The Star Destroyer shuddered to the pitch-shifting rumble of low-grade hyperdrive shutdown. Mara Jade had heard the sound before, and associated it with assault. It was just background to the tectonic upheaval inside her now. Her forearms rested against the slick obsidian wall beyond Vader's chambers, following the seam where durasteel gave way to armored transparisteel. She saw herself—frowning green eyes, red hair pulled back in a fighting knot, the patient mask of a dangerous animal biding its time. Sanction. The Emperor's favor. That meant nothing. She was Mara Jade, forged from the dark and the deceit, not some manicured socialite dancing in the streets of Coruscant because a judge said she could. Yet somehow, the buoyant sensation in her chest would not dissipate. It was concrete.
The door slid aside. He came in. He looked at her, the helmet turning maybe an inch in her direction. The plates of his armor, blacker even than space, caught the shine from the corridor's whitewash—not the rattling, wheezing cage that kept a Mustafar-burned monster breathing, but hard, smooth, unbroken armor over whole flesh and blood. A choice. A symbol. Authority as natural as his cloak.
"You heard?" His vocoder voice, now devoid of the mechanical growl, was almost too smooth.
"Every word." Mara dropped from the wall and fell into stride with him. Her pace automatically matched his. "Palpatine's blessing. How… convenient."
"Convenience suggests coincidence. This was planned." Vader does not hesitate. "He needs to understand how I've become so powerful and wasn't detected. He needs a bargaining chip. The harem is something he believes he can manage."
Mara pressed her lips into a thin line. "What about Shaak Ti? Is she aware that she's being used as bait for a Sith trap?"
Vader halted in front of a viewport that displayed the roiling blue nebula outside. "Shaak Ti knows how to live. She understands what it means to be against forces greater than Jedi and Sith." His helmet turned to regard Mara. "You do, too. The Emperor's favor is of no consequence here. It merely takes the Empire out of the equation."
Mara looked at the blankness behind his glasses. "I didn't need his permission."
"No," Vader agreed, a hint of what might have been satisfaction behind his measured voice. "But you have it and Shaak Ti is still alive. There will be more and I am hungry."
Mara clenched her jaw. "And I will still be the best."
The helmet vibrated with a soft rumble—a laughter. "I like your confidence, Jade." Then, "We will depart in one hour. Palpatine's men are already waiting."
He had considered them as this as he made his way to the hangar. Assets. Instruments. And in this way, that's how he would cull them first—Mara, the Emperor's Hand, a blade whetted to its finest cutting edge by Palpatine's own hand; Shaak Ti, the Jedi Master who refused to die, proof of the tenacity of the Force. Instruments for the rituals of Shu'ulk'Tarath, to sate the elder being's endless hunger for sensation. Padmé's presence had lingered for too long, however—a phantom limb pulsing in the Force. Breaking with her, finally, truly, and allowing her to flow away into the Force after his confrontation with Palpatine…had left a hollow. And this hollow had been filled with an unfamiliar warmth. Mara's devotion, honed not through terror but through a reluctant deference. Shaak Ti's steadfastness, her lack of censure. They were not Padmé. They were…different. They were here. They were things that, thanks to Shu'ulk'Tarath, he could endure without the suffocating weight of yesterday. It was…right. Proper. Like the suit of armor that now sat upon his shoulders—no longer a prison, but a doppelganger proclaiming its dominance.
He didn't know if it was love. Probably not. But it was his. And Shu'ulk'tarath approved.
**
Shaak Ti stood on the upper balcony of the Obsidian Veil, the tendrils of her lekku fluttering in the thin, metallic wind. Beyond, the fortress sprawled across the jagged crag like a splatter of ink—black, star-absorbing walls, defense spires standing watch over the deep purple abrasion of the sky. Alone. She had been alone since Vader had brought her here, and took her. Made her his. The Purge was still a recent memory—burning libraries and cries echoing through the Temple corridors—and Anakin Skywalker… no, Darth Vader… had made it happen. Yet, there she was, breathing his air, wearing his clothes, her body still tingling with the feel of his body an hour past. The discord was a burning in her belly.
The clang of metal boot steps sounded off the balcony stone. She didn't turn.
"I don't think you like it here." Vader's deep, liquid tones sliced through the gale.
"It works," Shaak Ti answered simply, gazing out at the volcanic wasteland, toward the horizon. "Loneliness. Protection. A prison of dependency."
