(AN: Yes, I'm going to wrap this story up in only ten chapters!)

(Hopefully it's done well. It was certainly an interesting trip, one that I enjoyed going on, and playing copious amounts of the Star Wars soundtrack to as well. Here's the big climax!)

(I had intended on having Boba Fett appear, but thought that I've got enough characters already to deal with that I don't have to bring in one other person who doesn't really add much to the story.)

Naber-1138.

In hindsight, it was not exactly a very clever alias. The words were the first five letters of her surname before she became Queen. The numbers happened to be the favorites of her husband, though he never told her why. It wasn't very clever, but it was clever enough. As Padme Amidala, she was trapped on Alderaan, to be kept secret forever, hidden away from Darth Vader and the Empire for the rest of her days.

As Naber-1138, she could do things. She could make unauthorized transmissions off-world to Rebel cells close to, if not in, Alderaan. She could make contacts, arrange meetings, orchestrate her rescue from Bail Organa's unofficial 'house arrest', and lead these young men on a mission that was surely a suicide attack.

Why was she doing this, she wondered. Was it guilt, the realization that she was part of what had brought her husband down into the dark side? Was it sadness? She had been lonely and empty during her time as Queen. She had her bodyguards, who were privy to her council more-so than the worrisome Captain Panaka or the well-meaning, elderly Sio Bibble, but she had no real friends. A queen never had friends, only people seeking their own advancement through their service to her. As Senator, her life became even more lonely over the next ten years, even though she once again had guards, like Captain Typho, and the hand-maid bodyguards such as Dorme and Corde, who knew her so well. But she still had no friends.

Then Anakin came back into her life, and the void in her empty life had been filled. Then they were married, albeit in secret. Whether or not she had brought him about to this point, of what happened on Mustafar three years ago, she fought on. Though her beloved stretched out with the Dark Side to silence her words, she fought on. Though she was on the verge of death in that cold delivery room on Polis Massa, aided only by Obi-wan Kenobi and the sudden arrival of dear Dorme, she fought on. Though she watched her son and daughter get ripped away from her, she fought on.

She lied to these soldiers, leading them on a death march against an invincible foe.

But she had to know. She believed it with all of her heart, and now was the moment of truth. The hand might not need to be killed, if she could call him back.

Such thoughts swam through her head as the transport came to rest on Messiana's surface.

The soldiers piled out of the transport one by one, weapons at the ready. A silver-domed astromech with a green body rolled out behind them.

"R6," Padme said to the droid. "Show us the map."

A three-dimensional, holographic map erupted from one of the ports on the stubby astromech's body.

"Pay attention," Padme said, calling them to the map. "We've landed here," She pointed at a location in the mountains. "Our reports say that the main mining facility will be here," She pointed to a complex a few clicks away from their landing site. "which is where Darth Vader is overseeing the operation. If you see our target, don't fire without my orders. Understood?"

"Yes, Naber!" the soldiers nodded. She noticed that many of them were looking rather skiddish.

"Steady!" she said. "We can't have you losing heart on us yet."

They nodded. Without another word, they took off, weapons at the ready, going in the direction they had been assigned.

Operation: Messiana had begun.

High above the planet, Bail and Raymus sat in anxious silence on board the Tantive IV.

"Shouldn't we go down there, Your Highness?" Antilles suggested.

"We'd be outnumbered, Raymus." Bail returned. "Besides, what can we do? Declare our open support for the Rebellion? Alderaan would be doomed."

"It doesn't feel right, sir." Antilles stated. "Betraying our friends like this."

Of course it didn't feel right, Bail thought. Nothing has ever felt right since before the Clone Wars.

"What about the fleet?" Raymus queried after a moment of silence. "I don't think they'll want us spying on their project."

Bail Organa nodded.

"Perhaps you're right," he stated. "Very well, take us down there...but as far away from their facility as possible."

I'd rather not fight, he mused as Raymus Antilles took the Tantive IV into a position to land on Messiana. But I'd also rather not expose Padme to the Empire by landing near where that ship landed.

It was easier to sneak into the mining complex than they had originally thought. Apparently, the Empire was arrogant enough to believe that no star-ship could slip past the fleet orbiting above. Padme was now leading her team of commandos through the belly of this massive mining facility.

With painful familiarity, she was reminded of when she and Anakin were being chased through the droid foundries on Geonosis just prior to the outbreak of the War.

They came to their first way-point. Padme gave the signal and one of the commandos placed a timed ion explosive charge by a large piece of machinery. She then took point and led them onto their next target.

