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Title: The Sith Lord and the Scientist section ‘E’
Author: Maia (maia@bastcastle.org)
Rating: mostly PG-13 with some NC-17 here and there.
Characters: Vader, OFC, a few other OC’s, and familiar faces.
Category: AU, Adventure, Romance, some Angst.

Disclaimer: I am not making any money from this, and he doesn’t belong to me. Darn.

Summary: Fate rushes forward as the Sith Lord tries to avoid what the future holds in store for him at Endor.

Imperial Center, Coruscant, Core Worlds, Year 4, Month 1.

DAY 1

Morning brings the insistent chiming of the comm. At least it isn’t Palpatine who is our alarm clock today, but I suspect Ani won’t be very pleased regardless of that. We were both up rather late last night at the premier of the new opera. The Agony of Tarkin was about the death of Ani’s colleague and of interest to him, but I was bored until the baritone playing my husband started singing. Somehow, somewhere, they had found someone who could do a passable imitation of the Sith Lord’s voice.

I pull the cover over my head and let out a few protesting noises when my husband allows the comm  to ring longer than I would like. So much for sleeping in today.

‘Whoever it is,’ I hear Ani growl, ‘they had better have something important to tell me.’

The bed moves a little as he sits up and reaches down to grab his robe off the floor. I receive a quick kiss on the cheek, then he stalks across our bedroom and out the door. My husband is no happier than I am about being woken up early.

After he is gone for ten minutes, I shut my eyes. There’s no point in staying awake. Obviously whoever it was had a report Ani couldn’t put off dealing with.

***

I let out a few choice Sith curses as I punch the comm controls, adjusting the settings to allow whoever is on the other end to receive audio only. The routing codes indicate that this is a call from Fondor. If this is merely another construction update on the newest Super Star Destroyer’s progress, I will be very annoyed.

The officer who appears is not the one I am expecting to see.

‘My lord,’ he greets me with a deep bow.

‘Where is Captain Fillorean?’ I ask.

A slight hesitation on his part. Bad news is coming, I suspect.

‘There was a rebel raid early this morning,’ he admits. ‘No one was able to reach the life pods in time. The shipyard’s Command Center was destroyed along with the Super Star Destroyer Deceptive.’

My face darkens. Only two weeks remained before the Deceptive was to be sent to Endor. I needed that ship, which was equipped with the same Sith cloaking device that the Terror was, to be ready and available to deal with the Alliance’s planned future ‘ambush.’

Cursed rebels. They will pay for this.

‘How much damage was done to the rest of the shipyard?’ I prompt.

‘We are still, ah,’ he dithers a little, ‘working on a report about that. The rebels targeted their attack on the Super Star Destroyer and ignored the other vessels which were docked.’

So, somewhere there was, and perhaps still is, a security leak, otherwise they would have tried to destroy the other ships as well. This was a precise, targeted attack on the most important Destroyer there.

‘Well, what can you tell me,’ I snap at him, my frustration becoming audible.

‘They were able to approach using a captured shuttle as a decoy,’ he reveals. ‘It was under remote control and probably full of explosives. That shuttle was flown into the Command Center. Our fighters couldn’t stop it in time. A frigate and support craft arrived immediately after that. Unfortunately, our TIEs couldn’t hold the Rebel’s fighters back long enough for the Star Destroyers farther out in the system to arrive.’

‘Send a complete report the instant you have it,’ I order. ‘I will see to it personally that the Emperor is informed.’

‘At once, my Lord,’ he acknowledges with another snapped salute before I sever the connection.

For a moment, I debate returning to bed, then dismiss that thought. My presence is needed on the Executor today, to finish the inspections I put off from last week. I can contact my master from there, after I have examined those reports from Fondor. If I leave soon, I might be able to return in time for lunch with my family.

On my way to the bedroom, I peer in at my children. All are sleeping peacefully, completely oblivious to the comm call I just answered. My wife, I discover, has appropriated my pillow and is dreaming, her face calm and eyes fluttering. I lightly kiss her cheek then stealthily go about putting my armour on. She needs to rest and I will leave her a note letting her know where I have gone.

Before I leave, I stand beside the bed, staring down at my wife. Our son will be born in the next month, and I need to somehow put as much distance between them and my master as possible, and the sooner, the better. He has something planned, where she and my children are concerned, and I am sure that I will not like it very much.

***

I reread Ani’s note while the children finish their breakfasts. He must have been in a hurry today, given that it is only one sentence long: ‘I need to attend to some business on the Executor, but shall be home by midday, Anakin.’

With a sigh, I set it aside. He will, no doubt, be delayed by whatever urgent crisis comes up which no one but himself can see to. It is a rare day when everything goes as planned. Slightly frustrated, I give my head a shake.

‘Mommy?’ Mikal asks.

I suspect he has picked up on my mood.

‘It’s alright,’ I tell him. ‘Mommy is not feeling very good today.’

Son number two moves a little, so I give my stomach a rub. I definitely do not feel quite right, but I am not sure why. Ever since that nightmare about Ani’s funeral pyre, my uneasiness has been increasing, much as I try to ignore it. Change is coming - change I am afraid we will all be caught up in whether we like it or not.

***

I nod, absent mindedly, as Captain Kallic completes his summary. All has been seen to as I had ordered. He is merely repeating what I had confirmed for myself earlier during my inspection tour. Finally, I send him from my office with a wave of my hand.

‘Enough, Captain,’ I dismiss him. ‘You have done well.’

He makes a hasty retreat. I watch him leave, then return my attention to the report from Fondor. A recording from one of the holocams in the shipyard clearly showed exactly what had happened. Three prototype TIE Hunters, previously stolen by the rebels’ Rogue Squadron, accompanied a  ‘captured Rebel transport,’ and all of those ships were used to bypass security. If the late Captain Fillorean had not recognized the ruse, and began a defense, the damage would have been worse and loss of life much higher. I make a note to add a posthumous commendation to his file. It is unfortunate that more officers do not have his intelligence and insight. It will not be easy to replace him.

I push myself out of my chair and head for the Holonet terminal. Now, I will have to explain the situation to the Emperor, and given his mood of late, he is certain to react in a decidedly unpleasant way.

Stepping onto the raised dais, I kneel and wait for the signal to go through. When it does, my presence is quickly acknowledged.

‘Lord Vader,’ my master greets me. ‘You may rise.’

‘My master,’ I solemnly intone after quickly obeying him. ‘The rebels have destroyed the Deceptive and her cloaking devices at Fondor.’

He pauses a moment and I can sense his amusement at this news. This is not a surprise to him and for a few seconds I wonder if he had planned it. One strategic leak would have given the rebels all the information they needed.

‘This victory only ensures that they will be over confident in the upcoming battle,’ he states. ‘Even now, the rebels are being drawn into a trap.’

‘Yes, my master,’ I automatically reply while I consider the implications of what he has said.

‘They will go to Endor, drawn in by today’s apparent success, and their foolish assumptions that the battlestation there is incomplete and defenceless,’ he adds. ‘All of their resources will be committed to that battle. We will crush them completely.’

I tip my head up and look directly at him. He was responsible for the Deceptive’s loss. I bristle at that. Does he know what I do of the future? Does he realize that even one more ship at Endor could change it?

‘You will go to Endor next month and ensure that all is ready for when they attack,’ my master orders. ‘Nothing must be left to chance. You may use whatever means you consider necessary.’

No, I think to myself. I am not ready yet. Luke is not ready yet. Maia will give birth soon and I cannot leave her behind on Coruscant.

‘Yes, master,’ I repeat myself to quickly cover the break in my breathing.

It doesn’t work.

‘You have objections to this?’ he notes.

‘Concerns,’ I correct, trying to deflect him a little. ‘Construction is behind schedule and it will be difficult...’

He immediately dismisses my worries.

‘It will be ready for when I need it ,’ he simply states, leaving no room for further argument on my part. ‘Since you are so concerned with how much time you will have to finish this task, perhaps I should send you there today.’ 

Rather than antagonize him into doing exactly that, I say nothing. Instead, I watch the fingers of his hologram tap the arm of his throne. The Force stills, almost as impatient as my master, as I debate how to respond.

‘Love is forbidden to a Sith for good reason,’ comes unbidden into my mind.

‘Your concerns...’ he begins, pauses, then smiles as I realize he is fully aware of why I do not want to leave, before he finishes, ‘...are for your wife and unborn son.’

I freeze in place, furious with how easily he has read me, but knowing better than to express my anger in words.

‘Lord Vader?’ the Emperor prods at last.

I stay silent, risking a reprimand.

‘You will go to Gamandar and check on Admiral Tower’s progress,’ he instructs. ‘You were responsible for subjugating that system so you will see to that personally.’

Another pointless errand designed to demonstrate his control over me, and a not so subtle rebuke for my stubborn reticence, but I know any answer confirming his surmise of my feelings on the matter will bring the same, or worse.

‘Yes, my master,’ I flatly agree.

‘Your wife,’ he announces, ‘will remain here. Whether or not she accompanies you in the future will be my decision, not yours.’

‘As you wish,’ I acquiesce without arguing.

His hologram vanishes, leaving me alone to brood.

***

Maia, Ani calls to me.

I set down the spoon I had been using to stir the hot nuna soup and motion the children towards the table. It’s lunchtime for us, and Ani was supposed to be back by now.

Yes, dear? I answer.

I have been sent on an errand, he informs me, and will be gone for a week or so.

A frown creases my forehead. If the children and I were going with him, he would have told me that first, used ‘we’ instead of ‘I,’ and given me a time frame for when I needed to be packed and ready to go.

The old coot is making me stay here, isn’t he? I ask for confirmation, annoyed with the situation. And you have to leave right now.

Yes, is his short reply to that question.

I don’t bother my husband with my usual litany of complaints. He can sense my irritation and that is enough.

Be careful, my love, I remind him, and come home soon.

Our bond starts to stretch and thin so I know the Executor has just jumped to lightspeed.

I will be and I will return when I can, he tells me, then he is gone, and I am left to myself to once again worry about his safety and explain to the children why daddy won’t be home today.

Gamandar, Iskalon Sysytem, Mid-Rim, Year 4, Month 1.

DAY 3

I stalk towards the command deck, three officers trailing behind me. Hopefully this conference will be over quickly so that I can make my inspections on Gamandar and Iskalon, and then leave.

‘Gentlemen, make your reports,’ I order. ‘The Emperor is very anxious to learn how the subjugation of this system is proceeding.’

‘Y-yes, Lord Vader,’ Captain Kallic stammers, his fear of giving offense obvious.

‘The rebellion against the Empire must be crushed - it will be crushed,’ I remind them as we reach the viewports at the front of the bridge. ‘That is why we eradicated all life on the planet Telfrey, to make an example of what happens to those who oppose us, that is why we subdued the population Gamandar and built a fortress there, and that is why we must watch the water planet Iskalon for any signs of rebel activity. The Empire will be making its final assault against the rebel forces very soon now and there must be no mistakes.’

No, there cannot be any mistakes on this errand. Far too much depends on my being successful here and pleasing my master.

‘Yes, yessir, Lord Vader,’ Kallic repeats.

‘We understand sir,’ Major Fervis confirms.

‘Do you?’ I muse aloud.

Do they? Somehow I doubt that they do.

‘You needn’t have any fears about Gamandar and Iskalon, sir, and neither need the Emperor,’ Kallic blurts out. ‘ Admiral Tower, the man you left in command of the fortress, is most capable...’

I cut him off with the truth, ‘Tower is an arrogant fool and a brute.’

Tower was left in charge to remove him from doing damage in more sensitive places elsewhere, but I suspect he has made a mess of the situation here, which I will, of course, be forced to clean up.

‘Uhm, yes, I see,’ the Captain responds in a much quieter voice. ‘The forces on Gamandar inform us that they are very close to locating Tay Vanis, the rebel who disappeared after stealing certain vital documents. Once Tower locates him and the threat is eliminated...’

I break in on Kallic again, ‘Tower should be less busy in matters that do not concern him. Vanis will be dealt with in time.’

Vanis, whose location I know, and whose droid possesses certain data tapes full of falsified information for the rebels to discover, is of little concern to me at the moment, but he has been useful for keeping certain rebels and Imperial officers busy with a prolonged wild goose chase.

‘But sir!’ I hear Kallic protest behind my back. ‘But Lord Vader, we’ve diverted dozens of our best men to search for Vanis and they have found no sign of him.’

‘And our intelligence networks report that the rebels have had no better luck in finding...’ Major Fervis begins his own report.

‘Lord Vader?’ one of the younger bridge crew interrupts, no doubt playing messenger for someone else higher in the command chain who does not want to risk my anger.

‘Why have you interrupted us, Corporal?’ I ask as I turn to face him. ‘Did you not hear my orders that nothing was to disturb us during this conference?’

‘I...I...I...,’ he stutters, so I wait for him to finish. This must be his first time speaking directly to me, and his fear is rather obvious. ‘Forgive me sir. A holographic message has just come in for you, from the fortress, and...it...the droid said that you...’

‘A droid is calling me from the fortress and you interrupted us for that?’ I growl.