"A cell." Vader strode by her, a dark armoured giant against the backdrop of a nebula's contrails. He was huge, and curiously, not suffocating – no suffocating aura of the Dark side, no quiet buzzing of the Force. Just…mass. Power held in. "Isolation is protection, Master Ti. From Palpatine's interrogators. From the Jedi who would execute you for your devotion to me. From anyone who would seek to harm that which is mine."
Shaak Ti turned to him. Her black eyes locked with his masked red ones. "Protection? Or possession?"
Vader's helmet nodded very slightly. "Does it matter? You are here. You are alive. You are… mine."
He moved closer. The raw power of him, the sexuality, wasn't as threatening as it had been when he resumed his original size, full of sinew and beast muscles, but what radiated from the suit was the intent to inspire terror, to make her acknowledge its presence. The exosuit was redundant now, and he knew it. He wore it to say something. To say: I'm here. You know what I am. Shaak Ti recognized the sharp growl of unease inside her own rib cage, mingling with something dirtier and hotter. The plate showed her the calm, peaceful visage of a Jedi Knight, surmounted by unease.
"You doubt," Vader stated. A statement, not a question.
Shaak Ti did not blink. "I am in the presence of the murderer of younglings. The butcher of the Order I served. This murderer… and the man who has me in the palm of his hand. They breathe the same air. They wear the same armor."
He raised a hand, but not in a gesture of menace. The gloved fingers, the jointed plates, hung a centimeter from her cheek. Shaak Ti did not flinch. She knew.
"That man," Vader's vocoded voice was reduced to a mere whisper, "was consumed by his weakness. His fear. The lies of a Master. He is gone." The gauntleted finger patted her cheek, and caressed the line of her jaw with an unsettling tenderness. "All that remains is a will tempered by the shadows. A duty assigned to him by powers the Jedi cannot comprehend. And you, Shaak Ti… you are a crucial part of that duty. You are needed."
His fingers ignited a steady low-burning flame in her gut. It was sickening. It was inevitable. His body was a deadly accurate tool of manipulation, a force of seduction and control even stronger than any lightsaber. The magnetic attraction of his health coupled with the dark pull of the armor was a contradiction that was not to be reasoned and came to rest in a primal place of the heart.
"Essential?" Shaak Ti took a breath, more sharply than she intended. "For your indulgence? For your... patron?"
The dark lord's thumb traced her lower lip. "The breadth of experience," he amended, his words humming with an unsettling certainty. "Agony. Rapture. Obedience. Control. The Jedi were afraid of passion. They denied it. They enfeebled." The dark lord's opposite hand at her hip pulled her to the chill, unforgiving planes of his armored suit. It was a strange dichotomy: the rigidity of durasteel and the whisper of her robes and flesh. "We embrace it. I embrace it. It is life distilled. It is power clarified."
He bent closer, the helmet like a dark balloon filling her vision. Shaak Ti felt a shiver run through her at the cold kiss of the mask against her forehead. "And you," he gasped, the vocoder growling into her flesh, "you crave it, too. Beneath the discipline of the Jedi, beneath the carefulness of the survivor… you burn with it. You burn with me."
It wasn't an argument. It was the truth. An order of creation. Shaak Ti closed her eyes. The fear did not go away, but was overwhelmed by the sensation--the possessive grip at her side, the clammy helmet on her cheek, the clear warmth spread through his body from the armor. He was right. The contradiction didn't dissipate; it unified. Anakin Skywalker, the fallen hero. Darth Vader, the Dark Lord. The thing before her now--resurrected, saved, terrible with life. They were facets of the same impossible gem. And it was pointless to try to resist its power.
She gasped. Not out of fright. Out of submission. "Yes," she whispered, the word floating from her lips like a summer breeze.
His hand left her hip to slide along the arc of her back and urge her into him; his other hand clutched the back of her head, the fingers closing over the root of her lekku. He didn't kiss her-the mask-but he enveloped her, a living shield of black purpose and possessive greed. Shaak Ti let herself be enveloped, and she pressed herself to the unyielding hardness of his armor, her hands exploring the molded plates over his pectorals. There was still some reserve, still some little warning voice that spoke to her from the darkness…but the voice was drowned out by the thunder of the bond, of the forging and the fire. He had "reminded" her. Once more. She had permitted it. Once more. She was his. Once more. The Obsidian Veil, the lost rock, was her haven and her cage, and he was its keeper.
He stayed like that for a very long time, the wind buffeting them, the fort a silent witness. At last he said, his voice a little gentler, with a quality she didn't know, which might have been contentment.
"This is the end of your seclusion."
Shaak Ti relaxed by a degree, hunting for the implacable goggles. "The end?"
