Adult-FanFiction.org : Movies

Dark Angel: Scarlet Dragon	By : WLTDNFADED Category: Star Wars (All) > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 6128 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: do not own the Star Wars movie series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Dark Angel: Scarlet Dragon
- 2-Chapter II
- 1
- 2
Dark Angel, Scarlet Dragon
Chapter 2
Eighteen Months After the Battle of Yavin

“Slave I, this is Executor. You are cleared for landing, Bay 34.”

“Bay 34 confirmed. Slave I out.”

Boba Fett flicked the brake repulsors switches on over his head, slowing his approach to Executor hangar bay above him. The audio sensors in his helmet picked up a soft pained moan from the holding bin behind him. Then silence. Then a sharp BANG against the door that sounded like someone kicked it. Because someone kicked it. His voice was low and gray like buffed gravel. “Somebody woke up from her nap.”

The bangs and thuds from the door were soon joined by a female bellowing. “Fett, you son of a bitch! You fucking asshole, Boba Fett!” Another BANG. “You scumbag murdering bounty-hunter fuck! I’m gonna kill you, you piece of shit! Your days are numbered!”

“Oh no,” Fett muttered dryly. He tapped the stern repulsors, sending the Slave I upward into the hangar. “What are you gonna do, throttle monkey, fix my ship to death?”

“You can’t take us all out, Fett,” the voice shouted from the hold. Another kick. “We’re growing. Every day. We got cells everywhere. You and your fucking Empire are going down!”

“It’s not my Empire, sugar britches.” He clicked the repulsors off when the Slave I was caught the Executor’s tractor beam. “I just get paid.”

I

Captain Piett stood at his usual stiff attention as the Slave I touched down in the hangar bay. Lieutenant Rhys joined him at his side, and assumed the same stance. The Slave I’s ramp hissed open and even over the din of TIE fighters taking off and landing, Piett heard the prisoner before he saw her. “I GOING TO FUCKING MURDER YOU LIKE YOU MURDERED MY FRIENDS! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU, FETT!” Boba Fett emerged. Thrown over his shoulder was a small, screaming, thrashing human girl with her wrists and ankles bound behind her and a bag over her head. Piett wrinkled his nose as the bounty hunter tracked the grime of a hundred different worlds through the bay as he came toward him.

“Where am I putting this?”

“Cellblock 27, Cell 113,” Piett instructed.

“Who is that?” the girl yelled. “Where am I? Where did you take me, you fucking walking ration can? Who are these people?”

“Quiet girl!” Lieutenant Rhys snapped.

“Oooh,” mocked the girl, still writhing and struggling in Fett’s hold on his shoulder. “Fancy Core World accent! Wait…” Her head looked around as she tried to see through the bag. Only then did she hear the noises in the hangar, the roar of TIE fighters arriving and departing, the clank of stormtrooper boots against metal floors. “Is this a Destroyer? Am I on a Star Destroyer?”

“She’s smart too,” Fett grunted.

The girl thrashed and screamed even more, her volume bouncing off the walls of the hangar. "You MOTHERFUCKERS! YOU IMPERIAL SONS OF BITCHES!”

“Get her out of here, Fett!” Piett barked. He waved two troopers Fett’s direction. “Accompany him to the cell block and make sure she’s secured! For Force sake Fett, gag the girl!”

Fett half-shrugged. “I like hearing her scream.” Followed by the troopers, Fett started toward the hangar opening, when he stopped. He pulled something out of his belt. “She had this on her. Might be important.” He gave Piett a hand-held holocom. He turned back and strode to the door with his hard merchandise, who continued her bellowing tirade; “YOU’RE GOING DOWN, MOTHERFUCKERS. WE’RE EVERYWHERE, AND WE’RE WATCHING YOU, YOU MURDERING PIECES OF SHIT! WE’RE COMING FOR YOU! BURN IN HELL!! BURN IN HELLLLLL--" The girl’s voice screeching finally faded out as Fett hoisted her out the hangar and down the corridor.

Piett rubbed his temple. He turned to his lieutenant. "Astounding that something so loud could come from a something so small."

"Indeed," agreed Lieutenant Rhys as he smoothed his tunic back into place. "And such language.” He pushed his regulation-cut blonde hair back into his officer’s cap. “For such idealists, I had no idea the Rebels were so fierce."

Piett turned the prisoner's confiscated holocom in his hand as he muttered, "We'll see how fierce she is." He pulled his own comlink from his pocket. "Piett to Bridge."

"Bridge here."

"Locate Lord Vader."

"Lord Vader is in Sector Six, Sir."

"Understood. Piett out." The grimace that pinched Piett's face did not escape Rhys's notice, and he knew it. "Say nothing, Rhys."

"Is that an order, Sir?" Rhys asked, fighting a grin.

"A suggestion."

"Then it would not be insubordinate of me to point out that it's the middle of the bloody day, Captain?"

Piett sighed, then turned to fully face him. "Rhys. How many officers has Lord Vader murdered since Baroness Sa’thraxxx boarded this ship?"

A pause. "None, Sir."

"Precisely. Despite your personal opinion of her, she is a Grand Inquisitor and Lord Vader’s consort--”

“From what I gather, she is a Grand Inquisitor because she is Vader’s consort,” Rhys sneered. However, his smirk disintegrated under Piett’s unamused stare.

“Baroness Sa’thraxxx was promoted from Chief Inquisitor to Grand Inquisitor by the Emperor himself two months ago, Lieutenant Rhys. She earned that promotion for her relentless dedication to the development of new interrogation techniques and prisoner deprogramming methods and by her substantial contributions to Imperial Intelligence. I suggest you regard my summation of her promotion, rather than those bandied around the sabaac table in the officer’s club.”

“Yes, sir. My apologies, sir. I didn’t realize you were so fond of her.”

“I’m not. I despise the woman. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect her.” Piett, however, simpered a bit. “That being said, yes Rhys, she does serve other purposes. She is keeping Lord Vader relaxed and… well, I’m not sure ‘happy’ is a word that one could attribute to the Dark Lord. But she is keeping people alive, whether she knows it or not. For that, I don’t care how or when she…’relaxes’ him."

Rhys sighed. "Understood, Sir.”

Piett turned to the remaining stormtrooper complement behind them. “Have the bounty hunter meet us in Sector Six.” One nodded, and relayed the message to the cell block wardens through his helmet com. Piett then turned to Rhys, “You will accompany me, Lieutenant.”

The lieutenant’s brows raised. “To the Dragon's Den, Sir?"

Piett sighed. “Exactly.”

Making their way out of the hangar, they boarded the nearest lift, with the four stormtroopers forming a square around the two officers. Rhys clasped his hands behind his back. “I don’t understand, sir.”

“What’s that, Rhys? Piett asked.

“Lord Vader diverted the Executor to the Corellian Trade Spine to capture one Rebel mechanic. Whatever does he want with a mechanic?”

ii

The lift doors opened, and Piett's party stepped out into the sweeping arched corridors of Sector Six, Lylla Sa'thraxxx's private wing aboard The Executor. Or, as dubbed by officers made bold by winning hands and Corellian liquor passed around off-duty in the officer’s club, "The Dragon's Den." Moments later, Boba Fett stepped out of the adjacent lift. Lieutenant Rhys looked around, as he had never been to this part of the Executor, although there had been no shortage of talk. And not just about The Dark Lord and the Baroness or the sector’s architectural opulence never seen before on an Imperial Destroyer. The other subject of interest answered the door hail.

A young woman slipped through the door to greet them in the corridor. She wore a filmy teal robe that she held barely closed at her breasts. In the other hand she held a stemmed glass filled with a dark potent liqueur.

Rhys kept a stoic demeanor, despite the heat under his stiff collar. Palissa was the opposite of the Baroness in almost every aspect-- petite, golden-skinned, with honey-colored curls, steel-grey eyes and a subtle hourglass figure, a fresh provincial beauty with little need for any cosmetic enhancement. She was soft-spoken and reserved for the most part, and obedient in the company of Sa’thraxxx and Vader. But obedience, Rhys knew, didn’t mean dullness of mind-- often, it was the exact opposite. There was a brightness in Palissa’s eyes, a quiet intelligence there, and she was always alert and watching. Despite her outward serenity she emanated blossoming sensuality, albeit very different than her very experienced mistress. Palissa, unlike the Dragon’s brazen and theatrical style, could ensnare a heart by a simple look from those big thick-lashed grey eyes. She was a favorite subject of off-duty conversation of almost every officer onboard, all of whom wished for just one night with her, including himself. But as fate so often toyed with men’s hearts and especially their loins, she was only interested in one man; Rhys’s commanding officer.

"Hello, Captain Piett," she practically purred.

Piett stiffened more so than military protocol instructed, and cleared his throat. "Lady Palissa.”.

"How may I serve you today?"

Piett's eyes, quick and terse, stopped Rhys from any reaction. "I must see Lord Vader immediately."

"Lord Vader is unavailable at the moment, Captain."

"Lady Palissa," he began quietly, "This is a matter of extreme urgency." He became even more annoyed when Palissa sauntered toward the door intercom. "If Lord Vader finds out you barred his officers and withheld vital information from him--"

And with that, Palissa flicked the door com. Lylla’s voice screamed a string of particularly foul Huttese profanity that filled the corridor from the speaker. To Piett, she sounded like a bloody demon: “EEE GATO FWEDINA! SH’LYEA DI! SH’LYEA DI,MI REGADDDA! MI REGADDDA, MI REGADDDA! AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!”

Vader’s voice, rough, hoarse, and no less frightening: “CHU’RU’DA, SA’THRAXXX? CHU’RU’DA?”

Now in Basic: “YOU, MY LORD, I BELONG TO YOOOOOUUU! OOOOOH GAHHHHHHHHDS--”

Palissa switched the com off, and turned back to the officers with a smile.
"You were saying, Captain?"

Piett looked at the floor. Rhys, seeing crimson blotch his commander's face, leaned in and whispered, "The prisoner isn’t going anywhere, sir. It will give her time to tire herself out."

The Captain looked up. "We'll wait here then.”

The girl came toward Piett, letting her hand fall from the front of her robe. Although the gesture did not completely expose her, the robe opened just enough to show the crescents of the underside of her breasts. "I could stay out here with you, Captain Piett," she said, running a finger along his officer's insignia on his chest. "Keep you company, maybe?"

Piett looked away. "That won't be necessary, Lady."

Palissa's smile faded and disappointment flickered in her eyes. "Another time, then. Sir." She turned to go.

“May I request,” Piett added abruptly, “alerting us when His Lordship will be... ready for our briefing.” He paused and softened his tone. “Please?”

The smile returned. “Of course, Captain.” With that, she went through the doors.

The party stood silent and immobile... until a snort came out of a stormtrooper's vocoder. “Sh’lyea di, mi regaddda.” The other troopers stifled their laughter.

Piett whipped his glare at the trooper. "You have something to say, TK847?"

The trooper snapped to attention. “No sir.”

“Care to tell me why you find that word so funny?”

“Because ‘sh’lyea di mi regaddda”’ means ‘fuck me my Lord’ in Huttese,” Fett muttered, which just sent all the troopers into snickers.

“I know what it means, Master Fett!” Piett barked. He snapped his head over his shoulder at the troops. “Next one who laughs gets his entire unit assigned to sanitation for a month!” The troopers fell silent. He shot a glare at Fett. Fett just shrugged and sauntered away.

Rhys leaned into his commanding officer, and whispered. “Captain, permission to speak? Freely?”

Piett slid his eyes to his Lieutenant. “Granted.”

“The Lady Palissa seems very fond of you, sir.” Rhys waited for a response. He received none. He pressed further. "We have eighteen standard months left of this mission, sir. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. You are already the envy of every officer aboard, Captain. Enjoy her. There’s no shame in it.”

Just when Rhys thought Piett couldn’t stiffen any more, he was proven wrong. "I am a married man, Rhys."

"And?"

"She's young enough to be my daughter."

"And?"

“There is the distinct possibility that Vader would kill me.”

“Probably,” Fett grunted. Again, Piett shot a look at the bounty hunter, surprised he could hear the conversation from that distance. Fett reached up and tapped his helmet, indicating the audio sensors he had installed in it. By the Force, how he detested Boba Fett.

They fell silent. Moments passed as they stared at the doors. Then Piett murmured very softly. “She shouldn’t wear things like that in front of the men. It’s unseemly. She was such a sweet girl when she first boarded, shy, demure.” He sniffed. “This is Sa’thraxxx’s influence. She should just be herself. Warmth, gentleness. Very appealing qualities indeed."

Rhys stared straight ahead. "I'll make sure she receives that information in the subtlest of ways, Captain."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

Iii

Her back forced into a sharp arch in the bondage chair, her arms bound to its sides, her thighs forced up and wide and strapped to her ankles, Lylla screamed her orgasm into the domed ceiling. She had lost count of how many times she had come before just letting her body ride this vicious ecstasy for these last hours. Feeling his own release swelling in his balls after denying himself release, Vader pulled himself even further on top of her, crushing her under his massive weight, and thrusted deeper, faster, harder. He knew the action could strain his body to the point of cardiac arrest. But seeing her like this, bound, helpless, crying, begging, was worth the risk: She was his woman, his to use in any way he wished. A drop of saliva fell from his bared teeth to land on her cheek. Even as he ravaged her, Lylla met his fire-colored eyes with hers of star-core white, and bared her own.

There it was, the Dark Side, spreading from her reptilian pupils over her white eyes like an eclipse over the tundra of Hoth, engulfing him, feeding him, calling him home. He threw his head back in a roar as he erupted inside her, the orgasm ripping like a cannon blast through his broken body, muscles pulling out of the cybernetics of his limbs, tearing the flesh, causing as much agony as pleasure. But to him, they were the same and he welcomed both: It was the only time he felt as though he were still alive.

Lylla howled as his cybernetic hand crushed the edge of the durasteel chair right next to her head. But rather than being terrified, she let out a laugh bordering on manic. His strength and power were more intoxicating than any drug the galaxy could provide.

He slammed into her, once, twice, before the fire in his body smoldered out. He lowered his head into the curve of her shoulder. His tortured breathing was a storm in her ear, his body temperature dangerously high. Sensors signaled the medical system’s computer of his physical distress. The air instantly cooled and the oxygen mix that flowed through the hyperbaric chamber was immediately recalibrated.

The chamber installed in Lylla’s quarters was built much like his own private chamber, but with some exceptions. While his own chamber was for medical treatment and meditation, this one was created solely for sex. In the center stood a three meter tall cylindrical medical terminal, where the Dark Lord could recuperate while systems replenished his artificial and natural organs and redressed him into his armor. But the rest of the chamber was all Lylla.

Apparati for any human sexual position imaginable. A monstrous and indestructible durasteel bed draped with chains and rose-scented leather cuffs made from the endangered Unniriaariin. Plush mattresses, silks, pillows and rugs. For Vader, the atmosphere was more for her sensibilities than for his, but the idea for this modified chamber had been all hers. He showed his approval for her wicked mind and her insatiable body as much and as often his own would allow him.

Vader pressed his scarred lips into her ear. “My Dragon.” he half-panted, half-growled.