Color drains from the Corporal’s face and I see him swallow nervously in expectation of a lethal response from me. Letting him fret for a few more seconds, I make a decision. I need an excuse to take a break from the tedium of listening to Kallic, so regardless of my previous command, I will go find out what this is about.

‘Very well,’ I announce as I head to the nearby holonet terminal. ‘I will speak to it. We will continue when I am through.’

When I reach the projector, I see that one of my spies, K3PX, a newer model protocol ‘droid, is waiting for me. Perhaps he has news of Admiral Tower or his hunt for Vanis.

‘I am here, K3PX,’ I announce myself. ‘You may make your report. How is the situation on Gamandar?’

‘I am not contacting you about Gamandar,’ he quickly replies. ‘There have been some serious developments on our twin world, Iskalon.’

‘Has there been any rebel activity on the water planet?’ I ask, since that is the one thing which would be difficult to monitor due to that world’s geography.

‘There has been,’ the ‘droid confirms. ‘Tower dealt with it before I could inform you. He devastated the entire world with a missile. We do not know if there were any survivors.’

I hiss in fury. Destroying a planet without proper investigation or confirmation of rumors is the act of a fool.

‘Tower has overstepped himself,’ I snap.

‘There is more, sir,’ K3PX adds. ‘One of the rebels on Iskalon was named Skywalker.’

‘What!’ I shout, causing a nearby crewman jump away in surprise. ‘Luke Skywalker was on Iskalon?’

I reach out towards that planet, searching for my son. There is a flicker in the Force, which quickly fades away at my touch. He has sensed me and is hiding now, but at least he is still alive. It should be simple enough to retrieve him once I have dealt with Tower.

‘Take a squad, K3PX,’ I order. ‘Arrest Admiral Tower and bring him to the holonet terminal. I will speak with him myself.’

After shutting off the holonet, I pace and brood. When Kallic approaches, I wave him away. The conference can wait until later.

‘Incoming transmission from Gamandar, my lord,’ he announces at last.

I intend to make a public example of Tower, to demonstrate what foolishness and arrogance will earn anyone who acts as recklessly as he did.

‘I will take it here,’ I decide.

Stepping onto the holonet pad, I see the Admiral being pushed by a ‘trooper onto the one on the planet below. I don’t bother with a greeting.

‘Tower, you have acted in haste and indulged yourself at the expense of the Empire for the last time,’ I inform him.

‘But sir, Lord Vader, I was only...’

‘I am fully aware of what you were going to do,’ I reveal, ‘ just as I am aware of what you have done - more aware of it than you are yourself. There was no need to set in motion the Iskalon effect without first consulting me.’

A single missile was all it would take - all it did take - to trigger a planetwide tidal wave which  destroyed everything in its path, including the floating facility called Pavillion, and I would never have approved of that, knowing that Luke would be placed in danger.

‘But there were rebels in Pavillion,’ he tries to justify his actions. ‘ They might have been allies of Tay Vanis...’

‘Your motives do not concern me,’ I snap. ‘What does is that your hasty action may have ended the life of one particular rebel, a man both the Emperor and myself have been after for some time...’

‘Lord Vader,’ the voice of an on-planet officer breaks in, ‘We’ve started receiving reports from the remains of our forces on Iskalon. There are survivors in Pavillion.’

Confirmation of what I had sensed earlier.

‘Thank the Force,’ Tower says, sounding relieved.

‘The Force is not with you, Tower, it is with me,’ I flatly state.

I must find Luke, but the Admiral needs to be disposed of first.

‘Prepare my shuttle,’ I order Kallic. ‘I shall go to Iskalon at once, as soon as I have dealt with this fool.’

‘Lord Vader, back in the detention area, there are some rebel prisoners,’ Tower tells me. ‘Perhaps one of them could be...’

I know he is being helpful in an attempt to escape his own fate.

‘The man I seek is not amoung them. Whoever they are,’ I decide, ‘they shall keep until I return.’

I pause, considering my options. Tower is not worth wasting any more of my time on, and I cannot be bothered to eliminate him in person.

‘Guards, execute Admiral Tower,’ I give the order before signing off. ‘Transmission ends.’

Iskalon, Iskalon System, Mid-Rim, Year 4, Month 1

DAY 4

I survey the damage to the floating city. Pavillion is a wreck. Between the massive tidal wave triggered by the missile, fighting between the locals, rebels, and Imperial troops stationed here, and the attack of chiaki scavengers drawn to the blood and corpses, little has survived intact. The buildings have been levelled, debris is scattered everywhere, all of it punctuated by the bodies of humans and native water dwellers. Any survivors have retreated to the their watery homes or been taken aboard the Executor for treatment and transport to Iskalon’s sister world. Luke is gone, as are his friends who were here, escaped before we landed yesterday.

‘The rebels were picked up by a freighter,’ Major Fervis notes as he draws even with where I am standing. ‘Most likely it was Solo’s ship, the Millennium Falcon, given that Skywalker and Organa were here, and Calrissian escaped from Gamandar in it.’

I prod the body of a dead chiaki with my boot. The exobiologists on the Executor have been busy taking samples from this deep sea creature, a monster very few offworlders have seen. It looks a bit like one of the dragons my wife once described to me, but without the wings.

‘What of the natives?’ I ask.

‘Fled to the depths and refusing any contact,’ he admits. ‘Any attempt to approach them, and they flee or fight to the death. Our one well placed spy was killed and I doubt we can replace her. It will be difficult to infiltrate them again because they have no reason to trust anyone from off-world after this and they do not need outside help to survive.’

‘Tower was a fool to waste the assets we had here,’ I growl, angrily.

The Major, wisely, does not reply.

‘Salvage what you can,’ I tell him, ‘and leave the rest. There is no point in rebuilding anything here. The rebels are gone, and the natives who remain are not large enough in numbers or important enough to waste my time on. They cannot survive off their watery world, and there is nothing for the rebels to use here. For now, we will leave the place to itself.’

I sense his unspoken agreement with my assessment.

‘I must go to Gamandar today,’ I add, ‘to inspect the fortress and appoint a new commander, so you had best hurry and finish your tasks, Major.’

He backs away and I am left to my meditations again.

I turn my attention to the horizon, staring out across the waters while I think. Did my master know Luke was here? Is that why I was sent? Several times in the past few months my son has slipped through my fingers, always one step ahead, always making a lucky escape. Perhaps this is a lesson to me - my master seems to be able to anticipate Luke’s movements far better than I can. Palpatine knew Luke was on Coruscant and that he eluded me. My son was here, too, and again evaded my grasp. But no one, not even a Jedi, can have their luck hold forever.

I let out a sigh.

Luke will come to me at Endor, of that I am certain, and I have exactly one month to figure out what I will do when that happens.

Imperial Center, Coruscant, Core Worlds, Year 4, Month 1.

DAY 8

With a growl of annoyance, I glare at the turbolift’s control panel. No amount of prodding at the emergency override has prompted the ‘lift to move or the door to open, but I would rather not dismantle it in an attempt to fix the problem. I do not have the necessary tools on hand and would be forced to improvise a repair. Given how my day has progressed, anything I do would probably result in a longer stay, in cramped quarters, with company I would have preferred to avoid.

The other occupant of the turbolift merely raises an eyebrow and maintains an infuriatingly calm demeanor. Few would have followed me into the ‘lift, and fewer still would have stood their ground when I approached, refusing to step aside and let me have the ‘lift to myself, but this, obviously, is no ordinary woman.

I choose to ignore her, as I have done since entering the ‘lift, and resort to alerting security to where I am and what the problem is. Unfortunately, instead of an officer responding immediately to the comm call, I am routed to the automated system.

‘Please state the reason for your enquiry,’ a nameless ‘droid prompts.

‘Turbolift...,’ I begin, then quickly locate the information I need on the control panel, ‘NW12-78 has stalled and the override is nonfunctional.’

‘Don’t panic, sir,’ it smoothly soothes. ‘A tech team will be sent to extract you as soon as possible.’

Sir? Sir? Does it not recognize my voice?

‘This is Lord Vader, and I expect a team to be sent right now,’ I order.

‘Nonpriority situations are attended to in the order they are reported, sir,’ it replies.

I refrain from indulging in a few choice curses. If I was speaking to a human, they would know who I am and act accordingly. This ‘droid will simply follow its programming, regardless of anything I say, and from here there is nothing I can do except wait, impatiently, while my temper slowly simmers, for the repair crew to make an appearance.

I shut off the comm and glance over at the woman. She has not moved from the place she took when she preceded me into the ‘lift.

Rather than suffer the silence, I state the obvious, ‘It seems that we may have to endure one another’s company for a number of hours.’

There is no reply from her, not that I really expected one.

I shift into a relaxed stance, hands resting at my belt, and amuse myself by staring at her, although I know she has no way to determine I am doing that. More than one Admiral has broken under such intense scrutiny from me, yet she does not flinch, nor even acknowledge my presence.

Who are you? I am tempted to ask, but do not voice the question.

“Observe, padawan,” comes unbidden into my thoughts from one of Obi-Wan’s lessons. “Much can be gleaned from small details.”

She is a puzzle to solve, an enigma to decipher. I decide to do so to pass the time.

Her clothing is well out of date, I note. The cut of her dress is the same as one I remember Padmé wearing long ago. Either she has limited means and buys what she can afford, old as it is, or she chooses to make her mode of dress into a political statement, deliberately reminding those around her of the Republic and what it represented. Considering where we are, perhaps the latter is not the wisest of tactics.

I shift my eyes upwards, only to have my gaze returned. Brown eyes. Dark hair. Features reminiscent of another woman from another time, another life. A doppelganger, I suddenly realize, a look-alike, an unrelated ‘twin’ who by sheer coincidence resembles someone else. I had heard of such before, but never expected to encounter my dead wife’s double.

I stand my ground, despite the urge to take a surprised step backwards, and begin to laugh.

My burst of audible mirth finally provokes a reaction.

‘I see nothing amusing in the situation, sir,’ she firmly states.

Even her voice, with its Naboo inflections, is reminiscent of Padmé’s.

‘But I do,’ I admit. ‘I find it very amusing.’

She falls silent at that, so I walk around her, observe her from every angle. If I did not know better, I would have been fooled into believing she was who she resembles. Halting my restless circling, I stop directly in front of her and set my hands on my hips while debating what to do.

Have I been set up? Did my master find her somewhere, school her mannerisms and voice, and send her as a test for me?  If so, does he expect me to let her live or to kill her? What does he intend with this? And if she is not a ruse of Palpatine’s, then why is she here?

Before I do anything, I need answers.

‘Who are you?’ I ask the question I had pondered earlier.

‘Who do you think I am?’ she challenges in response.

‘An imposter,’ I answer to see what the reply might be.

‘I claim no one’s identity but my own,’ she states in return.

Stalemate. The only way to obtain her name will be to force it from her.

‘If you will not reveal your name,’ I threaten, ‘then I have ways to extract it from you.’

I reach out, intending to run a finger down her cheek as a form of intimidation, but something stops me short of touching her skin. It almost feels like sacrilege, a violation of memories I hold hidden in my heart, to lay a hand on her. She isn’t who she appears to be, I remind myself, to no avail. It does not matter what you say or do to her, yet in a strange way, it does. Most certainly, her presence disturbs and unsettles me in a way I cannot explain.

My actions have seemingly no affect on her. She continues to stand, motionless, and calmly watch me.

The silence becomes unbearable. One of us will have to break it.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ I abruptly proclaim, then curse myself for saying it.

I have no need or reason to apologize to the woman who is here, so why am I on the verge of doing exactly that? But the truth is that none of it was my fault and yet all of it was my fault. It all comes down to a few bad decisions in my life. I should be in this ‘lift with the original, not some chance imposter, and if I had made fewer mistakes, perhaps Padmé would be here, with me, and with our child.  

Confusion crosses the woman’s face at my strange change in demeanor and topic.

‘The ‘lift,’ I explain, waving a hand at the control panel to cover my awkwardness. ‘We will have to wait until help arrives.’

‘You are impatient,’ she quietly observes, ‘like someone I once knew, long ago.’

The turbolift jerks upwards, then drops just as suddenly. Somehow we both manage to stay on our feet.

‘The techs must have arrived,’ I drily comment, ‘and if that is the best they can do, then I have a bad feeling about this.’

‘He used to say that on a regular basis, too,’ she adds as a smile of amusement tugs at her lips, only to be quickly hidden.

‘I do not like to remember the past,’ I admit more to myself than to her. ‘Some things are best buried and forgotten.’

Buried like Padmé. Forgotten like my past. It is far better to leave them in the dust and shadows.

‘The past makes us who we are, what we are...,’ she begins, but I cut her off with ‘... but we live in the present.’

‘...and plan for the future,’ she finishes, ‘yet we are fundamentally the same individuals, no matter what parts of ourselves we change or replace during our lives.’

‘A paradox,’ I muse aloud. ‘How much can be changed without altering one’s true nature?’

‘Do we go through our lives by shedding, piece by piece, who we truly are to become someone else?’ she asks, curious. ‘Or do you have a better idea...’

