Episode VI, Part II

Luke had had his Kiber Crystal, and his new lightsaber, taken from him when he was captured. He feared that now he was powerless, for Ben had never told him that, once he had opened his mind to the Force, the Crystal was in truth no longer needed.

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.

Yet 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 of victory. 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 scarlet battle jumpsuit. One of Annikin’s magic serpent Rings hung on a chain around her neck. (Vader, a prudent man who had already lost one arm, wore the second the same way, beneath his armor.)

The triple-armed Mark of the Sith was etched in poured gold upon Leia’s forehead; for she had, in truth, resisted thrice.

Her eyes, both the blue-hued original and the one of metallic bronze, had been extracted and replaced with matching cloned prostheses, outwardly normal except for their green irises. In fact, her organic eye had been used to make her own Kiber Crystal, which she kept in a secure crypt, deep below the throne room.

The Sith knew the secret of the Crystals’ making, as the Jedi never did. It was a dark secret, and had they known, the Jedi would have found other ways to open their minds to the Force. For there were, in fact, other ways.

But no Sith, except Vader only, realized how limited in truth the Kiber Crystals’ power was; nor how utterly useless they were after one’s first contact with the Force. So they coveted them, and often tore out their own eyes, or the eyes of their enemies, to make them, in the belief that such personalization granted greater power.

And Vader, too, knew the wisdom of not sharing this secret before its time.

Leia had taken the tonsure given to the hardiest of Sith women—a permanently bald head, saving only a short stubble of golden hair.

And, to cement her status as a Sith Knight, Leia had willingly undergone further wounds: the extraction of numerous teeth, and a third breaking of her nose. Her robotic hands, both the hand of synth-flesh and the damaged hand of crystal, had been replaced with silver prostheses; for the True Sith value honesty.

But her missing teeth were replaced with a chaotic medley of gold and silver and crystal; for the True Sith love life, and they love uniformity best when it is melded with variety.

And, at last, Leia had built her own lightsaber, which she wore in addition to the one Ben Kenobi had given to her.

She had drunk of the Red Sleep (or Red Draught) of the Sith, the drink that brings madness and ecstasy in equal dose, and she was now a willing participant in the deeds of Vader and his ilk.

She taunted Luke with the fact, which he had never known, that Han had slept with her first, during their desperate flight from Yavin. And she had given herself to him again, after Luke’s capture.

She told him that Han was a better lover than he could ever be. And she could judge, for neither Luke nor Han had been the first to lie with her. And Leia further said that she was now Vader’s willing mate—and, she knew, she was pregnant.

But Leia would be gracious in victory. She asked him now to join them. She offered him one-third of the Empire for his own, and the gift of Annikin Starkiller’s third Ring, which as yet slumbered deep in the vaults of the palace, next to Leia's own Kiber Crystal.

Luke refused. But some part of him, deep down, wanted to accept.

Leia and Vader taunted Luke by dangling his lightsaber, and his Kiber Crystal, in front of him. He did not seek to take them via the Force, for he did not think he could, if the Crystal was not already his own, by right of gift or right of might. But he was tempted to try.

Next, they held before him his father’s lightsaber, lost years ago on Kashyyyk. They offered it to him freely, if he would only join them. His urge to seize his rightful heirlooms by the Force grew much stronger. But again he was unsure if he dared try, and in trying, fail.

Then they linked into the secret Imperial military HoloNet, to show him how the battle was unfolding over Ton-Muund.

The Emperor and Vader had withheld a secret: the Death Stars were fully armed and operational!

Luke was angered and enraged, and wished fervently to attack them with his bare hands. But, using all his self-control, he overcame the impulse.

Finally, frustrated by his refusal to accept their generosity, Leia smashed Luke’s Kiber Crystal before his eyes. By this act she wished to depower forever such a pathetic dullard, who in her eyes would never make a proper Sith Lord.

And now Luke’s fury could no longer be borne.

Tapping into the Force, forgetting his perceived need for the Kiber Crystal, Luke summoned his lightsaber, and his grandfather’s blade as well. With them he attacked Vader.

Leia countered the blow, using Ben Kenobi’s second saber given to her by Luke.

Vader too drew his own lightsaber.

Luke used the Force to take control of the two guards at the entrance to the hall, the ones who had escorted him in: elite Stormtroopers.

