The author wishes to express thanks to anyone who may read his story and encourages them to leave reviews, comments or even flame it hard. As with any who try their hand at publicly expressing an idea or story concept, all feedback is important and welcome.
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, nor any other sci-fi or fantasy series, movies, comics, cartoons or news items used in this fiction as they belong to the creators or broadcasters or publishers who put them out for consumption by the public.
WARNING; the language level of this one is not too particularly trashy when we consider a story based on starships, pirates, soldiers, law breakers and politicians enough to fill several Death Stars. However, as I always warn people who read my work: this language was pretty much normal in the school yard 30 years ago when I was a teenager. So, how can you have such a thin skin and be part of the same culture on the same continent if this is really that offensive to you? Where did you spend the last few decades, if you can't take a few hard words from the mouths of kids when these words have been around since before World War I?
Author's note: for this chapter Anakin / Vader is still in the re-adaptation phase of his recovery but it goes towards the more physical part now that the critical body & organic issues have been settled. Still, the slave-boy must polish and honor his MASK of VADER as per the wishes of The Master whom expects a performance to be played at his behest. Thump the majordomo's staff, roll the drums, quench the candles and fold back the curtains; the Great Comedy of the Imperial Puppet is about to unfold.
Star Wars
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
Chapter 4; Thespians Anonymous (That's what the MASK is for)
Food for thoughts
(Star Wars – The Imperial March)
Nine days after Mustafar; morning, at breakfast
Imperial medical center, Vader stateroom (The Crypt)
Empire Central (Coruscant; the City Planet)
Inside the stygian depths of the dreaded drab grey Egg of Doom there dwelled an inhumane, evil voracious beast, slavering away at the bones of its victims to feed its monstrous appetites.
YOU try to eat something solid when half your teeth are nothing but cracked jagged stumps a quarter their original size or reduced to charred little bone shards imbedded in the bottom of the pits in your gums. I can promise that you'll be working at it hard just as much. Then try to eat some sliced shaak ham imported from Naboo for breakfast. That one wasn't the best idea Anakin had had in a while. Any ham was a bit rubbery to begin with, then cooked it became somewhat tough to masticate.
Ani had been so high from the success of the surgeries with his lungs, legs and arms two days back, not to mention the Pain Managers that now reduced all his pain coming from anywhere in his body, that he had wanted to celebrate with something that Padme had enjoyed a whole lot when she was pregnant.
Sigh…
Ani liked meat. A lot. As a growing boy (he was only 23 years old, dammit!) and a poor slave, rations of anything had been hard to procure at all times, even the cheap powders to put in the automated food synthetiser that produced only liquid or paste meals. But meat, though; meat was even more expensive, and tough to find. All Tatooine domestic animals were used primarily as cargo movers, personal transport or even as power for rotary mills in the outlands. You had to be really rich to obtain any kind of fresh meat or else you owned an animal and butchered it when the creature reached the end of its usable life.
It's no surprise that several groups like the Tusken raiders and the Jawa happened to be cannibalistic in order to fulfill the minimum protein requirements of their biologies in such an environment. It wasn't unheard of that certain parts of some towns found the dismembered, de-fleshed remains of dangerous ruffians and violent criminals dumped in back alleys when economic times were so hard that slave owners and low-wage employers had to cut back on the food allowances part of the salaries.
Sigh…
Anakin had used his 'official' bank account as Vader, a brand new thingie courtesy of Palpatine's ever officious minions, and ordered some Naboovian specialties from a nearby market that he knew kept stock due to Padme and Palpy-Baby being in such high view at the senate for the last couple of years. His newly acquired protocol droid, again bought with 'official' money from an outlet store over the holonet, was programmed with a lot of culinary styles, even a few that Ani had asked for specially. It wasn't like the average droid to be programmed with the knowledge or skills to create Naboovian festival feasts or funeral commemoration meals. But a certain Sith Master expected his defective puppet to be depressed, despondent and dramatically downed for a good long while to come so he had to make it look as if he still were. If it tasted good and boosted his spirits along the way instead…
Sigh…
So Anakin had made a 'small error of logic' in thinking that a new droid with fresh foodstuffs could help him celebrate his passing the half-way point on the scale to a full health. The breakfast was cooked to perfection, just as good as if C-3P0 had done the deed. Then Anakin tried to bite and chew…
Yeah, not a great idea…
At least the Pain Managers had kept the lancing pain in his damaged gums from paralyzing him or sending him into a fit of some sort. Then, Anakin had an idea. He wanted the damned breakfast and had earned the damned thing so he would eat it and curse his weird bowels along the way! He signaled for the protocol droid to come by the side of the HyperBaric Chamber so he could adjust the repertoire of culinary styles just a tad… And voila!
Sigh… Such pleasures of the flesh!
Anakin was no great foodie or even that much of a culinary critic despite all the traveling he did in the last nine years of his life since becoming padawan-learner and having the opportunity to follow his training-master around the Galaxy. Jedi on the road usually ate rather frugally. At least Kenobi did. They had carried their own dry ration bars as a reliable basic sustenance although Anakin tended to munch through those as if they were junk food. That could explain why he got so tall so fast… Otherwise road-bound Jedi liked to eat the good old standard meal-ready-to-eat (MRE) the concept of which had been created before the Galactic Republic was even born some 50-odd millennium ago. If all else fails, they could eat at local restaurants if they had the money, the time and the need to meet somebody for information, manipulation or intimidation purposes.
So Ani, like most Jedi raised at the Coruscanti Temple, could eat pretty much anything due to being trained to just shovel it in, but he had precious little knowledge or practice with cooking styles and preparing stuff. Hence the benefits of family-in-law and friends with social standing above his own. He remembered one time several years ago when he had gone to the Senate Rotunda to visit his Dear Friend Palpatine at his office as the man had asked he do whenever he went off-world and returned. It was supposedly to ascertain his health and welfare since nobody else from his family was present to stand in as a proper guardian to do such verification. Well on that one return home occasion, it had been lunch and Palpy had ordered something for them both; mon calamarian tartar fresh from the Rotunda kitchens which served only the offices of the permanent officials and topmost bureaucrats in the building.
Anakin used the memory from the good event to add a few programs to his droid and have him pre-cut then hash all the solid, tough parts of his breakfast to present them as minced portions, tartar-style.
Sigh… Such pleasures of the flesh!
As he ate his now soft and chewable-without-teeth foodstuffs, our happy Sith Lord in training contemplated the problems posed by his Dear, Beloved Master. He may have been thinking about that to avoid considering how the second most powerful and fearsome man in the new Galactic Empire of Man was actually eating what amounted to either old-people-porridge or baby-food-puree; the droids wouldn't tell and he wasn't asking.
Sigh… And no, he wasn't a bloody Diva, sighing all the time! He was just enjoying the feel of his new lungs and not having the damned helmet on his head all the time.
Hummmmm… Diva… An evil shit-eating grin spread on Anakin's ravaged face as he began to cogitate something of such base and foul depravity that even a Sith would enjoy it. He certainly did.
Somewhere inside the Senate Rotunda, a Wrinkly Evil Old Crone shuddered as his thoughts turned towards Betrayals and his handicapped apprentice in the medical center. He should check up on him just to make certain the young whelp hadn't developed ideas above his station in life and Sithdom.
Choosing a script
(Star Wars – The Rebel Theme)
Nine days after Mustafar; morning; Low Tea (hereafter renamed: Senatorial Tea Hour)
Imperial medical center, Vader stateroom (The Crypt)
Empire Central (Coruscant; the City Planet)
Now, to anyone who would ask, Anakin would gladly tell you that he wasn't a music fan. He hadn't had much chance to listen to a lot of varieties during his misspent young life. Besides the fact that musical performances on Tatooine were usually in cantinas, taverns and strip clubs, the Jedi cult very obviously did not approve of anything that could deter from, what else?, meditation or reading about meditation techniques. Bunch of bantha poo-doo piles…
Since he became a padawan with the afferent freedoms (meaning he was sent out of the Temple for errands and following his master on the road) he got to hear, see and experience the greater Galactic Culture which the Temple's many librarians and cybernetic nannies tried very hard to not let inside the walls. Not that Ani ever let something as idiotic and limited as a filtering software on the holonet consoles keep him from seeing or accessing what he wanted. His mechanical and cybernetic skills were the envy of several adult knights and masters for a reason, after all.
So, it wouldn't surprise anybody who knew him that Ani preferred working in two distinct styles; silently when designing a device or formulae for a chemical or element and with a whole lot of loud music when he was actually crafting or building. And, okay, when he was driving a speeder or interceptor at breakneck speed through dense traffic around Coruscanti road jams.
There was a reason that Obi Wan Kenobi systematically refused to ride with him when they were on their leisure time. His crazy piloting habits had been quite handy to insure his 'minder' did in fact 'mind' his presence for entertaining flights around the planet when they were home at the Temple. That meant that little Anikinni was left quite alone to his own devices for great long periods of time and those empty slots in his schedule explain how he managed to have a relationship and marriage under the noses of his keepers during years.
Note; they weren't keeping very hard or much at all…
Therefore, it would definitely be a surprise to see our erstwhile Sith Apprentice lounging in his recliner inside his closed Egg of Doom, which he had in fact taken a strong liking to, as he browsed the holonet listings of the best operas, classical orchestras and musical theater performances. He was doing so with the kind of focus he used to give hunting seppies in an asteroid field during the Clone Wars, which was truly out of character considering that during his youth, the music he favored was considered 'hard' with lots of synthesizers, electric guitars and drumbeats. Maybe being so close to Padme, Palpatine and the bourgeoisie in the Senate had finally rubbed off some higher culture on him?
Naaahhh…
The 'lovable' (Padme said so!) overgrown brat (calumnies and defamation, I say!) was preparing a practical joke the likes of which even the Temple crèche-masters had not been the prey of. And that was saying something as Ani had been a terror with his mechanically empowered, remote controlled pranks. Then again, his current prey would do to him a lot worst than send him out of the classroom or spank his clothed bottom with a ruler before making him stand in the corner for the rest of the period.
Snort! As if a child raised as a slave in Hutt territory would ever be afraid of stuff like that!
Well, there were those few really horrible teachers who enjoyed being cruel towards him… They would send him to his little crecheling bedroom to meditate on his wrongdoings and write a page-long essay on why it was wrong and why he wouldn't do it again. Meditate! A child! And they had the gumption to say they were being merciful with him! "Bastards, the lot of them!" he thought angrily.
Anakin pouted in a most manly way (Snort!) as he contemplated the lack of either style or punch in the musical arrangements he had browsed for the last two hours. Now since there were literally millions of member solar systems in the Republic (Empire) he had realistically concentrated on the cultures that Palpatine knew about and had a minimal understanding of. Also, Anakin himself would have an easier time setting up the whole thing so it was believable, or at least executable in his condition.
He entered in the search system some wider parameters and saw a couple more performance styles being listed: burlesque, pantomime and… What's this? An old directory of Alderaani silent theater accompaniment pieces, slapstick comedies (whaaat?) and children's puppet shows.
"Yes! Yeeesss! I have you now! Mwu ah ah ah! You shall now know the full and ineluctable despair of your folly at having caged me, Oh My Master! I may be forced to wear your Mask of Vader but that is not my soul, nor my life! Now, we will see who plays the puppet to the tune of whom!" Anakin exulted in the privacy of his HBC, luxuriating in the fact he could now give a good and proper evil cackle without chocking himself to death. These baby bantha lungs sure were a decent purchase!
