“Good!” the Emperor cried out. In his triumph, he cared nothing for the dark side adept he had sacrificed. “Well done, Lord Skywalker! Your father is dead at your own hand, and you are now my servant. It is exactly as I have predicted. Come and kneel before your Master.”
Luke could not focus his thoughts. He was oddly surprised to find Vader dead at his feet. His lightsaber fell from his fingers, forgotten, striking Vader’s helm once before clattering to the floor. He was aware of an overwhelming urge to go to the Emperor, and do as he asked. He remembered feeling differently, but his anger at the Emperor no longer seemed important. He stepped over Vader’s body, and went to kneel before Palpatine. A vast emptiness had opened up inside him, and much to his pleasure, being near the Emperor filled up that void.
But Palpatine’s attention was no longer on him. The Emperor was walking away, talking to himself. “So will it be when we meet, young Skywalker. You will be mine…soon…soon.”
Luke was confused. What was going on? Hadn’t he knelt as asked? What more did he need to do? What was his Emperor saying? His confusion was in no way diminished when Palpatine left the room altogether, and six red robed Imperial guards came in to kill him.
Palpatine felt much better. The future was still closed to him, but now he felt confident that he knew exactly what Skywalker would do. He tested no more clones. One day, six months after the Emperor’s vision trance in which he had seen his own death (which now seemed like a faded, bad dream to him), a message came from Lord Vader. Sate Pestage delivered it personally, because a curious item accompanied it that was to be delivered directly into the Emperor’s hand. It was a lightsaber.
Pestage reported that the fleet was assembled at Endor, and that the Death Star’s prime weapon was ready. Vader had arrived on the Death Star, and had made the station ready for Palpatine’s arrival. As the Emperor had commanded, Vader had assigned a legion of the Empire’s most elite stormtroopers to guard the bunker on Endor that housed the shield generator. All was in readiness, and Palpatine received the message with satisfaction.
But the lightsaber puzzled him. Vader had said in his message only that it had once belonged to Anakin Skywalker. It was a gift, Vader had said, to place in his Emperor’s personal collection. That was all well and good, but the why of it eluded Palpatine. Finally, he concluded that Vader had had the lightsaber since Cloud City, and that he had decided that this vestige of the man he had once been did not belong to him anymore. He had sent it to Palpatine, as a statement that Anakin was no more, and that the weapon belonged with those of other vanquished Jedi. It pleased him, but he had other, more important matters to be concerned with. Vader was already dead, anyway. He just didn’t know it, yet. Palpatine gave the weapon to Sate Pestage to be stored away, and didn’t give it another thought as he prepared for his journey to Endor.
Darth Vader paced the command bridge of the Executor, staring at the unfinished Death Star. It floated above the green moon of Endor, its vast surface full of gaps. Roughly an entire hemisphere gaped with exposed superstructure that trailed off into space, awaiting completion. One section that was fully finished was the huge circular dish of the prime weapon. Vader knew it was ready even now, and that in the near future, it would bring death to entire worlds. Vader shuddered. Even for him, there were atrocities that went too far. When Alderaan was destroyed, what Vader had felt in the Force had shaken him deeply. So much destruction had unbalanced the Force itself, and threatened the very order of the galaxy that he cherished as an ideal. The Emperor had been pleased; it had made him stronger. Somehow Vader saw, as Palpatine did not, that the Force was a single entity with two aspects. Perhaps it was because he had belonged to both sides in his lifetime. Greatly weakening one side of the Force must, in the end, weaken the whole thing. The Emperor’s audacity in constructing a second Death Star was ultimately self-defeating, but Vader could not allow it to be used.
He did not dare any overt sabotage; he could not defy his Emperor to that extent. The answer had come to him in the form of the Emperor’s orders that the shield generator was to be guarded by the group of elite stormtroopers from which the Imperial guards were chosen. Vader used the Force to cloud the minds of several officers, and arranged for a legion of new recruits to be deployed on Endor instead. They didn’t even remember what they had done afterwards. It was very easy, but also risky. He had to hope it wouldn’t be discovered by Palpatine, and he knew that the ultimate result of his action depended on the resources of the Rebels. But it was the most he could do. He already knew the Emperor’s trust in him was failing. Why else had Palpatine allowed Prince Xizor to have temporary power on Coruscant? The ordeal of defeating the crime lord of Black Sun was meant to test Vader’s loyalty under duress. Vader had passed that test, but a far greater one awaited him now. And he was disloyal, in his heart. The only question was, how much of that disloyalty did his Master perceive?