I'm posting another chapter, hoping to get people to read this.
I subconsciously heard the cackling laughter of Palpatine...no Darth Sidious. His orders to the droids.
LIVE MY APPRENTICE, LIVE.
I automatically put up my mind blocks. Not yet. Not until Padme...but I thought no more.
Pain wracked my entire body. The droids weren't very gentle when they put me on the ship. I gasped for air like a drowned fish. I couldn't breathe. Suddenly I siezed myself out of subconsiousness, was almost forced to because of the intense pain. I needed to recover in a bacta tank. There I would be fine. The respirator was keeping me alive, most thought. But what really was keeping me alive was Padme. The thought of just seeing her again...just once. Force sense told me it probably wasn't possible, but I didn't want to believe it.
They didn't put me in a bacta tank like I had hoped. Instead prosthetics. And I was fully conscious. And there was barely anaesthetic. I could feel Sidious grinning. My master was torturing me? And for what? I had done what he had requested, no more, no less. Yes I had gotten injured in the process, wasn't that enough.
NO, not for you my apprentice. For you it is not over, Darth Vader.
I would Force block him from my mind. But wait, Padme. I had to know about her first. I tried fruitlessly to calm my pain, as they drilled in the prosthetics, I tried to brush away the droids, but it was no use. And I could barely gasp out my protests. The job was hurried. What was this? A mask with photoreceptors? Oh Force, Oh Maker, not this. Please not this. Padme won't recognize me...
Finally though I can breathe, though it is loud and obnoxious, ringing still in my damaged eardrums. The table is raised, though I am still strapped down.
"Lord Vader, can you hear me?"
The surprise that he is standing there shocks me just enough to allow his Dark Side to enter my now weakened mind. "Yes, my master," the voice isn't mine. It's a deep baritone I don't know whose voice. I summon my power to block my thoughts, but it's not quite there yet.
"Where is Padme. Is she alive? Is she alright?"
Sidious pauses, ever the theatre, ever the dramatic effect. "Apparently, in your anger, you killed her."
"I? I couldn't have. She was alive, I felt it!" I didn't kill her. Me? Hate flooded. The droids exploded, as I released myself from the bonds which held me.
The pain was too much. I fought the tears out of my voice. But still, I spoke my mind, this time it was as though the Emperor had forced it out.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOnooooooooooo...the kneeling shot pain through my body almost as though I could feel the lightsaber, cutting through flesh...again...and again. I sense the Emperor grinning viciously. Obi-Wan had been right. He was evil. And now, I was trapped.
I fought not to cry. Better death than this. But Palpatine had insured that. I would live a long life, yes. Alone. The right hand of the Emperor, yes, but it would be a position no better than a slave. No better than Naboo when I was nine. Why oh why had I left
Tears came to my eyes. This mask could serve a great purpose. To hide my true feelings from the emperor.
