CANTO VI
''I will instruct thee briefly, why no dread
Hinders my entrance here. Those things alone
Are to be fear'd, whence evil may proceed,
None else, for none are terrible beside.
I am so fram'd by God, thanks to his grace!
That suff'rance of your misery
Touches me not, nor flame of that fierce fire
Assails me.''
~ Dante's Inferno, Canto II
It is two weeks later when he blasts Lord Vader nearly into the next life.
The Force was strong with him, Vader says, as if that is any excuse for the Chosen One, as if one damned pilot matters in the slightest compared to the consuming loss of his Death Star. Was Vader not there when Alderaan's pyre was lit? Did he not feel the power of that moment? Insignificant, that's the word Vader used—Tarkin relayed that little report—but he'd expected Alderaan would knock some sense into his pet ex-Jedi's brain. His Death Star was a supercharger for the Force, like nothing even the mighty Darth Vader can command on his own. Can he not feel that?
Raw power, supercharged to the point that it scorches his own fingertips despite all his control, fine-tuned to torment—after all these years he knows exactly how to exploit every amputated nerve ending, every prosthetic interface, each individual neurofeedback needle in that mask. One way or another, this imbecile is going to feel what the real power of a Death Star was to a master of darkness. He'll feel it if it kills him—
A mighty blast of pure white rocks the throne room. The lightning rebounds—nearly takes hold of him, he barely cuts off the flow of power in time.
When he can see again, what he sees is a form blazing like the very sun between him and the unconscious smoking form of Darth Vader. Eyes flashing a towering, incendiary fury—voice a thunder rattling the fabric of the Force. This is no ghost. For the first time in decades, he remembers—really, viscerally remembers—what fear is like.
HE IS NOT YOURS. THERE IS STILL GOOD IN HIM.
He blinks—and no one remains but him and his apprentice, motionless on the floor. It's a few seconds before he realizes what else is missing from the scene.
The sound of the respirator.
The court whispers for months about how the medics come running, about frantic and complicated resuscitations right there on the throne room floor, about—keep your voice down—how strangely relieved His Majesty looks when they report that Lord Vader is expected to make a full recovery, about how he visits the surgical center every day for weeks afterward.
He can tell that it puzzles Vader quite as much as the courtiers, these conversations hearkening back to the times when the Supreme Chancellor made himself the friend and confidant of Obi-Wan Kenobi's problematic Padawan. Innocent no longer, he suspects the motive behind his master's unwonted camaraderie. Ironically, for once the truth is almost exactly as he portrays it: he regrets having come so close to killing his apprentice. Padmé Amidala and her infantile mantra have reminded him of something familiarity had hidden from him: this man is a marvel, one of a kind. It would have been frivolity to smash such a valuable possession in a fit of rage.
He does not, of course, go so far as to apologize—one who tames rancors must not exhibit weakness—but his solicitous concern is a noteworthy departure from the norm, much more than the attack itself was. The closest his stoic apprentice comes to a complaint is when he says, brusquely, that it was nothing he has not experienced before. Careful questioning uncovers no sign that he knows of her interference. They speak of other matters. Vader is increasingly keen to be back in action; he has a vendetta to pursue against that pitiful little pilot who contrived to outmaneuver him. While this strikes him as an excellent illustration of the old proverb about the krayt dragon declaring war on the sand flea, it's still something to look forward to. Lord Vader's rages always are.
It is five weeks later when Vader departs Coruscant, to commence what he fully expects will be a brief and grisly hunt.
It is two months later when, one afternoon in the middle of a routine council meeting, it occurs to him that Padmé Amidala's ghost never visited her husband's sickbed—her only such failure, to his knowledge, in the last nineteen years. The entertaining prattle and posturing of his advisors fades out for a minute or two as he wonders what could possibly have distracted her from the object of her undying affections.
It is thirteen months later when he learns the answer.
tbc