"Palpatine," continued Vader, the name void of its usual acidity, "has endorsed my acquisitions. My… harem." He stopped, allowing the antiquated, precise term to hang from the rickety equilibrium. "Officially. Imperial Decree 7-7-Alpha. Jedi are not to be killed on the spot if they are owned by me."
Shaak Ti froze. The implication hit her like an iceberg. Sanctioned. Not just tolerated and hidden, but actually condoned by the Emperor. Instead of being a clandestine embarrassment, she was a… a tolerated mistress? An official concubine? The sheer hubris of it staggered her. The Emperor had known she was alive. Had known she was here. With Vader. And had approved. The door of her cage wasn't just unlocked. It wasn't even necessary.
"The Emperor… knows?" She managed to say just above a whisper.
"He is aware that Mara Jade chooses to serve me. He is aware that other Jedi may… be able to find refuge… in my service." Vader's hand still grasping at her back. "He sees potential. Manipulation. A way to control me. To take my power for himself. He does not see reality."
"The truth?" Shaak Ti said again, incredulous.
"That you are not leverage," Vader's voice deepened, vibrating with pure conviction. "You are mine. Mine to comprehend. Mine to defend. Mine to indulge." He motioned widely over the desolate terrain before him. "You free to be off this rock, Shaak Ti. The galaxy is yours. With me."
Shaak Ti looked again. The killing peaks, the raging clouds, the stifling quiet—they had been her home. Her living nightmare. Her refuge. And now… a prison. The Emperor's edict was a double-bladed vibroknife. Liberation granted, tainted by the one who granted it. But the emotion that rose in her was too strong to be concealed. She no longer had to hide. She no longer had to be trapped within black stone. She could tread among the stars once more. Tread with him. It was a paradox, a bandage that tightened around her. Liberation by the Dark Lord she was bound to, because of the Emperor she despised. It was… giddy. Perilous. Intoxicating.
She leaned against him, resting her head on the cool chest plate. A muffled hum of revived power rumbled against the armor. "When do we leave?"
"Soon," Vader rumbled. "Mara is preparing the ship. Our destination is close." He paused, then added, with careful weight to his words, "You will travel with me. Both of you. At all times if wanted."
Shaak Ti closed her eyes. Liberation. Ownership. Refuge. Prison. The lines blurred and disappeared. There was just the wind, the fortress, and the Dark Lord's grip. She nodded against his chestplate. "Always."
***
Every noise in the Obsidian Veil's primary hangar was muffled. Carved into the very lava core of the volcanic fortress, the hangar echoed only to the steady hum of the Lampda shuttle's ignition of its repulsorlifts. It was a ship without character, a ship without intrigue. A ship designed to be ignored, by both Imperial traffic control and patrol pattern recognizers. Standing in the crevice of the open rampway, Mara Jade stood out against the darkness of the hangar in her fire-engine red flightsuit. Her gaze wandered across the breadth of the hangar, to pause in the darkness where maintenance droids crawled like metal centipedes. Her fingers rested loosely against the curve of her hip, against the edge of her blaster holster. Alert and waiting.
Shaak Ti walked out of the arched passage. She walked slowly, her face calm. She wore grey robes, nothing special, nothing like the finery that the Jedi Master had once worn. Her lekku hung over her shoulders. Her black eyes locked on Mara's green. She knew that she was a prisoner, just like Mara. Mara smiled slightly to herself. Shaak Ti did not react.
Vader dropped down into the hangar. There was no noise from him, only a disturbance in the air, a rustle. He moved with an unnerving smoothness, as if the suit had returned him to his youth, the dark armor drinking in the glare of the hangar lights. He stopped beside Mara, his helmet's gaze moving over the shuttle before coming to rest on Shaak Ti as she emerged.
"Ready?" Mara said, brusque.
Shaak Ti inclined her head. "Yes."
Vader's helmet canted slightly towards Mara. "Verify our shields before we break for the nebula's rim. The Emperor has eyes."
Mara's smirk solidified. "I've triple-checked, Lord Vader. All they will find is starlight."
"Good." Vader's attention went back to Shaak Ti. "Your arrival will be noticed. Take care."
Shaak Ti nodded."Understood"
Vader pointed at the shuttle ramp. Mara turned and strode confidently up. Shaak Ti followed closely behind. Vader lingered, dark sentinel of his domain. The Obsidian Veil: indulgence, influence, and intrigue. He had extracted all of its secrets. He, too, ascended the ramp.
