Chapter 6

Despite years of propaganda, the world officially called Imperial Center was still most often referred to as Coruscant by its inhabitants. In the years since the end of the Clone Wars, the "Jewel of the Core" had turned into the heart of the Empire, a beating pump sending out soldiers and governance as it took in wealth and authority.

On its surface, the Imperial regime had changed little. The upper levels of Coruscant were still covered in gleaming arcologies and operas, the clubs and pleasure palaces providing endless amusement for the galaxy's elite. If some of the poor lower class populace of the Empire felt oppressed, no heed was given them, as for the most part they were located far away on the Rim. And if an increasing number of non-humans on Coruscant itself were being rounded up and segregated in the Alien Protection Zones – then, even less attention was paid, as the upper classes had long since seen the non-humans as an undesirable class of its own tolerated only due to political correctness.

If anything, the lives of the pampered ruling class of the galaxy – the political mandarins and functionaries staffing the pan-galactic apparatus of governance, and the starlets and nobles and heiresses driving its social machinery – had only improved beneath the Empire. Taxes on them were down, the non-human species had been suppressed, and the difficult decisions of state had been safely taken from their hands. For such was the genius of the Emperor that he knew, no matter how disaffected and downtrodden the proletariat of the galaxy was, the true stability of the regime lay in appeasing and distracting that all-important notable caste, the golden froth on top of the dark sea of the galactic populace.

Thus was the Imperial system designed, and thus had it sustained itself for the first quarter century of its existence. In the past few years, however, things had begun to change. At first, the Battle of Endor had only raised the Empire's fortunes, as was to be expected. A week-long gala had been called to celebrate the decisive massacre of the insurgent fleets, and the stock markets had soared – the mood of the average Coruscanti with them. Over the following months, however, excitement had transmuted into a sort of malaise, which had in turn degenerated into a feeling of dejection. The Rebellion ended up being far from over, and taxation increased to fund the continuing war effort.

More than those more logical causes, however, the source of the soured mood came from the new "moon" that now orbited Coruscant. All the parties, the flowing spice, the willful ignorance could not fully obliterate the fact that all of Coruscant now lived in terror, under the oppressive pall of dread signified by the obscenely-twinkling Death Star perpetually in orbit overhead.

Princess Leia Organa could feel that terror seeping from among the subconscious of Coruscant's teeming trillions as she was escorted through the Imperial Palace. She wondered if it was intentional – if the Emperor somehow could feed off the abundance of such primal, negative emotions. She tried not to let the omnipresent fear get to her.

She was only partially successful.

Leia had been awakened on the Executor, greeted to the sight of Lord Vader looming overhead. In a way, it was a shock – when he had struck her at the end of their duel on Nimban, her last thoughts had been to wonder if he would kill her then and there. Instead, it seemed that he was delivering her to a worse fate – to the Emperor himself.

Vader had brought her down to Coruscant's surface alone in his shuttle. During the short flight, Leia had sat next to him in silence, watched over by two security droids immune to her potential Jedi mind tricks. She knew better than to try to escape, however. She was still clad in her grey jumpsuit, now singed with lightsaber burns and covered in ash from the factory duel. Her wrists were restrained behind her with stun-cuff binders made from ultra-strong duranium – too strong for even a Jedi to break. Leia's injured ankle had been mended during her hibernation as well, now feeling no worse than a dull ache.

The shuttle landed at one of the pads attached to the Imperial Palace, phosphorescent panels illuminating it in the twilight of the cityscape as the tallest and most important building on Coruscant. Leia and her escort were soon walking through the immense Grand Reception Hall, a red-draped cavernous passageway located at the highest tower of the grand palace and rumored to be large enough to house a Victory Star Destroyer. At the other end of the massive hall was the entrance to the Emperor's Imperial Throne Room. Though he held a smaller, but similar throne room aboard the orbiting Death Star, the Emperor preferred this place of solitude more than any in the galaxy.

Flanking the entrance to the Emperor's private chamber were two of the inscrutable Imperial Royal Guards in their shimmering red robes, their faces hidden completely by masked helmets. Before the sealed doorway stood two human men, Imperial advisors garbed in their traditional purple robes.

