Hand of Fate Read online

  Suddenly, on the screen, two dozen heavily armed stormtroopers came up behind the commandos. Han Solo spun and fired, blindingly fast, but he wasn't able to stop several troopers from wounding him terribly in the arms and legs. He dropped to the floor, his heavy blaster spinning into the shadows. Leia screamed and fired frantically, but she, too, was swiftly taken down. Luke couldn't tell if either of them was still alive.

  Then the screen image changed to a view of the space around Coruscant.

  Rebel ships were careening madly away from the dimly visible planetary shield as dozens of Star Destroyers came screaming out of hyperspace to array themselves like a giant net around the Rebel fleet. Without warning, hundreds of turbolasers spoke fiery death into the void as swarms of TIE interceptors descended upon the Rebels. Luke watched helplessly as the Alliance ships were cut to pieces. Explosions bloomed in the darkness, and the dying began in earnest.

  "It is the end for the Alliance, my young apprentice," The Emperor told Luke. "There is no hope left for you. Your friends are now in my power. I will see that they are a long time dying. You may beg me for their lives. Perhaps I will give them to you, If you serve me... if they survive."

  Luke could stand no more. He ignited his lightsaber and shouted,

  "Father, stay back, this isn't your fight." He moved up onto the dais, menacing the Emperor. "Maybe you'll trade your own life for the lives of Han and Leia," Luke said fiercely. But Vader was already moving. Igniting his own weapon, he chased after Luke and drove him away from the Emperor.

  Luke defended himself easily, his green blade blurring in the air.

  "I'm not here to fight you, Father," Luke grated. "You don't have to fight me. Together we can defeat the Emperor, you know that."

  But the man playing Vader would hear none of it. "The Emperor is my Master. Now he is yours, too. The only chance for you is to serve him."

  He attacked, more aggressively. "I tortured your friends on Cloud City, and now they will be mine again. Leia Organa will scream a dozen times for every minute that you deny your destiny. I will kill Han Solo before your eyes. The Rebel Alliance is dead and soon, your friends will die, too!"

  Luke was hard pressed to fend off Vader's attacks, but his anger had been growing. His rage began to show on his face as the room seemed to spin before his eyes. Vader pressed the attack, his blade flashing blindingly against Luke's again and again. The wall screen showed a huge Rebel cruiser annihilated in a billowing fireball. The image shifted, and Han and Leia appeared again, screaming as they were shot over and over.

  The Emperor laughed, long and loud in Luke's ears.

  Luke's anger was suddenly alive in him, a clamoring thing writhing in its desire for destruction. And the dark side answered its call. Luke felt strength pour into him, and he easily beat Vader's blade aside. He had been so wrong about his father. There was no good left in him. If Vader now stood between him and the Emperor, then he would have to fall.

  Look at him! The Dark Lord of the Sith, retreating before me. You won't escape, Vader--you die now! You didn't deserve the power you had. Now, mine is greater! My father...I hate the day I ever learned I was your son! No--don't try to run--it ends here! Yes! On your knees! Down! Down on the floor! A fitting place for you to DIE! Luke suddenly found himself with no one between Palpatine and himself. The hate was singing in his ears, a red haze was before his eyes, and a bloody taste was in his mouth.

  "Good!" the Emperor cried out. In his triumph, he cared nothing for the dark side adept he had sacrificed. "Well done, Lord Skywalker! Your father is dead at your own hand, and you are now my servant. It is exactly as I have predicted. Come and kneel before your Master."

  Luke could not focus his thoughts. He was oddly surprised to find Vader dead at his feet. His lightsaber fell from his fingers, forgotten, striking Vader's helm once before clattering to the floor. He was aware of an overwhelming urge to go to the Emperor, and do as he asked. He remembered feeling differently, but his anger at the Emperor no longer seemed important. He stepped over Vader's body, and went to kneel before Palpatine. A vast emptiness had opened up inside him, and much to his pleasure, being near the Emperor filled up that void.

  But Palpatine's attention was no longer on him. The Emperor was walking away, talking to himself. "So will it be when we meet, young Skywalker. You will be mine...soon...soon."

  Luke was confused. What was going on? Hadn't he knelt as asked?

  What more did he need to do? What was his Emperor saying? His confusion was in no way diminished when Palpatine left the room altogether, and six red robed Imperial guards came in to kill him.

  * * *

  Palpatine felt much better. The future was still closed to him, but now he felt confident that he knew exactly what Skywalker would do. He tested no more clones. One day, six months after the Emperor's vision trance in which he had seen his own death (which now seemed like a faded, bad dream to him), a message came from Lord Vader. Sate Pestage delivered it personally, because a curious item accompanied it that was to be delivered directly into the Emperor's hand. It was a lightsaber.

  Pestage reported that the fleet was assembled at Endor, and that the Death Star's prime weapon was ready. Vader had arrived on the Death Star, and had made the station ready for Palpatine's arrival. As the Emperor had commanded, Vader had assigned a legion of the Empire's most elite stormtroopers to guard the bunker on Endor that housed the shield generator. All was in readiness, and Palpatine received the message with satisfaction.