She does not finish what she was about to say, and looks past me, to what lies beyond. I turn to see what has caught her attention. A crack is visible in the center of the door. I won’t be able to answer her before we are interrupted. We will be free soon and I am already late for a meeting with my master.

‘Our time is up,’ I note.

‘Yes, it is,’ she says, with a hint of quiet sadness. 

The Lieutenant in front of me takes a startled step backwards as the door slides completely open. He must not have been told who was trapped in the turbolift, and I was not who he planned on finding in it.

‘Life is made up of choices and changes,’ I hear her say, her voice a mere whisper now. ‘Be very sure of yours before you make them.’

‘What do you mean?’ I snap, spinning around to confront her.

‘My Lord?’  the Lieutenant calls to me. ‘Who are you talking to?’

I stare mutely at what I discover.

No one is there.

The turbolift is empty.

***

My husband has been in a strange mood ever since he returned from his afternoon meeting. Maybe  Palpatine said something to prompt this, but my instincts tell me that whatever happened, the Emperor was not directly involved.

I sneak out of the children’s room, leaving them sleeping soundly, and quietly make my way to Ani’s office. He’s still sitting on the floor, staring at the fire, and probably hasn’t moved since I last checked on him. For a moment, I debate asking how long he intends to stay there, but opt to slip away instead. Once he has sorted himself out, he will come to bed.

My strategic retreat is halted by his raised hand and motion to sit beside him. He wants my company.  I quickly obey and settle myself as comfortably as I can.

‘Ani?’ I start to question him, but am silenced by his finger across my lips and a shake of his head.

Whatever is bothering him, he wants to work it out on his own.

***

I sense her presence behind me and her hesitation. My wife knows something is wrong, but not what to do about it. Rather than allow her to worry and hover, I wave her forward. She comes when I beckon her to me and quiets when I let her know my wishes with a touch.

As the evening passes in silence, Maia tires and eventually lies down, using my lap and thigh as a pillow. When she finally falls asleep, I brush her cheek with my hand. With my mask on, I cannot kiss her goodnight.

While she dreams, I continue to struggle with myself.

Why did Padmé appear today, of all times, after more than twenty years of absence? Was she really there or merely a product of my imagination, a hallucination generated by my stressed mind?

On review, the security tapes contained only static. Nothing was visible or audible. A chance malfunction I was told, a byproduct of the same faulty power supply which stalled the turbolift. In my experience there is no such thing as mere coincidence. Assume what you saw was real, I decide, and then work out the reasons for it.

So, why now?

I look down at my sleeping wife. My son could be born tonight, so close is she to giving birth. Perhaps the timing, then, is related to that.

And what of the warning?

Obviously a choice will be presented to me, but what will it be?

In frustration, I curl my fist. Just enough information to tantalize, yet it is still insufficient. A choice is coming. Change is coming. Something will need to be given up. I suppress an ironic laugh. Such has always been my life. There is nothing new in that, only in the messenger who delivered the news.

Maia stirs in her sleep. I will not tell her of Padmé’s unexpected visit. That was meant for me, not her.

‘Hush, little goddess,’ I soothe her when she shows signs of waking. ‘All is well. Go to sleep.’

No, my second wife does not need to know about the ghost of my first.

DAY 9

I risk a nervous glance over at my husband and tighten my grip on his left arm. No one who is watching us can see my face through the veil I am wearing, but I know Ani is fully aware of my expression and feelings. Neither of us wants to be here, walking down the Grand Corridor, heading to what will, no doubt, be a potentially unpleasant encounter with his master.

We stop at the entrance to the audience chamber. Ani briefly rests his right hand atop mine, and I feel his calm, unspoken reassurance. He will protect me as best he can from anything Palpatine might do, but he has already admitted that he has no idea why we have been summoned. Sate Pestage’s message only stated that we were to appear at this time and place, with no reason given, and I know my husband is anticipating trouble because of that omission.

The door opens. To my surprise, we are not alone. Two others besides ourselves and the ubiquitous red robed guards are in attendance. Near the Emperor’s throne, and from her body language not at all pleased with what she has just heard, is a tall, veiled woman with a blonde man kneeling on the floor beside her.

Ani, I ask, what is going on?

Our presence is noted before he can reply.

‘Lord Vader,’ Palpatine greets us, thankfully ignoring me for the moment.

‘My Emperor,’ my husband quickly replies.

We draw even with the unfamiliar couple and Ani moves to kneel, but he is immediately motioned to remain standing with me next to him. I stare at the other two in the room. The woman is dressed in layers of the finest iridescent mothsilk, with her face obscured by a flame coloured veil. The man is wearing a white uniform and is strikingly handsome. They must be extremely wealthy nobles, I decide, who are probably here for a private audience. So, why have Ani and I been called to attend this meeting?

‘As you can see, Ambassador, with your very own eyes,’ the Emperor points directly at my middle, ‘the Princess is in no condition to travel to Hapes nor to negotiate a treaty with your Queen Mother on my behalf.’

I somehow cover up most of my startled reaction to that statement. ‘Princess’ is a title which is rarely applied to me, except for formal court functions or when my husband is teasing me, and I am a bit bewildered by the rest of what Palpatine just said. Where is Hapes and why does some Queen want to talk to me? Shouldn’t she be asking for a more qualified diplomat who is trained to handle political discussions? This is definitely not what Ani or I had expected to hear from Palpatine, which was more orders confining me to Imperial Center or sending the Sith Lord on a mission of some sort.

Ani? I give him another mental prod.

I can sense his mind racing as he tries to work out exactly what we have walked into and how to best use it to his own advantage. Rather than continue to push for a response, I decide to wait, observe what I can, and listen to the conversation until he has figured out what he will do.

‘The Erenenda Ta’a Chume will negotiate with no one else,’ the woman states, after her male companion says a few words in a language I don’t recognize. ‘She will not meet with any man nor a woman of lesser rank.’

Ani stiffens a bit upon hearing that, yet says nothing in reply. There is far more to this than meets the eye for him to stay silent like that.

I closely watch the interaction between the Emperor and the others in the room. Palpatine is growing impatient with the Ambassador and her demands. He did not anticipate the Hapans insistence on my being part of whatever is going on, and given his opinion of women in general, I doubt he has much respect for their Queen. This meeting is more for show and to temporarily appease his guests, I suspect, than anything else.

I shift my attention to the female Hapan. The Ambassador has little use for members of the male sex, I quickly realize, and it sounds like her Queen Mother is of the same mind set. The man kneeling on the floor and the two Sith Lords in the room are not as important to her as I am, regardless of how much power they may wield. She seemingly ignores them and her eyes have rarely left me since I came in the room. Her scrutiny makes me uncomfortable, but I have no idea what I am supposed to do or say.

You need to give her an answer, Ani finally prompts me. I can’t speak for you because Hapan society is strictly matriarchal. She will respect what you tell her, but disregard anything I say.

And what exactly am I supposed to say? I ask, feeling a bit lost. I am no glib diplomat versed in galactic affairs and political intrigue.

Tell her, Ani begins, then pauses to think, I assume, before finishing, that you will come meet the Queen Mother, but with the condition that I accompany you on your flagship.

What are you up to, Sith Lord?  I scold him. You know that will only create trouble. Palpatine is going to have a fit.

Just do it, he orders, and refer to me as your consort, not your husband. I will explain to you why, later.

I let go of his arm, take a step forward, and turn to face the Hapan Ambassador, silently praying that I am making the right decision and hoping that Palpatine doesn’t do something drastic to any of us as a result.

‘Ambassador,’ I state as calmly as I can, ‘I will go meet your Queen Mother.’ I see the Emperor scowl and begin to raise his hand as he looks over my head at Ani,  so I quickly add, ‘But with two conditions.’ Palpatine’s hand pauses while he waits for me to finish. ‘My consort will accompany me and I will take my own flagship to Hapes.’

With that said, I retreat back a step to Ani’s side, and do my best not to let my slight hysteria show. I have landed right in the midst of a situation I am completely ignorant of. Diplomacy is definitely not one of my areas of expertise, and I would have preferred to stay quiet and let my husband sort this out. Now, I have no idea what this will lead to.

A finger raps a few times against the throne’s armrest as its occupant sits deep in thought. I risk looking up to see what sort of tempest my little speech may have stirred up, but Palpatine is staring at the Ambassador, not me, and his expression is one of contemplation rather than annoyance or anger. He’s obviously working out how to manipulate the situation and use me for his own benefit. How typical. The Hapans are busy conversing in their own language while we wait for their response.

You have surprised him for a second time, Ani notes with some amusement. He expected that I would refuse to let you be involved in this, rather than allow you to take your own initiative, and he did not anticipate that you would freely offer to go.

That is no thanks to you, I growl back. I was afraid he was going to do something to us if I didn’t agree to stay here. What exactly are you playing at, Sith Lord?

Removing you from Imperial Center and his easy reach for a few weeks, Ani admits, and in exchange giving him an opportunity to secure a few things he has coveted from the Hapans for quite sometime.

I mull that over for a few minutes. Will what Palpatine wants from the Hapans outweigh his desire to keep me close to him and able claim my son when he is born? Would he risk Ani hiding us away from his grasp in exchange for whatever the Hapans might offer him?

‘Your terms are acceptable,’ the Ambassador decides.

For a moment, I hold my breath. I suspect that the old coot is going to drag this out as long as he can manage and then refuse to let us go.

‘You will leave in two days,’ the Emperor agrees at last, ‘and conduct the negotiations as expeditiously as possible. Go, now, and prepare for your journey to Hapes. I will speak with you later, Lord Vader.’

Ani’s relief is palpable to me, despite the fact that his master intends to say something to him in private. I squeeze my husband’s arm once the door to the throne room is closed behind us. A part of me can’t help wondering if this little excursion he has maneuvered us into will not create more problems than it will solve, but I decide to ignore my reservations for now.

An adventure with you along for company, I tease Ani. This ought to be fun.

That, he dryly states, remains to be seen.

The Executor, Deep Space, Year 4, Month 1

DAY 14

With a shake of my head, I finally put down my datapad and look over at Ani. He has spent much of the past few days reviewing every scrap of information available on Hapes, most of it classified, much of it wild stories, and some of it hearsay. The so‑called ‘memoir’ of Grov Bricker I have just finished sounds like more of a tall tale designed to sell datafiles than a true story. At home it would be considered the male version of a bodice ripper.

‘Ani,’ I ask him, ‘how much truth do you think is in the “Planet of the Amazons” datafile I have been reading?’

The Sith Lord turns off his data terminal before coming over to sit beside me.

‘Some of it is based in truth,’ he reveals, ‘but most is rather exaggerated. Hapan controlled space has been closed to outsiders for three thousand years. Few of those who have journeyed there, by accident or design, have ever been allowed to leave, so it is easy for facts to become distorted.’

I give him an exasperated look. That didn't tell me what I want to know, and the classified files he has allowed me to look at have not helped much, either.

‘Very well,’ he concedes. ‘What do you want to know?’

I hesitate and blush a little. Most of what I am curious about is the stuff that Corellian pirate sensationalised in his bestselling datafile, and some of it is rather lewd.

‘Do they really use men just for breeding?’ I blurt out. ‘That seems so cold and callous.’

Ani laughs. I just knew he would do that.

‘Yes,’ he admits, ‘they do. Very few men have formal positions or any power at all, and those who do are subservient to the women ranked above them.’

‘So, in their eyes, the only reason I keep you around is to have kids,’ I tease him, ‘and I am the boss, not you!’

‘Daughters,’ he reminds me. ‘Sons have very little value because they cannot inherit, and for Hapans, maternal bloodlines are far more important than paternal ones.’

I give my head a shake. Hapes is not going to be an easy place to visit. Its strict matriarchy and treatment of men will be difficult for me to deal with, and given that Ani is used to being the one in charge, it will be harder for him than for me. Plus, the Hapans harbour a distinct hatred of Jedi, in particular, and Force users, in general. We will both need to be careful what we do and say.

‘Three days of reading about the place and practising etiquette doesn’t feel like much preparation,’ I decide. ‘Hapes sounds so strange and exotic compared to home. There wasn’t a single culture like theirs on Earth, although there are ancient Greek legends about Amazon women which are similar.’

‘Nor is there a society like it in the Empire,’ Ani reveals. ‘At least not at the scale of the Hapes Cluster’s sixty-three inhabited worlds.’

He reaches over to give my hand a comforting squeeze.

‘Just remember that the Hapans know our customs are different,’ he reassures me. ‘They won’t expect you to treat me as their women treat their men, but I will need to be deferential to you. To them, you are the one with higher rank and status, not I.’

The comm chimes. Ani responds with a wave of his hand.

‘Lord Vader, we have arrived at the transfer point at Roqoo Depot,’ Admiral Okins announces.

‘I will be there momentarily, Admiral,’ the Sith Lord answers.

He turns off the comm in the same manner as he activated it.

‘Now it begins,’ he tells me as he rises to his feet. ‘The Hapans closely guard the two routes into their space. One of their navigators will be sent to the Executor from their fleet to guide us in. Not that it really matters. I could use the Force to find my way, but that would take longer, and be seen as a prelude to an invasion. It’s better to co-operate with them, at least for now.’

