"Pathetic." Vader wheezed under his mask, his breathing loud in the silence of the jungle clearing. He nudged the dead body of a Felucian warrior aside with his boot, shattering the spear that lay broken in the dirt. "This is the best defense that Felucia can offer?"
The clearing around him was a disaster. Blood dripped from the vines above, the smell of iron and the tang of ozone from his saber hanging in the thick atmosphere. Charred, rough-hewn shields and clubs littered the ground. No one had laid a hand on him. It had taken just moments, and left him feeling nothing but frustrated.
He made his way through the shimmering leaves, his feet slipping on the sand as it gave way to dunes. The atmosphere changed, no longer cloying and wet, but bitter and burning, scouring his filtermask. The trees parted, revealing a ledge overlooking a massive trench. And in its midst, the mouth of the Sarlacc, its maw working slowly, its tentacles twitching.
There, framed against the mouth of the chasm, was Shaak Ti.
She wore nothing that served no purpose: something to cover her breasts, a loincloth, and her muscular legs were naked, glistening with moisture. Her lekku were back, and her posture was tense with curiosity and unease. In her hand glowed a blue lightsaber, low and level. She gazed into the Dark Lord, cocking her head to one side, attempting and failing to pierce the cloying aura that surrounded him.
"Darth Vader," she said, her voice steady, but laced with uncertainty. "I feel… nothing from you. What sorcery is this?"
Vader halted a few metres from the pit's yawning rim, the Sarlacc's growls punctuating his respiration.
"Power, Master Ti," he replied, his tone cold and dead, yet still dangerous. "Concealment is just a taste of it." He gestured toward the jungle, then the remains of the village. "You believed that living with savages, instructing them to throw spears at a Sith Lord, was tactical? That this" — with his gloved hand, he indicated the pit, the jungle, and finally her — "was your brilliant plan to challenge the Empire?"
Shaak Ti didn't waver. She stood with her saber buzzing, the handle clenched firmly in her hand. Her gaze didn't falter from the masked helmet.
"Yes," she said, fiercely, but with a little question mark of insecurity. "Gather survivors. Train them. Fight back. The Force brought me here, out of the Temple."
Vader shook his head. "Your rebellion is trampled in the dirt. Your fighters are unable to keep up with me. And this fortification? This cave? Is this where you build your home?" He took a step forward, his boots shifting in the sand. "You play a child's game of hide and seek. Hoping that the galaxy forgets about you. Hoping that I forget you."
She ignored the provocation. Her breathing didn't falter, her sword steady. She edged closer, tense.
"Hope is not weakness, Lord Vader," she replied, unruffled despite having a Sarlacc pit behind her and a Dark Lord of the Sith in front of her. "Hope is what survives. When you snuff out a candle, there are still stars shining. The Sith have come to power before, but they have always been brought down. Your Empire will meet the same end."
Her calm certainty sliced through the wreckage.
Vader activated his lightsaber. Its red glow illuminated the ridgeline. He didn't charge. He stalked. Slowly. Relentlessly. He admired her calmness—this Jedi who did not cower as the end came. That was not typical. He intended to change it.
"Then let us extinguish it together," he replied, his words barely above a mechanical growl.
She struck first, a precise exploratory slash. He deflected it with a wrist-flick, and their blades crackled as they touched. The force of the impact trembled through her arms, but he stepped back and allowed her to pivot. She struck once more, a flurry of perfectly-executed clean slashes. Her technique was faultless, her motions fluid and potent. But to him, all of it was easy to deflect. He parried, blocked, sidestepped never back-stepping, never turning the tide to finish the fight. He was trying to gauge her, reading the rhythms of the terror she was trying to suppress.
It was fun for a second. It was just like the good old days. Blades ringing, the syncopated beat of strike and counterstrike, and here, for the first time in years, an opponent who actually knew what she was doing… It almost brought back memories of the duel on Mustafar. He was stronger now, of course. He was faster. He was rebuilt in body as well as name. But it was fun. Almost. Then it was just a chore. Her style was too polished, too regular. Her courage was too brave, too stubborn. Noble. Pointless. He wasn't even really dueling her. He was just playing with her. This was just a game of Let's See How Long It Takes to Kill the Girl. Ironic. He was bored. The night was cold.