  But the lightsaber puzzled him. Vader had said in his message only that it had once belonged to Anakin Skywalker. It was a gift, Vader had said, to place in his Emperor's personal collection. That was all well and good, but the why of it eluded Palpatine. Finally, he concluded that Vader had had the lightsaber since Cloud City, and that he had decided that this vestige of the man he had once been did not belong to him anymore. He had sent it to Palpatine, as a statement that Anakin was no more, and that the weapon belonged with those of other vanquished Jedi.

  It pleased him, but he had other, more important matters to be concerned with. Vader was already dead, anyway. He just didn't know it, yet.

  Palpatine gave the weapon to Sate Pestage to be stored away, and didn't give it another thought as he prepared for his journey to Endor.

  * * *

  Darth Vader paced the command bridge of the Executor, staring at the unfinished Death Star. It floated above the green moon of Endor, its vast surface full of gaps. Roughly an entire hemisphere gaped with exposed superstructure that trailed off into space, awaiting completion.

  One section that was fully finished was the huge circular dish of the prime weapon. Vader knew it was ready even now, and that in the near future, it would bring death to entire worlds. Vader shuddered. Even for him, there were atrocities that went too far. When Alderaan was destroyed, what Vader had felt in the Force had shaken him deeply. So much destruction had unbalanced the Force itself, and threatened the very order of the galaxy that he cherished as an ideal. The Emperor had been pleased; it had made him stronger. Somehow Vader saw, as Palpatine did not, that the Force was a single entity with two aspects. Perhaps it was because he had belonged to both sides in his lifetime. Greatly weakening one side of the Force must, in the end, weaken the whole thing. The Emperor's audacity in constructing a second Death Star was ultimately self-defeating, but Vader could not allow it to be used.

  He did not dare any overt sabotage; he could not defy his Emperor to that extent. The answer had come to him in the form of the Emperor's orders that the shield generator was to be guarded by the group of elite stormtroopers from which the Imperial guards were chosen. Vader used the Force to cloud the minds of several officers, and arranged for a legion of new recruits to be deployed on Endor instead. They didn't even remember what they had done afterwards. It was very easy, but also risky.

  He had to hope it wouldn't be discovered by Palpatine, and he knew that the ultimate result of his action depended on the resources of th
e Rebels. But it was the most he could do. He already knew the Emperor's trust in him was failing. Why else had Palpatine allowed Prince Xizor to have temporary power on Coruscant? The ordeal of defeating the crime lord of Black Sun was meant to test Vader's loyalty under duress. Vader had passed that test, but a far greater one awaited him now. And he was disloyal, in his heart. The only question was, how much of that disloyalty did his Master perceive?

  Vader leaned wearily against the wall as gazed at the station.

  Soon, he had been told, he, the Emperor, and his son would all meet there. The thought depressed him. He had hoped that he could persuade his son to join him, that together they could be powerful enough to do what Vader could not do, and transform the Empire. Now that Luke was to be delivered to Palpatine, that would never be possible, if indeed it ever had been.

  Vader also felt old. Ever since he had seen Kenobi's damnable message, he had been acutely aware that he had lived two lifetimes, both of which had exacted their price. He had the feeling that for him, the end was near, though he could not say why. Perhaps he would welcome the end, when it came. His only regret would be the boy. His son. What would he become in the Emperor's hands?

  Luke continued to stir conflict within him. His son belonged to his old life, and though he wanted very much to bring Luke into his new one, Vader understood that it could never be. He had made his choices long ago, and it was too late for him by far. Obi-Wan had been wrong to think differently.

  A flicker of pseudomotion among the stars caught Vader's attention.

  He knew without checking that it was the arrival of the Star Destroyer New Order, one of the Emperor's personal transports. He felt his Master's presence like a signal fire on a nearby hill. He craved its heat, and despite himself, he longed to go and be near it.

  Even before the recognition signal had been received by the flagship, Vader announced, "The Emperor has arrived. Prepare a military salute. I will receive him on the Death Star." Admiral Piett hurried to obey as Vader turned on his heel and swiftly left the bridge, his black cape flaring. Vader felt a curious calm, a peace that came with the certainty that whatever the outcome, the end of the game was at hand. He hoped that the Force would be with him.

  * * *

  As it has been told in detail in the Journal of the Whills, The Jedi Nexus finally arrived at the moment that Darth Vader stepped into the throne room with Luke Skywalker and entered the presence of the Emperor Palpatine. The Force itself took part in the events that followed. As he faced a dark side Master who had slaughtered a multitude of great Jedi in the past, Luke Skywalker was not simply an untested Jedi student. He was the agent of the light side itself. For too long, the balance of the Force had been upset. The dark side had taken too much, destroyed too much. In that room, the balance was restored.

  By now you must know your Father can never be turned from the dark side, the Emperor told Luke. But he was wrong. The light side of the Force had acted in a way Palpatine had never foreseen in any of his visions. It had manifested in Luke's courage to face his father, and opened the eyes of a man long since blinded by the darkness. Thus was the paradox that had troubled Palpatine finally resolved. As he had thought, a barely trained youth could not be a threat to him, but that same youth awakened and inspired the man who could be.

