Chapter Text
“It’s too late!” Commander Gherant shouted from near the Pit.
Piett spared a glance through the front viewport and then luxuriated in another as he saw the rebel bomber approach. Defying all known laws of probability it had made it past the kilometres of turbolaser cannons and TIE fighters to get close enough to rub noses with the Lady’s bridge.
And rub away it did. Piett had enough time to dive rather uselessly into the Pit before it struck, the shattering of plasma-proof glass the last thing he heard before –
He landed in a heap on the durasteel floor on the other side of the bridge.
A pair of Commodores snickered at him and Piett couldn’t even glare at them. They should all be dead, sucked out into the void of space or roasted in the explosion. Piett rolled onto his back and tried to heave in a breath, all the air knocked out of him.
“Admiral!” an Ensign hurried over to him and helped him up. “Are you alright?”
Piett waved him off just as the pair of Commodores got over themselves and came over to offer their support, as well as a few more officers nearby. Piett looked around and noticed he had the attention of the entire bridge, even a few heads poking up from the Pit to see what the commotion was.
Piett was sure he had been standing over there just a few seconds ago. But now he was down the other end of the bridge, past the weapons and defence stations, just past the stairs that separated the bridge from security foyer with the communications hub. He was the furthest he could be from the shattered viewports where –
Where Lord Vader was standing, also watching him curiously, the stars behind him glittering safely away behind the plasma-proof glass.
But that was impossible. The last report Piett had received indicated Lord Vader had captured Luke Skywalker on Endor’s moon, and they had arrived safely on the second Death Star where the Emperor waited for them. The last time Vader was on the Lady’s bridge was a standard rotation ago.
“Do you need to go to the medbay?” the Ensign continued. “It looked like such a nasty fall…”
“I am quite alright, Ensign…?”
“Dopelmere, sir.”
“Dopelmere, then. Remind me of today’s date, if you will.”
Dopelmere did so, and it was indeed yesterday’s date.
“Thank you Ensign. Please return to your posts, sirs, I will be fine.”
The Ensign and the two Commodores did so.
Piett was not fine. He wanted to sit back down on the floor and hide his head in his hands while he figured out what the kark just happened. But he couldn’t afford to have a breakdown while everyone was looking at him, so he dusted himself off and strode towards Lord Vader like nothing at all had happened.
A spice dream. He must have had some sort of drug induced hallucination, that was the only reasonable explanation. Someone must have dosed him and he’d recovered just then.
But it had been so real. He had clear memories of the last rotation that had apparently never happened. Spice didn’t do that, not any strain he’d heard of.
Well, getting to the bottom of it would have to wait until the end of his shift. There were rebels to lure into the Emperor’s trap. He gave a shallow bow to Lord Vader.
“My Lord.”
“Admiral.”
Lord Vader crossed his arms. He gave Piett the galaxy’s longest look, but didn’t say anything further and eventually returned to staring out the viewport.
Piett suppressed his sigh of relief and began his shift.
No.
No, that was impossible.
Piett activated the comms unit. “Shuttle Tydirium, what is your cargo and destination?”
“Parts and technical crew for the forest moon,” came the reply.
Utterly impossible. It was the same old ship, at the same time at the same place right down to the older code that came through to verify its identity. Piett broke out in a cold sweat.
It was the same bloody ship. The one that Lord Vader would apprehend himself down on the moon. And then after that the news of Luke Skywalker’s capture had made its way to the Executor…
No.
It was impossible.
Was Luke Skywalker currently on that ship? Why else, then, would Lord Vader decide to go to the moon’s surface and deal with it himself?
Lord Vader appeared by his side. “Do they have a code clearance?”
“Yes, but…”
It didn’t matter. It was ridiculous, he couldn’t make military decisions based on a hallucination of all things.
No matter how accurate that hallucination had been.
“…I believe it to be suspect.” Piett swallowed past a lump in his throat. “Based on the older codes they-”
“Let them through. I will deal with them myself.”
“As you wish, my Lord.”
Piett nodded at the comms officer to relay that to the Tydirium. In a daze he returned to his place by the front viewports. Endor hung below them like a noose.
The future he had seen was playing out, exactly as he saw it.
No.
He would stop being irrational. All the confusion surrounding recent events was just a hangover from the spice. He would not draw illogical conclusions and make decisions that affected real lives based on imagined whims.
Piett gave the order for the med droid to have its memory wiped and sent it from his office. He placed the datapad with his test results on his desk and slumped over it, exhausted.
The toxicology report came back clear. There was no trace of drugs or any known poisons in his system. So that was a dead end.