"Sate Pestage," Vader addressed the senior of the two advisors. "I will see the Emperor. He commands it."

"He bids you wait, Lord Vader," Pestage replied, obviously relishing the chance to inconvenience his most powerful rival for the Emperor's attention – and to be able to hide behind the Imperial personage while doing so. "The Emperor will be with you momentarily."

Leia studied the two men. Pestage had originally been the Staff Chief to Senator Palpatine, following him to the Supreme Chancery and then the Imperium. His two main rivals in the nascent Imperial administration had been Sly Moore, the Senior Administrative Aide, and Mas Amedda, the Vice Chair of the Senate. Pestage had skillfully used the rising non-human sentiment to remove them from office, amalgamating their positions into his own to form the role of Grand Vizier. He had since taken on much of the routine duties of the government, seemingly enjoying the more odious tasks. Leia remembered him well from her brief term in the Imperial Senate, whose sessions he had chaired. There were rumors that he was related to Palpatine somehow, possibly even an illegitimate son, but Leia had no idea if the gossip contained a kernel of truth.

The other man was the dark-skinned Panaka. A long-time confidant of the Emperor since Palpatine's years as Senator of Naboo, Panaka had served as the commander of the Royal Naboo Security Forces before the Clone Wars, and now served as Moff of the Chommell Sector. Panaka had a reputation as a moderating voice on the Imperial inner circle, despite usually being overridden by hardliners under Pestage and his chief rival, Ars Dangor. Now, however, he looked worn-down, like the better part of him had been eroded away inside, and he only registered contempt as he glared at Leia. Contempt, and perhaps a hint of eagerness.

Leia shuddered at his gaze, finding such a simple look far more unsettling than the professional unpleasantness of Pestage. She wondered if the mere act of being in the Emperor's presence for so long had been enough to corrupt Panaka to that degree. She also wondered how long she would be able to survive without losing herself, as well. Closing her eyes, Leia silently called onto Luke through the Force.

Vader stirred beside her, sensing her silent plea for help – a futile gesture, to reach out for the light in such a place of ultimate darkness. Vader was not the only one to sense her desperate cry for aid, either – for no sooner had she called out to Luke than the vast doors to the throne room slid open before them. Opening her eyes, Leia saw Pestage and Panaka step aside, clearing the way for Vader and herself.

The princess could not help but tremble as Vader guided her into that pit of sepulchral darkness, made all the more tomb-like by the sealing of the doors behind them. The massive throne room was a sunken auditorium, similar to a large crater, with its slanted ceilings adorned with giant red Imperial banners. On the audience deck flat stone benches were arranged in long arcs where visitors could hear the pronouncements of the Emperor, similar to the former Senate chamber itself, but much smaller. At the bottom of the throne's tower stood six royal guards lining the long walkway that lead up to the throne.

The guards were unnervingly still, as if they were statues lacking even a trace of life or autonomy. Leia had not been in the Imperial Palace, before the Emperor's presence, since the first time she had met him, nearly eight years ago. It had been her first visit to Coruscant, brought by her father Bail to prepare the teenage princess for her replacement of him as Alderaan's chief representative. As part of the transfer of power, Bail would formally introduce her to the Emperor.

Shortly after arriving on Coruscant, Leia had witnessed an innocent caamasi being bullied by a group of racist Imperial soldiers. She had been determined to use her meeting with the Emperor to press him to honor the civil rights of all sentients. However, when she had finally been brought before him, young Leia had been stunned into inaction by the palpable evil flowing from him, like the radiation from an unshielded reactor. Leia had been ashamed at her reaction, her eagerness to flee from his sight, but even so had been unwilling to try to personally approach him again for the remainder of her time as a senator.

Leia pondered how far she had come from being that naïve, inexperienced seventeen-year old. She had become both a fighter and a survivor since then. Even so, as soon as the massive throne swiveled around, bringing the decrepit despot into her sight, Leia could not help but briefly feel her legs shake, if only for a few seconds, as she went weak at the knees.

