The Bitter End

The planet was Imperial, and so far as the woman leaning against the monument knew, it always had been. It had started life as a colony built from the ground up by Imperial citizens, each of them loyal to the point of fanaticism. They called themselves patriotic, of course. Fanatic having as negative a connotation as it usually did. Although, she thought with no small amount of irony, the Empire had skewed the galaxy's perceptions on any number of other things, why not that as well? She supposed the propagandists (the Imperial Ministry of Information, as they'd termed it) had had better things to do.

The colonists, showing all signs of Imperial ego to excess, had named their world Palpatine, gifting as many towns, cities, and natural land formations with the same name as was possible. And so it was that she stood in Palpatine Square, Palpatine City, on the planet of Palpatine itself.

She loathed the place, loathed its grandeur and its never-ending displays of ego. But they always returned here, each and every one of them, and there was no other way she could isolate them, deal with them on a singular basis. And so she swallowed her pride and all other things that made her hate this place, and leaned back against the Palpatine Monument, arms crossed beneath the folds of her cloak, biding her time. It wouldn't be long now.

Already she could sense the presence moving closer, familiar and yet absolutely unknown.

She'd always hated clones, but had a particular distaste for clones of those she knew or had known. Something about their living flesh had always seemed dead to her, lacking some crucial element. The clone could never replace the original. Some had never realized that, and apparently were never going to. Hence why she was here again, in a place she loathed. A place she would destroy utterly, given half a chance.

In what sometimes seemed another lifetime, she had been Gillian Skywalker, and a more loyal daughter of the Empire had very likely never been born. She had lived to serve her Empire and her Emperor, until the day he had betrayed her. She had betrayed him in turn, that day, though her uncle, Darth Vader, took the credit for his death, and she never spoke of it. She had done her bestto go on with her life after that, marrying a man from a world so far beyond the Core that he had not known the Empire existed, looking after her two younger sisters, and trying to redeem the Empire.

All had been well until the first clone had appeared. Until they had realized who it truly was, and what his goals were. Then things had begun to unravel, and there had been only one way to save what she had worked so hard to build.

What she didn't know that first time was that it would never get any easier.

She leaned back against the monument wall, the folds of her cloak enveloping her and casting her into shadow. Even should this one have the capacity to recognize her- and the others hadn't, so she doubted this one would either -it would not be able to see her until it was very close. Too close to run, having gone too far to turn back. It was how she'd taken the first few, how she'd taken the ones that followed. And how she would take this one as well. This one, which she believed, hoped, to be the last.

Please, she thought. Let it be the last of them. I cannot take this again. I know I cannot. But she would. If she had to, she would go through these motions again, and again. Until the end.

It was within sight now, crossing the square. It was young, younger than the original had been when she had known him, but they all were young. He'd thought they would last longer that way, though with them it had never been a matter of years but a matter of use and abuse. They were only human, after all. Or, as human as he had been when he'd created them.

They all returned here, she supposed to pay homage, though certainly they would not understand what they were paying homage to. This one approached, lay its hands against the stone before it- and she moved forward and was upon it, the blade in her hand unwavering.

"How many times must I destroy you, old man?" she asked quietly. "How many times must I relive this nightmare moment?"

It stared back at her- and in those vacant eyes something changed, solidified. Not an empty shell now, but something occupied- and something familiar. She cursed herself silently for waiting too long. Something of the old man's consciousness was a part of it, now, and the only way to destroy it would be to destroy the clone. And even that was no guarantee.

"Who are you?" it hissed.

She smiled thinly. So it did not know even that much. Perhaps she needn't have worried.

"Really, now. I'm insulted you don't remember me."

"Who are you?" it demanded again.

"Leave her to me," came another voice, this one absolutely, intimately familiar. The shade stared back at her, and she forced her eyes to meet his, forced her gaze not to waiver, even as she thrust the sword forward, even as she felt it slice air, clothing, skin, muscle- felt the clone's body resist and then suddenly cease. It was easy, that motion. Perhaps too easy.

The shade sighed. "I suppose I know what will happen if I try to take that body now."

"Yes."

"Why must you be so difficult?"

She sighed. "I killed you once, Duncan. I didn't intend to have to do it again."

"Then why do it?" The man who had been Emperor once, Palpatine to the galaxy, Duncan to her, in private, raised an eyebrow at her, as he so often had while still alive.

"Because this is my world now! I fought for it, I killed for it- and I won't have it taken from me, not by you, not by anyone."

"Unrealistic, my dear." The shade moved towards the body.

