Let us go then, you and I,

When the star destroyers are spread out across the sky

Like a smuggler frozen, cased in carbonite.

Let me wait, in half forgotten ports

My lord meditates on signs of vague import,

Through restless nights in light freighter hunts

For protocol droids and their sidekick runts,

Losing ships to asteroids,

Imagine the other grand admirals’ schadenfreude

That prompts a case of indigestion . . .

Oh, do not ask my meaning!

Bounty hunters? This is demeaning.

On Hoth the rebels come and die

Talking of Seven Samurai

The X-Wings rub their backs against the deflector screens,

The Y-Wings there, firing on me through the deflector screens,

Locked their blasters onto the corners of them,

Grinning lingered on the tools that praise my strategy,

Let roll from off their hulls my words of rebel calumny,

Slipped by, the rebels, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it there was no force choke in the offing

Listened to the astromechs a-beep.

And indeed I will lock blasters

On rebels that fly the void,

Rubbing my nose into their secret base;

There will be Yavin, there will be Hoth

To garrison and probe (it pays to be paranoid),

There will be time to orbitally bombard

And time for Grand Moffs that complain my master is too hard,

Time for you and time for me

And a fully armed and operational battle station,

A thousand systems of genocidal recreation

Turning planets into asteroid fields.

On Hoth the rebels come and die

Talking of Seven Samurai.

And indeed there will be time

To check older codes against the new,

To show the power of many against the few,

To polish up my medals, red and blue—

[They will say: “How his tricks are wearing thin!”]

Accept my lot with squared and jutting chin

When my lord’s back’s turned, a knowing grin—

[They will say: “How Lord Vader’s patience must be growing thin!”]

Do I dare

Sense a disturbance in the Force?

In a minute there is time

For editions and retractions a Jedi mind trick could reverse.

For I have ordered them, ordered them all—

Have crewed the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have crewed my life with storm-troop goons;

I know clones dying with a dying fall,

And Alderaan, beneath the Death Star’s doom

The soundless, vacuum-muted boom.

I have spread the fleet already, spread them all—

The ships that wait to fire on the emperor’s uttered phrase,

And when Akbar finally realizes it’s a trap,

When I am in the thick and engaged at point-blank range

Which orders should I snap?

To wait while the Emperor rattles off bad clichés

Which ship should I consume?

And my ships have spawned many TIE fighters,

Spawned them all fighters, round and blue, robust

[But flaming wrecks if hit by dust]

Is it the a wing pilot’s finesse

That makes their cockpits so fluoresce?

My planners huddle round their monitors, and brag about the fight.

And should I then presume?

And where should I begin?

Shall I say I have ordered at dawn the leveling of quiet monasteries

And watched the smoke that rises from the bodies

Of lonely monks in habits, through turbolasered windows?

I should have been a pair of rancor claws

Scuttling along Tatooine’s duney seas.

And my suspicion, my percipience, sleeps so fitfully!

Soothed by control panels. Rebels . . . beaten . . . but still they linger

Stretched on the forest moon beside you and me

Should I, when Solo wrecks the shield devices,

Decide this battle has reached a crisis?

But I have planned and ordered, planned and thought,

Though I have seen my head [almost Force-choked] with veins enough to shatter

—I have my orders, and I’ll grow no fatter

If Lord Vader sees my courage flicker,

And I have seen the Dark Lord of the Sith hold my throat, and snicker,

In short, I am afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the blasts, the hyperspace, to flee

Among the shattered fleet, some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth the while

To have written of the Empire with a smile

To have squeezed the galaxy down into a ball,

Become a moisture farmer, some career digression,

Or better: “I am Obi Wan, blue ghosting from the dead

To tell you all, I shall tell you all—”

If Lucas comes in, scratching at his head should say:

“That’s not what I meant at all.

We’ll have to re-release this whole trilogy again.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

Another battle, more deaths, a DVD release,

Just how much money does the man think he can make of this franchise—

This much, and so much more—

It’s impossible for Lucas to say just what he means!

It’s like grave robbers exhumed Kurosawa and splashed his guts up on the screen!

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling at the console, and breaking the 4th wall

And turning to the display should say:

“That’s not it at all,

That’s not what I meant at all.”

No! I am not Luke Skywalker, nor was meant to be;

I am an imperial admiral, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise Lord Vader, no doubt an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, meticulous,

Full of good strategy,

(Get those deflector screens online,

I don’t want anything getting through!)

Where was I?

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .

I hope to count my pension gold.

Shall I find a bulkhead to dive behind? Do I dare at this last to preach?

I shall wear my best dress grays as I hear the warning klaxons screech.

I hear my deck crew terrified, shouting, each to each.

INTENSIFY FORWARD FIREPOWER!

I have seen them floating to me in the void

Combing the white hair of the stars blown black

When pressurized atmosphere to space is sucked back.

We have lingered in the chambers of this ship

Buzzed by A-wings, painted red and brown,

Until one breaches hull, and in the void we drown.



Thanks to kadath for setting me straight on continuity and sovay for COPY EDITING THE WHOLE THING.