"Welcome to Imperial Center, my dear," the Emperor greeted her, his voice low and hissing, serpentine in how his words seemed to coil around her, constrain her.

"I'm not 'your dear'," Leia managed to stammer out as she stared up at him, proud of herself for forming at least the verbal defiance she had been unable to muster on their last meeting. "I'm not anything of yours, and never will be."

"Such fire," he cackled from his throne, with an air of patronizing approval. "Such zest. I remember well the young senatorial apprentice of my old friend, Bail Organa—"

"He was never your friend!" Leia spat out, her rising anger slowly bringing her out of the deep-seated fear the desiccated figure on the throne engendered in her. The Emperor only chuckled at her response, as the glove of Darth Vader came down on her shoulder, applying pressure in warning. Nevertheless, Leia continued. "You would have remembered me better if you hadn't dissolved the Senate. It's hard to remember that at one point it was the greatest of your crimes."

"Was it a crime to streamline the government, to provide better services and a quicker resolution to the terrorists seeking to bring the age of anarchy back to the galaxy?" he asked, mockingly, shaking his head slowly. "But, perhaps you are right. If I had not been forced to suspend that august body for the duration of the emergency, I might have learned of your Force sensitivity then, and taken you under my wing sooner."

For the first time, the Emperor turned his attention to his current apprentice. "Lord Vader, my friend, I must thank you. When I tasked you with bringing this Rebel commander to me, I had no idea how invaluable she would be. The daughter of Skywalker is a most unexpected gift."

Leia was surprised by the Emperor's recognition of her heritage. From the subtle reaction of Vader – amplified by his connection to her, through both his hand on her shoulder and his imprint on the Force – she could tell that the Dark Lord was similarly taken aback. The Emperor chuckled, clearly taking delight in the response to his knowledge of Princess Leia's true identity.

"Yes..." he rasped, peering at them with his sickly yellow eyes. "It seems Lord Vader tested your genetic heritage aboard his ship – data I easily have access to. A most unexpected revelation for us both, but more than welcome nonetheless ... It only makes you more valuable to me, my dear."

Vader silently cursed himself for not taking better precautions in preventing his master from accessing the data upon his arrival at Coruscant. It had been a foolish move for him to make, in any case – seeking confirmation through the blunt use of technology, when he had already sensed the truth of her claims through the Force. Now, through his continued obsession with machinery – a weakness Anakin Skywalker had always held, and which Vader's incarceration in his armor had only added to – any chance to use Leia Organa's relation to him as a surprise weapon against the Emperor had been squandered.

However, it did give Vader a small degree of new hope. Palpatine had learned of Organa's relation to Skywalker only through the tests performed on the Executor – not through the will of the Force itself, which had apparently clouded the relationship as much from the Sith Master as it had from his apprentice. It was another sign that the Emperor was not the great foreseer of events that he claimed to be – and that the future could still be shaped against his plans.

"An apprentice with the political knowledge of your adoptive father, the innate connection to the Force of your biological father, and the training in how best to make use of that potential provided by myself ... Yes, you will make quite a strong addition to the ranks of my most trusted servants," the Emperor continued. Leia almost whimpered, sickened from thinking about the scenario he had just laid out. "Once your training has been completed, my dear, I believe that I will even grant you the honor of leading my finest legions to decimate your former Rebel friends at their hidden fortress. Of course, that is in the future. For now, my dear, we must complete your training."

An inquisitive note crept into the despot's voice. "I must confess, however, a point of puzzlement. From which fugitive Jedi did you receive your initial, if misguided, instructions into the nature of the great mystery of the Force?"

Leia smiled. For the first time in his presence, she suddenly felt that she had the upper hand. "The Jedi who instructed me is far beyond your reach," she taunted. "It was my own brother, Luke Skywalker." Leia nodded, her voice gleeful in response to the skeptical look in the Emperor's dead gaze. "Oh yes ... his spirit now resides in a realm of the light, far beyond even your ability to corrupt him, Emperor. A place I can confidently say that you will never go."

