Empire Day ✓

Chapter 10 - The Sith Master

With his legs sticking straight out in front of him, Darth Vader sat on the floor of his meditation chamber across from his egg-like hyperbaric chamber. Lights recessed in the dark walls emitted just enough candle power to see. Not a wattage of power was wasted. The light gleamed off the polished, black floor. 

His son and apprentice Luke Skywalker sat across from him. The boy's young, pliable limbs flexed easily to rest his feet on top of his thighs. 

Vader sighed. Oh, to be young again.

This was Vader's second day training his apprentice, and this was the second day he was surprised. "Very good, Luke. Now, I want you to just breathe and relax. Let the Force flow into you and out of you at will. All I want you to do is feel it."

"Oh!" Luke exclaimed as he felt the Force energize him.

"Silence." 

Luke lifted his hand, and the lightsaber on his father's belt started to rise.

"Stop that, Luke. We aren't working on levitation yet." Vader was pleasantly surprised his son had figured out how to levitate without instruction, but there were more important things to learn first. "I want you to build a wall."

"With what? There's nothing here, Father."

"When we are training, you will call me 'my lord' or 'Lord Vader.'" 

"I don't understand why—"

Vader raised his hand. "No, there is no why."

"Yes, my lord."

"Good. Now, build a wall in your mind, the strongest that you can create. Use the Force to power it." Vader sighed as he watched his son with his Force-sight. He watched the tendrils of the Force swirl around Luke, flow within him, flow out. He felt Luke's emotions, pain, pressure.

Luke closed his eyes. After a few minutes of intense concentration, he reached out, pulling the Force in, strengthening the wall. More pressure came. He pulled more Force in, building the wall higher.

"Luke, strength—"

The boy screamed, and the wall collapsed.

Vader shook his head from side-to-side. "An adequate start, but not good enough. If you cannot keep me out of your mind, how will you ever keep the Emperor out? He is more powerful than you realize."

"But why would I want to keep you out of my mind, Lord Vader?" Luke's bright eyes sparkled with the innocence of youth. "I have no secrets."

Vader leaned forward and stroked his son on the cheek with affection. "And that is how I hope it will always be. Unfortunately, the Emperor can never know that you are my son, or he will take you from me. Then he will either make you a Sith Lord or destroy you."

Luke gazed into the shining dark helmet with his blue eyes. "But I want to be a Sith, just like you, my lord."

Vader smiled under the helmet, fatherly pride welling up in him. How precious this boy was to him, whom he had only known for under a week. No, not a Sith. "You will be a Jedi, like your father before you. Now back to the wa—"

The hatch to the meditation room slid open unexpectedly, revealing the stiff figure of Lieutenant Piett with his ever-present datapad in hand. The officer waited patiently to be acknowledged. 

"What is it, Lieutenant?"

Piett cleared his throat. "The Emperor has requested communication, my lord."

Vader stood up, his metallic joints creaking. "Very good, Lieutenant. Have Admiral Ozzel move the Executor to the far side of the planet so that we may send a clear transmission."