Shaak Ti froze, her lekku shaking as she registered the unthinkable. Sitting before her under the glare of the medbay's lamps was Anakin Skywalker, young, whole, undamaged...and encased in the armor of Darth Vader. His eyes, still the bright blue she remembered from the Temple's halls, locked onto hers.
"Master Ti," he said. No breathing mask, no life support--just him, speaking past the helmet's open faceplate, very quietly.
Her fingers found the hilt of her lightsaber. "Skywalker?" Bitterness coursed over her tongue. The memories came back: Geonosis, the war, his jokes with the Padawans. And the fire. The screams. The fall of the Temple. She took a rough breath. "You... You were the one who brought the clones. You were the one who orchestrated the Purge."
Anakin didn't recoil. "The Jedi were stagnating, refusing to act while the galaxy fell apart." Still seated, he settled his hands onto his knees, as if he were waiting for something. "They needed someone who would."
Shaak Ti's jaw clenched. "You slaughtered children. Padawans who trusted you." She saw them again, those little initiates playing at his feet in the Temple gardens--gardens that now lay in char.
Anakin rose, his servos whining as he pulled the helmet off the chair beside him. "Trust demands sacrifice." He hissed the helmet back onto the locking ring on his head, and when he spoke again his voice was back to Vader's electronic rumble. "The Order was dying anyway. I just put a ribbon on it."
A step closer, casting a shadow in the medbay light. "Would you have let it rot in its corruption?"
Her fingers trembled beside her lightsaber, but the blade itself didn't waver. Anger had gotten twisted up with something darker, a little uglier--a sensation she knew all too well from Shu'ulk'Tarath. Images played: gloved fingers stroking her lekku, his laughter, and her own, sliding across her skin. The curse fouled her outrage to cinders. She clenched a fist at her side. "Clean?" she whispered. "Nothing was clean."
Vader's masked head tilted. "Clean doesn't matter. Necessary does." He pronounced the last word like a judgment from on high, brought to her through the helmet's vocoder. Another step closer, and she caught a distorted reflection staring back at her from the helmet's black mask. "This station is your reality now. Learn to live with it."
He spun on a heel and strode away, the sound of his boots on the medbay's floor echoing off the walls. The doors clicked shut behind him, leaving her to the stillness, her lekku clutched to her shoulders. Shu'ulk'Tarath seethed through her veins, countering the cold, heavy feeling in her chest with a burning of its own.
***
With a whoosh of compressed air, the hangar doors slid apart. Starkiller was on his knees on the freezing hangar deck, his head bowed. In front of him lay Kota's lightsaber.
The sound of Vader's boots echoed as he approached. Starkiller didn't raise his head. "Master. Rahm Kota is dead." There was no sense of victory in his words. Just fatigue.
The saber snapped into the hilt in Vader's hand. He activated it, and the blue blade sang in the stillness. "You have done well." There was almost emotion in the voice. Finally, Starkiller raised his eyes to look at Vader, searching for approbation in the helmet. He found none.
"Kazdan Paratus," Vader answered, shutting off his lightsaber. "He is in hiding on Raxus Prime. More powerful than Kota. More powerful than you."
Starkiller's jaw clenched. He knew - this wasn't training. This was murder by another name.
He tightened his grip on his lightsaber. "I won't disappoint you, Master." Ashes tasted bitter. Paratus—the crazy old man who turned garbage into legions—fogged his thoughts. Was he more powerful than Kota? More powerful than him? Vader allowed him to wonder.
The Dark Lord whirled, cloak dragging like a dark stain across the floor. "Away," he spat, cold and dismissive. "Show me your power is not just stolen fury."
The signal to end the meeting was a strong nudge. Starkiller rose as the hanger doors opened once more and the maelstrom of hyperspace beckoned. He did not look back. To fail would mean death. To succeed would mean… something far worse.
Vader watched the apprentice's ship disappear into the blue swirl of hyperspace. The hangar fell as quiet as the void beyond the Obsidian Veil.
The hilt spun comfortably in his fingers, almost weightless. Palpatine. He was a reminder of everything that was behind him now: the throne, the promises, the deception. All gone. Shu'ulk'Tarath told of a greater power; a greater reach than control over the planets. A greater reach than dominion of flesh and will. Control over sensation. Over the flesh. Over the soul. Of a galaxy as a temple. Of loyalty… like Mara. Of resistance… like Shaak Ti. Building from the ground up. Not tearing down.
