Debrief2

Ackbar started at the display of such a human emotion. He finally
understood. Commander Skywalker had held these emotions in check for three
months already and when he had finally thought the scars were gone, an entire
new wave of them came, washing out the pain-killers the Jedi had installed in
him. It probably hadn't been a good idea to send him to Bakura, even though he
did save it. General Kenobi had been wise, but couldn't he see the boy needed
psychological help to ease the monstrosities he had seen, had become? Now the
pain just kept coming, the despair he must have felt finally surfacing. How
could the boy take it? If it had been Ackbar, he probably would have gone into
seclusion long ago. The Jedi was strong though. He probably could handle it.

"Talking about what?" Mon Mothma spoke up for the first time. She didn't
see this. Skywalker might break if he had to tell it.

"That my 'friends on the Endor moon will not survive'. That I might as
well join him to end my misery. Then he invader the private corner of my mind.
That was my breaking point. He spoke the secret there, proclaiming it for the
galaxy to hear. I snatched my lightsaber from his belt and rushed out on him,
slashing wildly. The advantage was mine. I won. I forced him to his knees and
then I let the anger come over me totally. I slashed his hand off. His right
hand for my right hand. Then the Emperor came around and told me to kill him,
to take my... to take Vader's place at his... at his side...as his...his right
hand..." Luke stopped, his shame and anguish flooding through him and pouring
out every way possible. Tears streamed freely down his cheeks, things were
shaking on the table, he was shaking. Luke gasped and swallowed.

"What did you do?" Mon Mothma asked, not feeling for Luke's display of
emotion. Was she human?

"I then realized that the darkness was what I hated and Vader and the
Emperor personified darkness. The only way to over come darkness is to denounce
it. So that's what I did. I told the Emperor that he had failed. That I was
Jedi. He then...started...I couldn't believe it. I had never seen such a thing.
Pain coursed through me. I felt like I was dying, I was dying for a fact. I
know that now. I called out to Vader, to help me, to save me. He picked up the
Emperor and threw him down a shaft into the core of the Death Star, saving my
life. What happened next is no one's business but my own's and Vader's. The
fact is that I got off the Death Star and into safety." Luke pulled it out,
visibly shaken. He had done it. He had not disclosed the secret. The secret
that Vader gave his life for. Luke would never let Vader become a mockery.
Never.

"What did you say to Lord Vader that made him save your life?" Mon Mothma
asked.

"I can't tell you." Luke declared.

"I must know." Mon Mothma persisted. Luke shook his head no.

"Luke, I hate to do this, but if we need to know, you have to tell us."
Ackbar said.

"I can't." Luke said fervently.

"Commander Skywalker, as your superior officer, I order you to tell us
what made Vader have a change of heart. It could be important. We need to know.
You can't lie. The Empire was founded on lies and the Alliance will not follow
in its footsteps. Tell us. That's an order." Ackbar declared, secretly knowing
that if the Commander held firm, Ackbar would find himself protecting Luke from
Mon Mothma. He had never seen Luke look so vulnerable. It was unnerving, to say
the least.

"I called him by a title long forgotten. One he never thought that I would
say. I had said it before, but only as that, a title. Now I said it as a name,
something that Vader wanted with all his heart. I didn't know it at the time
and I suspect that Vader didn't either. But it was enough." Luke shut his mouth
as if determined not to say anything else about it.

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