Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, it was created and belongs to George Lucas.
Summary: Darth Vader has a problem, his PA is sick and now he has to go where no Dark Lord has gone before...he has to sort his own mail.
Imperial Date: Day 4, Month 6 of Year 12 of the First Galactic Empire
Location: ISD Devastator,
In Orbit of Cato Neimoidia
Darth Vader's Personal Quarters
Entering his quarters after crushing the most recent uprising on this former seperatist world, Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith gave a weary sigh, though it sounded more like an angry growl through his respirator. The Devastator had been sent to this planet when the population had began serious anti-imperial protests that eventually turned into an attempted uprising against the local Imperial Governor. The major uprisings and violent protests had been taken care of within hours of arriving on the planet, however that was four days ago and since then all he and the Imperial forces under his command have had to do were clean up operations and executions. It had been surprising, Neimodians were spineless, cowardly creatures that the mere thought of any uprising in the population was as likely as Jabba the Hutt becoming a Jedi, and so Imperial stratagists and intelligence agents had deemed that the planet was only worthy of a small Imperial presence in the form of Trooper barracks holding no more than 50 troopers. Obviously that was a mistake, one that someone was suffering the Emperor's displeasure for, as of only moment after the uprisings became known to them.
Intimidating Neimodians, as amusing as it may be for the first ten minutes, quickly became tedious and boring by the sixth one he had had to deal with personally. By the 251st Neimodian he was ready to simply bombard the entire planet from orbit, however the Emperor had ordered that he was not allowed to do that, apparently he concidered the Neimodians useful for some unfathomable reason. Personally he thought the Emperor was either going senile or basking in nostalgic memories of using the Neimodians for his bid in becoming Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic during the Naboo crisis and later Emperor of the First Galactic Empire through the Clone Wars.
And so now, finally after everything was back to how it should be and a population trembling in horrific outright terror at the mere mention of his name he was back in his quarters, however something was not as it should be.
Activating his Com-link he was immediately connected to the lieutenant currently on duty monitoring the ships personnel.
"This is the ISD Devastator's Personnel Office, I am Lieutenant Shaw how may I be of assitance to you today." said a rather bored, dispassionate sounding lieutenant that appeared to be in his mid twenties who was scribbling on a Data-padd and obviously not paying full attention to his desk's com-unit. This was one of Vader's pet peeves, Imperial personnel were meant to pay the fullest attention to even the most minor of duties, to the most insignificant of information and the most common of occurrences. Thus when he growled, which through his respirator sounded exactly like the sigh he had let out earlier, the Lieutenant looked up at his com-unit and nearly jumped clear off his seat in surprise, shock and most of all outright terror.
"Lord V-vader! S-s-sorry Sir! H-h-how might I be of a-assistance t-to y-you m'lord!"
"You can begin Lieutenant by paying more attention to your duties, than on wasting time with whatever nonsense you were doing with that padd, secondly you can inform me of the location of my personal assistant, whom appears to have not shown up for duty."
"Y-yes Sir! R-right a-a-away sir!" Typing away at his terminal he pulled up information on Vader's Personal Assistant from the various databases in the various departments around the ship, until he finally found what Vader was looking for. Vader could feel through the Force that the Lieutenant's shock was wearing off and that he was regaining his bearings, hopefully it would be enough to stop that Force-forsaken stammering. The Lieutenant stopped typing, took a deep calming breath and turned back to answer Vader. "Well sir it appears that Lieutenant Thrace was admitted to sickbay late last night for what appears to be a case of the Corellian Flu, the doctor attending her has placed her on sick leave and believes she'll be able to resume her duties in a few days, three at most. Until then I'm sorry to say that there are no other officers on board who have the...qualifications necessary to fill in for her at this time. Will that be all my lord?" Answered a nervous and slightly terrified Lieutenant.
Vader concidered for a few seconds whether he should force choke the idiot or not, deciding he couldn't really be bothered to waste his time on an idiot who would probably go no further up the promotional ladder than he already was, unless he had a wealthy realative who liked him for whatever idiotic reason, which wasn't very likely.
"No, but if I find you wasting time and not paying the proper amount of attention to your duties again, I will be most...displeased." Then he cut off the com to the Lieutenants rather horror stricken face, which went a little way to relieving him of the annoyance of the Neimodian situation. However this still left the problem of not having his personal assistant to handle and see to that he recieved his most important messages, though she had dozens of other duties to see to for him, sorting the important messages from the rest of the chaff was one of the most important.
He'd never had to sort his own mail before, his mother sorted what little mail they recieved when he was a boy, there had been Jedi with dozens of droids working under them who saw to it in the Temple and now as a Sith he had a personal assistant, the sixth he'd gone through in the last twelve years. However no matter what people believed only one of those and incidentally the first one had left his employ in a body bag, the rest had simply been promoted.
He knew for a fact that the Personnels Officer had not been entirely truthful about there being no one qualified to be a personal assistant on board, however due to his reputation and his...temperment he needed PA's who met certain psychological and personality qualifiers, meaning they had to have a certain amount of backbone when dealing with him and had the ability to take their duties seriously and not waste time while on duty, they could do that while off duty or on shore leave.
Lieutenant Thrace however was...complicated, she was loud, sarcastic, rude, crude and often played Sabacc with the junior officers, pilots and hanger crews, sometimes getting into fights with them over whatever insult she spouted with that mouth of hers, which would often result in later finding herself spending an hour or two in the brig, until released to fullfill her duties to Lord Vader. When she was first assigned to be his PA some believed she wouldn't survive for more than an hour, some even less than that, however she'd been his PA for over six months now much to the disbelief of everyone else on the ship. While on duty she was hard working, thorough, professional and mostly respectful. By 'mostly respectful' he meant that she never insulted him or disrespected him, but at the same time she chatted to him as if he were just another one of the boys, a higher ranking and often 'terrifing to everyone around him' one of the boys.
