A/N: An update! :P It's been a while and I apologize. Thank you to everyone that reads, reviews, private messages, and follows this story. I adore you all for it. My usual disclaimer applies. This is a dark story with many triggers in it. If you do not like dark twisted stores PLEASE STOP READING NOW. You have been warned. There is really nothing off limits to this story, as any true Sith love story should be.

For those that like this sort of dark thing, thank you for sticking around. ;)

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Please do not sue. This is purely for fun.


Naboo.

The world looked frighteningly similar to Eart—to Sol. Frightening, because she did not expect an alien world to have continents of lush green and brown, and seas of the deepest sapphire blue. Its atmosphere boasted thick and fluffy white clouds, like explosions of humble cotton to decorate its skies. It was beautiful, this world. And it had been horribly naïve of her to believe that it would be any different.

Still, it was hard to believe that thriving worlds existed outside of her own solar system. She'd been taught for so long that humans were the only sentient beings in the universe, and Ear—Sol the only planet that could support life. How wrong they had all been about that. And she winced at the thought that her own people were now singing her praises for bringing the Empire to them. As if it had all been her idea, her grand plan, to lead them all into slavery.

With all the darkness that surrounded her home, seeing this planet was still hard to believe.

Stupid, she chided herself. She had only to lift her eyes to the men around her to find proof of that. All these people, these hundreds of thousands of officers that made up the crew of the Super Star Destroyer Executor had to have come from somewhere. Not all of their worlds would have been as lovely as hers, as it would have been just as naïve to assume that, but she should have prepared herself for the inevitable proof that her planet was not unique to the universe.

But why… why did it have to look so much like Sol?

There had been a part of her that envisioned this Naboo as an inhospitable place. Like the face of Mars, all red and rocky and devoid of life. A horrible place where a horrible man who stole people's children cackled madly. Just anything but this. Anything but another Earth about to be crushed under the weight of the Emperor's will.

She would no longer call the Empire a wicked and evil place. She had met enough good men during her time on this ship, and during the month long travel to reach the Nabooian system, to change her opinion of that. The Empire was much like the ship she stood upon, a neutral thing without intention to harm nor aid. It was the person in command of the Lady Ex as she'd heard the ship called, the person gave the orders, that turned the ship from a protector of life to an object of utter destruction.

One day she would rule this Empire. She would lovingly caress its worlds and spread healing truths to its many oppressed worlds. Until that day, lovely places like Sol, and like Naboo below her, would suffer.

"All ships report ready," said the deck officer from somewhere behind her. "The blockade is in place, my lord. We'll know the moment any ship enters the system or tries to leave."

"Good," her husband responded. "What word from the Queen?"

A shuffling sound, like hurried footsteps rushing to hand the appropriate data pad to the right person, and most likely take the other away.

"Queen Jamilia has requested contact immediately, my lord, with you directly. Thus far she has refused to acknowledge the messages sent by the communications team, and also those sent directly from Captain Piett and Admiral Ozzel."

"I can image neither men took that well."

"N-no, sir," the officer said diplomatically. "However, they are officers of the Fleet and—"

"And if they had their way, several cities would be smoking craters as an abject lesson in defying the Empire," she could hear the smile in her husband's voice, the dark amusement in his tone. "No, you do not need to cover for them, Lieutenant Commander. I know these men well. They have served me longer than you've been alive. Instruct both that I'll handle the Queen personally. Depending on how that goes, they may yet have the opportunity to deliver that lesson."

Padme shivered, a hand reaching automatically to her stomach, protectively holding the life within her womb. Was there, even now, a woman on that planet doing the same thing? Cradling her unborn child as she stared up at the sky, dread filling her heart with heaviness. She couldn't let this happen, let another world feel the weight of Imperial jackboots on its once beloved streets. Even if it meant taking extra time to find little Luke.

Her mouth twisted, a flash of anger and horror nearly wiping away her compassion. Jesus, what kind of a monster stole someone else's child, and then hid behind billions of innocent people on a heretofore peaceful planet? She changed her mind about this Kenobi person. Regardless of the past that her husband shared with this beast of a man, she would not show him an ounce of mercy for this. What had happened to her planet was his fault, just as the blame for what was about to happen to Naboo rested squarely on his shoulders, too.

Footsteps approached again, heading in the direction where her husband sat in one of the two newly installed luxury chairs near her viewport. Hers, not because she was standing at it currently, but because she always stood at that particular viewport. The one off to the starboard side that had afforded her the best view of her home planet as they circled it. The one she always gazed into with longing, as if she could see past the millions of miles that separated her from the soil of her birth.

They now called it her viewport, the 'Lady Vader's place upon the Lady Ex.' No officer would use it for very long, at least not without good reason. It was to be kept clear for her by unwritten order.

For no one wanted to displease the pregnant wife of their Dark Lord of the Sith. It wasn't worth their lives when there was another perfectly decent viewport just a few steps away.

"I have her Highness on the comm, my lord," the deck officer said. "She demands—"

"Demands? Now that is amusing, isn't it. Demands… She makes demands upon me when she's the one breaking Imperial law."

