His dream was very close to realization, he could feel it; it was near. Each event fell into place, as he'd nudged it, with Jedi subtlety; as he'd pressed, with delicate dark strength.

'The Death Star will be completed on schedule, my master,' Vader breathed.

'Yes, I know,' replied the Emperor. 'You have done well, Lord Vader ... and now I sense you wish to continue your search for the young Skywalker.'

Vader smiled beneath his armored mask. The Emperor always knew the sense of what was in his heart; even if he didn't know the specifics. 'Yes, my master.'

'Patience, my friend,' the Supreme Ruler cautioned. 'You always had difficulty showing patience. 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.'

'Yes, my master.' Together, they would corrupt the boy - the child of the father. Great, dark glory. For soon, the old Emperor would die - and though the galaxy would bend from the horror of that loss, Vader would remain to rule, with young Skywalker at his side. As it was always meant to be.

The Emperor raised his head a degree, scanning all the possible futures. 'Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.'

He, like Vader, had plans of his own - plans of spiritual violation, the manipulation of lives and destinies. He chuckled to himself, savoring the nearness of his conquest: the final seduction of the young Skywalker.

Luke left his X-wing parked at the edge of the water and carefully picked his way through the adjoining swamp. A heavy mist hung in layers about him. Jungle steam. A strange insect flew at him from out of a cl.u.s.ter of hanging vines, fluttered madly about his head, and vanished. In the undergrowth, something snarled. Luke concentrated momentarily. The snarling stopped. Luke walked on.

He had terribly ambivalent feelings about this place. Dagobah. His place of tests, of training to be a Jedi. This was where he'd truly learned to use the Force, to let it flow through him to whatever end he directed it. So he'd learned how caretaking he must be in order to use the Force well. It was walking on light; but to a Jedi it was as stable as an earthen floor.

Dangerous creatures lurked in this swamp; but to a Jedi, none were evil. Voracious quicksand mires waited, still as pools; tentacles mingled with the hanging vines. Luke knew them all, now, they were all part of the living planet, each integral to the Force of which he, too, was a pulsing aspect.

Yet there were dark things here, as well - unimaginably dark, reflections of the dark corners of his soul. He'd seen these things here. He'd run from them, he'd struggled with them; he'd even faced them. He'd vanquished some of them.

But some still cowered here. These dark things.

He climbed around a barricade of gnarled roots, slippery with moss. On the other side, a smooth, unimpeded path led straight in the direction he wanted to go; but he did not take it. Instead, he plunged once more into the undergrowth.

High overhead, something black and flapping approached, then veered away. Luke paid no attention. He just kept walking.

The jungle thinned a bit. Beyond the next bog, Luke saw it - the small, strangely-shaped dwelling, its odd little windows shedding a warm yellow light in the damp rain-forest. He skirted the mire, and crouching low, entered the cottage.

Yoda stood smiling inside, his small green hand clutching his walking stick for support. 'Waiting for you I was,' he nodded.

He motioned Luke to sit in a corner. The boy was struck by how much more frail Yoda's manner seemed - a tremor to the hand, a weakness to the voice. It made Luke afraid to speak, to betray his shock at the old master's condition.

'That face you make,' Yoda crinkled his tired brow cheerfully. 'Look I so bad to young eyes?'

He tried to conceal his woeful countenance, shifting his position in the cramped s.p.a.ce. 'No, Master ... of course not.'

'I do, yes, I do!' the tiny Jedi Master chuckled gleefully. 'Sick I've become. Yes. Old and weak.' He pointed a crooked finger at his young pupil. 'When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not.'

The creature hobbled over to his bed, still chuckling and, with great effort, lay down. 'Soon will I rest. Yes, forever sleep. Earned it. I have.'

Luke shook his head. 'You can't die, Master Yoda-I won't let you.'

'Trained well, and strong with the Force are you - but not that strong! Twilight is upon me, and soon night must fall. That is the way of things ... the way of the Force.'

'But I need your help,' Luke insisted. 'I want to complete my training.' The great teacher couldn't leave him now - there was too much, still, to understand. And he'd taken so much from Yoda already, and as yet given back nothing. He had much he wanted to share with the old creature.

'No more training do you require,' Yoda a.s.sured him. 'Already know you that which you need.'

'Then I am a Jedi?' Luke pressed. No. He knew he was not, quite. Something still lacked.

Yoda wrinkled up his wizened features. 'Not yet. One thing remains. Vader ... Vader you must confront. Then, only then, a full Jedi you'll be. And confront him you will, sooner or later.'

Luke knew this would be his test, it could not be otherwise. Every quest had its focus, and Vader was inextricably at the core of Luke's struggle. It was agonizing for him to put the question to words; but after a long silence, he again spoke to the old Jedi. 'Master Yoda - is Darth Vader my father?'

Yoda's eyes filled with a weary compa.s.sion. This boy was not yet a man complete. A sad smile creased his face, he seemed almost to grow smaller in his bed. 'A rest I need. Yes. A rest.'

Luke stared at the dwindling teacher, trying to give the old one strength, just by the force of his love and will. 'Yoda, I must know,' he whispered.

'Your father he is,' Yoda said simply.

Luke closed his eyes, his mouth, his heart, to keep away the truth of what he knew was true.

'Told you, did he?' Yoda asked.

Luke nodded, but did not speak. He wanted to keep the moment frozen, to shelter it here, to lock time and s.p.a.ce in this room, so it could never escape into the rest of the universe with this terrible knowledge, this unrelenting truth.

A look of concern filled Yoda's face. 'Unexpected this is, and unfortunate-'

'Unfortunate that I know the truth?' A bitterness crept into Luke's voice, but he couldn't decide if it was directed at Vader, Yoda, himself, or the universe at large.

Yoda gathered himself up with an effort that seemed to take all his strength. 'Unfortunate that you rushed to face him - that incomplete your training was ... that not ready for the burden were you. Obi-Wan would have told you long ago, had I let him ... now a great weakness you carry. Fear for you, I do. Fear for you, yes.' A great tension seemed to pa.s.s out of him and he closed his eyes.

'Master Yoda, I'm sorry.' Luke trembled to see the potent Jedi so weak.

'I know, but face Vader again you must, and sorry will not help.' He leaned forward, and beckoned Luke close to him. Luke crawled over to sit beside his master. Yoda continued, his voice increasingly frail. 'Remember, a Jedi's strength flows from the Force. When you rescued your friends, you had revenge in your heart. Beware of anger, fear, and aggression. The dark side are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.'

He lay back in bed, his breathing became shallow. Luke waited quietly, afraid to move, afraid to distract the old one an iota, lest it jar his attention even a fraction from the business of just keeping the void at bay.

After a few minutes, Yoda looked at the boy once more, and with a maximum effort, smiled gently, the greatness of his spirit the only thing keeping his decrepit body alive. 'Luke - of the Emperor beware. Do not underestimate his powers, or suffer your father's fate you will. When gone I am ... last of the Jedi will you be. Luke, the Force is strong in your family. Pa.s.s on what you ... have ... learned ...' He began to falter, he closed his eyes. 'There ... is ... another ... sky ..."

He caught his breath, and exhaled, his spirit pa.s.sing from him like a sunny wind blowing to another sky. His body shivered once; and he disappeared.

Luke sat beside the small, empty bed for over an hour, trying to fathom the depth of this loss. It was unfathomable.

His first feeling was one of boundless grief. For himself, for the universe. How could such a one as Yoda be gone forever? It felt like a black, bottomless hole had filled his heart, where the part that was Yoda had lived.

Luke had known the pa.s.sing of old mentors before. It was helplessly sad; and inexorably, a part of his own growing. Is this what coming of age was, then? Watching beloved friends grow old and die? Gaining a new measure of strength or maturity from their powerful pa.s.sages?

A great weight of hopelessness settled upon him, just as all the lights in the little cottage flickered out. For several more minutes he sat there, feeling it was the end of everything, that all the lights in the universe had flickered out. The last Jedi, sitting in a swamp, while the entire galaxy plotted the last war.

A chill came over him, though, disturbing the nothingness into which his consciousness had lapsed. He shivered, looked around. The gloom was impenetrable.

He crawled outside and stood up. Here in the swamp, nothing had changed. Vapor congealed, to drip from dangling roots back into the mire, in a cycle it had repeated a million times, would repeat forever. Perhaps there was his lesson. If so, it cut his sadness not a whit.

Aimlessly he made his way back to where his ship rested. Artoo rushed up, beeping his excited greeting; but Luke was disconsolate, and could only ignore the faithful little droid. Artoo whistled a brief condolence, then remained respectfully silent.

Luke sat dejectedly on a log, put his head in his hands, and spoke softly to himself. 'I can't do it. I can't go on alone.'

A voice floated down to him on the dim mist. 'Yoda and I will be with you always.' It was Ben's voice.

Luke turned around swiftly to see the shimmering image of Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi standing behind him. 'Ben!' he whispered. There were so many things he wanted to say, they rushed through his mind all in a whirl, like the churning, puffed cargo of a ship in a maelstrom. But one question rose quickly to the surface above all the others.

'Why, Ben? Why didn't you tell me?'

It was not an empty question. 'I was going to tell you when you had completed your training,' the vision of Ben answered. 'But you found it necessary to rush off unprepared. I warned you about your impatience.' His voice was unchanged, a hint of scolding, a hint of love.