The med droid had also informed him he was dehydrated, was suffering from sleep deprivation, and had a worryingly high resting heart rate, but none of that was new.
Piett was out of ideas. There was no rational explanation to explain what he had experienced.
Perhaps he had finally gone mad after serving so long under Lord Vader. He was Lord Vader’s longest serving Admiral, after all. Maybe he was overdue for a bout of space madness.
Fine. Piett was mad, then. Nothing for it but to continue to do his job to the best of his ability.
He pulled a bottle of whisky out of a cabinet and poured two fingers into a tumbler. Then he settled down and read over reports he was sure he had read the rotation before.
Lord Vader had apprehended Luke Skywalker down on Endor’s moon.
It was real. What he’d hallucinated was real.
All of it. From the shuttle codes, to Luke Skywalker, to –
He was going to die.
A blasted rebel bomber was going to miraculously make it through the Lady’s defences and kill him.
He had an hour left at most to live, if he remembered correctly. As if he hadn’t been obsessively trying to recall every detail he could of the future instead of sleeping last night. He had the timing down to the minute.
He had to stop it.
But how? He had to follow the Emperor’s orders regarding how the fleet was meant to be arranged, so he couldn’t order more Star Destroyers to protect the bridge. They were to stay on the far side of Endor until the rebel fleet arrived, and then keep them from leaving the system. Disobeying the Emperor would result in his untimely death just as assuredly as the bomber’s suicidal attack.
There was no time left to make plans. They were about to engage with the rebels in a few short minutes.
Was there anything to be done? There was enough time to get to his personal shuttle and desert, yes, but he couldn’t leave his men to die, nor the Lady. The thought was abhorrent.
Piett pressed his hand to the viewport frame and bowed his head.
“Sir?” Captain Venka asked. “We’ve just received reports that-”
“Rebels have entered the shield generator.” Piett finished, turning to face him.
Venka blinked at him. “Ah, yes, sir.”
The rebels shouldn’t pose a problem for General Veers, so at least he will survive this. It also meant the rebel fleet was moments away.
“Captain, I…” Piett hesitated.
“Yes, sir?”
“It’s been an honour serving with you, Venka.”
“…Sir? Ah, you as well, Admiral.”
Piett straightened his officer’s cap. “Prepare the hyperdrive to make the jump to the other side of Endor. The Emperor will direct us there momentarily.”
“Yes, sir.”
The signal came, and the fleet made the jump. They reverted back into real-space behind the freshly arrived rebel fleet, just in time for them to figure out the second Death Star’s shields were still active. The rebel fleet peeled away from the Death Star and flew into Piett’s waiting fleet. The void of space filled with turbolasers and laser cannon fire.
Exactly as he remembered. Piett fought back a shudder.
Commander Gherant approached his side just as Venka returned to his position.
“Admiral,” Gherant said, “we’re in attack position now, sir.”
“Hold here,” Piett instructed, as much as the words tasted like ash in his mouth.
Gherant’s eyes flickered with curiosity. “We’re not going to attack?”
Piett clenched his jaw. Not in any real capacity, no. “I have my orders from the Emperor himself. He has something special planned for them. We only need to keep them from escaping.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
Gherant walked away and Piett bit his lip so hard it bled.
Yes, why would the Emperor restrain himself from using one of the largest gatherings of Star Destroyers in recent military history, not to mention the Super Star Destroyer he was currently standing on the bridge of, on this desperate motley group of rebels?
Piett was likely the only being on board who knew the answer.
There was an enormous green flash from the Death Star and almost every head in the Pit turned to the viewports.
Piett blinked the afterimages away from the Death Star’s strike and watched the remaining fragments of the rebel light cruiser drift off into space.
The answer was because the Second Death Star was, in fact, operational.
But how different was it really from the Executor? She could turn a planet to a molten grave in minutes. Piett had ordered and witnessed it himself. The Death Star was more destructive and instantly effective, for sure, but was its unveiling really worth all this damage to Piett’s fleet?
A Star Destroyer sparked and listed out of formation. Piett gave a minute shake of his head.
Wasteful. This whole operation was… wasteful. There was no need for the Death Star’s display to wipe out the rebels. Piett’s fleet was more than enough. If Piett were a braver man, he’d curse the Emperor.
Another Star Destroyer fell.
The Executor wouldn’t be far behind.
Piett tasted blood in his mouth.
He couldn’t allow the Lady to fall. He couldn’t.
“Reroute some of our fighters to our shield generators,” Piett said to Gherant, discreetly turning away to wipe his mouth with a handkerchief. “Now!”