Somewhere in the Senate Rotunda, sitting on a pseudo-throne before a large circular window shaped like a great Eye, a wrinkled hand stilled as a tremor of dreadful anticipation shook the frail deformed frame it was attached to. Sitting carefully the highly expensive porcelain cup back on its saucer lest it spill the exquisite imported tea, the old man rubbed his wrists and hands to appease the arthritic pains, cursing the blasted Jedi master whose soul was blacker than his low-borne skin. "Karabast!" the hooded figure swore lowly, emitting a short pulse of Dark-Side energy. If the stupid child Anakin had interfered sooner, Sidious would not be near-handicapped because of overpowering himself with his own Sith lightning like an ill trained amateur.
Taking up again his warm tea, a superfluous brand imported from the planet Chryzzobhal in the Outer Rim, he brought the porcelain vessel to his lips with great care to not spill any on his robes like an uncouth youngling in a hurry to finish his meal for more time on a video game. A second tremor of gleeful Dark anticipation coursed through his frame causing his spine to shiver, sending the reverberations to his arm and the cup at the end. – Slosh! – "! E'e Inecta !" he swore crassly in the lowest Naboovian dialect that wasn't originated from non-humans. Even in anger, there was decorum and proper station in life to respect; especially towards himself. He was Emperor of Man, not an illegal humanoid migrant dockhand in a semi-legitimate passenger ferry out of Mandalorian space.
Taking the time to scan the ebb, eddies and flows of the Dark-Side of the Force, he felt them concentrate most balefully around the med-center, gathering as the winds and thermal currents of a great tropical storm. His apprentice was preparing something, but what? Unless the air-headed, blond bimbo of a little Diva had thrown a manly tantrum again? Hummm…
A most ignoble invitation to come to dinner
(Star Wars – The Imperial March)
Nine days after Mustafar; noon, lunch time
Imperial Senate Rotunda; office of the Emperor of Man
Empire Central (Coruscant; the City Planet)
Despite being The most elevated, exalted and sovereign being in the entirety of the Galactic Empire of Man, His most Cultivated, Majestic Highness still had the same requirements as the rest of his subjects; namely the need for physical sustenance in the shape of edible food. Unlike at least one subject who had to content himself of liquids by his veins or Vitapaste once a week orally, that was. Palpatine planned to enjoy his mealtime in serene and meditative calm today as there were great preparations under way for his trip to Naboo with Vader for the funeral of the Late Great Queen Amidala.
And yes, Darth Sidious was the meditative type. He had gotten to his positions in family, society, government and life in general by taking the time to ponder, reflect, cogitate and intellectualize the events and situations around his person and many plots, not like his hotheaded (OH, the irony of that!) young apprentice who had the brightness but, alas, also the attention span of a lit matchstick (Mwu ah ah ah! Oh the cruelly delicious irony!)
The elderly statesman leaned on his cane of polished black Korriban ebony with crystal pommel far more than he wanted anybody to realize. The attack from Mace Windu was already a week and a half back but he still had many tremors and motor control problems to deal with. His nerves were not regenerating as he wanted them to despite the thrice daily injections of Kolto-Pramidenasizine. He was reduced to using the Force to steady his shivering limbs to employ micro-fine movements without causing embarrassing spills of food at meals or dropping flimsiplast folios during meetings.
Thank the Sith ghosts he could still use a fresher without help. If he were so diminished that he needed an assistant to visit the bathroom, he would consider taking a prolonged health vacation or, if that was too dangerous still, he would have to eat his pride and ask Vader to build something discrete like a half-size protocol droid or maybe even the sort of miniature assistance robotic arms that could be worn like a belt under his wide airy robes of office.
Palpatine mumbled darkly to himself inside the vast shadowed depths of the cowl of his robe as he laboriously climbed the five decorative steps of his office to reach his demi-throne where he preferred eating as he had the view from the panoramic window to entertain him. The holonet was such an unredeemable pile of nexu leavings, even the Hutts avoided wasting their time watching anymore, and they knew a good vice when they saw one; so THAT was saying something!
As he sat at his desk, a small innocuous message flashed in his inbox. It was from Vader. What did the half-trained jarhead want now? Opening the message he saw it was a simplistic written TXT message, no sound or image at all. It was written in the bland, inoffensive style of classified ads everywhere in the Galaxy at large. Sidious felt his blood freeze then boil as he read along the text.
"Venerable Sith Grand Master having fallen to the depredations of foes, Betrayals and Time requires permanent living assistance for his domicile, place of work and business travels. Candidates for consideration must be human, white skinned; gender & age unimportant if skills compensate for youth. Preferably Forceless, otherwise be ready to be Apprenticed as Sith Altar servant. No need to be Evil but would be better for your health & sanity given the people and religious context involved. Medical skills and licenses valid throughout the Empire mandatory; specialties in traumatology, torture, anesthesiology and geriatrics all imminently desirable and the employer is willing to foster your studies in such if hired. Criminal records not a problem (could be a good reference, even) and passed employer references are not that important as you will be mind-scanned daily to ascertain loyalty and sobriety. All payments, employee benefits, vacation scheduling and such to be handled by the Cabinet of the Emperor of the Galaxy. All employee complaints and litigations to be submitted to the hiring agent; Dreaded Dark Lord of the Sith, his Most Munificent Excellence Darth Vader, Grand High Archiduke of the Empire of Man, First Heir of Palpatine and Inheritor of the Throne of Man. Address all correspondence to the Imperial Senate Rotunda, Cabinet of Lord Vader. Position open now."
Palpatine pursed his lips in Darksome musings as he contemplated the depths of depraved vengefulness that his Apprentice could sink to. It was exactly the sort of petty vengeance Palpatine expected Anakin to use: wrought in that childishly minimalist style of his that he couldn't grow out of. The problem of course was that the damned thing could cast doubts about his health and durability that would provoke untold damages to his reputation as a fearsome leader of men and war-machines if it got out.
Then Palpatine saw the small blurb in the bottom of the message that said: "Payment processed and received. Thank you for your trust in our services. Your ad will run in the 249,725 publications of our consortium for a period of 12 weeks, every day as of today. Sales dept.; The Galactic Syndicate of Newswire Corporations, Unlimited ®."
The receipt was dated four days ago.
The ad was already running and receiving around 200 applications daily.
Palpatine saw blue, then purple, then Black as the heart of a feasting gundark.
"VAAADEEERRR!"
Anakin saw the incoming line on his holocom system and pushed a button; direct to voice mail.
Shooosh - "You have reached the Helmet of Darth Vader" – Shooosh – "I am presently unavailable to answer you as I am tormenting a rebel prisoner" – Shooosh – "Or tormenting an incompetent soldier of our ill-trained navy" – Shooosh – "Or even just meditating to avoid the everlasting pain of my injured body." - Shooosh - "Leave a message at the sound of excruciating misery from my victim." - Shooosh - "Mwu ah ah ah! -Noooo! Say it ain't soooo! Aaaahhh!" - Shooosh - Beeep!
There was a small pause of uncertainty at the other end of the line when a voice that Anakin knew quite well from years of close contact emitted from the speakers placed around the HBC like an incredibly good home theater system. (WHAT? He was rich, single and had no life! He had the right to get himself a little bit of enjoyment in his life, didn't he?)
The dark, menacing voice of His Master came through, subliminally promising much hardship and suffering in its soft urbane tonalities. Not that it promised anything else whatever tones the kriff-wad used, but then again, he did get WORSE on occasions… "My dear Vader… I just received the confirmation of your… So very thoughtful advertisement to find an assistant for my personal needs. You can rest assured my dear young friend, that the rumors of my ill-health are well beyond exaggerated by my enemies. I have no requirements for a live in nursemaid. While I do appreciate the efforts that you made in your… Sooo gentle, affectuous inquiries… To get someone to be by my side when you start absenting yourself for your own work, it will not be necessary at all. To whit, I will be paying you a small friendly visit at the hospital tonight for dinner to personally establish just how healthy and autonomous I still am so that you can rot in pieces, hemm, hemm – cough -… I mean rest in peace as you travel. See you later this evening. Oh, and stay casual; no need to dress up for me."
Shaking his head in Dark amusement at the very thinly veiled threats and that particularly blunt jab about his life-support suit and getting dressed-up for a party, Anakin lounged backwards into his recliner, raising the legrest and taking a deep soothing breath of medicated air. "So the bait is taken; so the trap closes. Come, My Master; come and we shall indeed have dinner together tonight. I will have your dignity for main course, your sanity for dessert and the dregs of your soul as a digestive liqueur at the end of it all. Such is the way of the Sith."
Adeste Dramatis Personae; the actors arrive
(Star Wars – The Imperial March)
Nine days after Mustafar; afternoon, High Tea (hereafter renamed: Admiralty Tea Hour)
Imperial medical center, Vader stateroom (The Crypt)
Empire Central (Coruscant; the City Planet)
Darth Vader, Most Frightfully Dreaded Dark Lord amongst the Sith (soon to be acknowledged as such), stood at slightly crooked parade attention in the lobby of the Imperial Medical Center. He was accompanied by a matte blue protocol droid and four white armored stormtroopers with decals on the upper left chestplates that spelled out their legion and department; 207th infantry, close support battalion.
The four grunts were ill at ease in the presence of the unknown and unpredictable superior officer. And there was NO saying he wasn't superior; not with the high-priced VIP room he lived in or the kinds of amenities he had on call. There wasn't a droid in the place that didn't salute or acknowledge his passage somehow, and about a quarter of the living medical staff knew his official Title and Name but the administrators and service directors all seemed pretty much in the dark about his actual job. It was a weird situation but any soldier with a modicum of survival instinct just KNEW that this BOSS was bad business for everybody around.
A long night sky blue shuttle with three short wings alighted on the building's principal arrival pad, the massive round crest on the wings and sides of the fuselage made it bluntly clear who was visiting the establishment this afternoon. THAT explained the afflux of suit-clad brown-nosers and flimsi-pushers swamping the lobby as much as they could while leaving around Vader about twelve feet of space as empty as hard vacuum.
Stationed on the mezzanine above the foyer of the lobby, the lieutenant with the colored shoulder board and extra markings on his armored chestplate placed a finger to the side of his helmet and called out to all his soldiers around the building and surrounding outer perimeter. "Alright, you cads! Get your buckets on tight cuz it's a bumpy one! We have Divine Prune on deck! I repeat, Divine Prune is on the premises! It's an unannounced visit so any threat should have to scramble worse than us to get here but keep your eyes and sensors open! He looks in a bad mood already; don't give him a reason to space you! Over!"
After getting the appropriate call-backs from his troops, the lieutenant tried to find his balls so he could gird them and stay focused on the job at hand. From what he had heard through the scuttlebutt, Vader had already killed off or maimed about two dozen people in the last three days. Now, that doesn't compute because they would be short handed in a rather glaring way if he had, but still… With the number of soldiers on hand since the end of the Clone Wars, who's to say where they stashed them all?
(Albert Ketelbey – In a Persian Market witch choir)
The mid-rank officer watched stressfully as the Imperial Procession of his August Majesty and six Red Guards left the shuttle via the rear ramp and walked slowly towards the hospital's main entrance. The supervisor was pissed when he realized that the procession wasn't walking slowly because of decorum but truly because the Principal had a cane and really needed to lean on it at almost every step. The Emperor was gimped and nobody had bothered to tell them they might have to carry him out in case of attack. They needed extra people and hover-equipments for that to get done safely! WHO was it that fucked the bantha like that?
The armored troopers presented arms when the Emperor finally entered the lobby of the hospital, the elderly man taking the time for a breath after the effort of walking upwards along the slight slope from the landing pad two hundred feet away. Leaning on his cane pommel with both hands, the deeply cowled figure was not easily discernable as anything but a mobile robe. Only the wrinkled hands clutching the crystal handle of the wooden stick gave any indication of a living entity inside the vestments.
