"Pathetic." Vader's voice rasped through his mask, harsh against the sudden stillness of the jungle clearing. He shoved aside the limp body of a fallen Felucian, its splintered spear lying in the dirt. "Is this all Felucia can offer in defense?"
Around him lay a circle of ruin. Vines dripped with blood, the heavy air thick with iron and the bite of ozone from his saber. Crude shields and weapons smoldered, useless. None of his opponents had touched him. The fight was over in minutes, and it left him with nothing but the weight of disappointment.
He moved through the glowing foliage, the ground sloping into loose, sandy grit. The air shifted—less chokingly humid, now dry and acrid, stinging against his filters. The trees opened to a ridge, and below spread a vast scar in the land. At its center yawned the Sarlacc pit, its beak flexing faintly, its tentacles restless.
And there, silhouetted at the edge of the maw, stood Shaak Ti.
Her garb was stripped to what was useful: a dark top, a simple loincloth, her powerful limbs bare and gleaming with sweat. Her lekku were tied back, her stance taut with focus and uncertainty. A blue blade lit her hand, held low, steady. She stared at the Dark Lord, head tilted, trying and failing to see through the suffocating shroud around him.
"Darth Vader," she called, her voice firm though edged with doubt. "I sense… nothing from you. What trick is this?"
Vader stopped a few meters from the pit's crumbling edge, the Sarlacc's low groans underscoring his mechanical breath.
"It is power, Master Ti," he said, voice flat, stripped of menace yet no less chilling. "Hiding my presence is only a fragment of it." He motioned to the jungle behind him, then to the shattered settlement. "You thought sheltering among primitives, teaching them to throw sticks at a Sith Lord, was strategy? Was this"—his gloved hand swept over the pit, the jungle, and finally her—"your grand design to oppose the Empire?"
Shaak Ti didn't flinch. Her saber hummed softly, her grip tight but steady. Her eyes never left the blank mask.
"Yes," she said, clear and defiant though a thread of doubt lingered beneath. "To gather survivors. To train them. To resist. The Force led me here, away from the Temple's fall."
Vader tilted his head, a gesture that carried only cold amusement. "Your resistance lies broken in the mud. Your warriors couldn't slow my stride. And this refuge—this hiding place—was your foundation?" He stepped closer, sand crunching under his boot. "You hid like a child, hoping the galaxy would forget you. Hoping I would forget you."
She didn't rise to the taunt. Her breathing stayed even, her blade unwavering. She shifted slightly, ready.
"Hope is not weakness, Lord Vader," she answered, calm even with the Sarlacc yawning behind her and the Dark Lord before her. "It is the spark that endures. Extinguish one, and others remain. The Sith have risen before, and they have always fallen. Your Empire will share that fate."
Her calm conviction cut sharper than the ruin surrounding them.
Vader's blade came alive with a snap-hiss, crimson light spilling across the ridge. He didn't rush her. He advanced at a steady, suffocating pace. He respected her composure—this Jedi who met death with quiet defiance instead of fear. It was rare. It was something he meant to break.
"Then let us extinguish it together," he said, his voice a low mechanical growl.
Her first strike was sharp and probing. He brushed it aside with a flick of his wrist, sparks leaping where their blades met. The jolt rattled her arms, but he gave her space, letting her circle. She pressed again, a storm of clean, precise blows. Her form was textbook, her movements smooth and powerful. But to him, it was all effortless to repel. He parried, blocked, sidestepped—never retreating, never countering to end it. He was studying her, feeling the pulse of the fear she tried to bury.
For a moment, the old thrill stirred. The clash of sabers, the rhythm of attack and defense, the rare presence of an opponent with real skill—it brushed against memories of Mustafar. His body, rebuilt into a weapon, moved with ruthless efficiency. His strength dwarfed hers. But the thrill died quickly. Her technique was predictable, her defiance steady but hollow. Noble, yes. But futile. This was no true duel. It was sparring with a fighter already doomed. Boredom settled over him, colder than the night air.
He stopped playing defense. With sudden precision, he shifted, his blade turning into a storm of blows—each one heavy enough to crush steel. Shaak Ti blocked, parried, deflected, but the weight drove her back step by step. The sand slid under her boots. Her saber flashed desperately against his red onslaught. A grunt escaped her lips as she strained, the Sarlacc's writhing tentacles waiting at her heels.
Her final block shattered under the weight of his strike. A sharp crack, a burst of sparks—and her saber split in two. Shaak Ti staggered, shock flashing in her eyes as the broken hilt slipped from her hands and vanished into the pit below. She stood empty-handed on the crumbling edge, the Sarlacc groaning hungrily behind her, its tentacles twitching closer.
Vader shut down his blade. The red glow vanished, leaving only the pale light of the jungle fungi and the pit. He stepped forward, slow and heavy.
"Your skill is commendable, Master Ti," his voice rasped, flat and almost clinical. "Your defiance, wasted. Few Jedi meet their end with such composure."
He raised his hand. Invisible power rippled through the humid air.
Her breath froze. Realization flared too late. The Force hit her like a crushing wave, slamming through body and mind alike. She stiffened, then went limp, collapsing on the sand with her lekku sprawled across the ledge, the Sarlacc's tentacles writhing just out of reach.
Vader stood over her, the hiss of his respirator the only sound. There was no pity in him, only a detached judgment: strong, resilient—useful. He bent, servos whining, and lifted her with ease. Her body hung slack against the armor as he turned from the pit, carrying her away without a backward glance.
The march back through the jungle was silent. Vader crushed glowing fungi beneath his boots, the air still heavy with the stench of slaughter. Any Felucians who survived stayed hidden. None dared test him again.
He broke from the foliage onto the rough landing pad where his shuttle waited, its angular frame cutting hard against the twilight. Without pause, he ascended the ramp.
