”
“What is this?” The man with Anakin Skywalker’s face strode towards them. “What have you done?”
“We know the truth now,” Luke said. “We know that it’s not real. You don’t get to imprison us here anymore.”
“Do not presume to lecture me on things that you know nothing about,” Vader warned him, now nearly within range.
“It’s over.” Luke could see the air around them growing brighter, the light filling up everything until it was too bright to see.
Vader reached out a hand to seize him, but was too late.
When Leia regained consciousness, she didn’t have to wonder if she had truly woken up: no fantasy existed in which Darth Vader was trapped in that horrible life support suit and mask.
He stood above her, his harsh mechanical breathing filling the halls of the temple.
She scrambled to her feet—there was no way that she was going to let Vader loom over her any longer than she had to—and placed herself between him and Luke's sleeping form.
Vader remained where he was. “Your plan was successful.” Compared to the version of him that she had just spent the last however-long-it-was with, it was harder to discern his tone through the mask, but it almost sounded like he was impressed.
He was, however, still Darth Vader, and still very dangerous. “You’re welcome,” she said. “How about you pay me back by letting us go?”
“Very well,” Vader said after a tense pause. He shifted his stance so that he had an unobstructed view of Luke. “How were you so certain that I would not trap the two of you in the same way that Luke trapped us?”
“Because it was Vader’s fantasy,” Leia said, “and, even though I hate to admit it, I’m not convinced that you’re just Vader.”
“Anakin Skywalker is dead.”
It was a lie, and she hated that she could tell. “I wish he was,” she admitted. “It would make things easier… but we both know that he’s still in there.”
Vader was silent for a moment, looking down at his son. “The thing that I wanted most… and he was so repelled by it that he destroyed the illusion almost immediately.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t expect a hug when he wakes up,” Leia remarked. “You ruined your chance for a happy family a long time ago.”
“Happiness is not a concern of mine,” Vader said. “Not anymore.”
Leia forced herself to ignore the regret in his voice. “You should go out through the front entrance,” she told him. “Han probably just blew up your TIE fighter, so you might as well find your troops before they leave you behind.”
Vader paused. No longer able to see his face, Leia had no idea what he was going to do next.
His next words were almost hesitant. “We worked well together.”
She didn’t like where he was going with this at all. “Go to hell,” she said.
“We do not need to be enemies,” he insisted. “You could join me. We could end this destructive conflict—”
“A little late to make that offer, isn’t it?” she hissed. She couldn’t believe he had the audacity to think that she would join the same Empire that had destroyed everything she held so dear—
“There were no Death Stars in our shared vision. No Emperor, no Tarkin—”
“That doesn’t matter much, does it?” she snapped. “The number of people you’ve killed… even if the Death Star didn’t happen, you would still be neck-deep in the blood of my loved ones.”
Vader stared down at Luke again. “He rejected the vision outright. But you…” He looked up at her. “You did not.”
Leia tried not to shudder at the reminder. “I went along with it in order to ensure that it was enough to overpower Luke’s own illusion, not because I liked it.”
“Didn’t you?” Vader asked. “I sense so much anger in you, daughter. If you would let me teach you to wield it…”
Memories of the Imperial Palace filled her thoughts, followed by an uncanny wave of something resembling happiness: she had done well, so well… she helped her father reshape the galaxy into what it ought to be… her command of the Dark Side ensured that she would never feel helpless—
“Stop it,” she snapped. “It’s not going to work.”
She heard Luke murmur: he was beginning to wake up. “If you want to capture us,” she said quietly, “this is your last chance before we start running.”
“Given the outcome of our first meeting, I believe capturing you would end up being more trouble than it’s worth.” Something in those words were so close to what Anakin might have said in the same situation, and Leia hated how that tiny spark of recognition still burned in her heart.
“Then leave.”
“As you wish.” Vader turned and left, the sound of his footsteps and his breathing slowly fading away into silence.
With a soft groan, Luke sat up. His disorientation was brief: he looked up at Leia with wide eyes. “Leia!”
She was quick to reassure him: “I’m alright. We’re both alright. It’s over.”
He looked around them frantically. “Is Vader—”
“He’s gone,” Leia said. She stood and reached out a hand to help him to his feet. “We should hurry and find a way out ourselves.”
