“Orphans”
Luke’s body was healing, but his soul was still in torment. He had never really expected for Vader to come back to the Light Side when he did. All that rubbish about “feeling the good” in him was just that: rubbish. Bluster. Bluff. He had underestimated his father, and then he had killed him. Oh, it was certainly the Emperor who put the final nail in his coffin, but Luke still felt responsible. If Vader hadn’t stepped in and absorbed the terrible Sith lightning, Luke would probably be dead. More than that, he suspected that Vader knew that the death of the Emperor would mean his death as well. There is only so much that machines can do to sustain life. The Emperor’s dark powers had really been what sustained him for all those years.
And now, in the Sick Bay of the Mon Calimari Star Cruiser Home One orbiting Coruscant, Leia was sitting beside him, holding a box and struggling to hold back tears. Luke opened his eyes and panicked, thinking something terrible had happened. She quickly calmed his fears and explained. Vader had visited her.
“Hello, Leia.” The words had come out of the darkness as she lay awake in her makeshift quarters. Han was still up, trying to get things squared away on Endor so they could get underway to Coruscant to retake the Capitol. Since Leia had never seen Ben Kenobi in his astral form, she assumed she was dreaming when her father appeared before her.
“Do I know you?” she had replied.
“You may think you do. I was your father,” came the calm voice.
“Vader?” she gasped.
He sighed. “Yes.” A long pause as she shrank from him. “I’m sorry, Leia. Sorry that I never knew you, that I never held you. That I broke your mother’s heart.”
Leia didn’t know how to reply.
“You’re very much like her, your mother. Strong. A leader. Beautiful.” He stopped. Looking very uncomfortable, he asked, “You’ll be going to Coruscant, then?”
“Yes.” She was surprised to hear anything come out of her mouth. Her voice was almost robotic.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me, Leia, but I would ask something of you.”
And now she sat next to Luke, tears in her eyes, and looked down at the box. Luke followed her gaze and noticed a beautiful amulet that had been adhesed to the plain, gray box.
Leia spoke softly. “It was our mother’s. These are her remains.”
Luke had no memory of their mother, having been raised by his uncle and aunt on Tatooine. Leia had vague memories of the woman she thought was her mother but who was really her nurse. “We have to take her home, Luke.”
She related to Luke the rest of what their father had told her. When he had learned of her death, he considered running from the Emperor to find her and bring her home. Unfortunately, the Emporer knew his thoughts and stopped him. In hopes of breaking Vader away from his past once and for all, Palpatine had presented him with the box full of ashes and an amulet bearing the Amidala family crest. He had buried it deep in the Imperial archives and buried his hatred of the Emperor even deeper.
“He asked me to take her home, Luke, and I’m going to do it.”
Luke was confused. “Alderaan was destroyed. How can you bury her on her home soil when it doesn’t exist?”
“No, Luke. She ran away from our father only after he…turned. She wasn’t from Alderaan. Vader told me her home was a small planet called Naboo. I’m taking her there. I’m leaving in an hour.”
“I’m coming with you!” He started to rise.
Leia restrained him. “No. You’re not well enough.”
Luke grabbed her hand. “I’ll rest on the journey, but I’m coming with you. You shouldn’t do this alone.”
Leia smiled. “Han said the same thing. If he weren’t so busy, I wouldn’t have been able to convince him to stay. But I think he understood that I need to do this.”
———————————————————————-
“There’s a temple outside the main city. It’s where we were married. Take her there and bury her. Please.”
Luke and Leia stood at the grave of their mother. The sound of the wind gently blowing on the knee-high native grasses sounded almost musical, and seemed to be gaining in volume. Before long, the sister and brother noticed that the music was not of the wind. Emerging over the crest of a nearby hill was a procession of an alien race with which Luke and Leia were unfamiliar. Looking for all the world like walking anteaters, the Gungan funeral procession slowly made their way to the graveside. Carried on a kind of throne was clearly the oldest among them. He seemed to be sleeping, but his eyes opened, widened, and focused on Leia as the procession stopped. “You-sah my queen? You-sah my queen.” His voice was soft, but strong.
Leia didn’t know how to reply, but any reply she may have made was quickly halted as the Gungans, as one, dropped to their knees and bowed before her. Silence fell over the procession for several minutes. Leia recognized that they were waiting for her to speak, and Luke nodded to her.
She took a deep breath and spoke. “My friends, I am a stranger to your world. I come to honor my mother, Padme Amidala, a woman I never knew. If you come to honor her, then I welcome you in her name.”
The ancient alien rose from his throne and slowly made his way to Luke and Leia. “You-sah never know? Me-sah serve she. You-sah know now.” He extended his hand, and Leia made to take it in hers, but then he turned and opened his hand, showing her his palm. In it was a holo-cube. He nodded, and she took it. “You-sah know.”
There was in image moving in the cube. A young woman’s face. It was Padme. Luke looked down at the cube, then up to Leia’s face. Tears were in her eyes, but she was looking over Luke’s shoulder. He turned and saw, just as he was fading, the image of their father.
- The End
Author’s Note: I haven’t yet seen Episode III, so forgive anything that’s amiss that might be explained by this fact.