'You told me Darth Vader betrayed and murdered my father.' The bitterness he'd felt earlier, with Yoda, had found its focus now on Ben.

Ben absorbed the vitriol undefensively, then padded it with instruction. 'Your father, Anakin, was seduced by the dark side of the Force - he ceased to be Anakin Skywalker, and became Darth Vader. When that happened, he betrayed everything that Anakin Skywalker believed in. The good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true ... from a certain point of view.'

'A certain point of view!' Luke rasped derisively. He felt betrayed - by life more than anything else, though only poor Ben was available to take the brunt of his conflict.

'Luke,' Ben spoke gently, 'you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view.'

Luke turned unresponsive. He wanted to hold onto his fury, to guard it like a treasure. It was all he had, he would not let it be stolen from him, as everything else had been stolen. But already he felt it slipping, softened by Ben's compa.s.sionate touch.

'I don't blame you for being angry,' Ben coaxed. 'If I was wrong in what I did, it certainly wouldn't have been for the first time. You see, what happened to your father was my fault..."

Luke looked up with sudden acute interest. He'd never heard this and was rapidly losing his anger to fascination and curiosity - for knowledge was an addictive drug, and the more he had the more he wanted.

As he sat on his stump, increasingly mesmerized, Artoo pedaled over, silent, just to offer a comforting presence.

'When I first encountered your father,' Ben continued, 'he was already a great pilot. But what amazed me was how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train Anakin in the ways of the Jedi. My mistake was thinking I could be as good a teacher as Yoda. I was not. Such was my foolish pride. The Emperor sensed Anakin's power, and he lured him to the dark side.' He paused sadly and looked directly into Luke's eyes, as if he were asking for the boy's forgiveness. 'My pride had terrible con sequences for the galaxy.'

Luke was entranced. That Obi-Wan's hubris could have caused his father's fall was horrible. Horrible because of what his father had needlessly become, horrible because Obi-Wan wasn't perfect, wasn't even a perfect Jedi, horrible because the dark side could strike so close to home, could turn such right so wrong. Darth Vader must yet have a spark of Anakin Skywalker deep inside. 'There is still good in him,' he declared.

Ben shook his head remorsefully. 'I also thought he could be turned back to the good side. It couldn't be done. He is more machine, now, than man - twisted, and evil.'

Luke sensed the underlying meaning in Ken.o.bi's statement, he heard the words as a command. He shook his head back at the vision. 'I can't kill my own father.'

'You should not think of that machine as your father.' It was the teacher speaking again. 'When I saw what had become of him, I tried to dissuade him, to draw him back from the dark side. We fought ... your father fell into a molten pit. When your father clawed his way out of that fiery pool, the change had been burned into him forever - he was Darth Vader, without a trace of Anakin Skywalker. Irredeemably dark. Scarred. Kept alive only by machinery and his own black will Luke looked down at his own mechanical right hand. 'I tried to stop him once. I couldn't do it.' He would not challenge his father again. He could not.

'Vader humbled you when first you met him, Luke - but that experience was part of your training. It taught you, among other things, the value of patience. Had you not been so impatient to defeat Vader then, you could have finished your training here with Yoda. You would have been prepared.'

'But I had to help my friends.'

'And did you help them? It was they who had to save you. You achieved little by rushing back prematurely, I fear.'

Luke's indignation melted, leaving only sadness in its wake. 'I found out Darth Vader was my father,' he whispered.

'To be a Jedi, Luke, you must confront and then go beyond the dark side - the side your father couldn't get past. Impatience is the easiest door - for you, like your father. Only, your father was seduced by what he found on the other side of the door, and you have held firm. You're no longer so reckless now, Luke. You are strong and patient. And you are ready for your final confrontation.'

Luke shook his head again, as the implications of the old Jedi's speech became clear. 'I can't do it, Ben.'

Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi's shoulders slumped in defeat. 'Then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope.'

Luke reached for alternatives. 'Yoda said I could train another to...'

'The other he spoke of is your twin sister,' the old man offered a dry smile. 'She will find it no easier than you to destroy Darth Vader.'

Luke was visibly jolted by this information. He stood up to face this spirit. 'Sister? I don't have a sister.'

Once again Obi-Wan put a gentle inflection in his voice, to soothe the turmoil brewing in his young friend's soul. 'To protect you both against the Emperor, you were separated when you were born. The Emperor knew, as I did, that one day, with the Force on their side, Skywalker's offspring would be a threat to him. For that reason, your sister has remained safely anonymous.'