Palpatine scoffed, displaying an ugly yellow-toothed sneer. "Your brother was weak and misguided," he countered. "He could not even defeat his own father in combat. He would have knelt before me had he not allowed himself to be killed by my mere Hand ... as you, yourself, shall soon kneel before me. Once I have corrected the defects in the education he imparted upon you."

"My brother has become more powerful than you can possibly imagine," Leia snarled back, hating herself for rising to the Emperor's obvious bait, but unable to restrain herself. "He trained me well."

The Emperor merely shrugged, his shoulders flowing in his dark robes. "Then young Skywalker foolishly miscalculated and has merely done a more superlative job of preparing you for me, in that case. It is ironic that your brother would spend so much effort training you, when you are destined to replace the very Emperor's Hand who killed him." His attention once more shifted to the stoic Vader. "There is such raw potential in this one, my old friend. As the daughter of Skywalker, she could become quite powerful one day."

Leia had heard vague rumors for years of an Imperial operative known only by the code name "Emperor's Hand." Palpatine's words shocked her on multiple levels, realizing that all along the Emperor's Hand had been none other than Jabba's dancing girl Arica, the woman who had murdered Luke aboard the skiff at the Pit of Carkoon. More surprising was the notion that the Emperor believed that he could twist Leia enough to take Arica's place at his side.

"I've served enough masters already," she answered, secure enough to sound defiant. Even if it was only a false bravado, Leia wanted to take refuge in it for as long as possible.

"She is indeed a feisty one, Lord Vader," the Emperor chortled, sadistic amusement in his cracked voice. "She seems almost cut from the same cloth as Mara Jade. However, as with all great projects, destruction must precede reconstruction. Her fighting spirit must first be broken, her essence drawn closer to the Dark Side, before I can remake her in my ideal image."

For Vader, that had far too many connotations to his own homecoming to Coruscant as a Sith Lord over two decades prior, brought back from Mustafar to be reconstructed inside his mechanized prison-suit. Vader did not pity Leia the experience awaiting her. However, the Emperor's next wheezing instructions still caught him by surprise.

"Lord Vader ... leave us."

Vader remained still, the only sound in the room his heavy breathing. In truth, the reason for even this passive disobedience was a mystery to him. His thoughts on Palpatine's own destruction and re-creation of Anakin Skywalker had brought back glimmers of feelings from that former life – feelings of what it had been like to love someone, and how terrible it had been to lose her. Of how he might have saved her had he acted differently that day, and how he might have saved himself as a result.

"Vader..." the Emperor repeated more sternly.

Leia stared in amazement at the apparent discord between the two personifications of evil – the first time she had ever been aware of the feared Lord Vader performing as anything less than the lapdog of his master.

Finally, ponderously – like a massive starship executing a slow reorientation – Vader turned away from the throne, his back now turned on both his master and his daughter as he left the throne room, the doors sealing shut once more behind him. The royal guards flanked his exit path, remaining as immobile and lifeless as they had been the entire time.

Leia was surprised to feel anxiety at Vader leaving. It was as if the Emperor emanated such darkness from himself that even Vader seemed like a protective soul in comparison. Now, left alone with the Master Sith, she suddenly felt her earlier bravado flee her as she contemplated the wicked being before her. He sat in darkness that his robe seemed to melt into, providing no delineation between his corporeal form and the inky black of nothingness surrounding him in the temple chamber. His voice seemed as rotting as his flesh, as if the mere sound of it could carry that corruption to infect her as well. His eyes were wrong, not merely in their yellow coloration, but their shape and form as well. There was no human compassion in them; they did not even look like human eyes, at times almost appearing more simian to Leia's imagination.

Leia took back the scorn she had earlier felt for her seventeen-year old self. Young Leia had not been naïve for fearing the evil embodied in the Emperor's mere presence; current Leia had been naïve for thinking she had outgrown such terror.

Just as the princess had been observing the Emperor, he had been appraising her with his sickly, jaundiced gaze. Apparently satisfied at the conclusion he had drawn – or perhaps skilled enough in telepathy to have sensed the conclusion she herself had met – he reached to the control panel on the side of his throne, pressing down on a button with a skeletal finger.