He ceased defending. In an instant, he pivoted, his lightsaber roaring with a fury of overhand blows, each one a bone-splitter that would have crumpled armor. Shaak Ti blocked and parried and deflected, but he forced her backward, step by step, with his sheer strength. The sand crunched under her boots. Her saber flared in rhythmic denials against his red rim, but he seemed to have no end of attack. Her grunts made her swallow her breath. The Sarlacc's fanged tentacles lashed the sand at her heels.
When he hit her last lock, it broke away. She heard the crack, saw the sparks fly. Her lightsaber was snapped in two. Shaak Ti took a step back, astonished, and as she did, her ruined hilt flew out of her grasp, spinning into the pit. It was gone, and Shaak Ti was left facing him without a lightsaber. She had the pit's edge and nothing more. Shaak Ti could feel the Sarlacc growling, its tentacles questing.
Vader switched off his blade. The red light disappeared, and for a moment the only illumination was the jungle fungi and the pit. He moved forward, slow and deliberate.
"Your talents are impressive, Master Ti," he said with his signature rasp. "Your futile attempts at resistance, admirable. Not many Jedi die so calmly."
He raised a hand. The Force pulsed through the muggy air.
She stopped breathing. The understanding came too late. The Force crashed down on her like a mighty wave, battering her physically and mentally. Her body tensed, then relaxed, and she fell to the sand, her lekku draped across the edge of the pit, the Sarlacc's tentacles twitching just out of reach.
Vader loomed over her. The hum of his life support was the only sound he made. He felt no mercy for her, only an appraisal of her strength, her resilience, her potential. He leaned, servos whirring, and picked her up easily. She slumped against his armor as he turned away from the pit, and he bore her off without a look back.
The walk back through the jungle was wordless. Vader stepped on more glowing fungi, crushing them. The air was still thick with the musky scent of carnage. If any of the Felucians had survived, they did not make themselves known. They did not try to attack him again.
He pushed out of the undergrowth and stepped into the clearing where his shuttle waited, its sharp-edged form stark against the dusk. He strode across to it, without a pause. He walked up the ramp.
In the cool, dim shuttle bay, he laid Shaak Ti's unconscious form on a bench of duracrete, and snapped binders around her wrists and ankles. Beads of perspiration stood out on her face and neck, but she breathed. He regarded her for a moment.
"Your attempt to defy me was pointless," his voice echoed off the walls. "But your will… unbroken. I think that could be useful."
The Lambda lifted smoothly from the ground and pierced Felucia's sky, before slipping out into space. Vader took the pilot's chair, disregarding the shipping lanes. He plotted a course for the Unknown Regions, for a secret base orbiting a dead star, where the Emperor could not reach him. The stars trailed into blurs as the shuttle accelerated to hyperspace.
They came out again around the base, a twisted and ravaged chunk of black stone, hollowed out into a fastness, equipped with hidden batteries and shielded docks. Obsidian Veil. Vader brought the shuttle inside, to a hangar hewn from the asteroid's core. The doors thudded shut behind him, a resounding final sound, leaving only a stony silence.
Vader carried Shaak Ti down the gleaming black corridors. Her loose head rested on the dark plates covering his chest. His helmet's ventilator and breathing mask diminished her scent, but he could feel the cooling perspiration on her skin. He walked past detention chambers and various experimental facilities, heading toward the heart of the space station.
Finally he halted in front of an anonymous door, which sighed open, to show a room that was different from any other in the fortress. Soft golden light seeped into plush pile carpets and a circular, low-to-the-floor bed, shrouded in a tangle of dark silks. There was the hint of a strange scent, perhaps incense, in the otherwise antiseptic environment of the station.
He laid her on the bed. Her lekku cascaded over the pillows, curling like ropes in the soft light. He released the cuffs. She didn't wake—her breathing steady, her eyes flicking behind her eyelids.
Vader didn't move. He simply observed. Her breathing. The flutter of her eyelids as she dreamed. The steadfast refusal of her will to surrender.
###
Shaak Ti opened her eyes to the soft whir of the climate control and the musty scent of ozone mixed with the sweet hint of flowers. Her head pounded, but the pressure of Vader's stun blast was gone. She sat up on the silk sheets, squinting in the warm amber light.
