Interlude I: The Worm Turns
Emperor Palpatine exercised the self-control he had cultivated through decades of public service. The Emperor of the galaxy should be above such impatient fidgeting as tapping his fingers. Lord Vader would certainly experience his displeasure, nevertheless, when he finally deigned to answer this comm. Expecting his apprentice's thrilling death mask to appear above the projection plate, he was unpleasantly startled by the reappearance of Fifth Fleet's hapless admiral. "Where is Lord Vader, Admiral?"
The officer's evident fear left the Emperor unmoved.
"Your Imperial Majesty, I regret that Lord Vader does not appear to be aboard."
"'Does not appear to be aboard?'" The scathing tone could have flayed a colo claw fish. "And why did you not inform me of that fact when I first commanded he speak with me?"
"Y-Y-Your pardon, Your Majesty. I was unaware Lord Vader was not aboard."
"Explain to me, Admiral, how the commander of the fleet could be unaware that his direct superior had departed the ship on which they both serve? Surely there are protocols observed when the Supreme Commander departs the flagship. Are you so incompetent you simply did not notice?"
"Y-Y-Yes, Your Majesty—I m-m-m-mean, no, Your Majesty—that is to say—"
"Enough." Palpatine cut him off with a sharp gesture. "You add incoherence to your other offenses. Why did you not know Lord Vader had departed?"
"He told no one, Your Majesty. His quarters are undisturbed, so far as the crew can tell. The only thing out of the ordinary is that his shuttle is not in its hangar. The last flight logged was Lord Vader's return seven days ago. No subsequent launches were recorded by launch control, and no flight plans were filed. We cannot find any signs of foul play, either."
"Foul play?" Palpatine sneered at the idea of Vader being taken unaware by some attacker. Except himself, of course. But his apprentice always expected foul play from his master.
"It was only one possibility, Your Majesty. But we felt we had to consider every—"
"Yes, yes." An impatient wave of the Emperor's hand cut off the blathering. "You are immediately relieved of your post and retired, Admiral. Command of Fifth Fleet will be assumed by Admiral Losstar." Palpatine cut off the connection.
He paced his private holocomm chamber. What was Vader up to? He had been known on occasion to leave the flagship to attend to his own projects. Never before, however, had he slipped away with no one the wiser. This must be kept quiet. Since the crew of the Exactor knew Vader had disappeared, it would be necessary to create some private mission he was executing for the Emperor. Perhaps a missed communiqué could explain why the Emperor had been unaware of his departure. He clenched his teeth. Such a fabrication should satisfy those who were aware of the situation, but it would damage slightly his carefully cultivated image of perfect control of the Empire. It was imperative that Vader be found and brought to heel immediately. Time to call in the experts.
Passing his chief of staff's desk on his way back to his office, he said, "Sornhaw, get me Colonel Yularen."
Colonel Yularen, white-haired head of the Naval Intelligence Agency and one of the Emperor's most trusted aides, bowed before the Emperor's desk in his lavish private office. "Your Imperial Majesty, I regret to inform you that the NIA and the ISB have both found no further trace of Lord Vader. As you directed, agents have double- and triple-checked all locations where he might be hiding."
"And the Naberries of Naboo? You have questioned them?"
"Yes, Majesty. They were quite puzzled and insisted they had had no contact with him, other than Senator Naberrie's official duties. Examination of her personal and senatorial files seems to bear that out."
"What of Tatooine?"
"The agents who visited the planet reported no activity by anyone matching Lord Vader's description. The local situation is, of course, complicated by the criminal activity sanctioned by the Hutts, but it does seem clear that he is not there. The parallel inquiries for the name Skywalker also turned up nothing of interest." Yularen's piercing blue eyes gave no flicker to betray his memory of a Jedi knight of that name. "There were a few people who remembered a woman called Skywalker. She lived in the city of Mos Espa and later married a farmer from the wastelands. But she has been dead for over twenty years. There were also rumors that someone of that name won some local race about thirty years ago. But the rumors were contradictory, and my agents reported that some seemed exaggerated."
"Exaggerated?"
"A few of the people questioned indicated that the Skywalker who won the race had been a child at the time. Obviously, that is ridiculous. The tales have become corrupted over time—if anyone named Skywalker even did race. It's supposed to be impossible for humans. In any case, nothing relevant today."
