29 The Epic: CORUSCANT

Author's note: For the last 2 previous chapters, FanFiction hadn't sent out emails to the followers letting them know of new chapters- check if you missed chapters 27 and 28.

The swirling blue, hypnotic calm. Hyperspace would make her feel as though time was suspended. Now she actually had a moment to think. In the coming hours Eva would repeatedly try to contact Vader to no avail. Then Aloo and the other Courtiers. Greejatus, Bilsta-Vanee were the same. (Piett and Jerjerrod too, but what did she expect?) Locked alone in the medical bay with the surgical droids and the scrap of being, she'd catch herself wondering how Palpatine regarded her now? It seemed a bit of old Sheev was still attached to that carcass, more presence than flesh.

Eva pulled out a keyboard to access the onboard computer. For the enormity of what she was attempting, putting a significant Coruscant Imperial installation on lockdown, the system required an additional means of identification. Eva glanced back to Palpatine and noticed that the hand she needed, was the one with all the fingers. "Well isn't' this my lucky day."

The palm scanner was built into the consol. Eva glanced around, wondering if anymore were in the medical bay. Then she looked over the console again, checking if the scanner could be detached and still operate.

Time consuming.

The former Emperor rested in a web of tubes and wires. The bay where Palpatine's body lay was also built in. And if she tried to unhook Palpatine from the equipment, even for a few minutes?

Her eyes fell onto his lightsaber lying beyond her dinner tray on a table in front of her, the gold and silver hilt clad in gracious curves the Naboo favored. The artful appearance belied the sinister purpose. She had gently removed the strap that held it to the Emperor's arm and put it on her own arm for future use. Ironically, the weapon was in perfect condition with no apparent damage from the fall.

"Too bad you didn't fare as well."

Eva gingerly picked up the lightsaber and switched it on, momentarily mesmerized by its crimson, bad-boy glow. How many lives has this one cut down? The hum should have been stomach sinking but it was oddly soothing, as was the warmth.

In Eva's grip, it was merely a dangerous weapon. But a lightsaber in its creator's hands was alive - their strength, their skill, their very will made manifest. And a lightsaber in the hand of Palpatine, would have been the most formidable of all. Now it was her priceless relic. There was so little she had left.

Standing over him, she studied his unfocused eyes and tried to move herself within their alignment to see if she registered. Others might have thought it madness. But her caution, her embrace of all possibilities, was hard learned. "Forgive me, your Highness."

Level 1A1 access. Nothing but the best. Eva upgraded her classification, monitored the crew's communications, and sent directives ahead to the medical facility on Coruscant. To have the tower practically to herself, with only the guards and a skeleton crew, would not appear suspicious after all. All Imperial facilities on Coruscant were being placed on some form of emergency alert since the destruction of the Death Star.

Eva ignored the hundreds of messages being sent to the Emperor. But one came though without being answered, and the disconcerting cadence of the Sith language briefly filled the bay before she shut it down.

She glanced over to Palpatine, who looked no different (except the missing hand).

Watching.

Waiting.

Then she rose to find a set of Imperial armor her size.

One of the tallest buildings on Coruscant, the medical tower was an imposing spire that dominated its particular stretch of Galactic City. Citizens knew it as one of the most prestigious medical treatment centers in the galaxy. They might have questioned why it was so heavily fortified. Its architecture included VLD2261 laser cannons and the interior was lined with ultradense walls of neuranium shielding to conceal any radiation leak from the building's reactor (and had Eva known she was in the proximity of another reactor, she might have thought twice). Surrounding this shielding was an exterior shell of durasteel armored with a lanthanide and duralium alloy.

Eva was oblivious that the facility was also used for training Dark Jedi. Or that it contained Korriban lightsaber crystals, Sith scrolls, powerful Sith artifacts, the bio-details of hundreds of generations of Sith, and a dark force reservoir…

What a wholly miserable day it had turned out to be, and it had begun with such promise… for the Imperials at least. With a pair of Royal Guards at her back, Eva gave the top two floors adjacent to the landing pads a once over, then ensconced herself in the somber, grey primary lab with a new cadre of medical droids (the living barred though lack of trust). After much vacillation, she seated herself before a screen to make the call.

Grand Vizier Sate Pestage, who literally sat on the Coruscant throne while the Emperor was away at the Death Star, was the one person she knew would answer. The Emperor had seemed to trust him explicitly, yet she found herself reluctant to talk. Of course he stood to gain if the Emperor was no more. But officially, he was the one she should contact. "Are you coming here to take over… this? He has… something like an unnatural consciousness."

This perked Pestage's attention. "Hardly possible, wouldn't you think?" Pestage had never given her the due regard of complete sentences.

