Star Wars - A New Hope - The Life of Luke Skywalker

by Ryder Windham

  Her voice sounded so tranquil, comforting...

  Luke felt a supple pressure against his cheek, and then S’ybll’s hair brushed against his face. He felt her take his right hand in hers, and she began massaging his fingers.

  “Funny, S’ybll,” Luke mumbled deliriously. “Ben Kenobi appeared to me. . . wanted me to find you. . . help you. But really. . . you’re helping me.”

  “Just relax.”

  “I felt like. . . you were kissing me earlier.”

  “Lie still,” S’ybll said soothingly. “I know what I’m doing. I’ve done this many times before.”

  Luke smelled something burning. Candles. Maybe dried leaves too. He cleared his throat. “S’ybll, is it still night? You’ve stayed with me for so long.”

  “I like being close to you, Luke.”

  “Didn’t think the fall hurt me much,” he said. “But. . . keep feeling weaker.”

  “Just relax,” S’ybll repeated. “Let me treat you. It’s best if you have quiet.”

  And then, unexpectedly, Luke heard C-3PO’s voice. “Master Luke? Master Luke!” the droid said. “Are you there, sir? Come in. . . please!”

  Luke was suddenly alert. He tried to push himself up from the flat surface he’d been resting on, and drew one hand toward his face.

  “Lie still,” S’ybll said. “Don’t move. Don’t take the cloth from your eyes.”

  “S’ybll,” Luke said, pushing against her shoulder. “That voice. It was one of my droids. . . Threepio!”

  And then C-3PO spoke again. “Artoo-Detoo, I feel most silly doing this. If Master Luke lost his comlink, he can’t possibly hear us!”

  “My comlink!” Luke said. He sat up fast, pulling the damp cloth from his face as he turned his head in the direction of C-3PO’s voice. He was in a gloomy chamber and had been resting on some kind of altar. Smoke was rising from an archaic urn as well as from several candles. A stone table was placed near the altar. On the table were his lightsaber, blaster pistol, and comlink.

  Luke stared at the comlink. “S’ybll.. . I thought it fell off. . . when we plunged into the river from the cliff. The only way it could’ve gotten here is if you..

  S’ybll pushed Luke aside and snatched up the comlink. Only then did he see her face.

  Although she remained attired in the animal skins, the woman who stood before him was a wretched, withered figure, with filthy white hair and deathly pale, wrinkled flesh that was broken with many warts. Spittle flew from her yellow teeth as she snapped, “I told you not to take the cloth from your eyes!”

  Luke felt light-headed. He blinked as he tried to determine what was real and what wasn’t. “You stole my comlink, S’ybll. . . . Hid it here. . . in your quarters . . “

  “Yes, Luke,” S’ybll said, her voice a low rasp. “Right off your equipment belt. I wanted to use it later, to lure your friends to these ruins after I was through with you.”

  Luke shook his head. “S’ybll, what’s happened to you?”

  “You’re seeing me as I am, Luke. I’ve always looked this way. Until visitors like you — and an Imperial exploration team before you — arrived to help me. As your friends will arrive. . . following your comlink.” She extended a bony arm to place the comlink on the altar. “It might be difficult dealing with all of you at once, but by the time they’re here, I’ll be done with you.”

  Luke backed up cautiously toward the stone table.

  “Stand still, Luke,” S’ybll said. “You’re too weak. Too under my spell to escape now!”

  “D-don’t know what you’ve done to me,” he stammered as he grabbed his weapons from the table. “ But I won’t just give up!” He scanned the chamber and sighted a curving flight of stone steps that appeared to be the only exit. Dim light shone down from the top of the stairwell.

  “Yes,” S’ybll hissed as Luke secured the weapons to his belt. “There’s great power in you. I sensed that. It’s what attracted me. But it’s mostly unformed. . . you’ve not yet mastered it. And now you never will!” She lurched forward and threw her arms around him.