From the mezzanine's vantage, it seemed as if Vader was waiting for something to happen and it did; Palpatine advanced about five feet in front of his six guards (2 rows of 3) and stood straighter, setting his hands and cane behind his back. Vader walked unevenly towards the Emperor and slowly, like a great massive tree in the forests of Kashyyyk falling of rot and old age, knelt on his right knee like the Knights of Old before the exalted presence of the Emperor, using his right hand on the carpeted ground to stabilize his massive body.
Shooosh – Shooosh - Shooosh - The noise of the respirator in Vader's armor filled the hospital lobby, almost as if it had somehow become louder, more pervasive… As if it were inside the minds rather than just a sound…
Shooosh – "Welcome to my humble place of residence, Lord Emperor. What is Thy bidding, My Master?" – Shooosh – Asked the deep baritone voice of something much, much more than just human or even divine… A demon… At that moment, standing on the mezzanine, the stormtrooper lieutenant knew he was witnessing History being written and a Monster being born unto the World. The gigantic form of Darth Vader rose unsteadily to its feet, staggering for a brief second before steadying, hands clasped behind his back over his folded great black cape.
The Imperial Procession with Vader and blue droid added began the slow and laborious route through the hospital towards the lifts and then to Vader's stateroom in the highest levels of the edifice. The Emperor would probably be present until late in the night, well passed the Lieutenant's shift change so he had to warn his replacement and make certain the emergency evacuation plans for the Emperor were modified throughout the entire army or they would get screwed by a rebel attack some point soon.
The stage is set; fold the curtains
(Star Wars – The Imperial March)
Nine days after Mustafar; afternoon, High Tea (hereafter renamed: Admiralty Tea Hour)
Imperial medical center, Vader stateroom (The Crypt)
Empire Central (Coruscant; the City Planet)
Sheev Palpatine, His Most Exalted Highness, The Emperor of Man, walked slowly (he only had one speed of late) towards the doorway to Lord Vader's stateroom. The small pause inside the lift as they went up the edifice had been far too short and still far too mobile for his liking. He wished the Medical Center had thought to build bigger elevators like the ones in the luxurious buildings along Republica Boulevard. Those had lifts big enough to have a 'U' shaped bench for several people to sit during the ride and you could even ask the machine to go slowly to have a bit more time on your seat.
Arming himself with as much patience as any Darth ever owned, Palpatine grit his teeth and took every step in painful silence, keeping himself from voicing his discomfort out of sheer stubbornness and the clear desire to not appear injured or weakened before his apprentice. One never knew when a hothead (Hi hi hi, the irony!) would decide that enough time had wasted and go gung-ho on his poor Sith hide without clearly considering the consequences or side-effects. Oh, Force! Why could he not be blessed with a proper apprentice like all the other Darth of Bane's long and noble lineage?
Shooosh - "We have arrived, My Master." – Shooosh – "Welcome to my humble accommodations for the time being. Although I guess I shall be leaving soon given I am almost mobile again." – Shooosh - Said apprentice spoke quite uselessly in an elaborate show of the painfully obvious.
"Honestly, why did I want him again? Ah yes, the Force potential he had. Wasn't that much in the end. Maul would have been better; less powerful but more intelligent, more driven and far more evil too." Sidious mentally griped while Force-Shielding his mind to keep his thoughts to himself. No reasons to have Anakin start a tantrum so soon in the evening.
The heavy armored doors opened to allow passage into the luxuriously appointed rooms that Palpatine had designed and decorated just for the right mix of bluntness so Anakin could understand he was being disrespected and subtleties because Palpatine just couldn't do so much bluntness all at once and not feel his IQ dropping by the mile with each crudeness he allowed to exist. He had needed to counter-balance the grossly obvious things with a few truly Sith insults and threats carefully hidden around the suite. Their supper conversation should reveal how much the young Skywalker had missed.
The much beloved majesty (hemm, hemm…) was so deep inside his thoughts that he missed the addition of a new very thick 'Welcome' mat just 6 inches inside of the doorway. Said mat was actually attached to the floor by a series of pressure snaps to keep it in place while being easy to remove for cleaning.
(Charlie Chaplin; The kid – His morning promenade)
Of course, the welcome mat on its own would not be that dangerous and Sidious might maybe look down to avoid the trap, if a certain Sith apprentice hadn't done a few things to it. Such as set in very thin transparent wires that would stick themselves to the soles of his shoes by their glued ends and do such a dragging effect on his foot that he would faceplant in the hard, black tiled floor he had spent so much time designing.
"Haaaaaaaa!" and smash! Crack!
Ergo; in walks the old man, lost in his mind, his shoes get gummed on the carpet, he loses balance while windmilling his arms and cane quite dramatically before a bone-jarring drop to the floor where his nose is put severely out of joint. Ensues pain, gnashing of teeth and blood rivulets from said nose.
"Oooowww! Vader! What happened? My guards… Where are my Reds?"
Shooosh - "I apologize most profoundly, Oh My Master. Truly, I am beside myself with grief at your situation." - Shooosh Deadpanned the still standing and not helpful at all apprentice. Shooosh - "I would give you a hand but my prosthetics… Well you know…" – Shooosh – "They are not well adjusted and my balance…" - Shooosh Vader explained blithely as he gestured a gloved hand towards the fallen man on the floor.
Blinking the dust from the floor out of his eyes (tears of pain and shock) the Emperor of Man tried to look around for his precious Red Guards but could not see them. "Vader, where exactly are my Red Elite? Have they not come in? Why am I alone?" asked the now anxious monarch. This smelled of a setup! Perhaps his apprentice was indeed jumping the gun as he feared.
Shooosh - "They are well bred and well educated men, all of them, My Master." – Shooosh – "As this is quite literally my home for the present they have arrayed themselves outside the door" – Shooosh – "rather than barge into my private domain, thusly interfering in our personal conversation." – Shooosh – "Quite civilized of them, actually." - Shooosh Said the still unmoving Darth whose mechanized breathing Mask let show nothing of his emotions or inclinations.
After a moment to get further bearings on the situation, Palpatine tried to get up and realized to his nasty surprise and even greater shame that the damages from Windu rebounding his lightning at him were really worse than he thought. He could get into push-up position but not actually do the pushing up part of it. He needed help to get off the damned cold tiles before he caught himself the latest strain of Corellian Flu or worse yet, the Chandrillan pneumonia that was going around the Senate Rotunda the way Amidala used to whore herself. "Curse the wretched she-slut's gnarled soul!" he mumbled.
"Don't just stand there like a great big fat sleeping Hutt, you mangy hairless Wookie clone! Get me off this floor! And where is my cane? I need it to get stable on my legs again…" Palpatine panted badly, speaking authoritatively (whining like a royal little bitch) without realizing he was in fact revealing far more information than he should, especially about his real health status which was a precious secret.
Vader congratulated himself for laying upon the tiled floor in the foyer a thin transparent coat of a very volatile liquid truth drug normally used by paramedics to get a trauma victim to stabilize their mind while having them open up about the accident and their necessities without making a fuss. It is to be noted the principal recipients of this medicinal practice were usually children or the elderly as both age groups were prone to unstable attitudes and memory problems.
He, he, he! Anakin was most amused behind his Mask of Vader. He managed to make the old crone look like an inept fool who can't walk without assistance anymore and got him stone enough to spill a few 'not critical but still useful' thingies. WHO exactly was it that chastised him for being petty and cheap about his vengeance efforts? Ah, yes; the guy on the floor with a face full of blood and dust.
Well, not all dust. There was the Truth serum evaporation particulate. And the small dose of emetic through bare skin contact of the hands on the basted zones of the tiles. Poor Palpy-Baby would have a lot of problems keeping his food down tonight.
"I am Betraying you, Oh My Master! Can you feel it happening to you?" silently wondered the mirthful not-so-Sith as he followed his instructions dutifully as a well trained attack dog. With a great visible reluctance (for show) Vader moved his 7 foot tall, gangly form to kneel on his right knee besides Sidious and then made a very credible effort (yeeeaaah riiiight!) at helping the poor elderly Grand Master Sith to rise again.
Unfortunately Vader's prosthetics were really misadjusted (the first set had been) and very painful (still would be without the Pain Managers) so the newly minted Darth lost his balance (easy enough to fake) due to a massive spike of pain when he strained to lift (also bloody easy to fake) the rather reedy lightweight Master which caused two events:
First: Vader due to pain (faked) dropped Palpatine back on the ground thusly knocking the stuffing out of his elderly frame again.
Second: Vader unbalanced by the pain and disorientation of moving his injured body (all faked) tipped over and landed bodily (well aimed), and quite violently (with a Force Shove at his own back), all three hundred pounds of heavy muscle, metallic limbs and Katarn armored suit on top of his poor stunned Beloved Master.
Palpatine, with the double effects of truth drug and emetic already inside him, only had time to register the first belch of air leaving his mouth before the second came out spewing forth a short but wide blunderbustic discharge of projectile vomitus which then promptly stopped, ending in several slow filaments drooling down from his mouth.
The poor Emperor was now knocked out cold for the count, asleep face down in his own bloodied vomit, while Vader was quite appallingly lounging on his elder's fragile back, giving no signs of moving off or calling for help anytime soon.
Anakin smiled deviously inside his helmet. The first bars of the play had been played, the curtain was raised, the candles quenched and the actors in place. Now they could begin the actual acting of this charade for the miseries hemm! Hemm!... benefits of his Most Powerfully Munificent Master.
"Enjoy your sleep while you can, E Chu Ta peedunki! The next time you grace my floor with your blood you may not stay for long in such a good shape." Vader mused Darkly as he enjoyed a light respite before the continuation of the unfolding drama.
Anakin pushed a small discrete button on the chestplate of his suit to call the med-droids. He had to fake both his physical powerlessness and his solicitous attitude towards his poor, much maligned Master for the whole thing to pass muster when Sidious had the video records analyzed. Of course, since the sensors were compromised at the source, in the sensors themselves, the films would show what Ani wanted seen and nothing else. Just like the fake deaths of innocents inside the Temple except there would be a lot less background and 'scenic extras' to integrate into the montage.
Bah! R2D7 was good at this. He was an old hand at scamming the sensors and splicing their data streams so that Ani and Padme could have more time together without nosy knights and masters sniffing around them. Having a heavily encrypted Private-Virtual-Network (PVN) between himself and his favorite criminalized droid in the whole Galaxy was THE best idea he ever had in his youth.
Hun! Maybe master Windu was right and his time among the initiates hadn't been wasted after all.
Vader's new personal medical droids (stolen from Sidious last week) rolled in and gently maneuvered, hoisted and repositioned the 'apparently' remorseful and contrite Darth off his poor beleaguered Master's prone (inert) form. They removed Palpatine from the apartment on a hover gurney by the official front door, bringing his bruised-faced, blood and vomit maculated person to the surgery room for treatment in front of several passers-by in the corridor, thus adding many silent humiliations to his already injurious degraded state.
Anakin wasn't just petty; he was bloody nasty mean-temperedly petty, and he knew it. What's more; he happened to be quite happy with himself that way. His Master would know this as well when he woke up in cheap formless hospital pajamas, covered by an equally cheap dressing robe in the least flattering color Vader could find in the edifice's gift shop. He would actually tell Sidious it was a gift from him to apologize for the rude overture to their easy relaxing evening. Sidious would soon learn that Vader could do subtle Sithness too, when it wasn't too much trouble, too much planning or too costly for a poor Jedi slave to afford.
Kriff you that, Your Pruneyness and hope you enjoy it too!
Act I; Overture - A supper of fools
(Star Wars – The Imperial March)
Nine days after Mustafar; evening, supper
Imperial medical center, Vader stateroom (The Crypt)
Empire Central (Coruscant; the City Planet)
The main doorway opened with pompous slowness (Vader had set its speed for this effect) thusly revealing the stiffly seated form of the most powerful sovereign ruler of the Galactic Empire of Man as he moved on his powerful High Throne of Great Authority (also called a wheelchair). In reality he was being pushed by a solicitous human female nurse; a fair skinned, blue eyed, busty blonde with pouty lips in her mid twenties who wore an entirely too tight set of scrubs and kept prattling blatherskites and nonsenses all the way supposedly to de-stress her patient.