Vader had begun training this cadre of well-disciplined troops at the Emperor’s request. Even Lord Pestage had begun to fear that the Sith might turn against him one day, and that Vader might, in the fullness of his power, seek to supplant him. But Vader knew this; and the Emperor knew that he knew it.

Now the two well-armored stormtroopers, doing Luke’s bidding, advanced and drew their own lightsabers.

In response, Vader fetched down Ben Kenobi’s old blade from where it rested on a wall of the throne room, long dormant, as a rare trophy in a place of honor.

And Leia activated her own new-built lightsaber.

Battle was joined.

Meanwhile, as Han Solo and Mina Whitsun made their way up from the depths of Ton-Muund, Akira Valorum piloted the Millennium Falcon in the gigantic space battle raging overhead.

The Rebels were losing. Their ships were pinned between the defenses of Ton-Muund and the Imperial fleet, which had made a sudden, but not entirely unanticipated, appearance.

The Imperial ships were commanded by a newly minted Admiral, but one who was already a shrewd strategist and a skilled leader of men: a woman, in fact.

Let’s call her Admiral Heda Horus.

Heda herself was an extremely intelligent woman, and thus a favorite of Darth Vader. She was, in fact, the officer who had recognized Luke and Leia on Alderaan earlier, and who had blown their cover.

Thanks to her brainpower, she rose high in rank, despite the racist tendencies inherent in the Imperial bureaucracy: for her features were what Tellurians would call Arabian.

Vader himself had asked the Emperor to promote her to Admiral, as a reward for her capture of Luke Starkiller. The Emperor, grudgingly, agreed.

Now Heda was grown to womanhood, at least in body, and by virtue of her great intelligence, she commanded the Imperial battle fleet. She hated the Rebels, and her green eyes burned with fury when she saw them; for her idol was her mentor, Darth Vader.

And, childlike, she had eagerly absorbed his invective against the “seditious foe.”

Children do not know when their parents are lying.

Even to themselves.

And then, unexpectedly, Bail Whitsun’s fleet appeared too, and began fighting alongside the Rebel ships. He and his son Marcus (piloting his own silver starfighter) had come to rescue Mina.

But Bail’s capital ship was destroyed by the lasers of one Death Star, and the Rebel flagship, commanded by General Dodana, was blown up by the other. This was the first revelation of the ultimate surprise Vader and the Emperor had planned. And the shields had not yet been downed.

On Condawn, Luke and his two mind-controlled elite Stormtroopers now did battle against both Leia and Vader.

Luke managed to hold them both off, quite adeptly, for Ben had trained him well in lightsaber combat.

However, his elite Stormtroopers, though well trained by Vader himself, ultimately proved of little account when subjected to conflicting mental commands from three warriors at once.

During the duel, Luke knocked Ben Kenobi’s lightsaber from Vader’s hand, and it plunged into one of the ventilation shafts that cooled the throne room. But he shrank from pressing his advantage.

Leia tossed Vader her own lightsaber, and she instead took up one of the fallen Stormtroopers’ swords. (This idea comes from the finale of Hamlet.)

If a spectator had been present, and had bothered to look into the magic mirror at this moment, he or she would have noticed something odd.

In the mirror, each of the combatants wielded two different colors of lightsabers; but in the world as seen by ordinary mortal sight, there was only one color, shared by all the blades.

More strangely still, Darth Vader was not present in the mirror. In his place stood a monstrous black shadow in the shape of a man.

Luke and Vader did not notice this. But Leia did.

Luke could, perhaps, have defeated both his foes. But he knew, from the evidence before him, where the greater threat lay.

Leia cut off Luke’s right arm at the elbow, but he simply carried on, attacking her with his left arm and his remaining lightsaber, learning by instinct what Annikin had mastered through training years ago.

The duel was not yet over. But Leia was still attacking furiously.

So Luke struck at Leia’s leg, bringing her down and leaving her with a permanent limp. And he cut off Vader’s right hand, revealing its true nature as a droid prosthesis. But at this last revelation, Luke shrank from killing them. For at last he realized the peril of the path he now walked: that he might someday himself end up like his father and sister.

He flung down his lightsaber, and stretched his hand out to Darth Vader.

“I cannot kill you, father. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

Behind Luke, Leia dragged herself painfully to her feet.

Across the throne room, Vader stood up in silence.

A moment passed without words or movement.

And then Darth Vader struck out at his son with Force lightning.