  Luke gasped. His arms flexed away from his body against his will. He wanted to break away from S’ybll and reach for his weapons, but he couldn’t budge.

  “Don’t fight, Luke. Just give in to my embrace. The pain won’t last long.”

  Her breath was awful. Luke tried to pull himself away from S’ybll, but her arms remained locked around him. As his senses reeled, he thought, Who... what are you?

  “I’m a mind witch,” S’ybll said. “I was ancient when these ruins were new. I can reach into your memories and create illusions to ensnare and weaken you until a psychic link is forged. Then I drain the mental energy from you, the very life essence that will renew me. . . make me young again! Just as I drained the energy of the Imperial soldiers. . “

  Luke closed his eyes and struggled to concentrate. He felt S’ybll probing his mind. He thought, Get out!

  “There’s no resisting, Luke. You’ll soon be an empty husk. It’s too late. . . even with the Force running so richly within your being.”

  She knows about the Force!

  “The hold of the mind witch is upon you. Give in!”

  “No!” Luke shouted as he opened his eyes and flung his arms out, launching S’ybll away from him and sending her to the floor. It took all his concentration to turn for the stone steps. Ignoring a human skull that had been transformed into a candle holder, he began climbing.

  As he ascended from the subterranean lair, Luke heard S’ybll’s cackle travel up the stairway. “You’re strong!” she said. “So much stronger than I suspected. But you’re too weak to run far. And with the psychic links I’ve forged, your very thoughts.. . your greatest fears. . . are mine to use against you!”

  Luke saw the exit ahead of him. It was daybreak, and a heavy layer of mist hung in the morning air. S’ybll cackled again, and Luke could still hear her dreadful laughter echoing off the stairwell’s walls as he emerged outside, amid the columnar ruins.

  Darth Vader was waiting for him. Looking beside a massive column, the Dark Lord of the Sith extended the red blade of his lightsaber and said, “I have you at last, young Skywalker.”

  Vader swept toward him. Luke cringed and nearly stumbled back into the stairwell. He had no intention of falling into S‘ybll’s clutches again. Keeping his eyes on Vader, he edged away from the stairwell but accidentally backed into a column.

  Vader swung his blade at Luke’s head. Luke ducked and the lightsaber flashed over him, striking the column. The impact made a loud crack, and as Luke leaped aside and looked back, he saw what appeared to be a fresh gouge across the column’s face.

  Luke knew that Vader was just an illusion created by the mind witch, but.. . It seems so real!

  Out of the corner of his eye, Luke saw S’ybll emerge from the stairwell just as Vader advanced toward him again. Luke realized that there was only one way to resist.

  I’ve got to stop and be calm.

  Instead of staring at the illusion of Vader, he relaxed and stared through it.

  Vader stopped in front of Luke, raised the lightsaber, and swung hard. The red blade appeared to pass directly through Luke’s body, but it had absolutely no effect on him. Luke stood his ground as Vader swung again.

  “Your illusions are frightening, S’ybll,” Luke said as the image faded and vanished. “But the only way they can do real harm is if I give in to them.”

  “I’ve underestimated you,” S‘ybll said bitterly. “Now you force me to demonstrate that a mind witch’s powers extend far beyond weaving illusions!” She clenched a bony fist at Luke. “I can wield physical objects!”

  Luke heard a loud breaking noise to his left, and he looked up to see that two neighboring columns had suddenly broken in half and were swaying toward him, along with the massive lintel they had supported for ages. Luke sensed it was no illusion.

  S‘ybll said, “I hate to crush a source of mental energies which can feed and renew me, but your frien
ds should arrive soon to replace you!”

  Luke instinctively calculated the trajectory of the falling stones and jumped just before they came crashing down where he’d been standing. He moved faster than S’ybll could keep track of him, and jumped over and behind a fragment of a broken lintel. Dust and debris flew in all directions.

