After the Fall

After the Fall

there's a room where the light won't find you

holding hands while the walls come crumbling down

when they do, i'll be right behind you

help me make the most of freedom

and of pleasure

everybody wants to rule the world

--tears for fears, “everybody wants to rule the world”

Sheev Palpatine was utterly consumed by fire.

Ensconced in his high, sumptuous bed, the emperor of the known galaxy’s eyelids flickered a manic pulse while his brain struggled in the implacable grip of an immolating dream. Sweat poured from Palpatine’s temples, down his face and neck and into the folds of his withered skin, and when he woke it was with a sudden, hoarse shout. After, he lay in his priceless Alderaani cotton sheets, gasping for breath and trembling as he struggled to recall what he had seen.

For a man accustomed to receiving knowledge of future events, this new vision was frustrating and vague. Still he had no doubt it was prophetic. Over the next several nights the dreams returned, each time more vivid than the last, and Palpatine soon found himself resisting sleep, fearful of the smoke and the fire and the inexplicable, hovering dread. This was unfortunate, because at his age even one missed hour of sleep meant reduced cognitive function the next day. Were his rapacious court to perceive a hint of such weakness, Palpatine would soon find himself surrounded by a host of predators eager for a meal. 

Realistically, he could only confide in Lord Vader. This too posed a risk, as Sith apprentices kept a keen watch for the right moment to strike down their masters. Perhaps the dreams pointed to that very eventuality. Vader was still bent on his quest to capture the boy, Luke. It was good for Darth Sidious' apprentice to have something to focus on, something to stoke his own fires, but Anakin had always been prone to overzealousness, particularly where family was concerned, and the younger Sith could not have failed to noticed that he would be in a good position to assume leadership of the order-and the empire- once his son was secured.

After some thought, Palpatine decided to recall Vader to the capital. The surprise of being ordered home in the midst of a campaign might pique Vader’s interest. Perhaps more importantly, the thought of explaining his dreams over the Holonet made the emperor uneasy. Electronic communication was never entirely secure, and he was more given to relying on code-words than speaking frankly during calls.

When Palpatine at last gave the order, he almost immediately sensed a tremor in the Force. It had been some time since master and apprentice had met in person. The emperor was always pleased to see Anakin, for had he not all but raised the boy into the man he became? And in return, the man clung to him as one who owed everything to his mentor, his master. Still there was that tension between Sith that could never be ignored. Sometimes the emperor regretted it and wondered whether the Rule of Two was truly necessary in the resurrected Sith Empire. In his more blasphemous moments, he contemplated whether Darth Bane’s vaunted innovation had ever been necessary or even shrewd. It did not take a great intellectual leap to imagine that masters prematurely slain had taken vital knowledge to their graves. Knowledge which, once lost, may never have been recovered, because while Sith did record their research in the archives, they always held something back, some kernel of knowledge which they held hostage from their students.

Yet having encouraged the savage ambition of those same students, the game always ended in blood.

It was with this in mind that Palpatine admitted Anakin into the red office, the sumptuous space that he had kept long after the fashion for opulence had passed. The Sith met there less regularly than in the past, for this was the place to which Palpatine called his apprentice when he was at his most sincere. He hoped that Anakin knew he was safe in the old Chancellery office, because if the apprentice was safe, then so too was the master.

The emperor seated himself at the wide desk, the desk of the man he had been in a different time, in some ways, a simpler time. He ran his pale, gnarled hands over the smooth surface. In the silence of the office, he strained to hear Anakin’s voice as it was during that time, to see his youthful, exuberant stride cross the carpeted floor. He thought that if he focused well enough, he might catch a psychic echo of his boy.

Perhaps he might, but nothing, no miracle of the Force, could bring the young Anakin back. Time only flowed in one direction, as Palpatine’s own ancient bones insisted on telling him each morning.

He remained seated when the Red Guard ceremoniously eased open the door. Lord Vader broke into the room like an ill wind, but one that Palpatine was exceptionally fond of. He allowed himself a tiny smile, concealed within the shadows of his cowl, and watched with uneasy pleasure as his apprentice lowered himself to one knee, awaiting his command. Such grace there was still in Palpatine's protégé, despite the ruin of his body.

“What is thy bidding, my master?” Anakin intoned.

“Only that you rise, Vader.”

The emperor was surprised by the impatience, perhaps even worry, in his own voice. Plagued by a sense of precious seconds passing, he waited for his apprentice to obey. Carefully, the emperor folded his hands on his desk, contemplating his words through the steeple of his fingers.

“Lord Vader. I believe we will soon face a foe of incalculable power.”

Palpatine could feel Anakin’s confusion even if he could not see it on his face.

“The Rebels lack our resources, Master. I have no doubt that we will see an end to them. Although...our primary goal should be to avoid a new influx of recruits to the ranks of the Rebellion.”

When the emperor said nothing, Anakin seemed to interpret this as a cue to continue.

