A/N: Hey look at me posting updates in what could almost be mistaken for a reasonable turnaround time :) I believe we will have three more chapters to go after this. They are much more interconnected, so I don't plan to update the fic until they are all post-ready. Afraid you probably have another wait on your hands, but you should get the rest of story quickly when it comes!
CANTO X
"…Ye seem to view beforehand that which time
Leads with him, of the present uninformed."
"We view, as one who hath an evil sight,"
He answer'd, "plainly, objects far remote;
So much of his large splendor yet imparts
The Almighty Ruler: but when they approach,
Or actually exist, our intellect
Then wholly fails…
Our knowledge in that instant shall expire,
When on futurity the portals close."
- Dante's Inferno, Canto X
Even incomplete, his new Death Star is splendid.
He makes a point of enjoying the view, first commanding his shuttle to complete a leisurely fly-by during approach — another hour or so of unscheduled waiting for the welcoming party aboard the station, but they exist to await his pleasure — and then taking up his throne on the overbridge, surveying the open framework of the western hemisphere as construction teams swarm over it, spinning the durasteel web across empty space. Vader he dispatches like a misbehaving child to his little command ship, there to contemplate his proper place in relation to his master and to this new Death Star. He cannot be reminded too many times. Though he has yet to express a single objection to this second station — four years haven't worn the edge off his last lesson on that subject — he no doubt has twice as many as before. After all, it is twice the size of its predecessor, and being constructed in a quarter of the time.
Officially, at least.
He is hardly blind to the thick glosses and kilometer-wide elisions in Jerjerrod's reports, which are almost as elaborately engineered as the station itself. They cannot be otherwise. The original Death Star took decades to complete. Even an exact replica of that station should have been at least ten years in provisioning and construction, let alone this enormous upscaling. His spies go on and on about the problems — faulty environmental systems on this deck, structural design errors on that, delays in the supply chain, surface sectors declared complete without their point defense artillery. As Jerjerrod just lately was overhead complaining to Vader, his Emperor is asking the impossible. None of which remotely concerns him.
What matters is whether his Death Star can kill. And thanks to four years of relentless threats, his pet toy has cut its teeth in less than half the originally allotted time. Only last week the superlaser completed its final rounds of testing, including successful live fire.
The only difficulty is, it must have prey.
He must blood his new Death Star with something truly special, a deed of destruction worthy to be remembered and savored for all the eternity he means to live; but he cannot yet replicate the full glory of Alderaan's death. Even that miserable forest moon is safe for the moment. The superstructure must be completed and sealed before the station can be untethered from its protective shield and loosed upon the galaxy. Even if Jerjerrod could maintain the current pace of construction indefinitely — which would require a bona fide miracle, the supply chains have had every gram wrung out of them already to reach this point, and one can only cheat the laws of production for so long — that would still be over a year away.
So he has thought of an alternative. Since the Death Star cannot go to its victim, the victim shall come to the Death Star. A simple leak of intelligence to the Rebellion, carefully staged, convincingly expensive to come by — and now their entire fleet is amassing at Sullust, lining up for the slaughter. The tip of their flimsy spear has already arrived; he received confirmation just an hour ago that a shuttle broadcasting the leaked clearance code has landed on the moon. They'll come by the scores, by the hundreds. If the Fleet now concealed on the far side of Endor plays its part correctly, the massacre can be made to last for hours. It's still no Alderaan; but what it lacks in majesty, it should make up in prolonged malice. How Padmé Amidala will weep. He smiles at night to think of it, especially as his meditations grow clearer and clearer. He gazes out the great viewport, and in his mind's eye he can already see the sparkle and crush of the feeding frenzy that will soon take place.
Nearer at hand, he sees something more enticing still: a slight strong form clad in black, lit behind and within by the rage of battle. The vision has surged in power these past few days, until he sees the moment to come with a clarity that rarely comes even to a master of his skill. He can see the dilation of the boy's eyes, the slight flaring of his nostrils, the hands clenching — one bare skin, the other creased in leather. He can feel the despair and anger and deep-cut pain snarling and charging the Force throughout the chamber; he knows just the moment when it will snap. He can hear the spit and snarl of champing blades. He can see the result: Vader fallen and maimed once more, undone by the weakness he has permitted to fester; the boy, panting and giddy with his first true sip of power, blade at the throat of his enemy. He has seen everything: it is inevitable.
Soon the Rebellion will be crushed, he told Vader, and young Skywalker will be one of us.
There is of course no such thing as us. The Galactic Emperor, Master of the Sith, admits no equals, only possessions of varying value. If young Skywalker can be brought to heel in one piece, or at least more intact than his sire — a bar so low he could lose all four limbs and still roll over it — Vader will barely be worth the voltage to run his respirator. Still, he must not count his nuna chicks before they hatch. Though he has foreseen the boy will yield to temptation, that is not a perfect guarantee of submission. Vader is at least pliant, a slave born and bred; common sense dictates that he keep the old machine in good working order and sufficiently oiled until he determines whether Amidala's freeborn brat can be broken to harness.