Palpatine absorbed this news in silence. The ancient reports of Skywalker held as much value as the other information the investigation had turned up. It had been nearly six months since Lord Vader vanished without a trace. The known facts were that seven days before his disappearance was discovered, he had liquidated all his accounts and boarded his shuttle, bound for Bannistar where his flagship was refueling and re-supplying. He arrived on schedule and resumed his duties. Three days later, he attended a command meeting in the morning, followed by two hours of paperwork. No further activity had been registered until his shuttle launched surreptitiously while the final supply freighter decoupled from the freight hangar bay. The launch control computer had been programmed to ignore the shuttle, which had sheltered in the mass shadow of the freighter as the Exactor jumped to hyperspace. The shuttle's transponder had been identified in the Bannistar fleet traffic control system and its hyperspace vector tracked, but no further trace of it had been found.
The Imperial Security Bureau and the Naval Intelligence Agency had both combed through the Exactor's logs for any further clues without success. Vader's shuttle transponder code was flagged in all planetary traffic control systems, military and civilian alike. His codes were deactivated and monitored. Any attempt on his part to access Imperial systems would trip a notification at both the ISB and the NIA. Under the guise of annual performance reviews and loyalty checks, the communications of every admiral, grand admiral, and moff had been examined for ties to Lord Vader and evidence of a conspiracy.
Despite all the manpower and resources expended, not one clue had turned up to indicate where Lord Vader had gone. Darth Sidious was certain the man was still alive, though it was only the lack of backlash in the Force, such as would attend the death of a powerful Sith Lord, that gave him reason to believe it to be true. Even meditation had given him no hint of Vader's whereabouts. The man had vanished in the Force as thoroughly as he had vanished from the galaxy.
"Citizens of the great Galactic Empire, I rejoice as we celebrate together another anniversary of that day which saw the corrupt, ineffective Republic transformed by the will of the people and the senate into our peaceful and secure Empire." Palpatine delivered his speech from the dais in his throne room. He usually made this address on the plaza before the Imperial Palace as the climax of a military parade, but he refused to make himself so accessible to the still-missing Darth Vader. The longer his apprentice's absence continued, the more convinced he was that Vader was plotting against him.
"I renew my pledge to you to lead this Empire from strength to strength. New military initiatives continue to secure our borders under the command of the navy's Acting Supreme Commander, Admiral Losstar." He desperately wanted to hint at the Death Star, but the blasted production delays continued. Next Empire Day. His engineers assured him that the superlaser would be ready for testing within the year and that the final touches in construction were nearing completion. Once the last wedges of the focusing disc were installed and properly tuned, the station would be operational.
Now for the gambit he hoped would lure his apprentice from whatever dank hole he was crouching in. "It is with a heavy heart, however, that I must darken this glorious day with news that reached me only yesterday. It is now confirmed that Lord Darth Vader, the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Navy, went missing while on a classified mission. It has been six months since his disappearance without a trace, and in accordance with Imperial law, he is presumed killed in action. Lord Vader was an integral part of the establishment of the Empire and the defeat of the traitorous Jedi. He served faithfully as commander of the military. And he was a personal friend. His loss saddens us all. Nevertheless, he would wish us not to grieve over his death but to carry on the great work of bringing order and peace to the galaxy, the work to which he dedicated his life. May his memory be ever blessed. Admiral Losstar's position as Supreme Commander of the Imperial Navy and his promotion to Grand Admiral are hereby confirmed. We believe that he will command the navy with the same dedication and discipline that Lord Vader did. This is the memorial Lord Vader would truly want." The accolades nearly choked him, but he had spent a lifetime speaking honeyed words to obtain his goals. If a little undeserved praise would solidify his power and draw out his quarry simultaneously—well, then, so be it.
"In spite of this grave news, I assure you that this Empire is stronger today than ever before. We rededicate ourselves to its prosperity. Our children will know benefits such as the galaxy has never seen before. Long live the Empire!"
Usually at this point, the crowd gave a great roar of acclaim. No doubt they were doing so as his speech was broadcast through giant projectors, but he found the lack of response rather anticlimactic. It irked him that Vader's disappearance spoiled even this glorious moment. He anticipated this speech all year and now he had had to spend half of it on Vader. Irritated, he brushed aside Sornhaw's attempt to waylay him and retreated to his private quarters.
On the other side of the galaxy, Vader quietly departed the exclusive medical center where he had spent the past six months. The center's reputation rested on its complete discretion in regard to its patients. Assured that the Emperor desired he receive full treatment for his injuries away from the public eye in order to facilitate several projects vital to the security of the Empire, the doctors had promised that no one would learn of his stay. Running the preflight checks of the small star yacht Freedom, he noticed the date. How strange, yet fitting. It was the seventeenth Empire Day. And the last one he planned ever to observe.