“My Lord,” she moaned, nuzzling his scarred cheek. They shared an intimate chuckle. He pulled his softening shaft out of her and slid off, the cybernetics of his limbs whirring softly. Slowly and with some strain, he moved away and entered the medical terminal.

Lylla tugged at the restraints of the chair. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“No.”

“Cruel.”

“Yes.” He looked back at her, as she still fought to calm her heavy breathing, her naked body strapped down and spread wide open, her slit swelled and glistening, her hair a wild scarlet halo stuck in sweat to her alabaster skin. His lips curled back. “I like you like this.”

The glassine tube filled with medicated steam, soothing and cleansing his skin, while delicate arms of metal, gears, and cabling inserted feeding and hydration tubes into his flesh. Other arms drew his suit from its valet and began to install it around him, integrating the life-support and monitoring systems to organs both cyber and organic. Still another set pushed his breathing mask into position. Lylla sighed in relief when the slow measured hiss of his respirator replaced his rasping attempts to breathe: with his mask back on, any danger had passed.

Once the cylinder’s door slid closed, the rest of the chamber depressurized. Lylla sucked the lighter air into her lungs. She found the thick humid air oppressive and difficult, just as he found the normal air she breathed. But the discomfort was offset by the deliciously high oxygen levels that only heightened her afterglow.

He raised his hand. Holographic screens emerged in a sphere all around him, data dashing across the displays at an impossible speed. With his enhanced eye screens and the Force however, Vader had no issue reading the data at such a pace, and he perused them with great interest.

Lylla groaned and let her head fall back, staring at the ceiling of the chamber. It was that time, wasn’t it? The time Vader evaluated the progress of her many, many lessons for the week: Languages he assigned her to learn, political science, astrophysics, military strategy, technical manuals, philosophy, history, the list went on. But she was also allowed to select subjects of her own choosing, only on the condition that she complete her assigned tasks. That was no burden for her; she gorged on knowledge, and with the seemingly endless feast of it available to her on the Executor, her hunger would never be satiated. Yet his evaluations always made her anxious. The one thing Lylla would never be able to lose was his approval. She doubted that she could ever survive that.

He focused on a screen. “What is the escape velocity for a gas giant with the mass of 1.8986×1027 kg?” he asked, his mask and vocoder back in place, his voice a rich dark baritone once again.

“60.20 kilometers per second,” she answered.

“And its moon that measures 1.314 m/s2?”

“2.025”

Another screen, another question: “Who ordered the bombing of Telos IV during which war, and for what reason?”

Lylla took a breath. “It was the Jedi Civil War, 8097 AHD. The bombing was ordered by Republic Admiral Saul Karath--”

“Who was?”

“A Republic defector. He ordered the bombing to prove his loyalty to the Sith.”

“Very good.” He swiped another screen over. “The year the Lothan Calendar was introduced?”

“7862 AHD. Vader please. Challenge me.”

Vader meant to press her on the the history and strategy of the First Pius Dea Crusade, but something caught his notice. “You're learning Shirook.”

“Yes.”

“You are challenging yourself. A difficult language for humans.”

“Not if you think like an animal. Which Wookies are.”

He heard her disdain. “Then why learn it? It is inferior. What is the point of learning a series of grunts and growls devoid of any intellect?”

Lylla enjoyed this sparring, as opposed to simple quizzing. “No knowledge is inferior, my Lord.” She took the slight turn over his shoulder as approval for that answer. “Besides,” she added in a huff, “it's embarrassing to rely on a protocol droid for a language so primitive. I'm above that. ALL humans are.” She pulled at her restraints again, and let out a playful whimper. “Untie me, Vader. Please.”

“In time.” Her frustrated grunt amused him. He scanned more lessons. For a much longer time than before. Lylla knit her brows, wondering what he found-- and realized that she had not erased her private research from the learning banks. Oh gods, she thought. He won’t be pleased.

“Bio-nano construction of reproductive blastophytes. Stem cell manipulation for reconstruction of damaged organs at the subatomic level.” He paused far too long for her comfort. “Lylla. We have discussed this.”

“Yes, we have.” Her tone was defiant. “But I refuse to give up.”

As the droid arms lowered the armor’s pauldron onto his shoulders, he read her emotions: Her outward defiance was a thin veil for a churning emptiness inside of her. He waved his hand, and the restraints holding Lylla down unwrapped themselves from her limbs, freeing her. “We cannot have a child. The doctors have confirmed this.”

“No, that is not what the doctors said,” she retorted, rising from the chair, rubbing feeling back into her wrists, and walking toward the sumptuous midnight-blue velvet and black furred dressing gown that hung closeby. “They said your odds of begetting children were slim--”

“One said that.” He found Lylla’s tenacity a double-edged blade. On one edge, admirable, the other, infuriating.

She pressed on. “But not impossible. Me, however...” She pulled a breath, “I was chemically sterilized. My ovaries were destroyed.” She pulled the gown around herself, quickly and a little angrily, clasping it closed. “But if there is the smallest chance we could have a child, I refuse to believe it is impossible. Not from everything you’ve shown me, of what I’ve seen and experienced.” She grit her teeth, and her tone escalated with every word. “You said it yourself-- the Dark Side of the Force is infinite. The Dark Side will give us a son, I believe that. With the Force, we can manipulate science, we can force nature to--”

“Lylla,” he rumbled. She fell silent. “No children, Lylla. It is time you accepted that.” He felt her anger. And her jealousy. “I fail to understand this obsession.”

“You know why,” she snarled.

“Your tone is inappropriate.” He meant it.

Lylla pushed her frustration to her core. She calmed her mind and chose her words. “I want to have our child, Vader,” she said. “Our child. Not adopted, not cloned. OURS, an heir from your seed and my flesh. I want to carry your son and birth him from my body. You ask me why it’s so important; I ask you why you are so against it?”

“I will answer the same as you.” His tone was cold. “You know why.”

She did know why. Their reasons were different, but their answer was the same-- A name he forbade ever be spoken again. A ghost that never left.

The tense moment was broken by the chamber’s com. “Lord Vader, Piett here. We have entered the Corellian Trade Spine and reconnoitered with the Slave I.”

“The mechanic?” Vader asked.

“We have her.”

“Enter.”

The argument was instantly forgotten. “The mechanic?” Lylla asked breathlessly. “The one traced back to the Rebel base on Yavin 4?”

“The one.”

Lylla’s euphoria returned at the thought of the greatest interrogation of her career so far. “Then she’ll know who did it.”

“Yes.” The appendages placed his cape upon his shoulders and drew the latch across his gorget. The platform where he stood turned slowly around until he faced her. The door opened, and he stepped out in a cloud of steam. “We will soon know the name of the Force-strong pilot who destroyed the Death Star.”

iv

“This way, gentlemen,” Palissa said, gesturing through the door.

Piett, Rhys, and Fett came through the parted doors into the grand room of Lylla’s apartments. Piett faced straight forward, his hands clasped behind his back, standing at

his usual rigid attention, but still utterly aware the pretty young woman was looking at him. Frankly, Piett didn’t quite understand what she saw in him. Hardly a ladies’ man, he was far older than she, not terribly good-looking, and not very personable. The only reason he married at all was for a promotion. It wasn’t as though he didn’t love his wife, it was just… no. He didn’t love his wife. Rhys’s words played in his thoughts. Enjoy her. There’s no shame in it.

Hesitantly, he turned over his shoulder and returned Palissa’s gaze. A smile as young as dawn lit her face. In return, he gave her the softest, subtlest smile he could muster. I’m playing with fire, he thought. But all the years of duty and dedication and discipline, living for just one purpose, and that purpose was the Empire... Perhaps it is time I had a little fire in my life.

Meanwhile Rhys, this being the first time he was allowed into the Dragon’s Den, glanced around as subtly as possible. It was a manor built within a machine of war. The great room alone took up two levels of the ship, with one entire wall hosting an enormous viewport. A catwalk circumvented the humongous room, with doors leading to Lylla’s bedchamber as well as rooms for her ward Palissa, her dresser, her stylist, her aesthetician, her chef and kitchen staff, her wardrobe, her study, and her personal spa. The furniture was sumptuous, the art was priceless, the rugs were rare, the chandeliers gleaming. No officer had quarters like this.

Piett, on the other hand, thought it a waste of space and a garish manifestation of an ambitious and arrogant opportunist, no matter what her talents were.

And Boba Fett merely checked his holocom for any new bounty coming down the pike.

Across the great room on the other side from the enormous windows, a black-domed entrance jutted from the wall. The dome split in half, with dim light illuminating a mist of steam. Fully armored and recovered, Lord Vader emerged, followed closely by Grand Inquisitor Baroness Lylla Sa’thraxxx.

While Vader approached the officers, Lylla broke away, moving to Palissa. Piett watched the Dragon encircle Palissa’s neck into an embrace, and kiss her on the head. Palissa giggled, and embraced her back. Lylla whispered something into her ear. Palissa immediately complied, breaking away and taking one of the lifts to the catwalks, stealing one last look at Captain Piett. Lylla made her way back to the Dark Lord’s side, but not before she shot a glare at Boba Fett. Fett merely tipped her his helm her way.

Vader hooked his thumbs into his belt. “Report, bounty hunter.”

“My source told me about the Rebels running ship parts off of Corellia, and she was one of the buyers,” Fett said. “Found their meeting place, the deal was going down. Between sellers and buyers, there were about five in all. They put up a fight. You just needed the one alive, right?”

“You mean you killed the rest of them?” Rhys asked incredulously.

“Is that a problem?” Fett asked.

“Dead Rebels do not concern me, Lieutenant,” Vader rumbled. “Only this one.”

Fett came forward, handing Vader a datapad. “Tiri Akiro. Planet of origin; Torize.”

“An industrial world,” Vader noted.

“A shithole” Fett added. “Age, twenty. One living relative, a father. Last seen there three years ago, no official record of her whereabouts since.”

“We assume she’s been with the Rebellion that whole time,” Piett added.

“Unofficial record?” Vader asked Fett.

Fett nodded. “Confirmed. She was on Yavin 4. She’s tough, but not too bright. She likes to shoot off her mouth.”

Vader perused the datapad. “Is there a Destroyer in the vicinity of the Tennhausen Gate?” Vader asked Piett.

“Yes, my Lord. The Engager.”

“Dispatch it to Eldilir V.” Piett nodded to Rhys, who stepped away to relay the order. “Retrieving the Rebel and discovering a Rebel smuggling operation in the process. Excellent work, bounty hunter.”

“Two in one. It’ll cost you, Vader.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Vader replied. “You are free to go, Boba Fett. Until I need you again,” he added with just a touch of menace.

“You know where to send it.” Fett looked at Lylla and bowed his head to her in a deference that Lylla was certain he didn’t mean. “Baroness,” he rasped. Lylla looked down her nose at him. He turned to go. But before he left, he leaned into Piett and muttered, “Take the risk. You need it.” With that, Fett walked out the door.

Lylla slit her eyes and flared her nostrils. *Why do you let him talk to you like that?* she pathed to Vader.

*Because he is competent and he does not fear me. He is one of only three in this galaxy who meet that criteria.*

*Who is the second?*

*Wrenga Jixton.*

*And the third?*

*You.*

Lylla glanced up at him and stifled a smile as her heart jumped a little.

Piett, having settled himself after Fett’s last remark, stepped forward to Vader. “She had this on her, My Lord.” He held up the confiscated holocom. “Unfortunately, she seems to have wiped any useful information off its drive. Except for one holomessage.”

“Play it,” Vader ordered. Piett placed the device on a small table nearby and switched it on. Light sputtered and sparked until the twenty-centimeter image came into view. It was a young man, blonde with a smaller build, early twenties. He wore an orange Rebel pilot’s suit, holding his helmet under his arm.

“Hey Tiri, how’s my favorite mechanic?” The youth’s voice had a higher register and a jovial timbre. He gestured a thumb behind him. “Listen, I’m having some problems with the starboard thrusters on my X-wing, I’m just not getting the hard bank I like, and I’m gonna need that in case we meet up with some TIEs at some point. Think you might have some time to give them a once-over?” He smiled. “There’s a two bottles of Corellian ale in it for you. I heard you liked it, and I got connections.”’ His smile grew broader. “Let me know when you can get to it. You’re the best, Tiri.” The image blinked out.

Lylla glanced at Vader, as did Piett. Vader, however, said nothing; he just stared at the now empty table top. Piett took his silence to mean the Dark Lord might need more information. “My Lord, the message has been played 57 times. That may be significant.” Lylla snorted a laugh through her nose.

Vader turned his mask to her. “Your thoughts.” It was not a request.

She sniffed to compose herself. “I’d say it’s significant. She’s in love with him.”

The two officers glanced at each other, both perplexed. “And you know this how, Lady?” Rhys asked. He cleared his throat. “Respectfully.” He bristled a bit when she slid that white glare his way and sauntered toward him.

“Lieutenant,” she began, coming close enough to him so that her eyes were level with his. Rhys had never realized how tall she really was, even without heels. “Have you never received a love note? Or any communication from someone you were intensely attracted too? How many times did you look at it again?”

Rhys felt his face getting hot, but for an entirely different reason this time. While he tried to stay focused on a spot above her eyes, he could still see that she was enjoying his discomfort. “A few times. Perhaps.”

“Perhaps?” She hummed a chuckle. Lylla stood a little too close to Rhys for a little too long before she slowly turned to Piett. She crossed her arms. “Play it again,” she ordered.

Piett sniffed, trying not to show his contempt for taking orders from this woman with no official rank. Nevertheless, he restarted the holocom. The image flickered back. As the message played, Lylla slowly walked around it, observing the young man from every angle as she listened intently, taking in every nuance, every inflection of his tone. “Hey Tiri, how’s my favorite mechanic? Listen, I’m having some problems with the starboard thrusters on my X-wing, I’m just not getting hard bank I like, and I’m gonna need that in case we meet up with some TIEs at some point. Think you might have some time to give them a once-over? There’s a two bottles of Corellian ale in it for you. I heard you liked it, and I got connections. Let me know when you can get to it. You’re the best, Tiri.”

“Freeze it.” said Lylla. Piett complied. She addressed Vader. “She’s watched this over fifty times. She wiped all data from the drive, except this. She simply couldn’t let this go. And the sad part? He doesn’t have a clue.” She traced a talon around the youth’s image. “His tone is friendly, not amorous. His body language… casual, relaxed, and he makes solid eye contact with the holocamera. No looking away, no uncertainty, not a hint of intimacy or sexual familiarity. Judging from all this, he barely knows she exists. She’s just his mechanic. Tch, poor girl.”

“Well done, Baroness,” Vader murmured.

Lylla smiled a little, almost girlishly, before snapping back into her cool forbidding manner. She turned to Piett. “Despite how much you dislike me Captain Piett, you must admit I can be useful at times.” She took a moment to admire his scowl before looking at Vader. “I can use this. Oh, I can definitely use this.” She waited for a reply. But none came. Vader continued to look at the hologram of the young Rebel pilot on the tabletop. “My Lord…?”

