A/N: This fan fiction is for entertainment purposes only and is based on intellectual property owned by George Lucas. It is also a sneak-peak excerpt of my new novel in progress, None Above Suspicion.

PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE

Darth Vader contemplated his guest as she stood alone before a vast viewport aboard the Executor. He couldn't quite think of her as a "prisoner," despite the debacle that had once been the Thirteenth Imperial Diplomatic Conclave, nor despite the Emperor's orders to deliver her and her spawn to him on Coruscant. Tall, stoic, and regal in her lavish green and aqua robes, she indeed looked every part an empress.

She knew that Vader would not, could not, harm her further now. The delicate brocade cuffs of her outer robe and carefully positioned twists of her graying black hair covered the burn marks the scan grid had left on her body during the interrogation Vader had put her through days before. No, now she was the Emperor's prize. Now she could afford to be defiant, to speak her mind to the Dark Lord with impunity, or to ignore him altogether. Ignore him she did, staring out the viewport as the Executor prepared to make the jump to hyperspace, sadly confident that she would never see her homeworld again. She looked away as small, green, moss-covered Phelarion receded to a pinpoint in the distance, replaced by the amorphous white streaks of hyperspace and then the closing of the outer viewports.

Vader finally broke the silence between them. "Surely you know that the Emperor will not harm you."

"That depends of course on how you define harm."

"With your husband gone, it seems you should welcome His Majesty's affections."

Lady Tarkin turned on her heel to face him directly. "Affections?" she retorted. "You know precisely what Cos wants with me! What he's always wanted! And so now you'd make a concubine out of me to avoid admitting that you didn't follow up on the attack on that Rebel cruiser, or that you and your troops were caught off guard just as I was, and that you were ill-prepared to deal with a Rebel infiltration that I warned you and Cos months ago was bound to happen! You should have been there from the beginning, Darth, both as a matter of form and as security for the Conclave, but instead you show up in medias res over fifteen crates of missing megonite that were on one of the power risers all along! After all we did for you!"

"The situation is far more complicated."

She threw her large, bejeweled hands into the air in exasperation. "Always. Always with you. You've been trouble since you were thirteen years old, Darth! Anakin!"

This spiteful use of his former identity would ordinarily have driven him to an immediate rage with fatal consequences for its utterer had it come from anyone but her. Only three women had ever held sway in his life, and now all three had come to ruin because of him. He had ignored his nightmares and premonitions of his mother's suffering, only to arrive too late to save her. Then his wife, the beautiful and powerful Senator Padmé Amidala, was destroyed in his turn to the Dark Side of the Force. Now he was delivering the third, one woman who in so many ways had taken the place of the other two, to an uncertain and likely unpleasant fate.

Yes, he admitted to himself, he had been a great deal of trouble indeed. And she had indeed done a great deal for him, she and her husband. They had showed him what life could be like outside the Jedi Temple, insisting that he had only traded one kind of slavery for another. They had given him refuge from the many disagreements he'd had with his Jedi Master. They had cared for him after one final disagreement with Kenobi nearly took his life. They supported him through his transition from Skywalker to Vader. They entwined their rising fortunes with his in the Imperial New Order. And, he had just spent the last three nights in his chambers in their home.

He had failed one of them at Yavin. Wilhuff Tarkin had been like both a father and a brother to him since his early teens, filling two voids in his hard and deprived life. One look at Chief Bast's reports told him the danger was real, and so he went out himself to defend not only the Death Star but also its commander from the attacking Rebels.

Now he was failing the other, merely to avoid responsibility for his own shortcomings. Unknown to Lady Tarkin, this was the third, not the second, time the Rebels had gotten away from him. He had lost them again a few weeks prior on Mimban. Now he would have to pay for his triple failure with yet another. He had to make her understand, for the Emperor's ear would soon be hers, and her rhetoric, like her husband's before her, could be quite convincing.

He had always been short with words, especially difficult ones. She sensed he wanted to tell her something, but perhaps didn't quite know how to phrase it. Otherwise, he would have left her alone in her chambers many moments ago.

"How complicated?" she prodded, trying to restart their conversation.

"A matter of life or death."

"Oh, come now, Darth, that's a bit melodramatic for you, no?"

"Perhaps," he conceded. "Perhaps not." He hesitated. "Would you assist me this evening?"

She cocked her head at him, not believing he had the audacity to ask. After a moment's thought, she nodded. "All right, come on. But it seems you'll have to learn to deal exclusively with droids from now on, as I'll likely be occupied elsewhere."

