How to Take an Empire

Chapter Sixty-Four: Heart

The ship rattled three times before Vader finally dropped them out of hyperspace about three-quarters of the way through their journey to Ahsoka's safehouse. He landed them in the middle of a meadow on some random uninhabited planet, immediately stood up, and stormed out the ship.

"Where's Dad going?" Luke asked. The storm of barely contained emotion from Vader must have awakened him and Leia out their sleep.

Ahsoka stood, placing a still sleeping Winter in the seat she'd vacated and ordered, "Stay on the ship. Don't leave unless your life depends on it."

Ahsoka then rushed out the ship behind Vader, who'd managed to cross a fair distance of the meadow in the time it had taken her to follow him. Clouds gathered in the sky above them. Ahsoka didn't have time to wonder if Vader's power was so all-encompassing, his fury so considerable, his Force powers so unrestrained, that Vader might be affecting the weather. And if he was, it was evidence that she needed to calm him down before he did something stupid.

"Vader," Ahsoka shouted.

He didn't stop.

"Vader. Would you calm down?"

He stopped. She barely stopped in time to prevent herself from colliding into his back. Then he rounded on her.

"Calm down?" he raged. "When Palpatine authorized an attack on Alderaan to get to Luke and Leia because somehow he figured out their connection to me?"

"You don't know that."

"Why else would he purposely keep a mission of that magnitude away from me? I didn't even have the clearance to find it."

That was true. All the evidence seemed to point to that, but they didn't know that for sure. Ahsoka would have to get what happened out of the twins to begin to figure that out.

"You still don't know that. How would he have even found that out? The only person on Alderaan who knew about you was Breha. If anything, I was probably the one Palpatine was trying to get to. He could have found out that I was alive and on Alderaan and that I also had two Force-sensitive children with me. But we can't find that out if you don't calm down."

Vader paused, but there were too many emotions swirling about his Force signature for Ahsoka to get a reading on what he was feeling.

Finally, he said, "It doesn't matter. I'm going to kill him."

"And you will. It'll only be another year and a half. Maybe two and then—"

"No. I'm going to drop you off at your safehouse, and then I'm going to kill him."

Kriff.

"You can't. You'll ruin everything. If you confront him now, everything we've done the last few years won't matter."

"It already doesn't matter. Not when he's gotten this close."

"No. You're letting your emotions get the best of you."

"I won't fail again."

"This isn't about you!" Ahsoka snapped, placing her hands on her hips. "It's not about proving yourself. Or your failures or your guilt. For once in your life, can you just not be selfish? Can you stop and think about how what you do will affect everyone and everything else? Can you think about what other people want and need?"

"What do you think I've been doing for the last few years? You think I get a kick out of playing lapdog to Palpatine? Missing out on my children's lives because I want this? Everything I've done is for Luke and Leia and the galaxy."

"After you kriffed everything else up in the first place because of your selfishness," Ahsoka reminded, voice raising. "None of this had to happen if you'd just stopped for five seconds to think things through."