Said patient didn't quite look stress-free nor happy, despite the clean fresh set of hospital-issued milky white pajamas and brown furry bantha-face slippers (joke footwear for children) covered by the cheap, too short, luridly eye-searing fluorescent pink bathrobe. The color looked like someone took the iconic Sith lightsaber blade's Molten Ruby Red then diluted cream and oatmeal in it. Given the robe was a rather clumpy terrycloth of the cheapest kind, even being thick didn't make it look any more appealing and closeness wasn't improving things. It was in fact uglier from close-up as it was now obvious the garment had been designed for someone both shorter and slimmer than Palpatine, and also much more female than him, as indicated by the frilly white lacework at the collar and hems. The minuscule ¼ inch wide yellow smiley faces spread randomly around the robe also showed it had been intended for a much younger clientele too.
Vader was most amused at the indignities he had managed to heap unto his prideful Master.
Palpatine didn't have any sort of cowl or head covering so his old, pasty beige complexion, all 'pruneyly' (Anakin congratulated himself for the neologism he created) wrinkled and creased with his small beady yellow eyes were exposed for everybody to stare, gawk and point at with total impunity. The fact he was now utterly bald and no longer had eyebrows either was visually disconcerting, too.
The whole thing made him look like an emaciated sickly invalid grand-daddy (or featherless vulture) whose grand-daughter had lent him her robe for the emergency ambulance trip to the med-center until they could situate him properly. Vader was most gleefully thinking about the many holocams he had around the suite that were recording this moment of personal humiliation for the posterity of Imperial Archives. An anonymous donation would be made in the near future along with a check to insure the Archives kept on doing their fabulously educational task of informing the Peoples of the Empire about the Majesty, Highness and Exaltation of their August Emperor, even when he was laid low by ill-health.
"Mwu ah ah ah! There's Betrayal for you, My Master! Is this Sith enough for you?"Anakin gleefully thought while Force Shielding his emotions at his best ability.
Darth Sidious was not best pleased by his predicament.
"Oh Darth Bane; could your Holy Ghost pleeeaaase kill her off or at least make her mute? Your spiritual descendant would greatly appreciate it!" Sidious entreated silently inside his mind while showing a bland grandfatherly face and inane polite smiles. Unfortunately, his con-job on the Universe demanded that he keep in his kind parental figuration when in public sight. He really wanted to string the blond bimbo up the ceiling chandelier by her entrails then flail her with a whip crafted of her own hair with her teeth braided in it for bloodier effect when he saw the face (Mask) of his erstwhile apprentice, seated in his own demi-throne in the conversation area, almost casually enough to hide his body's pains.
Sidious pursed his lips and frowned most mightily as he remembered waking up in the surgery room, his face swathed in Bacta patches and a sharp pain emanating from his nose and swollen sinuses. He also had an inexplicable kink in his back and his stomach felt raw and upset. A quick review of the sensor scans assisted by one of his Red Elite had showed him the deplorable comedy of errors that happened as he entered Vader's abode.
He slipped on the 'Welcome' letter drawings on the rug.
Just like a bloody drunken collegian after celebrations to feast the end of year exams. Or more truly, like a toddler in diapers who was learning to walk without help. He had faceplanted most ingloriously then been so disoriented that he made several grossly untactical revelations to Vader's merciless helmet sensors. After that, his lack of usable wits was shown clearly when he told the oversized man-child invalid to bend down to help pick him up off the floor.
Karabast! What a clusterfuck that was!
Sidious was mentally flagellating himself for five kinds of fools as he reminded himself forcefully that he had ordered Vader's physical capacities to be limited just as much as the Force abilities. The prosthetics were very well designed to imitate 'bad design' and further 'bad craftsmanship' to explain away the painful misery Vader would experience for a few months before Palpatine showed again his parental kindness by 'allowing' Anakin to get new surgeries and a new set of limbs that wouldn't hurt anymore.
The boy was so mentally limited that he probably wouldn't think of getting the surgeries revised or the limbs adjusted unless His Master made the decisions for him. If there was ONE THING that the Jedi Temple's culture had been good at, it was stamping individuality and mental autonomy out of the followers. That was all well and good, until the local Sith Lord needed an apprentice and had to teach the boy everything from breathing up to using the bloody toilet cleanly.
"I should have gotten a dog for real; it would have been less trouble…" Sidious mused nastily
Instead, it was Sidious himself who had almost become invalid for life when the great oaf had toppled onto his frail prostrate self, almost at the speed and strength of a damn shuttle coming down from orbit, right into the damn hard Vjun marble tiles. The vomit exploding from his person had been such a horrifyingly humiliating vision the he had experienced a sympatic reaction making him puke his guts out anew, right as the blasted doctor walked into the surgery room to witness it. The Red Elite was even less fortunate, as he was close enough to receive the vomitus in lieu of the missing emetic basin.
Eeewww!
! E'e Inecta ! Was there no ends to his shame?
Darth Sidious prayed fervently to all the Naboo Spirits and Force Ghosts of the dead Sith Lords of the past aeons that the rest of the evening pass with more decorum and less acrobatics. He wasn't a child's action figurine to be doing flips and rolls and tumbles like that at his venerable age! Vader had better put on some damned fine contrition and show clearly he understood WHO was MASTER in this relation or he'd get 'enlightened' about his new reality right fast, he would!
The nurse which Vader had selected specifically because she was, shall we say 'pleasantly companiable'? (yeeeaaah, riiight!) Rolled the wheelchair all the way to Palpatine's small throne in the conversation area and then insisted on helping the frail sick old man in his transfer from conveyance to static chair.
She was so blasted 'sweet' and 'wholesome' that even Ani was feeling queasy after not even three minutes of her presence inside his suite. He would be sticking to bland liquid Vitapaste the rest of the evening after that visit; no sweet tea or hot chocolate for a while otherwise he'd need an insulin injection on top of all the other medicines he took. This meant of course that His Master's suffering would be even greater, since his affected public façade was one of benevolence. The Mask of Vader had no such constrictions as boorishness was supposed be his trademark anyways…
One does not ask the Attack Dog to do polite soiree conversation, after all…
Once Palpatine was situated on his wide solid throne and the nurse had cheerfully left, waving and chattering to empty air along the way, Anakin began Phase II of his petty vengeance against his Most Beloved Master. Let him suffer, the kretthing sleemo Tusken's dropping!
Vader made a great production of painfully (faked) standing up to full height, taking the four short paces to the appropriate position at an angle from the throne due to the couches and coffee tables so he could kneel and perform the 'obeisance's' expected from a Darth towards His Master. Except Vader had some problems with the actual kneeling part; he lowered down about 2/3 of the the way then his right leg seemed to emit an unnatural shrieking noise (mini sound chip) as the mechanism gave up the ghost and the hydraulics failed miserably (in the manner prepared).
In a well timed, precisely aimed and impeccably choreographed display of what an accident looks like, Vader collapsed to the floor until he had his left knee on the floor and both closed fists spread out to support his massive weight while the right leg had spread out and away backwards at a weird angle that supported and helped nothing at all. Unfortunately for Palpatine, he was now far more aware of the limitations of Vader's great Katarn Armor helmet as it had resoundingly impacted his left knee in yet another shocking scene of how even an Emperor wasn't immune from the Universe's vagaries.
Kriffing Karabast! That bloody fucking HURTS!
Sidious was now clutching feebly at his damaged knee with both wrinkled hands, swearing most fluently in Huttese in a display of classless crass that he would never under normal circumstances allow anybody to witness and live. He had standards to maintain, dammit all, and this wasn't helping!
The nurse was chatting happily, mostly to herself to be honest, as she was packing up her field kit after spending a good half hour setting up layers of Bacta patches, protective 'comfort' padding and an adjustable segmented thermoplastic brace on Palpatine's left knee joint. The old man had needed to grit his teeth in silent sufferance of the bimbo's existence as she was the one dispensing his medical care again, much to his great anger and jealousy as he glared at Vader's silent caregiver.
Back to sitting on his demi-throne, Vader now had his right leg elongated on a stool while a matte blue with silver piping astromech droid (R2D7) of rather bulky proportions was tending the repairs inside the malfunctioning (Snort!) cybernetic limb. The boot, leg, knee joint and thigh plates of the Katarn armor had been disassembled and set aside on the floor besides Vader who sat in blithe immobile silence as if he were sleeping inside his life-support suit without a care for the world.
In actuality Anakin was using his self-made custom built, high-quality immersive holo-system that now served as his full-color multi-mode display inside his helmet to privately watch the evening news. Palpatine's visit to the med-center had been leaked (we wonder how?) and the media were asking many uneasy questions (for Palpy-Baby) especially in the light of a certain film of his August Majesty being pushed around unconscious on a gurney, covered in bloody vomit, had made its way to some of the seedier holonet tabloid sites. This was now being shown by the more stable, more reputable Galactic channels following confirmation by 'selected' personnel (droids imitating humanoid voices) inside the hospital.
The artificially cheery blond bimbo nurse left the Vader stateroom for the second time that evening, making scary promises that she was just a few doors away should the need arise. Both men shivered in dread but for very different reasons. Anakin had chosen the woman for a reason after all, and he knew things that Palpatine would find out soon enough at his own expense. Sidious was just glad to be rid of the bloody motor-mouth bitch than never shuts up. All his attempts at mind tricks, Dark-Side energy projection and Fear Strikes had all gone unheeded. It was as if the girl was completely separated from the flows of the Force.
Darth Sidious glared evilly at his apprentice and wondered long and hard WHY he should teach him anything about the Dark Side of the Force when he was such a bloody threat to everybody just by his inept, high-speed, high-impact existence. "Stupid children… Never wanted any… Why now?" Sidious mumbled to himself, unaware that Anakin had greatly modified and boosted the entire kit of sensors on the entire life-support suit, not just the helmet. He got the sound just fine and everything was filmed in glorious holo-cam for later use, too.
Sidious squinted his beady piss-yellow eyes at the droid that was now closing the access ports on Vader's leg. It then used what looked like metallic ribbed tentacles with 5-fingered hands at the ends to take the armor pieces and reassembled the leg armor of the suit without any prompting or even a single sign from Vader of knowing what was happening.
Time for another part of the play to be enacted.
"Lord Vader!" Sidious griped out loud in his screeching reedy voice. The elderly statesman coughed and cleared his throat a few times, covering his mouth with a closed fist. The left hand clutched the crystal pommel of his cane tightly, almost fearfully, as if his safety depended on it. Damn! He had forgotten that his rebounded Sith lightning had damaged his vocal chords a bit; making long speeches was possible but only if he didn't try to scream or raise his voice above dinner table level.
Taking a deep breath, Sidious was about to call out to his subordinate or rap his cane against the coffee table to make some noise when the great black hulking form slouched in the demi-throne startled and grunted, the mechanically regulated respirator's constant noise never variating despite the now wakeful state of its user. Vader shook his head sleepily (fake) and made a show of seeming put out by something he had experienced in his dreams not being present.
Shooosh - "Well, My Master…" - Shooosh Anakin began while affecting a tone of submissiveness he had often used amongst the Jedi cultists in his younger years, Shooosh - "Perhaps in light of recent events we could simply dispense with physical displays of respect and affection for the time being." – Shooosh – "At least until all my limbs are adjusted and my organic sense of balance is recovered fully." – Shooosh.
"Is that why you thought it prudent to fall asleep in there thus leaving me alone and unprotected with that thing for so long?" Sidious's venomous voice lanced out.