While in the shuttle, Mara was strapping herself into the copilot's chair and running through diagnostics. Shaak Ti was lying on an acceleration couch set into the aft wall of the shuttle. Vader strode around Mara and dropped himself into the pilot's chair. His gloved fingers, more limber than the suit made them look, flipped switches and powered up the primary systems. The shuttle lights came on and consoles began to hum with energy, filling the cockpit with their blue glow.
"Close the ramp," Vader said.
Mara hit a switch. The ramp cycled shut, sealing them within. The hangar's blast doors were already sliding open, revealing swirling purple and black clouds of the nebula.
"Hyperspace charged." Mara said. "Setting course for Ord Mantell."
For a moment, Vader made no response. He pressed a redundant comm panel, its holographic display spitting static. He typed in a very advanced series of coded frequencies. Something Mara was totally unaware of, had no information on. She saw him typing, and a flash of curiosity sparkled in her sharp eyes before she suppressed it, going back to her console.
Shaak Ti stayed behind. She saw him activate the comms. She saw the careful orders. She saw the holoprojector flicker to life. She knew the drill. He was making a call. Not to Mara. Not to her. To... someone else. The suspicion, always present, rumbled uneasily. Who needed to be called? Now? Before they depart? Who rates such consideration?
The helmet masked all emotion. He simply… waited. The shuttle lifted on its repulsor coils, gliding noiselessly out of the hangar and off into the nebula gases. Stars streamed by as Mara brought them away from the fortress moon on sublight engines.
The holoprojector flickered to life. A shimmering hologram of blue appeared, grainy with subspace static, but recognizably a man. Starkiller. Galen Marek. The Apprentice. He was not seated in a pilot's seat or in a chair on a bridge. He was standing in a gloomy workshop, surrounded by machinery, scrap, and half-made projects. A haze of heat hung around him. Perspiration dripped from his brow. He was holding a long, cylindrical object between his hands—a lightsaber emitter assembly, with trailing wires—and adjusting a part of it with a hydrospanner. He concentrated hard, frowning, straining. Hiss. Around him air moved, charged with pure Force focused on the act.
Vader simply stood in front of the hologram and said nothing. No greeting. No introduction. Just a figure in black from lightyears away.
Starkiller finished fitting the part in place, used the inside of his forearm to swab the sweat from his brow and looked up. His strong, piercing gaze searched the workshop out of reflex. It came to rest on the blue, shimmering sight of Vader's helmet. He was rigid with shock. The hydrospanner hit the metal workbench.
"Master." The strain in Starkiller's voice was evident, laced with a mixture of shock and prompt acquiescence. He rose to his feet, hastily wiping soiled hands on a soiled tunic. "You called for me."
"I did." The smooth, cold tones of Vader's voice now filled the shuttle cockpit, no longer filtered through the holographic display. "Report."
Starkiller glanced down at the partially constructed lightsaber on his workbench. "Kazdan Paratus," he snarled. "Eliminated. As ordered. The junkyard citadel is destroyed."
"Obvious." Vader's helmet canted to one side. "Yours?"
Starkiller indicated the emitter assembly. "The dual blades… under construction. The focusing crystals… they will not synchronize." A note of irritation entered his voice. "Power requirements… staggering."
"A test," Vader said. "Of will. Of control." His gaze burned into the hologram. "Control you must learn. For your final test."
Starkiller's gaze snapped back to Vader. "Final trial?" A light danced in his eyes—a light of impatience, of anticipation. "But I am prepared, Master! The Emperor… Palpatine… he is defenseless! He is a fool. My training is over! Tell me, and we can kill him now!" He clenched his fist, striking the workbench, sending tools scattering. "We will take the throne!"
There was silence after Starkiller's outburst. A silence that affected even the static of the hologram. Mara Jade, who had been protecting the nav computer from the co-pilot's seat, froze with her fingers still raised over the keys. Shaak Ti, seated on the couch behind them, could feel the coldness of the Apprentice's emotion seeping into her very marrow despite the sweltering heat of the shuttle.
Vader didn't move. He didn't turn his helmet to regard the hologram, nor did he relax his shoulder armor. But the silence deepened, like tar pouring over Starkiller's hologram, and for an instant the crackling power of the Force that enveloped the Apprentice faltered beneath the weight of what Vader still was.
"Ready?" Vader said finally. His voice was smooth. Mellow. Completely emotionless. It was not a question. It was a statement. "To face Sidious?"