  The cloud of dust was still settling when Luke heard a welcome voice call out from the jungle. “Luke? Luke! It’s Han and Chewie! You around, kid? What was that crash we heard?”

  “This way!” S’ybll replied. “Hurry! Please! Your friend’s been hurt!”

  Emerging from the rubble, Luke said, “Not as fatally as you think, S’ybll. You’ve weakened me, but not so much I couldn’t dodge one falling rock.”

  The mind witch glared at him. “You dare taunt me? Perhaps you need a final demonstration of just how far a mind witch’s ability to move physical objects can go!” She lifted her arms and gestured at the ruins.

  A sound like rolling thunder rippled across the area, and then the ruins exploded. Heavy stones rained down, smashing all around Luke. He suddenly felt as if he were trying to escape a meteor shower, but he also saw an opportunity to use S’ybll’s powers against her. He ran fast to dodge the debris, then turned and ran back toward S’ybll.

  S‘ybll sneered at him as he changed course. He saw her try to redirect a large stone through the air in his direction, and he also saw a column that was falling toward her.

  The stones crashed into the ground. The noise was followed by an almost total silence.

  Luke stepped out from the rubble. A moment later, he saw Han and Chewbacca arrive at the edge of the ruins.

  “Luke!” Han shouted. “Chewie, the droids, and I have been blasted worried! What happened here, kid?”

  “I made someone very angry, Han.” Luke gestured at one of the toppled columns. A pale, bony arm jutted out from underneath it. “A mind witch,” Luke continued. “She meant to kill me and renew herself by draining you two of your mental energies. I gambled that if she got enraged enough, the effort would exhaust her own energies instead. And without anything to sustain her, she collapsed as she should have ages ago.”

  Han glanced at Chewbacca and said, “I’ve heard of mind witches. Always thought they were just a crazy myth.”

  Luke said, “I guess S’ybll was the last of her kind.”

  “Since she intended to leave us like she wound up herself, I sure hope so! Time we left this paradise, kid.”

  They left the ruins and made their way back through the jungle to the Millennium Falcon. Although the Falcon’s navicomputer remained temperamental, they managed to get back to Hoth and rejoin their allies at Echo Base.

  * * *

  Three years had passed since the destruction of the Death Star at Yavin 4, but the days were numbered for the Rebellion’s new secret headquarters. Not long after the Falcon’s return to the ice planet, an Imperial probe droid arrived on Hoth and subsequently transmitted an image of the Rebel base’s large power generator back to the Imperial fleet.

  And then the Empire struck back.

  INTERLUDE

  As Luke reflected on his encounter with the mind witch, he recalled that it hadn‘t been the first time he’d confronted an apparition of Darth Vader. Not long after he’d destroyed the Death Star, he’d been recovering from an ill-fated meditation exercise when he’d dreamed of a duel with Vader. Ben Kenobi had appeared in the dream too, and when Luke awakened, it was with the certainly that Vader had survived the Battle of Yavin. Later, after the Battle of Hoth, he had faced yet another phantom, in a cave while he’d trained with the Jedi Master Yoda on the swamp planet Dagobah.

  Luke had also had very real confrontations with Darth Vader on Monastery and Circarpous V — but all those experiences paled compared with his duel with Vader at Bespin, in Cloud City’s reactor shaft....

  CHAPTER TEN

  Darth Vader’ s lightsaber swept through Luke’s wrist.

  Luke screamed. His hand arced away from the suddenly cauterized stub at the end of his right arm, carrying his lightsaber with it. The lightsaber automatically deactivated, and the weapon fell with the severed hand, like inconsequential refuse, into the incredibly deep reactor shaft.

  Luke was balanced on a metal beam that jutted out from a long gantry in the shaft. Vader stood looming at the gantry’s outer edge, just above Luke’s position. The reactor’s high winds whipped hard at both men. Luke clutched his wounded arm to his chest and slumped down on the beam.

