Vader vs Luke (Splinter of the Mind's Eye)

Then Luke was on his feet, the saber now shining bright blue in his hand. His roll had taken him
behind Vader. He stood between the Dark Lord and the Princess. Vader regarded him silently.

"Leia?" No answer. He glanced backward. "Princess?"

A thin, sorrowful voice. "Don't worry about me, Luke."

Vader appeared to inhale deeply. "No, Skywalker," he rumbled, "don't worry about her. Worry about
yourself."

Luke felt a wild sense of elation as he brandished his father's weapon. "I'm not worried about anything, Vader. Not now. I have no more worries and only one concern." His voice held an unaccustomed hint of conviction. "I'm going to kill you, Darth Vader."

That humorless laugh again. "What a high opinion you hold of yourself, Skywalker."

"I'm... I'm Ben Kenobi," Luke whispered in an odd way.

For just a moment Vader seemed shaken. "Ben Kenobi's dead. I killed him myself. You are simple
Luke Skywalker, an ex-farm boy from Tatooine. You are no master of the Force and the equal of Ben
Kenobi you will never be."

"Ben Kenobi is with me, Vader," Luke snarled, gaining confidence every second, "and the Force is
with me, too."

"You do have something of the Force about you, boy," Vader admitted. "A master of it you are not,
however. That dooms you. Only a master could do... this."

The Dark Lord lunged and Luke spun well clear. At the same time, Vader was staring not at Luke, but
at the ground. A small fragment of the fallen ceiling rose, shot straight for Luke's head. Seeing it
coming, he reacted as Kenobi had taught him... without thinking.

A much smaller stone lifted and intersected the path of the charging rock. The two met. Though
Vader's missile was by far the larger, it was deflected just enough by Luke's rock to send it shooting
past his shoulder harmlessly.

Panting, he stared challengingly back at Vader. "Good, boy," the Dark Lord confessed, "very good.
But my stone was the heavier. My powers are the stronger."

"Not strong enough, Vader," Luke insisted as he lunged forward. His thoughts were of Kenobi, of the
techniques of saber and Force the old Jedi knight had laboriously taught him. He tried to let the Force
guide his arm.

Vader parried, blocked, parried again, and found himself being forced backward by the aggressiveness
and skill of Luke's demonic attack. The breath mask tilted back for a second. A section of heavy basrelief on one of the supporting pillars was loosened, fell away.

At the last instant Luke sensed it, jumped backward. The huge carved panel shattered between them.
Both men rested uneasily as the dust settled. Luke gulped for air, while Vader showed less aplomb and
increasing tension.

"You are good, Skywalker," he declared. "Very good indeed, for a child. But the end will be the
same." He raised his saber and came charging over the broken panel.

Now it was the Dark Lord who initiated the assault. Luke found himself forced steadily backward as
Vader threw an unceasing blizzard of stone shards and saber cuts at him. It was impossible to counter
them all.

Somehow Luke did so.

They were circling in the center of the temple floor now. Lying on her side, the Princess tried to turn
and watch. The pain of her wounds rose about her like a steel wall. Around her thoughts the wall
closed, and in response her eyes closed and she slumped back to the cold, cold stone.

Again the two enemies paused, only now it was Vader who was panting heavily. "Kenobi... trained
you... well," the Dark Lord admitted admiringly. Some of his usual insouciance had been drained by
the steady fighting. "And you have some... natural ability of your own. You have proven a challenge. I
enjoy... a challenge."

Still unhurt, Luke whispered defiantly, "Too much of... a challenge for... you!"

"No," Vader assured him, "no. You overestimate yourself, child." The Dark Lord drew himself up to
his full, awesome height. "I have finished playing with you."
Swinging his saber until it was no more than a blue blur in the dank air of the temple, he leaped
straight up into the air. It was more than a jump, less than levitation. Out of the blue circle of energy
he flung the saber.