"Take it," she hissed. "Take it. Do what you must, but know this and know it well: So too shall I. And what I must do is kill you."

"Why not spare me, for old times' sake? For memory of what we had?"

"I killed you because you betrayed what we might have had. To call on it now is beyond contempt."

"Yes, I always was that for you, wasn't I?"

"Not always, Duncan. Not always."

The shade slid into the body, and she could see it moving outward, taking over. He glanced down at the sword wound, already beginning to heal now.

She sighed. "Don't make me, please. Do it yourself and save me the trouble."

He approached, a hand extended. She raised the sword in answer, but still he moved forward, and she made no move to stop him, save that one. He extended his hand till it brushed across her cheek; in answer she flicked her wrist, and a thin line of blood, traced by the sword's blade, slashed its way across his cheek, a crimson diagonal.

"Why?" he asked at last. "You loved me once. Why couldn't we-?"

"Don't," she snapped. "You should know why. Times change, Duncan."

"Do they now, my dear Empress? Yes, I suppose they do. I do wish you'd not given that young man my titles, but-"

"He deserves them far more than you, Duncan. And make no mistake; I rule here."

He stepped forward, closer, closer, until when he spoke again they were nearly touching. She allowed him that close but no closer, the sword raised between them, a barrier. To reach her he would have to cross it. "I mistake nothing, child. As I mistake not that you loved me once."

"I was a child. I was also a fool. I know what you swore, and I know also that you lied. To me you will always be an oathbreaker, living or dead or something in-between."

"Gillian..."

"This pains me greatly, it always has. But I will do it. I will." She paused. "I had what they called religion once, Duncan. Do you know what I prayed for? I prayed that there was a hell, and that I'd see you there. I prayed you would have suffered longer than I, and that perhaps it would make things closer to even." She paused. "It hasn't happened yet. And more and more with each passing day I long to see you suffer as I did. So no, I won't spare you, not for the sake of old times or the sake of anything else."

"My last clone," he whispered. "My last, do you understand? If you kill me now it is final. You'll never have another chance to hurt me, and I will never be back. Never. So think carefully, choose wisely."

"My choice...was made long ago."

He saw the downstroke, might perhaps have avoided it if he were both very quick and very lucky, but he did not even try.

Carefully, she cleaned the blade before slipping it into its sheath oncemore.

"Damn you," she whispered, nudging the clone's body with her boot. It didn't stir. "Was I truly so foolish that I loved you once?"

For an instant she thought she sensed his presence again, thought she saw the shade standing beside her again. Surely not. But the whisper of a thought brushed across her mind, and she knew at once that it was not hers.

Farewell...my dear. Farewell.

* * *

She stood in the secret cavern below the Imperial Palace on the planet Byss, a room recently discovered and thus far unexplored. But she knew what she would find here.

She unsealed the door with a touch of her hand, and stepped into the room. Before her was a single Spaarti cloning cylinder, the last in the galaxy, already growing another clone. She sighed, shook her head, and gestured slightly with one finger, at empty air.

"Duncan, will you ever learn?" she asked softly, knowing that there would be no answer. "Even at the end, you still found it necessary to lie to me. You should have known how distasteful I'd find that. I'm afraid you're going to regret having done that."

From a small pouch on her belt she withdrew a carefully prepared explosive charge. She tested its weight in her hand, then set it and turned towards the door, tossing it over her shoulder with an almost negligent gesture.

"No more clones, Duncan."

She felt then another alien touch upon her mind- alien, but not unfamiliar.

Dearest Gillian...how I wish that I could hate you. My one failing, perhaps, that I cannot.

"No more lies, either. I'm finished with you, Duncan." And even as he might have responded, she felt a nonexistent wind, a force barely sensed, sweep away what remained of him, carrying the shade's presence off to whatever might lie beyond. She smiled sardonically as the muffled sound of an explosion trailed her along the corridor, and up the stairs, out towards the sunlight.

* * *

Author's notes:
I don't like clones. I also don't like the Dark Empire comics and what passes for their plotlines, and I think this story reflects that. I wrote this a while ago on the spur of the moment, because I was curious to see what might happen if the Palpatine clones did exist, and Gillian had to deal with them.

- C.A., 2001

About Palpatine's first name- Yes, I gave him one. I needed something for that poor, messed-up girl of Gillian Skywalker's youth to call him, and 'Duncan' is what I came up with.
If George Lucas ever bothers giving him a canon first name I may think about changing this. Or not. I've tried to replace Duncan once already, and the changes refuse to stick.

You argue with him. Me, I've given up.

-C.A, 2004

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