Dangor and Pestage rose and filed from the room, leaving the datapad behind. Palpatine gestured for Rollo Mon to remain. When they were alone, Palpatine leaned close to the diminutive Constable of Homunculi, whom he had trusted with his life many times in the past, and whispered to him. “There are a few other things to add to the clone’s memories, that I must tell you of…”
Assembling the fleet, however secretively, was not fitting work for the Dark Lord of the Sith. It was properly delegated to Admiral Piett, and that was exactly what an irritated Lord Vader had done. Now he was alone in his meditation chamber, its black hemispheres fitted together like the shells of a Calamarian Deep Bivalve. With the chamber sealed, and the atmospheric pressure lowered, Vader could breath even without his mask. He liked to have it off from time to time, to be free of its confines.
The mask was held by a robot arm above his head, which was a pasty white from decades of being hidden. A long burn scar ran down the back of his skull, the souvenir of his violent encounter with Kenobi before the mask was created. There were no mirrors in the chamber.
Vader was absorbed in studying his old lightsaber. It felt very strange to hold it again after so long. He guessed Kenobi had taken it, then saved it, and given it to Luke. But why? It was an age-old Jedi custom to have an aspiring Jedi construct his or her own lightsaber. Why had Luke not done so? Now it was back in his gloved hands. What a strange road it had traveled.
He caressed the weapon, remembering how he had constructed it. Its power cell and hand grip were one unit, which was surmounted by an activation lever. Higher up the weapon were its controls, blade length and blade intensity adjustments. The emitter matrix was half shielded by a graceful arc of metal that housed the internal access lever. Vader’s hands paused there. Something was different—the lever was raised higher than he remembered it. Had it been bent, or was something underneath preventing its proper closure? With a gentle twist, he used the lever to disengage the tiny circular access plate and peered within. He saw it immediately. A tiny recording chip was affixed to the rear of the emitter matrix.
Vader was mystified. He removed a delicate instrument from a nearby stand and used it to extract the magnetized chip. He rotated his seat to face his viewscreen and placed the chip in a reader. It was an old chip, of outdated design, but the reader should still be able to handle it. He waited. Long moments later, the screen flickered to life, and Vader found himself looking into the face of Obi-Wan Kenobi, some twenty years younger than the old man he had killed on the Death Star. That was in itself a surprise, but little could compare to the shock he felt when the image spoke. “Anakin…,” it said.
Two decades earlier, Obi-Wan Kenobi was alone in his starship, breaking orbit from Horuz, fleeing the ruin of his greatest friendship. His body was beaten and his heart was broken. He ached all over from the wounds he had incurred in his narrow escape from the Sith. Kenobi was barely able to complete the coordinate entry for the jump to hyperspace that put that evil world of tragic loss behind him forever. Space outside the viewport flared with starlines, but Kenobi did not see them. He was desperately trying to attune himself to the Force, seeking solace for his pain. Gradually, he began to feel at one with the great energy field that bound that galaxy together. He was no longer alone, but in touch with life all around. He felt pain, but now it was shared. He was given healing as well. Kenobi’s grief became bearable and he was able to meditate. His trim brown beard framed a mouth that formed an enigmatic almost-smile. The Force was still with him, and now it showed him something.
Within his trance, he saw a black armored figure with a ghastly pale visage that he recognized despite its wasted state. It was Anakin, and he was holding what Kenobi knew to be the very lightsaber he had taken from their battlefield on Horuz. The Force whispered to him, it seemed, of what he must do, and its importance. Still in his trance, he nodded. A minute later, he emerged gently from the meditation, and arose to cross to his message recorder. Some part of the burden felt lifted from his shoulders, and he knew that the events of the past day would only really come to their conclusion on the far off day seen in his vision. He had no guarantee that what he saw would come to pass, or that anything would come of it, yet he had to try. Composing himself, he faced the recorder and turned it on.
“Anakin,” he said, “If you are hearing this, then what I have foreseen has come to pass, and you are still alive, but in the grip of the dark side. I cannot decide if I hope you still live or not…I left your body on Horuz, hideously burned. I question whether you could survive.”