Alright Dorme, she thought. You want the Empire's project stalled, I'll do that for you.

At least this mission wouldn't be totally useless.

Way-point two was coming up, then they would be almost on top of their target. They set the charges and now they were crossing a platform that overlooked the main plant. The engineer droids and slaves put to work here were gathering minerals and smelting them into metals, which were then welded into simple, geometric shapes, mostly quadrilateral shapes, and shipping then off into large cargo-hoppers.

Just then, they heard the sound of armored boots. The hissing sound of a breathing apparatus could be heard, and, to their shock, they saw a figure wearing a black cloak and hood walking with a group of storm-troopers down beneath them.

"There's our target!" Padme whispered. "Vex, you're on point!"

"Yes, Naber!"

"Drop a flash grenade down into the middle of them once they pass beneath us," she ordered. "Use only a flash grenade! Then we drop in on them! Remember, the target is mine."

"Right!"

They were now closing the distance. Just about ten meters away, they guessed. Padme's heart was racing. Just below was the one she was looking for: Darth Vader. This all seemed too easy.

"Now!"

Vex clicked the flash grenade active and dropped it down. The commandos hid their eyes as the flash went off, confounding the storm-troopers.

"Go, go, go, go, go!" Padme shouted.

One by one, the Rebels jumped off the walk-way, weapons at the ready. They fired a few blast shots into the confused storm-troopers. They fell easily. The figure in black, however, remained stoic and unmoved by the blast.

All the rebel soldiers turned their blasters towards the figure. Even Padme did the same, her grip tightening.

"Darth Vader," she began. "You're surrounded. Give yourself up."

The sound of machines endlessly slaving away with the production of the metals for the Empire's secret project echoed on all around them.

The figure suddenly laughed. The soldiers were shaking in their boots where they stood.

"Steady!" Padme barked back at them. She would not lose here, they had come too far to fail.

The figure raised both hands up to remove its hood, pressing a button on its bracer. There was a strange hissing sound, quite alien for any human, even a cybernetically augmented one.

"Stupid human!" the figure growled. It tossed back its hood, revealing a bald face, covered in reptilian scales, with a mask over its face that made a mechanical breathing sound.

"It's a trap!" Padme cried out.

Sure enough, from out of the darkness of the mining complex around them, elite storm-troopers approached, armed to the teeth. These were none of the new recruits of the Empire who couldn't shoot straight at point blank range, but seasoned clone troopers from the War, still decked out in the old Type-II armor, now damasked with red markings.

The rebel commandos never saw it coming, and didn't stand a chance. There was no cross-fire, only slaughter: the rebels never got the chance to open fire as the clones gunned them down.

Only Padme remained alive. All the clones now had their weapons aimed at her. The reptilian creature, looking more like a hybrid between some gender-less humanoid race and a Trandoshan, approached Padme with all the air of a conqueror holding their prisoner in the palm of their hand.

"You're no doubt wondering why you're still alive," he hissed. "It seems Lord Vader has other things in mind for you, my pretty." Shivers went down Padme's spine as the creature caressed her chin with his gloved hand. There was no warmth beneath it.

But Padme had one last trick up her sleeve. One that none of them, not even this hybrid decoy, could have foreseen. For tied directly to her com-link were the detonators for the two charges they set.

And it was now just within her hand.

Press. An explosion went off. Press, there went another. The clones and the decoy looked to see what it was, and Padme suddenly took off. The alarms were now going off. The mining complex was on alert.

"Set your blasters to stun!" the decoy roared at the elite troopers. "Lord Vader wants her alive."

But Padme was not waiting around. She had to flee, had to make it back to the ship. She found a service ladder and practically flew up it in order to reach the top level. Once there, it would be a simple matter of finding where she and the other commandos had broken in and she would be safely out of the base.

She had still failed to find Darth Vader.

From where they were landed, Bail and Raymus saw the explosions from the side of the facility. Alarms were going off, TIE fighters were scrambling overhead, and no doubt messages were now being relayed back to the fleet that they were under attack.

"Get us out of here!" Bail said. "We'll go back into space and hide in the asteroid field."

"Sir, the odds of surviving a trip through an asteroid field are almost 4000 to 1." Antilles commented.

"You're starting to sound like that protocol droid." Bail commented.

"Well, he's told me a few things..."

"Later! Let's get out of here now!"

Antilles quickly started the take-off procedures, making sure the ship was ready to blast back into space. Organa, however, feared the worst. Padme was still down there. With luck, she would die in the explosion.

