159474808X (28 page)

[They take Padmé aside and begin caring for her. The medical droid scans her.

MEDIC. 1

Dear sirs, I do not know what I can say.

As but a case of medicine, she’s well—

More health in many patients I’ve not seen—

Ne’er have I seen a case as strange as this.

It seemeth that, despite our efforts vast

The lady shuffles off this mortal coil

Join’d more to death than life, e’en as she breathes,

Increasingly she moves toward her end.

More explanation I cannot provide,

It lies beyond the fathoms of my sense.

Methinks, mayhap, she hath not will to live,

As though harsh Fate presented her a choice:

Direct your steps this way, and you shall live,

Or travel yonder, there to meet your death.

Confounded by this twofold path of Fate,

The lady struggles and doth choose her way:

Off to her death she boldly takes her stride.

Resoundingly her soul declares her choice,

Now moving slowly to mortality.

O, this were brave were it not foolishness,

To my not-human, simple, droidly mind,

A careless choice this is, life to reject.

Profound must be the reason for her steps:

Some awful circumstance she’s undergone.

Yea, mayhap something she hath seen or felt

Convinc’d her to embrace this swift demise.

How terrible her heart’s experience—

O’er any dread that ever I have known—

Love lost, belike, or sight of future woe.

One thing is certain, Masters, verily:

Go speedily we must, and operate,

If we’re to save the infants in her womb.

Save them we may, e’en if her life expires—

To rescue them can be our choice, not hers.

BAIL

What say’st thou, droid? Of infants speakest thou?

MEDIC. 1

The lady carries twins within her womb.

They move quickly to attend to her. Enter two more
MEDICAL DROIDS
,
waiting on
P
ADMÉ
.

MEDIC. 2

Ee-see-tah oy-doh.

OBI-WAN

—Lady, ’tis your son.

PADMÉ

He shall be Luke, and walk among the skies.

Heart of mine heart, and issue of my love.

MEDIC. 2

Ooh-bah, ooh-bah. Ee-see-tah oy-doh.

OBI-WAN

—See,

A daughter, too, a pair of children sweet.

PADMÉ

’Tis Leia, who, like me, is royalty.

Brave spirit, do remember thy sad mother.

[Exeunt medical droids, bearing the infants. Exit C-3PO.

O, Obi-Wan, I prithee, do attend:

Mine Anakin still hath some good in him.

Whate’er he is, or does, or hath become,

I know some good remaineth in him yet.

Though I expire, mine hope in him endures.

[She dies.

OBI-WAN

Sweet lady, done to death by love too rough—

No words of mine may offer comfort. Nay,

Nor is there aught within the galaxy

That can make right the wrong that you sustain’d.

Be now at peace, fam’d senator and queen.

YODA

A Master’s heart breaks—

We Jedi heartless are not,

And thus weep I shall.

R2-D2

[
aside:
] What is a droid’s role midst this tragedy?

I cannot change the course that hath led here,

Nor bring to life the ones who have been slain.

No droidly programming or gadgetry

Shall rescue Anakin, my former Master.

The weave of Fate continues to be knit,

Whilst I, a droid, have naught that can undo

A single knot of its long cord of life.

Yea, therefore shall I give my droidly being

A’fighting for these people I have known:

My Master Obi-Wan, and any who

Shall fight against the dreaded emperor.

Let this be now thine only task, R2:

Defend thy friends and all thy causes true.

[Exit R2-D2.

Enter
D
ARTH
S
IDIOUS
and
SEVERAL MEDICAL DROIDS
above, on balcony, with
D
ARTH
V
ADER
in black suit, in a rehabilitation center.

SIDIOUS

The man shall live, but ever shall be chang’d.

Young Anakin is dead, and only now

Darth Vader lives within this cold, black shell.

[A mask is lowered onto Darth Vader’s head.

VADER

[
aside:
] This blacken’d mask enshrouds mine human sight,

Forever doth it alter’d render me—

No Anakin remaineth, nay, but Vader:

The robot-man, he whom I have become.

This mask shall hide the man that once I was,

Behind the mask my secret thoughts shall lay,

Beneath the mask shall be my private lair,

The mask, impenetrable, makes me free.

Within the full security it gives

I shall fulfill my radiant destiny:

Bring balance to the Force as I do live

A life of vengeance, power, and reward.

SIDIOUS

Lord Vader, canst thou hear me? Art thou well?

VADER

Indeed, my Master, aye—yet where is Padmé?

The fog of recent matters clouds the sky

Of memory; I know not what hath been

Her lot—is she nearby and flourishing?

SIDIOUS

These mists have made thee hazy, worthy friend,

Concealing all thy sins from thine own sight,

For thou hast slain her in thine anger fierce.

VADER

Nay, nay, it cannot be! I would recall—

Her life I felt within my very soul!—

And yet this fog besets me all around.

Nay, Padmé, nay! O, be not dead, my love!

[Exit Vader, raging and shaking the room with the Force. Exeunt Sidious and medical droids.

YODA

[
to Bail and Obi-Wan:
] Hidden and secure,

So must the children be kept

Until chang’d times have.

OBI-WAN

We shall depart and take them far anon,

Where these vile Sith may ne’er their presence sense,

And heaven shall protect their innocence.

YODA

Taken not as two,

But one by one they shall be—

Split in twain, apart.

BAIL

My wife and I shall take the girl; long have

We talk’d about adopting such a child

As she: this Leia shall Organa be,

And shall be lov’d as though she were our own.

OBI-WAN

What of the boy? What future shall be his?

YODA

To Tatooine go,

To his family take him.

Raise him up they shall.

OBI-WAN

I shall, and o’er the boy-child I shall watch,

While he doth grow—a youth, and then a man.

It is my duty to his mother dead,

And to his father, who was once my friend.

YODA

Until the moment

For us to arise hath come,

Disappear we shall.

[Exit Bail. Obi-Wan begins to exit.

Master Kenobi,