Since his "accident," Vader had allowed only three living beings, the Tarkins and the Emperor, to "assist" him, as he put it, with his helmet, armor, feeding, and other life support systems, relying on droids in their absence or unavailability. That number was now reduced to two as a result of his failure at Yavin.

Upon reaching his quarters, Vader removed his cape and cast it across the divan in the anteroom. With a wave of his hand, his meditation chamber opened, and he stepped inside. Lady Tarkin switched off the chamber's automated mechanisms and stepped in behind him as he positioned himself in the chaise-like seat in the center of the chamber. She flipped another lever that closed and sealed the chamber around them, activating its hyperbaric properties. Only in a properly pressurized environment could Vader safely remove his armor.

When the unit was sealed, it resembled a tight space capsule with only enough room for one other person or droid to move around the central area. Not a petite individual, Lady Tarkin had learned years ago how to navigate within the tiny space. First she lowered a magnetic cup onto the top of his helmet, then released four latches about his neckband, allowing the helmet to be lifted straight up and out of the way. With the same well-learned movement, she reached around for the external respirator valve and attached it to the appropriate port on his inner breath screen. Her husband and his close friend and associate, Raith Sienar, had designed and fabricated most of Vader's equipment, and so she knew it well, having been present throughout the process.

She took one look at the top of his head and manually pulled the helmet back down a bit, inspecting the inside. "It's time for another refit, I think," she observed as she released the helmet and reached for a pair of latex gloves for the dispenser in the medicinal unit mounted on one wall of the chamber. She took out a vial of antibacterial bacta ointment and began to gently treat the areas of his head where the helmet had rubbed him raw. "Let's get this started," she said as she next opened a packet of nutrient powder into a canister and mixed it with a predetermined amount of warm water. She then inserted the canister into its bracket and attached the loose end of the tube dangling from the bottom of the canister to Vader's feeding port.

"Let's get some of the rest of this off of you for awhile," she suggested, tapping his shoulderplates. He nodded in agreement, unable to speak to her with the external respirator attached to his breath screen. "Wait a minute," she exclaimed, wrinkling her brows as she removed the shoulderplates. Something was wrong. Or different. His right arm. She flipped the right shoulderplate over in her hands to reveal a new schematic label, pasted over the old one by some unknown emdee droid. The entire shoulder mechanism was different, now entirely cybernetic. His right shoulder and arm, she knew, had been living tissue down to the point just above the elbow. At least it was a month ago.

"What?"

She leaned over him, almost in a protective gesture, so she could look at him, only to see a defeated look in his blue eyes. "When did this happen? How?" She knew he couldn't answer, but that didn't matter. He cast his eyes down as he slipped off his thick leather outer gauntlets. A latex sheath covered the mechanism of his mechanical right hand, always had, but his living left hand, though heavily scarred, was usually protected by an inner glove of softer material with enhancement sensors embedded at strategic points. This glove usually plugged into a port in the armor plating for his left arm, but when Lady Tarkin removed it, the port, plug, and sensor glove were gone, though the rest of his arm remained intact. What once covered his left hand was replaced by another latex sheath. He extended his left hand up to her, and very tentatively she took it.

Mechanical.

She shuddered. She remembered how big a deal it had been. How unfair. How manipulative and hateful the Emperor had been. It started on Mustafar, when Kenobi severed the arm, along with both of Anakin's legs just below the knees. The legs had slid down the slope where Anakin and Obi-Wan had been fighting, down into the lava, and were thus unsalvageable. But his left arm had fallen just far enough away to land somewhat safely on the hot rocks. It burned, as the rest of him had, but the medical personnel who helped Palpatine rescue Anakin had also found and recovered the arm and put it on ice.

Anakin, now Darth, did not know of this for months. How he had longed not to be completely limbless! He had been too far from medical treatment for a replant of his right arm after Geonosis, and the Jedi doctors had convinced him that an artificial limb would be even more advantageous to him than his natural one. That was relatively easy to accept when he had lost only one limb. But now he had lost all four, and things were different. He had no natural sense of touch, and so it seemed to him no natural connection with the universe outside his armor. And, he felt, no more natural connection to the Force, as he could never make Sith lightning with artificial hands. And so he pined for that lost limb.

And Palpatine knew it. He held it hostage, quite literally. He made his apprentice "earn" his limb back by doing his evil bidding. Not that Darth minded the evil part at that point, but he definitely resented the patronized childlike position Palpatine put him in over that arm. The Emperor reveled in it, of course, ultimately relenting and allowing the limb to be replanted. Lady Tarkin assumed that, by this point, the replanted flesh had finally just become nonviable, and had to be removed. She knew how hard that had to have been for him. But his right arm was another matter.

