"Anakin survived it," Obi-Wan said. "Luke can, too. And I can-well, I could take him there, and watch over him. Protect him from the worst of the planet's dangers, until he can learn to protect himself."

"Like a father you wish to be, young Obi-Wan?"

"More an ... eccentric old uncle, I think. It is a part I can play very well. To keep watch over Anakin's son-" Obi-Wan sighed, finally allowing his face to register a suggestion of his old gentle smile. "I can't imagine a better way to spend the rest of my life."

"Settled it is, then. To Tatooine, you will take him." Bail moved toward the door. "If you'll excuse me, Masters, I have to call the Queen ..." He stopped in the doorway, looking back. "Master Yoda, do you think Padme's twins will be able to defeat Palpatine?"

"Strong the Force runs, in the Skywalker line. Only hope, we can. Until the time is right, disappear we will."

Bail nodded. "And I must do the same-metaphorically, at least. You may hear . . . disturbing things . . . about what I do in the Senate. I must appear to support the new Empire, and my comrades with me. It was . . . Padme's wish, and she was a shrewder political mind than I'll ever be. Please trust that what we do is only a cover for our true task. We will never betray the legacy of the Jedi. I will never surrender the Republic to the Sith."

"Trust in this, we always will. Go now; for happy news, your Queen is waiting."

Bail Organa bowed, and vanished into the corridor.

When Obi-Wan moved to follow, Yoda's gimer stick barred his way. "A moment, Master Ken.o.bi. In your solitude on Tatooine, training I have for you. I and my new Master."

Obi-Wan blinked. "Your new Master?"

"Yes." Yoda smiled up at him. "And your old one . . ."

C-3PO shuffled along the starship's hallway beside R2-D2, following Senator Organa who had, by all accounts, inherited them both. "I'm certain I can't say why she malfunctioned," he was telling the little astromech. "Organics are so terribly complicated, you know."

Ahead, the Senator was met by a man whose uniform, C-3PO's conformation-recognition algorithm informed him, indicated he was a captain in the Royal Alderaan Civil Fleet.

"I'm placing these droids in your care," the Senator said. "Have them cleaned, polished, and refitted with the best of everything; they will belong to my new daughter."

"How lovely!" C-3PO exclaimed. "His daughter is the child of Master Anakin and Senator Amidala," he explained to R2-D2. "I can hardly wait to tell her all about her parents! I'm sure she will be very proud-"

"Oh, and the protocol droid?" Senator Organa said thoughtfully. "Have its mind wiped." The captain saluted. "Oh," said C-3PO. "Oh, dear."

In the newly renamed Emperor Palpatine Surgical Reconstruction Center on Coruscant, a hypersophisticated prototype Ubrikkian DD-13 surgical droid moved away from the project that it and an enhanced FX-6 medical droid had spent many days rebuilding.

It beckoned to a dark-robed shadow that stood at the edge of the pool of high-intensity light. "My lord, the construction is finished. He lives."

"Good. Good."

The shadow flowed into the pool of light as though the overhead illuminators had malfunctioned.

Droids stepped back as it came to the rim of the surgical table.

On the table was strapped the very first patient of the EmPal SuRecon Center.

To some eyes, it might have been a pieced-together hybrid of droid and human, encased in a life-support sh.e.l.l of gleaming black, managed by a thoracic processor that winked pale color against the shadow's cloak. To some eyes, its jointed limbs might have looked ungainly, clumsy, even monstrous; the featureless curves of black that served it for eyes might have appeared inhuman, and the underthrust grillwork of its vocabulator might have suggested the jaws of a saurian predator built of polished blast armor, but to the shadow-It was glorious.

A magnificent jewel box, created both to protect and to exhibit the greatest treasure of the Sith.

Terrifying.

Mesmerizing. Perfect.

The table slowly rotated to vertical, and the shadow leaned close.

"Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me?"

This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever: The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain.

The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black gla.s.s sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh.

You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it sc.r.a.pes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never stop it. You cannot even slow it down.

You don't even have lungs anymore.

Mechanisms hardwired into your chest breathe for you. They will pump oxygen into your bloodstream forever.

Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me?

And you can't, not in the way you once did. Sensors in the sh.e.l.l that prisons your head trickle meaning directly into your brain.

You open your scorched-pale eyes; optical sensors integrate light and shadow into a hideous simulacrum of the world around you.

Or perhaps the simulacrum is perfect, and it is the world that is hideous.

Padme? Are you here? Are you all right?you try to say, but another voice speaks for you, out from the vocabulator that serves you for burned-away lips and tongue and throat.

"Padme? Are you here? Are you all right?"

I'm very sorry, Lord Vader. I'm afraid she died. It seems in your anger, you killed her.

This burns hotter than the lava had.

"No . . . no, it is not possible!"

You loved her. You will always love her. You could never will her death.

Never.

But you remember . . .

You remember all of it.

You remember the dragon that you brought Vader forth from your heart to slay. You remember the cold venom in Vader's blood. You remember the furnace of Vader's fury, and the black hatred of seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth-And there is one blazing moment in which you finally understand that there was no dragon. That there was no Vader. That there was only you. Only Anakin Skywalker.

That it was all you. Is you.

Only you.

You did it.

You killed her.

You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself. . .

It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith-Because now your self is all you will ever have.

And you rage and scream and reach through the Force to crush the shadow who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were, you are more than half machine, you are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you can remember where the power was but the power you can touch is only a memory, and so with all your world-destroying fury it is only droids around you that implode, and equipment, and the table on which you were strapped shatters, and in the end, you cannot touch the shadow.

In the end, you do not even want to.

In the end, the shadow is all you have left. Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself-And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame. This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker. Forever . . .

The long night has begun.

Huge solemn crowds line Palace Plaza in Theed, the capital of Naboo, as six beautiful white gualaars draw a flower-draped open casket bearing the remains of a beloved Senator through the Triumphal Arch, her fingers finally and forever clasping a snippet of j.a.por, one that had been carved long ago by the hand of a nine-year-old boy from an obscure desert planet in the far Outer Rim . . .

On the jungle planet of Dagobah, a Jedi Master inspects the unfamiliar swamp of his exile . . .

From the bridge of a Star Destroyer, two Sith Lords stand with a sector governor named Tarkin, and survey the growing skeleton of a spherical battle station the size of a moon . . .

But even in the deepest night, there are some who dream of dawn.

On Alderaan, the Prince Consort delivers a baby girl into the loving arms of his Queen.

And on Tatooine, a Jedi Master brings an infant boy to the homestead of Owen and Beru Lars-Then he rides his eopie off into the Jundland Wastes, toward the setting suns.

The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins-but in the heart of its strength lies weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back.

Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars.