A\N: After vanishing for ages, I return! This is an AU story revolving mostly around Leia and the idea of a Sith'ari, drawing heavily on the EU. I'm slightly unsure of this, so let me know what you think by reviewing, please. I'll include author's notes when\if I have links to extra stuff, by the way.
...Through victory, my chains are broken.\ The Force shall free me. -Sith Code
The Sith'ari will be free of limits.\ The Sith'ari will lead the Sith and destroy them.\ The Sith'ari will raise the Sith from the dead and destroy them. -Prophecy of the Sith'ari, Kissai People as translated by Sorzus Syn
Mammon Hoole ran.
Tash and Zak were safe; he had other treasures to protect now, but a Sith Lord on his heels never boded well. Few people survived Darth Vader's wrath. Even he had only evaded it.
Now it looked like payment was due...
If there was a Force, if Tash's childish dreams were right, Hoole sent a quiet prayer to it, that he might meet the people of Kiva and atone for what he'd done. He should never have trusted Grog, no matter what anyone said. When this was over...
Hoole stumbled. The acid rains of this planet formed into small rivers at night; this one had a riged lip along its bank.
The bag spilled from his arms, precious cubes spilling out.
Hoole reached out, gathering them up, but it wasn't quick enough. The Dark Lord of the Sith came to a stop a few feet away, studying Hoole.
Hoole hesitated, then finished picking up the cubes, taking the bag in his hands as he rose. He was Shi'ido. His emotions were for his niece and nephew.
An image floated into his mind of them; Zak, calm and sure, dark eyes dancing as he played some dangerous stunt, with Tash's sun-gold hair glinting as she studied devotedly, his brother-children proving kind, levelheaded, and steadfast, growing into adults he, and his brother, could be proud of.
Hoole extended the sack.
It floated out of his hands. Hoole did not display surprise, simply studying, in awe, the Force which he had done so much to keep alive. It was so strange, this final reward...
"A wise move." Vader's rumble broke into Hoole's thoughts. The Dark Lord raised a cube, concentrating.
The cheap plastic did nothing, because it was no holocron. It was only a fake.
Vader looked at Hoole. Hoole looked back, impassively.
"Where are they?" Vader asked, his voice gone lower.
Hoole spread his hands. "I didn't ask."
Vader raised his lightsaber. Hoole looked up, to the sky, to the thousands he wanted to help and protect in his work.
To the sky Tash and Zak had traveled for so long.
Vader sensed the images as he sliced Hoole apart. The anthropologist's last thoughts had been for his niece and nephew. How interesting...the girl who dreamed of Jedi, and her brother, here?
...They had the holocrons.
Vader turned to the city, leaving the corpse behind him. The acid rains would wash him away.
He had holocrons to find.