“Tarkin created a nearly insurmountable public relations problem with his reckless destruction on Scarif, and certainly Alderaan was a bitter loss. Perhaps we might adjust our tactics, Master?” He spoke hesitantly, but with a psychic vigour that suggested he had been contemplating the matter for some time. Indeed, he must have been, given the alacrity with which he had expressed it.

Palpatine stared at his apprentice.

“I was not speaking of the Rebels, Lord Vader.”

 “I apologize, Master.”

Anakin clasped his hands military-style, Jedi-style, behind his back. He visibly tensed for the emperor’s judgment, but the elder Sith had no patience for his pupil’s dramatics nor, for once, any desire to receive his abasement. 

“Never mind that, Anakin,” Palpatine said irritably. He ignored the psychic flinch from his apprentice at the sound of his own name, and waved a brisk hand.

“I wish for you to listen. Sit down.”

The younger Sith only hesitated a moment before lowering his iron bulk to the solid chair Palpatine had ordered in for that purpose. The chair did not break or bend, and Vader visibly relaxed. His mechanical breathing was loud in the stillness of the room, but the emperor was so accustomed to the sound that he barely heard it.

“I have been having a dream,” he confided. “Something is coming to us, and I am fairly certain that this threat does not originate with the Rebel Alliance.”

He looked up from his hands to observe Anakin’s reaction. If the danger was to come from his apprentice, he thought that Vader might betray his plans now, but Palpatine perceived nothing. The younger Sith folded his arms across his chest in his customary fashion and tilted his helmet. Palpatine allowed himself the brief pleasure of imagining the blue eyes behind the mask, watching him.

“From where, then?”

The emperor was gratified by the younger man’s unflinching acceptance. Even for those talented in the Force, dreams were rarely a reliable source of information, yet Vader believed him.

Vader always believed him.  

“I do not know from where. In the visions, I see only fire, disaster. Bombardment raining down upon Coruscant. The Palace and my private residence collapsing in molten ruin.”

At last he felt something other than Anakin’s implacable calm. A shiver in their shared awareness indicated shock.

“How is this possible, my master? Are there new factions at play?”

Palpatine was forced to repeat that he did not know. The humiliation of admitting ignorance to his apprentice was intense, for Anakin had always looked to him as one who was all knowing, all seeing, and this was a perception that the emperor preferred to encourage.

“Together we will delve into the Force and discover the source of this threat. And if we cannot find it in this way, then we will investigate it together, here.”

At last Anakin balked. “I am needed with the fleet.”

“Young Skywalker can wait,” the emperor said baldly. “This is more urgent.”

He ignored Vader’s irritation, obvious in his aura, and reached out to his apprentice.

“Give me your hand.”

Vader’s hand was steel, not blood and bone, and Palpatine blew an impatient breath at the sensation of dead alloy. He moved his fingers to his apprentice’ breastplate, felt the rise and fall of the younger man’s chest. Yes, there was life there, life that had struggled to thrive after the inferno of Mustafar, and the catastrophic rending of flesh that promised death to anyone who was not born of the Force itself.

The emperor sensed his lieutenant flinch, then relax again under his touch.

“Hush,” Palpatine whispered. “Give me your focus. Join your mind with mine. Together we will seek the source of this disturbance in the Force.”

As you command, Master.

Anakin did not speak the words but allowed them to resonate across their connection. The emperor was very nearly distracted by the cerebral delight of his protégé’s mind meeting his own. It had been so long since they had communed in this way.

“I will show you the dream,” Palpatine whispered. “Tell me what you see.”

The connection between them deepened as the emperor synced his breath with Anakin’s mechanized inhalations. No two minds could ever truly merge to efface the loneliness and sorrow that plagued the human condition, but a Sith dyad came closer than most. The emperor slipped into a shallow meditation and allowed the vision to play again through his mind, like a holovid set to repeat.

“What is this?” Anakin murmured.

“Watch.”

The fire bloomed within the atmosphere of Imperial City, expanded and scorched the shining towers of the financial district before advancing on the palace itself. The emperor watched himself looking up at the sky and saw the inferno descend upon him. Consumed by the vision, Palpatine knew that he would die and he wondered if the Sith legacy would die with him. He wondered, with a bewildered ache, where Anakin was.

At the very end, he wondered why he was afraid to die alone.

A jolt of pain in his chest reminded Palpatine of his body. Hastily, he withdrew from his connection with Vader. He had not remembered that part of the vision. Vader would say nothing, Darth Sidious knew, but he had felt his master's weakness, shared it as if it were his own. 

Irritated with his servant and with himself, Palpatine stood to slowly pace the office. Other than the dream, his day had started out well, with little pain in his joints and muscles, but now he felt the stiffness returning, eating at his mobility and reminding him of his age. He was eighty-seven standards this summer. No one had ever accomplished more in the short span of a human lifetime, but it still was not enough.

