Disclaimer: It belongs to the mouse.
Chapter Four: A Planet Destroyed
Darth Vader stared at the back of Princess Organa's head as they and two storm troopers processed into the control room of the Death Star. That was a damn stupid name for a military base, Vader mused absently. Death Star. Was that supposed to strike fear into the hearts of the Rebels? Twenty years ago, Vader thought, if he had come across such a tacky name among the enemy's ranks, he probably would have just snorted and made a derisive comment to Obi-Wan.
Vader shook his head very slightly. How long had it been since his thoughts had last turned in that direction?
He resumed staring at the back of the Princess's head.
What a ridiculous hairdo. It looked like something one of Padme's PR agents would have thought up.
Apparently, now that the thoughts of his past life had wormed their way into his head, they would not be banished so quickly.
Maybe it was the Death Star. Its construction had begun long ago, marked near the beginning of Vader's new life as what he now realized was the Emperor's personal attack dog. And now it was finished. Twenty years had gone by in the blink of an eye, and yet unbearably slowly just the same.
The Princess's voice brought him out of his reverie. "Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board."
Vader realized he probably should have felt insulted by that first statement, but he was too amused at the young senator's impertinence to really care. From his interrogation of her, he could tell the senator was a firebrand and an obnoxious twit like her father, but to see her wit being sharpened against Tarkin's ego was quite enjoyable.
Tarkin's permanent scowl grew deeper. "Charming to the last. You don't know how hard I found it signing the order to terminate your life!"
"I'm surprised you had the courage to take the responsibility yourself!" the senator snapped back. It was obvious she was hiding fear with superciliousness.
"Princess Leia, before your execution I would like you to be my guest at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now."
Vader rolled his eyes beneath the mask. The man could never pass up an opportunity to gloat.
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
"Not after we demonstrate the power of this station. In a way, you have determined the choice of the planet that'll be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the Rebel base, I have chosen to test this station's destructive power…on your home planet of Alderaan."
"No, I thought Alderaan had sprouted a moon overnight. Yes, I realize it's a battle station. What I want to know is why it is in Alderaanian space."
"I'm not cleared for that information, Your Highness. It is well within Imperial jurisdiction to oversee military movement without informing local authorities."
Everything is within Imperial jurisdiction, Breha Organa wanted to shout, but her experience as a public figure gave her enough composure to keep that line from popping out her mouth. This must be the battle station they had caught wind of. The planet-destroying one. Breha's heart was in her throat. She was overthinking it. They wouldn't possibly destroy Alderaan. The station would be for large bases on unpopulated planets, only. Such a massacre would be horrific for the public image of the Empire. They could be here for any number of reasons, although in Breha's terrified state she couldn't actually think of a single one.
"Fine," she snapped. "Get me in contact with someone on board the station, someone who can actually sort out this mess."
"I'll try, ma'am. I'll have to put you on hold."
"On hold! Need I remind you that I am the wife of Prince Senator Bail Organa?! Surely a little more effort could be ma—"
The Imperial March was playing on the other end of the line. Breha growled. She didn't think anything could be worse than your regular line of muzak. For some reason, it sounded even worse in the major key it was playing in at the present moment.
She didn't have this amount of time to waste. What was the next step? Planet-wide evacuation? No, if anything was going to happen, it would strike before even a million people could leave the planet's surface, especially accounting for the new gravitational pull on the planet. And it would openly show their—her mistrust of the Empire. Nor could she quickly deploy the meager Alderaanian astronavy—for the same reasons.
She opened another line quickly. The face of her aid had barely popped up when she said, "Hora, get me in contact with the Head of State and the Head of Defense. Now!"
Prince Bail Organa was sitting in his quarters on his personal interstellar liner, the Alderaan One, waiting for a response from Mon Mothma when an urgent call came in.
From his wife's personal address.
"Imim, what's wrong?" The six inch holographic image of his wife looked harried, virtually on the point of panic—which was not his Breha.
"Bail," she said. Then she stopped and simply looked at him. Not as though she didn't know what to say, or as if she was expecting him to acknowledge her first. But as if there was nothing worth saying, not with her mouth, anyways. As though she were communicating simply with her desperate presence.
