Ah, what would the Empire be without social media? In this AU oneshot, our three discover the joys of Snapchat…or Imperial Snapchat for those in the GFFA Other characters and a story that would be good for another time…(toying around with this idea).
Piet chuckled as soon as he snapped the pic. With another chuckle he posted that pic. The picture on Imperial Snapchat was a selfie of him, with Darth Vader in the background. This was the going to be the winning shot of a contest that had been going on for weeks.
This had started innocently enough, a contest to see which Imperial officer could get a selfie in as close to the Sith as possible and not get killed after it. The first junior grade ensign had posted the pic, and then was killed by the Dark Lord. The last pic the lad had posted was of himself being lifted by Vader in a choke hold. The poor officer never got to see the monster that he created.
The second pic was shot by a Lieutenant, and he had gotten off two pics without dying. This Lieutenant had been lucky. The third was taken by a stormtrooper who had thought he had the best one yet. And he did, until Admiral Firmus Piet had downloaded Imperial Snapchat on his new Icomm and was playing around with it. He decided that now was as good a time as any to take his first selfie, and it just happened to be when Vader was in the background. He then did the caption because he was thinking of the contest and wouldn't this be the one that wins the whole shootin match.
What Piet didn't know is that as soon as he posted this, a flurry of dings, whistles, beeps and even cartoon character sound effects soon came from the bridge, all against regulations, of course. One of the junior officers even had the hook to Low Rider as his notification. And as luck would have it, Lord Vader's tablet that he was reading a report on had even made a sound effect. His was one of a cartoon character called Goofy.
Vader was reading the report when the Snapchat icon showed up. He opened the app and saw the pic. He turned his gaze to the admiral, and then back to his tablet and stated the immediately obvious.
"You did Not just post a selfie of yourself on Imperial Snapchat, did you?" Vader asked.
Without missing a beat, Piet had said "I could say no, but we both know that would be a lie."
"Kriff," Vader said softly. "Let's just hope that the Emperor or other certain officers don't see this."
"I would be the one getting into trouble for it," Piet said. "The contest is to see how close we can get to you and not die. I haven't died yet and given your recent discovery of your sense of humor, I didn't see the harm in declaring the victory. Besides, Kalania said she was off today and she's not going to come marching up here even if she was working. She told me she avoids the bridge like the plague. Ever since that one guy had tried to mess with her comm. And I'm still impressed with how you solved that problem."
"That guy had it coming," Vader had said. "I found his extreme lack of morals highly disturbing. And the fact that he would do that to someone that I have come to respect is another reason why he needed to be shoved in a garbage compactor."
"We did get him out in time, Piet said. But the poor sot was never the same. I heard he's back on Imperial Center and doing the exact same thing he was doing here to some other poor lady."
"Better there than here." Vader had said.
This was no ordinary day though. The very officer that they were discussing had indeed made her way up to the bridge and had appeared to Vader's left side.
"Just had to do it, eh Firmie?" Kalania had said. She was wise to let the sith be between them. He couldn't stand it when she called him Firmie.
"You're just jealous that I beat you to it," Piet had said quietly. They stood quietly for a minute. "Enjoying your man time, savages?" Kalania asked. She was referring to the event that landed that guy in the garbage chute, with Vader being quite savage via text message to the jerk that was harassing Kalania last week, a bad blender date gone wrong.
"Piet's got to stop grunting and scratching. There's a time and a place for that."
"Says the head grunt," chided Piet.
"Unh," Vader said, and they all started chuckling. Kalania shook her head at the two of them. Ever since Bespin, a strange sensation had come over the Dark Lord. He started making just innocent observations. Then he tried a joke about three weeks ago and it stuck. It's as if something long dormant had suddenly switched itself on and wasn't going to stop no matter how he tried to bury it down again. The pain and anger had finally abated in one part. He told his son the truth and this is what happened. So, Piet and Kalania have been trying to get him to laugh at least once a day. They have even come up with a way to figure out when he's in a bad mood. And when that happens, the word is ixnay. When the pig Latin word for nix is stated, all joking around comes to a stop. Until of course, someone makes him laugh again and the cycle repeats.
"What brings you to the man cave, woman?" Vader said.
"Just what in the sith hell do you think you're doing posting a pic like that, Piet?"
"Winning," said Piet.
At this point, Vader had figured out the camera on his data pad and had taken a selfie. He then decided to put something along the lines that everyone that had tried to take part in this contest had been defeated.
"You didn't really say that, did you?"
"I had to. I have a reputation of evil that I have to maintain. I'm Darth Vader, if you haven't forgotten and I am supposed to be this way."
"Says the evil man who had a Hello Tookah bactatape on a paper cut last week…"
"In my defense, and I should not have to defend my bactatape choices, they were out of Celestial Battles. And they didn't have just the plain ones. So, it was either Hello Tooka or Sweetie. I chose the more masculine of the two."
"Ok, my Lord, if you say so."
He turned and looked down at the woman who had returned her gaze to the starfield in front of them.
This turn of conversation would have gotten any other officer killed. But not her. She had the edge over all of the others.
"ok, I'm going to go back to my she shed, and leave you heathens to rule the empire in relative peace and quiet." Kalania said. And with that and a jaunty little salute to Piet she left the bridge.
"You didn't post that caption with that pic, did you?" Piet asked.
Vader showed what he posted. It was a selfie pic of the three of them. And it was blank.