Finally he spoke. “I will conduct the interrogation myself.” He turned to Piett and Rhys. “Have the prisoner readied.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Leave the holocom.”

“Yes, my Lord,” Piett said. He turned to leave, but not before he caught a glimpse of the fury simmering under Lylla’s skin and her glare at the Dark Lord. He took Rhys’s elbow. “NOW,” he whispered at his lieutenant. Rhys hastily complied.

Once outside, Piett barked at the troopers to follow him into the lift, with Rhys directly behind. Piett sighed relief as the doors closed and the car started moving. “The Dragon is unhappy.”

“She certainly deserves that name,” Rhys snarled, still unsettled from her attention.

“Yes,” Piett agreed. “They are, indeed, a match made in the dimensional hells.”

v

Vader turned to face Lylla. “Have your say.”

Lylla narrowed her eyes. “Isn’t interrogation the whole reason I am on this ship? Or is it just the reason you told me so I can gratify you when your needs arise?”

“Don’t be a child.” She was about to retort when he raised his hand. Lylla tried to speak, but she couldn’t. She ground her teeth in her Force-muted mouth. She hated when he did this to her. “If you tempered your tongue, I wouldn’t have to,” he answered her thoughts. He continued. “Physical torture is unneeded here. If she has been with the Rebellion this long, she has been trained in counter-interrogation tactics. Like Leia Organa.” Once he felt her calm, he gave Lylla her voice back.

“I’ve smashed those defenses before,” she muttered. “Why should now be any different?”

“Because you can’t use the Force,” he answered bluntly. He watched her shoulders slump. “You said it yourself, we can use her emotions against her. Seduction is quicker. The Force will be far more efficient.” He stepped closer to the hologram, tilting his helm down. “If she loves him...then we will let her have him.”

Her frown deepened as she tried to grasp what he was saying. Slowly it came to her. “You don’t mean…No. Not him. He’s MINE.”

“I don’t recall ever granting you ownership, Lylla,” Vader growled.

Lylla clenched her hands in frustration and hurt. The avatar of his former self, the avatar he sometimes used when he Force-bonded with her for the especially strenuous fornication that his physical body wouldn’t allow him. Her golden-haired desert god, her lover of fire and dreams, was about to be used on a prisoner. On worthless Outer Rim backwater Rebel scum.

“Your cruelty isn’t amusing anymore,” she muttered.

“Neither is your arrogance,” Vader countered calmly. “You are placing your vanity above your duty and your fealty to me. It is beneath you.”

She spun around, eyes flashing. He expected her to challenge him, as she was want to do. But she didn’t. She stopped, and he saw her face change from angry to thunderstruck, and then relax with profound awareness. A stillness came off her, a brooding calm… and the Dark Side was there, all around her. For a moment, Vader thought she may be able to finally touch it? Without him with her, Lylla could never touch or use the Force by herself. But it was always with her. Always.

“You’re right,” she finally said. She drew a long breath, and lowered her eyes. “I am being foolish. I wanted this interrogation for my own glory. And this jealousy? Of what? A pathetic, love-struck Rebel mechanic with only a few hours to live?” She placed her hands on the back of a chair, and drew herself up in a regal pose. “I serve the Empire. I serve the Dark Side of the Force. But above all else, I serve you.” She looked at him. “Forgive me. My Master.”

Vader came to her. He stood behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders and pulling her into him. “You have grown immensely since we first met,” he murmured. He took a thick lock of her black-streaked scarlet hair into his glove, rubbing it in his fingers, using the Force to actually feel its silk. “You become more of what you were meant to be with every passing day. You are truly transformed.” He brushed his fingers down her throat and caressed her collar bone. Lylla responded with a shuddering breath, leaning back into him and nuzzling his glove with her cheek. “I do not do this to punish you, Lylla. I will get that name by any means necessary. It has nothing to do with you and I.” She nodded. He turned her around to face him. “I still want you there to assist me.”

She exhaled in relief. He certainly didn’t need her there, but allowing her to assist him was a rare generous gesture for the Sith Lord. His words gave her comfort, and she placed her hand on his. “Of course.”

He ran a thumb over her cheek. “Go prepare.” He dropped his voice. “Wear the special one.”

She peeled her lips over her teeth like a Rancor over a fresh kill. So, there would be a little pain after all. “Thank you, my love.”

vi

Troopers, officers, and droids alike cleared to the walls of the Executor’s corridors as Lord Vader passed them at his fierce pace, the Baroness flanking his right. Despite being halfway through their three year mission to hunt down the Rebel Alliance, there were still some crew members who had never seen the Dark Lord of the Sith or the Scarlet Dragon simply because of the massive size of the ship. So a first sighting, especially of the two of them together, was particularly jarring, if not outright terrifying.

This visual intimidation was no accident: It was actually part of Lylla’s curriculum. Never show weakness, Sa’thraxxx. Never show limitation. Do not rely on transports-- stay on the ground, walk as if the earth was created for your foot alone. Be seen. Never let your rank isolate you from your subordinates. Stay in the trenches. Listen to everything, miss nothing. Never order any of your agents to do you would not do yourself. Loyalty is earned, not entitled. Choose your circle wisely.

Wear your power.

And she did. She had her entire couture habiliment designed around her authority as an Imperial Grand Inquisitor. She didn’t own one ensemble that didn’t provoke respect or fear or even lust-- for there was also power there that could easily be weaponized. The one she wore now was one of which she was the most proud; A black suit, impeccably designed and fitted by her modiste and his army of tailors. But the tailoring was only the last step in its creation; the first was the re-engineering of every instrument of an IT-O interrogation droid to be incorporated into the suit. Ultrasonic bone fragmenters, photon tissue splicers, electroshock nerve disrupters, and syringes were all deftly incorporated into the sleeves, gloves, legs, and boots of the suit’s design. But the finishing touch was the victim analysis photoreceptor. The engineers took the iconic red sensor of the dreaded torture droid and modified it with a projected holographic screen that could be incorporated into one of her many opulent hairstyles. With it, she could track her victim's’ vital signs and pain levels, and hence adjust the interrogation according to her needs and their suffering.

Piett and Rhys were awaiting their arrival in the cell block. Piett nodded. “Lord Vader.”

“Is everything in order?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Baroness.” Lylla stepped to his side “Prepare her.”

“Absolutely, my Lord,” she practically sang, and glided through the cell doors.

The cell, glaringly lit, was barely large enough to contain the restraining table and the two stormtroopers guarding the prisoner who was clamped to it. Of course, there really was no need to have them there at all, as there was no possible way for her to escape. But Lylla always had guards present as effective psychological ammunition. The table was deliberately set so the girl’s head was perpendicular to the door, ensuring that she couldn’t see who was coming in.

Lylla waved off the two stormtroopers guarding her at the foot of the table. “That’ll be all, gentlemen. Time for girl talk.” As the troopers cleared the cell, she regarded the prisoner as she moved slowly around the table, deftly unhooking the one-shouldered cape of her ensemble and tossing it to the floor.

The girl had been stripped of her clothes down to a once-white tank shirt and underbriefs. She was small-boned, gamine, with long sharp muscles under her tanned skin, toned from her grueling work. White-blond hair was cut into a mechanic’s cut to avoid it getting caught in any moving parts. But what piqued Lylla’s interest were her hands-- small like the girl, but calloused, cracked, nails broken and knuckles scuffed. They fascinated her, as she had never seen a woman with hands like that; pleasure slaves and courtesans hardly worked on heavy machinery. Coming around the other side of the table and pulling one of her gloves off, Lylla bent down, reaching to one of her bound hands, intending to compare it to her soft, slender, perfectly manicured hand--

The girl wrenched up as far as she could off the table and spit right in Lylla’s face. “BITCH!” she bit through her teeth.

Lylla stopped, straightened up, and sighed. She pulled her glove back on. “Name-calling and face-spitting already? We haven’t even started yet.” She meticulously wiped the spittle from under her eye with two fingers. Then she grabbed the girl by the hair with one hand and shoved her two spit-soaked fingers down her throat. “I believe this belongs to you,” she hissed into the girl’s face. She hit a control on the side of the restraint table with her knee. The table slammed horizontal, and Lylla swung her long leg up and over to straddle her.

The girl violently bucked, trying to fight her off, and bared her teeth. Lylla responded by pushing her fingers down even deeper. “Go ahead. Bite them off. And ignite the photon tissue splicers embedded in this glove’s fingertips, which will burn your trachea out of your neck in 1.78 seconds. Or, you can behave yourself.” She jabbed her fingers in the girl’s throat to drive her point home. “You have three seconds to decide, two, one--” The girl screamed through her blocked throat, fighting to breathe. “Is that a ‘yes, I will behave myself, Baroness Sa’thraxxx’?” Lylla crooned. The girl frantically nodded. In no hurry, Lylla pulled her fingers out. The girl quaked underneath her with retching, choking and gasping for air. But Lylla didn’t get off her. She just straightened up and straddled the girl’s pelvis so her victim could get a full view of her sadistic majesty.

Once the girl caught her breath again, she glared at Lylla. “So,” she coughed, her eyes full of poison, “you’re real after all. The Harlot Dragon.”

A giggle bubbled out of Lylla’s throat. “Is that what you Rebels call me? I like it. It’s cute.” She raised her right index finger and flicked it down. A tiny hyposyringe sprang out of the knuckle of her glove. “I assure you, sweet girl, not only am I real, I am reality itself.” With that, stabbed the syringe into the girl’s neck.

The girl screamed and flailed underneath her. “OW! What the fuck was that?” she cried.

“Something to make me like you better.”

“What?” the girl spat out. “A truth serum?”

Lylla pecked her tongue against her teeth. “You are feisty.” She raised her hand and snapped her hand into a claw. Durasteel razor-talons sprang from her fingertips. She liked watching the girl recoil into herself. Lazily, she ran them over the girl’s abdomen, tracing little patterns just a hint under her shirt at first, then slowly progressing downwards. The girl writhed under her in disgust. “Why,” Lylla asked in a lilting tone, “would we give you a truth serum when we already know you are Tiri Akiro of Torize. We know you and your crew were smuggling ship parts bought on the Correllian black market back to a Rebel cell where you, I assume, would modify them for use on X and Y wing Rebel starfighters. Your cell is located in a speeder repair shop on Eldilir V, 2.5 parsecs from the Tennhausen Gate, a very convenient location for exporting the modified parts to other Rebel outposts. Your contact was a Rhodian called Thaatoo, who is a paid informant for Boba Fett.” She tilted her head. “You didn’t know that part, did you? Lastly, a troop transport has already dispatched to Eldilir V to kill every single member of your cell and burn the shop to the ground. So, what I’m saying is…no, that wasn’t a truth serum.”

Lylla enjoyed watching that information dissolve the girl’s defiance. The girl swallowed her grief and tears back down hard. “Then why are you keeping me alive? You obviously have everything you need.”

“Not everything,” Lylla said. She leaned down, placing her hands on either side of the girl’s head. “Boba Fett told us something else, something you were bragging about according to him. That you were there, at the Rebel base, during the Battle of Yavin.”

The girl slit her eyes, even as she trembled. “So?” Lylla merely smiled, slowly, lazily. The girl snapped, “WHAT? WHAT IS IT YOU WANT?”

“What do I want?” Lylla asked back. Slowly, deliberately, she lowered herself down into the girl’s face. She practically chewed her words. “I want to shoot sonic splints under your toenails and then break a toe every time you scream, you fucking Rebel piece of filth.” The girl’s eyes sprang wide. “Unfortunately,” Lylla sighed as she languidly slid off the girl, “this isn’t about what I want.” She grinned down at the prisoner. “It’s about what he wants.”

*She’s ready.*

The cell door howled open again, then slammed shut. The girl shivered uncontrollably; not just from terror, but because the cell had turned ice cold. Her breath froze in her front of her eyes. She couldn’t see, couldn’t move, she could only hear. And what she heard confirmed her darkest imagination; heavy, mechanical, labored and utterly unnatural, it filled the room and crushed her ears. It sounded exactly as the stories said. It was the sound of hell breathing.

“She has been quite rude,” Lylla said.

And the voice of a black hole. “I am sad to hear it.”

Boot steps shook the floor and sent tremors through the restraints of her arms and legs. He stopped just behind her head, still out of her view. She clenched her eyes shut to hold back the tears and thought of her father for what she knew would be the last time. “I will see you again, Da,” she whispered through terrified breaths. “I’ll see you again someday.”

“You will never see him again. Your afterlife does not exist.” He came around to the side of the table and into her view.

Images from the holonet in no way prepared the girl for what she saw looming over her. The Dark Lord of the Sith eclipsed the lights and seemed to fill the entire cell. The exhaust from his respirator chilled her bared skin. A mountain of machine and man, he was the incarnation of oblivion itself. When he tipped his mask down to look at her, she looked into the face of murder itself.

That woman came up to the other side of the table, and they stared down at her. It was at that moment when her vision bloomed, edges danced, colors ignited, and she knew whatever that fucking witch stabbed her with had kicked in. She wanted to fight it, but it was impossible. Her last conscious thought was a prayer. Please, please let it work. If there is any mercy left in this universe at all, please let it work.

*You will monitor her vital signs and brain activity while I am inside*, Vader pathed to Lylla. *You know the risks.*

*Yes, I do. But no one ever sedated me for it. Mercy is not one of my strong suits, my Lord.*

*It is not mercy, it is necessity. You are a willing participant. She is not. Without sedation, there is a distinct possibility I will scare her to death.*

*There is that*, Lylla concurred.

*I do not want her dead before we have that name. Path to me only when necessary. Do not break our bond.*

*Yes, my Lord.*

“Stop staring at me,” the girl whimpered, completely unaware of their silent conversation, drifting into nothingness, the sight of them killing anything left of her will to survive this. “Just do what you’re going to do. Just… just do it.”

Vader tipped his helm to her, almost in a bow. “As you wish.” She shrieked when his giant hand came down over her face. He put his fingertips on her forehead and leaned down. The girl burst into tears. He moved his fingertips to the side of her face, and cupped her cheek. “Ssshh. Don’t cry.”

The girl’s eyes widened, even as the sedative weighted her eyelids down. Her head spun, her skin flushed. The cell air, frigid just seconds ago, warmed around her. Vader drew his hand from her cheek and gently wiped the tears from her eyes. “Don’t be sad, little one.” His voice was kind, soft...no, his voice was frightening, it wasn’t like this… and it wrapped around her like black silk, soft, safe, and silent. She couldn’t hear his breather anymore.

Vader leaned in further, bracing himself with one hand on the table, leaving his other free. He brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers. “There. Isn’t that nice, Tiri? Tiri,” he repeated, like he was tasting it. Her stomach jumped in arousal, and she instantly hated herself for it. She felt his fingers on her neck, her throat, down the inside of her arms, caressing her. His touch… she had never felt anything like this before. Like fire without burn, like the breaths of angels. No one had ever touched her like this-- certainly not those Rebel throttle-jockeys she sometimes messed around with in the back of the shop...

“They aren’t worthy of you, Tiri.” Another sob burst from her throat, but was instantly replaced by a gasp of ecstasy. Her eyes rolled back as he traced a feathery line between her breasts. Every place he touched her bloomed with rapture.

“That’s my pretty girl.” His baritone dropped even lower in his register, his words unrushed. “Let’s not fight, Tiri. We can be friends, yes?” His enormous hand encircled her small breast. “Good friends?” He squeezed just a whisper, and ran his thumb over the hardening peak of her nipple. She arched her back, pulling at her restraints. A tortured moan escaped her lips, and her pelvis moved in slow circles.

With one eye monitoring the girl’s quickening heart rate and heightened brain activity through her holographic eyepiece, Lylla’s other eye was watching the scene. At first, she felt jealousy jolt in her gut. But as she watched, she became engrossed. She now understood what he was doing: Using this woman-child’s young urges, her longing for her father, the empty sexual trysts she used to cope with her unrequited love for the pilot, and warping all of it into a means to his end-- and feeling nothing as he did it. He would comfort her, seduce her, he would get what he wanted, and then he will kill her. Not that death wasn’t the fate of every Rebel prisoner, but this was especially cunning. And ruthless. And brilliant. She realized she had so much more to learn from him. She loved him even more. She didn’t think that was possible.

The girl writhed on the table and whimpered. Vader ran his fingers down her stomach, slipping them under her briefs, stopping just a pulse above her mons. The girl cooed again, trying to squirm closer to his hand. He lowered himself further. “Such a healthy girl,” he breathed into her ear. She whined with frustration when he drew his hand back up her abdomen. His voice, once hideous, was now dark wine. “You please me, little one.”

Her eyes rolled to him, her lids barely open. “I do?”

“Mmmm. Very much.”

“Do you hear them?”

“Hear what, my child?”

“The angels. They’re singing.”

She had arrived to that place in the Dark Side he had been leading her. He allowed himself a satisfied smile under his mask. “Yes, I hear them.”

So did Lylla.

Vader stroked the girl’s hair. “Tiri, would you like me to remove your restraints?”

“Oh yes, please.” He lightly ran his hand over her. The restraining cuffs on her arms and ankles snapped open. Vader slid his arms underneath her and gently lifted her off the table. Cradled like a child, she practically disappeared in his massive arms. “There.” he soothed, “isn’t that better?”

The girl simpered, her rough and calloused hands curled up like kittens, the Dark Side of the Force erasing the world except for his voice. “Mmm hmm.”

“Tiri,” he whispered, “tell me about the pilot. The one in your holocom.”

Her head in his shoulder, Tiri’s face lit into a blissful smile. “Luke.”

“Luke,” Vader repeated. He paused, and Lylla thought she saw him stiffen for the briefest moment. He continued. “Tell me about Luke.”

“Luke is…” She giggled. “Luke is a hero.”

“He is?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“Why is Luke a hero?”

Her voice was as small as a mouse. “He blew up the Death Star.”

Lylla’s heart skipped. Vader raised his mask to her. She met his look with barely contained triumph. He returned his attention back to the enervated girl in his arms. “Tiri,” Vader breathed, “Luke is here.”

She gasped. “He is?”

“Yes. He is very excited to see you. Would you like to see him?”

Her lip trembled. She had wanted this for so long. “Yes, please. Please…”

The arms around her grew warm, and she felt them become thinner and slenderly muscled. She smelled the scent of skin, clean, warm, and male. She felt a warm puff of breath against her lips. “Tiri?”

“Luke?” she whispered. That was him, that was his voice!

“Tiri…” Two soft lips took hers in a kiss that started gently, even a little hesitantly. But the tightening between her legs pushed her to be bold. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a deep hungry kiss, pressing her body against him.

Lylla cocked an eyebrow as she monitored the girl’s vitals. Eager little minx, wasn’t she? Sitting on her hip on the restraining table, Lylla watched the girl undulate in Vader’s arms, moaning, her mouth wide open with pleasure. Vader, however, stood perfectly still as he projected his avatar into the girl’s mind...

The youth pulled his lips away, and the girl opened her eyes. There were those eyes, those beautiful crystal-blue eyes, piercing through strands of sun-kissed hair that made her heart accelerate every time she saw them. He stroked her face. “Tiri, I've missed you so much.”

“You have?”

“More than you know. So worried about you.”

“Luke, gods, I love you,” she whimpered, “I wish you loved me too.”

“I do, Tiri,” he said, stroking her face. “And I’ll see you again on Eldilir V.”

“You will?” she gasped. “You mean you're coming?”

Lylla noted it. The pilot wasn’t on Eldilir V. Damn.

“Yes, remember, I needed my ship fixed? I’m bringing it to you.”

The girl’s face pinched into a tiny frown. “But… I fixed that, Luke. On Yavin IV, after the battle.”

She felt him tense for a moment, but then relax and hold her closer, and softly laughed. “Ok, you caught me. I’m coming back to see you.”

“I didn’t think you… liked me like that.” She peered into those eyes again, and glanced at his blond hair. But… she couldn’t make out his face...

“No, I do. I really do.” He laughed a little. “I’m just shy. A strong, pretty girl like you, I… just didn’t know how to approach you.”

Something didn’t feel right. “You destroyed the Death Star, Luke. You could have girl you want.”

“But I only want one, Tiri. I just want you.” He kissed her again, but with much more ferocity. She felt his hands roam over her, slipping under her shirt to caress her breasts. She let out a tiny cry. This is happening, she thought, oh Force, this is actually happening…

Isn’t it? Is it…?

He nuzzled her cheek with his. His soft hair brushed against her face. “Tiri,” he breathed in her ear, his voice rasped with desire, “say my name.”

Name. “What…?”

“I love how it sounds when you say it. Please, say my name, all of it.”

Name.

Tic.

Name.

The blue eyes evaporated.

Name.

The word over and over.

Name.

Twitch.

NAME.

The word became the world.

NAME.

Her eyes spun in head.

NAME

Her muscles spasmed

NAME

stiffening her whole body like a cadaver.

NAME

Still in Vader’s arms, the girl bolted up, her eyes bulging, and she barked in military manner, “Name: Akiro. Rank: Sergeant, Rebel Alliance Mechanics Corp. Serial number: 673008-7. Name: Akiro. Rank: Sergeant, Rebel Alliance Mechanics Corp. Serial number: 673008-7. Name: Akiro--”

“SHIT!” Lylla hissed. Her voice blared through Vader’s mind. *My Lord! Dangerous brain activity, heart rate over 200, blood pressure plummeting. She’s been triggered!*

The sudden switch in the girl’s mind-state obliterated Vader’s concentration. He tore his Force filaments out of the girl’s mind. When the girl shrieked and went into convulsions, he threw her back onto the table in disgust. Lylla pushed herself to the girl’s side. Another syringe sprang from a housing implanted on her upper arm, and she pulled it out and plunged it into the girl’s temple. The girl jerked and spasmed before her body went limp and her head dropped to one side, drool running from her mouth and her eyes wide open.

“What happened!?” Vader roared.

Lylla reran the girl’s vital scans across her eyepiece, trying to find an answer and to control her own anger. “I don’t know. The electrical activity in her brain just went berserk. Whatever you said tripped something.”

Vader recalled that last things he said to her. “Name. I said the word ‘name’.”

“That was the trigger.” Lylla ripped one of gloves off and threw it against the wall. “Fucking Rebels! They’ve implanted a kill switch!” She began to pace furiously. “Once tripped, the brain goes into catastrophic seizures! Any Rebel we capture now will be unless we crack that programming!” She hit the wall with her fist. “Rebels, fucking REBELS, one step ahead of me! There could be hundreds of words in there! This will take weeks to deprogram, and I’m not sure she’ll survive it.”

Vader curled his fist as anger and frustration threatened to consume him. “It will not take weeks,” he growled as he glared down at the girl. With a frightening speed and violence that even startled self-possessed Lylla, Vader grabbed her by the throat, wrenched her off the restraint table, and slammed her into the ceiling as his voice from the abyss assaulted her already ravaged mind....

*WAKE UP, GIRL*

The girl exploded awake, and the scream of a tortured animal ricocheted through the cell. He jerked her back down to his mask. The breath of hell was back. *You have no rank, you have no name.* She began to seize again, but Vader raised his hand over her face, stabbed the Force back into her brain, and shorted the seizure out. He woke her back to consciousness by throwing her up against the wall. *You do not exist but for one purpose-- telling me what I want to know. You cannot die-- I will bring you back from the edge of death, again and again. You will know no peace, you will receive no mercy. I want that NAME.* The girl thrashed into another convulsion. Vader clamped his hand on her head and dragged her back.

She clawed at the vice of his hand around her throat, her mouth frothing. “Plyease...”

“WHO IS THE PILOT IN THAT HOLOGRAM?” Vader roared in fury. “WHAT IS HIS NAME?”

Another seizure, another excruciating wrench back into this hell. “Please…. kill me...”

“LUKE WHAT? WHO IS THAT PILOT?” He raised his hand again. “HIS NA--”

“Sk..Skywalker,” she choked. Her eyes rolled back into her head. “Luke... Skywalker...”

The Dark Lord held the girl off the floor by her neck, motionless, silent, his breathing and her last breaths the only sounds in the cell. But in Lylla’s mind, a cacophony blared. Still linked to him through the Force, Lylla shrieked when her consciousness was suddenly dragged through the miasma of Vader’s memories--

It was morning, at breakfast. She laughed at the joke he just made. “Anakin Skywalker, you’re terrible.” She looked out the windows at the rising Coruscant sun that streamed into the dining room. He couldn’t believe how the sun could ignite the mahogany in her curls like that. Her face lit up, she placed her hand on her belly, and smiled at him. “What do you think of ‘Luke’? It’s Naboon for ‘the morning light’. Do you like it?”

He returned her smile. “It’s a fine name.”

She slumped a little. “Fine? You don’t like it.”

“No, I do, I really do. It’s beautiful.”

“You’re letting me pick the name, Ani. I want to be sure you like it.”

He reached over the table and took her hand. “I’ll love anything you pick, Padme.” He let go of her hand to tap the table. “It’s settled. His name will be Luke.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. I’ll name the next baby.” He winked. “Deal?”

She giggled. “Deal.”

Vader crushed his fingers around Tiri Akiro’s throat, severing sinew and muscle until he found the spinal cord, and snapped her neck. The durasteel restraining table, machined to hold a metric ton, erupted out of its bolts in the floor and split with a deafening crack down the center, cables sparking all over the cell.

Lylla scrambled to the farthest corner of the cell and pressed herself into it, sliding down to the floor. She clutched and ripped at her suit because her skin felt like it was on fire. Electricity surged through her bones like they were made of metal… and she realized she was experiencing him in his armor. She felt his rage boiling into insanity as the frenzy of a thousand memories lacerated his traumatized mind without order or reason: thousands of bodies floating in space; slaughtering sandpeople; dozens of children lying around him, all dead by his hand; his dying mother in his arms; standing in a river of the blood of hundreds while their village burned around him, all because they harbored one Jedi…

Strangling his wife.

And the Emperor’s laughter, the croaking cackling diseased laughter of that living corpse, echoing all through it, from all directions, never-ending, deafening--

Lylla slapped the sides of her head, trying to make it all stop, and screamed in terror and agony.

Vader slowly turned around, lowered his arm. Still clutching the dead girl by her broken neck, The Dark Lord stalked toward Lylla. From her view on the floor, he engulfed the entire room, the death stare of his mask bore into her skull. For the very first time, Lylla was afraid of him.

“Vader…?” she choked in terrified breaths, trying to shrink even more into the corner. “Vader, it’s me, it’s Lylla.” He still came murderously toward her in heavy, measured steps. She started to cry. “Vader, please, please, stop…it’s ME. IT’S LYLLA!!”

It’s Lylla It’s Lylla It’s Lylla It’s Lylla It’s Lylla Lylla Lylla Lylla Lylla

Lylla’s cries echoed through his madness, calling him back into the cell, back into reality. Vader stopped. His reason ebbed back like black waves on a lightless beach. It was only then he was aware of the corpse he was dragging with him, and dropped her to the floor. He looked down at Lylla, his woman, huddled into the corner, shaking, her white eyes bloodshot, tears and terror staining her beautiful face.

He straightened up, turned his mask away from her. He flexed his hands, open, closed, open... Finally, he spoke. “Save the brain. We’ll need it to crack the Rebel’s counter-interrogation code.” The cell door shrieked open. He swept out.

Piett stepped forward as the Dark Lord emerged from the cell. “My Lord--” He never finished the sentence. Vader’s cape, blown by force and speed, filled the corridor as he stormed away. Knitting his brow, he looked into the cell, and was horrified by the mangled corpse on the floor, the ruptured restraining table, and Lylla sobbing in the corner. “Baroness!” he exclaimed, rushing around the table to her side. “Are you alright?”

Fighting to control her crying, she gripped Piett’s sleeve. “Get a medical team down here, harvest the brain, keep it alive. Evacuate all personnel off every level in Lord Vader’s sector.” She looked up at him, her eyes pleading and terrified. “Now, Piett, do it NOW.”

He had never seen the Baroness frightened before. For the first time, Piett was alarmed for her. “Yes, Baroness, right away. Rhys!”

Lieutenant Rhys stepped in, and immediately stopped in horror. “Gods and hells, what happened here?”

“Never mind, Rhys. Order all levels of Sector 9 evacuated immediately. And get a medical team down here for that Rebel’s brain.” Rhys nodded and sped out of the cell. Piett helped her up. “Baroness, you should let them look at you--”

“No,” she insisted, wiping her face, “I have to go after him--”

“Madame, I don’t think that’s wise.”

“No, it’s not wise. At all.” She started out of the cell. “Baroness,” Piett said, stopping her. He looked at the dead girl, then back at her. “By the Force, what did that girl tell him?”

She looked back at him. “The truth.” She ran out.

Lylla raced through the Executor’s black corridors, often falling due to the high heels of her boots. But every time, she scrambled back to her feet and kept running. She knew Vader was heading back to his sector-- all she had to do was follow the trail of utter chaos. Smashed droids, shattered lights, three upturned transports, crew members howling in pain and grasping broken limbs and cracked heads from having been thrown into the walls and ceilings. Medical teams rushed past her to tend the injured but, unfortunately, some medics were unable to avoid running into her. She dealt with it by grabbing them by their uniforms and throwing them out of her way.

She finally came to the lift that would take her to Sector 9. She threw herself inside and slapped the controls. Pressing against the wall, she grabbed the eyepiece off her head and battled to calm her frantic breathing.

The lift arrived. The doors slid open. Lylla launched herself out into the empty black corridor, fell again, struggled to her feet, and ran to the room that housed Vader’s hyperbaric chamber. She pounded the door with her palm. “Vader,” she cried, “Vader, please, open the door. It’s Lylla, please open the door!”

The doors shrieked open, revealing Vader standing in the center. He clenched his massive fists and leaned into her. “Why are you here?” he rumbled like a Mustafar volcano.

“Vader--”

He came at her, a black tank of machine and fury that didn’t stop, forcing Lylla to back away. “If I wanted you here,” he growled with the intensity of a thermal detonator about to ignite, “I would have summoned you here. I will not tolerate your insolence any further, Sa’thraxxx!”

