To those who read my other story; yes, this is the interlude chapter.

Chapters are short, but they get longer after chapter 5!

Darth Vader hurried along the corridor, boots echoing too loudly in the quiet hallway. He threw his Force sense wide, determining that the facility was completely empty.

It wouldn't be for long.

He cursed his luck, keying in the access code by the door. It was too soon. He wasn't ready yet. The experiment wasn't ready yet.

But he was left with no other options.

Well, he probably could stay in this mobile junk heap of a life support suit, with artificial organs, four prosthetics, and a faulty respirator, and try to fight off the Rebels that had been tailing him. While he was already short on energy. And said suit was already somewhat damaged due to the earlier battle.

That was only an option if he wanted to commit suicide.

He nearly sprinted in as soon as the door slid open, running to the large tank that held his clone.

He felt a crushing sense of dismay as he examined it. It was younger than he'd expected.

It's...a child? Barely ten years, I'd wager.

He wouldn't be able to do much with it, other than being able to play innocent rather convincingly. He wouldn't even be able to betray Palpatine, as he had planned.

But it was probably still better than this suit. At least he could escape the Rebels by sneaking into one of their ships...he'd be small enough to do that.

There was suddenly a spike in the Force. He whirled around, tilting his helmet skywards, gauging their distance and making the calculations. He had two hours, at best. That was barely enough time for the transfer.

Vader swore again and reached out to the clone's still-blank mind, hastily wrapping his memories, his feelings, his essence, into the copy.

Once he was reasonably sure the connection would hold, he began shutting down his life support systems one by one.

R&R!