"My lord," the officer began with that tell-tale hesitation. Fear more than duty creeping into that voice. Padme winced. "We do not know for certain—"

A strangled gasp cut that sentence short, followed immediately by the thundering boom of Anakin's booted feet hitting the polished durasteel deck.

"I say it is so," Anakin hissed, his voice snapping with a whip-crack throughout the bridge. "She may not know she is harboring a fugitive of the Empire, but I know he is here. I can feel him. He is here, and he will face me."

The strangling sounds were growing fainter and fainter, and she could not take it anymore.

"Do not kill him, my husband," she said, meeting his eyes through the viewport. Angry brown eyes meeting the yellow in the watery reflection. "While I'm as outraged as you at the whole situation, he isn't the one to blame. I'd much rather see the full force of your anger brought to bear on those that dared stand against you instead of tempered by an officer that spoke out of line."

The officer in question had ceased his struggling, hanging limply in the air. Every so often a finger twitched or a foot jerked. And only the faintest of wheezing sounds escaped that purple face, his tongue protruding past his parted lips. Nearly dead. But not quite.

Anakin turned back to the officer. "Your life is yours again at the mercy of my wife. Remember that the next time you question my judgment."

He fell to the deck in a heap, unmoving. But that wheezing sound increased, letting everyone know that his heart still pumped and his lungs still pulled on that life-sustaining oxygen. From somewhere in the far corner of the bridge, Captain Piett lifted his hand in signal, drawing two stormtroopers from their posts to collect the damaged officer and transport him to sickbay.

She didn't flinch as her husband's gaze swung back in her direction. Didn't tear her gaze from the world below, nor the decision she had sudden reached in her mind.

"I want to be the one to speak to the Queen."


Her request surprised him, perhaps more so than her interfering with the discipline he gave that weak-willed officer. She had seen him do this sort of thing before in their months together, and always she hid her face at the last moment, or begged for the life of the man that was about to die for his stupidity. Always he would deny her, make her watch. And in their bed he would make her yield, punish her for her brashness, or make her purchase that officer's life with her body.

Something was different this time. Something in the snap in her tone, in the fire in her gaze as it pierced him even through its reflection in the viewport. Something had changed in his Padme, triggered by their arrival to this world.

He didn't bother waiting for the stormtroopers to clean up the mess. He simply stepped over the downed man like he was nothing, crossing the short distance to where his reason for breathing stood at her viewport. Elegant in her black silk, the gown somewhat loose on her lovely frame. Still worthy of a Queen, he amended, sliding his arms around her waist and pulling her back against him. Hands automatically closing over hers, gently pressing them to her flat lower belly. To the child they both cherished.

"I can feel her already," he whispered into Padme's ear. "Leia, our daughter, I can feel her presence within you."

She leaned against him, closing her eyes. Fighting the rage that twisted inside her like sharp glass caught in a whirlwind. So angry. So beautiful.

So very much his.

One of her small hands reached upward, touched the scar beneath his eye with a feather-light touch, tracing down with slow and tender torment. Exquisite as those fingertips brushed his lips, lingering there a moment before sliding down his strong jaw, down his neck, to pause finally on the collar of his tunic. Or more to the point, the collar that he now wore fastened around his throat, the one that matched hers, hidden beneath his shirt.

A remembered game. With undefined rules. That bound them tighter than any marriage oath ever would.

"What does our baby tell you?" his queen asked.

"Nothing at the moment. She knows only emotion, my Padme. She knows only what we feel, what we project towards her. Though I say now she is confused, interpreting your emotions in the only way she can."

"Because I am angry?"

He nodded. "We both would like to know why."

She turned in his arms, taking his mouth in a kiss that nearly brought him to his knees. Unashamed at who saw them, at what they may think. Unbound by tradition, free from convention. That was the woman he loved, the woman he worshiped. And her anger, her wild sharp anger, was the sweetest wine he had ever tasted.

"Because we are here," she answered at last. "Because now this monster hides behind innocents to keep what is rightfully yours from you. I am angry because the Queen of Naboo is angry at us for invading her world, for frightening the people she promised to protect. And if—oh stars help her if—she is harboring that beast and putting his interests above her own people, I'll personally execute her."

His eyes fluttered shut, his smile bright as he tucked her head beneath his chin. "If I find any of that to be true, beloved, I will hand you my lightsaber to use."

"If we find any of that to be truth," she corrected. "My bare hands will suffice quite fine."

His laughter rang out across the bridge, as horrible and beautiful as the thoughts that filled her mind.


"I greet you, Queen Amidala of Sol," said the young woman on the screen, nodding respectfully. "But I do not welcome you. Under what right do you and your lord husband bring an armada of war to our peaceful planet?"

Beside her, she felt Anakin twitch. First for the insult offered in that greeting, and secondly for the removal of his name from hers. No matter how much she argued with him that there were times she must be Queen Amidala, and thusly separated from him politically, he did not like it. At all. She was his wife, and should always be Lady Vader to his thinking. It was a point they had agreed to discuss at length at a later time. For now, she wanted—no, she needed—all the political training and clout she'd garnered from a lifetime of civil service.