“Beloved, please, let me help you!”

He exploded. “I DO NOT WANT YOUR PITY!”

The floor under her feet began to shake. Lylla stumbled on her heel as she backed up and fell. Her thin tether of control snapped, and she bawled, “Vader, please, DON’T SEND ME AWAY!”

He lunged down, grabbed her by the front of her suit, and heaved her off the floor above his head. “GET OUT!” he roared. Lylla screamed, hysterically flailing in his grip and clutching at his hand. The corridor filled with the sickening pops, groans, and shrieks of metal twisting and breaking. Meter-long dents ruptured the floor and ceiling. The lights strobed and burst. Vader stormed to the open lift and threw her inside. Lylla hit the wall and fell to the floor. “DO NOT COME BACK!!” He slammed the controls with his fist. As the door slid closed, Lylla saw the corridor behind him rip itself apart.

The lift launched. Lylla lay on the floor, her body wracked with sobbing. Then she threw back her head and screamed like she never had before.

viii

Palissa held a tray of danni soup, bread, and chol tea. She set the tray on a table just behind the divan where Lylla sat. “Baroness,” she said, “I brought you something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Palissa looked around the empty grand room. “It’s so dark in here. Would you like me to turn on some lights?”

“No.”

The girl hesitantly stepped closer to her mistress. She remembered that Lylla’s hair hadn’t been cut since the night before. It was now far past her hips. “We’ll have to cut your hair soon, Baroness, or else it may strangle you in the night.”

“Palissa, stop it. Stop trying to take care of me.” Lylla didn’t sound angry. She sounded devastated.

Palissa bit her lip. Hours earlier, she had found Lylla in the lift outside, crumpled in a heap and savagely crying, unable to get up. She, along with two other servants, helped her to her feet and inside the apartments. That’s when Lylla screamed at all the servants to leave the manor. When she had finally stopped sobbing, Palissa helped her out of her interrogation suit, as her mistress was in no state of mind to safely take the deadly suit off herself. She ran her a bath, and dressed her into the midnight-blue velvet and black furred dressing gown the Dark Lord had given her, Lylla’s favorite. Then Lylla came out into the grand room, sat on the divan, and looked out the giant viewport at the stars. Silently. Still. For hours. She didn’t tell Palissa what was wrong, and Palissa dared not ask. She only found out through the Executor’s intranet that Lord Vader almost destroyed his private level and it was evacuated until further notice and that repairs would commence immediately on the all corridors leading to it.

Lylla bowed her head. “You may braid my hair, Palissa, if you are concerned,” she murmured. Palissa came behind Lylla and lifted her hair off her shoulders, gently stroking, separating, and weaving her thick black-streaked scarlet hair into a braid down her back. She smiled when Lylla rested her head back in her hands. “I was very cruel to you, Palissa,” Lylla said. “In the beginning. I’ve never told you how sorry I am for it.”

Palissa tilted her head, surprised. The girl pet her hair. “Lylla. You were thrust into a situation you’d never known before. You were alone, you were scared. But you’ve been nothing but kind to me since. You released me from indenture, you made me your ward. I forgave you a long time ago.” She went back to plaiting her hair, working in silence.

“His son is alive,” Lylla blurted.

Palissa’s hands stopped. “What?” she whispered.

“The boy. In the hologram. Is Darth Vader’s son.” Lylla’s voice finally cracked. “He has a son, strong in the Force. And I can’t give him one.” She broke down into anguished sobbing, burying her face into her hands.

Palissa came around and dropped to her knees in front of her. “Lylla, oh Lylla, please don’t cry.”

“When he found out, he…he....” She pressed her hands into her eyes. “I saw his mind, his memories, his entire life. I felt all of him, in my body, in my blood. So much rage, Palissa, so much pain. And the hate… the hate he has...for himself...” She cried even harder. “He never let me see it before, he always shielded it from me.” She clutched her chest. “But now...now that I know... he’ll get rid of me.”

“Lylla, he wouldn’t do that--”

“You don’t know that!” Lylla snapped. “You didn’t see him. He almost killed me today.” She saw Palissa recoil. “And why shouldn’t he? I’m useless to him now.”

“Lylla, stop it.”

“What good am I to him? I can’t have his children. I’m Force-blind. I’m not a soldier, I’m not an officer. Why should he need me, when he has a Force-strong child to rule at his side now? I have nothing to give him but… my body.” She slapped herself in the head. “I’ll be nothing but his whore. If I’ll even be that. He threatened to send me back into slavery once before, he could again. I’ll kill myself before I go back to that!”

“Enough!” Palissa spat out in a rare display of disobedience. Lylla looked up, eyes soaked in tears and wide with disbelief. Palissa tightened her grip on her hand and stood her ground. “Vader loves you, Lylla.”

“Don’t say that, Palissa,” she hissed. Palissa straightened back. Lylla’s eyes narrowed into white blades. “I will not believe that until he says it. And he will never say it. NEVER.” She looked away. “The Sith indulge in pleasure. The Sith use. The Sith do not love.”

Palissa paused before she murmured, “You do.”

“I am not Sith.”

“Aren’t you?” Lylla gaped at her ward. She squeezed her hands tighter. “You are as Sith as he is. It doesn’t matter that you can’t use the Force. Not to him.” Palissa knit her brow, slowly shaking her head. “You really don’t see it, do you? He is so proud of you, Lylla. He respects your opinion, he relies on you, you bring a different point of view. He is training you for something more. Something bigger than Grand Inquisitor.” She reached up, touched her cheek. “And I see the way he looks at you when you’re not looking. Even through his mask, I can see it.” She let out a tiny huff of laughter. “I can only hope that someday, someone looks at me that way.” She became serious again. “Yes, I believe the Sith can love. In a way no one else but a Sith could understand.”

Lylla stared at her, struck by her words. Then she sniffled and wiped her eyes. “What about his son? What do I do about his son?”

Palissa shrugged a little. “Be his mother.” She tilted her head. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted, Lylla? To be a mother?”

Lylla regarded her ward, raising an eyebrow. That cherubic face disguised a shrewd and complex mind. She grasped Palissa’s hand, drew it to her lips and kissed it. “You are wise beyond your years, Palissa. I am grateful for you.”

“And I am for you. Vader isn’t the only one who loves you, Lylla.” Lylla gasped a breath, and fresh tears sprang from her eyes. Palissa wrapped her arms around her, and Lylla cried into her soft honey-colored curls.

*Lylla*

Lylla raised her head when Vader’s voice echoed through her body. *Lylla, come to me.* He sounded so exhausted. So broken. She gasped when she heard him say a word he’d never said to her before

*Please*

Palissa knew that look. “It’s him?” Lylla nodded. “Go.” She rose off the floor, helped Lylla off the divan, and smoothed her hair back.

Lylla clasped her hand. “Someone already looks at you that way, Palissa.” She smirked a little. “When you’re not looking.” She let herself enjoy Palissa’s suprised reaction before she dropped her hand, walked across the grand room, and left through the doors.

Palissa stood for a moment, a little stunned that Lylla knew about her attraction to Piett. But then again, why wouldn’t she? Lylla was incredibly astute. But she was even more surprised to find out that Piett was attracted to her too. He never seemed to show it. Which was one of the reasons she liked him. He didn’t leer at her like the other officers. He was always respectful to her, even when he was impatient. He was disciplined. He was a gentleman.

She looked up and around their vast manor, unlit, empty, silent. She made a choice. She went to her room, picked up a shawl, wrapped it around her shoulders, and she left the manor.

Palissa traversed the Executor’s corridors, taking several lifts, and traveling even more corridors until she finally came upon the wing of the officers’ quarters. Officers leaving their private club for the night ogled her as she passed them, surprised to see her there, muttering to each other and exchanging coarse chuckles, hopeful she’d give them a lusty look. She was fully aware of their talk about her. But she ignored them and kept walking.

Several doors down, Captain Piett was preparing for bed. He had just finished his nightly calisthenics, his uniform was meticulously hung and cleaned of any lint or debris, his boots shined (he still insisted on polishing his own, a habit he kept up since his Academy days), his regulation-made bed turned down. He was in his fresher, combing his hair, when he pulled the comb away. He picked even more hair out of it, as he had done this morning, and the night before. Piett sighed and looked in the mirror. He wasn’t sure if it was genetic, if it was the stress of serving under Darth Vader, or if it was simply that he was getting older. In any case, he looked very tired in his mirror.

He furrowed his brow when his door chimed. He looked at the chrono, and heaved a sigh. He was certain it was someone sent by Vader, demanding his immediate presence. “This is what I get for being competent,” he muttered. Just donned in sleeping pants, he picked a robe off the wall and put in on. He irritably tapped the com. “Piett here.”

“Captain. It’s Palissa.”

Piett straightened in surprise. He was about to ask her why she had come when he decided he wasn't going to talk to her through a bloody door. He palmed it open.

She stood, arms wrapped around her shoulders just like the shawl she wore, her feet bare. His breath escaped him for a second. No one could look lovely under the harsh industrial lighting of the Executor corridor, but she somehow managed to. How did she do that? “Lady Palissa. What a… surprise.” He cleared his throat. “Is there something wrong? Does Lord Vader need me?”

“No,” she said, her voice soft and sweet. She smiled a bit. “May I come in?”

“Yes,” Piett blurted before he thought twice about it. He gestured for her to enter. She did, and he palmed the door closed. He turned to her. “Lady Palissa--”

“Captain, please,” she murmured. “Just Palissa.”

“Palissa,” he exhaled. “Palissa.” He watched her drop her shawl. She wore a simple dark green long sleeved shift that ended just above her ankles, but hugged every curve of her small hourglass figure. The color perfectly complemented her golden curls. He averted his eyes when he realized he was staring.

She dipped her head a bit and looked up at him from under her long black lashes. “Captain, what is your first name?”

She had to ask, didn’t she? He looked to the floor. Palissa was even more charmed by his reserve. He looked back up, sighed, and said, “Firmus.” Honestly, if he could, he would legally change his first name to “Captain”.

A wide grin broke across her face, and Piett was convinced she was about to laugh. But she didn’t. Instead, she came up to him, raised herself onto her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and whispered, “Firmus” across his lips. She kissed him, parting his lips and caressing his tongue gently with her own. He cradled the back of her head in his hand and pulled her even further into the kiss. So soft, her lips, her tongue, her small curving body, those ringlets of honey.

But he broke away, causing her to whimper at the interruption. “Palissa,” he whispered against her lips. “I must know… why me?”

She brushed his nose with hers, and smiled. “I like the way you look at me when I’m not looking.” She kissed him again. He wrapped his arms around her, this time without any hesitation or self-consciousness, and crushed her body against his.

Vader be damned.

ix

Lylla walked the battered corridors of the Executor to Vader’s sector. Repair crew and their equipment lined the halls, replacing bulkhead panels, installing new light fixtures, hauling debris. Officers, troopers, and droids went about their tasks… until they saw her. They all stopped their work and watched her when she passed. Lylla, of course, was always the focus of attention no matter where she went on the Executor-- it was hard to miss a statuesque flame-haired Amazon strutting through the ship. But this time, they stared and cleared a path for her for an entirely different reason: She was the only one who could possibly ease Lord Vader’s rage. And hence, save their lives.

She didn’t strut in her usual imperious way. Instead, she walked with the cadence and grace of a votaress to her temple. The contrast of her indigo gown to her scarlet hair and white eyes was striking within the dark of the ship’s halls and the sea of gray, black, and white of Imperial uniforms. Her height now made her seem transcendent. Like Darth Vader twenty years before, this Baroness seemed to come out of nowhere. And like him, she was an unsettling enigma. She didn’t have Lord Vader’s powers, but that didn’t make her any less formidable. She was fire to Vader’s ice. The sorcerer’s dragon.

She came upon the lift to Sector 9. Two stormtroopers stood guard, ensuring no one entered without clearance, which no one had. Except Lylla. They stepped aside. One tipped his helmet. “Lady,” he said softly, respectfully.

Lylla looked at the trooper. “What is your call number and unit, trooper?”

“TK7866, Baroness. 501st Legion.”

“Lord Vader’s legion.” She turned to the other trooper. “And you, the same?”

“Yes ma’am. TK4932.” Both troopers glanced at each other, unsure why she was talking to them. Was she testing them somehow, so she could report them to Lord Vader?

Until she spoke again. “He speaks highly of you all. The finest soldiers in the Imperial Army.” She tilted her head. “How do you feel about him? The truth.”

TK7866 stood straight, and dared to look her in the eye. “He is the finest commander I have ever served. He is the great military genius of our time.”

“He fights by our sides, on the front lines, not like the officers who hide in the command center,” added TK4932. “There isn’t one man in the 501st who wouldn’t lay his life down for Lord Vader.”

“Or those close to him,” TK7866 added. Lylla turned to him in surprise. Vader’s lesson went through her mind: Loyalty is earned, not entitled. Choose your circle wisely. She couldn’t choose more wisely than earning the loyalty of the legion known as Vader’s Fist.

Lylla touched both their arms. “The 501st will be rewarded for your service and loyalty to Lord Vader. I will see to it.”

“Yes, Lady.”

“Thank you, Lady.”

With that, Lylla entered the lift.

x

When the doors opened to the corridors of Sector 9, Lylla’s eyes drifted over the destruction. Temporary slap patches had been applied to some of the cracks, holes, and tears in the metal walls to stop depressurization. The floor wasn’t easy to navigate, cracked and bulged as it was, so she stepped around the dangerous spots that she could see in the one light that didn’t shatter. The doors to the chamber room were torn open. She lingered there as she took in the damage. Almost all of Vader’s medical equipment was smashed, including his Two-One Bee unit, which lay in pieces and cables. Wires hung from the ceiling, crushed glassine sparkled across the floors in the only light available, that of Vader’s half-demolished hyperbaric chamber.

She stepped in, and kicked something. She looked down, moved her skirt to see it. She couldn’t quite make it out, so she picked it up. A piece of torn and twisted metal, it was unrecognizable at first. But as she turned it in her hands, her thumb ran over a strange depression, and she realized it was an eyescreen. Dread stabbed her gut: It was his mask. He had destroyed it with his own hands.

That’s when she heard, “Hey Tiri, how’s my favorite mechanic? Listen, I’m having some problems with the starboard thrusters on my X-wing, I’m just not getting the hard bank I like, and I’m gonna need that in case we meet up with some TIEs at some point. Think you might have some time to give them a once-over? There’s two bottles of Corellian ale in it for you. I heard you liked it, and I got connections. Let me know when you can get to it. You’re the best, Tiri.” Silence. Then again. “Hey Tiri, how’s my favorite mechanic? Listen…”

Slowly, she came upon the open hyperbaric chamber. Inside, Vader sat in the chamber’s seat, his back to her. He was still dressed in his armor and robes, but his helmet was gone. Destroyed, she assumed, like his mask and lying somewhere in the rubble. The garish light of the chamber lit every valley, crevice, and eruption of his scarred head-- scars that Lylla never deemed anything other than beautiful, the colophon of a warrior prince who survived that which would have killed lesser men.