Bypassing the question, Ani went in for the kill instead: Shooosh - "I dreamed of Padme… She was here, My Master." – Shooosh – "She held our child in her arms and we were all whole and healthy… Why? Whyyyy!" – Shooosh – "SOBS!" Vader exploded in depressive, despondent sobbing that sounded quite eerie coming from inside the great helmet while also being rendered phonically by the vocalizer array in the mouthpiece.
Darth Sidious watched in utter powerlessness as his Magnum Opus, his Jedi Destroyer, his Apprentice, the second most exalted being in the Empire and official Heir of the Throne collapsed in his chair limblessly as he cried, sobbed and bawled out like an infant in an out-of-control tantrum.
It was all fake; off course.
Anakin was having a grand old time at playing this out to the max, telling himself that this was just the Universe's way of inflicting justice on Palpatine. The lecherous old crud had wanted his apprentice to be broken of body and soul, his mind shattered by grief, depression, manic mood swings and chronic pain. Well, he was gonna get what he wanted. Ani had searched the holonet for the psychological profiles and anecdotes about the lives and treatments of people that fit the diverse conditions and ailments he suffered from then manufactured a 'character sheet' to play by, just like an actor in a holomovie. Palpy-Baby was going to see first hand that living with someone who had long term injuries and chronic mental illness wasn't a picnic.
Master Nantosta Kaab's holocron was quite happy to help cobble up the whole scenario and thought it incredibly funny that an entire Empire could be based on a double-lie.
If it happened to scare the Pruney Bastard into sending Vader away to only call in the worst urgencies, then so much the better for Ani. It would mean more loose length in the leash, more freedom, more time to himself and far less oversight as even the spies Palpatine would use would be expected to be discovered and executed cruelly from time to time. Anakin had been a Jedi General in the Clone Wars and survived by the strength of his military and counter-espionage skills, something both Jedi and Sidious recognized as top-notch. Therefore, killing off the snoopers periodically was easy to explain and would insure his reputation of cruelty so the regular troops and bureaucrats would keep away from him until Vader called for their services.
Yes, things were falling into place remarkably well for the young fake-Sith.
It took almost a half hour for Vader to calm down from his fit of 'emoting' about his dead wife and child to make a trip to his HBC to get refreshed a bit and make himself 'presentable' for polite company.
For once, Darth Sidious had nothing glib, nasty or demeaning to add; the wrinkled old has-been was just happy to be left alone on his throne to savor his loneliness and the silence of the room. Even the huge durasteel HyperBaric Chamber's mechanisms were completely silent when the thing was closed as Sidious had designed it with everything inside. It was useful to protect his apprentice from outside attempts at sabotage and murder as the HBC could then serve as a panic room of sorts. It also made sure than Vader had plenty of shiny moving thingies to play with if he had trouble sleeping or meditating, instead of running around the Universe creating political troubles and diplomatic incidents that Palpatine hadn't specifically asked for.
You can't have a dog and not build a doghouse…
Although, given the boy's temper and raw power, Sidious was beginning to feel he had accidentally bought himself a larval space-slug rather than a puppy. There certainly wasn't the grace, obedience and loyalty of a dog in this one! But the ill-mannered, explosive tempered, physically uncontrolled nature of the young man certainly reminded of those massive, ungainly and untamable space creatures that inhabit asteroids. Snort! For someone who hated the Hutt's race and culture the way he did, Vader was certainly showing that he had been raised in the environment of their crass uncouth bestiality! He acted with the finesse and courtly disposition of a Hutt's tail-end most of the time!
Sidious snarled angrily, smacking the leg of his throne with his wooden cane. He should have remembered what his father had told him about breeding animals in his youth. As was the way of things for Nubian people of noble standing back then, the House of Palpatine had owned a country-side villa with a small stable for a few horses and a pair of guard dogs. His father had explained that no matter how loving and caring you were, a dog would always fall back on two things; 1) its biological instincts built into its DNA and 2) the behaviors trained by the person who bred and birthed it. If a dog was shown kindness from birth it would always be kind but if it had been starved, beaten and taught to attack for its food, then the animal would always revert to this when stressed or left alone too long without human guidance based solely on kindness.
Damn but Skywalker fit the pattern so much! First a slave to the Hutts, then the Toydarian, then the Jedi and now here. Sidious palmed his wrinkled face in despair as he finally realized what he had been dreading but trying most forcibly to ignore. Vader was broken. And the worse part, it wasn't even HIM that did the breaking! The damn fool of a boy did it to himself and, of course, did it all wrong! Now Sidious would have to start by fixing the damages before he could even try to train him lest he wound up having to deal with a rabid maniac less stable than the bloody Maw of Kessel!
! E'e Inecta ! Why again, did he think killing off Darth Plagueis had been a good idea?
The motorized whine of the HBC hydraulics elevating the top portion of the egg-shaped thing dragged His Majesty from his Dark musings (bitchy whining) to behold the massive, awe inspiring form of Vader as he strode forth powerfully from the chamber's inner sanctum.
(Charlie Chaplin; The kid – His morning promenade)
And promptly helmet-planted into the floor barely three feet away from the back of Palpatine's throne.
The shock and reverberations through the floor were such that Sidious felt it even through the thick plush upholstery of the chair (hidden micrograv motors). Trying to turn around in his throne to see over the tall backrest, Sidious almost gave himself a heart attack when he came nose-to-Mask with Vader as the man had managed an incredibly fast (Force-assisted) recovery from his (controlled belly flop) resounding fall. It was an incredibly tense moment for Sidious as Vader was now so close that the Emperor could actually feel the air movements around the Mask's mouthpiece where the exhaust was located. With less than an inch between weak elderly flesh and Katarn-armored cybernetic might, Palpatine suddenly felt far less Imperial and much more like a Sith Grand Master about to be Betrayed for his position and power.
Left hand surreptitiously twisting his cane in a looser position to use it defensibly in a crunch, Sidious held the subconscious glaring contest against the inhuman insect-like lenses of Vader's Mask. A Sith Lord never backs down, even if the challenge was given by accident. It may show weakness and let the Apprentice think there was an opening when there wasn't any to be had. Given how many hits to the head Anakin had received recently, plus the fires of Mustafar and all the drugs, who knew what exactly was happening inside his head? At this point, Sidious was willing to concede that Ani wasn't truly cognizant of his own state anymore and Palpatine himself knew even less.
Kreth! What a mess!
Wasn't finding and initiating an apprentice supposed to be simple? His own Turning to Darkness certainly hadn't been the ungainly, disorganized chaos riddled by adolescent angst that Vader had become. Not to mention the kriffing d'loop'zrich was 23 years old! Shouldn't he be passed 'adolescent' anything at this point of his life? Again, Sidious's mind wandered back to WHY he thought getting anything other than a regular dog had been a good idea as he began to slightly drool from his mouth…
Which was all good for Anakin.
It meant that Sidious had no idea that his 'favorite nurse' had applied poisoned Bacta to his knee and it was the psychoactive drugs taking effect on his mind's ability to think in linear streams. This allowed the weak-willed, un-subtle, planless man-child to use some of the Darkest, most subtle Mind Tricks he had been able to learn by the good services of master Nantosta Kaab's holocron in his youth.
She had needed some particularly strong Force Persuasion skills to deal with angry, paranoid Jedi who came back with heavy PTSD cases from fighting Darklings and mundane criminals of all sorts in the Outer Rim and Beyond Borders. She quite gleefully taught Ani those Force abilities along lots of psychology, psychiatry and pharmacology. Seeing clearly his loneliness and his need for emotional attachments that was being denied or even assaulted by the Jedi elders, she had specifically insisted in teaching him many social and verbal techniques used by therapists to diffuse turmoil, doubts, jealousy and anger. These therapeutic methods worked wonders on his own wounded soul when he felt aggressive or isolated and forgotten by the world. They had helped him diffuse a lot of interpersonal troubles at the Temple of Jedi back when he was padawan and his marriage with Padme had been much smoother since he could spot and manipulate 'conflict cells' before they turned to damaging emotional storms.
Him! Anakin Skywalker the peace-maker inside his home!
Darth Sidious would think the Universe crazed out of its alignment if he knew this!
Using all these hard-earned medical skills and Force abilities against His Dear Beloved Master was just sooo much fun! The snobbish fool thought because Anakin was born poor in slavery that he had no education, no personality and no means to better himself in any ways. Well, His Exalted Majesty was gonna get the facts of life explained at length. Maybe. It was sooo amusing to watch him drool as he tried to order his thoughts to bark commands at his attack dog.
And who was the animal here, if Vader wasn't the one barking aloud?
Eh eh eh! Yes, Vader could do subtle Sith insults too, even if he was the only one aware of it.
It was actually the Jedi masters who showed him how silent contempt and subtle insults worked in real life with their thinly veiled despise towards the entirety of the Mundane Universe at large. That and their jabs at his youth, attachments and emotional states. The more he thought about it, the less differences between the two cults Anakin found. THAT confirmed he was on the right Path with his many plans.
A short half-hour later saw the Great Mighty Emperor of Man sitting at the dining table in that area's smaller pivoting demi-throne. Before him was a spread of exotic foods fit for his exalted station, not just the specialties of the Outer-Rim backwater that gave him birth. Despite its natural riches, culture and high society, Naboo was still too much of a long distance, far removed planet to be worthy of acknowledgment as the homeworld of the Imperatis Personae.
No, right now it wasn't the food selection that bothered Sheev Palpatine that much. It was the small matter that he didn't remember the last 30 minutes of his life and was clueless as to how he wound up sitting at this table…
It was his proper place and the utensils were the 'gift' set crafted of the same black Katarn material as his life-support suit that he had offered to Vader, both as another subtle insult and as a badge of his servitude. After all, despite their somber beauty and elegant crests of Vader and Sith Empire on them, they were useless to their owner other than to remind him painfully of his decheance from manhood to puppet every time he received guests at his table.
Palpatine glared at the black monolith of Katarn and false leather at the other end of the table, technically the 'head' of it as Vader was the nominal owner of the stateroom despite the Emperor's demi-throne being bigger and more decorated. Another subtle insult to the man-child inside his own home and place of recovery. NEVER let the subordinate feel anything other than inferiority and subordination when faced with His Master; such was the basis of psychological domination. A fine and satisfying art form, to be sure, despite the laborious nature of the craft.
Still, how the kreth had he found himself sitting here for dinner without knowing?
Sidious turned his waning attention to the plates and utensils on the table before him, seeing clearly the bite marks and knife cuts in the food morsels that indicated he had been at this for a moment already. Since a quick Force Perception onto his own body showed him he had indeed been eating for a while, it was the inescapable conclusion that his mind had 'slipped' from his grasp at some point. This state of things was unacceptable and demanded redress at the earliest moment he could ditch Vader to consult a private, loyal beyond doubt, physician of his acquaintance in the Under-City.
Shooosh – "My Master, are you well?" - Shooosh - "You seem distracted of late." - Shooosh - "In fact, you remind me of Padme around the time of the year that the Republic Budget is discussed in the senate." - Shooosh - "Certainly nothing so horrible as to warrant a Plague of Bureaucrats unto House Vader has occurred?" - Shooosh.
The Emperor's warning hateful glare confirmed what Anakin knew already.
Dear Palpatine was quite well distracted of course. Between the knocks on the head, the various Green Jedi drugs sloshing through his veins, the dozen medical-caliber Mental Compulsions and the thorough Mind Rape that Vader had put him through just moments ago, yes Anakin was professionally and certifiably certain that His Old Friend was most truly 'distracted' and not fully in the 'Here & Now'.
All was in the Order of Things. Mwu ah ah ah!