“Yes, sir.”
Piett listened to Gherant rattle off orders to various Group Captains and Squadron Leaders. He had to do something, after all, to protect the shield generators.
If the shield generators didn’t go down, no rogue rebel could fly through the bridge, now could they.
Piett and his crew staggered under the impact of a rebel bombing run, but the shields held. The bridge held. He watched a turbolaser explode a retreating bomber and the wreckage slam against the shields before it slid off and away into the void of space.
The Death Star fired again, and a second rebel ship vanished in an explosion of fuel, durasteel, and atmosphere.
Good. One less cruiser that could launch fighters –
The Executor shuddered.
“Sir!” Captain Venka yelled. “Our port engines have been hit! They’re offline!”
Kark. “All of them?”
“We’re listing!”
That was certainly true. With only the centre and starboard engines firing the Lady was falling out of formation. She began a long, slow corkscrew and the battle appeared to spin.
“Cut the starboard engines!” Piett yelled to the engineers in the Pit.
The gravity generators couldn’t keep up with the way the Lady tilted and centrifugal forces sent the crew stumbling to keep their footing as the floor appeared to slant. Piett braced himself against the frame of the front viewport while the gravity generators fought for control of the ship.
In open space this would be considered a minor paralysis of the crew until the ship stabilised, but they were far too deep in the Death Star’s gravity well. The remaining engines were not powerful enough to correct the Lady’s course to a safe orbit and she accelerated towards the space station.
The rebels, scenting blood in the water, swarmed the Executor and alarms blared all around the Pit.
“Port stabilisers damaged!”
“Bow stabilisers have been destroyed!”
“Shields at ten percent!”
The bridge levelled out, but it was too little, too late.
Piett had failed.
Again.
A Star Destroyer between the Lady and the Death Star powered up her thrusters and rolled dangerously in a desperate bid to get out of the Lady’s way, but it was hopeless. The Lady was on a direct collision course with her.
It was the Tyrant, Piett noted idly, as the Lady’s bow shadowed the middle of the Star Destroyer. The Pit crew shouted their reports and requests for orders while their consoles smoked and spat sparks at them.
Piett realised Captain Venka had been trying to get his attention when Venka grabbed his arm and spun him around.
“Admiral! We –” Venka shouted, and then cut himself off. He must have seen something in Piett’s eyes that he was beyond caring about hiding.
Venka held onto Piett’s arm. “You – you knew…”
Piett held his gaze and then nodded once.
They saw the Executor impact against the Tyrant before they felt it. Tyrant hit close to the bow, maybe fifteen kilometres from the bridge, and they had the perfect view of the ensuing shockwaves and explosions as they rippled through the Lady.
The explosions would chain react and destroy the bridge long before the shockwaves reached them. The Lady’s inner cityscape exploded far ahead of the shockwave, great gouts of flame and durasteel spurting away into space, and Piett felt Venka’s grip slide away from his arm.
Piett clasped his hands behind his back and closed his eyes.
He opened them again on the other end of the bridge.
Piett took a moment to stare at the crew in the weapons and defence stations working away, not a hint of smoke or sparking on their consoles. The crew in the Pit passed datapads between them and pointed to their displays, talking quietly amongst themselves.
Lord Vader stood staring out the front viewport, down, down to Endor far below.
“Kark me running,” Piett swore, and a pair of Commodores conversing by the communications hub turned to him.
It happened again. It was yesterday. Darth Vader was on the bridge and Piett was still alive.
What was going on?
“I’m in some Sith hell,” Piett said to himself. “That must be it. This is hell.”
One of the Commodores approached him, a concerned look on his face.
“It’s… just morning shift, Admiral. Are you okay?”
“Not at all, Commodore. As you were.”
Piett strode past him and grasped at the thin shreds of his dignity and his sanity in order to make it next to Lord Vader, instead of doing what he really wanted to do, which was run screaming from the bridge.
Piett gave Lord Vader a shaky salute.
“My Lord.”
“Admiral.”
Lord Vader crossed his arms. He gave Piett the galaxy’s longest look, but didn’t say anything further and eventually returned to staring out the viewport.
Piett stood next to him, sweating.
Of course this would be his hell. Forced to relive the build-up to the worst mistake of his life, except possibly the one he made deciding to join the Imperial Navy in the first place.
No. No. That couldn’t be it. He felt like if he were dead and in some sort of hell he would feel it. And he felt very much alive, if the banging of his heart in his chest was anything to go by.
It was something else. Something else was happening to him. Something was making it so whenever he died he appeared to travel back in time.
Perhaps some… Force thing?