"Yes?" Bail finally queried uneasily.
"Bail, I—the Death Star is in Alderaanian space. It's powering its weapons system. I can't make contact, not with anyone who counts, anyways."
"What?!" For a moment Bail sat there, gaping, then: "Get out of there, now, Breha, you hear me? Now!"
"No, Bail—"
"Force forsake it, Breha, it's not up for frakking debate!"
"We don't know if they're going to—to destroy us. It's all happened so fast. There still might be something I can do—"
"Then why the hell aren't you doing it?! Why are you calling me?!" Then he stopped. "You know there's nothing you can do," he said finally, in little more than a whisper. "You're calling to say goodbye."
"Bail." Her upper lip quivered violently.
"Get out of there!"
"They'd shoot down my ship before I was even out of orbit."
"Try!"
"If it were you here and I were on my way to Chandrilla, trying to convince you to abandon the people you were born to serve, would you do it, Bail? Could you?"
Bail merely stared at her, unable to comprehend how much his world was changing in less than the space of sixty seconds. Sixty eternal seconds.
Vader felt the princess's small frame stiffen against him. "No!" she cried uncharacteristically. "Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons. You can't possibly…"
Tarkin whirled on her. "You would prefer another target? A military target? Then name the system!"
The princess was silent, and Vader could hear the wheels turning in her mind.
Tarkin finally snapped, "I grow tired of asking this. So it'll be the last time. Where is the Rebel base?"
Again, the princess remained silent, her head tilted in such a way that Vader could tell she was staring out the viewport, staring at the blue-green sphere in a mass of inky black. Suddenly, memories began to flood through Vader's mind, memories that were not his, and he realized he was seeing the princess's childhood. Sunny, serene Alderaan. The palace. Bail's warm eyes staring down at him in an expression that would never be bestowed upon Darth Vader. And the emotions…the fear replaced by momentary content, then abruptly replaced by guilty resignation. When the princess hung her head slightly and whispered, "Dantooine. They're on Dantooine," Vader suddenly realized what those memories had been for. The little viper! Even in her fear for her planet, she had remembered that her back was up against a powerful Force-user. Of course her father would have had her trained. She had opened her mind to the happy memories of her youth, doubtless made unintentionally more perfect than they really were, as is the case with all childhood memories, simply to cover the fact that she was lying through her teeth.
"There," Tarkin's snide voice broke in. "You see, Lord Vader, she can be reasonable." He turned abruptly to Motti. "Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready."
Vader jolted as the princess yelled, "What?!" and lunged forward. Instinctually, Vader reached out to restrain her. She collapsed against him, for once not even struggling.
Tarkin smirked. "You're far too trusting. Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration. But don't worry. We will deal with your Rebel friends soon enough."
"No!" the princess cried helplessly. Vader's brow furrowed beneath his mask. He should have expected something like this. Now, whose idea was this? Tarkin's, or the Emperor's? Vader tried to stomach it. Now, using Alderaan as a bargaining chip he understood. But not following through on the bargain? For a demonstration? Everyone knew Bail was heavily sympathetic to the terrorists, but…Vader felt caught. In a few seconds he was going to watch billions of people die in an instant. And there was absolutely nothing to be done. He wasn't even sure something should be done. Surely, if it was on the Emperor's orders, there must be some good reason…?
And then the wave of emotion from Leia hit him, cementing his suspicions that her previous emotions had simply been an act. Despair. Utter despair. Disbelief. All her childhood memories swirling through her heart in an instant. Her home. Her parents. Everything she had ever known. Force, her parents! This couldn't be! It was a nightmare! It hadn't seemed real, there had been a way out, there must still be a way out!
Then blinding green filled the viewscreen.
A brief burst of static shot through the connection between the Organas. "Breha?" Bail called urgently. Momentarily, the connection was restored, but something was horribly wrong. A look of absolute terror shot through Breha's soft features.
"Breha? Breha, stay with me…Breha, I love you…" Bail said desperately.
"Bail…Bail, I love you…." Breha's image was still very clear, but her voice was garbled. "Bail, it's hot. It's so hot…"
The static came back, and left, and the new vision Bail was confronted with, though it only lasted a few seconds, was horrifying.