“…There’s two bottles of Corellian ale in it for you. I heard you liked it, and I got connections. Let me know when you can get to it. You’re the best, Tiri.”

Vader shut it off. His voice was as scarred as his skin. “You came.”

“Of course I did,” she murmured. “You doubted I would?”

“After the interrogation, the cell, what you saw, what you felt...what I almost did. Yes. I doubted.”

“You should know by now that I don’t scare that easily,” she said. “I’m one of only three in the whole galaxy. Remember?”

Vader’s lip pulled into a small smile, in spite of himself. His woman, while not a soldier, was a warrior in her own right. Truly fearless. However, the smile faded. “He told me I killed her. He told me...I killed them both.”

Hatred quietly roiled in Lylla’s gut. “Are you so surprised he lied to you?”

“Nothing Sidious does surprises me.” He tossed the holocom on the floor, then engaged the seat, turning it around to finally face her. Thankfully, the bottom half of his respirator was still functional, with tubes connecting it to the chair’s oxygen pumps. His eyes smoldered blood and fire from their coal-colored sockets. He leaned down, rested his elbow on his knee and sett his lips on his fist, in thought. “I had seen the boy before.”

Her eyes widened. “You had?”

“Yes. When I saw the hologram, he looked...familiar. I wasn’t sure where at first. Then I remembered. It was on the Death Star.” Lylla gasped, realizing she had left the space station just hours before the Organa incident. “The boy in the landing bay. The boy...with Obi Wan Kenobi.” The chamber tremored, the broken equipment tinkling from the vibration. “His crimes are now complete. He stole my wife. He stole my body.” He curled a black fist. “And he stole my child.” The floor beneath them began to quake again--

“Then we must find him.”

The quaking stopped. Vader looked up from his brooding. Now he was surprised. “What did you say?” he rasped.

She pulled herself up to her full stature. Her eyes were fierce, her jaw set firm. “We must find him,” she repeated. “You will need him to help you kill Sidious and take the Empire as your own.”

Vader straightened in his chair and eyed her cautiously. Knowing Lylla’s obsessive jealousy of his dead wife, he did not expect this response. At all. “You… you would help me find Amidala’s son?”

“No, Vader,” she said from deep within her chest, staring at him from under her perfectly arched brows, her eyes hot as supernovae. “I would help you find your son.”

He reached out to her with the Force. It was all there-- her jealousy, her fear, her anger, her hatred. But she was not succumbing to them. She was drawing strength from them.

Like a Sith.

Lylla rushed into the chamber and fell to her knees before him. She set her palms on his thighs. “I cannot use the Force,” she said breathlessly. “I can be at your side, I can serve you in any way you command me. But I can’t help you kill him, I don’t have that power. But your son does. No one but the son of Darth Vader could have destroyed the Death Star single-handedly! Turn him to the Dark Side,” she bared her white teeth, “and you will be unstoppable.” She pushed herself up and leaned into him. “Yes, Obi Wan stole your son. But Sidious lied to you, just to enslave you all these years. Remember, the night of the Coronation Ball, when you told me to wait until the time is right? The time has come.” He saw murder in her eyes. It aroused him. “Have your revenge. Take what is yours. I will do anything to help you find Skywalker.” She tightened her grip on his thighs. “Anything.”

Vader looked into Lylla’s eyes. And as the Dark Side widened her black pupils to spread over her white eyes, he saw a future unfold before him. After decades of warfare, of uprisings, of petty rivalries within the Imperial ranks… Peace. Order. A system that worked. The abolition of slavery. Mass incarceration of crime lords and syndicates, including Black Sun; especially Black Sun. Finally, a rule of law. Without the splintered chaos of warring trade guilds and bickering Imperial moffs, without the corruption of politicians, the lawlessness of the Outer Rim. Without the games of divide and conquer Palpatine constantly engaged in which kept him in power, but weakened the Empire from the inside. He saw the future of a true galactic dominion; unified, efficient, organized, invincible.

Ruled by the house of his name.

“Then we will marry,” he said.

Her pupils shrank back into slits. and the snarl melted from her lips in astonishment. “What?”

“I will marry you,” he repeated. “My son will need a mother. And you will need to have my name if you are to be the Ranee of House Vader.”

The Ranee of House Vader. She sucked in a breath when she realized she had forgotten to breathe. She tried to say something. And absolutely could not. Vader read her thoughts, and furrowed his brow. “You thought… you thought I would leave you, after I discovered my son is alive. You have so little faith in me, Lylla?”

Despite the elation hammering in her chest, she narrowed her eyes and said emphatically, “You threw me into an elevator and ordered me not to come back. Now you want to marry me. Things like this tend to confuse women, my Lord.”

His eyes flared, and he ground his teeth. Again, not the response he anticipated. “You should not have followed me,” he admonished harshly. “I left you where you would be safe.”

“I was afraid for you!” Lylla countered firmly.

“You pitied me!”

“ARRRHH!” Lylla exploded, clenching her hands as she did when her ire arose. She sprang to her feet. “You are IMPOSSIBLE, VADER!”

Vader lunged at her, grabbed her by the arms before she could flee, and dragged her on top of him, holding her mercilessly to his eyes. “I almost killed you once today,” he rasped into her face. “Trust me Lylla, if I hadn’t thrown you out… I would have succeeded the second time.” Despite his ferocity, Lylla saw the fear in his eyes. Fear of losing her. She had thought that he didn’t want her anymore: It hadn’t occurred to her that he was protecting her. He tightened his grip on her arms. “I will not lose another wife.”

Wife, she thought. He called me his wife.

Their glares locked. Her breathing was as ragged as his. Then they crushed each other’s lips in a violent kiss. His tongue invaded her mouth-- she captured it with her own. Vader ripped the clasp of her dressing gown open and forced his hands inside, and was pleased she was wearing nothing underneath. He gripped her ass and pulled her even further on top of him. Lylla clamped her long legs around his. Grabbing her hand, he forced it to his hardening codpiece. “Release me,” he hissed.

Lylla viciously obeyed. She tore at the fasteners and ripped it open. His shaft sprang out, already erect, and she stroked its extensive length, long and slow, into hardness that was almost painful. She shifted herself to straddle it, her cunt soaked and aching. Vader grabbed her by her waist, forcing her down and thrusting inside of her at the same time. Lylla roared through her teeth, the pain just adding to her lust.

Vader wrenched the gown down and off her body. He grabbed the back of her head, took her mouth again with his, and used the Force to unweave her braid, freeing her hip-length hair to blow around them by unfelt winds. He clamped his arm around her and held her captive as he pumped her onto his cock, deeply, relentlessly, with no concern for her pain. When she tried to break the kiss to scream, he took her bottom lip into his teeth and held her there.

Even trapped as she was, Lylla managed to shift her legs so that they wrapped around his waist, and she hooked her fingers around his belt to pull his cock even deeper inside of her. It hurt, gods, how it hurt. But the pain was nothing compared to the firestorm spreading through her. *Hurt me*, she pathed to him, *Take my pain, it’s yours!*

He bit her lip even harder, slammed her down even harder. She cried out with agony and passion. *Ours, Lylla* he growled in her mind, *It will ALL be ours. You, I, my son… we will reign together, will we create a dynasty that will last for a thousand years. You, my queen, will forever be at my side.*

Lylla unleashed a wail of pleasure and joy, and tears burst from her eyes. Vader let go of her lip but still held her hair, and pulled her back so his eyes could feast on her lithe ivory body. He ran his massive hand over her, fondled her firm breasts, plucked and teased her nipples before he hungrily took one with his lips and teeth, and thoroughly enjoyed her spasms around his cock. She began to buck her hips faster when he took her throat into the crook of his palm, but he did not squeeze. *You are too greedy, my Dragon. Enjoy me. Savor me.*

Her eyes sprung open. A sneering smile broke through her tears, she let out a guttural moan, and she calmed her rhythm, undulating around his shaft in slow, circular strokes. Vader traced his fingertips to her solar plexus, sending the Force through them. She flung her head back, her lips forming a perfect O. The harsh light, the chamber, the rubble all around them, the world disappeared, as always when he brought her to that place in the Dark Side. Walls blew away like dust, and they were surrounded by black space and white stars.

She opened her eyes, and she saw Vader was slowly morphing into his young blond avatar. But she lurched forward, her hands on his shoulders, and just touched his lips with her own. “No,” she whispered. “No Vader, don’t. I want you.” She cradled his head. “This face, the face of the man I love.”

She could tell he was taken aback, so she kissed him. He slid his hands down to her hips, and moved her body to meet his rhythm. She released his lips to arch back, gripping his robes to hold herself steady. Soon, her moans turned into the short high-pitched staccato cries that told him she was close. Looking behind her, he could see the black pointed wings of the Sithalim in the far distance of the black sky, as they often appeared when he brought her here. But when he brought his eyes back to her…

Lylla ground herself faster and harder on his cock, her cries dropping in pitch, becoming rougher, deeper, a sound that was no longer quite human. When she snapped her head back forward and looked into his eyes, they were all black once again. She bared her teeth again, but this time, her canines grew out of her mouth, longer, pointed razor sharp. This was none of his doing.

It was hers.

Lylla’s hair flew back into a scarlet spray around her head. Her cries turned into the snorts of a rutting beast, she bucked wildly against him, her head rolling. Fire came out of her eyes, and saliva dripped from her fangs as she came closer, closer…

When she flung her body back and screamed into the skies, two translucent wings unfolded from her back, reticulated, enormous, of every discernible shade of scarlet and black, and spread across the entire sky.

Dragon’s wings.

That was when Vader knew. Now he knew why her appearance had changed so drastically at their first coupling, the first time she touched the Dark Side, and why her hair grew so fast. Why she had an almost inhuman capacity for learning. Why she attracted the Dark Side of the Force the way she did. And now, he knew why she couldn’t use it in the world of matter and time without another Force user as a conduit.

He now knew why he called her Dragon.

He had suspected something that first day when she arrived with the other pleasure slaves on the Death Star, when she looked up at him in the hangar bay. It was one reason why he had her followed and watched. Even then, the Dark Side surrounded her unlike anyone he had ever seen. Now he was sure.

However, this hardly aggrieved The Dark Lord of the Sith: Quite the opposite. She exploded her essence, liquid hot, all over his shaft and thighs. His cock grew even harder, he felt his balls tighten into his loins, the muscles of his back tensed. He grasped her ass with one hand, lunged the other forward, and grabbed her by the throat. He pulled her to his face as he erupted his seed inside of her, his roar matching hers, snaring her eyes of fire into his own. Even in this state, Lylla’s wicked smile emerged, the one she always smiled when he came. With the fangs, she looked even more beautiful.

He thrust her down one, two, three more times before he was spent. Lylla still undulated and writhed, coming down from her own orgasm. He reached up, cupped her cheek, and heard the purr of a beast emerge from her throat. *Lylla, come. It’s time go back.*

The black skies illuminated back into the harsh white lighting of his hyperbaric chamber.
Her fangs shrank back into her mouth. The wings dissipated like smoke. Her eyes returned to their frost white and black slits.

Lylla collapsed onto him, panting, her hair sticking to her sweat-coated body. But as she came back to normality, she started to shake. She raised her head to look at Vader. Her lip trembled, and her scared eyes darted around the room. “Vader...” she whimpered, “Vader, what happened to me?”

“Ssshhh.” He caressed her face with the back of his fingers. “Don’t be frightened, Lylla.”

“What… what happened?”

She didn’t know. And she mustn't ever know. For her own protection. Sidious must never discover what she was. If he did, he would take her away from him, he would enslave her. Or worse.

He smiled a soft, strange, knowing smile. “What happened?” He threaded his fingers through her hair. “The Dark Side... gave you to me, Lylla,” he murmured. He brought her lips to his once more. Lylla calmed under his kiss. He released her lips, laid her head on his shoulder and held her, still buried inside her. Lylla wrinkled her brow--he had never done this before. But she melted into him. He pressed his lips into her hair. “We will marry on Mustafar, at my fortress. However,” he put a finger under her chin and raised her eyes to his again, “you will have a task to complete before we are wed. I am sending you on a mission.”

Her eyes widened. “A mission? You mean… on my own?” He nodded once. “Wh...what is it?”

“You will go to Naboo, to the Naberrie estate. You will exhume Padme Amidala’s body, and have an autopsy run. You will then report what you find directly to me.”

Lylla recoiled from him. “WHAT?”

Vader didn’t let her. He grabbed her neck and pulled her back. “You said you would do anything to help me find Skywalker, Lylla. Was that a lie?” His expression grew darker. “I want to know what happened to Padme and my son. An autopsy will tell me that.”

She began to tremble with rage and desolation. “You… you’re making me go to her grave? You’re making me actually look at her body?” Lylla thrashed in his grip. “How can you do this? You know how much that will hurt me!”

“That is exactly why I am sending you, Sa’thraxxx,” Vader replied dryly.

Lylla drew her lips into a thin line, and looked down and away from him. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of angry tears. “You are cruel, Vader.”

“Very.” He ran his fingers down the back of her neck, a gesture at once affectionate and chilling. “Do you want my name, Lylla? And everything that goes with it? The power? The fear?” A low, dark chuckle came from deep within him. “This rage you feel toward me now? Use it, Sa’thraxxx. Let it feed your own cruelty.”

Lylla’s trembling stopped. Her anger evaporated. She understood now. Her life played across her mind: All the pain, all the assaults and the abuse and the rape, the selling and buying of her body, her blood and her tears, her fertility, everything that was stolen from her… it all had led her to this moment. Hate, anger, pain, they were no longer her burdens: They were her weapons, her lifespring. It was then, as she gazed into the eyes of the Lord of the Sith, when Lylla truly understood what is was to be Sith.

She looked down in thought, then back up to him. “I’ll need records. Amidala’s autopsy report and medical records. Surveys of the estate. Public and personal records of the family. Holo-communications, holonet correspondences, anything available. I want to know everything about them.”

A slow, satisfied smile twisted Vader’s lip. “You shall have them.” He paused. “You will need your own ship. I will commission one of my own modifications.”

Lylla’s mouth dropped open. “My...own ship?”

“It is only fitting that you have your own vessel. You may, of course, name it. You will also take a platoon from the 501st.”

“The troopers I met below, guarding the lift, TK7866 and TK4932. I want them in that unit.”

Vader cocked a brow. He liked this side of her. “Done.”

Lylla leaned back, took his hands, put them on her waist, and slowly began to pump her wet sex over his cock, smiling when she felt it wake up again. “I will not fail you, my Lord,” she purred.

Vader moaned deep within his chest as he gripped her hips. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

xi

“This is Naboo Sky Traffic Security to incoming vessel. Identify yourselves.”

“This is Captain Rhys of the ISS Harbinger. You will clear us airspace.” Rhys smirked a bit when he heard the muffled voices of the traffic controllers jabber at each other in mild panic.

“Naboo Sky Traffic Security to ISS Harbinger. We will need to clear this with the Palace before we can grant you access.”

“You will do no such thing,” Rhys drawled. “Naboo is a vassal sovereignty within the Galactic Empire, and hence we have full jurisdiction. If you do not grant us unescorted access, the Queen will have Lord Vader to contend with.”

