Chapter Text
13 BBY – The Death Star
“I’m afraid to report that Project Blackwing was a failure, your majesty.”
The emperor’s eyes glowed gold, lips curled into an unimpressed sneer. It was a ghastly expression, shadowed heavily beneath the thick folds of his midnight black cloak, and the doctor gulped in nervous anticipation. The emperor was not known to be a forgiving man – especially not after a failure of this magnitude. This project had been a particular joy of his over the past few years, and one which was instrumental to his plan; he had made sure to impress this onto his scientists, whose passion for the experiments (and desperation to live) nearly rivalled his in their magnitude.
Evidently, such unspoken threats had not been enough.
After a long, pregnant pause, the emperor sighed and leaned back into his throne. No bother. Darth Sidious was a calculating man by nature and had planned for such a setback, as irritating a setback it was.
“I hope you understand, doctor, that this failure is not one I take lightly.”
The doctor clenched her datapad with white-knuckled fingers. Her voice shook as she responded.
“Of course, your majesty.” She wet her lips as she nervously presented the tablet. “The experiments are not at a complete loss, I assure you. But with the outbreak… I’m afraid the facility was all-but destroyed. We will have to start anew if we have any hope of reaching success.”
The emperor snarled as he snatched the datapad from the woman’s shaking hands. “What of the troops that were stationed on Dandoran?”
“Destroyed, your majesty.”
His eyes narrowed. “All of them?”
The doctor nodded dumbly, half-frozen from fear. More curious now than irritated, Palpatine sent out a subtle tendril of the Force to poke at the woman’s mind and latched onto the memory that played on nightmarish repeat behind her eyes.
It had been a bloodbath. A simple mistake of breached containment allowed the virus to spread to a stormtrooper on guard outside the main laboratory, and within mere hours, the entire facility had been placed on strict lockdown as nearly 75% of the platoon stationed on site had been infected, reduced to dumb, lumbering undead.
Had they remained as such, the facility may have survived until dawn. As it would turn out, however, his scientists, incompetent as they were, had managed to achieve some semblance of success amidst such a catastrophic failure. The zombies, acting in tandem as a sort of hivemind, began to change, rapidly adapting to their surroundings and gaining the intelligence to navigate the facility, operate doors, and, eventually, handle weapons. It was a small miracle that enough staff survived to call for backup, and a greater miracle still that the outbreak was contained as effectively as it was.
The emperor sat back for another long moment, thinking. Perhaps this travesty had a silver lining after all.
“How many ground staff survived the outbreak?” he finally asked.
“Eleven, your majesty – four members of my team, three of another, and four of the guards stationed within our wing of the facility.”
He hummed lowly and tilted his head in mock consideration. The doctor grit her teeth, fighting back her rising panic. This was it. It was only a matter of time now before the emperor killed both her and her team for their negligence.
Now that she thought of it, though, perhaps such a fate was justified for the terrors they could have wrought upon the galaxy with the sickness, even if such nightmarish experiments were performed at the emperor’s behest.
The emperor nodded and steepled his fingers atop his knees with a considering look. “Are your remaining numbers sufficient to continue work on this project?”
That… wasn’t what she had expected to hear.
“I’m sorry, your majesty?”
He didn’t deign to respond, only continued to regard her with that same heavy stare as before. A shiver ran up the doctor’s spine; that look had a distinct weight to it, as if the emperor was somehow seeing past her, to parts of her not even she herself could see. She had heard of this effect from others who had returned alive from a meeting with the man and was in no way pleased to be experiencing such a feeling first-hand.
She nodded slowly. “I suppose with funding-“
“You will receive it.” With a wave of his hand, the footfalls of his ever-obedient, red-robed guardians sidled across the metal footpath. Her time was up. “I will relocate your team to a more secure facility. Don’t fail me again, doctor.”
Struck with a wave of relief more potent than any she’d felt before, the doctor bowed deeply at the waist, averting her eyes as the emperor’s throne spun to once again face the brilliant array of stars spread out beyond the confines of his throne room.
Still, that feeling from before did not fade, even as she was escorted back through the Death Star to the hangar bay where the remains of her team waited in agonizing terror for her return. The emperor’s instructions – and threats – had been clear. Either her team succeeded in their mission to achieve immortality, or their fate would be far worse than those who had been killed in the aftermath of their first failure – even if the galaxy was put into unimaginable peril as a result.
No. She would not allow that to happen. This time, they would not fail.