Luke resisted this knowledge at first. He neither needed nor wanted a twin. He was unique! He had no missing parts - save the hand whose mechanical replacement he now flexed tightly. p.a.w.n in a castle conspiracy? Cribs mixed, siblings switched and parted and whisked away to different secret lives? Impossible. He knew who he was! He was Luke Skywalker, born to a Jedi-turned-Sithlord, raised on a Tatooine sandfarm by Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, raised in a life without frills, a hardworking honest pauper -because his mother ... his mother ... What was it about his mother? What had she said? Who was she? What had she told him? He turned his mind inward, to a place and time far from the damp soil of Dagobah, to his mother's chamber, his mother and his ... sister. His sister ...

'Leia! Leia is my sister,' he exclaimed, nearly falling over the stump.

'Your insight serves you well,' Ben nodded. He quickly became stern, though. 'Bury your feelings deep down, Luke. They do you credit, but they could be made to serve the Emperor.'

Luke tried to comprehend what his old teacher was saying. So much information, so fast, so vital... it almost made him swoon.

Ben continued his narrative. 'When your father left, he didn't know your mother was pregnant. Your mother and I knew he would find out eventually, but we wanted to keep you both as safe as possible, for as long as possible. So I took you to live with my brother Owen, on Tatooine ... and your mother took Leia to live as the daughter of Senator Organa, on Alderaan.'

Luke settled down to hear this tale, as Artoo nestled up beside him, humming in a subaudible register to comfort.

Ben, too, kept his voice even, so that the sounds could give solace when the words did not. 'The Organa family was high-born and politically quite powerful in that system. Leia became a princess by virtue of lineage - no one knew she'd been adopted, of course. But it was a t.i.tle without real power, since Alderaan had long been a democracy. Even so, the family continued to be politically powerful, and Leia, following in her foster father's path, became a senator as well. That's not all she became, of course - she became the leader of her cell in the Alliance against the corrupt Empire. And because she had diplomatic immunity, she was a vital link for getting information to the Rebel cause.

'That's what she was doing when her path crossed yours - for her foster parents had always told her to contact me on Tatooine, if her troubles became desperate.'

Luke tried sorting through his multiplicity of feelings - the love he'd always felt for Leia, even from afar, now had a clear basis. But suddenly he was feeling protective toward her as well, like an older brother - even though, for all he knew, she might have been his elder by several minutes.

'But you can't let her get involved now, Ben,' he insisted. 'Vader will destroy her.' Vader. Their father. Perhaps Leia could resurrect the good in him.

'She hasn't been trained in the ways of the Jedi the way you have, Luke - but the Force is strong with her, as it is with all of your family. That is why her path crossed mine - because the Force in her must be nourished by a Jedi. You're the last Jedi, now, Luke ... but she returned to us - to me - to learn, and grow. Because it was her destiny to learn and grow; and mine to teach.'

He went on more slowly, each word deliberate, each pause emphatic. 'You cannot escape your destiny, Luke.' He locked his eyes on Luke's eyes, and put as much of his spirit as he could into the gaze, to leave it forever imprinted on Luke's mind. 'Keep your sister's ident.i.ty secret, for if you fail she is truly our last hope. Gaze on me now, Luke - the coming fight is yours alone, but much will depend on its outcome, and it may be that you can draw some strength from my memory. There is no avoiding the battle, though - you can't escape your destiny. You will have to face Darth Vader again..."

= IV =.

DARTH Vader stepped out of the long, cylindrical elevator into what had been the Death Star control room, and now was the Emperor's throne room. Two royal guards stood either side of the door, red robes from neck to toe, red helmets covering all but eyeslits that were actually electrically modified view-screens. Their weapons were always drawn.

The room was dim except for the light cables running either side of the elevator shaft, carrying power and information through the s.p.a.ce station. Vader walked across the sleek black steel floor, past the humming giant converter engines, up the short flight of steps to the platform level upon which sat the Emperor's throne. Beneath this platform, off to the right, was the mouth of the shaft that delved deeply into the pit of the battle station, down to the very core of the power unit. The chasm was black, and reeked of ozone, and echoed continuously in a low, hollow rumble.

At the end of the overhanging platform was a wall, in the wall, a huge, circular observation window. Sitting in an elaborate control-chair before the window, staring out into s.p.a.ce, was the Emperor.

The uncompleted half of the Death Star could be seen immediately beyond the window, shuttles and transports buzzing around it, men with tight-suits and rocket-packs doing exterior construction or surface work. In the near-distance beyond all this activity was the jade green moon Endor, resting like a jewel on the black velvet of s.p.a.ce - and scattered to infinity, the gleaming diamonds that were the stars.

The Emperor sat, regarding this view, as Vader approached from behind. The Lord of the Sith kneeled and waited. The Emperor let him wait. He perused the vista before him with a sense of glory beyond all reckoning: this was all his. And more glorious still, all his by his own hand.