How to Take an Empire

Chapter Sixty: Memories

Vader couldn't say he was surprised that things had gone so off the rails as far as his placement in their plans. He shouldn't have been. He'd expected something to inevitably go wrong with Ahsoka's end, but Vader hadn't contemplated in all their planning that the Naboo had planned their own rebellion. That he'd get separated from the Emperor and have to find his own way off-planet. Indeed, he hadn't planned on ending up on his home planet again. But when had anything ever gone according to plan when Vader was involved? Apparently, that was a curse that followed him even from his former life.

But in some ways, Vader supposed it was fortunate. With Ahsoka stuck in Jabba's palace and the slug, wisely, not letting her out of his or his lackeys' sight in anticipation of her deception, it necessitated that someone else infiltrate the palace and deactivate the minefield. She'd tasked Rex with the mission right before Vader comm'd to inform her of his crash landing ("How is it that you always crash the ship?" Ahsoka had teased). It became a no-brainer that if Vader was going to be here for the time being, who better to aid in the task?

Vader sensed Rex approach long before his former commander knocked on the landing ramp of the ship to signal that he had arrived and made his way into the ship.

"General," Rex said, poking his head hesitantly into the cockpit when he arrived.

"Haven't been that in a long time," Vader replied. Not technically anyway. He supposed his function in the Empire could be comparable to that of a high general.

He stood from his seat and turned to face the former clone trooper, getting the feeling that the man wasn't sure how to act around him. A wariness was in his demeanor that reminded Vader of when he'd been reunited with Ahsoka, and she'd struggled to reconcile his new self with his former self. The problem wasn't Vader's to sort out.

"Sir," Rex said, handing Vader a brown satchel off his back.

Right. His disguise. Darth Vader certainly couldn't be seen running around Tatooine helping the Rebellion and the Liberty Resistance.

Vader wordlessly took the bag and dropped it in the middle of the small standing area only of the shuttle and before the ramp. He finally discarded his mask and helmet, having decided to wait until the very last minute to get rid of the contraption. Tatooine was a harsh climate for someone with a compromised respiratory system despite all the progress toward healing that he'd made. In short order, he'd discarded the cape, and the shoulder plates and armor, and his utility belt. Then he undid the metal locks and clasps on the steel-plated, knee-length combat boots and temporarily removed them so he could take the rest of the suit off.

He cursed to himself as he went through the tedious process. What in the galaxy had the Emperor been thinking when he'd made this? For it to require so much exertion to put on and take off that Vader would never want to take it off? Even in the privacy of his own quarters? Or maybe, he'd foreseen Vader having a more gruesome injury than the one he'd escaped Mustafar with if Ahsoka hadn't intervened...

Vader shook the thought from his head. For all of the conniving of the Emperor, Vader didn't imagine that the man planned on the young apprentice he'd worked so diligently to procure to be so severely crippled after becoming a Sith. Or maybe Sidious had? Perhaps he'd always planned on finding a way to cripple Vader and keep him powerful enough to terrorize the galaxy but never enough to overtake his master. Vader pushed the thought from his head again. There was no telling what went through the mind of his master at any given time. And frankly, Sidious' reasoning behind the suit mattered little in the grand scheme of things. Vader would redesign the damn thing when he was emperor.

His disguise turned out to be that of a ubese bounty hunter, a common enough figure around these parts that it wouldn't arouse suspicion, though Vader was probably a little tall for one. He put his boots back on first and then began to wrap himself in the brown, beige, and green wraps, trousers, and tunics of the outfit. He paused halfway through putting on one of the gloves of the gear, feeling Rex's eyes on him.