Chapters (57)
- Cover
- Doctor Aphra
- DRAMATIS PERSONAE
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- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Creating your own Empire within the Empire? Securing finances by open robbery from Imperial treasures? Covering up the crime by slaughtering those who would expose you?
APHRA:
Oh boy, are you in trouble.
EMPEROR PALPATINE:
Most impressive, Vader.
You let your anger and pride guide you to the darkest places. That is our way. All you did in the shadows is most pleasing to me. You are everything I could have hoped for.
I’m sure you’ll want…some words with Doctor Aphra. Meet me on the bridge afterward. There is more to speak of.
APHRA:
Wait… what? No! This is not how this is supposed to go! Emperor…
your majesty…please…I can tell you more…
EMPEROR PALPATINE:
Come to me after you have taken care of your lapdog, Vader.
DARTH VADER:
Walk with me, Aphra.
APHRA:
I…I…you have to understand, boss. I didn’t want to betray you, but you didn’t exactly leave me many options. I figured, prove myself to the Emperor, get on your boss’s good side, and he’d protect me from you. He’d give you the slap on the wrist for your bad-boy antics, and then we could get back to normal.
But he loves it. I’ve proved you to him.
And I didn’t betray your real secret—whatever’s going on with that rebel kid!
So things couldn’t have ended better for you, boss! You understand, yeah?
APHRA (narration):
I couldn’t tell if he was hearing me at all. He just kept walking down a long, long hall as I babbled and tried to keep up with him.
That silence. Always so much worse than any words he could say.
And then, suddenly…we were there. At my worst nightmare.
The air lock.
And he was looking at me in that way again. Like I was nothing. A lapdog. A worthless “mechanic.” A bug to be squashed.
DARTH VADER:
Enter.
Vader opens the air lock.
APHRA:
The…air lock.
No! No!
You promised me the saber! Nice and quick!
Vader shoves Aphra into the air lock.
APHRA:
You promised!
DARTH VADER:
I promised you nothing.
Vader seals Aphra in the air lock.
APHRA:
I did everything you wanted! And more! You can’t!
Not like this. Please, not like this.
Please, please…
Vader launches Aphra into space.
APHRA (narration):
It was cold. So cold. Somehow even colder than I’d imagined it.
Such an odd sensation, going from being stuffed into a cramped, claustrophobic space, feeling my blood roar through my veins, hearing my heartbeat thrumming louder…and louder…
And then suddenly…that cold.
I couldn’t feel anything. I could feel everything.
The vastness of space looks…different when there’s nothing between you and the stars.
I’ve never felt so…alone.
And I had that moment of terror, the one I’d been running from all my life.