Starkiller jumped back. Twice. Pure cockiness faltered. "I… I am, Master. My power is—"
"Untamed," Vader interrupted, his words slicing through Starkiller's protest like a vibroblade through armor. "Undirected. Blind rage is not power. It is weakness expressed." He edged forward in his pilot's chair, the hologram expanding in Starkiller's workshop. "Do you believe the throne is the end? The culmination?"
Starkiller sneered, impatience wrestling with confusion on his face. "It.... it is Master. That's the plan! It has always been the plan! To overthrow the Emperor! To rule the galaxy! As Master and Apprentice!"
Vader slowly tilted his helmet. "The dream," he declared, his voice heavy with the weight of his breathing mask, "is different now."
Starkiller took a step back, as if he had slapped him. His eyes were wide with shock. "Different? Wh-what do you mean? How? Why?"
"The throne," Vader continued, over the tide of queries, "is not the objective. It is… nothing."
Starkiller didn't move. The hydrospanner stayed on the workbench. The unfinished lightsaber was of no consequence. His entire reality—his purpose, crafted from pain and retribution—had just been diminished. "Irrelevant?" He took a deep breath, his voice laced with feeling. "But… my life… everything I've ever done… trained for…"
"You will see," Vader said, his voice brooking no argument. "In time. Your choices diverge."
Starkiller clenched his fists. His knuckles went white. Air rippled around him once more, and his tools whirred off the workbench. "Branches out? To what? What else is there?"
"Power." Vader's fingers crept minutely closer to the shuttle's armrest. "True power is not in ruling over embers. It is in answering to those more powerful than Sidious could possibly imagine." He paused, allowing the cryptic words to float amidst the crackling stillness. "The mission remains. The objective has changed."
"What target?" Starkiller demanded, baffled.
Vader's helmet remained stubborn. The hologram wavered a hair's breadth. The name, when he said it, was cold with certainty:
"Quinlan Vos."
"Quinlan Vos?" Starkiller gasped. "The... the Jedi Shadow? The Kiffar?"
"Find him," Vader said, his voice rumbling with unyielding authority. "Track him. Execute him."
Starkiller was taken aback, ingrained obligation fighting back. "But… how? He's a myth! He went into hiding after the Purge! What danger can he possibly pose?"
"Danger?" Vader's tranquil voice was laced with a subtle emotion that Starkiller couldn't identify--was it contempt? Amusement? "He is your crucible. Your final test. Kazdan Paratus was a broken man clinging to fantasies. Rahm Kota was an old man clinging to honor. Quinlan Vos." Vader paused for dramatic effect. "He is on the cusp. He understands the dark side just as well. He clings to it. He uses it. He is not broken. He is not old. He is... dangerous."
Starkiller was adamant, rekindling a spark of his defiance. "Then I will kill him."
"You will try," he interrupted, his voice cold. "Vos will fight you like none other has fought you. He will test your patience. He will make you see the Dark Side as a curse and not a blessing. Your life depends on it."
Starkiller clenched his jaw. He looked down at his hands, still stained with the oil of the saber. "The Dark Side…I have accepted it!"
"No," Vader responded, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Not as Vos has. To destroy him…" Vader leaned forward, again pouring his energy into the hologram. "You will have to let go of everything but the Dark Side. Don't try to control it. Don't try to use it. Let it consume you. If you do not…you will die."
He paused. Starkiller looked up at Vader's hologram, the implications of what he was saying sinking in. This wasn't about the Emperor anymore. This was about…changing. This was about becoming something else. Something to be feared. Something…powerful. The flame of defiance was replaced by growing horror. This was different. This was worse. This was necessary.
He tried to clear his throat of the phlegm that had gathered. "Where…where do I begin?"
"Where the light dies," Vader answered cryptically. "Where knowledge fails. Nar Shaddaa. The Smuggler's Moon. He is lurking in the undercity. Find him in the rumors." The hologram flickered more wildly as subspace transmission bloated. "Do not disappoint me, Apprentice."
With that, the hologram disappeared, leaving the cockpit to an uncomfortable silence. Mara Jade slowly turned to face him, her eyes wide, fixed on his mask. Shaak Ti remained still in her chair, her black eyes fixed on the spot where the image of the young Starkiller had briefly appeared, a shiver running down her spine. The fire of the Apprentice, his confusion, his resignation…it hung in the air.
Vader pressed the button on the comms panel. He didn't even look at Mara or Shaak Ti. He activated the shuttle's hyperdrive. On the other side of the viewport, the nebula unfolded into starlines that stretched out forever.
"Ord Mantell," Vader said, his voice low and heavy with star systems. "Make the jump."