The Emperor’s medical rehabilitation laboratory occupied the crown of Coruscant’s tallest building. A room of modest size, the laboratory’s antechamber closely resembled his former chambers in the Senate Office Building, and featured a semicircle of padded couch, three swivel chairs with shell-shaped backs, and a trio of squat holoprojectors shaped like truncated cones.

Palpatine sat in the center chair, his hands on his knees, the lights of Coruscant blazing behind him through a long arc of fixed windows. The cowl of his heavy robe was lowered, and the blinking telltales of an array of devices and control panels lit his deeply creased face, the face he kept concealed from his advisers and Senatorial guests.

For here he was not simply Emperor Palpatine, he was Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith.

On the far side of thick panels of transparisteel that separated the antechamber from a rib-walled operating theater, Vader sat on the edge of the surgical table on which he had been recalled to life and transformed. His flaring black helmet had been lifted from his head by servos that extended from the laboratory’s ceiling, revealing the pasty complexion of his synthflesh face and the raised wounds on his head that might never fully heal.

The medical droids responsible for repairing what had remained of Vader’s amputated limbs and incinerated body, some of which had observed and participated in the cyborg transformation of General Grievous on Geonosis a decade earlier, had been reduced to scrap by a scream that had torn from Vader’s scorched throat on his learning of his wife’s death. Now a 2-1B droid responding to Vader’s voiced instruction was tending to an injury to Vader’s left-arm prosthesis, the cause of which he had yet to explain.

“The last time you were in this facility, you were in no condition to supervise your own convalescence, Lord Vader,” Sidious said, his words transmitted to the pressurized laboratory by the antechamber’s sensitive enunciators.

“And I will remain ward of myself from this point forward,” Vader said through the intercom system.

“Ward of yourself,” Sidious repeated in an exacting tone.

“When it comes to overseeing modifications of this … shell, Master,” Vader clarified.

“Ah. As it should be.”

The humaniform 2-1B was in the midst of executing Vader’s instructions when sparks geysered from Vader’s left forearm, and blue electricity began to gambol across his chest. With an infuriated growl, Vader lifted the injured arm, hurling the med droid halfway across the laboratory.

“Useless machine!” he shouted. “Useless! Useless!”

Sidious watched his apprentice with rising concern.

“What is troubling you, my son? I’m aware of the suit’s limitations, and of the exasperation you must be experiencing. But anger is wasted on the droid. You must reserve your rage for times when you can profit from it.” He appraised Vader again. “I think I begin to understand the cause of your frustration … Your rage owes little to the suit or the droid’s ineptitude. Something disturbing occurred on Murkhana. Some occurrence you have elected to keep from me. For your good or mine? I wonder.”

Vader took a long moment to reply. “Master, I found the three Jedi who escaped Order Sixty-Six.”

“What of it?”

“The damage to my arm was done by one of them, though she is now dead, by my blade.”

“And the other two?”

“They eluded me.” Vader lifted his scarred face to regard Sidious. “But they wouldn’t have if this suit didn’t restrict me to the point of immobility! If the Star Destroyer you placed at my command was properly equipped! If Sienar had completed work on the starfighter I designed!”

Sidious waited until Vader was finished, then stood up and walked to within a meter of the room’s transparent panels. “So, my young apprentice, two Jedi slip through your grasp and you scatter the blame like leaves blown about by a storm.”

“Master, if you had been there—”

“Keep still,” Sidious interrupted, “before you damage yourself all the more.” He gave Vader a moment to compose himself. “First, let me reiterate that the Jedi mean nothing to us. In having survived, Yoda and Obi-Wan aren’t exceptions to the rule. I’m certain that dozens of Jedi escaped with their lives, and in due time you will have the pleasure of killing many of them. But of greater import is the fact that their order has been crushed. Finished, Lord Vader. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Master,” Vader muttered.

“In burying their heads in the sands and snows of remote worlds, the surviving Jedi humble themselves before the Sith. So let them: let them atone for one thousand years of arrogance and self-absorption.”

Sidious watched Vader, displeased.

“Once more your thoughts betray you. I see that you are not yet fully convinced.”

Glancing at him, Vader gestured to his face and black-cloaked body, then gestured in similar fashion to Sidious. “Look at us. Are these the faces of victory?”

Sidious was careful to keep himself from becoming too angry, or too sickened by his pupil’s self-pity.

“We are not this crude stuff, Lord Vader. Have you not heard that before?”

“Yes,” Vader said. “Yes, I’ve heard it before. Too often.”

“But from me you will learn the truth of it.”

Vader lifted his face. “In the same way you told me the truth about being able to save Padmé?”

Sidious was not taken aback. For the past month he had been expecting to hear just such an accusation from Vader. “I had nothing to do with Padmé Amidala’s death. She died as a result of your anger at her betrayal, my young apprentice.”

Vader looked at the floor. “You’re right, Master. I brought about the very thing I feared for her. I’m to blame.”

Sidious adopted a more compassionate tone. “Sometimes the Force has other plans for us, my son. Fortunately I arrived at Mustafar in time to save you.”

“Save me,” Vader said without emotion. “Yes, yes, of course you did, Master. And I suppose I should be grateful.” He got up from the table and walked to the panel to place himself opposite Sidious. “But what good is power without reward? What good is power without joy?”

Sidious didn’t move. “Eventually you will come to see that power is joy. The path to the dark side is not without terrible risk, but it is the only path worth following. It matters not how we appear, in any case, or who is sacrificed along the way. We have won, and the galaxy is ours.”

Vader’s eyes searched Sidious’s face. “Did you promise as much to Count Dooku?”

Sidious bared his teeth, but only briefly. “Darth Tyranus knew what he risked, Lord Vader. If he had been stronger in the dark side, you would be dead, and he would be my right hand.”

“And if you should encounter someone stronger than I am?”

Sidious almost smiled. “There is none, my son, even though your body has been crippled. This is your destiny. We have seen to that. Together we are unconquerable.”

“I wasn’t strong enough to defeat Obi-Wan,” Vader said.

Sidious had had enough.

“No, you weren’t,” he said. “So just imagine what Yoda might have done to you.” He flung his words with brutal honesty. “Obi-Wan triumphed because he went to Mustafar with a single intention in mind: to kill Darth Vader. If the Jedi order had showed such resolute intention, if it had remained focused on what needed to be done rather than on fears of the dark side, it might have proved more difficult to topple and eradicate. You and I might have lost everything. Do you understand?”

Vader looked at him, breathing deeply. “Then I suppose I should be grateful for what little I have been able to hold on to.”

“Yes,” Sidious said curtly. “You should.”