Author's notes: This fic is the translation of "Telaraña de mentiras". Thanks to Sherazade, who has translate this fic into English. And also thanks to her beta. All the English mistakes in author's notes are only mine, so don't blame Sherazade.
Disclaimer: All belongs to George Lucas, and later in the story there are characters and situations that also belongs to Timothy Zahn. Some of the story, especially this chapter, is inspired by a dialogue between Luke and Vader in Raythe's fic "Forbidden". At the end of the chapter I'll explain about this.
The sentences in italics are what the characters are thinking.
Web of Deceits
Chapter 1: Revelations
That was the worse moment so for his respirator to stop working correctly. Although he hadn't physically noticed the effect, he knew that it was just a matter of time that the side effects would start. The respirator was malfunctioning. He was certain of it.
It was not in vain that he had been incased in that damn suit twenty years and if he did not arrive on time at his TIE fighter, he would not make it anymore. In fact, although he arrived at his ship before losing consciousness, there were no guarantees that would be able to arrive at the Executor before dying.
His master had sent him to the most absurd mission that even a third category politician would have been able to solve the matter, nevertheless, the Emperor had insisted he was the only one who could solve it. He felt the rage surrounding him and the darkness bathing his spirit while he rushed towards his home faster than his dignity and his reputation allowed it.
He didn't want to think about dying! He was not going to please that viper. Now his words show its meaning: "I know, my friend, this mission seems insignificant so that it requires your attention, but believe me, your presence is vital. Remember that you must go alone and the Executor will have to remain outside the system." Soon he had smiled in an enigmatic way and he had added, "During your return trip, you must remember that in all when everything a day begins, another day must end."
He had not understood it then but he knew that eventually he would understand what he meant to say. He was used to the fact that Palpatine was sometimes cryptic in his affirmations. In addition, now he understood why that words, it was evident that he had sent to him to die, the most infuriating way: Without a fight…To die without the dignity, he deserved.
He was going to die asphyxiated in his own suit. However, he was going to fight! He was going to fight for his life, as he fought twenty years ago, when he understood that it was then when he had lost everything, when he saw himself prisoner of that suit and that damn mask. It was back then he had resorted to the rage, the pain, and revenge, to the darkness in fact, to realities that followed ahead, to continue living.
It would be same he was going to do now. Only now, his object of revenge would not be the entire galaxy, but the one who had sent to him to die: Palpatine.
When near the Fighter he felt disoriented and the vision became cloudy for a moment. His brain was beginning to notice the diminution of the air that the respirator provided him. He had to hurry.
When he arrived at the approach ramp to the TIE fighter, he took leave of the diplomats who accompanied to him.
"Shortly you will have the new news of from the Emperor" if that reptile would be alive to receive the news, he thought for himself full of dark rage. Without wasting time, he entered his ship and took off.
He was fighting desperately for life. Every passing moment was more difficult to maintain his mind clear.
He had to leave the planetary atmosphere and to reach hyperspace before losing the consciousness completely. Moreover, he had to program the system so that as soon as he left in his TIE fighter he could enter into hyperspace as soon as possible to the get to the Executor because when he arrived there he would be unconscious or, even... No, he was not going to think about….dead. That would not be his end.
Hardly a second after to have programmed the computer of the TIE fighter, he felt as his mind fell in an unconsciousness spiral. A feeling of uncontrollable rage invaded him and, clinging to the rage and amplifying it by means of the Dark Side; he forced himself to remain conscious a little more. After seconds that seemed to be an eternity, the navigation system indicated that it had set the coordinates to the route and, the in the brink of unconsciousness, he pressed the button that sent the fighter into hyperspace to the Executor.
Then, in a point in which he was in between consciousness and unconsciousness, the visions began. Visions from a twenty-year past while using the Darkness to forget.
First, it was one vision. That one that year's back ago had led him to be the one he was today. Padmé dying in childbirth. The part of his mind that still followed his consciousness as he tried to use the Darkness to reject the memory. However, immediately it was evident to him that he could not accede to the Force. It was there, surrounding to him, like always but he was incapable to reach it. He felt frustrated and angry when he understood that he would have to continue seeing what he did not want to see, remembering what wanted... no, what he needed, to forget... the death his angel. Under the mask, he frowned and felt a great oppression in his heart.
His angel? It had been a long time that he did not think about her with that name. Damned Jedi! Why was this happening now?
Vader was incapable to realize which part of his subconscious mind was going to the surface now that his consciousness was vanishing. Nevertheless, even in that state of half consciousness he was surprised that the vision began in a different point in which he remembered. Now, in the vision, the medical droid had approached Obi- Wan and it had said to him: "Clinically she is healthy, but for reasons that we did not explain we are losing her" and he knew that it spoke of Padmé.
Obi-Wan had asked the droid if she were dying and the droid had talked back. "We do not know why. She lost the will to live... " And, while that phrase sounded in slow cadence in his mind, the rest of the conversation became inaudible.
He had not killed Padmé, as Palpatine had made believe! Well, perhaps she died but not the way that he had believed. Padmé had died because she had not wanted to live after discovering which he had become. An almost inaudible bitter laughter arose from his lips.
Here lies the irony: He had become Darth Vader to avoid the death of Padmé and she had died because he had become Darth Vader!
