Rina Ascura
Knight Commander
Force Alignment: 111
Posts: 924
Please keep it at 100!
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« on: January 21, 2013, 02:02:21 PM » |
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A Most Dreadful Revenge A Star Wars Fan Fic by Rina Ascura, in which Darth Vader receives an important lesson.
Sorry for bad grammar, this is my first English translation of my fan fiction.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
But if I get caught, well, sucks to be me.
The Code of the Sith, with the Most Ancient and Important Unofficial Addendum.
Captain Needa knew that the most probable consequence of his failure shall be death. He also knew that, nevertheless, he should find a convincing explanation of failure. And he also knew that Dark Lord can choose not to restrain himself… And this knowledge did not console him at all when he fell, stretched, on a trellised floor of a corridor, reaching for his throat and his face felt the touch of a black boot.
"Apologies are accepted, Captain Needa" - a polite deep voice boomed way above his head.
And darkness fell.
Some hours later six Imperial officers gathered in a dimly lit cargo hold of the Super Star Destroyer Executor. Apparently, it was a secret meeting, and those dared to attend were fairly nervous. Admiral Firmus Piett bit a lip; the commander of the Executor's engine room, Captain Agenar, beat a nervous staccato with his fingers on his tightened belt. The commander of the deck fighter squadron walked to and fro, from a box to a box, measuring almost a meter each step. The commander of cannon decks and the ship system administrator looked around in fear, and only Captain Tomino, the ship's quartermaster, sat on a box with oxygen candles, relaxed, cast away on a wall and drawing a smoke from his carababba cigarra.
"Gentlemen!" - Admiral Piett began his improvised speech. "I have gathered you here so that we could decide together what to do. Only you five I trust enough to not be afraid that someone will report my seditious speeches".
He sustained a theatrical pause, deeply inhaled and continued:
"Lord Vader is raging. He chokes our comrades one after another. To admit, when we lost Ozzel, I was glad: I hated the man. But now we have lost Needa. Enemies whom the Dark Lord hunts are still at large, and who knows on whom he will decide to break the anger next time. Perhaps, on me. Or on someone of you." "But what can we do?" - Captain Agenar asked. - "Simulate illness? Lay down in the infirmary and push the responsibility on some subordinates of ours? All six of us together? No, it's beyond ridiculous." "Are you suggesting us to defect to the Rebels?" - the commander of cannon decks angrily asked. "Choose your words, Captain, and don't speak nonsense" - Piett answered. "I couldn't imagine such a possibility".
Then old Tomino spoke. He was already over seventy, he remembered perfectly both the Naboo Crisis and all the Clone Wars, and he was overdue for an honorable resignation. And he already should be a Vice Admiral at his age. But it turned out that Tomino's was an unlucky career, because he couldn't speak politely to his superiors. He liked to speak frankly, to tell the truth, to state everything he thought about his superiors to their faces. Such a direct mas was Tomino, without even a drop of subtlety. With one small, but important exception: he liked to play cruel practical jokes to those of his superiors who treated him unfairly and offended him. With such a set of quirks, it was not surprising that Tomino was a captain, but that he wasn't a lieutenant was.
"And I think that Vader has gone too far" - Tomino said. - "We all are just cowardly womp-rats, and in vain we hide from him in holes, afraid of our own shadows. We must obey him, but we should do it by the book, according to the old good code of naval service. And to him, I see, the book does not apply. It is known that only fools scoff at the naval codes and charters, cause they are written in blood of those who ignore them..." - the quartermaster spoke judiciously. "You're a daredevil, Tomino" - Agenar answered. "However, at your age it's no wonder. You have had enough of a long, happy life, and it's time to take a ride down the dead man's chute, isn't it?" Tomino took a drag of his cigarra, exhaled a fragrant smoke smelling of shuura, and smiled. "And you, I see, are not" - he answered. "Snap out of it and do not panic, gentlemen. I know how to teach Vader a good lesson. No one will get anything, I guarantee it, and our big black pain in the rear will become a happy camper, and a polite one to boot. "Tell us!" - Admiral Piett ordered. "I need some implements and some of your help. Captain Agenar, you're selling reactor grade helium-3 on the black market, aren't you? No, don't get riled, it not an accusation, it's an idea. From you I need a cylinder of helium which isn't in the cargo database and without an inventory code, as the entirety of my storage is all controlled and chipped. Well, not the entirety. I've got some blue paint which has been written off yesterday as shrinkage and spillage, and I'll use it to recolour the cylinder as one of oxygen..."
The officers exchanged glances simulataneously. Their hearts pounded with a mixed feeling - fifty percent of fear, fifty of mischievous anticipation. They at once understood what cruel, ironical prank was conceived by Captain Tomino.
