The trench was flying past his viewscreen, but the speed and thrill took up only a fraction of Luke's concentration. The rest of him focused on what just happened—a ship had taken down Darth Vader. He'd seen the TIE Advanced spiral out of control and smash into a fiery explosion on the surface of the Death Star.

He'd felt Vader's death, the great rend in the Force. The sudden sad, but not unwelcome, void.

"Skywalker! Luke! You've turned off your targeting computer! What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" he called back. "Sorry!"

The Death Star has cleared the planet….

"Except for this one thing," he said. "I'm actually Luke Vader and you just killed my father." My loved/hated father.

"Wha—" The transmission cut off and he felt the violent explosion of flames and debris as Yavin Four blew. Rode out the concussion waves and looped his x-wing around and into the trench again.

"Good work, Vader," crowed Tarkin over the com. "A great victory for the Empire— finally the traitors are destroyed!"

"Right," he answered with a crooked smile. "And…." he lined up his torpedoes with the exhaust port and fired, "...so are you. There's a new Emperor in town."

He raced away from the second explosion. All that remained was to blow away the Millennium Falcon and her murdering crew.

OooOoo