If not, she would be interrogated. Rumors of heinous, inhumane torture devices used by the Imperial inquisitors circulated like wild-fire. Though Bail Organa didn't pay much attention to rumors, he did not want to find out that this one was grounded in fact and pay for it with his life once they discovered the truth.

Padme was panting heavily as she ran out of the facility. Years of hiding on Alderaan had taken its toll on her. She was definitely out of combat shape since her younger days. Curse Bail for hiding her away like he did. She should have been allowed out into the world, permitted to fight for the Rebellion...

Allowed to search for her love.

Casting her eyes about her, she saw a black-clad figure upon the hill just a few meters away from where she now stood. Her heart dropped: was this another trap, or was this the real thing? She ran toward the nearest path up the hill. She had not the strength to fight if it was a trap, but she knew not what would happen if it really was Darth Vader.

Don't think like that, she told herself. No matter what you see, there's still good inside him. I'm certain of it...I hope...

She pushed herself back up to her feet as she gained the summit of the hill. The figure in black was much taller than she had remembered. It was clad all in black, with a great black cloak obscuring the figure in the dead wind. A black helmet there was upon the head, and she heard the rhythmic, mechanical rasp of breathing that so many of the Rebellion feared. Merely his breath was enough to make her task of finding people fool-hardy enough to take him on that much harder by reason of their fear.

Fear that she now felt.

"Anakin!" she panted. "Anakin, before you say anything, I know that's you underneath that suit. I'm positive!"

The tall, dark figure turned slowly around to look at her face-to-face. A dark mask there was beneath the helmet, with a mouth-piece that grinned like a skull. An apparatus of several lights and gauges sat as a breastplate upon this mammoth creature.

"They told me you were dead." Darth Vader spoke at last. His voice was deep, much more than she had remembered. It almost sounded menacing.

"No," she shook her head. "I held out...for you, Anakin."

The figure said nothing more, merely gazing at her through the hideous spectrum of red light.

"I was wrong," she began. "I tempted you...I see that now. I brought you to this!"

"I chose this for myself." the dark figure spoke again. Every word it said, Padme felt even more distant from this creature.

"No, I remember," she continued, taking a step closer. "You wanted to save me...from your nightmares, your visions. Well, you've turned to the Dark Side...and now you have me. What next?"

Darth Vader said nothing.

"Please, Anakin!" she was now much closer to him. "Let's leave this place! Leave all this behind, go away in secret! I-I'll find some way to heal you, keep you alive without this armor, and we'll have the chance to be together."

He looked down at her, his scarred face emotionless beneath the mask.

"You should not have come back."

"I came back because of you!"

The wind howled, the sound of the alarms in the background, and the breathing of Darth Vader in the fore-ground, blaring in Padme's ears. For one moment, there was nothing: no Rebellion, no Empire, no Republic, no Jedi, nothing that they once knew - just these two, standing alone on Messiana.

"You mean nothing to me."

Padme was suddenly taken back. How could he say that? She had been there that night on Naboo, when he told her how he truly felt about her. She could tell, even then, that she meant so much to him. He later told her about afterward on Geonosis, when she fell from the LAAT: he was ready to leave the Jedi Order for her. She even recalled that one night on Coruscant, where they had finally succumbed to their lusts, throwing all caution to the wind and made love in her apartment. It meant something to her, all of it.

"I don't believe it!" she breathed, taking a step back. Tears were now coming down from her eyes. "It's not true!" Vader remained unmoved by her sobbing, by her statements. It was even worse than Mustafar.

"You liar!" she screamed, beating her fists upon the armored breastplate of the Dark Lord of the Sith. "I don't believe it! I loved you, and you loved me."

Now it was Darth Vader's turn to answer her.

"Anakin Skywalker loved you," he said, his voice low and threatening. He took a step forward. Out of fear, she took a step back. Once more, as if in mockery of her fearful retreat, he stepped forward again.

"And now he is dead."

The words fell upon Padme like a wave of burning hot lava. It couldn't be true, it just couldn't be. She had not come so close to dying just for this!

The right hand of Darth Vader rose up, formed like a menacing claw.

Padme could not breathe. Her hands moved up to her throat as she gagged and gasped for air. She was starting to see stars pass before her eyes. The menacing figure kept walking towards her. Now she was floating above the earth, suspended by Darth Vader's power.

The left hand reached into the recesses of the cloak, taking out something small, cylindrical and black.

