Episode VI
Part II
Using a stolen Imperial shuttle and “borrowed” Imperial uniforms, Luke and Leia dressed up as officers and infiltrated once more the cloud city of Alderaan, the ancestral seat of Emperor Pestage. (If you haven’t figured this out yet, it’s basically a riff on the Padishah Emperor’s planet of Salusa Secundus from Dune, combined with King Vultan’s Sky City from Flash Gordon.)
To better disguise herself, Leia dressed as a male officer. Though she at first wanted to conceal her long hair beneath a uniform cap, she decided to play it safe, and cut it short for the sake of the disguise. And she wore gloves, with newly attached droid fingers beneath them. She pretended that her hands had been burned in battle.
Leia also wore an eyepatch, to hide her blind eye—that distinctive feature in Rebel propaganda posters.
(She’s essentially dressing up as Claus von Stauffenberg, the chief architect of the July Plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944. But the overall idea of Leia dressing in a German-style military uniform to disguise herself as a man comes from the 1926 silent film Beverly of Graustark, a comedic riff on The Prisoner of Zenda starring Marion Davies.)
Luke and Leia successfully retrieved the codes from Alderaan, and copied them into R2-D2 for the Rebels’ use. But their disguises ultimately failed, for their wounds and their familial resemblance were too obvious to conceal entirely. A high-ranking Imperial captain recognized them.
A terrific firefight ensued. Leia was shot in her right hand, and it was burned. She hoped it would not get infected.
In the end, Luke stayed behind, sacrificing himself to make sure Leia got away with the codes. He was captured, and taken to the prison cells out of which he had rescued Leia years ago. (Luke is actually captured by the Emperor’s troops right after Han’s rescue from Jabba in the revised rough draft of ROTJ.)
Leia returned to the Rebels, where she met up with Han. They exchanged sorrows, and talked of the very possible defeat of the Rebellion in the coming battle. After all, the Rebels’ resources were already stretched thin, and Ibbana could not remain undiscovered forever. They had to strike now, or risk losing all.
Han (along with C-3PO and R2-D2) went to Ton-Muund, heading a secret commando mission, which sought to infiltrate the Imperial Palace from below.
And Leia, who still loved Luke, determined to save his life—by fair means or foul.
She took her lightsaber, and flew off in a starfighter (for she, too, was a good pilot at need).
None of the Rebel generals—not even her favorite general, the warrior priest Grand Moff Tarkin—knew where Leia meant to go. Nor did they mind overly much, for she was a wise leader in their war councils, and they trusted her.
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Luke had had his new lightsaber taken from him when he was captured.
He languished in prison on Alderaan for some time, and there was tortured, suffering the first ordeal of the Sith. But he had not yet submitted, and he knew, from what Leia had told him, that death loomed before him if he remained obstinate.
But suddenly, he was taken from his cell, and brought by shuttle to Condawn. Here, on a craggy mountaintop overlooking the searing fields of lava, Darth Vader had built his castle, on the site of his victory over the old order.
Luke was taken to Vader’s throne room, with its highly polished Dwarf-wrought floor of stone, and its giant glass windows overlooking the lava fields. On one side wall hung the lightsabers of Jedi whom Vader had defeated: trophies. On the other side stood a large glass mirror, also of Dwarven make, whose purpose even Darth Vader did not fully understand.
The two unusually well-armored stormtroopers who had escorted Luke into the room remained standing by the entrance, guarding it. But they advanced no further.
Upon the dais before the central window there was a brass gong, which was used to orchestrate proceedings during meetings of the Sith Order.
At the center of the room, seated on his throne, was Vader, still wearing his mask with the pride of a fierce knight. And by his side, in a newly installed throne, there sat one other: his new consort, and co-ruler of the Sith Order. Leia.
She was dressed in a black leather jumpsuit. One of Annikin’s serpent rings was on her finger. (Vader, a prudent man who had already lost one arm, wore the second beneath his armor, on a chain around his neck.)
The red Mark of the Sith, the honor of the twice-recalcitrant, was tattooed upon Leia’s forehead.
She had taken the tonsure given to the hardiest of Sith women—a permanently bald head, saving only a topknot of her dark hair. After all, the art of regrowing shorn hair, or permanently depilating it, was one of the secrets of Elvish magic.
And, to cement her status as a Sith Knight, she had willingly undergone further wounds: her teeth were extracted (replaced with silver ones), and her right hand was removed (replaced with a silver prosthesis).
(Think of a combination of Emma Peel from the old British TV Avengers and Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise.)
And, at last, Leia had built her own lightsaber, which she wore in addition to the one Ben Kenobi had willed to her...