Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [354]
Vader wondered if Organa had had a hand in helping Yoda, and presumably Obi-Wan, recalibrate the Temple beacon to cancel the message Vader had transmitted, which should have called all the Jedi back to Coruscant.
Aristocratic Organa was Anakin’s height, dark-haired and handsome, and always meticulously dressed in the style of the Republic’s Classic era, like the Naboo, rather than in the ostentatious fashion of Coruscant. But where Padmé had earned her status by being elected Queen, Organa had been born into wealth and privilege, on picture-perfect Alderaan.
Mercy missions or no, Vader wondered whether Organa had any real sense of what it meant to live in the outlying systems, on worlds like sand-swept Tatooine, plagued by Tusken Raiders and lorded over by Hutts.
He felt a sudden urge to put Organa in his place. Pinch off his breath with a narrowing of his thumb and forefinger; crush him in his fist … But the situation didn’t call for that—yet. Besides, Vader could see in Organa’s nervous gestures that he understood who was in charge.
Power.
He had power over Organa, and over all like him.
And it was Skywalker, not Vader, who had lived on Tatooine.
Vader’s life was just beginning.
Organa introduced him to his aides and advisers, as well as to Captain Antilles, who commanded Alderaan’s Corellian-made consular ship, and who tried but failed to conceal an expression of profound hostility toward Vader.
If Antilles only knew who he was dealing with …
From beyond the palace’s walls came the sound of angry voices and chanting. Vader surmised that at least some of the turbulence owed to the presence of an Imperial shuttle on Alderaan. The thought entertained him.
Like the Jedi, the demonstrators were another group of deluded, self-important beings convinced that their petty lives had actual meaning; that their protests, their dreams, their accomplishments amounted to anything. They were ignorant of the fact that the universe was changed not by individuals or by mobs, but by what occurred in the Force. In reality, all else was unimportant. Unless one was in communication with the Force, life was only existence in the world of illusion, born as a consequence of the eternal struggle between light and dark.
Vader listened to the sounds of the crowd for a moment more, then turned to regard Organa.
“Why do you permit this?” he asked.
Organa’s restless eyes searched for something, perhaps a peek at the man behind the mask. “Are such demonstrations no longer permitted on Coruscant?”
“Harmony is the ideal of the New Order, Senator, not dissension.”
“When harmony becomes the standard for all, then protests will cease. What’s more, by allowing voices to be heard here, Alderaan saves Coruscant any unmerited embarrassment.”
“There may be some truth to that. But in due time, protests will cease, one way or another.”
Vader recognized that Organa was in a quandary about something. Clearly he resented being challenged on his own world, but his tone of voice was almost conversational.
“I trust that the Emperor knows better than to end them by fear,” he was saying.
Vader had no patience for verbal fencing, and having to match wits with judicious men like Organa only reinforced his growing distaste at being the Emperor’s errand boy. When would his actual Sith training finally commence? Try as he might to convince himself, his was not real power, but merely the execution of power. He wasn’t the swordmaster so much as the weapon; and weapons were easily replaceable.
“The Emperor would not be pleased by your lack of faith, Senator,” he said carefully. “Or by your willingness to allow others to display their distrust. But I haven’t come to discuss your little march.”
Organa fingered his short beard. “What does bring you here?”
“Former Senator Fang Zar.”
Organa seemed genuinely surprised. “What of him?”
“Then you don’t deny that he’s here?”
“Of course not. He