"Anakin! N-No!" she begged.

In one instant movement, she was thrust closer to the form of the Dark Lord of the Sith. The blade of a blood-red lightsaber emerged from her back. The crushing force upon her wind-pipe was gone, but now her heart was seared shut by the burning energy of the blade. It was not the blue sword of a Jedi, the one her lover had wielded into battle against the forces of evil.

This was a weapon of the Sith, held in the grip of one who was no more Anakin Skywalker, but a weapon of evil. A Dark Lord of the Sith.

Darth Vader.

The blade vanished, and the Dark Lord released his victim, her body falling to the ground before him.

Padme Amidala was finally dead.

Good, a voice said in Darth Vader's mind. It was the voice of his master, the one he hated more than the whole galaxy combined, yet the only one he had left. Now, you are invincible.

The sound of foot-steps echoed nearby. The informant, Hura Nagar, Tarkin's 'Agent One', walked forward, kneeling before Darth Vader. He was as fanatically loyal as those Noghri, willing to sacrifice themselves for the one who was using them for his own ends.

He merely looked down at the body of the woman that Anakin Skywalker had loved, the woman he had married, and had a child with - a child that was now dead, most likely. He could not sense their presence anywhere in the galaxy. His master was right. With no more ties to the weak man, he, Darth Vader, was now invincible.

"Get rid of it." Darth Vader growled angrily at Hura Nagar, as he slowly marched away.

In space, the Tantive IV was now being surrounded by the fleet. Their departure from the planet had not gone unnoticed. The mammoth Destroyer was directly ahead, closing in for the kill. Captain Conan Motti was now hurling threats across at the ship for entering restricted Imperial space.

Bail Organa was ready to surrender. It seemed that there was no hope. Just moments ago, the freighter had exploded on the planet's surface. If Padme was in it, she was surely dead by now. There was no longer a reason to stay in the system.

Just then, another ship appeared on the scanner.

"It's another CR90 corvette." Antilles stated. His expression lightened as he read the markings that appeared on the read-out. "It's the Sundered Heart!"

The radio came on as Motti now hurled threats at the new-comer.

"Sundered Heart, you are trespassing in restricted Imperial space." he voiced. "Stand by to be boarded."

"Request denied," a voice retorted on the other end.

Bail's heart jumped when he heard that voice.

"On what grounds?" Motti asked.

"The Tantive IV is part of my diplomatic mission to the planets of the nearby sector." Queen Breha Organa returned. "We must have gotten separated."

"What did the details of your mission entail, Your Highness?" Motti asked with obvious sarcasm. "Protecting sympathizers for the Rebellion from due retribution?"

"No, captain." she returned. "We were offering humanitarian aid to systems loyal to the Empire who have been affected by Rebel terrorists."

There was a moment of radio silence. Bail did not believe that Captain Motti would buy it.

Then...

"This is restricted space," he announced. "Leave at once, and take the Tantive IV with you."

Bail Organa breathed a sigh of relief. He was suddenly thankful that he had let slip where he would be going. If not, there was no way he could have survived.

"Antilles?"

"Yes, Your Highness?"

"Set a course for home." Bail sighed, eager to be back on Alderaan.

On the Sundered Heart...

"They bought it!" Captain Colton exclaimed happily.

"Well done, Your Highness!" the golden protocol droid C-3PO congratulated. Breha merely smiled, then watched as the Tantive IV shot off toward the coordinates that Captain Colton stated led back to Alderaan.

"Captain, set your course for Alderaan." she commanded.

"With pleasure, Your Highness."

The Sundered Heart turned about-face, the skilled hands of the captain inputing the hyperspace coordinates with ease. The ship vanished to a pin-point of light, leaving the Messiana system behind for good.

THE END

(AN: Yes, that was in fact the Conan Motti, the one whose lack of faith in the Force Darth Vader found disturbing in ANH.)

(Well, did you expect a tragedy to end on a happy note? Other than that, I hope you enjoyed it. I still decided to make Darth Vader the one killing Padme, to go along with the whole 'Greek tragic hero' thing, where he tries to prevent her death by falling to the Dark Side but [eventually] is the cause of it. Played "The Emperor Dies" theme from ROTJ while writing Padme's death: you know, the theme that's playing when he's using Force Lightning on Luke. It's one of my favorite pieces from ROTJ.)

(Concerning Dorme, Nola Valor and Hura Nagar, their stories will be told later on, but in their own right.)

(Once again, I hope you've enjoyed this little 're-telling' of mine)