Leia screamed as jolts of electricity coursed through her, originating from the stun cuffs that secured her wrists behind her. She clenched her jaw, not wanting to give the old man the satisfaction of hearing her pain, but even with her teeth grit, Leia eventually collapsed onto her knees. No sooner had she assumed that inadvertently-submissive position than the stun ceased. She glared up at the Emperor in his throne, twin fires of hatred burning in her eyes.

"Good..." he nodded, holding onto the syllable, dragging it out. "Don't hold back your anger. Let it fuel you. It shall make you strong – like your father. You have his same fire. I can feel it, yearning to be free of the control imposed upon you by your insufficient Jedi training."

He was amused by his toying with the young woman, an experience he had not enjoyed in many years since completing Mara Jade's training. There had been other women he had sated himself with, from time to time – other Emperor's Hands like Aralina Silk, Arden Lyn, and Roganda Ismaren, all unaware of the others' existence; his former concubine, Niobi; the erstwhile Intelligence Director, Ysanne Isard; a captured Hapan admiral gifted to him by Grand Admiral Teshik. Yet none had provided him with the same sadistic delight under duress that Jade had. Only with this spawn of Skywalker did the Emperor finally see one worthy of replacing his favorite long lost toy.

Palpatine extended his withered arm, reaching out with the Force. From behind Leia, she heard the clatter as the binders restraining her fell to the floor. The Emperor lowered his arm into his lap, curious to see what the fiery woman would do if freed.

Leia reached in front of her, stretching her arms, her aching shoulders popping. She rubbed her wrists where they had chafed from the binders. With no further warning, she immediately leaped into the air, propelled by the Force toward the Emperor's seated form, her hands outstretched before her like talons. She fully intended to die having clawed out the Emperor's throat. It would not feel as personally satisfying as if she had taken down Vader on Nimban, but hopefully the chaos that would wrack the Empire with Palpatine's death would make it even more vulnerable to the imminent attack from the Rebel Alliance.

After all, not even Emperor Palpatine was powerful enough to overcome death.

What happened next was not something Leia had anticipated in the least. The half-dozen royal guards, who had remained immobile this entire time, suddenly moved with lightning speed. Four landed with precision before the Emperor, force pikes extended in a protective screen, while the remaining two were by Leia's side, knocking her down to the floor while in mid-leap.

Leia gasped for breath on the floor, her whole body feeling like a single bruise. She hadn't been able to sense the Force in their rapid reflexive moves – which in a way made their coordinated protection even more impressive. The force pikes were formidable weapons that could break even a wookiee with a single blow. The Emperor must have instructed his guards to keep her alive and conscious, which was not as reassuring a thought as it might have been. The royal guards backed away slowly, remaining on either side of her, but opening a path for the Emperor to look upon Leia again.

He was laughing at her again from high on his throne, with his sickly, dusty chuckle that Leia was already learning to loathe. Palpatine was pleased that the young woman had chosen to try to murder him over an attempt to flee. By choosing action – especially such violent an action as assassination – over the choices of escape or passivity showed how, even if she did not yet realize it, the princess had already begun down the path of the Sith.

Of course, even if she had chosen to flee and had made it out of the throne room, it would have been a futile attempt. The Imperial Palace was over three cubic kilometers in volume, divided between over twenty thousand rooms. People had died wandering the labyrinthine passages of the palace, their corpses sometimes not discovered until years later. Others had vanished and their fates were never discovered.

Still, despite the young woman's choosing of the Sith act of aggression over the Jedi path of peace, such an attempt could not go unpunished. "Insolent girl..." he chided. "You are not yet ready to face me. First, I must mold you into a formidable servant of the Dark Side ... and then perhaps much more."

He raised his arm, pointing down at the still-weakened woman, holding herself up off the floor with her arms. "Guards ... You may begin."

The six royal guards converged on Leia, forming a circle around her. She tried to resist, summoning whatever reserves of inner strength she had left to try and attack at least one of them head-on. Before she could, the six simultaneously lowered their pikes toward her, activating their weapons.