The room was bigger, nicer—black carpet, good furniture, no cuffs. Disorientation vied with alarm. She pulled her feet to the ground; thick carpet muffled her feet. She still had her clothes on, but not her saber.
The door hissed and swung open as she came near. The hallway on the other side was lined with black stone, quiet and dark. There were no guards. There were no droids. There were only doors, one after another, all unmarked. The further she went, the cooler the air became. The metallic taste of it began to disappear. She could feel a thrumming in the floor, a gentle hum, like the beat of a far-off drum. She walked toward it.
This opened out onto a larger gallery. A viewport stretched out across the width of the room, looking out at the great white arc of a dead star, and the wispy tendrils of nebula it bathed in its ghostly glow. Standing before this view was Darth Vader.
She halted just before the door. The sound of his ventilator made the silence palpable. She did not speak. Her quarters, the warmth, the shackles off, the quiet; all part of the show. She would not play. Her silence nudged him, expecting him to respond.
"Curiosity is a Jedi trait," said Vader finally, his voice somehow projecting through the vacuum without effort. He still hadn't turned. "You are curious as to why you still draw breath." A pause. The light of the star caught on the helmet's rim. "The Sarlacc was death. This…" The gesture of the gloved hand took in the fortress. "…is life."
But Shaak Ti did not rise. Her arms still crossed, her lekku immobile. Mercy? From the one who brought destruction to her Order? The idea was laughable. Interrogation? Deception? Another form of torture? But this, her own quarters, no bonds… It made no sense.
"Life implies value?" she finally managed, the words steady even though her mouth was dry. "What value could Darth Vader possibly have for a Jedi Master he pursued all over Felucia?"
Vader swiveled. Slowly. Intentionally. His mask trained on her, expressionless.
"Not the Jedi," he replied, his vocoder modulating the sharpness from his voice. "The spirit. The courage."
He stepped closer, the noise of his boot ringing in the gallery. "You looked the abyss in the eye and it did not frighten you. That flame… it lingers." He drew to a short distance, not striking, observing. Gauging. "It must… be tended."
Something colder than the darkness around her crept over her. Power. That was the wrong word. This was not Anakin's fury. Nor was it Sidious's spite. It was... chillier, more calculating, but with an appetite of some kind.
Her gaze tightened. "Cultivation? To do what? To aid your Empire? To nourish your darkness?" She stood firm, her shoulders set. "My soul is not for you to take."
Vader said nothing. His breathing mask glinted. Then, with measured tranquility, he lifted his hand. Open-fisted. His fingers curled—not a menace, but a beckon.
The Force rolled from him, not sharp, but heavy and resonant. It wasn't pain or fear. It was warmth, sinking into her bones. A pulse that reached past defenses, offering not domination but recognition. It felt like sunlight breaking a long winter. A promise of strength shared, not taken. Of being seen.
She struggled to breathe. A shiver crept through her posture. In that moment, her bravado slipped and she felt something that she refused to identify as desire.
"I can feel it," Vader's voice lowered. He sounded almost… personal. Like the mask didn't exist. "The hollowness in my life… the flames that burn within you. Share them. Be the warmth to my darkness."
Shaak Ti flinched, her lekku trembling. The Force swirled around Vader like a black whirlpool, but in the centre of it was a warm, almost comforting presence. It was calling to her, calling to the ache she had felt since the Temple, since the despair of living on when she had been meant to die. It was calling to the part of her that wanted to be part of something again, something more powerful than the Jedi had ever been.
She unclenched her fists. She looked at the mask that obscured his face, her expression a little gentler now. For an instant, the implacable Jedi Master appeared shaken—hungry.
"Yes…" The word escaped, low and defeated. "Yes."
There was a low rumble, a vibration that seemed to come from the chest plate of Vader's suit—a low rumble that wasn't the respirator, a low rumble that was almost…satisfied. He took one long stride to bring him closer.
His gloved fingers lifted, then tenderly rounded her cheek, gloved fingers cool on her perspiration-filmed skin. She didn't pull back. She nuzzled, lifting her hand to overlap his. Her eyes drifted shut. Her eyelashes fluttered. All defiance gone. What replaced it was a silence. A resignation. A patient submission.