“Did you see something?” A new ache in his knees sent Palpatine hobbling back to the chair behind the great desk. He sensed Anakin's regard and knew that his apprentice would offer aid if Palpatine made any sign of wishing it. Presently, the emperor did not wish it.

“I saw what you saw," Vader informed him. "Fire. Officials and citizens fleeing, screaming. Dying. The Palace beginning to crumble. Ships high above in the atmosphere.”

“What kind of ships?” Palpatine asked sharply. He did not recall seeing ships.

“Not ours. The Rebel ships are mostly Corellian cruisers, Chandrillan and Mon Calamari corvettes. I did not see these. Perhaps something from the Rim worlds. The Hutts, perhaps.”

“But you are not certain.”

“No, Master.”

The emperor toyed with the hood of his simple black robe. The design was ascetic, nothing like the sumptuous costumes he had worn at the twilight of the Republic. Such frippery had been common then, but the empire had adapted to the severity and simplicity of military fashions. The last time the Queen of Naboo had come to pay tribute to Palpatine, she had been clad in a black sheath dress with a sharply cut soldier’s coat, decorated only by gleaming silver buttons and tasselled epaulettes. Even her makeup had been tasteful, minimal, all the disguise work necessary for her decoys performed by contouring.

Palpatine had indicated his pleasure with Queen Umé’s sartorial acumen, and after the usual public display of the galactic sovereign strolling through the royal gardens with the queen of his homeworld, chatting amiably, he had approved all the funding that she had requested. The new queen must have exceptional advisors, the emperor reflected, who knew that elegant conformity would please him. Certainly, Umé had little means of coming to the same conclusion on her own, for she was as appallingly young as most of Naboo’s queens, as young as Padmé Amidala had been, though far more pragmatic.

“Master?” His apprentice roused Palpatine from his rumination. 

“Yes, Anakin.” Distracted as he was, Vader’s birth name tumbled from his lips for a second time that night. Usually, Palpatine was more respectful of his apprentice’s sensitivities, but the name-game now seemed an irritating, unnecessary performance.

“I am thinking," the emperor added. "We will delve into this matter together. Come to the Palace tonight and meet me in my private meditation chamber. Until then you may tend to your own affairs.” He indicated the doors with a nod of his head, dismissing his apprentice. 

Anakin stood and offered a bow before turning to depart, then paused.

“Is there something else, my Master?”

Palpatine opened eyes he had allowed to slide shut. “Such as?”

“You seem…disturbed.”

“Only by this and nothing more, I assure you.”

“Yes, my Master.”

Perhaps the emperor might have said more, expressed something of his fears and longings, which plagued him far more now than in his fierce middle age. If he had, Anakin might still have been with him when the call came through regarding the Rebel base on Hoth. Skywalker was sure to be there, and Anakin wasted no time in rejoining the search. He left a message with the emperor’s personal secretary, who lost his position and then his life when he delivered it.

With the dead official on the floor next to him, Palpatine personally contacted Executor twice, and was each time informed by trembling voices that Lord Vader was unable to take the call. Rendered impotent by immense distance, Palpatine's rage rose like a black wave on a moonless sea. He encouraged it to grow larger, to give strength to the power that would allow him to search for answers.

That night, Darth Sidious entered his meditation chamber alone. He inspected the room with critical eyes. When he had first become emperor, he had been elated by the freedom that had allowed him to built this place without fear of exposure to the Jedi. Now the black walls, the deep shadows, and iron sconces bolted to the walls utterly failed to satisfy him.

Without legacy, the trappings of power were worthless.

The Sith emperor seated himself on an island in the centre of the chamber, surrounded by a trench where he had often spilled the blood of those who had disappointed him, and sometimes the blood of those who had pleased him the most, for the Dark Side was powered not only by the suffering of others, but of the self. To gain power, to hold it, the Sith must be willing to let die the love in his heart.

This time he brought no one. He was too tired to enact the ritual of sacrifice. His disappointment with his apprentice would suffice for this one night, for that disappointment was searingly deep. Anakin sailed the depths of space, searching for the wretched boy that had already afforded them so many problems, the child who had done nothing to earn his father’s attention but be born.

The emperor’s eyes closed slowly. He thought of Anakin and focused on what the man might be doing in the time of fire, the fall of the capital into terror and ruin. Was it possible, Darth Sidious wondered, that his apprentice was the architect of that future event? Typically militant, Vader might see no other way to claim the throne from his master.

Entirely without warning, Sidious was consumed by the vision. An orange fireball blossomed in his mind’s eye, and he saw Vader standing before him with his red lightsabre in his hands, advancing on his master. The emperor was inundated by fear, and black clouds of smoke rolled in to obscure his vision. With his silken cloak billowing around him, Vader strode forward to seize his master by the arm.

Palpatine sucked in a deep breath, heard it gurgle in his chest like a disease. Anakin was with him, was the one to attack him, to stop him leaving the Palace.