She made her way around and knelt down in front of him. "What happened to you?" she whispered. "Why didn't you tell me before? Who did this to you? That rogue Xizor? Did you two get into it again?"

He shook his head. She looked up at the feeding mechanism, only to see that the canister was still half full. She got his boots and leg armor off next, relieved to find no more surprises there. She then busied herself with various meters, checking all the ports and systems routed through his chest plate, comparing their output with the desired readouts posted on a chart on the wall. A poignant reminder, that chart. It was a "cheat sheet" her husband had made.

When Vader's feeding canister was almost empty, Lady Tarkin stuffed some tufts of cotton into his helmet to prevent further abrasions until the fit could be adjusted. Raith would have to send a droid for that. Finally, she put the helmet back in place and latched it down, thus reactivating his built-in respirator.

"Now tell me what happened," she said as she resumed her place on the floor beside him. "How did you lose the rest of this arm?"

"The boy. On Mimban. Just before the conclave. But your 'Lerna' was with him, and they escaped from there as well."

She grew defensive. "Darth, I already told you, I had no idea who she was! I hadn't seen Leia Organa in years, not since she was a girl. Believe me, if I'd known, I'd have shot her myself on the spot!"

"Tell that to the Emperor. Perhaps he'll spare you one of these," he replied, extending his left hand again.

She gasped, nearly choked. "Cos did this to you?" she asked tremulously, taking his hand again. He didn't answer. That was answer enough. The bastard had taken the arm back!

"A third failure will certainly not be tolerated," Vader explained. "But His Majesty will not harm you."

Now she understood. In his own way, Darth Vader was begging her for his very life. A third failure would be the end of him, they both knew, but not if it were her infraction. Not if she took the hit for him.

She looked away. After all, this situation was no longer just about her. Her two daughters and her niece had been dragged into this mess as well. She put her elbow on her knee and her head in her hand. "You know I'll help you," she began, "but you don't really know what Cos will do and what he won't. And what about the girls? If he hurts them . . . If he takes me . . . He'll take them, too. You know what he wants with me. And did I ever tell you that my husband was suspicious of him acting inappropriately with Rivoche? She was twelve, I think. She denies it, but, can you blame her? And if he doesn't harm them, of course I have other family who will take care of them, but . . . " She raised her head to look up at him then. Her voice cracked as she continued. "But after what you did to me the other day . . . I . . . I'm afraid, Darth. Not of death itself, but of what else Cos might do to me beforehand . . . In front of my kids . . ." At that she rose and abruptly let herself out of the chamber and the Dark Lord's quarters.

As she reached her own quarters, her anguish had turned to rage. Who was he? Vile beyond Sith! The almighty Dark Lord had descended to the likes of a common pimp, pushing a lady of galactic nobility and three underage girls to save his own ass! That black-robed bastard was not fit to polish Cos Palpatine's boots, and she would make sure the Emperor knew it if she ever got the chance.

But as her door snapped into a locked position behind her, she remembered the arm again, and her emotional hovercoaster once again dipped into despair. Something had to be done! The entire galaxy was madness!

She thought about Alderaan. Thought about it often at times like this, and not only about the risk to her own security. She'd known Bail Organa, after all, done business with him well before any of the galactic madness ever started. She'd eaten at banquets with him, even held his little Leia/Lerna on her lap as they discussed the matters of the day, lent him a patient ear when he needed to talk after Breha died, stayed several nights at his palace during various events. And he wasn't a bad guy. Not really. No. He was just--from the other side of the Senate chamber, so to speak. And as for his people, most of them had never left Alderaan, and didn't really know a Republic from an Empire from a black hole in space!

There was no need for what her husband had done to Alderaan. Not when she thought about it rationally. No need for a lot of the things he'd done. And she thought now, as she often did, that she could have stopped him any time she wanted. She was, quite simply, bigger than him. With her superior Phelarian strength, she could have broken his spindly Eriaduan neck in bed with her bare hands! But she loved him . . .

And she loved Darth too. He was the bratty little brother she never had. And now he, having risen to a rank second only to the Emperor himself, needed her. Needed her to be personally responsible. His words reverberated in her head, but now she understood what they meant. Something had to be done. Something about Cos Palpatine. And she had to be personally responsible for doing it.

She was bigger than him, and would likely soon find her way to his bed.