Inside the stark shuttle bay, he set Shaak Ti's limp body on a durasteel bench and bound her wrists and ankles with mag-cuffs. Sweat gleamed on her skin, her breath shallow but steady. He studied her a moment.
"Your resistance was futile," his voice rasped through the empty hold. "But your spirit… unbroken. That has value."
The Lambda lifted smoothly into the sky, cutting through Felucia's clouds before breaking free into space. Vader slid into the pilot's chair, ignoring Imperial routes. He set a course for the Unknown Regions—toward a hidden station orbiting a dead star, far beyond Palpatine's spies. Stars stretched into white lines as the shuttle leapt to hyperspace.
The station emerged from the void: a jagged mass of black rock carved into a fortress, bristling with concealed weapons and shielded hangars. Obsidian Veil. Vader guided the shuttle into a cavernous bay carved deep in the asteroid. The doors sealed behind him with a final, echoing thud, leaving only sterile light and silence.
Vader carried Shaak Ti through shadowed corridors of polished black stone. Her limp body hung against the cold weight of his armor, her skin clammy with fading sweat. He passed interrogation cells and sterile labs without pause, moving deeper into the station's core.
At last he stopped before an unmarked door. It slid open with a hiss, revealing a chamber unlike the rest of the fortress. Warm amber light spread across thick carpets and a low, circular bed draped in dark silk. A faint trace of incense lingered in the air, strange against the station's usual sterility.
He set her down on the bed. Her lekku spilled across the pillows, coiling like ropes in the dim glow. With a thought, he released the cuffs. She didn't stir—her breath steady, her eyes moving faintly beneath closed lids.
Vader stood still, watching. The rhythm of her breathing. The flicker of dreams behind her eyelids. The quiet persistence of a spirit not yet broken.
***
Shaak Ti woke to the low hum of climate control and the faint mix of ozone and something floral. Her head throbbed, but the crushing weight of Vader's stun was gone. She pushed herself upright on the silk bedding, blinking into the amber glow.
The room was large, almost luxurious—dark carpets, elegant furnishings, no restraints. Confusion wrestled with unease. She slid her feet to the floor; the thick carpet swallowed her steps. Her clothes were intact, but her saber was missing.
The door opened at her approach with a hiss. Beyond stretched a corridor of black stone, dimly lit, silent. No guards. No droids. Just row after row of unmarked doors. The air grew cooler as she moved, the sterile tang fading. A faint vibration pulsed through the deck beneath her feet, steady and rhythmic, like a distant heartbeat. She followed it.
It led to a broad gallery. Through a vast viewport, a dead star loomed in the void, its pale light bleeding over drifting nebulae. And before it, framed against the emptiness, stood Darth Vader.
She stopped at the threshold. His respirator filled the silence, steady and inescapable. She said nothing. The comforts of her quarters, the absence of chains, the stillness of this place—it was all calculated. She would not yield to the game. Her silence pressed at his back like a demand.
"Curiosity is a Jedi trait," Vader said at last, his voice carrying without effort. He didn't turn. "You wonder why you still breathe." A pause. The star's light caught on the curve of his helmet. "The Sarlacc was oblivion. This…" His hand moved slightly, encompassing the fortress around them. "…is preservation."
Shaak Ti didn't move. Her arms folded across her chest, lekku hanging still. Preservation? From the hand that destroyed her Order? The thought was absurd. Interrogation, deception—some new cruelty? Yet the comfort of her quarters, the absence of chains… it didn't fit.
"Preservation implies value," she said at last, her voice steady despite the dryness in her throat. "What value does Darth Vader see in the Jedi Master he hunted across Felucia?"
Vader turned. Slowly. Deliberately. His lenses locked on her, impenetrable.
"Not the Jedi," he said, the vocoder stripping the edge from his tone. "The spirit. The resilience."
He stepped forward, the sound of his boot echoing through the gallery. "You faced oblivion without fear. That fire… endures." He stopped within reach, not attacking, but studying. Measuring. "It requires… cultivation."
A chill ran through her deeper than the void outside. Cultivation. The word was wrong. This wasn't Anakin's raw rage. Nor Sidious's venom. It was colder, more clinical—yet carried a hunger she couldn't name.
Her eyes narrowed. "Cultivation? For what purpose? To serve your Empire? To fuel your darkness?" She held her ground, shoulders squared. "My spirit is not yours to claim."
Vader was silent. His respirator filled the pause. Then, with deliberate calm, he raised his hand. Palm open. Fingers curled—not in threat, but invitation.
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.
Her breath slowed. A tremor ran through her stance. For an instant, her defiance faltered, replaced by something she didn't want to name—longing.
"You feel it," Vader's voice dropped, intimate despite the machine. "The emptiness in me… echoes the fire in you. Give it freely. Become the light within my shadow."
Shaak Ti shuddered, her lekku twitching. The Force moved around Vader like a dark tide, yet within it pulsed something warmer, almost tender. It reached for the loneliness she had carried since the Temple's fall, the weight of survival without purpose. It whispered of belonging, of strength magnified beyond what the Jedi had ever offered.
Her fists loosened at her sides. Her gaze, fixed on his mask, softened. The unyielding Jedi Master seemed to falter, revealing something raw—something yearning.
"Yes…" The word slipped out, hushed, heavy with surrender. "Yes."
A low vibration rumbled from Vader's chestplate—not the rasp of the respirator, but something deeper, almost pleased. He closed the space between them in a single, deliberate step.
His gloved hand rose, startlingly gentle as it cupped her face. The leather was cool against her sweat-warmed skin. She didn't recoil. She leaned into it, her own hand lifting to rest against his. Her eyes shut, lashes trembling. The defiance was gone. In its place lay stillness—acceptance, quiet and complete.