The Darth Side - Keep on Darthin' in the Free World

Preamble: Darth Vader has returned to his office on Coruscant in an attempt to rescue his mojo after a disasterous visitation with his son. After a gap of rumination and expensive therapy, the diarizing resumes....

(Previously: PART I - Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10; PART II - Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20.)

THE DARTH SIDE
by Cheeseburger Brown

PART III, Chapter 1 - Keep on Darthin' in the Free World

Been a while since my last entry. Lots of catching up to do.

Also, I have a brand new leg.

I do not know by what means these transmissions reach you, but if you have experienced a long hiatus on your end it is because I have been exceedingly busy lately. That is no real excuse, I know, especially since I have found speaking my thoughts into this journal so very cathartic. I apologize, and swear no such lapse will come again, as long as I shall live.

I am aboard the StarDestroyer Avenger, en route to the outlands of Mordell at the galactic rim -- but I started my morning on Coruscant. I was having my morning tea when the new girl came through to tell me the Emperor commanded my presence at the palace.

"Is your breakfast quite satisfactory, Lord Vader?" she asked.

It was not, but we shall let her next of kin worry about that.

Despite the light rain I elected to walk rather than take a transport, in no small part because I wanted to give my new left leg a bit of a go. It is such a relief to finally have good circuitry in place after suffering so long with that enigmatic malfunction that threatened to cause my calf to spontaneously jig if I let my attention wander. Now I feel whole again. Were it not for the necessity of maintaining an appropriate level of Imperial decorum I think I might have kicked up and clapped my heels.

My master, the Dark Lord Sidious and the Emperor called Palpatine, was also in a jaunty mood. The rain ran down the wide windows of his offices, drawing undulating sheets of translucent shadows that slithered across the floor toward the throne. "Yes, come in my friend!" called Sidious, rotating his chair away from the cityscape.

"What is your bidding, my master?" I asked, and then I noticed the Bothan nailed to the wall. "I did not know you had a guest," I added.

"Ah yes," cackled Sidious with a grin, "my Bothan friend and I have been discussing the location of the massing point for the Rebel Armada." He took his cane and walked over to the wall where his furry visitor hung. "It has been most enlightening," he enunciated crispy. The Bothan moaned.

"Splendid," I said. "Then I can resume my hunt?"

"Not yet, Lord Vader," sighed my master, shaking his wizened head beneath his cowl. "There remains yet one duty I bid you perform..."

And so my master appointed me the task of overseeing the final phases of activating the armaments of the New Order's greatest work of engineering: a new DEATH STAR, ten times more powerful than the first, a glorious rebirth of Tarkin's dream. (And this time we've built it without the need for a vulnerable secondary thermal exhaust port, right below the main port.) His Excellency demands that the weapons systems be fully operational even before the superstructure has completed construction, for reasons that remain his own.

It is not mine to wonder. I must obey my master.

Besides, I have always enjoyed engineering. I look forward to accomplishing the impossible, to the shock and awe of the low men. Mark my words: the first thing that snaggle-toothed moron Moff Jerjerrod will say is that it cannot be done. He will ask for more men. And then he will soil himself when I tell him the Emperor is due to arrive on Friday.

The richness of life is found in the small pleasures.