Or had he, perhaps, come to save him? 

The emperor sent a call through their bond, but his apprentice was either too far from the capital to feel it, or ignoring him, for he received no answer.

Even at a distance of lightyears, Vader had felt his master’s summons, that insistent tug against a bond forged in darkness and tempered in profound sacrifice. He resisted responding with difficulty, for despite the demanding nature of the relationship shared between Sith, it often pleased Vader to report to his master; to convey the results of his successes in the field that the emperor had gifted to him, and to receive his approval in kind. Yet having left Imperial Centre at a critical juncture, with an enigmatic threat dangling over their heads, Vader was certain that Palpatine would be anything but laudatory at their next meeting.

Knowing this only strengthened Vader’s desire to find his child and bring him into the Imperial fold, and he had chased after Executor's probes without hesitation.  Although thousands of the devices had been released, Vader's instincts told him that he would find his son in the Hoth system. Very soon, Executor would emerge from hyperspace, flush with soldiers and ready for a full invasion. Tense with anticipation, the Sith stood by the viewport on the bridge, observing the hallucinatory blue glow of hyperspace as he silently reviewed the data on Hoth. Although the planet had once been used as an outpost by a neighbouring system, its facilities had long been abandoned. Presumably the Rebels were occupying them now. Otherwise, the planet was inhabited only by endemic, ice-dwelling animals. Hoth itself was mid-sized and glittered white with the permanent sheath of ice typical of worlds very far from their suns, but still close enough not to be plunged into everlasting darkness.

There was a metaphor to be found there, the Sith thought, but he hadn’t the patience to explore it now.

He heard Ozzel on the bridge behind him, giving orders and looking askance at Vader. The Sith Lord sensed fear in the admiral, but also the scorn of a military man who rejected a leader with no official field rank. What Ozzel did not understand was that Sith needed none. Sith existed above such worldly concerns. The only appropriate rank for a Sith Lord was one of royalty, and Vader revered his master precisely because he had achieved what five thousand years of Sith Lords before him had otherwise failed to.

For this, Darth Vader worshipped Darth Sidious, but he did not love him, because one did not love a Sith Lord, nor could a Sith Lord love. 

Would the boy, Luke, love his father, Vader wondered. Was it too late to expect love from a man nearly grown? And if the boy did come to love his father, was the father capable of giving love in kind?

“General Veers." Vader summoned the man conferring with Ozzel across the bridge.

“My lord?”

“Prepare your troops for landing upon emergence from hyperspace.”

“Yes, my lord.”

A technician in the operations pit emitted a sudden, undignified yelp. “My Lord Vader! The emperor is calling you now.”

Vader shifted with poorly concealed guilt. “Respond to his Majesty textually. We are conducting an operation and I will answer as soon as I am able.”

The technician swallowed down his terror. “Yes, my Lord.” He typed into his station, then looked back up. “Er, my Lord…”

“Yes?” Vader hissed.

“His Majesty says that is unacceptable. You are to respond immediately.”

Vader considered his options. He might insist that they were in the midst of battle, but with a hundred witnesses on the bridge his claim would be easily disproved. The ever-watchful Admiral Ozzel would likely take it upon himself to send a personal message to the emperor. The man was just pompous and privileged enough to believe that he had the right of it.

It seemed Vader had little choice.

“Very well,” he bit out. “I will take his Majesty’s call in my quarters.”

He had thought that he might be angry or even afraid as he trod the long hallway back to his quarters, on his way to what would certainly be an uncomfortable exchange, but he was, instead, relieved. Defiance of his master had made Vader uneasy. His discomfort would soon be resolved, in whichever way Darth Sidious found suitable.

Vader knelt before the holoprojector and awaited his master’s judgment. At the same time, he found himself keenly aware of the planet. The ship must have dropped from hyperspace, because the Skywalker boy’s signature leaped out at him. It should not have been possible. Without an active bond, even Force sensitives did not feel one another. For this very reason, Palpatine had been able to pass unnoticed in the Senate, while the oblivious Jedi had shmoozed and conferred with him, offering the Supreme Chancellor their unwanted suggestions and arrogant platitudes for well over a decade.

Vader considered that it must be the blood that spoke to him now, or perhaps something of the Chosen One lingered, for there were times when he was able to do what scholars among both the Sith and Jedi had always considered to be impossible. He knew with certainty that the boy was on Hoth, stumbling through an arctic white haze, calling out into the void for someone to save him.

Palpatine's gargantuan image flickered into view, gazing upon Vader with disappointment.

“Lord Vader, you have neglected your duty to me.”

“Yes, my master,” Vader agreed. He bowed his head and stared downwards.

He did not see the floor, but his child.

He did not hear the boy, but the voice of his master.

“I will arrange a suitable penance for you later. Now is not the time. You must return at once to Imperial Centre. I sense that the event that we feared is upon us. You will martial the Navy in defence of the capital.”

