Imperial Palace

Imperial City

Imperial Center

8 months later

Tech Sergeant Trib ran a weary hand down her face and took a deep slurp of caf from her cup. She had stayed up too late playing PlasmaCraft and was reaping the sad rewards; she was exhausted and irritable.

Fortunately, work would be mellow today. Emperor Palpatine and his retinue rarely left Imperial Center, but this year's official Empire Day festivities were on Naboo, the Emperor's home planet, and currently his Royal Highness was being adored and feted by the Queen of Naboo and her court. Trib would like to visit Naboo someday – it was reputedly a gorgeous planet – but at least she could take it easily without Palpatine in residence. After all, when the krayt dragon's away, the banthas will play.

She wondered, vaguely, what a bantha was.

Trib threw down the last of her caf and tossed the cup into a nearby trash receptacle. It bounced off the lid and onto the floor, forcing her to bend over and pick it up and deposit it again, more carefully. Of course, the cleaning droids would get to it eventually, but her mama had taught her better than to leave trash on the floor.

Well, it was time to finally get moving. First job was a plumbing problem on level 24 of the palace, which was one of the floors of Emperor Palpatine's private rooms. She had better get this fixed perfectly.

After breezing through security (the guards were definitely more laid back today), she found herself on a service corridor with her hovercart of tools and a strong desire for her forgotten morning muffin.

A sentient wearing a technician uniform was already in the corridor and had removed a large panel. He (Trib thought it was a he?) was a tall human with either short hair or no hair under his cap; his face looked odd, as if it had been scarred, but his eyes were an attractive blue. Trib didn't recognize him at all.

"Who are you?" Trib demanded in confusion.

"I am Latt," the man replied in an oddly roughened voice. "I am a plumbing technician."

Trib shook her head. "I don't know you."

"I'm new, but trust me, I know what I'm doing. I'm a technician level 3."

It was reasonable that she had never met this sentient – the Imperial complex was huge and had frequent plumbing problems, which in turn required a great many technicians. But given that this was a problem with the Emperor's plumbing, it had better be done right or Trib's neck would be on the line.

She sighed and asked, "Ok, where's the calcinator?"

The man pointed unerringly to the right component. "Right there. Trust me, Tech Sergeant, you can go eat your muffin."

"My muffin?"

"You haven't had your muffin yet," the man informed her, his blue eyes gazing deeply into her own brown ones. "You need to go eat your muffin."

She tilted her head thoughtfully. "I haven't had my muffin yet, Latt."

"I will take care of the plumbing problem."

"You will take care of the plumbing problem."

"You can go about your business with muffins."

"I'm going to go get my muffin, Latt!" Trib yelled as she stared as disapprovingly as she could, then turned on her heel and hurried away. She could almost taste the glazed goodness of her favorite blumfruit muffin.

Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader?) waited until the woman had disappeared around the corner and got back to work.

/

Emperor's private suite

Two weeks later

Sheev Palpatine centimetered his way down into the last layer of mud in his medicinal bath and let out a grunt which was a mixture of pain and contentment. Yes, it was hot, but he was getting used to it. Also, he ached, and the mud would help because it always did.

He groaned aloud and wiggled his naked shoulders, trying to loosen tight muscles. The trip to Naboo had been enjoyable; there was nothing quite like being revered and worshiped by the people of his own planet. The current teenage queen of Naboo did not like him at all but was forced to pretend she did, which was even more fun.

BUT Darth Vader hadn't shown up, and that was a disappointment. Palpatine had made rather a point of making a speech in front of Padme's tomb and talking about how much he and the dead queen had been awesome friends, blah blah blah – he had thought that would bring his former apprentice out of the stonework with red lightsaber swinging, and if Vader had attacked, Palpatine had been very ready.

But no, he had made his speech, and people cheered, and that was that. No sign of Vader.

Where was the (cyborg) man? Executor, the Dark Lord's flag ship, was now a Rebel vessel after Vader had marooned most of his men on Kooriva and handed the Super Star Destroyer over the Alliance. Obviously, the former Anakin Skywalker had switched sides. That stunk on so many levels. Palpatine was furious! But according to Imperial spies, no one had actually seen Vader in months, though perhaps the young Luke Skywalker was sneaking off to meet his father on occasion.

Palpatine would find the Skywalkers, both elder and younger, and kill the father and take the son as his new apprentice. He was far too great a Master Sith Lord to be completely stymied by a rebellious apprentice.

But for now, he would enjoy his mud bath and get a good nap in. His pillow was so comfortable...

Emperor Palpatine drifted off to sleep.

Twenty minutes later, the temperature of the mud bath rocketed from 37 to 93 degrees in a few seconds. The Emperor, deeply asleep, took a few precious seconds to realize that he was now sitting in nearly boiling mud. It took another few seconds for him to leap out of the bath, screaming. The mud was oozing and sticky and so very hot and he howled and raved and sobbed until the third degree burns caused him to collapse on the floor, shaking and wailing and no one was around to rescue him. He died.

/

Seedy Space Bar

Mos Eisley Space Port

Tatooine

1 week later

"Should you really be drinking that?" Anakin Skywalker asked in a disapproving voice.

Luke gave his drink the side eye and shook his head. "No, probably not. I think I see things floating ... or swimming? ... in it."

"I would not advise eating or drinking anything in this establishment," his father informed him with a dubious glance around him. The Snorting Weevil was dark enough that it was difficult to see much of anything about the food, drink, chairs, or occupants. Unfortunately for both Skywalkers, the Force allowed them to augment their eyesight.

Luke nodded and pushed the glass to one side. "So are you going to tell me how you did it, Father?"

The former Sith did not bother to prevaricate. "I infiltrated the Imperial Palace and sabotaged Palpatine's mud bath. It was designed to increase and decrease the heat of the mud bath essentially instantly using radiation; I disabled the safety limits and programmed my former master's private mud bath to shoot up to nearly 100 degrees Celcius within a couple of seconds. He died from the burns."

Luke's blue eyes were wide now. "That's, um, a nasty way to go."

"Yes. Nasty but quick. He deserved no better given what he has done. And thank you. I think I may have a creative side that I was unaware of."

Luke was not a vengeful man, but he decided that his father was quite right... and he really had no comment this newfound 'creative side'.

"Thank you," the youth said sincerely, placing his prosthetic right hand on his father's equally mechanical hand.

"It was the least I could do, my son," Anakin responded, his voice even more raspy than usual. He had never imagined that less than a year after the Bespin debacle he would be on good terms with his son and only mildly loathsome terms with his daughter. After he had been healed up on Kamino, he had managed to track Luke down to an eel flavored pudding factory on Ord Mantell; the boy had been busy wiping out a bunch of slavers and had been startled at the arrival of his father. Anakin did get to try saying "I AM your father" again, but a lot less menacingly this time. Not surprisingly, it went over a lot better than the first time. They had worked together ever since.

"So, Han, Leia, and Lando have already infiltrated Jabba's Palace," Luke announced. "Are you ready to help us kill a Hutt?"

Anakin allowed himself a dangerous smile. "I have been waiting all my life for this, Son."

/

Normal Timeline

Med Center

"It's a girl!" the med droid announced to Leia Organa Solo.

Leia heaved out a deep sigh and accepted the tiny infant into her arms. "Good morning, sweet thing. Welcome to the galaxy."

"I love you, little one," Han Solo added, and kissed his new daughter on the head.

Author Note

If the whole "muffin" thing seemed odd, search for "Matt the Radar Tech" on youtube.