Part 11 (2/2)
Remembering how the Emperor had encouraged his acceptance, Vader said, ”Search your feelings. You know it to be true.”
”No!” Luke shouted. ”NO!”
The wind howled, and Vader's black cape flapped wildly at his back. ”Luke. You can destroy the Emperor. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny.'” He reached out to Luke, beckoning him to leave the gantry and come to his side. ”Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son.”
Still clinging to the sensor array, Luke glanced down the shaft.
”Come with me,” Vader urged. ”It is the only way.”
Unexpectedly, Luke opened his arms, releasing the array and allowing himself to plummet into the deep shaft. Vader leaned out over the edge of the gantry to see his son's rapidly receding form tumble into an open exhaust pipe in the shaft's wall.
The Sith Lord was certain Luke was still alive. If he had died, I would have sensed it.
After Vader left the reactor shaft, Imperial officers informed him that the duplicitous Lando Calrissian had directed all residents and visitors to evacuate Cloud City, and that Calrissian, Princess Leia, and the Wookiee had already escaped in the Millennium Falcon. Vader knew they wouldn't get far, for Imperial technicians had already taken the precaution of disabling the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive.
Vader immediately dispatched two squads of storm-troopers to find Luke. Confident that Luke and the Falcon's crew would soon be recovered and delivered to him, he made his way to his shuttle and flew back to the Executor. Upon his arrival, Vader remained confident when he was notified that the Millennium Falcon had raced back to Cloud City to rescue Luke.
Let his allies save him, Vader thought. And then I shall capture them all.
While the Millennium Falcon attempted to evade the Imperial blockade around Bespin, Vader used the Force to telepathically call out to his son from the Executor, ”Luke.”
Father, Luke called back.
”Son,” Vader said, and felt a thrill as he realized Luke had accepted the truth.
As the Rebel freighter flew past Vader's Star Destroyer, Vader sensed Luke's proximity and used the Force to call to him again. ”Son. Come with me.” When Luke did not respond, Vader added, ”Luke. It is your destiny.”
But then the Millennium Falcon vanished into hyper-s.p.a.ce. And this time, the Corellian freighter was not carrying an Imperial tracking device.
Once again, Vader had been robbed.
INTERLUDE.
Darth Vader had wanted to resume his pursuit of Luke Skywalker, but the Emperor had other plans in mind for his apprentice. After Vader had been directed to oversee the completion of a new superweapon, which had been under construction for some time in the Endor system, he had thought, The Emperor must know I tried to recruit my son to join me against him. He knows Luke could destroy him . . . and that I cannot do it alone.
And so the Emperor had done his best to keep Vader on a leash, instructing him to work with Prince Xizor, who controlled the galaxy's largest merchant fleet, which the Empire required to expedite s.h.i.+pping requirements to Endor. A Falleen, Xizor was also the head of the criminal organization known as Black Sun. Because Xizor had lost most of his family to Vader's genocidal actions on the Falleen homeworld, he had long desired vengeance, and schemed to discredit Vader and win favor with the Emperor. But when Vader learned that Xizor had discovered his relations.h.i.+p to Luke Skywalker and had attempted to kill Luke, he ended his working arrangement with the Falleen most permanently by blasting Xizor and his personal skyhook - a large repulsor craft - out of Coruscant's upper atmosphere. Construction on the Endor Project proceeded. A year after Vader's last encounter with Luke Skywalker, the Executor carried the Dark Lord to the still-unfinished superweapon.
Against Vader's objections, the Emperor-following a plan that had been conceived by Xizor - had allowed a computer that contained plans for the Endor Project to be transported on a single, unescorted freighter through the Both system. With the aid of Bothan spies, the Rebels had captured the computer to learn that the largest of Endor's nine moons was generating a powerful energy s.h.i.+eld to protect the Empire's new ”secret” battle station.
The Emperor was confident that the Rebels would take the bait and bring their fleet to Endor, but Vader was more interested in whatever future lay beyond that probable skirmish. Although he had proposed to the Emperor that Luke Skywalker could be converted to the dark side and join the Sith Lords, he was well aware of the Sith order's long tradition of limiting their number to two: one Master, one apprentice. One of us will have to die, Vader mused.