I nod in response. The one thing which did come across in what I read about the Hapans was their determination to remain isolated and insulated from the rest of the galaxy.

‘The Mists surrounding the Cluster will make it impossible to communicate with anyone on the outside using subspace frequencies,’ Ani reveals. ‘They value and guard their privacy, so no holonet transponders to act as relays, either.’

No way for the Emperor to interfere, I decide, or call us back earlier than expected.

And no way to send for help if something does go wrong, either, he warns me.

Ani leaves his office, heading to the bridge. The Hapan navigator will be brought there, after they dock. My husband will be busy until we arrive at the planet of Hapes, at the center of the Hapes Cluster. I debate for a moment what to do. For the next ten days my life will be occupied with official appearances, events held in my honour, lengthy meetings, and diplomatic nonsense I don’t really understand. Once I meet the Queen Mother and convince her that my husband is who she should be negotiating with, I can hopefully fade into the background and let him look after whatever it is the Emperor is determined to get. That’s the plan, but past experience has taught me that nothing ever seems to go the way one expects it to.

A resigned sigh escapes from me. What will be, will be. It’s time to go see what the children are up to and worry about tomorrow when it arrives.

Fountain Palace, Hapes, Hapes Cluster, Year 4, Month 1

DAY 15

I settle myself into the ornate chair set aside for me with more than a bit of trepidation. My simple black dress and plain jewellery stand out amoungst the far more elaborate court costumes of those I just walked past. Ani decides to remain standing, on guard, behind and to my right. My aides Cyran and Daini, on bodyguard duty, take up their own positions. All of the Noghri remained on the Executor to avoid any potential incident. The Hapans tend to be rather insular when it comes to aliens.

 One of the Chume’doro, the Royal Guards, enters, accompanied by a woman in royal livery who I assume is a herald. Every Hapan in the room rises to their feet then kneels. I remain seated where I am, while Ani stays standing. No one moves.

‘Ereneda Ta’a Chume, Isolder Chume’da,’ the herald announces before withdrawing from sight.

Down the alabas staircase, and through the arched entrance at the end of the Hall of Masters she comes, clad in the same iridescent mothsilk I had seen once before. I turn and look up at my husband. His thought is the same as mine. The Hapan Ambassador was the Queen Mother in disguise, and following behind her is the young man who was with her in the Emperor’s throne room.

Why? I ask Ani. Why the pretence with the Emperor?

I don’t know, but I suspect we are going to find out, he answers, and I can tell he is a bit annoyed at the Hapan’s subterfuge, although he had told me after the audience with Palpatine that the Ambassador was not who she had claimed to be.

I stay where I am and wait for the Queen Mother to stop in front of me and seat herself in the chair directly across from where I am sitting. It’s larger and more like a throne than mine, as befits her status. Ani sketched a bow as she passed him, and I tipped my head in acknowledgement, but the rest of those in the room don’t move or rise from where they knelt on the floor until Ta’a Chume signals, with a stilted wave, that they may do so. Isolder remains standing behind his mother, mirroring the Sith Lord’s position. Remember the Hapan etiquette lessons, I scold myself. Wait for what she says or does, then go from there.

Ta’a Chume removes her veil. I motion to Cyran to do the same with mine. For a few minutes the Queen Mother and I study each other. She must be older than I am by some years, judging by the age of her son, yet one would never be able to tell that based on her appearance. Strikingly beautiful, her green eyes and red hair would make her stand out just about anywhere. I meet her gaze without flinching and don’t let anything of what I am thinking show. Hers is a cold beauty, I decide. There is no warmth at all in this woman, only ruthlessness and a desire for power and control. In her eyes, I probably don’t meet Hapan standards on any level. All of the Hapan women I have seen are far closer to the classical definition of beauty than I am, and all of them are steeped in the cut throat practices required to survive here.

Realization dawns: I am far out of my depth, with only Ani’s advice to guide me safely through the turbulent waters ahead.

***

I watch, motionless, as the Hapans present Maia with their gifts. First rainbow gems, then a priceless gold harp, rich clothing fit for royalty for our son and daughters, a flower of flawless crystal which grew in that form rather than being carved by anyone’s hands,...

Wait, I remind my wife, when she seems unsure what to do. Wait until they have brought everything to you then thank their Queen.

More gifts are laid before us. The final gift, a bejewelled dagger, is displayed to show off its craftsmanship and edge, before being sheathed, and added to the rest. I know that whatever the Queen Mother wants must be equally valuable to warrant such excessive generosity.

 What does she want, I wonder, keeping that question, which has nagged at me for days, to myself. The Empire has little to offer the self-sufficient Hapans. They have no need for us as military allies, no desire to expand beyond the ionized clouds protecting them, nor any lack of resources or technology to prompt a trade treaty.

So, what does Ta’a Chume really want?

***

‘Your gifts are most generous, Queen Mother,’ I manage to say, keeping my voice as calm and steady as I can manage. ‘Thank you.’

I have a pretty good idea what the value of all their presents is and that worries me. The Hapans must want something rather badly to give that much up.

It’s a very small measure of their wealth, Ani reveals, but still substantial, nonetheless.

I refrain from replying to his thought. Ta’a Chume is watching me closely now, waiting for a reaction, and I don’t want to accidentally give her any hint what my opinion is.

‘It is but a small token of my esteem, your highness,’ the Queen Mother replies. ‘And a small portion of what will be yours once an agreement is reached between us.’

My face freezes. More? Why?

‘But it is time for refreshments, now,’ she adds, clapping her hands to summon liveried servers. ‘We can discuss this further, later.’

***

One would never know it was late at night, I decide, as I stare out the window into the Queen Mother’s garden. Hapes is never in true darkness, thanks to the numerous stars in close proximity to this system. Light might fade a little, but is ever present.

The room behind me is full of women and political chatter. Shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, my discomfort at being on the margins and an outsider male must be obvious.

‘Lord Vader,’ an aged female voice calls to me.

Not her again.

I turn around, and look down at the old woman who has singled me out. Ta’a Chume’s aunt is petite, grey haired, seemingly harmless, and exceptionally nosy. She could easily be mistaken for someone’s elderly grandmother, although I know from our earlier formal introduction that she is a childless spinster. For over an hour she had bombarded me with questions ranging from what Coruscant is like to details of Imperial inheritance laws before someone distracted her long enough that I could slip away from her. So, what does she want to know now?

‘Yes, Lady Marpesia,’ I reply as politely as I can, refraining from letting any of my impatience show.

The Hapans are quick to make decisions, and instantly take offense if they feel slighted. It would be best to humour her for the moment and make my escape at the first opportunity.

She looks up at me and smiles then lightly pats my arm.

‘Come sit down, dear,’ she suggests. ‘It will be a long evening and you must want someone to talk to who understands Basic, to pass the time. Leave the politics and other duties to the Princess.’

I look over at my wife, who is still deep in conversation with the Queen Mother’s sister, Secciah, to whom she was introduced when we arrived. Cyran and Daini are flanking Maia as bodyguards, alert and at attention behind her chair. The only man in the room is myself, and that was by special dispensation. Of the Queen Mother, there is no sign. On Coruscant, to be left waiting this long by one’s host would be seen as a snub. Here, it is part of how royal business is conducted.

I give in and allow Marpesia to guide me to one of the large chairs. Perhaps I might be able to extract some useful information from her. As I walk beside her, I note how my weight crushes the deep red qashmel carpet, leaving temporary footprints in my wake. The security conscious part of my mind marks where I am in relation to the two main entrances at either end of the hall, doorways into the gardens, and corridors leading deeper into the palace. All are built of pure white alabas and, like the artwork on the walls, are designed to display Hapan wealth in as blatant a manner as possible.

The elderly Hapan seats herself across from me. For a minute, she says nothing, obviously deciding what topic to interrogate me about next.

Then she leans forward and reveals, ‘The Duchas all want to marry their daughters, sisters, or cousins to the Chume’da Isolder, but he has already chosen Lady Elliar.’

Marpesia is not just nosy but a gossip, too. I shift a touch to let her know I am interested in hearing more. She quickly obliges me.

‘His mother does not approve,’ she adds, in a lower voice, ‘and the Duchas hope he will change his mind, to their advantage, or that he might be persuaded to abandon his choice for someone more suitable...’

***

A part of me feels some sympathy for my husband, who has been cornered, once again, by that same old woman he was talking to earlier.

Being interrogated again? I tease him.

Collecting intelligence, he replies. Gossip, mostly, but some of it might be useful. Yourself?

The more I listen to what Secciah says, I admit, the faster I want to leave this place. The Imperial Court feels far safer.

My comment must have hit a nerve because Ani’s helmeted head turns to look straight at me.

We can’t leave, he reminds me, not until I have what Palpatine wants, and that wasn’t in the gifts presented to you.

Gifts. More like expensive bribes. Hapans always present those first, before asking for what they want. Clearly they want something important, but what it is has not been made apparent, at least not yet.

You accepted the gifts, Ani continues, so hopefully the Queen Mother will present her offer tonight. Then, you will have to see if they will give what Palpatine wants in exchange for more of what they want. It’s standard negotiating tactics.

I resist rolling my eyes at him. Diplomatic duties are not my area of strength. I can’t tell a convincing lie and am too honest to be involved in these sorts of negotiations. It would be better if someone else, anyone else, handled it.

I turn my attention back to Secciah. If anything happens to Isolder, her daughter will inherit and become Queen Mother. From her questions and responses to mine, she is working out how I might be of use to her.

There is a lull in the conversations in the room, then silence. The Ta’a Chume has returned.

‘I will speak with the Princess in private,’ she issues a command, with no warning or preamble. ‘All of you. Out. Now.’

I sense Ani’s startled reaction. He had not been expecting this, and he doesn’t like the idea of my being alone with the Queen Mother at all. This is definitely not going according to plan, which was for the brief formal introductions to be finished tonight so that I could return to the Executor with the Sith Lord to rest until tomorrow’s first round of official negotiations.

The courtiers in the room quickly exit. The Queen Mother’s guards wait until Daini and Cyran step away from me before moving to do the same. Isolder hesitates, holds back, but his mother waves him away before taking her throne across from me. Ani, I note, tries his best to be the last to leave, save for the lone Chume’doro following after him.

The doors close, sealing us in, but I can sense that my husband is just outside, waiting for me to call if I need him.

‘Better,’ she states, settling deeper into her seat. ‘Some discussions do not need an audience.’

I wait for her to continue speaking.

‘We have already met on Coruscant, and from what I learned during that mission,’ she reveals, ‘there is no point in wasting my time attempting to negotiate a treaty with anyone other than your consort, but for appearances here, I had to ask for you, and through you gain access to him.’

I nod my understanding to her. Political expediency on her part, and driven by cultural motivations as well. On Hapes, the Queen Mother must be seen negotiating with a female of high rank, not a male. For her to do otherwise would put her at a disadvantage with her own people. A man will always be weaker than a woman, in her opinion, but if she thinks she can manipulate Ani more easily than Palpatine, or that my husband would bend to her will simply because she is female and he, male, she will be in for a big surprise.

‘Very well, then. I shall convey to him what you say to me. What do you want from the Empire?’ I ask in as even a tone as I can.

‘Access to external trade and technology,’ Ta’a Chume admits, ‘but Hapes has no interest in becoming an ally or subject of the Empire.’

‘And in return?’ I wonder.

She smiles at me for the first time. It does not instil any trust of her in me.

‘Our cybernetic technology is far more advanced than yours,’ she tells me, ‘and so is some of our military weaponry.’

Both are areas she knows Ani would be interested in, personally and ‘professionally,’ but from my experience, I doubt he will let himself be influenced that easily. Given what he had told me earlier, that the Hapans do not really need anything from the Empire, there must be more to this than she is telling me. This must be her opening gambit, I decide, an attempt to see what Ani’s hand is holding, before she ups the stakes, and she won’t show the rest of her cards until it is to her advantage to do so.

‘I see,’ I reply, to buy some time while I try to come up with what to say next.

‘Speak to your consort tonight,’ she suggests, then shrewdly notes, ‘since no agreement can be approved without his consent.’

She rises from her chair at that, heading to the door my husband is standing behind. I follow, suspecting that this is the end of today’s discussions, and that nothing more will happen until tomorrow.

The door swings open for the Queen Mother.

The Sith Lord on the other side steps back, watches her pass, and waits for me to join him.

‘Let’s return to my flagship,’ I suggest aloud. Silently, I add, Ani, I want to go home. I don’t trust her or anyone else here.

‘To the Executor, my Lady,’ he agrees. We’ll talk there, where it’s safe, later, after Mikal has his birthday cake, and the children are asleep.

I wait until we are in my husband’s shuttle, safely away from the Hapans’ sight then wrap myself around him, not caring what my bodyguards might think of it. Today has been too stressful not to ask him to be a bit indulgent in this way.

The Executor, Hapes, Hapes Cluster, Year 4, Month 1

DAY 16

***

I move Mikal's new storybooks from the top of my desk to the floor and set my datapad in their place. Maia and the children are still sleeping and I need some time alone to think.