It took a surprisingly short amount of time to reach the exit. “I guess we passed whatever ordeal this place sprung on us,” Leia said. She surveyed the smoking crater that had probably been Vader’s TIE Advanced. “And I’m glad to see that I was right about Han’s ability to completely wreck whatever is in front of him.”
Luke laughed, but then his expression grew uncomfortable. “Leia, what happened in that dream—”
She did her best to smile. “It might have actually been a little cathartic to decapitate an imaginary version of Han.” She couldn’t quite keep up the forced levity. “But I’m glad that you stopped me. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Not that part,” Luke said, unable to meet her eyes. “I meant the part when I didn’t want to leave. If Vader hadn’t pulled us into that nightmare, I might have trapped us both there forever.”
“But you figured out the truth eventually. You saved us both.”
They headed for the woods, in the direction of the rendezvous point, and were silent for a long time.
“It wasn’t real,” Luke said at last, “but do you think it might have been true? That we’re twins?”
“I hope so,” Leia said. “I suppose we can get a blood test done when we get back to the fleet and find out for sure. We do have the same birthday, after all.”
Luke laughed briefly. “I completely forgot that it was today.”
She couldn’t help echoing his laugh. “You’re not the only one who forgot.”
His smile vanished and he shuddered. “But the other part… do you think that Vader might really be our…” He seemed unable to finish the thought.
“I don’t know,” Leia lied. “I think that the Dark Side probably isn’t all that concerned with the truth. Maybe it’s possible that one part of it was true but the other wasn’t.”
“The beginning of it… it was nice,” he admitted. “Even if it was just a fantasy, I feel like I finally got to meet my parents, you know? They feel more real to me now.”
Leia nodded. She had the exact same reaction, but it was accompanied by horror rather than happiness. Darth Vader was no longer a faceless evil to her: he was a person now, one who had once loved and dreamed and had a life—a life that he tore down around him in the pursuit of something pointless.
She knew that, even though it would be difficult, she could manage to fight him even with that knowledge. But she also knew that, if he discovered the truth, Luke wouldn’t be able to do that. He had too much faith: in the Force, in the inherent goodness of people, and in the idea that a perfect world was possible. He would try to save Vader and would probably get himself killed in the process.
She vowed to tell him someday… for one thing, because it was better if he learned the truth from her than from Vader. But not yet.
(“Isn’t it better to know the truth than to trap yourself in all these lies?”)
No stormtroopers pursued them on their way to the rendezvous point. No TIE fighters chased after the Millennium Falcon as it lifted off and raced out of the atmosphere. Apparently Vader had kept his word.
Leia sat by herself in the passenger area; Luke had volunteered to man one of the turret guns, just in case an attack came after all. Her head ached. Her heart ached even more.
Leia.
“Father,” she whispered without thinking. But it wasn’t Bail Organa that she was hearing.
Daughter… join me.
“Get out of my head,” she growled.
As you wish… but soon you will understand. It is your destiny, Leia.
The absolute longing in his voice was agony, even after his presence had faded from her mind.
The Falcon jumped to hyperspace, finally severing the connection for good.
She was an orphan again.
Leia stared at the dejarik table in front of her, trying to make sense of the jumble of memories from different versions of her life. Learning about politics from her father (her real father, she reassured herself) and about the Light Side from Obi-Wan.
How much of those lessons were real? The Jedi training was likely a mixture of Luke’s memories and Vader’s memories of their respective times as Obi-Wan’s students, so if she could recall it, it might be a good start.
(She also had memories of Vader’s instruction in the ways of the Sith, which still lingered in her thoughts like an oily stain. Twisted in with her own anger and bitterness, it was a dark ache clawing at the edge of her senses, one that she shoved as hard as she could into the back of her mind.)
Like her brother, she could use the Force. Like him, she could one day become a Jedi.
And one day, the two of them might destroy the Sith once and for all.
She took the comlink out of her pocket and set it on the table.
Perhaps the temple was not a trap, but a test: one that rewarded their success with the gift of knowledge.
There was only one way to find out. Steadying her breathing, Leia reached out for the power that she had only known in dreams…
The communication device floated into her hand.
Not bad for my first try.
She smiled, took another deep breath, and got to work.