Encouraged that Palpatine did not appear as infuriated or punitive as his apprentice had anticipated, it took Vader a moment to process what the emperor had said.

“Master,” Vader stuttered, “the Rebel fleet is gathered in the Outer Rim.”

“The threat does not come from that pitiful band, Vader,” Palpatine insisted. “Return to me at once.”

Vader bowed more deeply over his knee, almost prostrating. “As you wish, my Master.”

The projection of the emperor flickered out. Despite the increasing pain in his thighs, Vader remained kneeling for another minute, torn. He had assumed that Palpatine's soothsaying indicated a more powerful attack by the Alliance fleet at some point in the future. True, the ships in the visions had been different, unfamiliar, but there was nothing but a lack of money stopping the Rebels from acquiring new equipment. With an influx of capital from allies (unfortunately plentiful after the loss of Alderaan), they might diversify their fleet, even design their own ships.

The Alliance, however, was here.

Perplexed by this quandary, Vader briefly dared to wonder if Darth Sidious were losing control of his powers of foresight, but having shared in Palpatine’s visions, the younger Sith could not deny that they were real prophecies, however vague, and not the paranoid ravings of a mad king. It seemed that returning to Coruscant was indeed a matter of urgent importance, if Vader were to engage this new threat. 

Still the boy Luke was on the planet, his voice calling out but weakening. Vader thought of his child and knew that he could not leave without him. Even if the threat in Palpatine’s visions were immediate, Vader must bring his son home. To do otherwise was simply unthinkable. 

The Sith Lord stood, thumbed the intercom to the bridge, and opened a visual.

“General Veers,” he rumbled. “Tell your men to stand down. I will proceed to the surface alone.”

Veers tensed, a muscle in his cheek twitching, but the man was a professional. He did not protest. “As you wish, my Lord.”

Ozzel—far less professional—began sputtering. “Lord Vader, the traitors are below. It is our duty to eradicate this threat and make an example of these fools.”

“Belay that, Admiral,” Vader dismissed him. “The emperor has ordered us back to Coruscant. I will retrieve Skywalker and we will depart immediately for the Core.”

Ozzel’s face, already florid, turned purple. “I received no such order.”

“Nor would you have, for I only received it myself now. Prepare the fleet for departure upon my signal.”

Vader cut the connection before Ozzel could irritate him further. The man was a menace who never knew when to stop talking. One day the admiral would hang himself with his own rope, but today was not that day.

Putting his top officers out of mind, Vader departed for the hangar. As he walked, he commed his wingmen and one other to join him there. Upon arrival, he found the requested pilots already present, along with most of the squadron, still prepping for the scrapped operation.

“The invasion is aborted,” Vader informed his men. “We are now tracking a single target. Black Two and Three, perform pre-flight checks for your TIE fighters. Black Four, perform checks in the double Y-Wing."

While outmoded and not typically used in battle, X-wings and Y-wings were kept on standby and often employed as decoys in Alliance territory. A shuttle might have been an easier means of transporting his son, but would have been more swiftly spotted by the Rebels, while the Y-wing could be stealthily piloted to transport the boy in his current, weakened state.

Vader was grateful for the efficiency of his squadron, for they did not waste time questioning the change of plans, only donned their helmets and climbed in their fighters. The Sith Lord unhooked his cumbersome cloak and did the same. The cockpit of his TIE Advanced had been modified to fit the bulk of his cybernetic limbs, but his helm nearly brushed the top of the aircraft canopy. Far from being discomfited, Vader felt cradled, buoyed, as he once must have felt inside the womb of his mother. In the cockpit of a fighter, there was no right and wrong, no dilemmas or temptations to tussle with, only the flight and the target. There could be nothing simpler.

Vader’s HUD showed him closing on the planet. Atmosphere burned briefly around his TIE before transitioning to a storm so broad that it must have covered half the planet, with winds powerful enough to buffet his craft and spark a hint of anxiety in Vader, even as he tracked the scarlet thread of blood that stretched relentlessly between father and son. The connection led him through the storm, until he found himself descending onto a featureless, snow-swept plain. Only that connection and the technical proficiency of his mask, which allowed him to distinguish between heat and cold, revealed a form half-covered in snow and a living body far cooler than it should have been.

The Sith Lord strode ahead to scoop the dying human from the ground. He brushed away snow to confirm Skywalker’s identity. The boy had fresh wounds on his face, as if he had encountered some fearsome beast, and he was nearly blue from hypothermia, but he lived.

“The target has been located,” Vader informed his men.

He carried Luke to the two-man craft and dressed him quickly in a spare flight suit and an oxygen mask. The boy was unconscious, which made the prepping him easy. Vader gently tilted Luke’s head against the side of the canopy and brushed his hair back from his face. The child had been blond in the security tapes from the Death Star. Now, three years gone from Tatooine, his hair had darkened drastically, while his skin had paled. Vader stared at his son and thought that he should feel triumph, but he felt only emptiness.

