Admiral Piett's quarters

The Executor

In Orbit around Naboo

10 hours later

Admiral Piett carefully placed his gray cap on his head and glanced briefly at his bed. For a second, he considered hiding his loth-bat plush, which was placed at a perfect right angle to his pillow. But no, his quarters were safe, and private, enough. Usually he left his plush with his favorite counselor droid but last night, after an intense session, he had crept back to his quarters with his loth-bat clutched nervously in his hands. The events of yesterday had been traumatic and unsettling, and he needed the presence of his comforting bat to sleep.

And indeed he had slept well, a relief as today would no doubt be as challenging as yesterday.

His chrono chimed and he hurriedly palmed his door opened. He was due on the bridge in five minutes.

As usual, the officers he met snapped to attention, and indeed the atmosphere of the ship seemed normal enough. That was a relief; it appeared that few were aware of how serious the Emperor's injuries were, or that his brain had apparently decided to forgo rationality and was now embarked on a dizzying journey which involved rancor plushies and dweezel sticks.

What was a dweezel stick, anyway? He had given the orders to have dweezel sticks prepared and delivered, but had not waited around to see them consumed by his liege.

And his lord's son. What was that all about? Darth Vader had a son?

The admiral shook his head slightly as the elevator door opened into the bridge. He froze, as Lord Vader and his son Luke (Skywalker was the surname, apparently – yet another mystery) stood in the corridor facing him.

"My Lord!" Piett stuttered after a moment, and then nodded nervously at Vader's son. He didn't know the boy's rank, or if he had a rank, or what he did for a living, so the protocol here was very confusing.

"Admiral," the youth responded brightly, "just the person we wanted to see. We've turned over the bridge to, uhhh ..."

"Captain Needa," Vader intoned.

"Right, and we'd like you to join us for a strategy session. Ok?"

Piett's eyes widened and he looked at his tall superior.

"That is an order, Admiral."

Ok, a direct order. That's what he needed right now.

"Yes, my Lord."

/

The Imperial Diplomatic Suite

7 minutes later

"Kid!" the tall Corellian shouted boisterously as Skywalker stepped through the door, followed by Vader and Piett.

The pilot, along with his hairy, and much taller, Wookiee companion, was seated on a large couch; both sentients had tankards of greenish fluid clutched in their hands. Piett stared at them incredulously.

"Captain Solo," Vader snapped in an odd echo of the admiral's thoughts, "are you drunk? It is only 9 in the morning!"

The rangy man rolled gracefully to his feet even as Princess Leia approached from a nearby doorway, "Nope, not drunk, won't be drunk. Just enjoying the amenities."

He glanced at the tiny princess and made a slight bow, "Can I get you some ale, Princess?"

She smiled slightly even as she shook her head, "No, not my liquor of choice and Lord Vader is correct, it is early to be drinking. For normal people, anyway."

The woman turned now and her eyebrows arched slightly, "Admiral Piett, I believe? We weren't properly introduced last night. I'm Princess Leia Organa."

Piett bowed his head at exactly what he deemed the acceptable angle toward a known Rebel who was the apparently honored guest of Lord Darth Vader.

"Admiral Piett, your Highness."

"Leia is my twin sister," Vader's son said suddenly and happily.

Piett's mouth dropped open, his face paled, and he suddenly and surprisingly lost it. He turned toward Vader and with a courage that didn't just border madness, didn't just include lunacy, but went right over the waterfall of suicidal insanity, he found himself shouting incredulously, "Leia Organa, the Rebel, is your daughter? What really happened to the Emperor out there, Lord Vader? Did you cut off his legs? Hit him in the head? Are you a Rebel? Have you betrayed us all?"

He then stopped, panting. Part of him was terrified, but most of him was filled with a ferocious indignation. He had stood silent while his masked superior had strangled underlings, some imbeciles, but some poor souls who had merely made a mistake on one of his lordship's bad days. He had quietly kept the Executor a model of decorum and efficiency and organization in the midst of Vader's dark moods. And he was sick of it. Sick. Of. It!

There was an awed silence as Piett straightened more, waiting for the talons to close around his neck.

"I like him!" Skywalker said in a delighted tone.

Leia Organa smiled, "I do as well. An excellent choice, Lord Vader."

Piett's stiffened demeanor relaxed slightly into bewilderment, even as the princess continued, "As for your questions, Admiral, I cut off the Emperor's legs while aiming for his midsection. One of our compatriots hit Palpatine in the head with a box and caused the fall which misdirected my aim, and also the head trauma."

"And speaking of head trauma," Solo commented as he wandered toward the kitchen, apparently unconcerned that Piett might be strangled at any moment, "how is our resident psychopathic Sith Lord doing today?"

Piett shot a startled look at Vader, who responded calmly, "The captain refers to the Emperor, Admiral."

"Sith Lord ..." the admiral murmured softly. The Emperor was a Sith?

"Well, he's maturing," Skywalker explained, "to the point that the med droids and Doctor Sert say he's acting and talking like an 8 or 9 year old. He can be kind of demanding sometimes but he's still a nice person. I mean, he's still Light."

The Wookiee roared suddenly, and Solo nodded, "Yeah, Chewie, that's a great point. What happens if he suddenly reverts to being his usual homicidal, evil, lightning spewing self? I assume he could wreak a fair amount of havoc even without legs."

"We're taking turns," Leia explained, "8 hour shifts of two trained Force users at a time guarding him. Luke and Vader just took a shift, and now Ahsoka and Kenobi are on. Then I'll go on with Luke for another shift. Poor Luke."