Right now she needed to the woman she had been on Ea—Sol. Not the wife of a great galactic lord. A hand placed discreetly on his thigh quieted the motion.

"Queen Jamilia," Padme acknowledged with the same nod of her head. "We do not come in the name of war. We come pursing a dangerous criminal to the Empire we both serve and adore."

"This former Jedi Kenobi," Jamilia sniffed. "He has not been given succor in our realm."

"We have reason to believe otherwise. He took shelter on my world without my knowledge, left evidence that he was coming to your world next. As a loyal member of the Galactic Empire, I allowed Imperial forces to root out the monster for the good of my citizenry. We ask nothing more than for you to do the same."

"And I'm certain then you'll leave my world in peace."

There was no missing the sarcasm that dripped in those eloquently phrased words. So much so that Anakin twitched again, this time more minute than before. This time so much more deadly in his intent. He was taking notes, she knew, counting the times that Jamilia gave insult to her, knowingly or otherwise.

Young though she may be, this Jamilia wasn't an idiot. She could see the truth in Padme's words, the unspoken warning that a garrison would be left behind, that Imperial presence would never truly leave her world if she let them take root. The question became just how many of people would suffer if she denied them this search. How much worse could it get for Naboo if she did not let the troops land unmolested.

Much worse, Padme knew. Jamilia would be forced to watch as she had been forced to watch. Viewing each major city as white-armored officers marched on the capital buildings, as black TIE fighters roared overhead. As the processing camps were created and each and every citizen of Naboo was counted, issued Imperial identification, and forced to swear allegiance to the Emperor.

And then the real horror would begin. The selecting of a tithe of people for the Imperial Academy, for the Emperor's damnable "Selected" breeding stock. The educational reforms that would imprint Imperial history and law and love into the hearts and minds of their young ones.

Padme's world had suffered all that because she had refused Anakin, had defied him with her Military Creation Act. How much worse would things be for Jamilia and her people if she persisted with this stubbornness?

"Your world is already under the peace of the Emperor," she continued before Anakin could say anything. "It will remain such after our leave-taking."

"You are very skilled at this game, Queen Amidala," Jamilia replied, the smile on her painted lips faint and somewhat pensive. "However, as we are already under the Emperor's Peace, I will continue to exercise my right to deny you access without a Senatorial decree. Return when such a thing is ratified in the Senate, and I will lower my planetary shields."

Padme shrugged, almost at the end of her own temper with this woman. She hadn't missed any of the insults, either. "If that is your wish, we have no choice but to respect it. We will go to the Senate in peace just as we have arrived in peace. Thank you for your time, Queen Jamilia."

The woman on the screen froze for a split second. "And you will take your armada with you?"

Padme made a show of surprise, her eyes glittering with the anger she felt. There was going to be no saving this world, and somehow her husband had known it. It would end in bombardment and war. And Naboo would be a smoking hulk of nothing when it was done. Just as she had envisioned the hiding place of Kenobi should have been.

"Oh, I'm afraid the fleet will stay in place," She said with the faintest smile of her own. "You see, we are under the orders of the Emperor. Our blockade of any planet in which we believe an enemy of the Emperor's Peace is hiding is legal. No ship will come in or out of this system. Period. We know the rules well, Your Majesty. And we obey them all, as loyal citizens of the Empire. We will gladly head towards Imperial Center now, and wait until a proper quorum of Senators are present to present our petition against Naboo."

She made a show of glancing at her husband, at the wide smile that had blossomed on his face once more. He knew exactly what she was doing, and he approved of it completely. "My lord husband," Padme continued, the right amount of curious innocence in her expression. "I know my world is new to the Empire, so forgive me for asking. How long will it take to do as the Queen requests?"

He, too, made a show of pursing his lips. "Months. Perhaps a year or more, depending on if the Senate decides an investigation committee must be sent to review our evidence. They may decide they must visit Sol first, to ascertain that the evidence I've collected there against Kenobi is indeed valid. That could drag things out for quite more than a year."

Thusly starving the planet in so many ways, she knew. No trade, no credits flowing in or out, and very likely a significant amount of medicines and needed foodstuffs would also cease to flow to the planet. If Jamilia was any kind of fair Queen—

"I wish to reconsider the proposal," Jamilia said, a harsh edge to her soft words. "Queen Amidala of Sol, will you consent to a meeting upon my world to discuss further terms of your search? My word of honor that you will have safe passage to and from your ship. As you have said, we are loyal members of the Empire, enjoying the laws of the Emperor's Peace."

"Only so long as I attend her," Anakin jumped in, a threat of his own simmering in his words. "My wife is precious to me, Queen Jamilia. More precious than anything you can possibly imagine."

Somehow the other woman went pale beneath the traditional white makeup of the Naboo Queens. "Of course. We welcome the Lord Vader and his wife. Preparations are already underway for your arrival."