DISTURBANCE
Mike Chen
Emperor Palpatine felt a great disturbance in the Force.
It erupted, clear as a ship emerging from hyperspace, sending shock waves through the dark and the light, the cold and the flame. He closed his eyes, and despite being physically surrounded by pitch black, doing so gave him sight.
He was no longer seated in the cold lightless chamber hidden far below the former Jedi Temple, a place he used to deepen his mastery over the dark side. Instead he felt the sheer violence of the Force, the rise and fall of its infinite currents, something only a true Sith Lord would dare to invite in.
The Jedi, in their ancient foolish ways, had wasted their lives, even their Order, concerned with their connection to the Force. Symbiosis. Flow. Such primitive idealism.
That was why they went extinct. The Force was never elegant or luminous, at least not for those that saw the entire scope of possibilities. The Jedi, with their myopic commitment to life of all things, only experienced a sliver of it. But the dark side demanded more. It worked amid the chaotic ocean of the Force, the very embodiment of life and death, past and future, everything and nothing. There was no symbiosis to it, only a never-ending battle for control over both the shadow and the light. Only then was it possible to bend it to one’s will, to exploit its potential into the most powerful path.
But when a strong enough disturbance roared from the turbulence, the Force shook free. For only a second, perhaps a mere flash. Some might have felt a shadow of fear upon recognizing the disturbance, but Palpatine knew better than to ever give in to something as trivial as emotions. Those types of risks were shed long ago, in another lifetime. All he cared about was the source of the disturbance. Because when the dark side loosened its grip, only one thing had to be done:
To fight back.
To tame it. And conquer it.
Some time had passed since a disturbance erupted with this magnitude, when a spike in the Force let the galaxy slip from Palpatine’s oversight. It was a tiny blink, the slightest movements of one being’s finger. But in that instance, the finger pulled the trigger at a very specific time, flying at a very specific velocity and altitude, thus allowing proton torpedoes to launch and hurl through a small exhaust port.
One moment of precision. How that spike came to be, Palpatine remained unsure. Only vague certainties appeared despite his efforts. There was a pilot. One in the Rebellion. One that flew an X-wing during that battle. One that pulled that trigger.
But that pilot’s connection to the Force? It remained a mystery, even up until moments ago.
Then everything changed.
Because as Palpatine felt the great disturbance, he gave in to the chaos, riding through the Force’s crashing waves and underlying slipstreams until the source revealed itself. An energy rippled outward, a frequency that answered one question and created another.
This was indeed connected to that rebel pilot from three years ago. And yet there was more.
The Force surged, something gathering defenses around the disturbance, pushing all who dared approach away. But Palpatine fought back, clawing his way to the eye of the storm, step by step. The current retaliated, shielding itself like a sun-dragon guarding its treasures with all the might of an exploding star.
But the dark side was too strong.
Palpatine was too strong.
Sheer will powered Palpatine through as it always did, fending off the determination of someone or something wanting to hide this, a secret held so tightly that the very desire to protect it gave itself away, if only for a blink.
Much as the Force spoke to the rebel pilot pulling the trigger, it revealed itself to Palpatine here. Not by guiding the launch of torpedoes, but with a vision.
What Palpatine saw in the Force should have frightened him.
On the floor of his office in the Imperial capital lay the bodies of two Royal Guards, their severed red helmets tossed across the space. And next to them, a figure stood.
Stoic. Intimidating. Cold.
Just as the Sith of legend, with power emanating from its very breath.
The Sith, after all, always attempted a coup. It was the way of things.
This figure remained at attention, the crimson glow of a drawn lightsaber reflecting off panoramic transparisteel. Shadows cast over the figure’s hooded face, a brief glance enough to show that it was a young man; not an old wizard like Dooku, not covered in demonic tattoos like Maul, and not a lumbering clash of organic and mechanical like Vader.
Only, it seemed, a boy.
Draped in black, his cloak hid any other identifying details. He walked calmly, circling the floor until he came within range of the large chair at the end of the space.
Palpatine watched, his perspective stuck near the office’s entry as the vision unfolded. From the far chair rose another hooded figure, one that he recognized clearly as his own doppelgänger. The mystery assailant raised his lightsaber, holding it in a ready position as the Emperor approached his attacker.
The Sith of lore always contested in an endless battle of Master and apprentice. Palpatine himself had experienced these visions when visiting Moraband, Malachor, and other places steeped in the dark side. Always the hooded apprentice wielding a lightsaber. Always the arrogant walk up to the intended target.
Sometimes the Master fell. Mostly the apprentice fell, a victim of their own naïveté and hubris. Either way, it played out as the familiar dance under the Rule of Two.
This encounter felt different. This felt more. Each step the boy in the hood took echoed and rippled outward, not just in the vision but through the undertow of the Force. He paused, his lightsaber going silent, the red blade slinking back into its hilt. His other hand raised, fingers pushing down against nothing.
A choke.