If not…his lips stretch like tissue over his teeth. He hasn't troubled to kill a Jedi himself in years, but it is the sort of rustic delight one returns to from time to time, like cooking one's own food for the fun of it. Young Skywalker promises delicious sport: not skilled enough to save himself, but strong enough in the Force that his suffering will be a feast to the senses, and strong enough in body that the feast can be made to last. He intends to savor every exquisite mouthful…though it shall still be a faster death than the boy has earned. Anyone else's spawn would be taking up prolonged residence in certain private accommodations on Coruscant, there to amuse him as long as soul can be stapled to body—which, with recourse to elite medical services and the Dark Side, can be a marvelously long time indeed. But if he must deprive Vader of his favorite bone, he must not dangle it in sight afterwards. That would only invite attack.
Besides, the Skywalker spirit is more whiskey than wine, best drunk fast and flaming. If he wants something to really linger over, to roll slowly on the tongue, there is always the Amidala vintage.
Something chimes ever-so-faintly at his elbow, disrupting the sweet miasma of the daydream. The tone identifies it as the captain of the current guard shift. Idly he presses the com stud. "Speak."
"Your Majesty." The captain sounds strained, which only ever means one thing. He is already stretching his thoughts to confirm this as the captain continues, "Lord Vader is requesting an audience."
Unseen and alone, he can indulge a snarl. Go to the command ship and await my orders does not leave room for interpretation, and even if it did, his guards are under orders to admit no one. Much as Vader enjoys bullying the guard corps, he ought to know better than to test the boundaries so far.
But since he doesn't, a lesson is obviously in order. "Admit him, Captain."
He keeps Lord Vader waiting on one knee and staring at the back of the throne for a solid five minutes. It would be longer, but he senses something from his apprentice he does not quite like, something with a whiff of the smug about it. Far from the wary attitude he ought to have when in the middle of blatant disobedience, Vader seems to think he has scored a point, somehow.
Such brazen disrespect begs for a sound beating, but the confrontation with young Skywalker approaches apace and he wants Vader in fine fettle for it. A reprimand will have to do. He takes care to make it as condescending as possible, back still turned, speaking to the unruly slave boy Vader has never truly ceased to be. "I told you to remain on the command ship."
"A small Rebel force has penetrated the shield and landed on Endor."
Was that all? Did Vader think he had not planned for that precise event? He glides round, ready to enjoy the chagrin. "Yes, I know."
"My son is with them."
The moment turns crystal and cold, like a first freeze kissing the rim of a pond to ice. For an instant the obsidian mirror of Vader's armor becomes a dim window to a past and a face that were ruined long ago. He can hear the just-short-of-defiant tone that would have shaded the words, can see the sly lift of the brow that would have gone with it.
"Are you sure?"
He should have found a better reply; but his visions have been so clear of late that any deviation takes him aback. The notion that young Skywalker could have crept in beneath his very nose is particularly unsettling…though not as unnerving as the thought that, for however brief a time, there was something in Lord Vader's mind he didn't know. Would still not know, had Vader not chosen to tell him. It suggests unsavory possibilities.
"I have felt him, my master."
"Strange," he says slowly, "that I have not."
While shows of defiance are hardly unprecedented from his fractious apprentice, this one puzzles him. If Vader truly intended rebellion, he would not have come at all; he would have held his tongue, invented some pretext for going down to the moon, smuggled his runt away to one of his fortresses, and gotten down to business planning a coup. Instead he has come and announced young Skywalker's arrival of his own volition, breaking two direct orders to do it. A testament, perhaps, to the intensity with which he has had obedience flogged into him over the years, but it also seems almost as though…yes, as though he's bragging — not of his own prowess this time, but of the boy. As though Vader delights in the brat's growing skill for its own sake, rather than for any benefit he hopes to derive from it.
He leans threateningly forward. "I wonder if your feelings in this matter are clear, Lord Vader."
Ambition is one thing, but he will not put up with any taint of sentiment. He will not have this contest polluted by anything that smacks of softness, of yielding. All that matters in this universe is power and those with the will to seize it. Let Amidala and her ilk dither and whimper about love; turning on her was Vader's finest, purest hour.
Vader draws himself up. Around him the Force blazes into black fire, like the exhale of a krayt dragon bellowing a challenge, displaying its fangs. He too disdains to run for anything short of first place. "They are clear, my master."
Good enough. "Then you must go to the Sanctuary Moon and wait for him."
Vader twitches at that. "He will come to me?"
Even better. He indulges an open smile; matters have righted themselves. The vision holds true, and belongs solely to him. Vader has been vouchsafed no insight of true significance. "I have foreseen it." He gives a sententious nod, and deigns to unveil a little more, as if in royal thanks for the information Vader has already brought him. "His compassion for you will be his undoing. He will come to you…and then you will bring him before me."
It is foreseen, of course, because he has planned it that way. Fishing for men is never complicated. One lure serves for all: give them what they want. Nor is it any secret what an orphan wants.
Lord Vader is not being sent to Endor to haul in the catch. He is the bait.
Vader's reply is automatic. "As you wish."
Love, young Skywalker will call it — but when love goes unrewarded? When love is rejected, despite great sacrifice? His lips peel back from his teeth at the recollection of Amidala's miserable end, attacked and discarded by one who had been ready the previous instant to kill for her. If young Skywalker does not yet understand that love is no more than a pretty gloss on hatred, he'll quickly learn.
And then…then he can be given what he really wants.
He watches Lord Vader stride away, the smile playing soft and coy on his teeth. Fishing never does end well for the bait.
tbc