Leia Organa, newly Leia Organa Solo, sat behind Han and Chewbacca on the flight deck of the Millennium Falcon. The twin suns of the Tatoo system were hanging outside the forward viewport, a pair of white eyes blazing up from the black well of space. Like all twins, they were bound together by a tie as unpredictable as it was powerful. Sometimes, the bond boosted their luminosity far beyond that of two normal suns. At other times, it sent waves of ionic discharge pulsing across space to scramble circuits and reorient core-relative compasses. Today, the twins were assailing the Falcon with electromagnetic blasts, overloading her sensors and filling the cockpit speakers with static.
As Chewbacca worked to raise the proper filters, the static faded from a roar to a crackle, then softened to a hiss, which rose and fell in a sharp rhythm. Puzzled by the odd snickering sound, Leia glanced over at the master comm console and found the reception indicator still scanning for signals. She leaned forward against her crash webbing.
“Han, do you hear …”
No sound came from her mouth. The snicker became a deep chuckle, and a nebula of black gas began to gather in front of the Falcon. Han showed no reaction to it. Neither did Chewbacca, even when it coalesced into the cowl of a Jedi cloak.
“Han! Don’t you see …”
Again, her voice made no sound. Glaring out from beneath the cowl, the twin suns looked more than ever like eyes—heartless eyes, full of malice and power lust. Where the cloud was thin, crooked streaks of purple radiance created the impression of a twisted mouth and wrinkled face.
The mouth rose at the corners. “Mine.”
The voice was cruel and distinct and rife with dark side power. Leia gasped—silently—and tried to raise an arm that had suddenly grown as heavy as the Falcon.
The smile became a sneer. “Mine.”
Still, neither Han nor Chewbacca seemed to notice what was happening. Leia would have screamed, had her mouth been willing to obey.
The nebula began to thicken, and the purple wrinkles faded behind its inky veil. The twin suns dimmed to darkness, and the black cloud assumed the shape of a familiar mask—a mask of harsh angles and obsidian sheen, framed by the long, flaring neck apron of an equally black helmet.
Vader’s helmet.
A chill wave of nausea washed over Leia. The curved eye lenses grew transparent, but instead of the blazing brightness of Tatooine’s twin suns—or the angry red-rimmed gaze of Darth Vader—she found herself looking into her brother’s soft blue eyes.
“Luke! What are you …”
Her question remained as silent as the others she had asked. Luke’s eyes grew hollow and hard and haunted, and the helmet moved slowly from side to side. Blue flickers of electricity snaked across the speech circuits behind the respiratory screen, but his words were rendered nearly inaudible by static crackling. Leia made out something about not following and staying out of darkness; then Luke fell silent again. She tried to tell him that his equipment was malfunctioning, that his voice had been obscured, but before she could find a way to make herself heard, the helmet stopped moving.
Luke locked gazes and held her transfixed for what might have been seconds … or minutes … his eyes now the lifeless blue of ice. Leia grew cold, and frightened, and the mask dissolved back into the black nothingness of space, leaving her to stare out once again into the mind-stabbing brilliance of the Tatoo system’s twin suns.