FOR THE LAST TIME

Beth Revis

One breath.

Admiral Firmus Piett allowed himself one breath as the door closed behind him, sealing him in Lord Vader’s private chamber aboard the Executor.

One breath, to remind himself that he could breathe.

Unlike Admiral Ozzel.

In the space of that one breath, Piett felt the soft thud of Admiral Ozzel’s body hitting the floor at his feet. He felt the still-twitching hand clutching at the hem of his immaculate uniform, wrinkling it, which was, frankly, unnecessarily rude even in the throes of death. He felt the surge of adrenaline as he realized just what Lord Vader could do, and just what it meant to him.

He heard Lord Vader tell Ozzel with cold efficiency, You have failed me for the last time.

Lord Vader had killed Ozzel without even being in the same room as him, with merely a thought.

And in one breath, Captain Piett had become Admiral Piett.

Piett squared his shoulders, straightened his spine. He deserved this position. Ozzel had not. It had been an unfortunate—but not unwelcome—side effect that Ozzel’s demotion had come in the form of his own choking death.

There were two types of men, just as there were two types of power. It was one of the first lessons Piett had learned as a junior officer serving under Grand Moff Tarkin himself: People are ruled either through fear or through a false sense of security. The men who had been given their power like a piece of candy to an obedient child—those men thought they were secure.

But the men who took their power knew how to make a fist.

Those who believed themselves safe were weak. Those who lived in fear were strong. It was natural, the difference between the hunter and the prey. Prey had the luxury of ignorance, oblivious to threat, but a hunter knew the terror of starvation if the prey was not killed.

And so Piett had watched and waited, as patiently as a lyxine watching a bouf rat. A good hunter knew when to leverage power for a kill-strike. In any given situation, he knew, there were men who believed they were in charge, and there were men who truly were.

Admiral Ozzel had walked across the bridge of the Executor as if it were his right.

But Lord Vader strode over the black enamel as if he would burn it from the sky before he let anyone take it from him.

And that was the man who truly had the power.

Ozzel deserved nothing because he had taken nothing. He had only ever been handed things in his life—positions, power, prestige.

Everything Piett had, he had taken. He had long suspected the same was true of Lord Vader.

Even though Lord Vader had been the first to call Piett “Admiral,” it had been Piett himself who’d positioned each piece on the holo-chess board to make that title happen. He had waited to call attention to Hoth—which he knew, thanks to his private resources, likely housed the rebels—until Lord Vader was on the bridge. He had planted the seeds to make Ozzel dismiss Hoth, thanks to an influx of dead ends piling up on his desk from Piett’s own subordinates. He had moved those holo-chess pieces.

And he had waited.

Until Lord Vader made a fist, just as Piett had known, eventually, he would. And Piett took the title that he deserved.

Piett did not have a false sense of security. Even before Ozzel’s body had fallen at his feet, he had known the game was dangerous, that the hunt continued. The moment Piett showed weakness—as Ozzel had through his own arrogance—that would be the same moment it was Piett’s body twitching on the floor, gasping.

Piett also knew, though, that a man who seized power was a man who knew never to let it go.

So he didn’t.

Piett strode down the three steps into Lord Vader’s chamber, ready to give him a report on the rebels. Other Imperial officers avoided this whole floor, much less the room, fearing to get too close to the volatile Vader.

Piett was no fool. He saw the bodies; he saw Lord Vader’s fist clenched. He knew to be afraid. But what set him apart was the way Piett relished the fear.

Fear made him strong.

If he was not afraid, after all, he would be complacent. He would be weak.

Lost in thought, Piett did not realize at first that Lord Vader was not fully prepared for his arrival. His steps slowed from efficiently measured to hesitating. Curiosity made him peer closer, leaning in to see better as the electronic hiss of shifting mechanics filled the chamber.

Piett had known, logically, that beneath the mask of Lord Vader was a human.

He had not known how broken a human, though.