CHAPTER 21.
The Endor Project was a new Death Star, which was suspended in a synchronous...o...b..t around the forest-covered Sanctuary Moon of the gas giant Endor. When construction was completed, the new Death Star would be even larger than the original. Its primary weapon, the planet-destroying superlaser, had been redesigned so that it could be recharged within minutes and finely focused to fire at moving targets such as capital s.h.i.+ps. Imperial technicians regarded it as the deadliest invention of all time.
As Vader's shuttle carried him from the Executor to the fragmentary framework of the new battle station, he surveyed the enormous superlaser with contempt. Even if it succeeds where the first Death Star failed, he thought, it is an infant's trinket compared to the power of the Force.
After landing, Vader informed the Death Star's commanding officer, Moff Jerjerrod, that the Emperor was displeased the station was not yet operational. Upon learning that the Emperor himself would soon be arriving in the Endor system, Jerjerrod commanded his men to redouble their efforts.
By the time the Emperor arrived via shuttle to a grand Imperial reception in a Death Star docking bay, Vader had received a report from Tatooine that Jabba the Hutt was dead. Evidently, Luke and his allies had successfully liberated Han Solo from the Hutt. After Vader informed the Emperor that the Death Star would be completed on schedule, the Emperor said, ”You have done well, Lord Vader. And now I sense you wish to continue your search for young Skywalker.”
”Yes, my Master.”
”Patience, my friend,” the Emperor rasped. ”In time, he will seek you out. And when he does, you must bring him before me. He has grown strong. Only together can we turn him to the dark side of the Force.”
”As you wish,” said Vader. He had not forgotten how Anakin Skywalker had obeyed Palpatine's command to kill Count Dooku, and had no reason to doubt that the Emperor had already planned a test for Luke to determine whether Vader would remain his apprentice.
”Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen,” the Emperor sneered.
As Vader escorted his Master through the Death Star, he wished he could see the future so clearly. Palpatine had lured Anakin Skywalker to the dark side, re-created him as a cybernetic monster, and remained the more powerful of the two Sith Lords. Although Luke Skywalker had defeated Vader at the first Death Star, evaded him on Hoth, and escaped him at Bespin, Vader did not believe his son could resist the Emperor's power. Luke has to join me. I cannot lose again.
The new Death Star's construction continued. Vader had just learned that Rebel s.h.i.+ps had a.s.sembled in the Sull.u.s.t system when he was summoned to the Emperor's throne room. Perched atop a highly s.h.i.+elded tower at the station's north pole, the throne room had large circular windows that allowed the Emperor a wide view of the forest moon and the battle station's upper hemisphere. The throne itself was a high-backed seat that was set atop a broad, elevated platform. The back of the seat faced Vader as he mounted the steps that led to the throne.
”What is thy bidding, my Master?”
Swiveling in his throne to look at Vader, the Emperor said, ”Send the fleet to the far side of Endor. There it will stay until called for.”
”What of the reports of the Rebel fleet ma.s.sing near Sull.u.s.t?”
”It is of no concern,” the Emperor said dismissively. ”Soon the Rebellion will be crushed and young Skywalker will be one of us! Your work here is finished, my friend. Go to the command s.h.i.+p and await my orders.”
Soon after Vader returned to the bridge of the Executor, he was looking through a viewport when he saw a Lambda-cla.s.s shuttle approaching Endor. The shuttle had transmitted an older Imperial code for clearance, but Vader permitted the s.h.i.+p to proceed to the forest moon. Luke is on that s.h.i.+p, he sensed with utmost certainty.
Although the Emperor had instructed Vader to remain on the Executor, Vader was compelled to report this latest development in person. After returning to the Emperor's throne room on the Death Star, Vader noticed that the Emperor actually seemed surprised to hear that Luke had arrived on Endor.
”Are you sure?” the Emperor asked.
”I have felt him, my Master.”
”Strange that I have not,” the Emperor said warily. ”I wonder if your feelings on this matter are clear, Lord Vader.”
”They are clear, my Master.”
”Then you must go to the Sanctuary Moon and wait for him.”
Skeptical, Vader asked, ”He will come to me?”
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