The Kitchen Maid

The Kitchen Maid
The Lady of Shalott
the night watch by rembrandt
the Night Watch
"If it's a fight you cannot win—well, my boy, there are always alternatives tofighting…" The true size of the battle station became apparent as the freighter was pulledcloser and closer. Running around the station's equator was an artificial cluster ofmetal mountains, docking ports stretching beckoning fingers nearly two kilometersabove the surface. Now only a miniscule speck against the gray bulk of the station, the MillenniumFalcon was sucked toward one of those steel pseudopods and finally swallowed by it.A lake of metal closed off the entryway, and the freighter vanished as if it had neverexisted. Vader stared at the motley array of stars displayed on the conference-room mapwhile Tarkin and Admiral Motti conferred nearby. Interestingly, the first use of themost powerful destructive machine ever constructed had seemingly had no influenceat all on that map, which in itself represented only a tiny fraction of this section of onemodest-sized galaxy. It would take a microbreakdown of a portion of this map to reveal a slightreduction in spatial mass, caused by the disappearance of Alderaan. Alderaan, withits many cities, farms, factories, and towns—and traitors, Vader reminded himself. Despite his advances and intricate technological methods of annihilation, theactions of mankind remained unnoticeable to an uncaring, unimaginably vast universe.If Vader's grandest plans ever came to pass, all that would change. He was well aware that despite all their intelligence and drive, the vastness andwonder were lost on the two men who continued to chatter monkeylike behind him.Tarkin and Motti were talented and ambitious, but they saw things only on the scale ofhuman pettiness. It was a pity, Vader thought, that they did not possess the scope tomatch their abilities. Still, neither man was a Dark Lord. As such, little more could be expected ofthem. These two were useful now, and dangerous, but someday they, like Alderaan,would have to be swept aside. For now he could not afford to ignore them. Andwhile he would have preferred the company of equals, he had to admit reluctantly thatat this point, he had no equals.