Another silence. Then, “Naboo Sky Traffic Security to ISS Harbinger. You… are cleared.”

“Confirmed. Harbinger out.” He signaled the communications officer to cut the link. Stepping forward to the helm, and laid his hands on the pilot’s and copilot's’ shoulders. “Take us in.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the pilot. “Coordinates verified. Should reach destination in five minutes.”

“Excellent.” Rhys turned and strode through the bridge. He walked through the deck to a short set of stairs, and stepped to the upper deck. He stopped, stood at attention, and folded his hands behind his back. “Baroness, we have entered Naboon airspace,” he informed the woman sitting before him.

Baroness Sa’thraxxx sat in a large armed chair with her ankles crossed. Her arms were extended in front of her as two manicurists finished drying her nails with small hand-held ultraviolet dryers. Behind her, her stylist trimmed the last locks of her hair off her neck. Another stylist finished accentuating the arcs of her eyebrows. And yet another servant polished one last spot on her jackboots. She smiled slightly, and her eyes narrowed. “The men are ready?”

“Yes, Baroness. Everything is set.”

Taking a breath, she rose from the chair and extended her arms to her sides as the servants draped a flowing cowled black cloak over and around her shoulders. “Enjoying your first command, Rhys?”

Rhys bowed his head. “Very much, Baroness. I thank you for the commendation to Lord Vader for this commission.”

“Piett will miss you. You are one of the more capable officers on the Executor. Which is why I wanted you.”

“Thank you, Baroness.”

She came forward and stopped in front of him. “See Rhys. I’m not so bad. Am I?”

Rhys looked down for a moment, then back up to her. “I am in your debt, Lady.”

She smiled and stepped around him and down the ladder onto the bridge and walked to stand between the pilots. She ran a hand over the edge of the gleaming helm of her new starship, the Harbinger, the most advanced and sophisticated Raider-Class Corvette in the fleet, thanks to the engineering genius of her betrothed. She looked out of the port down over the lush paradise of day-side Naboo as they descended to their destination.

xii

“Nana,” Ryoo Naberrie called to Jobal. She got off her knees and brushed the dirt off her trousers before hurrying to her mother and grandmother seated on the garden bench. “Look at this one!”

Jobal Naberrie gasped and laughed at the same time. “Ryoo, that’s a parsin fruit? It’s bigger than your head!”

“I know!” Ryoo exclaimed. “And the bigger, the sweeter.”

“Well, we definitely know who got Dad’s green thumb in the family,” Sola Naberrie chuckled.

Ryoo smiled at her mother Sola. “Mom, would you please make a parsin fruit salad for tomorrow’s celebration after the ceremony? Yours is the best, I just can’t seem to get the recipe right.”

“That’s because you use too much sugar, Ryoo,” Sola said. “The secret is letting the fruit sweeten the salad. But yes, I’ll make it.”

Ryoo beamed. “Thanks, Mom. I’m going to gather up some timallios and greens for the other salads.”

“Ryoo, we’re having a gathering, not feeding an army,” Jobal joked.

The young woman turned back around, the Naboon breeze catching her gauzy gardening shirt, walking backwards as she smiled. “You said it yourself, Nana-- no one leaves the Naberrie house hungry.” With that, she went back to working the expansive garden in the grand walled courtyard of the Naberrie estate.

Jobal laughed. “I do say that, don’t I?” She looked at Sola. “When is Pooja getting in?”

“Very early tomorrow. She told me she just had to finish writing up her instructions for her staff to cover for her.”

Jobal sighed. “I’m glad she found something to do after the Emperor dissolved the Senate.”

“Pooja’s first love was always mission work. She only joined the Senate at the Queen’s behest. But Pooja never really liked politics. I believe she is much happier.” Sola gazed after her other daughter in the garden. “Sometimes, I just can’t get over how much Ryoo looks like Padme. Same hair, same smile.” She turned to her mother. “She looks so forward to it every year, her birthday celebration. Seeing old friends and family. She loved her Aunt Padme so much.” Jobal, seated next to her, reached over to her daughter and took her hand, squeezing it. But Sola caught the sadness in that smile. “I know it’s different for you, Mom.”

Jobal Naberrie took a long breath of the Naboo midsummer air, fragrant with lilac and sweetsuckle, and gazed at the rose-covered wall on the far side of the garden. “She would have been fifty tomorrow. With children of her own, possibly even a grandbaby.” She turned away from Sola, but not before her daughter saw her lip shake. “I should be over it by now, Sola. It was over twenty years ago. But I can’t seem to do it.”

“Mama,” Sola said, “no one expects you to get over it. I lost a sister. But you lost a child, and a grandchild. If anything happened to Ryoo or Pooja… I don’t think I’d nearly be as strong as you have been.”

Jobal looked to her left, to the grove of swaying green and white limeran trees off in the distance, at the far edge of their property. The small round white marble building, kissed by the bright sunlight, shimmered through their leaves as they swayed with the breeze. “At least she is resting with your father. She’s not alone anymore.” She paused. “I still don’t understand, Sola. She was so young and so healthy. Why did she die?” Jobal turned back to her daughter. “And why did she keep secrets from us? Why didn’t she tell us about the baby? About Anakin Skywalker?”

“Anakin was a Jedi, Mama. They weren’t allowed to marry. They had to keep it secret--”

“That is no reason, Sola,” Jobal quietly snapped. “They could have come here, we would have welcomed them with open arms. We would have bought them a house, cared for them. If Anakin Skywalker loved her so much, he should have left the Jedi Order to be with her. But no, he couldn’t possibly leave the glory and adulation of being Jedi Knight General Skywalker. He couldn’t reign in his ambition. Or his selfishness. He didn’t even come to her funeral.” The old woman glared at the ground. “I will never forgive him, Sola. He took my baby away. Whether he is alive or dead now, I will never forgive Anakin Skywalker.”

Sola sighed. “I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Jobal sighed as well, and reached for Sola’s hand. “You didn’t, my darling girl.” Then she lightly slapped her knees. “Well, enough of this moping. We are having several dozen people here tomorrow, and I’ve gotten my dose of fresh air and sunshine today. Time to get to work.”

“Mama,” Sola laughed, helping her mother up, “I can handle it. You should rest.”

“Oh Sola, quit treating me like I’m old,” Jobal jokingly admonished. “I’m not dead yet.” They both laughed, turning around to go back into the manor.

Until Ryoo called to them “Mom? Do you hear that?”

They both turned back. “Hear what, Ryoo?” Jobal asked.

She got up off the ground, craning her neck, looking up at the sky. “It sounds like… ship engines. A lot of them.”

“Probably just a cargo run, Ryoo,” Sola replied.

But Ryoo shook her head. “No Mom, that’s not the sound of freighter engines.” Too high-pitched. Too many of them. And they were getting louder. And closer...

Six TIE fighters shrieked over the Naberrie house from behind them. They flew in hexagon formation, not more than a few hundred meters off the ground. All three women were blown to the ground by the force of their engines.

“Mom! Nana!” Ryoo cried, scrambling to her feet and running to her grandmother. “Nana, are you alright?”

“TIE fighters?” Sola exclaimed. “On Naboo? We don’t have a military installation here. Why are they here?”

“I don’t know, Sola” Jobal said as Ryoo helped her off the ground. She looked at the TIEs in the cloudless azure sky. The squad broke formation, three of each arcing away from each other, only to roll, pivot, and reform. “But they’re coming back.”

“Come on,” Sola yelled over the oncoming din, “We had better go in the house.” She tucked a stray lock of her salt-and-pepper hair behind her ear that had escaped. “Whatever they’re doing here, it’s none of our business. We’ll be safer--” She stopped when she felt the ground tremble under her feet, and heard the roar of another ship approaching. From the sound of it, a much larger ship. All three women looked at each other with frightened eyes.

A triangular shadow crept over them from above the house, growing longer, darker, and the engines were deafening. The pointed nose of the Raider-class Corvette soon came into view above them, again, so close to the earth that the entire centuries-old stone house shook to its foundations. It lacerated the sky like a spear’s head, thirty meters at its widest point and three times as long, eclipsing the Naboo high afternoon sun, shrouding the garden and courtyard in darkness.

An old man ran out of the house into the courtyard, frightened by the quaking and the noise. “Mrs. Naberrie!” he exclaimed, twisting his head to look up at the behemoth encroaching above them. “What is going on? The pots and pans have shaken off the walls, the mirrors have all broken--”

“Harlen, it’s alright,” Jobal said. “Go back to the kitchen. There’s nothing to fear.” But Jobal knew that wasn’t the truth.

“Ma’am,” said Harlen, nervously twisting his apron. “I think it might be safer out here. I’m afraid the lighting fixtures will shake loose on my head.”

Sola took a calming breath. “Alright, stay out here, and stay close. They’ll go away. They aren’t here for us--” She trailed off when the Corvette reached the clearing beyond the garden walls. The ship lit the repulsor engines, slowing it to a stop. It turned around, and Sola saw landing gear emerge from the hull. Finally, the ship descended, easily and with sinister grace, until it disappeared from their view behind the garden wall.

Ryoo clutched her mother’s arm. “Mom, I’m scared.” Sola set her hand on Ryoo’s, trying to assure her, but unable to assuage her own fear. The group huddled together, they didn’t move, they didn’t speak. They just stared at the wall and listened to the action on the other side of the wall. The hiss and whine of hydraulics. The clamor of armored boots on a metal-grated ramp…

A synthesized voice through a vocoder. “On the count of three, blast it! One, two, THREE.” The garden wall exploded into an array of bricks, mortar, dust, and roses. The residents screamed and ducked down to the ground to avoid the flying debris.

Despite her advanced age, Jobal was the first to rise, lowering her arm from her head, watching the wall. Forty stormtroopers poured through the smoking three-meter hole blown through, blasters raised. They swarmed over the courtyard. Several surrounded the terrified group and held them at blaster point.

TK7866 began barking orders. “Corporal, take a squad to the front, form a half-kilometer perimeter around the property. Anyone tries to penetrate, shoot to kill.”

“Yes, Sergeant!” TK4932 waved a total of sixteen men over to him, and they proceeded to break the doors and windows of the house to get inside. Sola and Ryoo screamed at them, begging them to stop.

Sergeant TK7866 tapped the com in his helmet. “Ground to Harbinger. Airspace status?”

“Airspace cleared, TIE complement covering fifty kilometer radius. No one’s getting through.”

“Confirmed. All clear here. Send her out.”

Sola, Ryoo, and their old cook Harlen clutched at each other, crying. But Jobal continued to look at the smoldering wall. Out of the smoke and dust of the blasted wall, a shape emerged. Jobal allowed herself a rare expletive. “Who the HELL is that?” she breathed.

Just shy of two meters tall, the creature that materialized had blazing black-striped scarlet hair, cropped short. The Naboon breeze caught her cowled black cape, blowing it back to reveal a matching Imperial uniform-influenced jacket and fitted pants tucked into severe jackboots. She walked with determined grace and nefarious purpose, one thumb hooked into her belt, striding over the annihilated debris of the wall like she was doing it a favor. But it was her eyes that made Jobal swallow hard. She had never seen eyes like that on a human before, or any race for that matter: Slicked with black kohl, white and harsh as absolute zero, black slits for pupils. Even under the bright Naboo sun, this beast walked in darkness.

But Jobal would not take her home being invaded lightly, Empire or not. She stepped forward, hands at her sides, and glared at the woman. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded. “Why are you here? I demand to know the reason for this outrageous act!” The woman arched an eyebrow at Jobal, sauntered over and planted herself in front of her. She was almost two heads taller than the diminutive lady. She folded her arms over her chest, nodded briefly to a stormtrooper to her right, and glared down her nose.

TK7866 came forward with a datapad, which he shoved right in Jobal’s face. “By order of the Lord Darth Vader, this is a warrant to search your property. Lord Vader has substantial evidence that crimes against the Empire have been committed here.”

“Crimes against the Empire?” cried Sola. “What are you talking about? That’s absurd!” She scowled at the woman. “Who are you?” The imposing she-beast slid her ghastly eyes to the Sola, but still said nothing.

TK7866 turned the pad around and read from it. “The charges are as follows: Aiding and abetting Rebel sympathizer Pooja Naberrie--”

“WHAT?” screeched Ryoo. “That not’s true--”

“Former Senator Pooja Naberrie has been arrested for using her political influence to obtain shipping clearances for Rebel criminal smuggling activities and for her past affiliation with terrorist Leia Organa.” As the women gasped, he continued reading the charges. “Withholding information vital to Imperial galactic security--”

“That’s ridiculous!” shouted Ryoo. The shout turned into a scream when another stormtrooper stepped forward and raised his blaster to her forehead. “One more outburst and I’ll use it!” Sola threw her arms around her child and pulled her close.

TK7866 continued reading the charges. “Falsifying medical records. Falsifying autopsy reports. Collusion with enemies of the Galactic Empire, including known war criminal Obi Wan Kenobi.”

Sola shook her head. “We don’t even know who that is!”

Lylla bent down, her nose scant centimeters from Jobal’s, and spoke for the first time in a low, frigid contralto. “She does.” A slow, disturbing smile spread. “Don’t you, Jobal Naberrie?”

Jobal narrowed her own eyes, never breaking contact with those of the beast. She donned a slow smile of her own. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Lylla sniffed, then nodded to TK7866 to continue.

“Therefore, Lord Vader has dictated that an autopsy will be performed by a medical droid from the ranks of the Galactic Empire. On Padme Amidala.”

Sola thought she was going to vomit. “Wh..what? You...you can’t do that!” She lunged at Lylla, and was caught by the arms by two troopers. “You can’t do that!”

Lylla flared her nostrils at the woman, then nodded curtly once again to TK7866. He gestured to another trooper, who stepped up to the group, raised his blaster, and shot old Harlen the cook.

“NOOO!” screamed Ryoo, scrambling toward her old friend, the man who helped raise her. “HARLEN!!” She was stopped by the same trooper hitting her in the shoulder with the butt of his blaster. She fell back to the ground, the wind knocked out of her. Sola screamed and threw herself on her daughter, embracing her.

“He’s dead,” the trooper reported, shoving Harlen lightly with his boot. Sola and Ryoo wailed in horror and grief. But Jobal stood fast and solid, despite the anguish churning in her gut, never breaking eye contact with Lylla.

Lylla smirked. A challenge. How nice. “Don’t fight us,” she murmured. “You won’t win.”

Another trooper jogged out of the grove. “Sergeant, we found the mausoleum. This way.”

“Get a crowbar,” ordered TK7866. “You, you, and you-- open that door and remove the top of the sarcophagus.”

“Yes, Sergeant!” At that moment, the medical team came through the shattered wall, pushing medical scanners, equipment, and a Two One Bee unit on repulsor carts. They followed the three troopers on the path through the grove.

Sola held a hysterical Ryoo in her arms on the ground, rocking her back and forth. She lifted her tear-soaked eyes to Lylla. “Please,” she sobbed, “please, don’t do this. I’m begging you, please let her rest. This is sacrilege!”