Instinctively—he had no time to think—Luke parried. The Force inherent in the thrown saber knocked
Luke's out of his hand. Both weapons flew off to the right and lay, still gleaming, still activated, on the
ground, near a dark circular opening that gaped black in the floor.

As Vader drifted slowly back to the floor he grabbed his right wrist with his left hand, made a fist, and
seemed to convulse like a man retching. A ball of pure white energy the size of his fist materialized in
front of Vader's hands and moved down toward the wide-eyed Luke.

Something made Luke realize he could never reach his saber before the white glove touched him. He
threw up both hands and looked away. So he didn't see what happened.
His hands seemed to blur. The white glove struck them, bounced back, and contacted Vader gently as
the latter touched the ground. There was a soft crack as of an explosion far in the distance. Vader was
knocked head over heels and the glove vanished.

But when the white energy ball had touched Luke's hands, the power inherent in the kinetite, or
restrained energy globe, had thrown him to the ground. Had he resisted it unsuccessfully it would have
thrown him across the chamber and through the temple wall.

Now he lay on his belly while Vader rolled slowly onto his side, shaking his head in disbelief. His
eyes refocused, to see a shaken but otherwise unharmed Luke crawling slowly toward his lightsaber.

"Not... possible!" Vader muttered, starting to crawl toward his own weapon. The left side of his body
armor was dented inward as if by a giant's fist, where the kinetite had struck. "Such power... in a child.
Not possible!"

Luke had neither the strength nor the desire to argue. He saw only the saber, felt only its smooth
handle fitting compactly into his palm.

But by then Vader had reached his own weapon. With a supreme effort he tottered to his feet, turned to
face Luke. Holding his father's saber over his head, Luke rose, rushed at the Dark Lord and threw
himself on the towering black figure.

There was a blinding flash of light as he made contact with Vader's saber beam and slid on through
with the blow. His saber continued downward, pierced the stone floor. Luke's hand struck a rock and
jarred his saber loose.

He hit the ground hard, then rolled onto his back to see what had happened. What he saw was Vader
staring at the floor. His right arm lay there, still gripping the glowing saber. There was less blood than
Luke would have expected. He tried to rise, failed. He no longer retained the strength to climb to his
knees, let alone to regain his feet.

So he lay there completely exhausted. Slowly, in uneven, unsteady steps, the Dark Lord tottered to his
severed arm. Amazingly, he bent down and lifted the amputated limb, detached the saber from it.
Holding it in his left, he turned to face Luke. It was useless, he thought, as Vader raised the saber over
his head with his one remaining hand. The Dark Lord, Lord of the Sith, Master of the Dark Side of the
Force, was invincible. It was over.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, turning his head to where the Princess lay crumpled on the temple floor.
"I'm sorry, Leia. I loved you." He looked back up and found he hadn't the strength for a last curse. The
saber soared above and behind Vader's head. The Dark Lord staggered drunkenly forward. He
stumbled a couple of steps to the left.

And disappeared.

A dissonant, inhuman howling marked the descent of the Dark Lord down the black circle to Luke's
right. Frowning painfully, hardly daring to believe, Luke crawled slowly over to the rim of the black
circle, peered in and down.

He could not see the bottom of the pit, nor any sign of Darth Vader.

"He's gone," he mumbled, dazed, hardly daring to believe it. "Gone down to where he belongs, I
hope." He looked across the floor as he struggled to sit up, balancing himself on one arm. "Leia, I did
it! He's gone, Leia." And yet... there remained a stirring, a faint tremor in the Force, so light he could
barely sense it, like a bad aftertaste in the mouth. But it was there... Vader was alive!

Yet Vader was no threat to them. That was enough for him now. He was sobbing as he dragged his
exhausted body across the floor. "Leia, Leia!" Reaching her, he extended a questing palm, touched her
forehead. She opened her eye and looked back at him. His tears fell uncontrollably as he probed
gingerly at the terrible scars Vader's saber had left on her body, her face

Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Chapter XII, 122