The shiny black helmet descended over Lord Vader’s head…or what remained of it. Raw, wrinkled skin was streaked with red veins and painful-looking welts. A tall neckpiece seemed to do the work of Lord Vader’s spine, supporting the bulbous mass of flesh stretched over the patchwork skull. Piett’s calculating mind counted more than a dozen electrode-bolts screwed into the neckpiece, connecting to Lord Vader’s nerves, before he had the wherewithal to look down, swallowing the bitter bile rising in his throat.

It was only a few moments. Seconds, really.

But more than enough to see just how horrific it was beneath the mask.

He’s a walking corpse, Piett thought, and the words reminded him of Ozzel, his body writhing at his feet, eyes bulging, tongue lolling, trying to gasp out words but unable to form a single sound other than that weird, sputtering choking noise that sometimes woke Piett at night.

Piett allowed himself one breath.

Then he looked up.

With a hiss and a metallic click of the connectors locking into place, the helmet was sealed over Lord Vader’s bare skull. Piett could imagine the darkness inside the all-black helmet, the light sensors that must communicate to the eyes—Does he have eyes? Piett wondered, the thought making his blood cold. Had he seen Lord Vader’s mangled face, would nothing but gaping black holes stare back at him? There must be nerve endings, surely, but they could connect to optic sensors, and…

Piett was used to being ruled—and ruling—by fear.

But this was different.

This was…

What turns a man into such a monster? What makes a man choose this over death? Death seemed easy. Ozzel had made it appear so. But this way of living…Why would Lord Vader choose such pain?

Lord Vader’s seat turned in a slow circle. Piett should feel the power and intimidation from him, but when he saw the black suit, all he felt was…

Pity.

It took so long for Piett to recognize the emotion that he almost could not name it. Pity. Prior to this, Piett had never seen anything but the black of Lord Vader—the black helmet, the black cape, the black gloves curled into a fist. Lord Vader was a commander, a near-god with his power over life and death, cloaked in the universe’s darkness.

But the pale white flesh with a waxy sheen, so much like a rotting cadaver…

That had made Lord Vader a man.

Mortal.

Pitiable.

Weak.

Lord Vader’s seat was fully turned, and the commander—the man—looked through the dark eyepieces of his helmet toward Admiral Piett.

“Yes, Admiral?” Lord Vader said, his voice even, emotionless.

Piett almost wished that Lord Vader had allowed his rage to leak into his voice. His eyes darted to Lord Vader’s hands—fingers relaxed against the rests of his chair, palms open.

If Piett wanted to sit beside Emperor Palpatine, now was the time to realize that he no longer feared Lord Vader, and without that fear, Lord Vader had lost some of his power against him.

It was not courage that destroyed fear. It was pity.

But Piett had what he wanted—the Executor. The admiralship.

And if being beside the Emperor meant being behind a mask, he did not want that.

Suddenly Piett heard, as clearly as he had a few days before, Lord Vader’s voice: You have failed me for the last time.

Ah.

There it was.

The fear was back.

Fear was power.

Piett forced the breath from his body, and with it, the image of the man. Lord Vader was no man. Piett would not allow him to be. He imagined that weak, feeble thing he had seen under the mask. And he killed it in his mind’s eye.

He put that corpse beside Ozzel’s in the graveyard of his memory.

Lord Vader was only the mask. Piett would never again allow himself to think of Lord Vader as anything but the black fist, clenched, choking away the life of anyone who did not properly fear him.

There was something calming in that idea. Piett had not liked those moments when Vader had been more man than mask.

“Our ships have sighted the Millennium Falcon, my lord,” Piett reported without a quiver in his voice. Fear, after all, gave him strength.

But even though he bowed his head, even though he accepted the command that followed, even though his heart surged at Lord Vader’s reprimand after he informed him of the situation, Piett could not quite keep the pity that lingered out of his eyes.

Much as he wished to erase the moment, he had seen past Vader’s mask.

And that had cracked his own.