A/N: Sorry for the delay guys...been working on the last chapters of this, but Darth Real Life has had me on the run between new babies and graduations and grad school and work and weddings :) so writing time/energy has been hard to come by. This is a brief chapter, but I'll make it up to you by posting a longer one more quickly :)

CANTO V

"And what will bow your shoulders down
will be the vicious and worthless company
with whom you will fall into this abyss."

~ Dante's Paradiso, Canto XVII

It is near the hour of midnight in Imperial City. He is standing on the balcony, waiting for it to happen. Any moment now.

He is not alone.

"Don't do this."

She's been begging for twenty minutes. He has never enjoyed a night more, even the night the Jedi Order came crashing down.

"You can be stronger than this," she blubbers on. He senses no real hope of success in her, but of course she tries anyway. Her vulnerability and stupidity in this respect is well-established by now.

"My dear." He smiles viciously. "I will be very soon."

"Don't. It's not too—"

A dozen lightyears away, two billion voices shriek in terror—

Two billion voices cease.

It is everything he had hoped it would be. It exhilarates as nothing has for decades. Electrifying—energizing—the Dark Side whipsaws like snapped cables in a hurricane and he, he can grasp that whipping conduit and use it. On the tsunami-strength of its power he can even sense Vader lightyears away, riding the raging flood as none but they have the strength and will to do—feels his hostility, his hatred for the master he nonetheless obeys so precisely, and it is good.

Only one thing disappoints: it is over far too quickly. He will have to use his Death Star again, and soon.

At his knees, Padmé Amidala is doubled over, an arm wrapped around her middle as though she cannot breathe for pain. As though the wench needs to breathe at all.

"Do you feel it, my dear?" He is in the mood to gloat. "Even you must appreciate such a sensation as that."

A broken sound is her sole reply.

"Be of good cheer, my lady." He grins broadly to the unsuspecting city beyond. "You shall have some fine new company now. Bail Organa joins you today. A little longer and we shall send the rest of his pitiful rebels after him. Perhaps I shall instruct Lord Vader to press the firing key himself. I think he would enjoy it."

"You have not won," she whispers.

"Tell that to Alderaan." Alderaan. What a fine name to add to his tally. Two billion deaths in eight neat letters. He tucks his hands into his sleeves, weaving his fingers together contentedly.

"He is not yours."

"Yes, and I daresay there is still good in him?"

"There is still good in him."

He laughs, light of heart. "You never fail to—"

"It's time."

A chill pricks his spine, crawling slowly down into limbs, stilling his joy. He has come to rely on her blind robotic mantra over the years—an affirmation of his victory—so this, what does this addition mean, now, after all this time—

But when he yields to temptation and turns to demand an explanation, there's no one to give it.

It is twenty-three hours later that he feels the second exhilarating wave of death—but it is smaller, and something about it seems snakingly wrong.

It is three days later that word of his Death Star's destruction at the hands of a single Rebel starfighter pilot reaches him.

tbc