Palpatine wants access to the Hapan’s military technology, and their Guns of Command, in particular. From what Maia told me last night, it sounds like the Queen Mother might be willing to part with that, but at what price? Access to external trade as she claimed? The Hapans could have that easily, without a treaty or the Empire's help. All they would need to do is set up a well-guarded outpost outside the Cluster and use that as a point of contact, ensuring their continued isolation from the rest of the galaxy. Access to outside technology? That's rather pointless when so much of their own is more advanced than what the Empire possesses. Anything they want, they could probably obtain through the same contacts they used to deliver Isolder and his mother to Coruscant.

No, the Queen Mother wants something else, something she has not disclosed yet, and whatever cards she has to play, she will not show until and unless she has to.

While I consider the various possibilities, Michael decides to put in an appearance, giving me one of his typical grins before sitting down in the chair across from me. Hopefully his spying has been of some use.

‘Well?’ I prompt him. ‘Anything useful to tell me?’

‘Not much,’ he reveals. ‘They might not be Force sensitives, but they do seem to know when someone is sneaking around, eavesdropping, or trying to see what they are up to. Every time I thought I might hear something important, they stopped talking, switched from Basic to Hapan, or went into another room where I couldn’t easily follow them. There’s no point in being visible and attempting to blend in, either. Most of the palace is off limits to males of any type.’

‘You could disguise yourself as a woman,’ I suggest, using the opportunity to tease him a bit.

To my surprise, he doesn’t take offense, merely looks amused.

‘I’m too tall, and I don’t know their language,’ Michael admits. ‘I couldn’t bluff my way to where I could be of help, either.’

He throws his hands up in the air, obviously frustrated by his inability to provide any intelligence to me.

‘There’s nothing you know that you can tell me?’ I prod, hoping he will divulge anything he might know of the Hapans.

Rather than pull his usual vanishing act when I push him to reveal what he knows but doesn’t want to discuss, Michael stands, rests his hands on the front of my desk and looks at me.

‘You probably know more about the Hapans than I do,’ he tells me. ‘If there was anything I could tell you about them that might keep my sister safe, I would have already done so.’ He steps back, then adds, ‘Don’t trust anything the Queen Mother says or does. She reminds me too much of your boss.’

With that he does disappear, leaving me alone to consider his words.

***

Ani was up early, I note, when my hand discovers his side of the bed is empty. He’s still worried about what the Queen Mother wants, and is probably in his office brooding about that. After Mikal’s birthday party last night and after all three of our children were asleep, we had spent an hour discussing what to do today and how I should handle the Queen Mother. I give my head a shake. My husband should be the one dealing with Hapan monarch, not I. Rather than wait for Ani to return to our bedroom, I retrieve his robe from the floor, wrap myself in it, and go to find him. Hopefully we will have a few minutes alone before breakfast. I discover him in his office, at his desk, as I expected, and staring at his data console.

‘Hi there, handsome,’ I tease him.

The Sith Lord glances over at me, reaches his hand out, and pulls me to his side when I take it.

‘You should have slept longer,’ he scolds me a little.

‘You should have stayed in bed with me, then,’ I counter back.

He knows when I am worried or stressed that his absence from my side often rouses me, even if he is careful to be quiet and not disturb me as he gets out of bed.

‘Point taken,’ Ani concedes, shutting off the screen and turning to look at me. ‘Palpatine’s instructions give me some latitude in what to do, but there is only one thing he really wants from the Hapans - their total subjugation to his will.’

‘Somehow, I can’t see that happening any time soon,’ I reply, a bit amused. ‘The Queen Mother and her nobles will never allow themselves to be ruled by a man.’

‘Not yet, anyway,’ he corrects me.

‘Do you know something I don’t?’ I ask him as he gets out of his chair and pulls me in close to his chest.

‘Gossip and rumours,’ he teases. ‘I need more information than what I have at hand, but I do know that Isolder has made public statements about giving Hapan men more rights and a higher status than they have now.’

‘And his mother can’t be very happy about that,’ I decide. ‘I can’t see her wanting to share power with anyone, male or female.’

‘She is not pleased with his choice of future consort, either,’ Ani reveals. ‘The court gossip provided all the details of that to me yesterday. Most consider Lady Elliar too much of a pacifist, unsuited to be the next Queen Mother, and an obstacle to be removed to promote their own candidates. We need to avoid being drawn into any of that.’

I thought that Imperial politics was a minefield to avoid, but Palpatine’s court feels safer than what I will face in the next week. At least I know what to expect on Coruscant and who to stay away from, but here there are far too many unknowns. 

I lean against him, close my eyes, and set my head on his chest. My husband has been doing his best to gather as much information as he can to help us both, however as a male, in Hapan society, there is only so much he can do given that the women here won’t tell him much of any importance. It doesn’t matter that he is second to Palpatine in the Empire, either. On Hapes, in public view, he has to defer to me, wait for me to invite him into a room, and obey my every command.

Fingers brush down my cheek. I know he’s trying to reassure me, but I can’t shake the feeling that these treaty negotiations are not going to end as anyone expects them to.

Fountain Palace, Hapes, Hapes Cluster

***

I kneel by the reflecting pool, stare into its depths, and do my best to shut out the chatter of the two female Hapans nearby. In another place and time I would do something to encourage them to go. Eventually they walk away, leaving me to meditate in peace. Closing my eyes, I reach out, touch the Force, and ask it for some direction, some sense of what needs to be done, but there is no clear path shown to me, only a myriad of confused and branching futures. Disgusted by the lack of clarity in my visions, I open my eyes and consider the morning’s events.

The Queen Mother had insisted on the negotiations being conducted semi-privately, with only her, her son, my wife, and I in attendance. I know the Duchas would have preferred a larger audience and some way to influence the discussions, but none were foolish enough to voice their wishes aloud - not that their opinions would have any effect on what their ruler does. 

My wife was grateful for the lack of witnesses and all too relieved to hand the diplomatic tasks to me, something she could never do publicly. Isolder had no idea what his mother intended, and was quite surprised to find himself entertaining my wife, instead of me, while I spent the next two hours trying to convince the Queen Mother to open the Cluster to traders. I know she anticipated that as my opening position, but she will never agree to it. The Hapans will not allow that sort of easy access to their territory. No, the most I can expect from her is a positive decision on setting up a trading station, designated as a Hapan outpost, in Imperial space.

I sense my wife’s approach and turn to watch her walk down the gravel path towards me. Daini and Cyran are following after her, and behind them, a male Hapan, in servant’s attire, who is carrying what I assume is her noon meal.

‘Stay where you are, my Lord,’ my wife tells me, before seating herself carefully on the grass nearby. ‘I’ve decided to have a picnic lunch.’

She gestures to the server, points to the grass between us, and waits for him to cover it with a cloth and set out a number of dishes. His dismissal is the same - no spoken words, only a wave of her hand indicating he is to leave.

‘You’ve learned the local court etiquette,’ I tease her, once the manservant is out of sight.

‘And I don’t like it very much,’ she admits, reaching her left hand out to where I can catch it in my own, ‘but if I treat them too politely or with too much respect, it looks out of place, and the Hapans stare disapprovingly at me for doing it.’

I give her fingers a light squeeze and with my free hand touch the jug, glasses, and each covered dish in turn, using the Force to check that all are safe and none have been tampered with. The Queen Mother, trusting no one, has a taster do the same for her, after a ‘droid examines anything she might consume.

‘The juice to start,’ my wife decides, releasing my hand as she does so.

I humour her by filling a glass and handing it to her. Here, I am hers to command, and I know she is enjoying our role reversal, to a certain extent. She accepts the drink from me and quickly brings it to her lips in an attempt to hide her smile.

I could order you to do something else, she teases me in thought.

Like? I ask, curious what she could have in mind.

‘Something to entertain me,’ she suggests.

‘Saber forms. That must be what she is hinting at. I haven’t run through any of those in her presence in weeks.

‘As my Lady wishes, so it shall be,’ I declare.

I rise to my feet and make a quick survey of the area. No Hapans are in sight, but that won’t last for long. Beginning with an opening flourish and salute, I choose to do one of the simpler patterns first before shifting into more complex ones. My efforts have attracted more than my wife’s attention, I note, as a spin allows me to look at the Hapans who have come to see what is happening, drawn by the sight and sound of my blade, and my rapid movements. When Isolder’s chief bodyguard, Captain Astarta appears, I decide it is time to finish in a suitable manner by ending the last turn of the ‘saber form on one knee in front of my wife.

‘Well done, my Lord,’ Maia praises, clapping in appreciation.

‘That was most impressive,’ I hear one of the Hapan women comment in Basic. ‘Does he perform as well in other ways?’

As I watch, Cyran helps my wife to her feet. I stay where I am and wait. I sense several Hapans draw closer, but they stop behind me a few paces from where I am kneeling.

My wife steps forward to stand at my side and lightly rests her hand on my shoulder. Although I cannot see it, I know she has looked down at me before raising her eyes to the women in front of her.

‘My consort,’ Maia firmly states, emphasizing her possession of me, ‘rarely disappoints me.’

I resist the urge to give her a silent warning to be careful what she says. She needs to handle this in her own way.

‘Consort?’ the same woman questions. ‘Then he must be shakal, worthy.’

‘Ducha Galney, …’ Astarta begins, only to be interrupted.

I turn my head to see this Ducha I have not yet encountered. Flanked by two female retainers clothed in matching livery, she is beautiful, impeccably dressed, and emotionally cold in the same manner as her ruler. This is another woman to be wary of. A smile, which does not reach her eyes, curls her lips as she realizes I am looking at her.

‘Has he sired a daughter to inherit for you?’ the Ducha asks. ‘Or a son?’

I return my gaze to the reflecting pond in front of me. Control, I remind myself. Let this play out as it will and if necessary sort out the consequences later.

‘Both. Twin daughters and two sons,’ my wife answers, and while there is no hint in her even voice and calm demeanour that she is finding this conversation disturbing, I can feel her discomfort and unease at the direction that it is taking.

‘My daughter requires a suitable mate to breed an heir,’ Galney states, as my wife’s fingers on my shoulder tighten. ‘But I do not think you are willing to share him,’ she observes, obviously seeing my wife’s reaction to her statement, and continuing, ‘A pity, that, when he would be in high demand with a proven breeding record, stamina, and physical prowess.’

I hear my wife’s slow inhalation. It takes me a moment to realize that she is seriously considering the Ducha’s offer and weighing what to say to her. Surely she would never agree to it nor expect me to willing comply?

How would you like to stand at stud? she teases me. Please enough of the Hapans in the bedroom and with your reproductive talents, and maybe the Queen Mother will let Palpatine have whatever he wants.

This conversation reminds me of similar ones I have had with my master where Maia’s breeding potential was the subject of debate. It’s rather uncomfortable to find myself on the receiving end of exactly the same sort of evaluation as she was. I resist shifting about or revealing my discomfort at what I am hearing. Control, I remind myself again. Don’t react. Don’t speak. Just be patient and look at the water in the pool. It’s not my place to say or do anything about what they are discussing - at least not here in public.

Not interested, then, my wife confirms, interpreting my silence as a negative and giving my shoulder another gentle squeeze.

‘My consort’s services,’ Maia finally replies, ‘are neither available nor negotiable.’

‘Ducha Galney, Ta’a Chume,’ Astarta says a few words I recognize in Hapan before going on at length in that tongue.

The Ducha responds in the same language, adding in Basic as she leaves, ‘Take the time to reconsider my offer, your highness, it will stand for as long as you are here.’

I hear Astarta come closer, see her walk past my wife to face me, and watch my wife turn to look at Isolder’s Captain.

‘I know your traditions are different from ours,’ Astarta states, shaking her head, obviously displeased by what she had witnessed. ‘It is permitted to arrange such liasons for unattached males you have governance over, with the intent of producing heirs or cementing alliances, but for the Ducha to ask for such when he is your acknowledged consort…’

‘It is of no matter,’ Maia tries to smooth over the situation, ‘I am not surprised that my consort is seen as desirable, but I do find it strange that she would assume his services in that way are mine to freely barter.’

‘Isolder Chume’da has sent me to inform you that Ta’a Chume is ready to continue your discussion from this morning,’ Astarta tells us, ‘and that he has the objects the princess requested.’

‘We will be there momentarily,’ my wife responds, motioning me to rise as Astarta retreats back to the palace.

I wait until the Captain is gone and I am on my feet before setting my hands on Maia’s shoulders. In response she raises her left, to rest it on mine.

‘The sooner these negotiations are done, the treaty signed, and we are leaving,’ she admits, ‘the happier I will be. That Ducha was most displeased that I refused to let her daughter have you.’

***

Ani trails behind me as I lead us through the gardens and back to the palace, to another round of negotiations for him and an afternoon to fill somehow for me. While I would prefer to have him walk at my side rather than at my back, I know that will only earn me yet more disapproving looks from our hosts. The Chume’doro guarding the entrance onto the gardens recognizes us and opens the door into the Hall of Masters. From there, it is several minutes’ walk on qashmel carpets and ornately inlaid stone floors through various rooms filled with artwork and elaborate furniture, and past security check points back to the Queen’s Drawing Room. This palace is far smaller than Palpatine’s on Coruscant, but the intentions are the same - to overawe any visitors with an opulent display of wealth and power.