* * *
SSD Executor hurtled through hyperspace. Lord Vader stood on the bridge, peering afar through a thick transparisteel plate. He found the madly dancing blue calming, while normal people always felt uneasiness and headaches after gazing into it. He was thinking about his suddenly discovered son, who he always thought to be dead before birth. Under its black helmet stormed a frantic whirlwind of thoughts and questions, and even hyperspace wasn't calming any more: he desired action, walking in wide steps, pursuing the young man whom he never knew. "Enough, that's enough" - Darth Vader thought to itself. "Any more of that, and I'll go mad. I should meditate... " He strode briskly to the pressure chamber built for meditations. The ship's corridors were almost deserted, only the log officers and technicians were awake: the stormtroopers were sleeping uneasily, the next watch was having their last hour of sleep, and nobody crossed the way of the Dark Lord of the Sith. He entered the pressure chamber, sat in a meditative pose and pushed a button. The dome of a pressure chamber lowered, soft lamps lighted up, pumps hissed, replacing standard ship air with almost pure oxygen specially prepared for him, and a clamp slowly stretched downwards to remove the infamous, dreaded black helmet.
At first, Darth Vader did not realize what was wrong. He performed measured breaths and exhalations - by himself, unassisted by life support machinery - but he did not feel fresh air. Here it was stuffy, strangely stuffy. A minute later he felt odd: dizziness afflicted him, and his weak-sighted eyes saw a thin lilac haze. "There is no oxygen" - he understood. "Instead of it pure inert gas was injected. A malfunction, or, perhaps, someone has tampered with my chamber!.." His meditative trance was swept away. He pressed the button convulsively, submitting a command: get the helmet back on, immediately, and open the pressure chamber! But the treacherous mechanism had another surprise for the Dark Lord. The clamp holding his respiratory mouthpiece froze midway to Darth Vader's face, and the next moment, lights went out. The pressure chamber was blacked out.
"Sabotage! No, AN ATTEMPT!!! " - Vader understood at once. He was in a trap. But, fortunately, the unknown saboteur obviously did not expect that the Sith shall use the Force. He had to use the Force to save himself and punish the bastard who did it; was that a Rebel assassin or a disgruntled bottle-mate of some crony he strangled, it mattered not. There wasn't time to guess: he had to save himself from the grave danger first. But how? Vader concentrated, trying telekinesis to pull the details of his mask free from the gripping clamps and force open the dome. He failed: maybe it was the famous quality of Imperial engineering, maybe his concentration was too weak from asphyxia. He heard ringing in his ears, the dizziness became untolerable. What could he do? Force the damn automatics to work properly? But Vader did not know electrokinesis. Call watchmen to the aid with telepathy? But he could not remember who was right now on Watch Post 13, nearest to its pressure chamber. Finally, he got an idea. Once again he tried to concentrate and used the technique which he always used to treat his burnt lungs - only this time he concentrated all Force available to him on his half-dead vocal chords, idle for many years. And they responded: it seemed that now, for some minutes, he could once again speak not in the hated mechanical basso, but in the voice of Anakin Skywalker. The Sith Lord activated the radio communication system of his suit. It was a primitive analog device, designed to speak in the vacuum of space. It was not a HoloNet modem, and he couldn't call the watch terminal - but it was possible to contact the emergency intercom of the ship. Darth Vader switched the radio to the intercom frequency with a single click and bellowed as loud as he could:
"Watch Post 13! To the pressure chamber, immediately, with a med..."
... And stopped short. From his throat came out not the voice of Anakin Skywalker. From his throat came out a high pitched, plaintive squeak worthy only of a kiddy cartoon character. Darth Vader understood everything at last. He was breathing helium. -... With a medic... And plasma jaws of life... - he finished even more pathetically.
The intercom readily broadcast this thin, ridiculous voice over the entire ship, and the crew has woken up, as if on command. No one yet realized what it was; the stormtroopers thought that it was just the next dream about their childhoods that passed not so long ago, about Mom's pies, about the lovely girl from the next class (will she wait for her boy to return?...), and animated Holonet cartoons every week. The next watch stirred in their sleep, muttering something. Darth Vader's radio was silent.
- Watch Post 13! - screamed Vader. He was already on the verge of passing out, he fell backwards, hardly remaining in consciousness. The fearsome strangler was dying of asphyxiation, begging for help in a tiny, plaintive voice, not dreadful at all. Now that was the irony. Now that was a killing joke by Captain Tomino, the king of jokers.
- What the kark? - the radio finally responded in a cursing voice of the watchman. - Who is there, motherkriffer, doodling with the emergency system? Who's that sleemo who smuggled a Gungan aboard? - Watch Post 13, it's me! Darth Vader! It is really me! I am stuck in a pressure chamber full of helium, I'm dying withoit air! I have nothing to breathe! Help!