Act II; Main act - Dramatis Theatricum
(Albert Ketelbey – In a Persian Market witch choir)
Nine days after Mustafar; evening, after supper
Imperial medical center, VIP physiotherapy gymnasium
Empire Central (Coruscant; the City Planet)
Darth Vader, soon to be most dreaded of all the Dark Lords of the Sith in the history of Sithdom shuffled laboriously (faked mobility troubles) into the gymnastics room and waited at the front of the mats as if he were a great old master waiting for his students to array themselves around his tatami.
Barely thirty seconds later two full patrols of white armored stormtroopers entered and positioned at regular intervals around two sides of the mats. The soldiers arrayed themselves in rows six long by two deep, standing at parade attention with their E-11 blaster assault rifles presented at the shoulder.
Barely a minute later, the Emperor arrived, once again on his legs though he walked slowly with considerable deliberation and favored his left leg a lot. The six Elite Red Guards were again behind him and entered the gymnasium along their Master. The Emperor placed himself at the empty side of the mats, with the entry door at his back, having three Reds on each side, one full step before and aside from his own position. The Wrinkled Old Crud, once again draped in his deeply cowled robes of office, stared across the practice mats at his newly named Apprentice from under the low brim of his hood. His urine-yellow eyes glowed malevolently, broadcasting his discontent for the younger Sith to see and feel in the Force.
Anakin smiled widely inside the Mask of Vader. His Master had taken the bait, the poison and the hook altogether without so much as a twitch. Time to reel in the catch to make himself a fish-stick on the campfire flame, just like in the days of the Clone Wars in the uninhabited worlds.
Shooosh - "I thank you most humbly, My Master, for agreeing to assist me in diagnosticating the problems with my body and new prosthetics." - Shooosh – "This simple basic (Mwu ah ah ah!) combat exercise (practice in assaulting His Master) should suffice for now." – Shooosh.
The twenty four stormtroopers were now a bit less anxious, as a simple sparring with an officer to evaluate his capacities after injuries was pretty standard. Nobody could get blamed for anything and the man's health hadn't been damaged by them so they were in the clear.
So they thought.
"Very well, Lord Vader, you may proceed. Perhaps this small demonstration will compensate for the otherwise boringly bland evening (lying through his teeth…) I had to endure."
(Carl Orff – O Fortuna; Carmina Burana)
Darth Vader shuffled painfully to the center of the mats and signaled the troopers to begin assaulting him two at a time. He was bare handed, not a weapon in sight.
The first pair or soldiers charged and tried to clobber the massive black-cloaked figure with the stocks of their blaster carbines. The 'man' was sick and invalid, rifle butts should be sufficient at this time to evaluate his status.
They were wrong.
They were Oh So Wrong!
Shooosh
Anakin had specifically assembled this group of soldiers out of a very rare and limited subset of soldiers that he knew he could fight without any holding back. He had asked R2D7 to compile a list of the soldiers in all the disciplinary barracks within two days of travel of Coruscant. From those worthless souls he selected and ordered transported back to Empire Central all those convicted or credibly accused of murder, rape, torture, kidnapping or Treason against the Galactic Republic during the Clone Wars.
Shooosh
None of them were supposed to survive the day. He would not permit it.
Shooosh
Vader lashed out a closed fist on the left hard enough to smash through the armored chest of the soldier, folding in his chestplate to crush his thorax, exploding his solar plexus and shattering all the ribs in one fell strike that punted the soldier into the air all the way back to the wall where he smacked, then collapsing to the floor quite truly dead.
Shooosh
With his right hand he grabbed the other trooper's throat, giving a single violent jerk that twisted the man's neck so hard his head drooped loosely in death. Vader carelessly threw the corpse rightwards through the assembly of soldiers hard enough to send the cadaver smacking into the wall where it collapsed to the floor in a disorderly heap.
Shooosh - "Mwu ah ah ah!" - Shooosh - Vader exulted, letting loose his Force Presence out of his control to flood the room with Dark-Side energy, cooling the temperature by several degrees and striking fear into the souls of the troopers. Shooosh – "You will NEVER leave this room alive! Murderers! Rapists! TRAITORS!" - Shooosh - "You will all die by my hand today!" - Shooosh - "You do not even deserve the use of my blade!" – Shooosh.
Shooosh
The sound of the mechanical respirator seemed to amplify, filling the room's air with a sound so terrible that in coming years this simple two-toned noise would suffice to strike fear and terror in the minds of those who heard it. Even to those who did not know his name or his face, Darth Vader's iconic breathing apparatus would be described and people of all ages would be told "If you hear this sound, run and never look back! Run as far and as long as you can; for when he catches you, only pain and depravity will be your end."
Shooosh
Those mismatched, ill-trained human or clone troopers who had lived out the Clone Wars in judicial custody had no chance against the war-weary hardened veteran they faced. The fact each of them had committed great crimes and deserved far slower and crueler deaths meant that the monster dressed in black Katarn armor, flaring the great armor-weave cloak would have no mercy for them.
Shooosh
(Richard Wagner – Ride of the Walkyries)
All at once the troopers understood the reason they had been pulled out of prison, put on fast transports back to the Capital and been given armor, weapons and even combat stimulants to boost their performances. It was all because of this. Because they had no chance to survive. This wasn't a parade detail or even a test spar; it was a mass execution at the hands of a madman. They exchanged a few looks and a few glances at the two dead then rushed altogether all at once, hoping to overcome the monster in their midst by sheer numbers.
They were wrong.
Shooosh
Darth Vader exploded in movements so harsh and powerful that white armored bodies kept flying away from him all the way to the walls where they crashed with mind-jarring noises or else they impacted into their comrades thus clearing a short-lived space around the raging Dark Lord of the Sith.
Shooosh
All through the fighting, the noise from Vader's respirator kept up its steady infallible two-toned rhythm, whether he be twisting necks, breaking limbs or crushing spines, the machinery that made him breathe never faltered in fueling the almighty predator through his dreaded Low Works of Justice. Men screamed, jeered, cried and begged, pissing themselves in fright when the unfeeling insectoid face of his Mask turned towards them or loosened their bowels in death as they lay on the floor, obstacles to the movements and survival of their remaining comrades.
Shooosh
But NEVER did the unholy mechanical sound of Vader's inhuman existence stop or falter or change pace, just like his advance through the press of enemies who knew their end was nigh. Vader actually increased their fear by synchronizing his attacks to the tune of the respirator's sounds, pausing in the harsh exhale then surging in the silent inhale. This oddly timed, strangely decided method of fighting threw off kilter the last resistance of the massed troopers who began to fall faster and harder before the monstrous onslaught of Vader's armored fists and feet.
Shooosh
It took almost ten minutes for the entire group of twenty four felonious troopers to be manually decimated. Never during the entire fight did Vader draw a weapon.
Shooosh
As Darth Vader dropped to the floor at his feet the last cadaver whose throat he had squeezed so hard it had pulped in his grasp, sluicing blood though his fingers, Emperor Palpatine sensed through the Force a Prescient Instinct that told him to beware of Betrayal coming to fruition. As Vader's great black form turned slowly towards His Master and shuffled towards the Emperor, a trooper who had been playing dead on the floor near the wall adjusted his blaster rifle and took a shot at Vader's back, weapon set to its highest killing strength. Normally, this would go through the hull of a shuttle.
Shooosh
Vader heard the power-up of the weapon and pivoted rapidly, his uncertain cybernetic legs giving a bit on the side, by chance or accident taking him out of the direct line of fire for the hit to punch through his great armor-weave cloak rather than his back. The Sith Lord flared the length of black garment defensively while reaching out with the Force to grab the soldier and Force Choke him, simultaneously raising him in the air to gesticulate desperately like a rag doll in storm winds.
Shooosh
The flailing trooper discharged his weapon randomly towards Vader who moved the man a bit on the side without it being apparent he had done so. This put the trooper's blaster in direct line with the immobile and vulnerable Emperor of Man. Palpatine's face as the first salvo of blaster bolts came at him was a thing of rare beauty, especially given how he now looked.
Shooosh
Using the Force himself, Darth Sidious had no choice but to sacrifice one of his precious Elite Red Guards by lifting the man into the path of the shots to absorb them while he tried to shuffle backwards and out of the firing lane. His gimped left leg wasn't cooperating and he needed his cane to focus the Force through the crystal pommel to establish a defensive Force Shield to deflect further beam attacks. With his mobility and maneuverability so badly hampered, the Galactic Emperor just knew something would go wrong.
Shooosh
Unfortunately, as Vader finished choking the life out of him, the criminal trooper shot again, this time into the Red at the Emperor's left side. The man fell sideways spun about by the strength of the bolt, right into the retreating body of the frail elderly monarch who never had the time to see it coming nor react to dodge, if he even could. Neither was aware of the harsh Force Push that Vader inflicted into the back of the tumbling man, imparting him the impact velocity of a small speeder at arrival.
Shooosh
With an almost divine indolence, Vader cast aside the broken plaything as he turned to His Master in panic (truly well faked as he was rather gleeful) as he heard the scream of outraged pain coming from the elderly male Sith. Sidious was buried under a pile of red armored flesh with both legs bent at unnatural angles that normal humanoid biology did not make allowances for. As Vader began to walk / shuffle painfully (faked) towards his Lord, he emitted a discrete Force Pulse that activated the two fallen Elite Red's Force Pikes to make them light up at full strength at the same time.
Shooosh
Darth Sidious didn't even have time to realize what was happening, much less scream in protest or use the Force to stop it. Both Force Pikes were close enough and strangely (yeah, riiight!) placed so that the tip of one touched the butt of the other which was lined up right to Palpatine's left foot, barely two inches away from his shoe.
Shooosh
ZZZAAAPPP! AAAaaarrrggghhh! And so falls the Emperor of Man.
Shooosh
An incredibly loud alarm began to wail through the corridors and rooms of the med-center as the central system received the automated call from Sidious's surveillance comm-link that said the Emperor had fallen to illness or injury yet again. An armored rush of troopers and officers arrived inside of three minutes to ascertain the situation and secure the person of the Emperor from harm.
They were quite late as it was since they were forced to use the stairs. Anakin's droid allies had parked the elevators at the bottom of the shafts in maintenance mode for the night.
My, what a mis-timed decision that was… Mwu ah ah ah!
Shooosh
Sheev Palpatine had suffered a nasty nerve burn from the tip of his foot all the way to his heart as the incredibly debilitating energy arc of the linked pikes circulated through his Force-Strengthened nervous system. He was presently comatose due to neuronal overload and cardiac arrhythmia. Although he COULD have stayed conscious, the ignition, burn and explosion of the Bacta patches on his left knee joint was somewhat traumatic on a different level than simple electrocution. Since this meant that Palpatine had felt the liquid fire of the burning Bacta envelop his knee followed by its detonation, followed by the thermoplastic brace liquefying then run down around his damaged limb like molten lava… Yes Palpy-Baby had justifiable reasons to be insensate.
Shooosh
That just wouldn't do. He needed to be awake and aware to suffer as Anakin had suffered on Mustafar and afterwards in the med-center's butchering block. Something needed done about this…
Shooosh – Shooosh.
Quite a pity it was too, that he wasn't awake to Force Perceive the Dark gleefulness of his Apprentice at the gloriously violent bloodshed spread all around the room. On the other hand, Anakin mused that the coma would keep Sidious from realizing that Ani had used his Telekinesis to move a few bodies and items during the fighting to arrive at this painful conclusion for the old man. The young fake-Sith had barely the time to exert one last medical-grade Forcible Purge against Sidious's abdomen to cause him to vomit explosively while also voiding bladder and bowels at the same time before help arrived.
Shooosh – Shooosh.
Just as the mean-spirited forcible discharge of His Pruneyness's inner plumbing happened, the liquid fires of the Bacta and plastic brace finished reaching the critical temperature needed to ignite the flimsy flannel hospital pajamas, the dingy bathrobe and the massive, thick felt robes of office all at once.
Shooosh – Shooosh.