  “There is no escape,” Vader said as Luke struggled to move away from him, crawling backward on the beam. “Don’t make me destroy you, Luke.”

  But Luke kept crawling. He felt dizzy and sick. His only goal was to put distance between himself and Vader.

  The Sith Lord switched off his lightsaber. “You do not yet realize your importance,” he continued. “You have only begun to discover your power. Join me and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.”

  Luke reached the end of the beam and wrapped his arms around a sensor array. Below him, there was a ring of metal, and beyond that, nothing but the yawning shaft. He turned to face Vader. “I’ll never join you!”

  “If only you knew the power of the dark side,” Vader said. He reached out to clutch the air with his black- gloved fist. “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.”

  “He told me enough!” Luke lowered his feet to the metal ring. Wincing, he added, “He told me you killed him.”

  “No,” Vader said, his fist still clenched. “I am your father.”

  Luke’s eyes opened wide. My father? But Ben told me... “No,” Luke whimpered. “No. That’s not true! That’s impossible!”

  “Search your feelings,” Vader said. “You know it to be true.”

  “No!” Luke shouted. “No!”

  The wind picked up, and Vader’s black caper rippled at his back. “Luke — you can destroy the Emperor. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny.” He opened his left hand and held it out to Luke. “Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son.”

  His voice is so hypnotic, Luke thought, and he felt part of him falling under Vader’s spell. But only part. He looked into the shaft that seemed to stretch down to forever.

  “Come with me,” Vader urged. “It is the only way.”

  Luke stared up at Vader and felt a certain calmness as he thought, No. It’s not the only way.

  He released his arms from the sensor array and fell, down, down into the reactor shaft. There was nothing to break his fall. As he tumbled through the air, he looked up, half expecting to see Vader leaping down after him. But all he saw of Vader was a rapidly receding black speck at the edge of the already distant gantry.

  INTERLUDE

  Sitting in front of a computer console in his quarters on the New Hope, Luke extended the fingers of his right hand and flexed them. Few people would ever guess that the hand was a cybernetic prosthetic. The surgeon droid on the Rebel medical frigate had done a superb job of replicating his hand, right down to the fingerprints. And thanks to Ben Kenobi, who’d Written a book that Luke discovered in Ben’s home on Tatooine, Luke had been able to construct a new lightsaber. Following Ben’s written instructions, Luke had modified his weapon with flasback waterseals so it wouldn‘t short-circuit if it made contact with water, as his first lightsaber had done when he was on Mimban.

  As Luke recalled the encounter with Vader on Cloud City, he didn’t feel angry about his father’s actions. Darth Vader had been the Emperor’s servant, and the dark side had consumed nearly every trace of goodness in him. But in the end, on the second Death Star, at the Battle of Endor, the goodness that remained in Luke‘s father won out over the dark side. Anakin Skywalker destroyed the Sith, and he died a Jedi.

  Luke wished Leia could see it that way too.

  Granted, he could understand her bitterness. Not only had Vader committed scores of atr
ocities, but some of his nefarious schemes had survived the death of Anakin Skywalker. Luke thought of Shira Brie, the Force-sensitive Imperial agent who had infiltrated the Rebel Alliance. Although the Rebels had been led to believe that Shira had been killed during a mission, Vader had had her shattered body rebuilt and transformed her into his protegee. Recently, Shira had reemerged as Lumiya, the self-proclaimed Dark Lady of the Sith. Her present whereabouts were unknown.

  Luke returned his attention to the computer console. He was using the computer to search the holonet for any and all data about the Jedi Order. Unfortunately, most of the information he found was merely old Imperial propaganda. The Empire’s leaders still claimed that the Jedi Knights who had served the Republic during the Clone Wars had been secretly plotting to overthrow the Republic and conquer the galaxy. Luke knew that the data was rubbish, and that it was the Emperor who had manipulated events to bring dawn the Jedi Order and fulfill his own ambitions.