[Short Stories] - Dark Emperor 6

The Dark Empire lies in ruins and the Emperor lies in death. Palpatine finds himself trapped in an afterlife realm of the light side, unable to return.

Unbeknownst to Palpatine, a legion of Jedi waits for him. These victims of the Emperor’s purge have the power to decide the fate of their greatest enemy.

The fallen Emperor’s only chance for survival may rest in the hands of the man who served him in life as the dread Lord Darth Vader

Palpatine found it difficult to recall with any real clarity the events leading up to his final physical death. His insanity had been responsible for that failing. Mercifully, he had regained his sanity along with his consciousness in this empty world of swirling, reddish-gray mists. He knew it was crucial that he remember. Without understanding how he had come here, Palpatine had no hope of discovering a way out and back to his life. Yes, a return to life…he wanted that very much. A chance to complete his Dark Empire and to have his revenge upon Luke Skywalker and his sister Leia.

Memory had never been a problem for him before. What he could not recall on his own, he drew out with a small exercise of the power of the Force. But now…that was denied to him. That thing which defined him more than anything else—his mastery of the dark side—was gone. He was still recovering from the shock of finding himself unable to sense or use the Force. It had been with him since his childhood. It was impossible that it could be gone now, yet it was. Palpatine was powerless, alone, frail, and defenseless. It galled him. But the former Emperor refused to see himself as helpless. He still had his strong will, and he was determined to understand his situation. If he could not use the Force to remember what had happened to him, he knew of other more primitive techniques. Stiffly, he settled his greatly aged body to the gray desert sands. Assuming a meditative posture, he cleared his mind and concentrated.

The first thing that came to him was that there had been a child. He had wanted the child, wanted it so he could save himself. The child’s name had been…Anakin. No, that confused him. Anakin had been Vader’s name before he turned. Palpatine cursed impotently. Frustrated, he knew meditation was futile with his emotions in such turmoil. If the Force had been with him, meditating in rage would have worked…but not here. No, he would simply have to start from the beginning in his mind and work through it as best he could, one step at a time.

His last perfectly lucid memory was of his awful defeat aboard the Eclipse, at the hands of the Skywalkers. The very name, Luke Skywalker, sent a shiver of hatred through Palpatine’s decrepit form. That man had destroyed everything. No punishment imaginable would be enough for him. The plans for the creation of the Dark Empire had been coming along so well before Luke had come onto the scene. Six years after his defeat at Endor, Palpatine had been ready on Byss with his reclaimed dark side mastery, the Eclipse, a vast fleet, and his World Devastators. Then he had sent a special Force Storm to collect Luke Skywalker, his old enemy. Sate Pestage had once advised his Master that Luke should be made into an ally, and Palpatine had debated the troubling idea with him. In the end, the Emperor had based his decision on two things. He wanted to take away the New Republic’s symbol of hope, and he missed having a servant like Darth Vader. Years ago, he had experienced a vision of Luke kneeling to him willingly. When Luke arrived on Byss, the vision finally came to pass. Luke’s admitted plan was to find a way to defeat the dark side from within, but Palpatine had known he could not.

Luke had knelt anyway and said, “My father’s destiny is my own.” But the words “my father’s destiny” held more than one meaning. It meant servitude to the dark side, yes, but it also meant the betrayal and murder of the Emperor, with the help of a blood relative. Luke had personally invaded the cloning laboratory and cut down Palpatine’s clones with a lightsaber. He had also helped his sister to escape Byss with a Holocron she had stolen from Palpatine’s very bedchamber. Vader had never rebelled like that until the end. The enraged Emperor had forced Luke into submission. Palpatine and a tightly controlled Luke had gone after Leia Organa together in the Eclipse, in order to recover the Holocron, and to claim Leia’s unborn child.

Yes…the child. It did have something to do with how he had arrived here, he knew it. He had wanted the child…as a new body for himself. Yes. That was it. The clones had always been a flawed solution to the problem of mortality. As mere copies of himself, they were one step removed from the protecting energies of the Force, and they suffered an accelerated rate of decay when he drew on the power of the dark side. For a long time, he had searched for another way. At one point, he had been convinced that he could fabricate a new body from pure dark side energy, but that idea had never borne fruit. Finally, upon learning of Leia’s unborn child, he had realized he could take it, raise it in the power of the dark side, and make it an extension of his will. At the appropriate age, he could displace the personality within, and take the body for his own. On the Eclipse, however, Leia had somehow resisted him. She had drawn her brother back to the light, and together, they had severed Palpatine’s control over his Force Storm. The chaotic energies had devoured his great flagship. He had been faced with death, unable to escape his own creation. It was a painful memory, but at least it was clear.