And then there was Starkiller. Pure, savage energy, like a tempest waiting to be shaped. A few years ago, Vader had guided that energy to keep the Emperor's enemies at bay. But now, the voice was telling him to do something else. To leave Palpatine to his throne and his fading empire. To recognize that Starkiller was not a sword to be tossed aside after having been sharpened against unbreakable stone. He was more dangerous than any Inquisitor, more useful than any other apprentice.
The boy was still his. Would be his. He would keep him Closer. Tighter. Rage and loyalty and devotion stretched out like control.
Vader's mental processes dissolved as a presence shifted behind him—a distinct and highly charged Force signature blended with the unfamiliar Shu'ulk'Tarath cadence. Not Starkiller; his flame was fading. He swiveled, steadily.
Shaak Ti froze in the entrance to the second hangar, her bloodshot skin looking pink by comparison with the plain durasteel walls. Her piercing, evaluating gaze swept over him and continued on past him, out to where Starkiller's ship had departed moments before.
"An apprentice?" She measured her tone, though the faint twitch of her lekku betrayed her restraint. "Hidden and powerful. You've always been good at keeping secrets… and projects." That last was a weighted word. She had seen the boy kneel.
Vader didn't budge. The sound of his breathing filled the fading rumble of the engines. "Secrets, Master Ti, are the very means of our existence," he added, his words spaced and metallic. "You, better than most, should understand this." He took a single stride forward, the joints of his legs whirring softly. "There are some secrets, though, that a person should not carry by themselves. You will be made aware of Mara Jade."
He indicated the shadows near the control panel. Shaak Ti's gaze darted there, and her posture shifted minutely. She'd already sensed it—a presence hiding there, sharp, bottled, lethal.
She emerged as Mara Jade. Her green, watchful eyes did not pay Shaak Ti with much deference. Her red hair was braided into a tight tail, her jaw just as tense.
"Shaak Ti," she stated matter-of-factly, keeping herself just out of battering range. Her other hand rested near the blaster on her belt. "The Jedi Master who lived through the Purge. I've read your file."
Shaak Ti's lekku twitched once more, ever so slightly, but her eyes never moved. Whatever she was, this lady was concentrated – like the person had been through a whole lot of wars, and not nearly enough good sleep.
"Survival," Shaak Ti echoed, a little weakly, but loud enough to resonate through the hangar. "A skill we both possess."
She didn't change her expression, but a cord in the Force went from slack to strained. She had always assumed that Vader was not alone. That there was another presence behind his; another being, a squall of unfulfilled longing and unsheathed blades.
***
The hangar swallowed them whole—a long channel of polished black durasteel, boiling with TIEs and troopers training in perfect precision. Mara Jade strode alongside Vader, the sharp stomp of her boots slapping off the floor. Her eyes swept the hangar, searching for exits, for arms, for danger. Calculating. Always calculating. Always prepared. Vader sliced through the tumult with the fin of a ship cutting through a cloud, calling instant stillness to all he passed, the snap of interrupted salutes caught on stormtrooper hands. They had learned long ago not to challenge the woman by his side. To do so was to invite his wrath.
They had left Shaak Ti behind, on the Obsidian Veil. The Grand Master's presence on a Star Destroyer would have been too much of an enigma for the still loyal Imperial officers, the ones who believed in the Emperor's ideals. Vader had not said farewell, merely showed her that she could remain in the antiseptic corridors of the station...or she could walk out into the galaxy's night. Free in a way.
A communication officer approached them, his polished boots scraping on the floor as he came to a stop before them and saluted, addressing Vader. "Lord Vader! Priority transmission from Coruscant. The Emperor requires your immediate presence." The latter part of his words were lost a little amidst the metallic ringing of the hangar.
Vader paused. There was a crackle of sudden alertness. Mara felt it, a sharp chill in the Force, like the sound of shattering transparisteel. He inclined his head. "Understood." The messenger scurried away. Vader turned to Mara. The breathing mask vented once, a long deliberate hiss. "Stay. Prepare yourself." That was all. That was enough. She knew what he was leaving unsaid: Observe. Gather intelligence. Strike if you must.
He walked into the nearest secure communication booth, a faraday cage that screened out any listeners. The booth's walls were lined with holoprojector screens that cast flickering shadows on the walls in the otherwise darkened space. Vader activated the console, and a holographic image coalesced into the hunched figure of Emperor Palpatine. Glowing yellow orbs peered out from the hood. Vader dropped to one knee, his armor scraping against the floor. "My master."
Palpatine's voice crackled in static, a rustling in leaves. "Lord Vader. Your connection to the Force... weakens. A phantom." A thin-fingered hand dismissed the air. "What mischief have you been brewing out in the Outer Rim?" The air was thick with distrust, a chill colder than space.