"Hey, at least I got my rancor plush back," the blue eyed youth said with a brilliant smile, even as he gestured. The rancor plush, looking rather worse for wear, leaped up off a nearby chair and began cavorting around in the air, to Piett's bemusement.

"You took the rancor back?" Vader inquired in surprise. "And he agreed?"

"W..e..l..l, I found another one and offered to trade, and he said yes. He really does seem like a pretty nice guy right now. In a weird, brain damaged sort of way."

"Uh, Luke, you can put the rancor down."

"Oh, right."

There was a rumble of concern from the Wookiee, and Solo spoke again, "But you can't keep guarding him for eternity!"

"No, of course not," Skywalker said soothingly, "but his mental state, and his apparent age, are changing very rapidly. Within a few days we'll have a better idea of what is going on in that ugly, wrinkled, confused head, Han."

There was a pause, and the blue eyes grew suddenly bright with determination, "Cold blooded murder of a helpless man is not the way of the Alliance, Han, or of the Jedi."

"But I'm not a Jedi, or an official member of the Alliance, Luke," Solo argued. "And pardon my Rodian, but waiting for Palpatine to recover, or not, is just stupid and idiotic and dumb and asinine ..."

Vader suddenly interrupted in the most startling of ways. The tankard of ale suddenly flew out of Solo's hand and floated over to the Dark Lord of the Sith, who gazed into its murky depths curiously.

"What kind of ale is this, Solo?"

"Corellian, of course, your Lordship," the man responded with an incredulous lift of an eyebrow.

The huge black helmet nodded, the hand gestured to send Solo's tankard back to the man, and then focused on a bottle and glass on the counter, both of which suddenly floated over to the Dark Lord. Vader then proceeded to reach under his mask and lift it off!

Piett gaped in disbelief as the black mask which had gazed upon him so ferociously for so long rose up off Vader's head and was set tidily on a nearby chair.

Underneath was the face of a man – scarred, yes, but the features were clearly recognizable as human, the blue eyes shown with the same hue as the man's son. And ...

"Father," Skywalker yelped happily, "look at your hair!"

The pale lips widened with a rather embarrassed smile, even as the black glove ran through the centimeter long dark blond hair on Vader's head.

"You managed to work on his hair, Luke?" Leia asked in what Piett, in the midst of his incredulity, decided was a rather professional tone.

"Yeah! In a way, easier than the kidneys, because the hair really wants to grow, you know? Rapid cell division. I worked on the underlying scar tissue ..."

Even as this technical conversation continued, Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith, poured the ale into his glass, lifted it to his lips, and took a long swig.

The blue eyes closed beatifically and he intoned solemnly, "I haven't tasted anything that good in 20 years."

The hair conversation ended abruptly, followed by definite gagging noises from Luke, and Leia said in disbelief, "Better than that blue milk pudding we ate the last time we were together?"

Solo groaned aloud and slung an affectionate arm around the dark haired woman, "Oh Leia. I will love you until the day I die, but we really need to work on your palate. Corellian ale is so far above blue milk pudding in every way that I just ... just ..."

"I love blue milk pudding," Skywalker said indignantly.

"Blue milk comes from banthas," Leia Organa chimed in, "and my counseling plushie is a bantha."

"I loathe banthas," Vader said darkly, his scarred forehead creasing. "They are smelly beasts. And they remind me of sand ..."

"Why does everything have to be about sand!" Organa demanded indignantly, "It's like this obsession with you people from Tatooine. Sand sand sand sand sand ..."

Piett shook his head just slightly. And pinched himself. Pain. Yes, regrettably he was awake, not curled up with his loth-bat having a nightmare.

"Oh Admiral!" the princess said, breaking off her diatribe. "I apologize for getting distracted. We have a proposition for you."

Piett gulped slightly.

"A proposition?" he repeated weakly.

"Oh yes," Skywalker said enthusiastically. "Truth is, Father is rather sick of the whole helping run the galaxy thing and the Emperor is either going to be weird or dead, so we were thinking maybe you could take over as ... not as the Emperor, exactly, but as the de facto leader of the Empire."

There was a long pause as Piett waited, resignedly, for some kind of punchline. Naturally there would be bizarre jokes emanating from this band of crazies.

Instead, Leia Organa, and Luke Skywalker, and even Lord Darth Vader, just looked at him.

"Surely ..." Piett finally croaked, "surely you aren't serious."

"Indeed we are," Vader stated firmly, "You are a most competent individual, Admiral, and gifted with tremendous organizational abilities. You are also diplomatic and your tactical abilities are impressive."

"But ... but ... surely, my Lord, you should be the Emperor. Or perhaps one of your children? I'm not a Force sensitive, I'm not even a Grand Admiral ..."

"I don't want to be Emperor!" Vader interrupted, abruptly downing the rest of his ale and placing it down on a nearby table with a bang.

Piett winced.

"I spent my early years as a slave, and my next 15 years as a Jedi, and then I became a Sith Lord and nearly broke the galaxy and I'm tired of it. There are times when the weight of expectation is too much for any man. I want a vacation, or an extended sabbatical. I want to have fun. I want to wind surf, and go skiing on Hoth's mountains, and perhaps go diving in the deep caverns of Naboo. Can you understand that, Admiral?"

The admiral took a deep breath, "I don't understand much of anything that has happened in the last two days, my lord."

Leia Organa chuckled, "I appreciate your honesty, Admiral Piett. Please, why don't we leave the rest of the males to imbibe ale ..."

("Not me," Skywalker yelped indignantly.)

"... and I will tell you what we had in mind."