And then Darth Vader felt in the Force a thousand hearts pounding in unison and a thousand souls singing in a chorus of pure schadenfreude. The Sith Lord was crushed on the floor with intolerable shame, and the crew of SSD Executor was gleefully laughing. Watchmen and their next replacements laughed, sleepy officers laughed at cabins, as if some mysterious Jedi set them free of the chains of fear with a single wave of his nahd. The stormtroopers were laughing out loud, banging heads at next cots above, cannoneers and aimers were rolling on their bedsheets, and even a small mouse droid, forgotten by someone in a hangar, vibrated finely. And most loudly laughed the six officers, participants of a recent secret meeting. The timid and unsociable system administrator chuckled in his fist, Captain Agenar brayed crudely, Admiral Piett, who did not sleep at all, waiting for this precious moment, grabbed the gun deck commander in an embrace, and they danced the Jib-Jig, a dance both cheerful and frivolous. And only the old quartermaster, Captain Tomino, did not laugh. He half closed his eyes and smiled in his long mustache to his own joke - the best joke of all his naval career.
* * *
Darth Vader regained awareness in an infirmary. On his face the habitual mask has lowered, the pump started, emitting the infamous frightening sound of breath. But now nobody on SSD Executor found him so terrible. Nobody could take Darth Vader seriously any more. The medical droid backed off, and a crowd of officers led by Admiral Piett rushed in. They started started talking in eager rivalry:
"Lord Vader, I am so happy, that your life is safe..." "... It is disgusting sabotage..." "... Undoubtedly, the Rebels are behind it..." "... We shall cruelly punish them!"
"SILENCE!!!" - Vader roared, quickly getting up, in a booming basso that seemed so alien and hated to him yesterday, and so his own and welcomed right now. He could feel the emotions of everone present. All these officers, without distinction, both those in the surgical bay and those crowded in the corridor - all of them were still chuckling with schadenfreude deep inside, and all their assurance and oathes of loyalty were damn lies and flattery. A wave of crimson anger engulfed the Sith Lord. He made a wide gesture forward with his hand. "The one who did it will now step forward and confess" - he stated in cold rage, waving a hand before eyes of officers. But the Dark Lord wasn't good enough with mind tricks to affect all these ten or twenty men at once and compel them to do something obviously suicidal. Nobody obeyed, everyone was busy averting eyes and putting on a shaakish grin. Vader clenched his fists. He wanted to straggle these crafty muttonheads one after another, slowly and painfully.
- Lord Vader, shall I report to His Imperial Majesty on this shocking attempt? - Piett asked.
And now Darth Vader felt like a bucket of icy cold water was emptied over his head. One mention of the Master forced him to droop at once. If Palpatine learns about what happened... He will not console, he will not forgive, he will not give wise advice. He will start giggling with more mischief than these mean blockheads could muster, nearly falling off his throne, and he will squeeze out through laughter, will utter with disobeying lips the Most Ancient and Most Important Unofficial Addendum to the Code of the Sith.
"But if I get caught, well, sucks to be me."
"Obi-Wan would give advice... " - Vader thought suddenlt. - " Yoda would console. And he would laugh, but with nary a shade of gloating, and so infectiously that I would want to laugh together with him. Where is he now, I wonder?" He felt terrible shame.
"Fine" - finally said Vader. - "I offer you a bargain. You do not inform anybody who does not serve on "Executor", and especially the Emperor, what happened here. Relay the same order to your subordinates. Anyone who will try to stir rumors, or post a funny story in the HoloNet, should be shot on spot. And in exchange for it I shall not harm you, and onwards I shall try to address you all with fairness and respect. Agreed?" "Agreed" - Captain Tomino answered, smiling slyly. - "What happens on SSD Executor, stays on SSD Executor".
* * *
Lando stood near the board, frantically hitting ths switch, when has heard an accrueing victorious roar. The G-Force has knocked him down, but he had time to see the pale stars turn to thin strips of light. The Millenium Falcon escaped Bespin with Luke on board.
Darth Vader looked in a window, remaining silent. He stared into a bottomless precipice of space where an instant ago there was a ship. Admiral Piett and the new captain of "Punishment" stood beside, but they had no fear. Piett had clearly and unambiguously let Vader know that his men were not responsible for the failure, and hoped for fair treatment. And his hope was not in vain.
Darth Vader wasn't thinking of them. More precisely, he was thinking not of them. The officers did what they could - so let them go back to their duties. He turned and silently strode away from the bridge; the black cloak waved in rhythm to his heavy tired steps.
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