Chapter 1
Luke Skywalker sat alone in his meditation room. As he slowly stood up, recovering from his Force induced trance, he felt exhausted instead of rejuvenated. In the course of his meditation, he had peered far into the future. Now he was trembling slightly and covered in perspiration. Trying to focus on the dimly lit room around him he shuddered as an echo of his vision still lingered in his mind's eye.
What he had just beheld was...horrifying. A future he could never have imagined in his worst nightmares. A galaxy at war....a galaxy enslaved....carnage on a scale never before known. And those beings....they were the worst of it. He had only perceived them as great black voids. Empty of the Force....empty of any connection to this universe. It had been like looking upon anti-life itself. And yet, those beings somehow had LIFE. They were alive with cruelty and malice. And they fed on pain.
Luke shuttered as he recalled trying to focus on the creatures themselves. It was like the Force was blind to them. Was it some deficiency in himself that had made seeing them so difficult? Somehow he had not been able to fully visualize these strange creatures that seemed out of step with the fabric of the universe. But he had seen what they would bring with them.
As always, the future had been in motion ...difficult to see...so many paths that could be taken, so many choices that could affect the outcome. But one thing was clear to Luke in the midst of his vision: they galaxy would be forever changed. Entire worlds would be....not destroyed.... rather....mutated.
Luke wiped the sweat from him brow as he struggled to calm himself. He now knew what was coming for the galaxy. Entire worlds recreated in the bizarre image of the invaders. Trillions of lives lost in the desperate fight against this bizarre new foe.
Wearing only his black pants, Luke walked unsteadily out of the small sparsely decorated room and into his living quarters on Coruscant. The night air cooled him and dried the perspiration on his chest. He walked to the open balcony to gaze out upon the vast nighttime cityscape. The myriad of ships, speeders, and transports crossing paths flowed like a living thing amidst the vast skyscrapers of the New Republic's capital planet. It was still hard to believe that he was here. The remains of the Empire had at last been driven from Coruscant. Not even the destruction of the Death Stars had been such a symbolic victory.
As Luke starred at the massive buildings stretching beyond the horizon, an echo of his force vision returned. For a fraction of a second, his mind re-envisioned the buildings as they would be. Bizarre plant-like alien tendrils enveloped the cityscape. The metal vehicles shifted to become flying mutated transports.....alive.....yet wholly empty of the force. His force memory only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough. Luke fell to his knees and covered his face with his hands in horror.
Am I responsible for this? For what is to come?
The door chime rang, and Luke raised his head, trying to focus himself. He had requested to not be disturbed for the next few days. And it was the middle of the night. Reaching out with the force he suddenly realized who was there.
"Come in Leia," he called out. "It's open."
The automatic door slid open. His sister Leia Organa walked into the apartment. She was wearing only a thin white nightgown that accentuated the curves of her flawless body. Clearly she had come here in a hurry, not bothering to fully dress.
Luke struggled to pull himself together as he walked across the room to greet her. He felt her emotions through the Force. She was almost as unsettled as he was.
"Leia, what-" he began as she silently embraced him. Startled, Luke held her in his arms, feeling her tremble in his grip.
"Oh Luke..." she whispered into his bare chest. "I felt it...."
"What Leia?" he asked quietly, "What did you feel?"
"I felt you....I felt your terror" she continued.
Luke was silent. They had a strong connection through the Force. Stronger now than ever before. He was not surprised that his twin sister had been able to feel the tremors in the force that he had created in the midst of his meditative session.
"It's....alright now." Luke stammered. He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince.
Leia pulled back from his embrace and looked into her brother's eyes.
"Oh Luke it's not alright! I felt utter horror coming from you as I slept. And now that I'm here I'm sure of it."
Luke tenderly kissed his sister's forehead and smiled.
"It was a vision Leia. Nothing more."
Leia searched his face questioningly. There was so much more to it than that. She knew it.
Luke stepped back under her probing gaze. He knew better than to try and hide his feelings from Leia. She was his twin...his other half. She could feel how upset he was, as surely as if it were her own emotions.
Luke walked over to the food dispenser and drew himself a glass of water.
"Can I get you something?" he asked as he filled the glass. Looking at the water pouring into the glass, he suddenly had an echo of his vision again. The glass became a living mutated creature in his grasp. The liquid-a bizarre alien slime. Luke pushed the vision away and stepped back from the dispenser.
"There!" Leia said from behind him. "I felt it again!"