There was a loud cracking outside that made her jump. Pestage tilted his head slightly to listen as well, as he actually wasn't that far away. "Do you hear that? They're celebrating with fireworks. These same deplorables that were cheering our Emperor at the opera. The Alliance to Restore the Republic has claimed responsibility for the destruction of the Death Star. But they added that it was Lord Vader…Anakin Skywalker they are calling him, who took our Emperor's life. Is that how it happened? Did you see?"

"I thought Luke…" Eva sat numb, unwilling to continue.

"The remains, you said there wasn't much left…" He seemed to look over her shoulder, past her hoard of weapons, at what was visible in the background. "On life support? Was that your idea?"

Eva simply stared him, her eyes shot from the lack of sleep, worn beyond her years and deflated. "The medical droids initiated that," she finally told him.

"And no living being knows Palpatine was aboard that medical transport, that he was brought here?

Eva nodded.

Pestage sat back. "Good instincts… there. But why did you bring him to Coruscant? The 'Emperor Palpatine Surgical Reconstruction Center?' It's the first place they'll l-"

Transmission ended.

In the lab, there was one object absorbing her attention above all others; metal pauldrons obviously intended for Vader.

What happened in that Throne Room?

On this very floor, Vader's life support system underwent regular diagnostics. It's where he first donned the armor to begin with. Where is he? She grazed the cold steel, instantly marking it with fingerprints, and she wondered if it would ever rest on Vader's shoulders. "Do you have more? Show me everything you have for Lord Vader."

The diagnostic droid complied. There actually wasn't much available - enough for one complete suit, with some redundancies. There were more black boots and gloves than anything else, as they wore out first. Eva found what she hoped. Something worn - a pair of gloves retuned for a minor repair rather than discarded. She held them up to her cheek and closed her eyes, remembering the time his hand once rested there.

If Vader was alive, this was the one place he'd come. If he had been hurt, he needed rebuilding.

Palpatine had quashed her will to act out her Vader crush, when in the closet of his 'glass house' he had whispered to her, "I explained what happened between them… he and Padmė."

Hard to fantom. Vader doing that to himself over a woman

…And his own inclinations.

Eva had come to understand, quite profoundly, that Palpatine rarely lied. One could afford to be honest, if they were so powerful they had molded reality to their will.

"If just any girl would do," Palpatine continued. "…then the pain of his immolation, his disfigurement, his fall, …his very existence as he is now, would be pointless and in vain, would it not? You would undermine what defines him. My dear… stop torturing him."

It was why she came here. Back to Coruscant.

She would wait for Vader. As look as it took.

Until the stars grew cold...

She had cried and cried (inside)... because Palpatine was right.

But she had only wanted to care for Anakin…

"Take care of me." Palpatine had asked her.

Observing her fixation, the diagnostic droid finally chimed in, "You may take more than the gloves if you wish. Patient 1 is deceased, I am informed."

Eva moved to the one room of the two top floors that had a window. In her first inspection, she had been hesitant to linger in the vast chamber with lofty shadows the glow of the lightsaber would not dispel (and who the hell knew where the light controls were?) It had formally been another Throne Room in the earliest days of the Empire, while the Jedi Temple was being repurposed to Palpatine's decree.

Now, not caring, Eva sat alone on the floor in the dark. Beyond the large round window, dazzling fireworks continued to light up the evening. The sky traffic was more dense than ever. The buildings were still illuminated brightly as no one was sleeping.

Finally, it mattered no more and she no longer held back her tears. Helplessly she curled up into a sobbing heap on the floor. She let a long wail though none near could have known it was for Vader, as surely he was gone.

But there was another disturbance, like the crackling but within. The center was being breached.

She'd caught sight of their red eyes moving down the darkened halls as she sprinted back to the lab. Imperial Sentinels - oversized goons like those from the dark place. The outnumbered Royal Guard slowed them but had nearly succumbed. Eva fired off shots behind her in a full on flee, and they returned the favor. Her Imperial armor was doing its job.

The lab door was locked but they were burning through it. The air was poisoned by the smoke and fumes. Eva moved behind cover with her pile of weapons and swallowed hard.

But she was only one, and they too had armor. Advancing through the smoldering gash, they had to lean far down as the shield door had been sized for humans. They stepped over their fallen breadthen without notice to get at her. Eva had only lasted as long, because at that point they seemed hesitant to fire back, even to save themselves. But the glowing arcs of vibro-axes swirled through the dim space.

The pain was unfathomable. Eva wailed in shock and tried to remain focused, but she had to glance down where her blaster and her hand used to be. The Sentinels all seemed to move a step closer, vibro-axes humming and glowing red eyes. Eva raised her left hand, in which she grasped an exceeding rare object -the Emperor's own crimson lightsaber. This was the absolute worst of days.

