Darth Vader was staring out into space, his blank helmet reflecting the light from the stars which were scattered across his view of sight.
Nothing was going well today. He already had to kill two of his officers this morning. The first one - Colonel Jon was slacking off his duties and the second one - Lieutenant Hebsly fell asleep on the job. He sometimes couldn't believe how these people even got on the Executor in the first place.
So this is the great Empire, he thought bitterly. Moron officers and stormtroopers who can't shoot. He laughed, but it sounded more like a cough through his voice modulator.
This was for sure not what he'd dreamed of when he had imagined the great empire that he would rule over. If it wasn't for his injuries, he would have overthrown the Emperor by now and then he would have built an empire so great and powerful that there wouldn't even be a rebellion. But that is impossible now. Thanks to Kenobi, Vader thought and clenched his fist as he thought of his old master.
He could still feel the melting heat from the lava scorching his skin, the ashes flowing into his lungs with every breath and the pain of his severed limbs. He disrupted the images playing in his head. I deserve the pain. For what I did to her. Even thinking her name felt like a dagger through his cold and seemingly impenetrable heart.
He had tried to shut her out of his thoughts. And it had worked, for a while. Luckily, there weren't so many reminders of her warmth and beauty on a weaponized ship floating through space. Here, everything was cold and dark. Devoid of warmth. It was the opposite of the blinding light she radiated to everyone in her presence.
And that light was gone. Forever. And with it - his own light.
How ironic wasn't it that he was the one who killed her in the end? He, who had so desperately tried to save her, ended up being her murderer. The dagger twisted in his heart.
And the child she was carrying, a voice whispered in his mind.
The pain he felt because of what he did to her and their child was even worse than the pain from his injuries. One couldn't be compared with the other. That pain haunted him all day and night. He rarely slept and when he did - he always had nightmares of the events on Mustafar. But after their deaths, he had accepted the pain as a form of punishment for his actions.
Anakin Skywalker was weak. He was the one who couldn't save Padme - not me. And I destroyed him on that day on the lava banks of Mustafar. That's what he told himself every day to make sure that the memories of Anakin Skywalker were just that - memories. Fragments of another life - a life of another man.
He suddenly remembered that one of the officers had informed him earlier that the Emperor wanted him to contact him as soon as possible, which shook him out of his thoughts.
Decisively, he turned around so fast that the officers walking down the isle froze and held their breaths. But he couldn't care less, he had a job to do and they were irrelevant - like bugs that he could squash any moment he wished to. Expendable.
But there was one bug Vader couldn't smash, or more accurately, wasn't allowed to smash - Grand Moff Tarkin. His mere existence was like an itch waiting to be scratched. As soon as the emperor stopped treating him like his pet, he would get rid of him - in the most painful way possible.
Vader walked towards the hologram projection pod and put himself in a kneeling position. Ignoring the ache spreading through his knees, he pressed the button and waited. The pain was familiar to him by now. And, he knew that the pain would only make his connection to the dark side stronger.