When the TIE fighters lifted from the tundra, Vader saw the shape of a man struggling to cut through the snow, but if he was a rescuer coming for the boy, he was too late.

Hours after the fleet had made the jump to hyperspace, Vader stood motionless before a Bacta tank, watching the healing spores bathe every part of his son. The silence of the med bay was broken only by the occasional beep and flicker of light from equipment and droids. There were no other patients present, and Vader had dismissed the CMO and his human staff from the clinic after the man had put Luke in the tank. Vader needed time alone to process the end of his quest. He had achieved the goal that had driven him these past three years, but with another crisis looming, he was not sure if he would have time to properly work with the boy.

Luke had already been conditioned by Alliance propaganda. He would require a delicate touch. Palpatine would have been the perfect agent of Luke’s conversion, but Vader had a deep-seated suspicion that Palpatine resented the very idea of Luke. Conversations about the boy were always delicate, with the emperor most commonly referring to Luke as “the son of Skywalker,” as if by doing so he might distance Vader from the boy, and the boy from Vader. Though it was true that Vader found it painful to delve into his most ancient memories, and the name that was linked to them, he could never forget that this child was his son.

The Sith Lord put his hand on the tank. He felt a faint echo of the boy’s life force, but his cybernetics did not easily transmit sensation. There was no part of Vader’s body that was uncovered, no bit of his flesh that he could easily expose. Embracing his offspring in the way that he had sometimes imagined would be a logistical challenge.

Vader removed his glove to expose the artificial sensors. He had worked for years with leading medical engineers to create working synthskin. When they had at last succeeded, Vader had attributed his part of the work to a pseudonym, for he feared that people who needed it the most might not want it if they were aware that Palpatine’s notorious enforcer had played a role in its creation. There were very few people Vader felt real empathy for, but amputees were among them. Ultimately, Vader hoped that someone had benefited from the innovation, but after so many tears of wearing cybernetics without any kind of sensory function, Vader had found that the skin made him uneasy more than it relieved his isolation. Looking at the unnatural smoothness was a constant reminder of what he had lost, and how he had lost it.

Vader did his best to disregard this now. He put his hand on the Bacta tank and found it cool and smooth.

“Luke,” Vader whispered. “My boy.”

A shiver travelled up Vader’s arm and then down his back. He tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, as if watching for an oncoming storm, and felt his vision grow dark at the edges. A sound like a rolling drum struck him, shaking the Sith Lord down to his bones.

Vader stumbled away from the tank. Something was wrong.

He threw open the doors to the fleet hospital and ran for the closest lift while he raised the bridge.

“Yes, Lord Vader?” The chief communications officer answered the call.

“Raise the capital, Lieutenant. Request immediate status.”

“We were in contact within the last hour—”

“Now!” Vader thundered.

He reached his quarters before the bridge called back. He called Palpatine’s personal secretary and felt a chill of unease when an unfamiliar face appeared on his screen.

“I must speak with the emperor at once.”

“Lord Vader,” the new official greeted him. “His Majesty is in video session with the regional governors. I will inform him that you called.”

Without a word, Vader shut down the comm. He paced the wide room that contained his hyperbaric chamber, his boots tapping out a furious rhythm on the polished floor. He did not understand his own helpless disquiet, and though he castigated himself for what he could only perceive as weakness, the unrest thrummed through his blood without cease. 

Palpatine observed the small, flickering image of Vader kneeling, many star systems away from the capital. His apprentice was no more substantial than an actor in a holodrama, but the emperor felt a thrill travel through his gut. Military officials, bureaucrats and regional royalty kowtowed to the galactic sovereign every day, but there was nothing more fulfilling to Palpatine than accepting the submission of his chosen heir.

If he lost the whole galaxy and had Vader on his knees, Palpatine thought he might still be satisfied.

“Lord Vader. You have news for me?” Despite his fury with Vader’s disobedience, Palpatine kept his voice light, almost casual, yet Anakin shifted with visible discomfort.

“Master, I have captured the Skywalker boy.”

The emperor stared at his lieutenant. “Did I not inform you, my apprentice, that this was not a priority at this time? Did I not order you to immediately abandon your mission and return to the capital?”

“Yes, my master. However, I saw an opportunity to covertly fulfill our objective.”

“Our former objective.”

Palpatine saw Anakin’s hand twitch from where it rested on his knee. Had their meeting been in person, the emperor had no doubt that he would have been bathed in the barely-leashed fury of his apprentice.

“The boy was exposed to the elements. Dying. If I had left him—”

“Then you would have been an obedient apprentice. You are fortunate that I am feeling lenient today, or I would have you put him back where you found him.”

It was an empty threat. Vader would never do it, even if he had not found his son dying. Palpatine simply had to say something. Anakin required constant reminders of his authority.

“Master.” If his apprentice were still capable of it, the emperor thought that he would have sounded hoarse and weak. The hand twitched again on the knee.