Before entering the Drawing Room, Cyran and Daini return to the chairs they had spent the morning sitting in, waiting for Ani and I to finish with the Queen Mother. Astarta is already there, having arrived ahead of us. The doors of the room we need to go into are closed, and I expect that this is yet another political ploy on the part of the Queen Mother.

She’s playing it up for the locals, again, and making us wait, I tell my husband. What a pointless waste of time.

Isolder swings the doors open from the inside before Ani can answer.

I nod at the Prince and step through, with the Sith Lord at my heels. The Queen Mother is already seated and does nothing until the doors have been closed behind us, obviously not wanting anyone outside the room to hear or see what any of us say or do.

‘Shall we continue from where we left off this morning?’ she asks my husband.

Ani moves to sit in the chair across from her, glances briefly over at me then returns his attention to Ta’a Chume, and resumes his attempt to persuade the Hapan ruler to agree to opening the Cluster to traders.

Good luck, husband, I think to myself, better you than me.

On the other side of the room, two comfortable chairs and the small table I requested has been set up, with a box in its center, hopefully with the other items I asked for in it. Isolder quickly takes one of the chairs for himself, and I settle myself in the other one. I can tell he is curious what I am going to do, but he doesn’t ask. Lifting the lid from the box, I discover that the Hapans had filled it with exactly what I need. Good. We should be able to keep ourselves amused for a few hours while the other two debate trade.

‘Gomoku, the strategy game I am going to teach you,’ I tell Isolder, ‘is at least two thousand years old on my home world. It might be similar or identical to one you already know because the rules are fairly simple.’

I take the sheet with the grid on it from the box and lay it out on the table. Since I don’t know how skilled he is, rather than take the black stones and their advantage, I give them to the Prince and keep the white ones for myself. If he proves to be a good player, I will use my mathematical skills to compensate for the handicap of not having the first move. The box ends up on the floor beside us.

‘We each take turns placing stones on the board until one of us has five stones in a straight line,’ I instruct him. ‘The line can be in any orientation - horizontal, vertical, or diagonal. There are other rules which make the game harder, but those can wait until we need them. Black goes first.’

At this, Isolder smiles and with that I know that the Hapans must play a similar game. This should be interesting, I decide, as he places the first stone and waits for me to position mine.

Two hours later, we have both figured out the other’s favourite strategies and played to the point where neither can gain an advantage over the other, even with adding the rules designed to eliminate the benefit from black’s playing first and to make the game more difficult.

‘It’s time for something else, your highness,’ I concede, ‘since we will just end up in a perpetual tie if we continue.’

He looks over to where his mother and my husband are doing their best to verbally outmanoeuvre one another over who will be responsible for the security of the trading outpost that the Queen Mother had won as a concession from Ani earlier. I had been ignoring most of their discussions, assuming that I would be briefed on the more important points later.

‘I think that they will be an hour or two more on that particular topic,’ Isolder decides, ‘given how long it took them to reach that point in their negotiations.’

‘There is another game which uses the same board and pieces,’ I suggest. ‘We could play that one, if you like.’

The Prince smiles at me, and I suspect he thinks that what I am going to teach him will be another game he already knows or one which is fairly simple, like Gomoku. I return his smile. This ought to be fun. Go is far more complex than chess, with much more involved strategies.

‘This game, Go, is even older than Gomoku, and there are more rules to follow,’ I explain. ‘The object is to encircle your opponents pieces to remove them, and to capture and occupy as much of the board as possible. Whoever has the most squares and captured stones wins, but the game only ends when both players agree they don’t want to make any more moves or someone resigns.’

I push the black stones over to Isolder as I warn him, ‘Having the first move gives no advantage and I usually play against my consort with a four stone handicap on my part. I’ll let you know the other rules as we need them.’

Our first ‘game’ is more for teaching Isolder the refinements he will need to understand to play well. From his frown and look of concentration, I realize that Go must not have any Hapan equivalent and that he is trying to quickly figure out what will work in order to win. Good. Keeping him busy, myself entertained, and both of us out of the Sith Lord and Queen Mother’s negotiations is exactly what Ani had told me to do, and I am learning quite a bit about how Hapans deal with strategic problems in the meantime. When we finally begin a proper game, I quickly notice that Isolder’s primary tactic is to strike out aggressively with the intention of capturing as many of my pieces as he can manage. There is little long term planning from what I can see, which is completely different from my more cautious play aimed at the endgame and encircling territory rather than trying to intimidate or overwhelm him from the start.

Isolder and I are entirely engrossed in our game, such that when Ani and the Queen Mother finally reach an agreement on the trading outpost, neither one of us notices. It isn’t until my husband comes over, to stand beside me and look at the board, that I realize he is no longer talking to Ta’a Chume.

‘Playing Go?’ Ani asks.

‘Attempting to, my Lord,’ Isolder admits, ‘with time, I might actually win.’

‘If you do, I want you to tell me how you managed it,’ my husband requests, sounding rather amused, ‘because I have yet to win a game of Go against her.’

Isolder’s mother joins us and I see her studying the board. Her eyes meet mine, and she smiles at what she had seen on the table. I suspect she finds it amusing that I am so easily beating her son at what appears, at first glance, to be a simple game.

‘Never let a man become so deluded as to believe that he is the intellectual equal of a woman! It only leads him to evil,’ the Queen Mother states. ‘That is an old Hapan saying and one I completely agree with.’ She turns away, beckons to Isolder to follow her, before looking back at me and adding, ‘It seems that you apply the same principal to your consort, at least in some areas.’ Her attention shifts to Ani, ‘I will see to it that what we agreed to today is properly recorded, so that it can be corrected tomorrow, if necessary,’ then she walks through the doors which are opened for her by the Chume’doro outside, her son following at her back, while Ani and I watch them leave.

For a moment, I am at a loss for words.

‘I don’t…,’ I begin, only to be interrupted by my husband.

‘No,’ he agrees, ‘you don’t, and some day we really do need to find enough time to finish a game of Go instead of having to abandon it, partially played, due to an interruption of some sort.’

He offers his hand, so I take it and allow him to help me to my feet. Although I haven’t done anything strenuous today, I am tired physically and mentally drained from hours of pitting my wits against the Prince. I also need something to eat and drink, and access to a ‘fresher, but I prefer to do that somewhere else than the palace.

‘It’s time to return to the Executor, my Lord,’ I decide, ‘unless you have a reason to stay later or for the night. If not, we will come back in the morning, to start the talks again.’

‘To your flagship, then,’ he agrees, and I can hear his light hearted mental laughter at my silent, amused reaction to his words.

Fountain Palace, Hapes, Hapes Cluster, Year 4, Month 1

DAY 19

I pick up the puzzle box Isolder had gifted to me and resume studying it. There is supposed to be a surprise hidden inside it, but I have yet to work out the combination of rotations and turns required to open it. The Prince, I am sure, is finding my inability to solve this conundrum as entertaining as I had his failure to beat me at Go.

‘Your move,’ he tells me once he has placed a black stone.

I give up on the box and turn my attention to the board. At least I seem to be making some headway in our game, which is more than my husband has in his negotiations. He spent all of yesterday trying to pry from the Queen Mother what she wanted from the Empire militarily and was willing to part with to obtain it. Risking a quick look over at him, I see Ani resume his pacing in front of Ta’a Chume, while she stays in her chair, her faced concealed by a veil. She must be baiting him again, I decide, when I feel a distinct spark of irritation from my husband. Taking verbal jabs at the Sith Lord might provide her with some sort of amusement since she knows he can’t do much about it, but I know that if he has a chance to pay her back in some way, he will.

***

I deliberately ignore the Queen Mother’s latest attempt to elicit a reaction from me. All morning she has either blatantly flirted with me, or used any available opening to insinuate that I should have agreed to Ducha Galnay’s ridiculous request to sire a granddaughter for her.

‘Surely you are willing to be of service to your Emperor in any way needed to secure what he desires from me,’ she states.

‘Your desires are of more concern to you than his,’ I return in kind, ‘and you need a military advantage over your potential rivals.’

My attempt to return the topic back to what we are here to discuss fails miserably.

‘If the Ducha’s eldest daughter does not appeal to you, perhaps her younger one might,’ Ta’a Chume suggests. ‘Or would you aim higher than the mere daughter of a Ducha…’

I cease my pacing, stop in front of her and set my hands on my hips.

‘Enough of this,’ I growl, letting some of my irritation finally show. ‘She is not just a Princess, not just my mate, but L’elesa shakal, my most worthy wife. I will never have any interest in another woman, regardless of her titles or what might be offered in return.’ I step closer, aim my finger at the Queen Mother’s chest, to make my point even clearer and finish, ‘Not even you.’

My comments have no effect on her.

‘Not even if one of your daughters were to become the next Queen Mother?’ she persists, making no attempt to be subtle in her proposition to me. ‘Not even if the Hapan fleet were yours to command?’

I don’t consider her offer. The Queen Mother might be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, the Hapan fleet a rival for the Empire’s, and the worlds of the Hapes Cluster wealthy beyond measure, but none of that would ever compensate for what I would lose if I were to accept -  Maia’s love, our marriage, and my family. 

‘No,’ I abruptly reply.

That brief response silences Ta’a Chume and I can sense her measuring me, although I am not sure what it is she is evaluating. Is it my stubbornness, my loyalty to my wife, or my refusal to be so easily manipulated by her?

‘Very well,’ she concedes, ‘this is what I need: access to technology which increases the recharge speed of turbolasers.’

She wants a tactical advantage over the Duchas and, perhaps, her sister and rival Secciah. With a faster recycle rate, her ships would be able to easily outgun those of the others.

‘And you will give in exchange?’ I ask directly, not bothering to waste my time with diplomatic language that would only drag this out.

‘A Gun of Command, since that is what your Emperor wants and I am willing to give,’ Ta’a Chume answers, ‘and I will demonstrate one for you now, so you can judge its effectiveness for yourself.’

***

‘Isolder,’ the Queen Mother calls to her son, ‘bring the Gun of Command to me.’

I look at the Prince then my husband. Something is going on, but I am not sure what.

A demonstration of the weapon, Ani reveals. Do not worry yourself about it. She is doing this purely for show, since I already know what it can do.

Isolder picks up the secured case he had by his feet and carries it over to his mother. She opens it and removes what looks like a small, if simply designed, gold-plated blaster pistol from inside it.

If this is a demonstration, Ani, I ask, then what is she going to shoot?

Not what, he tells me, but who.

Before I can ask him the next obvious question, Ta’a Chume has raised the gun, pointed it at her son, and pulled the trigger. Blue sparks ring the muzzle and a wave of energy emerges which quickly engulfs the Prince. Isolder freezes in place, his eyes rapidly dilating and glazing over.

‘The effects can last for almost an hour on a human, depending on how strong willed the target is,’ the Queen Mother states. ‘They will obey simple commands, even suicidal ones.’ She sets the gun on the arm of her chair. ‘That is how we execute male prisoners on Hapes - the Gun of Command then an order to use a blaster on themselves. Women are protected from that fate as it is forbidden to execute or harm a female.’

She looks at me, then Isolder, and I wonder exactly what she has in mind for this demonstration she has promised the Sith Lord.

‘Isolder, open the puzzle box for the Princess,’ she orders.

He promptly does so, and in only a few moves, too, setting the open box on the table in front of me. Curious, I reach for it, intending to find out what is in it. His mother’s next command stops my hand in place.

‘Now reset the box,’ she tells her son, ‘and give it back to the Princess.’

I watch what he does intently, trying to memorize the moves so I can copy them in reverse, and accept the closed box when he hands it to me. What else will she make him do, I wonder.

‘Now sit down, and be quiet until I tell you otherwise,’ is the last instruction Isolder is given.

He promptly obeys. I stare at him but there is no reaction when I wave my hand in front of his face. Whatever state that gun has put him in has left him completely at the mercy of others. This is not a weapon I would want Palpatine to have, I decide. It would be far too easy to abuse it.

‘He will recover quickly, once the effects wear off,’ the Queen Mother reassures me, ‘and if you tell him to forget what happened, he will, for a while, but the memory of it will eventually return.’

Her attention shifts back to the Sith Lord, who had said nothing while Isolder was ordered about.

‘A most satisfactory display,’ my husband acknowledges, ‘and a small price to pay for the technology you want, so what else do you have to offer in addition to it?’

They go back to their discussion, and I decide to see if I can open the puzzle box. It takes several false starts, but the sequence I had memorized from what Isolder did finally works. I set the open box on the table rather than look into it. The surprise can wait until the Prince is acting normally again. After twenty or so minutes, he is still sitting there, silent, unmoving, and obviously completely under the compulsion the gun had allowed his mother to put on him. If I have to sit here for an entire hour with nothing to do I am going to become rather bored.

I shift uncomfortably in my chair. My son is moving about again, doing his best to stretch out, so I rest a hand over him and try to settle him with a touch of the Force. He doesn’t co-operate and my discomfort draws Ani’s attention.

‘Perhaps it is time for a break and a walk,’ he suggests, ‘since my wife needs to move about a bit.’

