.
.
Luke hesitated, keenly aware of his fatigue and his injuries...but again, he just couldn't help but meet the confrontation head-on. "I believe that if you could take the information by force, you would have done so by now."
It wasn't spoken as a challenge, but he knew Palpatine would allow no perception of weakness or equality--not here. The Sith turned, his half-lit face pale in the low light, harsh shadows on sallow skin. "The time for games is over."
Luke sensed the static build in the air, the inrush of power making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Adrenaline pumped his heart hard against his ribs, muscles tensing against the invisible threat, fingers tightening about the wire which bound them, breath coming shorter. But he would not back down--not to this.
Lowering his face, looking straight ahead, he took several shallow breaths, aware that Palpatine was waiting...daring him. Knowing the consequences... "I thought we were no longer playing gam..."
His words were lost against the bright burst of kinetic energy which drove the air from his lungs with more power than any physical blow could muster, throwing him bodily from the chair to land in a crumpled heap several feet away, gasping for breath, curled up defensively, for all the good it did him.
In the silence that followed, the chair toppled to its side, loud against the hard floor.
.
.
Palpatine watched, emotionless, as the boy struggled to breathe around the blow, unable to do more in that moment.
"Where is Master Yoda?" he said simply, his hands rising again toward the boy, who gasped in pain, clutching at his ribs, eyes closed.
Without hesitation, Palpatine threw the Force lightening again, hurling him back, making him cry out.
"Where is Master Yoda?" he repeated, hands remaining pointed at the boy, infused with a blue-white corona of contained power.
He gave his Jedi several seconds to be sure that he had understood, then threw the lightening at him again, pitching him back against the far wall, his cry ending abruptly as his breath left him.
Calmly allowing his hands to drop, Palpatine walked to the struggling youth, whose breath rasped laboriously, the thought of resisting, of defending himself in any way, completely beyond him. Palpatine crouched down before the boy, lifting his head as he heaved in breath, his nose bloody, the skin of his face grazed raw against the floor, old wounds made new again.
When he spoke, his voice was mild and quiet and absolutely without pity. "Where is Master Yoda, child?"
The boy closed his eyes, looked away. Gently, Palpatine placed his hand against that heaving chest, using his other hand on the boy's jaw to hold his head up. "Where?"
The shock jolted the Jedi's muscles into spasm, throwing his head back in agony so that he cried out, the sharp actinic light momentarily creating bright daylight in the darkened cell, focused energy searing the frigid air with the sharp, metallic smell of raw power.
When he stopped the boy slumped, barely conscious now, breathing heavily against the pain. Again Palpatine lifted his head. "Where is Master Yoda?"
He brought his hands to Skywalker's face, half-smiling as the boy gasped breathlessly, gratified at his obstinacy, amazed that he held fast against this. Clamping his palms over burnt, blood-streaked cheeks in preparation to deliver another strike, he rested his thumbs over the boy's eyes as they flickered shut, the corona about them brightening and strengthening...
"Nnn--" It was not quite an entreaty that Skywalker clamped down on, but one more shock would have rendered him unconscious anyway, so Palpatine paused, allowing the energy to dissipate with only the mildest shock, which the boy still flinched violently against, breath hitching in anticipation.
"No?...no? Does your resolve crack so easily, that you ask for mercy already? How weak you are, child."
The truth was that the boy would not yet provide him with the information, so Palpatine chose not to ask again, rather than allow him this victory. Chose instead to twist the moment to make his Jedi believe he had failed. So he reached out to wipe at the blood which was flowing over his split lips, his empty gesture unopposed as he leaned in close to whisper against the boy's grazed and bleeding skin, "How fragile you are, Jedi. How easily you give over control. You have the power to stop this and you know it. It's within you...it most surely howls, like a wolf in the darkness. You say you want freedom, yet you refuse the one thing which can grant you the power to take it. I am not your enemy child, I am your savior...and I will do whatever it takes to drag you from their control, to drive you to enlightenment."
.
.
Luke heard the words only distantly, diffused by the cloud of intense, debilitating pain which dragged at his failing senses, demanding that he close his eyes and drift to inviting oblivion as he struggled to breathe through the ache in his ribs.
The heavy, grating double-retort of the opening door vibrated through the cold white floor into his body, igniting a new burst of pain which took his breath away as his tormentor leaned closer to brush Luke's scoured cheek, nails against raw skin as he murmured, "One day, you will thank me for this."
Vaguely, the world on its side, Luke saw the hazy image of Mara Jade enter the room, pausing to bow reverentially to the Emperor as he stood, the heavy folds of his blood-red cloak blocking out Luke's vision.
"Drug him," Palpatine said simply as he walked away, the scarlet cloak whispering a trail across the floor behind him.
Mara came closer to crouch into his field of vision, her green eyes momentarily registering... what? His pain-wracked mind couldn't decipher anything in that moment. She turned to glance at the Emperor, but he was already at the door, blurring to nothing in Luke's dimming vision.
He felt her take his broken arm and roll him onto his side in an intense burst of agony which whited out his vision, coursing from ankle and wrist again and again, though he was unable to cry out.
She lay his unresisting head against his arm so that he wouldn't choke, then rested the small case she carried on the bare floor to load up the syringe. Any thought of resisting was already hazing into darkness as he felt the sharp jab in his vein, almost too small to register against greater injuries.
His muscles relaxed into heavy submission against the power of the drug and his last memory was of her face, eyes strangely intent on his own, her hand reaching hesitantly out to him...
Then the darkness enveloped him, his own ragged breathing loud in his failing awareness.
.
.
.
Palpatine walked away without looking back, content at the outcome of this encounter--that he had once again been able to establish his dominance over his Jedi, been able to push him a little closer to that edge. True, he had not gained the whereabouts of Master Yoda, but that was, like the diminutive Jedi Master himself, little more than a minor annoyance. More importantly, it had provided him with a context with which to exemplify his own resolve, to make clear to the boy what his life would be from now on, since he had chosen to continue along this foolhardy path.
Everything held a price, and from now on the boy would learn this. Any refusal, any resistance would be met with absolute, unyielding force.
Whether Palpatine had gained Yoda's hiding place or not was immaterial--well, perhaps not quite that. Perhaps...
Palpatine smiled. Yes...yes, the final punishment for this particular defiance would be a while in coming, but would be all the more precious for it. When he had brought the boy to Darkness, when he controlled this new Sith completely, the boy would most surely tell him. Willingly. The Force had whispered of such. And the first task he would set his new Sith would be to return to Yoda's hiding place, and destroy the Jedi Master himself.