"Stand down."

There were others - normal size, hooded figures with barely visible faces. They were filing in, infusing the room with their darkness. Silent, then unmoving.

One of the Sentinels reached over and lowered the blaster of another. They didn't want to risk (further) damaging the Emperor, she realized. So Eva eased closer to him.

Exegol. The word itself hissed, like Sith. Eva looked over them all. Which one had spoken that? But they were looking at the 'essence' of Palpatine (she had moved on from 'scrap'). Then sounded the soft exhale of other words she couldn't understand, nor could she tell from which direction they came.

But the intruders made no motion towards her. If fact their attack seem to stall and their concentration had shifted towards the Emperor's corpse. So intently so, she had to shoot a glance in that direction as well. Nothing was amiss. They were looking at him, then back to her, as though something intangible passed between.

Something hit her from behind…

Like a fog. Sliding in and out of consciousness. The dark, no… there was some light. Blue light. Red light. She was still in the lab. How long had it been? Thirty seconds? Thirty hours? The dark shifted shape and she froze. No…she wasn't alone. All of them were still there. The red light was the saber, active with the hilt lying on the floor near her. She tried to grasp it and her stomach churned when the nub of her wrist fell into view. Again, with the left hand. Then, she pushed herself back against the wall and propped the weapon out before her like a pike. The red glow blotted out and worsened her ability to discern the figures. But one dark outline, of normal height, approached and leaned in. As he ease near, the face was clearly revealed in the lightsaber's scarlet radiance, an expression of cold and lifelessness. A young Palpatine.

His hand enclosed around the burning tip of the saber. It crackled in response, rippling under his palm. She froze on an inhale, scantly believing anything before her. His eyes did not leave hers – an infinite blackness in their depths. Empty of empathy and without recognition. And then, he pulled the weapon to him and away from her.

With a flick of the wrist, Palpatine flipped the hilt into his palm. Then slowly he brought the red hot tip back to her, right up into her face. Intoxicated by the fear rolling off of her, the slightest recognition eased back into his eyes. Then he pulled the blade aside. They were speaking to him in Sith. He tilted his head to crack his neck then he abruptly answered in frustration.

With his free hand Palpatine reached out to cradle her chin, forcing her to look back into his eyes. Then he slipped his fingers down her arm, stretching it out…

She was transfixed to the handsome presence of the man that appeared her own age - slicked back wet hair, half-dressed - wicked to the bone.

Again the others spoke, warning him.

…The softness of his flesh, his warm hand covering her wrist – forcing it firmly to the floor. His lips grazing hers, muffling her scream. While he slowly pressed the saber through…painfully as possible. Savor it…

Dizzily the space abruptly twisted and fell back, the wind knocked from her lungs.

She was awake again, with clarity bursting from the adrenaline coursing through her.

The medical droid was by her side, reviving her. He registered her consciousness and moved his attention back to caulderizing her wrist with more careful technique than suffered through the burn of a vibro-ax.

The Sentinels, the hooded figures…were gone. There was silence, but for the soft hum of equipment. She glanced to the space where the scrap of Palpatine had rested. It was empty —disconnected tubes. In the dim she exchanged stares with the white lights that made up the eyes of another medical droid. He stood quietly, waiting for his next assignment.

"Uh-oh…."

Even with the minimal staff stationed at the medical center; it was a never ending trail of witnesses. And she was part of it.

Cover your tracks. If there was one thing she'd learned the past day it was he who hesitates…

Eva leapt for her helmet. And in her rush down the corridor to the tubolift, she caught the sight of just one of the detonators from the corner of her eye.

Her will to live, lost to her for years, came rushing back…

The explosion blotted out the sound of fireworks, put their brilliance to shame. Metal and debris, and the dust came raining down to the street below. For a second time in as many days she was in a panic, fleeing the possibility of being quashed by massive wreckage. The PCFRS was no more. In a sobering moment, she sheltered in a niche at the base of an nearby building. On her own, with nothing to her name. No, wait… she did have a very fine apartment suite a few blocks away.

Alone. So alone. The longest, worst day ended in Aloo's darkened quiet quarters. She lie on his soft bed. The glistening night lighting from Galactic City made a brilliant overlook, a perk of privileged standing. Eva didn't feel safe in her own rooms.

The Emperor's codes granted her all access through the Imperial palace, except ironically, the Emperor's own quarters since there were no door controls on the exterior. She had passed through the halls unrecognized with her helmet on. Three days with no rest. Not even the wherewithal to figure out a setting on a starship's hyperdrive to flee somewhere else. Just sleep…