Vader did not move. "I am becoming more powerful, Master. I seek perfection through more subtle constraints than the Sith." He said it fluently, the way he had practiced it. Behind his words, the shape of Shu'ulk'Tarath twisted and turned like a padded shield between him and Palpatine's probe. He could feel the Emperor's will patter and prick against him like a needle searching for a seam to pick, and he blanked himself to meet it.
Palpatine's hood twitched, like a snake. "Refinement?" It was a venomous sound. "Or disguise? Show me your face, Lord Vader." It was not a suggestion. It was a loyalty test, an order to confirm an identity. Vader hesitated—a moment stretched out like a wire—then raised a hand. Release mechanisms sighed. The helmet came free.
On the screen was Anakin Skywalker's face. Undamaged. Young. Blue-eyed. Palpatine's eyes snapped away as if he'd been punched. The hologram flickered and discolored. "Skywalker?" The Emperor's voice crackled, his shock wrestling his fury. "No. You were…broken." Yellow eyes raked the smooth cheeks, the absence of pain. "What trickery is this?"
"Not magic." Anakin replied, his words flat and unmistakably those of a human. He stepped out of the shadows to his full height, dominating the quivering hologram before him. "The Force. It restored me. Completely." He rotated his hand in the light, smooth and complete, no glove, no plating, no attempt to hide anything. "This isn't power taken, cobbled together. This is my own." The very air seemed to thrum, a bass note pressed against the edges of Palpatine's incredulity.
His holographic image flared as his anger surged, the finger joints cracking on his clenched fists. "You've been restored," he spat, his voice dripping venom. "The Force does not permit such… indulgence." His eyes blazed with fury at the untouched youth of Anakin's face, his eyes bright with color instead of clouded by Mustafarian ash. His suspicion deepened. "You've trafficked in sorcery beyond the Dark Side," he sneered. "Blasphemy."
Anakin didn't budge. He met the flame-scorched gaze with frosty tranquility. "Blasphemy is faith-dependent, Master," he said, almost offhandedly. "I don't believe in anything. Only in my power." His hand waved to the holographic image dismissively. "Your hold on me was through my weakness. That doesn't exist anymore." There was just white noise for a moment. The deafening silence of outrage and incredulity. Then, the argh, dry scraping sound of Palpatine's laughter, cold and malevolent.
"Brilliant," the Emperor said finally, his rage cooling into calculated fury. His eyes raked each chiseled line of Anakin's restored form. "The broken apprentice… whole again." The hologram shimmered as he moved closer. "More powerful, perhaps, than you were on Mustafar. Perhaps more powerful than I."
Anakin's expression didn't change. His helmet hung forgotten by his side. "I am no longer a slave to pain. To the suits you built for me. To your lessons." His words were measured but a subtle warning flowed beneath them. Palpatine's laughter became more full, conscious.
"Superb," he sneered, his eyes flashing with feral greed. "The Dark Side is rooted in rivalry, Master and apprentice, strength against strength." The hologram pulsed as light illuminated his twisted smile. "I have been searching for years for a worthy apprentice to succeed me. And now… now you've been given to me. Restored. Unbroken." His voice dropped, almost in reverence. "Mustafar was the fire. This… this is the metal forged."
Anakin pushed his helmet back over his face. The vocoder clicked back on, cold and deadly. "I do not desire your throne, Master." Palpatine's smile closed and froze. Anakin continued, slow, almost casual. "Take your Empire. I want something better. A Quorum. A harem." The last word fell into the sanitised stillness of the room like something vile and naked. "Jedi are very powerful. I will have their power."
The Emperor's image shuddered; a look of revulsion crossed his face. "Jedi?" he spat. "You would sully yourself with their pitifulness?" The revulsion was immediate and visceral. "They are vermin. To be exterminated."
Vader's life support coughed once; a cold, measured sound, like a predator counting heartbeats. "Pitiful?" the vocoder replied, tombstone dead. "No. Purified by my darkness, their power will be such as no Sith Lord has ever known." He paused, to let the image sink in. "Mara Jade will not be a servant girl at the foot of your throne. She will be the first thread in a web of my making." He seemed inordinately pleased with his own metaphor; it was frightening. "They will bow. Not to the Light. To me."
Palpatine's eyes - yellow slits - went just a little narrower; his hologram wavered as he scowled. There was a long, acid pause. Finally, with ill grace and bad mathematics, the Emperor acceded. "So be it. Enslave them. Break them utterly." His voice was a razor slash across the ether. "And Mara Jade…your… concubine?" The last word dripped with scorn. "If she can serve you more ably than your lightsaber, then let her fest in your bedroom, Lord Vader. So long as she never sets her eyes on my throne."