Sheev Palpatine's inert form lit up like an Empire Day firewheel display. Every last inch of his body was burned to the second degree in mere seconds, which increased the horrifying visual ambiance for the four remaining Elite Red who were even now trying to put out the flames by using their own long and wide armor-weave cloaks. The sights were inhumane but the smell of braised human flesh and boiled humanoid body wastes ratcheted the gore factor so high that even the most hardened veterans from the Clone Wars would have been given pause upon entering the gymnasium.
This postulate was proven quite handily by the fact that the first officers to arrive didn't have helmets on their heads and backed away into the corridor against the press of armored troopers, vomiting all over their men's bodies and equipments along the way out of the gymnasium's hellish miasma.
Shooosh – Shooosh.
"BURN! Do you hear this? BURN Sidious, like you made ME burn at Mustafar!" Anakin exulted silently inside his mind as he willingly gave himself to a rushing feel of true unabated Dark-Side energy to push the worst malevolence and ill-wishes he could produce unto his Much Beloved Master.
Shooosh – Shooosh.
Even a T-Series Tactical droid would have choked on this airborne pea-soup for a reason.
Snort!
And the bronze-plated buggers didn't have any kind of breathing systems nor even vents on them.
Shooosh – Shooosh.
Now that he had calmed down after a few critical seconds of unrivaled vengefulness, Anakin reordered his thoughts to confirm that all he had left to do was obtain the films of the yet again unconscious Emperor being wheeled back to surgery.
His Majesty's wrecked body covered in cremation soot, blood, puke, piss and shit would feed the tabloids a 'juicy' story they could never resist printing. Thusly, another large permanent gash in Palpatine's public Imperatis Personae would be done, right along the grave corporeal damages to his physical frame.
Character assassination was a valid method of murder amongst the Sith ways.
Shooosh – "I have Betrayed you, Oh My Master! Can you feel it from the depths of your slumber?" - Shooosh – "Even as you watched right at me, even as the Force blessed you with a warning of my treachery, the most base act was carried out unseen and unpunished." - Shooosh – "You will fail, My Master! You will Fall! And I will be the cause of this Fall! Such are the ways of the Sith!" – Shooosh.
Even as the rescue medics worked feverishly through the Tarterian climate to reanimate the soiled man, Vader's mechanically driven breath sounded counterpoint. The inhuman noisome exhale seemed to happen only when the paramedics administering CPR compressed the fallen man's chest noisily but stayed silent with its inhale just as they relaxed the pressure also silently. The combined noise-pauses seemed to deepen the lack of sound and make that particular silence a damning denunciation of their efforts for the grievously affected monarch.
Shooosh – Shooosh – Shooosh.
The gurney rushed to the surgery room, accompanied from far behind by the incessant infernal noise.
The troopers, officers and medics involved in the rescue effort for the Emperor would never again sleep at peace from then on. In their dreams, the formless black stain flared and wrapped around them, laughing evilly even as the inhuman machinery's two-toned noise drowned out their screams for help.
Shooosh – Shooosh – Shooosh.
Act III; Second act - Tragicum Theatricum
(Star Wars – Jedi Funeral)
Nine days after Mustafar; late evening, Digestive Tea (hereafter renamed: Imperial Tea Hour)
Imperial medical center, Private Convalescence ward of the Emperor
Empire Central (Coruscant; the City Planet)
Sheev Palpatine was glaring unthinkingly at the harsh black and grey ceiling of the surgery room where he had awakened. It took a few short seconds for his body to perceive the gut-wrenching pain coming from his left leg, the palsy in all his limbs and the Force-awful smell that surrounded everything and permeated every item in the room.
That stench came from him. He had soiled himself again.
He noted in absentminded panic that he no longer felt anything from the entirety of his epidermis. His skin was no longer responding, even to Force Perception. His entire body surface was charred to ash and no longer able to conduct the Force to augment his senses or reflexes to defend himself.
A whispered mechanical noise to his left was followed by a burst of wakefulness and improved cognition as hospital-grade drugs circulated through his veins.
Now almost awake enough to remember a few things from the gymnasium's debacle and comprehend events, an unnatural two-toned noise manifested, sending a sharp spike of fear and horror through his withered soul.
Shooosh – Shooosh – Shooosh.
The unnatural mechanical breathing of Darth Vader was heard.
Shooosh – Shooosh – Shooosh.
Coming into view on the side of the massive durasteel table, the Most Dreaded Dark Lord of the Sith assumed his iconic pose, arms crossed strongly across his torso, just over the control panel on his chestplate. The harsh, unyielding, ceaselessly repeating noise of the breathing system echoed hollowly in the medical bay, reverberating on the dark grey instruments and shining black cabinets. At this moment, Palpatine realized that the only light in the room came from Vader's chest, from the small lights in the control panel for his life-support suit.
Shooosh – Shooosh – Shooosh.
The tall monolith of black Katarn armor moved his insectoid-like great helmet towards the face of his wrecked Master and spoke words that would haunt Palpatine forever and beyond.
Shooosh - "Welcome back to the Hell I have to endure, My Master." - Shooosh - "I truly hoped not to be deprived of your Exalted Presence so soon in my dreary, lonely life." - Shooosh - "So soon after losing my beloved Padme, it would have broken me." - Shooosh - "Well, broken worse than I am already, at any rate." – Shooosh.
Palpatine at this point was certain his ears had been burned and damaged as well, or else the Force Pike discharge had done something to his eardrums. Vader was actually bemoaning the loss of his enslaver?
Karabast! The kriffing man-child fool was no longer connected to reality!
Ah, Hells! What would the hot-headed boy do to botch the situation now?
Shooosh - "Don't worry, my Old Friend." - Shooosh - Vader spoke with heavy sarcasm that even the vocalizer could not hide. - Shooosh - "I plan to give you the very best medicine that the Galactic Empire has to offer." - Shooosh - "Your own kind! Just as you did for ME!" – Shooosh.
Darth Sidious was completely panicked to see the lights slowly come on, revealing that he was in fact chained securely to the very same butchering table where Vader had been dismembered and rebuilt by his own orders. They were in the same room, with the same tools.
And the same cruel, unthinking droids of torture.
Shooosh – Shooosh – Shooosh.
(Il Trovattore; act II, scene I - The Anvil Chorus)
Palpatine could only watch in soul-warping comprehension as the med-droids he had thought to be destroyed by Vader in his initial outburst of Dark-Side Rage slowly rolled over to the sides of the table and began their unholy work upon his unfeeling body. The mechanical whir of saws (cutting what?) and the shushing of air hoses to vacuum away debris were heard.
Then the pain hit him again.
Shooosh – Shooosh – Shooosh.
They were operating on him without any sort of anesthesia, counting on the chains and heavy flat bars to keep him in place against the flat durasteel table. Palpatine suddenly felt a line of liquid fire around his left thigh as the droid mercilessly cut away the whole leg at the mid-tibia. This was followed by a hollow metallic thunk as a cheap, badly crafted prosthetic leg was dumped unceremoniously on the table next to the victim.
(J.S. Bach – Toccata and Fugue in D minor)
The droids attached the not even fitted artificial limb straight to the stump without bothering with a connector plate or even just filing the end of the bone where the screws and surgical cement went.
Shooosh – Shooosh – Shooosh.
"Suffer, My Master! Suffer as I Betray you in your moment of weakness! Never again will you have any Power or Authority over my body, my life or my soul! May you rot in a pit full of offal blacker and fouler than your own worthless twisted soul!"
Act IV; Outro
(Star Wars – The Republic Theme)
Nine (or ten) days after Mustafar; passed midnight (hereafter renamed: Sith Witch Hour)
Venator-class Star Destroyer Promulgator; imperial quarters
Empire Central (Coruscant; the City Planet); parking orbit
Palpatine woke up in a bad startle, heart racing wildly as his Force Senses came to him faster than the biological ones as was the normal way with any Force User that reached the title of Master.
The room seemed white. An eye searing, unflinching white. And the smell was of the cheap harsh antiseptic soaps used to clean the infirmaries in the Republic / Empire's military installations.
A ship then, by the subtle engine noises.
(Edvard Grieg – In the Halls of the Mountain King)
As he blinked a few times, the Elder Statesman realized that his entire body was coated in a layer of translucent slime and that he was in fact seeing through this slime. And he was breathing through an aeration mask. And there were pipes in places he dared not contemplate too long.
Bacta. Liquid Bacta; not cream or spray.
"That could mean only one thing…" his hurt, pain-filled mind tried to remember as something dressed in white came into view from the left side. Palpatine realized that it wasn't just the Bacta that played havoc with his sight and senses. There was something clearly very wrong with him. He was hanging inside a Bacta tank, drugged out of his considerable wits.
"Good night, My Lord Emperor. I am doctor Cham Chassz, chief regeneratologist for your Majesty's glorious Venator-class star destroyer Promulgator." The green-skinned Duro spoke in Galactic Basic. "We have a very nasty case here, Majesty. You really did a number on yourself with all those injuries and the botched attempt at medicine afterwards was almost worse."
Sigh…
"I understand that Lord Vader thought he was doing good by you, but honestly… What took him to use these obsolete med-droids to give you care? And why did he insist on taking you to the obsolete, disused surgical theater in the top of the med-center's spire instead of trusting the personnel in the regular operating rooms?"
Sigh…
"I will never understand soldiers or why they do things the way they do…" The doctor complained to nobody as he read the patient chart on the datapad in his hands, ignoring blithely his dangling patient.
"At any rate, the epidermal burns were bad but not beyond the capacities of Bacta to regenerate. The damage in your leg was terminal and replacement by cybernetic was needed, but the first attempt was clearly botched. We will be redoing that procedure properly." The medic spoke in clipped disapproving tones as he saw the images of what Palpatine looked like upon coming aboard ship.
Eurkh!
"The nerve damage is concerning us presently, especially since you have not finished recovering from your first bout of electrocution by Force-overload from a week and a half ago." And there was a lot of curiosity in that voice but also enough professional detachment to show the patient that his privacy would be respected if he preferred not to speak of the events.
The Duro hung the datapad back on the side of the massive Bacta tank, adjusted a few controls then spoke to his patient again. "I have done the preliminaries. We will let you steep for two days and then proceed with the surgeries when we reach orbit above Naboo. We will do the minimal required to have you presentable for the State Funeral of Queen Amidala as required by Lord Vader and Minister of State Sate Pestage, but under protests. You should normally be in that tank about ten days before I agree to let you out for anything other than medical procedures."
Sigh! "Politicians! As bad as soldiers when dealing with medical realities." The medic thought.
"Well, I will now leave you to heal in peace. I have to go see to Lord Vader. His injuries are even worse than yours, if my colleague is to be believed. If that is the case, then you will have a companion in the tank next to yours." The doctor pointed at the row of three more Bacta tanks in the room, all filled and waiting for a patient to ensconce in their healing fluid.
Palpatine could only grasp two concepts; they were still going to Naboo despite his own grievous injuries and Vader was actually getting outside help for his health!
! E'e Inecta ! They would find all his secret impediments he placed inside Vader on top of informing the man-child of just how bad the tortures… Hemm, Hemm… Tender, gentle care he received wasn't exactly up to par…
Damn! What a kreth day this turned out to be! Next thing you know, he'd learn that rabid bitch Amidala was still alive and they were honoring a decoy corpse!
(Star Wars – The Republic Theme)
Shooosh.
The scary massive monolith of space-black Katarn, false leather and thermoplastics was standing at parade attention, or his equivalent of it anyways. Anakin stood with his arms crossed over his chest, tall, straight and intimidating just by his existence. A damnable stain of blackness in the otherwise pristine whiteness of the infirmary.
Shooosh.
"His Excellency, the Most Munificent Dreaded Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader; Grand High Archiduke of the Galactic Empire of Man, First Heir of Palpatine and Inheritor of the Throne of Man".