Should he ask Lord Vader about it?
Piett dismissed the thought as soon as it crossed his mind. Whatever was happening to him certainly didn’t involve Luke Skywalker, and if it didn’t involve Luke Skywalker, Lord Vader didn’t care in the slightest. Lord Vader was much more likely to kill him and solve the problem that way than help him search for answers.
Was it some sort of time loop, then? Piett almost scoffed at the thought. Time travel in that sense was provably impossible. Most of its derivatives as well. Dimension jumping, multiverse travelling, whatever it was called, it had long since been laid to rest in the annals of scientific research.
Then what else could it be? Magic? Had a Dathomirian witch put some sort of curse on him? Piett had met a few Dathomirians before and couldn’t recall giving one a reason to curse him. It was unlikely there was any weight to the rumours around their powers, anyway.
“You are troubled, Admiral.” Lord Vader tilted his helmet towards Piett and Piett forced his spine to straighten instead of flinch away.
“Merely concerned for the future, my Lord.” Piett said truthfully. One couldn’t lie to Lord Vader, but one also didn’t survive three years serving under him without learning how to twist the truth in creative ways.
“Have faith in the Force. I sense the time for action is drawing near.” With that, Lord Vader turned and walked away.
Piett clenched his hands behind his back so hard he heard the synth-leather creak. The Tyrant appeared out from under the Lady’s starboard side and Piett watched it soar by with a morbid fascination.
What was he supposed to do? Finish his shift, watch the rest of events play out, and die once more at the hands of the rebel fleet? No, he couldn’t do that again. But he had little room to manoeuvre inside the Emperor’s instructions. He wasn’t confident he could save the Executor without disobeying the Emperor, and there was no way he was doing that.
Piett stared out the viewport much like Lord Vader had done and caught his own reflection. He looked very similar to how he used to look immediately after the events at Bespin, if not a little more grey around the ears. His eyes were the same. Wide and fearful, like a prey animal caught in a trap and the hunter was shining a spotlight on them.
If he got everything wrong again, he would die. And while he had twice already… returned to life, reset, whatever, there was no guarantee it would happen again.
It wasn’t a pleasant experience either. Piett wouldn’t wish his fate even on a pirate or rebel, Luke Skywalker included, for all the grief Skywalker’s caused him.
Piett’s head snapped up.
Luke Skywalker.
Piett knew where Luke Skywalker was going to be in a few hours’ time. The shuttle Tydirium would attempt to gain access to Endor with older codes, and Luke Skywalker was on board, Piett was certain.
He’d have the Tydirium tractor-beamed to the Executor and Skywalker could be apprehended a rotation early. He could personally hand Skywalker to the Emperor and… and maybe then things would be different. The Emperor would reward him, and perhaps Piett could ask for more control over his fleet when the rebels came.
Piett could save the Lady. He could save his fleet. If he was lucky, he could even save himself.
Surely that was the point of his enduring existence?
Piett activated the comms unit. “Shuttle Tydirium, what is your cargo and destination?”
“Parts and technical crew for the forest moon,” came the reply.
“They’re lying,” Piett told the comms officer, and waved a hand for a technician. “They’re rebels. Tractor them into Hangar Six at once.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
Piett turned away just in time to almost walk smack bang into Lord Vader.
“You are certain they are rebels,” Lord Vader said, and Piett replied quickly, prepared.
“Yes, my Lord. The codes they transmitted are too old for current crew to use. I also believe Skywalker is on board.”
That black helmet loomed over him. “Oh?”
Piett forced himself to stare into those red lenses. “Only Skywalker and his friends would be so foolhardy to attempt such a plot.”
In the grand scheme of things that wasn’t strictly true, Piett had apprehended or lost many rebels just as foolish or even more so, but in this one specific instance it was the absolute truth. And he hoped Lord Vader would be able to tell that through the Force.
Somehow.
“…You may be correct,” Lord Vader was the first one to look away, and Piett knew he was unerringly tracking the Tydirium as it was forced to land in Hangar Six, even though it wasn’t visible through the viewport. “I will deal with Skywalker myself. The Empire will not forget your service, Admiral.”
“Thank you, my Lord,” Piett gave a shallow bow, “and… would you require assistance in apprehending or transporting Skywalker to the Emperor?”
The helmet’s red lenses were back on him. Piett glanced at them briefly before looking away.
“No, Admiral.”
And well. That was probably the best he could hope for. Skywalker was Lord Vader’s obsession, after all.
But he had successfully altered the future. With the Tydirium on the Executor, Skywalker was detained and there were no rebels to attack the shield generator on Endor’s moon.