Luke said nothing, only turned to face his sister.
"What IS it Luke?" she implored him, her hands rubbing her arms as she shivered. "What have you seen?"
Luke thought it over as he stood there silently. Why shouldn't he tell Leia? If there was anyone in the galaxy he trusted it was his beautiful sister. Maybe if he told her what he had seen it might even help to dispel the strange vision.
"Leia...sit down with me." He gestured to the couch. "I'll tell you what I saw."
Chapter 2
"They were completely alien Leia," he continued. "Completely foreign to this galaxy....to our kind of life."
Leia had said little throughout his description of his Force vision.
"But we've encountered strange life-forms before."
"No Leia. These were nothing like any creatures in our universe." Luke stated emphatically. "They have no connection to the Force at all."
Leia was silent again, letting him continue.
"Even inanimate objects have a resonance with the Force Leia." He reached out his hand and raised his lightsaber from the table across the room. Leia watched as the beautifully crafted weapon floated across the room under her brother's control and came to a rest in front of her. Gently, Leia grasped the hilt and looked back to her sibling.
"But these creatures had no resonance...no vibration....they were like....an absence of life."
Leia said nothing. She could feel the fear coming from her brother. And something else....was it guilt?
"What are they going to do?" She whispered, gripping the lightsaber hilt tightly.
"Enslave us." Luke said solemnly. "Kill us by the trillions. Mutate our worlds to suit themselves."
Leia said nothing. Her heart sank as she realized the horrors ahead.
"Then it's worse than the Empire." She said simply.
"Leia that's not all." Luke continued, meeting her gaze.
"The future is always in motion," he explained. "Endless variations, multiple possibilities, all based on the actions we take everyday."
"I understand."
"But I saw what could have been. I saw a version of the future where the Empire was intact. Where our father was still Darth Vader."
Leia shivered at the mention of her dark lineage. It was still hard for her to accept that the Empire's dark enforcer had actually been her own father.
"And?" she asked quietly.
"He defeated them." Luke almost whispered. "With the Empire still strong, with the Death Stars as weapons, and with our father's strength in the Force, they quickly drove the invaders back to wherever they came from."
Leia tried to picture it. A galaxy still ruled by the Empire. There would have been no freedom, no hope. But there would have been far more military strength than the fledgling New Republic would be able to muster for many decades to come.
"Don't you see Leia?" Luke stood from the couch, walking towards the balcony. "I've destroyed that possible future. I've helped to end my father's reign. And he may have been the only one strong enough to prevent this coming invasion."
"No Luke." Leia took his hand in hers. "The New Republic has you. You are the man our father was meant to be."
Luke smiled at her compliment but still would not face her as he looked off into the distance.
"Our father was something unique, Leia." He continued slowly. "Our father was what is called a vergence."
"Vergence?"
"A kind of confluence of the Force," he explained. "Centered around a person."
"I don't understand," Leia said. "You must be a vergence too. You've even said I have this power. Just the fact that I could feel your pain tonight shows-"
"No, sister." Luke turned to look upon her at last. "You and I are strong in the Force, but neither of us is a vergence. A vergence can be measured medically through midi-chlorian count in one's cells. I've measured mine. And back on Endor I measured yours when I was treating your wound."
"And?"
"It maybe because our mother did not have the Force," he continued, "but our midi-chorian count is lower than our father's was."
"How do you know what his was?"
"I found it in a medical database." Luke explained. "I've spent most of the week going through Imperial records."
Leia's head was spinning. Horrifying visions of the future....she wondered what good the Force was when it led to so much doubt and fear.
Luke sensed his sister's thoughts. He leaned close and took her in his arms. Saying nothing, she looked up at him and felt comforted.
"What can we do?" she whispered.
Looking into her eyes deeply, Luke spoke words that chilled Leia to her very soul.
"It won't be just us who will face this coming nightmare sister. It will be our children."
Chapter 3
Leia sat in her office, studying her computer readouts intently. There was precious little data available regarding the Force on the Coruscant Datanet. Even with the Empire gone, there was little she could do to reverse decades of the Emperor's crusade to remove any shred of information about the Jedi from the galaxy.
It had been two days since the night she had gone to Luke's apartment. Two days of endless meetings, endless bureaucracy. She was needed more than ever now to help bring the New Republic into being. But she found herself thinking only about Luke's dark vision of the future. Was there really nothing they could do to prepare for this coming invasion?