“Perhaps I should,” Palpatine teased him, just to see Vader’s helmet give a sharp jerk, to see the whole arm twitch. Delicious, though the emperor, that there was still so much life in Vader, so much feeling. “Should I tell you to do that, Vader?” he asked softly. “Perhaps you’ve been waiting for it. Surely you wish to divest yourself of this… genetic burden.”

“No, master,” Vader insisted. “The boy can be of use to us.”

“Use?” Palpatine echoed coyly. “He is responsible for the destruction of the weapon and the thousands of troops that manned it, not to mention a disastrous loss of confidence in this government. We could not acknowledge him as a public asset, even were he to join us. What use could he possibly serve?”

“Master, surely Tarkin was more at fault—”

“Surely you were at fault for not intervening before Tarkin obliterated a Core world,” Palpatine interrupted. He allowed the affection to bleed from his voice, leaving it as cold as the empty space where Alderaan had been. He wondered what Vader would do now.

His apprentice bowed his helmet over his knee. “You are correct, my master,” he said softly. “I am entirely at fault.”

“Yes,” Palpatine said. “You are.” Although he largely agreed that Tarkin was to blame, he was surprised to find some resentment for Anakin’s inaction on the Death Star still simmering within him. Perhaps it was because his apprentice had found no difficulty making a swift decision when the benefit had been to himself alone, while he had done nothing during a pivotal, professional disaster. The disparity was galling, particularly given that Vader was not usually inclined to making the kind of errors that cost lesser men their careers, if not their lives.

Palpatine observed his apprentice, noting the complete submission evident in Vader’s posture. There was something performative about it, and the emperor was left hollow. Vader usually played their game so well, but this was not the first time that he had failed to live up to his role. Idly, Palpatine wondered if this behaviour were due to his apprentice’s early years as property, when he had learned to distance himself from the more distasteful realities of his servitude.

To the emperor, being treated in the same manner as a small-time outer rim junk dealer was as irritating as having piece of meat stuck in his back teeth.

“Enough of this foolishness, Vader," Palpatine scoffed. "Bring the boy to the capital if it pleases you. We will see what we can make of the son of Skywalker.”

“As you wish.”

The sovereign prepared to disconnect, but Vader held up a swift hand, forestalling the end of their call. Palpatine narrowed his eyes furiously, remembering too late that his apprentice was unlikely to notice the subtle change in his holographic image.

“Was there something else, Apprentice?”

“Yes, Master,” Vader said, his voice quicker than usual. “I had a premonition while I was with the boy. A sound like thunder and a black sky unfurling in my vision.”

The emperor considered this, only slightly appeased. “What is the significance of your vision?”

“I believe that you are correct, my Master. Something is coming. A great darkness.”

“I am not accustomed to fearing the darkness, Lord Vader.”

“Nor I. But this is not a thing of the Force, or the Sith, or the Witches of Danthomir or any other sect we are familiar with. This is something new.”

Palpatine looked past Vader’s hologram and stared at his own tapestried walls. He thought of his vision of Vader, approaching him with his blade ignited. With his son now at his side, was his apprentice planning the downfall of his master? The memory of his own red blade returned to the emperor, searing in the darkness as he hovered over the prone form of Darth Plagueis, wondering up until the last second if he were ready.

The more years that went by, the more Palpatine wondered if anyone was ever ready.

“I hope that you are on your way to Coruscant, Lord Vader.”

“Yes, my Master, at maximum speed.”

“Come to me at once when you have arrived.”

He disconnected the call before Vader responded, his mind already turning over the problem of the visions. If Vader were to be believed, both Sith Lords were now catching glimpses of a cataclysmic future. With the Rebels still a problem, considering a new and unknown threat to his empire rendered the monarch desolate with fury and nearly sick with weariness.

“Hurry to me, dear boy,” Palpatine whispered. “Hurry home.”

The emperor fabricated intelligence about a planned Rebel attack on the capital, and because he was who he was, no one questioned his sources. The military went on red alert and the capital on lock-down. Palpatine spent the day conferring with his top officers and ministers before giving strict orders not to be disturbed. He spent the night in deep meditation, seeking answers. The darkness in the vision thickened and the fire expanded. Once more, Vader entered his bedchamber with his blade ignited. His black armour gleamed, illuminated by the deadly beauty of the sabre, visible even through the thick clouds of smoke obscuring Palpatine’s vision. The emperor attempted to speak, but smoke got in his eyes and caught in his lungs.

Again unnerved by the vision, the meditating emperor turned his attention to the fleet. Vader was on Executor, as was that wretched boy. If Anakin were conspiring with his son, the boy would be the weak link. Palpatine had never been able to penetrate the child’s mind at a distance before, but with Luke Skywalker’s thoughts likely to be trained on Coruscant, there was a chance he might manage now.