Palpatine watched the Emperor retaliate. Lightning burst forth from his fingers, but the power of the choke stymied his assault; the electricity spidered outward, grazing the boy but dancing all over the room, shattering vases and catching nearby curtains on fire. The lightning ceased, and instead a subtle click sound came from a back chamber, soon followed by the whirl of a lightsaber handle whipping through the air, heading toward the Emperor’s open palm.
But it never arrived.
Instead, the hooded figure turned his head, a simple look pausing the lightsaber hilt in midflight. The boy nodded, and a red blade of energy emerged from the floating lightsaber, tip inching toward the Emperor.
Palpatine could practically feel the Emperor retaliate with dark side energy, causing the room to rattle. Fixtures tore off walls, launching toward the boy. Despite their speed and trajectory, none of the projectiles reached him, lamps and statue pieces and other furniture-turned-weapons dropping to the floor with dull thuds.
The Emperor was being completely overpowered. And Palpatine was intrigued.
Against the brilliant cityscape of Imperial City, the Emperor fell to his knees. His arms collapsed, and though Palpatine’s perspective remained fixed at the office’s entrance, such a distance from the battle couldn’t hide the Emperor’s tremble.
Not with fear. Not with any emotion.
But from sheer pain.
The room reverberated as the boy pressed onward, commanding the Force’s invisible tendrils to choke his elder.
“Do it,” a new voice whispered, seemingly from nowhere.
The floating lightsaber suddenly thrust forward, its red blade piercing through the Emperor.
Around the room, the rattling stopped. The floating lightsaber’s deep-red blade withdrew into the hilt, which then dropped to the floor. The air itself seemed to exhale despite the transparisteel sealing the space. And the Emperor’s body collapsed sideways, a cold shell of weight and flesh no longer capable of a single breath. Silence crept into the room, broken only by the swish of the boy’s cloak as he turned.
Palpatine should have found the vision frightening, perhaps even threatening. And yet only mild curiosity arose. Of course another ambitious would-be conqueror existed. Such delusions were admirable; it was the way of the Sith. To not expect someone, somewhere dreaming of this was naïve in its own right. It seemed entirely possible that a disciple of the dark side trained away in the Unknown Regions with the goal of sneaking into the Core Worlds, to the heart of the Empire itself, deluded enough to have this very vision as a goal.
The boy approached, as if he could see Palpatine. As he came near, something struck Palpatine, as if another layer existed to this mystery. Nearly face-to-face, the boy knelt, then looked up and removed his hood to reveal pursed lips over a cleft chin, striking blue eyes, and unkempt blond hair that had seen too many days in the sun.
“You have done well,” the new voice said, its location now confirmed. It was coming from the very spot Palpatine experienced the vision.
As if he was the dreamer.
No. Because he was the dreamer. Or tapping into the dreamer’s vision.
A great disturbance in the Force.
And the voice: It finally registered in Palpatine’s mind. A strong, low timbre that he hadn’t heard in decades.
Anakin Skywalker.
It didn’t surprise Palpatine to discover that Lord Vader dreamed of overthrowing him. All Sith did. But mere dreams weren’t usually powerful enough to cause a disturbance in the Force, even ones that carried some level of potential prophecy. Something else was behind this. Something this powerful needed passion, desire behind it.
This boy, what was the connection?
And why was Lord Vader so focused on protecting him?
The vision screamed and shifted, nearly pushing Palpatine back into the vacuum of his meditation chamber, but he clung on, the dark side pulsing through to anchor him. His own murder was only the first step, and though Palpatine sensed something trying to control, perhaps even protect, the details, he held his ground, using all his will to channel the dark side. The chaos abated like dust blowing away as the vision evolved. The boy, this anonymous apprentice, now stood on a veranda beneath a blanket of stars.
No. Not stars.
Star Destroyers.
Bright pulses of hovering engines lighting up the sky, a fleet so dense that the natural sun was blocked out, hovering ion drives as the source of illumination over the Imperial City on Coruscant. Line after line of ships caused the entire city-planet horizon to vanish, their collective hum almost powerful enough to tilt its axis. Below these ships, the boy waited without a cloak or hood, simply a black tunic with a lightsaber on his belt.
The vision began to move—no, Lord Vader began to move. He walked with methodical purpose, yet something seemed different.
No respirator.
Through Vader’s eyes, the vision continued, and as he was set to cross the threshold, his gaze turned, breaking focus from the awaiting boy for a second to catch a flash in the window.
A reflection.
And with that image came a realization: This was not a vision. This was a delusion, a hope or a wish or a desperate dream. It was everything Vader wanted—or maybe it was everything taken from him.
Palpatine had always ensured that those were one and the same.
There Vader stood, not a hulking tank of black armor, but a man, whole. The familiar face of Anakin Skywalker peered back from the reflection, a face that hadn’t existed in more than twenty years. He looked as he’d last lived, the vertical scar over his right eye partially hidden behind rugged dark locks of hair, strong chin framed by an intensely focused stare. He remained clothed in dark-brown Jedi robes crossed over broad shoulders, and the only difference between the man in the reflection and the general who’d graced the HoloNet news so many times as the Hero with No Fear was the red-bladed Sith lightsaber on his belt.