The rebels would have to change their plans. So would the Emperor.
There was a chance Piett and the Lady would live a little longer.
He holocalled General Veers that night after his shift was complete.
“Lord Vader took Skywalker and his friends to the Emperor a few hours ago,” Piett told him after taking a long sip of his whisky. “Can’t imagine why he would want to see the whole lot of them.”
“Execute them all at once, hopefully,” Veers replied. “That would be a crushing blow to the rebellion.”
“Lord Vader specifically wanted Skywalker alive,” Piett reminded him. “The others, maybe.”
“Word around is you were the one to capture Skywalker,” Veers’ holo leaned in conspiratorially, “is that true?”
“I merely recognised the lambda shuttle they used as stolen,” Piett said. “It was simply luck on our part that it contained Skywalker.”
One day, when all this was over, Piett would sit Veers down and tell him everything, but for now lying through his teeth was the best option.
“Ah-ah,” Veers waved his finger at Piett, “I was talking to Venka. He said you believed Skywalker was on board, and he was.”
Piett waved a different, ruder finger back at Veers. “Fine, Max. I had a… feeling, about it. And I turned out to be right.”
Veers snorted at him. “We’re making military decisions based on feelings now, are we?”
Piett drank again. “More like years of honed reflexes and gut instincts for the galaxy’s enemies, I believe. Lord Vader even praised me for the decision.”
Piett’s comm went off, blinking madly. He held up a hand in apology to Veers and answered it.
“This is Fleet Admiral Piett,” Piett said in his coldest and most clipped tones, “and I’m off duty, so this had better be-”
“The Emperor’s dead!” Moff Jerjerrod all but shouted, panicked. “He’s dead, and we can’t get a hold of Vader-”
“The Emperor’s dead?” Piett tried to clarify, and Veers’ holo reared back in surprise.
That was impossible. The Emperor, dead? It simply couldn’t happen.
“That’s what all the reports are saying.” Jerjerrod spoke quickly and Piett had a hard time listening to him with the roar of alarms and shouting men in the background. “There is no sign of him in his throne room or anywhere on the Death Star, and there was an unexpected power surge in the reactor shaft just below his throne room! And that was moments before we discovered the rebels escaped-”
“Are you implying-”
“I think Skywalker pushed him to his death!”
Piett’s blood ran cold.
Oh, Force.
He’d killed the Emperor.
He’d killed the Emperor.
Piett’s tumbler dropped from his hand and shattered on the floor. The thick smell of whisky soaked into his uniform’s pants and his socks.
“I will mobilise the fleet,” Piett told Jerjerrod, rising, “we must ensure the Death Star is secure. We can convene afterwards.”
Piett ended the communication and stared down at his comms for a few seconds.
“Firmus?” Veers’ holo asked. “Is the Emperor truly dead?”
“It’s true,” Piett admitted. “And it’s all my damned-”
Piett was back on the bridge.
He blinked, slightly disorientated as he found himself suddenly completely sober. His heart was still pounding madly in his chest, however. The sounds of officers and reports and whirring consoles filled his ears.
“…fault.” Piett said to no one.
Lord Vader stood by the viewports, staring down at Endor far below.
Piett gaped at him.
How…?
How was he here again? He hadn’t died, as far as he could recall. He had been on a holocall with Veers. Holocalls were not usually fatal.
“Ensign… Dopelmere,” Piett said somewhat absently, still staring at Lord Vader, and the Ensign hurried over.
“Admiral?”
“The date and time, if you will.”
Dopelmere told him and yes, he was once again in the past.
“Thank you, Ensign. Dismissed.”
He was sure he would remember dying, and he hadn’t. He hadn’t. So why was he back here again? Why had he, for lack of a better word, reset differently now from the first two times?
A wicked thought crossed his mind.
Unless… it wasn’t his death that caused the reset. It was something else, and the other two times he reset he’d just happened to die before that something else happened. And then once it did, he reset.
That was the only reasonable explanation, as much as anything in this situation could be called reasonable.
Piett wanted to laugh, or maybe cry for at least a year. Maybe longer.
Of course.
Of course, of course of course. He was stuck in some sort of time loop and its reset wasn’t directly dependent on his actions. He was stuck in a time loop and it wasn’t even about him. Of course. Why would anything in the galaxy be about him, anyway?
And who or what was it about, then?
Lord Vader finally noticed Piett staring at him, and he turned around and tucked his hands into his belt. His helmet tilted, shooting Piett with another long look, and Piett gave up on keeping his grip on everything.
Piett fainted.