The emperor cast the dark net of his thoughts through the Force, searching for young Skywalker. He was surprised to find a mind deeply unconscious, close to the line of death. Vader had been telling the truth, or some version of it. Perhaps he was keeping the boy under intentionally, so that the emperor could not breach his thoughts, just as he had now planned to do.

Vader anticipated him so well.

The Sith Lord surfaced from his meditation at 04:00 hours. Silence cloaked his chambers and the hallways beyond them, but he was not tired. He seized his cane and exited with the briefest of gestures to the Red Guards posted to his door. The soldiers followed at a discreet distance, only joining the emperor when he took the lift from the palace to what had once been the Senate chamber.

In the three years since Palpatine had disbanded the Galactic Senate, the large building had been repurposed for the endless bureaucratic work of the Empire. The offices of former senators had been gifted to the capital representatives of the regional governors, who were able to complete their abundance of paperwork and political wrangling more easily on Coruscant. Only the central Senate chamber was abandoned. The design was too impractical to be easily renovated.

Perhaps, too, Palpatine was reluctant to disturb the ghosts that lingered there.

It was in the senate chamber that he had once stood behind Queen Amidala, whispering in her ear, leading her down a path she would never return from. Years later, his machinations had succeeded in inciting a galaxy-wide civil war, with none of his underlings the wiser. At the close of that war, Palpatine had crowned himself regnant in this very chamber. Robed in scarlet, he had proclaimed the birth of his empire, even as a listening device he had ordered planted in the pod of Senator Amidala had revealed a statement that Palpatine often dwelled on with ironic pleasure.

“So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.”

Anakin’s wife had been so genuine. When she spoke of liberty, it was as something that she was truly willing to sacrifice her own pleasures, even her life, in the service of. Not so, the rest of the Republic. Greedy, venal, and immensely corrupt, it had been a doomed institution long before Palpatine was born, and if he had not dealt the final blow, certainly someone else would have.

The Senate building was abandoned now, the air stale and heavy. Even at this impossibly late hour, there were usually politicians lurking about, making deals and conducting all manner of affairs, but with martial law in effect, the doors were locked at 01:00. The building was so quiet that the emperor almost thought that he could hear the dust settling into place.

The pods in the central Senate chamber were long retired, attached to the walls like a modern art installation dedicated to utter futility. At Palpatine’s signal, the guards hit the power, and the running lights activated on every level of the chamber. The emperor stepped into the pod that had been his and tried to turn on the motor, but found it had no charge.

Best not, Palpatine thought. He had no desire to go flailing through the air and launching himself about the place with all the indignity of Jedi Master Yoda.

It was not without conflict that Palpatine contemplated the empty space in the centre of the chamber. While in some ways he missed the theatricality of dominating the chamber and making the eloquent speeches for which he had been renowned, the truth was that, by the start of his ninth decade, he had struggled to find energy for the Senate. At its end, the place had been a joke to all but the most earnest of politicians, and the emperor had seen no value in exposing his frailties in a literal committee.

Still there had been some use in it. With the fiction of democracy dismissed, his enemies had done the same, throwing in with the nascent Rebellion. Then had come the disaster of Alderaan’s destruction, a Core world which Wilhuff Tarkin had indeed obliterated with impunity. And though Palpatine had complained to Vader of his offspring’s uselessness, it was ultimately to the emperor’s benefit that the Skywalker boy had killed Tarkin, for with the Grand Moff gone the emperor had been free to pin the blame for Alderaan entirely on the rogue governor.

The truth was more nuanced, as it often was. The space station was constructed as a threat to keep the systems in line, not to wreak destruction in the Core, but ultimately a weapon was made to be used. Palpatine had given the project to Tarkin first because he knew that Anakin had reservations about the Death Star. Tarkin had petitioned for the post, and the emperor had granted it. He had sent Vader with Tarkin to curb his worst excesses, but he had also not made clear to his apprentice exactly at what point he might obstruct the governor’s autonomy. Palpatine still did not know why Vader hadn’t checked with him before Alderaan was targeted, but perhaps the other Sith had been too bent on breaking the Organa chit to much consider what Tarkin had planned. Furthermore, it was unlikely that Palpatine’s lieutenants would break ranks in front of a confirmed leader of the Rebellion. All of these elements had created a perfect storm, as the pundits were fond of saying, and Alderaan had been destroyed, with disastrous long-term outcomes.

The military had lost hundreds of thousands of troops, both from the Death Star and subsequent desertions, and the Fleet had been left short-staffed. Training officers took time. Even training Stormtroopers took time, and both the Navy and Army had yet to recover. Trust in the emperor’s rule had plummeted, and the galaxy had been gripped by a recession that stretched all the way from Coruscant to Nal Hutta, while recruits had flocked to the Alliance for the Restoration of the Republic in the millions.

“Where did we go wrong?” Palpatine sighed.

The words echoed in the Senate chamber. Other than the mute Red Guard, the emperor was the only one to hear them.