My husband’s use of ‘wife’ rather than a more official title has me wondering what he is up to, but I am not going to argue about it.

‘Isolder,’ the Queen Mother orders, ‘Escort the Princess to the Grand Gallery and show her the paintings. She might enjoy seeing the artwork.’

The Prince rises from his chair, goes to the door, and waits for me to join him. His eyes are close to normal, so he must almost be free of the gun’s effects. Before leaving, I glance over my shoulder at the Sith Lord. He waves me out of the room, obviously intending to finish whatever he and the Queen Mother were dealing with rather than take a walk with me.

The Chume’doro close the door behind us, and my own body guards quickly fall in place after me, trailing along as Isolder leads us deeper into the palace. Hopefully Ani will be done soon because I don’t know how long I will be able to contemplate the Hapans’ idea of fine art without starting to yawn.

***

For a few minutes more after Maia has left, the Queen Mother debates the other concessions Palpatine had wanted from her in exchange for improving her fleet’s armaments. Most of the items on his list were simply to satisfy his curiosity or to add to his personal collections - a Selab tree, Hapan gold wine for his private cellar, finely carved rainbow gems… many more curiosities and luxuries, and none of it will be of any practical use to the Empire.

Finally, we have an agreement where she will receive what she wants and so will the Emperor, and she knows it.

‘We are done with this, now,’ I declare. ‘Send the drafted agreement to me tonight, and I will make any corrections immediately.’

The Queen Mother coolly regards me, and that feeling of being measured by her returns.

‘You have requested nothing for yourself, personally,’ she observes, ‘not even a new set of prosthetics from us which are far superior to the ones you currently have.’

‘I require nothing from you,’ I reply, amused by her assumption that I need to be bribed.

‘But I do from you,’ she states.

She moves quickly, far faster than I would have expected from someone with no apparent training or access to the Force. In an instant the Gun of Command is in her hand, and the blast it emits impacts against me. My mind freezes, turning ice cold and my thoughts slow to a standstill. Before I can muster an effective defense, fight against the mental torpor I have been seized by, and throw off the compulsion, the Queen Mother speaks.

‘Don’t fight the effects or resist my orders, and be silent,’ she commands, setting the gun down again, ‘and don’t try to contact your wife like I know you can telepathically.’

I stare at her, angry that she has done this to me, and furious with myself for giving her the opportunity to do it. Michael had warned me not to trust her, that I needed to be careful, and by sending my wife away and being alone with Ta’a Chume, I stepped right into her trap. All I can do is hope that Maia senses something is wrong, although there is not much she can do as far as a rescue goes. On Hapes, the Queen Mother does as she pleases and her word is law.

Ta’a Chume leaves the chair and steps closer to me. She runs a single finger down the side of my mask, drags her hand across my chest, around to my back to squeeze my buttocks then moves it back again to my front. Her hand rests over my groin, but she makes no attempt to remove my codpiece.

‘More than adequate,’ she decides, ‘and suitably tamed, if only for the moment.’

She would not be saying that if she could see the fury on my face.

‘So, what shall I do with you?’ she teases. ‘I am too old to bear an heir, and I have no desire to mate with you. Someone else, however, someone younger, innocent, fertile, and more to your tastes…’

Her veiled face turns from me to the door into the Queen Mother’s Bedchamber. Kreth, I think, there is someone in there, waiting for me. She has obviously had this planned for days.

‘Follow me,’ she orders, as she goes to that door and opens it.

My feet move to obey her command despite my desire to stop them.

***

‘… and this landscape is by the painter Valix. It shows the highest peak on Gallinore,’ Isolder describes the fifth painting we have looked at.

Rather than being boring, the Prince’s tour has been surprisingly interesting. He has not just given the usual museum spiel - what it is and who the artist was - but gone into some depth about the planets and scenes depicted.

‘What about that ocean scene over there?’ I ask to cover what I am suddenly experiencing.

I feel slightly dizzy, sick, nauseous, as if something terrible has happened or soon will. Something is wrong, but I can’t tell what it is. It’s not my son or myself this is centered on because I would know that immediately. This is related to someone or something else. Perhaps the Sith Lord has an idea of what is going on.

Anakin? I prod my husband, but he is silent in response, and probably too busy with his negotiations to answer me.

I give my head a shake. Hapes and all of its courtly intrigues must be affecting my mind. Now I am starting to jump at half-sensed shadows and vague premonitions. If there really was something to worry about, I know my husband would be quick to contact me.

‘Ah, that one. That is on Hapes, at the Reef Fortress, our summer retreat,’ Isolder tells me, missing my spell of disquiet and unease by turning to see which painting I was interested in. ‘It’s unfortunate you won’t have time to see it. The rare fish that inhabit the coral reefs are quite beautiful…’

***

Sitting on the edge of a large, ornate bed is a young girl who promptly kneels in front of the Queen Mother. Her waist-length hair is the same shade as my wife’s and her eyes a matching blue. She is not quite a doppelganger in her facial features, but close, very close. A younger version of Maia, perhaps, in appearance, but not in any other manner. For a Hapan, she is rather plain. Someone more to my tastes...

‘Lady Liora Galnay,’ Ta’a Chume addresses her.

‘Erenenda Ta’a Chume,’ the girl acknowledges in return. ‘L’aldaraia …’

‘Speak to him in Basic,’ the Queen Mother orders. ‘He does not understand Hapan.’

‘Queen Mother,’ Liora translates, ‘I will do as you and my mother require, but I ...’

‘Good, then prepare yourself,’ the Queen Mother cuts in, preventing the girl from finishing. ‘And quickly, too. We only have a short time.’

I watch her as she stands, turns her back to me and begins to undress. From her voice, body and features she can be no more than seventeen or eighteen standard years old, but with Hapans age is a difficult thing to gauge. When there is only a thin shift left covering her, she faces me again, but refuses to look up into my mask. It seems that I am not the only one who wants no part in this and has had to be forcibly coerced in some way.

Ta’a Chume’s attention returns to me.

‘When you are finished, you will leave this room, forgetting all that occurred within it, and leave the Drawing Room, knowing only that a treaty agreement has been made,’ she commands.

I know she is deliberately dragging this out as a form of torture for me, and perhaps for the girl as well.

‘Now,’ the Queen Mother orders, ‘You will mate with her and she will allow you to do it.’

Despite her first command to not fight the compulsions, I try to work around them. The gun’s effects won’t last for long, so I will use delaying tactics instead and hopefully avoid fulfilling her orders.

I take a single slow step towards Lady Galnay and offer her my hand. She hesitates before accepting it and letting herself be led to the bed. Ta’a Chume watches us, and it occurs to me that she intends to stay, to act as a witness, and make sure the girl does as she wishes. Deliberately slowing my movements, I arrange the pillows behind the Liora’s back, propping her up slightly, then climb onto the bed myself.

Mate with her.

The compulsion is still there, still strong, and driving me onwards. It cannot be ignored. My hands move to my belt and codpiece, removing each in turn. Liora still refuses to look at me, shuts her eyes tight, and turns her face to the side as I slide her underdress  above her waist and pull her knees up, bending them, exposing her to me. I let my fingers linger at her waist, send my senses within to learn another part of the Queen Mother’s statement is true. Liora is most certainly fertile, and this the ideal time for her to conceive.

Mate with her, whispers through my mind.

My body moves of its own accord, and I find myself positioned where I need to be but don’t want to be. Tears fall down Liora’s face and I hear her choke on a sob as I lean forward and prepare myself.

Mate with her, echoes through my thoughts and consumes them.

I refuse to so easily give up my control completely and freeze in place. The girl trembles beneath me. She’s terrified of the Queen Mother and of what might happen to her if she refuses to go through with this. Deciding to check, I slide my hand up her thigh, between her legs. As promised and as my fingers quickly discover, she is a virgin, and probably afraid of what I will do to her. I will take this slowly, then, patiently, carefully, and finish with her gently rather than roughly and quickly. I can’t stop this from happening, but I can at least try to not hurt her too much in the doing of it.

I reach a hand to her face, gently brush aside her tears, and rest a finger on her lips. My voice has been muted by royal command, so I can only express my intentions in this way. Her shivering abates at my touch, so I grasp one of her hands, pull it up, moving it to my shoulder, then motion to her to do the same with the other. Changing her position and my angle of entry should help her be a bit more comfortable, if that were even possible given our audience and circumstances, when I take her maidenhead from her.

When she is ready, I move, firmly push forward with my hips and into her. She cries out at my actions, despite my holding back against the demands of the compulsion laid upon me. I pause, wait for her to calm herself again, then slowly, carefully, I make love to her. Instinct eventually over takes her reticence, and she begins to moan, clawing at the back of my cloak and screaming out to me in Hapan.

Mate with her, my body demands and is answered by hers arching up to meet mine.

I lay her back on the pillows and immediately pull out of her, the compulsion finally satisfied, if not in the way the Queen Mother had intended. There will be no child, no daughter to inherit as a result of this, not without what I have deliberately withheld - the orgasm I have so very uncomfortably just curbed despite my body’s desire and drive to do otherwise.

Only my wife will ever bear a child of mine.

Amused laughter fills the room. Ta’a Chume claps slowly, in warped appreciation of our private performance for her.

‘Well done,’ she praises. ‘What a truly magnificent lover you are. Gentle and patient with her, and extremely considerate as well, but perhaps you would be less restrained with a more experienced woman. Had we the time I would try you myself.’

She says something in Hapan to Lady Galnay, who promptly covers herself with a blanket and rests her back against the cushions, holding the cover tight to her chest with her hands, staring at me, her eyes wide and childlike. The poor girl is in a state of shock after that experience, I decide, and thinks she is now pregnant with my child, too.

‘Go over to the table, Lord Vader,’ I am instructed. ‘Clean yourself with the water and towels, and make yourself presentable.’

This command is one I don’t resist. I move from the bed, reach for the water and towels on the table, and wipe the blood and sweat from my armour and what is exposed of my body. If only I could wash the last fifteen minutes away as easily, I decide, replacing my codpiece and belt.

My wife, once she discovers what has happened, will understand and forgive me this forced infidelity, knowing that I was an unwilling participant and that there was nothing I could do to prevent it.

I, after my memory of this event returns, will be enraged, and when I have the opportunity to do it, I will come back to this place to hunt down and kill the Queen Mother.

That, however, is in the future.

***

Isolder finally brings me back to the Drawing Room, but before I can go in, my husband steps out. For a moment, there is a feeling of confusion from him, as if he had forgotten something important and was desperately trying to remember what it was, then that strange sensation is gone.

Anakin? I lightly brush against his mind.

I feel him give himself a mental shake. Perhaps he has spent too much time discussing politics with the Queen Mother and has had enough of that at last.

‘The treaty negotiations are successfully concluded,’ he rather formally tells me. ‘The draft should be in my hands tonight, corrections finished for tomorrow, and it signed tomorrow afternoon. Ratification by the Emperor will wait until we return to Coruscant.’

The Sith Lord draws closer to me, raises a gloved hand to rest it against my cheek. Mixed with his usual strong scent of leather is the distinctive smell of a heady perfume, the same one that the Queen Mother wears. Somehow I manage to not wrinkle my nose in disgust. He has spent so much time in her presence these past few days, without changing what he is wearing, that he is starting to reek of her. I will ask him to strip off this set of armour and send it for cleaning once we are back on the Executor. For now, I will just have to put up with it and hope I don’t have an allergic reaction.

I smile at my husband and lift my hand to cover his before lowering both of them to my chest and wrapping his in both of mine. Ta’a Chume watches us from inside the Drawing Room, and I wonder why she let Ani make the announcement about the treaty rather than do so herself. Isolder, who had gone to join his mother, retrieves the puzzle box and brings it to me.

‘Open,’ he admits, sounding a bit annoyed. ‘I know you must have done that by copying what I did.’ Extending the box to me, he concedes, ‘The prize is yours.’

‘Only if honestly won,’ I decide.

He considers my words before responding, ‘Honesty is a rare and sometimes dangerous thing, but I must insist that you take it as a keepsake, a private present from me, to help you remember Hapes,’

I yield to his insistence and peer into the box. Inside the small chamber is a delicate mothsilk bag with something in it. Curiosity gets the better of me, so I give the puzzle box to Ani and open the bag.

‘An opal?’ I question, as I examine the piece of milky white stone in my hand.

‘No,’ Isolder tells me, ‘an ice moon, the rarest of all gemstones.’

‘And one only a select few outside of the royal family are allowed to own,’ the Queen Mother adds, pointedly.

I know she must be rather annoyed at her son for giving me something he probably shouldn’t have, and without her knowledge or approval, too. Still, their lack of geological knowledge is amusing. Somebody must have convinced them that opals are far rarer and much more valuable than they really are.

‘It’s a type of hydrated silica and quite common in certain places on my homeworld,’ I reveal. ‘The white variety is called moonstone, but it can occur in a wide range of colours with white being the most common, and black the rarest.’

The Prince looks rather taken aback at my words.

‘Common?’ he finally manages to say to me, shaking his head.

‘Yes, common,’ I confirm. ‘My mother had a necklace with over a hundred stones in it, all of them larger than this one.’