Leia couldn't help but scream again, jerking and twisting on the ground as the pikes were passed over her. The settings were different this time – the charges not as intense, although still plenty painful. When she began to smell the scent of burning, she panicked at first, thinking it was her skin before realizing the electrical charges from the pikes were slowly singing off her jumpsuit instead. Meticulously the guards peeled away the torn and tattered fabric with a specific setting of their pikes. Her undergarments were removed from just as easily. When they finally deactivated their weapons and withdrew, Leia could barely move, lying naked and curled up in a fetal position between the six towering figures.

As stunned as she was, Leia began to whimper as she heard the guards begin to remove their crimson robes and ominous masks. She forced her eyes open, not wanting them to think she was just a weak, frightened girl trying to shut out reality. If she was going to be violated, she would at least look upon her attackers and memorize their features so that she could enact justice on them later.

Leia was surprised to see that their faces were all unique, for it had long been speculated that the Emperor's royal guards were all clones, bred by kaminoans to be absolutely loyal to their master. Instead, their features showed them to be hardened warriors of the Empire, their past service marked with scars.

Within minutes, the impressive amount of armor and other clothing from the guards had been discarded into six neat piles, and the naked men stood over her with massive erections directed at the defeated princess. This was not the first time they had been allowed to give the "royal treatment" to a vanquished enemy of the Empire. However, it was a special honor for them to punish such a legendary Rebel leader as Leia Organa. They were the most elite of the Royal Guard Corps, and with rank came its privileges.

The guards savagely manhandled her limp form as she weakly struggled in vain on the floor of the Emperor's throne room. Six pairs of hands groped every inch of her body, fondling her perky tits, squeezing her firm buttocks, and stroking her soft vaginal lips. Leia squirmed as fingers painfully pinched her erect nipples and probed her cunt, arousing her clitoris from beneath its hood.

Finally, the lead guardsman, Kir Kanos, stepped forward and Leia looked up at him with wide, fearful eyes. The brown-haired muscular man towered over the young Jedi, grabbing a fistful of her hair and jerking her head upwards. He took her mouth in his other hand, applying pressure to her jaws, forcibly spreading her open for him to insert his rock-hard cock. Leia gagged, coughing and sputtering, as he began to roughly fuck her face.

Kanos appreciated the true significance of punishing one of the top Rebel leaders and traitors to the Empire – breaking her down and returning her to the fold of Imperial loyalty, as all Rebels ought to be converted. His rape of her was not so much out of personal sexual desire as it was serving the Emperor's command.

The other royal guards took their turns with Leia now, with two – Chik Apla and Grodin Tierce – grabbing her wrists and forcing up her hands to wrap around their cocks to stroke them, while two more of their comrades moved behind her. Leia tensed up, trying to kick, but only succeeded in raising her legs for the top guard to take hold of as he roughly pulled them apart. He then held her limbs and lower torso up for his fellow guardsman, Myn Kyneugh, to move beneath her.

Leia breathed rapidly through her nose, knowing what was about to happen, but even attempting to relax her tense body did not dull the pain of the sudden forced entry into her ass. The fifth guard, Kile Hannad, straddled her chest, squeezing her breasts together as he began to pump his rigid shaft in between them. Only after all of her other available options were taken did the final guard, the black-haired Carnor Jax, enter her pussy.

The six Imperial men were as silent as they had been when standing sentinel. Their rape of Leia was as fierce and methodical as their orchestrated combat moves – every penetration and pumping of her hands and breasts was born of a savage hatred and fueled with lust, as palpable to her through the Force as their physical actions. They stabbed at her with their male organs, attacking her body no less viciously than when they had assaulted her with their force pikes. The fact that Leia was not actively participating, serving only as a receptacle for their mechanically-pistoning cocks, made it even more humiliating for the princess, as did the fact that every few minutes the guards would rotate, changing positions and highlighting Leia's own nature as nothing more than an object to satisfy their hate-fueled sexual defilement of her.