However, the vision called to him and he had to leave his bitter thoughts. Although, strangely, no longer he could hear the conversations and the images seemed defocused.
He saw the birth of his son. He saw as the medical droid taking the boy to Obi-Wan. Another new big wave of rage invaded his mind. Obi-Wan had robbed his son from him! He had forced Luke to grow without his father and him to live thinking that his son was dead, assassinated by his own hand before being born! Obi-Wan's fault!
Now they were enemies and, the more he searched for the boy, the more deeply seemed to hide. He would do anything only to speak with him once and to say to him... What… Would he say that he was his father? How... he did not know him...
His mind fluctuated between the vision and his own, and something diffused, thoughts. Suddenly, something that was happening in the vision forced to him to focus again on her. Was he seeing again the birth of Luke? However, when the droid took to the baby to Obi-Wan again, but he already had one baby in his arms. There were two! Padmé had twins! A boy or a girl? The vision so blurry that not even it could know.
Next an immense rage, another feeling flooded to him. Sadness; because perhaps he never would know who his other son (or daughter) was, and to find out where the other child was. In addition, because the only shared moments with his child Luke had been of destruction: killing to Obi-Wan, of which one did not regret, of course and persecuting and shooting against the boy in the trench of Death Star.
Later after two years, their paths had not crossed again. He felt terrible, if he died and someday Luke has to discover their kinship only would have left those memories of his father.
Everything because of Obi-Wan!
'Damn you! Where ever you are!' he shouted through the Force. However, if his old master was listening to him, he did not deign to answer.
Oh, Sith! If he could cling to that rage; because as the vision was advancing, the sadness threatened to drown him, more than what it was doing the lack of air. He did not want to continue seeing those visions.
But the vision followed, implacable. And, he was powerless as he saw his angel dying…. Not without before realizing the infinite sadness that dimmed those beautiful eyes that once had loved him... That still loved him in spite of the years. In spite of his own darkness, in spite of all the cruelty that, to forget he had showed all these years.
Oh Yes, he still loved his angel. Now that his death seemed so near, no longer it mattered to him to admit it.
He began to think that dying wouldn't be so bad, after all. Because if he survived, how could he go ahead living knowing what now he knew. It would have been preferable to continue thinking that he had killed her with his own hands. That he had killed her body. Because the knowledge that, which in, what he had killed, was her soul, was still much more painful. Because now, no longer he could blame anybody else about her death. No longer he could continue fact blaming Obi-Wan about forcing her taking him to Mustafar, where he thought that he had killed her.
Now he knew that the fact that she had gone to Mustafar was irrelevant with respect to her death. Padmé would have died in any other site, when she had understood what Anakin had become. In addition, after twenty years, a single tear slipped his cheek; burning his skin, more than what it had done the lava years ago. That vision vanished and, during two seconds, the absolute darkness invaded his mind.
Then, another vision arose.
He was in Mustafar, strangling Padmé. Dammed be the Force! Will those visions never going to stop? Was he condemned to see these visions before dying, everything of the past that he had buried in his mind under countless layers of the Darkness? Despite himself, that seemed to continue…Nevertheless, there was something strange in that vision. Something indefinite. He was... He tried to clarify his mind, unfruitful.
He had sworn that was as if, within his vision, somebody was having a vision of his past. Did that make any sense? He did not believe it. In addition, his soul was tortured beyond which a human being can support when he relived all the horror of Mustafar: Padmé unconscious on the ground after his attack, his fight with Obi-Wan, his mutilation, his body burned by the flames, again the death of its angel...
'Oh, not again, no!' he begged unfruitful to the Force... and, finally, his confinement in that suit that now was going to be his shroud. As the images were flowing, the anguish pressed more and more to his heart.
Could not the Force let to him die peacefully, without having to happen twice through the destiny crueler than nobody could imagine?
Moreover, as if someone was listening to his pleas, suddenly he was no longer in Mustafar, the vision left him... or, at least the vision left the being he was…that vision of the being that he was.
That being... 'who was he?'. The other being he represented directed him towards the holo-transmitter and connected it.
Although he could not recognize the being with which he was speaking, the horror, the hatred, the wrath and an uncontrollable desire of revenge seized Vader when his mind processed the words and the voice of the being that he was in the vision: "Have you already provided them to the medical droids the prosthetics, the suit and the mask that I ordered? My new apprentice is going to need them soon. "Said the voice of Palpatine with a tone of total satisfaction in his voice.
And, like a most horrible of the nightmares, the image blinked and showed another fragment of the past. Somebody was saying to Palpatine. "In agreement with your desires, your Highness, we have altered the registries of the death of Senator Amidala. Now it consists like she was deceased by strangling in Mustafar, fifteen hours standard before the real one". The ominous voice of Palpatine responded reverberating with lascivious tones. "Perfect. With that I will complete Lord Vader to the Dark Side.".
Inside the TIE fighter, the body of the Dark Lord of the Sith began convulsing while its mind sank, in the end, in a total unconsciousness, not without before understanding, horrified, that on his destination no longer would be ship waiting for him.
Tbc….
Author's note: The dialogue in which a part of this fic is inspired is one in which Vader explain his son that Palpatine knew beforehand what he was going to suffer in Mustafar, because his Master had ready the suit, the mask and the prosthetics when they arrived to Coruscant.
