Lord Vader,” the gunnery officer said, nodding his head in salute as Vader passed by his station.

“Lord Vader,” the communications officer said, saluting in similar fashion.

“Lord Vader,” the Exactor’s captain said, in crisp acknowledgment.

Vader continued on to the end of bridge walkway, thinking: This is how I will be greeted from now on, wherever I set foot.

Standing at the forward viewports, he scanned the stars with his reconstructed eyes.

He had guardianship of all this, or at least joint custody of it. The Jedi no longer mattered; they were no different from others who would interfere with his and Sidious’s realm. Their mission was to maintain order, so that the dark side could continue to reign supreme.

Anakin was gone; a memory so deeply buried he might have dreamed rather than lived it. The Force as Anakin knew it was interred with him, and inseparable from him.

Just as Sidious promised, he was now married to the order of the Sith, and needed no other companion than the dark side of the Force. He embraced all that he had done to bring balance to the Force, by dismantling the corrupt Republic and toppling the Jedi, and he reveled in his power. It could all be his, anything he wished. He needed only the determination to take it, at whatever cost to those who stood in his way.

But …

He was also married to Sidious, who doled out precious bits of Sith technique as if merely lending them—just enough to increase his apprentice’s power, without making him supremely powerful.

There would come a day, however, when they would be equals.

He scanned the stars, looking forward to a time when he could find an apprentice of his own and, together with that one, topple Darth Sidious from his throne.

It gave him something to live for.