  It was Darth Vader who fell before the lightsaber of his enemy, but when Luke renounced the dark side's offer of power, and turned away from killing him, it was Anakin Skywalker who climbed to his feet. The words of his son filled his ears. I'll never turn to the dark side. You've failed, your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my Father before me. The words became truth. When the enraged Emperor unleashed the full power of his hatred on Luke Skywalker, searing him with blast after blast of Force lightning, Anakin had fulfilled his destiny. Although he had not known it, his son had been more to him than the hope of taking the Emperor's throne and freeing himself from servitude to Palpatine. His son was the path back to his old life, the chance to reclaim himself. The agony of facing his son's death, and with it, the loss of that chance forever, drove out the seductive whisper of the dark side at last. Standing by the Emperor's side in his accustomed position of trust, he had lifted his Master and hurled him into the violent energies of the seemingly bottomless core shaft.

  The Emperor was falling. He was filled with fear and surprise, and screamed all the way down. His body was ripped asunder by a collision with gigantic energy discharges. His life force was swallowed into the dark side, but Palpatine, having foreseen this moment, was ready.

  His essence easily reached the small room at the base of the throne tower on the Death Star, where he had hidden a single clone body. A person like the Emperor did not ignore his visions. Months ago, a terrifying vision of his death had started him on this course, but he had been determined to outwit his seeming destiny. He knew that if worst came to worst in his meeting with Skywalker, he would not die so far from Byss that he could not reach one of his clones. He poured into the clone with relief. Somewhere above him, he was sure, Luke Skywalker was still alive.

  That must be changed.

  He forced himself to wait patiently as the decanting mechanisms activated at a touch of his mind, but it took a supreme effort. The Emperor was still full of searing anger. Everything had seemed so close to success. Vader had brought his son to the Death Star as a willing prisoner. Young Skywalker had reacted to all of Palpatine's manipulations as expected. The boy's friends and the Rebel fleet had all fallen neatly into the trap. With everyone he cared for in mortal danger, Luke had given in to his anger. The final push had come when Vader made the stunning discovery that one of the lives at risk was Luke's own unsuspected twin sister. Palpatine hadn't even planned it, but Vader had gone too far by threatening to turn the sister to the dark side as well.

  Luke had called on the dark side in his desperate need for power to crush his father, who could not ever be redeemed. The boy had clearly been about to kill the Sith Lord. Palpatine had felt the hate in him, seen the blade at Vader's throat. Somehow he had resisted. How was it possible?

  Luke's unexpected words had infuriated the Emperor. You've failed, your highness... Upon hearing that, Palpatine had decided instantly that the boy must die as painfully as possible. The Force lightning had come forth with a vengeance, fueled by burning rage.

  That rage still coursed through the Emperor as the nutrient bath level swiftly dropped. He realized where he had made his mistake. He had known Vader was treacherous, but he had thought the Dark Lord to be too weak to be a threat. He had been completely absorbed in the punishment of the boy when Vader made his move. Vader had always wanted Palpatine's power. He had taken his chance to kill his Master and seize that power for himself.

  Palpatine wasted no more thought on Vader. He knew that the Force lightning had struck enough blows to end his one time servant's life for certain. Vader had been paid in full, but Skywalker, he sensed, had survived. It was time to finish what he had begun. The clone vat smoothly opened. The youthful Emperor stepped out of the tank and into the cramped storage room with murder in his yellow eyes. He shrugged on a robe to cover his nakedness. The sparks had already begun to arc from his fingertips.

  Suddenly, there was a deafening thunder and the floor leaped away from his bare feet. The heavy clone tank crashed without warning onto his legs, crushing him to the deck. Bewildered, the Emperor reached out through the Force with his inner sight. What he saw stunned him. The deflector shield was gone, and the Rebel fleet was no longer trapped. He felt his carefully laid plans fall to dust, including those concerning his own survival. The Super Star Destroyer, Executor, had plunged into the Death Star like a titan's arrow finding its mark in the belly of the beast. That had rocked the station, and now the Rebel fleet had begun a close range bombardment of the Death Star's unfinished side. Rebel fighters were inside the superstructure, heading for the main reactor.

  There would be no time for vengeance. Skywalker would have to wait for another day. Palpatine used the F
orce to thrust the massive tank away from himself, and gazed at the ruin of his legs. He easily controlled the pain, but he knew he would not walk out of the room. There was no time for healing. With the Force, he opened the door to the hallway, where chaos reigned. Officers and stormtroopers ran in all directions, following or giving futile orders, or simply panicking. Palpatine spotted Moff Jerjerrod stumbling by in a daze, and called out to him.

  Jerjerrod entered, sweating, his eyes darting crazily about until they fixed on Palpatine. He saw a young man who lay on the floor, his robes in disarray, his otherwise naked form slicked with yellow-green fluid. "Who are you?" he stammered.