Ani uses his hand to slowly close mine overtop of the stone. I look up at him, a bit baffled by both his and Isolder’s reactions. Ta’a Chume’s face is still veiled, so I cannot see her expression.

‘What you think is common on your homeworld is the rarest of gems, here,’ the Sith Lord reveals. ‘A single stone from your mother’s necklace would easily buy a planet.’

‘Oh,’ I quietly say, wondering what other things are rare here but common at home, or vice versa.

***

I take pity on my wife and decide to rescue her from the major political gaffe she has, in complete ignorance, just made by relegating an important source of Hapes’ wealth to that of a common mineral. She cannot save herself or salvage the situation because she is far too honest to do it.

‘Given your family’s prominence, and their preference for being seen as members of the populace rather than royalty,’ I easily add to my previous statement, ‘I am not surprised they told you it was a common gem, rather than admit how truly rare and valuable it really is. Your mother is not one to flout her wealth or power in public.’

Don’t, I warn Maia in thought and by squeezing hard on her hand, before she has a chance to say anything more or chastise me for my fiction.

Anakin, she growls back at me anyway, you know I am telling the truth. The stones are mineralogically identical.

The truth has nothing to do with this, I chastise her. You have, however, just insulted them and Prince Isolder’s more than generous gift to you. If the Queen Mother takes offense, I will have a treaty to salvage, so stay silent while I do so.

Her eyes drop to look at where my hand is covering hers, and she bites her lip, uncertain what she should do. I offer the puzzle box to her with my free hand.

‘It could even be that the stones look very similar, but are not the same,’ I continue, ‘since we do not have one from your homeworld to compare it to.’

Maia lets go of my hand, takes the box from me and puts the ice moon, in its bag, back inside it. She is being very controlled and methodical in her actions, and I can feel her anger and withheld tears of frustration just below the surface.

In smoothing over a potential insult to the Hapans, I have deliberately and publically derided my wife’s knowledge in her academic field of expertise, humiliating her in the process, and I know I will pay a high price for that, necessary as it was.

***

‘It would not be the first case of mistaken identity,’ Isolder offers, his offended tone thawing a little. ‘There have been attempts to sell other lookalike stones as rainbow gems or dawnstars. When something is valuable, it’s inevitable that somebody will create a fake.’

Fake, I think, furious. I know what an opal looks like and what its properties are. It’s one of the simpler gems to recognize, too. Somehow I refrain from saying anything as Ani, Isolder, and the Queen Mother banter back and forth about how easy it must have been for me to confuse two similar looking minerals.

If this is what diplomacy requires - political expediency, duplicity, blatant lies, and shutting up the inconvenient truth - then I want no part of it.

***

Maia shifts restlessly from one foot to the other. She’s stayed silent as I ordered her to, but we have been standing here long enough that she needs to sit down somewhere and relax.

‘Your wife needs to rest,’ the Queen Mother states. ‘I will have the proposed text for the treaty sent to your ship. The formalities will wait until tomorrow.’

That sounds like a dismissal, so I take it as one.

‘Until tomorrow, your majesty,’ I agree.

There is not a word from my wife while we make our way to the Royal Hangar and my waiting shuttle. That’s a measure of her anger, I decide. She won’t talk to me unless she has that in check or we are in private, without an audience or witnesses to hear. Once in the shuttle, rather than sit down and strap in, Maia drops the puzzle box on her seat and bolts for the ‘fresher, hand to her mouth in an attempt to reach her goal in time.

I don’t intrude on her privacy and leave her alone. She’s throwing up again, like she did yesterday when we were leaving the palace, and it’s probably from the stress of being here. My wife is too honest a person to tolerate much more of the toxic swamp that is the Hapan royal court, and what I just did to her has not helped matters. The sooner we leave Hapes, the better.

After a few minutes, Maia exits the ‘fresher and sits down, her face pale and drawn. She’s far more ill and upset than she is letting show. I go to take my own seat beside her, but she waves me away and covers her mouth and nose with a hand.

‘Is something wrong?’ I ask.

‘You reek of another woman,’ she flatly states, ‘and the stench is making me ill.’

I freeze in place, knowing exactly what that insult implies, but shocked that she would ever use it. I haven’t touched another woman in years, not since Shira, and my wife knows that. Her two bodyguards, Daini and Cyran, who are sitting at the back of the shuttle, exchange looks with one another, then do their best to have their eyes anywhere but on me, giving us what little semblance of privacy that they can. They are both fully aware of exactly what I have just been accused of doing, too, and really don’t want to see or hear what might follow. Thankfully Thirsk and my pilot are in the closed cockpit and unaware of what is happening in the passenger compartment.

‘What did you just say?’ I question her, careful to keep my tone even and neutral.

‘You stink,’ Maia paraphrases her previous statement. ‘I can’t stand the Queen Mother’s perfume. It’s cloying and vile, and after days of being in stuck in the same room with her, your cloak and armour are saturated with it. Consider yourself lucky that you can’t smell it with your helmet’s filtration system keeping it out. The steam tunnels of Fondor were not so bad in comparison.’

I look at her then at the two other women in the shuttle.

‘Apparently, I stink,’ I say lightly, with some humour, trying to defuse the tension I can sense was beginning to build. ‘I wish you had said something sooner, rather than make yourself ill putting up with it.’

I step away from my wife, giving her as much space as possible. All I can easily remove here are my cloak and surcoat, so I do that, tossing them both into a sealed compartment.

‘Thirsk,’ I order over the comm to the cockpit, ‘I have decided to fly the shuttle. You will take my seat back here instead.’

The Commander opens the cockpit door, nods in my direction, then stops in his tracks and makes a face. He does his best to not sneeze, but a loud one escapes from him anyway. His sensitive nose has picked up on my problem already.

‘Did someone drop a bottle of cheap perfume in here?’ Thirsk complains.

‘My wife will explain,’ I say quickly, as I bolt for the pilot’s seat before that task falls to me.

***

I set the book on the third saber form beside me and close my eyes. Before restricting my time in the salle with him, Ani had been rather focussed on training me in all the defensive attributes of Soresu. Just in case, he had said, I ever needed to protect myself from a better duellist and had to buy time for him to get to me. Since I am too pregnant to practice, I have resorted to studying the theory behind the form instead.

Resisting the urge to go check on him, I decide to stay where I am, comfortably sprawled on the bed with my feet propped up with a pillow. Ani is taking his time cleaning up, procrastinating for as long as he is able, in an attempt to avoid the discussion with me about what happened on Hapes today.

***

I rest a hand against the wall and lean forward, letting the water from the shower fall down my back. Maia was right about the Queen Mother’s perfume, a fact I discovered after removing my helmet. It was quite a strong scent and sickly-sweet smelling to even my damaged olfactory system. My leather body armour stank as if I had bathed in it. I pity my aide who has the chore of cleaning that up. Hopefully he won’t be made as ill as my wife was.

Turning to face the stream of water, I relax as the heat warms my body. I know I am engaging in delaying tactics. My wife has every reason to be upset and angry with me, and I don’t want to deal with that just yet. Perhaps a suitable distraction and quick apology might be in order.

***

I look up when the ‘fresher door finally opens. Ani’s short hair is a mess and still damp from his shower. He’s wrapped a robe around his body, but that can’t conceal what I am sensing. I know from the intensity of his desires that the usual measures I take to satisfy him when he is in this sort of mood won’t be enough for him tonight. The Sith Lord wants me right now, pregnancy and doctor’s orders be damned, and I know that I won’t be able to physically resist him if he decides to insist on it. His eyes move from mine to the door to the children’s bedroom. It’s already locked, so he nods and strides to the bedside.

‘Anakin,’ I warn him, ‘we shouldn’t do this…’

He sits down beside me and silences my protests with a kiss.

We can and we will, he decides the issue, because I know once will be safe for you and because I owe it to you for today.

His lips move to my forehead, then my hair. He breathes in deeply, deliberately.

‘You smell good,’ he whispers to me, ‘like sunshine and rain and fresh millaflowers.’

I run my fingers through his wet hair. He’s scrubbed himself so thoroughly that most of the normal odours I associate with him are gone. There is no aroma of leather or his distinct male scent, only that of the medicinal soap he has to use.

His second kiss on my mouth is patient, gentle, designed to relax me and to give him time to prepare himself. I kiss him back, give him a peck on the nose when he pulls up and away from me.

‘You taste good, too,’ he observes with a laugh, teasing, ‘Sweet enough to eat. Shall I devour you?’

He moves from where he is sitting to lie down beside me. I reach for him, but he catches my hands and places them on the bed. When he pulls open the front of my nightgown, I don’t reciprocate with his robe. Ani intends to take the lead, to spoil me a bit, so I let him.

‘Soft,’ he tells me, running his fingers from my face to my waist, ‘so very soft and delicate - and cold. Let’s warm you up.’

Our third kiss is deep and intense, breaking down what little will to resist him I had left. His hands continue to caress me, gentle, then firm, teasing and seducing. My husband is as much an expert at this as he is with a lightsaber or the Force. He knows exactly what he needs to do to produce the reaction he wants.

Anakin, I call to him, letting my own desires seep into that thought.

His response is to pull the pillow from under my knees, toss it aside, and ruck up my nightgown. I know that he won’t be able to tease me for very long like he usually enjoys doing. My body is too sensitive, too willing, and too much in need of him after so many weeks without this. Warm hands rest against my hips, slide down my legs, and move my knees. He knows I prefer this position, where I can easily see and touch him, to any other, but with how pregnant I am this is going to be rather awkward.

‘Be still, little goddess,’ he quiets me, when I shift a bit, trying to make it easier for him. ‘Let me do the work for you.’

I feel his hands settle me into a better position, but he fusses with my nightgown, with the pillow behind my head, with exactly where he is kneeling, and with his robe. My husband is ready - I can feel his erection against my thigh, and I am ready - my body is beginning to tremble from the effort needed to hold back from pulling him to me, so why is he delaying?

My shivering produces a response, but not the one I expect.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ he tells me, reaching up to run a finger down my cheek, to rest it on my lips. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

He pulls one of my hands up, to grasp his shoulder then indicates he wants me to do the same with my other one. I oblige him, wondering what he has planned. This is not what he would normally have me do; instead, he would wait for me to grab his shoulders on my own, to let him know I am ready for him. My husband doesn’t push forward, enter me, until after setting his hands on my hips and using them to help guide himself gently in.

‘Too tight,’ he acknowledges what our lack of recent sexual exercise has resulted in.

‘I’m fine, love,’ I reassure him. I know I am probably going to be a little sore from this tomorrow, but he doesn’t need to know that right now.

When he does move within me, it is with slow, leisurely strokes. It takes me a minute to realize that he is being extremely careful how hard and deep he is thrusting, even though that isn’t necessary. He can’t hurt me or our son, so why the restraint? I decide to urge him on and dig my fingers into his back, letting him know I want more.

‘I want you, Anakin,’ I moan to him. ‘Please. Now. Don’t make me wait any longer.’

Then my body responds to his and conscious thought abandons me. Our bond pulls our minds together, and everything I am experiencing flows between us. I feel Ani hesitate, holding himself back, waiting for my orgasm to finish. He almost completely withdraws from me physically before he thrusts back in as far as he can go and finally allows himself his own.

For a moment, he is motionless, frozen in place above me and within me, looking down at me. The strangest of fleeting expressions flicker across his face, to rapidly disappear. I sense confusion from him across our bond, but that strange set of feelings is soon gone. The Sith Lord quickly pulls away from me, pushes himself upright and sits on the edge of the bed, his back to me, elbows on his knees, with his face in his hands.

I shove myself upright and go to him, slide my arms around his waist from behind and rest my cheek against his robe between his shoulder blades.

‘What’s wrong, Ani?’ I ask him.

‘I shouldn’t have done that to you,’ he quietly admits. ‘It was selfish of me, and potentially dangerous for you and our son.’

I squeeze him tighter to my chest and let out a sigh. He wanted makeup sex without having the fight beforehand, and is now feeling guilty for having the more pleasant one without the unpleasant other.

‘I am fine, your son is fine,’ I reassure him. ‘Check for yourself, if you are worried, or comm Leanan and have her examine me instead.’

‘Not a chance,’ he ruefully decides, and I feel some of the tension leave his body. ‘That dragon of a doctor would enjoy lecturing us both, at every opportunity, about ignoring her orders if I did that. Or, she might insist on admitting you to medical for the next month just to ‘keep you two out of trouble,’ as she would put it.’

‘Then we should curl up and get some sleep,’ I gently suggest. ‘We are both tired and stressed out from today and need the rest.’

His hands move to cover mine, and I feel a finger trace my wedding band.

‘I want to clean up a bit, first,’ he reveals. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

I release my husband from my arms and watch him go to the ‘fresher. The Sith Lord is in an odd state of mind and acting a bit peculiar. Something must be bothering him, and he is unable or unwilling to share it with me. Shaking my head, I get up and straighten out the blankets before crawling under them. If he had wanted to avoid a confrontation with me about his behaviour today, he has succeeded, at least for now. Tomorrow, I decide, as Ani comes back to bed and wraps himself around me, we will have to deal with it then.

Part 2

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