Shooosh.
Anakin was practically choking on his own laughter inside his Mask of Vader as the poor secretary for the Promulgator's medical bay tried desperately to type the long lines of politically charged drivel he was gleefully spewing at her. The poor woman's face was priceless when he told her glibly that his business cards weren't yet printed because until about five days ago the medics down in Coruscant still weren't certain he would survive, let alone be healthy enough to actively accomplish all those jobs.
Shooosh.
The receptionist took his ID chit and Code Cylinders, placed them in the appropriate readers and then began the laborious process of filling out the patient informations, Medical Procurations and Power of Attorney documents to grant Lord Vader the decision-making abilities that were needed to keep the Galactic Emperor alive and functionnal.
Shooosh.
As he was finishing the flimsiwork with the rather pleasant older woman, Vader was accosted by the Duro who was in charge of regeneration therapies and major surgeries aboard. He wasn't human. This day kept getting better! Anybody not human would have a lot of trouble falling for Palpatine's poisonous words, especially in the state he was in at the time.
Shooosh.
"Lord Vader." The doctor began glibly, only to be interrupted by the sound of the mechanical respirator that somehow had not been so loud or problematic while Ani was chatting with the secretary. The sudden two-toned noise filled out the air of the reception area, inflicting an ambiance of menace and despair upon all who heard it. Several troopers loitering idly outside the office turned around and ran away before their nominal superior paid attention to their existences.
The medics weren't so lucky.
Shooosh.
"Yes, doctor? I trust that His Imperial Majesty has been located adequately. For YOUR continued good health, he had better be treated far better than current status indicates." Vader threatened perfunctorily.
Shooosh.
"Well, yes… Well, you see, that is what I want to speak with you about. It is important in fact. About His Majesty's predicament. We should take this to the privacy of my office, it would be better." The doctor replied while trying to remember if Empire officials could actually kill or torture on sight as the man was inferring.
Shooosh.
"Unless you have a problem that is a military secret or classified by Imperial Intelligence, we should bee capable of handling the matter here and now. My time is precious, doctor, and my own health not so stable that I have any patience left for pedantic nonsense. Speak plainly and efficiently, or else you will need the services of your colleagues promptly." Vader declared with a bluntness even Anakin normally refrained from.
Then again, the Mask of Vader was supposed to be reputed for uncouth boorishness as much as violence and cruelty. Palpy-Baby should have thought better of that when he created his character.
Shooosh.
Grabbing his courage with both hands, the green-skinned Duro explained "Lord Vader, what was done to His Majesty before bringing him aboard was nothing short of inhumane torture. It clearly was not intended with any sort of pain relief or succor in mind. Maybe his body would have been functional, and maybe he could even have been minutely mobile, but none of it was done with any sort of medical ethics or hospital methodology in mind!"
Shooosh.
Vader seemed to stand still and immobile against the flows of Time and Reality as he processed the statement inside of his dark, impervious armored self. Finally he seemed to shake himself out of some strange torpor and asked in a low voice that was turned into a pitiful whine by the vocalizer. "Are you saying that what I did to him wasn't the very best, most kind medical treatment that the Empire has on hand for situations like this?"
Shooosh.
The two medics were somewhat dumbfounded by both the actual lack of knowledge revealed by the question and the soft, insecure tone that somehow the mechanical voice-machine managed to project.
"Well, Lord Vader… No… Not even close. In fact, this would classify as torture, even on most primitive worlds stuck in pre-FTL cultures." The Duro male passed a weary hand over his bald head.
"The surface burns were not treated with anything at all, just debrided the dead skin then left exposed raw to the elements. The leg was essentially shorn off with a vibro-teeth chain-saw and then an absolutely dismal prosthetic leg was placed without any preparation of the surgery site at all. That limb would have been only semi-functional and caused inhumane pain every time the Emperor walked on it. And the depth and gravity of repeated energy burns in the nervous system, all over the body… It's a minor miracle that the man is still able to open his eyes, let alone have any cognizance of reality. Honestly, we are afraid there will be some sort of brain damage or nerve-caused handicaps when he finally comes out of Bacta."
Shooosh.
"If that's all true, doctor, then why did HE tell me that this was the very best medical treatment that the newly built Empire could give its faithful servants? HE showed me the room and told me of the wonders that could be produced inside of its confines by the incredibly advanced droids HE kept there."
Shooosh.
The secretary dared to ask a question in a low, fearful voice. She had taken down Vader's identity and credentials to establish that he was in fact responsible for the health of the Emperor. His ID said 23 years old. He was a decade younger than her youngest son. With her motherly instincts waking up in a bad way, the elderly woman tried to create a report with the armored figure standing in front of her imitation-wood desk.
"Tell me, why would the Emperor take you to that old, abandoned room and tell you these things? Those machines had been disconnected for ages already when I joined the Republic Security as a medical assistant over four decades ago. How did he even know what was in that spire atop the med-center?" She asked in her kindest tone, while still mindful that this was in fact an incredibly powerful high official, veteran soldier of the Clone Wars and, if her guess was right, a master-level user of the Force too.
Shooosh.
The mournful voice emanating from the helmet surprised both medics with its forlorn tones and the heavy burden of doubts and uncertainties it carried. "HE showed me when HE took me there ten days ago, after I fell in combat against a Jedi traitor on Mustafar. The heat from the lava river singed my lungs and seared my flesh then ignited my clothes until I looked like an over-braised slab of cheap bantha rump. The Jedi had cut off three of my limbs too. Sheev took me to the top of the med-center and told me I would get the very best care HE could give his Important Young Friend. HE said it would get better; that I would be able to live long, to be well enough, mobile enough, to serve in the military again as I wanted to help him keep the Empire safe from Jedi and assorted traitor scums."
Shooosh.
Vader paused before asking the most world-shattering question he could drop on them: "Wasn't HE right? About the care? Palpatine? Wasn't it the best care HE could give me? I truly thought it was… HE did it to me ten days ago, so when HE got burned like that and his leg was blown off… I just did what I knew… I did what HE told me was the best HE had available for any loyal, important friend that HE wanted to keep alive and healthy by our side. I did to him what HE did to me… Wasn't it right?"
Shooosh.
The unbound horror on the faces of the medical personnel was a balm on the young man's injured soul. At least a few people still existed out there that thought Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader did not deserve the inhumanity of what Palpatine had put him through. Now they wanted to take him into a clean, sterile room to take off his armor and commit a complete, thorough diagnostic of his entire body and fluids to see what needed correcting urgently.
His story of getting everything done cold, with minimal drugs and watered down anesthetics really got to the two healer's hearts. The fact that Anakin had switched out his good limbs for the old set of badly crafted, misaligned ones before going up to the Promulgator would increase his credibility. The original limbs that His Pruneyness had given him all had secret override chipsets in them to remotely deactivate them, thus rendering Anakin into a limbless dummy, easy for the killing.
This gave Ani the idea to imitate the system inside his own chosen implants and prosthetics.
The doctors would do a complete analysis and then find criminally depraved remote control programs inside the Pain Managers grafted into his spine to inflict pain or exacerbate existing pain instead of blocking it to help him heal. He had added these little nuggets of horror himself just so he could accuse His Master of remote-controlling him like a puppet and zapping him with neural agony at a whim to increase the pathos and morbidity of the situation.
He would also blame His Dear Old Friend for the brand new override chipset added to his original prosthetic right hand at the same time that the other three limbs were grafted on. The external respirator would be explained as the best that Palpatine could produce while the baby-bantha lungs inside his chest would be explained as a failsafe that he himself had done a few days later since he realized that the breathing system was in fact rather vulnerable during combat operations. He would give them a sob story about doing on his own, paid with his little salary from the Jedi cult because Palpatine being from Naboo's aristocratic class would never accept animal parts inside a higher sentient being.
In order to keep living, to survive combat in the name of the Empire, he needed the lungs but would lose his friend and the man's respect if he ever found out about this procedure having been done. He would need several other similar grafts in the coming months too, but was afraid of asking and didn't know any place other than the med-center or the destroyed Temple of Jedi where such things could be done safely. Above all else though, he needed privacy and confidentiality to keep in his life what few people still loved and cared for him; which meant only Palpatine as everybody else had been Jedi and therefore traitors that needed killing quickly.
Mortified by his pathetic story of Jedi, Sith, Masters, Apprenticeships, Initiatic rituals and submissive servileness, the doctors were flabbergasted that such things could still happen after almost 50,000 years of the Galactic Republic existing as the central government of the Known Worlds.
In their furious anger at his pathos and misery, they promised him to keep his privacy and lock tightly his files and medical results. When they learned his birth name and real identity, all hells broke loose.
Oh yes, the doctors would help him quite a lot with things he couldn't do by himself, then they would have uncomfortable questions for his dear Imperial Self when he came out of his fetid potage.
This would be one BAD TRIP that Darth Sidious would never forget in his life. And what Anakin had planned on Naboo… Well, he had pranked the crèche-masters quite a lot and was used to exchanging favors with others to get things done remotely when he was absent from the scene of the crime to dodge both the surveillance and the post-action blame. He had managed his Strategies and Tactics during the Clone Wars the exact same way and was still to this day the best, most successful General of the war on both sides. Only Grievous came close to him but had not managed to stay alive, so that spoke a few things about that heap of junk.
Yes… The spectacle on Naboo would be well worth participating in…
"I have Betrayed you, My Master! And I shall do so yet again very soon! Mwu ah ah ah! Such are the Ways of the Sith!"
(Edvard Grieg – In the Halls of the Mountain King)
PERSONAE CREDITUM
This was a presentation of
The Coruscanti Operatic Performance Complex
The Lord High Master, Pascal in Quebec, producer and conductor
Featuring
Madame De Naberrie's nomadic comedic troupe
In collaboration with:
The Sith - Darksome Thespians Union
The Storming White-Boys Ensemble
And the Glow-Stick Wavers from Space
Musical Ensemble composed and presented by
The Choir of the Republican Red Elite Senatorial Guards
The Gungan Cacophonic Disturbia
The Baktoid Automata Self-Assembly-Line of Musical Droids
Casting and crew calls by
The Colicoid Creation Nest
The Geonosian Hive
Makeup and costumes
The Union of Jawas Junkers (costumes & accoutrements)
The Night Sisters (makeup & hair)
Security, mayhem and extortions
Grievous Magna; General Guards and Commandos "illegally limitless"
The Droidekas Syndicate; "Never another unpaid entry at your establishment"
Ticketing, admissions and customer services
The Banking Clans of Muunilist (admissions)
The Trade Federation (tickets, concessions and fan merchandise)
The Great Venerable Sarlaac (swallowing customers that complain)
Scenery, decors and backdrops (and booby traps)
The Techno Union; Unionized Durasteel workers, Local 501
The Nubian Design Collective of Naboo
Kuat systems Engineering, Kuat Sector
Mandal Motors & Technicals
Mobility and vehicles
Rendili Star Drives "We build stuff bigger than a movie star's ego!"
Sienar Fleet systems "TIE shuttles for the stars"
Advertisement and promotional services
Death Star - holonet signalers co; "Illuminating the masses in the name of culture"
The Galactic Cantina; union of bar and tavern gossips around the Galaxy
The Hutt Cartel; amateurs of fine vice for millennia
Galactic News Network "If you say it, we'll repeat it, no proofs necessary"
"It's just a story until somebody believes it"
Script, scene plays and revisions
The Jedi Guild of folklore and anachronistic storytellers
The Inquisitorius; very strictly disciplined college of science and languages
Cybot Galactica Scriptwriter droids SCN-46 through SCN-54
We thank you for your kind patronage
And your presence at our little soiree.
Adeste, plebes!
Until we meet again.
Curtain drops; thump staff, light candles.
People leave.