He didn't much mind it to be honest, she had a lot going for her that he respected, for one she was an exceptional pilot, almost as good as he was and that was saying something for someone without access to the Force. She boasted that she could pilot anything, from a Tie-Fighter to a Star Destroyer and she could prove it, much to his amusment and everyone else's irritation. She was also impressivly enough very skilled at fencing to the point that if they had still existed Vader believed had the Jedi learned of her even though she is completely Force-blind they would have put her in brown robes, given her a lightsabre and called her Padawan Thrace, such was their hypocrisy. However no matter what she was skilled at, being a pilot, fencer, sharp shooter or even Sabacc player what she was most excellent at was being his Personal Assistant, to the point where she had never once made a mistake or upset him to the point of shouting at her much less to the point of murderous rage, she was the perfect PA for him and since she had been assigned to him, he had fought tooth and nail to keep her as his PA. She might be an ace pilot or a crack shot with a blaster, but she was first and foremost his PA who filtered all the requests for meetings, the outright demands for his time and the sheer stupidity of the bureaucracy which to him made her a blessing sent by the force since he didn't have to deal with all those idiots, only the ones in the military or at Imperial Center.
Coming out of his musings, he realised he was now, for the first time in his life going to have to sort his own mail. How hard could it be?
Sitting at his personal terminal, he logged into his personal mailing system and almost collapsed out of his chair in shock at the number of messages in his inbox. 1,608,342 and that was just in the 24 hours since his PA had fallen to Corellian Flu. He was gob smacked. However he was not a Dark Lord of the Sith for nothing, he quckly composed himself and picked one of the messages at random.
"To: LDV-ImperialComNet-Org
Dear recipiant,
We at the Helios Medical Group are proud to announce our new treatment for erectile disfuntion, with simply a one time payment when you inform us of your bank account details..."
He quickly closed the message, he had no such problems! How dare they send him something like this. He picked up a padd and made a note for his PA to research this 'Helios Medical Group' so he could personally inform them of his displeasure. Putting the Padd down he clicked on another message.
"To: LDV-ImperialComNet-Org
Hello,
I am Mandalorian General with 30 million credits to put in your bank account..."
He quickly closed that one as well, knowing for a fact it was preposterous, there was no Manadlorian General, the was only THEMandalore, and he knew exactly who that was and had his private com-link number, plus he knew perfectly well that bribing Vader got you nowhere except dead. Whoever this fake was, he would inform The Mandalore of him, he would be quickly taken care of. Clicking on another message he began reading.
"To: LDV-ImperialComNet-Org
Dear Reader,
Are you paying to much for your speeder insurance..."
Closing it he breathed out in annoyance, do these people not know whom they are sending these messages to? Searching the list of messages he saw one titled 'IMPORTANT READ ME NOW!' and quickly clicked on it.
"To: LDV-ImperialComNet-Org
CONGRATULATIONS!
YOU HAVE JUST WON AN ALL EXPENSE PAID TRIP TO ALDERAAN AND 10,000 CREDITS SPENDING MONEY! SIMPLY SUPPLY US WITH YOUR BANK ACCOUNT DETAI..."
For the next half hour it was the same thing, he read hundreds of these 'offers' and 'rewards' only sometimes coming across an actual message from someone he knew was a member of the Military, a Company CEO or a Politician asking or demanding he attend this banquet or that celebratory feast or this festival, one even had the gall to invite him to his daughters birthday party asking if he could use the force to do some tricks! But mostly he came across, hundreds possibly even thousands of these...these OUTRAGEOUS messages about this or that, some of them about deeply personal things, like that one from the Helios Medical Group. He continued to take notes about certain things, mostly of those politicians and CEO's who dared to demandhis time, like he was some lowly Stormtrooper! The messages from those in the military at least knew not to waste his time with nonsense, however there was usualy one Admiral or General that didn't seem to possess the basic survival instinct and would need to be...educated.
Growling in anger now, he simply turned the terminal off and stomped towards his Hyperbaric Chamber. He would leave this nonsense to his PA to sort out, then he would have all those Politicians, CEO's and the few idiots from the Military who'd deemed themselves too stupid to be allowed to exist let alone allowed to breed their stupidity into the next generation, killed or at the very least sterilized.
As the Hyperbaric Chamber closed around him he also made a note in his padd to insure that his PA is never allowed to become ill again, or at the very least that there are temporary replacements ready for such emergencies again. Perhaps he should buy her a protocol droid, which reminded him, whatever did happened to C-3PO...shaking his head to clear it of the ghosts of the past he simply made note to buy an emergency mail sorting droid, he would never think of replacing his PA with a simple droid, but he swore to himself upon the very Force itself that he was never going to sort his own mail, ever again!
Authors Note: I was caught some of this documentary on Spam E-mails and Junk Mail after turning the PS3 off after playing a little Force Unleashed 2 when suddenly I thought, 'I wonder how Darth Vader sorts his Spam and Junk Mail' and thus this story was born.
Also note that Lieutenant Thrace is a cameo of nBSG's Starbuck/Kara Thrace, however the Kara in this story isn't from the Twelve Colonies she's actually from Corellia, which I think is the ideal planet for her to come from in the Star Wars Galaxy, since if you did put a baby Kara on Corellia she'd probably turn out just the same as she did in nBSG, loud mouthed, sarcastic, rude and crude and just as much an ace Sabacc player as she is a Triad player.