Before moving onward toward the boy, Vader turned, focusing on a figure crossing the interior of what looked to be an elaborate rooftop apartment. Was that…
Of course.
If this was Vader’s delusion, then only one thing would make it complete.
The familiar figure of Padmé Amidala paused in her movements, making eye contact first with Vader, then the boy on the veranda, her presentation so ornate she may as well have been giving one of her familiar impassioned senatorial speeches. She smiled at him, her radiance fully restored. Together they strode out under the sea of Star Destroyers.
The boy watched, his composure shifting slightly. And then he spoke, his voice tinted with soft affection.
“Father.” The boy looked at Padmé. “Mother.”
And suddenly Palpatine saw things for what they truly were. The disturbance. The fierce defense of the vision within the ethereal chaos. The desire, the need for secrecy, not just a strategic endeavor but an explosion of emotion that ripped through the Force itself.
How long had Vader known?
“Luke,” Vader said. “You have done well.” A gloved hand rose, gesturing to the thousands of ships in the sky. “Behold, my son, the most powerful fleet in the galaxy.” This person, the soul of Darth Vader within the still-whole body of Anakin Skywalker, looked up, staring above his son as countless ion drives came to life, the twinkling blue-white globes suddenly bursting with intensity before wave after wave launched into hyperspace.
Within the vision, the ground shook, and what had merely been the rumble of launching vessels turned into catastrophic shaking, so powerful it was physically impossible on an artificially regulated planet like Coruscant. From afar, the Imperial cityscape evaporated into white. The veranda, so meticulously re-created in this vision, began to absorb the white, turning durasteel curves into an empty canvas. The white bled into every physical corner of the space, swallowing the apartment and even the shadow of Senator Amidala. The ground-shattering sound dropped away, leaving only the quiet breath of father and son.
All that remained was Darth Vader and this Luke.
Luke Skywalker.
“Yes, Father,” Luke said. “Our fleet.”
Through the Force, a guttural scream washed over Palpatine, pushing him away from the vision. But this time, Palpatine let it.
He had seen enough.
For some time, Vader had covered the galaxy in his search for rebel leadership, insisting that every lead go through him. Informants, bounty hunters, spies, probe droids, Vader’s search had bordered on obsessive, though Palpatine allowed it; his efficiency and ruthlessness had always been assets. Now that Palpatine understood, the truth behind Vader’s devotion unfolded quickly. Hoth, Hoth must have been the answer. Once Vader knew his son was there, it seemed he simply could not fully shield his anticipation. Thoughts, desires, dreams must have consumed him during the journey to Hoth.
Vader’s lack of control over his feelings caused them to be his very undoing. Again.
This surge, the culmination of Vader’s relentless nature and his inability to free himself from his past, was simply too powerful to fully hide from the dark side. Just as he couldn’t contain his own impulses when facing Kenobi on Mustafar, he now exposed the secret he held most dear.
Still the fool.
But who was this Luke Skywalker? Palpatine would uncover that answer in time, but one thing was certain: He was a blank slate waiting for a Master to unlock his potential.
Any Sith would covet such an opportunity. As Vader did. If he wanted to find his son, then Palpatine would let him. In fact, Palpatine would do everything in his power to accommodate that. An entire armada, the unlimited capital of the Empire, all of those would be at Vader’s disposal. He would search. All while Palpatine would plan.
Then Vader would eventually make a mistake. He always did.
And Palpatine would step in and exploit it. He would be the one to propel Luke to the true potential of his bloodline—over his father’s final rasping breath.
That was how the Sith handled disturbances in the Force.
Now seated in his Imperial City office, the very same one as in Vader’s delusion, Palpatine dived into the Force’s chaos, eyes closed in meditation as he explored the currents for possibilities. He exerted his will over the Force, demanding insight into this unexpected variable until a singular path forward presented itself, a staggering power loaded into two simple questions:
How much did Vader know?
And how far had he gone to hide his betrayal?
Palpatine would soon discover the truth.
He tapped a button on the arm of his chair. A tinny beep chirped, then a voice spoke. “Yes, my lord.”
“Commander,” he said, his tone neutral and curt. “Summon Lord Vader. We have matters to discuss.”
For the first time in the longest time, Palpatine decided to let a feeling come through. Unlike Vader, he retained all mastery over the chaos that ran around and through him. But it was a real emotion fueled by his own amusement—not because it propelled the Empire to greater conquest or was a display to twist the knife in his apprentice; simply a flash of satisfaction that came and went.
In that moment, Palpatine smiled.
Several minutes passed before holographic lines came together to display the kneeling form of Darth Vader.
“What is thy bidding, my Master?” Vader remained still, and through the Force, Palpatine could feel the battle within him, the struggle to contain his desires. Despite the armor and machinery, Vader’s heart still beat with the fire of Anakin Skywalker.
A fire that Palpatine would put to the test.
“There is a great disturbance in the Force.”