Breha's face was barely recognizable. Not only had the room around her practically exploded and left her bleeding profusely, but her face was blackened and peeling. Bail could hardly see her whole figure, but realized with horror that internal organs were exposed, pouring out of her abdomen. Bail screamed and leaped up from his desk. "Breha!"
The static took over, and the connection was lost.
Bail backed up into his chair and toppled over. This couldn't be happening. He couldn't have seen what he just saw. His planet destroyed. Breha…Breha's body…mangled beyond recognition…it was a hallucination…he was going mad.
He leaned over and without any regard for the fact that he was a reigning sovereign on a dignitary ship, vomited helplessly all over the calm blue carpet, as if he could empty himself of all the horror, disbelief and grief that roiled within him.
The pain and the terror rammed into Vader like a Star Destroyer at hyper speed. He closed his eyes briefly behind the mask. In. Out. In. Out. His sensations of the pumping of the iron lung jarred through his brain, providing a welcome distraction.
And then there was no emotion at all.
That was the most sickening part. As a Force user, one was surrounded by so many sentient minds at such constancy that it was easy to let it drop into the background. It was actually the absence of massive amounts of sentient thought that drew one's attention. In one moment, Vader had been surrounded primarily by the military men of the Death Star and, secondarily, the billions of sentient minds on the planet below.
And then those billions of minds had been wiped from existence, like a holorecording flickering off, and Vader was left only with the company of those aboard the Death Star.
When Vader had recovered from the shock of the massacre of the entire Alderaanian population, he began to feel the princess's roiling emotions. Out of context, they would have been mind-numbingly intense, but compared to the obliteration of billions of people, they were barely noticeable.
He recognized them belatedly as being similar to his feelings the day he woke up in a medical facility with burns over the vast majority of his body.
The princess had slumped against him without seemingly realizing it. Vader instinctively put a hand on her shoulder. Force within, was she even twenty yet? Of course, it wasn't like there was a good age at which to watch your planet being blown up.
Tarkin ordered the princess to be returned to her cell, and Vader unthinkingly complied, still lost in thought as he traipsed behind the slight figure of the princess. It struck him that that might have been the most atrocious crime he had ever seen committed in his life, which, he admitted to himself, was saying quite a bit.
Twenty years ago, you would have condemned your Emperor for that kind of behavior, condemned even the fool automaton who would just stand by and watch something like that happen.
Vader rolled his eyes beneath the mask. Too much of your life has passed by to be having these kinds of thoughts, old man.
They finally reached the princess's cell. The door slid open with a hiss, and, wordlessly, the princess stumbled inside. Before the door shut, though, she turned to face Vader, and he saw her face for the first time since he had first come to fetch her from the cells. Then, she had been fiery and ready for anything—she had probably assumed she was going to be tortured some more. But she had suffered a fate even worse than torture, worse than almost anything imaginable, and now she just looked into Vader's mask, her own face devoid of any seeming emotion. Vader recognized that the girl—for that was what she was, really—was still in shock. Then she slowly turned away, and padded to the metal cot on the other side of the cell.
Vader realized this would probably be the last time he would see the senator. He had no obligation nor desire to attend the execution tomorrow. For some reason, the fact that this was the last time he would see her bothered him. Vader shook himself from his reverie and turned away from the now closed door. There was something about that face…
Alright, Vader, the Dark Lord chided himself, you must really be in need of some quality sleep. That is quite enough sentimental nonsense for one day.
Notes: Sorry for the long wait everybody! Lots of college-y stuff to do. Anyways, so I finally got around to Vader! I realize that many won't like his characterization, but since Vader has been characterized differently in thousands of fanfics, I don't really see a way around that. I'm going with the "I screwed up when I was stupid and young and now I'm starting to realize that but don't care enough to do anything about it" characterization, just as a warning. In addition, I hope the scene between Bail and Breha isn't too sappy. I'm not very much on the Extended Universe kind of stuff, so I don't really know too much about how they characterize them in those books, but there you go. Anyways, thanks for sticking with me, and I hope you enjoy! Thanks also to all those who reviewed...and please keep on doing so!