• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Luke held up a hand. “I get it.” He turned a grim glance on Nick, who only shrugged.

“Don’t look at me,” Nick said. “I’m not the Emperor.”

Darkness closed like a fist around Luke’s heart.

He stood in the doorway, staring. A vast cavern of gleaming black, which seemed to be filled with stormtroopers in armor that matched the stone, all kneeling to him with heads uncovered. Hundreds upon hundreds of other people, regular people, whose only crime was that they’d lived in places Blackhole had targeted, now lying facedown on the smooth cold stone with their hands behind their heads, afraid to even lift their faces to look upon him.

“I’m the Emperor …” he said dully.

And what was wrong with it? Had this not been, after all, his father’s plan for him?

Vader’s plan.

Maybe Vader had understood fully a truth that Anakin Skywalker had only glimpsed: that all striving comes to nothing in the end. That the only answer was to take what you could get. To rule at ease. To enjoy whatever fragmentary instants of pleasure one’s brief life might offer.

What difference did it make? Heroes, villains, kings, and peasants, all went to the same final Dark. Why struggle?

He didn’t have an answer. He remembered answers—answers he’d gotten from Ben, from Yoda, even from Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, empty talk of duty and tradition, of honor and love—but none of them had understood. Not really.

Or maybe they had.

Because what was that talk of duty and honor and love, really? Wasn’t it just their way of controlling him?

“My lord Emperor? Are you unwell?”

Luke shook himself. He took a deep breath and looked at Nick. “Happened again?”

Nick nodded. “You just … went away.”

Luke again lifted a hand to rub his eyes. Now his hand was shaking. “He … did something to me, Nick. I don’t—I can’t fight it …”

“Who did something to you?” The stormtrooper officer was on his feet, and his face flushed red to the roots of his graying hair. “Name this traitor, and my men will destroy him!”

Nick turned to Luke with lifted brows and a sudden sparkle in his eyes; Luke turned his hand outward in a no-arguments, don’t-even-say-it gesture. “No,” Luke said. “No destroying anybody. There’s been too much destroying.”

Another round of distant blasts sent a shiver of shock wave through the cavern. Nick rolled his eyes toward the vault’s ceiling. “Yeah, no kidding. And these guys can help us stop it.”

“No.”

“Skywalker, think about it—” Nick began.

“I can’t,” Luke said. “I can’t think about it. That’s what you don’t understand. Thinking about it will … send me away again. Back into the …”

His voice trailed off. He couldn’t make himself talk about the Dark. Talking about it would break the surface film of light that was all that stood between him and the unbearable truth—it would rupture the illusion that was the only thing keeping him going right now. “I have to—I have to pretend to trust what I’ve always known. I have to act like I believe it’s all still true. That they weren’t all lying to me. That I wasn’t just kidding myself, do you get it?”

“Uh, no. Not really.” Nick’s vivid blue eyes shaded gray with growing concern. “Not really at all.”

“Then just take my word for it.” Luke looked at the group captain. All you have to do is pretend, he told himself. Do what you would have done back when you believed lives were worth saving. Maybe if you pretend long enough, you can fall back into that dream of light … “Okay,” he said. “Okay. New orders. You and your men—” He waved vaguely toward the prisoners. “I want you to take care of them.”

“Yes, my lord.” The group captain turned to the troopers who stood guard over the prone captives and raised his hand. “Second Platoon! You heard the emperor. Prepare to fire on my order!”

“No!” Luke said hastily. “No, that’s not a euphemism. It’s a direct order. I want you to care for them. Tend their wounds. Get them food and water. Keep them safe, do you understand?”

The expression on the group captain’s face showed clearly that he didn’t understand, but nonetheless he saluted. “Yes, my lord!”

“And … and send your men—not