Lylla folded her arms again. “Do I look like sacrilege concerns me? Lieutenant.”

TK7866 stepped forward. “Ma’am?”

“Keep them here until the autopsy is finished. Then bring them in on my signal.” As the sergeant waved more men over to them, Lylla shot one more glare at Jobal, who still hadn’t moved, spoken, or taken her eyes off her. “Afterward, we’ll have a little chat, you and I.” With that, Lylla turned and swept away, her cape billowing behind her, as she marched toward the mausoleum, TK7866 flanking her right.

It was only when Sa’thraxxx strode away did Jobal show the slightest hint of despair. A single tear rolled down her withered cheek, and she closed her eyes. So. Finally. She had wondered all these years how long it would take. Someone in the Empire had discovered the truth.

xiii

“Baroness,” TK7866 said as he came to Lylla’s side. “Permission to speak freely?”

“Granted.”

“I wanted to thank you personally for my promotion.”

She smirked. “You should be thanking Lord Vader. He promoted you, not I. I just put in a good word for you.”

“Yes, Ma’am, and I wanted to let you know it is very appreciated. And that I am at your service for anything you require.”

She stopped walking, and turned to face him. “I can hold you to that?”

“Absolutely, Ma’am.” His tone was deadly serious through his vocoder.

Lylla regarded him for a moment. “I see many more promotions in your future, TK7866.”

He bowed his helmet. “Thank you, Baroness.”

“Sergeant!” barked a trooper through his helmet’s comlink. “Mausoleum is open, and so is the sarcophagus.”

“On our way,” the lieutenant answered. He turned to Lylla. “Ma’am, after you.” Lylla didn’t move. “Ma’am, are you alright?”

She shot him a look. “I’m fine.” She whipped a turn and continued her fierce stride down the path until she came upon the crypt’s opening. She stopped, and briefly stared into the crypt’s darkness. Then she curled her toes, closed her eyes, sucked air through her nose, and fortified her damned self. She stepped inside.

Even with the ability of her white eyes to see better in the dark than most, it was still exceedingly dim in the crypt, as the Naboo sun couldn’t penetrate the meter-thick stone walls. “I need more light,” she commanded. Immediately, a trooper pulled an armor light out of his belt and slapped it onto a wall. The mausoleum illuminated in a hazy white-yellow glow. There were four sarcophagi in all, arranged in a circle around the crypt. Two of them, marked in Aurebesh with the names of Jobal and Sola, stood empty. Another was closed and marked with the name and death date of Ruwee Naberrie, the family patriarch. The fourth was flanked at all corners by four troopers. And open. Lylla slowly came toward it and, taking in a thick breath, peered over the edge.

There she was. The forbidden name. The ghost.

Lylla stared at her, her anger burning hotter with every passing second. Yes, she had seen holovids of her from various media during her reign as Queen and her years in the Senate. And after studying all of her medical records, she could attest that she quite literally knew her inside and out. But this, seeing her now, just inches from her… no matter how much Lylla thought she had readied herself for this moment, she found her preparation sorely lacking. Padme Amidala Naberrie hadn’t decomposed, hadn’t rotted in any way: Even the Arisand daisies in her hair looked fresh. She had the face of a poet’s dream; perfectly symmetrical, arched brows, full lips, sweeping cheekbones. Long chestnut curls, arranged in a perfect halo around her head. Even her skin maintained a living glow. She didn’t look dead, but merely asleep. Sweet, serene, angelic-- everything Lylla was not. Lylla hated her even more. She even had to be beautiful in death, didn’t she? She couldn’t even fucking rot like everyone else. Lylla wanted nothing more than to order flame-troopers inside and have them torch the bitch.

She noticed the bauble she had in her hands. She reached in and grasped it in her fingers, turning it over in every direction. Japor, she surmised. Crudely yet symmetrically carved, it looked like the work of a child. A skilled child. Had Vader given this to her? But if he did, when? As a child? When he was grown? The answer that evaded her only fed her rage…

Until Lylla began to laugh. Softly yet disturbingly, perhaps even a little madly. So, he gave Padme a trinket.

He was giving her an empire.

“Baroness?” TK7866 interjected. “The medical droid is here.”

Lylla drew a breath and pulled herself together. She had indulged her hatred long enough; it was time to get to work. She rose from the crypt, pulling herself into her full height. “Send it in.”

The Two One Bee droid rolled loudly over the stone floor, followed by two human assistants pushing the repulsor carts that carried the medical scanners. “Baroness,” the droid addressed her, “if you please, we will need room to set up and conduct the scan.”

Lylla nodded, then looked over her shoulder at the troopers. “Outside.” Once the troopers filed out, she stepped away from the sarcophagus. The techs set the apparatus up, raising a large scanning plate on a mechanical arm over the foot of the casket, engaging the power supply. Once they were finished, Lylla barked at them. “You too, the both of you. Out.”

The younger of the two male techs blinked at her. “But Madame, we need to be here to--”

“Are you making me repeat myself, medic?” Her voice was as cold and dark as the crypt itself. She didn’t face him. She didn’t have to.

He swallowed and looked at his colleague, who returned his nervous glance. “No, Baroness.” With that, they both hurried out of the mausoleum.

Lylla looked at the droid from under her brow. “You know what we’re looking for.”

“Yes, Baroness.”

She pulled her personal holocom out of her belt, handing it to the droid. “Download the findings into this. Then erase every byte of data off the scanner’s drive and your own memory banks when you are finished.”

“Yes, Baroness.” The droid plugged the holocom into the scanner’s drive. With that, Two One Bee engaged the scanning plate. With blaring light and a low hum, the plate slowly passed above Padme’s body, starting at her feet. Lylla turned her back to the coffin, far more interested in the spherical holographic display around her, projecting fleeting lines of medical data and internal images of her organs. When the scanner hovered over Padme’s swollen belly, Lylla barked, “HALT.” Two One Bee obeyed. She stepped closer to the image, and suppressed the anger roiling inside her. “Continue.” The plate resumed its path over the body, over her chest, her heart, her neck and head.

“Scan completed, Baroness.” Lylla extended her hand behind her. The droid unplugged the holocom from the scanning device and placed it in her hand. “Now engaging data wipe.” With the same appendage, it plugged into the scanner itself. The eyes of the droid flashed repeatedly for several seconds. “Data wipe confirmed.”

“Leave,” Lylla ordered quietly. Two One Bee disengaged from the scanner, and rolled across the floor and out the door. Bending to one knee, Lylla placed the holocom on the floor and programmed the call. She threw her cape over her shoulder and bowed her head as the two-meter holographic spectre of the Dark Lord of the Sith materialized before her, his mask and helm having since been replaced. “My Master,” she said in quiet reverence.

Vader bent his mask down to her. His respirator and his synthesized baritone filled the stone chamber. “Report.”

“The autopsy is complete. Uploading the data to you now.”

“Tell me what you found,” he said, a jab of impatience in his tone.

Lylla drew a deep breath, tilted her chin up. “Her womb is empty, my Lord. There is nothing there.” She dared to look up into his mask. “I believe that confirms it.”

Vader showed nothing. “And the cause of death?”

“Cardiac arrest.”

“Cardiac arrest?” Vader repeated. He tilted his mask down to her. “Not… strangulation?”

Lylla shook her head. “No, my Lord. The data does not indicate any oxygen deprivation to the brain, nor any significant trauma to the trachea. Her heart… simply stopped.” She weighed her words carefully. “There’s something else.”

“That is?”

“There is no indication that the child was surgically removed. He was delivered naturally.”

Only then did she see Vader react in any way. His shoulders tensed, and he turned his helm away from her, curling both of his fists. “Then she was alive.”

“Yes.” Lylla looked up to him. She could feel his furor even though they were light years apart. She dropped her formality for a moment. “I don’t know what killed her. But I do know you it wasn’t you.”

Vader turned his back completely from the holocamera, clasping his hands behind his back-- an action that Lylla recognized as him controlling a rage that was very close to unleashing. The slow, harsh, heavy rhythm of his respirator strained the moment even more. Lylla allowed him his time, and focused on the meditative breathing he had taught her.

Finally, he turned around and looked down to her. “Amongst everything else you are, you have shown yourself to be an excellent field agent. Well done.” It was his turn to drop formality. His voice caressed the words. “My Dragon.”

Her chest swelled with pride, and she could barely contain her glee. “My Beloved.”

“Upon your return to the Executor, we will set course for the Mustafar system.”

“Yes, my Lord.” She cleared her throat in order to contain the emotion swelling inside her. “My Lord. The Naberrie family? Your orders?”

He drew himself into his full soaring height. And clasped his hands behind his back. “I leave them to your discretion.” With that, Vader’s image vanished. Lylla remained on one knee as she wrapped her heart around his words. Nevertheless, she shook herself from her reverie. She picked up the holocom, rose to her feet, and grasped the comlink in her cowl. “Sergeant. Bring the women in here.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” the lieutenant’s voice crackled back.

Lylla strolled back to Padme’s body. She slapped her hands on either side of the casket, and leaned in so far that she was almost inside it herself. She hissed into the dead woman’s face, “I WIN.” Her moment was interrupted by the mewling and whimpering of the women being forced by blaster point inside. Straightening up, she said to TK7866, “Leave us. But stay close.” TK7866 complied, and stepped out.

Lylla turned around, spreading her arms along the edge of the casket and leaning against it: The Dragon had returned. She targeted her focus on elderly Jobal Naberrie. “I’m ready for our chat now,” she said, her tone slick with condescension and menace. Sola and Ryoo still clung to each other. But Jobal, again, showed her nothing. Lylla scanned the women, then turned back to Padme in the coffin. Then back to the women, and pecked her tongue against her teeth. “Brown hair and brown eyes. Over and over again. You Naboon women are so dull. Do you all look alike?”

“At least we look human,” Ryoo grumbled through her tears.

“Ryoo!” Sola exclaimed, stunned by her daughter’s defiance.

Lylla gasped in mock shock. “Ooo. Meow.” She pushed herself off the sarcophagus and strolled casually to Jobal, once again towering over her. “Excuse my vulgarity, but I’m bored with fucking around. What happened to the child?”

“What child?” Sola demanded, unaware of her mother’s stunned response to the question.

Lylla rolled her eyes, and sighed with impatience. “The child that was in her belly and now is not.” She snapped back to Jobal. “Where is it?”

“You’re insane!” Sola burst. “The baby died with her--”

Lylla had had enough. She stormed two steps to Sola, raised her hand, and backhanded her across the face. “I. Am not. Talking. To YOU,” she roared, punching every word. Sola cried out, and Ryoo clutched her mother close to her chest. Seething, Lylla encroached upon Jobal. “If you do not tell me what I want to know, I will beat her to death in front of you, and do not think I can’t do it. I will ask you one more time. Where is the child?”

Jobal closed her withered eyes, and silently made peace with her deities. When she opened them again, her gaze was hewn from stone. “Somewhere no one will ever find him. Not Vader, not the Emperor. And certainly not the likes of YOU.”

Sola and Ryoo stopped their crying, and looked at Jobal. “Mama…?” Sola breathed.

Lylla glanced their way, relishing the look of utter disbelief on their faces. “Don’t you just love family secrets?” she crooned. “So,” she added, addressing Jobal. “Kenobi did steal him.”

“Kenobi hid him,” Jobal corrected defiantly. She paused. “I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl. All I know is that Obi Wan Kenobi showed immense kindness by telling me my grandchild was alive. And safe.”

Lylla pulled out the holocom, and held it next to her face. “Yes, that holomessage twenty-one years ago was very kind of him. Very much worth the extensive digging it took into the Naboon communications archives to find.”

“Mama,” Sola whispered, unable to say anything else.

Jobal turned to her daughter, and let a tear drop down her face. “Sola, I’m sorry.” She wiped the tear. “Padme wasn’t the only one who kept secrets.” She looked back at her interrogator… and did not expect the look on her face. The beast had softened her severe posture, and Jobal thought for a moment that she saw in those inhuman eyes… compassion? Jobal flinched a bit when she raised her hand, expecting to get a blow across the face… but was surprised when she placed it gently on her shoulder.

Lylla leaned down, and murmured, “You were right to unburden yourself of that secret.” She smiled kindly. “I like you, Jobal Naberrie. You are a woman of fortitude. I admire that very much. That’s why I’m not going to kill you.” She straightened and pulled the comlink back to her lips. “Sergeant. Bring two with you.” TK7866 came in, flanked by two troopers. “Arrest them.”

“WHAT?” shrieked Sola. Ryoo burst into new tears. Jobal, however, simply smiled. A sad, tired smile.

Lylla adjusted her cloak. “Your mother gave a full confession. I recorded it on my holocom. Colluding with a Jedi war criminal, fraudulently faking the death of a person of interest who could prove to be an imminent threat to the security of the Empire. That makes her a traitor. And since Senator Naberrie has been charged with treason and we are seizing your property as evidence, we’re arresting you and your daughter for fraternization with the enemy.” Before she had to endure yet another round of wailing and crying, she gestured to TK7866. “Sergeant, you’re with me.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

They stepped back out into the Naboon summer sunshine. Lylla shielded her sensitive eyes, the light uncomfortable after so long in the dark, as she and the sergeant came back up the path to the courtyard. “Reseal the sarcophagus. Bring the prisoners onboard and put them in the hold.” A thought. “Have two troopers guard this mausoleum at all times. If any locals try to be heroes...kill them.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

They stopped in the courtyard’s center. “You and a squad will stay here to secure the area until we can send a permanent regiment. I’ll arrange a writ for the property to be seized.” She smirked and lowered her voice. “Help yourselves to anything inside.”

TK7866 grinned under his helmet. TK4932 had already told him about the large soft beds, the vast abundance of food and the fully stocked wine cellar they had found when they raided the house. Find a few local girls, and he was sure this would be one of his better assignments. He bowed his helmet to the side, and Lylla heard a satisfied grunt come through his vocoder. “Yes, Ma’am.” He tapped his helmet’s comlink. “Ground to Harbinger. Bringing three prisoners.”

“Harbinger to ground, confirmed. Out.”

Lylla took a long look at the almost ancient stone manor, entrenched in thought. “How deep, I wonder, does Naboon sympathy for the Rebel terrorists go? To the very top? Perhaps an Imperial investigation is in order.” She turned to TK7866. “There is no Imperial military installation here on Naboo?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Perhaps it is time there is one. I shall suggest it to Lord Vader. I believe this place will make a fine Imperial headquarters.”

Placing her hands on her hips, Lylla turned on her heel to go through the blasted wall and board her vessel. Just then, troopers dragged the three Naberrie women out of the mausoleum to the courtyard and forced them on their knees before her, even elderly Jobal. Lylla threw them one last frigid glance as she marched through them.

Ryoo shrieked at the top of her lungs after her, “WHO ARE YOU??”

The scarlet-haired creature didn’t stop, didn’t acknowledge her whatsoever. Lylla strode through the wall and up the ship’s ramp, where she smiled and murmured to no one...

“I am Lady Vader.”

To Be Continued
- 1
- 2
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Dark Angel: Scarlet Dragon